A Darker Form of Magic, book two: Parseltongue

Chapter eleven

As quickly as one holiday had left, another had come, the days flying by as Harry suddenly found himself sitting in the Slytherin common room before the fire, Easter holiday in full swing. Each of the snakes had a paper before them courtesy of Snape who had handed them out at breakfast that morning.

"I think I'm going to go for Care of Magical Creatures," Draco said, scribbling it down onto his paper with a pencil that he had most certainly nicked from Harry at some point even as he spoke, the decision already made. "It should be an easy O," the boy said by way of explanation, one that no one had asked for but now everyone raised a brow to the blond's apparent need to do so.

Harry smirked from the ground as he pointed his transfigured pen at the other Slytherin in an accusatory manner. "You just want to be around the creatures," the scarred boy said as the others hid snickers. "Softy."

"Do not!" The other boy protested with a slight sputter as he spoke, heat pooling on the snake's pale cheeks, painting them with a flush.

"Draco darling," Pansy said softly, though there was a laugh beneath it, "you used to chase the wild unicorns when we're young and then would cry when they ran from you."

"Shush, Pans," Draco said quickly as the girl smirked, his cheeks even more reed than before as the rest of the snakes laughed, honest and true this time.

"We should all at have at least one other Slytherin in any elective that we pick though," Tracey said, tapping her quill nervously against the table.

Harry could all but see the thoughts running through the witch's mind, not that any of them had to try too hard. Not when they were all thinking the same sort of thing.

Other than the fight with the youngest Weasley brother in first year, there hadn't been any problems with the other houses when they were younger. Now that they were in second year and the Chamber had been opened, people were quick to turn and look at them with suspicion, seeming to forget the fact that they had all been on good terms just at the beginning of the school term. They didn't know what the next year would bring, but knew that they would always need someone close.

Then there was always Harry's unique relationship with light magic of course.

Harry stared down at his paper, blank aside from the list of classes at the top and the lines provided to write down one's selection.

In another life he thought that he might have gone the Care of Magical Creatures route too, even if it was only to follow his friends, but animals - aside from snakes whom didn't seem to mind him much - had been growing less and less fond with him over the years, the pets at Hogwarts having taken to hissing and growling at him as he passed them and their owners in the halls. Muggle Studies was useless for someone that had grown up within the muggle world and understood it better than most. Arithmancy was mostly based on memorization, something that Harry could do but didn't like, especially not with charts.

The only two elective options left were Divination and the Study of Ancient Runes. Something within Harry sparked as he wrote each of them down, a sort of confidence taking over the brief spark of helplessness that he had felt only a moment before. He knew Ancient Runes, had been studying them on his own for months now out of curiosity and his own personal project. He had an entire deck of Tarot cards hidden away in a drawer within the common room to help him glimpse into the future in the same sort of way that Alex did when not relying on his uncanny intuition alone. He supposed that there were more ill fitting options to choose from.

After a moment of studying the extracurriculars, Harry wrote down one more before pushing the paper away from himself. The action was enough to have drawn Blaise's attention as he leaned found against Harry as they had so many times before and looked over the boy's shoulder, ignoring the way that Harry went tense at the sudden touch. They had agreed weeks ago that Harry would never break his habit of flinching away if he never allowed another to touch him casually again. Between the constant small touches and laying next to the other boy each night, the boy hardly flinched anymore once he knew that the touch was coming.