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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Two: Slytherin's Secrets	By : DictionaryWrites Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 1582 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and the characters therein belong to JK Rowling; I'm playing in the sandbox, as it were, whilst claiming no ownership and making no money.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
- 15
The morning after the Hogwarts Express returns, Harry wakes up to a quiet, unfamiliar noise and a warmth on his pillow: he opens his eyes, blearily, and finds his vision completely impeded by a wall of thick, black fluff. Shifting in bed, Harry leans up slightly, and he peers down at the kitten on his pillow, which is purring loudly.
"Draco?" Harry asks sleepily.
"Mmm?"
"Did you bring a kitten?"
"Shut up, Potter," Draco mumbles into his pillow, and he goes back to sleep. Harry gently touches the kitten's glossy, black fur, and its purring gets even louder - he didn't realize they could purr so loudly.
"Oh, there he is," Theodore says from the doorway, and he comes forwards, reaching over Harry and picking the kitten up. It doesn't seem to mind, and it presses its face up against Theodore's chin. "Sorry. Winston thinks everyone's bed is his bed."
"S'alright," Harry says, and he lies back down again. Theodore leaves the room, and Harry wonders for a second if he'd just dreamed that encounter, but no, there are cat hairs on his sheets, and a second impression in the pillow where the kitten had been lying. Winston. What sort of name is that for a cat? After a few minutes of unsuccessfully trying to get back to sleep, Harry pulls himself out of bed, getting dressed and unsucessfully trying to comb his hair down a bit.
Draco's quilt is on the floor, as the other boy had been tossing and turning last night, trying to get used to his Hogwarts mattress again: Harry picks the blanket up and throws it over the other boy's body, shaking his head. He rubs at his eyes as he goes out into the common room, and he sees Theodore settled in an armchair, absently levitating a feather back and forth for his new kitten to chase. It's a Saturday, and at only a little past seven o'clock, barely anyone is awake yet, so Harry makes his way out of the common room and towards the great hall for an early breakfast.
Dumbledore is talking animatedly to Charity Burbage at the staff table, but the only others up there are Sartorius and Hayworth, who are embroiled in conversation with one of the ghosts. Harry begins to make his way up to the staff table when Hayworth waves him forwards, and he realizes the ghost they're talking to is Professor Binns.
The only places Harry has ever seen Binns are his classroom, his office, and the six foot stretch of corridor between the two, so seeing him in the great hall for breakfast is a surprise: Binns, in his typical fashion, doesn't notice Harry's existence, let alone his presence. He and Sartorius are embroiled in a very serious looking conversation about some war or other, but Hayworth focues on Harry.
"Is it alright if we start today, Harry?" she asks, and Harry nods his head. He's had some time to get used to the idea, and giving up a few hours on a Saturday doesn't seem like all that terrible an idea, particularly given that the idea of finding more passes around Hogwarts is an interesting one. Hayworth reaches out, rubbing Sartorius' shoulder, making him glance at her, and then he nods his head. The silent interaction seems normal to them, and Harry glances between them for a second.
With that, he turns around, intent on getting something to eat for breakfast.
---
"Did you guys want to be historians as soon as you left Hogwarts?" Harry asks as he follows the two historians through the corridors towards the first place they want to try.
"No," Hayworth answers, glancing down at her notes and counting bricks as they walk forwards. "I was actually handpicked out of school by Gringotts, worked as a cursebreaker with them for about five years..." She trails off, frowning at her own handwriting, so Sartorius picks up for her.
"I served as a researcher for a while upon leaving Hogwarts, then published my first book and began approaching new historical sites and the like. When Celia and I met, she found herself quite interested in the book I was writing at the time, and she began to work on her own." Harry considers this for a few moments - he'd never really considered historians and curse breakers as having much crossover, but he guesses that was a stupid assumption to make. He's heard the fifth year Slytherins talk about what they're expecting to do upon leaving Hogwarts, though, and he doesn't think any of them had talked about going into any academic careers.
"Did you know you were gonna be a historian when you left Hogwarts?" he asks.
"I thought I'd be an Auror," Hayworth admits, finding the right brick, and Harry can see the snake motif carved into its surface: the stone is about five feet up the wall, and he reaches out to touch it, drawing his fingers over the snake's surface. "Though he knew he was going to be an academic."
"Of course," Sartorius agrees. "I've got such lovely hands - it would be a crime to ruin them with hard work." Harry rolls his eyes, focusing on the brick again.
"Open," he whispers. "Open up." He tries about a half dozen variations before Sartorius suggests he tap the snake with his wand as he talks, and this time when he says "Open." the entire brick slides into the wall, revealing a little space in the wall. Hayworth reaches in, and pulls out an empty vial and a few scraps of parchment that seem to be entirely blank. "Is that it?"
"That's it," Sartorius agrees, examining the pieces of parchment as Hayworth holds the vial up to the light. "The majority of the secreted areas are going to be like this, Potter. All of the riches and the treasures, all of the big things, will likely have been removed by Slytherin's heirs over the years: we'll have to work out what we can from what they left behind."
"No offence," Harry says, "But that sounds pretty depressing."
"Yeah," Hayworth agrees. "It often is."
---
That Monday, Harry's Defence Against The Dark Arts class is awkward, to say the least. Someone (Harry doesn't know for certain it was the Weasley twins) had left dozens of copies of the Boxing Day article around the room, one of which had replaced a portrait of Lockhart's: the article was blown up to three times its original size and framed in oak, but even though Lockhart spent half of the lesson trying to pull it down, he couldn't manage it.
"Oh, just read!" Lockhart snaps, sitting down at his desk and looking broodily into the middle distance. There's an awkward silence, and Harry hears Daphne murmur something to Pansy, but Gilderoy slams his hand hard down onto the desk and adds, "Silently!" Raising his eyebrows and sharing a look with Hermione, Harry begins to read from one of the books in his bag. At the end of the lesson, Lockhart stands, and his hot, furious gaze lands on Harry. "Stay and have a word, would you, Harry?" His usually charisma-laden voice is thick with anger, his tone stiff, and Harry wouldn't stay alone in a room with the man if it would save his life.
"Can't," Harry lies, and he hurries down the corridor to get to his next class.
---
The next few weeks involve Harry keeping as quiet as possible in Lockhart's classes - it's not actually all that hard, given that Lockhart effectively bans talking of any kind whilst class is in session. By the end of January, there are scorch marks all around the framed Prophet article on the wall, but Lockhart doesn't seem to have been able to get it down, and either the other teachers haven't wanted to or haven't been able to help him: Harry suspects it's the latter.
"Did you go to school with Lockhart?" This is the fourth Saturday he's spending traipsing around the castle with the two of them, and he feels a little more comfortable making idle conversation. They've found barely anything so far: Harry's managed to get six more little rooms and cubbyholes to open up, but all of them had been utterly empty, and he's beginning to wonder what the point of this endeavour is.
"No, I think we left the year before he came in," Hayworth says absently, leading Harry and Sartorius towards the bottom of the Astronomy Tower. "I've heard terrible stories about his mood the past few weeks though, let alone the letters in the paper..."
In the advent of Lockhart's disgrace, letters about the man had been flying thick and fast into the offices of the Daily Prophet, and every other day there was a new one published. Some were from parents of upset students, others from people who'd met Lockhart outside of Hogwarts - one anonymous letter even claimed to have been sent in by a professor at Hogwarts, and the Slytherins had put up a pool in the common room as to who had sent it.
"This one?" Harry asks, pointing to the snake on the wall, and Hayworth nods her head. He begins the process of hissing commands in Parseltongue, but this time "Open up." is sufficient, and the stone in front of him lightens to a deep brown as it morphs into a door. Harry can't help but be amazed at the transformation, and he puts his hand on the doorknob, pushing it open. Hayworth enters the little room first to check for traps or hostile spells, but she lets out a loud whoop of sound once she's in.
"Jackpot!" Sartorius grins at Harry, and the two of them follow Hayworth into the little room. It's about the size of the potions supply cupboard in the dungeons, with the same high ceilings and wooden shelves covering every wall, and one shelf is even stacked with jars and vials of different potions ingredients. This isn't the shelf the two historians are concentrating on, though: the other two shelves are half-full, stacked with different books and neatly rolled pieces of parchment. Sartorius grasps one of these and unfurls it, holding it so he can see it, and Harry peers at it in fascination.
It's a map of the staircases, but even as they look at the map the staircases move back and forth on the parchment, showing every level at once and yet somehow being completely comprehensible. "I thought you said we wouldn't be able to find anything of Slytherin's?"
"Oh, this won't be of Slytherin's," Sartorius says, holding the map out. "Look at the parchment, feel it. I'd say this is from the late seventeenth century, maybe the early eighteenth, and the books look a century or so younger, at least."
"You can tell that just by looking at them?" Sartorius gives a little nod of his head, murmuring something about bindings and paper stock, and Harry watches for a while as the two of them carefully comb through the cupboard's contents, cataloguing each book and piece of parchment, noting down the contents of the jars and the bottles.
"You ever wonder if there was something wrong with him?" Harry asks.
"With Slytherin?" Hayworth asks, and she gives a little laugh. "There's no wondering about that. Why do you ask?"
"It just seems a bit bonkers to hide a cupboard behind a Parseltongue seal, that's all." Sartorius frowns at him, seeming deeply offended on Slytherin's behalf, but Hayworth just shrugs.
"You have a point, kid. You have a point."
- 13
- 14
- 15
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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Two: Slytherin's Secrets