"Harry, look!" Dudley tugged Harry toward the Reptile House with eager excitement. Uncle Vernon followed them inside proprietarily.

Harry had agreed to go home with Dudley for the Easter holiday. Today Uncle Vernon had taken them on an outing to the London Zoo, which had been fun so far. The entire holiday had been fun so far, as a matter of fact. It had left Harry quite surprised.

Harry followed him inside in amusement. "I don't see anything special, Dudley, it's just a bunch of snakes."

Dudley rolled his eyes, staring around at all the cages. No one was near the three of them.

"Harry can speak to snakes, Dad," Dudley informed his father. Harry glanced at Uncle Vernon apprehensively.

Uncle Vernon cleared his throat. "Erm, can he?" he asked with uncertain surprise. He looked down at Harry for a moment, his moustache twitching as he contemplated it. Dudley nodded and pulled them over to the largest snake in the place.

"Say something to it, Harry!" he whispered, looking around at the few other patrons of the Reptile House. They were still mostly alone.

Harry furrowed his brow and looked at the snake. It had been sleeping, but had woken up when they came over and was looking inquisitively at Harry now.

Harry nodded to it and said, "Hello."

He could tell Uncle Vernon had tensed slightly behind him, and was looking around to see if anyone had heard.

"Good afternoon," the snake said interestedly. "Not many people take the time to extend a greeting to me, you know."

"What did it say?" Dudley asked, fascinated. "Isn't that cool, Dad?"

"What can you speak to, Dudley?" Uncle Vernon asked, hopefully. "Did you take a language course too?"

"Oh, Harry didn't take a language course," Dudley said airily. "He just speaks Parseltongue. I've no idea how he learned it. But at the end of the year, he used it to lure this great giant snake that was attacking people from out of the pipes and Ron and I used the rooster and killed it!"

Uncle Vernon's beady eyes widened in shock. "You killed a giant snake with a rooster?"

Harry listened with a smile as Dudley told his father all about the basilisk. The snake in the cage was telling Harry about life in the zoo now, but it didn't take much of Harry's attention to come up with the required response.

"And then at three thirty on Thursdays, I'm given two large rats, as a treat," the snake continued. "The human boys especially love watching that, I'm very popular on Thursdays, you know."

Harry nodded. "That sounds fascinating," he hissed agreeably. Now Dudley was telling his father about all their friends, and how Hermione had wanted him to study over the holiday.

"-but I know Harry isn't going to study either, and anyway, we're always in the library, Ron says it's mad. He says we should be practicing Quidditch so we can both try out next year. Harry's already on Slytherin team, aren't you Harry?"

"We've only got one game left this year," Harry agreed, noting that Uncle Vernon had perked up and lost a bit of that shocked coloring now that they'd moved on to sports. "Against Hufflepuff. Flint says we've won the Cup for sure."

"Yeah, but next year, when Ron and I are on Gryffindor's team, we'll knock you lot on your arses," Dudley said excitedly.

Harry laughed. "If you can get your fat bottom off the ground on a broom, we'll see," he said jokingly, then looked up at Uncle Vernon uncertainly.

Dudley laughed. "You're so scrawny, you should be more worried that I'll knock you off your broom!"

Uncle Vernon cleared his throat gruffly. "What do you do on the – er….broom?"

"Well, Harry's a Seeker, so he's meant to catch the Snitch, it's just one of the balls, nothing to it, really-"

"Nothing to it, sure…" Harry grumbled, though he was smiling. Uncle Vernon hadn't looked angry once today. Awkward, yes, shocked and confused, repeatedly, but not angry. It was nice.

"But the position I'm going to try out for is Beater," Dudley said proudly. "We get to have this big stick and there are these metal balls that we get to hit at people…"

Uncle Vernon brightened considerably at this news. "So you're the strongest position on the field then, I expect?"

Dudley nodded eagerly. "There are two on a team, and we're the only ones who get to have a bat."

"Aren't the Weasley twins Beaters for Gryffindor?" Harry asked curiously. He distinctly remembered being warned to avoid the twins on the field in both games he'd played against Gryffindor. He didn't think Dudley was going to be replacing them any time soon.

"Ron's brothers?" Dudley nodded, unfazed. "Yeah, they're amazing at it too, aren't they? They've told me they'll train me for when they leave, and until then I'll be a reserve."

"Excuse me," the snake hissed behind him. "Are you paying me any attention at all? I was telling you how I killed the rats last Thursday! It was art, my audience was positively astounded…."

"…it was truly amazing, I assure you, I was astounding! That ghoul didn't know what hit him!"

Harry was sitting impatiently at the back of the Defense classroom. The holidays had ended two days ago, and now they were all back to work. Harry was waiting on the edge of his seat for Lockhart to let them go so that he could get back to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and start working on the venom extraction with Anthony, assuming Hermione and the rest of them had finished with the blood.

Draco nudged him and Harry realized that Lockhart had asked him a question.

"Er…you, Professor Lockhart?" he hazarded. Lockhart beamed his large white teeth at him.

"Precisely, Harry! Five points to Slytherin!"

Harry nodded absently and looked over at Draco, who rolled his eyes elaborately and held up his watch discreetly. Class was just about over. Thank Merlin.

"…three feet on my defeat of the…"

"I think we should tell Professor Snape about the basilisk," Draco said in a low voice.

"What?" Harry asked, packing up his things as Lockhart finally dismissed them. "Why would we do that?"

"Well you know we've been working around the eyes," Draco said. "We'll eventually have to figure out what to do with them, and he's bound to know."

"He's also bound to confiscate the whole thing," Harry pointed out reasonably as they joined Pansy and Blaise at the door and left the classroom. "And quite possibly get us into a load of trouble."

"For saving the school from a man eating snake?" Pansy asked skeptically. "Somehow I'm expecting something more along the lines of a hundred points each and an Order of Merlin. Imagine it!"

Draco grinned at them and stuck out his chest, strutting down the hall and turning around to face them again. "What, this old thing? Oh, that's just my Order of Merlin, First Class," he said carelessly, picking a bit of dust off his shoulder and sticking his nose up in an exaggerated manner. "Why did I get it? Nothing important, I just killed a giant basilisk that was threatening the school children. I'm a hero or something, whatever. Oh no, no photographs necessary. Of course I'll sign it for you, what kind of hero would I be if I didn't sometimes smile upon my adoring public?"

They all sniggered and followed him down the hall. "Alright, Lockhart," Blaise said, laughing as Draco continued strutting as they went down the staircase.

Draco grinned briefly before resuming his act. "And of course," he added in a grand voice, "Lets not forget how I first blinded the foul beast, rendering it's eyes useless, before delivering the fatal blow with a swish of my long, able wand! Harry, my boy, come here and allow me to demonstrate."

Harry laughed and ducked away as Draco came at him, brandishing a quill.

"Don't be silly, Harry, you should consider it an honour to be invited to have your eyes poked out by me!" Draco grinned devilishly and waved the quill like a sword. "Come back here and let me disfigure you!"

"Never!" Harry cried, and Blaise laughed out loud as Harry pulled out his own quill and waved it threateningly at Draco, who raised one eyebrow challengingly.

"You dare challenge me?" he asked, advancing on Harry in what would have been a threatening manner, if he hadn't been laughing at the time.

Harry raised his chin defiantly. "You'll never take me alive."

They fought with their quills all the way to the bathroom, Pansy and Blaise watching in high amusement and rooting for whoever looked like they were winning at the time. When they got to the door, though, they called a truce and agreed that Harry could keep his eyes if he gave Draco his Order of Merlin back. They shook hands on it, and only then did they drop the game and enter the bathroom.

Hermione, Ron, Neville and Dudley were all already there, and there were several large jugs filled with blood standing next to them. Hermione and Neville were siphoning the blood out of the snake with their wands while Ron and Dudley made sure that it all made it to the containers.

"Hi, everyone," Harry said, dropping his bag by a sink and rolling up his sleeves. Pansy echoed him and hung her bag on a hook by the mirror instead.

"We were talking on the way here about telling Professor Snape," Blaise told them. Hermione frowned thoughtfully as Ron grimaced behind her.

"I would feel safer with a teacher involved when we do get to the eyes," she agreed. "But how do we know he won't confiscate everything?"

"Maybe we should just let him keep the eyes," Neville suggested. "They're supposed to be more valuable than the rest of the basilisk, aren't they? He should be happy with that."

"But how do we know he won't just confiscate everything?" Ron reiterated heatedly. "He could come in here, see all this and say, 'Detention! Illegal harvesting of snake bits!', and then keep it all for himself, no matter what we offer him!"

"We found it, we killed it, it's ours," Draco told him assuredly. "We gathered these potions ingredients, that's all we have to say. The upper years do it for class sometimes. We'll just make sure he sees it that way."

"Filch has already told you we can use this room, right?" Hermione asked. Harry nodded. "So we even have permission. We aren't doing anything wrong. He can't confiscate it."

"And I'll bet he won't even try if we tell him he can keep the eyes," Blaise said matter-of-factly. "I say we ask him for help today and get it over with. We haven't got much longer until term ends."

"Yes, and if he's helping, we'll be able to study for exams without having to worry so much about this whole problem," Hermione said brightly. "I feel like I've lost so much time in the library lately."

Ron rolled his eyes at Dudley behind her back, and Dudley grinned at him, shrugging his shoulders.

"Alright, let's finish with the blood first, though, we're nearly done," Ron said. "And then we'll hide that, and even if he does take everything else, we'll still have something."

Pansy laughed at him. "Paranoid," she remarked in amusement. "Blaise and Harry and I will ask him. He won't take anything we don't want him to."

"…So you understand, sir, why we came to you," Blaise finished, setting the piece of basilisk skin they'd brought with them down on his desk.

Professor Snape examined the skin again, minutely. "You want me to harvest the eyes for you?"

"Yes, none of us wants to have any accidents happen," Pansy explained. "And you're an expert at this sort of thing, sir."

Professor Snape stared up at them all for a moment, then back down at the skin.

"We've all agreed that, since you're helping us with the eyes, you can keep them," Harry informed him. Professor Snape's eyebrows went up for a moment, before his face became blank again.

"I suppose that keeping the eyes would be…adequate payment for my assistance," he agreed, standing immediately.

Blaise darted a look at Harry when Professor Snape's back was to them, heading out of the door. He mouthed the word 'adequate' at Harry incredulously.

The three of them caught up to Professor Snape in the hallway. "We feel that the eyes are more than adequate payment, Professor," Harry said, as respectfully as possible.

Snape looked down at them in silence for a moment as they walked. "I suppose they are," he said finally. "I will, of course, have to inform Professor Dumbledore of your story. He will take the appropriate action, but I think twenty-five points each to Slytherin for bringing this to my attention will cover it for now."

Anthony had appeared by the time they arrived back at the bathroom with Professor Snape in tow. He was wearing dragon hide gloves, separating each fang meticulously from the basilisk's mouth, root and all, catching all the venom that escaped with a container charm. He nodded distractedly at them as they walked in.

Professor Snape had stopped in the doorway and was taking in every inch of the basilisk with unfathomable eyes. Harry watched him note the cloth thrown over most of the basilisk's head, and the segments of skin that were being carefully stripped away in long rectangles by Hermione and an unusually serious looking Ron and Draco.

"Professor?" Blaise asked, pointing him toward the cloth-covered eyes. Professor Snape nodded and set to work.

"All of you should stay on the other side of the creature," he said, pulling a long, heavy pair of gloves from his robes and putting them on. Anthony stepped reluctantly away from his work and hurried over to join the others next to the skin Hermione and Ron were slicing off. "The eyes are the most dangerous part of the basilisk," Snape lectured as he summoned a pair of oddly reflective glasses and began extracting them carefully. "Longbottom, can you tell me why?"

Neville blinked, surprised. "The basilisk's stare will kill you, sir, even if it's dead."

"Exactly." He tilted his head so that they could see their reflections in his glasses. "Indirectly, the stare of the basilisk will merely petrify you, but with the added magical effect of the mirrors on these spectacles, as long as I do not look at the iris or pupil for an extended period of time, the worst that will happen is a mild headache."

Hermione and Blaise were listening to him raptly, and Hermione looked as though she wanted desperately to be writing this down. Harry and the rest watched interestedly as Professor Snape efficiently detached the basilisk's eyes and packed them neatly into a cloth-lined box. As he turned to leave, he let his eyes drift over each of them before catching on Anthony.

"The nine of you appear to have this under control, so I will not interfere unless it is absolutely necessary," Professor Snape said. "The rest of the basilisk is not harmful, but the venom will eat through your skin. You were correct to wear dragon hide; however, it would be prudent of you to augment your shielding charm with protective eyewear of some sort." He paused. "Give me your glasses, Goldstein."

Anthony blinked and handed them over. Professor Snape tapped them with his wand and they became much larger and curved in at the sides. He tapped them again and handed them back.

"That should be sufficient. There is a protective charm on them that the venom should not be able to penetrate. Finite Incantatem will put them back to rights after you have finished."

Anthony looked surprised. "Thank you, Professor," he said. Professor Snape nodded briskly and turned to leave.

"Do not hesitate to find me if you run into any more problems," he said as he swept out the door. "Filch is not as well equipped to deal with affairs of this nature as I am."

They all stood in stunned silence as the door shut.

"That went surprisingly well," Pansy said after a moment. Anthony adjusted his glasses with a small smile and got back to work.

After that, Professor Snape was noticeably more polite to the group that had harvested the basilisk. He was by no means nice, especially not to Neville, Hermione, Ron and Dudley, but he was now far more likely to pick on other Gryffindors in class than them. Even Harry noticed a difference in how Professor Snape treated him.

"He actually looks me in the face now," Harry told Draco one day after class. "Its strange, I didn't even realize he wasn't before."

Dumbledore called them all up to his office one day not long after Professor Snape had done the eyes for them to tell them how dangerous what they had done was, and how they would each be receiving twenty five points and their names on a plaque saying that they had done a service to the school.

Draco decided to celebrate by taking a break from studying, and the rest of the Slytherins joined him in escaping. There were only two weeks left until exams, and Hermione had increased their study group from three times a week to every day but Saturday and Monday, as Harry worked on Mondays and even Blaise refused to meet six times a week.

Neville and Dudley joined Hermione in the library, but Ron announced that too much studying made his head ache, and he joined Harry and Draco in their escape. The three of them went to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, because they were nearly done and Ron insisted (and Draco agreed) that if they left anything over the summer, it would be rotten by the time they returned in September, if Professor Snape hadn't already taken it.

They worked until just before dinner, at which point Ron declared that his stomach was empty and that this needed to be fixed. They left the bathroom in high spirits, only to bump into a much taller, neater, and more shocked looking version of Ron.

"Ron?" he asked, scandalized. "Were you in the…what were you doing in the girls bathroom?"

Harry looked from Ron to his older brother, noting that the tips of both their ears were red.

"We were…"

"Er…that is…"

"I don't know what you were doing in there," the older Weasley said, fingering his prefect badge and eyeing the three of them, "But if I catch you or your friends in the girl's loo again, there will be consequences, Ronald."

He gave them one last ominous look and hurried off. Harry, Draco and Ron all stared after him.

"Relative of yours?" Draco asked conversationally. Ron blushed.

"My older brother, Percy," he said, embarrassed.

"Don't worry about him." Two more redheads had appeared, identical this time. Harry recognised them as the Gryffindor Beaters, Fred and George.

"Yeah, he's just a git," one of the twins said.

"A git with a secret," the first one added mysteriously, draping an arm over Ron's shoulder.

"It won't be a secret for long, though," said the other, winking at them. "We'll figure him out."

"Too right we will," the twin paused for a moment and eyed the Slytherin crests on Draco and Harry's robes. "What's this? Our ickle Ronnikins is chumming around with Slytherins?"

"Not just any Slytherins, Fred," said a twin, presumably George. He was staring at Harry. "This one is Harry Potter."

Harry met their stares uncertainly.

"You took the Cup from Gryffindor," Fred said accusingly. "We could have had it this year, too!"

"Sorry?" Harry asked hesitantly. Draco elbowed him.

"He's not sorry," Draco said, giving Harry a look. "He's just better than your Seeker."

George rolled his eyes. "Too right,"

"McLaggen hasn't a clue what he's doing."

"If he had stayed out of the way in the last match, we could have had a chance!"

"Say, what were you three doing in the girl's loo?" Fred asked, changing the subject abruptly. Ron's ears went red again.

"Er…"

Exams came and went. At the end of it all, Hermione had to be restrained from marching up to Professor Dumbledore's office to demand that Lockhart be removed.

"It's the same exact test as the one at the beginning of the year!" she bawled angrily, brandishing the tests. "He didn't even change the questions around! Did he honestly think no one would notice? And what have we learned from him this year?"

"Don't let pixies loose in a classroom," Neville volunteered, backing away when she turned to face him.

"A werewolf's dying howl is ten percent agony and ninety percent enthusiasm for the part," Harry said under his breath. Pansy heard him and bit her lip to keep from smiling.

"All I'm saying, Hermione, is that going up to Dumbledore's office and yelling all this at him is not going to help," Blaise said reasonably.

"Right," Ron said, letting her sleeves go. "So…calmly, with no yelling, okay?"

Hermione took a deep, angry breath and nodded.

They all followed her up to the gargoyle that hid the entrance to Dumbledore's office, only to stop dead at the scene.

There were Ravenclaws everywhere, and they looked furious.

Harry saw Anthony in the crowd clamouring to get into Dumbledore's office and waved him over.

"What's going on?" he asked, waving at the crowd. Anthony looked around at it all and shrugged.

"We're quite disgruntled," he explained blithely. "Lockhart's test -"

"Yes, exactly!" Hermione exclaimed, and Ron couldn't grab her fast enough; she disappeared into the throng.

Neville shook his head. "Let her go," he said wisely. "She'll be happier this way."

They all stared after her for a moment. Draco shook his head suddenly and frowned.

"Lockhart's was the last of the exams," he said, looking around at them all. "Why are we still in this stuffy castle?"

"I've told you," Anthony said, gesturing to the crowd. "We're disgruntled because of Lockhart's ridiculous test. We're aiming to have him sacked, although from the sound of it the seventh years want to put him in St. Mungos. They're not happy about their NEWTS. "

"Right," Draco said, turning on his heel and grabbing Harry and Blaise's arms. "We are going outside."

Harry grabbed Anthony and Dudley, Dudley grabbed Ron and Neville, and Blaise grabbed Pansy, who tugged free and followed the boys with her dignity intact as they rushed down the stairs and out into the sunlight in a tangled knot of laughter.