Pretty Bella

"Pretty one indeed." The icy blue eyed snake blinked, before cocking her head to the other side as she looked upon the sleeping form of Elanor, resting peacefully in the chair.

"But what is it about you that master finds interesting?" she pondered out loud, causing Elanor to shift slightly in the chair. "Is it your looks perhaps? No… I am far more beautiful than her."

"You too Hedwig!" she hissed petulantly at the scoffing bark the owl had given her. "Master tells me so!"

"And what would you know about beauty bird-brain!?" she reared up, head almost reaching the ceiling to hiss in the owl's face in anger.

"No that wasn't a compliment!"

A series of barks and hoots sounded out, before Hedwig promptly cuffed a wing around Isabella's head, causing her to hiss in shock.

"What are you doing harpy!?"

"Stop hitting me!"

"I'm going to tell master on you!" she hissed out, almost crying out, before she knocked over an armchair when slithering back away from the vicious owl.

"Oops." She muttered, as a loud crash sounded, causing Elanor to jerk up in her chair, eyes bursting open in shock.

"Is it too late to say it wasn't me?" she hissed questioningly at the dumbstruck owl.

/

Elanor stared directly at the icy blue eyes of a giant black scaled snake for one long quiet moment, before it hit her.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHH!" she screamed piercingly, before tipping her chair back, and falling out. As she scrambled to get to her feet and draw her wand, her only thoughts were on the fact that there was an absolutely massive snake in Harry's house.

Running towards the door she stumbled to a halt, as the snake curled around her, like a boundary line, head facing her and blocking the doorway.

"Wait! Calm down please!" it whined, flinching as Elanor stumbled back in shock, wand slipping out of her hand.

"You can talk!" Elanor exclaimed in shock and confusion. "How can you talk!?"

This caused the snake to blink, before cocking its head to the side, almost like a curious child. "You can hear me?"

"…"

"You're a speaker!" the snake exclaimed, ignoring the slight tremble Elanor had as she spoke. "I thought I'd never see another one!"

"W-Wait, I can talk to snakes?" Elanor voiced out nervously, while gripping her recovered wand tightly.

"Yes! You are speaking parseltongue." The snake confirmed. "The noble tongue of snakes or some such rot. I never brought into that elitism crap but oh well."

"Oh god, Oh god, Oh god." Elanor mumbled in panic. "Nooo this is very bad, very bad."

"What's bad?" the snake asked her curiously, head moving forwards towards her slightly.

"I always thought there was something wrong with me… Now I know, I'm evil aren't I?" Elanor mumbled feverishly, until the snake's tail flicked her in the forehead.

"You don't seem evil to me." The snake voiced promptly. "If you were, I would already have eaten you to protect my Harry."

"Y-You're Harry's snake?" Elanor queried twitchily. "You would have eaten me?" she added with a squeak.

"Yes. I protect my master Harry, as he protects me." The snake replied, now with a noticeable feminine lilt, though it was at first indistinguishable to Elanor. "You're interesting, but not dangerous." She added.

"Thank you?" Elanor replied questioningly, having calmed down slightly, but still holding onto her wand tightly for protection.

"I still maintain that I am more beautiful than you though." The snake continued with surety. "Master Harry would certainly say so too!"

"Of course!" Elanor agreed weakly, hoping to placate a possibly jealous snake. And wasn't that just strange? she thought oddly.

"U-Um… What is your name? I can't keep thinking of you as snake." Elanor voiced more boldly.

"My name is Isabella, Elanor Riddle. Master Harry calls me Bella, so you may too." Isabella voiced imperiously.

"I should have known you would know my name." Elanor replied. "So, Bella, is Harry… a parseltongue too?"

"Harry is a Parselmouth. Parseltongue is the language." Bella replied.

"Oh. So he… talks to you?" Elanor questioned.

"Every day! He's always there for me." Bella replied happily. "Though since you came along, he hasn't been able to speak with me for a while." She added with a slight jealous tilt to her voice.

"I-I'm sure he just didn't want to scare me off!" Elanor raised two hands in a placating gesture. "I'm sure he'll be able to talk to you more now that I know. And I can talk too!" she added quickly.

"Hmph." Bella snorted. "At least I have somebody other than that vicious harpy to talk to when Harry's not around."

"Yes of course!" Elanor replied hastily. "I'll be around as well!"

"I wonder what master will do with you." Bella murmured all of a sudden.

"Wha-What do you mean?" Elanor flinched. "Do with me?" she added nervously.

"I don't know. He doesn't like people knowing he's a parselmouth. But you are one too, so I don't know what he will do." Bella replied. "Anyone else who's discovered it has been dealt with."

"Dealt with?" Elanor shivered. "He… he wouldn't do that to me would he?"

Bella blinked in surprise at her question. "It's not what you're thinking. He removes their memory of the event. He's a good master."

"Ok… Ok." Elanor breathed slightly shallowly.

"I won't let him remove your memory. I could use some actual female company." Bella replied kindly. "That vicious harpy isn't what I'd call good company." Bella seemed to scowl, shooting a glare at the preening snowy owl.

"Tell me about your day out with master Harry." Bella spoke. "I usually get to see what he does, but not today." She seemed to pout slightly, as she looked at Elanor, causing her to capitulate with a sigh.

"Sure."

/

"Yes Grabgold, I am sure." Harry sighed wearily, having repeated that same statement several times already.

"You do realise, this could get us all in trouble?" Grabgold growled out slightly crankily.

"That's where you're wrong. None of this will cause you trouble." Harry grumbled. "As far as you're concerned, you don't know who Tom Marvolo Riddle is." He finished with a slight hiss.

"But the problem is, I do know who he is!" the goblin growled, in a rare display of anger. "Dumbledore will bring us all to ruin, and the girl along with him!"

"Silence!" Harry snarled, eyes boring into Grabgold's, daring him to say another word. "I can make you forget. Bury it so deep that not even Voldemort himself can recover that memory!"

"And before you mention the bloody paperwork, I've already dealt with that too." Harry smiled grimly. "You, me and Elanor are the only ones who know that this ritual was done. I took care of Holddebt for you."

"You did what?" Grabgold narrowed his eyes at Harry. "How dare you harm a goblin!" he snarled.

"I did not harm him in the slightest!" Harry barked, shutting down his rant. "I destroyed that memory extremely thoroughly. It's unrecoverable, and hasn't harmed him at all."

Pausing to let Grabgold simmer down for a moment, he continued. "Before you mention the fact that the higher rank goblins also know about Riddle, they don't. I checked."

"What!?" Grabgold snarled. "Did you do that to them as well!?"

"No!" Harry snapped. "Who else would have done it but Dumbledore! You know how far he's gone to make everyone forget Voldemort's real name! The old coot must have done it a long time ago. Probably as soon as he had discovered her!"

"The bastard probably swindled himself into a meeting with the High King!" Harry continued in a low hiss. "And you know just as well as any other goblin, Dumbledore is not particularly trustworthy when it comes to magical creatures."

"You're just lucky Dumbledore failed to notice that oversight with your position as Inheritance Manager." He finished steadily. "The old man is not perfect."

At this, Grabgold scowled slightly. "You're probably right." He stated simply.

"So what now Harry?" Grabgold queried him calmly. "I'm willing to let you remove this memory, only if it makes the safety of Gringotts a certainty." He added firmly.

"If I do this, the memory is unrecoverable. This isn't a Memory charm Grabgold." Harry sighed wearily. "No goblin within Gringotts knows a single damn thing about Tom Marvolo Riddle, other than you. The only knowledge they have is that Tom Marvolo Riddle opened a vault here, is dead, and the vault has been inherited by Elanor Alya Riddle."

"I made certain to close all the loopholes." Harry added carefully. "Dumbledore has no authority over Tom's vault, so he can't even find out the status of it, unless he openly tried to attack you with magic."

"What's stopping him from reworking our memories again?" Grabgold pointed out shrewdly.

At this, Harry smirked slightly. "Hypothetically speaking, I may have created a ward that blocks all known forms of memory editing, including Legilmency. And also hypothetically, I may have put the ward stone under High King Ragnok's desk." He finished with a lopsided grin, causing Grabgold to snort in good humour.

"While he was sat there working." Harry delivered the punch with a mischievous glint in his emerald eyes, causing Grabgold to topple off his chair in shock.

"Hey what can I say, I'm good at what I do." Harry shrugged as Grabgold looked at him in slight awe.

"Better than that Harry." Grabgold responded, causing Harry to cock his head at him. "Ok."

"Do it Harry."

"…"

"You really shouldn't sleep on the job old friend." Harry remarked with a smirk, eyeing a slowly coming to Grabgold.

"Uh?"

/

"So, how long have you been with Harry?" Elanor asked curiously, leaning back against Bella's smooth onyx coils like a makeshift pillow.

"Ah hm…" Bella frowned for a moment seemingly thinking. "Twelve years." She replied after a while, nodding her head as she did so.

"Wow. You've been with him since he was a baby?" Elanor raised an eyebrow at her.

"Mhm." Bella hummed in reply.

"No wonder you're so close to him." Elanor sighed. "Must be nice having a friend all those years."

"In a manner of speaking." Bella replied smoothly. "He's often quite infuriating, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yeah. He already knows how to irritate me if he wants to, and I've known him for like, two days at the most." Elanor frowned.

"Funny though." She murmured absently, causing Bella to snicker.

"No! I did not just say that!" Elanor cried out in horror. "He's poisoned me!" she moaned desperately.

"Ah, it's inevitable Elanor." Bella replied smugly. "My Harry wraps everyone in his coils."

This caused Elanor to giggle slightly at the exceedingly obvious possessiveness of Bella. She even thought of him as a man-snake, or so she had implied during their talk.

Elanor looked up at Bella's eyes for a moment, remembering how she had slowly drawn her into a conversation, steadily wringing out any stress or nerves with patience, and a cunning edge that Bella personified greatly. She had forgotten she was talking to a snake entirely, let alone the whole Parselmouth thing.

"You're a sly one Bella." She remarked casually, causing her to snicker.

"Oh hush." Bella replied softly. "I'm a snake. It's my nature." She finished with a smirk.

"Hey! You in here Elanor?" Harry's voice called out from the hallway, as his footsteps carried him closer.

"Yeah Harry!" Elanor called back, fixing an eye on the door as he came striding through it, toppling straight over Bella's coils, and landing on the floor in a heap. She couldn't help the bright and loud laughter as she doubled over in amusement, watching Bella suddenly cry out in shock and horror, and immediately begin fussing over him.

"Master Harry! I'm so sorry!" she cried out. "Are you hurt? What do I do?"

A groan later from Harry as he got up on his knees, he replied calmly. "Yeah pretty Bella. I'm fine." He sighed slightly before blinking at the sight of Elanor laughing so hard that her voice couldn't even be heard, and the fact that Bella was in the same room.

"Ok." Harry began carefully. "When exactly did this happen?"

At this, Bella shyly hung her head as she explained for the currently incapacitated Elanor. "I, um, I know you said I should avoid her, but I couldn't help myself. You see… it's all Hedwig's fault." She began.

"If she hadn't insulted my beauty none of this would have happened!" she cried out indignantly.

"Ok, I get the feeling you're leaving things out, but I guess there's no harm done at the moment." Harry frowned, as Elanor nodded along to Bella's self-absorbed explanation.

"Seems I'm a parselmouth too." Elanor murmured. "I mean, at first I thought Bella was a giant man-eating, talking snake."

"I'm still not sure how we ended up in a conversation where she shared all the stupid things you've ever done." She added with a straight face.

"You did what!?" Harry exclaimed at Bella.

"Harry, we're keeping this one, so why wouldn't I share things about my master with her?" Bella nodded at her own logic.

"B-But…" Harry spluttered, looking at the steadily cracking face of Elanor, who was threatening to break out into a wide smile, or hysterical laughter, probably both, he thought. At least until her words got through to Elanor.

"W-Wait what the hell do you mean, keeping me?" Elanor exclaimed in shock.

At this, Harry snorted. "Don't worry, I'll feed you regularly."

"Bella can take you on walks too." He added glibly.

"Harry!" Elanor shouted. "Quit your joking around!"

"Ah." Harry blinked stupidly for a moment. "Sure."

"Good." She stated firmly. "I believe there's a few things you need to tell me now."

"…"

"Or at least, you were planning on telling me a few things, I seem to remember you saying." Elanor continued. "Wouldn't you agree Bella?"

"Of course Elanor!" Bella responded smoothly.

"Well… I guess I can tell you, but remember what I said about something I would have to teach you?" Harry began carefully.

"I seem to remember that yeah." Elanor mused. "Is it something good?"

"It's an entire branch of magic." Harry replied. "Of course, I think you'll have some aptitude for it, but we'll have to see how easy it is for you."

"Oh." Elanor replied simply.

"I do need you to know this if you want to know a few things." Harry grimaced slightly. "I like to keep my secrets close to my chest, but some of them, you'll need to know and be able to protect them yourself. I can't tell you if you can't protect them."

"Right." Elanor replied firmly, steel in her eyes. "So, I need to learn this to learn more about you."

"I suppose so." Harry replied.

"Ok, I can do that." Elanor stated simply. "It's only fair that you need to be able to trust me as well."

"I feel I can trust you, but I can't trust what others might do." Harry pointed out. "It's not a problem of trust, more to do with my safety, and most likely yours too, if you're going to be a friend of mine."

"I could hide everything from you, but you wouldn't trust me otherwise." Harry added.

"Probably." Elanor replied, inwardly thinking that she would probably have ignored that considering the circumstances where she hadn't actually got any friends in life. Though she wasn't a hundred percent sure she could trust his intentions, having learnt he was capable of reading her completely thoroughly.

/

"Anyway, now that this room has been tidied up, no thanks to Bella." Harry started. "I can start to explain what I mean by protecting my secrets."

"Ok." Elanor replied simply.

"The Mind Magics cover a variety of things, from compulsion charms, memory charms, Legilmency, Occlumency, and even relate to things like the Patronus Charm, Black Magic, Light Magic, and the Unforgiveables." Harry began a soft lecturing tone. "In fact, the Mind Magics are actually so broad, that they cover all magic fields. However, where it really comes into play is with Legilmency and Occlumency."

Seeing Elanor nodding slightly at the explanation, he could also tell she had several questions, but was content to wait for him to get to the crux of the matter.

"Ok." Harry continued. "The Mind Magics, as stated by the ministry, are illegal."

"Illegal?" Elanor exclaimed in surprise. "But you mentioned all sorts of things, like compulsion charms and the Patronus. They're not illegal."

"If you know the ministry laws well enough, they have a ridiculously narrow definition of the Mind Magics. They're wrong of course, considering how compulsion and memory charms can be very dangerous. There are laws involving the use of memory charms though, so it's not all bad." Harry replied. "What they specifically call the Mind Magics, are traditionally called the Mind Arts, Occlumency and Legilmency."

"Occlumency, is the act of closing the mind from external penetration. It has existed since ancient times. It was an extremely obscure branch of practice, but useful." Harry stated.

"So… why is that illegal?" Elanor asked with a frown. "It seems useful for anyone."

"Too useful." Harry replied with a small smile. "It can prevent a Legilmens from accessing your thoughts and feelings, perusing your memories and influencing you. However, accomplished Occlumens are dangerous to the ministry. It is a very powerful method of resisting Veritaserum, an extremely powerful truth potion, used in interrogations and strictly controlled by the ministry." Harry added. "By banning Occlumency, they try to ensure no one can overcome their methods of control, or even stave off the effects of dementors, for one." He finished calmly.

Elanor shivered slightly at his darker tone when mentioning the dementors. Having experienced their effects for herself, she seemed to understand the feeling behind it, especially if he had also felt the effects before. Pushing the thought out of her mind, she spoke up.

"So Legilmency is the reverse, in a way?" she queried casually. "It can be used to influence people's thoughts and feelings, even to work like an Imperius curse, imposing their will on the victim?"

"Yeah, you're pretty quick to get this. Better than I did at first." Harry smiled in slight remembrance.

"You're a Legilmens aren't you?" Elanor looked at him curiously. "There's more to it right?" she added causing Harry to shudder slightly.

"Yeah. It's an extremely easily twisted discipline. To a person without morals, it can be used to warp a person's mind, alter memories, insert fake memories, to completely twist a person until they are completely unrecognisable." Harry scowled. "In fact, even the best intentions are still reprehensible, but I had to deal with being a natural Legilmens anyway."

"It's why I'm an Occlumens." Harry murmured. "Legilmency is almost one of the most horrifying branches of magic I've ever seen."

"I see you don't care much for the law." Elanor smiled, to put him at ease. "To be honest, I think Occlumency is something everyone should learn from what you've told me."

"Whether everyone knowing it would be a good thing, I don't know." Harry grinned. "Legilmency though, that can stay forever banned."

"You said you were a natural Legilmens." Elanor pointed out. "How is that possible?"

"How should I explain it?" Harry pondered. "Ahh. Do you remember getting your wand from Ollivanders?"

"Yeah, why?" Elanor asked curiously.

"Well it's simple, did he tell you what the strengths of your wand were?" Harry queried. "Natural talents are similar in a way, where some are natural inclined to Herbology or Potions for example."

"Ah, I get it." Elanor replied comprehendingly. "I'll keep my wand's strengths to myself though."

Harry just waved a hand in dismissal. "Yeah, I wasn't actually asking to know, just using it as a point of reference."

"Anyway, when I was growing up, I could always seem to tell when someone was hiding something, or lying to me." Harry stated. "That's basically how I became a Legilmens. I started unconsciously using weak Legilmency, and ended up at this point."

"It's not a pleasant thought, because the Dark Lord was said to be the world's most powerful Legilmens, and that's not a discipline I like to share with him." He added.

"Ah, yeah, and we both speak parseltongue." Elanor grimaced. "I can see why you'd want me to know Occlumency."

"Since I'm an accomplished Legilmens, I can actually attempt to read your mind." Harry stated. "Of course, if you're not willing, the best I can do is guide you through the process of learning Occulmency. I picked up this book while you were back here." He added, passing her an old slightly battered book, called 'To Occlude by Serin Damatoll'.

"That should explain the more advanced aspects of Occlumency, and the beginning steps to becoming an Occlumens. It basically involves a lot of meditation." Harry spoke smoothly. "Of course, these books are practically non-existent, so it won't explain every possible method. I don't use this method either, but that's because my mind works completely differently to the classic Occlumens."

"I think you can use it though, because you seem to be in good control of your emotions, where I wear my heart on my sleeve, or at least used to." He continued.

"So how good are you at Occlumency Harry?" she asked curiously, leafing through the first few pages of the book.

"I said I was a natural Legilmens." Harry began. "I have no natural aptitude for Occulmency, but I am a far more skilled Occlumens than Legilmens. That's mainly because I know what a Legilmens is fully capable of, and all the tricks and exploits they can use, unfortunately."

"I made certain to practice Occlumency twice as hard as I ever did Legilmency, so I made sure my mind is my own." He added. "Against other Legilmens, I don't fully know how effective I will be, but I know I'm capable of practically making my mind invisible if I want to." He smirked slyly.

"If you're anywhere near as capable at it as I am, you will be just fine."

"Nice to know." Elanor pointed out with a small scoff. "Don't bloat your ego too much now." She smirked.

"Well, it's getting late now." Harry pointed out with a weary sigh. "So I don't know whether you're going to stop the night again or pop back to the orphanage."

"I'll stop over. I want to read some of this before I go bed anyway." Elanor replied, eyes already engrossed in the pages of the book.

"Alright. I'll go put Bella in her room, considering she fell asleep barely a minute into our little chat." Harry smiled softly, before gently levitating her with a flick of his wand, and a small pushing gesture later, she floated out of the door with Harry following behind.

"And he better explain some of the more obscure stuff about the mind magics tomorrow." Elanor grumbled. "I'll be damned if I go back to Hogwarts without learning some of the stuff he's picked up."

/

"Ugh." Elanor groaned, as she lifted her head up off the wooden table. "I fell asleep down here?"

"God, that sucks!" she groaned, trying to stretch the kinks out of her back. "I feel so damn stiff."

"Yeah well, I'm surprised you didn't go read that in bed. You'd have woken up comfier." Harry's voice called from the doorway.

"Didn't think of it at the time." She scowled.

"You'll learn." Bella's soft hissing could be heard as she slithered into the room, curling up by the fireplace.

"Guess I'll just have to do that next time." She replied.

"If not, I'll just carry you to bed myself." Harry cut in glibly. "I'll try not to drop you."

"You had better not!" Elanor growled at him.

The bickering was interrupted for a moment as a brown owl came soaring in through the open window, shaking loose a newspaper before swooping back out, with a farewell hoot.

"Ah, the Prophet." Harry remarked. "I placed a subscription to this address yesterday, so I could keep up with the news. Well, whatever sounds like real news anyway." He added with a wry smile.

"Ah, I can't get the prophet at the orphanage, what with the non-magicals and the owls and stuff." Elanor sighed. Reaching out and picking up the paper she unfolded it with a little shake before giving a slight gasp at the headlines.

"What is it?" Harry remarked confusedly. "Ireland lose or something?"

"Uh, no." Elanor responded in slight shock. "I think you'd better read yourself." She stated, holding out the paper to him, prompting him to take it.

"Scenes of terror at the quidditch world cup…" Harry murmured. "The Dark Mark, Death Eaters and dark wizards."

"Yeah. That's something you don't see every day." He sighed.

"I thought they'd all been rounded up!" Elanor exclaimed. "I mean, they got my parents for some reason, what if they're after me too?" she gasped slightly.

"Hey cool it." Harry interrupted firmly. "I'm sure they weren't after you then, so they won't be after you now."

"Ok." She replied weakly.

"In any case, there have always been sympathisers to the Dark Lord's cause, and there is no way they could have possibly caught every Death Eater." Harry continued. "I mean, there's people like Igor Karkaroff and Severus Snape, who were confirmed Death Eaters." He added.

"Snape's a death eater!?" Elanor exclaimed.

"According to Dumbledore, he was a spy who joined them at great risk to his own safety." Harry pondered. "Of course, it was only Dumbledore's word on that, but the fact he's allowed to teach at Hogwarts means he's probably alright."

"Snape?" Elanor voiced incredulously. "The man's horrible! He treats everyone like rubbish except for his Slytherins, and apparently I'm not one of them!" she shouted.

"Well, I don't know him so…" Harry murmured. "I can't judge yet, but he sounds like a bit of a bully, in adult form anyway."

Elanor simply scoffed derisively at the tame statement.

"Anyway, can't worry about it now." He pointed out. "You should go get a shower or something, the bathroom's free, third door on the right upstairs. Towel and stuff is there."

Elanor sighed at her protesting muscles. "Yeah, I could do with one of those."

"Good, go cool off and I'll do some breakfast and stuff for when you're done." He smiled.

"Alright. Thanks Harry."

"Hey no problem. We can talk more about magic and stuff later if you'd like."

"Yeah, I'll hold you to that."

AN 13.08.2014

So I revealed a whole bunch of stuff here, with Harry being a natural Legilmens and Parselmouth and so on. Elanor also found out she is a Parselmouth, but then again she is Riddle's daughter. She'll get back to Harry about the reasons she can speak parseltongue later. Next chapter will involve a few time skips, getting up to the Hogwarts express and first day or so of school for Harry. Will be interesting considering he'll be teaching Elanor a few things before she goes back as well. Isabella is almost like a precocious child with a crush on Harry. There's more there than meets the eye with how long she's been with him. That comes much later. And also, the house hasn't been explored yet, since time keeps running away from Elanor. She may find something very interesting.

Until next time!