Evidence of Absence

HOW THE ANNOUNCEMENT WENT

“Good morning, Harry. Did you sleep well?”

Harry smiled at Professor Riddle, and knew from the way that the other man’s smile faded in response that he could see the strain in it. He strode across the entrance hall to Harry, ignoring the way the other students stared and chattered. He clasped a hand around Harry’s neck and rubbed his thumb and back forth across the nape. Harry exhaled and closed his eyes.

“What happened?”

“A few people got so upset when they heard me speaking Parseltongue in the Gryffindor common room that they ran away sobbing. I couldn’t sleep. I thought—I kept thinking about how afraid they were.”

Professor Riddle said nothing for endless moments. Harry hoped that wasn’t because he had no idea how to respond. He managed to hold his eyes open, even though they wanted to close under the professor’s soothing touch, and instead watched how Nagini and Esmeralda were interacting with each other.

Nagini was huge. Harry had forgotten how big, because he usually only saw her in passing. She didn’t come to the classroom with Professor Riddle. And she was lifting her head and staring directly at Esmeralda, who was smaller.

Esmeralda didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Her tongue darted out, and she curved her neck back on herself, but she didn’t approach Nagini. She simply said, “Hello. I am Esmeralda. I was created by magic to be Harry Potter’s companion.”

Nagini darted her own tongue out a few times without replying. Then she twisted the back half of her body so it overlapped itself and said, “Greetings, Esmeeralda. I am Nagini, the companion of Tom Riddle.”

Harry sighed in relief that at least it seemed they wouldn’t fight, and turned back to Professor Riddle. The professor was calm, or at least he looked that way on the surface, but his hand had tightened on Harry’s neck in a way that made Harry wince.

Professor Riddle noticed, and let him go at once. “You are not responsible for the irrational fear of others.”

“But it’s a rational fear,” Harry argued, because he couldn’t help it. “All their lives, they’ve heard that Parselmouths are evil, and they fear snakes, and—”

“Am I evil?”

“What? Of course not.”

“They’ve put up with my teaching for years in the classroom, and with Nagini following me about the school. They aren’t convinced that I’m evil, or I would have been hounded out of my teaching position long ago. They’re fearful, yes. That is not an excuse. They have brains they should use, instead of listening entirely to emotion.”

Harry blinked. Yes, all right, he could see the sense of that. And he could see that if his parents had really believed that Parseltongue was incredibly evil, they would probably have pulled him out of school the minute they discovered that the Defense professor was a Parselmouth.

Or kicked him out when he manifested it.

Harry felt a spark of hope ignite in his chest. Maybe he wouldn’t have to choose between Parseltongue and his parents after all. Maybe they were capable of getting over it, or thinking about it rationally.

“I will handle the reactions of the students,” Professor Riddle said softly. “You need not worry about them. Restrain Esmeralda from attacking any of them, of course, and feel free to give me the names of any who have particularly worrying reactions. But if they attack you, they will have detention the way any student who hexes someone else would.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Professor Riddle paused, with an odd, complex look on his face. Harry didn’t know why until he murmured, “I understand that you must keep up the pretense of formal distance between us when speaking English, but I would ask you to use my first name when speaking Parseltongue. No one else will know.”