Harry Potter and the Monster of Gryffindor

Harry and Fang walked close together for what felt like hours, although Harry’s watch told him it wasn’t even 18.00 when he looked at it. The splashes of unicorn blood got thicker the further he walked, and, in some places, Harry could swear the plants had been crushed, as though it had lain down there. Perhaps it had thought it was dying. And then it had got up, and gone on, leaving its silver trail for Death to follow. Harry shook his head to clear it of such thoughts.

He had told Nagara Hagrid’s warning about the blood, and then, at her request, set her on the forest floor. She had sniffed at the blood splashes but left them alone for the most part. She didn’t stray off hunting, but stayed near Harry, occasionally commenting on the freshness of the blood. That was how he knew they were going the right way. Harry thought about sending up green sparks for Hagrid but couldn’t think how he would explain how he knew about the blood.

After a long time with only Nagara’s sibilant information and Fang’s panting to be heard Harry saw what looked like a beam of moonlight up ahead. He sped up, eager to find some sky.

It wasn’t moonlight. Harry emerged into a clearing, which showed him that the sky was still the light pink of dusk, but there was still silver there. Silver in the body of the unicorn, which lay panting on the ground. Its breaths rattled in the stillness of the clearing. And kneeling beside it was a figure.

Harry stood transfixed, staring in horror at the cloaked figure which knelt by the unicorn’s side. Its head was on a level with the unicorn’s wounded side. As Harry watched the animal’s pants faded, and the light in its eyes went out. It had died. Harry felt immensely guilty for watching it happen. The kneeling figure arose and turned towards Harry.

Pain lanced through Harry’s head. He shouted, without meaning to, and heard Fang give a similar cry. He felt, rather than saw, the boarhound run back along the path, whining. He tried to focus on the figure who stood, wand upraised, before him. He recognised the top-heavy silhouette of the head. “Professor Quirrell?” Harry gasped.

“Incarcerous,” the professor replied. Ropes flew from his wand and bound Harry, pulling him in tight to a tree standing nearby. Harry shouted again, this time in surprise. He dropped his wand as he felt ropes cut tight into his arms. Nagara hissed menacingly at the professor. “You’re too nosy for your own good, Potter,” Professor Quirrell said, ignoring Harry’s cry and Nagara’s threats, “trying to catch me. As though a child could manage that!” Quirrell had been walking towards Harry, and now the two were in touching distance. “I had to work hard to convince Hagrid to let you have this detention. And what a shame it will be, when he finds out that his little friend was no match for the beast that has been savaging his precious pets.”

“You killed that unicorn!” Harry knew it was stupid, knew it was stating the palpably obvious, but he needed to say something, and those were the only words he could think of.

“It was necessary. Without you messing around, and with Dumbledore looking for a mystical beast I shall be able to finish my work at the castle.” Harry heard Quirrell’s words, but he heard also other words, slightly muffled, but still audible, “be silent little serpent. These are human affairs and do not concern you. Go along. Hunt.”

“Who are you?” Harry breathed. He had meant to ask the second speaker, but the words broke Quirrell’s concentration, and he replied.

“I? I am who I have always been. And there’s the magic. There is no disguise so cunning as the one which isn’t there.”

“Not you,” Harry’s arms hurt now from being tied to the tree, and he was running out of patience, “the person talking over you. The parselmouth.” Quirrell’s eyes went wide in surprise. Harry wondered why. But then, he thought, perhaps Quirrell hadn’t known that a parselmouth had been following him in the forest.

Quirrell backed away from Harry, reaching his hands up to grip the sides of his head as he stammered, “m-Master. He knows-”

Harry’s mind spun. Quirrell’s master? Harry felt very distinctly that this was not the headmaster. A feeling of dead weight settled in Harry’s stomach. The last three known parselmouths (not including him) had all been evil wizards. He had a horrible feeling that this one, this unknown fourth, would be too.

“How charming,” a high voice mocked, ringing out through the clearing, “yes, Quirrell, let him see. I would rather he knew. He should feel the honour of his death.” Harry tugged at his bindings, but they held fast, magic giving none of the frailties of mere rope and knots.

Quirrell began to unwrap his turban. Harry was both mystified and desperate. He was sure that whatever was going to happen when the turban was unwound would destroy him, and yet he was curious to see what was underneath it. Probably, he would have laughed had the situation been less desperate, not garlic.

Quirrell without his turban looked a lot smaller, but Harry could see nothing wrong. Until the man turned around. Harry immediately scrabbled against the tree, desperate to get away from the thing before him. Breaking out of the back of Quirrell’s head was a face. The face was white with red eyes. In the gloom of the forest the eyes seemed to glow.

“Harry Potter.” The voice came from the white face in a hiss. “See who you have angered. I shall enjoy killing you properly this time. Lord Voldemort will kill you, and shall rise again.” Harry stopped moving. Lord Voldemort. The name had haunted Harry all year. He stared at the face. Quirrell’s body jerked unexpectedly. His arm swung back, too far back, until the wand was pointing directly at Harry. The sound of Quirrell’s shoulder crunching was very loud in the forest.

With a wave of Quirrell’s wand Voldemort released Harry. Not expecting it, Harry crumpled to the ground. After a few seconds Harry stood, facing the man who had destroyed his life. Voldemort’s wand was still pointing at Harry, but no spell had been cast. “Are you going to fight me, Harry? Are you going to face Lord Voldemort as your parents did?” Harry stood still, unsure what to say.

“They were fools, Harry. They thought that they could defeat me. They thought you could stand against me.” He laughed. The laugh was high pitched, cold, and came straight out of Harry’s nightmares. In that moment Harry felt again. He felt anger.

Harry launched himself at Voldemort. He didn’t have a wand, he simply lashed out with his hands. He reached up to pound on Voldemort’s chest and encountered Quirrell’s back. Quirrell moved away from Harry, and Harry reached up in desperation. Voldemort screamed, and Quirrell stumbled and fell to the ground. Voldemort’s face stared upwards, and Harry lunged, following him down, fists balled.

Nagara wriggled out from under Quirrell’s body screaming in parseltongue, “don’t you hurt my Harry. Don’t you hurt him!” Harry felt a desperate surge of protection course through him at the sound of her voice. He punched down blindly; fear, anger, and protectiveness joining together to hurt Voldemort. He was vaguely aware of Voldemort shouting, Quirrell screaming, and his own voice joining in the symphony of agony.

Harry’s vision began to blur, or perhaps Voldemort himself was blurring around the edges. Harry’s arms grew tired and heavy, his breath became laboured, his eyes streamed with tears. Darkness began to make his vision tunnel. Darkness exploded out of Quirrell’s body. It burst around Harry in a cloud, obliterating the forest. Harry’s vision became full of darkness. And behind the darkness was a light, blue-white and tiny. The light winked out, and the darkness swallowed Harry.

***

Harry awoke with the sensation that something was missing. He opened his eyes to the bright light of midday in the Hospital Wing. He squinted around, looking for his glasses and for anyone he could ask how he got back to the castle. As he sat up Harry realised what was missing: Nagara. He had woken up with her on his chest every day for months, but now she was absent. He hoped she was staying out of sight, or off hunting.

He located his glasses on the nightstand and, with their help, saw Madam Pomfrey in her office at the end of the room. She appeared to be arguing with Professor Snape. Pink elephants! he thought at the sight of Professor Snape and regretted it. Harry was not keen to attract that man’s attention, and hastily snuggled back under the cover. Resigning himself to not getting answers for a while, Harry tried to work out what happened, and whether anything was wrong that would keep him from Gryffindor tower.

Even knowing Nagara was elsewhere, he decided, something still felt absent, but he couldn’t work out what. Unless Voldemort had taken out his appendix or something Harry couldn’t begin to explain the feeling. And what had happened to Voldemort? He had been angry and about to kill Harry, Harry had hit him, and then… what? Harry had blacked out and either Voldemort had left him for dead, or Voldemort had somehow… gone. Had that been the dark vapour Harry had seen? Or had that been a hallucination? And the little light? Harry’s head began to ache as the questions began to circle around in his mind, so he tried to think of something else. Pink elephants, he decided. The worst they could do was sing annoyingly during potions class.

He lay in bed and thought about Dumbo flying and shooting peanuts at the spectators on the quidditch pitch, and himself flying on a shooting star, which became a broomstick, except it was a feather duster, and a feather was falling out of the tail, and he was crashing to earth, and the earth was opening up into a pit of darkness with a pair of red glowing eyes, and the darkness was closing over him and laughing as he drowned in a barrel of bubbling red light. Harry came to with a jerk.

The Hospital wing was dim now, nightlights burning on Harry’s bedside table and by the door to Madam Pomfrey’s office. Someone was standing at the foot of Harry’s bed. He scrabbled to sit up and the figure gasped, “Harry!”

“Neville!?” Harry gaped as his friend came to the side of the bed. Someone, presumably Madam Pomfrey, had removed Harry’s glasses again. Neville helped Harry find them and put them on before explaining himself.

“I came up to see you earlier, but you were still asleep. But Nagara was fussing about something. I don’t know what, but I thought I’d see whether she wanted to see you. I haven’t brought her in the daytime in case someone sees.”

Nagara was indeed sliding over Harry and humming in that way she had that wasn’t a physical sound, but which indicated contentment. Harry stroked her fondly and looked at his friend’s worried face. “This was really kind of you, Nev,” he told the other boy.

“She was pretty- you know-  upset.”

“Still, it was brave to come up here at night.” Neville looked surprised. Harry patted the sheets to invite Neville to sit, and asked him “what’s been happening?”

“Well, we were at dinner and Professor McGonagall said she wanted to see us, and she said that Hagrid had just brought you back from the Forest and you were going to be in the hospital wing for a few days. This was on Saturday, you know. And she said did we know anything about Professor Quirrell, because he’s dead or something, but we told her no we didn’t. We don’t, do we? And that was Saturday and you’ve been out of it since then. It’s Monday. Well, Tuesday now, I guess.”

Harry had been feeling relieved that he hadn’t been in the forest for too long before Neville brought up Quirrell, when guilt overthrew relief. Harry’s hands stilled on Nagara’s scales for an instant, but Neville picked up on it. “What’s wrong?” he asked after a few moments of silence. “Harry? What happened to you?”

Harry focussed on his friend’s worried face, and started stroking Nagara again. “It sounds crazy,” he warned Neville.

Neville only shrugged, “Hermione’s parents think it’s normal to wrap metal around her teeth to make her jaw change shape. I’m getting good at crazy.” Harry grinned at the description of a brace. Surrounded by magic, it did sound a little baffling.

“Well, my detention was to go into the forest. Something… I’ve got to tell you like it was for me, even though it sounds stupid.”

“Go ahead,” Neville encouraged.

Harry did, telling the story succinctly, not wishing to dwell on the night that seemed to have been only moments ago. He stumbled when he came to the moment that he had attacked Voldemort but carried on until he had passed out. Then he stopped and cast worried eyes upon his friend. After a silent moment he asked, “Nev, am I evil?”

“What!?” Neville was so surprised he forgot to whisper.

“Ssshhh!”

“Sorry.” Neville spoke so softly it was almost inaudible, “Harry you’re not evil. Why would you think so?”

Harry chewed his lip as he thought about his answer. “I dunno,” he eventually told the sheets around his knees. “I’m a parselmouth, and that’s- not exactly a- a good group of people. And- Nev- he laughed. He laughed. And I hated. In that moment I wanted to hurt him.” Silence fell between them for a long moment, and Harry felt moved to explain, to try to redeem himself in Neville’s eyes. “It’s- It’s- you’ll say it’s stupid, but I remember, I mean, I think I remember- I was only a baby, but I still think it’s real, I remember someone laughing when my parents died. And it was the same laugh. And I saw my mum in the mirror over Christmas, and she- she- loved me. And that laugh took it away and I just hated.”

Harry couldn’t look at Neville. Nagara, although she didn’t know what the boys were talking about, began murmuring questions, asking, “why is my Harry upset? Harry thinks that Neville will hurt him. If Neville hurts Harry Nagara will hurt Neville. Harry doesn’t have to worry. Neville does not want to hurt Harry. Harry shouldn’t be scared. Harry is the greatest snake in the room. Even greater than Nagara!”

During her attempts to be comforting Neville had moved one hand. He took the hand off Harry’s bedding, and placed it on top of Harry’s, where it lay in his lap. Harry looked up then. “I don’t think it’s stupid.” Harry was surprised to see that Neville looked sheepish. He’d been expecting anger, or hatred, or, hopefully, forgiveness, but Neville looked embarrassed. 

“It’s not stupid. I never told you. I’ve never told anyone. I remember what happened to my parents too, and I was older than you.” Neville looked so unhappy that Harry scooted over to one side of the bed, and invited his friend to sit next to him. Neville climbed awkwardly in, and Harry pulled the blankets up to their chins.

“I don’t remember a lot. I mean, it’s not like I- but I remember some things. Lots of red light, and people screaming. That must have been mum and dad. And a woman laughing. That was LeStrange. She was the only woman there. Except mum, of course.” Harry put on arm around Neville’s shoulders and didn’t comment on the tears falling down the other boy’s face.

“I just remember green light and Voldemort laughing,” Harry admitted. “I used to think it was a traffic light. I was scared to get in the car when I was little.”

“I’m scared that I’ll do a spell and it’ll come out red and someone will be hurt.” Neville’s whisper was so quiet that it was more like a shape in the night than words.

Harry shoved his friend gently, “You couldn’t hurt someone if you wanted to,” he said. Then he considered the sentence and said, “I mean, you’d never want to hurt someone, even if they made you really angry. You’re just not like that. Even if you wanted to hurt someone you wouldn’t do it, ‘cause you’re too nice. Oh! I know what I mean.”

“Thanks Harry. But I think there’s shades of nice. You’re nice. You’re not evil. Even if you did want to hurt him, he’s you-know- he's V-Voldemort. Hurting evil isn’t evil.”

“Thanks, Neville.”

“And I bet there’s loads of parselmouths who don’t say anything because the ones who have said so have been evil.” They grinned at each other in the dim light of Harry’s nightlight. They sat together silently for a few minutes, until they both said, “you know” at the same time.

After a quiet argument Neville said, “I was going to say that we should ask Susan if she remembers anything.”

“Susan?”

“Susan Bones, in Hufflepuff. Her parents were killed by you-kno- Voldemort too.”

“We’re not a club, Neville!”

“No, but it’s- it’s comforting to know that you remember too.”

“OK. We’ll talk to Susan Bones. How d’you know her anyway?”

“I partner Hannah sometimes, and she and Susan are friends.”

“Oh, OK.”

“What were you going to say?”

“What? Oh, I was going to say you should tell Andi that you’re afraid of what your magic might do. She might be able to help. I mean, that’s her job, right?”

“You think so?”

“I do. She won’t tell anyone else, will she? And she won’t tell you it’s silly. And she did say you could tell her about anything.”

“Yeah.” They sat in silence again, Nagara twining around Harry’s neck until he snuggled under the covers and she coiled herself on his belly. Neville stayed next to Harry, and they fell asleep together.