Bob enjoyed stealth missions. It felt good to make use of his natural abilities – and unnatural abilities. He was quite good at becoming invisible, though couldn't hold it for as long as Harry could.

He was currently making his way toward the third-floor corridor. Sneaking out of the Common Room and up the stairs was quite easy, as he had been able to maintain his invisibility. However, on the third-floor landing, his stamina wore out and he became visible once more. Bob was almost at the door Voldemort had mentioned when he heard steps echoing up the staircase behind him. He quickly climbed up a suit of armour that was standing against the wall, but was unable to find a wide enough gap to squeeze his way in. Thinking quickly, he wrapped himself around the base of the suit of armour's sword, looking a bit like braided hilt.

Keeping very still, he watched as Filch and his cat patrolled the corridor, not even looking his way. Bob thought Filch would be more successful at catching students if he had a snake instead. A snake with heat pits for sensing warm bodies would be the best. Filch didn't seem like a snake person though… Every time he passed Harry and Bob in the halls, he gave them a squinty, disgruntled look.

Once the coast was clear, Bob made his way to the door, then shimmied underneath. The castle was luckily not very snake-proof. All sorts of small creatures could fit under the doors, come to think of it. Bob wondered how small a wizard could shrink to… Maybe Harry could test it out sometime.

Entering the room, the sconces didn't flare on as Voldemort had said they would. Bob assumed this was because most magic was aimed toward humans. A bit of an oversight, Bob thought. Using his excellent night vision, he could easily see the next place to go. Though, even blind, Bob would know where to go, as the stench coming from the next door was very strong. Voldemort had said there would be a large, three-headed dog, but he didn't mention the smell. Squeezing under the door, Bob took in the sight of the Cerberus. Its breath was awful and reminded Bob of Marge's bulldog.

Bob had enjoyed reading about mythology in school, so was quite pleased to see a Cerberus in real life. Though, he thought it looked quite young with its round puppy-like heads and disproportionally large paws. If this was a Cerberus puppy, Bob really wanted to see a fully grown adult… The Cerberus, 'Fluffy' – Bob thought it should have a cooler name –, was sleeping on a very large dog bed in the corner of the room. There were massive stuffed toys littering the room which somewhat detracted from the scariness of the large creature. Bob felt bad that it was cooped up in a windowless room, alone. He knew Charybdis would not be happy either, having escaped a prison of her own. Bob decided he would ask Harry to free it after he got the stone.

Since Fluffy was in the corner, Bob was able to easily slip down into the room below the trapdoor. He landed in the Devil's Snare that he'd been warned about and immediately stilled so that it wouldn't constrict him. Uninterested in him, the Devil's Snare let him through to the underside, and Bob gracefully made his way to the next room.

He was excited for this one, as he was told he would have to hunt a flying key. Bob was an excellent hunter. The fluttering of the keys was quite pleasant, but their movement made spotting which was the correct keys rather difficult. Flicking his tongue out, he scented that one key had been handled recently. That must be the one. Waiting for the key to fly close took several minutes, but Bob was patient. When it fluttered close enough, Bob struck. It was a bit awkward, as his venom didn't incapacitate the key, so he had to contend with getting a still-fluttering key into the lock. He wished he could just go through the gap under the door, but Voldemort had said that things had to be done properly in order to progress through the obstacles. It took some wrestling with the key to get it into the lock, but he finally managed.

The next room housed the chessboard. Bob wasn't the best at chess, so he had decided he would go as far as he was comfortable with, then turn back for help. He only got a few moves in before he had lost two pawns. Bothered by this, and somewhat intimidated by the massive chess pieces, he retreated.

Bob found Harry in the dorms having a pillow fight with Greg. The pair were each seated on flying metal discs which were outfitted with what looked like cushion-guns. Harry had finished the creations the other day and insisted that they were not UFOs. Flying disc didn't sound as good as UFO in Bob's opinion, but he had known for a while that Harry wasn't always the best at naming things.

Blaise was absent from the dorms, but Draco was standing by his bed with a broomstick, trying to whack Harry and Greg off their discs and shouting at them for making a mess. When Harry noticed Bob slithering in, Draco breathed a sigh of relief as he paused the fight and landed the disc.

"So, how was it?"

"I am bad at chess. Need help."

"Aw, damn. Okay… Do you remember how you left the board?"

"Yes, I can recreate it."

"Cool. Let's go see if Ron can help."

"Very good…"

"Hey, let's finish the fight later, yeah? I've gotta go see Ron."

"Okay – but it's after curfew… How are you going to get there?"

"Usually I just go invisible, but Gryffindor is up in a tower, right? I can just fly there."

"Oh, makes sense… Finish the fight tomorrow?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

With that, Bob made his way onto the disc, then wrapped himself very securely around Harry's neck. The disc – "Can we call this a UFO?", "But it's not unidentified!", "Yesss, true… They are FOs then.", "Erm… sure!" – FO, rather, was very speedy. The pair zipped out of the Common Room, through the corridors, and out the first open window they saw.

"Do you know which tower it is?"

"Erm… no."

"Hmm… Try this one over there."

It took multiple tries to find the right tower, which resulted in some very startled Ravenclaws, a screeching young Fawkes, and Bob and Harry having a sneezing fit from the incense wafting out of the Divination tower. When they did finally find Gryffindor Tower, they swooped through the open window to land directly in front of where Ron was sitting playing chess.

"Can you reset that and help us with a chess game?"

Ron, who had been gaping at the spectacle, simply blinked once and reset the board.

"Right, here's how it is…"

Bob recreated the way he had left the giant chess board.

"So, what would you do next?"

Ron scratched his chin, looking at the lay of the board.

"Blimey… How did you lose two pawns already? I reckon your best bet would be to move this guy here."

"Excellent… I will do that and be back."

Bob moved back and forth between Gryffindor Tower and the giant chess room only a few times before it was time to go to bed. There were still many, many moves to go, so Ron agreed to help with the game in the evenings the rest of the week as well.

Ron thought it was a bit sneaky that Harry was asking for help with every move of his chess game, but he guessed that was maybe what it was like in the Slytherin dorms. He only hoped Harry's opponent wouldn't find out and be able to track Ron down as the one who helped him.

He shrugged, leaving the board as it was, and pulled out his emergency chess board from his bag, starting a game on that one. Always good to be prepared for unpredictability when it comes to chess…

The week went on as normally as ever, with Bob making progress on the chess game during the evenings. Voldemort was obviously getting impatient though, as he had Professor Quirrell ask Harry to stay behind class one day.

"Tell me of your progress with the stone."

"Bob's working on it. We're on the chess bit at the moment."

"Very well… You will report to me with regular updates."

"Okay!"

Harry stared at Voldemort's face, looking at the little scales near his eyes. They were very delicate and shiny. Charybdis would love his look. Harry wondered if he would be able to grow scales soon.

"Why are you still here?"

"Just looking. Why do you have scales?"

"I moved directly from inhabiting a snake to Quirinus... Some things lingered."

Harry supposed this made sense. He had become cold-blooded by accident, after all.

"That's cool. Do you have a snake?"

"Yes, her name is Nagini."

"How big is she?"

"Very."

"Nice. Charybdis is big too. Are you cold-blooded?"

Voldemort scoffed a little. "No, I am not –"

"– I am! Do you have venom?"

"I – no, I do not. What do you mean –"

"– Aww… I do!"

"You are cold-blooded and have venom…", Voldemort half-stated, half-questioned.

"Yeah. Can you read Parselscript?"

"…There's no such thing."

"Yeah, there is."

Harry pulled out the notebook that Bob had written his Potions notes in and handed it to Voldemort, explaining how the language worked.

Voldemort leafed through a few pages, which looked awkward with him moving Professor Quirrell's hands behind his back.

"This is quite clever…"

Bob preened at that.

"I have very good penmanship."

Voldemort raised his non-existent brows at that.

"You wrote this?"

"Yessss, I dip my tail in ink."

"…You will meet Nagini at some point and teach her."

"Hmmm, yesss, will teach Nagini… And you?"

"Very well…"

Lord Voldemort was slightly annoyed by the amount of questions Potter was asking, but it was so pleasant conversing in Parseltongue again that he humoured the boy. He found himself baffled when the boy revealed that he was cold-blooded and venomous. How ever did he manage that?

The Parselscript was very interesting and had a clear tactical use. He asked Bob to teach Nagini, hoping that he would offer to teach Lord Voldemort as well but not wanting to outright ask the little adder to teach him. It felt strange not being the most knowledgeable when it came to Parseltongue – even if Parselscript was made up. He wondered why he hadn't thought of a written version before…

He was very glad that he had decided to speak with the boy rather than killing him outright. Interacting with him was intriguing, and Lord Voldemort found himself quite amused with some of the things he came out with. At the end of their chat, when Lord Voldemort offered to write Harry a pass to excuse his lateness to the next class, he declined, saying he would save the pass for something better.

"What will you give as an excuse, then?"

"I'll say I got caught up chasing a squirrel."

"And when asked why you were chasing a squirrel?"

"…snack."

A few nights later, while Bob and Ron were going back and forth with the chess game, Harry and Charybdis were in the dorms, reading the latest letter from Dudley and Aunt Petunia.

'Hi Harry and Bob and Charybdis,

Thanks for the letter! I'm glad Bob and Charybdis are in Slytherin. I wonder what I would be in. What do you think?

Pretty Two has been visiting and wanted me to attach her latest shed skin so you can see how long she is getting. I think Brownie likes having her around.

I've been watching a new TV show called Brum. It's about a car who goes on adventures when its driver isn't around. Do you think you could do that to Dad's car?

Mum has been practicing from the squib books you gave her. She has been doing stuff from the potions book a lot. She has been giving Dad a potion for his heart. Most of the things taste like tea or soup, but one of them smelled like feet and tasted really gross. Do potions taste bad there?

Thank you for the shrinky light pouch. I put snacks and things in there. I hope you like them and sell them for a lot. I sold the wizard sweets you sent. Jack's brother really liked the blood pops, so we sold out of those the first day. I think we can raise the price. He REALLY likes the blood pops. It is a bit weird. How can you tell if someone is a vampire?

School is okay. I am getting good grades still. I am also good at rugby, so Dad said I can start fencing if I keep up being good at rugby. I don't know why Dad loves rugby so much. He only played for one year.

My spy studies are going well. I am learning a lot about war and history. We start learning a second language for GCSEs, but I am going to start learning sooner because I want to be good. Most of the upper years are learning French but I think I should learn something else because I don't think I will be spying on French people.

Piers broke his arm falling off his bike last week. It was really crooked. How do wizards heal bones?

Good luck with the obstacle course. You have to tell me more about this teacher over Christmas because I know you are not saying everything. Do you want to tell me in Parselscript instead or is it really really secret?

What kind of creatures have you seen lately? Also, sorry but I don't want to eat spiders even if you season them well.

Mum wants to write now. Write more stuff!

Love, Dudley

Dear Harry,

Good job on your studies. Stay out of trouble!

Brownie says hello and wants to know what sort of TV programs they have in the magical world. I told her I don't think they have TV, but I am not sure. What entertainment do they have?

Who is this Draco Malfoy, and why did he invite Charybdis for Christmas before you? You and Dudley can probably visit, but I need to have information about his parents first. Please send their address, names, and contact details.

P.S. – I have been making potions thanks to the books you sent. I have brewed potions to help the flowers grow strong and kill the weeds, a potion for Vernon's heart health, and a potion that is supposed to taste like the drinker's favourite tea. It tastes like earl grey to me. I have attached the recipe here.

Love, Aunt Petunia