Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own either Harry Potter or Supernatural.
{Gabriel}
{Harry}
~Hayden~
"Parseltongue"
Child of Music and Dreams: Roger that, Luna now shares your birthday.
Paxloria: Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it. It's Crowley: if he got bored by the paperwork he'd just get a student to do it for him.
Drake 58: You're part right.
TheDisturbedDragon: Well, Gabriel was never really the most conventional of the Archangel's.
Firehedgehog: Glad you enjoyed it. Hayden definitely needs a wake up call; I have something planned for that.
Iheartlife888: yeah, I always thought the Wizarding World was sort of oblivious to child abuse. And justice. And anything muggle.
Guest (the first one): Yeah, Harry feels as though he needs everything because he doesn't know what he's up against.
Guest (the second one): Well, there are worse addictions. Ones that don't feed my ego for example. Here's one of the future updates you were looking forward to.
alice22: I'm really glad you've enjoyed it.
sandipi: That's a really good idea, and one I may just incorporate. I already have something planned, but that's a way better method of set up for it than what I was going for.
Warning: Swearing, and graphic violence.
Private Investigations
It took only a matter of hours before the news that Hayden Potter and his friends had been caught standing around a petrified Mrs Norris began to spread like wildfire around the school. Of course, being the...unintelligent species of human that wizards and witches were, they immediately jumped to the conclusion that Hayden (despite being from both a light family and Gryffindor house, which typically; though admittedly not always; meant that he was not evil) was the heir of Slytherin. Harry wasn't really all that surprised, but that didn't mean it didn't piss him off anyway. At best, he and Hayden were amicable to one another; their close bond having been severed with Hayden's stubborn refusal to understand and accept Harry's actions even if he didn't agree with them; but that didn't mean he was happy with a pack of immature brats accusing his twin of being some sort of stereotypical, evil, megalomaniac. For starters, that they thought it was Hayden was an insult; they thought Hayden, arguably the smartest student in the school (by Harry's opinion) after Harry himself, was dumb enough to go full on James Bond villain and openly declare his intentions to wipe out the muggleborns.
It was insulting.
{Though to be fair, Hayden probably is the heir to House Slytherin}
{How's that?}
{Well, we're Lord Slytherin. And unless any of our one night stands resulted in a child, then Hayden is our heir}
{Huh...best not let that become common knowledge}
{Probably for the best}
Secondly was the fact that instead of trying to think about who had something to gain or who would be the most likely to go evil and try and wipe out an entire race of people, they just went for the convenient scapegoat. In second year alone, Harry could think of a dozen people who it would be much more believable for it to be: Harry himself was probably one of the most natural suspects and Dri was completely insane anyway, not to mention the mini Death Eater named Malfoy and even Teddy (as Harry had taken to calling Theo, much to his frustration) wasn't completely innocent either.
So it was was with a sigh that Harry found himself standing in front of the school the monday after Halloween, desperately wishing he had grown a bit taller. At a measly 4"4 (nearly 4"5, to Harry's delight) he was the shortest in his year by at least an inch, and most of first year matched if not beat his height. He could have always used Gabriel's grace to make himself taller, but Harry had tried that once in his early years; it didn't work out well. Harry was used to his smaller than usual form, no matter how much he disliked it, and trying to move around with a body that was suddenly much larger than he was used to functioning with had thrown his balance out of whack. Plus, with the limited amount of power Harry had available meant that he didn't want to waste any in holding the taller frame for any extended period of time, preventing him from adjusting to it. Despite the logic he put forward though, Harry still groaned internally at the thought of being eternally short. It didn't exactly help him in trying to exude a powerful image as he stood to address the whole school. Thankfully, the waves of power rolling off him did that for him.
In fact the second he began to let his power seep through the room, all talk had stopped. Teddy Nott; who had become a surprisingly close ally after Harry had approached him with Terry about the whole Holy Water thing from outside History class; was stationed at the far end of the Slytherin table, nearest to the back corner of the room. His gaze searched around the room, looking for any odd reactions to what Harry was about to say. Dri and Colin were doing the same at the Gryffindor table while Terry observed from the other corner. Gabriel and Harry were both doing so as well, of course, but ten eyes were better than two, even if the two were amplified by an Archangel.
Harry cleared his throat once he had the attention of everyone in the school. Breakfast had been discarded as irrelevant by all but Ron Weasley and one or two others who shared in his gluttony. Even the teachers were giving him his undivided attention; though not all of it was positive or neutral in nature. Snape continued to be a spiteful, loathsome creature despite all of Harry's best rehabilitation methods; one of which, and Harry's personal favourite, was making it so that Snape could only hear the theme song's for children's TV shows whenever he turned on his Wizarding Wireless. Harry had gotten great enjoyment in watching Snape rant and rage and unleash a plethora of exploding spells on the poor contraption...which remained completely undamaged, to Snape's ever growing rage and thanks to Harry's considerate protection. Still though, the sallow faced man hadn't improved his attitude and was currently sneering at the back of Harry's head, and the boy sighed internally. It was only the fun he got out of tormenting him that stopped Harry from just dropping the man into a nest of modified killer bats.
{You know, considered how he's supposed to be a Slytherin, I'm honestly kind of disappointed in him}
{How's that?}
{The sneering, the blatant favoritism, the obvious dislike of Hayden and Gryffindors in general...Slytherin is supposed to be the House of the Cunning and Ambitious, not the House of Cheating and Bullying}
{Yeah, fair enough. Gotta say, the sneer isn't exactly the best expression to use in relation to those attitudes. A blank expression or even a pleasant one is much more effective. Remember Figg? Old bat thought we were all charms and smiles. She had no idea it was really us who kept making her life miserable!}
Harry smiled internally at the old memory. In retaliation for doing nothing to help him out with the Dursley's, one of Harry's first acts with his more cold and cruel attitude was to give Figg's cats the ability to speak. Not that anyone but the old woman and himself could here them of course. It had been amusing to see a orange tabby cat complain about the smell of cabbage in a deep baritone.
Gabriel had a point about Snape though. Crowley was the perfect example of how keeping up a pleasant mask could be so much more effective than actively showing distaste and disdain. If one didn't know Crowley, they could almost be forgiven if they thought him to be helpful and sympathetic. Harry himself was another could way to prove that point. People like the Diggory's, the Weasley's, Hermione and Colin all talked to him as though he were completely trustworthy, not even picking up on the fact that he had a body count that rivaled any individual Death Eater's. Such a persona would allow him to pull off any sort betrayal if he ever had the inclination.
Shaking off his musings, that in total took less than half a second, he refocused on the gathered students.
"It's come to my attention that there are some rumors going around regarding the events of this passed Friday. Well, I'm here to resolve the unanswered questions you all have before these theories get out of hand.
"Many of you seem to think that Hayden was the one to petrify Mrs Norris; that he is the elusive Heir of Slytherin. You are absolutely right!"
That got a reaction. The students immediately began turning to their neighbours and mutterings filled the hall. Ron Weasley had stopped eating upon hearing his words and was now glaring at him, while Hayden had gone as pale as a ghost. Hermione was staring at him contemplatively, and likely saw the way his ways were scanning over the reactions of students, for she nodded as though she had just finished some sort of puzzle only she could see. Harry could see his scouts passing their gazes over the other students, looking for any odd reactions. Blatant surprise wasn't sufficient as that was most people in the hall and smugness wasn't what they were watching for either. No. The students who were looking at him suspiciously were their main suspects.
Harry continued "In fact, you are so right that I feel the need to divulge some other secrets! Like the fact I'm Merlin reborn, Voldemort is secretly a muggleborn in disguise and Dumbledore was really Grindelwald's lover!" With all eyes on Harry, no one noticed Dumbledore's flinch "Are you all so stupid that you think a Gryffindor Potter is the heir of Slytherin? Hayden is a halfblood. He's friends with a muggleborn;not to mention that his mother is one; a half-giant and a werewolf as well as several pureblood's.
"That's on top of the fact that you're all missing. Slytherin was a parselmouth. Parseltongue is a hereditary trait. If Hayden was descended from Slytherin, then he would be a parselmouth, as would most other Potter's," Harry looked around the hall and his eyes settled on the weak and pale looking form of Alan Greengrass.
The sixteen year old heir to House Greengrass was a boy of ill health. An official diagnosis had never been released, but everyone involved in wizarding politics knew that the boy had an untreatable illness or so Teddy had told him. He was constantly pale and sickly looking, with a rail thin frame and gaunt looking eyes and cheeks. Despite this, the boy was a masterful manipulator and orator, almost as good as Harry himself. According to information given by Teddy, Greengrass had risen to be the dominant power with Slytherin through carefully setting up his opponents against each other, allowing him to take the House while his rivals squabbled.
Harry had been amused to discover that the Slytherin's had a system of leadership, but he had to hand it to Greengrass; his accomplishments were impressive. Despite the skill of the Gryffindor team, and the determination of the Hufflepuff team, the last Slytherin lord had directed his Quiditch team to be as brutal and unfair as possible, to great success. Their team had won the cup for three consecutive years. In contrast, Greengrass, though unable to remove that aspect of Slytherin tactics entirely, had greatly reduced it and bullying of other house's was minimal compared to previous levels. It was a shame Greengrass wouldn't live to take up his father's government position. But, within a few years either his illness or a political enemy would have claimed his life.
"Mr. Greengrass!," Harry called out. The boy showed no surprise at being called upon, and his perfect poker face didn't even twitch "You've studied genealogy. When was the last time there was a parselmouth born into the Potter family,"
"Never," Greengrass answered without hesitation.
"Never," Harry turned back to the rest of the students "There are no parselmouth's in the Potter line. So how could Hayden be the Heir of Slytherin," Harry consciously ignored the fact that he himself was living proof that his statement was factually incorrect. "With this in mind, I would be most appreciative if you all let Professor Dumbledore and myself handle the investigation, without coming up with anymore outlandish rumors to distract us,"
The effect was exactly as Harry wanted. Immediately, talk of Hayden's guilt began to disappear. Many students were heard to be saying how they hadn't believed that rumor anyway, even if they had been been fervent in their belief of Hayden's guilt. All it really did was show the brothers the fickleness of the wizarding world.
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Lily Potter was not in a good mood. Not at all.
It had started with the news that had reached her the night before. Despite all of the protections that had been put in place; a Fidelius charm, round the clock Auror guards and the most powerful wards the goblin's could raise; Harry's assassin had gotten to Petunia. Her sister was dead, and yet...she couldn't bring herself to care. The thought that she was the last of the Evans family was upsetting and Lily had often thought that she would be devastated if Petunia died. But they'd found out some horrible things while at Privet Drive. Apparently Sirius had thought it had been the perfect opportunity to investigate Harry's claim's about his treatment there. The image painted by the neighbours was not a pretty one.
The small, bloodstained aluminum cot with the thin mattress and bloodstained blanket they'd found in the cupboard beneath the stairs hadn't helped Petunia's case, nor had the scratched out words on the inside of the door: Harry's Room. It had been barely legible but it was there. And Petunia didn't even try and deny it. Why, oh why had she thought sending Harry to Petunia was a good idea? She knew how much her sister hated magic, how much she was jealous of Lily. Yet she had sent her youngest son to that awful place, for a reason she could not figure out. Thinking back, she knew that her reasoning had been Harry's lack of magic and his jealousy towards Hayden. But that couldn't be true, because Lily knew that Harry; no matter how much he kept hidden; was more powerful than any other student in the school.
Which led her back to her original question. Why had she sent him away. The reasoning she had used in 1985 was obviously incorrect. So how had she come to that conclusion? The memory that question brought forward, showed a four year old Harry shoving Hayden after her eldest received their praise for some magic he'd performed. But that didn't fit with her other memories of Harry, that showed a quiet, kind and living boy and clearly magic wasn't the issue as Harry had that in spades. And upon inspection, that memory seemed too...bright, for lack of a better word. The minor details too vivid and clear upon close inspection. The memory, she concluded, was fake. But that made her wonder why she had never thought to question this before.
And it most certainly didn't explain her own atrocious neglect of Harry in her younger sons early years. Something was going on. She didn't know what, but Lily Potter was determined to figure it out.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Harry closed the door and with a complicated gesture of his wand, set up a set of powerful wards over the doorway, ensuring that no random passerby's could enter the room nor overhear any conversation from within. Only if they were actively searching for the door would they be able to find it. Of course, the wand movement was not at all necessary except for show. The wards he'd set up were Enochian in nature and required only a moment of thought for them to flare to life. But, as he didn't yet fully trust all of the people standing behind him, he wasn't ready to reveal his hand yet.
Turning, he assessed his rag-tag group of allies. Dri was casually leaning against one wall, his arms folded with one hand resting on his wand, while his wolfish gaze never strayed far from Teddy. Dri was loyal; it probably came from the canine element of his family. If anyone could be trusted with the knowledge about Harry's on board passenger it was Dri. The boy could also be trusted to keep the secret safe; Sirius may have hated his family, but none could deny the usefulness of occlumency and there was no way the sable haired boy wasn't trained in the art.
Terry, firmly attached to Harry's side, was also a trusted confident; arguably more than even Dri for some reason.
{You'll figure it out}
Gabriel and Hayden had been almost mocking him (in the former's case there was no 'almost') about his relationship with Terry. Despite what the pair might think, Harry did not have feelings for Terry in that way, he couldn't have. And Terry almost certainly didn't feel that way about him.
{So you've moved on from obliviousness into denial? It's a minor improvement, but I'll take it}
{I am not crushing on Terry!}
{Denial isn't becoming on you Harry dear}
{Gabriel!}
{Look, I've never seen you forgive someone as quickly as you did with Terry. You held a half year hatred of Hayden because of a misunderstanding. You hold grudge's for years. Yet even after he almost got a classmate killed, you forgive him within a few months. Face it, bro, you're in love}
The last sentance was said in such a frustratingly sing-song tone that Harry felt no guilt for blocking his friend out.
Shaking off his misgiving about the conversation he'd just had, Harry moved on to the last two members of his team. Colin was sitting stiffly across from Teddy, nervously glancing around the room. The kid was young and Harry hadn't known him for long. While he might well be trustworthy, Harry was going to avoid putting too much faith in him just yet. And as for Teddy...while the Slytherin had been invaluable in giving an insight into the workings of Slytherin house and the politics of the Ministry he was also a major wildcard. The boy was a hunter, and he would have to make sure Teddy didn't get any notions of gunning after Crowley. The boy was someone Harry could not get a read on. Motivations and traits were all kept closely guarded under an indecipherable facade.
He was exactly the sort of person Harry hated dealing with.
Teddy was currently sat casually, but the trained eye could pick up the tension in his shoulders. There was a pair of handguns on the table. A revolver and a Heckler & Koch 9mm, the latter of which was being stripped and cleaned. The former lay on it's side on the table, it's barrel pointed in Dri's direction. Harry had no doubt that there was a set of throwing knives hidden on the tall boy; who was indeed one of the tallest in their year, barely behind Weasel and just ahead of Dri and Hayden; and that he had already calculated the best way to dispatch all four of them, should it prove necessary.
"So, what did you notice?" Harry asked, beginning their impromptu meeting. Crowley had excused all four second years from their class and Binns wouldn't even notice the absence of one of his first years.
"That we need a more secure location to meet than some dusty old room, that's a little more practical than walking all the way up to Ravenclaw tower to climb into your trunk," Teddy commented idly.
"I'm sorry, nobody told me ahead of time that I'd be holding a private investigator's meeting today," Harry responded dryly "Can we stay serious here please?"
"Don't ever repeat that sentence in front of my dad, please," Dri said "And Daphne Greengrass needs to work on her mask more. She's not quite her brother yet. She looked almost angry at you when you said it was Hayden,"
"The Greengrass' are rumored to have ties to Slytherin's family," Teddy mused, thoughtfully "Might be that Salazar had a cousin of some sort that is their ancestor,"
"Yeah but as Harry said, wouldn't that make them parseltongue's?" Colin asked
"Parselmouth. Parseltongue is the language, not the name of those who speak it. And not if Slytherin got that ability from his mother, or created himself. There are no records for where it came from in the first place. Even so, she's a second year. She wouldn't be smart enough,"
"Unless she was angry on behalf of her brother," Terry shyly suggested "If he's the heir, he could have gotten someone more powerful to do the spellwork for him,"
It was an angle Harry hadn't considered. He would have to meet with Alan Greengrass to make sure Terry wasn't right. If he was, it would become much more difficult to deal with the heir. After all, the boy already had a quarter of the students ready and waiting to fight for him.
"I'll consider it," Harry told his friend "Anyone else have a suspicious reaction?"
Over the next half an hour they went back and forth and debated the likelihood of several different people being behind the petrification. Some were dismissed as insufficiently powerful and others were cleared by their family tree's not having a single Slytherin in them.
"Alright," Harry sighed, rubbing his eyes. He could tell this would be difficult "We've got half a dozen potential suspects. I'll do some digging. Dri, stick close to Hayden. Keep him safe; there's bound to be those who still think it was him. Colin, put those photographic skills to use. If anyone does anything weird, take a picture and report back. Terry you'll be working with me. Theo, set up a meeting with Alan Greengrass for me and watch the members of your house,"
With that the meeting disbanded.
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After the incident on Halloween, the castle was searched top to bottom. Harry led it, searching out for hidden chambers in any location Slytherin might have potentially hidden a secret chamber. The dungeon was the most likely, and so that was where the search was focused. Terry was with him, using the Marauder's Map as a way of watching their backs. Harry had enlisted the help of Crowley, Flitwick, McGonagall and Sprout. The stern transfiguration teacher was going through the restricted section with a fine tooth comb with Madam Pince, searching out any additional information about Slytherin and his chamber. Flitwick was pouring over spell books, trying to find any hint of a spell that could have petrified something so perfectly.
Crowley, meanwhile, was interrogating his demons and hunting down any that had come into contact with a wizard or witch recently. The King himself had ensured Harry that he'd not made any deals of that nature since arriving at Hogwarts and neither had any of his minions, but Harry would rather be safe than sorry.
"I've never seen a spell that can do this. Never seen someone be able to cover their tracks so well, either," Harry had told the man "I'd suspect a magical creature of some sort, like the legend suggests, but there is no such thing that can petrify something like this. Except Medusa, but that whole fiasco involved literally turning people into stone,"
Harry's search bore no fruit, though. Neither did McGonagall's, Flitwick's or Crowley's. Sprout's was the most successful. The kindly herbology professor had been set to search out Helga Hufflepuff's personal study. It had been found in the farthest corner of the dungeons, and Sprout had discovered meticulous records of the building, finances, students and teachers of Hogwarts from the year 1038. While the parchment was still intact, though, the writing was nearly illegible. All they could discover was that Slytherin had sealed his Chamber with "that accursed language of his". Which meant that Harry was indeed right, and parseltongue was the key to the mystery.
Unfortunately, the investigation was forced to a standstill by their lack of progress.
Quicker than anyone would have liked, the third week of November began and with it, so did the Quiditch season. The first match was, as usual, Slytherin versus Gryffindor. On the day of the match, Harry found himself sitting in the red and gold stands with Dri and Hermione of his right, and Terry and Colin on his left. The match was a fast paced one, and also one that was over relatively quickly. In the early stages of the game, Harry had noticed a bludger behaving oddly. Tapping into it's magic with his grace, he discovered the cause and smiled. A house elf's magic was powerful and vastly outstretched a human's. Even an angel could find a challenge if the elf knew what they were up against.
But this elf didn't. So Harry had no trouble dispelling it's control over the cursed ball.
Without a bewitched bludger to mess with his game, Hayden found the snitch within a few minutes leaving the game at a dominated score of 180-10 in Gryffindor's favor.
Harry found his time entirely taken up in the following weeks, leading up to his first ever Hogwarts quiditch game. Even with the search for the heir, he had found time to continue his training with the Ravenclaw team. Or more accurately, Terry and Dri had managed to drag him away from his mission every time he nearly missed a training session.
The day of his game dawned crisp and cold, as was typical of the first week of December. Harry was lined up with his team and they prepared to fly out onto the field. At the moment, every member on the team were using their usual brooms, but Harry was planning on buying them all Nimbus 2001's for Christmas. He may not be particularly close to his team mates and he may not have actually wanted to play but he was very competitive. He was playing to win now. The first game would be played on normal brooms to show he hadn't bribed his way in like Draco Malfoy, but after that...well, Malfoy would soon be learning that he wasn't the only one who could afford that many top of the line brooms.
He heard Jordan's announcement's clear as day. As soon as he finished listing the Hufflepuff lineup; ending with a giant cry of "Diggory!"; the blue and bronze team knew it was time.
"Playing for the Eagles today we have captain Davies! Stretton! Chambers! Tamerlane! Inglebee! Samuels! And Gabriel!"
As each of their names were called they soared out onto the pitch and came to rest directly across from their Hufflepuff counterparts. Harry gave Cedric a taunting smirk, that did nothing but get the older boy to sigh in resignation. He seemed to know that nothing but a massive stroke of luck would win him the snitch. Knowing that Hufflepuff victory was only possible if their chasers could beat out the Ravenclaw lineup, Cedric resolved to distract Harry for as long as he could. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. As Hooch tossed the Quaffle into the air, it became obvious that despite their experience in working as a team, the Hufflepuff chaser's were being matched pass for pass by the Ravenclaw's, who's training under Davies really began to show.
"And the Quaffle is released, possession taken by Hufflepuff captain Summers. The Badger's team have taken on only one new player this year and the solid formation from last year seems to have been kept. It will take a miracle for Davies brand new team to...Oh wow, impressive interception by new third year Jeremy Stretton! That boy's got some talent, pass to Davies, back to Stretton he shoot's NO! Stretton feints and drops the ball to Chamber's who score's, Hufflepuff keeper falls for it hook, line and sinker,"
The rest of the game continued in the same vein. Harry occasionally swooped down and disrupted the Hufflepuff chasers and on one occasion even intercepted the Quaffle and tossed it up to Jeremy, allowing him to score. Ravenclaw's chaser's were dominating the game, scoring three goals for every Hufflepuff one. On the other hand, Duncan and Jason struggled in comparison to the rest of the team, and were often overwhelmed by the Hufflepuff chasers. Jason tried to keep the beater team afloat, but Duncan's inexperience showed and the weakness on the Ravenclaw team allowed Hufflepuff beaters to bombard Davies trio, allowing Hufflepuff to narrow the gap some.
But the game ended, as Cedric knew it would, with Harry catching the Snitch in what looked very much like a suicide dive.
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The entire school had been shocked at Ravenclaw's performance. But that didn't mean Davies was letting up on them. In his eyes it was more important than ever to hone their skills, particularly that of the beaters. Their massive lead on Hufflepuff was mainly due to the element of surprise, something they wouldn't have again. Now that the other teams knew where they were weakest, Davies knew that the beaters would need to vastly improve or else the Gryffindor and Slytherin beaters would have enough of an advantage to win the match.
But tragedy struck Hogwarts again the morning after the match. One of the Hufflepuff chasers had been injured in the game and had spent the night in the hospital wing. Her younger brother; a first year; had been making his way down to visit her in the hospital wing. The boy widely regarded as the clumsiest person in the school; and this was a school that contained Neville Longbottom; had apparently knocked over a suit of armour on the way there. He had been found petrified only a few corridor's away from the Hospital, his terrified face reflected in the shining breastplate he had been picking up when the Heir struck. Upon digging a little, Harry discovered that the pair were both Muggleborn.
Of course, despite his words most of the school looked at Hayden with some suspicion until Alan Greengrass pointed out that Hayden had been in detention with Professor Snape after a clumsy attempt at ingredient theft, and that they could simply ask the Professor's when it was that Hayden had been released from the dungeons and when it was that he arrived back. Oliver Wood; who had been up late with Alicia Spinnet 'discussing Quiditch strategies'; was able to attest to Hayden's arrival in the dorms at 9 that night, while Snape; after some serious strong arming by Harry; announced that he'd ended the detention at 8:50. The short gap meant that Hayden couldn't have deviated from his course at any point and a quick conversation with the Fat Lady confirmed that the portrait door did not open again after curfew began.
Teachers began to assign prefects to escort classes between common rooms, classes and the Great Hall in groups to ensure safety, and the staff themselves stepped up their efforts to find the Chamber and or the heir. Interestingly, Harry had been shot down immediately when he suggested closing the school and calling in the Auror's to turn the castle inside out to find the damned place. Dumbledore apparently wanted this handled internally; though the excuse he gave was more along the lines off "We cannot disrupt the students learning until we have no other choice". Personally, Harry thought the petrification of an eleven year old child would be what most adults called 'no other choice' but he himself wasn't going to press the point. For his own ego, he wanted to take this guy down himself.
At least one element of the investigation had been removed. Teddy had been successful in his task and a few days after Ben Cadwallader's petrification, Harry got his meeting. It was...interesting to say the least.
Immediately after Greengrass' right hand man had left the room and warded it from the outside, the frail boy opened the conversation with a cordial "It's good to meet you Lord Slytherin,"
After floundering for a second (something that rarely happened) Harry responded in kind "You as well, lord Slytherin,"
Greengrass studied him for a moment "You have good control over your emotions and expressions," he complimented, and for barely a second Harry felt rather smug to have received praise from a Slytherin "But you're arrogant. You came in here expecting nothing to surprise you and when I did, you struggled to keep your mask in place. You'll have to work on that,"
Harry felt lost, but he felt he was more successful in hiding that "Well, my intention was to act like I knew you knew that I was the Head of the Slytherin family, but apparently that is something I am unable to go forward with. With that in mind, I find myself curious as to how exactly you knew. You wouldn't mind divulging that to me, would you?"
"You are an eloquent speaker. Not a stutter or stumble, clear pronunciation and you know how to word questions to be as diplomatic as possible while adding the slightest hint of authority to it. I noticed all of this in the Hall, of course, but it is relieving to be able to make the same observations in private. As to your question, the Greengrass family has long been direct vassals of the House of Slytherin. Our family stood beside yours when your ancestor helped to build this castle. While other families forgot their oaths over the centuries, mine did not. Every year our whole family renew their oaths to yours, hoping that one day a new Lord Slytherin would claim his title. Until last year, none did. The magic of our oath was different and it showed a new Lord Slytherin; our oath was accepted by magic yet our Lord never came to collect it in person. When you entered the Great Hall though, I felt a pull to do whatever you commanded, and I knew that you were my new Lord,"
"And yet you never approached me," Harry countered "Why?"
"It is not for the vassal to approach his Lord, but the other way around," Greengrass returned "Why did you never visit my family to receive our oaths yourself?"
"I didn't know," was Harry's defense.
"Then it seems our disguise was too good. When the last Lord Slytherin fell in battle, his other vassal's took the opportunity to began powerful house's in their own right. But not us; we owe Salazar a debt we can never repay. But we hid our allegiance. Your family did not have a good reputation in those days and any loyalist's would have been removed from power by the Ministry. The ruse seemed to have worked too well," Greengrass said "I cannot pledge my family to you, I do not have that authority. Come to our manor over Yule and we shall renew our oath then. For now, my word will have to do. On my life and honour, so long as I am lord of the Hogwarts house of Slytherin, my house shall follow you,"
"Thank you," Harry would be lying if he said he wasn't a little overwhelmed. Shaking his head the slightest bit, he redirected the conversation to the point he had come here to establish "Alan {Already on a first name basis; aren't we moving quickly!} {I'm ignoring you} there are rumors that there is Slytherin blood in the Greengrass line. Are they wrong?"
"They are. The Greengrass family was never high enough to be honoured with a Slytherin Lady. Though the same cannot be said in the reverse,"
"So you aren't the Heir,"
"You are Lord. Hayden would be your heir,"
"He would be, which is why I'm even angrier at someone trying to use his rightful title to cause trouble. I had to be sure. You are one of the most influential students in the school, after all,"
"Why, my Lord, I'm flattered. I regret that I likely will never be able to serve you as Head of House Greengrass. I have a feeling you will grow to be a great Lord. And not to sound arrogant, but I'm usually right,"
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The pair had talked for a while longer after Alan had confirmed his innocence in the attack before they'd both gone on their way. He had to say; he'd enjoyed that conversation. Not only had he gained a very powerful ally and removed one of his suspects from their list, but it wasn't very often that Harry was able to talk to someone who's intellect was able to keep up with his own. And Alan's intelligence was astounding. Harry supposed that it was in order to make up for the weaknesses Alan's body was suffering.
Lockhart was also proved innocent of the attack in a somewhat more...traumatic way than Alan had been. Harry had conjured a massive snake and set it loose in the DADA classroom, hoping that Lockhart's reaction would prove his innocence or guilt. And it had! Lockhart had taken one look at the reptile before promptly screaming like a five year old girl and hightailing it back into his office. Harry was pretty sure that whoever the Heir was, it wouldn't be someone who was scared shitless of snakes. That would be irony at it's finest, but Harry doubted he'd ever get to see that come to pass. Then again, the head of Gryffindor house was able to transform into the domesticated version of her house's animal, so maybe that counted...
Despite these two promising development's, not much more progress was made in the search for the heir before Christmas rolled around. Harry had agreed to go home with Dri for the holiday's; Terry accompanying, of course; with Cedric dragging a promise out of him to go to the Grove for Easter. Which is how Harry found himself lounged in the sitting room of Grimmauld Place. The once dark and depressing townhouse of the Black family had long since been refurbished into a nice looking home. The Troll's foot umbrella stand and House Elf heads Dri had told him once decorated the entry way were long gone and the books that were darker in nature were in a warded off part of the library. Blatantly dark items were turned over to the Ministry or moved to a Gringotts vault, depending on how dangerous they were.
Harry was lying on his back on one of the sofa's, using Terry's lap as a pillow while Dri sat cross legged on one of the arm chairs, engrossed in a set of muggle comics Lily had gotten him while wishing he could simultaneously be stuffing his face with the chocolate from Harry that his mother had hidden 'until after dinner'. Lily, Marlene and Remus were in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on their Christmas meal, to which the remaining Potter's were due to arrive for any moment. Sirius was apparently banned from the kitchen after some incident very early in his and Marlene's relationship and nothing he'd done since had given her cause to remove that ban.
Suddenly, the floo flared up and Harry looked over in interest and glee as Hayden tumbled out in some sort of poor imitation of a front flip. The sight did of course have Harry laughing mercilessly at his twin's misfortune, joined shortly afterwards by Dri. Terry merely looked up briefly from the book he was reading, and rolled his eyes before returning to the novel. Hayden; grumbling rolled to one side and allowed James and then Alice to follow through after him.
The sound of the fireplace had attracted Remus, who entered the room to greet his sort-of friend. While a bit more forgiving than Sirius, Remus still struggled to remain friendly with James, though that had gotten easier now that Harry was back and no longer in a place where harm could come to him.
"James, it's good to see you," He said, a bit tightly as he shook James' hand, before smiling and greeting Hayden and Alice. Then, frowning, he addressed Harry "Harry, boots off the furniture please,"
Pouting a little, Harry swung himself upright before politely moving to help Marlene with the dishes she was carrying out. He sometimes forgot how much he liked living alone. Father knows he loved Anna Diggory like an aunt and Remus like an uncle, but when he was off traveling the world and handing out just deserts like candy (and also handed out candy like it was candy...to himself) he had no one nagging him for things like putting his feet on the couch or smoking; which Remus was horrified to learn he did. Still, Harry was not a good cook and so putting up with little things like that was worth it for the master piece that was sitting in front of him on the table. Conjured food just didn't have the same greatness to it.
Conversation was light and consisted mostly of small talk throughout the meal itself, which was pretty great. The mashed and roast potato's were done to perfection, the Yorkshire's were delicious and Harry was rather partial to the pigs in blanket's. Dri stayed true to his carnivore nature and devoured nearly three helpings of beef, turkey and chicken each. Dri, upon finishing his meal and utterly failing at filling the black hole that was his stomach, had promptly run off to collect his stash of chocolate when Marlene sighed and reluctantly told him where it was, Hayden and Terry following behind him. Harry would have to work them extra hard after the holiday's to make sure they stayed in shape.
When Harry made to leave the table though, he was halted.
"And where do you think you're going?" Marlene questioned.
"Uh, with my friends?" Harry answered, unsure of what he had done wrong but getting ready to protest his innocence and blame Dri anyway. He discreetly made a hand motion to Alice, that they'd developed into their universal 'blame Adrian' signal. She nodded while all adult attention was on Harry, rather excited because blaming Adrian usually got her more sweets.
"Not yet you aren't. Adrian told me about your appalling diet. What have you been thinking, Harry? Nothing but sugar isn't good for you. No wonder you look so pale all the time, you've never eaten the right foods to grow healthily" Marlene admonished. Despite being raised in the wizarding world, she had taken a foray into the muggle side of things with Lily and eventually studied up enough to study to become a muggle doctor.
"Adrian did it!" Alice piped up, and Harry winced.
Lily turned her gaze onto him in a stare that was distinctly predatory "Have you been teaching my daughter to pin blame on my godson, Harry?"
"No," the answer he gave was more a question than a statement.
Marlene smirked at his reply before sobering again "Now, you aren't leaving the table until you've eaten enough veg for me to be satisfied. Honestly, you want to grow but you don't eat properly. Can't have it both ways, kid..."
Harry gaped at her "I...I lived in a cupboard for two years!"
Lily flinched at the reminder, but then recovered and served a massive helping of vegetables onto Harry's plate "True, and while that is a fair excuse for your lack of growth it is no reason for you not to encourage your body to grow as much as it can. Now, eat!"
Unhappy, but cowed by the challenged in her eyes that was daring him to try and leave the table, Harry sat down and began to try and make his way through the pile on his plate.
"So, Frank and Alice were wondering if you're definitely going to their party this Monday?" James asked
"Damn, I knew I'd forgotten something," Sirius muttered "Yeah we'll be there. I must have forgot to send them an owl,"
"Monday? The 28th?" Harry asked
"Yeah, why?" Sirius asked even as Marlene prodded Harry towards the carrots again.
"I'm heading to a ball on the 28th. At the Greengrass estate," Harry explained and then hesitated as the adults all went silent "What?"
"The...Greengrass estate?" James asked tersely.
Harry narrowed his eyes "Yes. Is that a problem?"
James observed him silently "That's the sort of ball families like Malfoy and Nott will be attending. What would you be going there for?"
Harry had been restraining his dislike of James and Lily throughout the meal; though that didn't extend to not making fun of them; and to he had found Lily bearable and even somewhat enjoyable company so long as he could ignore the painful memories of Harry Potter and she refrained from mothering him. James was less so, but this was the last straw. He didn't trust the boy and he knew his father was a scumbag but he would not stand for someone like James Potter insulting Teddy by association.
"Not that it's any business of yours, James, but I'm there to discuss a, an alliance," he had barely hesitated as he thought up a plausible lie that was still fairly close to the truth "Besides, as bad as those families are I'm sure they've never abandoned a child with their abusive relatives,"
Tension settled around the table once Harry used that card. James looked ready to retort, when Lily held up a hand "Enough, James. Harry if you want to go to this ball then go, it's not out place to stop you. We gave up that right long ago,"
Watching her warily, Harry slowly nodded, both in agreement to her statement and in slight thanks to her for defusing an argument he didn't really want to have when Alice and Terry were around. They'd both already witnessed too many 'family' conflicts for Harry's comfort.
Sirius was still staring at Harry slack-jawed though. "You...you won an alliance with the Greengrass family? Really?" his tone was distinctively uncomprehending.
"I have to say that is impressive," Remus remarked "Not even Voldemort was able to win that family over,"
{Really? Well isn't that interesting?}
{Indeed. Voldemort claimed to be a descendent of Slytherin. And the Greengrass' claim to swear allegiance to Lord Slytherin. Yet if that's true...}
{Then why do the Greengrass' not follow Voldemort?}
Alan had some explaining to do *
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"He wasn't ever Lord Slytherin," Alan explained as they sat in Cyrus Greengrass' office together, very very early that Tuesday morning. By which he meant, half past two in the morning.
The ball had been...boring. Harry wasn't usually one to censor his brain to mouth process but in this case he was hesitant to insult his most valuable ally so early in their alliance. Starting at 7.30 the previous evening, he had arrived to the posh building dressed in his smartest set of dress robes. It hadn't mattered. He'd still looked poor in comparison to the other pureblood's present. He thought he'd covered it up nicely, though, by explaining that he simply had no desire to dirty his best silk robes with soot from the fireplace, and then promptly asked for a room to change in. He'd returned wearing an outfit that made him look like one of the most elegent and upper class people in the room. Judging by Alan's small smile, he'd done well.
Harry had been seated at the Lord's table. Cyrus had sat in the center with his wife and daughters to his left, while Alan and then Harry had been to his right. The meal itself passed without issue. A little too high class for Harry {That's not a meal! That's half the size of an afternoon snack!} it had allowed Alan to name all of the major Lords that had been present, and give him some brief coaching on etiquette.
The entire thing was uncomfortable for Harry as he had to mingle with a class of people he was unused to dealing with but he was Loki! He was a master actor and probably the best speaker in the room, though the male Greengrass' could possibly match him and Thorden Nott was no amateur in that department either. He successfully managed to use his charm and wit to portray the idea that he belonged among the company he found himself with. Dancing was uncomfortable too, as he was often the smaller of any pair he was part off. Again though, he masterfully covered up his poor dancing abilities; at least in terms of high class official dance types; by explaining how his leg had been cripplingly injured in the fight against the troll the year before and playing the idea that his leg simply wasn't recovered enough to use in a dance yet. He didn't lie, not entirely. His leg had, unfortunately, been broken. The only non-truth he told was in regards to it's healing. The story lent itself well to bolstering his image as a powerful wizard too. Having proof in the form of injury (fake though it was) that he had actually fought a troll and won bought him some respect among the crowd, though some sniffed disdainfully because it had been done in defense of a muggleborn.
Thankfully, the night didn't last forever, and after six dull hours, he and Alan had retired to Cyrus' office while Lord and Lady Greengrass saw off their last guest's. It was during this moment of respite, that Harry had approached Alan with the question that had been bugging him ever since Remus had brought it up on Christmas day.
"What do you mean? I was under the assumption that Lord Voldemort was the Salazar's last direct descendent" Alan's answer had confused him, but as the older boy was coaching him to do, he was keeping any such emotion hidden, reinforcing the weaknesses of his mask.
"He might well have been. It's certainly what he claimed. But either he was lying or else..." Alan was cut off.
"Or else he didn't know enough about our world to know how to claim his title," Alan started to rise in respect, but Cyrus motioned for him not to, as he rounded the desk and sat in his imposing armchair "Imagine my surprise when someone calling himself the heir of Slytherin starts terrorizing our world but our oaths are not received. My family, of course, immediately had doubts and when we saw he could offer no proof of his claim, we rejected him. Tell me, Lord Slytherin, do you have the family signet ring?"
"I do," Harry answered simply and showed his host's the ring.
"Then it is true. Lord Slytherin has returned," Cyrus whispered, before circling his desk and kneeling in front of Harry. Cynthia Greengrass, Cyrus' wife from a distant branch of the family, had entered at some point with her daughters and all three did the same, as did Alan. Cyrus spoke "On my life, on my honour, on my magic I, Lord Cyrus Greengrass, do hereby pledge fealty to Lord Slytherin. We shall give you shelter when you ask for it, offer counsel when you need it and should you ask it of us, we shall fight for you as is our duty. I swear it by my life, by my honour, by my magic. So mote it be,"
Alan had briefed him in a letter about what to say to complete the ceremony "I accept your oath. As long as I live you will always be welcome in my home , I will heed your counsel, I will defend your family as though it were my own. I swear it by my life, by my honour, by my magic. So mote it be,"
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"YOU DID WHAT?"
Being back in school was not enjoyable for Harry. Well, to be fair it wasn't really enjoyable for anyone to return after the Christmas holiday's, but their annoyance at having to go to class again was rather insignificant compared to the utter stupidity he had returned to. After the Greengrass family had sworn itself to him, Harry returned to Grimmauld Place. He'd spent the rest of his holiday enjoying the company of his God-brother and his best friend, feeling pretty great about himself. He was pretty proud that he'd won an alliance; no, even better, he'd won the allegiance of a pretty powerful pureblood house that seemed to be pretty damn loyal to his family.
{Even though it's not your family. You won it from snake-face remember}
{Details, details}
But upon return to Hogwarts, things had turned sour quickly. Teddy, who had stayed in Hogwarts over the holiday's, reported to him that he'd caught Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley using Polyjuice potion to sneak into Slytherin common room. Well, he'd actually found Neville and Ron posing as Crabbe and Goyle; badly, at that; as the potion began to wear off. He'd barely managed to get them out before Malfoy got suspicious. He'd then blackmailed them into taking him to where Hermione was transformed into some form of cat hybrid and convinced her to go to Pomphrey. Of course, as Theo was also a Slytherin he was obligated to report to Alan, who as a vassal had to report to Harry. Which meant he'd heard the story twice and so he twice as pissed off at the trio of morons in front of him.
Longbottom sighed again "We snuck into the Slytherin common room to find out if Draco Malfoy was the Heir of Slytherin,"
Harry ground his teeth together. Almost as one, Dri, Terry, Hayden and Theo backed up slightly. In their minds grinding teeth=nothing good.
Harry thought it all over. Making the potion was obviously Hermione's doing. Neither Weasel nor Longbottom were skilled enough to brew that potion. Actually, Harry was surprised that Hermione was, but then that girl had always been clever and with the right text it wasn't impossible that she could do it. But the idea wasn't hers. Weasley might suspect the Slytherin's but no matter how much they'd botched it the idea was a clever one in concept. Too smart for the red head to have thought off, and too sneaky for the honorable fool that was Longbottom {Who is also a massive hypocrite} which meant that someone smart and cunning had come up with it. Someone unafraid to break rules, someone who would have enough balls to steal from Snape and someone who had regular contact with all three of the culprits. Growling, Harry turned and looked at Hayden, who had been discreetly backing away.
"Really, Hayden? Really?"
"You heard Malfoy on Halloween, Harry! 'You'll be next, mudblood'. The kid's a mini version of his father. There was a chance that his father had opened the chamber last time, and he'd passed the secret onto Draco. We had to be sure," Hayden explained.
"Aside from the fact that Draco Malfoy is in no way competent or powerful enough to petrify something so fully, the Chamber was last opened in 1945," Harry told them, pinching the bridge of his nose "Lucius Malfoy attended Hogwarts between the years 1965 to 1972. Draco's grandfather Abraxas attended 1937 to '44. No Malfoy's in Hogwarts when the Chamber was last opened. And if you'd have bothered to look up some graduation records you'd have known that before this idiotic scheme to break into Slytherin! Don't even open your mouth, moron," he said suddenly, pointing his hand at Ron without even glancing his way.
Harry turned and began to make his way out of the room "Just...don't do anymore investigating. If I find out about anymore stupid ideas I swear I'll have Snape receive a rumor and some doctored pictures of the lot of you having a foursome in the astronomy tower!"
As he left, a panicked Hayden could be heard telling the others that they might just be best off dropping their private investigation.
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Harry paced outside the bathroom where Mrs Norris had been found. Things were getting bad. They'd investigated all of their original suspects and then moved on to all the pureblood extremist's and anyone else who might possibly have something to gain. Nothing had come up. And to top it all of there had been another attack. There had been two victim's this time. One of them was a muggleborn Hufflepuff, Justin Finch Fletchley. The other was more worrying: Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost. The extent of the Heir's power had always been an unnerving subject to Harry. To be able to hide from an Archangel required a huge amount of power. But to petrify a ghost? That was more than unnerving, it was scary. Harry very much didn't like being scared.
Even worse, nearly everyone had jumped back onto the 'Hayden Potter is guilty' bandwagon. A couple of days earlier, Lockhart had held a dueling club, designed to help teach the student how to defend themselves against the heir and his monster. Harry hadn't attended. He didn't need to be shown how to be an idiot, though he wished he had seen Snape annihilate Lockhart with a single spell. It would have been fun to see. The problem was that Hayden and Malfoy had been put onto the stage to duel and Malfoy had conjured a snake; a snake that tried to lunge for Justin. A snake Hayden had spoken too. A snake the whole school had seen Hayden talk to.
Harry had been at a loss to explain that one.
Hayden's cause was only further damned when he was seen at the scene of the Justin-Nick crime scene. That Harry and several others knew his brother to be innocent didn't seem to matter. There wasn't anything they could really say in light of all the evidence stacked against him.
Still, Harry had a small glimmer of hope in his heart at that moment, despite how he was constantly glancing around himself. Dumbledore had sent him a note asking him to meet him here, as he wished to go over the first crime scene once more, hoping to find something that might give them a hint. The way the letter had been worded suggested that the headmaster had a hunch, a possible lead. While Harry had no fond feelings for the Headmaster, the old man was very powerful and intelligent and Harry was willing to work with the man if it meant catching the 'heir'. Not for any morals or anything like that, mind. It was instead the desire to remove from the school any entity that could endanger his own self. There was some element of selflessness to be found, though, he supposed. He wasn't exactly pleased at all the blame Hayden was getting, and wanted revenge for that too.
It was at that moment that Harry heard the sound of some sort of mechanism from inside the girl's bathroom behind him. The same bathroom that Hayden and Hermione had brewed their polyjuice in, haunted by Moaning Myrtle, a former student of Hogwarts who'd died in her teens and wept constantly. The sound set Harry's nerves on end. There was nothing in that bathroom that should make any sort of sound, and he'd sensed no one within it when he had approached some few minutes earlier. Sliding his angel blade into one hand and his wand into the other, Harry crept forward slowly, keeping his grace scanning the entire corridor to make sure there was no surprise's Harry honed in on the signature he picked up on within the room. It was huge! Whatever it was it must have pretty big power reserves.
Looking over the result of his scan though, Harry knew it couldn't beat an Archangel.
{Ready to end this Gabe?}
{You bet, bro}
Taking a single deep breath to ready himself, Harry yanked open the door and raised both his blade and wand, preparing himself for a fight the second he entered the room.
The last thing he registered was a pair of huge, yellow eyes.
So if it feels like I'm rushing through this chapter it's because I am. I really don't want to write the Chamber of Secrets arc, but I kinda need to. So I'd rather just get that part of the story over and done with.
To clarify: if I use the word 'lord' with a lowercase 'l' then it refers to an unofficial leadership role, like 'lord of Slytherin' Alan Greengrass. Using it with an uppercase 'L' means the head of a family like Lord Black, or Lord Greengrass.
Not really much else for this chapter. I'll try and get the next one out a lot quicker but as I said; I really don't enjoy writing this part of the story. It was always my least favourite of the books as well, so maybe that's got something to do with it as well.
Anyway, I'll see you next time. Yozza out!