The Observer Effect

      ‘26 July       Dear Tom,…’       Harry had been in a foul mood all morning.       His head ached—a dull, heavy, persistent pain that throbbed behind his eyes and shot through his scar. He’d have given anything for some healing potion right now—or even just a couple of paracetamol tablets, but, alas, his only medicine was a cold, damp flannel, which he dutifully pressed to his forehead. His aunt had begrudged the ailing orphan any paracetamol, and potions were about as easy to get as hen’s teeth.       Besides, Tom had been refusing to speak to Harry for three whole days. And, as Harry discovered with irritation, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Tom’s brief message—‘Go and rest’—which he’d received the morning before last, was the last message Harry had read, after which the diary had fallen silent. More stubborn than he’d ever been, Harry continued writing to him roughly every half hour, but Tom, it seemed, was even more stubborn and wouldn’t respond.       To be fair, Tom’s words had made sense. That very morning before last, Harry had barely escaped the clutches of a sticky nightmare in which he was descending some endless staircases somewhere, chasing after an enormous, daft snake. The snake kept running away, Harry got angry, the staircases played sliding puzzles with him, and at the end a spider suddenly appeared, fat as a cushion and rather disgusting-looking, and squeaked in a thin, reedy voice, ‘Boy! Come on, get up! Get up at once!’       ‘For Merlin’s sake, an arachnid! A talking one!’ Harry marvelled and finally woke up.       He’d overslept. The demands to get up immediately and prepare breakfast were actually coming from his furious aunt, not from an intelligent alien spider, as Harry had fancied. His head was splitting. The toast burnt, and Harry was banished from the table without even being allowed a cup of tea. And Tom had told him to rest.       Harry decided out of spite that that was exactly what he’d do. He slept like the dead in his cupboard until noon, when his compassionate aunt dragged him out of there with fresh curses and sent Harry to weed the flower beds in the blazing heat of the day. Crouching over the fading phlox, covered in soil up to his ears, Harry secretly scribbled, ‘Tom?’ but got no answer.       Yesterday had been calmer, and Harry had recovered a little, although he was still having strange dreams at night—something about a flooded cave and children screaming for some reason or other. Tom didn’t answer. Aunt Petunia grumbled. Dudley systematically broke his birthday presents. Harry was bored out of his mind, so he went to bed early—the Dursleys hadn’t even finished watching the news on the telly in the sitting room.       Today the boycott continued. Harry thought this unfair—in his own opinion, he’d already rested quite enough. Besides, the thought that ‘when the diary is closed—I disappear’ kept nagging at him.       So why wouldn’t Tom respond?!       ‘Tom?       Tom!       TOM       TomTomTom       Toooooooom’       Finally—at last, thank Merlin!—the ink soaked into the paper and disappeared.       ‘Well, that was brave,’ Tom wrote, but immediately added with obvious reproach:       ‘And incredibly stupid as well! Why should you have endured to the very end? In order to pass out afterwards? Overtaxing your magic is reckless and dangerous, Harry!’       Harry only snorted, completely unimpressed. If he hadn’t seized the moment—who knows when Tom would have deigned to reveal any of his secrets? Knowing the horrible truth was, well, horrible, but much better than not knowing.       Tom erased what he’d written and continued:       ‘Did you think for even a second about what position I’d be in if you were hurt or even killed through your own carelessness?’       This made Harry settle down—he really hadn’t considered his behaviour from that angle.       ‘Oh. Sorry! I understand.’       ‘I hope so. But still, let me repeat, your endurance deserves praise. Godric could be proud of you, inappropriately brave child. But he won’t be.’       Harry turned over on the lumpy, compressed mattress. Everything was working out, and that was excellent. He set aside the wet flannel and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. The torch glowed, flickering faintly. Dust motes swirled. His aunt was clattering baking trays in the kitchen; it smelt of baking. The door was shut. The cupboard wrapped around Harry like a mother’s womb—stifling, but safe and peaceful.       ‘Oh? Why not?’       Harry grinned. He knew which way the conversation would go next: they’d already discussed the Houses several times since Tom had first mentioned them. Harry had extracted a detailed account from him, then returned to the topic again and again seeking clarification. Tom—well, naturally—had his own firmly established vision of Harry’s academic future.       ‘Because he won’t get you. Instead, Harry, you’ll be Salazar’s pride.’       At last someone acknowledged him and let him know he was worth something. This was so pleasant, simply balm for the soul. Harry wasn’t often told he could be a source of pride. Even when Harry thought he truly deserved it.       ‘You’re so certain I’ll get into Slytherin?’       ‘Of course. Where did that silly question come from?’       Harry bit his lip.       ‘I’m just curious. There must be a reason why you don’t doubt it.’       Actually, he hoped Tom would say something nice again. Something complimentary about Harry. Tom was quite devoted to his House, and since he destined Harry for Slytherin House, he must suppose Harry possessed some virtues suited to that particular House.       ‘Parseltongue, you dolt. It’s obvious, surely.’       Perhaps—for those as clever as Tom. Harry sighed impatiently.       ‘And it’s obvious because…?’       ‘Parseltongue is considered Dark magic.’       Brilliant—was there anything even slightly cool in the world that wasn’t considered Dark magic? Or did being cool and amazing automatically mean being Dark? Harry thought of Darth Vader and realised that perhaps it did.       ‘And is that true?’       ‘Of course not. It’s simply a language. The language of snakes, nothing more nor less.’       Which still sounded mad, since snakes couldn’t have a language—in the sense of a language as such, with phonetics, lexicon, and morphology, and all that sort of thing. Tom had quite definitely stated that non-Parselmouths hear Parseltongue; they just don’t understand it, and this completely disproved the previous hypothesis about thought-speech. It was an enormous puzzle, and it fascinated Harry.       ‘Then I still don’t understand.’       Harry scratched his forehead. The headache had subsided, but his scar twinged occasionally.       ‘Do try to engage that wonderfully idle brain of yours.’       Tom, sharp-tongued and entirely too pleased with himself, was a devotee of the Socratic method and a born teacher; if he refused to give hints, it meant the answer was sitting right in front of Harry.       ‘Bloody hell. Oh, I mean—Mordred and Morgana! Salazar was a Parselmouth, wasn’t he? I bet he was.’       Well, of course! He was the chief snake-lover of all time; he’d even made a snake his badge.       ‘Exactly so. Harry, how many Parselmouths do you think there are in magical Britain?’       The question, if you really thought about it, already contained the answer.       ‘…not very many, are there?’       ‘Myself. You. One might say, at present—only you.’       Harry knew he was special. There was nothing to be surprised at, really.       ‘Crikey. And this matters because…? No, don’t tell me off, wait. Because of Salazar again? No, I still don’t understand. Will you explain?’       ‘Because of Salazar, correct. There’s a well-known legend that his heir by blood and magic has the power to find and open a chamber hidden in the depths of Hogwarts, in which the greatest legacy of Slytherin is kept. For many years the entrance was considered lost, and even its very existence began to be doubted. But it’s not a fairy tale at all: the Chamber of Secrets and Slytherin’s legacy truly exist—and are ready to open to one who is worthy.’       Harry rubbed his forehead again. Aha!       ‘And the simplest way to recognise the worthy one is to look for a Parselmouth, right?’       ‘Exactly so.’       Harry thought about this. Then thought some more. And more.       ‘Ah, well, in that context it does make sense.       Wait       Hang on       Wait, wait       No way       NO BLOODY WAY!’       ‘Mind your language, Harry.       Yes. Quite so.’       Words couldn’t look smug, but somehow these did. Harry rolled his eyes. Tom. Bloody show-off. A proper elder brother, odious beyond belief and yet the best in the world. The heir, damn him, of Salazar Slytherin. Harry couldn’t get his head round it.       Harry had roughly a million questions (one of the first was—surely he and Tom weren’t blood relatives by any chance? Could there be two heirs from completely different families? Though Salazar had lived nearly a thousand years ago…), but he needed time to think before starting to ask them. For now, he returned to other questions—simpler ones, but no less pressing.       ‘Your argument has completely convinced me, but’       ‘What is it now?’       ‘What if the Sorting Hat decides I’m not suited to Slytherin? I’m only a half-blood, after all. And… and anyway…’       Tom was certain he knew which House Harry would end up in, but Harry himself wasn’t so sure. Parseltongue was all very well, but what if it turned out that Harry was, well, somehow unworthy? That was all. The thought was terrifying, but real.       ‘Nonsense. If the worst comes to the worst, threaten to set fire to it.’       A-a-and it was at moments like this that Harry could practically see some infernal switch clicking in Tom’s head, flipping to ‘I’m from an orphanage, I’m allowed’ (usually this switch was set to ‘I’m a right little lord and a pure-blood wizard, try and prove otherwise’). But the suggested method rather interested him.       ‘Did that work for you?’       ‘Who said I had to?’       Certainly not Harry. If Tom wasn’t suitable for Slytherin—then Slytherin itself wasn’t suitable for Slytherin.       Harry was still pondering Salazar’s legacy, sprawled on his mattress and absent-mindedly playing with his pen (the open diary lay beside him, and Tom, clearly amusing himself, was drawing intertwining snakes and skulls on its pages), when the sound of the doorbell reached him.       ‘Boy!’ Petunia shrieked from the kitchen. ‘Go and see who’s there!’       ‘I’m not a servant,’ the ‘heir of Salazar by blood and magic’ muttered proudly, but still got up, took the diary, pulled down the enormous shirt that had once belonged to his cousin (anyone looking at it could have guessed why his cousin was nicknamed ‘Porky’), and shuffled off to answer the door.       On the threshold stood some unfamiliar dark-haired bloke, dressed all in black like a vicar—only without the little white collar. He had a long face, an even longer nose, and long, greasy locks that reached his jawline. The bloke looked thirty-odd, which, in Harry’s estimation, was rather old. Harry and the unexpected visitor stared at each other without the slightest hint of cordiality.

* * *

      Severus Tobias Snape, the youngest Potions master in a century and a half (alas, Snape had long since ceased to feel remotely young, and his mastery was rather wasted on trifles), once a promising young scholar (that too was in the past—he hadn’t published anything for six years now), Hogwarts professor (though not even teaching the subject he actually favoured), Acting Head of Slytherin House (to his enduring horror), and generally a man thoroughly disillusioned with life, had also been in a dreadful mood all morning.       Having surveyed the boy who’d opened the door of Number Four, Privet Drive, Snape involuntarily grimaced. The sight before him was hardly easy on the eye. The child was bespectacled, dishevelled, and dressed in some tatty cast-offs: jeans—ripped; T-shirt—with a cracked transfer; shirt—covered in stains and faded besides. For a completely finished fashionable punk look, all that was missing was a safety pin through his nose and a tattoo on his forehead—though, Severus suspected, even punks probably took the safety pin out at home. There was a scar on his forehead; it worked just as well as a tattoo.       ‘Brainless attention-seeker, just like his father,’ Snape diagnosed. The only things of Lily’s in the child were his eyes, and even those looked almost blasphemous on the Potter face. The punk gave an expressive sniff.       ‘Good afternoon,’ he said in a tone far from courteous, ‘and you’re here to see whom?’       ‘Apparently you,’ Snape sighed inwardly (he’d once been cured of sighing aloud by an excessively irritable acquaintance—try to sigh under the Cruciatus) and asked for form’s sake, ‘Mr Potter, I presume?’       The punk nodded thoughtfully and astounded him: ‘So you’re from the Board of Governors?’       ‘No,’ Severus replied, wondering why the boy would think that. ‘Unfortunately for both of us, I am your future professor. My name is Severus Snape; I’m Professor of Potions and Head of Slytherin House. At the request’—Snape grimaced in such a way that it would have been absurd not to guess; the request was of the sort one doesn’t refuse—‘of our esteemed Headmaster, I’ve brought you the key to your vault at Gringotts. I assume you need money for your school things.’       ‘More likely for the latest broomstick, or whatever else a spoilt little brat might desire,’ Severus continued mentally. ‘I don’t believe Petunia lacks the money for a dozen books, a robe, and a pewter cauldron. Though let them both choke on it.’       By the second ‘both,’ Snape meant the Headmaster. Behind the brief summary of the ‘request’ lay a disgraceful half-hour row that Minerva had given Albus about the damn key.       ‘Forgot? Forgot?!’ she’d shrieked like a banshee, and the windows in the Headmaster’s office had rattled ominously in response. ‘What do you mean—you forgot to give them the key? In what sense—it got mislaid somewhere?! Albus, if you’ve lost Mordred’s key! I! Personally! Shall conduct a spring clean here! And throw out! All! The rubbish!!! So nothing else of yours can get mislaid! High time too!’       The Headmaster merely grunted and sighed reproachfully, looking over his glasses. In some ways, Snape rather understood the late Dark Lord—for every such sigh, one’s hands truly itched to cast the Cruciatus.       Severus understood Minerva too. Everyone has their boiling point. Minerva’s sublimation temperature was remarkably high—she uncomplainingly shouldered the administrative work, negotiations with governors, most of the school correspondence, and absolutely all the bookkeeping (since Flitwick had declared he could just as well develop a hunchback over ledgers at Gringotts and refused to touch the Hogwarts accounts). She met with Muggle-born first-years and their parents, and she compiled the lesson timetables. The daughter of a vicar, Minerva, even being a witch, seemed to continue believing that hard labour by the sweat of one’s brow saves the soul from perdition.       But the addition of a new ingredient had destroyed the fragile balance that had existed hitherto. Minerva shifted to a gaseous state and spontaneously combusted in eleven seconds—exactly how long it took her to read the letter (although without an envelope, it was barely a note) from the great hero of magical Britain, the blessed child—deliverer from the yoke of Dark forces—known in everyday life as Harry Potter.       Who had written that he had no money to buy his school things. As it turned out, he’d written the absolute truth: money, if there was any, was only Muggle money, since the key to the Potter vault had peacefully spent the past ten years in the depths of the Headmaster’s office.       Severus had been present for the entire drama from beginning to end, and it entertained him until the Headmaster turned his kind, watery gaze on him.       ‘Severus, my boy,’ he began with another exaggeratedly heavy sigh, and Snape hastily braced himself.       ‘I won’t go. Send Minerva—she’s his Head of House.’       Minerva wasn’t Potter’s Head of House yet, but she didn’t argue, only snorted in a thoroughly feline manner, ‘And you’ll deal with the Muggle-borns then, shall you, Severus? See for yourself, but I have two families on my list, not one—it’s an unequal exchange.’       ‘I could send Hagrid,’ Albus immediately put in his two Knuts’ worth, and Snape clutched his head. There was only one case in which one should send Hagrid to Muggle-borns—or to Potter, there wasn’t much difference: if one fine morning Severus finally snapped, poisoned all his colleagues at breakfast, and then put the Killing Curse on himself atop the resulting pile of corpses. Sometimes he was rather tempted.       ‘Stop the blackmail, Albus,’ he said with displeasure. ‘Very well, I’ll go.’       And so Severus had ended up today on the doorstep of Petunia’s dwelling, where he was met by a young clone of the villain James, identical to the original down to his unspeakably charming manners—for instance, he didn’t even invite Severus in.       Snape extracted a small golden key from his pocket and held it out on his open palm to Potter.       ‘There you are.’       The punk snatched the key, pressed it to his chest, and immediately started whingeing.       ‘Professor, sir… And who’ll take me shopping? Or at least to the Leaky Cauldron?’       Oh no, Severus hadn’t bargained for that.       ‘You, Mr Potter,’ he said sternly, ‘are not nearly as important a person as you evidently fancy yourself to be. Go with your guardians—what’s the problem?’       ‘With Muggles!’ the boy exclaimed indignantly; Snape very much disliked the expression on his face—there was something… particular about it. Half-forgotten, but revoltingly familiar.       ‘What’s your problem with Muggles, Mr Potter, when your own mother was Muggle-born?’ he asked silkily.       ‘My mother is dead, sir,’ Potter spat, ‘and consequently has lost any say in the matter.’       That was quite enough. Severus began to shake—with fury, with hurt, and heaven knows what else. He turned on his heel and apparated home to Cokeworth. He had fulfilled his task here completely.       …had more than fulfilled it, as became apparent a moment later. The disgusting boy doubled up at Snape’s feet. He was retching. With one hand he was still clutching Snape’s robes. Severus was flummoxed.       ‘Have you gone mad?’ he asked the young lunatic. ‘What if you’d splinched yourself?’       ‘You don’t understand,’ the boy coughed and spat a gob. ‘They won’t go anywhere with me. They hate both wizards and wizarding. Sir, you’re free to think whatever you like, but I’ve no reason to love Muggles. They’re awful, and mine are among the very worst.’       Severus decided not to respond to that—arguing with a brat would mean stooping too low.       ‘Well, what am I supposed to do with you?’ he asked rhetorically. The boy straightened up, trembling; his glasses glinted.       ‘Professor!’ he started. ‘Please could you take me to the entrance to Diagon Alley?’       ‘I ought to take you not there,’ Snape said, feeling his irritation mounting again, ‘but home, where you belong.’       ‘If you do that,’ Potter said seriously, the true son of his dreadful father, ‘then I’ll write to the Board of Governors again. And I’ll keep writing right up until term starts, if I have to, until they send me an escort. I’ll request you specifically.’       Seized this time by genuine fury, Severus silently grabbed the wretch by the scruff of the neck and apparated with him to the Leaky Cauldron.       ‘It’s hard to refuse a hero,’ he hissed, holding the half-dead wretch upright by the scruff—whilst the boy kept trying to fall sideways, swallowing convulsively—‘especially when he asks so touchingly. Off you go, Mr Potter, enjoy yourself!’       With these words, he shoved—a little more and one could have said ‘hurled’—Mordred’s spawn through the door that appeared as if from nowhere in the gap between a bookshop and a record shop.

* * *

      The pub was dark, smoky, and, to put it bluntly, rather grubby. The few regulars huddled in corners. Behind the bar Harry saw a bald, wrinkled old man with unkempt whiskers, no more presentable than his establishment. Harry, suppressing nausea and dizziness as he went, made straight for him—he didn’t plan to linger in this den a minute longer than necessary.       ‘Excuse me… Might I have a moment? I’d like to get to Diagon Alley—could you help?’       The barman—Harry had to keep reminding himself that he was also called Tom (which felt strange and quite wrong, as if other Toms had a right to exist in the world besides Tom)—looked up from polishing a pint glass with a greasy cloth. His eyes widened comically, his whiskers trembled, and he collapsed chest-first onto the bar as if intending to crawl over it and grab Harry.       ‘Can it be?!’ the barman exclaimed in a strangled whisper. ‘Is it you? Really you?’       Harry realised he’d definitely had quite enough for one day. Of course, he’d seen before how adults could be absolutely delighted to amuse themselves at Harry’s expense (or other children’s, but their problems weren’t Harry’s concern), without constraining themselves with even the faintest hint of delicacy. But right now, another old fool putting on an act was the last straw. Harry lost his temper.       He too collapsed—admittedly not chest-first but cheek-first, as that was all he could reach—onto the bar, goggled at the barman, and, responding by lowering his voice, declared passionately, ‘No! It’s not me!’       The barman hiccupped. Harry continued, improvising as he went—for some reason he was reminded of the Admiral Benbow Inn from Treasure Island; the atmosphere must have suggested it, and the style fitted rather well with the whole absurd scene—so Harry’s improvisation was born in the appropriate spirit.       ‘I swear to God, sir, it’s not me! Don’t give me away, I beg you! I mustn’t be seen here!’       In his passion he even forgot to mention Merlin or Morgana, but the barman fortunately paid no attention to that. He leant closer to Harry and began muttering, anxiously twitching his whiskers, ‘I understand! I understand! Sir! But your scar—the thing is, sir, it’s rather conspicuous! If it weren’t for that, I truly wouldn’t have recognised you at all!’       Harry, whom an adult had called ‘sir’ for the first time in his life, was first surprised, then realised the barman was playing along with him, though the joke was beginning to get slightly out of hand.       The scar as well. Harry suppressed a martyred groan. That bloody thing really was trying to ruin his life, wasn’t it? He’d hoped that at least in the wizarding world such things would stop—but no.       ‘What should I do, sir?’ he asked tragically, wondering how far the barman intended to take his jest.       ‘Sir! My advice to you: disguise it somehow. And then—completely incognito, I assure you!’       Harry turned his best pleading expression on him—it worked without fail on Muggle teachers, especially women.       ‘Sir,’ he stammered and blinked, his eyes filled with tears, which were not at all difficult to summon since Harry was still feeling queasy, ‘help me! Do think of something!’       The barman scratched his bald head. Then he triumphantly raised a finger. ‘Sir! I think I know what we must do!’ And with these words, he drew his wand from his sleeve.       Five minutes later, from an archway hidden behind a magical barrier (and behind dustbins, to Harry’s horror) at the dead end of Diagon Alley emerged a boy with his head clumsily bandaged. His appearance was that of some drunkard’s child, not least because of the untidy bandages wound right up to his eyes, but also because his clothes were obviously hand-me-downs. Having walked a dozen yards, he made sure the passage behind him had closed. Then the boy tore the bandage from his head.       ‘Nutter!’ he declared with feeling, hurling it to the ground. ‘Salazar preserve us, what a bloody day this is turning out to be, isn’t it?’