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Chapter Text

When Voldemort had finished examining his freshly-robed new body, he stepped out of the cauldron that had facilitated his resurrection, and his attention turned to the boy who had caused him to wander as a wraith for thirteen years in the first place-- and almost immediately his eyes narrowed.

For a moment, the boy looked rightly terrified-- and then suddenly, his body sagged and his head dropped to his chest like a marionette with its strings cut.

A moment later, and the boy raised his head again, but the boy wasn't showing fear, as he had been, and as was expected-- as was only reasonable .

No, instead the teenager, despite being roughed up from the maze, and then captured, used against his will in a ritual, and held against a tombstone, was staring at him, head tilted slightly, and his expression only held detached curiosity.

Voldemort looked the boy over, but other than his change in expression and more confident posture, nothing had changed.  He was still bound, still wandless .

And the boy even had the audacity to study Voldemort in return, blatantly tilting his head as his eyes raked over Voldemort in return, looking merely relaxed and slightly curious.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort began, and then was surprised yet again when the boy had the audacity to interrupt the dark lord.

"Sorry to disappoint, but Harry's not here right now," Potter said, smirking slightly.

Voldemort’s eyes narrowed in anger as he strode past the whimpering mass of wizard that was Wormtail, still crying over the stump of his arm, to approach the boy.

“You are Harry Potter,” Voldemort hissed.  “Do not think to try and deceive me, Potter.  My spy has been at Hogwarts all year, reporting your actions back to me and that of your precious headmaster.”

And yet, his only reaction was Potter shrugging as best he could while still tied to a gravestone.

“Well, if your spy was any good at his job, he should have noticed at least something about me,” the infuriating boy replied dryly.  “And the headmaster isn’t my precious anything. ”

Potter met the dark lord’s gaze steadily, and Voldemort’s nose flared again slightly as he stepped even closer, and then he reached out and grabbed the boy’s face.

Instead of the burning sensation which he’d felt through Quirrell, Voldemort felt nothing except satisfaction as the boy’s face screwed up in pain instead-- although he did not scream like he had the first time.

That would change, Voldemort thought, as he tilted the boy’s head to force Potter to meet his eyes, jade green staring into scarlet red, and Voldemort used Legilimency to force his way into the boy’s mind.

However, the boy’s mind, while as disorganized as Voldemort had expected, felt wrong somehow.

Even as the dark lord flickered harshly through his memories-- seeing flashes of what appeared to be uninteresting muggles, Hogwarts classes, and other trivial memories of an average young wizard-- something changed.

Voldemort could tell something changed inside Potter’s mind, and he realized both that there were more memories hidden behind some sort of mental shield or barrier, different from any he’d encountered before, and beyond it, something darker .

Not dark like typical-- or even rare-- dark magic; Voldemort had seen plenty of that, and feared none of it.

No, this darkness was a void .

Voldemort’s magic itself seemed to scream out that this void was wrong; unnatural .

It was terrifying, to his shock, and he instinctively withdrew from the boy’s mind, although he refused to take even a single step away from the child.

It only took a moment for the dark lord to recover, and then his eyes swept over Potter again.

“ What was that? ”  Voldemort hissed, nearly slipping into Parseltongue, his hand tightening where he still gripped the boy’s face.

Potter had the audacity to smirk slightly, again.

When the boy didn’t respond otherwise, Voldemort found himself distracted by the increased wailing of Wormtail, who had crawled his way over, begging and cradling his bleeding arm.

Pathetic, Voldemort thought.  The miserable wizard hadn’t even attempted to heal the wound himself.

“Wormtail, your arm,” he commanded.

“Oh Master... thank you, Master...” The rat replied, extending his bleeding stump, and Voldemort absently waved his wand, and a silver hand formed over the stump.  Wormtail gazed at it in awe, flexing the fingers, before throwing himself at the hem of his robes again, sniveling in gratitude this time.

Unlike the groveling of most of his Death Eaters, Voldemort only felt irritation with the pathetic gratitudes spilling from the wizard, and quickly stunned the wizard to silence him, before returning his full attention to the far more interesting-- and aggravating-- boy.

Voldemort’s nostrils flared slightly and his tongue flicked ever so slightly as he scented the air, trying to sense if the boy was simply faking his cockiness.

To his surprise, there were no signs of fear from the boy anymore, in his scent or otherwise.

“You aren’t afraid of me anymore,” Voldemort finally concluded out loud, looking over Potter again.

One corner of the boy’s mouth twitched upwards.

“No, I’m not afraid.  Wary, sure, I’m unarmed and you’ve tried to kill me at least four times before.  But no, I’m not afraid of you.”  He replied.

Voldemort’s eyes narrowed.

“You were afraid, when you first arrived.  What has changed since then, Potter?”

The boy only shrugged as best he could.

“I probably would be afraid, but I have... an ace or two up my sleeve.  If I survive tonight and we meet again, then I’d be more likely to be afraid.”

“And what would stop me from simply killing you right now?  Can this... secret of yours prevent your death now?”

Voldemort pointed his wand at the boy, directly between his eyes, and yet the boy merely shrugged again.

“No.  But I’ve heard you were one of the brightest wizards of our time, and I figure that means you’re curious about things you don’t fully understand.  Like me .  Besides, I’m fourteen .  Really, what threat do I pose to you?  I don’t even know why you wanted to kill me when I was a baby, but I’ve never done anything to you personally other than defend myself.”

Voldemort tilted his head as he stared back into Potter’s steady gaze, feeling a flash of bitter amusement.

“You don’t know?  The headmaster really hasn’t told you?  How predictable of him, to send his champion in without even the slightest preparation.  And in fact, Mr Potter, you were the one to retrieve the stone from the mirror and kill Quirrell, three years ago.”

Potter rolled his eyes.

“Of course Dumbledore doesn’t tell me anything.  That would be too easy .  Not that I’m his anything , I told you already.  I suppose you also believe he’s been training me to be his little soldier, and I’m as pampered as Draco Malfoy, like the Slytherins all seemed to believe?”  The boy snorted.  “None of that is true, and I can prove it.  As for Quirrell, well... that was partly due to peer pressure, but also... wasn’t exactly me.”

Voldemort reached out to grip the boy’s jaw again.

Potter’s response surprised him, and frustratingly dangled hints of knowledge in front of him, and Voldemort knew that the boy was doing it on purpose.  However, there was one detail he wanted to know before any others--

“That is not the first time you’ve claimed to be someone other than Harry Potter,” he hissed.  “And yet you are Harry Potter.”

Harry Potter just smiled.

“Tell me when you figure it out, would you?”

Voldemort’s fury flared, patience gone, and he coldly intoned, “ Crucio! ”

Watching the boy writhe against the headstone was satisfying after his glib remarks and lack of fear.  Although he still didn’t scream , to Voldemort’s faint surprise.  Even as his body twisted violently against his bindings and his flailing hands clenched into fists, no noise passed his lips.

When the dark lord finally released the spell, and the boy met his eyes again with grim defiance, Voldemort felt a flare of irritation before he spun around and gripped the unconscious Wormtail’s arm-- his still-intact one-- and forced back Wormtail’s sleeve, revealing the Dark Mark on his skin, like a slightly-faded tattoo.

When Voldemort reached out and touched the mark with his finger, it seared jet black, and if the marked wizard had been awake, he would likely have screamed.

The dark lord paced back over to his captive when the call was complete.

“We shall see if your foolish overconfidence remains in the face of my Death Eaters, Harry Potter... And we shall see which among them is brave enough to return, and who will be foolish enough to stay away...”

They didn’t have to wait long, in silence, before the first Death Eaters appeared, cloaked and masked, Apparating among the graves.

Each one in turn stiffened slightly as they spotted the pale figure of their lord, before they slowly began to approach, forming a wide circle around himself, Wormtail, and the boy.

Voldemort greeted his followers-- those brave enough to return after having renounced their lord-- and afterwards, turned back to the boy, only to note that his attention seemed to have wandered.

Another Crucio fixed the inattention.

The boy still did not scream, however, and both the dark lord and the watching Death Eaters were confused by his high pain tolerance.  Most of the Death Eaters present couldn’t withstand so long under Voldemort’s wand without a sound.

It made no sense that a child would be able to do so.

When Voldemort ended the curse, he also vanished the ropes binding the boy, who immediately slumped against the ground.

The boy gathered himself and glazed upwards at Voldemort, who was still silently studying him, before glancing rapidly at the Death Eaters surrounding them in a circle, before returning his fearless gaze to Voldemort.

“ You are still not afraid, ” Voldemort hissed at him, thinking out loud in Parseltongue.

He used Parseltongue partly to enjoy the flashes of fear he sensed from his followers, and yet the boy still did not twitch away in fear like most of wizarding Britain.

Instead, the boy continued to stare blankly at the dark lord.

“You are not what I expected, Harry Potter,” Voldemort finally said in English, breaking the silence.

The boy only smirked again.

“I told you before, Harry’s not here right now.”

This time, Voldemort noticed the careful emphasis, and fixated on it.

“Explain,” he demanded, glaring at the boy while idly smoothing his free hand over his wand, clearly willing to use it if Potter wasn’t forthcoming.  “You are different than you were three years ago.”

“Of course I am,” Potter replied.  “ That was Harry, who fought you three years ago.”

“But you are not him, or so you claim.”  Voldemort stated.

“No, I’m not.”

After a moment of silence, the boy continued to meet Voldemort’s gaze despite the repeated legilimency probe, only for the dark lord to once again sense that unnatural void on the edges of his mind.

Having again failed to discover any of the boy’s secrets, Voldemort tossed Potter’s wand at him, and watched the boy catch it just before it could hit his eye.

The boy eyed it, before slowly pushing himself to his feet.

“Not that I’m not grateful to have it back,” he said, “but why do I have my wand back?”

Voldemort stepped back a few paces, and the Death Eaters understood his unspoken command as they widened their circle, leaving plenty of room for Voldemort and Potter in the gaps between the gravestones.

“We shall duel, Potter; Dumbledore’s Golden Boy against the Dark Lord Voldemort, and see if you can survive again, as Harry Potter did three years ago,” Voldemort stated.

Yet again, the boy only smirked.

“Oh, this will be much easier than back then,” the boy replied.

Voldemort’s anger flared.

“So brave , so overconfident ,” he hissed.  “Your mother’s protection saved you last time, but now I can touch you.  So what is this ‘ace’ that will save you this time, Potter?”

The boy’s smirk grew teeth.

“Several things could, but at least this time I only need one,” he taunted the dark lord.  “Remember how I said I could prove I’m not Dumbledore’s pampered little hero?”

Before Voldemort could curse him for it, or even respond, the boy doubled over, grimacing in apparent pain as he slumped back to his knees.

The boy’s sudden collapse shocked Voldemort, and he had not gathered himself before the boy exploded into a large mass of writhing black smoke.

Shouts rang out from the Death Eaters as they backed away, wands raised, but Voldemort didn’t move, although his wand remained raised and pointed in the direction of the smoke.

Harry Potter was an Obscurial?

None of Crouch’s reports had even hinted at such a thing.  To most adult wizards even in the years before Voldemort’s temporary disembodiment, Obscurials were nothing more than a dark blight on wizarding history, unheard of in recent years in Britain.

And yet in front of them, Potter’s Obscurial form writhed around the circle of Death Eaters, floating a little in the dark lord’s direction, though not close enough to be considered an attack.  A distorted scream echoed from the smoke for a moment, before the smoke swirled and compacted closer together and then burst upwards, over and out of the Death Eaters’ now-scattered circle.

For a moment, Voldemort thought the boy was mindlessly fleeing, until he saw Potter re-form next to the dead boy, near the--

Near the portkey, Voldemort realized.

The boy smirked in the direction of the dark lord and his followers.

“See you next time,” he called back, before quickly summoning the cup lying a short distance away.

The last thing Voldemort saw of him was a sudden expression of fear sliding over the boy’s face, as he, the dead boy, and the cup vanished back to Hogwarts.

Chapter Text

Number four, Privet Drive, was home to three people who liked to consider themselves the epitome of ‘normal.’

And, of course, Freak .

Long before Freak ever learned the terms “magic” or “Obscurial,” he knew he was abnormal .

After all, his aunt and uncle told him so, several times a day, in considerably stronger language.

If asked when he first knew it was true, however, Freak would not be able to give an answer.  As far back as he could remember, there had been a darkness inside of him, which only seemed to grow the more he tried to be “normal.”

(Years and years later, he would learn this darkness was the Obscurus inside him.)

At the earliest, Freak would be able to say that he’d known the darkness was there before he’d first been allowed to go to school with his cousin Dudley.  In fact, it had begun growing within months of the newly-orphaned boy being dropped off at his muggle relatives’.  For an Obscurus to develop so early should have been a guaranteed death sentence-- and would have been, if not for one key burst of accidental magic.

One abnormally strong burst of accidental mind magic, after the boy who knew himself only as Freak had made the connection that the dark thing inside him made it hurt when he tried to be normal, but not being normal made his aunt and uncle hurt him , and there were two boys instead of Freak’s head.

Freak, the original, with a darkness inside him.

And someone else, still not quite normal like Freak had hoped, but less strange, and without the festering darkness inside him.

At first, Freak called the new boy ‘Boy,’ as Uncle Vernon did when Freak had been slightly less freakish than usual.

But after an embarrassing first day of school when Boy had not responded during roll call, and after being laughed at by the other students and scowled at by his teacher-- a stuffy old lady who said he was disrupting the class and she would not have it! -- Freak realized his name was Harry Potter.

However, by this point, Boy was usually the one in control, so Freak decided that he would keep being Freak, and Boy would be Harry Potter.

Boy-- now Harry -- didn’t know any of this, of course.

Harry was entirely unaware that there was someone else in his head, someone who had been there first, or about the darkness.  The first few times Freak had taken control again and then returned it to Harry, Harry had been scared, not remembering how he’d ended up in a new place, but Freak quickly learned how to share memories with Harry.

Eventually, Freak learned how to fake memories for Harry too.

This came in particularly useful one day, when Harry had managed to escape Dudley and his gang during a game of Harry Hunting, by slipping into the small neighborhood library.

Harry walked around the shelves with no goal other than to avoid attention so as to not be kicked out, but after one of the adults began to eye his loitering a little too closely, Freak took over and found a book from the kids’ section to read quietly in a corner.

The book wasn’t very interesting, filled more with pictures than words, but when Freak was done with the book, he put it back, and seeing that the librarian wasn’t eyeing him anymore, Freak took more care selecting another book.

This time, the book had bigger words he hadn’t seen before, and Freak eventually had to find a dictionary and lug the heavy book into the corner so he could look up all the words he didn’t know.  It took a long time, but Freak enjoyed it, for once.

He’d already learned that his aunt and uncle didn’t like it when the teachers at school said he was doing better than Dudley at anything , though, so Freak gave Harry a memory of slipping back out of the library and hiding alone in a park instead of reading.  When the fake memory was enough to keep Harry from realizing where he’d really spent the day, Freak decided to do it again.

Freak still had to be careful-- he had chores to do for his aunt and uncle, and he couldn’t always get away from the house or from Dudley and his gang to slip away to the library unnoticed, but whenever he could, he would, and within a few years, while most of his yearmates were beginning to learn basic maths or times tables and starting to write book reports, Freak was reading anything he could get his hands on in the library.

One of the librarians liked to call him a voracious reader , and after he’d looked up the word, Freak liked it.  He did his homework in the library too, checking it over and over until he was sure it was right, and then throwing it out so Harry could do it again later to actually turn in something that wouldn’t get them in trouble for being smarter than Dudley.

Once Freak realized that someone had donated old copies of school books to the small library, too, he read those too.  Doing so made school even more boring, since Freak knew most of the material, but at school Harry was always the one in charge, and Freak was essentially almost asleep in the back of their head, so at least he could ignore it, mostly.

Even then, sometimes weird things still happened around them, like when the mean teacher’s hair turned blue, or they found themselves on the roof of the school when they’d been trying to escape Dudley and his gang during recess-- although Freak was pretty sure that one was his fault.  Harry wasn’t managing to get away, and the bruises they’d received from yesterday’s game of Harry Hunting still hurt, and he just didn’t want to be hurting all the time -- and then, suddenly, there was a loud noise, and they were on the roof.  They’d gotten in trouble for it, of course, even more than usual since Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were called and he’d gotten suspended at school and beaten and locked in his cupboard with no meals until the weekend, but that wasn’t what worried Freak.

What worried him was the blood he’d coughed up that evening, after spending the rest of the day having to push down the darkness harder than usual, since it was straining to burst out of him.  Lying in the cupboard that night, Harry already asleep inside his head, Freak had a restless night trying to stop the darkness from doing... whatever it was trying to do.

Freak didn’t know exactly what that was, but he knew the darkness always felt stronger when he was hurt or angry, and he guessed it would probably try and hurt the Dursleys.  He wouldn’t mind that so much if he didn’t know he would probably just get in more trouble afterwards-- Dudley’s gang always hurt Harry more whenever he actually tried to fight back, after all-- and besides, the darkness hurt Freak, too.  For most of that night, Freak was having such a hard time not letting the darkness go, that the tips of his fingers had even started dissolving into tiny wisps of what looked like black smoke, although more solid and defined than normal smoke, and his hands shook with the effort.

And the whole time, it hurt .

When morning finally came, and Harry woke up so Freak could give him control again, Freak didn’t come out for more than two weeks, retreating back into their mind like an animal into its den.

Even though those weeks drove Freak crazy as he watched Harry struggle in school, covering subjects Freak had already long since covered on his own, and never once going to the library or picking up a book other than for school.

Freak knew it was at least partly his fault that Harry wasn’t interested in reading, although mostly it was the Dursleys’, since they were the ones conditioning Harry (he’d read that word in a book on basic psychology at the library, looking up the meaning under the vaguely concerned eye of the librarian, who luckily didn’t actually stop him from reading it, already used to his varied and unusual interest in subjects) to do poorly in school, just like their son.

Knowing that didn’t make watching Harry struggle to do basic times tables any less boring, though.

---

Eventually, because he’s not stupid, Freak guessed that the weird things that happened around both he and Harry were likely magic .

It seemed fantastical, and unreal, and Freak might not have believed it if it weren’t for his aunt and uncle’s absolute hatred of any sort of book, tv show, or movie even mentioning the subject.

Even when Dudley threw a massive tantrum at an amusement park-- which Freak and Harry only heard about afterwards, of course, left behind with the weird old cat lady Mrs Figg, who both Freak and Harry thought had a few screws loose and at one point, she’d even almost mixed up one of her cat’s food bowls and his cup of tea and nearly passed him the former-- when he hadn’t been allowed to go get his fortune told by an old lady with a crystal ball and too many shawls, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Dursley hadn’t relented.

That was probably the closest Freak or Harry had ever seen his aunt and uncle come to grounding his cousin, actually.

And, to Freak at least, it was totally a giveaway, considering how usually Dudley was given anything and everything he wanted.

Knowing that he was magic didn’t change anything for Freak, however.

Putting a name to the freakishness made him consider that he might not be the only magical person in the world, of course, and given Aunt Petunia’s hatred for Freak’s parents matched her hatred for magic, he guessed that they were likely magical too, but that didn’t change the fact that he still couldn’t use it without being punished.  (It did, however, also make him realize that the stories of his parents being useless layabouts and dying in a car crash were likely lies.  But again, that didn’t change anything in his daily life.)

It did, however, mean that Freak spent several weeks of his sneaked library time reading any and every book mentioning magic that he could find.

(It didn’t escape his notice, either, that the librarians seemed much more comfortable with his latest reading choices than some of his previous ones.)

Most of the books disagreed on the specifics of magic and how it worked, and there were plenty of contradictions and aspects that were both wonderful and terrible about magic, but Freak was still fascinated.

Unfortunately, not a single book mentioned anything which could explain what exactly the darkness inside him was.

Despite his new realizations, life didn’t change much for either Freak or Harry, although during some of the Dursley’s worst punishments, Freak learned how to magic the lock on his cupboard into opening at night, so he could sneak food from the fridge.

He could only take small amounts without it being noticed, but when he was always found in the morning, still in his cupboard with the door once again locked, the Dursleys could never prove it was him.

Aunt Petunia had thrown suspicious glances at Harry once or twice the next morning after one of his food heists, but for once their luck actually seemed to hold out, and his aunt seemingly chalked up any suspicions of missing food to his cousin or uncle sneaking a midnight snack (or an entire meal, by Harry and Freak’s standards).

Otherwise, life was much the same, although Freak once again got confirmation there had to be other magical people out there (or something odd, at least) when, a couple times while Harry was being forced to push the grocery cart around for Aunt Petunia while on their infrequent larger shopping trips into London itself, for some ingredient or other than their local grocers didn’t carry, a complete stranger would seem to recognize Harry-- how?!? -- and nodded or once even bowed in his direction.

Harry never seemed to notice, but Freak was paying closer attention to these strangers, and they were usually slightly oddly dressed, and sometimes even seemed to vanish into thin air when no one else was paying attention.

If Aunt Petunia noticed the strangers at all, she immediately got a pinched look on her face and rushed them away, but never said a word as to why.

Being recognized , however, suggested that either other magical people could tell who was magical on sight, which seemed unlikely since Freak certainly couldn’t tell, other than the fact that several of the nodding-people seemed to wear outdated or just weird clothing, or that Freak in particular was somehow noticeable.

It was worrying, and Freak stewed on the thought often, but again had no way to confirm or deny anything.  He’d never managed to actually speak to any of the people who recognized him, after all.

In short, Harry continued on, unaware of Freak’s bouts of control over their body or his growing suspicions about the existence of a magical world hidden around them.

Until the week before their eleventh birthday, when the first letter came, and everything changed.

Chapter Text

Freak was not impressed with the half-giant Hagrid.

Yes, Harry had been pleasantly surprised and happy when the man-- the wizard -- had given Dudley a pig’s tail, and it was amusing... If one didn’t consider that the Dursleys were going to be furious later, and it was clear the half-giant wasn’t going to stick around forever to stop their aunt and uncle from retaliating.

Besides, if Freak hadn’t already been aware of magic, this would have been quite a poor first impression.  Hagrid hadn’t actually told him much of substance, anyway, other than revealing to Harry that magic was real, their parents had also been a witch and a wizard, and-- most importantly to Freak-- that both Hagrid and a man named Dumbledore, the same man mentioned on his Hogwarts letter as the headmaster of the school, along with several other important-sounding titles (and now Freak had a list of magical terms to look up at first chance), had been there when he was left on his aunt and uncle’s doorstep with only a letter.

Harry hadn’t paid much attention to that bit of information, but Freak was angry .

And also more than a little confused, because who on earth let a groundskeeper and a headmaster of a school determine where a newly-orphaned boy was placed?  Surely there would be some sort of due process to re-home him... a reading of wills, or a magical relation to leave him with, or even simply some sort of a delay between when his parents were, apparently, murdered and when he was left with guardians who didn’t want him, without even alerting them in person of the situation-- and that, more than anything, made Freak suspect that this Dumbledore, at least, knew the Dursleys were not going to want custody of their nephew-- and then never checked on again.

Something fishy was going on, and it stank something fierce.

Those suspicions also made Freak immediately wary of any other news imparted by the half-giant.  While he seemed friendly enough, it was clear both by his mentioned involvement with leaving a baby on a doorstep on Dumbledore’s orders at the start of November and now once again being sent by the same man, whose praises he couldn’t stop shouting, that this man was supposed to endear Harry Potter to Dumbledore.  The same Dumbledore who had told Hagrid that there might be some trouble fetching Harry Potter from the Dursleys-- which meant he had to at least suspect that something wasn’t quite, well, normal about Harry Potter’s life with the Dursleys.

And yet on Harry, the manipulations were working.  Freak, on the other hand...

And that wasn’t even mentioning the bits of information about “Harry Potter” being famous in the wizarding world, everyone knowing his story and his name-- and apparently, his face as well, which struck him as extremely creepy given that no magical person had ever contacted him since he was left at the Dursleys, and yet he was recognized by grown strangers in shops, who he now knew for certain were definitely wizards and witches.  How exactly did they know what he looked like, beyond his general hair and eye color from when he was an infant?

He was the Boy Who Lived, famous for killing (or at least defeating, since Hagrid even admitted that he didn’t believe the man was dead, and such an idea surely came from Dumbledore) the dark wizard Voldemort, or You-Know-Who, or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (the wizards sure seemed to love their hyphens, Freak noted), despite no one witnessing the event or knowing what exactly happened.

Yes, Freak was not impressed at all.

He did, despite all that, manage to enjoy the experience of walking through Diagon Alley, despite the crowds, due to the amazing (and often ridiculous) sights of magic being openly used around him.

The first stop was Gringotts, the wizarding bank, and Freak had to clench his fists to hide the wisps of smoke his fingers were turning into when he learned his parents had left him money and some of their belongings, and this Dumbledore, and now Hagrid, had his key (well, no longer; Freak was not going to let anyone have his key again) and no one had ever told him about any of this.  He had gotten a strong glance from the goblin teller while doing so, and Freak wondered if he could somehow tell there was something wrong with him.  However, the goblin said nothing, and Freak wasn’t about to ask.

Instead, after the goblin Griphook opened his vault, and Hagrid explained what the Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts were, and helped him pile some into a bag, Freak quickly took over and scooped more of the coins, and all of the small amount of muggle money he saw off to the side, into a second bag he carefully shoved into his pockets.

Sure, Hagrid had said what he’d filled the first pouch with should last a couple terms, but Freak wasn’t sure he trusted that since he still didn’t know what Galleons or the rest were worth in muggle money, and he didn’t have anything at the Dursleys’.  And they certainly weren’t going to help him return to Gringotts to get more if he ran out; if they had any idea his parents had left him money he had access to, he doubted their hatred of all things magical would extend to his money, and it would all be gone immediately anyway.

Now he just needed to figure out a better way of hiding it from the Dursleys when he returned.  He refused to leave the Alley until he found something .

Freak didn’t particularly care about the second vault they went to, other than wondering why anyone would have sent Hagrid on an important job, particularly while showing a student around the magical world for the first time.

Freak had no desire to get involved, despite Harry’s curiosity, but he reluctantly decided to pickpocket the man if given a chance, just long enough to figure out what the item probably was.  After all, he was probably supposed to be interested, if he was a typical young boy.  Clearly, Dumbledore thought he was an idiot.

---

Clearly, Hagrid was also an idiot, Freak reflected, as Hagrid split off to have a pint (or several) at the Leaky Cauldron, leaving an eleven-year-old alone to buy his robes.

“Hogwarts, dear?”  A smiling witch, Madam Malkin, judging by the name badge pinned to the front of her mauve robes, asked when he entered.  “Got the lot here-- another young man being fitted up just now, in fact.”

There was, indeed, a pale boy with blonde hair in the back of the shop, standing on a stool while another witch pinned robes around him.  Madam Malkin stood Harry on the stool next to the boy, slipped a robe over his head, and began pinning it as well.

“Hello,” said the boy, “Hogwarts too?”

Freak paid only a cursory amount of attention to the conversation, uninterested, although he, unlike Harry, agreed with the boy’s suggestion that Hagrid was a bit savage-- he was friendly, for sure, but not exactly smart, from what he’d seen, and had already done magic in front of a child after admitting he wasn’t allowed to use it.

Freak tuned out until Harry was asking Hagrid questions about what the boy had been saying, and he had to fight not to narrow his eyes when the subject of muggles came up again--

“--and he said people from muggle families shouldn’t even be allowed in--”

“Yer not from a muggle family.  If he’d known who yeh were-- he’s grown up knowin’ yer name if his parents are wizardin’ folk.  You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh.  Anyway, what does he know about it, some o’ the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in ‘em in a long line o’ muggles-- look at yer mum!  Look what she had fer a sister!”

Harry had let the subject change immediately to Quidditch, but Freak noted that for all Hagrid was saying, he still was looking down on the muggles themselves, backed up further by how he’d been acting on the train ride to London earlier-- gawking around at even basic muggle inventions, not even trying to understand how their “money worked”... Freak was willing to bet these were common opinions.  Even the ones claiming they didn’t mind if you came from magic or not probably actually did , on some level.

And then, of course, Freak listened to Hagrid claiming an entire house of students at Hogwarts were evil.

Seriously?  Conditioning.   And it was working...on Harry.

Freak really needed to see if there were any books that would be less biased than the half-giant.

Luckily, Hagrid mostly left him alone to wander in the store, since the half-giant had a  much harder time maneuvering between the shelves.  Long enough, at least, for Freak to slip away and grab a few owl-order forms he saw on a table off to the side, and a bag the clerk explained was charmed to be featherlight and bottomless.  He’d seen the size of some of the books Hagrid was carrying for him; he’d much prefer not having to feel the weight of dragging them around all day.

In every store they entered, Freak made sure to grab a few owl-order forms and hide them, in case he needed anything else before he could return to the Alley again.

One of their last stops, their arms only not laden with bags by this point because of the bottomless bag (although, unfortunately, the pewter cauldron didn’t fit in the opening, so Hagrid was carrying that), was a trunk shop, and as soon as Harry’s eyes had passed over a sign that said “self-shrinking” trunks, Freak took over.

Hagrid had stayed near the front of the shop, near what he gathered were the standard Hogwarts school trunks, but he didn’t seem to mind his charge wandering off, so Freak headed straight for the nearest clerk, carefully flattening his hair down over his forehead first to hide the identifying scar.

“And what can I do for you, young man?”  The elderly wizard asked, as soon as he was spotted.

“I’m just starting Hogwarts, so I’ll need a school trunk, but I wanted to know, I already have a featherlight and bottomless bag-- are there similar trunks?”

The clerk’s eyes gleamed slightly in anticipation of a sale, and he began rattling off the various charms they offered.

Some were frankly ridiculous-- why on earth would he want a trunk that had legs and could run off without him?-- and others vastly too expensive (as nice as it would be to own a trunk he could basically use like an apartment, it cost far more than the Galleons he had on hand, even in both bags, and he at least had the bottomless bag already), but some charms were dead useful, and not too expensive.  Freak knew exactly what he wanted, particularly the anti-theft and self-shrinking charms (why the latter wasn’t standard for anyone living around muggles, he didn’t understand; the trunks weren’t exactly subtle ), and when a quick glance around for Hagrid showed him still looking around a wall covered in letter plates for the trunks, he quickly bought a plain, dark brown trunk with brass fastenings, and featherlight, anti-theft, and self-shrinking charms on it.  A tap of his wand on the lid, and the thing shrank so it was small enough for him to slip into his pocket, before wandering over to Hagrid with the clerk, so he could finish buying a standard school trunk as well.

The clerk seemed just a little confused by the dual purchases, but not enough to ask any questions, to Freak’s relief.

Freak only pushed Harry back to take control twice during the trip; once to reach into Hagrid’s coat pocket long enough to feel that whatever he’d gotten from Gringotts, it was hard like a rock and wrapped in some sort of soft leather; however he couldn’t pickpocket it fully without being noticed; and once when trying out wands in Ollivander's, as soon as the man had said the wand chooses the wizard .  There was no way he wanted a wand attuned to Harry , and not Freak .

When they ended up with the brother wand to Voldemort’s, Freak...wasn’t sure what to think of that.  He paid seven Galleons for the wand, and a few more Sickles for a holster he could strap to his arm under a shirt, and then they were done.

Then it became clear that Hagrid was going to leave him on a train back home on his own, and Freak sighed internally, after taking the opportunity to palm some of the change in bills, when Hagrid left him to handle the muggle money again when buying a ticket, just as he had on the way there.

He was alone, with a large trunk and an owl, headed back to the Dursleys’ when technically, he didn’t even know for sure that they had already returned to Privet Drive, considering Hagrid had stolen their boat.

No, Freak was not impressed.

Chapter Text

The rest of Freak’s summer was actually quite pleasant, by his standards, although Harry didn’t seem to find it fun; he was essentially ignored by the Dursleys, and Dudley had gained the amusing habit of running out of whatever room Harry or Freak happened to be in, if they so much as spoke a word.

He spent almost the entire time in his new bedroom, and to Freak and Harry’s shared relief, the Dursleys’ newfound fear of him allowed the newly-named Hedwig to have free reign to come and go whenever she wished, via his bedroom window.

Freak had been pleasantly surprised by how intelligent their new owl seemed to be, when he first took control again in her presence, and she immediately seemed to notice a difference.

---

Freak looked at the snowy owl, and was met with a sharp gaze, even though she had been dozing moments before.

“Hello, Hedwig,” he murmured, and her head tilted as she continued to stare at him.  After a moment, she hooted softly, and he took that as a sign that it was safe to extend a hand and gently pet her feathers.

She didn’t retaliate, so he figured she’d accepted him.  She’d already done the same for Harry.

“You can tell I’m different, can’t you, girl?”

She looked at him again and hooted softly again, before nipping a little at his hair, trying to groom it into place for a moment.

His mouth twitched into a smile at the action.

“Can you only deliver packages to me, if I’m the one who ordered it?  Only bring things to me if I’m alone?”  He asked.

She gave another hoot, he was fairly sure as confirmation, and Freak hoped that he might not have to adjust Harry’s memories every time he owl-ordered something.  He’d already considered that such a thing would be fairly impossible if he ordered something at Hogwarts and she delivered it to Harry around other people; he couldn’t easily change their memories at will, after all.

---

Even without Freak’s intervention, Harry spent a lot of time reading his new school books.  Harry, to Freak’s frustration however, didn’t actually take notes on any of it.  Freak, at least, had a very good memory, but even he took actual notes on spells or other details which seemed useful or important, written in a notebook which he hid from Harry in their bottomless school bag.  Harry did not have the same good memory, and Freak held no small irritation for his lack of forethought, even though he knew to expect it from the Dursleys’ conditioning.

In addition to reading the school books, however, Freak also did a little more on his own, making use of his resolution to not let Harry, or the Dursley’s conditioning, keep him from learning as much as he could.

It began with Freak writing a short note to Flourish & Blotts, after reading through the owl-order list of available books.  (The many titles left him practically rubbing his hands together in anticipation.)  He’d already found several books he was interested in, such as a few books in a series amusingly titled For Muggleborns , which Freak guessed had to be written by muggleborns familiar with the For Dummies series of books.  He’d marked all of those to order, covering subjects like how to write with a quill, some basic potions and ingredients knowledge, and the most basic rules of the magical world relevant to new Hogwarts students, along with other books such as Hogwarts, A History .  (He was hoping the last might be less biased than Hagrid had been about the houses.)

The note simply asked the store clerks what other books they would recommend for a muggleborn entering the wizarding world for the first time.

The reply arrived via Hedwig-- and to his relief, it seemed she had understood his request, because she brought it to him when Freak was already the one in control, studying in their bedroom-- along with all the books he’d ordered, shrunken and charmed light enough for her to carry, mostly naming books he’d already marked in the order form, along with a few more, with information such as the basics of banking with Gringotts, and short explanations of the different magical areas of study and what common careers one could choose as a result.

Freak quickly ordered those as well with the new enclosed owl-order form, and began making his way through his new purchases.

Most of the knowledge, he kept for himself, but he shared the techniques on how to write with a quill with Harry, even though he hid how they’d gotten that knowledge.

Freak knew Harry was not likely to even consider questioning how he knew; and even if he did, Freak could prevent it.  At least their homework would be legible.

---

Freak only came out for one other reason that summer; when his aunt and uncle went into London to buy Dudley’s new school uniforms, they brought him along when he politely but firmly asked.  (He was, admittedly, somewhat surprised it had been that easy, but he’d bet that their fear of him might prevent them from saying no, and it seemed he was correct.)

While they were stuck in the uniform shop, having to custom-order Dudley’s size since it wasn’t in stock, Freak slipped away to a nearby used clothing store, and bought a few plain sets of trousers, shirts, and sweaters, which actually fit him far better than Dudley’s years-old cast-offs.  He made sure to buy a few plain t-shirts which were only slightly too large as well, which he could ‘gift’ to Harry still disguised as hand-me-downs, as well.

He paid for the small lot with the muggle money he’d filched from when Hagrid had him handle buying their tickets, as well as the muggle money he’d found in his vault as Gringotts, stuffed the couple bags into his bottomless bag that he’d brought along as soon as he was outside and out of view of any muggles, and then hurried back to where his relatives were still at the uniform shop, and he quietly waited for them to finish at a distance.

It hadn’t taken long, and Freak was pleased that he and Harry would both have something to wear of their own, outside of their school uniforms.

---

When, at the end of the summer, Harry successfully managed to get a ride into London again from their uncle, in order to catch the Hogwarts Express, Freak watched, but didn’t take control.

One of the For Muggleborns books had mentioned how to get onto the train platform, so he was waiting to see if Harry would need the help or not, but when he overheard a witch loudly talking about the platform number-- and internally, Freak’s paranoia reared its head in deference to the blatant violation of the Statute of Secrecy , which he’d also read about-- Harry managed to get onto the platform, and then the train, without Freak’s help.

When one of the red-headed sons of the same witch earlier showed up in his train compartment later, with an excuse that all the other compartments were full-- really?   Freak doubted that, since that would be incredibly poor planning on the parts of whoever ran both Hogwarts and the train-- and between him and the bushy-haired girl (Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, respectively, he learned), the virtues of Gryffindor-- Dumbledore’s old house-- were espoused, and Slytherin was once again mentioned negatively (and as Voldemort’s house), only reinforced by the blonde Slytherin-hopeful from the robe shop entering, introducing himself as Draco Malfoy, and promptly irritating both Ron and Harry while Freak watched in idle indifference.

(It also hadn’t escaped Freak’s notice that Weasley spoke of his only muggle relative in a dismissive way, similarly to Hagrid, or that the girl, Granger, mentioned that she’d tried a few spells already-- how?  On the train?  They weren’t allowed to do magic outside of school, according to everything he’d read or been told, when in the presence of muggles.)

Freak knew from Hogwarts, A History , that the house rivalry particularly between Gryffindor and Slytherin was real, particularly in the last few decades, but outside of current students and recent graduates-- and really, outside of those two houses in particular-- one’s school house ceased to matter nearly so much.

However, either there were an absurd number of coincidences taking place, or someone (and Freak was betting on Albus Dumbledore) had done their best to make sure at minimum Hagrid would encourage him to join Gryffindor in particular, and to steer him away from Slytherin.  (Freak was willing to admit that both Granger and Malfoy were probably coincidences, but while he wasn’t sure how it could have been rigged, Harry’s first chocolate frog card ending up as Albus Dumbledore was creepily convenient.)

Freak knew he was easily a match for either Ravenclaw or Slytherin, and even Harry, Freak could see as practically any house other than Gryffindor based on his past attitude, although with the conditioning from the Dursleys to do poorly in school, Hufflepuff or Slytherin would probably fit better than Ravenclaw, unless he decided to study more, like Freak did.

Freak didn’t like how this was going.  He knew Harry wouldn’t see through the possible coincidences like he had; he could feel Harry starting to want to be in Gryffindor, and starting to think badly of Slytherin.  Freak could, of course, influence him otherwise, or make sure that he, Freak, was the one being sorted instead of Harry...

But he was an eleven year old, on his own, and if someone (Dumbledore) wanted him in a particular house that badly... Well, Freak thought it might be easier to let him have his way for now, and see how things went, rather than disrupt things so soon.

Who knew, maybe he was just being needlessly paranoid, and Harry would have a normal year at school, and nothing would happen which would require him to act like a “brave” Gryffindor, and Freak would be proven wrong.

But Freak couldn’t shake the feeling that that wasn’t going to happen.

As the train ride ended, Freak made sure his shrunken second trunk was safely in the pocket of his school uniform, while Harry left their school trunk to be brought up to the castle, and in the small boats, then finally got their first view of Hogwarts.

Harry thought it was beautiful, and was filled with awe, feeling like maybe, he’d finally found a place that he could feel at home.

Freak was also filled with awe, but tempered with paranoia because their life never was that easy.  He wasn’t sure if the castle would be a new home, or just another prison, with new faces.

---

As the sorting hat was put on their head, Freak retreated, hiding himself further back in their head than he ever had before.

Luckily, the hat didn’t seem to notice him, as it only spoke to Harry.  This far buried in their head, Freak wasn’t aware of what was going on around them, but he could still listen to the hat and Harry talk, and Freak felt a pang of amusement when Harry also had to argue against Slytherin.

It seems they had one thing in common, at least, then.

However, Harry’s pleading for Gryffindor worked, and with a shout of GRYFFINDOR , the hat was removed, and Harry headed for their new house’s table.

Freak stole a glance at the head table as they sat down, and saw the infamous Dumbledore himself, smiling and clapping along with most of the other teachers and students, and Freak retreated back to nurse his paranoia in silence, while Harry and the other students, once the sorting finished, began to eat.

Chapter Text

Freak resisted the urge to slam his head repeatedly into the table, where he sat hidden away in a usually-ignored corner of the library.

He felt like he was slowly losing his sanity at Hogwarts, surrounded by all the students in the school who were least like him-- brash and loud.  Although really, most of the other students in his year didn’t seem to be much better; typical 11-year-olds that they were.

Freak hated the constant feeling of eyes on him-- well, eyes on Harry Potter , their precious Boy Who Lived-- particularly since it made it very difficult to sneak away unseen, to visit the library and read or work through homework that would never be turned in, or even just to be alone and recharge with some desperately-needed peace and quiet.

The feeling of being a rat in a maze had only strengthened since the first night at Hogwarts, as Ronald Weasley complained constantly when he and Harry would finally sit down and do their homework; and despite always being lower quality, Harry’s were the only assignments that Freak would allow to be turned in, unwilling to reveal his more advanced understanding of the subjects, particularly after learning from Hogwarts, A History that only the OWL exams in their fifth year, and the NEWT exams seventh year, would actually matter after Hogwarts.  It seemed that Hogwarts didn’t even require a student retake a class if they failed it, to Freak’s surprise and scorn.

So while Harry struggled his way through classes, having seemingly retained almost nothing of their schoolbooks from his flipping through them over the summer, Freak studied in their bed after everyone else in the dorm was asleep, practicing simple spells in abandoned classrooms when he could slip away from the prying eyes of students, teachers, and portraits alike.  He could also take control during their History of Magic classes while Weasley took a nap, time which he used to actually read through their history textbook and then study for other classes.

Freak had taken control only rarely in their actual classes for fear of being noticed; he’d popped up a few times during Herbology to prevent Harry from accidentally harming the plants they were responsible for (and it still boggled Freak’s mind that Harry seemed to be only averagely competent with magical plants, given how they’d meticulously had to care for Aunt Petunia’s garden-- he could only blame Harry’s own complete disinterest in the subject, and wondered if magical plants could somehow be affected by their caretakers’ moods), and he’d pocketed a matchstick after their first class with Professor McGonagall to practice with later-- which he’d ended up turning into a needle far faster than any of their classmates during the classes, having studied their textbook’s notes on how important visualization of the desired result was, when casting Transfiguration magic.

Then, of course, there was Professor Snape’s absolute hatred of him, which Harry’s visit with Hagrid showed him had some reason behind it, but he didn’t know what , and the blatant hints given by Hagrid that the object he’d taken from Gringotts was at Hogwarts, likely on the forbidden third floor corridor.

Freak had no hope left that his first year would be uneventful.

---

It was lucky, Freak thought, that his expectations were set so low, or else he’d be dangerously disappointed by the idiocy of the other first years, Harry included.

Freak did nothing but watch as Harry pointlessly chased after Draco Malfoy on a broomstick, pulled off a dangerous dive to catch Neville Longbottom’s Remembrall (and really, who was naming these purebloods?), got recruited to the Gryffindor Quidditch team instead of being punished for disobeying Madam Hooch’s orders to stay on the ground, and then got challenged to a wizard’s duel by Draco Malfoy, which Ronald Weasley accepted on their behalf.  Which wasn’t how wizards’ duels worked , Freak knew, but the others didn’t seem to.  Freak didn’t even understand why Harry seemed so hell-bent on proving himself to Malfoy, or whatever he was trying to do.  Freak himself just...didn’t care.

Then, to boot, the idiotic duo of Harry and Weasley were joined by Granger and Longbottom on their little midnight adventure, almost caught by Filch, almost eaten by a three-headed dog when they somehow managed to stumble into the forbidden corridor-- which Freak refused to believe was a coincidence, given the stairs could have likely been charmed to not ever lead students to the forbidden portion, nor were there any spells preventing four idiot children from wandering down the corridor unintentionally-- and then Harry and Weasley were obsessed with the stupid package hidden on the third floor.

Really, someone couldn’t have planned it better if they tried, Freak thought bitterly.

If he had anywhere else to go other than back to the Dursleys’, he’d be gone tomorrow, he grumbled internally, watching as Harry ate dinner on Halloween happily, not appearing to remember that it was the date of his parents’ deaths.

Not that Freak particularly cared, other than the fact their survival would have meant he wouldn’t have grown up with the Dursleys.  He didn’t know a thing about them other than the meaningless praises he’d heard here and there when they were compared to their mother or their father; usually their father.  But to ignore it entirely, and even to celebrate on the day of their death, seemed disrespectful, particularly for all the other witches and wizards who had known them, or grown up knowing what they’d done on the day of their deaths.

Freak was broken out of his thoughts when Professor Quirrell, suspicious and stuttering mess that he was, sprinted through the entrance to the hall, warning about a troll before fainting.

Freak sighed internally, predicting what was going to happen-- accurately, as Harry broke away, joined by a more reluctant Weasley, to save Granger from the troll she was unaware of, instead of simply letting a professor or prefect know.

They had even had to slip away from Percy Weasley to go looking for her; how hard would it have been to simply tell him , Freak lamented.

He wondered if this would finally be what forced him to take action to save Harry’s idiotic self from trying to be a hero.

Spoilers:  It wasn’t, but Freak left that encounter with the even stronger belief that someone was trying to force him to be a “hero” (read: self-sacrificing idiot), considering the troll had been nowhere near where it was supposed to be, and worse than that, that a troll had managed to enter Hogwarts at all, given that Hogwarts, A History had mentioned wards that were supposed to be strong enough to protect against nearly anything trying to enter the school with the intention of harm against its students, created centuries ago when invasions were still a typical event in the now-Scottish highlands.

(Also, Freak wondered, why the hell had there been a key to lock the girls’ bathroom door in the first place?  And there had been no point to Granger’s lie, except possibly to hide that Weasley had made her cry, and yet the three somehow considered themselves friends now because of it.  Idiots, all of them, he thought.)

---

More unsubtle hints about the item hidden on the third floor, and one Quidditch game later, Freak was ready to burn the whole bloody school to the ground.

What had particularly rattled him was that there was nothing he could do to help Harry when their broomstick was being jinxed-- and unlike Harry and his idiot friends, Freak was not convinced that it was the gloomy potions professor who had tried to kill him.  The man would have had a much easier time of it simply with a potions mishap in his classroom, or a poisoning in the great hall at dinner, or any other more subtle methods.

Freak resolved to look up cushioning charms and any other means of protection for falling from great heights at his soonest opportunity, while he struggled to hold back the darkness inside him, which had once more flared up when they had been in danger.

He was beginning to feel like a shaken bottle of soda, ready to explode, and he didn’t know what would happen if he let go, but at this point, he was starting to think it couldn’t hurt worse than the pressured and squeezed feeling of holding back the darkness, which no amount of reading had explained.

---

Freak was once again in the library, having slipped away from both Weasley and Granger, taking notes on a variety of charms and spells which might help him stay alive in this death trap of a school; first on his list to learn were cushioning charms, the basic shield spell protego , and he planned to investigate if the levitation charm Wingardium Leviosa could be cast on one’s self, or something the caster was wearing, to prevent a fall or even achieve a basic sort of floating.

None of the books clarified how the spell could be used, so Freak was determined to try it in an abandoned classroom; the worst that could happen, he figured, was that it wouldn’t work.

He’d already managed to learn a few basic spells on his own, including a warming charm which had been greatly useful already, as winter had settled in, and the castle could be bitterly cold in the mornings.

Finding time to take control in order to study more had only become harder now that Harry had two so-called friends, and the second one was nosey, to boot.  More than once, Freak had been ready to slip out of the Gryffindor common room to head to the library when Granger had caught him and asked where he was going.

It would have been out of character for Harry to say he was headed to the library except when they were researching Nicholas Flamel-- and really, Freak wanted to roll his eyes, because that name was even known to muggles , as the supposedly-mythical creator of the philosopher’s stone, which he’d long-since concluded was the item retrieved by Hagrid and hidden somewhere past the giant dog Fluffy on the third floor-- so he’d had to release control back to Harry, considering she would have demanded to come along otherwise, and then demanded to know what he was reading.

Freak would have looked forward to being alone during the winter holidays, except he’d already found out that the Weasley boys would be staying as well-- and there went his free time again.

Indeed, it was nearly impossible for him to slip away from Weasley during the break, although once he and Harry woke up on Christmas and found an invisibility cloak among their gifts (although Freak fumed when he read the note and learned someone -- and he thought he had a good idea whom-- had kept the cloak for years instead of informing him or returning it to Gringotts to be returned to the vault that would be his, or had done anything other than just keeping it), Freak was relieved that he finally had a reliable way to slip away at night and make it to the library or an empty classroom to practice, unseen.

Such thoughts were derailed when Harry decided to use the cloak instead, and they ended up finding it .

The mirror.

Chapter Text

In an otherwise typical abandoned classroom, the gaudy gold mirror, reaching nearly to the ceiling, was entirely out of place, and Harry’s eye was immediately drawn to it.

Immediately, Freak felt wary, even though he didn’t know why, other than his paranoia that they were meant to find this, immediately after having been given their father’s invisibility cloak.

When their eyes drifted to the inscription carved above it-- Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi -- it only took a few moments for Freak to realize it was written backwards (it was on a mirror , after all): I show not your face but your heart’s desire.

Immediately, Freak felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head.

This absolutely was a trap, he thought, and he didn’t want to step into it.

But at the same time, Freak couldn’t shake the fear that if they were supposed to find this mirror-- and something that showed one’s deepest desire was clearly dangerous and should not just be lying around in a school full of children, so they had to have been meant to find it-- they might be being watched right now.

And he knew he couldn’t explain suddenly running away from a mirror .

So as he let Harry walk towards the mirror, Freak couldn’t do anything, except dread... and resolved to look up detection spells to check if anyone else’s eyes were on him, unseen, since clearly invisibility was possible in the magical world.

The mirror reflected nothing but the empty room around them until they were standing directly in front of it.

The moment their eyes stared straight into the mirror, Freak understood what he was seeing-- and then was shocked as Harry clapped their hands to their mouth to hold in a scream, and whirled around.

Freak didn’t understand, until he glanced back at Harry’s memory of the moment, and saw something different from what he’d seen through their eyes in the mirror.

This time, when Harry turned around again, Freak tried to watch from Harry’s perspective, and ended up seeing a strange overlay, almost like a ghost image, of what Harry saw in the mirror over what he saw in the mirror.

In Harry’s reflection, they stood, looking as they did in reality, except a man and a woman stood behind them, and Freak realized who they were just as Harry did--

“Mum?”  Harry whispered.  “Dad?”

Idly, Freak realized this was the first time either of them had seen their parents.  They’d been briefly mentioned in a couple of the books he’d bought, but only in relation to Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived , and no photos had been included.

He did have to admit they looked quite like their father, but they weren’t an exact twin of him like people seemed to imply (aside from his mother’s eyes, as he kept hearing).  The family resemblance was clear, but if they grew out their hair to tame the naturally-messy hair, and wore contact lenses, Freak didn’t think the resemblance would be so obvious.

Then behind their parents in the mirror, others appeared, with enough resemblance to both sides of their family (pettily, Freak noted, that Aunt Petunia showed up nowhere ) that it was obvious this was the rest of their family tree, all long passed.

Harry was transfixed, staring into the mirror, which was exactly the danger of it, Freak knew.

He wasn’t nearly so drawn into it, because what he saw was something that wasn’t impossible to achieve--

Freak saw himself; and he could tell it was himself , not Harry, standing alone and older, with the longer, tied-back hair and contact lenses that he’d correctly thought would make them look less like their father, surrounded by nothing else but darkness.

In the mirror, he looked confident, far beyond anything he’d actually felt before, and powerful.  Freak knew exactly what it meant; in the mirror, he was an adult, and independent; no one could pull him around like a puppet on a string, or force him to live with the Dursleys, or hide his intelligence.

It wasn’t something he could achieve by wistfully staring into a mirror, and so it held no further appeal to him.

Unlike Harry.

Freak was relieved when a distant noise broke Harry’s focus on the mirror, hours later, although his whispered “I’ll be back,” crushed any hopes that he would get over the mirror’s dangerous appeal.

---

When Harry invited Weasley along the next night, foolishly thinking the mirror merely showed one’s entire family, Freak couldn’t help but scowl internally.

Not only was the mirror dangerous-- already, Harry didn’t care about the little “mystery” of Flamel and the stone, or their schoolwork, or anything else-- but if Harry was sneaking out at night with the cloak and friends, then Freak couldn’t sneak out to learn detection spells or anything else.

When Weasley’s deepest desire was revealed, and he remained drawn to the mirror unlike Freak himself, Freak’s scorn only grew.  It was, at least, lessened slightly when Weasley told Harry not to go back to the mirror again, however, and Weasley didn’t ask to go back again, although that didn’t stop Harry from doing so on his own.

Freak was almost relieved when, on the third night, he showed up, confirming Freak’s concerns.

“So-- back again, Harry?”

Albus Dumbledore and Harry talked, while Freak reviewed their memories and confirmed that the Headmaster had not been visible when they walked in-- which meant he certainly could have been watching them, invisible, on the previous two nights as well.

Therefore, instead of relief, Freak was nearly overcome with anger, as the Headmaster finally explained the dangers of the mirror to Harry and announced the mirror would be moved to a “new home” the next day, and Freak knew he’d been correct that they’d been meant to find the mirror.  Why else explain how it worked to Harry and only then take it somewhere presumably harder to find (not that Freak doubted for a moment that the mirror’s new home would be somewhere beyond Fluffy), when it should never have been found by students in the first place?

Dumbledore’s lack of surprise at the invisibility cloak’s existence (or confiscating it, as would make sense in a school) also confirmed that he was most likely the one who sent it to them, as well, Freak noted.

When Harry was finally back in his bed, Freak could only resolve to spend even more time studying, so that when he was most likely sent on whatever test the meddling Headmaster had for him involving Fluffy and Flamel’s stone, he could at least prevent their death, if Harry couldn’t.  Considering how Hagrid had made it clear that Dumbledore didn’t believe Voldemort was completely gone either, Freak had a bad feeling he could be involved, as well.  If not this year, then likely in the future-- after all, it wasn’t reasonable for even the meddling Headmaster to send a first year to confront his parents’ killer, and a Dark Lord, right?

...Right?

Only one of them slept that night, as Freak spent the entire night holding back the rolling darkness inside him, more volatile than ever in his anger.

---

As far as Harry was concerned, the invisibility cloak stayed folded at the bottom of his trunk for the rest of the holidays.

Freak, however, knew the truth.

He could feel the darkness inside him fighting his control constantly, ready to explode.

If it had been difficult to keep the darkness at bay while Harry confronted the troll, it was nearly impossible now, fed by his fury.  He didn’t know what exactly would happen when he lost his grip on the darkness, but he knew it wasn’t likely to be anything good; or anything he wanted anyone else to know about.

It was for that reason, that Freak found himself flipping out of bed that night, after Weasley and the rest of the castle had long since fallen asleep, save for patrolling professors and Filch, stuffing their broomstick into his bottomless bag, and with their invisibility cloak hiding them from any spying portrait’s eyes, he stuck over to the owlery; guaranteed to have no occupants so late at night other than the owls themselves.  After a quick greeting and an owl treat for Hedwig, Freak took out their broom and flew out a window, making use of the cloudy night to fly unnoticed to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.  He then continued on carefully into the forest, taking advantage of the broom to make less noise than he would have on foot, until he was deep enough into the forest that it was unlikely anyone would stumble across him.  He’d even been careful to steer clear of any centaurs he’d seen in the distance, unsure if they would report back to the Headmaster if they saw him.

When he finally dismounted, Freak placed the broom and the cloak back into his bottomless bag, stuck the bag with a sticking charm to a tree, backed away a decent distance without losing sight of the tree entirely, and--

Freak let go of his vice-grip over the darkness, for the first time in his life.

If anyone had been watching in that moment, they would have seen his body explode outward into thousands of wisps of what looked like black smoke, constantly shifting around and through itself, and lashing out at the surroundings, carving deep gashes into the ground and nearby trees.

Freak didn’t notice immediately, lost in anger and pain, feeling like he was being torn apart in a thousand directions, and at the same time more free than he had ever been in his life; weightless, with the loss of his human form.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Freak found that the mass of dark anger and pain inside him settled down enough for him to come to his senses, and he realized that he could still see somehow, despite no longer having eyes in this form, and a little bit of effort let him pull together enough of the smoke to form humanoid arms again, followed by a torso and head, although he let himself release the hold after a few seconds.

It wasn't a comfortable feeling, to be sure-- in fact, it hurt in a familiar way; the same hurt he’d felt every time he forced down his magic growing up with the Dursleys-- but at the same time, it felt like he'd been holding his breath for his entire life, and had finally let it go.

Moving in the smoke-like form was instinctive as well, and Freak spent several minutes getting used to the feeling of floating around the trees, and discovering that if he wasn't careful, the smoke could still lash out and shred parts of the tree trunks as if some monster had taken huge claws to them, without his express intention.

Eventually, Freak knew he had to return to the castle, and it was instinctive, if not precisely easy, to pull himself together again, back into his normal, human body.

Immediately, he returned his hold on the darkness, lest he explode out of his body again, but while his whole body ached terribly, he at least didn't feel like a shaken-up bottle, ready to explode, anymore.  He had the feeling that he would have to be even more careful with his temper and his hold on the darkness, or he’d explode into the smoke-form more easily now that he’d given in once, but for the moment, the pressure was almost gone.

Retrieving his bag, and his broom from it, Freak began making his way back towards the castle, resolving to investigate the library even more than before, to find what in Merlin's name was inside him.  And if the library didn’t hold the answers, he would have to buy more books that might get him closer to an answer.

---

After that, every night after Weasley fell asleep, Freak snuck out and read anything and everything he could in the library which seemed useful.

He still made no progress discovering what the darkness was; it wasn’t found under any sort of magical malady that he could find, and with limited time to search, he turned back to learning more spells.

He practiced detection charms; Homenum Revelio was an obvious one to begin with, and Freak practiced relentlessly until he thought he’d mastered the spell.  He was proved correct when casting it inside their dorm, again while Weasley slept, and he could feel the boy’s presence even when facing the opposite direction in the room.  It wasn’t specific; he couldn’t tell if the target was an adult or a child, or any other details, and the book had noted that the target could sometimes feel the spell, particularly if the caster hadn’t fully mastered it, but Freak felt slightly better for at least knowing it.

He then moved on to trying to find ways to block the spell, but unfortunately the school’s books didn’t seem to have that particular spell.

Resolving to see if Flourish & Blotts might have anything on the subject in the future as well, Freak was forced to move on to cushioning charms, Protego , and Silencio , as well as attempting to catch himself during a fall-- he practiced by jumping off a chair in an empty classroom-- with Wingardium Leviosa .

The last of those was an work in progress, Freak admitted to himself, as he wobbled in mid-air while casting the charm on his sneakers, pinwheeling his arms to try and keep his balance, before tilting too far over and losing his hold on the spell as he hit the floor of the empty classroom with a slight hiss.  At least he’d already cast a cushioning charm on the floor, so he wasn’t injured, just annoyed.

And with Granger and most of the other students returning in the morning, the last day of the holidays, it was clear he wasn’t going to master the spell for such a use immediately.  At least he could use it in a pinch if he needed to float himself a short distance off the ground, and he’d been sure to practice the levitation spell as well, if he only needed to catch himself to hover in the air, as opposed to being able to move around.

He’d still planned to learn Stupefy , the stunning spell, and all sorts of others: summoning spells, stronger shields, and more, but he was only a first year, with limited time, and he had no one to ask for help.

So he’d done the best he could with the break from classes, but come the morning, he’d be back to sneaking away from Weasley and Granger when he could.

He could only hope it would be enough.

Chapter Text

When Harry finally found Flamel, on the back of Albus Dumbledore’s chocolate frog card, and the trio of idiotic Gryffindors finally learned about the philosopher’s stone, Freak wanted to sigh.

At least Harry was distracted by Professor Snape following him around (and Freak, unlike Harry, was sure that he was doing so, although the man had plenty of chances to harm him if that had been his intent), and the approaching Quidditch game against Hufflepuff.

The whole thing made Freak want to scoff-- the students acted like the world would end over a sports game, and Harry was more concerned over Professor Snape being a biased judge, than over someone potentially jinxing his broom again.

And really, if it had been Snape jinxing him in the first game, then being the referee basically guaranteed he couldn’t do so again, with so many eyes on him.

It hadn’t escaped Freak’s notice that Weasley and Granger had their wands on them-- Freak had Harry stash theirs up one sleeve, too, strapped to their arm-- but Freak was more concerned about someone attempting to kill them again, not the outcome of the match.

And then the game ended in a matter of minutes, rendering their concerns moot, but Harry just couldn’t let his suspicions of the Slytherin professor go, and followed him into the Forbidden Forest, watching him apparently threaten Professor Quirrell, bringing thoughts of the philosopher’s stone back to the forefront of Harry’s mind.

Freak wanted to scream.  It wasn’t any of their business; if the adults were stupid enough to put the stone in the school as obvious bait , that was the last place they should be anywhere near.

Then Granger and the teachers became focused on exams, and Freak had just a little hope that nothing else would happen that year, apart from studying and the nonsense about the stone--

Only to end up sitting in Hagrid’s hut, staring directly at a newly-hatched dragon.

Freak took it back, he didn’t need to burn down the school; it would burn down without his assistance.

Of course, then Malfoy got involved, and the idiotic Gryffindors decided they couldn’t let the incompetant, Dumbledore-loving groundskeeper get fired-- like he should have been , for hatching a dragon on the grounds of a school full of children-- so when Harry had the idea to get the dragon to Charlie Weasley (Freak wanted to slap him upside the head for the idea, but there had been no forethought behind it, so he hadn’t been able to anticipate and squash that piece of idiocy), and the older Weasley boy apparently saw no problem with school children sneaking a dragon to friends of his to be illegally transported out of the country, a stupid plan was hatched.  (And Freak wanted to hit himself in the head for that pun.)

Freak hoped Norbert set them all on fire .

---

Could you get the Ridgeback up the tallest tower at midnight on Saturday, Freak hissed internally to himself, quoting Charlie Weasley’s letter.

Of course, because sneaking the dragon into a school full of children and up a tower for strangers on brooms to pick up made so much more sense, and was less likely to get them all caught, then, say, meeting at the edge of the grounds?   Or in the Forbidden Forest?

Gryffindors , Freak cursed, as he watched Harry and Granger-- Weasley being put out of commission by the dragon bite (and if the school medi-witch couldn’t even recognize a dragon’s bite as something that shouldn’t have happened in a school , Freak was, once again, going to burn down the school, because it wasn’t a school; it was a death trap filled with idiots)-- heave the crated baby dragon through the school and up the stairs.

They were nearly caught by Professor McGonagall and Malfoy-- would have long since been caught, really, had Freak not had the thought to silence the stupid crate -- but somehow, they did it, and managed to hand off the dragon to the elder Weasley’s friends.

Freak was so relieved, he missed them leaving the damn cloak at the top of the tower .

They got caught by Filch, and then joined by Longbottom, the lot of them were given detention from McGonagall.  Freak couldn’t help but think they deserved far worse for being some of the biggest idiots in the school, right up there with the bloody Headmaster.

But Harry seemed more concerned with the massive points loss they received than anything else, and Freak’s scorn once again grew.

---

The entire school was alienating them, particularly Harry, for allowing Slytherin to regain the lead for the house cup, and now Freak had plenty of targets for his scorn.

The Slytherins were the only students pleased with them at the moment, ignoring that one of their own had been caught as well, which only seemed to add to the idiotic Gryffindors’ misery.

Then on top of everything else, Freak managed to slip away and back up to the tower to retrieve the cloak, only to find it missing.

---

When it finally came time for their detention, Freak couldn’t believe-- well, at this point, that was a lie; he really could -- it was going to take place in the Forbidden Forest, and they were going to be looking for something that was killing unicorns.

To add to the idiocy yet again, they then split into groups, only to run into two particularly cryptic and unhelpful centaurs, and then rejoined with Longbottom, Malfoy, and Fang; this time splitting Harry and Malfoy together with the dog.

“This isn’t work for students, ” Malfoy grumbled behind Freak, making far too much noise as they moved deeper and deeper into the forest.

Freak was ready to hex the other boy to make him shut up, but he knew it would only start another fight.

So when the blond boy whined once more about how this wasn’t a fair detention, Freak spoke up.

“You’re right,” he said quietly, and to his slight surprise, the other boy shut his mouth and listened-- possibly out of shock.  “And if we get maimed horribly or die out here, someone should definitely write your father and get both Hagrid and Dumbledore fired.”

When no sounds came from behind him in reply, Freak turned around, holding up the lantern they’d been given slightly, so he could see the other boy’s face.

Malfoy’s eyes were round in surprise, his mouth hanging slightly open.

Freak stared for a moment, before the other boy seemed to realize what he was doing, and snapped out of his shock.

“You think you’re funny, do you?  Are you mocking me, Potter?”  He sneered.

Freak didn’t flinch as Malfoy stomped closer to him, getting in his face.

“No,” he replied plainly, slightly enjoying the confusion that twisted the blond’s face.  “If I die in this forest and you don’t, please definitely write to your father and get them fired.”

Freak turned around when Malfoy remained frozen in surprise again, and resumed walking.  After another moment, he heard the other boy scramble to catch up with him and not be left behind in the dark.

“I don’t believe Dumbledore’s golden boy would turn on him like that,” Malfoy tried to sneer, but Freak could hear the confusion laced into his voice.

Freak could have grinned, but instead hid his glee behind a frown and turned back to look at Malfoy without stopping.

“I’m not Dumbledore’s anything,” he said, doing his best to sound confused.  “I’ve only met the man once or twice, for a few minutes each time.  Pretty much the only thing I know about him, other than what all the students seem to know, is that he left me on the doorstep of muggles after my parents’ deaths, and never checked in again.”

Just like he’d hoped, that small piece of information seemed to entirely fry Malfoy’s brains, and he stopped dead in his tracks once again, this time almost being left behind entirely before his brain restarted.

“What do you mean, you--” He began hotly, but Freak’s eyes had caught on something up ahead, and he slapped a hand blindly over the other’s mouth, shushing him.

“Look--” he murmured, motioning with his other hand, still holding the lantern.

Before them on the ground, something gleamed bright white on the ground.  Moving forward, both of them silently this time, they could see it was a unicorn, and it was dead.

Freak was about to send up sparks to alert Hagrid that they’d found the unicorn, when a noise came from a bush on the edge of the clearing, and then out of the darkness, a hooded figure crawled, ignoring them to head straight for the unicorn, and it lowered its head over the wound in the unicorn’s side to begin drinking its blood.

Malfoy immediately let out a screech and bolted, followed by Fang, before Freak could elbow him for it.

The hooded figure raised its head, finally appearing to notice Freak’s presence, as Freak drew his wand.  Blood was still dripping down its front, but it was otherwise cast in shadow.

It got to its feet and swiftly came towards Freak, and then just as pain shot through Freak’s scar, he pointed his wand and cast the first spell he could think of--

“Lumos Maxima!”   He nearly shouted, and turned away to cover his own eyes as a blinding light emerged from his wand.

He could hear a hiss and a scuffle as the figure lurched away, and then Freak felt the air shift as something jumped over him, charging at the figure.

When the pain in his head passed and Freak looked up again, blinking blind spots from his vision, the figure was gone, and another centaur stood where it had been.

“Are you all right?”  Asked the centaur, offering a hand to pull Freak to his feet.

“Yes-- thank you-- what was that?”

The centaur didn’t answer.  He looked carefully at Freak, his eyes lingering on the scar that stood out, livid, on Freak’s forehead, and then into his eyes.  The centaur frowned slightly, and Freak took the moment to copy his memories back over to Harry, minus his conversation with Malfoy and his spellcasting, and he retreated back into their mind.

The centaur’s frown deepened for a moment, before he shook his head.

“You are the Potter boy,” he said.  “You had better get back to Hagrid.  The forest is not safe at this time-- especially for you.  Can you ride?  It will be quicker this way.”

The forest wasn’t safe for any student, Freak thought bitterly, as he watched Harry interact more with the centaur, who introduced himself as Firenze.  But if it was particularly dangerous for him , and if the scar he’d been given by Voldemort hurt when the figure approached, well...

There was only one logical conclusion from those facts, and Freak didn’t need the confirmation from Firenze to figure it out.

That figure had somehow been related to Voldemort, if it wasn’t the man himself, and he was after the damn philosopher’s stone.

Freak hated his life.

He only watched as Harry got back to the dorms and filled in Weasley and Granger about his abridged version of the night’s events, and then when Harry drew back his covers to find the invisibility cloak, returned, with a note that merely said “ Just in case ,” Freak had to suppress his fury again.

Dumbledore , Freak cursed, holding back the darkness again.

It had to be him.  And the old man was going to get them killed.

Chapter Text

Harry was so distracted by the thought that Snape would steal the Philosopher’s Stone at any moment, Freak was surprised that he managed to get any studying done for their end-of-year exams at all.

Freak was glad, at least, that he and the other two idiots were too distracted to notice the odd looks Draco Malfoy had been giving them from a distance ever since the detention in the forest.  Luckily, the boy never approached them about it, and Freak didn’t seek him out.  The thought was planted for the moment; that was enough.

Despite Harry’s fears, however, time still passed, and Freak found himself making another mental note to look up cooling charms as they and their classmates sweated through their uniforms as they sat for their exams.

Harry actually did passably well, Freak noted, on most of the exams, particularly some of the practicals, although he still had to stop himself from taking over to correct the mistakes.

Only the thought that none of the exams actually mattered except the OWLs and NEWTs let him calm down.

Freak was counting down the days until the train back to the Dursleys’, despite his hatred for the place, when Harry ruined his wish-- not hope, not anymore, that had already died a painful death-- for no more adventures that year.

When Harry finally realized that it was awfully suspicious that a stranger had a highly-illegal dragon egg to give to Hagrid, and dragged Weasley and Granger with him to confront him about it, Freak couldn’t bring himself to feel anything more than resigned annoyance.

Then, of course, when the idiotic trio of first years realized the stranger with the egg had been told how to get past Fluffy, they ran into Professor McGonagall while trying to find the Headmaster, and she dismissed them while telling them the Headmaster was gone overnight and reassured them that the Stone was well-protected-- I’ll bet anything it is not, Freak thought to himself-- and the idiots decided they would need to protect the Stone on their own.

As if three first years could stop either Voldemort or a Professor, Freak thought, as he watched the three scramble about, and decide that all three of them would go try to get the Stone before “Snape” could.

He knew he could take over and stop it, but after all the set-ups through the year, he could only imagine that this was planned, and he had no hope that Albus bloody Dumbledore had actually put protections in place strong enough to prevent Voldemort, or whoever (probably-not-Snape) was going to be going after the Stone, from actually getting it.

Freak could only hope that the Headmaster had set things up so they wouldn’t actually die immediately in his little test.   After all, the precious Boy Who Lived dying under the dubious protections of the school wouldn’t be good for him.  Freak just hoped that was enough.

---

With every test the trio passed, Freak’s view of the teachers took another nosedive.

At least his suspicions that this was a test, considering three first years were getting past the best protections the idiots who called themselves professors could think of, were confirmed.  Or they really were that stupid, and adult wizards lost all common sense upon reaching puberty (if not earlier).

Freak really wasn’t sure which was a less comforting thought at this point.

He didn’t even have to intervene to help them get past any of the so-called protections-- and really, Professor McGonagall had the audacity to assure them the Stone was well protected when her trial was a game of chess?   That wasn’t even directly related to Transfiguration, and was so obviously designed for Weasley to be able to be useful on this little test, considering he certainly wasn’t on any of the others.

Freak did, however, scoff when Granger had the audacity to declare Professor Snape’s potions riddle “brilliant” just because “A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic, they’d be stuck in here forever.”

Seriously?   Freak thought to himself.  The girl clearly thought highly of herself, and-- well, Freak couldn’t actually argue that wizards as a whole seemed to share maybe two logical brain cells, particularly in this school, and none of them appeared to be in the possession of any of the teachers.

But still, the thought that such a simple riddle was unsolvable to nearly anyone else in the wizarding world was just...depressing.

Burning down the school kept looking like a better and better option.

Instead of getting to act on his growing pyromaniac fantasies, however, Freak had to watch as Harry-- of course-- went on to the final protection alone, and came face-to-face with Professor Quirrell and not Snape, to Harry’s surprise and Freak’s complete lack thereof.

Admittedly, seeing the rather snake-like image of Voldemort’s face sticking out of the back of Quirrell’s head when he was eventually revealed was a slight surprise, even for Freak.

Seeing the Mirror of Erised, however, wasn’t a surprise at all.

Freak knew, as he watched, that he probably should feel at least a little afraid for his life, but really, by this point he just felt numb and annoyed.

It helped that no one knew about the darkness inside of him, which was still writhing within him, ready to burst out of him if he let go of his grip on it even slightly.  That , at least, could be useful to get him out of danger if needed, particularly given how shaky and weak Quirrell seemed to be at the moment.

So, while ready to react if needed, Freak didn’t intervene.

Instead, he took the time to observe-- and found himself agreeing with Quirrell’s muttered “There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.”   It sounded like he was quoting someone, likely Voldemort.

Freak didn’t even try to stop Harry when he looked into the mirror to get the Stone, not looking into the mirror himself.  He only watched from Harry’s perspective as his reflection winked and pocketed the Stone, feeling it appear in their own pocket as it did so.

Then they were face-to-face with Voldemort’s snake-like face and glaring red eyes, and Freak was dimly surprised that Voldemort offered to let them join him.  It was quite possibly a lie, of course-- he’d already tried to kill them once as a baby, when they definitely hadn’t done anything to deserve it, so Freak certainly had no reason to think he wouldn’t try now-- but that he made the offer at all was... interesting.

Getting asked if he wanted to join Voldemort’s side was, if nothing else, more than Harry had gotten from Albus Dumbledore or anyone else, which was, when he thought about it, rather depressing.

But Freak didn’t act; he let Harry shout back and call Voldemort a liar and declare he’d never join him, and then to both his and Harry’s surprise, Quirrell began to burn under their hands when he tried to grab them.

Now that wasn’t normal.

Quirrell still struggled to grab them, as Voldemort shouted, and their scar burned, and the possessed professor blistered and burned--

When everything went dark, Freak could only hope Harry had played their part well enough that they’d survive this mess.

---

When they woke up in the hospital wing, to Albus Dumbledore’s smiling face, Freak was glad it was Harry who was in control and not him, as the darkness surged again with his desire to hurt the old man.

He could happily start the burning down of the school with the old man’s beard.

Freak restrained himself, however, although it wasn’t exactly easy.

First there was the Headmaster’s comment about arriving at the ministry only to realize he was needed at Hogwarts-- if that were true, he could have been back within moments, unless he’d been stupid enough to fly on a broom to the ministry.  Freak was well aware that wizards could travel by Floo or Apparition.  They had been down below the trapdoor for a fair amount of time, plenty for the Headmaster to have realized his mistake and returned.

Then there was Dumbledore’s delight that Harry had “ done the thing properly ” and knew who Nicolas Flamel was.

But what particularly interested and infuriated Freak, was that Dumbledore admitted to knowing why Voldemort had gone after them and their family in the first place, but didn’t tell them.

There was no good reason not to tell them; they’d already faced him twice, if one counted when they were a baby as well, and it certainly didn’t seem like he would stop trying to kill them any time soon, now that Harry had actually gone against him directly.

When that non-answer was followed by Dumbledore’s explanation for Quirrell burning at their hands as being caused by their dead mother’s love for them, Freak scoffed internally.

If it was caused by a ritual their mother had done before her death, powered by her death?  That was possible, and something Freak would certainly have to look into.  But simply caused by Lily Potter’s love, and no magic beyond that?

No.

Freak didn’t buy that at all, no matter if Harry did.

The rest of their conversation didn’t interest Freak, merely confirming that it was Dumbledore, the bloody manipulator, who had given them their father’s invisibility cloak, dropping hints as to why Professor Snape really hated them due to their father, and how they’d gotten the Stone from the mirror.

Freak didn’t care about Harry’s discussion with Weasley and Granger either, except when he had to push down his fury again when Harry accepted that Dumbledore had probably set them up and allowed the three of them to try and confront Voldemort.  Only Granger seemed to find anything wrong with that thought at all, but even she barely protested.

It disgusted him.  So much for her possessing any of the logic she declared wizards lacking, too.

Hagrid’s visit meant even less to Freak than the pair of Gryffindors’, although Harry appreciated the album of photographs of their parents.

It was, admittedly, the first time they’d really seen them in any detail, and Harry spent hours going through it.  Freak, however, couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm.

They were gone, and he was left dealing with the aftermath.  He could appreciate that they’d died trying to protect him, but he didn’t know what having a proper family was like, so he didn’t know what to miss .

They were only an unreachable dream for Freak, and he didn’t want to dwell on that, unlike Harry.

At least Freak didn’t begrudge Harry for the attachment, and let him stare at the pictures without interference.

The only other thing of significance that happened was Dumbledore’s last-minute assignment of points.

The Gryffindors were, of course, thrilled, but Freak saw how all the Slytherins, and several of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, had scowled at the unfairness-- particularly when the events which earned the points had happened nearly a week prior.

The house cup was not something Freak cared about at all, to be sure, but he could understand how bitter the other house felt at the last-minute stealing of their small glory.

There were too many eyes on him to even do so much as send Malfoy a sympathetic look, however, so Freak kept his thoughts to himself, and watched the celebration.

In fact, Freak only took control once more before the end of the school year, to escape into the Forbidden Forest once more and let the darkness inside him explode outwards again, dealing further damage to the same clearing as before.  It hurt, again, but Freak knew trying to keep suppressing it with how angry he still felt at the year’s events was a doomed venture.  Better to vent his anger now, in the forest where no one could see, rather than in muggle Surrey and be both outed, and possibly arrested for using magic in front of muggles.

After returning to the castle, Freak withdrew and just watched Harry and the other first years as they packed and boarded the train back to London.

It was only the thought that the Dursleys’ hopefully didn’t know they couldn’t use magic-- although unless the laws had changed recently, Freak didn’t know how they couldn’t know, considering Petunia had grown up with Lily-- and that Freak could continue sneaking out to avoid them, and had the darkness inside him if he really needed it, that cheered him at all about the summer holidays, if only barely.

At least the Dursleys’ house wasn’t a magical death trap, Freak reflected grimly as Harry walked over to them, which was more than he could say for Hogwarts.

Chapter Text

Freak's summer after his first year at Hogwarts was surprisingly... normal.  By his standards with the Dursleys, in any case.

Harry was pleasantly surprised, and Freak suspiciously surprised, when the first thing Aunt Petunia did upon their arrival back at Privet Drive was not to inform Uncle Vernon that Hogwarts students were not allowed to perform magic over the holidays.

Of course, Harry's trunk was still confiscated and locked away in the cupboard beneath the stairs, but Freak had predicted that, and his secret second trunk, unknown to Harry or the Dursleys, was safely shrunk inside his pocket while they watched their uncle padlock the cupboard door shut.

When their relatives were sleeping that night, Freak had removed his hidden trunk, unshrunk it with the self-resizing charm on it (which the salesman last year had assured him would not set off the Trace on an underaged student), and retrieved their homework list, his set of books, and owl food for poor Hedwig, who had also been padlocked into her cage.

That was the first of many summer nights where Freak waited until the Dursleys were asleep, and then quietly did his summer homework or studied ahead.

During the days, Harry or Freak were made to do an unreasonable number of chores, were barely fed, and then Freak snuck away whenever possible to sit in the library and read again.  He still read some muggle books from the library, trying to keep up with the basics of a non-magical education, but more often, he brought his own books and read them out of sight of the librarians or other patrons.

(Freak suspected by the end of the summer he'd have memorized his damn books, considering he hadn't predicted Hedwig would be locked up, rendering him unable to owl-order more books, and resolved to learn lock-picking since he couldn't be sure his wandless method of opening locks that he'd learned prior to Hogwarts wouldn't set off the Trace.)

That was the pattern of their days and nights with the Dursleys, interspersed with the days Freak couldn't slip away and had to play "Harry Hunting" again with Dudley and his gang, until the day of their twelfth birthday.

---

Up until he noticed Harry dwelling on it morosely the morning of their birthday, Freak truly hadn't noticed that they hadn't received any letters from Weasley or Granger all summer.

He had never had a friend to write to or call on the telephone, after all, so it was hard to miss what he'd never had.

Harry, however, couldn't stop thinking about it, and it was starting to get on Freak's nerves.

Freak was almost thankful, therefore, when their uncle's meaty hands slapped down on the kitchen table, startling Harry out of his thoughts and summoning the attention of them, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley, all sat around the table as the two Dursley males finished eating breakfast.

"Now, as we all know, today is a very important day."

Freak felt scorn flare as Harry looked up, feeling a flicker of hope that their uncle was actually going to acknowledge their birthday.

"This could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career," he continued, and Harry's hopes were crushed, as he realized the subject was, of course, the dinner party that had been planned for the last two weeks.

Freak tuned them out, ignoring the pandering of their aunt and uncle, and Harry's repeated assurances that he'd be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I'm not there.

Freak knew the dinner party meant there would be no sneaking away for him that day; they'd be doing chores all day, barely given any food again, and then sent to their room for the rest of the night.

And he would have been right, except when they walked up the stairs, exhausted, still hungry, and ready to collapse on their bed-- there was already someone on it.

---

Upon laying eyes on the odd-looking creature sitting on their bed, Freak immediately pushed Harry back in their mind, and took control.

While doing so, the creature seemed to get over its surprise at his entrance, and dropped to the floor, bowing lowly.

"Harry Potter!"  The creature squealed, "So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir... Such an honor it is..."

Freak's mood immediately dropped even further.

"Who are you, and why are you here?"  Freak demanded, deciding that if someone invaded his room without permission, he didn't need to fake politeness.  Particularly with the Dursleys looking for any reason to punish him for making noises-- and this creature, wearing an old pillowcase, didn't strike Freak as someone sent by Albus Dumbledore, who had Hagrid and who knew how many other people willing to play messenger for him.

The creature-- Dobby-- blinked owlishly, and replied, "Dobby, sir.  Just Dobby.  Dobby the house-elf!  Dobby has come to tell you, sir... it is difficult, sir... Dobby wonders where to begin..."

"Sit down," Freak demanded, and when the house-elf's eyes began to water and he got the distinct impression that Dobby was about to burst into loud, grateful tears, he continued quickly-- "and be quiet!  I asked you why you are here, just get to it without the bowing and the crying."

Dobby seemed surprised for a split second, but the harsher demands stopped the incoming tears, to Freak's relief.

"Dobby has come to protect Harry Potter, to warn him, even if he has to punish himself later... Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts. "

There was silence for a moment, broken only by Freak's internal thought of nope, definitely not sent by Dumbledore.

Keeping his face emotionless, in contrast to the house-elf who was still staring at him with huge, earnest eyes, Freak replied.

"Excuse me?"

"Harry Potter must not go back, sir!"  Dobby repeated, his ears flapping a bit as he wrung his pillowcase and bounced in place on his feet in distress.  "Harry Potter must stay where he is safe.  If Harry Potter goes back to Hogwarts, he will be in mortal danger!"

"Why?"  Freak asked-- not that that was new, or news to him.  But he hadn't expected a warning to come before whatever stupid test happened this year.

"There is a plot, Harry Potter.  A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year," whispered Dobby, suddenly trembling all over.  "Dobby has known it for months, sir.  Harry Potter must not put himself in peril.  He is too important, sir!"

"There was a plot last year," Freak pointed out, "and Harry Potter had to stop it whether or not I wanted to.  What makes this year any worse than Voldemort on the back of a teacher's head?"

Dobby looked horrified for a moment, then shocked, before clapping his hands over his ears.

"Ah, speak not the name, sir!  Speak not the--"

"Yes, yes, I got it," Freak hissed, "I told you to be quiet ."

Dobby settled down for a moment again, although Freak knew he'd probably start back up with insisting he not return to Hogwarts at the smallest trigger.

"Fine, You-Know-Who .  Hogwarts wasn't safe last year, with him running around the castle all year and no one doing anything about it.  Of course next year won't be any different.  I guess I appreciate the heads-up, though.  It's not going to be You-Know-Who again this year, is it?"

Dobby wrung his pillowcase with his hands, but shook his head violently.

"Fine.  That's good, I suppose."  Freak eyed Dobby skeptically, wanting to avoid any more loud outbursts.  "I don't suppose you can tell me more-- without making noise or punishing yourself?"

Dobby's mouth flapped open and shut for a moment, and he looked like he wanted to grab their bedside lamp to hit himself with it, but when Freak glared harder, he settled for shaking his head frantically again.

"Fine.  Then thanks for the warning, but I already knew Hogwarts was a death trap, and I have to go back anyway."

Dobby looked distressed again, tugging at his ears.

"Harry Potter is a great wizard, but Harry Potter should not want to go back to friends who don't even write to Harry Potter!"

The house-elf looked pleased with himself for a moment, before Freak's unimpressed expression made him slap his hands over his mouth.

"Dobby means--"

"Well, that explains the lack of letters," Freak said idly, wondering how he was going to explain any of this to Harry with false memories.  "Did you think that having no friends would make me want to stay here?"

Dobby seemed nervous by his lack of reaction, but he nodded, as he pulled out a stack of letters from under his pillowcase.

(Freak wondered how he'd managed to carry them, when it certainly didn't look like the house-elf had had a bunch of letters almost as long as his torso there a moment earlier.)

"Dobby hoped... if Harry Potter thought his friends had forgotten him... Harry Potter might not want to go back to school, sir.  Dobby will return them, sir, if Harry Potter gives Dobby his word that he will not return to Hogwarts!"  Dobby stared at him again, looking desperate for his agreement.

"I don't care about the letters," Freak said harshly, and immediately Dobby's ears drooped, although he didn't look away.

Freak didn't feel bad, knowing he really didn't want this house-elf following him around, trying to help , if stealing his letters was Dobby's idea of helping him.  He'd get enough of that sort of useful "help" from Weasley and Granger, no doubt.

"Even if I agreed to not go back to Hogwarts," Freak continued, "what do you think would happen?  The teachers would all be fine with that?...  No.  I'm sure the headmaster would show up and drag me right back there, because it would look bad if the great Harry Potter didn't return."

When that didn't fully crush the look of stubborn determination on the house-elf's face, Freak decided to take it a step further.  He'd already been more honest with the creature than he would have liked, anyway, and Dobby definitely was setting himself up to be a nuisance.

"Besides, if you succeeded somehow in stopping me from going back, what do you think would happen?  I'm sure the Ministry would show up, snap my wand--" at this, Dobby looked absolutely horrified-- "and then I'd be defenceless.  My relatives downstairs would be thrilled, of course, that I couldn't do magic anymore.  And then they'd come and beat me, probably--" again, the horror on the house-elf's face grew, to Freak's satisfaction-- "and do you know what would happen then?  If you trapped me here with the Dursleys, unable to do magic or escape?"

This time, Freak waited in silence, leaning down towards the horrified house-elf, until Dobby weakly shook his head.

Freak made sure to smile grimly as he replied--

"I'd kill them, Dobby."

And then Freak let go of the darkness inside him again to make his point, and he couldn't be sure if it was his words or his explosion into tendrils of black smoke which cause Dobby's eyes to open as wide as saucers and jump back, dropping the stack of letters as he clapped his hands over his mouth in shock.

It took a tremendous amount of effort to stop the smoke from carving dents into the walls or floor like he'd done to the clearing in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, but Freak knew he had to be careful-- and still, quiet -- or the still-horrified Dobby would be the least of his issues for the rest of the summer.

Freak could feel a nosebleed coming on from the strain as he reformed his body, only determination and spite keeping him on his feet in front of the cowering elf, but he stayed standing.

"Now," he demanded, "do you swear to leave me alone ?"

It took a few seconds for Dobby to seem capable of a response, but finally he nodded his head quickly.

"Dobby will leave Harry Potter and his bad smoke magic alone!"  The elf squeaked out, before disappearing with a pop.

Freak waited a moment to be sure he was gone, and then quickly slumped over on their bed, pressing his fingers to his nose to try and prevent or slow the nosebleed he could feel wanting to begin, and tried to ignore the ache in his entire body.

At least the Dursleys hadn't noticed anything, he thought bitterly.

Now what the hell was he going to do about the letters, and Harry's memories?

Chapter Text

Freak lay on their bed staring at the ceiling.

Thankfully, after scaring away the house-elf, life had returned to normal at the Dursleys', with one exception; with Petunia restricting their food intake even more than the previous summer (Freak idly thought she might be trying to starve them to death), sneaking food from the kitchen after the Dursleys had fallen asleep had finally been noticed.

Luckily, Petunia still seemed unsure if it was Harry sneaking food or her husband or son (in truth, it was all of the above, although of course Aunt Petunia only verbally blamed Harry), but that didn't stop her from demanding Uncle Vernon attach a lock to the fridge door and the pantry, and give her the only key.

With the additional restriction of food, Freak and Harry had even less energy than usual, and as Hedwig was still locked up, Freak couldn't find a solution until he could get to Diagon Alley again.

To top that off, Freak hadn't figured out a way to explain their missing letters to Harry without letting him know about Dobby at all, so, tired and hungry and just done with everything this summer, he simply... stuffed the letters in his shrinking trunk and gave Harry false memories of just going to sleep, while he'd actually been talking to the house elf.

No new letters had arrived in the days since, so Freak just let the issue go, in favor of making plans to try and learn to pick locks before next summer.  Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, the library didn't have any books to teach that particular skill, but Freak hoped he could figure something out during the school year.

They just needed to hang on for another month.

Freak had just turned over on his side, trying to get some sleep despite his growling stomach, when something rapped on the window.

Immediately, Freak turned over, expecting to see an owl, although he wasn't sure who would send them an owl in the middle of the night, but he froze when he saw what had actually made the noise.

Or rather, who, because grinning at him through the window was none other than Ronald Weasley.

What.

Rapidly copying memories of lying in bed, bored, and then seeing Weasley to Harry, Freak quickly retreated in their mind and forced the other forward.

"Ron!" Harry immediately exclaimed, only barely remembering to keep his voice down so as not to wake their relatives.

He creeped over to the window and pushed it up, his jaw dropping as he realized how his friend was there--

Ron was leaning out the back window of an old turquoise car, which was floating in midair.   In the front seats, grinning like the cat which ate the canary, were Fred and George Weasley.

"All right, Harry?" asked George.

"What's been going on?" said Ron.  "Why haven't you been answering my letters?  I've asked you to stay about twelve times, but you never replied!"

Harry blinked.

"I never got any letters this summer, and...Hedwig's locked in her cage, so I couldn't send anything, either."  He stepped aside and gestured at the padlock still on Hedwig's cage, as he'd said, and missed the brief frowns that flashed across the twins' faces, although Freak caught it.

Ron opened his mouth to continue, but to Freak's relief, Harry broke in.

"Look, I'm really glad to see you, but if my aunt or uncle catches you, they're going to kill me, or a neighbor will wake up and see you, and then we'll all be in trouble!"

"Stop gibbering," said Ron.  "We've come to take you home with us.  And no one will see us-- Fred?"

The twin behind the wheel grinned and hit something they couldn't see on the dashboard, and suddenly the car flickered and turned mostly invisible-- they could still see a slight warping where the car was, but at a distance it would be almost impossible to notice.  The only fully visible parts of the car was the interior, where they could still see it through the open windows.  Overall, it definitely looked bizarre from their angle in the house, but definitely less obvious.

Despite that being solved, though, there was still another issue--

"But all my Hogwarts stuff-- my wand-- my broomstick-- it's all locked up downstairs!"  Harry exclaimed.

"Not a problem," the twins chorused.

Whichever one was in the passenger seat-- George, he supposed, if Fred was really the driver-- immediately began shoving himself right out the window of the car, reaching for their bedroom window, and Freak took over from the stunned Harry, quickly moving Hedwig's cage off the desk in front of the window, and quickly grabbing his shrunken trunk-- which did, actually, contain their wand-- from where he'd wedged it between the desk and the wall.

"Where are your things?" George asked, when his feet were finally on the floor inside their room.

"I'll show you," Freak said, as he finished grabbing the very few items of clothing-- all old cast-offs of Dudley's-- that Harry had left scattered around their room and tossing them to Ronald in the backseat.  "But first can you help me get Hedwig out?  She's going to make noise if we shove her cage out the window while she's still in it, and then my relatives will probably wake up and kill us."

George grinned, "No problem, Harry."

He whipped an ordinary hairpin out of his pocket and immediately set to work on Hedwig's lock.

Freak stared intensely as he did so, and when George glanced up and saw, he winked.

"A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of muggle trick, but we feel they're skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow."

"And it doesn't set off the Trace," Freak muttered in agreement.  "Can you teach me how to do that before next summer?"

There was a small click as the lock popped open, but the redhead didn't seem to notice for a moment as he looked back at Freak.

After a moment too long of consideration, George grinned and nodded again, although Freak thought it was less sincere than before.

"Sure thing, Harry!"

Turning back towards his owl, Freak quickly muttered for Hedwig to follow them when they left, and let her out the window before passing the cage over to the younger Weasley boy still in the backseat of the car.

When that was done, Freak brushed past where George was still waiting in his room, and opened the bedroom door carefully, listening for the slightest noise from their relatives' room.

When he heard nothing to suggest they were waking up, he waved for the Weasley twin to follow him.

At the top of the stairs, he quickly warned the other about the squeaky bottom stair, and when he got a nod in return, Freak led the way towards his old cupboard.

Freak saw as George subtly glanced around the living room with sharp eyes, and down at the opposite end of the hall, the lock on the fridge was plainly visible.  The redhead's eyes fixed on it for a moment too long, and Freak made sure he was looking away, appearing to be watching and listening for his relatives, by the time the twin's eyes flashed back to his face.

Freak knew George was noticing the hints that Harry Potter's home life wasn't as perfect as everyone had assumed, even without anything the twins might have heard through their younger brother.  He didn't care-- that was Dumbledore's problem, as far as he was concerned-- and wondered if the twins might offer to help him beyond teaching him to pick locks the muggle way.

He'd take whatever he could get.

While Freak had been thinking, the redhead had started to work on the cupboard lock, and with another minute's work, the lock clicked open.

Freak and George then carefully picked up Harry's trunk, and George was about to lead the way back up the stairs when Freak paused, feeling rather stupid.

"Why don't we just go out the back?"  Freak whispered.  "Then we don't have to try to shove this out the window."

George turned back to blink at him, before sheepishly running a hand through his hair and nodding apologetically.

"Right you are, Harry, lead the way," he whispered back.

Carrying the trunk through the hallway and the kitchen-- passing right by the lock on the fridge door, to Freak's amusement-- was considerably easier than trying to drag it back upstairs, Freak mused, and once outside, a quick hissed call was enough to gain Fred's attention, and he quickly circled the car around to float just barely above the back lawn.

The boot of the car was invisible until George opened it, and then with a minute's heaving, Freak and George managed to get Harry's trunk sorted away, and they were on the way with none the wiser.

Of course, the Dursleys would realize they'd retrieved their things and gotten away either through their open bedroom window or the unlocked back door, and that was sure to make their next summer even more miserable, but for now, they were gone.

Freak returned control to Harry, copying his memories over, and retreated back in their mind as the youngest Weasley boy started to ask Harry about his summer.

None of them knew the reason behind the missing letters, of course, which made all three Weasleys as confused as Harry was, but Freak didn't care.

It wasn't as if they would guess a house elf had been stealing Harry's mail, so Freak let them wonder, and tried to relax as he wondered how hard it would be to sneak around for the rest of the summer with many more eyes on him, and expecting him to be Harry.

---

They arrived at the Weasleys' home, which they'd called the Burrow, just as the sky was starting to lighten.

Harry immediately was in love with the lopsided house, so different from all of Privet Drive, and was still gazing around at everything in wonder as they tried to sneak inside, only to be immediately caught by Mrs. Weasley.

One chewing out later, Harry, Ronald, and the twins were all sat around the table while Mrs. Weasley made breakfast, reassuring Harry that she didn't blame him in between scolding her sons.

After the slightest glimpse of a flash of long red hair and a nightgown, which disappeared back up the staircase with a small squeak ("That's Ginny, my sister," Ron explained.  "She's been talking about you all summer."), de-gnoming the garden (which was certainly a new experience for both Freak and Harry), and meeting Mr. Weasley when he got home from work, Harry and the other boys were finally allowed to trudge upstairs to bed.

Ronald's room was... orange , Freak thought with a mental wince.

Almost every surface was a violent shade of orange, from the bed, to the walls and ceiling, which were covered in posters for his favorite Quidditch team, as he explained, the Chudley Cannons.

Harry loved it, as he told his friend, and Freak silently despaired for his eyes, until the two boys finally tried to get some more sleep.

At least it wasn't the Dursleys', Freak supposed, as they fell asleep with a full stomach for the first time since leaving Hogwarts.

Chapter Text

Staying with the Weasleys really couldn’t have been more different than living with the Dursleys.

Most of the differences were of course positive; they didn’t need to do an unreasonable amount of chores, mostly just tidying up after themselves and de-gnoming the garden every so often, which Harry seemed to view as a game anyway.  With the huge reduction in chores, however, Freak couldn’t help but feel a spike of bitterness and irritation whenever Ronald Weasley complained about being ordered to clean his room or work on his summer assignments (joined by Harry, who hadn’t had a chance with his things locked up all summer, while Freak watched and despaired at their work) before being allowed to play Quidditch with his brothers in the backyard or other fun things.

Freak and Harry didn’t get to do fun things at the Dursleys’.

One negative of staying in a house with so many people, however, was that there always seemed to be eyes on them.

Any time Freak thought he’d have a few minutes to himself, someone magically seemed to appear to invite Harry to eat, or play a game, or something.   Even the Weasley girl, Ginny, seemed to be following him sometimes-- in fact, while Harry didn’t seem to realize, Freak was certain the girl had a crush on the famous Boy Who Lived, and was probably actually following them sometimes.

So while he appreciated the break from the Dursleys, Freak was definitely getting annoyed by the constant presence of people around them.  And with so many magicals around, he couldn’t even finally send Hedwig to fetch him more reading materials from Diagon Alley via owl order, without someone surely noticing.  He’d have to wait until they went to the alley together, and even then, he was sure it would be hard, if not impossible, to slip away so he could buy things without anyone seeing.

On the upside, Fred and George did follow through on their promise to teach him how to pick locks-- Freak gleefully taking over for those lessons, although he copied most of the memories for Harry as well, since he wasn’t sure that the twins wouldn’t mention it in front of Harry and others-- and they even gave him a set of muggle lockpicks, so he wouldn’t need to resort to trying to use a hairpin or similar, which was considerably trickier, although they taught him that as well.

To Freak’s amusement, they also made sure to specifically have him practice on a muggle lock of the same type as the one George had seen on the Dursleys’ fridge.

None of them said anything about it, but Freak decided to thank them by slipping several Sickles into their room when they were outside; definitely more than enough by his estimate to pay for a replacement set of lockpicks.

---

Around a week and a half into their stay with the Weasleys’, they were finally headed to Diagon Alley, new school supply lists in hand-- and Harry and Freak were introduced to the concept of travelling by Floo for the first time.

Freak was not impressed by the lack of explanation of how, exactly , to use the Floo, and of course Harry managed to inhale ash and coughed while trying to say “Diagon Alley.”

Travelling by Floo, Freak mused, was like falling down the center of a narrow tornado of green flames, with vaguely nauseating glimpses of different fireplaces flashing by, too quickly to clearly see.

He wondered if it would be possible to “accidentally” pop out of any fireplace connected to this Floo system.  That was certainly really risky, if it was the case.

After a few more moments of falling, however, they seemed to slow down slightly, and the glimpses of different fireplaces and the rooms beyond started to become clearer; he could comprehend what he was seeing before they were onto the next one, as they continued to slow down.

In fact, he thought he saw Fred and George, as Mrs. Weasley had told Harry to look out for in order to know which exit was correct since they had stepped through first; but Harry wasn’t paying the same amount of attention apparently, as they stumbled to a stop right after that grate had passed them by.

Instead of exiting by the Weasley twins, as a result, they fell out of an unfamiliar fireplace and straight onto a stone floor-- and snapping the bridge of their glasses when they fell off their face.

Freak was already not amused.  Seeing, however, as the dimly lit shop they were standing in was definitely a wizard’s shop-- the lack of anything remotely muggle in appearance in the shop itself gave that away for certain-- and therefore, from what he’d read about the Trace on underage wizards, he could likely get away with doing magic since the Ministry wouldn’t be able to pinpoint exactly which wizard or witch had performed magic in the area, he deemed it safe enough to take over, pushing Harry back in their mind, and muttered a quick Reparo , glad he’d thought it might come in useful while reading and studying the year before.

When nothing happened for a few moments which would suggest his theory on the Trace was incorrect, Freak smirked slightly and dusted off his robes, trying to figure out exactly where Harry had gotten them stuck now.

The items in the glass cases nearby all looked like something out of a muggle Halloween shop, Freak thought; a withered hand, a bloody deck of cards, a glass eye, various masks, bones, and other “spooky” paraphernalia right out of a Halloween advertisement.

It only took a moment for Freak to locate the door out of the shop, although the alley outside didn’t look quite like Diagon-- more like a grungier, run-down version.

Halfway to the door, however, he paused when he spotted Draco Malfoy and someone who looked to be the adult, longer-haired version of Draco; Mr. Malfoy, Freak presumed.

Since he hadn’t been spotted yet, Freak decided hanging around likely wouldn’t hurt, and quickly turned and walked behind a set of bookshelves and a large black cabinet, pretending to browse the books.

A moment later, a bell dinged as the Malfoys entered.

The father and son talked briefly while waiting for the shop owner to appear at the front desk-- or rather, Draco Malfoy complained a bit about the famous Harry Potter, with his stupid scar and his broomstick , while Mr. Malfoy listened and occasionally responded before hushing his son when the owner of the shop-- Mr. Borgin, apparently-- arrived.

Hearing that Mr. Malfoy was there with a list of items he was looking to sell to avoid being caught in some Ministry raids was a bit more interesting, although he had to very quietly slip further away when the younger Malfoy began wandering the shop closer to his direction.

Once the Malfoys left, however, Freak waited a moment and then slipped out after them, deciding that Harry need only have stumbled into a random empty shop; if he copied the memories of the Malfoys’ discussion, Harry and his idiot Gryffindor friends would probably just get into trouble somehow with the knowledge, and Freak was sure that was likely to happen without his assistance, thank you very much.

(Freak was too pessimistic to believe that this year would be less adventurous than their first year, but he’d admit to having a tiny, flickering candle’s worth of hope that he could just have a nice, calm school year anyway.  A tiny, flickering hope, which he assumed would probably be snuffed out within a week of classes.)

Looking around once outside, Freak realized that all the shops in the dreary alley he found himself in seemed to be dedicated to the Dark Arts.  A sign over one of the shops proclaimed the little street to be Knockturn Alley, and Freak wondered if this was the magical equivalent of the “wrong side of town.”  The street was dimly lit; the shops and houses towered above the cobblestone street leaning inwards on both sides, so the buildings mostly blocked out the sunlight and seemed ready to topple over at any moment and crush all the pedestrians below.

He’d like to explore, honestly, if only out of a morbid sense of curiosity, but he had a feeling that at some point, someone would probably notice that the Boy Who Lived was alone and wandering down an alley where he probably wasn’t supposed to be-- certainly, he didn’t see any other children wandering around alone-- so he guessed he’d probably, unfortunately, need to get back to the Wea--

“HARRY!  What d’yeh think yer doin’ down there?”

Freak twitched as he recognized the voice shouting.

Well, at least he’d been right that someone would recognize the Boy Who Lived, although he wished it was someone less... loud.

Retreating back and letting Harry come forward again-- sans memories of the Malfoys and considerably more nervous about being in a Dark alley-- they turned around to see Hagrid quickly striding towards them, looking concerned.

Freak ignored Hagrid and Harry talking, except to note that Knockturn really did seem to be the “wrong side of town” for wizards, just like Slytherin was the “wrong” house at Hogwarts (Freak mentally rolled his eyes), and to note that Knockturn Alley was apparently connected to Diagon Alley, meeting up with the brighter, larger, and louder alley just before the entrance to Gringotts.

Hagrid dragged them around until they were spotted by Granger at the steps outside of Gringotts, and then the Weasleys, who could be seen dashing up the crowded alley towards them as well.

When Harry explained he’d ended up in Knockturn Alley by mistake, the adult Weasleys seemed shocked and concerned, and the twins and Ronald were jealous, but quickly they continued into Gringotts, where Mr. Weasley was immediately distracted by the sight of Granger’s parents, darting over and pestering them with countless questions about muggle money and other non-magical things.

They split up to go to their vaults, and Freak made sure to gather enough for plenty of owl-ordering over the year and the next summer-- he wasn’t sure how, but he knew he’d need to figure out some way of preventing the Dursleys from locking up Hedwig again, so he could get food, if nothing else.  Or at least look into converting some of the money to muggle pounds, since he didn’t have all that much left from what had originally been in his vault the year before, so he could get non-perishable food and keep it in his shrunken trunk or magically-expanded book bag.

Back outside of the bank, they separated again, but of course the Boy Who Lived wasn’t allowed to wander alone, so Freak watched as Harry, Ronald Weasley, and Granger went through their supply lists, buying more ink and parchment, potions supplies, and everything else on their lists.

They all met up again at Flourish and Blotts, only for Freak’s irritation levels to rise when they quickly realized that Gilderoy Lockhart, the author of half their book list for the year-- for Defense Against the Dark Arts, Freak guessed, since none of their other teachers had changed from the year before, and the book titles were obvious-- was present in the bookshop and signing his autobiography.

The mere image of the blond-haired, blue-eyed man, winking, smiling and waving from a poster in the shop window, was enough for Freak to want to set fire to something.

Preferably the man himself, but he’d settle for the poster.  He’d seen that smile for only a handful of seconds, and it was already annoying him.

(He should probably be concerned about his growing pyromaniac tendencies, but... he really didn’t care enough to do anything about it.)

Of course, Mrs. Weasley was apparently a fan of the man, so they couldn’t just quietly get their books and leave, either.

Freak would have preferred to just get the hell out of the shop and owl-order Harry’s school books, but the universe apparently wanted him to suffer, so instead, they had to squish their way through the packed bookstore, mostly dodging middle-aged witches as they clamored to get closer to the blonde man smiling away for the cameras.

Finding the non-Lockhart books from their lists was not too difficult, other than the people-dodging necessary, but to Freak’s dismay, the Lockhart books on their list were all closer to where the man himself was signing books near the front of the shop.

Then of course, the man noticed Harry Potter, and immediately dragged him in by the arm for a photo, clinging tightly when Harry tried to get away.

If they weren’t surrounded by witnesses, Freak would have set fire to the man where he stood-- and at this point, he thought Harry might approve too, not that he’d know.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible, and Harry could only get away after Lockhart had announced to the crowd that he was going to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year-- bloody great-- and gave him the full set of all his published books.

At least they hadn’t already bought the stupid books, Freak thought, and now they wouldn’t need to spend a Knut on the man he was definitely going to find a way to set on fire before the end of the year, squashing Harry’s thought about giving the books to the Weasley girl out of embarrassment.

Of course, then Draco Malfoy reappeared, followed by his father, and Freak got to watch as Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy got in a fistfight , of all things, before Hagrid broke up the fight, to Freak’s disappointment.

Once the hubbub died down, they were finally able to leave the shop and head back to the Burrow using the Floo from the Leaky Cauldron-- Freak briefly taking over just to make sure Harry couldn’t mess it up again, and making sure to inhale before stepping into the fire-- where Freak could start plotting how to kill off their second Defense professor in a row in relative peace.

Maybe he could make it a yearly event; if they were all like Quirrell or Lockhart, he couldn’t imagine it would be a great loss.

Chapter Text

The rest of the summer passed in a blur of last-minute homework being done by Harry and the Weasley boys, reading ahead and practicing lockpicking for Freak in the brief moments of peace he could claim on his own, avoiding Ginny Weasley and her obvious crush-slash-obsession with the Boy Who Lived (she was definitely following Harry around, albeit at a distance; staring at him only to blush fiercely and turn away if they so much as looked at her, and go back to writing in a little black diary she seemed to carry around everywhere), and playing casual games of Quidditch behind the Burrow with the Weasley twins and Ronald.

It was the best time they'd ever had over a summer, although Harry enjoyed the constant activity and noise far more than Freak did-- with so many eyes on him, he didn't even feel comfortable sending Hedwig out to owl order more books outside of school subjects, or to look into how to best keep himself fed during future summers with the Dursleys.  So when the time came to return to Hogwarts, Freak was pleased for the break.  Of course, he had little hope that Hogwarts would be peaceful either, but at least he could usually escape the eyes on Harry slightly more easily there.

When Arthur Weasley decided to have his whole family plus Harry take the (albeit expanded on the inside) Ford Anglia to King's Cross instead of taking the Floo, however, Freak was struck again by how impractical magicals seemed to be.  He stayed quiet and dormant in their head, however, as the car was loaded and they drove off-- only to have to return three times, first when one twin forgot his set of fireworks, then the other forgot his broomstick, and then a third time when Ginny screeched that she'd forgotten her diary.

By that point, they were nearly running late, the adult Weasleys were stressed, and Freak was vaguely amused, considering they could have just owled the forgotten items later-- the owl might even beat them to Hogwarts, given how long they would be on the train.  (Which, Freak mused, also made no sense if Hogwarts had a Floo, unless it was just about the "experience" rather than actually needing to use a train to get to the school.)

They probably made quite a sight, rushing through the muggle side of the train station, but they did make it onto the train just in time, and Harry and Ronald managed to find Granger in a compartment alone.  She helped them lug their trunks into the racks above their seats and then they collapsed onto the bench, breathing heavily from their rush.

Freak tuned out their conversation, uninterested in the idle chatter, although he despaired slightly when he noticed Granger had also been sucked into Lockhart's mindless fan club.  He'd already read-- well, skimmed through, as soon as he realized what garbage he'd been assigned as textbooks-- the man's books, and they alternated between ridiculous, impossible, offensive to common sense, and contradictory.  Even if basic knowledge of certain creatures like vampires, werewolves, and hags couldn't disprove some of his ridiculous claims (which they could), the timelines of the different books were more than a little sketchy; the books didn't outright say anything concrete about dates, but given that the man had published more than ten books in as many years (seven of which had been assigned on their mandatory book list), and the events of some of the books covered several months, Freak found it awfully difficult to believe Lockhart could have done everything claimed.  He would have had to basically hop immediately from one adventure to the next, nevermind all the public appearances he made, and the time it would take to research how to perform some of the more probable magical feats in his books.

So, in short, Freak was not at all impressed with their new probable-fraud of a professor, or with anyone fawning over him.

Or, of course, with the headmaster, given that if he could determine that Lockhart was likely a fraud on some level with barely any effort, the child-endangering headmaster most certainly could as well, if he bothered to think about it at all.  Which either meant that Dumbledore didn't even consider it, he wasn't nearly as smart as people claimed, or he knew and hired the man anyway.

Given the headmaster's inaction from their last year, Freak knew which option seemed most likely.

Freak barely noticed when the train finally arrived, distracted as he was by his own annoyance (and Malfoy barging into the compartment part way through the trip for what was apparently becoming a yearly tradition of an exchange of insults didn't even ping Freak's interest), but he did notice the blonde source of his irritation, dressed in aquamarine robes and primly sitting at the head table in the Great Hall next to an extremely irritated-looking Professor Snape.  In fact, nearly all the professors looked rather pinch-faced except the headmaster (and even his smile seemed a little less wide than usual), to Freak's amusement.  Lockhart certainly hadn't stopped talking to anyone within hearing distance at the table since the students had begun filing in, and he idly wondered if the other professors had had even a moment of silence since the man had arrived.

Probably not.

Freak didn't pay attention to much of anything the rest of the night, tuning out Lockhart's welcoming speech as well as Harry's conversations with Weasley and Granger while they ate.  His only immediate goal was to get back to the dorms, where he would be able to finally go through all his owl order forms and fill them out, to be sent with Hedwig at the first opportunity.

---

Classes began rather uninterestingly; first came double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, which started with Professor Sprout having to shake off the unwanted attention and chatter of Lockhart, who had apparently been following her and trying to tell her the proper way to care for particular exotic plants.  The woman looked distinctly less cheerful than normal, once again to Freak's amusement, although the amusement vanished when the man winked cheerfully at Harry before walking back to the castle.

The class itself was straightforward; Harry repotted seedling Mandrakes with his classmates, while a Hufflepuff who introduced himself as Justin Finch-Fletchley babbled on about Lockhart until they had to put the sound-blocking earmuffs on their ears.

(Freak enjoyed the blessed quiet.)

It still baffled him, given the gardening they had to do with the Dursleys, that Harry was only average at Herbology, Freak mused while watching Harry struggle to shove a particularly large Mandrake into a pot.  Although clearly part of the reason might just be laziness or a distinct lack of common sense, given that there were stacks of larger pots not far away, and rather than struggle to shove the current Mandrake into a too-small pot, he could have just gotten a larger one.

Regardless, after the class ended, the students all dashed back to their dorms for a quick shower before heading to Transfiguration, then lunch, and the dreaded Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Even the peace of their short break after lunch before the dreaded class was broken by the introduction of a hyperactive first-year Gryffindor who introduced himself as Colin Creevey, and asked for a signed photograph.  This, of course, somehow summoned Malfoy, who started his typical posturing, only to be interrupted by Lockhart, who dragged Harry into a photo with himself before Harry could escape.

Freak had to keep the darkness inside him at bay again, when it rose up as Lockhart pulled them against him, an arm wrapped around their shoulders firmly keeping them from escaping.

Lockhart continued to drag them away, giving unprompted and unwanted advice about managing their fame as he pulled them along to his classroom, to Freak's fury and Harry's complete embarrassment.

Weasley's comment, once he and Granger caught up, about Creevey and Ginny probably starting a Harry Potter fan club if they ever met, did not improve either of their moods, either.

The rest of the class proved to be a complete waste of time, starting with a useless quiz all about Lockhart himself and having nothing to do with magic-- to his own irritation and disgust, Freak actually knew some of the answers from his skimming of the man's books, not that he would advertise that by passing the answers to Harry-- and ending with the release of wild pixies, who immediately stole Lockhart's wand and threw it out the window, hung Neville from a chandelier, and began trashing the room.  Lockhart then fled, instructing Harry, Weasley, and Granger as the last three unfortunate students in the room to catch the pixies.

Freak's desire to set the man on fire-- and all the portraits of himself which he'd absolutely covered the walls of the classroom in as well-- only grew exponentially the longer they were in close proximity.

He resolved to check if any of the new books he was going to order had fire-generating spells which could destroy a portrait.  It would be mildly cathartic to learn, if nothing else.

---

The next several days were still satisfyingly dull for Freak, although Harry spent an annoying amount of time trying to avoid the attention of both Lockhart and Creevey, and Ginny's shy but blatant staring at meals.

On Saturday, while Harry was woken up at the ass-crack of dawn for Quidditch practice, Freak mused that they might actually manage to start the year with a relatively normal week; or at least one without anything life-threatening happening.

Freak's attention was summoned back to reality, however, when the Slytherin team invaded the field, introducing their new Seeker-- Malfoy-- and showing off the brand-new Nimbus 2001 brooms Lucius Malfoy had bought for his son's new team.

Freak didn't care about Quidditch, so the discussion-slash-argument didn't hold his attention until Weasley and Granger came down from the stands to join in the drama, Malfoy called Granger a mudblood -- Freak recognized the slur for muggleborns from his extracurricular readings, although Harry didn't know it-- and Ronald Weasley took out his wand and cast a spell with no words or clear wand motions.

To the shock of everyone present, Malfoy fell back onto his rear in the grass and began throwing up slugs, to the watchers' disgust.

This, of course, started a full-blown fight between the two teams, using both spells and fists, which only broke up with the arrival of Professor Snape, with Lockhart tagging along behind him.

Detentions were handed around to the entire Gryffindor team and points deducted, and Professor Snape was hauling away Malfoy by the arm to head to the hospital wing when Lockhart stuck his nose into things-- to request that he be the one to handle Harry's detention.

Professor Snape paused, and when the man glanced back at Harry, Freak could only guess the look of horror on their face was what prompted him to agree, to both Freak and Harry's despair.

They'd honestly have preferred scrubbing out cauldrons.

That was how they found themselves spending their Saturday evening in detention with Lockhart in his office on the second floor, helping to answer his fan mail by addressing the envelopes.

Even Harry basically went through the motions on automatic, entirely ignoring Lockhart's prattle and only answering with a vaguely muttered word or sound of agreement when a pause made him realize a response was expected.

Honestly, Freak wouldn't have even bothered.

Enough time had passed-- neither of them sure exactly how much-- that their hand was cramping and going numb when Freak heard it.

"Come... come to me... Let me rip you... Let me tear you... Let me kill you..."

And Freak's small candle of hope for a non-life-threatening school year was immediately snuffed out with his resigned despair.

Chapter Text

Not again, Freak thought, as he waited for Harry to immediately react to the voice, knowing he'd likely jump headfirst straight into whatever life-threatening danger was going to plague them this year--

Only, he didn't.

There was a long moment of silent confusion on Freak's part, filled only with the scratch of Harry's quill and the continued prattling on of Lockhart; neither showing any reaction to the voice threatening murder.

What?

Freak dove deeper into their mind, pulling forth his own memory of a moment ago, as well as the same moment from Harry's perspective, and was shocked when they didn't quite match up-- while he had heard the voice, Harry had only heard a vague sound he registered as wind.

Except upon closer inspection, it almost sounded like...

Hissing.

Freak mentally froze.  He had read Hogwarts, A History and knew that Salazar Slytherin could speak to snakes, as could some of his descendants-- and his was the only known bloodline to hold that trait in the British wizarding world to date-- but as far as he knew, the Potters were not descended from Slytherin's line, and his research into the Potter family tree via newspapers and old genealogies hadn't mentioned any Parselmouths.  Not to mention that wouldn't explain why he could hear the probable-snake, but Harry couldn't.

And yet, he couldn't think of anything else the hissing could be.

Unsettled, Freak prompted Harry to finally notice how late it had gotten, and Lockhart released them from their detention, but Freak hardly cared; he was straining to hear any other hint of the snake as they walked back to the dorms, with no success.

That wasn't a comfort to Freak, however, and when they finally lay in bed, Harry drifted off to sleep quickly, but Freak's thoughts stayed active much longer.

If this turned into a situation like their first year, then whenever the snake made itself known, the Hogwarts staff wouldn't do anything, and Harry would likely be dragged into the situation somehow, and indirectly pushed to solve it by Dumbledore or circumstances , when no one else would.

Except... while Freak wasn't sure if they were supposed to have heard the snake, Harry couldn't understand it-- and if that ability had been known, that would have been the easiest way to drag Harry into the mess of things.  But Harry couldn't hear it; Freak could.

And Freak wasn't willing to play the same games Harry kept throwing himself into; he had no intention of throwing himself in danger to save the school when that was the staff's job.  He would only act if needed to protect himself.  Screw Dumbledore and the rest of the wizarding world's expectations of the Boy Who Lived; Freak wasn't going to let Harry play the Gryffindor to their deaths, just because the teachers were incompetent.

If he had to, Freak resolved, he would take control of their body more often in order to keep them alive.  He refused to let the accursed school and its headmaster be the death of him; the rest of the school could fend for itself.

And the first thing he would do, Freak thought, was ditch Weasley and Granger in the morning and head to the library to look up any known magical snakes.

---

Ditching Harry's friends was easier than he expected, Freak thought with amusement.  Weasley usually slept in on weekends until Harry woke him up, and if Granger was up early, she must have stayed in her room or gone down to breakfast, since she was not in the common room when he passed through.

Freak didn't want to risk anyone finding him at breakfast and being sidetracked, or even just having to pretend to be Harry (or to actually cede control to him), so he skipped breakfast entirely in favor of the library.  This early on a Sunday, the library was mostly empty, only the hawk-eyed librarian and a couple Ravenclaws and the rare Hufflepuff or Slytherin scattered around, the latters clearly working on homework.

It was simple to slip quietly through the aisles, finding the section on magical creatures, and scanning the spines, Freak pulled a few with promising titles and went to find a small table out of sight of the other students.

There weren't many magical creatures that could be considered snakes, according to the books.  A few of the more serpent-like dragons from the east could possibly fall into the category; and then there were Ashwinders, which spawned from magical fire and only lived for an hour; a Basilisk, which Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them specifically mentioned had first been bred by Herpo the Foul, a Greek Dark wizard and a Parselmouth, had venomous fangs and a deadly gaze, could live for hundreds of years, and could only be controlled by Parselmouths; a Horned Serpent, which was mentioned could be understood by the founder of Ilvermorny, Isolt Sayre, although the book didn't specifically refer to her as a Parselmouth as it had Herpo the Foul, and they were supposed to be extinct in Western Europe; possibly an Occamy; and a Runespoor, a three-headed serpent up to seven feet long, often kept as pets by Parselmouths.

While reading the Fantastic Beasts book, Freak was also distracted by another entry, with an eerily familiar description: Obscurials.

A Dark magical force, an Obscurus is created when a witch or wizard attempts to suppress their magic rather than learning how to control and harness it. This tends to occur when the wizard in question associates practicing magic with trauma and abuse. During moments when such an individual (known as an Obscurial) feels upset or angry, their magic will manifest as the uncontrollable and destructive Obscurus. The angrier the wizard gets, the larger the Obscurus grows, and its appearance sometimes includes fiery red tendrils or glimpses of the Obscurial's face. Capable of flight, an Obscurus will respond to the actions of those in its immediate vicinity and can comprehend human speech. It can even kill other human beings, leaving victims with strange web-like markings on their faces.

Obscurials will not usually live past the age of 10, as the Obscurus grows proportionately to its host's evolving magical abilities, eventually draining them of their energy and strength. Obscurials, however, cannot be killed while in their Obscurus form. Even if an Obscurus is blasted into pieces, the fragments can reform to create the Obscurial within.

Freak copied the entry into his personal notes, determined to find more books on the creature inside him later, and then returned to his search for magical snakes.

Searching all the relevant books in the Hogwarts library only gave him two good possibilities, since Ashwinders lived such a short period of time, a Runespoor would have produced more than one voice due to its three heads, and dragons or Occamies seemed more of a stretch, and also less likely to be able to fit inside the Hogwarts walls, presumably through either secret passageways or the plumbing, since no snake creatures were listed with the ability to pass through solid rock.  That left the most likely suspects as a Basilisk or a Horned Serpent, both known to speak Parseltongue, as well.

Of the two, the Basilisk was certainly the more deadly, since the Horned Serpent wasn't mentioned as being venomous, and definitely couldn't kill with its gaze.

Which, of course, made Freak immediately suspect that the snake in the walls was a Basilisk and not a Horned Serpent.

It would just be his luck.

Once he settled on a Basilisk, however, his previous knowledge of muggle mythology helped more than the books in the library when deciding what to do about it--

Not that he was going to go after the serpent; he didn't have a death wish.

No, he was going to procure a small mirror and use it if he had reason to think the snake might be near, although he had the advantage of being about to hear the snake if it spoke while approaching, so he wouldn't need to walk around suspiciously with a mirror at all times.  (And unfortunately, carrying a rooster around would be even more suspicious, and harder to procure.)

Some muggle myths (although often contradictory) about Basilisks and the similar-sounding Gorgons and Medusa said that the creatures' gazes were deadly when seen directly, but were reversible if seen as a reflection, and if he were trapped in a situation where he had to meet the Basilisk's eyes, Freak would vastly prefer a possible temporary inconvenience over definite death.

The library books contained no other useful information about either Basilisks or Obscurials, to Freak's annoyance, so eventually he had to admit defeat and left the library just as quietly as he had entered it, heading for an empty classroom so he could unshrink his hidden trunk and take out his stack of owl order forms to look for more books with information on Obscurials... and fire spells, Freak recalled, as he passed two first years giggling about Lockhart.

---

Freak's few hours of quiet productivity in the library was not setting a norm for the next several weeks.

Between classes, homework, and quidditch practice, Freak was hard-pressed to find time to research more about Obscurials, and he was further hampered by a limited number of books on the subject.  In fact, Freak had needed to write a note to the owner of Flourish & Blotts asking if they carried any books on the subject at all, and they'd only been able to provide two books which mentioned the creatures.  Both of the books only mentioned Obscurials briefly and weren't particularly useful, other than noting that other witches and wizards tended to feel extremely repulsed by the magic of an Obscurus, and there were no known Obscurials who had reached the age of majority; each had died either due to a third party or the Obscurus inside them had eventually drained their magic.

Lovely; something to look forward to, Freak thought.

Since there was no known way to remove an Obscurus from its host (with the host alive at the end of the procedure), or to otherwise save the Obscurial, Freak decided to simply put the subject out of his head, for the time being.  He could experiment with the Obscurus later and see if he could figure out what none of the book authors had; none of the books mentioned anything about an Obscurial actually trying to save themselves anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to try.

Or it would, but with a pre-determined death sentence over his head anyway, it didn't really discourage him from the attempt.

In the meantime, there were fire spells to learn (he picked up Incendio quickly, as well as a charm to make bluebell flames, and a spell called Ignistus, which produced the heat from a fire without the flames themselves, far more extreme than a warming charm), and a probable Basilisk slithering around, although Freak hadn't heard it since the night of his detention.

Other odd things were still occurring around the school, however: the Weasley girl and the Creevey boy were both still competing for the title of Harry Potter's biggest fan-slash-stalker, to Harry's discomfort; and sometimes when Freak wandered around the school under their invisibility cloak, he'd run across the Weasley twins, looking either confused or concerned, and had a difficult time shaking them off.  They were uncannily persistent in tracking an invisible person, and Freak often could only evade them by losing them on the shifting staircases or finding a crowd of students to disappear and blend into, before slipping away or planting false memories for Harry to explain why he was invisible and letting him take over again.

He wasn't sure how they were almost running into him, but one twin or the other kept looking at a piece of parchment when they appeared to have an idea of where he was standing.  He couldn't get close enough to look at the parchment, however, and wasn't willing to get within arm's reach just to find out.

Despite the annoyances, things were still peaceful on the Basilisk front until shortly before Halloween.

It began with Harry running into Nearly-Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost, and after a brush with Filch and a rescue from detention with the ghost's assistance, Harry ended up with an invitation to his deathday party, to Freak's resigned amusement and Harry's reluctant acceptance.

When leaving the party in the dungeons with Weasley and Granger, however, Freak heard the Basilisk again.

"...rip...tear...kill...so hungry...for so long..."

The voice seemed to be moving straight upwards quickly, and since Harry and the other two Gryffindors were headed away from the direction the voice moved in, as they tried to catch the end of pudding at the Halloween feast, Freak didn't interfere.

The trio reached the Great Hall just in time for them to grab some desserts before the platters emptied, while answering their tablemates' questions about where they'd been, and they stuffed their mouths and their pockets with the food as the students began to rise again to head back to their dorms.

Their way back to the dorms, however, was halted when they passed through a flooded section of the second floor, and saw a message painted in what looked like blood on the wall of the corridor.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.  ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

Beneath the message, hanging by her tail from a torch bracket and stiff as a board, was Mrs Norris, eyes wide and staring downwards.

Several students screamed, and shortly more students, followed by a few teachers, appeared in response.

The muttered whispers of the students were broken by a loud laugh from one Slytherin in particular.

"Enemies of the Heir, beware!  You'll be next, Mudbloods!"

Freak immediately brushed Malfoy's behavior off; it was hard to notice, but the boy did seem a bit surprised, as much as the other Slytherins who had come to investigate.  He chalked it up to posturing, since Malfoy certainly did enough of that already.

He was far more concerned that his Basilisk theory seemed to have been correct-- the cat didn't seem dead, however, merely frozen, which made him suspect that the muggle theory that the indirect gaze of a Basilisk didn't kill, only petrified, was correct.  If the cat had been staring at the water flooding the floor when she saw the Basilisk, then it would explain why she wasn't dead.

For her to be hanging by a torch bracket, however... That meant a human had been nearby when she'd been petrified, and had placed the frozen cat beneath the words they had painted on purpose.

If Freak had been sure before that he didn't want to let anyone know that he was a Parselmouth, he was dead certain now.  He had no doubt he'd be immediately blamed for the Basilisk, somehow, once anyone else came up with the theory that a Basilisk was in the school.

Now he just had to wait and see if the teachers would do anything, particularly if the next attack was the petrification or death of a student, not a cat.

If they didn't, Freak would bet that the headmaster would somehow try to push Harry into fixing the problem-- again -- but Freak wouldn't let him.

The only life Freak was worried about, with the Basilisk, was his own.

Chapter Text

When Filch arrived, followed quickly by the headmaster and several other teachers, it didn't take long at all for Filch to start shouting at the students, making accusations and demanding to know who had killed his cat.

Lockhart, looking more excited than worried, quickly volunteered his office for Dumbledore to examine the cat, and the students were told to head back to their dormitories, when Professor Snape spoke up.

"Headmaster, I am sure that you noticed that three Gryffindor students were late to dinner tonight.  Perhaps we can start with questioning them."

Freak didn't hate the potions professor to an unreasonable extent the way Harry and his friends did, but he would happily have hexed the man at that moment, when the teachers, along with a large portion of the students who had stopped to listen, all turned to look at them.

"Ah yes, you are correct.  Harry, would you and your friends please accompany us to Professor Lockhart's office?"  Dumbledore requested.

Weasley looked nervous and Granger looked righteously indignant, but as neither seemed ready to immediately speak up, Freak decided to intervene.  He wasn't about to let the students who had overheard start spreading rumors , which would be nearly impossible to squash once they took off.

"That's not necessary, we can clear that up right now.  We were late to dinner," Freak took over and admitted, "but we were with the school ghosts at Nearly-Headless Nick's deathday party.  You could ask them; we talked to several of them for hours.  In fact," Freak paused, realizing they were only a little ways down the hall from the girls' bathroom which Moaning Myrtle haunted, according to Granger, and quickly walked over to the bathroom entrance.

"That may be, but we can discuss this in Professor Lockhart's office, come along now,"  Dumbledore said again, and again Freak ignored the attempt to get them away from their audience.

"No need, Professor Snape accused us in front of half the school, so we can clear this up quickly in front of them too."

"Mr Potter, what do you think you're doing?"  McGonagall asked, slightly shrill, as he reached the bathroom door.

Freak ignored her, instead knocking loudly on the door to the bathroom.

"Myrtle?  Are you in there?"  He called.

He could feel the eyes of the teachers and lingering students on his back, and ignored them all.  This stupid display was for them, anyway.

"What do you want now?"  Myrtle replied, flying through the wall and floating, disgruntled, in front of him.  "It wasn't enough that your friend mocked my name at the party, now you had to come back to make fun of me some more?  Poor, miserable, moaning Myrtle--"

"I was just hoping you could confirm that you talked to me and these two," he cut her off and pointed at Weasley and Granger (loathe as he was to help the two idiots out of trouble when they didn't help themselves, it would be suspicious for Harry not to help them), "at Nick's deathday party earlier tonight?"

"Yes!  Peeves told me all about how your bushy-haired friend was making fun of me, even though she lied and said she wasn't.  Can't you just leave me alone?"  Myrtle started wailing again, and Freak raised his hands in supplication, holding back a slight smile.

"That's all I needed to confirm, thank you Myrtle," he said, and quickly walked away from the ghost back to where the two idiots were standing open-mouthed, staring at him with the other students.

Professor Snape looked like someone had shoved a lemon in his mouth.

"See?  We were at the deathday party in the dungeons, you can ask any of the house ghosts too, if you don't believe Myrtle, and then we rushed back just in time to grab some pudding.  And the party was in the dungeons, so we weren't anywhere near here.  So you can start with questioning anyone besides us."

Freak crossed his arms, staring down the teachers, ignoring how Snape, Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Lockhart all had varying levels of disapproval or disappointment on their faces.

He didn't care about what they thought; really.  This was to get the irrational, gossiping students off his back-- and from the whispers he was already hearing, and the surprised and impressed looks on the older Ravenclaws' faces, that had worked.

With no legitimate reason to single them out any longer, the three of them were released to their dormitories along with all the other students, and Freak ceded control again, copying the memories over exactly so Harry would think asking Myrtle had been his idea.

He ignored the impressed whispers around them as they walked back, and Granger's surprised praise and Weasley's awe, letting Harry have to deal with their annoying housemates for the rest of the night.

To the students' surprise, except for Freak himself, it was announced at breakfast the next morning that Mrs Norris was petrified, not killed.

Immediately new rumors began to pop up, and Freak caught a couple students still glancing their way occasionally, but most of the students seemed to have disregarded them as immediate suspects, thankfully.  Several of the students, particularly the first years, looked particularly scared; the youngest Weasley looked outright terrified, to the consternation of her brothers, who tried to comfort her with little success.  ("She loves cats," Weasley whispered to Harry when he asked about it.  "Dunno why she's so sad about Mrs Norris in particular, though.  I thought everyone hates that stupid cat.")

Of course, throughout the entire meal-- and later during his classes-- Lockhart was spouting off dramatically, claiming he'd known the cat was not dead all along, and he'd seen similar cases in the past, and that they were all lucky he was present, as he would be able to solve the mystery easily.

Every student within hearing range who didn't seem enamored with the man looked ready to curse him, and all the teachers except Dumbledore looked ready as well.

Snape, who he sat next to at meals, looked particularly murderous, to Freak's amusement.

After classes, Granger was immediately off to the library, stating she wanted to look up the Chamber of Secrets in Hogwarts, A History because she thought it had been mentioned there but had left her copy at home.  Harry and Weasley saw her all too soon back in the common room, however, when she stomped over and flounced down into the seat next to them, saying all the copies had already been checked out.

Freak watched silently, not mentioning that he had a copy of the book in his shrunken trunk that he always carried on him without Harry's knowledge.

The students continued to gossip about the Chamber, but no one, even whoever had apparently managed to check out the school's copies of Hogwarts, A History , seemed to have any plausible theories.

Until their next History of Magic class, when Granger raised her hand, and to the shock of all the students and particularly Binns himself, she asked him if he'd heard of the Chamber of Secrets.

The ghost was particularly unwilling to talk about a place which he claimed was a myth, but he did eventually mention that there was supposedly a monster inside the Chamber which only Salazar Slytherin could control.

Freak thought this would obviously lead everyone to realize that the monster was a snake, since Slytherin's family line was renown for being the only known Parselmouths in Britain, and from there it wouldn't be hard to realize that only a Basilisk could petrify a creature, and yet absolutely no one seemed to have made either realization.

The only conclusion the students seemed to draw, as a whole, was that a Slytherin student must be responsible for having opened the Chamber and released whatever monster was inside.

Freak honestly didn't know why he was surprised, anymore.

---

Despite the idiocy of everyone around him, Freak was mostly able to leave Harry in control, until Weasley and Granger got a new bright idea in their heads.

"We should investigate," Weasley insisted again, only to be shushed by Granger before the librarian could do it.  "Who knows when the monster will strike again.  We saved the stone last year, we can save the school again this year!"

"And how do you suggest we start, Ron?"  Granger hissed, huffing as she shut another book, which once again didn't have any information relevant to the Chamber.

Harry had to grab his ink bottle when it wobbled, to avoid it spilling all over his Transfiguration essay.

"I can't find anything on the Chamber of Secrets or the monster within anywhere in the library, with Hogwarts, A History still checked out.  I even went over and asked the Ravenclaws if any of them had a copy, but they all insisted they didn't!"

Harry nodded slowly.

"If Hermione can't find anything, I'm not sure what else we could do," he said.

Freak caught his next thought forming before he could open his mouth to voice it, and stepped in, however.

He was not letting them volunteer to go looking around the corridor where Mrs Norris had been petrified.

"Besides, I'm sure Dumbledore will handle this."  Freak said instead, picking up the conversation before either Weasley or Granger could notice a pause-- and lying through his teeth.  "He set up the Mirror last year too, remember?  Voldemort couldn't get the stone out of it, so we weren't really necessary anyway.  If anything, we probably made it worse .  I'm sure he can handle whatever the monster is this year."

Both Gryffindors looked flabbergasted by this logic, to Freak's hidden amusement.

"I-- you're right, Harry," Granger said after a moment.  "I'm proud you're going to stay out of trouble this year.  I'll keep looking for books on the subject, but we won't do anything dangerous, and the teachers can definitely handle it."  She smiled proudly at them, ignoring Weasley's sulking expression, and the fact that she had been one of the ones who wanted to look into the Chamber at all in the first place.

"It's probably Malfoy," Weasley finally grumbled.  "He's not smart enough to get away with it for long anyway."

Freak resisted the urge to slam his head into the table or set books on fire, and ceded control again after making sure he squashed Harry's desire to investigate thoroughly, making sure to attach a sense of shame for having gotten involved needlessly to his memories of confronting the possessed Quirrell last year.

(He chose not to point out that Quirrell could have just stolen the entire Mirror and figured out how to get the stone out in his own time, if he'd been smarter, since no one seemed to have thought of that either, their headmaster included.)

---

There was a slightly heightened sense of tension around the school for the next couple days, and a lot of side-eyeing the Slytherins, but nothing particularly unusual happened, to Freak's satisfaction.

The only thing particularly ruining his mood was Lockhart; specifically his insistence on calling on Harry to help act out demonstrations of his supposed heroics from his books.  After the second time, however, Harry's patience ran out-- without Freak's interference-- and he began to refuse, to the man's quickly-masked frustration, and the ire of his classmates who still were in awe of the man, Granger included.

Then on Saturday morning, there was another Quidditch match-- Gryffindor versus Slytherin, and Wood seemed practically manic in his desire for them to win.

Many of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws also seemed to be rooting for them, actually, since so much of the school thought a Slytherin was behind Mrs Norris' petrification and the threat on the wall.  Since she was the only victim, however, there was still some doubt as to the monster's existence lingering among the students.

With the added pressure, Freak was half-expecting something to happen during the match, but to his surprise, nothing did; Harry eventually caught sight of the snitch floating just a little behind Malfoy's head, but he circled away from it at a regular pace with Malfoy following him to taunt him, only for Harry to quickly jerk around and grab the snitch before it could disappear again, once there was enough distance between it and Malfoy.

Flint, the Slytherin captain, was furious , shouting at Malfoy before they'd even landed their brooms.

Almost three-quarters of the school was celebrating Slytherin's defeat-- until the next morning, when a solemn-faced Dumbledore announced to the school that Percy Weasley had been found petrified while he was assigned to patrol the halls as a prefect.

All the other Weasleys immediately lost all color in their faces, and Freak noticed that the students who hadn't been concerned before now seemed convinced.  Even some purebloods from various houses who had thought themselves safe due to the purity of their blood now seemed scared, since blood-traitors or not, the Weasleys were purebloods.

The first-years in particular were terrified, and it became common for them to travel the halls in packs whenever possible, out of fear.  A black market of real or faked protection charms and amulets also sprung up practically overnight; none of which would actually protect against a basilisk, Freak knew.  He still always kept a small mirror on him, ready to use in case he heard anything to suggest the basilisk was near.

A couple days later, the first Slytherin was ambushed alone in the halls by several upperclassmen and sent to the hospital wing.

Chapter Text

After the first Slytherin was sent to the hospital wing and the upper years responsible-- two Gryffindors and a Ravenclaw-- were only given a single detention and minimal point loss, the school seemed to go mad, in Freak's opinion.

Or rather, more mad than usual.

The Slytherins were practically open game for the other houses, with the teachers doing almost nothing to punish the instigators, and the Slytherins were, of course, furious.  The upper years gave as good as they got, but the first and second years traveled in packs, with at least one upper year Slytherin whenever possible, else they usually ended up in Madam Pomfrey's care.

In fact, the matron and Snape were the only two adults who seemed properly concerned about the attacks on the Slytherins, Freak thought.  Some of the others, like Flitwick and Sprout, verbally chastised their students when they were caught attacking the Slytherins, but their punishments were never severe enough to help.

Freak had no intention of doing anything to help, really; after all, there wasn't much he could do even if he wanted to.  Publicly calling out the professors on their lack of punishments wasn't likely to change their behavior, and would only draw the rest of the school's ire onto himself.

---

Freak had managed to shake off Granger and Weasley in order to study alone in an abandoned classroom, getting a couple hours' worth of time to himself, when he was disturbed by the sound of jeering voices in the hall outside the classroom door.

He ignored it, at first, assuming whomever it was would pass by quickly, but when it continued at the same volume, Freak draped the invisibility cloak over himself and silently creaked open the classroom door to look outside.

What he saw didn't surprise him.  Further down the corridor, four upper years were bullying what looked like a first year Slytherin, who was trying to look unaffected, but Freak could see that he was shaking slightly, and had at least one cut on the arm facing him.

Freak considered closing the door and leaving them to it, or at most keeping an eye out in case the upper years went irreparably far, but--

None of the students had noticed him, and he was invisible.  And... that could have been him, this year, Freak knew.  Doubly so if the hat had gotten its way for either Harry or himself.

So, instead of closing the door and returning to his books, Freak slipped his wand out from under the edge of the cloak, and with a whisper, sent a banishing spell at one of the suits of armor on the far side of the hall, just around the corner to a more trafficked corridor.

The upper years immediately jumped and whirled around at the crash, and ran off quickly to avoid whoever might come to investigate the sound.

Satisfied, Freak withdrew his wand, only to pause as a thought came to him.

It only took a moment to shove his cloak back in his bag, along with the books he'd been reading, and then as casually as possible, he opened the classroom door without bothering to keep it silent.

The first year, still gathering some belongings which they must have either dropped or had fallen out of their bag when the upper years attacked, looked up sharply at the noise, and his eyes widened slightly when he saw Harry Potter.

Freak didn't react, silently walking by the other as if nothing had happened, except as he was drawing even with the other (and the voices around the opposite corner of the hall were getting closer), he met the eyes of the Slytherin-- and winked.

He saw the Slytherin's face scrunch up slightly in confusion, but didn't stick around.  As soon as he turned out of sight of the boy, Freak picked up his speed and made sure to be far away from the corridor before anyone else got near.

No one approached Harry after that, to Freak's satisfaction, although he recognized the first year he'd helped as he stared at Harry during some of the meals in the great hall.

Having gotten away with helping once, Freak made it a habit of providing a distraction whenever he came across the bullying, but only when he was certain he couldn't be discovered, by either student, teacher, or portrait.  And usually only when it involved the younger Slytherins.

With how frequently the attacks were happening, he certainly had the chance to quietly intervene more than once.

The third time, the Slytherins in question-- two first years this time; they'd been careful to walk together but it still didn't help them against sixth and seventh years-- stopped him.

"Why did you help us?"  One of the two asked.  Freak didn't recognize her, but he had the vague recollection that she might have sat near the first boy he'd intervened for.

Freak shrugged.

"I don't have anything against the Slytherin house," he said, keeping his voice carefully even.  "The teachers aren't doing their jobs, and if I don't get caught helping, it's no trouble for me."

The pair of Slytherins definitely looked like they had more questions, but Freak walked away, satisfied.

He knew perfectly well that the majority of the Slytherins would never like or trust him, given their families' allegiances with Voldemort, but trust or friendship wasn't what he was after.  No; all he wanted was to plant a seed of interest, and if as a bonus, they thought of him as anything other than an outright enemy, well, that could only benefit him.  He had no interest in a fourth of the school considering him an enemy by default.

---

Freak noticed a definite increase in the number of Slytherins keeping an eye on him during meals, or watching out of the corner of their eye in the halls or during meals, after that.

The eyes mostly belonged to the younger Slytherins, but a few of the older years' suspicious stares told him that at least one of the first years had spread the word of his actions to others in the house.

And of course, Harry, Weasley, and Granger didn't notice any of the stares.

Freak was also satisfied that none of the Slytherins ever tried to approach him publicly.  He'd assumed they wouldn't, but he was well aware that if they had anyway, that could have been difficult to explain, if Harry was both in control and with his pair of idiots.

Instead, Freak was mildly surprised when a couple first years, one of which he recognized as the first boy he'd helped, approached him in the library, after he'd ditched Harry's friends and snuck off deeper in the stacks to read more alone.

A nervous shuffling sound to his left was the first indication that he was not alone among the books anymore, followed by a quiet voice.

"Potter?"

Freak glanced up, and then carefully looked around to make sure no one else was in sight or hearing range.

"Yes?"  He asked, when he was sure they were alone.

The Slytherin he recognized cleared his throat, glancing at his housemate before meeting Freak's questioning gaze.

"We overheard some Gryffindors talking outside the library," he began.  "They were planning on ambushing any lone Slytherins they saw leaving the library.  We're not alone, but... we're only first years, and there's no other Slytherins around right now."

The boy fell silent, clearly unwilling to actually ask for his help, but the implication was clear.

Freak was quiet for a moment, before deciding.

"I'll walk you back to the dungeons," he said, and immediately saw the poorly-masked relief on the pair's faces.  "But we'll walk out separately."

The boy he recognized looked like he understood, but the other frowned.

"Why separately?"

Freak met his eyes squarely.

"I'm willing to help, but I'm not going to paint a target on my back to do so."

There was a short pause before he got a nod in response.

It didn't take much coordination for them to decide that the Slytherins would leave the library first, with "Harry" following very shortly afterwards, but having come from a different section of the library.

Sure enough, while Freak could see a group of Gryffindors he thought were probably sixth years hiding to the side of the corridor near the library entrance, none of them approached the Slytherins with him in sight.  After all, while "Harry Potter" had never spoken out against the attacks, he also hadn't participated in any of them.

The rest of the walk back to the dungeons was uneventful, but Freak only turned to leave after they whispered their password to a portrait of a man with a snake coiled around his neck and shoulders.

He'd made no effort to hide himself from the view of anyone inside the common room as the portrait slid open, however, and his departure was stalled when he heard a surprised noise from inside the room, followed by the hurried shuffling sounds of someone getting up.

"Potter!"

Freak had only taken a couple steps away, when Draco Malfoy barged outside the common room, a glare on his face.

He turned back, face entirely blank.

"Yes?"

"Whatever you're doing, leave the first years out if it!  I don't know what your game is, Potter, but when I do, my father will--"

Freak just rolled his eyes and turned back around to leave, although he was careful to listen for any indication that Malfoy was going to attack him in the back.

"I've already said that I don't have anything against Slytherins in general," he replied over his shoulder, not loudly, but still clear enough to carry into the common room behind the blonde, "and even if I did, I'm certainly not going to go around attacking first years like the rest of this idiotic school."

He walked away to the sound of Malfoy yelling after him, but he didn't care.  Malfoy wasn't really his audience, anyway.

Freak was almost out of the dungeons, ready to trek back up several flights of stairs and return control to Harry with no memory of the Slytherins, again, when a noise and a movement out of the corner of his eye made him pause.

Down a side corridor, the Bloody Baron was floating, clearly about to pass through a wall and vanish somewhere else in the dungeons.

Glancing around to make sure that there were no people or portraits around (although there were almost no portraits in the dungeons anyway), Freak swiftly turned away from the stairs to head after the ghost instead.

"Excuse me, Baron?"  He asked, slightly unsure of what to call the ghost.

The Bloody Baron paused and turned around slowly, looking slightly surprised, but mostly indifferent, at the sight of a Gryffindor in the dungeons.

"What do you want?"  The ghost asked, clearly uninterested.

Freak paused, and fidgeted in a motion of discomfort.

"The whole school... says you're the only one that Peeves listens to," he said.  It wasn't really phrased as a question, but the Baron gave a short nod in response anyway, when it was clear that he wasn't going to continue.

"Do you think you could... ask Peeves to help protect the Slytherins when the other houses attack them?  I'm sure you've seen what's been happening in this school..."  Freak trailed off, shuffling and glancing up at the Baron nervously; the Baron who looked considerably less indifferent, now.

There was a long pause while the Baron considered him.

"And why would a Gryffindor ask for Peeves to defend Slytherins, even against his own house?"  The Baron asked, eventually.

Freak didn't bother fidgeting again before meeting the ghost's eyes steadily.

"Because no one else is," he replied.  "And that could have been me.  The hat wanted me in Slytherin, after all."

After another long moment of staring, the Baron nodded once, before turning and floating through a different wall than he'd been headed for when Freak approached.

With no one around to see it, living or dead, Freak didn't bother to hide his slight smirk as he turned back towards the stairs.

Chapter Text

Over the next couple weeks, Freak watched and listened with amusement as stories of Peeves interfering with the attacks on Slytherins spread throughout the school with increasing frequency.

Not that the stories were framed as such, of course; the students largely didn't seem to realize, or at least publicly admit, that the students being targeted by Peeves were the same ones targeting the Slytherins, particularly the younger years.  The poltergeist's "pranks" also seemed to vary in harshness, from throwing water balloons and dungbombs to one memorable story ending with a seventh year nearly braining themselves on a suit of armor.

Freak didn't ask what that student had done to deserve it.  Unlike most of the school, he'd noticed that the poltergeist's actions were mostly proportional to what they had done to the Slytherins.

The teachers only seemed irate with the ghost as well, seeming to buy the students' claims that they hadn't done anything to provoke Peeves, with the exception of Snape, who Freak was fairly certain had been the one to supply the poltergeist with some of the nasty potion ingredient scraps (such as the rest of the newt remains when the students had to gather eyes of newts for detentions) that had been dumped on some of the attackers.

The sight and smell had been...memorable, unfortunately.

Despite the ghost's help, however, Freak still had the opportunity to intervene a few more times, since Peeves could still only be in one location at a time.

First years, particularly that first boy he'd helped and those the boy likely considered friends, also approached him when he was alone in the library a couple more times for escorts down to the dungeons if no one else from their house was around.  (Thankfully, they seemed to know that if Harry was with Granger and Weasley, they merely lurked at the edge of his vision until Freak took control and made excuses to separate from the idiots, before approaching.)

As a result, Freak wasn't overly surprised when, after turning to leave as the latest firstie he'd escorted entered the Slytherin common room, he was stopped by a call from inside.

He turned back around to see one of the older Slytherins-- a fourth year, he guessed, but he wasn't exactly sure, as he never really talked or introduced himself to any of the Slytherins-- standing in the doorway to the common room.

The older Slytherin eyed him for a moment, before gesturing with one hand into the common room.

"Step inside for a minute, Potter," he ordered, standing to the side and clearly waiting for him to comply.

Freak tilted his head slightly and eyed the older boy.

He'd been expecting to be confronted by the older Slytherins at some point-- he knew at least one of the first years he'd helped had an older sibling in the house-- but at the same time, he was hesitant to step into a room only filled with Slytherins.  Of course, if they wanted to attack Harry Potter, doing so in their own common room was probably the dumbest place to do so, therefore...

Warily, Freak complied, stepping through the portrait and then off to one side as the other boy closed the portrait, so his back remained pointed at the nearest bit of wall.

The common room was quite different from the Gryffindor one, he noted, quickly glancing around.

Where the Gryffindor tower was mostly decorated with their signature red, and was fairly brightly lit via the many windows around the circular tower room, the Slytherin room was of course much dimmer, located as it was in the dungeons.  Many enchanted lights kept the room from being too dark to read in comfortably, however, and several windows embedded in the far wall let in a blue-green eerie light from what looked like the lake.

(Which made Freak wonder if the lake was somehow actually that close to the castle despite it not seeming to be from aboveground; if the dungeons actually protruded much further from the castle than they seemed to; or if the windows were merely enchanted.)

Thankfully, the common room wasn't full of Slytherins, but there still were a good number of them of varying years scattered around various plush couches and study tables.  Most of whom had paused in their activities to look up when he stepped in, his singular red and gold tie standing out clearly against the sea of green and silver, and the darker-toned decor.

"You wanted to talk to me?"  Freak asked the boy who had invited him inside, turning away from the stares firmly.

He kept one hand resting on the strap of his bookbag and the other hanging loosely at his side, and his face only showed a wary interest.

The boy eyed him again, then dropped a hand on his shoulder (Freak refrained from hexing it off, although he did stare at it sharply for a moment) to steer him over to a chair in the corner, at a study table where three other older students sat, and one younger first year he'd seen before.  Judging by the similarities between the firstie and one of the older boys (a fifth year, he thought), this was one of the sibling pairs he'd known existed.

"We've heard stories of you helping the younger students," a probable-sixth year girl said, staring at him when he sat down.

Freak tilted his head slightly and nodded.

"I'm sure you have," he said simply.

When he didn't offer anything else, he had the satisfaction of watching slight annoyance flicker over the girl's face, while the others exchanged glances.

" Why? "  The girl asked, when she realized he wasn't going to volunteer information since she hadn't actually asked him a question.  "Why are you helping Slytherins?  What do you want?"

Freak just stared back blankly.

"I've been asked that before, and I answered then; because no one else is, and if no one outside of Slytherin catches me helping, it doesn't paint a target on my back to do so."

The girl made a dismissive noise.

"That doesn't explain why you care.  No one helps our house in this school, other than our fellow Slytherins.  And you're mostly targeting the first years; of course we don't believe you're not up to something, Potter. "

Freak shrugged.

"Why ask me, when you're not going to believe what I say anyway?  And of course I've mostly helped the first years; I'm only a second year.  When the upperclassmen are targeted, it's usually by other older upperclassmen.  I'm not about to get into a fight with seventh years."

The girl glared at him and opened her mouth, but before she could reply, the fifth year probable-sibling cut her off.

"I heard something from the Bloody Baron when I asked him why Peeves suddenly started going after the other houses."

The boy was staring keenly at Freak, who turned and met his stare evenly.  It didn't escape his notice that the other students had turned to stare as well; apparently the boy hadn't mentioned this to them before.

Knowing what the ghost had probably mentioned, and withholding a small smirk, Freak tilted his head in query.

"Oh?  What did he say?"

The boy's eyes flickered between his, clearly trying to read his sincerity.

"The Baron said Harry Potter was the one who suggested he tell Peeves to help us."

Whispers broke out quietly around them, clearly betraying that they were being observed by the other students around the room; not that they were being particularly quiet, simply speaking at a normal volume.

Freak let his mouth twitch slightly in displeasure at the name, watching as eyes zeroed in on the small reaction, but he nodded.

"And he said something else too," the boy continued after a moment.

It was getting harder to keep all traces of a smirk off his face.

"The Baron said that when he asked why you cared, you replied that the sorting hat wanted you in Slytherin."

The whispers fell quiet around them.

"Yes, it did," Freak said simply, into the silence so thick, you could have heard a pin drop.

Even the boy seemed slightly surprised at having the rumor confirmed, and the rest of the room seemed downright shocked.

(It would probably have started to be insulting, if Freak weren't so entertained by their expressions.)

" Harry Potter was almost in Slytherin?"  The first girl who had spoken to him demanded.

Freak let displeasure show on his face again.

"The hat was quite sure that Slytherin would help Harry Potter on his way to greatness," Freak nearly-quoted, hissing out the name again.  "It only reconsidered when asked for anything else."

Several students looked haughtily insulted at that statement, and unsurprisingly the confrontational girl puffed up like a cat who'd had its tail trod on.

"Oh?  Too good for our house, Potter? "  She sneered.

Freak gave into the urge to roll his eyes.

"Look at all of you," he waved a hand around at all the students staring unabashedly.  "You're already losing your minds at the thought of Harry Potter helping some of your Slytherins in secret.  How exactly do you think the idiots in this school, your house included, would have reacted if Harry Potter were actually sorted into Slytherin?  There would have been riots in the halls-- even worse than now, although it's great to see how little help the teachers would have been in any case-- and I don't think house solidarity would have helped much inside these walls.  Not to mention I'm well-known to be a half-blood, and if Malfoy going off all the time has any reflection on the rest of you, that alone would be enough for me to avoid being sorted into your house."

Seeing as he'd evidently silenced the students at his table, Freak rolled his eyes and stood up, still aware of all the eyes on him.

"I'm not enough of an idiot to have allowed myself to be sorted into your house, no matter how well it might have fit," he concluded.  "But I will continue to help the first years if I can without painting a target on my own back; you're welcome to be as suspicious of me as you like.  I can't control that.  Just don't approach me around others; I'm not going to join you in being targeted by the other houses, no matter how unfair it is."

He was almost at the entrance again when one of the students spoke from behind him.  It wasn't even one from the table he'd been at; they'd given up all attempts to act as if the entire room hadn't been listening, apparently.

"What stops us from telling the rest of the school you were supposed to be in Slytherin?"

Freak didn't even bother to fully turn around, he just looked over his shoulder with a smirk.

"Who on earth would believe you over Harry Potter? "

---

Freak had been entirely satisfied with the results of the confrontation, and fully prepared to settle back into his pattern of helping behind the scenes while ignoring the suspicious gazes of the older Slytherins at meals or in the halls, taking amusement at how oblivious Harry and his idiots were to all of this happening.

He was surprised, therefore, when a first year approached him when he was alone (Freak having already taken over and ditched Granger and Weasley to study more on his own) in the halls, to pass on an invitation to study inside the Slytherin common room, instead of his usual abandoned classroom or the library.

He knew the older students probably just wanted to keep a closer eye on him again, and to try and gain more information about Harry Potter, but that didn't mean he'd expected to be allowed into their common room with any sort of regularity, particularly so soon.

Since no one else was around to witness the invitation, he accepted.

Despite the stares on his back, which gradually decreased over time when he did nothing interesting, studying in the Slytherin common room was surprisingly quiet.  He would almost say relaxing, if he were at all inclined to relax around anyone at all, and if the constant pressure of the Obscurus inside him allowed for such.

He was mostly left alone by the older students, quietly reading at a table in the corner and being interrupted by the occasional question from a first year student, who had collectively seemed to realize he was actually very smart, and somewhat willing to help them on homework.  Even a couple of his fellow second years had joined him at the table, exchanging questions about defense and charms for his own about potions and history.

(Thankfully, Malfoy and the other more confrontational Slytherins never seemed to be present when he was invited into the common room, which he had no doubt wasn’t an accident.)

It was during a discussion on their latest history essay that he slipped in a side comment about how he was interested in wizarding culture, but unfortunately had a hard time finding any books on it.

"That's right," an older girl who had been sitting nearby-- one of his "supervisors"-- interjected.  "You were raised by muggles, weren't you?"

The suspicious quieting of the students close to them gave away that they were being listened to again, but Freak ignored it.  At least they were bothering to be somewhat subtle this time.

"That's right.  They didn't know about or particularly care for magic, so I have to catch up now.  Why aren't there more books on magical culture in the library?  I've seen plenty of muggle ones, although most are really outdated."

Several not-at-all-suspicious glances were thrown around over his head, before one of the friendlier upperclassmen-- the same boy who had spoken to the Bloody Baron-- sat down at his table.

"They are in the restricted section of the library, or aren't there at all in order to make muggleborns feel more accepted.   But if you keep helping my brother," he gestured towards one of Freak's more common questioners, "with his Defense essays, I'll tutor you on wizarding customs when you're down here."

"Deal," Freak replied.

The boy grinned.

"Call me Harper, Potter.  I'll get you caught up on magical culture in no time."

---

The only issue that came with increased interactions with the older Slytherins, Freak mused, was his own rapid loss of patience at being referred to as Harry Potter.

He'd purposefully sneered at the name several times to distance himself from the title that came with the name-- not to mention he didn't really consider himself as Harry Potter, that name was reserved for the idiot Gryffindor in his head who still didn't seem to notice anything was wrong with how the school was treating the Slytherins (and it was still embarrassingly easy to give Weasley and Granger the slip when Weasley retreated to the Gryffindor common room to avoid homework, and Granger spent hours in the library (thankfully far from his hidden little nook) writing essays that were far too long and wordy for the assignments given).

But Freak hadn't anticipated actually growing a consistent annoyance for the name being applied to himself.

And with the annoyance growing severe enough to even make the constant pressure of the Obscurus within him more agitated, Freak knew he'd need to address it somehow.

It was during one of his sessions being tutored by Harper, that he finally "snapped."

Harper had casually referred to him as Potter again just to regain his attention from a book, when he responded--

"Please stop calling me that."

Harper blinked, cutting himself off; clearly surprised at the demand, however neutrally Freak had stated it.

After a moment of clear hesitation, his brow slightly furrowed, Harper replied.

"You'd prefer Harry?"

Freak shook his head sharply, ignoring the once-again-eavesdropping students around them.

Perfect.

"I don't like being called Potter, or Harry, " he admitted, with clear disdain in his voice.  "I'm not Harry Potter.   Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived, capital letters and all, and is made up of guesswork and mythology.  I'm not him. "

His tone was scornful and final, and he could see questions in Harper's eyes, but the boy clearly knew they wouldn't be welcomed at the moment, despite his explanation being so clearly incomplete.

The younger Harper, sitting across from his brother at their table, was the one to break the slightly-tense silence.

"What should we call you, then?"

Freak shrugged casually, already turning his attention back to his book.

"I've never had a name that really felt like mine, " he replied honestly.  "You can come up with a...nickname, or something, if you want.  I don't really care.  You can take your time; it's not like it's hard to get my attention even without a name, as the only Gryffindor in the room."

(Freak carefully didn't smile, even as he felt the suspicious eyes of many older students on his back.)

Chapter Text

Freak was once again walking back from a study session in the Slytherin common room, taking mostly unused corridors to avoid both humans and portraits as much as possible despite being covered by his invisibility cloak, when he heard the sound of rushed footsteps approaching-- what sounded like more than one set of footsteps, in fact.

Freak's brow furrowed slightly-- there wasn't really a reason to be in a rush in this part of the castle, given how out of the way it was from, well, everything-- but assuming it could be a few students running from other students, or perhaps Peeves, he didn't initially think much of it, other than to keep an eye on the end of the corridor closest to where the sound was coming from.

Then the figures attached to those running feet turned the corner towards him, and Freak froze under his cloak.

At the end of the hall, the Weasley twins stood, panting as if they'd just ran through half the castle, leaning on each other as their eyes flickered between a piece of parchment in their hands and the seemingly empty corridor in front of them.

Almost as if they knew someone was there.

Freak's frown deepened.  This wasn't the first time he'd seen the twins walking around with a parchment, looking either confused or concerned, but they'd never gotten this close before without a crowd of students around, or Harry had been the one in control at the time and the twins didn't seem concerned.  But now, it seemed like they might somehow be aware of him .

Not waiting for the twins to recover their breath, Freak quickly slipped around one more corner-- hurrying even more as he heard dual curses behind him and footsteps picking up again-- and darted into one of the many empty classrooms in this part of the castle.

He locked the door behind him and stood in the far corner of the room, wand drawn and barely peeking out from the edge of the cloak, pointed at the door.

A moment later, the door unlocked under the power of an Alohomora and the twins stepped inside, slower this time.

Like they knew they'd cornered him.

Freak's grip on his wand tightened.  He didn't know what this was about, but--

"Hey, we're not here to hurt you," the twin not holding the parchment said, interrupting Freak's thought process.

The twin speaking slowly raised both his hands, holding them out towards the corner Freak stood in, exchanging a glance with the other, who looked up from the parchment long enough to nod.

Both were still clearly trying to catch their breath, but Freak was more concerned with how they both knew someone was there , despite him being invisible.

When he didn't say anything and the silence began to stretch, the two redheads exchanged another glance before continuing.

"Look, we... We just want to help, if we can.  You probably know us, we're the Weasley twins.  I'm George, and he's Fred," the speaking twin said, jerking his head towards the other.  "We're not here to prank you or anything, we just want to talk to you."

Freak still said nothing.

When they still didn't get a reply, the twins exchanged a look again, before seemingly coming to a decision.

"Look," George said, slowly drawing his wand.  Freak tensed in response, until the redhead lightly tossed his wand in Freak's direction, followed soon after by Fred's, who had drawn it just as slowly.

Freak didn't make a motion to catch either wand, so they clattered on the stone near his feet, but his own grip on his wand loosened slightly.

He didn't understand what was going on.

"We just want to help," Fred repeated his brother's words, before turning the parchment he was holding around and placing it on a desk, facing Freak's corner.  "Just...look at that, and you'll understand."

Both twins backed away from the parchment, and Freak finally moved, slowly approaching the parchment, while keeping an eye on the twins and his wand raised and ready.

When he finally got a good look at the parchment, however, Freak's eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he inhaled sharply.

It was a map of Hogwarts, but not just a map-- there were dots moving around the castle, clearly denoting each student or teacher, with the name belonging to that person hovering over each dot.

With a sudden sinking feeling, Freak flickered his eyes around, looking for the classroom he and the twins were currently standing in-- and when he found it, his fists clenched as he clamped down on his Obscurus, riled up by his sudden flash of fear.

Across the room from two dots labeled as Fred and George Weasley, a third dot stood with the label Freak.

---

It took Freak a moment to make sure he wasn't going to lose control, but once he was (mostly) calm again, Freak's eyes narrowed as he had another thought.

For a moment, he started pulling Harry's presence in their mind forward and pushing his own back, although not fully; making sure that Harry wasn't actually aware or in control yet.  When he did, the name on the parchment began to fade and blur, shifting to what he could tell would be Harry Potter if he continued.

Pushing Harry back to the back of their mind, the name on the map solidified back as Freak, while Freak realized that-- if the twins hadn't already figured out who he was, and they didn't seem to have, considering their introduction-- he was going to have to be a lot more careful when switching between Harry and himself.

If he didn't resort to anything dramatic, like burning the map, before any of them left the classroom, anyway.

Deciding he'd seen enough for the moment, Freak backed away into his corner again, purposefully letting his steps make some noise when he was done.  The twins took that as permission to approach the map again, as Freak wondered what they would do next.

The twins also seemed unsure of what to do, somewhat to his relief, as they glanced between themselves and his corner for another moment.

"Look, we know this isn't our business," George started.

"But we've never seen a name like...that...on the map before.  We didn't create this map-- it was created by a group called the Marauders-- so we don't know exactly how it works, but for your name to show up like that, we assume you must...really identify with it," Fred continued.

"And that's...worrying," George added.  "We just want to help you if we can."

"We know you're probably a first year," Fred said, and Freak stiffened, despite them being incorrect.

At least, he thought, that meant they probably hadn't seen him on the map the few times he'd come out last year.

"And we've seen you in the dungeons or the library the most, so you're probably a Hufflepuff or a Slytherin," Fred continued, unaware of Freak's mixed turmoil and relief.

(Maybe he didn't need to immediately set fire to the map... But it still posed a significant risk of exposing that he shared a body with Harry Potter, if they were watching the map when he switched who was in control.)

"But we don't care what house you're in," George said.  "Just... Are you...safe...outside of Hogwarts?  Do you need help?"

Freak's hand slipped down, so his wand was pointed at the floor instead of the twins.

They both looked uncomfortable but earnest, from what he could tell.  He guessed they probably hadn't done something like this before, and weren't sure what they could help with, but they seemed to genuinely want to do something.

Freak wondered if this had been brought on, at least in part, by their rescue of Harry Potter last summer and seeing the bars and locks on their window and doors.

Regardless, he was...slightly touched by the sentiment.

Still unwilling to reply verbally in case they recognized his voice, however, Freak wasn't sure what to do in response, until he spotted some chalk by the chalkboard just behind him.

Not willing to write with it, which would force him to turn his back to the twins, Freak frowned as he whispered a spell-- and when the chalk began to float under his levitation charm, he managed to use his wand to direct the chalk to write without holding it in his hand.  (Although not without a few sharp screeches that made all three of them flinch, as he floated the chalk too harshly against the board.)

It was slower than writing normally, but after a moment, his "Why?" was legible on the board.

The twins, who had both straightened up at the sight of the chalk and looked a bit relieved that he was finally responding in some form, frowned when they read his question.

"'Why?'" George read out loud.  "Why do we care, you mean?"

His face fell a little as he spoke.

Freak knocked twice on the board instead of writing slowly again, and the twins twitched.

"Knock once for no and twice for yes?"  Fred guessed.

Freak knocked twice in reply.

Fred and George stared at each other again, communicating without words, and Freak could only guess he'd managed to depress them with his suspicious nature.

Oh well, more points towards him being a Slytherin and not a Gryffindor, he supposed.

"We just...want to help if we can," Fred replied eventually, both of them unsure how to reply.  "We don't like the idea of some kid...being treated badly enough to consider their name...that."

Unseen, Freak couldn't help but smirk slightly at how unwilling either twin was to directly mention child abuse, or say his name.

What was with all the dramatics about his name coming up now ?   He wondered.  (Not that it was really a surprise; it was the first time he'd really interacted with people even vaguely aware that he wasn't Harry or didn't like the name, and he'd been the one to bring it up with the Slytherins anyhow.)

How could you help? Freak wrote out.  He was curious to see what they even thought they could do; they weren't adults yet in the wizarding world, and while they didn't know it, they'd already helped him by teaching him lockpicking.  What else did they think two other underage wizards could do?

Fred and George frowned at each other again, clearly unsure as well, despite making the offer.

"We taught someone else to pick locks this summer," George finally offered.  "Would that help you?"

"Or...potions?  We're good at brewing potions, if you need them," Fred added.

Now that was actually a useful thought, and it reminded Freak of something else he needed, and hadn't yet managed to figure out.

The twins were smart, and invented pranks all the time.  Maybe they could figure it out faster; they knew more magic than he did, at least...

Healing potions before summer, yes, he wrote, and both twins seemed to light up in relief again at the confirmation there was something they could do, maybe one more thing.

"What is it?" Fred asked, when Freak paused to figure out how to describe his idea in as few words as possible (writing with the floating chalk was still slow, after all) and without muggle terms.

Need way to preserve food, he wrote.  Keep from spoiling without spells in summer, and hide from others.

Something like a muggle refrigerator but run on magic, essentially.  And probably self-shrinking, like his trunk.

The twins read his words and frowned at each other, rapidly throwing ideas back and forth.

"A trunk with preservation charms, maybe?"

"But preservation charms won't last the whole summer without recasting."

"And the trunk would have to shrink or be invisible."

"We could probably manage that with runes."

"Or get the trunk with self-shrinking charms already added."

"Then we're back to the preservation charms."

"Maybe runes for that too?”

"Or--"

Freak listened to them pass ideas back and forth for a few minutes, slightly amused that they seemed to have forgotten him entirely.

Eventually, he knocked three times on the board, smirking as they both jumped slightly and whirled to face him again.

"Oh," one muttered.

"So sorry about that," the other added, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.

If you can make it, I can buy the trunk, Freak wrote.

They hadn't directly mentioned payment, but he'd caught the concern on their faces a couple times when mentioning supplies, and everyone knew that the Weasleys were poor.

"Are you sure?" George asked, frowning at the board.

Freak knocked twice.

"Okay," Fred replied, both still frowning slightly but apparently deciding to not question his finances further.

(If he were a Slytherin as they likely guessed, he supposed it would seem reasonable that he'd have access to some money, at least.)

One more thing, Freak wrote, once he was certain they would drop it. A way to hide from your map.

The twins stared at his request for a long moment, before looking at each other again.

Freak knew it was a small risk to even mention, considering that it implied he had something to hide, unless they assumed he only feared them following him on the map when he wasn't invisible.

But if he didn't mention it at all, they could still follow him, or they could see Freak turn into Harry Potter.

It was worth the added suspicion, if it worked.

After a long moment, the twins slowly nodded.

"We can't just promise that we won't follow you?"  Fred asked.

Freak knocked once, to no one's surprise.

George sighed.

"We can look up charms to make you unplottable," he admitted.

"We never tried them with the Marauders' Map, but we can test it," Fred added.

"And we promise not to look for you on purpose, if you let us find another way to reach you."

Freak knocked twice.

It didn't take long after that, for the three to agree that they would meet in one week in the same classroom.  By then, the twins were sure they could find a better way to communicate despite not knowing what Freak looked like or his birth name, and they promised to at least attempt to find a way to hide him from the map as well.

Freak was still concerned about them figuring out who he was in the meanwhile, but realized that there really wasn't much he could do to prevent it, unless he burned the map and likely lost the twins' help entirely.  He would just have to be as careful as possible until he could hide from the map.  It would have to be enough.

In the end, both the twins and Freak left the classroom slightly dissatisfied, but also determined to help, or cautiously grateful, respectively.

And Freak made sure to leave in the opposite direction of the twins, only removing his invisibility cloak once he was away from all spying eyes or portraits, and not returning control to Harry until they were in the middle of a group of students climbing the moving staircases.

What a pain, Freak thought to himself, in resignation.  Stupid bloody map.

Chapter Text

The next time Freak was studying in the Slytherin common room-- after having become much more paranoid about when and where he took control or returned it to Harry-- the first year students, along with one or two of their elder siblings, barely waited until Freak had sat down at a table before starting to throw ideas for nicknames back and forth.

When it became clear that even the few older students participating were determined to find something, Freak abandoned his essay in favor of propping one elbow on the table and resting his chin in his palm.  His eyes darted around the room as different students chimed in with more ideas.  He didn't miss that some of the other older students, while remaining silent, were still clearly paying attention as well.

Many of the names, to Freak's mixed amusement and annoyance, began with an H-- it was obvious they were trying to find something vaguely similar to Harry, but considering he'd admitted to not liking that name, it didn't entirely make sense to him.

"Harrison is far too muggle!" One of the older students exclaimed, "I looked up the Potter genealogy, and several generations ago, there was a Hadrian.  That's a much more respectable name."

Respectable here meant pureblood, of course.

A few of the students glanced at Freak after this comment, but he didn't react at all to the slight against muggles.

Instead, Freak snorted, still resting his chin in his hand.

"Most of those options sound rather posh," he commented instead, ignoring the way one or two of the students bristled in offense, "but I don't really care-- although you seem fixated on making the name rather similar to Harry.   Isn't that a little obvious?"

There was silence for a moment, before one of the seventh years previously ignoring them all huffed.

"You're all thinking too hard about this.  Potter's said it before; it's not hard to get his attention in this room even without all of this, since he's the only one in here with a red and gold tie.  So just call him that."

One of the more precocious first years frowned, turning to the seventh year.

"What, just call him 'the Gryffindor'?"  She asked.

The seventh year snorted slightly and finally looked up, meeting Freak's amused eyes.

"No.  Call him Red."

It was simple, didn't tie back to the name Harry Potter, and less...offensive to others' sensibilities than Freak.

He liked it.

Freak could tell the seventh year knew it too, because he started to smirk.

Seeing that a couple of the first years still looked indignant by the not-really-a-name, however, Freak interrupted before they could get started again.

"That works," he said simply, and turned back to his homework before all of the students had even turned back around to stare at him in surprise.  "Just remember I'll only respond to it here or when no one is present besides Slytherins."

After a few seconds of him Freak ignoring them, they seemed to get the hint and accepted it, with only a little grumbling from the ones who had been pushing for Harrison or Hadrian.

---

Almost immediately, most of the Slytherins were calling Freak Red, even instead of Potter.   The only exceptions were some of the students who never seemed to be present when he was invited into the common room-- it hadn't escaped his notice that he had yet to encounter Malfoy still, and he knew it couldn't be accidental, and he was one of the Slytherins who obviously hadn't been told about the new nickname.

In return, Freak was granted permission to call a few of the Slytherins-- mostly first years-- by their first names as well.  The familiarity of the gesture made some part of Freak uncomfortable, but he was pleased at the lack of hostility it implied.

---

"Hey Red?"

Freak looked up, and saw the younger Harper brother-- both Edward and his older brother Lucian had granted permission to call them by their first names, but Freak still thought of them by last name in his head-- standing near the edge of his table, once again in their common room.

"Did you need something?"  Freak replied.

The Harper brothers were still two of the Slytherins he interacted with the most, although several other first years and even a couple second years-- Zabini being the only one he recognized from outside of the common room at all; the other was a bespectacled girl who mumbled her name only once, and so quietly he hadn't even caught it-- had begun to sit at his table as well, and either as questions about their homework, or occasionally offer it, in the case of the second years.

When the younger Harper typically approached Freak, he usually had an essay or book with him, however-- something he didn't have this time.

"I was just wondering... You always seem to be reading ahead in the books, and you help us with our homework all the time, but..."

Edward trailed off for a moment, before seeming to gather himself again.

"...But I always hear Malfoy going on about how you're doing average in classes except for Defense."

Freak paused, feeling the eyes of several other students turning on him as well, including Zabini and Lucian Harper.

He tilted his head and smirked slightly.

"That's not actually a question," Freak pointed out.

Edward frowned for a moment.

"Why are you scoring badly if you can do better?"  He asked.

Freak's smirk grew teeth.

"Hmm, I wonder," was all he said.

When it became clear that he wouldn't actually answer the question, the younger Harper walked away, but Freak could hear some of the other students discussing it quietly-- and one or two not-so-quietly.

None of them came close to the truth, of course, but Freak particularly liked the theory one of the third years threw out, that it was a tactic to make people underestimate him.

It wasn't entirely wrong, after all.  They just weren't correct about who he wanted to underestimate him.

Chapter Text

It was finally nearing the end of November, when Freak once again found himself in the Slytherin common room-- it had been several days since his last visit, as Granger and Weasley had been harder to shake than usual-- being tutored by Lucian Harper again on wizarding culture.

After several days full of loud, brash Gryffindors, the relative quiet of the Slytherins was once again refreshing, despite how a handful of the students had walked out of the common room, either to their doors or the dungeons, when he was let in again.

Freak was reviewing a book on wizarding holidays-- which, as far as he could tell, closely matched up with muggle pagan holidays, although how they were celebrated differed slightly, other than the obvious addition of magic-- when Harper interrupted.

"Red, you always surprise me by how quickly you pick up on this, and how many spells you already know, despite being raised by muggles."

Freak didn't look up to meet the stare-- quickly becoming stares-- he could feel boring into the top of his head.

They were on this subject again, were they?

"Thank you for the compliment," he replied evenly, his eyes still on his book, "but I didn't know about magic until my Hogwarts letter arrived, so despite reading ahead, I'm well aware I have a lot to catch up on."

Despite being aware of their eavesdroppers, Freak was surprised by how quiet it suddenly became.  He was tempted to look up, but forced himself to continue acting like he was still reading.

"Wait, what do you mean by that?"

Freak did look up when the question came not from Harper, but from a boy he thought was a fifth year on the other side of the room.

At Freak's blank look of confusion, the boy frowned and continued.

"You've said before that your muggles didn't teach you much about magic, but-- you didn't know about magic at all?  You didn't even know you were a wizard?"

And Freak had to withhold a smirk again.

"Yes, that's correct," he replied calmly, instead.  "I wasn't told magic was real, or introduced to the magical world, until my Hogwarts letter arrived."

Freak ignored how muttering broke out among several students, and Harper's face had twisted into a scowl as well.

"My... relatives are aware of magic because of their relation to my mother, of course, but they fear and hate magic, so they chose not to tell me about any of it."

Now even the students who didn't particularly seem to like his presence seemed indignant or angry on his behalf, and Freak had to bite his tongue to keep his face blank as the room seemingly erupted.

He ignored most of it-- so many students were talking over each other that it was almost impossible to make out individuals anyway-- until Edward Harper slowly walked up to him, catching his older brother's attention as well.

"Is that why you said you're not Harry Potter, and that he's just a myth?"

Quiet was starting to spread once more, although more slowly, but Freak ignored it again.

"That's part of it," he admitted.  "But also because to the magical world, Harry Potter isn't a person, he's the mythological Boy Who Lived.  They created him and called him a hero, for something he didn't even really do.   So I've never felt like the name belonged to me.  Even outside of Hogwarts, no one really calls me Harry Potter, anyway."

Out of the corner of his eye, Freak could see that Lucian's mouth was hanging open, seemingly torn between outrage and concern, but he knew that if he looked away from Edward's wide eyes, he was going to start smirking.

Before anyone else could wrap their head around everything he'd just revealed, Edward spoke up again.

"What do the muggles call you, then?"

Well.

That was...not really the part he'd assumed anyone would focus on.

Freak tilted his head and decided he didn't actually care if the Slytherins knew.  And judging by how worked up they were already, it might be entertaining to see...

"They called me Freak, when they bothered to call me anything at all."

There was absolute silence in the room, other than the crackling of the fireplaces.  Freak was sure every eye in the room was on him, and Edward's eyes were wide and serious.

"No wonder you had us come up with a new name for you, then," Edward finally said.

Some of the tension in the room seemed to pop like a pin in a balloon, while Freak shrugged.

"I don't care, but going by Red is fine too."

Then their little moment of not-quite-levity was broken when an upper year finally regained their voice.

"Hold on, go back to what you said earlier," the older girl demanded.  "What did you mean by 'something he didn't even do?'"

Freak turned to face the girl, his face a blank mask of confusion again while he cackled internally.

"Well, everyone keeps saying Harry Potter killed the Dark Lord."   Freak shrugged.  "Even the first wizard I met mentioned it.  But that's a lie; I don't know what really happened-- I was just a baby after all-- but he's definitely not dead.  He was walking around Hogwarts all of last year, after all."

Watching the students' faces contort in surprise, confusion, and the occasional flash of fear amused Freak to no end.

Glancing around, since everyone seemed to have lost their voices again, he plastered surprise on his face.

"You didn't know?  Dumbledore knew all of last year that the Dark Lord was possessing Quirrell.  His face was sticking out the back of Quirrell's head, under his turban.  Dumbledore didn't do anything so that I would run into him at some point.  And at the end of the year, I saw him.  Quirrell died and the Dark Lord's...spirit or wraith or whatever it was flew off somewhere.  But he's definitely not dead.  That's what the last-minute points were about, which stole the house cup from Slytherin; running into the Dark Lord."

When there were no immediate questions, Freak turned back to his homework so he couldn't laugh at their faces again.

It took more than a minute before anyone spoke again, or even moved, other than himself.

"Why would you tell that to a room full of...Slytherins?"  A voice he didn't recognize finally asked.  "Do you...not know what the Death Eaters were?"

Freak could hear a couple hissed shushes, but ignored them.

He just shrugged.

"I know what they are," he admitted.  The term had certainly come up when reading about the rise of Voldemort, although he knew no one had mentioned the term to Harry yet.

And then he said nothing else, letting them draw their own conclusions again.

Chapter Text

One week after originally and "officially" meeting the Weasley twins, Freak sat on top of a desk in the same abandoned classroom as before, still under his invisibility cloak and twisting his wand between his fingers while he waited.

His thoughts drifted back to the Slytherin students' reaction to learning Voldemort wasn't truly dead-- and the blatant staring they'd been aiming in his direction ever since.  He hadn't been back in their common room yet; he was giving them time to let the thought settle, and to let their confusion grow about how it was Harry Potter, or Red in any case, who had informed them of their Dark Lord's survival.

They were definitely baffled, to his amusement and satisfaction, and even the students who typically avoided or outright glared at him had stopped, for the most part.  Or at least, the outright anger and hatred had been swapped for assessment and suspicion.

Progress.

Of course, this didn't apply to one Draco Malfoy and a few of his friends, who he suspected hadn't known that a Gryffindor was being invited into the Slytherin common room until recently, judging by the increase in glaring from that front.  But he kept quiet (or was kept quiet) in public anyway, which was good enough for Freak.

Freak was jolted out of his thoughts, however, when the door to the classroom creaked open again, and the two redheads slipped in, one holding that bloody map again.

He'd been avoiding taking control from Harry as much as possible since learning of that bloody thing, out of caution that the twins could be looking at it at any moment, except when they were in classes-- and even then, only the ones with particularly attentive professors.

Unable to see how Freak was essentially trying to set fire to the parchment with his eyes, the twin holding it set it down on a desk, leaving several tables between it and where Freak sat.  Both twins also slowly drew out their wands and also left them on the desk, closer to Freak than the map was and further from their owners, which made Freak relax a little more, and grip his own wand less tightly as well.

"You came back," the twin with the map (George, Freak was fairly certain, since for all that they were identical, they still had small behavioral differences, particularly when they were stressed and not hiding behind boisterous attitudes) said, looking plainly relieved.  The other twin was hiding it better, but also had relaxed slightly after entering and closing the door behind him.

Freak didn't particularly want to deal with floating the chalk to write again, so he just knocked twice on the desk instead in acknowledgement.

The sound startled the twins for a moment, until they seemed to remember how...non-communicative the other was, and they seemed to regather themselves.

"Right," Probably-Fred said, as he started to dig through his bookbag.  "We're still working on the food preservation idea--"

"--We're practicing with smaller boxes so we don't need a trunk yet," Probably-George continued.

"But we did find a better way for you to talk to us," Probably-Fred declared, pulling something small out of the bag.  "And also we made these. "

He walked a few steps towards Freak-- notably avoiding the desk still holding the map and the twins' wands-- before opening his hand and revealing two small items to Freak's general direction.

Freak got off his own desk to take a closer look.

The first was a small marble that looked like it had been taken from a game of Gobstones.  It was clear, and he could see that it appeared to be empty instead of containing the foul-smelling liquid that the stones could typically spit at the losing player in the game.

The second object was an amulet, that looked like the basic school-provided ones for the Ancient Runes students to practice on.  Several small runes covered the front of the flat disk, and they looked like they probably continued onto the back as well.

For all that he'd read a few books on basic runes while bored in the library, Freak was by no means skilled at the subject yet, since the elective wasn't even available until third year.  He thought he recognized at least one or two runes which could be related to concealment, however, although the rest were a mystery.

Glancing back up at the twin's face, Freak noted that the other boy hadn't moved yet, glazing somewhere slightly left of his actual position.  He was clearly waiting for Freak to take the items.

Freak considered demanding an explanation first, but decided it wasn't worth making a fuss yet, and swiped them quickly, while carefully keeping his hand still concealed underneath the invisibility cloak.

Probably-Fred smiled, lowering his hand and making his way back to his twin.

"We'll explain those in a moment," Probably-George promised, "but first we found a spell which will disguise your voice so you can talk to us without worrying about us recognizing your voice, if that's why you were using the chalk before.  Will you use it?"

Freak blinked.

That was indeed his concern, so if the spell really worked, he...didn't mind speaking with the twins.  It would be easier than using the chalk or knocking, to be certain.  And they still wouldn't be able to force him to answer any questions anyway; he would just leave if they tried.

He knocked twice on the table, and both twins broke out into grins.

One very short lesson later, and Freak whispered the spell, before clearing his throat loudly.

Immediately he was surprised by the odd, layered effect the sound had-- like multiple people, young and old, male and female, had cleared their throats at the same time.

Both twins' grins grew.

"Hello, there!"  George (a quick glance at the map had confirmed his suspicions over which twin was which) said.

"It is nice to properly meet you," Fred continued, and then both boys bowed in sync.

They couldn't see Freak's deadpan stare, but he made sure to sigh audibly, which didn't decrease the others' satisfaction in the least.

"Hello," Freak said back simply, the layered echoing certainly hiding his true voice far beyond anyone's ability to recognize it.  He couldn't even really hear it himself.

"This will make things so much easier!  Anyway, I'll explain those items first," George said, cutting off how Freak opened his mouth to ask what things exactly.

"The marble can be used to contact us, particularly since once we show you how to use the amulet, you'll be hidden from the Marauders' Map so we can't just keep watch on a classroom for you," he continued.

Freak's gaze immediately darted to the amulet.

"If you need us urgently for something, you can make the marble fill with red smoke, and ours--"

Each twin pulled out an identical marble, and Fred slowly reached over to pick up his wand and tapped it to the marble, making it fill with an opaque red smoke, not unlike a Remembrall.  In Freak's hand, his own marble filled with the same red smoke and grew warm; hot, but not burning.

"--will alert us."

"You can also fill it with other colors of smoke as well, for non-urgent things," Fred added.

"Ours can do the same for you, as you see.  That way we can tell you when we figure out the preservation trunk, or things like that."

“And if you tap it twice quickly, the smoke will turn gold, which could mean the others can meet that evening, and three quick taps will turn the smoke black, for if we can’t meet.”

Freak tapped his own wand to the marble several more times, and each time it cycled to another color, with the twins' marbles following suit, and then did the necessary quick taps to turn the smoke gold or black.  Immediately he thought the other colors could eventually point to non-urgent meetings in different locations, so they weren't always meeting in the same classroom, if he was to continue meeting with the twins like they seemed to want.  Or to indicate a certain time to meet, since they had yet to figure out a way to indicate that so far, other than the twins looking for when he appeared in this classroom on the map.

As he finished testing out the marble, it suddenly hit Freak that, other than the Slytherins and Malfoy, the twins were the first students he had ever interacted with as himself.   As Freak, or "Red," not as Harry Potter.  And they were certainly the first who didn't seem to have ulterior motives thus far.

"...Thank you," he spoke after a moment, and was immediately glad the distortion hid that it had come out a little more genuine than he'd intended.

The twins grinned again-- really, it seemed like they were doing nothing else today-- and then refocused, this time glancing at the Marauders' Map where it still lay on the desk.

"Now for the amulet," Fred began.  "We tried to make ourselves Unplottable, but it didn't work.  As soon as we moved, the spells failed."

"We think it might not be possible to make a moving object Unplottable, or at least not without more power or time than we had," George continued.

"But we tried making an object Unplottable instead, and then basically extending the area it affected outwards to the person wearing it, with runes--"

"--and damn, we wish we could use that as a project for Ancient Runes, but alas, that would ruin the work of our beloved Marauders, so we wouldn't dare--"

"--and we found that wearing that amulet can hide the wearer's name and dot from the map entirely.  Taking it off, or even putting it in your bag or pocket, will make the wearer appear again."

"Do you want to see?"

Freak glanced between the amulet in his hand and the map, before stepping closer.

"Yes, I want to see," he admitted, and Fred held the map out closer to him, so he could easily see how the dot labeled Freak disappeared the moment he donned the amulet, and indeed, reappeared when he slipped it into his pocket.

The tension he'd been carrying since finding out he could be tracked through the castle by the map disappeared, and he let out a breath as he stepped back, putting on the amulet again.

"It works," he acknowledged.  "Thank you...again."

The twins still hadn't lost their smiles, but they seemed...a little softer and less manic than usual.

"Anytime," Fred replied.

Then a thought slipped into Freak's paranoid mind, and he frowned again.

"Actually...I have one more question," he admitted.

The twins glanced at each other, and then looked back in his direction.

"What is it?"

"Can the amulet also block tracking charms, on me or other objects?"  Freak asked.

Both twins blinked, before their faces fell.

They honestly looked a bit hurt.

"We wouldn't--," George began, much more quietly than before.

"It's not...just because of you," Freak interrupted.  "There are definitely others who would like to follow me around, and I don't know how to check for tracking charms yet."

It had been on his list to research, but he hadn't gotten to it yet.

The twins looked a little less hurt, and also a little disturbed now, but they didn't return to the wide grins they'd had before.

"We don't know tracking charms either, but we can learn them and test it on another amulet and let you know?"  George offered with a glance at Fred, who nodded in agreement.

"When you find out, you can let me know with the marbles," Freak offered, since they really did seem to be offering their help without strings attached.

Both redheads smiled slightly at that, accepting it as the small measure of trust it was.

There was a moment of silence afterwards, which Freak didn't know how to fill, until the twins looked at each other, clapped in unison-- startling Freak slightly-- and plastered grins on their faces again.

"Well then, we don't have anything else ready yet, but we'll let you know when we do."

"So then there's only one more important piece of business left for now, then!"

Freak leaned back slightly as both twins leaned in, staring manically just over his right shoulder.

"What can we call you?"  They asked in unison.

"Because no offense--"

"--but we're just not comfortable calling you...what the map knows you as--"

"--and calling you our invisible friend might be amusing, but--"

"--it's a bit of a mouthful to keep saying regularly."

"So--"

"--can we call you something else?"

Freak sighed, pushing his glasses up his face as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose and then dragged his hand down his face.

He didn't care, it was just a name.  His name.  But it seemed like everyone else cared, lately.

Now that they knew.

And well... There was only one alternative to offer, since he certainly wasn't going to claim the name Harry Potter.

He was blaming the Slytherins for this, somehow.  He never used to interact with anyone, before they started interacting with him consistently.

Freak sighed again.

"You can call me Red," he conceded.

Chapter Text

Harry was doing his homework in the library, he and Weasley having been browbeaten by Granger into doing so, when Freak noticed the younger Harper standing quietly near the end of the nearest bookcase, behind Weasley's head where he sat across from them.  At first glance, the boy was simply looking for a book-- Harry himself only spared the boy a glance and didn't think anything of it-- but Freak caught Harper glancing at him a few times.

He'd been very clear not to approach him (Harry, really) when he was not alone, so Freak knew this was the boy's way of getting his attention.

Freak took control only long enough to catch the boy's eye and nod slightly, then returned it to Harry as Harper slipped away into the stacks.

Then when Harry finally finished struggling his way through his Transfiguration essay-- thoroughly earning Freak's scorn, seeing as he'd completed his own version of the same essay much quicker, and his was definitely better written-- Freak took over, gave the two Gryffindors the slip after claiming he was going to take a walk before dinner, and pulled his invisibility cloak out as he made his way to the dungeons.  Freak was careful to also slip the twins' Unplottable amulet over his head as he did so, as had become habit when he took control for more than a moment.

Before long, he was outside the Slytherin common room, and he rid himself of the cloak before knocking on the entrance.

The door was opened by a Slytherin fourth year, he was fairly certain, who quickly waved him inside before shutting the door again.

Freak, of course, had his wand in hand but hidden up his sleeve, and was glad of such when he spotted a familiar and annoying blonde head in the common room.

Ah.

He could guess what this summoning was about, then.

Sure enough, Draco Malfoy looked up as he entered, and immediately scowled.  Their fellow second-years who had never been present when Freak had been invited to the common room before were sitting around Malfoy, as well at one of the study tables, while Zabini and the others who had been present sat a bit further off.

The eyes of just about the entire room were on them.

"What are you doing here, Potter?"  Malfoy scoffed.  "This isn't your common room."

Freak refrained from rolling his eyes.

"I was invited," he said simply, knowing the shorter his answer, the more annoyed the blonde would be.

Malfoy stood up and walked over-- Freak thought he was probably trying to look imperial but just came off as childish stomping.

"Whoever invited you clearly lost their minds, if you didn't trick them into it anyway.  You're not welcome here and you don't belong here.  Go back to Gryffindor and your blood traitors and mudbloods!"

Malfoy was facing him, not the rest of the room, so he couldn't see a few Slytherins-- mostly the upper year students who had invited him in before, either directly or through the first years-- frown slightly at the back of the blonde's head, clearly not enjoying the insult.

To Malfoy, Freak merely blinked slowly, then tilted his head.

(He didn't miss the older Harper smirking slightly, recognizing that Freak often did so before being particularly sarcastic or dryly witty.)

"Did your housemates not tell you?  The sorting hat suggested Slytherin.  It had to be argued out of it, before choosing Gryffindor."

Malfoy snorted and crossed his arms.

"I don't believe it.  A Potter, Dumbledore's pet lion, in Slytherin?  You're lying.  And even if you weren't, then that just proves you think you're too good for our house anyway."

"Believe what you want, Malfoy," Freak replied evenly.  "But it's the truth.  And I've told you before, last year; I'm not Dumbledore's anything.   I never met him before arriving at Hogwarts.  And I didn't know you thought so lowly of your own house, but no, that's not why I'm not in Slytherin.  There's several reasons, but among them was you, actually."

Malfoy had looked like he was going to interrupt, but the boy shut his mouth in surprise at the end there, before his face twisted in offense (and behind him, several students raised their eyebrows in surprise).

"What nonsense are you spouting off now?" He demanded.

"You met Harry Potter in Madam Malkin's, immediately started spouting off about how people who didn't know about magic before their letters shouldn't be allowed into Hogwarts and declaring that Slytherin was where you wanted to go," Freak said calmly, as Malfoy's face began to pink in embarrassment, "all to the face of a boy who hadn't been told about magic until his Hogwarts letter... And while doing a great impression of my spoiled muggle cousin.  That certainly would endear anyone to want to join Slytherin.  Of course, there's also the whole bit about the Dark Lord being a Slytherin and the children of his followers most commonly ending up in Slytherin as well, and just about everyone I met at that point saying the entire house is evil and Gryffindors are good, in what had to be the most obvious manipulation ever, but really... What reason would Harry Potter have to not want to be in your house?"

The blonde boy's spluttering of offense was rather amusing, Freak thought to himself after that spiel.

"Adding to that," Freak said dismissively, "that the wizarding world probably would have lost their collective mind if Harry Potter were sorted into Slytherin and immediately would have been declared evil as well.  Maybe even the next Dark Lord or some such nonsense, and of course probably would be the first to take the blame for anything like these petrifications now.  So yes, clearly the only reason to not want to be in your house is because I'm too good for it."

The silence was satisfying, even though most of the Slytherins had heard him say before that the hat had wanted Harry Potter in Slytherin, and Freak smirked internally.

Shocking the Slytherins into silence was still greatly amusing.

When Malfoy seemed too shocked to continue his indignant rant about his own presence in the Slytherin common room, one of the third years cleared her throat, gaining the attention of the room.

"You mentioned the attacks," she said quietly, "as if you know something about them.  You certainly don't seem nervous wandering around the halls alone when you come and go between the library, here, and your common room as well, unlike most of the school.  Do you know what's causing them?"

Freak raised his eyebrows, surprised by the question, although it was true, he reflected, that even some of the Slytherins seemed nervous to wander the castle regardless of age or traveling in groups, ever since Percy Weasley had been petrified, while Freak himself hadn't thought to act nervous at all.

Five points to Slytherin for noticing, he thought dryly.

"I don't have anything to do with the petrifications," Freak replied, "but of course I know what's causing them.  I figured it out almost immediately, which makes me wonder if the staff are choosing to do nothing, or are simply incompetent.  As is, frankly, anyone else who hasn't figured it out by now."

The insult earned him several frowns from all across the room-- enough to make him realize that many of the Slytherins were also incompetent.

He really wanted to roll his eyes, but refrained.

"You know what's causing it?"  Someone demanded from the back of the room.

Freak scoffed audibly, before shaking his head in disappointment and turning back towards the common room door.

"Of course I know," Freak repeated, as the door opened.  "And here's a hint, since some of you don't seem to have figured it out either: Have you all begun to carry around a mirror, yet?  After all, whoever is behind the attacks might not be targeting purebloods, but clearly that doesn't make you immune, as Weasley shows, blood traitor or not.  And mistakes can happen, particularly since I'm fairly certain the petrifications so far were all supposed to be deaths ..."

He let himself trail off as he walked out of the common room, letting the entrance swing shut behind him as he walked off, leaving chaos in his wake once more.

Freak smirked.

Chapter Text

The next few days proceeded without much of interest to Freak, with the Slytherins having taken a step back as their house was split over how to react to "Red" going forward.  Personally, Freak didn't care much about what they thought of him so long as they kept their mouths shut about his not very Harry Potter-like behavior, which they were, although Freak had noticed Malfoy opening his mouth a time or two when they passed in corridors with others around or in classes, only to be elbowed in the ribs by another Slytherin, and the blonde boy would shut his mouth and ignore Freak or Harry instead.  (Nearly all the Slytherins could be spotted every so often with some sort of small mirror on hand, however, particularly late at night when in smaller groups, to Freak's amusement, not that anyone else seemed to notice.)

In the second week of December, Professor McGonagall came through the common room for students to sign up to stay over the winter holidays, and gave Harry a sympathetic look when he signed up, while both Weasley and Granger were going home.  They had made a couple half-hearted comments about signing up to stay at the castle since they'd heard Malfoy was staying as well, but Freak shot down the idea.

They were staying out of trouble this year.

Besides, without Harry Potter's Gryffindor shadows, Freak would actually have more or less free run of the castle, as long as he avoided any watchful eyes.

Another week passed uneventfully, and then Harry and his friends were walking through the entrance hall when they spotted several students of all houses clustered around the notice board.

Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas caught sight of them and waved them over, looking particularly excited, and Freak started paying more attention.

"They're starting a dueling club!” Seamus said as soon as they were close enough.  "First meeting tonight!  I wouldn't mind dueling lessons; they might come in handy one of these days..."

"What, you reckon Slytherin's monster can duel?" said Weasley, although he was also looking at the notice with interest.

"Could be useful," he said to Harry and Granger as they continued into the Great Hall for dinner.  "Shall we go?"

Granger agreed, and Freak let Harry as well without interference, since it seemed easy enough to keep out of trouble surrounded by other students and teachers...he hoped.

Thus that evening found the trio (plus Freak) joining most of the school in the Great Hall again.  Students were speculating over who would be the teachers, although Freak had a bad feeling he knew, since he'd asked around and none of the older students could recall a dueling club existing in recent years.  Which meant it was most likely--

His thought was cut off by the figure of Gilderoy Lockhart walking onto the stage which had been erected along one wall.  He was followed by Professor Snape, which made Freak's internal groan (one echoed audibly by many of the other students in the room) morph into tentative amusement.

Snape had made almost no attempt to mask how little he could stand the other man, after all.

Lockhart called for silence and began speaking, but Freak tuned him out, amusing himself by watching Snape visibly resist openly hexing the man instead.  Freak idly wondered if Lockhart would actually manage to surpass Harry Potter on Snape's list of least favorite living beings.  He was certainly putting in a good effort.

When both professors finally began their duel, Snape immediately sent Lockhart crashing into the wall and into a sprawl on the floor with a single disarming charm, and even without Freak's influence, Harry had to repress the desire to join some of the Slytherins in cheering.  Only the students who actually were in awe of Lockhart looked concerned at all-- including Granger, to Freak, Harry, and Weasley's collective scorn.

Lockhart, of course, responded with posturing that only made Snape look murderous again, and this time the man seemed to actually realize the impending danger, as he started pairing off students to practice the disarming spell instead of continuing to demonstrate more spells.

Students began pairing off, usually on their own but some assigned by the two professors, and then they reached where Harry and Weasley were standing next to each other.

Snape sneered and ordered them to split apart, assigning Weasley to duel Finnegan instead, and predictably, called Malfoy over to pair against Harry while Granger was paired with Millicent Bulstrode.

Freak knew the few Slytherins nearby were watching him closely; most of them were well aware that he was at least more competent than his grades in classes showed.  But he'd also made it clear that he acted differently when surrounded by other people versus in private.  They were probably all curious to see if he would show his skills and wipe the floor with Malfoy or continue to be fairly average due to the crowd.

They would be disappointed, Freak knew, because he had no intention of taking control in the middle of most of the student body.

So when Lockhart counted the room down, Freak did nothing when Malfoy started casting the disarming charm on "two" instead of "one."

The other boy must not have mastered the spell yet, however, because while Harry was forced to stumble and felt like he'd been hit with a saucepan, their wand stayed in his hand.

Then Harry countered with Rictusempra , the tickling charm, instead of the disarming charm, and Lockhart shouted in alarm as a good number of other inter-house pairings (and even a few of the same houses) had cast charms other than Expelliarmus as well.

Of course, that stopped almost no one, and Malfoy countered with Tarantallegra , causing Harry's legs to jerk around in some sort of quickstep without his consent.

Snape was the one to retake control, breaking up the duels and casting Finite Incantatem on several students, including both Harry and Malfoy.

Lockhart looked distressed as he walked through the aftermath of the chaos, remarking that he'd better teach them to block unfriendly spells next.

Freak knew the basic shield charm was Protego , and unlike Harry, had taught it to himself already.  Freak doubted the bumbling man in front of them would actually be able to teach them the spell given his lack of ability so far, however.

When Lockhart and Snape looked for a pair of students to demonstrate instead of demonstrating themselves again and Snape volunteered Harry and Malfoy, Freak was decidedly unsurprised.

Of course, then Lockhart dropped his own wand rather than demonstrating the shield charm, while they saw Snape whispering to Malfoy, and Freak knew something stupid and probably vaguely painful and/or embarrassing was about to happen.

Harry didn't even know the incantation for the shielding charm, after all, and Lockhart was less than useless.

Lockhart counted them down anyway, and Harry didn't have a single idea of what to cast, only watching as Malfoy shouted " Serpensortia! "

Harry was alarmed by the long black snake that shot out of Malfoy's wand, landing between them and raising its head to attack, but Freak was suddenly entirely unamused.

Freak ignored the screams from nearby students quickly backing away, because he suddenly felt like this was supposed to be some sort of trap again.

Because, while Harry was just innocently alarmed by the hissing angry snake, Freak was listening to the snake muttering threats and threatening to bite them if they moved.

If Freak hadn't already realized that he was a Parselmouth but Harry wasn't, he'd have been very surprised.  And he couldn't help but feel like this was a setup, because if Harry had been a Parselmouth as well, Freak had no doubt he would speak to the snake in spite of all the students around them, and the whispers about the heir of Slytherin which had been haunting the castle since the message on the wall about the Chamber of Secrets.

Everyone would suspect that Harry Potter was the heir of Slytherin, and the one responsible for the petrifications.

Of course, since Harry wasn't a Parselmouth, he could only stand back, unsure of what to do, as Lockhart cut off Snape, who had been about to banish the snake, and tried and failed to do the same, only managing to make it fly into the air and then back down with an audible smack, thoroughly pissing the snake off, who was distracted by the student nearest it after landing, a Hufflepuff Freak had never paid attention to, but who Harry knew vaguely as Justin Finch-Fletchley, from their Herbology class.

Even Malfoy and Snape looked the tiniest bit alarmed when the snake lunged forward-- Snape still mostly blocked by Lockhart and unable to cleanly cast at the snake anymore-- and bit the boy on the calf.

The boy shrieked, and Snape shoved Lockhart roughly to the side, banishing the snake and corralling the nearest Hufflepuff to take Finch-Fletchley to the hospital wing to check if he needed an anti-venom.

With that taken care of, Snape whirled around, taking points from Harry for apparently allowing a bystander to get hurt (Harry fumed, while Freak rolled his eyes internally), earning both Snape and Harry the stink eye from a lingering student or two, and then Lockhart wanted to take points from Malfoy for conjuring the snake, but Snape countered that Harry had also cast spells in the previous duel which were not the disarming charm, and Lockhart backed off with all the spine of a wet noodle.

In the end, they hastily dispersed the lingering students, since the practice duels largely seemed to be a disastrous idea anyway, and when Harry and the other Gryffindors matched back to their common room, Freak was annoyed to hear a student or two mutter about how Harry should have done something to help.

"And what, exactly, did you expect me to do?"  Freak asked, speaking around Weasley to the student, who froze at being called out.  "Lockhart didn't show us the shield charm, he dropped his wand instead.  Do you know of something else I could have cast that we've learned in class so far which would have done anything other than just piss off the snake?  No?  Then why don't you quit blaming me. "

The Gryffindors were silent for a moment, before the student muttered a chastised apology, and the others listening seemed to be vaguely ashamed if they'd also been eyeing him in disappointment.

Granger hissed at him for being rude, but Freak ignored her and relinquished control back to Harry, letting him think he'd been the one to speak instead.

The students were definitely all sheep who turned on each other for any perceived reason, Freak thought to himself again.  All the more reason to just keep their head down as much as possible and stay out of trouble.

Even though other people definitely seemed to be trying to drag him into it at every turn.

Still suspicious of the perfect opportunity for him to have outed himself as a Parselmouth if he'd been more of an idiot, Freak ignored Harry and the others for the rest of the evening as he wondered if anyone-- the Slytherins or anyone else -- could possibly have suspected that he was a Parselmouth or the heir of Slytherin and were trying to confirm if he was or not.  He'd never mentioned the skill to another human before, so they certainly had no cause to suspect it from just watching him.

He didn't know, and he didn't like it.

---

The next day, Peeves apparently came across Nearly-Headless Nick alone in a hallway, petrified.  This time, however, instead of simply being frozen in place like the previous victims, the normally pearly-white ghost had turned dark shades of grey and black, floating horizontally a few inches off the floor.

The students were thrown into a new level of panic at the realization that whatever was attacking the students could also affect ghosts -- and the professors seemed just as baffled.

Freak was, admittedly, surprised to find out that basilisks could also affect ghosts, but he was also fairly amused when no one quite seemed to know how to move the ghost into the hospital wing, since they couldn't simply cast a spell to move him or pick him up physically.  Professor McGonagall's eventual solution was to summon a large paper fan and hand it to a prefect, instructing them to waft the ghost up the stairs to the hospital wing.

(This only made Freak wonder why using the breeze from a fan would affect a ghost-- and if wind could move a ghost, why a wind spell wouldn't be more effective.  As usual, he chose not to draw attention to himself by voicing those concerns, however.)

Freak had also noticed, standing safely in the middle of the crowd which had gathered to stare at the result of the latest attack, that Dumbledore seemed particularly grave and concerned when the headmaster had been summoned to the scene.  That alone would have been expected, but Freak noticed that the man glanced at them out of the corner of his eye for a moment too long to be accidental.

When the man continued to glance at Harry during mealtimes over the next couple days, always looking slightly troubled, Freak knew it wasn't his paranoia or imagination.  He couldn't help but think the man was concerned because "Harry Potter" wasn't involved in this year's dangerous events, so far.

Regardless, the last couple days before winter break passed quickly in the rush of the students' panic.  Freak heard rumors that several of the already-few students who had signed up to stay at the castle for the break had changed their minds and were among those practically fleeing the castle when it came time for the students to board the Hogwarts Express home.

When the students were finally gone, Freak took control from Harry, and spent a good hour or two simply staring out one of the tower windows at the falling snow.

It was finally quiet.   The thick blanket of snow over nearly every surface outdoors had a muffling effect which made the silence nearly deafening compared to the usual noise of Hogwarts.

Freak found it relaxing.

With nearly all the students out of the castle, Freak practically had free run of Hogwarts for the entirety of the break.  He had quickly realized that as long as he showed up in the Great Hall for meals, no one cared where he disappeared for the rest of the day.

That meant he was free to get far, far ahead of his classmates when looking up spells in the library, even when he gave Harry some time to finish his version of their homework as well, and to take some breaks to fly around outside, enjoying the winter views while bundled up and under warming charms.

And when Freak was sure Hagrid wasn't in the Forbidden Forest-- he'd seen the half-giant lugging several massive Christmas trees into the castle again-- Freak flew their broom deep into the woods and practiced his control of his Obscurial form.

It still ached fiercely when he exploded outwards into the smokey form, and it was far too easy to carve massive ruts into the surrounding trees and earth.  But after the initial release, Freak found that he was getting much better at corralling his form so that he could float between the trees without causing much damage to them or the ground.

It took a colossal amount of focus, and Freak was sure the fact that he was calm and not angry (or even particularly annoyed at the moment) was the reason he could manage it with any degree of competency, but the practice was helping.

He also tried to control the speed with which he burst into the wisps, attempting to minimize the initial destruction and gain more control over which parts of his body dissolved first-- he wanted to be able to only dissolve a hand, for instance, in case he only wanted to cause a very localized amount of damage-- but that was much harder.  He could manage to slow down the release initially; only his hands dissolving slowly at first, but by the time both his wrists were gone, his control seemed to snap and the rest of his body erupted into the Obscurial form like a snapped rubber band.

Freak eventually decided that was enough progress for the moment; he couldn't sneak outdoors too often, after all, and he didn't enjoy how his body ached the rest of the day after reforming, but he was pleased that he could control his other form that much anyway; the few things he'd managed to find in books about Obscurials always made it sound like even the Obscurials could barely control themselves.  Of course, the books could be wrong-- the authors never seemed to have actually talked to the Obscurial children in question about how it felt, and most of the time the children were likely confused or angry or in pain, all of which would definitely affect even his practiced control over the Obscurus within.

The rest of the break, therefore, was a continuation of his time in the library or holed up in abandoned classrooms practicing spells when not attending mealtimes, and when it came time for the other students to return, Freak filled Harry's memories of the break with more flying and reading non-schoolbooks and just exploring the castle, and retreated back into the depths of their head grudgingly.

It was probably the most peaceful time he'd ever had, and the return of the noisy other children (Weasley and Granger in particular, who reestablished themselves as Harry's personal shadows immediately) only made him feel resentment that his brief taste of something approaching freedom was over.

Chapter Text

The next couple months moved by quickly for both Freak and Harry without anything major happening.

This was interrupted slightly on February fourteenth, when Gilderoy Lockhart decided to boost the school's morale by celebrating Valentine's Day.

Freak and Harry were not the only ones to walk into the Great Hall suspecting nothing, only to be met with lurid pink flowers covering the walls, heart-shaped confetti falling from the ceiling, and dwarves wearing wings and harps (while looking not at all pleased to be doing so) who were set to carry Valentine's messages between students for the day.  The blonde ponce himself sat at the teachers' table in robes which matched the flowers, surrounded on either side by Professors McGonagall and Snape, both of whom looked ready to commit murder.

(Freak knew the feeling.  If he were in control of their body, his eye likely would already have started twitching.)

Harry himself ended up horrified when one of the dwarves chased him down before Charms class-- Harry tried to make a run for it but when Freak realized the dwarf chasing them wouldn't stop, he slowed down rather than risk injury or something similar, considering the full-body tackles he'd seen from the dwarves when others tried to pull a runner-- to deliver a singing valentine they could have lived without.

And really, comparing their eyes to a "fresh pickled toad" wasn't exactly flattering either.

When Malfoy, who had of course been present to witness the disaster, shouted at a passing Ginny Weasley (in between laughter at Harry's expense) that he didn't think Harry had appreciated her valentine, her mortified blush gave away that Malfoy's guess had indeed been correct.

Harry only knew the girl as Ron's sister, and Freak barely knew her name, so both of them were more annoyed by the embarrassment than worried over the girl's feelings.  (Although Harry at least cared the smallest bit, while Freak didn't care at all.)  She deserved to share the embarrassment after how she inflicted it on them, anyway.  And neither he nor Harry returned her feelings.  (Freak double checked Harry's mind to be sure.  They were rather young for anything more than the most superficial crushes anyway, but he wasn't going to risk it.  That was more than what Freak was willing to tolerate for the sake of letting Harry appear "normal.")

After that embarrassment, things once again continued as normal, with no new petrifications again for weeks.  The Weasley girl seemed to recover from her mortification for a while, looking slightly less pale when lurking around Harry, although neither Harry nor Freak would have noticed without the Weasley twins commenting on it within his hearing range in the common room.  (After which the mortified girl fled to her dorm room.)

Speaking of the Weasley twins, since the Slytherins still seemed to be arguing internally over how to treat Red, they were the only students to knowingly speak to Freak-- or "Red"-- as winter turned into spring as well.

The twins had called Red to meet with them in abandoned classrooms a couple times over the weeks, checking in on him and then, in early March, asking him to order a trunk for them to turn into the preservation box he'd asked for.  They had apparently had progress with the smaller box they had been practicing on, and needed the trunk to continue.

Freak owl-ordered another one-compartment trunk from the shop in Diagon, one that was a plain light brown on the outside, but had self-shrinking and featherlight charms on it like his own hidden trunk.

Due to those charms, the trunk could be delivered via owl as well, and Hedwig returned with the trunk within a few days of the twins' request, and Freak arranged to meet them again to hand off the trunk the next day.  The twins looked pleasantly surprised that he had acquired it so quickly, and when he left them, they were already eagerly discussing how to adapt their spells from the test box to the trunk.

Then near the end of March, over the Easter holidays (Freak knew the purebloods must be grumbling again over the non-pagan holiday), the second-years were told to start considering which elective subjects they wanted to add for third year.

Freak thought it was short-sighted that no one actually told them which careers required which electives, although the older students who had already gone through career discussions with their head of house at least had some pamphlets on different careers.  Harry didn't seem to think that far ahead, and was ready to pick the easiest subjects like Weasley (Divination and Care of Magical Creatures), while Granger unrealistically signed up for everything.

Freak was not going to let Harry potentially screw up their future like that however, and spent time talking to a few fifth and sixth years, before settling on Study of Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, which seemed like both the most difficult and most useful of the limited options.

Weasley wasn't pleased that they would be in different classes, but Granger seemed condescendingly proud of him for not going with the easiest options.

A few days later before a Quidditch match against Hufflepuff, Freak heard the basilisk in the halls again, but since Harry couldn't hear it, he could not comment on it to Granger or Weasley who were walking with him.

When the match was canceled just before it began, Harry was shocked just like the rest of the school, but Freak wasn't surprised to find out that another student was petrified-- this time, a Slytherin fifth year who had been leaving the library, and who was found holding a small pocket mirror, frozen staring into it with a slightly alarmed expression on their face.

(Freak supposed the students were lucky that no one had looked at the basilisk directly, still.)

The petrification of a Slytherin pureblood, who obviously wasn't a blood-traitor either, shocked the school more than the others.  Slytherin house in particular were scared for the first time, now that they were obviously also included in the victim count, even if they might not have been the intended victims.

The teachers finally reacted as well, although without immediately closing the school like Freak thought they likely ought to have done long ago.  Instead, there was a curfew to return to their common rooms by six o'clock in the evening, teachers accompanied students between all classrooms and even to the bathrooms, and all Quidditch was postponed, to the intense displeasure of the players except for Freak.

The same evening as the announcement, Hagrid was removed from the school under suspicion of being responsible for opening the Chamber of Secrets-- rumors flew that apparently he had been found responsible in the past as well, and a student had died-- and Dumbledore was suspended by the board of governors for failing to stop the attacks.

This, it seemed, was the final straw for Granger, who frantically restarted researching what Slytherin's monster could be, now that the exalted headmaster was gone.  She and Weasley chastised Harry for having argued to stay out of things originally, forgetting that Granger at least had approved of them "staying out of trouble" at the time.

This annoyed Harry, who of course thought it was his idea to stay out of it, and not Freak's.

Granger sometimes dragged Weasley and Harry into researching as well, but seeing as they both were so much less skilled at research compared to her, she did not do this often-- and made sure to berate them to keep up with their schoolwork as well, of course.

Freak was just annoyed that with the constant supervision, he could not risk taking control at all now, unless he was still pretending to be Harry.  There was no more sneaking off study alone, or to meet with the twins or the Slytherins, not that either of those groups had tried to contact him since the restrictions were put in place.

(He suspected that the Slytherins might finally be ready to talk to him again, if only to ask more about his theories on the Chamber of Secrets, but they too had no chance of approaching him unnoticed.)

The only person in the school who wasn't walking around in a cloud of fear, suspicion, or at least annoyance (the last including Freak), was the blonde ponce himself, who was convinced that Hagrid had indeed been the cause of the attacks and had now been taken away, so the school was now safe.

Then at the start of May, Harry and Weasley were interrupted while doing homework at a table in the Gryffindor common room, when Granger suddenly jerked in her seat, standing up without warning and almost knocking over Weasley's bottle of ink in her rush.

"I think I've got it!"  She shouted, gaining the attention of half the common room.

"What?"  Weasley asked, baffled by the sudden shout.  "You figured out something for your Transfiguration essay?"

"No, not that, Ron!"  She exclaimed.  "I just have to double-check something in the library tomorrow!"

Weasley looked confused until Harry hissed, "she means about the Chamber, I think," under his breath.

Granger refused to discuss her theory until she was sure she was correct, and didn't stay downstairs much longer, saying that she wanted to sleep early so she could be ready to get to the library after classes the next day.

As soon as their afternoon classes were finished, Granger begged one of the teachers to let her go to the library, since there were still a few hours before curfew.  Professor Sprout finally acquiesced, and Harry and Weasley watched as she abandoned them for the library, leaving them to return to the common room to await her return.

When a few Gryffindors who had also been in the library returned that evening, however, Granger wasn't with them.  This prompted Harry and Weasley to catch up to Professor McGonagall before she left the common room again, and ask her where their missing friend was.

The professor's face grew a distinct pinch of worry before she could hide it, and she assured them she would check with Madam Pince, the librarian, to see if the bushy-haired girl had asked for an escort somewhere else before she'd arrived to bring the Gryffindors back for curfew.

They didn't hear from the professor again that night, and both boys went to bed worried, while Freak was certain he knew what had happened.

Sure enough, the next morning began with an announcement at breakfast that Hermione Granger had been found in a hallway, petrified and also holding a small mirror, like the Slytherin had been previously.

Weasley and Harry were horrified, but Freak guessed that the girl had finally figured out that the monster was a basilisk, and had rushed off without waiting for the evening escorts, either to tell them or to tell a professor, using a mirror to check around every corner.  Only she'd found the basilisk before she'd found who she had been looking for.

(That also suggested that either the person responsible for the basilisk had gotten lucky, or they were a Gryffindor who had realized Granger might have figured them out, not that Freak planned on investigating further.)

Freak thought the mood in the Gryffindor common room that night would be even more subdued than before, and he was correct-- until Weasley stopped in the middle of his half-hearted essay writing and glared at Harry.

"This is your fault, you know," the boy practically glowered, to Harry's surprise.

"What?"  Harry demanded.  "How on earth is this my fault?"

Weasley continued to glare, his face turning red in his anger.

A few students nearby had definitely started to take notice of the argument, since Weasley wasn't bothering to whisper.

"We could have been looking into this all year, and helping Hermione even more since Dumbledore is gone, but you were the one who said we should stay out of it!  I bet Hermione would have figured it out before Dumbledore was even removed if we'd looked into it from the start!"

Harry stared at his friend in shock, as Freak decided to let him handle this argument without help, for once, since it wouldn't affect them beyond Harry’s friendship with the other boy.

"You-- it's not like I'm the one attacking anyone, Ron!  And Hermione agreed that staying out of trouble this year was a good thing!  We don't even know for sure that she figured anything out!"

But Weasley wasn't hearing him out.  The boy insisted that it was Harry's fault that Granger had been attacked and stormed off to their dorm, leaving behind whispers and a shocked Harry.

After a few moments, the twins approached the table where Harry still sat, and gave Harry sympathetic grimaces.

"Please forgive our brother," the one Freak thought was Fred began.

"He's just..."

"Looking for someone to blame."

Harry scowled slightly at them both, before looking back down at his homework.

"That doesn't mean he should take it out on me, " he mumbled.  "Hermione is my friend too."

"That's true," George replied.

"But he's not exactly--"

"--Thinking straight--"

"--Right now."

Harry didn't have more to say to that, and eventually the twins left him alone, after a few more concerned looks.

The next morning, Weasley did not apologize to Harry, and ignored him in a huff.  Eventually Harry decided the best thing to do was to ignore him back until he apologized, and he spent any time not in classes in the library until curfew, instead of in the common room with the other boy.

This continued for the rest of the month, until a couple days before their final exams at the start of June.

Harry had been the only Gryffindor left in the library when the teachers came around to escort them back to their common rooms, and to his and Freak's joint horror, Lockhart was the teacher to escort them back to their common room instead of McGonagall.  The blonde idiot spent the whole walk talking about how he was sure that the petrified students, who were finally set to be un-petrified in the next day or two, would wake up and immediately confirm that it was Hagrid who was responsible for the attacks somehow, even though Hagrid had already been gone when Granger was petrified.

Harry had sullenly pointed this out, only for the idiot to brush him off and retort that the half-giant probably had left whatever creature was responsible behind when he was taken.

Harry was silently irritated for the rest of the walk, until they weren't far from the Gryffindor common room, in a hallway Freak himself liked to use frequently due to its lack of human portraits, when that lack proved to be problematic for once.

The sound of Lockhart's babbling covered any other noises, so the first indication Freak or Harry had of anything going wrong was the spell which hit Lockhart in the back, stunning him, followed by a second one at themselves, and they collapsed without a chance to retaliate or dodge.

Chapter Text

Harry woke up in an instant, jolting suddenly from unconsciousness to full awareness.

Freak woke at the same time, and immediately had to focus his attention on suppressing the Obscurus inside him, which instinctively tried to explode outwards upon waking up from a forced sleep.

Suppressing the Obscurus only took willpower, however, which left Freak enough focus to worry about who had stunned them and brought them to-- wherever they were now.

Between random Slytherins, whoever was releasing a basilisk on the school, and Dumbledore-- if Harry Potter not automatically falling into the role of hero and solving the school's problems for it was enough of a reason for the man to act out of his assumed character-- there was a worrying amount of people with a motive for kidnapping Harry Potter.

While Freak was busy with the Obscurus and his thoughts, Harry looked around in confusion, adjusting their glasses-- which Freak was somewhat surprised to note they still had too-- and almost drew their wand from their arm holster before Freak suppressed the urge, assuming that the only reasons they still had it were the anti-summoning and anti-theft charms on the holster.

They were near the end of a large stone chamber, surrounded by tall pillars carved with serpents, which disappeared into the darkness above.  Puddles of water were scattered around the floor, and the only light was an ambient green which cast everything in an eerie hue.

( Well, thought Freak, at least the snake decorations made one potential kidnapper less likely than the others. )

Not far from them lay Gilderoy Lockhart in a crumpled heap, and Freak had to resist the urge to get up and give the idiotic wizard a kick.

Considering the idiot had also been stunned but was still asleep, Freak had the sudden suspicion that they hadn't simply woken from the stunner wearing off--

"Ah, you are finally awake."

--which was likely confirmed by the sudden quiet voice from behind them.

The soft voice startled Harry, and he jerked around to stare at the source.

Standing in front of a giant effigy of who Freak could only assume was Salazar Slytherin, was what looked like a fifth- or sixth-year Hogwarts student, his robes declaring him to be a Slytherin, although not any Freak recognized-- except this boy was partly transparent, almost like a ghost, except maintaining his original coloring and slightly blurred at the edges.

What's more, the boy was holding a wand, which looked far more solid than the boy himself, while a red-haired girl Harry recognized as Ginny Weasley lay crumpled at his feet.

"Wh-who are you?  Where are we?"  Harry asked.

(Freak mentally rolled his eyes.  Apparently the giant snake statues weren't enough of a hint that they were in the fabled Chamber of Secrets.)

"My name is Tom Riddle," the boy began, "and this is Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets."

And then Freak's limited patience ran out, and he forced Harry back once again.

The only outward changes that Riddle would be able to notice were the way their face immediately lost expression-- honestly at this point, Freak thought he likely only had emotions visible on his face when he purposely showed them, otherwise he probably just looked blank or vaguely irritated-- and their change in posture, turning from fearful to tense and resigned.

"You're clearly not a ghost," Freak said, gesturing vaguely at Riddle.  "What are you, then?  And what do you want with me?"

Riddle blinked, most likely surprised at the sudden change in tone.

Freak knew he was probably going to very shortly end up meeting the basilisk (given that Riddle was clearly not a current Slytherin student at Hogwarts, and any Slytherin student willingly working with Dumbledore was unlikely), and that had absolutely not been on a list of things he wanted to do today, or ever.

In the instant that Riddle's eyes flickered over him, clearly curious at the change in Harry Potter, Freak thought over the few ideas he'd made into a vague backup plan just in case he ever was confronted with the basilisk-- planning for the worst, because the magical world was clearly a death trap trying to drag him down at every opportunity.

But he'd really, really never wanted to test if theories born from library books and muggle myths would work in reality.

"I am a memory," Riddle replied quietly, apparently done with his moment of consideration.  "Preserved in a diary for fifty years."

The boy pointed towards a small black book which was still clutched in the unconscious Weasley girl's hands.

Freak didn't like this at all.  A memory?

"Good for you," he muttered.  "I don't suppose we can continue this talk-- or not continue it, which would be even better-- somewhere other than here?"

Riddle didn't move; merely watched them idly as he twirled the wand-- which Freak suspected was the Weasley girl's-- between his fingers.

"We will speak now.  I've waited a long time for the chance to speak to you, Harry Potter," he said calmly.

Oh great, Freak thought to himself.  He'd read plenty of villain speeches and monologue in muggle fantasy books at the library in Surrey, and had a very small unwanted taste of it watching Harry and the Voldemort-possessed Quirrell at the end of the previous school year, but he hadn't really assumed it would be the norm.   But Riddle certainly seemed to be winding himself up for one, and Freak wasn't exactly eager to meet a basilisk, and he certainly didn't see another way out of the sealed room, at the moment...

"Oh?"  He asked, not at all genuinely.  "Why did you want to talk to Harry Potter so badly?"

"For months and months, little Ginny Weasley has been writing in my diary.  Spilling all her pitiful secrets and dreams-- how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..."

While he spoke, Riddle never once took his eyes off of theirs.

"It is very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl.  But I was patient.  I wrote back.  I was sympathetic, I was kind.  Ginny simply loved me--"

Riddle kept going on, describing how, as the Weasley girl poured her soul out into the diary, she grew weaker and Riddle grew stronger.  Until finally, he could-- possess her?  Control her?-- use her to open the Chamber and set the basilisk on the students.

Freak glanced to the side while Riddle spoke, idly noting that Lockhart was still stunned, and wondered if Riddle would agree to feed him to the basilisk first, if Freak asked.  It would buy him a few seconds' head start, and if Riddle had either heard about the man from the Weasley girl or somehow had to endure the man's classes himself when possessing her, maybe he would agree...

Riddle kept talking, and while Freak noted everything he was saying, he honestly didn't care about the girl getting possessed by her diary if she was too stupid to notice that a sentient book wasn't exactly normal, particularly as she would have begun to lose time when she was possessed.  He just wanted to know how this involved Harry Potter.

(Actually, he didn't care about that either, except that it had landed him in the Chamber of Secrets, and would very much like to prevent something like that from happening again.)

Finally, Riddle mentioned it--

"--And then, when little Ginny was finally ready to paint her final message and return to the Chamber for the last time, who did we run into, but you.   The one person I was most anxious to meet..."

"And why did you want to meet me?"  Asked Freak obligingly, when a pause made it clear that Riddle wanted a response.

"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry," said Riddle.  "Your whole fascinating history."

His eyes clearly swept to the lightning scar on their forehead, his expression almost hungry.

( He fit in well with the Weasley girl, then, Freak thought uncharitably, both of them obsessed with Harry Potter. )

"I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could.  I had thought to make Ginny disappear, and leave clues for you to follow-- except you showed no interest in investigating the petrifications of your fellow students.  And so, when I saw you and that fool of a professor walking alone, I knew I had my chance.  I have many questions for you, Harry Potter."

"Like what," Freak replied, purposefully keeping his voice flat.  There was no question mark in his tone.

"Well," said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, either not noticing or choosing to ignore his tone, "how is it that you -- a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent-- managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time?  How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"

Freak sighed.

"Why do you care, if you're a fifty year old memory?"  He asked.

Although doing the math... He thought he knew the most likely answer, given that in the United Kingdom, only one family's bloodline was thought to carry the ability to speak Parseltongue-- possibly excluding himself, given that if his bloodline carried the ability, he would have thought that Harry would have it as well-- and Riddle had clearly been controlling the basilisk somehow... and he did not like it.

At all.

"Voldemort," Riddle answered softly, "is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter..."

Riddle used Ginny Weasley's wand to write fiery words in the air, spelling out:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Then, with a wave of the stolen wand, the letters rearranged themselves:

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

Freak groaned mentally, only half paying attention to Riddle's continued rant about his name and his family history.

He knew it.

Fuck my life, he thought.  And the magical world in general.

Twice.  Twice now, Voldemort somehow invaded Hogwarts during his school year-- with Dumbledore either criminally unaware or enabling it-- and they got dragged into the middle of things.

Fuck Hogwarts in particular, too...

What was the saying?  Once was happenstance, twice was coincidence...

Freak had a very bad feeling about third year, suddenly, assuming they got out of this mess.  He didn't see an easy way out either, considering that even if he made it out of the chamber, he didn't know exactly the route back into the castle itself.  And even returning to the main part of the castle wouldn't stop the basilisk.  It would give him more bodies to put between the basilisk and himself, sure, but Freak thought that he'd somehow end up with no help from any of the staff anyway.

Noting that he'd let silence fall for slightly too long after Mini-Voldemort's big reveal, and the memory-boy was starting to glare at him for the lack of response, Freak withheld a sigh again.

"I sort of guessed it would be something like that," he admitted.  "Both because of my bad luck and the whole," he waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the statue of Salazar Slytherin, "controlling the basilisk thing."

The annoyed expression on Riddle's face brought a very small spark of joy to his heart, Freak noted, before the other could hide it.

"Anyway," Freak added when Riddle opened his mouth to reply, "no one really knows what happened when older-you attacked the Potters.  Dragging me down here was a waste of time; I don't have anything to tell you.  Dumbledore's only explanation is 'a mother's love,' which is complete nonsense, given that Lily Potter was not the only mother to die for her child, I'm sure.  So all you've really done now is waste time and probably hint to Dumbledore that you're back, if he can also put together the rather obvious clues and realize that a basilisk was loose and being controlled by a Parselmouth..."  Even though he couldn't be bothered to do anything about it so far, Freak added to himself.

Freak had to admit, he only really mentioned the headmaster to see how Riddle responded to the name-- and he didn't disappoint, practically glowering at the name sourly.

"Ah, it was something your mother did, then, of course," Riddle muttered to himself.  "That makes far more sense.  There is nothing special about you in the end, then..."

The memory-boy seemed to mentally shake away that thought, before meeting their eyes again and smirking.

"Also, no one including your precious headmaster--"

"He's not my precious anything, " Freak grumbled audibly, but was summarily ignored beyond the slightest questioning tick of an eyebrow.

"--knows that you are down here.  As I said before, I admit I intended to have little Ginny write a final farewell message before returning to the chamber one last time, but running into you necessitated a slight change of plans.  But not to worry, I'll be sure to leave an appropriate message after your death.  But first, Harry," said Riddle, "I'm going to teach you a little lesson.  Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against famous Harry Potter, and his unwavering faith in his absentee headmaster..."

"What bloody faith?"  Freak said, giving into the impulse to roll his eyes.  "And I don't suppose you can match the powers of Lord Voldemort against a blonde idiot defense professor first? "

Riddle faltered visibly for a moment, clearly not expecting his dramatics to be interrupted-- again-- but apparently decided to mostly ignore Freak despite his confusion.

"I'm afraid not," he said patronizingly, before turning around to face the statue of Slytherin.

Of course not, Freak thought bitterly.  Great, here we go again...

Determined for someone else to have to suffer with him if this was really going to happen, Freak didn't hesitate at all to throw a kick at Lockhart as he backed away from Riddle.

The kick was enough to wake up the idiot from the fading power of the stunner, and the blonde jerked upright with a surprised exclamation, but Freak didn't pay any further attention to the man.

He wasn't even sure if the man still had his wand, and didn't care.

I didn't want to get involved, dammit!   He thought to himself.

Then he didn't have time to do much else, as Riddle finished calling out to the basilisk.  The stone making up the face of the giant statue of Salazar Slytherin moved, and the sound of something large sliding over stone could be heard.

Freak backed away, lowering his eyes and making sure only to look at solid stone and not the puddles on the floor-- although he caught a glimpse of Lockhart's face turning horrified at the sound of Riddle speaking Parseltongue, before the man scrambled to his feet, not keeping his eyes down.

Freak could see a giant shadow as the basilisk emerged, and felt the floor shudder-- bloody hell the thing was massive-- and then he heard Riddle's voice hissing in Parseltongue:

"Kill him."

The basilisk lunged--

Only for its fangs to close on empty air, as Freak's body exploded into wisps of smoke.

Somewhere at the end of the chamber, Riddle was shouting in surprise, as the basilisk recovered from its failed attack, and Freak would have breathed a sigh of relief if he still had physical lungs to do so.

Despite not physically having eyes at the moment either, he could still "see" his surroundings, just as he could in the Forbidden Forest-- although focusing on specifics was admittedly harder in this form-- but the basilisk's gaze had no effect.  Not that he made any attempt to look directly in its eyes to make sure.

Obscuruses were listed as amortal creatures in the books he'd found.  He wasn't exactly clear on what that meant-- it was certainly different than immortal -- but apparently the deadly gaze of a basilisk did not affect an amortal being without eyes.

His Obscurial form was still incredibly hard to control, lashing out at the surroundings, and if Freak cared at all about preserving ancient structures, he might have felt bad about smashing some of the closest pillars, walls, and the floor into bits.

He didn't care.  At all.

Unfortunately, the tendrils (or whatever the proper term was) of this form didn't do any damage of significance to the basilisk itself, as it tried to follow Riddle's still-shocked shouts to kill him.

(The poor memory-boy seemed stunned that Harry Potter had turned into smoke-- Freak wasn't sure if Riddle knew what an Obscurial was, not that it mattered at the moment.)

It was hard to think logically in this form, Freak noted idly, after yet another lunge from the basilisk and returned attacks from his Obscurial form succeeded only in wrecking more of the floor.

His thoughts seemed... detached.   Anger, fear, and other negative feelings were enhanced, and also caused this form to lash out even without his explicit direction.  And now that he was actively in danger, the Obscurus within him seemed to be acting outside of his control to protect him, unlike how he had been far more in control in the calm and quiet of the Forbidden Forest.

Freak gathered his thoughts as best he could, however-- he had an iron will gained from suppressing the Obscurus and not lashing out at the idiots surrounding him daily or giving in and finally burning down Hogwarts-- and luckily he had already had a vague plan, drawing on what knowledge he'd gained about basilisks from the books in the library, and even similar Muggle myths from the library in Surrey.

It only took a moment, really, to realize what would have the highest chance of success, from his limited options.

It only took a moment more, to act on it.

Freak's form lashed out at the basilisk once more, causing it to fall into a pillar they'd already mostly destroyed at this point-- idly ignoring Riddle's enraged shouting from the end of the chamber-- then he flew into the adjacent corner and gathered his form back together until he stood again in human form, completely backed into a corner.

He ignored Riddle's shout of success, drawing his wand and sticking his other hand in his pocket as the basilisk recovered again.

He made sure to keep his eyes down, as Riddle shouted, the basilisk drew back to lunge again, and he aimed his wand and shouted a single spell--

“ENGORGIO!”

---

The silence was practically deafening, after the loud crashing and enraged hissing moments before.

Considering that he wasn't dead and was therefore still able to do so, Freak opened his eyes slowly and raised his head as he straightened from the hunched position he'd dropped into, finally allowing his slightly-shaking arms to lower-- and promptly almost exploded into his Obscurial form again.

Raising one hand to his chest where his heart was still racing, Freak stared at the basilisk, straight in its eyes-- where it was frozen, petrified, within an arm's distance in front of him, its now-stone hollow-centered fangs still glistening with deadly venom.

He dropped the still-giant hand mirror he'd shielded himself with, not entirely surprised to see that it had a giant crack down the center of it now.  He didn't know if he'd caused it in the rush to retrieve it from his pocket, the frantic Engorgio spell which had taken the small pocket mirror and stretched it to the size of a large shield, or if it had somehow cracked from the reflected gaze of the basilisk itself, but he didn't care.

Freak breathed in deeply and then shuddered out an exhale, before he heard Riddle shouting again in shocked anger.

Ah yes, Riddle, Freak thought darkly.

He hadn't wanted to get involved.  The memory of Voldemort could have gone about his plan and sucked the Weasley girl's soul dry without anyone the wiser, and he wouldn't have been involved.

But no, the dramatic bastard decided to stun him and drag him down here and force him into mortal peril again.

Freak was pissed.

He gathered himself, and then purposefully exploded outwards into his Obscurial form again, reforming himself standing over Ginny Weasley's crumpled form-- she really wasn't looking good, how unfortunate-- and he glared at Tom Riddle.

The memory-boy looked absolutely shocked, staring back at him with wide eyes, although his face was starting to flicker into outrage instead.

"You- You're an Obscurial!"  Riddle practically shouted.

Well, Freak thought dryly, that answered whether he knew what Freak was or not.

"Obviously," Freak drawled back in reply, still glaring at the other boy.

Riddle seemed lost for words for another moment, which Freak took some amusement from, as he had a feeling that didn't happen often.

After that moment, Riddle drew himself up again, sneering at Freak.

"You may have defeated my basilisk, but you're still trapped down here.  And I will not be defeated by a simple mirror."

"No," Freak agreed.  "But you will by your own pride."

Riddle only had time to blink, before Freak reached down, grabbed the diary that Riddle had mentioned was his vessel until he'd begun to steal the Weasley girl's life force-- and flew back in Obscurial form to the basilisk.

Given that the tendrils of his Obscurial form didn't damage the diary at all, Freak figured he might as well jump to the most deadly substance in the room next.

He noted Riddle's enraged shout and frantic steps closer as he raised the diary up, his body only partially reformed in the midst of the swirling black smoke, and slammed it onto one of the frozen basilisk's venom-slick fangs, with enough Obscurial-backed strength to force it halfway down the tooth.

The diary immediately began bleeding ink like a small fountain-- far more than a normal diary of the size would hold, even if it were filled cover to cover in ink.

"Noooo!"  Riddle shouted from somewhere behind the basilisk, and Freak smirked, his hunch paying off again-- a bit of good luck, in face of all the bad?-- until he tried to let go of the bleeding diary, and couldn't.

"What--?"  Freak only had time to mutter, before some of the ink still spurting from the diary seemed to latch on to him , instead of falling normally-- and then it began to spread up his arms.

Pain erupted in his scar, and Freak would have slapped a hand to it if he could have removed one from the diary.

He heard both himself and Riddle screaming, distantly, and then whatever was preventing him from releasing the diary stopped, and he collapsed to the ground, hearing nothing more.

Chapter Text

When Freak jolted into awareness again, he was lying crumpled in a heap in front of the petrified basilisk, half soaked in ink from the diary which still hung impaled from one of the basilisk's fangs.

Ignoring the damp stone pressed against his cheek, Freak tried to piece together what exactly had happened with Riddle's diary, but he wasn't at all sure.

"Interesting, there actually are two of you?"

Freak heard Riddle's voice, and it took him a moment to realize it had been inside his head -- and immediately he yanked his focus back, letting his body remain still on the floor as he redirected his attention to the inside of his head.

Freak had never really spent the time to develop a visual mindspace, and certainly the gaps, such as they were, between where "Freak" resided in their body's brain and where "Harry" resided had no visuals as well-- it was all darkness.  That didn't mean he couldn't sense exactly where the edges of "Freak" were, and where "Harry" began, still shoved into the back of their mind at the moment.  On the "edges" of Freak's mind resided the Obscurus, as usual-- not truly sentient itself, but hooked into Freak's emotions and lingering like an eerie presence in the corner of one's eye.

But now he could sense another presence-- an entirely new and foreign one.

"Riddle," Freak practically hissed, instinctively knowing how to "send" the thought to the other, since he certainly couldn't "hear" every thought the other was having, and he assumed the same was true in reverse.  (He also guessed that if he had ever wanted to directly "talk" to Harry, the process would be the same.)  "What did you do?"

"As interesting as this is, I assure you it wasn't anything I intended," Riddle responded.

"Then get out of my head!"   Freak demanded, while suspecting it wouldn't be nearly so simple.

"You destroyed my diary," Riddle hissed back.  "I don't know if I even can leave now, so perhaps I will just take your body instead!"

Freak sensed Riddle trying to extend his reach towards both his own mind and Harry's-- likely looking for their memories or to gain control of their body from Freak-- and despite how the other seemed quite powerful, it wasn't difficult for Freak to reach out and corral Riddle back so he was trapped, unable to reach Harry or to sense anything from their body or Freak.  Riddle fought back, of course, but Freak had years of experience in manipulating Harry's control (or lack thereof) in their head, and plenty of mental strength from fighting back the Obscurus near-constantly.  He suspected that with Riddle being the invader and himself having the home ground, so to speak, he also had an advantage.

When he had shoved Riddle back into the edges of his mind, working on a hunch Freak directed the Obscurus to loom closer to the borders that made up Riddle in their mind-- and Riddle shrank back from it immediately.

Freak thought that Riddle was probably shouting at him, but he'd cut off his ability to hear the other as well.

He waited a few minutes longer as Riddle’s struggles weakened and then the other finally retreated, shrinking back from the Obscurus.  Freak waited another minute, making sure his point was made, before allowing himself to "hear" Riddle's projected thoughts again, without shifting the Obscurus away or giving him any other leniency.

"Alright, you win!"   Riddle nearly shouted at him, sounding far more rattled than Freak had expected.  "I'll make you a deal, just... Get that thing away from me!"

Interesting, Freak thought to himself.  He'd thought that other magicals might find the Obscurus unnerving, given that it was essentially magic turned parasitic, but he couldn't feel the revulsion himself having been with the Obscurus for so long, and he hadn't expected the reaction to be so strong.   It certainly worked to his favor in this case, however.

"Alright," he sent back to Riddle.  "What do you think you can offer me?"

Riddle's consciousness seemed to shudder for a moment as Freak drew the Obscurus back towards himself, again, before collecting itself again.

"I won't attempt to take control of your body against your will," Riddle began grudgingly, "not even when you are asleep.  In return, you allow me to see and hear through your eyes and ears, and keep that...Obscurus...away from me."

"And you won't try to interact with Harry at all," Freak added.

He didn't mind letting Riddle watch or listen to their surroundings-- if he had been trapped in a book for decades and then stuck in someone's head, he probably would want to see the outside world as much as possible too.  And while he wasn't having trouble suppressing Riddle thus far, he didn't want to know what would happen when he was asleep, like Riddle had mentioned, and fighting to control both Riddle and the Obscurus constantly would be... inconvenient.

"Fine," Riddle hissed.

"Fine," Freak echoed, and pulled back the Obscurus fully.  He made sure to leave part of himself aware of where the edges of Riddle's mind were, not actually trusting the other by any means, but fed sight and sound from his body to Riddle, as agreed-- making sure that those senses passed through himself first, so Riddle would have no control whatsoever, but he would be able to watch and listen similarly to how Freak did when Harry was in control of their body.

With that done, Freak finally shifted his focus back to his body, finally pushing himself off the cold and wet stone and standing upright.

He didn't think much time had passed-- his body hurt in the way it usually did after he'd been in his Obscurial form, but there wasn't an extra ache from lying on the ground for long, and the deal with Riddle in his head hadn't taken long either.

A muffled noise from somewhere behind the basilisk drew his attention to the fact that there had been two others down here with himself and Riddle, however-- neither of which he particularly wanted to deal with.

Since Freak rarely got what he wanted in life, however, he carefully stepped around the frozen basilisk, keeping his steps as quiet as possible.

As a result, when the Weasley girl came into view, leaning over Lockhart's motionless body and apparently crying into his chest, the girl didn't see or hear him.

Freak paused, staring at the girl.

Lockhart remaining motionless suggested that the idiot had met the basilisk's gaze while Freak had been...busy... Which solved one problem for him, but the girl was still an issue.

Freak didn't want anyone to know that he (or “Harry Potter”) had been involved with the Chamber of Secrets or killing (only petrifying, really) the basilisk.  That would only continue to feed the idea that he was willing to get involved in life-threatening situations, or that he had any idea to save the idiots in this school instead of burning it down.

"What will you do about poor little Ginny?"   Riddle asked.

Freak's eyebrow twitched.

He was going to have to get used to the peanut gallery, and he was not at all happy about it.

"I could just leave her down here," he sent back, deciding that ignoring the other would only result in him being more irritating, most likely, in order to provide a response.

"You could," Riddle agreed, "although they would likely close the school as they had threatened to do in my time as well."

"And why do I care about that?"   Freak replied.

He could actually feel Riddle's surprise down whatever connection allowed them to send thoughts at each other.

"You don't think of Hogwarts as your home?"

"No way," Freak scoffed.  "Hogwarts is a death trap-- and not even a well-disguised one-- full of idiots.  They're lucky I haven't burned the whole castle down around them.  First year was full of Dumbledore's tests and manipulations, and being forced into meeting your older self, and then this year, no one could put two and two together and realize there was a basilisk running around the school.  And even if they couldn't figure out what was petrifying students, they could have paid for fully grown mandrakes instead of growing them here, to wake up the students earlier and ask what attacked them.  Or just shut down the school until the creature was found anyway.  No muggle school would stay open with a monster in the basement attacking people... Harry thinks of it as his home, though, as Dumbledore probably intended."

There was a pause from Riddle when Freak was done ranting.

"You grew up with muggles, didn't you?  If the school is closed, you would be sent back to them.  You can’t mean to tell me that you think of their house as your home."   Riddle sent.

Freak scoffed mentally.  "I don’t have a home .  And the Dursleys may be awful guardians, but at this rate I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer getting stuck there anyway.  I'd probably be far less likely to die, for one.  And I could apply to a different magical school... If I found one that allowed students to stay over the summer, the Dursleys would probably be thrilled..."

"Do you really think Dumbledore would let the precious Boy-Who-Lived go so easily?"   Riddle asked.  "And I refuse to be stuck with your muggles here in the meanwhile, if I'm trapped in your head."

Freak scoffed mentally, still eyeing the Weasley girl.

"What do you suggest, then?  I refuse to allow Harry Potter to be considered a hero for defeating Slytherin's monster."

“To begin with, stun the girl,” Riddle ordered, and Freak withheld a scoff at the obvious command as he complied.

The girl never saw the spell coming as she slumped forward onto Lockhart’s motionless chest.

At Riddle’s command, Freak approached then, gathering the girl’s wand from where Riddle had been holding it before losing his semi-physical form and returning it to one of her pockets, and stealing Lockhart’s wand from one of his robe pockets.

“Now what?”   Freak asked the other.

“Now I’m going to teach you to use one of that fool of a teacher’s favorite spells,” Riddle said with dark anticipation.

At Freak’s slight confusion, Riddle seemed taken aback.

“I may need to lower my estimate of your intelligence,” Riddle sent.  “You did not realize the pompous fool was erasing the memories of the witches and wizards who actually performed the actions in his books?”

“I’m not surprised, ” Freak replied testily.  ”I knew he was a fraud.  I didn’t care to look into him more than that.”

Riddle still seemed confused.

“Then when you suggested I fight Lockhart first--”

“I just didn’t like him.”   Freak shrugged, since no one was around to see him responding physically to unspoken words.  “He could have been a distraction for...a few seconds, I guess.”

Riddle didn’t seem to know whether to be surprised, approving, or resigned, Freak thought, judging by the muted but odd jumble of impressions he was sensing from the other.

After a moment he seemed to shrug off whatever his feelings were, however, and Freak got an introductory lesson in the Obliviate spell on the Weasley girl, targeting anything to do with Tom Riddle, his diary, or the Chamber of Secrets, but also including a weaker Obliviate on the school year in general as well, since Freak was new to using the spell.

It was unfortunate (for the girl) that she would either have to study like mad over the summer (as would the petrified students, Freak realized) or repeat the school year.  This gained no sympathy from Freak, however.  She was the little fool who had befriended a boy in a diary-- and how was that not suspicious at all?-- and then got him involved by writing to Riddle about him and sparking Riddle’s curiosity, as well as filling him in on his older self’s downfall.

(And if Freak noted that Riddle would have made a good (if tough and exacting) teacher, then he kept that observation to himself.)

After the Obliviate session, since Lockhart was indeed dead from the basilisk's gaze, Freak kept his wand, hiding it in his shrunken second trunk that he always carried on himself, and left the man's corpse in the Chamber of Secrets to rot among the destruction Freak and the basilisk had wrecked, as he levitated the still-stunned Weasley girl out of the Chamber.

(Riddle's shock when Freak didn't need his assistance to speak Parseltongue to open the door-- really, using "open" as a password? -- brought Freak some much-needed amusement.  The other was very quiet after that revelation, to Freak's satisfaction.)

Freak left the Chamber, quietly hissing for stairs in order to climb out of the entry pipe under Riddle's direction, and emerged after draping his invisibility cloak over himself.

Moaning Myrtle didn't appear to be in the bathroom they emerged into, which was good considering Freak had to float the Weasley girl along behind him fully visible.  As agreed, he left the girl unconscious in Lockhart's office, but contrary to Riddle's suggestion, he left no new message on the walls.

He thought the total lack of information would bother Dumbledore and the other teachers far more than knowing the monster had been defeated and the chamber closed via a tidy message.

Checking the time, Freak was surprised to find that the whole affair hadn't taken more than an hour-- oh, how much trouble and irritation could be fit into an hour-- and so he wouldn't even be that late past curfew if he snuck back into the Gryffindor common room now.

In order to avoid any extra attention drawn to himself, Freak walked back to the common room while still under the invisibility cloak.  The Fat Lady was lightly dozing in her portrait when he arrived, but wasn't fully asleep, so after muttering the password, the portrait swung open without the lady even fully realizing that the one to unlock it had been invisible.

Freak was careful to open the portrait as quietly as possible and only just barely enough to squeeze inside, and none of the students still scattered around the room studying for final exams or playing games with each other seemed to notice his entrance, to his relief.

Freak saw that Weasley was sitting at a table in the corner, sullenly studying alone since he had still not apologized to Harry, but ignored him to head back to the dorms unseen.

Only once there, with no one else around, did he remove the invisibility cloak and stash it away again, then showered the unwanted adventure off of himself while rewriting Harry's memories so he thought he'd returned to the dorms after studying in the library and stayed there, only then returning control of their body to Harry.  They had a habit of keeping their bed curtains shut already anyway, particularly since the argument with Weasley, so no one would likely be able to challenge him on the story.

"Is this how you usually live?"   Riddle interjected suddenly.  "Creating false memories for the one you refer to as Harry and then watching him fumble about until you take control again?"

"Yes,"   Freak admitted without shame.  "Harry acts the way Dumbledore and everyone else expects, which keeps me relatively safe.  Why, do you have something to say about that?"

Riddle was quiet.

"You should have been a Slytherin," he sent after a moment.

"I know," Freak replied.

Riddle fell silent again for just long enough that Freak thought he was done for the night, when the other interjected again.

"You call the one that you can puppet Harry ," Riddle began.  "What do you go by, then?  If anyone even knows there are two of you?"

Freak would have smirked wryly if he had been in control of his body's face at that moment, but at least sent the mental equivalent of one back to Riddle.

"No one knows exactly that I am in here too," he admitted.  "The Slytherin students know at least that I hate being called Harry when alone with them, and they have figured out that I could be a potential ally when out of the public eye.  They gave me the nickname Red when I told them I didn't care what else they called me.  And the Weasley twins have a map which shows where everyone is in the school.  They saw the name I go by on the map when I was in control instead of Harry, but they have only met me under my invisibility cloak, so they don't know who I am."

"The map actually recognized that you were not Harry Potter?... Then what name did they see?"

Freak mentally smirked again, knowing the likely reaction.

"Why, what the Dursleys always used to call me-- my name is Freak."

Riddle was silent for a moment, but he didn't apparently feel it necessary to hide the growing rage he apparently felt, as Freak could feel it practically radiating from him, to his slight surprise.

"Those filthy muggles..."   The other finally muttered darkly.

Freak mentally rolled his eyes.

"I don't care," he sent, "it's amusing to see others get worked up about it, but it's just a name.  It doesn't matter."

"It does matter," Riddle insisted.  "If you actually consider that name your own enough for it to somehow appear on a map that can identify everyone in the building, then you've accepted those disgusting muggles' words as part of yourself!"

"You're thinking too much into this," Freak insisted.  "Just call me Red like the Slytherins do, if it bothers you so much.  The twins eventually asked to call me something else as well, and I let them call me Red too.  Just calm down, you're going to give me a headache."

Freak could tell Riddle was holding back several things he wanted to say, but eventually the other calmed himself down again.

"'Red' is better than nothing, I suppose.  But we are not done speaking about this."

"I didn't know you cared," Freak sent back, heavily passing along his sarcasm with the words, and ignoring Riddle's immediate denials.  "And yes, we are."

Chapter Text

The next morning, Harry woke up and went about his usual morning routine, still avoiding Weasley, but when he arrived in the Great Hall for breakfast, Freak noted that Professor McGonagall was missing, along with the obviously-missing Lockhart.

When all the students were present and mostly finished eating, McGonagall and-- to the surprised whispers of the students-- Dumbledore strode into the hall.

Once they arrived at the head table, McGonagall briefly explained that Headmaster Dumbledore had been returned to his position (Freak assumed that he had been called back either for the reviving of the petrified students, or potentially because of what they revealed, or due to Lockhart’s disappearance), she stepped back so he could address the students instead.

"I'm afraid classes are canceled today," Dumbledore said.  "Students are required to remain in their common rooms, so you may use this extra time to study for your exams.  Also on a pleasant note, the petrified students have been awoken, and we will update you this evening after talking with all of them.  Now please return to your common rooms."

He swept away without another word, he and McGonagall both presenting calm faces, but Freak could see how the skin around their eyes was pinched with concern.

Considering Lockhart's disappearance, the now-unpetrified Granger likely reporting that she suspected the creature petrifying students to be a basilisk, and the Weasley girl's disappearance-- if it had even been noticed yet-- Freak wondered what, exactly, the teachers would come up with as an explanation.

In the back of their head, Riddle was quiet but also clearly curious, with an edge of maliciousness to it which was clearly directed at Dumbledore.

Freak let Harry continue to remain in control during the day, as the other studied quietly alone in a corner of the common room.  Mid-day, a pinch-faced McGonagall appeared again, asking for all three Weasley boys to come with her.

The other Gryffindor students likely assumed they were only being called because their elder brother had been un-petrified, but Freak and Riddle both knew that the teachers had likely found the Weasley girl, finally.

Other than being forced to remain in their dorms and common rooms, the rest of the day passed by fairly normally, although lunch was served in the common rooms instead of the Great Hall, until dinner.

By then, Riddle was practically radiating with the desire to know what conclusion the professors would have come up with, with so little information to go off of.  Freak knew they were unlikely to come anywhere close to the truth, though, and had an inkling of what the professors might guess, so he also waited with a mix of idle curiosity and resignation.

The students were prompted to start eating as usual, when everyone was finally present for the evening meal, but instead of being dismissed at the end of it, as promised, Dumbledore stood up in front of the head table to address the student body again.

"Settle down, settle down," Dumbledore began, and the general murmur dulled to near silence.  "We have several pieces of information to tell you tonight.  First off, all those petrified have indeed been restored, and the students will return to their various common rooms tonight.  All of them reported short-term memory loss just prior to their petrification, but one had a theory as to what their attacker was.  While investigating that student's theory, we also discovered a final missing student with more severe memory loss, and a missing professor."

When the students clearly looked over the head table and saw that only Lockhart was still missing, the muttering picked up until Dumbledore gestured for silence again.

"Yes, Professor Lockhart has been discovered missing, along with his wand, although his other possessions were all undisturbed in his quarters and office.  At the moment, it appears that Professor Lockhart may have come to the same conclusion as the petrified student-- that the monster attacking the students was in fact a basilisk--"

Here, most of the students turned to eye the Slytherin table with suspicion--

"--and appears to have gone after the creature.  We shall have to wait and attempt to confirm, but currently we believe that he may have been injured in the attempt."

(Or killed, went unsaid, but clearly registered with the students who adored the blonde fool, who looked collectively fearful for their erstwhile professor.)

The slight frown on Dumbledore's face and the pinched look on several other professors' faces-- notably all the ones who least liked Lockhart-- told Freak that they were still quite unsure as to the story they were sharing, but Freak had already been resigned to the thought that Lockhart might be considered a hero with the suspicious timing of his disappearance.

Riddle, apparently, had not thought the professors to be quite so stupid, and was fuming in the back of their head.

"They truly believe that fool strong enough to defeat Salazar Slytherin's basilisk?!  It's... it's ridiculous!  Heresy!  A slight against the greatest founder's memory!"

Freak withheld a mental eye roll.

"You realize that you don't actually want them to come anywhere close to the truth, right?  And they're clearly skeptical as well-- well, anyone with enough brain cells to not be in total adoration of the idiot.  And of course that doesn't quite explain the Weasley girl in his office with so much of her memory erased, but it's not like they could accuse him of erasing her memories without cause or proof.  And they'll likely think he killed the basilisk but died in the attempt, when the basilisk doesn't appear again."

"It's still an insult to Salazar's very memory!"   Riddle practically grumbled, although less vehemently.  "And the thought of that fraud being considered some sort of hero or martyr is appalling."

"Well, we're not going to correct that theory, so deal with it," Freak retorted.

Riddle settled back, resigned to sulking (in Freak's opinion of course, not the dignified Slytherin's) in the back of their mind, while Freak ignored him in favor of keeping an eye on the outer world again.

He was entirely unsurprised when, as the students were leaving, Professor McGonagall stopped Harry on his way out, telling him that Headmaster Dumbledore wanted to speak with him.

Harry was, of course, confused, since as far as he was aware, he'd had nothing to do with anything unusual lately, mostly keeping to himself in the common room or the library since his argument with Ronald Weasley.

Freak knew better.

Both Freak and Riddle watched as Harry followed McGonagall to the headmaster's office, where she finally left him as he entered the office alone, to meet Dumbledore's steady gaze.

"Ah Harry, please come in and take a seat," Dumbledore said warmly.

As Harry sat, slightly nervously, Riddle scoffed.

"So this is how the old man treats students he actually likes," he said scornfully.  "How different already from evil Slytherins..."

Freak ignored him.

When Dumbledore continued to calmly but closely watch Harry as he fidgeted in his seat, Harry finally spoke up first.

"Why did you want to see me, Professor?"

"Ah yes," Dumbledore responded, leaning back in his chair even as he never took his eyes off the boy in front of him.  "I talked to your friend Ms Granger, you know, along with the youngest Mr Weasley, when the petrified students were woken up.  Ms Granger is the student who reported that the creature which attacked her and her fellow students was most likely a basilisk.  And as you may not be aware, last night it appears that Ms Ginerva Weasley was also attacked, although she is missing more of her memories than her fellow victims, and was not petrified, but is otherwise safe now as well."

"O-oh," Harry replied, truly surprised.  "...I'm glad Hermione and Ginny are okay now, but I don't know what that has to do with me?"

Dumbledore stared harder at them, although Harry didn't appear to notice.

Both Freak and Riddle felt the mental probe as the headmaster spoke again, however.

"I just wanted to ask you, Harry-- is there anything else you'd like to tell me?  Anything more you might know?  The youngest Mr Weasley mentioned that you and your friends had looked into the matter initially, but later...stopped, even after Ms Granger was petrified."

Even Harry noticed that the headmaster sounded... disappointed by the news that they'd not investigated further.

The mental probe wasn't very deep, clearly only reaching to make sure Harry wasn't lying to Dumbledore, and Freak didn't even have to put much extra effort into making sure he, Riddle, and the Obscurus were all unnoticed by the headmaster.

(Which was somewhat fortunate, since Riddle's hatred and anger at Dumbledore provided an annoying distraction.)

The clear attempt at shaming Harry for staying out of trouble was impossible to miss-- and when Harry replied, the fake memories Freak had created of him keeping to himself (based on real past memories), studying and staying out of trouble, along with the real memories of his hurt when the youngest Weasley yelled at him rose to the surface, and a note of indignation and hurt was audible in his voice, rather than shame.

"No, sir.  I don't know anything else about the petrifications, or a basilisk or anything like that."

Dumbledore watched him for a moment longer, before pulling back the mental intrusion and sighing deeply, clearly disappointed, but also with a buried but deep confusion that Freak and Riddle could see, but that Harry missed.

"Alright, Harry.  You can go back to your dorm.  Ms Granger and the others will return there as well shortly, and I'm sure you'd like to see your friends again."

Still rather hurt at even having been asked the question, Harry just nodded and left the office quickly, entirely unaware of his mental passengers as Freak and Riddle both took satisfaction from how confused and frustrated the headmaster must be, since Harry Potter evidently had nothing to do with the suspicious happenings this year.

---

When the Weasleys-- now including Percy and a very rattled-looking Ginny-- returned to the Gryffindor common room later that evening, along with Granger, there was general good cheer and some clapping from their fellow students, relieved that they were alright again, but privately, when Granger, Weasley, and Harry spoke again, it was a slightly different story.

"Hermione!"  Harry exclaimed, hugging her (and then promptly having to quietly spit bits of her bushy hair out of his mouth) when the welcome from the other students had calmed down.  "I'm so glad you're okay!"

Neither Granger nor Harry missed Weasley's somewhat-quiet scoff.

Hurt and indignation flashed over Harry's face, while Granger turned to look at the redhead, confused.

"What's wrong with you?"  She asked.

(Freak supposed that they must not have actually caught up with each other if they'd even seen each other prior to returning to the common room.)

"He can't be that glad, given that he didn't even try to help un-petrify you after you were attacked!"

Hermione did look a bit hurt at that when she turned back to Harry, but to Freak's delight, Harry felt more indignation in response, not guilt, even without Freak providing any influence.  He wondered if the combination of Weasley, Dumbledore, and Granger all trying to shame him for staying out of trouble was finally getting to him and backfiring instead of actually working.

"Hey!  We didn't even know that Hermione had figured anything out when she was petrified!  She didn't actually tell us anything before she ran off!  And none of the professors seemed to know either!  Are you really getting mad at me for not figuring out something all of them couldn't figure out either?!"

Granger did look a bit conflicted at that-- sure, she and Weasley had both chastised Harry for trying to stay out of things even when they finally started investigating when Dumbledore was removed from the school, but she'd also been the one to encourage him to stay out of trouble before that, too.

She didn't get to interject before Weasley was responding again, however.

"Yes, I'm mad at you!  Because you didn't even try! "

Finally, Granger pushed herself between the two boys when it was clear that Harry wasn't going to back down too.

"Look, it's disappointing that you didn't try, Harry, but Ron, if the professors couldn't figure it out-- until maybe Lockhart-- then I doubt either of you could have anyway.  So just...forget about it for now, okay?"

Weasley huffed in response, crossing his arms and glaring at the wall instead of looking at Harry, and Harry's tolerance finally snapped.

"I'm really glad you're okay, Hermione, but I'm sick of this from him," Harry gestured at Weasley.  "When you're ready to apologize, Ron, I'll be here.  But until then, leave me alone.  I'm not going to act like we're all okay without that, because I didn't do anything wrong. "

And with that, he stormed away back into the dorms, throwing his bed curtains shut and sullenly studying alone, rather than staying around the other two any longer.

Freak felt only satisfaction.  He hadn't actually expected Harry to be willing to ignore the youngest Weasley boy-- Harry's first human friend-- without influence from Freak himself, but he certainly wasn't annoyed that he might not have to watch Harry hang around the other boy for a while either.

Riddle seemed a bit amused at the show, but definitely didn't have enough of a frame of reference for a stronger reaction, and he stayed quiet about whatever thoughts he had about it.

---

Professors continued to escort students around as needed over the next couple days, and then final exams had started and everyone was too busy studying to think much about the basilisk or anything else-- although Dumbledore did announce at dinner again that they had concluded that a student might have had their memories erased after going to Lockhart for help, possibly by whoever had been setting the basilisk on students, and Lockhart had ultimately found and killed the basilisk but also died in the attempt, since he had still not reappeared.

Additionally, it was decided that the petrified students would be exempt from the final exams-- to their relief-- and would be provided with help to catch up and take the exams over the summer.

(It was not mentioned, although Harry and Freak overheard from the Weasley boys talking in the common room later, that the Weasley girl would be provided even more help over the summer as well, to attempt to catch her up in all her classes so she might be able to stay with her classmates the next school year-- but if she couldn't, she'd be forced to repeat first year, since the loss of most of her memories of the school year meant that she was far behind even compared to the earliest petrified students.)

The students and professors who had liked or had crushes on Lockhart were, of course, devastated by the man's apparent (and correct) death, particularly under the heroic conditions of him saving the school from a basilisk (which were adamantly not correct).

Since only Freak and Riddle knew for certain what the real circumstances of Lockhart's death were, the heroic story was what the general public were then informed of, and Riddle had to remind Freak that setting the Daily Prophet on fire when it went on and on about Lockhart would be suspicious.

Two unusual things happened shortly after Dumbledore's announcement.

First, later that evening, Harry happened to catch sight of Lucius Malfoy, along with a couple other adults neither Harry nor Freak recognized but the muttering of other students nearby revealed to be members of the Hogwarts board of governors, and a house elf Freak was surprised to recognize as Dobby, strode through the castle on their way to Dumbledore's office.

Harry locked eyes with Dobby as they passed, but seeing as Harry had no recollection of the elf, no recognition showed, and the house elf quickly looked away again as he followed his master.

Harry didn't think anything of it-- and neither did Riddle, for that matter-- but Freak took note that Dobby must have been the Malfoys' house elf.  Then he brushed the thought away; it wasn't his business, as long as the elf heeded his warning and stayed away from him.

Then the next day, Freak noticed that a couple Slytherin first years were staring at Harry from a distance in the library while he studied alone.

Realizing that they wanted to talk to him, Freak took over from Harry and made his way into the library shelves, away from other students, knowing the Slytherins would follow.

(He could feel Riddle's interest flare when Freak suddenly took control of their body again, but ignored it.)

Sure enough, when no other students were nearby, a first year Slytherin approached Freak, a couple others subtly watching out for anyone approaching.

"Did you need something?"  Freak asked, locking eyes with the younger boy.

Knowing someone else might wander by soon, the boy wasted no time either.

"Is what the headmaster said true?  Do you know what happened with the... with the basilisk?"

Freak stared at the boy silently for a moment, while Riddle suddenly paid more attention, now that it was apparent Freak knew a Slytherin somehow-- enough for them to think Freak might have something to do with the basilisk when the professors certainly didn't know the same.

After another moment of thought, Freak broke eye contact and casually scanned the books he was standing in front of instead.

"Are you lot still carrying around mirrors?"  He asked quietly.

After a beat of silence (Freak guessed the boy hadn't been sure he'd answer), he received a quiet confirmation.

"I'm not, anymore," Freak said simply, as he pulled one of the books from the shelves and then casually turned away and returned to his desk.

Freak adjusted Harry's memory and returned control of their body, while the Slytherin firsties vanished from the library (at least in his vicinity), and Riddle settled back in their body again, obviously still curious but not asking anything for the moment.

Freak never tried to get confirmation, but he suspected that the Slytherins also stopped carrying mirrors around shortly afterwards, and a few of them definitely shot analyzing (and skeptical) looks at Lockhart's empty seat during meals the next day.

---

Thanks to all the extra studying Harry had gotten in since the falling out with Weasley and his continued refusal to apologize (while Granger tried to stay friendly with both of them, but mostly frantically tried to catch up and ignored them both), final exams weren't too difficult for him, even though Freak didn't interfere with the results since the exams wouldn't actually matter, so long as they passed, until their fifth and seventh years.

Then halfway through the days of exams, the marble from the Weasley twins indicated that they wanted to meet again.

When Riddle asked what he was doing as Freak took control from Harry (erasing his memory of the marble) and signaled back that he would meet the twins, Freak obliged with a short explanation of who the Weasley twins were and his interactions with them as himself, not that they knew whose body he shared.

Upon entering the abandoned classroom later that evening and casting the charm which would disguise his voice, still under the invisibility cloak, Freak was met by two grinning redheads as they looked up from the Marauder's Map.

Freak noted that they both seemed much more relaxed now that their elder brother had been un-petrified (even though their sister had obviously had her memories tampered with).

"Red!"  One of them (George?) greeted cheerfully.

"You'll be happy to hear--"

"--That we have succeeded!"

"Your trunk is ready!"

Freak blinked as the two un-shrunk the trunk he'd given them with a flourish and a bow while presenting it.  Both had mad grins on their faces, which were still tilted up in his general direction (they missed his actual location by several feet) even while they stayed in the bow until he cautiously stepped closer and the trunk back, setting it down a few feet away-- enough distance for him to react if they approached-- and gazed over the runes he could see engraved into the sides and lid of the trunk.

He glanced up, and even though the twins couldn't see him, he caught them (repeatedly) gesturing for him to open it, which he did--

And then stared at the contents.

When he didn't react for a long moment, frozen in place, maybe-Fred cleared his throat.

"We...asked the Hogwarts house elves to fill it for you, both with some meals that would preserve well, and other ingredients."  The twin scratched the back of his head, and Freak realized they weren't sure how he would react.

"Since you're so careful about not letting us know who you are," maybe-George continued, "we thought you might not ask them yourself.  We just...wanted to help."

To his surprise, Freak had to clear his throat a bit before he could reply.

"...You're right," he replied quietly, glancing back at the nearly-full trunk, all sorts of different perishable foods clearly preserved inside.  Unlike the muggle equivalent, it wasn't portioned into two sections for a refrigerator and a freezer-- the runes and whatever other spells the twins must have used to create it eventually would preserve anything inside regardless, likely at whatever temperature it was stored at, he thought, since warm items did seem to be placed slightly separately from cool items, even though there wasn't a physical divider.

"I wouldn't have asked them... Thank you," he continued.

He was surprised by how much he meant it.

Freak wasn't sure the voice changing spell would show his quiet sincerity, but he suspected it must have, when the twins' wide grins faded slightly but turned warmer, if slightly tinged with what he thought was sympathy.

"You're welcome," maybe-Fred replied, and his tone matched the change in their expressions from before.

Then both twins physically shook themselves slightly and their grins widened again.

"Now, let us--"

"--Tell you--"

"--How this beauty works!"

Freak listened, stepping back so the twins could approach the trunk again as they pointed out the different runes and spells on the trunk.

He didn't miss Riddle's surprise and interest as the twins explained-- or the other's quickly-suppressed flare of jealousy.

When the twins eventually finished their presentation (including answering a few questions from Freak and ones he relayed from Riddle), they passed him a sack of additional healing and nutrient potions and balms, and insisted that he tell them if he ended up needing different ones in the future.

Then they asked if he’d be willing to write them over the summer, either for more potions and food or just to let them know that he was okay, but they did not seem surprised when he refused (knowing that Hedwig would be far too distinctive).  The twins declared that next year, they’d figure out a way he could change colors on the marble without triggering the Trace, so they could use that instead, but they had to give up for the moment.

So with another expression of thanks by Freak, and well-wishes from the twins, they parted ways for the last time before the summer.

In almost no time, the remaining exams were over and everyone was headed home on the Hogwarts Express.  With food in his now second hidden trunk (which he still hadn’t figured out how to explain to Harry, unless he just didn’t let him know about it at all and made fake memories as to how he got more food somehow) making the summer seem considerably more tolerable than the last, despite his unwanted mental passenger, Freak felt a bit pleased that he had survived a year of school at Hogwarts again, this time with a plan for the summer.

Chapter Text

The summer after their second year was much better for both Harry and Freak than the previous one.

For one, Harry had early on picked the lock on his old cupboard to retrieve his summer homework and textbooks-- without Freak even prompting him to do so-- and thus wouldn’t have to panic at the end of the summer to get anything done.

Then there was, of course, the fact that they were no longer going hungry, thanks to the preservation trunk from the Weasley twins.  (The increase in food definitely helped them, and Harry had managed to grow a few inches and was slightly less small and skinny compared to his agemates as usual.)  Harry was still unaware of the trunk, however, and was under the impression that he had been stealing food from the fridge at night again, or from the trash as they had done in the past before Hogwarts.

And they at least had their subscription to the Daily Prophet to keep them updated with some information about the magical world, in their boredom.  It had been mostly uninteresting, until the last couple days, when the paper had exploded with alarm, announcing that one Sirius Orion Black, right-hand of Voldemort and one of his most favored Death Eaters, had somehow escaped Azkaban and was considered extremely dangerous and not to be approached.  The man certainly looked deranged in the included headshot from the prison.  (Freak just hoped the convict stayed far, far away from himself.)

The main irritation for Freak, however, was Riddle’s voice still in their head.  (And Riddle had certainly perked up in interest at the article about Black and how he was a follower of Voldemort.)

The older boy had no qualms in adding a running commentary of insults about almost anything muggle, and the Dursleys in particular, although he was also surprised and somewhat alarmed by how much had changed about the muggle world since he’d last seen it.  (Not that he would admit it, of course, but it was hard to completely hide your feelings from someone sharing headspace with you.)

Freak missed the quiet somewhat .

Harry, on the other hand, was a bit peeved that he’d had absolutely no word from either of his friends.

It was nearing midnight on the night before their birthday, and Harry was lying on his back over his bed covers, staring at the ceiling and waiting for the clock to hit midnight, as he did every year.

Hedwig was not in her cage-- Harry had thankfully persuaded the Dursleys to let her out of her cage as long as she only came and went when none of their neighbors would see her.

Either the owl was fantastic at being stealthy, or their nosy neighbors just had terrible timing or observation skills, since they hadn’t had a peep of a complaint from any neighbor so far.

Harry had a small amount of hope that the faithful bird might have gone to Hermione, to see if she had a birthday card for him.  The bushy-haired girl didn’t have an owl, of course, so while Harry was disappointed that he hadn’t heard from her, he did understand why.

For Ron, however... They had of course fought, but Harry was genuinely surprised that the other boy still hadn’t sent an apology letter or anything else.  And unlike with the owl-less Hermione, Ron didn’t have an excuse--

Well, for the start of the summer, anyway.

Thanks to the Daily Prophet, Harry and Freak (and Riddle) were aware that the Weasleys had managed to win 700 galleons in a drawing several days ago, and most of them had gone off to Egypt to visit the eldest brother, Bill.  (Freak and Riddle both were scornful of the family spending that money immediately on a vacation instead of saving it or spending it on more essential things; it was a significant amount of money, particularly for the already-poor family.)

The odd thing about the accompanying photo in the paper, however, was that Mrs Weasley and Percy Weasley were missing.  (And Freak and Riddle were both a bit amused that Ginny seemed to be slightly less enthusiastic than her siblings and father, obviously still affected by the loss of her memories.)  Everyone else was present, and Harry learned what the rest of Ron’s family looked like for the first time.  They were all waving, Ron with Scabbers on his shoulder.

With the Weasleys still in Egypt, Harry doubted that he’d be getting that apology from Ron any time soon-- and to Freak’s satisfaction, Harry did still want an apology before he’d talk to the other boy again.

Harry was somewhat surprised, therefore, when he was brought out of his thoughts-- the clock at his bedside reading 23:58-- by the sound of several wings flapping.

Looking out the window, Harry could see Hedwig and two unfamiliar owls, each holding letters or packages.

The three birds managed to land on Harry’s desk (thankfully cleared of homework at the moment, since he couldn’t leave it where the Dursleys might see it), and after relieving all three birds of their deliveries, Harry opened the letter Hedwig had brought along with a wrapped package first, absently noting that one of the two unfamiliar owls flew away again as he did so.

The letter contained happy wishes for Harry’s birthday, stated that his gift had been owl-ordered after Hermione had seen an ad in the Daily Prophet, and had a small rant about how her family was on vacation in France, but she had to spend a fair amount of time studying to finish catching up the work she’d missed while petrified.  She was at a disadvantage since she could not cast spells during the summer and could not brew potions, but she had apparently focused on that before the prior year ended, and would do so again at the start of their third year.  (Freak and Harry both dreaded that she would likely be stressed about school right from the beginning of the year, then, and therefore even less tolerable by Freak’s standards than usual.)

Her note also explained why Percy and Mrs Weasley had been missing from the family photo in the paper, since she mentioned that the petrified students had been offered study materials to attempt to catch up with the schoolwork they’d missed-- and families with at least one wizarding parent would be given permission to help their child practice the spells and potions without triggering the Trace, which Hermione also had Opinions™ about-- or they could repeat the school year.

She finished her letter by suggesting they try to meet in Diagon Alley the last week of the holidays to do their school shopping together, which Harry looked forward to if he could convince the Dursleys to let him go.

With the letter finished, Harry opened her gift next, and was very pleasantly surprised to find a Broomstick Servicing Kit with a clip-on compass.

Freak was less amused, other than for the compass, which could be useful eventually, since he was not a fan of Quidditch even if flying was nice.  (Riddle unhelpfully commented that he did not care for Quidditch in the slightest.)

When Harry opened a letter from one of the unfamiliar birds, a large barn owl, next.  He quickly recognized the scrawl as Ron’s, and a newspaper clipping with the same article about the Egypt trip which he’d already seen in the paper fell out.

Ron completely failed to apologize in his letter-- he seemed to want to pretend that nothing had happened between them, and mostly talked about his family’s trip to Egypt, and mentioned that since Percy and Mrs Weasley had stayed behind so Percy could study hard since he’d missed most of his sixth year and refused to repeat the year rather than be able to enter his seventh year in the coming fall.  Ginny had apparently had the option to try and repeat her whole first year’s material, since her memory was apparently pretty sketchy for the entire year-- to her parents’ horror--- but the girl had decided to repeat the year instead, since she didn’t even have a basis of magical knowledge to build on, unlike Percy.

Ron also mentioned that with the prize money, he’d also finally gotten his own new wand, and the family had finally replaced Errol, their previous ancient owl, with the barn owl currently in Harry’s room, Bentley.  Bentley had also brought a small package, which Harry opened to find what the letter described as a Pocket Sneakoscope, which looked like a small glass spinning top that balanced on its point, and would light up and spin if someone untrustworthy was around.

The damn thing was already dimly lit up when Harry unwrapped the package, unfortunately.  Harry, of course, assumed that it must be sensing the Dursleys as “nearby.”

Freak suspected that it could possibly detect Riddle or even himself, however, and prompted Harry to wrap the gift back up and shove it under the floorboard where he kept items hidden from the Dursleys, to be stuffed in the bottom of his trunk later and forgotten about as “not that useful.”

(In reality, Freak would take control later and stuff it in his secret trunk instead, but Harry didn’t know that.)

Ron’s letter ended by wishing Harry a happy birthday and also suggested meeting in Diagon Alley the last week of the holidays, and Harry was left mostly feeling frustrated about the lack of apology.

Freak and Riddle were both more annoyed that the Sneakoscope wouldn’t be useful, and scornful of Weasley.

The third owl apparently had brought them their Hogwarts letter-- with a permission slip for parental permission to go to Hogsmeade, the nearby magical village on some weekends-- and a letter and package from Hagrid.

The letter was fairly short, and contained birthday wishes along with Hagrid expressing his disappointment that he wouldn’t get to see Harry in his class third year; to all of Harry, Freak, and Riddle’s collective horror, the half-giant apparently was going to take over the Care of Magical Creatures class (although this was to be a surprise-- and oh boy would it be-- so Hagrid asked that Harry not inform anyone else yet) starting in the coming school year.

(Freak suspected that there would be a large increase in students being sent to the hospital wing, and that that increase would oddly be made up entirely of students taking Care of Magical Creatures.)

The included box from Hagrid contained a birthday cake, similar to the one Hagrid had given them when he fetched Harry from the Dursleys the first time (and made such an unimpressive impression on Freak).

Harry happily hid the box with the cake under some clothes in the top of his closet, making a mental note to steal some napkins to wipe his fingers with so he could eat the cake in secret, later, and not leave evidence of it for the Dursleys to find and punish him for.  (Aunt Petunia was far more likely to notice if he borrowed a fork, unfortunately.)

While still annoyed with Ron, Harry’s mood was bolstered by both Hermione and Hagrid’s gifts, and he finally went to sleep in a fairly good mood, while Freak plotted how he’d get the Dursleys to sign the Hogsmeade permission slip, and Riddle...did whatever he did, brooding silently in the back of their head.

Chapter Text

The next morning, they were unceremoniously woken up by the usual sound of Aunt Petunia banging on their bedroom door, shouting for Harry to get up and start breakfast, ignoring that it was Harry’s birthday as usual.

The news was on the television when Harry passed by the living room-- Uncle Vernon sitting in an armchair and grousing about nonsense while he watched-- and they briefly caught an announcement about Sirius Black and how he was a dangerous escaped convict, although the muggle news didn’t actually state the wizard’s first name or, of course, that he was in fact a wizard.  (Freak briefly reflected on how the Dursleys would react if he mentioned that Black was actually magical, but while the initial fear might be somewhat amusing to watch, they would undoubtedly somehow take the news out on themselves, and so it would never be worth it.)

Uncle Vernon also mentioned how he would be going to the train station at 10 to pick up Aunt Marge, who would be staying with them for a week.

Harry had apparently forgotten about the unpleasant woman’s visit, but Freak had not-- but even Harry could spot the opportunity this provided, so Freak did not stop Harry when he brought up a deal with Vernon-- if Harry acted “normal” during Aunt Marge’s visit, and followed along with the Dursleys’ lie that Harry went to “St Brutus’ Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys” (which neither Freak nor Harry were even sure actually existed), then Uncle Vernon would sign their Hogsmeade permission slip.

Of course, Freak knew how rude Marge was, and had no intention of letting Harry lose their easy solution to getting the slip signed by allowing him to interact with the woman and inevitably lose his temper with her.  So despite how he also disliked the woman and her penchant to set her bulldogs on them whenever possible, Freak decided he would be the one to deal with her during this visit.

And if Uncle Vernon tried to not uphold his end of their bargain at the end of the week, Freak would happily get revenge by making things as not normal for the Dursleys as possible without actually using magic detectable by the Trace.

With their deal in place, Harry made breakfast as usual, and then while Aunt Petunia bustled about the living room and kitchen making sure it looked perfect and normal for Marge’s visit (her face slightly pinched the entire time, as Freak was fairly sure she also couldn’t stand her sister-in-law and her slobbering dogs, but would never say anything to Vernon about it lest she not be the perfect housewife), Harry went upstairs knowing that he’d be expected to stay in his bedroom as much as possible at least until Aunt Marge arrived.

So Harry made sure his magical items were all even harder to find than usual, mostly stored under the loose floorboard (or unbeknownst to him, in Freak’s shrunken trunk) and then listlessly laid on his bed until Vernon returned with Marge, both making a fuss as the car pulled into the driveway and they came into the house.  Both Harry and Dudley were made to stand in the foyer to greet the woman like they were cattle to be inspected for purchase.

The woman was as grating as usual, annoying even Dudley who only tolerated her because Aunt Petunia gave him money after each interaction, and Freak would have loved to let Harry deal with her for as long as possible, but ended up taking control later that same day when Aunt Marge unsubtly tried to encourage the one bulldog she’d brought with her, Ripper, to chase Harry when they were sent to take out the trash to the bins after dinner.

As soon as they heard Aunt Marge open the door after them to let Ripper out, Freak took over and turned to face the dog running towards them-- ignoring Riddle’s question as to how he would stop the dog without using magic-- and he released his iron control over the Obscurus just enough for the edges of his body to start dissolving into wisps of smoke.  It wasn’t enough for any of the muggles to see with the lack of sunlight, but Ripper stopped dead in his tracks at the realization that his prey was a much scarier predator than himself.

(The dog clearly wasn’t particularly intelligent, as this was not the first time Freak had to teach Ripper this lesson.  It was a nice chance to see that his control over how little of his form turned into smoke kept increasing over time, particularly with his practice in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts the last two years, however.)

Ripper let out a distressed whine before turning and running back to the front door, cowering outside it when he found that Aunt Marge had not stayed close by to see the results of her setting her dog on Harry.

With the dog handled, Freak went back to finishing the task of taking out the trash, not commenting on how Riddle essentially unfurled a bit from where he’d recoiled when Freak brought the Obscurus forward.

“Why do you allow these muggles to push you around, when you have the power to stop them without even triggering the Trace so easily?  To make them fear you and leave you alone?”   Riddle asked after a moment.

Freak blinked-- Riddle had certainly spoken with him occasionally since becoming stuck in his head, but it was usually just degrading comments about the Dursleys or Harry’s behavior around others, not questions for Freak himself.

“I suppose that’s what you did?”   Freak asked back, instead of answering.

“I did.  The other children in the orphanage quickly learned to leave me alone or...bad things happened to them.”

Freak nodded slightly to himself.

“And look how that turned out for you-- from what you’ve said about Dumbledore, he was constantly suspicious of you and watching you, and then you became a Dark Lord.  I’m not interested in any of that.  I don’t need any more attention than what being the ‘Boy Who Lived’ already brings me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re content to just hide and allow ‘Harry’ to follow Dumbledore’s preaches of the power of love and friendship, even though you don’t seem to agree?  The only thing that matters is power, but you are wasting yours.  Dumbledore even trusts you, so you don’t even have that disadvantage as I did!”

Freak was quiet for a moment as he thought, pausing on his way back into the Dursleys’ house.  He knew, of course, that Riddle was trying to bring him around to his and Voldemort’s way of thinking, but it wasn’t an unreasonable question anyway.  (And he didn’t need a particularly angry voice in his head caused by him ignoring Riddle constantly too.)

“You’re right that I don’t agree with Dumbledore.  The man’s belief in ‘love’ is what caused me to be placed with the Dursleys years ago, and forces me to continue to stay here during the summers.  But I don’t agree with you either, or Voldemort.”

After a moment, Riddle spoke again.  “If you do not agree with either Dumbledore or my older self, what do you believe in, then?  Or plan to do once you become an adult in the eyes of wizards and no longer have to live with the muggles?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Freak answered honestly.  “But I’ll let you know when I figure it out, if you’re still stuck in my head then.  But if I survive until I can graduate Hogwarts, hopefully I can get free from both Dumbledore and Voldemort.  They can fight over Britain if they want; I just want them both to leave me alone.  It might be nice to be free of them both, and the Dursleys... I think I would like to see who I am when free of all of them.”

Riddle was quiet for a while; long enough that Freak assumed the conversation was over and he returned back to the Dursleys’ house, Ripper shying away from him when he opened the door and scuttling back to Aunt Marge’s feet (where he refused to leave for the rest of the night), resigning himself to ignoring the woman or being blandly polite to her and his relatives until he would be permitted by Aunt Marge to return to his bedroom for the night.

Riddle finally chimed in again while he was forced to pour an evening cuppa (of something distinctly not tea) for Aunt Marge.

“That’s an unlikely dream, with Dumbledore clearly assuming he can use you, and my older self determined to kill you.  As well as my own presence in your head.”

The older boy seemed a bit less scornful than before, however.

“I know,” Freak admitted easily.  It wasn’t a new thought.  “But that doesn’t mean I won’t do my best to get out from under both their thumbs anyway.  The wizarding world can handle their own problems without me.”

---

When Hedwig returned to their room that night, Freak asked her to stay away from the house for the rest of the week, lest Marge or Vernon see her and Vernon consider it breaking their deal, and the owl obliged with an affectionate nip to his fingers.

The rest of the week passed by slowly, with Aunt Marge seeming to try harder over the week to insult “Harry” to try and get a reaction out of him.  Even Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon seemed to take notice after a while, giving him increasingly worried locks after some of her comments, scared that he might snap and react abnormally.

Freak was sure that Harry would have snapped at some point, but he didn’t care about any of their opinions, and wasn’t fiercely protective of his own reputation or even his parents’, as Aunt Marge eventually moved onto, towards the end of the week.  Harry might have had a temper like a flash fire, but Freak’s burned long and cold, not hot, so she couldn’t set him off.  (Besides, she and even the Dursleys were so low on his list of people he hated or could not stand at this point, that they weren’t worthy of getting a rise out of him.  After all, he would definitely be free of all of them as soon as he legally became an adult.)

Finally the last evening of Aunt Marge’s visit rolled around.

She and Uncle Vernon were drinking quite a lot, and the more Marge drank, the more she insulted Harry.  Even to the point where she would not allow him to leave the room after dinner, when Aunt Petunia was ready to allow him to return to his bedroom for the night.

Aunt Marge eventually loudly asked Vernon what Potter (Harry’s father) even did for work, in the middle of turning her insults towards Harry’s parentage instead of himself (the woman clearly not either noticing or carrying how Aunt Petunia’s face pinched, since Harry’s parentage also included her sister and parents, of course).

Uncle Vernon gave “Harry” (who was, of course, still Freak) another glance that was both worried and warning in one (even Dudley was staring at him by now too), but that didn’t stop him from saying that James Potter had been unemployed.  This, of course, caused Aunt Marge to scoff and continue on about how James Potter had been a no-good, lazy man and a drain on their good country’s resources--

Freak’s relatives were fairly pale as Aunt Marge’s rant went on, all three of them staring at him, clearly expecting Harry’s hot temper to get the best of him, since all the Dursleys knew Harry’s parents were a particular sore point for him since he’d learned how they’d truly died.

But instead of reacting-- and Freak knew Aunt Marge was saying all the insults she could in order to cause him to react, considering she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of him as she nearly shouted them-- Freak locked eyes with Uncle Vernon and continued to let the words wash over him, only making a non-committal noise when he absolutely had to.

In his head, even Riddle was getting a bit angry, furious that the muggle woman was insulting her magical “betters” even if they were people who had been on Dumbledore’s side of the last war and who his older self even killed personally.

Finally, when it became obvious that “Harry” wouldn’t give Aunt Marge the reaction she wanted, and her frustration shifted into drowsiness from the amount of brandy she’d consumed that evening, her attention waned and Aunt Petunia hurriedly instructed him to take out the trash-- a small but clear bit of mercy to get him away before Marge could try to make him stay a moment longer.  She didn’t even demand that he return quickly to clean the dishes as she usually would.

Freak did as he was told without a sound, placing the trash bag in the bins outside and then crouching down to sit on the curb in front of the Dursleys’ house, as far from the front door as he could get while still being on their property.

Riddle was still fuming in their head, obviously cursing the muggles in his mind, but Freak ignored him too.

Harry would certainly have snapped at the insults to his parentage, particularly now that he had learned how they’d really died.

But Freak found that he couldn’t bring up the same futile anger.  Unlike Harry, he couldn’t miss what he had never known.  And Freak was well aware that he was more jaded than Harry as well; magic was...fascinating, to him, but he wasn’t in love with it and awed by the magical world as Harry was; Freak was far too inclined to see the negatives and how their lives had only gotten more complicated-- and dangerous -- when reintroduced to magic.

Without those fierce attachments to their parents and magic, it was easy for him to not react to Aunt Marge’s taunts.  They just flowed off him.

(Harry was going to be in disbelief that “he” had managed to hold his temper long enough to get their permission slip signed, Freak mused to himself.  Well...maybe it would encourage him to hold his tongue more in the future without Freak’s interference, although Freak wouldn’t hold his breath for that.)

Freak didn’t know how long he’d been sitting on the curb, just staring out into the quiet night, when a quiet rustle of leaves snapped both his and Riddle’s attention to the bushes of Number Three across the street.

They watched with caution as a huge black dog emerged from the bushes.

It was an obvious stray, its coat nearly grey and brown with dirt and who knew what else, scrawny and lean in a way which could only indicate long periods without nearly enough food.

(Freak could recognize that look easily, even on a dog.)

Freak crouched warily, aware that he might need to get up and run quickly if the dog attacked-- he really didn’t want to release the Obscurus in the middle of a muggle street, and he couldn’t do magic outside of Hogwarts without setting off the Trace, so running it would have to be-- but while the dog did cock its head to the side when it saw him, it whined pathetically instead of growling, and approached cautiously, like it was afraid it would be hit.

Maybe not a threat, then.

Freak wasn’t particularly fond of animals-- particularly not dogs after having only really interacted with Aunt Marge’s dogs and Fluffy the Cerberus their first year-- but even he felt a small bit of pity for the scruffy animal.

Riddle was quiet but clearly radiated his disgust when Freak cautiously held out his fingers for the dog to sniff when it drew close enough.

The dog sniffed his fingers and then large grey eyes looked at him pleadingly.

Freak sighed.

“You’re hungry too, aren’t you?” He muttered to himself, eyeing the dog once more before giving in.

It was the first summer he could afford to give even a scrap away, but he could.

The dog tilted its head, clearly confused as Freak snuck into the shadows at the side of the Dursleys’ house, only taking his second trunk out of his pocket-- he still never let it leave his person whenever possible-- when he was sure the darkness would hide his actions from any possibly watching muggles.  It only took a moment to quickly unshrink the trunk and find some preserved meat and bread rolls he thought the dog would be able to eat, before quickly shrinking the trunk back down and returning to the curb where the dog had waited.

He held out his hands with the offerings and the dog practically lit up like a child at Christmas, nearly lunging for the meat and causing Freak to flinch slightly before the dog drew back slightly to eat its prize.

Unwilling to chance the hungry animal getting close to his fingers again, Freak carefully placed the rest of the food on the ground closer to the dog, and watched as the mutt devoured the offerings.

“Soft-hearted fool,” Riddle quietly scorned him, but Freak snorted (drawing a quick look from the dog before its eyes returned to the food it was still eating) and ignored him.

“It’s just a few scraps, and I have more than enough food to last the rest of the summer,” Freak sent back.  “Feeding one stray dog isn’t going to turn me into Dumbledore’s self-sacrificing puppet.”

“Ensure that it doesn’t,” Riddle retorted, before retreating back into silence.

Freak resisted the urge to roll his eyes, watching the dog as it finished its meal and looked at him, tongue lolling out of its mouth as it stared at him in what he assumed was thankfulness, however much a dog was able to feel such a thing-- it was certainly happier than it had been, in any case.

Freak was hesitantly raising a hand to see if the dog would let him pet it when he heard the sound of the front door opening behind him.

The sound of quick footsteps made Freak turn around, unsurprised to see that Ripper was quickly walking towards him again-- the dog really didn’t learn-- Aunt Marge having retreated from the front door already.

Freak would have no issue teaching the damn dog the same lesson as before, but it turned out he didn’t need to-- before Ripper could get closer than ten feet away, there was suddenly a large dirty black dog between Freak and Ripper.

Ripper nearly tripped in an effort to stop quickly, clearly startled by the sudden appearance of another, very unfriendly dog.

It only took one loud growl from the stray to send Ripper cowering again, hiding under the rose bushes that lined the side of the Dursleys’ house.

Freak snorted.

That worked just as well as the Obscurus, he supposed, and didn’t risk exposing his secrets to muggles.

“Thanks,” he muttered at the stray, who had dropped the aggressive stance the moment Ripper was gone, sitting back on its haunches and looking back at Freak again.

“I guess that makes us even,” Freak continued, reaching out slowly again, and when the dog allowed it, he carefully petted the dog’s head and then the top of his back.

(He contained a grimace at how dirty the dog was-- he was definitely going to need to wash his hands the moment he returned inside or Aunt Petunia would kill him for touching anything.)

They stayed there for a moment, the dog clearly enjoying the attention, until Aunt Petunia’s shrill voice called for him to come back inside-- Ripper bolting for the door when it creaked open, causing Aunt Petunia to let out a startled screech when the dog bolted inside past her, the front door slamming closed again as she had clearly let go of it to get away from the animal.

Freak looked at the dog once more and sighed.

“I’d trade you if I could,” he muttered at the dog, before giving it one last pat and turning to return to the house.

He glanced back just before closing the front door behind him, but the dog was already gone.

---

Despite how awful Aunt Marge had been for the week, Freak fell asleep with a slight smirk on his face that night, knowing the foul woman would be leaving the next morning, and Uncle Vernon would have to sign his permission slip or be faced with the return of his “abnormalness.”

Chapter Text

Harry had been quite proud of himself for controlling his temper, when Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon grudgingly signed the permission slip the next day, while Freak mentally rolled his eyes at the thought that Harry had been responsible in the slightest.

The Dursleys even left them alone, more or less, for a couple days after Aunt Marge had left.  They still had their lengthy list of daily chores to do and meals to cook, but outside of those tasks, they were permitted to leave the house and walk around a park or to the library.

That reprieve only lasted for a short while, however, and when it ended, it seemed like the Dursleys were determined to wring every drop of work they could out of them.

It was on one of those days that Freak took over after Harry had finished their chores for the day, and he flopped down in the grass of the otherwise-abandoned park (the day being far too hot for most people to be outside willingly) as the sun was setting.

It was too hot to do anything really, but he had no desire to stay in the house with the Dursleys despite the heat.

(He sorely missed the ability to cast cooling charms, at the moment.)

Freak was almost dozing off from the heat when he felt a sudden jerk in his mind--

And immediately Freak lost track of his surroundings, as he was trapped in a battle of wills against Riddle again.  The other boy clearly broke their deal as he attempted to wrestle control of the body from Freak-- and then Freak was fighting a battle on two fronts, as the Obscurus within him threatened to slip from his control as well.

Breathing heavily but managing to look around the park, Freak realized that there were no muggles nearby, and with the setting sun also reducing visibility, Freak grit his teeth and mentally crossed his fingers, and released his hold on the Obscurus in order to focus on Riddle.

His body immediately exploded outwards into wisps of smoke, which mostly floated above the ground, although some shallow ruts were carved into the grass from the wisps closest to it.  The damage was quite limited, however, swirling tightly in a vaguely spherical shape as Freak's focus and source of stress was internal.

Fortunately, Riddle hadn't actually managed to drain any power from himself or Harry, so between that and Freak's long practice in exerting his will on the Obscurus, Freak was once again able to wrestle control away from the older boy.

When it became clear he was going to lose the fight again, Riddle began hurriedly saying something in their head, but Freak ignored him entirely, wrenching both control of the body and the ability to watch and listen to their surroundings away from the other, brutally shoving Riddle as far back in their head as possible, until Freak could still (barely) sense the other's presence but couldn't hear him at all, and Riddle certainly wouldn't be able to sense anything from him, Harry, or the outside world.

With that done, Freak returned his focus to his surroundings and saw that his Obscurial form hadn't actually done too much damage to the park-- the divots carved out of the ground weren't out of the realm of something a muggle could have done (for whatever reason), and there were still no muggles in sight, so he probably wasn't guilty of breaking the Statue of Secrecy, thankfully.

Freak pulled the Obscurus back into himself, and as the wispy Obscurial form condensed and settled back into his usual human body (it ached horribly, particularly in his joints, as it always did after reforming), he shoved the Obscurus' presence in his head between where he and the unaware Harry resided, and where he'd shoved Riddle, feeling Riddle recoil even further back in their head to avoid the Obscurus.

When everything was finished, Freak stood in his aching body, breathing heavily and processing the sudden silence.

(It was amazing how quickly he'd gotten used to Riddle's critical voice in his head.)

Unable to return control to Harry while their body ached so much without a reasonable explanation for it, Freak maintained control as he began trudging back to the Dursleys' house, cursing Riddle in his head.

---

The total darkness and silence in the back of Red's mind (Riddle adamantly refused to call the fellow wizard Freak, enemy or not) was not pleasant.  It was so quiet that it was practically ringing, although as just a mental presence, Riddle didn't exactly have ears to ring, at the moment.

(It was even worse than existing in the diary, since he’d been essentially in stasis, unaware of the passage of time until someone picked up the vessel.)

After a few moments, Riddle knew Red must have regained control over the Obscurus, since its horrible presence appeared in the midst of the sensory deprivation that surrounded him.

Riddle didn't even know how to describe how wrong the Obscurus felt to a magical being.  He genuinely didn't understand how Red didn't seem to feel it-- likely only possible from years of constant exposure to it.  The magic within him (and as Riddle had never been a weak wizard-- even in his current state, he had more magic to react to it than most would) practically recoiled from the presence of the so-called "creature" formed from the magic of an abused child, turned parasitic.  It almost felt as if the parasitic magic would consume his own magic somehow, even though he knew it couldn't actually do that.

Riddle couldn't resist the instinct to draw back from the Obscurus, retreating even further back into the emptiness of his "region" of Red's head.

He was far too proud to feel regret for nearly anything he did, much less admit to it, but as he just...existed there, exhausted and bitter, Riddle conceded (only to himself) that breaking the truce he and Red had formed was not his greatest idea.

When Riddle felt like he'd pressed as far away from the Obscurus as possible (however "distance" could be measured in such a place), after a long moment-- with his connection to Red and the outside world severed, he had no way to frame how long it had been-- he noticed that there was a tiny presence in the emptiness, and it wasn't the Obscurus.

It was a tiny spark of something... Other.   If he weren't surrounded by total emptiness aside from the Obscurus, Riddle doubted it would ever be detectable.

But in the emptiness, even a tiny presence was noticeable.

Riddle focused on the spark, both out of curiosity and a sheer lack of anything else to do.

The spark felt different from either Red or Harry, and if it weren't so tiny, Riddle would have wondered if there was a third personality native to this body.

As he drew closer to the spark, however, Riddle realized it felt like...him, but twisted.  Darker.

He reached for it, and then--

It wasn't another presence in Red's mind; it didn't even have any sort of conscious intelligence.  It was just the faintest impression of old emotions and magic.

And suddenly, with a dawning sort of horrified awe, Riddle thought he understood why he could have been sucked into the boy's body instead of being destroyed along with the diary, like he should have been.

He was shocked, and immediately realized that there was no way his older self could have done this on purpose.  Riddle doubted that Lord Voldemort even knew.

(And how far had his future self fallen, to not been realize when--)

After the moment of shock and realization finally passed, the only thing Riddle could do was laugh.

Riddle was Lord Voldemort's first horcrux, and now he was trapped in the body of what he assumed was the last (unknown, and living ) horcrux, and neither Red nor his older self realized, but there was no way to know for sure whether Dumbledore suspected or not.

How, in the name of Merlin and Morgana, was he going to get out of this one?

It was not at all an ideal situation... But if he could gain the boy's trust even a little, or somehow make contact with his older self... Perhaps Riddle could at least get the boy away from Dumbledore, and closer to safety.

(His own safety, not necessarily Red's.)

It definitely helped that Red already was extremely suspicious and paranoid when it came to Dumbledore.

But first, Riddle had to wait for Red to let him interact with Red again, or Riddle would be incapable of influencing anything or anyone.

(It was really not ideal that he had just broken his deal with Red...)

Chapter Text

Freak had a quiet few days with Riddle locked in the back of his head.  Once his body stopped aching, he had returned control of the body over to Harry, and let him deal with the Dursleys and their overabundance of chores for the last of the summer holidays, until it was time to meet Granger and the Weasleys at the Leaky Cauldron to go shopping for school supplies.

In another letter, the Weasleys (through Ronald, who was still acting as if nothing was wrong between him and Harry, to both Harry and Freak’s annoyance) had offered to pick Harry up, but with a almost-unnecessary push from Freak, they firmly rejected that idea rather than risk the Dursleys’ wrath at the presence of more wizards or witches, and said they’d meet them at the Leaky, where they would all stay overnight and go to King’s Cross together the next morning.

(The Weasley parents appeared to come away with the impression that the Dursleys would take Harry to London, which was laughable-- but Harry and Freak had used the muggle buses and trains before, and wouldn’t have an issue navigating them alone.)

So a few more boring days later, Harry and Freak were on their way to Diagon Alley with their school trunk, Harry eager to see Granger again and having mixed feelings about seeing Ronald, since the other had not apologized for how he’d treated Harry at the end of their second year.

They arrived early, and with a nudge from Freak, Harry headed to Gringotts to withdraw enough money for their supplies and also extra which they converted to muggle money, in case they needed it the next summer for food or clothes (oddly enough, getting enough food meant they were growing more than in previous years).

Afterwards, they found a table in the corner of the Leaky Cauldron where they could wait for Granger and the Weasleys, slowly drinking a butterbeer.

---

Granger showed up before the Weasleys, and quickly Harry was spitting out bits of her bushy brown hair while she was hugging him, already talking quickly about her summer holidays and how she was worried about taking the exams to ensure she’d caught up with the second year materials as soon as they got back to Hogwarts.

She hadn’t paused for breath, Harry still listening with some amusement, when the Weasleys came through the fireplace in a series of green flashes.

Mr Weasley came through first, followed by Percy and the twins, then Ronald, and last came Mrs Weasley and Ginerva.

While Harry had no major reaction to the Weasley girl, Freak tensed mentally, worried that either her memories might be jogged by seeing them, or that she would just still be the same fangirl that she had been before over the famous Harry Potter-- but to his surprise, the girl barely even glanced up at them.

Granger noticed when Harry glanced at the younger girl, and quickly whispered in his ear that Ronald had told her that his sister had been very meek since returning from Hogwarts with most of her memories of the year gone.

Freak was quietly relieved-- with her now two years their junior, and her Harry Potter obsession somewhat curbed, she was unlikely to be an issue again in the future.

Now, Ronald, however...

The youngest Weasley boy came over to Harry and Granger and promptly continued to act like nothing had happened the previous school year, and that he and Harry were just as friendly as always-- and to Freak’s satisfaction, Harry was not pleased by the lack of apology again.

Harry wasn’t one to make a huge fuss in the middle of the Leaky Cauldron, with customers taking unsubtle glances at their group far too often, but he largely ignored the Weasley boy without any prompting from Freak as the group headed into Diagon Alley for their school supplies.  Granger obviously realized something was off, since she made sure to walk between them and Ronald, but the other Weasleys seemed not to notice anything-- except for the twins, who Freak noticed were watching them on and off.  The older boys didn’t say anything, however, so Freak let it go.

He liked them a good deal more than their younger brother at this point-- the trunk they’d made for him was definitely enough to put them in his good graces, as much as he had any.

The shopping went by largely without incident-- although the employee of Flourish & Blotts looked ready to cry when Ronald and Granger both requested the book for Care of Magical Creatures.

Freak and Harry were both very relieved that they weren’t taking that class when the book turned out to literally bite.   Mrs Weasley had to configure rope to tie the books shut for the pair.

(They also thought that they shouldn’t be surprised that Hagrid chose such a book-- and Freak thought that his guess that the class would result in many more students visiting the hospital wing than the previous year would be proven true sooner rather than later.)

The other odd thing which happened in the bookstore was that Granger bought the books for all the third year electives, including Muggle Studies, rather than the typical two chosen by any student-- and she was very shifty and avoidant when asked why.

Harry, meanwhile, bought his school books for their core classes and Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, ignoring Ronald’s sulk that they wouldn’t be in the same electives again, and the Weasleys only had to purchase the new DADA book for Ginerva, since the rest of the books remained the same for first year.

The only other thing of note to happen while they shopped was that Granger had been given extra money from her parents to get a pet of her own, like how Harry had Hedwig and Ronald had Scabbers (who was taken out and shown off to be looking even worse than the previous year).

The other Weasleys waited outside while Harry, Ronald, and Granger entered the Magical Menagerie.  The inside was loud, cramped and musty, and the trio split up once inside.  Freak casually directed Harry over to the reptile section, listening to the snakes’ occasional muttering while Harry watched an iguana.  Ronald had gone over to the counter to ask if they had anything which might help his rat-- they weren’t far away, and Harry could hear the saleswitch tutting over the state of Scabbers-- and Granger had wandered over to the Hogwarts-approved-pets section.

One moment, the shop was mostly just full of various animal sounds and various people talking, and the next, the saleswitch and Ronald were shouting, and Harry whirled around.

By the time he made it back to the counter, the hubbub was over, but they managed to gather that a cat had attempted to eat Scabbers, who had run out of the shop, followed quickly by Ronald.  Harry was not eager to be alone with Ronald, so he stood near the counter for a few moments longer until Granger reappeared from the depths of the shop holding a very large orange cat with a very squashed face, that looked like it had been through several fights.

The witch behind the counter seemed very surprised at Granger’s choice of pet, and Harry quickly gathered that this was the cat which had just tried to eat Scabbers.

Harry was feeling quite petty towards the other boy still, so Freak was not the only one amused by Granger’s rather inconsiderate choice of pet-- even the saleswitch seemed rather hesitant, having seen the trio come in together.

(Freak wasn’t sure, but he thought Granger had mentioned in passing that at least one of her parents were allergic to cats, so the girl really had picked the least convenient pet that she could.)

Leaving the shop and finding Ronald again caused an argument to break out between Ronald and Granger over the danger the cat-- Crookshanks-- posed to poor Scabbers.

Granger was dismissive of Ronald’s concerns, so none of the trio were feeling talkative as they finally headed back to the Leaky Cauldron.

It didn’t take long for the other Weasleys to return as well, and Freak noticed more stares from the twins when they thought Harry wouldn’t notice, but they didn’t act unusually towards Harry still.  Most of the conversation revolved around Percy Weasley becoming Head Boy for his final year of school, despite how he’d missed so much of the previous year while petrified, and how Mrs Weasley was so worried over her precious daughter returning to Hogwarts again after her lost first year.

The rest of the evening went by smoothly, filled with more banter between the Weasleys, and slowly each person trickled upstairs, as everyone was staying at the inn for the night so they could all head to King’s Cross together in the morning.

When Harry was finally going to follow the others upstairs, Mr Weasley pulled him aside, to their surprise.

Both Freak and Harry were even more surprised by what he wanted to talk to them about.

“Sirius Black?” Harry echoed the older man.

“Yes, what do you know about him?”  Mr Weasley asked, his face twisted slightly in concern.

Harry frowned slightly, confused by the subject.

“I know what the Daily Prophet has been reporting.  He was a follower of Voldemort--” here he ignored Mr Weasley’s flinch-- “and was possibly Voldemort’s right-hand man, and he escaped Azkaban but no one knows how.”

Mr Weasley looked partially relieved, and partially more concerned, oddly.

“Ah... Yes, that is all true, Harry,” the man muttered.  “But there’s one more piece of information I think you need to know before you return to Hogwarts.”

The man trailed off, clearly debating whether or not he should continue, before he finally took a deep breath.

“The minister visited Azkaban the night Sirius Black escaped, and the guards told him that Black has been muttering in his sleep for a while now.  Always the same words: ‘He’s at Hogwarts.’”

Mr Weasley paused to stare intensely into Harry’s eyes, clearly worried for him.

“There’s a good chance Black escaped in order to go after you, Harry.”

Freak barely noticed Mr Weasley’s appeal for Harry to be careful and avoid going out of the castle alone during the school year, too busy cursing the wizarding world in his head again while Harry had his own internal panic.

There went the odds of his third year breaking the streak of something dangerous happening at Hogwarts involving them, fully against his will.

Freak groaned internally.

The school year hadn’t even started and he already hated it.

Chapter Text

The next day began loudly and chaotically, as the Weasleys escorted both Harry and Granger to the train platform, but eventually they were all on the train and it was pulling out of the station.

Harry, Granger, and Ronald looked for a compartment together, the twins splitting off to go find their friends, while Ginerva trailed nervously after Percy, seemingly too nervous after her mostly-forgotten first year to attempt to sit with her should-be-yearmates, but not apparently willing to go find the new first years who she would be sharing classes with instead as she repeated the year.

The trio took the first compartment they found which didn’t already have students in it; although instead, there was a sleeping man in worn robes slumped against the wall near the window.  His name was stamped on his trunk, R.J. Lupin, and seeing as the only teaching position with a rotating door was Defense Against the Dark Arts, it wasn’t hard for them to determine Lupin must be this year’s victim of the position.

The three students sat down quietly, and Freak was an unwilling witness to their awkward fidgeting as Weasley tried to act like everything was fine, Harry was still upset about how the other boy had treated him at the end of their second year and never apologized, and was therefore still ignoring him, and Granger tried to ignore them both to read until her patience finally snapped.

Granger (quietly, in deference to the sleeping adult in the compartment) chastised both Weasley and Harry, saying that they shouldn’t let one argument get in the way of their friendship.  (Freak noticed the glance she sent Weasley, and suspected she was also thinking of her and the redheaded boy arguing over her cat trying to eat his rat.)  Harry stood his ground, however, without Freak even having to interfere, saying that he would forgive Weasley blaming him for Granger being petrified for so long, only after the other boy apologized and admitted it wasn’t Harry’s fault or responsibility to figure out what caused it.  Weasley was awkwardly defensive for a while until he gave in, giving a grudging but seemingly sincere apology.  Harry wasn’t thrilled, but gave in and accepted it (under Granger’s almost parental satisfied expression, to Freak’s annoyance), unwilling to let the argument destroy his first friendship.

After a bit of stilted conversation, the trio managed to move past the awkwardness, and now that the “fun” was over, Freak tuned out their somewhat hushed conversation-- which unsurprisingly quickly turned to Sirius Black and what Mr Weasley had revealed to Harry the previous evening-- to turn his attention inwards.

Mentally reaching out to where he’d shoved Riddle, once again easily ignoring the familiar presence of the Obscurus, for the briefest moment when he “made contact” with Riddle, Freak felt a spark of relief from the other, he assumed from the end to the monotonous sensory deprivation (other than the Obscurus’ presence) Riddle would have been experiencing.

Despite the briefest moment of weakness, Riddle had already pulled himself together by the time Freak reached out so they could communicate with each other again.

“I am surprised to see you again so soon,” Riddle said, and his presence felt...aloof, but also...satisfied?

Freak didn’t trust that at all.

He gave a mental shrug.

“To be blunt, there’s no one else for me to talk to,” he replied.

(He was careful to only come across as bored-- which wasn’t even a lie-- but really, Freak had been surprised by how empty his head seemed to be, with only himself and the as-always-unaware Harry present, despite how long it had been that way.  Perhaps he’d missed the presence of the Slytherins and the Weasley twins more than expected.)

Riddle practically oozed smugness and slight amusement.

“So you come crawling back to me for attention?”

Freak projected how unimpressed he was back at the other.

“I can leave and let you get back to your busy schedule if you prefer,” he retorted, knowing full well there was no way Riddle would prefer that.  And sure enough--

“No need to be hasty,” Riddle said, and then paused for a long moment.

“Alright, I will admit that it may have been...ill-advised of me to break our deal. Your presence is better than nothing.”

Riddle really wasn’t good at admitting when he was wrong or “apologizing,” Freak thought to himself, somewhat amused by the posturing.

“Gee, thanks,” Freak responded.  “Sadly for you, you did break our deal, so while your presence might also be better than watching Harry be a fool by myself, I’m not going to let you out if you’re just going to try and take over again.  So tell me why I should believe you won’t do it again?”

“I am not someone who tries the same thing over and over again when it has already proved futile,” Riddle replied, in a slightly grudging tone.  “You have shown that you are...strong enough to prevent me from taking over control of your body.  And when I did so, you also had to release control over the Obscurus, which was far from subtle.  I would have little advantage in gaining control of your body if everyone around you were to realize I had done so; therefore while it seems you remain stronger than myself, it would be unwise for me to attempt it again, particularly while you remain in the constant presence of muggles or under Dumbledore’s purview.”

Did Freak trust Riddle?

Absolutely not.

But Riddle had a point; so long as Riddle had no way of gaining strength, it was likely that he would continue to lose any battle of wills over control against Freak, and if he did, bursting into his Obscurial form would be the exact opposite of subtle, particularly surrounded by wizards and witches.

“Let’s say I believe you,” Freak replied, “This time, in return, you help teach me magic sometimes if I need it-- and if you break our deal again, there won’t be a third chance.  I’ll shove you so far back in my head that I’ll practically forget you’re even there, and make sure the Obscurus you seem to hate so much is the only thing you feel.  Got it?”

Riddle seemed to draw himself up with sly pride, but Freak could tell it was at least partially posturing, considering the other didn’t really have much to bargain with.

“Oh, you want me to teach you magic, little not-Gryffindor?  Interested in the Dark Arts, are you?”

Freak rolled his eyes mentally.

“I’m not going to ask you to teach me the Unforgivables,” he said, “but if I find a spell I want to learn and you know it, asking you would be more convenient than trying to sneak off to the library to look up the spell without being found.”

“Alright,” Riddle responded, still sounding a bit slyly pleased, which Freak chose to ignore, “you have yourself a deal again.  I even have a suggestion of where to begin teaching you-- have you ever heard of Occlumency, or what the muggles call the loci method?”

---

While Harry and his friends killed time in the outside world-- Freak firmly ignored some dramatics regarding Granger’s cat attempting to eat Weasley’s rat again, and the usual yearly greeting from Malfoy and his grunts-- he and Riddle continued to talk.

It didn’t take long for Freak to realize that the “loci method” Riddle had mentioned was more recently referred to as a mind palace (which he’d encountered in passing at the library in Surrey), and Occulmency was a form of mind magic, particularly used to order one’s thoughts and also to defend against others attempting to read your mind, using Legilimency.

(This meant that Freak also finally had a term for what magic was being used when he’d felt Dumbledore in Harry’s surface thoughts in the past, as well, which Riddle had also witnessed, and which the latter was entirely unsurprised about, stating that the old man had used Legilimency in the past when the man was still a professor at Hogwarts during Riddle’s time there, too.)

Riddle had explained that Freak could use Occulmency to build a mental structure so that when Freak and Riddle “met” in his mind, they would appear to have not-actually-physical bodies and somewhere to stand or move around in, as opposed to the sort of endless void they existed in currently.

(It went unmentioned that this meant Riddle would also have somewhere to exist “physically” when Freak was not actively interacting with the other too-- and so would Freak when he wasn’t in control of the body, too.)

Riddle wasn’t actually an awful teacher, Freak could acknowledge, and listening to him was interesting, until Freak’s attention was abruptly jerked back to the outside world.

(He had not yet restored Riddle’s ability to perceive what the body did, so the sudden disappearance of Freak’s presence and attention was an unpleasant surprise for the other as well.)

The weather outside the Hogwarts Express had worsened steadily as time passed into the late afternoon, and was now quite dark and rainy.  The train had begun to slow, but it was still a little too soon for them to have arrived at Hogsmeade station, confirmed by the lack of lights from the village outside the train window as well.

Granger had just said as much, having looked at her watch, when the lights went out (from the lack of light down the corridor and the sound of other compartments opening as heads were stuck out and students wondered what was happening, theirs was not the only one).  Shortly afterwards, Longbottom stumbled into their compartment in the dark, almost sitting on Crookshanks, and Granger stood up to leave and try to find the conductor.

Amidst the chaos in the dark (Freak dryly noted that not one of them seemed to think to cast a Lumos ), the sleeping Professor Lupin woke up, immediately conjuring a handful of flames in his hand so they could finally see their surroundings again.

Before Lupin could do much else, however, the air seemed to grow colder, and frost began to creep along the glass of the compartment door.

The cold was bone-deep, and with it, an oppressive feeling of despair encroached on both Harry and Freak, as well as the others in the compartment.

Harry had no idea what was happening, but Freak had come across the mention of a magical creature which spread cold and despair while trying to discover what his parasitic passenger was called-- a Dementor, used as guards for the prison Azkaban.

Sure enough, a moment later the door to the compartment slid open, and Lupin’s handful of flames illuminated the towering cloaked figure of a Dementor in the doorway, one greyish, slimy and decaying hand reaching out towards the door handle.

The other students were terrified, Lupin was standing up and saying something to the Dementor, but Freak’s attention was caught by Harry seeming to spiral in the presence of the Dementor, and similarly to when Freak had heard the basilisk speaking in the walls but Harry had only heard hissing the previous year, Freak realized that Harry was hearing a woman screaming inside their head, which no one else could hear, and Harry was on the verge of fainting.

It was particularly odd since Freak could sort of hear the screaming himself, but it was more muffled, when Freak pushed Harry back to take over (he vehemently had no desire to be any “closer” to the Dementor himself, but had even less of a desire to faint in the presence of one), the screaming grew slightly louder but was still more muffled for himself than it had been for Harry.  (Freak making sure that Harry still thought he was in control, of course, copying their memories exactly other than the muffled screaming.)

More than the screaming, Freak found his thoughts turning to the despair and emptiness he’d felt with the Dursleys for years, but it wasn’t enough to make him lose focus on the Dementor.

Then blessedly, a silver light erupted from Lupin’s wand, impacting the Dementor which screamed and fled, followed by the silver light, and suddenly warmth was returning rapidly to the compartment, followed by the light turning on again.

A Patronus, Freak recognized.

Lupin turned to his trunk quickly while Freak and the others stopped trying to press themselves into the wall furthest from the door, bringing out a large bar of chocolate and snapping it into pieces, offering it to all of them while saying it would help.

(It would, Freak recalled reading; chocolate boosted endorphins and helped create serotonin, helping the consumer to feel happier, and helped to chase away the after-effects of a Dementor’s presence.)

After passing around the chocolate, Lupin quickly excused himself to check on the other students and speak to the conductor, and Freak returned control to Harry as he and the other students started talking about the Dementor and how horrible it had felt.

The lack of the Dementor also made Freak suddenly aware that Riddle had been trying to gain his attention, and Freak restored Riddle’s ability to see and hear the body’s surroundings when he also reopened their ability to communicate.

“What was that?” Riddle demanded as soon as they could “speak” again.  He was clearly rattled, even though he tried to hide it.

When Freak explained what had just occurred, Riddle ended up staring-- almost glaring-- at him in bafflement.

“The Ministry must have sent them to look for Black, but they must be even less competent than in my time, to let a Dementor on a train full of students,” he muttered.

“I agree,” Freak admitted.  “And Harry seems...unusually sensitive to their presence.  With my luck, I bet we’re going to run into them again this year, so that’s...great.  You don’t happen to know how to cast a Patronus, do you?  If I hear they’re going to be standing at the front doors or something, that just became much more important than other random spells...”

“Unfortunately, that is...not a spell I ever mastered,” Riddle admitted grudgingly.

Freak sighed mentally.

“I guess we’ll have to see what the professors have to say about the Dementor, then.  Maybe I’ll get lucky for once and we won’t see one again...but I really doubt it.”