Snakes and Lions

Scales and Fur

By the time they headed back to Hogwarts, Harry had named the snake Susara. She had slid up his shirt and settled around his upper arm. He was surprised to find that he liked the softness of her skin where she coiled around him. She didn't grip like a constrictor.

"Don't wear her around your neck," Draco warned, as they walked back, "just your arm."

Harry raised his eyebrows. He wasn't sure the snake was actually long enough to go around his neck .

"Properly," Draco elaborated. "it should just mean you're freeborn. Some wizards, however, associate it with pure blood, and you are not entitled, by that criterion. Don't do it, unless you mean to be pretentious. It will cause trouble. Wearing her around your arm is safe enough."

When they got back to the school, Draco went to the Great Hall for dinner. Between Honeydukes sweets and snacks at The Three Broomsticks, Harry felt that he'd eaten enough, so he went straight up to Gryffindor Tower. There was no one else in the common room. He showed the room, and the ways in and out of it, to Susara, then she settled back on his arm.

Harry sat down on a couch with his Divination homework, which required more thought then usual. Everyone had gotten back a copy of their holiday prediction, and had been asked to map it to the actual events of their holidays. Harry began a slightly censored timeline on scrap parchment. Trelawny had commented on his essay that Tarot, though rather simplistic, was a good way to confirm or refute unlikely predictions. Harry checked back through the meanings for his cards. The Sun was usually just read as happiness or achievement, but he saw that it could also represent "harmony of enemies." The Page of Cups, reversed was "a charming but idle youth who may manipulate with flattery. Self-centered behavior. Selfishness."

Harry laughed out loud. "Oh, this is too easy!" he exclaimed.

He had fourteen inches of parchment filled, and was starting to feel that the reading had been far too accurate for comfort, when the door opened. A large group of people entered. Most dispersed through the room. A few seconds later, Hermione sat down on the couch beside Harry, and Ron had sat in the chair at a corner to it.

"Er... hi?" Harry tried.

"You weren't at dinner," Ron said.

"I had enough to eat in Hogsmeade."

"Oh."

"Look --" Hermione began, then stopped.

Harry put down his essay and looked at Hermione. Her face was a little red. "What?" he prompted.

"We missed you," she blurted out. "I mean -- Hogsmeade -- it was fun by ourselves once, last December, but we went looking for you this morning, and you'd already gone, and then we thought we'd catch you up, but we only saw you twice --"

"And you were absolutely with him," Ron interrupted. "I don't think you even noticed us."

"Actually, no. I didn't."

Susara began moving down Harry's arm. It felt very odd. Instinctively, he brought a hand to the motion, then caught himself.

"What -- Is something wrong?" Hermione asked.

"No, it's --" Harry looked at her anxious expression and forced a smile. "It just feels funny. Susara!" He switched to Parseltongue. "Come out!"

He brought his right hand to his left sleeve to give the golden snake something to move onto, but she just coiled twice around his wrist and raised her head up. Hermione caught her breath and flinched back, then settled uneasily forward again. Susara flicked out her tongue.

"She's tasting your scent," Harry said eagerly to Hermione. "This is Susara, my new pet. She's a torclinde. Isn't she beautiful?"

"Do you want me to remember this woman?"

Susara asked.

"Yes. She is a friend of mine."

Susara hissed a neutral acknowledgment. "I now know her."

"Clever pet,"

Harry praised her. Susara stretched out happily. He smiled and stroked the snake's back, then looked back at Hermione. She seemed disturbed. Harry noticed they had attracted a small audience. Seamus, Dean, Ginny, and Parvati had drawn near the couch. People less close were watching quietly.

"Harry ... You ... You probably shouldn't talk to her in front of people."

Harry scowled. "Why not? She likes me talking to her. The first thing she ever said to me was 'you speak!' She was so surprised. It was absolutely cute."

"You can't have a snake!" Ron protested.

"Why not?"

"You're a Gryffindor!"

Harry looked at Susara, who was starting to shift uneasily. "She's Gryffindor colors, though, isn't she?" he noted.

Seamus laughed. "Good enough, Harry, but she's still a slimy snake."

"She's not slimy! She's soft. Feel, Seamus." Harry extended his hand to Seamus, who first pulled back, then, laughing, touched Susara.

"Right, then," he amended. "A silky snake. Rather like that blond toff you like."

"Well, I think she's beautiful, Harry," said Ginny Weasley. "Where did you get her?"

"Draco bought her for me."

"Harry!" Hermione objected. "You can't accept a snake from Draco Malfoy. It's some sort of plot!"

Harry stroked the gold scales again. "You can go in, if you wish," he said to Susara. She coiled quickly up his arm, back into the cover of his sleeve. Harry looked at Hermione. "He said I should always have someone to talk to," he said, "whatever." Harry shrugged. "Besides, it entertains me to think that Lucius Malfoy paid for a present for me."

Hermione looked around them at the other people in the common room. "Let's go in my room," she said. "It's too crowded here."

Harry gathered up his papers, Divination books, inkwell, and quills, and followed Hermione across the common room and up the half-flight of stairs to the prefect's single room. Ron came with them. Once the door was closed, Ron sat down on the bed and scowled at Harry.

"Must be fun, going about with someone who has as much money as you have."

"Oh don't start that again!" Harry snapped.

"Well? Don't tell me you don't like it, with your aristocrat's snake and your swish new clothes."

"It's bloody expensive, if you must know. I've spent more in the last six weeks than I spent for all my school things last fall. And mostly I pay for things for both of us."

"You pay for things?" Ron asked. "Why do that for a Malfoy?"

"Because if I didn't, he'd steal them. Draco has a hard time believing in other people's property." Harry rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm not complaining. It has been fun. But it could have been just as much fun with you, Ron, and much cheaper, if you'd just have let me pay for things, then forget about it."

Ron jumped to his feet. "I don't need you to buy me things!"

"How did this turn into an argument about money?" Hermione interrupted.

"Because Ron's here."

"You mentioned it first," Ron snarled.

"Just as an offense to Draco's father. And you were the one to make it an issue, like always!"

"Harry! Drop it!" Hermione snapped.

"Fine. I won't mention it again if he doesn't."

Ron was standing on the balls of his feet, his hands clenched tight at his sides and his face red, but he shook his head. "No," he said. "Hermione and I agreed this is the stupidest fight the three of us have ever had, and we hadn't even really had it. If this is part of the last month's fight, I want to have it, so we can get it done."

"We have not been having a fight!"

"Then why do we have to haul you in here to talk to you?"

"Because --" Harry tried to think of all the things that mattered, but gave up on expressing them. In a flash of malice, he decided on a simple answer. Coolly, he said:

"Because we're not friends, anymore." At the look on Ron's face, Harry realized that there was no more hurtful thing he could have said. He let the statement stand, and flushed with success and shame.

Ron stared at him.

"That's it?" he said finally. "We're best friends for five years, and I ignore you for a couple of months and it's over?"

"Look," said Harry, "you're not really interested. You're just still feeling proprietary enough to be jealous, because you don't like my taste in successors."

"Jealous?! If you're trailing around after that pinch-faced snake because you think it bothers me, you bloody well deserve whatever you get! You're ---"

"That's enough!" Hermione shouted. Ron stopped yelling. "Ron, you get out of here -- now! I'll talk to him."

"Yeah, sure." Ron backed away, his eyes not leaving Harry until he turned to go through the door.

When the door shut behind Ron, Harry closed his eyes and let out a breath. When he opened them again, Hermione was leaning into her desk, staring down at the wide-grained wood.

"Hermione?" Harry tried. "I'm sorry. I don't know why he gets me so angry."

"Well maybe you should figure it out. He doesn't deserve this."

"But he's so --!" Harry growled. "I can't even -- It isn't just that the two of you ignored me, because I don't mind you. When I was telling Draco he couldn't call you ... that word he uses, I told him that I love you." In response to Hermione's startled look, he hastily added, "not like that! Not in any way that would make this make sense. But I do."

"So, what else about him makes you angry?"

"This ... this money thing. That's a pain. And it's... No, I think I have it. Ron doesn't value anything he has -- nothing -- and he has a lot. If I got a choice of being in Ron's shoes or Draco's, I'd take Ron's, in a flash. He has four brothers and a sister, who all love him very much, and a wonderful, caring mother, who really isn't as fussy as he thinks, and a home where he's safe, and with all kinds of fun things to do, and until last spring, he had a father who was also kind and reasonable and loving."

"Losing his father was very hard on Ron, Harry. Losing Percy was too."

"I know! And you'd think that would make him appreciate Bill and Charlie and Fred and George and Ginny and his Mum more. But he still just complains! And it's hard to be sympathetic when I'd kill to be in his place."

Harry couldn't say anything else. Hermione came and put her arms around him, and he stayed very still, afraid he might cry if he relaxed against her. He was surprised to realize how envious he truly was.

When he thought he could speak steadily, he went on:

"That's a big difference between Ron and Draco. Ron acts like nothing he has is worthwhile, and puts himself down. Draco acts like only what he has is worthwhile, and scoffs at everything else, putting down people who aren't like him. It's just as untrue, and just as destructive, but I seem to be able to put up with it better, I suppose because I haven't had five and a half years to get bloody sick of it."

"So you're jealous of him."

"Ron? I've been jealous since I met him -- especially since the first time I went to the Burrow. Draco's easier. He doesn't have anything I want. He's got money, but I've already got that. He's got social standing in pureblood circles, but I don't care about that. And for both, he has to be Lucius Malfoy's son, and I wouldn't be that for ..." Harry tried to think of something he truly wanted -- "for Voldemort's head on a platter."

Hermione stepped back. "Is that what you want most in the world?"

Harry re-evaluated the choice. "Of things I could have? Yes." He could tell the answer upset her, but did not try to deny it. "I'm sorry, Hermione. It's kind of bloodthirsty, I suppose, but I can't think of anything else I want so much as to see him dead."

He paced to the window and stared out at the dark. "Yes, I'm jealous of Ron. It never helped that he was jealous of me, and now it makes things worse. He's such an idiot!" He glanced back at her. "Do you think it would have helped if I'd chosen him for the team?"

"Wilkens is a better player."

"Yes. And he's less likely to lose his temper and do something stupid. So what is the captain's sanity worth?"

"If you chose Ron over Wilkens, he'd know why you did it, and he'd be insulted. It would not have helped."

"Okay. Thanks."

Hermione walked over to Harry. She took his hand and held it in her own. He decided that was better than being hugged. Safer. He kind of liked it. He gave her hand a little squeeze.

"Would it have helped if you had come to the Burrow with us?" she asked tentatively.

"I don't know. It would at least have made me feel more connected to the rest of the family. I think it would have helped to get to the Burrow this summer. I understand why they didn't want me there, right after Mr. Weasley died, and I'm not blaming them -- but it would have -- it would make it less 'his thing that I can't have,' if you understand."

"I think so."

Harry felt a rush of gratitude. He might let his feelings about Ron's attitudes get in the way of his friendship with Ron, but he never should have let them get in the way of his friendship with Hermione.

"Hermione? Don't take this wrong ..."

Hermione turned to meet his searching gaze. Her brown eyes were wide with apprehension. "Yes?"

"I love you," Harry said quickly.

She hugged him again, and it was okay, this time. "I love you too, Harry." She pecked him on the cheek, like she did sometimes when saying goodbye, then they pulled back from each other. They had somehow, Harry noticed, ended up holding both of each other's hands.

"So ... Do you think I can make up with Ron? I mean, he is your boyfriend, at least."

"Hm ... I suggest you apologize, but don't push it. I'll talk to him later."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"I'm sorry about getting on you about the prefect thing."

"No, you were right." Hermione looked uneasy. "Had there been someone in particular who wanted to talk to me? Or --"

"Me."

"Oh." Hermione laughed slightly. "Is it still relevant?"

Harry shook his head. "It's gotten too complicated to talk about."

"Harry," she said warningly.

"I needed to make a decision, and I did. The things that spiraled out of that are not all my secrets. I can't tell you, anymore, what the original problem was."

Hermione bit her lip. "If you say so. Is Draco giving you trouble?"

"He's fine." Harry let her hands drop. "I should get back to my Divination homework."

"All right, then. I can't interfere with that!"

"Absolutely not. I'm doing it for real, even."

"I'm a bit surprised."

Harry laughed appreciatively and went back to the common room. Ron was not there. Rather than resuming his essay, he went up to the dormitory. Seamus and Neville were studying, and Ron was lying on his back on his bed, staring up at the canopy.

"Ron?" Harry queried.

"Sod off."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone after you like that."

"So?"

"So ..." Harry sighed and took a deep breath. "Do you want to try to be friends again?"

"I already told you to sod off," Ron growled.

Harry shrugged. "Okay. But next time it's your turn to apologize and my turn to give you some rude brush off."

Ron leapt up angrily, but Seamus was suddenly between them.

"Come on, lads," he said coaxingly, placing a large hand on a shoulder of each. "I say it is time you got something." Harry and Ron both turned towards Seamus, and with a sudden surprise move he shoved them together so their heads hit with a resounding crack. Ron shouted. Harry staggered back, gasping. Neville burst out laughing.

"Ow..." Harry put a hand to his head and it came away sticky. Ron was dripping blood over one eye.

"Sorry!" Neville gasped.

"Now, let's go to the hospital wing, shall we?" Seamus said cheerfully. "And don't be such blaring prats in front of me again."

Harry assumed that when Draco said wearing the snake around his neck would cause trouble, he had meant it would cause trouble with people like himself. Simply having a snake was enough to cause trouble with the Gryffindors. Talking to a snake -- and Harry found it impossible not to talk to Susara -- caused trouble with most people. Still, Susara said Harry was nicer than the warming device, and Harry took her pretty much everywhere.

The Slytherins seemed discomfited by the torclinde. This was Harry, and they knew they should disapprove of anything Harry Potter did, but how on earth were they to disapprove of a pet snake? Blaise, perhaps the most creative of the Slytherin sixth years after Malfoy, attempted to reconcile this with more specific insults. In the hall after dinner, on Sunday, he called out:

"Look at Potter's torclinde! Trust a Gryffindor to get a lady's snake!"

Draco Malfoy whirled so quickly that he caught everyone's attention.

"My father keeps two torclindes, for formal occasions. Unless you want that ridiculous statement repeated to him, I suggest you restrain your tongue, to keep from parading your pathetic lack of breeding."

That line of attack, therefore, was dropped, reducing the Slytherin arsenal to comments on how Potter couldn't get a decently dangerous snake. Harry couldn't manage to find this insulting.

Harry brought Susara to classes on Monday. In both Charms and Transfiguration, he was reprimanded for speaking to her. McGonagall, who seemed to consider the snake a personal insult, went so far as to insist Harry keep it out of sight. Draco did not help matters by snickering.

In Potions class, Harry whispered to Susara that she could slip down to his wrist for a look around.

"No angry people?"

"This teacher should not mind."

Harry glanced up at Snape and saw the Potions master staring at him. Parseltongue was not conducive to a genuinely private whisper.

"What did you say?" Draco whispered. They were sitting together, again. Snape had not prevented this since the class immediately after the Facilis potion.

"Just that the teacher shouldn't mind her, too much." Harry looked back up at Snape. Snape was watching the emerging torclinde with an odd, almost wistful, expression on his face.

"The fire is warm."

"Bask, if you like. Don't touch anything, though. Some of the components might hurt you."

"I will touch only the heat."

"Potter?" Snape's voice was oddly strained.

"Yes, Professor?"

"I have no objection to the ... serpent, but please confine your conversation to a minimum. This is, as you may recall, a class."

"Yes, sir."

"I don't believe you!" Ron fumed, as he sat next to Harry at lunch. "You've been showing off that snake in every class we've had, today. I thought McGonagall was going to give you detention!"

"She did seem rather unreasonable about it," Harry commented.

"Unreasonable? I think she's perfectly reasonable. I don't like watching you either. Gryffindors shouldn't have snakes."

Susara chose that moment to slide out of Harry's sleeve. Harry restrained himself from summarizing the conversation for her. He settled for stroking a finger lightly down her shining scales.

"I like this snake."

Hermione looked over. "I've thought of something. Maybe the snake is to listen to your secrets, and then You-Know-Who will take it and question it and learn everything."

"What 'everything?' She doesn't understand English, and I'm not talking to her about politics. Voldemort would have an easier time grabbing one of you for torture, and he'd get more out of it." Harry smirked. "Probably enjoy it more, too."

"Perhaps it's just to tarnish your reputation," suggested Seamus blandly.

"That could be it!" Hermione exclaimed.

Harry rolled his eyes and took a slice of meat for his plate.

In Thursday's Potions class, they were making a Fur-Growing potion. This, if made correctly, was supposed to cause fur to grow on any leather or skin, living or not, on which it was rubbed. A necessary ingredient was werewolf fur. Although Professor Snape had assured the class that this was not a contagion, several of the students were noticeably reluctant to handle it.

"Wonder if I know this wolf?" Harry commented, deliberately running his fingers through his and Draco's batch of fur. The hairs were very long and surprisingly soft.

Draco raised his eyebrows. "Can't see you petting that ... tramp, this way, Harry. But you liked him, didn't you?"

"Moony? Yeah. I still hear from him now and then."

Draco stifled a laugh. He reached out to the fur and stroked it evaluatingly. "Not bad. Pity it won't work on plastic chairs."

As they prepared their ingredients, Draco grew more and more absorbed. Harry wondered if he shouldn't have mentioned Moony, or if he should have at least stuck to Lupin's proper name.

"We need to steal some of this," Draco whispered. "More than usual." He passed Harry four vials under the table. "You get them."

"Er..."

"Do it. I've got an idea."

While Harry was worrying about Draco's idea, Draco bumped into their mortar, spilling thistle-seed all over the floor. He stood up immediately.

"I'm sorry sir," he said quickly, as Snape approached. "Shall I go get more?"

"Quickly," Snape snapped. "Potter, you can clean up this mess."

"Yes sir," Harry said. He hoped that Draco was getting something more interesting than thistle seed from Snape's storeroom.

Draco sauntered back as soon as Harry was done sweeping up the tiny seeds, and they finished combining the ingredients, which in this case, were mixed cold, except for the werewolf fur.

Susara ventured out once they lit their caldron.

"May I bask?"

"Yes. Stay away from the potion, though. It would make you grow fur."

Harry glanced at Snape. The professor was watching him. Harry stirred while Draco dribbled in the grey hairs, and the potion began to thicken, and form into strands. When Draco declared it ready, they ladled a generous amount out onto the cooling stone. Quick as a lightning flash, Susara flicked her tail over and into the potion, then brought it out again.

"Susara!" Harry scolded. "You did that deliberately!" he hissed.

Draco sighed and grabbed a second cooling stone from an unused table. He began ladling out more potion to replace that contaminated by the snake.

Susara looked admiringly at the golden tuft on her tail and said something to Harry. He burst out laughing, just as Professor Snape arrived at the table.

"Do you think it amusing to disfigure your snake, Potter?"

"She did it herself, sir!" Harry protested. "And you don't know what she said!"

"I do not, Mr. Potter." Snape snarled suddenly. "Tell me."

Harry reached out for Susara, who slid tentatively back around his wrist, but continued to flick and watch her little tuft. "She said if .. if she had a lion tail, maybe my housemates would like her better." Harry scanned over the staring Gryffindors, then looked back up at Snape. "I don't think it will work, though. Do you have an antidote?"

"I will have some available tomorrow. Presumably your serpent should be tired of playing lion by that time?"

Snape raised his eyebrows questioningly. He looked amused. Harry nodded in relief. "I expect so, sir."

Unfortunately, Snape's attention kept returning to Susara, preventing Harry from taking any of the potion. Guiltily, Harry hoped Neville would do something spectacularly stupid that would keep the Potions master's attention for a minute. It was actually Parvati, however, who did so. Due to her fear of handling the werewolf fur, she flicked it into the cauldron rather than placing it in gently, and managed to get her spatula in as well and splash herself with the hot mixture.

"Aaa!" she yelled. Snape was halfway across the room in a moment. Harry immediately turned his attention to filling the vials. Draco scooped up the first two as soon as they were capped. Harry glanced over to see that Snape was still scolding Parvati, who was already growing long hair from two spots on her hand. Other people in the class, even the Gryffindors, were snickering.

"... reputed to be brave, Miss Patil! But typical Gryffindor incompetence wins -- Potter!"

Harry only just managed not to drop the fourth, full vial at Snape's angry shriek. The third was still in plain sight on the counter. Professor Snape abandoned the unfortunate Parvati and strode over to Harry.

"What are you doing, Mr. Potter?" he spat.

"I ... I ..." Harry looked at the full vial in his hands. What he was doing was really all too obvious. Abandoning all pretense, he stoppered the vial and laid it next to the previous one. "Taking a sample."

"You are stealing, Mr. Potter," Snape hissed, but before he could continue, Draco Malfoy, with an ingenuous smile, had removed one of the other vials from his pocket, and held it out towards Snape. The Potions Master fell silent.

"We had an idea for a project, sir," Draco said eagerly. "I wanted to do some tests, first, to make sure it was worth pursuing, and then we were going to ask you for extra lab time."

Harry kept his face impassive. He wasn't sure if extra lab time with Snape would really be any better than a few nights' detention, but he wasn't going to give Draco away.

"I ... see." Snape looked oddly at each of them in turn. Susara took this moment to poke her head out the neck of Harry's robe, slither once around his neck, then settle on his shoulder with most of her body inside the robe, but her tufted tail still visible. Somebody snickered.

"Very well," Snape said coldly. "Both of you come to my office immediately after dinner, and we will discuss this ... project."

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