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Chapter Eight—Poking Around the Wards

"Wow, these are incredible. And so are you."

Blaise blinks. It still takes him aback when Harry says something like that, even knowing that Harry's childhood in the Muggle world was pretty friendless. Harry doesn't seem self-conscious about it, either. He just wants to keep his friend as happy as possible.

Well, I want the same, Blaise thinks, and stifles the temptation to say that seeing wards isn't difficult when you know how to do it. That would go against all the lessons that his mother has drummed home in his head. "My mother taught when I was young. I suspected that you could learn, too, based on your predilection for magic without spells."

Harry smiles over his shoulder at him, and goes back to examining the first layer of the Hogwarts wards. They're just outside the base of the Astronomy Tower, near sunset. No Astronomy class will be up there this early, and Blaise and Harry have already both established that they're the kind of people who go where they want and do what they want.

The wards shine on the air like layered fireworks frozen in the process of exploding. Bright green and purple light trails from them, and feathery bursts of red mark the strongest point where several wards knot together. Mother taught Blaise that some wardmakers work like weavers, and it's the most common style in Britain.

The Hogwarts wards are, admittedly, overwhelming, bigger than any set Blaise has seen before, and looking too directly at them gives him a headache. But he can catch glimpses from the side of his eye and store them in his memories.

"Blaise, look at this!"

Blaise blinks and locks the sight of most of the wards out of his eyes before he goes and kneels down next to Harry. Harry is pointing at something near one of the stone blocks that make up the Tower. Blaise's eyes widen when he sees it. It's a crack running up through the purple side of the wards, and leading to a red knot that looks…

He doesn't know. It just looks different from the others, that's all, as if the person who made the wards got tired and put together this knot lazily.

"What do you think it is?" Harry asks excitedly. On his shoulder, Artemis hisses and drapes herself over the curve of Harry's shoulder to look at the knot. He strokes her back and asks her something, from the way his voice lilts up. Artemis answers, and Harry laughs.

Blaise is a little envious that he can't be part of their Parseltongue conversation, but he knows Harry always translates, and sure enough, he does the same thing now, a minute later. "Artemis says it looks like someone made a door for themselves but didn't build it right. Then she said she didn't know why humans need doors, anyway. They should just slither through a hole like a snake would."

"She doesn't like humans much, does she?"

"She likes me, and you," Harry says dismissively. "She just didn't have great role models with the Dursleys."

Blaise tries not to feel as flattered as he is by the approval of a magical snake, but fails. From the way Harry grins, he knows it. Blaise shakes his head and turns back to the crack in the air. "I don't know what this is, but she's right. It does look like a door."

"Could you—I don't know, carve a part of a ward away from the rest? Make it like a door that you can swing open or shut?"

"Not that I've ever seen or heard of," Blaise admits. "Mother taught me that the whole structure is too delicate and balanced to do that with most ward sets, and that definitely applies to something as big as Hogwarts."

"Your mum is so brilliant."

Blaise is getting used to the way Harry regards Mother—that is, without the fear or hatred that other people in Britain feel towards the Black Widow—but it still makes him smile. He half-closes his eyes and focuses harder on his other senses, sending forth a thin tendril of magic. He wonders if he can tell who made the door, and why.

It might have something to do with whoever let the troll in, but Blaise is doubtful. It wouldn't be productive to smuggle the troll into the Astronomy Tower instead of somewhere closer to the students, if they wanted people to get hurt or distracted.

The air twangs and abruptly crackles like a dropped glass that someone's stepped on. Blaise gasps and jerks back.

"Blaise! Are you okay?"

"Yes, of course," Blaise says, but his mind still feels as though something reached out and stung their way across it. He stares at the crack in the wards, and knows his eyes are wide. "It is sort of like a door, I think. But it basically has another weave in it, guarding the crack and keeping it from really—connecting to the larger ward set. They've made themselves their own personal set of wards in Hogwarts's wards."

"Do you think…" Harry worries his lip between his teeth. "Do you think we should tell someone? Snape would probably believe you if you were the one who told him."

"Snape will get what's coming to him," Blaise mutters. "And no."

"Why not? People could be in danger."

Blaise sneaks a look at Harry to see if he's really upset, but Harry is looking down at his knees. Artemis is hissing something to him, but she stops when Blaise reaches out and puts a hand on Harry's wrist.

"Do you really want to tell them?"

"I sort of feel we should," Harry whispers. "But at the same time, I don't think a student could have made a crack in the wards like this. Do you?"

Blaise shakes his head. There are some seventh-years in Slytherin and Ravenclaw he's observed who are very smart, but they don't have the power or the control that this door requires, unless they're hiding themselves a lot better than Blaise thinks they can. "And if we choose the wrong professor to report this to…"

"Right. I don't want—maybe it's selfish, but it's bad enough having Snape hate me and look at me in disdain. I don't want other professors to do the same thing. Especially if we do tell someone who doesn't know, but they tell the person who made the door, and they get here and do something to hide it before the adults come and investigate."

"Did things like that happen with the Muggles?"

"All the time."

Blaise nods. There are more people than Professor Snape who need to suffer for what has happened to Harry, currently. Well, Mother has always said that everyone should have a list of people they would be willing to eliminate, and even if it means that Blaise will get started younger than she did, that's all right. Also, he can't use Muggles to feed the suns, but that's okay, too.

"And we don't have any proof that this door has anything to do with the troll," Blaise says. "It is pretty far away from the place near the girls' bathroom where the professors killed the thing."

Harry looks relieved. Blaise pats his hand and pulls back. "Can we look around some more? I think the wards are fascinating."

"Of course."

"Harry, where do you go every day?"

Harry blinks and looks up from the book on wards he's reading. One of the older Ravenclaws who recommended some other books to him recommended this to him, too, when he found Harry in the common room and talked to him about wards. He's entirely lost track of time, and didn't even hear Padma walk into the common room.

"I'm here right now," Harry points out, and turns the page. Artemis gives the kind of soft hiss from his pocket that they've pretty much proven no one can hear. This one means, "Go slowly so I can look at the pictures."

Harry doesn't even know why Parseltongue has a word for pictures. Then again, it could easily be a word that means something else to wild snakes and which his brain is translating for him in a human way.

Padma sits down beside him on the couch and squints at him. Harry squints back. He has a sort of prickly friendship with her. Padma likes to argue and debate, and sometimes Harry doesn't want to debate; he just wants to discuss things. But Padma also doesn't seem close with the other Ravenclaw girls, and of the boys, she's cold to Michael Corner all the time for some reason she doesn't want to talk about. Corner is just as cold back to her.

Somewhere along the way, they started using each other's first names. Harry doesn't even remember when it started. Blaise laughed when he said that.

"No," Padma says softly. "I know you are. But I mean, where do you go when you just leave the common room? I tried to follow you once, because I thought we could study together, but you just disappeared."

Harry shrugs, embarrassed. "You know that I still have trouble getting the spells right in class the first time, Padma. I just need some practice time by myself. I don't want to get you bored or upset because it's taking me so long."

"I would help you, Harry."

"Careful, you sound like Granger."

Padma grimaces a little. Harry shrugs at her again. He feels sorry for Granger, who has no friends in her House that he can tell. It got worse when some people got upset at her for hiding in the bathroom and "making" Longbottom and Weasley go after her to rescue her. Harry doesn't think it was her fault, but it seems the only way Granger knows how to make friends is to offer to help people with their homework and studying.

And she's so grating about it, scolding people for their mistakes, that almost no one accepts her help.

"But I really would," Padma insists. "And you wouldn't get me bored or upset. It would be sort of nice to have someone around who knows that I'm better at magic than they are and acknowledges it."

A second later, she winces and clamps her mouth shut, but Harry has already caught on to what she means. "The way your sister doesn't?" he asks.

Padma looks away.

"Sorry," Harry says. "I have a cousin I don't get along with. It kind of sucks."

Padma blinks, maybe at the language, and then smiles tentatively at him. "Yeah, it's just…Parvati wanted to prove she was different from me, which was one of the reasons she was Sorted into Gryffindor. I understand that. But she also acts like she's better than magic than I am and smarter than I am, and she's not."

Harry nods. He's just grateful that Dudley isn't a wizard. "It's not anything to do with you, Padma, or not thinking you're smart or good at magic. I just prefer to practice on my own." Especially because that way, Artemis can come out of his pocket and offer commentary.

"But I know that you don't just go to someplace quiet to practice, Harry. I told you, I tried to follow you one day, and you disappeared."

Harry sighs. He doesn't think it's news to anyone that he's friends with Blaise, because he's defended Blaise before when someone started talking about the Black Widow and some of the Ravenclaws have seen them together in the classes they share. But he doesn't think anyone knows how close they are.

"I have a Slytherin friend a lot of people don't like. I don't want to listen to comments about how he's evil. So we meet in secret."

"Which Slytherin would—oh, the Black Widow's son?"

Harry glares at her. "Don't call her that." He got a letter from Mrs. Zabini the other day, and it was full of brilliant advice about how to keep his temper when someone like Snape was taunting him. Maybe she's mean to other people, but she's nice to him, and Harry will take that after all the years at the Dursleys' when it was the other way around.

"But she is," says Padma, and leans forwards a little. "Everyone knows that she's married six men, and every one of them died."

"And does anyone have any proof that she was the one who did it? If they do, why haven't they arrested her and thrown her in prison?"

Padma frowns. "No. But that just proves she did it."

"I think that's called a non sequitur," Harry drawls. Vernon had a book of logical fallacies on his shelf, maybe bought when he thought he was going to impress people by pretending to be smart. "You don't have any reason to think she's guilty, but you're claiming that that means she's guilty."

"I know what a non sequitur is! And that's not one."

"Why?"

"Because it's not."

"Such sterling logic. I truly see why you're the Ravenclaw one of the Patil twins."

Padma stands up, glaring at him, and stomps away towards the stairs that lead to the girls' section of the Tower. Harry snorts and picks up his book again. Such arguments are nothing new when it comes to him and Padma. Although they haven't fought about Blaise specifically before.

But Harry isn't going to give up defending Blaise. And he has the feeling Padma will be back in a day or two, with more logic.

It's kind of nice to have a friend he can argue with, too. Every argument with Blaise feels…heavy, like they're going to cross some kind of line and say words they can never take back. Harry isn't sure why. Maybe because of all the rumors about Blaise's mum, or maybe because Blaise is his first human friend. He suggests that to Artemis.

"Is that the reason that you don't want to tell him about the troll or your gift of bringing things to life?"

Harry sighs and glances down at Artemis, who is curled up near the top of his pocket so that she can look at him, but no one else glancing at them can see her. Not that many people are glancing in his direction, any more than they did when Padma stood up and stomped off. Debates and intense chess games and people reading like they're trying to eat the books with their brains are nothing unusual in Ravenclaw Tower. "You also think I should tell him about me creating you, don't you?" he whispers.

"Yes! He will handle your secrets with pride and well."

Harry shrugs a little, so that Artemis falls down more deeply in his pocket. "I'll think about it."

Neville leans his forehead on his hands. He's alone up in the Owlery right now, which is so rare that he's going to treasure it. He expected to have an audience when he came up to send a letter to his gran, and was prepared to perform for them.

Sometimes I think my whole life is nothing but a performance.

A soft rustling and hooting near him makes Neville start up, but it's just the snowy owl who's greeted him before when he comes to the Owlery. Neville doesn't know who she belongs to, but she's beautiful and graceful, and friendly. He sighs and reaches out to tickle her breast feathers as she lands on a perch near him. He's just grateful that his own bird, Arthur, a Steller's Sea eagle who honestly intimidates Neville, has already left with the letter for his gran, or Neville would be getting scratched and pecked right now.

"Hi, beauty," Neville whispers. "I wish you were my owl. You look like you just listen to me. Arthur always wants to be on display."

He can remember the day that Gran bought him Arthur so clearly that he winces away from the memory. Gran insisted it had to be the most impressive bird in the shop, and also that Neville had to give it a regal name. Neville blurted that he'd call the eagle Arthur, because it was the only kingly name he could think of. Gran nodded and accepted it, but Neville thinks now that she was probably disappointed.

"She just wants me to be so magnificent," he whispers to the snowy owl, who turns her head backwards. It makes Neville smile, but he loses the smile quickly as he tickles her breast feathers again. "Because I'm her son's son and Dad was great, and I'm the Boy-Who-Lived, so I have that to live up to. And I don't know how."

Oh, in a way, Neville knows, that's bollocks. He's known how to perform since he was three years old and Gran deemed him old enough to understand what happened to him and his parents the night Voldemort came. But although Neville knows how to say the right things and shake hands and smile in the right way, he doesn't know how to—

He doesn't feel like a hero inside. He doesn't want to save people all the time. He doesn't want to dash recklessly into danger, even though the Hat said he was brave (and Neville begged for Gryffindor). Even when he went with Ron to try and rescue Hermione from the troll, he was sweating all the time and thinking deep down that he didn't want to rescue her and Ron should have gone alone, because it was Ron's stupid fault.

Gran would probably say that he should try to save Hermione from having no friends, too. He should sit with her in the library and listen to her lectures and not feel the impulse to laugh at her that he sometimes gets.

But he's not that good a person. He's not the hero that the whole world expects. He's just a portrait of one—thin and looking okay on the surface.

Neville sighs and starts to say something else to the white owl, but she abruptly hoots and flaps away from him, towards the entrance to the Owlery. Neville stands up and whirls around, yanking the veneer of a smile onto his face with an effort. He hates the idea that he has to go from a moment that genuinely felt comfortable to a moment where he has to impress someone.

But the Ravenclaw boy who comes into the Owlery and lets the snowy owl land on his arm looks only vaguely familiar, and he nods and smiles at Neville as if he doesn't need anything more from him than the smile Neville automatically gives in return. He takes the owl over to the window and attaches a letter to her leg.

"For her again, Hedwig," he says, and tickles the owl's breast feathers the way Neville was just a few moments ago. "Think you can fly all that distance again?"

The owl—Hedwig—hoots indignantly and drags her beak through the boy's wild black hair. The boy laughs at her and stands looking after her as she flies away, leaning on the windowsill with his hands braced. His eyes are bright and his face shining with reflected happiness when he turns around, nods once more at Neville, and walks towards the entrance from the Owlery.

"Her name is Hedwig?" Neville blurts. He can't help himself.

"Oh, yeah. I named her after a famous witch!" The boy spins around, and his smile is both infectious and Ravenclaw all over. Neville smiles back and feels no need, for once, to show off by saying that he's studied the witch she's named after. "Were you coming up here to see her sometimes? Don't you have an owl?"

Neville resists the temptation to say that he has an eagle. His Gran would think that he needed to impress this boy. She always thinks that Neville needs to impress everyone, so no one can take advantage of his fame.

But Neville doesn't want to impress this boy. He just wants to be friends.

"Oh, yeah, but he's away right now," he says instead of explaining about Arthur. "I've been coming up to talk to Hedwig sometimes because she's so friendly. And—" He takes a chance. "Owls don't demand things from me the way people do, you know?"

The boy looks at him sympathetically. "I know. Animals are great." He smiles a little, as if he's thinking about a pet he has. Probably just Hedwig. "And it's not fair, what people expect you to do. You don't even know how you stopped You-Know-Who! You were a baby. Why does everyone expect you to save them all the time?"

Neville can't help it. He gapes at him.

"What? Was it something I said? Sorry, I grew up with Muggles for the first eleven years of my life."

"No. I just—you're the only person I've met here who doesn't expect something of me." Even Ron does, as great a friend as he is. He expects to be included in Neville's adventures, and he expects Neville to have those adventures. And he'll cheerfully support Neville in killing Voldemort, but he thinks Neville should do it, too.

The boy shrugs. "Some people are stupid."

"Yes." Neville makes his decision and holds out his hand to shake, the first time he's done that in years without casting detection charms for charms and curses and poisons on the person about to touch him. "Neville Longbottom. None of that Boy-Who-Lived rubbish. Just call me Neville."

"Harry Potter. Call me Harry."

Neville blinks. "Your last name's Potter, but you grew up with Muggles? I thought Sirius Black was your godfather?"

Harry grimaces. "Long story, and I'm not sure of all the details myself. But we can talk about it at dinner, if you want?" When Neville grimaces in turn, Harry adds, "We can go to the kitchens, if you want? We can eat in private, and the elves will serve us."

Neville nods, his heart soaring. For the first time in years—since he met Ron when they were both young and everyone else since then has mostly been dazzled by the myth of the Boy-Who-Lived—he's made a friend.

Harry smiles. He's made a friend.

Not one Blaise is likely to approve of, admittedly. But Harry will deal with that when the moment comes.

Eating in the kitchen with Neville and making him laugh with tales of how Dudley used to cram food into his mouth is too much fun.