Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin

by The Sinister Man

Harry Potter was Sorted into Slytherin after a crappy childhood. His brother Jim is believed to be the BWL. Think you know this story? Think again. Year Four starts on 9/1/20. NO romantic pairings prior to Fourth Year. Basically good Dumbledore and Weasleys. Limited bashing (mainly of James).

87. HP&DEM 05: Prelude (Ron)

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATH EATER MENACE

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Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.

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CHAPTER 5: Ron Weasley and the Secret of the Naga

4 July 1993
3:00 p.m. (local time)
Healer Bhaskar Gupta's Office
The Temple of Healing, Shamballa

Ron sat quietly in the healer's office and tried not to show his nervousness. He was a Gryffindor, after all, and if he couldn't stop himself from being afraid, he could at least try not to show it. Jim had given him a look of quiet encouragement as the two passed by one another a few minutes before. Apparently, Jim's "examination" had gone well. Of course, Jim hadn't experienced months of possession by the teen-aged specter of a not-so-deceased Dark Lord, so Ron was less optimistic about his own mental health.

Healer Gupta had explained the process patiently before commencing. He would look into Ron's eyes and through them into Ron's mind and soul. He reassured Ron that he was under a Healer's Oath and would not reveal any of Ron's personal secrets without his consent, but unlike with Jim (to whom the healer had given advice on how to hide deeply personal matters), Gupta made it clear that he would need to fully inspect Ron's psyche to determine if Tom Riddle had damaged him in any way and, more importantly, whether any vestige of Tom Riddle still remained. With that in mind, it was a rather tense ten minutes that Ron spent quietly staring into the deep piercing eyes of the mind healer.

Finally, Gupta leaned back in his chair and blinked rapidly for a few seconds. "Well, Mr. Weasley, let us get the most pressing matter out of the way. I am quite confident that there is only one mind inside your head, and it is indubitably yours. I see no signs that the Riddle persona has any active presence at all within your mind."

Ron almost smiled when the subtext hit him. "Active?" he said with a swallow. "What about ... inactive?"

Gupta sighed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Weasley. To be 100% honest, I do see ... remnants of the Riddle spirit. Faint signs of the psychic architecture it created over the course of several months. I believe that they will fade over time, but they are still present right now."

He paused and then frowned. "To be honest, your case is most unusual. Indeed, probably unique. I have participated in many exorcisms and in both the destruction of possessing spirits and the treatment of former possession victims. But as far as I am aware, yours is the only case in which the possessing spirit was completely destroyed while still in the act of maintaining the possession instead of being removed first. I suspect that is how you acquired your Parseltongue abilities which otherwise can only be acquired either through genetic inheritance or years of study. It is possible that you may have gained other benefits from this experience And, to be blunt, perhaps some negative traits as well. But I see no signs of such now and no evidence that this residual architecture is in any way detrimental to you."

Ron was quiet for several seconds. "Speaking purely hypothetically, if ... if Tom Riddle came back somehow, could he affect me? Control me?"

Gupta's eyes widened in surprise. "My understanding was that the Tom Riddle entity was a residual soul fragment from a man who had died many years before. Do you have reason to think Riddle is still alive? Or exists in some spiritual form more powerful than his diary-self?"

Ron hesitated. Tom Riddle was the true name of Voldemort, and he definitely still existed ... sort of. Jim had told Ron everything he knew about what had happened down in the Chamber of Secrets. But Riddle's connection to Voldemort was still protected by the Fidelius Charm, and when the diary that had served as Secret Keeper was destroyed, Jim and Harry Potter jointly became the new Secret Keepers since they were the only ones (as far as anyone knew) who had been told the Secret directly by its previous Keeper. The two brothers had been advised to remain silent for now by Dumbledore and Rufus Scrimgeour, but even if they hadn't, Ron himself couldn't tell anyone else because he wasn't the Secret Keeper.

"Like I said," he finally answered, "hypothetically."

"Hmm," Gupta replied with Ron thought might be a hint of suspicion. "Well then, hypothetically I honestly don't know. There is no precedent I'm aware of for a living person to possess someone in this manner. There might be some sort of of inchoate connection, but I could not guess what form it might take if it became active. I can only counsel you to strive to maintain constant awareness of your own thought patterns. Your Wu Xi Do studies should help with that. But at the moment, I can say categorically that I perceive no indications of any foreign thoughts affecting your own."

Ron relaxed visibly at that.

"So with that out of the way," Gupta continued. "Let's talk about what Tom Riddle did to you and how he could affect you so deeply. Possession takes many forms: from periods of total control which you would perceive as blackouts to periods when you were still in control of yourself but were influenced on a more subtle level. Your memories indicate that initially Riddle relied on the latter. That is, you remained self-aware most of the time but were the subject of powerful emotional bursts that overcame your reason and caused you to act in ways that Riddle desired."

Ron nodded but said nothing.

"I bring this up now, Mr Weasley, because I think it is important for you to understand one thing. The things you said or did while under Riddle's influence were not your fault. I know people have undoubtedly told you that, but it is clear from my assessment of your mental state that you don't quite believe it. You remember those events. You remember saying and doing those damaging things. And Riddle's influence was too subtle for you to realize that the emotions you felt which led you to say and do those things were unnatural. So it is understandable that you would feel guilt for those things even though you were not truly at fault. I promise you, Mr. Weasley – viewing your memories from an external perspective, I can clearly see when the unnatural emotional forces came into play and overcame your reason. My goal for our next several sessions will be to work through your memories together so that I can point out to you those occasions when your will was overcome and help you to understand why you acted as you did and why you should not feel responsible for it. This will be a lengthy procedure, but for today, let us take one particular instance and examine it together."

Ron sat impassively for a moment. "Okay," he finally said. "Where do you want to start?"

"At the beginning. The first time your memories clearly show the signs of external influence was last September on the first day of classes at Hogwarts. Your mother sent you a Howler." Gupta frowned. "Very nasty those. I remember students getting them from my own time at Hogwarts. But I digress. You immediately felt feelings of embarrassment and shame, but I could also detect the emerging influence of Riddle as he reconfigured those emotions into feelings of resentment towards your family and especially towards your younger sister, Ginny."

The boy's forehead furrowed at that. "Why would Riddle want to turn me against Ginny?"

"Oh, I doubt he cared about her at all. He was still feeling you out at that point. Working to find which buttons he could push to provoke a response in you. Sibling rivalry and latent feelings of jealousy towards a younger sister, and especially one you perceive as being favored, are perfectly natural for a young person of your age and background. But Riddle heightened those normal feelings into a deep paranoia which resulted in that unpleasant confrontation between you and your sister later that night. You became openly resentful towards her because of the idea that had been put into your head suggesting that your parents only had so many children due to a desire for a daughter and that this was the reason for a perceived neglect of you by them. Now then, compare how you felt that night to how you feel now. Do you still believe that your parents only had you because they were holding out for a girl no matter how many pregnancies it took?"

The boy blushed deeply and looked away. He sat silently for a long moment. "Did ... did you only look into my memories from when I was possessed?" he finally asked in a quiet voice.

The question surprised Gupta. "Yes. Were there other memories that were relevant to this question?"

Ron took a deep breath and looked back towards the healer. "I know that my parents only had me because they were aiming for Ginny. I'm not ... mad about it anymore. I understand why they did what they did. But ... I know for a fact that they were holding out for a little girl."

The answer took Gupta aback. "And how would you know that, Mr. Weasley?"

The boy blinked rapidly for a few seconds.

"Because my father told me so."

---

The Hogwarts Infimary
10 May 1993
9:30 a.m.

Ron's eyes fluttered open as sunlight streamed down from the Infirmary's windows. He blinked and wiped the sleep from his eyes before looking around the room. It was the morning after Jim had rescued him from the Chamber of Secrets. It was also the morning after he had tried to hurl himself from the Astronomy Tower only for Jim to rescue him a second time. As he looked around, Ron noticed that Jim was lying in the bed opposite his own on the other side of the room still asleep, and he was surprised to see that his father was asleep in a chair next to his bed. At the sound of Ron moving about, Arthur's eyes fluttered open and he smiled at his youngest son.

"Ah, good morning, son," Arthur said quietly but warmly. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay, I guess," Ron said. "Where's Mum? I'd have figured that she'd be here and you'd be at work."

"I took a few days off so that I could be here with you as well. Your mother's here, but she stepped out to grab some breakfast from the kitchens." Arthur paused and grimaced slightly. "You, um, ... you gave us a bit of a scare last night, son."

Ron didn't respond to that. When he and Jim had returned to the hospital the previous night, they'd made up a story about how Ron had just "stepped out for some fresh air" and Jim had come with him. It seemed obvious that no one believed them, but everyone was so uncomfortable with the possibility of Ron being suicidal that once Madam Pomfrey put a tracking ward on the boys to make sure they didn't get out of bed without her knowing, the other Weasleys let the matter drop.

The father and son made sparse small talk for a while, but it was obvious that Arthur had something to say. Finally, he pulled out his wand and cast a privacy ward.

"Ron, we need to talk about something. Actually, I suppose we need to talk about a lot of things, but one in particular. Your mother and I had a long talk with your sister and brothers about everything that's been happening this year. And especially with Ginny. It took some doing – I promise you, she did not want to go back on her word to you – but she finally told us about that ... conversation you two had the night after her Sorting. The one where you talked about Ludmilla Weasley and about Ginny's seventh birthday party ... and about how you believed that your mother and I set out to have as many children as it took to get a daughter..."

Ron's face reddened in embarrassment. "Dad, that wasn't me. That was the diary talking. It wasn't ..."

"You were right," Arthur interrupted.

" ... what?" the boy said in a small voice.

The man looked down at the floor in embarrassment. Then, after he'd collected himself, he began his tale. After Ludmilla Weasley and Meleager Malfoy ran off together, it began a feud between the houses of Weasley and Malfoy that lasted literally until Lucius and Arthur's handshake the day before. The story handed down from Weasley father to Weasley son was that the Malfoys somehow used forbidden magic to curse the Weasleys into continual ruination. The exact form of ruin varied from generation to generation though the failure to produce any daughters after Ludmilla was common to every surviving Weasley. For Arthur's father, his ruin had been drink. For his grandfather, it had been gambling. Arthur himself carefully avoided those vices other than an occasional galleon spent on the Daily Prophet Prize Draw, but he had struggled continually through school and ended up as the Ministry's resident "expert" on Muggle Affairs simply because Muggle Studies had been a notoriously easy class during his student days and it had been the only NEWT for which he'd scored an O. A Muggle-related job was literally the only form of Ministry employment open to him, particularly since the Death Eaters in those days actively targeted Muggle-philes in the Ministry as blood traitors and so appointment to any office in the Muggle Affairs division was widely considered to be a death sentence. By the time Ron was born, Arthur had risen to become Assistant Director of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department simply through bloody attrition.

"My father never told me about the family curse until after I'd already married Molly. I told her at once, of course. I figured she'd want to annul the marriage. We hadn't had Bill yet, and she was entitled under those circumstances. But you know your mother – once she sets herself on a course, she won't ever back down. She took her dowry money out of Gringotts and spent it all on a seer who gave her a prophecy about how to break the curse. The seer said that if we had seven children and the last one was a witch, the curse would be broken. So we talked and argued and even shouted a bit before I finally gave in. No matter what it took, we would have seven children even if it meant that we'd struggle financially for all of our lives and theirs. And sure enough, Ginny came in at number seven."

Ron nodded as he absorbed all that. "So Ginny really did break the family curse. That was why you treated...?" He trailed off, suddenly embarrassed at his own jealousy.

"Why we treated her better than you and your brothers? It's alright, Ron. Looking back, I can understand how you'd feel that way, and I am truly sorry for it. But the thing you must understand is this. You're mother and I weren't overprotective of Ginny because we thought she'd broken the curse. It was because we thought she hadn't."

Ron stared at his father in confusion, and Arthur closed his eyes for a few seconds as he dredged up painful memories.

"I know you talked with Ginny about her seventh birthday party and about the magic cake with the moving decorations. The ones that showed Jim Potter flying around on a dragon. Well, you see, the truth of it was ... we didn't buy Ginny a magic cake. We couldn't have afforded such a luxury back then. Your mother did those decorations herself, but they were ordinary decorations made from butter cream and food coloring and love. It was Ginny who animated the decorations with accidental magic. Her first accidental magic."

Ron stared in shock as he considered the implications of a witch who showed no magic before the age of seven.

"Up until that point, Ginny had shown no magic at all. You don't remember it because, well, I supposed because the twins kept you preoccupied – which is another thing we'll be having a family meeting over – but by the time Ginny was five, your mother and I were resigned to the fact that Ginny was most likely a squib. We had to sit down with Bill, Charlie, and later Percy when they started to notice and make them promise not to speak of it until Ginny turned eleven and we'd know for sure. You see, the prophecy Molly had paid for, after all, had only specified that if our seventh child was a witch, it would end the curse. I figured that was how the curse had finally ruined me like it did my ancestors – by tricking me into have more children than I could afford in the hopes that it would all magically work out instead of leaving my children destitute. That was the real reason we were so overprotective of Ginny. Your mother loved her cousin Steven dearly, and when the Prewitts sent him away for being as squib, it hurt her a great deal. So we resolved that whatever it took, Ginny would never feel unloved or mistreated on account of her lack of magic."

Suddenly, Arthur's face lit up almost reverentially. "But then, on the morning of her seventh birthday ... it was like a miracle. She had wished for a magic cake ... and the cake became magical. Not just magical, but with a complex animation, a continuous transfiguration effect that would have been hard for NEWT-level students! And she'd done it on accident! Your mother and I were just getting over the shock of that when the school owls arrived with the news that Bill had been made Head Boy and that Charlie was both a Prefect and Quidditch captain. I should have said something then, but I was too overcome with shock. I couldn't quite believe that the curse might be broken just like that. But sure enough, later that afternoon, I got word from Billy McElroy that he was taking retirement and was going to nominate me to take his place as head of the department! Honestly, it was like a dam bursting! All the good fortune our family had been denied for centuries coming to us at once."

Ron stared at his father in amazement as the man continued with a strange urgency. "A few nights later, I told Bill and Charlie everything I just told you. And I told them something else as well. Don't settle. For far too long, us Weasleys have had to struggle for everything we could get only to lose it all and have to start all over again. But I truly believe that's over for us now. My children will choose their own futures from now on, and I think you will all go on to do great things. That is why Bill decided to go work for the goblins as a curse-breaker instead of just settling for a Ministry position. That is why Charlie applied for that fellowship with the dragon sanctuary that eventually turned into a full-time job. I was going to tell Percy everything this summer, but I see now that I was wrong. I should have told all of you the truth before, but I'm telling you now. Because maybe if you'd known all this a year ago, you might have been better able to fight off that damnable diary. It was my fault for not seeing that you might feel insecure in comparison. I just hope one day you can forgive me for it."

Ron opened his mouth to respond, to reassure his father that he was forgiven, but no words came out.

---

Healer Gupta's Office
3:30 pm (local time)

"And did you forgive your father?" Gupta asked gently.

"Of course!" Ron said forcefully. "How could I not?!" Gupta crooked an eyebrow at him, and Ron finally sighed and shook his head from side to side. "Yeah, okay. It took a little longer. At first, I was still in shock over everything. But after I got home from school, me and Dad and Mum had another longer talk. This one had a lot of crying and a lot of hugging."

He paused. "My Mum is a big crier ... and an even bigger hugger. Sometimes, that gets annoying, but other times..." His voice trailed off but his smile indicated that sometimes he didn't mind hugs at all. "She even made a point of burning her 'Howler Quill' right in front of me! I felt sure she'd want to hang onto that at least until the Twins graduated. Since then, we've been fine."

The healer nodded. "And what do you think now of your father's advice that you don't settle? Has it changed your career goals?"

Ron shrugged. "I dunno. I honestly didn't have any career goals before that. I'm scraping by in school. I'm passing everything, but it's a struggle. If I weren't pushing myself so hard to try and keep up with Jim, I'd probably be in danger of flunking out."

"What are your favorite classes?"

"Um, Transfiguration, probably. The reading's tough, but there aren't a lot of wand movements to learn like in Charms and not really any incantations at all. Herbology and Astronomy are okay, I guess."

Gupta studied the boy for a few seconds. Then, he rose and moved over to a bookshelf from which he extracted a old textbook. Flipping the pages as he moved, he returned to his chair and placed the book on the table next to his patient. "Take a look at this Charm for a few seconds and then try to perform it."

Ron looked dubiously back and forth from the Charm description to Gupta's face. The healer offered no guidance, not even to give the spell's name so that Ron would know how to pronounce it. There was a pronunciation guide, but as with his Charms texts back home, Ron thought it was complete gibberish. "Sam-Sara," he said experimentally, as if the incantation were the names of a man and a woman.

"Sam-SAR-a. The second syllable is strongest and longest, and it rhymes with tar and mar."

Ron flushed and tried again. Then, he studied the symbols below the name that described the proper wand movements. He moved his own wand experimentally, trying to match the descriptions in the book, but it was a complicated pattern and the symbols almost seemed to swim before his eyes. Finally, after almost a moment of study, Ron tried the Charm. Nothing happened, and the boy was disappointed but not particularly surprised.

Gupta, who had been watching the boy intently, spoke up. "Try watching me. SAMSARA." He executed the wand movements flawlessly, and a small ball of blue light materialized at the tip of his wand. Ron asked him to perform the Charm twice more before trying again himself, and this time, the same blue light emerged from his own wand.

"Cool. So what does Samsara do? It looks like a Lumos but not as bright."

"Oh, it's not just a light, Mr. Weasley. Samsara is actually a very powerful healing Charm: the Life Support Charm. It allows your wand to act as a direct conduit for your life force. By using the Charm and then touching your wand to another person who is critically injured or otherwise nearly at the point of death, you can use your own life energies to sustain their own, delaying death long enough for proper healing to be applied."

Ron smiled broadly. As dangerous as Jim's life seemed to be, that might be a good spell to know.

"But I had another reason for asking you to learn it, Mr. Weasley. I wanted to see through your eyes how you went about the process of learning a new spell. May I look into your mind again?"

He nodded, and Gupta once again made use of his Legilimency. After just a few seconds, he withdrew from Ron's mind looking satisfied. "As I thought. Mr. Weasley, you suffer from a learning disability."

Ron's brow furrowed at the unfamiliar term. "Yeah, well, I said I wasn't doing well in school. Is 'learning disability' fancy healer-talk for 'dumb'?"

Gupta made a face of mild consternation. "It most certainly is not, Mr. Weasley! On the contrary, my assessment indicates that you are actually quite intelligent but are being sabotaged by a neurological condition that prevents you from properly absorbing information that you read and study. That much was obvious when I compared how well you performed the Charm after reading the instructions versus how well you did after watching me cast the spell just three times."

"Neuro...logical?" he said somewhat dubiously.

"Yes. Language here in Shamballa unfortunately renders the condition's name as Uneven Thinking, a rather inaccurate description based on a translation of a very old Sanskrit name. A healer back in Britain might call it Mordenkainen's Disjunction, while Muggle medicine recognizes a similar condition called dyslexia. The condition manifests in many different forms, but most often, it interferes with your ability to read or otherwise interpret written symbols. You might find that words and letters reverse themselves or change order. You might have difficulty in pronouncing uncommon words or interpreting the symbols in your textbook that show how to perform wand movements or in comprehending the measurements and preparation times of potion recipes. That is why I asked you to try the Life Support Charm. The written notations of its wand movements contain the sort of complex markings that often trigger dyslexic results and so it's a good diagnostic tool. The condition is very rare among wizard-folk but well-documented. It is also usually an inherited condition. Tell me, Mr. Weasley, do either of your parents display any of the symptoms I've described?"

Ron sat very still as he thought about how is father, supposedly a Ministry expert on Muggle matters, still consistently mispronounced words like ekeltricity and fellytone. "... maybe?" He said in a very soft voice. "So, um, how do you treat this ... dixlessia?"

"Dyslexia. And I'm afraid there is no cure. The condition is a part of your brain's basic wiring. You can no more permanently fix it with a potion or a Charm than you could improve your friend Jim's eyesight so that he wouldn't need glasses. His own body recognizes his vision problems as normal, and so his magic inevitably works to change his body back to its default condition. Wizarding dyslexia is the same. But, now that we know you have the condition, there are a number of treatment options and techniques to help you stay aware of it and overcome the limitations it places on you."

Ron's mouth quivered a bit, and he quickly wiped his eyes. Suddenly, he vividly remembered every time he'd embarrassed himself by mispronouncing a Charm's incantation. Every time he'd ruined a potion because he'd somehow misunderstood the instructions on Snape's blackboard. The way it had taken him six tries to properly say Wingardium Leviosa (and if it had been anyone else but Jim who'd finally corrected him, he'd have probably exploded in frustration). The idea shook him to the core – after all these years, was it really possible that he wasn't actually ... stupid?

---

6 July 1993
The Weasley Burrow

"And what, pray tell, does a Ministry auror want with one of my sons?" Molly Weasley asked in a cold voice as she fixed Auror Proudfoot with a glare that would have been worthy of Alastor Moody himself.

For his part, Proudfoot grimaced nervously and adjusted his collar. It seemed obvious that he was fresh from the Academy, and if he was so visibly intimidated by an angry mother, one might wonder how he'd ever handle an actual dark wizard.

"I assure you, Madam Weasley..."

"Mrs. Weasley!"

"Ah, yes, right! Mrs. Weasley, of course! Well, I assure you that your son George has done nothing wrong. I just have a few questions for him about the work he was doing for Gilderoy Lockhart. You see, Lockhart himself may be stuck for life in the Janus Thickey Ward at St. Mungo's, but the Ministry is still interested in finding out exactly what he was up to. And in the course of the investigation, it was brought to our attention that he might have provided your son with..." Proudfoot paused and took a deep breath. "... explosive runes."

"HE WHAT?!" Molly shrieked so loudly that despite himself the young auror took two steps back. "GEORGE! GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!"

Barely a second later, George Weasley, who had obviously been listening in from upstairs (along with Fred, Percy, and Ginny), came down bearing a nervous expression.

"George!" Molly exclaimed with a tiny bit less fury. "What's this about explosive runes?!"

George swallowed. "Well, Mum, I was on Lockhart's research team devoted to experimental portkeys, and he gave me a sheet of explosive runes to study. He wanted to see if you could reconfigure them to supercharge a portkey so that it could penetrate anti-portkey wards."

"Explosive runes!" Molly huffed, her hands on her hips. "To a Fourth Year!" Proudfoot winced slightly at the woman's fury.

"Mum, I was careful with them and nothing bad happened." George paused at that. Inwardly, he thought to himself "Well, nothing other than my possessed little brother stealing a copy and using it to try to kill people, but I reckon I shouldn't mention that in front of the auror."

Then, before Molly could get started again, George barreled forward. "And to be honest, it's a good thing he did, too! Or else I wouldn't have recognized them with they were used to blow up all the Mandrakes at Hogwarts. Harry Potter would have died in front of me, and me and Fred might well have died with him."

George then cringed at Molly's shocked expression. He'd forgotten that with all the confusion surrounding Ron's possession, the family had not spent much time discussing his own brush with death, and his mother was only now realizing how narrowly he escaped. Luckily, Proudfoot stepped in to divert her.

"I've read the report on how you saved young Potter, Mr. Weasley. It was very impressive. You're a credit to Gryffindor." The boy smiled and ducked his head at the praise.

"However," the man continued, "I'm afraid the Ministry cannot allow such dangerous spell materials to remain in the hands of a minor. If you still have the runic array Lockhart gave you, I must ask you to turn it over to me along with any notes you may have."

George's smile faded, and he actually looked a bit crestfallen. For a second, he considered lying, but respect for the title of auror won out. "Yes sir. They're up in my room, locked up in my trunk. Do you want my solution as well?"

Proudfoot blinked twice. "Your ... solution?"

"For how to convert an explosive rune into a ward slicer. I kept working on it even after I got home." He coughed delicately. "I, um, get bored easily."

The auror nodded slowly. "Yes, I think I'd better have that as well."

George turned and bounded up the stairs. While he was gone, Proudfoot studied the cozy Burrow while resolutely ignoring the suspicious and hostile glare the overprotective Weasley mother directed towards her son's interrogator. About a minute later, George returned and handed him a stack of carefully arranged papers.

"That's all of it," he said with a hint of sadness.

"Thank you." The auror paused. "And you actually think you've solved the problem Lockhart set for you?"

The boy shrugged. "Well, obviously I can't rightly test it. And I still think it would be kind of unstable and would probably cause a discharge of some kind, so don't try it while standing next to your gran's china cabinet. But yeah, I'm pretty confident."

Proudfoot smiled. "I look forward to what the boys in the research division have to say." He looked back and forth between Molly and George. "Given the nature of this research and its possible criminal applications, I must ask that you not discuss your work on this project with anyone else."

George nodded while Molly said nothing. Finally, his presence no longer needed, Proudfoot showed himself out and headed down the lane to the edge of the wards so that he could apparate. Once he was outside the Burrow's wards, he pulled out George's notes and his runic solution and spent a few minutes studying them. As he did, his naive expression melted away to a more thoughtful demeanor, and for just a second, his blue eyes turned gray.

"Ah, Mr. Weasley. You always were my favorite student." And then, with a soft pop, "Auror Proudfoot" apparated away.

---

10 July 1993
5:00 a.m.
The Kumar Towers Hotel
Shamballa

Jim Potter's eyes fluttered open as the early light of dawn came in through the window of the hotel room he shared with his best friend. He rolled over and noticed that Ron's bed was empty. Immediately, Jim sat up and saw that the door to the balcony was open. The boy's eyes widened and a cold fear clenched his heart. Quietly, he got out of bed and crept to the balcony door. To his relief, Ron was there but nowhere near the ledge as Jim had feared. Instead, he was standing in the middle of the large balcony in his pajamas and facing the rising sun as he went through the relaxation kata that Padma had taught him the prior week and to Ron just days before. Ron was not yet as proficient with it as Jim, but he was learning fast.

"Well isn't this a sight," Jim said. "Usually, I'm the one dragging you out of bed for early morning workouts. What brought this on?"

"Couldn't sleep," Ron said simply. "Bad dreams. Thought this might help."

"And has it?" Jim asked as he stepped out onto the cool balcony and took his place by Ron's side, easily falling into the rhythm of the Water Aspect kata.

"Yeah, actually. I've been doing this for about five minutes or so, and I already feel less like vomiting from terror."

Jim winced. "That bad?"

"It was the 'spiders crawling up my throat' dream again. Pretty sure that's as bad as it gets. Healer Gupta says we'll try to work on my arachnophobia while we're here if there's time, but obviously all the Voldemort stuff I went through takes priority."

Jim nodded. "You, uh, haven't talked much about that since we got here. You know you can always talk to me, right? I mean, no matter what happened last year, we'll always be best mates."

Ron said nothing at first, but then after a few seconds, he suddenly paused his kata and then turned to face Jim.

"I've still got bits of Voldemort in my head," he said without preamble. Startled, Jim dropped his own kata and turned towards Ron, his eyes wide.

"Gupta told you that?" he asked. Ron nodded.

"There's not enough there now to do anything, at least as far as Gupta can tell. But ... if Voldemort ever returns completely, there's ... there's a chance he could influence me or affect me somehow. You're my best mate too, Jim. But I want you to promise me..."

"Ron," Jim tried to interrupt.

"No, Jim," Ron said forcefully. "I want you to promise me that if you think I'm under his influence, you won't hold back just because we're friends. You can't. There's too much at stake."

Jim took a deep breath as he considered his friend's words. "Okay, I promise. But only on one condition. You have to promise that you will never stop fighting him. That you will do everything you can to not let him control you or influence you."

Ron smiled. "Deal."

Jim relaxed and the two returned to their morning kata. After a few seconds, a calmer Ron spoke again. "Speaking of doing everything I can to get better, I've been thinking. We should bite the broomstick and join Granger's study group this year if she'll still have us. Or better yet, get her to tutor us individually. I think I may need some extra help."

"Oh?" Jim said, surprised once again.

"Yeah," Ron said as he swayed back in forth in a motion that he refused to call serpentine. "Tell me – have you ever heard of something called dyslexia?"

---

15 July 1993
The Weasley Burrow

"Mum, the excavation is at an especially delicate point right now," Bill Weasley said earnestly to Molly through the green flames of the Weasley Floo. "I can't just pop up and come back home for a few days just for a party."

"Really, Bill? How odd! I flooed your supervisor to see if he could get you a message out in the field. Martin Pepperwinkle. Wonderful fellow. I was a bridesmaid for his daughter, Eudora. Did you know that? Anyway, he said the most dangerous part of your current dig was wrapping up and that he was planning on giving everyone on your team ten days holiday for ... R&R? Is that the right term? In fact, I could have sworn that he'd also said something about how he'd already mentioned that to you. He said that you were excited to have some time off to take your 'new lady friend' off for a week to some island off the coast of Greece where nobody ever wears clothes. But that can't be right, Bill, because I'm sure if you had a new lady friend you'd have told me about it in one of those letters you never find time to send home."

And with that, Molly Weasley actually smiled at her eldest son through the Floo connection. Bill closed his eyes and put two fingers up to his forehead as if to push the approaching aneurysm back into place. "Mum, she's not a ... lady friend. We're just friends from work, and we're going on holiday together."

"Well, Bill, you say she's a friend, and she's a 'she' which means a woman. I certainly hope she's a lady, though this whole 'naked island' thing gives me pause." Then, her eyes widened with excitement. "I know! If you can't make it home for Ron's homecoming party, you can bring your lady friend home for Christmas. We can introduce her to everyone, and I'll get out all the scrapbooks of you growing up. I'm sure she'll love the one of you when you were a wee baby rolling around on that bearskin rug! And you won't even have any need to feel embarrassed that you were naked in that picture since she'll have already seen everything!"

Bill sighed in defeat. "When's the party?"

"Ron comes home on the 30th and we'll have a surprise party ready for him. Then, we'll all go to the Potters as a family for Jim's birthday party the next day. On the 2nd, you can either portkey back to Cairo or straight to whichever naked island you desire."

Bill's eyes goggled a bit. "You're remarkably blase about ... naked islands."

Molly shrugged. "You're a grown man, and I made sure you know contraceptive Charms. I've ... had an object lesson recently on the dangers of being an overbearing busybody of a mother." Then, she looked away while blinking rapidly.

"Mum," Bill said gently. "What happened to Ron was in no way your fault."

She paused before responding. "Bill, you can't imagine... When he woke up in the Infirmary after ... William, he screamed when he saw us! Like he just knew we all hated him and he couldn't bear the sight of us judging him. It may have been the fault of Gilderoy Lockhart and You-Know-Who, but I played my part. And so did your father. And so did all of us. That's why your father and I want all of us to be here for Ron. So he knows that we're all family and we all love one another. And if that requires me to hector my eldest into coming home for just a few days so that the boy who idolizes him can remember what he looks like..."

Bill laughed and raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'll come. Mind you, international port-keys are a bit pricey."

"Oh, did I forget to mention? Your father won 700 galleons in the Daily Prophet Prize Draw. We considered just using that money to visit you in Cairo, but since Ron's off to India, we thought it unfair to go without him. So we're using that money to buy new wands for all the children who are still using starter wands that they got out of the Prewett vaults. Maybe a pet for each of them, too." She paused and frowned. "Oh, and better brooms for everyone... including Ginny."

"Uh-huh. I still can't believe you're letting her try out for Quidditch."

"Like I said. I'm going to try hard to stop being one of those parents. I spent too much time fretting over your decisions and Charlie's. With everything that's happened, I don't have it in my to worry myself to death over my children doing risky things, particularly when I know perfectly well that they're all going to go behind my back and do what they want anyway." Then, she sniffed almost diffidently. "Not that I won't be having words with Charlie about teaching Ginny to fly unsupervised in the middle of the night without our permission, mind you."

Bill laughed again.

---

Meanwhile, outside...

Percy was in the shed helping his father tinker with the Anglia while Ginny and the Twins degnomed the garden. At first, the Twins were surprised – amazed, actually – when Molly put Ginny on gnome detail with them. It was the first time she'd ever been given the chore. But their mother explained that Ginny had proven herself able to get into as much mischief as any of her brothers, so it was foolish to take it easy on her just because she was a girl. Ginny's initial pride in her mother's new sentiment lasted right up until the first time a gnome bit her on the finger.

Percy, who knew nothing about engines, was in charge of handing Arthur various tools out of the man's aggressively Muggle toolbox when requested. Although not a devotee of Muggle culture like his father, the boy was a quick learner and had reached the point where he could identify most of the tools in the box by name and function. Nevertheless, he was of his game today, as Arthur noted when Percy handed him a sledge hammer instead of the adjustable spanner he'd requested.

"Percy, you won't make the Hogwarts letter get here any faster by worrying yourself to death over it. To be honest, I asked you to help me with this to get your mind off of it."

"Well, you know me," the teenager said ruefully. "Perfect Prefect Percy. Everything I've done has led me to one moment where the whole rest of my life will be decided by one little envelope with a tiny silver medallion in it."

"Son, I promise you. The whole rest of your life will not be decided on the basis of whether you're made Head Boy. I firmly believe that you can achieve whatever you want out of life whether you get that honor or not. And your mother and I will be just as proud of you either way."

Percy started to answer but was then distracted what he now saw through the window of the shed: the quartet of Hogwarts owls he'd been expecting for days now approaching from the north. He glanced out the open shed door and saw that the Twins and Ginny were still engrossed with the gnomes. Cautiously, he moved around to the side of the house to intercept the owl meant for him without his siblings seeing. Arthur casually followed behind. It was silly, Percy knew, but whether he got the Head Boy position or not, the boy wanted to have a moment by himself to absorb the news since he was sure the Twins would tease him relentlessly either way.

The owl landed on a nearby fence post, and held out its talon with the Hogwarts letter attached. Nervously, Percy removed the letter, and the owl flew away. He tore the envelope open and turned it upside down to let the contents fall into his hand.

It was a standard Gryffindor prefect's badge, identical to the one he'd worn for the last two years.

Percy closed his eyes and exhaled the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Then, he felt his father reach out and put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, Percy, I'm so sorry."

The boy opened his eyes to look at his father, and to Arthur's surprise, he actually smiled, if halfheartedly.

"It's okay, Dad. Really, it's ... okay. To be honest, I kind of expected this." He pulled out the letter that came with the badge and was unsurprised to learn that Bobby Lattimer of Hufflepuff would be the new Head Boy instead of him. The other boy had, after all, won his House a hundred points by calmly following instructions to protect the school instead of tearing off with an angry mob, thereby putting even more students in danger.

"Bobby's a fine fellow and a credit to the school. He'll do a good job. And without the added hassle of being Head Boy, maybe I'll have an easier time with my NEWTs."

"Percy, I'm sure it wasn't just a snap judgment Albus made based on how you responded to that Chamber of Secrets business."

Percy laughed. "Dad! Of course it was! And I can't really blame him. When push came to shove, I knew what I was supposed to do, but I let my emotions get the best of me, and I made the wrong call."

"You were worried about your brother, son. There's no shame in that."

"I know, but that doesn't change the fact that I made the wrong call," Percy said calmly but firmly and surprisingly without much bitterness. "I don't just mean by failing to follow instructions and Hogwarts procedures. I mean I objectively made the wrong decision because if I'd succeeded in capturing and detaining Jim Potter, he wouldn't have made it to the Chamber of Secrets in time to save Ron. Ron would have died, You-Know-Who would have returned, he'd have probably massacred half the school, and it would have been all my fault!"

With that, Percy's sudden energy faded and he leaned his back against the wall of the Burrow as if to draw strength from his family home. "And do you want to know the craziest bit, Dad? If I ever find myself in a similar situation again ... I'll probably do the same thing. Which is why I have no business being the Head Boy if I can't put family loyalty aside when I've accepted a higher duty."

"Percy," Arthur said gently. "You love your family. There's no shame in that."

"We all love the family, Dad. But ... I think I've spent too much time in love with The Family." He emphasized the last two words with deliberate pomposity. "I was in love with the idea of the Noble House of Weasley instead of the actual family members who belong to it. Since I was a kid, I've dreamed about restoring the family name. Getting us back in the Wizengamot. That sort of thing. And since I first became a prefect, I think I've begun to resent the family members who seemed like ... obstacles to that goal. Bill and Charlie for running off to follow their bliss when they maybe could have done more to build up the family's fortunes here in Britain. George and Fred for ... well, being George and Fred. And ..." He paused and looked up shamefacedly at Arthur, who simply smiled indulgently at him.

"And your duffer of a father with his silly Muggle obsessions?"

Percy laughed and shook his head. "You are the best dad any wizard or witch could hope for. And I'm a bloody fool for not realizing it sooner." He looked back down at the Prefect's badge. "I'm ... glad I'm not Head Boy. Disappointed, of course, but also glad. I ... I think I've been headed down the wrong path for a while now. And being Head Boy would have only carried me farther along it."

Arthur pulled his son who was becoming a man into a tight hug that Percy returned happily ... right up until they were both startled by the loud shrieks from around the corner. They raced around to see what the commotion was but then stopped short and gawked in astonishment.

For in the garden, they could see the Twins, both of them staring in mute horror and amazement (and in Fred's case, maybe a touch of betrayed anger) at the crimson and gold Prefect's badge that George held delicately between two fingers as if it had come dipped in a deadly poison.

---

24 June 1993
The Naga Cultural Center and Ski Resort
(20 miles north of Shamballa)

Lily Potter looked up in wonder at the thirty-foot behemoth than loomed over her. The creature had the body of an enormous snake, most of which was coiled to support its massive weight. Its torso made up less than a fourth of its total length but was marked by six lithe and sinewy arms. Two hands were joined in prayer or supplication of some kind while the other four were outstretched into what Lily assumed were occult mudras. But the most striking feature was the monster's head. Noseless, hairless, and clearly serpentine, it reminded Lily disturbingly of Voldemort's face from the last time she saw him at Godric's Hollow. The Dark Lord had, for some mad reason, used dark magic to transform himself into a hideous snake-man, though whether it was to secure the loyalty of his many Slytherin supporters, to terrify his enemies, or for some other occult purpose, no one knew. Lily shuddered once more at the sight, and the only reason the huge creature wasn't even more terrifying was that it was simply a statue. Specifically, it was a giant stone statue representing a mythical creature known as a naga.

Remus Lupin, who was acting as her tour guide at the moment, noticed her reaction. "It reminds you of him, doesn't it? I had the same reaction when I first came here for a visit."

Over the last few weeks, their mutual proximity to Jim had essentially forced Lily and Remus to at least be civil to one another, and while Remus still held a grudge on Harry's behalf, speaking with Lily had reminded the man of the friendship they had once shared. In time, civility blossomed into cordiality. It helped when Lily admitted to him that if Harry had shown magic at any point during his childhood, her plan had been to transfer custody to Remus who would raise him abroad until he was old enough to attend Beauxbatons under a false name. Now that he better understood Lily's somewhat obsessive desire to separate Harry from the public's obsession with the Boy-Who-Lived (and the attendant risk of Death Eaters targeting Harry), Remus thought her decision to send the boy to the Dursleys when he seemed to be a squib made a bit more sense, although he was still appalled that neither Lily nor James had ever checked up on him and that the Dursleys were even more awful as he'd expected.

On this day, as Jim and Ron started their last week at Shamballa before returning to Britain, Remus and Gupta had both decided to give the pair a day off from study to explore one of the region's more unusual cultural experiences. In part, it was because Healer Gupta was attending a Healer's Conference in Jakarta, but he agreed with Remus that the boys had worked hard and were entitled to down time. A weekend spent skiing would be perfect, to say nothing of the wonders of the Naga Caves. A hundred years earlier, wizards from Shamballa discovered the large cave network that had been hidden by the Himalayan ice since time immemorial. Within, they discovered ancient hieroglyphics that depicted a forgotten race of snake men that came to be known as the naga (after the legendary talking snakes of Indian Muggle mythology). Although he had no proof of it, Gupta was convinced that the site had some connection to the origins of Parseltongue, and he was quite curious to learn what two apparently natural Parselmouths thought of it.

The caves themselves were a minor curiosity until the 1930's, when the 9th Kumar Pasha (the grandfather of Parvati's fiancé) became enamored of Muggle skiing. Finding the slopes near caves to be ideal for that purpose, he had a private ski lodge built nearby which his son, who was a wizarding hotelier among other ventures, later expanded into a posh resort hotel for wizards who enjoyed skiing and other winter sports. By associating his resort with the nearby Naga Caves, the current head of the Kumar family was able to obtain certain concessions from the Shamballa city government, one of which was that the largest piece of naga statuary found within the caves would be relocated to the lobby of his opulent resort.

"Were there actual naga at one point?" Lily asked. "I don't remember covering them in Care of Magical Creatures."

"We didn't. And no one truly knows if they were real or not. The word itself is simply Sanskrit for 'snake.' The Naga Caves were rediscovered in 1891 – they had a big fete two years ago for the Centennial – but they're old enough to predate the founding of Shamballa itself. Whether they were originally created by a now-extinct species of human-animal hybrid, that is, the snake equivalent of centaurs and veela, or by some forgotten tribe of ancient humans who simply venerated snakes is unknown. Probably the later, since a serpentine race would most likely be cold-blooded and unlikely to make its home in the Himalayas. Either way, the ones who decorated the caves probably weren't wizarding-folk. There are no signs that the builders of the caves used any magic we know of in their construction." He paused and looked back up at massive bronze statue. "Which only makes it more astonishing that they could move something that massive halfway up one of the world's tallest mountains."

"Do you agree with Healer Gupta that there's a connection between the naga and Parseltongue?"

Remus shrugged. "Possibly. But the ones who built the caves left hieroglyphics that have not yet been fully translated, and anyway, that tells us nothing about their spoken language. Unless definitive proof is found somehow, there's no real way of knowing."

Lily nodded before looking back up at the colossus standing before her. She shuddered again.

---

Meanwhile, a few miles away from the hotel, Ron walked carefully down the dim and somewhat spooky pathways of the Naga Caves, pausing every now and then to study the strange serpentine markings etched onto the cave walls that were illuminated by glowing spheres every few feet. With him were Jim, Padma, Pavarti, and Sanjeev Kumar, Pavarti's fiancé who had arranged the excursion. The two boys had spent the morning learning to ski, which Ron had found surprisingly enjoyable, but now they were taking a break for a tour of the famous cave system while letting their lunch digest. While the tour was rather interesting to the two young Parselmouths, Ron and Jim's initial impression of Sanjeev as being "the Indian Draco Malfoy" was confirmed. In particular, the older boy apparently viewed the cave and everything in it as essentially his family's property rather than ancient artifacts to be admired for their inherent cultural value. Ron eventually started to entertain himself by counting the number of times Sanjeev said "my father" in the course of their tour, but he lost count somewhere around twenty. They were also less than impressed with the exceptionally gaudy ruby ring which he presented to Parvati but which apparently had been sized incorrectly and kept sliding off the girl's finger. Padma visibly loathed the boy, and while he appeared not to notice, Pavarti was increasingly annoyed by her sister's attitude.

By now, the group had entered a large open chamber which Sanjeev identified as "the Grand Balcony," a level outcropping of stone that stuck out over a deep chasm some fifty feet across and twice as deep. On the far side, illuminated by glow spheres suspended from the ceiling, was a sheer granite cliff face onto which had been carved a magnificent and enormous bas relief of the same six-armed naga whose statue now stood in the lobby of the ski lodge. Surrounding the great naga were hundreds of other snakes carved into the wall in an ornate interlocking design. The edge of the balcony had been roped off to prevent anyone from falling over the edge, and there were other signs of recent construction work, including the caution tape and a "Do Not Enter" sign which Sanjeev had simply pushed aside before leading the group into the chamber.

"One of my father's companies is doing some renovations to the Caves," Sanjeev explained loftily. "For safety purposes. There was some minor structural damage caused when the great naga statue was relocated from this chamber to the lodge."

Padma muttered something under her breath about the propriety of relocating an artifact that had stood unmolested for millennia to serve as a decoration for a hotel lobby, and Ron and Jim both fought down smirks. Pavarti glared at her twin, while Sanjeev was distracted by one of his father's employees who had entered the chamber to speak with him. From what Ron could hear, the conversation consisted of the worker insisting that the chamber was off-limits for safety reasons followed by variations on "Do you know who my father is?" from Sanjeev. Finally, Sanjeev called out to Parvati, saying that he needed to speak with the site manager but would return in a few minutes. As soon as Sanjeev and the worker left the chamber, Parvati whirled on Padma in anger.

"What is wrong with you?! You've been horrible to Sanjeev all day!"

"Oh I don't know, sister. Perhaps I'm just irritated to see you hanging all over that spoiled child like some bauble he purchased at a village fair!"

"How dare you speak about the Pashazada like that!"

"The Pasha-what?" Ron interrupted suddenly.

"Pashazada," Parvati said. "It means 'the Pasha's son.'"

Ron nodded. "Okay. Can you also explain what a Pasha is? 'Cause I've been wondering that since we got to India."

"Me too, actually," said Jim, "but I've been too embarrassed to ask."

"That's okay, Ron," Padma said drily. "It's just a meaningless courtesy title."

Parvati gasped. "PADMA!"

Her sister shrugged. "It is! 'Pasha' was an honorific title given to generals and governors in the Ottoman Empire, as well as to private individuals who had done something to please the Sultan. Over four hundred years ago, back before the Statute of Secrecy, one of Sanjeev's ancestors performed some service for the Sultan of that era. No one even remembers what it was! But he was awarded the title of Pasha which has been handed down from father to son ever since. Even after the Statute of Secrecy meant that the Kumar Pasha couldn't use that title in front of Muggles. Even after the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist some seventy years ago! But they still call themselves Pasha and Pashazada because they think it sounds more impressive than 'elitist prats.' And everyone just goes along with it because they're so bloody rich!"

Ron and Jim glanced at one another nervously as months, perhaps years, of suppressed anger between the Patil sisters finally erupted in front of them. Quietly, they took a few steps back and contemplated whether to wait outside the chamber rather than continue to witness the scene.

"SO THAT'S IT!" Parvati shrieked. "This isn't about cultural respect or courtesy titles! I'm engaged to a billionaire's son and you're JEALOUS!" As she spat out the accusation, Parvati gestured wildly towards her sister, causing her expensive but oversized ring to fly off her finger and skitter across the cavern floor. She gasped in horror as it rolled to a halt right at the edge of the chasm before falling onto its side. Then, she gave her sister another furious look before storming over past the rope barrier to where the ring had landed.

"I swear, Padma, if that had gone over the edge, I'd have sent you right after it," she spat as she bent over to pick up the gaudy jewelry.

Padma snorted. "I'd like to see you try!"

For their part, Ron and Jim were still paralyzed with discomfort and wondering if they were about to have to break up a fight between the two girls. It would have been better for all concerned if that had been the case, for at that moment, Parvati jerked back up and whirled around to shout something back to Padma when her foot slid on some loose dirt and gravel at the landing's edge. The girl lost her balance and fell, barely grasping the edge of the balcony while letting out a shriek.

"PARVATI!" Padma screamed, while Ron looked on in horror.

"Sssshit!" Jim, in his surprise, actually hissed out the expletive in Parseltongue, as he desperately fumbled for his wand beneath multiple layers of heavy winter clothing. He'd thought about getting a wand holster of his own but resisted the idea as being "too Harry." At this moment, he cursed himself for that sentiment as Parvati lost her grip and fell before he could get his wand out to catch her. Padma screamed again, and all three children rushed to the edge of the balcony with Ron and Jim holding Padma back so she didn't fall over after her sister. The bottom of the chasm was shrouded in darkness. Jim finally got his wand out and cast a Lumos Maxima. Parvati's body looked terribly broken, but to the trio's amazement, there seemed to be signs of life.

"PARVATI!" Padma called out again, tears streaming down her face. Jim looked around for some way to get down to the injured girl. Seeing none, he looked up and spotted the secure metal posts from which the light globes were suspended.

"CARPE RETRACTUM!"With a flash, a sturdy rope shot out of the tip of Jim's wand and wrapped itself securely around one of the posts. Then, to Ron's shock, the Boy-Who-Lived stepped off the balcony himself and swung out to the middle of the gap before willing the rope to slowly extend itself and lower him down to the ground below. Realizing what his friend had done, Ron rose and prepared to cast the same spell, when Padma grabbed his arm.

"Take me with you!" she said urgently.

"I, ah, don't know if ..." Ron sputtered.

"Please! She's my sister!"

Ron scrunched his eyes up for a second and then let out a loud sigh. "Grab round my neck. I need both hands to hold onto the wand."

The girl did as instructed while Ron focused his attention on another of the light posts. "Pleasedon'tbreakpleasedon'tbreakpleasedon'tbreak..." he thought urgently before casting Carpe Retractum and then swinging off into the chasm with Padma Patil hanging on for dear life. Slowly, the two of them lowered down to the cave floor where Jim was already performing the diagnostic spell on Parvati.

"She's alive," he said. "But she's badly hurt, and I don't know if we know any spells that will save her." He looked back down at the unconscious girl and took a deep breath.

"EPISSSSKEY!" he hissed, hoping that the only Parselmagic healing spell he knew might do some good. Parvati's body twitched slightly and some of her smaller wounds closed, but she did not regain consciousness.

Ron thought for a moment and bit his lower lip in nervousness. "Let me try something. SAMSARA." His wand lit up with a soft blue light, and he touched the top of it to Parvati's forehead. Her breathing became stronger and less labored.

"What spell is that?" Jim asked in surprise.

Ron kept his eyes closed in concentration. "Life Support Charm. It'll keep her stable until you get help. But hurry. I've never actually done this on a person before and I don't know how long I can hold it."

Jim nodded before jumping back up. He fired off another retracting cable to the overhead lights, one that pulled him all the way up to the ceiling. Then, grabbing hold of the light post with one hand, he dispelled that rope before firing another one to a light over the balcony that he used to swing over.

"Hang on, Ron! I'll be back as soon as I can!" he yelled down as he ran off in search of medical assistance.

Down below, Padma was holding onto her sister's hand while weeping uncontrollably. "Please, Parvati. Be okay. I'm sorry for what I said. For everything."

Ron focused as best he could on maintaining the life force connection forged by the Samsara Charm. But it was a difficult Charm to maintain and the spell was not one with which he'd had much (or really any) experience. After nearly a minute, his concentration finally broke, and Parvati's breathing once more grew labored and ragged. He cast the spell a second time, but it was less effective and only lasted for about thirty seconds before breaking. His third try lasted only for ten seconds, and his head began to swim from the strain.

"I'm sorry..." he said in a thick voice. Padma seemed to ignore him as she wept over her dying sister. Ron's own eyes teared up as well, not only at the impending death of a fellow Gryffindor but also at the symbolism of the scene in front of him. Padma, influenced by jealousy, had lashed out at her sister, and disaster had followed. He could relate. Ron looked down at the unconscious girl and imagined George or Fred or even Ginny lying in her place. Then, he closed his eyes and cast his memory back to the previous week.

It was a Tuesday. Jim was off on one of his private lessons with Brother Chandra, so Ron spent the afternoon one-on-one with Healer Gupta, working on various healing spells that could be augmented with Parselmagic. As Ron reviewed the list, he suddenly noticed an absence.

"I don't see Samsara on here. Does Parseltongue not work with it?"

"Very perceptive, Mr. Weasley. The Life Support Charm is indeed susceptible to Parselmagic. But think about what that would mean if you used it in such a fashion. Samsara functions by linking the life forces of the caster and an injured person, allowing life energy to flow directly from one to another. So if we boost the spell's normal effects with Parselmagic...?"

Ron thought for a moment. "You could transfer more life energy than you intended! How dangerous would that be to the caster?"

"Very. I've only attempted the Parselmagic version of Samsara once to save someone at the very brink of death, but even with years of experience, I was barely able to keep my very life from draining away in the spell."

Ron thought about Gupta's warning, but in the end, it didn't matter. A young girl, a friend, was dying in front of him, and he (maybe) had the power to save her. He knew what was easy and what was right. And he knew what he had to do. Ron took a deep breath, focused his attention on the tip of his wand, and hissed. "SSSSSAMSSSSARA." Instead of a soft blue glow from his wand tip, he was rewarded with a brilliant while light. Immediately, he touched his wand to Parvati whose entire body went rigid and was enveloped in a halo so bright that Padma had to look away.

Then, Padma's concern for her sister was overcome by a sudden wave of terror as the hundreds of snakes carved into the great wall above her, as well as the great naga they surrounded, all hissed in unison in response to the boy's actions. Outside the chamber, Jim had only just passed the news of Parvati's injury to Sanjeev when the various snake symbols and carvings on the nearby cave walls also hissed as one, their message filling the boy with dread. After practically yelling at Sanjeev and the workers to summon a healer, he raced back towards the chamber where he had left his best friend behind. Meanwhile, miles away, Lily, Remus, and the other guests at the ski lodge were equally as startled and amazed when a deep and terrible hissing sound bellowed forth from the mammoth naga statue in the hotel's lobby.

Down in the chasm, the light from Ron's wand grew brighter and brighter until Parvati's whole body shook violently as the worst of her wounds and broken bones healed instantly. Her eyes shot open and she sucked in air with a loud gasp. Padma cried out and embraced her twin in a fierce hug. Parvati hissed in pain – Ron's s spell had only brought her back from the brink of death and had not healed her completely, but she was just as relieved to be alive as her sister was to witness it. Only after Parvati reassured Padma that she was okay did the two girls glance over at Ron and become shocked at his appearance. The boy was as white as a sheet, more pale than any person they'd ever seen. His head was bobbing, and his wand trembled violently in his hand.

"...worked?" he asked in a shaky whisper. "S'good." Then, his eyes rolled back up into his head and he fell over onto the floor, unconscious or worse.

"Ron!" Jim cried out to his friend from the balcony up above. Padma looked up at him and did a double-take. She'd never seen the Boy-Who-Lived so frightened. She could not possibly have known why, for other than Ron, Jim Potter was the only person who had heard the terrible hissing that rose up in response to Ron's spell and understood what the snakes of the Naga Caves had said.

"Your sacrifice has been accepted."

---

Elsewhere...

After an unknown time, Ron's eyes suddenly opened and he sat up and looked around. He saw nothing but darkness, but he could feel his wand still in his hand, so he held it aloft and cried out "LUMOSSSSS." The boy was actually surprised that the spell came out as Parselmagic, for he had not intended to hiss. He was even more surprised when, instead of a soft light from the tip of his wand, there was a bright light coming from above that completely illuminated the area in which he found himself. He looked around again and was amazed (and somewhat alarmed) to realize he had been transported somewhere else. Possibly to some other part of the Naga Caves, but for some reason he doubted it.

The chamber seem impossibly large. Roughly twenty feet in every direction stood a massive stone column, five feet in diameter and adorned with a snake made of some precious metal that wrapped around each column before disappearing into a thick mist far above the floor. The mist was luminescent and was the source of the light that manifested in response to his Parselmagic Lumos. Not all of the mist though; the glowing part was limited to a rough circle centered on Ron. The columns themselves seemed endless and formed a regular grid, one every twenty feet at right angles, as far as the eye could see. "As far as the eye could see" actually meant about a hundred feet in every direction, as the glow from the mist did not penetrate the darkness beyond that.

Ron stood up and yelled. "Hello?! Is anybody out there?!" There was no response, so the boy picked a direction and started walking. He soon noticed that the aura of light followed him. After an indeterminate time (truly indeterminate – the boy tried to cast Tempus, but the spell refused to function, even when he hissed it in Parseltongue), Ron suddenly developed the strong feeling that he was being watched, or at least observed somehow. Soon after, however, that nagging sensation was washed away by a more important concern, for Ron suddenly heard a voice. It was Jim Potter calling for help from somewhere in the distance!

Ron took off in a run, but soon he skidded to a halt, transfixed by what lay ahead: still more impossible tall columns, but these were marked by a familiar yet terrifying sight. Webs. Lots and lots of webs. More than the boy had ever seen in his life. The Twins had told him scary stories before he started Hogwarts about the Forbidden Forest and the acromantula colony within it. Even those tales, as embellished as they must have been, were not as disturbing as the forest of spider webs that lay before him. And somewhere within, Ron could still hear Jim weakly calling for his aid. Ron swallowed fearfully and then raised his wand.

"LACERO!" A knife-blade of magical force sliced cleanly through the nearest web. After a few more cutting curses, a path began to clear through the webbing. But Ron's efforts also alerted the inhabitants to his presence, for soon, huge spiders – no, acromantulas! – came down from whatever was above and beyond the mists, crawling down the columns and the webs that connected them. Instinctively, Ron took a step back, but another frightened cry from Jim stiffened his resolve, and he raised his wand again.

"LACERO! ARANA EXUMAI! LACERO! STUPIFY! " The boy threw spells faster than he ever had before, but more and more acromantulas came down to replace their fallen brethren. And each new wave included larger spiders than the one before. Now shaking in fear, Ron nearly faltered, but another cry from his friend somewhere beyond the webbing stiffened his resolve. He knew he was outnumbered, but then he thought of something to even the odds.

"SSSSERPENTSSSSORTIA!" The boy nearly staggered under the power of the Parselmagic spell as it erupted from his wand. There was a flash of light, and then suddenly nearly a dozen vipers materialized and practically flew through the air towards the acromantulas. "Attack the sssspiders! Sssstrike at them all!" His viper servants obeyed without question, tearing at the deadly spiders and giving Ron some breathing room. Emboldened, he returned to attacking the web itself. He had avoided using fire spells for fear that the flames might spread and endanger Jim and himself, but the sheer number of spiders attacking led him to abandon that restraint. As more and more of the foul creatures fell to his magic, he became less afraid of them and more ... incensed by their attacks.

"INCENDIO!" The webbing caught fire easily but luckily did not start an inferno. The spiders climbing down through the webs instead fell down to the waiting fangs of the vipers, and when their numbers started to fall, Ron conjured more snakes to bolster them and added his own attacks to those of his serpent-fighters. "LACERO! DEPULSO! LACERO! FLIPPENDO TRIO!"

Finally, he had fought his way to the center of the webbing and found Jim on the floor wrapped up tightly in webbing.

"Jim! Jim! Can you hear me?!" The boy seemed to still be alive but paralyzed and in pain. He had a number of bite marks on his skin. Suddenly, Ron sensed rather than heard the arrival of something behind him. Something big. The boy jumped up and whirled around just in time to see the largest spider he'd ever seen, ever imagined, lower itself to the ground in an eerie unnatural silence. Hagrid had told Ron and Jim all about his friend Aragog, the spider-king of the acromantula colony in the Forbidden Forest. This looked even bigger. Ron wasn't sure if the monster could even fit inside the Gryffindor common room even if it were some how possible to get it through the doors. And then, the foul thing spoke...

"Run, boy. You are no match for me. And you will not deprive me and my children of their meal. Run now, and I will let you live."

Ron's eyes narrowed as he realized that Jim was the meal the monster was talking about. The old wave of fear he'd felt since he was a child every time he saw a spider rose up once more. The wave that had turned into a tsunami after Tom Riddle's spider-themed tortures. But this time something was different. This time he was all that stood between the Boy-Who-Lived and certain death. For the first time, Ron felt that wave of fear crash against something unyielding and resolute ... and for once, the wave of fear fell short.

"You want Jim?" Ron asked in a fury. "I'll see you in HELL first!" And then he raised his wand aloft. "INCCCCCENDIO" he hissed in a fury of Parselmagic, and white-hot flames practically exploded from his wand to engulf the acromantula and its spawn. The boy spun around where he stood, ensuring that the waves of fire washed over the spiders in every direction. Finally, Ron released his spell. The flames dissipated, and Ron fell to his knees, nearly exhausted. But he knew there was no time to rest. Who knew how many more spiders were still around! Shaking off his exhaustion, the boy pulled himself up to his feet and scanned the room with his wand.

There were no more spiders. Indeed, there were no signs that there had ever been spiders or webs or even vipers summoned through Ron's magic. And there was no sign of Jim Potter either. Then, Ron jerked around in surprise with his wand still ready for battle. For somewhere nearby, Ron could hear the sound of someone clapping, along with the oddly familiar sound of some large creature slithering towards him.

"Well done, Child of Man," came a deep sibilant voice from deeper within the maze.

"Who's there?!" Ron yelled out. "What have you done with Jim?! And what is this place?!"

"Your friend was never here, Child of Man." The voice drew nearer, and finally, Ron saw its source shimmer into existence out of thin air not thirty feet from where he stood. The form was certainly familiar, as Ron had seen its image all over the caves today. The creature – no, the being – was at least thirty feet long from the top of his bald head to the tip of his serpent's tail. Three-quarters of his body was given over to the form of a massive snake, while the rest was a scaly torso with six arms and a head that resembled a man's save for the brilliant green scales and other serpentine features.

"Those you fought, like the one you fought to protect, were never truly here but were merely constructs drawn from your mind to test you. As for your other question. I am Sardeth, Last of the Naga. I bid you welcome, Ronald Weasley. This is the last citadel of my race. This is my home... and my prison."

Ron swallowed and tightened his grip on his wand. The snake-man was quite near and now towered at least ten feet over him. "Prison? And, um, what exactly are you in prison for?"

Sardeth smiled in a way that Ron thought showed too many teeth. "Hubris, Child of Man. I am the last of the naga ... because I annihilated all the others.

---

The Temple of Healing
Shamballa

Jim stood at the foot of Ron's bed staring down morosely at his friend, with Lily and Remus behind him. It had been less than an hour since healers had transported Ron and the others back to Shamballa and the Temple of Healing. Miraculously, Parvati was almost completely recovered from what should have been a mortal injury, but Ron was still comatose and deathly pale. The healers muttered about his low body temperature and heart rate and his apparent lack of any brain activity. Word had been sent to Bhaskar Gupta who would be arriving from Jakarta by portkey at any time, but there seemed to be genuine concern as to whether the boy would last that long.

"It's all my fault," Jim whispered.

Lily looked at him sharply. "Jim, that's utter nonsense. You did nothing to cause Parvati to fall and nothing to cause Ron to use a spell beyond his capability to save her."

"Mum, Ron wouldn't even be here if I hadn't pressured him into coming. He'd be safe at home at the Burrow with his family. Instead, he's ..." Jim's voice broke and he wiped a few tears from his eyes. "Have anyone even contacted the Weasleys yet?"

"No," said Remus. "Healer Gupta will be here soon to give his diagnosis. Then, if Ron's condition seems unlikely to change, we'll contact his family."

Jim shook his head. "They'll hate me forever for this. And they'll be right to."

"Enough, Jim," Remus interrupted. "Focus on your training. The Third Step Exercise."

"You want me to leave and go practice my martial arts?" Jim said incredulously.

"No," Remus said as he placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. "I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are in the training room going through your kata. You've reached the point where sense memory can be as effective as actually performing the moves. Everything you've been working on with Wu Xi Do for the last few weeks has been for the purpose of strengthening your emotional control, has it not?"

Jim made a face, but then, he closed his eyes and imagined himself back in the training room. After a few seconds, he could feel himself mentally going through the relaxation katas, and the strain and unhappiness faded somewhat from his face. Then, his eyes jerked open as the doors to the infirmary burst open. Healer Gupta had returned. After barely acknowledging the others, he sat down beside Ron on his bed and pried his eyes open so that he could properly scan the boy with Legilimency. After a long moment, he let go of Ron's head and slowly stood.

"Remarkable," he said in a soft voice. Then, he turned to Jim and the others with a confused expression. "This may seem a foolish question, my friends, but is there any possibility that Mr. Weasley was attacked by a Dementor down in the cave?"

Jim, Remus, and Lily looked back and forth in surprise at the odd question. For his part, Jim didn't really even know what a Dementor was other than a creature that served as guard at Azkaban and occasionally as the Ministry's executioners.

"As far as we've been able to tell, Ron collapsed after using the Samsara Charm in conjunction with Parseltongue," Remus said. "Why would you think a Dementor was involved?"

Gupta looked back and forth between Ron and the others with a pensive expression. "Because I can say with authority that Mr. Weasley's mind and body are both perfectly fine... but at the moment, it appears as though his soul has been removed from his body!"

---

Elsewhere ...

At Sardeth's confession, Ron tensed and pointed his wand up at the towering naga. Sardeth merely smiled.

"Be at peace, Child of Man. I mean you no harm."

"I kinda doubt that since you just confessed to killing off your own people and you sent an army of illusory killer spiders after me."

The naga laughed with a soft ki-ki-ki. "It was not I who summoned the spiders. It was the magic of this place. Before any visitor may speak with me and seek my knowledge, they must first make a sacrifice and then pass a test. The nature of the test varies from visitor to visitor, but in your case, it required you to overcome your greatest fear in defense of another. The only spiders in my domain are the ones you brought with you concealed deep in the recesses of your own mind. I commend you for the bravery you showed in defeating them, though I must warn you against pushing yourself to such extremes when you return from whence you came. We are much closer to the source of Magic than you have ever been, and your spells are more potent here than they would be within the World of Man."

Ron considered that. "You said something about a sacrifice. I don't recall sacrificing anything to come here."

Sardeth laughed again in his strange sibilant way. "Yes. I must confess that I found the whole thing quite amusing. There have been many who have quested their way towards here only to be stymied by an inability to find the proper occult sacrifice that would open the spiritual door to this place. And now, a child has done so completely by accident simply through his willingness to sacrifice his own life in order to save another by means of a spell cast in the language of my people."

The boy did a double-take. It was only then that he realized he and Sardeth had been speaking Parseltongue this whole time. "The language of... You mean Parseltongue? That's actually the language of the naga?"

Sardeth nodded almost proudly. "The word naga is a human word for my kind even though no human has ever encountered one of us in the flesh. Our own name for our species was Paar'zheal which simply meant 'the people.' The first human to find his way here returned with the gift of our language which he called Parseltongue. And so that word passed into the vocabulary of your race." As Sardeth spoke, he slithered casually back and forth while gesturing with his many arms in a manner that strangely reminded Ron of how some of his professors gestured when lecturing. "The word 'naga' was one imposed by human wizards upon us when they sought to understand our mysteries through the lens of human mythology. It is the way of this realm to be shaped by belief and consensus, and so I accept naga as yet another name for my kind."

By this point, Ron had begun to relax. "The first human named your language Parseltongue? By any chance was that a bloke named Salazar Slytherin?"

"No, it was an ancient Egyptian wizard who your history books call Imhotep. But I have been visited by the one you speak of. As a young man, Salazar Slytherin taught himself the language of the Paar'zheal but with incredible difficulty as he had only the written texts of others to learn from. He feared that Parseltongue might become completely lost over time without a fresh supply of speakers, and so he asked for it to become a birthright to be passed down to his heirs and preserved forever. I granted his wish. Regrettably, I later realized that I had shortchanged the man. I knew little of human-kind then. I did yet not comprehend the concept of 'gender' since my own people reproduced asexually and I had never met a female human at that point. As a result, the magic I used to grant Slytherin's wish caused Parseltongue to pass down only among his male descendants." Sardeth shrugged, which Ron thought was an odd motion from someone with six arms. "These things happen when one steps beyond Reality in pursuit of one's desires. Precision is important when dealing with the Wild."

Ron didn't know how to respond to that so he changed subjects. "So people come here to get magical blessings from you and then go back. Does that mean I'm not trapped here or anything?"

"Of course not, child," the naga said almost genially. "You are free to leave whenever you wish, though the magic of my prison compels me to grant you some boon simply for coming here."

Ron nodded as he absorbed that. "Yeah, your ... prison. If you don't mind me asking, how exactly did you end up killing all the naga. Or all the Paar'zheal, I guess."

"Either term is appropriate now. And I killed no one. My race was undone by my actions, but there was no harmful intent on my part. Indeed, I foolishly thought that my plans would benefit all Paar'zheal. Back then, I was considered the greatest wizard among the naga, admired far and wide for my wisdom and power. But my heart chafed at how delineations of power tore at our society. Among the naga, there were powerful wizards, weak wizards, and the children of wizards who had no magic at all. This led to much social strife as the strong inevitably abused the weak who just as inevitably rose up with superior numbers against the strong. I judged this wrong, and in my arrogance, I sought to ensure that all naga should be equal in the blessings of Magic."

"What did you do?" Ron asked.

"I used forbidden rites to take myself beyond the gates of our world. Past the guildhalls of the Lares. Past the graveyards where the first gods slumbered fitfully in their tombs. Out, out into the deepest parts of the Wild from whence both the root and heart of Magic came. And there, I performed the greatest Working in the history of the Paar'zheal. I cast a spell that made our very language inherently magical. There would be no more need for wand or cauldron or carefully mastered incantation. The naga would speak his desire and by his will and word alone it would come to pass." He laughed again, though bitterly this time. "My people did not last a day."

"What happened?"

"Like all sentient beings, the Paar'zheal carried within themselves the capacity for self-destruction. Impetuousness when not trained to discipline and cruelty when not constrained by law or custom. Given limitless transformative power, they did not hesitate to use it for frivolous purposes or to revenge themselves on others over trivial slights. Irem, the City of 10,000 Pillars, was shattered unto ruin by what started as a disagreement over a bar tab. In the great Necropolis of Kemet, where we committed our dead to the Great Beyond, a grieving naga's wish to see his dead hatchlings once more brought forth a plague of what you would describe as inferi. The island of Mu sank beneath the waves so swiftly that I didn't even have time to learn whose ill-considered words doomed it. So it was in every city on every continent. Reality strained and then buckled and then came close to utter collapse before Magic came forth to judge us and found us lacking. And so, the Paar'zheal were undone. A great fire fell from the sky unleashing a conflagration that touched every inch of the world, and when it had passed, I alone remained to tell the story of the naga to those rare few who came to seek my blessing. But our cursed dead language echoed in the dreams of human wizards, a few of whom puzzled out its secrets to find their way here through hidden redoubts high atop the Himalayas, deep within the Amazon rainforest, buried beneath the Saharan dunes, or sunken far under the ocean depths. Of those few who have found me, only the one you call Slytherin had the wisdom to ask for something that might benefit others instead of just himself."

Ron thought about that for a few seconds. Then, an unpleasant thought came to him. "Did, um ... by any chance did a wizard named Tom Riddle visit you?"

Sardeth nodded. "He was the last before you. To my surprise, what he wanted most was knowledge of my people and how they fell into oblivion. He had much disdain for humanity, both wizards and non-wizards alike, and so he sought knowledge of how to more fully reject the humanity within himself. I found myself flattered by his admiration for my form, so I provided him with knowledge of rituals which, in time, would transfigure him bodily so as to gain naga features."

"Tom Riddle was a dark wizard. He ... did things to me."

Sardeth shrugged again. "I get so few visitors, Child of Man. Who am I to judge? If Tom Riddle's journey carries him too far into the Wild, perhaps he will join me here and I might have a companion for eternity."

Ron considered that but decided not to pursue the line of inquiry. "How long have you been here?"

"A difficult question to answer, I fear. Time in this place does not have a strictly linear progression. The entryways found by you and my various other supplicants are scattered in time as well as space, and anyway, when I grow weary of my loneliness, I have the means to force myself to slumber away centuries until my next visitor arrives. But to answer your specific question, my Great Working and the resultant destruction of my species occurred approximately three hundred years ago as you humans reckon time."

Ron nodded but then did a double-take. "Wait ... What?! Three hundred years? I'd think that more people would know about the naga if they'd ruled the world just three centuries ago before getting destroyed in a worldwide ball of fire from the heavens."

"You misapprehend my words, Child of Man. When I said that I annihilated all the other naga, I was not referring to all of my peers. I meant all naga who had ever existed. The Great Fire which came down from the Heavens did not strike in my own time but rather tens of millions of years before. The ancient ancestor creatures whose descendants eventually called themselves the Paar'zheal were exterminated long before any of those ancestors even bore a form such as this one. Before they even knew speech let alone magic. That is the true reason for my banishment into the infinite madness of the Wild, why I am forever barred from the world of my birth. Because I am an impossible anomaly – the last survivor of a race which never existed – and were I to slither back into your world, Reality itself would reject me and undo my existence even as it did my people."

Sardeth laughed again. "You should thank me, Child of Man. It was only after my most primitive ancestors were wiped out that room was made for yours. Tiny rodents who evolved into primates who evolved into men who evolved into wizards. You and your fellow humans are the heirs to my folly, the beneficiaries of my people's erasure. You have my congratulations."

"Um, thanks. So why don't more people, heck, any people know about this?"

"The human mind is poorly suited for travel into places which are nowhere and no-when. When you leave this place, you will remember little of your sojourn here and nothing of me or the fate of my people. Nothing save perhaps as an unconscious intuition that perhaps there is a reason that forbidden magic is best left ... forbidden."

Ron nodded. "Okay then, since you brought it up, will it be time for me to leave soon?"

"Very soon, child. The rules of my captivity say that I must reward you somehow for winning your way here. What blessing would you ask of me?"

The boy thought, but then, he remembered the lessons he'd been taught by his parents, and this time, there was no cursed diary to make him forget.

"Well no offense, Sardeth, but ... my Mum and Dad kind of taught me when I was growing up that I should be careful about what gifts I accept from strangers ... especially if they're magical creatures who, again no offense, seem a bit creepy."

Sardeth laughed once more. "For what it is worth, child, the thought of a world ruled by hairless mammals is quite disturbing to me as well." Then, Sardeth's serpentine body bent forward until his torso and head were low enough to look Ron in the eye. "Shall I simply look into your heart and grant unto you your heart's fondest wish?"

Ron blinked. "To be Head Boy and Quidditch captain?" he asked lamely.

Sardeth stared deeply into Ron's eyes, and the boy suddenly felt completely exposed, more so than if he were nude. "No, Child of Man. You want something else." Abruptly, the naga leaned back away from Ron. "But it is something I cannot give to you, though I see that for good or ill it will come to you one day regardless. Fate has marked you so. I hope when one day you are granted your desire, you find that it is worth whatever price you pay for it."

The great naga slithered back away from the boy and regarded him less intently. "So, if your fondest wish is beyond my power to grant, what other boon would you desire? I perceive that you are both too wise and too humble to ask for mere power. What other desire drives you?"

Ron thought for a moment and then looked up with sudden excitement. "You said I won't remember anything from here. Can you fix it so that I at least remember fighting off all those spiders? Maybe I won't be afraid of them as much.

Sardeth tilted his head as if studying the boy. Then, he reached forward and touched Ron's forehead with one of his fingertips while the other five arms made various occult gestures.

"It is done. The spiders of your mind are gone, defeated forever by you in psychic combat. Those nightmares at least will trouble you know more."

Ron smiled at that. "Thank you, Sardeth. I'm very grateful."

The naga bowed to Ron. "Go in peace, Child of Man."

And with that, Ron Weasley faded away from the prison-citadel of the Last Naga. Sardeth spent several minutes watching the spot from whence the boy had disappeared, a look of strange sadness on his face.

---

The Temple of Healing

Healer Gupta had only just made his dramatic pronouncement about the apparent loss of Ron's soul when the boy himself proved the healer wrong by gasping loudly and sitting up in bed. Naturally, there were several seconds of pandemonium, including a surprisingly high-pitched scream from Jim and a very loud expletive from Lily Potter, before Gupta yelled out. "SILENCE! You will all get hold of yourselves this instant or I will clear you from the ward!"

With that, he sat back down next Ron and conducted another psychic examination. When he was done, he spoke to the boy reassuringly but with an undercurrent of concern. "Tell me, Mr. Weasley. What's the last thing you remember?"

The boy seemed to spend a long moment in thought before finally looking up to the healer with a mild confusion. Truthfully, he had a very strong impression of listening to snakes hissing for a long time, but he couldn't give any context to that pseudo-memory. "Um, I remember Parvati falling and not being able to maintain the Samsara Charm on her, so I tried it with Parseltongue." Gupta frowned, and Ron blushed slightly. "I know you said not to, but she was dying and I couldn't think of anything else. How is she?"

"Parvati is fine, Mr. Weasley. Quite better for the last hour than you have been." The healer spent a few more minutes gazing deeply into his patients eyes. "Hmm, despite your ... condition over the last hour, you now appear to be in perfect health." And it seemed true, for color was already swiftly returning to Ron's cheeks, and he seemed full of energy. Gupta's eyes narrowed as he continued his Leglimency examination. "Better than before, in fact. Somewhat oddly, it appears that you have been completely cured of your arachnophobia!"

Gupta and several other healers spent another hour checking Ron's vitals before finally declaring that he would be kept overnight for observation but otherwise appeared to be in excellent health and should be released in the morning. Lily and Remus soon left, but Jim remained and watched over Ron throughout his medical review. For once, Jim's presence discomfited Ron, as the other boy seemed oddly intense. Possibly even angry. After the healers left, Jim sat down in a chair next to Ron's bed but said nothing at first.

"Jim?" Ron began, but the other boy put up a hand to stop him while he went through another mental calming exercise. Finally, after he'd collected himself, Jim raised a privacy Charm and then spoke.

"What. Were. You. Thinking?! Gupta told you that the Charm you used could be fatal if used with Parseltongue. And you did it anyway!"

Ron sighed and shook his head. "Jim, Parvati was dying. I had to do something."

"I know. I understand she was dying. What I don't understand is why you decided that it was okay to just ... substitute your life for hers? You have so many people who love you. Why do you value your own life so little?"

"It wasn't like that!"

"Wasn't it?!" Jim's voice rose. "For the last hour, I've felt like I was back on top of the Astronomy Tower only this time I was too late to catch you. All I could think of is 'what will I tell Ron's mother at his funeral?' This is the third time I've watched you almost die since May, and it's killing me. I need to know that you care about yourself enough to want to live."

Ron looked down, unable to maintain eye contact at first. "I wasn't trying to kill myself, this time," he said quietly. "I genuinely thought I could heal Parvati and break contact before I got hurt. But I am a Gryffindor, Jim. Do what's right instead of what's easy. Remember that? I couldn't just ignore a friend dying in front of me and more than ... well, than you could if you'd been there instead of me and known how to cast that spell. You can't expect me to be friends with the Boy-Who-Lived and not want to live up that standard. You just can't."

Jim stood up, still obviously displeased with his friend. "We'll talk a bout this more later. But you listen to me, Ronald Bilious Weasley. From now on, you are not allowed to die, do you hear me? I forbid it."

Despite his friend's intense demeanor, Ron laughed. "Orders acknowledged, captain."

Jim sighed. "Chess?"

---

That night...

Madanapala Patil was a proud man who loved his children. Unfortunately, in Wizarding India and for a wizard of Patil's background, loving one's children often meant making hard decisions on their behalf. Sometimes even decisions for which those same children might judge their fathers harshly. Ultimately, however, "for the good of the family" were the six magic words that, for good or ill, guided Patil's every action, including his current conversation with his daughter Parvati's future father-in-law.

"It pains me to say so, Madanapala, but I have concerns. Grave concerns." The Kumar Pasha was an exceedingly corpulent man, so much so that his jowls flapped as he emphasized the word grave. His weight also made the fez on his bald head seem disproportionately tiny, almost to the point of being humorous, not that Patil found anything humorous about the current conversation.

"Certainly," the Pasha continued, "I am pleased that my prospective daughter-in-law survived her fall, though it speaks poorly of her wisdom – not to mention her grace – that she should nearly fall to her death while being given a tour of one of our properties."

Patil winced, not just because of the implied insult to Parvati, but also to the Pasha's use of the word prospective rather than the word future which had been the word used for their prior conversations over the last few years. Surely the Pasha was not reconsidering the marriage over the day's events?!

Then, as if reading Patil's mind, the Pasha continued. "My concern at the moment is with the Weasley boy and the fact that he single-handedly saved your Parvati at the risk of his own life. I have made inquiries. The Weasleys, while Pure-blooded, are a poverty-stricken family barely able to keep a roof of their heads. Certainly, I had no interest in supporting Britain's most recent Dark Lord, but neither do I have truck with whose who magical society condemns as blood traitors. If nothing else, it's bad for business. Accordingly, it troubles me that the House of Patil now owes a life debt to the House of Weasley. The prospect of my Sanjeev buying into that life debt through marriage troubles me even more."

Patil opened his mouth to argue but could think of nothing to say. He could mention that Ron Weasley was a confidant of the Boy-Who-Lived, but he was unsure of whether the Pasha, who had never been to Britain, even knew who Jim Potter was. Finally, he gave up and threw himself on the Pasha's mercy.

"What would you have me do, Kumar Pasha?"

"I would have you resolve this life debt situation how ever you can, Honorable Patil. Until you do, the wedding of Sanjeev and Parvati shall be held in abeyance. Handle this, Patil. Whatever it takes."

---

The Rookery in Ottery St. Catchpole
Sometime earlier

It was the middle of the night in Britain when Luna Lovegood awoke from a most peculiar dream. She had many strange dreams, most of which she did not recall when she awoke, and already the memories of this one were fading. But for once, she clearly remembered a few details. She was floating through the air in an enormous cavernous space marked by a seemingly infinite number of stone columns. And from somewhere in the distance, she distinctly heard the sound of Ron Weasley talking, or more accurately hissing, with someone or something else that hissed back to him. She did not understand hisses herself, but nevertheless, she felt that the hissing conversation which she could not understand was somehow fraught with import. The dream ended quite abruptly, which was most likely why she was startled into wakefulness and remembered any of it at all.

The girl tried to remember more of the dream but then became distracted when a trio of particularly iridescent nargles flew over her face. For some reason, they glowed more brightly than she was accustomed to, and their colors were even more brilliant than usual. From this, the girl deduced that she must have observed something in her dream which was of incredible importance but which she could not presently understand and which, by morning, she would likely not remember at all. She smiled again at the beauty of her nargles, though she also felt a tinge of sadness because as far as she knew, there were no other heliopaths with whom she could share such beauty. In fact, it seemed that those who became aware of the creatures but who lacked her special gift recoiled from them in disgust. She could never understand why anyone could possibly be disgusted by such beauty simply because its colors could be found nowhere in nature and its shape was non-Euclidean. Then, her confusion over the issue caused a fourth nargle to spring into existence just long enough for her to shrug and decide it didn't matter, thereby causing the fourth creature to fade back into the folds of her thought-space.

"Of course," she said quietly to no one, "if people are so disturbed by the sight of nargles, it's a good thing they can't see wrackspurts."

Those creatures were disturbing even to her, which made her glad to think how rarely she generated them within her own thought-space. She often wondered why that was. Was it that she found them unpleasant to see and so naturally avoided those thoughts which gave rise to them? Or was she simply a naturally serene and gentle person and so was simply untroubled by the kind of thoughts that gave birth to wrackspurts, thus making them less familiar to her than nargles? It was a conundrum, one which immediately caused yet another nargle to manifest. This one dove down at her side, flew underneath her, and came up from the other side, a behavior which Luna found rather unusual for nargles. It was at that point that Luna looked up and noticed for the first time that the ceiling seemed quite close – only two or three feet above her instead of the six or seven to which she was accustomed.

Perplexed, she rolled over and was further surprised to see that she was floating a good four feet above her own bed. And most surprising of all to Luna was the fact that there was a second Luna Lovegood still lying in the bed underneath the covers, her eyes twitching as if she were in the midst of a most engrossing dream. Another nargle flickered into existence, and Luna reached out for it only to notice for the first time how strangely translucent her body now seemed to be in addition to its uncharacteristic state of "floatiness."

Luna looked down at her own sleeping body as more and more nargles were born of her confusion. "Well I must say," she finally said to no one, "this is decidedly peculiar. Even by my standards."

---

Elsewhere...

With the boy sent on his way, the Last of the Naga returned to his den and prepared to slumber once more. He felt (not knew but felt) that he would have at least one more visitor before the turn of the present century. It was quite possible that it would be Ron Weasley, returning to him once more after he had grown into his power. But the truth of that matter was beyond Sardeth's sight.

The naga slithered around in a circle, coiling his lower snake-body again and again before he laid his upper body down upon the coils. His last conscious thoughts were sad ones, for he quite liked the man-child who had come to visit under such extraordinary circumstances. He was at once entertained by the boy's courage and amused by his charming collection of neuroses. But Sardeth's dominant emotion was sadness over the boy's destiny. For he sensed through the eddies of Fate that one day the young Parselmouth would indeed be blessed with his heart's true desire, with that thing he secretly wanted more than any other blessing the Last Naga could give.

One day, Ron Weasley would save the life of the Boy-Who-Lived, no matter what the cost.

---

7 DAYS UNTIL AZKABAN

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Next: Harry Potter and the Marauder's Map, in which we finally learn how our main protagonist has been spending his summer.

The good news is that I've been getting lots of overtime. The bad news is that I've been getting lots of overtime. Writing has been sporadic and will likely continue for some time. But I'll do my best to get on some kind of schedule soon but no promises.

AN 1: I have a good friend whose son has been diagnosed with dyslexia and have spent some time listening to him talk about treatment options for the son. At some point, I was struck by the symptoms of dyslexia as they were explained to me and by Arthur Weasley's inability to correctly pronounce electricity and telephone even though he's implied to be an expert on Muggle culture. Added to this was Ron's famous troubles with pronouncing "Wingardium Leviosa." I mean, come on! How many of us were able to pronounce those two words perfectly after hearing Hermione say them once in the first movie.

AN 2: Minor editing on 4/17/17. Mainly the scene between Molly and Bill.