Better Be Slytherin!

to pull it off, but it's not a good look for you.'

Leave it to Teddy to soften a lecture with a joke. 'All right, all right, Mum. I'll get a headache potion.'

'And I'll make sure you do. Come on.'

Madam Pomfrey actually praised him for coming to the Infirmary when he was 'under the weather,' and Harry sped out of there as fast as he could, more embarrassed than he could say. Honestly!

Teddy just snickered softly, and made Harry carry their book bags down to the dungeons, as was only fair, now that he was feeling better. There, Millicent accosted Harry the second he got to the Slytherin common room, asking if he was okay, or if there was anything she could do to help. She'd taken good notes in Defense, she said, and would make a copy for Harry for their study group.

'Can't be there,' Harry admitted. 'I still have detention for two more days.'

'Well, I'll still have the notes for you.' She gave Teddy a wrinkle-nosed, considering look. 'You can have a copy, too, I suppose. Though your own group should have some for you.'

Teddy opened his mouth, likely to say something cutting about how he certainly wouldn't need any notes that Millie took, but Harry gave him a quick, sharp glance, and he just nodded instead. 'Yeah, thanks. If they don't have the notes for me, I'd like a copy.'

Millie's smile was amazingly bright. Teddy's face reddened immediately, but he didn't say anything more about it.

After dinner, Harry went to detention again, but found another note on Snape's office door with directions of what to do while Snape was gone. This time, there were bobotuber pods that needed to be squeezed for pus. Twenty jars worth. Ugh. Snape had been right, though; the tasks he'd set this week had put a serious damper on Harry wanting to serve detention ever again, especially for rules breaking.

It was going on eight-thirty and Harry was perhaps half way through the task when he felt a chilling presence behind him. He turned to see the Bloody Baron gliding through the door.

Harry returned his attention to the pods, squeezing the pus out of the current one with a gentle pressure near the end so it wouldn't explode everywhere. 'Did the Professor send you to watch me?'

'He requested that I look in on you. And also asked me to try and get a translation of the Parseltongue in your memory.'

'Yeah, well, he can go hang as far as my memories go.'

'You're angry.'

'Damn right!' He put a little too much pressure on the pod in his hand, and it squirted a line of pus across the table. 'Damn!'

'You have every right to be,' the Baron said as Harry went about cleaning the spill. At least he hadn't gotten any on his skin or clothes, but it was a near thing.

'Look, could you leave? It's nothing personal,' although it was, 'but I don't want to mess up again.'

The Bloody Baron chuckled. 'Not very Slytherin of you, Harry Potter.'

Harry glared up at him through his fringe. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'If you wish me to leave, you should offer me something in return. Something to make it worth my while.'

With narrowed eyes, Harry considered, then said, 'Well, you want to know about the Parseltongue, right? How about you go away and I write it down for you some other time.'

'Alas, written communication is not very useful for ghosts. It's impossible to hold any such objects as might contain writing.'

'Oh, yeah.' And translating it now basically meant keeping the ghost in the classroom with him, which was not terribly motivating. He bent his head over his task again, and ignored the ghost for as long as he could. Then, 'How come we had a conversation?'

'Beg pardon?' The Baron's voice was much closer now than it had been before, and Harry barely kept from jumping away from him and splashing more pus around.

He looked up to see the ghost hovering no more than a pace away, to his left. Glaring again at the ghost for sneaking up on him, he said, 'When we were in the corridor. Afterwards, and before I remembered anything else, I remembered us having a conversation, though it was sort of surreal. But then you said that you took over my body right after I got hit by a spell, so we shouldn't have had any time to talk.'

'Mmm.' The Baron glided into view, and pointed at the bobotuber Harry was holding. 'If you make a small incision, just there, the pus will slide out much more easily.'

With a frown, Harry tried that, and found it worked well. 'Er, thanks.' He picked up the next pod. 'But are you going to answer my question?'

The Baron gave a low chuckle. 'In a way. I don't imagine it's the kind of answer you were really hoping for.'

'What kind of answer do you think I'm hoping for?'

'I believe you are hoping I shall slip up in some way, which will allow you to decide that what we say happened in the corridor never actually happened. But since you have your own memories of the events now, you are merely grasping at straws. It's a waste of time, and also rather unbecoming.'

Since the Baron was essentially correct, Harry didn't bother to reply to that. 'Then what did happen?'

'It was all in your head.'

'In my head.'

'Indeed. My belief is that you were . . . projecting, for lack of better term, a conversation with me, so that your mind could wrap around the concept of having my presence inside it, without rendering you insane.'