Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent

Dumbledore was there, to Harry’s surprise. Great; how was Ron going to claim that Dumbledore wanted to see them as soon as they got back if he was going to the same opera? Why was he there anyway?

While the chamber orchestra was tuning up, Dumbledore caught his eye and came over. “Harry! And Miss Granger and Miss Chang. Ah, Mr. Krum! Fancy meeting you here. I understand you’re working in England now.” Viktor grunted. Dumbledore turned back to Harry. “I didn’t know you liked chamber operas, Harry. Purcell’s my personal favorite, of course--have you heard the Indian Queen?--although I also like Monteverdi, but when most people think of opera, they go in for the big splashy stuff, you know, Puccini, Verdi, Wagner.”

And then Harry remembered the Albus Dumbledore Famous Witches and Wizards Card he’d gotten on his very first trip on the Hogwarts Express; in addition to listing Dumbledore’s many accomplishments, it had included the information that Dumbledore enjoyed chamber music and tenpin bowling. Harry wondered fleetingly it there was a magical bowling alley in Hogsmeade, or whether perhaps Dumbledore contented himself with going to Muggle alleys.

“Viktor got us tickets, Headmaster,” Hermione informed him. “He gets a lot of perks for playing for the Chudley Cannons.”

“Ah! The Cannons! Yes, yes, fine team. Not the Puddlemere United, in my opinion, but then...Well, I shan’t keep you,” he said, eyes twinkling behind his spectacles, as he made his way back to his seat. He appeared to be attending the opera alone. As the lights went down in the hall and the orchestra began the overture, Harry looked sideways at Cho. She looked back; he turned back to the front. He hoped she didn’t expect him to kiss her at the opera, as though they’d gone to see a Muggle film. He especially had no intention of doing anything of the sort with Hermione around, let alone Dumbledore. He felt her hand on his, and he laced his fingers through hers; she’d have to be satisfied with that, he thought. Viktor was sitting to Cho’s right; he had put his arm around Hermione and she leaned against his shoulder comfortably. Harry tried not to seethe, but it was difficult keeping his temper. Thankfully, the overture was over and the singing began.

He hadn’t had time to consult the program notes and was surprised to learn that it was about Aeneas dallying with the queen of Carthage on the way back from the Trojan War, before going off to found Rome, thus breaking her heart. He felt, frankly, that the witches were somewhat superfluous, serving merely as an excuse for Aeneas’ behavior. He was following his destiny, according to other parts of the plot. Well, which was it? Harry thought irritably. He thought again of Ron’s Othello report....we should have gotten the impression that...it would have been absolutely impossible for him ever to behave in such a judgmental and violent manner....

It was in his nature. Harry thought about it. But--how does a person really know what’s in their nature when they’re fifteen, when they’re still getting to know themselves? He looked at Cho out of the corner of his eye. A year ago, he could not have imagined being in the situation he was in now. As he listened to the beautiful singing, he wondered how they were ever going to get their plan to really work...

Every other phrase was sung very softly, as though the previous musical passage were echoing down a long cavern. The singers playing the witches retreated to the back of the stage, where they supposedly were going to brew something that would be the undoing of Queen Dido. He assumed that Purcell had not had much contact with magical people, if any, to depict them the way he did. He looked over at Dumbledore; he seemed to be enjoying himself, and he’d said that Purcell was his favorite. Well, thought Harry, if it was good enough for Dumbledore...

The singer playing Dido was a tall, beautiful witch with long dark red hair. Each note she sang rang with a crystalline clarity, like a bell. At the end, after she sang her death aria (Hermione was right; it was quite beautiful), she lay on the stage, her head resting on her arm while her retinue sang a haunting dirge over her and scattered rose petals on and around her.

It was really very touching, but suddenly, as he sat watching the beautiful woman with dark red hair who’d just been singing so heartbreakingly, he felt his eyes begin to water. Mum! he suddenly thought. He’d never felt quite like this before; the wave of emotion was unstoppable; it rose up out of him like a tidal wave, and he disconnected his hand from Cho’s, choking out the words, “Excuse me. I’ll be back.”

He edged his way out, blindly finding the aisle and hurrying down it to the large anteroom that served as a kind of lobby. He wasn’t aware at first of there being anyone else there. Then he turned and saw Hermione; she’d followed him, leaving Cho and Viktor alone together. She didn’t say a word. She simply walked toward him and put her arms around him. He pillowed his cheek on her head. He had actually stopped crying already, but he needed to hold her. He thought of being in the common room with her the night before, and shuddered. Even if they managed to get Viktor and Cho together, could they really be open about being a couple? Did they dare tell Ron? What if Voldemort and the Death Eaters found out? Then he groaned inwardly; Draco Malfoy knew. He was practically in training to be a Death Eater, if he went by what Sirius had said to Snape when Harry had overhead their conversation in Snape’s office.

Harry tried to blank his mind, simply be; he held Hermione and watched over her head while the members of the opera company took their bows. They separated and Harry tried to compose himself as the crowd slowly seeped out of the hall, put on cloaks and prepared to return to the brisk autumn day. No other Hogwarts students appeared to have had tickets to the performance. Dumbledore did not see them in the crowd as he left. Good, Harry thought. Hopefully he’ll be back at the castle before us. He checked his watch; it was only three o’clock. They didn’t have to be back for two hours. Even one hour should give Dumbledore enough of a lead.

The hall was empty now except for Viktor and Cho and the orchestra members still packing up their music and instruments, waving their wands to make their gear leap into their cases. Then Harry stared; Cho and Viktor were having an animated conversation. Viktor was laughing! He turned to Hermione, excited.

“They’re talking!” he grinned, hardly daring to believe that the plan might be working. Hermione looked. Now Cho was laughing, putting her hand on Viktor’s arm. She was more alive looking than Harry had seen her since before Diggory died. But now Hermione stopped looking cheerful about it.

“Hmph!” she said, her arms crossed. “Figures. I knew she’d be the sort of person who’d try to steal another girl’s boyfriend.”

Harry looked at her, his brow furrowed. He wished he could worm out of her what had happened between her and Viktor in Bulgaria, before the abduction. “But that’s what we want her to do,” he whispered.

“But she doesn’t know that!”

Harry sighed; he still felt miles away from understanding girls. He didn’t really completely understand Hermione, or Ginny, or Cho, or Alicia, or Parvati...

Now the musicians and singers were also leaving, and the candles that had been lighting the hall were being extinguished one by one. Still, Viktor and Cho talked, not even looking over their shoulders to search for Harry and Hermione.

“We should go back to them,” Harry said. “We can go to the Three Broomsticks for a while now, give Dumbledore enough time to get back to the castle.”

Hermione nodded. She moved away from him, to go down the outer aisle, while Harry went down the center aisle. Cho looked up, looking slightly surprised upon seeing him, as though she forgot that he was her date. There’s something very odd about her, he decided. Asks me out, can’t talk to me, now she’s all chatty with someone whose grasp of English is spotty at best...

At the pub, Harry and Hermione again went to the bar for the drinks. Viktor and Cho seemed to pick up their conversation where they’d left off. When they returned with the butterbeers and a few packets of crisps, they refrained from speaking, letting Viktor and Cho continue talking to each other without interruption. Harry raised his eyebrows at Hermione. She smiled as she drank. Something was finally going as planned.

When they returned to the entrance, hall, that went smoothly too. Ron met them at the door, informed Harry and Hermione that Dumbledore wanted to see them, and each of them gave their respective date a peck on the cheek and hurried up the stairs; Harry stopped Ron from following them.

“Stay,” he whispered. “Watch them. Tell us what happens later, okay?”

Ron nodded, taking his job seriously. “Okay.”

Harry and Hermione ran up to Gryffindor Tower and tumbled in the portrait hole (“Portcullis!”) and collapsed in armchairs near the fire, smiling at each other as they tried to get their breathing to return to normal. Only a few first and second year students were in the common room, too young to be allowed Hogsmeade visits. Harry still grinned at Hermione and she returned it. He couldn’t recall when he’d had a better day. There was somehow something so satisfying about creating a plan and then having the plan actually work. He remembered flying on Buckbeak with her to rescue Sirius (and save Buckbeak simultaneously). She had been almost as petrified about riding a hippogriff as she’d been about being picked up by Hagrid’s mother. Suddenly the memory made him laugh. She looked at him, still smiling.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was just remembering you flying on Buckbeak, and then when Hagrid’s mum...”

She put her hand to her stomach. “Oh, don’t remind me. Do you want to know what I was thinking of?”

“What?”

She stopped looking so cheerful; her face was very serious now. “Being here. Last night.”

Harry stopped grinning too, and looked away from her, toward the fire. “Hermione,” he said softly. “We were really taking a chance. Ginny could have--if she’d come down ten or fifteen minutes later--”

“No she couldn’t.”

“What? Were you planning to suddenly stop? Because I didn’t get that impression.”

“No, I mean that whenever Ginny came down, we would have had ample warning.”

Harry stared at her, opening his eyes wide. “Oh, is that what this is about? Are we back to that again? For the last time, I don’t have the Sight!”

“Oh, I know,” she said calmly. Harry was perplexed, waiting. The silence stretched. Finally, she said, “But Sandy does.” He let out his breath in relief; she’d figured it out, then. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered fiercely. “I had to go to the library and do a lot of reading about people who’d been Parselmouths. Oh, nothing specifically said that snakes had the Sight, but enough weird things happened to them that I was able to read between the lines. And I have heard Sandy hissing every time you come out with something about what’s about to happen...”

He smiled at her again. “Dead smart, you are,” he said, trying to imitate Hagrid’s mother. She laughed. “And before you say anything, I haven’t been taking her to Divination. Not anymore, anyway. Not after the first time. I’m not using her to cheat.”

Hermione smiled. “Actually, I haven’t been feeling ‘dead smart.’ I’ve been feeling a bit dim. I can’t believe it took me this long to figure it out. Has she predicted anything interesting?”

“Not remotely. But the boa said two things. The second one was very interesting: ‘The masters will be servants and the servants will be masters.’ I think she can see a couple of months into the future. But I have no idea what she means.”

Hermione’s mouth curled up at the edges. “I have.” She was silent then; Harry waited, but evidently, she wasn’t interested in illuminating him. “But I do have another question: who was Ginny going to meet last night?”

“Um,” Harry said, unprepared. “I can’t tell you.”

Hermione drew her lips into a straight line. “I see. And when were you going to tell me what you’ve been doing every night after dinner?” The Animagus training; she’d noticed.

“Did Ginny tell you?” he wanted to know, alarmed.

“Ginny? She knows? What is it?”

“She--she guessed.”

“So? What IS it?” she repeated.

“I--I can’t tell you about that either. I’m not supposed to...”

“Harry!” she whispered angrily. “if we are going to be together, we need to tell each other things.”

“You didn’t tell about the time-turner for our entire third year!” he pointed out to her, exasperated.

“I couldn’t--”

“Well, I can’t tell you about this either. And anyway, we’re not really together, are we?” he said in a whisper, hoping the first and second years hadn’t heard anything they’d been saying. “I mean, we can’t be. Not yet.”

She sat back, looking hurt and dazed. Then she stood up, her eyes glistening, her voice hard. “Fine. If that’s the way you feel. I have some revision to do for the O.W.L.s.” She rose to go, then came back and leaned over Harry’s chair, speaking in an angry whisper. “And for your information, I think I know who Ginny was meeting, but I wanted to give you the chance to tell me yourself!”

She turned and marched up the stairs to the girls’ dorm. Harry sank back into the chair, gripping the arms fiercely, his eyes closed. That’s it, he thought. Get her hacked off at you. Maybe then we won’t risk getting caught in the common room in the middle of the night. Maybe then the Death Eaters won’t come after you...

Just then, the portrait hole opened and Ron climbed in. He sat in the armchair next to Harry’s, where Hermione had been.

“So?” Harry asked him. “How’d it go? Did they talk much?”

“They’re still talking. I thought I had a strong stomach for talking about Quidditch, but those two--”

“So why’d you leave?”

“Well, they looked like they didn’t like me lurking around. That’s a good sign, huh?” He looked very pleased, as though he were avidly anticipating Hermione and Viktor Krum being a past-tense couple.

“Yeah. Great.” Harry leaned back and closed his eyes again.

“What’s wrong with you? Where’s Hermione?”

He opened his eyes and looked at Ron. “Oh, she went storming upstairs. We had a row.”

Ron raised his eyebrows at him. “Now she’s getting hacked off at you. Must be that time of mo--”

“Ron!”

He grinned. “Sorry. At home, we’ve gotten into the habit of explaining Ginny’s mood swings that way.” Harry shuddered, not wanting to think of Ginny enduring that any more than Hermione. “Anyway, what did you do?”

Harry grimaced; if Hermione knew, he supposed Ron should know too. He stood and took off his robes, then unbuttoned his shirt a little and reached down his left sleeve, withdrawing Sandy carefully.

“It’s Sandy. Actually, I named her Cassandra. I call her Sandy because it’s shorter. She has the Sight. All snakes do. It’s my fault you broke your leg, Ron. Hermione was right. But Sandy was telling me just as I was leaving Divination, yelling, ‘I don’t have the Sight!’ What was I supposed to do? Come back a second later and say, ‘Oh, by the way, when you leave, you’re going to fall off the ladder. But I still don’t have the Sight.’”

Ron was looking at him, thunderstruck. “That explains so much.”

“Yeah. But you can’t tell anyone. Sandy can only see a few minutes into the future in the vicinity right around where she is. And she tends to be somewhat cryptic. And she only gets flashes of the future once in a while.”

Ron grimaced. “She sounds as useful as Trelawney.” Harry and Ron both laughed.

“Put me back,” Sandy hissed at him. “And apologize,” she added, sounding slightly hurt.

“I’m sorry Sandy,” Harry hissed back, chagrined.

“Was she predicting something?” Ron wanted to know.

“Nah. Just getting hacked off at me, like Hermione.” Ron laughed again.

“Want to play Exploding Snap?” he offered. Harry accepted. He needed some fun after the day he’d had. He tried not to picture the woman with the long dark red hair again, singing her death...

The following Tuesday was Halloween. Something started nagging Harry from the moment he woke up in the morning, and after breakfast, he asked Ron and Hermione to give his apologies to Hagrid and Professor Sprout; he thought perhaps a lie-down would help him feel well enough to go to his afternoon classes, History of Magic and Divination. When he’d gone back upstairs, he crawled into bed with his jeans and turtleneck on after throwing his robes with their prefect badge carelessly across the foot of the bed. He curled up in a ball under the covers. Why did he feel like this? His scar wasn’t hurting, but somehow he felt a pain inside which would not subside.

Harry closed his eyes tightly, trying to think of other Halloweens at Hogwarts. He thought of going to Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday party when he was in second year, the awful saw-like sounds emanating from the spirit orchestra, the Headless Hunt arriving, Nick’s insistence that he was as good as beheaded.

That was it. Nick’s deathday. And that wasn’t all. It was his parents’ deathday, too. Voldemort had killed them on Halloween, exactly fourteen years ago. Harry pictured them, their shades talking to him when they’d emerged from Voldemort’s wand in the graveyard in June, after he’d won the Triwizard Tournament and the cup turned out to be a Portkey....

Their images in the Mirror of Erised, waving at him, along with other relatives he did not know...

Their pictures in the album Hagrid had made for him....

Then, suddenly, he knew what he wanted to do: he put his glasses back on and leapt from bed, going to his trunk and getting out the photo album. He sat on top of his robes, cross-legged, opening the album. Then he stopped, surprised; why hadn’t he ever noticed that the first page was stuck to the inside of the cover? Actually, it was only stuck in a couple of places. Harry carefully separated the page from the cover and looked at something he’d never seen before.

It was an invitation to his parents’ wedding. He stared at it, tracing the raised border with flowers on it (lilies, he realized) with his finger. His parents had been married the summer before he was born. They were so young--only nineteen when they married, only a year out of school.

The Willows, thought Harry. That must be the country inn he’d seen in the wedding pictures. His parents married at midsummer. Eleven months later, he was born. What did they do after they finished school? he suddenly wondered. How did they support themselves? He couldn’t remember anyone ever telling him. Was it true, as his uncle had once said, that his dad had been unemployed? Couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

He turned the pages, looking at more pictures of the wedding. His parents cutting the wedding cake, dancing...

Wait. There. His mother was dancing with other people. With Sirius, with Lupin, with a younger and less moth-eaten Pettigrew, even. And--

With Severus Snape.

He was looking at his mother sadly, Harry thought. She wasn’t looking at him. She seemed to be smiling over his shoulder at his dad, who was standing with Sirius, both of them holding champagne glasses and smiling. Snape actually looked more human in the photo than he usually looked in person.

Then he came to the picture he liked best. When he’d first gotten the album, it was the one he looked at the most. He was one year old. It was his birthday, in fact. He was sitting on his mother’s lap to blow out a single candle on a birthday cake that read “Happy Birthday Harry” in green icing that matched his eyes. He wasn’t wearing glasses yet, of course, nor did he have a scar. He was a chubby, average-looking baby with a mop of already unruly black hair, laughing up at his mother and reaching for a lock of her hair. His father wasn’t in the picture; he must have taken it and then sent a copy to some friend who had responded when Hagrid wrote to people asking for pictures of his mum and dad. He gazed longingly at his mother. She alternated between smiling at the person with the camera and looking down lovingly at Harry and trying unsuccessfully to take her hair out of his little grasping fist.

Suddenly, he felt angry. He slammed the book shut and tried to see straight, but the world seemed blurred, he was so angry. That was the last happy birthday he’d ever had, and he was too young even to remember it. The last birthday where he hadn’t been scarred, his last birthday with parents. Voldemort had stolen his childhood from him. He felt like throwing something, yelling, screaming, blasting the room apart with his wand...

Then he took a deep breath and sat down with the book again, opening it once more and looking at the picture of himself on his first birthday with his mother. He swallowed and ran his finger over her image. I won’t be that sort of person, he promised her silently. That’s not why you died. If that’s who you wanted me to be, you’d have bargained for my life like the Malfoys did with their son...

He wondered whether Malfoy knew about that. He remembered Malfoy talking about being on the right side and the wrong side in the coming struggle when they’d been returning to London on the Hogwarts express last June. By which, Malfoy meant the winning side and the losing side. Harry knew he was on the right side; the question was, would it be the winning side? And was Malfoy stuck? Did he have to become whatever his father wanted him to be? What did Malfoy want? On the one hand, Harry hoped that maybe Malfoy wanted to be with Ginny enough to do the right thing; on the other hand, Harry hated feeling like he was using Ginny as some sort of bribe, to make Malfoy behave. After all, she was his best friend’s sister, he said to himself. No, another voice said in the back of his brain. That’s not why it upsets you...

He slammed the album shut again and went to the silver pitcher near the window to have a cold drink of water. He’d wallowed enough. He had missed Hagrid’s class. He would go down to Herbology now. Yes, it was the day his parents had died. But he would not have that be for nothing. He would not let his grief paralyze him and distract him. He threw some cold water on his face and put his robes on, adjusting his prefect badge and examining himself in the mirror. He tried to picture his mother seeing him like this, being proud of him. And then--he knew she could see him, that she was proud of him.

“Fancy is as fancy does,” the mirror told him. He smiled grimly at it and shouldered his bag, ready to join the world again.

The Halloween feast was, as usual, spectacular. Afterward, they dragged themselves upstairs to bed, full of too much good food and without the will to study for a single class (even Hermione). But as soon as they reached the common room, there was a great excitement. Andy Donegal and Barry Bagshot came tearing down the boys’ staircase, out of breath and with wild eyes.

“Harry! We need your help!”

Oh, no, Harry thought. It’s started--

“What is it?” he said, his voice hard, bracing himself for whatever horrors lay ahead.

“Jules’s cat is having kittens!”

Harry stopped and stared at the two eleven-year-old boys. Then he broke into a smile, followed by outright guffaws. He was bent double; he could scarcely breathe. His face hurt from laughing so hard. Hermione and Ron stared at him.

“Let’s call St. Mungo’s,” Ron said, rolling his eyes. “Harry’s gone barmy.”

Shaking her head, Hermione told the boys that before she came to Hogwarts, she’d had a cat who’d had kittens (and then run away after they’d given the kittens away, unfortunately). She followed them up to the first-years boys’ dorm, followed by Ron and a still-helplessly laughing Harry, who was moving much more slowly than they were, unable to stop the hilarity erupting out of him, as though he’d foregone laughter for years and it was forcing its way out now. He was getting as bad as Mad-Eye Moody, he thought. Next thing I’ll be drinking out of a hip flask and trying to stun the dustbins.

When he arrived in the first-years’ room, Hermione, Ron, Andy and his twin Amy, Barry Bagshot, Gillian Lockley, Dean’s sister Jamaica and Jules Quinn himself were all clustered around the corner near Will’s bed. As Harry approached, he saw that Jules’ cat was ensconced on what looked suspiciously like a red robe from one of the prefect’s bathrooms. She was stretched out while her five kittens mewed and climbed over each other and finally all managed to get organized, lined up at her teats, eating their first meal of their new lives. Three of them were striped, two were black. Right after he entered, Ginny came through the door.

“Harry, I heard--where--oh!” she cried with delight, coming over to the corner and peering down at the domestic scene. Hermione was cooing at the kittens, as were Amy and Jamaica. The boys were also clearly quite taken with the small balls of fluff, but trying to be a little more dignified than the girls. Ron looked over the younger students’ heads with a look of authority.

“Don’t crowd her! They’re brand new. You don’t want to be so overbearing!”

Then, one of the larger striped kittens, apparently having exhausted the milk supply where he was, climbed over his brothers and sisters and tried to push the smallest kitten away from the teat where it had been feeding.

“Hey! Ron yelled at it, picking it up by the scruff of the neck. Barry cried out and took the kitten from Ron.

“He’s mine! Jules said I could have him. He’s already got such a little roly-poly belly I’m naming him Roland.”

“And I’m taking the big black one,” Andy said. “I always wanted to have a cat at home, but mum wouldn’t let me because of my allergy. Now that Madam Pomfrey has given me that Potion I went for on my second day here, I can have a cat! I’m naming him Beowulf.”

“You can’t name him Beowulf,” his twin sister informed him. “That’s a dog’s name.”

“He’s my kitten and I can name him whatever I want. I won’t tell you what to name yours.”

“I’m naming mine Butch, because he already seems to be pretty tough. He can take care of himself.”

Ron looked down at Jules. “So. They’re all spoken for already?”

“Just the boys,” he told him. “The runt’s a girl and so’s the other black one.”

Ginny cried out. “Oh! Could I have the black one, Jules?” He smiled and nodded at her, then looked away, blushing. Harry had had the impression that Jules had a bit of a crush on Ginny. The kittens were done feeding now and had separated themselves from the teats. Now their mother was washing each one carefully, her sandpapery tongue grooming the stickiness from their fluffy fur, for they were all long-haired cats. When the mother was done washing the littlest kitten, Ron leaned over and picked her up gently; she fit in the palm of his hand.

“So, sweetheart,” he said to her softly. “Does no one want you, then? Shall you be mine?” he said, his face very close to her. Harry stood stock-still, surprised. He turned and saw Hermione looking at Ron with a heartbreaking look that made Harry’s throat feel tight. The kitten yawned hugely, prompting a chorus of, “Aaaawws,” from those assembled, and then she curled up in his hands, closing her eyes and starting to purr contentedly.

“I think she likes you,” Jules said, smiling. Harry looked at Hermione, looking at Ron, thinking the same thing.

Harry had tired of talking to snakes in Care of Magical Creatures. He attended class but refrained from entering the enclosure. Finally, half-way through November, Hagrid promised them that they would start in on the Gryffindor animal. Sure enough, when they came to class the next time, the snake enclosure was gone. But instead of there being a large metal cage in the yard to restrain the animal, it was simply sitting in the middle of what had been the goose yard, napping peacefully.

It was an enormous tawny lion.

All of the students were taken aback; the fence around the yard was only about three-and-a-half feet high and would present no real obstacle to the lion were he to try to get at any of them. Harry asked Hagrid whether there was magical fencing around it that the lion could not pass through.

“Nah,” he said casually. “Don’ need it. He don’ harm humans. Plus, he jes’ ate a hundred an’ fifty pound o’ raw meat. Full tummy.”

“What do you mean, doesn’t harm humans?” Ron demanded, keeping Hagrid between him and the sleeping lion. The other students were all around twenty feet from the fence, not daring to move closer.

“What I said. If he were a lion, we’d haff ter worry--”

“What are you talking about?” Ron demanded. “He IS a lion!”

“Oh is he? Well, fer yer information, although fer hundreds o’ years people ‘ere ‘ave been makin’the mistake o’ calling the Gryffindor house team the lions, an’ callin’ the pitcher on the coat o’ arms a lion, the damn thing AIN’T A LION.”

Harry and Ron made faces at each other. “You’re mental,” Ron said weakly, never having uttered such a thing to Hagrid before, as much as he had thought it many times due to Hagrid’s predilection for extremely dangerous creatures.

But Hermione’s face had a sudden glow of understanding on it. “Oh! Hagrid! Is it really--but, I thought one of those would look like--”

“Yeah, yeah. But there’s more than one kind. This is the Gryffindor kind.”

Harry and Ron still had no clue; the rest of the class, Gryffindors and Slytherins alike, looked very close to bolting back to the castle. Even Blast-Ended Skrewts hadn’t inspired the kind of mass-exodus that seemed imminent.

“Harry, Ron,” said Hermione. “Do you know any French?”

“What?” Ron sputtered. “Hermione, this is no time to be lording your languages over us...”

“No, no, that’s not my point. Do you know what ‘Gryffindor’ means?”

“It was Godric Gryffindor’s surname.”

“But people didn’t actually used to have surnames. They were called Uric the Odd and things like that. Someone who did something interesting would get some kind of epithet applied to them, and then it would stick and become the family name. What’s important is what ‘Gryffindor’ means.”

Harry was bewildered. “So what does it mean?”

“Golden griffin. Or rather, griffin d’or, griffin of gold. In Hogwarts: a History--” Ron groaned, but Hermione plunged on, ignoring him. “--it says that Godric Gryffindor was an Animagus. Slytherin was the only founder who wasn’t, but he could speak Parseltongue, so that was as good as, I suppose. And when Godric Gryffindor became an animal, he became--” she paused significantly, waiting for one of them to realize what she was about to say and say it with her. But there was silence. She finally grew impatient with waiting and shouted, “A golden griffin!”

Hagrid smiled. “Like this one here.”

Harry stared at it. “But Hagrid, it just looks like a lion. And it says in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that a griffin has an eagle’s head and wings and feet and the hind quarters of a lion.”

“Don’ believe ever’thing you read in that thing,” Hagrid said moodily. “It says horrible things abou’--abou’ a friend o’ mine...” Harry could thing of about a half-dozen creatures to which Hagrid could be referring.

“Harry,” Hermione said excitedly, “that’s a griffin that was produced by a union between a griffin and another lion. So it’s three-quarters lion. Its only eagle attributes are its wings.”

“What wings?” Harry wanted to know; he didn’t see any. Just then, the griffin awoke, sniffed the air and looked around wildly. Then Harry saw that it was looking directly at him. Its nose was moving suspiciously. Harry was already running for Hagrid’s cabin when he realized that a shadow had passed over him; he reached the door and pulled it open, ran in, and slammed it shut, shoving a long bar of wood into the brackets on the back of the door that were designed to hold it. The door thus locked, Harry went cautiously to the window.

The other students had scattered, and Ron and Hermione were huddled by Hagrid. Circling low over the yard was the griffin, its tawny-golden wings held out in what must be a sixteen-foot wing-span, now landing again, folding its wings once more against its flanks so that they disappeared from view. It settled down once more. Harry wondered what he’d done; why had it come after him?

“Take me off,” Sandy hissed at him now.

“What? This isn’t a good time for a conversation, Sandy. There’s a griffin out there who thinks I’m his lunch.”

“No; it is me. He doesn’t want you, he wants me.” Sandy sounded quite confident.

“Why?”

“Griffins and serpents of all kinds are natural enemies. Griffins and basilisks especially, but a small snake like me has no chance against a griffin like that. Please don’t bring me down here again.”

He took her off his arm and placed her near the fireplace, where some glowing embers sat in the banked ashes, along with a number of potatoes in their jackets that Hagrid seemed to be slow-roasting. Sandy stretched out in front of the fireplace, warming her belly.

“You’re sure it wasn’t after me?”

“It does not care about you. You are not a snake.”

Harry went to the door of Hagrid’s hut and opened it cautiously, then closed it behind him. everyone was looking at him. Malfoy was incredibly gleeful.

“Hey, Potter. Can’t talk to griffins? Maybe you should have been in Slytherin--although we’re all glad you aren’t. It’s bad enough we have to put up with you in two classes and at meals.”

“Shut up, Malfoy!” Harry said at the same time as--surprisingly--Neville. Malfoy turned on him.

“Watch your step, Longbottom...”

“You idiot, Malfoy! The griffin was probably reacting to Harry’s snake. Griffins kill snakes; they’re natural enemies. Did you leave it inside, Harry?”

Harry nodded, impressed both by Neville’s standing up to Malfoy and his knowledge of the enmity between griffins and snakes. Harry hadn’t known. He’d wondered for some time as to why Neville hadn’t been placed in Hufflepuff, but recently he’d stopped wondering. It was as though Neville had--woken up. As though he’d been sleepwalking when he was younger. Harry didn’t even recall Neville needing his grandmother to send him things he’d forgotten when school had started in September (usually, during the first week of school, Neville got at least one package a day from his grandmother by owl post). And his King Lear report had brought even more praise from Moody than Ron’s essay on Othello. Hermione had been somewhat miffed by his lukewarm reception to her thoughts about Ophelia and Gertrude from Hamlet (she’d changed her mind about doing MacBeth). She had mumbled, “Sexist,” when he had waved aside the significance of their characters.

Now Hermione was clearly also impressed with Neville. Harry walked back over to the enclosure. The griffin was no longer growling, and looked like flightless lion once more. Harry and Neville were the only ones who were interested in approaching the enclosure. The griffin put his front paws up on the top of the fence, looking for all the world like a large dog who wanted someone to play with him. Harry slowly put his hand out to his snout, palm down. The griffin put his large wet nose to Harry’s hand. Harry flinched as the griffin moved his nose all over his hand and then reached out its tongue and licked his skin. Harry froze, wondering whether he would need to run back to Hagrid’s hut in order to save his hand.

Neville reached out his hand and stroked the griffin’s tawny mane. He immediately began to purr loudly and rubbed against Neville’s arm. Harry tried moving his hand up to the mane also, stroking it tentatively. He seemed like a very large happy cat now, purring and closing his eyes. Harry and Neville smiled at each other and Hagrid was pleased.

“Like ter ride ‘im, Neville?”

Neville jerked his head up, his eyes wide. “Could I?” Hagrid smiled at him and Harry stepped back. Neville climbed over the fence and approached the griffin again. Neville bowed to him, and he lowered his head to Neville, then rose regally and slowly spread his wings. They seemed to appear from nowhere, so perfectly did they blend in with his golden flanks. They were both gold and yet transparent at the same time. Neville moved behind the wings and carefully swung his leg over his back, then sank his fingers in the mane to hold on. The griffin took a few running steps, then leapt into the sky, all gold and flying mane and tail, the huge wings moving slowly as it climbed higher, then remaining motionless as it banked, floating on a thermal, preparing to return. Harry was awestruck, watching. The other students--even the Slytherins--were also speechless, struck dumb by the beauty of the griffin’s flight. Harry wished he could have had a photo of Malfoy’s amazed expression.

After Harry collected Sandy (while Hagrid held the griffin in check) they walked to the greenhouses for Herbology. Harry made a decision. He didn’t plan to learn to become a lion; not anymore. He knew what he wanted to be.

A golden griffin.