Severus snorted lightly and shook his head. "Cheeky brat. Go to bed, no side trips. And try not to get killed tomorrow at Quidditch tryouts."

Potter actually smiled at him. "Yes, sir. Good night."

The portrait had closed behind the boy before Severus answered him. "Good night, Harry."

Though he was exhausted, Harry had a difficult time falling asleep that night. He kept going over the returned memories of the attack, as well as reliving the feel of having the Bloody Baron take up residence in his body. To be honest, he was wildly unhappy with that whole episode, even if it had saved his life; he hated not having control, and the Baron had taken every bit from him, and then erased his memories afterwards. It was maddening, and not fair besides.

When he did finally sleep, his dreams were disjointed and full of strange sounds and colors, and left him with a vaguely hung over feeling the next morning, which he had still not shaken by the time the others rose.

It didn't help that Zabini started in on him right away. Harry was still gathering his toiletries to take to the shower room when his dorm mate said, "If you're never going to show up for our study group, Potter, you might as well not be in it. We'd rather have someone else anyway."

Stung, though he tried not to show it, Harry said, "Maybe you should petition our Head of House, then. You could ask him to let me out of detention so I can help you with your studies."

"I wouldn't need your help, even if the class was Retarded Muggles Through the Ages," Zabini snarled. "You're hopeless."

"Not useless, though."

"What the hell are you saying, half-blood?"

Harry smirked, knowing nothing set the dark haired boy's teeth on edge as much as the idea someone was mocking him. "Nothing more than you think. And by the way, not that it matters, but both my parents had magic, so if anything, I'm three-quarters blood. I realize that's higher math and all-"

"You little sh-"

"Shut it, Zabini," Teddy growled at him. He had his wand out, but it wasn't aimed at anyone, just held casually as you please on one hand, as he lounged against the wall like he hadn't a care in the world. "We're all getting a bit tired of your mouth."

"You can say that again," Draco said. The blond's eyes were half lidded, but he stared down Zabini all the same.

Teddy sneered and said, "We're getting a bit tired of your mouth."

"Why are you sticking up for this filth, huh? Daddy tell you to suck up to him?" Zabini glared at Draco, as if the latter had betrayed him in some way.

Draco shrugged, all casualness. "Slytherins have to stay on top, and I heard he's a great Seeker. Guess we'll see today."

Watching him, Harry wondered why he was saying that, if he was supposed to be angry about Harry getting on the team, like Teddy had told him while he was in the infirmary. But maybe Draco didn't like him for some other reason. Or maybe . . . Harry sighed. His head still hurt and he was tired of thinking about this. "Look, Zabini, I don't want to fight with you. We've only been here a week; we've got seven years to get through. I, for one, would rather get along with you than not."

"Try not, then." Zabini turned and strode from their dorm.

Harry frowned, but shook his head. It was just a stupid rivalry, and he didn't have the time or energy for it. It wasn't as though Zabini was the one who'd attacked him, unless he was a far better dueler with his wand than he was with his mouth. Turning to the others, he said, "Thanks for the assist, but I don't want you to get on his bad side, either."

Teddy laughed. "He doesn't have a good side. He hates pretty much everything."

"Well that's reassuring," Harry said

Draco laughed, too, and the three of them left Crabbe and Goyle still snoring as they made their way to the shower room. Zabini was already in a stall, and billows of steam poured out of it. The other boys stripped down, and Harry was glad Madam Pomfrey had taken care of the bruising from the attack, so he didn't have to suffer anyone's stares.

Draco took the stall next to his, and after both of them had water turned on, said, "So, I heard you have to help with tryouts today."

"Yeah, Marcus . . . er, Prefect Flint wanted me there to help challenge anyone trying out for Chaser or Beater." He smiled thinly, suddenly understanding where Draco's new buddy-buddy behavior was coming from. "You going to try for it?"

"Sure. I mean, my father says I could go either as Seeker or Chaser, so I figured why not? Wouldn't it be great if there were two first years on the team?"

"Uh huh." Did Malfoy think he was being subtle? Harry sighed and finished up in the shower, then dressed quickly and settled in the Common Room with his neglected homework. He'd woken early and gotten most of his Transfiguration essay done, but he was still behind in History of Magic. With one thing and another, he felt like he was never going to catch up.

Teddy joined him a little later, with his Potions book, and they read together silently until it was nearly time to march up to breakfast. The Common Room was pretty full by that time, and the noise level had reached the point where it was all but impossible to read.

As he went by to get everyone readied in line, Marcus Flint said, "All right there, Potter?"

Harry glanced up at him and smiled at the older boy's scowl. "Yeah, Prefect Flint. I'm good."

"It's Captain Flint to you, Potter." He squinted at Teddy. "But just you, mind."

Harry held in a chuckle. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

"All right!" Flint called out. "Let's line up and get out of here!"

Breakfast was relatively quiet - at the Slytherin table at least. Harry nibbled on some toast, not feeling particularly hungry, and watched warily as the Bloody Baron coasted nearby, although the ghost did not stop to talk.

"Have you seen him lately?" Teddy asked in a low voice.

"Hm?"

"The Baron. He's showed up again and started putting Peeves in his place. Have you asked him if he knows about who attacked you?"

"Yeah . . ." Harry paused, thinking quickly. He wasn't supposed to tell anyone about what happened. But Teddy - and Millie - both already knew quite a bit about it. "But he didn't know much more than me, really," he said at last, which was the truth. Sort of. "Professor Snape said to keep my eye out for who might be trying to get me."

"Duh."

Harry snickered. But thinking of the attack made him remember something else. "Hey, Teddy, you didn't send me chocolate frogs, did you? When I was laid up?"

"No." Teddy frowned at him. "I told you, I don't give candy to whiners."

"Yeah, I know. It's just that someone left me another box of ‘em, and didn't leave a note, so . . ."

"You're thinking they might be tampered with?"

"I was thinking maybe."

"Did you bring them back to the dorm?"

Harry nodded. "But I haven't touched them otherwise."

"Okay, that's good. We can do some diagnostic spells on them. Check for curses and such. I have a couple things we can try, but I'll have to double check in the library. Now, you have Quidditch tryouts this afternoon, so if we want to get this done soon . . ."

"Free period?"

"Mm-hm. Meet me in the library and you can help look stuff up."

Harry nodded again, but inside he was bemoaning the loss of yet more study time.

---

Looking up diagnostic spells in the library was almost as fun as it sounded. Teddy seemed to be really good at doing research, though, and he pulled book after book off shelves, making a neat pile on the table they were using. Harry had retrieved the box of Frogs from their dorm room, and they started with small spells that Teddy already knew, like Revelio and Finite Incantatem, and worked up to more specific kinds of diagnostics, like looking for poisons (Ostendo Virum) and particular curses (Quiest Vomica).

But none of them revealed anything untoward about the Chocolate Frogs.

"Face it, Harry," Teddy said as they returned the books to their shelves over an hour later, "someone gave you a perfectly normal box of chocolate. Probably a secret admirer or something."

"Yeah." Harry laughed. "Sure." He tucked the box into his book bag and they headed for Herbology. He was just as glad the sweets weren't poisoned or anything, but who had given the box to him? He went over the possibilities in his head for a while, and then gave it up. If it was a secret admirer, he hoped they'd give him more clues to their identity. Or maybe there was a spell to find that out, too. He said the last aloud, and Teddy nodded, considering. Harry added, "You know a lot of spells already. Did your parents teach you?"

Teddy gave him a sidelong look. "My father, mostly."

Harry nodded, realizing there was something Teddy wasn't telling him, but they were almost to the greenhouses, and the class was interesting enough to keep his mind occupied with that for a while.

After lunch and History of Magic, Harry headed out to the changing rooms on the Quidditch pitch. Marcus wanted all the current players to be in uniform for the tryouts. Harry was nervous, and his hands were trembling as he pulled on his bright green and silver robes, which, supposedly, Snape had needed to have altered to fit him as he was smaller than their previous Seeker by a good margin. Once he'd got his gloves on, he went out to the pitch with the others, taking one of the school brooms as he wasn't allowed to have his own as a first year, and waited for Flint to give them directions.

There were more than twenty Slytherins waiting to try out for the team, including Draco and two other first years. They all looked hungry for the opportunity to be on the team. Draco looked positively starving.

"All right, you lot," Flint told the contenders, "mount up and give me a half dozen sweeps by the stands. If you can stay on your broom that long, you'll get to take the next test."

There were a few chuckles as the group got on their brooms over the next few seconds and rose into the air. They started almost as one, but thinned out quickly, as the faster and more confident fliers took the lead in rounding the pitch.

Meanwhile, Flint turned to the current team. "Bletchley, I want you up as Keeper, obviously. Don't let any of the new snots get anything by you, or we'll have words, got it?"

"Yeah." Flint shot him a cold look, and Bletchley added, "Captain," before Flint had to remind him.

"Pucey, you'll be working as a Beater today, with Bole and Higgs-"

"Three Beaters! What're-"

"You'll do as I say, Pucey, without any lip, or you'll step off the field right now. We've got to take these buggers out hard and fast. Three Beaters'll separate the players from the fakers right enough."

Pucey grimaced, but said no more, and Harry stood perfectly still so it wouldn't seem as he was giving any lip either.

"Potter, all I want you to do is keep an eye out for the snitch. Think you can handle it?"

"Yes, Captain."

Flint gave him a steely smile. "Let's get to it, gentlemen."

The next two hours were bloody and sweaty and violently nasty for those who were trying out, at least from what Harry could tell from his own angle, far above them. He sought out the snitch and caught it over a dozen times before Flint had him running interference with the hopefuls, too, just sweeping through their ranks and catching them off guard when he could. Several players had to leave the field to go to the infirmary when they were smashed by bludgers, crashed into other players, or dove too steeply to pull up in time to keep from hitting ground. Of the fifteen who survived that round, Flint had them go against Bletchley while being hounded by all three Beaters as well as Harry. Anyone who didn't score at least half the time was automatically rejected.

Finally, they were down to just three.

Marcus looked them over. His expression just as fiercesome as it had been all afternoon. "Right. Malfoy and Wilkes, you'll be on reserve. I expect you to be at every practice, and you'll need to learn Chaser and Beater positions equally, so you can fill in if there's an injury. Rufford, you're the new Chaser. All of you get fitted for uniforms and be at practice on Thursday at 7. Got it?"

"Got it, Captain," Draco said, pink cheeked and pleased, and the other two, both fourth years, agreed.

"Hit the showers you lot," Flint told them, and stalked off.

Draco grinned at Harry as they made their way to the changing rooms, bumping his shoulder in comradely fashion as he went by. "I knew I'd make the team!"

Harry grinned back, more glad than he could say that another first year was going to be playing with him. He didn't enjoy the pressure of being the "youngest Seeker in a hundred years," and Draco seemed to like the attention more anyway. He really soaked it up at dinner.

As a congratulations, Harry gave him a couple of Chocolate Frogs from the box he'd been toting around all afternoon. Recognizing the box, no doubt, Teddy lifted his eyebrows at him in silent reproach. But even though they both watched Draco closely, nothing bad happened when he ate the sweet, so Harry figured the rest of them really were okay. And no one at the table looked at the box with anything more than slight curiosity, if that, so Harry figured it wasn't any of the Slytherins who had given it to him. Weird.

---

After dinner, Harry made his way back to Snape's office for detention. His steps dragged a bit, and if he was honest, he would say he was scared. The process of un-Obliviating him, last night, had hurt an awful lot, like someone was slicing up his brain piece by piece, like a boiled ham, and though it was done with sharp, precise cuts, there were still bits hanging off like raw, exposed nerves.

The thought of doing that again made him sort of nauseous, actually, and he paused for several long moments before knocking on the office door. Snape had said this, whatever it was they were doing tonight, would not hurt as much. He certainly didn't imagine anything could hurt any more.

At the professor's call of, "Enter," he opened the door and sidled into the room. He noted that the Bloody Baron was already there, hovering near Snape's desk. Unlike other times Harry had come in here, Snape was not marking any papers, and he looked up at once instead of making Harry wait.

Thank god.

Snape pulled out his wand, but before Harry could duck out of the way or even think of flinching, he had cast a few spells on the door. Silencing and privacy wards, he imagined . . . the silencing one, particularly, was familiar, and he realized his attacker had used it on the hallway they'd fought in, as one of his first spells.

"Sit down," Snape said and pointed at the chair in front of his desk. Harry complied, and Snape watched him for a few minutes. Harry didn't meet his gaze, not wanting to let the man into his head again, not wanting to feel that excruciating pain like before. "Do not be afraid. This won't hurt; I told you."

"Yessir," Harry said in a breathless voice. His hands were caught in the sleeves of his robes, and he clenched the material tightly to keep them still. "But then, you said the other thing might just feel a bit strange."

A pause, then, "I did. I was . . . unaware of how much discomfort you would feel."

Harry's nose wrinkled. "So you mean I'm just a weakling?"

"Not at all. I believe I have a different metric for determining levels of pain than most."

"What?"

"He means," the Bloody Baron put in, "that he has had too much exposure to pain to understand what normal feels like anymore. And he didn't mean to hurt you."

Snape glared at the ghost. "I would ask you to keep your nose out of my affairs, if I thought it would do any good."

"It wouldn't," the Baron agreed affably. "Not at this time. The boy is what matters."

Snape grunted what could be an acceptance of the ghost's words, or maybe he'd only been kicked in the chest. Either way, he said, "But as I informed you previously, Mr. Potter, what we are to do tonight will not feel like that. Not if you don't fight me."

Harry's insides felt cold. "Why . . . why would I fight you, sir?"

With a sneer, Snape said, "Because having another mind inside your own is disconcerting, at the least. In truth, I expect you to resist, though not unduly." He paused, and Harry sneaked a glance at him, to find the professor studying him with those dark, fathomless eyes. "I will be looking at your memory of the attack, and then I will remove it from my own mind and store it in a pensieve, so I may review it with the Headmaster."

"A pen-what?"

"Pensieve. A magical device used to store memories for later reflection."

"Well, why don't I put my memory directly into that then? Instead of having you take it out of my mind first?"

"Because the pensieve belongs to the Headmaster, and he has not given me its loan."

"Oh."

"Indeed." Snape paused again, then raised his wand and aimed it at Harry. "Let us begin. Keep your eyes open, as you did last night, and do try not to fight me, if you would. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir. I'll try not to fight," Harry promised.

"Good. Legilimens."

Images flew by, first of Quidditch tryouts, and then Teddy and him in the library with the box of candy, and then, disconcertingly, a memory of being up a tree with Ripper far below and snarling, as Aunt Marge cheered the dog on and Dudley laughed, practically rolling on the ground.

That wasn't the right memory! Snape had no right to see that!

Harry pushed against the presence in his mind, and it receded a little, but the image was replaced a moment later with one of his cupboard, locked from the outside - he could tell from the angle of the door; it always hung crooked when locked, as Uncle Vernon had made a mess of installing the bolt - and himself curled up on his cot and reading a purloined comic that Dudley had torn in half and thrown away before Harry rescued it, and then the door shook, and Harry stuffed the pieces of the comic under his cot before Uncle Vernon's purpling face appeared in the frame of the small door, spittle flying from his mouth while he yelled, even before he caught sight of the corner of the thin book-

NO! Not that one! Harry pushed that memory away, too. What did Snape think he was doing?

Obviously he was going to have to show him the right memory, or Snape would keep ransacking his mind. So Harry called up the attack in the corridor, recalling everything he could in infinite detail, and shoved that right at the presence in his mind, so clear it couldn't be missed. Then, for good measure, he shoved the professor right out of his mind, too; his private thoughts were private!

The next moment, he opened his eyes, to find he'd fallen off the chair and was on his hands and knees, panting for breath. Sweat covered his skin and his robes clung damply to him. His head pounded, and he wanted more than anything else to bite Snape's throat out with his teeth. The Professor stood over him, his dark eyes glittering with some unnamed emotion, and for a second, Harry thought it might be fear.

But then Snape's face went blank, as did his eyes. Though he held out a hand for Harry to take, Harry disdained it, getting to his feet on his own. His stomach lurched, but he kept his balance through sheer force of will.

Snape crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, well, Potter. It seems you are full of surprises."

"You. Stay. Out. Of my. Head!"

With a gesture at the chair Harry had fallen out of, Snape merely said, "Sit down. You and I have much to discuss."

"I'm not talking to you!" Harry growled. "You had no right-"

"Stop with the melodrama, Potter. I had every right to seek answers to your current dilemma. And you gave me explicit permission to do so."

"What about those other things, huh? You didn't have the right to see those!"

Snape pursed his lips. "I was also seeking information about your situation at home. As your Head of House-"

"Bollocks! You didn't ask to see that!"

The Potions Master drew himself up and glowered down with such ferocity that Harry was hard pressed not to flinch away when he spat, "No. I did not. But I will brook no more of your disrespect. Now sit down!"

Harry sat.

"Now . . . you will tell me when exactly you discovered you could speak to snakes."