[From Samhain to the Solstice]: The Transfiguration of the Soul, gen, PG-13, 1/4
Title: The Transfiguration of the Soul
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Mentions of Ron/Hermione, otherwise gen
Content Notes: AU (Harry is Sorted into Slytherin), present tense, angst, violence, bullying, torture, canonical child abuse, minor character death, minor character suicide, Dark Harry.
Wordcount: This part 5700
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. Harry is Sorted into Slytherin, and discovers that most of his yearmates seem to think he has some grand plan. Harry, fighting as hard as he can to hang on to his Gryffindor friends and his godfather, decides that if people like Draco Malfoy think he has a plan, then he’ll take advantage of that.
Author’s Notes: This is a side-story/Harry POV of my story “A Plan of Deepest Subtlety and Cunning.” Either can be read first. This should have four parts, to be posted over the next four days.
The Transfiguration of the Soul
“Not Slytherin,” Harry thinks back to the voice of the Sorting Hat when it speaks to him.
“But you would do well there.” The Hat’s voice is coaxing and sounds like Aunt Petunia does when she’s trying to get Dudley to wait for his sweets. “You could make friends that would be loyal to you. You could transform yourself into a great person.”
“I don’t care. Not Slytherin.”
There’s a long silence as the Sorting Hat seems to think about it. Then it says, “You have a very strong will, and your determination to prove yourself as a good person, after your relatives called you a freak all your life, is your ambition.”
“No, don’t-”
“SLYTHERIN!”
Harry tears the Hat from his head and flings it onto the stool. There’s a bit of quiet clapping, but not much. Harry can’t believe what’s going on. He’s on the verge of screaming or crying, even though he hasn’t cried since he was five years old.
Then he stares at Ron, who’s still waiting in line, and sees the way that Ron’s eyes are wide, but not turning away from him. Harry knows from the train ride that Ron really hates Slytherins. That doesn’t mean he has to hate Harry, though.
Harry jerks his head up. So that’s the way it’s going to be. He’s going to make sure that he can stay friends with Ron. And maybe that will be enough to fulfill the damn ambition that the Hat was going on about.
Or at least show the other Slytherins that it’s useless trying to force him to behave the way they do.
He walks over to the Slytherin table, where some people are staring at him like they’re dazed. He ends up not far from Malfoy, even though not sitting right next to him, because apparently there’s a section of the table where first-years are supposed to sit. Harry tries to ignore the stares from everyone and turns to watch Ron’s Sorting.
Of course, Malfoy has to interrupt before Ron gets to the Hat. “So are you regretting associating with the wrong sort yet, Potter?”
Harry stares at him, loathing the look on his face. Malfoy wants Harry to crawl and cringe at his feet, the way Dudley and Piers always wanted Harry to do.
No.
“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry says. “I can still tell the wrong sort for myself, and Ron is always going to be my best friend.”
Malfoy’s jaw drops open a little, and the Parkinson girl who was Sorted not long before them gasps. Harry turns his back and watches as Ron sits under the Hat. It takes longer than Ron would probably prefer, but not that long, before the Hat barks, “GRYFFINDOR!”, and Ron runs over to the table where his brothers are waving their hands in the air.
Harry claps hard for him, and ignores the stares from his table. He goes on ignoring them as food appears and he starts eating. Malfoy is giving him some weird looks, but so what? Harry is practically an expert on living with weird looks.
And after the feast, he manages to catch Ron before the prefects can escort all the first-year students away. “Ron!” he calls.
Ron turns around, and his expression is less weird than Malfoy’s. Harry still stops a few feet away from him and jams his hands into his robe pockets, taking a deep breath.
“So,” Ron says. “Slytherin, huh?”
“I told the stupid Hat to put me in Gryffindor, but it didn’t listen,” Harry says.
Ron cracks a smile then. “I reckon it doesn’t often. Fred and George were saying that they tried to talk it into putting them in different Houses just for laughs, but it ignored them.”
Harry relaxes. It’s good to know that he’s not in some unique position where the Hat listens to everyone else but not Harry because he’s evil or something.
“Still friends?” Harry asks.
Ron snorts. “I reckon that you’ll need someone to keep you on track in the House of Snakes. Got to ensure that you don’t start looking down your nose at everybody, huh?”
Harry grins and starts to answer, but a cold voice behind him says, “Mr. Potter, if you will.”
Harry turns around and sees one of the professors from the Head Table in front of him, a tall, hook-nosed man with dark hair and eyes. He’s staring at Harry with such profound dislike that Harry feels that odd sense of familiarity again. If Vernon Dursley was a wizard, he’d be one like this.
Harry nods to Ron and follows the man until they join up with the line of Slytherin first-years, older students proceeding in front of them. The man pauses, and Harry glances at him as he falls into line behind Blaise Zabini, the last boy to be Sorted.
“I do not tolerate people who think they are special in my House,” the man says softly. “I am Professor Severus Snape, Potions master at Hogwarts and Head of Slytherin House, and the moment I hear that you’ve played a prank on another student or cost the House points, I will have you in detention the rest of the year. Do you understand me, Mr. Potter?”
“Perfectly, sir,” Harry says. And he does. Uncle Vernon always hated him for stupid reasons, too.
Snape lifts an eyebrow at him and sweeps away. Harry walks towards the Slytherin common room, which, it turns out, is in the dungeons. Harry knows from what Ron said that Gryffindor Tower is in actually open air and has lots of cheerful red-and-gold decorations in it.
Harry keeps his thoughts to himself. He can endure.
He has a friend now, and that’s worth anything.
*
“Harry, you have to tell Professor Snape about this.”
Harry snorts at Hermione and drops his books on the library table. “He knows, Hermione.”
Hermione stares at him, perfectly scandalized. Harry became friends with her after he and Ron helped save her from a troll (who found her in the first place because Ron acted like a prat, but at least Ron can admit it when he does, which is more than Harry can say for Malfoy or Nott). “He-knows that other Slytherins are bullying you?”
Harry nods briskly and spreads out his parchment across the books. The bruise on his shoulder where Flint punched him twinges. “I told him the first time Warrington strung me up by the heels in the common room. I actually thought he would do something. He said that Slytherins protect each other and all that rot, you know? But it turns out that he hates me too much to protect me from them.”
“But you can’t just let them bully you!” Hermione is quivering, outraged. Harry smiles at her. It’s still wondrous to him that he has friends who like him enough to get upset when someone treats him like shit.
“I know. I have a plan.”
“What is it?”
Harry lifts the book that he’s taken out from the shelves, and Hermione’s eyes widen as she reads the title. Then she gnaws her lip. “But if Professor Snape likes the other students sand doesn’t like you…”
“I know,” Harry says. “But I can’t do anything about Snape’s attitude towards me.” He knows that, from two months of brewing nearly perfect potions and receiving Trolls for them. “I’ll get detention anyway. I’ll take stopping Flint and the like from being bullies.”
“You know,” Ron offers, “the twins like you a lot, mate. They’d handle Flint and the others if you let them.”
It’s tempting, but Harry shakes his head. “Thanks, Ron, but they’d just think it was the twins being the twins. I have to handle them on my own so they know not to mess with me.”
“Can you even manage the spells in that book?” Hermione asks.
Harry smiles, and knows it’s a little twisted from the way Hermione flinches back from him. Still, he doesn’t care. “I’m going to work until I can. And then, the next time Flint tries to punch me or Warrington tries to string me up, they’ll get a nasty surprise.” He’s already learned the Reparo Charm pretty well because of the way that Crabbe and Goyle like to shred his robes and books.
He’ll just learn some more.
*
It’s not two days after Harry masters the last of the curses he wanted to learn that Flint tries to start something else up in the common room. Harry’s copying the last quote he wants from his Herbology book for his essay when the Quidditch Captain tries to snatch it away.
Harry leans his elbow hard on the book, and it only tears a little along the edge of a page. Harry then leans back and stares at Flint, who sneers at him and looks around as if to make sure everyone is watching.
Harry hopes everyone is. He really hopes so.
“Little Potty should have been a Gryffindor.” Flint spins his wand between his fingers and puts it away a second later. “I don’t waste my magic on Mudblood Gryffindors. Let me have the book, little Potty, or I’ll punch you so hard they’re going to be finding your teeth in the corners years from now.”
Harry feels a thrill of the fear that he usually feels with Dudley, but honestly, at this point? The cold rage that’s been building in him for months, ever since he realized that no one in Slytherin is going to stand up for him, is a lot stronger.
“Fuck off, Flint,” he says.
The common room freezes as it seems like half the people in it stop breathing. Flint blinks as if he needs time to understand the words. With how stupid he is, Harry wouldn’t be surprised.
“Are you-you’re insulting me?”
“No,” Harry says, leaning forwards a little. His wand is up his sleeve, but close enough to his hand that Harry knows he can use it without a problem. “I’m telling you to fuck off.” He adds a smile to complete the picture.
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry can see Malfoy staring at him. Malfoy has been consistently strange since the Sorting, acting as if he thinks Harry is some kind of genius but also participating in taunting him. Harry supposes this will only make Malfoy think he’s an idiot.
That’s fine. Harry will take all the detentions and the false thoughts people have about him if the bullying stops.
“That’s it, Potter,” Flint snarls, and steps forwards.
Harry lifts his wand. “Pellis ignis,” he says softly. He’s only tried casting this on himself so far, and then only on a small area, but he knows very well how painful it is. And he hates Flint so much right now that he doesn’t think he’s going to have much trouble hurting him on a larger scale.
Flint screams and begins to claw at his skin. Harry smiles. The other Slytherins are staring in confusion. Harry is the only one who knows that Flint’s skin has caught fire on the inside, not the outside.
“Stop it, Potter! Stop it!” Flint howls, hopping up and down.
“Why should I?” Harry smiles at him and stands up. Zabini, who was sitting in the chair closest to Harry, scrambles back. Harry takes a step towards Flint. “You’ll only bully me no matter what I do. Why shouldn’t I just let you die? It’s not going to make my life any more miserable one way or the other, right?”
“Potter-Potter, I swear-” Flint’s words trail off into a scream.
“What was that, Flint? I don’t think I heard you.”
“I’ll-I’ll never bully you again! Never hurt you! Make it stop!”
Flint’s nails have scratched through enough skin on his arms now to reveal blood. Harry considers it for a second, and then shrugs and says in a cheerful voice, “Finite Incatatem.”
Flint collapses on his back and moans steadily for a second. Then he gets up and runs towards his bedroom.
Harry glances around at the his Housemates. They stare with wide eyes, and then they universally turn away and pretend to be busy with homework or gossip.
Hmmm. That’s a better reaction than Harry expected. He thought someone would run and tell Snape on him.
Maybe that’ll happen later and they just don’t want to attract his attention. Harry is prepared to put up with the detentions, the way he told Hermione and Ron he would. For now, it’s enough that he can sit down and finish his Herbology essay.
*
“I don’t understand why Flint was the one to suggest that you join the Slytherin Quidditch team.” Ron frowns and leans on the doorframe as he watches Harry shrug out of the green team robes. “Wasn’t he bullying you pretty mercilessly a little while ago?”
“Yeah.” Harry shoots a quick smile at Ron. “But I think he saw the error of his ways.”
In truth, Harry doesn’t know why Flint pushed Snape into allowing Harry to join the Quidditch team, either. He supposes it’s some twisted form of apology for the bullying, as well as insurance that Harry will think well of Flint and not cast another curse on him.
Harry never did get detention with Snape for cursing Flint, because no one who was in the common room apparently went and told Snape anything. That surprises Harry a little, but when he thinks it over in more detail, he can understand. To know that a first-year student had the power to cast a curse like that-and the will to do it-probably shocked the hell out of them. So they backed off and are watching him cautiously to see what he’ll do next.
Harry has no idea of doing anything “next” if they leave him alone. He’s not sure he can convince the other Slytherins of that, though.
Well, he doesn’t need to. He has no friends in his House, but he doesn’t need any. He has Ron and Hermione, and that’s enough. Sure, he has no adult he can depend on like Ron and Hermione can depend on Professor McGonagall, either, but so what? That situation isn’t new in his life.
*
“I think Professor Quirrell is the one trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone.”
That theory made no sense to Harry when Hermione first came up with it-why would it, when Professor Quirrell is so bumbling and ineffective? But then he came to understand what Hermione meant. She’d watched Quirrell, and she’d noticed how he would sometimes forget to stutter, and how he cast spells fluidly and never stuttered on the incantations, and how much more time he spent on the staircases leading to the third floor on the right-hand side than anyone should have to.
Harry is curled up on a chair near the fire in the Slytherin common room with a book on the Philosopher’s Stone. Nott is sitting not far away from him. That’s not unusual nowadays, because Malfoy has taken to spending more time around Harry, and Nott’s always close to Malfoy.
Harry supposes there’s some sort of political alliance at work there, but honestly, he doesn’t care enough about his Housemates to pay attention to it.
“What are you reading, Potter?”
Harry glances up at Malfoy. The question’s neutral enough, so he answers it neutrally. “A book about the Philosopher’s Stone.”
Malfoy sits up and exchanges a significant look with Nott. Harry shakes his wand into his sleeve. Significant looks are bad for him when it comes to other Slytherins. (He never thinks of them as fellow Slytherins. As far as he’s concerned, most of the actions he’s taken since his Sorting, including spending as much of his free time as possible with Ron and Hermione, are in protest of that stupid Hat’s stupid decision).
“Didn’t I tell you?” Malfoy appears to be mouthing at Nott.
Harry narrows his eyes. “You know about the Philosopher’s Stone being hidden here, too?”
Malfoy jolts and faces him. “What are you on about?”
Shit. Malfoy probably didn’t. He wasn’t just speaking to Nott about something else, probably Harry’s idiocy or something, and then Harry’s real idiocy came out and ruined everything.
“Nothing,” Harry does try to say, and goes back to his book.
“No,” Malfoy insists, leaning forwards. At least he keeps his voice low, and it’s early on Saturday morning, so not many other people are awake yet. “I want to know what you meant about the Philosopher’s Stone being here.”
Harry studies Malfoy and then Nott. Nott looks less interested, but Nott has that down to a perfect mask. Harry knows who spreads most of the gossip in Slytherin House, even if he doesn’t appear to on the surface.
“Fine,” Harry says, and prepares to manipulate them in the easiest way there is to manipulate a Slytherin. “But this is a secret, and if I know that you’ve taken it to Snape or an older student, I won’t involve you in my secrets again.”
“We can keep secrets, Potter.”
Malfoy looks eager as he says it. Harry eyes Nott. Nott nods and holds up one hand. “I’ll put a privacy charm around us and take an oath on it.”
That’s the longest sentence Nott’s ever said to him, so Harry’s inclined to trust him. He doesn’t have much of a choice, anyway. He watches as Nott traces his wand and mutters some words that he keeps too low for Harry to hear, but Harry doesn’t care. He’ll go and look up privacy charms after this.
“The thing that’s hidden in the school, in the third-floor corridor, is the Philosopher’s Stone,” Harry says. “And you know what the Weasley twins were saying about a three-headed dog in the school? Yeah, that’s true. I’ve seen it.”
“How can you trust anything the Weasley twins say?” Draco interrupts.
“He just said he saw it, Draco.”
Nott’s voice is measured. Harry meets his eyes, and since Nott is looking at him behind Malfoy’s back, they exchange their first ever look of sympathy. Sometimes Malfoy is a bloody idiot, and they both know it.
“Yeah.” Harry nods. “And anyway, I heard from the person who placed the Philosopher’s Stone in the school that it had something to do with Nicholas Flamel.” He thinks about mentioning his Invisibility Cloak and the Mirror of Erised, but frankly, he doesn’t want to tell anyone about his interactions with Dumbledore or what he saw in the mirror. “Who’s the inventor of the Philosopher’s Stone.” He lifts the book. “Hermione thinks Professor Quirrell is trying to steal it, and he unleashed the troll in the school on Halloween-”
“Wait, Granger thinks this?” Nott is the one to interrupt this time.
Harry blinks at him. “Yes. She’s analyzed his stuttering and his casting patterns, and-”
“I take it back,” Nott says. “I don’t have any interest in anything that a Mudblood came up with.” He takes down the privacy charm with a savage “Finite,” and then gets up and stalks away from Harry and Malfoy.
Harry looks at Malfoy. “And you?”
Malfoy wavers for a bit, then draws himself up and says, “I know about your plan.”
Harry tenses. “What plan?” It’s true that he and Ron and Hermione are trying to come up with a way to stop Professor Quirrell, but they don’t have anything definite yet.
Malfoy stares at him. “Your political plan. Where you knew that you would be Sorted into Slytherin and people would hate you for that, so you maintained your cover story as a non-Dark wizard by staying friends with a Gryffindor student and then befriending a Mudblood.”
Harry can only blink at him, wordless.
Malfoy taps his nose wisely. “I know about it, but I’m not going to betray it,” he says, standing up and winking at Harry. “Remember that you have someone on your side when you’re ready to become the Dark Lord’s lieutenant, though.”
He walks away, and Harry stares in silence at his departing back.
Well. Harry made a stupid mistake, but because his Housemates are also stupid, nothing bad happened because of it.
Maybe the Hat Sorts based on relative levels of intelligence, Harry decides, and goes back to his book.
*
Harry lies huddled in his bed in the hospital wing, staring at his bandaged hands. Hermione was right, horribly right, about Professor Quirrell being the one who was out to steal the Philosopher’s Stone, but wrong about the reason he was stealing it. She thought he just wanted to be immortal and have all the wealth in the world.
Not that Lord Voldemort was here.
Harry clenches his hands, and feels his chest burn with a lot more than the disgusting-tasting potion Madam Pomfrey forced down his throat.
He remembers the cold rage that made him curse Flint, and the contempt he feels when he brews good potions and Snape marks them down, or when Snape refused to believe him about the other Slytherins bullying him. But nothing has ever compared to the hatred he feels for Voldemort.
Harry wants to destroy him. Not just curse him. Not just make him go away for a little while, or shut up. Destroy him.
He can’t say that to anyone in his life. Ron and Hermione would understand the motive of revenge, but this is beyond that. Harry doesn’t think his friends really hate anyone or anything. He only thought Ron hated Slytherins. Ron got beyond that easily enough once he realized that Harry was still the boy he met on the train, and a stupid snake crest didn’t mean anything.
The other Slytherins are a shallow lot. They might understand hatred, but not hatred of someone who’s as powerful as Voldemort. It’s of a piece with Malfoy thinking that Harry wants to become the Dark Lord’s lieutenant. You follow someone powerful and try to take advantage of what their power can give you. Or you cringe in front of them and hope they won’t notice you. You don’t fight them.
Harry is going to.
He lies back with his eyes closed, and starts to plan about what kind of spells and magic he’s going to study to destroy Lord Bloody Voldemort in the future.
*
Of all the pieces of magic he could learn, Harry never thought that it was something he already knew how to do-speaking to snakes-that would be the most powerful one.
Oh, at first it’s not. After he speaks to the snake in the Great Hall during Lockhart’s ridiculous dueling club, the rest of his House, and a lot of the rest of the school, accuse him of being the Heir of Slytherin. Several of his Housemates, including Malfoy, tell him that he’s obviously the Heir because Slytherin was a Parselmouth, and so is he.
Harry leaves the common room in disgust after the latest unproductive discussion and starts walking to the library, where he’s going to meet up with Ron and Hermione. He’s aware before he’s gone more than a corridor that someone is following him.
He turns around and sees that it’s Millicent Bulstrode. She’s another of the quiet Slytherins, like Nott, although Nott has been more talkative this year and prone to staring weirdly at Harry like Malfoy does.
“What are you going to do?” Harry snaps at her. He’s sick of Slytherin company and wants to be with his real friends. “Tell me I’m lying, too?”
Bulstrode scoffs. “Please. Like you’d risk Petrifying Muggleborns when one of your best friends is a Muggleborn.”
Harry stares at her. It’s unusual enough that she uses the real word instead of “Mudblood.” He wonders what she wants, because he’s no longer naïve enough to think that any Slytherin would befriend him simply to befriend him.
It’s easy enough to figure out, from the greedy way she studies him. She thinks he has power. She wants to be close to it. And she’s figured out that telling him to his face that he’s the Heir won’t get her there, so she’s pretending to believe him.
Part of Harry turns to cold crystal. She wants to be close to power? Fine. She wants to use him? Fine. He’ll use her.
“Well,” Harry says, playing along, “I could use someone in my own House who believes in me.”
“Fine, Potter.” Bulstrode is beaming at him. “Let’s go to the library and stay away from the unintelligent ones for a little while.”
“Call me Harry,” Harry says. He knows Ron and Hermione won’t approve if they know of his plan to use Bulstrode. That means he has to treat her more like a friend, and friends means first names.
“Millicent, then.”
Harry nods, and Millicent follows him. Harry makes small talk with her as they walk along. She can talk Potions and Defense, and she thinks Lockhart is an idiot, which does cause him to place her in a category a few levels higher in intelligence than some of the girls who swoon over their Defense “professor.”
It’s not enough to make Harry trust her. But he understands her. She wants to be close to him because of his Parseltongue, because to her he’s the Heir of Slytherin, and she’ll be reliable as long as she thinks that someday he’ll reveal his power and make it shine on her.
Ron and Hermione are a little harder to persuade, but Hermione warms up to Millicent when she proves she knows a lot about Potions, and Ron relaxes when Millicent says that she doesn’t think Harry is behind the Petrifications.
It’s all sort of fake, but Harry is the only one who knows that, which means it goes smoothly enough.
That’s the first gift his Parseltongue gives him.
*
The second arrives on a night in the common room when Harry, who fell asleep earlier and didn’t finish his Potions essay, is alone and scribbling away on it. It’s nearly midnight. Even the older students who like to study here have gone up to bed.
It’s oddly peaceful, with the fire crackling on the hearth, and the portrait of a green jungle snake of some kind right above him, hissing softly.
“…good to have a Speaker in the House…”
Harry pauses and looks up at the serpent. It flickers its tongue out at him and comes to the edge of the portrait, practically begging to be noticed. Harry has sometimes heard an intelligible hiss from the portraits and snake statues or carvings in the common room, but he hasn’t paid much attention. None of them have ever sounded as if they were talking about him, the way this one is.
“You know I speak Parseltongue?” Harry asks, after a check over his shoulder to make sure that no one’s come down the stairs and Snape hasn’t swept in the door like an overgrown bat.
“All snakes know of the Speaker.” The snake dances back and forth. Now that it’s close, Harry can see that it has bright green eyes, and there are flecks of gold in its scales. Not that that helps him identify it. He really doesn’t know very much about snakes. “Very few have come here since the Great One vanished.” Harry supposes Slytherin himself must be the Great One. “We are lonely. We were made for a purpose, and we cannot fulfill it without a Speaker.”
Harry blinks. If anything, he would have thought the snakes were made to guard the common room in case someone from another House tried to come in. That seems like something they should be able to do regardless if someone is talking to them or not.
“What is your purpose, beautiful one?” Harry reckons a little flattery can’t hurt.
The serpent turns its head upside-down and weaves through its own coils in excitement. “To help the Speakers. We are not like other snakes. We can hear the humans, and we can remember what they say. We can go many places, in portraits and through the tunnels, and we can hear and report back. Use us, Speaker! Guide us! Permit us to listen for you!”
Harry feels his mouth fall open, and he give a rapid blink. That never occurred to him, although he supposes it should have. The little he’s managed to find on Slytherin since he started researching Parseltongue has revealed that the Founder was a paranoid git.
“And you would report to me and me alone?” Harry asks. The second thing his mind has jumped to, after how useful it would be, is what would happen if Voldemort came back to the school and questioned the snakes. He must have used them when he was here. “Not to anyone else?”
“You are the Speaker. You are in our House. You speak our noble tongue. You are the one who is here and to be helped.”
Harry doesn’t know all the nuances of that, but he does think that it probably matters to the snakes that he’s a student. And Voldemort’s not. Even if he came back, he would probably have to take over the school.
And if he did, then Harry would have a lot bigger problems than Voldemort’s access to the snake portraits.
“I will have to make sure that we have a private point for you to speak to me,” Harry murmurs, half to himself.
“There is a private place,” the snake in the portrait responds instantly. “A place with a blank canvas where such as I can gather, and secret small tunnels in the walls that the carvings and stone ones can crawl down.” The snake sounds as though it’s a hiss away from calling the carvings and stone snakes idiots, but doesn’t actually do so. “Come to it, and we will come to you when we have reports.”
Harry smiles. “Can you show me?”
It turns out that he’ll have to leave the common room, so he goes and gets his Invisibility Cloak first. Most of the Slytherins believe that Snape has some kind of spells on the common room door that alert him when a student leaves after curfew, but Harry has been in and out enough times by now to know that’s bollocks.
Or perhaps Snape disabled them when a Potter became a Slytherin, the same way that he decided to ignore the rule “Slytherins guard each other’s backs” when it came to Harry. Harry wouldn’t put it past him. Snape might be a good Head of House for some of the Slytherins, but he’s a useless prick as far as Harry’s concerned.
Harry walks down the corridor to the left of the common room door, following the snake’s instructions, and around a few corners before he comes to a seemingly blank stretch of wall with a small serpentine shape carved into it. It’s so old, and so worn away by the centuries, that Harry wouldn’t have seen it if he wasn’t specifically looking at it. He supposes that helps to keep it as secret as Parseltongue being rare.
He places his hand over it now, and feels a spark leap from it. The snake carving twists, coming out of the wall and becoming much more visible, and bares its fangs a breath from his hand.
Harry meets its eyes, which are deep-sunken little red gems. “Room of the Spies,” he says in Parseltongue.
The carving swings back into the wall, and a hairline-thin crack runs away from it, outlining a door. Harry pushes it open and steps inside, removing the Cloak as he does so.
It’s a large room with darkness and dust everywhere. Harry lights a Lumos Charm, and sees the large blank canvas on the wall, as promised, along with several wooden chairs and a couch that appears to have long-moldered cushions on it. Torch sconces line the walls.
But the canvas isn’t actually blank. A writhing mass of serpents crowds it, black and red and green and golden, large and small, constrictors and cobras and all sorts of other serpents Harry doesn’t know, with his informant from the common room curled at the top. The backs of the chairs, and the legs, and the arms, are alive with snake carvings turning to look at him. The torch sconces aren’t lit, but are covered with stone snakes, practically dripping with them.
As Harry watches, a small hinged flap opens in the wall under the canvas, and a glittering black live snake slithers in. Harry stiffens, his hand darting to his wand.
But the black snake curls in a circle and says, “Welcome, Speaker. We will listen for you.”
A chorus of hisses rises from all the others, and one of them says, “Tell us who to report on.”
“Tell us!” say the snakes in the portrait.
“Command us!” say the carvings on the chairs.
“Use us!” say the stone snakes on the torch sconces.
Harry feels a rush of power and happiness that so far has only struck him when he’s flying, and he laughs and extends his hand. The black snake promptly slides forwards and loops its way around his arm, tongue darting out.
He can protect himself with a gift like this, Harry thinks, staring around. Against students who want to bully him. Against whoever the real Heir of Slytherin Petrifying people is. Against the adults like Snape, and like Dumbledore, who refused to give him any real information last year about why Voldemort attacked his parents in the first place.
Harry laughs again, and the snakes’ hisses echo him.
Part Two.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Mentions of Ron/Hermione, otherwise gen
Content Notes: AU (Harry is Sorted into Slytherin), present tense, angst, violence, bullying, torture, canonical child abuse, minor character death, minor character suicide, Dark Harry.
Wordcount: This part 5700
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. Harry is Sorted into Slytherin, and discovers that most of his yearmates seem to think he has some grand plan. Harry, fighting as hard as he can to hang on to his Gryffindor friends and his godfather, decides that if people like Draco Malfoy think he has a plan, then he’ll take advantage of that.
Author’s Notes: This is a side-story/Harry POV of my story “A Plan of Deepest Subtlety and Cunning.” Either can be read first. This should have four parts, to be posted over the next four days.
The Transfiguration of the Soul
“Not Slytherin,” Harry thinks back to the voice of the Sorting Hat when it speaks to him.
“But you would do well there.” The Hat’s voice is coaxing and sounds like Aunt Petunia does when she’s trying to get Dudley to wait for his sweets. “You could make friends that would be loyal to you. You could transform yourself into a great person.”
“I don’t care. Not Slytherin.”
There’s a long silence as the Sorting Hat seems to think about it. Then it says, “You have a very strong will, and your determination to prove yourself as a good person, after your relatives called you a freak all your life, is your ambition.”
“No, don’t-”
“SLYTHERIN!”
Harry tears the Hat from his head and flings it onto the stool. There’s a bit of quiet clapping, but not much. Harry can’t believe what’s going on. He’s on the verge of screaming or crying, even though he hasn’t cried since he was five years old.
Then he stares at Ron, who’s still waiting in line, and sees the way that Ron’s eyes are wide, but not turning away from him. Harry knows from the train ride that Ron really hates Slytherins. That doesn’t mean he has to hate Harry, though.
Harry jerks his head up. So that’s the way it’s going to be. He’s going to make sure that he can stay friends with Ron. And maybe that will be enough to fulfill the damn ambition that the Hat was going on about.
Or at least show the other Slytherins that it’s useless trying to force him to behave the way they do.
He walks over to the Slytherin table, where some people are staring at him like they’re dazed. He ends up not far from Malfoy, even though not sitting right next to him, because apparently there’s a section of the table where first-years are supposed to sit. Harry tries to ignore the stares from everyone and turns to watch Ron’s Sorting.
Of course, Malfoy has to interrupt before Ron gets to the Hat. “So are you regretting associating with the wrong sort yet, Potter?”
Harry stares at him, loathing the look on his face. Malfoy wants Harry to crawl and cringe at his feet, the way Dudley and Piers always wanted Harry to do.
No.
“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry says. “I can still tell the wrong sort for myself, and Ron is always going to be my best friend.”
Malfoy’s jaw drops open a little, and the Parkinson girl who was Sorted not long before them gasps. Harry turns his back and watches as Ron sits under the Hat. It takes longer than Ron would probably prefer, but not that long, before the Hat barks, “GRYFFINDOR!”, and Ron runs over to the table where his brothers are waving their hands in the air.
Harry claps hard for him, and ignores the stares from his table. He goes on ignoring them as food appears and he starts eating. Malfoy is giving him some weird looks, but so what? Harry is practically an expert on living with weird looks.
And after the feast, he manages to catch Ron before the prefects can escort all the first-year students away. “Ron!” he calls.
Ron turns around, and his expression is less weird than Malfoy’s. Harry still stops a few feet away from him and jams his hands into his robe pockets, taking a deep breath.
“So,” Ron says. “Slytherin, huh?”
“I told the stupid Hat to put me in Gryffindor, but it didn’t listen,” Harry says.
Ron cracks a smile then. “I reckon it doesn’t often. Fred and George were saying that they tried to talk it into putting them in different Houses just for laughs, but it ignored them.”
Harry relaxes. It’s good to know that he’s not in some unique position where the Hat listens to everyone else but not Harry because he’s evil or something.
“Still friends?” Harry asks.
Ron snorts. “I reckon that you’ll need someone to keep you on track in the House of Snakes. Got to ensure that you don’t start looking down your nose at everybody, huh?”
Harry grins and starts to answer, but a cold voice behind him says, “Mr. Potter, if you will.”
Harry turns around and sees one of the professors from the Head Table in front of him, a tall, hook-nosed man with dark hair and eyes. He’s staring at Harry with such profound dislike that Harry feels that odd sense of familiarity again. If Vernon Dursley was a wizard, he’d be one like this.
Harry nods to Ron and follows the man until they join up with the line of Slytherin first-years, older students proceeding in front of them. The man pauses, and Harry glances at him as he falls into line behind Blaise Zabini, the last boy to be Sorted.
“I do not tolerate people who think they are special in my House,” the man says softly. “I am Professor Severus Snape, Potions master at Hogwarts and Head of Slytherin House, and the moment I hear that you’ve played a prank on another student or cost the House points, I will have you in detention the rest of the year. Do you understand me, Mr. Potter?”
“Perfectly, sir,” Harry says. And he does. Uncle Vernon always hated him for stupid reasons, too.
Snape lifts an eyebrow at him and sweeps away. Harry walks towards the Slytherin common room, which, it turns out, is in the dungeons. Harry knows from what Ron said that Gryffindor Tower is in actually open air and has lots of cheerful red-and-gold decorations in it.
Harry keeps his thoughts to himself. He can endure.
He has a friend now, and that’s worth anything.
*
“Harry, you have to tell Professor Snape about this.”
Harry snorts at Hermione and drops his books on the library table. “He knows, Hermione.”
Hermione stares at him, perfectly scandalized. Harry became friends with her after he and Ron helped save her from a troll (who found her in the first place because Ron acted like a prat, but at least Ron can admit it when he does, which is more than Harry can say for Malfoy or Nott). “He-knows that other Slytherins are bullying you?”
Harry nods briskly and spreads out his parchment across the books. The bruise on his shoulder where Flint punched him twinges. “I told him the first time Warrington strung me up by the heels in the common room. I actually thought he would do something. He said that Slytherins protect each other and all that rot, you know? But it turns out that he hates me too much to protect me from them.”
“But you can’t just let them bully you!” Hermione is quivering, outraged. Harry smiles at her. It’s still wondrous to him that he has friends who like him enough to get upset when someone treats him like shit.
“I know. I have a plan.”
“What is it?”
Harry lifts the book that he’s taken out from the shelves, and Hermione’s eyes widen as she reads the title. Then she gnaws her lip. “But if Professor Snape likes the other students sand doesn’t like you…”
“I know,” Harry says. “But I can’t do anything about Snape’s attitude towards me.” He knows that, from two months of brewing nearly perfect potions and receiving Trolls for them. “I’ll get detention anyway. I’ll take stopping Flint and the like from being bullies.”
“You know,” Ron offers, “the twins like you a lot, mate. They’d handle Flint and the others if you let them.”
It’s tempting, but Harry shakes his head. “Thanks, Ron, but they’d just think it was the twins being the twins. I have to handle them on my own so they know not to mess with me.”
“Can you even manage the spells in that book?” Hermione asks.
Harry smiles, and knows it’s a little twisted from the way Hermione flinches back from him. Still, he doesn’t care. “I’m going to work until I can. And then, the next time Flint tries to punch me or Warrington tries to string me up, they’ll get a nasty surprise.” He’s already learned the Reparo Charm pretty well because of the way that Crabbe and Goyle like to shred his robes and books.
He’ll just learn some more.
*
It’s not two days after Harry masters the last of the curses he wanted to learn that Flint tries to start something else up in the common room. Harry’s copying the last quote he wants from his Herbology book for his essay when the Quidditch Captain tries to snatch it away.
Harry leans his elbow hard on the book, and it only tears a little along the edge of a page. Harry then leans back and stares at Flint, who sneers at him and looks around as if to make sure everyone is watching.
Harry hopes everyone is. He really hopes so.
“Little Potty should have been a Gryffindor.” Flint spins his wand between his fingers and puts it away a second later. “I don’t waste my magic on Mudblood Gryffindors. Let me have the book, little Potty, or I’ll punch you so hard they’re going to be finding your teeth in the corners years from now.”
Harry feels a thrill of the fear that he usually feels with Dudley, but honestly, at this point? The cold rage that’s been building in him for months, ever since he realized that no one in Slytherin is going to stand up for him, is a lot stronger.
“Fuck off, Flint,” he says.
The common room freezes as it seems like half the people in it stop breathing. Flint blinks as if he needs time to understand the words. With how stupid he is, Harry wouldn’t be surprised.
“Are you-you’re insulting me?”
“No,” Harry says, leaning forwards a little. His wand is up his sleeve, but close enough to his hand that Harry knows he can use it without a problem. “I’m telling you to fuck off.” He adds a smile to complete the picture.
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry can see Malfoy staring at him. Malfoy has been consistently strange since the Sorting, acting as if he thinks Harry is some kind of genius but also participating in taunting him. Harry supposes this will only make Malfoy think he’s an idiot.
That’s fine. Harry will take all the detentions and the false thoughts people have about him if the bullying stops.
“That’s it, Potter,” Flint snarls, and steps forwards.
Harry lifts his wand. “Pellis ignis,” he says softly. He’s only tried casting this on himself so far, and then only on a small area, but he knows very well how painful it is. And he hates Flint so much right now that he doesn’t think he’s going to have much trouble hurting him on a larger scale.
Flint screams and begins to claw at his skin. Harry smiles. The other Slytherins are staring in confusion. Harry is the only one who knows that Flint’s skin has caught fire on the inside, not the outside.
“Stop it, Potter! Stop it!” Flint howls, hopping up and down.
“Why should I?” Harry smiles at him and stands up. Zabini, who was sitting in the chair closest to Harry, scrambles back. Harry takes a step towards Flint. “You’ll only bully me no matter what I do. Why shouldn’t I just let you die? It’s not going to make my life any more miserable one way or the other, right?”
“Potter-Potter, I swear-” Flint’s words trail off into a scream.
“What was that, Flint? I don’t think I heard you.”
“I’ll-I’ll never bully you again! Never hurt you! Make it stop!”
Flint’s nails have scratched through enough skin on his arms now to reveal blood. Harry considers it for a second, and then shrugs and says in a cheerful voice, “Finite Incatatem.”
Flint collapses on his back and moans steadily for a second. Then he gets up and runs towards his bedroom.
Harry glances around at the his Housemates. They stare with wide eyes, and then they universally turn away and pretend to be busy with homework or gossip.
Hmmm. That’s a better reaction than Harry expected. He thought someone would run and tell Snape on him.
Maybe that’ll happen later and they just don’t want to attract his attention. Harry is prepared to put up with the detentions, the way he told Hermione and Ron he would. For now, it’s enough that he can sit down and finish his Herbology essay.
*
“I don’t understand why Flint was the one to suggest that you join the Slytherin Quidditch team.” Ron frowns and leans on the doorframe as he watches Harry shrug out of the green team robes. “Wasn’t he bullying you pretty mercilessly a little while ago?”
“Yeah.” Harry shoots a quick smile at Ron. “But I think he saw the error of his ways.”
In truth, Harry doesn’t know why Flint pushed Snape into allowing Harry to join the Quidditch team, either. He supposes it’s some twisted form of apology for the bullying, as well as insurance that Harry will think well of Flint and not cast another curse on him.
Harry never did get detention with Snape for cursing Flint, because no one who was in the common room apparently went and told Snape anything. That surprises Harry a little, but when he thinks it over in more detail, he can understand. To know that a first-year student had the power to cast a curse like that-and the will to do it-probably shocked the hell out of them. So they backed off and are watching him cautiously to see what he’ll do next.
Harry has no idea of doing anything “next” if they leave him alone. He’s not sure he can convince the other Slytherins of that, though.
Well, he doesn’t need to. He has no friends in his House, but he doesn’t need any. He has Ron and Hermione, and that’s enough. Sure, he has no adult he can depend on like Ron and Hermione can depend on Professor McGonagall, either, but so what? That situation isn’t new in his life.
*
“I think Professor Quirrell is the one trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone.”
That theory made no sense to Harry when Hermione first came up with it-why would it, when Professor Quirrell is so bumbling and ineffective? But then he came to understand what Hermione meant. She’d watched Quirrell, and she’d noticed how he would sometimes forget to stutter, and how he cast spells fluidly and never stuttered on the incantations, and how much more time he spent on the staircases leading to the third floor on the right-hand side than anyone should have to.
Harry is curled up on a chair near the fire in the Slytherin common room with a book on the Philosopher’s Stone. Nott is sitting not far away from him. That’s not unusual nowadays, because Malfoy has taken to spending more time around Harry, and Nott’s always close to Malfoy.
Harry supposes there’s some sort of political alliance at work there, but honestly, he doesn’t care enough about his Housemates to pay attention to it.
“What are you reading, Potter?”
Harry glances up at Malfoy. The question’s neutral enough, so he answers it neutrally. “A book about the Philosopher’s Stone.”
Malfoy sits up and exchanges a significant look with Nott. Harry shakes his wand into his sleeve. Significant looks are bad for him when it comes to other Slytherins. (He never thinks of them as fellow Slytherins. As far as he’s concerned, most of the actions he’s taken since his Sorting, including spending as much of his free time as possible with Ron and Hermione, are in protest of that stupid Hat’s stupid decision).
“Didn’t I tell you?” Malfoy appears to be mouthing at Nott.
Harry narrows his eyes. “You know about the Philosopher’s Stone being hidden here, too?”
Malfoy jolts and faces him. “What are you on about?”
Shit. Malfoy probably didn’t. He wasn’t just speaking to Nott about something else, probably Harry’s idiocy or something, and then Harry’s real idiocy came out and ruined everything.
“Nothing,” Harry does try to say, and goes back to his book.
“No,” Malfoy insists, leaning forwards. At least he keeps his voice low, and it’s early on Saturday morning, so not many other people are awake yet. “I want to know what you meant about the Philosopher’s Stone being here.”
Harry studies Malfoy and then Nott. Nott looks less interested, but Nott has that down to a perfect mask. Harry knows who spreads most of the gossip in Slytherin House, even if he doesn’t appear to on the surface.
“Fine,” Harry says, and prepares to manipulate them in the easiest way there is to manipulate a Slytherin. “But this is a secret, and if I know that you’ve taken it to Snape or an older student, I won’t involve you in my secrets again.”
“We can keep secrets, Potter.”
Malfoy looks eager as he says it. Harry eyes Nott. Nott nods and holds up one hand. “I’ll put a privacy charm around us and take an oath on it.”
That’s the longest sentence Nott’s ever said to him, so Harry’s inclined to trust him. He doesn’t have much of a choice, anyway. He watches as Nott traces his wand and mutters some words that he keeps too low for Harry to hear, but Harry doesn’t care. He’ll go and look up privacy charms after this.
“The thing that’s hidden in the school, in the third-floor corridor, is the Philosopher’s Stone,” Harry says. “And you know what the Weasley twins were saying about a three-headed dog in the school? Yeah, that’s true. I’ve seen it.”
“How can you trust anything the Weasley twins say?” Draco interrupts.
“He just said he saw it, Draco.”
Nott’s voice is measured. Harry meets his eyes, and since Nott is looking at him behind Malfoy’s back, they exchange their first ever look of sympathy. Sometimes Malfoy is a bloody idiot, and they both know it.
“Yeah.” Harry nods. “And anyway, I heard from the person who placed the Philosopher’s Stone in the school that it had something to do with Nicholas Flamel.” He thinks about mentioning his Invisibility Cloak and the Mirror of Erised, but frankly, he doesn’t want to tell anyone about his interactions with Dumbledore or what he saw in the mirror. “Who’s the inventor of the Philosopher’s Stone.” He lifts the book. “Hermione thinks Professor Quirrell is trying to steal it, and he unleashed the troll in the school on Halloween-”
“Wait, Granger thinks this?” Nott is the one to interrupt this time.
Harry blinks at him. “Yes. She’s analyzed his stuttering and his casting patterns, and-”
“I take it back,” Nott says. “I don’t have any interest in anything that a Mudblood came up with.” He takes down the privacy charm with a savage “Finite,” and then gets up and stalks away from Harry and Malfoy.
Harry looks at Malfoy. “And you?”
Malfoy wavers for a bit, then draws himself up and says, “I know about your plan.”
Harry tenses. “What plan?” It’s true that he and Ron and Hermione are trying to come up with a way to stop Professor Quirrell, but they don’t have anything definite yet.
Malfoy stares at him. “Your political plan. Where you knew that you would be Sorted into Slytherin and people would hate you for that, so you maintained your cover story as a non-Dark wizard by staying friends with a Gryffindor student and then befriending a Mudblood.”
Harry can only blink at him, wordless.
Malfoy taps his nose wisely. “I know about it, but I’m not going to betray it,” he says, standing up and winking at Harry. “Remember that you have someone on your side when you’re ready to become the Dark Lord’s lieutenant, though.”
He walks away, and Harry stares in silence at his departing back.
Well. Harry made a stupid mistake, but because his Housemates are also stupid, nothing bad happened because of it.
Maybe the Hat Sorts based on relative levels of intelligence, Harry decides, and goes back to his book.
*
Harry lies huddled in his bed in the hospital wing, staring at his bandaged hands. Hermione was right, horribly right, about Professor Quirrell being the one who was out to steal the Philosopher’s Stone, but wrong about the reason he was stealing it. She thought he just wanted to be immortal and have all the wealth in the world.
Not that Lord Voldemort was here.
Harry clenches his hands, and feels his chest burn with a lot more than the disgusting-tasting potion Madam Pomfrey forced down his throat.
He remembers the cold rage that made him curse Flint, and the contempt he feels when he brews good potions and Snape marks them down, or when Snape refused to believe him about the other Slytherins bullying him. But nothing has ever compared to the hatred he feels for Voldemort.
Harry wants to destroy him. Not just curse him. Not just make him go away for a little while, or shut up. Destroy him.
He can’t say that to anyone in his life. Ron and Hermione would understand the motive of revenge, but this is beyond that. Harry doesn’t think his friends really hate anyone or anything. He only thought Ron hated Slytherins. Ron got beyond that easily enough once he realized that Harry was still the boy he met on the train, and a stupid snake crest didn’t mean anything.
The other Slytherins are a shallow lot. They might understand hatred, but not hatred of someone who’s as powerful as Voldemort. It’s of a piece with Malfoy thinking that Harry wants to become the Dark Lord’s lieutenant. You follow someone powerful and try to take advantage of what their power can give you. Or you cringe in front of them and hope they won’t notice you. You don’t fight them.
Harry is going to.
He lies back with his eyes closed, and starts to plan about what kind of spells and magic he’s going to study to destroy Lord Bloody Voldemort in the future.
*
Of all the pieces of magic he could learn, Harry never thought that it was something he already knew how to do-speaking to snakes-that would be the most powerful one.
Oh, at first it’s not. After he speaks to the snake in the Great Hall during Lockhart’s ridiculous dueling club, the rest of his House, and a lot of the rest of the school, accuse him of being the Heir of Slytherin. Several of his Housemates, including Malfoy, tell him that he’s obviously the Heir because Slytherin was a Parselmouth, and so is he.
Harry leaves the common room in disgust after the latest unproductive discussion and starts walking to the library, where he’s going to meet up with Ron and Hermione. He’s aware before he’s gone more than a corridor that someone is following him.
He turns around and sees that it’s Millicent Bulstrode. She’s another of the quiet Slytherins, like Nott, although Nott has been more talkative this year and prone to staring weirdly at Harry like Malfoy does.
“What are you going to do?” Harry snaps at her. He’s sick of Slytherin company and wants to be with his real friends. “Tell me I’m lying, too?”
Bulstrode scoffs. “Please. Like you’d risk Petrifying Muggleborns when one of your best friends is a Muggleborn.”
Harry stares at her. It’s unusual enough that she uses the real word instead of “Mudblood.” He wonders what she wants, because he’s no longer naïve enough to think that any Slytherin would befriend him simply to befriend him.
It’s easy enough to figure out, from the greedy way she studies him. She thinks he has power. She wants to be close to it. And she’s figured out that telling him to his face that he’s the Heir won’t get her there, so she’s pretending to believe him.
Part of Harry turns to cold crystal. She wants to be close to power? Fine. She wants to use him? Fine. He’ll use her.
“Well,” Harry says, playing along, “I could use someone in my own House who believes in me.”
“Fine, Potter.” Bulstrode is beaming at him. “Let’s go to the library and stay away from the unintelligent ones for a little while.”
“Call me Harry,” Harry says. He knows Ron and Hermione won’t approve if they know of his plan to use Bulstrode. That means he has to treat her more like a friend, and friends means first names.
“Millicent, then.”
Harry nods, and Millicent follows him. Harry makes small talk with her as they walk along. She can talk Potions and Defense, and she thinks Lockhart is an idiot, which does cause him to place her in a category a few levels higher in intelligence than some of the girls who swoon over their Defense “professor.”
It’s not enough to make Harry trust her. But he understands her. She wants to be close to him because of his Parseltongue, because to her he’s the Heir of Slytherin, and she’ll be reliable as long as she thinks that someday he’ll reveal his power and make it shine on her.
Ron and Hermione are a little harder to persuade, but Hermione warms up to Millicent when she proves she knows a lot about Potions, and Ron relaxes when Millicent says that she doesn’t think Harry is behind the Petrifications.
It’s all sort of fake, but Harry is the only one who knows that, which means it goes smoothly enough.
That’s the first gift his Parseltongue gives him.
*
The second arrives on a night in the common room when Harry, who fell asleep earlier and didn’t finish his Potions essay, is alone and scribbling away on it. It’s nearly midnight. Even the older students who like to study here have gone up to bed.
It’s oddly peaceful, with the fire crackling on the hearth, and the portrait of a green jungle snake of some kind right above him, hissing softly.
“…good to have a Speaker in the House…”
Harry pauses and looks up at the serpent. It flickers its tongue out at him and comes to the edge of the portrait, practically begging to be noticed. Harry has sometimes heard an intelligible hiss from the portraits and snake statues or carvings in the common room, but he hasn’t paid much attention. None of them have ever sounded as if they were talking about him, the way this one is.
“You know I speak Parseltongue?” Harry asks, after a check over his shoulder to make sure that no one’s come down the stairs and Snape hasn’t swept in the door like an overgrown bat.
“All snakes know of the Speaker.” The snake dances back and forth. Now that it’s close, Harry can see that it has bright green eyes, and there are flecks of gold in its scales. Not that that helps him identify it. He really doesn’t know very much about snakes. “Very few have come here since the Great One vanished.” Harry supposes Slytherin himself must be the Great One. “We are lonely. We were made for a purpose, and we cannot fulfill it without a Speaker.”
Harry blinks. If anything, he would have thought the snakes were made to guard the common room in case someone from another House tried to come in. That seems like something they should be able to do regardless if someone is talking to them or not.
“What is your purpose, beautiful one?” Harry reckons a little flattery can’t hurt.
The serpent turns its head upside-down and weaves through its own coils in excitement. “To help the Speakers. We are not like other snakes. We can hear the humans, and we can remember what they say. We can go many places, in portraits and through the tunnels, and we can hear and report back. Use us, Speaker! Guide us! Permit us to listen for you!”
Harry feels his mouth fall open, and he give a rapid blink. That never occurred to him, although he supposes it should have. The little he’s managed to find on Slytherin since he started researching Parseltongue has revealed that the Founder was a paranoid git.
“And you would report to me and me alone?” Harry asks. The second thing his mind has jumped to, after how useful it would be, is what would happen if Voldemort came back to the school and questioned the snakes. He must have used them when he was here. “Not to anyone else?”
“You are the Speaker. You are in our House. You speak our noble tongue. You are the one who is here and to be helped.”
Harry doesn’t know all the nuances of that, but he does think that it probably matters to the snakes that he’s a student. And Voldemort’s not. Even if he came back, he would probably have to take over the school.
And if he did, then Harry would have a lot bigger problems than Voldemort’s access to the snake portraits.
“I will have to make sure that we have a private point for you to speak to me,” Harry murmurs, half to himself.
“There is a private place,” the snake in the portrait responds instantly. “A place with a blank canvas where such as I can gather, and secret small tunnels in the walls that the carvings and stone ones can crawl down.” The snake sounds as though it’s a hiss away from calling the carvings and stone snakes idiots, but doesn’t actually do so. “Come to it, and we will come to you when we have reports.”
Harry smiles. “Can you show me?”
It turns out that he’ll have to leave the common room, so he goes and gets his Invisibility Cloak first. Most of the Slytherins believe that Snape has some kind of spells on the common room door that alert him when a student leaves after curfew, but Harry has been in and out enough times by now to know that’s bollocks.
Or perhaps Snape disabled them when a Potter became a Slytherin, the same way that he decided to ignore the rule “Slytherins guard each other’s backs” when it came to Harry. Harry wouldn’t put it past him. Snape might be a good Head of House for some of the Slytherins, but he’s a useless prick as far as Harry’s concerned.
Harry walks down the corridor to the left of the common room door, following the snake’s instructions, and around a few corners before he comes to a seemingly blank stretch of wall with a small serpentine shape carved into it. It’s so old, and so worn away by the centuries, that Harry wouldn’t have seen it if he wasn’t specifically looking at it. He supposes that helps to keep it as secret as Parseltongue being rare.
He places his hand over it now, and feels a spark leap from it. The snake carving twists, coming out of the wall and becoming much more visible, and bares its fangs a breath from his hand.
Harry meets its eyes, which are deep-sunken little red gems. “Room of the Spies,” he says in Parseltongue.
The carving swings back into the wall, and a hairline-thin crack runs away from it, outlining a door. Harry pushes it open and steps inside, removing the Cloak as he does so.
It’s a large room with darkness and dust everywhere. Harry lights a Lumos Charm, and sees the large blank canvas on the wall, as promised, along with several wooden chairs and a couch that appears to have long-moldered cushions on it. Torch sconces line the walls.
But the canvas isn’t actually blank. A writhing mass of serpents crowds it, black and red and green and golden, large and small, constrictors and cobras and all sorts of other serpents Harry doesn’t know, with his informant from the common room curled at the top. The backs of the chairs, and the legs, and the arms, are alive with snake carvings turning to look at him. The torch sconces aren’t lit, but are covered with stone snakes, practically dripping with them.
As Harry watches, a small hinged flap opens in the wall under the canvas, and a glittering black live snake slithers in. Harry stiffens, his hand darting to his wand.
But the black snake curls in a circle and says, “Welcome, Speaker. We will listen for you.”
A chorus of hisses rises from all the others, and one of them says, “Tell us who to report on.”
“Tell us!” say the snakes in the portrait.
“Command us!” say the carvings on the chairs.
“Use us!” say the stone snakes on the torch sconces.
Harry feels a rush of power and happiness that so far has only struck him when he’s flying, and he laughs and extends his hand. The black snake promptly slides forwards and loops its way around his arm, tongue darting out.
He can protect himself with a gift like this, Harry thinks, staring around. Against students who want to bully him. Against whoever the real Heir of Slytherin Petrifying people is. Against the adults like Snape, and like Dumbledore, who refused to give him any real information last year about why Voldemort attacked his parents in the first place.
Harry laughs again, and the snakes’ hisses echo him.
Part Two.