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Chapter Twenty-Three—Snakeling

“Who’s that, sir?”

Albus smiled at Harry. The boy had proven to be a docile student, which mitigated some of Albus’s concerns about him based on Severus’s report. He also didn’t act like someone who couldn’t control his temper and would lash out with elemental power every time he got upset.

And now the interest in a portrait of his House’s Founder. Albus considered that an excellent sign.

“That’s Godric Gryffindor.” Albus turned so that he could also take in the portrait of the man with golden hair and eyes that the painter had made appear golden, too, although Albus suspected they had really been brown or hazel. Godric stared down at them, as fierce as an eagle. “And that sword he’s holding is one of Hogwarts’s legendary artifacts.”

“Hogwarts has those—just lying around, sir?”

Albus laughed a little at the tone of incredulity in Harry’s voice. Grateful as he had been for the boy’s calmness, he would also give much to have him act more like a normal child. “Not a great many, and the Sword is carefully protected. But yes, there are some artifacts that the Founders left to the school.”

“How many, sir?”

Albus was glad enough to leave the subject of Potions for a while. Nothing said he couldn’t teach the child history. “Well, the Sorting Hat itself once belonged to Gryffindor, you know. He did a great many things for this school that support the way we function now. And there is a stairway on the seventh floor leading up to Ravenclaw Tower that has Rowena Ravenclaw’s wand embedded in it.”

“Why, sir?”

“Legend has it that the staircase didn’t move like the others, but swung wildly round and round and often tossed the students and professors trying to climb it off,” Albus said cheerfully. He would have liked to have seen that, although admittedly he would have liked to see it from a distance. “Rowena tried to control it, but she couldn’t discover a way to do so without sacrificing a great deal of her magical power. At the time, she was old and sick and didn’t have that power to spare. But embedding her wand in the staircase’s railing provided the means to do it without hastening her death.”

One of the portraits behind him made a small noise. Albus glanced hopefully over his shoulder. He had oftentimes tried to invite the portraits to join in his conversations with students, since they had seen so much history pass, but they rarely did unless it related to the behavior of the student in question.

However, whoever it was didn’t say anything else, and Albus turned back to face Harry, who was watching him with eyes as round as an owl’s. It reminded Albus of the fact that owls couldn’t stand to be around the boy. Guilt stabbed him. That was something he had meant to look into; he had a chance of finding a subtle Dark curse on Harry that St. Mungo’s had missed. And he hadn’t, overwhelmed as he was with other work.

I will make it a priority this week. Perhaps the boy would feel better if he had a pet that could spend time with him.

“The history of the school is fascinating, Harry. Would you like to discuss that for a while and leave Potions for next week?”

Harry gave him what appeared to be a shocked smile, but it quickly turned into a real one. “Thank you, sir. I’d like that.”

Albus began to talk about one of his favorite subjects, all the while watching Harry closely while not appearing to. Harry appeared utterly enthralled, and Albus regretted his past thoughts that the boy couldn’t be a true Gryffindor.

Yes, I have misjudged him.

*

I wonder if someone could make a replica of Ravenclaw’s wand and sell it as the real thing. Or claim that a sliver of wood was really from her wand.

The story isn’t well-known, but it’s still the kind of thing that a self-respecting wizard would never do, said Riddle’s stiff voice from the center of Harry’s brain. You should earn your way with magic, not with tricks.

Harry shrugged. If the Potters disowned him, and he had no reason to think that they’d try particularly hard to keep him in the family, then he’d have to survive any way he could.

Some things are worth more than survival.

Like what?

Power.

But you can’t wield power if you’re dead, Harry thought, and knocked on Hagrid’s door. The man had invited him to come that afternoon, and Harry had to admit the invitation was a little flattering. Maybe Hagrid had another creature he needed handled, the way Harry had with Norberta last year

If you have attained—

And then Riddle shut up abruptly. Harry shook his head. Riddle seemed determined not to share certain information with Harry, which up to a point was understandable, but it also meant that he had no chance to persuade Harry to trust him. Harry was starting to think that Riddle wasn’t very good at the game and Harry might have less to worry about than he’d thought.

“Harry! Come in!”

Hagrid’s voice boomed, as usual, but Harry didn’t mind that. He was glad that at least someone besides his brother or his friends was happy to see him. He smiled at Hagrid and slipped inside, glancing around curiously. There was a small sparkling thing near the hearth, but Harry couldn’t immediately tell what it was.

“Found this in the school,” Hagrid said happily, and bustled over to the glowing thing. Then he paused and cast a sheepish glance at Harry. “Er, not supposed to have her, technically. You won’t tell anyone?”

“No,” Harry said, hanging onto a straight face with an effort. He suspected Hagrid wasn’t “technically” supposed to have many of his creatures.

“You’re a grand friend, Harry.”

Harry smiled at him, and then came closer so he could actually make out what the thing near the hearth was. He stopped and stared when he did. It was a—bubble, maybe. It actually reminded him of nothing so much as some of the plastic toys that Dudley used to get to play with. It hovered above the hearth, turning slowly over, glinting and flashing. In the center floated a small golden shadow.

Harry had to come closer still before he could make out that it was a snake. And she abruptly turned her head and stared at him.

“You must tell him to let me go,” she hissed. “He means well, but he has kept me captive, and I have things to do.”

Harry twitched a little, but hopefully Hagrid would just think that was because of her being a snake at all. He had no intentions of revealing his Parseltongue to Hagrid. He looked up and smiled again. “What kind of snake is she?”

“Don’t rightly know,” Hagrid said, and knelt down next to the globe, or bubble, or whatever it was, picking it up. He turned it slowly back and forth, admiring it. “She got into the school, and Professor McGonagall put her in this, and then I asked if she could let me have her. Er. Professor McGonagall thought I was going to put her back in the Forest. Don’t tell her?”

Harry just shook his head, his eyes fixed on the snake. He had to admit that he had never seen one like her, either, not that he knew much about snakes. It wouldn’t do to be seen researching them, and he could never have one as a pet, so why bother?

Because it would increase your power! Riddle hissed in his head.

How, when everyone hates Parselmouths and Parseltongue because Voldemort was an idiot?

Riddle shut up, the way he often did when Harry mentioned Voldemort. Harry had started to wonder if he saw another Parselmouth as a rival.

“Ain’t she pretty?” Hagrid turned the globe over and over. The snake’s scales flashed. Golden, Harry saw, with slightly deeper colors around her scales that might be orange or red. “I’ve been feeding her mice and birds, and she eats everything! Pretty little thing.”

The snake squirmed up to the top of the globe, which must be less smooth on the inside than it looked like, and flicked her tongue at Harry again, not looking away from him. “I was on an important quest. You must tell him to release me. I am needed to engage with the Enemy, since you will not come to the Forest and free my original.”

Harry started. Luckily, Hagrid was staring at the snake adoringly and didn’t notice.

“Um, Hagrid.” Harry licked lips that felt as if they should be cracking despite the fact that they weren’t dry enough for that. “Are you going to release her?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hagrid said, looking up and blinking. “Just hoping that she might lay some eggs first, y’know? I’d love to have some baby snakes to raise.”

“I will not lay eggs,” the snake hissed, and jabbed her tail towards Hagrid. “I am only female by courtesy. My original is female, but she has been imprisoned for years and years, and even danger coming to the school cannot free her. She needs a Parselmouth. I was hoping to reach someone else, since you refuse to do your duty.”

Harry had never so badly wanted to use Parseltongue. He managed to refrain, and just shook his head a little at Hagrid. “She doesn’t look like she has them, though, does she? I mean, I thought you could tell when a snake was about to lay.”

“I am not a chicken.”

“Well, no, that’s true.” Hagrid stared at the snake longingly, and then sighed, turning to Harry. “I wanted to show her to you, though. D’you think that you could set her free? Professor McGonagall’s supposed to be on patrol duty tonight, and she doesn’t usually come outside when the students stay in the school, but…”

Harry nodded, to contain both his laughter and his relief, and held out his hands. Maybe he could study the bubble magic that contained the snake and feel how to copy it.

You should not come near her, Riddle snarled in the back of his head. She is the enemy.

Harry said nothing. It was true that he didn’t want to free the snake in the Forest, but he hadn’t expected to encounter a—an illusion of her, or whatever this was. Maybe he could talk to this one and figure some things out.

And it might help to make sense of an odd encounter with a portrait that had happened a few weeks ago, too.

“Thank you, Harry.” Hagrid gave Harry the globe and tossed one more melancholy look at the snake inside it. “Pretty little thing, ain’t she?”

“She’s beautiful,” Harry said sincerely. She did look prettier than some other snakes he’d seen, although no creature would ever match Norberta’s beauty, at least for him. That was one reason among many that he wanted to be a Dragon-Keeper.

“You’ll be careful with her?” Hagrid asked anxiously. “I know some Gryffindors don’t like snakes.”

If he knew, Riddle muttered.

Harry’s thoughts were saying something similar, for once, so he swallowed his laughter and nodded solemnly to Hagrid. “I promise that I’ll be careful with her, Hagrid. And I don’t mind snakes.” It was the closest he could come to saying he might like them, since word of that could get around the school too easily.

“All right, then.”

Hagrid waved from his hut as Harry carried the globe into the Forbidden Forest, but when Harry looked over his shoulder, the door of the hut was already closed. Presumably Hagrid couldn’t stand to look while Harry set the snake free.

Harry knelt down as soon as he was inside the Forest boundary and studied the globe for a long second. The magic sparked and leaped against his hands. The image that formed in his mind was one of several overlapping snakes wrapped around each other, the heads of the two on top facing each other with their jaws open.

“Set me free. I will be more careful this time when I go into the school.”

“What is your original?” Harry hissed. “I know there is a basilisk in the school and I have no intention of releasing her, but I know nothing about this snake in the Forest. I only know that she calls to me.”

“And you would listen. If you weren’t stupid.”

Harry laughed harshly. “Yes, of course. That’s totally reasonable. I should set the basilisk free, by that measure.”

“The basilisk hasn’t spoken to you! The basilisk hasn’t asked for help! It would never occur to our Enemy to do so.” The snake’s tail lashed against the side of the bubble globe. “Whereas we did ask you, and you have ignored us.”

“I had no reassurances about you. I had no idea what or who your original was like, and I have no idea even now if you intend good.”

The snake gave a long, low hiss that sounded like the Parseltongue equivalent of soft, frustrated cursing. “Ask us what you need to know. It would still be easier to have a Parselmouth to help us than to ask the only other person we can ask in the school.”

“All right. Why do you refer to the basilisk as the enemy? Aren’t you also a set of snakes—a snake—put here to guard the school by Slytherin?” Harry wasn’t sure how to refer to a snake that could apparently divide herself into a set of little snakes and send them slithering around to do her bidding.

The snake reared her head back and gave him the most offended look Harry had ever seen on an animal. “We are not. The basilisk is the Enemy. Slytherin was the Enemy. My original was put here to counter them. We weren’t sure that anyone who still spoke Parseltongue would attend the school and hear us, but the basilisk is coming close to awakening, to being set free. We must act.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Who set you here?”

The snake was now looking at him as if he was stupid. “Godric Gryffindor, of course.”

Harry felt his mouth fall open. “No one ever says that Gryffindor—spoke Parseltongue. They all only talk about Slytherin.”

“Humans are stupid and let their memories die,” the snake said dismissively. “Of course Gryffindor was a Parselmouth. He is part of the reason that the basilisk was set here at all. In the beginning, our forefather and the Enemy worked together to make the school a welcoming place for all. But then the Enemy became the Enemy, and so Gryffindor placed us here because he knew the basilisk might awaken sometime far in the future and be misused. We can counter her. We are very strong.”

She lies! cried Riddle in Harry’s head.

You would say that, wouldn’t you? Harry thought, but with only half his brain. The rest of his mind was racing furiously. He had encountered a portrait of a man he knew now was Gryffindor, after seeing the portrait that looked almost the same in Dumbledore’s office, and the man had spoken in Parseltongue to him. But he’d turned away when Harry pretended not to understand.

Harry had thought it was a portrait of someone from Slytherin’s line, if not Slytherin himself. Either the portrait or the statue in the Chamber could have been inaccurate. And then when he had learned it was a portrait of Gryffindor, he had wondered if the one he’d seen was somehow trying to trick him.

He thought it was less likely now.

“What if I told you that the basilisk isn’t going to be released? I won’t release it.”

Riddle whined in the back of his head. Harry told him he sounded like Dudley, which shut him up.

“It doesn’t matter if you are not. Someone will. The time is coming. The Enemy is stirring. That means she will be released.” The snake was once again trying to climb the inside of her bubble globe. “Let me go. You will do nothing.”

“I can’t do anything! You don’t know how much people around here hate Parselmouths.”

“You could find a sneaky way to do anything. Not only the Enemy and his kind are sneaky. But you will do nothing.” The snake gave him a long look, her tongue tasting whatever kind of air existed in the bubble. “We can sense that the way we can sense the Enemy stirring.”

Stung, Harry gave up on his attempt to learn the mechanics of the bubble containing her and twisted it apart. In seconds, the snake streaked away into the Forest and was lost among the leaf litter.

Harry stared after her. He tried to convince himself it was a good thing that he wasn’t going to do anything, the same way he had thought since he had realized that Riddle was in his head. He shouldn’t do anything. He certainly shouldn’t release the basilisk. And he shouldn’t get involved in whatever this was, either, this—multiplying snake in the Forbidden Forest.

You only have this snakeling’s word for it that her original intends to fight the basilisk, Riddle whispered. She could be lying.

There was that, too. Harry told himself it was for the best that he wasn’t going to do anything.

He said it over and over again to himself as he walked back to the school.

*

“Harry, are you all right? You’ve been quiet all evening.”

Theo had sneaked off to meet Harry for a private hour, where he could talk about antics in the Slytherin common room and Harry could talk about anything he wanted. They couldn’t steal this time together often, and Harry usually made the most of it, laughing and talking about Felix or grumbling about the other Gryffindors and how hard it was to imitate wanded spells and what a wanker Dumbledore was.

Harry sighed and stared at the table for a long moment. The elves in the kitchen still bustled around them, but Jilly wasn’t in sight. Theo thought she often wasn’t anymore, except for the lessons in elemental magic that Harry arranged. Then again, he had never paid attention to specific house-elves at Hogwarts until he met her. Maybe she was here in disguise.

“Someone told me that I wasn’t doing anything,” Harry said, almost too soft for Theo to hear. “Just—well, they didn’t say this, but like I was sitting there and letting the world go by. I told them that people would be upset at me if I did something. They said I should find a sneaky way to do it.”

Theo had to work hard to keep calm. This was—what he had hoped for, whenever he’d looked at Harry hiding magic powerful enough to cook brains and wrench souls out of bodies and watched him just keep it to himself.

But Harry would probably retreat if Theo talked about politics or Lords. So he nodded and asked, “Do you want to do the particular thing you’re talking about?”

Harry closed his eyes. “It would mean revealing myself as a Parselmouth.”

“And you think that would be more dangerous than revealing yourself as an elemental wizard.”

Harry didn’t answer.

Theo leaned forwards and twined his fingers with Harry’s. “There’s still the sneaky way of doing things. What about doing it that way?”

“I—I’m not that smart, Theo. Not about things that aren’t just my own magic and things I’ve learned here. What if I mess up, and people find out I’m a Parselmouth? What if the Potters take me out of school for it and dump me back with the Dursleys?”

He will probably never lose that fear. Theo could point out all sorts of things, including that Harry was strong enough to run away on his own, but he didn’t intend to. That wouldn’t soothe Harry’s fear.

“My father would come and rescue you,” Theo said simply. “He would keep you safe in our house and ensure that you had an excellent education. Hell, he’d take you out to tour dragon reservations if that was what you wanted.”

Harry stared at him. “He doesn’t like me that much.”

“You’re right. It wouldn’t be unselfish.” Theo shrugged. “He would want to have you as an ally and ensure that you used some of your power for the benefit of our family. But I would insist on binding vows and documents signed in blood. Blood rituals, even. I wouldn’t let him just do whatever he wants to you.”

“Do you think you could stop him?”

Theo breathed out slowly. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone else.”

Harry leaned forwards at once. He probably didn’t realize how he acted when someone said they were going to share secrets with him, Theo thought idly. For all that Harry kept an infuriating number of them, he always wanted more.

“You know that Dumbledore and the Ministry took me away from Father because they thought he murdered my mum.”

“Yeah.”

“He didn’t.”

“You said.”

Harry’s eyes were fastened on him, shining like stars. Theo had never been drunk, but he thought this might be what it was like. Harry could do things to people when he made them the center of his attention.

“He didn’t murder her,” Theo repeated, and then took the deep breath he needed to speak the next words. “But he did kill her.”

Harry’s hand jerked across the table. Theo let it go, and Harry nearly smashed it into a cup of pumpkin juice one of the elves had brought them earlier that Harry hadn’t touched. “How can you make that distinction?” Harry whispered. “Is that what your father told you, or is that what you worked out?”

Theo laughed, and then stopped, because the sound of that laugher wasn’t what he’d thought it would be. “I saw it happen, Harry.”

His best friend was quiet, and the silence drew Theo to keep talking.

“They were going to duel,” Theo whispered. “Mum loved to duel. She was better at it than Father. But Father has more raw power. They dueled all the time, but this time, Mum told him that she wanted a real duel. The kind of thing he would have done in—in the war.” His throat stuck at admitting Father had been a Death Eater, but Harry simply watched him and watched him, and after a moment, Theo was able to continue. “He told her that he didn’t want to do that, and she nearly opened his throat with her next spell.

“They dueled right in the middle of the entrance hall. You remember? With the high ceilings and that priceless tapestry of Pegasus in flight to Olympus on the wall?”

“I remember.”

“Father was angry, and he responded that way. Mum met him. It was—I don’t know how to describe it.” Theo saw the flash of the spells in his dreams all the time, and he still didn’t know to describe it. “And then Father cast a spell that she should have been able to deflect, but Mum sent it flying into a vase that used to stand on a plinth there. It was a vase that was owned by the Nott family for generations. Father howled, and he—he used the Entrail-Expelling Curse on her. She couldn’t shield in time.”

There was absolute silence. Theo saw Harry’s fingers twitching out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t look his friend in the face.

“Did you try to hurt him?”

Theo exhaled slowly. He owed Harry a lot of things, he thought, but nothing had confirmed they were friends quite as much as the fact that Harry had known to ask that question, or that his voice was calm when he did.

“Yes,” Theo whispered. “I didn’t—I hurled myself over the balcony where I was watching. My magic just sort of reached out and splashed Father. I didn’t have a wand, I couldn’t cast a spell. It was accidental magic. But that’s the reason he has the scar on his face that he does.”

“I never noticed a scar.”

“It’s off to the center of his forehead, above his eye. Sort of like yours. You wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking for it, really.”

“Did he—hurt you?”

“No.” Theo swallowed. “He took my mother to St. Mungo’s, and they treated both of them. They couldn’t save her. But it was obvious that she’d been hit with an Entrail-Expelling Curse, and they took his wand away and tested it. Then they decided that he’d murdered her and they took me away, and he probably would have gone to Azkaban except that he swore under Veritaserum he hadn’t meant to kill her. They classified it as murder anyway.”

Theo’s stomach seethed when he thought about it. It wasn’t the same as his just murdering her outright, which would have been—like Father, but not, at the same time. He had loved Mum. He loved Theo.

But no one had believed it had been accidental, for all that Father had been able to say so under Veritaserum. So they had taken Theo away. And they had believed that he was tainted at the same time, not an innocent victim, so they’d given him to the Figgs to be “corrected.” They believed all sorts of contradictory things, and Theo was hurt, and Theo hated them.

Worse than Father. Because Father had been angry, but he had also believed that Mum could have shielded herself from the curse. Theo was utterly, utterly sure of that, in a way that made his confidence unshakable.

“I’m sorry, Theo.”

Theo blinked, and squeezed Harry’s hand. “You had nothing to do with any of it. And you’ve made the last year better than I could have imagined.”

“You can’t accept sympathy, then? That sounds like the kind of thing you’d say if you told me you were sorry for something and I acted like you.”

Theo laughed shakily and sat back. “Anyway. You asked if I thought I could stop Father from just using you. Yeah, I can. All I have to do is remind him of Mum’s death, and he—crumples. Sometimes I do it without meaning to, like when I look at him and he sees Mum’s eyes in my face. But I would do it deliberately in this case. And he would stop.”

Harry was staring at him in a way that Theo had never seen before. Theo looked evenly back. He hoped he hadn’t caused Harry to pity him or something. Because he would have to shove Harry off the bench if that was the case, and he didn’t want to hurt his best friend.

*

He talks to his father about his mum’s death. His father, who killed his mum. And Theo can talk about using his power against his father, and—

It isn’t the end of the world.

Harry lowered his gaze to the table and sat there without moving for long seconds. Theo waited for him. Theo was always waiting for him, it seemed, now that Harry thought about it, and listening to the story of his mum’s death had been only a small return of everything he had done for Harry.

But if Theo could stand up to the father who had killed his mum, and use his power, and not think he was going to be punished or the power was evil—

Harry could do the same thing.

“Harry?”

Theo sounded a little freaked out. Harry smiled at him. “You just convinced me that it would be possible to stand up against the Potters and not suffer the end of the world.”

“I did? I mean, your circumstances with your family are so different—”

“I know. But I’m always sitting here and thinking about what could happen, if someone found out I was an elementalist or a Parselmouth. Thinking that the worst things haven’t happened yet, that there’s always worse yet to come. And as long as I think that, then I don’t know what I can do to make things better.”

Theo blinked several times. “I never meant to make you feel you had to…”

“I know. But I think I needed this push.” Riddle said something in the back of his mind that Harry deliberately ignored, the way he could ignore other people snoring in History. “Listen, Theo. I found a portrait of a man the other day who spoke to me in Parseltongue. I ignored it because I thought it was Salazar Slytherin. And then I saw the same portrait in Dumbledore’s office, and asked who it was, and Dumbledore said it was Godric Gryffindor.”

“What?” Theo breathed.

“Yeah. And Hagrid had a snake that McGonagall captured sneaking into the school. The snake talked to me and said she was a piece, or a copy, or something, of a snake who’s trapped in the Forbidden Forest. The snake is Gryffindor’s, or was put there by Gryffindor, to stop the approach of an enemy to the school.”

“What enemy?”

Shit. Harry hadn’t thought it through when he’d started admitting this that it meant admitting the existence of the diary and Riddle and the Chamber of Secrets. Harry clenched his hands together under the table and tried to reassure himself that the worst wouldn’t happen, that Theo wouldn’t turn away from Harry for keeping more secrets.

“There’s a basilisk under the school.”

“There is a what?”

“Um. In the Chamber of Secrets.”

“How do you possibly know this?”

Harry took a deep breath. “Ginny Weasley found a diary in her books that she bought from Flourish and Blotts…”

The story didn’t take as long to tell as Harry had thought it would. It also didn’t lessen the darkness or the disbelief in Theo’s face one iota. Harry leaned back and tried to convince himself that he hadn’t just destroyed their friendship.

“You could have freed the basilisk and killed yourself.”

“Not a word about the other students I would have endangered because I’d let the basilisk out of the Chamber of Secrets?”

“I don’t care about them,” Theo said, which Harry knew was at least partially a lie. Theo cared about Blaise, and he cared about Fred and George at least a little, enough to watch them and make sure they didn’t tell anyone about Harry’s elemental magic. “I just—Harry. Please. Please stop facing these things alone.”

“I told you.”

“Not until months after it started!”

That was true enough. Harry winced and sat there. He hated this, this—ripping feeling inside him. As though someone had grabbed a piece of cloth attached to the center of his body and was giving it a tug.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered at last.

“Good. Does that mean you’ll stop facing these things by yourself?”

“I—yes.” Harry made a decision and told himself that it didn’t matter what came after this, that it would be all right, that Theo wouldn’t walk away because Harry didn’t know how to word this invitation. “Do you want to come visit Godric Gryffindor’s portrait with me tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

*

Harry took a deep breath and stepped into the corridor where he had seen the portrait he knew now was Gryffindor. The last few times he’d been by, the frame had been empty. But this time, the blond man was in the canvas, and turned around to stare at him as soon as he and Theo entered the corridor.

“I’ve come to talk to you,” Harry said in Parseltongue.

The man leaned forwards. Now that he was taking the time to look at him, Harry could see the shape of the golden torc that encircled the portrait’s neck: the slim slenderness of the body, the gleam of the ruby eyes, the head holding its tail in its mouth. Before, Harry might have tried to say it was a dragon. Now, he knew better.

“Fucking finally,” snapped Godric Gryffindor.