Harry Potter and the Heir of Slytherin

Ironically, once Harry had put on his pajamas and lay down, he found that he could not sleep. He tossed and turned for several minutes. In his mind, he went over his conversation with Cho ... his conversation with Ginny ... Sirius' conversation with Professor Green ...

Sirius. That was who Harry thought about most. He imagined him outside, sad and alone. He would be fine, Harry was sure. But it wasn't quite fair that he had to be alone, just now, when he needed a friend.

A thought which had been slowly gathering in the back of Harry's mind rushed suddenly to the forefront. Of course--Sirius didn't have to be alone after all.

Quietly, so as not to wake Neville and Dean (Seamus and Ron were still downstairs in the common room), Harry crept to the foot of his bed, opened his trunk and, looking around one last time to make sure Neville and Dean weren't watching, pulled the Invisibility Cloak from its spot in a corner of the trunk and covered himself with it.

It was tricky getting out of the common room without anyone seeing him, but fortunately those who were still awake had congregated around the fireplace. Harry slowly pushed the Fat Lady's portrait away from the hole and squeezed through the narrow opening--no one noticed.

Soundlessly he crept through the corridors, dodging errant couples here and there. He even caught sight of George Weasley sneaking back from the Ravenclaw common room. As he stepped off the staircase into the entrance hall, he heard voices coming from the dungeons. Not students', though--they were teachers' voices.

"--you and Black were conspicuously absent--"

"Keep your voice down! Are you mad? Someone will hear." It was Professor Green.

"Nonsense. The students and staff alike have long since retired," Snape's voice answered.

"Wisely, I might add. You could learn from their example--"

"Could I? Would I merely be stating the obvious if I noted that you happen to be roaming the corridors at an absurd hour yourself?"

"I have an errand to run."

"One involving Black, no doubt."

Silence.

"Professor Green, I understand that you trust your grandfather's judgment."

"Yes, I do. Don't you?"

"The Headmaster can be a very good judge of character, but even he is capable of error. And in this case, he seems to have overlooked one key fact--"

"--I doubt that--"

"--that fact being that Sirius Black tried to kill me when he was only sixteen years old."

Harry rolled his eyes. He had heard all of this before, and he could scarcely think of two people on earth he would less rather listen to than Green and Snape. As he made his way toward the door, their voices echoed through the hall.

"You don't have to remind me, I remember. And I think my grandfather does too. But I noticed that you seem to have conveniently forgotten some other details about that day--"

"Such as?"

"Such as the fact that you would never have been put at risk if it weren't for your own malice, and nosiness, and most especially, your jealousy--"

"Jealousy?"

"--of James Potter!"

Harry stopped dead in his tracks. What does my dad have to do with any of this? he wondered. Without consciously thinking about it, he drifted toward the staircase to the dungeons and listened. There was a pause. Snape didn't seem to have an answer.

"I may have been the first to notice, but I wasn't the only one--not by a long shot. It was a running joke among the girls of my year by the time you had left school. You, and James, and Lily Evans."

Harry caught his breath at the mention of his mother's name. It was odd to hear her called by her maiden name--he had known that Aunt Petunia had been named Evans before she had married Uncle Vernon, but he had never become used to the sound of the name. Lily Evans.

"I don't know what you mean," Snape snarled.

Professor Green's voice lowered almost to a whisper. "You loved her, didn't you? But she was James's girlfriend. So you hated him, along with his friends, and you searched high and low for a way to get them expelled from school--

Snape's voice exploded with barely restrained fury. "How dare you- "

But Professor Green didn't stop. "It's not love that I fault you for; it's that you let it flare into hate and burn you up, into a horrible, charred effigy of the person you could have been. You twisted your love for her until it--until you --were unrecognizable."

Harry's heart froze. It couldn't be true; it was too bizarre and horrible to imagine. The thought of Snape with a crush! On Harry's mother, no less! It was unthinkable.

But as soon as Harry had framed the thought he knew that it was also true. He had no other explanation for Snape's persistent hatred of his father. Professor Lupin had guessed that Snape was jealous of James Potter's Quidditch skill--but that hardly seemed like a plausible motivation for a hatred so enduring.

Professor Green continued to speak. Harry could imagine Snape's furious stare, his eyes bulging, his yellow teeth bared. Whatever look he was giving Professor Green, she was not intimidated. She didn't even sound argumentative. She sounded--oddly compassionate.

"But you really did love her. My grandfather told me what you did, told me the risks you took to save her. It must have crushed you to find out that she'd been killed anyway. Especially when she didn't have to die, but chose to, rather than give her son--James Potter's son--over to Voldemort. So you hated Harry, too, for the decision his mother made when he was barely old enough to walk."

Harry leaned up against the wall dividing the entrance hall from the staircase, and slowly sunk down to the stone floor. He covered his face with his hands--which had no effect, since he was already invisible.

It was true. At first Harry had thought Snape hated him for no reason at all, and then he thought Snape hated him because of his father. Now he knew neither was true: it was because of his mother.

Professor Green kept talking. "But even for all that, you're not too far gone, are you? Not hopeless. I can see that you still love her, even though she's been dead fourteen years."

There was a long pause. Finally, Snape spoke in the icy tone he usually reserved for Harry. "And I can see that you, for all your perceptiveness, are just as capable of misjudging other people's motives as your grandfather. Very well, run your errand. But be warned, Persephone: Sirius Black is a convicted murderer. He is not- trustworthy."

"He's every bit as trustworthy as you are. Don't worry, I can take care of myself."

In a flash of black robes, Professor Green hurried past Harry and out the oak doors. Numb with shock, Harry decided that he didn't really feel as up to finding Sirius as he had thought. Besides, if Professor Green was going to look for him, it would be pointless for Harry to do the same.

Somehow--later, he wouldn't clearly remember exactly how--he stole back up to his dormitory undetected. After he had placed the cloak safely in a bottom corner of his trunk, he lay in his four-poster and stared at its hangings for what seemed like years, before he fell asleep.

***

By late February, there was no sign of winter left on the Hogwarts grounds. The weather had been so mild that almost no one noticed when March came, bringing spring with it. By the vernal equinox, as Professor Trelawney called it ("why can't she just call it the first day of spring like everybody else?" an exasperated Ron had queried), Hermione had finally succeeded in convincing Ron and Harry to begin studying for O.W.L.s. She had decided to take thirteen herself, and if she passed, she would match the record for the highest number of O.W.L.s obtained by anyone -- a record held by Dumbledore. Harry and Ron each decided to take eight, a far more reasonable number, and they felt confident that they would pass them all.

In the weeks following the ball, Harry watched Ron and Hermione with great interest and some amusement. Though almost all their free time was occupied by studying--as Harry's was--they seemed unusually keen to be around each other.

Even so, they stubbornly refused to admit to anyone that they were dating. Even when Harry asked Ron bluntly one windy day in the greenhouse, he was unable to get a direct reply.

"Don't know what you're talking about," Ron had said, making a concerted effort to sound offhand.

"Come on, Ron. It's obvious."

But Ron had simply reddened and asked Professor Sprout a question about the night-lily bush they were tending. Later, Harry was tempted to pursue the topic, but he was torn. On the one hand, it was obvious that Ron and Hermione were boyfriend and girlfriend; wouldn't they have to make it plain at some point? On the other hand, they didn't seem comfortable talking about it. In the end, Harry gave up, hoping that everything would come out in the open in due time.

Harry was happy for his friends, but there was also a part of him that missed the days when he and Ron kept almost no secrets from each other. They had been best friends for nearly five years--and technically, they still were--but things were different somehow. In the past, Ron would have rather spent time with Harry than anyone else; now, whenever Ron was around Harry he seemed to be biding his time, waiting to talk to Hermione.

And Ron and Hermione spent a lot of time together, talking: in the common room, at meals, in the corridors. They made an effort to include Harry, but it was just that--an effort. There was no getting around it. The nature of their friendship had changed.

Harry remembered last year, when Ron wasn't speaking to him, and how painful Ron's absence had been. He also recalled the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, and how Dumbledore had determined, through whatever means he had used, that Ron was the person that Harry valued most in the world. It had become clear then that Ron was his best friend and Hermione was, for lack of a better term, his back-up. Hermione had always settled for second place with Ron and Harry, even though she had no other friends. Harry couldn't help but wonder whether he was now feeling what she had felt these past five years.

After some consideration, he accepted these changes; after all, he still had his best friends, didn't he? He would just have to get used to spending a little less time with Ron, being a little less important to Hermione, and pretending not to see when they smiled furtively at each other or laughed at a joke known only to the two of them.

But it wasn't as though Harry wasn't occupied by distractions of his own. To his constant frustration, he found himself thinking about Ginny more and more. He struck up conversations with her at Quidditch practices; he sought her out from time to time in the common room; he even sat with her at lunch when Ron and Hermione couldn't be found. But she, for her part, didn't seem to regard him with the same unbridled admiration as before. Now she treated him more like a peer than a hero on a pedestal. This was a good thing--he guessed.

During the time he would have spent with Hermione and Ron, when Ginny wasn't around, Harry studied for the classes he was having the most trouble with. He had begun to make some progress. Geographic Transfiguration no longer gave him problems; instead of transforming into a worm, his quill now cooperated when he tried to move it across the room. Harry's Disillusionment Charm was coming along nicely. And in Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid had been using Fawkes to teach the students about phoenixes -- that was easy stuff.

Potions, though, was a different story. Snape managed to make his usual treatment of the Gryffindors seem like coddling. The worst part was that Snape seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion about Ron and Hermione that Harry had the night of the ball--that they were a couple. He insisted on separating them and making snide comments during class.

"Weasley, if you could take your mind off Miss Granger for two seconds, you might be able to dice those ermine whiskers properly."

"Miss Granger, I am tremendously impressed that you managed to summon the composure to brew a decent Suggestibility Potion despite Mister Weasley's distracting presence."

And so on, for the length of every Potions class. No one dared to respond to these remarks--not even Ron, though he gritted his teeth and looked as though he might explode with rage. The Slytherins just snickered, while the Gryffindors kept their heads down and tried to do as they were told. Of course, Snape still always managed to find ways to take points from them anyway, to Malfoy's great delight.

In Defense against the Dark Arts, Professor Green was as good as her word. One day late in March she lined the Gryffindors up on the Quidditch pitch, and began to pace back and forth in front of them. As the students stood silently, she looked at them each in turn. She paced the length of the row of students twice before she spoke.

"We've spent seven months training, and you've learned a great deal about Muggle self-defense. I'm pleased with your progress. All of you."

Neville blushed.

She continued. "I think you're ready to take the next step. Now," she clasped her hands together, "I need a volunteer--anyone?" She glanced at Harry; he returned her look with a resentful scowl.

"Harry?"

He sighed. He should have known this was coming. He stepped forward and stood next to Professor Green, barely bothering to conceal his disappointment. "Yes?" The word came out sounding much more irritated than he had intended.

Professor Green raised an eyebrow for the tiniest fraction of a second, then said, "Stand over there."

He moved to the spot she had indicated, a few paces to her right, in front of the line of Gryffindors. They faced each other.

"Yes, very good. Now." She took a deep breath. "Hex me."

Harry frowned. This time he was completely unable to keep the irritation from his voice. "Hex you? What for? You're just going to kick the wand out of my hand like you did Neville's--"

"No," she said as she shook her head, "not this time." She drew her wand, held it up for Harry and the entire class to see--and dropped it onto the grass.

Slightly intrigued, Harry tried to think of an appropriate hex. He still hadn't forgotten the way she had treated Sirius. For that reason alone, nothing would please Harry more than to successfully hex Professor Green, on her orders: he couldn't get in trouble for it! But then, she would be able to read him, to know exactly when he would act. He would have to think quickly--

Before he had even finished formulating the thought, he had pointed his wand and uttered the hex.

"Furnunculo!"

For a second, he thought he had her. She looked surprised by the hex, and he had spoken all four syllables before she was able to react. A small green spark shot from the end of Harry's wand. As the class looked on, Professor Green stretched out her bare hands toward the spark, and in the blink of an eye, it had changed direction. It was as though she had raised an invisible shield between herself and the hex; it glanced off the surface of the invisible barrier and struck out toward Neville. He dodged out of the way just in time.

Once Neville had composed himself, he looked around nervously.

"Are you alright?" Professor Green asked.

"Yeah," Neville replied shakily, wiping his palms on his robes.

Harry moved to take his place with the others.

"Not yet, Harry. You're going to help me demonstrate."

Hermione had contained herself for long enough.

"How--how--did you do that--without a wand?"

Harry tried not to laugh, but no one else seemed to find Hermione's state of shocked disbelief funny. The rest of the students only nodded, as if they were wondering the same thing; several of them were staring at Professor Green open-mouthed.

Green began to explain. "I'm sure that all of you recall Professor--er -Moody's--lessons on hex deflection last year. For the remainder of this year, you'll be applying what you've learned--except you'll be deflecting hexes and curses wandlessly."

The students stared at each other. Hermione only frowned.

"It isn't easy," Professor Green continued. "For most wizards, the technique takes years to perfect. All the more reason to get started as quickly as possible."

They all stared at her as though she were speaking a foreign language. At once, several voices chimed in with different versions of the same question.

"But wandless magic is strictly controlled--"

"--most of it's Dark Arts stuff--"

"My mum would kill me if she knew--"

"Enough!" Professor Green waved a hand to quiet them. "Yes, well, most wizards do take a rather--er--dim view of any wandless magic that doesn't involve potions or isn't strictly controlled by the Ministry. But Aurors are specifically taught these techniques, and I think we all know that Aurors are not practitioners of the Dark Arts."

"Aurors were once allowed to use the Unforgivable Curses, too. Are you going to teach us to use them?" To Harry's astonishment, this last sarcastic comment had come from him.

She looked taken aback--but again, only for a second. "No," she said. "Professor Dumbledore knows everything we do in this class. He personally approved of my plan to teach you wandless hex deflection." She looked around at them. "So if you have problems with it, take them up with him. As for me, well, I hope you don't mind if I proceed to do my job. Now, put your wands in your pockets. Harry, turn and face me again. The rest of you, watch."

Slowly, they all did as they were told.

She focused on Harry. "It takes a great deal of concentration. Stretch out your hand, like this--" Harry held his right hand out in front of him-- "and look at me. Pay attention."

Though it galled him to follow her instructions, he resolved to do everything she said. He wouldn't allow himself to become distracted by a grudge. Getting hexed wouldn't help anyone--not him, not Sirius.

"You may not have a wand to focus the magic within you, but it's still there. You just have to focus it yourself. You can do it, you simply have to learn how."

She moved toward him and touched his fingertips with her own. "Here," she said. "Push it all out here. Think of a time when you used magic without a wand." She suddenly turned to the rest of the class. "Everyone. Close your eyes and think of a time."

Harry closed his eyes. A picture came to mind of his Aunt Marge--well, not his Aunt Marge, Dudley's. She was expanding, and floating toward the ceiling of the Dursleys' house.

"Remember how you felt when you did that. Now, Harry," she said as he opened his eyes. "Do it again."

She walked backward a few steps and drew her wand.

"Deprivatio!"

Everyone gasped. A pale blue burst of what looked like dust issued from the end of Professor Green's wand, and drifted slowly, but directly, toward Harry. She had deliberately chosen a curse that would give him time to react.

He planted his feet and stood firmly, stretching his hand out toward the little blue cloud. I don't know how I blew up Aunt Marge, he thought frantically, I just felt--

Anger. He glanced once at Professor Green, then concentrated all the energy in his mind and body on the ends of his fingers.

The curse slowed down, but stayed on course. He must concentrate, he must turn it around--it was closer now, but almost at a dead stop. Harry considered moving out of the way, but in a last fit of stubbornness, he concentrated with all his might on sending the shimmering pale blue cloud off in a different direction.

When it reached him, it had nearly stopped moving--nearly. It made contact with his fingers first, and before he could get away, it had surrounded his hand, his arm, and finally, his whole body.

Everything went black. He was conscious, but he couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't feel anything. No, it was more like there was nothing to see, to hear, to feel anymore ... nothing existed except for this blackness ... his panic reached fever pitch, but he couldn't hear himself scream or feel his heart pounding within his chest.

"Harry!"

All of a sudden, a blue sky lurched into view before him, framed by eight alarmed faces staring down. One of the faces--Ron's--rolled its eyes exasperatedly.

"Why didn't you move out of the way?"

Harry didn't answer. Everyone cleared off as he stood up.

"What was that?" he muttered. His heart was still racing--he was relieved to notice that he could feel it again.

"Deprivatus Curse," Hermione answered. "Harry--what was it like? I've only read about it, but it looked awful."

"Completely disables all your senses," Professor Green explained. "I picked it because I knew it would move slowly. But," she said tentatively, almost apologetically, "I thought you'd get out of the way--"

"You didn't think I'd stop it, then?" he asked defiantly.

She looked incredulous. "No! Of course not. I never dreamed you'd come as close as you did. I would have been insane to think you could stop it--to think any of you could, on your first day. That was--remarkable."

Inspired by Harry's success, the rest of the class paired off and practiced deflecting each other's hexes. Unfortunately, they had a much more difficult time of it. Lavender Brown fell flat on her face when she was hit by Neville's Leg-Locker Curse--when Seamus laughed at her, she refused to speak to him for the rest of the class period.

By the end of class, Dean's face was covered with purple splotches and Parvati had ears like a house-elf--they both left the field and walked directly to the hospital wing. Ron was luckier; he had simply developed a persistent case of hiccups. Hermione had managed to dodge all the curses thrown her way. Harry, though, had progressed enough to stop a slow curse cold in its tracks.

As they walked out the gate to the Quidditch pitch, they discussed the day's lesson in hushed tones.

"Well, I suppose she's preparing us the best way she knows how," Hermione said. "After all, Professor Moody put the Imperius on us last year, that wasn't exactly above-board, was it?"

"Professor Moody?" Harry cried. "That wasn't Moody! It was a Death Eater, Hermione!"

Hermione and Ron were both taken aback by the defiance in Harry's tone. "Hey, what's with you?" Ron asked. "You don't think she's--"

"I don't know. But something's not right. I'll tell you one thing--I don't trust her."

They hadn't taken two steps before they heard Professor Green's voice from behind them. "Excuse me." They stopped and looked around, exchanging embarrassed glances, hoping she hadn't overheard their conversation.

She quickened her pace in order to catch them. "You all did very well today. Especially you, Hermione."

Hermione blushed slightly. "Thank you."

Professor Green strode up alongside them and continued walking. They matched her pace, heading toward the castle. "I haven't seen Professor Thorne very much this week, and I was wondering whether you and he have made any progress on that scroll?"

"Oh. Well, not much." Hermione shook her head in disappointment. "He's identified the dialect, and we've both put in a lot of time on it, but the translation is very spotty. We simply don't know what all the words mean, you see"

"But I don't understand. Aren't there a lot of writings in that language?"

Hermione looked up at her. "In a sense, yes. There are lots of writings in ancient Hebrew, which is closely related. And they're useful, but they're mostly Muggle writings. They simply don't use the same vocabulary as the scroll. It would be like a group of Muggles trying to translate this into another language--" she reached back into her bookbag and pulled out The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5-- "with none of us here to tell the Muggles what Alohomora means."

"But most spells are traceable back to some known language--if not English, then Latin, Greek--"

"Right," Hermione said, anticipating Professor Green's argument, "But in the case of the scroll, the languages the spells come from are likely even older than the language of the scroll itself. We don't even know which languages the spells are taken from. They could be taken from all kinds of dialects--unwritten ones at that--which would make it nearly impossible to decipher the spells' meanings using the scroll alone."

Together they climbed the steps to the castle. Hermione frowned. "It's really aggravating. Professor Thorne's terribly frustrated."

"I would imagine so," Green answered, thoughtfully. "Well, please do keep me informed."

"Of course."

Once they had reached the first-floor landing, Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned toward Gryffindor Tower. Professor Green stopped them.

"Harry, I wonder if I could see you in my office for a moment."

Harry glanced questioningly at Ron and Hermione. They responded with blank looks.

"Actually, we're due in Divination in an hour--we need to change--" Ron began. Harry couldn't tell whether he had convinced Ron that there was reason to distrust Professor Green, or whether Ron was simply trying to prevent him from making any more sarcastic comments and getting himself in trouble.

I may not trust Green, but I'm not afraid of her, Harry thought. "Ron, will you tell Professor Trelawney that I'll be a few minutes late?" Harry asked casually. As Professor Green started down the corridor that led to her office, he turned and followed her.

Startled, Ron opened his mouth to say something else, but Hermione grabbed him by the arm. "Come on, Ron," she said through gritted teeth. "You don't want to be late."

They walked to the end of the corridor, and where they should have made a right turn, Professor Green stopped.

"Is he alright?"

Harry was nonplussed. "You mean S--"

"Yes," she interrupted. "Judging from your attitude, I assume that you've seen him. I--haven't. I just want to know how he is."

Harry didn't answer for a few seconds, noticing with satisfaction how uncomfortable she seemed. Finally, he told her the truth. "He's fine."

She looked relieved. "Good." Then she looked around briefly, and continued, "Well, it's obvious that he's told you. I don't blame you for being angry with me, Harry, but you have to understand, there are two sides to the story."

Suddenly, Harry didn't want to hear any more. "I think I'd better catch up with Ron after all," he said coldly. "I'm a bit behind in Divination."

As he walked away, she called, "What about Ginny?"

He stopped, and wheeled around. "What? What about her?"

She walked up to him, glanced around again, and lowered her voice. "How long did she like you before you noticed her? Was it your fault that you didn't return her feelings?"

"That was different!" he cried indignantly.

"Different because it was you," she answered. "Think about it." There was a pause while they regarded each other. Then she said, "enjoy Divination," and walked away.