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lomonaaerenTitle: Natural Selection
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Tom Riddle, background James/Lily
Content Notes: AU (No Voldemort, Potters live), Parselmouth Harry, seventeen-year-old Harry, teacher/student relationship, angst, drama, possessive Tom
Rating: R
Summary: Tom has discovered Harry is a Parselmouth, which to him signals the end of his loneliness in the world. For Harry, it’s the beginning of a struggle with his family and a terrifying happiness that he believes he could lose any second.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to my story “Evidence of Absence” and will make absolutely no sense without it. I anticipate this story being around five to ten parts, and updating mostly on Tuesdays.
Natural Selection
Chapter One—Problems to Settle
Harry paced slowly beside Professor Riddle as they walked back towards the school. Professor Riddle’s arm remained around his shoulders, and Esmeralda slithered beside him, hissing softly about how glad she was that he would acknowledge her at last.
It would have been hard to go away and leave her.
Harry breathed through his nose. It would have, but it was also going to be hard to give into the longing he had been fighting for years, to acknowledge to everyone that he was a Parselmouth, to face up to his parents’ disappointment.
“What are you thinking?” Esmeralda asked, slithering in front of Harry as they came out of the Forest near the lake and winding herself through his legs so he couldn’t keep walking.
Harry bent down to put his hand on her head, aware of Professor Riddle watching and listening. He would want an answer, too. And Harry owed it to both of them. It was just that—
Could they understand how much he dreaded telling his parents that he had given in to the longing they had cautioned him against, that now he was going to associate with the snakes they feared so much? Probably both of them would think of it as a small problem, when to Harry, it loomed in front of him like a mountain.
“Please tell me,” Professor Riddle said quietly. He didn’t push Harry further than that, but he waited, and Harry found himself turning to face him, unable to deny the request from someone who had been alone as long as Professor Riddle had.
“My parents are—you have no idea how afraid they are of snakes,” Harry said in English. “For my father, it’s that experience I told you about. For my mother, I think it’s a more instinctive thing. You might think I should just abandon them or be angry at them, but I can’t. And being afraid of snakes isn’t their fault. I…”
Professor Riddle’s hand gently clasped his chin and lifted his face. Harry swallowed and looked into his eyes. They were a dark grey, and not calm, but there was a depth of acceptance in them that Harry hoped he could hang on to.
“I am not pleased with your parents for keeping you away from me and making you fear your Parseltongue,” Professor Riddle murmured. “But neither would I deny their importance to you. That sort of thing is for uncomplicated people who can be understood in a few minutes. We are too complicated.”
Harry swallowed and nodded. “And…I suppose that you won’t want to wait until the end of my seventh year to have a relationship, either?”
“It is up to you how soon we become lovers. But if you mean that you wish to hide it until then and pretend nothing has changed between us? No, Harry.”
Harry closed his eyes. He felt as if he were being surrounded by silver serpents, filling him with joy and pleasure, worry and shame. To be wanted so desperately, but to have people who would assume he was unduly favored by his professor…
“There are people who would probably think that I passed my Defense NEWT with a high mark because of your influence,” he murmured.
Professor Riddle’s hand tightening on his chin was the only sign of how pleased the man probably was that he had switched to Parseltongue. “Our openness about it is more likely to protect us in this case than hiding it would. If it came out after your NEWT—which is only two months away—that we were together, people would suspect any mark you got. Before it…well, we can certainly remind everyone that an independent examiner will test you and that the exams are marked in the Ministry, without interference from Hogwarts professors.”
“Someone could still say something.”
“People will say things, Harry, no matter what, no matter how long after the exam our involvement might come out. Think about it this way. Your parents have kept you in hiding for five years because they feared what people would say so much. Are you going to continue it now? And for how long?”
Harry swallowed. He didn’t know how much of his misery came from being in hiding and how much didn’t, but he also knew that Professor Riddle was right.
They could wait for years, and some people would still mutter that Professor Riddle might have unduly favored a Parselmouth student. They could announce it right after the exam, and there would be mutters.
And having felt another Parselmouth touch him now, Harry wasn’t sure how he could back off and give it up, either. Every touch was like fire glancing across his skin, a glimpse of a kind of light he had never known could exist. He reached up and covered Riddle’s hand with his, and felt him shudder, a bone-deep twist of longing that made Harry lean closer before he even thought about it.
But he had to try and make sure that every possible avenue that his parents could exploit to take this away from him had been closed. So he muttered, without opening his eyes, “Aren’t there rules at Hogwarts about students and professors sleeping together?”
“Sleeping together. Not dating. Not being engaged.”
Harry opened his eyes. “You’re kidding!”
Riddle shook his head, a smile cutting across his mouth like a knife. It just made Harry want to touch his lips. “No. There have been numerous cases of professors and of-age students becoming engaged in the student’s seventh year. Of which, I point out again, you only have two months left.”
“Huh,” was all Harry could think of to say.
Riddle took a long step nearer him and rested his hands on Harry’s shoulders. Harry shivered again as the serpents that seemed to curl about his insides began to dance faster. Riddle studied him, and then stepped back and picked up his right hand to kiss the back of it.
Harry shivered.
“I will stand by your side, Harry. I will weather the fires that will start burning upon this announcement. I will accompany you to see your parents, or to see the Headmaster and Minerva if they make a fuss about this. I will be here.”
“And me, too,” Esmeralda said, sounding displeased at being forgotten for so long.
Harry swallowed, reached down to touch his familiar’s head quickly, and then stepped forwards to kiss Riddle.
Riddle’s hands tightened on his shoulders as silent, thrumming warmth cut through the both of them. Harry sighed out. There were so many things that could go wrong with this.
But at least they would be in the open. At least he didn’t have to keep the secret by himself anymore.
Relief crashed into him like a boulder when he thought of that.
*
It was the first time Tom had ever seen Albus Dumbledore look like what he could have safely described as “bewildered.”
“This is…unexpected news, Tom.”
“It is,” Tom agreed, folding his hands in his lap. Nagini was curled around his legs, hissing soft nonsense that Tom was glad Albus was unlikely to understand. There had been persistent rumors over the last few decades that he could understand Parseltongue, but Tom had tested him several times, and suspected that Albus had a vocabulary of a few words at best. “Both because the Potters lied about their son, and because I never expected to find another Parselmouth.”
“Have you considered what becoming your lover could cost him?”
“Oh, of course,” Tom said, and Albus peered at him. “His loneliness. His fervent worry that he can never tell anyone the truth about himself or show off his true skills in Defense class. His deep fear.”
Albus shook his head. “What if it costs him his relationship with his parents?”
“I do not believe it will. Harry is determined to cling to them. But if they would really choose their fear of snakes over their son, then he is well rid of them.”
“Fear of snakes is instinctive, Tom. Just because you don’t feel it yourself as a Parselmouth—”
“And is making your thirteen-year-old son swear to keep his Parseltongue to himself instinctive? Is using the Memory Charm on a Healer who found out about it? Is telling your son over and over again that he should be afraid of his Defense professor?”
Albus closed his eyes. He looked old and weary. Watching him, Tom felt sure that he’d had no idea that this was going on, and he would have tried to deal with it differently if he had.
But now that he knew, Tom was also not sure what Albus would choose. He’d been worried about Harry, but it had been James and Lily Potter who had been Albus’s proteges. He’d apparently offered James a Transfiguration apprenticeship, something he hadn’t done in decades, which James had turned down to open a prank shop with Sirius Black. And Albus had recommended Lily Potter for the job as a Ministry Potions brewer that she held now.
“Announcing it will also cause an uproar in the school.”
“You know that Harry’s of age, and that according to even the strictest interpretation of the Hogwarts rules, professors and of-age students are allowed to date.”
“That is an archaic rule, Tom. The last instance of it was—”
“Twenty years ago, when Rolanda Hooch was involved as a seventh-year student with Pomona Sprout.”
Albus frowned at him. Tom didn’t know if he was more put-off by Tom knowing that example or using it. Tom smiled gently at him and added, “And their marriage endures to this day. They’re disgustingly cute with each other in the staff room.”
“You should still think about what this will mean to Harry’s parents. Could you not wait until Harry has finished his NEWT exams? That’s only two months away.”
“And after that, it would be that they don’t think it would look good for us to admit to our relationship so soon after the NEWTS, in case someone might think I’d influenced Harry’s Defense mark. And after that, it would be because there’s some kind of family happiness they don’t want to spoil—I understand James Potter and Black are due to open a new branch of their prank shop in Ottery St. Catchpole soon. And after that, it would be concern over Harry being involved with someone so much older than himself. They would find ways and means of putting it off, Albus. I know they would.”
“You do not know them as well as you think, Tom. Remember that they were students twenty years ago—”
“Harry was considering leaving the country after his NEWTS, Albus. He wasn’t going to settle into a happy life with someone else.”
“Why is that, though? How can you know that he’ll be happy with you?”
Tom leaned forwards and let what he already felt for Harry look out of his eyes. Albus blinked at him again.
“I’ll work as hard as I can to make him happy,” Tom said quietly. “And you don’t understand how Parselmouths are drawn to other Parselmouths, Albus. I have been driven nearly mad searching for someone like me. Perhaps we could have waited and taken this slowly if the Potters hadn’t been so upset and afraid of Harry’s talent, and I had come to know him younger. Now? No.”
“His parents made the decision they thought best.”
“And it was the wrong one. They’ll have to live with that just as much as I’ll have to live with the fact that I didn’t know Harry until now.”
Albus looked more troubled. Tom simply watched him. He and Albus were not true enemies, not at odds as they had been when Tom was younger, but Albus lived in a simplistic world where good intentions were supposed to guarantee good results. And if that didn’t happen, he often wished people would not be so impolite as to draw attention to the fact.
“If I asked you to leave this alone?” Albus murmured, finally.
“I would refuse. It’s a good thing you’re not asking.”
“If I said that I would sack you if you pursued this relationship with Harry Potter?”
Tom smiled. “Do you want my resignation tomorrow or tonight?”
Albus reeled back without standing. “Tom,” he said, voice unsteady. “I think that you must not have thought your attraction to him through—”
“It’s more than an attraction, it’s a pull.” Tom drew his wand, slowly and carefully so that Albus had no chance to take it as a threat. “Do you give me permission to cast the Sharing Charm on you?”
Albus breathed out and gripped the arms of his chair, which Tom took for practically an admission that Albus knew it would be painful. But he nodded. “If you feel that you can’t make your point any other way.”
A dare? How Gryffindor of you, Albus.
Distantly, Tom supposed that he would have to stop thinking about Gryffindors that way, given that Harry was one, but this moment was private and between Albus and himself. He cast the Sharing Charm, which was usually used by Healers so they could understand the exact depth of a patient’s pain and the location of it. This time, he used it to translate the pain of his loneliness and longing for other Parselmouths so that Albus could understand it.
Albus’s face twisted. He slumped over in his chair, one hand working above his heart. Tom ended the Sharing Charm immediately. The last thing he wanted when he was finally about to begin a life of companionship was murder charges for giving the Headmaster of Hogwarts a heart attack.
It took several moments for Albus to sit back up and wipe away a little of what looked like foam on his lips. Nagini hissed amusement at that. Tom let his hand stray down long enough for her to loop a coil around it.
“My boy,” Albus said hoarsely. “I never—I didn’t know you were feeling that. Why did you never say anything?”
Tom blinked. He would have thought that, of all the possible questions Albus could have, that would be one of the last. “Why would I? You’re not a Parselmouth.”
Albus opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it and sighed. “Very well,” he said. “If you need my support in your confrontation with James and Lily, you have it. I simply ask you to be mindful of what rules are in place governing contact between seventh-year students and professors.”
Don’t get caught sleeping with the boy, Tom translated in his mind. He had no intention of getting caught, so it didn’t matter, and he had meant what he’d said about letting Harry set the pace. “Yes, Albus. I intend to write a letter to the Potters tomorrow. Perhaps I might trouble you for suggestions on some of the wording? Since, as you have pointed out, you know them better than I do.”
Albus gave him a faint smile that said he knew very well what Tom was about in flattering him, but his gaze was still gentle. “Yes, very well. Would meeting here before breakfast work for you?”
“Very well,” Tom echoed, and left the Headmaster’s office for his own quarters with a spring in his step and the conviction that he would dream about Harry that night.
“Shall I like his familiar?” Nagini asked, traveling beside him. “Shall I like him?”
“You shall,” Tom promised, and Nagini hissed contentment. She could be reassured that way without doubts. In some ways, snakes were simpler.
But Tom couldn’t be happier that he was about to have a complex human to talk to, get to know, and convince to stop hiding now.
One of my own kind.
*
Harry clenched his hands as he stood outside the portrait of the Fat Lady. He had tried to convince Esmeralda to hide somewhere else tonight, but she had insisted on coming with him, and Harry felt bad for asking it of her when he had spent so long keeping his secret.
When it would be revealed tomorrow anyway.
When he was a bloody Gryffindor.
Harry threw his head up and spoke the password, “Dragon’s tail.” The Fat Lady was asleep and just mumbled something as the portrait swung open. Harry stepped into the common room, Esmeralda flowing along beside him.
Fewer people were up than he’d expected—it was late, after all—but among them were Ron and Dean and Neville. They glanced at him casually, and then stared with their jaws falling open. Harry leaned a little towards Esmeralda, who twined around his legs but said nothing. Harry asked her to let him do the talking.
“Hi,” he said to everyone and their motionless stares. “I don’t think we’ve properly met. My name is Harry Potter, and I’m a Parselmouth.” He smiled at them, and could feel how the smile wobbled and then fell.
“Mate,” Ron breathed. “What the hell?”
“You never told us about this,” Dean added. Neville’s eyes were larger than Harry had hoped for, and Harry hoped desperately that he wasn’t afraid of snakes, too.
“Mum and Dad expected me to keep it a secret.” Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re deathly afraid of snakes, you know that.”
“All right,” Ron said slowly. “But why is that snake here with you, and why are you announcing it now?”
“This is Esmeralda, and she’s my familiar,” Harry said, answering the easier question first. “I got tired of denying her. And, well, Professor Riddle found out, so I’m not going to be allowed to keep it quiet any longer.”
Dean’s mouth widened along with his eyes, and Neville’s joined him. Harry laughed in spite of himself. “Never seen both of you speechless before,” he teased them.
That broke their silence. Dean waved his arms around. “How did you become a Parselmouth?”
“You know that Angela is going to tell your parents tomorrow?” Ron demanded, referring to Harry’s little sister, who was also in Gryffindor.
“I’m telling everyone tomorrow,” Harry said, and tried not to feel as if he was tipping over some edge and had no hope of recovering from the fall. “But, I mean, technically my parents already know. They took me to a bunch of Healers trying to find some way to cure my Parseltongue.”
The bitterness in his voice had probably already told them everything they needed to know. Dean and Neville exchanged glances and shook their heads slowly. “Well, we’ll stand by you, mate,” Dean said, with a long exhale. “I can understand them not being happy about it, but—”
“Trying to cure it is just wrong,” Neville said firmly.
Harry smiled at him. Neville didn’t really fit into his family, either, although not for the same reasons that Harry didn’t. He should have known that Nev would be on his side in this, too.
“Did it escape everyone else’s notice that the enormous fucking snake is now inside the Gryffindor common room?” Parvati asked loudly. She was sitting on a seat near the fireplace, and Harry had actually overlooked her up until this point. “I mean, fine, Harry, you’re a Parselmouth, whatever, but why do you have to have this enormous fucking snake around?”
“She is rude,” Esmeralda said primly.
“She’s my familiar,” Harry repeated. “You know that Crookshanks goes wherever Hermione does, and Hopalong wherever Lavender does? Well, Esmeralda will go where I do.”
“She’s going to chase Hopalong! And everyone else’s pets!”
“Not any more than Crookshanks does,” Harry said wearily. “If I ask her not to, she won’t. You’re not to chase their pets, all right, Esmeralda?”
“As if most of them would even make more than a mouthful for me.”
His Housemates flinched and shrieked, and Harry realized abruptly that it was the first time he had spoken Parseltongue in front of them. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that this was all right, this was fine, and at least Dean and Neville had accepted him and weren’t staring at him with horror-stricken expressions. Neither had Ron, although he’d gone pale enough that Harry could see every one of his freckles.
It would be fine.
But as he looked at the way that Parvati’s lip was trembling and one of the third-years in the corner had got up and fled to their rooms sobbing, Harry knew it would be a hard road.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Tom Riddle, background James/Lily
Content Notes: AU (No Voldemort, Potters live), Parselmouth Harry, seventeen-year-old Harry, teacher/student relationship, angst, drama, possessive Tom
Rating: R
Summary: Tom has discovered Harry is a Parselmouth, which to him signals the end of his loneliness in the world. For Harry, it’s the beginning of a struggle with his family and a terrifying happiness that he believes he could lose any second.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to my story “Evidence of Absence” and will make absolutely no sense without it. I anticipate this story being around five to ten parts, and updating mostly on Tuesdays.
Natural Selection
Chapter One—Problems to Settle
Harry paced slowly beside Professor Riddle as they walked back towards the school. Professor Riddle’s arm remained around his shoulders, and Esmeralda slithered beside him, hissing softly about how glad she was that he would acknowledge her at last.
It would have been hard to go away and leave her.
Harry breathed through his nose. It would have, but it was also going to be hard to give into the longing he had been fighting for years, to acknowledge to everyone that he was a Parselmouth, to face up to his parents’ disappointment.
“What are you thinking?” Esmeralda asked, slithering in front of Harry as they came out of the Forest near the lake and winding herself through his legs so he couldn’t keep walking.
Harry bent down to put his hand on her head, aware of Professor Riddle watching and listening. He would want an answer, too. And Harry owed it to both of them. It was just that—
Could they understand how much he dreaded telling his parents that he had given in to the longing they had cautioned him against, that now he was going to associate with the snakes they feared so much? Probably both of them would think of it as a small problem, when to Harry, it loomed in front of him like a mountain.
“Please tell me,” Professor Riddle said quietly. He didn’t push Harry further than that, but he waited, and Harry found himself turning to face him, unable to deny the request from someone who had been alone as long as Professor Riddle had.
“My parents are—you have no idea how afraid they are of snakes,” Harry said in English. “For my father, it’s that experience I told you about. For my mother, I think it’s a more instinctive thing. You might think I should just abandon them or be angry at them, but I can’t. And being afraid of snakes isn’t their fault. I…”
Professor Riddle’s hand gently clasped his chin and lifted his face. Harry swallowed and looked into his eyes. They were a dark grey, and not calm, but there was a depth of acceptance in them that Harry hoped he could hang on to.
“I am not pleased with your parents for keeping you away from me and making you fear your Parseltongue,” Professor Riddle murmured. “But neither would I deny their importance to you. That sort of thing is for uncomplicated people who can be understood in a few minutes. We are too complicated.”
Harry swallowed and nodded. “And…I suppose that you won’t want to wait until the end of my seventh year to have a relationship, either?”
“It is up to you how soon we become lovers. But if you mean that you wish to hide it until then and pretend nothing has changed between us? No, Harry.”
Harry closed his eyes. He felt as if he were being surrounded by silver serpents, filling him with joy and pleasure, worry and shame. To be wanted so desperately, but to have people who would assume he was unduly favored by his professor…
“There are people who would probably think that I passed my Defense NEWT with a high mark because of your influence,” he murmured.
Professor Riddle’s hand tightening on his chin was the only sign of how pleased the man probably was that he had switched to Parseltongue. “Our openness about it is more likely to protect us in this case than hiding it would. If it came out after your NEWT—which is only two months away—that we were together, people would suspect any mark you got. Before it…well, we can certainly remind everyone that an independent examiner will test you and that the exams are marked in the Ministry, without interference from Hogwarts professors.”
“Someone could still say something.”
“People will say things, Harry, no matter what, no matter how long after the exam our involvement might come out. Think about it this way. Your parents have kept you in hiding for five years because they feared what people would say so much. Are you going to continue it now? And for how long?”
Harry swallowed. He didn’t know how much of his misery came from being in hiding and how much didn’t, but he also knew that Professor Riddle was right.
They could wait for years, and some people would still mutter that Professor Riddle might have unduly favored a Parselmouth student. They could announce it right after the exam, and there would be mutters.
And having felt another Parselmouth touch him now, Harry wasn’t sure how he could back off and give it up, either. Every touch was like fire glancing across his skin, a glimpse of a kind of light he had never known could exist. He reached up and covered Riddle’s hand with his, and felt him shudder, a bone-deep twist of longing that made Harry lean closer before he even thought about it.
But he had to try and make sure that every possible avenue that his parents could exploit to take this away from him had been closed. So he muttered, without opening his eyes, “Aren’t there rules at Hogwarts about students and professors sleeping together?”
“Sleeping together. Not dating. Not being engaged.”
Harry opened his eyes. “You’re kidding!”
Riddle shook his head, a smile cutting across his mouth like a knife. It just made Harry want to touch his lips. “No. There have been numerous cases of professors and of-age students becoming engaged in the student’s seventh year. Of which, I point out again, you only have two months left.”
“Huh,” was all Harry could think of to say.
Riddle took a long step nearer him and rested his hands on Harry’s shoulders. Harry shivered again as the serpents that seemed to curl about his insides began to dance faster. Riddle studied him, and then stepped back and picked up his right hand to kiss the back of it.
Harry shivered.
“I will stand by your side, Harry. I will weather the fires that will start burning upon this announcement. I will accompany you to see your parents, or to see the Headmaster and Minerva if they make a fuss about this. I will be here.”
“And me, too,” Esmeralda said, sounding displeased at being forgotten for so long.
Harry swallowed, reached down to touch his familiar’s head quickly, and then stepped forwards to kiss Riddle.
Riddle’s hands tightened on his shoulders as silent, thrumming warmth cut through the both of them. Harry sighed out. There were so many things that could go wrong with this.
But at least they would be in the open. At least he didn’t have to keep the secret by himself anymore.
Relief crashed into him like a boulder when he thought of that.
*
It was the first time Tom had ever seen Albus Dumbledore look like what he could have safely described as “bewildered.”
“This is…unexpected news, Tom.”
“It is,” Tom agreed, folding his hands in his lap. Nagini was curled around his legs, hissing soft nonsense that Tom was glad Albus was unlikely to understand. There had been persistent rumors over the last few decades that he could understand Parseltongue, but Tom had tested him several times, and suspected that Albus had a vocabulary of a few words at best. “Both because the Potters lied about their son, and because I never expected to find another Parselmouth.”
“Have you considered what becoming your lover could cost him?”
“Oh, of course,” Tom said, and Albus peered at him. “His loneliness. His fervent worry that he can never tell anyone the truth about himself or show off his true skills in Defense class. His deep fear.”
Albus shook his head. “What if it costs him his relationship with his parents?”
“I do not believe it will. Harry is determined to cling to them. But if they would really choose their fear of snakes over their son, then he is well rid of them.”
“Fear of snakes is instinctive, Tom. Just because you don’t feel it yourself as a Parselmouth—”
“And is making your thirteen-year-old son swear to keep his Parseltongue to himself instinctive? Is using the Memory Charm on a Healer who found out about it? Is telling your son over and over again that he should be afraid of his Defense professor?”
Albus closed his eyes. He looked old and weary. Watching him, Tom felt sure that he’d had no idea that this was going on, and he would have tried to deal with it differently if he had.
But now that he knew, Tom was also not sure what Albus would choose. He’d been worried about Harry, but it had been James and Lily Potter who had been Albus’s proteges. He’d apparently offered James a Transfiguration apprenticeship, something he hadn’t done in decades, which James had turned down to open a prank shop with Sirius Black. And Albus had recommended Lily Potter for the job as a Ministry Potions brewer that she held now.
“Announcing it will also cause an uproar in the school.”
“You know that Harry’s of age, and that according to even the strictest interpretation of the Hogwarts rules, professors and of-age students are allowed to date.”
“That is an archaic rule, Tom. The last instance of it was—”
“Twenty years ago, when Rolanda Hooch was involved as a seventh-year student with Pomona Sprout.”
Albus frowned at him. Tom didn’t know if he was more put-off by Tom knowing that example or using it. Tom smiled gently at him and added, “And their marriage endures to this day. They’re disgustingly cute with each other in the staff room.”
“You should still think about what this will mean to Harry’s parents. Could you not wait until Harry has finished his NEWT exams? That’s only two months away.”
“And after that, it would be that they don’t think it would look good for us to admit to our relationship so soon after the NEWTS, in case someone might think I’d influenced Harry’s Defense mark. And after that, it would be because there’s some kind of family happiness they don’t want to spoil—I understand James Potter and Black are due to open a new branch of their prank shop in Ottery St. Catchpole soon. And after that, it would be concern over Harry being involved with someone so much older than himself. They would find ways and means of putting it off, Albus. I know they would.”
“You do not know them as well as you think, Tom. Remember that they were students twenty years ago—”
“Harry was considering leaving the country after his NEWTS, Albus. He wasn’t going to settle into a happy life with someone else.”
“Why is that, though? How can you know that he’ll be happy with you?”
Tom leaned forwards and let what he already felt for Harry look out of his eyes. Albus blinked at him again.
“I’ll work as hard as I can to make him happy,” Tom said quietly. “And you don’t understand how Parselmouths are drawn to other Parselmouths, Albus. I have been driven nearly mad searching for someone like me. Perhaps we could have waited and taken this slowly if the Potters hadn’t been so upset and afraid of Harry’s talent, and I had come to know him younger. Now? No.”
“His parents made the decision they thought best.”
“And it was the wrong one. They’ll have to live with that just as much as I’ll have to live with the fact that I didn’t know Harry until now.”
Albus looked more troubled. Tom simply watched him. He and Albus were not true enemies, not at odds as they had been when Tom was younger, but Albus lived in a simplistic world where good intentions were supposed to guarantee good results. And if that didn’t happen, he often wished people would not be so impolite as to draw attention to the fact.
“If I asked you to leave this alone?” Albus murmured, finally.
“I would refuse. It’s a good thing you’re not asking.”
“If I said that I would sack you if you pursued this relationship with Harry Potter?”
Tom smiled. “Do you want my resignation tomorrow or tonight?”
Albus reeled back without standing. “Tom,” he said, voice unsteady. “I think that you must not have thought your attraction to him through—”
“It’s more than an attraction, it’s a pull.” Tom drew his wand, slowly and carefully so that Albus had no chance to take it as a threat. “Do you give me permission to cast the Sharing Charm on you?”
Albus breathed out and gripped the arms of his chair, which Tom took for practically an admission that Albus knew it would be painful. But he nodded. “If you feel that you can’t make your point any other way.”
A dare? How Gryffindor of you, Albus.
Distantly, Tom supposed that he would have to stop thinking about Gryffindors that way, given that Harry was one, but this moment was private and between Albus and himself. He cast the Sharing Charm, which was usually used by Healers so they could understand the exact depth of a patient’s pain and the location of it. This time, he used it to translate the pain of his loneliness and longing for other Parselmouths so that Albus could understand it.
Albus’s face twisted. He slumped over in his chair, one hand working above his heart. Tom ended the Sharing Charm immediately. The last thing he wanted when he was finally about to begin a life of companionship was murder charges for giving the Headmaster of Hogwarts a heart attack.
It took several moments for Albus to sit back up and wipe away a little of what looked like foam on his lips. Nagini hissed amusement at that. Tom let his hand stray down long enough for her to loop a coil around it.
“My boy,” Albus said hoarsely. “I never—I didn’t know you were feeling that. Why did you never say anything?”
Tom blinked. He would have thought that, of all the possible questions Albus could have, that would be one of the last. “Why would I? You’re not a Parselmouth.”
Albus opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it and sighed. “Very well,” he said. “If you need my support in your confrontation with James and Lily, you have it. I simply ask you to be mindful of what rules are in place governing contact between seventh-year students and professors.”
Don’t get caught sleeping with the boy, Tom translated in his mind. He had no intention of getting caught, so it didn’t matter, and he had meant what he’d said about letting Harry set the pace. “Yes, Albus. I intend to write a letter to the Potters tomorrow. Perhaps I might trouble you for suggestions on some of the wording? Since, as you have pointed out, you know them better than I do.”
Albus gave him a faint smile that said he knew very well what Tom was about in flattering him, but his gaze was still gentle. “Yes, very well. Would meeting here before breakfast work for you?”
“Very well,” Tom echoed, and left the Headmaster’s office for his own quarters with a spring in his step and the conviction that he would dream about Harry that night.
“Shall I like his familiar?” Nagini asked, traveling beside him. “Shall I like him?”
“You shall,” Tom promised, and Nagini hissed contentment. She could be reassured that way without doubts. In some ways, snakes were simpler.
But Tom couldn’t be happier that he was about to have a complex human to talk to, get to know, and convince to stop hiding now.
One of my own kind.
*
Harry clenched his hands as he stood outside the portrait of the Fat Lady. He had tried to convince Esmeralda to hide somewhere else tonight, but she had insisted on coming with him, and Harry felt bad for asking it of her when he had spent so long keeping his secret.
When it would be revealed tomorrow anyway.
When he was a bloody Gryffindor.
Harry threw his head up and spoke the password, “Dragon’s tail.” The Fat Lady was asleep and just mumbled something as the portrait swung open. Harry stepped into the common room, Esmeralda flowing along beside him.
Fewer people were up than he’d expected—it was late, after all—but among them were Ron and Dean and Neville. They glanced at him casually, and then stared with their jaws falling open. Harry leaned a little towards Esmeralda, who twined around his legs but said nothing. Harry asked her to let him do the talking.
“Hi,” he said to everyone and their motionless stares. “I don’t think we’ve properly met. My name is Harry Potter, and I’m a Parselmouth.” He smiled at them, and could feel how the smile wobbled and then fell.
“Mate,” Ron breathed. “What the hell?”
“You never told us about this,” Dean added. Neville’s eyes were larger than Harry had hoped for, and Harry hoped desperately that he wasn’t afraid of snakes, too.
“Mum and Dad expected me to keep it a secret.” Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re deathly afraid of snakes, you know that.”
“All right,” Ron said slowly. “But why is that snake here with you, and why are you announcing it now?”
“This is Esmeralda, and she’s my familiar,” Harry said, answering the easier question first. “I got tired of denying her. And, well, Professor Riddle found out, so I’m not going to be allowed to keep it quiet any longer.”
Dean’s mouth widened along with his eyes, and Neville’s joined him. Harry laughed in spite of himself. “Never seen both of you speechless before,” he teased them.
That broke their silence. Dean waved his arms around. “How did you become a Parselmouth?”
“You know that Angela is going to tell your parents tomorrow?” Ron demanded, referring to Harry’s little sister, who was also in Gryffindor.
“I’m telling everyone tomorrow,” Harry said, and tried not to feel as if he was tipping over some edge and had no hope of recovering from the fall. “But, I mean, technically my parents already know. They took me to a bunch of Healers trying to find some way to cure my Parseltongue.”
The bitterness in his voice had probably already told them everything they needed to know. Dean and Neville exchanged glances and shook their heads slowly. “Well, we’ll stand by you, mate,” Dean said, with a long exhale. “I can understand them not being happy about it, but—”
“Trying to cure it is just wrong,” Neville said firmly.
Harry smiled at him. Neville didn’t really fit into his family, either, although not for the same reasons that Harry didn’t. He should have known that Nev would be on his side in this, too.
“Did it escape everyone else’s notice that the enormous fucking snake is now inside the Gryffindor common room?” Parvati asked loudly. She was sitting on a seat near the fireplace, and Harry had actually overlooked her up until this point. “I mean, fine, Harry, you’re a Parselmouth, whatever, but why do you have to have this enormous fucking snake around?”
“She is rude,” Esmeralda said primly.
“She’s my familiar,” Harry repeated. “You know that Crookshanks goes wherever Hermione does, and Hopalong wherever Lavender does? Well, Esmeralda will go where I do.”
“She’s going to chase Hopalong! And everyone else’s pets!”
“Not any more than Crookshanks does,” Harry said wearily. “If I ask her not to, she won’t. You’re not to chase their pets, all right, Esmeralda?”
“As if most of them would even make more than a mouthful for me.”
His Housemates flinched and shrieked, and Harry realized abruptly that it was the first time he had spoken Parseltongue in front of them. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that this was all right, this was fine, and at least Dean and Neville had accepted him and weren’t staring at him with horror-stricken expressions. Neither had Ron, although he’d gone pale enough that Harry could see every one of his freckles.
It would be fine.
But as he looked at the way that Parvati’s lip was trembling and one of the third-years in the corner had got up and fled to their rooms sobbing, Harry knew it would be a hard road.
