The result of really weird dreams... Couldn't sleep and voila! Hope you like it. Thanks much for the comments and reviews :)
This will be it for a bit (need to finish the chaps for other fandoms!)


-x&x-

2

House of Snakes

In Slytherin you'll find your home; where those of greatness dwell.
In which strong friendships can be forged; true enemies just as well.
~ D. Genesis

-x&x-

Tom Riddle was many things and fortunately, stupid wasn't one of them.

He wasn't deemed a genius for nothing, nor did he believe in letting his innate skills and talents go to waste when he had them for a reason and they could be applied to anything and at every opportunity. As such, he knew that the newest additions to his house were going to be an issue. It was a foregone conclusion; as clear as day to anyone that cared to look.

Just how serious, however, was yet to be determined.

He moved to the side of the room unobtrusively, arms crossed over his chest.

His eyes alighted first on the sandy-blond haired Ukrainian.

Roman Sewick, as far as he recalled, was from old blood. Influential and prominent on the political scene... Then there was Damon Tresler, a Lord recently appointed, family older and more powerful than Sewick's. Azel Dalca was... from a passable family, with enough political clout to make things tedious and Kresten Nordskov...

Tom paused, swiftly searching through his memory for any recollection in regards to the Nordskov family but... Nothing. He'd never heard of them.

Halfblood? Had to be. He'd never paid any particular attention to bloodlines once they lost their purity; unless they held some sort of significance and Durmstrang wouldn't permit muggleborns into their school...

A halfblood in a group of relatively well-known purebloods...? There had to be a reason. There was no doubt the boys were aware of Nordskov's blood status. It couldn't simply be due to 'friendship.' The Sewicks, at least, were pureblood supremacists.

His gaze drifted again.

Peverell.

The resemblance between them was... disconcerting.

Peverell was like... a softer, smaller version of himself; all the sharp edges smoothed over and buffed and made all new, to be more subtle and infinitely more disarming in a loathsome... innocent sort of way.

It disgusted him and yet, there was nothing remotely innocent about the boy himself. Certainly not with eyes like that; killing-curse green and dark in a way that revealed he had seen humanity at its worst, knew exactly how the world operated and could manoeuvre within that world with ease. No difference between them there and that was what intrigued him.

What other similarities did they share?

An obvious affinity when it came to leadership, considering the manner in which Peverell handled his fellow Durmstrang students. That they all deferred to him while pretending to follow Tresler, well... It made Tom that much more cautious and intensely curious about the other boy. That they both seemed to hide behind masks: his, the perfect student and Peverell's, the follower of a powerful young lord...

Oh, he applauded their efforts in attempting to lead everyone astray, certainly; their acting skills were... impeccable.

Just not good enough.

Admittedly, they weren't obvious in the usual way and their interactions were as fascinating as they were bizarre. Nevertheless, the fact that the transfers all tended to just... gravitate around Peverell, like he was the post that tethered them to the here and now, a sun in their own unique little universe, was rather informative.

As was the fact Sewick and Nordskov seemed to hate Tom on sight and instinctively tried to place themselves between him and their real leader.

A subconscious acknowledgement that he was either equal or possessed a superior station to themselves in some way and was, therefore, considered a threat. They didn't know him well enough for it to be any other cause; he was very careful about having his name leaked out of the school for this very reason.

But to be considered a threat so early... and to whom?

Themselves? Were Nordskov and Sewick scared he'd usurp their places in their tight knit little group? If so, he must possess something they had in common. Some... trait or ability that marked him out as a possibility. His magical power? He certainly outstripped them... Peverell, he was unsure about, the boy's magic reigned in tightly... but no, it had to be more than that.

His position as prefect?

Possible.

His role revealed he possessed a certain level of intelligence and was held in high regard by, at the very least, his own head of house and the head master, therefore in a position of power within the school...

There was other possibilities of course. Some as simple as a show of pettiness and their dislike of sharing. Maybe they just didn't like the thought of anyone else muscling in near Peverell. His own followers were much the same, constantly vying for his attention, jealous of anyone else that managed to catch it, even for a short time. It amused him and at the very least offered him a form of entertainment when he got bored...

Then again, it could be something else. Was it concern, perhaps, for their leader's sake? Were they scared he'd hurt the other boy?

Wasn't that just precious?

Admittedly, this had potential.

But implied, again, some form of prior knowledge in relation to him or at least enough from their brief introduction and, again, pointed out something about it marked him as a direct threat to Peverell...

His lips pulled up into a viciously little half-smirk. He hadn't done a thing yet and already their hackles were raised and their game pieces exposed. Albeit, perhaps not entirely. The only other to notice the Durmstrang students' bizarre dynamic would be Dumbledore...

The interfering old fool was infuriatingly perceptive like that.

Still, this could work to his advantage... if he played it just right and he did enjoy a sterling challenge. It had been a while since something this truly perfect stumbled his way ready for him to pick apart and he had absolutely no intention of wasting such a glorious opportunity.

Patience wasn't a virtue he possessed in vast quantities, nevertheless, he'd allow them some time, if for no other reason than to lull them into a false sense of security—something he doubted would happen, given their joint paranoia—or allow him a better examination of their inner workings as a group...

Tresler and Sewick would make lovely additions to his own following not to mention Peverell. Once they were all properly broken in, of course. He couldn't have them acting out. Just the name 'Peverell' alone would have people from all over flocking to him in droves...

Yes... that would work marvellously.

But not too long. He wouldn't allow them to gain too much footing and with their connections, that would be the first thing they attempt. Stabilisation.

Decided, he stepped forward to gain their attention, feeling annoyance swell momentarily when it took longer than usual to do this.

"If you'll follow me, I'll show you to your dorms."

He turned, expecting them to follow and guided the quintet through the common room to a heavy tapestry depicting the Slytherin crest, then up several flights of stairs.

"The sixth years' dorm are through there," he informed the other boys, face carefully schooled into a friendly expression as he turned to them again. "And the seventh years' dorm are just up these stairs. All your belongings should have been relocated by now."

Tresler nodded.

"Thank you," the boy rumbled, voice heavily accented. He nodded to the others and as a single unit, each boy turned to their dorm.

More than satisfied for the moment, Tom retraced his steps back to the common room—still empty—and seated himself in his usual place in a tall backed armchair, leaving the five new boys to settle into their new dorms.

All of them were silent, as they had been throughout the tour around the school, not even the sound of their shoes on the stone floors carried a noise loud enough to reach his ears.

Like ghosts...

Slytherin house was definitely the best place for them: they'd have the Gryffindors up in arms in no time, the Hufflepuffs in a corner somewhere crying and the Ravenclaws flustered with their thirst for knowledge denied.

Yes, certainly better they were put in Slytherin. It helped that they'd be under his watchful eye and he had the home field advantage.

-TRHP-

The dorm was exactly as he expected: spacious and dark, with those same odd windows that let in feeble beams of distorted light, accentuated with little green lamps that hung from the ceiling; a modest fireplace place that—wonder of wonders—actually gave off warmth; four-poster beds lined each wall, the foot of each facing the centre of the room; a set of drawers placed on each side.

Far from the Spartan, barrack-like existence he was used to.

Harry shook his head in mild disgust.

Indeed, he mused, pampered.

What was wrong with a plain bed? Alright, so boys their age got certain... urges... but that was what bathrooms were for. Convenient things, they were. He wasn't certain he could sleep in there knowing there was a possibility of one of his roommates acquainting themselves intimately with their hand while he lay less than six feet away...

Right. Not going there.

Plus, there was no need for all the ridiculous frills and trimmings he saw on his.

The house elves likely kept the dorms clean, too. How were they expected to learn responsibility this way? In the real world, not everyone would have a house elf running around to clean up after them. Then again, he'd been looking after himself well before he'd even entered Durmstrang, so maybe his view was somewhat unfair.

He reached out, touched his mattress, grimaced.

Too soft.

Withdrawing his wand, he rectified the issue and eyed his four poster bed pensively. Would he get away with changing that, too? No... Hesitating, he reconsidered, removed the pointless trims and made the drapes black and heavy.

Better to leave the curtains intact; in case he'd need to use them in order to escape his new... housemates.

The acknowledgement left a bitter taste on his tongue.

Housemates not Sect-mates.

His old Headmaster, Vann, had warned them about the Hogwarts' sorting ceremony, explained it all as a type of... rite of passage into the school. He hadn't told them what it entailed but Harry had thought it to be something like his old schools... The same way they formed Sects. But no.

He was wrong.

As they had 'Sects' in Durmstrang, Hogwarts favoured 'Houses' and luckily for them, that painful process had been taken care of away from prying eyes. Apparently Dippet wasn't as doddery as he looked...

Regardless, the Peverell heir was not happy.

The formation of Sects were intricate things. Students brought together to form a common faction based on necessity, goals, skills or other reasons entirely and grew into a pseudo-family built around a single grounding principal. Each Sect had their own laws by which they were governed and different principals to which they adhered. They were difficult to form and even harder to maintain, especially the higher up you were in a hierarchy.

His Sect had been at the top and as such the most precariously situated with its members being fewer than all others.

Still, at Durmstrang they'd chosen that mutually. They'd chosen each other.

And at Hogwarts?

He got some demented hat that spoke directly into his mind—granted, it was an amazing piece of magic that he wished to dissect at a later time, it's legilimency had to be powerful to break his or his sect-mates' occlumency shields—was promptly told his drive to succeed surpassed all his over traits, then deftly dubbed 'Slytherin.'

And that was that.

No choices whatsoever. No grounding principals. No structure. Nothing.

A hat had basically just decided where he was being placed based off his personality... Not even bothering with his interests, goals, likes or dislikes. It was a wonder the other four managed to get into his house at all.

Then again, they were also very goal orientated, Damon's unfailing loyalty aside.

"Wonder if Damon hates his room already," Kresten muttered, presumably trying to fix his bed, too.

It was amusing, for all of the boy's magical power he couldn't perform the simplest of spells but had no issue with anything complex. One of his accios could render an unsuspecting victim unconscious if they got in the path of the item he was attempting to summon. Understandably, the silver-eyed boy had been his own victim more often than not.

"Need help?"

Kresten paused, glaring at his piece of furniture designed for sleep. "Please?"

"Could you fix mine, as well?" Azel asked.

Roman sighed from atop a suddenly very lumpy mattress. "And me."

Arching a brow, Harry sorted out the beds of his roommates', leaving their mattresses as firm as they had been in Durmstrang. When the other boys went on to changing their bed hangings into those identical to his own, he chose not to comment, after all, if they intended to carry on their traditions in Durmstrang, they'd also be switching beds every other day.

It was more a practise born of self-preservation, when it had just been Kresten and he as eleven year olds without the protection of a Sect to shield them. Before Damon had joined them and brought along Roman. Before he'd taken the solemn Azel in.

"I heard some of the others had already put in for a transfer, too," Roman said. "A quarter of the school. A few more of our Sect, as well—but most of them are being home-schooled, with what happened still fresh and all, most of their parents couldn't be swayed no matter how much Hogwarts' is meant to be safe."

Harry nodded. He'd expected no less, surprised as he was that he had his most loyal, and founding Sect-mates with him.

"A handful of Abaroa's should arrive within the week," Azel announced.

But of course he'd follow Harry to Hogwarts, because things weren't already complicated quite enough as it was. Some people really needed to get over their own little illusions of grandeur. There was a reason Abaroa had never been invited to the Sect even when his cousin was...

He felt three sets of eyes fix on him, tense.

"Think he'll be trouble?" Roman questioned. "Even... even after what happened with... at Durmstrang?"

"Without a doubt," replied the Peverell.

Why would something like a death stop Abaroa from being a vindictive, self-important cretin? He indisputably lacked a single decent bone in his entire body...

No problem. Damon would deal with him this time. He'd been itching to get at Abaroa.

"Harry?"

Eyes refocusing, he turned them on his Danish friend, granting his full attention. The boy shivered, then straightened where he sat.

'Did you notice anything... off, with the prefect's magic?' The boy signed.

Harry's eyes narrowed, pensive and he leaned forward, fingers already forming a response. 'What do you mean off?'

Golden brown brows furrowed in frustration, Kresten shrugged, helpless. 'Like... there was just something wrong with it. I've never felt anything like it before.'

'Wrong?' Roman added, frowning as he moved closer to where their exchange was being held. Azel drifted silently over as well, forming a sort of retarded circle-square. 'How do you mean? Like... darker than normal? Lighter than normal? Imbalanced? Chaotic? Maybe he's sick?'

Kresten pursed his lips. 'None of those. It was like... not whole. Incomplete,' he decided. 'Like it was missing a piece.'

Incomplete? How could someone's magic be missing a piece? Evidently it was possible since Nordskov sensed it. All the same, Harry had never heard of such a thing before... It was something he would look into when he had the time...

'Missing a piece of what?' Damon signed, entering the room and seating himself next to Kresten on his bed.

'Door?' Harry questioned him.

The German nodded. 'Handled.'

Harry smiled, approving. 'Perfect.'

'Kresten noticed that the prefect's magic was missing a tiny piece,' Roman answered Damon's previous query, fingers moving in agitation. 'I take it that it isn't in the usual way; like magical exhaustion?'

'No.' Silvery eyes narrowed. 'It's different.'

Roman threw up his hands, defensively for a minute. 'Well unlike you, most of us aren't magic sensitive. Even Harry didn't notice that.'

'Maybe because Harry's been trying to keep his magic reigned in since the Deputy kept giving him looks,' Azel put in, placidly. 'We need to work on new codes for the prominent figures at this school. We can't keep using "deputy" for Sir I-resemble-a-muggle-clown and "prefect" for Harry's lookalike. Speaking of...'

"He's entirely too perceptive," Harry said quietly, annoyed, running his fingers through his hair.

They all glanced toward the door. Nothing stirred from beyond.

'I'll need to work out how to deal with him,' he added, this time carefully signing again. 'Now on to other matters: Portals. What sort of reworking will we need? I can't check myself with... him out there.'

Everyone turned to Kresten.

'Not much...' the Danish boy signed back slowly. He turned, examined the room, then moved to his current bed and set about completing the required glyphs onto each inner post with a piece of magical chalk. Withdrawing, he moved over to Harry's bed and repeated the process before he stepped back, pleased. The chalk vanished into his pocket. 'This should work.'

'Then by all means...' Roman gestured and Harry frowned, deciding he'd need to talk with the boy later.

Kresten seated himself on their leader's bed and extracting his wand, waved it once, twice and swept it around his head like a lasso. Then he was gone. Transferred back to his own bed minus the telltale flash of light or sound. He rose, rubbing his face, looking disorientated.

Well... that wasn't meant to happen.

'Did it work properly?'

Everyone stared.

Right. It definitely needed reworking; couldn't wander the school with missing parts now, could they? That would earn an unwanted amount of attention. Luckily they had experience with losing bits in their earlier years, otherwise having to explain to the school healer why Kresten wasn't quite intact when he'd most certainly arrived in perfect working order could become horribly troublesome.

Carefully, Harry reattached the boy's ear. It was hot and glowing pink in embarrassment.

"Well," Roman smirked, eyes near closed in amusement. "At least it wasn't his di—"

Kresten glared in return. "Don't you dare."

"What?" the Ukrainian boy questioned, innocently. No one bought it. "I was about to say 'Distal phalanges.' You know, the tips of your fingers and toes?"

"I'm sure you were," Harry murmured, shaking his head. Those two, seriously. To think he was the youngest of the five. Still, a little bit of mostly harmless teasing was normal. Generally, the group never went beyond that.

"I can look into it tonight," Azel offered, quietly. "It should only need to be tweaked a little."

"Good." At least they'd have a way of getting in and out of the dorms without detection should it be needed and he had a feeling, they'd be employing the use of their portals frequently... Still, they needed a safe place outside the dorm to travel to... and work on connecting Damon's bed to the circuit.

There was a loud crash outside, followed by cursing then more crashes and a girl's high pitched shriek. The group shared a look.

Damon chuckled, "Sounds like Bellatrix is come back."

It did indeed.

Rising, Harry strode to the door and down the stairs, taking several at a time. Shoving the tapestry that concealed the boy's dorms aside he stepped out into the common room—mostly unscathed, save for a few books scattered on the floor and an inkwell—to catch the end of a particularly irate outburst from a very attractive, golden-eyed girl.

"—menace. What imbecile let that get in—"

"My Master!"

Silvery-tabby fur filled his vision and claws dug into his robes as his arms were filled with eight pounds of excited, squirming jarvey. A small muzzle pressed against his neck and a wet tongue lapped at it in greeting.

"I apologise on Bellatrix's behalf," he murmured, perfectly contrite and offered a boyish grin. "She can get... out of hand if confined to small places for too long. I thought letting her roam the castle would calm her. I was wrong."

The girl stopped dead, as did her companions that were still entering the common room behind her. She opened her mouth, eyes locked on him, closed her mouth and smiled demurely in return. "Oh, no. It was nothing, she just startled me is all!" A light, airy laugh followed. "I'm Elizabeth, by the way. Elizabeth Greengrass."

Greengrass... Wealthy, pureblood family... heiress? No... Older brother.

"Harris Peverell," he returned in kind, taking her proffered hand and bowing over it, as etiquette dictated. When he pulled back, her cheeks were a pretty pink and she looked stunned, awed. Her breath grew heavy and rapid.

"Peverell?"

And it starts... He inwardly rolled his eyes.

"Yellow eyes," Bellatrix declared loudly, drawing all attention to her and she directed a sharp, dangerous little smile at the girl. "Like... egg yolks. Can I eat them?"

Greengrass withdrew hurriedly with a tiny horrified gasp.

Bellatrix, the evil ball of fur cackled loudly; the sound strange forming in her underdeveloped voice box.

"No, Bellatrix," Harry frowned disapprovingly down into her small, albeit, adorable pointed face. "You can't eat her eyes. You can't eat anyone's eyes, so stop asking. It isn't polite. I want you to apologise."

She sniffed and whined mutinously. "Horrible, power grubbing little wench!" She turned obsidian eyes on him, pleading. "She's unworthy of my master's attention!"

"Bellatrix."

Head lowered, the jarvey turned toward Greengrass sulkily. "My master says I must be sorry," she mumbled. "So sorry I am for wanting to eat your eyes... I don't much like eggs anyway... Too soft and runny."

Really... Why did he even bother some times?

"And?" the green-eyed boy prompted.

"And calling you horrible and power grubbing..." Bellatrix added.

He noted she hadn't retracted the 'wench' comment, though. Jealous females...

"I apologise again," Harry said with a sigh, fixing Greengrass with look to convey his true sincerity. "If she ever says anything it's generally better for all if it's ignored. She's like this with most people she just meets."

Greengrass nodded slowly, accepting it with a small smile. "Oh."

"She... asks that often?" Another girl, presumably Greengrass' friend questioned, patting the golden-eyed girl on the shoulder. "To eat people's eyes, I mean."

"That would be my fault, I'm afraid," Roman conceded, stepping into the common room. "I gave her blueberries one day and told her they were someone's eyes. She won't touch blueberries as they are, so we've been unable to convince her they are a fruit and not the eyes of a person."

"You could always give her real eyes one day so she knows the difference."

Everyone stared at the weedy looking boy who'd made the suggestion. His shoulders hunched, defensive.

"What?"

Before anyone else could add a thing, Riddle swept forward.

"That will be quite enough, Nott," he began without preamble. "These two are a couple of the new members that our house has received. Harris Peverell—as you've already been briefly introduced—and Roman Sewick.

"Peverell, Sewick and three others have just transferred in from Durmstrang; you are to make them feel welcome. I think it prudent you not interrogate them while they familiarise themselves with their new surroundings, however. Head master Dippet will be making an announcement at dinner if you must know further details, I believe."

And if Harry had still been the naïve, trusting boy he was in his younger years, he'd have taken the prefect's words at face value and accepted that he was honestly only looking out for the best interests of Harry and his sect-mates.

As things stood, he knew just how perfectly those words veiled a threat.

Taking Riddle's words as they were, the incoming students simply nodded and after offering the exchange students welcomes varying between curious and wary to downright flirtatious they begun conversing between themselves, drifting around the common room or up into the dorms to deposit of their school things.

Apparently Riddle was going to be more of a problem than initially believed...

How inconvenient.

"I'm just going to post this to my parents," Roman informed him, flashing an envelope sealed with his family crest. 'But I can stay...?'

Harry shook his head. 'Go,' he signed. To any outsider it would simply appear like he was flexing his fingers.

Roman left without further comment.

"An... interesting choice in familiar."

Turning, he was met by the indigo-eyed prefect examining Bellatrix in... curiosity. Riddle couldn't really be all that interested in the jarvey so what was he getting at? Small talk was pointless, the subject matter weak at best...

"Bellatrix, you said she was called," Riddle added. "Is she as proficient a hunter as her name would lead one to believe? She is named for the Amazon star, correct?"

"I am," the jarvey replied instead, her own dark gaze locked on Riddle in silent assessment. "Like you; a killer."

Oh not this again. All jarveys were notorious for insulting anyone and everyone. His jarvey was just a little more... abstract with her insults and threatening. When he'd first come across her, she'd taken it upon herself to chase anyone who got too close to him away. Almost like a guard dog except essentially she was a talking oversized ferret.

His hand slipped over her muzzle, silencing her from further comment.

"Ignore her," he advised the now exceedingly blank looking prefect. "She doesn't like strangers and is more likely to... say highly inappropriate things. Her insults are just far more peculiar than most other jarveys' tend to be."

Those bizarre coloured eyes settled heavily on him then, dark and intrusive as if inspecting the very corners of his mind. That hadn't happened since he'd been forced to master occlumency by the end of their second year and for the first time since then, Harry felt something akin to true discomfort rise.

If there was anything he loathed more, it was being made to feel vulnerable even if he feigned it often enough to fly under the radar. Acting the part and actually feeling it were entire different.

Even Dumbledore, who was more powerful than this... boy—because yes, now they were in the common room he could feel exactly how magically gifted the prefect was and perhaps that was the other's intention after all—hadn't made him feel nearly as edgy. Maybe it was the knowledge Riddle's magic had a gap in it? Maybe that it felt reasonably close in strength to his own? He couldn't tell for certain... his own still shielded, for the most part and therein lay the issue.

He didn't want to reveal the strength of his own magic and yet, being around the other, dark-eyed boy made it difficult to reign in the urge to keep it under wraps for the very same reason he was keeping it hidden in the first place: to appear weak and therefore, nonthreatening.

And maybe he'd been projecting—like he did when stressed or particularly emotional—but Bellatrix turned on the taller boy and snapped her teeth at him.

"My Master," she warned. "Mine."

Riddle's mouth quirked upwards in an amused expression. Beneath lay something infinitely more mocking, and almost sinister. "And possessive," he commented, tone far more knowing than it really ought to be.

"That's Bellatrix," Harry smiled glibly in return.

Would it be better if he gradually drifted away? Or if he was dismissed? Though the latter smarted something fierce, he was still only new and didn't want any undue attention focused on his person more than his name circulating the school would likely generate... and wait what?

Riddle's eyes flashed, apparently realising he'd missed the question, and Harry could have sworn for a second there they'd looked...

Impossible, he chided himself.

"I was just asking whether the others had finished unpacking?" The prefect queried. Funny, Harry was certain it had been something else before. "Then perhaps we could go over your chosen classes; to ensure there aren't any gaps between subjects due to the transition. What courses are you taking?"

"Advanced arithmancy," Harry responded, slowly as Bellatrix climbed up and around his shoulders where she settled in, feeling every bit like a breathing fur scarf. "Astronomy, Charms, Defence, Herbology, Potions, Runes and Transfiguration."

Riddle nodded, smiled and Harry could see nothing remotely dark about it, which made him more suspicious.

"We have the same classes."

Really? Oh joy. It was sort of expected, though.

"Tom!"

A tallish boy with dark hair tumbled into the room, looking for all intents and purposes like the chew toy of a hippogriff, complete with a limp, a mangled bloody nose and an oddly hanging arm.

"If you'll excuse me," the prefect said, waited patiently for a nod, then went to address the boy.

Dinner that night was sure bound to be insightful if nothing else.

He wasn't disappointed.

-TRHP-

Riddle proved to be a very charming and polite individual.

They discussed their subjects and the differences between how they'd been taught and the style their new teachers' would employ. During those times, Harry would forget his mistrust for the other, only for him to be reminded by the very careful way everyone else within their house treated the amethyst-eyed boy.

With a reverence, awe and fear.

It was all very craftily concealed but not nearly well enough to keep him from recognising the telltale signs. He'd always been fairly perceptive and growing up the way he had taught him the brilliance of being observant and he'd seen enough fear to know all forms in which it could manifest itself.

It almost meant they had a very real problem on their hands. One made glaringly more obvious once they reached the great hall for dinner that evening.

"Really?" Reynard Lestrange—nose no longer a bloody mess, limp gone and arm fixed—was asking Roman. "Don't you get cold then? During winter?"

"Only if you can't cast a decent warming charm," the Sewick heir replied, blithely. "Understandably, it's one of the very first charms we're encouraged to learn. They're also very powerful."

Lestrange chuckled. "Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'blue balls.' I feel your pain."

"I'm sure you do..." Roman muttered, glaring as Lestrange made his way over to a seat at the Slytherin table.

"Roman," Damon scolded.

The Sewick heir looked about ready to snap something back before remembering his place and shutting his mouth, though his icy blue-green eyes narrowed ever so slightly in Damon's direction.

Harry really hoped no one had caught that.

He doubted he was that fortunate.

"Peverell."

No. Certainly not lucky at all.

Riddle was calling him over to sit with a gang of boys—some of which Harry didn't know the names of—across from him in the... middle of their house table. Elsewhere, he was swift to note, everyone was seated by year groups.

This certainly had the potential to go very badly very quickly.

Okay, no problem. It was a slight set back but Harry refused to let that bother him and it wasn't as if he'd have too much trouble disbanding it and establishing a new rule. He'd utterly decimated the previous ruling Sect in Durmstrang with little difficulty and held his position.

There was a reason he'd survived so long as one of Durmstrang's Elite. Few thirteen year-olds could bring together a Sect of only five people and call the rest to submit without too much fighting involved. It was child's play in comparison to the chaotic 'real world' he'd grown up in and was forced to navigate alone from such a young age.

He inclined his head slightly, as though in acknowledgement of Riddle's invite but aware his fellow Durmstrang transfers were taking cues from him.

"I see it," Kresten said, quietly and his eyes lit up in challenge and something else when he spotted the group of boys that were quite obviously the ruling party within Slytherin. "Tactic?"

"Unchanged," Harry returned equally as low, "Damon?"

The broad, heavily muscled seventh year of their small group moved forward and led them to Riddle, where they all slotted themselves in around the prefect. He looked perfectly fine with this. His 'Court' on the other hand... looked a little put out by the arrangements but said nothing of it.

"Peverell?" The sole blond of Riddle's group questioned, he smiled and offered a hand. "Devan Rosier."


Abrupt ending but... I didn't want to keep going and we need a change of perspective, I'm thinking. Yes.

To be pre-emptive. Harry isn't all "delicate" or "effeminate" he is shorter and smaller than Tom, yes. But Tom's like 6'3"... And Harry is physically smaller than most of the guys in his year but not all of them. Example: Azel who is 5'8" - 5'9"

This chapter isn't as "jumpy" as the last one... Needed to establish a few things. Hopefully It'll be faster paced again next chapter... Maybe. I think I need more practise writing Tom... He needs to be darker but I didn't want him off the bat straight up evil... We'll work up to that, yeah?

Questions? Concrit? Anything random to add?
Thanks and hope you enjoyed :)