Harry tried his hardest not to think about Mrs. Norris and the strange voice he had heard, and even though Ginny Weasley was nearly always fretting up a storm in the common room, he might have succeeded. But the cat wasn’t the last.

About two weeks after the first petrification, Harry had been caught between the Weasley twins and a huge, hulking fourth year Slytherin named Warrington as they dueled. The two groups had immediately cursed each other, and Harry found himself frozen solid as he tumbled down two flights of stairs. Neville and Hermione had rushed him to the Infirmary, where Madam had tsked at him, dosed him with six different potions (none of them as nice ass hicherry flavored one) and sent him off to bed. He had only been one night, but Creevy seemed to decided this was the perfect chance to talk to Harry without Neville around. He had been on the stairs, apparently, when he had been attacked.

Neville felt terrible about it.

“It’s all my fault. If I’d let him take a few photographs, he’d probably have lost interest by now anyway and then he’d be off irritating someone else instead of in the hospital!

“Oh, Neville, be quiet. We all know that if you hadn’t done what you did, Creevy would be in the hospital a lot sooner than this, and with a black eye, to boot,” Harry said, which seemed to calm Neville a little about his cruelty to Colin and make him worry more about the Heir of Slytherin.

In all the excitement, Neville seemed to let the odd voice slide by. He was too busy jumping at nothing. Malfoy and his gang of thugs had taken great joy in sneaking behind Neville and clapping their hands loudly or screaming ‘The Heir! Run!’ Neville was beside himself with worry.

“It hit Filch first because he’s a Squib. And, and I’m almost a Squib, didn’t do magic until two months before Hogwarts—“

Hermione snorted. “Neville, stop being silly. You can’t be almost a Squib or almost not. You either are a wizard or you aren’t, and you most certainly are. Now, Harry, what are the six different types of animate flowers?”

Harry, Hermione, and Neville fell into the same sort of schedule, only Harry’s mind always seemed to wander before bed as he heard odd, sibilant voices come through the curtains of his room. During the day he listened extra hard to the chatter of Neville and Hermione and paid extra attention in class, took careful notes on everything—Hermione was pleased. But at night there was nothing to distract him but the red canopy of his bed, and so he heard them rush through his mind until he wasn’t sure if he was even in his bed, or if he was in his cupboard at the Dursley’s and the furnace was making that funny sound it made sometimes.

Harry had heard a great deal from Uncle Vernon on crazy people. They were one of Uncle Vernon’s favorite things to complain about. They all ended up homeless, turning to crime and drugs and violence to sate the voices in their head. Harry had met a good deal of crazy people, on the street. Some were harmless, like Jimmy, who went around chatting politely with an alien named Suey who hid himself as a hole in his coat pocket. But there were others, more dangerous ones, and he knew that most crazy people were classified to the public as dangerous—and Harry didn’t want that. Snape, he knew from class, held very little tolerance for any sort of empty headed behavior. What if he found out that Harry’s head was too full, that there were too many noises in it?

So Harry kept it quiet. And no one else was attacked for a while, and the voices started to blend with the gentle hum of magic, and Harry thought he was safe.

He was serving a detention with Professor Snape for tardiness when he was proved wrong.

He had been sitting in front of the professor’s desk, in the front row, with a cage of little snakes and a stack of vials. He was to get the snakes to bite down on the cork vial tops, which would extract all their venom into the container. It was nervous work, Harry found, even though he was wearing dragon-hide gloves.

He was de-venoming his third snake when it started.

‘The massster isss making usss bite again…’

‘It tastesss so bad. I sssuppossse we endure what we must for warm placesss in the cold monthsss.’

Harry jerked so violently he fell to the floor, and Snape looked at him in a mix of annoyance and mild worry.

“Potter, have you been bitten?” he asked, and Harry shook his head, staring at the cage of snakes who were watching him with bright, beady eyes. No! Snakes didn’t watch people, not like that, and they didn’t talk, either! He was going crazy, and right in front of Snape!

“I—sorry, sir—“

“What is it, are you ill?”

“N-no, sir, I’m fine—“

‘I am tired of thisss…at least the massster doessss it quickly. Perhapsss I will give the boy a bite.’

‘That would ssspeed him up.’

Harry blurted out “Don’t!” before he remembered that Snape was staring at him.

“Don’t what, Potter?”

“Nothing. Nothing, don’t—nothing, sir. Shall I start on the cauldrons sir, I’m done with the de—“

Snape stood up and advanced to Harry, his dark eyes boring into his skull so hard Harry thought maybe he was listening to his thoughts.

“Potter. What did I tell you last time we had to have a chat?”

“That I should never throw any ingredients at a simmering cauldron, but I hadn’t thrown any, sir, it was Malfoy, he threw leeches into our Breathing Brew—“

“About telling me the truth.The whole truth.”

Harry looked down at his feet. “That I was to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Tell you the truth. Sir.”

Snape sneered. “Correct. If you would please—“

“I just—I thought I heard something. But I didn’t.”

“What did you hear?”

Harry gulped miserably. “Please, sir…it wasn’t anything urgent.”

“I think that, as a professor and a housemaster of this school, I should be the one to decide what is and is not urgent. What did you hear, Potter?”

“The snakes.”

“The snakes?” Severus spared a glance at the tank. “Yes, they do dislike the milking, but a few hisses is nothing to create a fuss for—“

“It wasn’t—they weren’t hissing, sir. They were talking.”

The snakes seemed to be listening intently.

‘The ssssmall one ssspeaksss our language,’ one of them murmered, and the hissing and chattering increased ten fold.

Snape stared, curious. The boy wasn’t a Parselmouth. He couldn’t be. But Snape couldn’t stop the part of his brain that made him open his mouth and say ‘Please reply to them, if you would, Mr. Potter.’

Harry stared at Snape, agog, before he stuttered out a small noise. “H-hello.”

Snape stared as the boy hissed something hesitantly to the snakes.

Harry looked from the snakes to Snape, then bit his lip. “I—I should, should I get my things, sir?”

Snape narrowed his eyes. “Things, Potter?”

“You’ll—you’ve been so kind and not sent me home, but I—I suppose they don’t let crazy people in to Hogwarts. I’m—I’m sorry, I’ll just—“

“Every time you say you’ll get your things, you have had no need to pack them. Do you really think this time will be any different?”

Harry looked at him, astonished. “But—but it’s one thing to have bad people here, sir, because you can make them good, I guess, but you can’t—crazy people don’t get better.”

“Much as your self pity is amusing, Potter, I’ll ask you to drop it. You aren’t crazy.”

“I’m—I’m not?”

“No. You are a Parselmouth. One who can converse with serpents.”

Harry looked relieved. “So—they really are talking? The snakes?”

“Yes, Potter.”

“Is—it’s a magical thing?”

“A gift. It is—very rare,” Severus admitted. “The last known Parselmouth was the Dark Lord. It is a power associated with the Dark.”

Harry looked stricken. “I—“

“I assure you, Mr. Potter, that Light and Dark are labels, and like most labels, they mean little. One can kill with a properly controlled Tickling Hex and one can save lives by conversing with serpents. It does not make you evil.”

Harry nodded. “I do, however, advise that you do not broadcast this fact. Many people are not as—open minded as I am.”

Harry nodded again and bit his lip. “I’ll finish with the snakes now, sir.” And he did, very quickly, once he told them that if thye quite fussing he would go faster.

Once he left, Severus thought about what he had learned.

Potter was a Parselmouth. Potter had the Dark Lord’s gift. Potter—

No. Potter was still Potter. He had always been a Parselmouth, and so he was still Potter. Severus didn’t even feel fear, just an odd sense of curiosity. He would have to see if he could exploit this talent in the name of potions ingredients.

He smiled to himself satisfactorily. He still knew who Potter was. But he would have to make sure that no one else knew.

Not all of them were aas kind as he was, he thought with a smirk.

000000000000000000000

After that, Harry was able to fall asleep faster at night. He still tried to avoid the loudest and most frightening of the voices, the one that came through the walls and he wasn’t sure was a snake or a real voice.

There were more attacks, which scared Neville and Hermione, though she didn’t try to show it. She took to walking around with her hand on her wand, muttering defensive spells under her breath so she could remember them. One night, when Neville was in a detention with Professor Sinistra for knocking some expensive astrolabes off the Astronomy tower, Hermione came up to him.

“Harry,” she said, and she looked nervous, which immediately put Harry on guard.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and she shrugged.

“Well—well, I just, I’ve been wanting to talk to you but it’s never quite seemed the right time. And now, with the attacks, I’ve just been so worried—and now it’s almost Christmas—“

“What is it, Hermione?”

“Are you going home for Christmas?”

Harry snorted. “Not bloody likely. Neville’s invited me to the Estate, but I doubt my family will sign the form.”

She bit her lip. “I was—I was actually wondering about your family.”

“My family?”

“Yes. I was, I was wondering about your family.”

“What about them?”

“What’s your uncle like, Harry?”

Harry felt his pulse start to speed up, but he just shrugged. “I don’t know. Loud, I guess.”

“Do you—is he nice to you?”

“I suppose so.”

“Harry, I—I don’t think he’s very nice to you.”

“You’ve never met him, how would you know?”

“He just pulled you away at the station last term. He just—yanked you away. For a moment I thought you would be kidnapped.”

“He—he was just worried. About, about me being with peoople he didn’t know. He, he doesn’t quite care for magic.”

Understatement, Harry though. His uncle didn’t quite care for the bacon to be late. What his uncle felt for magic went much higher.

“That must be awful for you, at home.”

“I’m not there often, now. And this summer, when we were at Neville’s place, it was fun.”

“But still—imagine your uncle not quite caring for something that’s such a big part of you.”

Harry shrugged, but he felt a sharp, quick flash of pain. His uncle didn’t care for any bit of him, but he cared even less about the magic part. He hated the magic part.

“It’s all right, Hermione. I don’t care.”

Hermione bit her lip again, and Harry wondered if he looked this worried when he bit his lip. “All right,” she said, and she went back to work.

Hermione felt something grow deep in her bones. It weighed more than suspicion, and it took her till late that night to realize what it was.

It was dread.

000000000000000000

Neville had been ordered home for Christmas, he said during dinner three days before break. “Big family gathering,” he muttered as he stared at his shoes. “I—my aunts and uncles are all going to be there. Gran invited you too, Harry,” he added on at the end, but Harry could tell he didn’t quite mean it. It didn’t hurt him—if he had family, he would want alone time as well.

Hermione nodded. “Same here. Mum and Dad said you could come, if you wanted, Harry.”

Hermione was one hundred percent genuine, he knew, but he shook his head. Even if he had taken them up on the offers, he couldn’t go. “My relatives won’t sign the form giving me permission. I guess I’m stuck here. But it’s brilliant, this place at Christmas. Next year, you’ll both have to stay with me. All right?”

The other two nodded, but then Neville said “Harry? Have you seen the notices?”

Harry shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“They—they’re shutting down the school for the holidays. What with Justin last month, and that little Ravenclaw girl yesterday—“

“Samantha Moon, her sister Regina’s in our year—“

“They’ve decided to send all the students home and scour the school for—for whatever it is that’s causing the attacks. They just put the notices up this morning. So, I guess you’ll go to your relatives,” Neville said.

Harry suddenly looked up at the Head Table and saw Snape looking at him as he drank his pumpkin juice.

Harry nodded quietly. “Guess I will.”