Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

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
- 3
- 4
- 5
While rescuing Harry from the Dursleys had been Fred and George's idea, by no means did it mean the two of them were going to sit about and entertain him all day. They welcomed Harry into their room and would explain concepts they were experimenting with if he asked about them, but getting one answer almost always meant he had three new questions to ask, and so Harry had gracefully ducked out of watching their experimentation.
Using everything from potions ingredients to hand-picked flowers to stray hair off the family cat, Fred and George seem intent on discovering everything they can over the summer, apparently for fun. It's the sort of complex work that Theodore Nott would enjoy, but it isn't Harry's thing at all, and the twins don't find his disinterest rude. Ginny spends all her time either locked in her room, away from Harry, or in the village, away from Harry; Ron staunchly ignores him if Harry looks at him, and Percy...
Well, Harry likes Percy, but Percy can be very, very dull. At the moment, he's working hard on A History of Magic essay, and he'll talk about his premise to anyone who gets too close.
So, for the time being, Harry helps Mrs Weasley downstairs. He runs errands for her, brings in the laundry, helps her do the dishes - as much as Mrs Weasley uses magic around the house, she always seems to have forty tasks to complete at one time. Harry is sat at the little table in the Burrow's kitchen, organizing Mrs Weasley's numerous recipe cards by main ingredient. Apparently, the last time she'd had a chance to perform this task had been 1981, and she'd added a lot of cards to it since.
"How did you start out sending letters, Harry?" She asks, and Harry glances up.
"I actually wrote you first," he says, stacking another card in the lamb pile. "But I'd read in my book, An Introduction To The Wizarding World, that writing letters was good, so I basically sent out several. People who'd gone to school with my parents, or people I'd seen in the paper. I didn't expect as many people to write me back as they did." Molly smiles down at him, looking fond as she folds up a pair of startlingly orange pyjamas emblazoned with the Chudley Cannons logo.
"Have you read your Prophet this morning, love?" Harry shakes his head, "Well, there's a letter to the editor about the youth of today you might like to have a look at." Mrs Weasley turns the radio up a bit, and Harry listens to Celestina Warbeck warble as he scans recipe cards and sets them aside in neat piles. She's alright, he thinks, but she's no Michael Jackson.
---
TO THE EDITOR,
Last week, one of the columns in this paper discussed the
tendency of our children in these times to purchase for
themselves cats and kneazles instead of owls, (as well as
mentioning the resurgence of the pet toad), and their
lacking attention in regard to the tradition of writing letters.
It has been my sad understanding in recent years that young
wizards, witches and like have drawn away from the art and
craftmanship of the letter. Oh, yes, they will send off their owl
order forms and the occasional note on a birthday, but it seems
they have abandoned letter-writing as common practice for
contacting friends and relatives, and most of all for forging new
contacts in the wizarding world. It was a fact I had - morosely -
taken fully into my head.
These days, with Floo Powder more readily available and
affordable than ever before now that the War is done with, I
falsely believed that I would never receive a letter from a
person below the age of 20 again.
In the past year, I have been proved quite wrong.
A young person in attendance at Hogwarts wrote me a letter
in September, asking a very simple question: had I known his
parents before the War?
Indeed, I had, as I had known many of the children we lost in
those dark times, even as those children became adults and
had families of their own. I felt the loss of those children as
keenly as I felt that of my own son and daughter-in-law, and
so I shared with this young man what I could - an anecdote,
a few photographs.
Little did I know that he would be so polite and focused on his
epistolary as to write me back, each week, with such a pleasant,
polite tone and such legible (if not pretty) handwriting. In
this man, I see the devotion, the focus, and the willingness
to hold up tradition I should hope to see in any new
generation.
I submit that the writing of letters has lost some of its old
splendour, but I disagree with the idea that epistolary is a
dead art: one young man renewed my hope in this regard, and
for that I am most grateful.
Yours,
Augusta Longbottom
Harry stares down at the page. Usually, he throws away his copy of the Prophet upon reading it, but he sits for a long time on top of his bed in Fred and George's bedroom, reading through the printed lines again and again. When Mrs Longbottom writes to him, she usually comes across as stern, normally ordering Harry to read this book or attempt this technique, but he's read a letter where she writes like this. The letter to the editor fills him with a warmth that settles in his chest, and he only feels more of a loss for the letters Dobby is keeping back from him.
"Hey, George," Harry asks quietly, "Have you guys got some something to cut this out?" George hands Harry a set of Muggle scissors with WOOLWORTHS emblazoned on them, and Harry meticulously cuts the letter out, reaching for the small, brown box in which he keeps all of the photos different people had sent him of his family to place it inside.
It's not a precious photo, but it's a precious something, and Harry wants to keep it forever.
---
"I'm just going into the village to call Hermione, Mrs Weasley," Harry says, pulling his Weasley jumper over his head. It's the second time he'll be going down into the village, this time on his own, but walking through Ottery St Catchpole is nothing like it is in Little Whinging. People even smile at him as he walks past. "Do you need me to get you anything?"
"You don't need Muggle money for the telephone?" she prompts, frowning at him.
"I've got some, it's alright," Harry assures her. He'd sent a letter to Hermione already, telling her he hadn't received any post yet, but also about his relocation to the Weasleys'.
"If you could just take that basket up to Percy before you go?" Harry glances to the left, and then he grasps at the sides of the wicker washing basket, carrying it quickly up the stairs to Percy's bedroom, and he knocks on the door, balancing the basket on his hip.
"Come in," Percy calls through the door, and Harry pushes the door open, holding up the basket for the older boy to take, but then he stops short in the doorway. Half of Percy's face is covered with a light layer of thick, white shaving cream, and he's using a razor to shave the little bits of ginger stubble growing in on his cheeks and his chin - a Muggle plastic razor, Harry notices, not like Mr Weasley's old-fashioned folding blade. Percy shaves himself in the mirror above the basin in his bedroom, but it's not the shaving that makes Harry stop breathing.
Percy isn't wearing a shirt. Percy Weasley isn't lightly tanned or lightly toned, like the male models Harry'd seen on the covers of Muggle magazines Aunt Petunia always tutted at in Tesco, and nor is his skin clear. Freckles heavily dapple the skin on his arms and his shoulders, and a few of them are visible where his pyjama bottoms hang around his waist, just under his hips. Harry feels a funny twist in his belly, and he feels himself turning red as he drops Percy's basket on the floor. "Going into the village," Harry says awkwardly. "See you later."
He slams the door shut behind him, leaving Percy staring with puzzlement at the door, and he runs down the stairs.
---
"So, yeah, if you just ask Mrs Weasley about using her fireplace to come in the morning... I mean, unless you'd rather go with the Weasleys?"
"Nah," Harry says, shaking his head and dropping another 10p piece into the coin slot of the telephone. "Mr and Mrs Weasley said I was welcome to come, but I feel like they're really stressed out about going out with Fred, George, Ginny and Ron in tow, let alone adding me to the group as well, so I figure I'll just stay here and get some reading done. I think Mrs Weasley trusts Percy not to burn the house down with me in it." He hears Hermione laugh, and he leans against the wall of the telephone box, staring up at its plastic ceiling. "Hermione," he says quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think that Percy's- you know. Attractive?" There's a long pause as Hermione takes in the question and digests it. Harry drums his fingers on the side of his leg.
"Not really," Hermione answers, sounding a bit puzzled. "The twins are much better looking, especially George."
"Especially George, eh?" Harry repeats, "I'll tell him that."
"Oh, shut up," Hermione says, "But Percy's not bad-looking." She seems quick to assure him of that, and Harry smiles a little at how earnest she is - she just wants him to feel normal about it, and it's nice. Hermione's a good friend.
"No," Harry agrees, "He's not."
---
Harry frowns to himself as he makes his way up towards the Burrow again, thinking to himself. In his hand, he holds a paper bag of sweet letters, and his gaze is concentrated on the ground as he tries to think of what he needs from Diagon Alley and Muggle London tomorrow. He'll have to write down a proper list once he's inside - he'll only end up forgetting half of it, otherwise.
"Harry Potter, sir," says a squeaky voice as he enters the Weasleys' garden, and Harry whips around, staring with wide eyes at the house elf stood on Mrs Weasley's well-trodden garden path.
"Dobby!" he hisses.
"Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts this year," Dobby says plaintively, stamping one of his little feet onto the ground. Harry's gaze flickers towards the door to the Burrow, which is barely seven feet away, and Harry wonders how fast he could run that distance.
Harry sighs, running his hand through his hair, and then says, "Fine." Dobby's ears perk up.
"Yes?" he says, tennis ball eyes shining with hope and relief.
"If you give me all my letters, right now, I won't go back to Hogwarts," Harry says gravely. "I'll write a letter to Beauxbatons right now, and ask to go there." Dobby beams at him, looking as if Christmas has come early. That is- well. House elves probably don't get to celebrate Christmas, but still. Dobby conjures a wooden box which is open on top, and Harry stares at the letters inside, nestled with a few parcels, each tied neatly with twine. Dobby stole them, but he treated them very carefully.
"Harry Potter promises he won't go back to Hogwarts?"
"Harry Potter promises no such thing," Harry replies, and he sprints as fast as he can into the Burrow, yelling to Mrs Weasley about the house elf in the garden as if it's the worst thing imaginable.
And given how Dobby's been withholding post with even more focus and strategy than Uncle Vernon over Harry's Hogwarts letter, it sort of is.
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Serpent's Gaze, Book Two: Slytherin's Secrets