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When Hagrid finished enthusiastically explaining the mid-term final assignment for seventh-year Care of Magical Creatures, there was at least two minutes of dead silence while the half-giant looked around from face to face. It took Harry the first thirty seconds, during which Hagrid’s grin visibly slackened into an almost affronted look, to realize that he had been expecting applause.
”Well, don’t all go thankin’ me at once,” he eventually grumbled, crossing his thick arms over his chest.
”Excuse me, but what exactly is the point of this?” Tom Riddle was, as usual, the first to speak up in class, even if this time it was with outraged objection rather than the usual perfect answer that would earn him ten points for Slytherin. “How does it teach us about magical creatures to spend a week incubating a simple chicken egg, semiliterate Muggle farmers do that every day—“
”All new life is magical!” Hagrid thundered, making even the composed Head Boy startle so badly that his perfectly-coifed hair stood up a little, like the tail of an upset cat. “The mos’ important skills in Care’re things yeh can’t do with a wand—empathy, gentleness, responsibility an’ patience. Keepin’ a helpless baby chick alive in its egg—without magic, mind, I’ll not have yeh using any warming or cushioning charms and if yeh do I’ll know—tests all o’ those, and ye’ll prove yeh can do it before I’ll certify ya to go out in the world and work with real precious magical beings.” He was breathing hard by the end of this passionate speech, outright looming over Riddle the way the Slytherin himself usually did with trembling first years. “And if yeh can’t, Riddle, I won’ hesitate to give yeh a T—no matter how many feet long yer essays are.” He arched a bushy eyebrow. “Now, everyone come forward and pick a chocolate frog card out o’ the hat. Whoever has yer matching card will be yer partner for the assignment, and ye’ll need to work together to keep the egg safe and warm.” He pulled a tartan fisherman’s cap—one of his own, probably, as it was the size of a small cauldron—out of his pocket and thrust it out at the students, his expression daring anyone else to question the assignment.
No one did. They filed forward one by one, drawing cards—Harry got a twinkly-eyed Dumbledore—and pairing up. Riddle, in contrast to his usual eager swotty self, went dead last, practically vibrating with suppressed rage. He took his card between the tips of two long, pale fingers, as if it might still have chocolate stains on it. “Dumbledore,” he sneered once he’d turned it around. “Oh, delightful.”
Harry winced. So did Hagrid; he’d seen Harry’s card too. The professor shot the Gryffindor teen an apologetic look over Riddle’s shoulder. Harry gave him a weak smile in return—not your fault.
When Riddle turned around and saw the one other person still unpartnered, his glower only intensified, if that was possible.
”I expect you to treat this bloody borrow-and-beg like your own child, Potter,” he hissed as they made their way back to the castle. Harry—who was cradling the egg, a tiny light-brown thing with a spattering of dark speckles, carefully in his mittened hands—almost dropped it at the slip of Cockney that he hadn’t heard from Riddle since first year. “If it gets turned into an omelet by a Bludger while you’re playing your imbecilic sport, they will never find your body.”
”I’d worry less about me breaking it and more about you keeping it warm,” Harry retorted, holding the egg protectively away from Riddle’s glare—vibes that rancid couldn’t be good for a developing creature. “You couldn’t melt butter in those icy hands of yours, let alone support life.”
The precious cargo he carried was clearly the only thing that prevented Riddle from hexing him.
*
”Interesting,” Riddle murmured in the library the next day, where they’d agreed to hand off the egg before Harry went to Quidditch practice. He was poring over the official, written version of the assignment that Hagrid had given each pair, with the instructions and grading criteria. “Very interesting. It says we’ll be scored according to the health of the ‘baby’ that hatches at the end of the week—not the ‘chick’, specifically.”
Harry rolled his eyes as he carefully unwrapped the egg from the custom carrier he’d fashioned for it. It was a real thing of beauty—a kind of tiny sling, wrapped against his chest under his robes so the unborn chick could feel his warmth and heartbeat, lined with the feathers and straw that his research said real mother hens used to cushion their nests. He’d like to see Riddle do better than this. “So? Hagrid calls all young creatures ‘babies’. He called the Blast-Ended Skrewts that when they first hatched, even though they were the size of Shetland sheepdogs.”
”Still. It’s interesting.”
He didn’t have time for this right now; the team was waiting for him. “Here,” he said, holding the egg out to the other boy and waiting until he took it straight from his hands; no way was he setting it down on the hard, cold table for even a moment. “And you can take the sling too if you want—it likes to feel your heart—“
”It’s an embryo, Potter, it doesn’t like anything,” Riddle said imperiously; but he still cupped the egg with surprising gentleness once it was transferred to his grasp. He’ll probably treat it well to get the O, at least. “Now get down to the pitch and practice, I’d like to see Slytherin get an actual challenge in the next match.”
Harry couldn’t stomp off for fear of causing dangerous vibrations, but he made enough angry huffing sounds that the point hopefully came across anyway.
*
When Harry came to retrieve the egg that evening, there was a toad tied to the top of it.
”RIDDLE!”
”What?” The other teen dared to ask, giving Harry a wide-eyed, innocent stare (did that rubbish actually work on other people?). “You said yourself it ‘likes to feel a heartbeat’—“
”You are not breeding a basilisk in NEWT Care of Magical Creatures, you psychopath!”
”Oh, come on.” Riddle finally dropped the act and rolled his eyes skyward as if praying for salvation from the idiocy that surrounded him. “We’ve already established the rules don’t prohibit it, and you know Hagrid would probably love it. Plus we’ll be able to keep it much healthier than a chicken, because we’ll both speak to it in Parsel—“
”No!” Harry furiously worked his fingers over Riddle’s complex knots, moving slower than he’d like to keep from crushing the egg; finally, the last end came loose and the toad hopped off, croaking. “I should’ve known you couldn’t be trusted. Egbert’s staying with me from now on—“
”Pardon me, Egbert?”
“Shut up!” He could feel himself flushing deeply; he had not meant to say his secret name for his tiny charge out loud. “Don’t worry about your stupid grade; I’ll take care of him—it. Toads aren’t even warm-blooded, you’re a horrible egg-dad!”
And he re-secured Egbert into the chest sling, tucked in some fresh pine shavings he’d collected on his way back from practice, and once again not-stomped (he lifted his knees high but brought his feet down lighter than a tiptoe) out of the room.
”You’ll have to sleep sometime, you know!” the thwarted Slytherin shouted after him.
*
Riddle was right, much as he was loathe to admit it (seriously, couldn’t he screw up anything just once?); Harry did need to sleep, but the prospect of rolling over and crushing Egbert in the night terrified him; he could bundle the egg up in insulation and store it in his nightstand, but Crookshanks had recently gained an alarming skill with drawer handles and besides, wouldn’t the tiny life within be lonely and confused at the sudden absence of a heartbeat? You were meant to trade off nights with your partner, almost like the parents of an actual small child; unfortunately, his partner was a deadbeat dad who would sooner turn their baby into a monster than help it become its best self.
He held out for three days. Three long, brutal days during which he didn’t let himself doze for more than ten minutes at a time, skived off Quidditch practice (Ginny was a fine substitute Seeker and captain and Slytherin’s defense was a joke anyway, they could do without him for one week), and drank so much coffee that his heart rate was probably approaching that of an actual chicken.
A small part of his weary mind pointed out that he had never gone this far for an assignment even in classes that were required for an Auror career; he waved it away, telling himself he needed to get the O so Riddle wouldn’t murder him. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that had been an idle threat.
Riddle, for his part, was practically stalking him through the damn halls now—smiling fake-sympathetically, remarking on the bags under Harry’s eyes, and even once, egregiously, asking if he was “reconsidering the matter of Egbert’s custody”.
“You don’t get to say his name!” a near-delirious Harry had shouted—right in the middle of McGonagall’s Transfiguration lecture, earning him a fifty-point loss for Gryffindor and some very odd glances for the entire rest of the day.
Ron and Hermione were barely any better; they had arranged to take their own nighttime egg-sitting in shifts, and it was almost like they were taunting him every time Hermione crept up to the dorm in the wee hours, smoothly making the hand-off and then staying rather longer than necessary in his opinion, giggling with Ron behind the curtains of his four-poster.
Finally, on Friday—when Harry was in the library again, reading Transfiguration theory in between fifteen-second long ‘blinks’ and seriously considering putting himself under a full Body-Bind so he could sleep without risk of harming the egg—Riddle quite literally crept up on him. His presence was only betrayed at the last moment, by the aroma of the steaming mug of hot cocoa he was carrying (blatantly against the rules, but Madam Pince was as wrapped around the wanker’s finger as everyone else).
“Har-ryyyyy…” he crooned, causing the boy in question to turn around and glare at him through bloodshot eyes.
“Go’way. Y’aren’t taking Egbert…” he slurred, pulling the sling closer to his chest.
“Oh, my poor darling. You’re so exhausted that even the ability to enunciate has failed you…” he clucked his tongue sorrowfully. “However can you hope to be a proper guardian in this condition?”
“M’a better one than you, you Herpo the Foul wannabe. My baby’s gon’be a beautiful feathery chicken, not some death-glare killing machine—“
“Technically, if it’s a male like you’re so insistent upon, it would be a rooster, not a chicken.”
“I hate you!” Harry burst out—and then burst into tears.
And then in the next instant, Riddle closed the distance between them in a single stride and he found himself enveloped in warm, strong arms that were almost like a soft nest of their own, his head pillowed against a firm chest with its own soothing heartbeat. Mm…no wonder eggs like this so much…
“No—no—“ he protested weakly, but he was hampered by the heaviness of his limbs and his foremost priority of not jostling the fragile egg now pressed between them.
“Sweetheart, things can’t go on like this.” Deft fingers were carding through his hair now, blunt nails scratching divinely against his scalp. “You know I was only teasing you with the toad; I never expected you’d harm your own health so badly. Let me take the egg for just a little while, it’s my responsibility as much as yours…”
“You haven’t got a responsible bone in your body.” No matter how good your bone structure is—what the hell kind of knackered-brain thought is that…?
“I believe the faculty committee responsible for selecting the Head Boy would say otherwise,” the infuriating teen chuckled, now having the sheer audacity to rub Harry’s back. “Come now—have some cocoa and a nap, and I’ll prove I truly can be a good ‘egg-father’. You can come find us first thing in the morning; that’s not enough time to transform the egg’s contents even if my motives were, heaven forbid, impure.”
That was true—it took at least twenty-four continuous hours of toad-incubation to turn an innocent chick into a Basilisklet, that had been in another of Hagrid’s lessons. He lifted his leaden head and squinted up at Riddle. “You’ll really take care of him?” he asked, wavering.
“Like I would my own child.”
“And…and you’ll give him back when I say?”
“Hand on heart.” Even though both the git’s hands were, in fact, currently massaging Harry—damn him—
“One night,” his voice broke on the words as his head slumped back against the other’s chest. “Like, eight hours at most, and if you hurt him people will find your body—in a hundred pieces—gimme that mug…”
He was dead to the world by the third gulp of cocoa; it was fortunate for their precious egg, he thought muzzily, that Riddle was there to catch him when he finally collapsed.
*
He woke up in an unfamiliar bed—green sheets and comforter, no curtains—with sunlight streaming through a window on the opposite side from in Gryffindor tower. His first thought was where is the egg; his second was the recollection that he’d given it to Riddle—and the immediate third was just how stupid of a decision that had been, and how he’d never have done it in his right state of mind. Why the hell didn’t I just go with the body-bind idea!?
He sprang to his feet, grabbed his wand and glasses, and cast a hasty Tempus. A wave of relief passed through him to see that it was only nine in the morning; plenty of time to find Riddle and reclaim Egbert before any serious harm was done—
Down in the courtyard beneath the window, he heard the muted but unmistakable sound of tolling bells.
…Church bells.
The small chapel on Hogwarts grounds for the practicing Christians among the students and staff was ringing out the call for services—which meant that the glowing numbers still hanging in the air beside him referred to 9:00 on Sunday, not Saturday, and that he’d been asleep for thirty-six hours.
He outright burst through the exit door, only pulling up short for a moment when he came face-to-face with the mad tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy; had Riddle carried him all the way to the Room of Requirement last night? Choosing not to examine that possibility or the alarming emotions it stirred in his chest right now, he set off at a full pelt through the corridors, using his knowledge of the castle’s shortcuts to make it from the seventh floor to the Entrance Hall, and beyond that to the Slytherin dungeons, in record time. He bypassed the password on the blank stretch of wall with a hissed §Open§, praying he wouldn’t be too late.
Inside the snakes’ common room, he was greeted by the familiar sight (he’d snuck in here with his Cloak back in second year when he first figured out the Parseltongue trick, because who the hell wouldn’t) of sleek leather furniture, torches that burned round the clock in the subterranean gloom, and that massive floor-to-ceiling underwater window with a view of the lake. Only a few people were up and milling about on this weekend morning; there was a group of first years sniggering over the comics section of the Sunday Prophet, a studying prefect who’d probably been there all night from the looks of him, Malfoy arguing with Crabbe over whether the hard-boiled egg he had just stuffed into his mouth whole was their one for the Care assignment…
And there, sitting cross-legged on the rug by the fireplace with star charts spread in a circle around him, wearing loose black pajama bottoms and no shirt to obstruct the view of his pale, nicely toned chest with a dusting of dark hair leading down to his navel and beyond—was Riddle.
Harry’s traitorous ‘partner’ had the sling strapped securely against his heart (and right between his smooth, firm pectorals), well-insulated with what looked like fresh goose down from a pillow. One elegant hand idly stroked the egg, the top of which was just poking out from the folds of fabric Harry’d so proudly crafted. The once perfectly palm-sized ovoid had grown to the size of a chocolate Easter egg from Honeydukes, was covered in a thick, scale-like coating with swirling patterns of green and yellow—and perched atop it, eyes closed in sleep and secured with two separate lengths of string, was a toad even larger and wartier than the last one.
“YOU!” Harry bellowed, pointing his finger at Riddle in accusation—and it was only then, when every Slytherin in the room whipped around to face him and immediately struggled to hold in their laughter, that he realized his clothes had been Transfigured into bunny-rabbit pajamas sometime during his blackout multiday ‘nap’.
One guess who was behind that hilarious ‘kindness’. Luckily, he’s well within hexing range—“
“Me?” the smug bastard said, with the same shameless innocent look as last time. “Harry, dear, I’m glad to see you awake. I did consider checking on you after the first twenty-four hours, but you seemed so desperately in need of rest…”
“After you’d finished corrupting Egbert, you mean! What’d you put in that cocoa to knock me out, I’d never have left him alone for that long otherwise…”
“Oh, kindly cease with the dramatics.” Riddle got to his feet, adjusting the toad as he did so to keep the animal from listing to the side. “You slept through half the weekend all on your own; all I—and my generously handmade cocoa—did was help you relax, so you wouldn’t keel over and crush both the egg and your own skull. And our charge was never alone, he was with his father.”
“Consider your parental rights terminated, you berk! ACCIO TOAD!”
Riddle dodged, and Harry’s spell went wide, causing the still-slumbering toad to strain slightly at its bindings, but it ultimately stayed put atop the egg. “Harry, no! Disrupting the incubation at this stage could destroy the embryo!“
“You’ve already destroyed the sweet baby chick that could’ve been! Stop moving around—“
But at that moment, just as Harry was surging forward and aiming his wand for another shot, a new voice interrupted them, causing both boys—as well as the rest of their small audience, who had started loudly cheering Riddle on—to go still and silent.
§…conflict?…No…need more sleep, mother, nest…§
“It’s…it’s talking,” Riddle murmured, awed, while Harry gawped and the others edged away uneasily from what, to them, was only sinister hissing. “It can hear us…it must be very close to hatching now…”
And all the righteous, avenging fury that had been suffusing Harry's body evaporated, replaced by a cautious wonder and a faint, instinctive shame at having frightened the tiny creature he was meant to protect. He stepped forward, wand hand dangling at his side and the other outstretched toward the egg against Riddle’s chest.
§Eg…Egbert?§ he said, his hisses coming out embarrassingly thick. §Is that you in there?§
The taller boy stepped forward so Harry could lay his palm against the scaly shell—right next to his own pale fingers, as well as the precariously balanced toad. Riddle’s skin was as warm and dry as the amphibian’s was clammy, and deep within the egg, something faintly stirred.
§sleep now…mother’s touch, safe…§
The words gradually faded out, replaced by a barely audible, rhythmic susurrus.
“It recognizes you.” They were almost chest to chest now, with the egg cradled between them similar to Friday night. “It’s still the same soul in there, you know, Harry, even if it may look very different now. What kind of parent rejects their child for taking a more…unconventional path in life, hmm?”
Harry wanted to yell at him again, to call him out on his blatant emotional blackmail and sudden flip-flop on whether the egg was a sentient being with feelings. But he couldn’t make the words come out, not with a baby sleeping mere inches from him. It was as if some kind of parental instinct had Langlock’d his tongue.
“I…we’ll keep incubating it, together, until the week is up,” he whispered finally, glaring up at Riddle to make it clear that his mercy was for the egg only, not his treacherous arse. “We have to have something to turn in for the assignment. After that, we let Hagrid handle it—and we’ll handle our own issues in one of the dueling rooms.”
The Slytherin smiled, practically radiating smug contentment. “Oh, I greatly look forward to it.”
*
Over the final three days of the assignment, their collaboration went relatively smoothly. Riddle, as it turned out, actually was a competent and thoughtful egg-father once he had a vested interest in the Class-5X murderbeast he anticipated hatching from it; he took on more than his fair share of the shifts, accompanied Harry around the castle and relieved him of the sling whenever he did anything more strenuous than tying his shoes, and personally brewed Wide-Eye and energy potions for the boy and a special calcium shell-rub for the egg itself.
He even kept his initial promise to Speak to it in Parsel, whispering near-continuously of §strength§ and §lineage§ and §destiny§ even when he was in class, to the deep discomfort of adjacent students and more than a few professors.
But Harry himself, he was relatively sure, was the only one with the dedication to sing lullabies to it in the Noble Tongue, within the private cocoon of his Silenced bed curtains.
*
On the day the assignment was due, the seventh-year Care students reassembled on the lawn of Hagrid’s hut, the various pairs all holding eggs that practically vibrated by this point with their imminent hatching. They each presented their work in turn, coming forward to let the miracle of life unfold beneath the gentle giant’s watchful gaze.
Ron and Hermione, who’d done very well until they got into a screaming row about Muggle algebra and she flung it at him in a fit of rage (he caught it at the last moment with his strong Keeper reflexes, and she spent the next four hours tearfully apologizing to it), hatched a chick that was healthy and lively, though it had a persistent dent in its left wing that refused to flatten out. They both received Es.
Crabbe really had, as it turned out, boiled and eaten his and Malfoy’s egg (Riddle had kept Harry updated on all the drama from Slytherin as it unfolded, regaling him with new dispatches each time they met up between classes to trade off Egbert). Draco tried to pass off one he’d stolen from the kitchens that morning instead; apparently no one ever told the privileged prat that those weren’t fertile. Hagrid gave him a T with poorly-disguised relish.
Harry and Riddle went last again, carrying their egg between them in the sling they’d expanded several times over by this point. It was as large as a beach ball, with scales tough enough to probably resist a sledgehammer, and a comparatively tiny toad riding proudly atop it in a custom saddle/elephant howdah that Harry had crafted in his spare time.
Riddle smiled charmingly at Hagrid and encouraged him to come closer to watch the hatching. Harry kept up a rictus grin and prayed they wouldn’t both go to Azkaban for this.
“Well will yeh lookit that,” Hagrid said, letting out a low whistle as it began to crack at the top and wobble back and forth. “This one’s shapin’ up to be a real beauty!”
“Told you so,” the insufferable Slytherin mouthed over the professor’s great bushy head, smirking.
Harry took the high road and ignored him in favor of untying the toad, which had started to croak in terror at the miniature earthquake occurring underneath it. It hopped off with a distinct air of relief and made for the lake; he let it go and kept his eyes on the crack as it steadily widened and ran from the top of the egg down the side…
§Light? Nest? Mother?§
§Yes, you can do it!§ he cheered, unable to keep from getting swept up in the excitement. §Just a little further now!§
§Remember the power of your noble ancestors!§ Riddle intoned, trying to shove in and get a better angle himself, but Harry sat firmly in place. When an entire shard of shell finally detached and fell to the grass with a heavy thunk, he found himself staring directly into a pair of rheumy, squinting yellow eyes—not strong enough yet to kill or even petrify, but arresting and hypnotic all the same.
His baby, Harry noted with pride, was feathery after all—well, it had one feather at least, a fluffy red one right in the center of its forehead, the telltale marker of a male basilisk. I was right about him being a boy!
The snakelet, still only about the length of his arm and thickness of a fat fire hose, nosed forward and curled around his wrist, flicking its tongue in and out over his pulse. He was uncannily reminded of the way human babies were said to instinctively grasp their parents’ fingers, even just minutes after birth. §Mother? Is it you? I recognize your scent and heartbeat.§
“Aw, Harry, jus’ lookit him!” Hagrid warbled, his eyes filling with unshed tears of joy. “‘E already knows who ‘is mummy is!”
§Now wait just one second,§ Riddle started, apparently alarmed and uncertain for the first time since deciding on a whim to hatch a lethal predator on the grounds of a school. §Can’t you smell my Slytherin blood—§
But Harry barely heard him. §I think I might prefer ‘Daddy’,§ he corrected gently, running his thumb over the smooth scales and scarlet plume on the little triangle-shaped head. §But yes, I held you by my heart for many days! Do you remember the song about the four little Snidgets?§
§Daddy,§ it said slowly, as if tasting the unfamiliar word on its tongue. §If you are Daddy, then what will you call me, Speaker?§
He kept stroking the tiny hatchling, but lifted his eyes up again until he was staring directly into Riddle’s. He smiled.
§Egbert, of course,§ he said, his voice sweet as treacle tart as he watched the other teen’s face contort in horror.
§NO—§
§Egbert! I like it! It sounds like…’egg-father’!§ Egbert twisted himself around to face Riddle’s voice, apparently noticing him for the first time. §Oh, egg-father, you are here too! Does my new name resound with the strength and lineage and destiny you spoke of?§
§That is not your—§ This time, it was the stoic Slytherin whose resistance crumbled in the face of wide, unblinking slit-pupiled eyes and a darting purplish-black tongue. §It’s wonderful,§ he gritted out. §As are you.§
Then he gave Egbert a small stroke of his own, looked back at Harry, and said in English through clenched teeth, “Forget the dueling chamber, Potter, I’m going to murder you right now for our entire year to see as a warning.”
“Bring it on, snakeface—“
“Now, now, you two,” Hagrid cut in anxiously, “not in front o’ yer kid—“
§No! No conflict! Daddy and egg-father must not use their venom on each other!§ At the sound of the distressed hisses, they both instantly quieted and looked down at Egbert—whose lower lip would’ve been trembling if he’d had one—then back at each other, at a stalemate. Harry vaguely wondered how quickly he could master Legilimency and throttle Riddle inside his mind palace.
“An’ what a wonderful introduction that is to the next assignment!” boomed Hagrid, loudly clapping his hands and addressing his entire class—who he’d seemingly quite forgotten was there, and were all sitting around looking terrified—again. “Hatchin’ an egg isn’ the end of yer parenting journeys, oh no. Fer the next six months till ye sit yer NEWTs, ye’ll stay in yer pairs and continue raisin’ the chi…er, creature ye’ve got now. S’all a part of learning’ how a beast thinks, yeh see, how to get inta the real Carin’ mindset that any handler’s got to have…Malfoy, yer excused from this part, ye can be on Thestral-feedin’ duty instead if you wan’ to scrape an A…”
And he began hastily shuffling away to oversee the others, leaving Harry and Riddle together on the grass with a baby basilisk.
§Daddy, I am hungry,§ Egbert announced, nudging his head against Harry again to regain his attention. §I can smell a great many deer and rodents nearby; will you mash down their flesh for me? My own fangs will not come in for a while yet.§
Harry reared back in alarm; the egg, in either its fowl or reptile state, had never required anything so…hands on as regular feedings. §Er—well—§
§Don’t worry, your father doesn’t share Daddy’s pathetic Gryffindorish squeamishness,§ Riddle said fawningly. §Would you prefer Red or Roe deer, my small majestic one?§
§Yeah, well, someone also has to stay here and watch over him while you’re off hunting down helpless animals—§ Harry began hotly.
§No conflict in the nest,§ the small serpent reminded them, already sounding sleepy as he coiled back around his ‘Daddy’s’ arm.
§I’ll pick some flowers and berries for you too, on the way back,§ Riddle tossed over his shoulder, sauntering in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. §Aren’t new mums supposed to like bouquets?§
He instinctually reached for his wand to cast a stinging hex but was prevented from lifting his arm (or, preferably, just jumping to his feet and tackling the git to the ground) by Egbert’s weight on him, growing heavier by the moment as his ‘baby’ drifted off, hissing nonsense Parsel fragments. He gave an aggrieved groan instead and flumped back flat on the grass, staring up into the winter sun and listening to the coos and peeps surrounding him from the others with their new fuzzy chicks. Could Hagrid be persuaded to let him feed the Thestrals with Malfoy and take a passing grade, he wondered? No, Egbert needs me around to teach him decent values…
The jury might still be out on empathy, gentleness, and responsibility; but if he survived the next six months—and likely beyond, he wasn’t sure of the details but he was pretty sure basilisks took longer to mature than chickens—of ‘co-parenting’ with Riddle, he’d probably have developed enough patience to become the next bloody Newt Scamander.