Title: Genius Does What it Must
Characters: Harry Potter, Severus Snape, Millicent Bulstrode.
Summary: Growing up, Harry Potter became a smartass. Now he's starting Hogwarts, with trusty sidekick Millicent Bulstrode, a question for everything, and a cheerfully sarcastic demeanor that makes everyone want to smack him.
And apparently there's death lurking in the third floor corridor. That's gonna end well.
Warnings: Alternate Universe, with intelligent!Harry, Slytherin!Harry... but hopefully in a slightly different way than normal. Possibly mentor!Snape, we'll see how it goes.
Notes: Okay folks! There's now a poll up in my profile, asking which characters you'd like to see more of in this here fic.
CHAPTER FOUR: The early bird gets the worm - or the anaconda, depending on its luck.
It was nice out, so Harry decided to stay out and read. Millicent attempted to get him to budge, but Harry had whined at her until she'd given up and gone back inside. It had taken about two minutes, as she didn't particularly care.
It was almost dark when Harry got interrupted by a smirking voice (well, if voices could smirk). "Ah, what foolsss these mortalsss be!"
Harry glanced around wildly. "Whoever iss quoting Ssshakessspeare at me, ssshow yourssselves!" If there was one thing Harry disliked, it was definitely Shakespeare. Thankfully, however, there was a great number of things Harry disliked, so Shakespeare didn't have to feel singled out.
"AAAAH, holy sssshit!" the formerly smirking voice cried out. "I'm hearing voicesss again!"
At this point, Harry caught sight of who – or rather what – was talking to him. "A sssnake? I'm talking to a sssnake? Ssseriousssly?"
The snake, a small brown one with red stripes, appeared to have a minor stroke. "Holy sssshit, he'ss really freakin' talkin' to me!! Sssshnikies!"
Harry stared at the snake. Who or what in the name of Hades was 'shnikies'?
Well, anyway.
"Ssso, what'ss your name?" he asked after the snake stopped spasming wildly.
"Dave."
"What, really?" Harry was completely nonplussed by this. "That'ss not very impressssive."
The snake appeared to puff himself up, and then promptly started telling him off using language that if it had come out of Dudley's mouth, even Aunt Petunia would be sticking soap in his mouth for a month.
"Okay, okay, jeez, I'm sssorry!" Harry snapped after a minute of being bitched out. "You gotta admit that it'ss not exactly what you'd expect a sssnake to be named, though."
Dave sniffed – which was a really bizarre thing to see a snake do, really, – but acknowledged the fact that yes, Dave was not a name to strike fear into the hearts of the unworthy.
"What kind of sssnake are you?" Harry asked after a moment of silence. Dave was, he'd say, about normal size for pet snakes, maybe two feet long? Not that he'd ever seen pet snakes or anything, but it seemed the right size. He was a muddy brown color with a few wide-spread bands of red down his body.
"Hell if I know," Dave said, with a shrug. You think a snake giving a dignified sniff was weird? Try watching one shrug. Harry had the sudden urge to go take a shower to get the creepiness off of him.
"What do you mean?"
"Well," this was said in tones of 'humor the idiot', a tone Harry was quite used to at the Dursleys, not so much here where he was totally the smartest of the first year Slytherins, "Sssay you were abandoned as a baby and then adopted. Would you know your ethnic background?"
He had a good point. And man, it kind of sucked to be outsmarted by a snake.
An annoying chime went off right about then, and Harry jumped and flailed momentarily before remembering the watch he'd owl-ordered the previous week, and glanced down at it. "Ah, it'sss time for dinner!" he said happily, not even noticing that he was still speaking in hisses, his mind currently defaulting to it.
"I wanna go!" If he had been anyone else – or, rather, something else, say a human – Harry would've sworn that Dave just whined.
Although, considering what he'd seen so far of the magical world, it wasn't beyond belief that snakes could whine, he supposed.
"Ssso come," Harry told the snake. "Nobody'sss sstopping you."
"Good idea!" Dave said cheerfully, before darting at Harry. Before he could do anything, the snake was easily climbing up his body to finally wrap around his left arm. "Let'sss go already!" the snake demanded, nipping Harry's thumb for emphasis.
Harry wasn't really one for companionship – he'd chosen Sir Hop-a-long as a pet entirely because he didn't foresee himself really getting that attached to a toad, of all things. Heck, he probably wouldn't have even gotten a pet in the first place if he hadn't seen the extra trip as another chance to annoy and confound Professor Snape.
As far as friends... well, he supposed he could consider Millicent one, his first real one, and their friendship generally extended as far as sitting next to each other in class and occasionally sharing sarcasm. And he was quite happy with the state of things.
So why he decided to invite a snake along with him, and allow it to take such liberties with his person, he really couldn't say. Other than the sheer novelty of a snake named Dave, anyway.
Turned out that for a house who was quite proud of their snake mascot, precious few of his housemates actually liked snakes, as proved when half of the first and second years started shrieking and scrambling to get away from him when he set Dave on the table. Amusingly enough, Malfoy was one of them, which was worth any trouble Harry might get into for picking up an unknown snake and bringing it to dinner.
"Potter, where in the world did you get an Aceleptian serpent?" Parkinson asked, out of nowhere. She was the only one who appeared to be completed unaffected – a few others had managed to restrain their impulses to jump and scream, but were still eying the snake uneasily.
"Front lawn," he replied to Parkinson with a shrug. "His name's Dave."
He got a few incredulous stares for that comment, which also helped them calm down. An unfortunate side-effect, if you asked Harry. He rather liked having the entire house terror-stricken.
"What's an Aceleptian serpent, anyway?" he asked Pansy after a moment, having gotten bored of being stared at.
Pansy shrugged, and flipped a piece of meat at Dave, who gobbled it up happily. "The least magical magical creature in existence, it's generally agreed. They just have a much longer lifespan than most snakes and a higher intelligence."
Harry tilted his head to the side, and considered this. "Well, that's pretty lame."
Dave bit him for his cheek, and Harry reeled back, cursing in French.
"Ahem." Ah, dark and evil and possibly sexy, if Harry was to believe the whispers of some of the older Slytherin girls. It must be Snape standing behind him! So Harry titled his head backwards until he could see an upside-down Potions Master, and attempted to grin disarmingly. Not having much will or opportunity to be charming, he had never practiced this before, so it came out looking like vaguely curious constipation.
Apparently, Snape was a fan of laxatives, because this just appeared to piss him off more. "Is there a reason," he asked silkily (causing two sixth year girls further up the table to sigh romantically), "That you are using such foul language at the dinner table?"
Harry considered, for a moment, telling him it was because he didn't think anyone knew French. However, he already had detention for the week for... various reasons, and was hoping on having a free evening some time before he turned twenty, so he went for the truth. Well, the more relevant truth – he really hadn't thought anyone knew French. "Dave bit me."
"..." In a lesser man, there probably would have been a confused, "What?" in the silence, but Severus Snape was no lesser man. So he just stared at Harry for a long moment, until Harry hoisted the annoying, Shakespeare-loving snake in the air.
"I insulted his breed," Harry offered as Dave stared down Snape.
"I ssshould totally crossss my eyesss at him," Dave informed him like it was a possibility. Harry, having a feeling that hissing at the snake would cause a small panic, settled for tightening his hands just a bit as a warning. "You're no fun," the snake told him sulkily.
"Why," Snape said slowly, with a bit of a minor eye tic, "do you have a snake?"
("Aceleptian serpent," Pansy offered up helpfully, although Snape ignored her.)
Harry considered this for a long moment. "I think he's my familiar," he declared suddenly, before nodding decisively. Familiars weren't as all pervasive as Muggle stories would have you believe, but they weren't rare either.
"You. Have a snake familiar." If there had been any more disbelief in Snape's tone, he probably would have choked on it. Of course, he had every reason to be shocked – after all, familiars were known to have very similar personalities to the wizard or witch they bonded with. Severus Snape, however, fell into the trap of thinking that snakes were, down to a one, the perfect smooth and cunning Slytherin. In reality, most animals could have the same range of personality as humans, especially the more intelligent ones.
Even had he known this, however, Snape had no way of knowing that Dave was a mentally imbalanced bibliophile with a weird sense of humor – to wit, he had no way of knowing that Dave and Harry were very much alike.
"Totally, dude. I mean, sir," Harry hastily corrected himself, hoping not to get shot.
Snape heaved a put-upon sigh. "As your detentions with Filch appear to be doing little to deter your behavior, you will be serving your remaining detentions with me. My office, after dinner." With that, he stalked away.
Harry watched him for a second, then turned to his housemates, Millicent in particular. "I think he's becoming used to me."
"Merlin forbid," Malfoy muttered, stabbing a potato with his fork.
"You will be crushing snake fangs for tonight's detention," Snape informed him the second he stepped into the office. "It is already set up for you."
"Come on!" Harry said indignantly. "All I had to do for Filch was clean some stupid trophies, you want me to grind up bone."
Snape, rather than screaming at him or sending a freezing glower, gave him a disdainful look. "No, I want you to crush snake fangs."
"..." Unlike Snape, Harry was not not a lesser man, he was less enough of a man that he couldn't even try for a confused 'what?' He was too busy thinking, is Snape really making an argument over semantics? Really?
"You won't be leaving until the barrel is crushed, I would start now," Snape informed him, turning back to the stack of essays on his desk.
Crushing bones – and teeth were totally bones, whatever Snape tried to say – was horrible. Honestly, had Harry not been living the live of an indentured servant for the last eight years of his life, he would have dropped dead halfway through the barrel. As it was, he didn't finish up until it was almost midnight and his arms were about to fall off. Snape eyed his work, pronounced it adequate, and sent him back to his dorm.
However, he had just barely stepped into the common room when he was hailed with a loud, "Psst, Potter, c'mere!" from the group huddled close to the fire. All of his yearmates were awake and gathered in a conspiratorial huddle, with a few older students (mostly fifth and seventh years who were already freaking out over the end of year exams) scattered through the room. Slytherins weren't strict about bedtimes.
"Nott just came in a bit before you, he was in the third floor corridor!" Parkinson informed him excitedly. Ever since he had shown up with Dave earlier that day, she'd apparently decided that he was her bestest friend.
"So what's the guaranteed death, and will we catch it if we stand too close to you?" Harry asked, going into what Millicent had snidely referred to as 'reporter pose' the previous week.
"A giant three headed dog." That was Nott, as succinct as possible.
Harry considered asking Nott what, exactly, he had been doing out and about at two in the morning (or whatever time it actually was, Harry was too bored to check his watch), but then decided that he didn't actually care. This news of a giant three-headed dog was far more interesting. "So the gates of hell are in a school of magic? Who knew?" he muttered. Millicent elbowed him rather harshly in the side, and only rolled her eyes when he pouted at her. Really, she was getting far too used to him, taking such liberties with his person!
By this point in the term, the rest of his house was used to his nonsensical (to purebloods, at least) ramblings, and completely ignored him.
"Just wait until I tell Father what that crazy old man has here!" For once, it wasn't Draco Malfoy whining about his father, but Pansy Parkinson. It may have just been Harry's imagination, but he was pretty sure she was excited by the prospect."He's going to kill us all!"
"I should be so lucky," Harry muttered, this time receiving a kick from Millicent. Such violence!
"You know," Harry said thoughtfully a minute later, interrupting the rapidly more hysterical complaints, "it's rather odd that Dumbledore would keep a creature such as that in the castle and only use a locked door and a vague warning at the beginning of the school year to guard it."
"So, what?" Zabini asked. "You think the creature is a precautionary measure in itself?" Noticing the blank looks on a few of the faces, he sighed and rephrased, "It's guarding something?"
Harry actually hadn't thought that, but it was a good idea. "Or," he shrugged, "The Headmaster's hoping students will go in there and get eaten, to cut down on the cost of feed."
They stared at him for a few minutes before deciding that he'd gone back to his usual comments, rather than anything useful or interesting. "We should find out what it's guarding," Malfoy decided suddenly.
Harry snorted, but then noticed that his idiot classmates were, for the most part, nodding thoughtfully. Come on, Slytherins were supposed to be cunning, not moronically curious!
"Which is why we will do it without being caught," Parkinson informed him, letting him know that he had actually been speaking out loud.
"Why don't we first find out if it is guarding anything, before we try and take on a giant Cerberus?" Harry finally said, giving in to the stupidity of fellow eleven year olds.
"Well, sure, but how are we supposed to do that?" Millicent asked.
Harry couldn't help it; he rolled his eyes again. "Gee, let's think," he said, voice heavy with sarcasm, "Who in this whole entire school is infamous for knowing about large and deadly creatures in close vicinity with helpless schoolchildren?"
Proving that Slytherins were fairly observant, if not that quick on the uptake, understanding dawned. "Hagrid?" Goyle double-checked. This time, Harry wasn't the only one rolling their eyes.
"So, what, we go and interrogate the filthy giant?" Parkinson asked sceptically. "He doesn't seem that bright, but even he would be able to figure that something is up."
He never should have opened his big mouth, because Harry knew he was the only one who had any contact with the large groundskeeper, who had sought him out in order to babble tearfully about Harry's parents. Which meant... taking one for the team. Harry shuddered. He was sooo not a team player.
Thankfully, he could at least protest the most logical answer, because Millicent spoke up before he was forced to. "Harry and I will go, Hagrid knew his parents, plus we can pretend to be asking about Dave," she said decisively.
"We'll what?" squawked Harry indignantly, although pleased that she didn't sneer at his familiar's name, like everyone else had. "I don't remember signing up for this fantastic odyssey!" His word choice drew a few weird looks, but he was otherwise ignored.
"Okay, so Potter and Bulstrode will interrogate Hagrid tomorrow. Then we'll gather information on three headed dogs as well as what could possibly be under the trapdoor. Agreed?" Parkinson summed up quickly and bossily. Everyone agreed quickly, except Malfoy who was sulking because Parkinson had taken control from him, and Harry, who was sulking because... well, he forgot why, but he was definitely sulking.