[From Litha to Lammas]: Serpentwined, gen, sequel to Tread Among Serpents, 2/6, PG-13

[lomonaaeren]

The Dark Lord gazed through Quirinius’s eyes as the first-year Slytherins filed into their Defense class. They weren’t talking other than a quiet word exchanged here and there. Such was the way of the civilized. Lord Voldemort could remember.

Except for a quiet hissing on the edge of hearing.

“That smell is garlic, Salash. I don’t know why there’s so much of it. I didn’t use that much of it to cook at the Dursleys’.”

Yes, true Parseltongue, Lord Voldemort thought, as he directed his servitor’s gaze towards Harry Potter. The boy did not seem to know he was being observed. He was talking seriously to the small snake wrapped around his arm as he sat down at a desk behind several of the taller Slytherin children.

He relaxed his hold on Quirinus long enough to let the man give his travesty of a Defense lesson in his own words. It ignited a long-smoldering rage in the back of Lord Voldemort’s mind. To think that Dumbledore had been unwilling to hire him and had chosen this instead—

Quirinus winced, and Lord Voldemort moderated his anger. Quirinus was valuable, not overly so in the scheme of things, but extremely so in the sense of giving Lord Voldemort’s wraith somewhere to exist. And now he was close to the boy who was either a rival to be destroyed or a tool to be used, and he had to gaze.

Harry Potter was not as marvelous as the only other Parselmouth to walk these halls in living memory had been. He wrinkled his nose from the smell and rubbed his head in what seemed to be an allergic reaction. Lord Voldemort was beyond allergies.

Quirinus rambled on about garlic and vampires, and the Potter boy put what was probably meant to be a politely attentive look on his face. He did not fool Lord Voldemort. Even as a child, Lord Voldemort had been batter at faking attention and respect.

By the end of the class, Lord Voldemort was in fact convinced that he knew. Harry Potter was a tool to be used.

No rival to him would have been so fallible. So small and soft and weak. So human.

*

“I do not like the smells in this classroom, either.”

“I know, but we don’t have a choice about being here.”

“Silence.”

Harry knew that his hissing with Salash hadn’t been loud, but he supposed that Professor Snape was one of those teachers who wanted quiet in their classroom all the time, sort of like librarians did in libraries. So he stopped hissing at Salash and got out his parchment and quill to take notes.

However, the first thing the professor did was call the roll, and when he got to Harry’s name, pause and glare. “Our newest celebrity,” he drawled.

Harry thought about asking whether they’d had lots of celebrities before, but he knew that would only get the professor angry. So he sat quietly.

Of course, in the end, that seemed to make Snape angrier, if the way he snapped his parchment shut and spun around on one heel was any indication. And then he started barking questions right at Harry.

Harry didn’t know the answers to any of them. He also knew that none of those answers were in the first half of the Potions book, or any of the books.

However, he knew that yelling back at a professor wasn’t wise, and it seemed that Hogwarts did tolerate teachers just turning their classrooms into bullying rooms, if Quirrell and his terrible garlic smell was any indication. So Harry kept his hands folded on the table and answered the questions with calm statements of, “I don’t know, sir.”

“Clearly, fame isn’t everything.”

No, it really isn’t. And neither is being a horrible git.

Snape caught Harry’s eye in that moment, and looked even more furious. Harry supposed that his emotions must be showing through his expression. He smoothed that out as best he could, and sat there looking as respectful as he could, while Snape kept sneering at him. He didn’t take any points from Slytherin, though.

Of course, that turned out to be balanced by all the points he did take from Gryffindor. Harry sighed as he watched a bushy-haired girl called Granger almost cry and a red-haired boy named Weasley get more and more upset.

He wished he could help, but he had his own things to do. Like finding out why Snape hated him so much.

“I wish to bite him,” Salash said, after Harry had handed in his passable Boil Cure and Snape looked as if he wanted to murder him for it.

“I know, but you’re still not venomous and it would still be a bad idea,” Harry explained to her as he packed up his cauldron.

“Why does Professor Snape not like you?”

Harry blinked and looked up at Draco, who had been sitting right next to him but not working with him, and who had done better on the potion. “I have no idea. But I know someone who might know.”

“Who?”

“One of the other professors,” Harry said vaguely. It was sort of true, and would keep Draco from finding the right person if he went around asking questions. “They’ve worked here for a long time. And I think Professor Snape has, too, right? Do you know him?”

That sent Draco off into a long rant about the history of Potions and how no one respected the ancient art or took the proper precautions in the classroom, which included all Gryffindors. Harry noticed, as they walked past a clump of said Gryffindors, that the Weasley boy was glaring at him in particular.

“I wonder what I did to him?”

“Who?” Draco broke off the rant at once, proving that he did pay attention to other people sometimes.

“That red-haired boy. Weasley? He seems upset with me for some reason, but I don’t think we’ve ever even spoken.”

“You wouldn’t speak, to a Weasley,” Draco scoffed. “Yelling and shouting are the only things that they understand.”

“Why’s that?”

That provoked another rant, this time about how the Weasleys were poor and had too many children and completely ignored the things they were supposed to do as purebloods, plus they were Gryffindors, the horror. Harry listened, but his eyes also went back to Weasley and the hostile look on his face.

Nothing in Draco’s rant was telling Harry why Weasley would be hostile to him in the first place, unless it was just because Weasley was a Gryffindor and Harry was a Slytherin. Harry concealed an irritated sigh as he thought of the House rivalry. It was something else that was getting in his way and preventing him from showing other people that Parseltongue just made you a person.

“Do you want me to bite him?”

Harry wasn’t sure who Salash was talking about, Weasley or Draco, but he concealed a snort and the hissing behind his hand. “You didn’t offer to bite people that often before we came to Hogwarts.”

“I did not understand everything then. Now I know there are people worth biting.”

Harry had to conceal another snort, and Draco broke off and looked at him, seemingly upset. Harry just shook his head. “What do you think we’ll have for lunch today?”

That sent Draco off into a more pleasant ramble, this time. Harry noticed Blaise rolling his eyes, and grinned back at him. Blaise looked startled, then pleased, and gave his own smile back.

Maybe he just didn’t know there was someone else who could listen to Draco and pretend to be serious.

His new friends weren’t perfect, Harry thought. Draco talked too much and Theo was silent too much and Blaise—well, sometimes Blaise seemed to get prickly with offense for reasons that Harry didn’t understand, but that he was making an effort to understand. But that was okay. Nobody was perfect.

*

“Did you see him? Did you see the way he looked at me?”

“Wh—who?”

Ron grimaced. Neville wasn’t the most observant person. But there were only four of them in first year in Gryffindor, and Ron had already seen that Seamus and Dean had made themselves a pair of friends who wouldn’t let Ron intrude on them. That left only Neville for Ron to spend time with and explain his mission to.

“Harry Potter.”

“Oh.”

“We know he’s evil. We know it because he went into Slytherin and he’s a Parselmouth,” Ron added, before Neville could ask the obvious question. “But no one else is as upset as me! And I don’t know why!”

“They st—still think he’s a hero.”

“Well, yes, but they shouldn’t.”

Ron walked silently to lunch with Neville beside him. All he could think was that if Harry Potter had been in Gryffindor, where he was supposed to be, Ron would have a best friend who would really understand him, and they could work on undoing the damage of the war and making things better for other people together.

Instead, Potter just gave Ron a disbelieving stare, as if he didn’t know any of the reasons that a true Gryffindor would glare at him, and then walked past listening to Malfoy as if everything he said was fascinating.

And he talked to the snake openly. Ron had flinched in Potions several times when he heard the hissing, and had barely escaped destroying his own cauldron, as well as keeping Neville from messing up his potion. Ron would have cheered Snape on if he’d told Potter to stop talking to the snake, but instead, Snape had just taken points from Gryffindor for mistakes that were ones anyone could have made.

Then Ron sighed and straightened his shoulders.

He needed to remember his own resolve. Of course Potter wasn’t turning out to be a hero. Ron had known that the moment he heard about the Parseltongue, before he’d ever come to Hogwarts. So he would just have to be the hero in return.

And if that meant keeping a close eye on Potter and being ready to counter anything stupid he did?

Well, Ron would do that. Some battles were worth fighting.

*

“Harry, can I talk to you?”

Harry didn’t balk at being addressed by his first name or asked to talk. He just shut his Transfiguration book that he’d been frowning into and looked up at Theo, one hand going to stroke Salash’s back. “Of course.”

“Can we go up to the dormitory?”

Harry blinked and looked curious. But Theo was taking enough of a risk by bringing up the Ancestors and the sacred pact they had made with humans long ago at all. He was not doing it in the middle of the common room.

“Of course.”

Harry climbed to his feet and followed Theo up the dormitory stairs. Theo had deliberately chosen a time when Blaise had got involved in a chess match and Draco was trying to teach Crabbe and Goyle the fundamentals of writing an essay. He didn’t want an audience for this, either.

Harry looked a little worried when Theo cast a locking charm at the door, but Salash—as Theo would have to get used to thinking of her—said, “It only sounds like he wants to speak to us in private.”

“All right.”

Theo shivered as he turned back around and blurted out something he hadn’t planned on saying right away. “I can understand you.”

Harry and Salash both went still, staring at him. Then Salash said, “What did you say?”

“I think you heard me, little one,” Theo said, although he felt a faint smile tugging at his lips. Salash was adorable. He had to admit that he would have wanted a snake like her, if his father had thought it would be wise for him to have one.

“But how?” Harry asked, and his eyes were bright and eager. “And if you’re a Parselmouth, why didn’t you tell me right away, or announce it when I did? You knew you weren’t alone!”

Theo took a slow breath. He was very like this blazing boy standing in front of him, but very different, too. It never would have occurred to him to ask such a question if he had been the public Parselmouth and Harry the secret one.

“You’ve seen how you’ve been treated. I didn’t want to be treated the same way.”

“But the only way things can change is if we stand up and fight for them!”

Theo shook his head a little. “I have spent a very long time hiding. Our people have spent a very long time hiding. I think you would have been advised to do the same had someone heard you speaking Parseltongue in a private place, because it went public.”

“Our people?”

“I think you must be part lamia. Like me.”

There was an endless pause that Theo didn’t want to end. If it did, and it turned out that Harry recoiled in disgust and rejected him…

“What’s a lamia?”

All right. This was unexpected, but Theo could work with it. “A majestic being, a combination of snake and human. Long ago, they chose some special humans who gained the ability to have children with lamia and pass on their traits. Parseltongue is the most common sign of that blood.”

Harry blinked and blinked again. Then he said, “But people have talked about Salazar Slytherin being able to speak to snakes, and no one has said anything about him being part lamia. Or Voldemort.”

Theo was glad that he didn’t flinch. The name being in another language did somewhat mute his reaction. He shook his head a little. “Most people don’t know. They’ll find some other way to explain it. But I know that you’re part lamia like me. The green eyes give it away.”

“But my mum had green eyes.”

“Then your lamia blood came through her, and not your father.”

“But—I know a lot of people don’t think well about Muggleborns. Would they really think that?”

Theo sighed a little. He could have wished that Lily Potter had been a pureblood, or blood purity prejudice didn’t exist, just to make this conversation a little easier. “She could still have had a distant Ancestor who was part lamia. It doesn’t show up in everyone. The Parseltongue and the green eyes are uncommon. Can you grow scales?”

“I’ve—never tried?”

“I think you should try,” Salash said, coiling around so that she could look up at Harry. “To be part snake is a great achievement.”

Theo smiled. At least Harry had an encouraging voice on his side to counteract the ones who would otherwise be yelling at him.

Harry held up his hands in front of him and frowned at them. Then he seemed to push with his magic. Theo could feel it, and that was what it felt like, even though he couldn’t have described it to anyone else.

Nothing happened.

Theo hoped he buried his crushing disappointment well enough not to show it on his face. To have someone who had the same kind of eyes as he did and, above all, the Sacred Tongue the way he did was enough. Harry not being able to change his form was—disappointing, yes. But a friend Theo could share the secret with was more than he had before.

“You are not concentrating hard enough,” Salash said, and tapped Harry’s wrist with her tail.

“I don’t know how to do it.”

“Concentrate harder.”

Theo broke into a smile that he also buried. He didn’t want to discourage Harry in case it turned out that he could bring his hidden lamia heritage to the surface.

Harry strained with his magic some more. And strained. And then there was the sense of something breaking down, and Theo gasped as scales, as brilliant green as Harry’s eyes, blossomed all over his hands.

“Wow!” Harry said, and then he looked up at Theo and froze.

“You did it,” Theo whispered. He couldn’t lift his eyes from Harry’s scales to look at the expression on his face.

“You—I thought you’d look happier.”

“There are—” Theo said, and then dropped back into Parseltongue, because what he wanted to say sounded wrong in English, out of the Sacred Tongue. “There are legends of lamia with green scales. They are the most powerful, the most incredible. The ones who are destined to be our leaders.”

“I don’t want to be the leader of anything.”

“So you were Sorted into Slytherin without ambition of any kind?” Because Theo didn’t believe that.

“There is something I want to do, but it doesn’t involve being a leader of the lamia. I want to make people start thinking of Parseltongue as good again. To show them that Parselmouths can be good people.”

“That sounds like being a leader to me. Making people understand that there are those who speak the Sacred Tongue and walk among them without ambitions to conquer the world and make it run with blood would be a good start.”

“Yes, maybe it would.”

It took a while for Harry to make the scales sink into his arms, but he seemed pleased and proud when they did. He put his hand on the door of the bedroom after Theo unlocked it and smiled at him softly.

“Thank you,” he said. “For taking the risk. I know that you might have thought I was just doing the best I could to tolerate the public attention and didn’t really believe Parseltongue was a good thing. Thank you for telling me your secret.”

Theo echoed the words back, keeping his expression pleasant, and then locked the door again the minute Harry was on the other side of it. He sank to the floor, his hands over his mouth.

All his life, he had known that he was the most powerful of the Ancestors’ children currently alive in Britain. He could manifest golden scales, and that was so incredible that his father rarely told anyone, because it was a Nott secret, precious and so to be wrapped in silk and shadows.

But now there was someone more powerful than Theo, someone supposedly destined to be a leader among their kind.

He appreciated that. Of course he did.

But he wasn’t sure that he could give up his own ambitions and humbly serve as the second-in-command of a green-scaled lamia. It went against every ambition he had had from the time he had understood what his golden scales meant.

Turning against Harry wasn’t an option, either, though. Not when he had waited so long for a friend, and his people had waited so long for someone with golden scales.

Then I shall have to make sure…

Theo swallowed.

I shall have to make sure that he really has no ambition to lead.