Chapter Twenty-Seven of 'Casualties of Politics'- A Shimmer of Flame

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Twenty-Seven—A Shimmer of Flame

“Well, I don’t think we should do it!”

Harry looked up and blinked as he took in the unusual sight of Fred and George Weasley fighting. They were standing in the middle of the Gryffindor common room, almost nose-to-nose, yelling at each other.

“Why not? You know that Mum—”

“I know there’s a bloody good reason that she doesn’t want Ginny learning that kind of magic—”

“Does this have something to do with Ginny being a girl?”

Felix’s voice was quiet, but managed to cut through the twins’ fight. George flung up a disgusted hand and turned towards Felix, running that hand through his hair. “Yes! Mum thinks that Ginny shouldn’t even fly a racing broom by herself, which is ridiculous. She’s sneaked out and done it enough times. She thinks we don’t know, but we do. She can do it! And Fred thinks we shouldn’t teach her the kinds of spells that would let her defend herself!”

“That’s not why I’m objecting!” Fred was flushed so brightly Harry couldn’t make out his freckles. “You shouldn’t teach her that spell because it affects the caster’s mind as well as the target’s, and you know that means—”

“I thought my twin brother would be more open to the cause of defending our little sister,” George said coldly, and turned away. “My mistake.”

“Please stop fighting, and listen a moment.”

Harry blinked as Felix spoke again. For a moment, he thought he could see trailing sparks tumbling through the air of the common room, extending from Felix to the walls. The people who were lounging about discussing homework or playing games or waiting for dinner to begin turned towards him like flowers towards the sun.

Well. Except for Harry. Harry could feel the demand for his attention, the tug that Felix seemed to be exerting, but it was just kind of irritating instead of compelling. He pictured a snake in his mind, the way he did when he was casting the Imperius, and the power rolled off the snake’s back and away from him.

Harry blinked, and blinked again, while Felix continued. Was that the power of a Lord that Dumbledore and the Potters had talked about?

If so, no wonder that the Potters had followed Dumbledore. No wonder Dumbledore was hoping that Felix would become a Lord and lure some people away from Voldemort.

Harry was just as glad that no one would follow him. It was a disgusting feeling, the idea that someone could bind a person to act against their own will or wisdom without even casting a curse.

“Listen to what?” George asked, sounding sullen.

Felix turned and looked at them. Fred blinked, then stared at the floor with a scowl. George just kept looking back at Felix. Harry had to admire him a little for that. He supposed the Weasley twins were more different than he’d thought after all, if they were differently affected by Felix’s power.

“Your argument doesn’t make a lot of sense. I mean, on the one hand, you shouldn’t avoid teaching Ginny some spells just because she’s a girl, but why teach her dangerous spells?”

“It’s not dangerous!”

“Is too!” snapped Fred, and his hair was practically standing on end as he made a sharp gesture with his hand at George.

George glared back, so unmoved that Harry shook his head. Felix wasn’t going to settle this, as much as he might want to.

“What spell is it?” Felix asked.

George started and then looked around the common room, seeming to notice all the people staring back at them for the first time. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Do I have to tell you in front of all these people?”

“You don’t have to tell me at all. But I think you should at least think about whether it’s dangerous, since Fred seems to think it is.”

“It’s not dangerous. It will just help keep Ginny safe.” George raised his voice a little. “Haven’t you ever wanted to practice magic that your parents told you wasn’t allowed or wasn’t safe? This will make it so that Ginny can do that. She knows what she’s doing. She handles more dangerous magic every day.” He gave Harry a pointed glance.

Harry just stared back. Ginny had made the choice to learn elemental magic, and so had George. She could make the decision to stop. George couldn’t make it for her.

Oddly, George took a small step back, even though he hadn’t seemed to be affected by Felix’s power. Harry concealed a frown and decided to ask Theo later if it was possible to influence someone mentally with elemental power, even though he hadn’t known he was doing it.

He hoped not. The last thing Harry wanted to do was start dealing with the kind of mindless slaves that Dumbledore’s or Voldemort’s power seemed to produce.

“I think everyone should calm down.” Felix’s voice was firm, and Harry actually felt his will pressing on the common room, forcing down the emotions of those who were staring and muttering. Once again, Harry shivered himself out of it. “What is the spell, George? You never said.”

“I don’t need to.”

“He doesn’t need to, but he should.”

George whipped around to glare at Fred, and it seemed they might go back to their shouting match. Ron, of all people, was the one to say loudly, “Does it really matter what this is about? If the magic is dangerous, then Ginny shouldn’t be casting it.”

“It’s not dangerous! I wouldn’t teach my little sister a dangerous spell!”

Ron gave George a dubious glance that made him bristle, and then stood up and turned to Harry and Felix and Hermione, who was watching with big eyes. “Whatever. I’m tired of this argument. Can we go down to dinner now?”

Harry nodded and stood up. He didn’t think that the argument was over, or that it was boring. But since George obviously wouldn’t name the spell, and Fred wouldn’t either—maybe because he thought that was a step too far in betraying his beloved brother—they wouldn’t learn anything by staying.

“Maybe I just want to be thought of as myself and not one of a pair all the time!”

It seemed that Fred had said something else to George that Harry had missed. George shouldered angrily out of the common room. Fred stared after him with his hands shaking, and then turned and went up the stairs to the fourth-year boys’ dormitory.

“Let’s go.”

Hermione’s voice was shaky, too. Harry glanced at her as they walked out in a clump that included all the Gryffindors from their year and some from first. “Are you all right?” He didn’t care that much, but knowing things like what scared her would be useful if she ever tried to turn on him.

“Sometimes my aunt and uncle would yell like that. They—drink a lot.” Hermione wrapped her arms around herself in a hug. “My mum and dad said we wouldn’t visit them anymore after last year.”

“Well, that’s good that you’re staying away,” Harry said, and smiled when she smiled timidly at him. Hermione was bossy a lot of the time, but she also acted as though she were afraid someone would turn on her at any second. Maybe it came from spending time around this aunt and uncle—or just because she hadn’t had friends before she came to Hogwarts, and she thought the ones she had now could abandon her at any moment.

Harry sort of wished he could tell her that it would take more than a moment’s uncertainty for Felix and Ron to leave her behind. After all, she was normal.

*

“Sir? Can I ask you a question?”

Filius lowered his wand and smiled at Harry. “You certainly may, Mr. Potter.” So far, he had found the older Mr. Potter far quieter in class than he remembered him, but some of his impressions, when he had revised the memories in a Pensieve, had turned out to be of Felix Potter.

The twins were identical, of course, but they didn’t look enough alike that Filius should have been so easily confused. He hadn’t been paying proper attention to the older Mr. Potter. Well, that had changed now, and at least Mr. Potter had managed to duplicate a few simple charms with wandless magic alone.

“Why are you so sympathetic to me, but you weren’t to Luna?”

“Miss Luna Lovegood? Does she have wandless magic as well?”

Mr. Potter had an odd expression on his face, but he shook his head. “I just meant that she was being bullied by Ravenclaws earlier this year, and you seemed upset about the accusations instead of the fact that she was bullied.”

Filius sighed. He hadn’t anticipated this coming up, but perhaps he should have. It seemed Miss Lovegood and Mr. Potter were friends. “From what I understand, the bullying was name-calling and theft of her items. It was not violence, such as Miss Weasley retaliated with, and as someone was using to retaliate against the students in question later,” he added, with a frown. He had never found the source of the epidemic of small accidents and bad luck that had befallen Miss Edgecombe and the other accused bullies. “When it crosses the line from words, then I must intervene.”

“But not before that? Not with theft?”

“I must seem callous to you, Mr. Potter.”

“Yes, sir.”

Filius started, not having expected agreement. But he looked into the young Mr. Potter’s eyes and found nothing but the flatness of a snake, looking back at him. He swallowed a little and leaned back against his chair.

“I—might not have reacted as I should have to the rumors of theft,” he said slowly. “But only Miss Weasley and Miss Lovegood reported thefts. The other Ravenclaw students always said they had only borrowed Miss Lovegood’s items by mistake, or never touched them, and then returned them to her trunk.”

“They returned them to her trunk after never touching them?”

“You know what I mean, Mr. Potter.”

“Yes, sir. I’m not sure that you do.”

Filius sat down and considered Mr. Potter for a long moment. Then he said, “Do you want to sit down? It seems that we’re going to have a longer chat than I expected.”

“Yes, sir.”

Filius concentrated on Mr. Potter as he sat. He could often sense someone’s mood by feeling the temper of their magic, whether or not they showed that expression on their faces. That had proven useful many times, given that he had met many people who disapproved of half-goblins, but wouldn’t want to show that to him.

Mr. Potter’s magic was elusive, however. It seemed to wrap about his body so closely that it didn’t extend into the atmosphere around him. And there was a simmer to it, as if he were cooking a stew over a fire.

But by itself, that told Filius nothing.

“Why are you so sympathetic to me when you weren’t to Luna, sir?”

“I had no proof of the thefts, other than the word of one person who had already used violence and one who barely spoke a word in her own defense.”

“But there should be a charm to know who’s telling the truth. Or you could probably make an educated guess just based on how well you know your students. And Luna didn’t speak up because she already knows that she tends not to be believed.”

Filius winced. It sounded like Mr. Potter spoke from experience. Of course, he had hardly had the happiest experience in the magical world.

Or before it?

“There isn’t a charm to show when someone is telling the truth,” Filius said, to distract himself from the pain that whipped through his body for Mr. Potter. “There is a potion, Veritaserum. It’s used because the spell doesn’t exist.”

“What? Why not? Surely someone would want to invent it because it would be so useful?”

Filius shook his head. “Unless one is asking a person yes or no questions about the bare facts of a situation they know all the details of, truth is not that simple to elicit, Mr. Potter. There are misunderstandings, things that someone genuinely believes to be true that are not, things they lack knowledge of, and ways they can shade their words. The potion works because it is borne in the body, and thus can control the person’s tongue and influence their mind. It still won’t work if someone genuinely doesn’t know what happened in a particular situation or what someone else thinks, but it will force them to say that they don’t know if instead of lying about it.”

Mr. Potter appeared to be thinking deeply. Filius sat back and fixed himself a cup of tea, while his mind turned around and around the words Mr. Potter had spoken about Miss Lovegood.

I was one of those people who did not believe her.

Filius closed his eyes. It had been quite a while since he had felt shame this intense.

“Do you think someone could invent a charm that would force people to tell the truth, sir?”

“You mean detect the truth, Mr. Potter?”

“Yes, sir.”

Filius eyed the boy. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that the change in wording was the one Mr. Potter had intended, but, well, since so far no one had managed to overcome the magical difficulties Filius had described, he didn’t think a second-year student would be the first one to do it.

“Perhaps someday,” Filius said, and then he took a deep breath. Yes, he had done Miss Lovegood and Miss Weasley a great wrong, one that had wedged itself into his guts like a hook, but now was the time to begin making up for it. “Thank you, Mr. Potter.”

“For what, sir?”

“For pointing out my mistakes to me. I shouldn’t have trusted Miss Edgecombe and the others so readily. I shouldn’t have discounted Miss Weasley’s story without first investigating it. And I should have listened to Miss Lovegood.”

Mr. Potter stared at him with such utterly astonished eyes that Filius felt a stirring of anger. Has any adult ever not failed this child?

But then Mr. Potter’s expression and his magic both smoothed out again, and he said, “It was nice of you to say that, sir. But are you going to apologize to Ginny and Luna?”

“Yes, I will.”

“Are you going to punish Edgecombe and the others?” The simmer in Mr. Potter’s magic crept back into the air, and Filius cocked his head. This time, he thought he was on the verge of recognizing the emotion behind it, although he had never felt anything exactly like it before.

“I feel they have been thoroughly punished for the last incident,” Filius said dryly. “But going forwards, yes, I will certainly make sure that I do not let my own partiality blind me.”

Mr. Potter nodded slowly, and they returned to the discussion of charms that he might be able to duplicate with wandless magic. The whole time, Filius listened to the slow simmer of the child’s magic, and concentrated on identifying what was behind it.

Only when Mr. Potter had left, however, and Filius had gone back to marking a series of fourth-year essays, did the insight strike him. He put down his quill, shaken.

The emotion behind Mr. Potter’s crackling magic was rage. Filius had last felt it when he’d faced a goblin duelist who had been furious at losing to a half-human and had nearly pulled down the cavern roof on their heads.

Filius swallowed. It seemed that Mr. Potter’s parents, and the other professors, and even the Headmaster, had failed Mr. Potter far more comprehensively than Filius had guessed. Especially if that rage was Mr. Potter’s default state instead of something that he only felt at moments of intense stress.

Especially if the boy managed to retain a calm face most of the time.

He is so powerful. I will have to be so careful to help him gently, instead of provoking him.

*

“The time draws closer when the basilisk will be released.”

“How do you know?” Harry sighed when Gryffindor stared at him. “Sir.”

The portrait paced slowly back and forth. The background behind him had begun to alter a few days ago, Harry had noticed. The dark red curtains that had been there at first were now parted, and there was a glimpse of a door that led who knew where. The bookshelves were shrouded with curtains of their own, now.

“I was created to defend this school. And I have a deep link with the Chamber of Secrets, and the monster that Salazar thought would defend the students.”

Harry nodded grimly. “What do you think I can do?”

Gryffindor stopped pacing and just looked at him. Harry stared back in stubborn silence. Gryffindor clearly had some idea, and as clearly, he hadn’t expected Harry to ask the question.

Harry waited. He was quiet and had to use wandless magic. He wasn’t stupid.

“You have talked about revealing your wandless magic more clearly to others,” Gryffindor said slowly. “You have revealed it to one professor. But the basilisk cannot be defeated by wandless magic alone.”

“So I need allies?”

“You misunderstand me. You will need to use elemental magic to defeat it.”

“Well, that’s what most of mine is, anyway. Except for the Parseltongue and things like that.”

“You will need to use elemental magic as openly as possible, in a battle with the basilisk that others may see.”

Harry just nodded. He had his own ideas about that. Theo and some of the others would probably want to come to the battle with the basilisk with him, but Harry would just tie them up in bonds of wind and put them in a room somewhere. No one else was going to fight the basilisk except for him.

“I expected more objections from you.”

“We’ve been discussing that I would need to battle the basilisk for some time. I know that I’ll have to. That I’m the only Parselmouth in the school, unless whoever’s going to release the basilisk counts.”

Gryffindor waited for a long, quiet moment. Harry waited, too. Gryffindor gave in at last, with a little sigh and a shake of his head. “There will come a day when waiting and silence will not work for you.”

“I think we’re talking about one.”

Gryffindor nodded, then. “All right. You should go to the forest and wake Semandra. Speak with her. Calm her. I hope you have taken your lessons in speaking with elemental spirits seriously, or she might destroy you.”

Harry snorted a little. Semandra meant “conflagration” in Parseltongue. “You couldn’t have named her something subtler?”

“Strange that you think I named her.”

Harry just nodded. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by that, given the elemental spirits he’d been speaking to, although none of them had ever named themselves to him. “Do you really think I can control a giant fire elemental snake?”

“It is not about controlling her. It is about negotiating with her.”

Harry shook his head. “And if I can’t convince her to fight the basilisk? Or if I can’t convince her that she should follow my lead in doing so?”

Gryffindor leaned forwards, face so grave that Harry winced in spite of himself. “If you cannot, then most of the school might end up dead before the professors could contain the basilisk.”

Harry closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing for a moment. Part of him wanted to say he didn’t care. He liked some of the students, some of them were his friends, and a few of the professors were okay, but others were like Snape or Dumbledore or Flitwick. Why should he care if the basilisk destroyed them all?

But of course, he couldn’t guarantee that the basilisk would only hurt the people he didn’t like. He wouldn’t be the one directing it.

And if nobody should rely on him to save them…

That had been true last year, too, when he had confronted Quirrell in front of the Mirror of Erised, but he had still done it.

And while no one had betrayed him personally this time the way Quirrell had, still, the other part of him was on fire with rage. Riddle had no right to endanger Harry’s friends by awakening the basilisk. He would defeat the basilisk and the shade because he hated Riddle, and because he cared for his friends, and that was enough to overcome his indifference to the others.

“Tell me how to negotiate with her,” Harry said in Parseltongue, opening his eyes, and Gryffindor smiled.

*

Felix found himself breathing carefully when Hedwig came to him with the letter he knew would be from Lupin. He had sent her to deliver a letter, but also told her to dart away the minute Lupin tried to harm her.

(Hedwig had bitten him for that, as if asking why he thought she was stupid).

But Hedwig seemed whole as she settled at Felix’s side on the breakfast table, rubbing her beak against his hand for a moment before attacking his toast. Felix flipped open the envelope, thinking it could be anything from a diatribe to an apology.

It was neither. Lupin’s return message was only two words.

Help me.

Felix swallowed, and felt cold settle into his bones. He waited for a moment until Ron was distracted by the eggs and Hermione was distracted by scolding Ron for taking too many, and then he reached out and tapped Harry’s shoulder.

Harry glanced up, eyes cold. Then he saw it was Felix and smiled.

Sometimes Felix was amazed that Harry hadn’t killed someone yet. But, along with that, he was honored that Harry trusted him enough to relax in his presence. He smiled feebly and held the letter out. “This is what came when I wrote to Lupin,” he said, half-mouthing the words, his eyes darting to the other Gryffindors.

“Why did you—”

But Harry cut himself off, shaking his head, and took the letter. Felix wondered whether Harry had decided it was a good idea to write to Lupin after all or just realized that he couldn’t control what Felix chose to do.

Felix hoped he knew which one it was. But he wasn’t going to hold his breath.

Harry stared at the letter in silence for a long moment. Felix wondered if he was the only one who noticed the edge of the parchment swaying in a slight breeze. Probably. The Weasley twins weren’t at the table right now.

What was that fight they had about?

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to do anything stupid.”

Felix blinked and started, thinking that Harry was talking about interfering with the fight between the twins. Then he saw the way Harry clutched the letter, and sighed, reaching out to nudge Harry’s shoulder. “I’m not going to run off and find him, no.”

“And what else?”

“What?”

“What else are you not going to do? Are you going to try and help him?”

“After what we saw? Of course I am!”

“What we saw was him coming close to eating you!”

“That doesn’t mean he couldn’t use help!”

“Or this is a trap to lure you into his clutches, did you ever think of that?”

Felix paused. Well, no, he hadn’t thought about that. That kind of paranoia was much more Harry’s thing.

Harry nodded when he saw the way Felix was looking at him. “I’m not saying that we can’t do anything. I’m saying that given we already tried to meet up with him once and he either betrayed us, or he’s under a curse that means he has no choice but to act the way he does, we need to be careful.”

Yes, all right, Felix could appreciate that. He repressed the temptation to tease Harry about sounding like their father. Harry had never heard James Potter sound like that.

“So what do you suggest?”

As Harry leaned forwards and a few Gryffindors glanced curiously over at them, Felix wondered if his brother noticed that other people were just as attracted by Harry’s magic as they were by Felix’s. Then again, Harry didn’t want to become any kind of leader or Lord, not the way Felix thought he would have to to make things more just and right for other people.

Felix put it out of his mind.

*

“I’m coming with you.”

Harry had stood still for a long time, his eyes fastened on Theo, before he’d agreed. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said shortly when Theo had asked why he’d even hesitated.

Theo held the warmth that those words had provoked to himself as he picked his way behind Harry through the Forbidden Forest. A small ball of fire hovered over them, providing more light than a Lumos, although Theo had his wand lit anyway. More flames darted through the trees on either side of them, filling the darkness with wavering shadows.

They were for defense as much as light, Theo knew, and took comfort in Harry’s willingness to burn anything who attacked them to death.

“This is it.”

Theo paused and looked around the section of forest that Harry had halted in. It was nothing special, a bit of clear space that looked like it was only clear because a huge oak loomed over them and killed everything in its shade. At that, vines and other trees shoved up close beside them, and tangles of thickets and brambles beyond that.

“How do you know that?”

“I was having dreams of where Semandra was located in the forest.”

Harry tilted his head. His eyes reflected the firelight with an intense, focused glow that made pleasurable shivers climb up and down Theo’s spine.

He couldn’t wait to see the looks on the Potters’ faces, and Dumbledore’s, when Harry revealed his power in front of them. And he knew he would get to see them, one way or another. Harry would show Theo the memories in a Pensieve if he had to.

“I need you to hold still,” Harry said, and flicked his hand. Several of the hovering balls of fire darted away from their patrol and came to orbit around Theo instead. “These should protect you, but don’t come out from among them, all right?”

“Why?”

“Gryffindor told me a bit about elemental spirits like Semandra. She’s been out here so long that she might not be sane.”

“And you’re going to wake her up?”

“I can’t defeat the basilisk on my own. Gryffindor put her here because he knew the basilisk would wake up someday.”

“Harry.”

Harry, who looked as if he’d been about to begin sinking into a trance, turned around and stared at Theo.

“You could defeat the basilisk on your own,” Theo said, and put all his conviction in his voice. “You would have to use your wandless magic along with your elemental magic, but you could do it. You know you could. Why don’t you want to unleash your power on the basilisk? Are you still trying to hide it?” He couldn’t keep his contempt out of his voice.

Harry took a step back towards him. The firelight caught in his eyes again, and Theo suddenly wished, very hard, that he hadn’t said what he had just said.

“No.”

That was all Harry said, staring at him, and Theo had to swallow twice before he could ask, “Then why are you so insistent on waking this fire elemental?”

“Amazingly,” Harry said, “I try not to cause hurt to my friends. And that means you. But I suppose, if you didn’t care if a basilisk poisoned you or killed you with its eyes, then I shouldn’t have taken such care.”

He turned away. The fireballs moved in front of Theo, growing, so that he couldn’t see a thing about what Harry was doing, other than standing over the center of the small clear patch of ground. Theo tried to stand on his toes and peer over the top of the ring of fire, but that just made it expand and get in the way again.

Theo swallowed. He hated apologizing, but, well.

He would have to.

If they did both manage to survive this.

*

Harry sank into the light trance that Gryffindor had told him would be necessary for this. The forest around him grew distant and cool, as if he were standing in the middle of a dream. He reached out with his magic towards—

There wasn’t a word for it. But there didn’t need to be a word, not when he was busy trying to touch the mind of the fire elemental who should be asleep here.

If he could find her. If she were sane enough to recognize the touch of an elemental wizard in the first place.

Harry drifted in the depths of his own mind, his magic swaying back and forth inside him. He could feel the fire that surrounded Theo, and the rainwater that had collected in a hollow a short distance away, and the wind whipping the tops of the trees, and the solid earth beneath his feet. Everything else was distant.

Child.

The voice was loud enough that it nearly woke Harry from his trance. But he managed to stand still, in the end, and turn only part of his attention towards it. The rest of him remained entwined with the elements around him.

Semandra?

There was a hiss that seemed to surround him like the actual coils of a gigantic snake. Harry remained still. The sound pooled and went on expanding, and part of Harry spared a thought for Theo, inside Harry’s ring of fire, and hoped he understood why Harry had forbidden him from being part of this awakening now.

I have not answered to that name in a long time.

It’s the name that Godric Gryffindor told me you called yourself.

Silence, and the feeling of something pulling away from Harry like a retreating wave. Harry just waited, though. He knew about patience. He had had to be patient when the Dursleys stuffed him into a cupboard without food, and when he had spent weeks or months with the Potters and hadn’t killed them.

You intrigue me, child. You know much of pain for one so young.

Yes. My parents thought they could use me to protect a pair of Muggles who are related to my mother, and so they left me there. The Muggles treated me poorly.

Why would they leave an elemental wizard with a pair of Muggles?

Harry laughed in the privacy of his mind, although he thought he could see flames dancing as he did. Maybe the flames he had left with Theo, maybe flames of other times and places. They didn’t know I was elemental at the time. My brother and I were attacked by a Dark Lord, and it affected our magic somehow. So it was partially because they believed me damaged that they got rid of me.

And now?

They do not know about my magic. Although they will in a short time. Harry shook his head a little. He had wandered away from the main subject and should get back to it. And Gryffindor says to tell you that the Great Enemy has been awakened.

There was a long pause, and then the sensation of the rushing waves. This time, it was moving forwards, to Harry’s position instead of away. He kept his eyes closed, though, until he heard Theo’s gasp, and then they snapped open despite himself.

An enormous snake made of fire reared over him. She had a long, slender body with scale patterns picked out in dark red, and eyes that were narrow pools of gold with a slit black pupil. She tilted her head to the side and fixed those golden eyes on him. Her head was nearly the height of the nearest tree.

And when her gaze met his…

Harry fell to his knees as magic swept over his mind. There was shock, and excitement, and surprise, and power.

Distantly, with the part of him that could still think, Harry suspected he knew why Felix’s owl and other animals hated him. Harry was so perfectly suited to one being that he had struck them as a predator, or at least a wizard they were unable to connect with.

The part of him that could feel was swept away in wonder like a cascade of falling stars.

Semandra was awake. She had been waiting in the Forest. She had been yearning for a wizard or a witch since she had come here. She had agreed to stay asleep all these centuries so that she could fight the basilisk someday, but she had also hoped that perhaps she could while away the time until someone was born suited to her.

Gryffindor had not been suited to her. Neither had the other Parselmouth she had known at the time, Salazar Slytherin.

But now. But now.

You are for me.

Harry felt as though someone had looked at him, looked at him down to the soul, and accepted him—snarling magic, and desire to make people leave him alone, and hatred of the Potters, and all. He stood and raised a trembling hand.

It touched Semandra’s scales, and didn’t burn. Semandra turned her head to the side and flickered out her tongue, which, like a living flame, landed on his skin and didn’t scorch.

What can we do? Speaking to her in his mind was more natural than Parseltongue aloud, although Harry didn’t know why.

What do you mean?

You’re too large to keep with me in Hogwarts, and too—noticeable. But I don’t want to leave you.

Harry felt as though something had curdled in his stomach when he admitted that to Semandra. It was an admission that would have made him look weak in front of anyone else. But Semandra simply coiled towards him and touched him again with her tongue.

Did you think that I am not capable of disguising myself? And her whole enormous body became a sheet of roaring flame, and vanished.

Harry spun in place, staring around. He saw his floating fireballs, with Theo standing on his tiptoes trying to peer over them, but he ignored his friend for right now.

Where did you go?

I am an elemental spirit, Harry. Fire, and wind that is close kin to the fire and feeds it. Semandra materialized once more from the air, this time just large enough that her swaying head was at the height of Harry’s eyes. I go where I wish. I am the size I wish. I can be with you anywhere, and no one else will see me.

Harry’s eyes stung. He blinked wildly. He had thought, over and over, that no one would truly be with him, that no one could truly understand him. He had feared doing something that would disgust Theo or Felix and make them turn their backs on him, but he hadn’t known—

I will never leave you.

No, she never would. And she didn’t despise him for his tears, either, any more than Harry despised her for the killing instinct he knew she carried, that she would divide the world up into predator and prey—and one more category, that contained only herself and him.

What happens if you die in the battle with the basilisk?

I do not die as you understand it. The most she could do is scatter me for a while. I would find a way back to you as long as there was even a spark of me left. I will not let you die.

Harry nodded and leaned back to look up into her golden eyes, rapt. Semandra shrank down a little, so they were exactly at each other’s height, and swayed back and forth, staring at him.

Harry lost track of how much time they spent like that. Then, with a little lurch, he tore himself out of it, and bowed his head with a shaky breath.

I will always be here.

Harry nodded. It was easy to accept that with the connection of her rushing through his soul, but…

You do not trust me. Even though you know I mean it.

I’ve had—too many other people promise something to me and then back out. Quirrell, or Voldemort in Quirrell’s body. Various people who had noticed that the Dursleys were worrying in the way they treated him, but never did anything about it. The Potters, who had seemed to promise that he could stay with them and then had sent him back to the Dursleys.

I am not them.

Harry took a moment to brace himself against the sustaining feel of Semandra’s presence, and then he nodded and leaned back. All right. Yes.

It felt terrifying, to lean on her like that. With other people Harry trusted, like Felix and Theo, he knew that he was in control, and he could be the one to cut them off if they started turning on him. Even if he would lose the sanctuary of Theo’s home during the summers, he would find somewhere else to go.

But he would need to depend on Semandra. The fire of her filling his soul demanded no less.

Let us go to the school. And you should introduce me to your friend, the child whose curiosity I can smell.

Harry smiled shakily. At least Theo smelled curious, then, instead of fearful or desperate. Harry hoped he wouldn’t become jealous.

Why should he? He is not an elemental wizard, and not a Parselmouth. I would not bond with him. But I will be courteous to him, as he is one of your friends.

Harry reached out and let his hand rest on the flickering flames that made up her narrow skull. Humans don’t always think about it that rationally. He might be jealous that I have a—a friend with such power.

Familiar. I am your familiar.

I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to use that word. It sounded demeaning.

Semandra hissed, a sound like a forest fire laughing, and filled Harry’s mind with images of what they could do together—fly without brooms, Apparate like phoenixes in the embrace of fire, breathe underwater, bury themselves in the earth and survive. Things they could only do together, because Semandra had no power over anything but the fire that made her body up and the air in the immediate area by herself.

Does that sound demeaning, Harry?

Harry shook his head, swallowing. He wondered for a moment if he wanted other people to know about those things the way that he supposed everyone would know about his elemental magic soon, but—

I am not content to remain a secret, Harry.

Harry nodded and turned back towards the circle of fireballs that imprisoned Theo. He would need to think about this, and get used to the feeling of certainty that lay in the bottom of his soul.

But part of him, if he was honest, was already used to it. Had already seized it in claws as hard as diamond and would refuse to let it go.

He had lost the chance to have wand magic and grow up with his brother in a normal way. He wasn’t going to lose his chance at having a familiar, the only one he could ever have, if he understood his connection to Semandra correctly.

I am not going anywhere, Harry.

*

Theo had seen glimpses of a great, crackling wave of flame past the fireballs Harry had put up, but that didn’t mean he was ready to have those fireballs fly away and see a great snake of flame lurking at Harry’s shoulder.

Theo’s mouth fell open, and he stood there, staring, uncertain what to say. Harry looked at him for a moment, and then he said, “Theo, meet my familiar, Semandra.”

He pronounced the name with a hiss on the S that would probably be impossible for anyone else to imitate, Theo thought distantly. Then his brain caught up to what Harry was saying. “I thought you couldn’t have a familiar.”

Semandra hissed something, loud enough that Theo had to fight the impulse to put his hands over his ears. Harry half-smiled and translated, “My connection with Semandra is why I couldn’t have a connection to another creature. I’m too suited to her.”

“And I suppose if they thought that you had a bloody great snake as your familiar…”

“Exactly.”

“But—how you are going to hide her? Because I assume that you still want to hide.”

Harry cast him a narrow-eyed glance. Theo lifted his chin. Yes, he should probably still apologize for acting contemptuous of Harry hiding before Harry had plopped him in the fire circle, but—

He still found it so hard to understand why Harry would want to hide. Theo would have rubbed everyone’s face in his wandless and elemental powers if he’d had them. He would have shown his family exactly what they were missing.

And a bloody great snake was going to be hard to hide, unless Harry planned to just leave Semandra in the forest and visit her there.

Semandra vanished.

Theo jumped back before he could help himself, and scowled when Harry laughed. Before he could speak, Semandra was back, this time appearing as a flicker of fire hovering in midair, the way that Harry had described a few of the other elementals Gryffindor’s portrait had wanted him to meet.

“What?”

“She’s made of the elements, Theo. She can disappear into them if she needs to, and adjust her size. Like—quenching part of a fire.”

Theo nodded slowly. Yes, very well, he could understand that.

And he would do a lot to keep the deep shine of happiness that was burning in Harry’s eyes at the moment, where grimness had been for months.

“We should go back to the castle,” he said, and took a deep breath as Harry was turning to face Hogwarts, Semandra now draped around his neck. “And I’m sorry.”

Harry paused. “For what?”

“For acting as though you were wrong for wanting to hide your magic. I—understand why you did.”

“But it’s not what you would have done.”

Theo shrugged.

Harry studied him for a moment longer, then nodded. “Apology accepted. And I—understand, a bit more, now, why you might not have wanted to hide it. Now that I have Semandra.”

Theo half-smiled. He knew it would be easy to be jealous of Harry. A Parselmouth, an elementalist, someone with wandless magic, and now with an incredible familiar. But if Semandra was pouring all her effort into convincing Harry that he should act openly and claim the regard due to him, then Theo thought he would like her.

*

Albus bowed his head. He had not anticipated something like this, but perhaps he should have. He had known all along that Tom’s shade was not truly gone.

“What are we going to do, Albus?”

“I do not know,” Albus murmured in response to Minerva, and lifted his head, eyes lingering on the bloody message painted on the wall.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS IS OPEN. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE!

Beneath the letters lay the Petrified body of Luna Lovegood.