Chapter 12: Limbless Lizard
Harry tried the counter-charm to Petrificus Totalus on Sally Su, and nothing happened.
Harry pressed the button on his necklace to summon Dumbledore.
"ALL MUDBLOODS MUST DIE," the graffiti said. Did that include him, considering his mom was muggle-born? It certainly included Hermione.
Ron took a step toward Sally Su, and Harry grabbed him.
"You see how she's all stiff? If she were just hurt and collapsed her elbow wouldn't stick above her shoulder like that. She's petrified. Waiting won't hurt any."
"Lumos," said Hermione. Her wand lit brighter than his ever had, filling the corridor with a bright yellow light. "I feel better with it brighter," she said.
Harry did too.
Footsteps in the corridor. A group of older Ravenclaws striding down. They spotted Harry, Hermione and Ron, looked at what they were looking at, and stopped behind them.
"What's that?"
"Girl's petrified. Dunno what spell. We called for Dumbledore."
A different group of students came around the opposite corner, one of them nearly stepping on Sally Su, and shrieks filled the corridor.
Draco came around the corner, took it in, read the message, and laughed. "The Heir of Slytherin has returned." He pointed to Hermione. "Careful, or you'll be next."
The sneakoscope in Harry's pocket begin to whir as he raised his wand, trying to decide on a spell.
Dumbledore appeared from behind the gaggle of students, Professor Snape right behind him. The Headmaster said, "I am beginning to think, Mr. Malfoy, that you must enjoy detention." He stopped before the still form of Sally Su and waved his wand over her.
He frowned, cast several more spells, "Severus, prepare a Mandrake Restorative Draught."
Professor Snape, "I could get fresh mandrake tonight from a supplier in Angola, but it'll cost a pretty penny."
"I'll search the couch cushions," said Dumbledore. "The faster the better."
Snape set off at a brisk walk, and Dumbledore took the mirror from his coat and called for Professor Trewalney.
"Who was first?" Professor Dumbledore asked.
Hermione and Harry raised their hands. Hermione said, "No one's disturbed the scene in the time we've been here."
"Excellent. What did you see?"
"Just this," said Harry. "It hasn't changed any. We were walking, and there it was."
After asking several questions they didn't have answers to, Dumbledore waved his wand, and a curtain blocked off view of the scene, some students sticking around to see what happened anyway.
Ron said, "I can't believe there are still people who want to kill muggle-borns." He shook his head.
"Sterilization is more than plenty."
Harry jerked, and stared at Ron.
Hermione said, "Sterilization?"
Ron nodded. "Some people want to have a breeding program, but that seems even worse to me, you know? If anti-miscegenation laws aren't enough, though I think they are, muggle-born just shouldn't have children."
Hermione said, "Did you just say what I think you just said?"
"Hmm?"
"Ron, you're a blood-purist?"
Ron patted her shoulder. "Don't be so angry. It's nothing personal. We have to do something. I wish it weren't true."
"What the hell?" said Hermione.
All Harry knew about blood-purism was that Voldemort had been a blood-purist, and various offhand comments he'd heard older students make about Slytherins. There weren't any blood-purists in Gryffindor, and Ron certainly couldn't be one. So Harry said, "Ron, are you still confused?"
Ron said, "It's like with any hybrids. Like mules. Breeding with muggle-borns reduces fertility. That's why there are fewer wizards than there used to be, and the muggle-born surge will only make it worse. We could go extinct. And it lowers magical power. The great wizards of old could fight a hundred wizards at once. Not even Dumbledore could do that now."
Hermione said, "You think I ought to be sterilized or become some pureblood's sex slave?"
Ron looked affronted. "No, no, you're not listening to me. I already said I'm not in favor of an organized breeding program. And it wouldn't be sex slaves anyway. It would be very orderly."
Harry drew his wand.
Hermione said, "Harry, no!" and grabbed his wrist. She bit her lip, gears turning, and her voice, though rough and near to tears, was quiet and measured. "If great wizards from the past really could take on a hundred wizards at once, isn't that just because, before magical schools were built, lots of wizards were bad at magic? You had great wizards, just like now, but you also had lots of really incompetent wizards hardly stronger than modern third-years. I'm sure Dumbledore could beat a hundred third-years at once. More even."
Ron frowned. "I bet, they were stronger than third-years, but, the main thing is there are so many more muggles than wizards even though we're so much better. How does that make any sense? It's why our population's gone down. If we don't fix the problem, there won't be any of us left in a few generations."
Harry kicked Ron's shin, hard enough to tear skin, and Ron yelped, hopping on one leg. Harry said, "Shut up, and sod off. There's nothing wrong with my parents having me."
Ron stopped hopping, and rubbed his shin. "You're being very irrational. You don't have to get angry. Your parents could've still had you, maybe, just your father should've married a pureblood, and had your mom on the side."
Harry raised his wand, Hermione having let go. His vision was red, his hearing was a roar, and all he wondered was why he hadn't learned any spells meant for causing pain.
"Expelliarmus." Harry's wand flew out of his hand, and Percy snatched it from the air.
"Ten points from Gryffindor for pointing your wand at a fellow student. Ten more from Gryffindor for you being an idiot." That last directed at Ron. Percy said, "I don't know where you found that vile crap, but did you even look into what the other side had to say before swallowing it?"
"I-"
"I guess not. You just liked the smell of it too much? Muggle birthrates are falling. Many of the richest parts have declining populations. When contraception is available, and children are an economic burden, not an asset, birthrates fall. That's new to the muggles, but it's been our reality for millennia."
"You can't compare wizards to muggles," said Ron.
"Why not? Tell me how it's different," said Percy.
Ron looked for something to say, couldn't find it, looked again.
Percy said, "I am making you read even if I have to press your face so hard onto the book your nose breaks. Maybe you won't be so ignorant after."
"But-"
"Be quiet," said Percy. He bowed to Harry and Hermione. "I'm sorry for my brother. He's an idiot, but don't hold it against him. He's only eleven." He gripped Ron's ear, tugging him down the hall, around the corner, out of sight.
Harry had shown that kid his invisibility bedsheet, and his magic glasses. He'd been toying with telling him what he'd seen in the Mirror of Erised. And the whole time Ron had been thing horrible thought that couldn't possibly be true?
They couldn't be true, could they?
Hermione said, "He's probably still confused."
"Good riddance to him," Harry murmured.
#
#
The Gryffindor common room was alive with rumors about the Chamber of Secrets and the Monster of Slytherin, which had to be snake, though no one could think of a snake that petrified. And about the Heir of Slytherin, who, considering how complicated magical inheritance was, might be any Slytherin at all.
Most of the students treated it as a joke, strangely unconcerned, but Harry listened. His mind, when not thinking of Ron, was wrapped up by his theory that Voldemort's wraith was drifting through the castle wall, attacking students and killing cats and only he could hear it, but something in the talk about magical snakes niggled at his mind.
#
#
It wasn't till classes had ended the next day and he and Hermione were in one of the library's study rooms doing homework that he made the connection. "I can talk to snakes."
Hermione stared.
"I don't think I've ever told you. It's not important. But suppose the culprit is a snake. It hisses. I hear whispering, but everyone else just hears a little hiss that sounds like wind, or water in a pipe."
He sat back, considering the elegance of that explanation. It was perfect. It might not be right, but it was perfect.
Hermione said. "That makes you a parseltongue. Like Salazar Slytherin."
Slytherin had done it too? "Next time I hear the voice, I'll pay attention to whether what I'm hearing is really English."
Hermione said, "I'll listen for hissing. But if you had a snake, next time you heard the whispering you could ask your snake if it heard the whispering too. And we could experiment with the limits of parseltongue."
They spent an hour researching snakes, (Harry felt partial to getting a ball python) then settled down to the more practical question of how to get a snake. Hermione suggested a spell she'd read about called "Serpensortia," and while investigation proved it was fairly easy, it also turned out to be just a conjuring spell, which meant the snake would disappear after an hour or two.
Harry said, "Couldn't we just make it permanent?"
Hermione said, "That's hard to do with something living. We'd have to borrow a philosopher's stone, and get help from older students. And even then..." Animal Transubstantiation was not a subject the first-year course dwelt on, but they'd picked up from older students that it was hard and there was a lot you just couldn't do. "Couldn't we just catch a snake?"
Harry said, "It's winter. They're hibernating. We could just ask a Slytherin. Loads of them have snakes." The letter said only cats, owls, or toads, but Harry had yet to see anyone taken to task for having something else.
Hermione said, "If the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, it's probably by a Slytherin. We'd tip them off. Isn't there anyone else who might have a snake?"
Harry's eyes widened. Divination was a must for his third-year electives. "I know someone who probably has a snake. And he even owes me a present.
#
#
Fang politely moved aside to give them more room on the sofa, and Harry explained that he'd like a snake, and mentioned the idea of a ball python.
"Don't have any ball pythons," said Hagrid. "I've got an Ophies Amphipterotai egg, which yeh have probably just heard called 'a winged snake, and I've got an Agathodaemon egg. Ophies are aggressive, so I'd go with the Agathodaemon. Relation of Ouroboros. Damn smart, earth connection, tunnels right through the ground when it wants. Healing powers. Survives off affection, small rodents, and whatever dark magic it can catch, which is why people used to keep them as house or farm guardians. Some places, they still do. Sound alright?"
"Sounds great," said Harry, a little overwhelmed.
Hagrid rummaged through a cabinet. "Got an egg in here somewhere, in stasis at a day from hatching. It'll want milk the first day-I'll make you up a bottle-milk, rodents and bugs fer a week thereafter, then drop the milk. Don't let it at any cheese. They like it but it ain't good for 'em. Grapes are fine, but in moderation, and nothing seedless. Grape leaves, and a bit of wine on special occasions. Various dark creatures, if yeh can find them. Grabby shadows, invasive billywigs, I'll make yeh a list. Take it ter the greenhouse from time ta time so it can get some dirt and leafy greens. Ah, here it is." Hagrid held up a bright green and gold egg, a little larger than a chicken's egg. "As for hatching it. Bury the egg about three inches deep in a box of dry, sandy soil. Get the soil nice and toasty, like it's in the sun on a warm day. I'll lend yeh some charcoal. Then sit where yeh buried the egg. I suggest wearing trousers, but none too thick or your warmth won't come through. And keep a book in reach, yeh'll be sitting for hours."
Hagrid put together a page of instructions, some charcoals, a brazier for the charcoals, the snake milk and powder to mix more snake milk, the box ,which was about three square feet, a large bag of soil to put in the box. Harry put most of it in his expanded bag, but the box and large bag of soil didn't fit, so Hagrid cast feather light charms on them.
They got weird looks carrying them to the dorms, but no one stopped them.
Hermione wanted to do it in the common room, so she could see, but Harry didn't want any prefects interfering. He went up the stairs to the first-year boys' room, and Hermione followed him.
"What are you doing?"
"There's no rule saying I can't be up here," she said.
"Ron will be in here eventually."
"I don't care."
She had that set to her jaw that some other boys had described as 'bossy,' so rather than arguing, Harry said, "Wait a moment," opened the door just enough to slip through, and closed it behind himself.
Tidiness had been a necessary habit in his cupboard, but he'd let it go since coming to Hogwarts. He stuffed his own stuff in his trunk, given it was closer than his cabinet, and kicked the other boys' stuff under their beds. No dirty laundry, thankfully, the house-elves must've already been through, but parchment, books, games, some strange stuff in a bowl Tucker had left out, some weird snapping plants of Neville's that he decided were good conversation pieces and ought to be left visible, three board games in progress, and wads of half-eaten food that he threw in the trash.
He cleaned Hedwig's droppings, though it looked as if the house-elves had done that recently too, then opened a window to clear out that weird smell they could never quite get rid of.
"Alright, Hermione, come in!"
She looked around curiously and said, "It's not so different from the girls' room, but why is the window open? It's cold outside."
"Just wanted some fresh air.
He set up the brazier next to his bed, pouring the charcoal in, and Hermione picked up a magazine he'd missed. "What's this?"
Harry saw the cover and said, "Nenenenanananenanenena"
Hermione opened it, turned bright red, said, "Oh my," and shut it.
"That's Ray's!" Ray had been 12 for two months, shaved once a week, and talked a lot about which girls had nice big jugs.
Hermione said, "You haven't looked at it, have you?"
"Of course not. I mean, he showed me, but I didn't like it." He'd thought it was weird.
Hermione cracked it open and took another peak, one eye shut. "The way the pictures move... She closed it again and laughed. "What until I tell Eloise and Tatiana about this. The other day they were saying they thought Ray was cute."
Harry said, "Do you think Ray's cute?"
Hermione shrugged. "He's okay, but he's not living this down anytime soon."
"What about me?" said Harry, before he could stop himself. "I mean, do the girls think I'm cute?"
Hermione frowned. "The girls are waiting to see what you look like when you've gotten taller and bought a comb."
Harry touched his hair. It had always been wild, but, even with his paltry abilities as a metamorphmagus, he ought to be able to get it to do whatever he wanted.
Hermione sett up the box, and before long they had the egg buried in sand, the sand being warmed by the brazier beneath it, and Harry sitting on top in his muggle clothes, which he'd reparoed and reductoed till they fit pretty well and didn't look too bad, though he hadn't yet managed the charm to make them permanently whatever color he wanted.
Hermione sat on his bed, reading Year with the Yeti.
Ron opened the door, saw them, and shut the door.
Hermione reached through the hole in the box and vanished one of the charcoal lumps off the brazier, as the sand in the box was getting uncomfortably hot.
Harry opened his mother's essay collection on muggle-borns, Magic and the Muggle, but the start at least was complicated stuff about Magical Inheritance and he could barely make heads or tails of it, even with a reference book in hand for the technical terms. He understood the point though. There wasn't any reason to believe mating with muggle-borns would reduce fertility, and for very well understood reasons having to do with pins, (which were not so much like genes as most muggle-borns assumed) muggle-borns were actually slightly less likely to produce a squib than purebloods, once you controlled for muggle-borns' greater propensity to marry muggles.
Hermione took a turn sitting on the box so he could use the loo, and instead of coming right back he popped down to the Great Hall and got dinner for the both of them. Biscuits with honey, and some cold cuts.
They each used the Mouth Cleaning charm for hygiene's sake, and Harry retook his place on the box while Hermione went to the loo.
Hermione was back on the box, a chapter into Travels with Trolls (none of the Lockhart books were very long) when Ben walked in, saw Hermione, and stopped.
"What are you doing here?" said Ben.
"Harry and I are hatching an egg together," said Hermione.
"An egg?" said Ben, moving to his bed. "Isn't it a little early for children? Though I hear Harry has wedding rings."
"I will turn into a lion and hit you," said Harry.
"Weddings rings?" said Hermione.
"Welch Shirby. Christmas. As a joke."
"Welch got us a joint present and you haven't given me my half?"
He fumbled around the bottom of his expanded bag, and pulled out both rings. Hermione took hers and held it up to the light.
She said, "Real gold, and real artificial gemstones I think. Diamond and emerald. Dead cheap in magical Britain, but still. I'll have to thank Welch." She slipped it on.
"Aah!" said Harry.
"Relax. It's just jewellery. And I put it on my index finger. Self-sizing too. Gold and gems take magic well, we could make charming them a project."
"I'm not wearing mine," said Harry.
"You don't have to if you don't want to," said Hermione, turning hers over on her finger. "I don't usually wear jewellery, but this is quite the nicest jewellery I've ever had."
Harry continued the book. The technical part ended, and it veered toward interesting. The sections seemed to be arranged in the order his mother had written them, but he thought the technical stuff should be at the back. What followed was more interesting.
A very old legend of wizards and witches had it that the first humans had been wizards and witches. But a woman named Morbrink had chosen between two men to be her husband, and the one scorned, a wizard named Squib, fell into a jealous rage and cursed her so that her descendants would lack magic. She'd had a child, and the first 'squib,' the first muggle, had been born.
The traditional pureblood understanding of the myth was that it meant that muggles were innately inferior, the outcome of a dark curse.
His mother thought that, if the legend were true, or something like it was, then muggles were really wizards and witches suffering from a Hereditary Curse, a disease, and they deserved compassion, and treatment. If a way of breaking the curse could be found, then not just squibs, but every muggle in the world would become magic.
It had hardly been mentioned in the biography he'd read, yet he got the idea it was the holy grail of his mother's research.
He flipped back a few pages to re-read an earlier part, and saw the dedication at the beginning of the section.
For Petunia Evans, because reality need not be so cruel.
Several minutes passed before Harry was calm enough to continue.
Despite wanting to cure it, his mother thought being a muggle wasn't such a horrible condition. Like being blind or missing a hand, it did not cut at the core of being human, which was the human mind. Rather, it had forced muggles to lean on those minds more heavily.
Neville came in, froze when he saw Hermione, and didn't make any sharp comments when Hermione told him she was hatching an egg.
Dean said, "Are you going to be here all night?"
"Maybe. Until the egg hatches."
Ron finally came in. "What are you doing?" he asked.
Harry was silent.
Hermione said, "We're hatching a-"
Harry said, "We're not talking to you until you apologize."
"You're the one who kicked me."
Harry wanted to say, 'And I'll kick you again if you like,' but he'd just said he wasn't talking to him, so he held his silence, and Ron, after a long moment and glare, snatched his nightclothes from his cabinet and changed in the bathroom.
When he came out, he sat on his bed, staring and Harry and Hermione, and to Harry's surprise, said nothing, though he seemed to consider it several times.
A knock on the door. A high voice said, "Everyone's decent in there?"
"Yes," said Harry.
Fei-Fei, Tatiana and Eloise came in, all in their nightclothes. "Hermione, you're sleeping in the boys' dorm tonight?"
"I'm not sleeping. Harry and I are hatching an egg together."
The three girls looked at each other and burst into laughter. "Finally finished with all your detentions and now you're hatching an egg? What kind of egg?"
"Find out when it hatches," said Hermione. "Some time tonight."
"Can we stay?" said Tatiana.
All the boys opened their mouths to say no, but Hermione beat them to it with a resounding "Of course. While you're here, you should ask Ray to show you this really interesting magazine he has."
"Um." said Ray.
"What magazine?" said Fei-Fei.
Ray grabbed it off the foot of his bed, clutched it tight to his chest, flipped over, buried his face in his pillow, and would not respond.
Harry returned to his book while Hermione fought off further inquiries about what exactly it was they were hatching. His mother had moved on to why there were so many more muggles than wizards and witches. It had to do with economic incentives to have or not have children, manual labor, and contraception. Like what Percy said, but he understood it better now.
They doused their lights when the bugle sounded, and Tatiana started telling a ghost story.
She was getting to the part where the ghost noticed that the man she was trusting to solve her murder had exorcism candles in his pockets when Alice Bell burst in, her wand a bright light.
Alice said, "What the bleeding hell are four girls doing in the boys' dorm after dark?"
Hermione said, "Harry and I are hatching an egg together."
"What? No. I don't want to know. Tell me in the morning. All of you girls, get to your rooms. You too Miss Granger. And Harry. Why are you sitting on a sandbox?"
"I'm hatching the egg," said Harry. "It's nothing dangerous. Hagrid gave it to me."
Alice rubbed her temples. "In the morning. Girls, out." She grabbed Hermione's arm, and bustled the four other girls. Ray breathed a massive sigh of relief when the door shut.
Harry pulled a blanket over himself, cast lumos,and went back to his book.
#
#
Two hours later, Harry was rubbing his head and squinting at the book. It had gotten technical again. There was even math. The slow, steady breathing of the other boys lulled him-no one had any trouble falling asleep when you could cast a light sleeping spell on yourself, though you weren't supposed to-and he was having trouble staying awake.
The sand shifted beneath him. A sound like a small crack.
Harry folded the book, slipped it in his bag, eased himself off the box, and grabbed the milk bottle. The sand trembled, and he fought the temptation to unbury the egg. Hagrid had said to let it struggle.
A tiny head poked out of the sand. Big, round pupils in a thin ring of green, its scales a mix of leafy green, purplish blue, and branch brown.
He put his hand next to it, and said "Come," knowing what he spoke wasn't English.
It wriggled onto his hand, bright, surprisingly cute, and hardly larger than an earthworm. Harry extended the bottle and said, "Milk." With no more explanation than that, the baby snake latched onto the nipple of the bottle and drank more than Harry would've thought would fit in it.
It unclamped its jaws from the nipple of the bottle, tasted the air with its tongue, and said, "Mummy?"
Harry held in a laugh, pulled a blanket over his shoulders, crept out of the room, and tip-toed into the common room holding the snake and the bottle, everything else he might need in the expanded bag slung at his side.
He settled into a chair by the fireplace, wondering if he should light it, and the snake said, "Mummy, hurts."
"Hurts?"
"Hurts," said the snake, and claylike white-yellow nodules came out of an open spot near the end of it, moist and smelling of ammonia.
Harry shuddered, took out his wand, vanished the nodules, cast a cleaning charm on his hand, and the little snake said, "Hunger."
Harry thrust the bottle at it again. Its little head lifted, clamped on the nipple, little gulps moving down its unending neck.
He raised the bottle, concerned that the baby snake had already drunk its own body weight, and the snake rose with it, not giving up its grip, just the end of it resting on his palm.
When it had had its fill it sank slowly onto his palm, dropped onto his lap, crawled up his shirt, and curled in the hollow where his stomach met his chest.
"Mummy," it said, and slept.
Harry shivered, and stroked it through his shirt, pulling the blanket over himself so the snake would be warm as it slept. Snakes weren't normally so friendly, he was almost sure. Perhaps just agathodaemons. He should've been reading a book on snake care, not on muggle-borns.
He reached out with charismancy, searching for Hermione with his mind, counting on the magic connection between best friends. After several minutes of that not working, the snake discharged on his stomach and Harry said, "Eeek!"
After cleaning that up, he said to the snake, "If you need to pee or poop or whatever you're doing, don't do it on me."
"Poop?"
He looked in its eyes, sent it an image, and said "Poop."
He didn't think it understood, but the opening of a door distracted him. Hermione stood at the top of the stairs, blinking through the glare of his lumos.
"It hatched?" She ran down the stairs, saying, "I heard you scream."
"I didn't scream."
"Who was it then?"
"It wasn't a scream. I was just surprised." He held out the snake.
"Can I see hold it?" said Hermione, and took it from his hands before he had the chance to say yes. "I didn't think it would be so cute," she squealed.
The snake looked at her cautiously and said, "Daddy?"
"Hermione," said Harry.
"Her miney?"
"Hermione,"
"Her my knee?"
"Close enough," said Harry.
"Not your knee," said the snake.
Harry laughed, and Hermione said, "That hissing is really a language? It talks like a human in it? How smart is it?"
Harry shrugged. "Smarter than a human newborn."
Hermione shook her head, wearing her 'thinking even harder than usual' face and dropped it when the snake crawled up her arm and onto her neck. "It tickles, it tickles, it tickles," she said, but waved Harry off when he tried to take it.
The names discussion was dampened by their inability to tell whether it was a boy snake or a girl snake. (When Harry asked, it said something in parseltongue that translated in Harry's head as "undefined objects: clarify.")
It discharged on Hermione, and Harry laughed. He made up a new bottle of milk, and they sat together on one of the larger chairs, the snake once more curled on his sternum.
#
#
Light, footsteps, and whispers brought Harry half out of sleep. He should wake up the rest of the way, but whatever he was leaning against was too warm and comfortable. He turned to get a better hold of it, and something sharp dug into his stomach.
It felt like an elbow.
Harry's eyes popped open. Other students were looking at him, strange smiles on their faces. Alice Bell said, "You two are just too cute." She held a camera.
Harry said, "Hermione."
"Pee on me again?" she mumbled, still asleep.
"Hermione." He shook her shoulder, and she woke, taking in morning in the common room, the early risers already dressed and ready for breakfast, but hanging around the common room to see whatever it was Aitches had been hatching, Alice Bell frozen in the act of showing off a photo of Hermione and Harry snuggling as they slept.
Alice Bell said, "Harry pees on you?"
Harry pulled the snake out from under his shirt. It had gotten larger in the night, almost twice as large size as before, growing with the speed only magic creatures could muster. "This pees on us," he said. "Though it's more like a thick paste."
After a long silence, while Harry wondered why everyone was staring at him quite the way they were, Percy stepped over and said, "You can't have a snake. School rules are an owl, or a toad, or a cat."
Harry was ready for this objection. "Lots of students have other animals. You had a rat. It turned to be a wizard, but that doesn't help your case. Jordan Lee-"
"Lee Jordan," said Hermione.
"Lee Jordan has a tarantula. Half the Slytherins have snakes, and half the Ravenclaws have ravens. The Hufflepuffs..." none of the Hufflepuffs had badgers. They were very bad pets. "Half the Hufflepuffs have cats that are really kneazles, which aren't technically cats, and that goes for Gryffindor too. The school clearly isn't serious about the pet rules."
Alice said, "Cats, Owls and Toads are treated as examples. Something small, low maintenance, easy to keep inside. But the rule is one. One. You have an owl, and we've already been overlooking the spider in your hair since it's small, but you can't have three."
"You know about Phil?" No one had ever noticed Phil when he'd lived with muggles.
"It's hard to miss a little speck of magic running around your hair. Everyone's noticed."
Ron, standing at the back of the crowd, turned pale and said, "Harry has a spider in his hair?"
Hermione said, "It's a Christmas present. From Hagrid. Harry can't turn down a Christmas present from a staff member, can he?"
Alice paused.
"Right," said Harry. "It's a late Christmas present from Hagrid. And it's to me and Hermione, so we still have one pet each, if you forget the spider, which you should, because there are loads of spiders anyway. And, I don't know if you know this, but I've been going to see Hagrid for special training. It's sort of a secret why, but this has something to do-"
Alice said, "You see Hagrid twice a week to practice charismancy, right? Everyone knows that."
They did? "So Hagrid is an instructor of mine, appointed by Professor Dumbledore, and he gave me this snake as part of training. I have to keep it."
Percy said, "You can't have a snake in Gryffindor tower."
"I know it's the sign of Slytherin, and they're our rivals, but-"
"They're evil," said Percy.
"A lot of Slytherins are jerks, sure but evil is a little strong."
"I meant snakes are evil."
Harry gaped. "How are they evil? They just want to eat a rat twice a week and spend the rest of the time sleeping somewhere warm and safe."
Alice said, "Sorry, but keeping a snake in Gryffindor tower would be like dressing the dorm in silver and green. You'll have to keep it somewhere else."
Ron said, "What if it's not a snake? What if it's a limbless lizard?"
Harry turned to tell Ron to butt out and stay away, and not vocalize whatever stupidity passed through his head, but Alice beat him to it.
"That's the dumbest idea I've heard in weeks." She nodded thoughtfully, and said to Percy. "Your brother might be suited to a career in the ministry. If it's just a limbless lizard... Excellent thinking, Ron." She raised his voice to make sure the whole common room would hear. "Alright. I don't want anyone looking up whatever that is-"
"An agathodaemon," said Hermione.
"I don't want anyone looking up agathodaemons and telling me they're snakes. If you see that written anywhere, it's a mistake. They're limbless lizards. And I'm going to have to talk to Hagrid and Professor McGonagall, but it's my understanding at present that it's not Harry's, it's a pet given to Hermione for Christmas by a staff member so that Harry can use it as a longterm project under the supervision of his duly appointed charismancy tutor." She paused. "I admit that doesn't make a lot of sense, but the paperwork will be impressive. Harry, just make sure it doesn't eat anyone else's pet."
It wasn't big enough to eat other pets yet. Maybe in a few days it could manage a mouse, if it kept growing quickly, but he didn't think anyone had a mouse. "Sure." He spoke to the snake "Don't eat anything unless I tell you too. You could get in tro-"
Alice yelled, "Harry!"
"Yes?"
"You're talking to the snake?"
"Yes."
"You're a parselmouth?"
"That's why Hagrid gave him to me. Because I can talk to snakes. And limbless lizards. I know it's not really a Gryffindor thing, but..." He trailed off as he saw how the other students were staring. He'd guessed they wouldn't be thrilled, but from the way they were staring, talking to snakes was a thousand times worse than having one.
This was the sort of thing Ron would've known.
Harry said, "There's a Gryffindor who can speak to snakes, but not any Slytherins who can turn into lions, so we're winning right?"
"Maybe," said Percy, very weakly.
"I'm a Gryffindor. I bleed red and gold." Red anyway. "My parents were Gryffindors, Head Boy and Head Girl. I turn into a lion and romp in the snow." He was about to turn into a lion to prove his point when Hermione grabbed his arm. "Let's give everyone a chance to get used to the idea," she said, and pulled him away.
#
#
Breakfast was a strange affair.
With one hand, Harry rolled a thin pancake around some berries. With the other, he bottle fed the snake, which was getting so large it hardly fit in his palm; it had wrapped a couple coils through his fingers. He could almost hear it growing as it chugged. A third of the table was glaring, a third was intrigued, and a third had better things to do.
George, who'd claimed a space next to the day's chief entertainment, said, "Is that cow milk?"
Hermione said, "Hagrid gave us a powder. We mix it with water. Just milk the first day, Hagrid said."
The snake dropped off his hand onto the table. A couple girls shrieked, and few chairs slid back, and when Harry picked the snake up it was downing a blackberry bigger than its head, and it got the berry swallowed before Harry could pull it out. Even a few of the glarers cracked a smile at that.
Neville said, "W-What's its name?"
"Lenny," said Harry. Not his first choice, but a snake named Lenny would be harder to hate than Deathbite or Mouseterror.
"So it's a boy?"
"Maybe."
"It's a boy." Harry turned to see Daphne Greengrass, a Slytherin first-year, standing behind him.
"You really have a snake." she said.
Harry said, "Heavens no. This isn't a snake. Gryffindors don't have snakes. It's a limbless lizard. "
She giggled.
"But how do you know he's male?"
"If I may?" She held out a hand.
"Lenny, she wants to hold you."
The snake looked at Daphne Greengrass, flicked the air with his tongue, and said, "Okay."
He handed it to Daphne, who stared at Harry. "You really are a parselmouth!"
"Yes. Its gender?"
"Um. Sure." She flipped Lenny over. "See this part? The cloaca?" Where the discharges had come out. "The tail behind it is longer and thicker, than it tapers quickly at the end. That's enough to guess, but to really be sure... You have to really know what you're doing here, but..." She held it near the end, bent it, rolled back some skin, and two red prongs stuck out of a vent. "Hemipenes."
"Stop!" said Lenny, and darted out of Daphne's hand onto Harry's chest.
"He didn't like it," said Harry. He wouldn't have liked it either.
Harry moved into the empty seat that was usually Ron's, motioning for Daphne to take the chair he'd vacated. Once she was sitting between Harry and Hermione, they grilled her on limbless lizard care, unconcerned by the renewed glares in response to their inviting a Slytherin to sit at Gryffindor table.
"...the white pasty stuff is urates..."
"...feces too..."
"...if it's grown that much, it should've shed, but if it's magical..."
"...pass the butter..."
...are you really the Heir of Slytherin?"
Harry paused, remembering what Hermione had said when she'd pulled him aside before breakfast.
"It's just like what Professor Orphiel said about the riding. Own it, and it won't be an issue. We'll act like there's nothing wrong with talking to snakes, and people will be tempted to believe us."
Harry said, "Who knows. The Potters are an old family, and I don't understand magical inheritance. Maybe you're the Heir of Slytherin, Daphne. Or Professor Sprout. But I didn't open any Chamber of Secrets, and I didn't petrify Sally Su or write that trash on the wall."
George placed a small photo in front of them.
Harry and Hermione sleeping in a big red chair, his head resting on her shoulder, the blanket fallen down to expose their clothes, no movement but their breathing.
Harry snatched it off the table, and Fred reached over Daphne and put another right where it had been. "And one for you too," Fred said, giving another copy of the photo to Hermione.
Fred had a box of them. Harry realized what he'd been doing while absent from breakfast.
"The Heir of Slytherin," said George, "Napping with his muggle-born best friend. With very bad bed hair."
Fred said, "You should've seen how red he turned when he woke."
"Thought someone had him hit with the curse of the tomato."
Fred said, "Must've hit Hermione with it too a moment later."
George, "Wish I had a picture of that,"
"A picture of this?" said Fred, taking another square of glossy paper from his box.
Harry made a grab for it, and Fred let him have it.
"Plenty more where that came from," said the red-head.
Like all wizard photos, the picture moved, a short video loop, this one longer than most. It started with Harry snuggling up closer to Hermione, and ended with Harry holding the snake out.
Harry blushed even redder than he had in the morning, and looked at the table. Lenny said, "Danger?"
Harry said, "Do your powers include rewinding time?"
The snake blinked, once and slowly. "A sprig of thyme?" it said, sounding hungry.
That was a pun, wasn't it? Or genuine confusion. Just a coincidence, except it was the second pun, wasn't it? Lenny had made a pun on Hermione's name earlier. Not your knee, he had said. English puns translated into parseltongue? Was parseltongue just hissy English? Meaning French wizards couldn't speak it? Or he'd have to learn French to talk to French snakes? That didn't make sense.
He thought about it as breakfast went on, as Malfoy came over to fetch Daphne and got in an argument about how there was no way Harry Potter was the Heir of Slytherin, and was probably faking being a parselmouth anyway, and didn't Harry notice that it was Ron arguing with him, saying Harry definitely wasn't the Heir of Slytherin but definitely was a parselmouth.
How was it that Lenny already knew so many words when he had just been born? How had he known what a knee was, or thyme? How could he parse sentences that depended on grammar for meaning?
A stir ran through the Great Hall like a gust of wind, and Harry looked up to see Sally Su, mobile once more, walking between the tables, eyes locked on him.
:::
This chapter drove me batty. That might be because the news in America is disrupting my mood, or because of the hard choice over whether to make Ron a blood-purist. I've seldom wanted an editor so badly, and am curious to see what y'all think of that choice.
I wrote a book. It's good. I actually had beta readers for that, and took my time with tough decisions. It's called Monstrosity (by J L L), and you can buy the ebook on Amazon. Please do.
I sometimes worry I'm treating Harry as if he's 6 months to a year older than he is. But I'm not planning on writing a second year, so it's now or never for certain scenes. (There will be no real romance though. Kids that young do sometimes "date," but I'm not writing this that way.)
(Kid that young definitely sometimes talk about 'nice big jugs,' tho I get the feeling they forget they did so as they get older.)
Agathodaemons are an old Greek myth. They're snakes and guardians spirits, protecting people, households, and vineyards, providing luck, health and wisdom. In some versions of the myth, they have human heads. In others, they don't. I've made of them what I like.
Once upon a time, it was common for Indo-European and Semitic cultures to view snakes as holy animals, often connected to earth and healing.
Snakes show up in lots of different stories about a Tree of Life in a Divine Garden. Usually, they're some sort of protector, but the positive impression of snakes seems to have been dethroned by the spread of the particularly popular version of the story which is known as the Garden of Eden. In that telling, the snake is the villain.
(If you're a literalist Christian or Jew and feel offended, notice that there being loads of noticeably similar stories can be taken as evidence that something like it actually happened.)
Grimes = Luna. I have no idea what's going on, but the music video for Venus Fly is stunning.