Sally Su stopped to tell a tall Hufflepuff that she'd been taking pictures of the New Years decorations for the newspaper when she'd seen two yellow lights through her camera lens, and the next thing she'd known, she'd woken up to Professor Snape's glowering mug in the hospital wing.

The Hufflepuff said, "I'd probably petrify all over again if I woke up to that."

Sally laughed, grabbed the back of a chair from the Hufflepuff table, and dragged it across the stone toward Harry, the entire hall silent but for the screech, students stupefied by the drama of the journalist petrified by the Monster of Slytherin (maybe) confronting the Boy-Who-Lived and who was also a parselmouth (probably).

She stopped it right by him, and sat, facing him, straddling the back of the chair. "Heya Harry. I hear you found me."
Her voice was loud enough that in the quiet, it stretched quite a ways, so Harry matched its volume. "Hermione, Ron and I found you."

"Thank you. Now, I find it horribly interesting that I was petrified, and graffiti was posted claiming that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, and you are, according to rumor, I hear, a parselmouth."

He'd yet to hear anyone but he and Hermione say 'parseltongue.' He was starting to think it was the wrong term. "I wanted to experiment with parselmouth, in case there really is a dangerous snake loose in Hogwarts, so I got a sna-. A limbless lizard. Gryffindors don't have snakes."

She smiled. "You're not the Heir of Slytherin, are you? And you didn't petrify me?"
"No and no."

"I didn't think so." She lowered her voice. "I'm going to believe you, Harry Potter, because really, you don't seem the sort, and in return you'll give me an exclusive interview, at the time of my choosing, plus quotes for the story I'm going to write on my being petrified. Deal?"

Harry shook her hand, and they chatted at the table, Sally getting her quotes.

#

#

Wanting to see Tonks transform, Hermione accompanied Harry to his metamorphmagery tutoring. The room held a black-haired woman with scarlet lips and Professor Snape, the two speaking quietly together as Harry and Hermione came in.

Harry wondered if this was the wrong room or the wrong time, but the black-haired woman looked up, and in Tonks' voice said, "Right on time, Harry." Her face shifted to what Harry supposed was 'natural Tonks,' though presumably the pink hair wasn't natural, and she said, "Nice to see you again, Hermione."

Hermione said, "Again?"

Tonks shifted into the form of a third or fourth-year boy. "Hey."

As Hermione blushed and winced simultaneously, Harry stared at Snape, wondering why the Professor was was in the room and when he would leave.

Professor Snape stalked forward, looming over Harry. "Our celebrity has attracted yet more attention to himself, I hear. Some rare and flashy pet to take everywhere."

Harry said, "Just a limbless lizard," and opened his hand, revealing Lenny snoozing in a colorful ball on his hand.

Snape's eyes roamed over it. "A colorful garter snake," he pronounced. "Why did you get it?"

"I speak parselmouth."

"You speak parseltongue. Parseltongue is the language, parselmouths are its speakers. Clearly, English is a language you still struggle with."

Hermione shrieked. She ran into the center of the room, staring at a corner in deep shadow, which, now that Harry looked at it, shouldn't be in shadow.

Hermione said, "Something's there."

Harry squinted, and his glasses focused, showing him a little blotch of darkness with long arms floating in the corner.

Snape said, "A Grabby Shadow. Tenaci Umbra. Useful for potions. Tonks noticed it, and I'm here to collect it. This one's just a baby." He held up a small white box and a little wooden handled dust broom.

Harry said, "Just a moment." He walked toward the corner, and asked Lenny, "Do you want to eat that?"

Lenny tasted the air with his tongue. "Yes yes yes yes yes yes," said Lenny.

Harry set Lenny on the ground, the little snake winding quickly toward the shadow, Harry watching closely in case the grabby shadow was too much for it.

Hermione sounded worried, "Hagrid said only milk the first day."

Harry shrugged. He had a feeling. Snape asked what he was doing, Lenny disappeared into the shadow, and the shadow boiled.

He'd half expected a scream, but there was only Lenny's excited hissing-not even really words-and a sound like water slopping around a bowl.

The shadow shrank. Snape was saying something, but Harry wasn't paying attention. Lenny was more visible every moment as the mass of the shadow went up his mouth like dirt up a vacuum's hose.

"Wow," said Harry. Though still quite small, the snake seemed larger than before. "Yummy, mummy."He bent down, picked up Lenny as the snake wriggled toward him and said, "You're going to be useful for a lot more than experimenting with parseltongue, aren't you?"

Snape said, "Potter... Did you not hear me say I was planning on using the shadow? And what on earth is that snake?"

"It's a common garter snake," said Harry.

"Potter!"
"It's an agathodaemon."

Professor Snape closed his eyes, looking even more startled than before. "And where did you get an agathodaemon?"
"Hagrid."

"And did you promise him your first-born child in return?"
"It was a Christmas present."

"A Christmas present," said Snape, rubbing his forehead. "I hope you gave him something nice in return. The Resurrection Stone, perhaps. Thankfully, the number of Britons who even know what an agathodaemon is is quite small. Single digit. But I would stop spreading that name around if I were you, you damn foolish princeling."

Harry said, "So it's rare?"

Snape looked pained. "And don't think I don't recognize those glasses you're wearing. Spoiled rotten."

Tonks said, "Severus."

"Potter needs a firm hand squeezing his head back to size."

"He needs his lesson."

Snape cast a covetous glance at Lenny and took a seat at the back of the classroom. "I'm curious to see whether Potter's any better at metamorphmagery than potions."

Tonks said, "If you're gonna be a pain, leave."

Snape shut his mouth with an audible clack, and Harry took his seat in front of the mirror. They started on hair.

He tried turning it blond again, and didn't manage it. He was nervous to have an audience, especially since he seemed to be getting worse rather than better with each lesson. Tonks said that learning to do properly what you'd previously done instinctively always involved taking a step back, but Harry could tell she was concerned.

Tonks said, "Focus on your head. Feel every follicle on your scalp."

He felt a mass of hair, not every follicle, and the hair was black, and it wanted to stay that way, and not a single hair changed color.

After a few minutes, there'd been a bit of color changing, and his hair had rippled like it was in the wind, but he hadn't managed much.

He closed his eyes in frustration. Hermione and Snape were both here, and he was doing even worse than normal. Stupid hair. Natural colors were supposed to be easier than unnatural ones, and he couldn't even turn his hair blond. Why couldn't he be blond in the first place?

"Excellent Harry. Turn around so I can see the back."

Harry looked at the mirror. The boy staring back had a perfect head of mid-shaded blond hair, not a bit of black running through it. He turned his head, and Tonks gave him a thumbs up. "Perfect. Now back to black."

Harry concentrated, and his hair stayed yellow, as resistant to turning black as it had been to turning blond, even though Tonks said returning to natural was more like letting something go than picking something up.

But when it had happened, he hadn't been focusing on his hair the way Tonks said to. Harry 'wished' he had black hair again, and that didn't work. Of course not. In retrospect, he'd felt himself transform just before Tonks had praised him.

Harry focused not on turning his hair black, but on transforming his whole self into a Harry Potter with black hair, and felt, through every bit of him, the slightest shiver of transformation.

"Well done," said Tonks.

A Harry Potter with red hair. A Harry Potter with pink hair. Brown hair. Green hair. No hair.

Tonks said, "Harry, you've made a breakthrough."

"Something's clicked," he agreed, and gave dark-skinned Harry Potter a try. Tonks clapped, and Hermione followed her lead.

He changed back and rubbed his temples "I'm getting tired."

"I imagine so. When I first started doing big transformations, I felt like I was kneading myself like a lump of clay. We're done for the day."

Hermione asked Tonks if she could show off a few advanced transformations.

Tonks grew a pig's nose, then a duck's beak, and cycled through a variety of faces, ending on Snape's.

Tonks-Snape said, "Potter's a butthead, potions is the best subject, Argh, Argh, I'm so dark and mysterious."
Hermione and Harry laughed and Snape said, "Make mock of me as you'd like, Tonks, but not in front of my students."

"We don't always get what we'd like," said Tonks, still wearing Snape's face. "Just be glad Harry didn't bring that other friend he mentioned."

Hermione and Harry fell silent, smiles gone.

Snape said, "The Weasley is doubtless occupied with making up what work he missed."

Hermione said, "He started talking about muggle-borns, fertility, and the need for anti-miscegenation laws."

Harry hissed, "Hermione, this is private."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Really? A Weasley? I take it you argued?"

Harry said, "None of your business."

Hermione said, "We're not talking right now."

Snape said, "And you, Harry?"

No point trying to keep it private anymore. "I kicked him."

Professor Snape raised an eyebrow. "And are you still friends."

"I think so," said Hermione.

"Not really," said Harry.

Professor Snape said, "He offended you, so you're not friends anymore? He lost himself, so you said goodbye? A Ravenclaw would think it was an interesting discussion, a Hufflepuff would be loyal, and a Slytherin would know not to dispose of an ally so quickly. Only a brave Gryffindor would get angry and cut off ties. Seems you were sorted into the right house after all."

"I-"

"Do you know why he thinks what he thinks? Have you reasoned with him?"

"No, I-"

"Not a surprise coming from Potter, but Granger, I expect smarter of you."

Hermione looked down as from beneath her clothing came a sound somewhat like a bell, somewhat like a phoenix's call.

Snape said, "It did occur to you that it was a bad response, but you were too happy that Harry was defending you."

Tonks said, "Severus Snape!" She grabbed him by the front of his robe. "You are not to use legilimency on students! Certainly not during my tutoring period!"

"My apologies, Nymphadora."

"Now you're just trying to piss me off!"

Harry backed out the door, pulling Hermione with him. Leaving the room when adults yelled at each other was an old habit.

He didn't speak until Hermione did. "I think we should talk to Ron."

"Because Snape told us too?"

"I was already thinking we should."

Harry was quiet.

"If we really talk to him, there's a good chance he'll change his mind."

Harry said, "Can we talk about something else?"

"Okay," Hermione said. "Did Professor Snape seem different to you?"

"Other than being meaner than normal?"

"His teeth are usually a little yellow from all the tea he drinks, but today they looked perfectly white."

Harry hadn't ever noticed the normal color of Snape's teeth. "So the git used a whitening spell and maybe a potion."

"And his hair was glossy rather than greasy, and he had it in a ponytail instead of hanging loose."

Harry said, "He probably made better hygiene a New Year's resolution."

"You don't think, maybe, toward Tonks?"

"What about Tonks?"

"Nothing," said Hermione. "What happened with the metamorphmagery? You got better all of a sudden."

Harry said, "I don't think I'm like her. I don't change a part of myself. I become a different self. Just like becoming an animal."

She interrogated him as to what he meant by that as they headed back to the dormitory. Hermione grabbed her papers for Enchantments Club, and Harry went up to his empty dorm room, locked himself in the bathroom, and began experimenting.

He turned into a girl. Lenny said, "Who are you? Where's mummy?"

"I'm your mummy. Wait, you'll see."

He investigated thoroughly. There was something down there he wouldn't have imagined on his own. "Girls are weird," he said, and changed back.

"Mummy!" said Lenny.

With fresh perspective, he looked at his own equipment and said, "This is weird too though."

He tried turning his face into Hermione's. His cheekbones shifted, chin sharpened, hair browned, lengthened and curled, but even aside from Hermione having a lightning bolt scar he couldn't get rid of, the proportions were off.

Tonks could help with that, maybe.

He put his clothes on and tried just turning into Hermione, rather than turning into Harry Potter with Hermione's face, and except for the lightning bolt scar that seemed to work, though he didn't think he ought to examine the particulars.

He tried turning back into himself, had blond hair, tried again, was too tall, and was worried he wouldn't be able to get back to normal when it just fell into place, like a ball slipping into its socket.

He breathed a sign of relief, wrestled with himself, and decided to make himself just half an inch taller. His feet grew with him, and he shrunk them so they wouldn't stop fitting his shoes.

Then he went after the scar.

He'd thought he it was cool before he'd found out how he'd gotten it, but now being able to make it disappear was a must. He tried to become 'Harry Potter without the scar' and felt like water trying to pick up a rock. He sweated, and after twenty minutes he hadn't managed anything but making the skin around it roil.

He grew a layer of skin over the scar, and blood bled through in the shape of a lightning bolt. He cursed, and when he got rid of the extra skin, the scar kept bleeding. He dabbed at it with tissues till it stopped.

So the scar was magic. He'd thought it might be since it came with him when he turned into an animal, though it was easy to hide with fur or feathers.

He was lying on his bed playing with the Dream Maker when a loud sound startled him. Something between a creaky door and someone shouting "err-er-errr!"

He poked his head out the door, and saw Professor McGonagall in the common room, gripping a rooster under one arm. She tapped it with her wand, its chest swelled, and it again crowed, "Err-er-errrr!"

The thirty some students in the common room stared at the rooster. A rooster crowing in the common room wasn't particularly notable-odder happened on a daily basis-but McGonagall directing the rooster made it possibly the most surreal thing he'd seen all year, after the initial shock of ghosts and moving staircases.

Ron was sitting at a table at the edge of the room. He said, "You think there's a basilisk at Hogwarts. Sally said the last thing she saw was two yellow lights, that must've been its eyes."

McGonagall said, "Ronald Weasley, a basilisk's gaze doesn't petrify, it kills."
Ron said, "She didn't look at it directly, she looked at it through a camera, that's probably why it just petrified her."

Professor McGonagall gave him the look. "We do not believe there is a basilisk at Hogwarts. We do not believe there's anything especially dangerous here. But you've heard how cautious Dumbledore can be. Some aspects of that caution are more discrete than others."

"Paranoia," coughed someone.

"I heard that, Wisteria Downs," said Professor McGonagall, and Wisteria fell silent.

Professor McGonagall straightened her back, holding her dignity about her like a cloak, and carried the rooster up to the girls' dorms, setting it off in every room, the rooster increasingly unhappy with the procedure, squawking and pushing against her with its feet.

As McGonagall repeated the procedure in the boys' side, Harry sat next to Ron, and Ron stared at him before dropping his gaze back to his homework. The red-head was working an equation they'd learned for transfiguration weeks ago, trying to work out the ideal type and amount of material to transfigure a little silver box.

Harry said, "Didn't we already do that assignment?"

"You did. I was in the hospital."

"Oh." Harry sat next to him. "Ron." There wasn't any good way to say this. "You deserved to be kicked, but maybe I shouldn't have kicked you." That wasn't an apology, but he didn't need to apologize. "But I was wondering, if you believe that stuff, why do you hate Malfoy so much?"

Ron looked confused. "Because he's a snide, cocky, bullying, thieving git and he keeps making fun of me and my friends. Besides, his dad was a Death Eater."

That startled Harry, and Ron explained about the Imperius curse, and how lots of Death Eaters had claimed to be under it, and some of them definitely had been, but lots of them were lying, and there were lots of ways to beat Veritaserum if you had time and money to prepare so it was hard to tell which was which.

Harry said, "You don't agree with the Death Eaters?"

"Of course not," said Ron. "Just because I admit the problem doesn't mean I think we should kill muggle-borns or make them slaves. It's not the muggle-borns' fault. We should at least be nice about it."

Harry asked Ron why he thought muggle-borns decreased fertility, and Ron admitted that Percy had made him read some books and essays, and the other side had better arguments than he'd realized, but he thought in the end it was just a lot of complicated excuses. But he didn't sound very sure.

Harry took other side, and obviously Ron was wrong, he had to be, but Harry felt nervous about it. Some of what Ron said made a lot of sense. His voice kept getting louder, and Ron kept having to tell him to calm down. After McGonagall and the rooster left some students directed their stares to Ron and Harry. It wasn't the sort of argument you expected to hear in the Gryffindor common room.

Ron said, "You're so calm about things that happen, but when it comes to ideas... The truth is true whether you like it or not. There's no sense getting emotional about it."

Hermione came back from Enchantments Club. She spotted Harry and Ron, took a breath, and headed for them.

Harry whispered to Ron, "I'm not talking about this with Hermione."
"Why not?"

"Shh."

"Hey," said Hermione.

"Hey," said Ron.

Harry told Hermione about the rooster, Ron explained his basilisk theory. With that done, they fell into silence broken by Hermione asking how Ron had gotten into blood-purism in the first place. It didn't seem like his brothers were into it.

Harry leaned back, uncomfortable, as Ron said, "Probably J.C. Chester. She wrote all sorts of books. Children's' books, and books on ethics and society." Ron went on about how great J.C. Chester had been, and how she'd donated most of her income to good causes, most notably Hogwarts' scholarships for poor students." It was a pretty normal Ronalogue, and while it didn't bring everything back to how it was before, it seemed they were speaking again.

#

#

A Hogwarts student being laid up in a magical mishap and being fine a day and a half later would have barely made the school paper, nevermind The Daily Prophet, if it hadn't been for the Chamber of Secrets graffiti.

As it was, The Daily Prophet had an article on page 4 of the human interest section which treated the story with the amused skepticism a muggle paper might save for ghosts or the Loch Ness monster. That the famously paranoid Albus Dumbledore had a troupe of crowing roosters moved through the castle was added flavor.

The Daily Prophet was much more concerned with Harry Potter being a parselmouth and having a snake, and with the absolutely adorable pictures of him sleeping on a chair with his female friend. That was front page news.

Hermione slapped the newspaper on the table in the Great Hall. "My parents got a subscription to The Daily Prophet. To keep track of the wizarding world." She had out a piece of a paper and a ballpoint pen, furiously writing a letter to them. Harry leaned over her shoulder to read it.

Dear Mum and Dad,

I assume you saw the pictures in The Daily Prophet. That's my friend Harry I've told you about. I didn't really explain this before, but it's the same Harry whose godfather was wrongly convicted of being a terrorist, and all that. To reiterate, I was never in any danger, and everything is finished now.

In the picture, Harry and I were sitting on the chair talking, and we fell asleep. We're a little angry that some of the other students took pictures, but it was all in good fun. Harry is NOT my boyfriend. I don't want one yet anyway.

Harry being a parselmouth means he can talk to snakes. Wizards are a little weird about snakes, but Harry's snake is really cute. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the Quidditch.

"At the Quidditch?" said Harry.

Hermione said, "The Gryffindor opener Saturday after next. They're portkeying in. They want to see the school and get a little idea of the wizarding world, and they'll want to meet you, and Ron, you too, since I've mentioned you in my letters." The red-headed boy nodded. He'd returned to sitting with them.

Hermione said, "You're not allowed to say a darn thing about blood-purity to them."

Meeting the parents. It was silly, but the thought of older relatives made him nervous. Maybe he should be sick on the day of the match.

Hermione said, "They don't really know about the troll. They get The Daily Prophet now, but during the summer, they read my subscription, and they didn't get their own until sometime in November. Besides, Dumbledore kept my name out of the paper, so all they saw was a few references to a troll getting in Halloween night and being dealt with without hurting anyone. They were worried of course, so we talked about it in letters and at Christmas, and I didn't lie, but I may have understated how dangerous trolls are, and I didn't say anything about me being there, and with the dementors..."

Hermione shifted, "If you don't know anything about dementors, reading the newspaper it just seems like some magical prison guards with uncomfortable auras were at Hogwarts for a little while, and a few of them got too close to some students, but the teachers quickly took care of it, and all the students were fine after eating some chocolate.

"The Pettigrew and Ron stuff was harder, even without them knowing the details. They discussed withdrawing me from the school. I told them no student has died at Hogwarts in nearly fifty years, and they didn't like the idea of anyone dying, but of course they realized that students die at muggle schools a lot more than once a half-century, from car crashes and crime and the like. And once they compared the last ten years of death rates for muggle and wizarding children they calmed down. But still, I need you and everyone else to help me convince them I'm safe."

"I'll try."

"Harry, you're the best liar I know, you can do more than try." She waved the letter. "Can I use Hedwig? Sometimes there's a queue for the school owls."

'The best liar she knew?' What was that supposed to mean? "Hedwig would be glad for a letter. It's not like I write to my relatives. Use her whenever you like." Did she just mean that the point of occlumency was to be able to lie magically? Harry said, "I'm looking forward to meeting them."

#

#

Harry blew into the hole on the tuner marked 'A,' and tightened the string of the harp. He plucked it, and the sounds didn't match, he thought, or maybe they did, he couldn't really tell that was the problem. He loosened the string, it didn't match, he loosened it further, it still didn't match, he loosened further and he thought it was actually pretty close to 'A,' but down an octave or three from where it was supposed to be.

Harry dropped the tuner and sighed. Now that they'd finished up broomsticks, the Enrichments class had switched over to music, an hour and a half of instruments and an hour and a half of voice, every week January and February. March would be drawing, which Harry looked forward to greatly-he wasn't a great artist by any means, but he could draw a sword fight or a cat or whatever and no one had to squint to know what it was.

Music though... He re-tightened the string, but was pretty sure he'd tightened it too much. He kept tightening, just in case. Hermione, at least, wasn't doing much better, though according to her portrait she'd tuned some strings.

Ron, however, was looking at sheet music and playing a violin with disinterested competence. Or Harry assumed he was still playing it with basic competence. Madam Butterscotch had activated some spell so that only people quite close could hear the instruments, and Harry hadn't heard Ron's playing at all after Madam Butterscotch had listened to him for a moment and placed him in the 'people who know what they're doing' half of the room, which could also be called the 'wizard-raised' half of the room.

Music and drawing were significant parts of a wizard's pre-Hogwarts education, along with reading, writing, maths, and 'lots of work with compass and straight edge,' according to Ron. Only the muggle-raised required instructions on the basics of music. That included a full nine of the 21 first-year Gryffindors, and a pale Slytherin boy who loudly insisted to his doubtful housemates that his muggle guardians had found him on the doorstep he was surely a pureblood orphan.

Harry thought that, unless that were true, the Slytherin boy would've been better off claiming that a passing wizard had knocked his muggle mother up, making him a half-blood.

The only wizard-raised student among the incompetents was the pureblood Slytherin Daphne Greengrass, who described herself as 'hopelessly tone-deaf.'

Harry thought he was probably hopelessly tone-deaf too, even if he hadn't put so many hours into proving it.

The string he was tightening snapped. The end whipped around and scratched his cheek, just deep enough to bleed. Harry yelped, and the man in the portrait on the table laughed. Harry said, "Why didn't you tell me I had it way too tight?"

The man in the portrait said, "That's the penalty for inattention."

"I could've been really hurt if it had hit me in the eye."

"Neither the wards nor the charms on the harp would let that happen."

Harry followed the portrait's instructions to put a new string in, grumbling all the while. There being twenty-eight strings made his attempts at tuning seem even more futile.

Hermione got all twenty-eight strings tuned, and Madam Butterscotch gave her a piece of very simple sheet music, just two measures, demonstrated the song, and asked Hermione to attempt it. More students successfully tuned their harps, moving to the others side as Harry and Daphne continued to fail, increasingly self-conscious.

He wished he could just look at the string and see it was the right tightness, and as he blew the tuner, teal light came out of it.

The Potter Glasses, responding to his wishes.

He plucked the string, which made a dark blue light, and quickly tightened it until it reached a matching teal shade.

"You're cheating somehow," said the portrait. "If the goal was tuning the instrument, we'd teach you a charm. The point is to hear the notes."

Harry sighed, tapped his glasses, and the pitch vision ended.

Harry said, "I'm surprised there isn't a spell to give a person perfect pitch."

Daphne said, "There's a potion. The side-effects include a risk of becoming obsessed with sound. My parents didn't think being perfect-pitch it was worth the eccentricity. Perhaps when I'm older and less susceptible. I do play the piano, even if I don't like it especially. I just have to put my fingers in the right place."

Mrs. Butterscotch called them over while a group of older students in the music club worked with the rest of the class. A large stone bowl came out of a cabinet and a flick of Ms. Butterscotch's wand filled it with water

"A pensieve," Daphne said.

"I know," said Harry, then realized his knowing needed explanation. "Professor Dumbledore knew my parents. Over Christmas, he showed me a memory of them." It was nearly true, and a good idea.

Ms. Butterscotch poured in a vial of silver fluid, and at a gesture from her, Harry and Daphne dunked their heads in.

Vision swam, and Harry was in a formal dining room, standing next to a harp larger than himself. He blew into a tuner, tightened a string till the string and the tuner matched, then blew into the tuner for the next note, moving quickly through the strings, Harry feeling how it was supposed to feel, sensing the way the frequencies did not clash.

Vision roiled to black, then resolved into another memory, this time the tuning of a lute. They moved through four more memories, ending with another harp, and when Madam Hooch sent them back, they sat next to each other. Harry did a little better. Daphne on the other hand...

"I've tried pensieve memories before," she said.

Harry said, "Won't the next two months be torture if you can't manage it?"

She smirked. "Torture for whoever's next to me in choir." But she bent over the harp with renewed focus. They were sitting close enough that he heard what she was doing, though quietly.

He had six strings tuned when Daphne said, "I think I've almost got it."

He leaned over so he could hear better, resting his elbows on her desk as she plucked the string and blew the tuner.

Harry said, "I think you're close."

Daphne addressed the portrait on her desk. "Tighter or looser?"

"What do you think?" said the portrait.

She plucked and blew, tightened a little, loosened a little less. "I think that's it. Portrait, is that it?"

"My name is not 'Portrait,' it's Edward DeBlaise, and what do you think?"

"I think it's good."

"It's good enough," said the portrait of Edward DeBlaise. "Attempt the next string."

Daphne grinned at the portrait, at the harp, and at Harry. She said, "The pensieve didn't help so much before, but it has been over a year. My ear must be developing."

Harry decided not to pat her on the back. "Good."

She had nearly tuned the second when Harry said, "The only Slytherin I've talked to much before is Draco."

She said, "And it didn't create the best impression. Want to know a secret?"
He nodded, and Daphne leaned in and whispered. "Draco Malfoy isn't a pureblood wizard." As Harry's eyes widened, Daphne continued, "He's actually a large sentient ass transfigured into the form of a boy."

Harry snorted. "What are Crabbe and Goyle then? Two halves of the ass's old underwear?"

She shook her head, "They're researchers in disguise. Behind the thought-free masks that are their faces lie sharp minds busily taking notes on the ass's behavior. But shh, you can't tell anyone."

"The secret is safe with me," Harry promised, crossing his heart. "But I already knew not all Slytherins are asses, actually. The hat considered putting me in Slytherin." He hadn't told that to anyone, not even Hermione, but admitting it to a Slytherin was different. "But both my parents were in Gryffindor, so I preferred it."

"Nothing to do with blood-purism?"

"Maybe a little."

"Slytherin or Hufflepuff for me, and my little sister would've teased me mercilessly if I'd become a Hufflepuff."
"I wanted Hufflepuff."

"No one wants Hufflepuff."

"I did."

Ms. Butterscotch rapped Harry's desk with a ruler, startling them both, and she said, "Don't talk. Tune."

Daphne rolled her eyes while Harry nodded politely, and they set to tuning.

Harry had made it through three more strings when he heard what he'd been waiting for.

"Rip. Kill. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat."

Harry shot to his feet, stepped away from Daphne so he could hear better, and pulled Lenny from his spot wrapped Harry's upper arm. "Do you hear anything speaking parseltongue?"

"You, mummy."

The voice in the wall said, "The smell, no, can't. Hunt. Eat."

Now that Harry was paying attention, it did sound like parseltongue. "It's very incoherent," he said. "Repeated words, not even close to sentences."

Lenny said, "Only hear you."

The voice said, "Not enough. More. More. More..." and faded away.

Daphne said, "Lenny's gotten a lot bigger."

"Hagrid says he oughta top out between four and five feet long. I hope so."

Class ended with Harry still ten strings from glory. He made his goodbyes to Daphne before re-joining Hermione and Ron.

Hermione bit her lip and said, "You were talking to Daphne Greengrass again."

Harry shrugged. "We were next to each other. She seems nice."

"Slytherins aren't nice," said Ron.

Hermione said, "You have the most inconsistent prejudices."

Ron said, "My prejudices aren't inconsistent, I'm just not bound by conventional alliances between ideological groups. I'm closer to agreeing with the Ministry than with Death Eaters."

"Which has what to do with Daphne?"

Ron explained on the way to the common room, but Harry didn't listen. Now that he was used to it, Ron being a blood-purist didn't bother him much. He was used to ignoring the red-head anyway.

Harry said, "Whatever. The important bit is that I heard the voice, and Lenny didn't. It wasn't that quiet either, so that's a big blow to the basilisk theory. I'm back to wondering whether the ghost of Voldemort is floating through the walls, occasionally attacking students and cats."

He'd preferred the snake theory.

Ron's mouth dropped open, and Harry realized that Ron had been either in the hospital or being given the silent treatment through most of those conversations. And maybe he didn't want to tell Ron, but he couldn't leave him hanging with that, so he pulled Ron to the side, quickly explained his reasoning.

Ron said, "It doesn't have to be You-Know-Who. It could just be a ghost that has a grudge against the Potter family and only haunts them. So you're the only who hears it. Something like that."

That idea made focusing on his charms homework a lot easier.

Ron put away his own charms homework, and Hermione said, "Now let's look at that make-up potions homework."

Ron groaned. "I don't get potions."

Harry said, "It's easier than transfiguration theory, and you're good with that."

"Transfiguration bloody makes sense," said Ron, pulling parchment from his bag, and frowning. He shuffled through parchments, frowned, shuffled them again, looked through his bag, shuffled through his parchments again, and stopped.

Ron said, "I don't have it."

Hermione said, "I saw you do half of it last night."

Ron handed her the piece of parchment he'd stopped at. Written on it were Ron's name, a title, and nothing else.

Hermione said, "You're kidding."

Ron shrugged.

Hermione said, "You have to complain to Professor McGonagall."

Ron said, "It's fine."

"No it isn't. They can't do be allowed to get away with it."
Ron said, "Probably no way to prove it anyway."

Hermione said, "We should at least try. At least let them know there's some risk."

Ron shrugged.

Harry said, "What's happening?"

A snort from the next table attracted his attention. A pair of fourth-year boys, Owen Linx and Nick Fallkin, were struggling to hold in laughter, and the dams broke as Harry turned his attention to them.

Owen said, "Did something happen to the little Death Eater's homework?"

That was enough for Harry. "Interesting. What spell did you use?"
Nick Fallkin said, "We're not saying we did it. The mis-sorted Slytherin lost it is all."

Hermione said, "I'm going to McGonagall."

Harry sighed. "No. Hermione. Don't pardon their stupidity with silliness." He made brief eye-contact, which he knew rather better than either boy. "Why would we go to McGonagall with this? Don't tell her. Tell Ron's brothers."

The two boys paled.

"That really didn't occur to you two?" said Harry. "How shortsighted. And that's even ignoring that Hermione and I both seem likely to achieve big things some day. True, Hermione isn't the sort to pay back a disproportionate revenge for the schoolday grudges of twenty years past, but you can't expect everyone to be nice like that."

Owen said, "Fred and George prank him all the time."

Harry said, "And I fondle my balls six times a Sunday, that doesn't mean I'd want you to do it. Besides, their pranks, though often petty and cruel, are always more than just petty and cruel. But worry not. I'm sure they'll give you intense and personal lessons on style if you like."

He looked down at the cat, and Nick followed his gaze. The cat was squatting over one of the boys' bags, preparing to relieve itself.

Nick snatched up the cat. "Owen, your damn cat was about to take a shit in my bag."

Owen said, "He wouldn't."

Harry said, "He was going to. Would've been a great prank too. Taking inspiration from its owner."

Owen's jaw clenched when he understood. "You wouldn't get away with it. Everyone knows you're a charismancer."

"Would you complain to Percy Weasley about your cat relieving itself on a bag? Or maybe Alice Bell? You, know the Gryffindor Head Prefect? The one who takes me out for a ride whenever it snows and gave me a Christmas present?"

Twin grimaces. They were uncertain, they felt like backing off, but they couldn't back off from a first-year, however well connected that first-year was.

Harry stood and let out a large, regretful sigh. "But there's no harm done. I certainly don't want any bad blood between us. I respect you two too much." He put his hand out for a hand shake, Owen put his out automatically, and Harry gave him a quick handshake before the boy thought to jerk back.

Harry said, "Look. Ron just needs to work stuff through. I respect that you feel you have to defend Gryffindor's honor, but I hope you respect that I have to defend my friend."

The two fourth-year exchanged glances.

"So can we call it quits here?"

Owen said, "Fine. We won't bother the Weasley."

Harry smiled. "Thanks for being so understanding."

The boys left, and Harry sat back with Ron and Hermione.

Hermione said, "What the hell Harry?"

Harry said, "Making nice with bullies would be my best subject if they offered it. Malfoy's complicated because he's in a different house but the same year. With these, I just had to convince them the fight wasn't worth it, then offer an out. Easy-peasy."

Hermione said, "They didn't even apologize."

Harry frowned. "An apology isn't very realistic without getting an adult involved, and that's risky. I doubt they'll bother Ron again."

Ron said, "When I tell people what they don't want to hear they attack or insult me."

"Poor Ron," said Harry.

Hermione said, "They did something cruel, but you're believing something evil. I'm not sure which is worse."

Ron opened his mouth to argue, probably the bit about truth having nothing to do with whatever sounded nice, but was silenced by a scream.

Angelica slammed the door to the games closet. "It's the Bad Bunny!" she yelled.

Harry supposed that meant something to wizards, but everyone in the common room was staring at Angelica in complete incomprehension.

Harry thought Angelica would've blushed from all the stares if she hadn't been backing away from the closet, breathing deeply.

Percy strode quickly toward Angelica from the far end of the common room. "The Bad Bunny?"

"The Bunny, it's bad, big teeth, it's horrible."

Percy gave her a strange look and took out his wand. He moved closer to the closet, and opened it with a whispered spell.

Percy screamed.

Percy slammed the door with another spell and cast the Locking Spell on the door.

The whole common room was up and looking, several students coming of the dorm rooms and watching from the second level or the stairs.

Calming himself, Percy said. "I believe there's a boggart in the game closet. I'll take care of it." He rolled up his sleeves.

"Wait!" said Harry. "Let Lenny eat it."

Percy blinked. "Your snake?"

"My limbless lizard. It eats dark creatures. Boggarts were on the list Hagrid gave me." He hissed at Lenny, and the snake unwrapped itself from his coil around Harry's arm, poking his head out and tasting the air.

"Purr," said Lenny, and he squirmed to the end of Harry's arm, Harry keeping hold of Lenny's tail, as if he were carrying a bent stick.

Harry said, "If it doesn't work, so what."

Percy nodded. "You'll see whatever frightens you most. If limbless there can't take care of it, get out of the way, and I'll handle it."

Harry said, "I'll see a troll or a dementor."

Percy looked like he'd swallowed a lemon when he heard 'dementor,' but motioned for Harry to stand by the door.

He didn't plan to use it, but Harry took out his wand. He wondered if, rather than a monster, he'd see himself as a failed weakling wizard.

Percy whispered a spell, and the closet door opened.

Vision flickered. A tall, bony woman with a long neck stood behind Harry, pushing him inside the cupboard under the stairs. His books and his clothes stacked against the wall, his mirrors in the corners, his scavenged pencils and pens in a broken mug, precisely his cupboard, except Hermione was lying on his cot, deathly pale, blood dried on her mouth, blood dried on the pillow, blood dried on her hair.

Aunt Petunia said, "Get in, boy."

Lenny struck Hermione's head.

The scene was gone. He was standing outside the games closet, and only Percy was behind him. Lenny had his fangs sunk into a purplish-orange ball the size of a melon, struggling to get his jaws around it.

The boggart compressed, lengthened, like a lump of clay being molded, then disappeared into Lenny with a slurp.

"Purr," said Lenny.

Percy stared at Lenny, clearly full of questions about the snake, but he said, "Harry, tell me that woman wasn't your Aunt."

Harry said, "You know what movies are?"

Percy said, "My dad's taken me to the cinema."

Harry said, "She's from a scary movie I saw once. I don't remember the title, but I had nightmares for weeks."

Percy stared into his eyes, and though there was nearly no chance of Percy having any skill at legilimency, Harry strengthened his occlumency barriers. Harry said, "Thanks for letting me feed Lenny."
He walked slowly back to where he'd been, eyes on Hermione the whole way.

She was fine. Of course she was fine. It was just a boggart. And his boggart included Hermione being dead. That was unexpected. If that were really his greatest fear, shouldn't he be unwilling to hang out with Hermione anymore?

Hermione hugged him.

"What?"

"You're pale," said Hermione. "Are you alright?"

"Of course."

"You don't look alright."

"It was unpleasant, but I'm honestly fine." She was rubbing his back, and he wanted to let her continue, and hug her back, and glory in Hermione being alive and unharmed, because it had been very hard to remember when facing the boggart that it was just a boggart, but they were in the common room and half the house was watching.

Harry pulled away. "I'm fine, really."

Lenny said, "Sleep with Oreo."

Harry sighed, and dropped Lenny on an armchair with Oreo, Dean Thomas's kneazle-a breed of magical cats.

Lenny curled around Oreo, as if to constrict him, and Oreo purred.

Lenny said, "Purrrr. Purrr. Purrr."

Harry said, "Lenny, for the last time, you are not a cat."

Lenny said, "Purrr purrr purrr. Meow purrr."

Harry shook his head. Ever since Lenny had seen Oreo catch a mouse...

Lenny tightened around Oreo, and Oreo pussyfooted the air.

Harry briefly felt jealous of his own snake. Lenny didn't have to worry about what people would think if he cuddled with his best friend. How had the boggart known that would bother him when he hadn't even known? It shouldn't be mind-reading. He hadn't felt a thing. And he hadn't even known.

But magic could be like that. Sometimes it knew what it had no way of knowing.

Maybe that mirror too.

"Let's just do our homework, alright?" said Harry.

#

#

The days went by. Lenny grew, Ron argued with half of Gryffindor, seeming increasingly stressed by it, Hermione continued to be the best in every class, Harry got the whole damn harp tuned and came up second to Malfoy at dagarary club meetings, and the Quidditch match came.

:::

Sorry for the late update. I did write a Harry/Luna oneshot called to "To Get A Date," so check that out if you like.

Also, consider checking out "Monstrosity" by JLL in the Amazon books department.

Another chill, uneventful chapter, but events during the Quidditch match should get the ball rolling a bit. I'm also confident that you'll enjoy the match itself. I earnestly believe that if you assume it's a high possession game with some sort of shot clock and think through the strategy more than the great J.K. chose to, the Seeker position actually makes a lot of sense.

One of my older sisters was terrified of the Bad Bunny into her early teens. I have no explanation.

I don't want to give too much away, but this story is not going to claim that everything can be solved by talking; I am disturbed by how recent events have made certain elements of this story more topical than I initially thought they would be.

I'm afraid my Harry's character is being influenced by the character of Harrys in different fanfics I've been reading. It's making him more mature, and slightly darker. I'm trying to edit that out.