Ron wasn't quite sure what to make of Harry. He was used to people fitting categories, perhaps because that's how things were at home. At home, it was accepted that Charlie was The Cool One who worked with dragons, Percy was The Swot with the stick up his arse, Bill was basically a mix between Charlie and Percy, the twins were… the twins, and Ginny was The Youngest.

Come to think of it, Ron wasn't really sure where he fit it. At home, he had been The Youngest until Ginny was born. Then he was The Second Youngest, which wasn't the same. He didn't get away with as much, which sucked, and being second youngest felt nebulous and undefined. As soon as he wasn't The Youngest, he started to feel pressure. His family was watching to see what he would become… Hogwarts was his time to truly find himself, but he wasn't yet sure what that would be.

When Ron first met Harry, he had thought he'd be like the stories – some adventurous, brave, knight in shining armour type. After only a brief chat on the train, that idea, like Harry's book, was thrown out the window. When Harry was sorted Slytherin, Ron adjusted not only his perception of Harry but of Slytherins. If Harry Potter was a Slytherin, they couldn't be all that bad.

By the end of the first week of classes, Ron had firmly decided that Harry was The Wildcard. It was very obvious that Harry had spent a lot of time around snakes, because of lot of his ideas, morals, and speech patterns didn't seem human. Ron resolved to read about snakes to try to understand his friend better. Maybe then he would be a little more predictable.

The easier people to categorise were:

-Neville the Plant Nerd (Ron liked the number of plants he had in the dorm – it brought an extra sense of cosiness to the already extremely comfortable room)

-Seamus the Fiery One (in personality and magic)

-Hermione the Regular Nerd (Ron had begun playing chess with her when he wanted a bit of a challenge because Harry wouldn't stop doing the great snake variation)

-Dean the Dreamy One (Ron was so tired of hearing the girls sigh as he walked by)

-Draco the Posh One (he was a bit of a twat sometimes, but he and Ron were on speaking terms through the shared experience of being friends with Harry)

-Greg the Quiet One (Ron thought he was quiet out of shyness)

-Blaise the Even Quieter One (Ron thought he was quiet because he loathed attention)

-Crabbe the Utter Fucking Arsehole (Ron wouldn't be surprised if he got expelled within the next three years…)

Ron had thought that he might get overshadowed by Harry, but that wasn't the case at all. Harry's social style was a bit odd. He always had Bob with him, but he flitted around from person to person and didn't really have a friend group. Ron was therefore not categorised as Harry's Friend, because Harry had many friends he hung around with equally – or perhaps they were acquaintances. Ron wasn't sure how Harry really saw people.

Ron category wasn't Harry's Friend, nor was he The Cool Weasley, The Swot Weasley, The Troublemaker(s)… He was getting decent grades, but the thing he was best at was chess. He was good at a lot of games, to be honest. He had obliterated Percy at poker but wasn't as fond of it as chess because there wasn't the same violence. Maybe Ron could be a famous chess master? The Grandmaster sounded cool…

Hermione was pleased to have found that Harry's attention could be bought with snake facts. She felt that it was her duty to make sure he did his assignments and make an effort in class and had developed a token system to get him to do things. She had spent time in the library looking up a lamination spell to create a reusable token board. She spent a lot of time making the token board, making sure all the tokens depicted different magical and non-magical snakes.

When she presented it to Harry and explained that she would trade study time for snake facts, he seemed doubtful, but after she gave him a tester by telling him about Snake Island, he quickly agreed to it. That meant Hermione had to dedicate a certain amount of time each week to learning new snake things to tell Harry. It was pretty fun, to be honest, and she could see the appeal of snakes. Sometimes she found herself discussing snake things with Harry even outside the token system. It was good having a friend who was happy to talk at length about things.

She was also becoming friends with Ron, who was very good at chess. Hermione had briefly attended chess club at her old school, but then had to drop it because she didn't have enough time with her other extracurriculars. It was good to add another skill to her pocket.

Having magical friends was nice. For the last couple of years, she had been pretty alone. Her parents were always busy working, as they owned their own dental practice, and her only close friend had moved to Australia a couple of years ago. It was hard making new friends when you'd been in the same school for a few years. Starting fresh is always easier because everyone is in the same boat.

Hermione had found herself talking to Blaise and Draco, who at first really didn't seem to like her. Blaise quickly warmed up to her after he realised she knew Latin and some Italian, and since then had been helping her practise the languages.

Draco was a bit of a harder sell, but Hermione had dealt with his sort before – old money who looked down on everyone without peerage. Hermione's parents were rather well off thanks to their strong work ethic and private clinic. As such, she had gone to a top-notch private school and had been surrounded by similar old money sorts. She knew which buttons to press and questions to ask to get him to talk to her. After showing interest in 'proper magical culture', as he put it, she had him firmly wrapped around her finger. Hermione was learning the things that weren't taught in books, and Draco was getting to convert a Muggleborn to his way of thinking. Hah! As if.

Bob attended every lesson with Harry and was learning a lot. He really enjoyed learning. On the weekends, if he wanted a little alone time, he would make his way to the Ravenclaw dorms and listen in to what they were studying. The Ravenclaws studied all sorts of extra stuff.

Bob required less sleep than Harry and would often wander around at night while Harry was sleeping. Since he enjoyed learning so much, Bob often found himself in the library at night. Over the years, he had developed the ability to read without opening the book if only he wished very hard. It was quite tiring, but it was less awkward than trying to get a book off a shelf, open it, and turn each page with his slippery tail. All he had to do was press his head against the cover, concentrate, and receive the entire contents of the book in his mind. Harry had suggested he teach it to Greg, who found reading difficult, but that required Greg learning Parseltongue first, so progress was slow.

Charybdis was so happy. Everyone thought she was beautiful. She adorned the common room furniture like the sculpted snakes above the fireplace, and all the boys and girls would give her gentle head pats or back scratches as they went to their lessons. It was so nice being loved. Harry loved her, of course, but more love was always better.

Draco, with his beautiful blonde hair and perfect skin, had very good taste in clothes. On the weekends, when the students were allowed to wear their clothes of choice, Draco shone. He had pretty magazines with French fashion models in them and would wear all the latest trends. Sometimes he would point to designs that she should try on, and they would match. If he was a snake, he would be a lovely specimen indeed.

Harry was teaching Draco Parseltongue, and Draco was teaching Charybdis French. He told her about his beautiful, well-dressed mother and equally fashionable father. Charybdis had seen his father in the clothes shop and very much enjoyed his snake cane. He obviously appreciated the perfection of the serpentine form. Draco seemed to as well.

One weekend, while dressed to the nines, he sat on the chaise longue with Charybdis and had Blaise take a photo with a magical camera because they looked so elegant. Charybdis wanted Draco to grow big and strong so he could carry her around his neck. Right now, he was too small, so she would ask Draco to have Blaise help. It was so nice being carried around by handsome boys.

Over the past couple of weeks, Harry had been selling random bits and bobs from home that he had forgotten he'd brought with him. He finally got rid of a unicorn statue that nobody at Friends of Bob would buy, having sold it to Crabbe of all people. The ordeal with the nuclear bomb talk had led to Harry duplicating a science book he had brough with him and making a fair bit of money selling them to almost every Slytherin. He had also sold a few things from his trunk that he hadn't realised magical folks would be interested in, including Flakes, spiral bound notebooks, and muggle coins.

Hermione had suggested a proper business plan and more distinct organisational structure after asking a bunch of questions about Friends of Bob. She and Harry had spent a day in the library learning all that could be learned about business. At the end of the day, Harry and Bob had agreed that their business model was to blend magical and muggle to create things of use or fun. Harry decided Fred and George were the sort of innovators that would be useful in Friends of Bob, so had offered them a place in Research and Development. The twins happily agreed to join and would have a chat with Harry in every few days with new suggestions and results of experiments. Hermione also had some nice ideas for expanding Friends of Bob and had decided to join in what she called a market research role. Harry had asked what that entailed but got bored halfway through her explanation and ended up making up a story in his head. He still didn't know what she did, but he let her do her thing.

Ron really didn't want to join Friends of Bob knowing the twins were involved, so he didn't. Neville agreed to help with the Herbology side of things, Seamus was interested in weapon design, and Draco handed Harry a bag full of galleons so that he could be an investor.

Friends of Bob was becoming a very successful business. So far, the most popular offering had been Parseltongue lessons. It wasn't just Slytherins who were interested – almost half the students were Ravenclaws who wanted to expand their knowledge. Unfortunately, very few students were actually good at Parseltongue, finding it difficult to create the required sounds. It had taken Dudley years to become good at it, and he still had to scrunch his neck in an awkward way for some sounds. Even understanding it was difficult for most, as it was a tonal language. That said, students with an ear for tonal languages, like Cho Chang and Lan Nguyen, had a much easier time understanding Parseltongue.

Harry thought the constant chattering in Parseltongue must be rubbing off on teachers, as he could have sworn that he saw Professor Quirrell react to a joke he had told Bob one day…