Harry Potter and the Monster of Gryffindor

A scream woke the Gryffindor boys while the moon was still up. Harry scrabbled upright, having tangled his legs in his robes while he slept and saw that the scream had come from Neville-the-toad-boy. He was staring in horror at the large tank which held his toad. Harry peered at it.

The tank also held Nagara. The little snake had curled up on a rocky mound in the terrarium under the heat lamp and had apparently gone to sleep. The toad seemed unbothered by its presence. Harry hurriedly grabbed his snake out of the tank, before the toad could decide it was a worm.

“No! Warm!” he heard the little snake protest as he shoved it rapidly onto his bed. He turned away and faced his classmates. They all looked horrified.

“Um…” he said into the silence. “That’s my snake. Nagara.”

“You have a snake?” asked the boy opposite, whose pyjamas had footballs on. “What kind?” he sounded like he was hoping it would be deadly.

“That’s not allowed,” said the Irish boy next to the football fan, “snakes aren’t allowed in the school.”

“I wish,” muttered Redheaded-Ron, “then we could chuck the Slytherins out.”

“Slytherin had a pet snake,” Neville spoke up. He still sounded afraid, but sure of his facts.

“Alright, maybe Slytherin did. But he could talk to snakes. Anyway, he was evil.”

“I can talk to it.” Harry wasn’t sure what effect the admission would have on the angry Irish boy, but that fact had consoled him somewhat about Slytherin, so it might be worth a try. And if he was going to get in trouble over Nagara, he’d prefer to get into lots of trouble all at once. There was only so much punishment you could get at a time, after all.

The reaction was silence from three of the boys and bright interest from the football fan. “Really? What’s it saying? Can you tell it not to eat us? Is it a boy snake or a girl snake? What kind of snake is it?”

Harry interrupted the flow of questions, “it’s saying that my bed is warm. It’s not got a gender, yet. So, I call it an it. Its name is Nagara. I told it not to hurt anyone, or any owls or any animals that smell like pets. It couldn’t have hurt your toad”, he told Neville-the-toad-boy reassuringly, “its venom isn’t developed enough yet. It’s only a baby.”

“How old is it?” asked Redheaded-Ron. Harry thought quickly.

“Five days today.” That seemed to surprise all the boys. “The ss-” Harry stopped himself, “I was told that it’ll get more dangerous as it gets older, but I can talk to it and keep it under control.” The Irish boy was looking a little happier, but Neville still looked anxious. “I forgot I had to set up the heat lamp last night,” Harry tried to explain, “it was just looking for heat. It’s way too small to have hurt your toad.”

“We have to keep this a secret,” said Redheaded-Ron. Everyone looked at him and he explained, “the others will think the same as Seamus, and won’t like it. So, Harry will get into trouble if we tell someone.” The boys all nodded, though Irish-Seamus looked a bit uncertain.

“What kind is it?” the football fan asked again.

“A basi-” Harry stopped himself, but it was too late.

“A basilisk!” Neville cried, aghast.

“Cool!” exclaimed Redheaded-Ron. Irish-Seamus looked like he might be sick, and the football fan looked puzzled.

“What’s a-” he began, and was interrupted by Irish-Seamus.

“That’s not on! A little snake, maybe, but not a fecking basilisk. That’s- that’s evil that is. That’s what Slytherin had, and it went round killing anyone who wasn’t pure enough for him. Well, my dad’s a muggle, and I’m not ashamed, so I’m not living with that thing.”

Harry immediately grabbed Nagara from the bed, holding it close protectively. Irish-Seamus’s accusing finger followed the path of the snake until he was pointing directly at Harry. The other three boys got to their feet, though they looked uncertain of which way the argument was going to go.

“b-b-But-,” Neville stammered, “I thought it only attacked people because Slytherin told it to. And Harry’s just said he’ll tell Nag- Naga- whatsit not to hurt you. My gran says- she says ‘you can’t blame a weapon for what use it’s put’.”

“That’s true,” put in the football fan.

“Anyway, Harry’s just said it can’t hurt anyone yet.” Redheaded-Ron looked at Irish-Seamus defiantly, then looked curiously at Nagara, curled in Harry’s hands. The little snake blinked at him sleepily, then nuzzled into Harry’s chest, looking for a way into the warmth of his robes. “You’ll tell us when it gets dangerous, won’t you?” he asked Harry. Harry nodded. “That’s alright then,” Redheaded-Ron turned back to Irish-Seamus. “Harry will tell us when it gets dangerous, and we can argue about it then. Let’s get dressed, I want breakfast.”

Despite grumbling on the lines of it’s not even light yet the five got themselves changed. Harry changed his underwear, but, being still dressed from the night before, kept everything else on, and used the time to set up Nagara’s heat-lamp, crooning to the little snake the whole while. Whether it was aware of the importance of not eating people Harry couldn’t tell, as it still seemed only to be speaking in single words. By far the favourite was “warm!” followed by “no!” By the time the other boys were ready Nagara had made itself at home on Harry’s shoulders again and all six trooped down the stairs to face their first day as Hogwarts students.

When they received their timetables, Harry was disappointed to see that their first Potions class fell on Friday. He was looking forward to potions. Neville, on the other hand, was looking forward to Herbology, which was on Wednesday. Redheaded-Ron was looking forward to flying, which the first years wouldn’t start for another month, and Defence-Against-the-Dark-Arts. Irish-Seamus was looking forward to Charms, leading to some laughter from the girls who had turned up. The laughter ended when a milk jug burst into flames. Irish-Seamus hastened to apologise but the damage was done: Professor McGonagall arrived like a stooping eagle to demand what the disturbance was. Five points from Gryffindor later the boys trailed behind their head of house to Transfiguration.

Professor McGonagall made it look easy: she turned her desk into a pig, and back again, without shifting a single piece of parchment. But the class soon learned it was anything but. They took notes until Harry’s hand ached, and then were each given a match to turn into a needle. By the end of class only Hermione-with-the-hair had changed her match, though it wasn’t yet a needle, and she won back some of the points Professor McGonagall had taken from Irish-Seamus for setting all three of his matches alight. Football-Fan-Dean comforted Irish-Seamus, while Redheaded-Ron glowered at Hermione-with-the-hair and Professor McGonagall in turn.  

Irish-Seamus fared better in Charms. Cheerful little Professor Flitwick-with-the-ears seemed utterly unphased by the chalk exploding when the girls started tittering at Seamus again for his Lucky Charms. And when they dobbed that Seamus kept setting things on fire, Professor Flitwick-with-the-ears simply smiled and said, “ah, I remember. Your mother was a La Sath before she married, wasn’t she?” Seamus turned red, and nodded at the desk, which began to smoulder. “Yes, come and see me after class,” the little man said cheerily from his pile of books, “and we’ll see if we can’t get that a bit more under control.” A jet of water fountained out of his wand and landed neatly on the smoking wood in front of Seamus.

After that there were fewer incidents from Seamus, though he told the other boys gloomily that he had to have extra lessons with the Charms professor to get the flames under better control. “I don’t ask for flame, it’s just what I get,” he complained, “and it gets in the way of doing anything else.”

***

The upside to Seamus’s flame-making skills was that after each accident the classes tended to be let out early. Professor Quirrell-with-the-turban let them out fully ten minutes early from Defence, which not only gave them plenty of time to got to lunch before Herbology but allowed Harry the chance to finally talk to Professor Kettleburn. Harry was worried that the other boys might let slip to the professor that he was a parselmouth, so decided to speak to the man alone. As he walked up to the high table he realised that wasn’t too sure why he wanted to talk to the professor any more. He had an answer about the snake over the summer.

“Professor Kettleburn?” he asked nervously, approaching as close as he dared to the man. The professor looked up from his soup and nodded. He would, Harry thought, have had a nice smile, were it not for the claw scars raking across his face and twisting his nose and mouth. Harry tried not to be put off. “I wanted to ask you about snakes.”

“Snakes? What about ’em? Don’t cover snakes until fourth year. You don’t look that old. Must be a first year, no?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry tried not to panic. The man sounded as bombastic as Uncle Vernon, and it made him nervous. “I came across a magical snake this summer, so I did some reading-,”

“Ah! You’re Hagrid’s boy! He told me about your talking snake. That’s a ban on experimental charms, that is. Not to mention putting it in a muggle zoo. Shocking behaviour! Still, we’ll get to the bottom of it, never fear. Whoever did that’ll be had up by the short and curlies, make no mistake.”

“Yes, sir.” Harry felt about five years old: talking to Professor Kettleburn was like talking to his uncle. What you got told was what the man wanted to say, even if it wasn’t what you wanted to talk about. “Only, sir, I was doing some reading about magical snakes and I-,”

“Good for you! Good for you! But you needn’t bother. I don’t cover snakes until fourth year. Though Quirrell might do some with you this year. You focus on your studies, young man, and I’ll see you in a few years, hey?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry decided on one last go. If this didn’t work, he’d go back to his seat like a good boy and see Kettleburn in a few years, straw. “I wanted to know about basilisks!”

The words seemed to take Professor Kettleburn by surprise. “Basilisks? Basilisk, you say? Oh, now that’s an odd one. Very odd. Dangerous, too, to go poking around in things like that. Why a basilisk, my boy? Surely a runespoor, now, that’s more… um-,” He petered off, his voice never gaining its confident tone of before.

“Well…” Harry hadn’t thought this bit out, “there’s so little I could find out about them, I just wondered if there were books. Y’know, here? In the library?”

“True enough,” Professor Kettleburn still sounded thoughtful, then he suddenly switched back to jovial pomposity, “I wouldn’t waste time on it. Basilisks are outlawed in any case, so you’ll never need to know much more than I expect you’ve already read. Good for you, wanting to be thorough and everything, shows keenness.” And with that repressive answer Harry decided to be satisfied. He would have to try his luck in the library.

***

Harry knew on Wednesday morning that Neville liked Herbology. What he didn’t know was how much Neville liked Herbology. Or how good he was at it. Professor Sprout took them on a tour of the classroom, tool-shed, and greenhouses, explaining that they would spend the years going through the care and harvesting of many of the magical plants of Great Britain. Then she asked the class questions about their plants at home. Harry felt a bit conflicted: he’d taken care of Aunt Petunia’s house plants and garden at number four, but Tom and Dave didn’t have a garden or house plants. Should he say that he did or didn’t have plants. Because he didn’t have them, but he had cared for them. Then his worries were swept away by Neville.

Neville apparently also lived with his aunt and uncle (or, rather, with his great-aunt and -uncle), and his gran, and they had given over to him one of the old greenhouses of their estate. Neville cared for all sorts of plants in it, and hoped that the house elf, whatever that was, would be able to keep them all alive for him while he was at school. When asked what plants he had Neville rattled off not just the common name but the latin ones too. Even Professor Sprout looked a bit taken aback by the enthusiasm that was radiating from the boy like a tangible force. All four of the other Gryffindor boys fought to be Neville’s partner after that, but Professor Sprout insisted that they partner with someone from Hufflepuff as the two houses had Herbology together, and Neville was paired with the delighted looking Hannah-from-the-boat.

Harry was paired with a boy named Justin. He was talkative and gangling and Harry felt a little bewildered by him. It was clear that he, too, had been raised by muggles, and that he, too, felt Hogwarts was a bit of an adventure. He didn’t seem at all sure about the classes. “I mean, my name’s down for Eton. Mummy had to ask them to defer me a year so that I could come here.”

“Aren’t you staying?” Harry was shocked. He loved Hogwarts. It felt like home after only three days. He missed his little attic room with Tom and Dave, it was true, but the castle’s passageways and classrooms were like a home to him in a way he’d never before experienced. He wanted to stay forever.

“See what it’s like. That’s what Daddy says. ‘See what it’s like before you make up your mind’. After all, no-one in our family has ever been a wizard, and we’ve done jolly well. What about your family?”

“They’re dead,” said Harry, repressively. He didn’t know whether he liked Justin-down-for-Eton.

“Oh…” the boy looked taken aback. “Oh, sorry,” he muttered, sounding a bit confused. “Were they um… what’s the word… muggles?”

“No,” Harry replied.

“Oh…” Justin-down-for-Eton was spared from further comments by Ron and his partner telling him in a whisper about Harry’s parents. Harry felt annoyed about that. They were his parents, and yet it seemed he knew less about them than half the people here. Until a month ago all he’d known about them had been lies. 

He let the others walk ahead of him out of Herbology after class, Neville’s happy chatter growing fainter as he lagged further behind. Nagara, alerted by the bell, which it had learned by now meant that classes were over for the day, poked its head out of Harry’s collar. “Sad?” it trilled, rubbing its head against Harry’s neck.

“Little bit sad,” Harry agreed.

“Grasshopper?” it asked. Harry was confused for a moment, before realising that Nagara’s word for grasshopper also meant ‘juicy food from plants to hunt fast’. Nagara enjoyed catching grasshoppers, and treated them as something like a game.

“I don’t think a grasshopper’s going to do it. But you’re right,” he brightened as a thought struck him, “let’s go and see Suku.”

“Harry-nest-mate keep warm. Harry-nest-mate eat grasshoppers. Nagara eat many,” and here it garbled a word Harry translated as ‘crunchy popping food that runs’. And that was the trouble with Parseltongue, Harry had started to realise. If he didn’t concentrate it was fine. He heard what Nagara meant. If he did concentrate then he got the component parts, which was a mish mash of sounds, smells, and body language that ended up meaning nothing.

Harry and Nagara ended up sneaking Suku into the boys’ dorms when the others were at dinner, and Harry sat by the window with his two friends, focussed totally on their pleasure in his company. There were worse ways to spend an evening.

***

The following day Nagara’s eyes turned blue.

Harry had been expecting it, but it was still creepy to see. He tried to pick Nagara up to carry it on his shoulders as had become their habit, but Nagara slithered under his pillows and the only intelligible word Harry caught was “stay!” Harry left the snake to itself. By the end of the day Nagara’s eyes had cleared up, although they still looked a bit milky to Harry, who was used to them. The little snake was also causing much laughter among the boys as it writhed on Harry’s bedside table as though scratching an itch.

Irish-Seamus looked concerned. “It’s not going to hurt itself, is it?”

“It’s shedding,” Harry explained, “it’s got too big for its old skin, and now it needs room for a new one. Apparently, it’s a very itchy process.”

“What happens to the old skin?” this from football-fan-Dean. “Are you gonna make shoes out of it?”

“It would be a very small shoe, Dean,” Redheaded-Ron commented. “Basilisk skin’s got to be worth a lot of money, though. You could flog it.”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” said Harry, honestly. He’d been so caught up in owning a basilisk, and then in knowing how to care for a snake, that he hadn’t given much thought to what to do with the bits.

“It’s not as though it’ll go off, is it?” asked Neville, from where he was splashing Trevor, “you can keep it until you decide.”

“I’d still flog it,” Redheaded-Ron shrugged, although Harry didn’t hear him as Nagara chose that moment to shout “itchy, Itchy, ITCHY!” and then fall off the table.

***

Friday marked the first day Harry and Ron made their way to breakfast without getting lost. They were in such high spirits that even the prospect of double potions with Professor Snape-who-looks-ill could dampen them.

“Mister Potter,” Professor Snape’s voice was full of quiet menace, and Harry felt an urge to run. He checked himself and forced his gaze up to that of the Professor. “Tell me, Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

A what? Harry spelt the word to himself and felt his head clear. That was how it was pronounced. Bee-zore, not buh-zo-ah. Now what was it? He’d seen it in one of the snake books, and in the apothecary. He’d even considered buying one, in case it could help against Nagara’s venom. It was a sort of stone thing. The man in the apothecary had said it came from “a goat,” he said aloud, “it’s like a gall stone or something, in a goat.”

“No, Mr. Potter, it is not ‘like a gall stone’ as you put it. However, it does come from a goat, so I shall refrain from docking points this once. Let’s try again, Mr. Potter: what is the difference between wolfsbane and monkshood?”

Monkshood. He knew that word. He tried to remember his reading over the last month, but it was a scene from Aunt Petunia’s garden that came to mind. He’d been planting something. It had a skull-and-crossbones on the label and so he’d read it, vaguely thinking about giving some to Ripper next time Aunt Marge came over. Aconite, monkshood, wolfsbane, leopard’s bane. He remembered asking in school why plants had so many different names. The librarian hadn’t minded questions. “There isn’t one,” Harry answered, more confidently, “Aconite, monkshood, leopard’s bane. It’s the same thing.”

Professor Snape looked like he’d swallowed something bitter. “Correct, Mr Potter.” He moved back to the front of the class, continuing, “as you have apparently learned, Mr. Potter, fame is not enough to succeed in this class. You must also possess a modicum of intelligence. I hope you all understand that.” The professor’s gaze took in the whole classroom and Neville gulped almost as noisily as Trevor.

Professor Snape next split the class into pairs and set them to making a potion to cure boils. Harry moved immediately to sit by Neville. “Don’t you worry,” he whispered to the anxious round face beside him, “we got this.”

Neville turned out to be a good partner. The boy had been so quiet over the week that Harry simply hadn’t had a chance to get to know him. He was still quiet, but he seemed to enjoy the silent concentration of the cauldron as much as Harry. Professor Snape’s words from the beginning of class came to mind the softly simmering cauldron. The image brought to mind another, from the library in Little Whinging, morgy-broth murmuring on the range. That was more like Neville, he decided, murmuring. He simmered; Neville murmured. But both of them were content to be left alone with a cauldron.

“I didn’t know the leopard’s bane. Gran always calls it Cerberus’s venom,” Neville said shyly, as Harry flicked his gaze nervously between the fire and the clock.

“Really?” he asked, “I’ve never heard that one.”

“It’s very old-fashioned.” There was a pause while they turned out the flame and added porcupine quills. “I like plants.” Neville said the words as though they were a confession of utmost sin.

“Plants are nice,” Harry commented. “I used to do a lot of gardening for my aunt. I enjoyed the quiet.”

“Me too.” Neville admitted, then flushed, “I- I mean- the quiet- I enjoy the quiet- with plants.”

They didn’t speak for the rest of the lesson, but Harry thought that, just perhaps, he had made a human friend at last.