Harry Potter and the Formation of Friendships
Redheaded-Ron had come in for a lot of bullying during potions class. He vented his spleen afterwards as the boys walked up from the dungeons to drop their bags off in the dorms before a weekend of freedom. Malfoy, a pale boy in Slytherin, had been particularly brutal all class, tormenting Redheaded-Ron about his second-hand belongings and poor family.
Professor Snape had, apparently, not heard any of this, though he was quick enough to berate Redheaded-Ron when he retaliated. Harry and Neville had been ignored throughout the period, but Ron and Seamus had, between them, lost ten points from Gryffindor. No one dared talk back to Professor Snape, though, as Percy-the-Prefect had warned them all about him at breakfast on Tuesday.
Ron was so dejected that Harry thought it would be nice to introduce him to Hagrid, who had sent a note that morning inviting Harry to tea in his house on the grounds. Harry had immediately accepted, and now invited Ron and Neville to go with him. Nagara was still basking under its heat-lamp as the new scales hardened off, and refused to go with them.
“Hagrid’s really keen on magical creatures. I bet he takes care of loads as gamekeeper,” Harry told the others excitedly as they walked into the September sunshine.
“He’s always around the Forbidden Forest when my brothers try to sneak in, I know that,” said Ron. Harry had learned about the twins by now: they were inseparable, indistinguishable, and indefatigable according to Percy-the-Prefect. Harry wasn’t sure what the words meant exactly, only that Ron and Percy-the-Prefect seemed to consider them menaces.
Hagrid greeted the three boys cheerfully, holding back a dog whose head was level with Harry’s. When released, the dog gave each boy an enthusiastic greeting. Harry’s only previous experience with dogs had been Aunt Marge’s bulldogs, which all hated him, and he found himself backed into a corned by the ferocious looking animal before Hagrid pulled the dog away again and Harry could scuttle onto a chair. The animal’s name was Fang, and Harry was unsure whether to take Hagrid’s word that he was an old softy.
Ron was distracted from his potions problems by talking to Hagrid about another brother, Charlie, who was working with dragons. Harry was starting to lose track of how many brothers Ron had. Neville stayed quiet while they spoke and appeared to be reading a Daily Prophet article on the table. Harry listened enraptured as Hagrid enthused about the different breeds that Charlie apparently mentioned in his letters. Harry remembered Hagrid saying he’d like a pet dragon, and teased him a little by asking which species he’d like best.
“Any of ‘em would do,” the bearded giant said happily, chortling at Harry’s impudence, “but a Peruvian vipertooth, that’d be somethin’.”
***
“What was in the newspaper cutting?” Harry asked Neville once they had left Hagrid’s after tea and rock cakes. “You looked worried.”
“It was about a bank robbery. It was the day after my birthday. We were in Diagon Alley that day. I could have walked right past whoever did it.” Neville sounded almost frightened by the possibility.
“When’s your birthday?” Ron asked, curious.
“30th of July,” Neville replied. Harry was surprised.
“That’s the day before mine!” he exclaimed. Neville looked pleased by this. “That means the robbery was on my birthday. That was the day I went to Diagon Alley! I went with Hagrid. I forgot, it wasn’t until the 1st that I started staying at the Leaky Cauldron. I went with Hagrid on that afternoon.”
“From the newspaper it sounded like the robber was only just out of luck. Someone had been there that morning to empty the vault.” Harry thought about the vault he had seen in the bank. It would take some doing to empty it. Had the thief been after a vault like that? Or was there less in the vault? He supposed there must have been less. Hagrid had mentioned having business in the bank that morning and had been patting his pocket the whole time they were there. That must have been some small object. If that were in a vault it would be easy to empty. But if it were full like Harry’s…
“I wish I had a birthday in the summer,” Ron whined. “I’ll probably have potions on my birthday. And history of magic.”
“Cheer up,” Neville said, “at least all your friends will be around. I’ll be on my own for my birthday. Gran doesn’t like having visitors. She says they make her tired,” he explained fretfully.
Harry was distracted from thinking about strange magical packages and bank robbers by this more mundane train of thought. “We could meet in Diagon Alley, or something. Get an ice cream together. A joint birthday party for the two of us. Then your gran wouldn’t have to have visitors.”
“Yeah,” Ron agreed, “I bet mum would let me floo in for the day. Dad might want to drop me off or something, but that’d be alright.” Cheered up by nebulous plans for a birthday that seemed a lifetime away, the boys returned to the school for dinner.
***
Days at Hogwarts seemed to fly past and Harry felt he had never been happier. He had two human friends and two animal ones. He had interesting classes to attend. He never had to worry about being stuck in his cupboard and missing school, and, along with that, he had no Dursley’s to think about. Soon October was beginning, and with it came a notice on the Gryffindor noticeboard that the first years would begin flying lessons with Madam Hooch and the Slytherin first years on Thursday in what had, hitherto, been a free period. Neville was immediately nervous: he had never been allowed on a broomstick in his life and was sure that he would have a terrible accident. Ron couldn’t decide whether to be delighted that finally they would be allowed to fly, or to be furious at having to share the class with the Slytherins.
Harry hadn’t had much interaction with their Slytherin counterparts so far. I’ll-tell-my-father-Malfoy teased Ron about having no money, which Harry didn’t think was so bad. Harry had told I’ll-tell-my-father-Malfoy that having no money was a deal better than having no personality, which the other boy had apparently found baffling. He had made an attempt to tell Harry to choose his friends better, but Harry couldn’t think of any better people than boisterous Ron and quiet Neville. So, with Harry sticking by Ron, Harry had also become a target, apparently because he had no parents. Neville also was tormented about his parents, but he never wanted to talk about them beyond saying simply that they were poorly and in hospital.
I’ll-tell-my-father-Malfoy had been heard complaining loudly at first years not being allowed their own broomsticks and talking about his Comet260, which meant nothing to Harry. Ron rode a Shooting Star at home, he told them, which had belonged to his brother Charlie-who-worked-with-Dragons. He also told Harry and Neville that flying was dead easy and they’d get the hang of it in no time.
Hermione-with-the-hair also seemed nervous about flying but unlike Neville, who hid his nerves behind silence, she seemed determined to make all the other Gryffindors nervous too. Harry found her a bit of a chore. Her hand was always first up in every class, and some of the teachers, especially Professor Snape-who-looks-ill, seemed to take delight in picking any student except her. But she had never bothered them until now, when she regaled the table at breakfast with statistics of fatal accidents or how Quidditch players often had head injuries in later life from breathing thin air.
Harry petted Suku on Thursday morning as Hermione-with-the-hair rattled off these facts and thought about how, before he’d known about Hogwarts, he’d thought his parents should have had a broomstick accident, instead of a car accident. Often, he forgot that his parents and, by extension, himself were national heroes, and would be surprised when accosted by older students. He’d spent so long thinking that his parents died in a car crash that it sometimes surprised him to remember that they hadn’t. But from Hermione-with-the-hair’s words it seemed that, if they hadn’t been murdered, there was a good possibility that they would have had a broomstick accident. From what she was saying it was a miracle that any wizard made it to adulthood. Harry said as much to Ron and Neville. Ron laughed but Neville simply looked more green than usual.
A large barn owl brought Neville a present from his gran. She wrote twice a week, long letters which always seemed to make Neville sad, and he worried about his letters back, which were usually short and full of problems he was having with one class or another. Today she had sent Neville a device called a Remembrall, a ball which told you when you’d forgotten to do something. The ball went scarlet the moment Neville touched it, and Harry and Ron busied themselves in suggesting things he might have forgotten. They eventually determined that he needed to change the water in Trevor’s terrarium. The Remembrall turned white again, and the three boys relaxed.
Ron bounded out of the castle when the time came for them to meet Madam Hooch for their lesson, but Harry walked behind with Neville, who had become green again. Harry tried to reassure him by pointing out that, if he had bounced when his great-uncle dropped him out of a window, surely, if he fell off his broom, he would bounce again. Neville gave Harry a very shaky smile, and Harry wasn’t sure he’d done a good job of reassuring his friend.
Madam Hooch, when the lesson began, was rather waspish in her attitude towards mistakes. Ron was delighted when she told Malfoy that he had been gripping his broom incorrectly, and then took points when he argued back. Unfortunately, she also took points from Ron for kicking off before she had blown her whistle. Neville was so nervous when he kicked off that instead of going up his broom went over, and he cannoned into one of the Slytherin girls. Her nose was all turned up so that she looked a bit like a pug, and she shrieked when she landed. Her broom tangled itself in her robes and pulled her along the ground a short way until Madam Hooch’s own broom overtook them and she was able to sort out the situation.
Eventually the whole class was airborne, some looking distinctly queasy about being even a few feet off the ground. Harry loved it. Madam Hooch got them to fly laps around a ring of light she conjured in mid-air. Harry desperately wanted to speed around it, but Madam Hooch was sharp with Seamus and one of the Gryffindor girls when they started racing. When Madam Hooch did let them move at speed Harry discovered another problem.
Since shedding Nagara had returned to its place coiled around Harry’s neck during the day. The robes they wore had high necks and their cloaks had hoods, so the material was at once warm and a good hiding spot. Now that Harry was moving fast outside the air caused it all to flap, making the little snake cold. Harry felt the familiar weight slip from his shoulders and drop down his back. He hoped that the pinch where the robes were caught between himself and the broomstick might hold the snake until he could land. To his horror he heard Nagara’s voice calling “Harry!” as it tumbled from him.
Harry didn’t stop to think. He plummeted after his friend. He caught it, and the two of them slowed to a halt and landed. Nagara was cold, but unharmed, and Harry quickly put it into his pocket to warm up. Only then, too late, did he think about how to cover up the incident. Madam Hooch was incensed. “You foolish child!” she shrieked, more hawklike than her previous waspish tones, “don’t you realise what might have happened? If you had been any less familiar with a broom you could have broken your neck, and then what would your family say? Did you think of that? You couldn’t wait to show off, could you? Do you think you’re your father?”
Harry wondered what his father had to do with anything, and why Madam Hooch thought he’d ever been on a broom before, and why his family ought to care. He saw, peripherally, his classmates landing with various degrees of grace around them, and also heard Ron whispering frantically behind him. Harry wasn’t sure how to answer Madam Hooch’s string of questions so he simply said “sorry”.
“Sorry? Sorry? You’d have been more than sorry if you hadn’t landed as you did. You’ll spend this term’s lessons on the ground, and 20 points from Gryffindor! None of my students is permitted to show off in this class and I will not make exceptions for you, Potter or no Potter.”
Still baffled by her apparent assumption that he had ever done more with a broom than sweep the floor before, and by her reference to his father Harry nodded quietly. Ron, meanwhile, had come up behind Harry and pressed something into the hand still clutching Nagara in his pocket. Whatever it was was cold, and Harry tried to keep it away from the still chilled snake.
“But, Madam Hooch,” Ron said loudly from just behind Harry, “Neville dropped his Remembrall, Harry had to catch it or it would have smashed, and it’s brand new.”
“No exceptions, Mr. Weasley,” Madam Hooch said repressively. “I don’t care if it was Slytherin’s own Remembrall, I will not have a student acting up in my class.”
And none of them could shift her on it. Harry was grounded for the rest of term.
***
Nagara shed again in October, becoming a full foot long, though only about an inch in diameter. From what Harry had read about snakes he thought it should start filling out soon. He hadn’t decided what to do with the skin, and, for now, kept it in his trunk. He had started reading about the properties of snake skins in potions, which was quite a complicated subject. It didn’t help that the books Harry found were all geared for older students, and he had to keep using a dictionary charm to understand the words.
Harry had asked the librarian, Madam Pince, for books about basilisks, but they were either in the Restricted section, where he wouldn’t be allowed for another three years, at least, or were unhelpful. So far, he had yet to find any reference to uses for basilisk skin. He had read that this snake may grow to enormous size so Nagara would be shedding more in future, and if Harry couldn’t find a use for it he might be really swamped with the stuff.
He had also decided to start keeping notes about Nagara. He still couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl, but Hagrid told him of another story in the Prophet of an auror (like a policeman, Seamus explained) who had been forcibly retired after mistaking a carriage clock for a basilisk egg. It seemed he had done this at his office, and his colleagues couldn’t ignore his apparently dangerous reaction. So, Harry reasoned, there must be boy and girl basilisks, or they wouldn’t be able to make eggs, and would only be hatched from chickens. Maybe he could make more and Nagara could have company and maybe make babies in future. He remembered the Sorting Hat’s words about not thinking things through and decided better of it.
Nagara had hatched a kind of brown, rather like the colouring of the dirt in the terrarium, and had looked a bit like a thick worm. Harry hadn’t measured the snake when it first hatched, but he guessed it had been about four inches long and about an inch in circumference. It had grown to about six inches before it had shed, and had grown again since then, effectively trebling in size within the first two months. Its new scales also showed a change in colour. One of the books Harry found in the Hogwarts library mentioned that basilisks were green, so presumably this was Nagara’s adult colouration.
The snake was also making better use of words. Harry had been afraid that it might pass through a long period of ‘baby talk’, but it had quickly got the idea of sentences. It still preferred to communicate only in one-word exclamations, although Harry was starting to notice that what he perceived as a sound wasn’t always one. There were times when Nagara seemed to chime or hum, when it was particularly contented after a meal, or basking on Harry’s dresser while he stroked it, when the snake was making no sound, but the pheromones around it indicated pleasure.
Harry wanted a notebook to jot it all down in and told himself that he’d get one when he was in Diagon Alley in the summer. For now, he used a piece of parchment with “Harry’s notes on basilisks: do not read” written at the top. He doubted this would be enough to keep people from reading it if they found it, so kept it locked in his trunk when he wasn’t writing in it.
Seamus had calmed down a lot about Nagara. He didn’t want the snake touching his stuff, but was happy to let Harry pet it and talk softly to it in the strange hissing spitting sounds which Neville and Ron told Harry parseltongue sounded like. Neville, despite his initial fear, loved the little snake. Knowing Harry could talk to it helped, he said, but it was just in Neville’s nature to accept people for who they were, and Nagara was no different. Ron had been accepting of the snake in the dorm, but apprehensive about touching it. He had seemed pleased, though, when Harry told him Nagara was complaining about the dorm’s lack of popping food that runs, which had turned out to be spiders.
And then it was Halloween and the school went mad.