Welcome back, dear readers, to "Infinity Keeps Me Alive"
Sleep tight.
Don't Let The Snake Bite
"Morgana."
Spoken seemingly at random in a dead end deep within the dungeons, that vocal command caused a blank wall to collapse unto itself, revealing an access to The Pit, the Slytherin common room.
The Greengrass heir readjusted the bag on her right shoulder, ready to pass the threshold, when a male voice called out for her.
"Daphne!"
The blonde witch stopped instantly, turned around and glared at an approaching Harry Potter, Sorting Hat on his head.
Her friend was an oddity, both as a Slytherin and as a wizard. Intelligent beyond anything she'd ever seen in someone her age, yet totally capable of being childish. Fast on his feet and on a broom, with reflexes that would make even her father, accomplished duelist, whistle in appreciation. Excellent grasp of the spells he knew and strong tendencies to learn new ones in the blink of an eye, with that annoying glimpse in his eyes showing that he was still holding back.
That was another oddity, he was holding back. Not his skills, but how much he knew about the castle, the professors, the Wizardry World… He was supposed to be a muggle-raised wizard, he'd even confirmed this to her in the Express, yet he knew things, occasionally said things, that many pureblood wizards didn't even know about their own community.
It made no sense at all.
She had a disturbing feeling that he was… toying with them, constantly playing some obscure partition only known to him and Nathaniel Hatfield.
And right now, she had the even more disturbing feeling that him using her first name instead of her last name had also been a calculated move.
"What do you want, Potter?" she growled, a bit annoyed.
"Just to share a word of advice, Ms. Greengrass." replied not Harry, but Nathaniel. "You may want to be as far away from the common room as possible in the immediate future."
What? Why? Had something happened, or was something… about to happen?
Her glare intensified slightly, now directed equally toward the wizard and the hat.
"What are you two up to this time?"
"Nothing technically illegal, Greengrass."
And he was back to using her last name, which meant that his lapse had been deliberate and he really didn't want her in that room.
"Potter…" she said uneasily.
That dunderhead was about to do something stupid, she just knew it. Stupid enough that he'd warned her, and probably equally dangerous. For the Slytherins, or for him… there lied the question.
"Don't worry, I'm just about to remind our fellow snakes that their actions have consequences." said the wizard.
Bad feeling, again…
The witch sighed.
"If you're not here in five minutes, I'm coming in."
The wizard nodded with a smile and entered, closing the passageway behind him.
Daphne grabbed her wand and used the Tempus charm.
One second, two second, three second…
Terence Higgs was… baffled.
His mission was supposed to be pretty simple, he was to stand on guard by the common room entrance and wait for that stupid muggle-lover Potter. When the little pest would walk past him, he would immobilize him with a Body-Bind Curse and use Vitriolic flare to melt his wand hand, magical abilities and undeserved fame.
The Dark Lord would be avenged, the world would cower in fear once more and he would be praised for his achievement.
Except that Potter had defied all expectations and actually come straight to him, to talk about Quidditch of all things!
"… thing is, I'm a bit reluctant to take the trials. It's the constant training, not sure if I'll be able to handle it and keep up with my homework at the same time. See what I mean?"
Terence could only nod stupidly.
What was he supposed to do? Cursing Potter in the back was supposed to add a level of anonymity on the caster and solidify the alibi of the entire House, but now… should he just curse Potter in the face?
"Maybe I can just not join the team. Buy a broom and fly it out sometimes, but without the responsibilities and all."
"You would missthe thrill of the chase." commented the Sorting Hat.
"I'm sure that I can think of something and I wouldn't do that if I were you Flint."
Terence blinked.
Flint had clearly seen the unexpected situation and decided to act himself, except that Potter had somehow seen him without even looking in his direction.
"I give him five points." said the Hat, not looking at the surprised and frozen Flint either. "Yes, it was pretty stupid, but at least he tried to save his friend. It's very Hufflepuff and deserves a reward."
"No, it's not his style. He just saw an opportunity to take the honors without exposing himself too much."
"Oh… well then, I'm taking those points back for cowardice."
"How did you…?" began Flint in a whisper, only to be interrupted by an angry hissing noise.
[Can we bite them now, Speaker?]
[Can we?]
The two attackers gulped when they identified the sources of the hissing. Two golden brown and black snakes were loosely coiled around their legs.
And then Potter blew their minds by actually hissing back.
[Depends on them, really.]
He really was a Parselmouth? A light wizard like him? How was that possible?
By now, the entire common room had fallen silent, the students watching the commotion with a mixture of awe, fear and a bunch of other emotions.
"I warned you." smirked the Sorting Hat.
"And now I'M warning you." said Potter with a smile.
Smile of not, his voice was devoid of any warmth and effectively froze every student on their feet.
"Some among you don't like me, I get it... but the thing is, my little friends don't like you either. You just tried to attack their Speaker in his home and if I wasn't so merciful, Flint and Higgs would both be in big trouble." he explained. "It probably wouldn't kill them, but they would stay in the infirmary for a couple of days."
"You would give them to Poppy?" asked the hat with a smile. "Man, you ARE evil."
"Nah, Mme Pomfrey is too sweet." smiled back the wizard. "I'd rather sic Moony and Padfoot on them."
"… you're a scary kid."
"And you're repeating yourself, Nat."
The surreal discussion was suddenly interrupted when the front door opened, a tense Daphne Greengrass standing behind it with her wand out.
"You can lower your wand, Ms. Greengrass." immediately said the Sorting Hat. "Everything is under control."
She relaxed slightly, only to gasp in astonishment when she saw the reptiles.
"What the…? Are those Caspian Cobras?"
"Yep."
"Potter, those things can blind someone for life." she said, sounding a bit apprehensive. "Their venom kills in –"
"Eight minutes, I know. Just enough time to reach the infirmary."
A collective shiver traveled through the crowd.
The audience firmly believed the Sorting Hat now, Potter was a scary kid.
"So, back to you two." continued the wizard, looking back at his assailants with narrow eyes. "A watcher, an ambusher. It would have been a sound plan, if those two little guys weren't constantly looking after me."
The two cobras hissed menacingly and the Slytherins swallowed.
"Here's my offer. You leave me alone out of fear and I do the same out of the goodness of my heart. But try something like that again and you're done."
"You wouldn't kill us." replied Flint with defiance. "You're too bloody noble for that."
"You're right, I wouldn't kill you." recognized Potter, before hissing once more. [Dinner's ready!]
A nightmare awoke.
Snakes, dozens of snakes of all sizes and colors, revealed themselves all around the room. Some were coming out of engravings, or paintings, letting themselves fall from the chandeliers, the most massive one slowly slithering out of the House blazon mounted on top of the fireplace mantle.
"They would." he continued without a hint of emotion in his voice. "Quickly if you only go after me, slowly and extremely painfully if you try to take it out on Theodore, Tracey or Greengrass here. Same goes for Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom."
With a small hiss, all the snakes including the two cobras returned to their former position, leaving no trace of what had to be the biggest threat ever expressed in The Pit.
"Now excuse me, I have more pressing matters than you two." he said. "Come along Greengrass."
And without looking back to see if she was indeed following him, Potter walked out of the room.
Greengrass reacted after five seconds, shaking herself out of her stupor and running after her friend.
The other Slytherins remained frozen in place for a moment, bedlam only erupting once the front door closed behind the witch.
In among the chaos, Tracey Davis excused herself from the discussion she'd been engrossed in with Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode and ran up to the boys' dormitory. She had to find Theo, urgently.
"ARE YOU CRAZY?!"
"Calm down Greengrass." answered Harry, not even stopping.
"CALM? AFTER WHAT YOU JUST DID? HOW COULD I BE CALM?"
"Breathing should do it." smiled Nathaniel.
"Lowering your voice would help too."
"You're not helping your case, Potter!" growled the witch. "What were you thinking?"
"That it was long overdue."
"Potter!"
"I'm serious, Greengrass. They hate my guts for what I supposedly did to their boss, they were bound to do something stupid sooner or later."
"So you chose to beat them to it?" asked Daphne sarcastically.
The wizard shook his head and took a flight of stairs.
"No, it wasn't a preemptive strike, it was self-defense."
"Messrs Higgs and Flint were about to cripple him." explained the hat.
"What?"
"Wand-hand amputation." he precised.
Her anger didn't fade, it was redirected.
"THOSE BLOODY BASTARDS!"
"Stop yelling!" snapped the wizard. "You're going to rouse the entire castle."
Daphne complied, but not without grumbling a really long series of curses.
"Where are we going exactly?" she asked, two minutes of inventive insults later.
"I need a word with the Weasley twins."
"The pranksters? But… they're in Gryffindor."
"And?"
"How do you intend to find them?" asked the witch. "Unless you can somehow locate their common room, there's just no way…"
She finally registered his amused smile and the metaphorical Lumos went off in her head.
"You know where it is."
He nodded, his smile widening.
"Of course you do." she sighed, before looking at Nathaniel. "You told him, right?"
"Something like that." smirked the hat.
"And where is it exactly?"
"See for yourself." replied Harry, suddenly stopping in front of a painting.
From inside the frame, a proud looking woman was looking critically at the two Slytherins.
"A good day to you, Fat Lady." bowed the wizard. "We would like to talk with two of your charges. May we enter, please?"
"Password?" she asked with a frown.
"Caput Draconis."
"… you may enter."
"Thank you."
The two Slytherins moved past the opening and entered The Den.
A bunch of red and gold students were hanging around the room, way too used to the noise made by their front door to even bother looking at the new arrivals.
That is, until Harry cleared his throat loudly, catching their attention.
"Excuse me?"
A dense silence fell on a common room for the second time that day, but whereas Slytherin had been muted by fear, Gryffindor was instead muted by incredulity.
There couldn't really be two snakes in their sacrosanct tower… right?
"I'm looking for Fred and George Weasley. Are they here and, if so, can someone please notice them that I have a proposal for them?"
Mentioning the twins seemed to do the trick for a few of the students, as if their mere involvement could somehow explain and demystify any situation.
"They're here, I… I'll get them." said their friend Lee Jordan.
"Thank you." nodded Harry, as he watched the wizard disappear up the stairs leading to the dorms.
"What do you want with my brothers?" suddenly growled a familiar voice, cutting through the supernatural silence left in Lee's wake.
From his seat by the fireplace, Ron Weasley was directing a distrustful look at the two Slytherins.
"Nothing pernicious, I assure you." replied the time-traveler on the same cordial tone he'd adopted since passing the threshold. "I merely need their help."
"And why would they help you?"
"Because we asked nicely?" offered Daphne.
"Nice? You're Slytherins, you don't do nice!"
"You do know your paternal grandmother was in Slytherin, right?" countered Harry.
Although, according to her son, it wasn't necessarily an acceptable counterargument and more of a prime illustration – not exactly on Walburga Black's level, but still.
"What?" gasped the redhead, before frowning even more intensely. "You're lying!"
"It's registered in the library, look it up." smiled the time traveler. "Or you can just ask your father."
Ron's look was equally shocked, disbelieving and… was that betrayal?
"Besides, as welcome as it would be, I didn't ask for your help." reminded Harry. "I asked for your brothers'. I'm afraid then, that your biased views on wizardry labels don't have a say in this matter."
Okay, so he was being voluntarily controversial and provocative with his old friend, but it was for his own good. Ron simply had to blow a casket and take the time to cool down before he could think properly.
"You little…" began the Gryffindor, his skin taking a dangerously angry red coloration.
"RON!" interfered Fred – or was it George? – from the staircase.
"Stop it!" added George – or maybe Fred. – standing by his brother.
The twins, always there to save the day.
"But..."
"R~on!" insisted both brothers at the same time.
"Fine!"
And the boy went back to his game of chess, grumbling and steaming.
"We're sorry for our brother." apologized one of the twin as he shook Harry's hand.
"He lacks manners… and a brain." explained the other, planting a chaste kiss on top of Daphne's hand, before switching with his brother.
"So…"
"how may we…"
"help you today…"
"Ms. Greengrass…"
"Mr. Potter…"
"and Mr. Hatfield?"
Daphne's eyes had gone wide, the witch being unacquainted with their legendary verbal assaults.
Nathaniel and Harry were unfazed thought.
"You'll probably hear about it tomorrow, but I just shook things up in The Pit."
The redheads' eyes were instantly shining.
"And what…"
"exactly…"
"did you do to…"
"shake things up?"
"He used parseltongue to activate the castle's defenses." explained Nathaniel. "And sicced a bunch of snakes on two dark wizard wannabes who'd just tried to wound him severely."
They whistled simultaneously, ignoring the numerous gasps emitted by eavesdroppers and Ron's predictable 'I knew it!'
"Impressive."
"Thanks." smiled Harry. "Sadly, I can only do that around the dungeons."
"No snakes in the rest of the castle." understood the brothers.
"Precisely." confirmed the wizard. "And it would have been fine… if I'd been the only recipient of my Housemates' affection. But the thing is, I have friends in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. They could be targeted too and I can't let them unprotected."
"Hermione Granger…" began Fred – but again, it could be George.
"and Neville Longbottom…" carried on George – or Fred.
"and you want us to look after them." they concluded together.
"Mostly Hermione, I have someone else in mind for Neville." said Harry "But that's the gist of it."
As the Gryffindors around them began to whisper furiously, the Weasleys looked at each other in silence for a few seconds.
"We're not cheap." finally stated Fred – or George masquerading as Fred.
"Name your price." replied Harry with a huge smile.
"Seventh floor." whispered a redhead.
"Left corridor." added the other.
The smile disappeared at the speed of light and Nathaniel began to shake in fear.
"I WARNED YOU!" mentally panicked the hat. "But you didn't listen and now we're DOOMED!"
"Shut up." growled Harry, looking for a way out of this mess.
After thirty seconds of unsuccessful reflection, the wizard sighed. They'd named their price and it was so high that the only thing that could potentially rival it was to let them enter the Chamber of Secret.
Once again, he had no choice.
"I don't know how you found out about that and I'm not going to ask." he said, denying any knowledge about the Marauder's map. "What I will ask though, is a vow to never reveal anything about that to anyone… ever."
At that he pointed a finger not only at the twins, but also at the blonde Slytherin who'd recovered a few moments ago and was looking at him questioningly.
"That goes for you too."
"But… what about Tracey and Theo?" asked the girl, obviously disliking the idea of hiding something from her best friend and… her acquaintance, she guessed.
"Trust me Daphne, you don't want to see either of them with that kind of knowledge."
Not only were the two Slytherins already curious and excitable enough by themselves, they also seemed – as incredible as it sounded – to reinforce one another's bubbly personalities. Those over-the-top behaviors of theirs were rather amusing, but the twins were more than too much already and he didn't want to know what his housemates could get up to with the Room of Requirement.
"… fine." the witch humphed unhappily, convinced once again of his seriousness by his use of her first name.
Having followed the conversation, the brothers exchanged a glance, followed by a barely perceptible nod.
"We have a deal."
"Excellent." said Harry. "Now, I have to visit The Sett. If you're not particularly busy, you can accompany us and we'll go to the seventh floor immediately after. If it's inconvenient for you, we can just come back later."
They didn't even look at each other this time.
"We're coming."
"Wotcher, Harry!"
"Hey there, Nymphadora."
The time-traveler had to smother a laugh when the Metamorphmagus grimaced, her hair turning light orange for a moment. She hadn't corrected him at their first encounter, but doing it afterward would just paint her in a bad light and sadden her baby cousin, something that she most certainly wouldn't do. Which meant that he now had a sort of free pass to Annoyance-town.
"I'm sure that you know Fred and George Weasley by now, but let me introduce you to Daphne Greengrass, a good friend and fellow Slytherin." said Harry, gesturing at his three companions. "Greengrass, this is my good cousin, Nymphadora Tonks."
"Good cousin?" asked Daphne, her eyebrow raised.
"Through my paternal grandmother, Dorea Black. It sadly also means that I'm related to Draco, making him the bad cousin."
"Aouch, we're…"
"sorry for your loss."
The Sorting Hat snickered and Harry smiled at the twins.
"Anyway, I was wondering if you could help me with a little something." said the time-traveler. "I… well, kicked Slytherin House in the nuts would be the proper formulation and I fear that they may take it out on my friends. If it only implicated Theodore Nott and Greengrass here, I would be able to handle it, but I'm friend with Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger too, and they are a bit out of my reach. The twins will do what they can for Hermione, but I'd appreciate it if you could look after Neville for me."
"Oh… huh, sure, no problem Harry."
The twins gasped.
"You're agreeing?"
"Without asking for anything?"
"How can you lose an opportunity like this?"
"Well, he's my cousin..." began to explain Tonks.
"Hufflepuff." they sighed, shaking their heads in disappointment.
"Don't mind them." said Harry with a smile. "They just ripped me off and want to brag about it."
"We would never do that!" refuted either Fred or George.
"But now that you talk about it..." smirked the other.
"See?"
"What did you promise them?" asked Tonks, clearly amused by their antics as she was now sporting blond hair that could rival with Daphne's.
"A hidden room they don't know about."
"Our doom." corrected Nathaniel ominously.
"He's… not completely wrong." grimaced the wizard.
"Is it dangerous?"
"For them, no." Harry reassured her. "For Hogwarts… it might just be. Their pranking abilities will go through the roof."
The twins were beaming.
The girls… not so much.
"Isn't that super irresponsible?" asked the worried Metamorphmagus, her short locks shifting into a light blue.
"As long as they don't target my friends, it's not my problem." shrugged Harry. "Unless we're provoking them, then it's fair game."
"You're a scary kid."
Harry looked up at the hat on his head.
"Twice in a day… are you getting senile or something?"
"Nah, you're just getting scarier."
"Welcome… to the Room of Requirement." theatrically announced Harry, showing… a blank wall.
His audience wasn't impressed.
"Potter… the door."
"Oh… right, the door."
He began to pace and a door appeared out of nowhere, seemingly growing out of the wall.
"Sorry about that." apologized the wizard, scratching his head in embarrassment. "After you."
Daphne went first, followed by Nymphadora who'd tagged along. Harry waited until the twins had entered to go himself, closing the door behind them.
"Harry… where are we?" asked Tonks, more than a bit freaked out by her immediate surroundings.
"The Slytherin common room… a replica of it." answered her cousin. "And that… is a copy of the Gryffindor tower."
Around them, the entire room shifted from a dark green theme to a blazing red and gold one. It stayed like this for a few seconds, before turning into a bright room where bronze and blue were the main colors.
"The Nest in all of its glory." smiled Harry. "Now you have the entire set."
Harry began to enumerate places from all around Hogwarts and the room followed his instructions.
"Dumbledore's office… Professor Sinistra's classroom… the Great Hall… Hagrid' hut…"
The girls were already gaping and the Weasley twins openly salivating, but what happened next finally sent their mind into overdrive.
"Let's complicate this a bit, shall we?"
"Doomed." whispered Nathaniel.
"I'd like a four-poster bed, a chimney connected to the floo network and books about… let's say Occlumency." proposed Harry, sending a meaningful look at Daphne.
A comfy bed materialized out of thin air, a small chest containing eleven books resting on one side of it and a fireplace from which hung a small pouch of green powder appearing on the other.
Four jaws dropped.
"Welcome to the Room of Requirement." repeated the time-traveler. "The elves call it the Come-and-Go room, as it normally only appears when someone is in desperate need of something. You can bypass that, as you just witnessed, by pacing three time in front of it with a clear mental image of what you want. The resulting room will be suited to your desires and can then be altered by a mere thought. Be warned though, the room respects Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, which means that it can't create food, gold and a bunch of other stuff. It can still summon from around the castle though, if you know what you want and where it is stored. As for the furniture, those are mostly transfigurated, the rest being summoned from the Room of Hidden Things much like those books."
His friends had visibly recovered, because the four of them asked the exact same question at the exact same time.
"There's a Room of Hidden Things?"
Harry answered by having the room morph once again. Piles of partly broken stuff were suddenly surrounding them completely, some even reaching the ceiling.
"The castle uses this place to store anything that is lost or entirely forgotten by students and staff alike." stated Nathaniel.
"And a good part of this is cursed to the teeth, no touching." added Harry, receiving four nods. "Good, now let's deal with that non-disclosure oath."
The Room of Hidden Things disappeared, a random classroom taking its place.
"I don't want any of you talking about or taking anyone to this place, unless it's a life-or-death situation." began Harry, sitting in a materialized couch. "You're never using anything without having the room triple-check it for curses either and you avoid irresponsible researches that may have fatal consequences."
A roll of parchment appeared in his hand, filled with the oath he'd just drafted.
"Oh… thanks."