"Yes. You can keep her." Father shook his head with a small sigh, but he didn't sound mad anymore. "Merlin help us all."

The next morning, Harry woke to a set of ice blue eyes staring him in the face. "Tree," he whispered, and held out his fingers for her to rub her head against, which she did, purring. Harry grinned, and scratched at Treacle Tart's ears. She was so soft, and she was his.

"You have the best name," he told her, and she agreed, purring more loudly and butting against his chin, "'cause you're the best treat."

"Master Harry," a voice said, nearby, and he jumped so fast Treacle jumped with him with a little hiss and a swipe of claws at the intruder.

"'S'okay, Tree," Harry told the kneazle kit. "It's just Nelli. She's nice."

Treacle cocked her white head to the side and regarded the House-elf. Harry grasped one of her paws, gently, and lifted it to wave at Nelli. "See, she's sayin' 'hi!'"

Nelli smiled hesitantly and said, "Master Harry, Master Snape is saying youse is to get up now and be ready for breakfast."

"Is he still here?" Harry asked, sliding out of bed quickly and reaching for the robe he was supposed to wear if he left his room while still wearing pajamas. Treacle jumped off the bed and rubbed her face along his ankle. Smiling, he bent to scratch her ears.

"He is being in his workroom, Master Harry, but youse is not to be disturbing him there."

Harry knew that. Father's Potions Lab was strictly off limits, both here and in Spinner's End. "Is he gonna have breakfast with us?"

"Nelli thinks no, Master Harry. Master Snape's is being very busy this morning."

"Oh." Harry tried to keep his disappointment from showing. He headed down the short hallway to the kitchen where they usually ate breakfast. "That's okay."

"After youse is done your breakfast, Nelli can take youse to visit Master Hagrid again."

"Maybe," Harry hedged as he hopped up into a chair. Someday, his legs would be long enough that his feet could touch the floor when he sat down. He hoped so, anyway. "I want to visit Charlie, though. I haven't seen him since he got back."

"Charlie Weasley?" Nelli asked. "He is being in his classes today, Master Harry."

"It's okay," Harry assured her. "I won't get in the way."

Nelli stared at him for a moment and sighed a little. "Youse is eating your breakfast, Master Harry." She pointed at the table. "Master Snape says fruit, eggs and bacon, and toast. Youse is eating some of everything."

Harry nodded, then grinned hugely when Treacle Tart jumped into his lap and peered up at him, then at the food appraisingly. "Good kitten." He petted her back slowly, laughing as her tail end rose up every time his hand reached the middle of her long spine. "Hungry?" Of course she was, he could almost hear her thoughts as she gazed at him with those beautiful blue eyes. Harry fed her bacon and toast in little bites, breaking off nibbles of his own serving, or taking some for her directly from the platters. Treacle didn't care for orange wedges, though she did like slivers of banana.

Once they were both done, Harry saved a bit of toast and orange in a paper napkin, and put it in his pocket when Nelli wasn't looking. Then he got cleaned up in his bathroom and dressed in his favorite green shirt and gray trousers that were considered casual enough for playing outdoors. Once he was "presentable," he collected Treacle and, followed by Nelli, went in search of Charlie.

---

It took almost an hour of wandering the castle, Treacle by turns in his arms or at his heels, and Nelli close behind, before he finally found his friend. Charlie was in a class, like Nelli said, but it was almost over, Harry was sure. He peeked through the window on the top half of the door; he had to jump to see it.

Treacle Tart stood on her back legs, front paws on the door. A low, rumbled, "Mrowr?" escaped her throat and Harry nodded. "You'll like Charlie. He's real nice and likes dragons and Hagrid and Quidditch."

A few minutes later, the class broke up, with chairs scraping back and papers rustling, and the students talking and laughing as they headed for the door. Harry scooped Treacle into his arms so she wouldn't be trampled, moved back from the door, watching another class let out down the hall, and waited for his friend.

Charlie was one of the last to come out, book bag slung carelessly over his shoulder and talking quickly to a dark-haired boy beside him, the same one he'd been sitting next to at dinner at the Welcoming Feast.

Harry lunged toward him. "Charlie!"

The redhead turned and looked down to see Harry. "Oi, Harry! How're you doing, mate? Your Dad giving you any trouble?"

"I'm good, Charlie, but look! I got a kneazle!" He held up the bundle of white fur. "Her name's Treacle Tart."

The boy beside Charlie snickered, and Charlie punched him lightly in the shoulder. "She's pretty, that's for certain."

"Yep, Hagrid gave me her. She's all the way from Siberia! And she's got gray spots, see?" He ruffled her fur a bit, so Charlie could see.

"That's great, kiddo, but I have to get to class. I'll see you later, all right?"

Charlie took a couple steps with the other boy, and Harry jogged to catch up with them. "But I found a secret passage, Charlie! You and me can 'splore it, and everything."

This time, Charlie hardly even slowed his steps, though he gave Harry a small smile. "Can't. I have Transfiguration now." His smile faded. "And McGonagall will kill me if I'm late again." He ruffled Harry's hair -- and Harry had gotten so used to Charlie doing that during the week he'd stayed here during the summer that he didn't hardly flinch at all. "Why don't you sit with me and Payton at the Gryffindor table for lunch today. You don't mind, do you Pay?"

"Whatever," Payton said with a shrug, but he rolled his eyes, too as if he was annoyed.

Charlie punched him again. "Be nice," he whispered, but Harry had really good hearing, or maybe Charlie wanted him to hear. "Kid looks up to me."

"Fine." He peered down the hall with a sharp gesture. "Well? Do you want to be late?"

"No, I'm coming."

"Don't you want to go 'sploring?" Harry asked.

"Sure, Harry, but not now. I really have to go." He started after the other boy who had already moved further away, and the two of them started jogging down the hallway.

Harry ran after them. "But Charlie! Don't you want to play Quidditch?"

"Later, Harry!" he called, and the two bigger boys disappeared around the corner. The sound of Payton's laughter drifted back to where Harry was standing, stung, with Treacle clutched in his arms.

Harry's face screwed up. Why couldn't Charlie go upstairs to see the Humpbacked Witch with him? He'd liked exploring before. Sure, Charlie had classes, but all the time? And wasn't exploring more important? And he'd barely even said hello to Treacle!

"C'mon, Nelli," he muttered. "Let's go outside." He led the House-elf out the front entrance and down the hill, but he curved to the left as they went down, instead of to the right like he usually did when they went to Hagrid's hut.

"Master Harry," Nelli warned, "youse is not allowed to be at the pitch without--"

"My father's 'spress permission. I know. This is just a faster way down," he told her. And it was. Smoother, too, and easier going for Treacle, who he'd let down as soon as they got free of the bunches of students who might step on her tail by accident. It was faster. He wasn't going this way just so he could go close to the pitch, no matter what Nelli thought.

The pitch was just beyond them now, to the left, and he hardly looked at it at all as they went by, honest. Last week, Charlie had showed him around the stands and they played some with real quaffles and bludgers and snitches like they used at practice and in the games, and Charlie had taken him flying, and they'd even used the changing rooms to get cleaned up after, like real Quidditch players.

Ron had been there, too, and he had to use a little kid's broom like Harry did, but Charlie had said -- afterwards, and in private so Ron wouldn't get upset or jealous -- that Harry was the better flier. No one had ever told him he was better at something than someone else. Not ever, even once.

"I'll be a great Quidditch player, Tree," he told the kneazle who kept up with his short strides with ease as they rounded the base of the hill and curled away from the pitch at last. "You'll see."

They did all the exploring they could on the way to Hagrid's, climbing over outcroppings of rock and peering into odd little burrows. It when he was clambering over a bit of slippery stone covered in green, fuzzy moss to get a better look at the queer looking tree nearer to the Forbidden Forest -- Charlie said was a Whomping Willow -- that he heard the voice.

"Watch your ssssstep, walker."

Harry looked all around, but it was Treacle who found the snake. Her ears were laid flat, her tail -- like a lion's Hagrid had told him, with the little puff of fur at the end -- was all bushed out like a bottle brush. She crouched, back end in the air, right between Harry and a pale gray snake with a black zigzag running down the length of its spine and an upside down V on its neck.

Nelli, just behind Harry, sucked in a breath and whispered, "Don't move, Master Harry. Please don't move."

Harry shot her a look, not understanding why not, and shrugged. "Sssorry," Harry told the snake. "I didn't sssee you there."

"You sssspeak?" the snake asked.

"Sssure. Why do you all asssk that?"

The snake's head rose slightly, making Treacle growl low in her throat, but neither of them moved an inch more. "You have ssspoken to one of usss before?"

"Yessss. In the garden of Ssspinner'sss End, and in Ssssurrey." He frowned over the memory of that first snake he'd ever talked to, but shook it away, not wanting to think about it. "Not many of usss speak, huh?"

"You are the firsssst I have encountered, walker. I heard sssstories of another, many hatchingsssss ago."

"Well, nicccce to meet you. My name isss Harry. Not walker."

He was almost sure the snake laughed at that; its head shook back and forth as it said, "But you walk, yessss?"

"Well, ssssure. I've got legssss." Treacle's hind end was twitching, like she might pounce on the snake, so he said, "No, Tree. Leave the snake be."

She didn't move, but her hind end quit being all wiggly, and Harry relaxed a little.

"Thankssss," the snake said. "Her clawssss look sssharp."

Harry grinned. "They are. Ssshe clingsss great to my ssshirt." He sat down on the rock and pulled some of the leftover toast from breakfast from his pocket. "Want sssome?" he asked, offering a piece to the snake.

Looking over Treacle's head, the snake peered at the browned bread. "Isss it dead?"

Harry laughed. "Nah, well, it'ssss not alive, isss it? It'ssss just bread. Toassst. You put jam on it."

"Not a vole?"

"No, ssssorry. Isss that what you eat, then? Volesss?"

"If posssssible. They are very tassssty. But lizardssss are nicccce, too." The snake turned slightly -- though still keeping one eye on Treacle -- and looked at the forest. "It issss almost time for ssssleeeping. Then, no more eating till sssspring."

"You hibernate in the winter?" Harry remembered that word from day school, when they'd been studying bears.

"Yessss. There issss--" The snake suddenly cut off and darted into a crevice in the stone, vanishing from sight.

"Hey!" Harry called, scrambling to his feet and looking down into the crevice. "Hey, snake! Come back!"

"Who you talking to, Harry?" a voice behind him asked.

Startled, Harry spun around. In his haste, he slipped on the stone, twisted his ankle and fell backwards. It wasn't very far to fall, no more than a couple of feet, but he landed hard on more stone, on his back. His breath rushed out of him, and it hurt to draw another. Above him, framed by the castle behind her, was someone in Slytherin robes; he could tell by the green and silver patch. The girl had long brown hair and a short sort of face, and peered down at him through narrowed brown eyes.

"You all right there?" she asked.

"Yeah," he managed to say once he got a little breath back, and pushed himself to hands and knees and then up on his feet. His ankle hurt, so he kept most of his weight off it. It was the same one he'd hurt when Dudley and his friends beat him up. His father had spent so long fixing it, Harry knew he couldn't let him know he'd hurt it again. His lower back hurt, too, but it was probably just bruised. He'd fallen worse before.

"Who were you talking to?" the girl asked again.

Harry shrugged and brushed stone ships and smeared moss off his palms. They were scraped and he blew on them a little to relieve the sting. "I don't know its name. I think it was a boy, though."

"A boy what?"

"Snake. Was just here. Must've got frightened when you came up."

"You . . . were talking . . . to a snake?" The girl sounded a little choked.

Harry nodded. "Uh-huh. It was hungry for voles. Do you know where I can get voles?"

The girl made another choking sound and shook her head. "Does . . . does your father know you're out here?"

With a glance at Nelli, who had gone quite pale, and was trembling besides, Harry nodded again. But he really wanted to sit down. And it still hurt to breathe. "But he's in class, so Nelli's got to watch me till lunchtime."

"I think . . ." The girl reached down for his hand, and Harry hesitated only a second before taking it and letting her help him up over the rock, while trying to keep the weight off his ankle. "I think he'll want to see you. "

"Really?" Harry asked. He'd be glad to see his father; he missed having breakfast with him and dinner and they'd only had one short story last night before bed. "Okay!"

Limping along, but smiling, Harry accompanied the girl back to the castle.