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Chapter Ten—Secrets Buried in Lies

Felix straightened his robes a little and grimaced. He wished that he didn't feel so much like he was waiting to ambush Harry outside the Great Hall.

But he had to talk to his brother, and at the moment, there was no guarantee that he would be able to if he followed his usual morning schedule. Harry always came in for such a short time to keep the owls from reacting to him that it seemed Felix would barely turn around from talking to Ron and he would be gone.

So Felix waited, and saw Harry come marching down the steps from Gryffindor Tower, eyes fixed on the entrance to the hall.

Felix watched his brother, and shook his head a little. Harry always had a grim face when he wasn't smiling. His eyes seemed to be looking at something other than the Great Hall even though that was where he was going. He would have more friends—friends who weren't in Slytherin—if he could just relax sometimes.

"Harry!" he called.

Harry turned around and walked up to him without a real break in his stride. He was smiling a little now, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Felix? Is everything all right?"

"Yeah. I just—I needed to talk to you." Felix lowered his voice. He didn't want to imagine what would happen if one of the Slytherins trying to yank Harry over to their side heard this. "Did Nott tell you what happened yesterday?"

"No. What are you talking about?"

"I went to talk to him about corrupting you and trying to get you on his side. I know you think he's probably a real friend to you, Harry, but he's trying to use you for your power. I thought you might not be able to see that."

Harry's eyes widened. "What are you talking about?" he repeated.

Felix put a comforting hand on Harry's arm. "I know you still don't know that much about how things work in the magical world, the way that people follow Lords sort of mindlessly. Mum and Dad wanted you to just, I don't know, know it somehow without really explaining it to you. But there are also people who are powerful magically, but don't have that impact on people that Lords and Ladies do. You're one of them. Nott is trying to use you. I thought you probably wouldn't realize that."

Harry was quiet for a moment. Felix wondered what he was thinking, but when he opened his mouth to ask, Harry looked straight at him and smiled. Felix relaxed. It was a bright and understanding smile, the kind he had just been thinking would make Harry look more friendly to people if he used it more often.

"Thanks for warning me, Felix. I certainly wouldn't want people trying to use me."

"That's right. And I'm going to have a talk with Mum and Dad and Professor Dumbledore, too. It's not right that they're almost trying to use you without explaining things to you."

"Thanks, Felix. I'd appreciate it if you talked to them. They never seem to listen to me."

Felix sighed. "I know. They're—well, they're not stupid, but they're wrong sometimes. I'll talk to them. And do you want me to talk to Sirius? I know you were meeting up with him a week or so ago."

"No, we've been sending those letters back and forth that I was having you send off with Hedwig. I think we understand each other." Harry gave him a fleeting smile and ducked into the Great Hall, probably to get his usual porridge and fruit.

Felix sighed with relief, and then went to catch up with Ron and Dean, already planning how he would word his letters to Mum and Dad. Harry really did need a break from everyone trying to use him. It wouldn't be great if he got away from the Slytherins only to run into their parents' expectations and maybe get tossed right back to Nott and Zabini.

Harry didn't know how he had kept his anger and sadness, boiling together like steam, from showing on his face while he spoke to Felix. But Felix wasn't like Dumbledore. He was just a kid, the kind of innocent kid that Dudley would have scared off if they were all Muggles at primary school.

Getting angry openly and yelling at people didn't make things happen, anyway. It had only made Dumbledore stare at him suspiciously after that time in his office, and no one had listened to him about Quirrell being the real culprit.

So Harry would lie to Felix, and in the meantime, he would find somewhere to meet Theo and Blaise that wasn't so open as the library.

He went looking in one of the corridors near the Great Hall that Saturday afternoon, ignoring the fact that lunch was coming and then going. He'd gone through a lot worse than a missed meal at the Dursleys. That was practically familiar ground.

Harry was looking for a secret passage, or even better, a room with a thick coating of dust that would show people hadn't been there in a while. Then he would have somewhere at least partially hidden to meet Theo and Blaise.

What he found was the Weasley twins.

Harry's magic lifted its head and hissed before he even heard the footsteps. Harry turned to face them and put his back to the wall, drawing his useless wand. People like Fred and George only knew the lie about him doing better in Charms and Defense.

The twins came around the corner and stopped with looks of exaggerated surprise. "Look at what we have here, Forge," said the twin on the left.

"A little lion, all by his lonesome!"

"A Potter, without his twin!"

"A boy raised by Muggles, without his Muggles!"

Harry couldn't help tensing when he heard them say that last one, and knew their eyes were tracking his movements. But he shook his head and said quietly, "I was looking for a place I could meet with my friends. Sorry to bother you." He started to turn around.

There was suddenly a red-haired twin in front of him. Harry barely managed to lift his wand instead of reacting with a hand that would have had fire shimmering around it. He locked his eyes on the other boy's, hearing the other twin moving into place behind him, and said, "Move."

The Weasley blinked and glanced over Harry's shoulder at his brother. "All right," he said, lifting his palms in front of him. "We just have a proposition to make to you. You're not a Ronniekins—"

"And you're not a Felix Felicis," said the other one, coming around in front of Harry. Harry relaxed a little, but still kept the wand aimed at them. At least they were both standing where he could see them, now.

"You have Slytherin friends, right?"

"Snakey friends."

"You need a place to meet with these snakey friends."

"We can show you one."

Harry nodded. "For what price?" He realized a moment later that he probably shouldn't have said it. It wasn't the kind of way Gryffindors dealt with each other. But he knew well enough that kindness from the Dursleys always had a price, and it didn't seem likely to change when he was dealing with these particular Gryffindors.

The twin on the left smiled at him. "You don't report to anyone what we're doing if we sometimes use the same place."

"You don't—"

"Tell our mother, in particular. Or anyone else—"

"From our family, like Perfect Percy the Prefect."

Those were terms Harry could agree to easily. "Deal."

The twins immediately led him up through the corridor, although sometimes they paused and stared at a scrap of parchment for some reason. Harry stood far back enough that they wouldn't think he was trying to see their parchment, and watched the corners and walls flash past.

They finally came to a halt in front of a painting of a bowl of fruit. The twin on the left shot him a glinting smile. "Now, watch out, little Potty wee Potter, this is very important," he said. "You've got to—"

"Tickle the pear," the other twin said, and leaped forwards and did so.

Harry blinked, and blinked again as the pear giggled and the portrait opened like a door. In retrospect, he supposed it shouldn't have been that surprising, not when the portrait of the Fat Lady acted like a door for Gryffindor Tower. But what lay beyond was a surprise.

It was an enormous room filled with roaring fireplaces and billowing steam and the smells of food and creatures. Two of them spun around and bustled towards the Weasley twins. Harry stared at their green skin, floppy ears edged with hair, and long fingers, and felt as if he was about to faint.

"Misters Weasley is being back!" said the nearest creature.

"They are wanting food, surely," said the one next to him, a taller one who Harry thought might be a girl. She gave Harry a fleeting, curious glance. "Who is the other one being?"

"This is Harry Potter," said the nearest Weasley twin, who luckily waved to Harry instead of trying to clap him on the shoulder or anything like that. "The brother of the Boy-Who-Lived. He was looking for a quiet place to meet with friends." He turned around and grinned at Harry. "And these are the kitchens of Hogwarts, so welcome, little Potty."

"What are you?" Harry asked the creatures, because it didn't seem likely that he'd get a realistic explanation from the twins.

The twins blinked and looked shocked, which might be genuine. But Harry focused on the creatures instead of watching them and trying to determine that. He had the feeling that trying to work out their real emotions and what was genuine about them was kind of a waste of time, anyway.

"We is being house-elves, Mister Potter," said the taller one. She had a uniform on that looked as if it might be made of a pillowcase, and a strange-looking scarf around her neck that might be made of stitched-together napkins. She studied him. "Mister Potter and his friends would not be causing trouble?"

"No, we wouldn't," Harry said faintly. He'd heard of house-elves, of course. They'd been in the history books he'd read. Felix had mentioned them. But either the Potters didn't have any, or they had kept out of sight the entire time Harry was "home."

"What do you do down here? Why do you cook for everyone?"

"We is being bound to do so, Mister Potter," said the tall elf quietly. "My name is being Jilly. And this is Arrow." She touched the younger elf beside her on the back of his head, and he stood up and looked between Jilly and Harry.

"What do you mean, bound? Could someone get you away if they wanted? Could you leave if you wanted?"

The twins made gasping sounds. Arrow's mouth was wide open, and he gasped, too. But Harry was just looking at Jilly, who seemed the most sensible person in the room to him. He saw the way her mouth twisted.

"House-elves can be being dismissed if they be given clothes," she said. "But Hogwarts is being a much better place for house-elves than many others. So we is staying here."

Harry nodded slowly. He could understand that. The Potters' house didn't strike him as the absolute best place he could have landed, especially with parents who had decided to abandon him for ten years, but it was better than the Dursleys'. You took what you could.

"So we can meet here?" he asked, to move on. It was obvious that Jilly didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Yes. So long as you are not causing messes or creating work for good elves." Jilly studied Harry as if looking for the presence of stains or rips in his clothes that would show he was too wild to entertain.

Harry had to smile at the thought of Theo causing a mess. Blaise was more of an unknown, but considering the amount of fussing he did with Cleaning Charms on his robes, Harry wasn't really worried about that, either. "I can promise that we'll be careful."

Jilly studied him one more time, then sniffed and nodded. "Mister Harry is missing lunch. Do you want some?" She waved her hand at a tray of steaming pies, pasties, biscuits, cakes, and meat that several elves were working on.

"Oh. Um. Yes. I suppose so," Harry said, relaxing a little. He might have found a solution to his problem of eating in the Great Hall. Usually, lunch was better than either breakfast or dinner, when some owls might be bringing editions of the Evening Prophet, but he had been snapped at by a stray owl a few times.

"Then you be sitting down at the table," Jilly told him, and poked Arrow in the back to lead him over towards the tray of food.

Harry turned towards the Weasley twins, who were watching him with sly smiles that he didn't care for but didn't seem to be malicious. "Thanks for your help. I never would have found this without you lot."

The twins both bowed, and Harry felt a pang for a moment. He and Felix might have been like that if he'd been raised in the magical world, so completely in tune and always finishing each other's sentences.

On the other hand, it was kind of stifling when he thought about it. And who knew what they would be like if he'd had the same problems with his magic and his parents or Felix had discovered him using Parseltongue?

"You are—"

"Most welcome—"

"Young Mister Harrikins," the twins chorused, and winked at him, and ran out of the kitchens while looking at their scrap of stray parchment again.

Harry sat down and watched the elves work for a while, then ate a pasty when they put it in front of him. He could feel himself relaxing as he ate. No owls, no other people around to yell in his ear when they wanted something passed or comment on how much he ate or jab elbows they thought were friendly into his side, and the house-elves made Harry feel a certain kinship with them, given how many chores he'd done at the Dursleys'.

He might just start taking all his meals here.

"You found the kitchens?"

"Technically the Weasley twins showed me the way," Harry said, and paused to tickle the pear in the painting of fruit that Theo had passed several times and never thought one way or the other about.

Theo shook his head as the painting swung open. His father had promised him that Theo would discover the way down to the kitchens sooner or later, with a little time and patience. Theo doubted it would have been during his first year, or that he would have listened to the Weasley twins if they did try to tell him things.

The elves in the room scrambled around to face them as they came in. Theo dismissed them with a glance and sat down at one of the tables. A plate of cut-up carrots landed in front of him, which was good enough.

He faced Harry again, opened his mouth, and then blinked at the weird expression on Harry's face. "What?" he asked.

"You just—take them for granted, don't you?"

Theo wondered what Harry was thinking. It was odd that he couldn't tell, but Harry's emotions appeared to have shut down completely. Even his voice was flat, and Theo couldn't hear anything from his magic. "Why shouldn't I? House-elves have served wizards and witches for centuries. My father has several."

Harry turned around and stared at one of the elves who was working behind Theo, or so Theo assumed. He didn't turn around to look. "How long have you worked at Hogwarts, Jilly?"

It was unusual enough for Harry to know the name that Theo turned around, too. The tallest house-elf he had ever seen was watching him with flat grey eyes. She looked at Harry when she answered, though. "Three hundred and five years this spring, Mister Harry."

Theo blinked. "You're the oldest house-elf I've ever met."

"Hmmm," said this Jilly, and nothing else.

"Do you like this?" Harry asked. "I mean, you said something about being bound. I tried to look it up in the library the other day, and there's really no books about the binding that I could find. But there was one that suggested house-elves served wizards and witches because they liked it. Is that true?"

Theo turned around in time see Jilly's face twist. She smoothed it out in the next moment, and gave Harry a perfect bland smile. It reminded Theo of his mum's company smile, and he glanced away.

"House-elves is of course saying that we like it," Jilly said softly. "There is books written about it, Mister Harry. How can it be otherwise?"

"I'm asking you if you do."'

"You is being a wizard," Jilly said flatly, and then turned away and went back to helping make what seemed to be a heaping pile of pasties probably destined for the Gryffindor table.

Theo just stared. Then he turned back to Harry. "None of the Nott house-elves would have acted like that," he said, wanting to reassure Harry that he would have good service if he ever came to visit.

If Theo ever saw his father again, which at the moment didn't seem likely.

Harry's eyes were flat. "I think they should. I wanted to know if house-elves really enjoy their service, and I know now I can't get an answer from someone who might be punished if she gave it. But I don't want to just assume that they should like serving and treat them like slaves."

"They're not slaves!"

"Why? What's the difference?"

Theo hesitated. He had expected the ideas about slavery since his father had told him that Muggleborns sometimes had them, but he hadn't gone as far into the difference in his head as he supposed he should have. "I mean—well—"

"Yeah?"

"They like it. They're happy. Slaves aren't happy."

"And you think that an elf saying she can't tell me the truth because wizards won't like it is happy?"

"She didn't say exactly that," Theo began.

Blue flames snapped into being, encircling Harry's arms. Theo stopped speaking. He knew he was open-mouthed, and he disliked it, but he couldn't help himself. He stared, and Harry seemed to realize what was going on, and shut down the show with a snap of his fingers and a roll of his shoulders.

He had more powerful magic than anyone Theo had ever met, and yet he still pretended to be inferior in class. Sometimes it made Theo sick.

Harry shook his head. "We shouldn't talk about it right now," he said. "Not until we know more about it."

Theo nodded slowly. "Get books out of the library and bring them here?"

"That'll work."

"Is there a reason that you didn't invite Blaise to this meeting?" Even though Theo had thought Blaise and Harry were getting along lately, he had to admit that he might be wrong, and Harry not inviting Blaise to their "new" meeting place seemed to confirm it.

Harry blinked at him for a minute. Then he said, "I honestly didn't think of it. And I know that you're a good enough friend that you wouldn't mind meeting in the kitchens. I thought Blaise might."

Theo chuckled. "Don't let the way Blaise treats his robes fool you. He might be fussy about Cleaning Charms, but he would meet anywhere to learn anything new. I think most Slytherins would."

For a moment, a look of naked longing crossed Harry's face. Theo tilted his head. "Upset that you didn't let the Hat place you in your rightful House?"

"There are some things about it that would have been nice," Harry admitted. "But the Potters and my brother would never have let me be, or Dumbledore. And I might have killed and eaten Malfoy by now, which wouldn't benefit anybody."

Theo laughed. He was sure Harry was joking. Partially sure.

No, completely sure, as Harry smiled at him and Theo remembered that Harry wouldn't think Malfoy worth the effort when he hadn't done anything personally to Harry the way that the Potters and Dumbledore had.

"Harry. Can I talk to you?"

Harry blinked at Neville. He was "friends" with the other boy just the way he was "friends" with Gryffindors besides Felix. He talked to them in the common room, sat with them in classes, pretended to study with them, played chess or Exploding Snap with them on occasion. But Neville hadn't tried to push for a deeper connection. Harry even thought he didn't call Harry "Potter" only because there were two people with that last name in their year.

"Yes?" Harry asked anyway.

Neville took a long, deep breath, and clenched his hands in front of him like he was about to dive into a deep pool. Harry waited quietly. Maybe Neville was going to offer "advice" about Transfiguration again. Neville was considered a poor student but still doing better in that class than Harry, no surprise.

Harry's magic stirred around him. Harry dismissed it. There was no reason to be upset about that. Why should he care? Transfiguration wasn't something that would save Theo from the Figgs, or keep Harry from being sent back to the Dursleys', or keep Felix safe.

"Did someone do something to you?" Neville whispered.

Harry blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Did someone—I don't know, grab you and throw you into a wall or something? Because you flinch a lot, and I know that no one can sneak up on you lately but I see your face when the common room gets really loud and—and I don't mean to—I just n-noticed."

Neville was practically babbling, and Harry took a deep breath and pasted a smile on his face. "It's okay, Neville. Some things happened to me that I don't want to talk about, but I'm fine."

"Was it the Slytherins?"

"No, it was before I came to Hogwarts."

Harry hoped that would be enough. Neville was a good kind of kid who would probably go and try to tell someone else if he thought Muggles had abused Harry, which meant the Potters and Dumbledore would hear about it, which would only cause trouble. And no one else had noticed it so far, which meant—

Which meant Harry had to ask why Neville had noticed it.

Harry leaned forwards. Neville leaned in, too, his eyes wide. "Why did the Muggles grab you and throw you into a wall?"

"They thought it was funny," Harry said, and pounced while Neville's eyes were widening and his mouth was opening to ask the next question. "Who grabbed you and threw you into a wall?"

Neville licked his lips. Hie face was white, and he reached out the way Harry had noticed he usually did when he wanted Trevor with him to pet for comfort. Trevor wasn't there right now, though, and Neville clenched his hand into his lap. "N-nobody."

"But you noticed that I had been. And usually, the only kids who notice that kind of thing are kids it happened to."

"I d-didn't mean to upset you—"

Harry shook his head before Neville could babble himself into leaving. "It's not that kind of question, Neville. I just want to know what happened to you."

Neville stared at his lap. Harry waited. Finally, sneaking little glances at Harry out of the corner of his eye as if he knew how Harry had killed the troll, Neville said, "M-my family thought I was a Sq-Squib. They were al-always doing things to m-make me show I had magic. My g-great-uncle dropped me out of a window and I bounced, but that wasn't until I was eight. So then they knew."

Harry had to work so hard to keep his flames under control that he could barely hear Neville's next words. Neville was trying to explain something about how his family were all powerful wizards and witches who had showed accidental magic when they were younger than eight, and they just wanted to make sure that he got to go to Hogwarts, and they loved him, really, and—

They can tell Neville that all they want, Harry thought, his fingers curling into claws. It doesn't matter. They were willing to kill him so they could get what they wanted.

Just like the Figgs. Just like the Potters.

"You know that you don't have to go back to them?" Harry interrupted harshly when Neville was starting in on yet another defense of his great-uncle. Harry could maybe have taken it if Neville was talking about his grandmother or any other member of the family, but not this great-uncle. Yes, Felix had said something about the great-uncle once before, right after Harry had come to the magical world, but Harry hadn't paid attention to it, much. Now he knew it was real, and he had to help Neville.

"I mean, Professor Dumbledore found a new home for Theo Nott when he was being abused by his father," Harry added hastily when Neville stared at him. It sickened him to spread the lie about Theo's father, but it was what Theo would have wanted him to do. "He could find you a new home, too."

Neville was quiet for a long second. Then he said, "You know my parents were killed fighting the Death Eaters?"

"No," Harry said slowly. "I didn't know that." He'd had the impression that Neville's parents were alive, but come to think of it, it was an older woman who had brought him to the Potters' party during the summer. Probably his grandmother.

"I have to live up to them," Neville said, and he gazed at Harry with his eyes shining with such a fanatical light that Harry recoiled before he could stop himself. "There's no—there's no choice about that, Harry. I have to do it. I have to be the best wizard I can be."

Harry frowned. "But why does that mean you have to live with abusive people?"

"Because they're the only ones who know what my parents were really like and can tell me." Neville shuddered a little. "And they're the only ones who will push me and test me and make sure that I use as much magic as I can. That I'm as strong as I can be."

His stutter had faded completely. Harry studied him, and saw a kind of strength he hadn't known could exist staring back at him.

He also knew that there was no way, probably, he could get through to someone who thought like that, and Neville would go tell an adult if he tried.

"Okay," Harry said, as calmly as he could. "I see why that's important to you."

Neville relaxed and smiled at Harry. "Th-thanks, Harry." He ducked his head. "I know a lot of people who say that I couldn't be an Auror, that it's r-ridiculous. Thanks for believing in me."

Harry nodded, and patted Neville's shoulder, and turned the conversation around so that it was a nice harmless one about Herbology, which was Neville's favorite subject. Harry didn't do too badly in that class, either, because it didn't need a wand.

He went to bed that night and stared at the ceiling in a determined way, listening to Felix's light breathing from one side of him and Neville's snores from the other. He knew that he wouldn't be able to get Neville away from his family without some kind of proof, and Neville would hate him if he did that.

But there was no reason he couldn't use the same invisible methods of persuasion on Neville's family as he was planning to use on the Figgs.

Harry closed his eyes and recreated the shape of the Imperius Curse in his mind again and again.

"Imperio!"

The sensation of being hit with wet, cold, stinking bodies pelted Harry's mind again. He grimaced. It never got any better. He had almost thought it would, after the way Quirrell had described what the Imperius Curse felt like to most people, but it didn't.

And then the snake-like coil popped up in his mind again, and Harry grabbed it.

It had a tail, which was the way he unraveled it. Harry yanked on it and it began unraveling, but he studied the shape and committed it to memory again. It felt the way he imagined it would probably feel to memorize a complex poem. Each time bits of it came back clearer and clearer, and he could repeat the parts he had already memorized more easily, and some of the new parts made a home in his memory.

But he couldn't cast it yet. It faded out of sight, and Harry hissed in frustration.

Quirrell whipped around to face him, aiming his wand. "What was that?"

Harry stared at him. Quirrell's face often went blank and dreamy when he cast the Imperius, almost as if he was using the spell on himself, but now it was pale and tight. His hand shook as he aimed his wand at Harry. "Huh?"

"You hissed."

Harry held in his flinch. He couldn't let anyone find out about his Parseltongue. Yes, Quirrell probably wouldn't react like the Potters or Dumbledore would if they knew, but he would try to use it as a weapon against Harry. "I was frustrated, that's all. I made a little hiss."

"You were speaking."

"Huh?"

Quirrell stared at him a moment longer in silence, and then shook his head. "I must have imagined it," he murmured, and Harry didn't think he would have heard him, but little air currents swirled through the room whenever they were in here now, and they directed the sounds to Harry's ears. "The Potters have no Slytherin blood."

Harry just blinked and tried to look as gormless as he could. And tired, too, he could do tired. It was tiring resisting the Imperius Curse day after day, and he wondered how much longer he'd have to do that before he could master it.

He did have a question he wanted to ask Quirrell, though. "How much control do you have to maintain over someone with the Imperius Curse?"

"What do you mean, Mr. Potter?"

"I mean, do you have to stand behind them with your wand up every time, ready to cast it again when it wears off? Or can you leave it there and it'll make them do what you want while you just think instructions into their minds?"

"Why, Mr. Potter, you should know as well as I do that many Death Eaters woke from trances cast by the Imperius Curse after the war. They came back to themselves, so to say. Does that not suggest that the Imperius Curse is like your second example?"

Quirrell had a weird smile on his face. Harry glared at him. "I don't believe that."

"Why?"

"The Death Eaters are liars."

"So distrustful," Quirrell murmured, making it sound like a compliment. "But there is much debate on the nature of the Imperius Curse. Precisely because the legal penalties for casting it are so high, few people have the experience of doing so. And those who do…why, they tend to be the kinds of wizards and witches who work hard to keep their secrets."

"So it always dissolves even if you don't pull on the tail end?"

"What tail end, Mr. Potter?"

Harry tried to explain, but he had tried to explain before, and Quirrell never got it. Harry supposed it was another thing he was simply doomed not to be able to share with anyone, the way that the curse felt disgusting instead of pleasant to him and the way he couldn't Transfigure objects or really understand wand magic.

"Enough of this, fascinating though it is," Quirrell said, cutting off Harry's fumbling explanation. "I think, Mr. Potter, that I have indulged your own lack of understanding of your elemental abilities long enough."

"I'm working on understanding them." The Imperius Curse was just more interesting, as far as Harry thought.

"But not enough." Quirrell smiled in a way that made him look like a vampire, although he didn't have any fangs to bare. "I do think, my dear boy, that unless you figure out a way to use your abilities to imitate Transfiguration soon, I shall have to end our sessions."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

"I won't have a pupil who is ridiculously stupid," Quirrell said softly. "And dear Minerva has confided to me that unless you improve, you won't. be able to pass first-year Transfiguration and will have to repeat the class with the eleven-year-olds next year. There are dozens of things you could do to remedy the matter. You haven't done them. You will find a remedy in the next week, and make Minerva sing a different tune in Monday's classes."

Harry swallowed back panic. He had thought of one or two things, but he didn't think they would work. They all involved earth, and earth was his weakest element. "And if I can't?"

"Then these sessions stop." Quirrell shrugged. "There are other things I could teach you, as I'm sure you realize, to let you continue being my student and stave off my own boredom. I see no reason to let you dictate the content of our classes without even trying to push back—"

Harry flung a hand towards Quirrell, and concentrated as hard as he could on creating that snake-shape in Quirrell's mind.

For a moment, he thought it was going to work. He could feel the way that Quirrell's mind shifted towards him and then away from him, and he could picture the snake taking form in it, and he could feel—

There was another mind there. A second one, one that flung off the snake-shaped bindings with a snarl.

Harry staggered back, head pounding, as the magic crashed into him. It felt more disgusting than ever, but it was his own magic, and if he didn't know how to form the Imperius Curse, it couldn't be used to enchant him, either. A second later, and the disgusting feeling was gone, along with most of the headache.

He opened his eyes and found that he was leaning against the wall near the door, with Quirrell's wand pressed against his throat. Harry thought dazedly that he'd Transfigured a sharp tip onto it, because it felt like a razor.

"Do not," Quirrell whispered, "try that again, Mr. Potter."

He stepped back and raised a hand to adjust his turban. Maybe it had magical protections on it and he was wondering why it hadn't stopped Harry's attempt to reach his mind. Harry stared at him and shook his head.

"Why did your mind feel that way?"

"You are not to worry about that."

Harry left after a short staring contest, already wondering if the Imperius Curse would have worked if Quirrell didn't have whatever he did in his mind. Some kind of barrier? Protection charms?

Harry thought he should go to the library and look that up.

Then he groaned as a thought came to him. He'd have to do that after he looked up Transfiguration theory, since he hadn't managed to talk Quirrell out of that stupid thing.

Albus leaned back against his chair and sighed softly. The tracking charms on Harry showed that he still went to the library on a regular basis, but he was alone whenever he was there, or so Irma reported. He was checking out books on Transfiguration, apparently determined to become better at it. His heartbeat increased regularly when he was in Quirinus's classroom, but that was to be expected, when he must be practicing Defense.

And if he ate in the kitchens, well, it kept anyone from noticing the adverse reactions of the owls in the Great Hall, and that was all to the better, in Albus's estimation. Perhaps Harry would become friendly with the house-elves and be able to do something to better their condition, something Albus had long wished to do.

All in all, it appeared that Harry had spent less time with Slytherins, if any, since his brother had spoken with him, and that brightened Albus's days.

Now, he could turn his mind to a much more important task: finding the shade of Lord Voldemort. He had received some promising leads about Albania…