Survivor

Harry’s eyes slowly blinked open to the image of a dark, open room he didn’t recognize in the slightest. His body was tingly and raw as if he’d recently gotten one of those nasty sunburns he usually managed to acquire by the end of his summer chores at the Dursleys. That pain, though, was more than welcome considering the agonizing end he could’ve received.

As his brain filtered through the events he could remember of the Halloween feast, he was completely incapable of coming up with a logical reason for his survival. The third-floor corridor could’ve killed him ten times over, and his life hung in the balance two times with those intrepid hounds. At least he got that last one back before he passed out.

Still, through all of the pain and possible death, he’d never felt more free. 

Despite the risks, he did what he thought was necessary to discover the machinations surrounding him, and he ended up coming out on top. With the stranger’s help and the beast on his side, he used the attack against him and his classmates to escape, got to the third floor, discovered exactly what kind of game was being played on both sides, got away scot-free, and defeated the creatures out to kill him with an insanely talented Slytherin prefect. He didn’t do it alone like he wished he could’ve, but the stranger didn’t attempt to manipulate his emotions either, and he felt powerful and worth something due to the things he discovered and accomplished.

“Yes,” a smooth voice echoed within his head. “We made a rather good team, did we not?”

Trust between them was still nonexistent as far as Harry was concerned. He knew nothing about the man who resided within his mind, and the stranger’s first interaction with him was marred and tainted by his obvious attempt to persuade him into losing himself in the bloodlust of the zouwu. The stranger knew far more about magic and their situation than Harry did, and that was scary considering the man was in his head. With what was given to him, there was absolutely no reason for him to simply trust the stranger on his words, and there was plenty of reason for him to fear the stranger’s influence.

On the other hand… the stranger was kind of right. With his natural prowess in the field of transfiguration and the stranger’s inexplicable knowledge of magic, the two of them managed to compete on the level of Albus Dumbledore. They played the school against itself and got away with it at the same time. They knew something now that no other student in the castle could possibly discover. He didn’t trust the stranger in the slightest, but did it really take trust to recognize the pure efficiency of their partnership? 

“How many times have I told you that same line, Harry?” the stranger asked, sounding extremely pleased with both himself and the situation.

“How many times have you tried to manipulate my mind when I chose to trust you and let you in?” Harry snapped back.

“Oh,” the stranger drawled as if it couldn’t be any less important. “A few times here and there. The important thing now is that we have pieces on the board. Are you seriously so unwilling to negotiate with me in order to see the rest of this out? We could be great, you and I.”

The offer was so very tempting, and unlike last time, he had something to lose by denying the stranger’s offer. Before, his help was an easy option to deny. He didn’t need the stranger’s input to maneuver around daily magical life, not anymore. Harry would be a fool, though, to think that he could compete with what he saw on Halloween night without some serious help. The stranger was offering that help, and Harry didn’t want to let his life be decided while sitting on the sidelines if he had the option to play.

“No more manipulating my mind. Do you understand me?” Harry demanded. “I can’t work with someone who is trying to use me every time I accept his help.”

“Deal,” the stranger responded immediately. “In return, though, I will require a small favor.”

“What?” Harry asked with squinted eyes.

“I wish for you to use my knowledge more. Do not squander the help I plan to give in this venture as you have been for the past few months. If I promise to keep manipulation out of the picture and act only as a partner should, will you reach out and grasp the things I can give you, or will you remain the coward you’ve been so far?”

Harry liked what he was hearing, but what he couldn’t piece together was why!? Why would this intruder, this stranger, offer so much for so little in return. There had to be some sort of angle, some kind of benefit to this partnership that he didn’t understand, and that was what scared him. Unlike with Iris, he couldn’t just ask why because there was no way in the world he would be naive enough to take someone like him at his word. 

In the end, the stranger was still right. Harry didn’t trust the stranger, and he didn’t know if he ever truly could. What was being offered, though, didn’t require trust. This was an agreement, and even if Harry didn’t understand what the stranger got from it, the fact that it benefited him and would protect him from harm at the same time was all that mattered. He couldn’t ask the stranger why, but, in a way, it was better because he didn’t need to. 

There was only one response to give in a moment like this.

“Fine," Harry told the stranger. "Partners."

And the very universe shuddered from the impact this would have on the world.

Harry wasn’t sure how long he laid silently on his hospital bed with his own thoughts and whatever the stranger’s snarky and arrogant though admittedly helpful interjections would count as, but he was thoroughly awake and prepared once the school nurse entered the main room of the hospital wing and realized that he was awake. Bustling over, she began to perform some sort of magical diagnostic before speaking to him.

“Hello, Mr. Potter, you had quite a rough night," she told him.

Did he? 

Honestly, Harry felt rather good about all of it. Injuries aside, he thought that things went swimmingly, not that anyone else would know. 

“I don’t remember much of it,” he decided to say.

In instances like this, it was best to just go with the flow and respond to things like the people in charge expected him to. In cases like this, shock would be common. Most medical professionals would probably expect him to have gone blank through most parts of it. That was, at least, what he assumed from the multiple times such excuses worked for him in the past while his uncle sat in the room with those watchful eyes of his.

“I would expect so!” the woman exclaimed under her breath. “With the kind of experience Miss Farley said you had, I’m surprised you’re still alive. The kinds of crazy things going on in this castle! I can hardly believe it.”

Harry didn’t respond. He decided to stare off into space and pretend as if he was simply trying to regain his wits. In reality, he was trying to piece together a plan. The stranger expected a questioning in the immediate future, and both of them needed to come up with a story that somehow explained how Harry was out of the Great Hall without implicating any nefarious schemes.

The nurse, though, gave him vital information unintentionally. Farley brought him here and apparently gave a brief of her own. That was both good and bad for him. On one hand, her explanation could act as a very believable base for what went down in the second-floor corridor instead of the real story. Undoubtedly, her oaths would guarantee that none of his secrets were revealed, and her status as a Prefect would add validation and legitimacy to her story. The downside was that Harry had no idea what that story was, and if it didn’t match, both of them would be in deep shit. 

“Dumbledore will be here," the stranger said. "He will most likely not attempt Legilimency on you after what happened during the entrance feast. Anyone with Occlumency like I displayed would recognize the intrusion, and that would legally invalidate the entire questioning. That doesn’t mean, however, that he won’t be pressing for details. He knows that people are after whatever he has hidden, and he is interested in you for whatever reason. 

"He most likely suspects foul play. Remember that we have the advantage here. It was a security breach on his watch that got you hurt. Pressing charges isn’t beyond the scope of reasonable responses to something like this. Besides your classmates giving you away or Farley betraying us, he has no way to know anything. He could rip the information from the heads of your classmates, but you managed to choose intelligent friends, and unsanctioned Legilimency will give him no legal routes to pursue us. 

“Unless we give him reasonable doubt based on our story, he will have no way to force a questioning with other students. His personal suspicions mean nothing if he doesn’t have any legitimate ground to kick us out or detain us. It is immaterial even if he knows we are up to something.”

Harry was extremely shocked by the amount of help he just received from the stranger. Perhaps he was taking this deal even more seriously than Harry thought. When it came to discovering the plots surrounding Hogwarts, at least, it seemed as though they were going to be actual partners. They were in this together. It felt kind of good, honestly, to have someone in his corner for this.

It was true though. The stakes were high. Harry left the Great Hall after receiving explicit instructions to remain still and threatened the lives of both himself and Farley by being out of bounds. Things could go very badly for him if the truth escaped. 

Once the nurse left, some of the staff came to take her place. Within the group of people that Harry believed to be his interrogators were Headmaster Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, and Gemma Farley.

Gemma Farley?

Why would they bring Gemma Farley with them? Was she here because she somehow found a way to subvert her oath and opened her fat fucking mouth, or was she simply brought here because she was the one who found him, saved him, and ferried him away in the first place? Both were possible, but the latter was most likely. Knowing this, he kept his cool and gave a quick glance to the Prefect. She noticed his glance and gave an imperceptibly tiny smile.

Good, she wasn’t a rat.

Waving his wand in front of him, Dumbledore conjured four chairs from thin air and took a seat in one of them. The stranger personally thought that it was an intimidation tactic, but Harry was far too impressed by the artistic designs painted onto the chairs to worry about why they were conjured. As it turned out, letting his excitement about the headmaster’s magic actually aided his case in the eyes of everyone else in the room.

Apparently, enjoying the beauty of magic made him appear more trustworthy.

“Hello, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore said in a genial, gentle tone. “I am so very sorry for what happened to you under my watch. I cannot express to you how glad I am that Miss Farley was not in the Great Hall during the incident.”

The conversation started off innocent enough, but he knew where it would go from there. Three teachers were in the room with him, and he had a feeling deep within his gut that this was so very similar to the times that his elementary school teachers would speak to him after Dudley decided to tell them about something he did. The only difference between then and now was that he actually did what they suspected him of this time. 

“How did they get in anyway? They were so big,” he asked as soon as the opening presented itself.

He would have to thank primary school for that one. He learned early on that it was best to turn the conversations away from him if he didn’t want them to start pressing him for information. Hogwarts made a massive mistake when those dogs got in. The evidence was blatant, and everyone knew it. Compared to the headmaster thinking that Harry might’ve been snooping around the castle, this was astronomically more important.

“We aren’t sure, Mr. Potter. We suspect that someone let them in. I promise you, Aurors will be conducting a thorough investigation on the matter,” Dumbledore said, looking as if he had just stuck a lemon in his mouth. 

“He doesn’t like the idea of the ministry conducting business in his domain," the stranger told him for his benefit. "He views the school as his territory. Aurors waltzing around the place will make it harder for him to do what he wants, and it will probably make it harder for us as well.”

That was true…

Harry just discovered that he was thinking about things on a much smaller scale than he should’ve. This was yet another reason why the stranger was such an invaluable addition to their partnership. The school and Dumbledore might’ve been where the action was happening, but there was no way in hell an attack on a school wouldn’t warrant the attention of outsiders. The ministry was involving themselves in matters as well. Things were evolving into fights of political and legal power, and Dumbledore was pitting himself against pretty much everyone at the same time.

… and Harry was doing the same.

All of the sudden, things got very real. He wasn’t just playing with Dumbledore; Harry and the man inside of his head just interfered in the business conducted by some of the most important people in the country, possibly even the world. 

“A big fish isn’t created in a small pond, Harry. You are correct; we interfered with the plans of the strongest wizard in Britain, and we succeeded. The ministry is playing the game too, but we have undoubtedly come farther than their ilk. Don't falter. Just because you understand the environment we are in now doesn’t mean it hasn’t been here the whole time. Nothing has changed. We will still remain on top.”

The stranger was right. Sure, this was bigger than he thought, but it was still the same situation he was in before. The plan didn’t change, and he was still in an advantageous position. He just had to play his hand.

“We were actually hoping that you could help us discover exactly what happened to get you in the situation Miss Farley found you. There were multiple students outside of the Great Hall during the feast, and we want to make sure that we understand what was going on in our school.”

This was where things were going to get tricky. He didn’t know where the staff was during the attack. All he did know was that Severus Snape checked the third floor briefly before the snake broke the door down. Harry didn't even know if they knew about the snake at all. Perhaps they thought a person simply blew the corridor to bits. Did the snake escape? Did it escape unnoticed, or did others find it? 

“Don’t focus so much on what they know. Focus on what must be and what Miss Farley decided to tell them. Use me, Harry, and find the answers for yourself.”

Harry’s eyes flicked to Farley’s, and he knew immediately what the stranger wanted. Whatever reason they had for bringing the Prefect would be his saving grace. It was true that he didn’t know what she'd told them, but so long as she was here, he could always find the answer.

Using the stranger, he pushed beyond himself and dove into the eyes of the girl who'd saved him once already. He felt resistance at first before an ample amount of surprise. Finally, acceptance reached him, and he found himself spiraling and falling into her pupils.

He was inches away from panic, but the stranger forced him to still. Instead of pulling away, he let himself fall deeper, and his vision went black before coming back to the light in an unfamiliar environment. He was in the center of a small, cozy, warm house. It was obviously muggle in nature, but it was also kind and welcoming, so very different to his old home despite.

Harry stood in the living room of the house. A carpet was beneath his feet, and it had an obviously Arabic pattern on its fuzzy surface. A fire was crackling in the fireplace, and its orange light shined upon the walls, which were painted a calming blue. Despite his environment, Harry was scared and confused. Where the hell was he?

“Calm yourself. This is the mind of Miss Farley. She is an Occlumens, and she's a very good one if she’s using its purest form. Allow her to direct you. she granted you entrance, so you have nothing to fear.”

Forcing his emotions to fade within his mind, he looked around the living room for anything that might count as a sign of her “direction”. He was answered by a candle coming to life at the bottom of a staircase. Walking past the front door and to the other side of the living room, he approached the candle and watched it extinguish itself. At the top of that staircase, he saw another candle light itself, so he went up the stairs and waited for the next one. 

When the final candle caught aflame right next to a bedroom door, he walked up to it and swung the door into its open position. The inside room was tiny, like the rest of the house, but it was also stylized and personal. He could see the photos of her and her friends pinned to a wooden frame on the wall above her bed, and they were all magical in nature.

Was this Farley’s actual room?

“Almost certainly,” the stranger answered in his mind with just a slight amount of disgust gracing his tone. 

Of course, the stranger was still the same person as ever. Just because he wasn’t being an absolute prick to him at the moment didn't mean that the man was any less of a muggle hater. The fact that Harry didn’t like them much either was conveniently discarded for the purpose of upholding his criticism.

*Bang!*

Harry felt no pride in the way he jumped and pulled his wand upon hearing something smack against the wooden floor of Farley’s bedroom, but he had already experienced just how kickass his wand was in the presence of danger. There was no way in hell he wouldn’t pull it out after it got so close to saving his life against that first hound last night.

As it turned out, the sound was that of a book falling from a bookcase, which sat against the wall opposite her bedroom door. Considering it for only a moment, he approached the book and flipped it open. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be doing here, but he must’ve done something right because ink started leaking onto the open page until it formed a fully colored and animated scene of Gemma Farley leaving a bathroom on the second floor and walking down the hallway.

That was when she ran into an urgently prowling Severus Snape who saw her and immediately made a B-line toward her. She looked curiously startled for only a second before schooling herself.

“Is there a problem, sir? Why aren’t you at the feast?”

“Later, Miss Farley,” Snape said without a single inch of room for argument. “There isn’t enough time to explain everything. There are viridian hounds around the school. I must get to the third floor immediately. I need you to patrol the second floor and deal with any stragglers.”

“Yes, sir."

As the scene faded back to that of a blank page, another one began to form. This one was of her sitting with Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore in what looked to be the headmaster’s office or something to that effect. 

“You’re telling me that you found Potter in the middle of the second floor with a hound already on top of him?”

“Yes, Professor Snape. I was about halfway through my sweep of the floor when I heard the commotion. I got there just in time to save him.”

Dumbledore looked pensive and stroked his beard a few times before deciding to speak. Apparently, the man had a lot to consider. That was most likely bad for him.

“And how might Mr. Potter have gotten to the second floor during the Halloween Feast? I would’ve expected a first-year attend the festivities. Were you aware of his location during the feast, Professor Snape?”

“No,” his Head of House slowly, seriously drawled. “I wasn't told of his decision to not attend, but I had… other things to worry about at the time outside of where one of my students might've been.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Headmaster Dumbledore granted his potions master. “And what happened once you found him, Miss Farley?”

“I managed to dispatch the first hound quickly and hid both of us under the disillusionment charm before the other three approached. After getting the drop on the first one with that piercing curse… well… you know what happened next.”

According to their grim faces, they most definitely did. Harry wasn’t worried about them discovering his abilities though. She wouldn’t have let him in if she'd already let the cat out of the bag by somehow skipping around her vow. 

“Don't feel guilty, Miss Farley,” Snape told the girl. “I realize that using that kind of magic might be traumatizing, but you saved a child’s life with your efforts. You should never feel guilt for using dark magic to save innocent lives. Aurors do it every day.”

Farley broke eye contact and glanced masterfully at the ground to mimic the feeling of guilt. She impressed even Harry, and he considered himself hard to impress when it came to the art of deception. 

“Yes, sir,” she said quietly.

After that, the scene faded away, and the book flung from his hand to settle back into its place on the bookshelf. Getting the hint, he used the stranger’s experience to fade away from the girl’s bedroom, back through her eyes, and into his spot on the hospital bed. Absolutely no time had passed since he'd looked into Farley’s eyes.

“I’m shocked,” the stranger admitted. “She covered for you by disguising your bestial kill as dark magic. That's no small sacrifice.”

Harry didn’t understand even close to how true that statement was yet, but he could appreciate the sentiment even in his ignorant state. She put herself on the chopping block to uphold her oath. That was something he could respect, and she also gave him some very useful information: she'd been patrolling the entirety of the second floor and left things completely open for him. Even if he didn’t use Legilimency, whatever story he came up with would be plausible so long as he made sure to keep himself firmly within the second floor.

“I… I didn’t go to the feast,” Harry told the professors. “My parents… Well, they died on Halloween night. I didn’t feel like celebrating much, so I was wandering around the second floor. I was just getting out of the restroom when I heard the hounds, so I ran until one of them jumped on me. That was when I was saved by her. I’m sorry about all of the trouble I caused."

“Oh, you sly, sly boy, Harry,” the stranger complimented with a gigantic, devilish smile on his face. 

His emotional manipulation hit everyone where it hurt. He knew that at least Professor McGonagall was very much acquainted with his parents. All of them would be sympathetic toward his explanation even if they didn’t know. As it turned out, though, all of them knew his parents, and all of them were completely quelled by what he said. The stranger could tell that Dumbledore wasn’t convinced, but with the massive amount of support he just garnered from the room, intensive questioning was no longer an option.

The fact that Harry never knew them and didn’t particularly care about them wouldn’t be coming to light for a very long time if he had anything to say about it.

“Not at all, my boy,” Headmaster Dumbledore said. “It is I who should be apologizing for not securing the castle better. I do hope you can forgive me. Your emergency contact was, very understandably, not happy at all.”

Emergency contact? Harry was an orphan with no family he wanted to see again. Who the hell could possibly be written down as his emergency…

Oh shit.

“Are you okay!?” a frantic woman sputtered out as she rushed into the hospital wing.

“Yes, Iris, I’m fine,” he said in an attempt to calm down his unofficial guardian.

“Fine!?” she exclaimed while plopping down in a seat next to his bead. She reached out for his arm but hesitated due to how badly he generally reacted to sudden, unexpected contact. Upon receiving a small nod from the boy in her care, though, she reached her hand out and placed it on top of his own. “You almost died, Harry… I was given the medical reports. I had to sign off on the use of multiple serious potions!”

Was it really that close? Actually, there was a bigger problem here. Harry was an orphan with no magical relatives. What the hell would’ve happened to him without Iris? Would the nurse just make a decision herself? Exactly how powerless would he have been in his hospital bed if Iris didn’t just so happen to fill her name in as his emergency contact?

“I’m sorry…” he said instead of worrying about what could’ve been.

The fact of the matter was that he did have Iris, and she came here that quickly just to make sure he got the treatment he needed. 

“Oh, kiddo…” she said, looking about three centimeters away from letting all of those compassionate, mushy emotions spill from her like water from a hosepipe. “You don’t have to be sorry. It isn’t your fault… but, please, be careful. I don’t know if I can handle another floo call like that.”

And wasn’t that a punch in the gut? Though he was the only one who knew it, the situation was most definitely contrived by him and only by him. He was there on purpose and had the conflicts he did under his own consent. This was something that Iris could never know, so he swallowed his guilt and used his life-gained skills to keep himself in character. This was for his freedom. No cost was too high.

“Sure thing,” he chuckled. “Next time I get jumped by magical creatures, I’ll be sure to perform to your staggeringly high standards. By the way, where did Jason run off to?”

Letting go of his hand and allowing herself to find amusement in his usual form of humor, she leaned back in her chair and gave him the information he wanted.

“The Prefect who saved you, Gemma Farley, brought it along with you. Jason apparently wanted to stay with her, so she has him right now. I got here right when the staff was in the midst of a field day over your choice of familiar. You sure have a talent for creating chaos.”

Curious, she didn’t give Jason back when she had the chance earlier.

“HA!” Harry exclaimed, finding just a bit of humor in the reactions of his professors now that he knew he had the unconditional support of a few adults. “And how did the field day end?”

“Your Head of House said that he approved of the familiar and registered it with the school already. He said that anyone with problems about your choice of animal companion would have to provide more reason than vague discomfort to get rid of it.”

Harry smiled and found himself only liking Professor Snape more by the day. The man was completely serious about what he said at the beginning of term. He was on their side, and he fought for their rights as students without reprieve. Jason wasn’t getting taken away so long as Professor Snape had a floor to stand on. All Harry had to do was make sure he didn’t take those footholds away.

“Can you give him my thanks if you see him on the way out?”

“Sure, Harry, I’ll let him know. Visiting hours are ending soon, so I have to go. I’ll be back in the morning to make sure you're okay before Madam Pomfrey releases you.”

With that, she got up, ruffled Harry’s already atrociously messy hair, and left the room. As soon as the door clicked shut, Harry’s softly smiling face went stoic, and his eyes changed to yellow. His teeth turned into fangs, and his snout elongated just a little. It looked odd and monstrous on the outside, but the beast had been feeling as though something was off for almost the entirety of Iris's visit. By transforming the organs used to receive information into that of a zouwu, he could recognize things that he couldn’t before.

He learned to utilize these abilities even before knowing there was a beast to turn into. It was a requirement for him to recognize that feeling of vague paranoia and act on it by upgrading his senses. That same feeling was haunting him now, and he didn’t think a lifetime of peace could ever make him unlearn that particular habit.

With his eyes shining and his face resembling some kind of cat-like mutant, he could smell the gentle fragrance of a female. By the particular scent, he assumed that the wearer was young, and he could see the faint shimmer of an almost imperceptible mass on the opposite side of the room.

“Come out, and stop playing games,” he growled in a low, tired, raspy, animalistic voice. “I’m getting sick of surprise attacks.”

The invisible girl allowed her image to regain its natural color, and he recognized her as Gemma Farley. Immediately, his animagus form retreated from his face. It was impossible to view Farley as an enemy after what happened last night. He didn’t trust her, not completely, but it was hard to dislike the person who'd saved him twice. As it turned out, life-threatening situations encountered with another had a tendency to pull people together.

“Farley, what’re you doing here?”

She shrugged while walking gracefully to the chair beside his bed and taking a seat, “I want to talk.”

“About these?” he asked with a healthy amount of suspicion as his eyes flashed a violent hue of yellow.

“Among other things."

“And why should I humor you?”

She looked distinctly unimpressed as she stared into his eyes and prodded his mind with a spear of magical power that was only diverted because the stranger, now a partner of sorts, protected him on reflex. Her eyes widened when her attack failed, but a smile eventually grew on her face.

“An Occlumens too. Just how many special abilities do you have?”

Not as many as she thought. The stranger was behind both of the mental abilities he’d used so far. Alone, he had only the most minimal amount of skill with Legilimency, and he only even knew its name because the stranger gave him the information. The only abilities he came upon honestly had to do with his talent for transfiguration. It would seem, though, that he was going to have to answer for all of them.

The smile fell from her face soon enough, and she decided to answer his question. "You should humor me, Potter, because I saved your life, promised my life to keep your powers a secret, and then allowed you into my mind to save your arse even after you attempted to gain access without my consent. Do you need more reasons?”

Harry cringed slightly and used his right hand to fiddle nervously with the back of his hair. When she put it like that, it wasn’t a good look for him. How was he supposed to deny her request for information after all of that? He wouldn’t give her everything, no, but he could give her something.

“What do you want to know?”

Farley seemed appeased by the response. They weren’t enemies here, so there was no reason for her to treat him like one. They'd fought a very dangerous pack of beasts together and came out on top. That earned him at least a little leeway in her book.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you. Your reputation is impressive for a first-year. You’re a prodigy, according to Professor McGonagall, but an animagus form? Just where did you learn to do that?”

Harry allowed his eyes to take the shape of a zouwu, and, with pupils in the shape of diamonds. “I didn’t learn it. It just happened, and It's been this way for a very long time.”

The girl whistled quietly and leaned back in her chair to get into a more comfortable position, “A transfiguration prodigy indeed, and why is your form magical?”

Harry was clueless, and the stranger, apparently, was found just as lacking as himself. “Your guess is as good as mine, Farley. I didn’t learn the skill, so I have no idea how any of it works or why it happened the way it did.”

“Fair enough,” she said as she raised her arm and revealed that Jason was hidden beneath her cloak. “And your snake?”

Jason saw Harry from the space within Farley’s robe sleeve and slithered out to coil on his chest. The Prefect did have his familiar. The question now was why the little bastard decided to not come to him sooner when he was talking to the professors. 

“His name is Jason,” he told the girl.

“Jason,” she gave the name a try. “He’s oddly loyal for a snake… Intelligent too. He fought well with you, even in your animagus form. It’s curious.”

Well, the snake was his familiar. That was indicative of a certain level of loyalty in and of itself if his books on the subject were up to par. He felt, though, that there was a much better explanation for Jason’s loyalty. They weren’t just bound by magic; they were friends who could speak with each other and shared their dreams, hates, and joys on a daily basis. 

Was it really a good idea to reveal such an astronomical truth to the Prefect who'd saved him? That was a very big risk, and she could do with it what she wished. Her vow would not protect him from the information she gained after the fact, only what he displayed during the fight. That was a lot of trust for someone he had just met for real that very night. 

“Remember what I've told you, Harry. Trust isn't always required for things like this. She's in almost as deep as you. You're mutually at risk of being thrown under the bus by the other, and she's offering a conversation instead of taking her opportunity to rid herself of you. Parseltongue is a gift that carries some downsides if known publicly at the moment, but it's also a power that gives you a lot of respect in the right circles. Revealing it to someone as useful as her has the potential to gain you an amazing ally, but take something in return. Play the game, Harry, and make sure that she knows you won't allow her to push you down without being pulled along with you.”

What the stranger was offering made sense to him. It was the sort of risky business he tended to avoid, but it was also clever and had a decent amount of merit. Farley did offer to talk with him. What was stopping him from taking a little in return for what he gave and solidifying this as a mutual agreement to not fuck each other over?

“When I was fighting those two dogs, one of them almost had me by the throat. I was going to lose, but you hit him with a spell, and it did something weird to him. What did you do?”

The stranger smirked within him. This was the Harry Potter he wanted to see. This was the potential he wanted to bring to the surface. The question was intelligent and well placed. It was just innocuous enough to not warrant a break in the deal while simultaneously being serious enough to protect himself from whatever information he gave her in return. 

Farley’s expression clearly showed that she wasn’t expecting the first-year to be so competent. She was expecting to get whatever she wanted for free, but the fact was that he owed her nothing. He might’ve felt compelled to answer a few questions due to the fact that she saved him big time, but that didn’t mean she could take whatever she wanted from him. They were both implicated by what happened last night, and both of them had moments where they'd saved the other. This wasn’t going to be a dynamic where she held all of the power, and it impressed her that a first-year was willing to stand his ground and capable of backing it up.

“I consider it to be a charm, but the Ministry would classify it as a very dangerous curse. I noticed that your snake, Jason, bit the hound you'd originally grabbed, and that was the one on top of you at the time. I performed a spell that amplifies any toxin it comes into contact with. Once it got ahold of Jason’s venom, it amplified it to the point that it was almost instantly lethal.”

Harry didn’t recognize the spell at all, but the stranger perked up immediately at the explanation. Something must’ve seemed familiar.

“Indeed… The spell is very illegal outside of self-defense. It’s an assassin’s weapon, Harry. If her spellcasting became common knowledge, she wouldn't be in legal trouble, but it would make many people extremely wary of her. It wouldn’t be good for her public reputation in general… much like your parseltongue.”

Nodding along with the explanation, Harry brushed the top of Jason’s head until the snake was looking at him, “What were you doing with the girl this whole time?”

He ignored the way Farley almost jumped out of her chair and waited for Jason to respond. The pain he felt from Iris’s reaction was not replicated at all this time. He was forewarned that Parseltongue would have this reaction from multiple people, and there were already two adults who knew of his ability and still supported him completely. The fear of a single girl would not affect him… so long as she didn’t send both of them spiraling by releasing that information to others. At least his animagery was guaranteed to remain private for the moment. 

“She saved your life, and I was tired, so I saw no harm in resting while your teachers conversed with you. I felt that revealing myself at the time would’ve only made things more awkward for you. They weren't happy when the girl revealed my presence to the staff."

“No,” Harry granted his familiar. “I heard they weren’t.”

Looking back up at Farley, he saw a girl who was almost completely blank in the face. It wasn’t a poker face so much as completely inert. It was unreadable and exceedingly obvious. It was almost as if she was completely catatonic. He was starting to get slightly worried. Did his news break her or something? She was young, so she shouldn’t have had any traumatic experiences with the language of serpents. 

“She is young,” the stranger told him. “But the stories told by parents are often just as bad as the experience themselves. The girl is quite a talented Occlumens, but she is inexperienced. Her face is the result of suppressing her emotions, but she does not yet have the skill to appear natural while feeling nothing."

She was suppressing her emotions? He assumed she was doing that to keep herself from making some sort of mistake due to an overreaction. It was smart; if he didn’t already have Iris and Professor Snape, her reaction would’ve upset him. As it was, he would’ve rather seen her real feelings than guessed at them through her robotic façade. 

“You’re a parselmouth,” she said clinically, emotionlessly.

“Yes,” Harry responded with a roll of his eyes. “It would be appreciated if you’d stop talking like you’ve had a lobotomy. I can talk to snakes; I’m not a fucking monster.”

His comment seemed to do the trick, and she blinked a few times before her normal expression came back. She didn’t seem apologetic, but that was more than fine by him. He wasn’t seeking sympathy; he just wanted her to act naturally.

“Of course,” she said sincerely. “I was just surprised… I thought you'd managed to somehow bond magically with a snake. I had no idea anyone in Britain even had that skill anymore. I’ve grown up hearing about all of the things the Dark Lord did with the language. It took a second for me to deal with all of that.”

All he did was nod. Iris told him all about the stories she'd heard, and after doing what he did in the Great Hall with a bit of parseltongue and some basic magic, it was hard for him to deny that the language he could speak held within it a vast amount of utility. That wasn’t important at the moment though. What he wanted to know was if the stranger was right about whether or not his revelation would garner the mutual respect he wanted. 

By the look in her eyes, he could tell that the stranger was absolutely correct. Whatever her thoughts on the matter were before, she could clearly see the potential now. He wouldn’t call her expression to be one of greed, but there was most definitely something beneath her eyes that yearned to make use of perceived potential. Why she seemed interested in his abilities was beyond his current knowledge, but what he did know was that such interest would prove useful to him in the future. If they weren’t already on decent terms before, he was sure they were now.

“You can determine her goals later. Right now, you must finish the process. Affirm your bonds and turn your temporary partner of convenience into a long-term ally. She has a lot of things we need right now: a position of authority, strong magical prowess, obvious skills at deception. If she is willing to befriend you for the skills you have, then you must take the advantage. We may be able to do things here alone, but having someone on your side with even more power than yourself will be a boon to us.”

“I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t spread it around,” Harry told the girl.

“As long as you say nothing about my spellcasting. The professors are keeping my story private, so I’ll know if you start talking around.”

He nodded once again, and a question came to his mind. He remembered her covering for him through the book in which he viewed her memories of last night. It solved his problems at the time, but it left some questions to be answered. So long as they were attempting to lay out some of their cards on the table, there was no reason to keep his curiosities to himself.

“You told the professors that you handled the hounds I fought while you took out the first one. What did you tell them you did?”

She huffed out a laugh. “I told them I used a very old and very dark spell that I found in a tome I came across in the library of one of my friend’s manors. Considering the friend in question is a Rosier, that was a viable excuse.”

So she lied and told them that she'd used something dark in order to make the story plausible without triggering her oath. That begged the question of whether the information he got from her about the toxin spell was as big as he originally thought.

“Don't worry. I wouldn't lead you astray like that, Harry. Remember our agreement, yes? Dark spells in old family tomes are usually not considered as bad because they're viewed as private property or are too rare to cause any real problems. The spell she actually used was an extremely prominent curse back in the day that many people used to great effect."

“Thanks for covering for me,” he said.

“Not like I had much of a choice, Potter. I was under an oath at the time.”

“Yeah… you would’ve done the same in my position though, right?”

Farley nodded with a smirk. “Perhaps using different methods, but yes.”

Harry hesitated for only a moment. After just a second to consider it, he decided that now was the best time to solidify things and end the conversation. No more secrets would be shared tonight if he had anything to say about it. What he already gave was more than enough. Conversations about what they might or might not be able to do for the other could be conducted at a later date.

“So we’re good then?”

The girl shrugged and held out her hand. “Sure, Potter, we’ll talk later.”

He shook it, and she left without another word. Once the door closed, he let out a slow, long breath. That was most definitely the riskiest conversation he’d taken part in since he foolishly decided to report the Dursleys to a doctor during a private checkup. He revealed nothing that could get him in serious trouble, but cards were played, and things were in motion now that could negatively impact him in the future if things went wrong. Gemma Farley was a fifth-year on a level far above him, but due to pure circumstance, he managed to land in a situation where he got the opportunity to form an impromptu alliance. Hopefully, only positive things would come from the risk he took today.

“So long as you both remain useful to each other, then only good things shall come to you from this. Eventually, you will be strong enough that allies will be an option instead of a necessity. For now, this is simply the price for success. Be proud, Harry. Not many first-years could pull off what you just did.”

Yeah, that was true enough. To be fair, though, not many first-years had a highly competent and extremely clever voice in their head instructing them on how to make deals with a powerful Slytherin prefect. 

“Oh, Harry, the fact that you managed to garner my interest enough to earn my advice and cooperation is a far greater achievement than gaining the aid of Gemma Farley.”

He supposed he would just have to take the stranger’s word for it. For now, he would bask in small victories. He officially got away with his scheme and made a very useful friend. The games could properly begin now. He was going to find out what was happening around the castle; the only question was when he and his new partner uncovered the secret in its entirety.

The stranger couldn’t be happier if he tried.

Professor Snape and the headmaster were standing before a demolished wall, looking into a desolate forest with not a hint of life to be found within it. They hadn’t ventured beyond the forest entrance yet; they were more concerned with analyzing the damage to their heavily warded door. 

“The acromantula have been dealt with, it seems.

“Obviously,” was Snape’s unimpressed response to Albus’s observation.

“Our wards were beaten by brute force as well.”

Severus gave only a nod to that statement. With his wand drawn and the strongest wizard in Britain by his side, the two ventured into the eerily quiet forest to inspect what'd happened. What they found was a veritable graveyard of enormous spiders. Severus was worried that a few escaped, but he needn’t be concerned.

Not one of them survived.

“I checked the door about a quarter into the attack. It was undamaged at the time.”

“I see,” Dumbledore said idly while kneeling before a dead spider and gazing into its blankly staring eyes. “And you found no disturbances?”

“Nothing obvious. I suppose I might've missed something if it was truly Voldemort behind this.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure of his involvement,” the headmaster confidently said before standing up with a sad shake of his head. “Only one person I know could’ve made use of Slytherin’s basilisk.”

“Yes,” Severus quietly agreed. “The ones that weren’t torn in half or punctured with teeth do show a distinct form of paralysis, don’t they. Did the snake breach past the forest?”

“No, I was notified the moment the door was compromised. The hounds near Gryffindor tower were occupying my time. Fawkes was just past his molting day as well, so I couldn’t send him to combat the creature. If this was timed explicitly to catch the moment that Fawkes would be at his weakest, then this was a well thought out plan.”

“With the acromantula gone, the entrance floor is compromised. I don’t foresee another opportunity to replace the nest while the school is occupied by children.”

Dumbledore sighed as the two made their way back to the entrance. There was nothing more to be done here. What Dumbledore needed was some time with Professor Babbling to reset the protections on the door. The basilisk got past it with ease, but that would not be an option a second time. It was a mistake to not protect the room from such a possibility in the first place. He would be placing runes around the castle that would release rooster crows if it sensed a snake above a certain size parameter. Deafening spells could protect the basilisk from hearing the crows, but he wondered just how badly Voldemort would be willing to risk his snake when some basic counter-runes for deafening spells found their way into the major hallways as well. 

“You’re correct, Severus. Perhaps it has come time for Pomona to give her contribution to the protections. There are quite a few plants in her private greenhouses that could prove to be just as deadly as the acromantula.”

Severus did nothing but nod, so Dumbledore moved on to a different subject of only slightly less importance, “What about Mr. Potter? Did his story pan out?”

The potions master scowled just a little, “It is hard to tell. I asked a variety of people from Slytherin as to the whereabouts of Potter, but the ones willing to say anything against him weren’t paying attention to his attendance, and Potter was either exceedingly lucky or terribly skilled to have surrounded himself with so many competent friends. The ones who would’ve known were adamant about not knowing his whereabouts, and attempting Legilimency would’ve been idiocy of the highest level with someone like Miss Greengrass.”

“... Yes,” Dumbledore said with a hum and a few strokes of his beard. “Miss Greengrass, Miss Parker, and her friend group. Most of them are very studious, and all of them are more than capable thanks to their heritage. It does make me wonder if Mr. Potter realizes the company he keeps. I take this to mean we know nothing definitive?”

“Yes,” Snape admitted. “Everything I’ve heard points toward this being nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence. Are you certain that he has been up to something nefarious? Much unlike his father, Mr. Potter has been nothing but responsible, withdrawn, and obedient. Aside from his stunt with quidditch, I have yet to see anything from Potter that might indicate the ambition or irresponsibility necessary to do something as drastic as deliberately leaving safety to do something without hindrance.”

“I am certain about nothing concerning Mr. Potter’s recent activities. I am quite sure, however, that his placement last night was no coincidence. Keep an eye on him if for nothing but surety. Too much is at stake right now. If he truly has no ill intentions, then the extra minder will hardly be an inconvenience to him.”

“Yes sir,” Snape said with a nod as they walked out of the shattered door. 

As the potions master left the scene, Dumbledore repaired the wall with a sweep of his wand and severely overpowered a locking charm to make sure the door stayed closed. Limited as he was in a possessed body, he doubted the Dark Lord would be able to break through a charm seriously cast by Albus Dumbledore. Voldemort would not make any moves so soon after making progress, not in his current state. He would wait and see how they responded before taking action. Still, a bit of extra protection never hurt anyone, and Dumbledore knew all too well how much trouble creative and naïve minds could get into.