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Chapter Nineteen

"We've got to find out. It was a Gryffindor this time."

Harry hid a sigh. He could see why a Gryffindor would matter more to Ron than a Hufflepuff, and he also didn't think tiny little Colin Creevey deserved to be Petrified, any more than anyone else. But the plan Ron and Hermione wanted him to agree to wasn't going to work.

"I don't know why you think anyone in Slytherin is likely to know more than anyone else," he said, and finished the last sentence of his Potions essay. Snape would glare at it, of course, but at least it was done. "It isn't like any of them have been going around bragging that they know who the Heir of Slytherin is."

"Yeah, but Malfoy's been cheering him on," Hermione said. "I personally think it's Malfoy."

Harry snorted. "Malfoy is weak and stupid. If he was the Heir, he would be bragging so hard about it that you couldn't walk around the school without hearing echoes of it."

"But what if he's keeping quiet because his father told him to?"

"Nothing can keep Malfoy quiet."

Except the snake and my Parseltongue, maybe.

"I just think you're wrong about that, Harry," Hermione said, with the kind of sweet earnestness that Harry found endearing when she was talking about ways to free house-elves. It was grating otherwise, though. "We have to find out. Get him to talk about it when he doesn't know who he's talking to."

Harry blinked. "Exactly what are you thinking about?"

Hermione beamed at him.

Theo eyed Harry when he put his cauldron down next to Theo's in Potions, but didn't say anything for a long moment. Then he nodded to Ron and Hermione across the classroom. "Had a fight with your Gryffindor friends?"

"Yeah."

Theo didn't say anything else as they worked together for a while. Blaise was partnered with Malfoy today, which pleased neither of them, Harry thought, Blaise for obvious reasons and Malfoy because he liked being able to order other people around. But it wasn't Harry's problem, and he kept his head down and worked until they had about five minutes before the potions were supposed to be turned in.

Theo cleared his throat. "What about?"

"Not here."

Harry wanted to grimace at himself a second later. He sounded all gruff and demanding, like Flint when he ordered people around in the common room. Who did he think he was?

(Well, Flint used to order people around in the common room. Most of the time now, people just avoided Flint's eyes or pretended not to hear or laughed at him. It was—sort of an interesting result of their "duel.")

But Theo just accepted that with a nod, and waited for Harry after they got out of Potions. Blaise was waiting, too. Harry half-smiled at him. He'd wanted to wait so they wouldn't get in trouble for talking in Snape's class, but it was nice that he would only have to tell the story once.

"I didn't think you could do anything that would make Weasley or Granger upset with you."

Harry scratched the back of his neck and led them down the corridor a little ways away from the Potions classroom. Probably no one would come up behind them since it was lunch next, but Harry had learned the hard way not to take his safety or privacy for granted.

"They came up with a plan to spy on Malfoy," Harry said, turning around and leaning against the wall once they'd found a little side corridor that petered out in a dead end. "They think he's the Heir of Slytherin, and they wanted me to help trap him. I said no."

"You did?"

Blaise sent an elbow into Theo's ribs without looking away from Harry. "Of course you did," he said softly. "You're a true Slytherin."

Harry grimaced. "No one else thinks I am."

"Including you?"

Harry knew he had paused a moment too long.

"You are," Theo said, and exchanged a glance with Blaise. "I understand that it might take you a while to think that…"

Harry gave an impatient little jerk of his head and nodded. "Yes, fine, it doesn't matter that much. But anyway, I told them that I wouldn't help them sneak into the Slytherin common room under Polyjuice."

"Polyjuice?" Theo's voice soared, and Harry was doubly glad that he'd found an out-of-the-way place to have this conversation. "Do you—where do they think they're going to buy or steal Polyjuice?"

"Hermione was sure she could brew it."

"She's probably right. Granger is smart," Blaise said, although he was looking at Theo in a way that made Harry sure they were having a silent conversation right in front of him, which he thought was rude. "Although that leaves the question open of where she was going to get the ingredients."

"She was going to steal them from Snape."

This time, both Blaise and Theo gaped at him. Harry shrugged. "I know, but she seemed to think she could come up with some kind of distraction that would allow her to steal them during class. And that Snape would probably blame me, but he would do that anyway, so I should just take that blame so they could investigate Malfoy," he added grumpily. That was what made him more upset than Hermione's plan to invade the Slytherin common room.

"That's ridiculous," Theo whispered.

"I know. Malfoy is not the Heir of Slytherin."

"No. I mean, that she would try to set up a theft like that during Snape's actual class, and expect you to cooperate with it and get in trouble just because she has this mad theory about Malfoy."

Harry blinked. Then he shrugged a little. "It's driving her mad that no one is investigating the Petrifications properly. And it probably feels more than a little personal that the latest victim is another Gryffindor Muggleborn."

But he felt a warm current moving through him. To see that Theo and Blaise were outraged on his behalf was…

It was something.

"Well, we'll make sure that doesn't happen," said Theo, with a nod to Blaise. "We'll warn Professor Snape that someone would be trying to steal ingredients for Polyjuice Potion, and he'll lock down those stores. They're not the kind of ingredients that we would use for brewing potions in this year, anyway."

"You can't!"

"Why not?"

"Then Hermione would know that I told!"

Theo rolled his eyes. "We're not going to reveal the source of our information, Harry. And really, Granger should know better than to try it, anyway. There's no saying that it would be you who prevented her from doing it. It could have happened just because it's really bloody stupid to try and steal anything from a professor, but especially Snape."

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"What?" Blaise asked softly.

"Whether or not she knows that I told you, she could still blame me."

"Then she's not a very good friend," Blaise said, and shook his head when Harry glared at him. "I'm willing to believe that she's smart and that her blood doesn't matter, Harry. But not that she's a good friend because she blames you for not going along with this stupid plan."

Harry took a deep breath and nodded a little. It was a stupid plan. Even if Hermione didn't believe Harry about Malfoy not being the Heir of Slytherin—which was a little hurtful in the first place—she couldn't think that Malfoy would admit it if she just sneaked in and questioned him.

"Thanks, Blaise."

"Don't mention it. Real friends know each other's worth."

"Like the worth of being the butt of funny stories," Theo said, faux-innocently.

"Theodore, if you are going to tell that story—"

"You can't hex me if I just drop hints about it. You said."

Harry trailed behind Theo and Blaise as they went to lunch. His Slytherin friends were bickering and pushing each other, but they were also laughing, and at the moment, Harry had to admit that he felt more at home around them than he did Ron and Hermione.

Ron and Hermione, who he still hadn't told about his Parseltongue and the snake.

Harry sighed. He would worry about it later. Merlin knew that he had a full plate to worry about, right now.

"Why do you have so many things? I should have things, too."

"I already gave you a rat yesterday," Harry said, although in truth he was staring in shock at the pile of gifts at the foot of his bed. He honestly hadn't thought he would get anything from anyone except maybe Hagrid. After all, Ron and Hermione were still angry at him, and Theo and Blaise were…

Harry had got them gifts, but that didn't mean they would return the favor.

"Give me another rat."

"I can still see the lump from the other one in your middle."

The snake argued in tones that Harry didn't bother to listen to. He sat down and tore into his presents. Malfoy was bragging about how he had more than Harry but so what? His gifts couldn't possibly mean as much to him as the ones at the foot of Harry's bed did to Harry.

Ron give him a bunch of sweets that Harry could see casting Preservation Charms on to save for months, and Hermione gave him a homework planner that had bright flashing dates in many colors. Harry smiled at it and put it down next to the gift from Hagrid, a huge teacup that Harry would shrink to a smaller size.

Then Harry took a deep breath and faced the gifts from Blaise and Theo.

He hadn't got anything from them last year, of course, but they hadn't been friends then. Now he ran his fingers gently down the collar of the green cloak that Blaise had got him, and picked up the thick green scarf from Theo.

It wasn't the most thoughtful or personalized gift ever, but the collar was of a size that could hide the snake, and the scarf would help, too, in case Harry gave in to the snake's pleas and brought it outside the Slytherin dormitory. And anyway, Harry had got them not the most personalized gifts ever, either, with a silver-colored quill for Theo—who'd complained when the one he had broke in the middle of term—and a blue shoulder bag for Blaise—who had complained that he didn't have one in a color he liked.

Harry had owl-ordered both the quill and the bag, and then sent Hedwig and a school owl off with them. He hoped that Blaise and Theo had got them in Christmas, but he thought they probably had, since Hedwig had come back already.

"Just going to gape at your gifts like you never got any before, Potter?"

"Do you think you could eat Malfoy if I made you bigger?" Harry asked the snake casually. Even though Malfoy couldn't understand Parseltongue, of course, he spluttered and sank back, turning his shoulder to Harry with a hasty nod.

"Could you make me bigger? Then you can make the rats bigger.'

Harry wrapped the scarf around his neck and the snake curled underneath it, and they argued amiably about whether the snake would ever want to come outside with him while the snow lasted. Harry did leave the snake in the dormitory when he went down to the Christmas feast, but Malfoy didn't bother him, and that was fine.

What happened the next day was not fine.

Harry rubbed irritably at his eyes. They always itched and burned when he'd spent too long looking at homework, but he thought it was stupid that it was happening in the middle of the common room when he'd just been reading a book and sometimes looking up to gaze into the fire.

"What are the strange scents?"

Harry looked around. Not many Slytherins had stayed for the holidays, and there were none very close. "What do you mean?" he asked the snake.

"There are strange scents that came in through the door of the common room."

Harry looked up with a little intake of breath. He'd been looking towards the common room door when his eyes had started to burn and the air had seemed to waver, but he'd just assumed it was his eyesight as usual.

Now that he was watching, he did see a few blurry patches of air that had come in behind Malfoy. They stood in the middle of the common room, or the blurriness floated, and then they separated and went towards the couch where Malfoy had sat down.

"Do you know the scents?" Harry asked softly as he drew his wand. His first thought, which was probably stupid, was that they were Slytherins who were planning to do something to Malfoy and then accuse Harry of doing it.

"Yes. They are the boy and girl I have smelled on you before.

Harry might still have wondered what the snake meant, but there was only one girl Harry regularly spent time with.

Ron. Hermione.

Harry stood up and cast in the direction of the couch that Malfoy was sitting on, because he'd lost track of the blurriness in his shock. "Finite Incantatem!" he cast as hard as he could, and there was a distinct snapping sound.

What must have been Disillusionment Charms faded as Harry stared with numb shock. That was an upper-level spell—but of course, if Hermione had been confident that she could brew Polyjuice, she was probably also confident that she could learn to Disillusion herself and Ron.

Hermione screamed a little as she and Ron appeared in the middle of the common room. "Harry!"

"Potter?"

"Mate!" Ron was rapidly turning so red that it looked as if all his freckles were dissolving.

Harry was breathing fast. He didn't even know why. He just stared at them and then blurted, "I told you that Malfoy wasn't the Heir of Slytherin! I don't know why you can't bloody believe me!"

"You let them in here, Potter?"

"They followed you in, actually, Malfoy, shut up," Harry snapped, and turned back to his Gryffindor friends. "If Malfoy was the Heir, he would brag about it endlessly. I told you that. He can't ever shut up about even minor secrets like that duel he tried to bait you into last year, Ron, why do you think he could keep quiet about something as major as this?"

"Potter!"

"Harry." Hermione was white instead of red. "Why is there—why is there a snake on the floor beside you?"

"Pick me up."

Harry closed his eyes for a moment, and then he bent down and picked up the snake. He'd brought this situation on himself by not telling them. "Because I'm a Parselmouth," he said. "Malfoy conjured the snake a month or so ago to try and attack me, and I adopted it."

Ron and Hermione just stared at him and gaped. Malfoy was spluttering stupid things off to the side, but none of them paid him any attention. Harry faced his friends and saw their expressions shut down.

"Come on, Hermione, let's go," Ron whispered, and they turned and walked towards the door out.

"Yes, get out, Weasel, before I tell Professor Snape that you were here," Malfoy sneered.

Harry watched the look Hermione cast at him over her shoulder as they left, and thought he'd probably lost their friendship. He felt exhausted and very old.

"You do not smell happy."

"No." Harry tilted his head so that his cheek touched the snake's scales. "I'm not. I'm not very much."