lomonaaeren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lomonaaeren) wrote2022-07-01 09:00 pm
lomonaaeren) wrote2022-07-01 09:00 pm
Entry tags:
[Songs of Summer]: Haphazard, gen, PG
Title: Haphazard
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: PG
Content Notes: AU (Slytherin Harry), canon pureblood bigotry, mentions of canon violence, light angst
Pairings: Gen
Wordcount: 4200
Summary: Vince and Greg aren’t smart, really, but they recognize when someone is worth following around. For a long time, that’s been Draco Malfoy. Now Harry Potter, in their second year, reveals he can talk to snakes, so that must mean he’s the Heir of Slytherin. So he’s the obvious choice to follow around.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of Summer” fics, one-shots being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. This is for a prompt by zink, who asked for Harry “stealing” Crabbe and Goyle from Malfoy. Hope you enjoy.
Haphazard
Vince laughed as Draco conjured the snake. Potter was going to run away from it and it was going to be so funny.
Then Lockhart used a spell that made the snake angry and turn around to threaten a Mudblood. Vince nearly bent double with how much he was laughing. This was going to be even better!
Then Potter opened his mouth and hissed.
Vince stared with his hands clasped in front of him. Was that—was that really Parseltongue? Or had Potter cast some kind of spell that would make his voice sound like a snake’s?
Vince looked over at Greg. Greg had his mouth open, and if he thought Potter was faking, he didn’t show it. No one else seemed to think he was, either. They were all standing frozen and staring at Potter with their mouths open, too.
Then Professor Snape banished the snake, and Potter’s friends took him out of the Great Hall as quickly as possible. Vince would have liked to follow them and ask what was going on, but they would be scared of him and wouldn’t answer.
For the first time, Vince wished he didn’t go around beating people up all the time.
He followed Greg and Draco out of the Great Hall, listening to Draco explain how Potter had probably spoken Parseltongue at that moment to get attention for himself. Vince nodded. That made sense. Potter had attention from Quidditch and being the Boy-Who-Lived, but no one stared at him on a daily basis anymore, so he had to do something new.
“You’re really smart, Draco,” Greg said.
“I know I am, Goyle, there’s no reason…”
Vince listened, but Draco didn’t say anything else that was that smart, mostly just repeating that he wished he knew who the Heir of Slytherin was so he could help them. He said that a lot. Vince turned around and looked down the corridor, wondering if he would see Potter coming back to the common room and he could ask him about Parseltongue.
But Potter didn’t come in until long after, which wasn’t unusual. Potter’s friends were all Gryffindors; he just ignored other Slytherins who tried to talk to him, and hexed them back if they hexed him. Vince found himself staring at Potter’s bed curtains that evening with the first wistfulness he’d ever felt about Potter.
It would have been brilliant just to ask him.
*
Greg had spent a long time thinking about this. He had to be careful, because thinking wasn’t his strong suit. His mum told him that all the time. But now he was sure.
He sat down next to Vince in the library. Draco was already off somewhere in the library aisles, looking for books on Potions. “Vince,” Greg whispered.
Vince looked up from his Potions essay, which had lots of drips on it, but fewer than usual. Professor Snape probably wouldn’t make him rewrite it. “What, Greg?”
“I just thought about it,” Greg said, and leaned nearer. He didn’t want anyone else to overhear this. It was his idea, and he wasn’t going to let anyone else steal it. “Salazar Slytherin could talk to snakes, right?”
“Right.”
“And Potter can talk to snakes, right?”
“‘Course.”
“So what if Potter in the Heir of Slytherin?”
Vince’s eyes widened. Then he frowned and said, “But Potter’s friends with Gryffindors and he talks about how it’s not nice when Draco hexes someone. Why would he go around Petrifying people?”
“That’s a front,” Greg said, a little frustrated that his friend didn’t see it. Sometimes he thought Vince was just as smart as he was, but other times he seemed pretty stupid. “Potter must have been Sorted into Slytherin for a reason. And he wouldn’t want to go around saying he was the Heir of Slytherin and a Dark Lord because then people who think he’s just the Boy-Who-lived would hate him for it. So he says he’s just like a Gryffindor, but in reality he’s just like a Slytherin. He was hiding, waiting for his chance. And now he has to open the Chamber of Secrets and let the monster out to Petrify the Mudbloods, because that’s continuing his family’s work, and—”
“Family is more important than anything else, except power,” Vince quoted. They’d both heard that since they were little kids.
Greg nodded excitedly. “So Potter is ready to announce his family. And he did that at the dueling club yesterday.”
“Okay,” Vince said, after munching on a quill for a minute. They waited for Draco to get back, but he didn’t. Maybe he’d found someone in the shelves to argue with. “So what do we need to do now?”
It was obvious to Greg. “Follow him.”
Vince frowned at him. “But we follow Draco.”
“Is he as strong as a Parselmouth?” Greg demanded, rather proud that he’d worked this out. Maybe he was smarter than Vince after all. “As strong as the Heir of Slytherin? We know he doesn’t have the same power because he was talking about helping the Heir of Slytherin, not being them. So we should follow the real Heir.”
Vince tapped his fingers on the table. Then he said, “But Draco’s going to be angry.”
Greg shrugged. “He can be angry,” he said, a little smugly. “He doesn’t have the power to stand up to Potter’s reputation and Potter being the Heir of Slytherin.”
Vince grinned. Greg knew he would be glad to get away from Draco, honestly. Draco was a lot smarter than they were, but he was loud and he liked to argue and rant, and they had to listen to him all the time. Potter, when he spent time in the Slytherin common room, was quiet and rarely spoke.
Maybe they could talk to him and be listened to.
*
Potter looked up and froze as Vince sat down in the chair across from him. “What are you doing here?” he asked, eyes narrowed.
Greg sat down next to Vince. They had discussed this, and decided they didn’t want to make Potter feel boxed in. “Following you,” Vince said, and pulled out his Potions textbook. “Do you know what the answer is for number seven?”
“It doesn’t really matter, since Snape hates me and is going to mark me wrong no matter what,” Potter muttered. His knuckles were white on the edges of his Potions book.
Potions makes him tense, Vince decided. All right, they wouldn’t talk about Potions anymore. “What about that essay we’re writing on Charms? What’s your essay like?”
Potter peered at him over the top of the book. “Why should I let you see it?”
This was already more than Potter usually talked in the common room on a weekday. Vince was smug that their strategy was working. Maybe you didn’t have to be smart to use strategy, after all. “Because we’ll follow you around and beat people up for you. So you repay the favor by showing us your essays.”
Potter’s book thumped into his lap as he stared at them. Greg nudged Vince a little. Maybe that had been too blunt.
“We’ll laugh at your jokes, too,” Vince volunteered. “And listen to you. So it’s not just beating people up. We can do other things, too.”
Potter kept staring as though Vince was the one speaking Parseltongue. Vince gave Greg a concerned glance. Greg was the one who had realized Potter was the Heir of Slytherin. He was the one who was smarter right now.
Greg smiled at Potter, and said, “We used to follow Draco, but then we realized that you must be the Heir of Slytherin because of your Parseltongue. So now we’ll follow you instead. It’s a good deal.”
“I don’t need you to follow me,” Potter said in a low, controlled voice. “I don’t have anyone I want to beat up. And my real friends already listen to me and laugh at my jokes. Excuse me.” And he stood up, gathered up his books, and left the common room. He was stomping his feet on the way, but not as good as Draco could do.
Greg and Vince exchanged glances. Greg was frowning. Vince supposed he was, too.
“Huh,” Greg said.
Vince nodded. Then he said, “Well, if he doesn’t want us to beat people up or laugh at his jokes, then we just need to find things we could do for him.”
“Yeah,” Greg said, and brightened.
*
Draco seemed to be spending most of his time with Pansy and Millicent these days, so he didn’t even ask Greg and Vince when they weren’t following him around anymore. That clarified for Greg that it was the right decision.
That meant they had time to watch Potter with his friends in the library, and see that Greg wasn’t the only one who had decided Potter was the Heir of Slytherin. Other kids were whispering behind their hands when he walked past them, or flinching away from him, and some of the Hufflepuffs didn’t want to partner with him in classes anymore. They heard that just by sitting near a table of Hufflepuffs in the library. No one ever thought Greg and Vince were listening, except Draco.
And now Potter. He kept shooting them frowns and glares when they sat at the library table. But Weasley and Granger actually distracted Potter a lot with homework and talking about the need to find the Heir.
Greg was stumped when he first heard that. Did they just talk about that to throw people off the path about Potter being the Heir? It seemed like they wouldn’t need to talk about it all the time.
He worried the idea back and forth like a Crup with a bone, which was the only way he really knew to arrive at an answer, and then one night he sat up in bed and said, “Holy Merlin,” aloud.
Potter’s bed remained still, and so did Draco’s and Blaise’s. Theo’s had the curtains pulled back, but he always went out and wandered around the school at night anyway, like the creepy ghost he was. Vince was the only one who pulled back his curtains and yawned at Greg. “What?” he asked.
“I was wondering why Weasley and Granger were talking about needing to find the Heir in the library. When the Heir was sitting at the same table with them.”
“Yeah?”
“Weasley and Granger don’t know.”
Vince blinked at him, rubbed some sleep away, and then said, “No. They have to know. Potter tells them everything.”
“But they were startled when Potter started speaking Parseltongue at Dueling Club, too!” Blaise shifted back and forth in his bed, and Greg lowered his voice a little. “He didn’t tell them about his Parseltongue. So he must not have told them about being the Heir, either. He’s showing the secrets, but he’s waiting for the really smart people to figure it out instead of just telling them.”
“We’re not really smart, Greg. That’s Granger and Draco.”
“Draco can’t figure it out because he hates Potter so much. And Granger thinks Potter should have been in Gryffindor with them.” They’d heard her say that the other day. “She’s just wrong about him. She doesn’t see how Slytherin he is. What if Potter is waiting for people to figure it out and then declare their loyalty?”
Vince stared at him with his mouth half-open, and then he said, “You’re brilliant, Greg.”
Greg smiled. It was probably the only time anyone would ever say that to him, but it was kind of nice to hear. “Right. So we just need to prove to Potter that we figured it out, and we can be more loyal than other people.”
Vince nodded fervently.
*
“We can be really loyal.”
Vince watched Potter’s shoulders tense up. His eyes flickered back and forth between Vince and Greg. Once again, they were sitting across from Potter, this time at the table in the library where he usually studied with Weasley and Granger. They weren’t there yet, because on Thursdays the Gryffindors had Herbology and it ran later than Charms for the Slytherins and Ravenclaws.
It’s a good idea to sit across from him instead of on either side of him, Vince decided again. He nodded and repeated, “We can be really loyal. We know that other people have betrayed you because they think you’re the Heir of Slytherin. But we can follow you and never betray you.”
“Why should I believe that? It seems like you’ve betrayed Malfoy.”
“We followed him because our fathers swore oaths to his,” Greg said. Vince looked at him in admiration. Greg was just smart all the time lately. “But Vince and I never swore oaths to Draco. We could swear them to you.”
Potter’s jaw worked for a long second. Then he said, “That’s ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“Because—because oaths are serious! You shouldn’t want to swear them just because you’re asking for friendship.”
“But you’re not our friend,” Vince said, when Greg shot him a look. He reckoned he would have to handle this one. “So you don’t know you can trust us. That’s okay. We’ll swear the oaths, and then you’ll know you can trust us.”
“Were you Malfoy’s friends?”
“No,” Greg said. “We were just his followers. But he’s not as powerful as you are.”
Potter buried his face in his hands and muttered something. Vince listened hard, but all he could make out was “…help me.”
So Potter did need help. Now they just had to figure out what for. Maybe he needed more followers, that was all. He only had the two, even if they were Gryffindors and not Slytherins. And maybe he could use some people to stand between him and the rest of their House. Vince was liking this bargain more by the second.
“What kind of oath do you want us to swear?” Greg asked. “On wands, or on blood?” Vince knew those were the only two kinds of oaths they could swear, since they were so young and didn’t have a lot of treasure to their own names.
“Neither! I want you to leave me alone!”
Vince sighed. “Why, though? You could use more followers. And we could use someone to listen to us. Draco never listens to us.” It felt a little weird to be saying that, but Potter had talked about friendship, so hopefully he wouldn’t think they were being weak to talk about listening.
Potter blinked at them slowly, turning his head back and forth from Vince to Greg. Then he said in a quiet voice, “Malfoy doesn’t listen to you?”
“No. He’s always talking about something he heard, or something he thought, or an argument he had with someone. It’s kind of boring.” Vince probably wouldn’t have said that if Draco ever had listened to them, or if Potter wasn’t more powerful. But Draco didn’t and Potter was.
“Wow.” Potter looked a little embarrassed, but Vince didn’t know why. Maybe Potter would tell them. He was pretty open, for a Slytherin. “Okay. Um. You can stay here for the afternoon, but you can’t make fun of my friends, okay? If you say anything like Malfoy does, then you’re going to leave, and you can’t come back.”
“What about the oaths?” Greg asked.
Potter clenched the edge of the table with one hand. “I don’t want your oaths. I just want you to act like my friends.”
Oh, that was what he wanted. Vince was relieved. He nodded. “All right. We could help straighten your tie, too, if you wanted.”
“What? Why?”
“Pansy is Draco’s friend, and she’s always doing that for him.”
Potter bit his lip, his eyes brightening for a second. He looked like he was trying not to smile. “Um, no, that’s all right. Hermione does that sort of thing for me when it has to be done.”
Vince nodded again, even more relieved. He wasn’t nearly as graceful as Pansy and would probably mess Potter’s tie up.
Now they just had to wait for Granger and Weasley and see what happened.
*
“What are they doing here?”
“They want to study with us, and try being my friends,” said Potter, who was so honest that Greg was a little impressed. Of course, being honest in the library was different from trying to be that way in the common room.
Granger narrowed her eyes at Greg and sat down right next to him. Greg stared at her in surprise. She didn’t look or smell any different from normal people, he thought. Mum had told him Mudbloods did. “Huh,” he said aloud.
“What?” Granger slammed her Potions book down in front of her, bristling.
“I just thought you would yell at me,” said Greg, which was true but didn’t involve saying the word Potter had told him he couldn’t say.
Granger squinted at him, and then started talking about Potions to Potter and Weasley. Greg listened. Some of the stuff she said was too fast for him to really understand or write down, but some of it was good sense, and better than Professor Snape taught. He wrote down a few things and then looked in his book. There was an illustration of how to cut up slugs on page 67, just like Granger said. Last time, Greg had fallen asleep before he got to that point.
“What about you?” Weasley suddenly asked Vince. “Goyle looks like he’s studying, but what about you, Crabbe?”
“Scowling at people,” said Vince happily.
Greg felt a little envious. That sounded like a good time. But at least he had learned some more about Potions.
“What do you mean?” Potter asked.
“There were some Ravenclaws over there who were muttering about you being the Heir of Slytherin, and they were about to come over here,” Vince explained, pointing at a small group of fourth-years who had retreated to a table near the door. “But I scowled at them and cracked my knuckles, and they didn’t come over.”
Potter looked back and forth between Vince and the Ravenclaws for a long moment. Granger fumed and opened her mouth, but Weasley shook his head at her.
“That’s something I didn’t think about,” Potter said slowly. “People are so irritating insisting that I’m the Heir of Slytherin.”
He eyed Greg pointedly. Greg just looked back. He knew Potter was putting on a front. He also knew when to keep quiet. And he didn’t mind. He’d already talked more while sitting with Potter in the library than he had during entire days with Draco.
“We can keep them at bay,” said Vince. “Can’t we, Greg?”
“Yeah.” Greg caught the eye of a Hufflepuff boy he knew was called Ernie Macmillan and made a fist. Macmillan decided that he had to go over and whisper with his friends instead of accusing Potter.
“Huh,” Potter said.
“Harry!” Granger sounded scandalized. Greg wondered why.
“As long as they don’t beat anyone up, it would be kind of nice,” Potter said. He was looking back and forth between Greg and Vince as if seeing them for the first time. “And they haven’t been bad today, right?”
“No,” Weasley said grudgingly. “But the instant they call us names or make fun of my family being poor—”
“We wouldn’t do that,” Greg protested. And they wouldn’t. That was more Draco’s kind of insult. If he and Vince had been going to insult Weasley, they would talk about how skinny he was and how all his freckles vanished when his face turned so red.
“All right,” said Potter, and there was a small smile on his face. Greg knew he would appreciate having people around who saw through the façade and knew he was really the Heir of Slytherin. “Then we should talk about using first names.”
*
“What are you doing with Potter?”
Vince looked up. Draco was standing over his chair and scowling at him. Vince wished Greg was here, since he was the smart one with the good suggestions lately, but he’d gone to the bathroom, and this part of the Slytherin common room was kind of isolated, over in a corner far from the fireplace.
“We’re friends with him,” Vince said. It was the only thing he could say, since it was the truth. And Harry would probably say it if Draco asked him.
Draco’s eyes bugged out. He took a long step forwards and shook his head. “No,” he said. “You don’t get to just walk away from me. And friends? Why would Potter want to be friends with someone who isn’t even as smart as a Flobberworm?”
Draco’s raised voice was attracting attention. Vince swallowed and looked down. He didn’t mind being told he wasn’t smart. He knew he wasn’t smart. But it hurt a lot more when Draco yelled about it.
“Bugger off, Malfoy.”
Harry was suddenly there, although Vince hadn’t even been aware that he was in the common room. He stood next to the green chair Vince was sitting in, his wand in his hand and his eyes very cold. He started tapping his wand against his leg slowly, while staring at Draco.
“What?”
“Bugger off, I said,” Harry said, and then he leaned forwards and hissed something in Parseltongue. Draco turned faintly green.
Vince blinked. Was Draco afraid of snakes? He would never have thought it, but it was true that he hadn’t had to face the snake in Dueling Club and he’d never talked about wanting one as a pet like every Slytherin talked about at one time or another.
“You can’t—you can’t just threaten me,” Draco said, his voice unsteady. “I’ll go to Professor Snape! I’ll tell my father!”
“What’s Snape going to do? Give me detention?” Harry grinned, and looked a little wild. It was true, Vince thought. No matter what kind of detention he got from Snape, Harry never changed his behavior or acted as though he wanted to. “And I’m not afraid of your daddy, either. Go ahead and tell him. Tell him that you were bullying one of my friends in the common room and I hissed at you and you took it as a threat. Not much of a proper Slytherin, are you, if you’re scared of snakes?”
Lots of people were watching them by now, and Vince heard them murmuring to each other. Yeah, Draco was scared of snakes, and they’d remember.
Vince smiled, and only smiled wider when Draco glanced at him. Draco turned his back and tried to look like it was his idea to march away, but people knew he wasn’t, and no one who was watching would forget.
This is what it’s like to be friends with the Heir of Slytherin, Vince thought happily. Greg was right.
“Vince? Are you okay?”
That was something Draco would never have done, either, asking him that or waiting to hear what he said. Vince nodded. “He said that I was stupid, and that’s nothing I haven’t heard before,” he said.
“You’re not stupid,” Harry said fiercely. “I mean, okay, you don’t do well in class, but neither does Longbottom and no one says he’s stupid. They just think he’s clumsy and too scared to concentrate when Snape’s there.”
Vince blinked. Yeah, okay, that was true. “You think I could make better marks than I do?” he asked.
“Yes,” Harry said. “And we’re going to try that. Hermione will want to try. She loves tutoring people. Just don’t tease or insult her.” He leaned forwards. “And tell me if Draco or someone else says something like that again, all right?”
Vince nodded. Then he looked up and caught Greg’s eye. Greg was standing by the doorway that led up to the dorms, his eyes wide.
You were right, Vince mouthed to him, although he had to do it several times before he could see that Greg got it.
Harry swiveled around on the chair, saw Greg, and waved him over. “That goes for you, too, Greg,” he said. “Come and tell me if someone is bothering you, okay? Teasing you or telling you that you’re stupid. Friends look out for each other.”
“Does that mean we can beat the people up who bother you?” Greg asked eagerly.
Harry rolled his eyes. “No. But a good hex might not be out of place.”
He was smiling. Vince smiled back, and felt happier than he had in a long time. Maybe happier than he’d ever been.
*
Greg sat down with his Potions textbook at their usual library table, and read a paragraph, and then looked at the notes Granger had written down for him, and understood it.
That made him really happy. As happy as he’d been when Harry had told them that he and Vince could come talk to Harry if they were being bullied.
Someday, Harry would reveal his power as the Heir of Slytherin. And Greg and Vince would be right there to follow him while he ruled over the masses.
But Greg and Vince would always have been there first, along with Weasley and Granger.
Because they were smart in a way no one else was, and they’d seen.
The End.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: PG
Content Notes: AU (Slytherin Harry), canon pureblood bigotry, mentions of canon violence, light angst
Pairings: Gen
Wordcount: 4200
Summary: Vince and Greg aren’t smart, really, but they recognize when someone is worth following around. For a long time, that’s been Draco Malfoy. Now Harry Potter, in their second year, reveals he can talk to snakes, so that must mean he’s the Heir of Slytherin. So he’s the obvious choice to follow around.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of Summer” fics, one-shots being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. This is for a prompt by zink, who asked for Harry “stealing” Crabbe and Goyle from Malfoy. Hope you enjoy.
Haphazard
Vince laughed as Draco conjured the snake. Potter was going to run away from it and it was going to be so funny.
Then Lockhart used a spell that made the snake angry and turn around to threaten a Mudblood. Vince nearly bent double with how much he was laughing. This was going to be even better!
Then Potter opened his mouth and hissed.
Vince stared with his hands clasped in front of him. Was that—was that really Parseltongue? Or had Potter cast some kind of spell that would make his voice sound like a snake’s?
Vince looked over at Greg. Greg had his mouth open, and if he thought Potter was faking, he didn’t show it. No one else seemed to think he was, either. They were all standing frozen and staring at Potter with their mouths open, too.
Then Professor Snape banished the snake, and Potter’s friends took him out of the Great Hall as quickly as possible. Vince would have liked to follow them and ask what was going on, but they would be scared of him and wouldn’t answer.
For the first time, Vince wished he didn’t go around beating people up all the time.
He followed Greg and Draco out of the Great Hall, listening to Draco explain how Potter had probably spoken Parseltongue at that moment to get attention for himself. Vince nodded. That made sense. Potter had attention from Quidditch and being the Boy-Who-Lived, but no one stared at him on a daily basis anymore, so he had to do something new.
“You’re really smart, Draco,” Greg said.
“I know I am, Goyle, there’s no reason…”
Vince listened, but Draco didn’t say anything else that was that smart, mostly just repeating that he wished he knew who the Heir of Slytherin was so he could help them. He said that a lot. Vince turned around and looked down the corridor, wondering if he would see Potter coming back to the common room and he could ask him about Parseltongue.
But Potter didn’t come in until long after, which wasn’t unusual. Potter’s friends were all Gryffindors; he just ignored other Slytherins who tried to talk to him, and hexed them back if they hexed him. Vince found himself staring at Potter’s bed curtains that evening with the first wistfulness he’d ever felt about Potter.
It would have been brilliant just to ask him.
*
Greg had spent a long time thinking about this. He had to be careful, because thinking wasn’t his strong suit. His mum told him that all the time. But now he was sure.
He sat down next to Vince in the library. Draco was already off somewhere in the library aisles, looking for books on Potions. “Vince,” Greg whispered.
Vince looked up from his Potions essay, which had lots of drips on it, but fewer than usual. Professor Snape probably wouldn’t make him rewrite it. “What, Greg?”
“I just thought about it,” Greg said, and leaned nearer. He didn’t want anyone else to overhear this. It was his idea, and he wasn’t going to let anyone else steal it. “Salazar Slytherin could talk to snakes, right?”
“Right.”
“And Potter can talk to snakes, right?”
“‘Course.”
“So what if Potter in the Heir of Slytherin?”
Vince’s eyes widened. Then he frowned and said, “But Potter’s friends with Gryffindors and he talks about how it’s not nice when Draco hexes someone. Why would he go around Petrifying people?”
“That’s a front,” Greg said, a little frustrated that his friend didn’t see it. Sometimes he thought Vince was just as smart as he was, but other times he seemed pretty stupid. “Potter must have been Sorted into Slytherin for a reason. And he wouldn’t want to go around saying he was the Heir of Slytherin and a Dark Lord because then people who think he’s just the Boy-Who-lived would hate him for it. So he says he’s just like a Gryffindor, but in reality he’s just like a Slytherin. He was hiding, waiting for his chance. And now he has to open the Chamber of Secrets and let the monster out to Petrify the Mudbloods, because that’s continuing his family’s work, and—”
“Family is more important than anything else, except power,” Vince quoted. They’d both heard that since they were little kids.
Greg nodded excitedly. “So Potter is ready to announce his family. And he did that at the dueling club yesterday.”
“Okay,” Vince said, after munching on a quill for a minute. They waited for Draco to get back, but he didn’t. Maybe he’d found someone in the shelves to argue with. “So what do we need to do now?”
It was obvious to Greg. “Follow him.”
Vince frowned at him. “But we follow Draco.”
“Is he as strong as a Parselmouth?” Greg demanded, rather proud that he’d worked this out. Maybe he was smarter than Vince after all. “As strong as the Heir of Slytherin? We know he doesn’t have the same power because he was talking about helping the Heir of Slytherin, not being them. So we should follow the real Heir.”
Vince tapped his fingers on the table. Then he said, “But Draco’s going to be angry.”
Greg shrugged. “He can be angry,” he said, a little smugly. “He doesn’t have the power to stand up to Potter’s reputation and Potter being the Heir of Slytherin.”
Vince grinned. Greg knew he would be glad to get away from Draco, honestly. Draco was a lot smarter than they were, but he was loud and he liked to argue and rant, and they had to listen to him all the time. Potter, when he spent time in the Slytherin common room, was quiet and rarely spoke.
Maybe they could talk to him and be listened to.
*
Potter looked up and froze as Vince sat down in the chair across from him. “What are you doing here?” he asked, eyes narrowed.
Greg sat down next to Vince. They had discussed this, and decided they didn’t want to make Potter feel boxed in. “Following you,” Vince said, and pulled out his Potions textbook. “Do you know what the answer is for number seven?”
“It doesn’t really matter, since Snape hates me and is going to mark me wrong no matter what,” Potter muttered. His knuckles were white on the edges of his Potions book.
Potions makes him tense, Vince decided. All right, they wouldn’t talk about Potions anymore. “What about that essay we’re writing on Charms? What’s your essay like?”
Potter peered at him over the top of the book. “Why should I let you see it?”
This was already more than Potter usually talked in the common room on a weekday. Vince was smug that their strategy was working. Maybe you didn’t have to be smart to use strategy, after all. “Because we’ll follow you around and beat people up for you. So you repay the favor by showing us your essays.”
Potter’s book thumped into his lap as he stared at them. Greg nudged Vince a little. Maybe that had been too blunt.
“We’ll laugh at your jokes, too,” Vince volunteered. “And listen to you. So it’s not just beating people up. We can do other things, too.”
Potter kept staring as though Vince was the one speaking Parseltongue. Vince gave Greg a concerned glance. Greg was the one who had realized Potter was the Heir of Slytherin. He was the one who was smarter right now.
Greg smiled at Potter, and said, “We used to follow Draco, but then we realized that you must be the Heir of Slytherin because of your Parseltongue. So now we’ll follow you instead. It’s a good deal.”
“I don’t need you to follow me,” Potter said in a low, controlled voice. “I don’t have anyone I want to beat up. And my real friends already listen to me and laugh at my jokes. Excuse me.” And he stood up, gathered up his books, and left the common room. He was stomping his feet on the way, but not as good as Draco could do.
Greg and Vince exchanged glances. Greg was frowning. Vince supposed he was, too.
“Huh,” Greg said.
Vince nodded. Then he said, “Well, if he doesn’t want us to beat people up or laugh at his jokes, then we just need to find things we could do for him.”
“Yeah,” Greg said, and brightened.
*
Draco seemed to be spending most of his time with Pansy and Millicent these days, so he didn’t even ask Greg and Vince when they weren’t following him around anymore. That clarified for Greg that it was the right decision.
That meant they had time to watch Potter with his friends in the library, and see that Greg wasn’t the only one who had decided Potter was the Heir of Slytherin. Other kids were whispering behind their hands when he walked past them, or flinching away from him, and some of the Hufflepuffs didn’t want to partner with him in classes anymore. They heard that just by sitting near a table of Hufflepuffs in the library. No one ever thought Greg and Vince were listening, except Draco.
And now Potter. He kept shooting them frowns and glares when they sat at the library table. But Weasley and Granger actually distracted Potter a lot with homework and talking about the need to find the Heir.
Greg was stumped when he first heard that. Did they just talk about that to throw people off the path about Potter being the Heir? It seemed like they wouldn’t need to talk about it all the time.
He worried the idea back and forth like a Crup with a bone, which was the only way he really knew to arrive at an answer, and then one night he sat up in bed and said, “Holy Merlin,” aloud.
Potter’s bed remained still, and so did Draco’s and Blaise’s. Theo’s had the curtains pulled back, but he always went out and wandered around the school at night anyway, like the creepy ghost he was. Vince was the only one who pulled back his curtains and yawned at Greg. “What?” he asked.
“I was wondering why Weasley and Granger were talking about needing to find the Heir in the library. When the Heir was sitting at the same table with them.”
“Yeah?”
“Weasley and Granger don’t know.”
Vince blinked at him, rubbed some sleep away, and then said, “No. They have to know. Potter tells them everything.”
“But they were startled when Potter started speaking Parseltongue at Dueling Club, too!” Blaise shifted back and forth in his bed, and Greg lowered his voice a little. “He didn’t tell them about his Parseltongue. So he must not have told them about being the Heir, either. He’s showing the secrets, but he’s waiting for the really smart people to figure it out instead of just telling them.”
“We’re not really smart, Greg. That’s Granger and Draco.”
“Draco can’t figure it out because he hates Potter so much. And Granger thinks Potter should have been in Gryffindor with them.” They’d heard her say that the other day. “She’s just wrong about him. She doesn’t see how Slytherin he is. What if Potter is waiting for people to figure it out and then declare their loyalty?”
Vince stared at him with his mouth half-open, and then he said, “You’re brilliant, Greg.”
Greg smiled. It was probably the only time anyone would ever say that to him, but it was kind of nice to hear. “Right. So we just need to prove to Potter that we figured it out, and we can be more loyal than other people.”
Vince nodded fervently.
*
“We can be really loyal.”
Vince watched Potter’s shoulders tense up. His eyes flickered back and forth between Vince and Greg. Once again, they were sitting across from Potter, this time at the table in the library where he usually studied with Weasley and Granger. They weren’t there yet, because on Thursdays the Gryffindors had Herbology and it ran later than Charms for the Slytherins and Ravenclaws.
It’s a good idea to sit across from him instead of on either side of him, Vince decided again. He nodded and repeated, “We can be really loyal. We know that other people have betrayed you because they think you’re the Heir of Slytherin. But we can follow you and never betray you.”
“Why should I believe that? It seems like you’ve betrayed Malfoy.”
“We followed him because our fathers swore oaths to his,” Greg said. Vince looked at him in admiration. Greg was just smart all the time lately. “But Vince and I never swore oaths to Draco. We could swear them to you.”
Potter’s jaw worked for a long second. Then he said, “That’s ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“Because—because oaths are serious! You shouldn’t want to swear them just because you’re asking for friendship.”
“But you’re not our friend,” Vince said, when Greg shot him a look. He reckoned he would have to handle this one. “So you don’t know you can trust us. That’s okay. We’ll swear the oaths, and then you’ll know you can trust us.”
“Were you Malfoy’s friends?”
“No,” Greg said. “We were just his followers. But he’s not as powerful as you are.”
Potter buried his face in his hands and muttered something. Vince listened hard, but all he could make out was “…help me.”
So Potter did need help. Now they just had to figure out what for. Maybe he needed more followers, that was all. He only had the two, even if they were Gryffindors and not Slytherins. And maybe he could use some people to stand between him and the rest of their House. Vince was liking this bargain more by the second.
“What kind of oath do you want us to swear?” Greg asked. “On wands, or on blood?” Vince knew those were the only two kinds of oaths they could swear, since they were so young and didn’t have a lot of treasure to their own names.
“Neither! I want you to leave me alone!”
Vince sighed. “Why, though? You could use more followers. And we could use someone to listen to us. Draco never listens to us.” It felt a little weird to be saying that, but Potter had talked about friendship, so hopefully he wouldn’t think they were being weak to talk about listening.
Potter blinked at them slowly, turning his head back and forth from Vince to Greg. Then he said in a quiet voice, “Malfoy doesn’t listen to you?”
“No. He’s always talking about something he heard, or something he thought, or an argument he had with someone. It’s kind of boring.” Vince probably wouldn’t have said that if Draco ever had listened to them, or if Potter wasn’t more powerful. But Draco didn’t and Potter was.
“Wow.” Potter looked a little embarrassed, but Vince didn’t know why. Maybe Potter would tell them. He was pretty open, for a Slytherin. “Okay. Um. You can stay here for the afternoon, but you can’t make fun of my friends, okay? If you say anything like Malfoy does, then you’re going to leave, and you can’t come back.”
“What about the oaths?” Greg asked.
Potter clenched the edge of the table with one hand. “I don’t want your oaths. I just want you to act like my friends.”
Oh, that was what he wanted. Vince was relieved. He nodded. “All right. We could help straighten your tie, too, if you wanted.”
“What? Why?”
“Pansy is Draco’s friend, and she’s always doing that for him.”
Potter bit his lip, his eyes brightening for a second. He looked like he was trying not to smile. “Um, no, that’s all right. Hermione does that sort of thing for me when it has to be done.”
Vince nodded again, even more relieved. He wasn’t nearly as graceful as Pansy and would probably mess Potter’s tie up.
Now they just had to wait for Granger and Weasley and see what happened.
*
“What are they doing here?”
“They want to study with us, and try being my friends,” said Potter, who was so honest that Greg was a little impressed. Of course, being honest in the library was different from trying to be that way in the common room.
Granger narrowed her eyes at Greg and sat down right next to him. Greg stared at her in surprise. She didn’t look or smell any different from normal people, he thought. Mum had told him Mudbloods did. “Huh,” he said aloud.
“What?” Granger slammed her Potions book down in front of her, bristling.
“I just thought you would yell at me,” said Greg, which was true but didn’t involve saying the word Potter had told him he couldn’t say.
Granger squinted at him, and then started talking about Potions to Potter and Weasley. Greg listened. Some of the stuff she said was too fast for him to really understand or write down, but some of it was good sense, and better than Professor Snape taught. He wrote down a few things and then looked in his book. There was an illustration of how to cut up slugs on page 67, just like Granger said. Last time, Greg had fallen asleep before he got to that point.
“What about you?” Weasley suddenly asked Vince. “Goyle looks like he’s studying, but what about you, Crabbe?”
“Scowling at people,” said Vince happily.
Greg felt a little envious. That sounded like a good time. But at least he had learned some more about Potions.
“What do you mean?” Potter asked.
“There were some Ravenclaws over there who were muttering about you being the Heir of Slytherin, and they were about to come over here,” Vince explained, pointing at a small group of fourth-years who had retreated to a table near the door. “But I scowled at them and cracked my knuckles, and they didn’t come over.”
Potter looked back and forth between Vince and the Ravenclaws for a long moment. Granger fumed and opened her mouth, but Weasley shook his head at her.
“That’s something I didn’t think about,” Potter said slowly. “People are so irritating insisting that I’m the Heir of Slytherin.”
He eyed Greg pointedly. Greg just looked back. He knew Potter was putting on a front. He also knew when to keep quiet. And he didn’t mind. He’d already talked more while sitting with Potter in the library than he had during entire days with Draco.
“We can keep them at bay,” said Vince. “Can’t we, Greg?”
“Yeah.” Greg caught the eye of a Hufflepuff boy he knew was called Ernie Macmillan and made a fist. Macmillan decided that he had to go over and whisper with his friends instead of accusing Potter.
“Huh,” Potter said.
“Harry!” Granger sounded scandalized. Greg wondered why.
“As long as they don’t beat anyone up, it would be kind of nice,” Potter said. He was looking back and forth between Greg and Vince as if seeing them for the first time. “And they haven’t been bad today, right?”
“No,” Weasley said grudgingly. “But the instant they call us names or make fun of my family being poor—”
“We wouldn’t do that,” Greg protested. And they wouldn’t. That was more Draco’s kind of insult. If he and Vince had been going to insult Weasley, they would talk about how skinny he was and how all his freckles vanished when his face turned so red.
“All right,” said Potter, and there was a small smile on his face. Greg knew he would appreciate having people around who saw through the façade and knew he was really the Heir of Slytherin. “Then we should talk about using first names.”
*
“What are you doing with Potter?”
Vince looked up. Draco was standing over his chair and scowling at him. Vince wished Greg was here, since he was the smart one with the good suggestions lately, but he’d gone to the bathroom, and this part of the Slytherin common room was kind of isolated, over in a corner far from the fireplace.
“We’re friends with him,” Vince said. It was the only thing he could say, since it was the truth. And Harry would probably say it if Draco asked him.
Draco’s eyes bugged out. He took a long step forwards and shook his head. “No,” he said. “You don’t get to just walk away from me. And friends? Why would Potter want to be friends with someone who isn’t even as smart as a Flobberworm?”
Draco’s raised voice was attracting attention. Vince swallowed and looked down. He didn’t mind being told he wasn’t smart. He knew he wasn’t smart. But it hurt a lot more when Draco yelled about it.
“Bugger off, Malfoy.”
Harry was suddenly there, although Vince hadn’t even been aware that he was in the common room. He stood next to the green chair Vince was sitting in, his wand in his hand and his eyes very cold. He started tapping his wand against his leg slowly, while staring at Draco.
“What?”
“Bugger off, I said,” Harry said, and then he leaned forwards and hissed something in Parseltongue. Draco turned faintly green.
Vince blinked. Was Draco afraid of snakes? He would never have thought it, but it was true that he hadn’t had to face the snake in Dueling Club and he’d never talked about wanting one as a pet like every Slytherin talked about at one time or another.
“You can’t—you can’t just threaten me,” Draco said, his voice unsteady. “I’ll go to Professor Snape! I’ll tell my father!”
“What’s Snape going to do? Give me detention?” Harry grinned, and looked a little wild. It was true, Vince thought. No matter what kind of detention he got from Snape, Harry never changed his behavior or acted as though he wanted to. “And I’m not afraid of your daddy, either. Go ahead and tell him. Tell him that you were bullying one of my friends in the common room and I hissed at you and you took it as a threat. Not much of a proper Slytherin, are you, if you’re scared of snakes?”
Lots of people were watching them by now, and Vince heard them murmuring to each other. Yeah, Draco was scared of snakes, and they’d remember.
Vince smiled, and only smiled wider when Draco glanced at him. Draco turned his back and tried to look like it was his idea to march away, but people knew he wasn’t, and no one who was watching would forget.
This is what it’s like to be friends with the Heir of Slytherin, Vince thought happily. Greg was right.
“Vince? Are you okay?”
That was something Draco would never have done, either, asking him that or waiting to hear what he said. Vince nodded. “He said that I was stupid, and that’s nothing I haven’t heard before,” he said.
“You’re not stupid,” Harry said fiercely. “I mean, okay, you don’t do well in class, but neither does Longbottom and no one says he’s stupid. They just think he’s clumsy and too scared to concentrate when Snape’s there.”
Vince blinked. Yeah, okay, that was true. “You think I could make better marks than I do?” he asked.
“Yes,” Harry said. “And we’re going to try that. Hermione will want to try. She loves tutoring people. Just don’t tease or insult her.” He leaned forwards. “And tell me if Draco or someone else says something like that again, all right?”
Vince nodded. Then he looked up and caught Greg’s eye. Greg was standing by the doorway that led up to the dorms, his eyes wide.
You were right, Vince mouthed to him, although he had to do it several times before he could see that Greg got it.
Harry swiveled around on the chair, saw Greg, and waved him over. “That goes for you, too, Greg,” he said. “Come and tell me if someone is bothering you, okay? Teasing you or telling you that you’re stupid. Friends look out for each other.”
“Does that mean we can beat the people up who bother you?” Greg asked eagerly.
Harry rolled his eyes. “No. But a good hex might not be out of place.”
He was smiling. Vince smiled back, and felt happier than he had in a long time. Maybe happier than he’d ever been.
*
Greg sat down with his Potions textbook at their usual library table, and read a paragraph, and then looked at the notes Granger had written down for him, and understood it.
That made him really happy. As happy as he’d been when Harry had told them that he and Vince could come talk to Harry if they were being bullied.
Someday, Harry would reveal his power as the Heir of Slytherin. And Greg and Vince would be right there to follow him while he ruled over the masses.
But Greg and Vince would always have been there first, along with Weasley and Granger.
Because they were smart in a way no one else was, and they’d seen.
The End.