Have you got colour in your cheeks?
Do you ever get that fear that you can't shift
The type that sticks around like something in your teeth?
Are there some aces up your sleeve?
Have you no idea that you're in deep?
I dreamt about you nearly every night this week
How many secrets can you keep?
-Do I wanna Know, Arctic Monkeys
Chapter 2
The brim of the sorting hat slid over Harry's eyes, hiding the many fascinated students craning their necks to get a look at him, he wasn't sure what to expect. From what he'd gathered he would prefer to be placed in Ravenclaw or Slytherin. They were the two most known for their intellect, and tended to produce successful witches and wizards. He had discussed it on the Hogwarts Express with Stephanie and she reassured him rather hopefully that he would get placed in Ravenclaw. Harry knew she was saying that rather naively, she just hoped they would be together. She had teased him about being placed in Hufflepuff and he simply rolled his eyes in response.
"Hmm… how very interesting..." a voice resounded in his head and Harry was suddenly very uncomfortable, as if he'd been doused with ice water.
"Get out of my head!" he thought back irritably. He tried to push back against the presence in his mind, but discovered that he couldn't. It was rooted there, as if it were a solid, physical thing, and Harry realized moments later, feeling stupid, that it was. The presence was the hat.
"Very passionate, a bit rash, not unlike your parents… but you don't know that of course…"the hat mumbled in his mind and Harry tensed. The last month had been nothing but people telling him that he was so much like his father and that he had his mother's eyes. Meaningless words to him. Memories wouldn't bring them back.
"A thirst for knowledge, perhaps Ravenclaw then, but not purely for your own good of course… you crave power, you seem to already have power… interesting… definitely ambitious, and if I am seeing correctly, quite a lot of shadows… I think it's quite clear where to put you, Potter," the hat rambled confidently before exclaiming without hesitation, "Slytherin!"
The hall was silent and as the hat was removed from Harry's hat he met eyes with hundreds of bewildered students.
"Sorry to disappoint," he sneered under his breath, and stood as a few Slytherins began to clap in a subdued manner. He approached the table of silver and green and took a seat beside a haughty looking boy with silvery blonde hair. The boy looked at him distrustfully for several seconds, and reared back when Harry stared straight back at him.
They sat quietly while the rest of the first years were sorted and Harry scooted over as Blaise Zabini took a seat beside him. The blonde and Zabini shared a look over Harry's shoulders before sighing in turn.
"Hello Harry, I'm Draco, Draco Malfoy," the blonde introduced himself in a pretentious voice, extending his hand for a handshake. Harry looked down at it, uncertainly deliberating whether or not the handshake was necessary. He remembered what he'd read of the Slytherin House and determined that yes, it was necessary. Pure bloods were practically obsessed with their silly customs, and Harry knew that to mix successfully with his housemates, there were standards he would have to meet.
They shook hands as Harry nodded. The boys gave one another a tight smile. Blaise leaned forward and smiled.
"I'm Blaise, Zabini that is," the dark skinned boy said as he extended his hand to meet Harry's.
Harry looked down the rest of the table apprehensively. The Slytherins all appeared deadly, the kind of deadly that not any person could appreciate, but Harry was not just any person. He could recognize the tidy, elegant flow of each individual's hair, the prim, expensive robes, and most of all, the sharp, cunning gleam in their eyes. He knew he belonged there. He knew it the second he saw a girl a few years older than him get teased mercilessly for her stained shirt, and immediately cleansed the stain with her wand, wordless. He knew without a doubt that he would fit in splendidly. But he did not want to fit in, he wanted to be the best.
Nearly an hour later Harry was unpacking his trunk and folding his clothing neatly, arranging them in organized piles within his dresser. Malfoy and another boy were laughing about something someone had said, and Harry did not quite understand the conversation.
Phrases he never heard before were casually mentioned, such as "blood traitors" and "mudblood". He would need to research it in the library later. He knew better than to ask a dorm full of purebloods questions that would make him appear utterly clueless.
"So, Potter," Malfoy drawled, "what is it like to be resurrected from the dead?"
Harry didn't look up from his folding, "it's quite invigorating, actually."
There was a moments silence before Blaise let out a short laugh at Malfoy's expense.
"Wonderful," Malfoy muttered shrewdly, fluffing his pillow haughtily.
Harry rolled his eyes and laid down on his new four poster bed, stomach down, propped up on his elbows as he began to read a fourth year defense against the dark arts spellbook.
"What are you reading?" Malfoy asked curiously, looking at the cover of Harry's book. Harry mumbled something that sounded like "be quiet."
"You're reading fourth year DA?" Malfoy exclaimed, clearly impressed. Blaise looked up from his trunk at this and Harry sighed.
"I've already read it, but I decided a re read could be beneficial," he explained. Draco and Blaise's faces were priceless and Harry smiled when he looked up from his book to gauge their reactions.
"It's all so simple, it just takes time to read," he said, as if it were no big deal.
"How do you have the patience for that, it's all quite boring… It's not the interesting stuff, you don't get to that until fifth and six year," Blaise asked in a bewildered voice.
"Exactly, so within the next year I'll have learned the basics of all the years of DA and I will be able to learn even more advanced magic! Why not learn as much as I can now?" he clarified and Draco's jaw dropped.
"That's actually… really smart," the blond admitted and Harry grinned, returning to his book.
"I've only just finished the first year one…" Blaise mumbled and Harry, without even looking up from his reading, and without his wand, levitated his second year spellbook out of his trunk and into Blaise's unsuspecting arms.
Blaise squealed a bit in fright and Draco's jaw, which had been on the floor for several minutes, dropped to below sea level. He sputtered a bit before turning to the dark haired boy on the bed.
"How did you…" but Harry just smirked.
"Why don't you guys start reading?"
It had been months since the Hogwarts Express had brought the students to the castle and Harry was the happiest he'd ever been. He enjoyed his house, he understood it, he understood the system of manipulation and exertion of power that he'd witnessed within the first few days. He even, shockingly, sometimes found himself enjoying the company of his housemates, such as Draco and Blaise. Crabbe and Goyle were absolute imbeciles, but they never bullied him so they were alright. Theodore Nott could be a bloody moron, calling other students "mudbloods" and "blood traitors" in the most idiotic of places, such as during Transfiguration with Mcgonagall. Harry had done his research on "magical blood" and was unimpressed. There were so many problems and controversies centered on the issue of magical and blood purity and yet there were absolutely no records of actual research or studies done on the matter in the library, which had books on literally everything one could think of.
Besides, Harry could hardly believe in that shit, being a halfblood himself.
Pansy Parkinson, a petite brunette pureblood girl who loved to tease the Gryffindors nearly as much as Malfoy, clung on to him and Draco constantly. During their first defense against the dark arts class Harry had disarmed the idiot Quirrell, without blinking an eye, resulting in a detention, and a reputation of being "ahead of his years." Due to that class Harry Potter had become Slytherin's so called Golden Boy and all of the Slytherin first years worshipped him. He found it rather annoying, but also very convenient.
Almost all of the professors adored him, when he had performed wandless levitating charms in Flitwick's class he nearly fainted, and Professor Mcgonagall was beyond impressed when he completed a complicated transfiguration spell perfectly on the first try.
One thing that was bothering him was the Potions Professor, Severus Snape. On the very first day of class Snape had called him out for not paying attention, and quizzed him on the spot on the magical properties of half a dozen herbs. Snape then became even more infuriated when Harry knew every single one, and gave thorough descriptions of their origins and uses. Since then, potions class was frustrating, and he had to be sure to brew each potion to perfection in case Snape decided to inspect it with his harsh and hateful eyes. Harry was not sure why he hated him so much, he assumed it was for the same reason so many of the older Slytherins hated him, Voldemort.
Harry saw Stephanie in the halls and in the library often, and they were always cordial to one another, but ever since he had been sorted into Slytherin there had been some sort of divide. They were friendly but not close, and one day Stephanie stopped him to ask if he planned to go home for the winter holidays. Harry rather foolishly agreed to go home with her, as he needed to do so anyways to collect a number of his books that he had neglected to bring months earlier.
It was a few days later that Draco invited Harry to spend the winter holidays with his family. Which was of course, how he'd ended up flooing to the Malfoy residence with Stephanie and Draco on either side of him.
They sat at dinner that night with a rather awkward silence hanging in the air.
"So who exactly are your parents, Miss Jacobs?" Lucius Malfoy asked regally.
"My parents were descendents of the Longbottom and Nott family," Stephanie stuttered, seemingly afraid to make eye contact with the elder Malfoy. Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn't known that.
"Really? Whom?" Lucius asked in an intrigued tone. Stephanie seemed reluctant to answer and blushed.
"You probably would not know them sir, they were squibs," she responded, cheeks red as tomatoes.
"I see," Lucius murmured, while exchanging a glance with Narcissa, his beautiful blonde wife. Harry knew that while squibs were definitely looked down upon by purebloods, they were still an upgrade to muggles.
"And you and Mr. Potter grew up in the same orphanage?" Narcissa asked. Her voice was smooth as silk, and her eyes bright and attentive. Harry got the immediate feeling that she was much smarter and much more observant than her husband.
"Yes, we've been together for… what four years Harry?" Stephanie asked, turning to Harry.
"Just about," he replied, and Stephanie smiled.
Narcissa gave the two of them a calculating look before beginning to talk about Theodore Nott's newest stepfather, and hinting shrewdly that he may not being an entirely permanent installment in their family. Draco and Stephanie's eyes were somewhat glazed over as the adults spoke of politics and the most recent gossip, but Harry listened, and deliberated each piece of information he heard. He had come to the conclusion that power was power, but so was knowledge. Knowledge told you what to do with your power. He stored away each drop of a name and political reference in his mind, in case he ever needed any of it later.
The rest of the holidays were spent building snowforts, reading books far ahead of curriculum and ignoring the fact that Stephanie was completely uncomfortable in the Malfoy residence. It began on the second night, when Lucius had backhanded one of his house elves for dropping an expensive drink on an even more expensive rug. Stephanie had gasped and clearly wanted to defend the elf, but when she turned to Harry and Draco to gauge their reactions she was shocked to see them completely unaffected by the violence.
A few days after that, Harry had hinted rather heavily that he would like to visit the Malfoy library, and Draco had led them to the large room. The shelves were high and stacked with ancient books and tomes. Stephanie, being a Ravenclaw, had been rather excited and began to browse through various texts. She leaned over to see what Harry was reading and was bothered to see him reading a book titled, "The Light and Dark." Which was, of course, not the issue. The issue was that the next few books he had pulled down to read were all stacked neatly, and all seemed to be about various branches of dark magic. She chose not to dwell on it.
Harry was on his third book from the Malfoy library and found himself frown at one of the words. Parselmouth.
"Draco," Harry began, "What is a Parselmouth?"
"What?" he exclaimed and Harry frowned.
"What is it?" he asked and Draco's grey eyes stared at him in shock.
"Talking to snakes of course, it's Slytherin's talent, it's why the bloody signa of our house is a snake. Merlin, Harry, sometimes you ask me things…" Draco blurted out passionately.
"What do you mean its a talent, can't you do it?" Harry asked, looking completely bemused. Draco narrowed his eyes at him.
"Well, no, not everyone can speak parseltongue, only Salazar Slytherin himself could speak it, and his descendents of course…" Draco explained and Harry's eyes widened.
"It's not common?" he demanded and Stephanie looked at him out of the corner of her eye, anxious for some reason. There was a moment's silence while Harry weighed the benefits of telling the two of them that he was, impossibly, a parselmouth.
"I can speak it," Harry said bluntly. Draco and Stephanie's heads snapped up to look at him.
"What?" they both gasped, and looked awkwardly at each other.
"Yes," he confirmed quietly, staring off into space as if he was thinking very hard.
They all stared at each other for a few minutes before Draco launched himself in to a long rant of questions and rhetorical answers and angry bursts of "but the Potters aren't descendants of Slytherin!" Stephanie was simply quiet, staring at Harry, and feeling a horrible, sinking feeling in her stomach. She had a sudden flashback to the year before, at the orphanage, when they had a snake infestation problem. Four of the boys had been bitten by snakes during that time, and two of the four had died. At the time it all seemed like a strange and random sequence of events, but now…
She looked at Harry. His striking, messy black hair, electrical green eyes that seemed to look through her very soul, and his lanky build. He had not worn glasses for several years. She had returned from school and he had no longer been wearing them. He had fixed his sight with magic.
She thought of the look he sometimes got in his eyes. The look that made people around him shrink back in fear.
The school year ended pretty uneventfully, and on the ride back to King's Cross Station Harry found himself wondering if he ought to ak Draco to let him spend the summer with him next year. Harry and Stephanie said hello to the Malfoy family, Stephanie squirming under their harsh gazes, and hopped in a cab to the orphanage.
The summer was boring. The pair owned no books that they had not both read and Harry had to content himself with memorizing potions textbooks, the most difficult thing he could challenge himself with.
Stephanie had been acting strange. Harry knew she was wary of him because of his more Slytherin attributes, but he hadn't changed over the school year at all. Perhaps she had just never seen him clearly before?
Harry was perturbed by her behavior. She rarely slept, she barely ate, her eyes were dull and her hair was stringy and unkempt. She spent hours a day writing in a small, leather, black diary that he had never seen before, and he was desperate to know what she could possibly be writing in it. One day he snapped.
"What on earth are you writing all the bloody time?" he demanded, and without thinking he levitated the diary directly out of Stephanie's hands and into his own. She shrieked at him to give it back but he ignored her, opening the front cover. T. M. Riddle.
"This isn't even yours!" he spat out, and opened to the first page, finding it blank. "It's completely blank!" he exclaimed.
Stephanie was by this point in tears in front of him, crying, "Give it back!" She was absolutely distraught that he had taken the diary from her, but she also knew that fighting with him, touching him in any way, was out of the question, therefore she simply stood in front of him begging for the diary to be returned to her.
Harry placed his hand on the center of one of it's blank pages and closed his eyes, toning Stephanie's whining out. He concentrated on his palm, he concentrated on the magic within his hand and then pushed outward, feeling for any magic within the diary. The diary had a definite magical aura. Harry could sense a dark, addictive, and compelling presence within it.
"This holds dark magic," Harry gasped, looking up at Stephanie. She was still crying.
"Please just give it back!" she pleaded and Harry's eyes darkened.
"Where did you get this?" he demanded furiously, and Stephanie sobbed harder.
"Please, Tom will-"
"Who's Tom?" Harry asked.
Stephanie quieted, and sank down to the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees. Harry looked down at her with a look in his eyes that made Stephanie cringe: disgust and pity.
"I got the book from Draco's father on the way here. I thought it was blank and I was bored I figured I would write in it, but when I did someone wrote back. His name is Tom Riddle. He says he is a memory of someone who lived decades ago…" she mumbled in a broken voice. Harry looked down at the diary in his hands, that was some very complex magic.
"You are a fool," he announced, looking down at her coldly. Her jaw dropped in confusion.
"What?"
"You think that a Malfoy handed you, the child of squibs, a diary out of what, charity?" he asked, the end sneering sarcastically. Stephanie shuddered at the fire in his eyes, he was a child, a dangerous, spiteful child that could probably make her disappear without a moments hesitation. She shook her head at that thought. They were friends, Harry wouldn't hurt her.
"I-I," she sputtered.
"This has the strongest trace of dark magic I've ever encountered inside it," Harry explained, looking down at the diary.
"How can you-"
"Thats not the point, the point is that you should have told me the moment someone 'wrote back' to you in a diary that you received from someone, especially from Lucius Malfoy!" Harry exclaimed.
"Since when are you in charge of me?" Stephanie burst out, and there was a cold silence following. Stephanie flinched and looked down at the wooden floorboards.
"I apologize. I had forgotten who was the older one here," Harry said in a solemn voice, and Stephanie felt an eerie chill run down her spine. She stood and slowly left the room.
She closed the door behind her and noticed the children scurrying away as she left her and Harry's room. She couldn't help but feel as though Harry was moments away from slamming her into the wall. Stephanie shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. It was irrational to fear an eleven year old boy, it truly was. Especially since that eleven year old boy was her first true friend.
But still… Harry was no ordinary eleven year old boy. And he was a Slytherin.
Stephanie found herself standing at the end of the long hallway when she remembered the day she had walked in to find a crying Harry standing over a bloody orphan girl a year previous. She remembered hearing him say she had begun to puke up blood as he stood watching. She had believed him of course. But she had noticed the way the other children whispered. "Just like with Tony…" they all said, and at the time she hadn't been suspicious enough to wonder, but now she was.
Harry touched his quill to the page and began to write.
Hello, my name is Harry Potter.
A moment later someone responded.
Hello Harry Potter, my name is Tom Riddle.
Who are you exactly Tom?
What do you mean?
Why did you leave your memory in this diary?
It was a bit of an experiment really.
Did you attend Hogwarts?
Yes, did you?
Yes, I am entering my second year.
What house are you in?
Harry narrowed his eyes, he didn't like all the questions.
Slytherin.
Me as well.
How did you like it there.
I enjoyed it. And you?
Me as well.
AN- So Stephanie has started to question Harry, which will easily cause some problems... I'm sorry if I update a bit too slowly for you guys but I have exams coming up in school so I'm pretty busy lately. I was going to make this chapter a bit longer but that would have taken a few more days so I figured you guys would rather just get this now rather than later. A huge thank you to everyone who reviewed! Lots of you guys made some very good points and I loved reading what you all thought about the first chapter. They definitely motivated me to get this chapter done. Anyway follow and review and I will try to have the next chapter up by next week.