7
Time rolled onward.
Some days were blindingly fast, gone so quickly they were memories before the ink had even dried. Others were glacial, dragging on for a week before limping on their way.
On Privet Drive, time had held no meaning. There was simply school, then summer, the days repeating in an endless loop. No change, no memories of a time before the Dursleys, and no real concept of the future beyond a fervent hope to leave them behind.
Blackscale had broken that cycle, and Harry had slowly begun filling her days with him and magic. And then Hogwarts had come along and packed her days full to bursting. Morning, noon, and night, every second packed with some new facet of witchcraft.
It was all very tiring.
Exciting, yes, but tiring.
But all the while, she grew. Shedding scales, one or two at a time. Leaving behind Harry Potter and slowly growing into Harry Riddle's skin.
XXX
September 7th
"I brought this back. Sorry for taking so long. I- didn't know how the laundry worked here."
Hagrid chuckled. "Never be afraid to ask the 'ouse elves for a hand." He took the now clean floral handkerchief she was proffering. "Sorta suits yer, doesn' it?"
Harry tilted her head, not understanding. Hagrid flipped open the kerchief, exposing the full expanse of pattern, flowers rampant on the black cloth, and then began folding. He fiddled for a couple moments, reducing it to a long band about an inch thick.
"'ere you go. Tie yer hair back with it." Hagrid handed it back. "Yer got yer dad's hair. He usually kept it short though, so this didn' happen."
He knelt, and Harry leaned forward to let him fasten the cloth round her head. Hagrid's fingers were as thick as her wrist, but he moved like she was made of porcelain, tying the bandanna with the same careful notions she might use to thread a needle.
"'ow's that feel?"
Harry tugged at it a bit, adjusting her tangled ponytail to sit better in the wrap. The cloth had ended up running over the top of her head, just above her bangs, with the tie at the base of her neck. It didn't really contain her ponytail at all, but it put pressure on her bangs, holding them down just a little.
It made seeing her scar that much harder.
"I love it, Hagrid."
The giant man grinned. "Hoped yer would. Now, tell me about yer firs' week."
XXX
September 10th
Snape plucked her essay on alternative ingredients from her hand. She hovered before his desk, shifting from foot to foot while he looked it over, dark eyes scanning the parchment.
"Passable."
When he looked up, she avoided his gaze, staring resolutely at the center of his forehead.
"You'll be working alone. Take your cauldron and supplies and move to that table." Snape pointed. "Do not entertain any bright ideas of getting your classmates onto this… school of thought. My tolerance for your foolishness only extends so far."
Harry managed a just-barely-sincere smile for him. "Thank you, sir."
"Get to work, Riddle."
XXX
September 12th
Classes quickly fell into a rhythm. Subjects were taught, and the professors continued largely in the same vein they had begun on the first day.
Even Quirrel.
Harry had expected there to be some sort of change in him, some flash of the side he'd shown her in detention, but there was none. Stuttering, frightened-of-his-own-shadow Professor Quirrel stumbled through his lessons, gave homework, and then left.
He wasn't looking at her anymore. And his magic hadn't so much as brushed her.
The more time that passed, the more Harry wondered if she hadn't simply imagined some of his competence that night. That Quirrel was just too far-removed from the shivering coward who taught Defense.
But none of that was an answer to what he wanted from her.
XXX
September 13th
"Wait, so the soil type matters too?"
Neville nodded. "The nutrients and minerals in the soil are- ah- really important?" He poked a finger into the clayish dirt they were using to repot wickerweeds. "Some plants grow better with certain soil. I actually have to salt one of the pots back home to get this one flower to grow."
"Wow." Harry dug a little deeper into her pot, eyed Neville's already repotted weed for comparison, and dug some more. "You grow stuff like this at home?"
Something flickered behind Neville's eyes, like a door closing. He looked away. "Sort of. Yeah."
Harry froze, staring. What had she said? Something heavy lurched against her insides at the unhappy look now crossing Neville's face.
"Sorry?"
"It's nothing." Neville gave her a weak, crooked smile. "Just- Gran doesn't approve of my greenhouse. She thinks plants are a dud subject."
Her lip curled. That was a very Dursley-ish view. If Neville's gran was anything like them, then it was no wonder he was so nervous.
"Magic," Harry said, putting down her trowel, "Doesn't have any dud subjects."
"Except divination," Ron interjected.
Harry ignored him. "Herbology is incredible. And your grandmother is wrong."
"I didn't say I agreed with her," Neville said. He was working a discarded leaf between his fingers, worrying the little scrap of plant until it frayed. "But it's not that amazing, you know?"
And she knew this song and dance.
('No, Dudley is very gifted, he's just not good at History. Daft subject. Taught by Marxists, probably.')
She had hated it then, and hearing Neville repeat it was infuriating.
Words burst forth before she could stop them. "No. Wickerweeds can cure gout. And they're good for feeding sick livestock. Or dyeing your hair green. They're neat. Your grandma is wrong, and just- just because she's your family doesn't mean she's right!"
Ron cleared his throat, and Harry realized she'd not only just vented all over Neville, but snarled that last bit in parseltongue. The entire greenhouse was looking at her.
She blinked, her face heating. "It's- um. Yeah." And they were still staring. Was there a spell to turn invisible?
"Right you are, Miss Riddle." An earth-stained hand came down to pat her head. Professor Sprout beamed at her. "Five points to Ravenclaw for knowing the properties of wickerweed. And for inter-house solidarity."
And when Sprout trundled on to see how Ron and Su were doing on their wickerweeds, Neville leaned over. He spread the hole in her pot with two fingers, lifted the cutting, and then repotted it with a few, easy motions.
The bashful smile he directed at her after was enough to make her forget any embarrassment. Well, any from the class. Neither of them could quite manage to look at each other for the rest of the period.
XXX
September 15th
Their first flying lesson was chaotic. Four classes worth of excited eleven-year olds, all champing at the bit to take off. Harry, still a little dubious on the idea of flight, just did her best to listen to Hooch. She got her broom to jump to her hand when called. Hooch discussed grips, then came around and corrected everyone.
"Forward, Riddle. Up closer to the middle."
And then Neville blasted off like a rocket.
He rose, yelling, his broomstick whirling, and then toppled, falling even faster than he'd gone up.
The noise when he impacted the ground was a terrible whumph of displaced air and his own gasp of pain.
Harry shrieked.
Her broom hit the dirt, and she ran to Neville. Hooch was shooing her away, but Harry ignored her, her eyes glued to Neville's blotchy, tear-stained face. Ron was right behind her, yelling something.
They stuck to his side until he made it safely to the hospital wing.
So what if Madame Pomfrey could fix a broken wrist in a few minutes? It didn't change the fact that it could have just as easily been a broken neck. He never would have made it to the nurse.
Pomfrey finally threw Harry and Ron out when it came time to give Neville a couple potions to finalize the process.
"He needs a bit of rest, Miss Riddle. He'll be along in time for dinner."
Harry sank down against the wall outside, knees to her chest, hands wrapped around Blackscale like a lifeline. The suspicion- the thoughts that Pomfrey had kicked them out not to heal Neville, but because he was actually dying, were overpowering.
"Harry. Harry, it's okay." Ron knelt beside her. He made to speak a couple times, but stopped, seeming to rethink what he was going to say. "It's- look, he'll be fine. My brothers have all gone to Hogwarts, and- and they all got hurt, but Madame Pomfrey always fixed it."
Carefully, and a little clumsily, he tugged at her wrist. "C'mon. We'll go… play chess or something."
She nodded slowly. "'kay." A pause, Blackscale shifting around her throat to whisper calming words in her ear. She wanted to be alone more than anything, to be able to think through what had happened, but even so, she allowed Ron to pull her along.
He led them up and up, to the portrait she'd first met him exiting out of with Neville.
The Gryffindor common room was warm and cozy, if a bit dark and stuffy compared to Ravenclaw.
Ron set up a chess set by the fire. They made it through the first five minutes before he realized she had no idea how to play and had to stop and show her. Learning the game, having that to focus on, was enough.
Her racing heart slowed.
Harry hadn't quite grasped chess by the time Neville limped in through the portrait hole.
His wrist was fine. He was fine.
But the memory of him rising precariously, and then falling, his hands clutching at nothing, would burn itself into her nightmares that evening.
XXX
September 16th
"Episkey!"
"Episkey!"
Harry paused to catch her breath for a moment, lowering her wand to study the textbook she had propped open on her bed. The spell was supposed to heal minor wounds, but the gestures it used changed depending on what exactly that injury was. A broken wrist, for example, would usually take two parallel jabs, to symbolize the radius and ulna, and then a sort of wrapping motion, to mimic binding the wrist to keep it stiff. Fixing a nosebleed using the same exact spell would use a completely different motion.
And that was bloody aggravating.
Episkey wasn't like Alohamora, where it could be reduced to a lesser motion if you had enough intent. The textbook was very clear on that. The motions for Episkey- and apparently most other healing spells, were so complex because they needed to be. Unless Harry had an encyclopedic knowledge of anatomy, trying to cheat the motion and overpower it with intent would more than likely make it worse, because her magic would try to fill in the gaps in her knowledge without knowing how. Fixing a broken wrist by sewing the bone together with blood vessels, and other, disturbingly graphic examples.
The full motion for bruises had taken her over an hour to get working reliably, and she'd moved on to healing the myriad of smaller cuts she had. That one was only working maybe one time in five. She was never going to remember all these stupid wand movements. She'd been trying to learn one spell a day so far, and there were just too many little variables to keep them straight, let alone memorize the… eighty-seven variants of Episkey listed in her book.
How was anyone supposed to heal anything? If Neville got hurt again, was she supposed to just consult her five page glossary of Episkey forms?
With a sigh, she lifted her wand and began practicing again.
Quirrel had summoned Blackscale with a twitch of a finger. He probably hadn't even needed to say the spell- he just did it to demonstrate. So what made him different?
"Episkey!"
The scab on her knee from walking into a desk remained a scab.
Harry sagged. She needed help.
Pomfrey had been a regular battleaxe. And who else was there? Snape was a creep, and she didn't know Flitwick or McGonagall well enough to ask them for a favor. The older students in her house seemed to help out lower years sometimes, but there was always a trade. She had nothing to offer. Hagrid… perhaps. But she couldn't imagine him memorizing the minutiae of spells.
And that left Quirrel.
"Episkey!"
The motion for cuts was at least simple: a flat sweep, literally smearing flesh back together. She gritted her teeth, concentrating on what she needed. Flesh knitting shut. Wounds closing. Her cut healing. "Episkey!"
The scab itched terribly for a moment, and then began bleeding.
"Ow, ow, ouch!"
Somewhere in the rush of hobbling to the bathroom and staunching her leg with toilet tissue, Harry made a decision.
She wouldn't ask Quirrel unless she absolutely had to.
XXX
September 19th
Riding on Hagrid's shoulders was always a little amazing. The chance to get an idea of what he saw every day, head and shoulders above everyone else. Not just taller, but bigger in every sense, like everything in the world was built for children. Only his cabin, which Harry was sure Hagrid had made himself, was sized correctly.
She'd left her bag there, and Hagrid had hoisted her up and made his way into the forest. Harry was grinning as he went.
Finally, a chance to see what was so forbidden about this place.
"We're not goin' too far in. Jus' wanted you to meet a coupla creatures. Not a lotta kids get to see the 'em unless they take Care until OWL year."
"Creatures? What kind?" Fluffy had been a little intimidating at first, and she was still wary of getting in trouble for sneaking in to see him, but Harry had still spent a goodly number of hours just sitting and talking to the big dog. If this was another Fluffy… she was going to have a make a schedule for cuddling.
"You'll see."
Hagrid clumped along for another five-hundred feet or so, humming tunelessly as he went. Harry, nearly fifteen feet in the air, mostly just bent low and tried not to get caught in any hanging branches or vines. One scraped her cheek and she hissed.
The idea of pointing a wand at her face was unsettling. Instead, she pressed two fingers to the scratch and drew them across, concentrating with all her might on what she wanted. "Episkey!"
It worked. Somehow.
The skin knitted, tingling coolly, her magic weaving through, purging then sealing the cut.
Harry squealed with surprise and joy, and nearly toppled off Hagrid's shoulders. He shifted slightly.
"Yer alright up there?"
"Peachy!" Harry rubbed her cheek. Perfectly smooth. "Oh, Hagrid, I just remembered. Do you know anything about healing spells?"
The big man rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "Nope. Not much in the forest that can really hurt me. Yer thinking of becoming a healer, Harry?"
"Just thought it'd be useful."
"I do know a coupla handy plants. Show 'em to yer when we get back to the cabin."
The trees opened ahead of them. Hagrid emerged from under the canopy into a small clearing. Tall grass and weeds carpeted it, interspersed with a few, smaller trees that had yet to grow tall enough to block the sun.
And on the far side were three creatures Harry had never imagined she'd see.
"Unicorns," Hagrid said proudly.
He lowered her, and Harry staggered to a halt.
They were too beautiful to be real. A tall male, and two smaller foals. The male had raised his head to look at them, his twisting, pearlescent horn reflecting the light like a prism. He had a small, tufted beard and cloven hooves like a goat, but his coat and mane were pure white, so bright and clean that they made the sunlight look dull.
And their magic. Oh, their magic. Light wasn't a comprehensive enough word for what their magic was. It was radiant, trailing after them in a haze, everywhere they went just a little brighter. It was warm. Gentle. Calm and inviting, true grace and serenity.
Their magic was more insubstantial than wizards', a loose radius where their magic suffused the world. A circle of light and wonder. Her own magic was drawing away, shying from that sphere, drawing back where they made contact, and yet she couldn't stop herself from taking a few steps forward.
This is what religions must have had in mind when they talked about divinity.
The unicorns were divine.
"Go on then," Hagrid said, his voice a happy whisper. "They don't like men much, but they know me, and they don't have a problem with girls. Let em' come see yer."
Harry took a few steps more, and then stopped in the center of the clearing.
The stallion huffed, padding toward her. The foals stayed back, cautious, seeming to wait for the okay. His aura was palpable now, peeling the edges of her magic away paper in a fire. It hurt. Why? He was so glorious, but just being this close was painful.
The unicorn took another step forward, crushing clover beneath his hoof.
Harry faltered, a small gasp escaping her. It was like being sunburnt from the inside, but she couldn't move away- couldn't leave without meeting him. Slowly, she approached to just outside arm's length of him. Her hand rose, palm up, a gesture of openness.
The unicorn was an unmoving statue in marble, his deep, brown eyes on her.
Stretching her fingers out to try and touch him was like reaching into an oven. There was heat inside her, her magic writhing in protest.
She pushed a couple inches more.
And then it was more than pain. There was a feeling. A sense of disdain. A sudden awareness of herself in comparison to him. He was light given flesh, and she was a sweaty, itching, mass of imperfection, her magic that of a bug under a rock, so low and foul that it burned in his very presence.
She was unworthy, and they both knew it.
He turned, snorted, and then stalked away. The foals moved before he did, vanishing into the undergrowth. And then he too was gone, the last silken strands of his tail disappearing with a flick.
Harry shivered, shaking her head. The burning faded moment by moment, the sense of insignificance going with it.
Hagrid's heavy footsteps moved up behind. He joined her at the center of the clearing.
"That's- that weren't yer fault, 'Arry. They're temperamental. Got 'em on a bad day, I guess. Nothing yer did."
But his tone, hurt and confusion, said otherwise.
XXX
September 20th
The skin on her palm was tender the next day. Not overtly painful, but sensitive and red, the fingers stiff. Harry twitched and moved them absently, staring at her hand, thoughts on the unicorns.
Regardless of what Hagrid said, what had happened had been something she did. He'd expected the unicorns to like her. Instead, their presence burned her like… The image that came to mind was an old one. Dudley staying up late one night to catch a horror movie that his mother would never let him watch if she knew. Some schlocky 70's vampire film, full of blood and gore.
And those scenes of vampires writhing and hissing, their skin steaming in the morning sun, were the closest analogue she could think of to describe what she'd felt.
And why was that?
The unicorns were inherently good beings. So why had approaching them burned her?
Was… was there something wrong with her?
Because there had been something wrong there, and it hadn't been them. It had been her, Harry, whose flesh and soul cried out at the presence of pure and wonderful unicorns.
It was an old feeling resurrected. A surety that she had done something wrong, but didn't know what. A reminder of every time she'd been punished back in Surrey. There had always been guilt and confusion then, but they'd never been as real as this.
There was evidence for it now. Real, witnessed with her own eyes, evidence.
Did…
Or if…
Her thoughts spiraled off, growing deeper and darker with every go.
Harry pulled the blanket over her head. She felt too nauseous for breakfast.
XXX
She was still picking at her palm when Defense ended.
"F-finish the assigned r-reading, and answer the q-questions I passed out. D-due Friday." Quirrel did his usual clap for dismissal. He was already turning to leave when Harry caught up with him.
"Wait! Er- Professor, please, just a quick question."
"Miss R-riddle." Quirrel's quavering smile was so different from the one he'd given her in detention that she almost backed away. "I'm af-fraid you caught me at a b-bad time. Staff m-meeting in a few m-minutes. Additionally, I w-will be caught up with personal b-business for m-most of this month. No o-office hours for a while."
She gaped at him. This was her last chance for weeks.
Quirrel was just beginning to move away again, and she followed, trailing him to the door. Despite his impatience, he paused there and waited until the rest of the class had departed before giving her his attention.
"I s-suppose I can make t-time for you. Now, w-what did you w-want?"
"Sir, please. I just need to know- why would unicorns dislike someone?"
He looked down at her, staring through his lashes, smile still playing across his face. "An o-odd q-question, Miss R-riddle. Unicorns tr-traditionally f-flee from the impure. M-most often, non-virgins, y-you know what that m-means?" Harry nodded, feeling her cheeks glow. "And of c-course, from dark w-witches and wizards." Quirrel chuckled at that. "N-nothing you need to worry about."
"But sir-!"
A wave of his hand cut her off.
"Now, now, Harry." Quirrel bent. His mouth neared her ear. "I will have office hours again in three weeks, but I'll be quite busy until then. Though… I suppose I could look into your problem if you help me with a few of mine." His voice was smoother in parseltongue, more in tune with the sinuous slide of his magic. She was so focused on the sound and his proximity that it took a moment for the words to sink in.
Quirrel straightened, his hand dipping into a pocket. It returned holding a small, gray-white egg. He held it out to her, and Harry numbly raised her hands to take it. The egg was about as long as her thumb, more oblong than ovular, and the shell was a little soft.
"A snake egg," Blackscale interjected, having surfaced to listen to the parseltongue.
"Yes," Quirrel said. "It was to be a project of mine, but I can't devote the time at present. Take care of it for me. You know the warming charm? It-" There was a clatter of footsteps. Students had just rounded the corner, laughing and chattering. A grimace passed across Quirrel's face before he continued in English. "Keep the egg safe and warm. It is bound to hatch soon."
Harry opened her mouth to agree- she had no reason not to, and it was an amazing responsibility. Moreover, if she did this, he would be more amenable to talk to her.
"I will watch over it." Blackscale stretched down, nosing at the shell.
"You will?" Harry said, blinking at his initiative. Didn't he mostly just eat eggs?
"The Ouroboros wishes it."
The phrasing was familiar. He'd said something similar about the layered room on the seventh floor. And he'd meant Quirrel?
Quirrel chuckled. "How apropos. I'm sure you will not disappoint me, Miss Riddle, Blackscale."
His hand rose, then came down. Gentle, but firm, resting on her shoulder. Harry's tongue stilled, suddenly dumb, her full attention on the weight of his hand. Something lurched insider her, shivering at the root of her spine, and the base of her teeth. Like all her bones suddenly ached to lean into the contact.
His magic pressed against hers, a brush like feathers, passing her by. Her own power drawn along in its wake, iron fillings behind a magnet.
There were students passing them, their noise filling the hallway, but they might as well have been in another world.
"Feed your magic into the egg. Just a little every night. Do this and I will tell you about the unicorns."
He pulled away. His hand left her.
His magic was already gone.
XXX
Her room was dim. A single candle beside Neville's Snake Vine, and the cloudy moonlight through her east window.
Harry sat, sleepshirt pooling around her. She'd made a nest of blankets for the egg, though it had taken some frantic practice of the warming charm to get it satisfactorily toasty. The spell was one she'd been meaning to learn, and Quirrel's project had given her all the impetus she needed.
One finger stretched out to press against the egg's leather shell.
Harry drew on the barest trickle, the meanest, tiniest hair of her power. There had been too many explosions, too many twigs and leaves bursting into flame during her practice to overdue this.
It was a task a wand might be better for, but she still couldn't quite trust the tool. It just felt… artificial. Feeding the egg was an act of nature. It needed to be natural.
Magic flowed. The sedate warmth she associated with her power pooled in her wrist, her hand, her index.
She opened the link.
And gasped.
The egg soaked up her magic like water on sand. Something inside- the snakeling, or maybe some of the creature's magic, was resonating, a tiny, sliding, theremin of a sound.
Harry pushed more. And slowly, the egg began to fill. Any worries of how much or when to stop faded.
Little by little.
Just as her power was cresting, about to reach the brim of the egg, the resonance increased.
Bub-bub. Bub-bub. Bub-bub.
Something akin to the liquid light filling the egg bloomed in Harry's chest.
She was hearing its heartbeat.
The egg filled, and reluctantly, Harry drew away, the link breaking off. The tender skin on her palm was throbbing, but it was different now. A good soreness, like exertion after a run.
Blackscale slid out of the darkness to coil around the egg. His amber eyes rested beside the shell, and he hissed approvingly.
"Hey," Harry said, whispering in spite of them being alone in the room. "You told Quirrel you'd watch the egg because he's… an orberos? What does that mean?"
Silence, their shadows dancing in the candlelight.
Blackscale blinked slowly. "The Ouroboros. The snake of infinity." The tip of his tail twitched, settling a little closer to his coils. "Do you not know your own sire?"
She stared at him for a long moment, speechless. And then she began explaining all the reasons that was impossible. First and foremost was that Quirrel was almost certainly not old enough. Secondly was that she'd been informed numerous times by her relatives how damningly she resembled her father. Thirdly, it was Quirrel! Stuttering, weird Quirrel.
Who was a parselmouth, when being a parselmouth was hereditary. And whose magic pulled at her, that drew her. Who seemed to know more about her than she did.
"Impossible." Saying it aloud didn't stop the hairs on the back of her neck from rising.
Blackscale just coiled a little tighter and said no more.
XXX
September 21st
If she'd thought having the egg would change anything, she didn't expect it to change what it did. Blackscale hadn't left the nest except to hunt, and then it was back to guard-duty.
It didn't make sense- he'd been quite clear about his enjoyment of poaching eggs from other creatures' nests to eat, but Quirrel made a request and suddenly he was on board? And all due to some nonsense about Ouroboros-this and Ouroboros-that.
Harry wasn't angry at him. Just… she missed him. They'd barely been apart since she came to Hogwarts, he hunted alone, and she certainly didn't shower with him, but they spent the majority of the day together.
She got up and went to class, but there was no familiar weight at her neck. No warmth. She felt oddly naked and vulnerable, like his scales had protected her as well.
History of Magic was infinitely more boring when she couldn't read ahead in the text and make observations about it to him. Blackscale would respond with something scathing, and Harry would have to stifle her giggles.
Funny how a lifetime alone could lose its luster after a month of cuddling a reptile.
XXX
An older boy approached her as she was leaving Transfiguration. He was Slytherin, not quite an adult yet, but old enough to tower over her. She didn't know his name- most of the upperclassmen were too intimidating to really interact with.
"I was wondering," the boy said. "You can speak to snakes, correct? Parseltongue and all that."
"I can."
"Nice!" The boy glanced around before leaning closer. "I'm trying to get on over on my friend. There's a couple galleons in it for you if you could- maybe make your snake pretend to bite him?"
The oily smile the boy gave her put the slang about slimy, snaky Slytherin to shame.
"No."
"But- okay, five galleons."
Harry glared. "I said no."
Before he could say more, Harry slipped around him and took off running. He yelled, but she didn't hear him come after her. She bounced between other students, barely navigating the stairs down, and didn't stop running until there were three floors between them.
Fear and revulsion had become full-blown anger by the time she got to Charms.
He'd been trying to buy her. Trying to use her in his stupid little games. As though the gift that gave her her first friend was just a novelty to be goggled and gaped at.
Like a freak.
And Blackscale hadn't been there. He would have hissed at the boy and scared the hell out of him.
She was mad at him now, but she was more angry at herself. One little confrontation and she defaulted back to the scared little girl running from bullies.
Her quill smoldered in her clenched fist, dry of any ink.
She took no notes that day.
XXX
September 26th
There were others who approached her. More thrill-seekers, trying to catch a glimpse of an oddity, or trying to buy her time or favor for their own uses. Most were just curious about her ability though.
Harry demonstrated for the first, earnest few, the ones who were genuine in their interest, but by the tenth, she was refusing. It felt too much like being a show-dog. There just to pop off her tricks and then back to the kennel.
The one exception after that was Clearwater. The older girl was doing an essay on magical languages and wanted Harry's insight. That had been a fascinating conversation, where Clearwater posed all sorts of questions that Harry either hadn't thought of, or didn't know the answer to. She initially relayed them to Blackscale, and then translated his replies, but the adder found the back and forth so annoying that he quickly became snippy and crawled under the bed.
So Harry had to make due on her own. Did parseltongue add human meaning or emotion to words where a snake was not capable of giving them, or was it approximating? Further, did it outright enhance serpent intelligence, because snakes weren't capable of conversation on their own, or was adjusting the level of conversation to be understandable by each participant something the magic did? According to Blackscale, snakes simply didn't need to talk normally. And that was another twenty minutes of conversational detour, because how did parseltongue even work to begin with since snakes could barely hear?
The discussion lasted long enough that Harry was nearly late for Astronomy. But in return, the Clearwater corrected a couple of the gestures Harry was using to simplify her spells, and then wrote her a pass just in case.
Harry left the prefect with a smile, and an invitation to return if she ever had any more questions.
XXX
September 29th
"Where's your buddy?"
Harry looked up from her History notes. "Sorry?"
Su, whose paper was mostly covered in elaborate doodles, pointed to Harry's neck. "Your snake."
"Oh. He's… up in our room. Doing snake things."
"Cool. You wanna play hangman?"
XXX
That was the start of it. She played hangman with Su during History, getting stumped when the other girl started using movie titles as entries, and time flew by at a rate unheard of with Binns.
In Transfiguration, she paid attention to where she sat, and ended up having a debate with Padma over how they thought animal transfiguration worked. (McGonagall, who seemed to appreciate a healthy discussion, gave them both five points and extra homework).
Herbology was much the same. She talked and worked alongside Neville, with Ron pairing with a boy named Finnigan. And Harry paid attention.
She was never inattentive, but there was a new, daring feeling to it today. There was no Blackscale, no proverbial safety net for her to talk to if no one else wanted to. Without Blackscale, the people around her seemed easier, more willing to relax without their ridiculous fears of deadly vipers.
So she talked to her classmates, they talked back, and it was all very… very nice, actually.
XXX
October 5th
"So you just grip the broom here. And then- kinda lob the ball like- Harry? Harry, are you listening?"
Harry started, jolting on her broomstick. "Sorry?"
Ron rolled his eyes. "I'm trying to explain Chasing."
"Oh. Sorry."
He began his explanation again, and Harry tried her best to listen.
It was just… a little difficult when they were two-hundred feet in the air above the quidditch pitch, and Hogwarts was sprawling open beneath them. The wind was sharp, but rich with summer scents and the thick smell of old wood and dry leaves that came off the forest. Above, the sun wasn't quite breaking through the cloud cover, but it was close. Enough to heat her back and warm her hair beneath her bandanna, the glow seeping in and making her sleepy.
The urge to take a leaf from Blackscale's book and bask was overpowering. Or better yet- to simply fly, the sun at her back, and just skim those endless treetops. When she left the Dursleys', she was definitely taking a broom. Could she have one of those outside Hogwarts? She needed to-
"Harry! Bloody hell, it's like trying to play with Loony Lovegood," Ron muttered.
"Sorry," she said again. "Do you want to just… fly around or something?"
The redhead sighed. "Yeah, alright."
He acted unenthusiastic, but when Harry dove, whooping as the wind split around her, Ron was right behind.
The land rushed up to meet her, and she leveled out, arrowing over the treetops. Ron drew even with her. They exchanged a glance. No words were said, but there was understanding.
A race.
She pointed. There was an outcrop of stone, a hill that broke the sea of green far ahead.
Ron bent over his broom and shot ahead. Harry copied him, moving faster than she'd ever gone before.
Her eyes watered, the wind biting her face, but her exhilaration was stronger. She wanted to win, not out of any sense of competition, but because it would be something she and Ron had done together. As friends.
The trees blurred into a smear of color beneath them. For the first time, she really felt the limits of her sphere of awareness as magical beings flashed into her senses, only to vanish a second later. The forest was full of unseen wonders, some of the magical signatures so alien she ached to stop and see what they matched up to.
Ron was still ahead, but she was gaining, her lighter weight letting her close the gap. The hill was rising, growing larger. Not so much a hill as a small mountain, the first of the chain leading away from Hogwarts.
She was closing, nearly even and-
Something huge and black burst out of the canopy far to her right. Harry yelped, jerking her broom back to stop.
She skidded to a halt in midair. Ahead, Ron looked back before looping around to rejoin her.
"What's wrong?"
"Look!" she cried, pointing at the creature. It was a horse, but unlike any she'd ever seen. White eyes. Midnight black hide stretched over an emaciated frame. The thing had taken flight on leathery bat wings, soaring away from them with long, beating flaps.
"Look at what?" Ron's eyes narrowed. "If this is the wind-up to you running for the goal, I'm gonna be mad. I get that enough at home."
She shook her head and tried to explain what the thing was. It took a few moments, ending with her trying to mime 'skeleton horse' with her hands, before Ron straightened.
"Ohh! It's a uh- thingy. Bill told me about them. Thestrals, or something. You can't see them unless..." He paused, glancing off in the direction Harry had indicated. The horse creature had slipped back below the treetops. "Unless you've seen someone die."
There was a long, lurching silence, birdsong and rustling leaves not drowning out the quiet of not-talking.
"Uhm." Harry swallowed. She pointed back toward Hogwarts. "Race you back?"
Ron grinned. Then he took off at full speed, leaving her to yell at his back.
He seemed to forget the thestral in the hubbub of rocketing to a photo finish back at the stadium. Or, Harry hoped he had.
They ended up just flying willy-nilly, curves and circles and loops, wearing themselves out with simple motion.
Exhaustion set in, the sun just beginning to descend. Harry draped herself over her broom and hovered, eyes half shut. Ron was nearby, turning lazy circles in orbit around her.
He passed by, and she saw him glance at her. There was a glint in his eye, a stiffness in his smile, just for a second. And then he was by, circling around for another go.
He hadn't forgotten.
XXX
The words resurfaced later. "Unless you've seen someone die." They repeated in her head, a constant echo beneath the layer of her thoughts.
Because she hadn't.
Not even on the television, and she was certain that didn't count for magic.
This was the second sign. First the unicorns, and now these thestrals.
There was something wrong with her. Wrong in her.
Quirrel had said only dark wizards and the impure were shunned by unicorns. And she wasn't the former.
Impure.
XXX
October 12th
Survival spells.
The topic was one she'd originally intended to ask Hagrid about. But after the unicorns, the idea of having him cast more of those sad, worried looks her way was unpalatable. Quirrel had been her second choice.
Blackscale was still adamantly refusing to explain that can of worms, and still wouldn't leave the egg.
So she was alone in the library, researching her true focus in magic, and only occasionally trying to ask Blackscale questions before she remembered he was gone.
So, survival spells, as she'd taken to calling them in her head. Magic that could be used to help her live on her own. Practical stuff. But nothing on impurity. (She'd checked.)
A handful of the miscellaneous charms she'd learned already were applicable, as was transfiguration in a more general sense. Herbology and potions were quickly gaining importance on her list though. Potions could be anything from medicine to enhancement, and the better she was with herbology, the easier it would be to forage.
Harry flipped through one of the books she'd picked out. The glossary didn't hold anything that sounded promising, so she set it aside. The next book however, mentioned something under 'Finding, water.'
Aguamenti, huh? A charm to draw water vapor from the air to create water from the wand. And- Harry's eyebrows shot up. It purified any water taken in by default. That was beyond invaluable. She quickly scanned the overview, jotting down notes as she went.
Casting was a full-circle done clockwise, followed by a wavy motion, and then a jab if she wanted the water to shoot out. It-
Someone pulled the chair opposite her out, spinning it round to sit in it backwards. Harry looked up to find Su grinning across the table.
"Hey, Harry."
"Hi."
"Turpin learned a spell for color changing from an upperclassmen. Originally she was just going to do MacDougel's nails with it, but then Fawcett and Patil wanted in, and it kind of became a thing. So… kind of a first-year girls slumber-party tonight. You in?"
It wasn't really a choice though, was it? Because unless Harry spent the night in the library, she'd basically have to come to the party. And it was going to be all girls, talking about girl-stuff, and doing girly things.
Everything Harry was truly terrible at.
On the other hand, the alternative was sitting here and reading about spells she may or may not even be able to cast, all the while tearing herself up thinking about Quirrel and impurity. Alone. With no warm, sleepy adder at her throat.
She sighed, closing the book on Aguamenti. "Okay."
"Seriously?" Su was gaping unabashedly at her. "Didn't think you'd actually go for it. It- sorry, I didn't mean it that way," she added at Harry's grim expression. "You're just hard to pin down, wandering around all the time like you do. So… you're really in?"
"It… could be fun?"
XXX
And surprisingly enough, it was.
They holed up in Lisa's room, piling blankets and pillows on her rug until it was a virtual wonderland of cotton and fluff. Someone brought candy, and someone else brought an orange drink called butterbeer, and there was more sugar than Harry had ever had in her life.
Lisa had already taught the color spell to Isobel, and the two girls went around the room, charming everyone's nails into different, incandescent shades. Harry, slightly stiff, lurking on the periphery because she wasn't sure what to do ended up with Isobel.
"Wow," Isobel breathed.
Harry nodded, too surprised to speak.
Her nails, normally worn down and crescented with dirt, looked bizarre in violet. But it was a nice shade, rich and clean, with little swirls of lavender running through it. It was like her nails had been transplanted from someone much classier than she was.
"Can you show me how to do that spell?" she asked.
Isobel waggled her nails playfully. "Sure, but you'll need to practice on someone else. I like the colors I have." She demonstrated the wand movement: A horizontal stroke from right to left, angled slightly downward. 3 o'clock to 8 o'clock. "Incantation is 'Colovaria.'"
Harry squinted, trying to commit the gesture to memory. Only when that was done did she look back to Isobel. "Thanks."
"No problem. My mum knows a bunch of cosmetic charms like that. Now that I'm here, she'll probably teach them to me. You want me to pass them on?" She smirked at Harry's enthusiastic nod. "Just cuz we're Ravenclaws doesn't mean we have to be a bunch of boring swots, right?"
"Izzie! Come look at this!" Lisa shouted from across the room.
"Talk to you later, Harry," Isobel said. She rose, hop-scotching over girls and food to reach Lisa.
Harry sat for a moment before she cadged a nearby butterbeer, eyeing her new nails even as she sipped at the drink. Around her, the other girls were loosening up, talking and giggling over each other, topics moving so rapidly that Harry couldn't keep up.
But it was nice. Something she'd never done before. No one minded her being there- not even Fawcett, apparently, and the whole atmosphere was light and relaxed. It was, for a time, possible to forget about unicorns and thestrals and all the magic she still needed to learn.
And then someone brought out the makeup.
XXX
Never. Again.
Judging by the funhouse mirror reflection she could make out in her butterbeer bottle, she looked like a clown. A very clumsy clown.
It had been funny, and rather novel to have makeup on at first. But… goodness, it just felt caked on.
Even if somewhere in the hubbub of applying mascara, and the chaos of Brocklehurst trying to use Colovaria on her hair and turning it rainbow, Harry had forgotten to be nervous.
XXX
She rose slowly, sliding out of the blanket she'd been wrapped in.
It was late, enough that the other girls had largely tired themselves out. Isobel was asleep in Lisa's lap, with the latter snoring loud and proud. Mandy, still rainbow-maned, was drifting, flipping sleepily through a copy of Witch Weekly. Padma was on her back, using her wand to conduct along with the tinny song coming from the wizarding radio by the window.
Fawcett seemed like the only other girl to still be lucid. She was watching Harry, dark hair loose, her eyes bright over a nursed bottle of butterbeer.
"Hey."
Harry stopped. "Yeah?" Her back tightened, the dozy mood falling away. Surely Fawcett wouldn't start a fight here, would she?
"'m sorry."
Harry turned fully to face her. "What?"
Fawcett drummed her seafoam green nails on the glass for a moment before answering. "For the first week. Talking about your family like that."
"Oh." What was she supposed to say to that?
"I was- I was being a bitch. It's just- most of my family got killed in the war. By You-Know-Who. He was a parselmouth, you're a parselmouth… I got carried away. When I saw you helping Longbottom with his Herbology, it just sort of clicked. His family got it worse than anyone's, and he was still friends with you. So… I'm sorry."
Silence. Harry wiped absently at the makeup across her mouth, feeling it smear. Fawcett took a sip.
"It's okay."
The other girl set her bottle down. "No it's not. That was… you didn't have anything to do with it."
And for a second, less than a heartbeat, Harry considered telling her. Not the full secret, but something close. Her family had died in the war too. If she said that, would there be something, some sort of mutual understanding between them?
But was it even fair to call them her family? People who died a decade ago. Her mother and father didn't have faces or voices. They were strangers she'd never known.
So why was Fawcett upset? She wouldn't have known her family members either.
Or… was it Harry who was wrong? Should she be upset over her parents? Was there a connection there she'd simply never learned? That in the same way she'd never learned hair or makeup, she'd never learned grief.
A lingering, ever-present, brokenness.
Just another thing wrong with her.
Fawcett was swirling the last of her drink around the bottom of the bottle. Waiting for a reply.
Harry sighed, suddenly tired of the whole conversation. She just wanted to feed the egg and have some quiet before she slept.
"It's okay. I'm not mad, Fawcett."
"We're square?"
"Yeah."
She bent and picked up her bedding, and headed for the door.
Behind her, Fawcett stirred. Glass clinked against stone.
"Hey. Can I call you Harry? You can call me Sara, if you want."
Harry hesitated in the doorway, arms full of blankets and pillow.
"Goodnight, Sara."
XXX
She dreamt of prayer.
Knees gone numb against flagstones. Hands clasped, knuckles white. Christ on his cross above an altar, face twisted in reverent agony. The matron at her side, praying in a frantic, desperate mumble.
It is a memory. A time long ago, a time when she was young enough to almost believe.
"You must pray harder, Tom. You've the devil in you."
There is more after that, but the dream blurs together. A flood of images and sounds.
Benson and Bishop in the cave by the sea. A dark-haired little girl whispering to toy soldiers when no one else would speak to her. Stubbs and his rabbit. Whalley, screeching with pain. A boy kneeling by his cot, trying to find the words to a prayer that does not exist. A girl weeping, begging to know why. A boy seething, wondering why.
A boy-
A girl-
XXX
Harry woke. A gasp escaped her, relief from leaving the dream. It was followed by a groan. Her stomach was heaving and cramping. Too much sugar and stress knotting it tight.
She slid out of bed and dashed for the bathroom.
Going helped settle her belly, and she moved more slowly on her way out. To the sink, leaning for a moment, the cool porcelain beneath her palms soothing, and then turning on the water.
Harry scrubbed her hands, glancing up at her sleep-muddled reflection.
A streak of black liquid dripped from the corner of her eye.
She jerked back so suddenly that her knuckles scraped across the faucet. The pain brought her back to reality.
Not black sludge. Mascara. She'd forgotten to remove it along with the rest of her makeup.
But just for a second, there had been terror and certainty. That she was so tainted that it was oozing out of her pores. Just her imagination getting the best of her in a vulnerable moment.
Her sickness wasn't trickling out like a nosebleed- even if it was still there. And her eye was most definitely not red. That had just been a trick of the light, catching the flame from one of the torches.
XXX
It didn't really sink in during the first wave of tests and markings. It was only when the second wave began trickling in, A's and O's and E's, that Harry realized that she was actually doing pretty well. She'd done decently in primary, but the teachers had never really been there for her, and getting marked higher than Dudley was usually a good way to get him throwing things at her.
Most of her year mates were pretty sharp as well. Su was better than she was at Transfiguration, but Harry had learned to cast most of the spells in the Charms text by now. Padma was better than both of them, if only just, and was currently vying for top of the year with Lisa, who seemed to be using high History scores to offset low Astronomy.
Potions was Harry's weakest, and most of that was because she was learning entirely different recipes from the rest of the class. Snape had shot her a few half-snide, half-advisory remarks so far, but mostly seemed content to watch her figure it out on her own. But having to essentially adapt every homework assignment he gave to her non-animal curriculum was turning out to be an exercise in hours of effort.
It was Herbology that turned out to be the surprise though. She had the highest first-year grade in Ravenclaw in the subject. Having Neville as a friend, and Blackscale as a handy source of nature knowledge were turning out to be incredible assets.
When she got her third O in the subject, she decided to get Neville a gift. A cutting from a plant at the edge of the forest. It was only a couple meters in, hardly trespassing at all.
Cunaria Ridens: the laughing orchid. A magical plant that responded to joy and laughter by glowing in bright colors.
Neville was so tongue-tied that he couldn't even answer when she gave it to him.
And then he met her with a gift the next day.
A little pot with a Snake Vine. It was tetchy, sensitive to cold, but the vine had a coat of leaves that resembled scales, and that could be plucked and chewed to cure minor ailments.
She put it on her bedside table.
The vine was lovely. It meant something, and reminded her of him whenever she saw it.
It was palpable in a way that grades weren't. Harry enjoyed doing well, being acknowledged by her professors for excelling, but it just… felt like not enough.
An O in Charms wasn't going to help her survive on her own. And another E in Defense didn't get her any closer to solving the mystery of her impurity.
The more she learned, the more she needed to learn.
And the more inadequate she felt.
XXX
October 24th
Neither of them mentioned the unicorns.
Harry passed by the cabin one day during one of her explorations of the grounds. Hagrid asked her if she wanted to help him with something, and she said yes.
And that was how she ended up helping the groundskeeper peel potatoes. He did it by hand, something about magic ruining the taste.
It wasn't her first go with peeling, but it was her choice here. She could choose not to peel and nothing would happen. There would be no punishments. Hagrid was happy just to have her there; he didn't care how many she did.
She kept going. The motion, the rhythm of hand and knife, were calming. A chance to slow down from days of anxious thoughts of her own uncleanliness. To relax and shuck away some of the sleepless nights full of nightmares.
Quiet.
XXX
October 28th
In the dream, she is back in the clearing. She is aware it is a dream; the world is too nebulous. She is nude, yet there is no prickle of the grass beneath her feet, and no heat of the sun on her shoulders.
The unicorn bows his head again. He charges, cloven hooves kicking clods of grass behind him.
His horn penetrates her chest and emerges from her back, smooth as moonlight. It hurts even through the dream. Blindingly, brilliantly white agony, one lung trying to inflate around the rod of bone stuck through it. She gasps, choking on fluids, aware that it is not real, but still fundamentally terrified that death is imminent.
He lifts her, her feet dangling over the clover and heath, and she begins to bleed.
Sludgy, fetid, black blood pours from the wound in her heart.
Her hand rises, trying to staunch it, but it's like trying to plug a dam. It oozes through her fingers, staining violet-charmed nails and the heavy, black-stone ring she wears.
And now her blood is gushing, covering the meadow- not a meadow anymore, but a lake of darkness, lit at the center by an emerald light. She is above the water, the unicorn gone, but she still dangles.
Girls slide beneath the surface, their eyes wide and white and empty.
Lisa. Isobel. Su. Sara.
Harriet.
There is a noise from behind.
Hands come to rest on her shoulders. Long-fingered. Pale as the corpses under the water.
The man behind her whispers something. A hand rises to stroke up her neck and cup the back of her skull. He drags fingers through her hair, and even through the dream, Harry feels a sudden, terrible yearning, curling back to meet the contact.
The other hand encircles, coils round her. A smooth palm presses over her hand, staunching her gushing, pouring heart. Skin to skin, divided only by a coating of gore.
His fingers twist the ring, gem framed with serpents, the stone engraved with a line within a circle within a triangle. He twists it, the motion smearing black sludge.
"You wear it well."
XXX
October 31st
There was a spice in the air. Not pumpkin or food or leaves. Something that was all those and none of those. The castle's magic felt different. Tighter. Stretched taut. The feeling that came to mind was thestral skin. Pulled so tight that everything beneath was pressed into relief.
The spice was enough to ease the nightmares that woke her at dawn. It was vibrant, yet soothing, plucking at the thread inside her that Quirrel always thrummed. Not tense, but anticipatory. Something was going to happen. Or was happening.
She drifted through her morning routine, eyes half-closed, letting the fluctuations and currents in the magic flow around her.
"Speaker!"
Harry stumbled, nearly tripping over her towel. "Gah!"
Blackscale lifted his head from the nested blankets beside her bed. "It is nearly time. We will accompany you."
He came to her hand as she approached, sliding up her arm to retake his spot around her throat. Something out of place within her chest settled, easing.
Harry reached out. The egg was still, but there was enough of her magic in it by now, a month's worth of nightly feedings, that she could feel it throbbing around the shell, constantly attuned to her. The snake's heartbeat was smooth and steady, more rapid than it had been before.
Her hands closed carefully around it, and she slipped it into her pocket. The egg nestled against her belly, a warm, surprisingly light weight.
"Do you know how long?" she asked.
"Soon. When it is ready."
She smiled, heady with magic and Blackscale's return.
"I missed you, you know."
He hissed low and slow. "I never left."
XXX
There was a calendar beside the bulletin board in the common room. Harry did a double-take as she passed it, counting the days. It was about time for Quirrel to be available again, wasn't it?
Excitement flared-
Halloween.
-and then flickered.
No chance he would have office hours today.
She was up earlier than most of her peers, and walked down to breakfast alone. Not quite alone- she amended the thought. There were two serpents with her. She'd speculated on what the new snake might be; it must be magical, and that could mean virtually anything. But now she was giddy, excited to meet the hatchling in a way that feeding the egg hadn't satisfied.
Harry kept one hand on the egg as she walked, the other stroking a thumb along Blackscale's back.
There were lit Jack o'lanterns at every corner in the halls. The suits of armor had been transfigured into extravagantly sinister black knights. Bats clouded the ceiling in the Great Hall, the room thick with autumnal smells of all the unusual dishes whipped by for the holiday.
Harry huffed, still a little miffed at the lack of Quirrel, found a seat at the Ravenclaw table, and began trying to find a type of candy that Blackscale might like.
XXX
Cockroach clusters.
He wasn't that hungry anyway, but it was still pretty funny to watch the girls around her almost lose their breakfast over a snake swallowing caramel-coated roaches. Fawcett- Sara, choked on her orange juice, and gave Harry a glare.
Harry gave her an innocent smile in return.
Neither said anything, but Harry was finding she was alright with that. Whatever strange, sort of amicable, but not friends relationship they had, it was miles better than constantly agonizing over if the other girl hated her.
Harry turned back to her own plate. The house elves had made all the toast rather festive by cutting it into skull shapes, drooling red jam like blood.
She'd just bitten into her second piece when the morning post came in. The swarm of owls usually brought a mad scuffle as everyone grabbed their food to make sure the owls didn't spill it. Harry loaded toast into her free hand and leaned back, letting the birds descend.
A gray-plumed owl landed dangerously close to her pumpkin juice.
It stuck out its leg to her.
Harry chewed, frowning at it.
The owl waved its skinny leg insistently.
"Can I?" Blackscale asked. "I can save half for later, if you help me."
"Not today," she said, and reached out to take the letter.
The little roll unfolded to reveal a few lines of thin, elegant calligraphy.
'Miss Riddle,
I have a small amount of free time tomorrow before first period. If you would like to stop in, I'd be happy to accommodate you.'
There was no signature, but none was needed. Her eyebrows shot up, and she spun, looking toward the high table. Quirrel was absent.
She grinned around her mouthful of bread, excitement restored to a blaze. Not only had he made time for her, but he'd remembered she'd wanted to meet, even weeks later. She gulped down the last of her food and jumped up from the table.
XXX
There was a trick to getting places in Hogwarts.
They had the day free for the holiday, and Harry, sick of the library for once, but also wary of wandering into the forest with a fragile snake egg in her pocket, stayed inside.
It was going to be an exploration day. She'd had several already, but most were outside, wandering around the grounds or into the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest if no one was watching.
She'd explored Hogwarts twice now. The first just to figure out optimal ways to all her classes. The second had been an exploration of the dusty, deserted hallways near Fluffy's corridor on the third floor. An entire wing of the castle had been roped off just to seclude the cerberus, and she still really wasn't sure why. Something to ask Hagrid the next time she saw him.
But there was a trick to navigating Hogwarts. It was simply, not to navigate. The castle responded, like all magic, to intent. If she had a destination in mind, and focused hard, willing it to appear, things would align in such a way as to get her there quicker and more easily.
And if she didn't focus?
The castle turned into a tangle of corridors and classrooms, with entire sections she'd never seen before presenting themselves for exploration. There was no palpable movement of rooms, but familiar paths would give forth unfamiliar doors, or sprout new tapestries for examination. It was like walking through some giant Escher painting, where all the bizarre stairs and geometry were just out of sight.
Footsteps the only sound around, Harry disappeared into the depths of the castle.
XXX
She drew to a halt in a doorway, breathless at the room Hogwarts had shuffled up.
There had been classrooms and closets, colonnades and cloisters. But there hadn't yet been a garden.
Until now.
It was a courtyard, an open space ringed on all sides by towers and walls. There was the sense of stepping into a box canyon, the only exits the door and the sky far above, framed with crenelations.
Rectangular planters ran in neat rows across the space, all overgrown, packed shoulder-high with vegetation. The cobblestones surrounding the planters were torn up, exposing earth beneath, that too sprouting wildflowers and thistles.
Harry walked in a daze, traversing the rows. There was wind, impossible in the enclosed courtyard, but there anyway, thick with pollen and scent. The magic here was blended, Hogwarts and the land's, the mixture more to the latter.
Paving stones inset with colored glass led the way to a small, rusting, iron bench. Harry sank onto it.
Her room was hers, but it was also Ravenclaw's, and the school's. The forest was nice, but it was not hers. It wasn't anyone's, and she was fairly sure it would defy any attempts to change that.
But here, this was a place that could be hers.
XXX
She settled to investigating the planters. They were very weedy, but growing at the heart of Hogwarts had virtually saturated them with magic, and made everything in them hardier, larger, and more lush.
Digging into a nest of creepers in the southmost planter revealed a tiny patch of Worsteria. The pale flowers caused minor misfortune when mixed with most things, but had the side effect of countering jinxes and curses that caused deadly misfortune, and could even be brewed into a Lesser Luck Potion if nullified properly. According to her book, they were rare and difficult to grow, most often springing up at battlefields or anywhere where there had been great disaster.
The planter at middle-right had broken open, the stone cracked down the center to make way for the delving roots of a thorny bush. Harry was eyeing it, considering uprooting it, when she spotted a cluster of shimmering, dewy orbs in the center. They looked almost like frog eggs, only mauve. Nothing she recognized, but an indicator the bush was occupied by some creature.
She left it alone, moving on to the next lot.
The rightmost planter in the center yielded roses, mundane, but still very beautiful.
Top-left gave forth a thick lot of hardy grasses. Her questing fingers had barely brushed them when the blades of grass drew blood. Harry hissed and drew back, cradling her hand. The few beads of blood that had touched the plant soaked in, the grass in that spot turning a vivid red. Some sort of... vampire plant. That needed more-
The egg shifted in her pocket.
Harry went still, riveted on the tiny lump.
It twitched.
"It's hatching!" she and Blackscale cried in unison, Harry nearly toppling into the vampire grass in her excitement.
Only- She had to show Quirrel. It was his egg. He needed to be there for its hatching.
Harry snatched the egg out of her pocket. A minuscule crack had formed at one end. As she stared, it grew a bit larger.
A thought stayed her: if she took off running, then the odds of dropping the egg were high. And it would mean hurtling through miles of corridor, all the while jostling a tiny, infant snake. It'd be lucky if she didn't scramble the poor thing inside the egg.
Harry set the egg down in a patch of earth. She unbuttoned her robes and tugged them off, breathing easier in just shirt and pants. The robes became an impromptu nest around the egg, swaddling it against the stone floor.
Crick-crack. The line in the shell jagged a little further.
"Blackscale, can you get Quirrel?"
"I will not leave the egg."
Harry grimaced. He said it in the same implacable, obstinate tone he'd had whenever the egg or 'Ouroboros' came up.
"Fine. I'll just- uhm." Was there a spell to talk to someone at a long distance? Or better yet, just summon them like Quirrel had with-
"Got it!" She drew her wand. Cumbersome in her hand, but necessary for the urgency of the situation. "Serpensortia!"
A black snake dropped from the tip. It curled round to look up at her.
"I need your help with someone. Can you find someone for me?"
The snake's tongue flickered excitedly. "Speaker. I am at your service."
"A human man- a uhm, male, with a big, purple turban- you know what that is? A hat. On his head."
"Humans all look the same. I will try though, if you wish."
The egg twitched, rocking side to side in the robes.
Impatience crashed headlong into anxiety, and Harry groaned under her breath. How to do this? How to make it understand her? Parseltongue wasn't bridging the species gap.
"You," Blackscale interrupted. He had taken up position around the robes, encircling them with his body. "The human you seek is a speaker as well. He is this speaker's sire. Follow her scent and he will be near. Bring him to us."
"Perfect," Harry said, reaching out to stroke his eye-ridges. "Give me a sec." Wand out again. "Serpensortia!" She recast the spell a half-dozen more times, calling snakes to her. Two more were black snakes, and seemed to know the first. The third and fifth were tiny grass snakes. The fourth, an adder, smaller than Blackscale. And the sixth, some magical breed, its scales sleek, the colors smearing across them like living camouflage, changing from moment to moment.
Blackscale repeated the mission, and Harry picked them up and took them to the door.
"Thank you, but please hurry!" she called, sending the squadron of serpents into the hall beyond.
Back to the egg.
XXX
The temptation was there. To help the snakeling force its way out. But Blackscale had hissed warningly when she'd reached out. Something about it needing to prove itself.
And so she sat, back against one of the planters, watching the egg slowly shake itself open. The sun was just peaking over the edge of the mouth of the garden, casting its light over the scene.
Something wet- albumen, she thought, was trickling slowly from one end of the egg, soaking into the robes. A little chip of shell flaked away. Something wet and slick inside the egg roiled, but the hole was too small to really see it.
The process was hypnotic. The methodical rhythm of a birth, played out in the cracks across a shell.
Without realizing she was doing it until her wand was already raised, Harry began casting again.
"Serpensortia."
The first serpent called was one of the ones she'd just sent off. Harry flushed, sent the grass snake on its way, and cast again, focusing on not calling her seekers.
And again.
And again.
Until the cobbles around her were thick with coiled, writhing bodies, scales shimmering in the sun, dozens of whispery voices filling the garden.
There were other egg-eaters there. And snake-eaters. Species that would gladly prey on their fellows or an egg. And yet, without her saying anything, they understood her intent.
The egg was surrounded, haloed by the magic she'd donated to it, the glow intensifying with each moment.
Crack. A sound like tiny bones breaking. A section at the end of the egg pushed up. The chip was still attached. There was a long pause, the snake inside seeming to muster itself, and then it pushed again.
The chip fell. A glimpse of the pointed egg tooth jabbing through the leathery skin. It withdrew.
Pushed again.
The snakes had fallen silent around her. The process proceeded, slow enough that the sun was sliding over head as the snake was born.
Push. Crack.
Spiderwebbing.
Branching.
Flaking away.
Push.
How long would it take them to find Quirrel? Surely he'd be there soon. He needed to see this. She wanted him to see it.
Push.
One of them began chanting it. "Push. Push. Push." Which she couldn't tell.
Or had it been her?
The snakes were gathering around her, on her, draping over feet and hands, garlanding her.
"Push." A score of parsel voices in one.
The magic around the egg had dwindled. The hatchling was getting tired.
It pushed anyway. A slab of shell lifted, dropped. Lifted. Broke away.
"Push."
A glimpse of the serpent, scales emerald green beneath the fetal slime, heaving against its prison.
Her palms met the stone of the floor, fingers digging into the earth between them. Her back rigid beneath her shirt. Let it be born.
"Push."
A crack. Splintering.
"Push."
Splitting.
"Push."
The word had lost meaning. Coherence. They were chanting it. Unceasing.
"Push. Push. Push. Push. Push."
Leather parting.
She had never prayed, but this was prayer. A plea for birth, told through a communion of serpents.
"Push!"
The tip of the shell split. A tiny snout jabbed out.
Its tongue flicked in. Then out.
Its first breath of the outside world.
Harry reached out to it. None protested this time. It was born.
Her nail traced the shell, her magic moving to slice the shallow cracks open.
The egg opened.
The hatchling was curled inside, not even big enough to coil. Brilliant, poison green, its eyes black and barely open.
Her fingers slid beneath it.
Tiny, lukewarm, trembling with the exertion of breaking free.
Its minute nimbus of magic, like another layer of scales, was trailing along her hand, plucking and exploring her own aura. They were in tune, the same notes played at a different octave.
Harry lifted it slowly, and brought it to her chest. Lowered it, the hatchling nestled in her lap, cradled by the overlarge t-shirt stretched over her legs.
The snake shifted a moment, curling a little tighter, and then stilled. Its eyes closed. Asleep in seconds.
Born.
Slowly, twitching and grinning with the enormity of the occasion, Harry lifted her hands to the sky. Her fingers blocked out the sun.
And then she screamed. Yelled her triumph, the wonder, the joy, shrieked it at the top of her lungs, louder than she'd ever said anything in her entire, silent life.
Around her, the serpents were hissing, chanting again, just as caught up in her joy.
Her lungs deflated, her body quivering, suddenly spent, happily exhausted.
She sank back slowly, letting the snakes reposition. They parted, and then came back together on top and around her.
They were still chanting softly.
"Ouroboros. Ouroboros."
Harry freed a hand from the crawling carpet to wipe her cheeks.
XXX
She waited a long while, luxuriating beneath her guests. Long enough for the sun to touch the other side of the towers.
Quirrel hadn't come.
Harry tugged her robes beneath her head, bunched them into a rough pillow, and closed her eyes.
For the first time in nearly six weeks, the steel left her muscles. So what if the dumb old unicorns didn't like her? She had snakes. And they had her.
It was hard to feel impure when she'd just brought a life into this world.
The baby serpent slept on.
Harry joined it shortly.
There were no dreams.
XXX
