Better Be Slytherin!

Sighing loudly, Harry dropped his face into his hands. He was such a freak.

Harry stayed up late that night, using a bit of wand light under the covers to continue to work on his essay. The lines on the parchment were a bit crooked, but at least he didn't spill any ink on his bed sheets. On Monday, he worked on the essay some more during lunch and through his free period afterwards, and finally finished just before dinner. It had been a monster to write. Just thinking about the topic, for one thing, was enough to make his chest feel all tight. And coming up with examples of how and when he had been rather free with his own safety or even his life, was more eye-opening than he would have guessed.

Like the time he was seven, or maybe eight, and just had to rescue a neighbor's kitten who was stranded high in a tree. Dudley and his friends were throwing stones at the poor thing, and instead of waiting for the neighbor to get his ladder or call the fire department or whatever, Harry had climbed the tree to protect it. He spent an hour dodging stones and chasing the kitten through the small and occasionally fragile branches, until both he and kitten came crashing down as was inevitable, really, given his luck.

The kitten landed on its feet and bounded away. Harry, however, had sprained his ankle and left shoulder, and then had been punished with no food for the entire time he was unable to perform his regular chores at the Dursleys. But he could have been hurt far worse than that. He'd actually been quite lucky not to break his neck.

Harry hadn't honestly considered all the times he'd just rushed into a situation without thinking and tried to save someone, or some thing, or even his own hide, and ended up getting hurt or almost killed. Or worse, getting someone else hurt.

He supposed that was the point of the exercise.

Still, he wished he could curl up into a tiny little ball of dust and float away on the wind, rather than face down his professor with this essay. On the way to Snape's office on Monday evening, he dragged his feet under the watchful eye of the Bloody Baron, not wanting to ever get there if he could help it. The only reason he could think of, for not just making a run for it, was that he would get to see pictures of his Mum for the first time.

The Baron floated silently beside him for most of the trip, but eventually, Harry could not take the quiet anymore and said, 'Why don't you talk to anyone else?'

The ghost turned his head slowly and regarded him with fathomless, dark-as-midnight eyes. 'I do speak to others.'

'Well, Professor Snape, yeah. I've heard you talk to him. But don't you talk to any other students?'

'I do not find myself needing to communicate with them, Harry Potter.'

'But you need to communicate with me?'

'Of course.' The Baron's ghostly eyebrows rose. 'We have fought together, Harry Potter, you and I. We have shared blood. There are few Wizard bonds as strong. Even had I not sworn to protect you, how could I not seek you out and speak with you?'

Harry's gaze was drawn to the Baron's chest wound that perpetually leaked silvery blood, and without thinking, his hand rose to touch his own chest, where his own wound had been. It was gone now, but for a pale scar marring his skin. 'Will we always have a bond like this?'

Harry could have cursed his voice for sounding so small and hopeful, but he really wanted -- needed -- to know that he would share a connection with this ancient being for a long time, if not forever. The Baron was his closest confidant; not even Teddy or Millicent knew a quarter of his secrets, compared to the Bloody Baron. And he wanted someone to want to be with him . . . just for him.

'We will, Harry Potter. Till the end times.'

Unable to keep the grin off his face, despite the grim way the Baron made his pronouncement, Harry hid his face instead. He'd never had a friend forever before. Hell, at two months, Teddy and Millicent were current record holders for the longest time he'd ever had a friend at all.

At last they reached Snape's office. The Bloody Baron waited while Harry knocked and was bade to enter. Giving the ghost a wry, grateful smile over his shoulder, Harry did as he was told.

Professor Snape sat behind his desk, scribbling notes on essays in that dreaded red ink he always used. Harry figured he must have stock in the ink company, since no one got an essay back from Snape that wasn't coated with the stuff.

Without looking up, Snape pointed at the uncomfortable chair in front of his desk, and Harry moved quickly to sit in it. He held his parchment loosely rolled in one hand, so as not to scrunch it and make it unreadable -- as Professor Flitwick said was sometimes the case with his essays. He kept his gaze on his hands, not wanting to draw the professor's attention before it was necessary.

To distract himself from the inevitable discussion of his essay, Harry thought about the pictures the Professor had promised to show him. Were they all from Hogwarts, he wondered? Or were some from even earlier years, before his Mum got her first Hogwarts letter, when she had been friends with a young Severus Snape, as hard as that was to imagine? Would there be ones of Aunt Petunia then, too? If so, he could skip over those readily enough. He wondered if there were photos of his parents after they left school? What if there were ones of himself as a baby or of their wedding or . . .

'Potter.'

Harry stood quickly and snapped his attention up to his Professor's face. 'Yes, sir?'

'Kindly hand over your essay. Did you bring any revision work with you, for your other classes?'

'Er . . .' After passing the parchment to Snape, Harry bit his lip and looked down. He hadn't thought about studying here tonight, but only about his essay and getting to see the pictures. But he should have remembered that Snape said he would have to read the essay before letting Harry have his reward. 'No, sir,' he said softly, feeling a bit of a dolt.

'I see.' The professor hesitated for a moment then said, 'You may do some work preparing ingredients for me then, while I look over your work.'

'Yes, sir.' Harry's stomach sank; what horrors would there be to deal with tonight? 'What would you like me to do?'

'There are some chipped dragon scales that need to be separated into sixty even portions, each having three or more colors represented. The sixty receptacles are on the worktable, along with a titanium bowl of scales.'