3

Chapter Three

9

They finished the potion two days later.

Harry didn't change again for two weeks, which Snape seemed to take personally. They had turned the Chamber into a sort of dormitory; they had two separate "rooms", walls made of four sheets suspended in mid-air. Harry moved his rudimentary bed over to his room, and transfigured a few spare rocks into a desk and a chair, as well as a dresser so he could stop sprinting up to Gryffindor Tower every morning. He did homework, played himself at chess, continued to read up on snakes and potions and werewolves, just in case, and slept. He didn't know what Snape did on his side; presumably grading and being a git.

Explaining his disappearance to his friends was getting harder and harder. With the lack of attacks his excuse of being bombarded by memories was getting less and less realistic. He still "woke up" in his dorm, took meals, went to his classes, and studied with his friends, but he'd beg off for an early night a little bit before eight every evening. Ron became convinced he was having a secret affair, while Hermione stayed disturbingly silent. With each passing day Harry became more and more concerned that she was putting the pieces together and figuring out what he was, but she didn't approach him, and he was hardly about to offer up an explanation. He encouraged Ron's idea by forcing himself to blush or his voice to crack whenever the subject was brought up, so a lot of their time spent together consisted of him questioning Harry about who he was seeing, and also how Harry was suddenly so much better at chess.

Harry missed his real bed desperately. He missed falling asleep with his friends. He missed not spending the night with someone who despised him. A few times he had nearly extended some sort of friendship towards Snape but always chickened out at the last minute, remembering how terribly he was treated or, on particularly difficult days when he hated everything, how his dad had treated him when they were at Hogwarts, during which times he felt too guilty to even think about talking to him. But, that night two weeks later, he had finally decided he'd ask Snape for a game of chess, if only because a truce would hopefully lessen the abuse he suffered at the hand of his professor

He changed his mind when they met in the bathroom. Harry still insisted on ten minutes of attempted Parseltongue every night, and Snape was getting more and more bitter about it, so by the time they arrived in the Chamber they were already in a screaming match. Then, quite suddenly, Harry transformed, and then he really wished Snape could speak Parseltongue because they hadn't worked out how Harry would try the potion when he couldn't open his eyes, nor how he would test it without potentially killing Snape.

Once Snape finished his record of the day, time and moon phase he started muttering to himself about the logistics. He considered pouring the liquid down Harry's throat before remembering about his fangs, and what one slip of the arm could cause. He thought of leaving the potion in front of Harry and walking away, but with no hands Harry couldn't pick it up, and the cauldron was much too small for him to drink from. Then it seemed he remembered he was a wizard and decided to hover the cauldron over to Harry and pour it into his mouth while Harry kept his eyes shut.

But before he could do that, they needed a way to test the potion. There were no rodents around to be used as test subjects; the protection spells on the room extended to even the smallest of life forms. Snape ended up having to dismantle the spells, Accio a rat over, put it in an enchanted cage, redo the charms, and then feed Harry the potion.

"Remember," he said. "Don't open your eyes until I tell you its safe."

"I'm not an idiot," Harry hissed angrily.

"Open your mouth."

Harry did, eyes still closed.

"Also remember we don't know what this is going to do," Snape added. "It could permanently blind you. It could kill you. It could do anything you can think of. I won't have you blaming me if you end up blind."

"I know," Harry said for the thousandth time, even though he knew Snape couldn't understand him. They'd been over this repeatedly.

"Prepare yourself," Snape said, and to his credit he sounded a little nervous. Then again, Harry was sure that was due to the unknown effects of his precious potion rather than over Harry's well being. "Here we go."

The potion tasted disgusting, like rotten eggs, but Harry gulped it down. He waited for Snape to tell him it was safe to open his eyes, and he cautiously cracked one open. He had missed seeing with his snake eyes. They were so much powerful in the dark than his human eyes, and could pick out details he'd never be able to see, like the hair follicles on the now stone rat. He hissed angrily. He hadn't really expected the potion to work the first time, but it was still a disappointment. He tapped his tail twice, the signal that it hadn't worked, and curled back up, tucking his head in his coils. He tapped his tail again, the sign that he was safe.

Snape was muttering angrily under his breath, and while Harry could hear due to his enhanced hearing, he chose to ignore the curses. Snape didn't care in the slightest for Harry's feelings, he was merely upset that his precious potion hadn't worked. All he could do was coil up with his eyes trained on himself and wait for any potential side effects to kick in.

Harry turned purple twenty minutes later.

He was not pleased. He liked his bright green scales. He was known for his green eyes, and it was good to retain his coloring even in his Basilisk form. Anything he could do to annoy Snape would only delay his research, which in no way benefited him.

When he transformed back his hair remained purple. He spent a long time trying to charm it back to black, and then Snape spent an even longer time attempting to fix it. Nothing worked. He was late to his dorm and had to make up a quick excuse as to where he'd been and why his hair was purple. The hair was easy—he blamed Peeves, which wasn't questioned—but he was stammering over an excuse as to why he was so late until Ron cut in, saying this proved Harry was seeing someone. He denied it, but Ron's excuse stuck, and he was free.

10

Harry talked to Professor Slughorn and was sent off with an armful of ingredients and a hastily jotted down recipe. He spent his night working on that, much to Snape's annoyance, but a few hours later his hair was back to normal. It turned out that, despite Snape's muttering while he was focused on something other than their potion, there wasn't actually anything for him to do. Snape had gone back to research, so he finished up his potions homework, musing at the irony, and went to bed.

He was woken up a few hours later by a loud thump and even louder cursing. He groaned, put on his glasses, and looked over at Snape.

"What's wrong?"

"Incomplete notes!" he yelled. "Shoddy documentations! An entire lack of reasoning for any of the ingredients! I might as well throw in whatever's at hand, that'll have a better chance of succeeding than this!"

Harry was still quite asleep when he said, "Let's play chess, then. Take a break. Then go to bed, and look at it again tomorrow night. Maybe it'll make more sense then."

Snape's eyes narrowed. "Putting this off isn't going to make it any easier, Potter. Words aren't magically going to appear just because I want them to."

"Take a break," Harry said again. "Do more research in the morning. You've got a thousand books. Something's got to be helpful."

"No, something does not have to be helpful," Snape replied angrily. "You should be more upset than I. This entire project is for your benefit."

"I've worked out a fairly decent schedule," Harry said. "I'm surviving."

"Don't you dare tell me you want to back out now," Snape said dangerously.

"Of course I don't," Harry said irritably. "I'm just saying half a night won't matter."

Snape sighed. "Fine. I'll go to bed." He disappeared behind the sheet. "Why are you still down here when you only transform at the beginning of the night? You're clearly safe for now, why not go to bed in your own dorm?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Harry said. "As for myself, we don't know anything for sure. I'm not risking it."

"I'm so glad you're so concerned about my well-being," Snape said icily.

"Then leave," Harry said, too tired to care much.

"I'd thank you not to order me around, Potter," he replied. "Besides, it's too much work. All my things are down here."

"Well there you go," Harry said. "Shut up, would you? I'm trying to get back to sleep. Arguing with you isn't helping."

"Insubordinate jackass," Snape muttered.

"Yeah, well," Harry started, trying to come up with a reasonable insult. "You're a prat." He sounded like a petulant five year old, and probably shouldn't be calling his professor names, but after spending every night together for several months, formalities were slowly slipping away.

"I can still dock points," Snape replied.

"No you can't," Harry said. "How'd you explain that? 'Oh, Harry Potter called me names in the Chamber of Secrets where we've been living for months.' That'd go over well."

"Stop talking," Snape said angrily.

"You stop talking," Harry said moodily. He was trying to sleep, dammit. Those supposed formalities, they were just too hard to keep up when he was this tired.

"I can still fail you," Snape shot back.

"Yeah, try failing Harry Potter at Defense Against the Dark Arts," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "That'll be completely believable."

"For Merlin's sake shut up," Snape spat.

Harry didn't respond, and was asleep a few minutes later.