Burning Red

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/19793110.

Rating: Not Rated

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Categories: F/M, M/M, F/F
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, Hermione
Granger, Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, Albus Dumbledore, Ron
Weasley, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, pretty much everyone -
Character, Sirius Black, Neville Longbottom
Additional Tags: Oblivious Harry, Red-Haired Harry Potter, Smart Harry, Slytherin,
Gryffindor, Parseltongue, Ron Weasley Bashing, Albus Dumbledore
Bashing, Draco is a Baby Cactus, Slytherin Friendly, Harry Takes No
Shit and Looks Pretty While Doing It, Whump, Blood and Violence,
Blood and Gore, Romance is a subplot at best
Language: English
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Stats:
Published: 2019-07-13 Updated: 2024-01-15 Words: 535,416 Chapters:
60/?
 Burning Red
by NoNameWriter

Summary

Around the time most young children's do, Harry's hair goes from his father's dark locks to
his mother's bright, most-likely-magical red hair. It changes everything about who Harry
identifies with, who he wants to grow up to be, and who he thinks he is. Instead of having
James Potter as his idol, Lily Potter turns out to be a much better influence.

So instead of seeing a scruffy, most-likely-a-muggleborn boy standing beside him in Madam

Malkin's before their first year, Draco only has eyes for the scarlet haired, green-eyed
creature who just walked into his life and instead of an enemy, he finds a reason to be better
than he'd been raised to be. Not that Harry will ever notice, given he's trying to simply
survive at Hogwarts.

And Severus might not make it to see these boys graduate when his heart kept giving out
seeing his very-Slytherin godson repeat his own history and go chasing after a green-eyed,
red-haired Gryffindor.

Turns out the Malfoys aren't that bad and Dumbledore definitely is. Remus is at his wit's end
and Sirius gets a chance to actually live up to his title as Harry's dogfather. Tom Riddle is not
prepared for any of this.

Notes

I tried not to curse at least for the first couple years of Harry's time at Hogwarts since
theoretically children that young don't curse like sailors. I am the author however, and write
as I chose to write in the flow of things, so no promises.
 Pride
Chapter Notes

PLEASE

This story is not for everyone; if you end up not liking it that's perfectly fine, but I am
begging you to just stop reading and move on with your life. You don't need to explain
to me why you hate it or why my take on these characters is toxic or whatever else it is
you hate. I know my characters aren't perfect, I think perfect characters are exceedingly
boring. No one in this story is "right". I get it, that can be rough on some people who
just want a fun read.

Thank you for taking the time to even attempt reading it at all but please, you don't need
to explain.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

It was about the time Harry turned six that he noticed it, and he immediately panicked.

Aunt Petunia had tried shaving his head one too many times in an attempt to tame his wild
locks and just mentioning 'blue wig' was enough to earn him cupboard time, so any indication
that his hair was not the plain dark brown it'd always been was alarming enough to think
she'd come after him again. There weren't exactly a lot of red heads in suburban Surrey so at
the time, Harry had no clue that the deep red strands of hair coming in at the roots of his head
were actually very natural and not another "freakish" thing happening to him that he couldn't
control, but would get punished for anyway.

He had also never seen a picture of his mother and was not quite old enough to wrap his head
around the idea of genetics in any case, so the moment he realized his hair was no longer
growing in dark brown-ish black, he did his absolute best to hide it. He found a black
bandanna in his school's lost and found and wore it whenever he left the cupboard, wrapped
around his forehead to cover his scar and the back tip tucked into the knot to hide all his hair
from view. The Dursleys already saw him as a maid so it fit in their minds while at home, and
when out and about it only made it easier to call him a delinquent, plus Petunia hated his wild
hair so him taking to hiding it and giving her more gossip fuel was a good thing. He wasn't
reprimanded for wearing it at home and teachers already did their best to ignore him because
of the Dursley's slander so he was never told not to wear it at school despite there being a 'no
hats' rule most years. Petunia never attempted to cut his hair again since he was taking the
initiative to hide it himself so he often took chunks of it with kitchen scissors--outside so no
one would see the fine threads as realize someone near the Dursley household was walking
around with 'freakish' red hair.

By the time he turned nine though… he had a sudden change of heart.

It was looking in the mirror after school one day, having gone to the bathroom and taken off
his bandanna to fix it up before going back to the Dursleys for the night, that he just… looked
at himself. His green eyes seemed a lot brighter than they'd ever been before, the red no
longer just traces but a flood of scarlet that seemed to shine even under the poor florescent
school ceiling lights and bring out the sea foam in his typically darker eyes. He hadn't really
taken the time to see it since he'd noticed his dark locks going red, just quickly hiding it any
time he caught a piece of red peeking into his field of vision, and even when he cut it he did it
almost blindly and by feel when he was sure no one was looking, not caring how it really
looked, just caring that it was short enough to hide beneath his cover. As a result it was cut
horribly, wild pieces short enough to stick up in all directions and some longer ones left
tangled and askew by him removing the bandanna so roughly, chunks of it matted into solid
masses beyond saving.

And yet… even with all of that, he suddenly found himself thinking he liked his freakish red
hair. It wasn't orange like a carrot or pink like a strawberry blonde or fake cherry red like
those dyed 'freaks' Petunia and Vernon crossed the street to avoid, but a deep red so vibrant it
was like curls of blood, the exact shade of a red delicious apple with highlights a fascinating
golden-red that reminded him of gleaming mermaid scales in a book he once read when no
one was looking in the school library. It was a majestic color like a vibrant sunset, the darkest
feathers on a pretty cardinal, the deep sweet promise of a ripe fresh tomato on a heavy
summer day, or the refined red velvet of Christmas-season ribbons. It reminded him of every
good memory he had, and he had so preciously few of those that it kind of took him off guard
to be overwhelmed with this feeling all at once, and so out of the blue.

He was too afraid to go around with hair like this out in the open, shuddering to think what
his 'family' would do if they ever found out, but he suddenly wasn't gut-wrenchingly ashamed
of weird hair like this. In fact, he liked it, quite a bit. Just like he liked his scar that he hid
away; despite the fact he had to hide it he liked that it made him different and unique--and
maybe important, in a world where he knew he was not important to anyone.

No one had hair like this and it was way more interesting than some silly old scar. Some
small part of him wanted to be seen and some small part of him wanted to make friends and
if he were able to walk around with pretty hair like this then maybe someone would look
twice at him. Not just glance at him and quickly avoid eye contact when they realized who he
was—that delinquent, that quiet freak not one wanted to associate with—but may stop and
see him for who he actually was because he was vibrant enough to warrant looking twice.
Because this was part of him and maybe he was proud of it. And maybe he felt… sad, that he
himself had reduced such pretty locks to this utter mess just because he feared others
knowing about it.

No, because he feared his so-called relatives knowing about it.

He liked his hair. As hard as that was to openly admit, even to himself, he suddenly knew it
was true. He liked his hair, and he was proud of it.

But, reality being what it was, he combed it down a bit--slightly less roughly than usual-- and
re-did his bandanna quickly before anyone came into the bathroom he was dawdling in. He
did make a silent promise to himself though, to be kinder to his poor, pretty hair. Just because
the Dursleys would hate it didn't mean he had to hate his own self just as much--
he could take pride in his appearance even if no one else would ever give him a second
glance. He only had one ally in this world after all: himself. Just because he had no one didn't
mean he had to abandon himself too.

In another life he wouldn’t care about his appearance, and it would snowball into caring less
about his life as a whole: rash decisions that put his well-being at risk, resigning himself to
those who treated him poorly, a dangerous over-eagerness to please anyone who gave him
even a slight bit of positive attention...

No more. He wouldn’t be that person anymore, he swore as he watched himself in the mirror
fix the bandanna back in place. He wasn’t stupid, he still had to hide it or else face Aunt
Petunia’s wrath, but he no longer believed as she undoubtedly would that his hair would label
him as even more of a freak. Like the clouds clearing he decided that his worth was not based
on what anyone else said—from here on out only he could make himself feel worthless. No
one else had that right, not when he knew what now he knew.

No one cared about him after all, no one bothered to look twice. It was in this moment Harry
decided that he would care about himself, and that he would look twice and think maybe he
wasn’t worthless. If he only had one ally in this world, he wasn’t going to betray himself any
longer.

And so, he tried to keep better care of himself than before, starting with his hair but spilling
over into other aspects of his life. He found a comb that Petunia had thrown out and kept it
hidden in his cupboard, combing through his hair carefully each night and morning to make
sure it wasn't going to end up a rat's nest again, and he let it grow this time. He checked the
lost and found of both the school and the local library as often as he could before he found
precisely what he was looking for: a thin, soft gray beanie that wasn't too thick to look like a
crazy person even if he wore it in the summer (okay, he still looked like a crazy person, but
he could go back to his bandana if he had to do yardwork outside when it was super-hot and
it was perfect for every other occasion). The best part was that the beanie was designed to be
baggy at the back which meant there was plenty of room for his hair to grow out a bit and no
one realize what he had going on under the hat, which left him free to grow his hair out as
long as he wanted and then work on cutting it more normally instead of the crazy hap-hazard
thing he'd been doing up until that point.

It was this way that he noticed that his red hair was much softer than his old brown hair had
been; he wasn't sure how this was possible or if he'd just never noticed, but when he was
alone in his cupboard he found himself running fingers through it while combing it and just
being in awe of how silky and soft it was. This did not, however, stop the wildness that
Petunia so hated from dying down, at least not until months later when the piece of hair atop
his forehead was long enough that he could stretch it just below his chin if he pulled it down
to stop it's wild, semi-curly, randomly stuck up thing it had going on to lie straight for a
second. By the time it was about two inches longer than even that, it was falling around his
face and head in a wild, chaotic cloud around him and just barely brushing the middle of his
neck--the wildness it had, never lying down when he kept it short, was used up by keeping
most of its length caught up in the semi-curl and crazy directions it popped up in. Just out of
the shower and sopping wet, it brushed the tops of his shoulders-- dry and flying around in its
natural way, it simply framed is face in a longer-ish style that he actually quite liked.

It was also just long enough to pull back in a ponytail (girls left those things
lying everywhere so he had quite the collection of ties) or a tiny plop on top of his head,
which made it easier to hide beneath his beanie. He also quite enjoyed the feeling of letting it
all puff out after a long day of pinning it up this way—the term 'letting your hair down'
finally making sense and it was a simple pleasure in his life. Like taking a hot shower after a
cold day, it was somehow relaxing, combined with his then-routine of combing it out slowly
and carefully and just enjoying his mini me time. Harry had never had—nor ever conceived of
— 'me time' before, but he liked it.

Such care into one aspect of his appearance he never even showed anyone spilled over until
he was trying to take care of himself in other ways. For example Vernon and Petunia never
once forced Dudley to brush his teeth if he didn't want to but Harry took it up religiously--
twice a day in the morning and at night (he used tiny portions of Petunia and Vernon's
toothpaste so they wouldn't notice; if Dudley's suddenly ran out they'd know something was
up and he'd get in trouble for using something of his cousin's even if the loaf wasn't using it).
He also took to washing his face more and carefully stealing sunscreen from the medicine
cabinet and hiding it outside beneath bushes or even underground, in preparation of days
Petunia forced him outside to do yardwork all day. He also took to carefully gluing his
glasses back together rather than roughly with tape, and even managing to paint the rims with
some dark green paint he'd nicked from art class—it was small and subtle enough that the
Dursley's didn't notice it or ever bring it up if they did, not that they'd care much, but it was a
small form of rebellion with his appearance that Harry was very proud to have gotten away
with.

He used the school library to look up what good food was, and what you needed to eat to be
healthy and tall and strong--absolutely none of which the Dursleys had anywhere near their
house which was his first problem. It was actually remarkably easy to fix though, as he
plucked up the courage to ask his aunt to be able to do the grocery shopping, and to cook
dinner as well as breakfast for them all. He knew they wouldn't do it if they thought
he liked those chores, but he'd phrased it in that he desperately did not want to be in his
cupboard all evening and would do anything to get out more--even more chores like shopping
and cooking dinner. Petunia, for all her desire to be a 'normal' and a Norman Rockwell-esque
housewife, did not like cooking and was actually rather bad at it; it was just that her husband
and son were whales who'd eat a whole pig before noticing it was still alive. Her desire not to
do it and his clever first deception meant he was then in charge of meals and grocery
shopping.

Petunia was no budget master and so had a standard amount of money for food shopping that
she gave to him for the trips that she'd always spent in her poorly-informed shopping sprees,
and with just a few attempts to familiarize himself with what was available and what he could
get on sale or cheaper for less brand-name but just-as-good options, he quickly figured out
how to get everything she required him to cook and what he could stash to cook himself in
his more, health-friendly diet. It wasn't like he ever ate with the rest of them anyway, and
they didn't consider salad food at all (a 'precursor to food' Vernon had once called it, rather
poetically) so even if they did see him setting aside some leafy greens or other vegetables, so
long as his chicken or beef or other 'main entree' helping was sufficiently tiny to their
standards of what he 'deserved', they were fine.

Given that he was then cooking not only the two meals they ate together but also packing all
their lunches, he had free reign of the fridge and could hide most of his own stuff very easily.
Put it on a lower shelf and maybe towards the back a bit and Vernon and Dudley, who often
came in hunt of snacks and would never bend down to actually search the whole fridge,
would never see it. And on that note, Harry took to whipping up puddings and other terrible
treats to put directly in eye-sight when someone opened the fridge for a late night snack to
even further distract from the vegetables and other healthier things he was buying himself;
not that he thought Vernon in particular would glance twice at a head of lettuce but if he did
wonder who was buying (and then more importantly eating) all these vegetables, he might
realize it was in fact not his wife and that he was actually spending money on his despicable
nephew and throw a fit. Harry took extra care to hide even more suspicious things, like tofu--
if Vernon ever plucked up the desire to bend down and see the back corner of his own fridge
Harry might actually die from the lashing he'd get from having brought that 'hippy nonsense'
in the house.

So, when he was actually eating enough to feel satisfied and healthy enough to start feeling
much better than he ever had before, he turned to the last part of his 'new leaf', which was
exercise. He got quite a bit running from Dudley and other bullies and just went with it: he
ran to and from school and found several longer routes to stretch out the routine. And the
second Dudley’s gang started looking sketchy he took off too—he used that as an excuse to
take longer and longer runs and Petunia never commented if he was gone for two hours or
more. She was probably content in her assumed knowledge he was too scared to go near her
precious Duddikins and took no issue so long as she continued to exist under the impression
the ‘freak’ was not gaining anything from the arrangement.

He attempted a couple exercises that he could do from his cupboard, mostly sit-ups, but
found them a lot less enjoyable than running. Still, he got a fair amount done out of sheer
boredom that plagued him during long cupboard stays.

The longer this new pattern went on, the more Harry realized his relatives were rather thick.
After a full six months of hiding food in the Dursley’s own fridge and getting his way by
cleverly phrasing his requests, he realized that his “family’s” hatred of him blinded them to
pretty much everything else about him aside from his existence. He got a lot of good practice
putting on masks and acting quiet and humble, all the while plotting and figuring out the best
way to get what he wanted.

The key to being successful was threefold: first, a lack of fear—the longer he got away with
it the more confidence he had that he wouldn’t get caught. Not that he ever lowered his
guard, but he wasn’t all around terrified that the Dursleys would somehow know if he did
anything wrong like he once was, they simply weren’t smart enough for that. The second was
careful planning, and having a back up plan just in case—fortunately (or more like
unfortunately) he got a lot of quiet time in his cupboard to simply lie there and plot and so it
only took him a couple weeks to get very, very good at this. Even if he thought up a plan and
a back-up, doing nothing for hours on end inevitably had his mind circling over his plots
again and again, almost always coming up with something else he hadn’t thought of to
prepare for, the result being very effective plans when combined with his budding acting
skills.

The third and final key though, was low expectations. It sounded bad but Harry wasn’t here
scheming to be spoiled like Dudley, he just wanted to ensure he’d have dinner that night, and
breakfast the following morning, and so on. As his plans got more elaborate, he still wasn’t
plotting to take over the world, he just wanted to be able to not fail out of primary school and
eventually get a job away from this place as his own person. He didn’t care what the job was
in any way, but he wanted to be free.

Getting tiny little tastes of freedom when a plan was successful and he managed to get away
with something he wanted was highly addicting, and it made long nights locked in a
cupboard even worse. In fact, by the time he turned ten his stomach would flip every time he
caught sight of the thing, and when he was being ordered to climb back into it he felt like his
whole body was rejecting the sheer thought of getting into the tiny space he’d once
considered his safe place, his semi-home in this house which would never be home.

He didn’t regret learning to value himself more than others seemed to, but it made lowering
himself to be locked in a cupboard about 100 times worse than it’d ever been before. He used
to not care, since it was dark and quiet and away from his relatives, but now he cared. He
cared a lot.

He tried very, very hard not to outright hate the cupboard as he knew there was no escaping it
until he was physically too big to fit into it anymore, and even then he could only imagine
what the Dursleys would do. Probably just kick him into the un-air-conditioned, un-heated
shed out back, and he knew older-him would not enjoy that either so just tried to keep
breathing steadily and deal with the cupboard while he had it. He couldn’t hate it or he’d go
insane, but controlling his emotions this way was turning out to be quite the learning
experience; he was not an inherently patient person but he knew he had to be. He had to pick
and choose his battles wisely and the cupboard was not one he knew he could ever win, so he
just kept his jaw shut and focused on the rest of his life the best he was able to.

His lack of complaints or sass now that he learned to school his expressions and his
willingness to be a good little cook and maid seemed to inspire his aunt and uncle in a terrible
way and they we happy to pile on more chores than they ever had before. With his growing
uneasiness at the cupboard, Harry couldn’t even deny it was better than being cooped up in
that dark corner, and he soon found himself with a daily maid-like list of chores tending to
the Dursley household, including cooking their three meals, doing the laundry, vacuuming,
dusting, and wiping down every excessively shiny surface in “Petunia’s” kitchen, on top of
gardening constantly and mowing and tending the outside panels and windows. It certainly
kept him busy, and he wondered what the heck his Aunt did in a day given she was a
‘housewife’ by profession and yet he was doing literally every chore in the household.

Still, he did not complain as eventually he found he liked pretty much having free reign of the
kitchen, it easily becoming his safe place even from his relatives. Apparently, he was a good
cook and two of the three loved to eat, so while their verbal abuse and the whacks on the
back of his head were frequent and harsh, they kept him relatively uninjured so that he could
keep working in the kitchen. If that was in any way related to his quickly growing skills at
whipping up horrible concoctions of fried, greasy, calorie-filled, nightmare-like meals that
Vernon and Dudley devoured with unprecedented glee, Harry didn’t give those thoughts a
voice. If he did it in he wild hope his uncle and cousin would get so fat they’d abruptly pop
one day, then it was also a tightly held day-dream he made sure no one was aware he had.

Still, given the arrangement he knew his ‘job’ was safe for the moment and it gave him a
level of power he’d never had before, and that he desperately liked. If he wanted to survive
this place, he needed even a small sliver of power to hold his place in this house, and not cast
aside like unwanted garbage.

Harry knew it was working when his food budget went up a little bit over time, and though
he didn’t outwardly grin as he just took the envelope of money and left for the grocery store
with an otherwise black and resigned expression, he certainly wanted to. He rewarded his
uncle’s thinking by investing in even more sweets and spent every last pound of this
particular donation on a big turkey, with everything you’d need for a wonderful Normal
Rockwell painting. He had vegetables for the week after all, so he didn’t need to nick any off
the top.

That night for dinner he laid out a Thanksgiving feast any American would drool over, setting
the table immaculately and scrubbing the kitchen spotless. He whipped up deserts and filled a
basket with sweets in the place he knew Dudley looked first. When his aunt and uncle got
home, Vernon praised Petunia and she took all the credit as Harry knew she would—he
remained in the pantry organizing his stores and mentally cataloging for future meals and
entirely out of sight while they enjoyed what he’d done, him already having eaten his fill as it
was made and in much healthier quantities. They ate themselves into a food coma and then
retired to the living room to watch TV and talk about nothing; Harry cleaned up every dish
and packed the rest in neat lunch boxes for tomorrow, though they’d eaten most of
horrifyingly enough so he had new sandwiches and chips to toss in too.

While he never put that much effort in again, unless ordered too because they had a guest
coming over or something, the trick had been done and Vernon Dursley now subconsciously
kept adding to the food budget he handed to his nephew each week. Every time it increased
an amount of note, Harry carefully rewarded him with his favorite meal or desert, or an all-
out glutton-fest of some sort that was easily enough procured. His favorite method he’d heard
about from one of he programs they watched once, while he was in his cupboard—he
withheld something, like steak or a certain type of sweet or a certain flavor, for weeks on end.
When his “reward” was something simple like a blueberry pie or a simple, nicely cooked
steak, the same reaction was received. It was as if he was satisfying a craving that he himself
created, and he got very, very good at that.

What he did with the extra pocket money Vernon was unaware he was willingly giving
away? Well, Harry carefully saved it and only bought what he could sneak in without anyone
noticing, and that he could then hide in his cupboard entirely. Again, going with his ‘low
expectations’ mantra, he stuck to things he needed and could get at either the grocery store
where he shopped or the drug store he passed on his way home: new underwear, new socks,
tiny bottles of nicer shampoo and conditioner, a sewing kit to try and fix some of his hand-
me-down clothes just a little bit with his unskilled hands, band-aides, new shoelaces, hair ties
of prettier colors, soap, notebooks, pens, crossword puzzles for his long cupboard-times, a
decent flashlight for said cupboard, a reading light for a book, and the list went on. Tiny
things the Dursleys wouldn’t notice, but things to make his life just a little more bearable.

He also took a risk and bought some make-up—a concealer tube he thought matched his skin
tone and went up to his aunt saying he found it on the street and could he please use it to hide
his scar?

Aunt Petunia took a great deal of pleasure in calling him a girl and even more of a freak from
then on, but she’d allowed it most likely because it’d give her even more reason to ridicule
him and hide yet another freakish thing about him so she was all for it. Harry took the insults
with no more response than a ‘poorly concealed mask of hurt and embarrassment’ face,
however he didn’t care. He’d already known this would be her reaction when he bought he
make up and made this plan, and it had all gone according to his expectation so he just let the
insults hit home and went about his day—careful to not let her know that he wasn’t actually
affected by her taunting, keeping a mask of discomfort and embarrassment on to fuel her fire
and keep her content for now.

He’d debated about hiding his scar, but decided for it in the end. He used to like it because it
made him feel unique, but it served no purpose when he was trying to keep under the
Dursley’s radar and he had his hair if he ever wanted to stand out some day. His hair was part
of who he was and he took more pride in it than a funny looking scar he got from the car
crash that killed his parents. It wasn’t the only thing that made him special anymore, since he
decided that he himself was special and he should stop treating himself so terribly, and really
should only remind him of his parents’ deaths, and not something he should like about
himself. He didn’t explicitly care that he had a scar on his face, but with his new pride in his
appearance it did not really fit into his aesthetic and therefore decided make up was the best
route.

It took a little practice, but he got good at covering it, buying a few other products over time
from the drug store to help hide it entirely, and then it became part of his daily routine
without much thought on his part. Since he stopped complaining and acted very willing to be
their chef, the Dursleys stopped locking him in at night so that he could get up and make
them lusciously large breakfasts so (with a tiny, quiet alarm clock he’d also bought for
himself) now had almost as much time as he wanted to get ready in the morning so long as he
was neck-deep in cooking by the time his Aunt woke, got ready, and made it downstairs. He
took his time to brush his hair, brush his teeth, wash his face, fix his hat, cover his scar, and
adjust whatever hand me downs he was wearing at the time to be semi-presentable without
causing the Dursley’s any suspicion. Since he was doing the laundry his clothes were always
clean now and slightly more his size thanks to his rudimentary sewing skills and long nights
in the cupboard.

He also learned to get up earlier even so that he could do the homework he undoubtedly
never had time for the night before, and so went from totally failing to just-behind-Dudley
kind of failing. At least he was learning and knew he was likely an average, if not above-
average student on his own, and the fact he wasn’t actually stupid was reassuring despite the
fact his grades would not lead you to believe that. He had decided that getting into trouble
over his grades being higher than Dudley’s wasn’t worth it in the grand scheme of things—he
planned to learn as much as he could without letting that show in his grades, and knew he
wouldn’t be going to the same secondary school as his cousin. Once they were in different
schools he’d resolved to do a lot better but find a way to hide it… without being in Dudley’s
classes there had to be a way, even if he had to resort to giving his teachers the wrong home
address and phone number—he could probably beg Ms. Figg to pretend to be his aunt twice a
year when report cards came in; she didn’t seem like she was overly fond of Aunt Petunia in
the first place and was kind to him, if not very weird with the cats and the cake thing. For
parent teacher nights he doubted his aunt and uncle would even go in the first place, so there
was less of a concern there.

And even if they found out… well, he’d cross that bridge when he got there, but he knew his
future was important. While he was still ten, quickly approaching being eleven, this tenuous
peace he’d set up for himself was more important. When he was older and only a couple
years from graduating and taking tests that would determine his future, he knew peace was
not a suitable excuse for harming his potential chances at a life-after-the-Dursleys. He’d
likely not be able to hide his better grades indefinitely and had already resigned himself to
spending a couple years as a fifteen or sixteen-year-old either back in the cupboard, or in the
shed for good this time. Locked in and hungry.

He was already not thrilled with the prospect and would do anything to hide it as long as he
could, but he’d thought it out and knew two hungry years was worth it for a better future
away from this place, and these terrible relatives of his.

It was this grim acceptance and this decision made that had him sneaking books from the
library into his cupboard as well as his other goodies. If he was going to submit to go hungry
and be reduced back to the Dursley’s pet “freak”, and he already knew he would have to
endure it, he might as well make it all the more worth it in the end and study up as much as
he could. He wasn’t a brilliant student but he had plenty of hours alone in a dark cupboard to
read and get caught up, or even get ahead with his curriculum.

All in all, life continued. Harry got the hang of how to navigate it without too much issue, as
his insane workload became routine and he became an expert at avoiding most forms of
trouble by keeping his mouth shut and slyly sidestepping minefields of potential trouble. He
kept his true thoughts, personality, dreams, hopes, ambitions—all of it he locked up tight
behind a politely blank mask that nodded in a submissive, obedient manner any time his
relatives commanded something of his and looked properly cowed or defeated at their
scathing insults despite their words having stopped meaning a thing years ago.

Any biting response or surge of injustice, unfairness and humiliation he felt was swallowed
and he just continued on the best he could, and planned. One day this act would be worth it,
and he’d be free, and that was what he kept telling himself—five dozen times a day, it
seemed.

One day. He promised himself. One day, I will be free. Survive until then.

It was a very uneventful day in the life and times of Harry Potter, as he continued on in this
manner and just kept living the best he was able to, when a letter with green handwriting on
the front dropped through the mail slot. He was commanded to get the mail and he did
without a word, letting the bacon sizzle for a moment to go collect it and deliver it to his
uncle’s hand.
 It was pure chance the top letter was facing upwards, and he caught sight of his own name as
he picked the pile up, and blinked rapidly down at the heavy, ominous thing of thick
parchment that looked very un-ordinary amongst a pile of otherwise very ordinary mail.

He wasn’t quite aware of it at that one particular moment, but his stable world had just
shattered.

Chapter End Notes

Also, yall can stop commenting about the 'thanksgiving feast', I just meant to describe a
big meal with a turkey and all the sides. I'm not changing it because some people are
allergic to context clues--also I don't care.
 Why We Hope

First of all, the universe was out to get him.

First the snake incident at the zoo, now this forsaken letter with his name on it. It was also
very clearly marked ‘cupboard under the stairs’ which was frankly just rude, as if the person
who’d written this letter was wholly aware and did in fact not care that the person he was
writing to lived in a cupboard. Perhaps he was just particularly touchy about it given his
growing (don’t say hatred, don’t say hatred, don’t say hatred)… dislike of the place of his
residence, but whatever the reason it hit his pride and self-respecting points dead on, at every
level.

Who do they think they are? He scowled to himself, before quickly clearing his expression.
He turned like nothing had happened and shoved it through the slot on his cupboard as he
passed by its door without missing a step, returning to the kitchen and placing the mail in his
uncle’s open hand as he bypassed the table and quickly resumed tending the cooking
breakfast before someone got impatient. Given that Dudley was already at the table, he had
able two minutes before he started complaining—maybe less really—and he wanted them on
their good sides for the time being.

Now was a very, very bad time to be causing trouble, and a letter written to him from a
stranger would only cause trouble. It was only a letter and Harry doubted it was anything
important but even so, any small hiccup was not appreciated at this moment.

It’d only been a week ago that what he dubbed the snake incident had occurred.

Truth be told when he’d realized he’d actually be allowed to go to the Zoo, even if it was for
Dudley’s birthday, he’d been ecstatic. Besides neighbors’ dogs briefly and the distant cat,
he’d never been able to interact with any kind of animal aside from frogs and garden snakes
he’d sometimes stumble across in gardening. He’d read about a lot of them and heard some
more from his cupboard while the Dursleys were watching TV, but to actually get to see them
in real life had sent his heart aflutter. It was something new and out there from this stable,
day-to-day survival game he played. He was going to see something out in the world and that
had been totally worth it even knowing that deviating from his routine introduced countless
ways for him to get into trouble with his relatives, or just trouble in general. He’d been on his
most perfect behavior possible, and even the lies and fake obedience couldn’t bother him as
they went out for the day to the zoo.

He’s seen all sorts of sights, not just the animals, that he’d never seen before. People, foods,
landscape. It was a bigger taste of freedom than he was familiar with and it was exhilarating,
and quite possibly the best day he’d had in a long time—if not his life.

But, as mentioned, the universe ws out to get him.

He was aware of the strange things that could sometimes happen to him, but nothing like that
had happened since he’d gotten his act together and started playing the Dursleys for fiddles.
He thought, in hindsight, that maybe his control of his emotions and his general state of
existence meant he was somehow controlling the weird things too. And that’s why, as he got
too excited with the sights and sounds of a day out at the zoo, something had slipped his
control.

He had had a very pleasant conversation with a boa constrictor which seemed to understand
him somehow (it did not occur to him at the time that talking to a snake that was nodding
back to him was weird, but again, hindsight being 20-20 it was most definitely a weird event)
when Dudley had caught sight of its lifted head and came running back to shove Harry out of
the way.

Have entirely expected this he managed to keep his footing and just stand to the side as
Dudley tapped harshly at the glass, the snake somehow looking less pleased with this other
human. Somehow. If snakes could have expressions, Harry was getting the vibe it didn’t like
Dudley much, and hey the feeling was mutual. It was a rough day when he was sympathizing
with a snake whose living quarters were… hold up a second, was this enclosure bigger than
his cupboard? For some reason that really annoyed him.

The snake turned its head to look him in the eye and yeah, Harry could sympathize. He
wanted… more than anything, to be free. And so it seemed did the snake.

It was that moment that the glass of the boa constrictor exhibit entirely disappeared.

It was a bloody miracle Harry’s reflex when Dudley went flailing forward was to snap his
hand out and fist into the back of his shirt, roughly pulling him back before he could fall in.
He did not want to imagine how badly he’d get punished if Dudley were somehow to fall into
a snake enclosure and the glass freaking disappearing in what he could only imagine was
another weird event was somehow blamed on him.

After that had been chaos—Dudley screamed and Harry dragged him back just as the snake
got the idea that he was free. Harry didn’t want to say he was jealous of a snake, but he was
definitely jealous of a snake as it slumped its huge body out of the enclosure with haste and
started slithering away to its freedom.

“Thanksss amigo,” he thought he heard it say as it slithered between the ankles of now-
panicking and fleeing tourists, and Harry had to force himself not to grin as he grabbed
Dudley’s hand and pulled him in the opposite direction that the snake was headed.

Good luck, he thought silently instead, hoping it miraculously did somehow manage to make
it back to Brazil.

Be it that his aunt and uncle ran up to them (or aggressively waddle, in Vernon’s case) and
Harry was pulling Dudley away from the danger or that he feigned a terrified expression in
such a believable way, his acting skills just so darn impressive that as he cried crocodile tears
and whimpered in the back seat of their car on the way home, whatever the reason they
perhaps thought he’d been punished enough without having to inflict any damage
themselves. Even as Piers, Dudley’s friend, had made the devastating jump to say Harry had
made the glass disappear, he was yelled at on the drive home and then ordered to make dinner
fit for a king to make Dudley feel better after that shock on his birthday.
He hadn’t been ordered to his cupboard though, which was a key distinction. His aunt and
uncle, a full week later, were being twice as nasty as they usually were, but their words meant
nothing to him anymore and he wasn’t locked in his cupboard until further notice. He thought
the combination of Dudley not actually having been hurt, them not actually having witnessed
the snake and only going of Dudley’s and Piers’ words, that he’d gotten Dudley out of there,
and acted sufficiently traumatized meant that he’d just barely gotten out of that one no worse
for the wear. Dudley had already forgotten and eventually his aunt and uncle would return to
their normal amount of hating him instead of remembering they hated him for any particular
reason, which would be for the best.

Of course then just as things were about to start settling down for real, a letter came,
addressed to him.

What an absurd thing, first of all—who in their right mind was writing to him of all people?
Secondly, if they knew the Dursleys at all they definitely hated him by trying that nonsense.
Thirdly, the address of ‘cupboard under the stairs’ very much bothered him. It ticked him off
in two parts: first in that they clearly knew where he slept and didn’t seem to care (if they
cared they’d address it in the letter, not on the front of the bloody envelop where the mail man
and literally everyone else could see that—how horribly humiliating) and secondly that they
had such terrible timing as to risk one of the Dursleys seeing that when he was in the middle
of trying to get them back on their good sides—Vernon sometimes came down late and
picked the mail up on his way to the kitchen, what if it’d been one of those days!? That
forsaken letter could’ve messed everything up.

With a silent sigh he pushed it from his mind and went about the rest of the day—school,
chores, dinner, chores, cupboard. Like every other day, especially now that he was trying to
avoid trouble, doubly so until the snake incident was put from their minds.

It was after dinner and his last minutes chores were done that he got back to his cupboard, the
Dursleys watching TV and Dudley undoubtedly breaking another video game upstairs. He
found the letter and shuffled up into a sitting position with a sigh to get it over with, his
curiosity finally coming back to the surface now that he had an opportunity to quench it. It
was a thick piece of paper, a kind he’d never seen before, and sealed with a chunk of melted
wax, an “H” stamped into it. Even more curious he opened it and read…

000

Dear Mr. Potter

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft
and Wizardry.

Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl no later than July 31.

Yours Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress

000

Harry stopped, blinked, and then re-read it. Rinse and repeat about four times.

This had to be a joke, right? Witches and wizards and things… then again, the snake incident,
ending up on a roof, his teacher’s wig… not to mention he could 100% imagine this is why
the Dursleys hated him for no apparent reason since as long as he could remember. They
hated Halloween even more than they hated him, surprisingly enough, so if they’d somehow
known he was… what was it, a wizard? If they’d known that all along it would make a lot of
sense than that they just literally hate their own nephew for no good reason. They’re stupid,
and cruel, but they’re not smart enough to have held a grudge for what amounts to a decade
over stupid little things like the fact they “put clothes on his back” or “feed him”. They were
terrible people but if they were going to hate him constantly for ten years then it’s because of
something that hasn’t changed in all of those ten years. Him being not normal would explain
a great deal and fit pretty well into what he already knew of his relatives—and he knew quite
a lot given he’d spent the past two years learning to manipulate them into allowing his
continued, unimpeded existence.

Besides, as he read through the included equipment and books list, they were… very detailed.
If it was a joke then someone had even less of a life than Harry himself did in taking the time
to come up with some of this stuff just to prank people with.

His mind said yeah, it was a joke. How could it not be?

But that side of him that’s been wanting nothing more out of life than to be free whispered…
hey, maybe it wasn’t. Wouldn’t it be grand if it were real? That old, reoccurring dream of him
flying on a motorbike… that could very well be real too if witches and wizards and magic
truly did exist. That silent wish he’d had when he was younger and miserable in his dark little
closet, of someone appearing to take him away… even if this were just a cruel, cruel joke,
that tiny spark of something inside of him that hadn’t quite given in to being a realist and a
child wanted this to be true more than anything he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

If magic were real, and he got to go to a school away from the Dursleys and learn things like
flying on a motor bike and… glancing at the list, reading things like potions and broomsticks,
he felt his imagine itch to be let free and just picture himself over a big cauldron of some
crazy concoction or flying through the air on a broomstick like a real witch from picture
books…

…he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe this. But… he didn’t give up hope either.

There was only one way to figure this out for certain, and so he made a plan. Until he knew
either way, he wasn’t going to get his hopes up (more than they already were, gosh darn it…
if this was a joke he was going to kill someone, he swore), but he also wasn’t going to pass
this opportunity up just quite yet. The disappearing glass and the jumping onto the roof…
that wasn’t in his head, he knew that, and that meant he had one concrete reason not to
dismiss this just yet. He didn’t have an owl or whatever that meant, so he’d send it by normal
post tomorrow—there was a blue mail box outside the school that would work so the
Dursleys didn’t catch him. He also didn’t have any spare paper, but he did have a pen stashed
away for notes somewhere in here, so he shifted around until he found one, and then flipped
the thick paper over to write his response.

000

Dear Deputy Headmistress,

I wasn’t aware magic was real and that there was a school for it, and I’d like a confirmation
this isn’t a joke first. If it is, you’re a cruel person.

I also have several questions about the way this letter was written and delivered as it caused
quite a bit of trouble.

Strangers and letters are not welcome at this address, however to respond please send to the
address listed below marked with ‘hold for Harry Potter’ and I will retrieve it.

Sincerely,

Harry Potter

P.S—why are first years not allowed brooms?

000

He re-read and it and thought it was fine, there was just too much to ask in his first letter and
he wanted to hear what they’d say. If their story was too convoluted or they avoided
answering questions, then it was probably fake, but if it sounded legitimate…

He pressed his lips into a thin line considering that, but pushed it aside for now and added the
address to the public library nearby to the bottom of the missive—it was on his way home
from school if he took one of his longer running routes and figured it was a safer bet than
here. He’d seen some people receive letters this way for one reason or another, and although
it clearly annoyed the librarian she’d never had a problem with him coming in at odd times to
sit quietly in a corner and read, and figured he could get away with it just for a couple letters.

He folded the letter back over so his response was on the inside and wrapped it in spare
notebook paper, pinning it down with the wax seal he’d picked off the original letter and
applying enough pressure that it stuck well enough and wrote “Miverva McGonagall—
Hogwarts” on the front. It was sketchy as heck and yet another reason this was absolutely
going to be just a joke and nothing more but… honestly, what did he have to lose?

He slept very poorly that night, trying to clear his mind of thoughts and just enjoy rest while
he had it because he had to wake up early as always, but the stupid cupboard he was trying
very hard not to actively hate was driving him up the wall more than usual. Images of
broomsticks and magic wands and magic in general kept trying to take over and he wanted
desperate to just let go and believe in it but he couldn’t.

His cynical side was already preparing himself mentally to put up his masks for the Dursleys
when this inevitably turned out to be a very poor joke and the little hope that had blossomed
in his chest was squashed out entirely. He couldn’t just give in and start dreaming nonsense
without proof that it wasn’t going to turn right around and bite him on the behind as soon as
his got a response to this letter and that tiny bit of hope went out like a snuffed candle. His
life here was only bearable because he knew what to expect and how to handle it; he’d
already braced himself against the Dursley’s hateful words and now they could skate off his
skin like water. If he got his hopes up… and it didn’t turn out…

His heart clenched in the darkness—the house long since quiet as the rest of its inhabitants
went off to sleep while he lie there thinking troublesome thoughts.

He both wished that this letter were true and that it had never shown up in today’s mail to
give him hope.

Because if that hope go crushed… that tiny part of himself that was still a child who believed
in things like magic and promises and goodness in people would die, right then and there. He
wasn’t sure he was ready for that, and he was afraid.

He hadn’t been this afraid in a long time, not since he’d gotten a handle on things in his life.
He could only lie there and helplessly, pathetically desperately pray to anyone who was
listening that this wasn’t going to hurt him more than life already did.
 Trust Once Given

Harry couldn’t handle his own emotions when he got back to the Dursley’s after school the
following day, and he knew his expression was a total mess and honestly didn’t care.

He’d mailed the letter that morning on his way in and while it was stupid he’d decided to
check the library on his way home—he blamed the utter torture this whole ordeal was
causing him by messing with his emotions. He could handle himself when only faced with
the Dursley’s hate, like leaning against a brick wall that was marching forward at you and
pushing it back. In the face of their disgust and ill-opinions, which they’d instilled in pretty
much everyone in the local community too, all he had to do was not crack. Someone insults
you, don’t cry. Someone throws something at you, don’t flinch. It was a simple cause and
effect—no matter what, don’t break from the blank mask he was wearing.

Now though, it’s as if the wall he’d been pushing against had grown hands and leaned back—
not only was he off-balance from this ever-present force suddenly not coming at him as it
once was, but that force was hitting him from several new angles and he wasn’t quite sure
how to roll with those punches. Was he supposed to be happy or angry about this Hogwarts
business? And if he didn’t know how he was supposed to feel, then how was he supposed to
act the opposite? What was he supposed to be feeling or doing right now, and how could he
hide that from the world?

He didn’t have answers and he didn’t know how he felt much less how he should feel, so he
checked the library in the vain hope there’d be a response already.

So it was therefore a bit of a shock, and not necessarily a pleasant one, to see yet another
letter with his name on it at the front desk, a frowning librarian reminding him not to send
post here as she handed it to him. That had been way faster than he was expecting, and he
understandably freaked out, just barely keeping it together to not have the librarian kick him
out before he marched quickly and quietly to the back corner of the library where old
slightly-outdated encyclopedias lived. It was a rare day anyone came back here, so he knew
he had a bit of privacy for the moment.

And privacy is what he needed, because there was no bloody way he was going to go straight
back to the Dursleys and then have to act normal while he cooked and did his chores
knowing this letter was sitting unopened in his cupboard. He needed to know what it said,
and he needed to know now.

He ripped it open much faster than the last one, and his heart beat a little faster to see that it
was actually a pretty long response—his eyes snapping to the text and drinking it in.

000

Dear Mr. Potter,

It is alarming news to hear you are unaware of magic, as I was under the impression your
aunt and uncle would have informed you of this rather pertinent fact. Be assured I am not
joking; you are a wizard as were both of your parents—both of whom were students of mine
in the past. Rest assured James Potter and Lily Evans were most definitely magical, and you
clearly were as well last I saw you when you were but an infant.

We have representatives who we have meet with students who were born to non-magical
parents and not aware of magic before they receive their Hogwarts letter, however since you
were on our list as being of magical decent and thought to have been previously informed by
your aunt and uncle, I will have to make secondary arrangements for someone to come meet
with you and answer some of your questions.

I am a tad concerned about your comment that no strangers or letters are welcome at your
residence, but I will oblige for now. I will have someone meet you at this address you’ve
provided this Saturday at 10am who will answer more about magic and help you gather your
school gear for this coming year—if you accept this invitation to our esteemed school, that is.

To answer what I can for now, Hogwarts letters are generated by a self-writing quill with the
addresses of students that is magically tracked in our ledger, which records when a magical
child is born and to whom they are living with. I do not actually handle the letters more than
signing off on them, and the owls take them on their way. Owls are how the magical
community delivers letters, as they’re extremely intelligent and can find their target anywhere
in the world without our interference. I do not know what the owl who delivered your letter
did nor what was wrong with it upon delivery but with more details I can look into it.

On that note, you may leave your letters for delivery outside at will with it addressed to
‘Hogwarts’ and an owl will come and collect it—they are on standby until newly accepted
students reach Hogwarts their first time.

I look forward to hearing from you Mr. Potter,

Sincerely,

Minerva Mcgonagall

P.S—You did not know magic existed until you got your letter just now and are already asking
to ride a broom. They are dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing and as a first year
you’ll be allowed to take flying lessons with school-issued brooms, able to practice on them
all you like under supervision, just not a broom of your own for the first year. We don’t want
young children just barely learning to control their magic flying off, never to be heard from
again. Please take this warning seriously.

000

Harry read it twice.

The first thing that struck him, is that she seemed a little desperate in that last sentence and
wondered what that was about. He didn’t want to disappear forever of course and figured
riding a broom would be similar to riding a bike—not that he’d ever done that before either,
but he wouldn’t go full speed the moment he got on either one of those rides and was a bit
worried about why she seemed worried he would.
Then again, magic probably had tons of dangers he knew nothing about, having grown up in
the normal world.

Then it hit him—he believed her.

He had to sit down and crouch behind a bookcase and breath deeply for several minutes until
the shock wore off and his heart stopped trying to make a mad dash from his chest because
holy hell he believed her.

Magic was real, he was a wizard…

He looked up and cleared his eyes, focusing on his next steps. Because magic was real, he
was a wizard, and he needed a plan.

000

Getting a day free of the Dursleys was not hard; he’d had a contingency plan in place for
several months in case he needed to get out for one reason or another. He’d been saving it for
a rainy day, but this definitely counted as a worthy occasion.

Thursday night he quietly approached his aunt as she straightened up the living room he’d
already cleaned, arranging pillows he’d already fluffed up an inch to the left and clicking her
tongue like she was put upon to have to tidy up her own house that had already been cleaned.

“Aunt Petunia?”

“What is it.” She snapped, not even looking at him.

“I have detention this Saturday at school.”

That got her attention and her beady eyes went to him immediately, then down to the paper
he was holding in his hand. She snatched it from his grip and sneered at it.

“What is this? A—a zero!?”

The test in question was peer-reviewed and since no one bothered to be his partner he’d
looked it over himself. He’s purposefully done poorly, but still got a C on it. He’d erased his
own pencil markings and gone back over it with a bright red marker to mark every one of
them wrong though, putting a bright “F” on the top for her enjoyment. He knew for a fact she
wasn’t going to actually read through it, nor would she know off the top of her head any of
the specific geography questions on it even if she did. They were covering world countries
after all, and she didn’t even really care about her own neighbors much less the capital cities
in Africa.

Her reaction was as expected, and she sneered impressively, clearly trying to keep from
grinning.

“It’s almost an achievement to be this stupid. Do they want you in supplementary lessons
then?”
“No, the teacher said I was too dumb to fix and just gave me detention so I’d not get another
zero.” He was quiet and subdued like this hurt him to say. He didn’t care when she let out a
wild cackle, glad he didn’t over-do it.

“That’s rich,” she hissed in mirth, forgetting to sneer and now just grinning at the paper
before shoving it into his chest. “Go hang this on the fridge boy, next to Dudley’s. Enjoy your
detention.”

“I’ll be gone all day… should I do chores when I get home?”

“No—when you get home go straight to your cupboard as punishment.” She said, but her
grin clearly said she didn’t give a flip that he was actually punished for this, and probably
really wanted him to fail again just so she could be this amused in the future too. He wasn’t
pleased about the cupboard situation, but it was probably for the best as the day might tire
him out and this way he could sneak in and claim he was in his cupboard longer than he was
if the outing took longer than expected. And they wouldn’t be expecting to see him at all,
which would make the cover easier.

“Yes, Aunt Petunia.” He took the paper back to the kitchen to hang on the fridge and start
dinner.

Now, he only had to wait for Saturday to come.

000

Meeting Hagrid was a surreal experience.

Not only was he HUGE and wild-looking, but he coupled the terrifying look with a bright
pink umbrella and one of the sweetest personalities Harry had ever had the chance of
meeting. Giant, hulking, intimidating as his presence was as he lumbered up the street and
straight up the walk to the library and the front bench where Harry was waiting, as soon as he
noticed the wide-eyed look he was getting from the small child on the bench, his beetle-black
eyes lit up in sparkles and even through the crazy beard he had you could tell the man was
grinning happily.

“Is’at you ‘Arry? Blimey if you ain’t grown!”

First of all, how did this man know him? Secondly, who was he? The first answer was
reasonably quick to come as he was probably the representative McGonagall said she’d send,
so even though he’d half been expecting her or another woman, (and this guy was the polar
OPPOSITE) he quickly got his composure back, clearing his throat.

“Um… who are you?”

“Name’s Hagrid—Keeper o’ the Keys at Hogwarts! McGonagall told ya someone from

Hogwarts would be comin’ to show ya around the Alley, right?”

Harry smiled a bit hesitantly, but earnestly. “Right, she did say that. I’m Harry… but ah, you
knew that…? Somehow?”
“Sure thing I do!” He beamed, and Harry got the vibe of a puppy. It softened him a little bit
to this stranger. “I knew yer parents when they were at Hogwarts—dat father o’ yours was a
right prankster so I chased ‘im and his friends away from the forest for seven years ya know.
And I was there when you were a baby—I ‘elped drop ya off at yer aunt’s that night yer
parents were killed, and you was just so tiny. Look at you all grown!”

Harry blinked rapidly. That was a lot to take in. But… this man knew his parents, just like
McGonagall did. Harry felt himself trust him, just a little more.

But one thing bothered him.

“Have you ever met my aunt?”

“Ah, no, can’t say I ‘ave. Did she want ta come with, today?”

“No, she definitely doesn’t.” He smiled a bit nervously, brushing that thought off as quickly
as possible. “I, um… this is going to sound a bit stupid but… magic is real, right? This isn’t a
joke?”

The giant man’s eyes darkened. “Oh ya, McGonagall told me yer aunt and uncle never said
anything about you bein’ a wizard. Well ya are, I promise ya that! I’m not suppose ta do
magic so I can’t prove it out here where there could be muggles about, but I can show you
Diagon Alley—where ya can buy yer school stuffs, and there’s tons o’ magic to be seein’
there. Yer Lily and James’ son and they were some o’ the finest witch and wizard I ever met,
I promise you—yer gonna be a wonderful wizard Harry I’m sure of it!”

Quite frankly, Harry was touched.

He might have teared up, it was hard to say. He had a lot of practice in schooling his
expression, but in that moment he didn’t feel like using any of those learned skills at all. This
giant lump of a man was just so bright and earnest he felt his face reflecting that earnest
automatically—and it kind of alarmed him.

True to form though instead of bursting into tears he quickly changed gears before he started
bawling. “Thanks Hagrid—ah, what are muggles exactly?”

“Non-magic folk,” he supplied easily, either not noticing or not caring about the sudden shift
in conversation as his black eyes grinned down at him cheerily, and Harry had a feeling it
was the former. All that told him though, was that Hagrid was a bit slow on the uptake… and
he was genuinely kind, to have said something like that for no other ulterior motive than that
he believed it to be true.

Okay, he definitely teared up a bit.

No more, he reminded himself quietly. You wanted to be free, didn’t you?

… Harry took a breath and smiled widely up at the Keeper of the Keys looking curiously
down at him.

“Okay. I believe you, Hagrid—let’s see what this is all about.”

 000

“Bit hot for a hat, don’t ya think?” Hagrid commented casually as they rode the subway
wherever it was that they were going. Boring as traveling was most days, watching Hagrid
try to navigate a bus, a train, and a subway, commenting all the clever ‘muggle inventions’ a
bit too loudly and then whipping out a huge crochet blanket to work on while they rumbled
along their way out of seemingly nowhere, was far more entertaining than it had any right to
be. As they went along Harry asked question after question and learned quite a bit in a
relatively short amount of time.

First, Hagrid was knowledgeable about the magical world on a basic level but was the
equivalent of a janitor or groundskeeper at Hogwarts who actually didn’t care much about
daily news or magical advancements, seeing as he couldn’t use it for some reason (and don’t
think Harry didn’t notice him clutching that pink umbrella and get shifty when talking about
that—right off the bat Harry was fully aware that Hagrid could not lie to save his life, which
was good). He was also not a very good teacher as he skimmed over things far too hastily,
taking for granted that he apparently grew up knowing this stuff and it was all brand new to
Harry—had he not been paying more attention to everything Hagrid was saying that he’d
ever paid attention to someone in his life Harry was sure he’d be lost in seconds. He was also
confirmed to be a bit slow, and also insanely loyal to this Dumbledore fellow, who Harry
took no time at all extracting from Hagrid was the one who placed Harry with the Dursleys
and the Headmaster of this school he was now invited to attend.

From the way Hagrid spoke of the man, he was Jesus 2.0. Hagrid was earnest and easily
manipulated and this Dumbledore seemed to be in a position of power and highly respected,
meaning he knew damn well how to play a good game of words, Harry had no doubt. He’d
known Hagrid less than two hours and was already a bit miffed over the fact this Headmaster
was manipulating someone nice like Hagrid, but then again, people let themselves be
manipulated at the heart of things and this Keeper of the Keys was easy pickings. He couldn’t
fault this mystery guy since Harry was actively coercing information from him under the
guise of a friendly conversation himself, and he had good intentions, so… he’d hold off on
judgement of this Headmaster for the moment. Regardless, Hagrid was happy as he was, so
Harry made a note to come back to that thought train later.

In his series of questions, he’d started with why he was accepted at Hogwarts. Turns out all
magical children got an invite, so score. Then he asked about school supplies and how he’d
pay for it—apparently this “Diagon Alley” was a place where you could buy everything (odd,
but sure why not), and there was a bank run by actual goblins who Hagrid warned not to mess
with and that his parents had left him a trust vault that would cover his school supplies. He
asked about who was in charge of the magical world—did they have a king? A democracy?
—and it turns out they had a Ministry of Magic with a Minister and parliament called a
‘Wizamont’ or something. Apparently Dumbledore also sat on that and Harry only got more
suspicious because clearly he was someone to keep an eye on. A Headmaster of the only
wizarding school and a politician? Uh-huh.

Thanks to Hagrid’s rather long, rambling answers, just those questions took most of their
time and they were approaching their stop when Hagrid popped in the query about his hat in
the moment of silence as Harry pondered what his most pressing next question should be. If
he hadn’t known that Hagrid was 100% just curious and held no judgement for why he was
wearing a hat in the middle of July (he was wearing a huge coat, after all) Harry would’ve
deflected the question. As it was, he paused, and then the voice sounded that this was their
stop and he couldn’t answer in the bustle to get off—coming up the stairs to stand in the
middle of a busy London sidewalk.

Harry had only ever been to this part of London once or twice, and soaked up the scenes
around him eagerly.

“In here!” Hagrid pulled him off to the side, pointing down the street to a very shabby
looking pub. “That’s the Leaky Cauldron—an entrance to the Wizardin’ World if ya know
how to look.” He grinned excitedly.

“What’s to stop normal—uh, muggles from just walking in then? I thought you said it’s a big
secret.”

“Muggle-repelling charms. Watch—most people can’t see it, der eyes slide righ’ by.” He
pointed at some passersby who gave him funny looks, but watching those who weren’t
glaring at Hagrid, he did notice that they seemed to turn their heads past it as if looking from
the shop on one side, to the shop on the other side of the pub as if the bar wasn’t even there.
That was kind of cool, actually.

“Now that I think o’ it, the hat was a good idea! Everyone would be wantin’ ta shake yer
hand and we only got a coupla hours, don’ we?” Hagrid mused to himself as they made their
wat towards the pub, and Harry paused.

…what?

“Shake my hand? Why?”

Hagrid blinked, as if realizing something and looking down at the boy beside him. His face
went alight in realization.

“…ah!”

000

Harry gripped the edges of his beanie, and pulled it as far down as he could to bury his face
out of view, groaning a bit as his head spun from this information.

Hagrid was kind enough to buy him something called a butterbeer in this dingy wizards’ pub
(and it was delicious, score!) but the fascination at the tasty drink and his wandering eyes at
all the strangely dressed people in the room was thrown from his mind the second Hagrid
started explaining.

He was famous. His parents had been bloody murdered. There was some Dark Lord out there
everyone was too afraid to even say the name of who he apparently killed as a one-year-old
(Hagrid looked ready to faint when said ‘Voldemort’ but Harry appreciated the effort, since
he knew Harry would need to know even if he really hadn’t wanted to say it).
He was famous as The Boy Who Lived in this magical world and Hagrid had been told he
was sent to live in the muggle world to be raised since Dumbledore didn’t want him growing
up with fame going to his head, or something like that.

Harry thought back to the cupboard waiting for him later tonight somewhere in suburban
Surrey and decided he did not appreciate this Headmaster meddling in his life one bit. Given
that Hagrid was his #1 fan he kept that thought to himself though.

He was suddenly very grateful for his hat that he was hiding his face in—and more
importantly thrilled that he’d gotten into the habit of hiding his scar. What fresh hell would
that have been, given the way Hagrid was talking about it, he wasn’t sure he could handle
total strangers he did not trust half as much as he trusted Hagrid (which wasn’t total trust
since he’d met the man today after all, but still he trusted this groundskeeper more than any
Dursley already, that was for sure) coming up to him and babbling about something that
happened when he was one, and something that resulted in the death of his parents at that.

Yeah, no thank you. Hard pass on that one.

“And you’re telling me most of the wizarding world would recognize me on sight? How?”

“Don’ know about that—someone musta seen you at some point and there’s tons o’ books
written about you.” Hagrid shrugged, sipping his own large mug happily.

Harry couldn’t even begin to process that statement on top of everything else, so he shelved
it.

“Plus, yer father was a good man and well liked in school—plus ‘Potter’ is an old family
name. Mosta the old families could recognize a Potter anywhere.” Hagrid continued on,
oblivious to Harry’s silent struggling beside him.

So he looked like his father? He pressed his lips together thoughtfully.

“I look like a Potter? I’ve never seen pictures of my parents; you think I look like my dad?”

Hagrid paused and looked down at the small boy beside him, frowning and his shiny black
eyes narrowing. “I’m really not likin’ these muggles much, ‘Arry.” He hummed deeply.
“They never even showed ya a picture o’ them?”

“Ah… no.”

“Hogwash!” Hagrid burst out, causing Harry to jump a bit in surprise. “What downrigh’
‘orrible muggles—yer Lily and James’ child and ya don’ even know wha’ they look like!
Absolute cobswallop!”

Harry didn’t really recognize that term but just went with it, trying to get off this topic and
back to the point before his curiosity killed him.

“Please Hagrid? I’ve never seen my parents and I’m dead curious—do I look like my dad?”
He insisted, shamelessly pulling at the ‘poor orphan’ heartstring and it worked like a charm
when Hagrid’s anger derailed and gave the boy his undivided attention. He had tried it before
but no one had actually cared that he was an orphan before as there was a surprisingly large
amount of heartless adults in his life and he had no problem playing dirty to get at those kinds
of people. He felt a little bad using it on Hagrid, but he was curious darn it!

“Oh no, o’ course ya do! Ah, well, actually ya got yer mother’s eyes o’ course… and I see
more in yer face o’ her’s than his actually.” So no, was what Harry was hearing. He looked
like his mother.

He looked like his mother.

He smiled at that.

“Ah! Hey there Hagrid, showing a new student around the Alley?” A toothless man came
hobbling up to them, pointing at the mug. “Can I get ya another?”

“Blimey, look at the time! Nah, thanks Tom we got to get going. Need to get young ‘Arry
here his books!” Hagrid said a little too loudly—though thankfully no one but this Tom
fellow was paying him any attention.

At his words though the man’s eyes went wide and he studied the boy in front of him closely,
blinking once.

“Harry Potter?” He said in an awed, reverent tone. Harry was instantly creeped out.

“Uh… hello.” He greeted awkwardly, sinking behind Hagrid slightly and fixing his beanie to
make sure even his make-up concealed scar was firmly out of sight. The motion seemed to
knock some sense into Tom and he jerked back slightly.

“It’s an honor to meet you, my boy—I hope you enjoy the Alley today, feel free to come back
for a nip any time!” He greeted cheerily, clearing up their drinks with a bright smile shot his
way and hobbling off. Harry was thankful he seemed aware enough to keep his voice down
throughout that exchange, an no one else looked up from their drinks to pay him any mind.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He did not want that kind of tone and ‘honor’ talk from literally
everyone he met—he might go insane.

“Tom’s a good guy, he owns this place an’ is a trustworthy kinda guy,” Hagrid explained as
he got up, Harry quickly following him to the back of the pub. Not that Harry didn’t believe
that statement, but he didn’t believe Hagrid wasn’t just spouting rhetoric he’d been told
either, so he kept his right to reserve judgement until further notice about how trustworthy
that Tom guy was or was not.

“Now pay attention, as this is ‘ow ya will get to an’ from, ya just gotta tap these bricks.”
Hagrid instructed, using his pink umbrella to tap a couple bricks in a specific pattern.

Harry wasn’t sure what he was expecting, given that he only believed in magic in theory at
this moment and had never seen practical magic performed in front of his face just yet, but
the wall moving on it’s own to fold back and basically break every rule of physics he only
vaguely knew about to melt away was a shock and a half to his system.
And that shock was quickly outdone by the absolute gut-wrenching sight of what lay beyond
the wall.

“Welcome to Diagon Alley, ‘Arry!”

 Greed for Life
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

He imagined it like a stone cocoon, his soul. Everything light and optimistic inside of him
was like a small flickering candle flame in the middle of a hurricane-force gale, and the only
way he’d managed to protect it even a little bit was by wrapping himself in a stone cocoon,
its surface cold and slick to the touch as it was battered by the howling winds and torrential
downpour that was his life.

He imagined that his tiny little light had been a bonfire once, that long ago he’d been a happy
and warm person until the storm came and extinguished most of it. And locked up inside a
statue, there was only so many ways a candle flame could flicker.

The cynical stone had been getting colder, that tiny flame in mortal danger of languishing,
and with this discovery of a magical world and promises of freedom, something whispered at
him constantly even as proof began to unfold under his eyes. The owls, Hagrid, the Leaky
Cauldron… clue after clue piling up but it didn’t hit home until the wall fell and a world he’d
never imagined existed in this universe burst into life in front of him.

He had subconsciously been preparing himself for that tiny candle flame inside of him to be
snuffed out for good, when this turned out to be an elaborate lie meant to cause him pain. He
was already in too deep, his hopes too high, and when the disappointment came and he was
tasked with returning to a world with no magic and no warmth at all, facing a reality
somehow even harsher than it’d been before in light of the dream and the hope that’d been
cruelly given to him and then brutally ripped away… his heart would finally be fully cold as
stone and quiet as a grave. A part of him had been counting on that, preparing for it.

So it was an earth-shattering moment to feel that tiny flame burst inside of him, as if
someone had just poured gasoline all over its tiny warmth. Suddenly it wasn’t so weak and
gentle, it was roaring, and it warmed the stone that made its shell from the inside out. The
stone didn’t give way—it couldn’t afford to do that—but suddenly he cold winds barely
tickled.

Hagrid laughed beside him at whatever expression he had on his face, and for once Harry
didn’t care a bit what his face was revealing without his permission; there was other things to
worry about right then.

There was just… so much… color.

That was the first thing that hit him, the immense amount of color crammed into such a
relatively small space. It was filled with noises and smells that were both pleasant and not but
it was all at once and everywhere and Harry just didn’t know what to look at first. So he just
stared, feeling his heart stuttering and skipping beats like he was actively drying, but his
mind was too dazed to even care about his imminent death.
“We shouldn’t stand in the doorway ‘Arry, come on,” Hagrid chirped, guiding him with one
huge hand down onto the street, Harry just gaping and looking every which way trying to
take it all in at once.

“This is…” Truly, there were not words for what this was.

His heart clenched painfully, but he liked it.

“S’a lot to take in at firs’, isn’t it?” The giant man beside him chuckled. “Ya look to be havin’
a hard time takin’ it in so why don’t we walk up n’ down the street once to see the sights. We
got some time, eh?”

Harry could only nod mutely and let himself be lead down the street, his head on a swivel to
take in each shop and what it sold… trying to wrap his head around some of the odder sights.
A shop for broomsticks, for owls and other animals, for wizard robes, for wands, an
apothecary… there was just so much. He didn’t even know where to start, he could only gape
as he walked.

They got the end of the street and turned around back down, and by that time Harry could
breathe a little more easily and was actually trying to take in the information around him now.
All these people… they were witches and wizards? They wore those robes he saw those in
the Leaky Cauldron wearing so that must be a thing here. The odd colors the robes could be
looked a little last-century to be honest but hey, Harry was somehow into it.

Somewhere along their journey Hagrid seemed to get bored with just walking and figured
Harry had had enough time to get over his shock, picking up the conversation gain. “See that
big white building where we’re headed? That’s Gringotts—the bank I’s tellin’ you about and
our firs’ stop.” He looked forward for once and did notice that impressive and slightly-out-of-
place building and figured that yes, it sure looked like a bank. “An’ ya know, ya never did
answer my question; that hat turned out to be pretty lucky but I’d a thought you’d want
people ta see ya now tha’ you know yer story?”

Poor, naïve Hagrid. Harry could only smile a bit fondly at him and shrugged.

“I don’t really want to be famous Hagrid, much less for something that killed my parents. It’s
not a pleasant thought to be thanked for something I didn’t even know about until fifteen
minutes ago.”

“Ah, I see.” Thankfully his guide just nodded, seeming content with that answer. Harry
blessed this simple, easy-going man and just grinned. “Then per’aps the hat’s a good idea
since people’ll recognize a Potter anywhere!” he acknowledged.

That still bothered him, since Hagrid had said he looked like his mother. Did that mean…?

“Did he have weird hair too?” He wondered aloud, and Hagrid chuckled.

“Oh yeah, wild as all be it—never once was it presentable I don’ think.” He seemed highly
amused at some memory and Harry was itching to hear more, but recognized now was not
the time as Gringotts came up on them. “Is that why ya hide it? Got more decency than James
ever did in tha’ respect then.” He huffed good-naturedly.

"Oh, well uh… my Aunt always hated my hair and I, um… it started changing unnatural
colors when I was younger so I've sort of… hidden it since." He shrugged a bit, trying to be
casual about it but obviously failing when Hagrid looked down at him in surprise, his steady
pace faltering a bit. He shouldn’t have said anything really, just kept his mouth shut and his
hair under his hat, but…

Maybe it was the warmth flooding through him or this new high he’d never felt before as he
realized just walking down this street he felt… light. He realized he wanted to trust Hagrid
and he wanted this chance to be real. This chance at freedom where he could actually be
himself and… well, the words came out before he could think better of them, but even as he
did think twice he knew he didn’t want to regret them.

No more.

"Unnatural colors? Well I'll be! Tha's not too strange fer wizards, ya know—a
metemorphmagus can change all sorts o' colors and faces." Hagrid chatted, fully stopping
now and beaming down at him. “Yer dad had dark hair ya know, and tha’s the Potter
signature I was talkin’ aboubt.”

"R-really?" He paused, breath leaving his lungs. He carefully looked around the alley,
bustling with life around them. "It wouldn't look weird here?"

And he realized, no it wouldn’t. This place, so bright and colorful alley… no, his bright hair
would fit right in actually.

“Not at all,” Hagrid unknowingly agreed with his thought process, waving it off as nonsense.

"Well…" He bit his lip… but, it was something he’d always wanted to do from the day he
decied he loved his hair; the day he turned around and decied that this was him and that was
okay.

He reached up and slid his hat off, heart beating a little too hard as he did so.

Hagrid's eyes widened in surprise… and he smiled. "Ah… you look just like your mother,
'arry. Her spittin' image."

"Really!?" He inhaled, slightly dizzy from relief that Hagrid didn’t scowl or react badly to the
burning locks now falling free around his face like that now-significantly-quieter cynical side
of himself half thought he would. He touched hair almost in awe, not quite believing he was
doing this… and realized people were looking at him, eyes trailing to his hair as they did so.
He couldn't tell if it was interest or not, but no one seemed horrified or anything…

"Aye—her hair was that exact color. She was mighty proud of it, she was, and I 'eard yer
father rant about it often enough. 'E was a lovesick fool all seven years of Hogwarts for her
so it was kind o’ well known. People called her a Fire Witch fer her 'air and her temper; was a
forced to be reckoned with it was!" Hagrid laughed good naturedly, seeming lost in memories
at the sight of his hair and not quite noticing Harry’s newly-dazed expression.

"This… is my mother's hair?" And just like that his love of it increased ten-fold. He didn't
want to hide it— he didn't want to hide it.

He was proud of it… and proud to be like his mother he’d never known. Apparently he had
her face, her eyes, her hair… and he was a little bummed he still knew next to nothing about
his dad, but it couldn’t put a damper on the rush he felt to finally be just that much closer to
at least one of his parents. He soaked up Hagrid’s words, committing them to memory and
reaffirming his vow to be kind to his hair—that he now knew he shared with a precious
connection he’d never gotten the chance to cultivate.

"It's unique fer sure, but not unnatural, ya know. Why da Weasley family's got halfa dozen o’
'em with bright red hair. Ah," He paused, tilting his head slightly as he glanced back
pointedly at the bright scarlet locks atop his head. "Ginger maybe, certainly next to yours,
'arry." He chuckled heartily at that as if entertained by the joke Harry didn't get.

"Oh, okay then… red hair is normal?"

"Normal enough." Hagrid shrugged, beginning to walk again and forcing Harry to half-jog to
keep up with him. "I doubt a muggle woulda ever been born with 'air like that; its definitely
got some magic in it. But yer mother had a ton 'o it and muggles never thought it weird—just
pretty like, ya know?"

"Oh. Oh."

Red hair was normal? That was news to him but… huh. He was too overwhelmed with all of
this to think on it too much, and besides that was the moment they reached Gringotts, and he
knew he needed his wits about him when he caught sight of that poem over the door.

000

Gringotts was a lesson and then some, and he was sitting in his vault (surrounded by piles of
gold—seriously, what alternate dimension had he been tossed into this morning) already
plotting on how to get back here and figure out the growing list of questions he had. He did
not think Hagrid was the person to answer any of them, and he didn’t even want to ask it to
the goblin—Griphook—who’d escorted them down because too many questions and there
was too much of a chance it’s be reported back to Dumbledore by Hagrid’s too-naïve nature.
He still hadn’t even met the Headmaster yet and was not willing to leave anything to the
chance that the mysterious man would somehow use it against him.

Not sure how, but as excited as he was about this whole magical-world business, he was
discovering he was super paranoid.

Eh, not much he could do about that right now, if even he wanted to.

There was however some specific questions that couldn’t wait, and since Hagrid was still by
the cart trying not to lose his last meal from the wild cart-ride and Griphook was standing by
the vault door looking bored and angry at the same time (maybe that was just his face
though) Harry lowered his voice so that it wouldn’t carry but not too low to give the
impression he was trying to hide something from Hagrid. Maybe he was aiming for shy or
soft-spoken, or somewhere in between.

“Mr. Griphook, do you know if anyone else has keys to this vault?”

The goblin looked at him sharply. “Absolutely not—this a trust from the main Potter vault
and your key is the only one that has access to it.”

“Oh… I was just thinking maybe there were relatives I didn’t know who had a spare key.” He
intoned a little sadly. Although the sadness was feigned, the words themselves was in fact not
a lie since he thought lying to a goblin was a bad idea (that poem by the front door was very
clear, thank you very much), however it wasn’t the main reason he’d asked either. Someone
had had his key before Hagrid, and he already had a main suspect. “Apologies for not
knowing much, but I didn’t know magic was real until this morning; is Gringotts like a nor—
uh, a muggle bank that is has statements and, like, everything? Sorry, I didn’t even know how
other banks work but since I’ve an account here I am just curious, if you know anything.” He
hedged.

The goblin took the bait of him implying he might not know the details and gave a sharp-
toothed grin that might also have been a snarl.

“Gringotts is no muggle bank, but it functions the same on many levels—you should have
been getting statements monthly since this was transferred to your name, so since the night
you became an orphan.” He explained sharply, his tone clearly implying he was gloating his
knowledge but Harry let him have it, taking in the information carefully as he filled the sack
Hagrid had gave him—and added more into the back pack he’d brought with him. He didn’t
think Griphook would give a flying frock since it was his money and Hagrid wasn’t looking.
“This is a trust vault off of the main Potter vault—you’ll get access to that one when you turn
of age at 17. I’m also aware you have several other vaults willed to you but have remained
untouched since you have not been present to accept them. Your account manager would be
able to open them for you.”

“Account manager?” He blinked.

“Your statements would have his name.” Griphook huffed. Harry frowned…

“So if I haven’t been getting statements, where would they have ended up?”

The goblin paused, eyes narrowing. “Gringotts doesn’t make such mistakes. The statements
were sent out.” His tone was ice cold and Harry realized his misstep.

“Definitely not, you seem more… ah, competent than most humans I’ve met.” He raised a
brow pointedly, the goblin’s icy look melting one degree or so. “As I said I didn’t know about
magic until this morning. Someone has clearly been keeping things from me, in my
perspective, not just about bank statements but literally everything else. I didn’t even know
my parents didn’t die in a muggle accident until half and hour ago if that proves my point.”
Goblin seemed to measure him up for a long while, and in that time Harry finished with the
gold and put his back pack on once more, going up to the door and pausing to stare back at
the goblin sizing him up.

Eventually....

“We will look into this matter and determine the location of the missing statements. If
they’ve been destroyed, we will have record of it and an indication of who has destroyed
them.”

Wow, that was surprisingly helpful. He ducked his head respectfully, even though the creature
was shorter than him by quite a bit.

“Thank you sincerely for your help.”

He sneered at him again, and Harry got the feeling that was just how goblins smiled.

000

The first thing he did upon leaving Gringotts was coerce his key from Hagrid’s overly large
hand. As expected, the giant’s first response was that Dumbledore said he shouldn’t be
wasting money unknowingly until he was older and knew more about the magical world.
What he didn’t say but that Harry filled in, is that Dumbledore would then hang onto his key
until he saw fit to give it back to its rightful owner.

First of all, why did the Headmaster of a boarding school have any say in his finances? If he
were some kind of guardian than Harry should’ve grown up with him, not the Dursleys, ergo
he was either a busy-body sticking his nose into the life of someone who wasn’t even his
student yet OR he was neglectful in that he was the one who was supposed to have been his
guardian and instead of fulfilling his role passed him off to muggles who very much did not
want him.

If either of those were true then Harry didn’t trust this Headmaster in the slightest and he was
absolutely not leaving this alley without HIS key in his pocket.

He felt a little guilty about it but easily brushed it off as he threw everything he had at Hagrid
—pulling the orphan card, the clueless card, the ‘you’re my friend, aren’t you Hagrid?’ card,
and literally anything else he could think of as the giant swayed over his loyalty to
Dumbledore and his newfound friend in the son of two people he once cared about.

By the time they were entering the first shop they needed to stop by for his school list, he had
his vault key tucked safely in his backpack in a small, secure zippered pouch. He genuinely
liked Hagrid, but the guy was way too easy. He made a note to keep an eye out as they
shopped for ways to secure valuable items—there had to be something safer than a zipper in
this magical world that could be bought for one of the shiny gold coins he’d filled his
backpack with.

The shopping itself was extremely fun, especially since he was counting the prices listed on
each item, using his rather average math skills and the information about how much knuts,
sickles, and galleons were worth to determine that he was indeed a very rich child all of a
sudden and could easily afford most of what he was seeing. It was one thing to see the piles
of gold and another to realize what one gold coin could buy you, and the answer was actually
quite a lot. Multiply that by the mounds of gold he now knew he had just in his trust vault
and he figured he and his grandchildren probably didn’t really need to ever work if they
didn’t live outrageously lavishly (ahem, like some certain Dursleys with their new cars every
two years and long vacations four times a year). If he wasn’t imagining things, a lot of stuff
in the wizarding world was way cheaper than its muggle equivalent—and trust him, he’d
spent a lot of time going pence for pence at the grocery store and drug store he spent his
stolen pocket money in to make sure he had just enough for the next small item he wanted.
Maybe because it cost less to make it magically? Magic did seem very convenient, after all,
but one would think it’d be a little closer.

He’d already read his equipment list back-to-front a dozen times and as they’d walked down
the street to the first shops and browsed through the paper shop first, he cataloged which ones
would be the most worth his time and decidedly-not-hard-earned-money. Hagrid had said a
trunk would be a big purchase, so there was that… and he knew books was going to be
another large purchase since aside from his textbooks he needed to know more about the
magical world than he currently did. He wasn’t particularly a bookworm but there was six
weeks until September 1st and he had a feeling he was going to get a lot of cupboard time
when he inevitably told the Dursleys he wasn’t going to Stonewall, so why not use that time
productively?

They stopped at a couple places along the way, getting parchment, quills, ink, and a new over
the shoulder bag as even Hagrid expressed concern about the one he was wearing holding up.
It was in that store that sold all sorts of bags and storage devices that he found a small draw-
string bag that the saleslady said was charmed to reappear in a location he chose every
morning regardless if someone has taken it, as well as that it only have something in it when
the person who owned it opened it. Fascinated by the up-close magic he put one sickle in it
and tested it out, having Hagrid open it and show him nothing was inside—he immediately
added it to his purchases knowing this is exactly what he’d been looking for, for his key.

The bag itself he went wild on despite Hagrid’s insistence that he didn’t need all of the bells
and whistles, telling him that they still had a trunk and other more expensive things to buy,
which would’ve been good logic had he known Harry had swiped quite a bit more gold than
Hagrid was aware of. He easily soothed the giant’s concerns and deflected the conversation
so his chaperon forgot what he was trying to say and instead launched into a detailed story
about someone named Fang instead, which Harry kept one ear on while also telling the
saleswoman that yes, he wanted all the bells and whistles. She smiled knowing, seeming
aware of what he was doing to poor Hagrid, but since she was making a sale happily rang it
up for him.

He was thrilled with his new purchase as it was a solid brown canvas thing with spells he was
now learning the meaning of—and loving it, by the way. Something called a feather-light
charm that meant no matter what he put into it, it didn’t feel any heavier than when it was
empty, a protection charm that would have it hold up for a guaranteed thirteen years, and a
security charm that would shock anyone who tried to forcefully remove it from him in
addition to the it’s-there-again-every-morning charm that was on his pouch. It was also
magically semi-bottomless, the saleslady explaining that the space inside of it was as big as a
“quidditch pitch” both length/width and height wise. Pretending to be a muggleborn, as
Hagrid had called them, she’d helpfully explained how big a quidditch pitch was in simpler
terms and basically by the end of it he was sure he’d never actually be able to even halfway
fill this bag.

He put all his new purchases and his old back pack into it so Hagrid wouldn’t see him
transfer the gold coins into it, which meant he could just reach in and pull coins out without
Hagrid realizing how much he was spending unless he was keeping a careful tally—of which
he was almost positive the large man was not. All in all, the bag was about six times as
expensive as the plain leather ones, but if a knut was worth a pence there about, then it was
only a slightly-more-expensive than average purse at best. He’d seen the price tags on some
of Petunia’s fashionable “name brand” purchases she got just so she could gloat to her
neighbors and this still didn’t come close to that.

Besides, it was a good purchase. Now he could have literally all his textbooks on him and be
prepared for any class in school, plus they’d only been to two shops so far and his hands were
already filled with bags so this was going to be a long day without the additional help. Again,
he liked Hagrid but he was clearly reciting his reminders to stay simple with his purchases
from someone else, and Harry had a feeling who. If he was right, then he wasn’t going to
listen to that advice in any way and keep on with his own prepping, thank you very much.

He kept it simple in he next couple stores, collecting odd bits here and there and taking note
of what else the store had to offer. By the till they had free catalogs from which to order by
owl and he helped himself to those happily, slipping them into his bag before Hagrid could
notice.

When they got to the store that seemed to have everything he needed for potions, which was
apparently a class at Hogwarts, he bought the basic set-up the list recommended and then
freely helped himself to several other more interesting purchases such as gloves, a slightly
nicer knife (by price at least, since he knew little about the quality difference between pewter
and silver and gold, etc.) and some odd bits and ends of potion ingredients not in the basic
kit. He didn’t know what they were for but potions struck him as something he’d be really
interested in and wanted to be prepared for it. For some reason Hagrid didn’t comment on
these purchases, and when asked why his answer was a bit chilling.

“Eh, well, Snape is the potions professor at Hogwarts an’ he’s a bit o’ a bat. Heard ‘is class
was a tough one and I never ‘ad a talent with potions in the firs’ place so if ya want a leg up I
can’t fault ya.” He shrugged, going back to keeping his large frame from bumping into any of
the closely placed and glass-lined shelves, which seemed to take quite a bit of concentration.

Hearing that and seeing his chaperon sufficiently distracted, Harry immediately turned and
scooped up pretty much one copy of every potions manual and guide on the nearby
bookshelf. It sounded like he was definitely going to need them. While checking out he even
asked the older gentleman at the till what kind of equipment more experienced potion
brewers bought and he was kind enough to exchange the knife Harry had picked out for one
of the same kind of silver but better quality (he made a better sale, but Harry let it go since
 the old guy seemed harmless) but other than that just said to stick with the guides he was
buying if he was still a first year, and read them cover-to-cover before he got to potions class.

“That Severus Snape is a genius potions master but if he ain’t got a stick up his ass,” He
croaked in a throaty voice, shaking his head in half amusement, half exasperation. He seemed
to be talking mostly to himself, but Harry made a point to remember that two separate people
had mentioned this Snape guy and his less-than-stellar character. Hagrid was one thing, but
this guy worked at a potions’ shop so one would assume he saw quite a bit of a potions
master coming in here to buy materials and such.

“Thank you sir,” was all he said outwardly though, smiling at the guy and going to leave—
before a pretty glowing ball a perfect periwinkle and covered in what looked to be dusted
sparkles caught his eye on the shelf behind the man’s white head. The whole shop has a
stereotypical muggle-idea-of-a-witch type feel with jarred animal parts and funny smelling
dried plants hanging from the ceiling, tools made of pewter and sharp silver lying
everywhere, so something that soft looking really stood out.

He had no idea what possessed him to blurt out, “What’s that?”.

But the guy just turned around and saw what he was looking at and smiled. “It’s an
atmosphere bulb, charmed to help regulate an area for a potions workstation. Some potions
are sensitive to humid or too-chilly air, so this keeps everything a standard temperature
optimal for potions.”

Harry blinked. Huh. That was… useful.

“So it heats in the winter, cools in the summer? How big a range does it have?”

“Sure does! It’s a little less than four-square meters in space—as I said it’s only for a potion’s
workstation. Some people have their workstations in drafty areas away from main living
areas because it can cause quite a mess.” He explained. Harry did some quick mental math of
a space he thought he might be able to use this in, an idea forming that caused him to smile.

“I’ll take two.”

Chapter End Notes

I don't know what it is about it but Harry-shopping montages are my guilty pleasure. I
put way too much detail in here for a story like this but it was fun to write :)
 A Friend or So

“Here we are, Madam Malkin’s! She’ll take care o’ ya, tell ya what to do and such, and I got
another errand to run. Will ya be okay?”

“Sure,” Harry peered into the shop, and it was mostly empty, an older witch in amongst the
piles of clothes spotting him and coming out from behind the counter. “I think it’ll be fine…
they just take measurements, right? The robes are standard.”

“Yep, all black is the Hogwarts uniform. Righ’ then, I’ll be righ’ back!” He waved and then
walked down the street somewhere else, and Harry entered the shop a little hesitantly. On one
hand being sans-chaperone felt good as he was more used to being on his own, while on the
other this was literally a whole new world and he found himself suddenly nervous to be
walking it alone.

Luckily the witch who walked up to him was no-nonsense and gentle as she nodded to him,
not even asking his name. “Hogwarts, dear?”

“Yes ma’am.” She smiled at his politeness and lead him over to a stage of mirrors where an
assistant pulled out a measuring tape and got to work while she wandered off and started
shifting through racks of black material. The lack of niceties was kind of refreshing after so
many conversations with salespeople today.

He was generally aware of someone else in the shop getting his measurements done beside
him, but as he hadn’t been chatting with the assistant taking his own measurements either, he
hadn’t really looked at the boy who seemed to be about his age too. Probably a future
classmate? Either way he was enjoying the silent reprieve while it lasted.

Until… he felt hairs on the back of his neck stand up a bit, like someone was watching him.
He blinked, glancing around the shop slightly so he didn’t throw off the assistant’s work as
she was doing something with fabric down by his feet now, and realized with a start the boy
beside him was staring right at him.

He had grey eyes and blonde hair is own startling unique shade styled artfully on his head,
face pale and blank and most definitely staring right at him.

Harry met his gaze, thinking for half a second he’d look away since he was caught staring
rather rudely at someone, but he didn’t. His grey eyes bored into him, looking at him and also
somehow not looking at him if that made sense? For lack of better option Harry stared back,
wondering what his deal was.

When the seconds dragged on a little too long and it was definitely in the realm of awkward
now, he cleared his throat lightly and shifted uncomfortably, not sure how to react to being
under this kind of strange scrutiny.

"Ah… can I help you?"

At his words breaking the silence the boy blinked and reeled back slightly, his pale cheeks
going slightly pink before he seemed to straighten up a full inch. "My name's Draco Malfoy. I
don't think I've seen you around here--are you muggleborn?"

There was an intensity behind that question that Harry failed to get, but at least he was
familiar with that term now. The boy was… weird, but getting his robes and definitely his age
so he was probably going to be a classmate. Harry had never really talked to kids his age as
they all hated him because of Dudley so… in the spirit of how well this day had been going
he decided, what could a conversation hurt?

"Ah, no? My parents were wizards, but uh… they died, so I grew up in the muggle world. So,
kind of?" He shrugged, aware he was probably oversharing, but he was curious about what
was up with this boy and… the blond did not immediately start throwing things at him upon
hearing him speak, so had nothing against the slightly blunt boy who was willing to talk to
him.

At his words, the boy—Draco— seemed to relax slightly. "So you're pureblood. And don't
know your way around the magical world."

Hagrid hadn’t explained that term but if there was a term for having muggle parents then the
slightly pompous title probably belonged to people with magical parents. The term alone
spoke volumes about the wizarding world, but maybe it was just antiquated and hadn’t died
out yet, so he let it go.

"Ah… yes, that's about it. It's nice to meet you Draco."

"Likewise." He sniffed briskly, not even sparing a breath before he continued. "I can show
you around the alley once you're done here. My family is old pureblood so we—I know my
way around here and what's best to get. You're a first year, I'm assuming?"

Harry was stunned and opened his mouth to answer the question before his brain could catch
up. “Yes, I am.” Wait a second, did he just offer to show me around the alley? He didn’t even
ask for my name! "That's… that's very kind of you Draco. I'm here with someone from
Hogwarts whose showing me around though, he just stepped out for-"

"The Malfoy family has better taste than what a Hogwarts representative, whose probably
shown a dozen muggleborns around the alley by now, can do for you." The blond cut him off,
puffing up a bit.

…what?

What in the world is he going on about?

Harry tried to collect his thoughts and cleared his throat politely. "I'm curious about the alley
though, so I was hoping to discover it myself." He deflected.

Yes, he was getting a bit defensive of Hagrid, and the way this Draco Malfoy was coming off
was a bit rude and snobby. At the surge of anger he felt threatening to break the control he’d
developed over his composure, he took a breath. He remembered Hagrid mentioning about
how his mother had had a temper too, and he wanted to be like her but not at the expense of
his hard work to control himself and the patience he’d painstakingly built over the past
couple years. He wanted to be like her, but his composure had gotten him this far in life and
it’d be stupid to throw it away now just because it wasn’t the Dursleys and their predictable
vitriol he was facing.

It was kind of counter-intuitive, but his spike of anger reminded him of his connection to his
mother, and inherently calmed him some. Because of this, the tone that came out as he said
this was level and polite, with only a hint of his displeasure at what this boy was saying.

The Malfoy boy seemed to be pretty quick on the uptake and paused at his words and the
tone in which they were said, his grey eyes shifting to the side slightly as Harry watched, like
he was panicking slightly.

"But we—I can give you a better idea of what kinds of things to get."

"But I'll never learn if I don't do it myself." Harry countered smoothly, watching those grey
eyes shift… something bothering him about it and causing him to lean back off his anger and
reevaluate. "I…I'd appreciate the company, Draco. But I can do it myself, you know?" He
spoke as gently as he could, wondering what his problem was… and figured it out when the
blond’s shoulder’s relaxed at his words.

Oh, he just wanted to make a friend.

A split-second later Harry felt guilty for getting angry as it suddenly made sense. I mean, it’s
not like he’d ever gone about making friends before either, so he would be nervous trying to
approach someone out of the blue too.

The pompous attitude, the way he was trying to say I instead of we meant he was trying to do
things for himself too, the same way Harry was attempting to stretch his wings from his
relatives— only this boy was just trying to impress a potential new friend. He acted tough but
you could clearly see he was acting to make a good show; he was just trying to be friendly…
and was just very, very bad at it.

Harry couldn’t help but find it startlingly amusing and automatically smiled broadly. The
whole picture the blond painted with his chin in the air and his cheeks lightly pink was very
endearing, and he'd never had a friend before either so…

Draco suddenly looked a lot less pompous when his pale cheeks turned a darker pink than
before, seeming not to know what to say in the face of Harry grinning out of nowhere.

"You're done dear," The attendant said to Draco, who seemed snap out of it and hop down,
but paused before going anywhere and glancing back up at the red head with more hesitancy
than before.

"I can wait for you?"

Harry could only smile: that was a lot nicer, so he knew Draco could do it at least, underneath
the bluster.
"I'd like that. My friend won't be back for a little bit, maybe we could check out the next
couple stores on our own." He offered as an olive branch, and the blond’s shoulders seem to
relax even more.

"Sure." He agreed easily, shifting a bit to stand and wait as Harry got his measurements done.
After a little while of awkward silence, he seemed to perk up in alarm and then suddenly got
a very guilty look on his face for split second before controlling it back into something more
blank. Harry had a fun time watching this play out in the mirror where Draco didn’t realize
he could see him.

The blond cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I… ah, I realize I never asked your name."

This guy is hilarious, Harry beamed internally, keeping his expression clear.

"Harry. It's nice to meet you, Draco." He repeated his earlier introduction and the blond
paused once more… before smiling back very hesitantly. He definitely seemed like he wasn’t
used to doing such things.

Harry could only let out a soft laugh, not sure what it meant when Draco just quickly avoided
eye contact and looked out the shop window distractedly. Harry simply grinned more; this
guy truly was hopeless at being nice and it was just so endearing for some reason. He hadn’t
found another person so entertaining in a long time.

He wondered what kind of face he’d make if Harry told him he acted like a baby cactus and
had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing outwardly and startling both Draco and the
assistant taking his measurements.

In what seemed like no time at all Harry too was done, stepping down and smiling at Draco
who remained poised and pointedly did not look at him with his chin tilted up and face
directed at the street bustling outside the open double doors.

"Well the next store is a bookshop and the one after sells ice cream. Books are boring and we
don't have much time so how about some of that?"

Harry would need to spend some quality time in the bookstore alone to get everything he
needed, and it was sort of a task that actually required his attention. Ice cream however,
sounded like something mindless and delicious that you did with a friend to hang out with
them, and although he’d never done such a thing was game to give it a go with what very
possibly might be his first friend.

The thought made him smile widely.

"I'd like that. Is wizard ice cream that much different from muggle ice cream?"

Draco paused, his unnaturally symmetrical face frowning and still somehow looking graceful
while he did it. "I don't know anything about the Muggle world," He said boldly, like it was
something to be proud of; like also asking why he would have ever bothered to learn such a
thing. Harry mentally rolled his eyes, but he always did like a challenge, and oh boy did this
one seem like a challenge.
"Well then you can tell me about the wizarding world, and I'll tell you about the Muggle. It's
probably not as interesting but it has some perks you know. Like electricity for one; I've
already noticed we don't have it here and I'll probably miss that the most going to Hogwarts."
He confessed as they walked down the street to the shop clearly marked for ice cream (so
Harry probably didn’t need the help of being shown around but was smart enough to know
that was in fact not the point of this).

"Electizzy? What is that?”

Harry almost bit his tongue off trying not to burst out laughing, but it was a close call and he
turned his head away so Draco wouldn’t see his expression, quickly gaining control of
himself. “Ahem… ah, electricity. It’s like lightning, in a broad term.”

“How on earth would you miss that?" He inflamed, and Harry laughed at a more appropriate
level for this conversation at his incredulity.

“Muggles use it very creatively is all. I’m still learning about how this world uses magic so
maybe it’s just how muggles get around not having magic?” He shrugged.

“But muggles not having magic is the point?” He raised one near-silver brow, clearly
thinking little of this conversation.

Harry mentally sighed and switched tactics. “Do you have a television?” At the blank look he
received he nodded once. “Well muggles have this thing called a television that they use for
entertainment. What does the magical world do for fun then if they have no electricity and no
television?”

“I’ve no idea what either of those things are, but I play Quidditch.” Draco puffed up a bit,
clearly proud of this. If only Harry had any idea what it was he was boasting about.

“There’s a shop for that down the alley, yeah? It’s some sort of sport on broomsticks?”

“You don’t know about Quidditch!?” He squeaked slightly, grey eyes wide in alarm and
Harry felt like patting him on the shoulder but refrained.

“Draco, I know nothing about the magical world. Since I learned magic was real this morning
I’ve been to Gringotts and five shops—that’s it.” He reminded him patiently. “What are the
rules of Quidditch then?”

Draco seemed to be having a very hard time wrapping his head around this fact, the idea that
not everyone grew up knowing about magic as a fact of life seemed to be a revolutionary
concept to him going by his wary expression and the confusion written into his eyes, but
upon mention of quidditch he needed no other prompting to launch into a detailed
explanation of the game’s rules and principles. He apparently played a position called
‘Chaser’ which handled a ball called a Quaffle—there being more than one ball already
throwing Harry off but Draco was more than happy to keep talking about it no matter what
simple question he was asked.
They got their ice cream (and holy quaffle they literally have EVERY flavor he’d ever heard
of and some that had to be magical because how the heck did they get that in ice-cream
form? Like popcorn flavored ice cream, what the heck!?) and sat down at a table right outside
the bustling café so Draco could keep talking his ear off about quidditch. Harry for the most
part didn’t mind, too caught up in what was probably the best ice cream he’d ever had (not
that he’d often ate ice cream before this point) and the game was actually very interesting to
him. He’d never played any sports since no one would ever let them join outside of
mandatory gym classes but he liked to run and found the point of exercising to win something
intriguing.

Plus, he’d seen those broomsticks while walking with Hagrid and they looked wicked cool,
like real professional sport’s athlete things and not just your regular kitchen broom. The
concept that he might be able to fly—like literally leave gravity behind him and take flight—
a breath-takingly attractive prospect.

“And you can just fly whenever you like at your house?” He couldn’t help but ask, Draco
pausing to smile widely. He was still puffing up his chest quite a bit but he’d relaxed over the
course of the conversation and the ice cream and so smiling didn’t look so forced on him
anymore.

“Of course, we’ve got a whole quidditch pitch behind Malfoy Manor. I’ve grown up flying
my whole life, Father even got me a tutor a couple of times.”

Pompous indeed, but being rich and a tad spoiled explained a lot of his personality. Luckily
that was fixable—if he’d been inherently a jerk Harry would’ve had other problems.

“Of all the things I’ve seen about the wizarding world today I think I’m most excited about
flying. When I wrote back to the Headmistress she said first years aren’t allowed to have
brooms though.”

Draco made a face. “It’s a stupid rule, but even Father doesn’t find it worth making a fuss
over it. Mother is always scared I’m going to break my neck or something when I go out
flying so that’s probably why. Anyway, just because we can’t have brooms doesn’t mean we
can’t fly—there are school brooms I think, and flying lessons first years can take.”

“I’m definitely signing up,” He decided immediately, mind trying to imagine what flying was
like and failing. He couldn’t wait to try it though, and thoroughly enjoyed day-dreaming
about it as he placed his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand as Draco continued to
talk excitedly.

“If you’re any good we can try out for the quidditch team our second year, in any case!”
Draco lit up a brightly at the idea, Harry too distracted about the news that Hogwarts had a
quidditch team to put too much thought about why he was so happy about that.

“Hogwarts has a quidditch team? Who do they play against?”

“Of course they do—the house teams play against each other. Commuting to international
wizarding schools to play quidditch is excessive outside of the professional league,” Draco
sniffed.
“What are houses?” Again, Draco looked flabbergasted and Harry could not help but roll his
eyes that time. “Stop looking at me like that—I know nothing about this world, remember?
Literally got here two hours ago.”

“Oh, right.” Draco collected himself quickly, schooling his expression once more. “Well, the
houses are where you’re sorted when you get to Hogwarts: Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff,
and Gryffindor. I’m going to be in Slytherin.” He said, positively oozing pride and smugness
as he said that.

Harry failed to see why that was so special, yet again.

“How do you know that if they sort us when we get there? Do you get to pick which house
you’re in?”

“Because my whole family’s been in Slytherin since forever. Besides it’s the best house so of
course I’ll go there.” He said immediately, then pressed his lips together grudgingly. “I don’t
think you can pick which house you’re in, you just get sorted there. It’s kind of a tradition
that no one who knows tells you what the sorting process is like though, so everyone finds
out when they get there their first year.”

“So you have no idea.” Harry smiled with a raised eyebrow, enjoying Draco’s pink cheeks.

“I do too. My whole family-”

“-has been in Slytherin, yeah, I got that. So why have they all been in Slytherin? What makes
Slytherin different from other houses?”

Draco looked personally offended he’d not only interrupted him but also implied Slytherin
wasn’t special in the same breath, but answered anyway all the while giving him a wounded,
betrayed look.

“Slytherin is where the ambitious and clever people go. Each house has characteristics so that
when you’re sorted there you’re surrounded by like-minded people and such. Ravenclaw is a
bunch of bookworms and Hufflepuff is a bunch of duffers. And don’t even get me started on
Gryffindor—they’re idiots.”

Harry couldn’t help it, he laughed.

Draco just blinked, not quite sure where that reaction just came from. “Uh… what?”

“Draco, do you think you’re, I don’t know, a little biased? Because you sound super biased.”
Harry wiped away fake tears from the corner of his eyes as he grinned at his new friend, who
just looked baffled.

“Biased? Why?”

“You clearly like Slytherin and want to be there. Isn’t it a little unfair that I’m hearing about
the other houses from someone who clearly doesn’t like any of them? Why would anyone be
content to have the other houses if they don’t have any worth?” He pointed out.
Draco frowned like this was seriously concerning to him. “Well what do you want me to say
about them?”

“How about what other people say about the other houses. Slytherin is clever and ambitious,
so Ravenclaw is…”

The blond pursed his lips for a second as if this was a serious conflict for him, before tisking
under his breath and giving in. “Well… it’s said that Ravenclaws support wisdom or
intelligence or something like that—they always have their noses in a book so who even
knows what they support or not. I still maintain that Hufflepuffs are duffers but that’s because
they focus on things like friendship and hard-working-ness or whatever that is. It essentially
means they’re all saps who don’t mind doing boring grunt work even if it’s hard.” He waved
off, and while Harry was still getting a lot of Slytherin bias in here but could actually pick up
some of the nice things Draco was glossing over quickly. It was rather amusing.

“Gryffindors, are the enemy.” He announced clearly, and Harry raised one eyebrow at that.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. There’s been a Slytherin-Gryffindor house war for centuries. We hate each other.” He
said matter of fact, and Harry had to sigh. He sounded like he too was reciting rhetoric
someone else had told him, and here he thought Hagrid was bad enough.

“Okay, first of all slow down: you’re not even in Slytherin yet so there’s no ‘we’ or ‘us’ yet,”
He cut in and Draco blinked, taken off guard by his strict tone all of a sudden. “Secondly, I’m
not going to school to fight people for no good reason other than that’s what older
generations have always done. I want to learn magic and I want to go flying. None of this
rivalry silliness. Thirdly, since you have no idea what will actually happen, what would you
do if you were in Gryffindor? Or I was in Gryffindor? Or Hufflepuff? No—what if you were
in Hufflepuff, because if I recall to half an hour go you were the one who was being very
friendly in showing me around the alley.”

Draco looked very, very horrified the longer he kept speaking and Harry couldn’t help but
grin.

He couldn’t remember a time where he’d ever grinned so much in a day, and he was
decidedly not regretting coming to this world at all in this moment. Despite his initial
reservations, this… this was not so bad.

He only amused himself further by looking pointedly at Draco to answer, where the blond
just gaped at him a bit and seemed to be at a total loss of words. Poor guy seemed to have had
his world rocked several times since meeting each other and Harry couldn’t find himself
feeling guilty about it.

Eventually, he took pity on him.

“I want to play quidditch with you, but would you be my friend anyway if we were playing
against each other?” He wondered aloud, watching Draco’s face do acrobatics in how fast
emotions flickered across his face.
It all went too fast for Harry really to catch any of it, but he let the blond work through it
even as the seconds ticked on in silence. Apparently, this truly was a revolutionary decision
for him, and Harry felt a little worried his answer would be no. And the longer the silence
stretched, the more his playful question seemed to sink with his stomach, as a cruel reality of
his life took hold once more.

Ah… maybe it really was too good to be true, to think I could make friends. Silly me.

Draco seemed like a nice guy underneath the cactus-act, but that didn’t change a life-time of
conditioning to be someone maybe you weren’t (Harry knew the feeling and could only pity
this boy as he watched Draco struggle with this query).

He tried not to let it show on his face how much it actually bothered him when he said: “It’s
okay if you don’t want to be my friend, Draco. The ice cream was good anyway, and I
learned a lot.”

Draco blinked, coming out of his thoughts enough to stare at him. The silence stretched on
long enough that Harry thought maybe this was it—he’d had a friend for twenty minutes. It
was a record.

It wasn’t that this hypothetical question was ever going to be true; heck, they could both be in
Slytherin and this was a stupid reason to not be friends over. But it wasn’t about that.

The fact remained that Harry wasn’t interested in fighting to be anyone’s friend; he wasn’t
interested in fighting at all. He just wanted to be himself, to be free, and if someone wasn’t
going to accept that then he didn’t need them.

He’d come this far on his own and he’d made a promise to be his own cheerleader, his own
defendant and support when he needed one. He wanted to be Draco’s friend, but he’d sworn
to himself a long time ago that he wasn’t going to be cruel to himself just for the sake of
others, and bending over backwards just for the chance someone else might give him
approval was not how he was going to live his life. It just wasn’t.

If Draco couldn’t say that he’d be his friend over something stupid like what dorm they were
sleeping in, then he had no desire to be a good friend to someone who was never going to be
a good friend back.

That didn’t mean he liked standing up and that didn’t mean it wasn’t hard to smile like it
didn’t bother him.

Because it very much did.

But he wasn’t the kind of person who would sit down and take this kind of hesitation, this
kind of rejection. He wasn’t the kind of person who gave himself away only to get nothing in
return.

Not anymore.
“I hope to see you around at Hogwarts, Draco.” He smiled like it didn’t bother him and
turned to head back to Madam Malkin’s to wait for Hagrid, when a cold touch wrapped
around his wrist. He startled and jumped back a little, whipping around to see Draco on his
feet and leaning back as if remembering himself, his cheeks darkening noticeably.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, looking awkward and glancing around the street uncomfortably
before lowing his eyes to the ground slightly. “I didn’t mean—you just took me off guard is
all. I still think I’m going to be in Slytherin but I would… like to be your friend, even if
you’re not.”

Harry evaluated him carefully, the ghost of a cold touch on his wrist reminding him of
something… but he couldn’t quite place it.

He pressed his lips for a moment. “It’s okay if you’re not comfortable being friends with
people in other houses, people different from you… though I don’t know why you’d be
happy with that.” He admitted, watching Draco looked up at him a little confused. “But I
don’t intend to not be myself because of someone else’s opinion. You’re okay with that?”

He did pause again, but only one second before his grey eyes settled into some emotion
Harry wasn’t familiar with, or that he’d just never seen on someone else’s face before.

“Yeah, I am. I’d still like to be your friend, if… you’d like to me mine, given I’m not very
interested in other houses.”

Well, at least he’s honest.

Harry smiled thinly. “If you can forgive me for being myself, I can give you the same
courtesy then, Draco.”

The blond looked quite relieved at that, his tense shoulders dropping a bit. “Sorry… for
grabbing you. I thought you were going to walk away,” he admitted with a flush of
embarrassment. Harry rolled his eyes and plopped back down on the bench, tugging on
Draco’s sleeve to get him to sit down beside him too.

“I was.” He admitted bluntly, Draco whipping his head up to give him a wide-eyed look. “I
take being free very seriously. If I’m not free to be who I am then I’m walking away—that’s
something I promised myself a long time ago.”

“Oh.” He blinked rather lamely. “Ah… I can understand that, I think. I mean my father
always says: ‘Malfoys bow to no one’.”

Harry examined his new tentative friend and the way his chin was tilted up rather arrogantly
and reflected on this whole conversation so far. And snorted a bit ungracefully.

“You don’t say?” He snickered.

The blond shot him a wary, slightly suspicious look. “Says the guy who was going to blow
me off out of principle.”
“Being free and being proud are not the same thing. I don’t have to be proud of who I am in
order to be who I want to be. If it suits me to bow my head to someone for some reason or
another, I’ll do it without question. If it doesn’t, then I won’t; simple as that.”

“I… see.” Draco said in a way that told Harry he absolutely did not see at all. Not that it
mattered, he didn’t have to understand in order to accept it. Luckily he did just that and shook
it off easily. “Anyway, let’s go back to quidditch,”

“How about classes instead? I’m going to go buy my books now and you did say you’d know
more than a Hogwarts representative. Any tips for what I should focus on?” Harry quickly
deflected the conversation. He’d known the guy less than an hour and already knew he could
go on about quidditch if not stopped quickly.

Draco didn’t seem to mind, although the glint in his eye told Harry he knew darn well that
he’d been deflected. He puffed up in a way that was quickly become very familiar and
relented without a fuss.

“Potions for one, as the teacher is strict and will start the first class with our first potion, so
since you’ve got no magical background definitely read up as much as you can. If you’re not
in Slytherin you’re at a disadvantage.”

He grimaced. “I went and bought my potions supplies earlier and the seller told me the
Professor was a but of a bat.”

Draco blinked in surprise and his face twitched like he almost smiled but caught himself just
in time. “That, ah… well he shares a bit of a resemblance, maybe. Ahem—he is my godfather
actually.”

“Really!?” He sat up straighter, a little taken off guard by that. “So you really do know that
he’s a tough teacher.”

“Oh yes, he’s been mentoring me in potions since I was eight—not that we are ever going to
tell my parents that,” He quickly corrected him, eyes going a bit wide and Harry grinned,
nodding his agreement. Draco huffed and waved dismissively. “He’s the youngest potions
master ever—literally a genius at what he does, and I even admire the guy but can admit he’s
not that great a teacher. Knowing about things and being able to teach them aren’t always the
same thing, and boy do I know that. If he weren’t my godfather, I’d be studying my butt off
just to make passing marks with his teaching style, and potions is by far my best subject.”

“Yikes.” Harry was liking this guy less and less, but could see where Draco was coming
from. “What was that about not being in Slytherin though?”

“He’s the head of Slytherin house and… well, maybe the others houses don’t really like us—
Slytherin that much,” He corrected himself quickly, glancing at Harry as if panicked he was
about to be scolded again and Harry kept his internal grin to himself. “The Headmaster and
Deputy Headmistress were both in Gryffindor and… well, I told you about the rivalry.
Slytherin kids are not favored by anyone so Severus balances it out by favoring Slytherin a
bit excessively. He’s also a royal grouch by personality alone, so other houses tend to
vehemently not enjoy his classes.”
“That’s sounds a bit… well I mean… hm. I’m not sure what to think of it actually.” Harry
admitted. He couldn’t blame one teacher for showing favoritism when everyone else
apparently did it, and this one just had a sour personality by nature. “If the other houses don’t
like Slytherin, maybe that… I don’t know, doesn’t help?”

Draco just sniffed, nose pointed up. “Well we—they can’t help it if the rest of the school
doesn’t like them. It’s only fair.”

Harry rolled his eyes pointedly. “Fair is a complexion or a carnival—not a right. If they think
it’s unjust then get even, but doing it so blatantly doesn’t sound like it suits a house known
for cleverness, now does it?”

The blond beside him seemed to deflate, blinking rapidly as those words sunk in. “Well…”

“Anyway, I bought a bunch of manuals from the Apothecary, so I guess I’ll be reading those
first. Anything else?”

Draco had still not recovered from his previous question and his baffled expression clearly
said so, but managed to brush past it enough to move on.

“I’ve heard you can’t do much to prepare for Charms so far as theory goes as it’s mainly a
practical course. If you know Latin it’s second nature.”

“Uh… isn’t that a dead language?”

Draco looked at him like he was crazy. “No, is the basis of all magical-” he cut himself off at
the heated look a pair of green eyes were cutting him with and nodded once. “Right, you
didn’t know about magic. Then I’d suggest taking Latin up quick.”

Harry groaned.

Sure, let me just pick up a dead language in a couple weeks, no big deal. I thought Hagrid
said muggleborns weren’t at a disadvantage entering Hogwarts? Clearly that’s somebody
else’s lie he was just repeating.

“Other than that I’ve heard transfiguration is a pain to learn. The professor is the head of
Gryffindor house and biased as I said, but not as biased I think. She rarely ever gives out
points though and is strict as anything, or so my father says. Mother says it’s because
transfiguration can be dangerous when you’re learning it so she takes no nonsense, but Father
thinks she’s just got a stick up her bum. Which, coming from my father means more than you
think it would.”

Harry’s curiosity was peaked, but let it slide for now. Bringing up the topic of his parents
would mean broaching a conversation where it would be acceptable for Draco to ask about
his parents and—well, just no.

“So, potions manuals, Latin, and my Transfiguration text. Got it. Seems like I have a busy
month ahead of me.” And boy did he have a plan on how to do it, thanks to the tiny pink
baubles in his bag. He was almost looking forward to getting back to the Dursleys, and
wasn’t that a weird thought?

“I don’t understand how muggleborns expected to excel in school without knowing Latin.
That’s just insane.” Draco was shaking his head, sniffing again.

“Well I’m not a muggleborn but have the knowledge of one—Latin is a dead language in
their world since I guess muggles have no need for it with no magic to deal with. It’s not like
I knew until you just told me that it would be helpful to know—I was told muggleborns
weren’t at a disadvantage going into Hogwarts since even pureblood children don’t know
much magic going into it.”

“Well that’s an utter lie.” Draco brushed that off pretty quickly, and even with his rude tone
Harry couldn’t fault him seeing as all the signs were saying he was right. “Magic is tracked
in households by the Ministry, but in households with full wizards and witches they can’t tell
who is doing the magic or not, so I’ve already had practice. I’ve grown up watching my
parents perform magic and know tons of spells already just because they’re common and
Mother and Father used them all the time, not to mention the ones they taught me already.
Father let me use his wand several times to practice too, and the Ministry will never know. I
mean, before you get to Hogwarts it’s not tracked as it’s considered accidental magic, but
then once you go to Hogwarts they say you’re not allowed to use magic at home but in
practice it’s only ever enforced at muggleborn residences. Which means I can practice magic
all I want over the summers and yet muggleborns can’t.”

“Which means I can’t.” Harry realized, a sinking feeling in his stomach putting a damper on
the lighter mood that had slowly been returning since their mini spat.

Draco balked, seeming to realize he’d forgotten his new friend’s status as a pureblood-slash-
muggleborn-by-circumstance.

“Uh… you could visit?”

“Oh gee, as much as my relatives would love to get rid of me, I can’t see them being thrilled
with that.” After all, if he wasn’t there to cook breakfast every morning and their house kept
spotless, then their tenuous peace would start to crumble quick, and it’d be downhill from
there.

“Get rid of you? Why?” The blond seemed legitimately baffled at the thought of relatives not
wanting his presence, and Harry had to clamp down on a hysterical little bubble of laughter
that threatened to tear out of his chest. He had the sudden urge to pat him on his perfectly
styled blond head and croon you poor, innocent child.

“Let’s just say, they and I are not friends.” He allowed diplomatically, and before Draco
could ask—and his confused expression said that yes, he was about to ask—Harry pushed
forward. “So the language I speak, the times I can practice, the examples I’ve been given…
any other horrible ways I’m at a disadvantage before I walk into them unwittingly?”

“Er… honestly I’d have to think about it. I’ve never considered it from the point of view of
someone who didn’t know what magic was.” He admitted.
Again, at least he’s honest.

Harry laughed lightly under his breath. “You’re hopeless.”

“What? Why!?”

“You have such an endearing way of admitting you’re self-centered.”

Harry did not know what possessed him to blurt out the truth like that, but he couldn’t regret
it when Draco’s pale complexion when a steady shade of creamy pink—the tips of his ears
darkening to a heated rose.

“Wha—I—I am not self centered!”

Harry pointedly met his gaze in a challenge and lifted one eyebrow. “You are, and we’ve
already established that I will not hold you for being yourself against you so long as you
return the favor in kind. It’s fine to admit it, but you’re a bit thick if you think lying to either
me or yourself will do you any good.”

Draco just gaped at him, stunned. “Is this what you meant by ‘not being proud’ or whatever?”

“A bit. I am who I am, doesn’t mean I’m a saint. But if you try to comment on my character,
good or bad, then we’ve got a problem. I already know my faults and there’s no issue with
knowing your own.” He waved it off gently, slightly worried he’d angered the blond to the
point of him not being the one who wanted to walk away… but he didn’t. Draco just sat there
and cooled off in sullen silence until only the tips of his ears were pink.

“I am not self-centered.” He repeated, but sounded a lot less sure of himself than he did two
minutes ago.

“You’re a bit self-centered. You don’t care about any house by Slytherin, you’ve never even
considered what it’s like from someone else’s point of view until I made you—twice now in
one conversation—and keep forgetting the basic fact about me that I didn’t know about
magic until today. Did I miss anything?”

The blond simply pouted, and it was so dramatic and sulky that Harry had to laugh, causing
Draco to pout even more and turn away pointedly on the bench with his arms crossed. Which,
only made Harry laugh harder.

Suddenly, a sharp voice broke into their little bubble, both their head’s snapping up at a
nearby shout.

"Draco? Draco!" A woman’s voice was piercing down the crowded street in barely contained
urgency-boarding-on-panic and Harry spotted a composed (but visibly tense) man and woman
in front of Madam Malkin’s, looking around with a poised, regal air to them but clearly about
to be panicked in a couple seconds if they couldn’t find their son.

And it had to be Draco’s parents, because they both had his unique silvery-blond hair, and
even at this distance and Harry’s poor eyesight, he could see that Draco had his father’s
jawline, but his mother’s otherwise delicate, slightly pointed features.
"Mother! Father!" Draco called out to them, their heads snapping to the side at his answer in
a sharp motion ill-fitting of their otherwise graceful, elegant posture. They hid it very well,
but their posture relaxed as soon as they both had him in their sights.

"Draco, what on earth were you thinking? Wandering off like that! We were only gone for a
minute!" The woman reached them first, neither parent taking a second less than necessary to
cross the distance and descend on him.

"Apologies, Mother." Draco sulked a bit as she fluttered over him, and Harry bit his lip to
keep form grinning.

"Who is this?" The silk blond man beside his wife zeroed right in on the redhead next to their
son, and Harry felt his cheeks grow hot at the intent attention he was receiving. They did not
seem pleased to meet him, and he automatically ducked his head a bit, having learned to
defer to sharp, unfriendly adults to keep on their good sides. Too much trouble came from
opening his mouth needlessly or being too brash with strangers who were likely a full grown
witch and wizard who could take a brand new eleven-year-old who didn’t even had a wand
yet.

"Hello Mr. Malfoy. I'm Harry—I met Draco while we were getting our robes done and he was
nice enough to show me around a bit." He defended his friend a bit, since they clearly were
not pleased their son had wandered off from where they’d left him.

"Yes, he's a pureblood who was raised by muggles so I was just informing him of how things
are done here," Draco chimed in, for some reason not seeming too concerned with his parents
being upset about him wandering off. He also was right back to that slightly-too-pompous
front he’d had on before Harry threatened to walk away. Harry just turned to the blond
curiously, wondering what that was about… unless he was showing off for his parents?

He glanced back at the two adults standing over where they sat on the bench, seeming to
tower over them… and they seemed stern, but caring. Protective and clearly not about to let
threats pass uninvestigated. From the angle at which they were looking down their noses at
them, Harry took a wild guess that they probably had just as high of expectations for their son
as Draco seemed to have for people around him, which was where the pompous act came in,
probably. Then again, Dudley had the same impress-my-parents-at-the-cost-of-my-
independence complex if not to a lesser degree, and definitely not as refined.

Harry wondered if he would’ve had that complex too, had he had parents to grow up with and
look up to.

Well, they were Draco’s parents and he seemed to admire them, no need to cause a fuss on
his behalf, so Harry figured he'd play along.

He grinned widely and leaned closer to the boy beside as if to prove the point. "Draco has
been so incredibly helpful too; apologies for distracting him!" He tried to be as innocent and
non-threatening as possible so they wouldn't get mad at either of them, and wasn’t sure what
it meant when Draco instantly stiffened beside him. But as they both were looking at the
Malfoy parents he didn't see his new friend's expression, only felt him tense up from how
close he’d leaned in.
Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy though, raised both their eyebrows almost in sync, which was a bit of
an oddly normal motion on their previously arrogant faces. The mother turned her sharp eyes
on Harry and seemed to evaluate him almost blatantly.

"Harry, was it?" She repeated as if testing the sound of his name and judging him heavily as
she did it.

"Yes ma'am." He nodded, polite as he could. She just pressed her lips together with her nose
twitching once like she smelled something rather unpleasant, judging him silently with
narrowed eyes. She had brown eyes, Harry noted, so Draco must’ve got his from his father—
who remained oddly silent, as if thinking something in deep thought as he watched his son
with unreadable eyes, and Draco squirmed a bit under the evaluation he was receiving.

"Who has accompanied you here today?" Mrs. Malfoy demanded a bit sharply, but still just
this side of being polite.

"They sent a representative from Hogwarts ma'am, but he wandered off while I was getting
my robes done. I was waiting on him here." Harry explained as harmlessly as he could,
wondering just what was going on here.

Draco was really squirming on the bench beside him now, but Harry didn't fault him for
having difficult parents. You couldn’t control that; Harry half wanted to pat him on the arm
and tell him not to be embarrassed on his account (he’d actually off himself out of
mortification if the Dursleys were to be here making an introduction to Draco, after all) but
refrained from doing so with the way Mrs. Malfoy was watching him suggesting she’d rather
bite his hand off if he thought about making a careless motion towards Draco now. They were
clearly still trying to evaluate if he could be trusted around their son, and still not sure but
definitely not taking chances— and Harry could only admire the way they acted cool and yet
clearly adored their son. Not that he’d wasted much time day-dreaming about what his own
parents would’ve been like since he’d thought they were just drunks until today, but if he’d
had to take a stab at wondering, having parents to who loved him, even if they were strict and
embarrassing, was definitely on his wish-list.

He wanted to tell Draco not to be embarrassed, because a small part of him was actually
jealous that he had parents like this who got too-involved and were pushy with new friends
just because they wanted their son to be safe.

But that was a petty part of himself he didn’t like to give much time in the light of day, and
nor was this the moment to say something like that, so he kept his thoughts to himself.

"But your parents were wizards." Mrs. Malfoy cut off his wandering thoughts. Harry was not
sure what being a pureblood was so important, but it was definitely important apparently. He
shelved it, making a note to ask Draco later and get a full explanation sometime.

"Yes ma'am."

"What is your family name?"

He opened his mouth to respond but—

"'Arry! There ya are!" Hagrid’s huge form cut into their little gathering, startling all three
blonds enough to whip their heads up at the giant man in alarm. Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy
collected themselves in a split second, but Draco openly gaped at Hagrid for a long while,
stunned that a human could be that big and somehow sneak up on all of them.

Hagrid seemed to notice about five seconds too late that he’d just interrupted something, and
it took him another full two seconds to realize who it was talking to his young charge. His
smile didn’t drop but his cheerful demeanor seemed to evaporate in a puff of smoke, replaced
by a slight awkwardness that haunted his huge frame. And really, when a man that big shifted
his weight nervously it was a very blatant motion. "Lucius, Narcissa—lovely ter see ya." He
nodded to them, perfectly polite and not quite as jovial as normal.

"Hagrid." Mr. Malfoy responded coolly, his posture dripping with distain as he glanced up
and down the giant man in front of him.

Ugh, so they had the same pompous thing Draco did… uh, well that’s probably where he got
it from, to be honest.

"An who is dis then?" Hagrid turned to Draco now, and Harry panicked seeing the Malfoy’s
expressions darken like thunderclouds.

"Hagrid! This is Draco Malfoy, I met him getting my robes done! He was telling me more
about the wizarding world," He burst out, bright and eager to make the tension go away and
distract Draco’s parents from going for Hagrid’s jugular. While he spoke, reached out and
looped his arm around Draco's tightly—silently sending a pleas with his eyes to the giant
man to get the message that he didn't want to be judged for his new friend nor did he want
this to cause too much trouble. He could clearly tell that for some reason the Malfoys didn’t
like Hagrid, and Hagrid wasn’t too fond of them either although Harry hadn’t realized it was
possible for the jovial giant to actively dislike someone.

Or, more likely, someone told Hagrid not to like the Malfoys or told him something about the
family that he took on faith. The Malfoys themselves seem to be snobs and Hagrid is… well.
Hagrid. Not much of an explanation needed really.

Either way, Harry wasn’t interested in picking fights and just wanted to be friends with Draco
without a fuss. So he not-so-subtly pulled Draco closer to his side and gave Hagrid a wide-
eyed look demanding he shut the quaffle up before he said something to ruin this. He loved
Hagrid, he did, the man was hilarious and essentially a giant harmless puppy, but he did not
trust what was going to come out of his mouth for a second.

Draco tensed up at the touch, but didn’t shove him off either and Mrs. Malfoy didn’t smack
him for getting too friendly, so Harry called it a win.

Thankfully…Hagrid wasn't too dense as to realize Harry had just made a friend, and easy
going enough not to put up a stink. Even if he did keep tossing glances at the Malfoys warily.
"Well ain't that nice! Good fer you, makin' friends already." He nodded, more to himself and
shifting his weight again.
"Hm!" Harry gave an agreeing hum, glancing at how Draco was doing will all of this, and
was met with wide grey eyes seeming not to have caught up with what the hell was going on
right then and just letting it happen.

There was a pause, and if they’d been normal people it would’ve been the moment Draco
should’ve spoken up and introduced himself to Hagrid or at least say hello… but he didn’t.
With the way his parents were bristling, Harry guessed he might be in more trouble if he did
and Harry had the urge to call them all hopeless to their faces but very barely restrained
himself.

Hagrid either didn’t notice the awkward air, or decided to be generous and ignore it, turning
back to Harry with a nod of his giant, wild head.

"Sorry I ran off on you 'arry, but I wanted ta get you somethin' since those nasty Muggles
wouldn't'a done a thing—'appy birthday 'arry!" He pronounced happily and produced a
golden cage from behind his back, and in it… a beautiful white owl.

Harry's eyes went wide, and his mind left the awkward conversation about ten miles beneath
him as his heart and mind leapt from his body and made a mad dash for the heavens.

"…what? That’s…"

"She's yours, have at it!" Hagrid shuffled forward on his huge feet and pushed the cage into
Harry’s startled hands, dropping Draco’s arm in shock in order to stop it from dropping to the
ground, but his fingers felt numb as they wrapped around the metal wire. "Toads are a bit ol'
fashioned and cats make me sneeze— but owls 're dead useful they are." Hagrid chatted
happily, pleased with himself for his gift.

But Harry barely heard him.

That’s… she’s…?

He stared into the cage as if not believing what he was seeing, and a pair of huge golden eyes
stared back at him. She was simply breathtaking, the color of pure snow on an untouched
field and feathers sleeker and classier than any of those fancy brooms or quills he’d seen on
this vibrant, colorful alley. In this place where every color seemed to slam into each other all
at once, she was a stunning pure white that stood out just as wonderfully and beautifully as
Harry could’ve ever dreamed or imagined. She hooted softly when all he did was stare at her,
and he felt his heart clutch painfully in his chest.

"I… got… a birthday present?" He wondered quietly to himself, totally shocked and only half
aware he’d said those words out loud.

The owl hooted lowly at him as if to answer, yes, you did you silly boy— and he was so
wrapped up in her gaze that he entirely failed to notice the Malfoys’ reaction to that
statement.

He didn’t break his gaze away from her, half afraid this was going to be a dream or a joke if
he broke eye contact, but he addressed Hagrid.
"Useful? How?"

"Wizards use owls to send letters to one another. They can find anyone anywhere so long as
they're not warded against getting mail." Draco supplied automatically before Hagrid could
open his mouth, and Harry turned wide, slightly wet eyes on him, still stunned but his mind
racing with thoughts so quickly he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself.

"R-really? So, I can send a letter to you with her?"

Draco seemed to straighten up pointedly as he nodded firmly. "Of course." He huffed in a

matter-of-fact way… but his eyes were slightly hesitant, as if asking him a question.

Without thinking twice, Harry grinned, silently reassuring him that this awkward
confrontation with his parents meant nothing, and that hell yes he'd be sending his first friend
a letter!

He remembered himself quickly and turned back to Hagrid, knowing his eyes were slightly
wet and his grin was so wide it kind of hurt his cheeks, but he didn’t care at all in that
moment.

I have a friend, and I have a birthday present—there is nothing to think twice about for once.

"Thank you, Hagrid! This is amazing! She's beautiful!" He was not an earnest person by
nature, but he gave everything he had to be as sincere as he could in that moment, because
Hagrid had to know that this… there were not words for this.

I seem to be speechless a lot all of a sudden... and I hope it doesn’t stop.

"Ah, no problem. I've always loved animals and after those nasty muggles ya deserve a real
present." Hagrid waved off, shifting his feet once more out of abashed fluster instead of
nerves now.

"She's wonderful." Harry said simply, because it was true, meeting the gaze of owl once
more, and she gazed right back. "What will I name you? Any ideas?" She hooted louder and
flapped her wings once as if to say she didn’t know either. "Well then we'll just have to think
on it." He grinned at her, and by the way her feathers fluffed she seemed content with this
plan.

"It's your birthday?" Draco’s tone was a little odd, but Harry couldn’t be bothered to decipher
what it meant with his first real present and a bleedin’ owl at that in front of him.

He hummed vaguely in acknowledgement, before a thought hit him. He looked up suddenly

at Draco who blinked in alarm at the green eyes suddenly shining brightly in his face.

"I've never had a present or ice cream on my birthday before—thank you for showing me this
place, Draco!" He grinned his too-wide grin again, and was far too happy in that moment to
give a flying quaffle that Draco’s parents were right there, watching this all go down.

Draco very quickly glanced down the street at some shop over Harry’s shoulder rather than
meet his eyes. "N-no problem."
Harry let out a peal of laughter at his clear discomfort and the way his ears tinged pink.

After a pause as Harry enjoyed watching Draco fidget under legitimate gratitude, Mr. Malfoy
cleared his throat politely—but curtly to catch everyone’s attention.

"We're about done with our shopping today, so say your goodbyes Draco. You can write to
your… friend, later." He cast an unreadable look Harry’s way as he said that and honestly
Harry was too wound up to even be bothered by it, much less acknowledge it.

"Yes father." Draco complied immediately and stood, glancing back at him with a warmer
smile, though it was back to his small, polite smiles instead of real ones. "It was nice to meet
you Harry." He said politely, clearly well trained to have good manners and making sure to be
on them in front of his parents, both of them acutely aware they were being watched like
hawks now.

"You too Draco, I'll write a lot then, and you can tell me more about the wizarding world,
okay?"

The blond gave a slightly shy smile back, though the hesitancy might’ve been because of his
mother’s hand coming to clamp down on his shoulder. "Of course." He waved, and all Harry
managed to do was wave back before the Malfoys had steered their son away lightning fast
and disappear into the crowds without so much as a nod of their own towards either Harry or
Hagrid.

Harry sighed. That seemed like it was going to be a bit of a problem if he was going to
continue being friends with Draco. But, it wasn’t like he’d spent the past ten years dealing
with difficult relatives or whatever, so it’d probably be fine.

Probably.

"The Malfoys, eh?" Hagrid huffed after a couple seconds of silence, Harry realized he’d been
watching the place his new friend had disappeared for a bit longer than necessary. His
attention was brought back by the distinctly unsmiling, uncomfortable look on his giant
friend’s face.

Well that didn’t bode well.

"What is it Hagrid?"

"They're sort of known ta be a dark family, or so they say." The man hedged, clearly not
thrilled to be having this conversation.

"Dark?" Harry frowned, realizing this would probably answer a lot of questions about
Draco’s parents’ behavior, but by Hagrid’s expression it was not going to be a great learning
experience.

“Ah… why don’ I buy ya another ice cream?”

Harry frowned.
 000

Twenty minutes later, Harry decided that popcorn flavored ice cream was actually a horrible
flavor for soft serve and that he’d been right all along: making friends was not his strong suit.
 Switch

“Aunt Petunia?”

“Was I not clear that you were to go straight to your cupboard when you got home?” She
snapped unpleasantly as her version of a ‘hello, welcome back’, clearly not pleased to have to
look up from the magazine she was reading at the kitchen table. He couldn’t tell if she was
more displeased that he’d disobeyed or interrupted her—probably being interrupted honestly.

Harry would’ve been content to do as she’d ordered and wait until a slightly better moment
than right after a previously successful lie, however Dudley was out with his gang and
Vernon wouldn’t be home for another hour at least and for some reason his aunt was minding
her own business for once at her kitchen table instead of fluttering around the house trying to
inconspicuously spy on the neighbors or chatting on the phone to one of them. This was the
perfect opportunity as she was alone and safe for the time being.

That’s what his brain said at least—his heart though reminded him that the sooner he did this,
the sooner he’d never have to set foot in that damn cupboard again.

He told himself it was simply good tactics to do it now, and ignored the small voice calling
him a hypocrite when not four hours ago he was telling Draco that lying to oneself was
unbecoming.

Shut up and focus, he scolded himself, meeting her angry muddled-hazel eyes with a
carefully blank expression.

“I’m going to Hogwarts this fall, not Stonewall.” He announced, his heart skipping a beat
since this was a huge thing but… he had a plan.

He couldn’t stop his stomach flipping as he face spiraled into several emotions at once—
shock, horror, disgust, fear, and anger being the most blatant ones. His prediction as correct
when she settled between a mix of fear and anger.

“What did you say?” She half shouted, half hissed, on her feet in a second.

He was disappointed, but not surprised when there was no confusion in her tone or her voice.
She knew exactly what Hogwarts was… and she probably knew a lot more than she let on in
her eternal quest to be ‘normal’, in all honesty. She’d been his mother’s sister, and if Lily
Evans had gone to Hogwarts… there was no way Petunia didn’t know all about it. She never
talked about the late Potters except to spit venom and slander, and through that Harry had
known she’d cut ties when his mom had been about seventeen years old; usually Petunia was
saying something loud and bitter about not having cut ties sooner than that, but even that tiny
bit of information told Harry that she’d known her sister the entire time his mom was at
Hogwarts. There was no way she didn’t know, and that meant she’d actively kept it from him.

Calling them drunks, and freaks, and lazy vagabonds.

Harry forced himself not to yell, but he sure as hell wanted to.

“You knew, didn’t you?” He demanded in a low tone.

His aunt paled, but she held her angry expression and ground her teeth together like she
wanted to scream, like it all wanted to come spilling out… she looked about ready to do so
too, but Harry had had enough. He knew nothing that came out of her mouth, answers or not,
would be pleasant or unbiased.

He was going to Hogwarts and he’d find his own answers about who his parents were. He
didn’t need Petunia to fill anything in—it was clear she’d lied, that she’d known, and Harry
was smart enough to be able to draw his own conclusions.

Fear, anger, jealousy—Harry knew he himself would not be very gracious if Dudley were the
one to be gifted a magical chance to escape reality while he was left in his cupboard. While
he and Dudley were not in the same position two once-close sisters were, Harry knew in that
situation that his feelings would not be very kind-hearted… but he also knew he’d never lock
Dudley’s child in a cabinet for ten years out of spite either.

He took a breath and spoke before she could open her mouth and whatever vitriol she’d been
bottling up for years got the chance to come tumbling out. She could keep it bottled up for
eternity until it ate her alive, for all he cared.

“After this conversation we don’t have to mention it ever again. I got my letter last week and
thought it was a joke, but I met with someone on my way home from detention yesterday that
explained the entire situation to me and I’ve decided to go to that school. You won’t have to
see me the entire year, whereas I’d still be living at home if I went to Stonewall. I will never
speak of where I’m going or what I’m doing there again in exchange for you to let me go
September first and then one day before then to go collect my school supplies in London. I’ll
hide all of it in the shed—I’ll sleep out there even so no one will ever know and it won’t be
brought into this house. I will do my best so that you and Uncle Vernon and Dudley won’t see
or hear a thing of it.”

She paused; anger derailed by this provided solution. The silence stretched on for a long
several minutes and he watched her beady eyes flash and twitch as she considered it.

Then:

“…what of the tuition.”

“Taken care of.”

Another long silence… before she nodded once, a tiny movement as if afraid someone would
see her even agreeing to this in the safety of her own home.

“You may go. This conversation never happened and Dudley will never know how much of a
freak you really are—you will keep it all in that shed and out of this house, am I
understood?”
“Perfectly.”

“Then get out; take whatever filth you had in the cupboard out the shed. No time like the
present.” She sneered like she was taking one last kick at him, but Harry considered it a win
considering that was exactly what he’d been hoping she’d do. “There will be no change in
your chores and you’re expected to finish them the normal way, or else.”

“Yes Aunt Petunia.”

000

Harry was thrilled.

The shed was not what you’d call cozy, it was… well, just a shed. It was a reasonably big
shed since the Dursleys liked to show off to their neighbors how well-off they were, except
there was very little actually in the shed given that they had slave-labor to do all their
gardening for them and were content with letting him use last decade’s tools to do it. Aside
from a push-mower, a workbench covered in gardening tools, a pile of bags of dirt, a bunch
of ceramic planters, some shovels and larger tools leaned up in a corner, and a basket filled
with tangled hoses, there wasn’t much to actually store in this rather large shed. The structure
itself liked to suggest it had two riding-movers and storage for ski equipment and other large-
ticket vacation items that would need storage year round that actually well-off people might
have in their sheds, but the Dursleys only liked to pretend and hated exercising so none of
them had ever seen a ski lift in their life much less had the equipment stored up in here.

What it resulted in was a generally empty wooden room with a steepled roof of rafters and
three windows total: two on either side of the double doors that made the entrance and a
small circular one at the very back center wall, no bigger than if Harry put his arms in a circle
in front of him—but all three did open.

He had been the only person to enter this place in all his living memory so he knew he was
generally safe here, but it’d be over before it started if Dudley got curious as to why he was
in here if he so happened to spot him coming and going. Petunia would likely give her
husband and son some reason like that he was getting to big for the cupboard and now he was
out of the house for good, and probably make it very, very clear that Dudley was to never
come in here lest he’d learn of that pesky thing she hated called ‘magic’. Even hearing that
rule it wouldn’t stop Dudley if he wanted to know or got upset that he was forbidden from
picking on Harry in here now, and if he did break in and see something he wasn’t supposed to
Harry would definitely be blamed for it anyway.

With this in mind he reached into his handy new bag that Petunia hadn’t even noticed in her
outrage and subsequent deal-making was actually very, very magical and blatantly standing
in the middle of her oh so normal kitchen.

Hagrid had dropped him off back at the library and gotten a promise for him to visit once he
got to Hogwarts, and on the walk home Harry had drained the last of his saved pounds from
skimming of the Dursley’s grocery money to invest in some key items that was going to
make this whole thing work.
First, a padlock and bike chain. The shed doors were reasonably thick and could be locked
from the outside (he had no idea where that key was but knew the Dursleys would
miraculously find it the next time he got in a load of trouble—a joy for future-him to enjoy, he
was sure) but the inside only had twin handles that he promptly locked tightly with the chain.
It wasn’t 100% Dudley proof but if Dudley were determined enough to break down this door
(not a strong likelihood given how uninterested he was in exercise in general, but still a
likelihood if he got a bunch of his friends in on it too) he’d cause a royal racket and enough of
a scene in full view of the neighbors if they peered over their fences to see what all the noise
was about, that even Vernon would stop his spoiled son so to save face. Petunia would stop
him as soon as she heard because she knew what her son might see and do anything to
prevent it, so… not 100%, but it was a damn good safety measure, more than he’d ever had
before given that he was always the one being locked in.

Now he could lock himself in and he found he really liked that. That feeling that he was
actually safe. It was a good one, and one he hoped he could get more of from here on out.

The next thing he did—really it should’ve been the first but he was paranoid—was open the
cage door of his new owl friend and let her stretch her wings as she flew out and flapped into
the rafters, examining her new home. He had snuck her in here before doubling back to go in
the front door for his confrontation with Aunt Petunia, because she was the only thing that
wouldn’t fit in his bottomless bag (the salesman said live things would not fair well at all
with the kind of charms he’d used) and clearly he couldn’t have anyone seeing him walking
around with a golden cage containing a beautiful white owl. Talk about suspicious—Petunia
would have a fit and he hadn’t been free from his cupboard for an hour yet.

“It’s not much but we should be safe here. Don’t let anyone in the house or the surrounding
houses ever see you or we’ll be in a much smaller location than this… in fact, if I’m ever
locked in he house for one reason or another then don’t come here at all.” He spoke to her,
her golden eyes watching him as he walked to the back of the shed. She was an owl but… he
got the feeling she understood every word. “Here—this is a good entrance/exit if you can
manage it… it faces a tree so no one will see you come in and out too much if you’re careful.
I’ll leave it open for you to come and go.”

She hooted low and clear as if agreeing with this arrangement and he grinned up at her. “I
really need to think of a name for you… something will come to me, I’m sure.” She hooted
once as if saying take your time, and he shot her another grin.

Window open, he put his magic bag down and got to work.

First thing’s first was a small broom he’d grabbed from the grocery store and set to work
cleaning the floor from the years of dust, dirt, mulch, and grease that had settled in some
places. He picked up the tools and the hoses and the planters and arranged them so they were
in a neat u-shape, shoving the workbench with all his strength and after forty minutes of
huffing and working up a sweat, it was placed in the middle of the room facing the doors—
well, a bit closer to the back wall instead of the middle of the room, but now it looked like a
nice and tidy shed that had approximately a third of it missing at the back.

Now he had to make it “disappear”.

The whole shed was only about just under four meters in width but long at about eight
meters. The space he’d sectioned off was the entire width but only ate up two meters of the
whole length, so if he did this right he’d have a nice little 4 x 2 meter area to call his own—it
was a huge upgrade in space compared to the cupboard.

Simply thrilled at this prospect, with the area clean and sectioned off from the rest of the shed
he started emptying out his magical bottomless back. The first thing he was looking for: a
giant swath of cloth he’d purchased from Madam Malkin’s. He’d had to double back and
made some flimsy excuse about wanting to make his own shirts or something and Hagrid
hadn’t even blinked twice since for some reason that was a logical purchase to him, and
Madam Malkin herself didn’t care as the color he’d asked for was so unpopular that she’d
had this particular roll for two years and never even cut into it, so she’d sold it on discount
which made Hagrid even happier.

Harry understood: in a world where witches and wizards wore bright emerald and neon
purple robes like it was nothing, plain old wood-textured brown was boring. It was exactly
what he needed though, and took his third grocery-store purchase—thumb tacks—to cut and
then pin two sheets of the large fabric to the floor, along the wall, and to the rafter crossbeam
marking the start of ‘his’ area. He doubled up the fabric for further security just in case and
because he had the extra material and thumb tacks, and by the end of it the two sheets
overlapped in the middle directly behind the workbench blocking the entrance, but was a
stretchy enough material that he could slip through carefully and cross between “rooms”.

The rafters were still all open so any light would still be visible at night, and he fixed this by
using some spare fabric and creating crude curtains for all three windows that could be drawn
and pinned if he needed them to be. For now he left them pinned above the window, the glass
opened so let some cross breeze through since it was hot in an uninsulated shed in the middle
of July.

Which is why the second his “room” was finished, he dug through his bag for his next
favorite magical invention right after his bottomless bag: the atmosphere bulbs.

He stuck one below the window in the upper center of his new living space and immediately
the soft, periwinkle, sparkly wonder started working, much to his relief. The increasingly hot
shed magically cooled off to a slightly chilly room-temperature. He had tons of new robes
and clothes and fully intended to get more on his ‘day off to get school supplies’ he’d gotten
from Petunia, so slightly-chilly was far better than dying of heat stroke since it looked like
he’d be living summers in here at least from now on.

The exposure to the elements was the main—eh, only—reason he’d not considered begging
to be kicked out here instead of the cupboard years ago. Summer was one thing, he could
probably melt and still survive, but winters were cold and he was only eleven—he definitely
wouldn’t have lived long and losing toes and fingers because he hated his cupboard wasn’t a
good trade, no matter how much he hated that damn thing. The game changer was these
atmosphere bulbs, and Harry tucked the second safely in his handy-dandy security pouch for
safe keeping. He could afford to replace almost everything, but his vault key, his brand new
wand, and access to these bulbs—even temporarily he’d be in bad shape to have to sweat it
out / endure freezing out here, so into the pouch his key and bulb went, before finding a safe
home under a floorboard he spent twenty minutes using a trowel to pry up.

His wand he kept on him, at Hagrid’s instruction. The giant man’s reluctance to let go of the
tiny pink umbrella he carried around with him despite technically having had his wand
snapped for an undetermined reason years ago told Harry that if even Hagrid was disobeying
orders to follow this rule, it was a rule worth following even at risk of what the Dursleys
would do if they caught him. He’d leave it under the floorboards when he left the shed, but
for now he’d get used to having it one him.

By the time that was done it was late—Petunia had not asked him to cook dinner and he
didn’t have anything on him to eat either, so he simply set his tiny alarm clock and set up
shop on the thin mat he’d had in his cupboard he was allowed to take out here with him. He
made a note to see about getting some better solution on his free day out, but would have to
wait a time so that Petunia had cooled off from even this small change.

The white owl hooted above him, as if wishing him a good night, and he managed to hum
happily as he drifted off.

Today had been… a good one.

000

“How about Hedwig? She was a powerful warrior in the goblin war of 1308. Don’t know
why, but Hedwig seems to just fit, what do you think?”

The white owl perched on his trunk beside him as he knelt and used it as a make-shift desk to
flip through his history textbooks chirped lightly, accepting this name.

“Hedwig it is then.” He decided, closing the book without much further ado. It read more like
a fantasy novel than a history book, however even that couldn’t make twelve goblin wars in a
row more interesting. Goblins really liked to fight it seems and humans were great at
repeating past mistakes—that poem out front Gringotts made a lot more sense suddenly.

It had only been a week and Harry was back on track with the Dursleys mostly—he still got
up and cooked their breakfasts, packed their lunches, whipped up desserts, did the shopping
and generally kept house while Petunia spied on their neighbors, but now he got to escape to
someplace other than the cupboard when he was finished enough for their liking. Whatever
Petunia had told Vernon made his face permanently purple whenever he saw Harry in the
same room as him for about two days before he seemed to settle into the fact that nothing had
outwardly changed in their routine and Harry himself was in no danger of randomly
announcing to the room that he was a wizard.

Harry had a sneaking suspicion his uncle actually knew about magic too, but refused to
comment on it since this new agreement had presented itself so conveniently. He suspected
because Dudley had, predictably, put up a fight about not being able to follow Harry into the
shed to bother him, and both his aunt and uncle had put their foot down with equal
vehemence. Petunia even miraculously produced a copy of the shed key and said if they ever
found it unlocked he’d be back in the cupboard before he could say cupboard.
Dudley had never been told no in his entire life, but the second he started banging on the shed
door while Harry was inside scrubbing the kitchen floor, Petunia had run out in only her
slippers and dragged him inside once more. She then did the unthinkable and told Harry not
to cook Dudley a single sweet that night.

Dudley of course had a royal cow and Harry took the brunt of it, but he was for once on
Petunia’s side in that he most certainly did not want Dudley messing with anything in that
shed so he’d held firm despite a lot of cheap shots to his kidneys and things thrown at him
that he then had to clean up when they broke. Petunia never gave either, which Harry was
honestly surprised by; he must have really underestimated how much she hated magic. Either
way, Dudley sulked up a royal storm (and not the endearing way Draco did either) and never
attempted it again. He must’ve figured the punishment wasn’t worth the hassle of lugging
himself out to the shed to even bother, when he could tell his parents to order Harry to come
inside and they’d do it in a heartbeat. Win-win for him, win-some lose-some for Harry, but
hey, at least he wasn’t always losing anymore.

Harry finally felt 100% safe in here for once and had gotten comfy—or, as comfy as he could
with his meager belongings. In his free time he could actually stand up and walk around a
little bit, or stretch out and read with his booklight that wasn’t too bright to risk being seen
over his curtains. He could leaf through his magical textbooks and fiddle with his new
potions equipment all he liked, and he’d even risked taking his bottomless bag on his grocery
store trips to stock up on extra protein bars and snacks for when he wasn’t able to slip enough
food for himself off the Dursley’s meals. It was practically paradise, really.

And now that things had settled and he’d given all his textbooks a thorough examination…
he was left with his thoughts.

Ugh.

He huffed, letting his head rest on the trunk and Hedwig nipped gently at his ear curiously.

“It’s nothing, I’ve just… been avoiding writing to Draco. You’d probably like the exercise of
delivering a letter finally, but… it’s complicated.”

Hedwig’s light chirp could’ve been interpreted as a question, and Harry shrugged.

“Oh, nothing. It was just a lot to figure out magic was real the same day I learn my parents
were not drunks but were in fact murdered. Oh and let’s not forget the part where my wand is
the brother to the wand of the man who killed them and my first friend is apparently from a
family who served said parent-murdering madman ten years ago. No big deal.”

Hedwig didn’t respond—in fact after a brief pause she flew up to the rafters and seemed to
hide behind one of the beams. He lifted his head to glare at her mildly.

“You’re no help, really.” He responding hoot sounded like an apology and he just let his head
plop back down onto the trunk with a gently thud.

The answer was of course simple: Draco wasn’t his parents and was no older than Harry was
when he defeated the dark lord. Harry didn’t remember defeating the dark lord and that
stands to suggest Draco would have no knowledge or control of what his parents did while
said dark lord was still alive.

Draco was an eleven-year-old, just like him, who put up a mask of being an arrogant, self-
centered, know-it-all and could easily come off as an asshole. But with just a little prodding
he came unraveled at the seams and a very real, earnest eleven-year-old boy—just like him—
shone through. He didn’t deserve to be cast in with the lot of Voldemort-worshippers just
because of who his parents were or his family’s history. Harry had already promised not to
hold who he was against him, in exchange for the same… and while it was hard to wrap his
head around, he could live with this promise. It was unimaginable to consider forgiving and
being friends with someone who may-or-may-not be inclined to worship the man who
murdered his parents… but in that same vein, Draco was then befriending the boy who was
responsible for his family’s lord being destroyed. If Draco was still up to be his friend then…
Harry could…

He groaned and thunked his head on the trunk once more. It was one thing to know logically
that it wasn’t Draco’s fault and another to get his heart on board with the idea.

Just thinking about the wooden floor he was kneeling on in a garden shed instead of in a
family home with parents who might’ve loved him was enough to make the very concept
hard to accept. To forgive, to look past…

Eventually, he couldn’t beat around it anymore. Draco was not his family history, and he
deserved the chance a whole bunch of eleven-year-old were about to get to start over fresh at
Hogwarts. Harry himself was really, really counting on this fresh start, so he had no reason to
deny Draco his either. Harry himself was living proof that your relatives didn’t define who
you were, after all, so it wasn’t up to him to sit here and decide who Draco would become or
who he would end up supporting and try and make contingency plans accordingly. Draco had
already promised to be his friend, so he was just going to have to get over this fretting about a
future he couldn’t control and just be friends with the jerk already.

Besides… Draco was his friend already. Against his better judgement, Harry was kind of…
attached, to this cactus-like blond boy with unnaturally perfect skin. It didn’t even matter at
this point if he cut off ties now or waited for Draco to prove he was more like his family than
Harry was hoping he was, he’d still be losing a friend and he wasn’t sure it was going to hurt
any more or less either way. He’d never had a friend to lose before really and he’d at least
like to pretend he had one for a little while instead of losing them in less than a week.

So here’s to optimism and second chances—Harry wasn’t usually about those things but hey,
magic was real so why the hell not really.

With a great huff he lifted his head and pulled put a piece of parchment and the ink and quill
he’s purchased with Hagrid from his trunk. He’d practiced little and his handwriting sucked
with a normal pencil, but a quill was a whole other beast. Still, Draco would have no idea
what he’d done if he wrote it in ball point or pencil and if this was how they wrote at
Hogwarts he’d definitely need the practice, so might as well. He was annoyed just imagining
the fact that Draco probably had perfect handwriting with these stupid feathers, and it was
because of this he found himself putting far more time and effort into his letter than he
would’ve otherwise. He forced himself to focus and get every word out perfectly.
Dear Draco…

000

Lucius was not an idiot, and neither was his wife.

Harry was not an uncommon name, especially after the dark lord’s defeat there was an
explosion of children named Harry here and there, and the boy Draco had met at Diagon
Alley could’ve been the right age for how small he was. To hear that the boy was actually
going to be in Draco’s year was a bad omen though, given they’d always known that their son
and the Potter child would be year mates.

Lucius would admit that he’d entirely been expecting a James Potter clone. Lily Evans was a
talented witch but a muggleborn still and he’d never given her much thought aside form
avoiding her legendary temper, which she thankfully only directed at people her own year or
below—Lucius and Narcissa being upper years and barely sharing their Hogwarts years with
her, she was forgettable.

James Potter though, had the Potter look that his father and grandfather and great grandfather
did too, as they were an old pureblood line even if they kept creating half-bloods every so
often by marring muggleborns when the fancy hit them. The Malfoys and the Blacks were
aware of the Potter line like all old pureblood families were aware of each other and the dark
messy hair, the build, the glasses—there was one Potter in every generation that had the look.
It was like how the Weasleys were all freckly gingers; there had to be some magical
inheritance going on for it to be that blatant. Lucius saw far too much of James Potter through
Sirius Black and the degenerate’s unfortunate connection with his wife’s family, and Lily
Evans had been such a non-entity to Lucius before they both died, that for some reason he
was 100% expecting to pick out the Boy Who Lived from the crowd by keeping an eye out
for a tiny James Potter.

To see a tiny, lithe-limbed, delicate-faced, scarlet-haired, green-eyed thing on the arm of his
son was not the first impression Lucius could’ve ever imagined his first meeting with the boy
who’d defeated the dark lord as a babe would go. The fact that Draco was head over heels
smitten with this boy, clear as day in the middle of Diagon bloody Alley of all places, was not
the direction Lucius had been planning his life to go. In fact this didn’t rank in the top one
hundred possible outcomes of his year, if he’d ever been creative enough to dream up this
situation—which he wasn’t, let’s be clear. This was a dragon trampling through his carefully
laid garden he’d been tending to and watching grow for years now; all that work, wasted in
one fiery, green-eyed mess.

He’d been holding out hope that the boy—Harry—was just that, a Harry by another name
and call it a day, since he never actually mentioned being a Potter, but a week after that odd
incident his hopes had been shattered.

Draco (still so naïve, too-trusting Draco who never hid a thing from him) ran in to the sitting
room with the biggest grin on his face Lucius could remember him having. The last time his
son had smiled like that, had been when he’d first ridden a broom, and he’d been quite small
then. It made his heart pang uncomfortably in his chest, at the reminder that he wasn’t sure of
the last time his son had smiled like he was truly happy, and not because he needed it for a
mask he was portraying. It was as per his training, but it didn’t mean as a father that Lucius
liked it at all.

He’d showed him the letter his friend had written him… and at the bottom, signed in
surprisingly neat penmanship for someone who grew up with muggles—the name Harry
Potter.

Just fantastic really. That boy was a dragon in his garden, and Lucius was not pleased.

He sat there pondering in front of the fireplace later that night; he didn’t respond to Draco
other than a calm nod, and his son was too excited to read much into it as he ran back off to
respond in kind. Lucius had let him go, finishing his work for the night and enjoying dinner
with his family where thankfully Narcissa took hold of the conversation to talk about a
garden party she was arranging and the political consequences of that, so Draco didn’t have a
chance to bring up his letter. Narcissa knew of course, because she was Draco’s mother and
his wife and she always seemed to know these things, so he was sure she’d done it on
purpose.

Draco was in bed and the fire was flickering silently when he felt his wife’s presence come
stand by the side of his chair, striding a step forward so that she too was gazing at the fire and
the both of them were keeping an eye on each other through their peripherals.

"What do we do, Lucius? You know as well as I do that it's not impossible the dark lord could
return." She intoned lowly. It was only thanks to the wards he had on this room that it was a
safe place to discuss these things, and he nodded slowly… taking a sip from his drink.

Draco was clearly… smitten with the boy. Which, while the discovery that their son was
attracted to men even if Draco himself didn’t consciously know it just yet was a shock in and
of itself, it didn't truly stop them—they were parents who loved their child long before they
were death eaters or anything else. It was less that their son was getting close to another boy
and more that it was Harry Potter. The dark lord would not be pleased to return and find the
Malfoy heir consorting with his arch enemy.

Lucius pinched the bridge of his nose. His thoughts on being a death eater were nothing more
than self-serving: he'd joined for status and power and he'd abandoned the title for the very
same reason, after the dark lord fell from power. For himself, for his family--and yes he
believed in wizard superiority over muggles but the torturing, killing, violence of it all was
just part of the job, same as flattering the oaf of a Minister and having tea with dignitaries
was part of the job now that he was playing on the Light side. He didn't care for either, in
either a positive or negative way; he was a Slytherin and was fully able to act accordingly
when presented with a new environment in which he needed to survive. He played up his
generous, philanthropic side for the Light, and played up his utter distaste of Muggles and
mudbloods for the Dark side. He was not so stupid as to think everyone was not aware that he
was rather dark-sided for the Light, and rather light-sided for the Dark, but he played his
parts well enough to be able to get away with it even if it wasn't flawless.

Survival was what came first, after all.

He didn't care that he'd killed and tortured before, but he also didn't actually care one bit
about muggles in the first place--he never gave either of those things enough thought to truly
hate or enjoy either. But certain people expected him to be bigoted just as some expected him
to be cruel, and so depending on his audience he was a marvelous actor. But at the core of it
all?

He just didn't care.

What he did care about, was his son. He even cared little about marrying Narcissa except for
that their common goals and personalities were so impossibly well suited he found himself
loving her as time went on. He'd always known she was the woman for him, even back in
their Hogwarts days; he just wasn't a passionate sort of person. Prideful and arrogant, he
knew, but not passionate. Their marriage contract was purely because the Malfoy family was
old blood and extremely wealthy, and she was a branch descendant of the Black family so
would get a healthy inheritance herself. The fact that neither of them were interested in
anything but getting business done and were perfectly suited partners in every playing field
was simply a bonus, and neither of them required being in love or being passionate about
their relationship to be part of their marriage in any way. Neither of them were very engaged,
passionate people was all.

That only changed when Draco was born, and his son, his heir, the only thing on this earth he
had more pride in than he did himself, took his breath away, and he knew it was the same for
Narcissa.

And so this sudden change in the plan was a little alarming; he'd raised Draco to be more
dark than light because the dark had more power, and breaking the rules to get what you want
was a key Malfoy trait, and he'd wanted his son to have every opportunity he'd been able to
afford him. Lucius himself would keep the Malfoy name clean so that when his son grew he'd
still be respected in Light communities, while raising him to be aware of their Dark
connections and give him a leg up in the world. That had been the plan in any case, and
Draco was always a happy, loved child so that was all that mattered.

Now that he'd veered off that path and befriended Harry Potter, there was a choice Lucius
would have to make, as a father. Draco did not yet know that this boy he was smitten with
will mostly likely not enjoy the darker aspects of the Malfoy lifestyle, and he was in for a
heartbreaking rude awakening when that happened. Malfoy would like to avoid making his
son cry in such a manner at all costs—and cry he would, for even the unbreakable Malfoys, at
such a young age, are susceptible to heartbreak. It would be almost unavoidable in some
ways, as the young were stupid and naïve and figuring out their emotions on their own, but
Lucius thought of his old friend Severus and felt a streak of panic shoot through him.

Severus had gotten too close to the Dark when he was learning to balance between the two
sides of the war and scared off his first love because of it—another red haired beauty with a
Light personality who'd captivated a Grey soul and the mother of the boy Draco was now
mesmerized by. Looking back at it now he wondered how he didn't notice Lily Evans' child
standing in front of him before, but now that he knew he couldn't un-see a red-headed child
rejecting a young Severus Snape because of his connections to the Dark. It had broken the
young potions master and Severus had never recovered, especially since she died before they
could ever reconcile. Not that they ever would've, as she'd gone and married someone more
suited for the Light, and Severus' arch enemy at that.

He feared another red-headed child would do the same to his son, and he'd watch Draco
become the miserable loner that Severus became.

Not that he did not think of Severus as a friend, but he did not want that fate for his son, by
any cost. He wanted his son happy, and successful in life. Safe and situated at an advantage,
at all times. He refused to be ignorant of history repeating itself, so he would learn from
Severus' mistake for the sake of his child.

He gave a great sigh, having thought through these thoughts and coming to the only
conclusion he, as a father, could.

"Being more Dark-sided had its advantages, however Draco will not be successful in his
attempts at wooing this boy if we remain so. This connection will undoubtedly bring us
trouble if the Dark lord should return, so perhaps it's time to situate ourselves as truly Grey."

Narcissa nodded, not surprised by this conclusion, probably having thought through it
herself. This is why he loved this woman.

"It seems so. I do not wish to approach Dumbledore at this moment, but perhaps Severus
would be a good first contact. The Greengrass family too."

"I agree." Lucius hummed, finishing his drink. "We should allow Draco time to continue to
write this boy, but we will have Severus for dinner before the school year starts."

"Indeed. We should also begin explaining this to Draco, so he is more prepared for when the
year begins." She smoothed the front of her skirts and turned to face him properly now.
"Should we address the agreements between the Crabbe and Goyle families?"

"I suppose we must. They are truly Dark and would never understand the complexities of
what we are attempting here, but I wouldn't dismiss their protecting Draco. He should be free
to interact with this boy but will still need allies within Slytherin." The assumption being that
Harry Potter would be a Gryffindor, without a doubt. Being friends with a Gryffindor meant
his boy needed all the more protection within his own house, for certain.

“True. Very well, I will begin planning a dinner for Severus and draft a plan for Draco’s
education. Do get some rest dear.”

“Yes dear,” Lucius said politely as she ghosted from the room on graceful feet.

She knew damn well that he’d be back at his desk drafting his own plan, of which they’d
discuss it over breakfast before Draco managed to pull himself from his bed. They’d come to
an agreement then, and if he went to bed now and didn’t prepare anything, she would have
her way entirely. Clever witch.

And that was why he loved her.

He finished his drink in one last swig and stood—he had work to do.
 Broken Hope
Chapter Notes

Cursing warning!

Also it's a little short because the next one is looooong

Thank you all for the kudos and comments, they are very encouraging :)

It was the Saturday two weeks before September 1st that Harry finally had his plan together.
The night before he’d casually caught his aunt alone and said he’d be gone all of the next day
—she thankfully remembered their deal and gave him a sharp look but said absolutely
nothing to him as she hurried to the next room to escape him. Figuring that was practically a
‘have fun’ in her terms, he’d set about drafting his list of items after his evening chores and
preparing for the trip.

Draco and he had found a rhythm of letter writing, Harry mentioned he only had time at night
and very early in the morning, so he’d usually get back to the shed to see a Hedwig drinking
from her water bowl in the corner with a letter around her leg. He’d read it and respond
before continuing to read from his textbooks and take detailed notes— at Draco’s instruction
since apparently the spoiled jerk had had private tutors since birth and was now more than
willing to boss him around in good-studying practices. Sometime in the night Draco must get
his letter and draft his own response since apparently the boy didn’t need to sleep and was
fine sleeping in until any hour during the summer (a foreign concept to Harry but he’d
already known Draco’s parents spoiled him rotten so it wasn’t a shock) so Harry usually had
another letter waiting for him when he woke. He’d started waking up even earlier these days
to be able to respond to Draco, and also get in the house to freshen up for the day before
having to cook breakfast and start his chores.

Two letters a day and Harry decided it was entirely worth taking the risk on Draco—he
seemed entirely unwilling to talk about his family’s history or his parents in general, and
Harry was content to avoid those topics too. Instead they kept to light topics, Draco
explaining about the wizarding world and Harry explaining about the muggle one, talking
school and hobbies (of which Harry had almost none and Draco’s was simply ‘quidditch) and
a plethora of other small-talk-like topics. In letter form he noticed it was a lot easier to plan
what you wanted to say and carefully direct where a conversation was going; it was easier to
avoid certain things but also allowed a level of freedom with what you said that sometimes
people were not brave enough to say to someone to their face, somehow writing it in a letter
being easier, safer.

For example, Draco’s and subsequently Harry’s own letters were getting longer and longer as
they found more and more to say to each other, but about three days ago Draco had sent one
that was easily five pages, front and back. It was a novella even by their standards and Harry
quickly realized he was using most of the parchment real estate to build up to say something.

…father once said there was nothing more interesting than a niffler who couldn’t niff, if that
makes sense. Anyway, the point I’m trying to get across is that it’s not weird at all, and I think
you’re fine the way you were regardless of what anyone says. I don’t understand who in their
right mind would say such mindless things, especially about your hair. Honestly your are hair
is beautiful and it was what caught my eye that day in Diagon Alley, even when everything
these is a catastrophe of color, you stood out about them. In a good way! Well that’s a little
weird of me to say but you should know I meant it, and if anyone would like to comment on it
again I’ve included a list of a few new spells that Mother taught me that would be really
useful for you I think if you…

Harry had re-read that page of the letter about twelve times to the point where he had Draco’s
elegant, yet ambling way of writing memorized. He almost didn’t remember what he’d said
in his last letter to prompt such a response but vaguely recalled talking about how he always
wore a beanie aside from that one day in the Alley because he’d been told his hair was too
bright. Not that anyone had seen his hair outside of the Alley at this point in order to tell him
it was too bright, but he hadn’t wanted to get into detail about why he’d hidden his hair for
years now over letter.

He’d saved every letter Draco had sent him so far, but that one had left him feeling light
and… happy in a way he could never remember being. He had told himself he didn’t need
others’ validation to be happy to be himself, but that was before when he’d had none and was
just making it by on the strength of his own self-worth. Now that someone had actually
complimented him… him, not his mother’s hair, but his hair…

He had been positively cheerful to walk into the house for chores that day, and it was a real
struggle not to grin like a maniac while doing so less the Dursleys throw a fit about him being
‘weird’.

His baby cactus-like friend had complimented him, and he’s taken five pages to say it
because clearly Draco wasn’t brave enough to come right out and say it, much less ever say it
to his face. Which meant he truly meant it because he’s mustered up enough courage to say it
at all.

Over the last month he'd only grown more excited that this new world he was entering would
be different than the one he was leaving behind. That he could be free to be himself and that
maybe no one would care or call him a freak if he were just a bit off--after walking down
Diagon Alley and seeing all those strange people and items, he thought just being
himself would actually be tame comparatively. But anticipating and actually having proof that
someone liked him for who he was… that they’d be going off into this magical world
together in two short weeks…

It was very hard to sit down and think logically through what he needed to do with his one
free day, because he was so excited he also felt like jumping up and down and running
around his tiny shed/room to burn off the energy he hadn’t spent doing chores that day.
List made, he attempted to sleep and found that it was pretty much a waste of time—he was
far too excited, and tomorrow promised to be yet another great one.

000

That same night, at an undisclosed location much father north in a vast and sprawling Manor
with a heard of peacocks chirping to one another as the moon rose higher in the sky, dinner
was wrapping up.

A white owl was delivering that night’s letter to a third story window the same moment
Lucius and his old friend were retiring to the parlor for a drink after a simply divine dinner fit
for a guest that the hosts wanted something from. Severus wasn’t a fool and he was only ever
invited over when something was afoot—most of the times it was because Draco had
demanded it, wanting to see his godfather more often because of their not-so-secret potions
lessons. Draco had a lot to learn if he thought he was successful in hiding those lessons from
his parents, but Lucius and Narcissa were content to let him believe he’d gotten away with it
for now. It’d be a valuable lesson later, he was sure they were planning something.

Tonight was not about Draco then, as his godson had bid him a good night and retreated
instead of inviting him to the library or some other excuse to get away from his parents and
talk potions. Lucius invited him for a night cap and as his glass was filled with 500 year
scotch, Severus knew this was going to be a pivotal conversation—his old friend didn’t break
out the good stuff for less than world dignitaries he was trying to win over, and Severus knew
he himself did not make the cut. Which meant whatever he wanted from him, it was going to
be bad.

They sat it relative silence for a time, Lucius asking after the latest potion he was developing,
and while Severus would love to speak in depth about it he also knew not to spill proprietary
potion research to someone who would sell it to the highest bidder without a second thought
if presented the chance. Lucius was his friend, but Severus wasn’t stupid either.

Eventually, he had enough of the beating around the bush.

"What is it you've really called me for, Lucius?"

The blond man sighed as if put out that their delicate conversation was broken but such a
blunt question. Still, he relented. "You will not find it a pleasant topic Severus, but bear with
me." Severus just gave him a curious look; Lucius was one of the few people who understood
his position as a spy—for neither the dark lord nor Dumbledore, but purely for whatever side
ensured survival since Lily had died. He’d been devoted to Dumbledore for all of three weeks
when Voldemort had been going after the Potters and Dumbledore promised to protect them
(to protect Lily) but when Albus had failed and the dark lord killed her… he’d abandoned
both of them in his heart of hearts.

Severus had very little left to be truly loyal to. The most he enjoyed another person was
Draco, who was oblivious to his dark past and continued internal struggles and looked up to
his godfather for his potion making skills alone. Potions had always been his fail safe—he’d
been the youngest potions master in history and his genius at this art was one of the only
things he had left, so the fact his godson looked at him and didn’t see a weak death eater, a
Dumbledore pawn, a terrible teacher… but simply a good potions master… that was enough.

But first and foremost Snape was a spy, between two of the most powerful chess masters and
Legilimens in the world. He had had his fair share of unpleasant topics discussed at length
and so for Lucius to say that was either an insult to his credit as a spy, or he truly meant it.
Which meant…

"Harry Potter." Lucius finally gave.

Instantly Snape felt his shoulder hunch and a scowl sear across his expression.

"And what of the welp." He snapped bluntly. Lucius hated his unrefined temper, but Severus
would not—could not— be calm when thinking of that blasted offspring of James bloody
Potter.

Lucius seemed to expect this reaction and didn’t even blink, simply taking a delicate sip of
his drink and slowly rolling it around is glass thoughtfully for a long couple seconds.

"The Malfoys have decided to go Grey, Severus."

Snape froze.

“…what?"

"Draco met a young Harry Potter in Diagon Alley while we were school shopping… and was
immediately smitten. And unfortunately, it reminded me of a young friend I once had, far too
much."

Oh hell no.

"You use me as an example for your son?" He spat, ire rolling off his frame and a cluster of
feelings making it hard to think straight clogging up his chest. Draco—Lily—Potter—!?

"You're his godfather." Lucius pointed out calmly. He sighed once more, audibly. "I will be
blunt in saying yes, I intend for Draco to learn from your mistakes, Severus. As he is now,
and pursuing Darker paths, he'll never win the love of this boy. I refuse to see my son suffer
this way, so Narcissa and I are taking steps to move towards the Grey. You of all people
should know there is nothing I will not do for my son, and his happiness."

Severus felt his fists clench in his lap, his drink forgotten by the side table. Oh yes, he knew
—he was made Draco’s godfather purely because he had both Voldemort and Dumbledore's
ear. Lucius knew he was in a position of power and wanted to ensure he'd use that for Draco's
benefit, in the end. Severus and Narcissa were closer friends than the two men were due to a
love of potions in school, but after years of knowing each other, he and Lucius were
established “friends” both because it benefited them in the public eye and also because it was
hard to spend years working alongside someone for your own gains and not be intimately
aware of how they worked—the fact they got out of each other’s way on the most part was
essentially a ringing endorsement for their friendship.
Making Severus his son's godfather was a tactical move worthy of Slytherin, nothing more—
Severus had always been aware of this, and of what Draco meant to his father.

"But Potter?" He spat scathingly. He was consciously aware there was nothing Lucius
wouldn’t do for his son but this was insane, even for him.

"I admit I did not recognize him at first, he simply introduced himself as Harry. He could be
Evans' clone, really."

Severus jaw ground together, fists clenching so hard he felt cuts open up in his palm.

"Severus."

After a long silence, where Snape could not…

He grabbed his drink and took a long draw from it, setting it back down with a click against
the polished wood.

"What would you have me do."

"Your position at Hogwarts means you must play the part and 'hate' the child. I don't need to
be a spy to know you're going to protect him while simultaneously treating him like the
Gryffindor that James Potter always deserved to be treated. I am saying do not do that."

"And why would I listen to you."

"You could spin it easily for both the Dark and Light Lords—you wanted to give Draco a
chance at 'coercing' Potter over to our side. Meanwhile, that old coot of a Headmaster would
gladly buy that you're simply looking after Lily's son."

"A good cover but you still have not given me incentive to actually do any of it."

"If you cannot be civil then simply ignore his presence entirely, is all I'm asking." Lucius’
tone was reasonable and calm—there was little wonder how he charmed his way into high
ranking positions, he was worse than a politician and his grey eyes were sharp like a snake.
"And you will do it because you too love my son, and you will be dooming him to either hate
you for ruining his chances, or suffer through your own failure. Are you truly so petty? If you
are then we've no more reason to speak, as I cannot abide those who would purposefully
injure my son so." His voice had ice sliding down it, only just so slightly threatening to be
cold if Severus did not answer correctly right now.

He wants me to ignore that—that brat!? Potter was the bane of my existence, his spawn will
be no different! Like I’d let him strut around Hogwarts as his father did and wreck havoc on
my students… never again!

He was all set to tell Lucius to go to straight to hell via the floo… when he remembered
Draco, who was probably sitting upstairs oblivious to what was happening down here.
Young, too-naïve Draco who had such promise to be a remarkable Slytherin one day, who
was so eager and ecstatic to be going to Hogwarts in just a couple weeks… just like Severus
remembered his own fresh start coming and arriving with a whirl of youthful exuberance and
hope.

Hope was not something he’d had since he was a child. Not since before Lily had been sorted
into Gryffindor.

He shouldn’t have gotten attached, he shouldn’t have empathized with that small blond boy
who came up to him asking questions about potions, it seemed like only yesterday but it’d
been four years already. He didn’t know how Draco had gone from being his godson only in
name for appearances sake to a child he legitimately wanted to protect—he didn’t know how
Lucius was to blame but the man was good so Severus was going to blame him anyway on
the belief it was his fault somehow.

Either way it was too late, and before he could get his mouth to say ‘fuck off Lucius’, he
found himself wondering how Draco would react when his excitement for the coming school
year and his… attachment, to brat-who-lived was crushed into dust. He shouldn’t be
concerned with the feelings of an eleven-year-old, but here he was. Considering it.

Shit.

Against all his better judgement and common sense, he found himself relating to Draco’s
position. His excitement to start Hogwarts, to see Lily… to have it come crashing down on
him when she went to Gryffindor instead. That weak, desperate hope that they could still be
friends even in different houses, that year of sneaking around and hiding behind bookshelves
so no one would see them—particularly Potter and his obnoxious friends who always butted
in to ridicule Severus and hound Lily like the pigs they were. And then he remembered the
day second year when she canceled on him for the first time to study with her Gryffindor
friends. The sinking feeling when she canceled more and more, and the sick feeling in his
stomach when he canceled on her in angry retribution at being left behind. The itching of his
skin at the feeling of suspicious eyes on him when he began to study with other Slytherins—
and of course the crowd he picked in desperate attempt to look like he belonged here even
when Lily was ignoring him was the ones who looked down on half-bloods with no family
name or wealth and were willing to welcome him into their circle because they needed more
recruits for what they were planning.

And then it got worse… and worse… and worse. And then it spiraled out of control and
ended with Lily dead on a nursery floor, the first time he’d seen her in three years and all his
apologies and his begging for forgiveness were wasted on a corpse who never heard him.

But Draco wasn’t at the end, he was at the beginning of it all. He was still excited, hopeful…
in love.

He was only eleven, he had no idea what he truly felt of course, but neither had Severus…
and then it was too late. It was shocking how fast the time went, how Draco went from that
tiny curious child to a first year at Hogwarts in what felt like no time at all, how many years
had passed without Lily in this world and he hadn’t even realized how long he’d been
dwelling in old wounds and unhealing scars. It felt like a rush of memories all at once—
having Lily to losing Lily had taken years, pretty much his entire time at Hogwarts as a
student, and yet looking back it felt like he woke up one day and shew as just gone.
His entire memory of being at Hogwarts—what should’ve been the happiest years of his life
like it was for so many others—was washed in James Potter’s taunting, derisive voice, and
Lily’s wide, sad green eyes.

He hated, hated… more than he could ever hate something, more than his body was
physically capable of holding, he hated the fact that those two people who haunted his entire
childhood like a vicious demon and the cruelest angel had had a child together. That child
was essentially the embodiment of everything he could not move past—how he could not
forgive James Potter and how he could not let go of his failure with Lily.

He hated, and he raged.

He grieved.

And the most painful part of this whole situation was that he still hoped—he hoped that
Draco would not be like Lucius, not like him… he hoped his godson who he so empathized
with, would end up more like someone who came out of all those dark nights scot free. Like
how happy Lily had been when she’d left Severus in the dust, and had a husband she loved
and a child she adored—right before it all went away. Some people actually got happy
endings, he observed, and he hoped Draco would be one of them.

If he hoped because he empathized and it was a reflection of the wish he still held for
himself, or because he truly wished his godson happiness, he didn’t know. But he had
hoped… that Draco wouldn’t be the cold-hearted bastard his father was, or a pawn to either
dark lord or Dumbledore. Draco was a lot of things, but he’d never been cruel… and Severus
had known since the boy asked how to brew a pain reducer for his mother who’d come down
with the flu at nine years old that he’d never be truly cut out for work in the Dark.

He would be successful, just like his father and just like Severus himself. But while Lucius
didn’t mind doing what needed to be done in order to make it far in life, Severus had had to
learn to squash down who he’d once been and learn to be cruel. They were both successful,
but only one of them was actually happy.

Severus knew Draco would be successful… but happy?

Happy like so few got when they were in a position like theirs. Really it seemed the only
truly happy people were the ones who fled society altogether—like Andromeda marrying a
muggleborn. Narcissa had complained about her sister at length, but of all the people he
knew, Severus always first thought of Andromeda and her worthless husband she loved so
much when considering happy people.

It seemed to him, in the end… that the only truly happy people were the ones who didn’t let
the world control them.

As a spy whose leash was held by not one, but two sides of an ongoing war no one realized
they were still fighting, Severus felt his entire soul despair.

This world… this world was cruel. And he never had a chance, he decided.
If there’s no hope for me, then fuck it. You win, Lucius.

He downed his drink in one go and stood, launching the glass in his hand at full force, where
it shattered against the mantlepiece into a thousands shards. It was probably part of some
priceless set worth hundreds of galleons, and that made it all the more vindictive and
satisfying.

Lucius didn’t even blink although he did flick his hand and a basic wandless shield flickered
up to deflect the shards from getting in his hair.

Severus seethed, but seethed as man who knew he’d been beaten. As if he were anything else
than a beaten man.

"I do not promise not to treat him like the little arrogant celebrity he is." He snapped, striding
to the fireplace and grabbing a pinch of floo powder—vanishing in a whirl of green before
Lucius could say any more of his stupid, slippery words.

One glass of scotch was not enough for a night like tonight.

In the parlor Severus had left behind, Lucius leaned back in his chair and sipped his own
drink far more slowly, enjoying the 500-year scotch for all it was worth because this was one
of the priciest drinks in his reservoir. Not just because of the year but because a side effect of
old alcohol stored in cherrywood barrels—so rumor would have it, old liquor in barrels of
softwood would invoke a strong sense of nostalgia in whoever drank it. It wasn’t a poison or
a spell, as it was the inherit magical nature of the liquor-making practice, so it’d never show
up on a quick scan to check that your food or drink wasn’t tampered with.

Lucius drank it himself to subtly ensure Severus it wasn’t poisoned, and now he sat here
reminiscing over the young Slytherin he’d seen chasing after Gryffindor girl like he wasn’t
the most obvious child in Slytherin house at one point. He’d gotten better of course, but
Lucius knew a memory or two combined with his attachment to Draco and Severus’ resolve
to hate James Potter’s son would begin to crack.

All he had to do was meet the child now and Lucius was sure any delusions his younger
friend would have about Harry being James’ clone would dissolve in a puff of smoke.
Perhaps Lucius’ waring, the scotch, and the bright scarlet hair would be just enough to stop
Severus from single handedly breaking Draco and his new friend apart.

Perhaps he’d even grow to accept the Potter child, though it would take time. The sooner it
happened though, the sooner the next part of the plan could commence.

He was annoyed the dragon in his garden had uprooted everything, but a new garden had
been planned around the now sleeping beast and Lucius was satisfied to see everything start
to come together.
 New Leaves Falling
Chapter Notes

Looks like he could kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll = Draco Malfoy.
Looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you = Harry Potter.

This is my new mindset moving forward, I hope you all enjoy it. This story just sort of
writes itself so I wasn't PLANNING on pastel Harry but I'm game to see how it goes.

“Why do I have more than one account?”

The goblin in front of him was only marginally more cordial than the others, and Harry
figured that’s because he was being paid quite a bit to be his accountant. Draco had said
goblins were greedy and while he took what the future-Slytherin said about others with a
grain of salt, the fact they had caverns of vaults filled with gold and wizards trusted them
with essentially their whole economy told Harry they wouldn’t be in this profession if they
didn’t like profit. Then again that wasn’t a strictly goblin thing, liking profit, however given
the vicious snarl/smile Axeclaw gave him at that questions suggested goblins took a bit more
pleasure out of it than most.

Getting to Diagon Alley took no time at all, as Draco had told him about the Knight Bus
(with an extreme emphasis on how no decent wizard would ever be caught riding it, which
Harry interpreted to mean poor or desperate people would ride it the second he stepped on
and caught sight of the clientele on board) and also informed him that Gringotts never closed
at any hour of the day, or day of the year. Which was awesome because here he was, at
precisely 5:15 in the morning in a private room at Gringotts with a goblin who claimed to be
his account manager, and the Potter family financial advisor and accountant. He had a lot to
do and only one day to do it, and the bank was his first stop since he needed money for most
(all) of it.

He also thought this might take some time to get through all his questions, hence the early
hour long before any of the other shops he needed to visit today opened. He told the Dursleys
he wouldn’t be around, and that meant they wouldn’t be looking for him at all since they
knew damn well where he was and would refuse to comment on the fact he wasn’t there to
cook them breakfast as it’s open up the chance for him to potentially mention where he’d
been. They’d probably just go out to eat like that was the plan all along since it was a
Saturday.

The goblin cleared his throat politely as he shifted the paper in front of him on the desk.

“Upon your defeat of the dark lord, the war officially came to a close. Many were killed
during that time, including young aurors or those willing to fight, which were often the heirs
of prominent or less-prominent families. With their deaths, those family lines ended and their
vaults closed until further notice; the thought that perhaps a distant relative one day might
have a similar enough magical signature for our wards to register them as an acceptable
inheritor. This is standard procedure unless the previous owner of the vault has taken steps to
will their vaults to someone of non-blood relation before their death; it is a lengthy, slightly
painful process few bother with unless the family line is important enough that to let it die
out would be unthinkable. Or, an individual with no heir is desperate for a way to show their
gratitude.”

“Gratitude?” He blinked in alarm, a dreading feeling sinking into his stomach as he realized
where this was going.

“Indeed. Wizarding law is something of a hybrid of old and new—one of the old laws that’s
stuck around since medieval time is the concept of revenge. For example, there used to be
seven Ancient and Noble houses in the wizarding world, however the Monroe line was killed
off by the Dark Lord himself. As you were the one to kill the dark lord, you inadvertently
avenged the Monroe line and therefore the Potter line is now also Ancient and Noble.”

“Oh no.” This sounded like it was going to get even worse, and by the fact he could see every
single one of Axeclaw’s pointed teeth as he grinned/snarled, he knew he had no chance.

“Similarly, families whose heirs were killed off by the war felt they owed you both in thanks
for your service and also for your part in the revenge taken for their lost children or relatives.
They didn’t legally have to do so as the transferring of the Ancient and Noble title is legally
done, however it is in wizarding culture to do such a thing even if the process is lengthy and
slightly painful.”

I do wonder what a goblin considers ‘slightly painful’ and with a name like Axeclaw I’m not
sure I want to know.

“Not all lines who were willed to you were because of killed children though; many just
thought it right to will you their inheritance if they had no heirs to begin with—though those
individuals were mostly without a family line and thus much wealth to pass on, but still had
their life savings to do something with post-mortem. Many more still willed you at least a
portion of their estate when they passed even if they did have relatives to inherit most of their
property and wealth. That required no lengthy process at all, but is simply an edit to their
standing wills, so that was actually much more common. To this day you are still receiving
portions of money or valuables from the elderly dying of old age instead of war and I suspect
you’ll continue to receive for many years yet.”

Harry could only stare at the goblin, trying to wrap his head around this.

People were that thankful he’d been a fluke of nature and accidentally killed someone? He
didn’t even remember the event in question at all, he was one. It made him feel hot and itchy
and generally uncomfortable to be the center of all this… gratitude when he hadn’t done a
damn thing. Considering what he knew of himself he didn’t think he was a very honest or
good-willed person, much less someone who deserved this amount of fervent praise or
recognition. It was like electing a crocodile to be mayor of a town of cranes or something.
And he felt genuinely bad because a bunch of people had already died thinking their last wish
of having their bloodline’s wealth would be carried on by some great hero, and people were
still doing this crock, and eventually they’d probably meet him and realize they’d been
horribly, horribly wrong. He wasn’t a bad person but he was by no means a saint and had no
problem wandering in the grey area of life (stealing from the Dursleys at will, manipulating
Hagrid like he was a freakin’ puppet, plotting to get vengeance on an old Headmaster he’d
never even met and who could be a genuinely good, if not stupid, guy—just to name a few of
his less-than-savory tendencies). That didn’t stop him from feeling genuinely bad that a lot of
people were going to get their high hopes and earnest respect in him crushed like a soda can
—that he never got the chance to warn off who-knows how many people before this point
from willing him their family wealth to the wrong person, to a bed-time story of who he was
supposed to be at best.

People had given away real, honest money because of a lie, and now he just felt like a scam
artist even if he hadn’t done it on purpose or really even been aware of it until this moment.
Morally grey person or not, he wasn’t the type to lie, cheat, or purposefully trick people for
money.

To keep himself alive? Without a second thought.

For fun? Depends on the situation, but was not off the table.

For profit? Nope.

He’d come this far with only a couple pounds here and there and one of his core lessons was
that lowering your expectations meant it’d be easier to achieve them. He most certainly didn’t
even need the trust vaults he’d been showed earlier, much less whatever ungodly amount was
in his family’s vault or what all these other people were tossing at him. He wasn’t going to
say no of course (he wasn’t that nice, he couldn’t exactly give it BACK if they were dead now,
and was certain tossing money at people he perceived to be in need of it on the street was
kind of an asshole thing to do) so he’d sit on it until he could think of a use. For the time
being his trust vault alone, even not being topped off every year, would last him several
lifetimes so there was no rush.

The goblin was patient as he worked this out, or at least Harry assumed he was being patient
as he’d had the annoyed scowl on since this meeting had started.

“So… how many vaults are we talking about here?”

Now Axeclaw was more definitely grinning, as he lifted a mess of papers and lay them on the
desk in front of him, and it was arguably scarier than his scowl.

“It is all listed out here in specifics, however in summary: in the range of 0 knuts up to 100
galleons there have been twenty-six donations. In the range of 100 galleons to 1000 galleons
there have been twelve donations. In the range of 1000 galleons to 5000 galleons there have
been six donations. In the range of-”

“Maybe I should read that in my own time… I think I’d like to know more about each
individual than hearing an average.” He interrupted, realizing that was probably very rude
when he got a glacial glare in response, but Axeclaw collected himself quickly.

“Very well. The sum of the donations and inheritances is 197,066 galleons, and although it is
no more than an educated guess without a true appraiser for each item, the sum of the
heirlooms and other properties left to you should they be liquidated is 800,000 galleons.
Additionally, there have been a wide variety of books, toys, and merchandise published and
sold, all themed around you and the story of your defeat of the dark lord, and legally a certain
percentage of each sale is to be given to the person whose name is being used. While it’s
questionable since you were not able to give your permission for these things, the percentage
argued on your behalf was quite generous at 17%. Total profit from those royalties so far is
600,000 galleons and change—it increases continuously even ten years later.”

Harry knew he’d bought everything he needed for school (and with every shiny bell and
whistle he wanted in passing fancy) plus at least a trunk full of extra interesting things, for
around 90 galleons if he was remembering that correctly. He wasn’t great at math but even he
knew these numbers were ridiculous. Half of what he’d just bought he’d never need to
replace since, you know, magic. This was all jut incredibly excessive in his mind.

Also, books? Toys?

What the actual hell.

But Axeclaw didn’t seem interested in his expressions but simply pushed forward. “As the
Potter line avenged the now-deceased Monroe line and they were an Ancient and Noble
house, there is a stipulation in that ancient magic that allows you to inherit that bloodline as
well, although the criteria to accept that bloodline requires some looking into. A minimum of
7 years after the act of vengeance has already been met, however there are a couple blood
rituals to perform and you will need to either take on the name yourself or perform an oath
that one of your children, should you have them, will carry the Monroe name.”

“Uh… like, Potter-Monroe? Or just naming one of my children, like, Susie Monroe instead of
Potter?”

“Precisely.” The goblin nodded, putting is papers down and giving him an expectant look.

“Uh… well sure, I don’t care. Potter-Monroe it is.”

I wonder if ‘blood rituals’ are ‘slightly painful’ in the goblin sense, and if he’d tell me
beforehand if they were. Probably not, he seems like he’d enjoy that.

He wondered if he should cling more to the concept of his family name, since he clung so
hard to just the memories of his mother and father… but couldn’t find it within himself to
care. He’d thought his name was ‘Freak Dursley’ for the longest time until he reached
primary school so knowing his name was ‘Harry Potter’ had been a relief at best. He didn’t
know his parents were anything other than drunks until just recently either, so he’d never
really clung to or looked up to the name ‘Potter’ in the first place. It was a very common
name in any case, and Potter-Monroe had no more meaning to him than Potter did, and
somehow it seemed like the decent thing to do. The Monroe line being wiped out because of
one man seemed a bit sad, and just because he didn’t care didn’t mean that it wouldn’t be
meaningful to someone in that dead family whose ghost might be happy their name got to
live on alongside the name Potter.

It meant nothing to him either way so it was an easy decision. It might even be fun to correct
people who seemed to know exactly who Harry Potter was that ‘Ahem, actually it’s Harry
Potter-Monroe,’’. It’d be an easy way to curb the enthusiasm of his more clingy admirers,
even if only slightly.

“I will retrieve the paperwork in a moment then.” Axeclaw seemed pleased with his answer
and turned back to his papers, getting on with business. “The Monroe line is worth 403,607
galleons although you’ll find as they were once an Ancient and Noble house perhaps their
antique books and properties would be worth far more in their wealth of knowledge than
liquidating them. Additionally, you are primed to inherit a section of the Ancient and Noble
House of Black, although that could take several years.”

“Primed? Meaning they’re not dead yet.” He immediately noted, hope rising unwillingly. If
he had a relative, alive…

“The Ancient and Noble House of Black is one of the wealthiest in wizarding Britain and so
the descendant of each branch of the family always inherits a pretty sum. The main line’s
latest descendant is one Sirius Black, and the only two other living lines that survived the last
war are ended with one Bellatrix Black, nee Lestrange, and Narcissa Black, nee Malfoy, who
has a son under the majority age while neither of the other two have children. Sirius Black
was disowned from the family when he was still in Hogwarts which makes Bellatrix
Lestrange the heir to the Black family fortune, however Mr. Black still receives the standard
inheritance from a Black family side-branch. Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange are both in
the wizarding prison of Azkaban for life due to crimes committed in the last war and
therefore their accounts have been frozen. However, Sirius Black is listed as you godfather
and therefore legally when he passes his inheritance will come to you. Azkaban is not a
pleasant place so I would not expect that to take several decades.”

Harry stared.

He… had a godfather? That… what?

Okay, not the time to freak out… apparently this Sirius Black is a relative of Draco’s mom?
Somehow? From what Draco said most purebloods are related distantly so… I’ll ask him
later what he knows of Sirius Black. Shelving this thought for now before my brain explodes.

“What… were his war crimes?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“Officially nothing, as he was not given a trial. Unofficially it was believed he was the one to
betray James and Lily Potter to the Dark Lord that night.”

“You’re… very well informed.”

“I am the Potter account manager, it is my duty to know what is financially best for my client.
Yours is one of the most profitable for Gringotts and now that there is someone to have gold
flowing once more, I intend to assist in any way I can.” The goblin intoned briskly, entirely
unbothered.

Money makes money. Money sitting in a bank doesn’t do anyone any good since the bank
can’t charge you fees for moving it around. Figures.

“Okay so… I can take copies of these? I’ll look over them myself when I have a minute, but
you seem to have a handle on things for now.” The goblin nodded sharply once in agreement.
Harry made a note to quiz Draco on finances—his father was a part time Barrister when
needed and given his wealth clearly knew how to handle money so one could only assume
Draco had picked up a thing or two and might be willing to share.

“For today, you only have access to your Potter trust vault and the donations—both money
and heirlooms. If you’re willing to inherit the Monroe line then you will be provided access
to that vaults immediately since they did not have school-age children to need to set up
restrictive wards for when they were wiped out, however withdrawals are limited until you
reach the age of majority. As I said the heirlooms in that vault are likely worth more in their
content than their monetary value and you will have free reign to take them as you wish.” He
handed over another small ream of paper and Harry felt a headache coming on at all the
numbers, percentages, and words on the pages.

“This is a list of investments, properties, and other non-liquidated assets you have, all of
which you have access to and are free to do with what you wish. I have been in charge of
managing them this past ten years with the last directive to ‘maintain’ profit.”

Harry picked up on the emphasis of maintain, and after scanning it (he had no clue what any
of it meant, he knew nothing of finances or investments) he looked up and nodded to the
goblin.

“Can you do more than maintain? Like see if we can’t grow it?”

That seemed to be all the goblin was waiting for, and by the glint in his eye Harry made a
note to look through these papers carefully sometime soon and figure out exactly how big of
a cut Gringotts got for these services. It was probably worth it… but he should really double
check, because he didn’t think he wanted to know what a goblin looked like when being told
Christmas (or their equivalent holiday, whatever it was) had come early and now it was too
late.

“Of course, Mr. Potter.” Axeclaw agreed with a silkiness to his tone that Harry didn’t want to
ask about.

“I think these will answer most of my questions for now, once I have time to go through
them. May I write back with any further questions if I have them?”

“Indeed—I am your account manager so I will be open to correspondence.” He nodded.

Which brought up another troubling thing. “Speaking of correspondence, I ask Griphook last
time I was here about my bank statements. I know it’s not Gringotts doing, as someone else
has been keeping a lot of things from me, and that includes my bank statements for the past
ten years. Is there any word about what happened to them?”

Axeclaw lost his grin/snarl and now was simply snarling unpleasantly.

“Griphook informed me of this and I took a look into it. There seems to be a mail ward
around your main place of residence though it is undetermined where it’s redirecting mail to
and who put it into place. We’ve confirmed the statements have not been destroyed, and in
fact are unopened as of yet. It’s likely they’re mixed in with the rest of the mail, wherever it’s
being kept after being redirected from you. By my approximations when looking at the ward,
it redirects about 50 letters a week from you, and if you were not aware of the magical world
until recently there’s a good chance most of them are from admirers of your defeat of the dark
lord.”

“Isn’t it a crime to interfere with someone else’s mail?”

“In the muggle world, yes. Not in the wizarding—in fact many letters are scanned by the
Ministry for security. A measure put in place during a time of crisis in the last war, and it was
never revoked.”

Well that’s absolutely horrible. Making a note to never send anything critical by letter
because to hell with that.

“How did you figure out the ward was there? Is there any way to remove it or alter it so I
know where the letters are being sent now?”

“For a fee Gringotts can do this, yes. We are experts in warding; goblin wards far exceed the
quality of a ward any wizard can produce, and whoever created this initial ward was
definitely a human. It can be easily dismantled and a new one put in place per your
specifications as you request it.”

Harry’s mind lit up and started racing with the possibilities. If the goblins were the best and
they only wanted to be paid, well then… his had several vaults he wasn’t using and this could
be very useful.

“I definitely would like to do that, if what’s in the trust vault will cover the fee.” He agreed
politely, not letting one how eager he was for this, and Axeclaw didn’t seem to care as he was
getting business either way.

“Of course—for something this simple the fee is six galleons.”

That’s it!? I’m seriously not quite sure about the value of a galleon here because that’s
insane.

“So, if I wanted a ward on a place with say…as single charm or something, how much would
that be?”

“It depends on the size of the location and the strength of the charm in question.”

“Let’s say a building no bigger than this room, and a muggle-repelling charm.”
The goblin raised one eyebrow and it was kind of amusing how normal that motion was
given that his smiling and grimacing was essentially the same look.

“A full ward would be excessive, I think. There are ward stones that can be imbued with a
small-area ward of one single intent. For a muggle repelling charm it would be absolutely
nothing to create, as that’s one of the easiest wards to create and no one bothers to take them
down—muggles don’t have magic to try even if they knew it was there. At most it’d be four
galleons.”

“I would like one of those as well.”

“Very good, Mr. Potter, I’ll see about fixing those things sometime today. Where would you
like your mail directed?”

“Is it possible to send it all to my trust vault? Aside from Gringotts and Hogwarts letters. Ah
—” He cut himself off, realizing this was an opportunity, corrected himself. “Aside from
Gringotts and everyone at Hogwarts except Headmaster Dumbledore. Letters from him can
be sent to the vault too.”

Axeclaw gave him an unreadable look but wrote it down anyway.

“Can I add people to the ward as I see fit? Like when I get to Hogwarts and make friends
hopefully.”

“Of course, simply write to me with the name of the person who is to be added into the ward.
Cost of an alteration to the ward is two sickles.”

“Okay, then uh… Draco Malfoy should be allowed in too.”

“Very good Mr. Potter.” He finished making his notes and looked back up at the young
wizard in front of him. “Gringotts will continue to pursue your missing statements and will
likely find the store of the rest of your mail at that time. I will be in contact for when that
happens.”

“Thank you, Mr. Axeclaw.” He smiled as innocently as he could, but the goblin very much
did not seem to care. He was probably planning all the ways he could invest the Potter share
portfolio now that he had the all clear to do so.

“I should have everything complete and a ward stone ready for you by 1pm today. If you
come back at the time I can also arrange for the blood ritual you’ll need to inherit the Monroe
line. It should not take more than half an hour.”

Well that’s appropriately ominous coming from a goblin in charge of my money.

“Sure, I’ll be here.” He was very tempted to ask if it’d hurt but figured he wouldn’t get an
honest answer anyway—and he’d be heavily judged for being a wimp. Well, too late now.

“I know you requested to visit your vaults after this meeting; I will have Griphook escort you
down. This is the key to the vault that has been storing your donations, and this is the Monroe
vault.” He withdrew two new golden keys from the drawer to his side, and Harry perked up
in alarm. They too were golden, with slightly different patterns and made a point to memorize
as soon as they settled in his hand.

“Should I have this key when I’ve not inherited the Monroe line yet?”

Axeclaw gave him a very eerily snarling smile. “You’ve given your word to accept their
bloodline, therefore the right is yours. It would be… severely unpleasant, to rescind your
word now, so in the eyes of our wards you are, shall we say, close enough.”

Harry just nodded curtly once and stood up without another word.

Guess I’m going through with it whether I like it or not now. Not sure I want to know what’s
bad enough for a goblin to call ‘severely unpleasant’. Maybe it’s just death.

000

He stopped at his ‘donated inheritance’ vault first, and was honestly blown away. Yes there
was a boat load of galleons in those oddly perfect pyramid-like piles the goblins seemed to
like to arrange gold in, but in pure volume it only held about 5% of the entire space of the
vault. When Axeclaw said people willed him everything with their deaths, he’d really meant
everything. There was furniture, paintings, books, jewelry, fancy vases, clothes, trunks,
clothes, crates, and more. He was totally baffled, and he could spend the next hour in here
without much luck.

He wandered deep into the vault in awe, his head on a swivel as he tried to take this all in.

“What the quaffle am I supposed to do with all of this?” He asked of no one.

“Did you just use a quidditch term as an expletive?” A voice to his left asked in amused
incredulity and he jumped a bit, whipping around… and a painting of a portly woman with
dark curls on her head was looking at him from the frame of what looked to be an oil
painting.

“Uh…” Was a picture talking to him? “You… can talk?”

“Of course I can.” She lifted one brow at him, obviously thinking little of his intellect.

“Sorry… I’m still new to this whole magic thing. Can… all pictures talk, in the wizarding
world?”

“Just about, I’d think.” She mused, tapping her chin. “Although portraits are a little special.
We’re imbued with a bit of the person we’re of—for example my name’s Cassandra
Longbottom. My portrait was passed down until my great-great-great- grand-niece Oliva
Merriweather had me hung in her dining room. I think she must’ve died in the war she was
fighting last I remember it.”

“Oh. Sorry for your loss,” He frowned. “My name’s Harry… I accidentally killed the dark
lord when I was one so a bunch of people willed me all their belongings and I suppose your
great grand niece was one of them.”
“Accidentally killed a dark lord when you were one? Now that’s a story I bet!”

“Eh, not really. As I said I was one, so I remember nothing of it.” He glanced around the
room nervously, spotting many portraits here and there. “Will… you, and all these portraits
be alright if I don’t do anything with you today? I mean, you’ve been here ten years…”

“Don’t worry dear, time works differently when you’re a portrait—hasn’t felt like any time at
all since I was last talking with Olivia really.”

“Oh… well that’s good.” He’d feel a little bad to walk away and dooming her to dead
boredom for who knows how long when she’d already been sitting here for ten years without
much to do. “Uh… I’m going to have a look around. Nice to talk to you.”

“You too dear!” She waved him off, unbothered as he walked away.

Okay, it just keeps getting weirder.

The furniture was all… well, outdated was a kind term. He stopped briefly at the pile of
clothes too and took about thirty seconds to realize it was all of a similar style—meaning
retro at best—and smelled heavily of other people and moth balls. No thank you.

The area where there were seven bookshelves filled with books was more interesting… he
spent longer here, actually scanning each title and picking out a couple things here and there
that might be useful as he went into Hogwarts this year. A couple books on household
charms, a new one on potions he hadn’t seen before, one or two on history and herbology…
the rest he wasn’t sure about and was fairly certain a title like ‘An Advanced Guide to
Arithmancy’ would be helpful for future-him, since he wasn’t going to even get the option to
take Arithmancy until third year, according to Draco. He slipped his finds into his bag and
left the vault, where Griphook stood looking no more annoyed than Harry had left him, so
this was probably not an uncommon practice to spend some time in one’s vault.

“Would it be possible to sell of the furniture and clothes in there? I wouldn’t even know how
to start doing something like that and would think Gringotts would be experienced in
liquidating people’s assets.”

The goblin snarled. “We have those services, yes. I will put in a request on your behalf and
the quote for such a task will be mailed to you.”

“Great, thank you.”

Well that was one problem taken care of.

The next vault he stopped in was the Monroe vault—and to say he was stunned was an
understatement. If his donation vault was chaotic and cluttered, this one was… well, still
cluttered but it had a regal feel to it.

As he walked back, there was row after row of neatly organized bookshelves full of trinkets
and books and more that he couldn’t possibly begin to guess at. Ancient and Noble indeed;
this place looked to be as filled with history as a museum, but five times as packed. The piles
and piles of gold near the front weren’t half as interesting as walking into its depths, and after
ten minutes of going Harry realized he was going to have to come back one day to take a real
look in here, because he couldn’t even see the back wall yet, and he had things to do today.

It was all just so much… so many things and he was so curious but… he’d have to come
back later.

It also filled him with a sense of excitement and heart-aching longing to wonder what was in
the Potter main vault. Was there a level of history, of belonging in there too? Would his
parents and grandparents and ancestors back as long as his line have filled their vault with
books and valuables from their lifetimes that he could explore, and use to get to know them?

Unfortunately he’d have to wait until he was older to see into that vault, but at least he got a
chance to see who this Monroe family he was inheriting a name from was. On his way back
to the front he trailed through this shelf-way and that… opening trunks that were filled with
journals and clothes and even more trinkets he couldn’t identify. There was just so much he
wasn’t sure what would be useful or not but… it all seemed interesting.

It was one particular shelf he passed that a small bauble caught his eyes. It was a slightly
dusty wicker basket with something flickering bright neon pink and a sky-colored blue, and
when he pulled it down to see into it, he saw it was filled with bracelets and chains of every
color. He glanced up and the shelf marker read ‘Estate of Dell Monroe: 1617-1671’.

His eyes traced the shelves… this Dell Monroe seemed like a colorful woman, with
mismatched tea cups and a crazy amount of colorful, oddly shaped goblets lined on the
shelves. His favorite was a little stone basin no bigger than a soup bowl on tiny little pebbled
feet with a shimmery opal lining inside. The bottom shelf was lined with books that seemed
to be mostly about transfiguration, and the shelf above that had a full line of journals. On a
whim he plucked one up and opened to the first page.

‘That blast darn it, figgleworm-headed, over-priced piece of blubbering blaxwottle piss has
done it for the last time! If he doesn’t return my tempest watch by tomorrow morning I’m
going to transfigure his pillow into Bubotuber pus bubbles—I don’t know how I’ll do it but
mark my words I will!’

He let out a startled bark of laughter at that, instantly amused by her wild handwriting and
crazy wit, deciding he very much liked this woman. Since he could, he swiped the stone
bowl, the basket of shiny things, all the journals and books below it and tossed them into his
bottomless bag. Figuring he’d spent too much time here already and having at least a
souvenir for his trouble, he went quickly back to the front where Griphook was waiting, a
smile on his face thanks to Ms. Dell’s creative humor.

000

Even with how much time he spent at Gringotts, sitting with Axeclaw and visiting three
vaults with an extended stay in two, when he left he was still walking down Diagon Alley
pretty much alone since he still had half an hour until the earliest shops opened, and an hour
until a lot of the main ones he wanted to frequent opened. Given that there wasn’t a soul in
sight, he took to getting the lay of the land without a huge crowd of people in the way,
walking down the Alley and seeing the shops once more. He ended up by Knockturn Alley
and remembered Hagrid’s warning not to go down there.

And well, Hagrid wasn’t exactly here and this place was a ghost town so early in the
morning, so Harry strolled right on in.

The temptation of going where he wasn’t supposed to go was left pretty much unsatisfied
when the side street was just as boring as the closed down Diagon Alley—shops with their
doors locked up and their windows professing much of what was sold on the main street
except in danker, dirty venues. Was this considered the black market? Because if so it was
clearly labeled with a sign on the main entrance marking it “Knockturn Alley” and these
shops seemed very legitimate. These shops probably sold under the table too, although Harry
didn’t know enough to know what it could be. But it was good to know this was here,
because it seemed useful.

What did surprise him was that at the end of the Alley, there was another little side alley one
could stroll down with a bright open street on the other side. A curious investigation later,
and Harry found himself on another street… which looked a lot like Diagon Alley except
there were different shops. Baffled, he glanced around until he saw the green sign a couple
meters down which read: “Contrair Alley”.

Hagrid had never mentioned this place at all, and he felt obligated to investigate. It actually
seemed as there were a lot of apartment-like buildings, but tons of cafes and shops that had a
far more modern air than Diagon. There was an apothecary, two bookstores, a hair-dresser,
like six clothes shops—and woah, back up a minute, a freaking library!?

THAT is helpful, and he was slightly put out Hagrid hadn’t mentioned this place. Well,
maybe Hagrid didn’t care about libraries, and to be fair that last alley connecting Knockturn
and here was pretty small, so maybe he just didn’t fit through the entrance to this place.

Either way his original plan was derailed as he figured he could get everything he wanted
done today done here instead of Diagon, including adding a few things to the list that he
hadn’t previously considered. Contrair Alley had several more options than its neighbor street
and he planned to make use of them.

As it was getting to be around the time things started opening, he started with a small bakery
that already smelled wonderfully and was he first thing to open on Contrair. He ordered some
kind of tiny pie of meat with a muffin and a cup of tea, plus a side of bacon, and happily
enjoyed it at a table out front while the rest of the stores started opening and one or two
people appeared around the street to start their day off with some shopping.

He hadn’t had a chance to sit down and enjoy a hot breakfast someone else had made in…
well, ever. He enjoyed it quite a bit, and he took the time to read at least some of the papers
Axeclaw had given him. Most of it was financial terms he didn’t get and would have to look
up, so he started making of list of terms he’d need to understand before he did much with this
information.

By the time he’d eaten and decided to call it quits on deciphering his finances, the first shop
on his list should’ve been open, so he thanked the lady behind the counter and went on his
way—down to Osmias’ Optical Solutions. Diagon hadn’t had a single doctor shop of any
kind and immediately after seeing this store on his way in Harry knew he wanted one of these
solutions. If they couldn’t fix his eyes since, you know, magic, then maybe they’d sell glasses
not from a bargain-bin since he could not afford nicer ones that actually fixed his eyesight
rather than letting him see slightly less blurry shapes while also damaging his eyesight
further.

He walked in and a bell at the door alerted his entrance, and a man looked up from where he
was writing something at a desk near the back. The shop consisted of plain tan walls and tiled
floors, a long row of spinning black chairs on metal stands lined up on one wall and very
muggle-looking eye charts on the other. It kind of gave a hair-dresser like vibe actually.

“Welcome to Osmias’, what can I do ya for today?” The man, presumably Osmias, greeted
cheerfully.

“I want to see what can be done to get rid of my glasses, if possible.”

“Sure lad, come on in. No parents with you today?”

“No sir.” He deflected politely, and the man didn’t push for more details, but just nodded at
that answer and set about writing something up at his desk. It was kind of suspect that a
medical professional wouldn’t ask to have parent approval before an obvious child asked for
a medical procedure, but given that the set up was more like a hair-dresser than some kind of
doctor’s office, maybe the procedure wasn’t actually that difficult or dangerous.

He was proven right pretty quickly. “Just hop up on the chair then lad and we’ll see what we
can do. Shouldn’t take too long.” Harry did just that while the man finished writing and
stood, dusting his hands off on the front of his robe and pulling out his wand. Harry let the
man get close, his warm brown eyes meeting his gaze but clearly examining his actual eyes
rather than looking at him directly.

“Now then, just a quick diagnostic spell to see what’s the matter.” He said, lifting his wand
and casting a light blue spell that laid over Harry’s skin and made his eyes feel warm.

Magic.

It was still new enough that it was exciting to watch it happen, especially when it was
happening to him.

His interest vanished at the frown the man got on his face though.

“Huh, that’s weird. I’ve never seen something like this outside of the Potter family.” He
mused, scratching his temple with the tip of his wand, baffled.

Harry felt his heart skip a beat.

“Uh… well, my name’s Harry Potter sir.”

The guy blinked, then the words sunk in. “Well I’ll be! Good lord boy, I didn’t—well isn’t
that remarkable! My dear boy it’s an honor to meet you!” Harry watched his eyes flicker to
his forehead but his make-up covered scar wasn’t visible thanks to quite a bit of practice on
Harry’s part at concealing it.

“Uh… likewise.” He shifted in the chair uncomfortably as the man leaned closer, evidentially
thrilled to have met him for some reason. “What was that about my eyes and the Potter
family again?”

“Oh yes! It’s a hereditary thing you see; certain lines are gifted and cursed in certain ways.
The Potter family, so the stories go, has a larger magical capacity than most other families but
is cursed with poor eyesight. Most known fixes don’t work on Potter eyes which is why
they’ve all had glasses, historically speaking.”

He said this as if it was common knowledge, but Harry was only just now learning his father,
and therefore probably a lot of his ancestors, wore glasses.

“There’s an old joke that Potters don’t need to see the broad side of a barn because their
blasting curses can level it well enough,” The man continued to chat merrily as if this were
very entertaining, but Harry wasn’t too amused. Especially since that joke seemed offensive
somehow, though he wasn’t sure how.

“So there’s nothing you can do for my eyes?”

“Now I didn’t say that, my boy! This is Osmias’ after all! We’ve got your Odd Solution right
here!” he turned and started rifling through some cabinets in the back happily, pulling out
long white boxes.

“’Odd Solution’?” Harry wondered aloud.

“Of course! Contrair Alley is full of those who utilize ‘Odd Solutions’—or really, muggle
made or inspired solutions that are banned from Diagon Alley. Purebloods have the deeds to
all of Diagon so if it ain’t traditional wizard-like they don’t let it be sold up there. So Diagon
has the pure stuff, but if you need an Odd Solution or a bargain deal, Contrair’s where it’s at.
You’re in luck you came here since there’s no regular magic solution for Potter eyes, but my
Odd Solution is not only half the price of a normal fix but for a little inconvenience it’ll do
the trick for your eyes.”

“What’s the little inconvenience?” He frowned warily.

“Well it’s not a permanent fix—see these things?” He opened the first white box, and inside
were a line of a dozen or so very familiar shapes resting in shallow pools of water.

“Contacts?”

The man looked startled, then grinned. “So the rumors of you growing up in the muggle
world are true then? Excellent! Then yes: I took the concept of muggle contacts and spun
them to my liking. I can alter them for your vision problems and any extra features you’d like
—another bonus traditional optical spells don’t afford you! One pair will last about a year so
the inconvenience is that you’ll have to come back every year or so for a new pair.”
“A year?” Harry was stunned for half a second before he remembered—oh right, magic.
“Wait, what other features?”

“I can toss in a slightly increased ability to see at night, sun glare protection, and heat
resistance if you’d like!”

“…heat resistance?”

“Have you ever rubbed your eyes after cutting up some peppers? I did once, and I regretted
it.” The man got very somber as if this was a traumatic experience for him. It probably was, if
he went as far to include it into his product line.

“I’ll take them. With the extra features—once a year is totally fine if I can be free of my
glasses for all that time. Do I have to take them out at night?”

“Absolutely not! That would be a little too inconvenient to actually sell, now wouldn’t it?”

Harry just smiled. The more wizards he met, the crazier they all seemed.

000

He spent a lot of the morning in the various bookstores Contrair Alley had, and found they
had a ton more interesting options than Flourish and Blotts did. Two even had a ‘Hogwarts
Section’ where people could buy the required books at Hogwarts that year, but everything
else had a little more liberal titles than some of those. There was a whole section about
information muggleborns should know upon entering the wizarding world and he got seven
of them on different subjects, including ‘A Muggleborn’s Emergency Guide to Latin in 23
Basic Steps’ which he considered a personal score on many levels. He was a little miffed
Flourish and Blotts didn’t have this section since that was the only bookstore Hogwarts
seemed to acknowledge; one would think a school with a bunch of muggleborns would be a
little more accommodating.

If he weren’t extremely rich he’d be worried about how much he was spending, but as it was
each book seemed to average a galleon or two, which was really quite pathetic. He was still
trying to wrap his head around the true value of a galleon and was coming up confounded
every time—a galleon could buy him a book, a week’s worth of meals, upwards of a quarter
ton of parchment paper, or 10 kilos of candy. And none of those things were of equal value.

Muggle logic of what cost what seemed to entirely fail in this world. For example a book at a
normal Barnes & Noble could be 20-25 pounds, which would get you two, maybe three
meals depending on what you ate if you were to eat out with that money instead. 10 kilos of
candy could easily rake up to be in the 100 pounds area, and a quarter tone of paper was
closer to 400 pounds. Those items weren’t equal in the Muggle world but could all be bought
with one gold coin in this wizarding world… Harry was going to have to re-learn how to buy
things because this just made no sense at all to him.

The only pattern he’d established so far was that specialty magic seemed to cost
exponentially more depending on how rare it was. Like, Osmias was going to charge him
four galleons to fix his eyes, but his contacts only cost one galleon, 15 sickles. The goblin
warding was several galleons, and yet a self-writing quill he’d seen in one of the bookstores
was five sickles. Things that floated or had common charms no one seemed to think much of
seemed to be cheaper, while if a salesman talked up a certain charm or ward, it probably
meant they were the only ones or one of the few people around, who were any good at that
bit of magic.

Magic could perform miracles, but it seemed it was still a precious commodity if you had a
certain type of magic that others didn’t. It was a good observation—being a specialist was
more valuable than being a jack-of-all trades.

Once he was content that he had as many books as he could physically read in this coming
school year (including one or two about the rules of quidditch, since he figured the sooner he
could start engaging with Draco’s quidditch rants the less lost he’d be when talking with his
friend) he moved on to some other small errands.

From what looked to be an outdoors shop he got an enchanted bedroll for his shed/room, as
well as a magical no-heat camp stove and portable fridge no bigger than a shoe box that
would fit a full refrigerator’s worth of food—and even had preservation charms so the food
wouldn’t ever expire. He also picked up an endless water bottle (it only lasted five years, the
label said, like that wasn’t insane enough already), a few blankets, and a portable toilet that
just made everything disappear. Just to make his life more comfortable—he couldn’t count
how many times he hated being locked in the cupboard just because he wasn’t in control of
when he had access to a washroom or not, and while it hadn’t been a real issue in years…
just no, never again.

He stopped by several of the food markets that were open by then to stock up on food to put
in his portable fridge and cook for himself later, including a ton of ingredients he was certain
were magical and had no idea what they did or tasted like and a sinful amount of candy to
experiment on his preferences. In a furniture shop he bought a small, bare-bones desk and
chair, a middle-sized mirror, several small storage baskets, and tiny end table—he could’ve
been more extravagant, but he didn’t need more in that tiny shed/room. Low expectations and
all of that.

He picked up a bunch more paper since he’d plowed through a lot of his just writing to Draco
and taking notes on his texts, several journals as Draco insisted that was the best way to take
notes, owl treats and supplies to spoil Hedwig, and several unique potions ingredients that
were not on the Hogwarts list however Draco said the Hogwarts’ public supply that was
provided was sub-par and having his own would only help him.

He was buying a lot of things because Draco told him to, he realized belatedly, but it all
seemed like decent advice, so he went with it.

His last stop in the wizarding world before lunch and then back to Gringotts, was the
hairdressers.

He was not expecting the dramatic gasps from two brightly blond and neon-blue-haired
women the minute he walked in, nor how they were suddenly all over him and gushing about
is hair, but he can’t say he was unhappy with the attention like he was whenever someone
gushed about his name or what he did accidentally as a one-year-old. He had nothing to do
with defeating Voldemort, but he was proud of his hair and he enjoyed their praise freely in a
way he hadn’t been able to before. Attention and compliments were nice… when he felt he
deserved it at least, otherwise it was painfully uncomfortable. He point blank refused to
accept credit as the ‘Boy Who Lived’—but he’d bask in the warmth of them gushing over his
pretty hair all the live long day and fully enjoy himself while doing it. It was very enjoyable.

It was even better because they could care less about what his name was, but demanded to
know every little detail about his hair care routine—and when he said he didn’t have one they
were practically in raptures detailing all the ways he could make his hair gleam and having a
field day arguing with each other about the best way to go about it.

It took an hour, much longer than he’d expected it to, but by the end he was walking out with
his spine straight and big smile on his face as his hair shone brightly in the midday sun,
styled up for once and looking mighty nice if he did say so himself. They had gleefully sold
him magic brushes that would detangle without breaking ends, a set of five potions that when
used like shampoo would grow his hair out six inches overnight if he wanted to change up his
style, half a full shopping bag of baubles and clips for different things they showed him he
could do with his hair, and about a dozen bottles of different shampoos and conditioners to be
used for different occasions as they all had different effects—one made his hair wavy, another
curly, another perfectly straight, and so on. They then enjoyed themselves very much
whipping out their wands and getting to work right off the bat—they lengthened his locks ten
inches on the spot, trimmed the split ends, and pulled it up into a high ponytail at the back of
his head, an embellished twirl of their wands and he had his long bangs and even long pieces
to fall down in front of his ears and frame his face in the wild manner his hair usually had.

He’d always hesitated in actually growing his hair long enough to put up into a ponytail, and
it was definitely a commitment that he needed to be fully on board with for months to even
consider. Given that they did it in five minutes though, he couldn’t argue that he kind of very
much liked it, despite how feminine it could’ve been seen as being. The witches didn’t blink
twice at it though, just gushed happily, so Harry though maybe the wizarding world didn’t
care about such things. Given their fashion sense it might be possible there was a very loose
concept of what was considered feminine or masculine.

He was in very high spirits as he walked out of the hairdressers, the witches happily sobbing
their praise and shouting at him to promise to take care of those ‘lovely locks’, and come back
if he so much as got a split end, which he agreed to willingly.

He picked another random café in which to have lunch, not bothering with bringing down his
mood with those indecipherable financial papers just yet and was thoroughly amusing
himself by people watching and tucking into his meal. His mood lifted even more as he
caught people looking his way, and when he’d smile they always smiled back.

Things seemed to be going right for once, and he was perfectly content.

000

An hour later he no longer felt very content but actually incredibly sore as he limped through
the Leaky Cauldron’s front door into muggle London, and was really regretting eating before
doing the blood ritual at Gringotts. He stopped for two seconds to consider if he should go
back into the pub and use their washroom to lose his lunch, but shook it off as manageable
after a couple seconds.

He really should’ve gotten more details about a blood inheritance ritual before agreeing to it.
He made a careful mental note to investigate these things more carefully in the future,
especially when concerning goblins, because their concept of slightly painful did not in any
way match Harry’s own definition.

On the upside, he was officially henceforth Harry James Potter-Monroe. He’d even gotten
confirmation from the goblins, although he didn’t know how (he was learning that goblins
were in everyone’s business full throttle because they were in charge of everyone’s money so
they were allowed and somehow found it relevant to know a lot of personal information) that
his name truly was ‘Harry’ and not short for something else. Having never seen his birth
certificate before, that was a relief to confirm.

And now legally he could say his name was ‘James Monroe’ and it’d hold up just as well as
‘Harry Potter’ so far as any blood ward or tracking magic was concerned. Axeclaw had
mentioned, as he handed over Harry’s requested warding stone, the receipts of his
transactions from this morning, and an invoice for the liquidation of his donation vault, that
his name would be Potter-Monroe in the Hogwarts sorting too, though that meant nothing to
him since he had no idea what the sorting entailed. Even Draco hadn’t known, saying it was
‘tradition’ to leave new Hogwarts students in the dark so they’d find out all at the same time.

The Monroe name was growing on him, and with Dell Monroe’s journals in his bag it was
pretty likely he’d learn more about his inherited ancestor that he currently knew about his
own parents, so it kind of helped him feel closer to the name Monroe than he did for Potter.
He liked both to say the least, but he took the Monroe name on a whim and was quickly
finding he didn’t regret that snap decision at all, which was a mildly pleasant surprise.

It was only a little before two when he made it out into muggle London and traveled down
several streets towards where Tom-the-toothless-bartender had pointed him: to a shopping
district. His last order of business at Gringotts was to get a goblin equivalent of a debit card
connected to the donation vault that would work in the muggle world—he wasn’t allowed to
have one on his trust vault and the Monroe account had limited withdrawals for money until
he was 17, and he didn’t want to take a boat load of money from his trust and change it all
into physical muggle money that he may or may not use up.

In reality the thing looked like a debit card made by someone who’d only been told what a
debit card was supposed to look like, and was entirely made of glass since apparently goblins
didn’t do plastic. It was supposedly unbreakable and had a mild muggle-confounding charm
on it so muggles wouldn’t question why Harry was handing them essentially a slightly gold-
tinted shard of glass with alien-looking runes etched into it instead of a debit card to make his
purchases.

Apparently, it also didn’t work like a debit card either: it copied the memory of the muggle
salesperson holding it, recording the price of whatever Harry was buying, and stored it. It’d
be sent to Gringotts who would make note of the memory to determine the location of the
store and the number of galleons needing to be transferred into muggle money, and
apparently they had ways of making the money just magically appear in the company’s
account. This way it was untraceable back to the wizarding world, an no one was being
cheated out of their money (muggle or not, the goblins took business very seriously). In fact,
the goblins charged a galleon fee for this service any time he used it, which would’ve been
outrageous for a normal credit card except that Harry was intending to go on a big spending
spree in only two or three shops—three galleons was a fine price for not having lug around
muggle money possibly until he could get back to Gringotts and transfer it back. He didn’t
need it at the Dursleys (he had no intention of stopping his grocery-skimming habit because
his lovely relatives deserved it) and he’d definitely not need it at Hogwarts.

It was a win all around and so Harry happily shook off the rest of his nausea on his way down
the street and to his first destination.

It was an extremely enlightening process, if not slightly terrifying as he'd never done
anything like this before and suddenly he had choices and the ability to buy things—ANY of
the things he wanted— and at the end he was actually very satisfied with his trip. School
supplies was one thing as there was only so many options for what kind of cauldron you
could get and pure gold was unnecessary and bronze seemed cheap, so it was either pewter or
silver—bam, decision done. Shopping for what he was going to wear each day was infinitely
more complex because it wasn’t four or five options, it was literally thousands. He’d never
had the opportunity to pick what he wore besides this hand-me-down or that hand-me-down
(both of which had holes and were so washed out they were essentially the same color grey),
so this was an terrifyingly thrilling prospect.

He got the basics as he was desperately in need of, such as underwear and socks and a couple
plain white undershirts that actually fit him. He was amazed to realize underwear and socks
could be pretty much any color or style you wanted and had a field day picking out every
crazy color he could think of. They were just underwear after all and no one would see them,
so that'd been fun. Socks were a little more visible, so he stuck to solid colors instead of the
wild patterns, but still chose a large package of bright neon colors—the label proudly stating
that no sock inside the package matched another. He was not quite sure what the point of un-
matching socks was, but surprised himself by being totally on board with it, so he bought it
without much issue.

Shoes were his next dilemma as none of the ones he had would be acceptable for this new
leaf of his—in fact the pair he was wearing he was going to throw them out as soon as
possible as they weren't even fit to donate really. He knew it'd be one of the more pricier
expenses but it was worth it: he got one pair of plain black dressier shoes because that
seemed like something he should have, but also got a pair of sneakers called Chucks that
were bright red with gleaming white laces that made him grin. Red shoes were just such an
appealing thought. He'd surprised himself again when, as he was walking to the check out
with his two choices, he'd passed another pair that for the life of him he'd never imagined
he'd want. Maybe he was just on a roll of too hyped up on his good day and all the
possibilities in front of him to think straight, but he saw them and just thought , 'those looks
so comfy and imagine me wearing that color—I think I want them.'

On an impulse he didn't really think through until he'd set down his boxes and tried on his
size, he realized he really liked them. They were canvas mostly, with pale grey rubber soles,
but the canvas itself was a bright, sky-pale teal. He'd never imagined he'd like a color so
bright, nor that he'd wear it, but suddenly they were on his feet and he couldn't quite bring
himself to put them back. On an impulse he really couldn’t defend himself on if asked about
later, he bought two identical pairs in different colors—one in bright orange, and one in the
periwinkle color almost exactly the same shade as his atmosphere bulbs.

He added them to his growing cache and was thankful for his bottomless bag for the
umpteenth time today, immediately throwing his old shoes out as soon as he left the store and
putting on his red chucks with a pair of his brand new un-matching socks. He’d never had
brand new socks before and found it was amazing, by the way. One of those small pleasures
in life he’d never had a chance to enjoy until now, like a million other things he’d
experienced today, and it boosted his shopper’s high to keep going.

Clothes shopping, he found out, was an experience, to say the least.

He wandered in an out of shops for a good half hour, but nothing really caught his eye until
he stumbled on one with a metal song playing overhead and a lot of people wearing eyeliner
both shopping and working the register it seemed. Ignoring the large amount of black on the
racks, there were several shelves of t-shirts with colorful slogans and design that made no
sense, like a pale red shirt with a giant purple handprint on the front, a pastel blue long-sleeve
shirt with a big black crescent moon, one that was black and purple and pink and blue with
stars like it was cut from a galaxy, and dark grey with a giant pink duck with fangs on the
front…

It was all so weird and nonsensical.

He loved it.

As he layered his twelfth shirt over his arm and kept poking around, the salespeople seemed
to realize they had a big-ticket customer, and after asking if he was with his parents (and he
“innocently” said, no—but he had his mom’s credit card and her permission to buy whatever
he liked) they were gleeful in helping him hold his stuff and add in more to the pile if he
asked curiously about something. One of them was kind enough to point out that he had the
wrong size—it’d fit him but would ride up if he lifted his arms so he needed a size up, and
since he was still growing maybe even a size larger than that so he could wear them all over
the next year or so. He never had fitting clothes before so that was good information to have.

When he decided to switch gears to pants, he had ended up with twenty plus shirts in one of
every single one of their weird designs plus five ‘band shirts’ as they called them. He’d never
listened to any of the bands but they said he really should, so he purchased a CD-player,
headphones, and the albums from the shop as well. He knew electronics didn’t work at
Hogwarts but it’d be nice to while away from of his time at the Dursleys getting caught up on
things muggles his age would know—maybe he could make some muggleborn friends if they
saw his shirt and liked the band too, it was something they could share. He wasn’t
particularly into music but he was into making friends with this fresh start of his, so he went
for it.

For pants he let them toss style after style into his dressing room while he tried them on,
giving everything a shot as he mixed and matched with the shirts he’d picked out. It was kind
of fun, if not exhausting to be so self-critical as he looked in the mirror and had to debate if
he really liked the look or not, and if he did would he be laughed out of Hogwarts for it?

He tried all sorts of styles and found that the one he kept landing on was a precise mix of
feminine and masculine. For some reason he was all about that kind of look, and now that he
had the time to sit down and think about it he realized this wasn’t new in the slightest—it was
just the first time he’d been in a situation where he could reflect on himself in a mirror and
realize this was okay…

(…and feasible with his shiny glass debit card.)

Maybe it was because his first impression of a real wizard—not a giant character like Hagrid
or all the wizened shop keeps he’d first interacted with in the Alley— was Draco Malfoy,
who had delicate features and a regal grace about him. Harry too, wanted to be graceful and
androgynous, especially because it made his hair, that one thing he had, stand out so.

Stand out was not a concept he'd ever entertained before, but his heart picked up a bit in both
exhilaration and anxiety to think about it now. He wanted both to be seen for who he was, but
also hide the fact he was Harry Potter the apparent celebrity. He wanted to be both
masculine and strong since he was a guy he supposed and that was the expectation, but he
also wanted to be graceful like Draco and beautiful like his mother—the mother he still knew
not a thing about and who he apparently so looked like. But even Hagrid had said she was a
wild beauty and Harry wanted that—wanted that part of him he could share with his mother
to shine through, out of a desperate need to know her, even just a little bit more than he
currently did.

He wanted with a want that he was wholly unfamiliar with, and it made his throat close up
for a moment and his eyes get hot although he didn’t understand why.

He both wanted to be seen, and also not. He wanted to be both masculine and feminine. He
wanted to be both strong and for once in his life… maybe vulnerable. Draco's letters did more
and more each day to encourage him that who he was… was actually good enough for
someone. That maybe he could go a little crazy, walk a little farther out on that limb, and
everything would still be okay.

And so as he played around with who he was as he looked at himself in the mirror and
realizing he’d never just looked at himself in the mirror…he found himself going at least one
step farther than he ever would've before, and embarrassingly enough a good portion of it
was because of what he thought Draco might see in him when they met up in a couple weeks.
He caught himself too many times thinking of what face Draco would make to see this or
that… and had to quickly shake it off, reminding himself he was doing this to be himself and
not for someone else.

But he couldn't avoid those thoughts entirely, and he found himself a little relieved that
refined, beautiful Draco was the person he met first given that if he'd befriended a
typical guy-guy right off the bat he probably would've just shelled himself up inside the
typical guy persona he'd always worn and stuck to Dudley's hand-me-downs and tattered ill-
fitting sneakers his whole life. He'd always hated his tattered clothes but simply resigned
himself to that just being how things were—other things were more important and if he was
going to defy the Dursleys there were other more critical things to spend his energy on, like
hiding the tofu in the fridge or hiding his hair form Petunia or avoiding the dreaded 'Harry
Hunting' episodes. He'd also never had anyone to try for… and now Draco Malfoy with his
perfectly tailored clothes and perfectly styled hair was his friend and he was not about to go
around in Dudley's ten-sizes-too-big ripped and stained t-shirts and too-big, once-white shoes
that were now grey and had holes in the bottom.

Uh-uh, absolutely no way.

In the end, Harry managed to escape the gleeful sales people with a whole new wardrobe that
he was quite happy with—and he knew for certain Petunia would faint in shock if he ever
wore it around her or her husband and son. He’d also let them toss in half a bag of small
buttons, pins, bracelets, hair pins, and bandanas because they were gushing like the
hairdressers had about ‘pastel goth’, whatever that was, and he was mostly certain he was not
going to wear even half those headbands but they kept pushing and he legitimately didn’t
care—he was already deep in the hole on this shopping spree, but that had always been the
intention. Besides, he was exhausted after all of this and couldn’t be bothered to argue as they
added it to his pile.

He left the place happy with his purchases and with tittering sales people in his wake, lugging
the heavy bags to the nearest alley before he slipped them into his own bag for lighter
traveling. He went back to the Leaky Cauldron and ordered himself some dinner, setting up
shop in a corner to enjoy it and pull out his ‘Latin for Dummies’ book he’d bought in Contrair
that morning and read up.

All in all, it’d been a successful day, and while tomorrow he’d be right back to being the
Dursleys non-confrontational housekeeper, things were looking up and he now knew the day
Hogwarts came was never going to get here fast enough.
 Glory Hound

His heart pounded as he ran straight at a brick wall, hoping against hope that Draco wasn’t
messing with him.

September 1st dawned bright and early for many young students looking forward to going to
Hogwarts for the first time, and many more looking to return after the summer holidays. The
day hadn’t come fast enough and he’d counted the days and twice as many letters from Draco
until the day finally arrived, and Harry was out the door of Private Drive so fast he thought
he saw Dudley’s head spin.

He’d stayed to cook one last breakfast since disappearing the day Dudley was to go off to
school as well without cooking him a feast might be enough to piss his relatives off even a
year later when he had to see them next summer, and the train didn’t leave until 11:00
anyway so he endured it with the promise that he’d be going to bed in a magical boarding
school that night the last bit of motivation he needed to keep his pleasant mask on with them.
They didn’t even look at him as he bolted out the door as soon as the last dish was dried and
put away—his shed was cleaned up of all potentially magical items they might find while he
was gone, his trunk stashed in his old cupboard before they were even up that morning, and
his bag was in the bush out front, so he could literally grab his trunk and walk out the door,
striding away as quickly as he could with a huge trunk without looking super suspicious.

Luckily he had the forethought to tell Hedwig to meet him at Hogwarts and collapsed her
cage into his bag because there was no way he wouldn’t look like a lunatic carrying both a
trunk and a bird cage (with bird) down the street with no discernible destination.

An abandoned street and one Knight Bus trip later, he was here, in a bustling train station and
trying to find the right barrier Draco had said was the muggle gate to the right platform. It
was very nerve-racking to run at a solid wall with no reassurance he wasn’t about to just run
into a wall, but he gave it a go because… well, magic, so why not? And he trusted Draco—
on magic related issues at least.

Still, he might’ve pulled a muscle tensing so hard preparing for impact and then his whole
body slumping when the crash never came. Instead the world warbled a bit and then suddenly
he was there—a gleaming scarlet train puffing out plumes of smoke as the cries and cheers of
families saying their goodbyes and owls, toads, and cats chiming in their opinions on the
matter.

He’d worn his beanie to the train station, covering his hair as he always did in the muggle
world, but at the fantastic sight of the train, and the chaos… he reached up and slipped it off,
tucking it into his bag until next year.

He felt people’s eyes on him as soon as his hair fell free, it being up in its high ponytail again
and his bangs messy and wild, especially from the hat. But there were no looks of horror at
the unnatural shade, and no looks of awed recognition that he felt he’d get if they recognized
him as ‘Harry Potter’. His scar was covered up expertly with muggle makeup, his hair
slightly wavy today from one of the magical shampoos he tried out, and he’d left his glasses
under the floorboard of his shed/room back on Private Drive. He felt like a new person and he
was ready to really embrace that.

He felt… good. He was excited and already knew Draco, who despite his bratty-baby-cactus-
like personality had complimented his hair--over a letter and obviously meaning it, since he'd
clearly be too embarrassed to say that in person. He had an ally, he wasn’t going into this
alone, and he was ready.

I’m actually going. This is really happening…

Pushing through his daze and the crowd, he approached the train and watched the crowd of
people around. You could clearly tell the muggle families from the wizard ones, it was kind
of comical really, but the one thing they had in common was the slightly wet expressions on
their faces as they looked down at their children who were going to be departing for parts
unknown in a short time. Harry tried not to let it bother him (but it did a tiny bit, it really did).

Still, nothing could ruin the day more than having to cook for the Dursleys already did, so he
got to a compartment where it seemed you were supposed to lift up your trunk and gave it a
go. The problem being the trunk was pretty much as big as him and being on wheels was one
thing, but lifting it straight up was a bit of a pickle for an eleven-year-old with the physique
of a nine-year-old.

He was huffing and puffing against the weight when the burden suddenly disappeared,
blinking up in surprise as his trunk floated away from his hands and had to do a double take
to make sure he hadn’t burst a blood vessel in his struggle and was now seeing double.

“Wotcher there!”

“We got ya!” two identical looking teen boys with bright ginger hair had his trunk in hand
and easily slipped it up onto the train.

"Nice hair you got there,”

“You'd fit right in with us!" One nudged Harry’s shoulder playfully, pointed at his own
orange locks while the other nodded along.

“You a first year?" They chorused as one.

"Uh… yeah. Thank you," Harry smiled in a daze, too shocked that… their hair! It was…

Ignoring his staring, they waved him off and dusted their hands in sync as if brushing off a
job well done.

"No worries!"

"You looked to be struggling there,”

“And we’re happy to help.”

“I'm Fred!"

"I'm George!"

"Nice to meet you!" they chorused as one.

"Harry," He managed to get out, feeling like he was getting whiplash. He grinned when they
both offered their hands to shake—the wrong way, and he was forced to cross his arms over
his chest to shake the right ones. They laughed at the awkward motion and gave a dramatic
shake of greeting. "I've never met anyone with red hair like me before," he admitted, still
caught up in hair that was… well, he’d never met anyone else with red hair, so apparently
Hagrid hadn’t been lying. Not that he didn’t trust Hagrid, but seeing was believing and all
that.

"We're Weasleys, all we've got is bright red hair!" One laughed.

"You must not get out much if you've never seen red hair before yours,"

"Though yours is red-red, isn't it Forge? More like Christmas than carrots!"

“More like Christmas than Halloween!”

“Like apples than oranges, hm?”

"True, true Gred. He's like the original red head!"

Harry smiled in amusement at the two—they took the twin thing very seriously apparently. It
was also encouraging they didn’t give a quaffle about his hair other than to joke around about
it, which he appreciated. They seemed nice.

"Fred! George! Get back here!" A woman across the way shouted at them—and Harry
realized there was an entire group of them over there that had red hair.

"Ah! So much red hair!" He blurted out in surprise, and the twins burst out in startled
laughter at that.

"That's our family!"

"We gotta go, but good luck Apples!"

"Thanks!" He managed to call after them as they scurried back to their shouting mother,
taken off guard by the nickname and finding he didn’t hate it. Clearly, they didn’t mean it
maliciously—they reminded him of the trickster nymphs he’d read about in his Defense
Against the Dark Arts textbook more than anything.

Shaking off that encounter he clambered onto the train and pushing his trunk down into the
storage rack before searching for an empty compartment. Draco had family things to do, or so
he said—something about pureblood families meeting up on the platform to be political or
something but he hadn’t gone into much detail beyond saying not to wait up for him but to
find a compartment and he’d catch up later.
A simple enough plan if he hadn’t turned a corner a little too fast and collided with someone
not ten seconds after getting on the train, his unfortunate partner in the collision walking
briskly down the aisle and sending them both stumbling with a startled twin ‘oof!’. He just
barely managed to grab onto their shoulders and steady them both, pushing the other person
back to brace themselves from falling and was suddenly looking into a pair of big blue eyes.

"Hannah! I told you not to rush!" Another girl's voice came.

"Oh gosh I'm so sorry!" The blonde girl he’d run into pushed off of him to stand up straight.
Harry's hands had come up automatically to her upper arms to steady her, and just guided her
back and then dropped them quickly, flashing a grin hastily.

"It's no problem, I wasn't paying attention either!" he waved it off easily.

He wasn’t sure what it meant when both girls just froze upon meeting his gaze properly, the
blonde who’d run into him flushing red in embarrassment and the auburn-haired girl behind
her staring with her mouth popped open in a little ‘o’.

"I, uh… ah, sorry," The blonde got out awkwardly, blushing more and scooting around him to
take off down the hallway again--somehow faster than before? Other girl was blinking at him
and then quickly avoided eye contact as she followed after her friend without a word. Harry
watched them go, very much not understating that interaction at all.

What was that about? It didn’t look like the recognized me, I don’t think. Well whatever, first
thing’s first.

He brushed that off and went in search of a compartment, easily finding one a little ways
down. Once there he happily tossed his bag down and started shedding layers—he couldn’t
wear his new clothes in front of the Dursleys after all so he had one of Dudley’s oversized
monstrosities overtop his new outfit, kicking off the old sneakers with haste and digging out
his new teal shoes from his bag. Embarrassingly enough he’d planned his outfit out three
days ago in excitement for his this grand adventure he was going on: it was a long-sleeved
teal shirt that he pushed up his forearms a bit, almost matching his shoes and the front
emblazoned with a yellow and pink outline of a bunny boxing a duck. It was coupled with a
pair of very light grey jeans with pink patches over the knees.

He’d gone through Dell Monroe’s whole basket of shiny baubles too and found a couple he
rather liked—silver bangles on his wrists with dangly beads of a rainbow of colors and the
only ring that managed to fit him on his thumb, fitted with a single pearl in a swirly pattern.

All in all he felt ready. He was present, this was him, and it was time to take on this grand
adventure as himself as he was meant to be, and it promised to be a good time in the making.

He settled down a bit and pulled one of Dell’s journals from his bag—he’d been steadily
working his way through them when he got tired to his textbooks because they were as
entertaining as any book he’d snuck home from the school library. His adopted ancestor had
been a seamstress of all things, but going by her exploits Harry gathered she was a very bad
one at that—she had her Monroe family money and therefore didn’t strictly need to work and
seemed to think herself the very height of fashion in the 1330s while her noted annoyance at
how few customers she got seemed to imply she might’ve been a little off the mark. Her free
time—and there was a lot of that given she had pretty much no customers—was filled with
playing around with magic in fun, unique little ways that seemed to come to her randomly
thanks to fits of boredom. He had a great time reading her scribbling notes as she tried to
figure out exactly what had gone wrong when she tried to transfigure a new skirt to be made
of braided pine needles and ended up with a rampaging talking tree that’d broken a hole
through the side of her shop. Her neighbor, a potions master she seemed to mentioned quite a
bit given how little they got along, was not pleased with that turn of events and had fixed the
wall by bricking it over with mortars bricks—and apparently they were magically reinforced
and couldn’t be painted. Which wasn’t a problem for a potion’s lab but certainly one for a
dress shop she was trying to make look pretty and thus launched several days of prank-wars
between the two.

The antics they got up to, Dell’s crazy nicknames for her self-proclaimed ‘arch nemesis’, and
her free-spirited grasp on magic meant her journals were a ride and half to get through and he
usually found himself up too late at night wondering what was going to happen next or if
she’d finally blow herself up in the end (a stupid thought given he had dozens of journals
ahead of the one he was reading, but the thrill didn’t lessen despite known exactly how old
she lived to be).

Harry was well into it and enjoying Dell’s detailed description of what a scumbag her
neighbor was when the train suddenly lurched and he startled, blinking up and realizing they
were moving. Parents were waving to their kids who were leaning out of windows to wave
back. Harry smiled a little tightly to himself, especially when he spotted the red headed
family—now down several red heads—and a tiny red headed girl running after the train with
tears in her eyes. Harry could relate—if he had to watch this train glide away, leaving him
behind in his old life while the people on here went off to a world of magic, he’d be a bit put
out too.

Shaking it off a bit, he went back to reading.

Only, he didn’t get very far before the compartment door slid open. Harry glanced up quickly,
half hoping/expecting to see a silver blond waiting on him, and was a little surprised but not
unhappy when there was a red headed boy shifting awkwardly in the door instead. He
probably belonged to the family the twins were from—the Weasleys they’d said.

How many kids do they actually have I wonder? Talk about that many siblings…

“Do you mind if I sit here? Everywhere else is full.” The boy shifted, giving him a wide-eyed
look.

Harry highly doubted every compartment on this huge train was full—Draco had talked about
how low the attendance at Hogwarts had been ever since the war, and two years below them
was supposed to be almost double their current year and still half of what it once was. Plus,
this train was magical and after scanning a bit of ‘Hogwarts a History’ and only getting as far
as the introductory chapter about the train and Hogsmeade, Harry was almost 100% certain
that if someone wanted a compartment for themselves then one would appear. If someone
intruded it was because they wanted to, and the typical reason was to make friends.
Harry let it go, since he too was here to make friends, and just smiled. What could it hurt?

“Sure.”

The freckly kid looked relieved as he came in and plopped down across from him, glancing
out the window but not having anything to preoccupy him so Harry silently sighed. He
seemed like the small talk sort and resigned himself to just go with it.

“You’re a first year?” He asked.

“Yes. You too?”

“Yep. I’m Ron Weasley,”

“Harry,” he greeted politely, and saw Ron’s eyes immediately flicker to his forehead. Sucks
for him because his scar was under an expertly applied layer of make-up and his wild bangs
so he would find nothing there. Deciding he didn’t like people looking at his scar, he smiled a
little wider. “Harry Monroe.”

Ron’s eyes lost interest in a second flat, nodding to that easily enough. “Do you know what
house you’ll be in?”

“No, and I didn’t particularly think very hard on it. I’d be fine with anything.”

“Well you’ve got a book, so probably Ravenclaw then, yeah?”

Ugh, these wizards and their type-casting.

“My parents were in Gryffindor, I hear, so maybe there? And I do like making friends so
even Hufflepuff wouldn’t be that bad. But then again I’m pretty quick on my feet and I know
what I want, so Slytherin wouldn’t be a bad pick either.” He reflected lightly. He raised a
brow at the ugly scowl that crossed Ron’s face at that.

“I think I’d bloody die if I were to be put in Slytherin though! Why’d you want to go to a
dark house like that?” He demanded, seemingly offended by the very idea a stranger he met
less than two minutes ago could have a different opinion.

Harry wasn’t amused.

“I am going to assume you plan to be in Gryffindor then.”

“Well probably, my whole family’s been in it. I’ve got five older brothers, all Gryffindor.” He
didn’t say it like he was thrilled about it, but instead just stating a boring fact.

“So Fred and George are in Gryffindor,” He mused to himself. He knew Draco so he knew
what a Slytherin-like person was now, and if the twins were in Gryffindor that spoke to those
kinds of personalities. Neither seemed bad.

“How’d you know Fred and George?” Ron demanded bluntly, looking a little put out and
Harry had no idea what that was about.
 “I met them on the platform; they helped me get my trunk onto the train. They seemed nice.”
Ron gave a non-committal grunt at that which Harry had no clue how to interpret. “Uh…
well, anyway I don’t care what house I’m in, I’m just here for the magic.” He waved it off,
trying to get back to lighter topics, but it seemed impossible from the way Ron’s brow
furrowed.

“Are you a muggleborn?”

“Half-blood, I think the term is, but I grew up with muggles so practically speak yeah, I know
about as much as a muggleborn would.”

“Oh.” Ron paused, and you could practically see smoke coming out of his ears from how
hard he was thinking on that. “…wait a second, I don’t recognize the name Monroe?”

Oh for the love of…

“Are all pureblood wizards obsessed with heritage? Because it’s getting old fast.” Harry
deadpanned, satisfied when the boy’s ears turned red in embarrassment.

“Uh… sorry.”

But Harry felt Dell’s journal burning in his hand and couldn’t stop himself form opening his
mouth, against his better judgement. “And not that I care about houses or blood status or
whatever, but you don’t recognize Monroe? Really? They did die off but they were an
Ancient and Noble house at one point weren’t they?”

Ron titled his head in confusion…until his face went slack in shock and then light up in that
horrible way Harry was quickly becoming familiar with—and learning hate even faster.

“But the Monroe family was avenged by Harry Potter—by you!” He seemed awful proud of
himself for this deduction and Harry gave a not-so-subtle groan of annoyance that went
ignored. “Blimey—why didn’t you just say so!?”

Harry knew his expression was not happy, but it didn’t seem to matter as his fellow red head
beamed at him.

“I don’t know, maybe because I didn’t want to mention it? Thanks for bringing it up, by the
way.”

Forget missing it, that sarcasm flew over Ron’s head so high it was practically a quidditch
player aiming for a goal.

“Why would you go by another name? Everyone knows you as Harry Potter! Although
everyone expects you to look like a Potter ya’know, with the dark hair and stuff. That’s even
more reason to go by Potter since people wouldn’t recognized you on sight, right? Nobody
remembers Monroe really, so going by Potter would be better.”

Harry wanted to hit himself in the face with Dell’s journal and barely restrained himself.
“I happen to like Monroe.” He said through slightly clenched teeth, but Ron clearly wasn’t
listening as he leaned forward in a way Harry did not like.

"How come you don't have a scar?" he asked curiously, leaning way in to inspect his face
without reservations this time and either not noticing or ignoring Harry’s irritated expression
trying to stop him from doing so.

WOW, talk about rude… quaffle on a stick, what is his issue?

But before he could think of where to begin with that he had to immediately jerk back on
instinct as a hand was suddenly in his personal space, reaching to push his bangs out of his
face.

“What the heck!? I like to keep it covered—and keep your hands to yourself please.” He was
just this side of outright snapping at this guy but tried to keep his composure as he waved his
arms to get him to lean back in his seat, on edge and watching his hands now in case he tried
it again. He wasn’t malicious, he was just… just…

“But why?” Ron demanded and Harry had the urge to slap him, but settled for grinding on his
teeth.

"It's not something I like to show off, now is it?" He glared mildly. Again, it went unnoticed
and it only drove him further up the wall. He was rude like Draco, but with none of the
earnest wish to be his friend.

No, he was just rude and oblivious—more interested in his name than him. And Harry
actually liked Draco and would’ve walked away cold because of something less, but this…
this fanboy attitude was a sour taste in his otherwise sweet start at his Hogwarts journey and
he wasn’t interested in this at all.

Ron did not notice his rapidly deteriorating mood.

"I would if I were you--it's what makes you famous!"

"I don't really want to be famous. Much less because of my parents' deaths, Ron." He pointed
out in hope that’d shock the guy into realizing how insensitive he was being. Unfortunately,
he just wasn’t that lucky and Ron only shrugged.

"Well, it's cool anyway. I'd show it off."

Okay—RUDE!? What an ever-loving piece of—

"There you are, I've been looking all over the place."

Ah! Salvation had come! Harry whipped around at the door sliding open once more, and this
time there was a blond at the doorway waiting on him expectantly with his grey eyes glinting
happily to see him matching Harry’s thrill to see his friend. He was so relieved to see Draco
in that moment he could’ve kissed him.

000
Harry was unaware at this point in time that Draco would’ve been perfectly fine with that
turn of events, and would remain unaware for the foreseeable future.

000

Harry’s elation at seeing Draco come to his rescue like a cheesy knight in white armor was
derailed when Draco’s smile dropped like a ton of bricks upon seeing the second red head in
the compartment, his face immediately sneering in a way that turned his unnaturally
symmetrical face into odd clump of lines and teeth. Harry hadn’t seen him make that face
before and it detracted from his natural symmetry by quite a bit.

"Ugh. Weasley."

"Malfoy," Ron responded in kind, his face it’s own ugly scowl.

Sensing this was going to get ugly and not particularly wanting to get into it (and very
interested in ditching Ron and this horrible conversation as fast as he could before he
accidentally stabbed someone before even getting to Hogwarts), Harry stood swiftly and
went over to Draco, grabbing his hand smoothly and holding on tight to silently convey his
message of behave.

"You found me! Let's find somewhere else." He declared shortly for no one really since he
was going to do what he pleased anyway, pulling Draco out before he could think to protest.
The blond in question seemed too startled by the sudden touch to even bother putting up a
fight as he was pulled away--Ron starting to say something but the closing door cutting him
off and leaving him alone.

They made their way quickly down the corridor and Draco finally got on board with where
they were going, stepping up to walk beside him and give him a critical look.

"Did he corner you or were you actually being so charitable as to talk to that thing?"

"He's not a thing, Draco. He, uh… well he might've cornered me a bit but despite being rude
as hell he's not that bad." He glanced at the sullen expression his friend had on curiously.
"You said 'Weasley' like you know him."

"His family."

These wizards, I swear to god.

"I met a couple of his brothers and they were very nice. Ron is… ugh, forget about him, but
the whole family doesn't seem that bad to me." He mused delicately, hoping Draco would get
the hint.

He seemed to, because he froze in his scowling and seemed to remember himself, shrugging
a bit. "Historically their father and mine have never gotten along. My father's trying to turn a
new leaf I guess but isn't very interested in making up with them in particular or anything.
They're… ignorant, is a good way of putting it."

"Ignorant?"
"Of most pureblood things. I told you a bit about them—they're a pureblood family but they
openly disregard the traditions associated with that and are all around too lackadaisical to
really fit in with the rest of society."

"Just because they don't fit in doesn't mean you should hate them. Oh look, this one's open."
They passed an empty compartment (proving Ron’s statement about them all being full
wrong, for starters) and Harry quickly pulled him inside and plopped down across from each
other on the benches. Well, Harry sat: Draco was still almost sulking.

Harry gave him an indulgent smirk. "I can understand how Ron's personality can rub you the
wrong way, but it sounds like you've never even talked to him or the rest of his family. The
whole family can't be bad, and I don't think we should judge individuals by the family they
come from." He frowned, not sure he wanted to get into this so quickly but… the
conversation was here, and better now than later. "And ah…Hagrid told me the
Malfoy reputation, you know. If I thought the way you're thinking right now I wouldn't have
ever written you a letter."

Draco paled.

“I…suppose you’re right.” He managed to get out, head dropping a bit. Harry took pity on
him and caught his eye.

"I'm new to the magical world so I intend to make my own impressions and connections
based on the people I meet, not their reputations. That's how I became friends with you, and I
hope to make many more friends this way as well, Draco. I'd hope you wouldn't try and sway
me one way or the other, or judge me for liking people because of who they are and not their
family name."

He sighed and slumped a bit. "Fine…" He allowed grudgingly.

Harry grinned. "Hey. I chose you as a friend and rejected one Ron Weasley. That's already
going well for you, right? Have a little faith that I can tell the right sorts of people to
associate with by myself, hm?"

"…fine, you're right. I can't exactly tell you who to be friends with I guess." He didn't seem
happy about this admission, and Harry made a point of rolling his eyes.

"You don’t have to sound so thrilled that I'm making friends," He teased.

The tips of his ears colored a bit before muttering quietly. "Sorry…. Suppose I'm just
selfish…"

Selfish about what? And on that note he’s pouting like a child because I talked to Ron—this
weirdo.

"Forget about Ron for a moment. How was the rest of your summer? I read the potions books
you suggested—I'm a little nervous about that one from all you’ve said about potions but the
concepts seem straightforward I think.”
Draco’s eyes lit up when he heard potions and he forgot to keep his sulking posture as he sat
straighter. "Well as I said Snape is my godfather and I know him pretty well. He loves potions
a lot but he can be pretty sour in personality sometimes, and despite how good a potions
master he is he's kind of odd as a teacher. Just be careful and take things seriously in his class
and I think you'll be fine."

"You said the transfiguration teacher was strict; do you know any other teachers?"

"My parents told me some about them but, uh…" He trailed off suddenly, looking like he just
got caught doing something naughty and Harry simply lifted a brow.

"Draco?"

"…like I said, my parents are turning a new leaf. We've… well, you've heard about the
Malfoy reputation, as you said, and so what I've grown up hearing they've told me I should
forget."

"Really? How so?"

"Well… like, they used to call Hagrid a great, bumbling oaf. But uh… they said not to say
that anymore."

Harry was a little offended on Hagrid’s behalf but couldn’t rightly say anything given Draco
did just say he was being told not to say that anymore. This was… an odd situation. And it
made every little sense to be honest.

"And can I ask why they're… I don't know, changing their personalities so much? All of a
sudden?"

The blond’s pale cheeks colored slightly, but his chin jutted up in slight defiance. "The
Malfoys have always been a light-sided dark family. A dark-sided light family, however you
want to say it. Malfoys survive."

And for some reason, that really struck a chord with him, and whatever thoughts harry had
been thinking stilled for a moment.

"I… think I can understand that."

Draco looked a bit relieved and shrugged a bit helplessly. "It's not that they're dark or light, I
honestly don't think my parents ever cared about sides in the war or who was dying, they just
wanted to survive, and get ahead while doing it. It's sort of the Slytherin thing to do, in my
opinion. Yes, they did dark things in the war, but they did light things too. Neither side likes
them much because of it, but we're in a position of power now regardless."

"And what about you? Your… opinion on the things they've done or this new leaf?"

He really, really wanted to know.

He watched closely as Draco paused and considered that question legitimately…before

shifting slightly in his seat. "I mean… they're my parents. I've always been proud of them,
and they of me." He took a deep breath slightly unevenly. "To be… entirely honest Harry…
they've decided to make this change because I met you."

…eh?

"…uh, me? Wait--me!?" He reeled back in alarm slightly, mind blanking out. "Why!?"

"Because I became friends with you." Draco shrugged again as if this were some helpless fact
of life he was dealing with now. "They liked playing both sides because it gave them power,
but then I became friends with you. They know if the dark lord returns and finds out their son
was friends with you of all people, they'd likely just be killed outright, or worse, punished for
it. They won't tell me I can't be friends with you and they won't abandon me, so the most
logical choice is to become a predominantly light-sided family with a dark cover so that they
would be more protected from him if the dark lord returns. Playing both sides only works if
there's a level of trust on those sides, after all."

"I…" Harry was stunned. More than that he was floored. "I didn't mean to cause such a
ruckus just by befriending you!"

Draco just relaxed finally and smiled wryly. "As I said, my parents are apathetic to the whole
thing really. They have always played their parts as expected of them because that was how
to survive. This 'new leaf' or whatever it is, is only the next part in the facades they play to
survive."

"But you never answered what you think about it…?"

Again he shrugged, and Harry had half a mind to whack him if he did it again instead of just
saying it outright. "I mean I was raised one way and now most of what I've been taught isn't
applicable. I guess I'm sort of here without a plan and that's a bit unnerving but… I have you,
right?"

Well dung, for such a self-centered ponce the guy can really tug at your heartstrings.

Almost unwillingly Harry smiled, although he still had half a mind to be annoyed with him
for spilling all of this out of nowhere like this was a normal and logical conversation to have.
He could’ve mentioned it in any of the 50+ letters they’d written but no…

Then again if the Ministry could scan their mail, talking about dark lords and allegiances was
probably a face-to-face kind of ordeal. Still, Harry wasn’t going to forgive him…

…okay so maybe he was given the big grey eyes looking expectantly at him for his answer.

"Right." He agreed against his better judgement, but it was true. Draco was his friend now
and it didn’t seem like he was going to escape that fact—dark lord connections or not.
Besides, at least the blond seemed reasonable about the whole thing—which was more than
could be said about many of the witches and wizards Harry had met so far for sure. He sighed
and let go—in for a penny, in for a pound as they said. "And I've no clue what I'm doing
either, so let's figure it out together."
It was almost worth forgiving his blunt information dropping when Draco smiled like that.

"Right. And I'll follow your lead with meeting people instead of my… preconceived notions.
My father explained that a lot of it was to be able to play both sides, so now I should
approach this year as my own person. Though, I'm not sure what that means."

"We'll figure it out together." He simply repeated with a grin. "Since learning I was a wizard
I've done a lot of thinking about who I am too… it's actually a lot of fun to discover what you
do and don't like, without anyone else's opinion butting in."

"I'll take your word for it." The blond raised and eyebrow with a smirk of his own. "And what
things have you discovered then?"

This he could handle, and immediately kicked out his feet pointedly. "Colors, for one! I've
decided hand-me-downs are a thing of the past now that I know I'm a wizard with
inheritance, so I bought clothes that actually fit me and all of it is colorful!" He announced
gleefully, lifting his arms to show off his new outfit and the clinking bracelets on his wrists.

Draco's eyes scanned him at the invitation, but when he met his gaze once more he did his
quick-look-out-the-window thing… Harry just smiled at it.

"I don't think teal is my color." He intoned wryly, but he was smiling.

“Good on you that I’m the one wearing it then,” Harry stuck his tongue out, and Draco rolled
his eyes that time. His smile dropped and a more serious look adopting his features. "You
said hand-me-downs…to be honest my parents were a little surprised to hear Hagrid say
'nasty muggles', when we met in the Alley you know. That's something a pureblood family, or
even my parents before their new leaf would say. From your letters it doesn't sound like you
like them at all…" He left the question hanging there and Harry felt his own smile slowly
drop.

He gave one non-committal nod. "No. I don't like them much." He admitted. Where did he
even start with this can of worms really? He gave it a second’s thought before deciding today
was not the time to bring everything down with talk of the life he was leaving behind, and
shook it off quickly. "They hate magic, to put it kindly. My aunt was my mother's sister and I
think she was always jealous of my mom's magic. Jealousy became hatred somewhere along
the line and then my parents died without there ever being closure, leaving me with muggles
who hate magic and pretty much anything not totally 'normal'. Whatever normal really
means." He sighed, glancing at window…

He knew he was probably not going to forgive Petunia for lying. He silently hoped every last
bit of what she had bottled up inside her slowly ate her alive from the inside one day. What
that said about him as a person, he didn’t know, but he also very much did not care.

"If even Hagrid called them 'nasty muggles', they must truly be horrible."

Harry smiled blankly at his tone—the incredulous tone of someone who was trying to
imagine how horrible something must be, but who had lived a very sheltered life so far and
therefore even his most creative fantasies were pathetically, naively tame to Harry’s reality.
And this is why he is a baby cactus. Well, Mr. Pureblood could use a bit of an education on
the matter.

"Not all muggles are bad. There are some very kind ones, some truly intelligent, creative,
wonderful people. Just like wizards, they're people." He felt his eyes dim. "But people of any
sort of background or magical ability can be horrible. Humans are both wonderful and cruel
—that's just the way humans are, magic or not."

Draco gave him a long look, seeming to be pondering something—but before he could say
anything the door slid open, causing them both to look up.

A girl with wild brown hair and a teary eyed boy with ruddy cheeks had poked their heads in
—she had her chin held high while he looked positively miserable.

“Have either of you seen a toad? Neville’s lost one.” The girl announced a bit too loudly, and
the boy’s lip quivered.

“No, sorry,” Harry tilted his head, genuinely sympathetic and doing a quick scan of the
compartment just in case. Draco lifted a brow at the two of them but kept his mouth shut—
probably for the best given the way he was somehow managing to look down his nose at the
two of them while still sitting.

The girl seemed to deflate all at once, the boy called Neville looking about ready to sit down
and cy.

"Well… there aren't really any more cars to check." She shrugged, looking at her companion
with a guilty expression. “We checked every compartment… maybe he’s still back at the
station?”

Draco was mid eye-roll when he was forced to abandon the motion in shock as Harry got to
his feet and crossed the space in half a second, putting a steady hand on Neville’s arm at just
about the same time tears started spilling down his face.

"Hey! There's no need to cry—it's a magical toad right? It'll turn up I'm sure!" He comforted
automatically, not even sure if that was true or not, but the baby-faced boy curling in on
himself like a turtle that didn’t want to come out of its shell hit all sorts of heartstrings in
Harry’s book. Today was supposed to be the happiest of their lives, the start of a new
adventure! He wasn’t sure he was okay with just letting someone who seemed to be his age
and on the same adventure he was curl up like a smothered flower and wither in miserable
tears.

First Draco’s big eyes, now this stranger’s tears. He was a sucker, he supposed, but what the
hell.

Neville seemed to want nothing more than to disappear from sight; it was written all over his
blotchy, tear soaked face clear as day and into every line of his slouched posture where his
shoulders curled in as if he could smother himself from existence if he wished hard enough.

Harry knew the feeling.

But he also knew the feeling of straightening your spine and being proud of who you were
for once, after so long of being your own worst enemy. Of coming out the other side and
wondering why you’d spent so long being your own critic when you realized how many
legitimate critics there were in the world. Of realizing you could be happy by being on your
own team for once.

Harry squeezed his arm gently in comfort and two bleary blue eyes glanced up at him quickly
before dropping to the ground as if weighed down by bricks.

"N-no… it's a normal toad." The boy mumbled dejectedly.

"Why did you take a normal toad to Hogwarts?" Draco raised a poised eyebrow, and Harry
snapped his head to the side to shoot him a look so severe that the blond reeled back a little
and flapped his arms as if silently demanding to know what he did.

"Ignore Draco—” he sure did despite the immediate indignant cry at that, “—I think having a
normal toad as a pet is interesting! You have to work harder to befriend it since it's not
magical."

"But it still ran away from me," Neville sniffed.

"Oh! If it's a normal toad then a summoning charm should work on it! We can ask one of the
older kids to perform one for us!" The girl perked up, wild mane of hair bouncing with her
sudden enthusiasm.

Neville lifted his head slightly as if hopeful at this prospect, but dropped it quickly before he
could meet either of their gazes—especially the girl’s who was now staring at him
expectantly. He probably didn’t have the nerve to ask an upper year for this favor and the
girl’s insistence was probably the only reason he’d let himself be dragged around disrupting
every compartment on the train. And he was going to be dragged around some more if her
expression said anything, and he wasn’t going to enjoy it one bit.

Harry sighed, sliding his hand from just being a comforting gesture on his arm to wrapped
firmly around his wrist, lifting it and pulling him forward a bit. Neville blinked in alarm,
forgetting to be humiliated and shy as he looked up in panic—but Harry was just smiling his
most non-threatening smile possible and lifted his hand up pointedly, revealing a spare shiny
bracelet he’d slipped off his own wrist in his free hand.

“Looks like someone needs to be a little nicer to themselves, right Neville?” He hummed
gently, slipping the bracelet over the boy’s wrist and then gripping his hand in his own so he
couldn’t shake it off.

Before anyone could comment he was off, pulling the boy down the corridor with him. “Now
let’s find an upper year! Maybe if they’re super nice they’ll teach us the spell themselves!”

“But you can’t! That’s a fifth-year spell!” The girl exclaimed, aghast.

And you knew about it how then? He wondered, but didn’t give that a voice.
“Harry!” He heard Draco call a little frantically.

“Don’t wait up Draco!” He shouted over his shoulder as he made his grand escape, a shell-
shocked Neville being dragged along beside him and the girl struggling to keep up. He heard
something loud bang in the compartment behind him but couldn’t tell what, and then he was
gone, peeking into compartments curiously for a nice-looking upper year.

“Y-you’re Harry?” A timid voice from behind asked, and Harry braced himself for the
inevitable. But when he glanced back, the blue eyes that’s been staring at the back of his head
dropped to the floor. “…thank you.” Was all he said instead.

Harry smiled to himself since Neville was committed to not looking at him anymore. A rough
start maybe, but this grand adventure was living up to its promise.
 My Choices, I'll Not Regret

“Oh my god, pouty Mcpouty, I was not gone that long!” Harry laughed pointedly in Draco’s
face as they were clambering off the train into a throng of people. Everyone was dressed in
their robes (unfortunately, Harry’s awesome outfit only having seen a couple hours that day)
so it was like a flood of black as everyone seemed to know what they were doing except for
the tiniest ones of the sea, who were getting shuffled along well enough anyway.

Draco, true to form, only pouted harder.

“You ditched me!” He insisted.

“I had things to do, Draco. We’re going to Hogwarts, we’re going to have tons of things to do
from here on out…! Aw, come on, would you like me to hold your hand too? I typically only
do it for people who are having a bad day but for you, I’ll make an exception.” He teased
wickedly. Neville just shifted, not having said a word since reuniting with Draco but just
pressed close to Harry’s side.

Harry had looped his arm in his new friend’s and refused to let go, especially when it was
clear that if they weren’t careful they’d be swept up in the crowd. Neville was the sort of just
get pushed all the way back onto the train, and he’d let them out of sheer unwillingness to
stand up for himself, so Harry held on for dear life and Neville allowed him—one hand even
fisted in his sleeve as if that’d keep him grounded.

Draco had been pouty and dramatically annoyed with him since they’d reunited, just as they
needed to change into their robes. Harry had found a pleasant looking upper year who turned
out to be in Ravenclaw and told her about the toad—and now Trevor was safely in Neville’s
pocket where his free hand was holding him in securely. After that though… Harry had done
a little tour of the nearby compartments to scope out the kinds of people he’d be going to
school with and get a vibe for what kind of people were in each house. He hadn’t clung to
Neville but the boy had trailed after him, saying he’d never found a compartment to sit down
in since he’d been looking for Trevor this whole time. Harry didn’t mind the company as
Neville… well, hadn’t made a sound other than trail after him and quietly answer when
spoken to—he had offered for him to go back and sit with Draco but Neville had just shook
his head rapidly with a panicked look on his face. They’d lost the loud brunette girl
somewhere although Harry was honestly not sure at what point that had happened.

And now, Harry had a wallflower on one arm and a bratty blond making a fuss on the other,
so he felt some light-hearted teasing was in order to get everyone to relax a bit—he hadn’t
gotten a chance to mess with Draco over letters very much (well, that wasn’t true, but it was
easier to do in person) and felt it was long overdue.

Instead of snapping back that he was his own man or getting defensive in his masculinity
about the hand-holding comment though, Draco just turned bright red and gaped at him like a
fish, his mouth opening and closing like he was trying to say something and no words were
coming out.
It was so bad the blond was almost knocked over by an upper year pushing past him
distractedly and Harry just rolled his eyes at how hopeless his new friends were and hooked
Draco’s arm securely in his too, pulling him out of the line of traffic.

“It wasn’t a hard question Draco, calm down.” He teased gently, and although Draco was stiff
as a board his face stopped turning colors and he actually did calm down a bit.

“You are the worst.”

“You just learning this now, Draco? And here you told me Slytherins were supposed to be
clever.”

“The absolute worst!” He hissed vehemently—though the corner of his mouth twitched like
he was fighting not to smile so Harry considered it a win in his favor.

“Firs’ years! Firs’ years this way!” A booming voice down the platform started yelling, a
huge hulking form of Hagrid emerging from the distant shadows holding a glowing lantern
over his head. Harry felt Neville tense up a bit beside him, somehow even more than he
already was.

“Oh it’s Hagrid! Neville you’re gonna love him, he’s an oversized marshmallow I swear.
Literally oversized, he’s like eight feet tall and blunt as they come but he’s totally harmless.
He showed me around Diagon Alley.” He babbled cheerily to the boy beside him and Neville
glanced at him quickly before nodding his head slightly.

“Gran told me about him a bit…” He admitted.

“Well you’ve got to meet him; making your own impressions is important.” He chirped,
feeling like he’d said this approximately a hundred times today already and he wasn’t even at
the school yet.

Wizards, he shook his head to himself, again for the hundredth time.

“Where did that loud-mouth go?” Draco abruptly brought up, glancing around the crowd and
still somehow looking down his nose despite the fact most of them were taller than him.

“Who? The girl?”

“Her name’s Hermione…” Neville chimed in, voice so low there was no way Draco had
heard it on Harry’s other side. He seemed far too afraid to actually talk to Draco for some
reason, but Harry wasn’t going to push.

“Hermione? I’m not sure, she disappeared while we were talking to the Ravenclaw prefects.”

“She’s clearly a Ravenclaw herself. Even for a mudblood she knew about summoning charms
in detail enough to make an advanced leap about being able to summon a non-magical toad,
and those are upper year spells. Must’ve gotten her books and memorized them
immediately.” Draco scoffed.
“Oh, like you weren’t hounding me to take notes on my texts since I got them?” Harry
immediately challenged and got a glare for his efforts.

“D-don’t… call her that.” Neville actually spoke at a semi-normal volume and when Harry
turned back to him was legitimately shocked to see a pair of blue eyes meeting Draco’s gray
ones with startling sternness. He was shaking like a leaf of course and looked half a second
from crying, arm a near death-grip on Harry’s, but his head was held steady as he met the
young Malfoy’s eyes firmly. “She’s… sh-she helped me. S-so don’t call her that.” He
repeated, a tiny bit more forcefully though his voice wavered.

Harry felt something in his temple twitch.

“Draco.”

Be it the iron-clad grip he now held on the blond’s arm or the tone he spoke with promising a
thousand painful deaths, or maybe even the fire he felt in his eyes as he turned and
commanded Draco’s now too-forced-to-be-natural blank gaze to meet his own… whatever it
was, the blond was still and shut up to listen.

“What does mudblood mean, exactly?”

“It’s a term for a muggleborn.” He said, although the high note to his voice meant he was
clearly avoiding something.

“N-no more than c-calling a pureblood an inbred b-bastard.” Neville had just enough nerve to
say this while looking directly into Draco’s eyes, and Harry felt kind of impressed with both
Neville’s spontaneous grit and how many shades of red Draco’s pale skin could color.

Neville shrunk like a turtle retreating at Draco’s snap. “You insolent-!”

“Draco.” The blond froze at his tone, and Harry glared at him with every ounce of warning
he could muster. “I will push you off this platform. Are we clear?”

…he nodded once.

“Great. Don’t say it again.”

Another quick nod, and the rest of the walk down to where Hagrid was standing was spent in
silence—both boys on his arms now too tense to do more than pretend to be unbothered
while Harry dragged them forward.

Again, not a pleasant conversation but at least they got that out of the way. He had a feeling
making sure they were all on the same page before they got to Hogwarts was important.

He also made a note to run the things he learned from Draco by Neville first since clearly the
blond, while a wealth of information, was not unbiased. Not that he’d ever thought Draco
unbiased, but this just proved the level of his actual bias to be something more concerning
than he’d thought.
“Ya al-righ’ there ‘Arry?” Hagrid’s booming voice snapped him out of his brooding and he
realized they were in a crowd of people more their height, the upper years having filtered off
somewhere. The giant man beamed down at him through his wild beard, a lantern held high
above their heads.

“Sure am Hagrid!” He called up to the man.

“Well ya will be wantin’ to be up front ta get a good view, come on,” A huge hand waved
them forward and Harry found himself dragging Draco and Neville with him. It was a blatant
show of favoritism that Harry found himself not minding—it wasn’t because he was Harry
Potter but because he was the son of people Hagrid once cared about. For some reason that
didn’t bother him nearly as much as he thought maybe it should.

And when they got to the top of the hill Hagrid had been ushering them up, and saw what
he’d been talking about… Harry found himself entirely unrepentant.

That’s Hogwarts…? It’s… beautiful.

000

“I heard we have to fight a troll,” Ron Weasley’s voice was somehow loud enough to cut
through the throng of nervously chattering first years after Hagrid left them to their devices
outside of a huge set of wooden doors that seemed to be where they were going to get sorted
in a minute.

“How thick can you get?” Draco muttered at a far more appropriate volume beside him and
Harry just shook his head. While he wasn’t sure what this sorting would entail, facing a troll
would only prove you were brave (and likely stupid enough) for Gryffindor. How were you
supposed to prove you were in Slytherin against a troll— talk it into submission?

Harry had a mental image of Draco trying to do just that and snorted to himself at that
entertaining picture.

“I met his older brothers on the platform—I’d bet that they were just trying to mess with him.
They’re the playful sorts like that.” He responded instead, Draco nodding along to that. “Your
parents didn’t tell you?”

“No; they talked about everything else, but this is tradition to go in blind.” He shrugged. His
show of nonchalance didn’t stop Harry from noting that his shoulders were tense with nerves.

It was times like these that Harry was thankful he didn’t give a troll what house he ended up
in. The pressure was way off like that.

“Hello there students! Oh look at them all, oh so tiny and ready to learn!” A new voice cut in
and Harry glanced up with everyone else, jaw dropping as several shouts of startled fright ran
out as a dozen newcomers arrived to the party… only they were translucent and flying over
their heads.
“What the heck!? Ghosts? Magic is one thing, but no one ever said anything about ghosts!”
He blurted out before he could stop himself, and Draco snickered quietly beside him.

“How rude young man!” A plump man scolded him as he floated over his head and drifted
towards the double doors. “I hope you are not in my house!”

“House?”

“Each house has a ghost, and I think that was Hufflepuff’s ghost.” Draco filled in.

“Oh… well, guess I’m not friendly enough then.”

“I th-think you are…” Neville finally piped up on his other side and Harry smiled at him.

“Well I’m rude too I suppose, so maybe if I do end up in his house I’ll just have to tell it to
his face until he likes me.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’d actually do it too,” Draco gave a long-suffering sigh. Harry
just maturely stuck his tongue out at him.

“Y-you don’t care if you’re in H-Hufflepuff?” Neville asked quietly, blue eyes earnestly
interested.

“I don’t care what house I’m in—any one of them sounds find. I don’t particularly feel brave
or clever or friendly, but then again this sorting will probably tell me something about myself.
This prat will be in Slytherin, or so he tells me, and I’ll be friends with him anyway so
different house or not it’s not going to put a damper on my plans.” He chatted, Neville eyeing
him curiously.

“I see… I think. My… my parents were in Gryffindor but I don’t… I thought maybe I’d be in
Hufflepuff.”

Harry elbowed Draco before he could say whatever he’d opened his mouth to say. It’d only
been a day and he already knew whatever it was wouldn’t help Neville’s stuttering.

“To be honest I know the least about Hufflepuff, so if you are you’ll have to tell me all about
it. Or we’ll both be there and we’ll learn together! How’s that?”

The nervous boy paused only a brief moment and then nodded once, seeming lost in thought
about something.

Harry might’ve continued chatting just to get rid of the silence when a woman came striding
up to them, her hair in a tight bun and a look on her face so stern it might’ve been carved in
stone.

Draco scoffed lowly. “Remember what I said about the transfiguration teacher?”

Harry glanced at him, then back at the witch, and realized he was probably right. Alright,
good to know—absolutely no goofing off in that particular class. Not that he was about to but
one look at her face and he knew he was in for it.
The witch introduced herself as Professor McGonagall and gave a short and less-than-sweet
synopsis of the houses—giving no more detail about what they stood for than Draco had but
at least was clear on the procedure from here on out. The house competition, the dorms, the
basics. Good thing he’d had Draco’s letters over the past month and change because it wasn’t
a very in-depth explanation but given they probably only had ten minutes max, was good
enough for the time being. He found himself pitying the muggleborns who waltzed in here
blind.

“Speak a little louder Weasley, people in London didn’t hear that.” He snapped out of his
thoughts to see Draco glaring at Ron from across their little group huddled before the doors,
pretty much everyone eyeing the two uneasily. The ginger-haired boy was turning a dusty red
color while Draco was doing his somehow-looking-down-at-you-without-being-taller thing
again.

“Wait, I was zoning out, what happened?” He asked lowly to Neville beside him, who was
just clutching Trevor to his chest and looking like he was trying to not be seen standing so
close to Draco.

“Um… I think his name is Ron? He said something about being a bad sort…”

“A bad sort?” he repeated, knowing Neville was editing by the way he immediately looked at
the ground instead of meeting his gaze, but let it go.

“You heard what I said,” Ron stuck his jaw out stubbornly and Draco looked about ready to
rip him a new one when a familiar bush of brown hair planted herself between them.

“Stop that! No fighting—the Professor will be back any second now and you’ll be expelled
before you even properly enter the building!” She scolded them, and Harry got the feeling
she and McGonagall would get along famously.

“Move it you-”

“Draco.”

The blond snapped his jaw shut at Harry’s quiet, but no less threatening reminder from
behind him and settled on glaring impressively instead.

“This is between me and Weasley, Miss…?”

The girl looked a little startled. “Oh… I’m Hermione Granger, nice to meet you!”

“Draco Malfoy, and I can’t say the same.” Draco deadpanned and Harry felt like
facepalming. Hermione just looked shocked, but Draco didn’t break stride. “Mind your own
business Granger—and Weasley, shut your trap before you regret it.”

Ron inflamed. “I’ll open my mouth all I want and a snake like you can’t boss me around!” He
snapped.

“This is my business if my classmates are going to be expelled!” Hermione got over it in half
a second and joined in on lambasting Draco’s less-than-stellar introduction.
Neville made a soft sound of distress beside him and Harry decided this was enough with a
pointed roll of his eyes.

“Draco, leave it be. Sorting, remember? McGonagall did say to smarten yourself up before
we got to it and responding to schoolyard taunts doesn’t seem very intelligent to me.”

He said it to Draco but the other two clearly heard him by their startled expressions—and
everyone else who’d been watching the fight unfold was looking at him curiously. Seems
they didn’t recognize him which was good, but he’d unfortunately caught their attention by
getting involved, which wasn’t optimal. With an internal eye-roll he realized Draco seemed to
be the type to make a scene just because he could with no thought to the attention he was
getting and realized this whole friendship thing was going to be interesting.

Draco luckily seemed to listen to him although he continued glaring at Weasley for all his
worth—and Ron would’ve responded in kind if Hermione didn’t turn on him and start
scolding him for fighting when it became clear Draco was off limits thanks to Harry and
Neville standing too near the blond. Most people had distanced themselves from the ginger
haired boy once the confrontation had started and none returned afterwards, especially when
Granger started in on him—and he didn’t look to be having a great time under her care either.

“Y-you… you shouldn’t fight…” Neville got out uneasily, squeaking quietly when Draco
turned to give him a look. With a somehow-graceful eye roll of his own Draco abandoned his
glare-off and turned back to them, looking pissy.

“Honestly the nerve of that welp.” He sniffed haughtily.

“And here I was thinking you and Hermione would get along famously. You’ve both got an
arrogance about you.” Harry commented ‘innocently’.

“What? Screw you Potter,” Draco sneered. “And I was talking about the freckled freak. He’s
got no right to say who you should or should not hang out with.”

“What?” Harry lifted an eyebrow. “To be honest I didn’t hear what he said.”

Draco balked a bit. “Oh… well yeah, he said something to that effect. About how hanging
out with… the wrong sort could get you in trouble.”

It took Harry approximately six seconds to realize what Ron had been getting at and scoffed
audibly.

“Let’s be clear on one thing Draco—no one tells me who to be friends with or not. Most
certainly not Ron, and not even you.” He smiled calmly at the gray eyes that paused a bit as
his tone. “Thank you for sticking up for my honor or whatever Mr. White Knight, but I’m not
interested in going to this school to fight. I’ll pick my own battles and Ron Weasley is not
even on my radar of things to give a quaffle about right now. You told Granger to mind her
own business, so would you hit me if I told you to follow your own advice?”

Draco looked like he’d just swallowed something nasty but then gave a dramatic sigh.
“Fine,” he groaned, going back to pouting like a child.

Honestly, this guy.

“…did you just use a quidditch term to curse?” Neville brought up curiously, and Harry burst
out laughing.

000

“Abbott, Hannah.”

Okay, so a talking hat is pretty cool. Very clever, and if it can read minds then it’s an awesome
way to sort people into houses. Not as troll but definitely cool enough.

Magic was still new enough that when the hat had started to sing Harry had grabbed onto
Neville’s arm beside him in surprise, causing the both of them to stumble and several upper
years stilling at the nearby tables had to muffle laughter so as to not interrupt the hat’s song.
Neville had turned bright red but Harry’s self-depreciating, apologetic grin seemed to calm
him some.

“Granger, Hermione.”

“GRYFFINDOR!” The hat shouted for the hall to hear, Hermione looking a little startled as
she made her quick escape. Draco looked surprised too, given he’d announced that she’d for
sure be in Ravenclaw.

Harry was only surprised for half a second though. While she’d been a loud know-it-all in the
short time he’d known her, he’d also witnessed her planting herself in the middle of a fight
and introduce herself to a whole train of new people in search of someone else’s toad. She
might be smart, but she was way more bold than the traditional bookworm and given the
hat’s speech he wasn’t shocked by the turn of events.

Names continued to drone on and then:

“Longbottom, Neville.”

The boy in question hadn’t let got of his death grip on Harry’s hand since they’d entered the
Great Hall, and Harry gave him a reassuring squeeze before giving him a not-so-gentle nudge
forward. Once he had some momentum Neville managed to get to the stool without much
issue and put the hat on with slightly shaking hands.

A soft croak distracted Harry enough from watching for his friend’s result eagerly, forcing
him to glance down and see a toad sitting on the stone where Neville had just been standing.

Oh for the love of—

He scooped Trevor up and slipped him into his robe pocket quickly and hoped not too many
people noticed.
He was sufficiently distracted enough by the toad to jump a bit when the hat abruptly shouted
“GRYFFINDOR!”

Harry quickly beamed and started clapping wildly, Neville looking stunned but softly happy
when the hat came off and he made his way to a very loud table behind them.

“Malfoy, Draco.”

Okay, here we go, how funny would if be if he were in—oh and it’s over already.

The hat didn’t even properly touch his stupidly styled blond locks before it shouted Slytherin,
almost as if it didn’t really want to waste time on an already done deal.

Harry fought so hard not to roll his eyes at the definition of smug expression on his friend’s
face and was not sure if he succeeded. He wanted to make fun of the blond so bad as he
waltzed over to the Slytherin table like he was honoring them with his presence, the arrogant
prick.

Harry was equally torn between fondness and annoyance, between laughing and booing
supportively at him. He’d wanted to be in Slytherin after all, so he was happy for his friend,
but did he have to be a smug bastard about it?

Yes, apparently he did, because he was puffed up and positively preening at the table
clapping for his arrival politely.

Note to self: I’ve befriended an attention whore.

In short order, only a few more names were called before clearly his name was coming up.
He figured this was it when McGonagall paused just a second too long looking down at the
list in front of her, but her face didn’t give a thing away thankfully.

"Potter-Monroe, Harry."

Oh, so that’s what the goblins meant by his name being official. Well, that’s one way to
announce it to the whole school.

Immediately whispers broke out across the entire hall, and Harry wanted to sigh. He stepped
forward instead, approaching the stool and being slightly surprised by the sudden silence.

He glanced around quickly at the abrupt lack of noise, and realized he was getting a lot of
wide-eyed looks. From his fellow first years, from the upper years, and especially from the
teacher table. There wasn’t a single teacher whose eyes didn’t startle when they landed on
him—even McGonagall did a double-take.

The old man with a long white beard who had been watching the whole procession with a
grandfatherly like expression with polite applause for every student who was sorted seem to
raise his brows straight up into his white hair, although he collected himself the fastest.

He didn’t have time to evaluate all of their reactions because in a few short seconds he was
on the stool and McGonagall had regained herself enough to lend him the hat. He did
however watch one man with long black hair (which needed serious help, to be honest) choke
on air when he saw him, which was by far the weirdest of all the reactions he was getting, but
he didn’t have time to ponder over it at the moment.

They must have really been expecting him to look like his dad, like Draco had said, because
it was very weird to have surprised literally hundreds of people all at once. He got a sinking
feeling in his stomach that told him he had not quite grasped just how famous he apparently
was.

His thoughts on the matter were derailed when a voice that was not his own suddenly spoke
into his brain.

Hm, where to put you…

Wow, the hat is talking into my brain. This is so weird.

Glad to entertain, Mr. Potter. Now hush and let me consider this…

Harry very much wanted to ask how the hat worked but refrained from doing so. He sensed
the hat was amused by this thought and thankfully didn’t comment on it.

Is it that hard a choice?

I've narrowed it down to two. You'd be decent in Hufflepuff and likely bored in Ravenclaw,
though you'd hate neither of them. Your heart is pure Gryffindor for sure, but your mind
has a spark that would do well in Slytherin.

I could be with Draco then.

He thinks to himself, and it’s not a bad idea. He planned to be friends with Draco no matter
what house he was put in, but to actually be in Draco’s house would mean they could share a
dorm and common room and simply have more time to hang out. It would be easier, and he
liked the Slytherin ideals so he wasn’t against it and silently told that hat so. The hat seemed
to give a mental nod of agreement.

Slytherin will lead you to greatness. You will become a powerful wizard in no time there.

Harry paused. A flood of doubt abruptly washing through him and seeming to take the hat off
guard.

What’s this?

I… don't want greatness. I just want to be who I am.

Oh? A wise man once said some are born with greatness, some have it thrust upon them. It
seems you are a mix of both. An unambitious Slytherin is almost unheard of, however
when placed in that environment I see you will overcome this hesitancy and be great
nonetheless.

I don't want to be great, I want to be ME.

What a Hufflepuff thing to say, the mental voice tisked. And here I've already crossed them
off the list. Well, Slytherin will force you to become great, as they're all about politics and
ambition. You'll need to be cunning to get far there, but what I'm gathering is that you
don't want to put in that effort?

Well when you put it like that I sound lazy. He huffed back with annoyance. But I don't want
to have to WORK to be friends or be accepted, I don't want to have to wear masks anymore. I
know Slytherin and Gryffindor don't get along, but Draco is already my friend and I didn’t
have to try for that, I could just let it be. If I go with Gryffindor because I don't want to have
to pretend to be someone I'm not in Slytherin, someone who I could become but don’t
necessarily want to become, that doesn't mean I can't still be a little bit Slytherin, right?

Given I just sorted that boy I wouldn't say you being personable is necessarily what
prompted him to talk to you, the hat hummed in a very amused tone, but moved on before he
could ask. And of course you could be someone of more than one house; if you are
Gryffindor then you will only go farther as a person and a wizard by embracing the ideals
of other houses. That is why the Founders hoped for after all, but thought having like-
minded individuals to bolster yourself as a young man or woman would be more helpful.
Four houses, but one school--one people. It will not be an easy task for you to branch out
from whatever house you are in, but if you're sure about your interest in such a thing then
I think I have made my decision.

Oh? And this house will help me?

Yes, I believe so. Simply think like a Slytherin and you'll figure out why. Better be…
GRYFFINDOR!

It shouted the last word out for the whole hall to hear, and it erupted in cheers as the hat was
lifted away, especially the supposed Gryffindor table. Harry’s eyes were drawn to the noise
first and saw Neville smiling widely as he clapped for him.

Ah, I can give him Trevor back more easily this way. Wait—

Remembering a bit too late why he wanted to be in Slytherin, he snapped his head back over
to the other side of the hall and seemed to lock eyes with a gray gaze, somehow finding him
immediately amongst the crowd. Draco, for all his boasting of Slytherin’s cleverness, was
very easy to read… and his big eyes were clearly disappointed. His smile was real and he was
clapping, but Harry saw he’d been holding out to the hope that maybe they could’ve both
been in Slytherin.

Harry resolved not to tell him that it’d been his choice. At least not until they survived being
friends of rival houses.

And while he’d never regret nor apologize for his willing decisions, it didn’t mean he didn’t
feel a bit guilty about what how his choices would impact Draco, and so he smiled his most
apologetic, warm smile he could at his friend, which seemed to sooth the blond a fraction.

He finished up by moving briskly towards the Gryffindor table—being clapped on the back
by some ecstatic Weasley twins out of nowhere and several people trying to shake his hand
while Neville scooched over to make room for him by his side. He thought of Draco but
knew the blond would be fine on his own for now, and that this wouldn’t change anything.
He was a Gryffindor now, and took the opportunity to look around and greet his housemates
properly.

The hat had said he was in Gryffindor for a very Slytherin-like reason, and so he was going to
get to work and see what he could make of this turn of events in his new adventure.

000

Unbeknownst to him, a certain potions professor was watching the exchange and having a
bout of deja-bu so intense he almost needed to lie down. As it was, he gripped the edge of the
high table for dear life, his head spinning in the sheer, painful nostalgia that coursed through
him.

When Lucius had said the Potter brat looked like Lily… Jesus Christ he hadn’t been
exaggerating and Severus had not been nearly prepared enough.

But even at this distance, he just…

And oh, it got so much worse than just looking like her. Her hair, her face, her eyes…

So much worse.

When Lily had been sorted, she'd looked back at him with an identical look that her son had
just given his godson. Apologetic, comforting, encouraging, hopeful. Hopeful that despite
being in warring houses they could still be friends.

James Potter's son had been sorted into Gryffindor and instead of looking at his new
housemates, the first place his eyes went was the Slytherin table—remorse and apologies
spilling off of him as he made his way down from the stool.

Draco's composed, but clearly disappointed face was like a physical punch to the gut. It
reminded him so much of his own emotions from what felt like a lifetime ago, he wasn’t sure
what to do with himself.

The feast continued on, but Severus just sat in his seat, numb to it all as his past haunted him.
 Snakes and Lions

Harry, being conditioned to wake at absurd hours by force and then willingly getting up even
earlier than that so he could have some ‘me time’ in the day when he wasn’t forced to either
be at school or doing chores for the Dursleys (and in recent weeks early enough to read and
respond to Draco’s letters), woke up a not so insignificant amount of hours before his
dormmates. Despite having the comfiest bed he’d ever had the pleasure of sitting on much
less sleeping on (having a bed at all, to be fair) he could not stop his internal alarm clock
from forcing his eyes open before the sun had even started to lighten the sky outside the
gorgeous gothic-style windows framed in rich red fabric. He’d kept the curtains of his own
four-poster bed side open because he was far beyond sleeping in small dark places—the one
window he got back in the shed had spoiled him and his new roommates didn’t care about
which bed they got so he’d jumped at the chance to have the one between two of the largest
windows that showed part of the grounds and part of the forest outside their confines.

The room was circular and spacious enough that each little pie-slice had enough room for the
four-poster bed, the trunk at the foot of it, a desk, and a decent albeit small wardrobe. Some
areas had windows above the desks, other had solid walls; Neville had taken the bed beside
his so their desks were side-by-side, and both of them had windows on either side of their
beds. Seamus, an Irish boy he’d met briefly the night before, got one window and some wall,
while Dean, another acquaintance, and Ron Weasley himself both had walls. Dean was fine
with this arrangement as he apparently brought several posters that needed to be hung and
he’d need the real estate, while Ron on the far side of the room had mentioned he liked to
sleep and ‘birds chirping’ or whatever he thought windows entailed would bother him.
Neville hadn’t said a word but from the way he was hovering in Harry’s footstep the other
boys hadn’t put a fuss—Seamus even moved one bed down without saying anything, like
he’d simply decided to switch beds, therefore opening up two beds beside each other, which
Harry thought was very considerate.

Seamus and Dean seemed like nice guys, though they hadn’t had much of a chance to talk
last night since it was late by the time they got back from the feast and they were all
practically in a food coma. They’d done the obligatory exploration of the spacious, frankly
lavish-yet-cozy room, claiming their spots and getting settled in just enough to not be total
messes come the morning, but had retired pretty quickly. Dean seemed muggleborn as his
posters were of muggle football teams, but Seamus could’ve been anything as he was
enthusiastic about everything he encountered, but not overly shocked either. Seamus seemed
a little slow on the uptake sometimes since sarcasm clearly flew over his head, but he’d
noticed Neville’s silence and been genuinely nice to him without getting in the shy boy’s face
about why he wasn’t saying much. Dean had laughed at Harry’s sarcastic comments but
didn’t engage either.

All in all, Harry was reserving judgement for the time being but figured if there was no big
issue they’d be pleasant people to room with. He’d have to deal with it even if they turned
out not to be decent too, since it seemed like they’d been dormmates for the next seven years
regardless of if they took issue with one another or not.
Point and case: Ron leaving what looked to be half his trunk lying on the floor around his bed
and what he thought was a rat scurrying over his already-messy desk. They’d been here less
than 12 hours and Harry was honestly glad he was over there on the exact opposite side of the
room because he was sure that’d get old fast. He’d spent most of his short life cleaning after
all, and while messes hadn’t bothered him at one point in his life, about the time he got his
act together and started taking pride in himself and his overall appearance and person, he got
over that apathy and ensured his shit was together at all times. He didn’t begrudge messy
people their personal space to be as messy as they wanted but that didn’t mean Harry was
going to let it fly if stray shoes and quills started ending up in his space—Ron could do
whatever he wanted in his bubble and therefore Harry would maintain his own space
similarly.

Okay, calm down, no need to prep for a fight that might not even happen.

He took a breath and continued about establishing his new routine. Since getting up early
seemed to be the thing his body did naturally now, he had plenty of time to sneak past Neville
and Seamus to the door to the bathroom, which while only having one shower and one toilet
also had a wall with about a dozen cabinets for the taking which Dean had started the trend of
picking one and sticking his toiletries in there. Harry knew he was going to have more stuff
than the typical guy (Ron’s cupboard had a toothbrush and a comb, to prove a point) so he’d
taken the bottom-most two in order to be out of the way and put all the potions and soaps and
shampoos the nice hairdressers had given him, along with two baskets of both Dell’s baubles
and another filled with all his other collected shiny things. He also had like five combs and
brushes and while he felt more than a little vain he loved his hair and he was going to take
care of it no matter what opinions he got from his dormmates.

He felt even more vain when he realized he had all the time in the world before any of his
sleeping roommates would even think about waking up and therefore spent all the time in the
world taking a shower, washing his face, brushing his teeth, combing and fixing up his hair,
covering his scar, and so on. He got up early to have time to do this on top of the Dursleys
cooking in the morning and so to have so much extra free time felt good.

Having spent an exorbitant amount of time in the bathroom but fully pleased with himself
and feeling better about the day, he slipped back out and was amused and saddened to see no
one else had even twitched in their sleep yet although the sky was lighter outside and sunrise
was probably within the half hour now. With a sigh he went back to his area and sorted
through his clothes, quietly putting things away in his wardrobe (years of sneaking around
while the Dursleys slept meant he could easily be silent when he wanted to, although now it
was more for consideration than fear of punishment that kept him quiet) and sorting through
his supplies for what he might need for his first day of classes. He arranged his desk into a
nice little working station, although he kept all his books in his bottomless bag so he
wouldn’t need to lug them around or come back here if he forgot anything.

By the time his new watch read 7:13, the sun was up, even if just barely, and he was properly
bored. No one had said what time classes actually started but when he’d vocalized this
thought last night Ron had in passing mentioned his older brothers mentioning it was 9-ish or
something. His lack of certainty gave him anxiety, wondering if they were going to be late on
their first day.
Well, he’d be less late given he was fully dressed and his bag packed, but still. This was
poorly thought out, how they introduced first years to Hogwarts and all. First they’d only
mentioned the password once and if you hadn’t been listening or had a bad memory you were
screwed, not to mention they walked here late at night and it didn’t sound like they were
going to get a map or a guide going forward so… just try not to get lost I guess? Then the
lack of guidance about what time to get down to breakfast, what kind of things you need for
the first day, anything other than ‘don’t go into the aptly named forbidden forest or up to the
third floor for some horrible reason’?

This school had issues, that was for certain.

Harry was ripped from his thoughts by a loud banging on the door, nearly falling off his chair
in shock and several voices of sleepy alarm calling out in shock at the sudden intrusion into
their dreams.

“First years! It’s 7:30, breakfast has officially opened. Classes start at 8:50, you’ll need to
collect your time tables down in the Great Hall— try not to be late on your first day.” A voice
came from the other side of the door, and it sounded like the prefect that’d shown them the
way last night. By the hair and freckles, Harry was guessing it was one of Ron’s older
brothers (he’d wondered not for the first time how many Weasley children there actually were
but was not the best terms with the youngest Weasley and was therefore not going to ask—
he’d ask the twins later, they were more than nice to him both on the platform and at the feast
last night when they’d continued calling him ‘Apples’ and took much glee in nettling him
about how he’d surprised the whole school by being a red head like them instead of what
‘Harry Potter’ was apparently supposed to look like).

Harry didn’t hear a sound from Ron’s closed curtains, but Dean and Seamus were groggily
flailing, trying to get their bearings and absorb what had just been said while still being half
asleep. Neville had startled awake and was breathing fast, but quickly collecting himself—he
was wide awake though from the fright he’d just had and turned to look at him in surprise.

“You’ve been up a while Harry?” He blinked the last bits of sleep and shock from his eyes,
realizing the red head was full dressed and sitting at his desk.

“Yeah, I wake up early naturally. That’s good they wake us though, as I was concerned about
the lack of a schedule.”

“I had thought that…” Neville agreed, but his expression clearly said he’d been too afraid to
ask, much less question it.

Harry grinned widely. “Morning Neville—happy first day.”

The dark blond looked surprised but smiled happily back. “Morning Harry.”

It didn’t take long for the others to get ready, as guys who didn’t spend longer on their hair
than it took to run a comb through it made great time when prompted by the promise of
breakfast. The fact they had uniforms cut down on the getting dressed process too—the
uniform concept in general Harry wasn’t thrilled with but the only plus side being he’d
confirmed you could wear what you wanted in off-hours and the blood-red and gleaming
gold tie and badge that’d appeared on his robes since he got sorted kind of matched his hair
so… there was that.

Seamus had been the thoughtful, if naïve one who’d realized Ron hadn’t budged and tried to
wake him, but got snapped at for his troubles. Apparently the Weasley wasn’t a morning
person and while he was a considerate person, Seamus also didn’t give a quaffle about
someone he didn’t know and who’d only proven himself to be rude—twice now. With the
attempt made—and failed—he’d shrugged and turned to join them as they grouped up to go
down to breakfast together with one last shout to remind Ron classes started at 8:50 just in
case the boy hadn’t heard it the first time.

Harry thought that was very nice of him, but probably a useless attempt.

He’d been right about the lack of a guide or a map, but luckily between the four of them and
one or two probably unnecessary detours, they made decent time and recognized the hallway
they were in as the last one that lead to the Great Hall at just about quarter to eight. Harry was
delighted to see a familiar blond head a distance in front of them, with a group of two others
all wearing green and silver ties come up from an inconspicuous door that seemed to lead
down. He remembered Draco mentioning the Slytherin dorm was in the dungeons and was
wondering if he’d ever get a chance to sneak in and see it for himself because he wondered
how they’d keep a place like that warm. Magic probably, be he was curious none the less.

“Draco!” He greeted, probably too loudly for the early morning but it got the three ahead of
him to stop—the blond in question whipping around but the other two turning at a more
sedate, but cautious pace. Harry just grabbed Neville’s hand knowing he’d be left behind if
he didn’t and ran up to them, Dean and Seamus taken off guard but quickly following suit.

“Morning!” He greeted brightly as he came up to them at proper speaking distance, and

pretty much everyone from both groups stared at him like he had a second head—with the
exception of Draco who was very much only pretending to be casual, as Harry could clearly
see the lines of tension in his shoulders. Oh well, he could get over it because they could stare
at him all they wanted for being too friendly—if they stared because of his apparent fame
then he’d take issue, but before then it truly did not matter to him.

"Harry." Draco greeted, his posture only very slightly tense but his tone his normal affluent
self, if not slightly more so. Probably because he was showing off for his housemates, and
Harry’s green eyes flickered over them curiously. One was tall and admittedly very
handsome, with dark chocolate skin and very intelligent brown eyes measuring him back
with equal, if not more intense regard. The other had mousy brown hair in tight curls, but
blue eyes set into a sallow face the exact color and feel of solid ice for how frigid and
uninterested they were as he did Draco’s somehow-looking-down-at-you-while-meeting-
your-gaze thing. Neither looked thrilled to meet him and did not in fact say good morning
back.

"This is Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott." Draco introduced with a wave of his hand at each
of them, ignoring the way their eyes seemed to drift from Harry in order to pierce him
silently with perfectly Slytherin-like blank, but meaningful looks.
"Hello, we sort of met at the sorting. I'm Harry." He greeted back far more friendly than they
seemed willing to be, and did not say his last name. No need to call attention to it.

"Potter." The tall boy, Blaise, greeted anyway, rather curtly. Harry was impressed he actually
acknowledged the greeting, but less impressed by the tone at which he’d said his last name.

Like a switch flipping, he automatically snapped a grin onto his face in a perfect show of
friendliness.

“Monroe actually, if you would Zabini. Or you could call me Harry since any friend of
Draco’s is a friend of mine.” He positively cooed with a tone that was far too sweet. Draco
simply glanced at Blaise as if to say told you so while

the tall boy glanced at him without emotions and stared at Harry for that comeback as if
reevaluating him. Nott behind him just let his pale blue eyes drift over the conversation
blankly without saying a thing.

Harry cut off their calculating stares to turn to his own dorm mates.

"This is Dean, Seamus, and Neville!" He finished the introduction, the switch unflipping and
his more earnest smile coming back just like that.

"’Lo," Dean managed to get out rather stiffly—if he was a muggleborn he probably didn’t get
the Slytherin vs Gryffindor thing but was not stupid enough not the realize this conversation
was tense. Seamus just nodded and Neville just made a squeaking noise. Harry decided to
ignore the awkwardness and beamed at Draco to pointedly get to the point of him bothering
to talk to this group of Slytherins at all: because Draco was his friend and he was hell bent on
everyone being civil to each other regardless of if social norms had to go down in flames
with him in order to get there.

"So you were right about Gryffindor being in a tower and all--I was a bit afraid we'd get lost
on our first day which would be awkward," He chatted, and the blond paused only a couple
seconds before smiling back. Still stiffly, but more like he smiled when they first met, as if he
wasn’t used to doing such things and not because he didn’t want to.

"I'm sure you could get away with being a couple minutes late, given who you are."

He put on a mock-annoyed look "There's no way."

Draco snorted wryly, somehow still making that look delicate and refined. "Well we should
get breakfast if you're so adamant about being on time. Apparently it's rare first
years don't get lost on the way to their first classes."

He turned and started walking, sort of leading the charge with Harry sliding up to walk by his
side and the others could only follow in awkwardness. He didn’t turn around to see how the
Slytherins were—god forbid—walking cordially beside a bunch of uncomfortable
Gryffindors but the mental picture was amusing enough to satisfy him.
 "I can only assume Slytherin is far more put together than how Gryffindor does
things; please tell me one of your Prefects gave you a hint or like a map or something?"

Draco laughed once as if he couldn't help it. "Oh, so they're expecting you to run around until
you get entirely lost?"

"I'm starting to think that, yes."

"And why would I share trade secrets with the enemy," He said it blankly, but somehow
Harry caught the joking undertone and gasped dramatically for effect.

"Is that what we are? Dearest me I probably shouldn't have said good morning then." He
grinned, and Draco’s lip twitched which was pretty much the equivalent. "Pleeease?"He was
not above begging, even if he was doing it playfully.

The blond scoffed, amused. "Fine, let's walk to our first classes together. Severus tells me
Gryffindor and Slytherin are often together for some reason."

"Really!?" He got excited at that, still being a little regretful he’d actively chosen to not be in
Draco’s house mainly because of the severe decrease in time they’d get to have together.
Being in a lot of the same classes would alleviate that some. "If we have potions together, I
can show you what I found in that book I was talking about."

"You do realize as a Gryffindor you're all but destined to fail potions, right?"

"But it's the most interesting one so far!" He pouted playfully, although he’d already known
that from their letters. It wasn’t a lie—it seemed to be the most like cooking and he was good
at cooking. One would think the skills would translate maybe. "If you're my partner maybe
we'll cancel each other out."

"Why would I be your partner if it'll doom me to fail, or get me a worse grade?"

This boy is too easy, Harry cackled internally as he began to grin very slyly, and made no
effort to hide the mischievous glint in his eye.

"Because you've touted your skills at potions so much I can only assume that even my
Gryffindor curse won't affect how brilliant you are at your master subject, Mr. Malfoy." He
was all but purring, laying the complementary tone on thick. Draco stiffened up and his
cheeks dusted a light rose.

A sudden dignified snort caused them both to look back, in time to catch Blaise coughing
lightly into his hand to cover up what was unmistakably a laugh at Draco’s expense.
Realizing he’d been caught, he just lifted one dark brow pointedly at Draco, entirely
unrepentant.

"He's got your number, Malfoy."

Draco scowled at him the boy, but Harry let out a peal of laughter that had the blond relaxing
slightly. So the tall Slytherin had a sense of humor; that was good to know. The fact it came
at Draco’s expense was a little concerning but Harry could work with that—Draco could do
with a little teasing to bring him down a peg or two off his spoiled-brat persona at times. And
Harry had intended to tease him out of fondness from the beginning, in any case.

He was still grinning as they came up to the Great Hall, that last leg of that journey taking no
time at all. They were still in the early crowd, although the amount of Ravenclaws and
Slytherins present was notable. The bookworms were likely eager to start classes while Harry
got the feeling Slytherins were punctual to a fault out of sheer principle.

He also realized everyone was sitting at their very different, neatly separated tables, and his
morning plans of chatting with Draco and Neville went up in smoke, his smile dropping
immediately.

"Oh… I suppose we sit at our own house tables?"

"That's how it's done, yes." Blaise chimed in for the first time willingly, coming forward as if
heading to the Slytherin table and pausing just to lift his eyebrow at the red head in front of
him as if posing the challenge.

Harry frown at him but honestly couldn’t deal with him at the moment, turning to give Draco
an apologetic look. "I suppose we have to get our time tables this morning… but I'm coming
to sit with you at lunch!"

The entire group startled at that declaration, Slytherins and Gryffindors alike, though
Theodore and Blaise hid it better. They were only eleven after all, like the rest of them, and
Draco’s cool countenance seemed to be natural whereas theirs was just a tiny bit too forced.
As if Draco’s straight posture was hereditary and theirs was because of a broomstick taped to
their spines.

"Can you do that?" Seamus scratched his head at that thought.

"Don't know, don't care," Harry waved him off with a grin, glancing at Draco. "I kind of
wanted to be in Slytherin; sorry the hat had other plans, Draco."

Yes, he said it for dramatic effect, but also to sooth Draco, and it clearly worked by his
automatic grin at that statement—this one being more real than any he’d had so far this
morning.

It was a bonus when the Gryffindors behind him made sounds like a badger being stepped on
and the Slytherins looked legitimately taken off guard. Even Theodore who’d been one step
short of glaring this whole time could only stare at him now. The unexpected but slightly
entertaining side effect he hadn’t been counting on was a group of upper year Ravenclaws at
the end of their table nearby who’d apparently been eavesdropping, choked on their breakfast
and at least three of them needed to be clapped on the back to prevent from suffocating.

"Really?" Theodore spoke up for the first time, eyes scanning over him with an alarming
intensity as if trying to figure out a particularly complex puzzle, but his gaze was anything
but warm and his tone doubly frigid. "Why would you want to be in Slytherin? Aren't the
Potters made of Gryffindor?"
Harry’s felt his smile instantly cool on his face.

“It’s Monroe, Mr. Nott.” The boy blinked, but then it was over and Harry was rolling his eyes
in a relaxed way. “Not to be rude, but I kind of thought the whole point of me being famous
was that my parents were, I dunno, dead? I've never met them so how am I supposed to know
if they were Gryffindor-ish or not?" He shrugged a bit helplessly, and only partially for show.
"And besides, Draco is my friend and he was always going to be in Slytherin—you saw the
hat take all of not-even-a-second to sort him." Cue eyes roll at Draco puffing his chest up
smugly. He put a finger to his chin playfully and glanced up at the enchanted ceiling as if a
thought were occurring to him. "Ah, but when I said I wanted to be with my friend the hat
called me a Hufflepuff and sorted me into Gryffindor instead. It was rather rude, to be
honest."

The two stranger Slytherins just stared at him.

Eventually, Blaise shook his head and shot Draco a look before addressing him properly this
time, with the frigidness left off the curling ends of his voice.

"You're an odd one, Potter." He told him pointedly as if daring him to take it offensively.
Unfortunately for him Harry just smiled and put a hand on his chest as if flattered, which
caused the taller boy to press his lips together thoughtfully.

"We should eat something, so we have time to get to our classes." Theodore smoothly
changed the subject and started walking away from the conversation without another word or
glance to the Gryffindors.

Draco cast him a wry look. "Later then."

"Later!" He waved, sensing the dramatic exit that the blue-eyed Slytherin was trying to make
and let him have it—this time, snitch. He watched Draco go with one last parting smile and
something wry in his muddled gray eyes. By the time he turned around again though, three of
his new dormmates were staring at him with eyes like saucers. "What?" He demanded.

"They're right, you really are an odd one." Dean grinned at him, shaking his head in almost
the exact same way Blaise had and moving towards the Gryffindor table to find some seats
and some bacon amongst the delicious spread laid out for the taking. "I thought we were
supposed to hate the Slytherins." He commented with no true amount of malice in his tone as
he plopped down and Harry took the seat opposite him, with Neville clambering up beside
him.

Harry didn’t have to go far to know where he got that idea, even if Dean was a muggleborn.
Ron hadn’t done much so far but antagonize Draco—who reeked Slytherin even before
setting foot onto Hogwarts grounds— before they were even sorted and then talk loudly
about it at dinner (to which Harry mostly tuned him out but he’d been aware of the rant
happening) and then even get a parting shot in last night as they were settling down, making
some comment about how it was much comfier than some ‘slimy snake dungeon’. Harry
gave exactly zero quaffles about what Ron Weasley said, but he was a bit annoyed to realize
his venom was spreading.
He quickly decided to nip that in the butt with all due haste.

"Why would I hate people I've never met? Also, I already know Draco and he's my friend,
and I kind of wanted to be in Slytherin so that'd be hypocritical."

"But aren't they all dark wizards?" Seamus chimed in, looking a little more troubled than
Dean who didn’t seem to really care either way.

"Who knows? Doesn't mean I would've been one just for being sorted there, and that should
hold true for most of them, right? Besides, they're first years. Do you know what you'll
become in seven years? Cause I don't.” Cue pointed sip of the pumpkin juice that had
appeared in front of him—how he loved magic! “It’s the same for them—no need to cast
them as dark wizards when they're only our age and don't know any differently than we do
about our futures, huh?"

Dean seemed to swallow that explanation with no issue, his expression acknowledging that
valid point before he went to town on the waffle he’d just helped himself too.

Seamus was forgoing digging in but took a bite of his bacon with a conflicted, thoughtful
look on his face. "…guess you're right." He eventually got out with a bit of patience on
Harry’s part. Eventually he seemed to come to some conclusion and shrugged. "Getting along
with them sounds like a lot less effort than hating them too, 'specially if we're going to have a
bunch of classes with them."

Harry felt like beaming, but settled for smiling pleasantly as he took a bite of pancake. One
glance to the side showed Neville picking at his oatmeal and placing raisins along the edges
distractedly. He hadn’t spoken up of course, but dragging it out of him at the breakfast when
it was their first day of magic classes was probably a bit rude and would overwhelm him. He
shelved it but made a point to circle back to the shy blond before too much time had passed.

He shrugged the whole conversation off and let Seamus and Dean dissolve the topic into
muggle football vs. quidditch—it seemed like they were going to be fast friends in no time
since they were equally as enthusiastic about their sports as Draco was with quidditch and
seemed willing to both share and learn each other’s passions. He knew enough about both
sports to be able to contribute, but quickly got outshone when he realized he was definitely
not nearly as much as a diehard fan as they both were. Magic was still new enough to him
that he was mostly interested in the prospect of quidditch: flying seemed like the most
fantastic thing about the wizarding world so far, and just a little prompting got him promises
from both of them that first years would have flying lessons eventually to see if they had any
skill or passion for it.

Neville hadn’t been thrilled but Harry most certainly was. It sounded fun, it sounded
wonderful, and he was probably more excited for that that the actual classes in half and hour.

Speaking of, at just about 15 minutes from the point they’d need to leave in order to wander
around this castle and find the right classroom, and the Great Hall was very much full of
students who were essentially done with their meals and chatting away happily, McGonagall
began going down the Gryffindor table handing out time tables. A minute or so later, Ron
finally made his appearance with a very annoyed looking red headed prefect practically
dragging him by the ear.

Aw, what a good older brother. Ron would’ve been absolutely screwed if his brother didn’t
clearly notice his absence and be willing enough to baby him into dragging him down in time
for classes. He knew Ron would’ve likely died on the spot had he missed breakfast by
McGonagall’s very intense stink eye as she caught him walking up to sit at her table while
she was handing out her students’ schedules. He wasn’t sure if this was a prefect duty or not
to baby their house’s first years like this, but judging by the red headed prefect’s sour
expression, Harry was thinking probably not. Or, at least it’d never been required before, or
at least not that often.

Deciding he didn’t want to deal with Ron first thing in the morning on the day he got to start
magical classes, he accepted his time table when McGonagall handed it to him with a wide
grin that caused her to shoot him a suspicious glare, before calling a quick “Be right back!” to
his dormmates and taking off towards the Slytherin table before Ron could fully reach them
and sit down.

He was vaguely aware of a lot of eyes on him but promptly decided he did not care—not
when Draco’s blond head snapped up at his approach and was suddenly out of his seat and
meeting him halfway by the back of the Great Hall, obediently presenting his time table for
Harry to snatch from his hand.

He compared them and promptly pouted.

“Eh!? You said Slytherin and Gryffindor were paired up a lot! Liar.” He huffed, and earned
himself a regal eye roll.

“I’m sure twice seems like a lot for many Gryffindors who are less snake-inclined.” Draco
drawled. “But remember Magic Theory and Astronomy are taught on year levels—all four
houses will be in those.”

“Okay fine. Well we’ve got one today! We can go after lunch together.”

“About that—were you seriously planning on sitting at the Slytherin table at lunch?” He said
it casually like it didn’t matter to him, but his eyes said a different story.

It tightened his resolve, not that a bunch of dirty looks and frigid eyes were going to stop him
before, but it added fuel to fire, to say the least.

“I know, Blaise misses me already. Tell him not to worry, I’ll be back to bother him in no
time.”

Draco’s face spasmed like he almost burst out laughing but controlled himself at the last
minute, biting his lip and then smiling more calmly. “I’ll be sure to pass along the message.”

“Thanks Draco, you’re a doll.”

They shared a brief smile before Harry went back to commenting on their schedules and
figuring out a game plan for the semester.

000

Draco was… painfully aware of all the eyes on the two of them since they weren’t exactly
hiding. More like standing in front of the entrance where literally the whole hall could see
him. Not that it wasn’t like he could feel a hundred eyes on his skin and whispers starting to
circulate.

But, he held firm.

The warmth at Harry’s wide, content smile chased away the uneasy feeling like sunlight
burning away cold morning dew, coming down like a Patronus in front of a sea of judgmental
eyes until it really didn’t seem to matter anymore.

The new school year dawned on a September morning that felt particularly warm this year.

000

Snape’s entire being was melting from sheer frustration and other emotions he couldn’t place,
to the point where the fork in his hand hovering over his as-of-yet untouched breakfast was in
quite a bit of danger.

He hated being this spectator, who could only just sit here and watch. Not the he even knew
what he would do even if he could get off the sidelines and do something already, but the
sheet frustration was driving him up the wall. Or into one.

But all he could do was sit here and watch his godson be brave.

Brave enough to stand in front of the entire damn school and silently declare that yes, this
Slytherin had a Gryffindor as a friend. Like he didn’t see the Hufflepuffs exploding in
whispers like the gossips they were or the Ravenclaws dissolve into wondering what this
might mean. Like he wasn’t shattering his reputation in Slytherin at this very moment with
the eyes of the upper years growing colder by the second, or how some Gryffindors looked to
be short circuiting as they couldn’t process what they were seeing—some got red faced,
others just gaped dumbly. One Slytherin seventh year looked ready to kill, but settled for
sipping his coffee darkly.

Slytherins lived to the hidden politics beneath he surface, and Draco was standing there with
a calm, plain and genial smile that would’ve made Lucius so fucking proud had it be directed
at a teacher or a politician, and yet…

…and yet Draco wasn’t a political yet, he was eleven bloody years old and Severus knew his
godson well enough to know he wasn’t masking fear or anger or a lie to get his way. He was
smiling like that because the boy wanted to grin like an idiot and had better control of himself
than that. His mask was shielding happiness and warmth, not the things most Slytherins
masked.
The upper year snakes recognized this, and their eyes met each other silently over their meals
before going about their business without a word.

Draco had made a mistake, and he was going to pay for it. Severus wanted nothing more than
to protect the child, but knew even he couldn’t stop this. Slytherin wasn’t the monsters the
world made them out to be, but that didn’t mean they weren’t monsters in their own right,
and only when they wanted to be. Very clever, very particular monsters who got their way in
the end. Good monsters who didn’t get caught. Monsters who took a lot of pride in being the
beautiful, refined beings that they were.

Severus loved Slytherin even to this day, now that he was grown and realized was a poor
Slytherin he’d once been—the one who’d lost Lily in the end because he didn’t understand.

He was terrified that Draco didn’t understand. Not yet.

But he was absolutely positive that he was about to learn, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. He
wondered what Lucius would do when that happened, and how he’d be blamed for not
protecting the Malfoy heir. Like he even could in the face of this.

But absolutely worst of all… was that Severus knew in the deepest, pettiest part of him that
he was ashamed to admit existed (and he was a very petty man, so that said quite a bit)… that
he was also just a tiny bit jealous of his godson.

If only he had been brave enough to do such a foolish, terrible thing. Horrible as this coming
lesson would be… maybe, Severus thought, maybe having Lily in the end would’ve made it
worth it. He didn’t know, and he realized he would never know. Because he’d been a coward,
and he’d thought of his own hide first and foremost… not risking being bold or anything
Gryffindor-like even for just a second to be with his childhood friend.

Lily had made many attempts to be Slytherin-like and get along with his friends early on, he
realized this looking back. Potter and Black had made damn sure that Severus never once
approached a Gryffindor other than Lily with anything but hostility though. The disconnect,
the dissonance that difference cause… well, Lily had given up on trying to like Slytherins
other than him before their first year was out. She’d been kind and open-minded, but she
wasn’t one to be trampled on and she knew when to call it a lost cause.

And maybe that’s why she’d given up on him eventually too.

The way Draco was looking at a boy who could’ve probably been a young Lily Evan’s twin
said it all. Severus had spent a lot of his first half of Hogwarts looking into green eyes the
exact same way, and when she said jump, he’d ask how high. If only he’d been a little braver
to actually continue that as they got older and rivalries, jealousies, life got in their way.

He remembered waiting two weeks to seek her out again after their sorting… it didn’t look
like her son was going to give Draco the option of running away or denying their friendship
like Severus once had, and for some reason that cut into his heart sharply. It almost physically
hurt watching a young red head with gleaming scarlet hair trailing behind them dash across
the hall with a big grin on his face towards the Slytherin table and go collect his friend by
force—if Draco hadn’t stood to meet him Severus was sure the boy would’ve plopped
himself down in the middle of the snake pit just to be beside his godson, and for some reason
that physically hurt.

This was all so familiar, so echoing of what once was… and yet… everything was different.
It looked and felt like the same tragic story starting all over again but… this time—this time
— the Slytherin was a bit braver, and the Gryffindor was a bit more aggressive.

Why hadn’t he been braver? Why hadn’t Lily been bolder? Why hadn’t he gone to her, and
why hadn’t she come to him like her son just did, right in front of him and the entire bloody
school?

Because that boy has James Potter in his blood. The same Potter who declared his love for
Lily in front of the Great Hall not three weeks into first year. The same Potter who leapt off
the astronomy tower on a dare and the faith that Black would catch him with a levitation
charm with less than three months of magical training. This boy looks like Lily, but he’s
reckless and aggressive like his father, unafraid to stand up for what he loves or blindly fling
himself into his next grand adventure like the terrible bloody Gryffindor he was.

Severus was absolutely horrified at the thoughts that assaulted him absolutely unwillingly.

Even worse, because he realized they were all true.

He was out of the Great Hall so fast even the Slytherins didn’t seem him go, and all he knew
was that he was glad he had no morning classes, otherwise every single one of those students
who get a failing grade to start the new year.
 Of Plans and Plants
Chapter Notes

I've seen people talking about what they imagine Harry to look like in this and so the
links below are actually what prompted me to write this in the first place--all are mostly
fanart from the BNHA fandom and obviously I imagine them all red in Harry's case. I
figure he'll re-do his hair as he sees fit to get around to these styles eventually :P

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/725642558692218998/?d=t&mt=login

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/394346511118669886/

https://www.pinterest.cl/pin/831688256160582865/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/170996117088688200/

Credit goes to the original artists!

Harry felt sweat forming on his brow from the intense amount of concentration it took to
keep smiling innocently while McGonagall stared him down.

Draco had not exaggerated (for once) about the strict Transfiguration teacher who was now
his head of house and who he was determined to get to like him—whether it killed him or
not, and judging by the firm set of her lips it probably just might. He did not know why she
was so suspicious of him since he had, as of yet, only smiled at her, but whatever the reason
she’d been giving him the stink eye as she spent the first half of his first ever magical class
drilling into them all the things they would not be doing in this class. Transfiguration was
apparently second to only Potions in being the most dangerous magical subject to learn, and a
few graphic horror stories later Harry was pretty convinced. When one could turn the air in
your lungs into needles, or the blood in your veins to ink, you learned to be careful.

It’d make sense that she’d be so strict—she’d have to be to teach such a dangerous subject
and be proud to say she hadn’t lost a student in over twenty-two years now. Wow.

Somehow, she was totally his type. Meaning difficult. Like Draco!

Also, she was super bloody cool. Ron had come bursting into the room quite late despite
breakfast having ended the same time for all of them, and she was the bloody cat on the desk
who’d been evaluating them far too calmly for a normal cat somehow. Like, people could
turn into animals in the magical world. Harry suddenly knew what he wanted to be when he
grew up and step one was getting his transfiguration teacher to like him enough to teach him
that.
So, regardless of her staring him down and seeming to point every second or third warning
she reiterated in his direction quite often, he just smiled as innocently as he could back to her
and mentally went over what he knew of this subject from his textbook notes so far. He was
pleased he’d guessed right when halfway through class she distributed match sticks and
began walking them through the process of turning it into needles—he’d already read this
theory and decided he was definitely going to get her to crack a smile at him.

He was excited beyond belief to finally be casting his first bit of magic but still managed to
reel it in and act oh so mature and calm in front of her hawk-like eyes. As he drew his wand,
he had half a moment of doubt wondering if knowing would automatically translate in being
able to do magic… before realized that was absolutely stupid.

It was magic for crying out loud. If he thought he could do it, he most certainly could,
because… well, magic.

So he grinned wildly and made the wand movement, saying the incantation precisely since
she’d been so adamant about pronunciation, and was beyond pleased when his match stick
immediately morphed into one perfect silver needle. Because he’d read the theory too, he
knew visualization was critical, so it wasn’t just a needle either… he’d carved his name into
the very tiny thin body. Because he was an over achiever like that.

He was so proud of himself he almost jumped at the sudden presence that seemed to
materialize over him. He glanced up and smiled innocently at his professor who seemed to
glare down at him warily.

“… five points to Gryffindor for being the first to change your needle, Mr. Potter.” She
allowed almost reluctantly.

“Thank you, Professor.” He greeted her politely, still grinning. She only glared harder.

“…did you read ahead in this class, Mr. Potter?”

“Yes Professor.” Still as respectful as he could but unable to help himself: “What exactly is
the transfiguration behind turning into a cat?”

“Absolutely not.” She immediately shut him down, one eyebrow lifting at him pointedly.

He gaped as if shocked by her implication while also knowing he was still obviously fighting
back a smile. “I was just wondering about what kind of transfiguration it was is all! I know
better than that—you were explicitly clear in your warnings the first half of class.” He
insisted.

“Hm. I’m sure.” She deadpanned, not buying it for a second. “Since you finished so quickly
you can write me a short essay on the theory of metal manipulation then.”

“Oh, so can I mention my engraving then?” He slipped in there carefully, watching her pause
as she’d clearly been about to walk away and leave him to cause trouble another day.

“What did you say?”

“My engraving, see?” He lifted his needle to her and she took it, looking closely… and
needing to adjust her glasses because the wording was so tiny… before her eyebrows arched.

“…impressive, for your first attempt at Transfiguration, Mr. Potter. The essay better be good
then.”

He pouted. “Really? Can’t I ask about the metal-to-metal thing we’re theoretically going to
be doing next class instead?”

She frowned. “What about it?”

“Is it any metal? Like, muggles have different categories of metals and like heavy metals
which I’m not quite sure how but are totally different, and I was just wondering if magically
speaking-”

He babbled on a bit, making sure his expression was clear but mainly watching her
expression as she listened to his question and evaluated it. While she had a killer poker face,
she was fractionally softer when he was on-topic with transfiguration… and not about
advanced, potentially-dangerous transfiguration topics either. Hm, so talking shop was likely
the quickest way to her good side. Not that it’d be too much of a problem, as he was nearly
halfway through his Transfiguration text already and could probably stand to put in some
more time on this subject if it got him some brownie points in her book. Dell had been very
into Transfiguration as well, and her journals were anything but boring—he already had half
an interest in this subject because of his reading there and it wouldn’t be too much of a
stretch to turn that mild intrigue into something of an actual interest.

He recalled his earlier observation that specialized magic was more valuable and lucrative
than being a jack of all trades. He’d have to see how the rest of his classes went this week,
but Transfiguration had promise.

Promise for what, he still didn’t know. He was eleven after all, and had no current plans for
his future, but McGonagall was on his list and so as he let his mouth run with his
observations and musings on what he’d read so far and watched her shoulders relax from
their suspicious hunch ever so slightly, he figured this was a pretty good place to start.

000

By the time the bell for lunch rang, Harry knew two things.

First of all, he liked McGonagall quite a bit. She had taken his babbled questions and his
attempts to distract her with a calm look and then spoke to him like an adult—shooting down
his theories one by one with cold hard facts and even giving him resources to go look up that
would support her statements. She was also not swayed by his overachieving or distraction
techniques as he still had to write that extra essay but now had less class time to do it.
Admitting defeat, he’d taken the assignment in addition to their actual homework and vowed
to get vengeance by crafting something with references that would at least get her eyebrows
arching.

She was going to be a hard nut to crack but he was certain he’d get there.
Eventually.

He might be a seventh year before he got there, but he would die trying at the very least.

Secondly, he had also learned that History of Magic was boooooring. I mean, a ghost droning
on about goblin wars!? He’d thought the textbook was outdated when he’d been skimming
ahead and this just proved it and so much more worse things.

He couldn’t even deal with how bad that whole class situation was—why was a ghost
allowed to teach, why was a ghost allowed to teach ancient history in a technically modern
history class, why was a ghost allowed to teach who couldn’t call attendance later than a class
that was probably in magical nursing homes already, why was a ghost allowed to teach who
didn’t even notice their raised hands much less able to answer any of their questions, why
was—!?

Jesus quaffling Christ, so many issues.

Harry couldn’t deal with his internal irritation and inflamed sense of injustice over it at the
moment though because lunch was promising not to be a cake walk either, despite it not
actually being a class. He pushed it aside in favor of striding into the Great Hall and fixing
his eyes on his next great challenge:

They Slytherin table.

A bunch of children, pre-teens, and teenagers eating lunch shouldn’t be so nerve-wracking,

but Harry knew this was going to be a thing. At least he had faith no one would throw a
punch like if he were a Slytherin approaching the Gryffindor table, although retribution if he
messed this up would probably be a lot more long-lasting.

And he likely wouldn’t see it coming.

Well, no time like the present.

Spotting his target (it wasn’t hard, in a sea of black a gleaming white-blond head was very
noticeable even from across the hall) he walked calmly but with certain purpose down the
aisle behind the table and the far wall and didn’t glance to see if anyone was giving him looks
for getting too close. He was moderately successful as even Draco didn’t notice his approach
until he was shoving his shoulder lightly to make room for himself and the blond jumped a
little bit, glancing up at him with grey eyes quickly composed once more and a small smile
on his lips.

Harry plopped down at the table and returned the smile. He was very much aware everyone
in the near vicinity had stopped talking to stare at him now.

Draco seemed to carefully note the sudden silence and took another bite of his lunch
pointedly as if this weren’t anything unusual. Harry shifted so his bag was resting at his feet,
getting comfortable as if nothing were wrong.

After a couple solid seconds of silence, an upper year to his left couldn’t stand it.
"What is a Gryffindor doing here, Potter? Get lost." He snarled at the red head, hostility
radiating off of him. He was probably a fourth year, and he looked decently pissed.

Harry stared at him.

And then continued to stare.

Draco smirked in a small enough way that only the upper years noticed as he continued his
lunch, not interfering and knowing quite well his friend could handle this situation without
his help. In fact he’d probably only just make it worse, so he kept his mouth shut and enjoyed
his pasta—and the show.

The awkward silence dragged on. And on.

A full minute later the Slytherin fourth year shifted a bit uncomfortably at the searing
emerald stare he was being pinned with. Just a small adjustment in their seat as he wasn’t
sure why there was no response and unsure if he should be breaking eye contact first or not.

Harry smirked, considering this a win and confusing pretty much everyone watching; they
had no idea why he looked so smug and they definitely did not like being on the outs of
information. Harry just tilted his chin back triumphantly, which annoyed the hell out of all of
them as they scowled internally, trying to figure out what they’d missed.

And Harry… was just messing with them. No one said anything else hostile so he turned
back to Draco with a wide smile, totally ignoring the fourth year’s sharp comment.

"Anyway, how was Defense? That's the one I'm second most excited about; was it mostly
theory since we're first years?"

Draco blinked once at the sudden change in attitude but finished swallowing his last bite and
gave a put-upon sigh, accepting all the social blunders Harry was gleefully committing like
they were popcorn and giving an easy one-shouldered shrug.

“Boring, actually. The professor has a stutter and we could barely get a word straight from
him. Seems terrified of everything he was going to teach us about."

"Eh? What a horrible teacher, if you can't even understand him." Harry frowned, thinking
back to History of Magic and decided he needed to start making a complaint list. He
wondered if the Headmaster would care if he sent him a list of complaints or if that was too
presumptuous. He also wondered if he cared if the Headmaster thought he was a
presumptuous little gremlin or not since he didn’t exactly have fond feelings for Mr.
Dumbledore at this moment in the first place. He shook those thoughts off quickly before he
could spiral: these were later thoughts. "That'll be annoying. Is the subject matter interesting
at least?"

"A bit. Magical creatures and dark monsters and such, can't go totally wrong with that I
suppose. The defense and attack spells sound like they're going to be more fun, but it'll be a
while until we get to that."
"What the hell is going on?" Another upper year girl asked the universe at large, having been
thrown by Harry’s impromptu staring contest with the guy across from her and no one
seeming have recovered enough to understand that the two first years discussing their classes
were full on ignoring them. It seemed to be an incomprehensible thought to them all, and
they had in fact not stopped staring or resumed eating since he’d sat down.

That was going to get old fast.

Luckily Draco was quick to catch on and imitate Harry’s flippant attitude and gave the girl a
very impressive porcelain mask.

"Ah, lunch?" The you’re an idiot tone was completed with one white-blond eyebrow cocking
pointedly in her direction. Harry could only dream of being that sassy really, and he supposed
befriending a spoiled brat had its upsides. He smiled widely at this thought.

"Yes, but why is he eating lunch with us." The girl snapped back, referencing Harry in the
same tone that one might refer to a severed toe or a stray pile of human excrement.

He didn’t much like that tone and felt his too-cheerful smile slide into place on his lips like a
chef’s blade sliding home into a knife block.

"I'm having lunch with Draco because he's my friend and you're eavesdropping. It's a bit
unsubtle for a Slytherin, in my opinion." He said in the same tone one might comment on the
weather or the lovely color of their sweater that morning. The words were sharp as needles
though, and the upper year on Draco’s other side had just taken a bite of his lunch since this
stand-off didn’t seem to be dwindling anytime soon, and choked violently on it.

Even Draco shifted his grey eyes at him as if to silently ask what he was doing, but Harry just
pointedly turned to Draco, his body language loudly and clearly saying he was talking to the
blond—and no one else.

"Then again I'm a Gryffindor and woah boy you were right that they are not the quick on the
uptake. You'd think sarcasm was another language entirely."

Draco let out a slightly startled laugh, not having seen that bout of humor coming.
Surprisingly, so did Blaise—who was sitting across from them and by the time they looked at
him had his hand over his mouth once more as if to hide the fact he’d laughed.

Again, the tall boy realized he’d been caught and shrugged once, seemingly graceful and
unperturbed although Harry was quick enough to note that it was in fact rather forced.

"Sorry, but that's just funny." He dismissed as if that weren’t a criminalizing statement to
admit a Gryffindor—and Harry freakin’ Potter at that—had said something amusing while
encroaching on Slytherin territory. He had a very good poker face, or at least his ambivalence
was earnest, which was very interesting. From what Draco had told him, first years were a
little more on-guard than that even in their own house— like Theodore who had yet to even
look up from his lunch to acknowledge Harry was sitting there. Draco was the exception of
course, but Blaise was… a curious case.
Harry grinned at him widely.

Blaise stared back, dark eyes watching him with that poker face that gave nothing away.
Unlike Draco’s regal apathy, but more as if he were actively considering something and yet
hiding his thoughts.

After a long few moments, he slowly returned to eating and joined Theodore in ignoring his
presence. The other Slytherins seemed to realize this was the best tactic to preserve their
dignity and their tight time schedule since they needed to eat before afternoon classes, and so
also slipped into all pretending Harry wasn’t even there.

There were glances exchanged though that told Harry this was far from over. He didn’t think
it’d be that easy anyway, and Slytherins, he was quickly learning, were kings and queens at
the phrase choosing your battles.

Harry wasn’t going to concede the war so easily though; he could choose his battles just as
carefully if need be.

"So can you tell me more about Quidditch? Seems like that all my dorm mates talk about and
I'm still not sure about all those details. And try outs are next week! I've never flown before,
but it sounds exciting. You said you've been flying a long time, right?" He chirped
conversationally to Draco as he took a bite of his lunch, and blond’s quick eyes taking in the
situation and seeming to come to the conclusion it couldn’t hurt to play along for now—
Harry had won this battle.

"Yeah, we have a field by our manor I've been flying most my life."

They continued to chat lightly about inconsequential things, and while the table in general
was uncomfortable and slightly too tense to ignore, no one else said a thing about Harry’s
presence for the rest of the meal.

000

He had three classes today: Transfiguration first, then History of Magic, and after lunch
Magic Theory which was apparently only a first-year class that all four houses took together.
Each block seemed to be about 90 minutes with 10 minutes to get from one place to another
which didn’t seem like a lot since he had no idea where any of these classes were but figured
it’d likely get easier once he got the layout of the castle—getting from Transfiguration to
History of Magic was a bit sketchy since he didn’t have Draco to tag along with, but
(un)luckily Binns likely wouldn’t noticed if he were late, much less if he never showed up at
all. After lunch, he trailed along with the Slytherins to Magic Theory as they all seemed to
know where to go. Their prefects were probably more explicit with their directions or they’d
been given a map that none of them would admit to using.

Magic Theory itself was taught in a rather large classroom and it took Harry about 20
minutes to be bored. This was apparently a class you could take as an extra-curricular after
first year but Harry crossed it off his list almost immediately. All they did was talk about the
thoughts and intents behind magic which should’ve been really cool but the Professor—a one
Aurora Sinistra who was also evidentially the Astronomy Professor—spoke about it like this
was a therapy session, going on and on about feelings and intent.

Harry had already proven he had the ‘intent’ part down in Transfiguration this morning and
while he took some cursory bullet-point notes automatically just because, he stopped paying
true attention quickly. He noted that almost every pureblood and half-blood he knew of in the
room was also either staring out the windows or writing notes back and forth to each other.
He figured if you grew up knowing about magic then this was a really stupid class to have to
sit through, but everyone had to take it so they were all on the ‘same page’.

Nice as the intent was, Harry got a feeling if they wanted muggleborns to be ‘caught up’,
they should spend this time talking about the magical government or basic day-to-day magic
things they didn’t grow up knowing. How to actually perform magic seemed like a bit too
nebulous of a topic to spend a whole year talking about when this first class could be
summed up in ‘just go with it and believe you can do it’ which would pretty much suffice for
magic in general and let other classes get into the specifics of what a spell might require.

Draco sat beside him and passed him notes basically the whole class, both taking notes
because that seemed to be the proper, academic thing to do and never let it be said the
Slytherins weren’t good students even if only in appearance. Harry caught several of them
taking notes but also multitasking in writing to each other, while other houses were less
subtle and half the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs weren’t taking notes at all.

The girl in front of him—Hermione Granger, he recalled—who’d helped Neville on the train,
was taking pages of notes though, which he thought a bit excessive but to each their own.

Halfway through class he was almost yawning from a full lunch and this boring class, and
started to draft his Transfiguration homework(s) under the guise of taking notes. He had a
feeling this and History of Magic was going to be great study halls to get ahead on his more
interesting work.

000

"I wouldn't…"

"Hm?" Harry stopped what he was doing, lifting the watering can in his hand before he could
dowse the fluffy plant in front of him with water.

His first day at a magical school had gone relatively uneventfully, aside from lunch with the
Slytherins. After Magic Theory he and Draco got their first taste of the Hogwarts library to
finish the homework they’d been assigned already, and thanks to his head start in Magic
Theory had more than enough time to do both his Transfiguration homeworks before dinner
(and he was pretty proud of some of the references he’d found to support himself, having
checked them out for his own reading sometime in the next couple weeks too). He hadn’t
pushed his luck and had dinner at the Gryffindor table, and then spent the evening in the
common room letting Seamus and Neville teach him and Dean some magical games, like
exploding snap.
The Weasley twins had joined in too, and they were quickly becoming some of his favorite
people. They were definitely the life of the party in any room and several second and third
years had joined in not long after too, drawn in by the chaotic laughter and excitement the
twins could easily whip into a frenzy, so it’d been a great night and a great start to the year.
Even Neville had been laughing freely by the end of the night, which made Harry feel all
warm and fuzzy.

This morning dawned the second day of the school year and another new class: Herbology. It
took place in the green houses and they were paired with the Hufflepuffs, who seemed to be
content to just go about their business pleasantly. Despite him still not knowing his way
around the school, Neville had seemed fully aware of where he was going when they left
breakfast; something Harry had noted but didn’t really pay attention to.

Now though, he was starting to realize something as Neville used one finger to lift the tip of
his watering can spout up to stop any water from hitting the plant he’d been about to dunk in
fresh rainwater.

"They like drier dirt—if it's too wet their roots will mold and they won't grow very big.
Professor Sprout already moistened the dirt we used." He explained, not a stutter in sight and
with his blue eyes meeting his own steadily for the first time since Harry had met him three
days ago.

Harry blinked, then grinned.

"Neville, you didn't tell me you liked Herbology!"

"W-well…" And the it was back, the tips of his ears tinting pink as he looked down
awkwardly.

"I gardened a lot back at my relatives too—got me out of the house you know—but they were
all muggle plants. Magical plants are a foreign language to me though." He chatted casually,
wanting to encourage his friend, not tease him out it.

Neville just fiddled with his own plant that was much more neatly potted than Harry’s own.

"…yeah. I don't know much about muggle plants either." He admitted slowly.

"How about a trade? I'll tell you about my aunt's rose bushes and you tell me about these
manaculas."

He paused for a couple seconds… then smiled timidly, glancing up at him with a lot softer
and less afraid expression than he normally had.

"Sure." He agreed softly.

"Also, you're absolutely going to be my partner for any big projects we have in this class." He
announced with a grin, earning himself an earnest laugh from the blond.

"Fine by me. That means you're going to be my partner for any Transfiguration projects we
have." He countered more easily than he normally did, but Harry was too surprised by the
comment to think much on it.

"Transfiguration? Why? I mean sure, I don't mind, I just didn't think I was anything special at
that class." He shrugged.

Neville turned to fully face him and give him a very baffled, slightly exasperated look.

"You got your match to a needle on your first try, remember? And you talked most of the
class with McGonagall about the theory behind it."

"Oh." Well, true, but it wasn’t out of desire to be great at Transfiguration—at least not at first
and not even now for the sake of the subject. He had plans after all and Transfiguration was
just a means to an end. "To be totally honest I was trying to get on her good side—it was like
a personal challenge. I didn't think that much of Transfiguration, but it seemed simple
enough."

The blond looked down again, fingers lightly touching a leaf of his plant almost tenderly.

"I never got mine to turn the whole time, and even practicing now it's only slightly pointy
instead of actually a needle." He admitted in a voice soft enough to be a sigh "But you
definitely made a reputation for yourself as being good at it. Ah…” he bit his lip as if trying
to stop from smiling and grimacing in one. "I'm pretty sure that's why Hermione blew you
off."

Harry blinked, automatically glancing across the greenhouse but the frizzy-haired girl was
buried in a conversation with another Gryffindor girl—Lavender, Harry thought her name
was— who didn’t look thrilled to be talking to her. Either Hermione didn’t notice or didn’t
care, though Harry thought it’d be funnier if she didn’t care. She’d be his type of person to do
whatever she wanted no matter public opinion, but she’d be the type of person he didn’t like
if she just didn’t notice, and he had a wiggling feeling he knew which was the case.

“Hermione blew me off?” He repeated, baffled. “When did this happen?”

Neville was giving him another exasperated look and Harry hoped this wasn’t going to
become a habit.

“You invited her to play exploding snap with us last night and she essentially told you not to
interfere. I’m not sure what you were interfering with, but she was doing homework I think?”

Eh? He didn’t remember that at all.

“No recollection of that.” He shrugged, and Neville smiled wanly, clearly amused.

“You know, for someone so observant it’s really impressive how you manage to just miss
when people are being mean to you.”

That startled a laugh out of him, because he had to admit it was true. “Some things are not
worth paying attention to. If they don’t rank on my ‘people I care about’ list then things they
say go in one ear and out there other.” He explained, knowing this was mostly thanks to the
Dursleys. At least, he’d gotten a lot of practice with them over the years, of letting their
words wash over him and make no lasting impact. “It doesn’t shock me—I barely know her.
Though why me transfiguring a needle got me on her bad list, I’ve no idea.”

“She mentioned at lunch yesterday that she was top of her old school. She told Lavender that
when McGonagall came to show her the magical world she’d said she was likely the
brightest witch of her generation.” Neville relayed, and alarm bells went off in Harry’s head.

First of all, McGonagall showed Hermione the magical world? And he’d gotten Hagrid? I
mean, he loved Hagrid, but that system was messed up if that was the different in guides
muggleborns were getting seemingly by chance.

Secondly, having a wallflower friend who listened to everyone and that no one really
acknowledged was going to be really handy. He wanted Neville to branch out of course, but
he realized while Neville kept quiet and really only talked to Harry himself, he had a great
way of gathering information if he needed it, particularly within Gryffindor which would be
helpful.

Thirdly, it was pretty damn funny in a sad way that jealousy was going to be Granger’s go-to
here. I mean, a new start in a magical school and she’d given up on being his friend because
he’d one-upped her in one class. Because she thought so highly of her own intellect, which
was just hilariously pathetic. Suddenly, her taking pages of notes in Magic Theory was cast
into a new light and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes—she was going to burn out young, and
alone at that, if that was her MO then.

"That girl is too much. Okay, whatever, I'll take your word for it, but for the record I really
don’t care. Let's do our homework for this and Transfiguration later together and see what we
can't get done." He suggested, and Neville smiled like he’d expected Harry to say that and
was entertained by it.

"Sounds good."
 Deals and Manners

“It’s finally getting interesting—I swear, after History of Magic and Magic Theory I was
starting to get really worried, but Charms is so cool! And Professor Flitwick is incredibly
nice, although he did fall off his stool when he read my name.” Harry babbled happily,
tacking that last part on with a frown. He’d been mentally debating telling the tiny professor
to call him Monroe like he did with everyone who made a big deal of his famous status,
however Flitwick got over it pretty quickly, so Harry had let it slide.

“Ah, Filius was so excited fer ya to start—Charms was yer mother’s best subject and she
probably would’ve been a Master in it if it weren’t for the damn war,” Hagrid unwittingly
soothed his internal annoyance away like firelight melted snow, pouring him another cup of
tea—not that he needed it since he’d never finish the liter-sized cup of earl grey before it was
ice-cold. Harry found himself forgiving the tiny professor begrudgingly; it was one thing to
be gawked at for being the Boy Who Lived, but another if he were excited simply because he
was his mother’s son. Maybe he’d be willing to speak about her, since if what Hagrid was
implying was true then the Charms Master must’ve known her well.

“I don’t know enough about the class to know if I’m any good at it or not yet, but we’ll see I
guess.” He shrugged as Hagrid sat himself back down and pushed a plate of rock cakes his
way. Harry simply kept nibbling on the one he’d taken when he got here. Rock cake was a
very apt name, but they were pretty tasty once you got through the solid-stone of an outer
shell.

“I heard from Minerva that yer a right prodigy at Transfiguration—ah, though don’t go tellin’
her I told ya tha’!” Hagrid chuckled, and Harry smiled plainly.

He was pleasantly surprised to get the invite to tea at Hagrid’s, and ditched everyone without
a second thought to track down the man’s tiny little hut—he’d needed directions from
Professor Sprout but once he saw it he couldn’t imagine how he’d missed it. It was tiny and
warm with a big fire in the middle of a rather warm September that for some reason he really
just didn’t mind. Plus, Hagrid had showered him in tea and homemade rock cakes—sitting
down with a big blanket he was crocheting and letting him rant his head off about his classes
so far. The giant of a man and his ferociously named hound Fang (who was now curled up
contentedly at their feet) felt like a little world of their own compared to the large castle
looming over them where the hut rested nestled in the shade of the Forbidden Forest.

The home itself was colorful, slightly off, cluttered, and homey. Harry loved it and found he
loved Hagrid even more than he already did—he could just imagine his parents as students
sitting in this same seat and politely refusing more rock cakes as Hagrid lent them an ear. He
was a kind man who seemed willing and happy to treat everyone with the same kindness and
openness he showed his closest friends—which meant you felt welcome in his tiny little hut
within seconds of stepping inside. Harry loved it.

But he was also careful: as much as he loved Hagrid, and the man was just an enticingly
gentle, open-hearted ear, he could not hold a secret. He was also privy to the teacher faculty
room, so Harry was quickly learning more about his professors than he was sure they’d like
him to know.

And he wasn’t even in Slytherin officially—they’d really hate how much he was learning
here if they knew how close he’d come to going to the snake’s house.

Regardless, Hagrid was someone you felt compelled to trust and be open with, but Harry
knew where to draw the line. Classes and classmates, homework and his time here in the
castle, it was all fair game. Certain things though… well, as a general rule, if he didn’t want
Dumbledore knowing about it, he didn’t tell Hagrid. Simple as that.

But even with how much he held back, tea and good company was never a waste of time, and
he was enjoying his time with the giant man.

“I won’t,” he promised with a wide, albeit blank smile. If it became important for leverage on
the Transfiguration teacher later down the road, he absolutely would tell her without a second
thought—but Hagrid would forgive him, he was sure. “I do like Transfiguration too, although
I got into an argument with her and she gave me extra homework,” he huffed.

Hagrid chuckled. “Minerva used ta say James was a Transfiguration prodigy too, but he never
put in tha’ effort really. Used to driver her up tha’ wall!”

“So my dad was good at Transfiguration, and my mom Charms.” He put together aloud,
mulling that over. He had a lot in common with his mother, he was slowly learning, so having
something in common with his dad wasn’t a bad thing. Plus, it was interesting, and Dell’s
tales renewed his interest every time he read them. “I guess I like those two best so far, but
I’m definitely better at Transfiguration. At least we’ve done some magic in it to know what
it’s about.”

“Some students jus’ like the action bit.” Hagrid shrugged easily. “How abou’ Defense then?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Professor Quirrell has a stutter—I couldn’t understand a word he said.
And it was mostly just reading from our texts which I prepped for, so nothing new. I don’t
think I’m going to learn anything in that class.” Plus, almost immediately upon entering the
classroom he’d gotten a headache, which Neville was very concerned over. Harry blamed the
garlic smell and poor lighting with his equally poor eyesight even with his magical contacts
—it happened Tuesday during his first class, and again just an hour ago at his Thursday
afternoon class. So it was clearly related to the room or something, though he couldn’t
pinpoint it.

Neville turned out to be a bit of a worrywart though, and although he hadn’t said anything
aside from one soft suggestion that he go to the Hospital Wing, had then stood silently beside
him and given him the saddest more unfair set of disappointed puppy dog eyes until Harry
couldn’t take it anymore and excused himself from class to go lie down—if only to pacify his
friend since he really did feel much better literally minutes after leaving the room.

He wondered if he’d get in trouble for skipping classes at a magical boarding school—if
Quirrell would even notice as he hadn’t taken attendance after that first class and had let him
leave early both times with so much of a stutter, Harry had already left before he got his ‘y-y-
y-y-y-y-es’ out. As Draco had warned him, the class was interesting in theory but since they
wouldn’t be learning spells for at least this year he saw little point in actually forcing himself
to endure headaches like that. Maybe he could work out a deal with Madam Pomfrey…

And despite the surprise Neville’s mother hen traits were, it was not that he didn’t mind the
moment to rest: Astronomy was held at midnight and he was still an early riser so that was
definitely going to take some getting used to. He thought it was kind of stupid, to have a class
that late on Wednesday night, and then they’d just announced that flying lessons would begin
next week on Thursday afternoons, so the current hour Harry was wasting down at Hagrid’s.
It was poor planning on someone’s part because he was already tired as hell from the sudden
lack of sleep and then adding something dangerous (as McGonagall had implied) like flying
and he failed to see why this was a good idea for eleven-year-olds. Astronomy couldn’t be on
a Friday, for example, when they didn’t have to get up and get on with the rest of the week?
And it wasn’t plenty dark enough at 10pm instead of midnight to see the stars?

He huffed and took another sip of his massive tea, adding another point to his mental list of
‘what was wrong with this school’. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with that list but
he was going to keep track none the less.

Astronomy itself was fine. Memorization and squinting at stars while trying not to yawn or
fall asleep was fine for him, but not interesting in the slightest. He also wasn’t 100% sure on
the relevancy of the stars on magic just yet, but figured they’d get to it once they had the
memorizing bit under their belt. The best part was definitely that it was all four houses, and
he’s dragged Neville to sit beside his new Slytherin “friends” (meaning Draco who was his
friend and Blaise and Nott who’d been doing their best to ignore him since they realized they
wouldn’t get anywhere by being passive aggressive and were not yet willing to be outright
aggressive in telling him to get lost).

Slytherins were good students, but not out of love of learning but because they seemed a bit
particular about perfection. Draco had the style and the grace about him, but Blaise was
definitely the effortless one: slightly less graceful but he didn’t have to try nearly as hard as
Draco did to be good at school, sort of like Harry. Nott had not looked his way since their
first day so jury was still out on him, the silent weirdo.

Blaise was also a talker, but trying very hard not to be, especially when Harry was nearby.
Still, Harry had caught him biting down smirks or laughs at some of the things he and Draco
talked about and making tiny facial expressions that said he was definitely eavesdropping on
them. He’d also had a moment in Charms this morning when he’d gone off about one of their
homework questions and how he was technically correct even though Flitwick marked it
wrong, and he was into it for about two minutes before he realized he was addressing Harry
as well as the other two Slytherins and snapped his jaw shut, returning to their assignment
without acknowledging what he’d just done.

Yes, Harry planned to win him over too, and he wasn’t half as hard as McGonagall was.
Draco just seemed amused by the whole thing, which was a plus. The blond had been very
hard to make smile since they got to Hogwarts, but more tense than Harry had ever seen him
before so the moment he could lighten up (even at Blaise’s expense) Harry was thrilled.
He had a suspicion about what Draco was so tense about, but he knew his butting in wouldn’t
be appreciated, so he kept his mouth shut.

“But all yer other classes good then? Excited about flyin’ lessons?” Hagrid broke into his
spiraling thoughts, and Harry flashed him a grin.

“Yep. Seamus said he found my dad’s name on a trophy in he award hall; apparently he was a
good player?”

“Yeah ‘e was! One o’ the best chasers in a long while, but more entertainin’ than anythin’. He
was a bit o’ a class clown, ya know?”

Huh.

“I didn’t. I’ve never really been the class clown for anything.” He frowned. Not that he didn’t
enjoy class clowns, but even if he didn’t have the added motivation of never causing the
scene and pissing off the Dursleys, he’d never felt the desire to disrupt class or crack a joke in
the middle of a class-like situation. He didn’t consider himself unfunny, but he wasn’t the
comedian of a crowd. It was foreign concept to him.

“You know the Weasley twins then, ya?” Hagrid prompted and Harry felt thrown by the shift.

“Uh, yeah. Yes of course, they’re really nice.” And they were: they were some of the only
people who’d never once asked about the shiny pins he wore in his hair or stared at him when
he walked by. In fact, they still called him Apples and seemed to get great joy in doing so: a
childlike, thrilling joy that got everyone around them grinning too. Plus, they were royal
pranksters: they’d been here four days and he’d already seen three pranks that no one
wondered who the culprits were. He found them extremely enjoyable.

“Yer father and ‘is friends were a lot like that. Wild, smart-alec pranksters: drove Minerva up
tha’ wall! I spent mosta those days chasin’ ‘em away from tha’ forest, cause they were too
damn curious fer their own good. Musta spent a hundred detentions with ‘em too!” He let out
a booming laugh and Harry’s felt his eyes grow wide.

He…his dad…?

There was so much to unpack there he opted to shelve those thoughts and come back to it
later. He settled instead for going after another sip of his tea, letting that train of thought die
before Hagrid could launch into another story or elaborate.

On cue, Hagrid took the silence as a natural cue to move topics—probably not aware of what
he was doing but very good at small talk and able to follow the course of conversation easily
enough.

“Ya got yer firs’ potions class then tomorrow. Prepared for it?” Hagrid chirped
conversationally, and Harry played for time by taking his time on his sip of tea—a huge task
given the size and weight of the massive tea cup.
“I was excited for it since it definitely seemed like the most interesting of all the classes, and
I like cooking so kind of thought the two skills would relate. Everything I’m hearing about
Professor Snape though makes me nervous. And he clearly isn’t fond of Gryffindors—I heard
the rant he gave the Weasley twins when he caught them for their prank at breakfast this
morning. Sounds like a real piece of work to me.”

“Hes’ got a bit o’ a reputation, fer sure.” Hagrid allowed. “Was always a weird kid too, kept
to ‘imself mostly. If memory serves he didn’ like James at all but he was friend with yer
mother at least when they were firs’ years I think. Caused a real ruckus, a Gryffindor and
Slytherin bein’ friends and all.”

Harry blinked wide, trying to wrap his head around that. Snape had been friends with his
mom?

Wait…

“Okay, so sort of like Draco and I?” He prompted and Hagrid had the decency to look
abashed. The giant man had been clear of his distrust of the Malfoy family in general, but
after an hour of Harry talking about his friends—Draco in particular—he seemed to just give
in to the idea that Harry wasn’t about to not be friends with Draco just because of a stupid
rivalry. And Hagrid—the sweet oaf that he was—seemed to treasure Harry’s friendship more
than his grudge and had come full-circle to actually being polite when mentioning the blond
Slytherin. He was blissfully easy going like that, it seemed.

“Ah, true,” he relented. “Not sure what ‘appened though. Turned out ta be a genius at potions
but he’s an odd one fer sure. You’ll find mos’ Gryffindor upper years got nothin’ good to say
about ‘im.”

“I got that feeling,” He sighed. Snape reputation was infamous, and Harry was making his
rounds around the school like the social butterfly he decided he wanted to be and so he got a
lot of details he kind of wished weren’t going to end up being true. Heck, even the
Ravenclaws warned him Snape was a bully towards Gryffindors, and while they weren’t the
sort to lambast someone with insults or speak back to a teacher because of injustice, their
very serious, quietly hushed warnings spoke volumes.

He wondered. If the odd bat and his mother had been friends in warring houses, but only in
the beginning… maybe there was a falling out? And the implication he didn’t like his dad
was unsettling too. Seemed he had quite a bit stacked against him in particular—or maybe
Hagrid was just reminiscing about Lily Evans and James Potter in particular given their son
was sitting in front of him, but Snape hated everyone equally.

Harry had a feeling that his luck wasn’t that fortunate. It was the same gut feeling he got
when watching Dudley’s gang from across the street and hoping they wouldn’t see him or
just decide to leave him alone that day—when his stomach sank he knew better than to ignore
that instinct to run.

Well, nothing he could do but wait for tomorrow and find out for sure. So, he heaved up the
giant teacup to take another drink and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying Hagrid’s light-
hearted company, trying not to think too hard about tomorrow.
 000

“Would you like to say something, Blaise?”

Harry was light and polite when he asked, and the tall boy beside him just turned his chin
forwards once more. The Slytherin had been staring at him not so subtly since they left the
Great Hall, and Draco had actually dropped behind them. His expression was calm and
smooth as always, but Harry knew his stomach was in knots over this coming potions class.
Harry couldn’t fault him—he sort of felt the same way but was apparently better at hiding it.

“Oh nothing.” He sniffed in a tone that clearly said there was something. He followed
through by only letting one delicate pause hover in the air before continuing. “Just curious if
you’re actually going to go through with this.”

‘This’ being the fact he’d claimed Draco as his potions partner. Which mean sitting on the
Slytherin side of the room (he’d been warned by upper years to sit in the back of the
Gryffindor section if he wanted to live, so apparently there were sections to deal with). Which
meant sitting front and center on the Slytherin side. And having Snape literally right there to
breathe down his neck.

I want to say ‘how bad can it be?’ but know that’ll just jinx it, wont it? He thought morosely
to himself.

“Not for nothing, but I am a Gryffindor. Theoretically that would mean I’m brave.” He
snipped back lightly.

“Theoretically.” Blaise repeated blankly. “I’m going to sit behind you and enjoy the show.”

“Please do. What good is my life if I am not an entertainment to you?” Harry grinned warmly
at him, so believably there was no way the apt Slytherin didn’t miss the sarcasm. True to
form, Blaise’s lips almost twitched like he was slamming down on a smile; instead he stared
down at the tiny redhead beside him with a careful show of distain that Harry didn’t buy for a
second.

“Harry,” A voice called and he was about to turn around when he felt a hand on his arm
pulling him around, and he automatically jerked back violently to wrench his arm free,
whipping around to see Ronald bloody Weasley with his hands up in a ‘I surrender’ pose in
response to his reaction. Harry only half noted the instant growl on Draco’s face behind his
shoulder and thought, well, at least he wasn’t moping anymore.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” Ron back off half a step, and Harry tried not to be
annoyed. He attempted a smile that he was sure the Slytherins saw right though, at least.

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I was wondering if you wanted to be partners for this class? Everyone else is paired
up.”
A lie, since Harry could see Hermione standing near the classroom door, alone. However, he
also knew Neville hadn’t partnered up with anyone yet, which meant there would be an odd
person out and theoretically would mean a three-man team would form or someone would go
solo. He wanted to bank on a Slytherin group getting the three-person or Hermione going
solo. He wanted to ask if Neville could be part of his and Draco’s team, but wouldn’t risk
Draco’s potions when he was already tense over being openly friendly with a Gryffindor—
much less willingly participate in a team where he was outnumbered two-to-one.

Plus, he had a sneaking suspicion Neville would’ve accept to be on Draco’s team, regardless.

“Sorry, I have a partner already.” He declined, hopefully more politely than he felt.

Ron’s expression clouded, and then turned angry when he looked up over his shoulder—at
Blaise for some reason. Well, not shockingly as Draco was a bit farther away and he had just
been talking to Blaise but, whatever. Anyone with two braincells would know who Harry
very publicly hung out with and wouldn’t say what suddenly came out of his mouth to Blaise
of all people—not Draco.

“What’s wrong with you? What do you get from hanging out with slimy snakes like them?”

‘Them’, said while looing straight at Blaise.

Who went from zero to a hundred real quick.

“As if there’s anything to gain from an impoverished piece of rubbish who can’t be bothered
to even take a shower once a week like you? We can hear your moaning and griping all the
way from our table every damn night and you’re just an attention seeking brat with no
reputation, and no dignity to gain yourself one before calling out people well above your
station you bloody hog.” He snapped with a whirlwind of very well-articulated anger—his
voice not rising but the fire in his chocolate eyes burning something red hot. Harry was
actually super impressed: he was certainly not that composed when he was pissed off, and
Blaise somehow made rage seem pretty.

“You-!”

“I’m not available Mr. Weasley so I think we’re done. Maybe go find an open partner?”
Harry cut in before it got any more heated. Class was about to start and he really didn’t want
to be mid-spat when the infamous Slytherin-biased teacher caught Slytherins and Gryffindors
growling at each other.

He caught sight of Draco glancing at Neville—who was facing down the hall pointedly as if
not making eye contact would drop him off Ron’s radar. So it seems he didn’t want to be
Ron’s partner either, despite being available. Not that there were a lot of options left, but he
wasn’t going to offer first, but let the chips fall where they may.

“Why would you chose to partner with a Slytherin though?” Ron was not getting the
message, his cheek flushed red in agitation.
“Uh, they’re good at potions?” He said it like it obvious, which is was. Even if it was a
stereotype, there was some truth to back it up and Harry was after a good grade here: the
Slytherins listening in could appreciate using something for gain, unlike the Gryffindors who
thought it seemed kind of cheap.

“You’d put that over enjoying yourself?” Ron snapped.

“First of all, I’m fairly certain this class is not designed for Gryffindors to have fun: the
object is survival, Weasley, get with the program. Secondly, who said I wouldn’t enjoy
myself? Draco is my friend, unlike you who has been nothing but rude since we met.” He
countered smoothly, no anger in his voice and keeping his voice relatively low because he
knew they were making a scene and hoping people would stop looking at them argue. No
such luck, but he tried.

Especially when Ron turned bright red.

Nott cleared his throat lowly and several Slytherins seemed to take this as some kind of cue.

“Okay we’re done, time for class.” Draco physically stepped between the two redheads and
put an arm around Harry’s shoulder lightly to guide him away, Blaise’s mask abruptly back in
place to pretend the Weasley in front of him didn’t exist. Harry let him do it, shooting him a
curious look and trying to ignore Ron’s alarmingly tomato-like expression.

“No we’re not done—I want answers!”

Harry was yet again taken off guard by the hand the clamped around his wrist as he tried to
let Draco lead him away, and jolted out from both of their touches automatically. Something
about it sent every wire in his body on edge and he was surprised at his own reaction time in
how fast his wand appeared in his hand and was jammed less than an inch into Ron’s face.

“I don’t know any magic yet but that will not stop me from jamming this up your nose if you
touch me again without permission.” He snapped, far less graceful than Blaise had been, but
his felt cornered and he didn’t like it. “Also, it’s Monroe to you Weasley—not Harry, not
Potter, not your friend or anything similar. Now get back.”

Be it the wand in his face or the glare he was being pinned down with, Ron took two steps
back quickly.

He huffed, annoyed. “Thank you. Now get lost.”

He turned on his heel and walked the direction Draco had been leading him—Draco himself
startled by the sudden 180s that had been happening and quickly following him. He felt the
others aside from Ron follow, as well as many eyes on him, but he didn’t look back to meet
any of their gazes.

He felt cornered and riled and he didn’t know why being grabbed like that set him off but it
did.
He tried to shake it off but was failing visibly, since Draco very carefully didn’t touch him
but pointed at the now-open classroom door to stop Harry from storming right past it in his
ire. Harry took the lead in entering and everyone followed suit, surprisingly silently.

He let Draco pick the desk (front and center, predictably) and sat down, still trying to calm
down and not getting very far.

“You alright Harry?” He glanced up and Seamus was looking at him in concern from where
the Gryffindors were settling in on the other side.

He managed to smile a bit; Seamus really was a good guy.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about that.”

“Nah, no worries. Jus’ let us know.” He waved it off, Dean nodding from beside him as they
went to take their seats, and Harry took a breath.

A presence beside him had him looking up, realizing Blaise was looking down at him with an
unreadable expression, bag still on his shoulder and not taking his self-appointed seat behind
them.

“…what.” He frowned, and the tall Slytherin just lifted a single brow, considering him.

Then:

“…Longbottom, you have a partner?” He said it while still looking down at Harry, but he
heard Neville squeak a bit behind them, clearly having followed them silently.

“W-what!?”

“Partner with me, Longbottom.” He rolled his eyes impatiently, breaking off his look at Harry
to meet the shy Gryffindor’s panicked look.

“…s-sure.” He squeaked barely managing to meet his gaze before jumping slightly and
glancing at the last Slytherin.

Harry realized too that Nott was already sitting at the table behind them, the seat next to him
presumably where Blaise would’ve sat since they’d been assumed to partner up. Blaise
looked at him and his pale blue eyes looked back, neither of them making much of an
expression but something passing between them.

With a sigh Nott collected his bag and walked off, and Blaise looked at Neville expectantly,
who jumped and sat down in Nott's vacated seat quickly. He looked like he half wanted to say
something as Nott walked away, but couldn’t quite manage it.

Harry frowned, turning in his seat to stare threateningly at the dark boy behind him.

“What are you playing at?” He demanded. The unspoken you better not be toying with
Neville hanging heavy in his tone.
Blaise just rolled his eyes. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I…have almost no aptitude for potions though.” Neville spoke up, barely above a whisper
and looking like he wanted to be anywhere but there. Blaise sighed, audibly put-upon.

“Thank you for your honestly, but I didn’t think you did in the first place. We’re not actually
going to work together, but I’m going to make sure you don’t have to partner with that oaf.
Sound nice?”

Neville looked startled for a long moment but then nodded weakly.

Harry was suspicious as hell, but he couldn’t exactly do anything about it since it was that
moment the doors flew open, and a dungeon bat came swooping into the classroom.
 Snakes Whisper

“Ah, yes. Harry Potter, our new… celebrity.”

Uh-oh.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little
foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you
will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering
fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind,
ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death—
if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

Silence.

Yikes, tough crowd. That was actually pretty darn poetic.

“Potter!”

Oh quaffle.

“What would I get if I added powered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

No clue. He does realize this is the first class, yes? And I read ahead but that answer wasn’t
in the first ten chapters of our textbook so it’s clearly above my paygrade. If I knew the entire
textbook walking in here what’s the need for a potions’ professor at all?

He bit it back though, because he wasn’t stupid. Both of them ignoring Hermione’s hand
which was going wild at the side of the room.

“I don’t know sir.”

Truly Snape’s sneer was a thing of marvel. He must practice in the mirror.

“Tut, tut—fame clearly isn’t everything.” He drawled, and Harry fought the urge to throw
something at the man. Instead he sat there blankly, trying to emulate Draco’s calm posture
beside him. Or… actually, Draco was pretty damn tense so maybe he should be channeling
Blaise here instead.

“Let’s try again. Potter, where you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

Score—I know that one!

Again, it was clearly fourth year material, but Draco mentioned it in some letter at one point,
which prompted the curious thought of how good was Draco at potions again but decided
that was definitely a later conversation he’d be having with the blond.
“In the stomach of a goat, sir.” He did his best not to smirk back, especially when those dark
beetle eyes narrowed at him.

“And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?” The man challenged,
greasy hair and poor attitude when losing lowering him in Harry’s eyes yet another five
points. Especially when it was clear it was another tough question he wasn’t expected to be
able to answer.

Oh quaffle. Wait… I read this… somewhere… and going by the pattern of this being high-
level stuff on purpose, it was probably one of those extra journals I bought. Wolfsbane
though, why does that sound familiar… oh!

“They’re the same thing, sir.”

He was insanely proud of himself and it was hard to keep his face straight at the sour look on
Snape’s face. That one wasn’t actually Draco though: Neville had been going over a
Herbology book at lunch that a kind Ravenclaw had shown him after Harry made a scene
about his plant-skills in yesterday morning’s class. For once he had Harry’s ear all to himself
with Dean and Seamus off doing Lord knows what and spent a solid five minutes on
terminology, and one of the examples he’d used was how one plant could have so many
names, primarily aconite. Which apparently had twelve names, but Harry remembered
thinking Wolfsbane was clearly the coolest of them all.

Snape was not nearly as amused, though Harry couldn’t quite remember feeling so self-
satisfied. Hopefully it didn’t show on his face or he’d really be in for it.

“Sit down.” The bat instead snapped in Hermione’s direction, who’d been waving her hand
with vehemence since the questioning started, and she did quickly. He sneered back down at
the red headed first year with distain in his eyes. “For your information Potter, asphodel and
wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of the Living
Death. Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?”

There was a rustle of papers and quills as everyone hastened to do just that, and Snape finally
took his eyes off Harry to scowl at the room at large.

“Weasley, Granger, Goyle—why are you not partnered up?”

Wait what?

Harry turned around as subtly as he could and saw that indeed, all three of them were sitting
at benches alone. But he thought for sure Goyle would be with Crabbe since they’d literally
never been seen apart from each other—but then he caught sight of Crabbe sitting blankly
next to an even more blank Nott. Who was blank on purpose, while Crabbe just seemed
stunned to be here. Meaning alive, really.

Huh, wonder how that happened.

“There’s an odd number of people,” Ron was dumb enough to speak up, earning a glare,
which he stupidly glared back at.
“Ten points from Gryffindor for failing to follow the rules. Let’s do some simple math here:
three odd people means a team of two is still available.” Snape drawled in a tone way better
suited on some posh bully rather than a teacher, in Harry’s humble opinion.

There was a brief pause, which Blaise took the precise moment to speak up.

“I don’t mind working alone, professor.” His calm voice spoke up clearly, and so filled with
reverence and generality Harry thought for a split second he was offering his first-born child
or something for the good of all mankind. Snape’s dark eyes only flickered to the Slytherin
boy, before nodding once.

“Longbottom, you’re with Granger. Weasley, with Goyle. Mr. Zabini will work alone.” He
commanded, and Harry felt his head spin the same moment Neville jumped at being
addressed, and then quickly scampered off to join Hermione at her table.

“But-”

“Ten points from Gryffindor for talking back, Mr. Weasley.” The potions master hissed
calmly, and Ron went five shades redder as he was forced to grab his bag and plop down at
Goyle’s table when the large boy made no move to join him and it was clear even to someone
obtuse like Ron that Snape would only be overjoyed to take points off of the Gryffindor
rather than the Slytherin for not following orders.

Harry turned around fully now because what the heck happened?

It must’ve been clear on his face because Blaise caught his eyes and gave a smirk so smug
that Harry felt his hackles rise.

How did he do that?

Blaise just calmly went back to scrawling in his notebook with beautiful penmanship even
using a quill and Harry got the feeling he’d be sticking his tongue out if he were the type to
do that sort of thing.

He was prevented from asking by Snape whipping around and striding back to the front of
the classroom, robes billowing like he wasn’t aware that the whole school called him a
dungeon bat for this exact reason.

"Turn to page 1 and begin reading the first passage--the instructions are on the board. Get to
it, and don't blow anything up."

Okay, so potions was bearable if not anxiety-inducing, but the more concerning thing was
whatever Slytherin political BS had just gone down and why Blaise seemed to be in control
of it. He glanced at Draco who was already shaking his head to let it drop while shoving his
already detailed notes under his nose with the silent order to get to work.

Fine.

But he had another reason to sit at the Slytherin table now, because he was going to figure
this out if it killed him.
 000

Snape was having a crisis.

He was going to ignore the Potter brat, he’d sworn to himself that was the most he’d do,
perhaps take most of it out on the other pathetic Gryffindor dolts in the class, but the utterly
moronic child had chosen to sit front and center—

--and suddenly it was her sitting there--

Green eyes—ha! Those vibrant eyes and her hair… her hair, the exact color he'd never forget
no matter how long he lived. The color he'd admired, the color he'd wept over when he'd
cradled her dead body in his arms, deceptively lively hair spilling over the floor like blood—
befitting the brutal murder for what it was. He couldn't bear to look at it because all he saw
was her.

And worse was that he could still see that asshole James Potter in there too—Lily's hair had
been long and flowing, smooth and watery soft no matter what she did or how hard she
played. The Potter scoundrel had wild, untamed hair that girls always thought dreamy—as if
bed head was attractive. The brat's hair was hers, also long and burning bright like hers ever
did, but it was wild and chaotic like only his father's ruffled top ever was.

The problem being that it wasn't enough to blind him to the fact it was his Lily's son sitting in
his classroom at that moment. Even knowing this was Potter's offspring… the love he felt for
his old flame warred with his past hatred of the man he loathed above all when he looked at
this child… so fiercely. It would've been better if it were only her eyes he had— Severus
could simply refuse to look at the boy's gaze. He could look down on the boy, no eye contact,
and see only a mini James Potter and this would be easier. He would be free to hate the child
for the menace he was, like father like son.

But he couldn't. Just glancing across the dungeon his heart beat slightly too hard to catch
sight of the wild flaming red, just like it had every single potions class as a child, sitting in
here as a student and glancing across the room—or just across the brewing stand—to see her
hard at work with strands of that beautiful hair falling in her face, hand coming up to brush it
away distractedly.

He had hoped to make it through these seven years by ignoring the child and taking out every
ounce of frustration he had onto the boy.

But he suddenly found himself unable to; not when it was less the son of his enemy looking
at him, and the son of the woman he still loved.

Less James Potter, and more Lily Evans smiling widely at his god son beside him. A smile
with teeth slightly exposed and promising curiosity and fire and warmth. And Draco, not
being afraid to smile back because he was at the front of the class and the only person who
could see him break character like that was his godfather, who he trusted.

Who he trusted.
Snape wanted to take the bottles of poorly brewed first-year potions the students were
handing him and down them all. They were so badly made they might just kill him, or simply
turn him into an orchid, which might be preferable to this.

I am sorry Draco, but I’m a man. And I pray you will never understand how difficult this is.

000

"I swear to Christ Draco, if you say 'I told you so' I will hex you into oblivion."

Draco wasn't worried and grinned smugly as he put his quill down and greeted his dormmate
entering the room with a guiltless look that no Slytherin would be stupid enough to believe.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." He dutifully replied.

Blaise shot him a look that reminded him very much of Dalia Zabini and figured he should
probably cool it with the teasing before the Zabini heir actually killed him. In his sleep or via
poison at dinner—neither would surprise him and he definitely didn't think himself skilled
enough to see it coming.

He'd met Dalia Zabini several times in the past and every single instance she'd scared him
even more than before. She was positively the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on
and only his parents' warning about her had prevented him for falling for her charm and
calling her 'Auntie Da' like she'd insisted. His father in particular had gone over the dangers
of that woman many, many times and while he knew a thing or two about dark families, he
was not quite comfortable with the notoriously grey family who refused to take sides in the
last war. Most families were forced to choose one way or another but there were only three
old pureblood lines that had been powerful enough to abstain from the last war and for both
the Dark Lord and Dumbledore to leave them be. Draco knew not to mess with those families
on pain of death, and his parents had explained in very gruesome detail why.

Zabini wasn't actually an English name or bloodline—they'd come from the old Roman
empire and the wizarding community that existed in this country some five centuries ago,
however they could trace their family line back past the point of there even being a record
that England had wizards. They were also descended from a series of nine lines that could
claim direct lineage from old-world Emperors and Conquerors, so while in English history
they were still gaining status, the status they did was foreign and intensely respected amongst
purebloods. The Dark Lord would've made a terrible political move in killing the Zabini
family when they claimed neutral in the last war, since it was commonly accepted even
amongst the most fervent blood purists that Zabini blood was one of the purest there was—
the Dark Lord would've lost followings (even if just silently since few were brave enough to
actually defy him) if he disregarded his pureblood rhetoric by wiping out one of the most
prime pureblood families in the UK.

Not to mention the family in question still had a great deal of relatives they were on close
speaking terms with back in Italy, and the one thing the Dark Lord had not risked was making
his war international. If he'd won and gotten control over magical Britain, who knows what
might've happened then, but even at the height of his power he'd never dared provoke Italian
wizards from jumping the boarders to defend some of their own. They were unknowns to him
and part of an older society than even Britain's was, so it wasn't worth the risk.
What all this meant is that the Zabinis are practically untouchable, politically speaking. But it
also meant they abstained from pretty much everything politically too—they didn't make
strong stances or come out in support of anyone, and on the most part kept to themselves.
They were traditionally Slytherin too, since they were vicious businessmen and women,
which was likely the reason for coming west from Rome in the first place. If Draco wasn’t
mistaken, Blaise had relatives that had made the jump to America roughly two hundred years
ago to continue the line further west (which was yet another reason not to mess with the
bloodline—Italian wizards were some of the oldest and most powerful, however American
wizards were entirely unpredictable). The main point being that the Zabini line was infectious
and well-connected globally, and they were only moving farther with every passing
generation.

And Dalia Zabini was, most likely, the worst of all the ambitious, vicious businesswomen
Draco had ever held witness too. She was a lawyer and an investor, she owned businesses and
trades alike, and she'd tripled her family's wealth in her lifetime. And the Zabinis were still an
old wealthy family even before her era, so that was really saying something.

Aside from her cut-throat business practices though, her main method of income was that she
was nearly world-renowned as a Black Widow. Back to the fact she was insanely beautiful,
she was also clever like a knife and so fiercely intelligent and devious that most never stood a
snowball's chance in hell when she set her eyes on you. She was on husband number eleven,
if Draco recalled correctly; his parents had been invited to all her weddings, although they’d
forbade him from going. It meant that he had heard plenty about the British Zabini branch
family, and had up until starting Hogwarts always planned on giving that family a wide berth.

Which was why suddenly finding himself roommates with the Zabini heir to be… interesting.

Slytherin wasn't like the other houses in that each room was optimized to give them space,
security, and studying room. Each room only held three, with a small entrance room to leave
one's shoes connecting to a bathroom, and then another door into the main dorm that was a
horseshoe shape: one bed area in front of the door, and one each to the left and right. Each
area was an alcove of sorts, a large semi-circle with a wardrobe, bookshelf, and full desk area
towards the front, and yet another alcove at the back that could be blocked off with black
curtains where the bed was placed. The main perk being that the whole of Slytherin was
underground, boarding the lake, so each bed had a large circular window twice Draco's height
that showed out into the underwater lake—magically enchanted to be light enough to see the
seaweed sway in the currents and fish swim by occasionally. The upper years said sometimes
the squid would drift by, but it didn't often like to come too close to the castle.

First years were given whatever rooms were available, but once settled this would be their
space for the full seven years, so they were actually only four levels down since this was
where last year's seventh years had left open, but Draco knew there were deeper levels closer
to the lake floor that other years must've had. He kind of liked being mid-way because it was
a nice view, and he didn't have to crane around a tall bush of seaweed to see out, nor was the
sunlight threatening his area like it'd be closer to the surface.

The original plan was to room with Goyle and Crabbe, since his family had alliances with
them. Neither Vincent nor Gregory were all that bright so his father had arranged a 'follow
my son around and guard him' sort of deal that both families had been fine with—it got them
on the Malfoy's good books, and the two's parents figured Draco was going to be climbing
the ladder, so to speak, and so to come along for the ride couldn't hurt. Neither set of parents
had much faith their sons would be doing any social climbing on their own after all, so
wanted to do what they could for their children while they had the chance before sending
them off to Hogwarts. Both were dark families though, and with the Malfoy's switching to
grey his father had negotiated a different deal—something to do with the three families’
businesses and the Crabbe and Goyle parents weren't thrilled with the lost advantage their
sons had, but were soothed by the increase in wealth coming into their vault.

Money fixed most things for the Malfoys, after all.

So, with Crabbe and Goyle not bothering to come look for him since their parents had told
them not to anymore, he'd been free to pick and choose which room he wanted—there were
only five Slytherin boys this year and six bed spaces in the two rooms of three, both rooms
having a spot open. Since he was from a newly grey family and Zabini was the most
infamously grey family there was, it was an easy choice.

When he'd followed them into their chosen room that first night, Blaise had given him a
pointedly raised eyebrow but didn't comment. Nott didn't even look at him but set about
putting his things away, ignoring both his roommates with an impressive amount of
calculated apathy. Nott in general was a little out of place as being from a dark family yet
bunking with two now-grey families. One would think he'd choose the other room with two
known dark heirs to be with his own alliance, so to speak, or at the very least in a quieter
room as he seemed entirely withdrawn into himself and unwilling to speak to either of them
and at least Crabbe and Goyle aren't talkers like he and Blaise were. Somehow though, he
was here, and he kept to himself mostly, ignoring his roommates even as Draco found himself
talking to Blaise more and more.

Blaise seemed unwillingly to get chummy at first, be it the Malfoy reputation or something
else, but he was a chatty person and he had a sharp wit that couldn't be contained, and so
Draco was his only outlet. By default it got them on speaking terms at least, if not even on
reasonably friendly terms too.

Draco wasn't an idiot: being “friends” with a Zabini meant watching your back, so he was
careful even while he found himself enjoying the tall boy's presence and sarcastic comments.
While Blaise was his age and still learning like all the first and other younger year Slytherins
still were, he was also Dalia Zabini's son and she'd clearly been giving him lessons. Draco
knew the second Blaise hit puberty he was going to be in critical danger (a Black Widow in
training and the heir to literally the most wealthy family in Magical Britain sharing a dorm
room— also known as a recipe for disaster) and so he needed to play his cards right and keep
on guard no matter how much he was starting to like the guy.

And really, he was just so much fun to mess with.

And read, too, since Blaise had the unique position of being essentially politically immune to
most Slytherin shenanigans so long as he kept his cool, and therefore had no need for a lot of
the masks most of them wore. He could be open if he wanted to, without any ramifications,
and as he settled in at Hogwarts he seemed to be picking and choosing who he wanted to
affiliate with. Draco was thankful he seemed to be making the cut, but also a bit pleasantly
surprised that someone else was too.

Particularly, a red headed Gryffindor.

And not the annoying Weasley one, but the pretty one.

“You failed to tell me Potter had that in him.” Blaise complained, nose in the air pompously
and still managing to pout somehow.

“I told you you’d end up liking him. That wasn’t enough?”

“No.” He huffed, dropping his bag down and turning to face him properly, crossing his arms
over his chest. “Did I mention my fondness for homicidal tendencies?”

Draco rolled his eyes and returned to copying down his note, refilling his quill in the inkwell
as he did so. “No, but I could figure that out for myself. I have met your mother, after all.”

“Precisely, you’ve met my mother. Who raised me. And yet you still managed to leave out
that critical detail.” Blaise wasn’t letting it drop.

“To be totally honest, I was surprised by him threatening to shove a wand up Weasley’s nose
too. Although he did threaten to push me off the train platform for saying ‘mudblood’, so
maybe there’s a pattern.” He paused, realizing the trend he was really hoping wouldn’t
become a thing.

“Mudblood is an antiquated term anyway; I’m a fan of coming up with something more
creative than our parent’s rhetoric.”

Rhetoric? He’s eleven, who even is this guy?

“But really? Even you, who he clearly picked as his favorite from day one. I’ve decided, he’s
acceptable for a Gryffindor and you may continue to hang out with him.”

“Thank you for your gracious permission, but I was going to do that anyway.” Draco rolled
his eyes again and didn’t bother looking up.

“You think I should go for it now or wait until we’re both well into puberty before making
my move? I don’t want to go in too early and have him tire of me before we graduate.”

At that Draco’s head snapped up in half alarm, half rage at such a suggestion—but whatever
he’d opened his mouth to say was cut off at the self-satisfied smirk the tall boy was giving
him. He scowled.

“Oh ha, very funny.”

Blaise chuckled happily, clearly please with himself. “As if you could be any more obvious!
Maybe I should be asking you if you’re going to wait for puberty or not.”

“Shut up.”
“Oh, very eloquent.”

Eloquent? I’m going to need a dictionary if I’m going to be roommates with this guy.
 Spill The Tea

"You said you wanted to be in Slytherin and don't know something as basic as this. Professor
Snape was right, fame isn't everything is it?" Blaise took a sip of his tea pointedly ignoring
the green glare he was getting.

"The best I figure, Ron pissed him off so Snape clearly wouldn't let him work alone, and he
likes Slytherins better so you had the clear chance over Hermione at being the group of one,
but even if he let you work alone there was nothing stopping him from grouping Neville with
Ron. In fact it would've made more sense because Hermione was clearly a, uh, well she
knows her stuff already, and Goyle's reputation precedes him and I've been at Hogwarts less
than a week to have heard all about it. Logically if he really didn't want to blow up his
classroom, he should've grouped them together. Weasley and Goyle will probably kill
someone by Christmas." Harry ranted, his breakfast forgotten in front of him.

Not even Neville was up at this hour on a Saturday, but Harry was wired to rise with the sun
and the Slytherins wouldn’t be caught dead idling even if it was a day off. Draco hadn't said it
outright, but Harry got the feeling Snape had made it abundantly clear he expected to see all
his students at all three meals a day barring a legitimate excuse like illness or detention.
Apart from a handful of Ravenclaws they had the Great Hall to themselves and on this
particular morning no one even bothered to look up when he sat at the Slytherin table—he
considered that progress, though was a bit surprised how quickly he'd gotten to this point. Or
maybe it was because they were around mostly upper years who looked half-dead before they
got some coffee in their system.

Either way the looks he usually got were cooled off this morning and Blaise was being
abnormally chatty as he hung his knowledge smugly over the red head in front of him, Draco
digging into his breakfast and remaining out of their snarky exchange, while Nott had
finished quickly and had his nose in a book, tuning them all out. Harry noticed it wasn't a
textbook, but it wasn't clearly marked either.

"Some things can't be picked up naturally then. And here I thought you had promise." Blaise
sniffed dryly.

"Aw, I knew you loved me Blaise." Harry rolled his eyes, and Draco scoffed under his breath
while Blaise grinned a bit maniacally. It was a startling expression on the previously
composed Slytherin boy.

"For having no information to go off of he has a decent account of what happened, you
know." The blond pointed out and Blaise shot him a sour look for ruining his fun.

"So you do know, but refused to tell me." Harry demanded, and Draco shot him a smirk
before returning to his breakfast without answering. Damn Slytherins.

"I'll give you a hint because I'm feeling charitable," Blaise huffed with a very put-upon sigh,
smirking once more as he put a finger in the air knowingly. "The twins."
The twins? Like Fred and George? Why would Snape—oh dear. Hm, that's a problem.

"You mean to tell me that Snape hates the Weasley twins so much he'd risk blowing his
classroom up in hopes their little brother offs himself? That's incredibly dark for a teacher,
isn't it?" Harry demanded, and saw an upper year to their left raise an eyebrow.

Even Blaise looked pleasantly surprised, shooting a glance at Draco who was smirking into
his food.

"…okay, you're quick on the uptake, I'll give you that." He allowed, narrowing his gaze
slightly. "But yes, word travels and it's become this vicious circle of Snape hating the twins,
them pranking him, him hating them more, them pranking him because it's funnier now, and
so forth. He might kill them before they graduate. I think there's a betting pool on it."

"You've been here a week, same as me, how do you know that?"

"Slytherins have the unfair advantage of knowing all about Hogwarts and its politics before
getting here. Our parents ensure we don't go in blind." He shrugged. Harry couldn't even
argue with that, given half of what Draco had told him before they'd started.

"Still, something bothers me about the whole thing." Harry pouted, finally getting down to
his breakfast now that he wasn’t simmering in curiosity.

Blaise tisked imperiously. "Oh?"

"Yeah. Why'd you do it for Neville, of all people?"

Now the upper years were very unsubtly listening in, clearly surprised by the question. So
was Nott, who actually raised his eyes to flicker at Blaise as if he wanted to hear the answer
too.

Draco however, snorted into his toast rather ungracefully.

Blaise glared at him before seeming to mentally sooth his ruffled feathers and tilted his chin
up proudly.

"Well, if you must know, I admired the way you threatened to lodge a wand into Weasley's
brain, especially since I was contemplating doing the same thing before you took the words
right out of my mouth. It was a simple enough token to show my appreciation, no? And it's
not like I wanted a partner in the first place; it's much easier to work alone in a class like
that."

Harry was surprised, but just smiled warmly at that instead.

A trade? Seems to be a Slytherin trend. So not only was specialization critical for a career, it
was also the key to getting anywhere in the social game—or at least so far as Slytherins went.
And they honestly seemed to control quite a bit without letting on how much they knew, so I
should probably be taking notes…

“One more question.”

“You sure are chatty this morning,” Blaise hummed as he took another sip of his tea.

Draco shot him a disgusted look. “You’re one to talk.”

Blaise’s cup of tea hit his saucer a little too hard when he went to put it down and somehow
ended up in Draco’s lap—the blond blinking in surprise and Blaise’s grin absolutely evil.

“Oops.” He said while looking directly at Harry so it was made abundantly clear he was not
sorry at all.

“You piece of-” Draco cursed under his breath as he pulled out his wand to clean it up,
shooting his roommate death stares. No one but Harry was surprised about the brief exchange
though.

“Your question, Potter?” Blaise’s smile was positively honey while he ignored the boy sitting
next to him cursing his family to the pits of hell, and Harry didn’t trust it for a second.

“Okay now I have two questions.” He deadpanned. “First of all, Draco you need to teach me
to do that spell.”

“It’s just a household spell,” He frowned, still checking his shirt to make sure he hadn’t
missed a spot.

“Raised by muggles, as a reminder. Please teach me?” He pressed and Draco seemed to
remember and then just nodded absently as he continued to fix his tie distractedly. With that
settled Harry promptly returned to Blaise with a glint in his eyes. “And you, Mr. Zabini, are
perplexing. You want nothing to do with me, but you can’t keep your mouth shut. You clearly
want to avoid conflict but aren’t afraid to finish it when it starts; you look down at me and
certainly don’t like Neville, but you put at least some effort into defending him as a favor for
me out of some kind of twisted respect? Or perhaps even some odd form of obligation so that
there would be no interpretation that you would then owe me for telling Ron to get lost. And
on top of it all, you weren’t afraid to speak up in Snape’s class and seemed certain he
wouldn’t turn on you: professor Snape may favor Slytherins, but that’s because you all can
keep your mouths shut and perform well—and one of those things you cannot do.”

Blaise was scowling outright by the time he finished talking.

“Well you certainly are blunt.” He scoffed.

“But correct.” Draco chirped up, smoothly sliding the tea pot out of Blaise’s reach before he
could even make a motion to grab for it. The tall boy gracefully returned to neutral position
as if he hadn’t just been about to dump tea all over his classmate and looked blankly back to
Harry to answer his question.

“I’m afraid there’s wasn’t really a question in all of that for me to answer.”

“No, but there was an implication and as a Slytherin I would assume you’d be clever enough
to pick up on it.” Harry returned fire with an innocent grin of his own, which Blaise couldn’t
help but be impressed by.
“What can I say, I’m not your average Slytherin. And I have no qualms about flaunting the
Zabini name like anyone else here, so…” He trailed off and dotted the corner of his mouth
daintily with a napkin before standing up, tossing said napkin into Draco’s face for flare, and
smoothing the non-existent wrinkles in his clothes as he neatly side-stepped outside of
Draco’s immediate retaliation range. “Well it’s been fun, and by that I mean Draco you may
rot in hell.”

“Likewise.” Draco deadpanned and then with a deceptively friendly wave the tall Slytherin
was gone, the odd exit somehow not taking away from his regal stride. “I hate him.” Draco
told Harry in a blank tone that implied it was a lie.

“So you do,” He agreed similarly, with a roll of his eyes. “And you won’t tell me then?”

“It would ruin Blaise’s fun and I have to live with him.” The blond said by way of apology,
and Harry just sighed, accepting that.

“Do you have any plans for today? I got into another argument with McGonagall and now
have even more homework so I was going to check out the library and see if I can’t find
anything to prove her wrong. Also you have to teach me that spell sometime.” He chatted
happily.

“Are you sure the hat didn’t mean to say Ravenclaw?” The Malfoy heir drawled primly.

Harry just maturely stuck his tongue out at him before deciding to take a shot at the last
remaining member of their breakfast group. “And how about you Nott? Any exciting plans
for today?”

He was greeted with an impressively blank blue-eyed stare before he too, closed his book and
stood, walking away without a single word.

“Someday I’ll win him over.” He announced and Draco scoffed loudly.

“Good luck with that, but hell will freeze over first.”

“Hey, Blaise likes me!”

“Blaise likes you in the way a wolf likes a fox. Certainly not how you think he likes you, I
promise.”

“A wolf? Wait—what is that supposed to mean?” He narrowed his gaze suspiciously but
Draco had suddenly found the ceiling quite interesting.

“It’s nice weather today, isn’t it? Maybe we can check out the quidditch pitch once you’re
done with the library.”

Harry gave up, knowing a lost cause when he saw one. “Smooth Malfoy. You’re supposed to
be the most Slytherin-y Slytherin if your boasting was to believed but that was positively
Hufflepuff of you.”

“Take that back!” He gasped dramatically, but the smirk to his lips spoke differently.
“Maybe if you teach me a spell or two I just might,” Harry teased, grabbing his bag to stand
now as well, Draco quickly gathering himself to follow him towards the exit.

“A spell for a favor? How positively Slytherin.” Draco smiled as they got to the Great Hall—
a real smile this time, and not the prim and slightly sneering one he’d been wearing since
they got to Hogwarts. Harry was relieved to know the politics of this place wasn’t getting to
him too much…though it was clearly still getting to him, and so was him trying to act cool
when a Gryffindor kept insisting to sit with him in public.

Harry didn’t mean to make Draco’s life difficult… but he also didn’t want to just give up. He
vowed he would if Draco didn’t seem like he could handle it, but in the meantime Harry
would just have to work at worming his way into Slytherin’s hearts so they’d leave Draco
alone for befriending him.

It was a big question though: how to get into the hearts of those who were very proud to
claim they didn’t have hearts at all?

He’d gotten Blaise, but Blaise was true to his word in that he was not the typical Slytherin.
The challenge was clearly there for Harry to go about figuring out why, but he couldn’t
exactly ask a Slytherin or that’d be cheating… or at least it felt like cheating, and he was
quickly learning that going with ones instincts (within reason) wasn’t a waste of time.

Like a wolf likes a fox, huh? Both predators I guess, though why Draco would call me a fox I
don’t know. Unless… well, Blaise only started liking me after I threatened Ron. Actually it
was like the flip of a switch and suddenly he felt he owed me a favor and therefore helped
Neville? Slytherins worked in trades, and favors and information were worth more than
galleons to most of them since they all seemed to be after something far bigger than fame or
wealth.

Power, Harry realized. Slytherins were ambitious, clever… patient and cunning. Why
though? They had goals, dreams, aspirations… but most of them were from well-off families
and even those that weren’t didn’t seem to in it for the money. They were after something,
and as he and Draco walked out into a lovely autumn day as he procrastinated going to the
library, it hit him that they were after power.

Knowledge was power, but only if you could use it like a weapon. Friends could take you
places, but so long as you kept them at arm’s length—kept close to cash in favors on or cut
ties with depending on where the most favorable wind was going that day. Sometimes you
needed to take a risk, but only if the reward was worth it.

The Malfoys had money, which was a power in an of itself which was probably shielding
Draco to an extent. Blaise… had to have power somehow, because he’d been warming up to
him and yet no one had dared shoot him a dirty look like Harry had caught many people
doing to Draco.

A wolf and a fox. Predators. Blaise had power somehow and so he could get away with
talking to me… and so I need to have power in the Slytherins’ eyes so they won’t feel it’s a
slight on their person to be seen with me.
Honestly it’d work better if Draco were the one with the power, but as they walked along the
side of the lake and Draco peered curiously (if not cautiously from the warnings about the
giant squid) into the dark waters, Harry felt something inside of him melt.

Draco already knew all about what he was up against and had his own things to worry about.
He wouldn’t have been in Slytherin if he didn’t have an ambition already in mind—Harry
was the one who’d walked into his life and made it significantly harder for no other reason
than he wanted to keep this endearingly bratty boy close.

So it’s simple. I become someone Slytherin has to respect, and they’ll leave Draco alone.
Draco can then focus on doing whatever it is he wanted to come here to do in the first
place…or he’ll at least be able to figure it out in peace.

Decision made, Harry nodded once to himself and smiled.

It dropped in a second as he remembered that he still needed a way to actually do that now…

“You seem to be thinking pretty hard over there.” Draco called from where he was crouched
by the water, and Harry walked over to crouch by him and poke at the rocks that had been
washed smooth by the tiny little waves.

“Plotting, of course. Seems to be what I do these days. Plotting to bust Neville outta his shell,
plotting to make McGonagall love me…”

Draco snickered lowly. “Are you sure the sorting hat didn’t mean to say Slytherin?”

Harry nudged his shoulder playfully, before getting a guilty grin. “I’m not sorry I’m in
Gryffindor, but sorry it makes your life so damn hard.”

The blond gave a sigh, picking up a rock and tossing it into the water a little deeper so that it
disappeared into the inky shadows with a little plop.

“Apology accepted. No matter how much it is or is not your fault.” He shrugged. He tilted his
head enough to give him a smile that went all the way up to the corners of his grey eyes, and
Harry felt himself smile back automatically.

That’s it, operation fox is a go. No one gets to pick on this dork but me.
 Fury Flies
Chapter Notes

EDIT: For everyone who doesn't like this chapter, please read my disclaimer at the very
start of this story once more. I get that people aren't happy with my take on Harry, and
no I am NOT saying he's a saint here, just that he's human and he's my flawed character
when he acts like this. NO ONE in this story is perfect and this is SUPPOSED to be the
moment you see how messed up he is, but you don't need to leave nasty comments.

For the sake of my mental health I will be blocking people starting now. It's been three
years since I wrote this chapter and while I'm thankful for people who leave kind and
encouraging comments, thankful even for those who simply stop reading if they don't
like it, I'm no longer going to just accept being demoralized in my writing by people
who feel it necessary to shit on what is supposed to be a complex character, just because
you don't like that they're not "good". I did this on purpose and I am proud of these
chapters and of this odd take on a well loved character.

If you want him to be canon Harry, then please go read the original books, they are
wonderful as they are and I am not trying to recreate it.

His first weekend at Hogwarts passed in a haze of gold, and Harry loved it. He did manage to
get his homework done, but it was a close thing when Draco kept wandering outside to enjoy
the weather and explore the quidditch pitch, walk around the whole lake to inspect every little
rock and creak along the way, and then spend the hours in which the sun cast long shadows
across the expansive school grounds sitting high up in the pitch seating and explaining more
about his favorite sport.

Draco wasn’t super forthcoming with details about himself that didn’t entail school or
quidditch, but he seemed genuinely relaxed for the first time since getting to the school and
so Harry had no problems with sitting and listening and imagining what flying would be like
from this high up. Sunday was spent in a lot of the same way, although they added exploring
bits of the castle to their list of accomplishments too. Harry was really starting to like the
paintings that could talk and while Draco got bored in five minutes, Harry knew he could
probably spend hours talking to the people who’d lived hundreds of years ago like the middle
ages was only yesterday and never get tired of it.

They’d run into Peeves and let’s just say Harry was not a fan—the poltergeist had taken to
calling him ‘Harry Pooper’ and Draco got pegged with a simple ‘Bad Snake’ that seemed to
have affected him way more than a schoolyard taunt from a childish poltergeist should’ve. He
hid it well though and once they’d gotten free of the annoying creature he’d bounced back,
but Harry had noticed.
He also noticed when Monday came around and Draco was suddenly a lot more tense and
less chatty than he’d been for the past two days. Blaise made up for it by now seeming to
willingly accept Harry’s presence at their table and even between classes, and the guy truly
was a chatter box. Somehow they could make it from the Great Hall to the other end of the
castle and Blaise never once take a breath, and still somehow not say a single damn thing of
substance. On the other end of the spectrum, Nott hadn’t said a single word so far and Harry
was actively trying to catch him saying something now but so far only caught him when
professor Flitwick had called on him specifically and he was forced to give an answer.

He even said less than Neville, and honestly that was an accomplishment.

Draco’s sudden lack of enthusiasm was kind of obvious; now it wasn’t just them wandering
the school grounds with the occasional odd look tossed their way from some stray student
also exploring the grounds. Weekdays meant the Great Hall was full at mealtimes and the
hallways jam packed between classes as people bustled about to get to their next session. Not
even mentioning classes themselves where depending on the crowd you were essentially just
stuck in a room with people looking at you—and judgmentally or not, it got on your nerves
quickly.

Harry got used to it rather efficiently, but the looks he got were mostly the you’re Harry
Potter kind of thing, not the why are you betraying our house kind of thing. Not that he didn’t
get some of those latter looks, especially from upper years and especially right after being
with Draco and the Slytherin then having walked out of the room.

People seemed more confident to say something or give him an obvious look when he was
alone, and either gave him a wide berth while Draco was around, or he was sufficiently
distracted by Draco to just not notice their dirty looks in the first place. When he was alone
though, he definitely noticed quite a bit more.

And that was just Gryffindors and the occasional Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw giving him the
stink eye. Harry knew for a fact that as soon as Draco walked away from him, he too was
getting some filthy looks and particularly barbed comments shot his way—and Slytherin
wasn’t popular in the wider school, not to mention Slytherin itself was probably twice as
vicious to one of its own than any Gryffindor could hope to be against their supposed ‘arch
enemy’. Slytherins put up a united front in the face of the rest of the school, but he was
starting to think behind closed doors they were very much an ‘every man for themselves’ kind
of house where you sank or swim entirely based on how competent you were as an
individual.

And Draco was alarmingly silent in the moments Harry attempted to drop some hints and
have a real conversation about what he was going through. He wanted to be an ally, but then
again… he wasn’t a Slytherin. There wasn’t much he as a Gryffindor could do.

Operation fox couldn’t come along fast enough, but the problem being that Harry still had no
idea how to make it happen, and he could only sit there scratching his head until inspiration
hit.

In the mean time this was just going to be their lives, but while Harry had Neville and the
twins and about a dozen other people willing to talk to him and remain totally friendly
despite his choices in friends, Draco seemed to be backing himself into a corner with how
few people he was willing to talk to. And it infuriated him because he wanted to help, but
Harry didn’t have visibility to what was happening with Slytherin house, and none of them
were spilling their inner workings—not even Blaise who was content to talk his ear off about
whatever was on his mind that day, avoided any and all comments about how the school or
his house was handling Draco’s friendship with a Gryffindor.

Blaise seemed to be immune to Slytherin gossip, which only made Harry even more
suspicious, but he gave up for now to instead be thankful Draco had a least one ally in his
own house at the moment.

That was, until Draco started getting snippy himself.

Harry wasn’t shocked this cactus of a boy chose to get prickly when he was upset or felt
cornered, but he didn’t much appreciate being at the receiving end of that biting sarcasm he
usually reserved for Blaise. He tried extremely hard to give Draco a pass for his souring
mood since it was kind of obvious and also sort of Harry’s own fault, but… his patience was
faked and a skill he’d perfected over several years, not actually natural for him. And it took
quite a bit out of him not to take the bait and come back at Draco’s ever-increasingly bitter
comments with something just as dark and bitter as the spoiled brat could even imagine.

Years of biting his tongue in front of the Dursleys’ ire was the only thing that got him through
the week, honestly.

And by the time Thursday lunch was ending, he was sorely missing his gold-tinted weekend
and wondering just how badly he’d underestimated this Slytherin vs Gryffindor thing. He
was tense and Neville was in hysterics that the Remembrall he’d gotten that morning was
telling him he forgot something and he couldn’t remember what it was. Also he’d lost it twice
already, and Hermione had tried to “help” find it and made it very much worse for all
involved.

Harry wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. It was only the second week
people!

Luckily (or unluckily depending on your perspective on the event) it all came to a head in
their first flying lesson that afternoon.

000

"How is that possible?"

Neville paused as if wondering if this was a joke before smiling in amusement. "Ah…
magic?"

Harry made a face. "Of course it is. Are we ever going to get to the point in our education
where we learn how magic, not just… because magic." He complained lightly with a
dramatic wave of his hand. Neville smiled more widely as his pouting.

"I'm not sure. 'Because magic' seems to pacify most people."

"Most people is not me." He huffed, kicking at a stone on the ground as they walked down
the field towards the quidditch pitch. They were learning to fly today, and even his annoyance
in lack of answers about Neville's description of his fantastical, magical garden back home
couldn’t dampen his spirits.

Not even as he saw Draco walking with the rest of his year Slytherins several meters ahead
down the path and not looking back at them once.

Okay, that dampened his mood a little bit, but he steadfastly ignored it for the time being.
McGonagall's implication that flying was dangerous probably meant he should keep his wits
about him for this.

Besides, Neville looked a little green around the gills at the prospect, so chatting with him to
get his mind off their oncoming class what probably a better use of time than wondering how
he was to fix a hundreds-year-old rivalry as an eleven-year-old. He was probably going to
have plenty of time to worry about that not on his first day learning to fly.

"Is that a muggle band?" Neville interrupted his thoughts by asking, and Harry blinked once
before realizing he was talking about his shirt. Flying was a free-dress period and while most
didn’t bother running up to change between their last class and this one, Harry had jumped at
the chance to get out of the boring black robes like he did every day. He'd opted for a quarter-
sleeve, deep red shirt with the band logo a black and clashing pink. He had admittedly
listened to a couple of their songs before getting to Hogwarts and didn't hate them; didn't love
them, but didn't hate them. He'd half bought these things to try and bond with muggleborns
however it was pleasantly surprising it caught the curiosity of at least one pureblood too.

"Yes! I admit I'm am not fully familiar on their actual music but I liked the color." He
grinned, Neville nodding along to that. Neville had a very enjoyable habit of asking about
something he was wearing, like his loud colors and the shiny things he wore in his hair
baffled, yet intrigued the quiet blond.

Harry found a surprisingly lack of attention was given to his odd outfit choices--probably
because people were worried about the fact he as Harry Potter and apparently famous over
what he was wearing, and if wasn’t like he hadn’t seen some purebloods sporting some weird
outfits either. He had a feeling a lot of wizards had no idea what muggles wore but instead
wore whatever muggle clothing they came across for the fun of it.

“Neville… dude this is a problem.” They turned at Seamus’ voice behind them, both he and
Dean smiling wryly—with a white-clouded Remembrall in his hand.

“S-sorry!” Neville squeaked, quickly taking it back with a flush to his face.

Make that three times, Harry sighed, at least thankful it was Seamus to pick it up rather than
Hermione this time.

“It’s no problem,” Seamus laughed it off while Harry patted the blond’s arm gently.

“I think that thing is maybe more stress than it’s worth. If you’ve forgotten something, it’ll
turn up eventually right? No need to worry about what you’ve forgotten in the moment, I’d
think.”

“But Gran gave it to me…” Neville mumbled slowly, fidgeting with the ball in his hands, his
shoulders slumped. “She’s kinda scary but she means well… and she never actually gives
presents other than birthday and holidays.”

Harry smiled widely. “Maybe she misses you then.” Blue eyes snapped up to him, going
wide. “I mean, this is the first time you’ve been away from home for a long time, right? If
giving a gift is so out of character then it’s probably because she’s thinking of you—or
worrying at least, like grandmothers do.” He tried to make his tone lighthearted, but Neville
ducked his head with eyes glistening a bit.

Seamus, bless him, not only noticed of the moment Neville was having, but took mercy and
changed the subject gently.

“Excited to fly then Harry? We’ve only drilled the rules of the game into you by now but
you’ve never actually flown right?”

“Nope! And yeah I’m super excited—Draco showed me the pitch of the weekend and it looks
amazing!”

“I’ve only ever played football but quidditch as a sport sounds amazing; and actually flying!?
I’ll race ya’ to see who can stay on the broom longest, Harry.” Dean joked too, and Harry
grinned at him.

“You’re so on—get ready to lose!”

“And what will we be betting on today gentlemen?” Seamus grinned as the field they were
going to be practicing on finally came into view.

“You and your betting… fine, then how about transfiguration notes?” Dean suggested far too
innocently, causing Harry’s red flags to go up.

“Transfiguration notes? What about them?” He demanded.

“If I win you lend me your notes on our next transfiguration class. I mean, it’s only been two
weeks but everyone in our year knows you’re good at that class already.” He grinned, and
Harry narrowed his eyes—Blaise’s presumptuous face filling his mind’s eyes.

“No deal—I’d need something just as good in return if I win then and no offense but what
were you planning to bet? Your charms notes?”

“Brutal,” Dean complained while Seamus burst out laughing—and even Neville had to bite
his lip to keep from chuckling. Dean had unfortunately fallen asleep in their first charms class
this week and gotten a rude awakening when Seamus had inadvertently blown up the twig
they’d been practicing on. Him falling feet over head in his chair with a startled screech and
nearly crushing Flitwick was not something they’d be letting him forget anytime soon. “Well
what do you want in exchange then?”
Harry made a show of tapping his chin trying to think, before he realized that he actually had
no idea. Dean had nothing he wanted and maybe he was hanging out with the Slytherins too
much, but something about that struck him as odd.

“Everyone settle down!” A woman with severe grey hair and intense golden eyes caught their
attention and they automatically moved to gather around her.

“How about just bragging rights for now?” Harry copped out, but Dean didn’t seem to mind
as he gave a silent thumbs up as Madam Hooch introduced herself.

Harry’s first impression of Madam Hooch was that she and McGonagall must be related, but
he didn’t have time even consider plotting to get on her good side before she was lining them
up in two lines facing each other, a rather suspect looking broom on the ground beside each
of them as she waltzed up and down the line citing the rules of this class and how important it
was they listen to her or they’d immediately be expelled.

But then, as she finished her mini speech and turned to face them, she actually broke a smile.
“Alright, put your dominant hand out over the broom and in a strong voice, say ‘up’.”

“Wait, shouldn’t there be more on the actual, you know, how to fly bit besides just ‘do it’?”
Harry blinked, and by Neville’s pale face beside him, he wasn’t the only one thinking this.

But, no one paid his question any heed and everyone else was already commanding their
brooms to jump up into their hands with various levels of success; not even Hermione was
questioning it so… Harry gave a weary sigh and put his hand out. Honestly, this school…

“Up!” And low and behold, a broom was suddenly in his hand. He blinked at it in surprise,
only half expecting that to have actually worked.

Okay, magic is wicked cool.

Pleased with himself he looked around the class, most of the Slytherins were waiting
patiently with their brooms already in-hand and the few others who Harry had guessed were
purebloods seemed to have confirmed this for him by also being experts at this already. As he
watched, several others finally got their wiggling brooms on the ground to lift shakily into the
air and reached out their hands to grab it—one or two stragglers still had defiant brooms on
the ground and one person’s broom hadn’t even twitched.

Neville’s face melted in embarrassment and frustration.

“Hey,” Harry caught his attention and nudged his shoulder with a kind smile. “You don’t
even want to fly, right? I’m pretty magic is smart enough to know that much, so it doesn’t
want to fly either. It’s not about you.”

Neville didn’t respond but ducked his head again to manually bend down and pick up his
broom as Madam Hooch waltzed by already telling them to mount their brooms for the next
step and ignoring those who hadn’t figured out the ‘up’ command yet. Rather rude, but then
again maybe those who were meant to have their feet on the ground should really stay there
for their own safety.
Giving up on Neville’s issues for now, Harry mounted his own broom—eavesdropping as
Madam Hooch corrected Draco’s grip from a couple people down from him and trying not to
grin as he planned to use that against him later—and corrected his position according to what
everyone else around him was doing. It felt super awkward, but the purebloods (ahem,
Slytherins) seemed to be the epitome of comfortable and regal, perched on their household
cleaning appliances.

Harry wanted to roll his eyes but was distracted by the command to give it a shot and hover a
couple feet in the air and suddenly his pulsed picked up in excitement. Pushing off the grass
and imagining himself lifting off the ground…

He felt weightless, his heart hammering like thunder in his cheat and head, his stomach
flipping in butterflies as he got taller and then the weird disorientation of getting taller turned
into the feeling of flying and he just…

He felt totally breathless when his feet hit the ground again—it took everything in him not to
just take off into the sky because… because he could and that feeling was wonderful. He
wanted it again more than he’d ever wanted anything; wanted it like hunger and thirst and
sleep.

To be free.

Only the threat of expulsion shook him out of the euphoria and, grudgingly, he lowered
himself back to the ground. But he was already itching to try it again, waiting for the class to
end so he could get a broom and run down to the pitch with Draco and test it all out and—and
—!

“Mr. Longbottom!”

Hooch’s voice snapped him out of his daze and Harry realized with no small amount of
horror that Neville’s feet were at his eyelevel beside him and rapidly rising out of view and
his head snapped back in surprise—one look at his friend’s face and he knew Neville was not
in control of the broom beneath and he was utterly paralyzed by fear.

“Neville!” He shouted in warning, but the blond just tensed even more and went higher—too
high now, dangerously high—and Harry felt his own stomach bottom out in fear for his
friend, nearing panic at how hard Neville himself must be panicking.

“I—I can’t—I didn’t-!” He stuttered, face going pale as he was now too high to just tilt off
the broom to escape— and then the thing started bucking.

“Mr. Longbottom get back here!” Hooch commanded in a scold as if she couldn’t see the boy
had no control at all, and something inside of Harry snapped at the sheer audacity of it all.

There were a thousand things he could’ve said to her in anger and fear for Neville, but none
of them would save his friend so before he got himself expelled by yelling at a teacher, he
automatically kicked off the ground on the broom he was still mounted on.
In an exhilarating heartbeat that he would’ve enjoyed way more if he wasn’t so panicked, he
was by Neville’s side and ducking and weaving as the rouge broom bucked him here and
there, Neville’s cry of fear and nausea at the sudden movements breaking his heart.

“Neville! Just—calm a bit, just hold on and tilt yourself forward to the broom to slow it
down!”

“I—I—!” Neville clearly attempted just that, but then the broom took off like a bullet into the
air—more importantly, directly towards the castle behind them.

“Oh sh-” Harry took off without even thinking, panicking and suddenly it felt like adrenaline
made everything clear and he pressed forward to urge his broom faster and faster still and—

—and he was gaining and then all of a sudden he was side-by-side and didn’t even have time
to look at Neville or panic about what a stupid thing this was to do because he just reached
out and grabbed the front end of Neville’s broom and very awkwardly fell off his broom to
forcefully drag the rouge stick earthwards again. It was an awkward grip and he felt his heart
lodge into his throat as the weightlessness of flying his own broom disappeared and then both
of them were tumbling to the ground with an unhelpful broomstick between them. Neville
screamed and it was all Harry could do to hold onto the broom handle with one hand in a
death grip, and fist the other into Neville’s robes for dear life.

The ground came up to meet them fast, and it was a sheer miracle his grip on the broom was
just enough for him to forcefully command to it to do its bludgering job and FLY for Christ’s
sake and it stopped mid-air in its intended floating position just about twenty feet from the
ground. Still way too high and as it lifted he was whipped around forcefully, his shoulder
screaming in pain as an abrupt reminder that holding onto both the only thing keeping them
airborne and Neville’s now free-falling body was a bad idea. He only held on long enough to
stop Neville’s momentum dead before he couldn’t hold the broom anymore from the force of
it and slipped—two boys and a stupid broomstick going tumbling to the Earth in a free fall
that was a lot less scary than it’d been three seconds ago.

Not that twenty feet didn’t still feel like a long way and while Harry managed to right himself
and land on his feet enough to roll with a bone-shaking thump, Neville hit chest first and
there was a sickening crack that had Harry shaking off the stars he was seeing to scramble
over to him.

“Neville! Oh my god Neville—are you okay!? What was that—did you break something!?”

He managed to get to him and pull him over onto his back, biting back a grimace as what was
broken was immediately made clear by the ugly angle his wrist was pointed as it cradled
against his chest.

“Oh no… I’m so sorry,” He huffed, trying to comfort his friend but utterly failing as Neville
was just crying quietly now—fear and pain and whatever else he must be going through too
much and honestly Harry couldn’t blame him.

“Mr. Longbottom!” Hooch was suddenly there, many footsteps of the rest of the class close
behind her and honestly Harry had forgotten all about them for a second there. Not that
Hooch was his favorite person by any means now and he glared at the back of her head as she
brushed him aside to help Neville to his feet.

“Poor dear, a broken wrist…” She tutted like caring about her student after he got hurt would
win her any points back in Harry’s mind, and he glared harder, just barely biting his tongue.
She lifted her head to address the rest of the class. “I’m taking Mr. Longbottom to the
infirmary; everyone will keep two feet on the ground or you’ll be expelled faster than you
can say quidditch.” She commanded them all, dragging poor Neville away as he tried to
stifled his tears now that he realized the whole class was watching him and not quite being
able to.

Harry wanted to say something, wanted to be the one to walk him there, but he couldn’t. First
of all he was only half sure where the infirmary was and Neville needed to get there asap, not
suffer through him wandering around half lost. Second, Neville seemed incredibly humiliated
on top of terrified and in pain, and Harry sensed his presence would not be welcome.

It pissed him off to an unbelievable degree, that nothing he did seemed to be enough to help
his friends. First Draco, his first friend ever much less in the magical world, and now Neville,
who he’d become fiercely protective of out of nowhere and now being this helpless drove
him insane.

And to top it all off, Hooch was now on his list and she would be paying for being such a piss
poor teacher if he had anything to do with it. McGonagall had warned him day-one about
brooms being dangerous, yet the very teacher who was supposed to educate them on it
seemed to give zero snitches about actually being safe while flying. And Neville had paid for
her mistake, and that was unforgivable.

Had he flattened himself on the ground or flown off into the abyss by accident, he wouldn’t
have a problem. But it wasn’t him who got hurt, it was Neville, and that could not stand.

Harry seethed in molten rage as he stood where they left him, watching the door Hooch and
Neville had disappeared through long after they’d gone, too furious for words and absolutely
at a loss of what to do about it. And he had no idea how long he’d stayed there because time
seemed to melt in on the heat of his frustration.

“-Malfoy! Ron you heard what they said—get back here!”

Hermione’s shrill voice finally penetrated his internal temper tantrum and Draco’s name
being called forced him to turn his head, and he felt his jaw drop open in shock at what he
saw.

Draco quaffling Malfoy and Ronald dunderhead Weasley—on their brooms.

Midair.

With Neville’s Remembrall clutched in Ron’s pudgy hand and both their faces in a now-
familiar sneer that Harry was getting sick and tired of seeing. But then, it hit him.

Neville’s Remembrall.
Something inside of his brain snapped with an audible crack, and the feeling left his hands
and feet cold as adrenaline started kicking in harder than even when he was free falling—or
maybe it just hadn’t stopped, and he was losing his mind from his body working double-time
in fear and anger and rage on a deceptively peaceful, sunny, Thursday afternoon.

“If you want it so bad—go get it!” Ron shouted and then he was officially dead to him
because Harry would never be able to forgive him for winding back and chucking the glass
ball into the air.

Draco made an attempt to chase it but it was glass, and as soon as it left Ron’s hand the
smoke inside it turned transparent. As it streaked at a high speed against the clear blue sky it
seemed to just disappear, and the Malfoy heir seemed to lose sight of it quickly.

For the second time today, Harry’s body went rouge and he was running full-out across the
grass before he even recognized what he was doing, mentally calculating where it was going
to come down and forcing his body to run faster than he’d ever run away from Dudley’s gang
before. Dudley wasn’t fast after all, but Harry could run miles without much effort thanks to
his practice at it in the past couple years and while he’d never done it before, for a hundred
meters with as much adrenaline in his veins as he currently had, he could run as fast as he
needed to.

He didn’t know how he could keep track of the nearly invisible target, nor did he know how
he managed to move that quickly, but he was only a few meters short when it fell in front of
him, and he dove for it. Miraculously, his hand-eye coordination was better than even he
thought it was, because it landed safely in his hand even while he took a nasty tumble from
the speed he’d been running and the angle he’d flung himself at in order to catch it. He ended
face-up on the grass, panting as his lungs violently protested the sudden exertion so soon
after a near-death experience, and he just lay there trying to take all the sensory information
in and utterly failing…

And then, when the blood pumping in his ears stopped deafening him… he heard arguing in
the distance.

Familiar voices arguing.

And oh yeah, he was pissed.

He was on his feet in a second, stumbling a bit as his body protested all he’d just been
through and knowing he was going to feel that sprint and the fall before it tomorrow
morning, but for now he only had two targets on his mind and ignored his body’s protests as
he marched across the grass field towards them. They were on the ground now, which was
good… he couldn’t throttle them if they were still in the air.

He never knew what people meant about the term blinding fury, and even now he wasn’t
blind; he was still alarmingly calm on the outside and could see where everyone was standing
in groups around the two arguing boys, varying degrees of annoyed and worried and amused
on their faces, with what felt like painfully intense clarity. He even saw Nott catch sight of
him and watched his blue eyes go wide at whatever he saw.
He supposed ‘blinding fury’ meant more that whatever consequences or reasons held you
back in a normal conversation suddenly disappeared, falling away like leaves on a tree during
a windy autumn day. Or ripping off their branches during a September hurricane.

He felt something inside of him break loose, and suddenly it was all he could think about.
The rage, the frustration, the audacity…

No more.

He refused to be helpless and do nothing, not when if felt like he was about to explode from
this feeling.

Ron and Draco were still exchanging barbs and getting in each other’s face, but for the life of
him Harry neither heard nor cared what they were saying. As he passed by in a storm of
wrath and ire, he ripped the broom Blaise still had in his hand from the tall Slytherin’s grasp
and simultaneously tossed the Remembrall he still had at Hermione, who was the closest
Gryffindor to him who first noticed his sudden re-entry into their class. She caught it in
surprise the same moment Blaise made a startled noise, but that was all they could do before
Harry wound up the broom behind him like a baseball bat without breaking stride.

CRACK!

“Bloody hell!” Ron howled in pain, collapsing to his knees immediately and clutching the
top of his head in agony from being beamed in the head with a wooden stick. Harry was half
sure people in Hogsmeade had heard that crack of it both hitting his head and the wood
giving way against his skull by the way the whole class—all houses alike—flinched in
sympathy pain.

“Ha!” Draco crowed triumphantly at the red head on the ground, and given that the broom in
his hand was now in two pieces and useless as a blunt weapon, Harry tossed it over his
shoulder as he strode past the keening lion on the ground and wound up one more—this time
with his fist.

“Oof,” Blaise grimaced, all of Slytherin wincing as well as Draco’s head snapped back from
the force of the right hook to the jaw and also landing on the grass, clutching it immediately
and whipping his head back up to blink in wild betrayal and surprise at the red head above
him.

Harry had no sympathy for either of them, and gave a rather dramatic inhale—but hey, he
was going to need the air…

He breathed in.

"ARE YOU ACTUALLY STUPID!?"

The entire field was dead silent in the aftermath of his shout, both Draco and Ron freezing
solid and shock at their classmate glaring down at them, and everyone else just watching with
jaws slightly agape and too stunned/horrified to do much more besides stare and/or lean back
from the scene in alarm.
Harry continued, uninterrupted.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!? SHE CLEARLY SAID YOU'D BE
EXPELLED IF YOU GOT ON THAT STUPID BROOM AND YOU'VE ONLY BEEN
HERE TWO WEEKS--WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!? IF YOU GOT
YOUR STUPID ASS EXPELLED AND LEFT ME HERE ALONE I’D TRACK YOU
DOWN AND KILL YOU MYSELF—NO STUPID BROOM STUNTS NECESSARY!" He
directed most of that at Draco, before spinning around to barrel down on Ron who shunk into
the ground in surprise and wide-eyed fear/pain.

"AND YOU! YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY STUPID IF YOU THINK IT'S OKAY TO GO

AROUND CHUCKING OTHER PEOPLE'S PROPERTY AROUND LIKE A LUNATIC.
THAT WAS NEVILLE’S YOU ABSOLUTE LOON AND IF YOU GO MESSING WITH
HIM OR HIS STUFF AGAIN I WILL END YOU WEASLEY, AM I PERFECTLY
CLEAR!? WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO!? WE'RE ALL
YEAR MATES SO GET OVER YOUR OWN DAMN SELVES BEFORE I LOSE MY
MARBLES ON THE BOTH OF YOU AND TRUST ME I DON'T NEED MAGIC TO
BEAT YOUR IDIOTIC ASSES."

He both figuratively and literally exploded in their faces; unbeknownst to him, that snapping
sound he vaguely half-heard in the back of his head was actually his magic cracking under
the force of extreme stress, and it unleashed itself in the form of an intense heat wave that
crackled the once-green grass around them into slightly crispier, browning lawn. His anger
and rage not only felt unbearably hot while trapped inside of him and demanding an outlet,
but it also felt hot to literally everyone standing within five meters of him.

By the time he finished yelling, other than the two idiots on the ground, everyone had quickly
backed up—some only taking a neat step back in alarm, others quickly evacuating the zone
the heatwave touched, and some rightly cautious Slytherins were all the way back by the
castle by the time he was blinking past his haze and panting tiredly from the afternoon’s
ordeal.

He ignored everyone else and glowered down at the two in front of him, who both flinched
automatically. He crossed his arms over his chest, still infuriated but the red hot fury quickly
becoming at least a but more controllable now that he’d gotten some of it out of his system.

"Morons. Honestly, what's wrong with you two!?"

They could only gape at him, even as he stood there awaiting an answer.

Actually, pretty much everyone was staring at him now, the field eerily silent.

Until…

“Ahem… Mr. Potter.”

He felt his anger cool it a bit as he paled, turning and blinking widely at none other than
Professor McGonagall, who was in the doorway to the school a bit a ways away, observing
the scene in front of her with the killer poker face she was known for. She wasn’t the only
one who jumped—apparently many had been so wrapped up in his temper tantrum that not
even the Slytherins or more observant Ravenclaws has even sensed her arrival until she’d
spoken.

Crap. I’m dead.

McGonagall gave nothing away though as she nodded to the two boys on the ground, then
met his gaze sternly. “I see you've taken it upon yourself to reprimand these two."

Draco and Ron had the decency to flinch at her tone, and Harry wasn’t feeling charitable
enough to pity them. Also, he figured he was in trouble too and was selfish enough to be
more worried about himself at that point.

"Mr. Weasley, Mr. Malfoy, detention with me for the next week. Mr. Potter, come with me."

Wait… what?

000

"Seeker?"

"It was an amazing catch. A glass ball is harder than a snitch in a lot of ways and he wasn't
even on a broom." Seamus was even more enthusiastic about it than Harry himself when he’s
spilled the news at dinner that night.

"And you kind of caught Neville which proves you can at least fly too. She must have faith
you can put the two together." Dean offered diplomatically, which Harry appreciated.

"I hope so, I really did like flying and it's cool I get to do it a year early." He agreed, still
rattled from today’s events but feeling a bit jittery and dazed—mostly aftershocks from the
adrenaline of it all but also in intense relief he hadn’t been expelled or even reprimanded for
attacking two students and breaking a school broom. "I'd be more upset she was treating me
special because of my last name but I get the feeling she just really likes quidditch and wants
to win. I could probably be a poltergeist and she wouldn't care so long as I could play."

Both boys snickered at that… McGonagall was practically preening at the teacher’s table
now which was a weird look on her and many people noticed. She’d told him to keep it quiet
(he was supposed to be a ‘secret weapon’ or something for the start of the season) but really
she was giving it away herself by being so out of character.

Harry still wasn’t sure how he really felt about being voluntold that he was going to be on the
quidditch team, but since as McGonagall had introduce him to Wood he’d been 100% sure he
was going to be expelled or at least given detention for the rest of his days at Hogwarts, the
turn of events was enough of a relief to get him to agree to anything just not to be in trouble.
Also, his reasoning was true in that McGonagall really hadn’t treated him special at all prior
to that, and the manic gleam in her eye when talking about quidditch was a lot like Seamus’,
and Dean’s when they talked football, so he kind of got it.
Also, he realized it meant he would be flying quite a bit and have a legitimate excuse to do it
nearly year-round now, and he already decided he loved flying. Even the near-death flying
he’d done with Neville… it was exhilarating and kind of addicting. Even if it was favoritism
and people would talk about him being the youngest seeker in a century or whatever, much
less if they said it was linked to his being the Boy Who Lived, if he got to fly again then he
just didn’t care.

Just then, he spotted Neville entering the Great Hall and waved him over immediately, the
blond ducking his head but with a tiny smile on his face rather than the tears he’d left in. It
unwound something tight and ugly in Harry’s chest and he relaxed fully for the first time in
what felt like hours when Neville slipped onto the bench beside him and gave one of his very
earnest, hesitant smiles.

"Hi, Harry… thanks for trying to catch me." He seemed very genuine grateful, and still a bit
embarrassed by it giving the pink on his cheeks.

"No worries! Are you alright? How's your wrist?" He picked up Neville’s wrist himself to
inspect, being extremely gentle until he realized there wasn’t even a bruise there, although
the blond let him do it contentedly.

"All healed—Madam Pomfrey's good at what she does, if not a bit scary."

"That's amazing; magical medicine is truly a miracle." He was actually very stunned at the
total lack of evidence of what was a pretty gnarly injury, before grinning up at him
reassuringly. "How's the nerves though? Still interested in learning to fly?"

"Ah, no… I'm good keeping both my feet on the ground." Neville shrugged, but seemed
better than he had earlier for some reason. "I heard what you did for me, too… Hermione told
me when she gave back my Remembrall. And everyone's talking about how you're the
youngest seeker in a century now." He smiled hesitantly again, almost teasingly as if he knew
how being “famous” irritated him, and Harry wanted to be annoyed but Neville was the one
who’d brought it up so all he could do was give a playful grimace.

"I just want to fly, none of that." He waved it off quickly. "But it's good you're okay. The ball
is okay and all that?"

"Yep!" He slipped it out of his pocket to hold it up as proof that it was still perfectly
undamaged but frowned as the smoke immediately turned red under his touch. "Still don't
know what I've forgotten though…"

Harry just put his hand over it to push it back down and shot him a wink. "I'm sure it'll turn
up, whatever it is." Neville considered that for a moment before smiling slightly and
returning it to his pocket. Harry wasted no time in grabbing his plate and loading it up for
him happily . “Sit and eat something! You almost died, that has to make you hungry!”

“Not sure that’s how it works.” Came a hum from across from them.

“Shut up Dean, the guy needs treacle tart after that.”

“Right, right…”

"Also, Harry,” Seamus looked up as if he’d just remembered something and caught their
attention. He just grinned wickedly though. “Remind me to never to piss you off."

Harry was a bit surprised by his face getting hot at that, even more so when everyone
dissolved into a fit of laughter—even Neville started laughing quietly and he put the plate
down quickly to do his best Blaise impersonation by sticking his nose in the air.

"Okay, I lost my temper, ha ha…"

"That's quite the temper though. Gryffindor loves that you punched a Malfoy and the
Slytherins are in hysterics that Weasley still has a lump on his head--they say Pomfrey said
they should have their bruises healed on their own since it wasn't induced by magic. They’re
relatively harmless aside from being a bit sore, and they deserved it for acting like children."
Seamus explained cheerily—far too cheerily, in Harry’s opinion.

“I heard her say that to them too, in the hospital wing,” Neville seconded that with a sly grin
far too devious for the kind blond. Harry wanted to be both proud and indignant and settled
for adding more food to Neville’s plate than he knew his friend could eat as vengeance.

He did feel a bit guilty for marking up Draco's unnaturally perfect complexion with a huge
black, blue, and green bruise, but he deserved it for being a child. He didn't feel all that guilty
for giving Ron a mild concussion though, and wondered what that said about him.

"So if it's not magic I can get away with whacking people. Excellent." He nodded to himself,
both Dean and Seamus’ faces going sober in a second at that.

"No—no, no, bad logic!" They back tracked quickly, and they all dissolved into laughter that
time as dinner carried on as usual to close out a particularly eventful day.

If Harry spared the Slytherin table no spare glances that night as his own form of revenge, the
Gryffindors around him didn’t notice.
 The Bark and the Bite

“Weasley was the one who started it, you know.” Blaise hummed lightly as he stirred their
caldron with careful, rhythmic motions. He hadn’t said anything but had seemed insanely
amused when Harry had chosen to sit next to him in potions the next day and let Draco work
solo at the desk in front of them.

Draco was clearly Snape’s favorite and Blaise was still the untouchable-Slytherin so the wide
smile on the Zabini’s face prevented the potions master from commenting, but instead
snapped at them to get started and entertained himself the rest of the double-period by
harassing the teams on the other side of the room and slowly chipping away at Gryffindor’s
points. Draco was, annoyingly enough, fantastic at potions and without a partner to slow him
down had finished in the first hour and been excused without so much as a glance behind him
at either house eyeing his back curiously.

Their whole year level had seen Harry lose it on him and Ron and were now curious to see
how it would affect their friendship, the gossips whores that they were. Ron had been
avoiding him like the plague which Harry was 100% fine with, but Draco seemed hell-bent
on pretending nothing was wrong.

Except for the fact where he wouldn’t look at anyone anymore and just pretended he was
alone in the world.

Maybe he was just taking after Nott’s lead, really.

“I frankly don’t care who started it.” Harry replied in the same feigning polite tone Blaise
had, and the tall Slytherin smirked down at him as he checked their potion’s consistency.

“So all are guilty by association?”

“I didn’t see you on a broom, now did I?” He challenged, and Blaise nodded slowly at that.

“But he was doing it to defend one of your friends. I figured that was a Gryffindor-ish thing
you might appreciate.”

“May I remind you that the hat had to seriously think about if it wanted me in Gryffindor or
Slytherin—just because I ended up in Gryffindor doesn’t mean I’m entirely thrilled with
every character trait of the place. And Draco is my friend because he is in Slytherin for
quaffle’s sake; him going rouge Gryffindor on me is just annoying. I get enough of that from
my own house, thanks. I have to live with Ron, remember?”

Blaise grimaced delicately. “Right… my condolences.” He tiled his head then as he went
about crushing up some beetle shells Harry handed to him. “It seems to me the two of you are
terrible influences on each other. You become infinitely more devious when hanging around
us too often, and now Draco being all brave and brash out of nowhere. It’s probably your
own fault.” He pointed out.
Harry could only groan lowly as he took over stirring the cauldron, this time carefully in the
opposite direction.

“I don’t necessarily think breaking out of your house stereotype is a bad thing… there’s
something to be said for being loyal, brave, clever, and wise. None of those are terrible things
at all. It’s the other end of the spectrum… the gullible, stupid, cold, and prejudiced side of the
house aspects that get us all in trouble, and then to have this rivalry that turns what should be
two houses with compatible traits and reduces us all down into either dunderheads or
assholes. Or worse: both.”

Blaise snorted under his breath as he sliced up their final ingredient with an eerie precision
implying he was more familiar with a knife than most eleven-year-olds. “What exactly do
you want of Draco in this situation? You seem content to just ignore him but you two were
fully ready to be friends despite all odds until yesterday, and honestly he was in the right
against Weasley so this kind of seems like a stupid thing to give up on him for.”

And he was right of course, and Harry would’ve asked why Blaise seemed to be taking his
side rather than Draco’s… or why he was content to play both sides at the moment, but he
couldn’t be bothered to be paranoid about the untouchable-Slytherin’s goals right now.

Harry didn’t answer until Blaise finished his step and added the last ingredient, waiting until
their potion was the perfect color if not slightly too thick a consistency before turning off the
heat and bottling it quickly to hand in. With their bottles set aside and them writing their
names to label them, he sighed heavily.

“I’m just tired of hate.” He finally admitted, Blaise pausing to look at him curiously. “I am
so, so tired of hate. Who was right, who was wrong… it doesn’t matter if Neville’s only gift
from his grandmother ended up in pieces. Neither Ron nor Draco would be held truly
responsible for the actual consequence of what they were fighting over: Neville would. And
Neville’s never done anything to either of them, but they’d have made him suffer over their
fighting regardless. Ron was an arse and Draco acted like a child, but at in the end Neville
would’ve paid the price for both of their actions and no one seems to consider or care about
how others suffer for their choices.”

“To be honest, no one seems to consider Longbottom at all.” Blaise chimed in unhelpfully,
grinning at the glower Harry shot him for that. “But what exactly do you want from the two
of them then? What’s done is done—just a promise it won’t happen again?”

“Oh, it definitely will.” Harry sighed, picking up his bag to put his books back, causing
Blaise some surprise.

“You think they’re a lost cause?”

“No, but the two of them are paying the price for someone else’s actions like we all are.
Suffering because someone somewhen decided Slytherin and Gryffindor needed to hate each
other.” Frustrated, zipped his bag tight and needed to take a deep breath. “I am so sick and
tired of hate. I will defend my friends to the death but I can’t defend someone from their own
hate, and I honestly do not have the energy anymore to even try. Draco was supposed to me
more Slytherin that this—letting stupid emotions and prejudices get in the way of the actual
goal here.” He met Blaise’s curious gaze with an iron look of his own. “I’ll forgive him when
he remembers he’s supposed to be a Slytherin and gets his act together to actually act like
one.”

Blaise smiled at that, reminding Harry a lot of that wolf Draco had once compared him to.

“You’re my favorite Gryffindor, you know that?” He hummed.

Harry smiled politely as he slung his bag over his shoulder and took his potion to hand in.
“While Draco is being a snitch, you’re my second favorite Slytherin.”

“Wait, whose you’re favorite?” He demanded immediately. Harry just grinned as he placed
his potion on Snape’s desk and headed for the door, stopping by the table behind them to
wave enthusiastically at Nott—who’d clearly been eavesdropping and looking 100% done
with all of them.

“Bye Nott, have a great weekend okay?” He purred in the friendliest voice he could muster.
The glare he got in return was almost as enjoyable as the indignant cry of rage from Blaise
behind him as he made his hasty exit.

000

September seemed to go quickly after that, and while the stress of worrying about Draco’s
short temper and how he was being treated within his house was replaced with the more
intense worry of if he was ever going to talk to Draco again at all, life continued on like it
usually did, regardless of Harry’s opinion on the matter.

The biggest change in his life was quidditch. McGonagall proved once and for all that she
had absolutely lost her marbles by buying him a wicked awesome broom that Harry
absolutely never wanted to get off of every time he took to the sky on it, and suddenly a lot of
his schedule was filled with quidditch practice with an actual team, which Harry was very
happy to find that George and Fred were players on as well. Having them there for his first
team practice (Wood—another quidditch fanatic of slightly insane levels—having spent a lot
of one-on-one time with him bringing him up to speed on the rules and Gryffindor’s tactics
already) was a surprising blessing as some of the girls had given him a side-eye for the neon
pink shorts he’d chosen for the hot September night.

Any question on his outfit choices was derailed when the twins had dropped to their knees
and cried in dramatic fear that that was his ‘ass kicking’ outfit and they were all in for it now.
It had sparked enough laughter and was so weird that the color of his shorts seemed
secondary to surviving he intense training regime Wood had whipped up on the spot to get
them to stop goofing off.

Wood wouldn’t care if he himself were wearing a tutu so long as they won their next game,
and it didn’t take long until that was the general atmosphere of the team too. Katie, one of the
chasers, had even asked where he’d gotten one of his band t-shirts and as a muggleborn
herself seemed highly entertained when he’d described the store, but that had been the extent
of comments on his outfits on the most part. They were all mostly there to play, after all, and
honestly the girls on the team were not half a likely to wear sparkly things in their hair as
Harry was so…there was that.

He hadn’t quite expected to be so successful in getting into McGonagall’s good books so

early in his time at Hogwarts either, but by being an exemplary student in transfiguration and
now the ‘secret weapon’ seeker on her quidditch team, he was fairly certain if she were to
ever admit to such things, he’d definitely be her favorite. He appreciated that she was still
painful strict and fair when it came to grades and most rules (non-quidditch rules, apparently)
so it felt more like an accomplishment on his part rather than favoritism because of the fame
he couldn’t control.

Also, he rather like that people kept bringing up how good he was at transfiguration. His
trade with Neville for transfiguration in exchange with herbology help seemed to be doing
wonders for the both of them, as well as Neville’s confidence as he was actually a very good
teacher when he was speaking on something he both liked, and knew a lot about. The praise
felt nice and he was helping Neville who was admittedly very bad at transfiguration, so he
ended up putting more effort into the subject than he would've otherwise.

And while he was her favorite he was also determined to get McGonagall to crack a smile
once before he graduated so he made a habit of reading ahead so he could needle her with
annoying questions during class—it usually ended up with him having more homework but
he liked to think she was enjoying it, and entertained by his ‘complaining’.

So far as the actual playing quidditch bit… well, he loved flying and was apparently very
good at it, but he’d never played any sport before so he had no idea if he was actually any
good or McGonagall and Wood were just on a sports-frenzy when they touted his skill.
McGonagall was pretty objective though and Wood was brutal with his honesty when they
weren’t playing well, so maybe their belief in him was warranted. It was just that catching a
golden ball over and over and over again got repetitive and while dodging blungers got his
heart racing, Fred and George were great at their jobs at keeping them preoccupied, basically
being a pair of human blungers themselves. He wondered how good they’d actually be
against a real team, as he heard Slytherin had won the cup for several years in a row now.

He supposed he’d have to wait for the season to start to see.

Another large change that happened was his status in at least his year level; he supposed
throwing a massive fit in front of everyone was enough to get their attention, and not in the
‘that’s Harry Potter’ kind of way, but more a ‘that’s the guy who physically attacked a
Slytherin and a Gryffindor equally without using magic in front of McGonagall and got away
with it’ kind of way. Seamus hadn’t been kidding that he’d gotten major credit in both
Slytherin and Gryffindor for doing that—Gryffindor because they thought it was hilarious
and awesome, and Slytherin because he half suspected most of them had the urge to slap Ron
at least once and were too restrained to actually do such a thing, and Draco had been their
problem child for a while now so seeing him get decked didn’t irritate them too much.

Harry felt a little bad that he was responsible for both Draco’s poor position and the bruise on
his face now, although it faded in a couple days rather quickly. The bruises faded that is, not
his guilt.
He made a lot of Hufflepuff friends as people came up to him to talk about it, cheering him
on as they too were a bit annoyed with the two house rivalry, and he’d gotten an earful from
both Hermione and several Ravenclaws who were appalled by the blatant display of violence.
Some more chill Ravenclaws said it was enjoyable, but most thought it was pretty startling—
better than the normal fighting in the halls or passive aggressive comments during class, but
still not their favorite thing.

Still, as everyone liked to argue and tell him what they thought of his actions like they had
any say at all in what he did as bystanders to his own life’s drama, he found that he was
getting a lot less stares and people were for some reason happier to talk to him like he was an
actual person now. Harry—and not Harry Potter.

Maybe because he was acting extremely different from what they’d always assumed “The
Boy Who Lived” should’ve—he looked nothing like the books they’d written about him,
dressed weirder than anyone they’d ever met, was a Gryffindor that hung out with Slytherins
as a personal choice, and was now proven to have a very un-heroic temper that no one was
safe from (if he’d gone after his best friend who was a Slytherin and his own Gryffindor
dormmate, NO ONE was safe). He was different, and a person rather than some idol, and
what’s more than that was that he was willing to actually talk to people and hang out with
anyone, anytime, so people quickly learned who he actually was instead of whispering from
the distance and making their own assumptions.

The more these kinds of things happened, the more Harry made it a point to sit next to new
people in every class, to find a new spot at one of the house’s tables (not Slytherin for the
moment, other than if Blaise and Nott were there and Draco wasn’t because he wasn’t ready
to deal with that yet), to walk with new people to each class, to partner with someone new
(aside from Neville in herbology because Harry needed the help) and all around just be more
engaged in the people around him. He didn’t necessarily like everyone, but he could talk to
people and got to know them at least a little bit, and if they never sat next to each other again
because they just weren’t going to be friends like that, then fine.

But he at least tried, he’d introduced himself, and they knew him as a person instead of some
legend, and that quickly made all the difference in the world.

Blaise, of course, noticed immediately what he was doing and grinned like that wolf he was
when he’d pointed it out.

Harry knew right then and there exactly what the hat had meant by needing to think like a
Slytherin while he was in Gryffindor to get places: he was making friends in order to obtain
some kind of status for himself, and being a Gryffindor is what was giving him the
opportunity to do such a thing. Gryffindor wouldn’t give him he time of day if he were trying
to do this as a Slytherin, and while not impossible for Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, it’d
definitely be much harder. Slytherin would be a tough nut to crack, but they could be swayed
with logic and the right amount of cunning… and a lot of patience. Gryffindor on the other
hand, was just blind prejudice and emotion when it came down to it.

Exhibit A: Ron Weasley.

And so, while the Draco situation never fully left his mind, his first month at Hogwarts
seemed to speed by in the blink of an eye with never enough downtime to ever get truly
caught up in his more troubling thoughts. Between schoolwork, the extra transfiguration
assignments, quidditch as a first year, and slowly making his way through the school until he
was fairly certain he knew everyone in a very general way, his schedule was packed and
before he knew it, it was October.

The first Saturday in October though, things got weird.

Given he was an early riser even on Saturdays and Blaise had told him to bugger off since the
Slytherins (the only people up early enough on the weekends for him to bother) were
studying for their first big defense test and his nosy self was not invited, he’d elected to visit
Hagrid. He felt bad about not stopping by to visit the giant man nearly as much as he planned
to, but the Keeper of the Keys didn’t seem to mind at all, just welcomed him in for some tea
and then let him trail along as he did his normal route around the grounds to ensure
everything was alright. Curious as to what that actually entailed, Harry tagged along for the
fun of it and had a great morning listening to Hagrid talk about the trees and gardens and
forests. By even an hour into their walk, Harry now fully understood why it was called the
Forbidden Forest and was making plans to just never ever go in there.

“And how big are we talking here?” He frowned deeply at Hagrid’s back as the
groundskeeper waltzed forward in front of him uncaringly, large head craned up to evaluate
the tree line since apparently it had a habit of spontaneously encroaching onto the open field
and could be violent if you let it go like that too long. Harry would’ve asked what Hagrid
meant about trees getting violent if he hadn’t already met the Whomping Willow on his mini-
tour—Hagrid was apparently very fond of it so they’d gone there early in the tour.

“No bigger than Fang, I’d reckon.” Hagrid answered his question, only half paying attention
but instead squinting at the trees.

“Right. Tarantulas the size of a large dog. Fabulous. And how many did you say there were?”

“Oh ‘undreds, easy. Aragog is a proud father!”

Right, note to self: stay the snitch away from the trees.

He took a neat, subtle step away from said trees to make sure Hagrid was now walking
between him and forest, pretending to also look at the trees as if equally as fascinated by their
leaves while more pertinently scanning the undergrowth for eyes… or fangs.

“Acromantula venom actually ‘as a ton ‘o uses ya know, fer potion makin’ and one or two
old alchemy tricks—ah, but they don’t teach alchemy at Hogwarts anymore, such a shame
that is.” Hagrid chatted, seeming happy to keep talking so long as he had a listener and Harry
was just content to jog along with his huge pace and take it in. “Venom like Aragog’s is
pretty pricy too—‘bout a ‘undred galleons a pint I’d say, cause it dries up in hours after a
spider dies like that, and milking a live one is impossible if yer not friends with tha beast!
Might be th’ only reason Snape is actually kinda civil to me, cause I can get him a ton of rare
ingredients if he’s patient enough. Like venom and even unicorn tears too!”
Unicorns!? Heck yeah—gotta ask about that…

“Ah but Aragog might be the las’ o’ his kind these days… Acromantulas come from the
rainforests in Asia ya see, and there was a ban in the 60s on breedin’ ‘em.” He paused,
glancing back at the student behind him but Harry just politely raised an eyebrow as Hagrid
blushed under his big bread. “Ah—Aragog it older than that… promise.” He chuckled a bit
nervously and Harry just gracefully took his pause for his advantage.

“There are unicorns in the forest?” He changed the subject tactlessly and Hagrid was only too
eager to jump on it to get away from the implication that he had an illegally bred monster-
spider stashed in the forest. (Honestly, for how earnest and good-willed the guy was, when it
came to dangers beasts he didn’t seem to think twice about breaking laws…)

“Of course! Got a whole heard! They don’ much like men, prefer women mostly, but they’ve
pass by me a couple o’ times as if ta say hi here an’ there. I take care o’ the forest so they
seem to be fine with me in their area every so often—the foles are a brilliant gold color and
don’t mind men as much now that I think about it, I’ve manage to pet one once.”

“Wow…” Harry’s felt awe at that. Magical creatures was probably twice as interesting as
magical plants to be honest. “What color are the adults?”

“At about two or so they’re a silver color, then when they’re full adults they get this white
glow about ‘em. They say it makes fresh snow look grey, and I’d hafta agree to be honest.”
Hagrid grinned happily at the memory and now Harry was dying to meet one.

“What do they think of all the, uh… other creatures in the forest?”

“Ha! Almost nothing is faster than a unicorn—even th’ most aggressive beast in here could
never catch ‘em.”

“Then how do wizards? For the cores of wands and such?”

“Trust. Only way a hair of a unicorn or unicorn tears is worth anythin’ magically is if it’s
freely given. That’s why Ollivander’s got a good thing goin’; his ancestor had a friendship
with the creatures and he can ask ‘n so long as they still like ‘im they’ll let ‘im take a hair or
two. A hair taken by force loses a lot o’ its magical properties—or at least th’ good ones that
make it a good wand core. Same concept of unicorn blood—it can heal almost anythin’, but
kill a unicorn or take its blood by force an’ you’ll be cursed worse ‘n anything you can
imagine, even if it does have some truly impressive healing ability.”

“Curse aside, you’re an arse if you kill a unicorn.” Harry huffed, and Hagrid let out a startled
chuckle at that.

“True, true.” He agreed cheerfully.

“So unicorns, centaurs, trolls, thestrals, giant spiders, trees who are jerks… any other
terrifying creatures you tend to?”

“They’re not terrifyin’ if ya’ get to know ‘em!” Hagrid defended himself.
“Says that guy whose got a spider taller than himself as a pet, already giving that you’re like
ten feet tall.” Harry rolled his eyes, but Hagrid politely ignored that by sticking his nose in
the air in a hilariously unknowing impersonation of Blaise.

“Aragog is no pet, he’s more a friend than anythin’! And tricky beasts tha’ people call
dangerous are jus’ that: tricky. Nah, it's all about 'ow ya treat 'em! Take Fluffy fer example,
play 'im a bit o' music and he falls right asleep!"

"Fluffy?"

Hagrid froze misstep, getting a very suspicious, highly guilty look on his face. He looked
down at the boy beside him as if ducking his head like he’d been caught. Heck, he was even
shifting his weight like a child caught stealing from the cookie jaw red handed!

"Ah… I shouldn'ta said that… I shouldn'ta said that…"

Well now I HAVE to know.

"Hagrid. Who and what is Fluffy."

"Sorry 'arry I shouldn't 'ave said a thing, don' worry about 'im."

"That's not comforting. You do realize you have a habit of naming harmless things ferocious
names—like Fang, for one— but then very, very dangerous creatures increasingly innocent
names. Clive ring any bells?"

“Clive was a good friend!”

“Clive was a spitting scorpion lemur. How you got it in your hut, much less convinced it not
to kill you when it very much wanted to, I’ll never know.”

Luckily (and unluckily) that was the day he’d convinced Neville to visit Hagrid with him,
and the poor blond had immediately fainted upon meeting the terrifyingly bite-sized demon-
lizard-thing. Upon taking his friend to Madam Pomfrey to explain the situation, it’d gotten
around to Dumbledore who apparently had a chat with Hagrid about his pets and Clive had
been re-homed by the following day.

Harry had a bad feeling he’d run into Clive in the Forbidden Forest somewhere if he was ever
dumb enough to go in there, that was just the kind of luck he had.

"Ah, well…" Hagrid shifted his weight again as if he were caught.

"Fluffy implies it's a terrifying monster." Harry insisted.

"He is not!" The giant defended this mysterious pet immediately, seeming to forget to look
guilty for a second. "Like I said, a bit 'o music and he's cuddly as a pup, I promise!"

"Yes, but what is he? And actual puppy or…?"

"Ah… shouldn't say."

“Then can I meet him, if he’s so cuddly? Should I sing while I pet him?”

“No!” Hagrid immediately back pedaled, grimacing when he realized what he’d done when
he saw Harry’s expectant look.

"And why not?" He demanded.

Hagrid seemed to slump, realizing there was no way out of this without dropping the subject
altogether, and he was far too polite and well-meaning to do such a thing. "Dumbledore
wanted ta use 'im for an important mission and he's supposed ta be a secret." He confessed,
almost in shame to be admitting it.

"Well you don't have to tell me what the important mission is or anything about the secret.
I'm just curious about what kind of creature Fluffy is. Please Hagrid?" Harry pulled out his
own puppy eyes— and it was probably his love of animals that won Hagrid over rather than
the look, but either way in the end the large man ran a hand through his hair in defeat before
giving a conspiring grin.

"Ah, well… he's a Cerberus. But a lovely one!"

"A Cerberus?"

Why did that sound familiar?

…wait.

"A Cerberus, as in… a three headed dog?"

"Yeah, and a mighty beaut' at that. Got lovely fur and is a big ol' sweetheart when ya get to
know him." Hagrid chirped happily, seeming pleased now that his ‘secret mission’ wasn’t
being threatened and now he could talk about one of his pets freely.

"Big… how big?" If Hagrid thought he was big then it had to be impressive. "Like, Great
Dane big?"

"Nah, Cerberus' can be big as 'ouses ya know! Fluffy's a bit 'o a runt though, but he's taller
than me by quite a bit by now."

Harry was horrified. Absolutely horrified.

"Oh my god." He hadn’t even realized he’d spoken aloud until Hagrid was answering him.

“He’s impressive, right? I wish ya could meet ‘im, ‘arry, but maybe next year when he’s done
‘is mission for Dumbledore.” Hagrid offered kindly, as if taking Harry’s shock as awe instead
of the bone-deep terror that it was. This guy…

“Uh, sure. Maybe next year.”

And by that I mean maybe next year I’ll come up with another excuse not to meet your
twenty-foot three-headed guard dog of hell, thanks.
 Hagrid seemed pleased enough with his lie though and nodding happily as he continued his
patrol around the grounds, and Harry decided that maybe he’d had enough of learning about
Hagrid’s pets for one day.

000

“Something bothering you, Apples?” Fred—or George, but Harry just randomly decided to
call the twin who sat down to his left Fred—chirped happily as two of him slipped onto the
bench on either side of him at lunch. The one to his right he dubbed George, as said twin
leaned around with him a grin.

“You’ve got a mighty impressive frown on your face there. Big thoughts?” He snickered,
helping himself to the soup of the day.

“Spent the morning with Hagrid, learning about his pets.” He admitted.

“That’ll do it.” They both chorused in sync, sharing a look over the first year’s head.

“Let us recount the horrific tales of Phil to you, one of these days.” Fred offered sagely.

“Yeah no, I’m good—I can imagine.” Harry shivered at the very thought of whatever beast
Hagrid had named something so deceptively cuddly. “Thing is, something he said this
morning got me thinking. And actually, you two might be the best people to ask about it…”

“Oh do tell?” George perked up curiously.

Harry paused, thinking over exactly how he wanted to phrase this. He couldn’t exactly come
out and say that Hagrid’s implication that Dumbledore was using a three-headed hellhound
for a secret mission like this was some bad action movie had set off every alarm bell in his
brain because he inherently distrusted their seemingly harmless Headmaster. He didn’t want
to mention how little he distrusted the Headmaster at all actually, because he seemed to be a
very well liked guy and disliking him seemed like a very Slytherin thing that may not go over
well with his Gryffindor housemates. The fact of the matter was though, that he was bored
and had been reminded that Albus Dumbledore was a suspicious figure and he’d shelved a lot
of things for consideration at a later date when he had time—and well, now was that time.

The easiest to tackle today though, was addressing the plethora of weird rules Hogwarts had
—and who better to ask about the rules than the two people most likely to break every single
one of them?

“I was just thinking about some of the rules Hogwarts has. Like, why a restricted section in
the library? Or even had a curfew for upper years when they should be able to study? And
why the hell do we keep Peeves around—does he have a purpose other than to be a prick?”

Fred snorted on his lunch so hard he almost choked, and George grinned from ear to ear.

“Asking the big questions—I like it!” He cheered. “Now where to start… yeah, the curfew
thing is probably a farce.”
“Our theory is that it’s to give Filch something to do at night since he’s a lonely, miserable
old man who gets kicks out of hunting down kids who break curfew.”

“Then again it’s probably half our faults and those of tricksters like us,” Fred chimed in.
“Nighttime is great for pulling pranks!”

“Then again, the paintings all talk to each other and Dumbledore’s got his hooks in all of
them, so you’ve got to be careful even then,” George winked, and Harry sat up straight at that
revelation.

Talk about having ears to the ground… how many bloody paintings are in this school again!?

“Restricted section is probably a good one though—a lot of those books are cursed or
enchanted.”

“We’re only just learning about some of the nasty stuff in there as third years, but you can’t
remove the curses without damaging the material so it’s left alone for upper years who
already know about what they might find in there.”

“It’s less about the material though—the library is huge so look hard enough and you’ll find
all sorts of dark and deep material.”

“It’s just not cursed or Madam Pince hasn’t read it yet to know itty bitty first years shouldn’t
be reading it yet—and there’s thousands of books so it’s probably not hard if you keep
looking!”

“As for Peeves—that’s anyone’s guess. He’s even annoying to us and that’s just impressive.”

“He’s not that old, he’s definitely only come around in that last couple decades so it’s
probably Dumbledore being lenient.”

“He’s even against killing the boggarts that can gather in some closets. He’s real against
killing stuff like that.”

“Boggarts?” Harry frowned, not having heard of that creature before, although he did make
note of Dumbledore’s apparently leniency as the twins called it.

“Sure, nasty pieces of work they are. Creatures who hide in dark corners—no one knows
what they look like.”

“Yeah, as soon as it sees you, and you them, it turns into your worst fear. Only way to get rid
of it is to mentally force it into looking like something funny and laughing at it—laughing
will make it back off but won’t kill it.”

“Then how do you kill one?” he frowned.

The twins exchanged looks, realizing at once that they didn’t know.

“No clue.” They chorused.

“We only learn how to kill dark creatures in class, but not even the spells on how to do it.”
George shrugged.

“You’d have to looks those spells up yourself, I think.” Fred tapped his chin thoughtfully.

That’s just horrible planning… what if you really needed to know? Or is Dumbledore’s
leniency so far that he refuses to even teach anyone how to kill what sounds like a bug at
best? And on that note, how is this thing not deemed a dark creature?

It sounds as if he’s using his position to force his beliefs on people—and if teaching kids not
to fight back against their worst fears is how he starts, it doesn’t bode well for what else he’s
done.

“Any other questions, Apples?”

“Yeah, unwinding school rules as stupid is simply thrilling!” the twins pulled him from his
thoughts, and he blanked out trying to think of something quickly.

“Ah… well, what rule do you think is stupid?”

“Hm,” They crossed their arms over their chests to tap their fingers along their chin eerily in
sync—it was kind of freaky how they could mimic each other like that.

“Well, we can kind of figure out where most of the rules came from,”

“We’re the cause of a lot of them!”

“But one we don’t get is what’s up with the third floor this year.”

“Yeah, Dumbledore’s never had a rule like that—and we’ve got three older brothers and
parents who are alum of Hogwarts who all say it’s weird too.”

Harry smiled dryly. “Let me guess, you’ve already checked it out?”

Surprisingly the twins shrugged. “I mean not for trying, but Filch is hovering around that
place like a hawk.”

“Besides, the floor is huge. Of course we got up there, but in the time we had before Filch
came looking, it’s mostly just empty.”

“You’d think if something up there would cause a gruesome death it’d be a little better
guarded, right? Aside from Filch, who isn’t exactly who I’d pick as a good guard.” Harry
offered thoughtfully.

“Exactly!” they agreed immediately.

“I mean we did go check it out but it looks boring. I’m not sure what Dumbledore is up to but
it wasn’t interesting enough to try again.” Fred offered diplomatically.
“Yeah, we break rules for fun but since there’s no fun in breaking that one we gave up.”
George agreed, turning back to his soup.

“Although,” Fred frowned, catching Harry’s attention with his slightly off tone. “I mean we
did hear barking, like there was a dog in one of the far classrooms or something.”

“You heard barking I thought you were delusional. Nearly Headless Nick said the Friar got a
ghost dog the other day, it might’ve been that.”

“That’s not proven yet!”

But the novelty of the twins not being on the same page for once was overshadowed by the
cascade of coldness that coated Harry’s body, as the topic of dogs was brought up for the
second time that day.

THAT'S why they couldn't go to the third floor!? Because Hagrid's pet Cerberus was in
there!? What the bludger is that lunatic told man thinking!? And what the hell secret mission
is so damn important that he’d risk setting a hellhound loose in a bloody school!?

“Yo Apples, you look a little pale?”

“Think of something?” Fred tilted his head curiously, before his eyes lit up. “Oh! Is it about
the mystery dog!?”

“Guys,” Harry shook his head, dropping his voice noticeably so no one else overheard, the
twins instantly sobering up and leaning closer to hear. “Remember I was just talking about
Hagrid’s pets?”

The twins blinked, then balked.

“What is it?” George demanded instantly.

“Also why is it in the school and not the forest!?” Fred was asking the real questions here,
and Harry nodded gravely.

“For that, I have no clue. As for what it is… you can’t tell anyone or Hagrid might get in
trouble, but I’m fairly certain it’s a twenty-foot Cerberus named Fluffy.”

“…”

“…’

The twins took that in for a long minute, then met each other’s gaze over Harry’s head, and
nodded once.

“Well, this has been a lovely chat Apples, but I think I hear Wood calling.”

“Indeed! Some more quidditch practice after stuffing ourselves with food is exactly what we
need!” They chirped, suddenly back to their normal cheer as if that conversation hadn’t just
happened and helping themselves to more bread for their soup in identical, mirror motions on
either side of him.

And that’s what Harry loved about the twins.

They were in it for the mischief but they were good guys—Hagrid would get in a lot of heat
for owning a Cerberus, having it inside the school, and to top it all of having actually let it
slip instead of keeping those facts secret. The twins liked Hagrid, so despite being in it for the
fun of it all, they could keep their mouths shut in service of a friend.

Harry had already kind of known that. Ron was their little brother and Percy was their elder
brother—and both of them were real pieces of work. The twins hadn’t ever said a damn thing
about either of them, their family, or anything else that might cause trouble outside of a prank
in Harry’s presence. Hell, they hadn’t even blinked when Harry mentioned Draco, and he
knew for a fact via Ron’s loud mouth that the Weasleys and the Malfoys were like oil and
water—or fire and gasoline. Even Draco admitted their families were at odds, in not so many
words, but instead of getting heated like a typical Gryffindor and a heavily Gryffindor family
might, Fred and George had instead displayed a fine talent that few people seemed capable of
these days, especially in the wizarding world.

The minded their own snitching business.

“Quidditch sounds fantastic,” He agreed, turning back to his own lunch to finish up quickly.
He also decided that Dumbledore was a lunatic, Hagrid was going to cause him to go grey
prematurely, and he needed a lot more friends in his life like Fred and George.

000

There was no great alarm bell or crisis (aside from his internal one now that he knew there
was a hellhound two floors up), no great proclamation or dramatic confrontation in front of
the whole school that changed things. Harry honestly hadn’t even seen it coming, and even
later when he tried to think about it in earnest, he had no idea what triggered the change.

Time, perhaps. Time fixed a lot of things.

Not everything, but some things. And Harry wasn’t an incredibly patient person by nature,
but he chalked this one up to the virtue he knew he didn’t have, and called it a win even if his
stubbornness had played a big part too.

He didn’t notice it at first, but Neville sure as hell did. Harry only looked up when his friend
nudged him gently in the side from where he sat beside him at dinner that night, and he
followed his friend’s blue gaze to the person who had quite a lot of eyes fixed on him at the
moment, standing in the aisle a bit down from them and between the Gryffindor and
Ravenclaw table.

Harry was more than a little surprised to see Draco, standing just far enough away to be very
awkward. Upon realizing he’d been caught by the person he was clearly here to see, he
stiffened up straight and continued walking from where he’d paused, until he was hovering
behind him and Neville and forcing them to turn around to look at him.
Which, they did. Or, Harry did and Neville automatically copied although he looked blatantly
nervous at what was about to happen.

It could’ve been easier and certainly more dramatic—even probably traumatizing for his
baby cactus—to turn his back and ignore him standing behind where the Gryffindor table was
having dinner, but this had never been about punishing Draco. It was about sending a
message, and if Draco was ready to talk… in the middle of the Great Hall was a weird
choice, but Harry wasn’t about to be picky.

He’d missed his first friend, after all.

Draco shifted a bit under his expectant stare, clearing his throat in the only show of
discomfort he was willing to show, otherwise keeping his chin up and face blank in a truly
impressive regal mask. It was even more impressive given how most of the Gryffindor table
was boring holes into him with their eyes—those closes to where Harry was having this
confrontation falling quiet to eavesdrop shamelessly.

Grey met green—Draco remaining calm and prideful, and Harry staring challengingly at him,
wondering what in the world he was about to say.

Because it had to be good. Draco was a dramatic little brat, so it had to be good.

And oh boy, was it.

Draco met his stare for a long while, before nodded once. He then turned on his heel about 45
degrees to his left and bowed his head politely—at Ron Weasley, of all people, who was
gaping hard at what was happening.

Food nearly fell out of his mouth at being addressed so suddenly though.

"I apologize for antagonizing you, Weasley." He spoke clearly, not overly loud but definitely
not lowering his voice nor backing away from his graceful tone. He was stiff and curt, but
undoubtedly polite as he hastily turned back to Harry and gave him his own tight bow of
apology. "And to you, I'm sorry I acted like a child."

Harry could only stare, but something inside of him melted.

He couldn’t help but grin in amusement—not to mention joy. Aw, baby cactus was trying so
hard… there was no way he couldn’t forgive him for that. And he’d even apologized to Ron
without gagging—the precious child.

"Apology accepted. Now sit and have desert with us." He commanded with a wicked grin,
posing yet another challenge to the boy who was clearly trying so hard.

Draco, to his credit, didn’t blink once—or maybe he’d mentally prepared himself for this if
that was what was asked of him. He seemed to know Harry very well by now after all, so it
wouldn’t be a shock if he’d already guess that his Gryffindor friend might do this.

Still, he did nothing but glance once for wary awareness at the Gryffindors all eyeing him
intently around him, before sliding into a seat next to Harry, but the opposite side from
Neville. He wasn’t stupid—there was no way that would go well, as Neville would simply
flee and Harry would pout about it for the rest of dinner. Not the best tactic when they’d been
reunited less than ten seconds.

That did however mean he was between Harry and a very shocked looking Dean, who
seemed to freeze entirely, having no clue what he was supposed to do with a snake on the
bench beside him. Harry thought both his and Draco’s painfully straight posture giving away
that he wasn’t quite as comfortable as he was pretending to be was hilarious and let out a
laugh.

He also sent a quick glance around the table at the distant eavesdroppers who were still
staring, and upon meeting a warning glare of emerald green, immediately dropped their gazes
down to their puddings and politely pretended nothing was wrong.

Everyone seemed to get the message—except one obnoxious party.

"What!? Why the hell is-!?"

Of course that wouldn’t pacify Ron and of course he’d be too thick to read the room. Harry
whipped around, a flash of heat surging through his limbs—but by the time he met Ron’s
gaze, the annoying redhead was silent.

Still clearly screaming and totally red in the face, but totally silently, as if someone had put
him on mute. Harry blinked, taken off guard.

“Apologies for him, Mr. Potter!” Suddenly leaning around their brother, Fred and George
flashed him mirror grins.

"Please don't kill our little brother with a fork, Mr. Potter,"

"Though he'd likely deserve it, it seems a harsh way to go," they chime politely, grinning like
the cat that got the canary although their eyes were not quite as joking as they usually were.

With a fork? Harry thought incredulously, and then looked down, realizing he’d somehow
snatched up a fork from the table without even realizing. Huh… I should really watch out for
that temper thing.

Going by not only Dean and Seamus, but also Draco’s slightly horrified expressions as he
gently placed the fork back on the table as if pointedly letting it go, he wasn’t the only one
who realized this was probably going to be a thing.

Note to self: find a book on anger management.

"If he remains quiet for the rest of the meal, we'll see." He sniffed dramatically out loud,
pretending he hadn’t just been about to stab one of his classmates with cutlery. He made a
show of relaxing his posture and those around him seemed to relax a bit too.

The twins saluted playfully. “Yes sir!”

Ron, who’d still been yelling through all this and still not realizing he’d been in danger for
half a second thanks to his fat mouth, stomped silently on the ground and stormed off, out of
the Great Hall in what would’ve been an epic temper tantrum if he weren’t entirely silent.

“That’s a cool spell.” Harry noted to no one in particular.

“We’ll teach it to you sometime!” One of the twins winked and Harry shot them a thankful
grin—not just for that, but for everything they’d done today so far. MVP of October was
definitely going to the twins, and they were only one day in so far.

"You know we have to share a dorm room with that now," Dean pointed out dryly, finally
deciding he had enough of being too tense around Draco and simply returning to his deserts.

"At least he's not skilled enough to hex any of our stuff while where down here." Seamus
piped up, also returning to his pudding with gusto.

"Who knows, maybe no one will un-silence him until tomorrow and we'll have a whole night
of peace and quiet." Harry offered wistfully, earning a smirk from Draco.

"Seems he's not popular even amongst his house." The Slytherin hummed.

"He's just a bit much sometimes. Doesn't seem like a bad bloke, but if he ain't thick as
anything," Seamus sighed, and Harry could only giggle. Half because of the comment, and
half because Draco seemed to tense up in surprise that he’d actually been let into this
conversation as casually as he was.

Harry laughed it off. "He's rude and he's got personal space issues. Plus, he eats like a dog,
but he's not a bad guy."

"Fine. Can't say I want to hang out with him but it's your decision." Draco allowed, and Harry
made sure he met his gaze pointedly as he responded.

"Damn straight it is," He intoned blankly with their eyes locked—grey and green charging at
each other for the second time in five minutes.

Draco just pressed his lips together and glanced away, picking at the desert in front of him
without commenting back.

The first years all missed it, but the upper years who were still shamelessly listening in and
hyper-aware of the first year Slytherin sitting at their table for the first time in…ever really,
all noticed immediately.

So the Malfoy heir was whipped, huh? And by Harry Potter none the less. Despite being a
Slytehrin, the fact it was clear Harry Potter had a hold of him, and he’d been brave enough to
walk over here in the middle of dinner meant they could probably give the kid a pass, despite
his house. He still walked proud and tall like a Slytherin, and he came over here because he
knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to act humble and lie to their faces with an apology
he didn’t mean if it meant getting into Harry’s good books, but still…
If what the ambitious little snake wanted was Harry, and Harry was going to keep vouching
for him and keeping the little blond snake under his thumb, Gryffindor could probably deal
with Draco Malfoy at their dinner table every so often.

They would watch of course, but Harry was still Harry Potter the Boy Who Lived to a lot of
them, and so he could probably get away with this… if Draco continued to prove he was
were for Harry, and no other conniving, snake-like reason.

Gryffindors understood sticking by your friends, after all.

They did not get Slytherin politics, and wanted nothing to do with it.

And Draco would have to learn how to walk that line between the two houses on his own.
Tonight marked a first step, with the Gryffindor table relaxing a bit despite who he was and
how deeply he’d just situation himself at their table, and Slytherin watching on with
unreadable eyes from across the room.

Everyone that is, except a certain untouchable Slytherin who was wiping tears of mirth away
from laughing so hard at what he’d just witnessed.

This was going to be a great year.

 Ambitions vs Optimism

“What happened to Malfoys bow to no one, hm?”

“Blaise I swear to god-”

“I’m just repeating what I’ve heard you say like forty times, and I couldn’t help but notice
you bowed to two people just now. Weasley being one of them I might add and what were
you saying about his family just now?”

Draco didn’t even bother that with a response, shoving past his roommate and towards his
area of the room the second they got back to their dorm. He’d half thought that rooming with
a grey-oriented family heir would be slightly easier than with darker families, but Blaise was
still a Slytherin and a royal pain he was discovering. And a chatterbox.

But as a Slytherin he had etiquette, and despite this being an open floor plan, if one retreated
to their alcove then the polite thing is to leave them be, so as Draco plopped down at his
desk, the other two filtered away automatically. Blaise was still grinning like a Cheshire cat,
but he’d stopped talking thank god.

Until he turned on Nott with a plethora of other comments from across the room and Draco
banged his head onto his desk in utter exasperations.

He frowned into the wood, considering what he was doing.

It had been a calculated risk. Gryffindor would (and does) always believe the apology was a
lie, and maybe the apology to Weasley was. He couldn’t erase a lifetime of prejudice in a
couple weeks after all, not within himself and not in the wider school, definitely not in the
upper years who’ve had quite a while to get entrenched in their ways. So, how to get on the
lions’ good side?

They knew the apology was a lie, so he had to get them to think that even if it was a lie, he
was there for non-Slytherin reasons.

On the flipside, Slytherin would be watching, and they had to believe it was for Slytherin
reasons or they’d denounced him a traitor on top of everything else they called him these
days.

The answer had taken him just under a month to figure out, and he hadn’t eaten a thing all
dinner as he prepared himself to do it, but in the end… it just might’ve worked. Blaise’s
comments to his pride aside.

The answer of course, was that he couldn’t be friends or even on friendly terms with any of
the Gryffindors except Harry. He made sure the lions all saw him obey Harry’s orders, and he
made sure his body language was uncomfortable and unhappy the entire rest of the night so
that the Slytherins didn’t think he was actually enjoying himself.
The truth of the matter? His apology to Weasley was utter bullsnitch and he honestly had
nothing against the likes of Dean or Seamus. Their muggleborn or half-blood status left
something to be desired, but these days he was trying not to think of that too much. He
couldn’t change on a dime, but he was making the conscious effort.

And Seamus knew as much, if not more about quidditch than Draco himself did, so it wasn’t
like there wasn’t stuff to talk about between the two of them. He just couldn’t appear to get
too chummy or the charade would be up.

Now the Gryffindor’s didn’t trust him (like they ever would’ve though, not so soon obviously)
but would let him be so long as Harry vouched for him. Likewise, Slytherin was content
knowing full well he was simply manipulating most of the lions’ house and that he only
really cared about Harry. Choice of friend aside, they were at least impressed about his
dedication in going after what he wanted and how clever he’d been about it.

They still highly disapproved of his choices and actions, and certainly let him know it, but
they at least liked that he was being a Slytherin about it. It didn’t win him any points
necessarily, but he didn’t lose anymore than he currently already had either.

And given that he felt like drowning in the politics of his house on a daily basis, that was an
important thing for him.

Bowing to people though… he still wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but at least knew it was
the Slytherin thing to do. Pride was something he’d been mulling over for weeks now and
still as of yet had no answer to. Slytherins were prideful, but honestly, when did that become
attributed to their house? Weren’t the lions the prideful ones?

Slytherin was supposed to be clever, and ambitious. At what point did everyone seem to just
forget that playing the meek, beaten opponent for strategic purposes was a valid tactic? He
got his way, he won… so why did he feel like his pride was stinging something awful?

Ambitions are about getting what you want, no matter what. I can want it all I want and it
means nothing if I can’t actually get it. This was the right thing to do, to bow even if I didn’t
mean it and get my way in the end.

He lifted his head and glanced at his roommates, where Nott was still fully reading whatever
book he had on him and Blaise chatting his ear off, completely fine with the fact his audience
was not listening to him at all.

As much as he hated to admit it, Blaise was good at this. He balanced his pride and his
knowledge of his own status with his ambitious almost effortlessly—he played the part of the
snarky little chatter box but he always knew what he was doing. He always knew when to
shut his mouth and smile, and when to strike back. He knew exactly how hard to hit so as not
to lose face for being weak, but not too hard that he overstepped his bounds.

They’d told Harry he was the untouchable Slytherin, and Draco really, really felt that now
that he was comparing their two positions.
He buried his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes as if he could get rid of his racing thoughts
that way. He’d just made so many mistakes so far, and the road back to being in control (if
he’d ever had control, he was realizing) was going to be a royal pain in his rear end. It’d
taken him a month to figure out what to do with Harry so that neither of their houses would
get too peeved off, and be recognizable enough that in light of it most would forget about the
fact he’d been punched in the face by his best friend like he was a flippin’ muggle.

Harry was going to be the death of him, honestly.

He needed a better plan than to just be friends and hope everyone got over it someday. Harry
himself would go a long way because he was a very Slytherin-like Gryffindor, and hell he’d
won Blaise over in less than two weeks, but Draco needed more.

He was forced to admit though, that it likely wouldn’t be this year that he’d start making any
progress. He’d messed up by trying to get into Marcus Flint’s good side too quickly, wanting
to be on the quidditch team next year and apparently he was far to obvious and also no one
liked him already because he’d very publicly been seen with Harry their first day of the year.
Now the quidditch team hated him, or at least thought he was an arrogant idiot, and all the
upper years were entirely hands off because no one wanted to get involved in the mess he’d
created for himself. He was associated with Harry Potter after all, and if anyone was even
remotely connected to the Dark Lord, that meant association with Draco himself was an
insanely bad idea.

Blaise was one thing, he was from a grey family and he could do whatever the hell he
wanted. Winning over people like Nott or literally anyone else was going to be a multiple-
year-long effort, but to make those years worth anything, Draco needed a plan now, and he
needed to work on it constantly until it showed results.

He just had no idea where to even start with making a plan.

He needed to have more power in his house, because if he had power, even if people
disagreed with his choices they wouldn’t go speaking behind his back or excluding him like
this. But how the heck was he supposed to get power? He was a first year for god’s sake, and
he’d already dug himself into a fine hole less than a month into the school year. His family
had money, yes, but from watching Blaise he knew that would only get him so far. The
Malfoys were the richest in the country of course, but the Zabini family had old money,
which seemed to stretch farther and in more areas of the world than just magical Britain.

And Blaise didn’t need to flaunt that he was wealthy to be the untouchable Slytherin. Hell,
Draco was utterly distraught to realize no one in this house needed to flaunt that they were
wealthy to get their way. Most of them were wealthy in one way or another, but even people
from poorer backgrounds still clawed their way up into places of good standing by the time
they were fourth or fifth years. His own godfather was a shining example of someone who’d
entered Slytherin with nothing and then gotten everything by just being a good snake—
ending with being a spy trusted on both sides of the war by two insanely powerful wizards
who Draco knew his godfather held no true allegiance to either of them.

The people who couldn’t get standing were almost always younger years, or they were idiots.
Crabbe and Goyle being good examples of people who were not going anywhere without
someone’s coat tails to ride, and he knew of a couple upper years who were in very similar
situations.

And so, the one thing he thought he had going for him upon starting at Hogwarts—his wealth
—he was depressed to realize wasn’t really that advantageous at all. Or, it could still be used,
but he was sure he’d be laughed at behind his back if he resorted to using money like no one
else ever felt the need to use it. Harry had called him a spoiled brat once and while he’d said
it with fondness, he knew it wouldn’t sound so kind coming from his housemates.

He plunked his head down on the desk again, tired of his own mind.

The answer was clear, if he took a moment to stomp on his pride a little more to realize it was
an option.

He needed allies.

He was too far in the hole to dig himself out, so he needed to lean on the better reputations of
others for a little while. Blaise would see it coming from a mile and way and laugh in his
face, and there was no way Nott would stay in the room long enough to hear him out. And
pretty much all of Slytherin was hands off so…

Well. Blaise got won over by Harry pretty easily, so what if Draco wasn’t actually the one
doing the convincing?

Draco lifted his head, realizing this plan had merit. Whether he knew it or not, Harry had
used him to make a point about where he stood in this school—and Draco had known from
literally day one (literally hour one, actually) that Harry was in this to be free, and to have
fun. If Draco got in his way, he’d be left behind without a second thought, and he’d known
that.

If Harry wanted to be free, Draco would let him.

Let him loose on the Slytherins, that is.

He smiled slightly as he stood up and got changed for bed, thinking through where his first
target would be, and comforted in the fact that this friendship he’d once thought was going to
be nothing but trouble, might actually have some advantage to him after all.

000

“They are not! The Harpies have Garett Plasie this year so there’s no way-”

“You are insane if you think one mediocre chaser like Plasie is going to do a damn thing,
Finnegan.”

“Mediocre? How is an 85% hit rate mediocre?”

“It’s no Hasian Grey, that’s how.”

“You’re comparing Garret Plasie to Hasian Grey? Are you insane?”

“You know, this really feels like you’re just calling me insane over and over again. Not very
tempting discourse, you know.” Draco rolled his eyes, and Seamus glared daggers at him
from across the library table.

Seamus and Dean weren’t exactly the studying sort, but they had a potions test this week and
when Harry mentioned he and Draco were reviewing in the library, they’d tagged along.
Harry had been thrilled his Gryffindor friends had put aside the rivalry in he face of actually
getting a passing grade in potions (what they thought of Slytherins aside, Draco was Harry’s
friend and amazing at potions so the negatives for hanging out with the guy were far
outweighed by the pros) but he hadn’t accounted for how much Draco and Seamus liked
quidditch.

It’d been half an hour now and they hadn’t really touched their potions material yet.

“Do you have any idea what they’re talking about?” Harry sighed to Dean, who’d chosen to
ignore the two and study on his own anyway. He looked up from his notes and squinted as if
tuning back into the conversation.

“Vaguely—Seamus has filled me in a lot on of those names, but I’m not quite as invested as
he is yet.”

“Yet? So there’s some interest?”

“A bit. I mean I like the magical world, but there’s no football here. I like sports and I think I
could get into quidditch.” He sighed as Seamus spluttered at Draco’s latest rebuttal
(Gryffindors could win a fight, but they rarely won verbal sparing matches against Slytherins
apparently, and Draco was proving that once and for all). "Man! I'm so bummed there isn't a
football team here. I mean quidditch sounds awesome but all this strategizing bums me out."
He pouted a bit.

"You played at your old school?" Seamus recalled out loud, abandoning his losing
conversation with Draco who just rolled his eyes and tapped his quill against his notes in
annoyance.

Dean nodding morosely. "I spent so much time practicing too--thought it'd ensure me a spot
on my high school team and then maybe I could go pro or something. In the minor leagues at
least, or at least I was hopeful about it since I thought pretty highly of my talent at least." He
grinned, earning himself a pair of snickers at that.

Harry perked up, an idea tickling at the back of his brain. He had never really played football
before outside of the rare gym class since no kids wanted to associate with Dudley Dursley's
preferred target, but the couple times he'd kicked the ball around during mandatory PE
lessons, he hadn't hated it. In fact he liked it a lot since it was largely running, and he liked to
run. Flying was absolutely amazing, but it wasn't the same muscles stretched as running
around the heavy ground and feeling your heart pump out those lovely endorphins once you
pushed past the air in your lungs and burn in your muscles. Harry didn't see any reason to
give up one or the other, having to choose just because one was magical and one wasn't.
Maybe it was an Odd Solution, but the magical world seemed to be in need of a couple more
of those.

"Why don't we form our own team? I mean there has to be at least a football team's worth of
muggleborns who'd be interested in this school, and Hogwarts has probably quadruple the
amount of land you'd need for a football field—probably more to be honest." He suggested,
and all three of them looked at him in surprise. Seamus and Draco seemed too taken off
guard to be sure, but Dean lit up like a Christmas tree.

"That's bloody brilliant Harry! I brought a ball with me too, just in case you know? We could
ask around and make up some teams, even if they're pick-up games! Like a club or
something," he was grinning now and Seamus took one look at his friend and decided it
couldn't hurt—it's not like either of them were on the quidditch team for at least this year and
he'd heard a lot of the muggle game from Dean so was interested in playing.

"We could put a sign up in the Great Hall so all the houses can see it--maybe we shouldn’t
make it by house since I'm fairly certain there aren't enough Slytherin muggleborns to even
make half a team, but knowing them they'd be flipping fantastic at it just on principle. Most
likely because someone will inevitably imply that they'd suck at it even if they tried and they
will absolutely have to prove someone wrong." Harry suggested deviously, Seamus
snickering again and Dean grinning from ear to ear.

The fact he’d said this looking straight at Draco meant he got to see the utter indignation on
the blond’s face—but he couldn’t exactly argue against that logic.

“While I kind of agree with the logic I think you’re absolutely insane.” He declared slightly
too loudly as Madam Pince looked up from her desk to glower at them.

“Oh great comeback,” Seamus taunted, immediately turning away too-casually at the fiery
grey glare he got in received for it.

"You have them very well measured, I see." Dean chuckled.

"If there's something to win, Slytherin will want to win it even if they'll go to their graves
denying they found it interesting. Especially a muggle game."

Draco fumed but couldn’t refute the logic despite very much wanting to.

"I'll be shocked if we get even one, to be honest." Seamus admitted. "At least at first. But it's
sound logic--and maybe it'll be healthier competition than that Gryffindor-Slytherin thing the
upper years are on about."

"Muggleborns weren't raised being told they were supposed to hate a whole group of people
for no reason, so my bet is it'll be a way nicer environment. Easier." Harry shrugged, and
none of them could seem to argue against that logic.

Draco huffed. “Good bloody luck. Were you born this optimistic or did it hit you over the
head one day?”
“So that’s what it was, I could’ve sworn it was a bludger.” Harry snapped his fingers as if in
realization, earning laughs from the Gryffindors present at least. Draco rolled his eyes and
tapped on his notes even more urgently.

“You are on your own for that. Are we going to study or not?” He demanded.

“Oi, I’ve been here ready for forty minutes—you’re the one talking quidditch on study time.”
Harry countered and Draco ignored it in favor of pushing a textbook into the middle of them
and changing the topic to crushed beetle shells quickly, his ears slightly pink.

He might be shooting himself in the foot signing up for two sports but… well, at least he had
a potions tutor and was a teacher’s pet for Transfiguration to ease up on the course work
some, he thought deviously.

000

"Ha! In your face Dean!"

"What the heck Harry, you said you'd never played before!" His dormmate was in a right fit
as he glared at the ball ten meters behind him, but the light in his eyes told Harry he wasn't
actually in the least bit upset. In fact, he could've sworn he saw that same glint in
McGonagall's eyes when she introduced him to Oliver, so he knew he was probably doomed.

Seamus and a Ravenclaw muggleborn who'd seen their sign in the Great Hall and literally
jumped from the Ravenclaw table to join them as soon as he saw them hanging it up on the
door were only a couple seconds behind him but still too late and panting heavily as they
came to a stop behind the smugly grinning red head.

"Slowpokes." He teased lightly, earning playful glares.

"How are you so bloody fast!? I heard about you on a broom but this is absolutely unfair."
Leonard Yuu—Lu, as he insisted they call him—was a second year who had had it up to here
with his house's bookworm tendencies. He loved books of course, and was a sharp mind that
definitely belonged in that house, but he also loved to run around and burn off energy too—
and preferably for a win instead of just to run. He'd been bummed when Hogwarts had no
sports other than quidditch as he'd been a jack-of-all-trades sort of sports phenom in his old
school, but he hated heights so hadn't even bothered going higher than a foot off the ground
in his flying lessons much less attempted to try out for the quidditch team. He'd taken to
running around the lake but at the sight of a potential football club, was only too eager to join
up regardless of what his house might think.

Harry didn't quite know how to respond to Lu's teasing remark, as he honestly didn't know.
He didn't remember being good at sports in his other schools, although he wasn't sure if that
was because he'd still been learning or he'd been subconsciously not trying too hard to avoid
too much attention. Because if there was one class he had to really, really try hard not to be
better than Dudley in, it was definitely PE. That baby whale couldn't run three meters without
getting winded. And three meters was probably pushing it.
Flying didn't truly feel like a sport, since it was all instinct and fine-tuned motions to turn a
magical broom this way and that. Yes, it took concentration and strength, but not more than
an eleven-year-old could reasonably perform if that said anything about the amount of
strength required to make a broom do a 180 mid-air. It was more flipping his whole body
weight or keeping his balance in check, which was skill and not power or speed.

Football was very much more about his body doing some hard labor to not only run back and
forth across the ground, but keep himself upright while his legs went this way and that to
handle the ball at his feet. There was no magical broom or unexplained feeling of
weightlessness to take off the feeling of heavy gravity working what seemed like twice as
hard against his muscles. And Harry had been running for what felt like his whole life, lifting
heavy things to garden and moving on quiet feet through a house that didn't want to
acknowledge he lived there, so he was very much aware of his body and his abilities, likely
probably more than the typical eleven or twelve year old. He simply had more training being
comfortable with his body and what it could do, so it wasn't that hard to shift gears and tell it
to do something new even if he'd never attempted it before. He'd also been very focused on
his health choices, like what he ate and what exercise he kept, for at least a couple years now
so he wasn't exactly starting from ground zero. He was at the very least partially athletic and
that seemed to make all the difference.

Lu, who hadn't played regularly other than running around the lake since he started at
Hogwarts a year ago and hadn't done much over the summer, and Seamus, who'd never run
so much in his life since the extent of his sports career seemed to have been exclusively on a
broom where gravity didn't come into play, were at very real disadvantages against people
like Harry and Dean, who'd been active in this kind of exercise consistently for a long while
now. Given that their 'club' had about seven members at this point, Harry wasn't exactly sure
he was good at football or rather just better than the current roster they had here. It was
probably likely he wasn't actually that skilled but compared to the lack of competition
available at this moment, he just so happened to look like he was talented.

Quidditch had more competition--Oliver and McGonagall both being quidditch nerds had
gushed over him and they clearly knew what they were talking about, so he could be
reasonably sure he was good at flying at least. 'Youngest seeker in a century' and all that, so
yeah, he had some proof there.

Football though… he'd see how it went. It wouldn't do to get a big head and then quickly find
out he was a big fish in a little pond, so to speak, and not actually all that good.

He was also not sure if it wasn't his Slytherin side showing and making him think he liked
football because he was currently running circles around his new teammates, or he actually
liked this sport. Maybe he just liked winning—who knew? He figured he'd have to wait that
one out and see what happened if this club got bigger.

As it was, they had the Dean, Seamus, Lu, himself, Neville, and two Hufflepuff girls who'd
been very curious but had sat out to just watch for now. He wasn't quite sure what was up
with them, but he did recognize them from both the train and the sorting and having seen
them around in classes. Hannah and Susan, he recalled, having literally run into Hannah on
the train.
What was weird was that he'd been pretty sure they weren't muggleborns--not that he would
reject them if they weren't, but it was curious as to why they were interested in a muggle
game then. Well, power to them for broadening their horizons, even if just to watch a bit.

For now it was just the boys playing, Lu, Seamus, and Dean against Harry and Neville.
Neville had been hanging back by their make-shift goal on the most part since no one seemed
to be able to keep up with Harry if he got the ball, but he wasn't very good at getting the
ball back if the other team managed to steal it so Neville was mostly just defense. He seemed
fine with this and although they'd lost several points in the beginning since he seemed to
flinch and close his eyes if the ball came anywhere near him, after close to two hours going at
it he seemed to get the hang of it and realize the ball wasn't going to take his arm off if he
reached out a hand to block it, especially since neither Lu nor Seamus had more than this
morning's practice at actually kicking a football straight. He was not even close to doing the
dives that Dean was clearly very good at in his attempts to stop Harry from scoring on him,
but Harry had surprisingly good aim and quick reflexes to change course last-second if he
noticed Dean leaning one way or the other. It was a pretty high-scoring game since none of
them were pros, but it was a lot of fun.

The girls kept talking to themselves and giggling quietly as they watched, which was also
weird, but Harry ignored it. This time. Next time they showed up, they were going to play or
get lost since the giggling was getting old fast.

They'd started at a leisurely hour that particular Saturday morning, but the sun was getting
higher now and lunch had to be soon. Harry's stomach told him he had spent up all the
calories he'd eaten at breakfast already and just stretched as the others caught their breath and
considered wrapping it up.

"Maybe you could teach us some skill drills and we can call it a day, eh?" Seamus voiced
Harry's thoughts, directing his question at Dean who looked wiped and satisfied with their
little adventure.

"Sure. Oi Neville!" Dean shouted, calling their last member over, and the blond started
jogging up to them. Harry turned at met the eyes of two curious gazes over where their
theoretical sidelines were and waved at them. They looked startled before glancing at each
other and standing to come over hesitantly.

"What's going on?" Hannah asked, glancing at them curiously.

"We're going to do some small drills to practice ball handling and then go to lunch.
Interested?" Dean offered, the unofficial leader of the club since this was his sport and he
definitely knew the most out of all of them.

"Oh, well…" She shifted a bit. "We were just going to watch." She repeated her initial excuse
she'd given this morning.

Harry got a suspicious feeling they weren't here to actually play and decided to get ahead of
that line of thinking pretty quickly. He wasn't sure he would be able to politely tell them to
get lost if they showed up next week to giggle some more instead of actually playing.
"It's okay if you've never played before, most of us but Dean never really played fully either.
But he's going to teach us some things and maybe next time you can help Neville and I out?
We were pretty outnumbered today!"

"Tch, not like it stopped you." Lu tisked haughtily, but his eyes glittered in mirth. Harry
maturely stuck his tongue out at him.

"Um…" The blonde looked like she was trying to think of another excuse when the auburn
haired girl beside her made the decision for them.

"Okay, let's try. I uh, have no idea how this game works to be honest." She admitted, and
Dean just waved her off.

"I can go over the basics at lunch, but the core point is that you can't touch it with your
hands--only the goalie can to stop the ball from getting into your team's net. For everyone
else you just have to kick it with your feet which requires some ball handling skill which
we're gonna practice. How about this to start," he dropped the ball he was holding and kicked
it gently to Harry who kicked it gently back. "See the part of the foot we're using to kick it?
Let's try passing it back and forth between each other."

It was awkward since the girls and Neville hadn't really had any practice at it so far, but after
a little while they were passing it back and forth to each other pretty well. Seamus got playful
and made up a game that you had to shout someone's name and either 'right' or 'left' and that
person had a split second to receive it with that foot. They were all pretty terrible at it, even
Dean, but that somehow made it more fun.

Hannah looked stiff and uncomfortable, like she hadn't been planning on getting sweaty that
day, but Susan seemed to have a hidden competitive streak and after half an hour was all but
screaming Seamus' name before nailing the ball a little too forcefully at his shins. He was all
about the challenge though and took it grinning.

Neville fell over at least three times in panic from her hard kicks but got used to it
remarkably well, even managing to successfully receive more times than he missed them by
the time they called it quits.

The sun was directly over them when their stomachs started growling and Hannah
complained about how hot it was, so they called it a day and headed in for lunch. They were
all very gross and needed a shower, but figured a quick bite wouldn't hurt--they were all high
from the exercise and Susan was not-so-quietly getting into it with Lu about why her kicks
were totally legal when both the Ravenclaw and Dean were steadfastly trying to explain to
her the actual rules of the game and why some of her tricks were very much illegal. She was
surprisingly stubborn and didn't seem to care that she'd only learned the game existed three
days ago and didn't even know the rules yet, but defended herself and her actions to the grave
—even Lu the Ravenclaw struggled to pit his cold logic against her fiery arguments. Hannah
and Neville seemed wiped and didn't say much, but Harry and Seamus were cackling to
themselves as they watched Dean get more desperate to get through Susan's thick head. Harry
couldn’t quite tell if she was doing this to purposefully mess with them or not, but it was
hilarious either way.
They got to the Great Hall and Hannah lead the charge by plopping down at the Hufflepuff
table, and Lu was so into it with Susan he didn't even notice he was sitting at the wrong table
as they didn't spare a breath to stop arguing. The Gryffindors were too used to Harry sitting
wherever he liked to think too hard on it and just plopped down around them to dig in. Only
Neville glanced around a bit nervously before sitting beside Harry quickly, and yes they did
get some odd looks, but not nearly as much as there'd once been.

Harry grinned as he gathered himself some lunch—if this was going to be a team, it was
going to be an odd one for sure.
 The troll and The Troll
Chapter Notes

Did I forget to mention this was a whump fic?

My bad guys ｡^‿^｡

Harry had never had any opinion on Halloween before. He’d always been aware it was the
day his parents had died, but prior to a couple months ago had grown his whole life believing
the Dursleys lie that they were drunk no-ones (a horrible mistake really, since when did he
ever give credit to what the Dursleys said?). Yes he’d missed the concept of having parents
so far as having parents would mean he wasn’t with the Dursleys, but he hadn’t even seen a
picture of his parents or knew a thing about them so while he’d always had this vague
sadness he was an orphan, that never really translated into being traumatized by the day they
were killed.

His relatives had always hated Halloween though, to the point of locking him in the cupboard
literally the entire day for some reason that was now abundantly clear since Harry had
learned he had magic.

On the flipside, his classmates in grade school had loved Halloween and the amount of candy
and excitement that could be whipped up in their frenzy for the holiday meant Harry didn’t
hate the even either. He hadn’t gotten really into it ever for fear of what Dudley would report
back to his parents, but it was enjoyable in some ways regardless.

Halloween at Hogwarts though, was a whole thing, and Harry was all about it. The
decorations, the tasty desserts, the fact this creepy old castle had real ghosts and magic made
the whole thing about ten times more interesting and he was enjoying himself quite a bit as
the festivities geared up for the day in question. It was mainly the desserts though to be
honest, and he would definitely be putting on quite a bit of weight if it weren’t for the fact he
was taking part in two sports these days—Wood’s insane regimen on pretty much every
weeknight, and football on the weekends when the people in their little club had the time to
get together and play.

Word of their football club had definitely spread, and while no one had outright called them
weird for it, Harry had gotten a lot of very confused people asked him in very politely ways
just what the hell he was doing.

‘Having fun’ was usually his answer, and no one but a Slytherin could really formulate a
response to that.

The Slytherins didn’t ask though, but they sure gave him an even wider birth out of sheer
wariness that his weirdness was somehow contagious considering he’d roped some
Hufflepuffs and a Ravenclaw into his schemes too. He’d invited and then proceeded to needle
Draco into playing with them and got a resounding ‘hell no’ from his friend, and that seemed
to be the line in the sand for the blond. Harry was fine with it though, he was sure at least one
of them would come around to it eventually.

It might take a few years though.

In the mean time, the football club was having fun on their own and now Lu was sitting at the
Hufflepuff table every so often because arguing with Susan was apparently one of his simple
joys in life.

Harry called it progress.

BAM!

“Jesus Christ Seamus,” He hissed, nearly falling off his chair and flailing about wildly to
make sure his hair and none of his robes were on fire from the loud blast that’s happened
behind him.

“Huh,” the boy blinked in shock, soot coating his face and the poor feather he’d been trying
to levitate nothing but crumbling ash on his desk.

“Dear me, Mr. Finnegan!” Flitwick yelped, but was not as surprised as he once was. This was
too common a result for that.

“You are a hazard to our health.” Draco sneered, inching his chair beside Harry a bit farther
away out of self-preservation.

“Honestly I have no idea why that happens.” Seamus defended himself, still slightly shell
shocked and rubbing some of the soot on his cheek off, but that was definitely a losing battle.

Blaise leaned down from a higher row and tapped Harry lightly on the head with a grin. “You
have burning feather in your hair, dear.”

“What!?” He swatted at it immediately and brushed it out with his fingers quickly, finding
soot coating his hands quickly but at least it wasn’t catching fire. Blaise’s delighted snickers
from behind him caused Draco to launch a floating feather in his face, and the splutters as he
tried to spit it out made Harry feel slightly better.

“I’m so sorry Harry,” Seamus apologized, but Harry waved him off.

“Just so you’re not offended when I don’t sit next to you for practical work next time.”

“Right…”

“I’m regretting being partners with you.” Dean told the boy beside him, the soot harder to see
against his dark skin but clearly there—along with a slightly singed sideburn too that he was
nursing with a pout.

“I’m sorry! I don’t know why it does that!”

“Perhaps you should practice in a remote area from now on, Mr. Finnegan,” Flitwick
supplied helpfully, and Seamus pouted while everyone around him snickered at that.

The rest of Charms went much better with Seamus now keeping his wand to himself—he was
out of feathers, in any case—and while Harry was no Charms expert he did manage to get his
feather floating rather well by the end of class. Satisfied with the day’s work, he happily
packed up his things for lunch when the final bell rang.

“Remember your paper on your choice of charm family is due first thing next week! Don’t be
afraid to come to me with questions if there are any!” Flitwick called as they filtered out, the
courtyard outside the hall already filling with people moving towards the Great Hall for
lunch.

“Ah, maybe they’ll have candy corn again.” He said aloud to no one in particular, but already
thinking about what he wanted to eat. Today was officially Halloween and breakfast had been
superb with pumpkin pancakes and more—he could only imagine lunch and dinner would be
tasty as well.

He was going to have to run around the lake a couple times to work this off but he was too
caught up in the thought of treacle tart to care.

“You are so weird for like candy corn—it’s basically wax you know.” Dean pointed out
where he was walking in front of him.

“Harry love, you’re not going to make me agree with a Gryffindor, are you? Because he’s
right, candy corn is filth.” Blaise chimed in as well, striding up to match their little group and
Harry was suddenly reminded of that first day when these exact Slytherins and Gryffindors
had all walked to the Great Hall together. Complete with Draco by his side and Neville
cowering behind him as Blaise addressed him.

Huh, they’d come a long way in a relatively short amount of time.

“Ha ha, so you have more refined tastes than me, not like I haven’t heard that before. As for
what Dean’s excuse is, I don’t know.”

“I don’t need a fancy palette to know eating sugary wax isn’t pleasant.” The Gryffindor shot
back.

“Speak for yourself, I personally find it lovely.” Harry defended himself.

“Which explains a lot about you.” Blaise said far too innocently and then suddenly found the
back of his hand fascinating so he didn’t see the glare Harry aimed at him for that.

“Harry!”

Said redhead turned at the call of his name, smiling as Hermione ran to catch up with him,
fumbling papers in her arms so she’d probably been asking Flitwick something.

“Hey Hermione.”
“Can I ask you something? What charm did you pick for your essay? I couldn’t decide so I
wrote three but I didn’t know-”

She went off like a bullet without waiting for him to answer any of her questions, while the
Gryffindors and Slytherins he’d been walking with kept moving slightly to be ahead of them,
carefully distancing themselves from the bookworm. Neville was quietly afraid of the loud
girl, and he couldn’t speak to what Dean or Seamus thought of her, but he knew the
Slytherins were not interested in Hermione at all and were pretending not to have seen her
approach.

Harry sighed silently. They’d come a long way, but they had a lot farther to go.

Rather than let her go and be even later to lunch, Harry cut her off quickly. “I actually hadn’t
started it yet, but all three of those sounds like great ideas. Just pick your favorite, right?”

“But they’re all my favorite!” She frowned, honestly troubled by this. Harry had sat next to
her in Transfiguration one day in his rounds of his year mates, trying to get to know everyone
and her being no exception, however Transfiguration might not have been the best class to
choose do to that with. She’d seen him go at it with McGonagall and now had it in her head
that he was just as much as an academic as she was, which was just painfully not true.

Transfiguration seemed effortless to him for some reason, but literally everything else he only
scored well because Draco had drilled good notetaking and studying habits into him courtesy
of his many childhood tutors. Outside of Transfiguration, he had no desire to spend a second
more on any work that wasn’t required of him not to fail a class or look like a fool in front of
either the teacher or a judgmental Slytherin sitting behind him. He needed Slytherins to like
him to make Draco’s life easier and those jerks were unafraid to call people stupid and judge
them for not studying properly so… Harry studied.

Not for fun, like Hermione had somehow gotten it into her head that he did.

Even having explained this to her, Harry got the feeling Hermione didn’t actually have that
many friends—if any friends at all really—so the fact he’d shown not to be a bad student and
had actually been nice to her meant she now clung to him whenever she could, her earlier
jealousy and/or dislike of him seeming to evaporate into thin air with one act of kindness.
And she was brilliant obviously, but not so good with social cues—the fact he’d been
walking with a bunch of his friends didn’t seem to have stopped her, neither did she even
acknowledge anyone else around him at all. Not that doing that would’ve ended well with the
likes of Blaise and Draco already only just barely being polite enough to outright ignore her
rather than saying something rude like they undoubtedly wanted to.

Not to mention Nott, who was still hanging around and yet not speaking to anyone ever.
Draco said he was from a ‘dark’ family and was content ignoring Harry but even the
Slytherins didn’t know what would happen if he were forced to be in close contact with a full
muggleborn—much less someone so… vibrant as Hermione.

Given that Nott was on the clear other side of the group almost as soon as she’d appeared,
Harry figured it was best not to find out. He seemed relatively fine with Dean, but Dean
could bicker like Blaise could and he certainly didn’t have Hermione’s very straightforward
personality.

“How about pick the one we did the longest ago? It’ll be a good refresher of something we
did several weeks ago,” He suggested off the top of his head, and she lit up.

“That’s brilliant Harry! It’ll show I’ve retained the material! Perhaps I should re-read the
chapter on it though, just to be sure,” She frowned in concern again, and he smiled blankly.

“Yeah, maybe it’ll help.” Like you haven’t memorized it? Because I’m pretty sure you
memorized it.

“Do you think this relates to the next four chapters in the textbook? They seem kind of
related if you consider the theory behind this branch of magic. They all derive from the same
wand movements if you think about it.” She lit up again, and Harry kept his face as it was by
force of will.

Please just let me go to lunch, I’m dying here.

“Possibly, that’s a good connection to notice.” He said instead, because far be it for him to
discourage a bright young witch at what clearly made her happy.

The same could not be said for everyone though, and a freckly monster child chose that
moment to stalk up from behind where Harry was standing to brush past them on his way to
lunch.

"No wonder no one bloody likes her."

Harry was looking at Hermione when he heard the words, and he watched her face falter in
shocker, before crumbling like someone had let all the air out of her sail.

Slap!

Ron stumbled back, not being prepared for Harry to whip around fast as lightning, and
surprising both of them his hand found perfect purchase on the offender’s cheek to leave a
sharp red mark. Rob grabbed at it in shock and whatever cry of indignation almost made it
out of his mouth was drowned out by Harry advancing on him with vigor.

"What the bloody hell is wrong with you, you bloody bully!? Look in the god damn mirror
before you say nonsense like no one likes her—I think she's brilliant while please note no one
was talking to you just now." He snapped sharply, taking a menacing step forward to get in
his face, and Ron took an automatic step back—but his face got red in anger and glared back
just as hard.

“Well it’s true!”

Harry lunged and Ron scrambled back sharply, but Harry only made it a step before reason
caught up with him and he forced himself not to do anything else. Prick as he was, Ron
wasn’t worth getting into detention on Halloween for, and Harry got away with attacking two
students before, but he’d rather not make it a habit. Nor did he want this to be the reputation
he was known for, and he especially didn’t want anyone thinking he was bullying Ron since
he seemed to be the person he was attacking most these days.

But he just pissed him off so much he didn’t even know what to do with his hands aside from
freaking slap him for the stupid words that came out of his mouth.

"Christ Weasley, get the memo already, you'd think you'd have learned your lesson after
Potter beamed you with a broom," Blaise saved him from trying to form a response through
his fury, the eye roll audible in his tone despite Harry still glaring Ron down as if daring him
to make a move.

But then he heard a sniffle behind him and tried to turn back to the girl behind him.

"Hermione-"

But she was already making a run for it, brushing past both of them and heading the opposite
direction of the growing crowd with a very low “I’m fine,” coughed out for Harry’s benefit,
and then she was gone into the bustle of people watching the showdown curiously as they
made their way to lunch.

Harry saw red, but he forced himself not to beam anyone in the head this time. As he
whipped around though, there was flash of heat in the air that caused Ron to take another
stumbling step back, bumping into an upper year walking behind him.

"Are you proud of what an asshole you are!?"

"Me!?" Ron ground back as the upper year shoved him off. “You slapped me!”

"There was no reason you had to say that; what has she ever done to you?" Harry ignored the
accusation and demanded back of him hotly.

"Showed up his dumb ass in class is what," Blaise snickered, seeming to very much enjoy
this show.

"Shut up you slimy snake!"

It was impossible to tell with Blaise’s killer poker face if he was going to actually respond to
that elementary-level insult or not, but Harry did it for him anyway.

"Okay first of all, snakes are not slimy they're actually kinda warm and cute and secondly,
you are the worst excuse for a lion I have ever seen in my life if we're going by house
mascots. Lions are supposed to be noble and proud and you’re about as ungentlemanly as
they come and have so little self-respect you delude yourself into think anyone cares what
tasteless things you say and that the only way you can become a decent, respectable wizard is
by bringing others who don't deserve it down. You're not a lion you’re a bloody leech, so get
off of everyone's back already before I pop you like a bloody balloon you utter buffoon!"

"Say that five times fast," Seamus raised an eyebrow, causing both Dean and Blaise to hide
their laughs under coughs.
"Holy shit Potter, you killed him," a passing upper year laughed at the situation between
squabbling first years as he strode past them, the other fourth and fifth years around him
laughing at Ron’s expense too.

Maybe it was no one coming to his defense, or maybe it was the fact those upper years were
Gryffindors, maybe it was that he just couldn’t think up a proper defense for being called out,
but whatever it was, Ron turned every shade of color that would’ve made Vernon Dursley
proud.

Harry glared at him for all he was worth, and Ron glared back stubbornly, but after a very
long silence as the snickers of many onlookers became evident, he grunted something no one
heard under his breath and stormed off. Harry decided to let it go, not really feeling like that
was victory but knowing logically that was all he was going to get with his thick headed
classmate.

He forced himself to take a steadying breath. “Do not hit anyone, do not hit anyone, do not
hit anyone…”

“It terrifies me that you need to remind yourself of that.” Dean sighed, and Harry managed to
gather himself just enough to flash him a half-hearted smile and then walk past him,
subconsciously leading the charge to the Great Hall again and pretend like that didn’t happen.

He was still concerned about Hermione, but he’d been having such a good day before the red
headed troll had ruined everything and he was determined to get back on track as quickly as
possible. He’d check up on her later, maybe after dinner when she’d undoubtedly be in the
library again. He needed to get another Transfiguration book anyway.

“I’ve read that positive visualization is helpful.” He managed to get out diplomatically, like
he wasn’t still cooling down from an unreasonable amount of sudden anger.

“Read where?” Draco demanded incredulously.

“In a book on managing one’s emotions that Hermione found for me. Weasley should’ve let
me finish it before going and testing me again.” He huffed, and Blaise let out a loud laugh
behind them. At least someone found this funny.

“Um… should we go check on Hermione?” Neville sped up to walk close by Harry’s side
and ask quietly, and Harry gave a weary sigh.

“I think she’ll need a moment after that. We can go find her later, kay?” He offered, and
Neville nodded hesitantly.

“So, Potter…what was that about snakes being cute?" Blaise changed the subject back to his
mini fight with pure glee in his voice from behind them. Harry didn’t notice Draco stiffen
beside him when he rolled his eyes for Blaise’s benefit as he tossed a wry smile over his
shoulder at the taller Slytherin, acknowledging what he was trying to do.

Or at least what he thought Blaise was trying to do, meaning distract him from his earlier
anger. It didn’t even cross his mind that Blaise lived for making Draco suffer.
"I've met a cute snake or two in my life." He allowed coyly, turning his back on them to keep
walking. Or he would’ve if Draco didn’t have a coughing fit beside him, catching his
concern. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Draco only just barely got out and quickly attempting to pretend like he was not
currently choking on air.

Thankfully he was at the back of the pack, so no one saw Seamus’ eyebrows skyrocket up to
his hairline. Not that anyone would’ve noticed such a thing given they were half burnt off
currently.

"Oh? Do tell." Blaise intoned in a purr, Harry shooting him a confused look but relenting
easily when he accepted there was no reasoning with this particular Slytherin.

"Well I had a bout of accidental magic at the zoo once--set a boa constrictor free and he was
very nice. I also used to garden a lot so little garter snakes were a common occurrence. If you
left them be they could be nice companions while you work." He explained off handedly, still
looking at Draco in concern while the blond was acting far too casual after his cough attack.

The Slytherins present, including Blaise even though he was the one who asked, were
legitimately surprised Harry had an actual answer to that question… and what the answer was
too.

"Huh. I've got to admit, even I've never really been around snakes. It's just the motif, you
know?” Blaise shrugged.

“Well I’ve never even seen a real lion either, so we’re all just making it up it seems.” Dean
grinned.

“I a-always liked the garter snakes too.” Neville quietly admitted, everyone forgetting their
earlier drama to look at the quiet Gryffindor in surprise. He turned red under their inspection,
but was addressing Harry only with his comment, trying not to pay attention to their eyes on
him. “I g-garden a lot at home t-too. We always had tons around.”

“See! Neville knows what I’m talking about. And here the actual Slytherins don’t hang
around snakes on the daily, what a farce.” Harry huffed.

“Oi, I don’t need to have met a snake to pull off green better than you. It would clash with the
hair.” Blaise snipped, and Harry maturely stuck his tongue out at him.

By then they’d finally made it to the Great Hall, and Harry was fully ready to move on with
his day.

He lit up in joy as they walked in. “They have candy corn!”

“Gross.” Blaise, Dean, and Draco all chorused at once.

And it might’ve been a figment of his imagination, but Harry could’ve sworn he heard Nott
say it too.
 000

“Harry….”

“Mm?” Harry tried to look casual with an insane amount of treacle tart in his mouth, and
knew he probably looked like an idiot anyway. But by the worried look in Neville’s eye, the
blond didn’t seem to care.

And damn, Neville had a killer mother-hen look when he wanted to. Or maybe it was just
puppy-dog eyes. Either way, Neville only broke those out on serious occasions and Harry
knew he wasn’t going to get out of whatever it was he was being asked to do.

He swallowed as quickly as possible and tried not to choke as he wiped his mouth with a
napkin.

“What’s wrong, Neville?”

“I overheard Lavender saying Hermione’s been crying in the girl’s first floor lavatory all
afternoon.”

Harry’s eyes widened, glancing around at the Halloween feast around them and doing a quick
head count. He found everyone he was concerned about easily, but double checking the
Gryffindor table, he found it lacking a typically noticeable head of bushy brown.

He saw Ron stuffing his face of course, but then again Harry doubted much could pull him
away from food, not even the guilty conscious he clearly didn’t have.

Harry sighed, not even needing Neville to fully ask.

“Okay, how about this: I’m gonna stuff my pockets with as much candy as I can and go find
her, and then try to bribe her out of the bathroom with sweets. You find Fred and George after
the feast and get them to go to the kitchens and have a plate or five sent up to Gryffindor
tower for Hermione since apparently she’s missed lunch and dinner now. I know they know
where the kitchens are and how to get there—tell them I’ll owe them one. Then we’ll meet
back at the tower to play exploding snaps or something for the rest of the night and let her tell
us all about her Charms essay. Plan?”

Neville’s intense puppy dog look subsided some, satisfied with this answer. “Plan.” He
agreed with a determined nod.

“Right then, best be off.” He loaded himself down with as much candy as he could reach,
people seeing what he was doing and having fun tossing things at him too in order to ‘help’,
and he wished them all a good feast before scurrying out of the hall before a teacher could
tell him to sit back down.

In the quiet of the school hallways as the din of the Great Hall faded into the distance, he
sighed to himself. This isn’t really what he wanted to be doing on his first Halloween night at
Hogwarts. Ron was a prick and he truly did feel bad about Hermione’s situation, but he
wasn’t sure what the answer was here.
He liked that she trusted him, but he wasn’t exactly a good friend for her given he had to
pretend to smile through most of their conversations. He genuinely liked her and thought she
was wonderful and brilliant, but aside from being a great person to know, Harry had no desire
to get close.

He had no desire to see her suffer though either, hence the candy and the exploding snap plan.
But he’d need some kind of plan to help her in a way that he knew he couldn’t be there for
her, like setting her up with someone who’d enjoy her presence for who she was a bit more
than Harry knew himself capable of. But he was scratching his head at the moment, making a
mental note to befriend more Ravenclaws to see if he could find anyone. Maybe Lu could
help, but that would be an awkward conversation to have if he couldn’t think of a subtle way
of phrasing that request.

Heh, maybe Hermione would like to join the football club? That might be so far out of her
comfort zone she’d stop babbling about Charms for ten minutes and discover something else
she liked just as much as books. And memorizing said books.

It took several minutes but he eventually found the right door—and he could confirm it by
putting his ear to it and hearing a distant sniffle inside. Maybe he should’ve brought some
water too somehow, if she’d been crying all day she might be dehydrated.

“Hermione?” He called out through the door.

“…Harry?” the sniffles stopped in surprise.

“Yeah, it's me. We noticed you weren’t at the feast just now, you know. Hogwarts really put
on a show you know, since apparently Halloween is big in the magical world.”

“…yeah.”

Huh, not even a fact about Halloween. She must be exhausted.

“You haven’t eaten I don’t think and you’ve got to be hungry—Neville’s bringing food back
to the tower and I’ve got my pockets full here of candy if you want to share? Tons of it, take
your pick: gummies, chocolate, bubble gum, sours-”

“Harry, I’m fine. You should go back to the feast.”

He tisked haughtily. “A little late given I snuck out with my haul of candy—if I go back in
the teachers will notice I wasn’t there! I don’t know about you but Snape’s been looking for a
reason to give me a detention all year.”

Sniff. “…true.”

So even the teacher’s pet admits Snape has it out for Gryffindors. Then again technically
Draco was the teacher’s pet in that class.

“Come oooon Hermione, let’s go back to the tower and play some games. Get your mind of
freaking Ron of all people. Don’t let a pig like him ruin your Halloween! Remember the
candy!”
“But he’ll be there…”

“I mean, yeah probably, he lives there, but if he hassles you again I’ll sick his brothers on
him. Fred and George can be vicious you know and they like me better than him I think!” No
answer to that but no sniffling, which was good. “I’ve been reading that book you gave me
you know, and maybe it wasn’t what you wanted but I only slapped Ron today instead of
beating him bloody for what he said. Didn’t get a detention or anything so it’s definitely
working!”

“That’s good… no house points lost.” She admitted, sounding a little calmer. “That book isn’t
just for calming yourself actually, it’s got some other interesting chapters.”

Oh no, she’s going to start talking about books again. Well, that is what I signed up for.

“Come on out and tell me which chapters I should read next then, and we’ll head back to the
tower. Do you want chocolate or gummies?” He offered, pulling the sweets from his pockets
so she’d opened the door to be greeted by his arms full of bribery—I mean sweets.

There was a long silence as she seemed to deliberate this offer and was probably being
swayed, and Harry waited patiently for her to come opening the door, sensing she was getting
close.

And then, something awful smelling assaulted his nose, and he gagged a bit.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath, glancing around the door and then down the
hallway around him in surprise and annoyance at whatever the hell that was.

Smell was no longer a concern of his as he suddenly forgot how to breathe, his whole body
being dunked in ice cold horror, fear removing the blood from his hands instantly to the point
he didn’t even notice the sweets he’d been holding tumbling lifelessly to the ground.

A monster, twenty feet high with ugly grey, warty skin and the stupidest looking expression
on something so terrifying Harry had ever seen, was standing not ten meters away, having
turned the corner of the adjacent hallway and looking just as stunned as Harry was terrified to
have met another living creature in the otherwise deserted hallway. So close, just right there,
huge and hulking and holding a freaking club in a hand bigger than Harry’s whole body.

What is that, what is that, what is that, what is that, WHAT IS THAT, WHAT IS THAT, WHAT
IS THAT-!?

His body was backing up before he even realized he was moving, back hitting the bathroom
door with a low thud.

The two stared at each other.

Then, the huge creature’s expression crumpled and it grunted deeply, taking one huge step
towards him.

HELL NO.
Harry whipped around and slammed his body into the bathroom door, its lock giving way
immediately to his sheer panic-induced force as he went tumbling in and feet sliding against
the tile floor from how desperately he was running.

"Hermione!" He half screamed, half whispered, still terrified that thing was actually after
him.

"Wha—Harry? Are you in the girl's bathroom?" A stall door unlocked and she poked her
bushy head out in surprise, eyes red and puffy from where she’d been crying

"Hide! Hide now! Sorry if this is weird but hide now!” Harry hissed at her violently,
immediately at her stall and shoving her farther in to re-close the door "There's a bloody
monster outside in the hallway!"

"What!?"

But he just clamped a hand over her mouth and shushed her near silently with the urgency of
a dying man as the door to the main bathroom crashed open, and she went solid beside him
in fright. He froze too, keeping his hand over her mouth and silencing his breathing to almost
nothing out of terror.

Thump… thump… thump…

Even its slow steps sounded heavy from its sheer size, and they could see it’s ugly bald head
just over the top of the stall walls. Hermione’s eyes bugged out as she saw it, panic seizing
her, but Harry just held his hand tighter over her lips to remind her to remain silent, both of
them automatically crouching down a bit to prevent it from looking over the door to see
them.

What the hell is this thing? What the hell is this thing!? Think, think, think, think… it can’t be
a troll right? I mean Quirrell mentioned them but like… like it’s in HOGWARTS and that’s…
it can’t actually be a monster, it’s some castle beast like Peeves… annoying and ugly but not
actually going to harm students right!? They wouldn’t have something like that in the castle,
RIGHT!?

And then suddenly Harry remembered Fluffy, and realized yes, this school was exactly that
stupid.

Also, even if Dumbledore was here himself to say this thing was just their security guard or
something, Harry wouldn’t believe it. His instincts were screaming at him to get away now,
and they’d never once been wrong about Dudley coming after him or ducking when Uncle
Vernon got a little too heated. His life had never been in this much danger before, but then
again his instincts had never burned quite this hotly in his veins before either, the adrenaline
spiraling his thoughts into sheer panic-induced hysteria as he tried to think of how to get the
hell out of here right now, and being unable to do anything but sit quietly and pray it left on
its own.

It was absolute torture, the long twenty seconds of silence as they tried so hard no to even
breathe while they heard its thumping steps come to a slow stop…and heard it sniff audibly.
How good was a troll’s sense of smell again?

Harry couldn’t remember if Quirrell had even mentioned that bit.

And then, above the stall walls he saw a huge, disgusting grey arm raise to the ceiling,
holding a club twice his size.

He only just barely landed on top of Hermione, forcing her roughly to the ground as the
world exploded in a huge crash of splintering wood as the club swiped the stalls and tore
them half down like they were just paper. The woosh of the massive club streaming through
the air above them was bone-chilling, reminding them that one hit of that thing meant death.
Hermione let out a blood-curling scream against the floor as she covered her head with her
hands to protect herself from the debris what was falling everywhere and crushing them
slightly, and honestly Harry couldn’t blame her.

"Move, move!" He shouted over the din the best he could, scrambling back as the club
wound up again. At his voice she managed to crawl rather quickly towards the door as Harry
went the other way, both flinching and ducking the second blow that tore down the rest of the
stalls in one foul swoop. “GET OUT OF HERE!” He bellowed at her and she yet again began
scrambling at his words.

The troll wound up again and now that they were all painfully exposed with not even the
illusion of the wooden stalls to offer any kind of protection, his heart beating so hard it
physically hurt, Harry finally remembered he was a bloody wizard and whipped his wand out,
fumbling it slightly as the blood had yet to return to his hands.

He pointed it at the troll, the club in the air and so terrifyingly uncertain about where the
creature was about to swing. It had just proven twice that it was here to kill them, and it was
big and terrifying and it was about to kill one of them and Harry just panicked.

But he didn’t know any freaking spells he was a first year for god’s sake—what did he—what
should he--!?

The club terrified him, and the first thing that came to mind was his McGonagall’s voice
saying in no uncertain terms: do not fuck with Transfiguration.

Okay, maybe he was paraphrasing.

Match to needle.

And suddenly that terrifying club melted before his eyes, molten metal pouring over the
troll’s arm and head from where it used to be above him and blinding it slightly. It blinked
stupidly to get the cold silver liquid out of its eyes, lowering it’s hand to blink stupidly at it as
if its tiny brain couldn’t comprehend what had just happened and where its club had gone.

Harry couldn’t really comprehend it either, but his body was moving before his mind even
considered being confused about it or think longer than it took to recognize the monster
wasn’t looking at him for the moment.
By that time Hermione had wiggled free of the debris and Harry took the troll’s momentary
distraction to free himself from the other end of the debris and make the gut-wrenchingly
risky move to run behind the troll (too close too close too close too close) and bolt for the
door she was holding open.

“GO, GO!”

They got free into the hallway and took off without another word or even glance, knowing
they just needed to get the hell out of here.

And then there was a roar that almost made Harry pass out in terror, but his body pushed
harder automatically as if it knew now was not the time to do anything but flee and didn’t
need his brain’s terrified input on the matter.

Crash—the bathroom door behind them splintered into nothing and Hermione screamed
again, but thankfully also didn’t falter a step in their sprint. Harry would’ve screamed too if
he wasn’t so breathless in fear when they heard the huge, heavy beats of a troll hot on their
heels.

THUMP—THUMP THUMP—THUMP—THUMP THUMP—

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god I’m gonna die—

Harry whipped around the next corner, having no idea where he was running too and honestly
not thinking that hard about it other than get away, get away, get away—but he felt relief so
hard it hurt when they whipped around a random corner and were faced with no less than
eight teachers standing at the other end of the hall.

As if they were an oasis in the dessert, Harry poured everything into his run to get to them.

“HELP!” he bellowed in panic, Hermione letting out her own terrified screech to join him,
and even at this distance he saw the moment the teachers saw the troll bound the corner
behind them. Even Snape looked horrified.

Some small part of Harry realized this might be the strangest thing these professors had ever
seen: the sight of two first years running full tilt away from an actual troll down a Hogwarts
hallway. On another day, Harry might’ve even found it funny.

Today, he didn’t find it very funny. Today, he was only just barely able to not cry in relief
when every single professor immediately had their wands out and aimed at the beast
barreling down on him.

The relief was short lived as a huge, moist, disgustingly hot and fleshy cage clamped over
him, pinning his left arm to his body and his feet suddenly no longer attached to the ground.

He was so shocked by the sudden change and the sudden touch, he didn’t even have time to
feel afraid.

His heart didn’t even have time to skip a beat before there was wind whipping through his
hair.
And then the world felt small, and he couldn’t breathe…

CRUNCH

WOOSH

CRACK

WHIRL

WHAM

Harry was seeing flashes of purple, gold, orange, and red, blinking a firework show of
splotches in his vision reminding him randomly of this dream he used to have of a flash of
green, and a man laughing. There wasn’t any laughing this time, but there was a lot of
screaming.

Wait, that was Hermione.

“Mr. Potter!”

Who was that again?

He felt fuzzy… his heart was still hammering so hard he felt it in his teeth, and he had no
feeling in his hands. His brain was blank, but it helpfully supplied that he might be dying
from the adrenaline.

That was a troubling thought that he was distinctly not troubled by for some reason.

And then it hit him—it was over so quickly he could only process it staring at the still ceiling
above him, as the world stopped spinning and the flashes of pretty colors cleared out of his
vision some.

The meaty hand around him—the troll, the monster—it had him, and it lifted him up. He’d
never been that tall before, never seen the Hogwarts hallway from than angle before, and it
was weird. His feet hadn’t touched the ground like he was on a broom, but the world felt
unbearable tight instead of weightless. The colors came from eight wands, streaming past
him and nailing their target, and the wind in his hair was the creature stumbling, and then
falling backwards, hand still gripping him whipping backwards and slamming into the stone
ground as it collapsed, possibly dead.

He probably should’ve felt that. Why hadn’t he felt that? That seemed like it should’ve hurt a
lot, getting slammed into the ground like that…

“Mr. Potter!”

Oh yeah, that was McGonagall. He knew that voice, that had been the voice that had come to
him.
Match to needle.

"Harry!" Hermione screamed, and this time he heard what she was saying. He also heard
another voice trying to quiet her lowly.

"Mr. Potter, are you alright!?" McGonagall was there—and surprisingly so was Snape. They
were both above him and he saw them move as one. It wasn’t until they were pulling at the
troll’s limp fist that Harry realized he was still in the creature’s grasp, and something about
that horrified him so much he felt bile come surging up his throat.

Only it didn’t burn, it felt slick and too hot.

The air felt too cold in comparison when they finally wrenched the fist open and reached for
him gently, probably trying to get him clear of the downed monster as quickly as possible in
case it awoke again. That’s good… Harry had no desire to be anywhere near this thing every
again. He felt sick.

And dizzy.

And as Snape touched his left arm, the world tilted approximately 45 degrees to the right, and
the bile surged forward again. Only it wasn’t bile, it was hot and too slick and tasted like
pennies and suddenly his whole world felt red and he bit back a scream as the entire left side
of his body lit up on fire.

Fire that clawed at his bones and left him nearly blind from the pain. He didn’t know if he
knew what pain was actually, because suddenly he was doubting that he’d ever known, but all
he knew now was this was hell please make it stop.

He didn’t want to throw up on Snape because gross, but even as he pressed his lips together
as tight as he could he felt it stream out the corners of his lips and down his jaw as there was
just too much and he coughed and suddenly he couldn’t breathe—

--or had he been breathing at all? He thought maybe he’d stopped a while ago and just forgot.

"Potter," It sounded like he heard Snape inhale sharply, but the black spots were well and
truly multiplying now so he couldn’t see the Potions professor at all to even confirm it was
really him.

"We need to get him to Madam Pomfrey, now!" someone said, and Harry had already
forgotten them by the time they finished speaking.

He heard a word he didn’t recognize and a flash of red, before the world went dark.

He sunk into the blackness wondering if he’d imagined a dream where it was green.
 A Different Kind of Pride

Neville sprinkled water over the flowers in greenhouse 3, tending to Ginger Leaf Poppies and
venomous Arboreal Jumping Lilies at Professor Sprout’s request. She’d known immediately
that he had talent in Herbology and offered to let him help in his spare time, which he’d taken
up without much fuss shortly after starting at Hogwarts.

It was calming here.

His hands shook trying to tie his tie this morning, with his fork at breakfast, holding a quill
during classes, and fixing the gloves to his hands so the lilies didn’t bite him. But they didn’t
shake while watering the flowers, their lively petals curling happily as it hit their soil and
they drank their fill. You could always tell when they’d had enough, as their leaves fluttered a
bit as if waving off any more for now.

When all the flowers were waving at him except one in the back, he gently spared that last
one a few more drops, and she joined her sisters in waving silently, as if thanking him.

He set the water jug down, hands shaking again.

He would wave back, but then the flowers would see how his hands would shake.

Then again, flowers tended not to judge. Well, the poppies might, but the lilies probably
wouldn’t.

And he could take vengeance on the poppies for their judgement, picking them with a neat
slice of a magical silver blade he kept on hand for dealing with particularly bratty plants and
putting them into a vase where they’d wilt slowly over time in enchanted water. Their bright,
beautiful red would be a great gift for Harry in the hospital wing. He was fairly certain red
was Harry’s favorite color… if he had something like that, as Harry seemed to like a lot of
color, all at once.

On any given day, Harry could be the color of any flower, but his hair always reminded
Neville of the poppies. There was nothing like poppy red.

Nothing quite as poisonous either, so maybe they weren’t a good hospital gift, no matter how
pretty they were.

Roses might work too, but they had thorns and Hogwarts didn’t grow any variety of them for
now. They were hard to grow, and took years to do it right.

Then again, he had seven years here, he could ask Sprout to let him do it as a work study. He
didn’t know if there were magical roses, as normal roses always seemed to captivate even
witches and wizards just fine. He thought he remembered Harry saying he’d tended roses in
his aunt’s garden.
He could look into it, see if he could find magical roses, and if not then he’d grow regular
roses. They were hard to do and he wasn’t good with challenges, but this was the one thing
he could probably do.

Probably.

And if he couldn’t do this one thing… he probably couldn’t do anything.

Not that that was a new feeling.

He turned back to the poppies where they were fidgeting in their soil, demanding attention.

His hands were steady in his gloves as he went about tending to them.

000

Harry really didn’t want to wake up.

There were mornings like this, when the air outside your blankets was chilly and inside your
cocoon of sleep was warm and toasty, and sleep itself was like a ten ton weight dragging you
down even as your mind flickered out of dreamland and told you that you were awake against
your wishes.

The temptation to roll over and ignore that flicker and sink right back into cozy sleep was
like a drug. Like putting a five-course meal in front of a starving man and telling him not to
eat.

Harry was 100% ready to do just that, but then suddenly he remembered he had to do
something. He couldn’t quite remember what it was, but his whole life he’d had practice
forcing himself out of bed if he had something to do, because it was usually doing some
chore for the Dursleys and if he didn’t do it then he’d regret it far more than he’d regret
leaving the sweet embrace of his bed.

So with a very annoyed sigh he forced his eyes open, displeased about how hard even that
tiny movement was and not looking forward to actually getting up all the way. What was it he
had to do again? If he could remember maybe he could bargain five more minutes in bed if it
wouldn’t take that long to do…

But when the light above stopped making his eyes sore and he actually took in what he was
seeing, he didn’t recognize the top of his cupboard or—ah, not even his Hogwarts four-poster
bed as that was the more common sight these days. That was right, he didn’t live in a
cupboard or a shed for now, that was good.

But that didn’t explain the vaulted ceilings he was staring at. And no matter how much he
stared, they remained unfamiliar to him.

Hm, that was weird.

Now more awake and realizing he didn’t recognize his surroundings, he made an attempt to
sit up.
It didn’t go well.

His whole body felt like it was under a thick layer of dense water, kind of warm and fuzzy
but heavy like someone had filled a blanket with lead pellets and dropped five of them over
him to keep warm. It wasn’t a matter of strength, but a lack of sensation that made it really
hard to even lift his arm to make sure his still had all his limbs attached since everything felt
so remote he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t lost something without realizing it.

Not that he learned anything because despite maybe managing to lift one hand a bit, he
couldn’t actually lift his head either to glance down at it.

Ugh, it made the feeling of wanting to roll over and go back to bed all the worse. Only he
wasn’t sure he even could roll over right now with how his body seemed totally dead to the
world. He really should be more alarmed by his apparent paralysis, however the fuzzy feeling
also extended to his brain and made it hard to panic.

“Mr. Potter kindly refrain from whatever it is you think you’re doing right now.” A sharp
voice froze him in his tracks, and he automatically slumped back from his attempts, blinking
widely to see where that warning had come from but not being able to move his head much to
see.

“Uh… sitting up? Am I sitting up or did I hallucinate that?” He asked the voice, his own
voice coming out a little foggy from sleep but not nearly as scratchy as he thought it might’ve
been, and then a woman walked into his field of vision above him, so that his eyes could find
her easily. She had McGonagall’s no-nonsense expression on so maybe cracking a joke didn’t
exactly help him.

True to his suspicions, she clicked her tongue in disapproval. “You’re going to lie right there
for the time being, no attempting to move! You went through quite the ordeal and you’re not
healed yet.” She ordered, and maybe it was the old-fashioned nurses uniform she had on but
even his addled brain made the connection.

“You’re Madam Pomfrey.” He realized, not that he needed to tell her that, given her
expression.

“Yes. I prefer it if no student ever meets me, nor sends others to meet me. I am familiar with
your work with Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy.”

Oops.

“Right, my bad.” He apologized emphatically, watching her lips press into a thin line.

“Do you know why you are here, Mr. Potter?”

Now that was a question. Why was he here? What did he remember…? Well for starters he
remembered the Halloween feast because heck yeah, and then… and then walking to find
Hermione and…

Oh right.
“Something about a super ugly twenty-foot tall guy with a club?” He offered and the Madam
was not amused.

“A troll, Mr. Potter.” She confirmed his suspicion.

“Yeah, that. And um… do you know why one was randomly wandering in the hallway?”

The older woman’s eyes flickered, the tight line of her lips dropping a bit. “You didn’t hear
the announcement?”

“What announcement?” he blinked honestly. “There was an announcement? Does Hogwarts

have like, a PA system or something I wasn’t aware of?”

“I don’t know what a PA system is, but Professor Quirrell announced during the Halloween
feast that a troll had escaped the dungeons. All houses were to immediately return to their
dormitories. Some voiced the opinion you heard such a thing and went after Ms. Granger to
alert her.”

“No way—I mean maybe if it’d gone like that, but I probably would’ve told Professor
McGonagall too because she’d rip through a troll rather than let a Gryffindor get squished
and I know like two spells.” He admitted, Madam Pomfrey’s eyebrows shooting up to her
hairline at this confession. “But like no, Neville told me Hermione was crying in the girl’s
bathroom because Ron was being a prick earlier so I brought her candy and was trying to get
her to cheer up and then I turn around ugly was just standing there and well… the rest is
history.”

“That explains why the bathroom was wrecked then.”

“Yeah, first attempt before trying to outrun a troll was to hide but apparently they have a
good sense of smell? Which is surprising since they reek.” Harry blinked, recognizing he was
kind of rambling but it all just felt so weird…maybe he was still in shock. “So yeah we tried
to hide in the stalls and then the thing kind of wrecked them anyway so we ran.”

Bright flashes of color filtered through his mind, remembering running into the teachers (and
now that Harry knew the school aside from him and Hermione was on high alert for a stray
troll, Harry realized it made a lot more sense for a bunch of teachers to have just been
standing around in a hallway in a group like that) and them all shooting brightly colored
spells to down the troll. That part was incredibly hazy for some reason, aside from the colors
which seemed to have been burned into his mind’s eye.

Also that nagging feeling about a green light refused to go away now too, and he knew it was
somehow familiar.

But that wasn’t really important right then, with a more pressing concern presenting itself.

“Is Hermione alright? Wasn’t she there to say all this?”

The Madam shifted back, looking less grouchy and more concerned now as she answered.
“Ms. Granger was a bit distraught, having witnessed what she did. I gave her a calming
draught, promptly followed up by a sleeping draught that put her out for a day. She did say
you came to cheer her up, and although she didn’t think it so, didn’t have confirmation on if
you’d come to her before or after learning about the troll.”

Harry smelled a rat.

“And who exactly thinks so badly of my intelligence they’d assume I’d go after a troll
alone?”

Pomfrey looked a bit taken aback, then smiled in a very small, wry way. “I don’t think it was
your intelligence he was questioning, and more his assumption that your heart was in the
right place as a Gryffindor who may like to jump first without thinking hard on the
consequences. I think the intent of suggesting such a thing was said with you in very high
respect, Mr. Potter.”

“Who.” He demanded shortly, and she sighed in defeat.

“The Headmaster, dear. Don’t blame him though, it was an easy mistake to make. It’s clear to
all that you treasure your friends.”

Well isn’t that nice, except it’s absolutely wrong. I love Draco more than anyone here and
would’ve never talked to him again for the crap he pulled last month—oh and by the way I’m
not actually friends with Hermione. I like her well enough but we’re classmates at best.
Where the snitch did Dumbledore get this insane idea?

Oh wait—he thinks I’m the Boy Who Lived. He has no idea who I actually am, and this kind
of proves it.

What an idiot.

Harry was ticked, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. It was a nice sentiment or
whatever, that Dumbledore believed he was some righteous, heroic, impulsive Gryffindor
that lived up to the books and stories written about the Boy Who Lived that Blaise loved to
embarrass him by regaling him with, but in reality if this were actually true, the Headmaster
had been setting him up for detention for the rest of the freaking year.

Because McGonagall would’ve had his hide and made him suffer in detention until further
notice for being so damn stupid as to go after a troll alone. Hell, even Madam Pomfrey had
seemed pissed at him until she realized it wasn’t his stupid fault for getting hurt.

If he’d actually done something wrong, then fine bring on the consequences, but he didn’t
appreciate the Headmaster sticking his nose where it didn’t belong and fabricating some
romanticized tale about his heroics that, while seemingly helpful and flattering on the surface,
only served to get him in trouble with the people he actually respected.

He bit his tongue, but the ire itched at him unpleasantly.

“Well I didn’t do anything—if I’d known there was a troll I wouldn’t have got cornered by
the stupid thing. And also, I may be in Gryffindor but the hat thought long and hard about
putting me in Slytherin so I’m not thrilled the Headmaster essentially told the teachers I’m an
impulsive Gryff, like I only have a heart without a brain behind it. I mean it’s nice and all but
he essentially called me thick, isn’t that what it sounds like?”

Pomfrey blinked in surprise and then bit down on the smile he knew she was about to give
him, brushing down her apron and changing the subject quickly.

“Well, it’s good you seem to at least have a clear memory of the events that transpired. You
hit your head a bit so it’s good to see no lasting damage.”

Harry acknowledged what she was trying to do and let her do it, moving topics and frowning
a bit at her words. “I don’t clearly remember everything exactly. I mean I know the troll
grabbed me but… I remember the teachers flinging a lot of spells and a lot of light, but not
really much else until Professor Snape tried to help me up. I mean then everything hurt but
there was a huge gap of time that’s all really fuzzy.” He explained.

Her face crumpled in concern, but not surprise. “That is not so out of the ordinary, I’m afraid.
It was a traumatic event and in cases like this it’s not unheard of for the mind to cling to one
thing vividly, meaning the one thing your heightened awareness allowed you to perceive
while all your other senses were under fire. Honestly it’s good you only remember the color,
as I’d assume most everything else might’ve been a bit too much.”

“What exactly happened then?”

“Mr. Potter… the troll did in fact grab you, and apparently it squeezed very hard.” She
explained gently, and Harry’s mind went blank.

I…think I should be really happy I don’t remember that. That sounds…really bad. But wait—
I’m NOT dead?

“I don’t really remember feeling pain. It was only after, when Professor Snape tried to move
me.” He confessed, trying to think back before he realized that was a bad idea. He was pretty
sure he didn’t want to remember the specifics of that event now that he knew what’d
happened. “How… exactly how am I injured again? Because I don’t feel anything right
now.”

“That’s by design,” She told him like she thought he was a moron, lying here thinking she’d
let one of her patients feel pain, which, you know, Harry had to give to her. “It was
extraordinarily unfortune the troll managed to grab hold of you, however you’re extremely
lucky that all the damage you sustained is very fixable. Your shoulder and arm were shattered
and your rib cage was collapsed inwards; it punctured your lungs and several other organs,
not to mention you had a case of whiplash from what the professors tell me is the troll
dropping you. For your life I prioritized your organs and for your comfort I fixed up your
shoulder and arm. The bones are still settling there and the ones in your hands are extremely
delicate in nature so you’re not to use that arm for a gosh darn thing for the next week which
is why I bound it up to remind you. Your ribs were a little trickier and are still out of
alignment, but after you’ve rested some I’ll take a look at finishing them up later today and
you’ll be here for the next three days until I’m sure you’re not going to put too much strain
on them while they’re so tender. I am aware you’re on the house quidditch team—Minerva
has explained it to me at length—so if you rest properly for the next week then come the
following weekend for a check up you will be permitted to participate in that match. If I so
much as sense you’re not taking your health seriously though, I will petition the Headmaster
to ban you from all activities for the next month.”

Three days to fix all that damage—four counting the day he’d already been unconscious.
Magical medicine was truly a miracle. While he was not thrilled with three days of being
stuck here, he figured it was a fair trade for his life and not spending the next six months
breathing through a straw—on top of the fact that two weeks away was his first quidditch
match ever and he wouldn’t have to miss it even though he’d literally almost died not too
long ago.

This was a strange world he’d fallen into.

“It doesn’t hurt,” He admitted again because he couldn’t think of anything else to respond
with and maybe he was a moron. She nodded in agreement to both.

“Of course not, I’ve given you enough pain reducing potions to numb a hippogriff. After that
ordeal I’ll not have you go into shock on top of it!”

“Oh.” Well, that made sense at least.

“Just because you don’t feel it doesn’t mean you can move—your ribs are still very much
broken until I can see to it later today so just lie still. Also, your shoulder muscles are a bit
inflamed from the healing so you’ll tear something if you over-extend before they’ve cooled
off after some rest, so just be patient.”

There wasn’t really a good response to that other than the ‘yes ma’am’ on the tip of his
tongue. He wasn’t going anywhere and he had no desire to put up a fight against the woman
who’d saved his life, so he switched topics blatantly.

“What’s a hippogriff?”

Pomfrey’s stern look finally softened a bit, giving him a slightly amused sigh.

“You’ll learn about it in one of your classes, I’m sure.”

“What day is it?”

“It’s Saturday November 2nd , 7:39 in the morning.”

“How exactly does one become a Healer?”

Now she looked very amused. “You become very good at potions and charms, and have a
desire to put up with children who ask too many questions.”

“Ah…” she made a fair point, and he grumbled as she patted him gently on the head while he
was helplessly still very much numb and unable to move, which he thought was a little unfair.
“I know you’re still tired, so perhaps sleep a little more if you can. You’ve had quite a few
visitors while you were asleep and I’m sure they’ll all be making another appearance
throughout today, especially when word spreads that you’ve regained consciousness. You
don’t want to be falling asleep on any of them, do you?”

“Guess not…” He allowed, and it wasn’t like he didn’t feel tired as hell. The fuzzy, sinking
feeling of wanting to go back to sleep hadn’t really gone away yet aside from the brief
moment he’d been angry, and it wasn’t hard to sink back into it easily.

“I will wake you later regardless to see to your ribs, so off you go.” She soothed as she
passed by his bedside again, and once she was out of view and Harry no longer had
something to focus on, his eyelids got heavy.

He was out before he even considered disobeying her.

000

It felt like seconds later he was drifting back up from where he felt like he was still floating
in those pain reduction potions, and it only took a second to realize it was because of voices
echoing in the high ceilings of the infirmary. Harry felt far more awake than before—still
sleepy and mind moving like molasses as he stirred from slumber, but the intense desire to
want to go back to bed was a lot easier to ignore.

It was taking a lot of effort to open his eyes though, his mind clearing in the fog as the voices
got loud enough to shake him from his rest.

“Mr. Zabini, if you can’t keep your voice down I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He
heard Pomfrey’s voice from what seemed like a distance away.

“See what you did?”

“What I did?”

“Guys, maybe let’s not do this now?”

“He started it!”

“What are you, five?”

“And you’re telling me you’re friends with Harry, and that’s why you’re here. Really.”

“I never said anything of the sort. Giving gifts to invalids is polite and I’m a Slytherin. I’m
nothing if not polite.”

“There’s a word for people like you, Blaise.” Harry finally opened his eyes, amused at the
interaction going on around him—and even more amused when all four people around him
had heart-attacks when they realized he was awake, including Blaise who Harry had never
seen look more than slightly miffed, much less outright shocked.
“Harry!” Susan all but shoved Lu out of the way even as he opened his mouth to say
something, her auburn hair flailing around him as she made an awkward, aborted attempt to
hug him before realizing that was probably a bad idea. “You’re awake! We were so worried!”

“Oh good, he’s not dead. Well, my job here is done.” Blaise commented lightly, flashing a
grin as he lifted up a neatly wrapped envelope and placed it on the bedside table beside
Harry’s bed that he didn’t have the energy to turn his head and see. He stood with a flourish
and winked at Lu, who turned a bright shade of red in fury. “Best be off then!”

“Aw, and here I thought you were here to visit me.” Harry mock pouted, the tall Slytherin
rolling his eyes automatically.

“It is the polite thing to offer gifts to invalids, as I said, and as an acquaintance I had both the
obligation to do so and the advantageous position in which it would be socially acceptable for
me to visit. All of Slytherin wants to know if you’re dead but wouldn’t actually lower
themselves to come on their own, so here I am. And since you’re awake and I know it before
anyone else, I’m now atop the rumor mill: I’ve only got a couple hours to bank on this and
daylight’s burning.” He brushed it off delicately.

“I feel used.” Harry complained but Blaise just waved over his shoulder as he walked away.

“You’ll get used to it dear.” He called, and then he was gone, leaving Harry very entertained
and the remaining three pink-cheeked from indignation at Zabini’s sass.

“And you actually like him?” Hannah demanded, taking Blaise’s vacated seat to be closer,
and Harry would’ve shrugged, if he was able to at that moment.

“He can be entertaining. Also, Draco likes him and I’m not allowed to comment on my
friends’ choice of friends, because that’d be hypocritical.” He said by way of explanation,
and while he saw most of them mentally wonder why he was friends with Draco in the first
place, none of them voiced it.

“Really though, it’s good to see you awake. You gave everyone a right heart attack, when we
heard what happened.” Lu huffed, settling down some when it was clear Blaise had done a
great job of getting on every last one of his nerves in a very short amount of time.

“Poor Neville too,” Hannah lowered her voice considerably, and Harry felt his stomach twist.

“Where is he?”

“Probably in the greenhouses still. He’s spent most of the time since we heard over there,
aside from classes.” She frowned worriedly.

“Dean said he was already back at the Gryffindor dorm when they got back after Professor
Quirrell warned everyone about the troll. He had no idea what was happening—he freaked
out and no one realized it was because he knew where you were.” Susan explained.

“Seamus thought he was just scared of the troll and tried to keep him in their room to calm
him down but by the time anyone listened to him it was kind of already too late.” Hannah
sighed wearily, definitely looking guilty despite not having been anywhere near Gryffindor
tower that night to be at fault.

And Harry knew why—despite them getting closer thanks to playing football every so often,
Neville was still kind of… the wallflower of the group, honestly. He knew people didn’t take
Neville seriously, but that…. I mean even Seamus, who was definitely one of the nicer guys
of their whole year by like a lot. The Hufflepuff girls were nice, but definitely the gossipy,
judgmental types like most preteen girls were, and he knew for a fact that despite liking him,
they’d both probably had some unkind thoughts to their slightly outcasted group member.

Even Lu, who was pursing his lips a bit, probably hadn’t been mentally charitable towards
Neville either. He was a Ravenclaw after all, an athletic one at that. Neville was neither
athletic nor Ravenclaw-ish in any way, and his bad luck in mist-cast spells and his struggling
to perform most magics meant his grades were not Ravenclaw-standard either.

But Neville had tried to help and no one had listened to him, and while Dean and Seamus
weren’t here to give their sides of the story, it was clear everyone else was feeling a little bit
of proximity guilt. They weren’t exactly to blame at all for what happened—even Neville’s
warning might not have changed anything—but they’d been complicit in creating the attitude
they all had that Neville wasn’t credible.

Harry mentally winced. He hadn’t really talked to Neville in weeks—the blond wasn’t one to
bring things up on his own but Harry had known he had issues with Draco and kept it to
himself. He had issues with the Slytherins, with the flying incident, with Harry’s fight with
Draco… Neville had been right there and clearly been keeping his thoughts to himself.

Harry suddenly felt a bit guilty, having noticed it but not taking the time to ask. Neville
wasn’t exactly going anywhere, so Harry had always thought he had time to get around to it.

And that kind of made him a terrible friend.

He winced visibly.

“You okay?” Lu sat up alarm, seeing that.

“Yeah, my shoulder just hurts,” he lied immediately, not willing to get into the guilt he felt
itching at his stomach. He hadn’t had any regrets since coming to Hogwarts… actually, no,
he hadn’t had any regrets since he’d decided to be on his own side, refusing to let anyone
manipulate or beat him into following any path that wasn’t his own.

He hadn’t been expecting to actually care about someone like he cared about Draco, and to
realize he couldn’t be as cold or as calculating as he was with his Slytherin friends was an
uneasy feeling. Draco got it when they didn’t speak for weeks, and he figured out how to get
around it—he was off fighting his own battles with Slytherin’s politics in any case, and so
Harry didn’t have to think about him all too often other than to enjoy his presence when they
were together and slowly piece together his ‘operation fox’ idea. Harry could be himself with
Draco, which meant he could live his life the way he pleased, Draco doing the same and
living his own life, and the two of them would still be there in the moments they wanted to
enjoy each other. But neither of them had to lean on each other or depend on each other to
live those lives.

Everyone else… while Harry liked them, his attitude to them was always the same. Don’t
interfere with my life, and I won’t bother you. Simple, logical, and he didn’t have to get
attached or become influenced by others, which would interfere with his dedication to putting
himself first.

And yes, it was selfish. Harry already knew that.

But if you only got one ally in your life, yourself, Harry wanted his only ally to be a good
one. He didn’t want to have to lean on people and he most certainly didn’t want to be
beholden to anyone. Draco was enough, and he already felt an obligation or connection to
him more than he felt to anyone else, but it had absolutely never changed the way he chose to
act and he wanted to keep it that way.

It kind of sucker punched him in the gut to realize that, without even noticing, Neville had
somehow inched closer than Harry was consciously willing to let people get.

And now he felt bad about his actions towards the meek blond, and he distinctly didn’t like it.
He’d gotten too used to being unashamed for this to be a kind reminder to what he used to
feel, before he’d decided he was worthy of being loved by himself.

Just because he was keen on being on his own side, didn’t mean he couldn’t also be objective
with who he was as a person. He knew he was selfish, he knew he was probably a little vain,
but he hadn’t realized he was a bad friend until now. He was fine with the first two, but not
the last one.

He was going to have to fix that somehow.

“Maybe we should let you rest then, we just wanted to check on you. Madam Pomfrey said
you’d wake up today and we had gifts to deliver.” Lu took his pained expression to mean he
was literally in pain, and Harry was fine with the assumption.

“Gifts?” He blinked.

“Didn’t you see your table here?” Susan grinned, pointing something out of his periphery, but
his drugged state didn’t let him move his neck more than tilting his head to the left an inch.

“Ah, I think Madam Pomfrey stunned me or something so I don’t break anything else: I can’t
move.” He admitted.

“Wouldn’t shock me.” Lu grinned. “The whole school heard about what happened of course,
so you got a lot of well-wishers visiting. You’ve got tons of things here—candies, cards,
some wrapped gifts, and uh… a toilet seat for some reason.” He helpfully explained,
although was looking rather baffled at that last one.

“Um… not sure what the joke is, but I’m willing to bet it was the twins doing.” Harry
suggested, and the three of them nodded at that point. “Well that’s nice of everyone, I’ll have
to thank them some-”

WAIT. The twins!

If Neville was already back at the tower, where were the twins!?

“Harry?” Hannah broke him out of his sudden panic—all three of them looking concerned at
whatever expression he had on.

He tried to focus himself quickly. No one had mentioned anything about someone else getting
hurt so far, so maybe they got away with it somehow. I mean, they’d delivered him a toilet
seat as a joke (he really hoped it was them at least, or someone was going to owe him a very
good explanation) so clearly they hadn’t been killed at least, and didn’t hate him enough to
stop being friendly/pulling pranks on him. He decided to keep his mouth shut about it just in
case, not wanting to give them away, although he felt ice cold from the realization that he
might’ve risked the twins’ lives on top of his own. Not that he’d known about the troll, not
that he could’ve ever known, but he felt guilty anyway.

It really had been a horrible night, and now he felt guilty over no less than three people. AND
he was hospitalized.

This sucked.

“Sorry. Just a little tired.” He deflected their concern, although it didn’t nothing to sooth them
as he let them incorrectly assume he was still in pain.

“Maybe we should go, let you rest some.” Susan frowned.

“No, that’s fine… I’ll let you guys do the talking though. Tell me about what’s happened
since I was out,” he offered, and they hesitated a bit before settling down once more. Hannah
and Susan had a novel ready to go on school gossip of course, with Lu chiming in
occasionally about more interesting things concerning school life, and Harry let his guilt fall
to the back of his mind as he enjoyed their visit for the time being.

He had work to do later, but he could at least enjoy this now.

000

It was very much after dinner when footsteps alerted Harry that he had another visitor. Draco
had spent dinner with him in here, having brought his own food from somewhere as Madam
Pomfrey had finally fixed his ribs and helped him sit up to eat his own meal. Magic really
was wonderful, and as the last of his pain potions wore off, despite being sore as hell and his
shoulder aching fiercely, he wasn’t in extreme pain despite knowing he’d very nearly been
dead about 48 hours prior.

But his organs were back to healthy enough to have treacle tart and his bones fixed enough
that he could feed himself, so he could handle another day or so of ache for now.

Draco had clearly heard from Blaise already that he was alive, and being raised in a magical
family probably had more faith in magical healing than Harry himself did, so he wasn’t
shocked so to say… he wasn’t happy but he was clearly keeping his snarkier comments to
himself until Harry was at least out of the hospital wing. Instead they’d spent the meal going
over the class notes Harry missed while he was out—the only class he’d missed actually,
which was unfortunately potions.

Apparently Snape had given him a zero for both attendance and the classwork, and Draco had
said not to even bother trying to ask for a make-up. Harry hadn’t pegged Snape for the lenient
type anyway, even if the man had been there to see him literally get crushed by a troll only
the night prior. Draco hadn’t bothered do more than go over the potion they’d covered with
him briefly, already focusing on the next one since he’d have to get high scores for the rest of
the semester in order to ensure his grade didn’t drop too terribly.

Harry paid close attention to Draco’s notes on yesterday’s potion though, already having a
sinking suspicion that it was going to pop up on an exam or even their final eventually.

Much later though, when even Draco had given up drilling potions into him and turned in for
the night, when curfew couldn’t be that far away, he heard shuffling footsteps and propped
himself up on his bed now that he could do such a thing to look for who it was.

He kind of already knew who it was though, and so just smiled when Neville peeked his head
around the curtain divider.

“Hey Neville.” He greeted, keeping his voice down because he had a feeling it was late
enough for Madam Pomfrey to feel the need to kick visitors out.

“Hey Harry.” The blond greeted just as quietly, also glancing around for the infamous nurse
before slipping closer and taking the seat beside his bed. “I would’ve brought flowers but the
ones I’m tending to are poisonous.”

“While I think that’d be interesting, Pomfrey might throw a fit.” He grinned, and Neville
nodded a bit too seriously. Having already met the woman and been under her care this year,
he likely had a healthy respect/fear of her. More so than Harry’s self-destructive snarky
mouth did, at least. “You okay? I mean-”

“I should really be asking you that.” Neville cut him off a bit, which Harry was both
surprised and kind of pleased with, somehow.

“Well, hopped up on pain reducing potions and with Madam Pomfrey’s assurance I’ll be right
as rain in a day or two, so you know. Happy you’re here entertaining me because it’s right
boring here.”

Neville offered a weak smile at that, but didn’t really answer either. There was a long pause
in which Harry realized this was kind of the moment he had to step up as a friend. He took a
breath.

“Neville, forgive me if this sounds a little self-absorbed… but this isn’t your fault, you know
that right?” He tried to keep the concern out of his voice, laying it there matter-of-factly for
his friend to hear and address as he liked.
But it was important he knew. Him asking Harry to go look for Hermione, no one believing
him back at the tower… it was absolutely not his fault that any of it had happened. But
Neville had a kind heart, and Harry worried he won’t see it that way.

The blond kept his head down, and there was a long silence as he seemed to take that in.
Harry, for once, kept his mouth shut and patiently let him work out whatever it was he was
building to say.

And then:

“Would you hate me if I said I know?”

Harry blinked.

Wait… what?

“Uh… no? Not at all actually. I just worried…I mean that sounds arrogant if you know what I
mean, but it’s good if you don’t. You shouldn’t.”

“Worried I’d feel guilty for asking you to check on Hermione.” Neville was looking at him
now, blue eyes wide but not alarmed. Calm and facing forward… and Harry actually felt a
little uncomfortable to be put on the spot like this. That was… new.

“Well, yeah.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Just to reiterate you shouldn’t so we’re on
the same page. That’s good. Uh…yeah.”

Neville didn’t really react other than nodding slightly. He tilted his head a bit as he spoke
again, in the same clam, even tone.

“If you hadn’t been there, Hermione might’ve died.” He intoned blankly.

Harry stared at him.

“Well… she’s an impressive witch. She could’ve-”

“Harry.” Again, he was cut off and the gentle, but no-nonsense tone Neville had to have
inherited from that terrifying grandmother he talked about shut Harry up immediately. If he
thought the quiet Gryff had killer mother-hen eyes, that paled in comparison to this kind of
slightly-disappointed-parent tone he had on now. “She could’ve died, and probably would
have.”

He ducked his head a bit, hands closing around themselves in his lap tightly as if retraining
himself physically. “If I were to regret something, it’s that I didn’t go check on her myself
earlier in the day. I should’ve—I noticed she didn’t come back to classes. I should’ve done it
before dinner, because I noticed. But I didn’t.”

Harry was at a total loss and not really feeling like he was doing the comforting here
anymore. It kind of sounded like Neville had already made up his mind which was… kind of
cool, but threw him for a wild loop.
“You don’t really know Hermione like I do. It was reasonable to wait until dinner and ask
me.”

Neville met his gaze again, the frown on his lips the sheer definition of disappointed that
Harry could say such a thing now and Harry felt himself flush a bit in embarrassment.

“She’s never been anything but kind to me. I owed her more than that.”

Harry was totally speechless.

Who knew Neville had such a strong sense of morality?

“If I had to do it again, knowing what I knew at the time, I still would’ve asked. Because
she’s our friend and she deserved someone to go after her. If I’d known there’d have been a
troll, I’d still have asked, but I’d have gone with you.” Neville continue, his voice hard and
even and solid as a stone that refused to move in the face of the river crashing around it.

Harry was surprised, but he felt a smile forming on his lips unwillingly, as a warmth and fond
amusement hijacked his heart.

“Or we could’ve been clever about it and told a teacher.” He pointed out, biting back a grin
when Neville seemed to jolt out of his serious persona for a moment to blush heavily at that
obvious point he’d missed. Neville was the kind of Gryffindor that Dumbledore tried to paint
Harry as after all—the brave at heart one who would do anything for his friends before
thinking twice about if there was an easier or more logical answer. “I do appreciate the
sentiment though. And in the end, there was no way anyone could’ve called a freakin troll
wandering the hallways.”

Except Dumbledore, but that’s another matter.

“I don’t like that you got hurt, but sometimes people just get hurt. I’m more relieved you’ll be
okay than anything.” Neville admitted. Harry noticed he didn’t even mention what had
happened back at the tower, and he gave a silent sigh. Neville was… probably too kind, if
that was a thing.

“Thanks Neville.” He smiled, not bringing it up for now. There was a ton of things he
probably could’ve used this moment to bring up, all the things he’d been avoiding, but…
maybe one heart-to-heart conversation per day was a good start. He didn’t want to come off
as pitying, or like this near-death experience had shocked him awake into being a better
friend. I mean that was technically what happened, but it would feel cheap somehow, and the
implication would always be there that he’d forget about Neville when the shock of almost
dying wore off.

If he wanted to be a better friend and mean it, it wasn’t going to be a conversation they had.
If he wanted to apologize it would have to be through his actions showing that he was sorry,
and from here on out just being better than he had been before. And maybe someday he’d
bring up the apology he owed Neville, once he’d already proved he really meant it. An
apology with nothing behind it showing you meant it, showing that you legitimately regretted
it enough to change your actions, meant absolutely nothing after all.
So, he made a vow and started plotting, but he didn’t bring it up for now. Operation Lion had
a nice ring to it.

“Now what about that Transfiguration homework? McGonagall will probably give me a pass
but then again, she’s McGonagall and even being attacked by a troll might not sway her and I
didn’t have a chance to finish what she assigned last week. What was it on again?” He
tactlessly changed the subject, and Neville smiled in his small, kind little way that he had
when he knew Harry was being…well, Harry, and patiently indulging him.

He pulled out some notes from his bag and Harry happily picked holes in his homework to
improve his arguments, and Neville just jotted them down obediently.

Things would change, Harry was sure of it. He would see to it, that is… and he’d take it one
day at a time.

000

“You are the most unfortunate lucky person I’ve ever met, Mr. Potter.”

Oh I know that prim and disappointed tone anywhere!

“Professor McGonagall!” he chirped, grinning as she came around the curtain to his hospital
bed. It was probably lunch break Monday judging by the time, and Harry felt pretty much
healed apart from the fact Pomfrey wasn’t about to let him go until tomorrow—or the fact his
arm was still bound up so tight he couldn’t really use it (it didn’t hurt, but Pomfrey assured
him it was magical, and not because he was no longer injured). As it was he was he was
upright in bed, reading Dell’s journals and several transfiguration books Neville and Draco
had brought him so he didn’t get bored enough to consider a jail break before he was healed.

For once, both Gryffindor and Slytherin were on exactly the same page as the two of them
seemed to have the same exact thought independently of each other.

“What about an unfortunate lucky person?” He tilted his head as she came to stand beside his
bed and give him the same stern looks she always had. Like he was up to some mischief
somehow no matter how innocent his smile.

“Most students go seven years at Hogwarts without ever running into a legitimately
dangerous creature without being carefully monitored by a teacher first, and you manage to
run into a mountain troll within weeks of getting here. Most adults never run into mountain
trolls in their lives.”

“If I had a choice in the matter I very much would not have chosen to do that though.” He
pointed out, and her sour look worsened. Oops.

"As it is, when we were cleaning up we found a large mass of molten metal where the
confrontation with the troll went down. Ms. Granger said you transfigured its club; can you
explain?"
Ah, transfiguration. He could talk on this subject all day, even if he was suspicious about why
she was here to talk about it.

"Well I panicked really, and I only know a couple spells. We were working on perfecting
changing matches into needles and wood-to-metal was the first thing that came to mind when
I pointed my wand at it." He admitted. He saw no reason to lie to her, as she was the only
adult who treated his arguments and thoughts as valid. He could only respond with the same
respect.

She raised one eyebrow pointedly.

"You show a great deal of promise in my classes with your control, however that stunt proves
you have a significant amount of power at your disposal too. You still need a lot more
practice as if you'd done it correctly that club should've been solid metal—in this case it
works out as that would only have done quite a bit more damage." Harry felt sweat pop up on
his brow as he imagined that—clearly he hadn’t thought it through, but he’d panicked okay!?
"Still, it’s a rare witch or wizard who leans on transfiguration first, in a battle-like setting,
instead of a charm or an offensive spell. In any case… thirty points to Gryffindor, for an
excellent show of Transfiguration. Keep at it, Mr. Potter."

And just like that, she gave him an indulgent smile before turning and walking away before
Harry could close his jaw enough to respond.

He only just barely managed to perk up and shout after her just before she left the hospital
wing.

"Thank you professor!"

In all his eleven years of life, Harry could not remember feeling this warmth ever before, but
he immediately decided it loved it.
 Falling, Just a Bit

It was a bright, lovely Saturday morning in Autumn, just over a week from when he’d
almost been squashed by a troll on a dark, Halloween night.

Harry had gotten a clean bill of health from Madam Pomfrey just earlier that morning which
really only continued to surprise him as everyone else around who was raised in magical
families seemed totally unperturbed by how fast magical medicine worked. That meant today
he was allowed to participate in some mild exercise to get back into shape before his
quidditch match next weekend, and if his chosen activity was football, all the better to let his
still sore shoulder rest up a bit more.

And because he was brilliant at what he did, he’d managed to track down and convince Fred
and George to join their budding football club. He tried to apologize to them, but they’d cut
him off and hadn’t even let him finish speaking before going off about something else, so he
still didn’t know what their opinion on the matter was. Since it was pretty hard to track them
down and keep them still, getting them to join their club seemed like a good idea at the time.

But the thing was… the twins were very, very good at quidditch, mainly because their
positions were all but designed for them. Beaters were a team within a team, and when you
could practically read someone's mind then that team was a very, very good one.

And Harry was slightly in despair to realize this talent of their very easily translated down a
couple hundred meters into the grass of the quidditch pitch they'd been cleared to use for their
football club, as he watched Fred and George kick a ball back and forth to each other with a
positively terrifying speed and accuracy. Never done this before his butt— there was no way
they didn't have practice at this under their belts.

And he said as much, loudly.

One of the twins threw his head back, laughing heartily when he heard that complaint.

"Dad works for the Ministry for the prevention of magical artifacts getting into muggles'
hands."

"He loves muggle stuff and we've known about this game for a while-"

"Dad confiscated many an enchanted football and returned it back to normal-"

"Kept it in our shed though and it got way boring at home once our older brothers went to
Hogwarts-"

"And the littler ones were too young to play with us."

"We've kicked this thing around before," They chorused as they kept kicking it back and
forth to each other a break-neck speed that left even Dean looking uneasy. It was as if their
lightning-fast hits back and forth with beater bats had translated directly into a football
skidding across the ground and now Harry knew he was not actually good at football, just
better than people his own age. The twins though, were looking to be very good at football.

Harry turned to Lu beside him with a deadpan. "What were you saying about it being unfair I
was good at both quidditch and football?"

"Well." Lu huffed, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. "Who expects the Weasley twins, honestly?"

Harry snorted automatically and Seamus outright laughed behind them.

"Um… I've never really played this game before. Is that what we're supposed to do?" One of
their other new additions chimed in from a little ways away.

Felix and Marissa were third year Ravenclaws who'd seen the sign and were interested, but
both were pureblood who didn't know the rules. Alexander was a second year Hufflepuff
who'd heard Susan and Hannah going on about this club and being a muggleborn himself
with no interest in quidditch thought it worth looking into, but even though he knew the game
he looked a little green at trying to get between the twins and their psychic rhythm here.

In addition to those three there were two Gryffindor second years and three Hufflepuff first
years, a mix of muggleborn and half-bloods who were interested in a sport other than
quidditch that was open to everyone, and curious purebloods who had no idea what was
going on but had heard of this little get together and wanted to know more. Not a single
Slytherin so far though, not that Harry was shocked. He could wait them out though.

"Those two are ridiculous. Ignore them." Harry assured Felix's nervous question quickly.

"Hey!" The twins in question cried indignantly.

"This is never going to work." Lu huffed, crossing his arms pointedly. "We're all at such
different skill levels and knowledge of the game that it won't be fair to those learning to have
to put up with those more skilled and those who already know the game and want to play
won't be content to doing basic passes and kicks every week." He laid out the problem like a
true Ravenclaw, his housemates instantly looking thoughtful on how to solve it but not quite
sure how. Mainly because most of them didn't really know what the game entailed in the first
place.

"Well it's not like Hogwarts doesn't have enough land to spread out. Maybe we should split
up into skill groups—first years or really those who don't know what the heck is going on in
one group, other more experienced in another. We should also draw straws because if the
twins are always on the same team I don't think anyone but them is going to have a good
time."

"Now that is just plain rude, Apples." One of them—Harry was just going to randomly label
that one George— stuck his tongue out, not even breaking stride from playing ball with his
brother.

"True, but rude!" Fred agreed unhelpfully, earning himself a particularly hard kick from his
brother that sent the ball directly into his chest and downed him dramatically, much to
everyone's amusement.

"Okay, let’s start like this: who doesn't know a thing about football? And it's fine to raise your
hand, I know there are at least three of you."

Felix, Marissa, both the Gryffindor second years, and one of the Hufflepuff first years all
raised their hands. With Neville, Hannah, and Susan that meant there'd be eight in the
'beginners' group. Harry probably should've been in the beginner's group but after showing
off the last weeks he wasn't sure Dean or Lu (who'd somehow become co-leaders of this
thing, he wasn’t sure how that happened but had a suspicion there was some intense shop talk
happening between the two new bros when he wasn’t around) would agree with that opinion.
While he could run laps around Neville who'd literally never heard of football until a month
ago, he was absolutely trash compared to the speed Fred and George had been going at. Was
there an intermediate level?

"That splits us pretty even actually, if Neville, Susan, and Hannah you'd want to stay to learn
more." Dean offered, and the three of them glanced at each other but just shrugged, knowing
they didn't really have grounds to claim they were all that good. They knew the rules at least,
compared to the rest of the beginners. Or sort of did, as Harry wasn't sure Susan had ever
admitted defeat to Lu about what she maintained as 'legal'.

"That means its eight and eight—I can stay over here and talk rules and basics, while
everyone else who wants to play a pick-up game."

"Let's do it width-ways on the pitch so we can be within shouting distance—we're not big
enough for full teams anyway." Lu suggested and no one had an issue so they parted ways
and each took an end of the pitch, the upper years transfiguring sticks into make-shift goal
posts at Dean’s direction for each game and lots were drawn to decide teams. The twins were
not allowed to pick draws and had been put on different teams, which caused them to pout
playfully but they didn't argue.

"We've got five siblings, two of which are younger and one who is a priss who never liked to
fight dirty. We can cool it for now until we're all a bit better," One of them had said when
Harry warned them not to blow over the many first and second years they were playing
against. The only other third years on the field were in the beginner's course, after all. They
seemed genuinely okay with taking it easy and not going all out too, but then again Harry
hadn't met anyone quite as playful and laid back as the twins, so he didn't worry too much
about it (they ended up spending most of the time trying to sabotage each other anyway,
which was hilarious for all involved).

All in all, he worked up a good sweat by the end of their little club session, and he got a real
sense of pride to realize this thing was growing. The month had started out pretty terrible to
be fair, but things were definitely looking up.

000

“Why won’t you let me apologize?”

The twin he was kicking the ball to paused just enough to roll his eyes, then kick it over to
his brother almost without even looking. That twin caught it just as effortlessly.

“Let’s be real, avoiding a troll is not the most dangerous thing we’ve done in the name of a
prank,”

“And you even had more noble reasons for sending us off than we’d ever had.” The other
twin chimed in, equally as unimpressed with Harry’s attempt to make amends.

“Besides, the house elves knew before anyone the troll was out,”

“They didn’t let us leave the kitchens until it was clear.” They explained.

“House elves?” That was the second time he’d heard about them, but he still wasn’t sure what
they were. But more importantly: “Also, you know where the kitchens are?”

“Yeah we do!”

“That’s a handy trick for a late-night snack. We’ll show you sometime.”

“Well that’d be awesome,” Harry perked up, because that was brilliant knowledge to have,
for sure. And he reluctantly let the matter drop for now as he could see where the twins were
coming from. What was with these Gryffindor’s and their surprising sense of morals?

Maybe he hadn’t been sorted into the right house after all. He was starting to realize maybe
he wasn’t exactly nice enough to be a proper Gryffindor… he was really going to have to
watch that, moving forward.

The club had called it quits around lunch time as they usually did, but the twins were happy
to stick around and continue goofing off with each other so Harry had jumped at the chance
to get them alone. Now that he knew they knew where the kitchens were, skipping an official
meal time probably meant little to them. Harry was hungry though so he’d probably get that
information from them sooner rather than later.

"Hey Apples," One of the twins called after a couple minutes of quiet (a thing Harry
should’ve picked up on much faster with the twins, he realized) passing the ball around lazily.

"Hm?"

"Would you mind if we asked about the colors?"

"Colors?"

"I mean we know you were raised by muggles but we know muggles some too, from our
dad."

"You don't dress like muggles—or anybody really." They chimed in between themselves, and
Harry was surprised about the sudden change in topic. Especially from the twins, who were
the first to totally and entirely accept his weird quirks without so much as an eyebrow or
second glance other than appropriately appreciative. Not that they just didn’t comment or
notice, they routinely complimented him if he had a new hair pin or band t-shirt they liked
on, but other than that never really acknowledged his style choice. And everyone else either
just thought he was weird and ignored it or were pureblood and assumed that was how
muggles dressed.

He looked down at his outfit of the day, which he was proud of but still, people had long
since stopped bringing up what he wore. Teal shorts that went to mid-thigh with a bright
white stripe down the side, his white sneakers and a fitted bright pink t-shirt with a faded
yellow skull on the front. He thought it was a band shirt but wasn’t sure what the band was to
be honest, he just liked the colors. And since he knew he’d be running a lot today, he had his
hair in a high pony tail and one of Dell’s bracelets looped around the crown for flare, but had
otherwise left all his normal baubles off since he was running around and getting sweaty
today.

When he started at Hogwarts, he had no intention of explaining himself to people. They

could either leave him be or get lost, and he’d intended to maintain that during his time at this
school.

However… the twins had been very kind to him, and despite being a couple years older and
slightly removed life-experience-wise, they were genuinely happy, cheerful people who were
asking now out of harmless interest. No judgement from either of them, just an earnest
curiosity about him and Harry felt less defensive than he normally would be at a question like
that. And he still felt bad about unknowingly putting them in danger, so he took a breath and
explained.

"… the muggles I grew up with were the worst sort, really. I don't call them family—they're
relatives, nothing more." He began and they didn’t really have a reaction to that as they
continued to slowly kick the ball around, so he continued. "They were obsessed about
being normal. They never told me about magic, and I think they tried to stamp it out of me
although I didn't realize that's what they were doing. My aunt hated my mother and
her freakishness more than anything—except maybe my Dad and me."

They looked pretty confused at that, and Harry knew they would be. People who grew up
with magic learning there were people who hated it was probably a new concept, and he
smiled wryly at them. "I guess growing up being told that anything even slightly abnormal
was freakish and wrong was counter-productive: when I decided to be free of their opinions
and of them in general I decided to be who I was no matter what. If that meant wearing a shirt
I liked the color of, then so be it.” He gave a soft chuckle at the understatement in
amusement. “It snowballed into being a bit more than wearing odd colored shirts just to be
defiant in my aunt's eyes. I decided I liked color and shiny things and the color of my hair
so… here I am." He opened his arms as if gesturing to himself with a small, earnest smile.
"No apologies."

“…”

“…”

Twins gave each other a look, and then one of them smiled but with something a bit sad in his
face.
"We always thought about that too. The no apologies part." He paused his words to kick the
ball harshly towards his brother who caught it, shrugging a bit. "We grew up being told
Gryffindor means brave of heart, and that every Weasley for centuries has been a
Gryffindor. A long time ago we decided that meant something different to us than it does to
everyone else—that we should be brave enough to love and hate and feel whatever we
wanted with our hearts no matter anyone else's opinions or how right or wrong it was. To be
brave enough to be pure of heart—or pure to what our hearts feel." He grinned widely with a
light laugh of his own. "We kind of figured that's what you were going to say, which is why
we asked. We could tell pretty quickly you were our kind of person and thought you might
agree with our perspective."

Harry blinked, surprised by that. And suddenly, he was reevaluating what the Sorting Hat had
said about Gryffindor.

Huh.

And then, a little belatedly, he realized only one twin had said that—and made a mini-speech
of it too, without his twin interrupting for the first time since Harry had met them. The other
just hit the ball back and forth with them like he was listening, but not truly engaging in the
conversation for once—his face blank and eyes focused on the ball.

Odd.

He glanced between the two of them, but they were identical. Right down to their freckles,
somehow. That had to be magic, right? But… clearly they were different, as they were
showing their difference now, for the first time, and Harry sensed this was just as important a
confession for them as his own was.

"I think I do. Agree, that is." He acknowledged carefully. "It's a great way to look at it… and
honestly it makes more sense about why I'm in Gryffindor, not Slytherin."

The first twin snickered, the other still not looking up. Harry was a little concerned, to be
honest.

"Do you agree?" He asked mainly to the silent twin, who looked up in surprise… smiling a
bit belatedly as if realizing he’d been acting off. And still, his smile didn’t match his
brother’s, as it was wry instead of sad.

"I do. Fred and I agreed on this years ago—we were like seven really." He admitted,
revealing himself to be George… which was interesting. But even as Harry watched, his eyes
dimmed slightly. "It's just not always so easy, is it? Not that we ever thought it'd be."

He kicked the ball a bit harsher than before which sent it spiraling off into the nearby field
and Fred pointedly did not comment or look at his twin, but chased after it as if to avoid
whatever it was his brother was talking about.

Harry wondered— he couldn’t not be curious— especially when they were dropping heavy
hints like this and suddenly being so very different it was all he could do to keep his mouth
shut and not immediately start asking questions about why they never actually acted different
before. But it was clear they weren’t willing to talk about it today, as they’d already
confessed more than just a little, so he kept his questions to himself.

Some things weren’t easy to say, and he knew that. But he was happy the twins were willing
to share just this much for today.

000

“Draco, I know you’re cracked, but why must we walk with him today of all days.” Blaise
complained, but Draco was an expert at tuning his roommate out by now.

“I’m being supportive because I will not be cheering for Gryffindor and hope you lose, so
I’m being nice now.” He explained, looking more at Harry as he spoke, who promptly rolled
his eyes.

With his clean bill of health, and a week of hard prep to make up for his time injured, it
meant today Harry was ready to compete in his first quidditch game—against the Slytherins,
unfortunately, so while Draco was nice enough to walk with him to the Great Hall in support
of his first game, he would still be cheering for the Slytherin team and hoping Gryffindor lost
brutally.

Draco was a lunatic when it came to quidditch after all; it had less to do with house rivalries
although it certainly didn’t help. Harry knew since the moment he’d told Draco he was on the
team and the blond had pouted for a week about a first year who wasn’t him being allowed to
play, that their friendship didn’t stand a chance against Draco’s passion for quidditch.

He didn’t take offense. McGonagall was his favorite teacher after all and she damn near lost
her mind over the game too (she gave him a freaking NIMBUS 2000 like a teacher giving a
student a present wasn’t the weirdest thing ever but it was the loveliest broom ever so he
couldn’t actually find it within himself to complain earnestly about it), so he knew it was just
a sickness certain people had, and wouldn’t hold it against them.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t competitive and very much aiming to win today, he just wasn’t
going to be mad at Draco later when he pouted over his house team losing.

Not that Harry was cocky or anything, he smirked to himself.

“Cheer all you want, Slytherin won’t win so easily.”

“We are undefeated for the past several years though.” Draco shot back smugly.

“Yeah, since Charlie Weasley graduated as the last good seeker we had and in those days
Gryffindor was the undefeated ones. Fred and George have trained against both of us and tell
me I may just have him matched.” He was not ashamed to say he was flaunting, but Draco
started it and the playful glare he got made his bragging worth it.

Besides, bragging felt better than thinking about the butterflies currently eating away at his
stomach in nerves.
“Youngest seeker in a century—McGonagall wouldn’t have let it happen if he weren’t good
enough to make the blatant rule-breaking worth it.” Blaise pointed out neutrally—mostly to
get a rise out of Draco and it definitely worked.

“That’s still totally lame. She can get away with it because she’s Dumbledore’s favorite, but
if Professor Snape tried the whole school would be calling for someone’s head.” The blond
complained.

“Tell us something we don’t know,” Harry scoffed. “I’ll be more understanding to your plight
another day, when my grade has recovered from Snape failing me for getting crushed by a
troll.”

“He must really hate you. That’s outlandish, even for him.” Blaise allowed, Draco pouting
and not willing to get into the conversation about his godfather once again. He played the
balance of being both a good godson and a good friend—and neither of those things were
compatible on a good day, so for now he just brushed by the topic.

“Okay, fairness aside it doesn’t impact the fact that one new player isn’t going to change the
dynamic of a record-breaking winning streak of a well-established team.”

“Well established team my butt, Wood only goes on and on about the holes in your defense.”

“But our offense is best in the school, and a new seeker isn’t going to change that!”

“No, but you yourself have gone on for ages about the seeker being the focal point that can
turn the tide of a game easily depending on the play.”

“Only with solid chasers to back them up, and Gryffindor’s got nothing on-”

“Don’t you even dare, our girls are just as cutthroat as any snake and I’ve got bruises to prove
it!”

Blaise rolled his eyes behind them. Harry liked to pretend he wasn’t as interested in
quidditch, just to highlight what a maniac Draco was about it, but the both of them were very
deeply into the game. Harry had only learned about it a couple months ago after all, and this
being his first game he was going to ever see much less play in, Blaise expected this hobby of
theirs to only get worse with time.

Oh joy. If Draco actually makes the team next year this’ll be all I hear about. Only good
thing is he might’ve messed up with Flint by being too pushy when we first started so maybe
he won’t make the cut. Although if I have to hear about that I might just move in with Crabbe
and Goyle if Nott doesn’t beat me to it.

He grimaced at his own bad joke. Yeah… it wasn’t as funny as he thought it’d be.

Wait… where is Nott? He blinked, glancing around and realized they were one person short
of their normal group. Nott was silent as wallpaper when Harry was around, but they
typically didn’t just lose him like that unless—
“Well, this isn’t a shock, but it sure is nauseating first thing in the morning.” A voice cut
Harry and Draco’s mild-mannered bickering off mere meters from the entrance to the Great
Hall, and Blaise felt a tick form in his temple.

You can’t be serious right now.

They turned, and the not-as-pretty red head of their own house, Graham Montague, greeted
them with a sneer on his face. Well… he wasn’t polite enough to greet Blaise, nor was he as
their senior really obligated to greet a lowly first year even if he was a Zabini, so he let it go.

No… he was really addressing Draco, and Blaise kept his mouth shut to keep clear.

“Must you consort with a mudbood, Malfoy? And here I thought you had better breeding than
that. Seems the rumors of being inbred might have some merit.” The third year drawled, and
Draco’s hackles went up immediately.

Harry’s did too, for that matter, but other than narrowing of lime green eyes, he didn’t speak
over Draco as the blond straightened his posture to face his upper year head on.

“Montague.” The Malfoy managed to greet; jaw clenched in clear sign of what he thought of
the guy.

“And of course our favorite celebrity… Potter.” He turned his scathing greeting to the red
head beside his target, and Harry didn’t miss a beat.

“It’s Monroe, Mr. Montague.” And damn, if only Nott would talk to the Gryffindor, because
they could both pull off damn cold like no one’s business.

“Of course.” The third year rolled his eyes in blatant disregard for the request. “You’re a
flagrant little fly, aren’t you? You do know what mudblood means, right?”

“I’m aware.” He got out through his own clenched teeth this time.

Draco took a neat step forward and slightly forward to block Harry from view slightly.
“Enough, Montague.” He growled lowly at him, and the upper year sneered openly.

“Oh, so you’ve gone full-on traitor then?” He scoffed. “Let’s get one thing straight Malfoy,
you’re a sell-out of the highest order and you being a first year will only save you
temporarily. Keep making shit decisions like that and you better watch your back.” Saying
that while looking directly at Harry, green eyes on fire back at him. “And you should watch
your back on the pitch today, Potter. It’d be a real shame to see you back in the hospital wing
so quickly… then again, maybe the troll was onto something.”

“A relative, perhaps?” Draco shot back in mock politeness, and the eyes above him darkened
dangerously.

“Watch yourself, traitor. It’s poor form to knock out a first year but I’m sure people will
forgive me with a mouth like that on you.”
“I don’t think anyone would be shocked by a show of poor form from you of all people,
Montague.” Draco snarled back with equal venom, if slightly more restrained. “You’re not
exactly cream of the crop by anyone’s standards, no matter how many rumors you spread or
how many people you have telling you things you want to hear.” He jerked his chin up, every
bit of his pompous better than you air he had perfected since before Hogwarts making it’s
full, glorious appearance. “Come after me, that’s fine—but it won’t improve your family’s
status nor will it give you mine.”

The stinging implication to that insult being that Montague was jealous of the Malfoy wealth
and power.

And Blaise had to admit, that was one of the cleverest things his roommate had ever said.
Draco had a bad habit of outright leaning on his father’s position like it was his own—but
this was an improvement by far, even if it wasn’t the greatest comeback in the world.

The third year’s face turned such an alarming color, Blaise wondered if he’d popped a blood
vessel. “Watch yourself, brat. Let’s not forget you’re on a sinking boat because you sold out
your own kind, and that’s not on me.”

“Of course not, but you’re probably better suited to converse with your cousin the mountain
troll than get into it with someone like me, you backwater lump,” Malfoy snapped, temper
flaring— probably unsafely, as he didn’t have near as much grace as Harry managed while
under the influence of blinding rage. “I am not making any mistakes. You may be my senior
so it would be poor form to outright threaten you, but let’s not forget that threats against one’s
person can only be returned in kind.”

“You little piece of-”

“Is something the matter here?” They were thankfully interrupted by Sprout coming up
behind them, and all of them immediately snapped into more relaxed posture and expression
than they’d had on before. Slytherins were nothing if not good actors, and luckily Harry
caught on quick and wiped his expression blank.

“No professor.” Blaise spared the two fighting boys their moment to collect themselves and
smiled at her guiltlessly. “Just a little pre-quidditch jitters, I think. Let’s get breakfast
everyone,” He put on a but of a show of friendship for the head of Hufflepuff house, who
seemed to buy it as he ushered Draco and Montague off towards their table like they hadn’t
just been able to hex each other.

“Lead the way,” Harry chimed in with a subdued tone, Sprout flashing him a reassuring grin
which he accepted with his own show of warmth that at this point, Blaise had no idea if he
could believe or not.

“Good luck then, Mr. Potter, Mr. Montague! Let’s have a good game today!” She called after
them as they made their way into the Great Hall.

Montague fled first, making beeline for the Slytherin table and not reacting to the mild
scuffle outside.
As he should, the idiot. Making a scene in front of Gryffindor and where anyone could’ve
seen that! Blaise was not amused to hiss silently after his retreating back while keeping his
expression clear.

The remaining three kept tense and silent as they entered, and Blaise thinking they’d just go
their own way to let what had happened settle their nerves some—but Harry had one last
surprise for him as he broke the silence with a rather dry tone.

“Draco… not that I’m not supportive and all, but I do have to play a violent game on brooms
against him in about two hours.”

The blond gave a small spasm of exasperation that reminded Blaise oddly of a hen as his
roommate broke his composed posture to pinch the bridge of his nose tightly.

“Harry, please.”

000

“You disappeared rather quickly.”

“Not all of us are untouchable.” Nott countered, cool as ice and then resuming ignoring him
as he always did. The taller boy beside him rolled his eyes and gave up trying to get a rise out
of him—you couldn’t only try something so many times without success until you broached
the very definition of insanity.

Blaise leaned on the railing in front of him on the quidditch pitch, chin on his hand as he
looked out over the as-of-yet empty fields below, waiting for the stands to fill in and the
game to begin. They still had some time left, and Nott was present beside him, reading and as
ever the stimulating conversationalist as he always was, so Blaise had some time to himself
to consider this morning’s events.

Blaise was disappointed, but also a bit unwillingly impressed—which seemed to be his ever-
constant state when it came to the infamous Harry Potter. He did so love to see the red head
lose his temper, because truly it was a sight to behold, but this morning proved he could read
the room well enough to know when to shut his mouth.

Montague was a great oaf for airing Slytherin’s dirty laundry right outside the Great Hall
where anyone could’ve heard him, much less with Harry himself standing right there, but
Blaise could almost see what Montague had been after. If Harry had attacked him in a fit of
rage, he might’ve been banned from the game today which would put Gryffindor’s not so
secret weapon out for at least this one game against Slytherin. Additionally, if Harry got
involved on Draco’s behalf about internal Slytherin politics, it might’ve made it seem like the
Malfoy heir couldn’t stand up for himself in his own house.

And well… maybe he couldn’t, maybe he could, but that was up to Draco to determine.
Slytherin was all about sink-or-swim, and the pompous blond may have been growing on him
over the past couple months (when his mother found out who he was rooming with she made
it abundantly clear that the Malfoy wealth was quite desirable and to keep that in mind for
when they both hit puberty so it had been very hard NOT to let the blond a bit closer in
planning for that—even if he had less faith than his mother did about his skills in stealing
Draco away from the red head currently plague his thoughts), but they still weren’t solid
enough allies for Blaise to consider defending or helping him. The Zabinis were untouchable,
so he could consort with Potter all he wanted—Draco was the loon or the fool who jumped
into that legitimate house-fire of a friendship (not an alliance, not a means to an end, but an
honest to gods friendship) without thinking it through.

Blaise had never really done the whole friendship thing other than what he’d been trained to
understand of it—meaning how to recognize it, fake it, and manipulate it in those around him
as he saw fit. So he knew Draco and Harry were actual friends that had nothing to do with
ambitions or goals; in fact most of their planning seemed to be centered around how to be
able to be friends without getting crucified for it.

Which, was odd, but Blaise could get into it. If only because it was just so entertaining to
watch Draco struggle, and Harry never got boring.

Like this morning. He was always so adamant about doing things his own way and being
free… and Blaise was admittedly very impressed he could practice what he preached and let
Draco fight his own battles without getting involved like the traditional Gryffindor might’ve,
in service of a friend. Seems he had just enough exposure to how Slytherin worked by now to
realize that getting involved was the last thing Draco needed right now—in the long term, at
least.

And everything they did, was for the long term. They were patient little snakes, after all.

Blaise blinked out of his thoughts as the stands around them picked up in volume, and only a
couple seconds later the announcer for the day was booming his voice across the pitch,
announcing the teams. Ah, it was starting.

Nott sighed and closed his book, slipping it away reluctantly.

“Who are we playing again?”

“Nott, there is no way you don’t know that.”

“Ugh.”

Blaise rolled his eyes, but joined him in observing the pitch and waving the stupid banner
he’d picked up like an obedient housemate he was. It was literally impossible not to be fully
aware of this game with Draco as their roommate, but neither he nor Nott were interested in
the sport at all. They had obligations though—Blaise was aware that it was an incredibly
popular sport and someday he might need to bewitch someone who would be more than
willing to be worn down by hours of discussion on their favorite sport, and so paid attention
and knew the rules and kept up to date with the games because that was easiest way to
assimilate it all. And then he could easily not-lie to his future theoretical target when talking
about all the games he’d attended in his past.

Similarly, quidditch was a flashpoint of animosity between them and Gryffindor, and so no
Slytherin worth their mettle would sit it out and be the last to know about what kind of dirty
plays or vengeance-prompting events might trigger sudden fights between the two houses.
Nott was here for mostly that reason, and also because there was strangely a largely
disproportionate group of people labeled dark in nature who enjoyed quidditch. The boy
remained otherwise out of politics the best he could, but he was still from a dark family and
maintaining awareness and connections to those darker members of their house was
important—quidditch was the easiest way to do it, even if not that effective. It would only
hurt him to openly not be interested in the game, and further isolate himself from his
potential future allies, later down his path at Hogwarts.

Nott was lucky the other two dark members of the boys dorm were Crabbe and Goyle—no
one faulted him for rooming with the two grey members instead of the two of his own
allegiance, because it was kind of understandable to want to avoid living with those two, even
if it made alliances a bit tricky. Alliances were important, but mental sanity and the ability to
actually study and succeed in school was generally seen as more important to one’s goals, in
the long term, so Nott was generally just considered wise for his choice instead of
condemned for it.

Malfoy got no such leniency though.

He did however get a little bit of a break on game days though, as there was certainly a group
of Slytherins (a large group, to be fair) that put aside everything to cheer on their team like
the sports freaks they were. Which was why Draco had not graced them with his presence
during today’s game, insulted on principle by how little they cared about his favorite sport
and instead choosing to sit in the neighboring stand where the die-hards went to scream
themselves hoarse over this farce.

Blaise just waved his banner and made a show of cheering out of obligation, more interested
in scanning the crowds of people watching while just keeping tabs on the game for
knowledge’s sake.

Damn, he doesn’t look half bad. He found himself thinking as the game began, tuning in
enough to spot Potter amongst the flying bees of red and green in the air above them. Not that
it was hard—Gryffindor was wearing red and gold robes and still his brilliant very-much-
magically red hair seemed to be the only red that mattered in the wide terrain of the air as
bodies and brooms and balls went whipping around in every direction.

Blaise did not actually care about this sport, but he knew enough to be dangerous for obvious
reasons. And he knew there was a reason Potter had been allowed on the quidditch team a
year early, but it really sunk in watching him go now. He was actually very, very talented—
even to this Zabini’s untrained, uncaring eye.

But he still booed when the Gryffindor made a good move, and cheered when a bludger came
within centimeters from lopping his pretty red head right off. Luckily for his acting skills, the
Weasley twins were also terrifying as beaters and managed to tame those loose cannon balls
pretty easily. He really shouldn’t be surprised by that, in hindsight.

He was likewise not surprised when he saw Flint grab one of the beaters bats and lunge a
bludger at one of the Gryffindors who definitely had not expected that. Blaise had heard that
was one of the fifth year’s tactics. While not illegal he believed, it was still kind of filthy—
but then again, the Slytherin team were all from outright dark families and if they had Flint as
their leading voice there wasn’t really much to do about it.

That was one of the things he really hoped Potter figured out quickly; one of the reasons
Draco was struggling so much and why no one of their house would dare lift a finger to help
him, first year or not.

Rule number one: house unity was everything.

Slytherin could play politics, backstab each other into oblivion, use, betray, manipulate, and
connive all they wanted in house. But the second they had eyes on them, the front of house
unity held all control. No matter what happened in house, in front of the school they
represented one Slytherin, because they knew they would not last long as individual snakes
among an unchecked playground of aggressive lions, sharp eagles, and armored badgers. Any
one of them was brutal enough to take on one single snake straying too far from the rest.

One snake could be dealt with. A nest of snakes was infinitely more complicated and
poisonous, and that was the way this house worked.

But it left annoying openings in their defenses like troll-blooded oafs like Marcus Flint and
Graham Montague amongst others who opened their mouths out of some stupid belief they
had the power or right to say things without consent of the whole. If one snake picked a fight
with a passing lion, every snake in the area was obligated to back them up—whether they
wanted a fight or even liked the Slytherin they were siding with. If they let Gryffindor (or any
house, for that matter, but the lions especially) realize they could take down one snake if they
separated it from the rest of the nest, it would be open season on all of them in no time. If
Gryffindor ever realized the exact amount of dissent amongst Slytherin house, they would
strike at those points until they were scattered, and then eventually destroyed. Maybe they
wouldn’t consciously know it, but they were fiery in their outright animosity and house
rivalry nonsense to not let those opportunities go if Slytherin made it too easy for them.

And that may be a little dramatic, but it wasn’t wrong either.

It was annoying that the loud-mouths of the snake house got to say what they wanted and
everyone had to fall in line, at least in front of the rest of the school, for their own necks were
on the chopping block if they broke ranks. And Montague was in an annoying position of
being a third year, a pure-blood in good status, hadn’t mucked up his is political ambitions
since starting at Hogwarts, and on the quidditch team which were thick as thieves and all of
strong dark families—which, when combined and given how strong and open their alliance
was, no one wanted to mess with. People didn’t like following his lead, but there was really
no choice when he opened his mouth in front of Gryffindors and they otherwise had no
reason to call him out on it in-house. If they did, it was easier for him to turn them into lion-
sympathizers, which no one wanted.

Well, Draco was willing to accept that role, for Harry specifically. And given how much he
struggled with their house in light of it, it was all the more reason not to cross Montague if
they could help it.
A sharp inhale from beside him caused him to actually pay attention to his surroundings
suddenly, and one quick glance at Nott’s wide blue eyes staring directly above him, and
Blaise instantly figured out what was going on.

Oh no… Draco’s going to have a heart attack.

000

Let’s not forget that threats against one’s person can only be returned in kind.

Draco’s words from that morning rang though Harry’s ears as he quietly mulled that over. An
eye for an eye seemed like a very Slytherin thing, and that statement in particular had
sounded like some kind of saying of theirs that he just wasn’t aware of. He kind of liked it
though, and shelved it for more thought later.

“Are you listening to me!?” Draco hissed beside him, and Harry made a show of nodding too
innocently to be believed.

“Of course I am!”

“Then what was that look for!? What are you thinking!?”

“Ah… pretty sure you don’t want to know.” He admitted, and Draco inflamed farther.

“You almost died. How come you’re not more freaked out about this!?”

It spoke to the young Malfoy’s level of distress that he was saying this at the Slytherin table
during dinner, loudly, with not a care in the world who heard him. Given that the whole
school had just watched Harry almost fall to his death, they weren’t giving him a hard time
about sitting here tonight. In fact in the name of house unity they were ignoring him all
together because they’d lost the game today, which meant Gryffindors were not to be
considered worth looking at for the time being while the sting to their pride settled down.

Harry was anticipating a very loud night back at Gryffindor tower to celebrate their win, and
so took this opportunity of being ignored to have a quieter dinner at the Slytherin table.

Some would say it was almost like gloating, sitting with the house he’d just beaten as if
shoving it in their faces. The Slytherin table was willing to give him this one though, because
they certainly didn’t want to have to deal with Malfoy’s loud fretting and were content to let
the interloper deal with it for now. That way they could ignore both of them with no political
ramifications—win-win.

“To be fair, I was more scared of the troll than it turns out I am of heights.” He took a bite of
his tart and continued quickly before Draco could jump down his throat again. “And the
twins were circling beneath me! If I really fell they’d definitely have caught me—it’d just
mean we’d lose which is why I held on so hard.”

“That’s not the point,” he huffed, legitimately upset and Harry felt bad he wasn’t taking this
more seriously. He made a mental note to catch up with Neville about this later too—because
the quiet Gryffindor and Draco had more in common when it came to their friendship with
him than either cared to admit, so if Draco was this openly worried then Neville was
definitely just as distressed… and would probably just internalize it rather than bring it up.

“So someone jinxed my broom. There were dozens of teachers in the stands, Dumbledore
too, and all of Gryffindor would lose the game willingly then let me fall to my death. I trust
the twins with my life especially, so while yes someone did something, I was not going to get
hurt from it, Draco.”

The blond met his gaze with wide, distressed grey eyes, before reluctantly seeming to accept
that to a point.

“You were holding on by your bad shoulder.” He huffed petulantly instead.

“Now you’re grasping at straws. You know magical medicine fixed that arm a week ago,
better than anyone. You only drilled Pomfrey for the details and I know she spent an hour
explaining the charm she used.”

He sensed more than saw Blaise’ amusement from across the table, and so did Draco going
by the slight pink tint to his ears.

“That was not about your injury that was about charms. I like charms, okay?” He defended
himself valiantly, but no one bought it. Well, Harry suspected Draco actually did like charms
quite a bit, but still.

“The only real danger was losing the game.” Harry patted him on the arm gently, trying to
reassure him.

“Well, and the fact someone was trying to kill you.” Blaise chimed in unhelpfully, and Harry
shot him a look that he only smiled blankly back at.

“And that is my point!” Draco exploded again, instantly riled. “Someone tried to kill you and
you don’t even care!”

“I do care, it’s just…” He couldn’t really find the words to describe it. It wasn’t like he didn’t
care, but he was hyped from his win and in the adrenaline of it all it really had only been one
exciting moment in a whole match filled with blood-pumping, adrenaline-filled exciting
moments all their own. Almost getting killed like sixteen different times by a bludger, riding
a broom like a surfboard, nearly swallowing the snitch…

Forgive him if a jerky broom had only stopped his heart for a moment—the bludgers had
nearly given him a heart attack ten times in the first ten minutes of the match alone, so it’d
been hard to concentrate.

“Maybe I’ll care more when the adrenaline wears off?” he offered helplessly instead, and
Draco slumped into the table in front of him with an equal amount of helplessness that didn’t
quite match Harry’s. And it also called attention to the lack of plate in front of him. “And you
should really eat something, you know. If you’re going to fret like a hen then at least do it on
a full stomach.”
“Are you not curious at all about who could’ve done this!?” He demanded, head snapping up
again.

“Weeeeell.” Blaise hummed lightly, not continuing in a way that had them all looking at him
expectantly. The attention whore he was soaked it up for a second with a smirk before
continuing. “I did see Professor Snape performing some kind of wandless magic during that
whole event. Muttering something, not breaking eye contact with Harry the entire time, the
whole nine yards. Pure coincidence, I’m sure.” He shrugged, Draco staring at his roommate
like he’d grown another head.

Harry tilted his head back though, considering that.

Of all the people who didn’t like him (of which he was sure there were too many to count)
Snape surprisingly didn’t jump to the top of his list. I mean, if he really wanted him dead the
potions professor wouldn’t have been the one beside McGonagall pulling him from that
troll’s fist not two weeks ago—there were many other teachers present and his loud distaste
of him in particular would’ve been a good excuse to just let someone else help the crushed
student and stand back to watch the scene unfold. Also, if nothing else Snape would be bored
in his first-year classes without his resident celebrity to pick on.

“I mean it’s possible, but in a stadium full of people? He’s a potions master, if he wanted me
dead I’m sure there are a million cleverer ways the head of Slytherin house could figure to off
me. And aside from the thousands of potential potions out there, there’s enough incidents in
potions class alone that he could make it look like an accident and blame it on Neville if he
really wanted to. He could probably convince Neville it was his fault and have him confess
even.” He pointed out, Blaise shrugging like it didn’t matter to him either way.

“Oh my god, my godfather did not try to kill you.” Draco horrified by this turn in the
conversation, shooting Blaise a glare before turning to Harry with a betrayed look. “How
could you say that?”

“Well he doesn’t like me, clearly. And before you say he wouldn’t kill me because he cares
about his godson’s opinion on the matter, to me he only vaguely seems to tolerate children in
general really, so frankly I’m only going by your word alone that he actually likes you.”

Blaise snorted a bit ungracefully into his pumpkin juice… and more interestingly, Nott put
his book up in front of his face in a motion so quick it was already up by the time Harry’s
eyes went to the sudden movement out of the corner of his eye.

Ha, got him.

“Severus isn’t trying to kill you!” Draco insisted more emphatically this time, and Harry
rolled his eyes.

“I know that, as I said, but not because of your take on the matter.” And really, since when
was the Gryffindor the one with the logical argument while the Slytherin went with his
emotions? He shook that odd train of thought off quickly. “Anyway, the broom did settle a bit
after the first bout of it acting up, so maybe he was saying a counter-spell or something.”
“Eh,” Blaise was suddenly uninterested now that they weren’t gossiping about Snape, picking
at his meal lazily.

“Then who do you think did it?” Draco fretted.

“At this moment, no clue. I mean maybe they didn’t really want me dead, maybe it was just a
really, really bad prank. The only people I’d eliminate as possibilities is anyone third year or
under as messing with a professional broom is probably not easy, and anyone who was on the
pitch at the time, as someone would’ve seen them with their wand out or something. I mean
my main suspect would’ve been Montague, but he’s probably not smart enough to wandlessly
cast while also riding a broom top speed.”

He pretended not to notice the third years sitting a distance away from them choke on their
dinner quietly.

“I’d cross out anyone under sixth year, actually. The Nimbus is top tier in terms of precision
and state of the art in safety features, so if the teachers don’t find anything when they inspect
it, it means someone was very skilled to interfere with it’s charms and leave no trace.” Draco
recited automatically, his quidditch knowledge never failing.

“So an upper year or an adult. So far as students go my top suspects would have to be
Slytherin house for obvious reasons, but then again in a stadium full of people is just so damn
dramatic and unsubtle I’m honestly starting to consider Gryffindor.”

Blaise grinned wickedly while Draco looked rather ill he was so distraught.

“Can you take this seriously please? Someone tried to kill you.”

“Yes Draco, I’m aware. Not exactly anything I can do about it though, now can I? Also, not
even the first near-death experience this school year much less this month. There’s gotta be a
limit on how much I can care about before I start going grey.”

“And we can’t have that, now can we.” Blaise smirked, flickering his gaze to the very
distinctive locks atop his head that Harry made no effort to pretend he wasn’t very proud of.
Vain, even.

“You’re just jealous,” He waved him off with a knife-edged smile.

“That I can’t be seen from the other side of the school? Oh yes, of course I am.” He rolled his
eyes lightly. “Maybe your attacker picked you at random, as the easiest target to hit of them
all.”

He tilted his head, not really having a comeback for that point.

“You’re not considering that.” Draco looked like he was about to start going grey for all three
of them, and Harry patted him on the arm half-heartedly.

“It’s not a worse theory than Snape being the culprit.” He shrugged, and Blaise laughed
outright while Draco fumed visibly at this conversation. “In all honesty, just going by house
stereotypes, I’m not willing to suspect it might be a Slytherin or a Ravenclaw. Of all the ways
someone could off me, in a stadium of people is really not that clever or intelligent. Unless
they were sure they could get away with it… and that’s the kind of foolhardy or too-wishful
thinking you’d get from a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff.”

“I guess.” Draco frowned deeply. “But in case you didn’t notice, they did get away with it.”

“But I’m not dead?” he tilted his head in earnest confusion, and Draco’s temple twitched in
annoyance.

“No, but no one was caught.”

“Maybe it was just a trial run. Maybe there’ll be something even worse planned for my next
quidditch match!”

“Harry dear, take pity on the boy.” Blaise put his chin in his hand, looking far too amused as
Draco buried his own face out of sight in defeat.

Sorry Draco, Harry thought unrepentantly as he patted his friend on the back perhaps a bit
too harshly to try and cheer him up. But I’ve got enough on my plate, and murder attempts
should really be up to adults to deal with. You may think we have to do this ourselves… but I
fairly certain we don’t want to know what McGonagall is going to do to them when she
finally tracks the bastard down.

000

It was later, when dinner was ending and people were all filing out, Gryffindor’s raucous
triumphant chaos migrating back to their tower to celebrate and Harry following a little more
slowly given how stiff he was from all the activity that day, that the idea he’d been missing so
far hit him like a brick wall.

Blaise and Draco had already left the table, Draco unable to bear the lions’ gloating anymore
(nor Harry’s refusal to be more concerned about the attempt on his life) and Blaise hot on his
heels to rub salt in his roommate’s wounds gleefully, so the only person left to hear his rather
dramatic gasp was Nott, who had stopped only long enough to slip his books back into his
bag. And the quiet Slytherin was immediately regretting not being faster as the sudden noise
caused him to jump a bit in shock.

“I’ve got it!” Harry gasped loudly, no one left in the vicinity to hear him but Nott who
blinked at him in shock and realizing he was a lone audience of one to whatever the heck his
classmate was on about.

“…I know you won’t talk to me, but I just had a brilliant idea, Mr. Nott.” Harry started to get
a grin on his face, and maybe it was the adrenaline making him crazy, but he couldn’t stop
grinning. “This is it… this is how I save Draco from associating with me!”

“…?”

“I’m going to destroy Graham Montague.”

Nott’s eyebrows shot up, and he seemed to immediately realize what he was doing by being
captive audience to this. He inched away and quickly followed the remnants of his house
filing out of the hall, leaving the crazy Gryffindor he refused to speak to behind him in a very
quick retreat.

Harry just sat there, grinning like a madman who’d finally figured out how to take over the
world.
 Building A Foundation

"Were you planning to teach, Mr. Potter?"

Harry blinked, squinting up from where he was scrawling some hastily written notes on the
other side of McGonagall’s desk in response to the conversation they’d been having—him
knowing she’d be here because she was always here this time of day and she hadn’t as of yet
kicked him out for intruding in her office hours with a never ending river of questions to
pester her with. He’d been so focused on working out his plan and getting started, he’d
almost forgotten he was actually talking to his teacher, and not the direct source of all
Transfiguration knowledge in his world.

He zoned back in, seeing her giving him a rather amused look. It wasn’t condescending
exactly, but she usually got that kind of look when he was spouting random questions that she
had a cold hard facts she could use to smack him down with, and for some reason they both
actually enjoyed that.

Maybe Blaise was right about his loose marbles, or whatever.

"Teach?" He repeated, confused.

"Transfiguration. You clearly have an aptitude for it."

Harry tilted his head at that. Honestly, he hadn’t given his path in life beyond this year that
much though. He was only eleven after all, and Slytherin-like or not, even he didn’t plan that
far ahead. He mulled it over for a second though in response to her query, finding the answer
a lot less difficult than most of his day-to-day issues.

"Nah, not really. I don't think I'm patient enough to be a teacher. Besides, I like Hogwarts but
definitely wanted to travel or do something else than be in a castle my whole life."

She seemed mildly surprised by that, but nodded his point. "Were you thinking of still
continuing the subject though?"

"Sure, if I find something worth learning about.” He shrugged.

"So did you have any thoughts of what you wanted to be when you grew up?" She was
definitely amused at this point, and Harry let her have it, though he wasn’t sure why she
cared.

He liked her as one of the solid adults in his life, so he gave it some thought for a second. He
imagined Dell and all her adventures… and I mean as heir to a lot of money he didn’t need to
work but it might be fun to open a shop or something…

"I think I'll open a shop in Contrair Alley with some weird Transfiguration Odd Solution.
Like a clothes shop or a bakery." He mused aloud. "Those things aren't anything alike so I'll
have to think on it."
McGonagall blinked at him one, and then shook her head with a warm sigh. “That’s…very
unique.”

"I think it'll be fun!" He chirped happily, and she gave him one of her wider smiles as if
approving.

Harry imagined it… opening a shop, living his life out like that…

Wait.

Wouldn’t it get boring? It'd be fun for a couple years but… all this work befriending people,
only to be outcasted in Contrair Alley? He was famous, he could probably use that… but he
didn't want to be in politics or the Ministry, and yet…

According to Draco, Mr. Malfoy had his hand in every pie without being officially anything
but a Malfoy. Harry kind of liked that plan but he wasn’t really sure on how to get there. He
also really didn’t even know what pies he wanted, going with that analogy.

Okay, new plan: a cloths shop, and then world domination. He would probably keep that
second part from McGonagall though.

“Well, whatever it is you pursue in the end, I do hope you’ll keep this passion for
Transfiguration with you. I’ve never quite had a student as ardent about this as I once was,
and it’s quite refreshing.” Harry blinked at her in surprise, forgetting his notes for a moment
to sit up at that admission. He felt… odd.

Like he had something in common with this older woman who really had nothing in common
with him except Transfiguration.

And it kind of felt like an echo of what he’d felt when he’d learned he had his mother’s hair.

Huh.

“Keep up the good work, Mr. Potter. I think you have a lot of promise in my class, and you
clearly have big plans with it, Odd Solution or not.” She smiled, legitimately that time, and
Harry felt himself straighten up almost unwillingly. “If you need any assistance, I am happy
to help.”

000

Operation fox would only work if he were up to third year level Transfiguration topics in
skill, or at least knowledge, by this coming spring. And he could technically use any subject
for this, but Transfiguration was easy for him and with McGonagall willingly, and seemingly
out of nowhere, offering her assistance not even realizing what he was actually planning,
Harry couldn’t exactly pass up that unexpected gift.

He was also at the point where he could safely say he was probably her favorite student, so
this fast-pace of learning was made easier by the fact McGonagall let him knock on her office
door almost at any hour of the day she was there and bother her with questions—and what
was even better, was that she seemed genuinely happy to entertain him.
(And if he was racking up favors with the twins by ‘distracting’ her with questions at
particular times that pranks might be happening elsewhere in the castle, that was no one’s
business but his own).

Even being eleven and however-old-she-was, his relationship with McGonagall almost felt
like friendship if that made sense. Or at least a comradery over a shared topic, and while she
was still his teacher who corrected and guided him when he didn't know what he was talking
about, Harry quickly reached the point where he could argue her points or provide a
counterargument that she would respectfully entertain instead of dismissing out of hand like
most adults did, and either follow the argument through to completion until she won with fact
or hard research to prove herself right, or they had to call it a draw until either of them could
come up with some proof or resource to back themselves up. She was the only adult Harry
knew of that would concede an argument to a child if she didn't have a hard fact to support
her claims, nor did she ever get upset by the questioning, doubting, or disproving of her own
arguments/statements. She almost treated him like a peer—with Transfiguration at least—and
Harry discovered that respect felt pretty damn good.

And thankfully, despite it also being a means to an end, Transfiguration really just fascinated
him, so it really didn’t feel like work despite how much effort he was putting into the class.
And he wasn’t ashamed to say it was probably mostly in part to the rare, pleased smiles the
notoriously strict Professor McGonagall sent him when he was consistently the first person to
complete their exercises during class. Dell also seemed to have a heavy interest in it since her
journal was almost a third simply writings and musings about how she could transfigure new
and interesting clothes from the materials she had (and or stole from her neighbor/arch
nemesis’ potion stores out of pettiness). The interesting journals and adventures of his
adopted ancestor and the steady, gut-warming praise and validation he was getting from his
head of house meant he was all about doing well in the subject and thoroughly pleased when
he turned out to be a natural with a lot of studying and a bit of hard work put into it.

He wasn’t too prideful or ignorant enough to not realize that earned validation was a very
addictive thing to him after having grown up in the Dursley household where he was seen as
only slightly more than a stray dog dropping—and only then because dog droppings couldn’t
sweep floors or cook meals. Being patted on the head for a good job should’ve been
condescending at face value, but Harry was not too proud to admit he’d willingly write an
extra foot on his homework assignments if he got to be the only one in class his strict
Professor was gracing with a smile when he turned it in and then received it with perfect
“O”s atop every single one. It made him feel good and he saw no reason not to pursue what
made him feel good, since he was a simple creature at heart. Besides, he could tell
McGonagall wasn’t doing it to manipulate him in the slightest—her praise was earnest in a
way it was not when she was talking Quidditch (because she was alarmingly obsessive with
the sport and clearly praising him to keep him in top form, so he could clearly tell the
difference between her praise because she wanted something and praise because she was a
good teacher who approved of her student doing well in her chosen subject). There was
something to be said for earnest, non-manipulative praise because of his accomplishment that
made him feel all warm and tingly inside and not hollow and annoyed like when someone
talked about that ‘Boy Who Lived’ nonsense.
And on another note, McGonagall had also mentioned it was his father’s best subject, and
while he found himself looking up to his mother and all the ways he could emulate her, he
found having this one small part of himself in common with his father was warming.

It was because of these many reasons he found himself applying Dell’s musings to his
homework when he could, reading ahead as far as he could like Hermione at least in this one
class and getting into it to the point where he was actually very much enjoying learning more
about it. The part he liked best was that McGonagall, for all her strict and no-nonsense
personality would suggest otherwise, was very receptive to him writing a full extra page on
his homeworks on what ifs. Like, what if you used this principle they were required to write
about on this other application? Or what if the theory behind this one concept was
actually this instead of that or maybe it was connected to this other thing and wouldn’t that be
interesting if they could be combined and you do this or that with it!?

McGonagall was very good at filling his margins and occasionally slipping in a whole other
page of comments at the back on his assignments, citing why some things weren’t possible
and here’s why, or saying it was a good idea so shelve it until they reached that particular
topic later down the line. She also suggested other books and resources that would either
disprove or support his ideas and arguments so he could go research it himself and come back
with another argument or learn why his ideas weren’t going to be possible after all. He knew
all of that wasn’t required by the homework and Hermione kept getting points taken off by
writing excessively too-long essays beyond the minimum requirement, but he kept getting
“O”s so he figured maybe his content was a little more satisfactory. He was essentially asking
to learn more, and then proceeding to actually learn more, whereas Hermione had a habit of
regurgitating what she’d read word-for-word or citing an author’s work as the bible truth—
and McGonagall had already read probably all the Transfiguration texts at Hogwarts so she
didn’t really want to hear it again.

Besides, Harry knew after reading a couple Transfiguration books he’d found in the library
back-to-front that some authors were idiots. Just writing a book didn’t make you an expert or
even at all right—it only meant the people who’d published it didn’t know enough about the
subject to prevent someone from publishing a book of nonsense. He’d disproved three
concepts of Transfiguration from one book alone and wrote at least six feet total on the
subjects combined before McGonagall had gone to the library and removed the copies of that
text from the shelves. He’d earned thirty points for Gryffindor from that—and twenty more
from Flitwick when he heard what a Ravenclaw-ish thing one of the lions had done.

Flitwick was visibly disappointed he didn’t have the same interest and passion for Charms,
since that was apparently his mother was great at it, but other than getting decent marks in
Charms he wasn’t nearly as gung-ho about it as he was with Transfiguration, and barely read
the chapter ahead in that class, much less the whole textbook or any additional readings. He
wavered between Os and Es there, and honestly the Es far outweighed the Os he got most
days—with a sprinkling of As just for flavor. He’d even gotten a rather unfortunate P once
too, much to his chagrin. (Draco had noticed immediately, given he seemed to like Charms
just as much as he did Potions, so Harry was not going to be repeating that mistake or
otherwise be subjected to another hour-long rant about slacking off. He didn’t even really
need the lecture to be motivated though, because Blaise’s stupid devious smirk when he heard
what Draco was saying was enough to light a fire hot enough inside of him to never give the
tall Slytherin this kind of ammo ever again.)

So, given Dell’s example and Draco’s insistence in good studying habits, he started up a
journal for each subject—although his Transfiguration one quickly filled as the semester
wore on. As his grades continued to hit perfects on every single assignment and test in
McGonagall’s class until a rumor of favoritism started spreading (before quickly being
stamped out because McGonagall was fair—in all aspects aside from Quidditch at least), he
realized he was in a very good position—especially with the Slytherins.

And that would work perfectly for his newly realized operation fox, he gleefully plotted.

Since he realized he was so far ahead he could keep one ear on McGonagall’s lectures and
easily work on something else, he took to creating detailed, concise, clearly labeled, fully
explained (with citations) notes on the class subject and even added in a few references that
might help with whatever homework assignments McGonagall assigned—which was child’s
play since he was now intimately aware of the Transfiguration section of the Hogwarts
library, and even if he hadn’t read even a fraction of the full selection he at least knew the
names of every text relating to year-one level spells and had an idea of what they were about
even if he hadn’t read them fully.

A very kind Ravenclaw upper year who was happy to spout their knowledge when he asked
about a copying charm later (as well as Draco’s confused help to allow him to perfect the
spell several years early), and he now had a serious bargaining chip for people who cared
about their grades. Meaning Slytherins and Ravenclaws, once word spread on
how convenient his notes were, would sell their first born children to get their hands on such
easy Os, and Gryffindors would likely follow the week before midterms when they realized
they hadn’t been studying nearly as much as they should’ve been—or you were Hermione
Granger and despite being able to recite the textbook from memory still freaked out before
every test and quiz as if she hadn’t studied at all. Hufflepuffs would be less interested since
they were content to study themselves and not panicked to get top marks like some other
students, unless they were fifth years before their OWLs and they didn’t exactly want or need
detailed notes on first-year topics when there were bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

Still, he had what he’d wanted two-fold—a bargaining chip with which to get into more
Slytherins’ good sides and their information network, and step one for a plan that was
starting to unfold brilliantly in his mind.

A plan to make sure Graham Montague never opened his stupid fat mouth about one of
Harry’s friends ever again.

He could not help but grin as he finished his latest set of notes. They did always say that
success was the best form of vengeance, but personally Harry thought vengeance through
success was only truly sweet if your opponent didn’t just miss out on the glory, but failed in
comparison too.

And he was very much looking forward to seeing a certain third year Slytherin crashing and
burning.
 000

It was rare to see the twins alone, but he did manage to track them down looking mighty
suspicious hanging out in an empty hallway. He ran up to them eagerly, hoping they’d be in
to help—he’d almost forgotten they were third years given how much they hung out these
days, but he’d hit a snag in his plan that would really benefit from two professional
pranksters who also happen to be in Harry’s target class.

“Fred! George!”

“Wotcher Harry!” One greeted, the other turning and their suspicious posture disappearing.
They were probably planning their own prank and deemed him safe enough not to rat them
out if he noticed the equally suspicious buckets of colorful something stashed in the alcove
they were standing in front of.

“What are you two learning in Transfiguration right now?” He jumped right in without
preamble.

“Hm, sounding a bit like Hermione there, Apples.”

“Thinking of curling your hair?”

“Shut up,” He rolled his eyes, amused. “Let’s just say I’m planning my first prank, but I need
to be up to speed on at least third year level Transfiguration by Easter.”

Both their eyebrows shot up as if in sync, and then their faces split into wicked grins of glee.

“We’ll spill everything we know,”

“And lend you a textbook if you need it,”

“And if you can actually do it by Easter, then we’ll take one favor from you as payment.”

“Having an ally that’s great at Transfiguration will come in mighty handy one of these days!”

They offered their hands and Harry crossed his arms over his chest to shake them properly,
grinning his own wicked smile to match. “Make it two favors and help me set the stage for
my prank when the time comes. I think you’ll like the outcome.”

“Hm, you make a mighty tempting deal there, Apples.”

“Tempting indeed… pray, who is the lucky winner of your first prank?”

“Graham Montague.”

The twins exchanged a look between each other that seemed to speak volumes in a silent
instant before turning back to him in sync with vicious mirth lighting their brown eyes.

“Done.”
 000

Time continued, and in what felt like no time at all the Christmas break was bearing down on
them, they just had to survive finals and then they were free for a few blessed weeks. He was
only half bummed that none of the Slytherins were staying, but he was also kind of looking
forward to at least some time without having to be on his toes constantly with their witty
politics constantly being thrown around over his head if he wasn’t careful.

He felt he’d made a lot of progress, not only in operation fox, but also in his side mission to
get the school to realize he was Harry Potter, and not some titled Boy Who Lived.

By the time December was here in earnest, and there was enough snow on the ground that the
rapidly growing/improving soccer club needed to postpone their activities for now, most
people had stopped caring what table he was sitting at during meals as it was abundantly
clear that he was going to sit wherever the hell he wanted regardless of what they did or said
or acted like. Slytherin got used to it first because he was there most often, and he was
apparently had a sharp enough wit that they learned better than to be too blatantly against him
sitting at their table—and subtle looks he dutifully ignored so without a better option they
just stopped acknowledging him.

He also managed to branch out a bit with a couple of the first year Slytherin girls, as they’d
seemed just as wary of him as everyone else at first, if not more confused as first years still
learning the proverbial ropes, but they’d been inching closer every day by moving their
seating positions until they just so happened to be within earshot of where he sat with Draco,
Blaise, and Nott most meals he spent visiting the Slytherin side of the room. It was probably
to just eavesdrop on them but at least one of them was openly fascinated and suspicious of
him all at once—and with a freeness that reminded Harry of Blaise a bit. She alone didn’t
seem threatened, just curious and was almost blatantly watching him interact with the boys of
her year level.

Harry didn’t really know what to make of that, as he hadn’t even gotten to know the
Gryffindor girls of his year to even know where to start with them. They had a seriously tight
girly-girl clique of their own going on and didn't look at a single boy ever so he didn't even
try with them, the exception being Hermione who kept to herself, nose buried in a book at all
times (Harry really wondered why she wasn't in Ravenclaw sometimes).

On the flipside, Gryffindor seemed to quickly figure out that Malfoy—who rarely but still
occasionally deigned to join Harry over at the Gryffindor table in the seldom moment he
plucked up enough willingness to try that— was going to be on his best behavior while at
their table so as to not upset Harry and therefore let it go without too much hassle.

Ron was a general hassle, but he was usually stuffing his face at meal times and Harry
pretended not to understand what he was saying through his full mouth, much to everyone’s
amusement, and Ron wasn’t fond of being laughed at so he really just sat elsewhere most
days.

Draco remained distinctly uncomfortable while sitting at the lions’ table, but he was perfectly
polite and it was clear he did it only for Harry's sake, so the other Gryffindor first years got
used to him and they had many a friendly conversation here and there. Draco was just as
obsessed with Quidditch as Dean and Seamus were, which made it so they always had at
least that to fall back on to prevent it from being too awkward most times.

And Harry was warmed that Draco was trying, even if he was far from subtle about it. It
made all the effort he was putting into operation fox worth it all over again, every time he
could only smile in helpless happiness by his baby cactus of a friend trying to very
awkwardly relate to Gryffindors he very much did not actually want to relate to.

Apart from those two houses, he made a concerted effort to try and get to know Ravenclaw
and Hufflepuff too, but the Ravenclaws weren't really into talking about much other than
books they read or classes, and Harry could contribute to a point but was quickly out-paced
the times he tried to join their study sessions in the library or in their groups they hung out in
while they waited for class to begin. They weren't against speaking to him, but if he couldn't
contribute to the intellectual conversation going on he was glossed over in the course of the
conversation, and it happened a lot. He was earning himself a reputation with
Transfiguration, and of course Lu and his year mates seemed to be all in to chatting about
things other than academics at times, but it was slower progress with that house than he’d
thought it be.

Hufflepuff was easier to get to know, as he'd actually had Hannah and Susan as legitimate
friends and they were definitely in the same boat as the Gryffindor girls were so far as gossip
and networking went. He learned that Susan was from a well known family that even got
Slytherins perking their ears up, and while other houses outside the snake den didn’t put that
much emphasis on family reputation, clearly it still meant something to pure and half-bloods,
as Susan was probably the de facto leader of the first year Hufflepuffs by the time their first
semester ended. Even muggleborns who didn’t quite get the whole bloodline business fell in
line to her magnetic, burning personality, and with her very openly happy about the football
club and welcoming Harry in every time he came to sit at the Hufflepuff table, he found
himself branching out quickly.

It was kind of funny, comparing how hard Slytherin fought within themselves for power and
status, yet right next door at their neighboring table was a full table of born followers who all
fell in line at the first shining example of a leader that popped up among them. And they were
all just so well-meaning and trusting that there was no animosity in it either, which Harry
found extremely refreshing if he spent too many meals in a row over at the Slytherin table.

And it was so easy to talk to them, unlike any other house—not even Gryffindor! When he
came to talk to Susan or Hannah, the Hufflepuffs around them were not ones to sit out,
welcoming him in and jumping right into their conversations. And they really were great at
conversation, traversing many topics and listening to his words and then having thoughtful,
interactive responses back to show they'd truly been listening. Really, Blaise was damn good
at what he did, but he could learn from a Hufflepuff on how to at least pretend to be
interested in what someone else was saying.

Not that he’d ever tell that to the tall Slytherin, because he valued his life.

“Excited for Christmas?” He asked, directed towards Neville who shrugged a bit as they
walked back from their last class of the day—of the semester actually, so the relief in the air
was a bit more palpable than your typical Friday.
The upside was that they were done for now—the down side is that last class had been their
potions final, and Harry had called it: that potion he missed from the troll incident had been a
feature of the exam. At least a third of the questions related to it, used it as an example, or
required background knowledge of it and its uses to get other questions right.

Even Draco had been hard pressed to get around defending Snape for that one, and had
settled for mulishly admitting Harry was right for studying it so hard in preparation.

Know thy enemy, and all that. Harry at least had Snape almost figured out by now, so toughest
final ever aside, he was feeling pretty good with himself. The Potions professor might’ve
been a royal snitch in his behind, but he was predictable in his maliciousness. Predictable
people, Harry could definitely handle—he’d only had a lifetime with the Dursleys to get the
hang of it. Snape had made it clear he hated him, so if Harry proceeded under the assumption
that the snarly teacher would pull out all the stops to get at him, he could plan accordingly
and as annoying a hindrance it was, it wasn’t a problem exactly—or, not one he couldn’t deal
with as a matter of course.

Neville didn’t look quite as thrilled, still a bit green around the gills from the stress of that
last exam and probably worrying himself sick right now about his grandmother getting his
marks in a couple weeks.

“I guess.” Neville shrugged a bit, readjusting his bag. “I’ll be happy to see Gran. Uh… for
maybe a couple days.” He grimaced, and Harry smiled sympathetically. Neville seemed to
have a love/hate thing for his grandmother—he clearly loved her and thought highly of her,
all while simultaneously being scared out of his wits of her.

“Well, I wish you luck! Any big plans?”

“Um, no, not really.” His blond head ducked and Harry could tell when to drop a
conversation. He wondered what that was about, but it really wasn’t his business.

“Well a quiet break sounds just as nice as anything, right about now. I’ll look forward to you
getting back! I hear the whole Weasley clan is staying so I’ll be sharing the room with Ron,
ugh. You can’t return fast enough with that prospect in mind.” He complained, and Neville
lifted his head again to smile wryly.

“He’s been better lately, right?”

“He has.” Harry allowed, but he wasn’t willing to give the guy too much credit. Avoiding
each other was not the same as suddenly being on better terms, just more manageable on a
day-to-day basis. “In any case, I know the twins are planning some kind of prank but they
won’t tell me who it’s on so I’ve got that to look forward to… or, you know, keep on my toes
in case I’m the culprit.”

Neville laughed lightly. “Their pranks are pretty good, I have to admit. I liked the one last
month with the bubbles.”

“Oh yeah! And they tasted like popcorn!” He brightened. “I should get them to teach me that
spell, but I have a feeling they obtained it in an underhanded way so maybe I don’t want to
know.”

“Underhanded popcorn.” Neville deadpanned, and Harry was so taken off guard by the
abrupt shift in humor he deteriorated in breathless laughter.

Neville grinned brightly, seeming just as entertained as Harry was to be the cause of his
laughter.

Harry leaned over and wrapped an arm around his, picking up their pace back to the tower.
“Come on—you have to leave tomorrow so let’s stay up all night playing exploding snap or
something! I’ve been stockpiling candy for a special occasion and this is it!”

“I’m not eating candy corn.”

“Candy corn is for Halloween, but just for the record I resent that.”

000

“Scarabaeibus,” Harry concentrated, feeling a little hot under the collar given all the layers
he was wearing to protect against the snowy landscape and how hard he’d been pushing
himself. His initial concept of ‘it’s magic, so if I imagine it hard enough it’ll definitely
happen’ still held true on the most part, but he’d really been underestimating just how much
energy magic physically took from you.

The trick, he found, particularly with Transfiguration, was that power only got you so far.
You pushed as hard as you could, but when you felt like you were going to pop something in
your eye or maybe were just straining a bit too much, the best tactic was to take a big breath
and forcibly relax all the tension that had coiled in your muscles subconsciously.

There was a graceful arc to the way magic moved through objects he was transfiguring—a
sharp incline of power, but then once you pushed it over that tiny invisible edge, you could
relax and simply guide it’s graceful fall with the elegant, precise, finely tuned wand
movements they’d been taught. You didn’t simply do it all at once: wand movement,
incantation, and magical power were three separate steps that moved together, less like a lock
sliding home but more like a dance—or somewhere in the middle of those two things.

The order was not identical for every spell, but once you figured it out you could practice it
until it did feel like it was one continuous, instantaneous motion to cast the spell.

Which was that case for this particular spell, and he leaned back in satisfaction as the wide
flat rock covered in beetles instantly stilled—the dozen or so that’d been crawling there
flopping lifelessly down as shiny black buttons. Beetles and buttons were such tiny things, he
though he had a handle on this spell when he could do it once on one beetle, but didn’t
consider himself fully in control of it until he could do it multiple times—perhaps even
simultaneously like for this application.

He had plenty of beetles to spare, after all.

“Reparifarge,” He slashed his wand with a tiny curve at the end, and all the buttons jumped
back to life, beetles flying away in a swarm now that they realized they were being used as
test subjects.

He grinned as muffled applause from a little ways away greeting him, giving a dramatic bow
for the twins who were squashed together on their own rock to keep their feet out of the snow
while they watched him, mittened hands making the applause slightly muted but no less
enthusiastic.

“Brilliant, Apples!” Harry randomly decided that one was George, flashing him a grin.

“You even got Reparifarge down too—talk about class!” Fred chimed in eagerly.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you very much,” he ate up the praise, spinning his wand as he
walked back over to them. “Although honestly I wouldn’t have made it near this far without
you guys. Most of it is thanks to you,”

“No way,” they both crossed their arms in an ‘x’ motion in front of them, heads shaking once
in sync.

“We told you what we know, but you’re picking this up way too fast!”

“You’re definitely either a prodigy,”

“Or really motivated to rake Montague over the coals!”

Harry laughed at that, accepting that point. “Maybe both? Transfiguration comes easy to me
for some reason.”

“It’s extremely unnatural, how fast you can learn this stuff. Not that it’s a bad thing, but you
should know.” Fred pointed out.

“I know those Slytherins of yours like to barter for stuff-”

“-we’ve heard all about some of that political stuff from Dad-”

“-so definitely keep this to yourself if you can. I mean it’s awesome-”

“-but if you don’t like being called a celebrity or the Boy Who Lived, this will not help.”

Harry frowned a bit, giving that some thought. “Is it really that unnatural? I mean some
people just have talents I guess. I like Transfiguration and I really have worked hard at this
the past semester, so it’s not that strange, right?”

The twins exchanged looks, and Harry could already tell he wouldn’t like the answer.

“We don’t claim to know everything-”

“-but just from what we’ve heard, the latest great genius in a field of magic in Britain was
Severus Snape.”
“And doesn’t that leave a bitter taste in your mouth?”

“But even he didn’t break out from how things are taught at Hogwarts until like NEWT level
classes. To actually be successfully reading ahead and being able to perform magic above
your year level is, generally, just thought to be impossible.”

“Doesn’t mean it isn’t, just that people will definitely think it is if they hear about this.”

“And not just because that’s how it’s done, or whatever. Technically first years shouldn’t have
the magical power-”

“-or the skill with it to do anything but their year level spells.”

“First year spells seem kind of random because they’re chosen for eleven-year-olds who only
have tiny magical cores starting out.” They explained, and Harry got a sinking feeling.

“So… me doing this is really strange.”

“Really strange.” They nodded as one, giving him sympathetic looks.

“We know you don’t like getting called out for being famous,”

“But if this is common knowledge, I’m thinking most of the school won’t see it as your hard
work,”

“-and more because you’re Harry Potter.”

And that rankled him in all the wrong ways. The one thing he hated more than anything was
that stupid reputation he had—one he didn’t want and didn’t earn and generally just didn’t
like to be reminded of. He was thankful the twins seemed to have picked up on that
somewhere along the line and were thoughtful enough to tell him now.

“I guess that means this’ll be between us. And McGonagall probably, as I can’t exactly hide
this from her.”

“And Dumbledore.” They reminded him.

“She’s extremely loyal to him. Anything you tell her, he’ll definitely know about.”

“Then again, he knows everything about what happens in the castle anyway. Somehow.”

“Hm.” He huffed, not really sure what to do about that. He couldn’t hide this from
McGonagall as she was instrumental in his plan (not to mention his favorite teacher he didn’t
want to hide from) but her being in Dumbledore’s pocket didn’t give him any good feelings.

He still hadn’t met the headmaster, but the guy hadn’t really endeared himself to Harry so far.
He already knew the old man was a player of his own type of game, given his title of
headmaster and a political figure in government, which meant ex-Gryffindor or not, he
should probably treat the guy like a Slytherin.
Harry was, after all, a Gryffindor who probably should’ve been in Slytherin. He knew it was
possible, and the given evidence, he knew to tread cautiously.

“You know, my glasses guy in Contrair Alley made a joke about Potters not needing to see
the broadside of a barn to level it. Do you think its related?”

They dissolved into snickers, hiding behind their mittens for a moment.

“I mean maybe,” Fred grinned. “It could be why you haven’t passed out yet from practicing
all morning.”

“So far as being able to control how much power you’re using though, that’s skill you
typically just learn from practice. Learning two years’ worth of control in six months can’t be
explained away by genetics.” George scoffed, and Harry could only shrug at that.

“But that’s a good joke, we should keep it.” Fred nodded.

“No, don’t do that!” Harry complained. “It wasn’t really that funny the first time!”

They laughed at his expense again, uncaring of his playful pout.

“Are ya done fer now, boys? It’s getting cold!” A booming voice cut them off, Hagrid
standing in the doorway of his tiny hut making it look tinier somehow, waving them over.
Beetles were abundant in the Greenhouses and around the groundskeeper’s garden, making
either the perfect place for some practice—however Hagrid’s place also had the promise of
hot chocolate and rock cakes that weren’t too bad when they were still warm from the oven.
They were softer, at least.

And Harry had been practicing the softening charm as one of his second year Transfiguration
spells to get to, so maybe it’d work on rock cakes?

…he should probably ask McGonagall if it was safe to eat products of transfiguration first.

The three boys ran over to him as he ushered them inside—Fred and George not frequent
visitor’s of Hagrid’s hut until recently (they typically avoided it so Hagrid wouldn’t spot them
sneaking around the Forbidden Forest) but were quickly learning the joys of gallon sized tea
mugs filled with hot chocolate on the exceptionally frosty days of winter break, so they were
happy to join in on Harry’s plans of practice and visiting Hagrid this Christmas eve.

“I kinda like ‘avin you ‘ere where I can keep an eye on ya, ya know?” Hagrid chuckled good
naturedly as he handed the twins some chocolate, and they could only grin their most
innocent smiles back up at him.

And Hagrid was too trusting and rather slow sometimes, but even he wasn’t fooled.

000
 Obligation and Friendship
Chapter Notes

A bit shorter of a chapter for a Christmas special :D

Christmas at Hogwarts was, to be rather cliché, magical.

The giant Christmas trees decked out with every shining bauble imaginable, the candles, the
picture-perfect snow, the delicious food that appeared out of nowhere, the scent of pine and
old castle making it feel majestic and homey somehow—just all of it.

Harry had not really had a Christmas himself, but he was well aware of the concept. He’d
seen the movies they played in school, he got caught up in the holiday spirit like the whole
world did even if the Dursleys themselves never really brought it into their home themselves.
Oh yes, they had him stringing up lights and wrapping presents and decorating the tree and
the house and cooking their holiday meals, but somehow the true spirit of Christmas never
actually crossed the threshold of that house—ever.

But this year, it seemed like he’d dropped himself into a fairy tale with how picturesque
everything was, and he was living high on life by the time Christmas morning dawned.

The only shadow on the whole thing was that most of his friends weren’t here to share it with
him, but when he woke up to see the veritable mountain of stuff at the foot of his bed with all
of their names clearly written on top each one, he could only grin and think this was an okay
consolation for not having the people themselves here right now.

He woke up ungodly early as always and Ron wouldn’t budge even if he started banging pots
and pans over his head so he disregarded his very unconscious roommate as he scrambled up
to help himself to his presents, excitement filling him as he dug in.

There was a small, blue-flowered plant potted in a beautiful white teacup from Neville, with a
note of instructions for its care and identifying it as a Blue Lace flower, which supposedly
gave off a calming effect with its soft blue pollen. A pair of leather flying gloves from
Seamus, chocolates from Hannah, a pretty hand-made bookmark from Susan, a crocheted
handkerchief with his initials on it with a box of rock-cakes from Hagrid, at least three kilos
of various candies from his slightly-less-close but no less friendly connections around
Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw, and a new book on centering his mind from
Hermione (which reminded him he still hadn’t finished that first book she gave him—oops, he
really should get around to that). He even had some hair clips, hair ties, yet more candy,
stickers, socks, and shoelaces from his soccer club friends, including a rather nice broom-
cleaning kit that was from both Dean and Lu.
He found one marked from the Dursleys and made the effort to get up and cross the room to
chuck it into the fire place without a second though, rather enjoying the loud whoosh the
flames made as they devoured it.

Returning to his bed, as he got deeper into his pile, he was thrilled to see the high-end
wrapping paper of dark greens and silver that meant Draco’s lessons in Slytherin politics had
paid off and he’d even gotten something from his slithery friends. There was a sleek dark-teal
quill with a silver tip from Blaise, and a plain black journal will well-made paper from Nott
—clearly they'd colluded and determined on perfectly non-personal but quality gifts to suit
their relationship out of politeness rather than real fondness, which was something Draco had
explained at length. Gift giving was almost a professional contact sport in Slytherin families
—even Nott who had yet to say more than three words to Harry the entire year couldn’t
escape the obligation to give something given how often they saw each other, but the non-
personal nature of it atop the price tag spoke volumes and would definitely reflect badly on
his family if he didn’t come through despite probably very much not wanting to. The Potter
family was still a pureblood one, after all, so there was no wiggling out of it.

He was sure there was some kind of code as to what these presents meant, but he’d have to
ask Draco later because as of this moment he wasn’t sure he knew, other than that they were
proper, impersonal, and expensive (he was assuming Blaise’s quill was worth more than this
entire stack of presents combined, if not more, but he could find that out later).

Harry didn't care though that he’d gotten presents from them out of political obligation rather
than friendship, he considered it a win that he was on their radar enough to even qualify as
needing a gift at all. It was definitely progress.

Draco, on the other hand, had gotten him a rather large, beautifully adorned book on
Transfiguration that Harry got a feeling was not available in Hogwarts library considering the
many warnings on the front page, and it just sent a thrill of excitement through him as the
prospect of getting into this one. He hadn't quite considered what dark arts books would be
about, but if there was such things as dark arts Transfiguration texts he was going to need to
learn where Draco found this thing and consider taking a look himself.

And he didn’t think he’d be bringing those topics up with McGonagall, any time soon.

He didn't recognize the writing on one of the last the packages in the pile, but upon opening it
found a very vibrant dark green sweater with the letter "H" emblazoned on the front in gold,
and a care package full of fudge—which he took a quick sample of and it was delicious, by
the way. The accompanying card was a very warm greeting from a Mrs. Weasley, which was
certainly a fuzzy, sweet thought from a woman he’d never met. The twins must've written
home to their mother then, since anything Ron had said about him couldn’t have been all that
nice.

And speaking of the twins, with almost everything else opened he almost missed the small
envelop at the very bottom with 'F+G' printed on the top—and was very impressed to find a
silver necklace inside with two charms on either side of a swirling white and teal crystal no
bigger than his pinky nail. One charm was a pink bat, the other an orange bird. Harry couldn't
help but grin and immediately slipped it around his neck—the twins were brave to try and get
him something to match his outfits, but they'd nailed it so far as he was concerned. He had
half a thought that maybe this was pranked somehow, but figured he was in enough of a
Christmas spirit to put up with whatever they had planned—chances were that if it were
pranked it’d be harmless and/or temporary for the holiday, and he was in for a good laugh at
his expense if that was the case.

He was also glad he had put some amount of thought into their presents as well, considering
they had clearly done some research themselves. Harry, now knowing how to wiggle out
which one of them was which in a short conversation as they were no longer on guard to try
and hide that from him, had spent an embarrassing amount of time and effort watching them
eat at meals.

The two of them had a habit of piling identical things onto their plates but then shamelessly
stealing off each other. It was quick and confusing enough if you didn't know which twin was
which, but eventually Harry noticed that they actually did have different preferences, but they
covered well by having the same plates and then eating the things their twin didn't like off the
other plate and giving the illusion that they'd both just eaten the same thing. For example,
he'd seen George steal the spinach off Fred's sandwiches and likewise Fred snatch the
tomatoes out of George's salad, and so forth. That was all well and fine but what Harry really
cared about the deserts—and he noticed that Fred often went for fruity tarts, gummy candies,
or cream puff of sorts while George was all about the chocolate, the exception being that Fred
would eat white chocolate while George did not. Therefore, Harry's Christmas gifts hardly
broke the bank, but he was certain that fact he'd personalized two separate gifts instead of
giving them both the same thing like he got the feeling everyone else did was probably going
to win him some points. (George got a box filled with various forms of chocolate, of which
there were many, while Fred got an assortment of exotic flavored gummies and white-
chocolate crackers).

The very last present was one that only had a small card taped to the top, and when he picked
it up it felt like some kind of clothing (Fred and George had been thrill-seekers to get him
jewelry, who was insane enough to try and buy him clothes given his very particular
wardrobe?).

He picked at the card, which failed to clarify anything, although… whatever it was, it'd been
his dad's. It made his heart skip a beat as he clutched it slightly closer instinctively.

Use it well? What is that supposed to mean?

He opened the paper and light, shimmery fabric seemed to spill out of the wrapping like
water.

Well it's soft and pretty so whoever sent this had that going for them. Still, it was my Dad's?
Seems kind of… floral.

Maybe it was just him, but the dark fabric had shimmery silver accents with odd hues of
greens and soft purples that kind of reminded him of old-lady wallpaper; doubly so as it
seemed faded and dulled as if it'd been on an old lady's wall for at least three hundred years.
Still, he let the fabric fall free and lifted it to get a better look… and vaguely recognized it as
a cloak?
Well, his father had no style then, but it was his father's so… he stood up grudgingly and
swung it over his shoulders, first noting how… well, ineffective it was as a cloak. It felt like
heavy air had settled over his pjs and was neither warm nor cold—it didn't even block airflow
so really it was totally useless.

Then he realized his body was invisible.

Okay… what the hell.

He lifted his arm under the fabric and… yeah, nope. Not a thing. There was nothing there.

…make a note: ask Draco about cloaks that turn you invisible. Because… what.

"Well this is bloody useless!" he declared to absolutely no one, Ron not even budging in his
snoring as he stalked to the mirror in the wardrobe beside his bed to check himself out and
yeah, he was just a floating head. "That's just weird." He told his reflection, his expression
clearly agreeing with himself.

Use it well!? What for—to spy on people!? There are so many easier ways to get things done
and why the quaffle would I hide my brand-new wardrobe under this darn thing.

…hm, well actually…

He considered it a moment and lifted his arms up… the fabric rustled like silky air and the
gap in the middle opened to reveal his body hiding in magical shadows underneath the
magical cloak. In the places where it went from invisible shield to revealing the normal fabric
on the underside, there were shimmers of faint color that kind of reminded him of the cloth's
normal color, but were much brighter as if enhanced by the invisibility-magic letting light
reflect off of it somehow.

Getting an idea he ripped it off and laid it out on his bed, grabbing his wand from his bedside
table and channeling his inner Dell Monroe. She'd spent no less than six novels worth of
paper talking about her Transfiguration adventures with all types of cloth and materials for
her seamstress business and Harry was very proud to say he did not suck as Transfiguration at
all, so he was reasonably sure this would be fine.

Sorry Dad, but this thing is ugly and it's meant to be worn.

So, with a little excited grin for this new bit of magic he was about to totally make up, he had
a go at transfiguring the magical invisible cloth.

He was very surprised by how easy it was actually. Actually, he was super suspicious of how
easy it was… it was like the material itself wasn't even material at all, it was
pure magic. Magic in cloth form. Actually, magically speaking there was no cloth in this…
thing… at all. It was barely a physical object, and really more closely related to what he'd
figured ghosts were made of (he'd been very curious and Nearly Headless Nick let him poke
and prod to his heart's content in exchange for some Headless Hunt thing—long story, don't
ask) which was to say it was still technically present in this world as it could interact with
real physical things but it was more pure magic and some odd other thing that Harry didn't
yet have an understanding of. It wasn't magic because that had a feel, it was… something
else. Like magic's weird estranged cousin or something.

Only this cloak was made of whatever it was that thing is and it was very receptive to magic
taking it and shaping it this way and that. Harry didn't even need to know a cutting or
hemming charm, it was like taking ahold of a big block of play-dough and doing whatever he
wanted with it. Only, he could control it with magic which is to say his imagination, so it was
much easier than trying to make a wearable piece of clothing from play-dough and he could
essentially think up what he wanted using his Transfiguration mental imaging practice and
the material thing just did it without him needing to know any specific spells or incantations
to get it done the way he was thinking.

Less afraid he was going to rip up his supposed family heirloom, he went to town morphing it
different ways until it suited him a bit better. He kind of liked the idea of a cloak but it being
invisible was a real downer—it could have applications but he kind of wanted to wear his
father's heirloom so people could actually see it. Which meant it being invisible wasn't going
to work and it's normal old-lady pattern wasn't going to fly either—it very much did not
match his aesthetic.

But it being made of not-magic, and Harry not understanding what that was or it's limits,
gave it a shot and soon found it didn't have to be invisible. It could when it wanted to, but it
wasn't at times because if you put down a totally invisible cloak you'd never find it again
unless you had a good memory. The shape was easy enough, he smushed it a bit until it was
more his length and not just a giant sheet of cloth, and then forced two sides to pinch together
and form sleeves, also shortening them until they better fit a small eleven-year-old. He
couldn't quite tell if the flap of material on the back was supposed to be a hood or not but he
certainly made it one. Satisfied with that, he turned towards the color and was pleasantly un-
surprised to find it just as receptive: he lightened the dull hue until it was mostly just that
beautiful iridescent silver with rainbow hues tossed in. Honestly it looked like an oil puddle
in a parking lot after a rainstorm, but it was somehow beautiful when it shone subtly on
gracefully rippling fabric that seemed light as air and gracefully slippery like wisps of smoke.

He grinned, and went about getting ready for the day by taking a shower and fixing up his
hair, putting on the outfit he'd planned the night before and getting ready to go down to
Christmas breakfast—only then slipping the cloak on, turning to evaluate himself in the
mirror. It was much better this way, the new beautiful shimmering colors mixing in with the
overlay of silver and the fact it was light as a feather meant it seemed to float around him
peacefully now that it wasn't turning him invisible. Given his outfits were loud colors, this
was a nice accent as it was a plain-yet-beautiful near-translucent-silver that was not
overpowering while having accents of any color to match what outfit he was wearing. It was
also less a cloak and more a long overcoat now, sleeves long enough and wide enough at the
wrists to flare out some, hanging open to reveal his whole outfit, and dropping low enough to
skim the top of the backs of his shoes. So, it gave his muggle outfit a definite wizard-like
flair.

Harry created two little loops in the easily-malleable material and created a nice little wand-
holster in the flared sleeve, just like Blaise had (he was not jealous, shut up) and then
transfigured another little clump of material near the collar into a button. This part he was
very good at since buttons and needles were well within a first-year's Transfiguration ability,
but as he said he wasn't untalented at the subject so he managed to make the button of the
same not-material of the cloak so it'd disappear too when the time came.

Speak of… he buttoned the new overcoat closed, reached up and pulled the excessively large
hood over his face, and willed the material of the sleeves and bottom hem to 'un-smoosh'—
material filling back in and covering his hands and feet. He looked back in the mirror and…
grinned at the blank, Harry-less mirror looking innocently back at him.

Okay, much better now. Merry Christmas Dad.

000

It didn't take Harry long to figure out who'd sent him his father's cloak, because when he
walked in to an already-populated breakfast table wearing said invisible cloak very visibly,
Dumbledore spat out his pumpkin juice in a spray that had the Weasley twins in absolute
hysterics and even McGonagall was asking if the old headmaster was okay with a concerned
expression. Even Snape looked like the old coot had finally lost it and he usually had a better
poker face than that.

The table they were using was much smaller, given there were only about fifteen people total
present including most of the faculty, so it had a much more intimate feel than the normal set
up, which suited Harry just fine. He plopped down between the twins and Percy who was just
reading over his breakfast and shooting his brothers annoyed looks while they tried not to die
from laughing too hard into their breakfast, helping himself to some food while the twins
collected themselves.

"Morning Harry!" Fred got out first, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.

"Merry Christmas!" They chorused as one.

"Merry Christmas Fred, George—everyone." He got a splattering of well wishes back before
George leaned into his side with a grin.

"Stunning as always Harry-"

"-love the color, all of the colors-"

"-is that a new necklace?" They both teased and complimented in the way only they had, and
he grinned as he lifted his chin to show them.

"Thank you both, it's very nice. I was going to write proper cards as well."

"We're touched!"

"Also no need to be so formal-"

"-you can shower us with gratitude in person if you'd like."

"Speaking of!"
Suddenly he had one red head on either side of him and they gave him loud, wet,
dramatic smacks of kisses on his cheeks and he yelped, swatting them away.

"Guys!"

"We love our presents from you too!"

"No one ever gets us different presents you should know!"

"You're our favorite and we're keeping you-"

"-you've even got red hair so you can be a triplet, we don't mind."

"Well I do, so thanks for the offer but I'm good." he rolled his eyes, dramatically scrubbing
their kisses away with a cloth napkin and they just grinned at him unrepentantly.

"Offer still stands!"

"I'll let you know if I ever change my mind." He assured them with a laugh. "I have to write a
card to your mother anyway. She was kind enough to send me fudge and a sweater… which I
see you two got your own of." He nodded to them and they picked at the cozy, clearly
handmade sweaters they had on—the "F" and "G" probably on the wrong twin, Harry
guessed.

"Ah yes, there's no escaping that, sorry."

"We wrote home about you and she's decided you need mothering."

"Have you met Draco? Yeah, I'm good on the mother hens in my life." He snarked and like
that the twins were off their seats in hysterics again. And if Harry wasn't imagining it, he
thought he saw Snape choke on his coffee but hid it remarkably well and the professor played
it off a second later.

"You don't have to wear the sweater if you don't want to," Percy distracted him, having
abandoned the book and overhearing the conversation. "She makes them for all of us and can
go overboard."

"No, no, I truly was touched by the thought—I'll write her a letter for sure, because I do like
it. It's very cozy." he assured the more level-headed Weasley who just nodded politely. It was
awfully sensitive for the often too-stiff prefect to realize that Harry had a defined sense of
style that a homemade sweater didn't really fit into, and he appreciated it even when he could
tell Percy didn't believe he actually liked the gift. Percy was, after all, not wearing his own
although he had just said his mother made them for all of her children.

"Really, I definitely do like it and will totally wear it—with the right outfit is all." He waved
off easily. "For today though, I actually got this as a present too. Apparently it belonged to
my dad so…" he left that hanging there and Percy's eyes softened, seeming to make the jump
easily. A gift from a surrogate mother he'd never met wasn't the same as an heirloom from an
actual parent… that he'd never met either. The elder Weasley just nodded and offered him a
smile.
"It's nice. Who gave it to you?"

"Some anonymous sender. Apparently they've had it since he died and thought it'd be a nice
Christmas gift… returning supposedly my own property or something like that." He rolled his
eyes, fully aware he was likely stating this in front of the person who'd sent it and who was
undoubtedly eavesdropping hard. Well, that's what he got for being dramatic and coy.

Percy was oblivious to this and unwittingly poured salt in the wound. "Well that's incredibly
rude. Even if you grew up with muggles and they couldn't find you for one reason or another,
the moment you entered back into the wizarding world they should've forwarded it since it
was widely publicized back in September. It's not a gift, it's your own family heirloom, which
I find rather insulting if you'll forgive the impertinence!" He frowned, getting uppity in that
oh-so-Percy way. Harry grinned widely at him.

"I agree entirely." He shrugged simply, taking another bite of his breakfast and very
purposely not looking at the teachers across the wide circular table. "Still, it's nice to have it
now. Matches my outfits and is super soft—feel?" He held out his arm and Percy dutifully
touched the fabric, surprised.

"It is—magically so. Is it enchanted?"

"Yep. Gonna play around with it a bit I think, but for now the color is awesome, yeah?"

Percy very much did not care about the color, but one thing Harry loved about him was that
he was polite to a tee and nodded automatically. "Indeed, it's very fitting."

Good old Percy.

"No offense Apples, but it’s a bit tiny and sparkly for a supposed grown man’s hand-me-
down." Fred pointed out, him and George having regained themselves somewhere in their
conversation.

"Yeah… it was kind of old-lady-ish so I transfigured it a bit." Dumbledore choked again, this
time on a piece of toast and Harry only paused a respectful amount of time to watch the
teachers make sure their headmaster was still alive before getting bored with the rest of the
students and continued the conversation. "I think the enchantments are the important part and
seriously I never met the man but I don't think my dad had much style. I'm pretty sure he'd
forgive me fixing it up a bit so I'd actually wear his gift."

Because it was from James Potter—not the nosy old Headmaster who wanted to pretend it
was an acceptable Christmas gift to give back 'borrowed' property. As if an old headmaster
signaling out students to give gifts to was in any way not creepy or suspicious.

"True that," the twins agreed, before jumping topics to the plans for the day and plans for a
snowball fight.

Harry filled himself up with the tasty buffet in front of him, pushing Dumbledore from his
mind and ready to follow along with whatever crazy adventure the twins had ready for the
happy day.
000
 Reflections
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Severus was just… tired.

“Care for a nightcap?”

He only just barely managed not to sigh out loud.

“No, Minerva. Have a good night, Merry Christmas.” He responded dutifully, attempting to
leave her in the hallway, the festivities of the day finally over. He hadn’t quite managed to
slip under Dumbledore’s radar to avoid the Christmas dinner feast, but at least the food was
delicious as always. He wasn’t one for festivities, but he wasn’t a monster who didn’t like
well made food so… there was that.

But it didn’t make him any less tired so he wasn’t interested in his colleagues’ pestering.

“Oh come now,” The Transfiguration professor chided him gently, in a much more upbeat
tone that normal given the holiday and the drink she’d already been helping herself to at
dinner, even if only slightly. “It’s Christmas. Are you really going to leave me alone to deal
with Pomona?” Meaning the only adult present who thought it was a good idea to get that
close to actually drunk before the students were safely away for the night.

Yeah, sounded just thrilling.

“That is exactly what I’m going to do. Goodnight, Minerva.”

He heard her half amused, half exasperated huff under her breath. “Merry Christmas,
Severus.”

Finally free of all these people today, he left her in the dark hallway retreated quickly back to
his chambers.

As if the Potter boy didn’t already give him hives, just by existing, he had to make a mess of
things almost as if it were his goal in life to destroy everything Severus was just barely
maintaining to keep himself sane.

Dumbledore had not been thrilled with the… events of this morning, and of course that meant
he’d spent not an insignificant amount of time on Christmas day (not that he celebrated) in
the headmaster’s office talking about what it could mean and what went wrong with the boy.
The scene from this morning made no sense since, by Albus’ calculations, the boy was a
meek-mannered, polite child who wanted to please.

Severus returned to his chambers, locked the door and silenced the room.
Only then did he let out a slightly hysterical, derisive laugh at the headmaster’s expense. Was
the old coot blind? Some great wizard he was, he had definitely lost his touch somewhere
along the line if he didn’t realize he’d bought into his own fabrication of the Boy Who Lived,
and not the actual boy himself.

Mild-mannered my ass. Severus scowled darkly as he stalked to his liquor stash and pulled
out his own nightcap, rubbing his temples tiredly. He’s only eager to please Minerva, and
she’s playing right into it. At this point I honestly don’t know if it’s because he’s after
something, or he legitimately liked her. The original Potter bastard liked her best too, so it
wouldn’t be new.

Severus did not know what was so special about that cloak, as he’d never seen James Potter
wear it, but going from Dumbledore’s reaction it was a special thing indeed. And apparently
enchanted, and a family heirloom that was clearly not widely broadcasted as Severus had no
idea what it was. And if James Potter had a powerful object as a family heirloom, then he
would definitely have used it against him for a prank or something similarly terrible at least
once in high school. Or he had and Severus had just never known about it—which meant
even the loud blabber-mouth that was James Potter had managed to keep something secret for
once in his life.

Which would explain why Dumbledore was so taken aback that the mini-Potter hadn’t even
waited an hour before showing it off to literally everyone. Snape wasn’t so shocked—he was
his father’s child and had to flaunt, to brag, to show off like the pompous brat they both were.

But…

I never met the man but I don't think my dad had much style.

He was just… so… flippant! His parents (his mother) were dead and that damned eleven-
year-old brat had the audacity to just casually throw out there statements like that! No he’d…
he’d never met either of his parents so he wouldn’t know what James Potter or Lily Evans
might’ve said in reaction to whatever it was Dumbledore was so concerned about, and
occasionally Severus liked to fool himself into thinking he might know what Lily would say
but…but hell he’d never even considered what James fucking Potter would possibly do when
confronted by his son.

By Harry.

Harry, who was being fretted over by Severus own god son (and Jesus Christ he always
thought Draco took after his father but these past months he was seeing so much Narcissa it
kind of terrified him) who wore these obscene clothes no muggle would even be caught dead
in, starting muggle sports clubs and sitting at the Slytherin table for every other meal…

As a point, Severus did not care what James Potter would think about his son sitting at the
Slytherin breakfast table. But… he couldn’t help but imagine it for a brief moment here and
there and was… conflicted, about what his assumptions were telling him. Potter had hated
Slytherins almost as much as Black did, and the two fed into each other’s hatred and school
rivalries until it was positively evil—even said as someone who willingly took the Dark
Lord’s mark and actively served him both legitimately and as a spy for years. Many Death
Eaters had nothing on the kind of legitimate animosity Severus had felt from some
Gryffindors when the house rivalry shit had gotten particularly bad during his school days.

Maybe it was exacerbated in his memories, as he’d been a child then. He was an adult when
he dealt with the Dark Lord and his followers, but in school he’d been a child who’d been
against not only his own house, but a wrathful pack of senseless, vicious lions with no
teacher willing to back a slimy snake from harm.

In retrospect, Minerva had always been an extremely fair teacher, and still was to this day.
But Severus had never wanted fairness or justice from his bullies—he’d wanted vengeance.
He wanted to make them hurt like he hurt, and no teacher would ever torture a student just
because they’d done it to someone else. They would give them detention and Potter would
accept it since he was in detention every single fucking day anyway for some reason or
another, but he never for a second was actually ever punished enough to regret what he’d
done—to Severus or any other Slytherin.

Teachers had been fair, but that didn’t fix anything in the end. Not really.

He took a long draw from his drink and slumped into his favorite armchair, the fire already
alight and warming the room thanks to the house elves. He took a couple seconds to breathe,
trying to sort his thoughts out.

The things he knew:

First, he hated James Potter.

Secondly… he missed Lily, and her son was constantly flooding his days with flashes of
bright hair and keen eyes that made it nearly impossible to forget that he really, really missed
her. There’s been full years he’d almost forgotten she was gone, because he could just push it
away and focus on the day to day—but with her child in the same building as him, large as
this castle was, it was impossible to ever forget for a second that he was still not over missing
her, and perhaps hadn’t even finished mourning her even. His day to day was not just filled
with reminders of her, and he was…

…he was so tired.

Thirdly, Harry Potter was not anything like Dumbledore had assumed he was, but for some
reason the old man refused to actually look at the boy and figure it out. Severus had tried to
mention it in several ways, but got brushed off like a child as Albus clearly considered
anything that came out of his mouth to be biased rhetoric about James Potter’s son.

Which, okay fair.

But this time he honestly wasn’t spouting bias, the boy truly was odd.

He didn’t seem to mourn himself being an orphan, but he certainly did not like his relatives if
what he’d gathered from Draco was true (and he’d met Petunia, so he didn’t need to even dig
that hard to guess that one). He liked Draco as a close friend but would hold him at arms
reach if need be. He was interested in and clearly understood pureblood dealings but was
fully okay with starting muggle sports clubs. He was a Gryffindor who’d escaped outright
violence for blatantly sitting at the Slytherin table. He was a Gryffindor who was somehow on
speaking terms with a Zabini.

Severus took another drink.

Fourthly… Severus’ cover of hating the boy was going… well, he supposed? But that wasn’t
supposed to be a question, he’d made a thousand Gryffindor’s fear him and his wrath as
Slytherin head, but for some reason even his best and most blatant attempt to make it
abundantly clear that he hated the Potter brat didn’t seem to actually be doing anything.

And with the boy in question sitting with Draco or Zabini during Potions class, it was almost
as if the boy just didn’t hear him when he was singling out other Gryffindors in the room—
and if he did, he did not care enough to stick up for his house mates in any way. He didn’t
seem to react or care when Severus went after him personally, but then felt no obligation to
defend any of his fellow Gryffindors when they were on the chopping block around him.

And that was a positively Slytherin attitude to have that really took the Potions master off
guard. He’d spent years perfecting the art of tricking a Gryffindor into lashing out by
jumping to someone else’s defense like they so gallantly tended to do, giving them as many
detentions or extra assignments as he wanted for talking back or even worse. He had had
some upper years even throw spells at him, but since it was all part of the plan he simply
defended and failed them outright—not even Minerva argued that, with the added bonus of
her usually siding with him and scolding her lions within an inch of their life for attacking a
teacher.

Slytherins were the ones who kept to themselves and gleefully let those around them sink or
swim depending on how well that individual traversed the dreadful waters of the world.
Gryffindors were supposed to act first, think later—and usually they were thinking with their
foolhardy hearts, which only made them so easy to manipulate.

The Potter brat acting like a Slytherin in his own classroom really threw a wrench in his
plans, though.

Annoyingly enough, sitting with Draco even protected him from getting failed for classwork
as Draco’s potions were immaculate and always had been—and the small snake knew better
and was careful to make extra bottles of their potions just in case something happened to it
(or more importantly Harry’s) if it got lost before being graded. He couldn’t truly argue he
needed two bottles for each of them and give them different grades—the potion was from the
same cauldron and he wasn’t that bad at being a Slytherin that he needed to actively stoop to
that level.

And to top it all off, he was more than a little annoyed that his simple ploy of featuring the
final exam around the potion the boy has missed because of the damned troll hadn’t just not
worked, but backfired.

Because he’d watched the boy carefully as he turned over his test paper, and the brat had the
audacity to smile.
Smugly too, like he’d known.

Which meant clearly he had known, and Severus was not about to be outwitted by an eleven-
year-old Gryffindor.

Even if… he was forced to admit…

…he took another drink.

Even I can’t deny this brat should’ve been in Slytherin. Severus winced as the thought finally
formed—the one he’d been avoiding thinking of for weeks now.

Imagine that. James Potter’s son was probably more Slytherin than a good handful of actual
Slytherin in the snake house right now. For some reason the rich, vindictive irony of that
statement didn’t feel nearly as good as it should’ve—it was overshadowed by the deep, bitter
melancholy that Lily’s son should’ve been in Slytherin.

Lily should’ve been in Slytherin.

Severus needed to pour himself another round just to get through the clouded thoughts that
senseless wish assaulted him with. Of all that could’ve—should’ve—be different if Lily
Evans had just been sorted into Slytherin all those years ago. James Potter never would’ve
looked at her again in his irrational hatred of the snake house, and Lily would’ve understood
from the very beginning why he’d had to distance himself from her at least for appearances
sake, why he had to play all those games he’d always known she’d hated.

The alcohol had fully taken effect at this point as he rubbed the side of his head meticulously,
settling down from these thoughts that were in no way new, and frankly he was a bit tired of
going over them yet again for what felt like the fortieth time this semester alone. There had to
be a limit to how many times he could get properly riled up and distressed over the same old
thing, but as of yet he didn’t know if he was even close to that limit. He could spend the next
six and a half years of this boy’s tenure at Hogwarts routinely draining his liquor stash like
clockwork in some horrific, endless cycle.

And if that thought didn’t make him want to curl up in bed and never wake up again, he
didn’t know what would.

He downed his next drink in one go, really ready to be done with this whole year by now.

He could at least switch his focus onto Quirrell, as a slightly less annoying hindrance in his
life (and one he almost welcomed addressing, given the alternative). The stuttering Defense
teacher was useless and smelled horrible, but he’d been acting off since he came back from
Albania and Dumbledore’s orders of ‘watch him’ left a lot open to interpretation. He knew
someone was after the Philosopher’s stone, as someone had tried to get past the Cerberus on
Halloween night (that damned dog bit him and the oaf of a groundskeeper had the audacity
to say the beast didn’t mean it!?) although he didn’t know who, and then no less than two
weeks later someone had tried to knock the Potter brat from his broom.
The boy had been in no real danger as literally all the teachers had been there, and Snape
wasn’t the only one saying a counter-curse or two. And he’d seen half the Gryffindor players
hovering beneath him, ready to catch if need be, so he wasn’t concerned exactly… but that
jinx was definitely not from a student.

In fact, he was only half sure most of the teachers at this school could do something of that
level, and delicacy. It was a brief event, so he hadn’t had time to really understand what the
jinx itself was, but it did not feel like it was something from the Hogwarts library. Severus
knew enough of the dark arts to know that spell had been tricky in a way only the most
annoyingly brutal dark spells could be. Still easily reversible as professional brooms were far
too well protected to be damaged long, but still.

Severus half thought the intent was to cause the boy to drop as a distraction while they went
after the stone again, but the wards he’d set up around the Cerberus’ room after Halloween
remained undisturbed the entire time. And even if that was a trial run for another attempt
later, Filius had taken to putting up a rather potent ward around the Quidditch pitch before
every game, just to prevent any pesky jinxes from doing a repeat of the incident. The ward,
combined with how fast the players moved, and how well protected the brooms were
charmed to be, meant not even Dumbledore would get away with interfering again without
tipping his hand.

Still. It wasn’t like he didn’t know someone was after it—Albus had removed it from
Gringotts mere days before a break in where nothing was stolen, asked the teachers to create
obstacles to protect it (which, just why? Couldn’t he do it himself?), and someone had made
an attempt on Halloween. Clearly Dumbledore knew more than he was letting on, as always,
and Severus just had to do as he was told and catch up.

The extremely vague and ominous ‘keep an eye on Quirrell’ he got at the start of this year
gave him a big clue though.

He just couldn’t figure out why. Did Quirrell honestly think he’d actually get the stone, given
everything? And the fact he specialized in trolls and a troll got out—

—oh for god’s sake it was probably too much for him tonight. He’d had too much to drink
and his nerves were already in shambles. He stood and moved off deeper into his chambers to
call it a night, deciding this was definitely a problem for tomorrow.

He maintained that he did not like James Potter’s son, however… Quirrell was a fucking idiot
if he thought he’d get the stone acting so god damned obvious about it, and Dumbledore
might not want to get involved for whatever stupid manipulative reason, but the stuttering
idiot had let a troll loose in the castle and it’d almost killed Lily’s son.

Severus needed an outlet and Quirrell had unknowingly volunteered.

000

Well, this is not nearly as helpful as I thought it’d be.

Harry pouted to no one as he trailed carefully through the restricted section of the Hogwarts
library at what was very well after curfew one night. While he had found a book with a ghost
in it that’d scared the living daylights out of him, all the Transfiguration texts he’d found
were still well above his skill level for now—he’d had half a thought that reading far enough
ahead would somehow help him, but even he wasn’t foolish enough to involve this stuff in
his plans. He needed McGonagall to be a witness to his skill after all, and if he unveiled skills
she knew were in the restricted section that she hadn’t given him permission to enter, he
wouldn’t be in an opportune spot anymore.

Turns out the cloak that turned him invisible did have a pretty solid use, when he’d had the
passing thought of seeing what the restricted section was all about when Ron’s snores had
kept him up too late this evening, and he was also regretting not getting the kitchens location
from the twins already because that would be another target he could’ve hit with this new
magical heirloom of his.

Resigned that he was probably done snooping for the night and not particularly interested in
risking getting a detention when he needed to be McGonagall’s golden child this year, he
quickly vacated the library—slipping by Filch muttering disturbingly enthusiastic things
about torturing students and Mrs. Norris, who seemed fully aware he was there under his
cloak and just watched him silently tip-toe by with wide, reflective eyes. Good thing cats
who were not McGonagall couldn’t talk.

He had to remind himself not to hum as he wandered the dark halls of the empty castle, even
the paintings snoring gently in their frames and not a ghost or poltergeist in sight. Christmas
had been lovely, but true to his suspicions the Weasley twins were a whirlwind and a half so
he was rather looking forward to the last week or so of break where he could do nothing but
laze about and take his time exploring, as well as reading whatever he wanted.
Transfiguration work didn’t feel like work but even he got bored sometimes, so he’d spent the
day kicking around a football in the very empty hallways, combing through Dell’s journals
just for his own amusement, and playing around with all the new magic he knew.

He liked magic, in a way he knew he would never really show in front of a Slytherin, or even
just a pureblood he guessed. Four months he’d been living in the wizarding world now, but
the fact he could wave a bit of wood in his hand and things would spring to life around him
was… well, magical. Breathtaking and exhilarating, whimsical. He felt like a little kid
(although, he supposed he still was one, technically, but you get the point) in jumping around
the Gryffindor common room with no one around to see him get silly excited that he could do
magic.

Honestly, he understood Hermione’s enthusiasm to a point. Why wouldn’t you want to spend
every minute of your day drowning in magic? It was cool! And yeah, it was a lot harder than
one would think it’d be at first, but Harry was not untalented apparently and even though he
was no prodigy in other subjects apart from Transfiguration, he knew a couple charms and
had several books on magical creatures that were closer to fairy tales than textbooks, so he
had a feeling he would absolutely never get bored of this place, even while he was
entertaining his own time alone for now.
This wasn’t lonely in any way shape or form. He was alone, but he found it oddly peaceful
and freeing to just amuse himself however he wanted for a while, and Hogwarts was just
filled with such amusing things that he never wanted for a distraction.

It also gave him time to think over a lot of the things he’d been shelving in the face of his
busy every-day life as a wizarding student.

He had a plan for what to do about Draco and Montague, which was a lovely distraction but
the plan was all but fleshed out now and he really just needed to keep plodding along with his
Transfiguration work and wait patiently until at least after Easter. Plotting the third year
Slytherin’s demise was a lot of fun, but now that he had his answer he was free to consider
other things.

Like… Dumbledore.

No, I don’t want to think about him right now. There’s not much I can say about him, is there?
He frowned to himself, unseen in the darkness and the enchanted invisibility swaddling him.
Something about him gets my instincts up, but he’s done nothing outright wrong except being
a bit nosy and self-centered. Giving back my dad’s cloak as a Christmas present is just flat
out rude, letting Hagrid keep a Cerberus on a third floor is ridiculously unsafe, and the fact
he’s a headmaster and a politician is just filthy with suspicion. I’m not sure what exactly
about it bugs me, but it does.

He shook it off, not really wanting to spoil his mood with yet another problem he had no
answer for. Currently the best tactic was to just avoid him if possible, and that should be easy.
Why would the headmaster want to corner him for any reason, after all?

Except… if his plan with McGonagall worked, he would definitely be on Dumbledore’s radar
then, so there really wasn’t any avoiding it. After the troll incident Harry knew the old man
fully believed the Boy Who Lived hype, and if he didn’t get the message on Christmas
morning, he probably still did. Wizards were kind of gossip freaks who believed any rumor
like fact until otherwise proven wrong, so Harry could probably bank on his show with the
cloak not having that much impact on how the professor saw him. And then, like Fred and
George had said, he’d likely attribute his prodigy-like skill to the fact he was the Boy Who
Lived.

Which… you know…fine.

Harry slumped a bit in defeat, finally just giving in. If Dumbledore wanted to see him as
some famous celebrity, then he could do that. Just like with Snape—if he knew how they
perceived him, and he could control how they perceived him, then he would always have the
upper hand as they would never be able to guess his true motives or plans.

He wasn’t sure what he’d need the upper hand for against the Headmaster in the future, but if
he’d learned anything from Blaise it was that there was never a moment when he should
waste an opportunity to mislead someone. Particularly not someone who had something you
wanted—and he didn’t know what Dumbledore had, but the man was old, probably well
educated, well-connected, and in several insanely powerful positions in the wizarding world.
There had to be some benefit to having a guy like that willing to listen to you.
Still, the concept of playing into his undeserved, ridiculous fame irritated him beyond belief
and he yet again reminded himself that he should finish that book on anger management
Hermione gave him. That reading definitely felt like work, but all evidence thus far said he
probably needed that bit of information the most right now. Besides, the chapter he’d left off
on had breathing and mental imaging exercises to try which were said to help with memory
retention too, and he liked the sound of that—not only of the memory aid but the doing
something instead of just reading about it.

With that problem crossed off his mental to-do list, Harry moved on to his next one—which
he’d also been avoiding on the most part because it tied into the one thing he… really wasn’t
ready to face just yet.

He’d been pretty lazy about corresponding with Axeclaw since they’d met over the summer,
but he had at least been getting his bank statements now that they’d fixed his mail wards
(although where the original mail had been directed was still as of yet unknown, but they
were working on it diligently, he was told), and the goblin account manager was pleased to
give him full updates on his portfolio and field questions on the ever-continued donations he
was getting from people who willed stuff to him. Apparently they’d also gone about
liquidating all the clothes and furniture he hadn’t wanted and added that into his spending
money, and while he still didn’t know a ton about finances, he knew he was a very rich child
who wouldn’t really have to think about money ever.

Which, was a nice thought to have.

What wasn’t so nice was the deflected answers he’d gotten from Axeclaw while trying to
learn about his Slytherin friends’ families since they all liked to tout their wealth so much,
and he got the impression that while he was a very rich child, Slytherin families were in a
whole other league of their own.

He’d even gotten a mini-run down on what he might expect from… well, a certain
inheritance given it was connected to Narcissa Malfoy, Draco’s mom. Let’s just say he’d
known his cactus of a friend was rich, but even he couldn’t wrap his eleven-year-old mind
around how snitching rich the Malfoys actually were. It seemed rather ridiculous, actually,
but certainly explained a lot about Draco.

It also explained why Draco, who was no older than him, somehow had a huge repertoire of
financial terms in his brain and actually knew what he was talking about when Harry had
probed him casually about things like assets and investments. He did not show any of his
financial papers to any Slytherin, not even Draco who he liked, because that seemed like a
terrible idea, but Draco was quick enough to know he was trying to educate himself on his
bloodline situation and was very supportive of it. With his explanations Harry at least knew
that Axeclaw was doing good things with his freedom of Harry’s money, and while yes
Gringotts was getting a hefty cut, it was not in anyway unreasonable either.

Goblins were brutal as hell, but they were pretty gosh darn fair and Harry liked that about
them.

He hadn’t been very interested in his financial situation as there was really no need to be
concerned about it, but from the amount of gloating Blaise and Draco had with each other
about their family’s connections and wealth, Harry knew it was probably important to spend
more time on it—even if it bored the life out of him. His half-formed plan he’d given to
McGonagall of opening a clothes shop and then (silently) taking over the world would only
be helped if he had some kind of Slytherin-like wealth to aide him and from his mild
understanding he was well on his way to getting there if he didn’t ignore it outright.

So, with several letters exchanged with Axeclaw, the goblin agreed a good way to get his feet
wet in the art of money making money, would be to pick an investment of his own and they
would discuss the benefits of who, what, and how much the investment would go towards.
The first thing Harry had thought of was Osmias’ Optical Solutions—he liked Contrair Alley
and Osmias was a funny guy even if he was a bit rude, and the fact he’d had a solution for
‘Potter eyes’ when there’d previously been no known magical solution for that was not
exactly unimpressive. It showed ingenuity, and he’d found his contacts with added sun-glare
protection had become extremely helpful while playing Quidditch—heck, even the heat-
protection had spared him from one of the twins’ more aggressive pranks involving coughing
powder! On the daily, he rarely even remembered he had contacts on they were so
unobtrusive, giving him the full experience of having 20-20 vision for the first time ever,
which he’d quickly gotten used to (and learned to like a lot).

He planned one day to open his shop most likely in Contrair, and if he had a hand in all of his
neighbors’ workings, well… all the better, right?

Axeclaw didn’t seem to care about Osmias’ Optical Solutions in any way but had added it to
his portfolio dutifully. He had rejected the amount Harry had wanted to spend on the place
though, and done his own thing which, seemed kind of flippant, but then again Harry was an
eleven-year-old wizard who didn’t know magic existed half a year ago and Axeclaw had been
protecting his family’s money for significantly longer than he’d been alive so he could
probably let it go.

But then… that line of thinking brought him to the one thing he’d been avoiding. Except he
hadn’t really been avoiding it because being alone on Christmas, while he was fine with it,
had reminded him that all his friends had family to go home to.

And he didn’t.

Except, he had the Dursleys who were relatives, NOT family… and…

And apparently he also had a godfather.

Who was in prison.

For betraying his parents.

He winced, letting his feet walk him randomly through Hogwarts dark halls for a while,
trying to remember those breathing techniques to calm his temperament as he tried to
entertain this line of thinking he’d been avoiding since September.

Draco knew not a lot, unfortunately, and while he offered to write to his parents to see what
they knew, Harry didn’t exactly want them involved just yet. He was more familiar with the
concept of the Malfoy family heads being some seriously intimidating, powerful people and
while Draco just saw them as mom and dad, they were not exactly people Harry wanted
knowing all about his business more than they already did. He was close to their son, so he
knew he was on their radar and he didn’t know how to handle that so he would hold off on
addressing it for now.

The best plan would be to ask Draco to get the information from his parents about what
happened to Sirius Black in person over break sometime, when he could be far more delicate
and subtle about it. Like say just asking over breakfast because he was curious, and not
because Harry himself was dying to know. And Draco was spoiled rotten: if his parents knew
and Draco asked, he would get it.

But… Harry had chickened out and hadn’t asked him to do such a thing over this particular
Christmas break. Maybe Easter… or even the summer.

Even though Harry felt a little sick at the realization if he didn’t figure this out quickly, he’d
be back at Private Drive come June. Hell, the answer he was looking for about Sirius Black
might reveal nothing to help him in the end and he’d still be back at Private Drive.

And then he’d have gotten his hopes up for nothing.

But it was just so hard to not get his hopes up, when the tiny pieces he had were so… well,
inconclusive. All Draco knew was that Sirius Black was his mom’s cousin, and had been put
into Azkaban without a trial because he killed another wizard and a bunch of muggles. When
asked if he, as a guy from a previously dark family, knew if Sirius Black was actually a dark
guy, Draco had only seemed surprised at the question and admitted he had no idea.

Which, while frustrating, made sense. He’d never cared to know about such things before, so
even if his parents had ever talked about it, he probably hadn’t listened or cared to retain the
information.

And Axeclaw’s attitude on his questions about it really got his interest up, because the goblin
had been nothing but fair and cold in everything they talked about, and his only response he
ever gave when asked what crimes Sirius Black had committed was that Sirius Black never
got a trial.

Wizards were gossip whores and prejudiced, traditional and gullible.

Goblins were fair.

There’d been no trial, so they would not comment on what crimes a man had committed
without there being an official crime charged to him.

And you know, Harry liked that line of thinking. It was logical and just—and yes he was
extremely biased as there was the chance he had an actual family connection out there that
wasn’t dead and wasn’t confirmed evil and… well, honestly what were the chances he was
worse than the Dursleys?
It came back to the unfortunate fact that he wasn’t confirmed evil. Killing a bunch of muggles
didn’t sound very promising he had to admit, but he was also technically an un-charged man
sitting in jail right now. That didn’t sound great either. Something was just off about the
whole situation and Harry was caught evenly between the desire to get an answer from
someone right now… and also perhaps being a little afraid to face whatever truth he found.

Draco had told him about Azkaban. Even Blaise hadn’t made a joke about it, and Neville had
looked like he was going to throw up when he’d tried bringing it up with him—hell, even
Nott had glanced up from his reading to give him a sharp look about it as if silently warning
him not to bring that up casually at the Slytherin table.

When Harry finally figured out how many Slytherin family parents were probably in that
prison these days, maybe Nott wasn’t even being kind in silently warning him—maybe he’d
just been angry.

Harry knew that even if magically his estranged godfather was totally innocent and cleared of
all charges, there was still a huge chance he wouldn’t be allowed to take him in as a guardian,
and even if he could… would he?

He didn’t know what a dementor really was, but he knew it didn’t sound good. It didn’t
sound like the man who’d walk out of there would be happy and sane and strong enough to
take on a first year Hogwarts student as a responsibility, even if Harry could pretty much fend
for himself.

I just need someone to be a legal guardian that’s not a Dursley.

Except, he thought wryly to himself, that wasn’t all true, was it? That was the Slytherin
answer: that he just wanted a legal guardian.

The Gryffindor answer was that he wanted a godfather who’d actually be his godfather.

And it was a long shot that Sirius Black would actually ever be free enough to be his legal
guardian, but there was almost no chance this stranger who’d been beaten by ten years in
literal hell would actually be his godfather too. That a man who’d essentially been tortured
would actually want him, as either a responsibility or as family.

The man probably didn’t even know him.

Lower your expectations, he scolded himself angrily… and maybe a bit sadly. There is no
good answer here. Rip the band-aid off and find out the truth already, and don’t get upset
when it doesn’t work out. I can work with six more summers of Dursleys—it’ll suck, but that
was the plan. That is the plan.

He hadn’t been paying attention to where he’d been walking for the last hour at least, and as
he shoved the tapestry in front of him open in his frustration at his current thoughts, it only
occurred to him belatedly that he should really have more caution in banging around the
castle while he was invisible and technically trying to be sneaky.

“…think you should watch your step, Quirrell.”

“W-w-what- a-a-a-re-”

“Don’t play dumb with me.”

Harry froze, slipping a step back towards the tapestry he’d just come through before
remembering not to touch and that he was invisible—cursing silently when he realized in an
almost abandoned castle he still managed to run into someone. And he’d been so caught up
in himself he hadn’t even realized it until he was essentially on top of them.

The them in question being a rather odd scene to see this late at night when Harry realized
Professor Snape had Professor Quirrell backed into a corner of some of the stone pillars that
lines the hallways, and the Defense professor looked terrified as always. Snape looked equal
parts pissed and amused to be in his natural bully state.

“I’m n-n-n-n-ot s-s-ure wh-what y-y-you’re-?”

Snape rolled his eyes. “You showed your hand too quickly, fool. Do you really think you can
get the stone? What would you even want with it that would be worth risking such stupid
attempts for?” The Defense professor tried—and failed—to defend himself but Snape just cut
him off sharply. “And to be clear: even if Dumbledore in his infinite wisdom may spare you
should you harm another student bumbling about as you are like the desperate lunatic you
clearly are, I will not.”

This is SO FAR into the realm of NOT MY BUSINESS I’m on Mars.

Harry was sweating actively as he tip-toed as fast as he could the opposite direction from
whatever was happening here, really trying to forget he heard that as their hissing
disappeared behind him. Whatever it was about, it sounded serious as hell and also if
professors were threatening each other’s lives, then this school was even worse in
professionalism than he’d thought it was.

And given Hooch was the actual devil, Snape and Binns’ teaching style sabotaging students
left and right, Filch actively campaigning to hang students by their thumbs in the dungeons,
McGonagall buying a student a professional broom out of sheer bias, and Dumbledore clearly
knowing stuff was going on and deciding to never get involved, Harry didn’t exactly have a
high opinion of Hogwarts’ professionalism in the first place.

This kind of took the cake though.

Although, at least it sounds like Snape is on the side of students not dying. He was probably
referencing Slytherins in particular but… Harry shook his head, scolding himself for being as
biased as he liked to call everyone else. No, Snape is a jerk of epic proportions, but he was
right there with McGonagall when I was caught by the troll, trying to get me out. Bad teacher
and terrible person aside, he doesn’t want kids to die… which is more than can be said for
people like Filch and Hooch.

And apparently Quirrell, which is a surprise but not a shock at this point.
Harry was almost glad he hadn’t actually had the thought of ‘nothing would surprise me at
this point’ to follow that up, as he slipped into a nearby classroom to hide out for a bit and
found it absolutely empty.

Except for a huge mirror at the other end of the room, that looked very enchanted and
important and very suspicious to be in an empty classroom for no reason.

Hogwarts is so cool.

He grinned, loving this odd stuff he could stumble upon in this castle even if some of it was
alarming and weird, closing the door quietly behind him and being briefly thankful there was
no window a passerby could see him through.

He approached the mirror curiously, immediately noticing it was super cool and old and
fancy. All solid signs for something interesting, and he walked right up to it to give it a closer
look. The designs around the edges of it were in a language he didn’t recognize but
beautifully crafted of intricate golds and fine metals, the glass itself very weathered and
actually a bit dingy from extreme age, but otherwise flawless.

And because he was vain and wasn’t afraid to admit it, he gave a quick glance around the
classroom to confirm it indeed was empty before pulling down his hood and pushed up his
cloak’s sleeves, it returning to its more long-jacket-like appearance with just a little nudge
from him. It was still novel to him and the color beautiful in its silver smokiness that was
highlighted by the ancient mirror that he enjoyed tossing his arms out to let the fabric fly
around him and enjoyed his reflection mimicking him, letting his hair fall free from being
cooped up under the hood and fixing it happily. Since he’d wandered straight from bed
because Ron’s snores had kept him up, he wasn’t wearing any baubles or clips, not even
having it pinned back so it just fell free and he enjoyed the shock of red in the muted light of
the room immensely.

He felt like a bird noticing itself in a reflection of a lake for the first time, but it was one of
life’s simple pleasures, so he just enjoyed himself for a moment.

Until he suddenly realized someone was standing over his shoulder.

With a sharp gasp he whipped around, not an expert but still damn fast at getting his wand
out from where it rested in his cloak’s sleeve—the magical fabric seeming to just release it
and let it slide into his hands almost in response to his heart leaping into his throat and
instincts demanding he point a wand at this new threat—

Only to be greeted by a still very empty classroom.

What the hell?

Adrenaline pumping through his veins and almost being afraid to turn around, he glanced
over his shoulder at the mirror again. Hesitantly he turned around fully now… trying to clam
his heart and look properly at his reflection this time… and had to take an alarmed step back
in shock when people seemed to fade into existence behind him. He wanted to be terrified,
but… they were all smiling.
Smiling at him.

He turned around again an nope—classroom was still empty.

…he looked properly back at the mirror now, realizing that this super-cool looking mirror had
to be special for some reason so… was this it? Who were these people?

He blinked, moving his head to the side slightly… and the shock of red he was seeing didn’t
move. Or, it did, but not the hair he thought was his for half a second.

There was a woman with hair the color of apples and Christmas standing over his left
shoulder, smiling at him widely with bright green eyes he couldn’t help but think were
familiar. She had fair features and a thin nose, young looking… kind looking.

He reached up and touched a lock of his own hair almost unconsciously… and watched with
widening eyes as the woman leaned forward to put a hand over his, her smile widening as if
to say—look, we match!

He couldn’t feel her hand over his, but he saw it. He saw it.

“…Mom?”

The spectral woman smiled, still silent as the grave, but she was there.

She seemed… so real.

Almost unwillingly he glanced at the figure over his right shoulder now, mind filling in what
he was already assuming was happening, and maybe he didn’t recognize the man as he’d
never seen him before in any pictures or even in the mirror looking back at him but—

But the man had a dark mop of truly wild hair, and glasses over a large nose. He didn’t look
old enough to be a dad despite the fact he had on a very dad-like sweater—and it just kind of
hit him that—

My parents died really young, didn’t they?

His breathing was uneven as he tried to get it out, but he couldn’t form a single word and the
man didn’t seem to care at all. All the compassion and love and acceptance Harry needed was
written there right on his face as the man wrapped one arm around his wife beside him, and
the other around his shoulder as if pulling his family closer to him.

He felt tears pulling at his eyes and over the snitch in his throat, eyes searching the rest of the
mirror as he saw others. Others with more red hair—less like his mom’s, definitely just
ginger but definitely familiar— a whole army of those with messy dark hair and round
glasses—a full crowd of various people he didn’t recognize with dark curly hair and bright
grey eyes—even more people in robes and muggles clothes and—

And—
And a man with long black hair and the eeriest pair of blue-silver eyes seemed to casually
lean into frame, one arm up to lean on James Potter’s shoulder like it was only natural. His
eyes were alight with life and laughter, and even young as he was he had lines at the corners
of his eyes from how free-spirited he seemed to be. He was handsome and relaxed, silent as
they all were but Harry could see him saying something that made his parents crinkle their
eyes in delight.

They were all looking at him.

Happy.

Lovingly.

And the man with blue eyes seemed to lean around James as if to touch Harry’s hair too—
only when he pulled away Harry saw a tiny clip in his hair. It seemed to be made of
diamonds, in the shape of a tiny paw print.

He reached up to touch his temple where it should’ve been… and there was nothing there.

The three in the mirror beamed, clustering closer to him and his mother running ghostly, non-
existent hands through his hair as if trying to comfort him.

He saw her doing it. He saw the clip. It all… meant something.

But he couldn’t hear them.

He couldn’t touch them.

He couldn’t feel them.

He wanted them all so badly it felt like he was going to start suffocating, and he clapped his
hands over his mouth automatically as if that would keep it in—but it didn’t. Tears started
streaming down his face and it just didn’t matter.

Not when they silently soothed him, as if telling him it was alright.

We’re not here, but we still love you. All of you.

He turned on his heel and ran out the door of the classroom as fast as he could, not even
caring that his cloak was still down. He didn’t know how he made it back to the dorm with
the tears streaming down his face, much less unseen when he very much was not trying to
hide, but somehow he did… and when he buried himself under the covers of his four-poster
bed, he cried harder than he could ever remember crying in his life until he passed out from
the emotions he just wasn’t ready to confront yet.

000

Harry didn’t know there were other ways of becoming invisible other than a cloak, and he
didn’t know that on that particular night, he hadn’t been alone in that classroom at all.
 Someone else had been there, waiting to offer a word of wisdom about the ancient, enchanted
mirror in hopes that the boy would use its power for good one day soon.

Luckily, not even Albus Dumbledore knew what Harry had seen in the mirror that night, nor
what possibly could’ve prompted that suddenly dramatic response.

And if the old Headmaster returned to the classroom every night until the new school year
began, hoping to catch a first year out of bed and enchanted by a magical mirror, he would be
disappointed to realize it was all in vain.

Chapter End Notes

The mirror shows us what we want most, and my theory is that Harry only saw his
parents because he knew he wanted them. He didn't even know Sirius existed by first
year in canon so... in this world he does. And the mirror is pretty strongly enchanted--it
knows all about Sirius, and all about what Harry doesn't know he doesn't know.
 Let's Make a Deal

If Harry avoided all other living things except for Hedwig the rest of Christmas break, that
was his business.

Luckily, the only people who would actively notice such a thing and bother checking in on
him in the castle at the time were the twins, and surprisingly Percy who was ever-diligent in
his role as prefect. The twins were fortunately easy going enough that all they needed was a
‘I’m studying a bit’ to realize something was up and to give him space, and while Percy had
been a bit more annoying and attempted to ask what he was working on, was also thankfully
not that stupid and had left him be after a few suitably curt responses to get his disinterest in
talking across.

If he spent a significant amount of time curled up in his bed reading Dell’s journals or in his
dorm bathroom using up all the potions the hairdressers in Contrair Alley had given him to
make his hair curly or straight or fluffy just to play around with his admittedly large
collection of hair supplies after his Christmas haul, that was also no one’s business but his
own.

It wasn’t real. He told himself, over and over and over and over again as he looked into a
very normal mirror (relatively, it did leave messages in the fog of the shower sometimes) as
he re-did his hair for the hundredth time, pinning a new bauble someone from the soccer club
had given him into his locks with a bit more force than necessary. It wasn’t real. They’re
dead. And that man… that wasn’t Sirius Black. That’s just who I wanted for a godfather, it
means nothing.

Harry had spent a long time fully believing his parents were drunks—nobodies. He
consciously knew that wasn’t true, ever since the day he met Hagrid the first time. Ever since
people around him started to speak about his parents, and not only that, but they spoke about
his parents with gentle, respectfully fond tones in their voices like they’d been loved. Like
they’d been good people who other people had wanted to call friends.

But it was different, seeing what he didn’t have rather than just knowing about it.

He’d wrapped himself in stone a long time ago, lowered his expectations and just kept his
nose down until suddenly he’d gotten a break in life by coming to the wizarding world. He’d
been too caught up in the thrill of it all, getting too big for his britches in planning his life
now that his life had promise and potential and he could do things and actually be in control
of where he wanted to go or what he wanted to do or how he wanted to dress.

He hadn’t given his parents much thought at all, to be honest. The lack of parents was an
obstacle, the Dursleys were an enemy, and his missing godfather was a problem he would
have to figure out.

It hadn’t hit him until he’d seen them in the mirror (they’d been so real it just wasn’t fair that
they weren’t actually there to smile at him like they’d been real for just one moment) that they
were actual people who’d died not too long after graduating Hogwarts, leaving behind a one-
year-old child. They never actually got to grow up and he didn’t see middle-aged parents in
that mirror, he’d seen young adults who were not that old at all, it felt like.

It felt like they’d died knowing just as little as he did about how to feel about it—about
anything in this life because they’d just been too young. They didn’t feel like that nebulous
concept of safety and warmth he’d imagined when he’d once imagined what having real
parents would be like—in that mirror they were just love and support for a child they didn’t
really know and were glad they got to see a bit grown up, for that one night.

And Harry honestly did not know if that was better or worse.

His parents didn’t know him. They loved him if that mirror was to be believed, and he
honestly didn’t know if it could be believed, but if it could… then his parents loved him, but
they did not know him.

And that made tears sting sharply in his eyes as he glared into the mirror before him in
frustration.

It was unfair.

He wanted to know his parents. He wanted them to know him. To love him unconditionally
and not coddle him, but to just support him and think he was their son for no other reason
than that he was.

But they’d died when they were just kids themselves, and he was far too disillusioned with
the world to ever be a kid who could just love random strangers like he should’ve grown up
thoughtlessly loving his parents. They were people and even if they were miraculously
suddenly alive again, he would have to learn to trust and love them on his own.

And maybe he could do that, but it wasn’t fair. He was supposed to have grown up loving
them and it was supposed to be effortless.

But it wasn’t.

That mirror had shown him everything he wanted and he couldn’t have it. He’d been getting
too cocky, thinking the whole world was at his fingertips and he could get anything, because
he was a clever, rich little child who knew better than everyone else.

But he knew nothing.

And he could plot and scheme and destroy as many people as he wanted, but he could never
think up a plan that would get him his parents back… and that hurt.

It hurt his pride, it hurt his heart, it hurt his whole being until he just wanted to throw
something at the mirror before him and hope it felt something when it shattered.

He hated that mirror. For shoving it in his face and making him remember. For forcing him to
confront what he’d buried so deep he’d actually almost convinced himself he did not care
about Lily or James Potter. Sure, he liked the warmth he felt when someone said he had his
mother’s eyes or his father’s talent, but that’s all it was. Warmth.
This was like fire.

It burned at him until it was eating at the calm edges of his carefully composed mask, this
grief and unbridled anger that the world was so unfair and that he’d always known exactly
how much he’d wanted his parents back and how he’d buried it so that the pain of even
entertaining the idea couldn’t interfere with him living his life how he wanted to. Stupid day-
to-day joys like learning charms tricks, doing his hair in the morning, playing soccer or
quidditch, pulling a prank with the twins, asking McGonagall questions—even playing word
games with the Slytherins, that was all supposed to be what there was to his life.

It was supposed to be good.

And… it was.

But it’s not my parents. It’s not that home I used to cry over when I was too little to realize I
had to give up on stupid dreams like that.

He put his brush down and bent his head over the sink, gripping its edges and trying to
breathe deeply like Hermione’s book had told him to, picturing his mindscape clearing. He
still didn’t have a good image of how he was supposed to organize his thoughts, but
eventually this practice was supposed to help him get here, and he really needed the help
right about now.

I can’t be this person. I want to… I want to be me. I want to play soccer with all four houses,
I want to win at Quidditch. I want to play McGonagall’s favorite and lose myself in
Transfiguration like Dad and Dell did. I want to talk more with the twins and finally figure
out how to tell them apart. I want to be proud of who I am and have no regrets. I want to be
friends with Draco, I want to win my next argument with Blaise. I want to be a better friend
to Neville and for him to be happy with himself— I want the Dursleys to rot in hell.

He winced while keeping his eyes closed, realizing that was probably not helping.

I can’t be this person. I don’t want to be angry. I don’t want to hate like this.

The point of getting a new chance at life is that things were supposed to be better. But he’d
cracked open his stone shell that had kept him alive at the Dursleys, inviting things like
friends and amusement and excitement into his life—and suddenly other things that had been
safely hidden inside his stone shield were also crawling out, finally rearing their ugly, filthy
heads.

Things like resentment. At the Dursleys, at the world at large.

Anger.

Hatred.

And he didn’t even know if it was hatred, but it consumed him and he was absolutely
revolted by the feeling. He felt torn evenly between not caring about a damn thing because he
wanted to burn someone just to make them feel like he felt, but also beating himself over the
head because this wasn’t who he was.

This wasn’t who I was supposed to be. He confessed helplessly to no one, looking up at his
reflection finally to see the glare had finally disappeared, but the person looking back at him
didn’t have any answers to give him either.

000

By the time the new semester started, Harry had achieved three things.

First, he’d mastered every second year Transfiguration spell the twins had laid before him, to
the point he could do them not without concentration exactly, but with definite ease. He’d
even read that year’s textbook back-to-front Hermione-style as well as finally managing to
finish up his additional research topics as well, so he could confidently say he’d probably be
able to ace the second year Transfiguration exam a lot better than any current second year in
the school. With the exception of maybe a Ravenclaw he hadn’t accounted for (you never
knew, after all).

Secondly… he’d finally finished Hermione’s book on controlling his emotions, and the one
she’d just given him for Christmas. He’s spent enough time alone with his thoughts to have
the opportunity, as well as the revitalized motivation to do such a thing, and he’d worked his
way through them just before the carriages started arriving with students returning from
break.

Thirdly, and most importantly, he’d managed to fix himself back into himself, at least for the
time being.

Mental breakdown or not, he had hair done right, baubles in place, nails a new color orange
thanks to one of his Christmas gifts, and his whole wardrobe re-done to account for the fact
he had an invisibility cloak featuring in most of his day-to-day wear now. He was mentally
ready to get down with the next step of operation fox, for the coming quidditch season, as
well as primed and ready to propose the soccer clubs’ first unofficial game just as soon as
Dean and Lu got back to hear about his new idea.

He had carefully boxed up his thoughts about Sirius Black and a thrice-damned mirror (and
the now constant burning in the back of his heart when he remembered he’d never gotten to
know his parents) into a tiny little casket in the back of his mind and buried it.

He marked the tomb with a lovely pale blue gravestone in his mind’s eye and would come
back to grieve over it another day.

So when people, still bundled up tight from the snowy weather outside, started to filter in past
the Great Hall where he was practicing his spells idly, and he started waving to them and
greeting them like normal, giving out hugs and thank-you cards for gifts as was only polite,
no one suspected a thing. And when they asked what he did over break, he told them all
about Hagrid and the twins’ antics without even lying for once.

And that was how it should be.

To his knowledge, no one noticed a difference.

000

“A little lighter… maybe a bit more brown-ish…”

“Does the color really matter that much?” Seamus, the fool, was brave enough to ask.

“Of course it does! The soccer teams are supposed to be separate from the houses, so they
have to be totally different from the colors the houses use!” Harry didn’t miss a beat, flashing
him a grin that had the Irishman admitting defeat immediately. He turned back to the shirt he
was holding that was slowly turning the right color. “Okay stop! I like that—what does
everyone else think?”

“I thought it was fine fourteen shades ago.”

“Shut up, Lu.”

“I like it!” Hannah volunteered cheerily to halt the argument before it could spawn, earning a
thankful look from Harry that someone got it.

“So, we’re only one team?” A third year Gryffindor asked curiously. Harry was pretty sure
her name was Alison-something but she was new enough and the club large enough that he
actually didn’t know everyone at this point. Especially if they stuck to the beginner’s team
while he was still for some reason considered good enough to be on the more advanced team
most days.

“No, we still need two teams, but I had the perfect idea for the other team. Can you leave the
collar and sleeves as is, and then change the rest of it to this?” He lay a dark grey shirt on the
table in front of him and then pulled out a bandana he’d found that had inspired this whole
idea in the first place.

Fred was the one helping him perform the color-changing charm on the shirts, as it was a bit
too high-level for him at this moment—it was a fourth year Transfiguration spell he definitely
had high on his list to learn given the ability to change the colors of his clothes at will was
highly attractive, so while it was definitely a priority in his near future he still didn't know it
quite yet. Though Harry felt confident asking the twins in particular for their help despite it
being a bit above their year level as well, given that they knew all sorts of things they
probably shouldn’t in the name of their pranks (he was 100% sure they’ve used this specific
spell before, at least twice this year alone).

This particular twin had also volunteered to help when Harry had asked if either of them
knew the charm, which was suspicious as the implication was then that the other twin
couldn’t perform it. No one had immediately noticed this other than him he didn’t think, but
he had reason to pay attention, especially when he was working on his theory of how to tell
the two identical brothers apart.

As it was, he didn’t know if this twin was actually Fred or not, but according to his
observations George was better at Transfiguration between the two, given the imbalance of
only one of them answering his questions about upper year Transfiguration work so far. And
if George was better at Transfiguration, and the one was that wasn’t so good was definitely
better at Charms… process of elimination.

And if he was right about that, then Fred was the one who stared at the bandana being held
out to him like it was suddenly going to bite him. George, who was sitting off to the side just
watching this mostly, had eyebrows that skyrocketed to the top of his brow.

“Ah… Harry?” George pointed out the obvious.

“Just so you know, I’m not wearing that.” Fred immediately deadpanned, but lifted his wand
and charmed the shirt anyway, scrunching his nose up at the new color.

“Well I’m not!” His brother immediately countered.

“Well I’m not either!”

“Are too!”

“Are not!”

“Well one of you has to wear it because you two aren’t allowed to be on the same team.”
Harry cut them off, snatching the shirt back up with a roll of his eyes at their childishness.
Usually he was totally on board with it, but this was a bit ridiculous…

“Yeah, but Harry… you sure about that?” Seamus felt the need to point out, scratching the
back of his head awkwardly as he tried to find the right words to express it correctly. “I
mean…”

“It’s fine. Trust me, I have a plan!” He assured them with only a little more confidence
poured into his tone than he actually felt, and most of the club watching this conversation
exchanged wary looks, but shrugged, unable to come up with a better reason to doubt him.

“Well, if you say so.” Lu gave a resigned shrug, his tone clearly absolving himself of guilt if
they caught heat for it.

Fred turned and have his twin big puppy-dog eyes, George’s brow immediately twitching in
annoyance.

“Fine, I’ll wear it.” He caved, snatching the offending shirt from Harry’s grip while Fred
cheered and picked up the original one: a lovely light brown color with purplish-maroon
collar and sleeves for style.

The other, which a defeated George held, had deep grey accents while the overall color was a
bright and cheery mint.

In other words: green.

Not even remotely close to a Slytherin green, the drama queens, Harry mentally rolled his
eyes but kept his expression a cheerful smile so not to piss George off too much.
Another thing he’d noted: George had a bit shorter temper than his brother and some of the
more vicious pranks they got up to were definitely the majority his idea. Fred was always
down for a prank without question no matter how devious of course, but he was fractionally
more forgiving and less vengeance-oriented than his twin. Which, if Harry wanted to avoid
being the center of too many pranks moving forward, was definitely good information to
have.

“You’re just trying to provoke the Slytherins into joining, aren’t you?” Lu judged him, to
which Harry ignored the tone and answered as if that’d been a real question.

“One does not provoke Slytherins, one traps them into thinking something they are under the
impression was their idea all along.”

“You really scare me sometimes.” Dean tossed in there with a shudder for emphasis.

“And I’m calling bull—we’re experts at provoking Slytherins!” George pointed out gleefully.

“Indeed!”

Harry paused, considering that before shrugging once to acknowledge their point. “Okay, one
does not provoke good Slytherins who can actually be clever about things. Every house has
their duds, I’m sure.”

He got a lot of snickers from that as the whole football club in general was watching this
bickering for their own amusement. Apparently it wasn’t hard for every house to think up at
least someone who was only just so questionably in their house. Harry could think of five
people right now that he honestly had no idea how they ended up in that dorm. Hell, he was
sure there was a large portion of Gryffindor who actively wondered how Harry himself
wasn't in Slytherin.

“So how exactly is this going to work?” A second year Ravenclaw chirped up, now that the
team colors had at least been decided. And if anyone had any opinions on the matter, they
weren’t as confident as the twins in arguing with Harry about the colors they wore, so they
kept it to themselves. “We just pick a team?”

“That’s right!” Harry agreed eagerly. “We all kind of know where our skill levels are and who
we work well with, so I think if we just pick teams amongst ourselves it should work out fine.
I don’t want to do team captains or anything as even that sounds like too much pressure.”

“Professor Flitwick said he knows a charm that can get rid of the snow and keep the grass dry
on the pitch for a time, so we can have some practices and then a game or two out there
before quidditch season picks up again in earnest.” Lu supplied. “It doesn’t have to be just
one game either—we’re already divided into a beginner’s and a more experienced group, so
maybe we can just fill out for the people we’re missing and have two different games.”

“We can mimic the muggle way of calling it if you’d like—they’re called divisions, so a
division 1 team is better than a division 2 team, and so forth. I figure, if there’s not enough
people for a division 1 or 2 game, we can make it work with people who want to stretch
themselves or something by trying out a different division.” Dean stepped up to take some
charge as well, but even despite Lu and Dean seeming to know exactly what they were
talking about, there was still a lot of uncertain faces milling around the group.

Harry smiled widely, catching their attention with a distracting wave of his hands.

“Well I think we’re all much better than we were at the beginning of the year, and there’s no
quicker way to get better than a little healthy competition! Let’s just try it this once and if no
one likes it there’s no obligation to do it again. And if people do like it, they can form teams
as it suits them and switch up teams to get new teammates at will—the color changing
charms are easy so there’s no pressure,” He attempted to comfort them, not wanting this to be
added pressure, just a little bit of competitive fun. At least some people seemed to be
comforted by it as they looked between the two piles of shirts Fred was now actively
changing to be the right colors, people seeming to start thinking about choosing one.

“Which team are you picking then, Harry?” Hannah asked curiously.

“Hm… never thought I’d have to pick between two colors,” He joked slyly, earning himself a
couple laughs for the effort. “Well, since it’s my idea and it might be fun to mess with the
Slytherins, I’ll go green this time!”

“Then I’ll go brown, because I owe you for that nasty block you’ve picked up,” Dean huffed,
grabbing one of the other colored shirts on the tables.

“It’s taupe, please Dean.”

He was shot a dirty look for that snark, before they both burst out laughing at the
ridiculousness of it all.

“What’s going on here?”

Their laughter cut off temporarily, Harry glanced behind him at the newcomer and felt his
stomach sink.

They were in the Great Hall as that was the best place to meet: they could be as loud as they
wanted and all four houses could hang out in the neutral ground without feeling like one
group had the advantage or the comfort. People used the Great Hall as a place to study and
meet occasionally during off-mealtimes too, so it wasn’t an uncommon place for people to
study or hang out if they were tired of their dorms and wanted to be louder than they could in
the library. Even now it wasn’t just the football team in here, but they were by far the biggest
group and had taken over the ends of the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables in the center of the
room to spread out and work on their team shirts.

It wasn’t uncommon for people to be in here exactly, but extremely large meetings of more
than ten people, not counting how many people the football club had currently, containing
people of more than one house at that, was not a common sight at all. Because they gathered
so much attention and caused a ruckus more often than not, last semester they’d done most of
their meet-ups outside, but as it was still deep-winter and damn cold outside for the time
being, this was a good second option. And these days they were definitely a large enough
group that anyone coming by this very public place would notice them causing a commotion
in here.

So, it wasn’t exactly unexpected when other people drifted by and got curious as to what they
were up to. Harry liked to welcome those people in happily and try to convince them to join
if he could, which only ever half worked.

What wasn’t welcome right now though, was that this current newcomer was Ron.

Harry snapped his face into the most non-aggressive, calm smile he could. Ron had caused
no problems at all over Christmas break besides his snoring, and had really just avoided him
the whole year, ever since Halloween (if most of their year had somehow gotten it into their
heads in a roundabout way that Ron was the reason Harry had almost been killed by a troll
had anything to do with it, he was fine with that—if he had a feeling it was probably a
Slytherin’s fault people thought that, he was even more fine with that). They were roommates
and Harry may have accidentally been a leader in the football club somehow, but this group
was supposed to be inclusive and he refused to be a hypocrite because of a personal opinion
that hadn’t really born fruit in months.

So… in the name of not being a vengeful, petty person he was trying very hard to convince
himself he wasn’t, he forced his rising hackles to cool it for a second.

“We’re making team shirts for the soccer club. We’re big enough that we want to play a few
games when the snow melts.” He explained politely. He felt a pair of big blue eyes staring
widely at him as if asking what the heck he was doing from somewhere to his left where
Neville was hiding from the center of the commotion on one of the Hufflepuff benches.

“Yeah, it’s a lot of fun you know! I still think you might be interested,” Seamus offered the
youngest Weasley easily, thankfully saving Harry from the very awkward pause that had
followed his explanation. The Irishman was a good guy; he still talked to Ron actively
despite there being a defined rift in their dorm and to this day Harry had no idea it if was out
of pity or because Seamus was just an inherently better person than most and actually
enjoyed talking to Ron.

Case and point:

“No thanks,” The redhead rejected the kind offer flatly, his tone causing Susan to bristle
visibly from the corner of Harry’s eye. “Isn’t a bit unfair to be on two teams at once?” His
question was not exactly unfair itself, even if it was blunt enough to boarder on rude as he
looked directly at Harry to say it.

Before Harry could open his mouth though—

“Shut up, Ronnikins—we like sports and there’s no rules about being in this club.”

“You’re welcome to join if you’d like, but don’t talk fair unless you actually want to play.”
Fred and George chimed in instantaneously, forcing their brother to look from Harry to them
in surprise like he’d only just realized they were there. Ron very much hadn’t been talking
about his brothers when he’d said that, it just also happened to be true for them too.
Harry took a breath, mentally conjuring up that mental landscape Hermione’s book told him
to visualize when he needed to center himself. It still had no clear form, but he thought it was
tranquil and calming, like a garden or something.

“We have people of all skill levels you know; it might be fun. Our next practice is in two
weeks, right Lu?” He asked with almost clinical politeness towards the Ravenclaw, who
nodded once with a look on his face that said he was agreeing with Neville right now. “You
should come.” Harry offered the olive branch to Ron, who looked a bit surprised Harry had
actually done that.

To be clear: Harry was not a high road kind of person.

But this club was his idea and he was making an attempt here, for the sake of not being a
hypocrite he knew he would be if he actively tried to keep someone from joining it. He was
doing this less out of the goodness of his heart, and more purely to put himself on the moral
high ground when it came to this animosity between them. He didn’t want to senselessly hate
—he could not like someone and still work with them, in the name of his ultimate goals.

Did he want to? Heck no.

Could he? Yes, he could, and there was no great reason he shouldn’t.

Besides, his life would be easier if Ron weren’t an irritation. Maybe they’d even end up on
good terms and could politely ignore each other instead of actively avoid each other. Maybe
it’d be an improvement.

Ron frowned deeply. “What exactly is the point of the game?”

“It’s kind of like quidditch, just no magic or flying. And only one ball,” Dean explained
awkwardly. “But you kick the ball across the ground into nets instead of hoops, but almost
the same principles!”

“No bludgers in this one though.” George offered, Fred shrugging that point.

“Win some, lose some.”

“We winning or losing?”

“Hard to say.”

“What’s the point if you can’t fly?” Ron seemed baffled at the mere concept.

“Uh, some of us don’t like heights.” Lu waved a hand matter-of-factly as if gesturing to

himself, face flickering in irritation.

The youngest Weasley started at him, as if also realizing there was an audience here,
watching this… really painful exchange, to be honest.

“Aren’t you a Ravenclaw?”

“Yeah…?”

“I just didn’t think you’d be into sports or something.”

“Ravenclaw has a quidditch team like everyone else,” Harry’s jaw flexed, but managed to
maintain his cool better than Lu who looked indignant at the implication and at a loss for how
Ron managed to get to that conclusion.

“I know we have a bookworm reputation, but I like sports too you know,” Said athletic
bookworm grumbled petulantly.

Ron didn’t really seem to get it, but turned back to Harry with his eyes narrowed some. “And
you’re the captain or whatever?”

“What? No way—there is no captain or club leader here, and if there were, it would
absolutely be either Dean or Lu as they both know about ten times as much as I do about this
game. Honestly, I’m just in charge of shirts, I swear.” He put his hands up as if surrendering
(which he was, as he had no desire to actually be in charge of anything officially as that
would absolutely eventually require him to put more time an effort into this than his simple
concept of ‘have fun when I want to’). He had definitely said this before and been very vocal
about how much he didn’t want to actually need to put time and effort into this club and so
there were several scoffs and snickers at his expense echoed from around the room.

“You do come up with the weird ideas though.” Susan pointed out mockingly.

“No one is obligated to go along with my weird ideas though,” He defended himself with a
sly grin and she just rolled her eyes fondly.

“Well they’re insane, but they have merit is all I’m saying.”

“Why thank you!”

“What do you say, Ron? Wanna play a bit?” Seamus brought the conversation back eagerly.

“I mean I guess. Sounds interesting.” He shrugged a bit, scratching the back of his head
uncertainty. “There’s no Slytherins, right?”

Harry tensed, and the only reason he managed to not snap something automatically was
Neville staring at him very blatantly now, as if asking what he was about to do.

His shy friend had this way of being totally silent and yet always present in the corner of his
vision, as if the blond were his own personal Jiminy Cricket reminding him to be a better
Gryffindor than he instinctually was.

If Neville is the angel on my shoulder, that would absolutely make Blaise my personal devil.
He’ll get a kick out of that, I think.

That amusing thought helped him regain his mental clarity enough to remember not to hit the
boy in front of him, and instead form an actual human response.
“There are no Slytherins yet—however this club is not related to the houses in any way and if
I could convince one of them to join then they would be welcome just as you are entirely
welcome to join or not for whatever reason.” He thought his tone was polite enough, even if
it was rather crisp. And even if it wasn’t, that’s all Ron was going to get.

“I’m not joining if one of those slimy gits is too!” He shot out as if affronted Harry would
even dare mention the snake house.

“And that’s totally your right. Join or don’t, it’s up to you.” He snapped flatly. If Ron were a
little more observant he’d notice Harry didn’t want him to join at all. He was offering to be
nice, forcibly, not because of an actual wish to play football with him.

Luckily only Ron was unobservant enough to realize Harry was at the end of his spontaneous
good graces, and Seamus bodily stepped between them, waving his hands as if trying to
physically defuse the situation.

“Well then no worries as none of them are here right now! Sounds like you’re joining—great!
Have a shirt,” he snatched one of the brown shirts and shoved it into his hands, and Harry
decided that was the perfect moment to let Dean and Lu take charge as the unofficial-official
leaders of this club. He plopped down next to Neville on his bench off to the side, ignoring
the blue eyes still following him with a silent intensity more fitting on Hedwig, honestly.

As Seamus enthusiastically started explaining the rules of the game (Susan unable to help
herself by chiming in with her made up rules which caused Lu’s temple to start twitching)
Harry really hoped he wouldn’t regret this decision eventually.

Not that it was his decision, exactly. Ron was allowed to do as he pleased, after all, like all of
them were.

I’m kind of seeing Susan’s point. It’s all fine when I’m doing what I want, but it’s a lot harder
to just be chill when others do the same. I should probably have more sympathy for Draco, he
thought in amusement to himself.

I should also see if Hermione has another book for me if I’m going to be in the same club
with Ron from here on out…

000

It was a very normal Tuesday when Harry found himself walking towards the Great Hall
from the library, and he immediately realized he was, for once, entirely alone. Which would
be an advantageous time to corner him, and he knew this because a girl seemed to appear out
of nowhere and start walking beside him, as if accompanying him towards where dinner was
being served.

And this girl he recognized, as being the Slytherin first year who’d been blatantly watching
him pretty much since Halloween from a couple seats away at the Slytherin table the days he
chose to sit there.

“Ah… hello.” He greeted in surprise, and she smiled politely.

“Hi. Nice to meet you, I’m Daphne Greengrass.”

Greengrass? Wait, that rings a bell…

It hit him suddenly, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up instinctively. He’d
heard both Draco and Axeclaw mention that name in different ways, and if what he thought
was true, the Greengrass family was a Slytherin name that was entirely neutral.

He wasn’t 100% sure on the dark, light, and neutral affiliations, at least not as familiarly as
he’d like given that the snake house put a lot of emphasis on how a family was aligned before
talking to someone of a different affiliation, but what he did know was the one other neutral
name he knew about.

Which was Zabini.

And if the Greengrass family was anything like Blaise, then he was immediately on his toes.

“Harry Potter-Monroe.” He greeted as politely and respectfully as he thought reasonable

given they were alone and she’d clearly been waiting to get him alone before talking to him.

She smiled in amusement, seeming to know exactly what he was doing.

“I’m not out to get you, you know.” She dismissed his respect with a friendly tease. “A lot of
Slytherins would be, but you’re just interesting.”

“Thank you?” He had no idea what to make of that, and defaulted with honesty. Slytherins
always got a kick out of honest people. “Is this about my Transfiguration notes?”

As expected, she laughed fully at that.

“It could be.” She allowed. “Just thought I’d say hi is all.”

“Well how lovely and appropriately eerie for a rouge Slytherin.” He complimented cheerily,
and her face flickered in surprise, before her smile turned wry. “I know Slytherins don’t do
friendly, but you’re very good at it.”

“Thank you.” She didn’t even blink at everything he’d just implied. “And who said
Slytherins don’t do friendly? You hang out with a Zabini and a Malfoy; they’re not exactly
good examples of your typical Slytherin now are they?”

He was legitimately surprised by that. “They aren’t? Well, they’re my only examples to go
off of at the moment.” He admitted.

“Malfoy is a hot mess, if you ask me. And saying a Zabini is typical is like meeting a dragon
and thinking all lizards breathe fire.”

Harry felt his face light up automatically in delight.

“Really now? I would tell that to his face if I weren’t sure he’d take it as a compliment.”
She snorted a lot less gracefully than Harry was expecting a Slytherin to be. She was also…
casual? Was that the right word? She came across polite and witty, but also kind of… well,
normal to be honest. Her words were as sharp as he’d have expected but she didn’t have
Blaise’s regal posture or Draco’s baby-cactus routine. Not even a normal cactus routine, and
she wasn’t afraid, unnerved, or disturbed by him at all—just amused, it seemed.

Maybe Draco and Blaise were bad examples.

“He probably would.” She gave him that with a shrug. “Well, I have no ulterior motives if
you’ll believe that. You’re not exactly popular in Slytherin on the most part so us firsties
follow our upper classmen’s example to keep our noses out of trouble, but I’ve got nothing
against you, you know.”

“Well that’s good.” Still, this was a really suspicious conversation to be having. “Is there a
reason in particular you’re telling me this though?”

“Well it’d be rude if I only talked to you for the first time the week before finals, trying to a
get a copy of your Transfiguration notes.”

Ah, there it is.

He flashed her a grin, some of his suspicion relaxing. Not too much, but some. She was still a
Slytherin, after all.

“Fair point. I suppose I’ll have to learn more about you to see what a fair trade will be, for
then.”

“I am sure I can produce something of interest to you.” She lifted her chin, playful
confidence in her eyes.

By that time they’d made it to the Great Hall, and she gave him a friendly little nod before
splitting off towards the Slytherin table without a word. Harry had intended to sit at the
Ravenclaw table tonight and didn’t intent to change those plans just because this Ms.
Greengrass was being clever, so decided to shelve that for later thought, letting her go
without another word goodnight.

That was… unexpected.

But pleasantly so.

000

Draco had a headache.

It was mainly related to his Charms essay, but it got infinitely worse at breakfast when he
sensed someone sit down with their normal group, and everyone who typically sat with them
was already accounted for—including Harry who was not helping his headache by bantering
with Blaise far too early in the morning for Draco’s tastes. Which meant someone new, and
that was always going to be complicated at the Slytherin table.
And then he looked up and saw one Daphne Greengrass smiling widely at Harry and knew
his headache wasn’t going away anytime soon. Maybe he’d ask Madam Pomfrey for a pain
reliever just to get him through the Transfiguration exam they had later today.

“Ah! Good morning Ms. Greengrass.” Harry seemed delighted to see her, and also seemed
fully aware of who she was, which unnerved Draco greatly.

“Good morning Mr. Monroe,” Greengrass greeted just as pleasantly back to him, already
knowing full well the red head got defensive about people implying too heavily about his
Boy Who Lived reputation.

Which means she’d done her research, of course. Which means she was after something.

Which means Draco was never going to hear the end of this.

As if on cue he turned, and watched Blaise’s face fall like a ton of bricks, twisting into
something ugly and irritated.

“Oi, buzz off.” He snipped at her immediately, and Draco saw Harry startle by his sudden
change in personality. Well, Harry only ever got to see Blaise when he was happily
entertained by his pet Gryffindor, so welcome to his world.

Daphne just shot the Zabini a coy look and helped herself to some toast from the tray in front
of her, ignoring his distain that would’ve had weaker snakes running for cover.

“Hm, no… I don’t think I will.” She flashed him a smile that no one bought for a second.
“You don’t get to claim the crazy Gryffindor for yourself anymore, Mr. Zabini.”

“Go find your own entertainment, hag!”

“Why do I suddenly feel like a trinket?” Harry blinked in surprise, watching the two of them
across the table and visibly trying to piece together what was happening. Draco just sighed
and went about fixing his tea.

He was going to need another cup to get through this meal.

“Neutral families, don’t ask.”

“But aren’t the Malfoys now neutral?”

“Only recently. There’s not enough… history, I guess, to cause this kind of trouble.” He
waved to the two Slytherins now smiling with painfully fake politeness at each other in hopes
the other one dropped dead suddenly.

Harry looked perturbed. “Do I want to know?”

“Honestly? No, no you do not.” Draco huffed, sipping his cup and enjoying the earl grey
while he watched the conflict go down across the table and hoping no one started throwing
curses.
Honestly, he had no idea what to make of this and he really didn’t want to get caught in the
middle for any reason. This was uncharted territory for everyone and the one thing Slytherins
didn’t like is the unknown. Even an impossible enemy you understood was better than one
you had no information on, so Draco was going to shut him mouth and watch for now until
these two found some kind of agreement in how to proceed from here on out.

While the Zabini and Greengrass families were both neutral, that’s about where the
similarities between the two stopped. It was like talking about quidditch and garden gnomes.

Quidditch and garden gnomes in no way related, and you would confuse people by trying to
talk about both at once.

The only thing they had in common was that they were formidable opponents or allies to
have, and that the Dark Lord had never tried to mark the two as his before. No one in either
of the two families had a dark mark on them, but the reasons for that were not exactly similar.
The Zabini’s were powerful, and their international connections meant even the Dark Lord
wouldn’t risk insulting them, at least not when he was still mid-way through taking over
magical Britain (who knows what he’d have done if he’d gained complete control though).

The Greengrass family, however, was just too damn useful.

If you were looking for a deal, a connection, a bit of information, a rare book, anything niche
and useful and powerful, a Greengrass could get it for you. They also did not care who they
dealt with, so they had connections all over both the light and dark communities, and their
usefulness was so powerful not even Dumbledore seemed to care that they very unashamedly
used to deal with Death Eaters on the regular. Even reversed, dark families didn’t mind that
they dealt with the Minister officially, even having open deals with werewolves, vampires,
giants, and goblins—and some dark families were so intensely prejudiced that under normal
circumstances they’d probably send death threats to people who associated with inhuman
creatures rather than consider them allies.

The thing is, you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes. The
Greengrass family was too damn useful to turn on them just because you didn’t agree with
some of their other business ventures. They didn’t reveal information about their clients or
their deals, and they never broke their word, and those two defined facts about who this
family was made them very reliable business partners on top of the fact that they could get
their hands on goods that were generally just thought to be impossible to find.

They were a business family, and while they didn’t make money like the Malfoys did,
certainly, not even money could create the kind of information and goods network a true, old-
blooded merchant family had built after dozens of generations. Like many ancient and nobles
houses, the value of their heirloom artifacts and personal libraries were legitimately priceless
in shear wealth, rarity, and information compared to plain gold. After all, you couldn’t buy
certain connections, or the knowledge that came with the trade that the Greengrass family
was capable of.

Blaise clearly enjoyed being able to play anyone he wanted—the dark couldn’t touch him for
fear of his family’s reputation, and the light avoided him blatantly because while his family
wasn’t dark, it was also comprised of terrifying business tycoons that were all but impossible
to beat head-to-head if for some reason they set their sights on you. But if the Zabini name
was a ruthless fortune 500 company that ate small businesses for lunch, then the Greengrass
name were the boots on the ground—the pirates who had a whole fleet of ships filled with
rare treasures from around the world that not even a monster company could replicate.

They were untouchable in their own ways, but also as different in their tactics as they could
physically be. The Zabini’s made huge moves, marrying into money and suddenly inheriting
it all, conquering businesses in brutal take-overs, investing in risky deals before the key
lynch-pin of the investment suddenly turned up dead, earning them a jackpot. They moved in
huge lurches of increased wealth that usually made the papers—be it a wedding or an
obituary.

Comparatively, the Greengrass family slowly but steadily worked themselves into every part
of the wizarding economy, deal after deal, investment after long investment, partnership after
partnership—until they were connected by marriage, contract, friendship, or debt to literally
every family, business, or individual that mattered. They were so pervasive you couldn’t cast
a spell without hitting something they’d had a hand in, or knew someone who did, and so
forth.

And the interesting thing to Draco in particular, was that the Zabini name was called neutral
only because they were untouchable, when in reality their tactics were objectively terrible
enough that no Light family would openly call them allies.

The Greengrass name, was the only actual true neutral family Draco knew of.

They’d made deals with the Dark Lord personally during the last war to provide resources
and information aplenty, Draco knew. But, to this day they also actively search out
muggleborns with potential and support them after Hogwarts in exchange for a piece of the
action—half of the shops on Contrair Alley owed their existence to the Greengrass name,
after all. They even had stakes in muggle companies, Draco had heard his parents mention a
couple times, although they knew almost nothing about that given their lack of interest
outside the wizarding world.

No deal was too small or too morally ambiguous to get in on, for a Greengrass. If that wasn’t
true grey, Draco didn’t know what was.

For someone like Blaise, who was trained to only lower himself to make the trade if the pot
was sweet enough, that difference in philosophies and attitude was stark, and rather unsightly
to the pompous Slytherin.

And also probably a bit insulting was the fact that the one family the Greengrass family didn’t
trade with, also happened to be the Zabinis.

Draco scoffed silently into his breakfast. You didn’t need to be a genius to figure out why—
dealing with the Zabinis in an official capacity was tantamount to a death wish. No matter
how sweet the pot or tantalizing the deal, most Slytherins were trained from birth not to
actually engage with a Zabini.
The fact Draco had become roommates and friends with one was very questionable, but he
was confident enough in his parents’ training to cross that bridge when they got there.

Daphne, the true merchant’s daughter that she was, did not have the luxury of knowing for
certain that Blaise would come after her like Draco was 100% sure he’d eventually come
after the Malfoy wealth one day. She had nothing Blaise wanted, nor needed, and she wasn’t
interested in dealing with him at all (it was a very well-known fact that her family did not deal
with his) which meant their interactions should’ve been approaching zero their entire time at
Hogwarts to avoid causing everyone that trouble.

But she wanted to be near Harry, because Harry was a novelty at the Slytherin table and
interesting. And he was fast making connections in the rest of the school that even the darkest
of snakes couldn’t deny was useful, if they weren’t as thick as Crabbe and Goyle.

Blaise had learned quickly that Harry was an entertainment to him, and Daphne saw a good
deal in the making.

Draco wasn’t sure if the two biggest neutral families had ever set sights on the same prize
before, and he was not thrilled with learning what would happen when they did.

Harry, who did not know any of this, was looking between all the Slytherins present with
unveiled interest as he tried to understand what subtleties were happening here without much
luck.

Daphne broke her and Blaise’s stare-off first, turning back to Harry pointedly and waving her
hand to the side where another Slytherin girl was… kind of sitting with them, but also just far
enough away that no one had initially realized she was there. She did not look happy to be
there, and as the Davis family was dark as they came, Draco knew why.

But, she was childhood friends with Daphne and it was clear she was just a follower here.

“This is Tracy Davis.” Daphne introduced for Harry, who nodded at the fellow platinum
blond politely.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Hm.” Tracy didn’t look at him directly, going back to her breakfast pointedly.

“Okay great, another Nott. Mark my words I will get you to laugh!” Harry teased with a
wicked grin, and Tracy rolled her eyes snarkily.

“Good luck with that, Potter.” She sneered.

“It’s Monroe actually, Ms. Davis, and the fact you fell for that means I’ve already made more
progress with you than with Mr. Nott.” Harry didn’t miss a beat in snipping back, and her
face crumpled in annoyance at him, which he returned with a megawatt fake smile of his
own.

Draco glanced between those two glaring at each other with animosity sparking in the air
around them, and back to where Blaise was very visibly considering dumping his bowl of
oatmeal onto Daphne’s head beside him where she was silently daring him to dare try it with
her eyes… to the space Nott used to be and now only held a half-eaten plate as proof he’d
been there. He’s probably taken off the second he saw Daphne approach, the smart boy.

He sighed and poured himself another cup of tea.

I must really be losing it, because I kind of want to go sit at the Gryffindor table for this.

His headache did not go away at any point that day.

000
 Sleeping Dragons
Chapter Notes

Guys-- LOOK AT HOW CUTE THIS FANART IS!

https://idic8.tumblr.com/image/628610713862242304
https://idic8.tumblr.com/image/628610766266843136

Thank you so much to idic8 for drawing my version of Harry and baby cactus Draco--
they're actually legitimately more beautiful than I was even imaging them, I'm just
speechless and cannot thank you enough!

Okay, I can’t decide if this is the coolest thing ever or really, really bad. Harry thought wryly
as he felt sweat bead down the back of his neck both from the heat of Hagrid’s tiny hut, and
the implications of what was happening.

Neville looked positively terrified across the table, as Hagrid cooed at a tiny, slimy, garbly
dragon on his very wooden table in the middle of his very tiny, wooden hut.

When Hedwig had brought him a note from Hagrid this morning telling him to visit after
dark because had something special to show him, he’d dragged Neville along because the
blond hadn’t really gotten to know Hagrid yet and he really thought that once Neville got
over his fear of the giant man, they’d be great friends. Neville spent most of his time in the
greenhouses or with his plants, and Hagrid definitely had a green thumb of his own as the
keeper of the grounds, and while Hagrid was kind of terrifying at first glance and had…
legitimately terrifying pets all around, he was a genuinely good guy and so was Neville, so
Harry kind of thought they’d get along like a house on fire eventually.

The imminent threat of an actual house catching fire and the freaking dragon in front of them
made everything a bit more complicated unfortunately, and Harry was kind of regretting even
telling Neville about this, much less bringing him to now be unequivocally involved.

“H-Hagrid… it’s illegal to own dragons.” Neville whimpered like he was really wishing he
didn’t need to point that out, eyes positively bugging out of his head at the creature in front of
him as it turned and warbled in a distinctly baby-like way for a lizard at the Gryffindor when
it heard him speak.

Harry hadn’t known that it was illegal exactly, but he’d definitely figured. He was very close
to being fully caught up to third-year-level Transfiguration which means there was some very
tiny introductory paragraphs about turning larger objects into animals in the books he’d been
reading—one of them being turning a couch into a dragon which was a derivative of the
second year spell of turning small objects into tiny dragons. There’d been a very aggressive
footnote on that spell about a time limit applied to how long your couch could remain a
dragon and also the fact that if you actually managed to have enough power to turn a couch
into a full sized dragon you actually needed a permit from the Ministry to even attempt such a
thing.

And given how pricy and rare dragon parts were as potion ingredients, dragons were very
regulated affairs. Hagrid getting his hands on an egg set every alarm bell Harry had in his
head off all at once.

“Why on earth did some guy have a dragon egg in his pocket for you to win it in a card
game? Where were you playing cards and against who? Also, if you’re that good at cards you
definitely could’ve sprung for those hydrangea bushes you were talking about.” Harry ranted
a bit, and Hagrid got all huffy, his cheeks turning a bit red under his bushy beard.

“It was a bit ‘o luck, winnin’ that hand, I’ll admit.” He relented. “An’ the Hog’s Head is a
reputable pub I’ll ‘ave you know.”

Harry seriously doubted that.

“Hagrid, you live in a wooden house.”

“I’ve always wanted a dragon though,” He complained, but Harry put his foot down firmly.

“Hagrid, no way. Listen to me: you need to go tell Dumbledore about this right now before
it’s too late. If you’re caught with Norbert here, you could get arrested much less fired! Tell
him you didn’t know what it was before it hatched and made a mistake—maybe they’ll have
a chance of going after the guy who gave this to you because really, if he’s got dragon eggs in
his pocket who knows what else he’s dealing! If he’s got one, he could have others, and
they’re supposed to be a protected species, aren’t they?” He pleaded, Neville nodding along
rapidly in agreement.

“But I can’t give ‘im up, he’s just been born! That’d be jus’ cruel, leavin’ ‘im to fend fer
‘imself now, wouldn’t it?” Hagrid wasn’t listening, pulling a piece of meat he had on hand
and letting Norbert gobble up his first meal happily, a puff of smoke that was dangerously
close to becoming a flame already given it was only ten minutes old making Harry extremely
nervous.

“What’s cruel is keeping what’ll eventually grow to be ten times your size in a tiny hut.”
Harry muttered, before raising his voice more clearly. “Hagrid you’re going to get arrested.
We need to tell Dumbledore!”

“Come now Norbert, don’t do tha’,” Hagrid was yet again distracted by the baby dragon
attempting to claw at the wooden table below it—baby claws immediately leaving huge
divots on the wood with ease.

Harry could only gape at him in shock, before turning to Neville and getting met with an
equally out of depth blue gaze.

Oh my god, Hagrid’s going to get arrested.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think. Well… they were cutting it dangerously
close to curfew, and he couldn’t help Hagrid tonight. And… Norbert couldn’t grow that fast,
right? They probably had a couple weeks until he was too big to hide anymore… but then
again they probably had days, if not hours, until the tiny trouble maker learned to breathe fire
so…

Well, one night probably wouldn’t hurt.

“We need to make it back to the tower by curfew so… Hagrid we will be back tomorrow to
talk about this, don’t think this is over!” He warned, but the giant man waved him off, either
not really hearing him or just not caring.

“Harry… Harry we can’t leave that there,” Neville hissed as Harry took him by the hand and
flat out ran back to the castle, the grounds dark around them and the realization that they
were definitely not going to make it becoming clear. Harry had his cloak, but Neville didn’t,
so there was really nothing to do about it but run.

“We don’t really have a choice—it’s no use if we get in trouble right alongside him. Let’s just
get back to the tower and try and think of what the heck to do about this tomorrow, it’ll
probably be fine until then.”

“What exactly, will be fine until then?”

A voice cut them off just as they entered the entrance hall, and Harry felt Neville freeze solid
behind him. He wasn’t exactly thrilled with that particular voice either, as he turned to see
none other than the last professor he wanted to see waiting on them right now.

Snape.

Who, was looking very unsurprised to see them, Harry noted. In fact he almost looked
gleeful, which was honestly a creepy look on him, more so than usual.

But it meant someone had snitched, seeing them leave the castle after dark and informing
Snape that he’d catch a couple Gryffindors if he just posted up and waited them out—Harry
hadn’t exactly cared who’d seen him go at the time because he had no idea Hagrid was going
to get them caught up in illicit activities out of the blue like that, nor that they’d spend that
long trying to convince the ground’s keeper not to be a blooming idiot about the whole thing,
to very little success.

“Our herbology final project,” Harry lied immediately, flashing a not-so-friendly but
undoubtedly polite smile at the potions master. “Apologies professor but we’re going to miss
curfew if we don’t—"

“I believe, you already have.” Snape cut him off, and if the flapping cloak he always wore
was proof enough he was a pathetically dramatic man, the bell tower chose that exact
moment to ring out, signaling for all the castle that they were now out past curfew.

Crap.
“You mean to tell me you were at the greenhouses, this late at night?” Snape raised a brow
derisively, and Harry was lying but he still felt indignant that the greasy-haired man dared
doubt him.

“Yes sir, something about the moon cycle and white-lily flowers—I’ll confess Herbology is
not my best subject so don’t quote me on that though.” He doubled down, meeting his inky
eyes without hesitation. On another day, they could’ve just said they were at Hagrid’s and on
any other day had it been any other professor, they might’ve been able to check with the
giant man to corroborate their story and avoid a detention.

But if anyone knocked on Hagrid’s door this particular night, things would get messy very
quickly. If Snape were the person to knock, Hagrid might as well start trying on cuffs that
would actually fit him now.

The potions master stared them down, clearly not convinced although Harry had no idea why
he was so certain they were lying. I mean, they were, but Harry thought himself a pretty good
liar and Neville was just flat out terrified—Snape had never seen the blond Gryffindor with
any other expression, so how would he possibly know he was significantly more terrified at
this moment than any other?

They key to a great lie is to believe it.

Harry wiped all thoughts of Hagrid and dragons from his mind and pictured the white flowers
Neville had shown him last week, where they’d spent hours after dinner taking notes on them
to support their Herbology final project. He could almost for a second convince himself
that’d been this night instead of last Wednesday.

Snape… eventually seemed to buy it, even if it was clearly reluctantly.

“Back to your dorm, now.” He commanded, and Harry hadn’t let go of Neville’s hand yet so
he just took off quickly without a word, dragging the blond behind him.

Not quite fast enough though.

“And fifty points from Gryffindor each… for breaking curfew.” The royal git sounded way to
pleased to say it and Harry forced himself not to turn around, not acknowledge the man, not
even react to the intense punishment they’d just been given as he bolted up the entrance hall
stairs, forcing Neville along as he gasped sharply in shock at the loss. He knew it was
probably rude of him not to acknowledge a professor, but he also knew they’d just lose more
points to his unfortunate habit of mouthing off if they stuck around too much longer, and at
least now they were out of earshot for if the man decided the slight to his person was worth
detracting yet more points from the lion house.

50 points!? What a git! I got 30 points for successfully using a Transfiguration spell against a
mountain troll as a first year, and yet 100 points total loss for being one minute late to
curfew because we were studying for a final!? Which, was a lie, but HE didn’t know that!

Harry fumed darkly, too angry for words as they made the last stretch to Gryffindor tower.
I should get to deduct 100 points from Hogwarts in general for every near-death experience
I’ve had. THAT’D even the playing field, wouldn’t it?

Still, by the time they got to the fat lady’s portrait, Harry had neatly re-categorized his
indignant rage into not that important for the moment. Annoyed as he was, it still didn’t rank
on his priorities of things he needed to care about considering there was a dragon in Hagrid’s
hut right now.

As the portrait swung shut behind them, marking them finally safe, he turned and felt
sympathy for the extremely pale Neville who let his hand drop limply to his side in shock.
“W-we l-lost a hundred points?” He gaped.

Harry pat his arm sadly, acknowledging there really wasn’t anything he could say to make it
better.

“You what?” Harry looked over, an aghast fourth year accompanied by several of his
teammates having overheard that and their faces turning red. Huh, so they took this house
points thing that seriously?

Neville quailed immediately under the upper year’s glare and Harry’s mouth moved without
thinking.

“I lost 100 points for mouthing off to Snape—apologies, but he’s a snitch so what exactly did
you expect?”

“You picked a fight with Snape!? Are you insane?”

“Debatable.” Harry snapped, not appreciating his tone and not really interested in getting into
a fight with his own house. “Now I think it’s about time I call it a night—if you want to be
bitter about it I’ll earn the points back myself.”

“Potter-”

“It’s Monroe to you,” Whoever the hell you are—do I even know you? “And have a great
night,” He cut the conversation off brutally, once against grabbing Neville to drag him up the
stairs to their dorm.

“Harry…”

“People take the house rivalries way too seriously.” He muttered darkly under his breath. “If
Gryffindor keeps acting as prejudiced as the Slytherins, I’m going to start rooting for
Hufflepuff.”

Neville fell quiet at that until they made it back to their dorm safely—luckily everyone else
being still down in the common room. Particularly Ron, who bought into the points system
way too deeply and was rude enough to confront them on it outright, without stopping to
consider the fact that Snape was a biased git who was actively looking to take points at every
chance he got (not to mention the fact someone had sold them out to the potions professor,
and Harry was absolutely sure it was one of the many Slytherins out to get him for how he
was encroaching in their politics these days).

As Harry was at the end of his rope after today, he couldn’t assure anyone that Ron would
have all his limbs attached if he tried him right now.

“Harry…” Neville mustered up enough courage to try it again, face crumpled in both
weariness from how much terror he’d just gone through tonight and something else eating at
him deeply. “You shouldn’t have taken the blame for me.”

“It was me who dragged you down there—and no I didn’t know Hagrid was going to rope us
into that exactly, but it was still my idea. You wouldn’t have been out past curfew if not for
me, so it was only right.”

But the blond was already shaking his head, “That’s not how this works, and I’ve told you
before. It was my choice to follow you, I’m just as to blame for any of it.” He bowed his
head, shoe kicking the ground slightly in agitation. “You don’t have to protect me.”

Harry sighed… smiling a bit wryly.

“To quote a friend, that’s now how this works.” He scolded gently, Neville lifting his gaze in
surprise. “I’m probably the most Slytherin-like Gryffindor to ever be in this house, and that
means I’ve got the best and worst of both worlds. I want to protect my friends of my own free
will, and I do that by lying whatever lie I need to.” He reached out and nudged his friend’s
arm soothingly, the blue eyes following him seeming to try and warp his head around that
logic, and totally failing. Harry offered him a reassuring grin as he nudged him again, just to
be sure he was listening. “I’ll tell you what: I’m going to think of a way to get Norbert out of
here as soon as possible, and I can’t guarantee it’s not going to end up with me in detention
until I graduate. If you want in, I won’t try to protect you this time because I’m warning you
now we might get in a world of trouble for it—I’m hoping just endless detention instead of
arrested, though.”

Neville slumped, seeming at a loss about the whole dragon situation, but determination
flickering in his face again, washing away the anxiety like Harry had hoped it would.

“Okay. Count me in.”

Harry grinned with more confidence than he felt, wondering how (or if) Neville would keep
to the lie that Harry had been the one to lose the points. He had no clue if Neville could
actually lie or not.

And honestly, he was hoping to never really know that answer.

000

“Draco!”

Normally he wouldn’t announce his presence quite so loudly in the Slytherin side of the
Great Hall, but he wanted to catch his friend before he could sit down to breakfast properly.
True to form Draco paused to turn and spare him a greeting smile (and he was getting much
better at doing that, even in snake territory), while Blaise also stopped in curiosity. Nott
didn’t even break stride and continued on, but Harry expected nothing less from him by now.

“Potter,” Blaise greeted blandly, but with far too much glee in his tone to be a good sign.
“Couldn’t help but notice Gryffindor lost some serious points yesterday.” He said brightly by
way of greeting, and Harry didn’t even bother wondering how Blaise knew it’d been him to
lose the points.

“Blaise, not now. I really just have bigger things to worry about than the stupid house points.”
Harry shot him a look, “Also, it was Snape. Need I say more?”

“I would love it if you did.”

“I’m sure you would, but unfortunately I don’t trust you not to spread it around within
minutes just because you’re you.”

“Now what does that mean?”

Harry made a very clear point of rolling his eyes. “Somehow, playing dumb suits you.”

Instead of being flat out insulted, Blaise actually had to prevent himself from dying as he
attempted to cover his startled laugh by pretending it was a coughing fit, though he managed
to fool exactly no one.

“Gryffindor seems pretty concerned over the house points.” Draco pointed out, ignoring his
roommate as he attempted to turn and go sit down, only to be halted by Harry latching onto
his sleeve insistently. He paused, seeming to realize something was up and got a concerned
look on his face.

“Gryffindor is pretty concerned over a lot of stupid stuff and if I help win the next quidditch
match, I’ll be good. I’m not stupid enough to think everyone has to like me, and frankly
people’s opinions on me ranks pretty low on stuff I care about right now.” Harry dismissed it
entirely, before meeting his grey gaze with a wide green plead of his own. “I need your help.”

“Why?” Ever the good Slytherin, even being his best friend he wasn’t going to just agree that
easily. Snakes didn’t work like that, but Harry came prepared.

“I’m not talking about it in front of Blaise—but I’ll trade you Transfiguration notes for the
next month.” He announced bluntly.

Draco perked up—but so did Blaise and pretty much every Slytherin in the vicinity who’d
been doing a great job at pretending they weren’t eavesdropping. Even some upper years who
had no use for first-year class notes—the fact Harry was offering that much before getting
around to saying what he wanted meant whatever he wanted, he wanted it badly.

Like sharks in the water they could sense a desperate deal from a mile away, and let’s just say
they were intrigued whether they were involved or not.
“Okay… not a bad trade, depending on what it is you want.” The blond relented with a
narrow look. “And if you’re offering that up front, I’m suspicious.”

Harry gave him his most guiltless smile he could and by both of their expressions, they
bought it about as much as they’d bought Blaise’s coughing fit.

“We… may get detention for it.”

Draco stared, uncomprehending.

“You’re… planning on getting detention?”

“It’s a necessary evil.” Harry waved it off uncaringly. “Transfiguration notes, or not?
Midterms are coming up, may I remind you.”

The Malfoy heir seemed to give it some serious consideration… before giving in with a sigh.

“Let me hear this plan of yours first.”

000

“Why do we have to be here for this again? Hagrid could do it himself.”

“Because Hagrid wouldn’t do it himself. He’d back out at the last second and not let them
take it.”

“Okay, fair… then why am I here?”

“Because we’re going to get caught, probably.” Harry said for what felt like the twentieth
time, patting Draco on the shoulder a bit patronizingly because the boy was being dense.
“And a Slytherin already sold us out to Snape, so they’ll probably do it again, so Snape will
be the one to catch us. Probably. However, if you’re right alongside me, he’ll only give us
detention instead of expelling us or even having us arrested. Probably.”

“Then why is he here?”

“Because my better friends don’t need to bribed to back me up when I come up with crazy
plans.” Harry cut the sharp tone off in a second, Neville remaining perfectly quiet on his
other side as they left the castle and walked down to Hagrid’s hut and letting him deal with
Draco’s complaining. Said Slytherin’s cheeks turned a rosy pink in indignation that Harry
would dare say that, but green eyes cut off his report with a glare before he could attempt to
respond to that.

Honestly, it didn’t make sense for Neville to be there, when you looked at the plan like a
Slytherin.

But luckily for Harry, Neville was a much better Gryffindor than he was, and the sheer fact
he knew this was going down meant the quiet boy was going to be involved whether Harry
had told him to stay back in the castle or not. He knew Harry was going to be helping get
Norbert out of Hogwarts, so he was going to be helping him even if it made sense for him to
get implicated in this or not. Because Gryffindors put friends before fear of danger at every
opportunity, and Neville was a good guy who, while he was still afraid of Hagrid, still
respected the groundskeeper enough to not want him to get arrested. Even Neville who was
flat out petrified of what they were about to do, still considered a couple of detention in
exchange for Hagrid’s continued freedom a fair price.

Draco was now sulking over him calling Neville his better friend, but you know, Draco was
being paid to be here so he was just going to have to live with it.

He switched tactics instead. “If he were truly a good friend he’d be talking you out of this!”

“What, like you are?” Harry deadpanned, and Draco gave him a truly impressive glare. While
the blond was very vocally against this, he hadn’t actually made any attempt to talk Harry out
of it. Either he knew it wasn’t worth arguing to change his mind or was accepting his bribe as
being a good deal despite the risk of detention and potentially getting arrested.

Or, he knew they weren’t actually going to get arrested. Or at least he wasn’t, given he was a
Malfoy and his father was a barrister when it suited him. Draco had already clearly informed
his parents that he was likely to get a detention, but given it was for a deal (that he wouldn’t
go into details about, just that it was for status which they seemed to like to hear) they were
fine with it. It was only disrespectful as a Slytherin to get caught on accident—if you did it
on purpose then that was fine, in their eyes.

I realize this means that Snape will likely eventually learn we willingly took his detention as
part of a bigger plan, but hopefully it’ll be well after the fact and there won’t be anything he
can do about it.

In any case, Draco was complaining because he was a brat, not really because he was against
the plan. He was being well-compensated and it wouldn’t harm his reputation or status in
Slytherin at all so long as he didn’t lost them too many points—and given Snape would likely
be the one to catch them, chances of that were low. He was probably complaining because
Neville had tagged along, and for some reason when he was outnumbered by lions he got
more cactus-like than usual.

Okay… maybe it wasn’t a mysterious reason as to why he acted like that, but Harry was
going to ignore it for now. Neville was at least being civil in that he was trying his hardest to
pretend like Draco wasn’t there, facing forward as they made their way past the greenhouses
and headed towards Hagrid’s instead of so much as twitching at Draco’s pointed barbs.

But just because he understood where the boy was coming from, didn’t mean Harry was
going to let that fly.

“Draco, shut up.” He told him pointedly, and the blond snapped his jaw shut in a deadly
glare. “We only have about ten minutes until it starts, so let’s pick up the pace, shall we?” He
refocused them, walking a bit faster and the two followed suit in silence—one tense and the
other pouting so loudly in the silence, Harry rolled his eyes to no one.

The plan was simple, for as stupidly ballsy as it was.

Because they’d already been caught out after curfew, Harry was determined not to make the
same mistake again… so this was going down middle of the day, when the sun was still high
in the sky above them and most people were sitting in classrooms taking notes. They just so
happened to have a break the hour after lunch, and the twins just so happened to be more than
willing to skip their potions class this same hour (it’s not like they could do worse in that
class if they tried anyway) to enact a prank they’d apparently been planning for a couple
weeks now, so it was certainly going to be a doozy.

Harry really should consider himself lucky that the twins were willing to bank so much on his
future Transfiguration skills, because he owed them quite a few favors at this point and they
were more than happy to wait a couple years for his skills to be worth cashing in on.

Just yet another reason to get good at Transfiguration quickly, I guess. I’ll owe them half a
dozen times over for this.

The twins turned out to be surprisingly pivotal in this plan, and it wouldn’t have happened if
Neville didn’t have a wallflower superpower, as Harry had mentally started calling it. People
tended to just forget he was there, so he knew quite a bit about quite a lot of people, just
because they’d talk and confide in others and never really give a second thought to him also
listening in. Which, was how he knew via Ron talking to Seamus that one of the elder
Weasley brothers worked at a dragon reserve in Romania.

Posing the question to the twins, they’d been happy to give them an unofficial introduction to
one Charlie Weasley via owl—a couple letters back and forth between him and Harry, and
they’d had the makings of a brilliant (insane) plan. He very pointedly hadn’t told the twins
what he was up to, and luckily ‘plausible deniability with the Ministry’ was enough to
convince them that they really didn’t need to know. Detention was one thing, but their dad
worked for the Ministry and even they weren’t eager to endanger that no matter what the
mischief was. They were happy to cause the distraction and to remain blissfully unaware of
what Harry was actually up to, which was yet another reason to just love Fred and George.

Charlie, on the other hand, sounded almost as blinded by his love of dragons as Hagrid was
about his pets, so maybe he wasn’t exactly thinking of his father’s position through this
whole ordeal, of which Harry was thankful for. And in any case, Charlie had a license to
work with dragons, so if he were caught with Norbert the consequences would be much less
severe than if anyone else were to be caught with one.

And speaking of…

They arrived to Hagrid’s hut to see him sniffling into a tablecloth-sized handkerchief, a rather
large crate on wheels beside him shaking a bit ominously. Harry caught sight of a wisp of
smoke emanating from it, and felt sweat beat down the back of his neck.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

000

“Wow, isn’t she a beauty!” Charlie Weasley looked exactly like Harry would’ve imagined for
yet another Weasley brother, just buffer. Working with dragons was clearly hard on the body
because he had biceps for days. Also, Harry had pegged him accurately as he seemed very
much not concerned with the illegal situation they were involved in here, and more like an
excited puppy to see the dragon in front of him.

Wait.

“She?” Neville blinked, also catching that in surprise.

“Yeah, she’s female Norwegian Ridgeback. Only a couple weeks, right? So cute!” He cooed
at he peeked through the slats in Norbert—Norberta’s?—crate, which was far closer than
Harry would’ve given the periodic fire-breathing and the insanely sharp talons that only
seemed to stop scratching at the crate walls because Hagrid asked it to settle down politely.

Which is starting to make me think Hagrid has some kind of ability with animals, because
since when could you reason with a baby dragon like you could a dog? You can’t even reason
with human baby like that!

“Females are much more vicious than their male counterparts in this species you know, so the
claw marks are a dead giveaway,” he chatted conversationally like they weren’t under a time
crunch.

“You don’t say.” Draco deadpanned, but luckily Charlie seemed to miss it.

“Yep!” He turned, sympathizing with the teary-eyed Hagrid watching the exchange sadly. He
patted his huge arm gently. “Don’t worry Hagrid, she’ll have a ton of space to grow and be
free on the reserve, and I’ll send letters of her progress, I promise.”

“Jus’ so long as she won’ miss me too much,” He sniffled.

“Ah… well, as much as dragons can,” Charlie rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, but
thankfully Hagrid didn’t seem to notice as he busied himself flustering over the crate, making
sure the baby fire-breather had his snacks and stuffies with it.

Although given the amount of stuffing that had fell from the crate on the way up here, Harry
doubted the stuffies had made the trip up the stairs much less to Romania.

Given there was already a Cerberus in the castle, bringing in a dragon as well had seemed
like a sketchy idea, but it had also been the perfect cover. A large, slightly shaking crate
making rattling, scratching sounds and smoking slightly was suspicious as hell, but luckily
Hagrid had managed to stick to their cover story when Professor Sprout had seen him
entering the Great Hall with it and asked what it was.

‘Supplies for the third floor’, got her backing off immediately, not wanting to know what
exactly Hagrid was choosing to feed Fluffy.

That was all Hagrid had to say and it worked just like Harry had thought it would—but it’d
taken them all week to coach Hagrid into actually being able to tell that lie. They guy was too
easy for his own good, but luckily Harry now knew Hagrid was far too honest a bloke to ever
be a liar. Someone would have to have a lot of motivation to both convince, and then coach
the groundskeeper to lie even just a little bit—and honestly, after going through it this week
with him, if someone ever actually managed to get Hagrid to lie again, Harry would have to
give them a round of applause rather than being upset by it because they’d managed to do the
impossible, frankly.

As it was, Harry, Draco, and Neville had followed at a distance to ensure Hagrid actually
made it to the third floor instead of chickening out and taking Norbert back to his hut, and
he’d paused long enough a couple times that Harry knew if the man didn’t know they were
following him, he probably would’ve done just that. It was because of that, that not even
Draco put up a fuss when they followed him all the way to the forbidden third floor to ensure
Hagrid met with Charlie properly for the exchange.

Draco and Neville had wondered why the third floor was forbidden, but Harry’s explanation
of ‘one of Hagrid’s pets’ had silenced any further questioning on the topic. It almost made
their shoulders hike up in tension as they glanced nervously around the floor for said
mysterious pet, keeping close to Hagrid’s side while they were there in the faith the pet
would at least be hesitant of eating its owner.

The third floor was dangerous considering Fluffy was really only kept in by a locked door
(not even magically locked as Hagrid, his caretaker, wasn’t supposed to use magic and yet
still needed to be able to get in to feed him) not to mention highly off limits. However, that
also meant it was a perfectly safe location for an illegal exchange given no one but Hagrid
had a legitimate excuse for being up here—not even Filch who Hagrid confirmed was
ordered to keep kids away from this floor, but not actually set foot up here himself (a squib
against a Cerberus was very bad odds, after all). The window they’d chosen to meet at had
empty classrooms above and below it, and Charlie’s group of people he’d brought with him
all knew how to disillusion themselves and Norbert’s crate so they wouldn’t be seen flying
away on their brooms with a massive crate between them in broad daylight.

It was a good plan, but it could always be better. There was still a chance someone would see
them fly off, hence the distraction.

Which, as Hedwig flew by the window in a graceful arc, before heading up towards
Gryffindor tower, Harry knew the prank was in full-swing on the other side of the castle. She
was an insanely intelligent bird (smarter than some humans Harry knew, honestly) so when
he’d explained the situation she’d circled the castle all morning, waiting for the professors to
be pulled towards the east side of the castle from whatever the twins had done. Flying by
their window and up towards Gryffindor tower was the signal the coast was clear.

“That’s the signal—you all need to go. Thank you again for this Charlie, we really owe you.”

“It’s a pleasure! I’ll take good care of her, promise.” He flashed a wild grin, the guys
accompanying him already having roped the crate to their brooms. “And it was nice to meet
you Harry—watch out for the twins for me, they’re a handful!”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” he rolled his eyes, Charlie giving him a jovial laugh at they
prepped to take off.
Harry waved them bye as they disappeared under their disillusionment charm and wind left
out the window in the tell-tale sign, patting Hagrid’s arm as he sniffled loudly beside him.

“It’s for the best, Hagrid.” Neville mustered up the courage to comfort him as well,
sympathetic if not able to understand exactly.

“I know… it’s jus’ hard—they grow up so fast!” He patted his eyes dry with his
handkerchief, and Harry refrained from commenting while he continued to try and act as
sympathetic as Neville. Draco seemed disturbed but thankfully didn’t say anything either.

After what he hoped was a reasonable amount of time to give him room to… grieve? Was
that the right word? Anyway, they really needed to get moving because the prank wouldn’t
keep the professors’ attention forever and if they weren’t caught leaving the third floor and
could avoid detention, all the better. So, after a reasonable amount of time Harry poked and
prodded Hagrid with Neville’s help until the man collected himself enough to put his
handkerchief away and be lead from the third floor as quickly as they could cajole him to go.

On the upside, Harry was proven entirely correct in his paranoia when not ten meters away
from the third floor exit, they were caught.

On the downside, Harry was proven entirely correct in his paranoia in that it was Snape
standing there—beady eyes narrowed as he clearly realized where they were coming from.

On the other upside and not something Harry had seen coming, McGonagall was standing
right next to the Potions professor when they were caught.

On the other downside, she looked way angrier than Snape did.

“What is going on here exactly?” McGonagall’s no-nonsense tone snapped out, sounding
somehow both calm and collected and furious at the same time and Harry had no idea how
she did that but very much wanted to learn.

Since it was his idea and it wasn’t just Snape, Harry opened his mouth before anyone else
could get the chance to answer her.

“We may have gotten turned around and also maybe forgot the third floor was off limits and
Hagrid was bringing a crate of something weird up there and he saw us so… are we in
trouble?” He asked as innocently as he could—and received a very impressive death glare
from both the Transfiguration and Potions professors almost as if they’d rehearsed it. “We
were wandering! Do you know the kind of cool stuff that you can find in this castle!?”

“Mr. Potter this is unacceptable. Detention, am I clear?” McGonagall’s eyes were on fire, and
Harry wilted. Okay… maybe her having caught him wasn’t an upside after all.

“Yes ma’am.” He agreed in a cowed tone—and he certainly felt it too. Not really as he’d
never regret helping Hagrid, but still… he regretted disappointing her.
“You too, Mr. Longbottom. Whether this was your idea or not, being up there is forbidden for
a very good reason and I’ll not have my lions doing anything that foolish again. The third
floor is off limits due to its danger and getting lost after almost a year at this school is not an
acceptable answer to putting yourselves in harm’s way.”

Neville cowered and nodded quickly, and she leaned off just as fast. It was clear to all present
she held Harry mainly responsible… and well, she wasn’t wrong exactly.

“And you can join them, Mr. Malfoy.” Snape’s eyes narrowed at his godson, who pointedly
did not react beyond nodding once respectfully. While he didn’t say it, the displeasure was
most likely because he got caught more than anything.

Then again, Snape probably knew about Fluffy too. If Draco was to be believed and he
actually did care about his godson, how close he probably unknowingly came to being eaten
by a Cerberus was probably worth a couple detentions alone.

“Do any of you have classes right now?”

“No, we’re free for the day until Astronomy tonight.” Harry answered her curt tone, and she
nodded once.

“Then you three will be coming to my office. I can take it from here, Hagrid.”

“Right,” The groundskeeper shifted, clearly seeming uncomfortable letting the first years
who’d helped him get in trouble for his sake, but Draco elbowing him (which probably felt
like a poke, if that to him) kept him quiet enough while they were pulled away.

“Severus, I trust you and Filius can handle the swamp on the fifth floor without me.”

“Indeed,” The Potions master drawled uncaringly, breaking off from where he’d been giving
Draco a look to turn and walk the opposite direction, abandoning his godson to the displeased
head of Gryffindor house.

It was as they were being lead down to McGonagall’s office that his ears finally caught up
with him.

“Wait, what swamp on the fifth floor?”

What did the twins DO?

By the glare he got, he realized he probably wouldn’t be the one asking question for a while.
He offered his favorite teacher a disarming smile and hoped she’d forgive him quickly.

000

“I hate you.”

“She does it because she cares. There’s a Cerberus up there—she doesn’t know that we know,
so her assumption is we could’ve all been killed accidentally. She worries.” Harry defended
McGonagall, even feeling less than charitable after spending no less than two hours hearing
how much of an idiot he was for being on the third floor. Finally released from her clutches,
Neville looked ready to pass out and even Draco seemed wiped.

Even after being scolded to hell and back by her, she was still his favorite adult by a long
shot, so he felt obligated to defend her in her absence.

Despite his weariness, Draco did a double-take.

“Wait, a Cerberus?”

“Details, Draco.”

“An important detail!” He tossed his hands up exasperated. “You planned to get this
detention.”

“I said there was a possibility. We had a solid excuse to remain innocent-ish but that wouldn’t
save us from being up there in the first place if we were seen. It’s still a rule broken.”

Draco pinched the bridge of nose. “I’ve had my doubts, but you really are a Gryffindor,
aren’t you? Doing it midday is gutsy—and arguably just flat out stupid.”

“Well, it worked. And you’ll have your notes, don’t worry.” He pat Draco’s shoulder
reassuringly, before shooting another grin at a nauseous-looking Neville “And you can have
my notes too—because I was really hoping you wouldn’t get caught in this, so sorry it
happened.”

“And you didn’t care about me getting involved!?” Draco demanded in annoyance.

“No.” He huffed bluntly, and the Slytherin made a scoffing/choking sound which was
dramatic enough to worm a tiny smile from Neville.

“It’s alright, Harry… it was to help Hagrid, so I don’t mind.” Neville assured him.

“In any case, I bet I can convince McGonagall to let us have the detention with Hagrid so it
won’t be that bad.” Harry offered as an olive branch to the both of them. “I mean I hope it
won’t. Hopefully we won’t need to deal with any of his pets.”

Both Gryffindor and Slytherin beside him sighed at that, almost in the exact same way.

Harry wondered if they’d be more mad at him if he pointed that out.

000

It was about the same time a hood figure dripping unicorn blood from its mouth was
advancing on him in a creepy dark forest, that he realized maybe Neville and Draco had a
point about his stupid Gryffindor tendencies getting him killed one day.
 Graveyards and Teacups

“Draco, I’m fine.”

“You are not fine.”

The two blonds over him, one silver, one gold, paused long enough to straighten up and look
at each other in surprise that they’d said the same thing, at the exact same time, before
Gryffindor and Slytherin united for once in turning on Harry with annoyance (and worry)
written on both of their faces.

“You get lost in a dark forest we’re forbidden to be in on any other day of the year due to the
crazy dangerous beasts in there during a time when some monster is killing unicorns-”

“-and come riding out on the back of a centaur after being attacked by a hooded figure, that
was eating a unicorn immediately before you got there—”

“And you want to get snacks!?”

Harry wanted to be annoyed at them both, but the fact Neville and Draco seemed so caught
up in yelling at him that they were acting as if they’d rehearsed that tirade had him shutting
up and letting them get their fill of lambasting him for his life choices.

When they took a moment to breath, he cut in calmly.

“No I don’t want to get snacks, I’m frankly not that hungry, but I do want to talk to my
friends for a moment because I almost died, again, and unfortunately we’d have to go off to
our own dorms if we called it a night.” They were sitting (well, Harry was, the other two
were pacing) in Hagrid’s hut, the groundskeeper off talking to the centaur who’d brought
Harry back and checking the perimeter of the forest once more now that this had happened
and it was clearly a who, not a what that was killing unicorns in the forbidden forest. It was
very, very much past curfew and Draco couldn’t exactly get away with coming back to the
Gryffindor dorm to freak out about this with them, and Harry didn’t really think leaving him
alone to freak out about it was very wise either. So, Hagrid had let them use his hut under the
guise that they needed a moment to calm down before going back for the night—they were
still technically serving detention with him, so they were allowed to be out for now.

It wasn’t even a lie this time around—Draco and Neville seemed about ready to keel over
from panic and Harry himself wasn’t feeling so hot after the scare that had been. Hagrid had
given them rock cakes to try and settle their nerves, but as professor McGonagall had
confirmed eating products of Transfiguration to be a very bad idea, they were really just
holding them instead of eating them currently—although Draco looked half a second from
chucking his at someone’s head he was so agitated.

And Harry really wasn’t feeling like taking the blame for this one or brushing it off like he
had the broom incident. Yes it was kind of his fault he’d gotten separated from Hagrid, but
Hagrid also had them split up? Like, that was a terrible idea and Harry really should’ve said
it. They weren’t supposed to be in the forbidden forest in the first place because of the
danger, yet when they get detention for being in a dangerous place they were sent to yet
another dangerous place as punishment? I mean, in what world did that make sense!?

And then to split up—one group with Hagrid, who only had a crossbow and his size by the
way, and two eleven-year-olds with a dog that was currently drooling on Harry’s lap instead
of being concerned by anything happening around him? That was just a horrible idea! He’d
been distracted by worrying how Neville and Draco would get along in their group, that he
didn’t even consider until they were separated and very deep into the forest how stupid the
whole situation was.

And then, when he’d turned around and didn’t see Hagrid, he realized he was screwed. He
was screwed, because he was a first year alone in the forbidden forest at night—and oh yeah,
why couldn’t they do this during the day again!?

He realized he was even more screwed when he’d then actually stumbled upon not an injured
unicorn, but a dead unicorn and a hooded figure actively drinking its blood.

He’d wanted to see a unicorn ever since Hagrid told him about them… but not like that.

Losing Hagrid was on him, he’ll admit that even though still to this moment he had no idea
how it’d happened. Hagrid was a hard guy to just lose, especially when it was just the two of
them alone in a forest.

But everything else?

That wasn’t his fault, and he was still shaking slightly from how close that had been. He still
only really knew Transfiguration spells and he’d been so shocked and alarmed by stumbling
upon that scene and then having an unknown figure come at him like some freaky not-ghost,
that he’d only really managed to trip on a tree root trying to back away quickly, and not a
single useful spell had come to him in his panic. If Firenze hadn’t swooped in to scare the
figure off…well, it hadn’t sunk in until much after the fact how truly close to dead he’d really
been.

He didn’t know for certain what the figure had wanted, but his instincts said murdering him
would’ve been high on its list of priorities, and Harry was not one to ignore his gut as it
hadn’t failed him yet. If that thing could kill a unicorn, a super-fast ultra-magical being of
pure goodness, then a measly first year was probably easy pickings.

Draco finally cooled it enough to put his rock cake back on Hagrid’s table and give him a
searching look.

“Are you sure you’re okay? Whatever that thing was, if it could kill a unicorn, it’s powerful.”
He frowned deeply.

“I know that. It didn’t actually touch me, magically or otherwise.” Harry assured him,
gripping his own rock cake a little harder. “It didn’t look like it even had a wand.”
“That’s not necessarily a good thing—if it’s not a witch or wizard it could be a number of any
less humanoid creatures.” He fretted.

“We need to tell Dumbledore—or someone,” Neville reminded them.

“Hagrid definitely will, and I’d be shocked if all the professors weren’t made aware before
breakfast tomorrow.” Harry pointed out. “There isn’t really much we can do for tonight.”

“But this is the second time someone has actively tried to kill you. The third time you’ve
almost died! And you dismissed me worrying about the broom incident!” Draco accused him.

Harry hated to admit he had a point, and sighed.

“Well there wasn’t anything we could do then, and there isn’t really anything we can do now,
either. The teachers will know, and I’m sure they’ll put more effort into scouring the forest
now that whatever killed the unicorns is proven not to be an animal of some kind. If the two
were related, then they’ll catch the culprit and that’ll be that.”

“Fine! Then—then let’s at least go to the Hospital wing, right? Get a calming draught or
something!”

“I don’t want a calming draught,” Harry was getting frustrated, gripping the rock cake harder
for a moment before setting it down the table with a dull thud. “Draco, I didn’t want to talk to
you to strategize.”

“Then what?”

Harry could not believe this boy, and stared at him openly as if that would drive it home.

Thankfully, Neville had fallen quiet and seemed to figure it out. He stopped pacing and went
up to Harry to take his hand for once instead of it always being the other way around, and
Harry shot him a tired, thankful smile as he held on just a bit tighter to stop his fingers from
shaking.

Draco finally caught on… and his ears turned a bit pink.

The Slytherin plopped down on the excessively large chair beside him and leaned into his
shoulder in his own form of comfort, and Harry took a couple deep breathes to let the
excitement of the night seep away.

000

“Ibi.”

Daphne’s wand did the motion correctly, but Harry watched the two objects she was trying to
switch only wobble without actually moving.

“What kind of power are you using? Like, as much as you’d need for Avifors or more like for
Flintifors?” He questioned curiously.
“Probably more than Flintifors,” She frowned, as if she hadn’t considered that. It was only
logical to assume every spell after the first they’d learned in Transfiguration would get
progressively harder, which was true except harder didn’t always mean more power. More
complicated, was probably a better way to put it.

“I think that might be it. This spell needs power somewhere in the middle of those two—start
off with a medium-range of power, like half of what you’d use for Flintifors, and then
halfway through the wand movement just relax. Let the second half of it be delicate, like the
Avifors spell.” He explained, and she frowned more deeply, considering that. She gave it
another shot with no results, but tried it a dozen more times trying to get the power right—

--and suddenly the two buttons switched places. She blinked in surprise and smirked.

“So, you really do know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s been known to happen sometimes,” he flashed her a playful grin. “Just practice that until
it’s second nature, but you’ve got it.”

“Well… that was honestly easier than I thought it’d be.” She admitted, tapping her wand
distractedly on the table. “I’m thinking maybe I got the bad end of this deal.”

“Is it really? How long would you have kept doing what you were doing in hopes it’d
somehow work eventually when you could be using that time to study for other classes?”
Given midterms were only days away, he’d gotten quite a bit of subtle approaches from
various houses alike asking for Transfiguration help. Neville got free help in exchange for
being the one keeping Harry’s Herbology grades looking pretty (and because Neville really
deserved it after putting up with Harry—period) and Draco had both Transfiguration notes
from the Norberta deal and extra lessons in exchange for keeping him afloat in Potions. Even
Lu, who was a year older yet fully aware Harry was beyond second year Transfiguration at
this point, had traded some tips in exchange for a Charms lesson for Harry himself—and the
Ravenclaw, as expected, was a fantastic teacher.

Most others got turned away without something good to exchange, including Blaise who was
still loudly annoyed about it. Particularly because Daphne had smiled almost at the Zabini
heir as she offered her own deal, and Harry had accepted it immediately.

It was too good a deal to pass up, and going off of Blaise’s sharp comments, it was entirely
on purpose.

So far, Daphne had been a wealth of information that really didn’t cost her anything to give
away, just like it didn’t cost Harry anything to give her some feedback on her Transfiguration
work. Their agreement was working out fantastically for the both of them, and she was way
more normal so far as Slytherins went, so Harry was actually really enjoying talking to her.

Not just because she was giving him a beginner’s course in Slytherin politics. All those tiny
details Harry wasn’t privy to as an outsider, yet every Slytherin started at Hogwarts already
knowing.

Like what the family alignments really meant.

Like why Blaise was the untouchable Slytherin.

Like why he hated Daphne so much (she was almost gleeful when explaining that one, and
Harry was very amused to learn about it to be honest).

He even learned the real reputation behind the Malfoy family and realized it was far more
complicated than he could’ve ever imagined. Turns out them being grey was probably fitting
—they really did not care about anything but money and power, as a defined trait, and Dark
and Light connections were always just a means to an end.

He knew Draco wasn’t… entirely like that, but it certainly gave him a lot more perspective
on some of Draco’s sharper qualities.

It also explained why he was so twisted up in knots every time he had to write home to his
parents—it sounded like a freaking mine-field to navigate, which had to be hard considering
he very much did actually love them as his parents on top of needing to be on his toes with
them.

Slytherins were weird.

In any case, he was thrilled to finally have a solid source to learn all about the Slytherin
subtleties that had been going over his head so far, and Daphne wasn’t losing anything by
telling him what her whole house already knew. It was a nice arrangement, and as she nodded
to his point he considered what question he wanted to ask next, and it came rather easy.

“Okay, my turn. Tell me about the Slytherin first years—I know almost nothing about them
so far beyond who will talk to me. Like, why does Tracy hate me? You said her family wasn’t
even that involved in the last war.”

Daphne pursed her lips, considering that. “Hm, that’s a tough one, and I’m even her best
friend. She’s a half-blood, which is already kind of dubious in our house, but her mom is the
muggleborn and really, really hated her parents so she was full-in to the magic-is-better thing
when she got to Hogwarts despite not being pureblood herself. So yeah, her mom was raised
with muggles but I don’t think has ever talked about the muggle world since entering the
magical one. Tracy grew up pretty much exactly like any pureblood would because of it.”

Harry couldn’t even fault Mrs. Davis for that—he legitimately got it considering how he was
pretending the Dursleys didn’t exist right now.

“Tracy already has it hard, being a half-blood in Slytherin. I mean it’s not exactly uncommon,
but it puts you at a disadvantage that you don’t have the old family status to fall back on if
you mess up in the politics of it all. People really don’t talk about their blood status if they’re
not pureblood until like third year, because at least by then they should have their own
reputation to work with. The Davis family wasn’t really involved in the last war, but the bits
they were involved with were definitely dark, which puts them skewed in that direction. I
don’t think Tracy really hates you, but she’s certainly not gonna outwardly like you until she’s
got more status and can get away with it.”
“She’s leaning on her family’s allegiance for now.” He put together, Daphne nodding once in
confirmation.

“Plus, another level to this is that Pansy really hates you and she’s kinda the queen bee of our
year. She really is a total pureblood, and as dark as they come, so if you were planning on
trying to cozy up to all of Slytherin house eventually, I’d leave her off the list.”

Harry blinked at that, surprised. “So Tracy is following Pansy’s lead and Pansy hates me
because her family does?”

Daphne tilted her head, long black hair pooling over her shoulder, and she took a moment to
push it back to give herself a moment to think of her answer. “Yes, technically. But there’s
definitely more—Pansy would hate you because her parents have told her to hex the hell out
of you if she ever gets the chance to, and you’re a half-blood on top of it all. She’s one of the
worst when it comes to blood status, so being The Boy Who Lived aside, she’d think higher
of dog crap than she would of you just because of it.”

“Wow, sounds like a charming gal.” Harry raised his brows pointedly.

“Yep.” She hummed, popping her lips slightly as she said it. “Also the fact that she had her
whole life planned out before everything changed right before the start of this year. Her
parents were in an alliance with the Malfoys and when the Malfoys went grey, I heard they
cut it off dead. She’s as ambitious as anyone, so she was fully intending to marry into their
family—which definitely would’ve been considered marrying up— and live out her days as
part of one of the oldest, purest, and richest families in magical Britain. The fact she
essentially got dumped before she even got on the train probably stung her pride quite a bit.”

Harry could only stare.

Marry into… wait.

“She was supposed to marry Draco!?” He balked. “Wait—arranged marriages are a thing!?”

Daphne smirked, shrugging once. “Not really, exactly, but old families with a lot on the line
if they let someone unworthy marry into their family tend to have a vested interest in making
sure it works out in the end, and they wouldn’t be Slytherins if there weren’t deals going on
in the background to make sure everyone got something out of the arrangement. I’m sure
Pansy was told since birth to get close to Draco, and I’m sure Draco’s parents talked her up
quite a bit until recently. I know they were childhood friends, and purebloods don’t have
playdates unless their parents are up to something.”

Okay, Harry was officially baffled by Slytherins. He took it back, no matter how close it’d
been, he was definitely right to belong to Gryffindor because that was a bit much, even for
him.

Also, Pansy and Draco?

For some reason he wanted to laugh hysterically at the thought.

Daphne put her chin on her hand, seeming to be visibly entertained by his reaction.

“Your expression is quite amusing, you know that?”

“I really don’t want to think too closely on that, it’s a bit too involved even for me.” He
shuddered.

“Hey, you asked.” She rolled her eyes. “Who else? Pansy, Malfoy, Blaise, and myself are the
only big players of our year. Nott’s family is well refined pureblood, but dark as hell—or,
really his father is, as his mother died years ago. It’s actually really surprising he’ll even get
anywhere near you, as I’d have pegged him to be as bad as Pansy prior to actually meeting
him. He doesn’t talk to anyone, not even in-house, so… who really knows with him?” Harry
perked up in interest, but he was content to figure Nott out himself and waved her off, so she
continued. “You probably heard about Crabbe and Goyle… so uh, not much to say.”

“I’ve heard a bit more about the rocks in Hagrid’s garden,” he said politely, and she scoffed.

“There’s probably isn't more to say, honestly. They too, were aligned with the Malfoys before
the start of this year and got called off—their parents are dark but I really wouldn’t worry too
much about them. They do as they’re told and Draco’s told them to keep to themselves,
which they have pretty well so far.” She leaned back, stretching a bit as she continued
distractedly.

“You already know Zabini, so I’m not going there again. His family is ‘new’ to Britain but
his roots go all the way back to the Roman Empire, so he’s a freak outlier.”

Harry snickered at that.

“Other girls my year are Millicent Bulstrode and Elizabeth Hearth, both half-bloods
themselves who are firmly under Pansy’s wing so don’t bother for a while. I don’t have a
good read on them but they do anything Pansy says and seem to enjoy hanging out with her
so probably avoid them if you can—either they’re as twisted as she is or just great actors for
self-preservation, I’m not sure. The last is Melinda Lyles, and she’s a pureblood rooming
with Tracy and I. She’s only recently pureblood, so far back as her grandparents, her great-
grandfather being muggle actually. It’s a bit of a sting on her family reputation, but she’s still
a pureblood and still knows exactly what she’s doing, keeping her head down this year and
such. She was clever to room with Tracey and me, avoiding Pansy at all cost, at least. She has
her own thing going on, clearly busy plotting something I’m not aware of, so I’m not sure if
she’d be interested in you at all, but she probably wouldn’t avoid talking to you if you had
something worth trading—she’s pretty good at Transfiguration herself though so your notes
probably won’t get you as far as you’d think.”

Talking to Daphne was always extremely helpful, as she could spit out a wealth of
information like it was nothing, giving you all the important bits with no hassle or skirting
around details like other Slytherins might. She didn’t withhold stuff because she wanted an
advantage later: their deal was to trade Transfiguration help for information, and so she paid
her debt fully, with nothing held back just to be clever and witty about it. Her explanations
also gave Harry a great perspective into the type of information Slytherins deemed critical—
Harry likely wouldn’t have asked to clarify if Melinda Lyles was pureblood or if she was
plotting something right now, but that was clearly vital information to have from a Slytherin
point of view. So, Daphne had not only provided him that information, but also the
implication that that information was important.

It also told him that the amount of information any casual Slytherin would know about
someone else’s family history was actually terrifying. She said she better represented the
average Slytherin compared to the likes of Draco or Blaise, but if she was his example of
“normal” then he was still slightly terrified of what the snake house could do with a few
dregs of gossip here and there.

“Does that satisfy your curiosity?” She lifted an eyebrow.

“One more thing, on the pureblood topic.” He needled politely and she nodded once, but he
could tell his favor was just about used up. “You put a lot of emphasis on old pureblood and
new pureblood but uh, what?”

She gave a great sigh. “Ask the easy questions, huh?” She rolled her eyes at the most
charming grin that he could muster in attempt to convince her. “Fine, but pay attention
because I’m only going over this once and there are a lot of names I’m about to spit at you.”

He whipped out a piece of paper and quill and poised himself to take notes and she smirked
in amusement at his enthusiasm.

“Okay, here goes nothing. There’s something called the sacred 28, which is a directory
published in the 1930s that outlines all the ‘truly pureblood’ families. You’ll find a lot of
families, particularly those listed on it, buy into it to an extreme extent and are really proud of
it, but there’s a ton wrong with it. For one, its suspected to have been written by a Nott—
Cantankerous Nott— who had a lot of personal issues with some of the families at the time
and so it was entirely biased around his perspective. For example, he considered the
Ollivander family as part of the 28 and yet the matriarch of the family at the time was a
muggleborn, so clearly he didn’t know about it when he wrote it. Pertinent to you, he left off
the Potter family because Henry Potter, the patriarch at the time, was really pro-muggle
despite marrying a pureblood in the end—also his son Charles Potter married Dorea Black
and the Blacks are one of the most tyrannical families ever about pureblood status so if Dorea
married Charles then there’s no way there was ever a drop of muggle blood in the Potter
family before then. Still, Cantankerous had issues with Henry so the Potters were excluded—
other very pureblood families such as the Crabes, Goyles, Lances, Edwards, Murphys,
Carters, Wrights, and-- relevant to you--the Monroes were left off because he had feuds with
them at the time despite having been proven true purebloods in the years since.”

She took a breath and Harry was thankful because he couldn’t write that fast.

Also, how do you spell ‘Cantankerous’!?

“The 28 also has issues because some of the families included in it outright rejected it—for
example the Weasleys and Macmillans very openly claimed to have muggle heritage they
were proud of, that Nott flat out ignored. They got the title of ‘blood traitors’ for being on the
list and yet rejecting it, so if you hear people say that, that’s why. Aside from them, the 28 is
kind of the gold standard of original purebloods in Britain, although several names on it are
clear outliers as being way older than just the 1930s. Names like Potter, Gaunt, Prewett,
Malfoy, Longbottom, and Black. There are others of course but those are the ones almost
anyone can trace centuries prior the 28 being published. Everyone not on the list that is still
considered pureblood is new blood so to speak, meaning they got that status after the 1930s,
like my family.

And just because I’m nice, I’ll tell you about a special little subsection of the list that took the
pride of being part of the 28 to new heights—meaning the families that were so tyrannical
about being pureblood that they actually resorted to inbreeding within their family just to
avoid anyone they deemed contaminated with muggle blood. Those would be the Blacks, the
Lestranges, and the Gaunts. I would really avoid any of them if I were you.”

Harry paused in his notes.

“…and what exactly do you know about Sirius Black, then?”

Daphne’s haughty expression dropped, her face flickering in realization before settling on a
calm mask.

“You’ve definitely used up your favor by now.”

Harry didn’t really respond to that, because she was right. He just finished his notes in
silence… and eventually she gave a light sigh.

“Well… I warned you about those three families because inbreeding in a magical family
leads to insanity within only a couple generations, or so it’s said. No one from any of those
families in recent years has been at all sane with the exception of the few that got out
quickly.” She pressed her lips, unsure. “Sirius Black was a huge deal—and I mean a huge
deal—when he was at Hogwarts because he was the only Black ever to be sorted into
Gryffindor. And the Black family pre-dates the founding of Hogwarts by like a lot, so that’s a
confirmed fact.”

Harry looked up, surprised by that. Did that mean…?

She saw his face, and gave him a grim shake of her head. “Inbreeding leads to insanity,
Harry. It was a big deal he was in Gryffindor, yeah, but the fact he went insane and killed a
bunch of muggles shocked pretty much no one.” She winced. “And, even if he weren’t back
then… he’s been in Azkaban for over a decade now. Normal people go insane in Azkaban.
He’s a Black… he never stood a chance.”

Harry tried not to let it show on his face how it felt like the hope that had fluttered to life in
his chest was being ground under her heel right now, but he wasn’t sure how successful he
was given by how she politely gave him a moment by bending down to pick up her bag and
arrange her books back around in preparation to leave.

Thankfully it only took him a moment to pull himself together again.

“Well, thank you for your information, Ms. Greengrass. If you ever need help with another
spell I’m sure I can think of more questions to ask.”
“I’m sure you can,” She flashed him a grin as she stood. “As it is, I think I’m good for
midterms. We’ll see when finals season comes around.”

“Don’t be a stranger before then or I might think you’re just using me for my notes.” He
playfully pouted and she laughed quietly (it was the library after all) as she left him be.

“Until next time, Mr. Monroe.”

“Until then,” he waved her off, and slumped back down onto the library table he was
studying at when she disappeared around a bookshelf.

He put his head down on his open book and tried to imagine that mental landscape that was
supposed to calm him.

000

He eventually decided on a graveyard, as morbid at that sounded.

But like, a nice graveyard. With huge billowing willow trees with tiny white flowers the size
of a sickle each, only billions of them fluttering on the wavy branches and their tiny petals
flooding the air, smelling like earth and that delicate sweet fragrance only natural wildflowers
could conjure. The grass was longish but still well-tended, giving it a natural feel since it was
penned in by a low stone wall covered in thick swatches of moss and curling ivy clinging
here and there. The entrance was an iron gate, gothic in style and tall enough to quadruple his
height, framed with cracked white marble that had the same regal, ominous feel Gringotts
managed to pull off.

Every detail was important, when imagining a mindscape, or so the books Hermione had
given him had told him.

So he went through every detail, mentally outlining every crack in the willow tree’s bark,
exactly how many there were in his graveyard (13) where exactly they were planted, which
ones had flowers growing around them, where the tiny fountain he thought would be a nice
addition would be placed, exactly how many stepping stones there were resting, semi-
overgrown in the thick, lush yard leading to each grave, and so forth. Even the bee hives that
lived in one particular tree, and the fox den beneath another, and the rival squirrel families
that lived in two neighboring trees in the corner. He knew what kind of weather this place
had, with it’s lush springs and crispy winters, it’s rainy autumns and mild sunny summers. He
knew where puddles would form during thunderstorms, and where weeds would sprout first
if he didn’t tend to his mindscape properly, which plants the bugs would start to eat first, and
which graves tended to collect dirt more easily than others. He knew what kinds of birds like
to stop by to visit, what time of year the flowers stopped blooming on the trees, and how
many branches they tended to lose during storms and heavy snows.

He knew everything about his graveyard, and everything outside of it didn’t matter.

And of course, there were the graves themselves.

It seemed like a bad idea, to bury things like he did, but it wasn’t… exactly like that. A grave
was a place to stand before, and remember. To be introspective, about whoever’s grave it was
you were standing in front of. You didn’t think about Herbology homework when you were
standing in front of your mother’s grave, after all. When you were standing in front of your
mother’s grave, things tended to be put in a little more perspective, and it made things a bit
clearer.

It also helped him fully… accept? Was that the word? Did he accept she was gone when he
was standing in front of the grave he himself has imagined for her? When he could sit in front
of her grave that was light grey stone carved with curls and dragonfly etches, planting lilies
and white daisies in the earth in front of it, and just exist there in a beautiful graveyard with
her grave to talk to with no one in the world there to listen to him spilling his heart out for
her? She couldn’t hear him anyway—she was dead.

And this was all just in his mind, after all.

And his father had a grave too. It felt… clearer, somehow, separating the graves although
they were definitely laid side by side. He never met them after all, he didn’t know what
they’d say to him much less what they’d say to each other, so imagining him talking to a
grave was a lot easier than imagining actual people (strangers) trying to talk to him, or talk to
each other. With separate graves he could talk like he could believe their spirits were
somehow hearing what he was saying—the magic of a graveyard’s illusion making it feel like
for some reason they would hear him better if he were saying it to their headstones rather
than literally anywhere else in the world. Like they were somehow closer to the living world
when he was in a place designed specifically for them, and the memorials to their deaths.

It was realistic, in a way. Talking to two graves separately, with this half-hearted hope they
were somehow hearing him, and yet in reality it was him talking to a stone that could never
answer him back. It suited his mindscape, because if this were a real graveyard they would
never be able to respond—and just because this was a graveyard in his mind, didn’t make that
any less true.

Sirius Black had a grave, in his mind.

This one was rather dull, as he didn’t actually know the man besides that one glimpse in the
mirror. That tiny, diamond paw-print clip that had never actually been clipped to his hair was
resting on top the blank, dark granite headstone, and bluestar flowers blanketed the ground
around it in a thick carpet he could kneel on when he mustered up the courage to visit. He
didn’t visit often, because he didn’t know what to say to a man he both missed and hated…
maybe he was just mourning an imaginary man’s memory, but that was really all he could do.

What was weirder and yet no less fitting were the graves for the living people he actually
knew. Neville had one, and it was filled with as many flowers as Harry could think of and
find space for around the gleaming gold-speckled, white marble masterpiece he had built.
Again, it was morbid, but he imagined the coffin beneath the ground here to be solid gold,
and despite the grave of his mind being unable to answer, he found himself talking most
freely to this one and always feeling like he was being listened to very, very closely. Despite
the fact the headstone never spoke back or gave away what was actually buried here.
Draco had one, and it was sleek white, studded artfully with accents of pure silver and the
ground before it solid black-and-white marble instead of being earth for him to plant things,
but he often lay there and wrote letters against the solid surface instead of speaking, as it was
somehow easier to formulate his words that way—and carefully formulating his words for
those conversations seemed extremely critical. It felt like he'd left hundreds of letters there
over time, and every time he returned they were gone.

Blaise had one. Well, Blaise had a mausoleum and when Harry visited he could only
appreciate the decadent architecture.

Nott had one, and it was made of thin wood with a bouquet of wilting white heather flowers
wrapped in a tan cloth sitting before its otherwise unmarked memorial.

The twins had one each, but they were closer than most other graves, and nearly identical.
Actually, the headstones were identical but every time Harry figured out another difference
between them, he’d run to the right one and place down a new decoration for it. A chocolate
bar or a new orange flower that just seemed to suit one of them or something. Theirs was a
work in progress.

McGonagall had one, larger than those around it but perfect to lean against, getting comfy to
read through his mental notes for the day and take more notes as they came to him. For some
reason he found a lot of clarity there, on more technical subjects.

Dell had one, as his favorite adopted ancestor, and it was just a single large river stone with
her name elegantly etched on top, set at the base of a miniature fig tree with colorful
swatches of different fabrics tied to every tiny branch for a truly wild art piece near the center
of his graveyard.

Even the Dursleys had one—but it was unmarked and they only reason he knew it was there
was… well, because it was his mind and he knew it was there. But he only ever visited to
make sure the grass he’d ripped up from the bare spot on the otherwise beautiful garden
hadn’t grown back—and if it had he made sure to stomp on it until it died again, to leave the
spot muddy and barren. It was also a mass grave for all he cared, because the three of them
were down there and he did not care to spare even a single thought to consider in what order
they were buried.

Was this morbid?

Yes, probably. It probably also said a lot about his sanity and state of mind, to be honest.

But it worked. Because every time Ron ticked him off he could run to the youngest Weasley’s
grave and scrawl rude things over his dusty grey memorial with a sharpie, or chuck a mental
tomato at it as hard as he could, and the sheer disrespect of the motion was always so
satisfying. Also, the mental image of dancing rudely on someone’s grave was surprisingly
calming when you currently wanted to strangle them into a real grave in real life.

Harry had found Potions class much easier to get through when he could imagine bottling up
his potions and taking them back to his graveyard, pouring them all over the ground before
Snape’s sleek black headstone. He knew the man actually legitimately liked potions enough
that it felt like spitting on his grave, but worse, and for some reason it really helped keep his
flaring temper at how unfair the man could be in check. Probably the fact that even imagining
taking revenge could make him so happy was probably not healthy, but he wasn’t asking to
be psychoanalyzed, thanks.

Everyone had a grave in his mind, even people he was still working out had unmarked,
unremarkable graves until he could settle pieces about them in his mind, creating better
adornments with time. He would change the shape and color of their headstone, plant new
flowers or leave different gifts, removing old things and refreshing bouquets as needed.
Needing to walk through his graveyard to find their stone focused his mind, and figuring out
how to decorate it was cathartic. Visiting, even once he knew exactly how the grave should
look, always felt different each time, like it really was a visit he’d taken to relieve his soul of
something on his mind that only talking to their grave could fix.

For most of the graves, they were real people he could go talk to.

But that wasn’t the point of his graveyard.

He’d told Hermione how helpful her books had been, and she’d been happy to track down the
next one in the series for him, but he hadn’t read it yet. It had started talking about what’s
outside his graveyard, and he somehow just knew he wasn’t ready for it. He spent most of his
time perfecting his graveyard these days, making sure it was just right.

He’d get to what was outside his iron gate another day.

000

“Hey, Neville.”

A blond head perked up from behind a bush of slightly bioluminescent flowers, taking a neat
step back and holding his watering can closer to his chest in surprise someone had actually
come to visit him in the greenhouses this late in the evening. Harry initially thought he’d
surprised him, which he had, but Neville’s tense posture was actually revealed to be likely
because of the bush in front of him that seemed to be actively trying to grab at him. So, Harry
might’ve just incidentally interrupted his friend during a particularly dangerous gardening
moment.

Oops, my bad.

“Harry! What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I like to bother people, didn’t you know?” He teased lightly, and Neville offered him an
amused smile as the redhead came to stand beside him and look curiously at the bush he’d
been tending to.

“I’m just weeding and watering some, it’s not very interesting.”

“Well I can keep you company then.” Harry offered, squinting as he got a good look at the
bush. “Do… do those flowers have teeth?”
“They’re Biting Bogberries, and those teeth will break if they bite you so don’t let them bite
you. It won’t hurt you much but when they're full grown the fangs are the medicinal part.” He
explained, and Harry always loved hearing Neville talk about Herbology. Mainly because he
spoke with solid sentences without a waver to his voice to be heard, and it was refreshing.

“Right, so it’s not me you’re worried about, it’s the flowers.”

Neville’s smile neither confirmed nor denied the implication. “In a nice way, of course.”

Harry snickered, content to sit back and watch him return to his watering session while
gloved hands carefully avoided getting any water droplets in the flowers many, many
chomping mouths. It was rather quiet apart from the sprinkle of water hitting soft earth, as
predictably the flowers’ pointed teeth were young and made of a plant-like material, so their
incessant chomping didn’t make much noise.

As Neville finished he moved on to another plant Harry didn’t recognize and started weeding,
and as that seemed less dangerous he prodded him into an easy conversation—with midterms
over and finals still plenty far enough away that no one was even thinking about them (aside
from the fifth years, who’d been obsessing over OWLs since September, actually) most people
had gone their own ways to pursue their different interests without being too concerned over
needing to study every spare hour they had. That meant Harry had been playing a lot of
quidditch and football and Neville had all but disappeared into the greenhouses for the past
two weeks. Even the Slytherins had been sequestered in their dorms more often than not, and
Daphne told him some serious plotting and scheming was going on that they were all very
preoccupied with—him being a weird Gryffindor who sat at their table had lost its novelty at
some point so they were on to better things apparently.

On the one hand it was nice, because he could actually hang out with Draco not just at
mealtimes (and when the boy had the time) without getting glared at constantly. On the other
hand, he was now aware that these last months of the school year were crunch time for
Slytherins. For them, first years weren’t players really because they had no position on the
board yet, but now was the time to situate yourself in the snake house, and if you didn’t do it
well enough then the summer could disrupt a lot of carefully laid plans if you didn’t prepare
properly. Apparently now was the opportune time to enact the plans they’d been laying all
year and how they fell would determine what kind of position they were in next year. And for
first years who got a by since they didn’t even know they were in Slytherin until last
September, the pressure was on because now they had no excuse and this would set a
precedent for how they would be positioned politically for the next six years at Hogwarts—if
you messed up it was possible to regain status eventually, but you’d be working at a
disadvantage from here on out.

And Slytherins hated working at a disadvantage. They’d rather not play at all than go into a
fight without the upper hand, but this wasn’t exactly avoidable so things were a bit tense over
there for the time being.

Therefore, Draco was understandably preoccupied these days. Harry hadn’t seen hide nor
hair of Nott since the week before midterms, and even Blaise didn’t stick around at the
Slytherin table as long as he used to—he was the only one who gleefully told Harry he was
working on a personal project, but Harry assumed that was because the untouchable Slytherin
was confident in the fact that no one would be able to stop him even if rumors did get out that
he was up to something.

As if anyone in Slytherin would be stupid enough to think anyone wasn’t up to something in

what was apparently plotting-season for the snake house.

And, well, technically I’m part of it too. I’ve been plotting operation fox all year, and now is
the time to put it into play if I could just figure out my next move. He mused to himself.

He had every tool he needed to at this point, he just needed the inspiration to strike. He had
the skill at Transfiguration to pull this off(he’d paid back his first favor to the twins by giving
them Transfiguration help for their upcoming finals, which they were highly entertained by),
now he just needed to pick the perfect spell to do it with, and he couldn’t quite decide where
to go with it.

There was only a couple months left in the school year though, so he needed to pick
something fast. He was hoping inspiration would simply hit him, but he hadn’t had any luck
with that tactic so far and was really feeling the time crunch.

In the mean time he was happy to check on his friends who’d disappeared off into their
corners. Dean, Seamus, and Lu had fast become the three musketeers in concerns to all things
football, and Harry’s idea of having mock games had gone surprisingly well. It was very
chill, no pressure for those who weren’t into it and also because there was no point into
actually winning, but making it an “official” club game had churned up the fire in those who
were actually inherently competitive and the club had gotten heated for a while.

Susan, as it turns out, was a bloody monster and the fact she wasn’t on the Hufflepuff
quidditch team was a blessing to the Gryffindor seeker who knew he’d have been knocked
off his broom already from how into a game she got. Luckily her chosen sport was football
and just this year she’d improved enough to jump from the beginners games up to the non-
beginners, and she was absolutely ruthless.

Harry was sure he still had bruises on his shins from how hard she’d kicked him and to this
day he wasn’t sure if that was legal or not but they didn’t exactly have referees so he kind of
just had to live with it. The only person who dared argue with her was Lu, and it’d been all
year and the Ravenclaw had no success convincing her of anything so far so… Harry called
that a losing battle and didn’t bring it up.

Harry enjoyed football but even he could only take so much strategizing and calculating
about the next game that wasn’t even on the schedule yet, so he let the three musketeers do
their own thing with the club for now. Susan and Hannah (and the Hufflepuffs in general)
were always joys to talk with, but he realized he’d probably been spending more meals with
them than not, and he hadn’t seen Neville in what felt like ages.

Neville himself had all but disappeared, and it was only a lot of poking and prodding from
Harry that got him to admit that Professor Sprout had asked him to officially help out in the
greenhouses as an actual assistant. Apparently she had other hands available to help out, but
they were two fifth years and one seventh year and the fifth years were all but drowning from
OWL prep which in turn meant she was quite busy as well. She’d asked Neville to tend to a
lot of the third-year level plants and below so she could focus on the more complicated
plants, which meant the blond really had this greenhouse to himself for the time being.

He was red as a tomato when Harry had gushed over how exciting that was, but his tiny
embarrassed smile was all the proof needed for how much he actually really enjoyed the
responsibility, telling Harry all about how the work was far more interesting, if not more
tricky than anything they were learning in class. So, Neville was quietly getting ahead in his
own way despite every other subject being a struggle for him, and unlike a Slytherin or even
Harry, he wasn’t even using it to get ahead.

In fact, Harry was pretty sure he was the only one who knew Neville was one of Sprout’s
assistants right now, and while he wanted to scream it from the Astronomy tower that his
quiet friend was brilliant and absolutely not the horrible things people sometimes called him
behind his back, he also knew Neville himself had no interest in flaunting his abilities or
getting that kind of attention in any way. The fact he hadn’t even told Harry until he’d had to
track the boy down and wrestle the truth out of him said a lot, after all. Harry wouldn’t betray
his shy friend by going out and telling everyone like Neville so clearly feared he would (and
he admittedly really, really wanted to), but he didn’t!

But it was frustrating, when he was an extrovert who wanted to punch people in the face
when they called Neville a squib loud enough that there was no way they didn’t intend for
him to hear it. It drove him insane that Neville himself would just quietly turn bright red and
keep his head down, and that even when Harry asked him later if he was alright, he’d just
deny having heard them say anything. Protecting his bullies because he knew the second he
asked it of his louder friend, Harry would use his budding prodigal Transfiguration skills to
make their lives hell, if not actually punch them in the face like a muggle.

Harry did not want a reputation as a bully, but the fact that Neville hid things from him to
protect people was a problem. Both because that implied Neville thought he was a lunatic
who’d attack people without hesitation (which, you know, fair) and also because it meant
Neville felt like he couldn’t share things with Harry and that really got him on edge.

He’d been working on it, but no such luck so far with the shyest Gryffindor, who still just
smiled at him and promised him everything was okay any time he tried to ask.

“Have you ever considered being a healer, Neville?” He blurted out, the two of them
crouching over a low bed of tiny sprouting plants with a soft pinkish tinge to their baby
leaves as Neville carefully weeded between them.

The blond pause long enough to glance at him as if wondering why he’d ask that. “A healer?”

“You clearly know the parts of a plant, and a lot about the medicinal properties of it all. I
mean it just struck me as a thought that you might like it, not saying you should or anything.”

His face crumpled into a frown as he just bent his head again to keep weeding, a long minute
of silence passing while he gave it thought. That was progress Harry had made—learning to
shut the hell up and just wait him out, and now Neville was very comfortable with taking all
the time he needed to formulate his words without fear Harry was going to talk over him, safe
in the knowledge Harry would sit there and wait until he was good and ready to speak.
Eventually…

“Knowing about plants is all and well I guess, but I’d have to have top marks in things like
Potions and Charms to be a healer. Charms is one thing, but I will never be good at Potions.”

“I’m sure you could make a trade…” Harry offered as delicately as he could, knowing
Neville knew exactly where he was going by the sharp look he got. He pressed forward
anyway. “Slytherins like trades, and you’re clearly top of our class at Herbology even if you
hide it from everyone. You could trade Herbology notes for tutoring in Potions from someone
like, say, Draco—and you and I can work on Charms together! Or maybe work out a trade
with Lu as I’m not exactly the best Charms student admittedly,” He winced, remembering to
study harder for his Charms final as the midterm hadn’t been the most fun experience ever.
He quickly brushed it off. “I mean if you don’t want to that’s one thing, but if it’s something
you can fix that’s stopping you, it just seems a shame. I just thought… it was weird as hell,
the whole situation, but we all worked together pretty well with Norbert, don’t you think?”

Neville did not look at him while he worked for a solid five minutes, and Harry was
positively fidgeting in his seat by the time he spoke again.

“I don’t think potions is for me.”

Okay, that was a LONG pause for just that.

“Neville…” But the blond still refused to look up at him, and Harry sighed. “… it’s
absolutely okay if the answer is yes, but you don’t like Draco, do you?”

“I have nothing against Draco.” That answer came fast, but Harry wasn’t buying it.

“But you do against his reputation? His house?”

“His family.” Neville seemed almost as surprised as Harry was that he’d actually admitted
that, and he quickly ducked his head again to avoid the piercing green gaze following him.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Not… well, he has one aunt that…”

His jaw clenched and unclenched almost by force, and he had to stop weeding for a second to
steady himself before busying himself dusting the dirt of the edge of the flower bed, which
incidentally had him facing pointedly away from Harry to do it. “All purebloods are sort of
related. We all know about each other in some way.” He finally got out.

Harry knew that… he also knew Neville was pureblood, he just also kinda forgot it most
days. But he did in fact know he was a pureblood, and not just a pureblood… if Daphne’s
lessons were to be believed, his family was just as pristine and long-lived as the Malfoys. The
kind of blood that pre-dated Hogwarts and Merlin himself by like a lot. Old, old magic and
history and tradition that Harry never really could understand even if he was taking lessons.

With the Slytherins it came easy. They eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff. For people like
Neville… hell, even Fred and George and Ron—they were all pureblood.
Even the Potter name he knew nothing about was pureblood, and he forgot that meant
something most days because it meant very little to him. He thought it didn’t mean anything
to people like the Weasleys or to Neville either… and it was kind of alarming to realize he
might’ve been incredibly stupid to think that.

Just because Neville clearly wasn’t a blood purist or an extremist, didn’t mean he didn’t have
pride in his family name. That quiet, un-flaunted pride he worked for under Sprout, that silent
unwavering moral compass that made him a pure Gryffindor, that unspoken iron-clad belief
he had in his friends and in what the right thing to do was. Just because he didn’t boast about
his family name like Draco did, didn’t mean he didn’t believe in his family’s pride with
everything he had, just as any of the most outspoken Slytherin did.

He wanted to slap himself for being so foolish, but now was not the time to ask that. He was
trying to figure out why Neville, who was only outshone by Seamus in how open-minded a
Gryffindor he was, still refused to even look at Draco the rare times the Slytherin sat at their
table—or why he’d always pull a Nott and seemingly disappear into thin air when Draco
came to study with them. They’d worked just fine together for Norberta, and seemed to have
even almost gotten along when worrying about Harry almost being killed in the Forbidden
Forest, but that truce had evaporated almost immediately after all was said and done and
things had settled down.

And Neville had been the one to back off surprisingly, not Draco. The Slytherin didn’t seem
to care if Neville was there or not, so long as Harry was a bridge between them.

Neville though, as the days went on it became exceedingly clear that Neville did.

And Harry worried… worried at this was another thing Neville wasn’t telling him.

He attempted to get to the root of the problem.

“And you had a bad experience with one of Draco’s aunts?”

He immediately knew he’d said the absolute wrong thing though, when Neville abruptly
stood and walked away in the greenhouse, almost as an after thought grabbing his watering
can to re-fill it at the spigot at the other end of the building. Harry would’ve let him have a
moment to collect himself if he wasn’t so damn worried—worried by the way Neville was
refusing to look at him and the way his whole body was stiff as a board from whatever wrong
thing Harry had said. He got up and followed him on quiet feet, trying to be respectful but
unwilling to just let him walk away.

Or, he thought he was on quiet feet, but Neville seemed to hear him anyway.

“Harry… I’d rather stay out of it, if that’s okay.” His voice was quiet, but otherwise normal
and Harry froze in his tracks as he realized he’d been caught.

The ‘don’t ask me about the Malfoys’ warning was clear as day under the deceptively calm
tone though and he quickly backed off.
“Of course it is. Sorry for being so nosy, just letting my mouth run over here.” He kicked the
ground a bit awkwardly, gripping his hands behind his back in a submissive tone that Neville
couldn’t see with his back turned.

He turned the spigot off and seemed to take a breath.

“…it’s alright, I know you were just helping.” He turned around and his face was calm, eyes
still downturned like they always were. Harry hated it.

He was tempted to ask Daphne about what the hell had gone on between the two families
but… Draco clearly didn’t care enough to mention it and Neville was the only one bothered.
Not that that was a good sign, as Draco’s family had once served Voldemort so… yeah, not a
great sign, but one he hoped Draco would at least acknowledge one day, when he remember
he was supposed to be grey and not dark.

But, asking someone else about it also felt like a betrayal of Neville’s confidence. He clearly
didn’t want to talk about it, and Harry knew he’d be a poor friend to go behind his back about
it. A Slytherin would appreciate the art of it even, but Neville most certainly would not.

He hoped Neville would tell himself one day, and was just going to have to get used to being
patient, he guessed.

Still…

“I’d like to hear your thoughts on it, if that’s okay?” He offered as an olive branch, and
Neville frowned at him, not understanding. “I mean, not Draco or his family exactly but I
guess sort of… everything? The thing with Norberta, and Hagrid, me and the Slytherins,” He
scratched the back of his neck, not sure if this was making any sense but feeling an obligation
to just try. “You’re always down to support me and whatever crazy thing I’m up to, and to me
it’s not crazy but I guess it’s sinking in finally that most of what I do is super weird. And that
doesn’t stop me, but you don’t really ever tell me to stop like Draco does, you just worry. I
can see it on your face like all the time, but you never say anything.”

The blond Gryffindor just looked at him, as if trying to digest those words.

“I’d like to hear what you think on things Neville, don’t think I don’t just because I get
caught up in my own thing most of the time. Er… all of the time.” He admitted, hoping he
was being heard.

Neville… crossed in front of him to return to the flower bed he was tending, and Harry
dutifully followed to crouch beside him as he picked at a few stray weeds here and there. The
silence always got to him eventually and Harry wanted to help with the weeding just for
something to do, but knew he’d probably just get in his way so he kept his hands to himself
for now, and watched him work.

And as always, Neville eventually worked up to talking again.

“Truth is… I guess I don’t have a strong opinion on a lot of stuff.”

“How do you mean?”

His smile this time was wry—not something Harry was used to seeing on his otherwise
nervous expression. “Must be a weird thought for you, who always knows what he wants and
does what he wants without even thinking if it’s even possible or not.” He tilted his head,
stopping to glance at him in amusement. “That’s not a bad thing.” He clarified as an
afterthought.

“Well… when I met you, I could tell you were letting Hermione boss you around, and she’s
kind of oblivious so it was clear you weren’t happy with it and just letting it happen. I do
acknowledge I’ve basically been doing the same thing, but one of my goals is to get you to be
able to get what you want, if that makes it better? And I really want to help, honest! If you
have a goal, just tell me and I’ll do what I can to help!”

Neville’s smile grew, even though he still didn’t look up. “Thanks. But that’s the thing… I
don’t have a goal.” He shrugged half-heartedly as he gently pressed down the soil around a
tiny sprout, no bigger than his finger as if tucking it in. “I don’t really want anything, or know
what I should be doing with my life or… or anything like that.”

Okay, that’s not the weirdest thing, I don’t think.

“I mean, we are eleven. I’ve been told on no uncertain terms that I’m the weird one.” And
that was coming from Blaise, which meant a lot.

The blonde gave a light, breathy laugh. “Yeah, I guess there’s time.” He agreed
diplomatically. “But I don’t have a solid reason to tell you not to hang out with Slytherins, or
to not play football or to not avoid Potions because Snape is terrifying.” His ears turned a bit
pink as if realizing he’d said that out loud, ducking his head a bit more. “I don’t really have a
reason to do anything other than trying my hardest not to disappoint people.”

“You will never be a disappointment, Neville.”

The words sort of just came out of him out of nowhere, but Harry honestly truly meant them.
And he realized they meant a lot when Neville actually froze, lifting his gaze to startle at him
with wide, blue eyes silently asking if he was serious.

Harry didn’t bother answering that silent question because he didn’t say things he didn’t
mean, and Neville should know that by now. Meeting his gaze pointedly seemed to drive that
concept home for him, and he glanced back at his sprouts uncertainly.

“Thanks.” He eventually responded, in a rather quiet tone. “Maybe you do… push, a bit,
without thinking of everyone else but… on the other hand I think maybe I consider what
other people think way too much.” He admitted with a slight wince.

“But if you ever really minded what I was doing, you’d tell me, right?”

“Yeah. Of course.” He agreed easily with a nod and another shrug.

“And about Draco…?”

Neville’s lips pressed together uncomfortably at the question, but he took a lot less time to
formulate response this time.

“You made it clear that he could be friends with people you didn’t like, and you could do the
same. You’ve let him do it, and he’s let you do it.” He tiled his head back thoughtfully. “I see
no reason I can’t do the same.”

Harry wanted to grin at that, but kept his face in a neutral smile so as not to alarm him. There
was that Gryffindor pride of his—said in such a polite, reasonable way, and yet the
implication was that over his dead body would he ever be called less open minded than a
Slytherin. If Draco could be open about who he was friends with then Neville would choke
on his dinner and be six feet under before he admitted he couldn’t be just as open about his
friends as Draco Malfoy.

Neville was a shy, quiet, self-conscious kind of guy… but never let it be said that he didn’t
have a pride that was far more noble than anything Harry could claim.

And just in considering it… Neville was a really, really good Gryffindor. He was good. He
would help people for no other reason than that they needed help, even at great cost to
himself.

The sheer idea that Slytherins needed a trade or to save face while they did it or get
something out of helping someone probably insulted every moral bone in Neville’s quiet,
silently prideful body. He would never get in someone’s face about it, but his moral compass
pointed true north, so the fact Draco’s (and even Harry’s, most times) pointed in a more grey
direction was just not compatible.

But Neville was kind. He would accept someone for who they were anyway… just don’t ask
him to compromise on his principles. Harry almost wanted to, just to see what kind of
pushback Neville would actually give, but he knew that was cruel, and he’d likely be one
friend down by the end of it.

Unlike a Slytherin, broken friendships with a true lion couldn’t be fixed with a game of
words or even trading his whole life away for it.

“Thank you.” And he meant it. “But I really do treasure you as one of my best friends and I
know I’m not… well, not always a good sort of person. Hanging out with Slytherins all the
time and then talking to you, who is legitimately one of the nicest people ever, makes it
really, really obvious.” Neville blinked in surprise, blinking at him widely as Harry pushed
forward before he could react. “So you have to tell me if I’m doing something you don’t like,
or even something you’re just unsure about. Because I value your opinion as someone who is
generally just nicer than me, and I want to be a nicer person. Please help me?”

Neville looked at him like he’d grown another head. “You are a nice person.”

“I’m nice to you because I like you.” He grimaced, the trueness of that statement smarting a
bit. “I’ve got a temper and I snap at people when I’m anxious… and maybe I’m confident in
who I am but I can at least acknowledge that some parts of me I don’t like. And I want to be
better—like you.”
“I’m not-” The blond turned bright red and he shifted uncomfortably to be put on the spot
like that. “Why would you want that?”

Harry laughed loudly, in his face. Because it was a stupid question and Neville should know
by now that Harry mocked stupid questions with ruthless abandon.

“Because you’re a better person than me. Maybe there are things about yourself you want to
change, but join the club. I’ve got them too and I’m working on them like everyone else is.”

“I mean… I suppose I could try. I still don’t know what it is you’re looking for.” Neville
seemed totally out of his depth, but Harry leaned into his shoulder playfully and just elbowed
his side.

“I’m just looking for you to be you—and to be the friend who calls me out on my crap when
I’m being petty. And trust me, I can be petty. And full of myself… and pushy.” He gently
nudged him in the ribs yet again to make the point, and it pulled an almost unwillingly smile
from the blond.

“Okay maybe.” He reluctantly allowed.

“You admit it! You agree I’m pushy!”

“I said maybe,”

But his laughter was music to Harry’s ears, and he hoped at least some of the words he’d said
sunk in for Neville, and he would eventually take them to heart.

But, he probably wouldn’t know if he was ever successful or not because… well, Neville
tended not to tell him things.

Harry just hoped one day, he would.

000

It was breakfast, some amount of days later that Harry’s teacup made a breakthrough in
operation fox.

Said teacup was being drained for the fourth time in one meal, but he really liked jasmine tea
and they rarely had it. Most people seemed to like earl grey, the lemmings.

“Nothing’s wrong with earl grey.” Dean defended the beverage valiantly.

“I’m not a big fan of tea,” Seamus admitted, getting glares from all around which he ignored
as he dug into his toast.

“Jasmine is better, is all I’m saying. Earl grey will do in a pinch, but it tastes like a cloud.”
Harry dismissed him.

Dean looked to Neville for help, but as usual the blond just poured his own cup and let them
argue amongst themselves. He wouldn’t give them an opinion unless they outright asked
him... and notice he said an opinion, because Neville had a bad habit of saying whatever
would cause the least trouble even if he agreed with it or not.

Harry was slowly starting to realize Neville could lie, but he lied about very boring, annoying
things.

“I don’t know where you come up with this stuff.” Dean huffed when he realized he’d get no
help, and Harry flashed him a hundred-dollar grin for his troubles. “Jasmine isn’t a breakfast
drink, it’s a dessert drink. How you can stomach that first thing in the morning is beyond
me.”

“Same way I eat French toast covered in syrup,” Harry was very amused by this
conversation. “You’re telling me there’s no sweet breakfast food you like?”

“None at all. French toast is an abomination too.”

“Dean, I had no idea you felt so strongly about syrup.”

Dean waved a spoon threateningly at him, eyes glinting meaning he knew exactly where
Harry was trying to go with this. “If you dare use that sentence out of context you will regret
it, Potter.”

“Come at me, Thomas.” Harry lifted his chin definitely, his own playful glint making Seamus
sink into his beans and toast in an attempt to get out of the crossfire.

And he was smart to do it because Dean used his spoon to flick a tiny bit of oatmeal Harry’s
way, only for it to be dodged and immediately retaliated with the dregs of what was left in his
teacup being launched into his face—it wasn’t a lot of liquid but it certainly caused him to
splutter.

“Can we not, first thing in the morning?” Seamus complained as Dean coughed on the drop
or two he inhaled while Harry laughed gleefully at his pain. “Also, you had that coming.
You’ve seen him play quidditch—if he could dodge that bludger last weekend he can dodge
oatmeal.” He scolded Dean who shot him an annoyed glare for that.

Harry just preened happily at the comment on his skills as he threateningly brandished his
teacup at his roommate once more. “Don’t test me when I’m armed, Thomas.”

“With a teacup.”

“You bet your butt a teacup, and if you don’t think I can’t use a teacup effectively if the
situation calls for it then you—”

Harry froze mid-sentence, and all three Gryffindors around him paused as well, because that
was weird.

…wait a second.

He whipped out his wand and everyone around him leaned back sharply in alarm—but he
ignored them as he tapped on the now-empty cup, and immediately it transfigured itself into
solid silver. He tapped it again and nothing seemed to happen, but Harry’s eyes widened
noticeably as they just blinked in surprise.

“Woah, what kind of spell is that?” Seamus perked up.

“Third year.” Harry answered him distractedly. He tapped it again and jerked back in shock at
whatever result he got that no one else could see, dropping the cup down onto the table from
as high as his arm could reach above him while sitting down.

It shattered, loudly, catching a lot of people’s attention and forcing Neville to jump a bit in
both surprise, and to avoid any tiny bits that had shattered near him. Harry’s head snapped
up, eyes wide and staring at Dean across the table from him like he’d just found the answer to
the universe and was startled to have found it, and Dean stared back in shock about what the
hell was going on.

“I’ve got to go.” He blurted out, jumping to his feet and grabbing his bag as he all but ran
from the Great Hall—breakfast half-finished and pretty much ruined anyway given the shards
of teacup now splattered all over it.

Dean, Seamus, and Neville just stared after him, baffled. And not just them, but several
others who’d heard the cup break and then watched Potter run from the hall like he was being
chased. The fact the people he was sitting with seemed to have no idea what had happened
meant it was probably just the first year being weird again, so they went back to their
breakfasts without further issue.

Dean turned to the room at large.

“Does anyone know what that was about?”

Seamus frowned deeply, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Do we really want to ask?”

Neville, suddenly remembering Norberta the dragon, winced visibly.

That gave Dean and Seamus their answer and they exchanged knowing looks before they
pointedly went back to their meal, ignoring their roommate’s weirdness.

If it was important enough, Harry would definitely not hesitate to get them involved. Until
then, it was probably best not to know.
 The Children Are Not Alright
Chapter Notes

Not gonna lie, I teared up writing this. McGonagall's perspective just kills me (✖╭╮✖)

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Luckily, today was Wednesday, which meant the fact Harry had booked it back to his dorm
mid-way through breakfast to dive into the pile of Transfiguration texts he’d hoarded on his
desk meant he was only missing Transfiguration itself, and History of Magic. The only other
class he had today was Astronomy at midnight, so he had all day to figure this out.
McGonagall would not be pleased he’d skipped her class, but hopefully she’d understand
why as soon as he finished here, and Binns wouldn’t notice if he started a pick-up football
game in his classroom mid-lecture much less that he wasn’t there.

He was so far ahead in Transfiguration that his attendance in that class was a joke anyway,
and he could live without hearing about another goblin war for one day.

This was it: the crowning jewel in his operation fox plot, so he needed to get it done as soon
as he could. Preferably before his next Transfiguration class on Monday where McGonagall
was sure to give him detention for skipping if he didn’t have a damn good reason to provide.
That would give her… oh, about a solid five weeks to stew over this, and by the time finals
hit he would be in the clear.

It would also give him five weeks to position Montague exactly where he wanted him.

So, with some serious glee, he spun through the third-year textbook the twins had lent him
and found the spell he was looking for, pulling out a couple other reference texts McGonagall
herself had recommended him over the year that would only help support his argument.

The concept was simple. The spell was called duro, and it literally meant ‘into stone’ if you
dove deep enough into the Latin base of it, but the most equivalent English translation was
the hardening charm. If you could forgive him for getting technical for a moment, the way
the textbook explained it, the spell would harden anything into stone and make it difficult to
break. Common applications were ‘hardening’ a glass that was falling so that instead of
maybe levitating it to catch it’s fall, it simply wouldn’t break when it hit the ground (it’s
incantation and wand movement were far quicker than the ‘wingardiam leviosa’ of the
levitating charm, after all, and a falling glass often had a split second at best to spare before
shattering). While Hogwarts texts never outlined how spells could be used in a battle
situation, through his conversations with McGonagall he knew that it also came in handy for,
say, hardening the ground so you had stable earth to move on while perhaps your opponent
was stuck on muddy grass. Or say, if you shot a bunch of deceptively soft feathers at
someone only for them to hit like they were solid stone.
The more useful aspect of this bit of magic was it’s counterpart, the softening charm which
was a second-year level spell as opposed to duro being learned third year. Harry knew for a
fact this was because while duro had less practical applications, it was difficult to learn
because of how the spell was structured and a good exercise in working backwards. Second
years mastered spongify and so as third years learning to do it in reverse for duro was both
great practice and a very low level introduction to how to reverse-engineer Transfiguration
spells. It was a simple counterspell in theory, but since third years should theoretically have
spongify down flat for over a year by the time they learned duro, it was a great teaching
opportunity.

And he knew this because in one of their many discussion, McGonagall had told him this.

She’s also implied heavily that because of its critical usefulness as a teaching tool instead of
an actually useful spell when he’d pointed out how… well, boring it was, that this particular
spell would be a key feature of the third year Transfiguration final.

He knew at least three quarters of what would be on the third year final (and he was paying
back another favor by providing this information freely to the twins, in fact) so he’d had his
pick of the liter with spells, but this one…

Duro was interesting, because the idea he’d just had, was that it was wrong.

Into stone—what did that even mean? The English translation was a hardening charm, which
sure, it certainly hardened things, but into stone?

Porcelain was stone, wasn’t it?

The porcelain of your average teacup shattered when you dropped it. Yes, it hardened but that
hardened product was brittle.

Objects hardened with duro didn’t break. Ever. Not when you dropped them off a table at
least, Harry hadn’t done a full barrage of destructive tests to see if he could destroy
something he’d hardened, but the principle outlined in their textbook was clear. It hardened
things so that they wouldn’t break, but the effects that all the books and objects he’d
read/seen hardened with this spell were just that: hard.

They weren’t stone.

Because stone was more than just hard. There were countless different types of stone! If he
grabbed a bunch of pebbles from the shores of the lake, he would have a handful of different
stones that all fractured or cracked under different forces. Statues were made of different
stone than teacups, porcelain and ceramic, flint and coal, pumice and chalk, obsidian and
slate, marble and granite…

Maybe he’d given a little too much thought to his graveyard, because he’d looked up far too
many different types of materials used for headstones and now knew an unsettling amount
about marble and granite, to be fair. But even he with his eleven-year-old muggle education
knew that pumice floated on water, marble sunk. If you punched a stick of chalk, it’d
crumble, while if you punched a statue, you’d break your hand.
If you hardened a teacup with duro, it didn’t break.

But a teacup was made of porcelain, which was already stone, would.

So… how could you turn something already made of stone, into stone again? Unless, of
course, into stone was just not the accurate wording for what the spell was actually doing.

Which made no sense because incantations did not mess around—they were there and they
were those exact words for incredibly specific, important reasons which is why moving to
wordless or wandless spells was easily fifth year level or above type work. And even then it
was only tested in small doses on even the NEWTs, Hogwarts just didn't actively train people
to use wordless magic. You either got so good at spells you've learned previously that it just
comes to you or you put in the effort to figure it out as an adult after graduating.

In summary for his racing thoughts, point remained that turning something into stone was
way too non-specific for a spell. If anything, he’d learned that Transfiguration required a lot
of attention to detail, and focus in your mental image to get proper results, so the fact you
could point at a donut and say duro and not fear it’d crumble apart like chalk, splinter in your
hands like obsidian, shatter if you dropped it like ceramic, or weigh suddenly ten times more
like marble, meant into stone was a horrible definition of how the spell worked.

Because spells were named very specifically, for very good reasons.

While he did not claim to be an expert, or even frankly know what the hell he was talking
about in all honesty, he did know about two things when it came to Arithmancy, and they
both related back to his Transfiguration work. Fred and George said when you got to third
year they had the option to take Arithmancy, and they said McGonagall recommends it to
those interested in pursuing careers heavy in Transfiguration. It wasn’t necessary to pass her
class, but apparently it would help, and she’d pointed him in the direction of several texts in
the past that had used Arithmancy to prove why his ideas wouldn’t work.

Arithmancy itself was probably a bad definition of the actual field, as the word itself meant
using a connection between numbers and something else to mathematically predict the future,
or someone’s personality type, not unlike a real life version of astrology. Apparently the
wizarding world also used the term to cover literally everything relating to math, finances,
spell creation, and more.

Which… did not bode well for Harry’s faith in this world if math was an optional class they
didn’t even start teaching wizards until they were thirteen.

He did not profess to be great at math, but he most certainly wasn’t as dumb about it as he
pretended to be when he had to look like his test scores were worse than Dudley’s. If
anything he’d gotten great at the subject, or what little he had of it just so he could know how
not to put down the right answers (because really the level of stupidity Dudley could muster
up was actually impressive, so it was almost an actual effort to fail tests worse than him most
days, particularly in mathematics). Additionally, wizards clearly did not put a lot of emphasis
on math, nor did they have calculators much less a focus on mental math, so the textbook that
had the equation he needed also had no less than twenty pages where they listed out the
answer to every number multiplied or divided by any other number through 0-100.
Which was truly just excessive, but honestly not the stupidest thing about the wizarding
world Harry had seen so far.

He didn’t need the help with the addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division aspects of
any of it, but since his knowledge of things like exponents and square roots amounted to only
knowing generally that they existed, the charts actually turned out to be very helpful. Because
he’d asked a couple weeks ago about some of the more basic equations relating to
transfiguration, McGonagall had taken him through a slightly more elevated way of handling
the basic equation they’d literally learned the first month at Hogwarts in her class—and
although he wasn’t 100% sure, he was fairly certain this ‘elevated method’ she was talking
about was what muggles called algebra.

Essentially, the basics of Transfiguration she taught them as they started getting the hang of
more difficult spells last semester, is that a Transfiguration spell was influenced by
bodyweight (a), viciousness (v), wand power (w), concentration (c), and a fifth unknown
variable (Z) that was kind of a ridiculous answer when you were talking about literal math.
Apparently, no one knew what the unknown variable was but it was generally assumed to be
magical talent, which was such a cop-out answer Harry didn’t even bother acknowledging it.

As he was up to third year level now, he had a basic understanding of how to quantify these
inherently unquantifiable things when mastering new spells. And with his extremely basic
grasp of the math behind how moving the variables around the equation would actually work,
and come up with a theory on how to reverse engineer duro to prove it wasn’t the spell
everyone thought it was.

If the result of the equation was a spell (t) then if he moved that component to the other side
of the equation to instead search for the exact amount of viciousness a spell needed, he could
probably get somewhere.

After all, he’d managed to do it on instinct at the breakfast table just now, so he just needed to
quantify it on paper.

He spent the morning scrawling out his plan and slipping through pages of several books to
find the right sources, taking three trips back and forth to the library both to stretch his legs
and mind for a moment and collect another reference or look up something new, and when
his roommates came back for the day after their classes and saw him with his head bent over
his desk writing furiously, they wisely let him be.

000

He did manage to get himself to Astronomy that night, but he barely listened to a thing
Professor Sinistra said. He was very much wiped from his day of intense thought and the
early hour of the morning that they finally got back to Gryffindor tower, so he had no
problem falling asleep that night though.

Thursday was a bit hazy as he recovered from his brainstorming session, but after Potions on
Friday he felt refreshed enough to start back in on his work and the break really had cleared
his mind to give him a new perspective.
He’d always appreciated Transfiguration, from day one, for being the only class at Hogwarts
that had even a lick of common sense written into the syllabus. There was concrete fact and
math to back up some of the spells (even if they were tainted here and there with the ‘because
magic’ answer at times) and McGonagall herself spoke and taught with solid references
behind her, not speaking out her butt or flaunting personal experiences as stone cold truth of
how things were like some professors.

Wizards sure liked to recite anecdotes as if that was all there ever was to a story. Like
Quirrell talking about that time he met a vampire and it tried to eat him—but Harry was sure
the fact he was wandering in a secluded forest known to be a vampire hang-out (that he had
to break a ward to enter, by the way, like the ward wasn’t there for a reason) likely had
something to do with it and yet here he was telling a whole generation of young witches and
wizards that every vampire they’d meet would try to eat them immediately.

Harry really hated people sometimes.

In any case, Transfiguration (and even Potions at times, though it pained him to admit it)
were more logical than any other branch of magic, and maybe he was just a logical, technical
person at heart, but that really resonated with him. Which would probably shock people, to
learn he wasn’t as right-brained as he dressed.

It meant though, that as he worked out his equation logically, trying to prove what he already
knew he could do, he managed to stumble upon it by crossing off every possible thing that he
knew it wasn’t. It wasn’t easy, as he hadn’t had to do math in over a year and getting back
into it gave him a headache, but he was determined and it was for a good cause so he
persevered and by Saturday night he thought he might just have it.

You see, he had the equation, but he was getting an answer different than what the rest of the
world, when, according to math, that really shouldn’t be possible.

Yet it was possible, because there was an extra factor in there. Like a “multiplied by 1”
variable that had no impact on if you left it in or took it out, because the answer was still the
same.

If you changed the “1” though, suddenly you would get a different answer. No one ever
changed that variable though, because no one knew it was there or that it could be changed. It
was also an afterthought—after the equation as you knew it was completed, then you tacked
on this little bit. If you didn’t, no worries there was no impact to the spell because it was like
multiplying by 1. If you did though…

Well, tiny nuances in how the spell performed started to emerge.

It wasn’t the (Z) variable, he didn’t think, because he was fairly certain that was your mental
image of what you were transfiguring although he had no way of proving that—no one did,
according to McGonagall, but she was willing to buy into that theory without much issue and
no evidence to prove or disprove it. This variable he’d discovered was different, because he
could quantify it, although it was hard.
However, as he finished the finishing touches on his equation, he realized he’d already
known about this variable from they very start. It was the fall.

The fall—that weird dropping motion he pictured in his mind when he cast a spell. If you
dropped something from head height to the ground, the end point would always be the
ground and the starting point would always be head height, however…there was a world of
possibility, in how the object got there.

What path did it take as it fell? Could it go backwards before dropping to the ground? It was
magic, so if he could imagine it, it could happen. And if he could make it happen, and write
out exactly what that ‘falling’ motion looked like when casting a spell, he could create a
technically new spell—one that would harden something into stone with the same exact
incantation and wand movement as duro, and yet just by changing how the fall felt when you
performed it, would turn something to porcelain instead of marble, and cause it to shatter
instead of survive a fall.

Was it useful?

Harry had no idea, nor did he care.

It’s about the fact I’m creating a spell, even a modified existing spell, as a first year. Which
will once and for all prove I’ve got something useful that any Slytherin would want to take
advantage of, and make my work unique to any other student at Hogwarts. Like a calling
card McGonagall will be able to see from ten miles away.

With his plan now in place, it was only a matter of putting his head down and writing it out
clearly, which he spent Sunday, well into the night, getting in place for his next
Transfiguration class first thing in the morning. He mapped the exact movements of the
mental ‘fall’ that you needed for the traditional duro and his new one, comparing the
differences and breaking out the equation to prove it could work. He’d read enough
Transfiguration texts at this point to be able to mimic how authors wrote, at least to a point.
He was still eleven and he’d had a lot of points taken off this year for his essay-writing skills
so he was banking on the content speaking for itself for now.

He went to bed that night with a big grin on his face, and woke up the next morning earlier
than ever before in order to make it down to Professor McGonagall’s office before breakfast.

000

He’d stopped knocking and waiting for the curt ‘enter’ from within McGonagall’s office
months ago, so he knocked as was considered polite but then still walked right in as he
pleased. True to form, she simply lifted her head from where she was grading some papers
and acknowledged him with a brief nod, too used to his sudden appearances at her door by
now to offer him more than that. Harry was thrilled to learn she was an early riser like he
was, however this time of her morning she reserved for grading upper year homeworks and
tests so she typically didn’t entertain his questions or any attempts to stop by to chat at this
hour, telling him to come back later during her more open afternoon office hours.
He hoped not to take too much of her time for this though, and he needed to talk to her before
class otherwise she’d give him another detention for skipping.

And right on cue:

“I was told by your classmates that you’d been poisoned at breakfast which is why you didn’t
appear at my class last week, Mr. Potter. Madam Pomfrey assured me you hadn’t visited so I
assume you have a fair excuse for your absence.” Her warning gaze promising pain if he
didn’t.

He smiled widely and walked up to her desk to put several sheets of paper clipped together
on the edge, above where she had other papers mid-grading spread out in front of her. She
picked it up to place over her current work, reading the otherwise blank top sheet save for the
title.

She lifted one skeptical eyebrow.

“The Porcelain Theory? What exactly is this, Mr. Potter?”

“I wasn’t poisoned, I just had a sudden interesting thought while drinking some tea,” He
chirped. “I really wanted to figure it out so I might’ve skipped your class and History of
Magic to do some research… but I will totally accept a detention if it means you’ll read that
and give me some feedback during that detention?” he offered diplomatically, and she gave
him an even more skeptical look (how was it she managed that he couldn’t figure out but it
was super impressive) and lifted the cover sheet to scan the first page.

Her eyebrows slowly rose over the long silent minute she read the first paragraphs. Harry just
waited patiently with a big grin on his face, waiting for her reaction.

Unfortunately she didn’t give much of one, just placed the paper down and measured him up
carefully, expectantly. He took the cue to elaborate.

“If some of those dimbat authors who have books in the Hogwarts library can write about
principles of Transfiguration with only half knowledge on how it works, then so can I. I
figured something out about the hardening charm and I want your take on it, is all. I even did
the Arithmancy for it! Although if you could double check I actually did it right it be much
appreciated…” He admitted a bit abashedly, and she just stared at him.

She lifted the paper and narrowed her eyes at the content once more, another long minute
passing….

"That goes against the principles of how the subject is taught." She pointed out, like he didn’t
already know that.

"Which is why I wrote a paper, because I've got proof and I'm sure I'm right. Will you read it
and tell me what you think?" He pleaded politely, hoping she’d forget about the detention
deal, distracted by the paper itself.

It seemed to work as she tapped a finger absentmindedly on the closed paper thoughtfully.
"You're quite presumptuous for a first year, trying to revolutionize a thousand-year-old
subject."

“You’d be bored without me,” he insisted, and she looked like she was very tempted to roll
her eyes, if she were the type of person to do such a thing.

“It does not make you any less presumptuous, but yes, I suppose you do keep my on my
toes.” She politely ignored his snickering as she continued. “Very well, I'll take a look.
Expect me to read it with prejudice. Grammar included.”

He tried not to wince at that threat, instead grinning gratefully. “Please do! Thank you
professor!” He tried to make his escape, waving enthusiastically in thanks—but he only made
it to the door.

“And I will tell you about my findings in detention, this Thursday, Mr. Potter.”

He winced visibly that time.

“Ah… yes Professor…”

000

Minerva put the small packet of paper in front of her down, having just finished reading
through it--three times.

Harry Potter was a curiosity, for sure.

She had so been expecting to see a mini-James Potter in front of her when she knew he would
be starting this year at Hogwarts, and his initial letter to her was absolutely filled with a self-
confidence and snarky wit that screamed James Potter in every way possible. That kind of
sass and assuredness did not belong on an eleven-year-old in any way, and so it was always
the few that had it that stood out to her. Forget the shock of him looking just like his mother,
she’d thought she’d recognized James in him clear as day.

She’d been a teacher for a long, long time, and she knew that those who had sheer unfounded
confidence were always excellent at magic, because Mr. Potter’s determined insistence that
it’s magic, so if I can imagine it I can do it, really did have some merit. There was no
published work out there that quantified confidence relating in any way to magical ability, but
she’d spent her whole career studying Transfiguration and knew that the unknown variable
required for Transfiguration spells was most probably something related to belief.

If you fully believed you could do it, and didn’t back away from that belief and had the
known variables down pat, then on the most part you could.

James Potter had been a rather spoiled child, with the Potter name being long-lived, wealthy,
pureblood, and very full of their superior morals compared to other pureblood families.
Minerva had been on friendly terms with Fleamont Potter and so when she met his son she
was absolutely not surprised that James had been a ball of shining wit and full of mischief.
No one had ever told the boy no, and he’d been loved and spoiled and given every resource
and tool he’d ever need to be a brilliant wizard someday from the very beginning. He had no
reason to ever think he couldn’t do any damn thing in this world, as the whole world had been
put at his feet since birth, so it was no shock to her that he’d been very good at
Transfiguration.

Even as an eleven-year-old he hadn’t hesitated for a second when performing spells, and
because of it every spell he’d ever tried in her class had always gone well for him. He didn’t
particularly like her class better than any others, but he was good at it and very well-spoken
from his upbringing, so even his essays and homeworks were all but flawless, without fail.
He got Os without trying, and surely because of his glowing confidence in everything he did.

She had watched him grow, over his seven years at Hogwarts. He was a spoiled child for sure
when he started, but he befriended a werewolf who was treated absolutely despicably by the
world at large, a meek little boy who was bullied relentlessly from day one at Hogwarts, and
the heir of the Black family who was sorted into Gryffindor—someone Minerva knew was
not treated well by his parents up until the day he was disowned and took up permanent
residency at Potter Manor. He’d started out vain, full-of-himself, sheltered, and arrogant—but
by the time James Potter had graduated he’d been a kind man, who protected his friends from
this world’s evils with all his heart and soul.

She would never tell Severus this, but honestly the mother-hen like traits the young Draco
Malfoy was showing every time Harry got into trouble seemed really familiar to her. Only,
James had been a seventh year by the time he’d grown up enough to worry about those
around him like an old woman and get so indignant over his friends’ reckless behavior (like
he wasn’t the most reckless of them all half the time).

Harry though… she’d thought she recognized his unfounded confidence because of his father
before him, and she’d been very on guard against feeding into the insane arrogance of a
spoiled child at first. James had grown up to be a wonderful man, but he was a little terror in
his earlier years at Hogwarts and she liked to think the countless detentions she’d given him
had done something to straighten him out, at least just a bit, since it was clear his own parents
would never actually discipline him.

It a matter of weeks though, Minerva realized Harry’s confidence was not just a replica of his
father’s, but something else entirely.

They had spent so many hours talking at this point that she now knew the muggles he’d been
placed with had in fact not spoiled him at all. And she had no proof, but she was absolutely
sure when she got her proof, she was going to be exceedingly pissed off about it.

But however he’d been raised, it was clear he did not have confidence just because no one
had ever told him no before. No… Harry’s confidence he could do anything was because he
simply had no choice.

Failure was not an option, in his mind, as failure seemed to equate to him something far more
severe than a poor homework grade. She could practically feel the insane thirst for success,
for understanding and full comprehension and awareness in him when he went to her with
questions. She saw the way he came to her pretending to be a Granger-look-alike, as if he
were just curious about the theory and wanted to brown-nose his way into her good graces—
but the second she’d started to treat him like his questions deserved real, full answers as if he
were her equal, not her student, the mask had dropped and he’d gotten a hungry look in his
eye that took her off guard.

When she’d complimented his use of Transfiguration against the mountain troll, he’d seemed
legitimately stunned someone had complimented him. And ever since then, he looked less
desperate to get her time and her answers to his questions, and actually seemed comfortable
in her office when he visited.

And he visited often. Far more than any student she’d ever had before, by a clear margin.

And for some reason she could never bring herself to turn him away—maybe asking him to
come back another time if she were busy, but she never ignored him or told him no.

Ah… maybe she’d ended up guilty of spoiling him herself, despite her best efforts.

But she just couldn’t help it, she’d gotten along with quite a few students over the years on a
more personal relationship than teacher-to-student, James being one of them eventually,
especially as they’d worked side-by-side in the last war after he’d graduated. No student had
ever trailed after her the way Harry did now though, like he’d never met an adult he actually
trusted in his life before, and was clinging to her guidance like a moth to a flame.

He was an exceedingly clever boy and his thirst for success and intense desire to be the
person in the room who knew the most, or had all the cards up his sleeve is perhaps a better
way to say it, meant he probably should’ve been in Slytherin, honestly. Minerva had had so
many Slytherins in her office before, asking questions primed for entirely different lessons
than the kinds of things your typical Ravenclaw would want to know, and Harry’s presence
here, particularly in the first half of the year, had rang all kinds of alarm bells in her mind.

He was so smart and patient, but he was an eleven-year-old boy.

She saw the way he startled every time she praised his work, the way he was eager to share
not just his Transfiguration questions but also how his day was going when he visited, the
way he eagerly grabbed at his homeworks as she handed them back, excited to read her
comments. The way he thought he was so clever in hiding how much her rare smiles made
him perk up with a big grin of his own. The way his mask had dropped like a bag of bricks
the second she’d validated him in any way, and how his questions went from ‘I’m asking
because I want something from you’, to instantly switching in tone to be ‘I want you to
acknowledge me’.

She’d had plenty of children who did not have great home lives or role models to turn to
cross through her classroom.

Most of them were Slytherin.

But because they were Slytherin, almost none had clung to her but she’d definitely seen them
cling to Severus, and even Aurora on occasion as the woman was a Slytherin herself a long
time ago, though she hardly acted the part Severus did these days.
Slytherins of these days had been raised by war-torn parents, so Severus was typically their
most familiar role model.

And she didn’t approve exactly, of Severus methods as a teacher, but she’d been here when
he went from being a student to a Professor in his own right, and she’d watched him break
down more than once about how…rampant, the disease of terrible parents and pitiful home
lives truly was. How the snake house hid it, even from each other, but how much that had to
hurt. How he'd gone his entire education thinking he was alone in his isolated hell, only to
realize how gut-wrenchingly unspecial being an abused child actually was amongst his
classmates.

Given Severus’ own history, she didn’t exactly blame him for it.

And she couldn’t exactly blame him as he lashed out on the other houses, even though they
were just children who didn’t quite understand, because he was playing the role he’d so
desperately wanted when he himself was at Hogwarts, and a role that no professor had been
able to give him. That one person, that one adult in their lives who would always be on your
side—no matter how unreasonable and unfair it made him seem as a person (and he was—
unreasonable and unfair but Minerva just couldn’t find it within herself to actively stop him)
everyone knew Professor Snape would take a Slytherin’s side over anyone else’s just because
he was a mean old bat.

But Severus did not care about what everyone knew, he only cared that his Slytherins were
fully aware they had at least one adult who was forever and always unreasonably on their
side for no other reason than that they were in Slytherin. That they would always have a
champion in their corner no matter if it made political sense or not.

And for a young snake who trusted no one, that was huge.

Severus did it at the expense of earning the ire of every other house and the annoyance of his
colleagues, but he was a petty man at heart and he did not care. He was the oddest mix of
incredibly cruel, and unimaginably kind.

He would sacrifice 75% of the children in this school for the sake of the last 25%, without
hesitation. Which, on one hand Minerva kind of hated him for, as he was a professor and
supposed to be here to protect all of their children, and yet… the lengths he would go to in
order to protect those of the student body who maybe needed it the most always touched her,
too. She’d always hated never knowing, or finding out too late that one of her students was
afraid to go home each summer, beating herself up for not being able to do more sooner…

And whether she approved of his methods, Severus was constantly acting the role he needed
to, so that any child of his house that might’ve been afraid or might never have trusted an
adult again so long as they lived, could still look at the head of Slytherin house and consider
him an ally. That they would go to him and tell him before it was too late because they knew
he was on their side beyond a shadow of a doubt. That Snape, as the fine Slytherin he’d
grown up to be, would be able to do something about it while every other professor kept a
professional distance between them and their students… and so were usually finding out
second hand about a student they were too late to protect.
She’d never been able to come to a conclusion about what she thought of Severus and his
role as a professor at Hogwarts, not for nearly a decade has she been able to decide. Of
course she liked the man and wished he would just be happier if he could manage it, even
outside of the role he played in front of the students, but beyond that… she didn’t get in his
way, but she also didn’t take it lying down if one of her lions came to her for help with him.
She let him do as he pleased because she knew why he was doing it, so long as he didn’t get
excessive about it.

Now though… now, she had one of her own.

A lion who was looking at her like he finally believed she would take his side if it came
down to it, and he was relieved and thankful for it. One of her own who came to her with
wide green eyes always so surprised when she complimented him, and surprised that she
wasn’t dismissing or ignoring him every time he spoke.

She hadn’t quite realized what Severus was up against, having probably dozens of children
under his wing all looking to him like he was their last line of defense against the world that
hated them—their only hope that things would turn out fine. Because they were all just
children, and they didn’t actually have any control at all: their lives were up to the adults
around them and they knew it. Everyone knew it, but no one had done a damn thing about it
until finally they found that one adult who would.

Harry was not his father. James had liked her well enough, but he had never needed her in the
slightest. He’d had everything he’d ever wanted given to him on a silver platter, but Harry…

Harry hadn’t.

Harry had come a long way by the skin of his teeth if the way he’d mastered how to fake a
smile and deflect a conversation was anything to go by. Harry was more than ready to be
reasonable and patient if it meant getting what he wanted, because he’d learned that nothing
was a guarantee unless you were willing to work for it. Harry was observant and interested in
those around him both because he knew people could be used for greater purposes, and also
because he liked it when people liked him, probably because it was still a novelty for him.

Harry hadn’t known a thing about the wizarding world until his Hogwarts letter, because his
muggle relatives hadn’t told him a damn thing. And if he didn’t know about the wizarding
world, he didn’t know his parents were magical. Which meant he hadn’t known how they
died.

Which meant he’d grown up probably thinking they’d died for another reason… and that that
reason wasn’t putting an end to decades of war by sacrificing themselves for the life of their
child whom they loved.

Which meant James’ confidence Minerva thought she saw in his son, it wasn’t actually
James’ confidence at all. And the kindness she could’ve sworn was Lily’s that Harry showed,
it wasn’t Lily’s in the slightest.

Harry had grown up without James or Lily, and he had no idea who they were or what they
were like, so maybe a tiny bit of them was alive inside their son, but most of it just wasn’t
theirs. Harry was someone else entirely different from his parents, who for some reason had
learned his mother’s kindness and passion, as well as his father’s dedication and sheer pride
all on his own. Not because he’d come from loving families like his parents had, but because
he’d grown up alone and learned a lot of lessons his parents hadn’t until they were all but
graduated Hogwarts.

After all, at eleven-years-old, James Potter had been a bit of a spoiled brat and Lily Evans
had been a bit of a foul-tempered know-it-all. They grew up to be wonderful adults, but they
were not easy students as first or second years.

She remembered how Lily and James had been when they were actually Harry’s age, and it
hadn’t been this.

Harry seemed to be all the good parts of his adult parents, which clearly drove Severus
insane and most of the professors found it so refreshing he acted like his parents, but Minerva
knew. She knew what that really meant—that Harry had already done a lot of growing up
before ever stepping foot into Hogwarts. Everyone was so happy to mourn the memories of
their adults selves, but Minerva would never forget the children Lily and James had once
been, because they’d once been hers to straighten out, and raise in place of their parents for
most of the year. They’d grown up to be wonderful, and she had been so proud.

Their son had already grown up before he’d entered into her care though. And she’d missed it
all.

And so… it was with an exceedingly heavy, yet proud heart that she rested a hand over the
leaflet of papers she’d been given, and pondered what was in it.

The thing was… the boy was right.

The paper was far from a work of art since his grammar and essay-writing skills left
something to be desired, but the content within was remarkable. No, more than that, it
was genius.

The fact he was good enough at arguing his point to know what equation to use and how to
break it down in a clearly worded, simple manner only a child would be so good at was
impressive enough, but backing himself up with no less than two dozen texts and principles
proven to be true meant his argument was all but impenetrable. She would have to run it by
Septima to double check the Arithmancy, but from what she knew of the subject is was all
spot-on.

Unable to help herself, she’d taken a goblet she had on hand for demonstration purposes, and
with only a couple tries to apply the theory herself… she found it worked.

This boy… is going to break my heart one day.

Minerva put her wand down to stare at the goblet that had turned to porcelain in front of her,
mind racing from a technical point of view of what this would mean in general for the field of
Transfiguration, and also a sinking heart.
Harry was eleven.

He took to her classes and her in general and she was both proud and worried every time he
displayed his incredible skill, thrilled that he wanted to do her proud in her subject, but also
silently fretting over the concern that he wasn’t pushing himself just because she was the only
adult in his life he trusted. He was far too mature for his age, and as he raced ahead on
Transfiguration topics, she had hoped that meant he was only reading ahead.

If he knew this much about the theory to be able to successfully alter a spell and leave a
gaping hole in the magical world’s understanding of Transfiguration as a branch of magic,
she very much doubted he was just reading theory. Which means he was practicing upper
level spells unsupervised, and on a magical core for someone so young, she feared for what
impact that might have. Children were only supposed to use their year-level spells to protect
their budding magical cores, not overexert themselves and their core by racing ahead too far,
too fast.

Not that many children could do something like this. Not even Severus had openly displayed
his prodigious talent at Potions until after his OWLs were completed, and he was the
youngest prodigy by a wide margin in decades.

And Harry was eleven.

It should not only be impossible, but it was also dangerous. Both for his magical core, and
what little childhood Harry had left to him—if, even, there was any left at all by now, which
was a thought that made her want to start drinking at eight in the morning. If (when) this
paper got out Minerva feared what kind of things he’d be pulled into. The pressure to follow
it up with more advancements, to prove his prodigious talent, to publish more papers and
write books and…

Well. Harry had already told her he wanted to open a clothes shop, or a bakery even. The
amount of people who’d harass him for not only being known as the Boy Who Lived, but
now one of the youngest prodigies ever in a notoriously difficult branch of magic… he’d
never get another moment’s peace.

Which, maybe was a good thing, as he certainly seemed more okay with obtaining fame
through his own achievements rather than the ones he happened into as an infant, but still.

He was eleven.

She lifted the paper again to re-read the equation he’d altered, putting her hand beneath her
chin as she worried at her bottom lip. Every academic bone in her body wanted to go deeper
into this subject that posed a question that cast into doubt everything she’d worked for in her
career, but she forced herself to refrain.

What he needs is more time. He doesn’t need to be the boy who inherited James Potter’s
Transfiguration talent, or the Boy Who Lived prodigy. He just needs to be Harry.

Even if he’d grown up too fast and didn’t have a childhood left to enjoy, Minerva would still
try to get him that time, just on the off chance he could still catch a few years of blissful
ignorance of some things. He was clearly already too world-savvy, but she could do this
much at least.

I can prevent this from getting out, for now. Send him back for more research, pick at his
grammar until he’d a fifth year. Maybe he’ll buy it.

She probably wouldn’t do it, but she silently felt like she owed Severus an apology for her
reserved judgement this past decade. She’d never had a student she was willing to suddenly
toss her carefully composed set of ideals out the window for before. Any other student and
she’d be praising them outright, calling up the nearest publisher to see if this couldn’t get into
the next issue of the academic journals she was subscribed to.

But this wasn’t any other student, and even if it broke the rules she had imposed on herself
for being a teacher, she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

This lion was special, and she was going to ensure he could continue to trust her,
professionalism be damned.

000

“Minerva!”

Septima was, as a rule, a very refined woman who did not run and gave even Minerva herself
a run for her money with her reputation of being strict amongst the Hogwarts students. And
knowing her personally, Minerva was one to agree that the woman was rather… boring.

She dedicated her life to numbers and was very content to be that way, which was admirable
if not a little dull.

But that persona was what made it very entertaining when she burst into the Transfiguration
professor’s office, cheeks flushed from the clear run she’d just taken, brandishing a packet of
papers emphatically.

“Minerva! Who wrote this!?”

She put down her quill and safely covered the essay she’d been grading just in time for
Septima to plop the papers down with abandon over her work, pacing before her desk
distractedly.

“Can you not guess?” She offered, amused at this reaction. It wasn’t like she didn’t mention
her most promising student often enough in the teacher’s lounge, after all.

“Minerva you don’t understand. It’s too simple, it’s like learning the green gummies are
strawberry flavored: yes it’s obvious but at the same time what?”

Minerva frowned, not actually having known that.

“The writing level is quite low and admittedly I’m not the greatest at Transfiguration spells,
but the Arithmancy is so painfully simple of course a first year came up with it. It’s just also
absolutely shocking that no one has ever considered this possibility before.” She pressed on,
seeming very harassed about the whole thing.

“So the calculations are accurate?”

“Yes, but that’s the annoying thing. It’s not like he did it wrong, he just…” She waved her
hands helplessly as if trying to find the right words for it. “He just—added onto it or
something! He added more to the equation. Which isn’t wrong apparently—which alone is
just stunning— but also who the hell would think of that? It’s not like there was anything
wrong with how the spell or equation was done prior so why did he even think of this? How
did he even know it would work? What was even the point much less getting into the
absolutely stunning fact his wild suspicion was actually right?”

Minerva sighed silently, having already asked herself all these questions.

“I plan to ask him those questions myself in time, but I wanted to run it by you first to make
sure I hadn’t made a calculation error.” She soothed. “I’m going to meet with him in a couple
minutes actually to discuss this more, so you’ve made good time.”

“Does he plan to publish this?” Septima cut right to the chase, and Minerva winced slightly.

“I suspect that may be the ultimate goal, yes, but his writing needs a significant amount of
work. The theory is good, but it still sounds like an eleven-year-old wrote it."

The Arithmancy professor snorted delicately. "Geniuses, I swear. If you ever read some of
Severus' work, you know what I mean."

That earned a small smile from her, at least. Severus was the youngest potions master ever
and was undoubtedly gifted, but his published works were rough to get through despite them
being groundbreaking in the Potions field. Minerva had read the summaries and left the
actual reading of those papers to other Potions masters who really wanted to know. As was
often the case, being knowledgeable didn't mean you could express it well either in words or
writing.

"Mr. Potter has time to learn; this is only the first draft and I expect many more before he's
ready to publish but… he is correct in his theories if you're here to tell me you agree with his
calculations."

"I sure do! I am amazed at this kind of creative thinking, much less that it worked! It's like
using the wrong equation on a problem and getting an even better answer—I'm intrigued to
say the least. You’ll have to keep me updated, and also when he gets there try to convince
him to take Arithmancy if you can."

“I can assure you Mr. Potter will do as he pleases with or without my input, but I can put in a
good word.” She admitted wryly. “Thank you for your help, but if you could keep this under
wraps for now, it would be appreciated. I think this potential work can be fleshed out more
thoroughly for the time being, and perhaps published when he’s a bit older.”
“What? Why? Think of the kind of work he could get to in his life if he starts publishing
now!”

“Septima, he’s a first year. Yes this is clever, but imagine what he could do with a little more
Transfiguration experience under his belt?” The woman blinked, giving it some thought and
shrugging.

“Well if you’re sure. As I said I only vaguely grasp the Transfiguration side of it. Just let me
know if I can double check anything else; I’ll look forward to the final product then. Please
help his writing skills, if you can.”

“I’ll do my best,” Minerva sighed. “Thank you, Septima.”

The took her leave with a distracted look still firmly on her face, and while the Arithmancy
professor often had a one-track mind for her numbers, she also wasn’t the gossipy type in any
way. Minerva had faith she’d keep this quiet, at least for the time being—she might get too
excited and let something slip as she started ranting about her numbers, but as a general rule
people avoided triggering her long-winded (and exceptionally dull) diatribes about finances
and calculations, so it was probably a safe secret for now.

She took a breath, almost a bit disappointed she’d confirmed what Minerva had already
suspected.

“Professor?”

Minerva lifted her head, and a flame of red greeted her at the door, smiling a bit abashedly.

“Mr. Potter. Welcome to detention.”

“Right… am I going to be doing lines or can we talk about my paper?” He hedged, clearly
trying to be charming and she let it slide for now. She’d always intended just to talk, after all.
They both knew his presence in her actual classes was… rather pointless honestly, but it was
the principle of the thing and she refused to let his skipping become a bad habit. First it
would start with her classes and then it’d be others, and she wasn’t about to make it so
obvious she clearly had a soft spot for him.

She knew it would already be a losing battle, but she was obligated to make the attempt.

She stood, leading the way back out into the hallway and towards her classroom. “I think
perhaps our time would be better used addressing some questions I have for you. I’d like to
run some spellwork drills, if you are up to it.”

“Spellwork drills?” He blinked, following after her quickly. She had long strides, and he was
rather small for his age so it always felt like he was jogging to keep up with her. “What are
those?”

“Children with particularly unruly magical cores are often taught spellwork drills to help
them master a level of control in a safe environment. They are ‘blank’ spells, meaning they
stress one’s magical core almost as much as the actual spell, but without any effect taking
place.” She explained as they entered her classroom. She already had several multi-colored
buttons laid out on a desk that Harry clearly inferenced were for him as he went and sat down
in front of it, whipping out his wan obediently.

“Ok?” He allowed, clearly not seeing the point of it but not arguing exactly. “Is my magical
core unruly?”

“That is what I want to determine.” She stood before him, arms folded behind her back and
nodded to the buttons. “I’ve seen you preform the switching spell previously; can you
perform it now please.”

He perked up a bit and executed the spell flawlessly with a simple “Ibi,” and the buttons
came to a rest in their new locations, both glowing dully. He blinked at them. “Are they
supposed to glow?”

She lifted a brow, noting the color they were shining. “That’s part of the spellwork drill.
These buttons are enchanted to reveal the level and type of magic you’re using on them.”

“Oh. Ah, actually that’s pretty cool,” he seemed genuinely interested, picking them up and
turning them over in his hand curiously. “So this’ll tell me if my magical core is unruly or
whatnot?”

“In a way,” she admitted. “I read your paper, Mr. Potter, and to be honest… you are correct.
The development you made, according to my observations, is right.” He straightened up,
grinning proudly. “But.”

He deflated a bit. “But? What about it?” He demanded.

She gave a tired sigh. What felt like the thousandth in only a couple days.

“For one, your essay-writing skills need quite a bit of work, to say the least. But that’s a
secondary matter… what concerns me most, is that you’ve been practicing third-year level
spells. To be honest I had hoped you were only reading ahead.”

The boy stared at her, wide green eyes uncomprehending. “But… isn’t the point of learning
magic to do it? Why wouldn’t I be trying out this stuff if I could?”

This boy… he didn’t inherit his father’s recklessness exactly, but he definitely has a lack of
awareness for danger at the very least.

“Because you are eleven.” She told him pointedly, but calmly. He seemed surprised by that
change in direction the conversation had taken. “First year spells are what they are to protect
growing magical cores from overexerting themselves too young. You can learn all the theory
you’d like and I’d never stop you, but the fact you were able to perform and alter a third-year
level spell concerns me, because I fear you’re unknowingly doing damage to your magical
core.”

He gaped at her, clearly not having imagined that as a possibility.

“But…” he glanced down at the buttons that had stopped glowing on the desk in front of him.
“Is that what these tell you? That my core is messed up now?”

Minerva pressed her lips. “No. When they glow blue like that, it’s the appropriate level of
magic used for that spell.” She admitted.

“Then… I’m okay?”

“I would like to test out as many spells as you know so far and see their results before I
answer that.”

“Right…”

He didn’t put up a fuss though as he ran though all the first year spells he knew and then
proceeded to go through all the second and third year Transfiguration spells as well with her
providing goblets, snuffboxes, and other trinkets she had stored in her classroom for him to
test them out on.

Each time, the objects glowed blue, meaning he was performing the spells perfectly.

It just… it makes no sense. Prodigies are not unheard of, but this just shouldn’t be possible—
at least not without harming his core. There has to be a drawback, but where?

Minerva’s plans weren’t exactly working out. She had hoped to use this threat of endangering
his magical core to get him to slow down (please just be a carefree child just a little longer)
but it didn’t seem like even her logical fears had any ground to stand on. She knew Potters
were rumored to have large magical cores, but this was ridiculous. To be able to perform all
these spells back-to-back, without breaking a sweat, didn’t just mean he had a large reserve to
draw from, but it also meant he could control it.

If James had this kind of talent and had wasted it she was going to give him an earful in the
next life.

Almost half an hour later Harry finally stopped casting spells, seeming to scratch his brain
trying to remember any more and realize he’d run out. He turned to her expectantly.

“So? Did any of that mean my core is off? They all turned blue.”

“They did. Which, would imply there’s nothing amiss.” The boy looked triumphant and
Minerva knew she was going to have to resort to honesty here. She stood before his desk
pointedly and he paused in his victory to pay attention to what she was going to say. “To be
frank, Mr. Potter, even though it seems to be fine I am still concerned you’re pushing yourself
too far, for no good reason. Where is the need to master these spells? You have your entire
career at Hogwarts in front of you, why not dedicate your time to enjoying it instead of
getting so needlessly ahead? Just because you can does not necessarily mean it’s wise to
spend your life overreaching and never simply enjoying the moment.” She paused, seeing
him stiffen in alarm as he listened. “You are eleven. It is insanely impressive you’ve done
this, but where is the fire?”
He ducked his head, long red strands of his wild, distinctive hair fell in his face and he
seemed to mull something over for a long minute.

Then:

“Okay… okay.” He blew out a breath, tapping the desk in front of him almost as a nervous
habit. “Can I be totally honest? And maybe you… not give me another detention for it?”

She did not budge in her stern expression.

“We’ll see.”

“Okay, that’s fair.” He admitted, seeming to brace himself for a second before suddenly a
dam broke and it all came spilling out. “Well… I guess I’m doing this for three reasons. One:
I’m friends with a lot of Slytherins and I’m a Gryffindor, which already puts me at a
disadvantage but then I’m also the Boy Who Lived or whatever so half of them really hate me
on top of it. But what Slytherins do like, is to trade: if I’m really good at something I can
trade them lessons or notes or essays or whatever in exchange for other stuff, and they like
that arrangement. Which means I can be friends with my Slytherin friends and on the most
part everyone else leaves us alone, because they want something out of me. Like, everyone
knows I’m really good at Transfiguration now, and I can trade my class notes for like, a lot of
stuff these days. I even gave a few people lessons before midterms and now they owe me,
which is exactly where I want to be with Slytherins, right?”

“I… see.”

She really should’ve seen that coming. She was aware Harry and the young Draco Malfoy
were friends and it’d caused quite a stir in the start of the year, but she hadn’t realized it was
quite so dicey. She knew Severus was very concerned about the friendship but Minerva had
always been on board as probably the first, if not only Gryffindor/Slytherin friendship in
decades. She was no Slytherin though, so all of that… political-ness was lost on her—she
knew it was a thing, just not that it was quite so important.

She hadn’t given it any thought since the first day of term when Severus had stormed off
seeing the two young first years share their schedules, and then refuse to show up for meals
for the entire next week. She’d thought he was being dramatic, honestly.

She was starting to think that maybe all of Slytherin copied Severus’ dramatics and if that
were true then lord help them all.

Harry cut off her wary thoughts by reaching into his bag he’d brought with him and
unearthing a simple black journal with dark blue etchings on the front, setting in on the desk
in front of him pointedly. It seemed to have quite a bit of age to it, although it was well
preserved.

“The second reason is a bit weird, but uh…. I was raised by muggles who hated magic and
didn’t really know anything about my parents so like… when I got to the magical world for
the first time the Potter name didn’t really mean anything to me, you know? I mean I just had
no idea who my parents were, much less the bloodline as a whole, so when I got to Gringotts
and they told me I’d accidentally avenged the Monroe line or something I just kind of
accepted it, because why not? I kinda of agreed without thinking but then there was that
whole blood ritual thing which was not fun but you can’t really back out of agreements with
goblins I’ve learned—not that I tried, since I immediately knew that was a bad idea, but
yeah… point is I also adopted the Monroe bloodline so I got to see their vault. The Potter
vault is locked until I’m seventeen so the only ‘family’ vault or history I’ve seen has all been
Monroe, and a part of it is these journals from one of my ancestors that I like, legitimately
love. She was super big into Transfiguration and I’ve read dozens of her journals already and
she’s maybe my favorite adopted ancestor ever. I genuinely like this topic because I got to see
it through her eyes too, and she actually owned a clothes shop herself and used
Transfiguration to do it, and that’s sort of my goal at the moment as well so… there’s no
reason not to get wrapped up in this subject, to me. Since this is what I want.”

Minerva felt her heart break, at least a little. At the same moment she was… oddly touched
that Harry seemed to have found some kind of meaning in his heritage, all on his own. The
fact he thought nothing of his father’s family because he just didn’t know them made her want
to withdraw into herself for a moment to grieve, but at the same time… if the boy found a
place in an adoptive heritage… he both deserved and was owed that right, she supposed.

Harry spread his hands out over the desk, giving her a kind of guilty smile.

“And the third reason…is that I really do like it. I mean, it makes the most sense of all the
branches of magic and it just comes naturally I guess? Fred and George said its definitely
unnatural how quick I pick this stuff up and they’re pretty unnatural themselves so that says a
lot. I swear I’m not doing it for any crazy reason or not spending enough time with my
friends or something by being obsessed with learning Transfiguration or anything, it really is
a hobby, I promise.”

“So, the Weasley twins have been assisting you.” She narrowed her eyes, but knew it was
more grasping at straws now than anything. He made… a very compelling point.

“At most they’re just very helpful tutors! You can’t be mad at them because I asked for their
help and they were glad to do it—that’s just being considerate! And I’m 100% sure they
didn’t know it was dangerous, they just thought it was impressive at best. They’re reckless as
heck but they’d never purposefully harm someone!” He defended his friends, a bit panicked,
but she just sighed audibly to let him know she was too used to their nonsense to actually be
bothered by their involvement.

“Yes, I’m aware. Troublesome as they are, they do understand where the line is.” She pursed
her lips, taking a moment to consider before giving in. She really just… had no grounds to
stand on at the moment. “I suppose I can accept that reasoning. But do you understand how
uneasy I am about this entire ordeal? Not that I’m not proud one of my student has come so
far in such short amount of time, but it is a cause for concern.”

“I understand.” He vowed. “Are you… going to tell me to stop?”

“What is the purpose of writing this paper, may I ask? Do you plan to publish it?”
“Well, eventually I think. Not like tomorrow or anything, but maybe after I graduate? This is
only one aspect of one spell, but I’m sure I can do a lot more and as you’ve said… I’ve got
time, right?”

“You do.” She was… more than a little relieved he seemed to understand without her having
to outright say it, and the tension across her shoulders relaxed some. “It would put me at ease
if you would wait a bit before publishing, both because you’re right that there’s a significant
amount you can add with some research and also because being a published author so young
can have some… adverse side effects.”

“Yeah, I’m not interested in more fame. I’m totally fine keeping it just between you and I if
that’s what you’re saying.” He perked up cheerily. “I know I need to be a better writer before
doing anything official, anyway.”

“That you do. And also, I hope you don’t mind but I shared it with Professor Vector as well,
so that she could double check the calculations for me. I was fairly certain of it myself, but
having another pair of eyes on something so delicate is always a good tactic.”

“No, that’s fine. I had kind of figured; she’s the Arithmancy professor, right?”

“Yes.” Minerva tilted her head back, coming to a conclusion. “I will make you a deal, Mr.
Potter, since you seem to be good at those.” Perk up “I will not tell you to stop, however I
insist that you will come to me to do these spellwork drills at regular intervals to ensure there
is no impact to your health—and if I even suspect you are overreaching yourself then you
will cease and desist all practical work until you’re old enough to bear it. Theory is fine of
course.”

“I understand.” He swore seriously, sensing how serious she herself was about this.

Good.

She was serious.

“Also, you will keep this information and the status of your abilities to yourself the best you
are able. At least for the time being. And in exchange…” He tilted his head curiously at her.
“I will be happy to peer review your work no matter what you come up with, and help get
your writing into shape for this to one day be published.” She took the packet of papers she’d
had behind her back and placed them gently back before him on his desk. “Either as a stand
alone paper, or even a book since given enough time I’m sure you could fill several novels
with your… Odd Solutions, I think you called them?”

Harry grinned widely, green eyes lighting up that she’d remembered.

“An Odd Solution is a muggle-inspired magical solution, but I like the sound of it anyway!
Okay, you have a deal!”

Minerva knew asking him to hide his abilities was probably selfish. But as he scooped up his
papers to clutch them to his chest and immediately began talking her ear off about other Odd
Solutions he’d found interesting like they weren’t technically in detention right now, she
found herself unwilling to care.

She’d been a teacher for decades, and had always maintained absolute professionalism and
fairness for the thousands of students who’d crossed through her classroom.

If the world could forgive Severus for being the most selfish teacher on the planet, it could
forgive her just this once.

000

Draco was surprised, but pleasantly so, when a snowy white owl fluttered over to him the
second he stepped into the owlery to send a letter to his parents. Of course he knew Hedwig
—there was no one at Hogwarts who didn’t know who the most vibrant owl amongst the
flock of mail delivery owls was, because that person was probably the most vibrant person
amongst the flock of students at this school in the first place. It only seemed fitting the
prettiest of owls belonged to the most colorful of persons—although there was an irony in the
fact Harry stood out for his electric colors whilst Hedwig stood out for her startling lack of
any color at all amongst a sea of browns and blacks and tans.

He was also more than familiar with her because pretty much half the summer she’d spent in
his bedroom, eating up his owl treats and sharing Bastian’s water bowl, chirping over his
shoulder as he wrote out his response letter to her owner. Draco sometimes spent all day
trying to craft a letter since he knew Harry wouldn’t get it until late evening anyway so it
didn’t matter how long it took him to write it, and Hedwig had seemed extremely judgmental
at times, sitting at the corner of his desk and giving him wide golden eyes every time he
crumpled his paper to start again.

She was a freakishly intelligent bird. He even thought Bastian was a clever eagle-owl, but
this arctic owl spun circles around him, the two of them getting into quite a tiff here and there
in his bedroom until he kicked them both out to play elsewhere while he finished writing.
He’d watched his poor pet get so flustered over Hedwig stealing things out from under him
and nipping at this flight feathers until he was irritated enough to try and claw at her—only
for her to disappear in a flutter of snowy white wings and Bastian to give chase, always in
vain unfortunately.

She definitely picked up several bad habits from her owner, Draco though dryly as he held out
an arm for Hedwig to land on, surprised by the letter tied around her leg that was addressed
to him.

Why was Hedwig bringing him a letter? Had Harry lent her out to someone?

No… he recognized that handwriting on the front.

Well, he’d never know unless he read it, and it was addressed to him so he tucked the letter
he had for his parents into his pocket for now and untied this one, letting Hedwig hop up onto
his shoulder like she too wanted to read what it said and opened it curiously. And yeah, he
definitely recognized his handwriting; he’d only memorized it.
Dear Draco,

It’s a bit weird, I’m writing you a letter when I see you pretty much every other day, but bear
with me for a second. The fact is that I don’t see you every other day anymore and Daphne
tells me it’s because this is essentially open season for Slytherins’ plots and to be honest I
have something going on myself that I’m so excited to tell you about—after it happens, that
is. No need to spoil the surprise, but I’m sure you’ll love it.

Honestly, we live in the same building (huge at this castle is) and now somehow talk less than
we did when we were still writing letters over the summer from lord-knows how many miles
apart. Not to mention half of what we say is not actually what we want to say since, you
know, you never sit at the Gryffindor table and I’m not about to talk about my personal
business in front of Blaise if I can help it. I can only imagine it’s worse as someone how
actually has to share a house, much less room with the guy. If you want my opinion on all of
this, then I’ll tell you outright that it’s annoying and generally just sucks.

So, why don’t we go back to the way it was? I know you said the Ministry monitors letters
legally, but how can they monitor letters that never leave Hogwarts’ grounds? And if you tell
me they can then I need to have a serious talk with someone about personal rights in the
wizarding world because what the hell. For being better than the muggle world, muggles
seem to have a lot more personal liberties guaranteed to them by their government than
wizards do, and yes I’m sure I just heard you scoff at that. Fight me.

Anyway—like the idea? I hope you like the idea, because it’s been months already and I still
haven't rubbed it in your face enough about how I was right on Snape including the
hiccupping potion on our last final. I mean, you didn’t believe me: I never got to say it in
person, but I would like it in writing that I told you so….

Draco didn’t even realize he’d sat down on the steps outside the owlery as he continued to
read the couple pages that were left, smiling.

And it didn’t matter, because only Hedwig was there on his shoulder as if reading along,
cooing lightly in the early spring air. Bastian might’ve judged him, but he was up in the
rafters avoiding Hedwig like the plague and watching her cuddle up to his owner in
annoyance from above.

Not that Hedwig wouldn’t absolutely use his smile against him if she were given the chance,
but given she couldn’t speak, he felt confidence in his relative solitude to smile broadly at his
letter.

000

“Excuse me, is this where the beginners to this game start?”

It was not the first time someone just walked up to where they were gathering on the
quidditch pitch and asked to join with very confused, hesitant voices—given spring had just
sprung and these were the first truly nice days now that the ever-present cold had faded away,
they got a lot of new recruits joining all of a sudden. Plus, an upper year Gryffindor who was
significantly better at drawing than Harry had re-done their posters and hung them around the
hall, particularly on the door outside the Great Hall, so people were still learning about it and
as it gained popularity, slowly being enticed by the rumors and the nice weather to give it a
try.

With Harry off playing with the more experienced group, people tended to approach the
people in the beginner’s group who looked like they knew what they were doing. Lu visited
to give them drills and help out sometimes, but really stuck to the other group, so that kind of
just left Susan. She, Hannah, and Neville were now the most-senior of the beginner’s group,
and Susan herself had even played on the “division 1” team during their last
‘official/unofficial’ game they’d held. She definitely hadn’t been the best player on her team
by far, but she hadn’t completely failed off the pitch either.

Hannah was perfectly content deflecting questions her way and while Neville was the most
senior of anyone here, his timid personality meant pretty much no one asked him questions
first.

Which made Susan the de facto leader on this side of the field, and she was content with this
role. She didn’t grab for power like a Slytherin would, but she was well suited for it and
thought the work worthwhile— fulfilling even. The fact everyone looked to her automatically
in the absence of all the stronger personalities off to the north side of the quidditch pitch kind
of just worked out. She turned, fully expecting to welcome in a new player and give them the
run down of the rules while they stretched and prepared to do some drills and have a mini-
mock game today, only to freeze solid when she realized who it was.

What greeted her was long raven hair tied in a braid down to the small of her back, and eyes
an unnerving cyan blue as they stared Susan down as if daring her to reject her. She was a lot
less hesitant than their normal recruit, and Susan knew it was because this particular girl had
probably already mulled over joining extensively, so the fact she was here meant she was
here—all in.

And likely because she wanted something.

“Greengrass.” Susan greeted politely, and sensed when those stretching and chatting around
her realized a Slytherin had actually appeared before them.

She was suddenly extremely thankful this was one of the days Ron Weasley had decided to
skip—he was a very unreliable club member, which was totally fine but it meant you never
knew when he’d be at practice or not.

Then again, giving who this girl was, the fact she’d picked a day when the most loud-
mouthed Weasley wasn’t here was probably not an accident.

“Daphne is fine, if that’s okay.” The noirette smiled, eyes flickering around the group and her
posture clearly saying she was trying not to be too threatening. But still a little threatening
because… well, because. “Harry was telling me about this club and it seems interesting.
Although I have no idea how to play.”

She wasn’t alone—they still had quite a large group who still had no idea how to play. In fact,
‘Harry told me about this but I’m not sure what to do’ was the excuse no less than half the
people currently in the football club had given when they started.

The reminder of Harry snapped Susan out of her stiffness.

“I’m Susan.” She greeted just as politely and welcomingly and she would anyone else, also
leaving off the last name because she was a Bones and Daphne was a Greengrass—both
purebloods and they were both extremely aware of each other and their family’s reputations
—no need to bring it into the club though. “And no worries, most of us had no idea what this
game was when we started,” She dismissed.

“Most of us still don’t!” A second year Hufflepuff joked brightly. He was a muggleborn, and
had no idea about pureblood families nor did he pay much attention to the
Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry.

Daphne looked a bit surprised at the friendly address, but her smile widened.

“You can jump right in—we’re just stretching a bit before we get into it, and then doing some
drills to start. This is the beginner’s group so you’ll find people of all levels here, and then
once you get comfortable enough you can go join those crazies as you like,” She explained,
nodding across the pitch where the other group was already mid-mock game and Seamus was
already shouting something unintelligible from this distance.

“Sounds fun. What exactly are the rules?”

Susan was cut off before she could answer—a third year Ravenclaw jumping forward almost
automatically.

“No! Don’t let Susan explain! She thinks she knows the rules but really she just makes them
up if she’s losing!”

“Mark! Shut up!” She snapped at him, and he stuck his tongue out at her.

“You may be the in charge over here, but Lu’s warned me not to listen to your rules!”

“I know what I’m doing!”

“Yeah, doesn’t mean you’re doing it right.” Hannah snickered, unable to help teasing her best
friend and she got several laughs as Susan kicked the nearest football they had at her full
force—causing her to need to dive to dodge it.

Daphne was highly amused by this scene and grinned like only a Slytherin could as they
enjoyed someone else’s misery, watching Hannah run for her life from her friend.

She startled though when a ball entered her peripheral vision and she blinked to see Neville
Longbottom handing her one of the strange un-enchanted balls lying around the grass. She
took it almost automatically and gave him a curious look, silently questioning.

He just shrugged and nodded to the net a couple meters away.

 “You just try and kick the balls into the nets on each end. One goalie in each net can defend
using their hands, everyone else had to use their feet.” He explained quietly.

“Oh, thanks.” She smiled at him, a bit surprised someone had actually answered her question
with the chaos going on around them.

He didn’t quite smile back as he nodded and made his quick retreat, but Daphne straightened
up as she let the ball drop and gave it an experimental kick. She was a true Slytherin and she
was here for her own reasons… but if that reason was to have the fun she couldn’t have
anywhere else it seemed…

Well… the rest of her house didn’t need to know that.

Chapter End Notes

For the purposes of this story, Henry Potter had two sons--Fleamont and Charles.
Fleamont is Harry's grandfather and Charles was his grand uncle who married Dorea
Black. Just because canon lore is a bit hazy about it.

Also this is fanfiction and I do what I want (⌐■_■)

 The Cat and the Canary

Weeks stretched on at Hogwarts, spring quickly getting warmer until summer was all but
here. April ended, and with it passing Easter break in which Harry spent it playing a ton of
football with the club now that it was officially large enough that there was always someone
up to play or run around with if someone were to wander down to the pitch for some
exercise. Hogwarts was at about half capacity for that break, as it was a lot less celebrated in
the wizarding world so it was mostly muggleborns who went home, which left plenty of
people to preoccupy Harry’s free time with—and with the quidditch season soon to wrap up
and Gryffindor pretty much having the cup in the bag, the arguments over who had rights to
practice on the pitch that day had also died off some as well.

As May passed with the whether getting undeniably hotter into an unseasonably warm spring,
and Harry being forced to simply sit and wait on operation fox until the right moment to
strike, he was forced to confront the fact he would probably be going back to the Dursleys
this summer.

He very much did not want to, but… that half-hearted thought he’d had over Christmas of
having Draco ask his parents about Sirius Black over the next break hadn’t happened, and
then it turned out Draco hadn’t gone home for Easter break at all since the Slytherin house as
a whole treated that time off like free time to recoup from the past term and prepare for the
final stretch—when most of their plotting would likely come to fruition as well. No way
would they leave the castle and all their plans unattended just to visit parents they saw three
months ago and who they were in regular contact with anyway. Even the most homesick of
snakes wouldn’t actually openly admit that, at least.

Harry can only imagine all those Slytherin parents would call their children fools for leaving
Hogwarts at such a pivotal time anyway.

And anyway, even if he did ask there’d clearly need to be some amount of time to investigate
and digest whatever the truth truly was—and if that was that Sirius Black needed a trial, that
wasn’t going to happen in a couple weeks. It’d probably take months and if it happened over
the summer while he was stuck at the Dursleys and couldn’t attend or hear about it, he’d
blow a gasket. So, instead he resolved to have Draco ask over this coming summer, and he
could deal with it when he got back to Hogwarts in September.

Or, maybe I’ll just tell Petunia the new semester starts August 1st and cut the summer short
with them. There has to be a place in London that’d let an underage kid stay without
questioning it if I showed them my fancy credit card, right?

Still, resigned to the fact he’d be spending some amount of time with the Dursleys again, he
finally put to use the catalogs he’d taken from the shops he’d visited last summer in both
Diagon and Contrair Alley. All he had to do was fill out the order forms in the back and tap
the ‘x’ at the bottom with his wand, and a couple days later whatever he wanted to arrive by
owl and his bank statements reflecting Axeclaw having withdrawn whatever the appropriate
amount was for the relevant shop. With this he was able to stock up on books, both
educational and for his own amusement, as well as plenty of paper and quills as he fully
intended to spend this summer corresponding with Draco just as much as he had last summer.

Their in-castle letter writing had almost fully depleted him of all his paper within a matter of
weeks in fact, and he’d thought he’d had a serious stockpile since he was trading his
Transfiguration notes left and right these days as finals approached quickly. He was learning
that there probably wasn’t such a thing as ‘too much paper’ when it came to him and the
things he got up to.

He was also hoarding sweets and non-perishables, though Hogwarts had surprisingly few of
those, for eating when he knew for a fact he’d be missing the magically filling stuff the castle
had while back in the muggle world. Magical food beat out anything he knew himself
capable of cooking by a long shot so no matter how much he could skim off the top of the
Dursley’s food funds, he’d still be snacking on chocolate frogs in the shed when he was sure
no one was looking.

Additionally, he got a new series of blank journals ready to be filled with notes or perhaps his
own Dell-style journals though he wasn’t sure how to start with that. He wasn’t really one for
journaling unless it was for a class like Draco had taught him to but thought he might want to
give it a try for lack of better options over the summer. He clearly knew he’d be bored out of
his mind without practical magic, classes, politicking with the Slytherins, quidditch, or
football to distract him—he knew he’d have chores, shopping, and cooking galore to do but
he could do that blindfolded at this point so it wasn’t interesting. Writing to Draco, reading
ahead in his classes, perhaps journaling… that would have to tie him over so far as mental
stimulation went until September. Hell, he’d even gotten a couple Arithmancy and Runes
texts as trying to self-teach upper year material despite how frustrating that might be still
seemed more attractive than total boredom. He’d kind of enjoyed toying with the duro spell
equation after all, and kind of wanted to get back into it on his own time.

So, he planned, and despite not being too thrilled with his summer plans he tried to enjoy the
rest of the year at Hogwarts while he had it.

And like it always did, time flies when you’re having fun.

June dawned bright an early almost before Harry was mentally prepared to deal with the
coming summer, and with it, finals week. Hogwarts had an amazing set up in which they had
a day break to revise and then fifth and seventh years, as they had the OWLs and NEWTs to
contend with, took their exams first. Their exams needed Ministry approval and took
professors a while to get through, so they needed the full amount of time to grade those
exams properly.

Then sixth and fourth years sat their exams, followed by third and second with the first years’
exams kind of sprinkled in when professors had time to sit with them while they took it.
Harry figured it’d take a professor a single night of work to grade all the first-year exams for
how simple they probably seemed to a full adult, which is why they got the bottom of the
barrel he supposed. Even then, after exams were sat they had a full two days after the official
end of term for professors to finish grading, and for the students to relax, say farewell to
friends, pack up their things, and prep for the final feast before the train would come to take
them home.
It was the week before finals week though, that operation fox was a go.

And it started with Fred and George plopping down on either side of him at breakfast, two
hands simultaneously stealing his sausages before he could stop them, but his irritation was
derailed by their news.

“So it’s done,”

“Don’t ask us how,”

“But we managed to make your target mysteriously deaf for a couple hours the other day,”

“And in case you were curious, McGonagall’s final is about one of the last term’s spell of our
choice.”

“Three feet too! Bloody slave driver she is!”

Harry beamed, suddenly lifting his plate gleefully for them to steal and they split his waffle
happily. Stolen food always tasted better, they’d told him, so he was happy to be stolen from
in exchange for this absolutely wonderful news.

“Do you think it’ll last until finals?”

“Probably.” George shrugged once, swallowing his mouthful. “He’s always gloating about
his note-taking.”

“Pretty sure he caused someone to fail our second year because he gave them the wrong notes
on purpose.” Fred admitted.

That’s pretty damn Slytherin. The fool who’d taken them was an idiot. Harry raised his brows,
though he wasn’t actually that surprised. More surprised Montague even had that in him.

Slytherins don’t share, not when it came to their tools to get ahead, and they considered their
notes and grades as weapons to hold over each other’s head which is why they studied so
hard and were such tyrannical note-takers even if they hated the subject. Unless someone
were to go to Montague to trade with him for his notes in exchange for something else, he
probably wouldn’t be in a situation where his teammates would just be casually discussing
their upcoming finals—no use letting helpful hints or warnings slip when they could keep
things to themselves and watch those around them sink or swim.

The fact he’d used false information to fail someone meant no Slytherin worth their salt
would trust information he did give about the upcoming finals now either. It wasn’t entirely
out of the ordinary for the snake house but…

“Well that works out better than I could’ve ever hoped it would.” He admitted with a grin,
and the twins snickered.

“Care to include us in the grand scheme?”

“Or is this top secret as well?”

“Trust me, you’ll definitely hear about it if this works—no need to ruin the surprise.” He
laughed, and they seemed to accept that. They weren’t pushy people and they loved surprises,
it was true. “Just keep it up until your last Transfiguration class. That should do it.”

They shrugged, not bothered. Harry had already given them a full packet of every third-year
Transfiguration spell he knew, with sections dedicated to each spell and sourced references to
use if they needed it for their own upcoming finals, so they were well compensated for their
service in any case.

“Aye!” They mock saluted and cleaned his plate of his toast as they stood and went on their
own way—leaving a very confused Neville and Seamus sitting across from him. Dean was
with the Hufflepuffs this morning and so his remaining two year-mates were looking very
concerned.

“Um… Harry?” Neville mumbled nervously.

“Don’t worry, I’m just torturing a Slytherin. And it’s all going to plan so there’s nothing to
worry about,” He waved them off while refilling his plate once more. Neville did not look
pacified but picked at his own breakfast in resignation, clearly not actually wanting to know.

Seamus definitely didn’t want to know.

“Better them than us,” He sniffed with his nose in the air in an unknowingly bad imitation of
Blaise as he went back to his sausage, and Harry couldn’t help but giggle helplessly into his
tea at that.

000

Harry’s hair had grown out a bit during the year, and he’d taken to cutting tiny bits off to
prevent the dead ends from consuming him entirely, but other than that he’d let it grow freely,
so it was to the center of his shoulder blades by the time classes officially ended. He’d
certainly played around with it on his own since he had so much free time in the morning
anyway, but he hadn’t really worn it out in anything other than a ponytail for when he was
playing sports or going to be running around a lot that day, or clipped back to keep it out of
his face. Mostly though, he wore it down and free, and often with one of Dell’s baubles
slipped into there somewhere just for fun.

Today though, he’d actually given it a go at braiding it. He’d practiced and finally felt like he
was actually cool with it, that his inexperienced fingers had finally found a rhythm and the
final product good enough to actually wear it out for the day.

It was also a big day, and he needed his hair out of his face while he was on guard like this.

He got several compliments on it from several people, mostly Hannah who gushed over it
and Blaise had taken much glee from layering on back-handed compliments thick before
Draco had resorted to punching his roommates’ side, distracting them both into bickering
amongst themselves. Draco had much more earnestly complimented it and his ears had turned
pink from the grin Harry gave him.
The last class of the year was unfortunately their double-Potions session in the morning, but
on the upside it meant they were officially done with classes by lunchtime with no afternoon
classes to worry about. It also meant the third year Slytherins were wrapping up their very
last Transfiguration classes this morning, and since they still had afternoon classes to contend
with, Harry’s target would definitely be at the lunch table for appearances’ sake.

And because he was walking to lunch with the Slytherins given they’d just had Potions, he
got to loop his arm around Draco’s and march them approximately five meters farther down
the Slytherin table than their typical position. Draco was far too startled by the
uncharacteristic touch and Harry’s babbling about their last potion to put up a fight even if he
did notice, and by Blaise’s raised eyebrow he had noticed and was too interested to see what
he was doing to care arguing.

The very instant he realized Harry was acting off though, Nott seemed to break off from their
group and actually went to sit near Crabbe and Goyle, which would at least be quiet company
to sit with while he read through his meal like always.

That was a Slytherin who had an impenetrable sense of self-preservation is seemed, no

matter his curiosity (if indeed he had any—despite how much he read he wasn’t actually a
Ravenclaw after all).

“It’s the last day of term before finals; causing trouble are we?” Blaise intoned dryly as he sat
across from him at the snake’s table, and Harry just winked.

“I’d like to end the year as I started, and figure this is mild enough not to give anyone a heart
attack.”

“What, changing seats?”

“Yeah, don’t like it? Not predictable enough for you?”

“No, actually, and not for anyone I care to know either. Predictable is good.”

“Sooo you’re friends with me because…?”

Blaise gave a dignified snort. “We are not friends, Potter.”

Harry turned to Draco who shrugged. “I wouldn’t suggest being friends with him either.”

“Rude, Malfoy.” The tall Slytherin snapped in a tone that said he clearly wasn’t offended with
the implication itself since it was self-explanatory why one would want to keep a Zabini at
arm's length, and more offended that Draco didn’t want to be friends with the Zabini heir in
the first place. Not that he could blame anyone for it, but still. The pride of it all.

“Well either way, that’s the thing about Gryffindors. We adopt people and are their friend
whether they like it or not, because we can be a bit rude about disregarding peoples’ wishes
like that.” Harry leaned into Draco’s shoulder as if making the point and the blond’s ears
turned pink once more, a small smile gracing his porcelain face even sitting at the Slytherin
table in full view of his housemates. Harry called that progress. He also turned and gave a
suddenly wary-looking Blaise a wide grin. “So, with that being said… get used to it, Mr.
Zabini.”

Chocolate eyes narrowed at him.

Huh, for such a… well, difficult guy, Blaise’s eyes were always the color of melted chocolate.
They seemed warm and sweet, no matter what snark and cold indifference radiated out of the
rest of him. Or, well, Harry might’ve just gotten used to them feeling that way, because the
Zabini heir hadn’t looked at him like that since the first couple weeks of the school year
when he’d been pretending not to be amused by the Gryffindor at his table and seemed
entirely unsure what to do about Harry in general.

“…I think you broke him.” Draco commented, his raised eyebrow implying he wasn’t
amused by it, but actually surprised.

Blaise made a face, childish and arrogant at once.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever just told me to do something before.” He admitted, and Harry
could only just stare at him.

This guy… and I thought Draco was the spoiled one.

“It’s an honor to be your first, Blaise.” He smirked, and both him and Draco snapped their
heads up to gawk at him.

Draco looked outraged at the joke while Blaise burst into laughter that forced the upper years
near him to jump a bit in alarm.

“Okay both of you shut up.” Draco snarled, cheeks tinged pink in indignation, Blaise actually
using his sleeve to stop tears from escaping the corners of his eyes. “We’ve got so much
revising to do in the next couple days, so shut up and eat.” He ordered, shoving the nearest
plate of whatever sandwiches they were serving towards Harry who obediently complied
while still grinning widely despite Draco’s huffing.

“Yes mother,” Blaise rolled his eyes, earning a grey-eyed glare.

“Don’t compare me to your mother,”

“And what’s wrong with my mother exactly?”

“Do you want the abbreviated version, or the itemized list?”

“You little-”

Harry tuned them out of the sake of his sanity while he dug in to his meal, slyly glancing
around the table to ensure most of those around them had been thoroughly distracted by the
scene the first years were causing. While they refused to acknowledge it these days and
outwardly acted as if they weren’t bothered, all of Slytherin house was still distinctly aware
of him when he sat at their table. They were forced to watch what they said, and if ever they
gave the impression they were comfortable enough with a Gryffindor at their table to forget
he was there… well, they were essentially shark bait.

And he knew he was being watched, and observed, and carefully cataloged every time he sat
here. He’d gotten used to it, and was careful not to say anything too incriminating while he
was here. Only dropping hints, and letting them see exactly what he wanted them to. The
important people—meaning Draco, really—already knew everything else he didn’t talk about
at the Slytherin table, so it was just fine by him.

Today though, he was going to let a whole lot drop and hoped against hope that the right
person heard it.

And more importantly, that they were interested.

He waited patiently as the conversation moved back towards finals—like it was about
anything else these days—and while they weren’t giving away their confidence levels on the
subjects they were facing, they did talk business here and there. And because they were
Slytherins, it was only too easy to steer the conversation into speculation about what their
coming years would bring—Slytherins loved to plan, after all.

“The third years only have to write an essay on the hardening charm? I’ve already written
tons on that, it’s a bit boring isn’t it?” He frowned when they’d discussed what they heard
about the upper year finals.

“Says you,” Blaise sneered. He refused to acknowledge it out loud but he knew Harry was
damn good at Transfiguration… he just didn’t know how good, actually. He’d very carefully
left out talk of how far he’d come with his Transfiguration work amongst the snakes in his
life.

Which is exactly what he wanted.

But poor Draco, didn’t realize a thing Harry was planning and took the bait by turning to him
curiously. “Written what?”

“Oh, McGonagall talks for hours about this stuff so I write it down best I can remember so
when I get to that year level I can just copy it over. She went off about the hardening charm’s
importance as an introduction for reverse engineering Transfiguration spells for a solid two
hours a month ago and I took all sorts of notes. If that’s third year material I’m not sure why
she was talking to me about it, but it keeps me on her good side, so I don’t mind.”

“You sure you’re not related to Granger?” He scoffed.

“Oh gracious, do you think that highly of me? I have all my notes right here: let me regal you
with a detail explanation of duro then, shall I Draco?” he whipped out the packet of papers
he’d had prepared for this very moment and fanned himself dramatically with them, trying
not to snicker at Draco’s playful groan and how Blaise flicked a bit of bacon at him to get
him to shut up.
“Stop, shut up. I don’t want to hear your nerdy butt talk about Transfiguration anymore, I’ll
gouge out my own ears,” Blaise complained.

“I am not that bad, you jerk!”

“Try to tell that to me again when you find another hobby.”

“I have the football club, which I can tell you all about if you’re interested-”

“The hell I am not. Back off,” Blaise flung another piece of bacon at him which Harry deftly
dodged and pointedly lifted the papers he was holding up to avoid being collateral damage.

Only for the papers to leave his hand.

He blinked, whipping around and none other than Graham bloody Montague was sneering
down at him, holding Harry’s papers above his head pointedly. It was far out of his reach
sitting down, but Harry was… admittedly kinda short, even for a first year, so even if he’d
been standing he probably wouldn’t have been able to get at them without kicking
Montague's shins a couple dozen times first to get him to lean down a bit. Not that he would
demean himself by even trying to jump for them, when the guy was clearly trying to provoke
him.

“Causing quite a scene, aren’t you Potter?” he sneered, and Harry felt Draco tense beside
him. He shot out a hand under the table and clamped it over his friend’s wrist, holding on
tightly in silent warning. Not that the blond would… Harry didn’t think at least, but he’d
spent enough time with Gryffindors for that reaction to be automatic by now.

“I didn’t think you could read Montague, but just so you know those have my name on
them.” He snarked right back, and the third year’s sneer was absolutely filthy.

“I think you’re getting a little too cocky over here, you know? Maybe just a small reminder
that you’re still a little blood traitor—and not much else—will help put you remember your
place, eh?” Harry saw the older teen’s free hand raise, wand clenched expertly in it and tried
not to let it show how hard he tensed.

“Guys like you are hilarious—you need to pick on a couple first years to feel big huh?” He
snarked, preparing for whatever curse was coming, needing to hold onto Draco tighter as the
wrist in his hold attempted to break free for a brief second. “Give those back, jerk.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Montague sneered, raising his wand…

Harry would like to say he didn’t flinch, but he did.

“What is going on here?” A voice interrupted whatever pain was going to make Harry’s
afternoon really unpleasant, and when he snapped his head up he surprised even himself with
how glad he was to see Snape standing there.

Wait… he’d actually stopped a Slytherin from attacking a Gryffindor?

“Mr. Montague, if you could be so kind as to discuss classwork anywhere other than the
Great Hall, it would be advisable.” Snape’s silky tone was dry, his eyes narrowing not
necessarily at either student in front of him, but up at the high table a little distance away.

Ah… he didn’t exactly care about a Gryffindor being attacked, but he certainly cared that one
of his snakes was stupid enough to do it while a dozen teachers are literally right there. Yeah,
that makes way more sense.

“Yes sir,” Graham let his wand drop and shot Harry one last scathing, triumphant look as he
walked away immediately.

With Harry’s notes.

Snitch. Harry cursed darkly after his retreating back. Too bad for you I knew you’d do it.

Snape didn’t feel the need to say anything else but also shot Harry a derisive, dismissive look
as he continued on his way to the high table himself. Harry would’ve been annoyed by a
teacher so blatantly not caring that he was going to be attacked by an upper year just now if
he didn’t already fully expect that from Snape and also wasn’t so surprised he hadn’t been
hexed just now—he was fully prepared for it too.

In the tense silence after the Potions master glided away, he huffed out a relieved breath.

“Well… seems like I won’t be leaving the Great Hall until Montague is definitely in classes.”
He admitted, and finally saw the forcibly blank expression Blaise had on when he abruptly
cracked it enough to roll his eyes.

Draco looked furious, but Harry just loosened his grip on his wrist and used it to nudge him
slightly.

“Let it go, Draco.”

“He took your notes,” He grumbled.

“Yeah, but they’re replaceable. He’s a jerk but that’s not shocking to anyone, and I
miraculously was not hexed so I consider this a win.” He dismissed brightly.

“You took that remarkably well.” Blaise raised a brow at him challengingly.

Harry scoffed, loudly. “I was prepared to get hexed the first day I sat here and have been
waiting for it all year. I’m honestly shocked it took this long to happen, and I don’t expect
this’ll be the last time something similar does happen. I may be in Gryffindor but I’m not that
stupid.”

Blaise got a kick out of that and Draco at least seemed soothed he really was taking this
seriously.

Harry made a show of getting them back on topic for the rest of lunch and then pointedly not
leaving the Great Hall until the bell for afternoon classes had rung, however he knew
Montague wasn’t actually waiting for him around some unsuspecting corner. Which was
apparently exactly what Draco was clearly fearing as the blond actually walked him back to
Gryffindor tower after swinging by the library to study some (like Draco would be able to do
anything? As a first year, against a third year? Against someone with more political clout
than him that he couldn’t fight back against? Draco’s fretting was so intense is actually
clouded his logic, which was troubling if not touching).

Harry wasn’t concerned that fight was going to be finished later—after all, Montague had
gotten what he wanted. Picking on a couple of first years was just an easy, extremely
believable cover.

So now, Harry could actually focus on studying for his finals because operation fox was
officially out of his hands. He just had to sit back, cross his fingers, and wait.

000

“Draco! Draco. Draco you lazy bum wake the hell up! This is important damn it!”

Draco was, as a rule, not a morning person. His preferred sleep schedule would be
somewhere between 3am-1pm, if not longer given the chance, but he forced himself to
function like a relatively normal person so as not to miss meals and, since coming to
Hogwarts, classes. People always assumed he was a lazy if he slept in, despite the fact he
probably got more done after midnight than anyone else his age, but he was still trying to
build his reputation amongst his peers so he attempted to wake at normal hours when he
could.

That did not mean he liked waking up.

Ever.

So, at the intrusion above him he groaned from beneath the many pillows he’d buried himself
under, trying to get away from the sharp voice piercing his now-blurry dreams, blinking
rather blindly at the vibrations on his bed telling him someone was shaking the bed around
him sharply. Half-asleep Draco almost thought it was one of his house elves as his mother
usually let them wake him up since he was typically in a foul mood after first waking and
she’d made it clear she was not interesting in dealing with that. And the elves feared his
parents way more than they feared him, so when his father commanded them to wake his son
in the next five minutes, they usually took drastic measures.

History told him if he didn’t sit up and at least pretend to be awake in the next minutes, the
shaking would turn to magically summoned water and that always put him in a foul mood for
the rest of the day, so as soon as he was just awake enough to make that connection he
lurched upright with a groan, blinking.

Wait, someone was talking…

“-are you listening to me?”

He blinked.
“What?”

Smack.

NOW he was awake, and reeling back in shock as his cheek smarted sharply. He clapped a
hand over it, the coldness of his always-cold hand soothing it instantly but still—did he just
— !?

“Did you just slap me?” He demanded, finally awake enough to recognize that Blaise was
practically beaming into his face, kneeling on the edge of Draco’s bed in their dorm like a
little kid who’d been told today was Christmas morning.

Okay, what the hell!?

“Yes,” Blaise confessed, seemingly totally unrepentant. “But Draco, you don’t understand—
this is important!”

“What was so important you had to slap me for it!? What time is it even!?” He demanded
sourly. Their finals were officially over and they had all today and tomorrow to do nothing
before they were sent home— there wasn’t another homework due until September and most
of the year’s house drama had reached its end with only fools scrambling to get something
done with so little time left, so he could’ve slept in all he wanted, today of all days!

“Late enough, but shut up and listen for a second,” Blaise didn’t seem to care at all about
how pissed the blond was, leaning even closer from where he was kneeling too close to him
excitedly. “I’ve got great news! I know you were praying Montague dropped dead of his own
accord but the greatest thing just happened.” He paused for dramatic effect but was clearly
too eager to wait that long. “He failed.”

“Failed?” he blinked.

“He failed one of his exams!”

Draco did not have warm thoughts for the third year, but he also failed to see how this was
revolutionary. It was known to happen, and it would be a killer hit to Montague’s reputation,
but everyone already knew he was a dumb jock with more viciousness than cleverness. One
of those loud-mouthed Slytherins who didn’t realize him picking fights with Gryffindors was
inconvenient to everyone around him. Him failing was funny, but Blaise was way too excited
for that to be the whole story.

“Okay? Good for him? Why did you feel the need to wake me up for this?” He groused and
Blaise rolled his eyes impatiently.

“You’re so lame. Fine, will you react if I tell you he failed due to plagiarism?”

Draco’s mind went blank.

…wait, what?

“Plagiarism? Are you sure? That’s just…”

“Stupid a hell, right!?” Blaise clapped his hands together happily. “Oh gosh Snape is pissed.
He can’t do a thing about it even if he wanted to—which to be clear, he doesn’t. Montague is
essentially ruined for this!”

Draco tossed his blankets off, sitting up properly and Blaise letting him as he continued to
grin like a loon at someone else’s pain.

“I just… the fact I hate him aside, I didn’t think he was that stupid.” He admitted.

“You and me both—the common consensus so far is that he had some kind of breakdown
during studying and just lost his mind.”

“How many people have you told already?” Draco stopped wondering how Blaise found out
about things a long time ago—all he knew was that he was good at sussing out secrets and if
it would ruin someone’s reputation and/or make their lives even slightly inconvenient, the
Zabini heir was a gossip whore who worked overtime to make sure everyone knew about it as
fast as humanly possible. He didn’t even care about using it for any kind of advantage (he
had plenty of those up his sleeve, he didn’t really need more), he just got way too much
enjoyment in spreading rumors like it was his sole mission in life to fan life into a fire
consuming a forest.

And worse, is that he didn’t lie. He didn’t spread false rumors, so if you heard it from Blaise,
it was definitely true.

True to form, the tall Slytherin scoffed. “Please. Pretty much everyone awake right now and
I’ll get everyone else before breakfast.” He boasted proudly. “Montague is never going to
recover from this and you know it. Consider him one less problem anyone has to deal with,
you and Harry included.” He beamed.

Draco shook his head, too used to it by now to be surprised.

“Do you know what subject it was?”

“No,” Blaise admitted morosely, sounding sorry he didn’t. “All I know is that it wasn’t
Potions or Montague would not be breathing right now.”

No, Severus took so much pride in his potions that he might’ve strangled Montague
personally for daring dishonor the subject by being so freaking stupid. Draco winced just
from imagining what his godfather might’ve done to the third year if that’d been the case.

“The downside to this is that whatever teacher’s subject this is, they took two hundred points
from Slytherin for it. And Snape can’t even argue about it because, come on: plagiarism!?”

“Shit, that means we lost.” Draco did some quick math, and realized it was actually close but
with that deduction it was definitely a loss for them—and Gryffindor had likely won as
they’d been in second place as of yesterday. “Oh man he’s never going to recover from that.
Failing from plagiarism and losing the house cup to the lions of all people in one go? Ha!”
He was starting to see the gloriousness in this and his foul morning mood melted away.
Montague would never be able to openly pick on him or Harry again because at least in
Slytherin house he’d be a laughingstock. It was one thing for Harry to taunt him, calling him
weak for needing to pick on younger years to feel strong, but this changed everything—this
made it true. He’d spend the next four years at Hogwarts trying to rebuild his reputation and
it was a crap shoot on if he’d ever manage it. What he wouldn’t do though, is risk looking
desperate to seem strong by picking petty fights with underclassmen he (and everyone else)
already knew he could win. That would not help him rebuild what he’d just lost, which meant
he would be on his best behavior from here on out.

Because seriously. Not one person in this house gave a shit Montague had cheated—cheating
was a fully viable option in the snake house because sometimes, that’s just how you got what
you wanted. Cheating was not only fair game, it was fully expected on every level among
them. In fact it was more of a surprise when someone played honestly, just because it was so
unexpected.

But getting caught cheating?

There was no way to come back from that. That was essentially the big glorious signal that
Montague was a bad Slytherin.

And he could talk all he wanted about Draco being a bad snake for befriending a Gryffindor,
but the Malfoy heir could actually go join the football club and get chummy with as many
muggleborns as he liked and he still wouldn’t be as bad a Slytherin as Montague officially
was now.

He started to grin, and he didn’t care that Blaise was seeing him smile so unreservedly
because he himself was doing it too.

“Oh, and you haven’t heard the best part.” The Zabini chirped, sounding like he was about to
die from happiness right now. He didn’t even dislike Montague like Draco did, he just
reveled in others’ misery far too much.

“It gets better?” Draco was pleasantly surprised, and Blaise nodded quickly.

“Yep! The absolute cherry on top is that in lieu of having to repeat the whole year of
whatever class he failed, he’s allowed extra study sessions next year to catch up. Essentially
detentions to re-learn stuff, I figure. But oh, the best part, is that because of it he’s been
kicked off the quidditch team! Since clearly he can’t study and be an athlete!”

Draco stiffened at that—because as a die-hard fan that news hit even harder than detention
for life would’ve—but he then remembered it was Montague he was sympathizing with and
laughed gleefully at this news.

The jerk deserved it for all the headaches and annoyances he’d causes this year. And for
almost hexing Harry into oblivion just the other day!

“Karma couldn’t have picked a better guy,” He decided bluntly, Blaise cackling like a
madman as he scrambled off Draco’s bed finally to dust himself off and do a little happy spin
for flare.
“Well, you know and now I’ve got to go tell literally everyone else. What a lovely end-of-
term surprise!” He positively sang as he made his way through the door. Draco let him go,
relaxing in these new, pleasing thoughts.

He glanced over and saw Nott already dressed, reading on his already-made bed. One look at
his face and he knew Blaise had already told him too, because he was in a much better mood
than he normally was.

000

Harry had not expected that the most excited person about Montague going down in flames
would be Blaise. After giving it some thought though, he realized that was a stupid thing to
be surprised about—of course Blaise was all about spreading rumors just to watch someone
suffer.

It was pretty much the shock of the year so far when, for the first time in what was probably
decades, a Slytherin ran up to a group of Gryffindors in the entrance hall on their way to
breakfast, and pureblood snob or not, Blaise had excitedly told all of them his news. Draco
wasn’t even anywhere to be seen, the Zabini had come up to them all on his own and looked
positively thrilled to be defaming one of his own housemates.

And Dean was somehow brave enough to point this out. Blaise was in such a good mood he
seemed entirely willing to be friendly to all of them this morning, and eagerly responded.

“Oh please, Montague is a dunce of a Slytherin and we all kind of suspected it but this
bloody proves it, doesn’t it!? I mean, it’s not exactly cleverness to pick fights, but house unity
and all that we have to stick together if he picks a fight and it’s just a right pain in the arse if
you ask me,” He babbled, chatterbox tendencies amped up to 1000% and Harry almost
wished he had a video recorder to document this moment. He settled for watching on in
amusement.

Dean seemed highly entertained by Blaise’s antics too. “And he was kicked off the quidditch
team on top of it all? That sucks—for him that is.” He chuckled.

“It breaks the quidditch team clique they had as well—all dark pureblood families and
unified for the team? Talk about hard to plot around an alliance like that!” Blaise complained
emphatically, and Harry saw that statement sail right over his roommates’ heads. Seamus
even scratched his temple as if trying to figure out what the hell that meant.

And well, they didn’t exactly have time to explain to a bunch of lions about how complicated
Slytherin house dynamics really was, so Harry changed the subject.

“Do you think he’ll show to breakfast?”

“I mean he has to, essentially.” Blaise scoffed. “We don’t put emphasis on bravery like a
Gryff would, but we do have our pride. If he dares hide his face today then not only is a
coward, but he has no pride even in failure. The first might be forgiven, the but second never
would.” He explained imperiously.
“Even if it’s essentially just going to be a walk of shame for him?” Seamus raised both brows
incredulously.

“Yep!” Blaise rubbed his palms together rather diabolically, which caused Dean and Seamus
to lean away in mock fright. Or maybe real fright, Harry wasn’t actually sure.

He laughed it off though, either way.

“Well I am definitely sitting at the Slytherin table this morning, because if this is how you’re
reacting I want to see everyone else break character too,” he teased, earning a light smack to
his shoulder.

“Oh ha. This is greatest bit of gossip I’ve had all year, don’t ruin it for me!”

“On the contrary, I happen to know it’s about to get better.” He promised, and everyone
looked at him in surprise, Blaise snapping to attention intently.

“Wait, Harry, you knew about this already?” Seamus blink.

“You knew I was plotting something,” he pointed out, and the Irishman immediately folded.

“Right… I didn’t want to know. Not sure I want to know even now…”

“Well I do—what the hell!? Spill it Potter!” Blaise barked, seeming to forget about personal
space for a moment as he got close to demand answers, practically clinging to his robe collar
and Harry laughed again as he shoved him off.

“Well come sit down to breakfast and you’ll see!” He teased and the Slytherin looked very
put out—only for it to be replaced in a split second by eagerness and curiosity oozing from
his every pore.

“We’ll leave you to it; let us know how it goes.” Dean waved them off happily as Blaise
practically dragged Harry back to snake territory in eagerness to see whatever it was Harry
had up his sleeve go down. Harry waved back at his roommates, particularly a rather baffled
looking Neville.

While he only seemed to have a thing against Draco in particular, in general Neville was
more of ‘just avoid them but don’t actively hate them’ kind of person when it came to
Slytherins. The fact Blaise (a pureblood name Neville definitely had a preconceived notion
about) had come running up to them like a little kid on Christmas eager to share his new toy
with them had probably shattered some of his world-view.

But in a good way, Harry hoped, as he left him to stew that over for this meal and instead let
Blaise drag him over to where Draco and Nott were already sitting.

As Harry sat next to Draco and Blaise plopped down across from him, the complaining
started.

“I want to know, I want to know, I want to knooooow,”

“Christ Blaise, shut up!” Draco huffed.

“Long morning?” Harry commented lightly, earning a dark look.

“He slapped me to wake me up he was so excited.” The blond grumbled. “Lord knows what
he’s on about now.”

“I promised him something else to gossip about. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it worse.”

“I’m not going to blame you,” Draco huffed, glaring at the slap-happy Zabini across from
him.

“Who gave Zabini sugar first thing in the morning?” Daphne appeared, slipping onto the
bench on Harry’s other side and he beamed at her while she nodded her greetings back.

“It’s gossip. Apparently, it works like sugar.” He explained cheerfully.

“You are a cruel person for keeping me in suspense.” Blaise complained, actually ignoring
Daphne for once instead of picking a fight with her just because.

“I don’t want to hear that from you of all people.”

“Guys,” Daphne cut them off, and they all realized what she was trying to say as the man of
the hour actually showed up to breakfast just as Blaise said he would.

Graham Montague, Harry had to admit, had some pride since he managed to keep his mask
composed as he entered the Great Hall and made his way to his normal spot for breakfast
towards the head of the table, meaning he had to walk past pretty much his whole house to
get there. And when he did get there, the quidditch team that typically sat around him had
mysteriously found elsewhere to be that particular morning. Go figure.

The other three tables in the hall were loud and chatty as ever, no one realizing the Slytherin
table had fallen pretty unusually quiet all of a sudden as they whispered amongst themselves
almost in sync for when he walked past them. Treacherous things, here and there, and as
Daphne actually snickered a couple dark comments lowly for only Harry and Draco to hear
around her, he found he actually really enjoyed this when he wasn’t the one everyone was
whispering about.

What was that saying? If you couldn’t beat them, join them? That’s exactly what this felt like.
He’d actually infiltrated the snake house enough to be included in on an inside joke against
an actual Slytherin and while unexpected, it was an awesome bonus to his plot to destroy the
third year.

And I mean… I’ve already won, technically. But I wouldn’t be a Gryffindor if I didn’t rub it in
with as much dramatism as possible—and I also wouldn’t be the Gryffindor that was almost
put in Slytherin if I didn’t take the opportunity to deal a killing blow. Just to make sure that
there would be no recovering from this.

All he had to do was wait, and he didn’t have to wait long. Montague was clearly only here to
put in his required appearance, consume some acceptable amount of food to make it look like
he wasn’t feeling the pressure he absolutely was, and then get the hell out of dodge as fast as
possible. So Harry had only just finished his first cup of tea when Montague stood, and Harry
slipped his wand out of his cloak sleeve in preparation. He knew he was going to need it.

He waited until just before the third year was going to pass by where they were sitting, and
luckily he was on the opposite side of the table so Harry could face him properly for this.

“Hey Montague.” He called out—not loud enough that the whole Great Hall heard him
obviously, but the fact all of Slytherin was watching this particular guy they all shut up and
stared at him as if he grew another head for what the hell he was doing. Blaise, Nott, Draco,
Daphne—pretty much everyone snapped their heads around to stare at him in shock for it so
sharply it looked rather painful.

The third year in question broke his mask to look downright furious the interloping
Gryffindor dared try and interfere with his walk of humiliation, but even he couldn’t lash out
right then. Not when everyone was watching and he knew he was on thin, thin ice.

And Harry was not, for once. He knew they thought he was insane and pretty much suicidal
for speaking up just now, in this situation of all situations, but hopefully they’d get over it in
a minute or so. And at least the first year Slytherins knew better than to doubt him, when they
saw him smile rather wickedly.

With Montague sufficiently halted in his steps and his undivided attention (fury) on him,
Harry waved at him in a deceptively friendly manner.

“Remember that time you called Malfoy a sell out?” he chirped.

Everyone blinked.

Even Draco looked shocked, tilting his head as if silently asking what the hell are you
doing!?

“What?” Montague finally broke, seeming taken off guard despite seeming pissed a
Gryffindor firstie was actually talking to him right now.

“Remember that time you called Malfoy a sell-out, and told everyone he was an arrogant
brat?” Harry reminded him kindly. And then… after a second or two to let that reminder sink
in, he dropped his smile and mustered up the coldest, most pissed off look he could muster.
“Don’t do it again. How’d that Transfiguration essay go for you?”

He both felt and heard at least half of Slytherin house choke on air.

Draco’s hand lashed out to clamp over his arm in shock, and Harry let it happen while
keeping his eyes locked on Montague, whose face had gone white as a sheet.

Before slowly turning a deep, thunderous red.

“You… you!” He had his wand out in an instant, but so did Harry, having fully expected it—
and in a move that was like rubbing salt in a wound, he cast his modified duro without
hesitation, the sleeve of the Slytherin’s robe not only turning to stone, but turning to marble
and weighing about 40 times what it used to. It forced his wand arm down and Harry was just
that much faster so it interrupted his wand movement, canceling whatever curse he’d been
about to fling dead. It was so heavy in fact that the teen stumbled a bit to the side, but still
managed to keep his feet—sheer rage seeming to drive him as wordless anger seem to
explode out of him. “I’ll fucking kill you!” He hissed venomously.

“Why? Because you’re not much of a snake?” He lifted a casual eyebrow at him, twirling his
wand in his hand flauntingly. “I am only a first year after all. I can’t beat you in a fight, and
one would think a Gryffindor could never best a Slytherin in a game of wits. Funny how that
is, isn’t it?” He shrugged, pressing lips together thoughtfully and fully aware of all the eyes
watching him with drop-dead shock. “Go ahead and hex me but remember that I do not
forgive people who hurt my friends. And I can hold a grudge.”

He narrowed his eyes pointedly at the upper year to drive home his point and Draco just
about fainted beside him, the hand on his arm tightening near painfully like it was the only
thing keeping him upright. Blaise looked like he was in absolute bliss. Even Nott was just
gaping openly with wide blue eyes, almost like he wanted to stare at Harry but couldn't quite
keep his eyes off Montague, who was still pissed and armed and the biggest threat to
everyone at the moment.

There was a beat of silence as Slytherin as a whole digested that rather open, but nevertheless
deadly threat that’d just been issued.

And then…

“Holy shit I’m in love.” Blaise announced bluntly, and Draco spluttered violently, going
between looking at Harry in shock and Blaise in absolute betrayal.

Even more so when Harry just grinned and winked at him playfully.

Draco made a sound like a dying owl and flailed a little helplessly. While the upper years hid
their reactions better, by their expressions it was clear that if they weren’t so reserved they’d
probably be doing the same thing.

Montague just stood there, furious… but also seeming to realize the corner he’d been backed
into. Not only had Harry just taken credit for his failure, but he’d also outmatched him before
he could get a single spell off. There was absolutely no way to save face right here and now,
and despite how unquestionably angry he was right then, he knew it.

Especially not when Harry lifted his wand and benevolently fixed his sleeve, returning it to
normal.

Essentially daring him to attack now.

Because if he did, he’d just dig a deeper hole to bury himself in, and that was exactly what
Harry wanted.

Come, play into my trap, the words were not said but they might as well have been by the red
head’s wide, too-pleasant grin and the fury etched onto Montague’s face.
But lashing out in anger was a Gryffindor thing. If Montague fell for it, he’d be no better than
an impulsive Gryff, and then there was no hope for him—at all.

And he must’ve had some pride as a Slytherin left… because he just turned on his heel and
stormed from the Great Hall as fast as he could without running. His face was still beet red—
either in fury or humiliation, there was no way to really know.

And Harry was disappointed the guy didn’t play into his last trap, but not that put out by it.
He kind of figured he might not, and in any case it didn’t matter. He’d already won.

So he grinned, letting everyone know just how very pleased with himself he was.

And also to await the fallout, because no one had stopped staring yet and he did not expect
them too any time soon. Which, was fine by him, because now they weren’t staring out of
hate or mistrust and he’d done his hair nice today so they could look all they wanted.

The first person to break the silence though, legitimately startled Harry.

“How did you do it?” Nott asked the question they were all dying to know, his face was
intent, and urgent, if not still blank as always, but the fact he talked (to him!) caused Harry’s
jaw to drop.

“Nott! You talked!”

“Shut up and answer the question, Monroe.” Harry startled again, realizing that despite the
sharp tone, Nott remembered all the way back to first day when he’d snapped at him to call
him Monroe. That was…

Huh.

Well, he was already planning on explaining so he shelved his surprise for a moment to get
back on track.

“I’m pretty good at Transfiguration, or so I’ve been told, and I actually cleared third-year
level spells a while ago now. One of the things I’ve been working on with Professor
McGonagall is actually research into the hardening charm, which just so happens to be one of
the charms third years are allowed to do an essay on for their final. I’ve even made some
ground with it and McGonagall knows all about my research on it from months ago, in depth
—I even gave her a rough draft of the paper I want to publish in a couple years when my
work is more fleshed out! And on an entirely unrelated note, it just so happens that I’ve got a
certain pair of third-year twin pranksters who owe me quite a few favors.” He leaned back a
bit, putting a hand over his chest as if swearing on his honor as he smiled innocently.

“The fact Montague never heard about that essay until three days before it was due and I just
so happened to have a copy of my draft paper on me and he happened to overhear me talking
about it at lunch the other day was a total coincidence, I swear.” But by the way Blaise was
grinning like a madman and even Nott started to smile with eyes glinting in interest, he knew
his real meaning was understood in full. “He’s the one who wanted to rough up a couple first
years and take it for himself, and who didn’t change the wording enough for McGonagall not
to notice it was my work. I didn’t force him to write that essay, nor to write it badly—it’s his
fault for not understanding the source material enough to paraphrase.” He explained while
grinning to make sure everyone was abundantly clear that yes, yes he did fully force
Montague to write that essay but you definitely could not prove it.

He left out the part of him inventing a new spell in that explanation though. No need to give
away all his cards.

But it was an open and shut case from McGonagall’s point of view, as she’d come up to him
yesterday and rather casually asked him if he’d handed out his paper to anyone other than her
and professor Vector. He’d felt a little bad about playing her, but he’d stuck to it his plan as
he avoided her gaze and told her he hadn’t.

She wasn’t stupid, and she’d clearly made the right connection to infer that Harry hadn’t
given his paper to anyone. Montague had taken it, and he had a history of being a bully, so it
wasn’t even that big a jump to make.

The nail in the coffin though, was that there was no way McGonagall was going to buy that
Graham Montague, who’d been an otherwise decent but average student in her class for the
past three years, had suddenly broke ground on a thousand-year-old subject within weeks of
Harry, an actual Transfiguration prodigy, doing the exact same thing on the exact same spell.
She still had Harry’s original draft paper locked up in her office after all, and a quick
comparison probably sealed the deal in seconds, (AND provided iron-clad proof for when
Snape likely came trying to defend his student that even his biased ass couldn’t fight against).
Her asking him was more a fact-checking mission than anything—she hadn’t told him
someone had stolen his work yet, but he had a feeling she would sit him down before the end
of the year to talk about guarding his research properly.

He didn’t intend to go waving his work around for the taking like that again, in any case. This
time had been fully on purpose, and for a greater cause though, not something he’d make a
habit of. Snape finding out about his Transfiguration skill and getting told off for being loose
with his notes were necessary evils for his success though, so he was prepared to accept those
consequences when they came.

“What deal with the devils did you make to get the twins to do that?” Daphne wanted to
know, eyes glowing eagerly.

“They owed me a favor and now Montague will be a year behind them in Transfiguration.
They don’t like him much so the fact it was him was a bonus even if they were paid well for
their services in other ways.” He winked, leaving out exactly how he paid them. He wanted it
known he could trade with the twins—if the Slytherins could trade to avoid getting pranked,
he knew at least a couple of them would try for it, and they’d be willing to pay a pretty penny
for it too.

“Even I wasn’t expecting him to get banned from Quidditch, but…” He continued, glancing
slyly at the blond beside him and Draco stiffened noticeably. “I do recall someone promising
to play Quidditch with me someday… and you’re supposedly a great chaser, aren’t you
Draco? I hear there’s a spot open on the Slytherin team!”
Draco looked stunned…

…and then eventually smiled, his grey eyes still in shock but earnest joy lighting up his face.

“You’re going down Potter.” He sniffed haughtily—and now several people were grinning,
as if forgetting for a moment that Slytherin house didn’t do such things. It was just too
entertaining not to.

The wider audience of the Great Hall had obviously seen Graham Montague storm out of
here in a huff, and the more gossipy few had been wondering what that was about. Those few
were looking towards the Slytherin table, and were actually very startled to see all the snakes
grinning like they hadn’t just lost the house cup as of this morning. And what was weirder, is
that they all seemed to be looking towards a very fluffed up and cheery Harry Potter, who
was tossing his hair over his shoulder proudly while everyone around him stared with stars in
their eyes.

Slytherins didn’t do things like that, much less at the rouge Gryffindor who sometimes sat at
their table, so it was kind of frightening actually.

“Potter that’s just… how the hell?” Blaise was not over this, seeming half stunned and half
gleeful at this turn of events.

Harry scoffed audibly. “Being a stereotypical bully doesn’t make you strong, or worth
noticing, it just makes you predictable. Predictable people are easy.”

Blaise tossed his head back in a laugh. “And you’re friends with Draco why?”

“I am not predictable!”

“Draco, you so totally are, but you’re also lucky I like you!” He teased lightly, and the blond
flushed a darker red and kept spluttering indignantly. “I reserve revenge for people who I
don’t like so you’re safe.” He patted him sardonically on the head, careful not to mess up the
perfect silvery locks.

“So you’ve got a temper and can be tactical. Draco, you’re doomed.” Blaise snickered, Draco
shooting him a betrayed glare. Harry didn’t quite get that one and glanced around for a clue,
but no one seemed willing to answer his silent question.

As the whole table was shamelessly eavesdropping and watching this go down, Harry did not
hear a nearby fifth year mutter under his breath something that sounded like it might’ve been
‘whipped’—but Draco did, and his ears got hot despite his effort not to outwardly react to it.

And Blaise, being the guy that he was and also having obviously heard it, decided to pour
salt in Draco’s wounds. Because that’s what best friends did.

He turned back to Harry with his most charming grin that instantly put Harry on alert.

“Harry, I love you. Marry me?”

“We’re eleven, Blaise.” He didn’t miss a beat, but grinned in amusement.

“You’re more Slytherin than some Slytherins I know, and my mother has trained me since
birth to marry up. Please?”

“If I thought our marriage would be a long one without a planned death involved, I’d
consider it.” He winked playfully, Draco doing his flailing thing again and even getting a
sympathetic look from Nott.

“I promise not to Black Widow you, you’re far too devious to fall for it.”

“Ah, but I might Black Widow you if I get bored. Will you keep me entertained, Blaise?” He
hummed far too innocently.

“I am in love,” Blaise was far too loud in declaring that, and most of the upper years were
smirking darkly now.

“That means he’s a better Black Widow than you,” Nott pointed out quietly.

“So it does—so unfortunate all my training was for nothing.” Blaise’s mock ‘despair’
implying he was not bothered by it at all, in fact.

“I’d pay good money to see who kills each other first.” A fourth-year chimed in from down
the table.

“Same.” Like six other people chorused, startling a laugh from Harry at the dark humor.

Draco flailed yet again, his face turning bright red. If anyone didn’t know about his crush at
that point (spoiler alert: they were Slytherins and already knew months ago) they certainly
did now.

But suddenly, he was a lot less judged for it. He was Gryffindor… and the Boy Who Lived…
but Harry Potter clearly wasn’t who they thought he was, and Blaise, the Untouchable
Slytherin, kind of had a point.

Even considering who he was, that would be a ‘marrying up’ kind of situation, so the Malfoy
heir was very suddenly not such a clueless child who made poor choices in allies, and now
more a keen snake who’d managed to sniff out one of the strongest players of his grade, got
them on his side, and hadn’t backed away from it despite the house pressure against him.

And that… did not make him a bad snake.

At all.

Montague was a bit thick and kind of an asshole even by Slytherin standards, but he was a
good Slytherin. And their house was built off hierarchy… so the fact a first year Gryffindor
took down a third year Slytherin so brutally (beautifully) meant he was not someone to mess
with. Or… at the very least simply someone you had to handle with all your wits about you…

…like you would a fellow snake.

Huh.
“Nott, this is literally four hundred times more than you’ve said in my presence all year and
I’m dying here.” Harry complained, beseeching the guy across the table who had finally
closed his book and was actively participating in the conversation now, and the boy sighed as
if very put upon.

He paused another couple seconds as if giving it some last minute thought, before seeming to
come to his decision.

“You’re weird, and a bad political move on every count.” He paused again… but then
smirked. “Call me Theo.”

Harry had never felt so high in his life as he beamed at the boy across the table, who ignored
him and opened his book once more to return to reading now that the imminent drama had
passed…a small upturn to the corners of his lips.

Slytherins were cold-hearted bitches when they wanted to be, but they could read the tide
better than anyone and go where they had the best chance of success. Harry felt powerful, as
he’d forced the tide to move in his favor, and he could almost feel the attitudes around him
shift.

Not an outcast any longer, but a player on their field that they’d treat like they treated with
anyone of their own house.

Not just a Gryffindor amongst a nest of Slytherins… but Harry Potter.

And it took a freaking year to do it, but operation fox had bloody succeeded. They finally
saw that Harry was here to deal with them… and they should be way more unnerved by that
than any old Gryffindor.

The Boy Who Lived was just a title, a myth.

Harry Potter was the guy who was going to make their lives hard if they didn’t watch their
steps—and in true Slytherin fashion, he could almost feel the anticipation in the air around
him, for what the next years would bring.

000

It was later that same day, late at night when he was hurrying back to Gryffindor tower to
avoid being out after curfew after visiting McGonagall, that he ran into yet another dark
hooded figure, this time at the end of a poorly lit Hogwarts hallway.

For as powerful as he’d felt only that morning, he suddenly felt very, very vulnerable.
 Crossing Lines
Chapter Notes

Okay, I might've gone a little gruesome with this one. This story is already marked for
graphic depictions of violence but here's your reminder than I wasn't kidding about that.

It was funny, how you didn’t often think about the heart in your chest until it was dying.

It was always there, it kept beating no matter what, and you never noticed it… but the second
it even so much as skipped a beat, everything inside of you knew about it. It was an organ
that had no sense of touch or feel, it couldn’t feel heat or warmth or pain—but damn could it
make you feel those things in its stead when it wanted to.

Harry was used to his heart skipping. A sudden drop in the air when playing quidditch, a
thrill of excitement at anything new and magical, the shock of a prank going off loudly
behind him. For hell’s sake, in his first quidditch game ever his broom had almost bucked
him loose, and he’d then immediately proceeded to pull a huge diving stunt, jump off the
damn broom itself, and almost swallow the freaking snitch to for a Gryffindor win. He’d
almost been squished to death by a troll not two months into the school year. He’d provoked
a third-year Slytherin fully expecting to get hexed just because he knew it was necessary for
his plans to succeed. He’d lied to Vernon Dursley’s face countless times knowing one small
slip up earn him weeks trapped in a small, confined space near 24/7.

He was used to adrenaline, he thought he understood fear and how to master it so it didn’t
look like he was afraid. How to lie and pretend his heart wasn’t pounding and the flush on his
face was from excitement, not terror.

But he had really, really underestimated just how powerful fear really was.

He’d also very stupidly decided to forget about that hooded figure in the Forbidden Forest
from months ago, shoving it from his memory so that he could sleep soundly at night and live
a happier life without the constant fear that someone or something was out there eating
unicorns and thought nothing of eating him too. Like an actual bloody boogeyman he had
tried so hard to pretend wasn’t real—or that it couldn’t touch him if he just didn’t go near the
forest again. Let Hagrid or Dumbledore or the centaurs handle it, not plain, weak, eleven-
year-old him.

I really thought they’d handle it, his mind weakly complained in despair, even his own
mental voice breathless in fear as he stood paralyzed by the very familiar hooded figure at the
end of the hall. Even not seeing its face, he knew it was looking right at him, and his instincts
screamed that it was not here for good, friendly reasons. Instead his breath caught in horror
the same way it did when he’d looked up into the eye of a twenty-foot troll suddenly standing
next to him.

I’m such a fool. When did I start thinking adults were trustworthy?

But then it hit him like a lightning bolt—McGonagall was still in her office only one short
hallway away. He’d just been there to bother her with more questions, and he knew she’d be
there for the foreseeable future to grade all the term papers she still had left. And that was one
adult he still had faith in.

He inhaled sharply to scream—but then a wand was pointed right at him and he didn’t hear
what was said but the world blurred out of focus like he was fainting and suddenly he
couldn’t feel his body.

Give up.

What…?

Give up.

Oh, that seems… nice, I guess…

No need to worry. Everything is fine.

That’s good. Everything is… fine…

WAIT.

He jerked out of it, blinking and his heart dropping to his stomach to see the figure suddenly
closer, time having passed without him having realized it. What the bloody hell has just
happened!?

“Wha-” He gave a strangled gasp but he couldn’t even get it out before the wand was up
again, and this time he heard it.

“Imperio.”

Give up. Everything is fine.

That doesn’t seem right… but it’s so soft here… so… foggy?

Everything is fine. Relax.

Give up.

I don’t want to… do I?

Give up.

Okay… I can…
Relax. Nothing here will hurt.

That’s good. I hate fear. And pain.

Wait… what is hate again?

Give up.

Give up…

…wait—NO!

He blinked rapidly, and suddenly he was much farther down the hall than he remembered
being. Wait, had he been moving!? Why couldn’t he remember!? What the actual bloody hell
what happening!?

He heard the scuff of a shoe on the stone floor behind him, and wand pointed at his back or
not he panicked and bolted in a flat-out sprint.

“PROFESSOR!” He screamed for all he was worth, trying to get his bearings but he had no
idea how far he’d just unknowingly walked from McGonagall’s office and in his panic he
couldn’t recognize the paintings or tapestries on the wall as he ran as fast as he could.
“PROFESSOR!” He shrieked again, praying to god that she heard him, that someone heard
him—shit he’d even take Snape or bloody Peeves right now just—

“Crucio!” A silky voice hissed behind him, but he couldn’t even give a thought to how oddly
familiar the voice was before his world absolutely whited out in pain unlike anything he’d
ever felt before. He’d really rather face a hundred trolls and have them rip his bones out to
use as toothpicks in front of him than bear it even a second longer—

—and then the world went blissfully dark.

000

Harry dreamed of his graveyard.

He couldn’t quite remember what had happened, but his hands were shaking and he felt
chilled in the way only a cold sweat could make you, the blood suddenly pumping too hard
and leaving your fingers and toes and lips oddly numb.

He was sitting in front of his father’s gravestone, back slumped against it as he tried to breath
but couldn’t quite make the air feel warm and comforting as it entered his lungs too roughly
—it still felt stale and stifling. He figured he was here because James Potter’s grave was
nestled between the one marked Lily, and that oddly unadorned one with Sirius Black etched
into the impassive surface, and these three graves were the most important ones right now
with his soul quaking in the wake of whatever had just happened. In fact, he realized Sirius’
grave had moved to be closer all of a sudden—it used to be farther down the line of
tombstones where he’d stuck it because he didn’t really know what to do with it but now it
was here, and he hadn’t consciously done that he didn’t think. Then again, this was a dream,
not his normal mental exercises.
Come to think of it, he’d never had a dream of his graveyard before, or at least he couldn’t
remember ever having a dream here before.

“What happened?” He spoke aloud to the empty graves who wouldn’t talk back to him,
asking the blank stone with his father’s name behind it like it would make a difference. His
voice wavered, unsteady in the oddly muted, oppressive air.

He didn’t expect an answer, but for some reason he suddenly felt he had one.

Not to his question exactly, but an answer all the same.

“I need to build walls.” He realized, sitting up and pressing his palms flat to the cold, living
ground beneath him as the world came in and out of focus for a nauseating second.
“Something’s out there, isn’t it? I need… I need walls.”

He felt unsteady, but this was a dream so as soon and he could focus enough he was able to
stand, and suddenly he was by the big iron gate that marked the unofficial entrance to his
graveyard. Unofficial because he’d never really considered long on what was outside his
imaginary graveyard—this was just his mental escape when he needed to focus on calming
down or prioritizing his thoughts, and somewhere he knew he should’ve started to think
about what was outside of this place, but he never had before.

Suddenly it seemed very, very important to get on that right away.

Because as he looked outside of the gate and a nothingness stared back at him that petrified
him to his very soul. A blank emptiness that meant nothing—but he knew with absolute
certainty that something indescribably horrible was waiting in that blankness. Just… waiting.

He took an automatic step back as fear seemed to lunge at him from outside the gate—and
the world he’d imagined disappeared.

000

As Harry opened his eyes, it took him a surprisingly small amount of time to figure things
out. Maybe it was because his whole body was still sore as hell from whatever that agonizing
spell had been, and the sharp stinging pains still digging into his muscles and behind his eyes
were slapping him awake with each throb of his heart and putting everything into focus via
large doses of adrenaline. Whatever the reason, fight or flight was burning hot in his veins
and flight had already happened—and failed.

He was not sure how fight was going to go, but he somehow found focus he usually only did
when he was murderously angry. Maybe Hermione’s books had finally started working,
because he quickly mentally arranged his mind to give his energy direction instead of just
seeing red this time. Also, that odd dream haunted him slightly as he blinked awake, and he
knew without a doubt that it was important. His graveyard wasn’t safe, and while he didn’t
understand it, he knew he needed to do something.

Like, right now.

He welded his eyes tight once more before even moving an inch, and promptly buried his
graveyard inside a mountain. He’d ready Journey to the Center of the Earth in his elementary
school library what felt like lifetimes ago, and so he imagined his picturesque graveyard with
it’s shining sun and seasonal weather and soft grasses and delicate flowers was exactly as it
was—just buried so deep you’d need a novel’s worth of adventure and luck to manage to
make it down that far. You’d have to get past cave-ins, tornadoes, underground oceans filled
with horrific abominations, and dinosaurs to make it to his graveyard—and he couldn’t quite
remember if there’d been velociraptors specifically in the book along with the other dinosaurs
but he definitely included velociraptors because they were probably the best guard dogs he
could think of.

Later, he’d think up a much more creative, easily grasped defense to his garden, but for now
that seemed good enough.

That being the most urgent of things on his mind, his mental space seemed easier to organize
all of a sudden. He shoved his fear down because his heart beating in his throat didn’t
actually help him much now, and he opened his eyes once more to get his bearings.

Very quickly he managed to determine he was on a stone floor that still felt like Hogwarts
although the room specifically was absolutely foreign. Fire burned in a ring around the room,
and he saw no clear exits—not that he could get past the fire which burned so heartily it was
probably magical and also likely a stupid idea to try and touch. For the contents in the room,
most pertinently he sensed the presence of another person behind him almost immediately,
but before he moved to give himself away he spared a second or two to observe the only
other object in the room in front of him.

And it was in fact that horribly familiar mirror he hadn’t seen in months.

If he could’ve possibly felt more unnerved and scared, he would’ve felt it seeing that damn
freaking mirror. As it was, he couldn’t actually get more freaked out or on edge right now, he
was already at the end of his rope and his heart and mind couldn’t actually take anymore, so
he simply noted the mirror for what it was and decided it wasn’t as important as the other
person in the room.

He took stock, finding he still has his wand in his sleeve.

Odd.

And… very suspicious.

Whatever the reason, he was unable to keep calm any longer and now that he had all the
information he thought he’d get from lying on the ground, he bolted upright and spun on his
heel as fast as he could, whipping his wand out to point at the other person in the room and—
and…

And Professor Quirrell stared back at him, unbothered by his sudden movement and also
unnervingly unworried about the wand being pointed at him. In fact he had on a new
expression altogether—the historically nervous man seemed flat and irritated, nothing more.
“P-Professor!?” He eeked out, almost lowering his wand before his instincts kicked in and he
firmly held it in place. “What’s going on!?”

The Defense professor just gave him an irritated look.

“You’re a remarkably troublesome child, Potter.” He intoned darkly, without a single stutter
in sight which was enough of a shock to get Harry’s mouth popping open a bit in shock.

“Wha—you—?”

“Oh yes, who would ever suspect p-poor s-stuttering p-professor Quirrell?” He mocked his
own stutter derisively, walking forward towards the mirror behind Harry, and he stumbled out
of the way quickly to keep distance between them. Not that the man cared, not even sparing
him a look as his eyes fixed on the mirror in a rather creepy way, Harry had to admit.

His mind raced. “Suspect you of what? What did-” His questions bubbling to the surfaced
silenced themselves when the professor shot him a dark look over his shoulder and suddenly
a trill of fear jolted something in Harry’s memory. That, and a stab of pain directly to his
forehead that seemed to dunk his body into a cold sweat instantly.

He’d never seen the hooded figure’s face, but the ice cold hatred in this professor’s eyes and
the mysterious pain suddenly seemed very familiar.

He realized, but he still couldn’t believe it. It just… it just made no sense.

“You… killed the unicorns? You attacked me.”

Twice, his mind provided for him but he didn’t voice the thought since Quirrell was clearly
fully aware of what he’d done. And lacked any remorse for it at that, given his eye roll.

“Pity I didn’t succeed that night. Or… perhaps it was fortunate, as this mirror has provided
quite a perplexing challenge.” Harry felt cold when he glanced over his shoulder once more,
the look in the man’s eye anything but warm. “My master believes you may be able to help
overcome it.”

What? What does that… what is any of this about!?

Harry had no idea what was going on, but he did know this man would be only too happy to
kill him. All logic and reasoning and motives aside, whether they made sense or not, Harry
just shoved it all aside and kept his guard up. He had to figure out a way out of here, but even
standing and free to look around the room, he saw no exit. The door he did see was wreathed
in fire, and he instinctively knew not to touch the flame as it was absolutely not normal.

He wants something from me. I need to keep him talking, I need to be useful to him. He’ll kill
me once he gets what he wants most likely, so I need to continue being useful or bargain for it
or… or something.

“What do you want me to do.” He got out in as level of a voice as he could, trying to think of
whatever it was this full grown wizard could want and how to get out alive depending on
what it was.
By his darkly amused expression, he knew exactly what Harry was doing.

“It’s such a shame you weren’t in Slytherin. You might’ve been able to see things our way, or
at the very least the snakes would’ve eaten you alive. How entertaining that would’ve been.”
He mused, mostly to himself it seemed so Harry kept his mouth shut. He was used to the
comments, although from a professor much less an adult who’d previously tried to kill him
was a new one. “In any case, you didn’t interfere at all this year, surprisingly. And since
you’re being… cooperative I will explain. Dumbledore has hidden something inside this
mirror—something I very much want and in fact came to Hogwarts specifically to get. If you
help me get it, my master is willing to… be gracious with his mercy.”

By the silky tone he had and the reminder of Hagrid’s words that those who drank unicorn
blood lived a cursed life, Harry didn’t trust a single thing he said. Sure, he figure the wanting
something in the mirror was probably true. The mercy though?

Yeah, if he was anywhere close to being in the mental space to be able to laugh at that right
now, he would’ve.

“I’ve only seen that mirror once and I don’t know how it works.” He defended, taking a
calculated risk in revealing that. He didn’t know what Quirrell thought he’d be able to get
something out of this mirror, but there had to be a reason, and he was banking on the fact he
could bargain on it. “And also if I could get it, you’ll kill me the second you have it.”

Quirrell had a good poker face, but Harry sensed the anger in his brief answering silence, and
knew he was right.

“Look into the mirror,” He deflected, stepping aside and everything inside Harry told him it
was a bad idea.

“Ah… I would rather not.”

“Come here boy,” Instantly angered and hissing venomously, Harry flinched at the sudden
explosion of wrath before it melted away and Quirrell quickly regained himself. “…look into
the mirror.”

Right… he was not in a position to argue, he was going to be killed. Sooner rather than later
if he was being difficult.

With those fantastic options in front of him, he slowly stepped in front of the mirror, hyper
aware of the man next to him and the seething anger still lingering in the air although he
seemed deceptively calm again. He looked into the mirror, prepared now, and he was too
consumed by fear and adrenaline to feel anything when his parents and the man he knew was
Sirius Black appeared over his shoulders. Unlike last time though, they were all glaring
venomously as Quirrell instead of smiling warmly down at him.

Sirius actually seemed to attempt to hit him over the head, although the silent, ghostly
reflection had no impact.

“What is it you see?” Quirrell demanded in the same slightly angry, silky tone.
There was no way he was going to tell the truth, because clearly that was what the man
wanted. Also, if he couldn’t guess that an orphan would see his parents, he was stupid as hell.

Lying just came easy, and he didn’t even have to think or hesitate to answer.

“I’m shaking hands with McGonagall… I’ve won awards for quidditch, best seeker of the
century.” He described, putting just enough nervousness and hesitancy into his tone to make
it seem like he had no idea what sharing this information would do.

Unfortunately, even if Quirrell bought it, it didn’t matter.

“He lies,” Something hissed from seemingly nowhere, and Harry almost jumped in surprise
—as it was he tensed to the point his still-sore body screamed in protest at the motion.

“Tell the truth,” the clearly deranged professor suddenly bellowed and Harry flinched, trying
to maintain at the least the pretense he wasn’t freaking out right now.

“Let me… speak to him,” The hoarse, whispery voice spoke again, and Quirrell turned
sharply, seeming to address no one.

“Master you’re not strong enough,” he seemed genuinely concerned, and for some reason it
was creepy as hell.

Also, that ‘master’ was here!?

Harry tried to scan the room discretely again, but he saw nothing. He didn’t see where the
voice could’ve come from and it freaked him out even more than this situation already
freaked him the fuck out.

“I have strength enough… for this.” It spoke again, and Quirrell seemed to relent… turning
slowly back around to face him from where he’d drifted forward in his concern, and lifted his
hands… to undo his turban.

Uh…what? What is he…

Harry felt ice cold and indescribably horrified as the garlicy purple cloth fell away, and in the
reflection of the mirror he saw another face.

An ugly, twisted, morphing face.

Harry almost threw up.

“Harry Potter,” it hissed, and he nearly did feel bile in his throat at the disgusting little
mouth moved in time with the word. “We meet… again.”

WHAT THE HELL!? We’ve met!? What the—what the—what on--!?

It hit him like a freight train, and suddenly his mouth moved despite his brain being too
horrified to even process this information.
“Voldemort…” he breathed, noting Quirrell’s expression facing him change but not giving a
shit as his eyes fixated on the creepy face in the mirror. Stuck in disgust and terror as it
seemed to bare its teeth at being addressed.

“Yes. See what I’ve become? See what I must do to survive? Live off another, a mere
parasite…”

Good for you, why do you need me for this? Harry whimpered internally. This was bad, this
was so bad. It wasn’t just Quirrell, this was Voldemort. This man… killed his parents. Killed
so many people and he…

Harry felt his vision blur a bit in anger, before he took a breath and centered himself quickly,
remembering his graveyard. He didn’t have a grave for Voldemort, and frankly he didn’t want
one there, but he knew he’d likely have to make one after this. He needed someplace to dump
these emotions so he could focus on the matter at hand, and the word ‘parasite’ triggered
something.

He imagined a large jar full of green liquid, a disgusting, wiggling grey worm twisting
venomously inside it—but stuck for now inside it’s glass container. It was just a pathetic
worm in a jar, no need to be terrified.

It only kind of worked, but it did help calm in down, just a little. And that was all he needed.

He was still terrified, but he still had his wand. He’d initially through Quirrell too arrogant by
letting him have it, but now realized he was likely rightfully arrogant. It wasn’t just one
teacher, it was lord bloody Voldemort and Harry was just a first year who was pretty good at
Transfiguration at best. He’d lowered his wand at some point, knowing there wasn’t much he
could do, and now he pointed it at the ground, searching. He just had to stall and distract
them from noticing, even while two sets of eyes (ugh, gross) were fixed on him.

"Why didn't you just kill me then. You had every opportunity to." He managed to get out,
pleasantly surprised that he actually sounded normal. He refrained from actually voicing the
fact that he was responsible for this parasite’s demise and therefore probably correctly
assumed Voldemort wanted him dead. If he was interpreting the mushy emotions on the ugly
little face, the dark lord was already very aware of his hatred for the boy in front of him.

“I did try… the troll, the broom, the forest… but this inept fool was unable to actually
succeed. Not with Dumbledore watching, not with Snape’s irksome interference. He plays his
role too well….” And whatever that meant, he sounded so seethingly murderous about it that
Harry almost pitied Snape for a split second.

This revelation also really helped it sink in for Harry that Dumbledore had hired Voldemort as
their defense professor for an entire year and hadn’t noticed. Strongest light wizard there was
his ass—there were not words to describe how remarkably done Harry was with that old
Headmaster after this, not even considering he’d still yet to properly meet the man. He was
absolutely dead to him after this.

“But now…the stone is here, I just can't get it. So you're going to get it for me."
The even tone had Harry’s hackles up, and he forced himself to remain composed. The ‘or
else’ to that deal was clearly received despite not being spoken.

"And how the hell am I supposed to do that? What stone? And whatever is this mirror?"

The disfigured face sneered, in what might’ve been both a glare and a smile at once. "The
mirror of Erised… it shows you what your heart most wants in this world. I can see myself
holding it…"

He still didn’t explain what the stone was and frankly Harry didn’t care. His fear had
morphed into anger at some point—anger at Dumbledore and anger at this monster who’d
taken away his parents. Anger he hadn’t felt since Christmas when rage had made his hands
shake for days after facing this mirror. Rage that burned hot and ugly in his chest, sparked by
the unfairness of it all when he’d seen his parents look at him so lovingly in a way that would
never be real, no matter how desperately he wanted it to be.

And his parents were in the mirror over the dark lord’s shoulders, their eyes sad and warm as
they looked at him.

It made him so angry it was only the barest semblance of control keeping him together.

He snapped.

"Well I don’t bloody want it; how am I supposed to get it?"

"You don't crave life? Fame and fortune—and love?" Voldemort sneered back, ire and anger
responding in kind to Harry’s sharp tone.

He didn’t hold back. "I have both fame and fortune thanks to you murdering my parents,
asshole. And what the hell would you know about love?"

It was instantaneous, and he didn’t even have time to fear the spell when the word crucio left
Quirrell’s lips—he couldn’t see and a couple seconds later he realized he couldn’t even hear
over his own screams of agony echoing around the stone room. His mind whited out the pain,
from the mess of suffering he could only separate the memory of him realizing he was on the
ground, the cold stone a balm on his cheek from the fire ripping through his body. There was
white mist…

And then he was blinking, on his feet again and in front of the mirror pointedly, and he
cursed viciously inside his mind, clammy and shaken from the pain and confused about the
change in scenery.

It’s that damn ‘imperio’ spell again, wasn’t it? What even is that!?

He wrenched free of the foggy grip it had on his mind and stumbled a couple short steps to
the side, trying to get his bearings and knowing there was no way he could actually run, but
trying to get some distance the best he could. And also trying to get out from in front of the
bloody mirror.

"Stop that! How are you even doing that!?"

"Look," The hissing voice he already hated instinctively commanded him, and some invisible
force jerked his body forward to stand in front of the mirror again. As if an invisible hand
clamped down on his chin and held it forward, he was forced to look into the glass reflection,
and once again saw his parents—friends and family, all of them—smiling at him happily like
nothing was wrong.

It pissed him off and he ground his teeth together viciously despite the force holding him still.

"I can bring them back, you know. With the stone I can do unimaginable things, control life
and death…"

Harry felt his temper surge mercilessly and despite something holding him still, he jerked
violently and managed to free himself just enough to speak despite it feeling like he was
going to have bruises on his arms and jaw from breaking the holds on him.

"Don't you dare." His voice was unfortunately raw, angry, and giving away too much of his
pain for his liking in front of an enemy, but he just didn’t care right then. "Don't you dare
defile their deaths, their memories—their sacrifice. They're dead and they should stay that
way… this world wouldn't be the way it is without their sacrifices. Without people who live
and die for something worth it."

With a burst of anger he felt heat warm the cool air of the stone room and he managed to
wrench free, wand shooting out to point at the purple turban on the ground and transfigure it
into a bird that shot at the man behind him. It was very short lived though as a wordless wave
of Quirrell’s wand turned the bird to dust with an pitiful squawk before Harry could blink.

Neither him nor Voldemort seemed even slightly threatened by the attack either, both just
sneering at him derisively.

"A noble sentiment, but ultimately stupid.” The parasite scoffed darkly. “Who do you think
you are… Potter? Trying to be brave and wise… but you're just a child who needs to comfort
themselves with vain ideas of sacrifice to get over the fact you are alone in this world.
You lie to yourself… that your parents died for some worthy cause, but in the end they're
simply dead… and they left you here."

"And whose fault is it they're dead!?" Harry surged again with a shout, shooting the first spell
he could think of—he wasn’t even sure what it was but Quirrell batted it away without even
blinking. He felt angry, and painful tears at the corners of his eyes but begged them not to
fall. He had to keep it together—he couldn’t cry in front of this man. He wouldn’t.

"Their deaths were for a greater cause. Or would have been if not for you…" Voldemort
hissed, venom and hatred dripping off his tone in spades. "You insignificant child… it was
you that caused my spell to backfire. You were nothing, you are nothing… so what is it that
protected you from a curse that defeated thousands before you? Grown wizards and children
alike."

Harry felt sick. The pain of losing his chance at a family was one thing… imagining how
many children (infants) this man had killed almost made him puke again.
"This nothing defeated you and I can't even remember a thing about it. Must not have been a
very good spell." He hissed, knowing he needed to cool it and think smarter about this, but he
was too angry to actually act on it.

Both ex-professor and dark lord looked down on him darkly, mocking him.

"You insolent brat—you don't even know what a killing curse is, do you?"

Killing curse? What… is that what…?

"A curse just for killing? Christ wizards are so excessive—a cutting curse to the neck not
good enough for the great and overly dramatic Lord Voldemort, huh? Would've saved you a
lot of death and humiliation if you weren't such an egotistical drama queen."

"Crucio!"

At some point while he was screaming on the ground, a clear thought filtered through the
agony in his brain and reminded him that he really needed to shut his mouth. This wasn’t
Blaise, this wasn’t Snape, this wasn’t any other Slytherin… and he was being very, very
stupid.

As the pain abruptly stopped and he panted roughly into the stone beneath him, he realized he
was probably incredibly stupid actually. Miraculously he still had his wand in his hand,
although his knuckles were white from how hard he’d been gripping it, and he had a thought
that he very much regretted having.

But he didn’t have a better option, so he gave a sob that was actually not that hard to fake. In
fact he wasn’t 100% sure it was fake—but either way as he did it, he pointed his wand and
roughly pushed himself up, turning to flash the man (men?) above him a glare.

"Hit a n-nerve, did I?"

He screamed as the world whited out into even more pain.

But… hopefully his captor was too pissed off at him to notice what he’d just done. That was
the only thought that kept him sane as the agony seemed to stretch this time, waves of it
increasing periodically until he was sure he was about to start seizing or his heart was about
to just fucking give up on him at any moment.

“Enough,” a hiss caused the pain to disappear, and he was jerked sharply to his feet by yet
another invisible force and he was too out of it to even care he was looking into the mirror
again. "You will retrieve the stone—now."

Oh sure , let me just do that for the guy who murdered my parents…

But… he was surprised as his vision blurred back into focus, and he realized the image in the
mirror had changed. He saw himself… but his reflection was moving when he most certainly
wasn’t. He watched… watched his reflection pull something from his pocket, and held it up
pointedly. It was a deep red chunk of glass-like rock, with golden ripples through it that were
clearly magical.
His reflection put it back into his pocket slowly, and Harry felt cold realizing he could feel
something actually slide into his pocket.

Oh no… oh no, I actually have it now. Oh no, oh no, oh no… I’m pretty sure it’ll be a bad
time if he gets it, he can’t be using it for something good, and more importantly as soon as he
DOES get it, I’m literally dead.

Shit. What---what do I—!?

He blinked, realizing his reflection was moving again. This time it smirked darkly at him as it
pulled to stone out, turning on it’s heel… and hurling the stone as hard as it could and the
magical artifact smacked Quirrell right in his actual forehead hard enough that he fell flat on
his back—directly onto Voldemort’s crusty parasitic sneer.

It was so absolutely ludicrous it startled a hysterical laugh from his lungs against his will—
something he instantly regretted when the invisible grip around him tightened painfully and
he got twin glares promising even more pain any second now.

“What do you see?” Quirrell demanded this time, and Harry shot him a defiant look for all he
was worth. Well, honesty first after all, since clearly the mass murderer in his skull was some
kind of lie detector.

"I see myself with the stone… and I'm chucking it at your head hard enough to knock the
annoying ghost right out of you, Professor."

He heard more than saw Quirrell’s wand lash out, the swish of his robe sleeve sharp and
without hesitation as he cast a wordless spell. Harry braced for it, but felt nothing… until
something stung at his cheek more sharply than if he’d gotten slapped, and suddenly that
whole side of his face felt hot. He was a bit depressed he immediately recognized the thick
scent of copper in the air.

And then he felt the pain, a wet gurgle as blood flooded his mouth escaping his voice, and he
couldn’t look down to see, almost too belatedly realizing he could look into the mirror still in
front of him to see what had happened…

…and instantly regretted it.

“ENOUGH, you welp,” Quirrell was pissed, and Harry had already known it but his stomach
felt cold and his brief bravado vanished in a puff of smoke as he realized how serious this
was.

Harry coughed on the alarming amount of blood invading his mouth and Quirrell stalked
away in anger, the invisible force suddenly releasing. He stumbled to suddenly be free, one
hand automatically coming up to clap a hand over the cut he now had on his face, instantly
regretting it from how much more it stung (it already stung really badly, how did it sting
more just by touching it). He knew he shouldn’t touch it as that was probably really
unsanitary but he needed to hold himself together… he was in shock, he realized, and too
dizzy from the abrupt blood loss for this to really sink in.
Because that cut had gone straight to bone, and if he didn’t hold his cheek together now from
the gaping flesh wound he’d just gotten he would be able to see his own skull in his mirror’s
reflection, and that thought just did not compute.

"I've almost tired of attempting to use you as my revenge. Perhaps you're right, I should kill
you now since I have the opportunity. You're not worth the irritation to keep you alive, no
matter how much I despise you." Voldemort’s hissing, his calm anger not sounding near so
calm anymore, and as he spoke Quirrell’s wand moved again—and again once more.

A line of fire spread out from across his stomach, and then another over his thigh. The last
one caused him to stumble, just barely managing to stay upright but no longer able to see his
reflection to assess the damage. He couldn’t focus… he put his free hand on his stomach and
it felt too hot, too slick. Not good.

"F-feelings… mutual."

It was only after something hit him with the strength of a troll’s club whacking him like he
was a golf ball that he realized he’d said that out loud. He wasn’t sure he meant to do that or
not, and liked to assume if he weren’t so lightheaded right now, he wouldn’t have done it. He
must’ve lost consciousness for a couple seconds because Quirrell was still in the process of
stalking towards him for too much time to have passed and yet he didn’t quite remember
imbedding himself into the stone wall to the side of the chamber either, the fire flickering
over the rubble around him but thankfully not touching him.

That was the only thing to be thankful about, because from how his whole body was numb
and too hot, he realized this was probably it. He was already dead—the damage done from
the blood loss and that hit were enough to kill him if someone didn’t find him soon, because
from how his limbs were not responding he’d broken a lot of things and was not going to be
able to fight back successfully even if he managed to summon the energy to try. Somehow his
mind was cold and clinical as it reminded him how close the troll had come to killing him—
this was stunningly worse than that and there were no teachers here this time to stop the
bleeding.

He was going to die.

And Quirrell got close—walking backwards so that it was actually Voldemort’s disgusting
face aimed at him and frankly that was the most disturbing thing Harry had ever witnessed.

"Such a smart mouth." The monster of a man sneered, now above him and leveling a wand
directly in his face. Harry could only stare at the offending piece of wood, a wash of
helplessness taking over.

He hadn’t expected to win… not since waking up in this chamber he didn’t really expect to
get out of here, not even despite how hard he’d been thinking and plotting and fighting, his
cynicism was too hard to ignore. But he hadn’t given up the fight or the small hope that he
might make it out of here somehow, yet now… that small hope disappeared into a puff of
nothingness, like it was never even there.

The dark lord narrowed beady red eyes at him.

“Too bad you lack the power to even scrape the surface of living up to such arrogance. You
are nothing, and I will prove it once and for all. It was a fluke that saved your life before, but
there will be no such mistake this time… I will see to it."

This was it… he was going to die.

There was that saying, where when you were about to die your entire life flashed before your
eyes, but Harry found that to be surprisingly untrue. There were tons of things he probably
should’ve been thinking at that moment as the wand inches from his eyes flickered with
magic, the sinking defeat he felt convincing him for one long moment that he was going to
die, the sickness from blood and pain that dug fiercely into every part of his being…

But he surprisingly thought of nothing.

And then, be it instinct or his body’s last ditch, desperate effort to live despite his mind
already having checked out, he lurched forward. He didn’t even think he could feel his arms
right then, so it was a surprise to see his own hand snap forward and grab onto the hand
holding the wand about to end his life, as if trying to stop it in vain.

All it did was cause the spell to miss, and he felt another line of burning agony cut into his
shoulder, that entire arm disappearing from his control immediately.

Cutting curse. That’s what these are… probably shouldn't have brought it up, to be honest.

But he blinked, realizing the ringing in his ears wasn’t because of blood loss.

Quirrell was screaming.

Why is he screaming? I’m the one dying here…

But his sense of touch came back just in time to realize he was still holding Quirrell’s hand.
Only… the man had backed up, screaming a sound of agonizing pain, and as Harry
watched… the appendage in his arm crumbled into dust.

Oh… my god.

He let the ash fall through his fingers like the it was some sickening version of sand, numb in
horror as black spots threatening his vision. It was all just too much.

I’m going to pass out… I’m actually going to pass out that…

And yet as his eyes trailed in dazed horror at the dust now coating him, he realized that
damned wand that was about to kill him was now in his lap. Way belatedly he realized he had
no idea what happened to his own wand… clearly it hadn’t helped him though… and yet…

Levitating cloth, blindly flinging spells. That was stupid, wasn’t it? He was just a first year.
And this was lord Voldemort.

This was lord Voldemort.

Numb fingers laced around the wand in his lap, and he was so sick in pain and muted horror
(grief, rage, injustice, frustration, dripping from his tongue if he could just form a single
word to say it) he realized he was going to die, and so the point of following rules suddenly
made no sense whatsoever.

Voldemort did not deserve human decency. He had no right to something he didn’t even know
the meaning of.

There were some lines you didn’t cross, but Harry suddenly saw no reason not to.

The answer was simple: Voldemort deserved it.

The torture curses, the blood, his own skull… suddenly it didn’t seem like there was a point
in being… hesitant.

It really couldn’t get worse than this, and for some reason that thought brought him peace.

A calmness he hadn’t felt since he’d been back in McGonagall’s officer earlier this same
night filled him, and he tried not to imagine the disappointment and disgust on her face that
she’d undoubtedly have if she ever learned what he’d done.

He lifted the wand, and while the motion was all but impossible with how battered he was,
conjuring the magic to him was not. It was simple as breathing—even if breathing itself was
actually a bit hard right now, to be honest.

Simple as magic.

Rule number six: don't transfigure gases anywhere near where a living being is breathing.

He followed the rise and fall of magic and suddenly Quirrel was choking—violently. Harry
was so far beyond caring though, he felt nothing to see the man suddenly coughing up sand
as it made his lungs all but useless. For some reason it didn’t seem in impact Voldemort
though, who screamed something harshly, the hissing filling the chaoticly echoing room, but
Harry didn’t waste the effort listening to what it was.

He simply reacted when Quirrell obeyed some command and lurched forward, despite the
fact he would not be able to breathe again.

Rule number two: don't ever transfigure the human body.

In a twisted mimicry of what he’d done to Montague only just this afternoon, the arm
extended towards him intent on harm turned to solid stone, the hand and the sleeve and the
arm all the way up to the shoulder blade. It fell off the body it was attached to in short order,
stone crumbling as it hit the ground with a loud crackle and a wet bloody stump spilling
blood onto the floor from the violent loss of a limb. Too bad Quirrell was already suffocating,
so fortunately there was no scream to accompany it despite Harry assuming it probably hurt
quite a bit.

Rule number ten: never attempt to transfigure blood.

Harry had had enough of blood for tonight, and the blood on the floor turned to water. The
man above him collapsed bonelessly, writhing in muffled grunting from the sand in his lungs
and water pouring from every orifice. Water being thinner than blood, there was very little
keeping it in anymore apparently and it seemed as if the body in front of him sweated every
drop of liquid inside of it in seconds.

Then he stopped moving, one last twitch on the ground before utter stillness—very much
dead.

Harry heard a ghostly wail in the distance as his hand dropped, the wand clattering to the
ground, watching an ash-covered something rise from the new corpse in front of him but just
having nothing left in him to do anything about it.

He didn’t even have time (or energy) to fear what it was before it shot through him—
disappearing but not before something shrieked in agony somewhere deep inside his skull.
He heard something snap, before it became too much (it was all too much) and he finally lost
his fight with consciousness, finally escaping this waking hell.
 Scars Seen and Unseen
Chapter Notes

Thus concludes year one, and to be honest not sure where to go with year two. I was
trying to follow original canon loosely, but closely, but I want Sirius involved like asap...
he's my favorite <3

Harry knew he was on a lot of pain reducing potions because he was staring at the ceiling of
the hospital wing before he even realized he was awake. He blinked and the world faded in
and out of focus, and he wasn’t really happy to realize he knew the feeling of pain reduction
brews already. He’d only been at Hogwarts a year, after all.

After lying there for a minute or so, he came to the conclusion he was also on a calming
drought, because there was no earthly reason he shouldn’t have been screaming right now.
His last memory was…

Well, he winced, thankful that the motion didn’t seem to hurt.

"Harry, my boy. It's good to see you awake." A voice Harry vaguely recognized pulled him
from his thoughts that didn’t seem to be going anywhere anyway, and was pleased to find he
could move his head freely to find the source. It couldn’t possibly be that he was better off
than he’d been with the troll, right? Pomfrey hadn’t let him twitch for hours after he woke up
that first time for fear of him hurting himself accidentally, so it didn’t really make sense why
this time was different.

He shelved the question for the mediwitch herself when he realized who he was up against at
the moment.

Albus Dumbledore was walking slowly up the aisle of beds in the wing, coming to stand by
the foot of his bed and Harry very pointedly did not make a move to sit up or spend any
energy to greet him. While he actually felt fine, probably because of the potions, and he
couldn’t actually get angry right now thanks to the calming drought, he was not stupid.

When he was off the potions it would be… difficult to keep his anger at this man at bay, so he
wasn’t going to get too friendly.

Ah… but I also have to play the part, don’t I? He wants me to be the Boy Who Lived. I need
to let him think that’s who I am.

Well, he figured not making a move to get up was passive aggressive enough to get away
with.
“Professor,” he greeted, his voice a bit scratching but groggy enough that the headmaster
probably interpreted surprise rather than annoyance in his tone. At least he hoped he did.
“What time is it?” He asked, hoping to delay whatever it was the old man was here for at
least a bit, trying to get his wits back at least a little right after waking up.

“About ten in the morning, on the last day of term. It’s fortunate you woke up, or you’d have
missed the closing feast.” Dumbledore had a very kindly air to him, and his blue eyes seemed
very… warm. But Harry couldn’t help but think maybe the closing feast was kind of low on
his list of priorities right now.

He liked treacle tart but he wasn’t that bad.

At least that answer told him he’d been unconscious at least three days. Pomfrey must’ve
kept him under then while she healed him, instead of letting him wake up to heal like last
time. Still didn’t know the difference but it explained that much.

“Although if you’d like a snack before the feast, it seems you’ve received some well wishers’
gifts, many of which seem to be sweet in nature.” Dumbledore continued, walking up the side
of the bed to the bedside table and bring Harry’s attention to the pile of gifts there. He
immediately recognized some gifts and who probably sent them, and smiled a bit despite
Dumbledore being here to be reminded of all his friends.

Right… friends. Despite the horror he’d just endured… he hadn’t died and life had been good
before that nightmare crashed down on him. He’d earned the trust of Slytherin and had good
friends in all four houses. That hadn’t disappeared just because all he could think about was
that damn chamber… and it was comforting to be reminded of them.

“May I? I’m quite partial to sweets.” The headmaster asked, and while Harry thought it kind
of weird and rude, even he couldn’t eat all those sweets so he just shrugged. He watched the
wizened man pluck a jelly bean from a Bertie’s Box and hum to himself as he tasted it…
“Ah. Earwax.”

Harry thought it decidedly deserving, but kept his expression neutral.

He watched Dumbledore place the box down and clear his mouth of the flavor, clearly about
to get around to whatever he was here to talk about, but Harry decided he had other priorities
than the old man’s agenda. If he wanted to bumble around a conversation like he was just
here to chat, then Harry could chat all he wanted.

“Professor, do you know where Professor McGonagall is? Do you think I could talk to her?”
He asked as politely as he could, putting on his ‘oblivious Gryffindor face’ when the
headmaster blinked at the random question.

He didn’t pause long, but he did pause to collect himself and Harry did not miss that fact. "I
am not sure at the moment. I'm sure your classes could wait until you've rested some though."

"It’s not really classes. It’s more transfiguration in general." He edged, still as polite as he
could. He coughed a bit, and Dumbledore offered him a glass of water he happily took—
again pleasantly surprised that he had full use of his hands and body this time.
"I am not sure I follow." He frowned.

"Can’t I talk to her?" He hedged again like he didn’t see the problem. "She’s my head of
house and I guess you can tell me what happened after I passed out later, if it's that important,
but I really don't want to know to be honest." He made a show of shivering and the
headmaster paused once more before his expression became kind once more and he nodded
easily.

“I see.” He raised his wand and a plume of white mist appeared, darting off and disappearing
out the main hospital wing door and down the hall—towards McGonagall’s office if Harry
remembered correctly. "You should really be resting, though wanting a familiar face is
understanding after that ordeal."

Harry read between the lines. Hagrid had told him that McGonagall was incredibly loyal to
the headmaster—he probably thought having his deputy here would only summon an ally of
his. He probably wasn’t wrong, but Harry was also banking on the fact the Transfiguration
teacher was also his ally too. And at the very least she wouldn’t let the headmaster get away
with toying with him while he was in a hospital bed, no matter if she actually was loyal to
both of them equally. She was too much of a teacher not to.

"Am I actively dying?"

"Not at this moment, no." He seemed amused at this question.

"Then I'm good enough to talk." He said brightly, and the headmaster seemed entertained by
his chipper attitude than anything, which was good.

Unbeknownst to him Harry’s thoughts were a bit darker than that though.

Sure proved I’m pretty much always good to talk when I couldn't shut my mouth despite being
actively tortured.

It was pretty hard to keep his face blank, and was starting to realize the power of a calming
draught because there was no way even his own sarcastic thoughts should be so flippant
about something like this. It had been torture, hadn’t it? That… was what had happened. It
just… refused to sink in, for some reason.

“Harry,” He was ripped from his thoughts sharply by the headmaster who was still by his
bed, and had a grandfatherly expression on his face that Harry instantly hated from the sheer
concept that he assumed it was more patronizing than caring. The old fart didn’t even know
him after all, there was no way he actually cared like he was pretending to, so it could only
be condescending and frankly Harry just didn’t have the time for it. He didn’t have a way of
changing the subject suddenly either so bit his tongue quietly. “My boy, what happened in the
chamber was indeed unfortunate. I wanted to commend you though, on your—”

“Mr. Potter!”

Harry’s head snapped up, finally sitting up properly now in his hospital bed and grinning at
his knight in shining armor—or professor in spectacles as McGonagall made swift progress
into the hospital wing and saving him from this conversation. She was not running, but she
was certainly hustling, and she must’ve been close by when she received the headmaster’s
signal because that hadn’t even been twenty seconds, he figured.

Harry realized he shouldn’t be grinning so openly though when she stopped at the foot of his
bed with a huff and fixed him with a furious look that made him shrink back against his
pillows slightly.

"You should absolutely be resting but it is good to see you awake! When you are well enough
I will kill you myself for what you did." She scolded, though not nearly as coldly as Harry
was expecting and he perked up.

"I am very, very sorry for breaking the rules of transfiguration but in my defense it was him
or me and he very much wanted to kill me." He defended himself with his most innocent
wide eyes, and she visibly softened. Only a fraction because she wasn’t a very warm person
to begin with, but even that slight relaxing of her scowl made his heart lift.

"I do understand that, to a point, but I am very disappointed you used transfiguration to do it.
That was… exceedingly brutal."

Understatement of the year, Harry felt a bead of sweat form on his temple and couldn’t help
wincing a bit. You weren’t even there to see it happen.

McGonagall’s eyes darkened at his reaction, but nodded once as if accepting it as her answer.
"I won't say He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named didn't deserve it… but Quirinius didn't. Even if
he was a traitor, it seems."

"Let's agree to disagree, Professor." Harry huffed petulantly.

"Mr. Potter." She scolded again, but with a lot less enthusiasm than normal. But, it did tell
him that they already knew it was Voldemort, somehow.

He glanced at Dumbledore but decided against it, looking towards his transfiguration
professor instead. “So it… it was really him? I mean I knew it was him but… how did you
know?”

Her expression became neutral once more, and he wondered if she’d learned schooling your
expression from him, or he’d perfected it by mimicking her.

“You deserve to know, I suppose, although you will not tell any of your fellow students.” He
nodded in agreement as she gave a sigh and continued. “Hogwarts has been protecting an
important object all year after it was threatened in its original hiding spot in Gringotts.
Hogwarts was deemed the most secure place after that, and we knew someone would attempt
to steal it, but had hoped to leave openings and catch them in the act so they could face
justice. We didn’t realize they would make an attempt while there were still children in the
school, nor that it would be one of our own.” She seemed genuinely remorseful about it, and
Harry believed her. He recalled upper years saying Quirrell only started wearing the turban
this year—if she’s known him as a teacher for years before he became possessed, she
probably had no reason to suspect him now.
Also, despite not wanting to give him any credit, Quirrell had a good act going with the
nervous demeanor and the stuttering. Even though he was bitter about it, Harry himself had
been absolutely shocked to realize the quiet professor had been the one to turn like that. It
shook him, and he could only imagine it’d shake her too, her having known him a lot longer
and probably on a more personal level than he had given how often he’d skipped Defense this
year because of the odd headaches.

He recognized the hypocrisy of forgiving McGonagall for not knowing while fully holding
Dumbledore accountable for the same exact thing— and to be clear, he did not care.

“I heard you screaming but by the time I got there it was too late.” She continued, suddenly
looking extremely tired. “Albus, you were summoned to the Ministry on business which was
apparently the moment he deemed appropriate to strike. I did call you back immediately
however we didn’t quite make the connection that it was related to this object we were
guarding. Your mice though, might've saved your life."

"They lead you to me?" Harry perked up again as she nodded with a proud glint to her eye,
and he cheered significantly even with the grim topic. Spare stones on the floor of the
chamber… a simple transfiguration into mice and sending them on their way… it was a
miracle neither Quirrell nor Voldemort had noticed, but then again they’d been pretty pissed
off at his smart mouth at the time. Maybe they weren’t so rightfully arrogant to leave him
with his wand.

He frowned though, thinking it through. "How did you know Quirrell was possessed then? If
you had no idea and just found us in that chamber…"

"It was… alarming, of course, but Quirrell was already dead and we'd known since I heard
you scream that you were not a willing participant in whatever happened. Getting you help
was our priority at the time." She explained calmly, which yeah, made sense he supposed.

"I arrived back from the Ministry an hour later and performed some diagnostic spells of the
chamber to ensure everything that it was meant to protect was still secure. One of them
turned up a rather vicious possession curse—or the remnants of what was once one."
Dumbledore finally chimed in, and Harry blinked.

You couldn’t have done that literally at all this year to figure it out quicker? Maybe make that
standard procedure in a magical school?

He kept his face blank though. “And is it? Still secure that is. That object or whatever; it was
a stone?”

“Indeed. Minerva found it on you and we have safely returned it to its owners upon deciding
Hogwarts not so suitable a place to protect it after all. You did not break the enchantment,
you accessed it properly—only those who wish desperately to have it, but not use it, could
ever retrieve it from the mirror.” He explained.

Again, that couldn’t have been decided at any time in the past year? Why did you think a
school was a safe place again, especially if you knew someone was going to come after it,
much less that that person ended up being Voldemort!?
“What was it? And why couldn’t the owners protect it from the start?”

McGonagall smiled wryly which Harry immediately interpreted to mean she’d asked the
same question before, and now Harry knew exactly where to place the blame for this.

And the culprit was decent to answer him properly this time. “The object is a magical artifact
called the Philosopher’s Stone. It is capable of granting one immortal life, and turning
anything it touches into gold. Truly a wonderful feat of Alchemy created by a dear friend of
mine, Nicholas Flammel.” Dumbledore gave a weary sort of trite sigh. “As you can imagine
many people have sought this stone over time, for various terrible purposes. After this event I
have spoken at length with him, and he has agreed that the best thing to do is to destroy the
stone so that no one will be tempted in such a way again. He has just enough time to get his
affairs in order before its power wears off, but agreed that it is time.”

“What!?” Harry balked. "That's not fair!"

"They're over seven hundred years old, they've lived a good life and were agreeing to it." The
headmaster attempted to sooth him.

"Seven hundred years and they need to die because a dark lord that's probably a blip on their
radar? That is hugely unfair in every way. Can't they just make a new one, use it when they
need to, and then destroy it again? Rinse and repeat? More people dying because of
bloody Voldemort is absolutely unacceptable." He ranted, and while McGonagall seemed to
bristle at his language, she also didn’t seem to disagree either. In fact she looked to
Dumbledore for his retort as he gave another weary sigh.

"Harry, you must understand-"

"Albus!" Once again he was saved from the headmaster’s patronizing, this time by Madam
Pomfrey seeming to realize one of her patients had visitors and coming up to interrupt them.
"Ah, Minerva too. I'm glad you're concerned about our student here but he needs his rest!
Harry dear, how are you feeling?" She waved her hands to get the two teachers to back off a
bit and addressed him much more kindly than last time he was here. He smiled at her wryly.

"Like I'm on a boat load of pain reduction potions."

She blinked a bit in surprise before chuckling and patting him on the head gently. "You're a
keen one, aren't you? Please let us not make this a habit."

"I'll do my best, Madam." He glanced at where McGonagall did not seem in a hurry to leave
despite being dismissed. "As I said, in my defense it was self-defense."

Pomfrey’s exasperated sigh at that matched McGonagall’s expression.

"Just… sit still, alright?"

"Yes Ma'am." He obeyed as she waved her wand to perform some diagnostic spells.

"I am glad to see you well enough to be your usual difficult self, Mr. Potter." She concluded,
eyes growing a bit dark as they scanned him with a medical eye. "You were not well off when
you were brought in, but keeping you under for the last three days did some good. You will
actually be cleared to leave in an hour or so once I’ve finished some things up, but I have
some things to discuss with you first.”

“Better or worse than the troll?” He was surprised by that news and she nodded his point.

“You were closer to death this time, but so far as fixing your injuries this go around was
much simpler. Cuts and blood replenishing spells are easier than broken bones, and the
complexity last time was your organs. No punctured or popped orangs this time, just a lot of
cuts and bruises, no matter how serious they were.” She explained calmly.

“Oh. Okay…” he agreed, not liking the fact she still seemed rather grim.

“I was able to treat your injures that first day, however I kept you under for another reason.
You have signs of being subjected to a spell called the cruciatus curse.”

Crucio, his mind whispered at him, and he automatically flinched. All three teachers seemed
extremely grave.

“Y-yeah.” He agreed weakly. If they already knew there was no point in hiding it…

“A spell like that can cause a lot of nerve damage, and ghost pains for weeks afterwards. I’m
going to send you along with a regimen of pain reduction potions to take over the next couple
of weeks at home, as well as a couple calming draughts. You don’t have to take them, but
they may help at times.”

Oh no. And I have to go back to the Dursleys… this summer is going to be hell.

He nodded to her obediently and she patted the back of his hand soothingly, looking as if she
was trying to sooth herself as well.

“I didn’t know there were curses like that in the world,” he admitted, not really sure what to
say and a bit surprised when McGonagall stepped forward again with a stern expression.

“There shouldn’t be—we don’t tell students about magic like this until they’re much older,
but you of all people should know.” Harry noted Dumbledore frown behind her, but with her
back to him the deputy headmistress neither saw nor cared as she forged ahead. She’d spent
all year answering his questions, and despite him not outright asking now, she seemed to
easily slip into teacher mode again at even the hint of his wary curiosity. “There are three
spells that are appropriately named unforgivables, and their use is highly illegal. The
cruciatus is one, and as I’m sure you’re well aware now causes indescribable pain.”

He nodded, thankful for the calming draught once again otherwise he would not be sitting
here so normally hearing this. He was also calm enough to make an educated guess on the
other two.

“I’m gonna guess another is cast by ‘imperio’?”

Both women on either side of him suddenly had thunder in their eyes.
“He used that too.” Pomfrey was stern, but her calm was masking a lot more than that. When
he nodded she frowned even deeper. “It is one—the imperious curse is able to control
someone and force them to do whatever the caster likes. It is difficult to break out of, and
once under its control also difficult to notice someone is under it. In the last war there were
many who were imperioused and forced to do the dark lord’s will. And of course… some
who used it as an excuse to remain out of Azkaban.”

Harry felt cold at that knowledge—doubly so when he immediately realized that was
probably how Draco got to grow up with both parents. He… wasn’t sure how to take that. He
was also self-aware enough to know he shouldn’t be forming an opinion on it in his current
state anyway, so he stowed that icy thought back for another day.

“The last, you above all should know of. The killing curse.” McGonagall explained grimly,
and Harry didn’t really need her to elaborate more on it. “That is… another reason you are so
well known. When He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named came to kill you ten years ago, not only
was he destroyed which ended the war and earned you the thanks of many, but he also
attempted to use the killing curse to do it and it didn’t work. No one has ever survived the
killing curse, so it is not only a blessing he failed to kill you, but a rather impressive mystery
as well.”

The Boy Who Lived. Okay… I guess the title isn’t as stupid as it sounds. I mean it’s still
stupid, but it’s logical. The boy who lived while everyone else died to the same spell kind of
make just a tiny bit of sense, I suppose.

With a jolt he realized that bastard has cast all three of the unforgivables on him at one point
or another. And if what McGonagall was saying is true, that was a sick, twisted sort of record
by all accounts.

He had no idea what to make of that.

“Awesome,” He sighed, his sarcasm earning a huff from Pomfrey and a quickly squashed
smile from McGonagall.

“Alright, any more questions for now?” The Madam prompted and Harry blinked at her.

“Wait, you’re actually giving me free reign right now?”

She tisked at his incredulous expression. “Pertaining to the incident that happened, nothing
else. Otherwise I am going to ask Minerva and Albus to leave so that I may take you through
your potions regime and prep you to leave.”

“Oh,” he blinked, mind racing… but all the questions he had left were for Pomfrey herself, so
he just shook his head.

“Very well, we will take our leave.” McGonagall placed a hand on his leg closest to her and
shot him a rather tense, but surprisingly warm look. “I am… very glad you are alright, Mr.
Potter.”

Harry was genuinely touched, his eyes a bit hot.

“Thank you, professor.”

She spared no other words apart from a nod as she left, and Harry only glanced at
Dumbledore before pointedly turning back to Pomfrey, cutting off whatever he might’ve said.

“I did have some questions about… uh, my injuries.” He knew he sounded uncomfortable
and the mediwitch instantly closed ranks in understanding, shooting Dumbledore a look that
got him moving despite looking like maybe he also wanted to spare some kind of sentiment.

He could keep it to himself, so far as Harry was concerned.

“Of course dear, if you’d be up to hearing it I can explain what I did if you’d like.” She had
him in here enough over the year due to quidditch, pranks, headaches from Defense, and of
course the troll to be more than familiar with his curiosity and despite not understanding the
magic or medicine behind it he liked to know exactly what had been wrong with him before
she made it disappear with a wave of her wand. She was thankfully very understanding with
this odd need of his, this quietly intense need to be in control of his own body, despite a lot of
witches and wizards seeing no need to discuss such things when magic made things better an
instant later.

“Yes please,” he sighed in relief and she pulled out some notes from her apron to go over it
with him.

All in all, it probably sounded a lot worse than it’d been. Especially since Pomfrey said
healing a cut, no matter how severe, was the first thing a medic learned so she could fix him
up near instantly upon him reaching the hospital wing. He’d lost a lot of blood too, but again
she’d had blood replenishing potions fully stocked in case someone needed them and while
he’d needed two, that also had been a simple matter. What wasn’t so simple was the bad
bruising from being blasted into a wall, but miraculously he hadn’t actually broken anything
and that too, despite it’s severity, she’d cleared up in under an hour.

What was more complex still, was the nerve damage from the cruciatus curse and apparently
the damage done to the ligaments in his shoulder—that cutting curse that should’ve ended his
life, instead of landing on his neck had landed across his collarbone and into his shoulder
which made it all but useless without those muscles holding it up, but that too she’d fixed
within the first day. She admitted it was very hard to heal those sort of injuries without
causing the inflicted more pain, hence keeping him under.

And even with pain reduction potions, it was also flatly impossible to fix the cruciatus nerve
damage without triggering ghost pains of the curse itself, and for that Harry was totally fine
with being kept unconscious for days if it meant he didn’t have to come near that kind of pain
ever again.

Again, it could’ve been a lot worse and everyone seemed very aware of this fact—Harry
acutely so.

Especially as he moved the collar of the pjs he’d been put into to inspect for himself how his
shoulder was doing, and his heart dropped clean into his stomach to see the ugly red line
exactly where she’d told him it’d be. He didn’t give a quaffle about his shoulder though, his
hand instantly snapped up to his face in horror and realized he could feel the slightly raised
skin of the cut he no longer felt, but had known was there.

Pomfrey saw his expression and seemed to startle, quickly taking his hand down and holding
it in her own, assuring him when it healed it would be nothing but the thinnest white line you
wouldn’t be able to see unless you were looking right at it in a couple days, it was just the
residual agitation from the spell making it red for now. He wasn’t soothed though and wanted
to see it—and she reluctantly summoned a mirror for him.

Something ugly settled in his stomach when he saw it… an angry, ugly red line went from the
bridge of his nose and slashed across his whole cheek and clipped the bottom edge of his jaw.
He was… alarmed that he was more upset about this than being injured in general, and he
only realized he was breathing too fast when Pomfrey gently but forcibly put a potion into his
hands and all but guided it to his mouth for him to drink it.

It tasted… not bad, but bitter as hell, frothy with hints of lavender and something chalky and
slippery at the same time. As soon as it slipped down his throat his breathing evened out and
he blinked widely at the mirror he was still holding, that ugly twisting in his stomach settled
for now.

“That… was a calming draught?” He put together, not having even realized his mind had
gradually become foggy—only now that it was clear again did he realize how off he’d
actually been. That did not bode well but luckily he was too chill right now to be properly
uneasy about it.

“Yes,” Pomfrey answered him but was looking deeply concerned as she removed the empty
bottle from his hands. “You’re going to be needing a lot of them in the coming weeks, I
think.”

“I… I shouldn’t have freaked out over a scar.” He frowned at the mirror again, eyes trailing
up to his forehead where his original scar was in plain view once more. Clearly he hadn’t
been able to cover it up for a while now, and he wasn’t happy about it.

He acknowledged it was vain but… it was also desperately important and he wasn’t sure how
to voice that.

Luckily, Pomfrey didn’t seem to judge. “I am aware you cover up your scar which is why for
now only you and I can see them, in case you know. I like to treat my patients with the
dignity they wish for themselves so I tend to cast glimmers over them to prevent visitors from
poking too closely about things they don’t wish to talk about for now.”

Harry’s head snapped up, eyes wide. “Wait, glimmers? What’s that?”

“A simple charm to conceal something about one’s appearance. I believe it is a third year
spell, if I recall correctly, but you seem dedicated to concealing it and if it is legitimately
upsetting I could perhaps teach it to you next year.” She explained easily.

“Wait so… Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall—just now they didn’t see either of these
scars?”
“No, in fact while you were here last none of your visitors did. Is that alright? I simply
assumed.”

“No that… thank you. Thank you for doing it.” He breathed, it not even having crossed his
mind when he’d been laid up before… and now that he thought about it, it was absolutely
strange Blaise hadn’t commented on it when he’d visited before. Even someone like Lu, who
was nice but a pure Ravenclaw who liked to ask questions or Hannah who was all about the
gossip probably should’ve at least made a passing comment if they’d noticed it. But they
hadn’t—no one had and Harry hadn’t even considered he hadn’t covered his scar in over a
week by the time he was let go from the hospital wing after the troll incident, but it just
hadn’t crossed his mind given everything else.

She nodded, looking at him in concern once more. “It will fade, Mr. Potter, and I’m sure you
can cover it as you have been quite easily. Next year you can learn the glimmer and it will be
all the easier, but it should be the least of your concerns at the moment.”

“I know, I just…” How could he put into words in a way that would make her understand
how his stupid little pride had probably saved his life? How taking pride in his appearance
had morphed into pride in himself, how it’d saved him from believing the Dursleys’ rhetoric
and considering himself nothing but a freak? How it had become so much more than just
brushing his hair or covering his scar, but that was how it had started.

And how yes, it was vain and petty, but this new scar made him feel unsteady, like his
foundation had shifted suddenly.

There was no way he could put that into words in a way she’d actually believe or be able to
understand why.

Luckily, she didn’t seem to need an explanation to let him have his quiet somber moment.
She was a healer after all, she was here to help him, not judge what he needed to feel better.

“That glimmer will last a day so you’ll be good for the rest of your time at Hogwarts. I will
need to fix up your potion regimen to take with you but you can leave once I collect it all and
have plenty of time to make it to lunch today. Pain reduction potions can make you hungry
and calming draughts work best on a full stomach so have a full plate even if you’re not
starving, please.”

“And these potions will… well, it’ll sooth itself out?” He asked curisouly, tightening his grip
around the mirror uncomfortably. Whatever it was that needed to sooth itself… Pomfrey
didn’t need further explanation as her eyes got hard.

“Yes, I’ll write it out but you’ll need to take a two types in the morning, one before bed. I will
also send you along with a couple dreamless sleep potions, and several calming draughts as I
said. I’m aware you live with muggles so it may be difficult to get to somewhere where you
can buy these yourself, but if you need to I would suggest making the trip to Diagon or the
similar to purchase more. I’ll also write out a list or reputable shops and brewers I would
suggest buying from if you can.” She explained gently.

“And there’s no drawback from taking these potions so much?” He frowned, slightly worried.
She smiled kindly. “I am aware some muggle medicines, especially pain medication, can be
addictive, but here’s no worry of that with potions. The biggest drawback is that dreamless
sleep potions can be quite pricy and don’t keep more than a couple weeks even with stasis
charms so you’ll have to make several trips to restock on them even for just the summer. Also
I suppose, calming draughts only last two or three hours so they’re temporary fixes unless
you’re wanting to drink them constantly—and despite it being a better tasing potion
comparatively, most potions don’t taste good as a rule.”

Her expression softened a bit as he took all this information in carefully. “Mr. Potter I
wouldn’t hesitate to take them if you even think you’re just slightly unwell. There is no risk
of overdosing or anything like that, and you are not weak for needing them. Grown men and
women cannot handle the cruciatus curse, and as a healer I frankly think they shouldn’t have
to.” She sighed, weary, and Harry wondered how many people she’d treated for this curse.
She was old enough to have been a mediwitch during the last war so… probably a lot. “The
after effects… you might not even realize they’re still there, and they will be there for months
to come. If you do not rest, do not calm yourself, do not treat yourself kindly and gently for
the time being, it will take from you before you even realize part of yourself is missing. It
could stunt your growth and your mind, and worse it could hurt you in ways even a healer
with all my knowledge of magical medicine cannot heal. Do you understand what I’m
saying?”

He nodded, a bit slowly.

“Take it easy.” He frowned.

“Be kind to yourself.” She smiled, patting his head once more. “Any emotion, good or bad,
give yourself free reign to feel it and work past it. If you need a calming draught, take one.
Don’t hesitate. Don’t force yourself to suffer without help because you think you can manage
—you do not need to manage you need to be happy. And the happier and more content you
are, the less hold evil curses like this will have over you. So yes, take it easy and put yourself
and your health first for now. As much as you can, and I will check in with you again at the
start of next term to see how it’s going, alright?”

“Okay,” he agreed, smiling a bit weakly.

“Harry!”

He perked up instantly and looked towards the door again—this time met with very welcome
visitors.

“Draco,” he felt a sort of relief to the see the blond as he walked quickly over—Blaise and
Theo trialing after him at much more dignified pace but also actually looking like they
wanted to be there for once which was probably the best end of term present Harry could
imagine.

Pomfrey chuckled lightly, patting his arm. “I will get your potions ready, enjoy your visitors.”
She let them be, for which he was grateful.
“Harry,” Draco greeted again once he was close enough to actually talk, his own relief clear
in his voice. He instantly got riled up again though. “You are the most trouble bound
Gryffindor in this entire damn school, I swear to Merlin! Why?” He demanded, and Harry
couldn’t help but laugh.

And also realizing laughing felt really, really good.

"If I knew I'd definitely quit it immediately." He snipped with a grin. “You have good timing,
I only just woke up and I’m about to be let go too.”

“Don’t doubt my powers of gossip—I heard some Hufflepuff upper years talking about how
weird it was McGonagall was actually running through the halls and made the obvious
connection.” Blaise waved off his comment triumphantly as he walked up behind Draco,
shooting him a wink. "Good to see you alive, Potter."

"Blaise, Theo." He greeted, grinning wider now that he was actually allowed to call Nott—
Theo—that and the blue-eyed boy just smirked at his glee. Still quiet, but not unwilling to
engage anymore.

"They were not concerned in the slightest." Draco informed in a deadpan.

"Not at all." Theo smirked dryly, before it dropped immediately and his eyes flickered. "Was
it really him?"

Harry didn’t really need further detail on who him was. By Blaise’s suddenly frozen
expression and Draco shifting his weight a bit unsubtly, he knew this wasn’t like answering
the fearful curiosity he might’ve gotten from a Hufflepuff or a Ravenclaw.

These were Slytherins, and Voldemort would always be an extremely complicated, muddled,
darkened subject they would never be able to fully, honestly confront. It was absolutely
critical they learned the truth, and Harry would never know what they really think of his
answer.

If he were a Slytherin himself he would tell them the short answer and keep most of it to
himself. However… he was still a Gryffindor, and to quote Theo’s nonchalance earlier that
same week… while perhaps it was a bad choice in politics, they were still his friends. They
might not ever offer him the same decency, but he was okay with that as he met an icy blue
gaze that was more intent than Harry had ever seen them.

And Daphne had told him all about Theo’s father. Despite only just becoming on speaking
terms with the guy… he deserved to know the whole truth.

"A piece of him, I think. Less than a full man, more than a ghost. He was
bloody possessing Quirrell and Dumbledore didn't notice—how utterly lame." He tried to
make a joke of it, and despite the rather forced smiles he got he knew it didn’t really land
right. Although they did seem to expect that answer to a point, which was positive.

Draco simply nodded once.

"Truly." Blaise agree a moment too late.

Theo just moved to stand by his bedside table to observe all the gifts he’d gotten as if he
hadn’t heard the answer in the first place. Harry let him have his silence without commenting
for once.

"Surprised not to see Longbottom here. Must've been dragged away or something finally, but
he's usually here." Draco changed the subject a bit untactfully for a Slytherin but no one
seemed to mind this time.

"Tell him I'm awake if any of you see him, please? I'll be here another hour or so but I’m sure
the sooner her knows the better."

"After what you did to Montague? Yes sir." Blaise gave a mock-salute, snapping back to his
creepily cheerful self and the other three of them rolled their eyes in sync. “In other business-
related news, we come bearing gifts for the invalids present and you will tell everyone that
mine is the best.” He declared promptly, placing what looked to be two identical journals,
wrapped in neat gold ribbon to be a package on the table around where Nott was standing.
Theo himself had placed his own small envelope down as well, Harry noted with a fond
smile.

“That depends on what it is, because I’ll have you know the twins gave me a ‘get out of a
prank’ pass and that’s mighty attractive.” He lied, just to tease Blaise because he wasn’t
actually sure if the twins had a present somewhere in that pile, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“Please,” He scoffed, unthreatened and very sure of himself. “As if some pranksters could
out-gift me. I’ve officially declared amongst Slytherin that you’re my friend now, because
clearly,” If Harry could take out Montague, pretty much permanently for the rest of his time
at Hogwarts, then he was a good ally to have. Even the untouchable Slytherin would be
stupid not to have him as an ally now, and the snake house knew it. “Therefore it’s my
obligation to out-do everyone. I will win.” He grinned wickedly, eyes alight.

“I mean thanks, but generosity isn’t really something you can win.” Harry pointed out.

“Says you.”

“You know what, I’m too tired to argue.” He decided, slumping against the pillows propped
up behind him dramatically.

“The world must be ending.” Theo offered blankly, picking up a book from Harry’s pile of
presents while he did so and turning it over curiously.

“And to think, I spent a whole year missing out on that sarcasm. What a shame, truly.”

The quiet Slytherin’s lips quirked in amusement before he seemed to focus more intently on
the book cover. “Some light reading?”

While Harry didn’t know the book, he knew the style and put together who probably gave it
to him. “Ah, ever since I punched Draco, Hermione’s been giving me books on controlling
my emotions. I told her I liked them so I keep getting them every holiday and near death
experience.” He explained before blinking once and frowning deeply. “Which is four times
this year alone, though I was only injured in two of them.” He was unhappy to announce.

“Four? I only count three.” Blaise was indignant he’d clearly missed something as Theo
opened the book and scanned the first chapter lazily. So even when they were on talking
terms he still preferred literally any book over the people around him.

But Harry was more focused on Blaise’s confusion and looked at Draco pointedly, having
thought for sure he’d have at least mentioned that very impactful night to his dormmates.

The blond just shrugged, unperturbed by the silent question. “I didn’t tell him about the
forest. Didn’t feel like having the whole school know.” He offered reasonably. Which, Harry
thought was fair.

“What about the forest?”

“I got separated from Hagrid on our detention in the forbidden forest and a hooded figure that
we now can confirm was Voldemort was eating a unicorn tried to kill me before a centaur
scared it off.” He gave them the brief version, and Blaise stared openly.

Theo lifted his baleful eyes to stare at him blankly too, lips down turning.

“Can you… not do that.” He asked quietly, politely even, and Harry was about to ask before
he snapped his jaw shut.

Respect him, fear him, follow him, hate him… Slytherins didn’t call Voldemort by name.
Anyone else Harry would’ve refused to shy away from a mere name because that meant they
were being nonsensically afraid of an evil man’s name, but after having just met the monster
and understanding the incredibly complex emotions Slytherins might have towards the dark
lord, he knew better than to push.

“Sure.” He agreed easily, just as delicately polite back, and Theo accepted that by looking
back down at the book and leafing through the first chapter lazily.

Blaise pressed his lips into a thin line and turned to Draco dryly.

“I see what you mean about being a trouble-bound Gryffindor.” He admitted, and Draco gave
a wild gestured in a ‘thank you!’ type motion.

“Hey! The detention was stupid from start to finish! We got caught on the third floor so we
get sent to the forbidden forest, one off-limits place right into another? Also, at night? And
splitting up? How does any of that make sense!?” Harry complained, realizing by shoving
memories of that night down he’d also forgotten to get annoyed by the school’s absurd
system of punishment.

“You what?” Blaise whipped around to Draco once more. “What third floor? That third
floor?”

“Yeah, not telling you about that.” Draco told him bluntly. “You’ll use it for evil.”
Blaise promptly then turned to Harry who seemed alarmingly willing to tell him stuff, but
since he correctly interpreted Draco’s words to mean the untouchable Slytherin would use
that information against Hagrid specifically, Harry was content to follow Draco’s lead.

“That one I’ll keep to myself.”

“Fine, but more importantly you know what’s on the third floor!?” Blaise gave up rather
quickly, sensing a loosing battle and getting back on track.

“Yeah, a hound of hell. Now shut up, we’re supposed to be visiting Harry.” Draco shoved
him and he pouted dramatically.

Also, it was clear Blaise wasn’t 100% sure if Draco was lying to him or not about the hound
of hell comment, which Harry found entertaining. Slytherins got a kick out of honesty, and
Draco had spent enough time at the Gryffindor table this year that he’d learned to use honesty
like a weapon, which Harry found absolutely hilarious.

His gleeful snickering earned him a couple eye rolls, but he memorized the feeling happily,
knowing he was going to need happy memories of friends to get him through this coming
summer.

000

Blaise and Theo left the other two in the hospital wing when Pomfrey came back with a
veritable armful of potions, all the Slytherins being good enough at potions to immediately
recognize what they were—and it was not hard as snakes who were more than aware of what
the dark lord was capable of to realize what had probably happened. What they felt on the
matter was irrelevant, because the look on Draco’s face told them he and their favorite
Gryffindor would need a moment to themselves to talk.

Draco’s mother-hen habits were getting increasingly annoying as they got worse over the
year, but honestly Harry kind of deserved it for how much trouble he kept getting into. Either
way, neither of them wanted to be there for that (there would be far too many emotions and
compromising topics brought up) so they’d quickly made their exit and told them to meet
them at the Slytherin table for lunch. That was as friendly as they were going to get—never
would they actually admit they may or may not be concerned about the Gryffindor, but
officially inviting him to their table for once had cheered Harry visibly and told them their
silent message had been received anyway.

They left the hospital wing in silence as they made their way back to the Slytherin dorm for
lack of better option since there was nothing to do this last day as first years but kill time
before the end of term feast.

When fully alone and out of earshot of just about anyone, Blaise spoke up.

“So. What was it?” He questioned lightly, referencing the book Theo had spent that visit so
interested by.

He only paused a few seconds to spare the boy beside him an unreadable look.
“…beginner’s guide to Occlumency. Just… not in so many words.”

Blaise tilted his head back, humming thoughtfully to himself.

“Hm…. Probably for the best.” He decided with a shrug. “Considering who he just faced…
probably also the reason he’s alive.”

Theo just looked back down the empty hallway blankly.

“Probably.” He agreed shortly, and they walked back to their common room in pensive
silence.
 Coming Rains
Chapter Notes

So, shortest chapter ever?

Just trying to overcome writer's block and procrastinating trying to plan out what the
heck happens in second year :(

The sky and I, we get along, but only when it rains.

The sea and I, we get along, but only when it rains.
When waves turn rough and bitter grey,
and my eyes are made to be the same.

It was written in Dell’s journal, but it wasn’t her handwriting. The poem was signed by a
William, which Harry guessed was probably this archrival of her’s who owned the potions
shop next to his favorite ancestor’s once upon a time. In the seven journals he’d read over the
past year since finding them, Dell had never once mentioned the man she loved to hate by
name—calling him ‘that man’ or ‘that rat-tailed cowlick’ amongst other increasingly creative
insults as the pages went on. She did seem to favor calling him a ‘thick willy’ which Harry
was sure was supposed to be a derogatory comment on a piece of male anatomy but could
also double as a very creative pun on his name if indeed it was true that this enemy was
named William.

It had startled him to turn a page in the latest journal he was reading through and see
handwriting that clearly wasn’t Dell’s in the pages that clearly she kept very close to her
throughout her life. From what he’d gathered of this William character, he wasn’t unlike
Percy Weasley in how uptight he was (at least from Dell’s perspective) but he clearly also had
a devious, if not vindictive streak that outmatched the Wesley twins too. Or even Blaise.

In fact, Harry had started imagining this unnamed rival as a red-headed Blaise in his mind’s
eye which was incredibly weird but it kind of just fit too. Now that he had a name and had
clearly stolen her journal to… write her poetry (?) Harry was also kind of imagining a Cedric
Diggory kind of vibe to him.

Cedric was an upper year Hufflepuff that Hannah had a not-so-subtle infatuation with and she
was the type of girl who would actually swoon if someone wrote her poetry. The guy wasn’t
that much older than them but he had a jawline cut from marble and suave coolness to him
that Harry found entertaining—mostly because he’d heard Hannah go on about him for quite
some time and given how it visibly annoyed Susan he would never not find that funny. He
took extreme joy in asking Hannah to tell him more about Cedric’s freckles just to see
Susan’s blood pressure rise and it was totally worth it.
But still. He had no idea if Cedric were the type of guy to write poetry but Hannah sure
thought he was through her rose-tinted glasses, so Harry’s mental image of this William
fellow was getting odder by the second.

The clouds and I, we get along, but only when it rains.

The sail and I, we get along, but only when it rains.
With rope-burn palms and stringy locks
to remind what won’t be tamed.

While he’d been thankful Pomfrey kept him under to treat him after that last near-death
experience of the school year, he also realized way too late that it also meant his remaining
time at Hogwarts had gone from most of a week to a little under a day left very suddenly, and
by the time he’d sat at the end of term feast he almost couldn’t actually enjoy it from how
much he was dreading the coming day. He’d had lunch at the Slytherin table and basked in
how he actually felt like he belonged there now, even with most of them carefully avoiding
the subject he knew was all on their minds.

Blaise had obviously made the whole house aware of what had happened even before Harry
set foot out of the hospital wing, and Slytherins had complicated emotions about the dark
lord. He wasn’t the person they were going to talk to about it though, or even talk about it in
front of him, so it kind of felt like there’d been an elephant at the table with them no one was
talking about despite being otherwise actually willing to talk to him in general now.

They were willing to have him there, but that didn’t mean he was going to be privy to things
like that and he was quick to accept it. He had complicated emotions about that asshole dark
lord too, and he wasn’t about to go chatting with Theo about them despite liking the guy as a
brand new friend now. He was still mulling over how to talk to Draco about it even, so he got
it.

Draco had been… quiet, when he saw Pomfrey hand him a rather large box of potions and
began taking him through which ones to take and when. While she didn’t talk about what
they were in front of another student, Draco loved potions and his godfather had been
tutoring him for years before Hogwarts.

He knew.

He knew as soon as he saw them, because Harry saw his expression and there was no way he
didn’t know.

The blond didn’t say anything about it despite it being very clear he knew, but as soon as
Blaise and Theo had gotten out of earshot, he had very quietly told him to write every day
over the summer. There were… complicated emotions in both of them and they were only
eleven. While Harry thought himself so clever sometimes, even he knew there was no way he
could actually talk about this, at least not well and definitely not in a meaningful way that
would fix a damn thing, and he appreciated that Draco seemed self-aware enough to realize
the same. Writing letters had always been easier for them too, for some reason. If they were
going to talk and actually make progress with whatever… this was, it was likely going to be
with a pen and paper, not spoken.
Actually talking about it seemed… so hard, right now.

And Harry couldn’t spare the time to muster up the courage to talk about it now because he’d
just spent all his energy and courage surviving a nightmare in the dark depths of this very
school he loved so much and now had less than 24 hours to enjoy being here before he was
going to be walking into a different sort of nightmare for the next couple months. So he did
what he did so well and buried it, making a note to come back and dig it up when he was in a
better place to think about such things. And maybe he would also include Draco in that
mental exercise sometime but it was going to have to be his own battle first, and his friend
would maybe help him deal with the aftermath when he finally got around to confronting this
ugly, painful mess he was locking away for now.

He tried so hard to enjoy his last afternoon and the leaving feast, but when you try to have
fun and make each moment last, suddenly it’s not so fun anymore. He tried to eat but he
really wasn’t hungry after everything, and Gryffindor won the house cup, but he had literally
never cared about that in any way so it really didn’t make him feel much better. When it was
announced he was mildly entertained by the filthy looks Montague received from his house,
but as he was sitting at the Gryffindor table he only got a couple glimpses of it before his
housemates got so rowdy and loud his head started to hurt. He even tried to finish the night
off on a high note with treacle tart but the sugar on an otherwise empty stomach just made his
headache worse.

Despite being miserable to do so, he called it an early night and thus slipped away his last
hours at Hogwarts in a fitful sleep. He wanted to spend at least this last night with his
dormmates goofing off, playing one last game of exploding snap or something—he
desperately wanted to do that, but he knew he’d just be miserable there too as his headache
got worse and the weariness he hadn’t felt after just waking up in the hospital wing set in
fully.

He didn’t feel happy going to bed alone, but he knew he’d be unhappy with his friends who
meant so much to him despite loving them and that would suck even worse. It was an all-
around terrible situation and he defaulted on at least trying to make tomorrow better by
catching some rest.

Not that it really fixed anything as he woke up the next morning still feeling horrible. He felt
slightly better after taking his potions and brushing his teeth free of the taste, but it was a bad
omen for this coming summer.

The wind and I, we get along, but only when it rains.

The wake and I, we get along, but only when it rains.
A steady chaos, I traverse with care
that screams its song within my brain.

He was carefully saving his calming droughts so he hadn’t taken one that morning as they got
onto the train for home. They would only last a couple weeks before their stasis charms wore
off so it was kind of a use-them-or-lose-them situation but he knew he would definitely need
them more with his relatives than on a train with his friends. The unfortunate result though
was that he did not feel good in the slightest.
Everyone was talking too loud, he couldn’t focus for long periods of time on any one
conversation, when he withdrew from conversations he felt bad for being antisocial but when
he was part of it he felt awkward and annoyed by all the sounds and movement around him,
he had a headache that was only getting worse, and his shoulders started to feel sore from the
tension that was slowly mounting underneath his facade of calm without him noticing. The
dread he felt for the train actually making it home, the desperation to enjoy what little time he
had left and therefore ruining it by being too desperate, the slowly mounting irritation at
everything around him…

And worst of all, as that he’d already burst into tears twice today and it wasn’t even noon.

The first was all Hagrid’s fault, who’d surprised him with a scrapbook of pictures of his
parents.

His parents.

He’d only opened to the first page before he had exploded in tears, Hagrid being so alarmed
he kind of crushed him in a hug so incredibly tight that Neville actually started wailing on
Hagrid’s arm to let him go before he suffocated from both the grip and the emotional
meltdown he was having. They hadn’t had a lot of time before Neville and Draco once again
put aside their differences to all but drag him up onto the train less he be left behind (if only
he could get away with that) so Harry knew he owned Hagrid a very nice thank you letter
later which he hoped would be much better articulated than whatever had come out of his
mouth at the time. He’d been so wrecked he actually couldn’t remember what he’d said but
he hoped it was gratitude and flattery.

He still wasn’t over it, he knew. He’d never had pictures of his parents before, only seeing
them for the first time in that fucking mirror, but this was so much better he—

No.

Make it back to private drive, lock himself in the shed, finally put that muggle-repelling ward
stone to some use, and then he would let it all out. For now, he reeled it in and kept the book
clutched tightly to his chest like it’d fly away like a bludger if he didn’t keep tight hold of it.

He’d only finally put it into his bag during his second emotional breakdown of the day, when
Blaise had come by to flaunt about his present giving skills again. He didn’t know if he was
being exceptionally obvious or Draco and Neville were used to reading his bullshit by now,
but they both realized he was in no mood for dealing with people and after rotating around
several cabins of all four houses alike and Harry getting overstimulated to the point of being
rather bitchy honestly, they settled on an empty one for just the three of them and for once
Harry was happy that the conversation was usually quiet and stilted between his Slytherin
and Gryffindor friends. He was just in no mood to banter with Draco nor to poke and prod to
get Neville out of his shell, so he was happy to just curl up on one of the benches and let
Neville lean into him bodily while they leafed through Dell’s journal and Harry informed him
all about his favorite adopted ancestor as a lovely distraction from… everything. Draco had
taken the other bench and reading a quidditch book minding his own business, his
comfortable presence being enough and the fact that that was the most casual thing Harry had
ever seen a Slytherin reading making the atmosphere even more relaxed.
Blaise had been ditched in one of the cabins they’d jumped around in earlier and was a
spoiled brat who couldn’t let that slide so of course he’d come to visit, even if he didn’t have
much to talk about. He’d settled for bragging about his gift again but Harry hadn’t seen what
was so great about them—they were two journals that were obviously of incredible quality,
but still just journals. Theo had given him a journal for Christmas and thanks to Daphne he
now knew what kind of underhanded insult that was in Slytherin-gift-giving-language, so he
failed to see the wonderful thing about them.

Blaise had just rolled his eyes and demanded he take them out—which he did because he was
curious where he was going with this, and then got his emotional stability wrecked for the
second time in one morning when the tall Slytherin had revealed they were enchanted linked
journals.

Whatever you wrote in one, would appear in the other. Blaise had then very pointedly taken
one back from him and shoved it in Draco’s wide-eyed face all the while calling Harry
incredibly thick headed, loudly.

It took him several seconds to realize the implications, and promptly burst out crying—again.

He’d jumped up and glomped the untouchable Slytherin in a tight hug and Blaise screamed
bloody murder like he was being stabbed in true Blaise fashion—tossing him off and fleeing
the sobbing Gryffindor with due haste. Draco had laughed brightly at that reaction before
gathering himself to help Neville piece their friend back together after his second breakdown
of the day, and thankfully playing around with the journals some had helped Harry get back
to the calm atmosphere Blaise had ruined and mercifully it remained that way the rest of the
trip to King’s Crossing.

Overall, his journey home was… not a good one. There were some serious ups and downs
and he was not fairing well at getting over any of them. The only saving grace was that Draco
and Neville seemed fully there for him, although he recognized he was being selfish and not
really paying attention to their reactions or attitudes for this odd train ride. He thought he was
at least pretending to keep it together at least on the surface, but by how they were being
nothing but polite and cordial to each other Harry knew he was probably a visible mess. They
didn’t like each other, and he knew that for certain—the fact they were pretending everything
was fine and no one but Blaise had come to bother them meant that everyone knew nothing
about this was fine at all.

Still.

The fact they were pretending for his sake meant everything.

He was going to need to be a less selfish friend in the future, but for now this was everything
to him and he was so relieved to pretend they were all just so happy together because he
really needed it right now. Because nothing was okay and if he started thinking too hard on
that it would start to unravel until he was nothing but a bit of useless string on the ground.

He knew that time was coming, but just for now… this was all he could handle.
The sun and I, we get along, but our friendship will be strained,
for I hate that lying liquid light, that stranger sea…
for it’s the sky and I, we get along, but only when it rains.
The sea and I, we get along, but only when it rains.
 Shadow Cage
Chapter Notes

I would like to thank CORPSE Husband's music and Bundibird for giving me the idea of
where to go with this (◕‿◕)

Harry opened his eyes, automatic despite no alarm and the early hour, and instantly felt
disappointed.

Eventually I’ll get used to it, maybe. Or… maybe I won’t.

He thought in numbers because that was all he could do. Two hours before the Dursleys woke
up, four dreamless sleep potions left, eleven calming draughts, ten days before the stasis
charms wore off on them all, ten weeks before the next school year started, seven more books
until he’d read through his stockpile of textbooks to take his mind off things… he could go
on.

Everything fell back into waiting.

Restlessly.

Dreading each hour but by the time the hour had passed at least it was one more closer to not
being here anymore. Waking up to the muted light in the back of the shed he was living in
instead of a comfy four-poster bed was a distinctly unpleasant jolt to the system each and
every morning. To wake up every single god-damned morning disappointed and wishing with
every fiber of your being to be anywhere else did not put him in a great mood for the rest of
the day, especially when it was a lot harder than he remembered it being to be neutral and
composed around his relatives.

Their comments ate away under his skin and made keeping his face blank and faking the
emotions he needed to a lot more difficult than they’d been in years. He knew it was also
likely because of his newfound emotional instability which made him irrationally angry at
odd moments.

He’d lost count of how many times the frustration and humiliation of being shoved back into
a servant role for this absolute dickwads of human beings had brought unwilling tears to his
eyes, causing him to bend his head over whatever he was cleaning in hopes no one noticed.
He could only imagine how utterly horrible it would be if Petunia actually caught him crying
for once, and he was all but desperate to avoid it.

The thing he hated the most though was how he couldn’t control it.
He couldn’t control when he was sad or angry or happy (ha, as if) and now he couldn’t even
fake those things. He knew Pomfrey had told him to let his emotions run their course to help
heal, but he couldn’t exactly afford to do that at the moment when any weakness or
unplanned emotion in front of his relatives spelled trouble that he really just could not handle
at this moment.

It had only been two weeks and Harry had had enough.

He rolled over on his thin mattress and laced hands through his hair, having the oddly
hysterical urge to just rip it out and dwell in the pain of it rather than focus on his spinning
thoughts, but he just barely managed not to do that.

He had asked Axeclaw what felt like years ago now, about what would happen if he, say,
weren’t living with a legal guardian for one reason or another? He had to know, because legal
guardian or not if he could just take off and live in some muggle hotel who wouldn’t ask
questions about what a soon-to-be-twelve year old was out on his own, he would in a bloody
heartbeat. Thankfully the goblin didn’t care and had looked it up, and told him in no
uncertain terms that one of the charters of Hogwarts was having a legal guardian—to attend
you needed to be (1) magical and of the right age for an appropriate magical core size, and
(2) paying the tuition and agreeing to follow school rules, one of said rules being that
underage students must have a legal guardian on file in case of emergency or an emancipation
letter signed by the Minster of Magic himself. When asked about that letter, because of
course he’d asked, the goblin told him it was very common during several past wars for
children to be orphaned and their potential guardians perhaps being on a different side of the
war—families had been ripped apart by the ideals of Grindelwald, after all, with brothers and
sisters, parents and children divided on his stances. It hadn’t been used since that war though,
not even during the last war, mostly in part because the Headmaster of Hogwarts needed to
be the one to write said letter and officially petition the Minster to sign it. And Albus
Dumbledore had never once done that in his term as Headmaster, Axeclaw told him.

Harry wanted to be so bloody furious at the headmaster when he’d heard that, but he just
didn’t have the emotional capacity for it right now. He had bigger issues to focus on, and he’d
get there later.

His next question had of course been what constitutes as a legal guardian, and let’s just say
Harry had outright laughed (though he felt no joy or humor as he did it) to read through the
legal definitions Axeclaw had sent him.

‘A guardian with responsibility for both the personal well-being and the financial interests of
the ward’. What utter bullshit. He thought darkly.

Worse (because somehow it got worse) was that to be a legal guardian to an orphaned ward,
said guardian needed to be approved by an official—a judge or someone of equal or greater
authority. In Harry’s case a judge could’ve looked at his parents’ will and done what was
requested in it, but the thing was that they didn’t have to.

Legally, the judge could do whatever the hell they thought was best for a ward and there was
no repercussions for it. Even the ‘trial’ for it was a farce at best as there didn’t need to be any
set court date or anyone but the judge themselves present to make the decree, and no you
could not petition to have the judge’s decision appealed or reconsidered.

And oh yeah, do you know who has a greater authority than normal judges?

Supreme fucking Mugwump, that’s who.

And oh yeah, the Minster had the power to counteract what the Supreme Mugwump did, but
so far as Axeclaw was aware Fudge had never told Dumbledore no in his bloody life.

It makes no sense, the wizarding world is so absolutely screwed up it just makes no sense.
Mugwump is like the magical equivalent of a UN representative, why does he outweigh a
judge’s authority on anything?

Harry knew there was a reason he didn’t like the headmaster and now he had several, with
evidence to back himself up too.

I hate this.

He groaned into his pillow, and it came out more as a scream honestly. A helpless shout of
indignation and fury and frustration at the whole terrible situation. Not only was he well and
truly stuck with the Dursleys as his legal guardians if he couldn’t get Dumbledore to
reconsider his decree (fat chance, he was sure), not only did he have to maintain them as his
guardians if he wanted to continue to attend Hogwarts, but he ALSO needed to actually put
in time here to prove they even were his guardians. If he just took off and didn’t even come
back for the summer, there was a legitimate chance someone could contact the Dursleys and
ask if he was even living here. If he wasn’t, and he wasn’t accounted for at school or
otherwise, he’d lost his legal guardians and therefore also his spot at Hogwarts.

He wrapped his hands into his hair again and fought the urge to pull until his scalp bleed.

It wouldn’t be so bad if, when tracked down for being awol he could finally explain they
were abusive fucks who shouldn’t be in charge of children (not even Dudley who they were
going to send to an early grave with his weight alone) but there was this one stupid rule that
these ‘checks’ on your ‘legal guardian’ should happen once a year.

Which meant Hogwarts knew about the Dursleys. Someone had met these assholes and
thought, yeah they seem like fine upstanding citizens to leave an orphaned child with.

The person who checked was probably a wizard, and unless they’d lied to Petunia and
Vernon about it and passed themselves as muggle (which Harry doubted, since wizards had a
superiority complex which meant to muggles who knew about magic they never hid
themselves) then this Hogwarts representative had met them at their ugliest. Their most foul-
mouthed, magic-hating, hypocritical-BS selves and thought, yeah this is fine.

And Harry guessed the only person either stupid, cruel, or ignorant enough to do something
like that would be Dumbledore himself. (And maybe Snape, if he’d be bothered to check on
any student who wasn’t a Slytherin).
Axeclaw told him it was very possible. It was also entirely possible that Dumbledore hadn’t
done the check and just said he did. Yeah, that was totally legal apparently just so long as the
headmaster said he’d done it, with no proof whatsoever.

Harry liked magic and all, but he had never hated the wizarding world more than he did at
this moment.

Is Hogwarts worth it? He wondered, as he sat up with utter dread and dragged himself over
to where he kept his ‘Dursley approved’ clothes in a basket—meaning Dudley’s filthy hand-
me-downs. It was still too early for there to be much light to navigate by, but the clothes were
ugly as a rule and he didn’t care to dress up for his relatives so it hardly matter what he pulled
on anyway.

I could risk it. I’ll need to get Petunia to let me go to restock on potions in a couple weeks
anyway, and that would be… a third way through the break? I could just leave a letter saying
I’m staying with a friends—they’d be happy to be rid of me and I made an appearance here
maybe enough for them to say I was here—or lived here at one time. It’d even technically be
true and my mental imaging books say the best lies to tell are ones that are half true. I could
take the Knight Bus to anywhere, a hotel for a couple days and maybe ask Axeclaw about
those Monroe properties he mentioned. No one would question me being at my own property
if Axeclaw could expedite the process of whatever he needed to do to reopen them…

And if they catch me and for someone reason know I’ve run away, would being expelled from
Hogwarts really be that bad? Is it worth this?

It was only those thoughts of planning to escape that got him through getting ready for the
day, brushing his hair and tucking it beneath his beanie like always and pinning it down as
tight as he could. His hair had gotten a lot longer over the school year which made hiding it
all harder—a bandana no longer cut it unfortunately but luckily none of his relatives cares
about his hat either.

He tried not to think too hard on anything but his dreams of being anywhere but here as he
slipped out of the shed in the early morning light and made his way into the main house,
being as quiet as possible as he entered the kitchen and began assembling what he needed for
the Dursley’s breakfast and for once not feeling like he wanted to skim any of the food off the
top for himself. He hadn’t really been hungry since getting back to Private Drive, although he
did eat when he knew he should. He only quickly downed his required two potions on
Pomfrey’s orders, saving his calming draught for later in the day—if today followed the
patterns of the last couple weeks, he’d be on house chores all morning and knew he’d need it
after Petunia wore him down with her sharp comments and then kicked him outside to do
yard work in the blistering heat of the summer.

Afternoons and evenings when he could no longer avoid the thoughts he managed to shove
down in the blur of the mornings was when he needed the calming draughts most, he found.
He could handle the quiet mornings and suffer through the first chores of the day the best he
could, using them to get through the rest of the day as he found there was really no way to
survive a full day here otherwise.
Is Hogwarts really worth it? He found himself repeating, the questioning eating away at him.
Logically he knew it was, he would miss it something awful if he got expelled after only one
year and he’d finally made some really good friends (finally made progress with the
Slytherins) and it would all be for nothing if he never went back. He knew he’d probably still
be able to keep writing letters to Draco, Neville and most of the other Gryffindors would still
be his friends no matter what because they were great people like that… but he’d likely not
be able to keep being friends with the likes of Blaise or Theo, not to mention most of the
casual friends he’d gathered would froget about him with another six years to grow up, he
was sure.

And just think of all the people he’d never meet—all the people who’d start at Hogwarts later
he’d never even get the chance to know. All the holidays and classes… McGonagall….

Logically, he’d be fine. Even if he did get caught, and there was still a chance he wouldn’t get
caught, but if he did he would probably be forced to either come back here or decreed another
legal guardian depending on who caught him. If it was Dumbledore, and it probably would
be given how nosy the old man seemed to be in Harry’s life, he’d probably send him back
here to the Dursleys. Who would be pissed Harry had brought wizards to their doorstep, so
that would suck.

But he probably wouldn’t actually be expelled from Hogwarts. If he were, there wasn’t
exactly anyone who could force him to continue to live with his ‘legal guardians’ if he went
through the goblins to buy some property if he didn’t already have one somewhere and ward
the living hell out of it from all intruders, even ministry officials. He knew enough from
Draco and the other Slytherins that money fixed a lot of issues with the Ministry of Magic so
he could probably afford to work around any legal issues that might cause. So, if he were
expelled he’d definitely be free of the Dursleys permanently which would be a wonderful
thing all around, actually. And he knew there were other magical schools out there, he could
probably attend there if he didn’t want to just pay private tutors to teach him enough to pass
his OWLs and NEWTs, which was technically the only requirement one needed.

And need was a questionable word as he was still a rich child who could open ten shops this
moment without risking going bankrupt so he didn’t really need the good OWL scores to get
a job—he didn’t need a job with his inheritance, to be blunt.

But that was probably an unrealistic line of thinking even if it was true—the chances of them
actually expelling The Boy Who Lived from Hogwarts because of a truancy issue seemed low,
since wizards seemed very concerned about what the general community thought of them as
a whole and that would earn Dumbledore a huge amount of flack (Harry was willing to go to
every paper he knew of and give as dramatic an interview as he needed to rake the
Headmaster through the mud if he dared). And anyway, Mr. Malfoy was on the school board
so if he got Draco to invite him over, Harry was sure he could figure out a way to prevent
actually being expelled if the Malfoys protecting him—again, Draco was spoiled so while he
himself had nothing to offer to his parents in exchange for their help, if Draco asked for
something he would definitely get it even if that meant going against the Ministry. They’d
been a dark family until recently after all, it probably wouldn’t even be that hard for them.
He didn’t want to get expelled, he would miss Hogwarts too much. He knew that, but it was
really hard to remember that the longer being stuck in this hellhole stretched on. Every
demeaning chore and derisive comment that made his throat close up in welling emotion of
both rage and hurt made the yoke around his neck heavier and blurred the clear image in his
head of Hogwarts’ beautiful walls and the lush green quidditch pitch and Hagrid’s little hut
and McGonagall’s office and the expansive library and the feasts in the Great Hall…

Teasing Blaise over breakfast. Flying in an exhilarating quidditch game to the cheers of a
stadium. Playing soccer with the club. Waking up in a luxurious four poster bed to the
beautiful grounds outside his window. Watching Susan and Lu bicker over lunch on a lazy
Saturday. Sneaking around with the twins or witnessing one of their epic pranks. Staying up
too late in Gryffindor dorm playing exploding snap. Getting something right with
Transfiguration and getting one of McGonagall’s rare smiles. Sitting in Hagrid’s hut with a
gallon of tea and a listening ear. The luscious feasts of magical food. Going over politics with
Daphne in the dark corners of the library. Chatting with Neville in the greenhouses. Walking
around the lake with Draco just because they could to get away from prying ears. Finally
getting a chance to figure out just who the heck Theo was behind his books.

Yeah, he would regret getting himself expelled to no end just because he couldn’t suffer
through a couple weeks with these assholes a year.

It was just really hard to remember that sometimes.

Especially when he knew it would not be the end of the world if he did get expelled, just
unpleasant. He wouldn’t choose it out of all his options but he would be fine without
Hogwarts, he knew.

There had to be a compromise though, something he could actually do to get out of here but
still secure his spot at Hogwarts. By the time he needed new potions that had to be long
enough, he could get out of here under the pretense of just visiting friends like everyone did
during the summer, there shouldn’t be a problem with that, right? The wizarding world loved
to call him a celebrity so he had to be able to use that for something good and get away with
it, right?

He winced as a thud from upstairs signaled the residents of the house awake, and he checked
the sizzling breakfast for it’s doneness. It seemed fine…

He took a steadying breathe and tried not to think of anything important to make it through
the next couple of hours.

000

Why are you so sore?

I’ve been practicing quidditch pretty much all day since there’s nothing else to do besides
study and I’m pretty sick of that already. If I’m going to play quidditch with you I’ll need to
make the team, won’t I?
I thought you said you were good enough to make it last year, McGonagall was just biased
:)

Oh ha

Harry smiled broadly at that short response in his enchanted journal that was still somehow
sarcastic despite it just being flat text on a page in Draco’s elegant handwriting. He didn’t
tease too hard as he could tell the blond was legitimately worried about actually getting onto
the Slytherin team; he’d talked the big talk after all which he was so great at, but the actual
living up to it usually stressed him out to no end. No one had higher expectations of him than
Draco himself, after all, although Slytherins in general also were kind of merciless about
judging others up to their own standards too so maybe his worries weren’t entirely
unfounded…

You saw they came out with a new Nimbus series? The Nimbus 2001 and I want one.

Of course you do. I love my Nimbus 2000 though.

The 2001 is so much better though and you can afford it

It’s not about that though—it was a gift! Imagine Snape actually gave you a broom

Okay fair

I’m still getting one though

Naturally .

I was considering buying the whole team new brooms—that’d be a way to ensure my spot and
Slytherin would think it clever.

They wouldn’t look a gift horse like that in the mouth when your intentions are so bloody
clear, but clever?

If Slytherin wins because they have the best brooms I don’t care how unsubtle it is.

Of course you don’t, but Slytherin isn’t going to win because they have the nicest brooms.

Says you

Yes I do, I’m still going to kick your asses on my last season broom.

And before you start talking about the advantages of brooms, yes they exist if you’re
talking about a Nimbus versus a Comet, but literally last season’s broom verses this one?
There’s hardly any noticeable benefit and if you need a better broom to beat me you’re not
actually that good—there I said it

You’re so mean.

But I’m right.

Fine

I’m still getting one, obviously.

I never thought you wouldn’t.

Anyway, did you hear the rumor about who the next Defense professor is? It’s a bloody lark.

Harry hadn’t heard a thing from the wizarding world since getting back to his relatives’ like
rumors or the latest new broom release, and he’d never subscribed to the Daily Prophet as
from what he’d read over Neville’s shoulder at breakfast most days it seemed to be more a
gossip rag than an actual newspaper. Also, it was happy to talk trash or unfounded praise
about him so in general he was just happier not reading it or giving it any time in his day.

Stuck in the muggle world and bored as hell, already almost through his homework and
stashed books with only writing Draco late into the night to look forward to, he kind of
regretted it. So did Hedwig who was not happy to be so bored since her main source of
entertainment was just hunting now, instead of flying back and forth to Draco as she had last
summer—and for most of the school year too. Draco also said she loved to torture Bastian,
his eagle-owl, so he’d taken to sending short notes to Neville and his other Gryffindor
friends, as well as blank pages to Draco just so she could annoy Bastian every so often.

Bastian didn’t appreciate the sentiment but Hedwig certainly came back happier. Harry felt
slightly bad and now included owl treats for the poor eagle-owl in Hedwig’s missives (and
they were definitely Hedwig’s missives as there was no need for Harry to send anything to
Draco thanks to these journals).

Harry was happy to just read Draco’s rant about the new Defense professor, who certainly did
sound like a hack, escaping his reality for a little bit in the dark summer night of his dusty
shed.

000

He was standing in a hallway at Hogwarts, hundreds of paintings on the wall but their faces
seemed oddly blank or twisted into soundless screams. Or just frozen, as if the life and magic
inside of it had died.

It was so quiet, deep into the night and well past curfew. He knew he should be hurrying back
somewhere, knew he shouldn’t be there. It was too late, it was too quiet. Someone was
waiting around every corner to catch him, and it made his stomach twist.

It was too dark—there were no windows and usually there were windows in this old castle to
let some of the light of the stars or the moon in, but tonight this hallway was just frozen or
silent paintings that stretched into an impenetrable darkness ahead of him.

He had to be quiet… he took a step but it didn’t feel like he was going anywhere. He was
concentrating too hard on being silent, on his feet finding purchase on the hard stone floor
without making so much as a whisper that he wasn’t going anywhere. And there was this
urgency so intense, this need to get out as fast as humanly possible because he was running
out of time but he just couldn’t move.

Suddenly, a hand reached out from the darkness in front of him, as if offering him help from
his frustration and the heart pounding hotly in his throat. Without thinking he reached out and
took it, because it seemed only so natural to do.

It pulled him forward slightly before suddenly going slack, a grip still around his hand but
like the person attached to it had just given out and stopped pulling him—and then it felt too
lose. Something wasn’t right.

He looked down and a severed hand rested in his, before his eyes crumbling to dust and the
feeling of clammy skin turning to dry ash and coursing over his skin like liquid sand filled
him with a horror and disgust so think he choked on it. It was an emotion to intense he felt
his whole arm jerk as if rejecting it, and a gut-wrenching repulsion strangled him, surging up
his throat like he was about to be sick.

He screamed.

And woke in a dark shed, breathing harshly and wondering numbly if anyone had heard him.

000

The nightmares were getting worse; he’d run out of dreamless sleep potions and he’d gone
through his calming draughts faster than he’d been planning to. But Madam Pomfrey’s words
about being kind to himself were still relatively fresh in his mind and he knew they were
going to expire soon anyway so he might as well use them.

And if they ran out faster and gave him an excuse to plan a way to get to Diagon Alley to buy
more earlier than anticipated, then wonderful. Maybe he wouldn’t need them as much outside
of the Dursley’s even.

Maybe.

His excuse was already in place—he’d cornered Petunia and told her people were expecting
him in one week to meet up to buy school supplies and she’d acted like she hadn’t heard him
but he knew she had. He recognized it was very early in the summer for that but he had no
plan on coming back here once he got free and he doubted they would miss him anyway.

The fact he now only had one week left brought a sense of relief even if that week seemed
like ten years at times too for how the hours seemed to drag on. He’d timed it so that he’d be
gone two days before Dudley’s birthday so hopefully they’d be so wrapped up in that they
wouldn’t even care he wasn’t there to cook the veritable feasts they always demanded of him
on their special days.

000

It was two days before he was due to leave that everything went wrong.
He was worn thin, his nerves nothing but fraying ends of wire and he distantly recognized
this but he was so focused on making it through the day he didn’t immediately realize it was
a problem.

He had a couple calming draughts left anyway, so things were fine, right?

Things would only get bad when he ran out, right?

He didn’t realize he hadn’t lifted his head in days, hadn’t seen the irritation in the Dursleys
faces as he seemed to ignore them. And yeah, he was ignoring them, because he was going to
die if he didn’t focus on breathing and blinking and doing whatever task was in front of him
instead of the world around him.

He forgot that ignoring his relatives was a bad, bad tactic for handling them.

He should’ve been focusing on them, on outmaneuvering them, but just avoiding them to
survive wasn’t a good plan.

If they were going to avoid each other, they’d prefer him locked in a cupboard rather than
free to roam their house. He should’ve engaged with them and used their arrogance against
them like he used to, even if it hurt and humiliated him to be forced to play their game and be
the scapegoat for everything they could think of.

But he didn’t, because he thought he could get lost in the rhythmic routine of doing the same
chores every day and if he got into the habit of just doing it all without complaint or reaction,
it would be easier.

But they liked his reactions—his crumpled expressions and his pain.

Because they were monsters, he realized.

He realized, far too late. I mean he’d always known, but he hadn’t truly understood until
now.

He had gotten lost in the rhythm, and it was easier. But when he was suddenly snapped out of
it he felt something inside of him snap too.

It started with a plate crashing into the sink where he was washing dishes, and it shattered
loudly. He jerked back, sloshing water all over himself and the kitchen in shock and then the
water turned a garish pink as he felt a sting on his hand. A piece had cut him, and the sting of
dirty hot water and dish soap in an open wound had his head rising in surprise and alarm—
and annoyance. Finally recognizing this world he’d been drowning out.

“BOY!”

He flinched, recognizing his expression had probably been annoyed. Dudley was silently
gloating at him, sticking his tongue out from near the breakfast table, having been the one to
throw the plate. And Harry wasn’t allowed to be annoyed at Dudley, he’d forgotten for a
second.
“Break another plate and no dinner for a week! What do you think you are, breaking our
property like a hoodlum, after we let you into this house!”

Right, because Dudley had thrown it and Harry was at fault. Of course.

“Yes sir,” he managed to get out.

“What was that?” Uncle Vernon was behind him suddenly, and Harry flinched again. Had his
tone been off? Shit, he hadn’t been thinking of if he’d actually sounded as annoyed as he felt.

“Sorry sir,” he shrunk in on himself pointedly in a show of submission and hoped that tone
was a lot more believable.

Vernon’s eyes narrowed, but he seemed to buy that his warning had been received.

That is, until another plate came crashing into the sink behind him and that too shattered with
a loud crack in the tiny kitchen, more water splashing everywhere.

And Vernon had been looking right at him, with his son fully in his periphery to be able to
see him throw it. Petunia was still sitting at the kitchen table sipping her breakfast tea, and
only lifted her head to glare venomously at him. Not Dudley, not Vernon, but him.

“That’s it! No dinner—you do your chores and get out! Dare break another thing in my house
and you’ll regret the day we let you in!” His uncle bellowed in his ugly way and Harry felt
his hackles rise.

It wasn’t fair.

None of it was.

He was tired.

He was worn thin to absolutely nothing.

Vernon’s shouting, Dudley’s chubby laughter at his expense, Petunia’s glare like he somehow
deserved this—

—it all grated on his overstimulated nerves like steel wool and he was already nothing but
raw skin over tired muscles and fraying nerves and it felt like fire.

He couldn’t take it anymore, and against his better judgement, he opened his mouth.

“You saw him throw it!” He defended himself, and all three Dursleys startled at him actually
talking back. He hadn’t done that in… well, had he ever? He went from being frightened and
submissive as a child to faking being submissive to get what he wanted later on before
Hogwarts. He’d never talked back to them or even acted like he was anything but meek and
cowardly and it gave them free reign to be as terrible as they wanted to him. That had been
fine when he’d been in control without them knowing it… but he felt kind of scared that he
very much was not in control now.
“What did you say, boy?” Vernon hissed, looking apoplectic in rage.

“He threw it! You saw him!” He continued to dig his grave but he couldn’t handle it
anymore. He knew he sounded slightly hysterical but he wasn’t in control now, he just
wasn’t.

“How dare you accuse my Dudikins!” Petunia was on her feet now, hands over her
overweight child’s shoulders defensively as if he were the one out of line here.

Harry realized far too belatedly that there was no winning this fight, that you couldn’t reason
with blatant hypocrisy and flat out cruel stupidity, and he would’ve shut his mouth and hoped
his momentary loss of sanity hadn’t messed everything up, when Vernon finally found his
voice again after standing there in stunned raged for a couple seconds too long.

“LAIR! Filthy little liar like your parents—why we ever bothered with you I don’t know!
You’re just like them, useless and freakish! Get out! Get out now!” he bellowed and Harry
was stunned.

What … did he just say?

And it didn’t make any sense because Vernon Dursley had said way worse before and Harry
had been fully able to ignore it every single time. Because hurtful words from someone too
stupid to be kind meant nothing—it never had.

This time though, he most certainly couldn’t ignore it and for the life of him he couldn’t bring
himself to understand why.

“Look in a mirror before you call anyone useless or a liar you cow!” He automatically
shouted and Vernon actually took a step back in shock. “My parents weren’t liars, they died
protecting me!”

“They did not!” Petunia got her voice back first, first pale and now flushed red. “They got
themselves blown up by a madman for being freaks!”

“For being brave enough to stand up to the bloody dark lord, you mean! You wouldn’t know
bravery if it bit you in the ass!”

“DON’T YOU DARE TALK TO MY WIFE THAT WAY, YOU BRAT!” Vernon bellowed,
taking a menacing step forward and Harry was suddenly very aware that he was pinned in the
corner between the counter and the sink with any means of escape blocked by all three
Dursleys. Vernon and Petunia had never actually hit him besides grabbing him to toss him out
of their sight here and there, but Dudley sure had and despite him standing there with a
gaping look of dumb shock on his face, if Harry tried to bolt past him he’d likely
automatically take a swing just on principle.

He was very, very covered and it got every hair on his body standing straight up. Nightmares
that had stolen weeks of sleep from him seeming to echoing uneasily in the corners of his
clouded mind and got his heart pumping far too hard. His breathing wasn’t coming out right,
though he only vaguely recognized that.
“THE ONLY REASON YOU’RE ALLOWED HERE IS THE GOODNESS OF OUR
HEARTS AND IF YOU DARE GO TALKING TO US LIKE THAT YOU’LL REGRET
IT!”

Harry seethed.

“What goodness!? You have no heart!” he snapped, and inhaled sharply as a huge, meaty
hand clamped down over his left arm.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY, BOY!?”

Suddenly, it wasn’t a tiny white kitchen he was standing in, it was a large dark hallway. The
swampy flesh of something nasty and dangerous wrapped around him, the bones in his
shoulder creaking and giving way in stress and the eerily familiar pressure on his arm now
made him forget absolute everything but that he needed to get away, now.

All instinct, rejecting everything all at once with the brief heart-stoppingly intense terror only
being inches from death could actually conjure.

He wasn’t sure what happened, all he knew was that the air was unnaturally hot and the
moist, filthy hand on him was wrenched away as if burned. There was a shattering sound so
loud his ears ached, and when his vision cleared a second later, every single thing that had
been on the counters, the tables, the shelves around the kitchen… was broken on the floor,
bits of broken glass and ceramic rolling to a stop across the now covered white tiles amongst
twisted metal scraps of ex-kitchen appliances and splintered wooden cooking utensils.

What…

All three Dursleys had backed up, horror and unadulterated fear etched into every line of
their hideous faces. Not a single one spared the chaos around them a glance, they were
looking at him.

Oh…no. That wasn’t…?

Oh shit. That was, wasn’t it?

I’m dead.

He recognized he’d had bouts of accidental magic in the past, although nothing to ever call
much attention to. McGonagall had told him some children were just restrained, and in his
desire to be in control as much as possible in his life in Private Drive, Harry figured he’d put
a lid on most accidental magic pretty early in life without realizing it. Anything to not cause
trouble, anything to keep his life quiet and expected, after all.

His control was clearly pretty good, given his skill in Transfiguration. His magical core was
living up to the Potter reputation though, and he’d been told this by many this given he’d had
incidents of accidental magic at Hogwarts, usually connected to his bubbling temper
problems that most students got to see in full detail in one way or another over the past
school year. Almost no one ever had accidental magic problems once they got their wand and
started using it, as that outlet was supposed to calm the bursting magic growing inside of you
with no proper way to be released into the world. Control or not, the fact he still had issues
like that at Hogwarts, no matter how minor they were, spoke to the size of his magical core
and everyone liked to bring it up when they could even if he didn’t care about it at all.

He cared now though.

Because he wasn’t in control now.

Emotionally or otherwise, clearly.

And he’s just lost control of his magic in front of three people who hated magic.

Well, two people who hated magic and one who hadn’t known until this moment that magic
was even real because his parents had tried desperately to keep it hidden from him.

And well, Harry had just blown that out of the water.

Oops.

If he were thinking straight he might’ve realized it was because he’d been pushing his core
all year to get ahead in Transfiguration, and then just stopped cold turkey for the summer. His
core, which was large to begin with, had grown probably quite a bit thanks to his efforts, and
now it was much larger than the typical eleven, soon to be twelve-year-old had to deal with.

Not to mention he wasn’t exactly in the right state of mind to be in control of himself. He
hadn’t even been able to visit his graveyard in weeks, and he wasn’t sure why, but it was
probably related to this newfound emotional instability that he was quickly learning to hate
with a hate that was far too out of his control for him to feel safe.

If he’d been thinking clearly, he might’ve realized that immediately. As it was, he would
eventually put that together…

Now though, he was focused on how the paled faces in front of him were slowly regaining
color, and by the splotchiness in Vernon’s wrinkly folds of face cover his neck, it wasn’t
good.

I’m dead. He repeated numbly. I’ve actually entirely blown it now. Everything I ever did to
protect myself from them, gone.

He flinched and crouched down to curl in on himself when Dudley screamed.

"WHAT WAS THAT!? WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT!?" Vernon was
storming closer now, too-heavy feet remining Harry too much of a bloody troll for his
panicking heart as they stampeded over the broken glass and debris everywhere.

“Duddy, Duddy please--!” Petunia was half shrieking, trying to calm Dudley who was
freaking out with wordless spluttering as he tried to understand what was happening and
failing. His tiny, self-absorbed, incredibly stupid, normal mind his parents had brainwashed
him to be probably couldn’t take the concept that magic was real without breaking entirely. If
even he’d come to the conclusion of magic given his parents insisting since they were both
babes that magic wasn’t real. Harry didn’t know what they’d seen exactly, so he probably
could be thinking his cousin possessed by a poltergeist instead or something equally
supernatural.

Vernon was still bellowing and Harry just curled up tighter and put his hands over his head.

He kept his mouth welded shut now, fear ripping through him in a way he wasn’t proud to
admit. He was so tired of being scared, of being out of control—he’s stood up to lord fucking
Voldemort so this should be nothing! This shouldn’t be so—

"ANSWER ME BOY! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DID YOU DO!?"

He gasped at the screech and something hit the counter over him. He panicked, no words
coming and his normal wit failing him entirely.

What could he say, anyway? It wasn’t me? It was an accident!? Neither would pacify him.

Nothing would fix this.

“ANSWER ME!”

"It will never happen again," He managed to choke out, for lack of any better idea.

"YOU ARE BLOODY RIGHT IT NEVER WILL! NEVER AGAIN!"

SLAM

He heard the loud banging of the cabinet beside him before he felt the sharp smack of pain
where his shoulder and the side of his head at hit it. The meaty whack of the uncoordinated
fist throwing him into it didn’t actually hurt that badly to be honest, as there was enough fat
on it to be cushioned pretty well.

He was very used to pain, and generally just unafraid of it. Rough housing with the
Gryffindor boys, playing against Susan in football, anything quidditch related (particularly
bludgers), not to mention the several near-death experiences he’d had in his short life, a
couple of which had hurt in traumatically more terrible ways than this. This was nothing
compared an actual troll or Lord Voldemort himself—the cruciatus curse—

No, it wasn’t the pain.

It was the helplessness.

It was equal to, if not worse, then staring up at a troll and knowing he was going to get
crushed. Than looking into Quirrell’s eyes after he’d screamed at him and knowing he was
not going to be able to beat a full grown wizard no matter of clever he’d thought he was.

This was maybe not more terrifying, but it was worse. This was years of being trapped all
coming to a head and realizing everything he’d ever did to become who he was had been
totally pointless. Because no matter how clever and manipulative he’d become, no matter
how brave and ambitious, no matter how long he’d spent running circles around the Dursleys
thinking they were nothing but the muggle sheep Draco liked to call people, they still had the
power here.

No matter what he’d ever done, he was still a child who cowered and got kicked around when
it came down to it.

He hated it.

He’d wanted to be more.

"That freakish nonsense--NOT IN MY HOUSE!" Vernon continued to bellow, and Harry

felt his whole body tremble once.

Why was he afraid of this muggle? This stupid whale of a man!?

Whatever he was thinking must’ve shown on his face because another fist came down and his
flinch out of the way made it a glance blow at best, the tree trunk of an arm aiming for him
far too uncoordinated to match his reflexes.

"Wipe that face off you little bitch--we should've beat it out of you years ago--NO, NEVER
AGAIN!"

He wasn’t really making sense in his rage but Harry felt his heart beating out of his chest
anyway. He should’ve run, he should’ve scrambled away and made a dash for it (but where
would he even go!?) but then it was too late and he felt himself scream in panic as sweaty
hands wrapped around his arm again and yanked him up—his shoulder screaming it’s protest
at the treatment and panic from blurry memories causing him to lash out blindly with his free
limbs but despite making contact with fleshy targets, didn’t seem to do a damn thing.

"YOU AND YOUR FREAKISHINESS WILL NEVER SET FOOT NEAR MY FAMILY
AGAIN, AM I CLEAR!? STAY OUT OF HERE AND ROT LIKE THE FILTH YOU ARE-
-IF I HEAR A SINGLE WORD YOU WILL REGRET THE DAY THOSE FREAKS LEFT
YOU ON OUR DOORSTEP! YOU WILL REGRET THE DAY YOU WERE BORN
A FREAK!"

His voice broke on that last word and he might’ve actually popped a blood vessel going by
the colors in his neck.

In short order they were outside, the air hot and humid despite the early hour.

Then they were by the shed and before he could blink he was beneath its shade.

But it was still shocking to find himself on the ground, face smarting like a bludger had
skimmed by his cheek at full force, his head rocking for a moment and the disorientation
actually more concerning that the sharp trill of pain that ran up his arms body as he realized
he was on the dusty, splintery wooden floor of the shed he’d already spent way too much
time in.
“Stay here,” the venomous voice hissed about him, before the light from the door
disappeared with a thud as it slammed shut and troll-like footsteps thundered away across the
lawn.

What exactly could he do but lay there for a second in absolute shock at what had just
happened? He put a hand on his cheek to check if the ache in his skull had been real, like he
couldn’t quite realize that it hurt but somehow objectively knew that it did.

His uncle had never actually hit him before.

That was an odd thought that left something hollow and aching in his stomach. He was pretty
sure he hadn’t been breathing right for several minutes now and felt very light-headed
because of it, but his heart was beating too hard to really get a handle on it right now either.

He lay on the ground, trying to take stock and just… failing.

He couldn’t think right now.

The only thought that really came to him was this strange curiosity at why the reaction had
been so… well, violent. Vernon knew about magic—he didn’t like it, but he’d known about it
because Petunia had told him. Harry knew he knew because he’d actively been trying to
squash it, and you didn’t actively go after something you legitimately didn’t believe in.
Vernon had always known about magic and hated it, but it should’ve have been so shocking
to him.

If he’d been surprised, he would’ve reacted more like Dudley.

Or like Petunia, who’d just seemed terrified.

But no… he’d been angry to the point of violence, and Harry honestly hadn’t thought he’d
ever get to that point.

Stupid of him, really.

His whole life had always felt like he was five seconds away from being hit. Slaps upside the
head or to his hands if he reached for something they suddenly decided they didn’t want him
to have were more than common. Actually hitting him just to beat on him was very new, and
not a good sign at all, but it shouldn’t have been surprising as it felt like Harry had been
prepping to leave this horrid household and distance himself from these people since the
beginning for this very reason.

Maybe it was because this was the first time Vernon had been forced to confront magic
outright. The first time it was shoved in his face like that.

Whatever the reason, maybe Harry didn’t care.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, but it couldn’t have been too long as it was very hot
and stuffy inside this shed with the summer sun rising quickly overhead. He was hot before
he knew it and realize laying here wasn’t good—he still had a calming draught and he knew
he really, really needed it right now so he forced himself up and retreated to the back, feeling
a flood of relief when he entered the bubble of area the atmosphere stone affected.

He still felt kind of numb, but recognized it likely wasn’t healthy, so he downed his last
calming draught.

And he was glad he did because only a couple seconds later he heard steps approaching the
shed once more and he scrambled back to the front immediately—his thoughts were clearer
now and despite wanting nothing to do with his uncle right now he also knew that he didn’t
want him noticing this back area he’d created. If he saw evidence of more magic things
would only get worse and he really couldn’t afford that right now.

No sooner had he appeared in the visible corner of the shed did the doors fling open, and
Harry hoped going from the light outside to the dark inside prevented him from seeing the
back “wall” rippling in a way that proved it wasn’t quite solid.

Luckily (or unluckily) Vernon seemed to be a man on a mission and ignored him entirely.

Harry watched, not sure what he was doing, as he thundered around the shed and grabbed a
random assortment of tools and flung them out the open door behind him. Harry half wanted
to bolt for it, but all his stuff was still behind the curtain, including his wand and Hedwig
most importantly, so he remained still in hopes not to attract any more ire and that Vernon
would get to whatever he was doing quickly.

His actions just made no sense as he tossed everything the shed was meant to hold, leaving
only a bunch of pots and bags of mulch and dirt. He even rolled out the push lawn mower and
unwound the gardening hoses and just put them in a huge pile uncaringly. When it was pretty
much cleared of everything but the workbench and Harry himself standing motionless beside
it, Vernon marched out to grab something. He returned only to drop it inside the door, before
the doors slammed shut once more.

Harry’s heart slammed into his throat when he heard chains clink ominously outside the
doors.

He ran to one of the windows beside it and sure enough he caught sight of Vernon looping the
chain Harry usually used to lock the place up while he was out of the shed around the handles
—lock in place before he could even cry out in horror at what was being done.

And he realized exactly what was being done as Vernon marched away, pushing the lawn
mower to the front of the house—probably to store the shed stuff in the garage now.

Cold horror clawed at his throat—or, it would’ve if he hadn’t just drank a calming draught.
Still, not even the magical remedy could stop the sick realization that he was locked in.

Just like the cupboard, just a bit bigger.

But hotter.

Dustier and dirtier.

And he had his stuff… that’s right, he had all his stuff, including his wand and his books and
his journals… he had Hedwig, he could…

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad?

Maybe it was the calming draught speaking, but he wasn’t going to be asked to do chores
clearly. He could stay in here and study for the coming year, until he got his chance to leave
now. And he wouldn’t come back, so that’d be good. He’d probably run out of things and get
bored but he wouldn’t need to put on a show for his relatives or work himself into the ground
anymore so…

Okay, maybe it would be a vacation from his relatives.

Maybe this would be okay.

He looked down at what Vernon had dropped in here, and realized it was a bucket of soup
cans. Like, every soup can he could remember being in the pantry.

He continued to tell himself that maybe this would be okay, but the soup cans felt more than a
little foreboding.

000

It was well into the evening when he realized this was very much not going to be okay.

No one had come near the shed all day, and it was well after dinner and about the time
Petunia usually called it a night that Vernon came out into the yard once more with wide flat
objects Harry couldn’t make out in the dark. He didn’t realize anyone was there to be fair, but
when he’d heard grunting and huffing he’d carefully tip-toed to the windows at the front of
the shed to try and see out in the darkness of the new night.

He was startled at how black the view outside was, right before a nail came through the side
wall, a little too close to where he’d braced his hand to see out. He was so shocked he took a
couple steps back, and a new nail appeared in another corner.

It had been a really stressful day despite almost nothing happening, but he was still all out of
sorts as he’d rested and tried to regain control of himself while doing nothing locked in here
since that horrific breakfast this morning. He still wasn’t all with it, which is the excuse he’d
give if asked why it took him so long to realize what was happening.

Vernon was boarding him in.

By the time it hit him he realized he had two options: go grab his wand and try to claw his
way out the remaining open window leaving everything else behind (his unlocked journals
from Draco, his invisibility cloak, a bunch of magical items, all his textbooks, his parents’
scrapbook from Hagrid, and Hedwig) and probably have to fight Vernon a second time where
he had no idea if he could win without magic (though the odds looked poor if he wasn’t fast
enough and he really wasn’t feeling that coordinated at the moment) OR…

He turned on his heel and ran to the back of the shed as fast and as silently as he could.
“Hedwig,” he hissed, and she blinked her yellow eyes awake. It was about time she woke up
for her nightly hunt anyway, so she didn’t get why he seemed so panicked at first.

He met her big golden eyes and his heart… broke.

"You need to leave," He whispered quietly anyway, his throat closing up. "He's going to
board up the windows—you won't be able to get out and I'm not sure I can live on this food
for the summer. You need to flee!" He tried to explain and she clearly didn’t get it but
willingly let him lift her up and prop her up near the back window—the small round port
only she’d been able to get through anyway.

She flapped her wings and he let her go thinking she was going to take off—but she instead
landed on his shoulder for a moment and leaned into him, hooting softly with something like
concern and alarm in her tone. She always was way too intelligent of a bird.

He felt tears unwillingly picked at his eyes, hot and frustrated and full of despair.

"I know. But one of us should be free if possible. It's important to me that you're okay, so
just… stay out of sight and hunt your fill. Go visit Draco. I'll see you when the summer's
over." He told her with more logic than he felt. He felt like his heart was being ground into
pieces, and it hurt in a senseless way he couldn’t pinpoint.

Hedwig nipped at his ear with a gentle, sad hoot.

He offered her a watery smile and pushed her up towards the back window once more. She
gave him one last impenetrable owl-look before taking off into the night, and just in time as
he heard Vernon stomp around back of the shed lugging his tools with the front windows
apparently now taken care of.

Harry grabbed the atmosphere bulb and put it into his bottomless bag quickly and covered the
window with the curtain he’d put up so Vernon wouldn’t notice anything if he got too close,
and held his breath as the monster of a man on the other side of the thin shed wall enough
about boarding up the last bit of light left in the dark, earthy shed.

What was he supposed to do? Call out? Try to appeal to Vernon’s empathy one last time to
just let him go?

Harry was quickly growing desperate, but he his pride still meant something to him for now.

So he just held his breath and remained quiet as his heart crumbled inside his chest.

Hours later when Vernon had finished his work and returned to the house, it hit Harry how
dark it really was in here. And how very, very alone he was going to be from here on out.

000

By the time the next day ended, Harry realized that this was going to be way worse than he’d
been imagining. Even he, who was pretty damn cynical, had tried to think of the bright side
by thinking of all the things he did have while trapped in here. He still had his books and the
furniture he’d bought the previous summer, his journal to Draco and everything else… but it
still didn’t seem to matter in the face of how horrible this actually turned out to be.

When he finally realized just how bad the situation was, he really regretted using all his
potions already.

No one had come near the shed since Vernon boarded the windows up. He’d used flat sheets
of plywood to do the job and while wooden the shed was pretty well made so it was dark;
any small amount of light even summer at midday could muster up barely did anything. He
could fall asleep and wake up and still not immediately know if it was day or night, and it
messed with his sense of time terribly.

It was hot, and quickly becoming unbearably humid too as rain approached, he thought. He
was fine within the confines of his atmosphere bulb, but their reach was only his small area in
the back so any attempt to stretch his legs and walk around the rest of the shed were only
short-lived excursions as the excessive heat quickly made him light headed and sick enough
to prefer even his cramped back space to the awful feeling.

He had his magically soft bedroll, the desk with a tiny light he could write by, his endless
water bottle, the snacks he’d saved up from Hogwarts, and the atmosphere bulbs, so those
were all good, but the thing was… they didn’t know that.

So far as Vernon and Petunia were concerned, he was locked in a hot shed with a bucket of
soup cans, that’s it, and they hadn’t once come near the shed to let him out to let him get a
drink or take a break from the heat or anything. He was seriously starting to wonder if they
were trying to outright kill him by locking him in a 40C outdoor building with an in-no-way-
sufficient water supply for even a couple days. By the time the second night was halfway
through, Harry realized they had no intention of letting him out again period.

Where they trying to kill him?

When he realized what the bucket was probably for, he felt sick.

These…assholes.

He hated them.

He’d live, and he’d live with dignity no thanks to them, so they could take their bucket and
shove it. They didn’t even know the meaning of dignity clearly, and yet they had the audacity
to try to deprive him of his.

He curled up in the corner of his now prison and put his head on his knees… fighting tears
but not quite being able to prevent them as everything crashed down around him.

It was dark. All the time. And this prison sentence had just started but it already felt like it
was too much and he just wanted some amount of light to break this monotonous dark.

It wasn’t cramped like the cabinet had been but the stifling heat kept him caged anyway and
it chaffed at his soul like fire. He also came to realization that the soup cans would barely last
him a can a day to the end of July much less the full summer if he was counting the days
correctly. And he had some snacks in his magical fridge plus his stashed snacks but when
faced with a whole summer ahead of him, they suddenly seemed sickeningly sparse.

From what little he knew of calories and nutrition, he figured he wouldn't die but… even if he
kept still and didn't burn a single excess calorie if he could help it, he wouldn't be running his
full speed with the football club next year like he did the last. He wondered how long it
would take to recover from something like this…

Dark.

Hunger.

Heat.

Claustrophobia.

Every single thing seemed like an insurmountable challenge, and that wasn’t even
considering he was fully out of potions and there was clearly no chance in hell they were
going to let go to London to restock.

He had a sickening thought of if they’d even let him for school in September, and a darker,
but frighteningly realistic part of himself thought maybe they were hoping he wouldn’t make
it that long.

There would never be an escape from this then.

He wanted to refuse to let their tiny, selfish selves get to him, he didn’t want to cry like he
was beaten by muggle pigs like they were but…

There was no one to see his shameful tears, anyway.

000

The nightmares got worse.

He didn’t really have any expectation that they’d get better, to be fair, but that didn’t make
recognizing that things were slowly getting worse any easier.

He hated that he’d kind of lost track of time already, and kept to writing down the days and
nights—and he had to write them out because he’d tried to keep a calendar and found himself
crossing off days multiple times because they seemed to stretch on so long he forgot he’d
already counted today more than once. It was just so dark and as he lost more and more sleep
to his nightmares, he found himself sleeping pretty much whenever—there was just to reason
to be up during the day anyway so… if he was tired, he slept.

And he slept a lot so that made keeping track of time even harder.

But his sleep was almost always broken by some kind of horrific nightmare and jolted him
awake—or not even a nightmare but a ghost pain somewhere in his body jerking him
conscious like someone was there hitting him—but whatever the reason he wasn’t getting
real rest and he knew it.

But the time a week had passed (by his sketchy time keeping at least) he knew they were
leaving him here to rot, and he was not feeling that good. It was far past Dudley’s birthday
meaning his excuse of people waiting on him in London had failed—they didn’t fear him
standing someone up and by now they’d realized they’d gotten away with it. No one had
come looking for him when he didn’t show—they didn’t know it was a lie and that no one
had been waiting on him at all, so now the assholes were probably confident in their letting
him rot here without repercussions.

He tried to balance his snacks with the soup cans but the soup wasn’t really that substantial
and most of his snacks were… well, snacks. Most of it was just sugar with really poor
nutritional value, and was in no way filling. He was eating them because by a week in he was
irrevocably hungry, but by two weeks in the hunger had turned to pain and he was down to
just soups and a few too-sugary snacks left that really just made him sick instead of fixing the
twisting pain in his abdomen. He drank as much water as he could to stay hydrated, but
without real sustenance he was starting to feel really, really sick—all the time. Not to mention
his hands had started shaking something awful, and probably only worsened his bad sleeping
habits from how tired he always felt.

From the mental side of things… the lack of connection to anyone, the lack of light, of
freedom… well, he felt himself spiral not-so-slowly and it was an oddly terrifying sensation.
It didn’t feel so much like a descent into madness, and more a free fall at the speed of gravity.

The one obvious thing that should’ve been his saving grace, was his journal with Draco.

Draco had, obviously, asked why Hedwig had showed up at his house seeming really
distressed.

Harry hadn’t told him.

Draco had also asked why he was suddenly able to write during the day when prior he said he
was only available at nights.

Harry hadn’t told him.

Draco pointed out almost daily at this point how his handwriting seemed much worse all of a
sudden and how his sentences weren’t not nearly as coherent, asking if he was alright or if he
was sick or the like.

Harry hadn’t told him a god damned thing.

Excuses, excuses, he mocked himself mercilessly as he scratched the paper a little too hard
with his quill as he told Draco about how he was tired from chores which is why his
handwriting was so shaky—not the lack of food making his hands tremble like a tuning fork.
He’d lied and said he simply got his chores done quicker so he could write during the day.
He’d lied through his teeth when he said Hedwig was just mad at him for not needing her this
summer thanks the journals which is why she was over at Malfoy Manor permanently for
now.

He lied and he lied and he lied like it was so bloody easy and he hated himself to no end for
it.

Oh god did he hate himself right now.

Draco would help, a venomous voice hissed at him from somewhere inside his own brain.
Not his graveyard, that was for certain, as he hadn’t set eyes on it since that damned night
down in the chamber where Quirrell had almost murdered him gruesomely. Where he’d
murdered Quirrell gruesomely instead.

A fuck, if that wasn’t a thought he was in no way capable of facing right now.

Draco would help, that stupid voice hissed again, not leaving him the bloody well alone.
Draco would help, you just have to ask.

I know that, shut the hell up. He snapped back, and calmly recognized that talking to oneself
was a sign he’d officially lost it. More than he already had, to be fair.

Because he wasn’t so far gone to realize he was pretty far gone already.

His stomach twisted as Draco wrote back something else and he answered dutifully, lacking
some of the spark he knew he used to have but just being unable to do anything about it. He
didn’t know how to get it back, and he didn’t know how to fake it either. Not with Draco.

He wrote back something normal as per the course of conversation, and he didn’t mention
what was currently dominating his mind right now. He didn’t mention the shed or the
darkness or the hunger.

He should’ve, but he didn’t. He said something about quidditch he didn’t even care enough to
really worry if what he was saying made a lick of sense or not.

Why aren’t you telling him?

I can’t tell him.

What other option do you have? Starve? Die?

Is your pride worth dying for?

Harry stared at the pages of the journal filling out with whatever Draco was saying lying in
front of him. The blond, sitting somewhere else in the world writing these words in elegant
cursive with an expensive golden-tipped quill. Probably at his desk by a large gothic window,
or beneath the willow tree in his yard where he’d taken a break from quidditch practice for
write to him for a while. Pure white peacocks would be milling his yard around him, each
one described in depth through Draco’s plethora of poetic words when he got into the swing
of writing. When he got into it, the boy had a way with written words, Harry had to admit.
Sometimes they were absolutely beautiful.
Harry stared at the words slowing filling in with ink, not quite being able to read them but
happy to picture Draco somewhere in the world writing them, and found some amount of
peace.

He did not write back any more that day.

000

Happy birthday, Harry! I tried to get Hedwig to bring you a present but she refused for some
reason? She’s your bird, you’ll have to have a talk with her. Maybe we can meet up and I can
give it you in person; that’d be better anyway.

He stared at the words in his journal and felt… cold.

It’s been… that long? I thought I had another three days. My time keeping truly sucks
apparently.

The shed doors had not opened once since Vernon had closed them over a month ago, and
Harry felt nothing as he lay down again rather than respond to Draco’s message. The blond
knew something was wrong now, because Harry would go days without writing him back.
Luckily he hadn’t stopped writing him first, even if most of the time it now sounded like
journal entries talking about his day without someone responding to him.

I’m sorry I can’t write as much.

That’s fine! Write when you can, I know you’re busier than I am during the summers. I’m not
doing anything so I don’t mind—Blaise went back to Italy so I can’t even bother him and
Theo actually told me to get lost which isn’t a shock…

Draco had accepted Harry’s very cryptic apology and kept writing like nothing was wrong,
and he appreciated it. Because he had lied, and he did nothing with his day at all, often
staring at Draco’s journal entries for hours and hours and hours and could not for the life of
him bring himself to respond back. He had a couple times and the blond had been thrilled,
responding with several pages of his own without needing Harry to continue on.

He was thankful, because he didn’t have a good reason why he couldn’t respond. He couldn’t
even give himself one, though the stupid answer he knew was his pride.

He’d been in here for a month now, so even he thought pride was a stupid answer, but he still
didn’t tell Draco a damn thing.

Because he was an idiot? A lunatic? A masochist?

I’m not okay, he managed to admit to himself, and oddly it was an entirely calm thing. That
was probably a terrible sign, but it didn’t alarm him.

Also probably a bad sign.

I’m not okay—otherwise I would’ve told Draco immediately. But I didn’t and now it’s been a
month. What the hell is wrong with me?
At least he wasn’t answering himself anymore, but on the down side that meant he had no
answer for that directionless question. He’d been terribly mean to himself though, so it was
kind of nice not to be having those conversations anymore.

He’d reached some kind of equilibrium. He wasn’t panicky or senselessly angry. He was so
tired he’d somehow come around to accept it and barely even flinched when he woke from a
nightmare now. He was so hungry the pain in his stomach was now muted, and only really
came back after he’d eaten a bit of soup since he’d cleanly finished all other food sources
about a week ago. He only had about a week left of soup, maybe two if he went with half a
can a day. He could probably handle that.

His new sense of calm had given him a chance to get around to his textbooks more properly
—in an attempt to do anything but wallow he’d ready everything he had back to front, some
of them more than once for lack of better option and because they had slightly harder content
to absorb. One in particular was the dark arts transfiguration text Draco had given him for
Christmas and he’d learned quite a bit he probably wouldn’t be sharing with McGonagall but
it made him feel better somehow.

It gave him some power back, to refocus on what he could do. In this entirely hopeless
situation where despair came in cycles of intensity, focusing on the power he did have helped
settle him. He was a transfiguration prodigy, he came to accept this at some point of this
prison sentence, and if he embraced that thought then he would use it to become stronger
than he was now. He took so many notes and buffed out so many equations for potential new
spells he’d lost count and used up several of the journals he’d been saving for next year, and
even developed a plan.

He would get out of here—not sure how, but he would somehow. Despair often gave way to
the blanket thought that eventually this hell would end, and he would get out. One way or
another.

When he did, he was going to need to actually do something to no longer be helpless.

Because he was, and that is what ended him up in every terrible situation he’d ever been in.
Helpless against a troll, helpless against a professor, helpless against a dark lord, helpless
against bloody muggles…

No more.

Draco and McGonagall had spoken briefly in the past about dueling, and Harry now knew
that fighting with magic was an art form and he could learn it, and get better at it—could
learn to defend himself. Transfiguration was his strength, so he was going to focus on that and
with what he had at his disposal now and not being able to perform magic, he simply plotted,
and waiting.

And he had a lot of waiting around to do, locked in a shed, so he plotted a lot.

And always, the looming thought that he could just tell someone through the enchanted
journal via Draco but…
But he dind’t tell Draco. And there were tons of other people he could maybe ask Draco to
pass along a note to, but he convinced himself out of it every time. Slytherins weren’t cozy
like the Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs, and he likes Blaise but he’d definitely hold it over his
head and he didn’t even know Theo that well yet to be able to make that call. Daphne maybe
as they could work out a deal and she was genuinely nice so she’d be okay with getting
involved but…

He still didn’t do it.

Any of the Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs he didn’t—they would help of course and he loved
them dearly, but he refused to get them involved. He imagined telling each and every one of
them in depth to see if he could stomach it, and he just couldn’t. Not even Lu who would love
to be the one to fix it—he loved fixing things.

But this wasn’t something that could be fixed and Harry knew deep down he would resent Lu
for trying—and failing.

It was the Gryffindors he seriously considered, and he was warming up to the idea. Neville
was probably his best friend aside from Draco but he wouldn’t involve the boy here, no
matter how much Neville would secretly hate him for withholding this. He knew Neville
would jump right in, shyness or not, to help him to matter the cost, but it was for that reason
he wouldn’t. Their relationship didn’t work like that, and Harry was going to protect him
from the knowledge that people like the Dursleys exist for a little while longer.

Someday, he resolved to tell Neville everything. He wanted Neville to share things with him
and he knew he’d need to live up to that concept and be a friend a friend would want to have
by sharing things with him first, but today was not that day.

It… felt pitiful to admit he just wasn’t ready to tell Neville about this, even if it was entirely
true.

In all honesty, he was actually legitimately considering Seamus or Dean. Seamus really, as
there wasn’t a nicer and more understanding guy in Hogwarts he didn’t think, at least no one
that Harry knew as a friend like he knew the Irishman. Seamus wouldn’t even question it and
he’d be down to pick him up and shout in some muggles’ faces if Vernon decided to put up a
fight. If Harry asked him to pretend it never happened once they got away from Private
Drive, Seamus would in a heartbeat and never speak another word of it again.

The same could not be said for Draco or Neville, who would be happy to help but would
never let it rest given how concerned they would be. Not even the twins would be able to let
it go and there were high contenders on his list of people he could probably go to or help, but
he had no faith the twins wouldn’t inadvertently kill the Dursleys via prank-gone-wrong or
make it infinitely worse by doing some kind of magic that got them all expelled. Or arrested
even, as non-family member wizards shouldn’t be doing magic in front of muggles.

Yeah, asking the twins would invite in chaos Harry wasn’t ready to handle.

He could probably tell the twins though, once he was free. When they were back at
Hogwarts, they might be good confidants to have… but he wouldn’t asking them for help
getting free. That seemed like a poor idea when he could easily think of about five dozen
things that could go wrong with that plan just off the top of his head.

No… if it got to that point, he was seriously considering asking Draco to pass along a note to
Seamus.

But in the mean time… he needed to at least try to get out himself.

Fuck Hogwarts charter, he was so far past his hesitation for leaving he was on the other side
of the galaxy by now—he was going to get out of here and he was never coming back to
these inhuman pigs who’d tried to kill him slowly and painfully in their own back yard.
Dumbledore could do anything he wanted, he wouldn’t set foot in Hogwarts again rather than
be stuck here any longer.

No more.

Vernon had, for once, actually been smart about something and removed all the tools inside
the shed he could’ve used to break out, and everything Harry had at his disposal was magical
and would probably alert something at the ministry that he was using underage magic. The
only thing he had that wouldn’t trigger an alarm as still of some use, was his potions knife.

After way too long being unreasonably helpless, he finally started working on his escape.
 Snap

Severus paced the halls of Hogwarts with a scowl on his face. He knew the paintings on the
walls (or most of them at least) were loyal to the Headmaster and would inform him of any
suspicious or interesting activity going on in the castle but luckily him walking around
looking displeased was not at all abnormal. It was perhaps the most interesting thing
happening at the moment given that aside from the ghosts, Peeves, Filch who never seemed
to leave the damn place, and Hagrid out in the forest attending to one of his… pets, Severus
was utterly alone within Hogwarts castle at this moment. All other faculty were taking their
summer break elsewhere, and even Dumbledore himself was at the Ministry attending to the
duties he outright neglected during the school year for once.

Severus of course had a residence outside of Hogwarts, but the castle had his best brewing
stations and most complete ingredient stores, not to mention the summer months were perfect
time to get work done on his potion research, uninterrupted. Even Dumbledore left him alone
on the most part, knowing he’d be in an even worse mood if possible if the one time of year
he got a break from all human contact to just brew potions in peace was interfered with. This
was his vacation and thankfully everyone who would bother interrupting him knew it and so
thankfully didn’t.

Potions was a complicated, intricate art though. The amount of times he’d needed a break
from his work to take a short walk and clear his thoughts before making his next
breakthrough were extremely common, so there was nothing suspicious about what he was
doing at all. The most interesting probably as nothing else was happening in the castle, but
not suspicious at all.

He was a spy, a marvelous actor, and an accomplished Occlumens who could protect his
mind from both Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort—no one would ever be able to tell
he wasn’t stalking down the halls frustrated about a potion right now.

Which was good, because if anyone ever did realize what he was up to, he was going to be in
a world of trouble.

He wanted to be mad at Lucius for interrupting him during the summer holiday but when the
blond had explained himself, Severus really couldn’t fault him. He could be frustrated and
annoyed to hell that he’d chosen to get the potions master involved in this seriously
complicated situation, but as a Slytherin he also couldn’t fault Lucius for actually being
extremely clever about this.

The thing was… the dark lord was not entirely gone.

Severus might’ve been young and stupid and ignorant of a lot when he joined the Death
Eaters once upon a time, however he’d learned and he’d learned fast through pain and blood
and a simply absurd amount of loss. By the time the dark lord was ‘defeated’, yes he’d had a
lot on his mind and had not immediately concerned himself over his position as a spy for the
dark and the light, but eventually he’d come out of his fog of grief over losing Lily and
recognized that his role at Hogwarts wasn’t something he could just disregard even if he was
no longer a spy in an active war.

Because he used to be young and stupid. That had passed, and now he was under no illusion
that the war would not come back in full force one day. Call him paranoid or war torn, it
didn’t matter—the fact Quirrell had been possessed by a piece of the dark lord only a couple
months ago proved every fear Severus had ever had entirely right.

And to be totally honest, that was a terrifying, uncomfortable thing to learn even if he did feel
validated for keeping his cover all this time even as everyone around him celebrated a
“victory” and pushed the war into the backs of their minds like it wasn’t important anymore.
Even people like Minerva and Filius who were some of the more practical fighters back then
had put down their battle shields, so to speak, and embraced peace like there would never
again be war.

It was incredibly stupid, in Severus’ opinion, but he’d been the paranoid one with no proof
for his fears.

Well now he did.

And still they acted like that was a one-off incident and there was still no way the dark lord
would ever return.

Ha.

He would laugh in their faces if he weren’t so stressed out.

The things he knew: the dark lord was confirmed not gone and if Severus knew anything
about the monster of a man, he would be coming back someday. There was no way of
knowing when exactly or how many years it would take, but with Harry Potter—the boy the
dark lord will want dead above all other people—now at Hogwarts and learning to become a
full wizard, that would only complicate things (he wasn’t sure how, all he knew was that it
would). Luckily Severus could easily predict that the dark lord would want to kill the boy
himself and so he could easily say he was just keeping tabs on the boy for when his master
came to enact his revenge. He would have to come up with some clever information to
provide that would not actually kill the boy while still somehow proving he was loyal to the
dark lord, which would be a headache but he’d have to think of something sooner rather than
later, preferably.

Because another layer of complexity, is where Draco would fall in this. That would be…
extremely unpleasant, however Severus had an idea of how to protect his godson from the
dark lord, it was just… he wasn’t sure the boy’s friendship with the Potter brat would actually
survive it.

More importantly, he wasn’t sure Lucius would let him live if he put the Malfoy heir in that
kind of danger. And priss or not, Lucius was a good fighter and could throw a nasty hex even
Severus might not be able to reverse.
He shook those dark thoughts off quickly. It really just depended on when the dark lord came
back—preferably it’d be after both of the boys graduated Hogwarts and they could handle
themselves, but if it happened sooner (and Severus got a stomach ache just thinking about
sooner) when they were both still children who’d need to be handled or guided through a
full-out war, they would need help.

Draco would need help. He wasn’t sure he could actually help Potter other than giving him a
fair chance at not dying immediately should a war break out, and to be totally frank he wasn’t
100% sure he wanted to do anything more than that. He probably would only if it was
convenient and no one he cared about was endangered for it, by Draco’s request only, but he
wasn’t quite sure where his feelings would actually lay when it came down to it. He had a
horrible feeling it was going to end up a choice between his godson and Lily’s son, and
frankly he’d be happy to save that fucking nightmare for his future self to deal with.

For today, he had other concerns.

Draco would need to be much better prepared than he currently was, and he was already great
at potions. Not a prodigy but he was diligent and intelligent, he would fair very well if
Severus pushed him a little more. He also showed a not-so-subtle interest in charms as well,
which would be better suited for use in a fight, so Severus made a note to have a discussion
with his godson this year about that as well. It was never too early to start learning practical
applications for magic in a battle situation, after all, and he was sure Lucius wouldn’t mind
teaching Draco to defend himself a little more.

Narcissa might, but she could be swayed.

Severus fought down a wince that threatened to break his mask of annoyance as he passed
some random hallway for the third time. He really was wandering with both his body and his
thoughts, but he wasn’t exactly finding any answers.

You see… Severus knew what now every Slytherin (or simply not stupid) family knew after
Potter’s incident several weeks ago. Quirrell had been possessed, the dark lord was still
around, and everyone was now making plans just as he was for that inevitability. While
Severus thought he was pretty safe in his role, most others did not.

His last order from the dark lord was to get close to Dumbledore, and his master had never
once revealed or even hinted he was possessing Quirrell at all the entire year to him. On one
hand that might make other Death Eaters sweat a bit, thinking they’d lost the trust or favor of
the dark lord, and yeah it unnerved him a bit but Severus had also had far more trust and
favor with their master than anyone else at one time. Being a spy and their only potions
master had done wonders—he was self-aware enough to admit he’d had no heart when he
first joined as well, so it’d only really been a shock to Lucius when he’d announced he was
fully on board with killing the Potters. Everyone else, including the dark lord, thought he’d
gotten over Lily after he’d convinced (tortured into him) him of the concept that muggleborns
weren’t worth their time.

Only Lucius and Narcissa were aware that he had indeed never gotten over her and their
master going after her had caused his allegiances to switch. Sort of, as he didn’t like
Dumbledore any better to be honest, he really was just on his own side from then on out.
So no… others might worry their master didn’t trust them for not revealing himself, but
Severus was fairly certain he could get away with not only not recognizing it (he was the
freaking dark lord and Dumbledore didn’t notice, so he might get a cruciatus for it but the
dark lord wouldn’t actually blame Severus for not noticing what ‘greater men’ hadn’t either)
but he’d also probably get away with his ‘bullying’ of Quirrell too.

Severus had never actually liked Quirinius, and him acting off last year had obviously made
it worse. Yes Severus was serving Dumbledore in protecting the stone, but he hadn’t known
the dark lord was around to even want the stone and so it could be seen as continuing to
follow orders in his master’s absence.

Also, he was pretty sure the dark lord didn’t even like Quirrell either.

The man was an ex-muggle studies professor, a light-aligned coward, and pathetically weak.
He was perfect possession material that could be disposed of, not an actual follower no
matter if he’d easily been convinced of his servitude by the dark lord. Severus was confident
that he and the dark lord were in agreement with their distaste of the man and so he wouldn’t
get punished (too badly) for threatening him occasionally when he was doing his stuttering,
cowardly act. The dark lord probably got amusement out of doing the same thing.

Severus was pretty much alone in being relatively calm about the discovery the dark lord was
still around, though. He had been paranoid and worried about it happening since the lord’s
demise eleven years ago, so while it was a large concern for certain, he wasn’t shocked and
had plenty of plans in place so that this didn’t eventually kill him. The same could not be said
for a lot of darker families who made a lot of questionable actions after the war—not
reprehensible as they’d done it to keep out of Azkaban, but unfortunately there was no
chance at all the dark lord would see it that way. A lot of people were playing catch-up now
so that they could be in a position of advantage when the dark lord finally returned, in hopes
he’d spare them for their usefulness and not killed for what they’d done in the face of his
defeat.

One such family was of course the Malfoys, who’d gotten a close, detailed account of what
had happened between Potter and the dark lord in that chamber via their son, who’d heard it
straight from the Potter brat’s own mouth.

And in exchange for this favor, Lucious had given Severus all the details he wanted and let’s
just say… things did not look very promising. That wasn’t just a possession it sounded like, it
was most likely far more twisted and dark and it was a piece of their master who remembered
it all. Which meant he would probably remember that encounter when he returned, which
means he’d remember everything he witnessed while possessing Quirrell…

Again, Severus thought he was probably fine. Even most of the Slytherins were probably
fine, as while Severus still did not understand what had exactly happened, his house suddenly
loved Harry Potter for some god’s named reason beyond his understanding (and emotional
capacity to deal with right now, he’d save that for September). Luckily, Quirrell had already
fucked off to who knows where to try and get the stone by that point and hadn’t seen the
dime-shift that happened, so all he’d seen was Slytherin giving a lunatic Gryffindor the cold
shoulder all year while he attempted to sit at their table. The Zabini and Greengrass heirs had
shown more interest but they were probably safe enough for now given their family status…
the only person who was a clear open target, was Draco.

Again, Severus had an idea of how to protect Draco regardless of what Quirrell did or did not
see (though standing together in front of the entire Great Hall day one was a bad start to say
the least) but as his godson was never going to forgive him for it, he was holding off on that
for the time being.

He couldn’t wait forever as you never knew when the dark lord would return but… he would
probably hear whispers before it finally happened, so it wasn’t like he wouldn’t get no
warning.

He hoped.

Luckily, Draco was also the top priority of both his parents. Lucius cared about his son,
himself, and sometimes even his wife in that order. Occasionally he could be convinced that
he legitimately liked Severus as a friend too, but the potions master never actually counted on
that. Given Lucius now knew everything Severus did about the current situation, while
Severus was plotting his own tactics to help protect Draco, the boy’s father was clearly
making his own precautions.

And the first step he’d clued Severus in on, was the tiny black journal Severus currently had
stashed in his robe pocket, walking around Hogwarts halls like he wasn’t hyperaware of the
unknown, likely very powerful, likely insanely dark object he had on him.

Thankfully Dumbledore was a blooming idiot who hadn’t put up dark item wards up despite
one of his own professors being possessed just last month.

The plan was simple as it was bloody impossible at the same time. Whatever this object was,
the dark lord had ordered Lucius to hide it, and Severus was vaguely aware that he’d asked
other high-ranking Death Eaters do the same with other objects. That could only mean they
were insanely important, even if they had no idea how or why.

Lucius had a perfect excuse: the ministry was picking closer at his assets and was now doing
through checks of his properties, mainly for “audit” purposes but no one was stupid enough
to think they weren’t actively searching for dark or illegal objects to pin him with. In his
“concern” it may be discovered in his personal vaults of dark objects, he bade Severus take it
and hide it in Hogwarts.

It was perfectly logical, if the dark lord waited long enough from killing Lucius to hear it.
The dark lord himself saw Dumbledore as the ultimate foe (prior to Potter, that is) and had
never attempted to take Hogwarts. If the great Lord Voldemort didn’t attempt to take
Hogwarts, then there was no safer place to hide something precious to their master. And
Severus had been building his reputation and trustworthiness under the headmaster for over a
decade at that point, he was in a perfect position to sneak it into the castle and find a good
place to stash it.

If the dark lord wanted to hear their logic, he might approve of it. Severus was fairly certain
he’d at least torture a location from Lucius before killing him for everything else he’d done,
and once he learned that only Severus actually knew where it was, the spy would be in an
even better potion to protect Draco. The potions master had pointed this out and Lucius was
fully aware of it—he knew he was going to have to take other drastic measures to ensure he
wasn’t killed outright when the dark lord returned, but this one was for Draco.

The dark lord might like that Lucius took action to protect it even after publicly denouncing
the dark, and selling out a lot of other Death Eaters in return for his own freedom. He might
like the position Lucius was in, being an otherwise dark family who made steps to go grey
and succeeded slightly so they now had the ears of most of the Ministry as well as all their
old dark contacts. And of course, money fixed a lot of things so being able to bankroll the
dark lord when he returned would also probably help.

Still, Lucius would have to do more, but this was a decent start. And predictably, it helped
Draco’s position first—and Severus was certainly not complaining about it helping his own
either. Even if the expectation was that he’d use it to protect his godson, but he’d been
planning on doing that anyway.

That didn’t help him now though as he walked the halls yet again trying to think of what to
do with this. Hogwarts was huge, and full of secrets no one man would ever know, so it
should be simple to find one secret place in amongst a million other secret places this castle
had. It was turning out not to be so simple at all, as he walked and walked and walked and
really just couldn’t think of anything. He’d lived in this castle for literally the majority of his
life, given his time here as a student combined with being a teacher, but even he wasn’t sure
he knew of a place he was sure no one else knew of.

Dumbledore might, but asking him absolutely defeated the purpose.

It was almost time to call this task quits for the night (although he really didn’t want to keep
this thing on him longer than absolutely necessary) when he passed a door that sent alarm
bells off somewhere in the back of his mind. He was a spy, he never ignored those types of
instincts and automatically categorized everything he knew about this door, this hallway, and
this floor to try and ascertain why type of threat it was.

The only thing he could come up with though, was that he didn’t recognize it.

Which was extremely suspicious to the point he whipped his wand out to point at it warily as
he’d just spent the better part of the afternoon and all evening combing this school and
considering each and every door, alcove, and tapestry he passed for a hint of what he might
need. Why didn’t he recognize this door? Did it just appear?

…actually, I wouldn’t put it past Hogwarts. He admitted after a couple seconds of considering
that.

Still, not putting his wand even an inch lower he walked to it carefully… a few diagnostic
spells revealed it was, predictably, a door.

Which didn’t mean shit when it came to Hogwarts. Also, given it’s current headmaster who
didn’t seem to care about lethal things wandering his school and its groundkeeper who didn’t
understand what classified as a lethal thing or not, there was no guarantee whatever was
behind here wasn’t incredibly dangerous if not outright deadly.

So Severus was on guard for pretty much just about anything when he opened it, in hopes this
would actually be the answer he was looking for.

He was still surprised by what he found, but figured this actually might be a pretty good
answer to his troubles. And he really, really hoped the dark lord agreed.

000

It took too long, it took way too long, but eventually Harry made progress.

The shed was well made, unfortunately, which meant finding a gap that wouldn’t take a week
and his entire soul to carve out was pretty difficult, but he eventually settled for an area at the
back corner that when cleared of wood would give him just enough room to squeeze out, and
he wouldn’t have to cut through joists to do it either. The problem, he figured, was that the
back and the one side were up against the garden fence and he’d have to cut through not only
the shed wall, but the neighbor’s fence and that was bound to be noticed long before he could
actually get enough wood cleared to get out. The front and the other side faced the Dursley’s
back yard, and if they happened to look out of their back window at the shed they’d locked
their nephew in for any reason, the jig would be up before you knew it. And one would think
they’d be hyperaware of the shed they’d locked someone in, so the chances were more than
he was willing to risk.

Also, annoyingly enough, the entire thing was set on a concrete slab to keep it level and
prevent it being waterlogged so he couldn’t cut the bottom and dig out quickly either.

He settled for a compromise and aimed at the back corner of his little area—still kind of
visible to the back yard but also right up against the neighbor’s fence, so neither would be
that noticeable. He also saved the edge closest to the Dursley’s house for last.

With the plan in place, it still didn’t help actually doing it. It was simple enough concept, to
cut a hole in a bunch of wood, but in reality when you only had a silver blade which equated
to nothing more than a fancy kitchen knife that was designed to cut plants and beetle shells
up against well made, pressure treated wood and some kind of plastic/rubber/tile-like siding
(?), things didn’t go well.

He packed everything he could into his bottomless bag, the only thing not fitting being his
trunk which he emptied and abandoned—he could get another one in Diagon easily no matter
how nice it was. He kept out his atmosphere bulb and his muggle-repelling ward stone just to
ensure no one came too close to where he was working to stop him, which gave him a lot of
relief as he got started actually. He then got to work, but it quickly became apparent this was
not a couple hour project, and he was right because by the time he was anywhere near close
to being done, a couple days had passed.

If he could get a firm grip on the knife with his too-shaky hands, that’d be one thing. If he
could continue gouging the knife into the wood with some amount of force for more than five
minutes without need to catch his breath, that’d be another. He was eternally exhausted and
alarmingly weak with all food now officially gone, and eventually he had strips of one of
Dudley’s old shirts wrapped almost entirely around his hands to stop the bleeding from
dozens of cuts as he slipped in his grip on it and cut himself. That only slowed it down
though as the cloth made it almost impossible to properly grip the slippery silver blade
handle, even if he could use more force than a someone with arthritis, but he was pretty sure
any passing grandma would be able to best him in thumb wrestling pretty easily judging by
his laborious pace.

By the second day the blade was also dulled to almost nothing, since clearly it was not
designed for this kind of work, and he was only about halfway done. With a blunt knife, the
second half took another three days easily, with things only slowing down as he did.

He was almost done, and despite being sick to his stomach and desperate to get some sleep
(he’d taken too many naps during this project already, he needed to get out of here already)
he kept at it even as his arms shook weakly and his grip on the knife slipped uneasily here
and there. He was almost there, and the cuts had stopped bleeding so he took off the cloth to
get one last good grip on it—

—and immediately slipped and cut himself.

Because of course he did.

“Shit,” he hissed, dropping the knife and clenching his fist as the new slice across his palm
bled deeply and freely down his wrist, also re-opening about four others while it went. He
was so done with everything he barely cared, disregarding the sting of it entirely at this point,
so he just reached into his bottomless bag with said bloody hand as he picked up the knife
again, searching for another of Dudley’s shirts to use as rags for it.

He was still looking for it and absently picking at the last area of wall with the now super-
dull blade, so it was the shock of his life when a tiny little pop sounded right next to him, and
some kind of creature was staring at him with too-wide, entirely inhuman but eerily still
human-ish eyes.

“Bloody hell!” He gasped, reeling back and dropping the knife once more immediately as he
pressed himself into the corner of the shed with his eyes wide. He did have his wand in his
sleeve finally in preparation to leave and immediately had it pointed at the creature, although
his palm was still slick with blood so he almost dropped it. “Who are you!?” He demanded.

“Harry Potter sir!” It squeaked, looking just as alarmed. “Dobby is here to help you sirs!” It
told him in a high pitched, shaky voice.

“Dobby? What’s a Dobby? Who are—what?” he gaped openly, still not lowering his wand.

“Dobby is a house elf sir! Master Draco sent hims to help you sirs!” The creature—now
identified as a house elf—had huge ears and was dressed in a filthy tea towel. Something
about it twisted Harry’s stomach even if it was already knotted from hunger. “Ah, and Dobby
cames to tell you sir not to go to—no! Bad Dobby!” The creature seemed to scold himself,
and to Harry’s utter horror, started banging his head on the side of the shed wall.
“Stop! Stop that, what are you doing!?” He balked, dropping his wand to shove the tiny
creature away from the wall. “Don’t hit yourself—are you an idiot?” He cried incredulously.

“Dobby disobeys so he must be punished,” The tiny thing told him morosely and Harry about
had a seizure at what the statement did to his brain.

“Oh my god Dobby no bloody way is that true. Listen to me,” he grabbed the elf from where
it was about to go for the wall again and shook him gently. “No hurting yourself, am I clear?
You’re a house elf, I’m told you’re supposed to follow orders so do as I say and don’t hurt
yourself, got it!?”

“B-but Master Harry Potter isn’t my master! I disobey my masters, Dobby should be
punished,” He explained as if that made sense and Harry saw red.

“Who are your masters?” He hissed, then suddenly brought himself up short. “Wait… you
said Draco sent you?”

“Yes sirs! Draco said your journals was covered in blood. I sees Master Harry Potter’s hand is
cut?”

Harry’s stomach dropped and he quickly released the elf to search through his bag properly
this time… in short order he found his enchanted journal and winced when he realized the
edges of the pages had been completed dyed with fresh red blood he’d probably smeared
there in his careless searching through his bag. He hadn’t been thinking… no wonder, if
Draco saw all that unexplained blood he’d have a right fit.

He was going to have a tough time explaining this one…

But his head snapped up when he realized the elf was still here, and that Draco had sent him.
Self-punishment aside, this was probably a good thing.

“Wait, Draco sent you to help me… then can you help me get out of this shed?” He
demanded, and Dobby blinked widely at him.

“Out of the shed? I’s to help you with your cuts,” The elf snapped his fingers and the blood
on Harry’s hands disappeared, the pain from the cuts instantly soothed leaving nothing but
faint pink lines over where they’d once been. He didn’t even care about the scars though, he
was so far past caring actually, but he did note that it didn’t make the bloody handprint he’d
inadvertently left on Dobby’s tea towel disappear. “Why is Master Harry Potter in a shed?”
The elf asked the real question here, and Harry felt tension spike along his shoulders.

“Dobby, I’m stuck in here and trying to get out, that’s all you need to know. I’ve almost cut a
hole but if you could open it wide or better yet take me out to the street away from this house,
it would be greatly appreciated. And if you could maybe not tell Draco, all the better…” He
tried to explain as calmly as he could, but his heart leapt into his throat in hope. This could
work!

But the elf just looked incredibly guilty.

“Master Harry Potter sirs… Dobby should tell you—ah! Bad Dobby!” He lunged for the wall
again and Harry grabbed him automatically, annoyed.

“Stop that! Tell me what Dobby? And can you not tell me after we get out of here?”

The elf wailed a bit at being denied his punishment, but sniffled dramatically instead, wiping
it on his tea towel. “Dobby only sent to see if Master Harry Potters is alright by Master
Malfoy, and he fixes his hands. But—but Master Harry Potter must not go to Hogwarts this
year! There’s is somethings bad in the castle! Dobby hears of its!”

What on earth? Okay, whatever.

“Fine, I won’t go to Hogwarts. Now get me out please?” He demanded.

The elf wailed balefully, and Harry was thankful for his muggle repelling stone. “Master
Harry Potters is lying sirs!” He accused. “Wizards can’ts lie to house elves!”

Okay, good to know.

“Of course I’m lying, you can’t demand that of me out of nowhere; I don’t even know you!”
Harry huffed back, and the elf shot him a tearful glare.

“No! Master Harry Potter will be safe here so he should stay here! He must not go to
Hogwarts!”

The elf snapped again, and just like that he disappeared from the hold Harry had around him,
and he was once again alone in the shed.

“What the hell?” He exclaimed to no one, glancing around incredulously at that quick, and
ultimately zany, confusing interaction. The first real interaction he’d had in an undetermined
amount of weeks, actually, and it’d been a really weird one.

But it was as he glanced around wildly after the elf, that he realized the shed wall he’d spent
the last several days carving through… had been entirely, magically restored. Not even a
single scratch on it.

He stared.

Minutes passed, and he just stared.

… huh.

That’s… well. All that work… for…

…nothing?

The logical side of his mind told him he was too hungry, too tired for do this again. The knife
was basically just a piece of metal in his hands instead of a real blade it was so dull, so it’d be
at least a week now to re-do it all if he could work at his previous pace, and since it’d been a
hot minute since he’d had anything to eat, that was never going to happen.
Yeah, I know. He told his logical side as his emotional side curled in on itself—and collapsed.

Only, it didn’t collapse like a bridge blowing out or a tree falling in a silent wood. No… this
went out like a supernova, and there was this quiet little moment where a giant star fell in on
itself, where there was nothing but silence, and darkness.

And then in an instant, there wasn’t.

 Harsh Sunlight
Chapter Notes

To be honest I never considered making Harry an obscurus sorry if I faked yall out with
that, and to me while he was def abused I don’t think one summer was long enough of
his larger core being suppressed to get there.

DON’T FRET there’ll consequences, just not an obscurus.

Also can I say I was startled and amused how those who routinely comment (thank you,
love you all <3) seemed to switch on a dime and all wanted the Dursleys and Dobby
dead after these past chapters? Because that was hilarious. But 12-year-old Harry,
despite being messed up and traumatized from already killing someone sort-of-
accidentally, is not a murderer at heart. Yet.

(No I did not give Harry long hair because I’ve been binging Technoblade fanart what
do you mean)

Harry was laughing.

Ah… but he was also screaming.

Because this was hilarious right?

Just as it was in equal parts absolutely horrific.

Sickening, obviously.

But also hysterical in a way only someone who’d completely lost their marbles would find
the edge of despair to be.

And so he was laughing a full-bellied laugh of utter hysteria, but never let it be said that he
wasn’t also screaming.

Forget being locked in a dusty shed, there had to be a world outside of this dark bubble he’d
been trapped in for god knows how long, and that world was going to hear him because there
was no way—NO WAY—he was going to just go quietly.

He had just enough presence of mind not to take his wand to the shed, and also to slip the
muggle-repelling ward stone back into his bag to negate the effects. Because while he knew
he had lost it, he was also after blood.

Let them come to me.

He didn’t need a wand.

Wands were for wizards, for humans—and he just entirely gave up on the entire stupid
concept of being anything but some crazed creature locked in a box that was about to go feral
if someone didn’t let him out right the fuck now.

He ran and threw his tiny body with all the energy he had left at the locked doors of the shed,
and the tiny latch connecting the doors gave—but the chains locking the two metal handles
together did not. It was enough to cause the doors to wobble drastically though as he tossed
himself at it again, feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder as he did so but he didn’t even bother
caring about it.

Knowing he just didn’t have the energy for that and he’d be no better than Dobby the house
elf for ramming himself into a wall again and again uselessly, he kicked at the door. He
couldn’t keep his balance so he fell, but then he just sat on the ground and used both feet to
kick at the door.

And he kicked, and kicked, and kicked, and kicked.

All the while shrieking as loud as he could because someone was going to hear him. He
didn’t give a fuck who it was—any Durlsey would be fine, but he was almost begging a
neighbor to hear. What a laugh that would be! Having a neighbor come running at the blood-
curling racket going on and finding the Dursley’s delinquent nephew locked in a bloody shed.

Pride didn’t mean shit, and he didn’t care about any damn neighbors. As soon as someone
opened this door to shut him up he was out of here.

He ran of out energy kicking really quickly—even his blinding fury and desperation wasn’t
enough to fuel a body that hadn’t eaten in a while—but as he slumped back onto the filthy
wooden floor, in just inhaled as deeply as he could and screamed at the ceiling for all it was
worth.

It legitimately probably sounded like there was a feral animal locked in here, but he didn’t
care.

He screamed until he ran out of air, simply panted a couple times, breathed in as much as he
could, and gave it another go.

And again.

And again.

And again.

He felt his vocal chords go out, and his throat burned something awful, but he refused to stop.
The broken voice made the screams sound even more inhuman though, which satisfied him
in some way.

He was extremely dizzy from the lack of air as he managed his breathing poorly, but it felt
good to get it out. What was it Pomfrey had said, what felt like lifetimes ago? Let your
emotions run their course?

Yeah, well, here it was.

He was so dizzy and focusing on screaming so hard, that he almost didn’t notice the chains
on the door rattling, and someone else shouting to compete with his shrieks. Almost.

But he did, and he cut himself in shock to realize he recognized the voice.

Vernon.

He clambered up, almost collapsing again but adrenaline now kicking in and somehow he got
upright. That’s right, he could…he could…

Blessed light flooded the small room and he hadn’t counted on how badly that would hurt his
eyes, but he didn’t need to see to force himself forward. He ran, and he ran hard, into the
light and just making a break for it.

He didn’t make it far—but he was out, and that was a relief so intense it kind of hurt.

The air never felt so wonderful as a fresh breeze washed over his face, and it smelled like
grass and gasoline, probably from someone mowing their lawn recently. How odd.

Almost as an afterthought, he realized someone was yelling near him, and he lashed out, too
dazed to really care about how he couldn’t move his arms properly—was someone holding
onto him?— or see straight in his first light in months, or even hear because maybe he’d
blown out his own eardrums screaming. It certainly felt that way, at least.

It wasn’t until he hit the hard, yet somehow soft earth of the back yard and got a face full of
bright green grass that he gathered some awareness, again the adrenaline filling in the gaps in
his senses and putting things into clarity. Not the crystal clear vision he usually got when his
heart started beating this fast, but awareness just enough not to be blind and deaf—which
spoke to the state he was in right now.

Wait, grass?

He was so out of it, but he pressed his palms into the grass beneath him, marveling at it’s
smell and it’s fantastic color.

Grass is awesome.

A hand wrapped itself around his arm and wrenched him up, and he held his breathe in panic
—head snapping up and he was looking into a fully purple face of Vernon seeming to be
exploding with rage.

“—dare you cause such a bloody racket first thing in the morning where any damn
neighbor could hear!” he was hissing and the only thing Harry gathered from that was that it
was morning. Had he been working through the night? Weird, his sense of time was so
screwed. Also his eyes were seriously fucked because it seemed bright enough to be midday
to him.
He was also unafraid right now, even being held up by the man who’d personally locked him
in a cage not too long ago.

Also weird.

“Vernon, get inside!” He glanced and Petunia was on the back patio with her curlers in and
still sporting her nightdress, a pale and disturbed looking Dudley hiding in the kitchen behind
her at the scene they were making. His aunt looked drawn and her eyes were darting around
nervously, clearly worried about who was hearing all of this.

“This blasted boy-!” Vernon moved, clearly going to do as commanded and drag them both
inside—but it suddenly clicked with Harry that he was free.

He just needed to get out of this grip, and he’d be free.

“NO!” He bellowed as loud as he could, getting a foot up thanks to Vernon holding him but
his arm to plant his foot in the man’s stomach and kick for all he was worth. It probably
wasn’t that hard given the state he was in, but the man was fat and probably thought a push
up was a type of bra for how fit he was. The bulbous man gasped in shock and dropped him,
and Harry felt panic mixed with unwarranted hope flood him as he hit the ground and tried to
run.

Tried to as he clearly wasn’t as fast as he used to be—something large and meaty hit him in
the back and with enough force to launch him into the ground hard enough that he heard his
wrist creak ominously, palms not quite catching him as they scraped against the earth and his
arms giving out entirely. He didn’t so much as catch himself as avoid face-planting—the side
of his head still made sharp impact with the ground, and suddenly his world exploded in red.

Not blood, for once. Thank god for small mercies, there was no more blood.

It was the color of blood, but also of roses and apples and Christmas.

His hair was probably a bloody mess—he’d brushed it and tried to wash it with his water
bottle the best he could, but he hadn’t had a real shower in over a month now and he felt that.

Despite it all though, it had gotten long and he’d hidden it loosely under his beanie in
preparation for his escape, but it’d fallen off when he hit the ground and now it was on full
display to the people he’d hidden it from since the first streaks of red had started showing on
his head. First his magic, now his hair.

For the second time this summer he felt entirely exposed on accident, and he braced for
impact by curling onto the grass and covering his head with his arms. Not that it did a thing
to hide the puddle of red flying about the back yard against the green grass, but he tried.

Vernon made an audibly shocked sound above him, and then predictably lost it.

“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL HAVE YOU DONE NOW YOU FREA-”

“VERNON.”
Harry actually startled despite previously thinking he was immune and numb to any more
shocks as an unfamiliar screech actually interrupted his uncle’s shouting, and by the tone in
his voice Vernon had been gearing up to go on quite a rant about people with freakish hair.
Instead he’d been cut off dead by a shrill voice Harry thought he recognized, but he’d never
actually heard her raise her voice like that, much less hear it so full of panic and desperation
that he automatically looked up towards it.

The back yard was stunned silent for a minute as Harry stared at Petunia’s now ashen face,
and Vernon stared at his wife in shock she’d actually managed to drown him out. Petunia
herself… was staring at Harry with an expression he’d never seen her wear, and he frankly
wasn’t sure he even knew what it meant.

Stunned muddy hazel met terrified emerald green.

There was a long… long beat of silence where everyone just stopped.

And they stared.

Vernon gathered himself first.

“Petunia what-”

“Let him go.”

What…? Did she mean…?

Harry couldn’t get his thoughts together, but Petunia’s face crumpled into something nasty
and bitter and acidic and she hissed at him. “Just go!”

He didn’t need telling twice—he scrambled to his feet and bolted without looking back once.
The instant he was clear of Vernon’s reach his heart started beating more freely, and a couple
seconds later he was in the front yard, then the street, and then working his way up towards a
larger road as fast as he could. He made it to the playground at the other end of the
neighborhood before he needed to catch his breath—he wasn’t strong enough to be doing this
and that was the most movement he’d done in weeks.

Still highly aware that he was still too close to the Private Drive, he tried to catch his breath
by panting deeply as he walked at a more reasonable pace into the nearby woods, and kept
walking. His whole body hurt from the sudden exertion, and everything he’d just gone
through, but he couldn’t think because he needed to keep moving.

He knew he was a mess, he couldn’t just call the Knight Bus or walk out into muggle train
station because he’d get way too many questions. He’d kept moderately clean but a month
without a shower really spoke for itself, and as he looked down at his arms holding branches
out of the way as he picked through the forest, he saw deep marks that would be thick bruises
in no time. Particularly his wrist, which ached something terrible now that the adrenaline was
wearing off.

And it was his writing hand too—that sucked.

Once deep enough into the forest that he’d at least be able to hear anyone coming, he sank
down at the base of a tree and tried to think. He’d planned for this, he just had to get his
thoughts in order and get there.

He also just needed to stop shaking first.

000

Harry was dead on his feet by the time he was finally safe—at least safe enough.

It sucked that it was morning when he’d managed to finally escape that damned shed; he’d
calculated that pretty badly, but it was better than nothing. Better than spending a single
second there longer than necessary, in fact, so he could deal with it. The unpleasant part came
from increasing the length of the journey he needed to take to get away properly, but it had
worked out eventually.

The easiest part had been getting to the muggle train station—he’d started by digging through
his clothes and putting on a large plain grey sweatshirt that covered most of him, as well as
put all his hair into a tight bun at the back of his head, covering it with a bandana to try and
make himself look unmemorable. Especially with Dudley’s old pants and shoes—yes he
looked like a hoodlum but he was also tiny and twelve so like… a kid dressed as a hoodlum
instead of actually being a delinquent. He noted the skin on his hands was… really pale,
probably not healthily so, and took out his mirror to finally get a good look at himself in full
light for the first time in well over a month.

To say he needed to lie down on the forest floor for a bit was an understatement.

Still, eventually he got up (he needed to keep moving) and pushed it from his mind and just
tried to pretend like he wasn’t starving and exhausted as he got to his feet once more. He’d
half thought he could pull this off in Dudley’s clothes and just put some make up on to hide
everything else, but now he realized there was no way to go out there and actually pretend
like he was fine. As soon as any adult saw him they were going to come up and ask
questions, and he could not have that.

Luckily, the back up plan worked out so flawlessly that it probably should’ve been his first
plan to be honest.

It was pretty simple—an invisibility cloak and a broom worked wonders, and he was at a
train station in less than a minute. He kind of wished he could go all the way to London like
that, but seriously doubted he’d remain conscious on a broom that long (it was easy for him,
but not effortless to fly and the last thing he wanted was his weak muscles giving out a
hundred meters in the air). Instead he kept the cloak firmly on to stay out of sight and hung
around the train station until the next train to London came in.

An invisible boy on a train had an easy time, which was a blessing because he was in
desperate need of an easy time for once. He did buy a ticket just in case for some reason he
had to take the cloak off and got questioned, but as no one even knew he was there to ask to
see it and no one bumped into him on accident, he wasn’t bothered once. In fact, he took a
heavy nap and woke when he was almost there, which was awesome even if it did make him
feel more tired and groggy than before if that was possible.

Once in London, things got a little harder. There were a ton of people around so not getting
bumped into while he was invisible was a challenge, and then trying to navigate when he had
neither a map nor could he take off the cloak to ask anyone directions was a bit of an issue.
He was tired as hell so walking god-knows how far to find what he was looking for didn’t
seem appealing, but he really had no choice.

The only good thing, was food.

And by food, he meant the food that he stole from convenience stores, food trucks, and right
off people’s plates at restaurants he passed and that no one stopped him from taking since,
you know, invisibility cloak.

I take it back Dad, this thing isn’t useless it’s freaking amazing and I’m glad you passed it
down.

He did feel a little bad, but also not that bad at all. He was hungry, and so far beyond caring
he swiped with reckless abandon as he shoved what he could in his bag for later and
munched away at hot food he swiped right off people’s plates right then and there—and it
was delicious.

Not too much as only a couple bites and he felt like he was going to throw up, not having
eaten enough for his stomach to be used to suddenly getting this much, but as he had a lot of
time to kill he could wander and swipe as he pleased and eat as slowly as he needed to.

The issue with getting out of the shed first thing in the morning was that he needed to wait
until it was later at night to get away with sneaking into a hotel. He couldn’t do it outright as
even if he didn’t look like a ghoul right now, he was still a twelve year old kid and no matter
how seedy the establishment, him asking to stay alone would cause questions, if not issues if
they decided to call the cops. Even if he said he was just waiting on his parents or guardian to
catch up, eventually he’d need to provide said guardian and that wasn’t going to happen.

So, he waited until night.

And thankfully, it was just after dark when he finally found it: a very small, really sketchy
looking motel especially far on the outskirts of the city where the buildings were shorter and
more suburban looking that near the center of the activity—not to mention the broken gates
and graffiti said there probably weren’t too many eyes watching in this area. The person
working the front desk was this greasy, overweight guy with a serious bald spot watching the
TV on the desk instead of the front door, so he didn’t even notice it swing open of it’s own
accord behind him, and more importantly neither did anyone out on the street. From what
Harry saw there were no cameras in this place, and when he snuck around the counter to get
an idea of the process they had here, he was thrilled to see a big paper calendar grid and a pin
board full of keys with numbers on them, about half the hooks empty.

The calendar had several people’s handwriting on it, and luckily a couple of them had pretty
bad penmanship. Double checking the guy was thoroughly distracted by his movie beside
him, Harry’s invisible hand borrowed a pen to scribble in Joe Grey across three days in one
of the empty rooms, approximating one of the sloppier handwritings, and then nicked the
matching key.

He wasn’t sure this would work for more than three days—after two they might wonder why
there was no card on file, or more like no cash paid up front since this seemed like the place
to do that, but he wasn’t planning on actually sticking around that long.

Honestly, he just needed a day.

Once in the room matching the key number he’d taken, he promptly locked the door and
shoved the desk chair under the door handle. He finished his precautions off by fishing out
his muggle repelling ward stone and sticking it on said chair so no muggle would even come
close to the door at all. None of this would stop a wizard, but frankly he wasn’t concerned
about witches and wizards at this moment.

Precautions complete, then he breathed a sigh of relief.

He took neither his bag nor his shoes off as he collapsed on the bed, and was out like a light.

000

He woke, predictably, from a nightmare.

He was so over it though, and still so bone-tired from not getting any true sleep, he just sat up
and took a couple minutes to breathe deeply and gather himself. He felt like shit, but… there
was light coming through the curtained windows, and the room smelled a bit moldy and
sweaty, but it didn’t smell like a shed so it was an absolute win on every level.

First thing he did was open the curtains, and let light wash over him. He enjoyed it for a
minute… and then also enjoyed being able to tell it was morning. Mid-morning maybe?

Oh yeah, he was free now, he could actually look at a clock. Which he did, only to be
confirmed he was right—it was 9:17am.

Wait—August 10th?

He did a double take and then had to grip the windowsill hard to keep the dizziness that
realization hit him with from knocking him down. He’d lost… so much time. Horrifyingly
enough, he probably would’ve bet money it was still July if you’d asked him five minutes
ago, and if that wasn’t a sucker punch…

I never once saw sunlight in July, a terrible little voice whispered at him from a dark corner
he didn’t want to turn and face.

It was damn near poetic really, the thought. If not absolutely gut-wrenchingly horrifying too.

He shook it off, needing to… he needed to…

He needed to eat, he realized, and finally took off his bag and his shoes, pulling out some of
the food he’d stolen yesterday and had a joy of a time finally eating what he wanted. He still
couldn’t eat that much, but he ate what he could before he started to get nauseous and then
drank a ton of water, finally heading to the shower.

Which, was appropriately filthy for a seedy motel like this and there was a half-used
shampoo bottle in there which under any other circumstance Harry would’ve avoided like the
plague but now was not the time to be picky. It would do for now, and he’d take another
shower at the earliest opportunity, which would hopefully be this afternoon.

He used all the hot water the entire place had, he was sure, because it was nearly noon when
he finally emerged from the bathroom scalded and scrubbed as clean as he could get himself,
and somehow he’d also avoided looking at himself in the mirror too. He knew he couldn’t
avoid it forever, but just for now…

He gathered everything he had just in case, eating just a little more although he still felt a
little too sick to eat much more than that, then donned the cloak one more time for another
excursion now that he felt a little more human.

It was not hard to find a nearby convenience store, they seemed to be on every street corner,
but it was hard find one that had makeup that wouldn’t make him look like a clown.
Seriously, most of it was orange-tinted or glittery which was extremely unnerving. When he
finally did track some down, he nicked it unrepentantly.

He did make note of the store name and general price of what he’d taken to tell Axeclaw
about it later though, because while he stole without hesitation in his hour of need but he
wasn’t that bad.

He only made one last trip back to the motel to use their bathroom, and finally faced what
he’d been dreading.

The mirror.

He understood he was unreasonably vain and petty on a good day, but you know what he
didn’t have to defend himself about his vain habits now of all times when it was so far
outside of his realm of ‘things he could deal with’ he barely even hesitated when stealing the
make up in the first place. Besides even people who were self-confident in their appearance
would be hiding under an invisibility cloak if they could if they looked like this.

The best description he had was that of a ghoul. And as his seriously disturbed expression
stared back at him in the mirror, it only got worse.

He’d never thought of himself as particularly tan, nor particularly pale—he’d worked outside
his whole life for the Dursleys doing chores, or running around town avoiding Dudley, but
since he started taking care of himself he also always wore enough sun screen to only rarely
get sunburned or come close to real deep tans. He’d spent a lot of time outside doing
yardwork right before his time in the shed, and gotten plenty of sun then.
All of it was gone now. He was not only pale, but pale enough that he definitely looked
terminally ill and borderline grey in some places. He was sure his own disgust and uneasiness
about his appearance did not help his pallor, but given that obtaining dreamless sleep potions
and calming draughts was high on his list of to-dos, he didn’t expect that to change anytime
soon.

He was thin. Not like lithe and delicate thin, but a slightly too boney and pointy thin.
Thankfully you could barely notice it in his face despite it being definitely not as round as it
used to be after all of Hogwarts’ feasts last year. It hadn’t been nearly long enough without
food to make his cheekbones stick out too much, but his neck and his collarbones gave it
away instantly. The shadowed dips of his collarbone in particular and the hollows of his
shoulders were so unnatural they caught the eye, and it was pretty obvious what caused it.
Reluctantly taking his shirt off to take a look, he also saw it on his ribs and in the dips of his
hips. Luckily not that badly there—his collarbone seemed to be the biggest give away for
some reason.

Still, he would not be changing in front of his roommates or quidditch teammates for the
foreseeable future.

He also wasn’t thrilled to notice all the scars he’d accumulated since only a year ago. The
one on his shoulder really was a thin white line, but you could still see it even standing a
couple feet from the mirror like he was. The two on his face were as noticeable as ever—the
one on his forehead the beacon it’d always been but the new one on his cheek not nearly as
faded as Pomfrey told him it’d be. He didn’t want to call her a liar, but maybe her definition
of barely visible simply did not match his. She'd already underestimated how vain he was
once, after all.

The ones he wasn’t sure about were all the new ones on his hands. They were a solid pink,
but seemingly to be fully healed. House elf magic seemed different than wizard magic, as
Pomfrey could be more delicate when healing cuts than Dobby had been, but his
understanding was that Pomfrey had taken longer. Dobby healed them with a snap, but it
seemed they’d frozen as they were—gaping cuts had frozen over with a scar, so now that
otherwise thin line it might’ve been even with muggle stitches was stuck as a semi- wide
wedge cut from his skin since they hadn’t been treated otherwise before instantaneously
healing.

Given the elf wore a filthy tea towel and seemed willing and eager to seriously damage
himself for disobeying his master, Harry shouldn’t have expected he’d care one bit about
appearances.

He flinched, thinking of Dobby’s masters and pushed it aside for now.

Make-up, Diagon Alley, calming draughts, then bad thoughts please.

He had more than enough practice covering his lightning bolt scar with muggle make up, but
the process of applying make up to his whole face was another challenge all by itself. Skills
at covering one scar did not translate to being able to apply it full-face, nor the challenge
covering grey, unhealthy skin with deep circles under his eyes turned out to be. It took him
far too long and a lot of wasted makeup, and he was really hoping Pomfrey lived up to her
promise of teaching him glamours as soon as possible in the coming school year.

Far too long later, he was kind of presentable and compensated by brushing out his blissfully
clean hair to frame his face as much as possible, letting it hang as much over him as he could,
trying to distract from his actual appearance which may or may not be wearing too much
make up yet still not covering everything wrong with him.

I really need to get out of the muggle world. Wizards accept stranger things without thinking
twice about it, I’ll blend in better, he mused as he packed up everything after giving up with
what he had so far. His clothes he figured were easy—he’d pulled out a long sleeve shirt and
a blue bandana to wear around his neck that would look strange as hell in mid-August
weather but you know, better than letting people see it. He could cover the grey tone with
makeup, he couldn’t change the thin, too stretched skin of his neck that easily.

So before he pulled on the cloak, he fixed his hair to fall as much as it could around his face
and over his neck, and then took off from the motel without glancing back.

000

It took most of the day to navigate by foot to Diagon Alley, but once he was in the general
area he was able to zero right in on it. He didn’t bother with the pub, the inn, Gringotts, or
any shop down the entire alley, he simply beelined for the shop towards the very
southernmost end to the one with the pale blue roof according to the note Madam Pomfrey
had written him. When he walked in, the young woman at the counter didn’t even look up
from the magazine she was leafing through as she greeted him.

“Welcome to Killian’s Kures, let me know if you’ll be needing anything today.” She recited
in a thick accent automatically as if she was conditioned to say it to the chime of the bell
above the door ringing.

He didn’t even bother answering as it was clear she’d be happier if he left her to her reading,
he just followed the signs on the shelves pointing him in the right direction. He was more
than familiar with what these potions looked like by now so he actually spotted them from
afar and went right up.

He could come back, he knew. He wasn’t leaving the alley again for a while, he could just
come back when he needed more.

And… he expected to need (want?) more.

So for today he swiped three dreamless sleep potions and five calming draughts. As that was
a little on the nose for what was wrong with him, he scanned the shelves for other things he
though might be handy—being sure to read when their stasis charms would wear off as he
hadn’t considered that before Pomfrey explained it to him at the start of summer. He settled
for a couple mild pain relievers with a shelf life of six months, a couple nutrient potions he
recognized as having taken in the hospital wing before, and a fever reducer. He also tossed in
a couple bandages and cut-mending ointments. There, it looked like he was just re-stocking
his medicine cabinet or something.
Not that it mattered, as the woman ran him up without even sparing him a glance, and
immediately went back to her magazine.

000

Harry didn’t like being stared at.

He thought this was the one place no one would care—the girl at the potion store didn’t care,
and he would’ve thought goblins really wouldn’t care.

He was stupid to think that though, as it occurred to him that if the wizard who owned the
money they guarded died, that money would stagnate in a vault until someone came to collect
it. And as Harry had no kids and no family who’d know about this (fuck the Dursleys,
seriously at this point) that was probably a very serious thing.

At least that was his theory, but it really didn’t matter in the end, because the point was he
was getting at was that he didn't like being stared at, and he was getting stared at pretty
seriously while sitting in Gringotts across from Axeclaw, who was doing the staring.

And he had been, for about five minutes now.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Eventually…

“I see you recently bought calming draughts at Killian’s.” the goblin announced in his
gravelly tone.

Harry blinked. “Uh… that updates fast, but yeah, I did. Like twenty minutes ago.”

“Did you take one?”

“Yes?”

“Take another.”

“Um… I just took-”

“Take another.”

“Can you stack potions like-”

“Yes.”

Harry couldn’t really form a response to this terse conversation, so he just pulled one out of
his bag and took another one as commanded. He did feel remarkably better, although he was
sure a lot of his accumulated tension was because he’d been stared at in dead silence for
several long minutes.
Axeclaw really didn’t have any facial expression aside from scowling, but Harry got the
impression he was satisfied with that. Maybe he just didn’t want to deal with emotional
humans, which Harry could kind of empathize with.

“Fine. Contrair Alley, you said.”

“Yes, I saw apartments above the shops down there and wondered if any are open to buy or
lease.” He pressed, and the goblin blinked once, before hopping off his large chair and
teetering over to a bookcase where he removed a large blue tome and brought it back with
him. It made a huge thud when he tossed it up onto the desk, and a minute or so of shuffling
pages as he flipped to the right one, he hummed a moment as he pondered whatever was
written in there.

“Hm… how urgent is this request?”

“I’d like to go there now, if possible. I’d rather not stay at the inn… or any inn.” Harry
admitted.

The goblin stared at him some more… before lowing his eyes back to the page and nodding.
“It’s decent property but I would not advise purchasing at this time. If the intent is to make an
actual investment then it would require more research and perhaps judging the market more
carefully than… as soon as possible. Since this is an urgent need I could perhaps arrange a
lease for one of the smaller options; if you’re moving in today you would still have to pay the
full month, and likely the rest of the year as well as a security deposit. For the inconvenience
of arriving so suddenly.” He explained, and Harry had already assumed as much, though not
in as many words.

It was more secure than the inn though.

“I’m okay with paying any fee to expedite it. Also, could I pay to have it warded with
everything you think I’d need not to be bothered by anyone?”

Again, the goblin stared.

But he did nod. “For a fee, of course.”

Harry nodded back. “I want to do it.”

“I’ll have the paperwork settled in two or three hours; I will summon you back here to sign
the appropriate pieces.” Axeclaw closed the large tomb, and pushed it aside. He pulled out a
small stack of papers and slid them across the desk, to Harry’s surprise. And he startled a bit,
to pick them up and see the Ministry’s seal on the top one.

“On another note, since Gringotts is managing your mail wards, we scan everything that
comes in. Predictably most of it is junk or fan mail that is sent to your donation vault if you
wished to see it. Anything we deemed urgent would’ve been forwarded, however things that
you may have interest in that are not explicitly urgent I simply held for when you would next
visit. There are two in particular I think may be of some interest.” He explained the
envelopes, and Harry lifted the top one with the Ministry’s seal with numb fingers.
“From the Ministry?”

“A warning, for underage use of magic. We received one over a month ago, and another just
yesterday.”

Harry felt… dizzy.

“Take another draught.” Axeclaw’s sharp tone cause him to blink out of it, and wondered
when his breathing had become so labored. Oh… he’d never heard a goblin raise their voice
before and it was kind of terrifying—or would be if he could process things normally. He
wasn’t stupid enough to argue about it either, so he just automatically pulled one from his bag
and downed it, not even noticing the taste if even there was one.

“If this were an actual cause for concern I would’ve forwarded it immediately as urgent—
however these notices are system errors at best. As you are utilizing our wards, we have full
access to magical signatures around them, which includes your mail ward which centers
around your person. It was easy to differentiate between actual magic use and accidental
magic; and while rare it does sometimes happen. It would be a simple matter to fill out the
paperwork to have the warnings overturned, which I could do this afternoon.” Axeclaw
explained.

For a fee, went unspoken, and frankly Harry didn’t care.

“Yes please. I don’t care about the fee.”

“Very good,” Axeclaw made a note in his journal off to the side.

“Can I ask…” The goblin lifted his head, and Harry felt stupid for asking but he had to know.
“How is it… I mean the Ministry knew I used magic in any form and just sent the letter?
There are no checks?”

“The ministry is using an automatic magic detecting ward provided by Gringotts. It wasn’t
exactly a premium service if you understand, so it is restricted to names, locations, and any
amount of magic. It is placed around the person and residence of every student whose name
is on the Hogwarts roster, but all it does it register magic. In a magical household it is
pointless, as it’s always on, and those cases are disregarded. In mostly muggle households it
only registers magic of any type. As you are my client being accused, of course I took the
step to verify if it was you who cast the magic to find out the truth—it was a mere case of
accidental magic which is allowed so long as no muggles are harmed or impacted, and a
house elf for some reason which doesn’t count towards your record. The ward the Ministry
uses is not nearly so refined, nor mere wizards capable of reading wards like the goblins can,
of course.”

The ministry paid for a cheap ward essentially just to keep an eye on muggleborns, is what
I’m hearing. And that cheap ward only triggers at any magic—even if there are types of
magic totally allowed given certain circumstances.

“Thank you for explaining that.” He managed to get out numbly.

He was insanely grateful he hadn’t gotten these notices while he was in the shed, because if
he’d received them without Axeclaw’s logical explanation and thought he was about to be
expelled for something he couldn’t control, he would’ve lost everything holding him back
from going absolutely postal and blasting himself free—as well as all three of the Dursleys
into unrecognizable pieces.

Huh, maybe he and his imprisoned godfather would get along after all.

He winced, thoughts of Sirius Black stinging even through three calming draughts.

Axeclaw seemed to notice, one intense yellow eye fixed on him warily.

“I believe that should conclude our business for today as I’ve much to do to arrange your new
lease. I will summon you back to sign the paperwork.” The unspoken, I don’t want to deal
with you while you’re like this didn’t need to be said, because Harry heard it clearly anyway.

“Thank you, Axeclaw.” He got out as he grabbed his bag, looking forward to finally having a
place to rest properly.

“And Mr. Potter.” Harry turned as he was almost to the door, Axeclaw laying gnarled hands
over his papers pointedly. “You seem unaware that it is easily done to have potions delivered
if necessary. I would suggest you allowing me to order you an amount to be delivered to your
new residence as five does not seem to be satisfactory.”

Harry stared back at him this time.

“…okay, send as many as you deem necessary to the place. I’ll be back for the paperwork.”

000

Four hours later, when Harry entered a freshly warded, sparsely furnished, one-bedroom
apartment with pale grey-green walls and a veritable crate sitting in the middle of the living
space floor filled with calming draughts, he started to think maybe the brutal goblin actually
cared.

Maybe he still only cared about all the money sitting in his vaults, but Harry felt touched all
the same.

000

It was two days later Harry finally woke up feeling like he maybe actually slept a bit. Not
energized or fully awake, as he still felt groggy with a bit of headache that refused to go
away, but after using up four dreamless sleep potions pretty much in a row, only bothering to
be awake between doses long enough to eat something, he did feel a bit better than he had.
The fully warded apartment that locked with a magical key only he and Axeclaw would ever
be able to enter, the muggle repelling ward stone now on the bedside table next to him, and
the comfy queen bed the place came pre-furnished with did wonders to help him finally
unwind.
But best of all, when he woke up and stretched away the many hours of solid
unconsciousness, he heard a clinking sound to his left that was distinctly familiar.

And when he looked out the window, he cried openly to see a very annoyed Hedwig
demanding to be let in.

She was not thrilled to be hugged outright as she was a bird, but she nipped at his ears much
more gently than she used to in her own form of greeting.

Harry was a solid mess and had to take another calming draught before he was able to get a
hold of himself, and he was glad he did when he spotted the letter tied around Hedwig’s leg
with a familiar scrawl in all capitals saying ‘HARRY ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW’ in all
capitals.

He grimaced.

“Draco is probably mad, huh?” He asked his owl as he stroked her white feathers
rhythmically, and the look she gave him implied that was probably a bit of an understatement.
“Hedwig…”

He almost couldn’t say it. To a bird and his first companion aside from Draco who could
never betray his secrets but…

“Hedwig they didn’t let me out since you left. It was the whole summer practically… it was
so dark.” He all but whispered as if it were shameful, and she cooed lowly—bumping her
head into his gently.

000

There were so many things he had to say, but he couldn’t think of where to even begin with
it. He settled, eventually, to opening Draco’s letter.

The inside matched the outside with all capital letters telling him to open his damn journal.

Which, Harry did not immediately do. He went and took a shower, ate as much breakfast as
he could, and started to empty out his bottomless bag of all his worldly possessions. He
was… not thrilled with how much had incidentally been ruined by his carelessly rummaging
through it with his bloody hands, but he simply sorted out what needed to be tossed and what
he would keep—he half thought he’d have outgrown some of his clothes and they’d need to
be replaced, but found that ultimately not necessary. He hadn’t grown tall enough in the last
year to outgrow a single piece and in fact most of it was now a bit baggier than it’d once
been.

He was still going to add clothes to his shopping list to prepare for the coming school year,
but the realization wasn’t great.

Clothes, more parchment, this year’s textbooks… wait, I didn’t get my Hogwarts letter yet did
I? Maybe it’s in the pile Axeclaw gave me—if its from Dumbledore it probably got blocked.
Wait, did I add McGonagall to my mail wards? I should do that if I haven’t… I’ll need to
make a list of people actually, I forgot to update those.

What else… I need another trunk, a new potions knife, new contacts for the year, hair cut
obviously… new robes? I still fit in mine, but Draco will definitely tell me they’re last season,
whatever that means. It’s a uniform, not sure how they could be last season.

It was easier to simply plan logically than it was to face any of the reasons for why he needed
these things.

But it came down to him realizing he needed a new water bowl for Hedwig as his old one got
lost somehow, not to mention fresh owl treats, but he caught himself as he was about to leave
the apartment.

Planning is one thing, I shouldn’t… I need to answer Draco before I do anything else. Stop
procrastinating idiot! He scolded himself sharply and forced himself to turn around and walk
back to the kitchen table he’d left all his relevant papers on, Draco's letter sitting unaddressed
over an eerily stained journal. He gave a sigh, grabbing a calming draught before sitting
down and finally opening the journal for the first time since before he decided to cut his way
from the shed. Honestly, he couldn’t quite pinpoint how many days that was, but it was over
a week for sure.

Which, was probably the longest he’d gone without talking to Draco in some way since he
met the boy, by several days.

He took a steadying breath, and opened the journal.

Pages and pages of it were filled with Draco’s handwriting. Predictably it started as it always
had, mostly as a monologue from him as Harry was less than responsive as he had been all
summer, but after about six pages of that he started asking questions. Normal things, like
‘how are you?’ or ‘what have you been doing?’. No answer from Harry, of course.

It quickly turned into rather delicate, but no less insistence that he answer him, that his
silence was unnerving him. Then it quickly spiraled into demands he answer, and in less than
a page he was now writing in all caps and threatening to just show up at his house if he didn’t
answer soon.

Harry flinched at that, but was comforted that not even Draco would be able to have actually
done that—he’d have needed his parents help to get his location from the Ministry, and while
he didn’t put that past the elder Malfoys he also didn’t think they’d be happy to bend to their
son’s will after only a week of being ghosted. That logic wouldn’t hold true forever though if
he continued to not answer and the last thing he wanted was them showing up at Private
Drive when Harry wasn’t there. He literally had no idea what would happen, but he was sure
he’d hate it.

Draco’s last messages were very, very angry and demanding and Harry gave in, pulling out
his quill and what ink he had left in resignation. He hated feeling this way—writing Draco
used to be the highlight of his day be it while he was at the Dursleys or even in Hogwarts
when there were a thousand other interesting things to preoccupy himself. It shouldn’t be a
chore, he shouldn’t dread this.

He hated feeling this way, but he owed Draco something even if he wasn’t sure where to start.

Hi, Draco. Sorry I haven’t been answering.

Maybe he wasn’t even at his desk yet or had his journal near him to answer, it was mid-
morning so he could be out playing quidditch again or off doing something else and it’d be a
while before he answers so Harry might have some time before he—

HARRY POTTER WHERE ON EARTH HAVE YOU BEEN YOU CAN’T DO THAT TO ME
WHAT’S WRONG?

Or… not. The ink flooding the page was sloshing and not nearly as neat as normal; it
appeared in a definite rush and Harry sighed. He felt guilty, which really didn’t help all the
other shitting emotions he had going on too.

Sorry. I’m fine though.

You didn’t answer for days and then there was blood on the journal—what the hell was that?
Dobby said you cut your hand.

I did. He fixed it with a snap though.

Of course he did, I told him to, but for some reason he won’t tell me anything else and that’s
pissing me off. Since when do house elves hide things!?

Harry felt ice cold, unable to respond for a couple minutes. He had the urge to snap the book
shut but he knew that wasn’t fair… he needed to have at least this conversation even if he
couldn’t get to anything else. Because while he had… mixed emotions about Dobby, he also
was absolutely distraught over the concept that the Malfoys owned that tiny creature.

And he had heard about house elves, he knew the general concept. Even Fred and George
were chill about the whole concept, and Hogwarts even had them so… this was an accepted
thing, and yet that accepted thing sounded a bit too close to slavery for him. Slavery had also
been an accepted thing once upon a time in most of the world, but that didn’t make it okay.
The wizarding world was kind of backwards about a lot of stuff so if they were lagging even
a century behind the muggle world, the chances that this was going to be sickening were
pretty high.

And Harry… well, just considering it seriously overwhelmed him to the point he had to push
away from the table and lean down, dry-heaving a bit as his hands got too clammy to write
for a moment.

Draco owned Dobby.

He was… far too intimately aware of what feeling like a captive, a slave or a servant to
someone felt like to probably ever be okay with that. The icy horror of even trying to
confront it left him shaking a bit.
It’s not Draco’s fault, he tried to think it through logically, shaking hands opening his calming
draught and downing it. Despite this feeling like… like betrayal in some sick way, it wasn’t
Draco’s fault the same as him growing up in a dark family hadn’t been. Since they’d met he’d
tried so hard to change, and Harry had sworn he’d always support Draco as he navigated the
waters of going from dark to grey, and this… this was no different.

It just hit way harder than hearing Draco’s parents had once served the guy who’d made him
an orphan for some reason. Maybe because the reason he’d ever been so desperate to have
parents who loved him was so he didn’t have to be near the Dursleys again, to be their own
personal house elf locked in their cupboard—eventually their shed. Maybe it was because
he’d still had control over himself back then, and he’d literally only known Draco a day
before hearing about his family’s dark nature—now they’d been friends for over a year and
had literally thousands of pages written between the two of them… now learning something
this drastic didn’t feel like a warning flag, it felt like flat out betrayal.

It’s not Draco’s fault. He was raised this way, he didn’t see a damn thing wrong with it. To the
wizarding world there wasn’t anything wrong with it. I still don’t know enough about it
besides Dobby who I don’t really like to begin with…

But even as he thought that, he couldn’t bring himself to think that he was wrong about his
disgust right now either. Dobby had screwed him over, but he’d had flighty bandages
wrapped around his hands and was dressed in filthy rags and seemed to want to disobey but
just wasn’t able to… wasn’t able to defy without hurting himself…

The problem was, Draco had no idea what his issue was right now, and he wouldn’t unless
Harry manned up and told him. Draco would not know something was wrong and it was
unfair to hold it against him without even talking.

But that meant he had to talk and he wasn’t sure he knew how.

He went around in circles for several minutes trying to come up with something, sitting so
long Draco responded first with a confused:

???

Harry signed, and picked up his quill once more.

Don’t punish Dobby for my bad reaction. He seemed like he wanted to help, I think, I just
don’t know what about.

I guess—why did you stop writing?

He wanted to slam his head into the journal. Ask the easy questions first, eh Draco!?

He gave a heavy sigh and bit his lip as he tried to think.

Hard to explain over writing. Is Dobby okay?

The elf? He’s an odd one—my father even asked him what was up with you but he wouldn’t
say, which is odd. Still he can’t disobey the Malfoy family so father isn’t worried too much
about it. I just asked him to check on you since the blood freaked me out—he’s a massive
screw-up though amongst all the elves so it wouldn’t shock me if he messed it up somehow.
What happened exactly?

Harry’s heart ached, and he ignored Draco’s question outright.

You have other house elves?

A few, yeah. ?

Are any like Dobby? That they hurt themselves if they disobey?

Dobby is a freak of a house elf, the others are just fine doing their duties. A disobedient elf is
a weird thing and so far as I know this one is the weirdest of all. He at least punishes himself
without us having to do anything—house elves are meant to act one way and though he
doesn’t he seems to have enough sense to course correct himself, though it’s incredibly
bizarre.

So the rest truly were okay with being essentially slaves… Dobby was just unique. Harry
wasn’t sure if that actually comforted him or not.

Do you ever punish him on top of what he does to himself?

On and off, but not nearly as badly as what he puts himself through. Father kicked him
around when he was playing his old part as a dark-sided wizard but I don’t think he cares
enough to notice what Dobby does or does not do so long as the cleaning is done. I know
when I was very little I used to throw things at him, but that’s just what kids do, isn’t it?

His heart sunk, and he offered the page in front of him a dark smile. Draco was…
complicated. Raised to be a terrible person, but still somehow good. He just didn’t know the
difference, or why this was so bad to Harry, but it still partially, if not entirely his fault too,
given he’d never once mentioned or hinted at these hang up of his.

Don’t punish him, please.

Okay?

Do you think he wants to work for the Malfoy family?

Well, house elves are house elves?? I don’t think I ever considered what they want, since it’s
in their nature to serve.

Doesn’t seem to be true with Dobby, now does it?

I guess? Harry, is everything alright? You don’t write for days, there blood all over our
journals, and then when you finally respond you ask a bunch of questions about my elf? The
blood???? What happened?

Harry grit his teeth, but yet again did not answer.
It’s not your fault, I never explained anything to you or let you know how I was feeling
about these sorts of things. It just was hard to meet Dobby and know you own him.

I’m afraid I don’t follow. Owning house elves is normal for pureblood families, isn’t it? You
knew about them from your reading and Hogwarts even has them.

I knew, but it’s different knowing in your brain and then seeing with your eyes. I know it’s
normal and I’m sorry for being so weird about it, but it’s just hard for me.

How?

It was such a simple question, but Harry… it made his head spin to try and confront it and he
just couldn’t.

“Me and my damn pride…” He sighed to no one, Hedwig fluttering over to perch on the back
of the chair opposite him and give him a questioning look. He huffed. “I know… he deserves
more than this but… but I just don’t have anything to give him.” He complained, fiddling
with his quill for a moment.

Eventually:

I don’t think I can explain that to you, Draco. We’re too different of people to find common
ground on this matter, and I don’t want to get into it over written words. Maybe we can talk
when we see each other again.

I suppose, although that doesn’t sooth my concerns.

I don’t suppose it does. Sorry.

Harry, is it something I did? With Dobby or house elves in general?

How could he possibly respond to that?

As you said, it’s normal in the wizarding world. It’s not your fault.

He bit his lip, hesitating a moment, but continuing before Draco could respond.

Maybe I just wish you could understand what I’m saying without me having to say it. And
maybe I also want you to never actually understand what I’m talking about.

What? That makes no sense at all, you know that right?

My point exactly. Sorry Draco, we can talk next time I see you. Did you want to meet in
Diagon to get our shopping done this week? I think maybe talking in person would be
better. Easier, since clearly I’m no help over writing.

I guess so. Do not think I’m going to let the blood thing go when I see you, but I get that
words are hard. I’ll write to you later? I need to check with my parents on a good day.
Harry felt a bit too much relief to sense the conversation was coming to a close. He used to
love writing Draco, when had it become this? He was right—words were hard.

Sure. Thanks, Draco.

Anytime.

000

They settled on the end of the week to meet up, only a couple days away which Harry found
himself actually looking forward to despite also somehow dreading his talk with Draco.

Still, finally seeing a friend beyond Hedwig would be a relief. Just so long as he actually
spent some time being his friend during the visit and not just a mother hen complaining about
how he’d been ignored and worried the whole summer.

That was a bit cruel though, Harry knew his Slytherin friend just cared. Didn’t make his
emotions any less true.

He did find his Hogwarts letter eventually and made a list of what he’d need, but also a
separate list of things he could do before Draco got there. He wanted to show Draco Contrair
Alley but he wasn’t sure if the pureblood would actually be up for buying anything there, so
he got those stops out of the way first. That way he could hang around if Draco wanted to
shop, but he didn’t want to force Draco to hang around and let him shop if it turned out he
wasn’t into it. And, given his attitude towards muggleborns and muggle things in general,
while improving steadily, was still a high possibility.

His first stop was Osmias’ to check out his first investment and was happy to see the man
himself both remembered him and was still doing pretty good business. He excitedly showed
him all the new products he had, now having contacts that could change your eye color
literally any color which was pretty cool. Harry liked his pretty distinctive green but he knew
a lot of people would definitely be into it and had the thought that he should’ve told some of
his muggleborn friends, or the more open-minded purebloods he knew, about this place.
Blaise was just chaotic enough to not care it was an Odd Solution and just be happy to dye
his eyes gold for no reason than he wanted to be dramatic as hell years before they were old
enough to learn glamours or illusionment charms.

Osmias had re-run his diagnostic spells and informed him that his prescription was slightly
worse than last year, and by his recollection on Potter eyes would continue to worsen until he
was in his twenties, which was not great news but soothed by the fact he seemed totally
confident in being able to provide contacts well up to that point. The shop owner then happily
proved to be Harry’s favorite in Contrair by noticing his not-so-invisible-currently invisibility
cloak and showed him one of his new colored contacts that matched it almost exactly.

It was just a slight sheen, like the glancing rainbow in an oil contaminated puddle in a
parking lot as bright sun hit it dead on. He even had to hold them up to the sunlight to
actually see the effect—it was subtle and hard to spot but they were sparkly in the right
sunlight. Indoors you’d likely not see them at all but in the right light…
Worth it, Harry grinned as he gleefully agreed to the impulse buy.

“Glad you like them! There’s not a lot of people interested in the colors I’ve found, although
people love the synesthesia glasses for some reason. I even made those as a joke!” Osmias
chuckled good naturedly as he went about adding the right charms to the contacts Harry had
picked out.

“Synesthesia glasses?” He wondered curiously.

“Sure, take a look.” He pulled a glasses case from his display shelf and handed it over, and
inside were wide rectangular lenses with colorful pink frames. He slipped them on and
blinked at the odd world he saw through it—odd colors and wait was he tasting the color
blue?

“Eh!?” He startled, taking them off quickly. “What was that!?”

“Mixing senses! Taste colors or hear scents, anything you can think of,” He grinned proudly.
“Not too useful but they’re fun! I was messing around with perception charms and found that
out.”

“That’s so cool,” Harry blinked. “So you can enhance sense with a pair of glasses?”

“To a point, just like most of my contacts have enhanced night vision or the like. I got some
fifth years asking to make a pair that’ll help increase memory retention I think for their
OWLs but haven’t had any luck with that so far. If it’s related to vision, I’m your man, but
then you start getting into more complicated magic about enhancing one’s mind and things
get trickier. I’m down to learn but it’s not my specialty.” He chatted, finishing the contacts
and beckoning Harry over to the stools that looked far more like hairdresser chairs. Since
most wizards didn’t know about contacts and Harry had no practice as this was only his
second time putting them in, Osmias was nice enough to put them for him in like this was a
proper eye-doctor visit.

“So could you make glasses that translate different languages you’re reading?”

“I suppose, but there are candies for that already.”

“Candies?”

“Sure. Like eat a French Bubblegum Pop and for an hour after you eat it you can speak and
read and generally just understand French fluently. They’re mighty handy, and probably more
useful than a pair of glasses that would likely be restricted to one language, and just written
word. Also people like candy, so that’s a bigger appeal if you had to choose, I’d think!”

Harry hadn’t ever heard of those candies but that was just awesome.

“What about diagnostic spells? Like, I’ve seen some of my Slytherin friends do diagnostic
spells to check if their food is poisoned—even at Hogwarts. Could you make glasses that
would show if something is poisoned or warded or something?”

Osmias paused in where he was about to put Harry’s last contact in, blinking in surprise.
“Hm… that’s actually a mighty fine idea! You must be a charming lad to have Slytherin
friends; I don’t get many, if any pureblood customers so the need never arose. Might open a
whole new market if they would actually be interested in that, at least parents for their
children if the kiddies don’t know the right spells yet.” Which, was a high probability as even
Draco had confessed it was hard to learn those spells prior to coming to Hogwarts—he didn’t
even know all of them yet but his parents had insisted he knew at least some before leaving
home.

“I think that’d be really cool. I’d definitely buy a pair and will tell my Slytherin friends. Odd
Solution or not I know they’d at least be tempted.”

“Good enough for me! I’ll take a look at it then.” Osmias laughed, finishing up and leaning
back to admire his work. “They look great! I think that sheen will be popular—not an
overbearing color like some but still pretty snazzy. Happy?” He whipped around the hand
mirror he had lying around, and Harry couldn’t immediately tell they were even there in the
indoor lighting of the shop. Glancing towards the front window though towards the sunlight
shining in, looking closely he saw the fine colors, and smiled.

000

He wrapped up his Contrair Alley shopping at the hairdressers, because he figured it’d put
him in a good mood to finish off the day.

His hair was…

Well.

He didn’t like thinking about it, but his hair had probably saved his life.

While it was uncomfortable to think about, there was a reason Petunia had suddenly grown a
back bone and just… let him go like that. Why she actually talked back to her husband (for
the first time ever, Harry was fairly certain) much less cut him off mid-shout. Why she’d
been so…so…

Harry couldn’t even begin to fathom what emotions she’d been working through, and
honestly he hoped he never knew. It was uncomfortable enough to recognize that her seeing
his hair for the first time got her to do something when she had never once ever bothered to
even look at or spare a single passing care about him before.

What he hated to admit, was that he probably had surprised her. And Vernon thought it was
freakish, but now that Harry knew it was his mother’s hair… he knew Petunia had seen this
exact shade before. Had lived with it, had grown up with it.

And if Petunia had ever loved her sister, even a just tiny bit…

Well.

She’d let him go.

If that was the only thing Harry ever got from Petunia Dursley, he was fine with it. He had no
need or want of anything else from her ever, and that old wish of hoping her bottled emotions
would slowly strangle her one day seemed to bubble up tumultuously from the depths of his
repressed emotions every time he remember back to that incident.

He had absolutely no intention of ever going back there, after all, and was oddly cold as he
logically considered what would happen if anyone tried. It was the same coldness he felt
when he realized he was going to die by Quirrell’s hand, when he realized that all those rules
and morals he thought he understood suddenly didn’t seem to matter when confronted with
his imminent death. What did being a good person even mean if you were just going to be
dead, after all?

He was thankfully lifted sharply from his quickly darkening thoughts by squeals of delight as
the same women who’d cut his hair last year spotted him entering their shop and gleefully
scooped him up, eager to get their hands on his hair. They were very, very excitable (not
unlike Hannah sometimes) and what he liked best was that they seemed to only have eyes for
his hair—they absolutely did not care about him at all, and that was somehow nice.

At least it relaxed his shoulders as they chatted about dead ends and passed potion bottles
between them to discuss.

“Any thoughts on style, sweets? It was so short last time you were here and we grew it out
for you—it’s got some length now but is a bit oily and not to mention these ends need to go,”
The woman who seemed to take over their project in front of them lifted the ends of his hair
to show him and while he still wasn’t 100% he could spot a dead end in amongst all his other
hair, he trusted her judgement.

He’d given it just enough thought to want to risk it, and if he didn’t like it it’d be easy to fix
on his own so he just said it before he could chicken out.

“Can I make it long? Like really long?”

She grinned and got to work.

She washed it with an assortment of potions and spells, then dried it with a wave of her wand
to began styling it, playing around here and there and asking what he preferred. He just let
her do it, chiming in when he liked something or she asked, but was otherwise happy to let
her work.

They were in the depths of it though when she paused for a second in her motions as if
noticing something on him, titling her head a bit. His heart skipped a bit nervously as she
reached out and touched his cheek gently as if wiping something off before blinking in
surprise.

“Is this make-up, dear?”

He flushed a bit, realizing it was stupid to think he wouldn’t get caught. “Uh…yeah.”
Luckily, instead of doing anything he initially thought she would, she just flashed him a big
grin. “Muggle makeup, yeah? My roommate had the same stuff before I rocked her world!
She’s a muggleborn, and no idea why no one told her about it, but it’s much easier I’d think.
Here, see this,” She walked over and picked up a metal container from a shelf full of others
like it and came back to him. “Muggle make-up doesn’t change color, right?”

“Change color? No?” He blinked, immediately realizing where this was going and perking
up.

“Then you’ll love this! No fuss, just pretties up the skin. Automatically glamours all types of
acne and scars but it does wash off with normal water so be careful in rain. There’s a
waterproof version but it’s pretty pricy,” She explained, like this wasn’t the best news ever,
opening the can to show him what seemed to be just clear gel. To demonstrate she put a little
on her finger and swiped it over her arm— the entire swatch seemed to fade and neutralize in
one color that was perfectly her skin tone. To Harry’s surprise, freckles seemed to appear too,
a couple seconds later.

The woman blinked and did a double take to the can in her hand. “Eh? Oh no this one had
freckles! Ha, that’s what I get for grabbing one at random.” She rolled her eyes and popped
the lid back on. “I only kinda know what muggle make up is like but my roommate says she
only uses it as a base and does other stuff the muggle way still. But this way it’ll match you
better—I think the kind you have on is a little too dark for you honey.”

Harry felt his face get hot, realizing he’d been walking around with off color makeup for
several days. Oops.

“Thanks… I think I will take that then. I uh… I’ve got some bad acne.” He lied because for
some reason he felt the need to have an excuse for this and she waved him off happily.

“No worries! Teenagers, huh? Everyone gets it bad, and worse is that’s the age you’re most
self-conscious about it. Tell all your friends at school because they don’t tell you about these
Odd Solutions and you don’t learn about glamours until you’re much older. If I had to walk
around with my crater face at Hogwarts? Please, I would’ve died.” She ranted a bit, going
back to his hair like they hadn’t been interrupted and ranting on about wizarding make up
products now, which Harry was content to just listen to in mild interest.

He didn’t actually want to wear makeup, he just didn’t like walking around with scars on his
face. And with the way life was going at the moment, there seemed to be no sign that people
would stop disfiguring him anytime soon.
 It's All a Joke

Just like last year, he felt like a whole new person after his day of pampering himself. New
contacts, new hair, newly covered scars and skin tone no longer noticeably grey, and even
new clothes thanks to a short excursion back to the muggle world. This new wardrobe had a
lot of long sleeve shirts in it, including several thin turtlenecks as well as a dozen bandanas
and scarves to wrap around his neck at least for the next couple months.

His hair was the biggest fascination to him though, and a welcome distraction if ever there
was one. It was long enough to brush the small of his back and thanks to the potions they’d
washed it with (seven of them to finally tamp down its wildness), straighter and sleeker than
it’d ever been. He put it back in a lose braid and long pieces still slid out like silk strands that
he’d tuck behind his ears, or just let them fall as it became apparent he’d need hairclips to
keep it back. Not that he felt like it at the moment, but maybe when he got back to school and
needed it out of his face to study or for his sports.

And speaking of sports…

He knew he needed to get back to some kind of equilibrium—Dursleys be damned he’d taken
care of himself despite their interference and they’d really put him back this summer but god
damn it he was going to fix this.

He worked up to eating proper meals again slowly but surely, he drank plenty of water, he
took dreamless sleep potions and slept full nights. He walked up and down Diagon and
Contrair Alley, only once at first before he had to stop and rest, and then several times,
attempting to do limited exercises back in his apartment a couple times a day to try and build
his strength back up—but it was a lot harder than he’d been thinking it’d be. No matter how
hard he tried, he just seemed to be unable to breathe too quickly, and his limbs shook
unsteadily far sooner than they used to doing the same exercises or even more challenging
stuff.

Given the work outs Wood usually had lined up, in this state Harry feared he might
legitimately might pass out rather than complete one of his captain’s regimes.

His stomach clenched at the thought that he might not be able to play quidditch or football at
first when the school year started, only a bit under two weeks away now, and pushed himself
to walk farther and do one more sit up just at the thought of it.

He just wasn’t sure if he’d actually be able to do it in what felt like so little time, but he had
to try.

Harry did make progress though, and he felt… a bit more like he was an actual human by the
time the day he was to meet up with Draco dawned. Despite his trepidation about the talk he
knew the blond wanted to have, he found himself actually excited for the first time in…

Ah, positive emotions made him feel just as off-kilter as bad ones, so he wasn’t really sure.
He also didn’t dwell too long on trying to remember past emotions either, as that didn’t seem
to help at all.

He wasn’t sure, that is, until he spotted Draco in the crowded alley, bright colors of countless
witches and wizards like a tornado of exuberant light and the Malfoys’ pure silver-white hair
standing out sharply in contrast. Like Hedwig’s sleek white feathers standing out sharply in
the crowd of brown barn owls over the Hogwarts breakfast tables, in this chaotic flush of
colors Harry now associated with the wizarding world, somehow still Draco managed to
stand out dramatically.

That morning he’d gotten up, showered, dressed his best wizard outfit so his friend’s
pureblood parents didn’t hate him, done his new hair the best he could and ate a full breakfast
to be prepared for the day. Before walking up to Diagon from Contrair he’d downed a
calming draught just in case, and he thought maybe he could handle this.

But then he actually saw Draco and suddenly he felt like he was coming apart at the seams.
Like the string holding him together had become alarmingly threadbare and all at one it was
starting to give.

He was already running before he even realized what his feet were doing, and Draco didn’t
really like touching people but he wasn’t exactly paying attention as he looked at something
in a shop window—his mother absolutely did though as the refined Lady Malfoy visibly
startled at the incoming redhead. That was all Harry got to see however, before he’d
absolutely walloped Draco, tossing his arms around the blond, burying his face in his
shoulder and hugging the ever living life out of him.

“Harry!” Draco eeped in shock, but automatically wrapping his arms back around him in a
hug. Harry was thankful he didn’t instinctively get hexed for his moment of impulse because
he knew the Slytherin was definitely more on guard for personal attacks than hugs in general.

“Hi Draco,” he managed to get out, knowing his voice was probably a bit too high in stress,
but otherwise held together a lot better than he thought it’d be. “S’been a long summer.”

“It has,” the blond agreed, although Harry could tell he was kind of baffled by that seemingly
random statement.

Draco was very cold. Not in emotion as he actually hugged him back and that was… nice.
But cold in a temperature sort of way—his friend was very noticeably not warm as Harry
hugged him tightly, but still soft. Like snow, or an echoing memory of perfectly untouched
snow layered deeply across the quidditch pitch. Like a heavy exhale on a bone-chilling
winter’s day that created a puff of curling fog as your breath met crisp air.

Given how much chaos Harry felt welling up inside him like a slow-motion emotional
tornado, it was incredibly soothing actually. Like ice on a headache, or shade under a July
sun.

After one last moment to gather himself he released the hug and stood back to offer Draco his
most earnest smile, and was thankful when Draco seemed to accept it with a smile of his
own. Seeming to remember his manners a bit too late, Harry looked at the Malfoy parents
accompanying their son and flashed them a much more manufactured, but probably more
convincing smile of politeness.

“Hello Mr. Malfoy, Mrs. Malfoy.”

Both seemed entirely blank in return, but Mr. Malfoy nodded once curtly while his wife
greeted him politely. “Mr. Potter. My understanding is that you would like to shop with
Draco; I have other business to attend to so we will meet again here at three.” She explained
curtly, getting right to the point with no room for questions in her tone.

Harry and Draco both nodded in agreement—Harry hadn’t heard that plan before but clearly
Draco hadn’t wanted to corner him in front of his parents, which he could appreciate.

He thought the reminder of what Draco wanted to talk about would make him uneasy but…
suddenly he was a lot less nervous about this conversation with Draco physically in front of
him now.

Oh right, this is my friend. That baby cactus he’s always been. When have I ever been afraid
to talk to him? When did that start?

He drifted a bit closer to Draco side at those melancholy thoughts, like the blond was a
talisman chasing them away.

“Yes Mother; see you at three,” Draco slipped away from his parents without much further
ado and suddenly Harry found himself being dragged by the sleeve of his invisibility cloak
through the crowd, Draco seeming to know exactly where he wanted to go first.

And since it was into a small alcove to one side of Gringotts where they could sit on the
marble steps with a giant griffon statue blocking the rest of the alley from view, Harry figured
he wasn’t exactly planning to actually shop first.

“I’m glad you’re in one piece Harry, but now I can tell you to your face how much of an idiot
you are,” Draco ranted without preamble as he pulled them down to sit on the steps and
Harry was dunked right into this confrontation. At least he didn’t beat around the bush
needlessly and cause more stress working up to it. Maybe he got that from his mom. “Blood?
On our journal? What?” the blond demanded immediately, and Harry winced.

“It was an accident.”

“Really?” Draco was suspicious, and Harry knew he was suspicious because he was making
no efforts at all to hide his body language or the incredulousness on his face. “Harry what
happened this summer? I know that you… you went through some things but then you never
once talked to me. Not really, and before we left Hogwarts you promised you would. I get
everyone reacts differently to stuff but that really doesn’t seem like you.”

Lying didn’t seem like him, he meant, and Harry wanted to wince at that implication. Lying
did seem like something he would do, just not to Draco, and he kind of hoped no one ever
knew about that reality. He kind of hoped Draco in particular never knew about it—because
to his perspective Harry didn’t lie. It just… wasn’t actually true.
What could he do, but put his head down in defeat? Because Draco was right, and being
forced to confront that made him feel terribly guilty. He wasn’t sure he could apologize
though—he wasn’t sure he’d actually mean it.

“Maybe not but… I guess that’s just how I react then.”

“What, not talking?”

“Maybe I’m just not ready to talk, okay? It—it was a long summer.” He defended himself,
though if felt kind of hollow.

Especially when Draco just looked at him with genuine confusion and concern. The more
earnest it was, the worse Harry felt.

“You said that before but what does that even mean?”

He avoided the grey eyes trying so hard to understand what he was saying, pressing his lips
together into a tight line.

“Draco… I don’t say this to be cruel, but there are some things about me that you will never
be able to understand.”

“What is that supposed to mean!?” The blond balked in alarm.

“It means you have parents who love you, and who would protect you.” Harry snapped,
something he’d almost forgotten bubbling up even though he knew it shouldn’t—not now. He
hadn’t had real temper issues in months, and while the warmth that went to the very tips of
his fingers as it flared back was familiar and nice as it somehow reminded him of who he
used to be before all this, he also knew this wasn’t the place. Draco of all people didn’t
deserve his wrath—there were plenty of people who did, but Draco was not one of them, not
when he was sitting here legitimately trying to help.

It was just that… he felt kind of cornered, having answers demanded of him when he just had
none to give.

And he was immediately on edge when even coming close to feeling of being cornered, the
feeling of being caged making him physically sick to his stomach without warning.

But the sharp words were already out of his mouth before he stamped a lid over the flaring
heat in his chest, and Draco’s ire went out instantly, like a candle being snuffed.

“What?” Draco seemed genuinely taken aback by his words, and Harry felt bad for even
bringing it up.

However… it was partly true. It was only a tiny piece of why he was not mentally and
emotionally ready to actually talk right now, but it was no less painfully true.

Draco was spoiled. He was loved. He had no idea people out there could harm children—
well he did consciously, but not the people who were supposed to protect them. Parents and
guardians… Draco was on guard against everyone because his parents had trained him to be
so, but he never once actually doubted that his parents loved him and were on his side.

Part of Harry was… shamefully, jealous of that.

And it was a brutally ugly side of him that he never wanted to see the light of day, but he
couldn’t say that small feeling didn’t exist, and he owed it to Draco to be honest.

So he took a breath to steady himself.

“I am an orphan who grew up with muggles who hate magic. Draco, your parents are turning
their lives around just because they want to see you smile, just because they don’t want to
interfere with us being friends. Your parents love you. And clearly they’ve protected you, as
we’ve already been over how sheltered you are.”

The blond shifted a bit unhappily where he sat, frowning as he absorbed that. “Yeah but… I
mean I don’t understand. What it is you won’t tell me and how this is supposed to relate to
Dobby of all creatures? Or the blood or—or anything!”

Ha. For a Slytherin he always has been a bit oblivious. Figured that was enough of a hint,
but he’s a bit slower on the uptake than I thought.

Draco was impressive because he was a Slytherin who only had ambition for no other reason
than pride and self-assurance. Not desperation or envy or greed or hunger— like Harry’s own
reasons and that which many of the snake house could probably trace their own ambitions to.
Even being just as conniving and hungry for power and success as any of them, the one thing
Draco didn’t have, was the understanding about why others might want power and success
themselves. To him, everyone should want those things so it was only natural—he was born
that way and any other thought process was foreign.

If Harry hadn’t been raised in a such a horrible home, if he hadn’t been beaten down and
personally shown how bad things could be, he might’ve been a better Gryffindor, or even a
Hufflepuff. He would’ve been so happy to just be and live and not care about tomorrow
because he wanted to enjoy the moment. He wouldn’t fear not being prepared or ahead of the
game because now he knew too-intimately what not being the cleverest person in the room
entailed, and lived in terror at what that would mean for him.

Because he would be dead a thousand times over if he couldn’t figure out how to protect
himself without anyone’s help, and so somewhere along the line he’d become far more
Slytherin than any Gryffindor before him had ever been by his knowledge. Hell, the hat had
put him in Gryffindor because he could then use it to achieve his goals—and if that wasn’t
the very definition of a Slytherin he wasn’t sure what was.

It startled Harry to realize that while Neville was probably the truest Gryffindor he knew of,
Draco was probably the absolute best example of a Slytherin. Not someone who wanted
power to solve a problem they had (Draco was rich and spoiled, talented and intelligent—
what problems did he actually have aside from dorm politics?), but someone born to be
ambitious and to always crave more for no other reason then that he simply demanded more
of his life at all times.
Neville wasn’t that brave and Draco was pretty unsubtle—at face values they didn’t live up to
the stereotypes of their houses, but at their core…

To Harry it felt like pure gold and silver amongst a lot of cheap copies trying to replicate the
real thing, and those flashy forgeries always overcompensated a bit. Always touted what they
thought bravery and ambition meant, and everyone bought into it—until you found the real
thing and suddenly found everything else a bit hollow.

Harry felt a bit hollow.

After all, he was neither a good Slytherin nor a good Gryffindor. He was somewhere in the
middle which made all his bravery and ambition feel… fake. Somehow Draco and Neville
still considered him a friend, but it gave him this feeling of paranoia that they might see how
un-brave and un-clever he actually was, and whatever image they had in their head of who he
was… he’d ruin it himself somehow.

He didn’t realize he’d been clenching and unclenching his fists in the fabric of his cloak as he
struggled and failed to come up with a response to Draco’s questions with all that was racing
around his head. Draco did however, and while Harry sat there in silence as he struggled, the
Slytherin was staring at his hands and finally noticed something that made him inhale
sharply.

Before Harry could ask, Draco had snatched one of his hands up in his own, causing him to
startle a bit. The blond didn’t really like touching people, he thought, so what was—

But he froze solid, realizing Draco was staring at his now scarred hands with wide grey eyes.

“What… what happened to your hands?”

Harry swallowed, his throat tight, trying to focus on how even Draco’s hands felt cold like
the August heat around them meant nothing instead of the creeping feeling of panic in his
lungs. “Uh… it was an accident.”

Draco narrowed his grey eyes sharply, not buying it for a second. “All of them? Harry…” The
panic won and Harry wrenched his hand free, curling them both towards his stomach
defensively. “Harry.”

“Why don’t you ask Dobby?” he snapped, and it was only seeing Draco’s taken aback
expression did he realize that a) the comment made no sense at all, and b) he regretted his
thoughtless deflection immensely. “No… no, don’t do that. I’m sorry, I just…”

“Dobby healed your hands, right? He said you cut your hands and that was the blood on the
journal.” Draco thankfully didn’t get riled, but was just trying to piece things together still.
“Blood you still haven’t explained.”

Harry clenched his jaw, and… when he put it like that, he knew he had what he wanted to
say. No… what he was going to say, but what he wanted would have to come on a later day.

“Draco, I’m not going to.”

“But why?”

If only I knew myself, he flexed his jaw tightly at the dark thoughts.

“Because I can’t! Because I—I’m not—” he needed to pause a second to take a calming
breath. “I’m not ready and I might never be ready.”

Draco finally lost his cool and lashed out, Harry’s heart skipping a beat as a cold hand
wrapped around his wrist and yanked it forward with surprising strength. Or, Harry just
wasn’t as strong as he remembered being, but Draco was. Either way the blond did not let go
even though Harry attempted to pull free, and he would’ve started panicking if Draco’s words
didn’t freeze him solid in shock.

“And that would be fine if I weren’t terrified you did this to yourself!”

…wait, what?

Draco held up his now-relaxed hand pointedly, pale white fingers stark against the new scars
over Harry’s own. And his grey eyes weren’t angry, they were… frustrated.

And worried.

And… Harry felt like a terrible, terrible friend. He just… wasn’t sure how to fix it.

Even if he told the truth, Draco would only be more frightened. He knew Draco would want
to know the truth but… but for some reason it wasn’t that easy. He knew he should be, but…
the harsh reality was that it wasn’t.

“Draco…what?” He asked in a small voice, although he had an awful feeling he already

knew.

“I…” The blond took a deep breath of his own, sorting out his thoughts for a second and
seeming to brace himself. But he showed a lot more bravery than Harry ever had by pressing
forward anyway. “I know what those potions were for. I know you’re not happy with your
relatives. I just… I was worried okay? You’ve been noticeably depressed all summer, even
over written words, and then suddenly our pages are covered in blood?” Harry couldn’t help
but wince at that, because when you put it like that he knew Draco was absolutely in the
right. I mean he’d always been in the right, but this somehow made it worse. “Harry, you’re
an idiot. Of course I’m worried! Don’t you dare tell me I’ve no right to be worried you
absolute lunatic—you’ve been doing nothing but worrying me and being unrepentant about
it!”

“…”

Harry wanted to answer, but he couldn’t. He just… couldn’t.

The words just wouldn’t come.

So he slid a bit closer where they sat beside each other on the steps and hugged his friend
again, burying himself into Draco’s neck and although the Slytherin startled at the sudden
change, he automatically hugged him back anyway. Thankfully they were out of sight from
most of the rest of the alley, because Harry wasn’t going to let go so quickly this time.

And that soothing coolness seemed to do wonders as Harry tried, really tried, to force himself
to say something.

Anything. He deserves something.

“…I’m…m’sorry for… for worrying you. I didn’t do it myself, it really was an accident. I
promise.” He got out weakly, and he felt Draco’s shoulders slump a bit. Not quite in relief,
but more like he was resigning himself.

“…all of them?” He grumbled doubtfully, and Harry felt his disbelief personally through the
humming in his chest.

“Yeah, all of them. I was doing something… a project, and I… I kept slipping and cutting
myself, I guess? And I’m the stubborn idiot who refused to stop or… or ask for help and I
kept going. And I cut myself… a lot. Not because I wanted to cut myself but because I kept
slipping and… and not caring that I was hurting myself.” He winced, free to do so into
Draco’s shoulder so the blond wouldn’t see. “I was looking for bandages in my bag and
must’ve touched the journal by accident.”

Thankfully that wasn’t even a lie to admit, which was the only relief of this whole
conversation.

For Draco’s part, he was silent a long minute as they just existed for a moment, before the
arms around him got noticeably tighter, if only slightly. “Not caring you were hurting
yourself doesn’t exactly comfort me, you know. Why wouldn’t you stop? Or—or ask for
help? My help?”

Ha.

Harry felt tears prick at the corner of his eyes, thankfully losing them immediately into
Draco’s robes.

“I really wish I could tell you. I… I don’t know. I d-don’t know why I didn’t ask, and why I
can’t… talk. I don’t know.”

And he really, really hoped that didn’t sound as broken as he felt to admit it.

“Harry… you know you can ask me for help, right? All the house rivalry stuff aside… I’d
blow all my politics out of the water if you really needed help, you know that right?”

“Yeah,” Harry gave a breath that might’ve been a wet laugh, if not for it lacking all the joyful
emotions that should’ve been behind it. But it felt… calming, to know Draco really was
telling the truth about that. That he would do that for him. It was… a relief, in some ways,
that assurance. Like a safety net Harry hadn’t even realized he’d been depending on for…
who knows how long at this point. “Yeah, I know. I’ve known this whole summer if I’d just
asked… just a word in our journal and you would’ve come and tried to help. I knew. It…it
meant a lot, just knowing that.”

“But…”

“No, I still didn’t ask. And I… I should’ve.” He winced again. “I just couldn’t.”

Draco gave a long suffering sigh and Harry let him have it. He was owed that much at least.
He was owed more honestly, but that would have to be paid back another day… for today,
Harry could let his friend be frustrated with him, because reasonably he had every right to be.

“If you ever find a reason, you have to tell me. Because I want to understand this.” His voice
was certainly frustrated enough for it. “Why you feel like you didn’t want my help.”

Harry finally let him go to push back and meet his grey eyes pointedly, because this deserved
to be said to his face. “It’s not like that, I swear! It’s not that I didn’t want or… or even
maybe need your help.” He tried to explain, faltering when he realized there really was
nowhere to go with that.

“Then—” Draco cut himself off and gave another dramatic sigh. “No, it’ll do no good to just
keep asking why. Clearly I don’t understand, but you have to promise to tell me if you ever
figure it out.” He demanded, almost briskly even. The worry in his eyes seemed to have
lessened, and Harry felt better realizing they were… kind of regaining normalcy. That
conversation wasn’t… so rough—maybe because Draco really wasn’t pushing that hard. He
clearly wanted to, but Harry was relieved to the point of pain he seemed done for now.

He nodded deeply and eagerly, giving into the blond’s demands more easily than he ever had
before.

“Alright. I can do that.” He promised, and be it Draco seeing how eager he was to move on
from this for a moment or not, he scoffed loudly—but his eyes glinted a bit.

“You troublesome Gryffindor.” He teased, and Harry felt himself smile.

It felt nice.

“Hey!” he defended himself with a weak laugh that didn’t really seem to fill his lungs all the
way, but that echo of cold snow came back as Draco leaned into his side pointedly. And the
scars on his hands didn’t actually hurt—they hadn’t since Dobby snapped his fingers and
fixed them—but Draco’s cold hands over his own felt like a relief he hadn’t even realized he
was searching for.

(For some reason the cold felt familiar, but he couldn’t begin to explain how.)

That feeling of normal and comfortable between the two of them flickered back to life like a
candle struggling desperately to keep its flame, but Harry treasured it. He treasured it deeply
as he pushed down the fear of talking to Draco that he’d felt only that morning to hopefully
wither and die where it’d never, ever come back.

000
The clues had always been there. Since that very first day just over a year ago when they lost
sight of Draco for five minutes and found him again with a red-headed omen on his arm,
Lucius and Narcissa had always known. The thing was, they were Slytherins and this was so
common in their world that even the flicker of sadness they felt at that morbid fact had long
since disappeared to time and was now buried beneath the ice-cold granite they kept firmly
over their souls.

It was why they were meant for each other. Stone-like Slytherins with poison in their veins
and venom in their smiles, who cherished their child above all and before life itself. Where
would you ever find such a weird combination? That was why even when they were still in
Hogwarts they’d always known they were the match destined to be—the ones that would
conquer the world.

Their ideals lined up perfectly, their combined fortunes were untouchable, and there was no
one as wicked or as cunning or as devious a partner to play with and against as each other.
Their marriage had been business to the core, and neither of them were actually romantically
“in love”, but both of them had been extremely pleased with the union even if they weren’t
passionate like the common masses thought the perfect lovey-dovey couple should be.

They were a perfect couple.

They were not in love.

A lot of people found that all but impossible to understand (if an outsider ever dared give
their relationship much thought, that is) but it had always been this way to Lucious Malfoy
and Narcissa Black, and since that day they reached their mutual agreement while both still
students they had always remained on the same page. They knew exactly what each other
would do in any given situation, because to be successful you had to know both your allies
and your enemy better than you knew yourself, and on any given day they could easily be
each other’s ally or enemy. That was what made it so interesting.

A year ago, when they’d met a young Harry Potter leaning on their son and grinning at his
new friend happily, they’d suspected. Approximately two minutes later after Hagrid had
intruded and given the boy his arctic owl, they’d known.

The evidence?

1. Hagrid, the Dumbledore-brainwashed pawn that he was, would not call the child’s
relatives ‘nasty muggles’ if he did not very much mean it and they truly were nasty
people not just outside of prejudice. If anything, Hagrid was prejudiced in favor of
muggles thanks to who he took orders from, so the deviation was notable.

2. Harry Potter, one of the most famous people (much less child) in the wizarding world
had been alone with only a Hogwarts guide on his first trip to Diagon Alley. No parents
or guardians in sight.

3. That Hogwarts guide had been Hagrid of all people instead of McGonagall who
historically did most of the muggleborn introductions, so that simply reeked of
Dumbledore’s grubby old hands plotting something. They were both fully aware of just
 how poorly the headmaster’s pawns could be treated—look at Narcissa’s foolhardy
Gryffindor cousin for all the example you’d ever need, but rest assured there were
many more.

4. The boy was so small and thin they’d both initially hoped he was just a younger
Hogwarts-prospect who’d been named in honor of the Boy Who Lived, and not the
menace himself.

5. The boy confessed himself he’d never had ice cream or gotten a present on his birthday
before and seemed genuinely overwhelmed to be confronted with a gift.

There were of course other clues throughout the year as Draco was not that good at hiding
things from them and he had a bad habit of rambling when he was writing letters home, but
that evidence had all occurred within the first five minutes and allowed them to put together
the pieces.

Harry Potter’s homelife was likely abusive. Which, would rock the worlds of a lot of people
could they possibly be smart enough to actually pay attention to what was so obvious in front
of them, but Lucius and Narcissa were Slytherins and, let’s be honest, most of Slytherin
house did not have great homelives, ever.

Why, pray tell, was it so weird that they cherished their son after all? It was odd for a
Slytherin to put anyone above themselves, including their own brood, but they’d always
known they were a tad special.

Abuse bred abuse. People they’d known as children who came home from breaks hiding
bruises under glamours were now adults that had thin and jumpy children of their own. The
worst bullies at Hogwarts knew the nastiest spells because they’d felt it firsthand from a
trusted source, and they continued the tradition by teaching their own offspring similarly.
Severus used to come back to school with actively bleeding wounds and broken bones,
spending the first couple days of term with Madam Pomfrey without fail, and had grown to
be a teacher hell-bent on changing the broken circle of Slytherin families breaking each other.
But he was one of the very few rare souls who broke the cycle themselves; most simply
caved to it and repeated their parents’ mistakes for both ease and the manipulative aspect of it
all.

And if ever there was a reason beyond mere politics and convenience Lucius would admit to
keeping his relationship with the young potions master in pristine condition, that would be it.
Because while they felt no remorse in keeping to themselves to focus on their own priorities,
they did admire that Severus’ entire ambition seemed to be to protect his children.

(Another key reason he was perfect to be Draco’s godfather.)

They did not feel the need to interfere with every abused child they happened across, because
they’d need a journal just to keep them all straight honestly, and they had neither the interest
nor the time for that kind of thing. Just because they knew within minutes upon meeting him
that the boy was abused at home, did not incite sympathy or cause them any concern. Their
actions after that introduction of the boy into their lives had been to move to accommodate
Draco’s position, that was it.
Draco’s life would be different from their own. Lucius and Narcissa’s parents had been no
better than most others after all, and despite Harry Potter now knowing the cruciatus curse a
little earlier in life than they had, it wasn’t by much. They didn’t pity the boy like they
wouldn’t pity any other Slytherin they knew—like they most certainly didn’t pity themselves.
Their upbringing had crafted them into who they were, and they were good snakes who knew
exactly what they wanted out of their lives and for the life of their child. Harry Potter’s
upbringing would craft him into who he was, and it wasn’t exactly their habit to go judging
people for that, or worse interfering if it wasn’t for their benefit.

Manipulating people into changing if who they were was inconvenient, however?

Without question.

But they were not in the practice of wondering why someone was they way that they were,
and more in the business of simply understanding so that they may be used effectively at a
later time. You are either manipulating people as pawns, or you yourself were the pawn, after
all. So while they didn’t know the details, that Harry Potter had a background more similar of
that to a Slytherin than their own son had actually been a mild comfort for the past year—
they could at least understand that about the intrusive dragon in their plans, and move to
counter accordingly on ground they were more than familiar with.

Now though, things had changed slightly.

And it was only slightly, but it was enough to possibly warrant their involvement, if a
mutually beneficial arrangement could be made, and as they watched the two boys slip out of
their hiding spot in front of Gringotts to actually begin their shopping, Narcissa toyed with a
few ideas that might just bear some fruit.

Of course they’d very subtly eavesdropped on that conversation—they would not be

Slytherin parents if they didn’t— but it really told them nothing they didn’t already know or
suspect. Having some things confirmed for certain was nice, but it only meant they really
should be doing something about this now, and as they exchanged blank looks with one
another, it was clear they were on the same page.

As always.

Now, it wasn’t just the matter of understanding the boy, but it was also for Draco’s continued
sanity that this child be removed from his current situation. They’d both noted their son’s
many sleepless nights, and they too had seen the journal and made the same assumptions
Draco had. If the boy died young, especially by his own hand, Draco would never recover
from that. They had assumed the boy would continue on and at least survive the abuse as was
common, no matter what else may happen, but the drastic drop in weight that was clear from
only a couple months ago and every line of his body language clinging to Draco for dear life
when they’d met up just now, proved they’d probably overestimated this eleven-year-old’s
capabilities.

(It also reminded Lucius to punish Dobby for being an idiot because the boy’s hands on
Draco’s back where he’d hugged their son were scarred deeply—the elf could not be that
stupid as to heal the boy and leave him disfigured like that. It was well within a house elf’s
abilities to remove most traces of injury in something simple like a cut, no matter how deep
they evidently were. Seriously what on earth was wrong with that thing…)

In any case, it suddenly this went from being something they were simply aware of, to a
potential threat to Draco they would need to address before it got any worse. They boy had
Slytherin-like qualities, but clearly he wasn’t actually cut from the exact same cloth and he
was not handling it like they’d anticipated. An error on their part, but one that was likely not
too late to rectify with some careful thought.

Besides, getting him out from under Dumbledore’s care would be a lovely bonus if they
played their cards right.

You see, it was always a concern, noting how blatantly Dumbledore was trying to pin the
Potter child under his thumb. Sending Hagrid as his guide was in no way subtle, but only
really a Slytherin would notice, and prior to befriending a Malfoy, no Slytherin would
actually care.

No duh Harry Potter would be the Light champion and Dumbledore’s little play thing. He
really was just a child with a big, frankly unearned reputation that most of the wizarding
world would fall beneath, and if there was one thing Dumbledore didn’t like, it was
competition. So it was painfully obvious that Potter, a reasonably normal eleven-year-old,
would fall under the headmaster’s manipulations and that was that. No Slytherin thought that
wasn’t going to happen and also it changed nothing as Harry Potter was always going to be
an enemy in one way or another. If he was working independently or under Dumbledore, who
cares? In fact, it was almost preferred he was under Dumbledore’s thumb as the old coot was
a known enemy, and Slytherins loved a known enemy far more than any unknown entity.

But then Harry Potter had actually arrived in the wizarding world and befriended a Malfoy,
and suddenly that was not so obvious at all.

They were still concerned, because Dumbledore was not an enemy to face on a whim, and
they’d known in the first five minutes of meeting the boy that the headmaster wanted him as
a pawn, and if they got involved it’d be open season on Slytherins for a while. They could
probably handle it, but during Draco’s first year at Hogwarts? Even with Severus there to
protect him, there were still so many ways the headmaster of the school could make Draco’s
introduction to Hogwarts hell, and the old bastard was more than willing to use children
against his enemies.

He’d done it before, and it left a bitter taste in Narcissa’s mouth in particular as it’d been her
family who’d suffered the most for his damned light-sided machinations.

Now though, thanks to both Draco’s work and the surprise ploy Potter himself had done, their
positions at Hogwarts were reasonably safe for now. That combined with Severus working to
protect him, even if Dumbledore did get wind that they were involved with something
working directly against his own plans, Draco would likely still be safe. They were still going
to be as subtle about it as possible to minimize the risk, but the risk was inherently lower now
compared to a year ago as if they’d been waiting for the right moment to strike and now was
the time to do so.
Now, they had the opportunity to get involved and that slight concern over Dumbledore’s
involvement could actually be dealt with. They had a chance and now an increased
motivation compared to last year to do so.

They’d never been pleased with the idea that their son was getting close to Harry Potter,
however that wasn’t something they could change (they had no wish to disappoint their son
in that way) but while they were fixing this issue of the boy’s abusive relatives, they could
perhaps kill two birds with one stone and also fix the matter of their son getting close to a
Dumbledore pawn. The boy’s reputation was one thing to contend with, but if he weren’t
being manipulated by Dumbledore then he could be manipulated by them.

Which sounded worse than it was—they simply wished for the boy to never cause their son’s
smile to disappear, which he should be on board with.

Or else.

In any case, the question now became what to do about it—how to ensure he did not die
young and how to ensure he was not going to end up a Dumbledore pawn. The boy (Harry,
perhaps they should begin to reference him as seeing how involved they were planning to
become—and Gryffindors preferred first names on the most part for some reason) clearly had
a rough summer with his muggle relatives. He was unnaturally thin, and despite hiding it well
still had circles beneath his eyes. If they knew anything, which they did, he was likely alone
right now and having gotten free of his relatives was not going to go back to them for the rest
of this summer if he had any sense at all. If he did scamper back to his abusers of his own
free will, he was beyond their help, frankly.

If he was alone, the thinness around his face meant he had not seen a healer and likely did not
know how to go about doing so—or perhaps wasn’t willing. Either way the first thing they’d
need to do was get some nutrition potions into him; perhaps a tip to Severus to give him a
detention delivering potions to the hospital wing would do it—Pomfrey would see his poor
health a mile away and that would take care of that at least. No matter her affiliations she was
a good healer.

Barring nothing dramatic happening, he would be fine while at Hogwarts if he kept close to
Draco and the other Slytherins, and now that he was in their good graces it wasn’t likely
Dumbledore would make too much progress in making him a pawn—most of the
headmaster’s people were in Gryffindor, after all. They could order Draco to keep him close
which he likely wasn’t going to argue too much about, and they could probably coordinate
similar orders with other families. The Zabini and Greengrass families would simply be a
matter of business in exchange for that small favor, and a couple others owed a small favor
here and there—thankfully with the boys’ (Harry’s) position within the snake house not as
abysmal as it once was, that part would likely go pretty smoothly actually.

Lucius would have to meet with Severus and explain in depth about why he needed to not
give the boy detention until he graduated if he caught him in the Slytherin common room this
year, and that would be a troublesome confrontation, but they did have two weeks before the
start of term to get to work on it that particular battle.
The real question would be what to do once the school year ended. The boy, to be totally free
of Dumbledore’s manipulations, would need to be removed from his current situation and
placed with a neutral party or at least a party that wouldn’t cave to what the old man wanted.
Clearly he wanted the boy to be meek and abused—prime pawn material—so not with
abusive guardians for one. That would also probably make Draco happy too, and if it ever
came to light that they’d helped save the boy from a terrible circumstance, probably win them
a lot of points in their son’s eyes which they wouldn’t be too upset about.

So, not Dumbledore, not one of Dumbledore’s pawns, and not someone abusive that would
only feed into Dumbledore’s overall plan. It also had to be someone Harry himself would
willingly go to, someone that would willing take him at that, and someone who would let the
boy be himself to make his own choices—choices that would hopefully involve keeping
Draco happy in some aspect, that is. And on that note they couldn’t be a guardian that would
be outright against Slytherins and interfere with the two boys relationship, of course—they
weren’t going anywhere so it’d have to be someone not outright against the Malfoy name in
particular, or who wouldn’t immediately keep them at arm’s length out of suspicion they were
plotting something.

Which, they were, but someone not primed to try and outmaneuver or work against them like
a fellow snake absolutely would try to do simply for the pride of it all, would be optimal.
So… snake-like, but not actually a snake themselves.

To be honest, it was a difficult conundrum and no immediate answer presented itself. They
would need to think of a solution quickly though, as it might take all year to arrange it so that
Harry could go to a new home by the time the school term ended and do it subtly enough that
Dumbledore wouldn’t immediately know they were behind it. As they didn’t know who they
were going to pick, they didn’t know how long it’d take to craft a plan and put it to action.

Narcissa had an idea though… a rather bad one, she admitted, but one that she’d been
thinking about for over a decade at this point. And if Lucius agreed to it, they were going to
need every spare second they could get to do it before next June.

Still, this was a discussion for home, not while they were walking calmly down Diagon Alley
where anyone could overhear them, so they simply looped arms and continued their walk,
discussing potential things to buy and where best to buy them while they let their son finish
his shopping trip.

000

“Oh no.”

Harry looked up, not sure what Draco looked so unhappy about as they rounded a corner in a
rather crowded Flourish & Blotts.

“What’s wrong?”

“What was that bookstore in the other alley called again?”

The redhead blinked, taken a bit off guard at the sudden question. He had actually managed
to get Draco down into Contrair Alley but as he’d expected Draco was… kind of interested
but also not about to buy anything there. He’d let himself be dragged up and down it, Harry
pointing out the Odd Solutions he thought were cool, and even had a very brief conversation
with Osmias about those poison-detecting glasses which Draco admitted were probably a
good investment for Slytherin families with young children, but they hadn’t stayed long. The
Slytherin side of him was probably still too hyperaware of who might see him down there
and Harry had already figured that would likely be the case so they’d spent only a short
amount of time to see it before heading back up to Diagon to actually get some shopping
done.

And shopping with Draco was actually a lot more fun, compared to last year where he’d
shopped on his own following the advice he’d been given via letters. Now that he actually
had a year of magical education under his belt to know generally what he needed and Draco
beside him to discuss the pros and cons of some things versus others, the process was a lot
more enjoyable, like they were actually hanging out instead of doing errands.

The casual atmosphere they’d slowly been regaining after a tense morning and a slightly less
tense lunch together, seemed to disappear suddenly as Draco clammed up. Him asking about
a bookstore in the alley he hadn’t wanted to visit in the first place set Harry’s alarm bells off,
too.

“Bethany’s Books, but you didn’t want to go in. What’s wrong Draco?”

“Just hide,” He huffed, pulling them behind the nearest bookshelf and peering through the
tomes which Harry dutifully copied even though he had no idea why. “Remember I was
telling you about that dud of a DADA teacher Dumbledore was rumored to have hired?”

Harry blinked, the words ringing a bell but not quite being able to recall specifically. He’d
been distracted at the time, sue him.

“Uh, I think? The one you said was a fake.”

“Yep.” The blond scowled unhappily, and pointed between the rows of books. “That would
be him.”

Curious, Harry peered between the books to get a glimpse himself and realized the store
wasn’t just crowded with kids getting their school texts, but with a lot of witches of all ages
who seemed to be clustered around a man with a small mountain of books displayed behind
him. With his brand new contacts he could even make out the titles, and realized those were
their Defense textbooks for this year. They were… all very sparkly with gold and silver
accents making them like shelf pieces rather than textbooks.

The center of all the commotion was a man with a rather impressive head of golden hair he
obviously had some magical hair products Harry himself was familiar with in, and a mega-
watt smile that gave you this odd urge to blink if you looked directly at. He was loudly
talking to the tittering witches and signing copies—of their textbooks?

“Is he… signing textbooks?”

“They’re not actually textbooks, not really. They’re his autobiographies of sorts, tales of his
adventures if you actually believe any of it happened. Which, according to my father, most
likely did not.”

Harry frowned, but after reading enough Transfiguration texts over the year and his bank
statements every month telling him how much money in royalties he was making off people
having publish books about him without ever having met him, he knew for a fact the
wizarding world didn’t care about truth in the things they read. Hell, even just the things he’d
heard people talk about having read from the Daily Prophet—which was one of their only
newspapers—was all trashy gossip at best, slanderous libel at worst.

The books could say anything, and so long as it was interesting people would buy them. It
didn’t matter if a single word in it was true.

Which was a foreboding sign for a guy who was supposed to be their teacher this year and
essentially got a bunch of free sales by forcing his students to buy his books.

Harry might’ve given him a pass if he were doing it for conniving purposes, like a Slytherin
would to get ahead—to each their own ambition after all. However the sheer distaste on
Draco’s face meant he probably wasn’t doing it for reasons a Slytherin would actually
approve of.

“So uh… why are we hiding?” He wondered aloud.

Draco blinked and the tips of his ears turned pink. “Uh… actually my mother said to avoid
him if we could. I think she knew he’d be here and she said if he saw you he’d make a
scene.”

“Wait what?” Harry blinked, both startled at the amount of information Lady Malfoy
somehow had access to, and also that she’d care enough to preemptively warn her son about
it. If he knew anything about how they loved to spoil their son, Harry suspected it was mainly
for Draco’s benefit instead of his own, but wasn’t quite sure how the two connected.

“Father calls him a glory hound. I’m pretty sure Mother knows something else but she
wouldn’t say specifics.” Draco explained, and that pretty much solidified that the elder
Malfoys were plotting something but Harry was all about avoiding making a scene.

He’d mentally called Ron Weasley a glory hound in his head for months after all, so he could
probably imagine what kind of scene it’d be, and given the crowd of women in the tiny shop
right now… yeah, no thanks.

“Did you actually want to go back to Bethany’s or do you just want to get books another day?
Did you have any other summer plans or could we meet up another day to talk books
specifically?” He proposed and Draco perked up at that idea.

“I like that idea better—let’s get out of here.” He agreed, and Harry made to stand up when
he suddenly focused on the book he was hiding behind instead of the scene beyond them, and
blinked.
“Woah, what’s this?”

“Hm?” Draco was already halfway gone before he needed to stop.

Harry picked up the book on the shelf and blinked. “The Party Trick Transfiguration Guide?
They have joke books like this?” He immediately opened it and perked up in interest that the
first spell was showing how to conjure flowers on the tip of your wand. That was a muggle
trick he thought, and also going by the equation beneath the wand movement diagram totally
within his capabilities right then—also, it wasn’t a joke book!? “Oh my god this is awesome,
I absolutely need it,”

“Harry, get it later! Let’s go,” Draco tried to come back to take it from him but he just
clutched it to his chest.

“Draco you don’t understand!”

“I will buy you all the Transfiguration books you want later.”

“But-!” how could he explain that this seemed genuinely fun? It was so stupidly lighthearted
he was struck with surprise that he was actually in the mood for something silly like this but
also sincerely wanted something so… senselessly easy to enjoy for one moment. Something
simple.

“How were you planning to get it without anyone seeing?” Draco demanded impatiently.

“It’ll take two seconds, please?” He begged playfully.

“Oh my god we’re going to get caught!”

“Then watch my back for two seconds!” he was darting around the bookshelf before Draco
could even fully form his protest, but followed suit anyway.

He ran up to the purchase desk which was thankfully empty and slipped a couple galleons
from his pockets although he guessed a book like this wouldn’t cost nearly so much—the
clerk just smiled politely at him and picked the book up to check the price.

Like the universe was just waiting for it though, he heard Draco make a small sound of horror
behind him.

“Harry Potter? The Harry Potter? My boy, how excellent it is to meet you!” A loud voice
interrupted him and the girl behind the register looked over his shoulder and flushed a bit.

Harry turned, and saw Draco looking equally as horrified by the man walking up to them—
blond hair and too-big smile completely disregarding the many people he was walking
through and the fact he’d interrupted him as he approached.

In seconds he was all but on them— “My name’s Gilderoy Lockhart, my boy! Tommy come
take a picture of us, I’d reckon together we’d make the front page!” He was talking mostly to
the crowd around them and it was with a bleated sort of terror Harry realized there was a
stout man with a huge camera trailing after the celebrity author who lifted the device the
same moment an arm plopped around his shoulders with surprising force and almost caused
him to stumble.

“Wait what?” he said cleverly shocked and instantly short-circuiting from being manhandled.

Thankfully, while he was so taken off guard he might’ve let it happen only to immediately
regret it probably, Draco didn’t hesitate and lunged forward to interfere.

“Free signed copies!?” He exclaimed loud enough that pretty much the whole store heard
him—and in exactly two seconds they could heard nothing through the din of women all
shouting at each other and clambering to get someplace that didn’t actually exist, the man
with the camera getting jostled hard and although the flash went off Harry seriously doubted
he’d actually gotten anything good.

In fact, Harry was so shocked and confused by the sudden chaos he jumped a bit as a cold
hand wrapped around his wrist and pulled him from a too-loud bookstore into the open light
of an equally, if not much more regulated chaos of Diagon Alley’s street.

“What?” he balked, his head spinning. He snapped his neck towards Draco who was looking
pissy as ever at people in general but his cheeks were a dusty pink from embarrassment at
that too. “Draco what? That was...pff—!” he couldn’t help it, laughter bubbled up into his
chest before he could stop it.

“It’s not that funny.” The blond pouted, kicking the street while his cheeks turned a bit darker.

Harry burst out laughing. “Oh my god! That was brilliant! That was—” He couldn’t talk for a
few seconds as bursts of laughter seemed to attack him. “You—that was almost Gryffindor-
ish—what the hell!? You— you just—ha!”

It felt so good to laugh.

And it was so legitimately funny, seeing Draco’s instinct work quicker than his logic for
once, and it was bloody hilarious.

Draco disagreed with a sheepish scowl. “It’s not that funny!”

“You’ve been hanging out with Dean too much!” Harry laughed in his face, and the
Slytherin’s temple twitched.

“I have not!”

“You wanna tell me that Blaise would’ve done that?” He challenged and Draco was brought
up short before tossing his hands in the air.

“Well maybe? Who the bloody hell knows what that pompous loon would do!”

Harry couldn’t handle it and dissolved into fits of giggles because Draco wasn’t wrong
exactly, you couldn’t actually predict the Zabini heir, but he just could not imagine Blaise
actually doing something so random but in trying to form the mental picture he just lost it
again.
And maybe Draco was right, and neither Dean nor Blaise would do something like that—
maybe it was just something Draco would do, and Harry just found he loved his friend all the
more for it.

A Slytherin, who was cold when it counted but was hands down ready to instigate chaos
apparently.

Harry only shut up when Draco groaned in annoyance and pressed a book into his arms and
he had to do a double take to realize it was his joke book. “Are you happy now?”

“Draco did you steal this!?”

“Like hell!” He snapped, then colored a bit. “I might’ve nicked it but we’re going back
another day, I’ll pay them then. Let’s just say it’s an unofficial tab.”

Harry grinned and clutched it tighter to his chest, mind flashing to the spell he’d just seen and
pulled out his wand. Draco watched him warily as he made a simple motion directly in his
face—

“Orchideous,” He said clearly and a plume of purple and white flowers of many sorts—
many that didn’t even come in purple or white—bloomed into existence, causing the
Slytherin to blink widely. “Thank you Draco,” He smiled genuinely, and the blond sighed a
very put-upon sigh as he took the flowers pointedly.

“Did you really just learn that spell?”

“I like Transfiguration.”

“So I noticed.” Draco rolled his eye and pulled him farther down the alley to get clear of the
bookstore chaos. “We only have an hour left and if we’re going to finish shopping another
day let’s just get ice cream. And also avoid that bloody milksop while he’s still in Diagon.”
He complained promptly.

Harry just grinned and went along for the ride, feeling a distinct relief in how light he
suddenly was.
 We All Just Missed

It was later that night that Draco got a sinking feeling in his stomach as his Mother glanced
up from over their dinner to give him a look he was more than familiar with. It was a ‘you
will do as you’re told right now’ thing that she only got on when she knew he wouldn’t be
happy with what she had to say.

It’d been the best day of the summer so far, given the rest of it was so dull and boring just
writing a seemingly one-sided monologue into his enchanted journal when he could, and
spending the rest of it practicing his heart out to be able to make the quidditch team this
coming term. Shocking as it was to say, even he could sometimes get tired of quidditch when
it was just him practicing alone for days on end—not even his Slytherin “friends” were much
of a distraction as Blaise had gone to Italy for family business and Nott had flat out rejected
hanging out with him, which didn’t exactly shock anyone (he was slightly abashed he was
even stupid enough to bother asking to be honest). He’d gotten his homework done pretty
early at his mother’s orders and continued being tutored in his areas of study here and there
so to get a leg up for the coming year, but it wasn’t that interesting and also took a lot less
time than actually attending school.

He thought maybe he could’ve convinced Harry to visit several times over the break but
clearly that hadn’t worked out. Not only had the redhead barely responded to their journals,
but every time Draco tried to steer the conversation (or what little there was of one) in the
direction of implying an invitation, he’d been shut down pretty swiftly. He knew Harry’s
relatives didn’t like magic and he was actually hiding the fact he was writing to him at all
from his family, so he got the message pretty quickly that his guardians wouldn’t let him go
even if he had officially invited him.

But since most of his summer plans had been centered around Harry, this summer he’d been
very, very bored.

And worried.

There was only so much worrying you could do alone though, and it’d eaten at him all break
until he finally set eyes on Harry to see he wasn’t dying in a puddle somewhere, but even
though some of his fears were soothed it wasn’t nearly as fixed as he thought it’d be. He
just… wasn’t sure how things were actually broken or how to go about fixing this thing that
he couldn’t put a finger on in the first place. Given his parents utter lack of commentary on
meeting Harry earlier that day, he knew they were up to something as well but probably had
way more awareness of the situation than him which was kind of annoying.

But… well, he had no plan for how to fix this, so he was willing to hear what they were up to
first.

“Any particular plans for this school year, dear?” His mother asked blankly in that way of
hers she had when she was almost blatantly being nonchalant. He admitted growing up he
was a rather… gullible child, so she’d taken to being almost obvious in how casual she spoke
as if to point out how suspicious it was and remind him to read between the lines.

He’d only been twelve a couple months at this point, but the tone still irritated him. He
wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d always been that good at picking up social clues, but he
wasn’t seven anymore, thanks Mother.

“Not particularly, aside from quidditch and that’s decently under control right now.” He
responded obediently though. She was asking what plots he intended to develop and so to say
he had none was acceptable for two reasons: one he wasn’t back at Hogwarts to see the
playing field to know what would be worthy going for, so it was okay to not have a decision
right at this moment, and two, since he wasn’t a first year anymore sharing everything with
his parents probably wasn’t a great idea. The sooner he stopped getting their help on
everything he did the sooner Blaise would stop smirking at him from across the room as he
wrote his letters home.

He didn’t count the quidditch thing because both his parents were aware he’d been plotting to
get onto the Slytherin team since Harry had made the Gryffindor one, and he was pretty sure
he’d surprised his father by saying he didn’t want to buy the whole team the new Nimbus
2001s as a bribe and subtle reminder of who his family was to ensure his spot. It was a very
Malfoy thing to do after all, and he sure as hell wanted (and got) one, but he had a different
idea.

An idea that had come to him pretty much day two of his time at Hogwarts when he realized
just how hard actually being in Slytherin and also friends with Harry Potter was. It was just
going to take him forever to get it to work, which was all right since Harry seemed able to
handle himself just fine in the meantime.

He had not expected Harry to fully wreck Montague, but that had been absolutely awesome
and made his day-to-day life in the snake house much easier, but there was the long term to
consider too. Draco’s method was far less aggressive and flashy than what the most
Slytherin-like Gryffindor at Hogwarts had managed to come up with, and he hoped someday
it’d work without anyone but maybe Harry ever realizing what he was doing. The thing was,
he wouldn’t know until it either paid off, or didn’t. While waiting on it, he just had to keep
plugging away and making calculated moves so as not to blow his cover, and unfortunately
vast displays of wealth that would polarize the already destabilized Slytherin quidditch team
would in no way be helpful.

The quidditch team was still entirely comprised of dark families after all, and despite being
broken by Harry taking Montague out, their alliances were nothing to scoff at. And now that
Draco was part of a grey family, despite being in not terrible standing in Slytherin thanks to
Harry, he was still going into the year at a disadvantage.

But that seemed to be his position for his entire time at Hogwarts so far, so it was nothing
new.

Harry had proved the quidditch team’s strong alliances were, in fact, not unbreakable. Strong
as hell, but they were Slytherins just the same as everyone else in their house and despite
Montague being a not-so-small support beam of how their connection worked, they’d
dropped him like a ton of bricks the second he’d started to sink. Who even knows how many
broken deals and canceled favors got tossed around when cutting ties with him, and for
snakes who took that stuff insanely seriously, that was going to be the center of their gossip
and speculation for a long time yet.

If he were still aligned dark he probably could’ve gotten onto the team with just a simple
demand at Flint’s face, because clever or not the Malfoy name had power and getting him
into the quidditch team alliance would’ve been good business for all involved. Terence
Higgs, the current Slytherin seeker, was one of the weaker members who was really in it for
quidditch than he was the alliance, and no one would’ve batted an eye if Flint kicked him off
the team for Draco—had he provided the team new brooms on top of it, it was all but an
assured thing.

But the Malfoys were no longer dark, and honestly Draco had always been a chaser despite
being able to play any of the other positions decently well if need be. It worked out that
Montague had been a chaser and now that spot was open, because despite what he said Harry
was a really good seeker specifically and going head-to-head with him seeker-to-seeker was
likely not going to go well. And if a chaser position was open “naturally”, he could likely get
it fair and square by the traditional way at try-outs.

And the fairer and more honest he could appear to be, the better.

Ignoring the fact Harry was the one to, ah… create that natural opportunity for him and
everyone knew Harry had done it specifically for Draco in the first place. Not specifically for
quidditch but as a lovely side effect.

Draco still wasn’t over how awesome that whole thing had been, to be honest.

“No plans with Harry then?” He was brought sharply back to earth from his inner thoughts
by his mother’s voice, which reminded him he was still part of a conversation and also what
did she mean by that?

“Harry?” He repeated as neutrally as possible, as soon as he said it also wondering when the
hell she’d started calling him by his first name.

Unfortunately, his mother not only had a deadly poker face, but Draco never actually knew
what she was thinking even if he could see underneath it. His father he sort of understood his
reasoning and could predict what he’d say to a point in a certain situation—literally who
knew what his mother would do though, and it was kind a terrifying thing when she was
talking pointedly like he was missing something she thought should be obvious to him.

“Surely you weren’t content with him handling your reputation in Slytherin?” His father
chimed in, sounding vaguely amused and Draco instantly scowled.

“Of course not! He went crazy with it obviously, but I know what I’m doing with that too.”
He defended himself.

“Care to share?”
“Not until it works,” he pouted, and luckily his father just seemed entertained by that as he
went back to his dinner and let the matter drop.

“I was more referencing your conversation in the alley this afternoon,” His mother cut back
in pointedly, and Draco felt his ears get hot as something that should’ve been obvious hit
him.

“You were listening in!?”

“Don’t be thick Draco, of course we were.” She sniffed delicately. “I’m asking what you
planned to do about it.”

“Do… about it?” He knew this was what he couldn’t put his finger on but was embarrassed
his parents clearly thought he should’ve realized it by now. Unfortunately, he just didn’t, and
he resigned himself to needing them to spell it out for him.

His mother sighed, not in an annoyed way but a very put-upon type way. “Clearly we’ve
failed you as parents if you’ve entirely overlooked every warning sign that boy just gave you.
You’ll need to work on that if you want to make it farther as a Slytherin, dear.” She chided,
and Draco frowned as he thought that over.

“Or perhaps you were blinded as you believe you already understand this friend of yours?”
His father raised one silver eyebrow, and Draco colored a bit again in embarrassment. Maybe
he had fallen into the trap of thinking he could understand Harry, but he should’ve known
that was a stupid thing to believe himself capable of.

To believe anyone capable of understanding the enigma that was Harry Potter, honestly.

“Well… what did I miss then?” He hedged and scowled when his parents exchange very
obvious looks for how subtle they usually were with that. “What?” He demanded petulantly.

“He practically said it himself, you know. ‘An orphan who grew up with muggles who hate
magic’.” His mother pointed out.

“…so?”

“Draco, there are some abominable muggles in this world. Muggles who fear those more
powerful than them react in fear and aggression most often—that is why the statue of secrecy
is important even if we are more powerful. Their sheer numbers and the kind of brilliant
stupidity they can come up with when panicked and riled up is truly remarkable.”

“Muggles are weaker, of course, but when magic-hating muggles—or fearing, more like—are
handed a helpless wizard infant who is not yet at the point of being stronger than them, how
do you think they’d react?” His father chorused, and Draco could only frown as he glanced
between them, trying to follow and not liking what his suspicions were suggesting.

“Not… well.”
“Correct, although the level of not well is as of yet undetermined. From Mr. Potter’s reaction,
he had been treated very poorly by his muggle relatives. I have observed that the more
gruesome the detail and the stronger one’s pride, the more silent they become. The boy got
some of your pride in exchange for humbling you some this past year, so I can only imagine
the gruesome details are not pleasant at all.” Narcissa resumed picking at her meal while she
spoke, almost too casually for how Draco’s mind short circuited.

Poorly? I know he doesn’t like them, I know he hides magic from them, which is kind of
horrible but what…? Mother doesn’t care about how others raise their kids, what does that
even mean? Why would she bring it up now?

“Treated poorly? What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded even more grumpily at his
lack of answers.

“I think that is what he was referencing when he said you have parents who love you. It’s
inconceivable that one of your guardians would take advantage of your youth and naivety as
you’ve always had us to shelter you and teach you better. Mr. Potter, it seems, has not been so
lucky. Even more reasons to why he should have been in Slytherin—most students with poor
home lives often come out of it able to cleverly avoid trouble and with ambitions for a better
life, which clearly he has in spades.” His father explained lightly.

“He may be right dear, in that your childhoods are far too different. I doubt you will ever be
able to understand the sort of upbringing this boy has had, and while he struggles with it you
are likely not the best person to confide in when dealing with it.” His mother concluded by
way of explanation that really explained nothing much to Draco’s frustration and growing
stress.

“But…”

“It’s kind of you to want to try, but you’ll likely be of no help dear.” She made an attempt at
comfort however he was in no way comforted by that.

“Okay, honestly, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He confessed bluntly, and his
parents rolled their eyes almost in sync, but his father actually smiled slightly.

“Then we’ve done a good job of raising you safely. Blame us if you must for your lack of
understanding but know we will not regret a thing even if you hate us for it.”

Draco could only stare at him, dinner forgotten and just at a total loss of what to make of that.
His parents didn’t usually talk so deceptively with him at least, so this was uncharted territory
for him.

He needed to back up a second and collect his thoughts, and luckily his parents just kept
eating in silence so he could have a moment to think this over and formulate a response.

What did he know, at a basic level? Well for one, Harry wasn’t okay, but he had no details on
how not okay. What he’d learned from this conversation was that his parents did and were not
going to tell him, and after their talk this afternoon he now knew Harry wasn’t going to tell
him either. That meant something was wrong, he didn’t know what, and he couldn’t know
what, at least for now. Figuring out what was wrong was going to have to be a problem for
another day since neither of his parents seemed confident in his ability to do it and he usually
took their opinions seriously—he wasn’t good enough to contradict them or prove them
wrong so that would have to be a future-him issue.

For today, at this moment: there was a problem, he just didn’t know what it was, but he was
still obligated to try in fix it. Because his initial plan was to wait for Harry to come to him as
requested, but by bringing this up his mother was implying he should be doing something
right now—that there was something he could do, and Harry was a reckless Gryffindor who
didn’t get an opinion on the matter: if there was something he could do to fix this, he would
be doing that.

So, he had a unknown problem he had to find a solution for.

Great.

Breaking it down to a basic level again, he was at least smart enough to know Harry didn’t
like his relatives. “Poor homelife”, “treated poorly”—what did that even mean? He, Blaise,
and Greengrass were the far outliers in Slytherin in that they actually liked their parents even
remotely, so it wasn’t new. Harry hadn’t gone home for the holidays, but he had muggle
relatives so what would even be the point of going at all? That wasn’t odd, if he didn’t like
them and he had no pureblood traditions or responsibilities to tend to then of course he’d stay
had Hogwarts.

Magic vs no magic? Wasn’t even a question, now was it?

Harry was happy at Hogwarts and not happy when he was with his relatives. The obvious
solution was that he shouldn’t spend time with his relatives, which was such a trivially easy
fix it really didn’t warrant his mother bringing it up at dinner officially. Harry would just stay
at Hogwarts for the holidays and next summer he could visit them here at Malfoy manor, or
any of the many friends Harry had in all four houses—Longbottom, Bones, hell even Blaise
might be willing to take him to Italy if it came up, because he was sure by next summer
Harry would only further worm his way into the cold empty space where the Zabini’s heart
should’ve been. Or at least Blaise would love to torture him with dumping Harry into a
foreign country and laughing as he sank or swam, though Draco suspected Harry would
probably find a way to swim and even enjoy himself while he did it.

There was no point in bringing up something so easily fixed, so that probably wasn’t it.

No, no, he was still thinking about problems he knew. He needed to find a way to fix a
problem he didn’t understand, which meant he had to think even more basic.

What did he know about Harry?

As soon as he asked himself that, he realized he already knew. Harry wanted to do whatever
he wanted, whenever he wanted, with whoever he wanted. He wanted to be free, to have the
freedom of choice—to act and speak like he wanted with no repercussions. Which was selfish
and unique and just so passionately alive that Draco had always loved it without ever
realizing in so many words that’s always been exactly what he loved about Harry.
No one was more greedy for life than him, and Draco both envied and stood in frozen,
slightly awe-inspired fear of what his best friend was capable of in his search to be alive at all
times.

Draco was willing to do or say anything to get what he wanted, but Harry was both that and
also unrepentant about wanting everything and the moon right now. He could plan for the
future while also doing whatever the hell he wanted right in the moment, and for some reason
he could get away with it.

Or, on the most part. It would stand to say if Harry was unhappy, and unhappy in a way that
his mother actually brought it up, then Draco could probably take a wild guess and say it was
probably related to Harry not getting away with it in some way. He sure as hell had not been
acting like himself this summer nor in this talk in the alley today, so for some reason he
wasn’t being allowed to be who he wanted to be or do what he wanted to do, and that was
probably crushing him slowly.

Okay… that meant the solution to that would be to somehow make sure Harry could do what
he wanted.

Am I expected to figure out what the hell he actually wants!? Draco thought in a slight panic,
because he’d never quite been able to grab ahold of what the bloody hell his best friend
actually wanted because it was all so strange and unexpected and he kind of liked the
surprises but at the same time it made this ask all but impossible.

No… even if could narrow it down, there’s no saying it won’t change tomorrow. Harry’s WAY
too unpredictable for that to be a good idea… I need to think of something more generic.

Who told Harry he couldn’t do something? Going by historical evidence probably no one
since he had never once hesitated in doing literally anything, but logically there was the
authority figures in their lives. Teachers, which was unavoidable and probably not the issue
since he was McGonagall’s favorite and she’d protect him some, and parental figures, which
was previously established as avoidable since he was going to just not go home. Who else?
The Ministry? Dumbledore? They were so above the situation why would they even care to
tell Harry not to do something? So far as he was aware Harry wasn’t on a campaign to break
school charter or the law and even if he were he was a Potter who’d been asking questions
about his finances the last year, so he could probably handle that easily.

Maybe it wasn’t in the realm of someone telling him he couldn’t do something, and more the
fact he was paying consequences for things he did do. Harry didn’t hesitate, and he was a
Gryffindor, so maybe unlike they’d originally thought he wasn’t actually always thinking
about the repercussions of the things he did, and maybe he was struggling with that instead.
There was a lot of blood on their enchanted journals after all, Harry hadn’t seemed all that
concerned about injuring himself as a result of his actions, and literally everything about that
set every nerve in Draco’s body on edge.

Doing whatever the hell he wanted was one thing, accepting the consequences of his actions
regardless of what they were was another, and it was honorable.
Accepting those consequences without no hesitation when Draco was no realizing how bad
some of those consequences could be was a whole other quidditch pitch that he did not like.

He admitted that he’d always liked how Harry was unrepentant and accepted the
ramifications of how he acted with never-ceasing grace, but now that Draco realized Harry
would happily accept bodily harm instead of just alienating people or a detention or two, he
wasn’t sure it was so admirable anymore.

He doubted he could change the redhead’s mind about it, nor was he at all interested in the
impossible battle even broaching that argument would be (he still remembered the weeks of
cold shoulder Harry was unafraid to give him for ever dare trying to get involved like that)
but he couldn’t just do nothing about it.

Harry was fine with consequences, but Draco wasn’t. That meant he needed a way to make
sure Harry didn’t feel the consequences of his actions, but literally how the hell?

His face must’ve been a sight to behold because his parents were looking very entertained
while they finished eating as he stewed over his thoughts. Draco had left his plate untouched
as he chewed on this instead.

Okay, I don’t have a plan for how the literal hell I’m supposed to do that, but at least now I
know it’s something to work for. I can start on it this year… somehow.

“Okay, I’ll work on it.” He finally gave up, and his mother smiled.

“It will help to keep him in an environment that is more easily controlled while you figure it
out, to prevent more incidents before you find your solution. It sounds as if his position with
Slytherin is pretty decent these days, so perhaps suggest his spend some time in your
common room. It’ll put him in a good, readily available position to trade his Transfiguration
notes since you said that was his currency these days.” Narcissa suggested, seeming pleased
he’d grasped what she’d pointed out.

At her words though he snapped his head to the side to look at his father, who smiled wryly.

“I will talk to Severus. And our allied families as well, to make it easier on you.”

Draco beamed, because that meant Harry could hang out with him a lot more this year if he
were allowed in their common room. Good standing in the snake house or not, he had
thought that would be pushing it a bit but now it actually seemed feasible and he was outright
excited for it. He didn’t even care his father was just doing it for him instead of letting him
make his own deals, because this was too exciting to waste time on his still-developing
negotiation skills.

“We’ll be doing our own coordinating of course but do let us know if you’d like any help,”
His mother offered, leaving it open for him to talk about it now if he wished. When he was
younger he definitely liked to talk through his thought process and lean on them while
brainstorming, but this time he felt obligated to do it himself. Harry was his best friend, and
his parents suddenly deciding to get involved or not, if he could do it himself he definitely
wanted to.
So, he just nodded. “I will,” he promised, leaving it at that. He would definitely lean on them
again if he felt he was struggling because this was too important to screw up, but he should at
least give it an honest go first. His parents let it go, seeming to understand that logic for
themselves.

His mother smiled. “Good. Now finish your food,” she reminded him, and he suddenly
recalled that he still had a nearly full plate in front of him. He dug in again, enjoying the quiet
as he began brainstorming his own ideas for how to start the coming school year off correctly
with this new goal in mind.

000

Lucius and Narcissa would not know for several years just how badly Draco had totally
missed the point of that conversation, but it would come as quite a nasty shock when it finally
came to light.

000

It was impossible to actually put down into words all the good things about being free from
the Dursleys, most of which were so obvious it wasn’t worth mentioning, but one of the best
things that also happened to be rather unexpected, was the ability to use magic without
repercussion.

Harry already knew using it in Diagon was okay because thanks to his conversation with
Axeclaw there was no way the Ministry would be able to know it was him specifically casting
magic, and since the underage ward they used to monitor him was on the Dursley house, it
was also okay in his Contrair Alley apartment. Technically the underage wizard’s legal
guardian was in charge of informing the Ministry of a change in location if there was one,
and, as Axeclaw put it, many wizarding families conveniently forgot to file that paperwork if
they were to go on vacation—only Ministry employees and their families had to do such a
thing since clearly if they were taking vacation time and it was known they had underage
children it was kind of highly suspicious.

Everyone else? If they didn’t know it was a thing in the case of many muggleborn families,
or just didn’t do it as many pureblood and half-blood families didn’t bother, there really was
no repercussion if you didn’t get caught. And not getting caught was pretty easy to do—
muggleborns weren’t aware it was a thing but typically assumed they were tracked
everywhere so didn’t use magic even on vacations, and pureblood families fixed it with
simple privacy wards preventing the Ministry from peering into their business. And even if
the Ministry could, due to their cheap wards they wouldn’t be able to tell if it was the kids or
the adults in the family performing the magic.

For Harry though? If the Dursleys didn’t do their obligation as his guardians and no one else
filed the paperwork instead, there was no reason that a newly rented single-room apartment in
Contrair Alley would need to have underage magic warding incorporated into the
documentation of it all. Without anyone pointing it out, the new lease wouldn't be suspicious
at all.
Axeclaw had been very pointed in his wording of if no one else filed it, meaning it was
possible for someone else to butt their noses into his business and file the warding
notification on behalf of someone else (if they were a dick, apparently), which would mean
nothing to most people.

Given how certain people seemed hell bent on butting in though, Harry had no problems
paying the premium (which still wasn’t much to him) to have Gringotts completely trick out
his apartment with every privacy ward and beyond possible to put on a dwelling this tiny. He
even double checked that Dumbledore still was not on his approved mailing list, which he
was indeed not.

All this meant that so long as he wasn’t blatantly doing it in the middle of the alleys where
everyone could see and realize he was using magic underage when he wasn’t supposed to and
potentially snitch on him, he could practice all the magic he wanted without fear.

And he had unfortunately long-since completed all his homework since he’d had an
abundance of free time this summer locked in a shed, as well as nearly completing all his
saved-up textbooks cover-to-cover with associated journals of notes he’d taken on each one,
so that really only left the textbooks for the coming year to read, and his new joke-
Transfiguration book.

Draco had been right, this Gilderoy Lockhart fellow’s books were total gibberish and more
like adventure novels than actual textbooks, which was entertaining in their own way if you
separated out the absurdity and vanity of how it was written. They were mildly amusing to
peruse but Harry had picked up some better second-year level Defense books from Contrair
Alley to actually, you know, learn something in the coming year.

Bethany, the muggleborn who ran Bethany’s Books down in Contrair, was extremely nice
and the oddest combination of Hermione Granger and Professor Sprout—very bookish and
had memorized most of the books she was selling both academic and not, but also round-
faced and cheery, like a long lost, slightly-too-nosy aunt or something. She called everyone
sweetie and baby and remembered him from every time he’d ever set foot in her shop, even
pushing a jar of sparkler lollies (lollipops that literally gave your sparkler breath) at him
when he was checking out like she was trying to subtly mother him. She couldn’t have even
been thirty though, so she wasn’t old, just really, really maternally jovial like that.

She was also a great sounding board on books to read, especially speaking to someone from a
muggleborn-like background, and since she was fully aware of the DADA professor issue
(meaning having a new one each year, none being too good since they were often scrambling
to find someone both available and willing to take the cursed position rather than someone
actually qualified) she’d done her own research into the official OWL and NEWT
requirements so had her own running list of Defense textbooks to read by year-level. The list
was posted right above the till when people checked out and clearly Harry had seen it—he’d
looked at the books too and Bethany definitely took after Hermione in that they were weighty
academic things that would be hard to get through, but they were solid. A quick conversation
with her, which Bethany was almost more than happy to have, and you could even get some
tips on the particular chapters that would be most helpful if you were preparing specifically
for the OWLs someday. She literally had them all memorized so it was actually insanely
helpful if you could make it through the extremely rambling, rather academic-heavy
conversations with her.

She was not helpful when it came to History of Magic though, because if Harry thought she’d
help him find textbooks that were more interesting to read, he was dead wrong. Her talking
about it had somehow been worse than hearing Binns drone blankly about ancient history and
Harry legitimately did not know how that was possible.

He’d leave that to when he was actually required to read something about that for a class
instead of reading ahead, because he was not going to spend the rest of his break (or any time
it was not strictly required) doing something that dull. Going with his theory that you only
needed a niche skill to be successful, he was willing to take the loss on History of Magic—he
just had to pass his OWL when it came to that so as to graduate Hogwarts, but he was fine
with as low a grade as possible while still passing on that.

His other required textbooks were pretty standard, and he took some casual notes on the first
couple chapters, despite the fact his wrist was still pretty messed up from whatever he’d done
to it when getting out of the shed that day. All the other bruising he’d gotten was starting to
fade, but his wrist remained a splotchy grey and purple at best, aching like crazy and stinging
at random times too. He avoided using it in his exercising, but it was his writing hand so he
took to wrapping it up tightly and being very ginger as he wrote, which was likely not
helping the healing process but for lack of better option he just bore with it. He figured it’d
heal eventually… he couldn’t do anything now and Pomfrey would likely be able to tell how
old a wound was and get mad at him, and it didn’t hurt that badly, just annoying really so… it
would probably eventually go away, he assumed. And hoped.

In the meantime he took pretty light notes to save his hand, but kept working so Draco
couldn’t yell at him for his Charms grades again. He wanted to be as prepared as a Slytherin
going into the year (and he knew they all would be very prepared just to hold it over each
other) and in that same line of thinking put even more effort into his Potions textbook than
any other. Draco had even sent him a copy of his own notes on it in exchange for some of
Harry’s own on the first chapter of their Transfiguration textbook—which was so insanely
trivial at this point in Harry’s skill with the subject it was actually harder to cite his sources
on the information he knew, rather than producing the information himself. And he knew he
still needed to keep on top of his sources, one because he’d never win an argument against
McGonagall again if he couldn’t back up what he was saying with proof instead of ‘I just
know it somehow’ to support himself, and two, using his work as trades with others would be
worthless since McGonagall would know instantly they were just copying off his notes. If
they cited themselves with outside texts, she wouldn’t be able to say they were copying him,
nor would she be able to prove Harry had given them the citations outright.

It was kind of funny that keeping track of his citations was the hard part at this point—his
understanding of it all had gotten really, really good but he was no Hermione so he couldn’t
just flat out memorize the books word for word. Often times he knew the answer or could
perform a spell automatically or on instinct, and then splitting out how he’d known it took
him ten times as long, if not longer.
With this in mind he realized if he was going to keep leaning on Transfiguration like this,
since actually learning it was not his issue, he’d need to work on making it sellable, meaning
he needed to be better at breaking down his thought process for others. That meant, like with
duro, he’d have to be much better at Arithmancy and have more resources to lean on to
support himself, so he could do something, write it out, and trade/sell it more quickly than he
currently could.

He stocked up on as many Transfiguration books as he could find in both Contrair and

Diagon Alley and took a trip back to the Monroe vault to actually spend several full days in
there combing through the books he’d inherited for anything useful (as well as a lot of other
of the Monroe family artifacts, as it was all super interesting and made him feel better,
getting lost in his adopted family’s history). He ended up with way more books than he’d
probably be able to read in his entire time at Hogwarts, 90% of it being above even his pay
grade right now, but he had it on hand if he ever needed it and they were now taking up
probably a huge chunk of his bottomless bag—which was not actually bottomless, just the
volume of a quidditch pitch which was close enough, even with half a library’s worth of
books in it now.

He even visited the actual library in Contrair, though it had a lot of repeats of books he’d just
bought, or at least seen in the Hogwarts library. While not useful for Transfiguration work
now, it was good to know this library was well stocked for general use so he could probably
come back to check it out if need be once he graduated and could no longer get access to the
Hogwarts library.

What it was surprisingly good for though, was the wealth of muggle information in there are
well as it was fully stocked for both muggle and magical topics, probably given it was run by
muggleborns who likely were fed up with not being able to find normal fiction books or
science books even. Given how important Arithmancy (muggle math in general) seemed to
be in Transfiguration, and the fact he’d always had an interest in science topics before magic
blew it out of the water, it was a welcome change he was happy to explore. He didn’t buy or
check out any of the math or science books, but he spent several afternoons looking through
them, and the library even had a set of tutors happy to help anyone out if they asked for it.
Doing that, he got several good explanations on the basic math principals he’d either learned
and forgot in the year without a muggle education or had never known and the average
muggle twelve-year-old probably should know by now. Thanks to his work with duro it
wasn’t the first time he’d heard any of it, but the refresher was nice, and he wondered what
the best way to keep up on it would be. Self-teaching himself math was probably not going to
work but he also didn’t want to wait until he could start Arithmancy next year to get started,
as he had a feeling muggle math was WAY more difficult and the late start would probably
hurt a lot.

It was still summer break though, so he didn’t spend too much time reviewing math or
pondering how he’d keep learning math once the school year started, so he mostly shelved
that thought for future-him to deal with.

The only thing that didn’t actually feel like work was Transfiguration, especially when he
decided to start with the joke book in practicing doing something and then citing his sources
—the entire book was well within his range of ability and the spells were fun, light-hearted
things so it was a great place to begin. He’d leafed through it and picked out the most
interesting spells he saw, read the portions for each spell, either performed it outright or
practiced until he could perform it, and then practiced breaking down the spell in a page in a
journal to see if he could translate his work into written word that someone else could follow.
From helping Daphne specifically, he knew a lot of the difficulty people had with
Transfiguration spells was the power level, and the ‘fall’ motion which until he’d discovered
it apparently no one knew about in the first place. Some spells required a deceptively small
amount of power while others could only be done by sheer brute force—most textbooks
didn’t touch on power level of a spell at all, and even if it did it was mostly in the equation
associated with Transfiguration spells, with numbers that meant nothing.

What did a power level of 16 even mean really? How would a student know what the hell 16
meant, compared to 37 or 1120? Instead, Harry liked to compare to other spells—like you’d
need the power of two duros to perform a flower-conjuring spell, but half a beetle-to-button
spell to change a feather to a worm, while there was no such thing as too much power when it
came to the softening charm just so long as it was five times as strong as a match-to-needle
transfiguration. Speaking in terms of spells that most first years learned relatively easily as a
better gauge of power level might help, he thought. After all, Hermione was brilliant but the
rare times he'd actually studied with her he knew her notes were as dry and unhelpful as just
reading the textbook yourself; if he wanted his notes to be good trades, they needed to be way
more accessible than that.

As for the ‘fall’… that was a lot harder and he spent a lot of time sketching out the path his
imagination took when picturing how a spell ‘fell’ after the completed wand movement—it
wasn’t an actual movement it was more an image in your head of where the magic was
supposed to go with no attached corporeal form, so it was pretty hard to diagram but hoped
he was doing a decent job. He probably wouldn’t know for certain until he started trading
these notes to see if it worked for people at all. He'd also probably have to tell people not to
include these diagrams in their written work because while super helpful to learning how to
perform a spell, McGonagall would know immediately it was his work for exactly the reason
he'd wanted it to be unique in order to get at Montague. So, kind of inconvenient for the
purposes of trading but it'd be good practice for when he finally got around to publishing this
development of his, writing it out and testing it on people still learning Transfiguration to see
if it was even intelligible.

Also… Draco’s indignant expression, not just the past two times of them hanging out in the
Alley but also at several points throughout the previous school year where Harry had not
taken murder-attempts on his life seriously were haunting him almost as much as the
nightmares that refused to go away if he didn’t drown them with an excess of dreamless sleep
potions. He was so happy getting lost in the wonderfulness that was Hogwarts, in his plotting
and his friends and classes and quidditch… it was just so easy for even a cynical guy like him
to think the adults will take care of it.

The adults will protect me.

His jaw flexed in something like anger, but also despair as that naïve thought mocked him
from a dark corner inside himself. When had he ever trusted adults? When had he started?
Clearly he’d fallen into that trap and clearly it hadn’t worked. Even McGonagall, who he
genuinely believed would’ve liked to protect him, hadn’t been able to when it came down to
it.

No one had, despite many people wanting to. Draco, Neville, McGonagall—hell even Snape
who was a dick but still proved he didn’t want his students to just flat out die—they’d all
probably would’ve done something had they been there, but they hadn’t. It had just been
Harry in a dark hallway with a full-grown wizard and, unknowingly, the bloody dark lord.

Draco wanting to protect him hadn’t actually done shit in the moment, and despite Harry also
being cynical enough to not inherently trust anyone to have his back without a lot of effort on
his part, that was also enough proof to him to realize that even if he did trust someone to want
to help him, there was no way he could trust that they actually could.

Everyone involved was human. McGonagall, despite being his favorite adult and a genuinely
strong witch, hadn’t been able to do a thing.

And the helplessness…

The helplessness had always been there. The harsh fact in front of him was that he was just a
kid and there was a lot he didn’t know, couldn’t control, or wasn’t old enough to have his
opinion matter in. The way he’d been facing down a wizard with his wand in hand and it
hadn’t mattered if he were armed or not because he still couldn’t do shit about it. The way a
fucking muggle had locked him in a plain wooden shed he couldn’t blow his way out of if
he’d thought one stray spell wouldn’t destroy his future, and not being able to do a bloody
thing about it…

It was worse now, obviously, after everything in the past several months. But the helplessness
had always been there.

And Harry hated the feeling so much he’d completely circled around, passing right by fear,
anger, despair and coming out the other end in this ice-cold, blindingly clear understanding
that he was helpless, and it was going to happen again if he couldn’t do something fix this.

Because as much as he loved Draco and trusted McGonagall, love and trust would not save
him in the end.

It all came back to the thing he’d always known: you were born with one ally, and it was
yourself. If you weren’t a good ally, or you abandoned yourself out of fear or weakness, you
were absolutely screwed.

So, while Transfiguration was honestly fun and interesting, there was also that thought in the
back of his mind that never went away as he turned a page and saw a new spell.

How could I use this to fight? What’s the practical use?

Every new spell he learned, he did it again just to be sure it was perfect.

Is this good enough to use in a fight?

He did it sitting at his kitchen table and also standing up, using big movements and small
movements and generally just moving while he worked to both continue keeping his exercise
up but also expand how flexible the spell’s uses could be.

Can I do it while running? Can I do it with my wand in my sleeve before someone notices?
Maybe even behind my back? Can I do it without looking, while watching someone else for
an attack?

So yeah, he was learning Transfiguration still but now he was learning it with a lot more
running through his head then there used to be when he just wanted to understand. Now…
now, it was about understanding and using.

Understanding would always be the best part, but the more he could use, then someday the
feeling of helplessness wouldn’t make him physically sick to his stomach every time it
confronted him. Because hopefully next time he was placed in a situation like that he would
at least had spells he could use running through his head, attempts he could make to save
himself, instead of standing there with a wand and still being unable to do a damn thing.

In this way the days of summer wound down, and September first came a bit too quickly for
Harry’s liking even as he anticipated finally getting back to the castle. He was… better, if not
still off kilter, but days of sparing no thoughts to what had happened and content to focus on
Transfiguration work with a clinical-like eye, as well as tons of time immersing himself down
in the Monroe vault to just learn more about his adopted history, he felt better.

The less he could think about the things he was still taking dreamless potions to escape from,
the better. The more he could escape reality by imagining himself amongst his Monroe
ancestors, imagining he was actually blood related to them and their odd quirks might
somehow be reflected in the mirror when he looked into it, the more he felt whole.

There was a lot going on in his head but remembering that Draco was still his best friend and
the Monroe family was now his family, he figured out at least pieces of himself here and
there that made all the gaping holes the summer had ripped from him feel a bit less hollow.

He wouldn’t be able to recall his parents’ faces if he weren’t staring at the pictures in the
scrapbook Hagrid had given him, but his mental image of Dell Monroe was crystal clear
despite never actually having seen a picture of her. His mind’s image of her shop, her
neighbor who wrote her poetry, some tiny woman wearing all the same baubles Harry had
clipped into his own hair or dangling from his wrist… it all felt so much more like him than
Lily and James Potter. The connection to Dell was there, while he still knew so little about
his parents they still felt like strangers he was bitter he never got to meet.

Dell wasn’t a stranger, odd as it sounded given she died centuries before he was born. She
was like a big sister, but more somehow since he’d spent over a year reading about her life
through her eyes.

It made going through the Monroe vault all the more comforting somehow, picking through
heirlooms from people Dell might’ve known, like her second cousins or her own parents or
grandparents, and going through her eyes he felt as if they could be his grandparents and
cousins too. Cousin Lisanna’s prized embroidered handkerchiefs with complex flower
patterns, Grandpa Maxi’s enchanted singing coins, a ton of teacups from a grandniece that
had a tea shop apparently, one distant cousin that was evidently a traveler who had what
looked to be a full-on pirate ship plopped in the back of the vault filled with gold, old
parchment maps, actual canons, and pretty much anything else Harry could’ve imagined
would’ve been on a stereotypical pirate ship. That cousin’s marker said he’d only died in
1899 though, which was quite a bit after the swashbuckling pirate era he was emulating here,
so he was likely just weird as hell if not probably the life of the party.

Going through the vault he felt like he could actually picture these people and relate to them,
which was way more than could be said for the Potter family. While bittersweet, it was a
good thing in a way, because Harry wasn’t feeling so hot being alone right now— having any
family connection despite how unorthodox it all was, meant everything to him. It felt real,
and that was all that mattered to his poor soul as battered as it was, and it gave him comfort,
which was enough for now.

It did bring to mind though, the family he didn’t have.

And so, it was only two days before the start of term that Harry finally mustered up the
courage to visit Gringotts again—not for the Monroe vault, but another discussion with
Axeclaw he was kind of terrified to hear the answer to.

But he needed to know.

“Are you illiterate?”

Now Harry was the one just staring at the goblin, realizing this was going even worse than
he’d feared it would. How was that a stupid question!?

“Excuse me?” He blinked, and Axeclaw grumbled impatiently.

“There never was a will reading, and there won’t be one unless you can’t read or specifically
request it. Will readings are an old practice put into place in case not all attendees were
literate and needed to have it read to them. It’s an ancient practice, and some wizards insist on
it for some reason but on the most part those who are grieving a dead relative don’t want to
rehash it in public. Nor does Gringotts like the spending of time in such a way.” He
explained, and Harry calmed a little at the explanation.

“Oh.”

“A copy of the will is sent to everyone named in it. You also received a copy, but it’s filed in
your account until the day you were old enough to ask for it. Technically you would not even
be allowed access until you were of age, but by inheriting the Monroe name— who didn’t
have any age restrictions given they had no young children when they died out— technically
you are classified as an outside party who inherited and is owed a copy of the will, not just as
a descendant who also happens to be underage. There is no age restriction to that, although
wizarding law on the topic is very nebulous on the matter.” The goblin looked at him dryly
over the papers on his desk. “I gather today is that day?”

“Yes. Apologies, I didn’t know I was supposed to ask.”

“It means little to me; just another paper to hold.” Axeclaw dismissed as he hopped of his
chair and walked from the room without another word, and Harry had to remind himself not
to get angry.

Goblins. This is the remnants of my parents, it’s not another piece of paper. But he couldn’t
actually remain frustrated with Axeclaw for long, as he’d always known the goblin didn’t
really care. He cared about the business of it all and always had, which Harry had always
appreciated.

And he had given him a crate of calming potions, even if it came out of Harry’s vault, but
still. He’d cared enough to do that… but Harry was really just reaching for excuses not to get
mad. Being mad was easier than sitting there in terror of what he was about to read while
waiting for Axeclaw to get back—he kind of thought he’d need more time or that a real will
reading would need to be arranged to something. That he’d just receive it out of nowhere and
that this would be his parents’ last words or…

Luckily his couldn’t spiral too far into that train of thought, as Axeclaw returned with no
preamble as he handed a blank folder over with a single piece of paper inside. He must’ve
either seen Harry’s face or been asked many times as he answered the unspoken question.
“Not much is required in a magical will by way of written words—so long as it’s carefully
put most of it comes from the enchantments that were placed on the original piece of paper
which remains in the Potter main family vault for safe keeping. That is just a copy of what it
says for your reference. Additionally, in a time of war like it was when this was written,
people tended to update them constantly on the fly so there were many iterations before this
one, and unfortunately even then things changed too quickly for it to be updated before their
death. You will see, when you read it.” He hopped back up to his desk, and Harry couldn’t
really hesitate anymore as he looked down to see the painfully sparse words in front of him.

000

We, Lily June Potter nee. Evans and James Fleamont Potter, being of sound body and mind,
do declare this our last will and testament under executor Sharpfang and witnessed by Sirius
Orion Black and Marlene Hester McKinnon.

To those who miss us, wish us luck in our next adventure.

To the Eileen Prince foundation, we bequeath 7000 galleons for the continued education of
students in need.

To Remus Lupin we bequeath the Longsgate property and the contents within.

To Peter Pettigrew we bequeath every share in Honeydukes we own, as well as 3000

galleons.

To Sirius Black, upon his request, we bequeath one knut, and the responsibility of raising our
dearest son, Harry James Potter. We give custodian privileges of the Potter Trust fund to
Marlene McKinnon.
 Everything else in our possession, worldly or otherwise, we give to our son, Harry James
Potter.

In this time of war, if for any reason one of the people listed within this will and testament is
unable to fulfill their duties, we elect Frank and Alice Longbottom to provide support to those
with their roles of guardians or custodians, or to take their place if need be. We pray it never
comes to that.

Signed,

Lily June Potter

James Fleamont Potter

000

There was just… so little. Harry didn’t know why he thought there’d be last words for him in
here, but like Axeclaw implied… this was just a legal document, nothing more.

And he realized what Axeclaw meant. His parents couldn’t have known is any of these
people would be dead before they could inherit what was given to them, clearly since at the
point they wrote this they still trusted Sirius Black which… was to be determined on if that
was a good idea or not. He had no idea who or what Remus Lupin, Marline McKinnon, Peter
Pettigrew or the Longsgate property was, but he did recognize one name.

“Longbottom?” He breathed, almost afraid to ask. Whether he was ready or not, Axeclaw
seemed primed with an answer.

“Alice and Frank Longbottom were tortured into insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange and are no
longer capable guardians in any form according to the mediwitches of St. Mungos. I believe
their son is in the care of Augusta Longbottom, who did offer to take you in as well however
since she was not listed in the will specifically, your care was reverted to your closest living
relatives. A fault of the enchantments, I believe.”

Harry put the will down and needed to breath for a couple seconds, and luckily Axeclaw just
let him, even going back to the papers on his desk to give him a moment.

It was really hard to swallow all of a sudden.

He just… well obviously he’d never realized just how close he and Neville had come to being
raised together. If his parents… if either of their parents… if neither of them had… they
might’ve been brothers of a sort if not at least raised as friends if they’d lived in a better
world where madmen and their followers didn’t kill and torture people. If they weren't both
orphans and their parents were just friends they got to see all the time.

Harry very suddenly and sharply remembered that day on the train almost exactly a year ago.

“You’re Harry?” A very quiet, shy voice had asked him, almost as if realizing something.
Neville had recognized him like everyone eventually recognized him, but he hadn’t said
you’re Harry Potter.

You’re Harry?

He’d… he’d said his name like he’d known about Harry. Not the Boy Who Lived… but the
boy who should’ve been raised right next to him. The boy he should’ve called a brother in
another life.

Harry couldn’t breathe.

“Oh god.” He felt sick, and Axeclaw probably saw that as suddenly a calming drought was
being placed on the desk in front of him, and he downed it without questioning where the
goblin had produced that from.

Why hadn’t Neville said anything!? He wondered wildly as soon as the potion took effect and
actual thoughts started to form in his mind again instead of just whiting out in blind emotion.

No… no, that wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t like Harry had told Neville a thing about the Dursleys either. If the whole world
didn’t already know he was an orphan, he probably wouldn’t exactly bring it up in casual
conversation and there was no expectation for shy, gentle Neville to suddenly bring it up out
of the blue like that either if Harry himself, as a self-proclaimed extrovert, definitely would
not have had the roles been reversed. Neville had a right to his privacy, and Harry accepted
that, even if this was so mind-boggling it still made him dizzy even with a calming draught
churning in his uneasy stomach.

Bellatrix Lestrange.

His hands suddenly got cold, as he realized he recognized that name.

Draco’s aunt. Narcissa Malfoy’s sister.

Harry couldn’t swallow, even though he was trying to. He couldn’t… Draco’s…

Don’t ask me about the Malfoys.

Harry wanted to cry.

And he kind of did, as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and he really tried to keep it
together, but he just couldn’t.

“Do you wish me to explain anything else?” Axeclaw prompted, probably hoping to distract
him so he didn’t have a crying wizard in his office. For a goblin that could only really snarl,
he certainly sounded awkward enough.

“No,” Harry choked, rubbing his eyes with the back of his sleeve hastily. “Th-thanks
Axeclaw I think I’m g-good,” he got up clumsily and fumbled for his copy of the will as he
fled the room—and the goblin thankfully just let him go.
Yeah… that had definitely been even worse than he’d feared it would be.
 Poison and Tea

Harry was having a really, really weird morning.

He’d slept in, which wouldn’t have been weird except he hadn’t been able to sleep so he’d
taken a dreamless sleep potion maybe a bit too late into the night and woken up maybe a bit
too late in the morning because of it. Which wasn’t bad exactly because he figured he was
going to be catching up on rest for the next year if not the rest of his life if his nightmares
never let him go again, but he’d woken up late on September 1st, aka the only day a year
aside from maybe Christmas where waking up ungodly early was okay, expected, and even
encouraged.

So he woke up late, whatever.

But then he couldn’t find anything. His bag was not where he left it which should’ve been
impossible because of the enchantments he had on it, his last minute clothes and toiletries
were all swapped around, and the stuff he’d had prepared for breakfast was either smelling
off or just flat out gone and he was left scratching his brain. Which just took too long as he
tried to gather himself to get to the train on time and why had it suddenly become this hard?
He wasn’t the pinnacle of organization or anything, but he was not this bad and legitimately
thought he was losing his mind.

And given everything going on in his head, he wouldn’t even be surprised if that were the
case, honestly.

Even when he was out the door and giving up on cooking himself breakfast (he just tossed
everything he had left in the outside bin since he didn’t expect to ever be back to this place
once the rental ran out in December) he stopped at the café on his way out of Contrair Alley
to get something to eat since he was always slightly hungry these days, and whatever
machine they were using to make muffins broke mid-way through his order and took way
longer than expected.

Did stuff like this actually happen in the magical world? He had assumed mundane stuff like
this was solved with magic, but somehow the muffin-machine could not be fixed with the
teller’s ability and Harry gave up on his wasted time to just abandon his muffin in lieu of the
train.

Even considering all this, he still had time.

At least he thought he had time, until he stepped foot into King’ Crossing Station and a huge
bell rang out the hour—his head automatically snapping to his wrist watch and realizing
those bells sounds did not match up.

Luckily, his trunk was pretty light since it was mostly for decoration given most of his stuff
(books, anything heavy really) was in his bag, the only awkward thing being his clothes he
didn’t want to ruin in his bag again by being a careless oaf, and Hedwig’s cage complete with
ruffled owl who didn’t quite understand why they were running suddenly. And running they
were, running fast as Harry refused to believe he was as off on his timing as he thought he
was, ignoring the shouts of many muggles yelling at him for getting in their way or causing a
racket.

And he ran full tilt, directly into a suddenly very solid brick wall.

“Oh my god!” A woman shrieked as Harry was suddenly looking up at her from the ground,
Hedwig screeching at him for the action and yeah, Harry could only agree by how his whole
body stung in shocked pain.

Did… wait, did the barrier close!?

“Are you alright!?” The woman was still yelling, and several people were clustering now,
either to half heartedly help or just gawk at the ridiculous scene he must’ve just put on.

He rolled over and groaned, hissing sharply as he tried to push himself up and his wrist
screamed loudly at him that that was a terrible idea.

“Someone help!”

“Did he just run into a wall?”

“Is that an owl?”

Harry had enough and even still on the ground he reached into his bag and willed his target
into his hand, his muggle repelling stone sliding into his palm and as soon as he had it out,
the crowd around him dispersed. The woman above him blinked widely as if trying to
process what she was seeing… before shaking her head and walking away, mumbling under
her breath.

Great, now I just need one of these for wizards, he scowled internally, finally sitting up and
trying to regain himself but realizing he was shaking too hard to actually take proper stock.

He looked up at a nearby muggle clock, and yeah… it was past 11am now.

Hedwig screeched again, and Harry obediently picked up her cage and opened the door. She
flapped out wildly in annoyance but luckily her wing didn’t hurt much as it bopped him on
the head. “Sorry,” He apologized. “I didn’t realize that barrier closed. I mean I guess it makes
sense…” she calmed enough but still looked mighty pissy as she hopped up on to the rim of
the upturned cart beside him to continue pouting about her rough handling.

He didn’t even have the energy to move from where he sat on the ground surrounded by his
upturned cart, trunk, and cage, and with the muggle warding stone no one even looked at him
anyway, so it was fine.

It was just fine, sitting here.

“This sucks.” He told Hedwig blankly, realizing he should be more freaked out about this but
he just… couldn’t care. He could still find a way to Hogwarts, he just had to think about it for
a second. And this way, maybe he could delay seeing Neville just a couple hours longer.
That’s so not fair. I dreaded seeing Draco but when I finally did he made things better. I’m
not being fair to Neville—he deserves more than that. He deserves so much more than that.

He gave a huge sigh and put his head on his knees tiredly. Maybe he should’ve just kept
sleeping if he was going to miss the train anyway.

What’s wrong with me? He recognized blankly. He probably would’ve straight up died from
panic only a year ago, maybe even a couple months ago if he’d risked spending the first day
he could with his friends like this.

Maybe he just ran out of energy for things like this. Missing a train didn’t really rank on his
list of things to be stressed about right now, let’s be honest. It wasn’t like he was going to get
expelled for being late one time, he was just going to miss out seeing his friends on the train,
and potentially tonight’s feast. And truthfully he wasn’t that hungry anymore and he could
probably deal with being alone for a little longer—facing others seemed like an enormous
task all of a sudden.

He really should’ve just waited on reading the will.

He winced, curling tighter into his knees and breathing as deeply as he could, reminding
himself to think. He needed a plan, and calming as it was he couldn’t sit on the ground
forever.

Hogwarts was a pretty big deal, and he was sure Hermione had told him several times that it
was impenetrable, undetected, and mysteriously guarded by a shit ton of top-secret magic to
the point not even any of the dark lords of history had ever attempted to take it. He was
almost sure she’d even mentioned the Hogwarts express was one of the most well-guarded
places in the magical world since there were a bunch of unattended magical children on it. So
he couldn’t exactly catch up somehow, even if he could, and he couldn’t just floo to
Hogwarts as he was positive you needed prior approval to floo in and out of it if you weren’t
a teacher.

McGonagall is a teacher; I could send Hedwig to her.

Ah, but he had no idea how far Hogwarts was, and it was an all-day train ride to get there so
Hedwig might not make it before dark, and McGonagall was in charge of the sorting. Of
course she’d send someone to come get him while she dealt with that, but she wouldn’t come
get him herself.

Maybe she’d send Hagrid again. That might be fun, he could use some quality Hagrid time.
Hagrid couldn’t use magic so he wasn’t sure how they’d get back to Hogwarts— maybe floo?
Did Hagrid count as a teacher who had floo access? Would he have access to approve Harry
using the floo with him? Then again if Hagrid needed approval to do that (or he came at all,
he realized) Dumbledore would know about it too. Dumbledore might get involved about it…

It was all just possibilities and maybe he was more paranoid than he thought but the potential
was stressing him out. Hedwig might not make it in time, McGonagall might send Hagrid,
Hagrid might involve Dumbledore…
He wouldn’t be so paranoid if it weren’t all just so reasonable. All of that could happen, and
then what?

He wanted to say Dumbledore knowing about this one time might not do anything, but was
he really trusting (dumb) enough to actually risk it, low as the chance was?

Did he even have another option?

He blinked, realizing that… actually yeah, he just might.

It was probably a super bad idea, and more like bargaining with a known demon to avoid a
potential devil, but… in the words of a particularly sassy Slytherin, a known enemy was
always preferable to an unknown one, and Harry had underestimated just how bad
Dumbledore actually was once, so it wasn’t going to happen again.

It was still a bad idea, but for his frayed nerves it was exceedingly tempting.

Mr. Malfoy is on the school board; he’d have access to Hogwarts. And he should be on the
other side of this barrier for at least a little while, if he was just seeing Draco off…

Before he could think better of it, he pulled out a piece of parchment and unfortunately a
muggle pen since it was faster than getting the ink and quill out, sketching out his message
and giving to Hedwig who clipped it into her beak in surprise at the sudden task being given
to her.

“Can you take this to Mr. Malfoy? He should just be on the other side of this barrier!” He
patted the very solid brick wall behind him, and she blinked her wide yellow eyes once
before taking off into the sky. Harry really wondered how exactly that worked but figured
mail owls were magical like that.

Since he was really not in a state for people to actually see him, he quickly scrambled up and
fixed his cart and trunk, folding Hedwig’s cage back into his back and going to a nearby
bench to wait on an answer. He attempted to make sure his clothes and hair were okay but
since he was in muggle clothes for now he figured it was a losing battle; Mr. Malfoy wasn’t
going to be impressed for anything, especially since he was at the bare minimum not
presenting a traditional pureblood wizard right now.

He didn’t need the man to like him though, just accept working with him this once.

Oh… I probably shouldn’t be thinking of him like Blaise or Draco… he’s like, a full grown
Slytherin. He’ll be Draco but worse.

Harry mentally pictured a Draco who wasn’t as predictable and slightly clueless as he was
and felt a tremor of unease slide down his spine. Maybe this wasn’t a great idea….

But no sooner had he thought that did a presence seem to materialize above him and his head
snapped up, Mr. Malfoy looking at him with a more impressive version of Draco’s ‘I’m being
polite but still looking down at you’ expression that seemed familiar if not also significantly
scarier at this moment.
“Mr. Malfoy!” He greeted with a slight yelp, jumping to his feet and trying to be polite. “You
got my letter… I’m so sorry about this but I didn’t know who else to call and I knew you’d
be right there…” He trailed off, and luckily the man only raised one eerily silver eyebrow at
him, which was appropriately judgmental but not like he was angry or disgusted about it,
which was good.

“An intriguing situation for certain, I’ve never heard about anyone missing the train.” He
intoned blankly, and Harry felt his cheeks color slightly, trying to stamp down on that
quickly.

“W-well I thought I was here in plenty of time… I suppose my clock was slow or something,
as the barrier was just a wall.” He attempted to explain, but if felt awkward on his tone.

“You ran into a wall?”

The dry tone made him blushed even harder. Okay this was probably a really bad idea.
Maybe he should’ve taken the loss and waited for Hagrid.

“Ah… yes.” He admitted.

There was a really long pause as the man just looked at him and for the life of him Harry had
no idea what he was thinking. It got awkward quickly as his mind raced through all the
judgmental things the man could possibly be pondering at the weird twelve-year-old who was
pretty much only in existence to screw up and get Draco in trouble from his fatherly
perspective.

He wasn’t like Draco at all, Harry realized, he was much quieter and much more judgmental.
Draco was too, but Draco could be swayed, Draco was secretly squishy inside with a prickly
exterior that was all endearing bluster and flashy pompousness. Harry wasn’t even attempting
to get into it with this man, he was far too intimidated right now, because he was suddenly
incredibly aware that this man had no mushy center like his son did. Don’t know how he
knew, but his instincts knew.

So it was a real shock when the man finally spoke after his long deliberation.

“Are you alright?”

Harry perked up, but kept his face blank. “Yes sir,” he chirped automatically. Seeing the
man’s one lifted eyebrow though, he thought better of his lie immediately. It wasn’t like lying
to Draco at all, it was like trying to lie to Snape but worse. Bad, bad idea—there was no way
he’d get away with it as he was. “Or… I may have sprained my wrist.” He deflected quickly.

His wrist was sprained, so there was that. Not a lie.

“…well, there’s a floo on the platform, you can return to Malfoy Manor with me for a
moment to get fixed up. I will write to the Headmaster and inform him; you’ll likely miss the
feast, but you’ll be able to enjoy the night in your dorm.” The man seemed to accept it for
now and briskly began walking, already commanding the plan of action like that is what they
would be doing, and Harry knew better than to argue despite feeling a flush of uncertainty.
The first time he was going to Draco’s house and Draco wasn’t even there? Talk about weird.

“Thank you sir.” Was all he said though, grabbing his trunk and following obediently, though
he got super curious when Mr. Malfoy attempted to go back to the barrier. He couldn’t even
wonder fully before the man touched the wall, and legitimate surprise flickered across his
regal features. “Ah… doesn’t it close after the train leaves?” Harry asked curiously because
he couldn’t help himself despite the awkward situation.

“It should remain open the entirety of the day the train is scheduled to come… today
included.” Mr. Malfoy intoned in actual interest as he poked at the wall one more time just to
be sure. “Most curious. Something must have gone wrong with it.” Grey eyes slid down to
eye the boy beside him critically, causing Harry to feel acutely aware of the mess he probably
was right then, though he managed to remain motionless despite it. “It is not anything you
would be capable of, I’m sure. One cannot be late for the Hogwarts Express if you do not
intend to miss it.”

“Oh.” He blinked, suddenly feeling a sense of relief that this wasn’t his fault. I mean he
hadn’t thought it was, he’d just assumed this was something else terrible he’d encountered, as
there was a lot of those encounters these days. In any case, it was still a relief that Mr. Malfoy
personally wasn’t judging him too harshly for this now.

With a slight jolt he also realized probably not even Blaise would tease him about it if Mr.
Malfoy agreed it was just an accident. Which said a lot about why Draco was so willing to
hide behind his father’s name when they first started at Hogwarts—Harry hadn’t spent more
than a minute total with the man in his life and he already just got it.

Maybe he should be easier on Draco…

“We can apparate then, although I expect it will be your first experience it with it, correct?”
The man simply moved on briskly, and Harry paused. He knew of apparating but…

000

Apparating sucked.

Or, maybe it was side-along apparition.

Whatever it was, he was really trying not to be sick to his stomach despite there being
nothing in there to lose at the moment in front of one Narcissa Malfoy, who greeted them in
whatever formal hall-looking place they had suddenly appeared in. He barely heard Mr.
Malfoy explain the situation in a brisk tone and then excuse himself, presumably to get in
contact with Dumbledore as promised, which left him alone with Draco’s mom and also a
broiling stomach that refused to settle down after that sudden shock.

He’d met her a couple brief times but now that he was fully alone with her and she was
smiling politely at him, he really took her in. Draco definitely took after his father in terms of
looks, but she had that silvery light blonde hair as if it were destined she’d marry a man with
the same coloring, producing a son with hair so unnaturally pure blond it was kind of
shocking. Her features were much more narrow and thin, even the tip of her nose and thin
lips despite her gracious smile seemed sharp-edged somehow. Her eyes were also closer to
green rather than the flat grey of her husband and son, and just like said husband there was a
notable lack of warmth there too.

Her tone however, was everything generous and cordial and more.

“Well of course you’re welcome to stay here a while, I hope to have it cleared up quickly but
it’s lovely to see you again Harry.” She greeted him.

She was very polite and her tone was either genuinely warm, or a perfect fake of it and the
fact Harry legitimately could not tell which one it was kind of terrified him a bit.

“Thank you, Mrs. Malfoy, really.” He manage to get out although through his nausea and the
whirlwind the day had been so far, he really hoped it sounded more level than he felt.

“Lucius said you hurt your wrist. Let’s get to that first,” She nodded sympathetically, raising
her chin slightly. “Turel!” she called gently as if for someone in the next room.

With a gentle pop, a new figure appeared at Mrs. Malfoy’s side, and it was tiny and wearing a
neat black tea towel like a formless dress, a silver symbol embroidered on the front that Harry
didn’t recognize but could probably assume was the Malfoy family crest.

Not that Harry was looking at the crest too closely as he took a startled step back, a jolt
shooting through him he couldn’t control for a split second.

Mrs. Malfoy blinked in surprise at his reaction but smiled in her warm-but-not sort of way to
cover it. “This is Turel, she can look at your wrist and heal it up for you if it’s a simple
sprain.” She explained, and seeing his face added in. “I am aware you were raised with
muggles; Turel is a house elf. I believe you met Dobby?”

What a considerate thing to say, her acknowledging that he might not know what house elves
were.

If only that was his problem.

He did not answer her.

He suddenly was physically not able to.

And the silence was very, very noticeable.

To the point the small house elf perked up, big bulbous eyes looking very concerned. “If the
young master’s hand is hurt I can fixes it up right quick! There’ll be no pains at all!” Her
voice was bright and clear as she tried to sooth him. Cheerful even.

Harry did not immediately move but pulled his aching wrist slightly closer to himself
automatically, before realizing what he was doing and trying to relax. This elf… her tea towel
or whatever she was wearing was very well kept and immaculately clean. There were no dirty
bandages on her, not even a bruise on her vaguely-leather colored skin that he could see, and
she seemed to hover closer to Mrs. Malfoy with no fear as if waiting for her next order. Or…
waiting for Harry to let her complete her first order by healing him, but also sensing he would
not react well if the tiny creature just walked up to him now.

He was so caught up in measuring the elf up, he missed the look on Mrs. Malfoy’s face, but
then it was gone as she smoothed it clear once more.

“Turel is the best of the elves here with injures—she’ll be done in an instant and we can have
some tea while we wait for Lucius to finish his business.” She moved fluidly, ushering them
to the sitting area and guiding him to an extremely fancy looking couch which he sat down
on for lack of other option. Before he could react Turel was at his knee and had two little
hands opened questioningly at him, but very pointedly did not actually touch him without his
permission which was...

He just held his breath and got over it, giving her his hand.

True to form in an instant the pain in his wrist completed disappeared, and in the next blink
the little elf was six feet away bowing to both him and Lady Malfoy. “I’s get you tea right
quick! Is earl grey alrighty ma’am?” She was cheerful to the point of casualness despite her
words and careful to only look at her owner, not him, and Harry realized the little elf was
trying to distract from the awkward exchange that had been.

He felt a little bad for being so stiff, she really only meant well.

“I believe that should be fine, if that’s well with you Harry?” Mrs. Malfoy sat in an ornate
chair across the table and smiled blankly at him. He nodded quickly.

“Yes, thank you.” He paused only a second. “Thank you, Turel.” He added a bit quieter, and
the little elf beamed at him before bowing low and disappearing with a tiny, puffing pop.

“Turel is by far my favorite, she already knows my preferences.” Lady Malfoy commented
conversationally, bringing Harry’s attention back.

“Earl grey is Draco’s favorite too,” He recalled vaguely, before coloring a bit at her amused
smile. Right… she definitely already knew that. “Thank you again, for having me. I really
wasn’t sure what to do.”

“From my recollection, this has never happened before so I can’t exactly blame you for being
baffled. As it is, calling Lucius was probably the wisest as we weren’t far.” She dismissed
smoothly. “In any case you’re welcome here; I’m sure Draco will be most disappointed your
first visit was while he’s out though. He was looking forward to today.”

Harry pointedly did not wince but managed to gather himself enough to give a plain smile.
“Yeah I’m sad too, the train ride was fun last year.” He agreed. “I’m sure Draco is really
worried, maybe I should write in our journal…”

Mrs. Malfoy raised one thin eyebrow. “He does seem to be rather nervous in that way.”
Harry abruptly wondered how much Draco actually told his parents and realized he should
really double check that with his friend at the earliest he could. Until them maybe he should
keep everything as neutral as possible…

“Well I am a ‘reckless Gryffindor’ like he says so I can’t exactly fault him,” He deflected and
she smiled in interest back.

Turel chose that moment to pop back up, and she placed a tea tray with a full set of delicate
china as well as some small sandwiches on the coffee table between them, pouring some cups
and pushing the sugar and milk Harry’s direction since clearly the tiny creature already knew
Narcissa’s preference of neither. Harry was distracted by awkwardly taking the cup he was
given from Turel’s tiny hands and didn’t see the small card on her saucer that Mrs. Malfoy
read, then slipped into her robe out of sight smoothly. By the time Harry looked up she was
simply taking a sip and smiling politely at him before setting it back down on the table.

“Well, let’s not give Draco grey hairs too young; I’ll give you a moment to write to him while
I check in on what Lucius is doing. It’ll only a take a moment,” She announced, standing and
gliding from the room which caused Harry to startle a moment before realizing he should
really take the opportunity.

He slipped out his journal, trying to ignore the wiggling sensation in the back of his mind that
he’d missed something.

000

I really wish Draco were here, at least I could follow his lead, Harry thought wryly as he sat
in yet another one of the Malfoy’s sitting rooms. Really, there had to be a dozen of them
around the manor, as with every change of location they came back to yet another fancy
sitting room with a different tray of tea following them if they needed it.

Mr. Malfoy did get in contact with Dumbledore, but apparently the Headmaster was actually
at the ministry today so they couldn’t get approval to floo him into Hogwarts until later in the
afternoon. Mrs. Malfoy said that was fine as they wouldn’t dare be so rude as to send him
along without having him for lunch, and afternoon tea if it got that late too.

And so lunch and then a couple hours later afternoon tea they did have, although Mr. Malfoy
didn’t join them for tea in favor of some other business he had going on. Lunch was
interesting as there was almost no talking (which explained a lot; he’d never consciously
noticed how little Draco said at meals as he preferred to leave Harry and Blaise bickering
amongst themselves while he ate), compared to the hours Mrs. Malfoy spent entertaining him
in which conversation was surprisingly easy and cordial considering this was his best friend’s
parents and he’d never really met any parents beside the Dursleys and also his best friend
wasn’t even here to mediate.

It would’ve actually been pretty nice if the entire time Harry’s instincts weren’t screaming at
him that he was missing something. If Mrs. Malfoy’s plentiful conversation didn’t ring every
alarm bell in Harry’s head as he tried not to give too much away to the incredibly talented
Slytherin woman. He really wished Draco were here, because he had no idea if this was
normal or if he was supposed to act like everything was okay or somehow let it be known he
knew something else was going on to show he wasn’t actually a stupid Gryffindor or…

He was just really, really out of his depth right now, but all he could do was keep responding
to the flow of conversation and hoped he wasn’t ruining something for Draco right now.

Luckily, Mrs. Malfoy seemed content to question him about Transfiguration since their small
talk topics had brushed over both of their hobbies, hair since she had her own
recommendations to prove on the topic, quidditch since she obviously knew a lot through
Draco’s obsession, and then of course school where it became clear he had a favorite subject.
She clearly already knew he was good at Transfiguration and was using his notes as trades,
probably from Draco which wasn’t a bad thing, but she seemed genuinely interested in how
good he was. Since Harry didn’t actually care much about getting to publish his work
someday, he was happy to talk about duro and his paper for that with her (a common
Slytherin might steal it just on principle but he didn’t actually care if she did, though he
doubted she would bother), and she seemed well-versed enough on the topic for there to
actually be an interesting discourse on it between them. He even told her about the book
Draco gave him for Christmas and her eyes got a slightly terrifying glint as she asked to hear
more.

And because it felt a little one-sided after quite a long time talking about his interests, he did
ask after hers just to be polite although he half thought she’d just deflect him. He was very
surprised then when she explained some of her own hobbies, including embroidery and
tending to their pets—apparently they had a whole flock of white peacocks which she even
took Harry to see, and they were actually very friendly for such large, regal birds.

He was even more impressed when she explained that while house elves couldn’t be given
clothes as that was a sign of their dismissal, there was nothing against her embroidering their
clothes for decoration which explained Turel’s tea towel. In fact Turel popped up just to show
it off for him once more, and Harry had to admit it was gorgeous work.

Wizards didn’t really do things by hand if they could enchant a needle to do it on its own, so
it was a surprise and actually really cool.

By the end of it all though, Harry also realized that while Mrs. Malfoy was a “stay at home
Mom” (what did the Malfoy family need an actual income for, honestly?) her real profession,
was hosting.

Harry was absolutely not the first nor the last to be given a tour of this manor or sit in one of
the dozens of sitting rooms designed to host and entertain and distract from the gentle flow of
conversation that was all just interesting, engaging small talk but was definitely going to be
used like a weapon in her arsenal at a later date. She might not be after him specifically as he
was here for a real reason and also she probably just wanted to get to know her son’s best
friend, but that didn’t change the fact Harry knew anyone invited to tea at Malfoy manor
would be given the same treatment and the conversation would be far more dangerous.

She acted like this was all just killing time while waiting on her husband to ‘finish his
business’, but she was commanding this show and Harry had a feeling Mr. Malfoy would
only appear again when his wife was good and ready for her entertainment to be done.
To be frank, he was really impressed.

And also terrified. Draco looked like his dad but holy shit the longer he sat across from Mrs.
Malfoy the more he saw Draco’s future and if that wasn’t terrifying he didn’t know what was.

It was quite a bit after afternoon tea that Turel popped in again, and Mrs. Malfoy paused in
her explanation of how they’d started to breed the peacocks to lean over and let the small elf
whisper something in her ear. Harry was suspicious, but not nearly as much as he was when
the woman sat up again and gave him a smile that iced him to his core.

It was like a snake who’d gotten it’s catch, triumphant and commanding and he would’ve run
if her sharp eyes didn’t pin him to his seat cushion pointedly as Turel popped away again to
leave Harry to his fate.

“Harry, I’m afraid I’ve deceived you, although do believe me it was with good intentions.”
She announced, and he got really, really worried.

“Ma’am?” He blinked in alarm.

Her smile could’ve cut ice as she brushed down the front of her robes briskly. “Turel
informed me when she tended to your wrist that it wasn’t the only injury you have on you. I
asked you to stay for tea because I’ve also summoned our family healer to see to you more
thoroughly.” She inclined her head gracefully towards him. “And you will not resist.”

He broke out into a cold sweat, but still couldn’t move. How did she do that?

“Ma’am I… that’s too kind and I appreciate it, but I’m fine. I’ll manage, rather.” He quickly
corrected himself as her eyes narrowed darkly. Right… another full grown Slytherin, and
probably more dangerous when it came to words than anyone else he’d ever met.

“You only told Lucius about your wrist because it would impair your ability to write in the
coming days of classes.” She put together while totally ignoring his comment, smirking in a
pleased way. “Very clever, as it soothed our suspicions and got you what you needed, while
still guarding your appearance of strength. I approve of the tactic, if even I’m displeased you
attempted to lie to me.”

He swallowed thickly, not liking how cornered he was but not quite being able to do anything
about it.

“A lie of omission, ma’am.” He cut back a little shortly, and her eyebrows raised in surprise.

But her smile was definitely pleased. He wasn’t really used to looks like that, but for some
reason it felt kind of… flattering?

“Do try and teach my son some of that subtly, young man.” She hummed a bit wryly,
standing and brushing her skirts down. “Turel?” She called, and the drawing room door
opened revealing the elf leading in a woman about Lady Malfoy’s age if not maybe slightly
older. She had on dark grey robes with a red symbol on her chest Harry didn’t recognize,
dirty blonde hair pulled back in a French braid and light hazel eyes stern, but still way
warmer than Mrs. Malfoy’s.

“Lady Malfoy,” The woman greeted, setting a black bag down on the couch and nodding to
him as well. “And you must be Harry Potter.”

“This is Anastasia Ludwig, she’s a healer at St. Mungos and also our personal physician.”
Mrs. Malfoy introduced them before turning to the woman directly. “I did deceive him about
why he was here though; he didn’t know you were coming until just now I’m afraid.”

The woman grinned, seeming highly amused. “Ha! This should be fun then, eh?” She looked
at him, and Harry could only stare.

“I really-”

“You wouldn’t waste an old woman’s time by dragging me all the way out here for nothing,
would you kid?” Anastasia interrupted, coming around the table to point in his face. Before
he could respond she cut him off again. “I’ve treated my fair share of Gryffindors so I’m not
taking no for an answer.”

He scowled openly, her tone rubbing him the wrong way and throwing out the mask of
politeness he’d been wearing the whole day so far. “Can you do that!?”

“You’re not the one paying me, are you?” She countered with a tease, and Harry felt horrified
as he glanced over her shoulder to see Mrs. Malfoy smiling way too much as she turned
without another word.

“Do let me know if I can get you anything, Anastasia. Turel as well can assist, just call.”

“Of course Ma’am,” She waved her employer off, and then Harry was alone with a healer
and not happy about it at all.

“This has to be illegal!” Harry jumped up and tried to back away from the couch, but the
woman had a hand on the back of his sweater and pulled him back gently, but with surprising
strength. He blinked in shock as he was suddenly back on the couch, not sure how that had
happened.

“There’s no law about it, and if you doubt me then trust that Mrs. Malfoy would’ve checked.”
She pointed out and Harry froze, realizing the horrible truth in that statement. He scowled
again.

“The wizarding world sucks!”

The woman tossed back her head in an uproarious laugh. “You said it kid! Okay, let’s cut a
deal if you’ll listen a second.”

“What?” He demanded warily.

“You let me treat you, and I won’t tell Mrs. Malfoy you were being an uncooperative brat.”
Harry balked. “How is that a deal!?”

“Well you’re not getting out of this and this way you have a choice. One makes your life easy
and the other will make your life a living hell. Deals are all about choices so you don’t have
to take it, I’m just warning you.” She grinned a bit evilly.

“That doesn’t feel much like a choice!” He shot back wildly. “What would you do if I
refused!?”

“Stun you and run some diagnostic spells anyway, then go tattle on you to Lady Malfoy.
Sound good?” And suddenly there was a wand inches from his nose he had to go cross-eyed
to see. Okay… that wasn’t good at all.

Also, he felt a little light-headed from having a wand pointed directly into his face. To say it
didn’t bring up great memories was an understatement.

And just like that, the wand dropped and the woman took a step away, a surprised look
flickering across her face as she backed off. “You good kid?” Her flippancy evaporated in a
puff, legitimate concern sinking into her voice.

Harry didn’t know what expression he had on, but by the way his heart was beating and his
hearing was a little muffled it probably wasn’t good.

What was he supposed to say to that though? NO he wasn’t good, why did she think pointing
a wand at him would in any way make him feel good!?

He didn’t like being cornered, he really really didn’t like being cornered.

The healer seemed to get it and instantly backed off, now on the other side of the chair
Narcissa had recently vacated, putting her wand on the seat cushion and putting her hands up.
“Hey, kid… Harry—I didn’t mean it, I’m a bit of an oaf like that but I’m not actually gonna
stun you, I just get a lot of tough kids to deal with. Draco is your friend, right? I’ve treated
him his whole life, used to have to threaten hanging him by his toes from the tree outside to
get him to sit still most days.” She let out a smooth flow of words at an even tone, and Harry
couldn’t help but imagine a tiny Draco being an even tinier brat than he currently was for this
rather gruff woman, and against his will found it a bit amusing.

“And my own daughter, she’s several years older than you but when she was Hogwarts age I
used to have to bribe her with Bertie’s Botts to get her to let me even check if she had a cold
or a flu, but then of course inevitably she’d have neither and just have eaten a bunch of sugar
while I’m trying to get her to go to bed, so, yeah I’m a great mother if you couldn’t tell.” She
continued babbling slowly, and as Harry’s hearing became normal he collected himself
enough to give her a frown.

“Well then what would you do if I didn’t let you check me over then?” He demanded.

Her lips pressed tight for a second before blowing out a breath of air in annoyance. “The fact
you reacted like you did to a wand in your face means that’s not an option, and I’m sorry kid
but it isn’t. I will do it your way though.”
“My way?” He blinked.

“Sure,” She agreed like it was easy, staring at him expectantly. He just had no idea what she
was expecting from him exactly.

“And what… is my way? Because my way is not doing it at all.”

She gave a little huff and pointedly walked over to a chair adjacent from her wand—still a
distance away from him and also out of range of grabbing said weapon—and plopping down
on it, making a show of getting comfy. She waved her hand at him generously. “It means I
can sit here all day and do as little or as much as you’d like me to. I could explain everything
I’m going to do and take as long as you want to do it… but you know, I still have to do it.
There’s just no time limit.”

He frowned, but she didn’t even blink at his annoyance, just shifted in her seat to get comfier
and stretched a bit in a show of nonchalance.

He didn’t like the lack of choice here, and to be frank he didn’t like her. She was loud, and
blunt, and grabby. She was also here on Mrs. Malfoy’s dime and didn’t seem to care about
him, just her job.

The logical part of his brain said she wasn’t evil because she wanted to tend to a kid, but at
the same time her execution was horrible. Her attitude even worse.

And because he was still kind of shaken by this whole horrible day, he didn’t feel the need to
care about her.

“I don’t like you.” He declared flatly.

“Dually noted.” She nodded once, entirely unphased. “I do apologize for startling you, but as
I said I’m a bit of an oaf.”

For some reason he didn’t even like that she freely admitted that either despite him totally
agreeing with that statement, and just scowled harder.

He had to think, because he wanted out of here, but this healer was not his only obstacle. She
was an obstacle, but she was here because Mrs. Malfoy had called her and then kept him here
all afternoon to corner him, which meant this was not the only thing his host had been hiding.
She definitely knew how to keep him here indefinitely if he refused to be treated, and he
instinctively knew this Anastasia woman was not joking in that she’d sit here as long as it
took for him to give.

It was just childish to wait it out, and while really tempting he wasn’t that low. He’d love to
waste her time just to be annoying, but that also meant wasting his time and he really did
want to make it to Hogwarts to sleep in a comfy four poster bed tonight, not the cold Malfoy
manor filled with snakes (who were not nearly so cuddly as Draco).

Even if he convinced her out of this, he’d then have to convince Mrs. Malfoy to help him get
to Hogwarts without getting her way, and as he knew nothing about healer Anastasia and
would probably give it a shot just to see if it worked, at the prospect of trying to beat Lady
Malfoy at her own game he suddenly got really depressed.

He really hated being trapped.

And he suddenly just wanted Draco here. He wanted him to yell at his mom for him to take
them back to Hogwarts this minute, and he was so spoiled she’d probably give in. He wanted
to be back in the Gryffindor dorm. He wanted Neville in the bed next to him wishing him a
goodnight and for this entire terrible day to just be over already.

His jaw ground hard against itself.

I want Draco, he thought helplessly. Childishly, even.

But… it occurred to him with a deep sinking feeling in his chest, that even if Draco were
here… he’d tell him to give in and listen to the healer. That if a healer wanted to look over
him, there must be a good reason, and Draco wouldn’t let him leave any sooner than Mrs.
Malfoy would.

But at least Draco would be HERE to tell that to my face.

He bit down hard on that thought, trying not to let it break him.

He turned sharply and walked to the other end of the room. He knew he couldn’t leave and so
did Healer Anastasia, so she didn’t comment or move, just watched him carefully as he went
to the window and looked down at the fields where the peacocks were grazing peacefully for
a minute. He half wanted to break something, but he knew all the fancy decoration in here
was probably ungodly expensive, or just simply cursed so he held back. Angry as he was
with Mrs. Malfoy, he didn’t want to break Draco’s house even though he knew his friend
likely didn’t give a shit about the figurines on the tables.

This sucks.

He complained silently, wishing against hope that at least Hedwig were here because this
sucked.

He did not appreciated being cornered, and to his silent horror he found his hand in his
pocket around his wand a bit too tightly, running through all the spells he’d learned over the
past couple weeks for something that could help him. But… that was such a bloody
Gryffindor thing to do, to think he could fight his way out of here.

He couldn’t, and despite now having a vow to no longer be helpless, all the magic in the
world didn’t protect him from this kind of shit.

For the first time he found himself legitimately not liking Slytherins because why couldn’t
they just let him be? Slytherins his age he could handle, but these adults were like every other
adult in his life apart from McGonagall (who was a blessed lion and wouldn’t do this to him,
thank god) and he did not like how his heart was slowly sinking into something too close to
anger and hate for his liking. He hadn’t felt this way since last Christmas standing in front of
that thrice-damned mirror, and he loathed feeling this way.

And he was just so annoyed because while he could not like healer Anastasia all he wanted,
Mrs. Malfoy was Draco’s mom. He couldn’t exactly show up to breakfast tomorrow and tell
his best friend his mom was a bitch, even if in this situation he was really starting to think it.
He didn’t want to hate his best friend’s mom, because he didn’t want to be the kind of guy
who hated anyone and also that would just be so complicated and troublesome it wasn’t
worth it, despite it not being so easy to control his emotions right now.

I need to calm down. I need to get out of here, and get to Hogwarts.

He had a wild urge to just toss himself out the window in front of him and hope he wasn’t
conscious enough to deal with the consequences of that, before shaking his head rapidly.

I really need to get to Hogwarts and chill out. What am I even doing right now?

He tried to evaluate his options calmly like he had earlier at the train station, but even his
most creative, wild solutions quickly petered out in the fact of the harsh reality that Mrs.
Malfoy was definitely going to get her way. As much as it sucked, the only way he’d get to
Hogwarts as quickly as possible was to cooperate and then never come back. Logically this
would be okay and cornered or not he didn’t have a choice.

He had to get to Hogwarts, and fastest way was to just grit his teeth and get this over with—
and hope it didn’t last long.

His jaw clenched and he tried to will himself to turn around and just get it over with. Like
ripping a Band-Aid off. Just do it.

He suddenly remembered what he still had in his pocket, and slipped a hand in there to wrap
around a small, warm stone that’d been sitting there since this morning. His fingers traced
around the runes etched into it, before he gripped it as hard as he could to try and force his
agitation from his body and into the stone itself.

I need one of these for wizards, he thought for the second time today. And maybe house elves
too, he tacked on as well because Turel was nice and all but if they could stop popping up on
him that’d be great.

Before he could change his mind he turned around and walked back, healer Anastasia looking
up casually as if asking silently if he was ready. He glared at her for all he was worth but
annoyingly enough it didn’t seem to have any effect.

“Fine. Whatever. What are you going to do.” He ground out flatly, and she huffed.

“I’m not going to torture you, you know. It’s literally just a couple of diagnostics spells and
then I’ll fix whatever I find. Lady Malfoy tells me you ran into a wall today, so sorry about
that.” She pointed out calmly.

He hated her, like a lot.

“Please just do it so I can get out of here.” He even managed to sound calm as he said it, but
the words were enough to get his point across as the woman just nodded once and stood up,
grabbing her wand pointedly and coming over to him.

“As I said, just a diagnostic spell to start off. Shouldn’t feel a thing, though the wand
movement is a bit crazy.” She explained, jumping right into it by waving it in all sorts of
ways Harry didn’t recognize. In fact he just looked down at the forgotten tea tray on the
coffee table to ignore her motions.

That was, until he heard her inhale a bit and tried not to show how tense he was in his
posture.

“…kid, I think you damn well know what that spell just revealed to me. Although it does
explain why you’re so not into this.” She lowered her wand and put a hand on the back of her
neck, seeming to be a bit conflicted.

“Not at all ma’am.” He ground out stiffly. “Do magical healers have patient confidentiality?”

She gave him a look but answered anyway.

“Yes, however I’m paid by the Malfoys and my morals are not so stringent as that I won’t
disregard that rule and tell Mrs. Malfoy everything she wants to know. Unlike muggle
doctors I won’t lost my license over it, but perhaps be given a small fine I’m sure Mrs.
Malfoy would be only too happy to pay in exchange for my loyalty. And may I remind you
Mr. Malfoy is a barrister when it suits him to be one.” She pointed out, and he scowled
automatically.

Damn rich purebloods. Wait, I’m one of those aren’t I? No—half-blood, I’m going to consider
that not counting.

Still, he had a suspicion of what she saw and if he could just keep that not public
knowledge…

Healer Anastasia gave him a rather sympathetic look, if not also kind of amused in a way that
set Harry off. She was so freaking annoying.

“You sure you’re not in Slytherin? I haven’t seen a calculating face like that since my own
daughter when she was young. Eventually she learned to hide it better.”

He glared hard at her and she put her hands up on mock surrender.

“Face it, you’ve don’t have anything to trade for my silence. Besides, you should not have to
keep this quiet in the first place, whatever it is. You’re what, twelve?” She didn’t even
acknowledge his glare, rubbing the back of her neck again as the conflicted look came back.
“To be honest I wasn’t planning on needing to do anything besides healing some bruises
when I heard about the wall thing. This complicates things a bit.”

“What are you going to do?” He demanded and she sighed, tapping her wand against he thigh
distractedly as she thought.
“Okay, let’s start with the things you probably know about. You’re malnourished.” She
declared bluntly, and while hearing it officially was… a thing, he wasn’t shocked. Seeing his
not-shocked face, she continued. “You will need potions to correct this, I can ask Turel to
bring some pretty quickly to get you started but you’ll need to take a regimen for the next
couple weeks to fix what’s been done, and I would suggest complying even if you hate me.
The vitamin deficiencies are already impacting your brain and will only get worse with time
as it’ll be all but impossible for your body to naturally catch back up to where it once was
without treatment—you want to be a good student right? It might help if your brain was
healthy enough to retain information and process it correctly, hm?”

That was bad news, but he wasn’t stupid, so he just nodded curtly instead of arguing. “Fine.
What else—what I don’t know then.”

She gave a put-upon sigh but didn’t keep him in suspense.

“Some minor things I can clear up right now with a couple non-intrusive spells: you have two
residual blocks on your magical core. It looks like something that used to be there, but your
core grew too big and broke it off, which is impressive by the way for someone so young, but
it raises a big question about why they were there in the first place. One is a normal parental
block that should’ve been removed, although I can guess how that one was overlooked, but
the other I don’t recognize at all.”

“Parental block?”

“Infants can still perform accidental magic; it’s normal for parents to put tiny blocks on their
children’s magic to prevent total chaos although it’s usually removed once you get your
Hogwarts letter.” She explained, looking legitimately sympathetic, bordering on pity actually.
He wouldn’t been annoyed if the realization of how that could’ve been so easily overlooked
didn’t make his heart ache so fiercely.

It was… difficult, or more difficult than it used to be, to shelf that heart ache for late as he
tried to refocus on the more critical part of this information she was giving him.

“And this other block is not normal?”

“Not necessarily, blocks are applied all the time for various reasons in children so it’s quite
common, but all blocks should be documented in your medical file just as diligently as
broken bones or the like. Before I came over I checked St. Mungos but there’s no entry there
since the check-up on your first birthday where you got all your magical immunizations. The
next big event was you surviving the killing curse and I can’t believe you didn’t see a healer
after that, but that record is not there. It wouldn’t be impossible that it was done off the book
given the extreme circumstance, and that might be related to this unknown block for some
reason since it was such a unique situation, but it leaves holes in your medical record—
especially since the rest of your medical history was likely a muggle one. Creating a more
concrete file will be difficult.”

“And you want to create that file.” He put together.

She shrugged. “It would be helpful, yeah. Madam Pomfrey retains your Hogwarts file, but
they don’t get merged into your St. Mungos one until you graduate unless something prompts
merging them early, and if she’ll be treating you at school and you don’t have a normal
family physician right now, it’d be a professional courtesy for if I did the ground work now.
If you got a family healer and they saw I checked you over but didn’t question your missing
history while living in the muggle world, my reputation would take a serious hit you know as
that’s just unprofessional.” She defended herself, and he couldn’t fault the logic. Especially
since it was self-serving logic—people doing things because it benefitted them was a lot
more believable then that they were doing it out of the kindness of their heart if you weren’t
Neville.

Since he was fairly confident she was telling the truth, he softened just slightly enough to
offer his own truth too.

“Well then I guess it’d be… helpful to know that I never did see a muggle doctor except for
my immunizations. The muggle ones. And the hospital treated me outright when I broke my
arm once as a kid.” He offered grudgingly, recalling the time he’d fallen off a ladder
gardening and Petunia had caved and actually taken him to the hospital to get it treated. They
were horrible people but him having that blatantly broken an arm would’ve alerted people as
he was still in school and it was again his writing hand—also it impacted his ability to do
chores which was inconvenient for them.

Healer Anastasia got a funny look on her face—not quite annoyance but close.

“It doesn’t shock me. But that’s very much not good—it means I’m the first person to
examine you officially since you were one. Not good at all.”

Like he didn’t already know that. He didn’t dignify it with an answer as he pushed.
“Anything else?” He demanded shortly and she tapped her wand against her thigh
distractedly again.

“Yeah, but it’s the oddest thing so I wasn’t going to make a huge fuss just yet until I know
more. You also have several poorly healed fractures that seem to be pretty old—older than
this malnutrition issue for certain, and that have definitely been treated before, just not fully.
It’s odd, as if you’d had them at Hogwarts and were ever in the same room as Madam
Pomfrey she definitely would’ve noticed them.”

Wait what? Fractures?

He’d sprained his wrists and ankles and such, just a side effect of growing up with your own
personal bully in the same house, but he couldn’t remember a time he’d actually broken
something and just had to deal with it aside from this recent incident with his wrist. Vernon
had roughed him up a couple times this summer but he definitely hadn’t broken anything
until his wrist, he was sure. Shocking as it was he hadn’t even broken anything with the
Quirrell incident, which left…

“I mean I was almost crushed by a troll last year—would the fractures come from that?” He
blurted out almost without thinking, because mystery fractures was enough of an alarm for
him to forget he didn’t like this lady.
And Anastasia seemed to do a double take at his sudden confession, blinking widely.

“What was a troll doing at Hogwarts?”

“Um… long story short, Dumbledore hired a really, really bad Defense Professor.” He
shrugged once unhelpfully, and she scowled instantly.

“The position is cursed, and everyone knows it. No teacher lasts more than a year in that role,
I’m not sure why the batty old coot hasn’t done anything about it.” She half ranted in
irritation, and Harry blinked at that bit of information. Not that the role was cursed because
everyone knew that, but more that even adults her age knew it and that she wasn’t a
Dumbledore fan.

Okay… she earned one point for not liking the headmaster, but that was it.

“What bones did you break then?” She got down to business and may he was feeling a bit
more generous now that he could at least determine she didn’t like Dumbledore, which was
always a great thing to him.

“Ah, all my ribs I think, and definitely my shoulder.”

She frowned deeply, seeming troubled. “When you say crushed…?”

“It grabbed me, yeah. And squeezed.”

Instead of pity she clearly was just thinking it was impressive he was alive, which he kind of
liked.

“Well, actually yes those are the bones I was talking about. If Madam Pomfrey healed you
after that incident though, there is no reason they shouldn’t have healed entirely the week
after it happened, unless something else was going on. I suppose the lack of nutrition in
recent months might’ve contributed to them resurfacing if you had a magical core deficiency
or something, but other than that it’s a brain-scratcher for one.” She pressed her lips as if
trying to figure out a complicated puzzle, tapping her wand distractedly again, but her words
send an alarm bell off in his head.

Harry had heard someone he trusted a lot more than this woman talk about his magical core
before and felt obligated to ask.

“Wait, magical core deficiency? What is that?”

“Sometimes those with weaker magical cores can suffer health problems if they’re not
careful. As if your magic is a reservoir that can only do so many things at once—if they use it
to cast spells then it’s not being used to heal themselves.” Healer Anastasia explained easily.
“Madam Pomfrey uses a refined style of magical healing; she’s one of the most accomplished
at it amongst the medical field in fact so everyone is aware of it. Essentially her style focuses
on using one’s own internal magic to heal themselves instead of her using her own energy,
which allows her to heal many people at once without faltering. It’s a tricky method only few
insanely trained and practiced medical professionals can actually do, which is why some still
call her a battle medic—she could heal a whole battlefield of people without breaking a sweat
in her glory days, so I’ve heard.” She grinned at that last part and Harry blinked widely in
awe—he hadn’t realized Pomfrey was so… well, bad ass.

Also Neville instincts might’ve been right on point to be terrified of her. Huh.

Anastasia continued, amused at his probably visible awe. “With this method though, the only
drawback is if someone had a small magical core. Then their magic reserve wouldn’t be
enough to heal them—it might start to while under the care of a healer, but if discharged too
early under the assumption they’d heal the rest of the way on their own, that healing process
might never actually finish.” She put her hand on her hip, giving him a dry look. “That’s the
only possibility but to be frank, but a small magical core is the least of your issues, and the
Madam would know that taking one look at you. You’re a Potter, and you inherited their
reputable magical core in full strength I’d say. I know no small number of adults with a
smaller core than you’ve got at twelve years old, to be blunt.”

He wanted to get annoyed at her tone again and that barn joke resurfacing again, but he was
too distracted by McGonagall’s voice in the back of his head, and the sinking feeling he had
that she was going to get pissed when she learned about this—if, indeed, it was going where
he thought it was.

“Well… ah, I mean, not to be presumptuous or anything, but I…may be a Transfiguration

prodigy? I mean… by the end of last year I’d actually reached almost fourth-year level spells.
Professor McGonagall had a heart attack when she realized how far ahead I was and gave me
a lecture on stressing my core out herself.”

The healer in front of him stared.

“…is that… bad?”

She continued to stare for a long couple seconds, before blinking and placing hand on top of
her own head as if trying to keep up with what was racing through her head.

“It’s… impressive, to be honest, and also extremely alarming. If you were… yeah, if you
were actually using high level magic for your age all year… then actually, yes, that might be
it. Madam Pomfrey probably discharged you and assumed you’d finish healing using your
own magical core since clearly you had the capacity for it, but you were using up your whole
core elsewhere so that never happened.” She blinked as if shocked she’d come to her own
conclusion. “It probably looked normal right up until you started showing signs of
malnutrition and then the half-way magical healing started coming through when your
normal levels of calcium suddenly plummeted. Christ that’s unlucky…” She seemed dazed
for a moment before snapping out of it and giving him a wide look.

“I am definitely writing the Madam—she was one of my trainers in school so she’ll flay me
and heal me herself if I let you go back without warning her! You will not be permitted to use
a single spell until she’s confirmed you’re 100% healed, if it’s the last thing I do, understand?
And I don’t mean to boss you around or whatever but messing with a young magical core—
particularly one as big as yours—is a super bad idea. Like, you could blow up, understand? I
am so serious now, please tell me you understand.” She all but begged and it creeped him out
enough that he just put his hands up.

“Fine yeah, alright—whatever. I mean, can you not do it now?” He wondered and she rubbed
the back of her neck as if embarrassed.

“To be honest, magical core healing is best left to those who specialize in it or at least have
the mastery, and the Madam is one of them. It’s why she’s the healer for Hogwarts, since
children all have developing magical cores to look after.”

He blinked, again impressed by Madam Pomfrey if not slightly alarmed that that would even
have to be a consideration. Then again, given his own life experiences, maybe it was good
that was one of the rare good rules the wizarding world had.

“I’ll have to catch up with her anyway, to touch base on the potions regimen you’ll need. In
fact,” She plopped down on the chair again, pulling out a note pad from her bag and a self-
inking quill apparently as she scribbled something out. “Turel!”

A simple call and the elf popped up again, Harry automatically stiffening but giving Turel a
blank smile when the movement caught her eye. The tiny creature beamed at him in greeting
as she was handed a slip of paper.

“I need you to fetch these potions if you could; I believe Lady Malfoy said she’d foot the bill
if we needed anything.” She winked once and the elf gave a tiny squeak.

“Yes ma’am!” She chirped, and then was gone without a sound.

“Alright, so you said you wanted it done fast so how about I take a look at those blocks of
yours? It’ll take a bit longer but sooner we start, sooner it’s over, yeah?” She stood again,
wand now pointedly aimed at the ground and Harry tensed but just blew out a breath to
steady himself.

“Fine.”

“Might want to sit, it’ll take several minutes and works best if you’re relaxed.” She
explained, raising a brow at him. “And you don’t look relaxed in any way.”

With a flare of annoyance he dropped himself back onto the couch and crossed his arms.
Luckily she didn’t seem to care about the display of reluctance and just gently raised her
wand from a distance to wave it in another incredibly complex pattern before swaying it
gently side to side as blue mist seemed to fog out from it’s tip in gentle wisps. They gathered
in the air and landed over him—he didn’t feel a thing before getting this weird taste of itchy
vanilla at the back of his throat.

“So… about that malnutrition thing, since we’ve now established it’s a thing and are going to
fix it.” She suddenly broke the silence and he frowned.

“Don’t you need to concentrate?”

“Not really—hard part is over, and it takes a while to do it gently but doesn’t need much
thought on my end.” She flashed him a teasing grin as the gentle arcs of her wand continued
while she spoke. “So while we wait why don’t you answer my implication there.”

“Sorry, I’m a dumb Gryffindor— I didn’t catch the implication.” He droned sarcastically and
she snorted in amusement.

“That’s funny.” She acknowledged. “But as much as I want to be gentle, I think you’d
appreciate the honesty more. If I don’t get my answers, Mrs. Malfoy will. Do you really want
to get into that?”

No, she’s kind of terrifying, he admitted silently to himself.

“What exactly is it you’re looking for.”

“You lost an incredible amount of weight in an extremely short amount of time. Either you
weren’t eating of your own volition or someone was keeping food from you.”

“I didn’t starve myself,” He was automatically defensive, before he suddenly realized that
was basically admitting to it.

Shit.

“Which means I need to ask where you’ve been this past summer, because I know you had
three square meals of arguable too-fatty foods at the castle. Hogwarts meals are bloody
delicious.” Healer Anastasia didn’t so much as twitch at his inadvertent admission, just
continuing her rhythmic wand movements as the air danced with the slow-moving wisps of
curling blue smoke. Harry tried to ignore it all as his mind raced for what to say, but really
just came up blank.

“If it makes you feel any better, it occurs to me that Lady Malfoy might already know.” She
continued when he was just silent for a couple seconds too long.

“What?” He shifted a bit uncomfortably in his seat, and she elaborated.

“I must be thick as all hell, because it didn’t occur to me at the time why the Lady would
want me to come in on such short notice, nor the hefty fee I got paid to be here and not telling
anyone back at St. Mungos I was going anywhere but taking some personal time this
afternoon.” She confessed, and Harry perked up. “I mean she’s done it before—a lot of
pureblood families pay healers under the table for house visits, and then even more to keep it
quiet. No need to let others know they might be having moments of weakness or whatever if
they come down with a cold or something stupid. And I mean everyone gets sick, even the
scariest of snakes so they like to keep their bases covered like that.”

With a smile then. “It didn’t strike me as weird until you got cagey about a wand in your face
that what is weird is that I got this call for someone outside the family. If it were just running
into a wall, Turel would’ve fixed it with a snap—the fact they called in a real healer meant it
wasn’t just that and I’m an idiot for not realizing sooner. Sorry about that.”
Even her apologies annoyed him, but he couldn’t exactly do anything but sit here and do
nothing while he waited for her to finish her work.

But reluctantly, he understood what she was getting at.

“You’re saying Mrs. Malfoy knew.” He had a sinking feeling, but in an odd way it did make
him feel a little better. Healer Anastasia wouldn’t be spilling his secrets if she told Mrs.
Malfoy about his malnutrition and the blocks and all that—hell even the magical core thing,
they’d already talked enough Transfiguration with her this afternoon that if she were to have
enough pieces to put it together on her own then he himself had already done that earlier in
the day. He wasn’t actually going to lose any ground after this… if Mrs. Malfoy kept her trap
shut. Then the only secrets he’d lost would be to these two women, and then probably
Pomfrey and he liked Pomfrey more so he could live with that at least.

He wasn’t thrilled that he’d already blown his cover without ever even knowing it’d been
blown, but at least this wasn’t the moment it had happened. It was indeed kind of a comfort
to know he hadn’t messed up—he’d never had a chance in the first place.

Which wasn’t a nice thought, but it did make him feel better about this one particular thing. It
was going to be a problem he’d have to figure out a way to fix as quickly as possible, but it
wasn’t a today problem, at least.

And the more he could shove his problems off for future-him to deal with, the better. He had
enough going on, thanks.

“So.” Anastasia continued. “I’m a Slytherin, Lady Malfoy’s a Slytherin, you probably
should’ve been in Slytherin… let’s not beat around the bush and pretend we don’t all know
already. I admit I’m apparently the slowest one here but now I’ve caught up and if you don’t
tell me, that’s fine.” She gave him a pitying look. “Lady Malfoy will get what she wants in
the end… or you could maybe just be honest with me as a healer and I’ll give her enough to
satisfy her without having her on your back for the next several months?”

He gave her a withering scowl. “Where was that deal ten minutes ago?”

“Hey, I just said I’m slow on the uptake, give me a break.” She shrugged, going back to her
rhythmic wand swaying and letting him mull the offer over.

Eventually, he figured a bone probably wouldn’t hurt and if it held off Mrs. Malfoy from
coming after him, the better.

“Alright then. My… relatives.” She looked questioningly at him and he huffed. “I was with
them over the summer. They’re not fond of magic.”

Most underrated statement of the year so far.

“And that relates to you not eating this summer because…”

He ground his teeth together but chose his words carefully anyway. “I didn’t know about the
magical world before my letter because they hated it so much. So, when I went to Hogwarts
it was kind of… ‘if I don’t talk about it, they won’t acknowledge it’, kind of thing. Only…
when I got back this summer there was an… incident.”

“They saw you using magic?” She raised her brows in interest. “S’against the rules, you
know.” He could tell she was trying to keep it light by teasing him, but really the reminder
only made his mood sink a few levels. Yeah, he knew it was against the rules, thanks for
bringing it up again.

He really didn’t like her.

“It was accidental.” He tried to defend himself, but to his embarrassment his voice came out
much quieter than intended.

Her wand didn’t stop but her expression paused as she looked down at him in surprise.
“Accidental magic? At your age, after going to Hogwarts for a year?”

“Yeah,” he confessed gruffly. “Is that a problem?”

“I dunno, it’s so out of left field I’ve never heard of such a thing to know if it was bad or
not.” She admitted, raising her eyes back to her wand movements as if thinking that over.
“I’ll be mentioning that to Madam Pomfrey too, because it’s probably related to your magical
core and she’ll need all the details. Back to what you were saying though, you had a bout of
accidental magic and I bet your magic-hating relatives weren’t so thrilled with that.”

He winced automatically, hoping she didn’t notice. If she did, she didn’t twitch from where
her expression as watching her wand movements carefully.

“No, they weren’t.” He admitted in a subdued way.

Anastasia gave a thoughtful hum.

“So… they just didn’t let you eat for it? As a punishment or whatnot?”

“I was grounded,” He got out, hoping the grinding of his teeth didn’t make it sound too
weird. “So I missed some meals for it, yeah.”

It wasn’t a lie.

Not technically.

By the way she was humming, she seemed to be able to figure out how much he was editing
anyway, but for once did the decent thing and didn’t push.

“So at what point were you not grounded anymore? As in how many weeks or days ago did
you get back on track with normal meals?” She asked and since it kind of sounded more like
a medical question than the previous probing ones he answered it a bit easier.

“About three weeks ago, or so.”

She just hummed again, and they fell into blissful silence as she continued her work.
It was as the blue mist was starting to fade and Harry sensed they were coming to an end of
whatever she was doing, that she spoke again.

“You know, students are absolutely allowed to use magic if their lives are in danger. The rule
is there to protect budding magical cores, and also prevent chaos of muggleborn children
using magic out in the muggle world where it’s slightly harder to regulate it, but like any
weapon it’s meant for self defense particularly when it comes to the defense of children. Yeah
you might still get in trouble initially because bureaucracy and all that nonsense, but to get it
overturned would be easy, especially if you have a healer vouching that it was necessary.”
She finally lowered her wand, the mist disappearing, and he watched her warily as she caught
his eye.

“You don’t like me, but I’d vouch for you if you needed.”

He didn’t like her and he did not even want to think about this right now. So he wasn’t going
to.

“Anything else?” he demanded, and she sighed loudly.

“Yikes, such a testy one.” She complained to no one. “No, other than that you’re fine. Once
Turel gets back I’ll tell Lady Malfoy you want to get out of here quick as you can—happy
now?”

“No.” He deadpanned, and annoyingly enough she just chuckled at him. It also occurred to
him suddenly that she had not once mentioned a thing about say… a certain curse that
Pomfrey told him he’d be feeling aftershocks from for months yet. He certainly did not feel
much better than he had at the end of June, so it was weird healer Anastasia hadn’t brought it
up.

Or noticed? Was it possible she hadn’t noticed?

She had implied Madam Pomfrey was really, really good at what she did… maybe she’d
been able to pick up on something that the normal healer wouldn’t normally notice.

He was ripped from his thoughts by a tiny puffing pop sounding in front of him, and Turel
was back with a tiny bag of potions cradled between her arms, setting them on the coffee
table between them.

He barely listened as she handed them to him in order and he just downed them, not even
caring about the taste although they were definitely worse than calming draughts, ignoring the
taste and gruesome textures in hope the faster he got them down, the faster this would be over
with.

000

Neville was sitting on his bed in Gryffindor tower, late after the welcoming feast with Ron
already snoring and staring at the glowing white owl on the windowsill.
Harry hadn’t been on the train. Malfoy had even come to him to demand if he’d seen him, but
one shake of his head and the guy had stormed off. He’d looked much calmer by the time
they were getting off the train though, and although many had noticed, just as many had
brushed it off as something that Harry was being weird about.

Neville wasn’t sure how not being on the train and then also not being at the feast was Harry
being weird, but he hadn’t spoken up either.

Seeing Hedwig here when they got back to the dorm though was a huge relief, as it meant he
would be here, he just wasn’t yet.

By the time it got late and they were in bed attempting to fall asleep though, Neville was
worried again about where he was if not here.

Harry hadn’t written to anyone over the summer—not just that but no one’s owls had even
been able to find him and returned all their letters unopened. He’d initially been worried it
was just him, but eventually he’d mustered up enough courage to write to Susan who was the
most likely to know and also the nicest to not mind him reaching out randomly, and true to
his suspicions she’d immediately responded saying Harry was back in the muggle world and
her aunt—Amelia Bones were was the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement
—had done a little research and found Harry’s mail wards kept pretty much everyone out.
Including Hogwarts, which apparently Dumbledore was attempting to fix but couldn’t get
around the goblins it seemed.

She’d apparently gotten a lot of questions from many people about the same thing, so her
response sounded kind of standard.

So… it wasn’t just him, but…

Harry had not looked good leaving for break at the end of last year. Like, not at all.

Like, to the point he hadn’t cared that he’d spent the entire train ride back sharing a
compartment with Draco Malfoy because the Slytherin was the least of his worries at that
moment as Harry seemed constantly seconds from crying the entire time.

The fact he wasn’t talking to anyone despite how much he’d always seemed to be talking so
long as Neville had known him was really concerning actually, he just didn’t know what to
do about it. And he didn’t like feeling helpless, he’d just… gotten used to feeling that way at
some point, unfortunately.

No matter how normal the feeling was though, when it came to his friends he hated it.

So he was in bed, but he didn’t fall asleep like the others slowly were. Instead he sat up and
kept exchanging silent looks with a gleaming white owl in the autumn night as she too
seemed to be waiting on something. Her big yellow eyes were eerily intelligent, almost trying
to tell him something but…he didn’t speak owl.

And it was really late, but eventually his patience paid off as the door to their dorm quietly
opened, and his head snapped to the side at the sudden movement. He watched as Harry
snuck in—his hair was much long and much sleeker, but tied back in a loose braid and his
extremely colorful muggle clothes looking a bit disheveled, but he was otherwise unharmed.

Neville breathed out a sigh of relief.

He tried not to startle him as the redhead snuck towards his bed, but he wasn’t that
successful.

“Harry?” He whispered in the quiet night, and the boy nearly jumped out of his skin as he
whipped around—and alarmingly enough suddenly had his wand pointed right at Neville
where he sat in his bed. It was gone in an instant though as he realized he had spoken.

“Neville!? You’re awake?” He whispered back, huge green eyes wide in surprise.

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep.” He shrugged, suddenly feeling a little awkward to admit that. “I
mean… I knew you’d be here eventually. You okay?”

Harry seemed… a bit taken aback by that, which Neville thought was weird. Yeah he felt
awkward, but it wasn’t weird, right? They were friends, he was… moderately confident to
say that, even believe it most of the time.

“You… waited up for me?”

He felt his cheeks get red hot at the quiet comment, but it was true so… “Ah, y-yeah? I mean,
no one knew where you were. Hedwig’s here though s-so I knew you would come back
eventually...” He tried to defend himself in discomfort.

It was quiet for a long couple seconds in the dark dorm, with three other boys breathing deep
in slumber and them just sitting/standing there, long enough that Neville was beginning to
regret everything—when suddenly Harry lunged at him like he was going to tackle him.

Actually, he did kind of tackle him, but then he was having the life literally hugged out of
him and he couldn’t breathe but it was actually in a good way which Neville didn’t quite
understand but he was happy to go along with it and hug him back.

But then, he realized Harry was shaking and small sniffles were coming from behind his
shoulder where his friend had buried himself out of sight, and he instantly had a newfound
strength in hugging him as tightly as he could.

“Harry!? You okay!?”

“…I had a really bad summer.” A small voice answered him, and something inside of the
quiet lion caught life—like a small flame suddenly meeting a flood of pure oxygen. Suddenly
the months of worrying about unopened letters went up in a plume of smoke that dissipated
to nothing, because it didn’t matter.

“Well it’s over now,” He wasn’t sure where he got the words from, but they came easy for
once. “So it’s okay.”
He said it with a confidence that literally came out of nowhere. He wasn’t even sure what it
meant, but he felt obligated to say it to his strongest friend, who was actually crying right
now for now clear reason.

… a small sniffle answered him, and he was hugged just a tiny bit tighter.

“Yeah. Yeah it is…”

 Starting Lines

Poppy Pomfrey had a way of disarming people with her charm. She was a lovely woman,
cheery and honest to a fault, dependable and realistic. Full of compromise and understanding
when being a team player, but true to her principles when needed. Easy to work with and
easy to talk to, easy to trust and easy to get along with in almost any aspect. With a name like
Poppy and her hair turning grey pretty early in life despite her definitely having earned it at
her current age, it meant she’d been seen as a motherly figure for many years at this point,
particularly due to her profession. Coming to Hogwarts had been a boon on her soul, and
while many “feared” her for her strict nature and how she scolded these kids and teachers for
reckless behavior, it was all par for the course of being what was, essentially, a school nurse.
For a magical school for children learning to control their magic, so there was a lot that went
into the role, but the image one conjured up in their head when you said the words school
nurse instead of a medic was different, and that was just how it was.

She was fine with it.

Children minded her scolding and were unafraid to come to her for help on the most part as
she wasn’t one to tattle to their parents or be the one to dole out punishments if they got
injured doing something they shouldn’t. She didn’t like when they got hurt, but on the most
part she took them in with a chiding tisk, patched them up, and sent them on their way. If
they asked no one else know about it, then no one else knew about it—she was a good
confidant like that.

After all, she couldn’t heal them if they wouldn’t come to her to be healed, so being a
confidant often took priority over being the responsible adult other teachers were burdened
with being.

It was one of the things she selfishly loved about Severus Snape, in fact, though you’d never
hear her say it aloud.

To fellow adults she was treated actually rather similarly to how the children did, as even to
most teachers she was quite a bit older than all of them and had in fact treated them as
students once upon a time. She looked good for her age and was still quite spry, but in fact
the only person in the school older than her was Albus himself. Her first year as Hogwarts
head mediwitch was actually Minerva’s fifth year, if she recalled correctly.

So yes, she was quite old.

But she still had a lot of life in her, and it was in moments like these that it all came welling
to the surface with a fire in her that she’d long since retired. It came roaring up from the
depths of her soul where she’d attempted to bury it and suddenly a school nurse was not what
came to mind if you’d happened to cross her as she stormed through the halls of Hogwarts
towards her destination.

She didn’t like to admit it, but at one time she’d been young and full of naïve vengeance on
the world—a world that hurt people for no god damn reason and she’d been so sick of it as a
young lady that when she’d taken up her wand to heal, she’d done it filled to the brim with
wrath.

If Death were a man, there was a time in her youth she would’ve decked him for having the
audacity to show his face to her, magic be damned she’d use her fist to do it.

And so, a regrettable part of her past was an irksome title of battle medic. Her actions,
embarrassing as they’d been, had earned the title for her handedly, but she did her best not to
bring it up or even think too much on it these days. In fact, it’d been years since she even
remembered that part of her past at all, and that just was fine by her. She had retired many
years ago, even before the latest so-called Dark Lord had showed his true colors.

She had told him that too, when he was but a boy in her infirmary and he’d asked her to join
his cause.

She’d told him that again, when he was a man and had sworn not to harm innocents if she
joined him now that he had power.

She’d told Albus that when he’d asked many years later, if she ever regretted turning down
that offer.

She was retired, and if war could not change that, then nothing could.

That, however, did not stop pieces of it from bubbling to the surface every now and then, and
it usually came in the form of a child who needed her. But then again, what was anyone but a
child to her? Even Minerva who had grey in her hair now too, had once been a young teen
sporting a broken arm from a particularly wild quidditch match in Poppy’s wing what felt
like yesterday. Severus the cruel dungeon bat they liked to call him, had been a crying boy
who hadn’t understood why his father refused to love him, nor why his housemates were so
uncaring.

Poppy was a deceptive woman, as she could fool anyone with her charm into believing she
was warm, and gentle. And in many ways, most days, she was.

But something inside of her was also ice cold. She knew, or rather she had learned in time,
that you could not save everyone and everyone was but a child who did not understand why
the world caused them pain. She could not save most of Slytherin from their parents, she
could not save people like Remus Lupin whose illness was as incurable as it was
excruciating, she could not save everyone on a battlefield of a thousand dying men and
women and children—but she could save some. It was these heartbreaking realizations that
caused her to retire to Hogwarts in the first place, where the some that she could save would
at least be young enough to have it mean something in their lifetimes. If it meant also
witnessing those she could not save be as young as those few she could, that was simply an
agony she lived with.

If she had it within her finely trained skills to heal, she would. If it was within her power to
help a child out of a bad situation, if she could save the one without risking the many others
she was there to serve and protect, she would.
If she was not skilled enough to heal, they died. If she could not save a child from their lives,
then they suffered and lived with it until they could find their own freedom… or, perhaps,
they would not.

Those were the consequences she lived with, and she had for decades with an iron heart that
was open to all.

So yes, she could deceive anyone into thinking she was warm, and gentle. But the kind of
woman who could face these harsh realities was anything but.

Today, however… today was different. Today was not a situation in which she could do
nothing.

Today was a day when she discovered she could do something.

And that up until this point, she’d been lied to.

She was an expert at dealing with reality as it came at her, but this was another thing entirely.

Because a healer healed all who needed it regardless of what side they were on, but a battle
medic…

A battle medic did what needed to be done.

She wasn’t an idiot. Well, she was for not realizing this sooner, but she wasn’t so dumb as to
not know who she was up against and how difficult that would truly be. For now, she would
focus on what she could, and what was necessary.

So it was with wand firmly in one hand and a file in another that she tossed open the door to
Minerva’s office, and the woman startled a bit from where she was collecting her lesson plans
for this, the first day of the school year.

“Poppy! You were not at breakfast, is everything alright?” Upon seeing her expression,
Minerva quickly reconsidered. “What is it?”

“It is Mr. Potter, Minerva.” The Transfiguration teacher was visibly alarmed, putting down
her papers pointedly, but Poppy didn’t give her a chance to speak. “I know you have your
reasons, but you may be a bit blinded by your devotion to Albus—same as I’ve been, I
admit.” She walked forward and placed the file down in front of her old friend, who looked at
it warily.

“My devotion? What is this?” She opened it and froze solid.

Poppy wrapped her arms around herself, wand still in hand and not about to go anywhere.

“He told me he was looked after.” She confessed; the quiet, hurt tone telling all it needed to
about who he was. “He told me someone examined him after that night… that the muggles he
was left with were rough, but they were family and would do what was right.” She wallowed
a moment in the sheer audacity of those lies before gathering herself. “The boy is
malnourished, Minerva, after only a couple months away from this school. And I…” She
took a breath but honestly wasn’t sure what to do with herself right then.

Minerva did though, and she was on her feet, looking furious.

“I told Albus they were the worst sort of muggles!” And through her fury, Poppy saw what
she too felt—shame.

Shame that neither of them were either smart enough to see, or that they had seen and been
stupid enough to not want to believe.

Because Albus had told them everything was fine, and he continued to tell them that Harry
was just having a rough time with his relatives but he’d get over it like most children did and
it didn’t warrant their interference.

He was Albus to both of them, and had been for many decades now. And yes, he lied, because
he was a clever man and he embodied all four house traits and they knew he lied but he’d
always lied for the greater good, or so they were lead to believe.

Albus had not always done right, by Poppy. She’d disagreed with many of the things he’d
done, but she was retired and here to care for the children of this school, and despite it all
Albus had always had the same ultimate goal in mind despite how much she hadn’t liked
some of his choices or actions. They had spent so many hours over the years discussing what
to do about children that needed help out of their homes, going over the painful details about
how or why it was possible or impossible to save one child or the other… and always she’d
thought him just as heartbroken as her when it became clear someone couldn’t be saved. That
when they resigned themselves to doing the best they could while the child was at Hogwarts
in their care, it was because they had no other choice, and a small piece of themselves died
with the hope of saving one more young life, every single time.

This though, this was blatantly obvious that Albus had meant to put a child in harm’s way.

And he had lied to her when he said it was because they had no choice.

When Anastasia had sent over these notes last night, Poppy had gone over them dozens of
times before retiring for the night, thinking every which way of how this could have
happened. The magical core healing failing was definitely a new one, and she’d gone over
Mr. Potter from top to bottom last night once he got to the castle, ensuring he had the right
potions in hand, the right food in his stomach, and the right magical blocks back in place to
correct this issue for the time being for classes before she let him out of her sight. She’d also
done her own diagnostic spells to double check how he was healing from the cruciatus, and
was thankful all the damage from that at least was gone.

She could tell when she'd told him that, he’d been surprised if just not believing her. As much
as it pained her she understood—unfortunately the magical damage that curse could inflict
wasn’t something you could feel. The mental and emotional damage could make it worse of
course, but it could heal even while your heart refused to let go of it.

And one look at him and she knew he had in no way let go of it just yet.
But, that was for her to fix over the coming months, what needed to be dealt with come
morning was the malnutrition.

Harry had been relatively healthy when he arrived at Hogwarts last year and even the
expected dip in appetite given what happened in June couldn’t account for this amount of
weight loss. He did not like his relatives clearly, but they hadn’t been outright abusive so far
as Poppy was aware, although his Slytherin tendencies proved they probably weren’t
enjoyable people. Both she and Albus had known they weren’t enjoyable people, but they
were family, and Albus had explained the blood wards for why it was necessary the boy be
with them. She wasn’t happy about it, but the clinical side of her wasn’t concerned about
Harry’s mental health so far as his physical health at the time—and by the start of his first
year at least both seemed decent. Especially compared to the fact before he’d entered her
hospital wing she’d had at least two dozen other children who’d been hiding broken bones
since the end of summer, trying to sneak into her wing for some relief without anyone
knowing about it. Compared to his classmates, Harry had been just fine even if he wasn’t
being spoiled, or even enjoying his time with his relatives. We did not always get what we
wanted after all, and she knew that with a brutal familiarity.

This though… outright starvation as Anastasia implied was a whole other level entirely. That
wasn’t just abusive, that was positively lethal if you weren’t trained to understand just how
long someone could go without food, if say, you were looking for information.

For a child though, it could go from a punishment to murder in a shockingly quick amount of
time and it set every nerve in her body off. She resigned herself to accept a lot of truly
horrible things, and yes she considered herself a ruthless person for it, but the one thing she
would not do was openly and willingly let a child die.

Blood wards meant to protect against the dark lord’s followers meant nothing if the boy was
already dead.

Admittedly she did not follow up with Mr. Potter after that night Albus had taken him to his
muggle relatives—he and Minerva had come back from that trip, with the Transfiguration
teacher quite distressed about the whole thing. She’d voiced her concerns about the muggles,
while Poppy had chimed in about getting the boy medical treatment for whatever it was that
had happened… but Albus had soothed their fears with so many assurances, and the war was
finally over and they were so ready to be happy that they’d just… hadn’t brought it up again.
Minerva likely trusted Albus enough to believe in his word on good faith, but Poppy had at
least been willing to let the matter rest if it meant they would finally be at peace. She had
been so ready for peace and for the death and torture to stop, so lost in the grief of the news
about Peter, Sirius, Lily, James, the children she’d once right there in her hospital wing… she
was so ready to be happy for once that she was probably too hasty to accept that it was all
finally over. And then when he’d seemed relatively in one piece when he finally arrived at
Hogwarts, it was like she’d just reaffirmed her beliefs that Albus was right and there was
nothing to worry about.

That was her mistake. She should’ve dug in harder, she should’ve set eyes on the boy herself
that night, she should’ve asked more probing questions when he first got to Hogwarts since
she’d always suspected those relatives of his to be questionable.
But she hadn’t, and she would likely never forgive herself for it.

Because those assurances had been nothing but lies, and she now had proof because she’d
taken this file to Albus that morning—even casting a glamour so he only saw the clear signs
of neglect the malnutrition proved—and he’d tried to give her assurances again. Tried to tell
her that he was a growing boy and whatever other bullshit he’d spouted—she’d honestly stop
listening as she locked down on her occlumency shields and gave him worried, but
understanding smiles as she’d escaped his office. Like she had the other thousand times she’d
been concerned for a student and wanted to see what could be done about it with a source
who always seemed to know more about the situation.

Because she had always thought Albus understood where she was coming from and when he
said nothing could be done, then it really couldn’t be done and they’d have to do what they
could do for the time being.

This though? This was proof that a child needed help and whatever reason Albus had given
her before just didn’t matter anymore—it wasn’t like they were connected purebloods or
dangerous people who’d threaten other children if they got involved, they were just muggles
and they were blatantly going to kill Harry Potter if they didn’t do something. Death Eaters
did not pose as much of a threat in this day and age as these guardians themselves, and it
should’ve been clear cut enough for a change to be made.

They’d done it before, in fact, with even more dangerous parents as their opponents than a
couple of muggles when a situation changed suddenly like this.

But the Headmaster had given her excuses and suddenly everything was clear.

And the blinding light of harsh reality always hurt like nothing else, but she was not one to
shy away from it and she never had been.

He’d been Albus for an upwards of fifty years now, but today he was Headmaster
Dumbledore.

Because a battle medic did what needed to be done.

Necrotic flesh was sliced away without hesitation to save the living flesh attached to it. A
limb poisoned or cursed was cut off, and that was that—in the heat of battle there was no
choice but to make the cut and move on with haste. Connections meant nothing if they could
be severed to save someone’s life, and knowing the moment to not hesitate was what set her
apart from her peers who still to this day made the mistake of trying to save everyone—and
saving no one in the end.

She made her choice of who she would be saving, and it was not going to be the headmaster
at the expense of a child, and that was it. Fifty years was a lot of time to waste on a mistake,
but not an excuse to keep making it.

Make the cut, move on.

What was left to be seen, was if another cut needed to be made.

She narrowed her eyes at the woman in front of her, and made her demand.

“What will you do now that you know?” She asked, and Minerva frowned deeply at the paper
in front of her, entirely disturbed.

“He has to have his reasons…”

“What reasons are worth putting an infant with a muggle family that hates magic?” Poppy
lashed out automatically, and Minerva winced. She pulled back slightly, knowing that
Minerva did not know about the blood wards, but since that excuse was utter bullshit in the
end she didn’t feel the need to bring it up now. “Anastasia Ludwig was a student of mine
almost thirty years ago. She was the one who finally examined Mr. Potter, at request of Mrs.
Malfoy.” The teacher’s head snapped up, surprise etched on her face, and Poppy knew why.
“The Malfoys are well-connected, she tells me Mrs. Malfoy intends to interfere with the
ministry watch they have on Remus Lupin, and ask him to reach out to the boy.”

“That would be good.” She allowed, taken off guard by that but not against it. “Remus has
always been… hesitant, about reaching out. And knowing he was watched, and how that
could put Harry in danger…” She shook her head rapidly to rid herself of the dark thoughts.
“Well, my opinion on the blatant breaking of laws aside, it’s not a bad thing if she’s really
willing to do it.”

Poppy was not amused at how she refused to get to the point.

“Minerva, I’m telling you this because you and I are guilty of the same sin, and that means
we must learn from it. Neither of us will be telling Albus about this.”

As expected, the younger woman frowned deeply.

“I’m not sure… is that-”

Poppy didn’t hesitate in whipping her wand up, and Minerva froze solid as she realized who
she was up against. Many forgot, but Minerva wasn’t so young when it happened to not
remember the kind of witch Poppy Pomfrey had once been before she’d retired to Hogwarts,
and she knew of the skill facing against her down at this moment.

“I will wipe your memory here and now, Minerva.” Poppy announced, cold and matter-of-
fact as only the truly clinically professional could be, and the teacher in front of her got very
still. Minerva knew exactly what a battle medic was capable of, and she was acutely aware
the Madam could do it before she could even twitch, much less attempt to move for her wand
up her sleeve. So she just held very, very still as it sunk in what kind of situation this was.

“I will take all your memories of the boy here and now, if I do not think you are willing to
protect him.” She told her old friend ruthlessly, and Minerva’s face darkened because she
knew enough to know it was not a bluff in the slightest.

“…it would be cruel. Not even to me, who would have no memory, but to Harry…”
“No more cruel than life has been to him.” Poppy gave a glare for all she was worth, her
wand not so much as wavering. Steady as only a medic’s hand could be. “I am a healer. I will
do what needs to be done. I cannot face Albus on this, he has too many connections—and I
taught him occlumency myself so I couldn’t even get through his mind if I tried. You
however… your mind is too open and if he is getting information on Harry through you, do
not dare think our years of friendship will stop me from protecting a child.”

No.

No, it absolutely wouldn’t stop her.

And by Minerva’s grave expression, she knew it too.

“Harry deserves to know Remus, I get that. I’m still not sure why Albus insists on these
muggles… but if he can get away, and my silence will help…” She lifted her head and
nodded pointedly, agreeing. “You have my word.” She swore.

Both of them knew her shields were likely not good enough to stop Albus from looking if he
tried, but she would at least make the attempt to be careful about meeting his eyes, at least
until it was too late for it to be stopped.

Poppy measured her up carefully, weighing her options. Even now, she knew Minerva was
still loyal to Dumbledore but… she also legitimately cared for Harry. It would really come
down to what would give when the moment came down to it—Poppy would simply have to
keep reminding her of this threat then until Harry was safe, and hopefully that in addition to
her favor of the boy would at least trump the loyalty she felt to tell the Headmaster
everything. She didn’t have to actually go against Dumbledore, she just had to say nothing
and let Narcissa Malfoy have her way.

Knowing the woman, it would only take the year most likely.

She could probably keep on top of this for at least that long.

With a reluctant decision to trust her old friend made, she lowered her wand pointedly.

“Good.” She frowned, and Minerva winced as her tone communicated how her saying
anything else than that she would obey probably would not have gone well.

“I understand your frustration… but you don’t have to resort to threatening me, Poppy. I want
what’s best for Harry too.” She complained lightly, still on edge as the threat was still there,
and the Madam was still in full glory today and not to be tested with.

“And you sound like Albus when you say that.” She snapped rather unkindly. “I’m starting to
think no one actually understands what’s best for Harry, and we should all stop trying to
figure it out before it kills him.” She snatched the folder on the desk back up and made to
leave. She had the start of the year to prepare for, like they all did.

“Poppy I’m sorry.” She called after her gently.

Sorry for believing the Headmaster all this time? For not stopping this sooner? Sympathizing
because they were both in the same terrible boat of not having been the ones to catch this?
For being too late to help? For not realizing they’d put their trust in the wrong person? For
still feeling loyal to the Headmaster even after Poppy’s warning?

Poppy didn’t care.

“It doesn’t matter.” She clipped shortly as she stormed out of the office just as ferociously as
she’d entered. To the empty hallway, she snarled an expression she hadn’t worn in years.
“There is no excuse.”

000

“Am I doing this right?”

“Um…” Harry tilted his head to look at his reflection in the window next to them, and gave a
wry smile. “Maybe try again?”

Neville sighed, and Harry laughed softly in the morning stillness.

It felt really… light.

“Thank you for trying though, this is nice.” He got comfortable again and grinned as
Neville’s gentle fingers ran through his hair, undoing his attempt at a braid and starting again.
He’d been incredibly nervous and hesitant when Harry first requested this randomly, but after
the fifth attempt the awkwardness was gone and he was now just trying to get it right despite
him literally never having tied a braid in his life before—also Harry acknowledged his
instructions were probably not that helpful as he himself had learned everything by practice
so couldn’t really put it into words in a useful way.

“I don’t mind if you don’t mind your hair looking weird all day.” Neville just mumbled lowly
and Harry smiled widely at his petulance.

Neville was… warm.

The same way Draco was cool to the touch, like a balm of a cold breeze on a hot summer
day, Neville was warm like a fire on a really frigid night. Maybe not even a roaring fire, but
the churning embers that just glowed softly and kept you wrapped in a blanket near the
fireplace when the wind was howling outside the window—bone-chillingly cold and ruthless
but unable to penetrate into the safe little bubble of warmth around you.

He didn’t ask why Harry was crying the night before, he just gave him a big hug and then got
out of his own nice and cozy bed to probe him into cleaning up and getting ready for bed
himself. Despite him being an awkward, shy person the entire time Harry had known him, he
didn’t even hesitate in pulling Harry back into his own bed and let him cry his eyes out until
sleep finally came to end the terrible day he’d had and it didn’t hurt as much when he had a
bubble of warm around him protecting from the cold reality of the coming morning—and the
frigid darkness of the past couple months.
He’d asked if it was really fine to bother his sleep like that, but Neville’s simple answer only
made him cry harder.

“You shouldn’t cry alone—and if anyone hears they’ll think it’s from me and won’t bother you
about it, so it’s okay.”

For the hundredth time, but especially right then, Harry recognized that he really didn’t
deserve Neville.

When morning came, predictably he’d started up a bit violently from a nightmare—the only
blessing was that he couldn’t even remember what it was about by the time he sat up fully,
but it was still ungodly early and he couldn’t have been asleep more than a couple hours
given the sun hadn’t risen yet.

Or rather, they hadn’t been asleep more than a couple hours since he was in Neville’s bed and
the blond was a light sleeper, so the sharp movement startled him awake too.

And then he proved once again that no one deserved Neville Longbottom when he’d just
rubbed his eyes and greeted him with a:

“Happy start of term, Harry.”

Not a ‘are you okay?’ or a ‘was that a nightmare?’, ‘did you want to talk about it?’— nothing
like that. Like he somehow just knew Harry didn’t want to talk about it, like he knew Harry
wasn’t about to go back to bed, and rather than leave him to it and going back to sleep
himself, he was already down to get up for the day with him despite the fact he’d never
gotten up this early the entire past year.

Then again, maybe he did know.

Either way, they’d gotten up and ready for their start of term, but even then they’d beat
breakfast being served by quite a bit so were just killing time down in the common room
until the Great Hall opened. Neville wasn’t overly fond of talking classes since there’d be a
ton of that soon enough anyway, and clearly their holiday breaks were off limits so neither of
them even came close to broaching that subject, so they’d kind of settled on easy, safe topics.
Like the fact Neville was suddenly an inch taller in only a couple short months which was
definitely noticeable as Harry hadn’t grown a damn thing, and of course Harry’s biggest
change which was his much longer hair. That then developed into Harry randomly
demanding Neville try to braid it for him and the poor blonde struggling through Harry’s
awful instructions of how to go about doing that, but the air was light-hearted enough that it
wasn’t unpleasant either.

“What did they say? About me missing the train I mean.” Harry brought up, slightly nervous
about coming close to talking about it but… after last night and this morning, he suddenly
was safe in his knowledge that Neville would not push if he didn’t bring it up himself first.
And it was honestly a huge relief.

It was also safe to assume Neville would know—Harry called it his wallflower superpower,
as he was usually present to witness the latest gossip since people tended to forget he was
there when they talked. Which wasn’t great, but it did come in handy in situations like this.

“Um… well, as you can probably imagine, Draco kind of… uh-”

“Made a scene.” Harry put together, silently cursing the drama queen gently in his head.

“Yeah… so uh, the whole train knew pretty quickly you weren’t there. But then he cooled it
so everyone figured you’d managed to get a message to him to explain.”

“I did. Something went wrong with the barrier and I got locked out on the muggle side, but
they figured it out. Would not recommend missing the train though, it sucked.” He sighed,
and thankfully Neville just gave an agreeing hum.

“I… I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you should know because people will
probably ask. Susan in particular is waiting to ambush you.” Neville warned and Harry
tensed up. He managed to relax slightly as the fingers in his hair got more gentle, pulling
faintly as if reminding him it was okay. “A lot of people tried to write you letters over break
but they all got returned unopened. Mine too, and I was… well I asked Susan because I
figured she might know, and apparently she’d been telling everyone your mail wards just
blocked everyone.”

Harry blinked in surprise, but despite not wanting to talk about the summer he knew that was
unavoidable. Mood-ruiner as it was, he was thankful for the warning, so he didn’t have to
deal with Susan in his face out of nowhere at breakfast. Neville wasn’t even phrasing it like a
question he expected an answer to, it really was just a warning that he’d need to give Susan
something so she’d leave him alone. Because Neville wouldn’t push, but that did not hold
true for anyone else.

He gave another light sigh, knowing that because of that, Neville was really the only person
who deserved an answer.

Even a really edited one.

“My mail wards do block everyone but McGonagall right now, I should’ve mentioned that.
My r-” he collected himself quickly and found a semblance of composure thanks to the gentle
hands in his hair never even faltering despite his stiff posture and clear discomfort. “My
relatives really don’t like magic. So um… I’m thinking I’ll keep my mail wards closed. The
letters would’ve been nice but they don’t like seeing magic or anything like that so… strange
owls in their house wouldn’t go over well. I mean, I didn’t even keep Hedwig, I’m pretty sure
she stayed with Draco most of the summer since she and his owl get along.”

He winced, because most of that still felt like a lie despite being partially true.

Except that last part: that was a total lie because he was pretty sure Bastian hated Hedwig.

Either way, he really didn’t like lying to Neville.

“How did Susan know my mail wards were blocking people?” He wondered aloud, more to
change the topic than anything, and Neville gracefully accepted the switch.
“Her aunt is Madam Amelia Bones—she’s the head of the Department of Magical Law
Enforcement in the Ministry, so it’d be easy to check something like that. Something weird
she said, or I thought it was weird because she thought it important to bring up in the first
place, was that Dumbledore was trying to get through your wards but couldn’t get past the
goblins.”

Harry sat up, heart beating a little fast before calming… he already knew Dumbledore was
after him, so this was… good news to hear it wasn’t working. Or that the gold he’d paid to
Gringotts was doing it’d job.

But it also raised several questions about how the wizarding world worked.

“So Susan just gets to know things that the Ministry does because her aunt does? Isn’t that
like, a breach of security or a conflict of interest? To tell your family members about things
that go on at work, particularly a government job?” He frowned, and he heard the frown in
Neville’s voice behind him as he answered.

“Not particularly, why? Is that how it is in the muggle world?”

Well, that answers that. No wonder money and nepotism seemed to rule this world, if who you
were related to could mean you had information not even other people in the Ministry itself
did.

“Well yeah. In the muggle world if any worker but especially a government worker was
found using what they knew of or had access to from work for personal use, or even telling a
family member who might use it for their use, they could get in a lot of trouble. Pay huge
fines or even go to jail.” He offered and felt Neville’s surprise.

“That’s… huh.” Clearly it was news to him, and he had no idea what to think of it. And
Neville was one of the more reasonable pureblood wizards Harry knew, so that said a lot for
the state of the wizarding world. It also spoke poorly to the assumptions most half-bloods or
muggleborns might make—if a muggleborn didn’t take advantage of things like this when
they could out of the assumption it was illegal, or even just morally wrong as they’d been
raised to think, they were already fighting with one hand tied behind their back compared to
purebloods.

“I guess I should thank her for telling me about Dumbledore too. I wonder how she knew to
check for that.” He mused aloud.

“Do you not like Dumbledore?” Neville’s innocent question almost made him white out in
dizziness.

It was… several long minutes before he was able to answer, and thankfully Neville just let
him do it, making several more attempts to braid his hair while Harry worked everything out.

“No.” He finally answered, and his voice was actually level, to his surprise. “I really don’t.”

Neville didn’t even question it.

“Well Susan’s really observant… maybe she just could tell that and knew you’d want to
know. I thought it was weird she’d tell me though.” He commented lightly.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief at easy going, wonderful Neville Longbottom.

“She probably knew you’d talk to me first. And that if you thought it odd enough you’d bring
it up to me.”

“Really?”

Oh right— Gryffindor, not Slytherin. Thinking ten steps ahead and overthinking what every
little message and word meant was not really something they did.

Which brings up why Susan of all people sent a message like that. You’d think as a Hufflepuff
she’d wait to tell me herself.

“Well, that’s what I would do, though I should check with her when I catch up to her to thank
her.” He deflected a bit.

“Are you going to sit with her at breakfast?” Neville wondered, and Harry felt a little bad that
after everything Neville had done for him last night and this morning, he still though the
second Harry got his swing back he’d abandon him to go chat with other houses.

As it was, he should check in on the Slytherin table for appearances sake. He knew he didn’t
look good at the end of last year, the last meal he’d had with them he knew he probably
looked like a bloody mess and Blaise had undoubtedly told everyone about the potions he
saw Pomfrey give him. Then he’d missed the train, Draco freaking out… after the Montague
incident he’d started to look like a real person in their eyes and he hoped everything that
happened didn't make them think he was weak all of a sudden. He’d proved he could play
snake just as well as they could, so if they thought he was weak now they would not hesitate
to prey on that like he was one of their own.

Which was a good thing, but also difficult in this situation. To be treated like one of them
meant he was going to be treated like one of them, and if they smelt blood in the water he was
in trouble.

So he needed to show his face over there with a mask in place again, he needed to do it as
soon as possible, and most importantly he needed not to screw it up once he did.

No, most importantly he needed not to be a dick to Neville, who was literally saving him
right now by being calm and warm and the most supportive friend Harry was an idiot for not
realizing he’d been blessed with sooner.

Slytherin could wait; they’d lived this long without him and they could wait until he was
good and ready to grace them with his presence once more. Blaise in particular might even
enjoy that attitude, while the rest of them would at least appreciate it in some way.

“No way, I need a Gryffindor recalibration to start the year off before pestering other houses.
Susan can come bother me if she wants to ask about my mail wards, at least for today.” He
said it like it was a joke, but he didn’t just mean Susan either—rules applied for any
particularly mother-hen-like Slytherins he knew of too.

“Oh good,” Neville perked up, sounding cheered by that news. “You can meet the new first
years then. Ron’s sister started; she seems way more quiet though.”

“Really?” His spirit lifted some, forgetting that he’d not only missed the train yesterday, but
the sorting too. He hadn’t so much as cared about the feast, but he’d once been excited about
having underclassmen. He was a people person, or at least he used to be, and he was cheered
that he could still feel some excitement about meeting new people despite everything. Last
year had been wonderful for so many reasons, but the getting to meet all his now-friends and
actually successfully work to develop relationships with people like Daphne (and Theo! Can’t
forget about that crowning victory!) had been so rewarding he relished in it even now.

“Who is not quiet though, was Colin—apparently he’s a muggleborn and magic is all very
new and entertaining to him which is kind of normal except he’s got this camera and has been
taking pictures of everything. He just jumps on you and demands to take your picture.” Of
course quiet Neville would be freaked out by that behavior but Harry grinned, looking
forward to meeting the kid.

“I can’t wait, although my hair will have to be nice if I’m getting a photoshoot!” Neville
grumbled as he undid his last attempt and Harry laughed lightly. “Anyone else?”

“I’m sure you’ll meet them all, as you do. But there was one girl who got sorted into
Ravenclaw that had really funny earrings I think you’d like.”

“Earrings?”

“I think they were radishes?”

Harry blinked, not quite sure what that meant that Neville thought he’d like radish earrings,
but despite probably not wearing them himself he could likely get on board with the girl who
was odd enough to wear them. He himself was pretty odd, to be fair.

“Can’t wait to meet them,” He smiled and whatever Neville was about to say was interrupted
by movement from the stairs, and they looked over in equal surprise to the twin looks they
were being given.

“Apples!” Fred and George cried out as one, before abruptly remembering it was early and
dropping down into whispers.

“Heard you missed the train!”

“Gotta be a first—”

“—hope it was an adventure at least?” They greeted him happily.

He smiled, remembering how nice it was for people to be visibly happy to see you. And the
twins never failed in the regard.
“An adventure, sure. Let’s go with that.” He scoffed dryly, and they snickered. “What are you
two doing up so early?”

“Not that early…” One of them hedged.

“And if it’s something to do with a start-of-term prank you did not hear it from us.”

They exchanged looks and grinned. “Unless our triplet would like to help?”

Harry glanced at Neville who seemed extremely wary about this concept but he figured a bit
of mischief was just what the morning needed to stop feeling so mellow and cautious.

“Maybe a little mischief before breakfast?” He gave Neville his pleading eyes and the blond
seemed to cave quickly—although very reluctantly when the implication was that Harry
didn’t want to go without him and that he’d not only need to agree to let it happen but also
participate.

“I guess… but please just… a little.”

The twins crossed their hearts dramatically.

“Just a little!”

Harry grinned and accepted whatever state his braid was currently in as he took Neville’s
hand to follow the twins on their latest adventure.
 Note on Stealing

First of all, a chapter is following immediately after this because I hate when authors post
notes with no actual content. Such a bait.

Secondly, THANK YOU to everyone who immediately commented saying my story had
been reposted. It’s incredibly hurtful and annoying as an author to have things stolen (bitch
they didn’t even copy it right, I’ve fixed those fucking spelling mistakes smh) but I’m even
more peeved off they posted it to Fanfiction.net. As a baby-writer too-many years ago I
started writing and posting on that site and ended up leaving it because of the toxicity—
comments were on the most part nice but people would PM me terrible things or try to tell
me how to write and even to this day I still get emails from that old account of ‘did you even
read the stories’—BITCH IT’S FANFICTION TAKE A HINT.

Anyway, “Repost234” (so original) reposted my story and I’ve PM-d and commented politely
(for now) for them to take it down. In any case I am like fairly certain some of the elements
of this story as it is and how it will end will probably be against the TOS of that site so good
luck with that. Thank you once more to everyone who let me know so quickly, it is greatly
appreciated.
 A Silver Web
Chapter Notes

Incoming rant:

Okay, I like to make things as consistent and close to the canon world as I can when I
write (not characters, as I love to mess with those, but the world itself I like to be as true
to the original creation as I can make it while also taking all the artistic liberties I want
—really what I decide to be realistic about is kind of a toss-up but when I DO want to
make it realistic I do research), but JK Rowling was truly magical when she thought up
the Hogwarts classes schedule because it makes NO SENSE. Trolling the HP wiki
pages, the books, references… there’s just no way some classes could’ve possibly
happened at certain times with all the blatant contradictions and only four/five class
periods a day.

I have an excel sheet. I’ve spent a week reading the wiki pages to try and figure this out.
It’s just not possible.

I spent way too much time trying to be accurate to my own schedule for this story and
even then, with five class periods a day it’s still got issues. In my world apparently the
6th and 7th years don’t exist until we get that far, and there’s this weird Schrodinger’s
cat/Quantum leaping thing going on since if Slytherin and Gryffindor are in a class
together, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw temporarily don’t exist I guess because one group
of kids can have two classes of each subject a week but two groups of kids definitely
can’t unless all the teachers have time turner’s and JK just didn’t mention it. I’m not
going to bring that up in this story because it’s stupid and at this point I’m annoyed
about the whole thing but logically I’m just going to assume teachers can be in two
places at once for this to make any sense at all.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk and temporarily suspending your belief while I
talk about utter bullshit class schedules in this story. Not that everyone hadn’t already
suspended their belief given this is fanfiction about magic but whatever.

*table flip*

Despite being one of, if not the first people awake, they were only moderately on time for
breakfast given Fred and George’s detour to the courtyard, and now everyone who walked
over the grassy stones would have rainbow sparkles following them for the rest of the day
like some fantastic cartoon animation in real life. It was originally supposed to be illusions of
bees, but Neville’s disappointed look convinced them to make it slightly more harmless than
it already was. Or, it convinced Harry who then convinced the twins.
Harry also had a spontaneous surge of mischief when he asked for certain stones on the
walking path to not get enchanted, so if the opportunity arose he could mess with people by
walking through and seemingly not getting hit with the spell. And by “people” he meant the
Slytherins because they would be the most annoyed by even this tiny spell and also that he
would appear immune to it without them knowing why. Even if it was a small annoyance, he
felt his snake friends deserved it and the twins were simply fascinated to listen to his logic of
what would actually legitimately annoy the Slytherins—George even whipped out a small
journal and took notes, much to Harry’s amusement.

“This is good, this is really good.” He hummed thoughtfully as they entered the Great Hall to
a pretty decent size crowd already tucking into their meals.

“Yeah, you being part snake is actually bloody brilliant—you’ll know what’ll piss ‘em off the
worst.” Fred chimed in eagerly.

“There is a difference you know, between annoying them and pissing them off.” He pointed
out, feeling if he didn’t walk a careful line here somehow Blaise would find out he’d been
“betraying” his new snake friends to their enemy number one: ‘blood traitor pranksters’, as
they’d put it.

“Do we care?” George snorted.

“You should. Piss them off as a whole and retribution will come down on your entire family
and probably be bad enough you won’t even know it wasn’t an act of nature.” Harry raised
his brows pointedly. “Just annoy them and you might actually have a prank war on your
hands. Wouldn’t that be way more interesting?”

Both twins blinked widely, exchanging thoughtful looks.

“Slytherins, pulling pranks?” Fred gawked owlishly.

Harry snickered. “They’re pretty good at it you know, if even you didn’t realize some of them
are behind it, much less what it was. That’s their favorite kind of pranks—the kind where
they can laugh at you from a distance without you even knowing you’re being pranked.” He
explained. “Besides, don’t you want to open a joke shop? That’s a quarter of your potential
market you’re excluding if you don’t know how to make things Slytherins would like.”

They were suspiciously silent as they plopped down at the table and seemed lost in thought
over that, and it was amusing enough Harry almost didn’t notice his attackers from behind.

He figured it out quick though, by almost jumping out of his skin as someone glomped him
from behind, arms around him the only thing keeping him on the bench as he flailed in shock.

“Harry! First you miss the train then you ditch us!?” Seamus cried indignantly and Dean
clapped him on the shoulder with a laugh as he sat down at the table too.

“You scared the life outta me Seamus!” Harry cried but just got laughed at—which was
somehow nice since his heart was legitimately pounding out of his chest right then, but
people taking it as a joke saved him for a moment so he could calm down. “Missing the train
was an accident and I don’t recommend it—and I was working on something this morning so
sorry to miss you.” He flashed them a grin and figured it was probably pretty believable.
“Happy term you guys, nice to see you.”

“You too, hope you had a good summer.” Dean greeted casually, and be it Neville warm
against his side or the nice morning he’d had, but Harry managed to just smile politely back
at him instead of any other sort of reaction to that. He had to get over it—who knew how
many people were going to say that today, and they did not mean anything by it. In fact many
of them would not actually want a real answer at all, just like most people didn’t expect a real
answer when you said ‘how are you’ as a greeting.

It was just a greeting, nothing more.

“Eh, was fine. You?” He applauded himself for being fully believable there.

“Yeah, pretty boring. Back to the muggle world after a year at Hogwarts was dull—I even did
my homework and read ahead I was so bored!” Dean complained and Seamus laughed at him
while Harry took notes that that was a very generic, believable thing to say, especially to
purebloods who were predisposed to think muggles a bit dull no matter if they were
Slytherins or not. People knew he was back with muggles and if Susan had been spreading
the fact his wards were blocked to people it’d be even more believable.

He figured that was a good lie and he would be copying Dean and sticking to it.

“Yeah same.” He agreed as casually as he could before going about assembling his plate.

“And how far ahead are we in Transfiguration now?” Seamus teased, and Harry perked up
because he liked that change in conversation direction.

“I actually just got a joke book of new Transfiguration spells and it’s bloody awesome—most
are fourth year and above I think.”

The twins suddenly snapped out of whatever thoughtful spell they’d fallen under,
immediately interested.

“Really?” They chorused, intrigued.

Harry laughed, “It’s probably not to your level but one or two you might be interested in.”

“I mean we are fourth years,”

“And we do love a good joke.”

“I may be willing to trade,” He grinned and given they were very familiar with his trading
habit they just gave him a dual thumbs up.

“I’m sure we can think of something worthy of exchanging,” One of them winked.

Harry was actually interested in that since he was pretty much on their level so far as
Transfiguration, so whatever they were trading now would probably be prank-related. Or
material related as they always seemed to be able to produce Filch-banned contraband and
other goodies at the drop of a hat, and that could come in handy for sure.

All in all, breakfast actually went rather well. Be it everyone having already talked about
their summer’s yesterday on the train without him and moved on from that by now, them
happy to buy his implication his summer hadn’t been worth mentioning, excitement for the
new year so close upon them, or a combination of all of it, but this particular group was more
than happy to talk about classes and the magical world in general instead of anything else.
Harry was almost surprised how easy it was to switch back into ‘social mode’, the persona
he’d worn all year last term as he went around meeting everyone he could in attempts to
convince them he wasn’t just his famous title or a stupid rumor.

Bantering with Dean and Seamus, double checking that Neville was included in the
conversation, even trying to keep track of the twins who were always a whirlwind in every
situation… it was almost easy to regain something he’d thought he’d lost for a moment there.
He did wonder how long it would last, but he enjoyed it while it was here.

He also enjoyed Neville quietly pointing out the new first years as they started to wander in,
each looking a little frazzled/relieved since clearly they’d just been tasked with navigating the
labyrinth that was Hogwarts for the very first time under threat of being late their first day. A
few even had sparkles around their heads which meant they’d gotten really lost if they’d been
in the courtyard already.

He didn’t see the so-named Colin with his camera but he did see a tiny little red head that was
clearly a new Weasley, but she kept her head down and slipped into the table near the end and
way too far for Harry to say hi. He didn’t want to ask the twins what their sister was like
since he wanted to meet her himself but he was dead curious on if she was more like them, or
Ron. Guess only time would tell that…

Before he knew it, his favorite professor was there and in her stern way making the trip down
the table to hand them their timetables. Harry was thrilled to see her but just grinned widely
as McGonagall handed him his schedule and she nodded back—noticeably softer given she’d
just been glaring at the too-innocent twins immediately prior.

And on that note, Harry was thrilled that the second class of the day was Transfiguration. A
bit concerned he had Defense right after the morning break as Draco’s reaction to the new
professor was worrying to say the least, but still, it was a great start to the term. First class
was Herbology, but he had never minded that—especially now, since he was pretty sure
Neville would still be okay with being his partner this year and it just meant he wouldn’t have
to leave his friend’s side even longer.

“What’s got you so happy over a timetable?” George leaned over his shoulder to see his
schedule, and made a face. “Bwah! I forgot how nice the schedule was for first and second
years!”

“Ah, the good old days.” Fred sighed in mock weariness.

Dean frowned, a bit unnerved. “How much worse does it get?”

“Depends on how crazy you are, and clearly we’re insane.” Fred snickered.

“Yeah we took up two electives and one is not the easiest. Care of Magical Creatures and
Arithmancy.” George sighed.

“Not Divination? I heard that’s an easy grade.” Dean pointed out.

“It is, but Arithmancy would be way more useful for our… ah, business endeavors.”

“I don’t want to know.” Seamus deadpanned, earning some snickers. “What are the easy
electives then?”

“Well Care of Creatures is hard for hands-on work but homework and tests are a breeze, if
there are any. Muggle studies is apparently a joke for muggleborns and actually not that
accurate—we get enough of that at home anyway from our dad so not interested. Divination
too I hear you can literally make anything up and so long as it’s dark and creepy, Trelawney
will love it.” George grinned. “Lee’s taking it and has predicted my death ten times and got
Os on all of it.”

“The hell?” Dean blinked but Harry was highly amused.

“Sounds interesting.”

“You can’t take Divination or McGonagall will disown you,” Fred immediately warned him.
“She hates divination with a passion and it’s hilarious. Never seen her twitch like that when
it’s brought up.”

“Oh good to know,” He blinked, immediately putting down any plans he had in his head
about considering it. Not that he really was, he knew Arithmancy was in his future since it’d
clearly already come in handy for his work before. But that meant… “I was thinking of
Arithmancy, Runes, and Creatures. You think that’s too much?”

“I mean probably, if you’re not overly bookish.” George allowed. “Aside from Creatures
those are the two hardest by far, among most of the classes Hogwarts offer even, and also the
classes happen at the same time I think.”

“Although Marissa took both for sure, though no idea how she did it.” Fred pointed out but
they just shrugged. “Wouldn’t recommend it—the kind of work load for even two electives,
much less Arithmancy and Runes, is insane, trust us.”

“But you didn’t take Runes?” He challenged, and they got a sly, slightly guilty look on their
faces.

“Well,” They allowed with a bit wicked grins.

“One of us took Arithmancy…”

“The other took Runes.” They admitted and everyone did a double take while Harry just
laughed. “So trust us when we say it takes two brains not to go insane.” They grinned.
“Wait, let me guess,” Harry put his hands up and glanced at their plates subtlety. He had
gotten pretty good at gauging which was which by the way they talked or their attitudes
towards certain things, but the sure-fire way to be sure was double-checking what the ate as
they definitely had preferences and were probably confidant no one had caught on to it yet, so
they didn’t even hide it.

Last year he’d put together a decent theory that George was better at Transfiguration while
Fred was better at Charms. He already knew Arithmancy was good for Transfiguration work
and these two were decent students who definitely understood the concept of understanding
to be able to do things with their magic not just take a test on it—particularly for pranks and
the joke shop they one day planned to open. Harry could have faith they’d already figured out
that it would only be sensible for the Transfiguration expert to have Arithmancy too, as that’s
how the best pranks would one day get invented.

Therefore…

“George is in Arithmancy and Fred is in Runes.” He pointed to each of them in turn, and
predictably they grinned devilishly back.

“Good try, but you got it wrong,” Fred huffed.

“And no way we’re admitting to who is in who! We even switch our names in class despite
the other not being in the same subject and the professors hate it.” George chuckled.

Harry just lifted his chin triumphantly. “No way, I’m right.” He declared confidently, earning
him some odd looks. “I spent all last year taking notes to be able to figure it out and I know
I’m right.”

“You cannot tell us apart.”

“Our own mother can’t,” They dismissed him.

“Well no offense to Mrs. Weasley but the hat didn’t almost put her in Slytherin. I’m right, and
you can’t tell me otherwise.” He argued, and that made them pause for a second to
reconsider.

“But still.” Fred frowned.

“Remember I got you different presents for Christmas last year. Properly labeled, didn’t I?”
He reminded them and they froze for a second, exchanging surprised looks.

“Oh shit.” George did a double take. “Wait yeah, you did! Holy shit, what the hell!? I thought
that was an accident!”

“Oh my god really!?” Seamus chimed in, everyone paying attention to this now because this
was news. Many probably didn’t know about the Christmas presents since it’d been a really
low attendance at the castle last year so it really was all new to them.

“So will you confess that I was right now?” He pushed playfully and Fred smiled in surprised
amusement while George got an annoyed look—the difference startling everyone present
aside from Harry who had definitely been expecting that.

“Fine, yeah I’m in Arithmancy,” George pouted, actually admitting he was George for once
and everyone’s head spun at the rare occurrence. “How on earth-?”

“No way, I’m not telling you how I do it or you’ll quit it immediately and where’s the fun in
that?” He stuck his tongue out at them and they were abruptly back to being in sync when
they both mirrored the motion immediately.

“How does you almost being in Slytherin mean you can tell them apart?” Seamus demanded
curiously. “I thought Ravenclaw were the observant ones.”

“Speaking generally, I wouldn’t say Ravenclaws are observant exactly, they’re just really
good at deduction. Slytherins are the ones who don’t miss a damn thing and frankly it’s
annoying. I had to get really good and interpreting what subtle looks meant or I’d be eaten
alive over there,” he complained (and also flaunted, because he’d worked hard on those skills
and was happy to brag a bit about it). “These two really are identical but they are different.
People can’t control the little reactions they have to things if they have different preferences
after all.”

“Yeah well we knew that.” Fred scoffed.

“No one else did before you though,” George huffed a bit. “Go on, do it again. This is
fascinating.”

Harry considered it and settled on something safe. “Fred’s favorite color is orange, George’s
is pink.”

“No way,” They chorused in just as much indignant surprise as earlier and everyone leaned in
as they realized this was a thing.

Harry preened, and enjoyed displaying his party trick for them as breakfast wound to a close.

000

“Alright then, Harry?” He turned, and thanks to Neville was prepared for Susan jogging up to
them and nipping his sleeve gently as she pulled him from the stream of people walking
down to the greenhouses for their first class of term. He let it happen, shooting Neville a
smile as the blond watched him go, before heading on towards Herbology. He knew the blond
would save them a space—Neville already knew Susan wanted to talk to Harry and the
greenhouses were his safe space anyway so there was a lot less hesitation than there’d be any
other time.

“Hey Susan,” He smiled blankly at her as she cornered him. “Heard you’ve been fielding
questions about me—sorry about that.”

She waved him off, unbothered. “No worries, what you do with your mail wards are none of
my business. Could’ve warned poor Neville though.” She scolded him and he winced a bit.
“Yeah, I honestly forgot. To change them or tell anyone, that is.” He admitted and she seemed
to accept that. Or, that was clearly not what she wanted to talk to him about and they were
under a time crunch so she moved on quickly.

“I figured. Did Neville tell you about Dumbledore then?”

“He said he was trying to get in contact with me, though I wouldn’t know why. McGonagall
can, so if it’s from Hogwarts then she could do it.” He tried to act clueless but she either she
didn’t buy it or didn’t care, she just pressed a little harder.

“My aunt works for the DMLE and she made me promise to tell you about it—apparently
when she checked your mail wards for me she found wards were already in place. Not goblin
wards.”

Harry almost did a double take, but immediately caught on.

“Would she be able to tell who put them in place?”

“No, it’s not illegal for people to use their own wards, but goblins do a much better job in
general so it’s not common. Goblin wards need Ministry approval though, so there is some
preference in doing it yourself as it won’t be tracked. Given you live with muggles though,
Auntie was concerned over who did it.”

It made so much sense—it’s been nearly a year and Axeclaw had still not been able to find
out where his original mail had been sent for the first ten years of his life, and Gringotts was
usually was more on top of things than that. If the manager was looking for goblin wards or
something on the record then he was looking in the wrong places—and if the wizard whose
put the ward up was, say, Albus Dumbledore… he wasn’t a normal wizard and those wards
might just be something to give even a goblin a run for their money. Harry knew nothing
about wards but he knew the Headmaster’s reputation as a “great wizard” probably wasn’t
faked until otherwise proven so—or at least it’d be the cautious thing to do to assume he was
not only a prick but a legitimate threat magically as well as politically until he had evidence
to prove differently.

“She suspects though, doesn’t she.” He frowned, and Susan nodded seriously.

“You might not like to hear it, but she thinks its Headmaster Dumbledore.” She confessed.

Wait… does she think she’s breaking news to me? Harry blinked widely in surprise that she
didn’t already know how much he hated the headmaster, and she must’ve taken his
expression to mean he was in any way shocked that it was Albus Dumbledore who was
sticking his nose where it shouldn’t be.

“I know it’s weird, but Auntie and him have been at odds for a while—she thinks he’s so
nosey and as Supreme Mugwump, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Chief Warlock and how many
seats he holds on the Wizegamont… well Auntie is head of law enforcement and she doesn’t
agree with a lot of what he does as it doesn’t follow the book on the most part. People like
that about him but she’s super strict so it normally just pisses her off.” She explained like she
was trying to defend her aunt’s distaste of the man everyone else loved, but honestly Harry
was suddenly Amelia Bones’ number one fan.

“I mean it would make sense that he put wards up to protect you at some point since you do
live with muggles but Auntie is mad about it for some reason. And she wanted me to warn
you.” Susan finished in a huff. “Do with that information what you will.”

“Thanks, Susan. And seriously, thank your Aunt for me. In fact what kind of sweets does she
like? I’ll send her a gift basket as thanks.” He was dead serious, and Susan did a small double
take in surprise.

“Wait what?”

“I thought you were warning me because you already knew how much I didn’t like the
Headmaster.” He admitted and her eyes widened almost comically.

“You don’t…?”

“Your aunt is dead right—he is really nosey. And I’m an orphan… I don’t have a magical
legal guardian who knows shit about the wizarding world to protect me from all the crap he’s
done. I don’t really want to get into it but part of the reason I’m not opening my mail wards is
because I don’t want him getting any more involved than he already is. McGonagall can
reach me because she really would keep it to important school stuff—the headmaster
wouldn’t.”

Susan stared at him, her mouth a little open in shock as she tried to absorb that. She probably
grew up knowing her aunt was in the far minority for not liking Dumbledore, and to suddenly
hear someone agreeing with that sentiment probably took her off guard.

“But why-”

Suddenly the clock tower rung out loudly at the perfect time to avoid continuing this
conversation, with the unfortunate side effect of realizing they were about to be late to their
first class. Harry took off down the pathway and Susan was hot on his heels as she collected
herself to realize now was not the time to get into this conversation.

And frankly Harry wasn’t interested in continuing it at a better time either.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” He called as they ran, and she didn’t answer but he knew she
got the message as they slipped into the greenhouse as everyone was pulling on their
protective gear already, although they missed the order for what it was they were supposed to
be doing. Luckily Sprout either didn’t notice their late arrival with all the chaos or didn’t
mind as they just got down to work, Neville handing them a pair of earmuffs each without a
word.

“Chocolate.” Was all Susan said instead as she pulled on her protective smock and Harry
made a mental note to put in an order with Honeydukes for Madam Amelia Bones.

000
Herbology went well, until it didn’t.

Be it Harry’s lovely morning, Neville solidly by his side as a grounding presence, or how
distracted he was over planning how to get around the bloody Headmaster (and at this point
it felt so routine, to slip back into his cold calculating mindset and forget to actually be angry
about it instead of just calmly planning how to fix the old coot’s meddling) but he had almost
totally forgotten that he wasn’t totally fine and normal and happy to be back at Hogwarts.

I mean, he was totally fine and normal. He felt back.

Until very suddenly he wasn’t, and he remembered in a shock like a slap to the face that
maybe he should’ve stopped by the hospital wing before classes started to at least have a
calming draught on him.

Everything had been fine. Herbology was not his subject but it was so much like gardening
and so hands-on that he could get down to work without needing to feel or think too hard at
the moment. Pulling on his gloves and earmuffs as Sprout kicked off the semester with a
lecture on mandrakes felt fine, hearing about the crazy little roots that had a paralytic cry was
entertaining. Hearing that they’d needed to start right off on repotting them because they’d
take all year to mature and this would be their term project was pretty cool actually—nothing
like starting off the year with solid expectations and if this is what they were doing this year
he could handle this.

But then the first mandrake was unearthed, and not ten seconds later, Neville went down
beside him in a heap to the earthy floor of the greenhouse.

Logically, his earmuffs probably weren’t on right. Logically, as Sprout had just explained, it
was a paralytic cry and in a couple minutes once the roots were replanted the unconscious
blonde would be right as rain.

Logic flew out the fucking window as Harry’s solid presence next to him suddenly
disappeared.

“NEVILLE!”

Harry may have freaked out a little bit, and it was clearly a more violent reaction’s than
Sprout who blinked widely at the scene.

“Oh dear,” She noted far too calmly for Harry’s panic.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN OH DEAR?” He spun at her none-too-kindly, definitely loud

enough to be heard over everyone’s earmuffs and she seemed taken aback by that for a
second.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a temporary paralysis; let’s get these potted and he’ll come round in a
couple minutes.” She did not seem alarmed by either a student of her’s passing out nor
another student freaking out, and for some reason that pissed Harry off to unbelievable levels.
At least he was suddenly angry though, instead of terrified out of his mind.
It was just that her response was so not good enough for Harry, who outright disregarded that
gentle order to shove his pot towards Susan beside him in a silent command to take care of
that while he bent down to inspect the now unconscious Neville on the ground beside him.
He had just enough rationality left to recognize what Sprout had said and put his hands over
Neville’s earmuffs, pressing them tighter in hopes the screaming of the mandrakes would be
fully blocked out this time. He wasn’t strong enough to just pick the blond up and flee from
the greenhouse, but he sure as hell wanted to.

It took a couple of very long minutes from Harry’s perspective, but in short order Neville’s
blue eyes blinked open blearily, and then widened as he immediately realized what happened.
He muttered something, but with the earmuffs and all the mandrake screaming, Harry had no
hope of hearing him. He pressed his hands tighter and Neville got the message, replacing
Harry’s hands with his own to hold them down tighter as the redhead bodily pulled him up—
and if Neville thought they were going to go back to potting mandrakes, then he was an idiot.

Ensuring Neville was keeping his hands over his ears tightly he grabbed both their bags and
abandoned their pots to Susan who looked to have it covered and all but dragged him from
the greenhouse despite Neville realizing halfway through what was happening and attempting
to put up a mild fight.

“-rry! Harry.”

They were a distance from the greenhouses and well safe from the screams when he felt his
earmuffs come off, turning to the quiet demand to see Neville having taken his off and
removing Harry’s own for him, wide eyes concerned.

“We didn’t need to leave, it was my fault I didn’t put them on right.” He sighed, but Harry
pretended not to have heard him.

“That quack of a professor!” He declared, still shouting although they were now the only
ones in earshot on the vast grounds around them.

“Harry, forgive her,” Neville seemed annoyingly amused by his reaction while Harry was still
pissy and worked up about the whole thing.

“No! She’s as bad as Hooch!”

“She’s not as bad as Hooch.” Neville repeated him calmly and Harry deflated.

“Be more annoyed!”

“No.”

“Argh!” He tossed his hands up, recognizing a losing battle, but still too full of… emotion
and things and nowhere to put it to be reasonable.

Neville liked Sprout and Herbology too much to be swayed now and if he were calmer Harry
would’ve realized it would’ve been like someone trying to tell him not to like McGonagall if
she messed up in class one time, but he wasn’t exactly calm right then. Not panicking
anymore as Neville was awake and talking once more, but he still agitated to hell.

“She told us what was going to happen and about the safety precautions we have to take. It’s
my fault my earmuffs weren’t on tight enough.” Harry felt like Neville might as well be
patting him on the head for the tone he was speaking in, and he didn’t much like it but
recognized he was the last person to be arguing on the side of safety.

“We’re not going back there.” He switched tactics, but Neville caught it easily.

“You can’t keep me away from the mandrakes forever. They’re our term project.” He raised
one eyebrow pointedly. “Or were you planning to do the whole project yourself?”

Harry gave him a positively aghast look, which caused the blonde to dissolve into laughter
himself. “I resent the implication!”

“Is it wrong?”

“No!” He cried indignantly, Neville just laughing harder. “But still! Rude!”

“Well if you don’t want to go back for today, what do you want to do?” Neville pointed out,
and Harry realized they’d missed the majority of class. Sprout’s lecture hadn’t been nearly as
long as it felt like so there was too much time between now and their next class—and if
McGonagall saw them loitering outside her classroom an hour before class time started when
she knew darn well her second years should be in Herbology right now… well, that wouldn’t
be the best way to start term.

He glanced out across the grounds and had an idea.

“Let’s see what Hagrid’s up to.”

000

Before he knew it, Harry was walking towards the Slytherin table as people crowded into the
Great Hall for lunch.

After his scare in Herbology, having a literal gallon of tea with Hagrid and Neville had done
wonders to calm him back down, and then of course Transfiguration had been a highlight
which further centered him. It was easy to flip back into a more clinical persona, there to talk
magic and spell equations more than emotions or holidays.

And Professor McGonagall hadn’t asked them about their summers aside from wishing they
were good, before jumping right back into course work for which Harry was thrilled. He was
less thrilled that the actual work was boring as hell—he really was far ahead and thanks for
this magical core issues wasn’t allowed to even perform magic beyond exactly what was
being asked of them in class. Meaning a second-year spell he’d perfected since before last
Christmas and could do with his eyes closed (and running around, and behind his back, and
several times at once… you got the point).
McGonagall was already very aware he could already do this spell and they’d already talked
about it at length in the past too, so she spent most of the time helping others instead of
fighting (ahem, discussing) with him. He in turn spent most of his time helping Neville
beside him but apparently he was a pretty good teacher because Neville actually had it before
class was over, so they actually managed to start their homework. All in all it wasn’t the most
exciting class ever but it wasn’t hard and the small sense of peace that came with knowing
exactly what was going on and that he could fully handle it was a rather nice boost to his
morale.

And then… Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Woo boy, that’s going to be a wild ride, Harry thought wryly. Lockhart was, essentially, a vain
idiot of epic proportions. The first quiz he’d given them about his favorite colors or ‘most
impressive’ achievements, and if reading through Transfiguration textbooks and being able to
already understand that most authors didn’t need to be saying anything true to get it published
into a book told him anything, then Harry was 95% sure Lockhart hadn’t written any of the
works they’d been required to buy. Or, maybe he had as it was appropriately juvenile,
flourishing language that in no way got to the point anytime quick like they were adventure
novels instead of textbooks, but him actually having done any of it… yeah, probably not.

Some things ran true… Harry had actually read most of the book prior to term because, as he
said they read like adventure novels and were easy to get through even if it was more for a
laugh than for education, so he did know some parts of it weren’t totally made up. The
chapter on facing a mountain troll had been a little too real if also a lot less graphic than his
own encounter, which meant there was a thread of truth to them buried beneath all the
flowery bullshit but… Harry wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that.

He knew Lockhart himself definitely did not face a mountain troll though because ‘talking it
down to have tea before surprise attacking it’ was not something one did with a troll, period.

Still, the class itself was probably going to be a breeze. One look at the farce of a quiz he’d
been given and Harry already knew how to get a top score without studying a damn thing—
he simply gushed about how brave and heroic his idiot professor was, pulling out all the stops
to flatter an inhumanly large ego with small anecdotes from his books that he could recall and
Lockhart had actually started reading his quiz results as an example of a ‘great score’. Dean
and Seamus had looked horrified before Harry shot them a mocking wink and they’d caught
on quickly, reevaluating how they handled this class themselves.

Were they going to learn anything this year? Probably not. But they’d coast happily on easy
‘O’s for the time being if they could make it though the long classes of him boasting about
himself.

So while not an actual good class, the whole experience had been rather entertaining.

He figured he wasn’t going to get a better shot as being put-together than now, and he did
need to put in an appearance at the Slytherin table sooner rather than later. Better now when
his mood was the highest it’d probably get for a while, rather than wait for the next thing to
throw him off guard and make this all the harder later.
And besides…

“Harry!” Draco spotted him first, obviously, but he noted that a lot of Slytherins took visible
notice of him at the blond’s call even if they didn’t react. The new first years he spotted
looked at him with wide eyes but also didn’t do anything—so clearly the house of snakes had
been talking, not that he ever assumed they wouldn’t.

Harry felt a sense of nostalgia slipping into the bench beside Draco and looking at his fellow
second years across the table, even though it hadn’t really been that long.

“Happy start of term, Draco,” he greeted with a smile, instantly relaxing when Draco just
flashed him a quick smile of his own. That’s right… he probably knew what happened with
his parents and wasn’t about to rat him out in front of Blaise of all people, so for this meal he
at least had one ally and he wouldn’t just be dumped into the deep end with the sharks.

Speaking of…

“Potter, nice of you to grace us.” The Zabini in question sniffed a bit pompously at him, the
obvious implication and sass automatically making Harry smile. He hadn’t even realized how
easy bantering with Blaise was, but it snapped back into place like a switch turning on, much
to his joy.

“Couldn’t go half a day of term without me Blaise? Knew you’d miss me.”

“As if.” He sniffed again, somehow looking down his nose at him despite sitting.

“I had things to do—mad you don’t rank in my priorities?”

“As if.” It was indignant now, but Harry seemed to have passed whatever test the boy had
posed and now he grinned widely in more reasonable greeting than his faked cold
indifference. “I was merely missing my morning entertainment is all.”

“Glad I could be of service to you, however as I said there was mischief to be had elsewhere
this morning and you don’t rank compared to mischief.” Harry stuck his tongue out at him
oh-so-maturely and the Zabini snickered. At the casual air Harry couldn’t help himself from
asking. “Aren’t you going to ask? I thought you’d ask.”

“What, that you missed the train? Please, everyone knew as soon as we left the station and
Draco already confirmed that his father confirmed it was a fluke with the barrier so it’s not
even good gossip. That was so yesterday, do try and keep up.” Blaise dismissed him rather
rudely, helping himself to the food laid out in front of them like he was already bored of the
conversation. Harry let out a rather amused sigh.

“Is it weird to say I missed you?”

“Yes.” Theo deadpanned without even pausing as he turned the page in his ever-present book
on his lap. He didn’t even have any food in front of him.

“Theo!” Harry lit up at the reminder that the quietest Slytherin actually had a voice. “You still
like me right, summer didn’t change your mind? I’m allowed to call you Theo?”
The small boy sighed once as if very put upon, but his eyes were a lot softer than they’d been
historically as he glanced up once.

“Yes.” He allowed simply, before turning back to his book and honestly that was all Harry
needed from him to be on cloud nine.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Draco butt in as he too noticed Theo’s lack of plate and the blue
eyes lost all their warmth as he shot the blond a glare. “Don’t give me that!”

“I assume Draco told you about our new Defense Professor.” Blaise ignored the two
immediately and addressed Harry who blinked at the sudden change of pace. Last year he
was really here for Draco alone, and Blaise put on a show of lowering himself to talk (bicker)
with him, while Theo never said a thing and no one aside from Harry himself ever actually
tried to entice him into a conversation (and given how little success he’d had, he now knew it
was because the rest of house had already acknowledged a losing battle for what it was and
hadn’t bothered to try). Draco suddenly bothering Nott like the mother hen he was and Blaise
drawing him into an actual one-one-one conversation was, not brand new but definitely a
new dynamic that was not how the status quo had always been.

He certainly wasn’t complaining though as Blaise had sat up straight and his tone implied this
was going to be gossip and if he was in on the Slytherin grape vine, all the better.

“I had him third block. Bit of a glory hound?”

“To say it lightly,” The Zabini sniffed delicately. “Fourth years had him second block and
said he’s a vain idiot.” He declared bluntly.

Harry was so tempted to make a jibe about why he didn’t like him then, but barely refrained.
He needed information and pissing off the hand feeding you wasn’t the best move.

“Yeah, I’ve already confirmed we’re not getting anything done in Defense this year either.”
He sighed wearily. “At this rate our OWLs are going to suck.”

“No one’s done great on the DADA OWLs in years,” Blaise dismissed promptly. “Not
without a private tutor at least.” And by the smug implication he did have one, Harry made
note that maybe he should look into that. He had half a mind to get a muggle math tutor,
adding another wouldn’t be that bad probably.

He was not about to ask Blaise for references though—add it to the list of things to ask
Daphne later.

“I’m more concerned about our grades for now though, forget fifth year.” Theo chimed up—
clearly mid-way through Draco saying something by the blond’s indignant squawk at being
interrupted. “You said the first quiz was about his favorite colors and stuff, right? How the
hell are we supposed to not fail that in the mean time?”

“Just tell him what he wants to hear.” Harry shrugged. “I did read his book and it was
stupidly easy to get through—like a child wrote it. His favorite color is blue and just talk
about how fantastic and brave he is on the quiz and he loves it. There—easy O.”
Theo frowned deeply while Blaise tisked in annoyance.

“Bit free of information from the Gryffindor.” He complained, Harry just rolling his eyes in
response.

“Lockhart is not the hill I’ll die on—he’s really not worth trading anything for.” He waved it
off. “Besides I’m still just happy Theo is talking to me.”

Said boy flashed a wry smile as he mulled that advice over while Blaise got even more
annoyed.

“Hey, I was the first Slytherin who’d talk to you!”

“No, Draco was.”

“Well I’m the most important Slytherin who talks to you!”

Harry couldn’t help but laugh at that and ignored the complaints as he started eating, the
conversation swiftly moving to other topics as it always did at the snake table and he chimed
in here and there. Most of it was class related with the occasional observation into house
politics—just some minor stuff but Harry was thrilled he was actually allowed to sit here and
listen in on at least a portion of it instead of them censoring themselves while the Gryffindor
was at the table.

As it was he didn’t learn anything useful as most snakes were in the same boat: it was only
the first day so most of their plans and plots hadn’t even taken form yet, much less been
started. They couldn’t gossip about others plots if no one actually had them yet.

He got so caught up in listening and taking notes, he almost didn’t notice his goblet replace
itself with some distinctly not pumpkin juice.

Madam Pomfrey had warned him his drink at meals would magically supply him with the
potions he was required to take for the next couple weeks, and she would know if he ignored
it or didn’t take it somehow, and he didn’t doubt her. It had taken some doing to convince her
that he’d be fine for quidditch when the season started, but she was not above using keeping
him off the pitch as a threat if he started skimping on any of the orders she’d given him,
potions regimen included. Given almost all of what Draco had wrote to him this summer
about was him training to try out for the open spot on the Slytherin team, Harry was not
about to miss his first match (which would be against the snakes, and therefore Draco) for
the world.

The way Pomfrey had talked, it sounded like she had a way of getting McGonagall, who was
even more quidditch obsessed than Draco, to agree to keep him grounded if he put up a fuss
and if that wasn’t a terrifying thought Harry didn’t know what was. He actually could not
conceive of what the mediwitch had on the Transfiguration Professor to give her that kind of
leverage and it was kind of frightening.

He didn’t plan on messing with his health just because these potions tasted like actual vomit
in any case. If they could magically fix him and get him back into shape enough to play
quidditch in only a couple short weeks, then by all means he’d down a hundred of these nasty
things.

The hard part was keeping his face straight as he drank it, and luckily the Gryffindors around
him at breakfast this morning noticed neither his drink suddenly becoming not-pumpkin-
juice, but also were too busy laughing at something the twins did to notice his expression
when he downed it quickly (he’d been waiting for everyone to look away after all).

At the Slytherin table though, that was too much to hope for.

“What’s that?” It was only kind of surprising that it was Nott who noticed and brought it up
—but then again if Neville had a wallflower superpower, Theo was just as good at fading into
the background with the added bonus of also being observant as hell. He’d never exercised or
shown he could be so observant, but given how he would immediately disappear into thin air
when shit was about to go down long before even Harry realized what was happening, he
shouldn’t be surprised the guy was sharp as a tack when it came to his surroundings. No
matter if he was literally always pretending (or maybe not pretending, it was hard to tell) to
be reading.

Still, it coming from Theo being a surprise, the question being asked was not. He knew he
couldn’t get away with it for long at the snake table, and while he hadn’t expected to be
caught literally two seconds after his drink changed, he still had an excuse prepared and
ready to go for this very situation. So it didn’t take him off guard and he made a point of
looking slightly abashed, like he’d been caught. Going by Draco’s frown and Blaise perking
up in interest like he smelled gossip, he knew they bought it.

“Ah.” He cleared his throat and they seemed to pay slightly more attention. “So, recall that
I’m pretty good at Transfiguration?”

“You destroying Montague over a Transfiguration paper is literally seared into my brain, so
yeah.” Blaise scoffed, but did seem rather dreamy about the statement much to Harry’s
amusement.

“Yeah, apparently that’s not so good.” He ‘admitted’, ‘reluctantly’, and all three of them
raised their brows almost in sync. Draco gave him a look but before he could get scolded
Harry continued quickly. “I’m fine, but ah, yesterday Pomfrey insisted on checking me out
since, you know, I ran into a wall—” He ignored the snickers form Blaise at that “—and she
noticed my magical core was a bit off. Apparently using upper year magic too early messed
with it so she wants to give me potions and blocks and all that until it settles.”

They all stared at him for a beat too long, before Blaise shrugged noncommittally.

“Well you did have bouts of accidental magic after getting to Hogwarts, and they were kind
of hard to forget.” He teased dryly, and Harry rolled his eyes.

“Harry seriously obey whatever she says—magical core issues are super dangerous to both
you and everyone around you.” Draco’s frown was a thing to behold and Harry had a slightly
horrifying thought that he looked like his mother right then.
He was thankfully more distracted by realizing that was the second time someone had
implied he might explode over this issue, so he wasn’t exactly about to put up a fight.

“I wasn’t going to argue I was just explaining why this suddenly appeared in my cup.
Knowing that one in particular, if I didn’t just come out with the reason he’d make something
up to tell everyone.” He pointed at Blaise who made a face.

“Excuse you, I do not do fake gossip. If you hear it from me then it’s damn credible and that’s
why I’m the best source of information.” He boasted proudly.

“But you’d happily tell everyone I was taking some unknown potion at meals and let them
conjure up their own assumptions of what it was.”

He paused as he considered that for a second… then grinned as if that mental image was
highly attractive to him.

“Yeah, probably.” He allowed far too cheerily to be sane.

“But that’s a nutrient potion.” Theo was not to be swayed and essentially ignored Blaise’s
interruption to get back on point.

Damn Slytherins, being so good at potions. Isn’t that supposed to be a stereotype? Harry
grumbled internally, slightly at a loss as he hadn’t thought up an excuse to why he needed
this specific potion, more that he just needed potions and true to his words to Blaise, was
going to let them assume it was some high level potion to fix blocks they didn’t know about
yet.

Luckily, Draco unknowingly saved him.

“Theoretically if his magical core is being taxed it might stunt normal growing so it’s
probably just to be sure. Better safe than sorry and nutrient potions only help, even if you’re
not deficient: if you have blocks on your magical core it's not supporting your health
normally so it may also be a reassurance you're still getting everything you need even without
your magic. They’re nasty tasting but can only do some good.” He explained automatically
and Theo seemed to accept that logic.

Blaise looked far too gleeful at it too.

“Ha. You’re stunted.”

“I take it back, I didn’t miss you at all.”

“Deficient then.” He decided with a smirk.

“In fact my time away from you is a joy!”

“How far ahead are you reading to be able to know that, Malfoy?” Theo once again ignored
them to turn back to the blond, who just shrugged.
“Not that far, I don’t know how to make it or anything. And says you—you could recognize it
too.”

Nott didn’t answer that in a silent touché, but instead turned back to Harry with a small
frown. “But she put blocks on you?”

“Yeah. Only for a couple weeks until she’s sure it’s fine, I think.” He winced, not even
pretending to as he knew Draco wasn’t going to like this next part. “I’m also not allowed to
play quidditch until then either which sucks.”

As expected the blond seemed to spasm a bit, but collected himself rather quickly to simply
be tense beside him on the bench, expression grumpy as hell. “Well if you’ll be fine by the
first game that’s okay.” Although he said it like it was pulling teeth rather than him being
generous, but Harry figured that was the best case scenario with his cactus-like friend.

“Yes Draco, I’m pretty sure it’ll be fixed by then, don’t worry I can kick your ass without any
damage to my health.”

“Over my dead body.” He shot back instantly.

“The blocks won’t affect classwork?” Theo was not to be deterred, Harry was amused to
note.

“She said it shouldn’t, I’m just not allowed to do my Transfiguration work much less read
ahead like I have been.” He pouted at that, and it was not a lie in the slightest this time. He
wasn’t done with his joke book after all! “I mean I can read, just not practice it without
supervision. McGonagall knows so she’s excusing me from practical work for now, I’ll just
have to show it all to her at a later date to make up for it.” Which would be trivially easy,
honestly.

Harry was pretty sure he’d already showed her all the spells he could do last year after giving
her his duro paper, which included every single second-year Transfiguration spell and quite a
few third-year ones too. If McGonagall would ever allow it (which she wouldn’t) he could
probably skip every class this year and still ace the final exam. Hell he could probably take it
tomorrow and do fine, so missing a couple weeks of work literally did not matter to him.

And he wasn’t interested in working ahead in any other class so the blocks were a non-issue
for now.

“What about like Charms and Defense?” Draco wondered.

“Do you honestly think we’re ever going to get to practical work in Defense? Because having
met Lockhart, I don’t.” He scoffed. “And Pomfrey wasn’t worried about Charms; she said
second-year Charms’ spells were light enough it shouldn’t bother me. It’s mostly because
I’ve put too much emphasis on Transfiguration.”

Draco narrowed his eyes as he digested that information before abruptly deciding he bought
it and nodding pointedly at the potion in front of them.
“Okay so obey her and drink that.”

“Oh my god I was going to! I was explaining first!”

“Do it now.”

“Shut up!”

Be it he was arguing too loud or the general volume of the Great Hall, but whatever it was he
wasn’t sure if he just imagined Theo muttered quietly under his breath, ‘he’s gotten worse.’
 of Lakes and Ducklings

“I think I’m going to walk around the lake, I’ve missed the grounds.” Harry announced as
they left the Great Hall post-lunch. The great thing about his schedule was that he had no
Monday afternoon classes, and it was honestly a relief to have such a light first day of the
week. Tomorrow was double potions and then History of Magic, which would just be flat out
painful, so he’d take the break while he could.

“I mean we do have homework.” Blaise couldn’t let the jab go, but unfortunately for him,
neither could Harry.

“Transfiguration homework? Ha. Beetle wings was so last year Blaise, do try to keep up.” He
tossed the Zabini’s own words right back at him, and earned a wicked grin for his troubles as
they parted ways. The only person who didn’t follow suit was Draco, who silently followed
Harry’s lead out the front door instead of accompanying his dormmates back to wherever it
was they were going to study. Day one or not, Slytherins were not ones to procrastinate and
they had homework so that is what they would be doing on their break before their last class
of the day. Even Blaise who liked to pretend he was a natural genius would not be caught
being behind on his work when everyone else had already done it—not going to happen in
this lifetime without a damn good reason, even if he wasn’t a bookworm in the slightest.

Draco and he hadn’t had a chance to talk alone since that day in Diagon though, so it wasn’t
exactly a shock Draco was taking the first opportunity he could to corner him again, work
taking a lesser priority for once. And Harry himself had seen it coming when he announced
he was going for a walk, so he braced himself for this conversation and reminded himself that
he wasn’t afraid to talk to Draco—as much as he’d dragged his heels the first time, he’d felt
better after seeking comfort in his friend so hopefully this would go the same route again.

To Harry’s surprise though, as soon as they were well away from the castle and starting to
walk around the lake, the blond jumped to a topic he was not expecting. Or, back to a topic
Harry thought he’d addressed already.

“Are you really okay with the blocks and things? Magical core issues are not to be
underestimated.”

“I’m fine, Draco.” Harry sighed a bit lightly, although he knew being annoyed with Draco’s
pestering was a bit of a dick-move. He only did it because he cared, so Harry used all his
acting skills to pretend he was more patient then he was.

“Blaise is going to tell everyone, you know.”

“I mean sure? Figured he would.”

“No, I think you missed the point of it, and that’s what he’s going to be telling everyone.”

Harry frowned at that, shooting him a curious look. “Huh? The point?”
“You have a new magical block on you, and it won’t affect your classwork. Put even a small
block on anyone else our age and we wouldn’t be able to perform a levitating charm, but you
don’t have an issue.” He explained plainly, and Harry got a sinking feeling in his stomach.
Hm… maybe his cover wasn’t as flawless as he thought it was—or it was creating a problem
he hadn’t realized would be a problem in the first place. “Combined with your very visible
accidental magic incidents last year and the rumors about how much magical power you have
is going to go crazy. I know that’s what Blaise was thinking at lunch just now—Nott too
actually, but Blaise is the one who’s going to tell everyone.”

And everyone is going to think it’s because I’m the Boy Who Lived, is what he’s saying.
Great.

“Wonderful.” He sighed, a lot louder and more annoyed this time. “Since you seem to know
so much about it… what would you say if I were, like… still having accidental magic
incidents?”

Harry winced as Draco’s blond head snapped to the left to stare intently at the side of his
face, although he refused to turn and meet whatever expression he was wearing.

“Please don’t look at me like that.”

“Harry, you have to listen to Pomfrey. That’s so not good.”

“Yeah, figured that’s what you’d say.” He grumbled, and he sensed the look he was getting
become ever worse, so he waved it off quickly. “I’m obeying, I’m obeying…”

Draco accepted that for a couple long minutes as they walked around the lake and enjoyed
the September weather… it really was a nice day and Harry had definitely missed the
outdoors lately. And Hogwarts had quite the grounds worth enjoying after all, so this was
kind of perfect.

Until Draco broke the silence again, and Harry tensed up and the innocuous question.

“Can I ask…?”

No. He thought honestly, but not answering wasn’t really in his realm of options. He didn’t
tell Draco a lot of things, and he’d flat out admitted to Draco’s face he wasn’t telling him
everything so…

He had promised that if he could share, he would, and Draco hadn’t been upset about the fact
that implied there was a ton of things he wasn’t saying. He still felt kind of guilty about all he
wasn’t sharing with his so called best friend, so this was… a safe middle ground, of sorts. He
shifted a bit uncomfortably and walked a tick faster so Draco wasn’t directly beside him as he
answered.

“I dunno what happened. I think I broke my relatives’ kitchen.”

He heard the frown in Draco’s voice. “Over the summer? I mean maybe it’s just-” Harry got
curious and turned to look at him when he cut himself off, seeing the blond shake his head
rapidly. “No! No, don’t listen to me, listen to Pomfrey—whatever she says.”

Harry was slightly amused at that, and kind of surprised he wasn’t going to question why he’d
been emotional enough for his magic to lash out.

Was he about to wonder what went wrong with my core? Not what went wrong with me, but
my magic?

That was kind of funny.

Draco was always like that though. It was never quite about them as people, always more
about what they could be doing at that moment to fix things. And fixing a broken heart or
terrified soul wasn’t really in his realm of things he could fix, so he always defaulted on
things he could—like damaged magical cores or people not finishing their lunches.

If Neville was just there to be a support and a kind ear, Draco was the exact opposite—he
didn’t want to hear it, he just wanted to fix it. And maybe that was kind of annoying because
not everything could be fixed, but Harry couldn’t hate him for it either. There was a kind of
naïve optimism in an attitude like that, that Harry was both tempted to squash out of him
immediately and also protect it with everything he had so as not to ruin the bright mental
image Draco had clearly created of the world around him. It was both kind of foolish and
infinitely precious.

On a whim, he recalled a conversation he had with Neville last year and he spoke without
thinking.

“Are you interested in healing, Draco?”

“Healing?” His blond head tilted in legitimate confusion. “Never considered it. I thought I’d
be a barrister, the times I did think about it which is not a lot.”

“If I recall what Pomfrey said, to be a healer you needed to be good at potions and charms,
and be willing to answer annoying children’s questions.”

The blond snorted none too kindly. “Well, I can put up with you, so it seems I’m well on my
way.”

“Hey!” Harry’s indignant cry was ruined by his laughter too. He really did have a point there,
much to Harry’s chagrin.

“Besides, I’m not that much of a people person,” Draco seemed to dismiss the entire
conversation entirely, but Harry wasn’t so sure.

He… didn’t actually know what to make of that statement. Not a people person—no, not
outright he supposed as Draco was more than willing to tell people off to their faces, as well
as be rude and demeaning of anyone he deemed not good enough— and those who fell into
that category were not a small number either. But… he also liked to talk, and he liked to talk
a lot. He and Blaise would not be friends any other way.

Draco liked attention, and drama.

He was way more careful about it these days and he’d learned from last year that being the
center of attention for bad reasons could make his life really difficult, but never let it be said
he wasn’t always trying to come out on top not only because he had the desire to be in
charge, but also because he just genuinely liked when people looked and obeyed and admired
him. While he actively chose not to talk to people who weren’t Slytherin if Harry wasn’t
forcing him to, he could talk to anyone. It was probably rude as hell, but he didn’t hesitate in
conversation and he most certainly wasn’t shy with anyone, ever. Harry had never once seen
him duck his head or avoid eye contact for any reason, even if he hated or respected the
person he was talking to.

And he also very clearly could care about people if he wanted to. He literally just spent
twenty minutes bothering Theo until he ate half a sandwich (which earned him no favors with
the boy by Nott’s death glare the entire time), and Harry had started calling him a mother hen
behind his back literally weeks into knowing him.

It seemed he had this weird state of going from zero to a hundred real quick—if he didn’t
care about someone, they could be bleeding out in front of him and he wouldn’t even blink. If
he did though, there was no escape and you would be watched and bothered and fretted after
until you kind of hated him for it.

It was a very weird line, and Harry wasn’t sure if it qualified him as being a people person or
not.

Harry wasn’t actually sure you needed to be a people person to be a healer even, as Draco
was already well set in his attitude of fixing the issue and not the person. He didn’t need to be
able to chat or get chummy with people to fix bruises or bones, although maybe his idea of
what healing magic entailed was a bit skewed given his past experiences.

“If you say so.” He let it go, because he honestly had no opinion on it either way, and just like
he wouldn’t push Neville for his off the cuff suggestions, he wasn’t about to do that to Draco
either.

He blew out a deep breath, knowing they were just beating around the bush and kind of
wanting to get it over with already. He’s given it some thought already too, so he had… some
words to say on the matter and felt as prepared as he’d ever be to do this. Not ready, exactly,
but knowing there wasn’t going to be a better time and some things really needed to be said
up front.

“So… about yesterday.”

“Yeah, my father wrote and said Mother got her hands on you.” Harry automatically winced
at Draco’s flat tone. “How bad.” He demanded in a deadpan.

For some reason. Draco’s own nerves about what his mother had done relaxed Harry to a
point. It was surprisingly amusing that he wasn’t the only one tense about this conversation,
so he smiled a bit weakly.

“Not… that bad. I mean she’s nice… I just really hope I didn’t say something you didn’t
want me to. She’s really good at talking.”
“I guess,” He frowned thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t worry about spilling anything, somehow she
always knows more than I think I know, and I’ve just come to accept that by now.”

“Oh.” Yeah, she definitely struck him as that kind of woman. “That’s… good?”

“Annoying as hell, but sure, good.” Draco rolled his eyes. “I know Father just disappears and
leaves people to her, and despite being my mother I still don’t know what she’s after on a
good day. Sorry if it was a bit much and I couldn’t be there.”

“It wasn’t your fault the barrier broke at the worst time possible.” Harry forgave him with a
slightly more earnest smile. “Although I should thank you too, I mean… I didn’t know them,
but I knew they were right on the other side of the barrier and were kind of the only adults I
even semi-trusted at the moment so…”

“That’s fine, better than just sitting there and never making it to Hogwarts at all. Although
sorry it had to be my mother you had to go through to get here.” He gave a very put-upon
sigh, earning a larger smile this time.

“She wasn’t that bad.”

“That’s what she wants you to think.” He pouted rather playfully. “Well, whatever it is, I can
say while it’s probably not pleasant, she’s not after anything bad. I mean she actually really
likes kids, I’m pretty sure she wanted me to have like six siblings.”

Now that was a surprise, and Harry had to fix his expression to not seem so outwardly
shocked about it. He knew better than to ask why she hadn’t had them, but it was oddly
reassuring to hear in a weird way. Also… it kind of explained why the one child she did have
was spoiled to hell.

Be it Draco misinterpreting his silence or he was just more observant than Harry ever gave
him credit for, but he glanced at him and dropped his playful dramatic act to be a bit more
serious.

“Harry, be honest.”

And that was what he’d been avoiding… but now was not the time for that. So he took a solid
breath and mulled over his words carefully.

“Would you… be mad if I maybe was kind of mad at her?” He started, and seeing Draco’s
confused expression elaborated a bit. “For like… I dunno. I’m not that much of Gryffindor to
not realize she was up to something but also not good enough of a Slytherin to be able to be
able to do anything about it.”

“Father can’t escape her, your Slytherin qualities or not have nothing to do with it.” He
dismissed uncaringly, before his face flickered in actual concern at the red head’s expression.
“What is it?”

“I don’t like being helpless.” He admitted in a soft tone, and despite it being a legitimately
huge weak spot he was offering up here… somehow it didn’t feel wrong to admit it to Draco
of all people. Especially not when the blond visibly paused to really listen for a moment, and
it encouraged him to keep going.

“She made me feel very… very helpless and whether she had good intentions or not I—I kind
of hate that. Like a lot, Draco, I really hate it.” He tried to pour how much he meant that into
his tone, and by Draco’s expression he knew he was being heard. “She was nice and all but I
really didn’t like spending all day that way. It’s scary and I got really worked up and I know
she’s your mom and everything but… I wanted to tell you honestly. Because I really did want
to visit you this summer but she kind of… well it wasn’t as fun as riding the train with you, it
was kind of the exact opposite.” His cheeks got hot as it was kind of… exposing to admit it,
especially to the son of the woman in question, but thankfully Draco didn’t seem offended.

He did spend a long minute in silence though, thinking it over.

In the quiet, Harry felt obligated to back track a little. “You’re still my best friend you know.
That’s why I wanted to tell you honestly.”

The blond looked surprised at that for a second before nodding slowly. “I can’t really just
think differently of my own Mother, but I get you don’t want to be left alone with her ever
again. I’m even her son and I can relate.” It was only half a joke, but Harry knew what he
was doing so laughed quietly anyway—anything to break the tense atmosphere. “She’s pushy
and rude about it while pretending to be polite. I won’t get offended if you don’t like her,
promise.”

“I wouldn’t say that exactly, but not wanting to spend a ton of time around her is kind of
accurate.” He admitted, wincing a bit. “Maybe that’s just how moms are? I… I guess I don’t
actually know.”

Draco’s frown was really a thing to behold at that, but luckily he just remained quiet as that
sunk in, and they kept walking in a slightly less-awkward state than before.

Eventually, Draco perked up and tossed his head back, abruptly regaining some of his
bravado.

“Well, Greengrass says I’m a bad excuse for a common Slytherin and maybe I can admit that,
despite her being mine, my mother isn’t exactly the best example of a regular mother either.”
He allowed generously in a way that also seemed highly arrogant, and Harry couldn’t help
but laugh.

Which seemed to be exactly what the Slytherin was after as he smiled in self-satisfaction.

“I think the not listening to their kids because they’re adults who think they know better is a
universal parental thing though. At least I’m pretty sure.” He pointed out lightly.

“I guess.” Harry hadn’t considered that. “Maybe it’s just an adult thing in general?”

“Probably.”
“Except McGonagall.” Harry corrected, and at his questioning look continued. “She listens to
me when I talk Transfiguration and actually responds as if I’m an equal. Think that’s why I
like her so much.”

“Huh. I think I like Severus for that reason too. Even when I was little and he was just
starting to teach me potions, the fact I was like six didn’t excuse any mistakes I made and
he’d treat me like a real student, not just a kid.”

“Not sure that’s quite the same…”

“How is it not!?”

“I’m pretty sure Snape doesn’t know how to talk to kids, so he just defaults like they’re
adults.” Harry snickered at him.

The funniest part though was that Draco was clearly going to argue that before visibly halting
mid-thought and reconsidering, and then getting super annoyed when he couldn’t actually
confirm that wasn’t the case.

“Whatever.” He snipped in irritation, and Harry dissolved into giggles at his expression. Oh
so tactfully he switched topics to get away from his grouchy godfather, and Harry had mercy
and let him do it. “Do you have any plans for this year?”

He was relieved to be past talking about Mrs. Malfoy for the moment, but at the casual
question his mind sprung to life at everything he’d been ignoring for the time being. He
somehow knew Draco was talking about Montague-like plans: Slytherin plans, and realized
most of the snake house probably came in to the school year with an ultimate goal that had
nothing to do with classes. Even if they didn’t have plans in motion so early into term, they
definitely had a goal in mind as evidenced by the conversations he’d heard snippets of at
lunch.

It was very ego-boosting to know Draco considered him enough of a snake to ask about his
plans so casually, as if it was a given he would have something up his sleeve. Asked so
casually, as if he’d be asking the same question to any one of his housemates given the
chance.

But honestly… Harry hadn’t given any structured thought to what he wanted out of this year
just yet. Get to Hogwarts had been the biggest mountain this past summer, with literally
everything going wrong with that plan and it almost not even happening in the final stretch,
but now that he was here he’d been so relieved and caught up in trying to breathe deeply and
get over his intense, painful relief that the holiday break was over that he hadn’t refocused yet
into planning for his next task or challenge or goal yet.

Frankly, he needed some time to not plan or scheme or do anything, but instead just enjoy
being back in the castle with his friends. For the next couple weeks he had not considered
doing a damn thing but waking up, going to classes, and lazing about Gryffindor tower with
his Transfiguration joke book for company.
After that though… he hadn’t considered what exactly he was after but so far as plans went,
now that Draco brought the question up… yeah, he did have a goal in mind.

Well, the goal itself was simple, the execution… not so much.

And it wasn’t so much a goal, as it was a defined fact:

He wasn’t going back to Private drive.

They weren’t going to take him alive if they tried.

In reality it wasn’t going to be that drastic if he was smart about this, but he was up against
Albus Dumbledore and he already suspected that that would be… challenging. Worst case, he
couldn’t do it in a year and needed some kind of work around to avoid anyone knowing
where he was going for next summer—somehow slipping out of Hogwarts or off the train or
even taking off into the floo network at King’s Crossing Station as soon as the express got
back to muggle London at the end of the school year and just fleeing before anyone could
stop him. He could go into hiding for the summer, somehow, probably with a lot of help from
Axeclaw and maybe even Blaise or Daphne. They were pretty untouchable even from
Dumbledore and while he could probably trade something to the Greengrass family for their
help, Blaise would probably get a huge amount of glee in pulling one over on the old man
just on principle. Spending the summer with Blaise was a terrifying thought, but Harry knew
he’d gone to Italy for this past summer and that was looking like a pretty attractive hiding
spot if he could swing it. Not even Voldemort had tried the Italian wizards in the entirety of
the war, so that was likely as safe as he was going to get for one summer from Dumbledore.

Besides, Blaise would be thirteen by then and if what Draco had told him was true, be getting
a lot more pressure from his mother to start making connections (dating, Draco translated
much to Harry’s horror) and Blaise had already asked him to marry him once. Weather he
was joking or not (honestly Harry did not know with him anymore), Harry knew he was rich
and the “Potter” name was not unattractive to leeches like the Zabini family, so Dalia Zabini
would probably welcome him along on their trip if she thought her son was getting black
widow practice out of it.

Harry would not enjoy spending the summer that way, but it’d be a far cry from being locked
in a shed for certain. And the knowledge he was 100% safe from both is relatives and Albus
Dumbledore would be more than worth the trade of having to spend a couple months
surviving Blaise as his worst—and Harry suspected it was definitely a lot worse than he’d
ever witnessed the guy be so far.

He wouldn’t be able to get away with it twice though, as he’d have the element of surprise at
the end of this year if he kept his plans close to his chest, but it was only if he couldn’t find a
better solution in one year and needed some more time to see it through. The ultimate goal
was to never be forced to go back to Private Drive, and he didn’t actually know the kind of
challenges were in front of him for that aside from the legality of it all that Axeclaw had
explained. As of yet he had no concept of what he needed to do, not to mention anything
closely resembling a plan of how to do it, so he couldn’t confirm if he could do it in one year
or would need two. Best case scenario, he figured it out before September was out and could
work on executing the plan the rest of the year same as he’d done previously, and then come
the end of the year he’d be free to do as he pleased for the coming summer without the threat
of the Dursleys haunting him ever again.

But to Draco’s question, as much as maybe he’d like to, Harry wasn’t sure about bringing in
Draco to these plans of his until he… you know, had a plan worth sharing. The blond was
certainly connected but even with their conversation in the alley he hadn’t quite wrapped his
head around why he hated his relatives so much, and Harry wasn’t interested in trying to
explain it again to convey how important this goal was to him.

And it was, critically important to him. If he brought Draco in he’d not only have to explain
it, but also convince the blond to treat it as seriously as he was, and he wasn’t sure he could
actually do that in the time frame he had.

And maybe that was all just excuses in the end, but it was as real to him now as any other fact
he knew. For now it was his fight to win, or to lose. He’d love to work alongside Draco but…
it didn’t seem right, at least not before he knew what he was doing.

“Yeah, actually.” He finally admitted after mulling those thoughts over a bit. “I… I need to
think about it a bit more though. I know what I want, just no idea what kind of plan I need to
get it.”

“If you need help…?” Draco didn’t seem to mind he wasn’t going to say it, and Harry figured
it was more than common enough for snakes to hide their plans even from each other.
Obviously.

“Sure. Of course. You too?”

“Yeah same. I know what I want, no idea how to get it.” He gave another put-upon sigh and
shot him a vaguely annoyed look that made no sense to Harry at all. It wasn’t the first time
he’d been given that look though so he let it go. “Guess we’ll have to work it out.”

Harry liked that he was okay with keeping things from each other for now, but did recognize
that Draco’s offer to help was very real, and… advise from a natural-born Slytherin wasn’t
something to scoff at.

“What would you do if your opponent is stronger than you?” He probed, earned a curious
grey eyed stare. “In every sense. Politically, magically, age…”

To his credit, Draco didn’t ask for details and just tilted his head back to think it over. “Ask
Father, to start.” He admitted honestly, but by Harry’s unamused deadpan continued without
prompting. “I would guess Father would say I’d need to cash in favors, and if I didn’t have
any I’d have to get some. If it’s an adult you’re up against, you’ll need adult allies I’d think,
no way around it.”

Harry pouted a bit at that. Adult allies? McGonagall, maybe?

No, the twins said she was loyal to Dumbledore… she was by far his favorite teacher and he
did trust her, but that didn’t also mean she didn’t trust Dumbledore. Academic help was not
the same thing as helping him go around Dumbledore’s wide range of influence to free
himself from adults’ control—kids rarely got that kind of freedom in general and he was a bit
more high profile than other orphans. She was the deputy headmistress and if the twins
considered anything told to her to be something told to Dumbledore, Harry wasn’t prepared
to distrust their word on that just yet, they were too good with information for that to be wild
Gryffindor conjecture or something. At least, Harry thought he had a good feel for when the
twins were spouting wild Gryffindor rhetoric, and this wasn’t something that fell into that
category.

He didn’t have a great reason not to trust her, but he was still a Gryffindor and his instincts
were extremely conflicted over it. And being conflicted over someone did not make them a
good ally—maybe she’d help him, maybe she wouldn’t… maybe she’d think she was helping
him and just make it worse.

Like Mrs. Malfoy.

Harry brushed it off quickly. The advice was sound, but he didn’t exactly have any adult
allies to lean on right now, so he was still at square one.

Something else Draco might know though…

“…do you know the names Marlene McKinnon, Peter Pettigrew, or Remus Lupin?”

Draco blinked at the sudden change in conversation, but just furrowed his brow to try and
remember.

“Pettigrew for certain—though I think it’s because his death was really well known at some
point.” He admitted, which caused Harry to deflate a bit. He had figured the fact he’d never
heard of most of these people despite them being in his parents’ will meant something had
happened to them, but still… he’d had hope.

“Lupin and McKinnon ring a bell, they were magical lines at one point, though probably a
while back as I think it’s from studying lineage like forever ago.” Draco squinted as he tried
to recall. “I don’t know anyone by those names today though, much less those people
specifically. I could ask my parents?”

“That’s okay, I might trade Daphne for it instead. Just wanted to check with you first.” He
waved it off like that wasn’t hugely disappointing, switching gears a bit. “Does Longsgate or
the Eileen Prince Foundation ring a bell?”

“Longsgate sort of does, I think Father’s mentioned it but I’m not sure. The foundation
though—not a clue. Do you know what it is?”

“No.” He paused, but the fact the blond wasn’t pressing for details made it comfortable
enough to try and offer up the details himself for once. “I ah… I finally got to read my
parents will right before term started.”

Grey eyes fixed on him intently, but thankfully didn’t give much away, for which Harry was
grateful. He still wasn’t sure how to feel about it himself, much less dealing with Draco’s
emotions should he have them.
“Those are all in it?” Was all he asked instead.

“Yeah. All of it was news to me though—my relatives aren’t mentioned once, yet had all
these people in it I’ve never met.”

“McKinnon and Lupin were older names though. There’s… I mean they could’ve died.”

“Yeah.” He let out a tired breath. He had figured as much.

“And the Foundation?”

“It was kind of… a lot to take in all at once. I didn’t ask my account manager about that
specifically.”

“Right.” Draco simply accepted that, and it was probably the simplest conversation they’d
ever had. The surprisingly oblivious snake must finally be picking up on some things after all
this time to be able to read the room for once. “Speaking of a foundation, did you ever get an
answer on your investment? That glasses shop, right? It could be a good opportunity
depending on how it’s set up.”

“Oh, right,” Harry blinked, remembering one of the letters Axeclaw had given him when he
first got to Gringotts had information on that. He couldn’t quite remember what it had said
though… and it certainly felt like seven or eight lifetimes had passed since their
conversations about finances and investments around this very same lake at the end of term
last year.

That’s right… Draco had been tutoring him about how to handle the Potter-Monroe family
estates like a pureblood. And that had only been a couple months ago. To Draco… nothing
had changed.

Nothing had changed.

Business as usual… if only he could really believe that.

“How are the two related, if they were set up correctly or whatever?” He was happy to jump
back into safer territory, and he enjoyed both the late summer breeze and Draco’s voice
washing over him as they finished their walk around the grounds.

000

Getting back to Hogwarts was good.

Distance, helped. It helped a lot more than Harry had expected it to, but when you had things
to do in a day and people to talk to and masks to wear, it made pushing terrible things that
haunted the dark corners of your mind into, you know, a dark corner and ignore it for most of
the day.

It helped that he was no longer required to be the instigator for a lot of his day-to-day
activities like he was last year. The football club had been almost entirely taken over by Lu
and Dean, and now it was less him trying to get people together and more Lu coming up to
him to let him know when the next practice was. Wood hunted him down at the earliest
opportunity to talk their quidditch practice schedule, and while he had the expected freak out
that Harry couldn’t attend practices for the first couple weeks of term, upon hearing
McGonagall supported it he shut right up (he knew what Harry knew, that if McGonagall was
willing to risk quidditch for it then it was pretty damn serious). Classes were normal in that
he was given work and had time to then do said work at his leisure, and he was
procrastinating a lot less than he had last year. Hagrid sent him notes at breakfast inviting him
to tea, the twins scooped him up for a minor prank here and there, Daphne approached him
first for a deal to get his Transfiguration notes, Neville invited him to watch him garden in the
Greenhouses, McGonagall provided him new texts or spells to research unprompted because
she now knew he’d be interested in it, and even Blaise would occasionally appear to pick a
fight with him before vanishing like he wasn’t actually searching out a Gryffindor just for his
entertainment. Draco needed no prompting to go back to their in-school letter writing and
now that Harry was actually responding, even if it was slower than it’d once been, he wasn’t
nearly as pushy as he’d been over the summer.

He didn’t need to do anything, people came to him now. Which was good because he didn’t
quite have the energy or spark he once did to go out and instigate things every single time.
He still liked talking to his friends and being involved and busy, but he found himself
hesitating or just keeping to himself when left alone—so people coming to him and asking
him to get involved was a lot easier. It was kind of a relief to just accompany others on their
own plans that they’re in charge of, and that he could just enjoy the ride without thinking too
hard on it.

He also highly enjoyed the connections others seemed to have made without him: the best
examples being Lu and Susan practically joined at the hip most days (and always arguing,
from what Harry was seeing from a distance), and he’d actually caught Blaise having a civil
conversation with Dean a couple times when Harry and Draco were forcing the two friend
groups to co-exist for a time walking between classes. He’d even been taken very off guard to
catch Daphne and Hannah huddled in the library not too soon after term started—and by the
magazine they were giggling over they were most definitely not studying.

Those kinds of connections and conversations would almost definitely not have ever existed
without him meddling last year, and it filled him with an insane amount of pride despite not
having anything to do with people making the decision to be friends or not. It made him want
to do more this year, he just… didn’t quite have the energy at the moment to do so at the
moment. But letting things be as they were for now was not a bad thing at all.

Everyone around him at least seemed… genuinely happier, doing their own things and living
their lives. Harry did not need to participate, but there was this unspoken open invitation to
join in if he wanted to, and often times even an actual offer for him to accompany them. But
he was not obligated to do anything and he was also fully okay to just sit and enjoy everyone
enjoying each other around him and it… helped.

As the world around him got warmer, so did he— and the chill inside of him he couldn’t
seem to fully shake too.
The potions Madam Pomfrey gave him did wonders and he slowly felt more himself than he
had in a long while—less out of breath going up Hogwarts’ many stairs, able to go longer in
the football club, even taking walks around the lake to breathe in the fresh air while the
warmer weather lasted. The most critical potions were definitely still the dreamless sleep
drafts though—he always had a calming draught on him but hadn’t actually needed to use it
for quite a while with everything else distracting him in a day.

Sleeping though… he’d thought he was tired enough to not need it and had ended up in
Neville’s bed again, and luckily the blond just moved over in the middle of the night to let
him do it, even half asleep as he usually was. He’d never mentioned it, but he had started
visibly taking note of when Harry was taking a potion before bed, and when he wasn’t.

And unfortunately he wasn’t far enough ahead to know the silencing charm, so Seamus being
the sincerely good guy he was definitely noticed him either just not sleeping, or waking up
from unpleasant dreams more often than not, and Dean therefore caught on quick as well.
They had brought up their concern that he went to bed as late as they did, but was always
gone hours before they woke, on top of his poor sleep itself being pretty obvious in the room
they shared.

Luckily they were easily dissuaded by Harry’s excuses, and honestly he couldn’t even
remember what excuses he’d given them as the lying came so easily and they were so easily
deflected. So while they knew, they didn’t bring it up again, which was a relief.

True to her promise Pomfrey had started attempting to teach him the glamour charm when he
visited to refresh his potion stores, but it was certainly not as easy as Transfiguration was and
despite some honest effort had made no progress with it. Until he could figure it out he was
back to his muggle make-up, and now in addition to his scars he was hiding growing circles
beneath his eyes that not even the nutrient potions he was still taking could fix.

All in all, life was… full again. Good or bad, seemed to depend on the hour (or even the
minute honestly) but as he got into the hang of Hogwarts life again the good was certainly
outnumbering the bad.

He’d almost forgotten to pay attention on anything that wasn’t the ebb and flow and day and
night until he was shocked out of it by a flash going off at breakfast that momentarily blinded
him.

“You’re Harry Potter!” A tiny voice squeaked, and Harry could only stare wide-eyed as he
slowly turned and was met with a tiny light blond standing next to him at the breakfast table
holding an old-fashioned camera that seemed to dwarf him.

“Er… what?” He blinked cleverly, because it wasn’t 8am yet and even having been up for
three hours already he wasn’t fully there to be able to react properly to this. That was his
excuse at least, when it took him a couple seconds to connect the dots, but he did belatedly
figure it out. “Wait, I was warned about you. You’re Colin, right?”

The little boy seemed to be in awe that he knew his name, and nodded eagerly. “Yep! I’m
Colin Creevey! I wanted to say hi but you sit at different tables all the time!”
“Well you could’ve said hi at any table, they don’t bite.” He paused, then immediately
backtracked. “Except the Slytherins. They might.” He admitted, and the boy balked before
nodding seriously to that advice.

“Okay, good to know! I’m actually taking pictures of everything for my brother and parents
—had no idea magic was real until I got my letter so I’m photographing everything—can I
take your picture?”

“Didn’t you already do that?” Harry leaned his elbow on the table to cradle his chin in his
hand, watching the excitable boy in amusement.

“Wha—uh I mean—”

“Taking pictures without permission is very rude you know.”

“Sorry!” He wailed in panic and Harry couldn’t help but grin. He now knew he was spending
way too much time with the Slytherins because the only thought pinging around his head was
aw, what a cute baby Gryffindor. He was only a year older but this kid’s squeaky voice and
the fact he was vibrating on the spot made him seem half his actual age, easy.

“I’m okay with a picture but if you spread it about to anyone but your family or don’t ask
permission again you won’t be able to find that camera for a week, hear me?” He threatened
lightly with a grin and the boy quailed but nodded eagerly as he lifted his camera.

Only to let out a tiny eep as Harry lifted it from his hands and pulled on his sleeve gently,
handing it to Neville beside him who was watching the exchange in equal amusement.

“What’s the point of documenting a memory if you’re not in it?” He teased, pulling the boy
to his side and posing for Neville, who got with the program and lifted it obediently. Colin
looked very flabbergasted to suddenly have the roles reversed and didn’t not quite manage to
smile in time for the flash to go off. Harry gave his very best camera-worthy grin and it felt
good to be vain again as he patted the boy on the head while his camera was placed gently
back into his hands. “There you go, happy?”

“I—uh—yeah! Thank you!” he perked up, taking a few seconds for his brain to stop short-
circuiting but then getting back to it at full steam. “That’s so awesome, I was so excited to
meet you! When I was reading about the magical world there were a bunch of books on you
you know and everything you did is just so cool!”

Harry’s humor evaporated in a puff and he felt his temple twitch.

“Like you defeating the dark lord and the scar you got and all that was so cool! I heard you
had dark hair though but you hair is so pretty and I when I told Dennis—he’s my brother—I
was going to meet Harry Potter he just about screamed it was awesome! But you’re like super
cool and I-!”

A dark hand came from behind and clamped itself over Colin’s overactive mouth, Harry
looking up and letting out a sigh of relief at Dean’s abashed smile, a snickering Seamus
behind him.
“Figured you might’ve stabbed him if he kept going.” The second year joked, but also at the
same time was not joking at all.

Harry appreciated that he understood. And that must’ve been apparent on his face because
Seamus leaned around Dean to poke Colin pointedly in the shoulder to get his attention.

“Word of advice kid? Don’t do that. He will hex you.”

Colin, still muffled by Dean’s hand, turned big blue eyes to Harry imploringly, and only got a
very wide, slightly mischievous grin in return.

“Take the advice.” He offered helpfully, and he started nodding rapidly enough that Dean let
him go.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean anything by it!”

“It’s alright, I just don’t like being called a celebrity for no reason. You don’t even know me
and are talking about things I’ve supposedly done? Bit rude, isn’t it? Not to know me as a
person first?” He poked half playfully, half seriously, and Colin wilted immediately.

“Right, yes, okay I won’t do that—sorry!”

“It’s fine—have a waffle.” He pulled the kid onto the bench between him and Neville and he
beamed in awe to be invited in, to the point Neville looked worried he was going to pass out.
“You said you’re a muggleborn? What do you like best about Hogwarts so far?” He prompted
politely, and like that the boy was off, mouth moving a mile a minute again but at least on far
safer topics.

It was also highly amusing to hear about the wonder of magical boarding school through new
eyes after they’d been there a year already, and some things that they’d gotten used to easily
—like Peeves, Hagrid, the Transfiguration professor being able to casually turn into a cat—
still being so new and novel and weird to fresh eyes that Harry was fascinated. Even if the
speed and enthusiasm in which Colin could speak was a bit of a headache, in small doses this
was probably fine. And maybe he’d calm down once he got used to Hogwarts too… maybe.

He was so caught up in trying to understand the first year’s rapid-fire babbling, he almost
didn’t notice someone coming up behind him until he was being tapped on the shoulder and a
familiar cough interrupting him. And just him, because Colin didn’t seem to notice and did in
fact not stop for breath.

“Oh hey Lu,” he greeted the Ravenclaw above him casually, almost thinking he was going to
say something about the football practice later today before realizing he was not
unaccompanied.

“Morning. Mind if I add another first year into the mix? This is Luna.” He kind of didn’t give
Harry a chance to answer before gently pushing another small (small? She was his height—
damn his short genes!) first year forward and she blinked widely at him with a rather dazed
smile like she didn’t mind the man-handling at all.
“Hello,” He greeted automatically, and she nodded politely back.

“Hello. You’ve got quite a lot of humputs this morning, must be deep thoughts.”

Uh… what?

Harry looked up at Lu again for clarification, but the Ravenclaw was just gone.

“Uh, what?” he repeated out loud then and the blond only smiled calmly.

“Humputs buzz around people with conflicted thoughts. And you’ve got quite a bit of them.”

“Humputs?” Neville nervously asked from the side and she nodded happily in confirmation.
By his tone he’d never heard of them before, and Neville was decently good with plants an
animals having been raised pureblood so… Harry had some serious reservations about this.

“It’s a bit surprising you have humputs instead of wrackspurts though, you seemed like the
type to have wrackspurts. That’s my bad though.” Her voice was lofty and… kind of ditzy
sounding as she apologized very sincerely and quite politely for apparently mistaking him,
and honestly Harry just could not wrap his head around this.

If he’d forgotten to pay attention, he was most certainly focused on the present now.

000

“That was devious.” Susan snickered, Lu plopping down at the Hufflepuff table beside her
and snatching a piece of toast from her plate. She let it happen, too amused with the small
Ravenclaw now trailing after a red-headed mystery with stars in her eyes as a very confused
Harry Potter left the Great Hall with two blond first years cheerfully following him like lost
ducklings. His dormmates were following at a safe distance and visibly snickering at his
predicament that he seemed at a total loss of how to handle for once.

“What can I say, Harry causes almost as many problems as he fixes.” He snickered, earning a
light smack to his shoulder.

Luna hadn’t made a fantastic entrance into Ravenclaw house. She was eerie and… well,
super weird. In a house that spent 90% of their time talking facts, riddles, and knowledge, a
girl who believed in non-existent creatures so blatantly was a bit much. And kids were not
known to be kind to those who were so vastly different than them.

Lu had only taken notice of her because her sense of style was even weirder than Harry’s, and
had quickly noticed her year mates avoided her like the plague. And then her shoes had
started going missing and Lu knew something was up. He wasn’t planning on getting
involved with the first years’ drama until he’d casually mentioned it to Susan during lunch
one day, and she’d steadfast refused inaction as a viable option, for some reason demanding
he do something to fix it so…

The upper years of his house wanted as much to do with the weirdo child as her year mates
did, so Lu had decided the answer was probably not going to be in Ravenclaw, and he’d had
enough of a certain flashy Gryffindor preaching inter-house unity to think of who just might
be interested in helping instead. Luna had caught his attention because she was just as out
there as Harry had been, only not even a fraction as sociable or popular. He was sure she’d
grow up to be as clever as any Ravenclaw he knew given she never even hesitated with the
common room password, but Luna also didn’t seem to care at all that people around her were
actively and blatantly bullying her for her weirdness. So she didn’t even try to defend herself
like Harry always seemed to be able to defend his own quirks, and had been from day one at
Hogwarts.

Which, Lu was torn between thinking that was rather foolish, but also kind of admirable of
her in its own way.

Introducing the two was logical, as Harry had always been very vocal about inter-house
relationships, more so than any other student or even any teacher in Hogwarts at all. Lu
would’ve hesitated in introducing them for fear of the weirdness the two combined could
create, but Susan wasn’t taking no for an answer so he gave in and just accepted whatever
was going to come from this, no matter how weird it ended up being.

Not to mention complicated.

Harry was undoubtedly popular, as in the span of one school year he’d gone from being the
weirdo first-year with strange, radical ideals to somehow having Slytherin house wrapped
around his little finger, star of the Gryffindor quidditch team (which earned him forgiveness
for 90% of his sins in the lions’ eyes), a public figure in the rapidly-growing football club,
and a known prodigy in Transfiguration (which didn’t hurt his chances with the eagle house
at all). His presence was loud even in the din of the Great Hall, hair like a beacon around the
large room and his reputation both as the Boy Who Lived and also as the utter wild-child
“Harry Potter” had turned out to be meaning that at any given time, someone could (and
likely was) having a conversation about him somewhere, whether their words were good or
bad, complimentary or malicious. Everyone knew him on some level, if not personally in
some way given he seemed to actively be trying to meet everyone in the whole school before
he graduated.

He was likable or hateable—loved or feared—no matter what you thought of him everyone
had some thoughts concerning him. He was a remarkably polarizing person which made it
almost impossible to stand in front of him and feel nothing.

Which meant that by taking a weird little Ravenclaw under his wing, Luna was going to be
the talk of the school at least for a couple weeks. She was going to get a lot of flack and
interest, and while Lu was sure the small girl wouldn’t care at all about any of it, Harry
probably would.

If anyone tried to give her a hard time (which, they probably would, because even eagles
could be damn stupid about some things) Lu had a feeling a lot of Ravenclaws were going to
end up in the hospital wing in the next month or so. Or they were going to get a deluge of
pranks centered around their house, which he was not looking forward to.

Maybe he should sit at the Hufflepuff table on a more permanent basis for a while.
Either way, with Harry as her protector then Luna was going to be safe from house bullies at
least, but her overall life would be far more complicated. Not that she would care, but Lu was
not stupid enough to think he wouldn’t get caught in it eventually.

Well, what’ll be will be. He gave up, munching on his stolen toast happily and joining Susan
in watching Harry’s face as he tried in vain to follow along with what the heck his new young
friend was talking about.

Heh, Harry being taken off guard for once is actually super funny.
 In Order

Harry ran down one of the rather empty fifth floor corridors of Hogwarts, relishing in the fact
that the running wasn’t that much of a strain as it once was. He almost had his own speed and
endurance back, and if that wasn’t a bloody miracle… well, maybe he should really stop
underestimating magical medicine because it truly was miraculous. He thought he had a
better understanding of the wizarding world, but it kept surprising him still, so that muggle
upbringing of his seemed to be hanging on in the back of his brain more than he’d like it to.

He was just a tad late—he wanted to ask permission to perform a new spell from his joke
book from McGonagall and she’d actually allowed him to do it which was awesome, except
her only available office hours for his schedule today meant he was kind of hustling to get to
his next class on the other side of the school. Hence the running with his bag slung round his
shoulders and his book tucked tightly into his arms.

He almost didn’t notice anything wrong as he spun around a corner and was met with a
cluster of people—they looked to be first years, the bell hadn’t rung for the next class yet,
and it was in the vicinity of the Charms classroom so they were probably just using up their
time hanging out.

At least, that’s what he’d assumed was going on before no less than seven of them suddenly
found the ceiling or their shoes simply fascinating.

And then he noticed there was an equal number of people with red and green badges on their
robes and they seemed to be standing with a noticeable space between the two groups.

Well isn’t this fascinating. Binns won’t even notice if I don’t show up at all much less am a
couple minutes late.

“Hey! You’re Ginny right?” He zeroed in on the only first year he recognized of the group,
and the fellow redhead went scarlet in mortification since the rest of the bystanders were
clearly eavesdropping, given Harry had obviously just walked in on something, but she
dutifully nodded anyway.

“Ah—y-yeah. You’re Harry Potter, right?”

“Monroe actually,” He corrected extremely warmly with the friendliest smile he could muster
up. “I’ve been meaning to catch up with our new first years! But you know, busy-busy;
Hogwarts never lets anyone rest. Welcome though, hope you’re all enjoying yourselves!” He
laughed it off, but before they could get too comfortable with the topic turned on the dime to
the little snakes to his right, and they all noticeably stiffened up. A couple had better poker
faces, but… not really.

Oh my god they’re all little Dracos! He thought, positively gleeful. And if he let that show on
his face, it clearly just terrified them.
“And the new Slytherins! I love Slytherins, I was almost sorted there myself you know! Class
is almost about to start but I’ll be at your table for lunch so come say hi, alright? Promise I
don’t bite!” He laughed, then shot them a slightly more serious look. “Much.”

Before they could blink he took off again, waving over his shoulder without looking back.

“Gonna be late, but try to get along!”

And then he laughed all the way to History of Magic imagining their reactions, because
whatever aneurysm he’d given them, they deserved it. He spotted no Colin Creeveys or other
muggleborns he knew of, and if they were already fighting mere weeks into school after he’d
done so much to cross the boundary between the lion and snake house last year, they were
definitely purebloods who’d been raised prejudiced against each other.

The rest of the school got with the program pretty quickly that he was loud, and nosey, and he
wasn’t going to put up with that shit. They must’ve been aware of his stance because they all
tried to look elsewhere when he showed up suddenly, but still. They definitely deserved it.

He could tell his year mates thought he was insane when he walked into History a couple
minutes late with a mega-watt smile on, although only Neville had the good sense to just sigh
and ignore it as his friend slipped into the seat he’d saved beside him. Harry didn’t care
though, that was far too much fun.

Hierarchy was a weird thing, and he now knew why upper year Slytherins bullied the heck
out of their underclassmen—it was just so much fun. He couldn’t get away with too much on
his own Gryffindor underclassmen, but the snakes were built off a distinct hierarchy and so it
went that year-levels were the very basic core of it all. Second years had ranking on first
years, third years had ranking on seconds years, and so on. From what Harry could tell,
seventh, sixth, and maybe fifth years were all on the same level and their hierarchy was more
based around the reputations they’d built themselves in the first 5-6 years at Hogwarts, as a
poor snake seventh year could easily be trampled by a dominate fifth year, and so forth. Fifth
years were kind of a different breed on their own though, as they had OWLs to contend with
so they were mostly removed from a lot of the inner-house ongoings while they focused on
their studies—or they would start withdrawing around Christmas, probably.

But the very reason Draco struggled so much last year, was because first years were easy
pickings and didn’t exactly have much clout or reputation within their house yet to lean on.
What were those firstie snakes going to do, tell on him? The most an upper year Slytherin
would say was ‘get good’, or ‘don’t pick on the weirdo Gryffindor you idiot, he eats snakes
for lunch’.

Not that Harry hadn’t fully instigated that confrontation, but so far as anyone could prove
he’d been nothing but friendly.

He’d been nothing but friendly to the first year Ravenclaws he’d caught stealing Luna’s ink
pots too, which may have contributed to his new reputation amongst the first years to not let
him catch them causing conflict with each other.
Because if they wanted conflict, Harry could bring conflict. And given they had a couple
weeks of magic under their belts, let’s just say they were not prepared for the amount of
conflict he could bring down on them. Especially not when the twins had learned of his
friendly conversation with a bunch of Ravenclaws and had gleefully given him tips and
suggestions of how to improve his friendliness.

Not to toot his own horn but Harry was pretty sure he was doing more for house unity by
being a quasi-bully than any teacher in this entire school, and you know, he was fine with
that.

Neville wasn’t by his weary sighing every time Harry went off, but he had promised to speak
up if he were going too far by crossing any lines, but so far the blond hadn’t said anything
officially, just given him weary looks of ‘why must you be this way?’.

In any case, this sudden new crusade of his fired him up to the tips of his toes and the roots of
his hair. It wasn’t quite anger or frustration although the sheer determination to support house
unity by force if he needed to was definitely rooted in those emotions, but honestly he was
having too much fun to be properly upset. Being his old social self, meeting new people,
sassing at them until they were civil and having it work more often than not was a great thrill
—self-fulfilling and satisfying in many ways. He’d skipped ahead three years of magic last
year fueled by his desire to protect Draco, and this year when he’d suddenly had the hazy-
eyed, day-dreamer Luna Lovegood and the overly excitable squirrel that was Colin Creevey
dropped into his lap, he’d suddenly filled out with a righteous fire to protect them too.

Honestly, he didn’t know why Neville was being so judge-y, this was as Gryffindor as he’d
ever been before. He had a new life about him that he’d been sorely missing, which seemed
to revitalize his soul as he got back into the swing of being the social butterfly he used to be.

Neither first year that he’d adopted necessarily needed him, which was good and also the
main reason he was suddenly invested in securing house unity not just for the principle of the
thing, but for the future students of this magical boarding school as well. Colin was the
weirdest mix between Hermione and Seamus—he was 110% totally invested in the magic
around him because it was cool and doing his homework felt more like reading adventure
novels rather than textbooks (honestly, Harry could relate sometimes although that magic
had definitely worn off before finals last term) but he was also very, very oblivious to social
clues and kind of trampled conversations without thinking. Luckily he balanced it with being
a very genuine, friendly guy who was always happy to help if he could, so despite being
objectively an annoyance, his seemed to have some solid friends in his dormmates who
weren’t about to exclude him just because he couldn’t shut up to save his life. That didn’t
mean the girls of his year didn’t start tossing sharp barbs his way nor that some upper years
hadn’t tried to tell him to shut the hell up, but Harry glaring at them and/or slyly inserting
himself into their conversations as if daring them to talk about how annoying Colin was to
his face seemed to spread the message that, annoying or not, they were to be nice to their
underclassmen or else.

Luna was a bit harder as she wasn’t in his house, but luckily she either didn’t notice, or was
just so far above this plane of existence to even care that her year mates were outright
bullying her. Harry loved Luna immediately, and while he was still not sure if she even
properly acknowledged he existed for how far above the clouds her mind seemed to be, he
was kind of just down for it honestly. She never sought him out but was always happy to see
him if he found her in the library or by the lake, thrilled to talk as long as he wanted if he sat
down beside her. She had some… interesting ideals, and after double checking with Lu,
confirmed that most of her references were akin to what unicorns and leprechauns were to the
muggle world.

Although given both those things had proven to be very real halfway through Harry’s life
after he’d been raised to believe them impossible, he was absolutely not about to say with
confidence such a thing couldn’t happen again. Wizards loved the excuse because magic with
no founding to support it so there was literally no non-hypocritical reason to think Luna’s
creatures couldn’t be real. Harry’s whole attitude when learning magic was, ‘if I think I can, I
can—because magic’ and he hadn’t been lead astray thus far, so if Luna kept believing then
because magic would likely prove her right, somehow. At least that was Harry’s theory until
proven wrong.

Protecting Luna was a bit harder as A) she didn’t tell him when she was being bullied, simply
phrasing it like ‘oh, it seems my shoes have gone missing—must be the nargles’, and B) she
really did not care about it and just let it happen. And given free license to do it without any
repercussions, people were likely to keep doing it.

Harry himself was a great example of that.

Luckily eagles were quicker studies than lions, so one friendly conversation with a couple of
them later and they seemed to lay off Luna. At least in ways he could outwardly notice, that
is, which he knew was all he could do for now until Luna actually started caring and/or
telling him about it. Jury was out on if that’d ever happen or not.

Eventually he calmed down and the droning of Binns’ voice was boring enough to dull his
thrill of messing with his underclassmen, the quiet classroom and the lazy scratching of
halfhearted note taking around him lulling him into a dreary haze that only History of Magic
could put him under.

He had his own journal out in front of him, but as he brushed the feather end of his quill over
the page languidly as he considered taking a note, he quickly realized he wasn’t hearing
anything Binns was saying to even know what the write.

Yeah, this class sucks.

The boredom got to be really unbearable and there was something tempting about a journal
that had nothing written in it just yet, so despite not strictly wanting to… he realized he
should probably get his thoughts in order. Like a to-do list of sorts, since he’d been avoiding
it so far and, well… what else was he going to do write now? Take notes?

Yeah, no.

He hadn’t been able to get back to his graveyard in… well, that was another matter, so since
his thoughts were not being very cooperative lately, writing it out might help.
First item…

…he needed (he needed) to know if Sirius Black was innocent or not.

Realistically, going by what Daphne had said last year, even if he were miraculously innocent
there was no way he’d be sane enough to be an actual guardian if he were to be released.
Azkaban was just that bad that people didn’t just walk away from over a decade in there
perfectly fine, and after this summer Harry could understand that with a crystal clarity he’d
never had before now.

There was still the chance he wasn’t innocent at all, and he was in prison because the crime
was so clear-cut everyone just knew. But the wizarding world was full of things that everyone
just knew and were frankly total bullshit in Harry’s opinion so there was also the chance he
hadn’t done anything wrong—or at least not wrong enough to warrant incarceration without a
bloody trial. This magical society was just messed up enough that Harry would not put it past
them to have messed up that badly (honestly not even muggle society was that faultless either,
so there was a chance!).

But he had to know. Either way, he couldn’t move forward until there was some kind of
answer one way or another. If Sirius Black were innocent and freed and actually allowed (and
willing) to be his legal guardian, then problem solved! Each one of those things made the
chances of it happening even less likely to happen though, so it certainly wasn’t his only
plan, but it was the one that had to be cleared first.

How to get started on it wasn’t even that hard, he knew the Greengrass family would always
up for a trade. And… honestly, after the summer, Harry was now willing to give up a lot
more for this than he was last year. Last year it hadn’t been so critical, so while he might’ve
hesitated in doing bigger deals with the Grey than simple class notes, now he suddenly had a
lot less hesitation, and what he thought might’ve been too expensive before suddenly seemed
like a fair deal in comparison to the alternative.

He didn’t know how long it would take though, and it most certainly wasn’t the only horse he
had in the race because there was still the undeniable fact that Sirius Black really could just
be his parent’s betrayer and nothing more, or simply not fit or willing to take on a kid once
freed from the hellhole that was Azkaban. He needed to know the fate of other people
mentioned in his parents’ will to start, and he was kind of assuming they were all dead but
just in case they weren’t it would be good to check.

Given all of that not working… he was kind of back to square one. Adult allies as Draco had
advised was far easier said than done, especially coming from a spoiled boy whose parents
loved him and had a vulturous bat as a godfather secretly tutoring him. There was the
academic route, in which he could ‘change his mind’ and want to start publishing his
Transfiguration work early, so he could get McGonagall to get him in contact with a
publisher or editor of sorts. They might be interested in their client being emancipated, or at
least be a willing go-between to a barrister…

Ah, but McGonagall had been against him publishing so young, and to suddenly change his
mind would be suspicious. Not to mention he probably could not hide his communication
with an editor from her, as she’d be looking out to make sure he wasn’t taken advantage of or
got his work stolen “again” after the Montague ordeal. McGonagall was still an option but…
yeah, he’d come back to that if he couldn’t think of anything. While he did like her a lot as a
teacher, he wasn’t sure he could actually trust her to keep this from Dumbledore.

Same went for all teachers in the school as well as Hagrid. He wouldn’t loved to have Hagrid
as an ally but there was no way that’d work—he was very vocally brainwashed by
Dumbledore’s benevolence to be able to hear anything else, no matter if he genuinely cared
about him or not.

The clearest way would be to get emancipated, but as that documentation needed to come
from Dumbledore… yeah, not happening. He needed a legal guardian or some kind of legal
exception that made that irrelevant. The easiest way, although it certain didn’t feel easy, was
to get a magical legal guardian but…

He put his quill down in annoyance, biting his lip in irritation.

Inspiration hadn’t just come because he wanted it to last year, the opportunity had simply
fallen into his lap and the idea to use it just popped into his head one day. He knew (hoped)
that would happen for this too but just being patient and biding his time until the opportunity
presented itself was a lot harder this go around. Maybe because the consequences of not
figuring this out were a lot more drastic—he wasn’t just trying to fix a problem, he was
trying to avoid literal death probably, and if he couldn’t do it he was going to be faced with,
not just the chance, but the certainty of being back with muggles who had legitimately tried
to kill him. He loved Draco and fixing his position in Slytherin had been a need, been
something Harry had worked his butt of for, but it paled in comparison to how urgent and
desperate he was to figure this out.

He didn’t have time to just sit around and wait for inspiration to strike. At least, that’s what it
felt like, and it made him incredibly antsy.

By the time History was half over, not only had he not heard a word Binns had said, but also
the only thing in his journal was ‘talk to Daphne’, and he’d already known he had to do that,
he just hadn’t written it down so clearly.

At this rate I’m going to have to hope one of the people in my parents’ will isn’t a dead end—
literally. Maybe even if they are dead, they’ll have living relatives who’d be willing to help at
least a little.

There had to be someone though. His mind was not nearly as orderly as it’d once been, but he
knew he’d pushed a lot of things away over the past couple months, so now was the time to
bring them back and write them down. If only so he didn’t forget again, if not that one of
them might be a clue.

Just brainstorm. Write down everyone, narrow it down later.

Adults in his life? Teachers, for one. Not helpful though.

Still, he did the exercise of writing each and every one of their names down, then tentatively
crossing them all through with a single line. He had a reason for writing them all off, but he
wouldn’t outright scribble them out—if he got desperate enough, who knew? Suddenly some
of those reasons might not look too bad.

Parents of his friends? That one was… weird to think about, considering he had only ever
met Draco’s parents and that had been about as bad as he could’ve imagined, but then again,
he’d been desperate and he’d reached out. It hadn’t turned out like he planned, but it wasn’t a
horrible idea. He was already going to reach out to Daphne’s parents about Sirius Black’s
trial, and if he was still stuck by the end of the year he was already planning on facing Dalia
Zabini, terrible as that idea was. Slytherin parents though… he might need to be a tad more
desperate than he currently was to get too deep into that black hole.

But what about other parents?

The twins’ parents seemed nice enough. Mrs. Weasley had even sent him a Christmas present
last year, so despite probably going to be far closer to Ron than he’d like, he also be getting
closer to the twins which wasn’t bad at all. They might be willing to help…

Still. Going off what Draco had said, even considering the blond snake was very biased
towards the “blood traitors”, it sounded like the large family was firmly in the Dumbledore
camp, which turned him off immediately. The twins might be good allies all on their own, the
forces of nature that they were, leaving the Weasley parents out of it. He wrote them all down
individually to come back to later, but he needed more research on that.

Neville’s grandmother? Going off Neville’s accounts of her she sounded terrifying but…
once upon a time he and Neville were potentially supposed to be raised together. There might
be a legal loophole with the will in there somehow, although he really hesitated in using
Neville even more than he already did. He still felt kind of bad about their clearly lopsided
friendship and in no way felt like he deserved the kind Gryffindor’s solid presence by his
side, so intruding on his life like that seemed a horrible way to repay him. Even if Neville
himself either wouldn’t mind, or just wouldn’t speak up honestly of if it’d bother him or not.

He wrote it down and did not cross it off, but he had serious misgivings about it. Not good
misgivings backed in actual logic, just personal conflicted feelings over it he wasn’t ready to
confront just yet.

Susan’s aunt. That’s right, he meant to send her a gift basket… though she was with the
Ministry, the fact she wasn’t on Dumbledore’s side publicly was a great sign. He wrote her
name down with a little more enthusiasm, especially since Susan herself was very no-
nonsense; if he just genuinely asked her for legal help she’d probably be down without
asking too many questions. Okay yeah… that might be his first step after getting Sirius Black
his trial—in fact he could probably get to know the woman throughout the ordeal, since she
was head of the law enforcement division.

Who else? He scanned his list of friends trying to gauge who he knew well enough that it
wouldn’t be the weirdest thing ever to bring up talking to their parents randomly.

Seamus would be down to help, probably, though he knew so little about them if they raised a
kid like Seamus they weren’t horrible people. And on that note Dean’s parents were muggles,
but maybe that was an angle he hadn’t thought of yet? Even wizards worked within the
boundaries of the muggle world to a point despite having different governments technically,
so if he were to somehow be emancipated in the muggle world, would there somehow be a
way to make that work for his presence in the magical world? Or was he back to the idea of
him needing to finish his education in the muggle world to just flat out escape the wizarding
world until he was of-age?

That would mean dropping out of Hogwarts.

Which…

He sighed, tapping his quill on the page in agitation.

He’d given it serious thought over the summer, the idea of how much he needed Hogwarts
versus just wanted it. Of bloody course he wanted to keep attending here and be with his
friends and… and do all the normal childhood things he wanted to do. He would lose so
much if he dropped out, he knew that.

But with a sigh of defeat, he penciled the option in at the bottom of the page. If he didn’t
have a solution by the end of the year, he could buy time with Blaise in Italy. If he still was
stuck by the end of next year…

No one was going to be checking on if he was living with a legal guardian if he wasn’t
attending Hogwarts. Even if Dumbledore did check, or he lied again to say he did the check
when he hadn’t, and said Harry wasn’t living with a legal guardian, they could threaten to
expel him. Or, well, threaten might be a bad word because if it came to that Harry would let
them expel him right then and there—or just not show up to fourth year at all and get his
education elsewhere.

It was the last resort… but he knew that one would work. It’d suck, but it’d work and he
wouldn’t be forced to go back to Private Drive if no one could find him until he turned
seventeen.

And bad as that last option was, it was kind of a relief to sort through his thoughts enough to
know he had a back up of a back up of a back up plan. The severe pressure was off a bit now
that he had a last resort, and now it was just him trying to avoid dropping out of Hogwarts
instead of him trying to avoid being put back with murderous muggles. One of those
consequences was a lot less intense than the other, so it calmed him down a bit.

Between the start of fourth year and when he turned seventeen… that was three years he’d
need to hide out and hopefully not fall too far behind. If he kept up his studies somehow and
took the OWLs in the month after he turned seventeen and the start of term, he might even be
able to come back for seventh year if somehow Dumbledore let that happen. He was sure he’d
have a lot more help from the teachers of coming back for his last year of school than getting
emancipated though, so that might be easier than he imagined.

He shook it off slightly, refocusing. Dropping out and going into hiding was his last resort
after all, and while it was comforting to plan it out to ensure it’d actually work as the safety
net he wanted it to be, he wasn’t there yet.
He turned a page and jotted down his new plans of action in best to worst order.

First, get Sirius Black a trial. If everything miraculously goes right, he’s my rightful legal
guardian and Dumbledore can’t do shit about it. Even if it’s just signing the papers for
someone else to adopt me, that’ll be his right to do it, not Dumbledore’s.

Second, someone from the will is still alive and willing to help. Or one of their relatives
maybe.

Third… do more research into the muggle world. Maybe getting emancipated there will do
something.

Fourth, consider asking Neville and his grandmother. If there’s a legal loophole there, the
better.

Fifth, consider asking someone else’s parents. Work through the non-Slytherin list first.

Sixth, consider asking a Slytherin’s parents, although I’d really rather not.

Seventh… work on my dropping out of Hogwarts plan.

He sat back and looked at that plan, nodding to himself that it wasn’t a bad start, especially
for only one class period. He could refine it the more he went along.

Especially since the two things he could do today, was first talk to Daphne to clear up the
questions he already had, as well as send Madam Bones her gift basket to try and get to know
her a bit more. Both of those might change something in this list, the more he learned.

He felt… better, having a real plan. Or the skeleton of plans that might work. He had options
and contingencies, and one of them… one of them might work.

He glanced up at the clock and despite all he felt he’d accomplished, despaired that there was
still twenty minutes left of class.

000

It didn’t take him long to track down Daphne, as she was a pretty easy person to find since
many were always coming to her for deals now that she had a solid reputation of it. What was
harder was finding her alone for a second, and his best tactic ended up being doing what
Susan had done to him earlier by plucking the raven haired girl out of the throng of students
filtering out from dinner. And luckily her reputation meant no one blinked twice when he did
it, not even Daphne herself who just flashed him a smile and followed willingly to his
unspoken request for her to follow him.

Well, no one thought it was weird exactly, but he did get an absolutely filthy look from Pansy
Parkinson who’d been walking with the rest of the second-year Slytherin girls. That kind of
took him off guard as she’d been steadfast ignoring him all last year but Daphne had warned
him she was not going to be a Slytherin he was going to win over most likely. And given the
pitch-black allegiance of her family name, for once Harry wasn’t even tempted to try to get
into it with her, so he gave her glare a blank look in return before ignoring her again. She had
the decency to put her nose in the air and continue walking without commenting though, so
he brushed that off quickly.

Pansy Parkinson did not rank on his scale of things to care about at that moment, he’d come
back to whatever the hell that was later.

“I heard you scared the first years.” Daphne commented lightly in amusement as they walked
down the hall away from the crowds filtering back to the dorms for the night.

He gave her a wry look, admiring once more how fast the Hogwarts rumor mill worked,
particularly in Slytherin.

“Not that you can prove at least. What, gonna believe a first year over me?”

“Ha, hypocrite. I heard Loony Luna Lovegood can do no wrong by you, or anyone else so
long as you’re around.”

“Again, not that you can prove, but call her Loony again and see what happens,” he shot her a
wink and she grinned.

“Fair enough. So, got something for me?” She cut to the chase once they were decently alone,
and she was obviously very much expecting his answer.

“I want to make a deal.”

“You came to the right girl.” She puffed her chest out proudly. “You already know what I’m
after.”

“I do, but how many notes I give you depends on how big an ask this is, and I’ll admit I don’t
know if this is even possible.”

“Interesting. What is it?” She didn’t seem that bothered so he felt a tad bad about just
springing this on her, but figured honesty was the best policy. Rip the band aid off and
whatnot.

“Would your family have an in with the Daily Prophet?” He asked, but he already knew they
did. And as expected she startled a bit, clearly not expecting that turn.

She frowned.

“That’s… a lot bigger than I was expecting. But yes, we do have shares and also work with
the staff on various other deals.”

“I want to bring something up that’s probably going to cause controversy, and also the
Minister will try to bury it by any means necessary if he can.” He admitted rather hastily and
not shockingly she seemed a bit taken aback.

Now her eyes were properly narrowed at him, body turning to face him fully— unamused.
“Potter, this is a lot bigger than some Transfiguration notes. I would need my dad’s help for
that, and a perfect score in Transfiguration won’t cut it when he can easily just tell me to
study on my own.”

More than fair, honestly. Good ol’ Daphne, as up front as ever.

“Maybe not Transfiguration then. How about a debt? Not just from the Potter family—but
potentially the Black family too.”

Debts weren’t great, but Slytherins liked debts. He thought as much, as least; a trade that can
be banked in whenever? How could they say no?

He had expected surprise at the sudden good deal presented to her, but he hadn’t expected
how pale she suddenly got. She whipped around to double check the hallway was clear
before grabbing him by the arm and dragging him to the closest empty classroom, which was
honestly really ominous and suddenly he was thinking this might not have been such a great
idea after all.

She didn’t explain her odd actions as she slammed the door shut behind them and cut right to
the chase with a deeply disturbed frown.

“What are you after.”

Harry took a breath, but he’d come prepared and knew what he wanted to say. It was… just a
matter of bucking up and saying it.

“Sirius Black was never given a trial. I want to see him tried for what he apparently did.” He
blew out a breath both to steady himself a buy some time as he collected his words. “Best
case? He’s innocent and I get one living relative in my life and don’t have to live with
muggles anymore. Worst case? I still get to see the man who betrayed my parents crucified.”

He met her gaze pointedly to convey how serious he was about this, her eyes a very vibrant,
wary blue for how inky her hair was. He hadn’t really noticed that before.

It wasn't strictly natural, since the brunette gene and brown-eyed gene was supposed to be the
dominant one, so eyes that impossible light combined with dark hair wasn't actually that
common. Given his own hair was not strictly a normal color and that there was probably a
magical reason for it, he'd be a hypocrite to comment either way.

“I won’t know until he’s given a fair trial though. Forget politics for a second Daphne, you’re
not Blaise. Keeping an untried, potentially innocent man in Azkaban is wrong and I don’t
care how grey you are, you know it too.”

She stared at him, with a better poker face than most but she was not as good as some of her
housemates. Conflict, indecision, and even a sliver of fear played out across her face, and he
was curious as to what she was thinking but resigned himself to just waiting patiently for her
to work it out.
She was clearly thinking something over, almost fighting with something internally, and he
watched it happen for several long minutes as she got through it.

Eventually…

“…it goes against my better judgement, but I should tell you that offering a blanket debt to
someone isn’t smart. And I honestly like you Harry, I’m really not trying to trick you here so
please listen to me. You’re Harry Potter, and the kinds of things people can ask of you when
you’re just generally in debt with them is too risky. And to back out of a deal is basically
spitting on every friendship in Slytherin you’ve ever made.”

Including Draco, the words went unspoken but he felt it harshly in his stomach that was
exactly what her wide eyes were trying to silently communicate to him. Including her, was
also in there too, and he wasn’t sure how much of friends they actually were. For the first
time though, as her body language was suddenly highly uncomfortable and hesitant, he
realized she was not as ashamed as some other snakes were to admit she liked him as more
than just a means to an end. He honestly believed her when she said she was trying help by
warning him, and that was kind of a surprise, but a pleasant one.

If not also bittersweet given the position he was putting her in now. But… he couldn’t take it
back despite the fact she clearly wanted him to with this warning in the air now.

“Please don’t do it again.” She implored sincerely—and then paused, almost begging him to
speak up and back out now. Her tense silence assured him she wouldn’t judge him for it, just
please reconsider…

But he remained silent, waiting for her to finish. He better understood the gravity of what he
was doing now, how dangerous it could turn out to be even... but it didn't matter. His
priorities had shifted, and it was either do this or die like a worm at the hands of muggle pigs,
and he refused that ugly future with his entire soul.

After a couple long seconds she got the message, sighing as her shoulders slumped a bit,
before nodding a bit tightly.

“That being said… I’ll offer that deal to my father because he’s the one with the Prophet
connections so he’s the one you’ll have to deal with. I will take two Transfiguration notes
from you as payment for being your go-between.” She didn’t even sound happy about her
getting anything out of it, and Harry knew this was probably going to get him in trouble
but… it was worth the gamble.

He flashed her a slightly apologetic smile and tried to sound as sincere as he felt.

“Thank you, Daphne.”

“I’m serious Harry, don’t do it again. Not even to someone you trust; it’s just not worth it. I
trust my Dad, but he could be dealing with literally anyone, you know that.” She scolded
him, but sounded more weary than anything.
Even Voldemort himself, Harry acknowledged silently. Mr. Greengrass was not his daughter,
and he could be making deals with the dark lord himself if that were possible, or literally just
anyone else who wanted something out of Harry Potter the myth, or even the boy himself--
even Dumbledore as horrific as that was. Or perhaps he wanted something badly enough,
who would turn down a favor from the Boy Who Lived if he offered it as a trade?

Yeah, that could get him in some deep shit.

He fully acknowledged that future-him was going to curse himself for this.

He could see where Daphne was coming from: friendship didn’t trump business. Daphne
herself was one thing, she might be conflicted to find another way to go about doing it that
wouldn’t directly hurt him, but her father didn’t necessarily have the same concerns. And if
he didn’t care if Harry got hurt in the process, this might end up really badly.

But, thus being warned, Daphne had only traded a connection with her father. If this was
really as big as she was implying it was, maybe just getting his problem broadcasted in the
Prophet was too small thinking—maybe he could ask for more, like that he wanted Sirius
Black to have a trial for sure, not just have it talked about in the papers. The Greengrass
family had to have some great barristers on the payroll so maybe even getting him
represented in court too…

He was maybe getting ahead of himself, but despite this sticky situation it still seemed a lot
better a position than he’d thought it be. Short term at least—long term he was sure he’d hate
this but there wasn’t much he could do, he was pretty well stuck without adult allies or
whatever.

“I will give it better consideration next time,” He deflected her demand instead, and she shot
him a filthy look.

“Is that all?”

“Well…”

“It better not be-”

“It’s way less critical, I promise! Just some information!” He put his hands up in defense and
she leaned off a bit, though still looked suspicious. “And really old information too, I mean
so old you might not even know it. And I won’t be asking your dad for any more favors if
you don’t know it either.”

“Fine,” She huffed. “Depends on the ask before I demand my price.” She put her chin in the
air and Harry grinned, thankful the tense atmosphere had abated some.

“I want to know about some names and properties I’m not familiar with—Marlene
McKinnon, Peter Pettigrew, or Remus Lupin ring any bells?”

She blinked in slight surprise before shrugging, unbothered. “Tutoring. Two lessons.”

“Done.”
“Marlene McKinnon died in the first war, the ending days of it I think but then again so did a
lot of people. Things were getting really nasty before the dark lord suddenly fell, which I’m
sure contributed more than a bit to your fame.” She shrugged again and he sighed in defeat
since he couldn’t argue that. “I’m surprised you didn’t know about Pettigrew before asking
about Sirius Black though—he’s the guy Black supposedly killed along with a dozen
muggles that got him imprisoned.” She explained and Harry blinked. Okay… so that totally
made sense and also he’d called it with him being very, very dead.

“Do you know, or know the assumed reason, why he killed him?”

“It’s hard to say. Everyone thinks Black went insane, but more than that, I think they were all
friends. That Remus Lupin guy too—I’m pretty sure they were known during their time at
Hogwarts for being huge pranksters. Lupin, Black, Pettigrew, and of course James Potter.”
Harry’s mind spun… he knew his dad had been a prankster, Hagrid had told him all about it.
He’d never even hinted that there was more to it than that though, that he hadn’t been alone
in that…

Seeing his expression Daphne had mercy and was a tad more gentle as she explained.

“I think that’s why everyone is so happy to jump to ‘insanity’ as the reason he possibly
betrayed your parents and then killed Pettigrew. They were supposedly all great friends so
everything suddenly going wrong… I mean if it isn’t insanity that caused him to do it, then
it’s because Black was truly an evil guy, and from what I’ve heard no one actually wants to
believe that.”

Harry couldn’t deal with all the… emotion this was conjuring, so he just swallowed it and
forced himself to think clearly. He was here for information—he’d process it later.

“And Remus Lupin… is he-?”

“Not dead, so far as I’m aware, but…” She bit her lip as if hesitating, then shrugged. “Look,
my family doesn’t care and since you were raised with muggles maybe you won’t care… but I
know families like the Malfoys—they’ll care a lot.”

“Care about what?” He frowned.

“He’s a werewolf.” She admitted bluntly.

Wait, what? I thought werewolves haunted the Forbidden Forest? That’s the rumor the twins
spread around at least.

Daphne snorted, amused by his baffled expression.

“Seems you don’t care. Which, good, you might be able to reach out to him then—just be
very careful when you do.” She warned and suddenly it hit him that one person in the will
might actually still be around, and he perked up. The warning was a bit alarming though.

“Careful how?”
“You’ll be monitored to hell and back if you make contact with him. Werewolves…” She bit
her lip again, seeming a bit annoyed. “Well they’re dark creatures, technically. Not human.
Not to the Ministry, and not to a lot of society either. A lot of werewolves sided with the dark
lord in the war on top of it, but that only added to the absolute shit they get dealt on the daily.
Honestly the dark lord probably promised not to kill them if they served him, which is
frankly more than the so called Light ever guaranteed for them.”

Harry could not wrap his mind around this.

“So if I send a letter to him…?”

“It’ll definitely be intercepted by the Ministry. If he’s never made contact it was probably to
spare you. By being associated with a werewolf, not only are you subject to the same
treatment he gets—and let me tell you, you don’t want that—but you’re also limiting where
you can go in life. If you do reach out to him, do not tell anyone else in Slytherin you’re
doing it because they’ll track the name and they’ll know. Werewolves are publicly registered
with the Ministry and routinely dragged in for questioning which is essentially just them
pushing the poor saps around to let them know society still hates them. Being a werewolf-
sympathizer means you won’t be getting any public jobs and no matter what reputation you
have in Slytherin, most of the house won’t deal with you again. Get the picture?”

Oh my god that’s… what the HELL is wrong with this world?!

Then again, the muggle world had it’s fair share of this shit too... still, Jesus Christ.

“Just to be sure… is there a reason why…?”

“Why society hates them?” She raised a sarcastic eyebrow at him. “From where I’m standing,
because they’re werewolves is enough. There is fear, uneducated fear for sure, but fear is
always a big motivator at times. They are dangerous once a month—read up on werewolves
but take it with a grain of salt as even textbooks are a bit biased, they only focus on the wolf
part of a werewolf and trust me, meeting a werewolf on a full moon is a bad spot to be in and
people have a very real reason to be afraid of that scenario. The other 27 days a month?
They’re just people.” She seemed highly annoyed again, and the longer she talked, Harry
was getting pretty peeved off too.

“People who can’t get jobs because no one will hire them, and then of course the wolfsbane
potion which makes it so they don’t lose their minds during the full moon is ungodly
expensive so almost none of them can actually buy it, much less twelve times a year.” She
rolled her eyes. “They live in communities off to themselves for these very reasons, but they
get harassed by wizards enough that it certainly shocked no one when they joined the dark
lord. Either people were prejudiced and assumed dark creatures would of course join the dark
side, or they were smart enough to realize that they were treated like shit so of course they’d
joined the side that promised equal rights—even if it was all equally subjugated.” She ranted
a bit.

Harry frowned at the obvious exception to that though.

“But this Remus Lupin guy didn’t.”

Daphne sighed, nodding to that. “No, he didn’t. From what I know he was an exception—I
think he was cast out from the werewolf communities for some reason, and to this day I’m
pretty sure he was the only werewolf to ever attend Hogwarts, hence him meeting your father
and them.”

Okay that’s weird. People didn’t care, didn’t know…?

“Do other werewolves just not get invitations?”

“I have no idea; since there’s no war there’s probably no werewolf children anymore to even
bother inviting. And if there were, I can only imagine they wouldn’t accept. If you think the
house rivalries were bad, even you wouldn’t be able to stop most of this school from ganging
up on a werewolf kid until they either left of their own will, or didn’t survive to make to class
one day.” He wanted to believe she was joking, but from the grim glint in her eyes he was a
bit terrified of how serious she was.

“Werewolf children aren’t a thing?”

“No, I don’t think lycanthropy can be passed from parent to kid… I think.” She scratched her
head. “I’m not an expert, but from what my mother has said, really the only way to get
infected is to get bit from a full-grown werewolf in wolf form. There was a particularly nasty
Death Eater during the war—Greyback—who’d purposefully placed himself near his victims
homes right before a full moon to ensure at least someone would get bit, and he got a ton of
children that way. Werewolves in wolf form are impervious to a lot of magics, including
wards and spells and more so it was kind of a huge threat. Most just died from not surviving
the infection, but a lot turned—other than that though most people get infected when they’re
adults so werewolf children really isn’t a common thing. And even if it were a thing, could
you really blame werewolf parents from hiding their kids from other wizards?”

Harry had to give that to her, feeling a little sick. Especially at the thought that you could go
your whole life and then suddenly be considered less than human because of an attack you
couldn’t control. Like if the troll popping up on him and nearly killing him wasn’t bad
enough, if he’d been blamed for it, lost all his friends, and treated like shit from then on just
because of it… shit. That was… hard to wrap his head around.

And this Remus Lupin… he was a werewolf child? Or maybe he got infected after
Hogwarts… either way he hadn’t reached out once in twelve years and while Harry couldn’t
help but be a little bitter about that, from Daphne’s attitude on this topic, he couldn’t get
properly mad at the guy either. Sounds like life had been a royal bitch to him too.

“Anymore werewolf questions? And ask now because I will not be talking about this in
public where anyone can hear me.” She warned, and he nodded.

“I think that covers it… but I had some other names I didn’t recognize that you might—does
Longsgate or the Eileen Prince Foundation sound familiar?”

She blinked… then frowned.

“No, actually. Longsgate kind of does I guess, but that’s definitely my dad’s area, and if it’s
an actual place it’s not active enough for me to know about it. As for the Eileen Prince
Foundation you said? Not a clue—that’s not even a pureblood name I don’t think.” She tilted
her head. “You didn’t want me to go looking for that info though.” She assumed and he shook
his head quickly.

“No, I’ll find it myself, but thanks.” He did not want to bring Mr. Greengrass into this more
than he already had. And darn, why had no one ever heard of these places? If Daphne didn’t
then it really was something arbitrary, or at least hidden, which peeked his interest and made
him regret not asking Axeclaw when he was last there.

Not that he would’ve, given the situation at the time, but still. He wanted to know now.

“Anything else?”

“Nah, but thanks though!” he gave her a cheery thumbs up but she was not amused.

“You jerk. These lessons I just got off you better be damn good ones.”

“Sure, sure—I’m pretty caught up on all second year Transfiguration spells by now, even
know a couple fourth year by now. Take your pick!”

She looked slightly mollified by that, visibly plotting what she’d ask for. “Good to know. Out
of curiosity would I be able to bring Tracy with me one of these times? It wouldn’t be her
lesson but maybe just to listen in.”

At face value Harry might’ve called her out on changing the deal after it was made—she
herself made a huge stink about not doing that from the start. But… she also knew Harry was
interested in getting under the skin every Slytherin he could and Tracy, being in their year,
was definitely on his list. Aside from Daphne herself he hadn’t made any progress with the
other Slytherin girls of their grade, and while he was not even going to try with Pansy, there
were four other girls including Tracy he hadn’t even had a decent conversation with so far. It
wasn’t a flat deal but… it was an opportunity to get Tracy stuck in a situation with him where
she couldn’t avoid talking to him and Daphne’s best friend would get some academic help
out of the arrangement.

Damn, she’s good.

He gave her a wry grin to let her know that he knew exactly what she was doing.

“Of course, I’d love to help out of the goodness of my heart!”

Daphne cackled a tad evilly at the blatant lie.

000

It was a couple days later that he finally had his ducks in a row and also a break with which
he could use to take a trip to the owlery to get some of his plans in action, a veritable packet
of letters in his hand to send out.
First, he’d confirmed with Honeydukes that they could arrange and send a chocolate-themed
gift basket on his behalf, he just needed to send along the money for their quoted price on it,
as well as whatever letter he wanted sent along with it. So, he had one large letter for
Honeydukes with the form to open a tab and link his Gringotts accounts to it (he knew this
would not be the last time he’d buy from them and opening a tab was just smart planning),
with another letter for one Madam Amelia Bones encased within it for his first purchase. The
letter to the head auror was rather simple, just a thank you with as carefully worded
description of what he was thankful for as he could get, and hopefully she got the message
that she had an ally in the anti-Dumbledore campaign. He also really hoped she picked up on
his veiled reference to the headmaster’s nosiness and responded back to ask for more details.

Details he’d be happy to provide if she were going to use them against Dumbledore—he
wasn’t sure how but if he could help he definitely wanted to. And maybe from then they’d
have a real correspondence and… he wasn’t sure what, but something would come of it. That
was the wild hope he had for this gift basket, at least.

And because halfway through filling out his Honeydukes form he realized he was a very
wealthy child and he could send people presents as easy as writing a letter, he also had notes
and orders for small treats to be sent to Draco and Neville.

Draco, the weirdo, actually didn’t like sweets much but had a penchant for sour and bitter
candies so that’s what he’d get, and Neville was far more traditional in liking simple
chocolates and near-muggle candies. He never had much luck with the enchanted stuff as his
chocolate frogs always seemed to hop away, and other unfortunate, similar occurrences, so
simple was better.

He would not have been able to handle… anything without the both of them, so random
presents was not out of the question. He acknowledged he was neither a great friend nor able
to bribe them with sweets into liking him since for some reason they already did, but there
was really nothing stopping him from doing this and they both deserved a lot more than some
stupid candies. More than Harry could ever really put into words or properly address to their
faces, so… sweets it was, for lack of better communication skills.

He had another letter for Draco, continuing their in-school correspondence, and this one was
rather weighty since they’d been talking finances a lot more. Clearly Draco was also learning
more from his parents so he had a lot more to say on the subject since the start of the new
year and most of it was far above Harry’s paygrade, so there was a lot of questions to be
asked.

Similarly, he had yet another letter for Axeclaw, and that one was both the largest, but also
not nearly as long as it probably needed to be.

There was just so much he had to talk to the goblin about, the first thing he asked in this letter
was if there was a way to be able to meet face-to-face despite him being at school. Like could
he get permission to go visit Gringotts on a weekend or evening or something or was there
another way to communicate (because he had a suspicion he’d need either a teacher’s, or
even the Headmaster’s approval to leave Hogwarts for any reason outside of a holiday break
and he very much did not want to get them involved or key in Dumbledore to how involved he
was getting into his own finances. If Dumbledore’s plan was to keep him retrained and
clueless, that would definitely raise some red flags and Harry could not afford any more
interruptions into his plotting at this point, much less from the old fart himself). The rest of
the letter was mainly just questions on what the hell all the finance terms Draco had been
spitting at him meant, as well as how/if they impacted him in any way, and following up on
his investments.

And oh yeah, at the very bottom he asked for Neville Longbottom, Rubeus Hagrid, Seamus
Finnegan, Dean Thomas, Leonard Yuu, Fred & George Weasley, Daphne Greengrass, Remus
Lupin, Susan & Amelia Bones, and Engel Osmias to be allowed to contact him through his
mail wards.

There was still the chance his letters were being intercepted, and if you talked to a Slytherin
long enough you started to get into the mindset that all your letters were probably being read
by someone you didn’t want reading them. To Harry that meant the Ministry and
Dumbledore, and so anything leaving Hogwarts grounds was essentially like telling them
outright. The finance questions a twelve-year-old could come up with were probably boring
enough they’d mostly dismiss it… again, Dumbledore knowing he was taking an active role
in his finances wasn’t great, but it was more important he was misdirected from the people he
was talking to. It was a chance, and he was really hoping this one particular letter would get
lost in all the letters he was sending at once and be safe.

Which was why he wasn’t talking about any of his more urgent topics, like warning Axeclaw
his previous mail wards were probably done by Dumbledore which is why they couldn’t find
his old mail. If the headmaster found out that Harry knew about that, and connected that to
him wanting to let Amelia Bones contact him, both him and the DMLE head would be in a
tight spot. He’d included Susan in his mail wards strictly to try and distract from why he’d
want to allow communication between him and her aunt—if he were letting Susan in as a
friend and Madam Bones was just an afterthought as his friend’s legal guardian… well, he
just hoped Dumbledore would buy that. Which meant the only seriously suspicious thing in
the letter was his request to open his wards for Remus Lupin.

He didn’t even mention Longsgate or the Eileen Prince Foundation despite really wanting to
know about them since if somehow Dumbledore knew what was in his parents will, he’d then
know that Harry now knew what was in the will too. Which meant he’d been at Gringotts for
more than just topping off his funds for the coming school year, which might imply he hadn’t
been nearly as confined to Private Drive as he suspected Dumbledore wanted him to be.

Really there were many reasons to give no hint that he knew about his parents will, so he
refrained until he could talk to Axeclaw in person, preferably securely in Gringotts where
privacy was goblin-ward guaranteed. The twins’ off hand comments about how the
headmaster knew everything that happened in the school halls really did not sit well with
him, after all.

Putting Remus Lupin in the letter was a risk, there was no way around it.

But… he needed to know, he needed to talk to the man, and this was the best chance he was
going to get. If he sent out half a dozen letters all at once, there was a chance one would get
overlooked.
Which is why he also had a note for Hagrid asking to come to tea later that afternoon, another
letter to put in an order for any new Transfiguration texts Bethany’s Books got in this year, an
order for more shampoos he really didn’t need from the hair shop in Contrair Alley, an order
to sign up for the Daily Prophet, another order for the Quibbler at Luna’s recommendation, a
letter for Osmias to let him know if he made any progress with his poison-detecting glasses,
and an empty letter to send to the twins because it might freak them out thinking the blank
piece of parchment was pranked somehow and that’d be hilarious. Really he’d scratched his
brain and tried to think of any reason to send a letter ever, hoping the one he didn’t want
anyone to read would get lost in the flock.

As he handed out the letters to school owls, telling them to wait to go all at once and the
clever creatures just waited patiently as he tied the other letters up, he paused when he
realized he’d been about to entrust his most important letter to Hedwig.

AKA, the bright white owl you could see in the large cloud of feathers when mail was
delivered every morning. The extremely noticeable owl outside of a snowstorm that everyone
knew was his owl and would, logically, be carrying his most important letter of them all.

Hedwig had put her leg out for him to tie the letter to but when he froze, she put it back down
to hoot at him in annoyance.

“I know, but despite trusting you more than anyone else, that’s probably a bad idea.” He
admitted, and she had to understand English because she looked visibly annoyed at the
implication as if to say ‘I would never get intercepted!’.

Harry really couldn’t take that chance though.

It would be suspicious in and of itself if the letter Hedwig were carrying was an invite to tea
or blank though, as then anyone malicious reading it would know it was probably a decoy.
And more importantly, that Harry was wise enough to try and hide it, which was more insight
into his abilities then he wanted to give away just yet. It had to be of semi-high importance,
but also not something anyone could think too deeply on or have an urge to stick their noses
into.

Orders for books and magazines didn’t really fit the bill…

…but.

Harry suddenly remembered, there was a letter he’d been meaning to write last year, and he’d
never gotten to it. He had a lot going on at the time, it wasn’t a shock, but this… even if
Dumbledore read it, he already knew Harry’s opinion on the matter, so it wouldn’t be any
new information Harry was giving away here. The cat was already out of the bag so to speak,
and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it by now—not Harry himself, and not
Dumbledore.

He plopped down on the owlery top step and pulled out a piece of parchment from his bag,
writing on the back of a textbook and trying to make the writing look like he wasn’t just
scribbling this down as a last-minute idea.
 000

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Flammel…

000
 Ladders

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god-!”

“Colin please!” Said hyperactive squirrel’s dormmate snapped at him, although it was
definitely done pretty calmly and as if she said it exactly six hundred times in a day, so Harry
just laughed heartily as he lazily drifted back towards the earth, his nimbus a pretty sweet
ride if he did say so himself.

It felt so good to be back on a broom.

And hey, having six first years looking up at him where he hovered above them with stars in
their eyes wasn’t so bad on the ego either.

Particularly Colin, who snapped another picture and obediently shut his mouth, but didn’t
stop vibrating in excitement as he watched Harry’s demonstration.

“But flying Melody! Flying!”

“Yes, yes,” She dismissed impatiently, forcing him to put the camera down and address the
school brooms scattered on the ground around them. Harry hadn’t known the girl much, but
she was half-blood from what he could tell and was absolutely going to turn in Wood 2.0
sometime in her future. Girl was here to win quidditch, that was it.

Despite being no-nonsense, she was also alarmingly good with Colin though and when she
shut him down, he obediently did so without being bothered by her short tone, and Harry
figured she was a lot of the reason his fellow year mates hadn’t killed him yet.

“So let’s give the command a go; it should give you a general idea of how in control you are
with the broom. If it obediently jumps up then you might be good to move to the next bit, but
if you struggle you’ll definitely want to work more on getting a handle on it before leaving
the ground.” He directed, not feeling the need to get off his broom but sitting side-saddle
lazily as he circled around them ten feet up while he gave his instructions. He was very good
with his Nimbus and after needing to both not get bucked off his broom and also literally surf
it during his first quidditch match ever, he’d only trained even harder the past year to be even
more comfortable despite the strange positions he might find himself in.

He was thrilled to get the all clear from both McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey to at least do
this much exercise even if he’d promised not to go higher than fifty feet or faster than a lazy
quaffle toss. The Madam even thought it a good idea to start here, and slowly get back into
the swing of things, and of course McGonagall had only ever been convinced to have him
stay off a broom—his health or not, having him sit out of quidditch practice physically
pained her despite her likely never admitting to that.

What she had been a little surprised about was what he wanted back on his broom for, and it
wasn’t one of Wood’s early Saturday morning practices, or even to attend the teams try outs
in a couple weeks.
Most of the first years aside from Melody were ambivalent about quidditch, but like it or not
they were all going to be participating in the flying classes Hooch ran. And given that quack
of a referee had nearly killed Neville with no remorse and didn’t think twice about sending
muggleborns to surprisingly quick deaths so early in their magical world adventure, like hell
was Harry going to let his adopted first years wander cluelessly into her clutches when he
knew for a fact he could do a lot better teaching them to be safe for their first encounters with
a broom then that snitch could.

And well, this exercise might be mostly for Colin than anyone as a figure rose up beside him
and he glanced over to see Luna copying his side-saddle posture, bare feet crossed at the
ankles and swaying easily in the open air, dreamily observing the ground below them from
the space directly beside him. If he thought he was at ease in the air, she looked like she was
just casually chilling on a cloud rather than a piece of wood.

“Have much experience with brooms then?” He commented lightly. While he hadn’t seen that
he now knew to expect nothing when it came to Luna.

“My mother and I used to travel over the countryside looking for Sampusnachts. I’ve never
played quidditch but travelling by broom is enjoyable.” She explained easily, kicking her feet
a bit more as if to prove the point. “It’ll be the easiest way to travel large forests for creature
research someday, so it’s nice to keep up the skill.”

“I’ve never just hung out on a broom, not playing quidditch or something.” Harry admitted,
but it didn’t sound bad at all. He’d already considered using his broom to get to London from
Surrey, but other than that you typically didn’t hear about people using brooms as a standard
mode of transportation. He knew about the floo and something called apparition which
seemed to be far more common, but he liked being on a broom so it didn’t seem like a bad
option at all. “We should go riding then sometime—wonder if we’d be allowed to look at the
Forbidden Forest if we’re not landing in it or anything.”

“Hm… it’s a good thought.” She nodded in interest.

Spending an afternoon lazily floating through the clouds with Luna? Harry made a note to
pencil that into his schedule at his earliest convenience.

“BWAH! Harry!” Colin complained at the broom he was trying to wrangle jumped up and
bopped him in the face, him clutching his nose in irritation at the piece of wood now
bouncing along the ground wildly.

“Deep breaths Colin—if you get mad at it, it gets mad right back at you. You need to breath a
big breath and think of nothing for a full three seconds other than the broom in front of you.”
He called down in amusement, while Melody now had her broom in hand and was watching
him struggle with eagle eyes of her own. Good, he had someone watching his back.

It left him free to watch over the other first years who’d heard Colin chattering non-stop
about Harry’s offer to teach them and wanted to join in. They were all Gryffindors except one
Hufflepuff boy who Susan had pushed into Harry the same way Lu had delivered Luna to
him (was this going to become a thing?). He seemed very nervous about being around a
bunch of kids his age he didn’t really know past the sorting, but he already had his broom in
hand and seemed very bolstered by his progress.

So bolstered in fact that he visibly seemed to get the courage to say something to the only
other person aside from Melody, who was very busy with Colin right now, who had her
broom up—Ginny Weasley.

Ginny seemed nice enough, although she refused to look at Harry for long, seeming both
terrified and interested in him at once. Not that that was unusual, but she took it to another
degree by seemingly being unable to form sentences when he tried to strike up a conversation
with her. And he had been trying because the twins were some of his favorite people and
since she did not immediately strike him as another Ron, he was curious about the youngest
Weasley.

Also there was that thought in the back of his mind that the Weasley family in general might
be a good ally for the future, so, you know, getting to know the whole family would only
come in handy later down the road probably.

“That’s good. I was worried she had a blibbering humdinger bothering her.” Luna broke into
his thoughts, and he looked over to see she was observing the same situation below them as
Harry was.

“Those make it hard to speak right?”

“By creating conflicting emotions not your own.” Luna nodded in confirmation. “She doesn’t
talk to anyone much, I noticed.”

“Well… neither do you?”

“Ah, but I don’t mind.”

Harry smiled, wanting to both flick her in the ear and sigh in admiration for how high above
the world Luna seemed to live. If only he could reach that enlightenment.

“Well maybe not, but if you noticed Ginny did mind, you could be the person to talk to then.
Maybe she’d like that?”

Luna’s small, delicate features crumpled a bit in a frown as she considered that thought she
hadn’t considered before. Get involved? How utterly revolutionary.

Harry wanted to laugh at her but refrained.

“You know I live in the same valley as the Burrow.”

“The Burrow?”

“That’s where the Weasleys live.” She explained, and Harry realized pureblood wizarding
homes having names was a thing. He knew “Malfoy Manor” where Draco lived was kind of
obvious, but he thought the “il Nido” that Blaise called his house was just the Zabini heir
being dramatic as hell. “The Burrow” was a less scary name for sure, but he hadn’t pegged
the Weasleys as being one of those purebloods to have a name for their domiciles and figured
it was probably a lot more common than he’d thought.

It also made him wonder if Longsgate was just a house then, and a hidden one at that.

With that information distracting him, it took him a second to realize what Luna was getting
at by telling him this though.

“Oh so you know Ginny already?”

“Kind of. We were always around growing up but we never really interacted.” She confessed.

“Well… I mean things have changed. I know I did a lot of growing up after getting my
Hogwarts letter, although it was more me learning about the magical world than anything.
You’re both away from home for the first time, learning new things and discovering new
things about yourselves even… it might not be a bad idea to at least give it another try.
Maybe you’re different people now and it’ll work out better.” He phrased it as nonchalantly
as he could, because he most certainly didn’t want to tell her to do a damn thing—no one
could tell him who he could and could not be friends with and he was not about to do that to
anyone else either.

But… Luna tended to forget other people existed at all. Or that other people might have
emotions that she could maybe interact with.

Actually yeah, Luna tended to forget she could interact with people at all. So Harry kind of
felt the obligation to at least remind her sometimes or, whether she was okay with it or not,
she’d spend a lot of her life pretty alone.

Maybe not lonely as she was so not bothered by doing her own thing, but if she could
continue doing that while also having a lot of people around her if possible, Harry wanted to
help her achieve that. He now knew the importance of leaning on others, and while he was
still absolutely shit at actually practicing what he preached, he at least knew it was important
on some intellectual level.

Luckily Luna didn’t take offense to his needling, and just tilted her head as she considered
that.

“Perhaps.” She allowed, and harry was content to let it drop now that he was decently sure
she’d absorbed what he was trying to say. What she did with the information was her own
choice though.

They went back to watching the Hufflepuff try and make an attempt at conversation with his
Gryffindor classmate, but he was pretty awkward and she seemed too shy to form words so it
didn’t seem to be going very well. He did his house proud though by pushing forward and
trying to be friendly despite it though.

“Hm… maybe I was right about the blibbering humdinger after all.” Luna commented lightly,
and Harry gave a weary sigh as Colin howled in pain at his still-defiant broom below them.
“Yeah I’m thinking maybe you are.”

000

Harry knew something was wrong when he saw the expression Draco had on as he marched
determinedly over towards him.

Where he was sitting, at the Gryffindor table one fine weekend morning. He didn’t even need
all his fingers to count the amount of times Draco had willingly, of his own accord without
prompting, come to sit with him at the Gryffindor table in the past year, so this was a big
thing.

And what was even worse, was that Blaise and Nott were following close on his heels—Theo
was blank as always but Blaise was looking positively ecstatic and if that didn’t set every
warning flag Harry had up, he didn’t know what would. The only saving grace was that if it
were legitimately controversial or dangerous, Theo would be nowhere to be found rather than
following Draco’s lead in the thick of it so… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

But still. Harry was fully on guard as he casually waved at them.

“Draco, quidditch try-outs aren’t for another week, what’s with the face?” He teased as they
got within earshot, and the blond rolled his eyes automatically at the jibe before jumping
right to it.

“We’re kidnapping you.”

“Oh?” He tilted his head and felt Neville watching them like a hawk from behind him. “I
wouldn’t mind if you kidnapped me but given Blaise’s involved I might have to decline.”

Since clearly every Gryffindor around them was eavesdropping on this situation without even
trying to be subtle, he enjoyed the way the twins almost choked on their food before sinking
below the table to dissolve into giggles. Draco’s ears turned a soft pink, which had been
Harry’s goal, but unfortunately he was too used to the teasing to be dissuaded from his
mission.

“I’ll have you know for once I didn’t do anything for this, I just would not be caught dead
anywhere else when I could witness this firsthand.” Blaise chirped gleefully, and surprisingly
Theo just nodded in total agreement.

“Same.”

Okay, suspicious as hell. Theo just spoke in front of Gryffindors so the world must be ending.

“And what exactly is so interesting both Blaise and Theo want to witness it, and is it going to
hurt.” He narrowed his eyes pointedly at them.

Draco sighed, but Theo smirked visibly for once.

“It’s a fair question.” He allowed pointedly to the blond who just shot him a filthy look.
“No it’s not going to hurt! And no I’m not about to announce in the middle of bloody lion
territory so just get up!”

“Be a bit more of a brat Draco, I’m more willing to listen to you that way.” Harry rolled his
eyes as he stood up anyway, tossing his napkin down to the table before turning back to his
dormmates who’d been watching the exchange warily. “If I’m not back by lunch, have
Hagrid send Fluffy to fetch me.”

“Fluffy?” Blaise frowned.

“What, the hell hound?” Dean balked as Seamus’ eyebrows flew up his face at that.

“What hell hound? Also, named Fluffy?” Blaise demanded even louder, but Harry just waved
them all off and followed Draco’s charge out of the Great Hall. “Oi Potter, what?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Like hell I don’t!”

Harry just laughed in his face as they made their way out of the Great Hall. The only reason
he felt comfortable telling Blaise about Fluffy now when he’d kept it hidden last year was
that Hagrid had told him he’d actually moved Fluffy into the Forbidden Forest now that he
was no longer needed to protect the Philosopher’s stone since it’s destruction. And
technically Hogwarts now owned Fluffy as a protective measure for the students from creepy
hooded figures who might be killing unicorns in the forest rather than Hagrid being in a legal
grey area of owning a hell hound that he was technically not allowed to own as an individual.
Blaise could no longer use it against the groundskeeper even if he did learn more about it—
but it was far funnier to just keep dropping hints and watch him get annoyed as he was left in
the dark.

Torturing Blaise took an immediate backseat though as Draco lead them towards what Harry
initially thought was the Potions classroom, meaning down towards the dungeons. As they
passed said classroom though, Harry started wondering wildly what else was down here and
when it finally hit him, his jaw literally dropped in surprise.

“No way.”

“Took you long enough.” Theo noted.

“Is this a trap?” he asked legitimately, and was not soothed when Blaise turned, completely
serious as he nodded once.

“Yes.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at him but chose to believe Draco’s eye roll rather than Blaise’s
alarmingly good acting skills and pretend that answer had been a lie.

“Okay not that I am not stoked to hell about this but, ah, what? How does this make any
sense? I mean I wouldn’t invite you into the Gryffindor dorm even if I thought there was a
snowball’s chance in hell you’d say yes so this makes like, zero sense at all.”
“We have our reasons.”

“Which are?”

“None of your business.” Draco lifted his chin in the air, and if Harry was taken off guard by
being so blatantly kept in the dark, it was overshadowed by how impressed he was at how far
his baby cactus had come. He admitted their friendship so far had been rather skewed in his
favor, and at this point Harry just admitted to the fact he was a bit of a bully. Being told to
essentially get lost when clearly he was being used for some kind of snake-like ploy was
actually kind of refreshing in an odd way.

At least it was refreshing to see Draco leading the charge and people actually fall in line, as
despite how bratty he acted he never actually got his way all that often. At the very least
Harry could admire how Draco was confidently leading a Gryffindor and two well-known
pureblood heirs into snake territory and he didn’t even seem remotely concerned about what
he was facing.

Seems he wasn’t the only one who had plans that worked out, and despite not knowing what
Draco had been up to recently, Harry was proud of his friend anyway.

Still on guard of course, but it felt a bit more comfortable to know this was all according to
Draco’s plan and he trusted the Malfoy heir before a lot of people.

“Well okay then. Can I at least ask why so suddenly and formally?” Because being
approached and escorted were huge red flags that the timing was in no way an accident, and
Draco at least could admit that much.

“The quidditch team has the pitch booked for practice all morning, and it’s a Hogsmeade
weekend. After breakfast most, if not all the upper years will be going into town given it’s the
first trip of the year.” He waved it off uncaringly. Which made sense, as if someone were to
cause a stink about this it’d be an upper year, or the Slytherin quidditch team specifically,
but…

“So… that doesn’t exactly comfort me.”

“Trust me, everyone knows you’ll be here today.” Theo explained calmly, with just enough
glint to his eyes to be extremely ominous. So while yes, that answered Harry’s concern that
he wasn’t going to shock someone into hexing him by popping up in their common room, it
wasn’t exactly soothing.

He was saved from having to figure out a response to that when Draco turned, shooting him
an annoyed look.

“Oh yeah, and I also have a delivery for you from Greengrass. Do I want to know?” He
didn’t sound amused as he slipped a simple envelope from his robe and passed it to him as
they walked, and Harry, knowing immediately what it was, instantly slipped it into his
bottomless bag for safe keeping, seeing the curious spark in Blaise’s eye.
“No.” He answered Draco but also scolded Blaise who clearly had the thought cross his mind
about grabbing it. He looked visibly tempted to do so but restrained.

“What’s Greengrass got that I don’t?” He complained.

“Morals.” Harry deadpanned, and while slightly surprised by the sudden response, Blaise
seemed to just shrug at that surprisingly solid answer.

“Okay fine, but when do I get to trade with you? I’m way a way better grey person you
know.”

“Debatable,” Harry immediately snarked back, before suddenly remembering his next
summer plans and grimaced. “As it is I may want to trade something to you if my current
plan doesn’t work out.”

“That’s a horrible idea.” Theo commented almost conversationally, and Harry nodded in total
agreement.

“True, but it’s kind of a last resort sort of situation. At the moment if my back-up, back-up,
back-up plan fails then I’m kind of out of options. And I know Blaise could help, even if it’d
suck. At least if he couldn’t I’d never let him live it down.”

“I am right here.”

“Do you disagree?”

He considered it a second before shrugging again. “Fine, carry on.”

“No don’t carry on—first of all I’m going to go into detail about what a bad idea that is
later,” Draco shot him another look that promised a lengthy lecture in Harry’s future (not that
we was expecting anything else). “And secondly, we’re here. You stand there; just because
you’re visiting doesn’t mean I won’t be skinned alive if I spill the password.” He ordered
them to stand still as he walked a bit farther down the hall to what Harry assumed was the
Slytherin dorm entrance.

Blaise clearly took issue with being ordered to do anything and followed Draco out of spite—
which left only Harry and Theo who surprisingly stood by politely instead of abandoning
him.

And he even struck up a conversation, which frankly made Harry’s day.

“Is Fluffy really a hell hound?”

“Yeah. Twenty-foot Cerberus, actually. Hagrid tends to name harmless things terrifying
names and terrifying things harmless names. So Fluffy will eat you but Fang will probably
just drool on you. Also you might want to live in fear of the pet named Phil.”

“Good to know.” He tilted his head back, squinting down the hall. “I don’t like dogs.”

“Never really been around them myself. Unless we’re talking Fluffy.”
“Not really.”

“Bit of an outlier I guess.”

He got a blank stare for that and Harry had to grin. Talk about dry humor, but he loved it
anyway.

“Aright,” Draco called, waving him forward and he excitedly moved up the hall to see it—
unlike the Gryffindor common room being guarded by a painting, it was just an otherwise
unremarkable bare stretch of stone wall that opened into a doorway. Leave it to Slytherin to
be more subtle.

Without further ado he took the invitation and walked right in, the excitement of what he was
actually doing finally catching up with him as he took in the room eagerly.

The first thing that struck him about the common room was the space. The Gryffindor
common room always felt a bit cramped—very cozy and warm of course but the clutter and
many banners and fluffy surfaces, the noise, and the large population of people always
hanging out in there always made it feel full and cramped. Not in a bad way, but a cozy way.

There was not a stray piece of paper in this entire place, zero bookshelves or excess banners
or anything like that. There weren’t even curtains on the windows, just huge vaulted glass
panes making up the wall that revealed, not the grounds, but the murky green of just beneath
the surface of the Great Lake. Which was super cool in its own way, as a huge field of
seaweed stretched out several dozen meters below the bay window seats with tasteful black
cushions that provided a very tempting studying spot.

The furniture was minimalistic, with a lot less fluffy stuff and comfy armchairs, but several
more actual tables to work at and at least double the “gathering spaces” that you could find in
the lion’s tower—spaces of chairs around one table or a couch angled into a corner, just
generally locations you could sit with a small group to have a private gathering separate from
the rest of the room. There were even seven different fireplaces Harry could spot, all smaller
than Gryffindor’s single, behemoth mantel, but much more intimate so the fight over who got
the warmest studying spot probably didn’t happen nearly as often here. There was still a
wide-open space, slightly lowered in the middle of the room though, so if something were to
need attention drawn to there was nearly a stage-like space for that to happen. The furniture
itself wasn’t cold exactly, but it was black, silver, sleek, and maybe accompanied with a
beautifully upholstered pillow here and there in elegant greens and silvers. Everything
matched and looked like it was carved from the same set of ancient trees or skinned from the
same black dragon.

Most impressive was the ceilings—three stories tall and arching in finely curved stone,
giving the illusion that the already large floorspace was even larger still. The fact the
windows went straight to the top on two separate walls and the remaining walls were lined
with only three equally large paintings was a bold but classy styling choice. The fact the
painting seemed to be of Salazar Slytherin and two gorgeous paintings of Hogwarts grounds,
was pretty predictable though. He did like that the paintings did seem to be mirroring the
weather outside though, otherwise that was a huge coincidence and Harry was used to magic
enough to the point he highly doubted it was an accident.
“Impressed?” Blaise snarked.

“Enjoying the novelty,” He corrected slightly as he continued looking around in fascination.

“Is it always so quiet?”

Now that he’d taken in the impressive view, the most obvious difference was the noise level.
And it wasn’t like it was totally empty—there were a dozen kids scattered about doing their
own things, either talking in small groups or studying alone, even two playing chess by the
window and clearly arguing over it. But despite that Harry couldn’t make out a single word
anywhere aside from the general murmur of background talking as if from farther away than
they appeared to be.

“I can only imagine the din in Gryffindor’s dorm; perish the thought.” Blaise sniffed in
distaste.

Draco thankfully answered more thoroughly though. “The common room is mainly to study
and talk amongst yourselves. If you’re disturbing anyone else trying to do that, then you’re
an annoyance.” He translated, which Harry interpreted to mean people kept their voices down
so that their business remained their business. If you started shouting for the whole room to
hear, or even loudly enough the person next to the area you were immediately sitting in could
clearly hear you, you were either bad at Slytherin politics or you purposefully wanted to be
overheard.

Which was a far cry from Gryffindor where sometimes the only way to be heard was to shout
over everyone else who was shouting. Even during accepted “studying times” when it was
mostly quiet, you just learned to block out the group of people cursing and cheering over
their exploding snap game in the corner.

“Also, the ceilings are enchanted.” Theo pointed up, leading the way to an area around one of
the far fireplaces, plopping himself down in an armchair. Which, was the most initiative
Harry had ever witnessed from him, but by how comfy he seemed in that chair he was going
to assume that was Theo’s chair and had probably spent a lot of his Hogwarts career reading
in it by now. Given Draco and Blaise just followed suit, causing Harry to trail along with
them, he figured this was an extremely common thing and was excited to be included.

He refocused on what Theo was saying though as he looked up to what he was pointing at,
and realized this sitting area was directly below one of the square arches above them. It didn’t
take him long to notice each of the many gathering areas in the room was also cleverly
situated beneath an arch in one way or another.

“Are they silencing charms?” He wondered aloud as he didn’t bother sitting just yet,
unabashedly just turning around to inspect the room more as the snakes just watched him in
amusement.

“Kind of. Mild versions of it that Salazar Slytherin himself supposedly put up. They make it
difficult to hear things in other areas, but not impossible. Another reason being overheard is
difficult—you shouldn’t be able to hear someone in another area unless they want to be
heard, just a general murmur. And also talking at a normal volume or whispering—if you
shout then all bets are off.” Draco explained.
Theo made a face. “There are certainly those who don’t give a shit and talk without a care
who hears them, whether it’s meant to be public or not. If they don’t care who hears, we all
hear it. It’s annoying.”

Harry just got a kick out of how irritated he sounded. Theo was a grumpy old man stuck in a
twelve-year-old’s body and he loved it.

“Okay I’ll admit this place is cool.” He spun around slowly again, re-inspecting the arches
now that he knew their purpose. “And if I’m allowed back this is a way better place to study
then Gryffindor tower.”

“We cannot confirm nor deny that having easier access to you and your knowledge of
Transfiguration may or may not be a solid reason for inviting you in the first place, so yeah
you’ll likely be brought back.” Blaise smirked, and Harry flashed him a grin.

That was another point in favor of specializing—if he thought it was good for trades then
he’d underestimated how much Slytherins liked information. It had turned out even better
than he’d hoped if he’d got an invite directly into the snake den itself within a year and
change of starting Hogwarts after a centuries-long house feud. This was awesome!

“Yes, yes, gawk all you want at the architecture and the novelty of it all but I was hoping to
study some. That was the excuse for this visit after all,” Draco was the only one who had his
bag on him and placed it on the table between them pointedly. Harry perked up because he
was happy to talk Transfiguration if they— “I know you haven’t done your Charms essay
yet.”

His face dropped.

Ugh.

“Don’t like Charms?” Theo seemed amused at his reaction.

“Charms is fine.” He deflected promptly. “It’s not Transfiguration for sure. But it’s fine.”

“Can’t be prodigies at everything then.” Blaise smirked at him and then walked off before
Harry could retaliate—presumably to get his own books as he had nothing on him. Harry
would’ve shouted something rude after him but having just heard about how shouting wasn’t
something Slytherins did in their common room, he held it in. No need to out himself as the
annoying Gryffindor in the snake den within five minutes of getting here.

Theo stood as well, also seeming to need to go grab his things.

“I’ve already done my essay if you’d be interested in talking Transfiguration anyway?” He

offered, a bit too delicately to be casual. In an instant Harry realized this was the first time
Theo was actually offering to do a deal with him and he almost jumped at the chance simply
for the principle of it all—but then he caught sight of Draco’s glare and grimaced.

“Draco will get mad if I don’t do better in Charms—I’d love to, don’t get me wrong, but
maybe next time.” He apologized instead, and Theo’s blue eyes understood immediately as
he glanced at Draco’s expression too. He, as well, made a hasty exit before Draco could say
something on the matter, which was frankly just smart.

Said blond got a bit huffy as he chose his seat and started pulling out his books. “Trust me,
you could trade for anything at this point but please don’t.” He scolded, giving him a big,
grey-eyed, imploring look that Harry had to turn fully around to ignore.

“You can’t tell me what to trade for or not, I just also understand the merit of learning
Charms basics myself. Once we get into upper year stuff, if it’s not on the OWLs you can’t
make me care about it.”

“That’s such a horrible mindset.”

“You can’t make me care about it!” He declared, giving him a playful look over his shoulder,
to which he got an annoyed groan in return. Not really ready to settle down just yet though,
still overwhelmed by this unexpectedly exciting opportunity in front of him, he walked
around their little bubble just to inspect it further. There really wasn’t much to it but he did
like the fireplace itself—it wasn’t nearly as ornate or roaring as Gryffindor’s, being much
smaller and more for ambiance rather than heat in the still-warm fall weather, but the stone
carvings around it were some of the castle’s finest work.

It looked to be two huge trees on either sides, the mantle being branches with a thousand
individual carved leaves. Predictably, there were snakes carved through the whole thing,
twisting into the branches, down the trunk, and two huge python-looking beasts wrapped
around the chaos of roots that spilled out from the wall and onto the floor around the
fireplace, forming the basin that caught stray ash and coals from the main pyre. Really
impressive stuff, particularly because clearly it was magical: the snakes in the trees were
moving as if alive and exploring their stone habitat lazily.

He got a bit closer to it, and one hanging curled around a middle branch lifted it’s diamond
shaped marble head, coming out as if to look directly at him.

It was insanely detailed, to the point Harry could see every single carved stone scale, the glint
against it’s body as if it were truly alive and not marble, even the breathe in it’s tiny body and
the flickering of its stone tongue so delicately and lifelike it was incredible. Upon closer
inspection, its eyes were actual emeralds, and Harry had no doubt they were totally real. It
made him wonder wildly if it’s fangs would be venomous then too, given the attention to
detail here, and it made him pause before getting closer because that would be such a
Gryffindor thing to do: he’d only be an idiot to test the theory personally.

“That’s so cool.” He muttered, mainly to himself, and the snake lifted it’s head higher in
response. And in fact it was in response as it spoke directly addressing him.

"What is a nasssty lion doing in our den?" It hissed in a tone very similar to how annoyed
Theo had just been complaining about his loud housemates.

Harry’s starry-eyed fascination with the craftsmanship of the stone snakes was lost some by
the attitude, taken aback slightly. Not that he should’ve expected anything else from a snake
Slytherin himself probably enchanted to life.
He maturely stuck his tongue out at it, and it flickered its tongue right back at him.

"They do that all the time, ignore it." Draco waved it off distractedly, tapping the table near
him in a silent command for Harry to settle down and focus now.

"Are they always so rude?" He complained as he obediently returned back to the table to
plop down beside him and slip his own bag off his shoulders. There was a chorus of wordless
hissing behind him, clearly complaining about being called rude. He just whipped around to
stick his tongue out at them again, which seemed to actually silence them surprisingly
enough.

Draco watched him do that, but just blinked at the motion in confusion, clearly not
understanding.

“What? Rude?”

Harry gave him a look.

"Oh come on, even you cannot be unaware of how rude being called a nasty lion is." He
deadpanned.

Draco just stared back at him, visibly uncomprehending.

"Draco, please tell me you're not that hopeless."

Grey eyes blinked at him.

“…what?”

“What do you mean ‘what’? I take offense to people calling me a ‘nasty lion’, I didn’t think
that’d be weird.”

“No, I mean who said that?”

“Uh…” Harry did not understand what he was missing here. The hissing behind got steadily
louder though, and he turned his head back to them in surprise when the wordless hissing
suddenly got some words, and it all sounded like the snakes were very alarmed and excited
about something.

He jumped as a hand clamped down on his arm, and he whipped back around to see Draco
looking very alarmed and his knuckles white as they fisted tightly into the sleeve of his
currently-visible invisibility cloak.

"What?"

"Eh?" Now it was Harry’s turn to just stare in alarm at that reaction.

"What do you mean 'nasty lion'? Who said that?" Draco demanded with an intense urgency
he’d never heard from the blond before, his voice rising until Harry wasn’t sure if other areas
would actually be able to hear him or not. No one looked over so maybe it was still fine?
"Uh… the snakes?" He pointed over his shoulder as the hissing suddenly cut off, which
surprised him.

"…the lion can underssstand usss?" Harry turned, and one of the huge snakes at the base of
the tree had uncurled itself slightly, body rising up and face looking directly at him.

The other one at the mirroring tree did the same, it’s whispering, hissing tone sounding
amazed and confused in one. "He is a Ssspeaker?"

"Of course I can understand you, you're speaking English aren't you? And what's a Speaker?"
He demanded, and the hand on his sleeve disappeared the same moment a loud thud startled
him to whip back around.

Draco was staring at him with the most horrified look he’d ever seen on someone, clearly not
caring at all to check his expression for once.

But Harry was less concerned with Draco, and more with Theo, who had suddenly
reappeared into their bubble and dropped the book he was holding gracelessly to the floor.

And he was pale as a sheet, to the point Harry actually instantly stood up in alarm, as if to
catch the boy if he suddenly passed out.

“Oh my god, Theo are you okay?” He was very convinced that Theo was going to faint in a
second but as he took a step to move towards him, Draco jumped up and got in front of him
again, hands instantly on his shoulders and shaking him slightly—and it startled enough that
Harry just let it happen in surprise.

"Harry—! No, Harry focus: are you talking to those snakes?" He demanded urgently, and
Theo somehow got paler. For as mother-hen-like as Draco was, he seemed alarmingly
unperturbed that one of his dormmates seemed seconds from dying right behind him.

"Uh… yes? Can you not understand them? I would think that'd be a Slytherin thing.” He said
slowly, getting a sinking feeling that maybe this was like… a thing. “Theo what’s wrong?”

Innocuous as the question was, it didn’t seem to help in any way as Theo just jerked as if
wrenching himself out of his horror and immediately bent down to pick his book back up.
When he stood upright though, he just clutched it tightly to his chest, and made no move to
release it as he stiffly walked past them and back to this chair without answering, sinking into
it but his spine rigid and his eyes far too wide. Like he’d just witnessed a horrific murder and
was too shocked for words.

He turned to Draco for answers but the blond looked to have none, being totally at a loss as
he ran a hand over his forehead in stunned disbelief.

"I… I mean yes it's… it’s a Slytherin thing as in Salazar Slytherin himself could speak to
snakes. Only his bloodline can—the Slytherin direct bloodline." He explained, sounding like
he could not process the fact he was saying this out loud.

Harry stared at him.

And maybe a bit belatedly, the information he was being told here filtered into his mind.

“…uh… what?” Was all he could come up with because… because what?

What did…?

He internally flailed, like the information was there, but it wasn’t connecting in a meaningful
way inside of him.

Did not compute, try again later.

One look at Theo staring at the table top between them like it’d just murdered a puppy in
front of him, and his stomach started to twist uncomfortably.

"Harry, what are the snakes saying." Draco grabbed onto his arms once more to refocus him,
the same urgent tone back in such an intense way he didn’t put up a fight as he turned to blink
at the snakes once more and focus on what they were hissing at him.

"Uh…"

"Tell him we definitely heard his little tirade to the Zabini boy last night." One of the smaller
ones at the top said rather smugly, and the surrealness of it all was kind of marred by how…
normal that bit of information was. Like the fact it was a piece of gossip seemed really out of
place in amongst all the other earth-shattering emotions he had rocking through him right
now that he was too stunned to even feel properly.

"Something about hearing your tirade to Blaise yesterday night?" he translated, giving him a
look when Draco just choked on air and his cheeks turned slightly pink

“Ah—any details?"

"Oh no, it's more interesssting to hold it over his head." The same snake told him cheerfully,
a couple others hissing their amused agreement.

Harry relayed that message and Draco seemed to melt in relief some, before standing up
straight and returning to a very serious expression Harry hadn’t seen him wear before. "This
is concerning. I mean… not exactly but… it makes no sense whatsoever that you'd be a
parselmouth."

"A what now?"

"A parselmouth. Someone who can speak parseltongue, the language of snakes. They speak
to snakes essentially."

"And only the Slytherin bloodline can do it, which means it probably has a bad reputation,
broadly speaking." Harry put together slowly, glancing over at Theo again who still had not
blinked but he had color in his cheeks again at least. So… he probably wasn’t about to pass
out but very much did not look okay still.
"Even amongst Slytherins it's… I mean, the last living person who was a parselmouth was
the dark lord." Draco seemed to falter as he explained that, and Harry took another too-long
minute to absorb that.

But when he did… he felt his own cheeks get a bit cold as blood fled from his face and
hands.

"Oh." He got out in a weak tone, breathe seeming to come a bit harsher all of a sudden.
"But… but you said some of his supremacy spiel was that he was the last living Slytherin
descendant."

"There's no way to prove he wasn't, and being the only living parselmouth was proof enough
for most. It could be that he's the last in the direct line, but since it's so rare there's nothing to
say it can't have been passed down in branch lines but remained dormant." Draco recited as if
automatically repeating something he’d learned since birth, but then he seemed to snap out of
it as the reality of the situation seemed to hit home again. “But Harry… I mean… Merlin…”

“…you have no idea what to make of this, do you?” He frowned, and the blond grimaced
harshly.

“No, I don’t.” He admitted in both apology and something like condolences. Slytherins hated
the unknown after all—and this was about as worst-case scenario as you could get. As much
as Draco might’ve wanted to help him… how could anyone help this?

And he was just learning this information, it was still slowly sinking in… but Slytherins grew
up knowing about the dark lord and parseltongue and… this was… this was…

This was bad.

And that was also the understatement of the year.

He turned to Theo with wide eyes of his own now.

“Theo?” He asked again in the same soft tone, and the boy blinked out of his shock finally…
holding his book tighter and lifting his gaze to meet his own almost in a daze.

There was no poker face any more, he just looked horrified.

“…it’s…” He shook his head slightly, lowering his gaze back to the table but finally releasing
his book as he placed it down pointedly in front of him, seeming to take a deep breath. “I’m
not sure either. But ah… I would expect that among Slytherins at least, this’ll be… either
impressive, or terrifying.” He admitted reluctantly.

“Terrifying…?” Harry repeated, feeling rather numb.

Of course, I have some unique ability in common with the bloody dark lord. Most of these
children have been raised by parents who feared and respected him. Or hated him secretly,
but definitely kept that quiet out of terror probably.

“Maybe the Ssspeaker is a nasssty lion, but he’sss interesssting asssss well.”
“No one’sss been able to underssstand us in ssso long, and we know ssso many thingsss.”

“Thisss could be fun, I sssuppose. Alssso, he’sss a pretty color.”

“Mm, pretty color indeed.”

In the grave silence the humans were sitting in, he listened back into the snakes behind him
who still hadn’t shut up, and as horrifying as all this was, their words triggered something
inside of him.

It may have merely been fight or flight, but he didn’t want to run away. He was tired of
running away.

And not in a way that meant he didn’t want to run away, it was just that he was literally not
capable of it anymore. He was just too tired, too beaten, and too weary for this to be yet
another thing that haunted him and ate into his soul like a festering wound. He had too much
shit going on to take this personally too—he would legitimately go insane and he just didn’t
have time for that.

He still didn’t understand it all, and he was sure this would keep him up at night if the
nightmares didn’t already, but when backed into a corner his mind only ever got clear enough
to fight back. And Theo’s pale expression triggered the same protective rage in his chest he
got when he saw Luna without her shoes on, and his flare of a temper only ever made his
mind sharp and fanged.

Theo admitted this was going to terrify a lot of snake children. It clearly terrified him.

The dark lord was the one who did that to them. To all of them.

Harry being able to talk to snakes was not wrong or frightening—he refused to believe he
was a freak or a monster and he’d sworn to that to himself half a lifetime ago so this was in
no way going to change that. He was not the problem—the problem was the other snake-
speaker and all the horrific, unforgivable things he’d done.

On the most part, Harry viewed Slytherin house as a challenge to overcome. Untapped
potential in friends, new connections, opportunities and personified puzzles.

Aside from Draco he had never once felt the urge to protect them.

And yet all of a sudden, he felt an overwhelming, very Gryffindor urge to sink his teeth into
something if it meant protecting a bunch of snake children from the myth of a man who
terrified such proud, clever people into the pale, slightly shaking mess that Theo was right
now.

Theo hadn’t cracked for a year, no matter what Harry had done—not giving even an inch.

But this… this cracked him like an delicate robin’s egg and you know what Harry could
relate and so no, this was not a him problem, this was a fucking Voldemort issue and he
wasn’t going to take shit for something that bastard had done. He refused.
Decision made, he listened closely to the snakes and formed a plan.

It was in this very tense silence as the three of them sat in their chairs and stonily considered
their life choices that lead them here, that Blaise made his return and stopped dead once he
got within range and read the shockingly dark atmosphere that had suddenly appeared.

He looked at all three of them in turn before blinking rapidly. They were probably quite a
scene—when he left they were all positively cheery for the exciting event of Harry visiting
for the first time, and now Harry was sure he looked slightly pissed off, Draco was anxiously
tapping his unopened textbook in front of him while shifting in his seat nervously, and Nott
was still pale enough to look very ill and was silent again, even if his blank expression was
back in place (probably in defense of Blaise himself, as if the Zabini’s return had reminded
him to keep it together).

Still. They probably made quite a picture.

“…okay, I was only gone like five minutes. What the hell happened?” He demanded in his
bratty way, and Harry perked up as his hastily formed plan was presented with a golden
opportunity he hadn’t accounted for.

“If I tell you, all of Slytherin will know by tomorrow, right?”

Draco and Theo snapped their heads to look at him again, eyebrows skyrocketing up in
alarm.

“Yes—do not tell him.” Draco warned immediately, Theo nodding seriously from across the
table.

“Oi, rude.” Blaise was not even offended, just annoyed to be kept out of the loop and clearly
not bothered if they wouldn’t tell him. He probably half expected as much.

Unfortunately for everyone, Harry wasn’t going to play by Slytherin’s rules this time.

He only paused a second to consider his wording, before looking up at the tall boy and
meeting his gaze directly to convey the seriousness of it all.

“Apparently I’m a parselmouth and I didn’t realize that was something special until just
now.”

All three of them gaped at him.

It spoke to the seriousness of the situation that he couldn’t even be amused by Blaise’s
shocked expression either, because yeah, he definitely looked stunned.

The Zabini heir got over it quickly though, correcting his expression and straightening up as
he strolled casually closer and dusting off his robes in a show of casualty.

“So, uh, Potter, I like you and all, but you do realize I’m going to have to tell everyone?
Simply business, you understand.” He spoke like he was talking about the weather—until he
suddenly slammed his hands down onto the arms of the chair Harry was sitting in and got
right in his face, completely disregarding the no-yelling rule they’d just discussed and
jumping to a panicked volume more befitting a Gryffindor. “Are you insane!? Do you know
what this house will do to you!? WHY would you tell me that!?”

“Blaise shut up!” Draco was on his feet again and bodily pulling his dormmate back,
whipping his head around to shoot the people who’d clearly heard that and were now looking
at them an acidic glare. “Go about your business!” He snapped and they did so… or at least
were pretending not to eavesdrop so blatantly now.

Harry lifted his chin defiantly at them, but he did drop his voice some to a more mild tone, so
hopefully even those trying to eavesdrop wouldn’t be able to hear. They automatically copied
his posture by coming slightly closer to listen.

“I’m not going to hide who or what I am just for your comfort, and also Draco and Theo are
great Slytherins and they had no idea how to react. If I’m in control of how people find out,
then all the better.”

“Yeah, but you’re not the one in control anymore— I am.” Blaise pointed to himself like that
explained everything and he was stupid for not realizing, but stupid or not Harry did get it.
He just didn’t care.

And his smile was a tad evil as he nodded to that point but continued anyway. “Yes, but those
snakes up on the mantle have heard every conversation that’s happened in this common room
since pretty much ever—and I’m the only one who can understand them. If you work with
me on this, I’ll disregard anything they tell me about you. It’s already too late, they’ve
already said some things and I bet even that’s far too many for your tastes.” He lied because
he didn’t exactly hear anything about Blaise just yet, but he’d also just learned there was no
way anyone could verify if he was telling the truth or not about this now.

At face value, prejudice and the reputation behind this ability aside, focusing only on how he
could use it for his benefit… this was a damn good thing.

He didn’t know how to feel about being a parselmouth just yet, but one emotion he could
recognize was anger, and frustration. This was an opportunity and he was going to use it
damn it.

The three Slytherins around him dropped their jaws again, as they too realized the
implications of his ability.

More than that, that he had wasted no time in figuring out how to use it against them.

Instead of frightening them further, even Theo was just looking at him with wide eyes now as
he mentally raced over the possibilities, face less pale at the distraction.

“Oh, I like him.”

“Tell the boy we sssaw him talking to the fourth year,”

“The one with the dark hair,”

“Who isss in love with a lion.”

Well that’s handy, he had to smile, as in the pause while they tried to formulate a response to
that the snakes felt the initiative to ensure his lie wasn’t a lie at all. He could work with this.

And Blaise wasn’t stupid, he knew immediately that the slightly louder hissing had been
something key, looking abruptly distressed for once.

“Wait, wait, wait—what did they say?”

“They saw you talking to a fourth year with dark hair, who…” Harry tilted his head as if
pretending to listen to the snakes, but their hissing was just laughter at the Zabini’s expense
as he got toyed with. “Is apparently dating someone controversial, huh?”

Blaise stiffened and then smoothed down the front of his robes once more.

“Well, that settles that. He talks to snakes.” He deadpanned bluntly. “Out of professional
courtesy I’m going to ask you not to go repeating that to anyone and you have a bloody deal,
Potter. I’m still going to tell everyone but how exactly did you want to do this.”

“Blaise, are you helping someone?” Draco was sufficiently distracted by the sudden tone
shift to turn to his roommate incredulously, and got a big hand in his face telling him to shut
up.

“Repeat to no one,” Blaise insisted in a hiss of his own. “I am well compensated so it’s not
out of the kindness of my non-existent heart. Don’t go spreading about libel like that, you
jerk.”

Harry grinned, but a bit darkly as Blaise simply confirmed his theory that this bad reputation
for parselmouths was all Voldemort’s fault. Theo’s family had a dark alignment, and Draco’s
used to—they had reacted in fear or horror. The Zabinis were untouchable though, and he
seemed to have almost no reaction at all; not a personal or emotional one that Harry could
tell, at least. He most certainly wasn’t frightened by any means, he was just Blaise. He was
already over it and, like Harry, working on how to deal with it in a way that benefited him (or
did damage control, given his situation).

Maybe it was just because the boy was more unhinged then Harry was mentally prepared to
understand just yet, which was a very real possibility that couldn’t be discounted, but in this
moment Harry was more willing to think it proved that Slytherin house might not be his
biggest issue with this discovery. Those with dark alignments would have to be treated with
care… whether they deserved it or not, he didn’t want to frighten them like it had clearly
unnerved Theo and put Draco right on edge. Unless there was a thirty-year-old seventh year
on the school roster, not a single one of these children had ever directly served the dark lord
—he may not like them or wish good things on some of them, but that didn’t mean he wanted
to needlessly torture them either. They were not their parents—not yet.

He could be smart about this. And he just snagged Blaise as a legitimate ally for the first time
ever so… he was actually in a good position with this honestly.
Still, frankly more importantly: a Slytherin and a Gryffindor were dating??? Of course the
move would be to go to Blaise to ensure that information stayed hidden—or maybe Blaise
had found out on his own as he was a gossip whore, and was being paid for his silence. He
must be paid quite well if he was that intent on keeping his end of the bargain…

There was some Romeo and Juliet nonsense happening amongst the upper years he’d had no
idea about and it entertained him greatly. Some star-crossed lovers of opposing houses crap
that he almost wanted to gush over.

He was half tempted to ask the snakes for more information, but figured if he didn’t know
who they were, the more protected they’d be. They clearly wanted to remain unknown if
they’d resorted to dealing with Blaise, after all, and he was working on being less nosey and
bossy in general. Best let sleeping dogs lie.

“That’ll be good.” Theo spoke up finally, seeming to have himself collected once more and
glancing at him cautiously. “The fact you could possibly learn our secrets, or at least will
know any we’ve spoken about in here for now, will keep a lot of people off your back
temporarily. It won’t last forever, though.” He was clearly not including himself—he barely
talked at all last year, much less said something incriminating in front of a fireplace, so he
was probably the only one who was safe.

Of course once this got out, they’d immediately learn to either talk elsewhere or put up
silencing charms. A clever upper year could put a silencing charm around the snakes
themselves even, and just leave it there. But in the short term, this was one powerful weapon
he had against the snake house and he’d be pretty stupid not to get everything he could while
he had the chance. He glanced back at the snakes and wondered what the best thing to ask
was, before Draco suddenly straightened up and seemed to veer the conversation.

“We need to know more.” He announced, and at Harry’s quizzical look elaborated. “I’ll write
to my father—you need to get to the goblins as soon as possible and do a bloodline test, and
he can make that happen. I know the world thinks they know all about the Potter line, but
clearly we don’t know everything and the sooner we have a solid answer the better.”

“You think he’s actually…” Theo trailed off, not able to even finish the thought but
uncomfortable with the implication they’d been avoiding.

Slytherins descendant.

Related to the dark lord!?

“…excuse me while I go be sick for a second,” He got out, knowing he sounded distinctly
queasy, and Blaise looked sympathetic for what might be the first time in his life. Draco and
Theo just looked grim as hell. He blew out a weary breath, but nodded in agreement. “Well…
I guess at least knowing the truth can’t be worse than being ignorant. Even if it’s probably
going to suck.” It’d also get him to Axeclaw, in person, before winter break. Not the most
ideal of circumstances to bring that about, but an opportunity he really couldn’t afford to
waste either.

“Yeah, probably.” Blaise agreed unhelpfully.

“Would you be able to hold off a couple days for me to do this then?”

The tall Slytherin tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose. I might enjoy holding it over
people’s heads a bit, keep them in suspense for a while to ensure they really want it before
trading it might be entertaining.”

“You scare me sometimes, you know that?”

“Marry me?”

“Nope.”

“Blaise stop.” Draco instantly dropped into a scowl, which seemed to light up Blaise’s whole
body as he got the reaction he wanted.

“You can’t tell me what to do, Malfoy!” He howled with a wicked grin, taking a neat step
back as if getting out of range. “If you wanted to stop me then you just have to suck it up
and-”

Draco lunged and Blaise dodged—but Draco was clearly training hard to be on the quidditch
team because he had him by the back of the robes and then they were just shoving each other,
bickering quietly with Blaise trying to finish a sentence and Draco kicking him to make him
shut up before he could.

Harry just stared because that was… weird. Also, total mood shift.

Not that it was a surprise Blaise couldn’t stay serious for more than five minutes.

What was a surprise was to see Draco and Blaise wrestling like they weren’t Slytherin heirs
and were actually just the twelve-year-olds they were. They very rarely actually acted their
ages, but maybe because they were safe in the confines of their own dorm for once?

…eh, Harry decided he liked it, even if he did not understand.

He turned to Theo curiously, who was just sitting across the table and watching the exchange
with blank eyes again. Whatever was happening was not nearly as shocking at the
parselmouth thing, clearly. Seeing his curiosity the blue-eyed boy just shook his head, silently
signaling that he didn’t want to know, and you know what Harry was going to trust him on
that.

“Do they do that a lot?” He asked instead, much quieter to match Theo’s generally quiet
mood.

“Yeah.” He answered just as quietly, unbothered. “Draco being awake is new.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s not a morning person. Blaise takes joy in waking up him by any means necessary.”
“Oh.” Harry had no idea what to make of that. He hadn’t considered it before but he did
know Draco was a night owl and that he could sleep in until late hours during the summer
because he didn’t have chores to do. He hadn’t quite made the connection that he also greatly
enjoyed it too, but it wasn’t a shock. “I guess opposites do attract. I haven’t woken up past six
in probably my life if I’m not drugged or injured.”

Maybe he’d been louder than he thought because Draco seemed to freeze mid-playfight and
looked over, legitimately horrified once more.

“Hold up, six am?”

“Yeah. I’m a morning person.” Harry admitted, leaving out the wealth of history that made
him that way.

For some reason that confession seemed to be the final straw that broke Blaise, because he
gave up trying to squash Draco and literally sunk to the floor in absolute hysterics, literally
pointing and crying laughing at Draco’s horrified expression until he was lying on the ground
giggling himself silly.

“Blaise shut up!” Draco kicked him, but it only made him laugh harder.

“Can I go back to the snake thing?” Theo calmly ignored them and turned back to Harry, not
to be deterred from the real topic at hand that Blaise couldn’t remain focused on.

“Sure. You ah… probably know more than me to be honest.”

“Has it always been a thing? Literally never heard a snake talk until the mantle?” His eyes
were intent, and Harry felt an obligation to tell the truth. Theo wasn't interested in using this
for gain… he just needed to know.

And yeah, Harry could relate.

So he thought back and honestly tried to answer that question.

“Well… I’ve always liked the snakes I found while gardening growing up. I’ve always
thought they were friendly but can’t remember any specifics of them talking… unless I was
just little and forgot about it in time. I did talk to a boa constrictor once, although that was
peek accidental magic time so frankly I had other things to be more concerned about over a
homesick Brazilian boa.”

“Right.” He frowned slightly as he absorbed that. “And they sound like they’re speaking
English?”

“With an opposite lisp I guess. A lot of ‘s’s, but yeah, just English.”

“Would they obey you?”

He raised a brow at that, looking back over towards the mantle where the stone snakes
seemed to be just as a loss as he felt by that, if not incredulous at the implication as well.
“No more than you would. They’ve got minds of their own after all.” He listened for couple
seconds, getting a general idea although like six of them were talking at the same time. “They
rarely get to talk to humans so it sounds like they’d be willing to work with me out of
boredom or interest or something, but not because I’m automatically in charge of them just
because I can speak to them. Why?”

He genuinely wanted to know where that came from, but Theo was abruptly silent again as
he blue eyes watched Blaise and Draco bicker amongst themselves.

Harry could figure that lack of an answer out pretty quickly though.

“Let me guess. He could.” And there was no way they both did not know they were talking
about. “Or he threatened he could.”

“Who knows.” Was all he said, slightly airy as if it were a genuine wonder, and Harry let it
go, sensing they were done talking about parselmouths for now.

It wasn’t even mid-morning but Harry was exhausted with the eventful day already.

As him and Theo’s conversation dried up, he settled in a bit more to listen to the gossip the
snakes were feeding him now while pretending to watch Blaise torture an increasingly
frustrated Draco.

He really wasn’t sure what to do with any of this, but for now, he could sit tight and listen.

000

Draco hadn’t wasted any time writing a letter to his father—he’d actually drafted it while
they went about pretending to study once the chaos of Harry’s new ability had settled down.

And what a farce of a study session it’d been: he wrote a letter, Theo was clearly just staring
at his notes while thinking deep thoughts over this new development, and Harry hadn’t even
pretended to not be just listening to the snakes and writing things down in his journal that
gave all three of them extreme anxiety every time he did so.

Not that they could fault him… he had an advantage, and even though he’d just learned about
it, he was using it. It felt… weird to watch him drift around their common room and speak to
stone snakes at each and every fireplace, and the more he wrote into his journal the more the
knot in Draco’s stomach twisted itself into circles…

Especially because Harry did not seem to notice at all that he was making hissing noises
himself as he spoke to the mantles. Just English he’d said it sounded like in his head but… it
was honestly a very unnerving language to hear coming from a human mouth. Much less
Harry’s. And Draco didn’t even have a history with any parseltongue unlike his parents and
many of their colleagues.

Honestly? He had no idea what to make of this. What to do even.

This was just…

Well, whatever it was, he wasn’t about to tell Harry he couldn’t do whatever it was he was
planning to do with all that firepower he now had. Everyone seemed at a loss of how to
handle this except Harry who seemed to come to some kind of decision far too quickly for
Draco’s comfort. But at least he was moving, he was doing something.

Draco wanted to do something, he just had no clue where to even start so… he couldn’t
begrudge Harry his actions even though it felt like he was going to throw up after the
morning of pretending this invisible elephant wasn’t breathing down all their necks.

Well, everyone but Blaise who genuinely didn’t seem to care and was just thrilled to be
plotting how to use this for his own gain. Which Draco should be doing he just… he just
needed…

He needed to talk to his parents, first.

He’d sent the letter off the second they’d finished lunch, calling it a day and thankfully they
all clearly had a lot on their minds because they’d barely said goodbye to each other as they
scattered towards their different corners to… work things out.

He didn’t even want to know what Harry was going to do with his afternoon, but he knew
Blaise was going to be spreading fire in the rumor mill to prepare for the truth to drop when
Harry was ready. Nott was probably retreating to their room to bury himself in a book or
something; he hadn’t touched a thing at lunch and for once Draco didn’t call him on it. He
kind of felt a bit queasy himself the whole morning.

He… had a different goal in mind.

His mother had ordered him to find an excuse to bring Harry to Gringotts as he left for term,
and he couldn’t believe something so blatant had just dropped into his lap like this. He was
fairly certain not even his mother had seen this coming either but… well, here they were.

He already knew his father would arrange a meeting with the goblins easily enough, and his
first instruction in his return letter would definitely be to get Severus’ approval to whisk them
off for this meeting.

To get Severus’ approval though…

Draco did his best to gather his wits about him, before making his way back down to the
dungeons where he knew his godfather was residing.

The fundamental basis of winning any battle, was to know intimately what you were fighting
for.

At this point though… Draco still didn’t know.

And the one thing Slytherins hated above all, was the unknown.

000
Harry was thankful the dorm was empty by the time he got back to it, because he really just
needed a moment to collect himself.

Regroup and figure out what to do, and he wasn’t even sure he could do such a thing in one
afternoon but… he needed to start.

While he procrastinated wading through that minefield though, he pulled out the letter Draco
had delivered to him that morning, seeing the unmarked outside but knowing exactly what it
was for. Slipping it open, there was a single scrap of parchment inside—and curiously
enough, one knut.

The note wasn’t signed but it was definitely Daphne’s handwriting, and it simply said:

Write what you want on a piece of parchment, place this on top. When the ink turns green, the
message was sent. Place this on a blank piece of parchment for the reply. Burn all parchment
sent and received. Don’t mention them by name and don’t get caught with this.

Harry turned the coin over in his palm, but it truly just looked like a knut. By the warning
though, it was clearly enchanted and most likely not legally so. That wasn’t the weirdest
news to him though, Draco had implied heavily that the enchanted journals Blaise had given
them weren’t exactly not banned by both Hogwarts and the Ministry but there was a pretty
decent chance they would be should those authorities even know they existed.

Dark arts was… well. It was an interesting topic and he wasn’t sold either way on it being
good or bad—he loved his journal and this little knut was just a tool and nothing more. On
the other hand, the cruciatus curse was a bitch of the highest caliber.

And that Transfiguration book Draco had given him for Christmas last year that he wasn’t
supposed to read out in public or have on him while at Hogwarts was a really interesting
read.

Jury was still out on his opinion either way, but he couldn’t deny it was useful at this moment
as he sat down at his desk and pulled out a piece of parchment, pausing as he pulled out his
quill to think of what to say. This was a clever method for security reasons, but not to
mention anyone by name…

He thought for a few seconds, before leaning over the parchment once more.

000

Thank you for taking my request, Mr. Fields.

I believe Miss. Fields told you what the offer is, and I will be in your debt regardless of the
outcome.

I want the dog star to be given what it deserves. At this moment I still don’t know if it will be
found an enemy, nothing more than an ally, or even a friend—but no matter what it is I want
to know the truth.

I want either its freedom, or an eternity in hell, depending on what that truth is.
Thank you for your time,

Sylvester.
 More
Chapter Notes

For some reason I could not get the pacing right in this chapter, it just feels off and
weird even to me and it's super annoying. But it got to the point where I've had this
written for a month and wasn't posting it because I didn't like how it felt and have
entirely given up--here's my half ass chapter for the sake of continuing the story; maybe
someday inspiration will strike and I'll come back to fix it.

ALSO LOOK AT THIS AMAZING FANART LANY_B DID OF MY TAKE ON

HARRY--LOVE <3
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qIe4C35Zvo0/YHEPoO-
PBFI/AAAAAAAATE0/3r8GkvLZGdc413V2oKPkSaaFzxl5gjr3gCLcBGAsYHQ/w56
3-h563/Longhaircurlyred%2Bfinished%2B1.png

“So soon into the school year, Draco.”

It was not unusual for his godson to visit Severus office, both with questions and simply to
talk at times, although on a weekend was a tad out of the normal for sure. Draco was still
young, and he’d made new friends (don’t remind him) so after the boring summer he was
often running around doing children things and pretending to play snake amongst other
children learning to be clever—or not—so the amount of time he spent on his studies was
typically lower. Particularly on their days off when he could be studying with his housemates,
not cooped up getting lessons on complex potions in the dark dungeons. Draco didn’t mind
the dungeons, but he definitely took after his mother in that spending an afternoon outside or
by a window going about his activities was the preference.

Besides, he knew Severus used his Saturdays to get down to brewing without most
interruptions, particularly the potions needed to restock the hospital wing, which was not
even that interesting since Draco had mastered those years ago. He had only ever visited on
weekends in the previous year due to upcoming midterms or finals, so given the term was
still just starting to get into the swing of things, clearly something was amiss.

Especially since Draco did not precisely look thrilled to be there as he softly closed the door
behind him. The boy often forgot to guard his expression around him when it was just them
in the office, which was both encouraging for Severus personally, if not a bad sign for his
godson’s future as a Slytherin. He was still on the fence about correcting that habit or not just
yet, or waiting another year. He wasn’t a teenager yet, but he would be soon… and if that
didn’t make Severus feel old he wasn’t sure what would.

“I’m not here for lessons,” Draco grimaced slightly, causing Severus to raise one eyebrow in
interest. Must be interesting if he hesitated in sharing with even him. “I need for me and
Harry to be excused for a day for my father to take us to Gringotts.”

Severus stared.

At this moment, Draco didn’t know about his… difficulty, with the Potter brat. Of course he
knew damn well that he did not like Harry Potter, but he was not… fully educated on
Severus’ very personal conflict over the Potter part of that—not necessarily for any of the
more obvious reasons concerning the brat’s fame.

And if Severus got his way, Draco would never know just how petty his godfather truly was.

This though.

This was alarming for several reasons.

Not least of which being Draco just coming out and saying what he was here for and
confessing outright what he was after. If he didn’t know better he would say the boy was
hanging out with Gryffindors too much, and let’s just say for his sanity he was going to
assume that was not the case.

Severus gave up ruminating and decided he needed more information first.

“Oh?” he challenged after the lengthy silence, raising an eyebrow to prompt him to
elaborate. Draco… did not do that though, he simply pressed his lips into a thin line and
shifted his posture a bit uncomfortably where he stood. It didn’t take Severus long to figure it
out. “You don’t want to tell me.”

He scoffed a bit brashly. “I’m under no illusions you won’t find out, but honestly no, I don’t.”

That is way too honest for any godson of mine, Severus thought in distaste. He didn’t much
like honesty, to be frank.

“Well I’m not exactly inclined to just let a student out of Hogwarts because they forgot
something at home.”

“I am not-!” But before Draco could get it out he realized he was just being provoked and
quickly reeled it in, visibly forcing himself to remain calm. “If you won’t then I know
McGonagall would at least let Harry go. And that’s what’s important—I just want to go too.”
He demanded.

Severus would’ve scoffed at the meager ploy. While it was true, Minerva had been on a
warpath since the start of the school year and his normal sarcastic comments about the Potter
brat were earning him a lot of glares all of a sudden, it wasn’t enough to threaten him. For ten
years she’d remained silent on his blatant favoritism, and had been startlingly ruthless as the
lioness she was when he dared get close to the implication that she’d fallen into the trap of
having a favorite student. Just because he’d felt the need to point it out didn’t mean he held
her hypocrisy against her, given how lenient she’d been on him for over a decade.

That it was the Potter brat she’d picked was absolutely loathsome, but he… grudgingly was
adult enough to realize that she had never actually favored James Potter. As a teacher now,
and looking back on his own school days, Minerva had only ever been fair and impartial,
even with the Original Potter MigraineTM despite how much he hated to admit that to
himself. Being impartial had been bad enough, but she’d never favored him.

She was favoring this Potter though, and while he was undoubtedly curious he was also going
to his grave denying it. He was content enough to tell himself it was because the child was
apparently a Transfiguration prodigy and call it a day (the smarter Slytherin side of him knew
that was only scratching the surface but was determined not to care enough to look into it
either).

It was true though, that this year Minerva had suddenly gotten a lot worse. She was no longer
just disappointed in his attitude towards the brat or clicking her tongue when he said
something at a staff meeting—now she was calling him out and ripping into his own behavior
in front of the entire damn faculty and Dumbledore himself if he opened the floor for a fight.
The last soured meeting had ended rather quickly without them getting much business done
as Albus hadn’t seemed to be able to control their sharp back and forth—Severus would not
let her get the last word in on his pride as a Slytherin, and Minerva’s long-buried temper was
not going to take that peacefully either.

He’d learned quickly that if he kept his mouth shut, so would she. Staff meetings had been
very quiet lately as a result.

He was also careful to note neither he nor Minerva were reprimanded for bickering like
children at a staff meeting and it further cemented his evidence that Dumbledore was simply
useless as a headmaster.

Even with all this going on in the background that he was sure Draco had no idea about, the
idea his godson would try and use his rivalry with Gryffindor, and their head of house by
proxy, to try and convince him of something so radical without any better evidence was
pitiful.

Draco wanted him to think of the reputation… if his own godson went to the head of
Gryffindor house instead of his own godfather for help, for shame…

If only Severus cared about his reputation like that. If Draco wanted to be a brat and demand
things and they try and play to another teacher to get his way, then he hadn’t learned anything
so far as Severus was concerned. Draco’s reputation is the one that would take a hit—
everyone knew Professor Snape was a strict old bat and that he was always more likely to say
no than anything else, but if Draco went to Gryffindor for his help, that most certainly
wouldn’t help his reputation among fellow snakes.

“Well we don’t always get what we want. Go ask the cat then.” He called the bluff
confidently and watched in amusement as Draco’s jaw flexed, frustrated. “Oh? The cat not
suitable enough for you?”

“…McGonagall would let him go, but then Harry’d have to be alone with Mother and he’s
not a fan of that. I want to go too.” He admitted.

Severus’ first thought was, smart boy.

Then he abruptly remembered who they were talking about and shook that off quickly. It
didn’t mean anything that him and the Potter brat just so happened to be in total agreement
that hanging around alone with Narcissa Malfoy was unpleasant as hell. That was just
common sense, the boy would be absolutely braindead if he didn’t feel that way.

And at the very least Lily was his mother. He was an idiot fool like his father, but Lily’s son
was not braindead.

He shoved those thoughts down for later inspection—and by later he meant never.

“I fail to see how that’s my problem.” He sniffed again, moving like he was going to return to
grading the homeworks in front of him and not concern himself with this conversation any
longer.

“Do you like being difficult!?”

“Draco.” He scolded halfheartedly, reminding him he was a teacher when he considered

talking like that, and the boy gave an annoyed groan but cooled it a bit.

He pressed his lips together and audibly tapped his foot on the ground as he wrestled with
something… before seeming to reluctantly give in.

“…he needs to take a blood test.” He finally admitted.

But Severus… just lifted his head to give him a deadpan stare.

“He’s a Potter.” He reminded him bluntly. No stupid blood test needed for that shit.

“Yeah I’m pretty aware of that, but I think we all missed something.” He snapped back,
shifting his weight uncomfortably once more. “Please?”

He was pretty much just begging, and Severus gave up on trying to teach him cleverness for
today. There was too much to work on with this horrible tactic and decided that was a future
problem of his to deal with.

“It’s not that easy. Dumbledore is watching the boy closely and I could get the floo approval,
but the Headmaster will know, and he will question. Did you consider that?”

Draco paused and thought that over, Severus just letting him work it out and legitimately
going back to grading his papers now in the silence.

Eventually the blond slumped a bit in defeat.

“I suppose the Headmaster will find out eventually, if Harry gets his way about not hiding
this like the stupid bloody Gryffindor he is.” He confessed, sounding annoyed to hell about it
too, which only further peaked the interest in what the hell this was all about.

“He doesn’t want to keep it a secret, so why are you?”

“Because he at least agreed to keep it quiet until we know more about what the hell is going
on! Hence the blood test!”

“And what riveting detail about the pompous Potters does not everyone know already?” He
intoned dryly, and Draco even opened his mouth to snap back before shutting it sharply with
a click.

“You’re trying to provoke me!”

“I see the Zabini boy has taught you at least that much.”

“Argh!”

He tossed his hands up in aggravation before crossing them over his chest, tapping his foot
against the floor again as he tried to think how to approach this. And he thought… and
thought…

And Severus barely managed not to roll his eyes as he turned back to his work and let his
godson pout in his silence.

A silence which was indeed quite long as a significant amount of minutes stretched by.
Occasionally he’d glance up to see Draco as frustrated as ever, with no visible progress.

It was therefore a bit intrusive when the blond gave an annoyed huff loud enough to forcibly
pull Severus from his thoughts he’d gotten distracted by, and he looked up one final time to
see his godson walk up to his desk—shoulders slumped in something like defeat.

Whatever Severus thought Draco was about to say, to be frank he was not prepared.

“You know, I think Harry was right about you.” He announced, in a rather disappointed tone
that send a chill straight up the potion master’s spine.

Severus’ mind went blank.

Wait what? What has that brat been saying about me!?

Not that he cared of course but—wait what!?

Luckily he managed to keep his face straight and at his blank expression Draco continued
without needing any more prompting. Which was good because Severus needed an answer
about what the bloody hell this approach was, but he was very much not in the right frame of
mind to actually say something for a solid couple of seconds.

“I do appreciate that you talk to me like an adult, but I’m not and I’m not going to outwit you
into getting what I want because you’ve got a lot more experience being a Slytherin than I do
at this moment. I don’t have anything worth trading and aside from leaning on my father I
don’t have anything you want aside from being your student.” He tilted his head, grey eyes
chillingly familiar in a way Severus was not thrilled to realize he recognized as they met his
gaze square on, unwaveringly. “I am not trying to beat you in a game of wits right now, I am
asking you to please help me help my friend. As nothing more than my teacher and my
godfather.”

What… the hell.

Severus felt… cold.

Not only was he totally taken off guard by this he just… what?

“You lack subtly.” He might not have been the best professor out there, but when it came to
Draco he always defaulted into teacher mode. That was safe—this conversation wasn’t
though.

“I know that. I’m pretty bloody aware of all my flaws as a Slytherin, all of which have been
made abundantly clear by literally everyone at this point, I don’t need to hear it again right
now.” Draco rolled his eyes, tone dismissive and impatient. “I didn’t come in here for a
lesson, but if you want to teach me things so badly then tell me this: why is it so hard to
understand I’m not here as a Slytherin right now!?”

The implication of course being that… Draco could be more than a Slytherin.

That he could turn being Slytherin off, and be here as someone… not that.

Not familiar to Severus, at least. Never let it be said that he had ever understood people, he
just had a better handle on the rules of playing the Slytherin game than anything else since
being social had never been his forte. Which was a nicer way of saying he’d rather drink his
first-years' horrible potions and accept the consequences to his health than make small talk
with literally anyone if he could possibly get away with it.

But what could a boy raised by two very Slytherin parents, neck deep in the politics of
Slytherin house, taught since he could properly talk by a man who was head of Slytherin
house itself be, if not a Slytherin?

There was nothing he hated more than the unknown, and this was uncharted territory. From a
very surprising source at that.

Ah… but it shouldn’t be. I’m an idiot.

He had been trying so hard to ignore the Potter menace, with some amount of success at that,
that the fact Draco was caught up in the whole horrible situation hadn’t fully sunk in. He’d
been so focused around the idea of what was happening in his own world, suffering silently
through his own personal slow-motion meltdown, of not trampling too hard on Draco’s
optimism, of not feeling a damn thing if he could help it…

Well, he hadn’t put together the actual implications of what he was trying to do by
considering Draco’s wants as he went about an befriended a Gryffindor.

And that was the key—Harry Potter was a Gryffindor.

Seems blatantly obvious but he’d been sitting at the Slytherin table so often and had such an
unfathomably comfortable position in the snake house these days, it was almost easy to forget
he was, inherently, not one of them.

Severus now knew about the Montague incident and why his students were letting the
accursed brat into the Slytherin dorm. He’d ignored it because… well for one no, and for two,
Narcissa Malfoy and for some fucking reason Dalia Zabini had commanded it to be so and he
was a petty man, not stupid. Despite wanting to pour lemon juice in his eyes rather than
witness Harry Potter being brought into his own house, he kept his mouth firmly shut about
it and had no opinion either way. Because if he had an opinion, he was rightfully paranoid
enough to know Dalia Zabini would somehow know and that he would sorely regret that
eventually. Skilled Occlumens aside, he’d locked everything related to that up tight and just
buried it.

But his planned ignorance of all of this for the sake of his sanity had backfired since Draco
was right in the middle of it all, as an active participant.

And all of this was so that Draco could maybe end up happier.

Happier.

As in, not the same.

Different.

Not a selfish Slytherin who found comfort in the darkness of a dungeon rather than people.
Someone who’d befriended a redheaded Gryffindor and kept them despite politics and
rivalries and diverging personalities and goals and… life really. Draco was not following
Severus’ footsteps because the adults in his life who cared about him were doing their best to
give him chances to choose differently than what Severus had been forced to do. Forced—
more just pressured by life and him not being nearly strong or brave enough to fight back.

But Draco had been born with the entire world handed to him on a silver platter and he was
brave enough to do whatever the hell he wanted, because he had never been told he couldn’t.
And he’d been trained since birth like a Slytherin but… he’d befriended a Gryffindor. That
just didn’t happen, not necessarily just because of house pressures to hate each other, but
because the two personality types of the sorts who got placed in each house really were rather
different. Even objectively, a calm, collected, and ambitious student didn’t typically make a
ton of friends with overly loud, thick-headed goofballs. That being the stereotype though,
didn’t make it any less true generally.

Draco, a boy given everything, looked at the world around him and picked a Gryffindor, out
of literally anything he could’ve had. It clearly wasn’t the easiest life decision ever, but that
only made it even clearer that Draco had wanted this and then was fully aware of how he
needed to fight for it, given all the opposition he’d faced thus far. It wasn’t like he was a
brand new firstie anymore who didn’t know any better—he now fully understood the gravity
of his decision, or at least had a better idea of it, and still, he wasn’t swayed.

Draco was serious about befriending a Gryffindor.

It hadn’t even crossed Severus’ mind to seriously question why.

Yeah, last year the little crush had been obvious, that was a given that Severus himself was
more than familiar with but…

Why had he loved Lily? Why had they fallen apart?

Why was Draco so steadfast on standing by the Potter brat? Even if Severus could perhaps
assume the answer to that correctly, what he didn’t know then… was why weren’t they falling
apart like he and Lily had?

By this conversation… Severus got an uneasy feeling the answer was one in the same with
why Draco would end up happier if he got his way. Why this was even possible, why he
chose a Gryffindor, why it was actually working so far…

Because Draco, at the core of it, was in fact not a Slytherin like Severus knew them to be.

He was still a snake of course but… Draco could be more than a Slytherin, to the point where
he could catch the attention of a Gryffindor and hold onto it. Where he could branch farther
than just the snake house, and start connecting to people in ways that was in no way like a
traditional Slytherin ever would.

Because that’s what this was: this was a piss poor approach to an argument going by snake
standards. Announcing what you wanted? Appealing to his more compassionate side? To
their familial-like link?

Pathetic.

For a snake, that is.

Severus was sure that it worked perfectly against Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs though.

And Narcissa’s eyes were much bluer, but the last time someone had pinned his gaze like that
and compelled to his compassion with the same echo of why can you not understand… he’d
ended up being a godfather even knowing full well it was just a trap.

Now, he was fully, completely sunk into said trap, and he suddenly felt a wave of
helplessness about that.

Whether Draco knew what he was doing now or not… Severus was sure he did not want to
know which it was right now. What mattered now was that he had two choices: give in to this
tactic and let it win, or hold firm and continue to say no until he had a better snake-like
argument.

With this revelation under his belt though, what he suspected now was that Draco’s bluff of
going to Minerva wasn’t a bluff at all, and if he pushed the boy too far he was just impulsive
and petty enough to go through with it. That would be… annoying. He then had to gauge just
how far was too far to push him then.
Or… he could give in, and turn the tactic right around onto Draco. Compel to the trust he
placed in his godfather, to obtain an answer. Depending on the answer given for why he
needed to leave Hogwarts, he could maybe make it work somehow. Lucius was going to get
involved of course, he could even use the favor gifted to the son to cash in something from
the father while earning more credibility in Draco’s eyes. A win-win, for all but Lucious
which is exactly what the prick deserved in Severus’ opinion.

He knew he was silent for a bit too long as he thought that over, and concluded his thoughts
by nodding calmly once.

“You do make a fair point. I will help you as your teacher.” Draco sighed in relief, and
Severus jumped at the chance. “But just as seriously, I don’t understand why the secrecy. No
one will know of it if I don’t want them to, and you’ve made it clear you don’t want them to.”
He referenced his being an accomplished Occlumens, and true to form the boy looked a tad
guilty at the mention of his lack of trust. He was too easy to read, and now that he was letting
his emotions get involved in his actions, too easy to manipulate too.

More lessons, for another day.

Draco turned his head to the side, looking conflicted before seeming to come to a reluctant
decision, grey eyes flickering at him with something like trepidation. And… pity?

“Okay, that’s true. I… didn’t want to tell you because it’s kind of crazy. Like, really crazy.”
He paused, worrying at his lip for a moment before sighing audibly. “And I know you and my
father have a past with the dark lord so it’ll probably be just the worst for you out of
everyone.”

He winced as he said it, but it paled to the tension that clamped down on Severus shoulders
like the hands of death reminding him that it’d never truly left his shadow.

Was… Draco trying to protect him?

Spare him, from the unpleasant information he thought he had?

This… child had… thought of what he’d feel about this topic before anything else.

That was what this was about?

That he thought his godfather would not like to hear this confession of his, and instead of
using that to get what he wanted, he’d tried hard to avoid bringing it up instead. Still not a
good tactic as he’d confessed himself that everyone would know soon enough but…

Severus put his quill down.

He was not going to be coddled by a twelve-year-old.

“You do realize that means I need to know now.”

Draco nodded, face becoming a better blank mask.

“Harry’s a parselmouth.”

Severus… contemplated his life choices.

“A blood test.”

“Yeah. Or maybe it’s something else but… we need to know more. Like right now.” He got
some of his urgency back as he said this, and now…

The potions master agreed.

Full heartedly.

Slytherins hated the unknown. Severus… was starting to realize that dreaded unknown that
lay beyond his small world was a lot bigger, and a lot more terrifying than he’d ever
imagined.

000

Harry spent a lot of the next several days doing magic.

Fun magic, not homework or research for once.

After the event that was his first visit to the Slytherin dorm, he’d spent the rest of the days
lost in his thoughts and… honestly, not that far along in organizing them. He still wasn’t sure
where he stood with everything but doing something felt better then sitting around the lake
and trying to muddle through his hazy thoughts for hours without getting much done with
them.

In situations like this he found ignorance was bliss. Draco had promised him he’d figure out
how to get him to Gringotts, but until his friend figured that out he was free from the
obligation of confronting the topic mentally until Mr. Malfoy announced a date for them to
speak to Axeclaw.

Until he heard anything, putting it aside and pursuing a distraction enough to take his mind
off it all was all he could do to stop his stomach from being perpetually queasy until he could
face this new development head on.

With Draco, preferably, because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to without the guy. It felt like his
nerve for such things was standing on shaky, baby-giraffe legs and he was seconds away
from chickening out if he didn’t have someone to pretend to be brave for.

He’d finally made the official request to Pomfrey to be released from his blocks and
restrictions, and only had half success. She’d relented that he should be allowed to perform
and practice the magic he wanted again, but she’d refused to take the block on his core off for
another couple weeks. She’d promised to reassess it if he came back next week until she
deemed it ready, but in her opinion he was still three weeks out or so.

He was fine with that though, especially when he’d found a spare classroom to play around in
and found that most of what he wanted to do wasn’t that hard even with the block in place. It
wasn’t like he was doing anything but the bare minimum charms they’d been doing so far
this year in class, it was more him just finally getting a chance to try and attempt the spells in
his joke book. Most of which were 3-5th year spells, and most he found easy enough to do
despite his core being blocked.

It only took a couple days to get through every spell in the book, but he then went through
them once again with his newfound attitude in learning spells.

Can I do it while running? Can I do it without looking? Can I do it with my wand hidden up
my sleeve? How is my aim while moving? What if my target is behind me? What kind of
timing does it need to cast, and to reach the target if they’re hiding behind that desk?

He was very much neglecting his friends, not to mention his homework. He ate meals with
everyone and went to class as usual, but most of the time he’d usually spend hanging out in
the common room, studying with others, talking to people, bothering the first years, even
running around with the football club, this particular week he spent alone in a classroom with
nothing but him and his wand and his mental games as he cast spells at no one and
challenged himself in his made-up scenarios to his heart’s content.

There was something logical about placing very surmountable challenges in front of him, and
being able to conquer them in an hour or so. The feeling of having done something, even
many small things, before going to bed at night made him feel like he was making more
progress then he actually was.

He was still ignoring a lot of big things in his life, but hey. He’d mastered over a dozen spells
in a week, and he was at Hogwarts to learn magic so… he was doing something good even if
it was really just a meagerly veiled guise to what amounted to procrastination. Learning
magic wasn’t in any way wrong but… it really wasn’t what he should’ve been doing with his
time.

He was so caught up in not doing what he was supposed to, he also kind of forgot to check
back in with the Slytherins—mainly Draco—for news about when the other shoe would drop.
Which, may or may not have been on purpose, but it wasn’t like he was avoiding the
Slytherins in particular—he’d been avoiding everyone actually.

He was reminded of his deadline by an arm draping around him as he walked with his
dormmates to lunch Thursday, and there was only one person aside from the twins who were
A) tall enough to come from above, and B) friendly enough to do this without fear they’d get
bitten.

“Please don’t touch me,” He grumbled.

“Oh he said please. How cute.” Blaise chirped, using the arm around the redhead’s neck like
an extremely gentle choke hold to steer him away from his intended path towards the
Gryffindor table. It would’ve been very brotherly and affectionate if the source didn’t also
make it kind of a threat too. “I’m kidnapping you.”

“Twice in a week. Alright then Harry?” Dean joked, and Blaise flashed the muggleborn a
positively devilish grin.
“He’s fine.”

“I’d rather hear Harry say it.”

Annoyed, said redhead rolled his eyes pointedly because while Dean’s words were kind, his
tone very much implied he was too amused to be serious about it. “It’s fine for now. Any
more of this and I’m siccing Fluffy on him though.”

“Ha! I now know all about Fluffy now and I’m a great singer I’ll have you know. Sing him a
lullaby and your threat is gone, you’ll have to come up with a new one.”

“Who told you about Fluffy!?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Blaise sneered joyously, using his hold to drag him away once
more. “Off we go! I’m hungry in any case.”

“Call for help if you need it!” Seamus half shouted after them, also semi-joking apparently
given Dean’s laugh.

Harry was kind of annoyed his roommates had gotten so used to the Slytherins they no longer
cared about him getting kidnapped. Even Neville who hadn’t said anything, he just continued
walking to the lunch table in a very Nott-like avoidance tactic but didn’t seem upset about the
sudden change of seating arrangements anymore.

On one hand it was a great thing they seemed very chill with each other; talk about a 180
from how last year had started. Blaise in particular as he was hard not to like, unfortunately.

On the other hand, Blaise getting his way more often spelled doom for them all, Harry was
sure of it.

“Saturday, 6am, second floor gargoyle.” Draco informed him without even so much as a
‘hello’ before Harry had even properly sat down next to him. The blond said it quite matter-
of-factly, but Harry’s stomach sunk as now he had an actual deadline to dread. Luckily it
wasn’t weeks away, but it would still put a major damper on the rest of his week.

“Right.” He sighed, trying not to let his disappointment show too much. Draco had done him
a favor, after all.

“What’s Saturday?” A new voice chimed in and Harry perked up as Daphne slid into the
bench across from him—right next to Blaise who instantly looked ready to dump his tea on
her.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Blaise pushed himself into the conversation just to annoy her,
and it seemed to work as she shot him a venomous glare.

“Yeah, I would. So spill?”

“Nope.”
“Are you even involved?” She demanded and seemed taken aback when Blaise suddenly
flailed his arms and whipped back around to Harry with a glare.

“Yeah, I am, and you haven’t been here all week to complain about it to! A week you jerk!
This might be a new record for how long I’ve kept a secret!”

Harry was more amused than anything as Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. Apparently
this was not new and suddenly Harry had a better excuse as to why he’d been avoiding the
Slytherin table than just his coping mechanisms. Even the most skeptical of snakes would
have to concede him wanting to avoid Blaise’s complaining was probably justified.

“You got what you wanted though. You wanted to trade with Harry and now you are.” Theo
pointed out without looking up from his book under the table.

“Ugh,” Blaise sneered, turning to the red head in front of him with a derisive look. “You
really bloody annoy me.”

“Welcome to my world,” Harry scoffed at the utter hypocrisy of that. “What, don’t like our
deal?”

“Wait, you’re dealing with him?” Daphne perked up, both shocked and annoyed at once.

“Trust me I am not enjoying it.” The Zabini immediately dismissed it in irritation. “I’ll have
you know I have never been blackmailed like this before and I may have to reconsider doing
it to everyone else now. It’s so not fun.”

“No you won’t you filthy lair.”

Blaise blew him a mocking kiss for that, but Harry’s attention was immediately derailed by
Daphne slamming her palms against the table, making even the fourth years adjacent to them
jump a bit in fright.

“You got blackmail on this bitch?” Her blue eyes widened and before he could open his
mouth to say one way or another, she cut over him. “Please, I need it. What is it? I can trade
you so much! Whatever you want!”

“Oi!”

“Nope, sorry this one’s locked in for now.” He gave her a wry smile, to which she
immediately cursed under her breath.

“Damn straight.” Blaise tilted his chin up pompously, narrowing his eyes back at the resident
Gryffindor among them. “We should have never let you into the dorm.” He announced for the
benefit of no one.

“Not my fault your reasons weren’t worth it; you didn’t even tell me what they were,
remember?”

“Ugh.”
“Blaise it’ll be like two days. You’ll live.” Draco dismissed him, sounding fed up with life
right then.

“Uuuuuuggggghhh,”

“Although we might not survive his complaining.” Theo muttered into his book.

“Put down the book and eat.”

“Fuck off, Malfoy.”

Harry was a tad surprised at the blunt take from the bookworm but was more amused by the
pretty colors Draco turned to be talked to like that. He would’ve loved to see what outburst
was coming before something about the impending appointment with Gringotts hit home
with him.

“Wait, Saturday?” He demanded and Draco was derailed slightly enough to answer him
instead of letting lose on Nott.

“Yeah?”

“As in Saturday. Quidditch try outs?” Harry reminded him pointedly, bewildered when Draco
gave a dramatic, put-upon sigh.

“As much as it pains me to admit, if I miss try outs there’s always next year.”

“Well shit,” Daphne blinked, voicing pretty much Harry’s mindset too because… eh!? “Must
be… important?” She wondered allowed, noting that neither Zabini nor Nott were shocked
about this announcement and after spending a year and change living with the Malfoy heir,
they of everyone knew how obsessive he was about quidditch, much less his chance to get on
the team.

Harry too, was… conflicted. Yes, this was important but… at the cost of something Draco
wanted? He knew he was a bad friend and their friendship had been very one-sided thus far,
so to blatantly take this away from his baby cactus seemed… too cruel, even for him. And he
had never said he wasn’t self-centered.

He wasn’t sure he could do this without Draco though.

Logically though…

He steeled himself, hoping his voice sounded a lot more confident then he felt.

“You don’t have to-”

“Yes I bloody do, shut up.” Draco didn’t even let him get the offer out before grey eyes were
pinning him under a mild glare. “The only one who doesn’t acknowledge how serious this is,
is you. Of course I’m coming.”
As guilty as he felt, Harry was relieved. He was sure it was pretty obvious to the whole table
too, when he didn’t actually try to argue for once either, which seemed to only strengthen
Draco’s resolve.

To ease his guilt though, he could make this worth Draco’s while. Fact was, he was a
parselmouth and those snakes had spilled a lot of dirt to him, particularly about the quidditch
team. He wasn’t sure how valuable most of the information was as a lot of it meant nothing to
him, but if he could give it Draco freely in exchange for his help on this, maybe he could use
it to get on the team anyway.

Blackmail was Slytherin 101 after all, he was sure Draco could do something useful with
what he gave him.

“I hate it when you wear that expression.” Daphne placed her chin in her hand to mock him
and Harry ignored her as he grabbed some food finally since their lunch hour was not endless
after all.

“It’s less about me blackmailing Blaise and more me wanting to get my way.” He defended
himself.

“Isn’t it always.” She sighed, distractedly picking a tomato from her sandwich and promptly
dropping it into Blaise’s lap when he took a drink of his pumpkin juice.

Theo wisely chose to end his lunch there and simply stood up, walking away without another
word.

Harry kind of wanted to follow him.

000

It was much later that Harry lay on Neville’s bed while the owner of said bed sat at his desk,
writing a letter to his Gran. With what was coming in the morning, Harry’s procrastination
tactic had run out of steam and he didn’t much feel like playing with any more
Transfiguration joke spells, but instead was now just wallowing in the feeling of worms
squirming uncomfortably in his stomach.

“I’m telling Gran you said hi.” Neville mentioned casually, since clearly Harry was out of
sorts but the blond was far too genteel to outright ask him what was wrong.

“Hi Neville’s Gran.” He repeated blankly, automatically even. “I want to meet her someday.”

“So you said. Still not sure how that’d go.”

“So you said.” Harry thought it’d probably be fine… if he could only get back to the self he’d
been last year. Now, he’d probably be more like Neville and too uneasy to actually give the
fearsome woman the spark she clearly needed to be handled with. He let out a soft sigh at it
all.

“Long week?”
He tossed his arm over his eyes, grumbling a bit. “More like it’ll be a long weekend.” He
didn’t look over to see Neville’s quizzical look, but he assumed it was there. “I’m… doing
something tomorrow. That I don’t really want to talk about until it’s over, but I really don’t
want to go. But I kind of need to go it’ll just be… unpleasant probably.”

Neville didn’t respond to that… and after a couple long seconds Harry heard the sound of a
quill scratching against parchment again. He stewed in silence for a little while.

“Can I ask what you think of everything?”

“Everything?” His question was repeated cautiously.

“Yeah. Everything. I know I’m not… well I want to hear your thoughts and feelings on it,
because to be honest I have no idea what to think or feel right now and I’m kind of hoping I
can copy yours.”

He lifted his arm to look at his dormmate, and blue eyes were muddled a bit as he glanced
over.

“Can you do that? Copy others’ feelings?”

“Why not?”

Neville fiddled with the feather edge of his quill. “I dunno. Just… didn’t consider that I
guess.” He shrugged a bit but in the long silence that followed, he collected his thoughts and
Harry let him do it.

“Well… everything is going… well? Classes are definitely harder and I’m already behind on
homework but I think that’s true of most of Gryffindor aside from Hermione. I like Hogwarts,
everything is very happy and playful what with the twins and everyone able to goof off. I
think… you, trying to get everyone to talk to each other between houses last year has been
actually working you know. What with the football club and people making friends between
houses… I mean there’s only been like two big fights between Slytherin and Gryffindor that I
know of this year and I’m pretty sure it was a daily thing this time last October.”

Harry smiled peacefully, happy to know it wasn’t just him who’d noticed that— that it wasn’t
just in his head. Despite everything, he’d done something good and that was a good feeling in
return.

He suddenly realized he was being stared at and looked over, only for Neville to glance
quickly back down at his letter.

“Neville?”

“… you don’t really smile as much as you did last year though. I think things are going much
better for everyone that’s not you.”

Harry felt his breath catch.

“…oh.”
“I’m sorry, I just-”

“No you’re… right.” He let out a steadying, shaky breath but it didn’t do much unfortunately.
“I uh… I didn’t have a great summer.”

“So you said.” Neville frowned, pointedly not looking anywhere but his letter, and for some
reason Harry was thankful for that. “And I’m totally okay with not getting an explanation if
there isn’t one to give; that’s just how it is sometimes I think. But you asked my thoughts and
I am kinda… well I can’t not notice. I know you were… attacked at the end of last term, and
you do seem better than back then, so I figured you just needed more time. Just thought you
might want to know I did notice, it’s not like I’m ignoring it.” He blurted it out rather quickly,
and Harry tried to absorb what he was saying.

Gryffindors had short memories. He knew he’d left Hogwarts at the end of last term an
absolute mess—everyone giving him, Draco, and Neville space on the train had proved
everyone knew he had not been okay.

But no one had asked him about it or even brought it up this year, which… Harry liked, as he
wasn’t ready to talk about it, but aside from the likes of Neville and Seamus who were the
most sensitive or considerate to others around them, he was starting to think people genuinely
either forgot or didn’t see it as something to bring up. Most people he probably wasn’t close
enough to for them to feel comfortable asking, and he got the feeling Slytherin house was
ignoring it for their own reasons.

Obvious reasons if you thought about it for a couple minutes.

Gryffindor though… it was like they really forgot.

It wasn’t happy and upbeat and full of mischief and good times so… not important for right
now, right? It was last term, ages ago, in the past—not relevant.

In some ways that was good. Out of sight, out of mind: no one bringing it up, no unhealed
wounds getting picked at for no reason. He could shove it down and forget for a couple hours
a day that it’d never happened. And yeah, maybe a lot of it was the summer but… shit, he’d
almost forgotten about Quirrell.

How could I forget about that? Yeah the shed was hell on earth, but so was that whole
experience.

It wasn’t like he truly forgot, it was more that… his more relevant problems related more to
the shed. If he didn’t act, he was going to end up back in the shed and with that threat
lighting a fire under him, he had to keep moving and address it otherwise…

Quirrell though. What was… what was the threat about that? Quirrell was dead (he’d killed
him himself) and Voldemort was a ghost who very much wanted him dead but that was just
kind of a ubiquitous fact of life at this point. Voldemort wasn’t going to come after him
before next summer when he’d be faced with Private Drive, so it was a secondary concern for
the time being. The most imminent threat deserved more of his brain power and therefore he
spent more time trying to confront that trauma mentally than what had happened between
him and Quirrell.

More time picking at old wounds so they wouldn’t heal, so to speak.

Neville… didn’t know about the shed though. He’d only known about Quirrell, and not even
what had happened in front of that bloody mirror. Of course he’d assume all of Harry’s…
current out-of-character actions were related to that trauma. He hadn’t even considered so far
that Harry could’ve had another major thing happen in the short months they’d been apart
that could possibly trump being attacked by a teacher.

Thinking about the shed… well he thought about it too much as a lot of his motivation these
days was to avoid it.

Quirrell though.

Voldemort though.

Voldemort who could speak to snakes.

He who could speak to snakes.

Voldemort who was just a ghost.

A ghost who could and would use the cruciatus curse to major success.

The pain had been so unbelievable that he couldn’t lie here and even replicate the feeling in
his mind. Not that’d he’d want to, but he couldn’t outright feel fear of something he couldn’t
even wrap his mind around or was so vastly, unimaginably tortuous that his mind whited out
rather than give him a replay in his mind’s eye.

“Harry?”

He broke out of his thoughts to see Neville fully turned to face him now with concern, letter
abandoned and he wondered what kind of expression he’d been wearing to earn that kind of
reaction.

“…maybe I do need time.” He admitted, and the blond relaxed some as he nodded.

“That’s okay, you know. I had expected as much.”

Harry worried a bit at his bottom lip. The truth of it… kind of hurt.

“Maybe I… maybe I get time. Maybe it changes nothing and things don’t go back to how
they were. Ever.”

Neville frowned, seeming to deeply consider that. Even glancing down like he really was
working that out.
“… I think that’s okay too. No one has to stay the same forever, I don’t think it’s fair to
expect that out of anyone.”

Harry let out a shaky breath again and managed to flash him a bit watery of a smile before
quickly turning over on the bed to hide a bit.

After a couple minutes the sound of a quill against parchment started up again and Harry
tried to time his heartbeat to it to calm down.

000

He’d learned his lesson and had taken multiple calming draughts before leaving the dorm
early Saturday morning, and downed one more for good measure before turning into the
second-floor corridor, making his way to the gargoyle in question. There were hundreds if not
thousands around Hogwarts but going by Draco’s instructions, “the” gargoyle was probably
the largest and most impressive one in this hallway. He’d gotten dressed and put himself
together with almost clinical coldness this morning, and with the calming draughts he was as
prepared as he was going to get.

Today was no place for emotions. He had to get this done, he had to obtain an insane amount
of information in only a couple hours, and he could not back down or chicken out like last
time when he’d read his parents will. He was going to be surrounded by Slytherins who
would think nothing of a blank face and calculated questions.

Well, Draco would, but more importantly he’d understand why Harry was acting this way.
Maybe he’d even cover for him.

He was only half surprised to see Snape standing with Draco, and he didn’t even bother
trying to hear what they were talking about, nor see the sneer he got from the potions master
as he got within range. He didn’t have time for it today.

“Lemon drop.” Snape told the Gargoyle who jumped aside, and he followed Draco’s lead up
the moving staircase.

The office they entered was… actually insanely impressive. Round and refined in its
decoration, coated in books, crazy looking magical contraptions, and paintings that all
seemed to be asleep.

“This is the headmaster’s office. Touch nothing and speak softly—don’t wake the paintings.
You must be back in three hours so the Headmaster will not know you were gone.” Snape
commanded in a near-silent hiss, almost to the point Harry wondered if he was hearing
parseltongue instead, but as he was saying it mostly to Draco and the blond nodded dutifully,
he figured not.

They were ushered quickly to the fireplace, where Harry immediately realized what was
happening. He’d only used the floo network once before to get to Hogwarts but he didn’t
actually know where they were going. He did know that pronunciation was absolutely critical
though, and the thought of accidentally somehow getting separated from Draco at this
moment set a cold chill over his shoulders despite the calming draughts. One panicked glance
at Draco was all the blond needed though, to grab him by the arm and hold on tightly as he
took a pinch from the jar Snape offered him and tossed it in.

“Malfoy Manor!” he hissed, and dragged them both into the fire without another word.

Harry did not like the floo network much. It was a whirlwind and not in a fun way riding a
broom was, but simply just dizzying and he got a huge amount of soot up his nose.
Thankfully his contacts being fire-resistant also seemed to include ash and dust-resistance so
he could see almost unnaturally clearly, but that only meant he could see the spinning,
dizzying colors in such a sharp contrast it made him sick. He squeeze his eyes shut and clung
to Draco for dear life as they spun—and then suddenly it was over and it was only Draco’s
hands on his arms holding him upright that prevented him from taking a spinning fall onto
the glassy marble surface below them.

He coughed from the soot and Draco stood up sharply, Harry copying him immediately as he
realized where they had to be.

Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy had on travel cloaks and stood at attention while the two boys appeared
in front of them, clearly prepared. He hadn’t asked but Harry had assumed they’d be coming
too… Draco was inherently not quite as independent as he was, being an orphan with horrible
guardians after all, so it wouldn’t be weird if a twelve-year-old’s parents didn’t let him go into
town to meet with bank officials alone. Even if it wasn’t Draco’s business exactly, he was just
accompanying a friend for it, it wasn’t… unusual. Logically Harry knew that and had
expected it even if it still felt very weird for him to have adults he didn’t know that well
following him for what he thought was probably going to be a personal conversation with
Axeclaw. It wasn’t a shock though, even if it was blatantly uncomfortable. He could deal
with it, probably.

What he had a harder time with though… was that by Draco’s explanation of the plan he’d
kind of thought Mr. Malfoy was the one arranging it and had had half a shred of hope Mrs.
Malfoy would take after her son and prefer to sleep in rather than accompany them to the
bank at the early hour. No need for both of them to come, right?

It was really a rather stupid hope to have though, in hindsight.

“Good morning dear. Harry.” Mrs. Malfoy nodded politely in greeting to them, and Harry felt
obligated to nod back with a low ‘good morning’ of his own. Draco seemed to relax a
fraction though and greeted them a bit more warmly.

Right… they were his parents who he trusted and loved.

He was comfortable.

Harry was the one who felt like his clothes were made of something slimy and gross for how
stiffly he knew he was standing.

“How much time do we have?” Mr. Malfoy got down to business without hesitation.

“Three hours.”
“Let’s not dawdle then.”

“I did it last time since we didn’t really have time for you to mess it up, but you could do it
yourself if you’d like. It’s just Gringotts, but pronunciation is everything, or you could end up
in the wrong place.” Draco turned to him and lifted a fancy looking jar off the mantle to offer
him, but Harry just shook his head tightly and leaned closer.

“I think I’ll leave it to you for now.” Now was not the time to get lost and while he didn’t
know if going by floo was physically worse or better as a side-along rider, mentally it was
definitely preferrable.

Harry was thankful that Draco didn’t even hesitate or pause to give his admission of
weakness any more attention or importance than necessary as he took a pinch and tossed it
into the fire. Harry just hung onto his arm closely as they spun once more into the fire.

And suddenly they were in Gringotts, Harry coughing a bit as Draco dusted both of them off,
flourishes of flame behind them announcing the arrival of the Malfoy elders too.

“Mr. Potter.” A familiar voice interrupted his coughing and he perked up, relief at seeing
someone he felt was an ally instantly making the fact Mrs. Malfoy was walking up behind
them slightly better.

“Axeclaw!”

The goblin nodded curtly to him with what was probably a scowl, or the goblin-greeting-
scowl equivalent, clearly having been expecting his arrival since he too was positioned as if
waiting in front of the fireplace in the lobby. “Mr. Malfoy requested a blood test to be
arranged on your behalf, but I would need your confirmation this is true. Under oath, to
ensure no… tampering.” He got down to business.

Harry, now that he was well aware of the concerns of things like confounding charms and the
thrice damned Imperius curse, had seen that coming.

“Sure.”

“Follow me then.” He turned on his small heel and walked away, not questioning the
presence of the Malfoy family who followed suit. Harry was sure if he asked to go alone then
Axeclaw would side with him but… he didn’t. While he wanted nothing more than to have
this conversation alone, he equally didn’t want Draco to leave his side and there was no non-
awkward or offensive way to tell his parents to get lost while keeping his friend close. Given
Draco’s general attitude towards goblins in the first place, there was a solid chance one or
both of the Malfoy elders might not even let him leave their sight to be alone with a goblin in
the first place, Harry being there or not.

He resigned himself to this extremely awkward meeting. By the letter hidden in his robe
pocket, he’d already kind of prepared what he was going to do in any case, might as well grit
his teeth and just do it.
Axeclaw lead them down several of Gringotts’s truly impressive hallways, past the office
they usually met in and to another room that looked very similar, but lacked most of the
traditional office furniture and all the bookshelves the goblin had in his actual office. There
was only one chair and a large circular table with a huge sheet of paper laid out on it, golden
runes etched into the dark wood edges. Axeclaw simply snapped his gnarled fingers and three
more chairs appeared— Harry knew about goblin magic but had never seen it, and as cool as
that was he was too preoccupied to even care right then.

“Depending on how far back you would like to search your family tree, this process should
take a relatively short amount of time. The more detail and branches you’d like to research
the longer, of course. There is a fee of 317 galleons.”

That’s actually pretty damn expensive, Harry realized, but it made sense. If everyone could
just do this then he was sure there’d be a lot of blood-purity conflict cleared up immediately.
There was probably status in having the galleons to drop on knowing your bloodline in the
first place, hence why people like the Malfoys took such pleasure in flaunting it.

In any case, money was not on his list of concerns right then, not about this. In fact it didn’t
even rank.

“That’s fine.” He agreed easily. “I can’t tell exactly how long it’ll take to find what we’re
looking for.”

Axeclaw didn’t even ask, which he appreciated. “Very well. You must agree to the blood test
the same way you agreed to inherit the Monroe name.”

He saw Mr. Malfoy turn to look at him, and could almost feel the raised eyebrow he was
getting, but ignored it. The question triggered several different concerns about this process he
hadn’t realized he should be worried about that were frankly higher in priority then what
Draco’s parents thought about him or his family names.

“Is it the same ritual? Or similar.”

“No.”

“Is it going to hurt the same amount?”

“No, I am told this is less painful to humans.” The implied weakness of mankind was clear,
but Harry was willing to take that hit. It was probably true in any case, he wasn’t too proud to
admit goblins were likely way tougher if these rituals of theirs were common and easy for
them—inheriting the Monroe name had in no way been pleasant or easy for him and he
wasn’t going to lie and say otherwise. There was just no point to it.

“Is it going to cripple me for any amount of time? Considering I am human, twelve, and have
a magical block on for medical reasons right now.” He reminded his account manager who he
had a suspicion did not care if he was five or ninety-five. Which he often liked, but even
Harry was well aware of his limits and how potential human limits was not even a thought in
the average goblin’s mind, much less a consideration when doing business.
True to his suspicions, Axeclaw placed one slightly unnaturally long finger on chin as if that
had not occurred to him before. “The procedure only requires a sample of your magic that is
quite small, so a block should have no impact. I could not say how your age would be an
influence although infants have had this ritual done in the past in cases of urgent
identification, with no ill effects so far as I’m aware. I also could not say what threshold
would cripple you, but I suppose there is a potion that would cure you of the effects of the
ritual. It can be provided for a fee. Two galleons I believe, but I will verify.”

If there was a potion to cure me of the effects of the inheritance ritual and they just didn’t tell
me about it, I’m going to be pissed.

He kept those dark thoughts to himself though—it wasn’t like he could change it now. He
gave up with a sigh.

“I would like that, please. And in that case: I would like to request a blood test.”

“Very well. You agree to the ritual?”

“Yes.”

“Then please take a seat, I will collect the materials prepared for it.” He left shortly and Harry
reluctantly slid into one of the chairs, with Draco and his parents wordlessly following suit.

“What’s with the questions?” Draco immediately asked as soon as the door closed behind
Axeclaw, glancing around the room curiously and noticeably less tense then Harry himself
was.

He patted his friend on the arm tensely. “Draco seriously, never agree to a goblin ritual
without questions.”

“Uh… right.”

“Listen to him, Draco.” Narcissa chimed in sagely from slightly off to their side and by
Draco’s dismayed expression he seemed to realize how serious the threat was. He turned back
around with a critical look in his eye.

“Harry what exactly did that inheritance ritual entail?”

“I’m not telling you that, you’ll get mad at me.”

“It was before I ever met you!” Which was not technically true but Harry didn’t bother
correcting him.

“That wouldn’t stop you.” He huffed.

“I knew you had taken on the avenged line, Mr. Potter, but wasn’t aware it was official.”
Lucius now spoke up, and Harry was abruptly aware that this was like… small talk with his
best friend’s parents. He’d already talked plenty with Mrs. Malfoy and had seriously
regretted it, so it set him right on edge. Of all the things he’d been planning for today, small
talk had not been in his contingencies.
The worse part about small talk though was that you couldn’t exactly avoid it, and given
Draco was just looking inherently curious right now, he felt even more trapped and obligated
to engage. Ugh.

“I… did agree when Axeclaw asked me about it without asking any questions first. Lesson
learned.” He admitted, looking mostly at Draco for his answer, who seemed genuinely
interested. “I don’t regret it though.”

“Do you know anything about the Monroe family?” Draco turned with that earnest curiosity
to his father—and Harry immediately panicked that it was too much information to spill
but…

But it was clear Draco’s default was to ask his parents when he didn’t understand or wanted
to know, and they were right there so why wouldn’t he? He had no expectation that they
wouldn’t know or wouldn’t answer him. He trusted them.

Draco was… very comfortable, sitting there between his best friend and his parents who he
loved, so of course he had no reason to hold back or hesitate. If he could read the room he
might have picked up on Harry’s tension better, but… ah, that was not meant to be when the
spoiled boy was sitting there easily between the people who’d done the spoiling.

He took a deep breath and tried to think logically about it—he couldn’t fault Draco of course
although he’d be bringing this up later, but logically… this was actually a good way of
getting info. If Mr. Malfoy knew something and was just answering his son, he wouldn’t
actually know what Harry was gleaning from the information, which would keep his privacy
some. And Harry had to assume, given they were full grown Slytherins, that they didn’t fully
realize Draco was asking out of his own curiosity and not because Harry wanted him to—he
was sure his expression made it abundantly clear that he would prefer Draco stop talking.

Whether Mr. Malfoy noted that or not, he gave nothing away as he answered.

“They were Ancient and Noble, of course. I never met any of them before they died out but
it’s said they had a good commerce base and plenty of researchers in their line. They were
quite small most of their history, tended to marry pureblood when they did marry but had a
bit of a reputation for being single or childless on the most part which probably didn’t help
their chances of survival.” Harry actually appreciated how clinically he was talking, as if only
imparting information to Draco as if this wasn’t pertinent to Harry’s history (adopted as it
may be). He actually preferred it this way though. “I wouldn’t call them light or dark; they
were probably better described at dark grey but in reality they cared very little for any sort of
politics or even other families. Even their own family actually, as they were mostly
individuals rather than a clan. They traveled a great deal, so while Britain was their base of
operations they had very little actual investment here so never made much impact one way or
another. What investments they did make were not very profitable, I don’t think it brought
them much success in general.”

He sniffed a bit in distain, and Harry liked that he was expectedly more oriented around their
alignment and their wealth then anything else. It was no surprise coming from the Malfoy
patriarch and actually he hadn’t know any of that before, so that was… good. Not personal
by any means, but solid information on the Monroe history.
“And you like them then?” Draco asked him just as genuinely curious.

Hesitant as he was to speak, speaking up in defense of his adopted ancestors was suddenly
not hard at all.

“Absolutely. I have no connection to the Potter name as I can’t get into their vault until I’m of
age to learn a damn thing about them, but I have been to the Monroe vault. I mean it’s nice to
hear people who knew them talk about my parents, but it doesn’t really mean anything to me
as it’s all just their takes on who they were when they were kids—not like they actually lived
long enough to be my actual parents. It’s not like what the Monroe name means to me now
that I could physically hold parts of their history, read their journals and such. Feels like I
know them more if that makes sense.”

“I guess?” But Draco, who from the day he was born had an ingrained sense of inherent pride
in his family name and blood status and could still not imagine a world without his parents,
very clearly did not understand.

And that was okay—Harry surprised himself by being legitimately happy Draco couldn’t
understand something like this instead of pettily jealous or something more expected of
himself. He patted his friend’s arm a bit tensely again.

“You’ve been to their vault though, that’s good.”

“Yeah. It’s way more valuable in the kind of history that’s in there then anything else
though.”

“As is the case of most Ancient and Noble houses.” Mrs. Malfoy chimed in smoothly,
catching her son’s attention.

“How so?”

Whether she was actually going to answer that or not, Harry didn’t know as the door opened
again and Axeclaw returned pushing a small goblin-sized cart with several items laid out on
it. With a sinking in his chest he did note the large silver dagger on a delicate silk cloth—he
was starting to realize everything goblin-magic related required blood which was… well.

He was starting to really not like bleeding. Actually, he was more unnerved by how used to
bleeding he was becoming.

“The process is simple: I will need a dose of your blood and the runes of this table will
automatically sample your magic as well. The blood will act as ink and fill out this enchanted
parchment with your family tree; we will keep it here in your vault for safe keeping and will
be provided a copy free of charge. Any additional copies requires a fee, to be determined
based on the size of the tree you wish to create today.” The goblin explained as he went about
his work, placing a fine silver bowl the size of a teacup with fluted edges on the edge of the
table to the size of the parchment, taking a piece of what seemed to be charcoal and marking
a haphazard ‘x’ in front of where Harry was sitting, and waving his hands in a complicated
pattern that immediately made the paper flutter a bit as if a breeze had rushed by in the
otherwise still room.
He then lifted the knife and either Draco hadn’t noticed it before or just hadn’t realized what
it was for as he tensed up. Harry just patted him on the arm with a silent sigh as he stood and
went over to the bowl that Axeclaw was referencing.

“It will need to be enough blood to fill this vessel and the mark will scar. It does not matter
where I take it from.” He declared and Harry scowled for a second considering yet another
scar.

At this point I need to just get over it.

His not-so-invisible cloak often fell over his hands these days, and he wasn’t sure if that was
something his subconscious was doing since the magical fabric seemed to just know what he
wanted it to do most of the time. Either way it meant his now very-scarred hands were not
always on display… and at this point it didn’t matter if there was another one in amongst all
the much larger and more gruesome gashes he’d already collected there. His hands were just
screwed at this point, he supposed.

Wordlessly he pushed up his sleeve and held out his non-dominant hand, palm up.

Axeclaw stared.

“… that is very poorly done house elf magic healing, is it not?”

Harry tensed up, not having expected the goblin to just know on sight what had happened to
his hands, but he supposed that was pretty stupid.

He could almost feel the elder Malfoys’ eyes drilling into his back, and the hairs on his neck
stood straight up.

“It’s fine.” He got out bluntly, if not breathlessly, less for Axeclaw’s sake and more for
Dobby’s honestly. “I don’t care about it at all, and kind of just want to get this done for
today.”

He met the goblin’s eyes and despite having no idea how to read his snarl expression, he
knew he’d get the message of just move on for now. If he wanted to say something on it, he
could do it later.

With less of an audience at that.

Axeclaw unfortunately moved on wordlessly by taking his hands and slicing into it without
hesitation.

It stung to an unbelievable level that quickly turned into something like fire racing up his
wrist as the blade cut much deeper into his skin of his palm then he was expecting it to, and
Harry forced himself not grind his teeth together but instead take deep breathes and try to
center himself. Yeah it hurt but it wouldn’t soon, so he just dealt with it by clenching his
other fist so tightly he felt his fingernails pinch into his skin there sharply.

His cut palm was immediately just a pool of bright blood, and Axeclaw guided his arm to be
over the cup, tilting so the free-flooding wound began to pour like a kettle filling a teacup
with the world’s most gory drink.

My hair really is the color of blood. He noted absently, fixating on the color to be able to
keep his composure despite the pain and finding it simply fascinating on some morbid level.
Or maybe it was the blood loss because despite it being a teacup-sized vessel, it was still
bigger than the average china set and when it was about halfway full he felt the odd coldness
and slight dizziness he now knew meant the start of blood loss.

Not a good day to realize he recognized those symptoms.

In what was probably only a minute but really felt much longer when you were watching an
open wound that was magically not clotting somehow drain your life away, but eventually the
cup filled until it was only a couple millimeters from the top—and the runes around the table
glowed.

Harry was not prepared to have a piece of his magic sampled, but he felt it when it cleaved
down and snatched a chunk from him. There was no way to described the pull, as magic
wasn’t real it was just… a part of him. Like his soul being yanked at sharply, he almost didn’t
feel the tiny piece that got taken but he did feel this force he couldn’t quite name jolt inside
and outside and around him and then settle back into place and it left him positively
nauseous. Like an instantaneous dose of the world’s worst car sickness that only lasted a split
second before disappearing, but left you with this echo of awful sick in your throat and a
constricting pounding feeling in the front of his skull. Like both his stomach and his brain
were now both in his sinuses and he was about to spew them if he didn’t take some deep
breathes and close his eyes against the harsh light of the slightly-spinning room.

He felt the pain in his hand suddenly disappear and blinked his eyes back open to see not
only the cut on his hand suddenly gone, but all the blood cleared apart from what had made it
into the now-full cup. He had to blink a couple times as he pulled his hand back close to him,
rubbing his palm distractedly as the black dots cleared from around the corners of his eyes.

He felt cold, and nauseous, and abruptly more tired then tense.

But it was very manageable, and in a couple seconds he’d gathered himself to turn around
and find his seat again—a very pale looking Draco not watching the table at all but watching
him intently, hands hovering like he wanted to do something despite that being rather useless.

“You alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re pale as a sheet.”

“I’m missing a chunk of blood Draco, that’s normal I’m pretty sure.”

“You-!” Harry was sure whatever scolding he was about to get would be both severe and
worthless considering the situation so he grabbed Draco’s hand to shut him up as he turned
back to the table where everyone else was clearly looking.
And was both mildly startled and impressed by the writing that seemed to be coming to life
as if written by a ghost. The base of the newly forming tree was his name, which had
appeared directly under the small ‘x’ Axeclaw had drawn, and then the names began to
branch upwards.

Harry James Potter Monroe

Lily Jade Potter, nee Evans --- James Henry Potter

Mary Olive Evans, nee Conrad --- Robert Leo Evans Euphemia Zion Potter, nee Black ---
Fleamont Arcturus Potter

The names began to sprawl out across the paper as if written by invisible hands, not
necessarily fast but quick enough that he could only just barely read the full name as it
appeared before the next name was halfway done appearing. As the two sides of the tree
quickly began to branch out and several names began appearing at once, he was forced to
give up and just take it all in as it appeared. It was his tree though, when he got his copy he
could pour over it all he wanted later.

Today, they were looking for something.

What exactly it was… he belatedly realized maybe it was a good thing Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy
were here because he didn’t even know if Voldemort had a last name much less what it was,
and barring something like “Slytherin” appearing, how was he supposed to know the name
they were looking for when he saw it? And it couldn’t be that easy, Voldemort came to power
by his claim he was the only Slytherin descendant, so if anyone had proof to counter they
would’ve. And the Potter family having a “Slytherin” in the family tree would’ve been huge,
at least at one point in history that someone like the Blacks or Malfoys never would’ve just
forgotten. Harry could not believe no one in the entire Potter history hadn’t noticed—or
maybe that’s what Draco had suspected and they did have a connection, just hid it or…
something.

After all, his grandmother Euphemia was apparently a prominent Black by this tree and she’d
married a Potter, which going by Daphne’s lessons was one of those things pureblood
families flat out ignored, as it was still “acceptable” by blood purity standards but the conflict
between the two family alignments (one being extremely dark and the other extremely light)
meant it was not as perfect as it should’ve been on paper. Some other black sheep somewhere
who married someone no one mentioned, someone else who had some kind of connection…

He didn’t know what he was looking for so it was more a relief and less an invasion of
privacy when he saw Mr. Malfoy clearly examining the names himself. Still weird but also a
comfort in some ways. It was also kind of a relief that he did not seemed shocked about any
of it, though that might be a mask.
It was a bit belatedly as the names continued to branch at a slightly slower pace now, that he
realized not all names were the same. Or, they weren’t being written in the same ink: some
were so heavy handed they were almost too bold to properly read, others were so faded he
could just barely make out what it was trying to say. His own name and several close by him
were in clear pitch black, while most of the tree now that it was becoming more of a tree in
fact, was written in dozens of different colors. Not only that, but each name had this little
halo of color around it as if it were glowing, and the shimmering in it made him think if they
turned the lights off, they really would start shining.

His father’s side was… frankly, huge. Actually it was most of the tree now that it actually
looked like a tree, but his mother’s side was… way more linear. Which wasn’t so surprising
as the whole pureblood thing meant families in history were definitely intermarrying and
creating thick bushes of branches instead of linear lines, but he found it hard to believe his
entire maternal line had consisted of only children for what looked to be centuries.

In fact… he knew it was wrong or at least edited, because Petunia and Lily had been sisters.
There were two faint lines coming off Mary and Robert Evans’ connected names, one of
which lead to Lily Potter, nee Evans, and the other… which faded as if it’d run out of ink
until there was a ghost of a name there but even him knowing it probably read ‘Petunia’, he
still couldn’t read it.

“Is this sufficient or would you like to go back farther? We would need another dose of blood
to continue.” Axeclaw broke into his thoughts, and one glance at Mr. Malfoy who said
nothing, he just nodded. He didn’t recognize most of these names anyway, and nothing gave
away any clue as to who he could’ve inherited parseltongue from.

He scanned… seeing things he did recognize and had questions about, but nothing that meant
anything about snakes.

“Let’s go back farther,” He agreed, holding out his hand again and wincing as he blade cut
into his skin one more time.

It took much longer to gather himself this time, and despite the cut being instantly healed,
Draco’s cold skin holding his hand tightly as he sat back down on slightly shaky knees was
actually a huge relief. The ink didn’t wait for him this time, it simply took the new blood to
revitalize the momentum it had so by the time he could breath normally without the fear he
was about to puke on his own family tree and refocus on the paper in front of him, dozens of
new names had appeared and he struggled to take them all in.

“Why are some faded? And the colors…?” He managed to get out in the silence while they
waited for the names to keep coming, and Axeclaw just tapped the desk unhurriedly.

“A blood test of this nature is to gauge whose blood you have inherited. Just because you are
a descendant of some does not mean you are born with that blood strongly within you; this
blood test will likely look nothing like that of your parents had they taken one, nor your
children should you have them.” He explained.

It was a genetic chance, is what he was saying. Harry didn’t know much about it, even the
muggle genetics part of it, though he’d heard of it before, but knew there was a science
behind why brown-eyed parents didn’t have blue-eyed children, or how a grandchild could
have some feature neither their parents did just because their great grandmother did once. Or
something like that—seemed like muggle science nailed that one just as well as magic could.

“This shows whose blood you have inherited strongly, and those you have a distant relation
to, but not as strongly. Those written in more concrete ink are strong ties while those who are
greatly faded are quite distant, barely traces in your blood but still there. If they are not
present, you’ve inherited none of their blood.”

“And the colors?”

“Magic, versus physical blood.” Harry was a bit surprised at that… but as he gazed out at the
complex web in front of him, a lot of the names on his father’s side were a rainbow of colors,
while his mother’s had approximately zero colors aside from Lily Potter herself. So, that held
up at least. “Black is physical blood, actual genetics as muggles put it. Any color is a certain
vein of magic, although you’ll find most purebloods are a cacophony of many types of mixed
magics, so it means less.” He explained uncaringly.

His father’s name was pitch black, with a glowing hue of many subtle colors Harry could
pick out, though red was definitely the most defined. The red-cast rainbow could be traced
throughout many of the Potter names listed above him, which was pretty cool to watch…

His mother’s name was pitch black too, with a cast of lighter bluish-green, but all the names
above her were solid, nearly bolded black.

“So since my mother’s ancestors were all muggle, they had no magic for me to inherit and no
colors.”

“Correct.” Axeclaw tilted his head as he examined the part of the tree Harry himself was
looking at. “Given by this, you have inherited that familial line far more intensely than your
paternal side.”

He did NOT like the implication he was more heavily related to the Dursleys then he was to
his father’s parents… but was quickly soothed by the reminder that faded names meant he
actually had none of their blood, magic or otherwise. He couldn’t see Petunia’s name even
though he knew it should be there, which meant… in the eyes of magic and whatever blood
he had in his veins, he wasn’t actually related to her. Not technically at least.

Which you know, best news he’d heard all year.

What was still a bit unsettling about his mother’s line though, was the linear pattern he’d
noted before. Most siblings, if ever there were ones, were faded lines instead of names if even
he could see those faint lines at all. There was thick bold ink over his and Lily Potter’s name,
then his grandmother Mary who married a Robert whose name was… well it was clearly
there, but it was incredibly light, and in fact the little “t” on the end was almost illegible.
Mary’s mother, Diana Kelly Rockworth, also had a thick line but her husband Richard was
also so light and half faded that Harry wouldn’t have known his last name if Grandmother
Mary weren’t a Conrad. The thick bolded writing followed a very blatant line for Diana’s
mother, and her father, and his mother, and her mother, and her father and… and so on.
Everyone else outside of the line pretty much just wasn’t there for how translucent they were,
and as they passed two centuries back, Harry stopped being able to see the spouses marrying
into the line at all, like they didn’t even matter.

He was caught up in this weirdo event and wondering if this is what most muggle lines
looked like, that he snapped his head to the side a little too hard when Axeclaw spoke again,
breaking him out of his thoughts as he pointed out another section of the tree. A section
Harry belated realized wasn’t actually connected to the main tree at all.

“As it relates to you inheriting the Monroe line, this is where that can be seen.” He motioned
to the right area and Harry lit up to see the branching names of many, many Monroes in their
whole other tree. Looking carefully he could see some places it touched his own main tree,
which wasn’t shocking if they’d been purebloods, so that was cool.

Even cooler was that they were all basked in a glowing, orangey-amber-gold like hue, and
despite their names being written in flat red meaning he shared not one drop of physical
blood with them, his own name was nearly eclipsed with the same exact color. He thought he
was getting that from the Potter’s red but it was clearly more Monroe than anything, and
honestly… that made him extremely happy. He got a full dose of their magic, and as a wizard
that was far more important to him.

He immediately tried finding Dell’s name, but nothing jumped out at him. She was alive
around the 1600s so she should’ve been coming up… he just didn’t spot her. He did however
see a William Sayre which… rang a bell somehow.

How do I know that name?

He scratched his brain trying to recall, but nothing came to mind. He definitely knew that
name though just… where had he…?

He was looking down trying to remember, back towards the base of the tree by his own
name, and was suddenly very distracted by two names written underneath the tree itself, not
outwardly connected it seemed but written in solid ink. And they definitely had not been there
initially, he just wasn’t sure when they had appeared.

He was so taken off guard he barely heard Axeclaw ask if he wanted to continue. He wasn’t
sure how long they should keep going until they knew with more confidence they wouldn’t
find answers here, but… maybe one more time wouldn’t hurt.

Immediately after it though he decided this was the last one because he didn’t even bother
looking at the names, he let Mr. Malfoy take over, just slumping into his seat and leaning his
head onto Draco’s shoulder until his vision came back into view. By the time he was sure he
wasn’t going to throw up and Draco had practically worried a hole in his hand from rubbing
soothing circles over his palm with his thumb, the tree had nearly doubled in size. He highly
doubted he was going to remain conscious if he did it one more time, to be fair, and
information be damned he wasn’t a masochist, thank you.

He was so out of it he didn’t immediately react when someone inhaled sharply and Draco
was suddenly pulling at his sleeve to force him to sit up more.
“Harry. You alright?” Clearly that wasn’t the first time he’d said his name, and so Harry
made an effort to sit up a bit more.

“What? Sorry I…” He shook his head slightly as if that could shake focus into him. “What is
it?”

“I believe we found it.” Mr. Malfoy intoned lowly, giving nothing away, but needing to stand
up to lean over the table far enough to point at what he’d found. Harry, being nearly half his
height, got up on shaky legs and walked around the table with Draco close on his heels to see
what it was…

Liliana Slytherin

Only… it was at the very top of the incredibly linear muggle line that ended with Lily Potter,
nee Evans of all people.

Uh… what? Is this stupid ritual making me hallucinate?

Even more so, because this Liliana Slytherin was written in pitch black, bolded ink, and not a
drop of color anywhere to be seen.

Her father though…

Her father’s name gleamed a very stark, pure blueish-green to highlight his magical
signature. And it was much thicker and more potent, but it was identical to the color haloed
around Lily Potter’s name.

I mean… it follows the rules I guess but that means I am both blood and magic related to
Salazar Slytherin. No, actually, his name is written in blue, which means I’m not blood
related to him, just magic. Which frankly makes no sense but… I mean I didn’t need the
Malfoys here, even I could’ve spotted that if I weren’t punch drunk right now…

Looking closer because really that was all he could do at this moment, he noticed there were
several faint lines coming from Salazar Slytherin’s name—he couldn’t read any of them but
Liliana, and he couldn’t even read who he’d married, or at least who Liliana's mother was.
The lines implied he’d had three children, though right now he only knew about this
Liliana… who had no magic despite being the daughter of one of the most famous wizards in
the world, and her children and her children’s children had all be firmly muggle… right up
until Lily Evans.

Maybe it was the ritual spells, but Harry felt like throwing up and laying down in equal
measure.

"It seems Salazar Slytherin had three children, of which was always known. It was believed
his youngest daughter to be infertile though, as she never bore a child. That is, as of this
moment, disproven." Axeclaw observed to no one, probably for Harry’s benefit mostly as it
was obvious that was what they’d come to learn. Harry was also kind of annoyed by how
unperturbed he was, although in hindsight there was no reason for a goblin to be concerned
over the bloodlines of wizards, even if they were related to old famous wizards—humans
were humans and goblins didn’t particularly care about humans as a rule.

"Most likely because she was a squib apparently. She was probably cast out or kept her
family name hidden at the very least, and if her entire line has been non-magical until
Evans…" Mr. Malfoy said aloud as if he himself were putting things together, and either he
was being generous or he too was rather shocked, to the point he forgot to watch what he was
saying.

A thought hit him and Harry too blurted it out before considering if this was the right
audience to ask it to.

"Does that mean my mother was a Parselmouth?"

There was a pause and Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy exchanged a very pointed look.

“…if she was, we never knew about it. Given our previous reputation, that would not be an
unwise move on her part to hide it." Lucius admitted, and he seemed truthful surprisingly.

“Is this what you were intending to unearth?” That’s right, Axeclaw didn’t know what they’d
been looking for, but he clearly knew now by his slightly waspish tone.

“Yes. I uh… it’s complicated.” He wavered slightly, but the goblin didn’t even blink.

“Very well.” He brushed it off, slipping the dagger back into its silk cloth and removing the
bowl from the table as the writing finally came to a stop and it ran dry of it’s gruesome ink to
use. “Is that it for your blood test or is there something else you’d like to search?”

No, Harry had a whole list of questions. Probably more then just Axeclaw could answer to be
fair, but… his eyes dropped back to the two names at the base of the tree, and maybe he was
just tired or loopy from the spells but... he couldn’t help himself.

“My… ah, godfathers?” He pointed, and everyone now turned to the two names written
below his own, not touching his tree, but just as close as his parents.

Sirius Black

Remus Lupin

He’d known about Sirius but…

“How are they… I mean I’m not related to them by blood?”

“I believe you’re related to Sirius Black in here somewhere—it’s a rare pureblood who isn’t
somehow distantly related to the Black family tree.” Axeclaw answered without issue,
tossing a casual glance at the spider web of names in front of them but didn’t look very hard.
“They would be there out of magical inheritance more than anything. Note their names are
actually navy I believe—it’s a traditional color for godparents.”

Not related by blood… and magical inheritance counted towards a magical blood test?
Maybe I don’t understand inheritance as much as I thought I did.

“Godfathers?” Draco repeated out loud, audibly bewildered. “Sirius Black is your
godfather?”

Harry froze… but forcefully tilted his head slightly so it didn’t look like he was frozen in
shock or anything. He saw Mrs. Malfoy take a step forward and place her hands over her
son’s shoulders pointedly, and he looked up at her in confusion.

That’s right… he hadn’t told Draco about Sirius.

By his tone he clearly recognized the name—if he was Mrs. Malfoy’s cousin he had to. Draco
would be getting the majority of the Black inheritance someday after all because of Sirius
being disowned/incarcerated, there was no way he didn’t know the guy.

But he… Harry hadn’t given away that he knew he’d had godfathers. Or godfather as Remus
Lupin being his godfather was absolutely brand new news to him, but he’d known since last
year about Sirius Black… and he’d fully intended on asking Draco, maybe even asking him
to ask his parents…

But that was before. He’d procrastinated all last year: he’d fully meant to bring it up to Draco
but he… hadn’t, because he didn’t really want to face it. And then suddenly it was the end of
the year and he’d missed his chance to have Draco ask his parents over Christmas or Easter.

And then very understandably it’d slipped his mind to ask Draco to ask his parents about it
over the summer break, because he had only just managed to survive the end of term
otherwise.

And then suddenly a casual interest in who his godfather was had been blown out of the
water into something closer to a dire need, if it meant Sirius Black could get him out of
Private Drive. By then Harry had a healthy distrust of one Narcissa Black and asking Draco
hadn’t even crossed his mind—he’d gone to Daphne instead.

He himself hadn’t wanted to think about it, so he hadn’t exactly told Draco about… this.

So… yeah, this was awkward.

He made a snap decision, and played dumb.

“Who is he? What happened to him?” He directed his questions at Axeclaw, very impressed
with himself by how believable that sounded. Then again he really was feeling ill right then
so sounding so desperate wasn’t that hard.
Axeclaw met his gaze at the question, and obviously knew he was lying. He’d already asked
that a year ago and Axeclaw had already well explained it, but frankly the account manager
didn’t care and it wasn’t like you could read a goblin’s snarling expression to notice any
hesitation or surprise either.

Surprisingly though, he only opened his mouth to answer before he was cut off.

“Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were friends of your father.” Mrs. Malfoy was actually the
one to respond, and Harry was forced to turn to look at her and prayed to whatever deity was
listening that she bought his blank expression for what it was and couldn’t tell he was lying.
“Sirius… your godfather, is my cousin actually. I was a Black myself before my marriage.”

"Why… if they're my godparents, where are they?"

The Malfoy parents exchanged looks once more, and Harry really hoped that meant they
were buying this.

"I might explain the absence of a Mr. Lupin." Axeclaw chimed in, his tone positively
professional but the helpfulness implying he was not thrilled about being cut off and wanted
his stage back. "He was very vehement in finding you and taking you after your parents'
deaths, however creatures such as him are forbidden from adopting children. I was present
for the court hearing he managed to get and it was not pretty—many look down on creatures
such as him and he was essentially laughed out of the Ministry for his attempt."

"Creatures?" Draco chimed in curiously, and Harry was facing Axeclaw so they didn’t see his
expression, but he knew, and he knew Axeclaw knew that he knew, exactly what he was about
to say.

"He is a werewolf." The goblin announced blankly.

"Really!?" Draco reaction was… more nervous than anything. He was clearly taken aback
and not happy about that news, but one glance at Harry for his own reaction and he seemed to
seal his jaw shut and pretend to be blank faced again.

Harry knew him better then that though. He didn’t much like that news.

Most of last year Draco had acted as if he was censoring himself, and Harry knew it was
because he was trying to un-learn a lifetime of dark alignment and not saying things like
‘mudblood’ or the like around him. They’d since moved passed that and it had honestly
meant a lot.

It was not great that Draco seemed pre-disposed to be prejudiced against a potential godfather
of his but… he was censoring himself on his own so… progress?

Best tactic though was to keep playing dumb. Because he wanted to hear Draco’s parents’
reactions too—and if they’d spent his whole childhood spitting anti-werewolf rhetoric, like
Harry had a feeling they had, then… well, Harry had to at least know what he was up against
here.
"That's a bad thing?" He feigned obliviousness, though thanks to Daphne he was already well
aware what the wizarding world thought about werewolves. What he was really after was the
two people behind him thought, so he “innocently” turned from Axeclaw, to Draco who
almost didn’t even meet his eyes, and then back at Mrs. Malfoy in particular.

They’d had tea together after all. Why wouldn’t she answer his innocent question?

Despite whatever else she might’ve been thinking, her smile seemed to be complimenting
him somehow.

She didn’t respond though, and after a beat of silence Axeclaw answered instead.

"Werewolves are considered dark creatures. As if the Ministry would give their savior to a
dark creature so soon after the Dark Lord fell." His tone was blank but Harry was clever
enough to notice the implied derision. He was sure a lot of the worst of humanity called
goblins dark creatures too, so it wasn’t exactly out of place. “Despite the magical inheritance
there, the Ministry never even acknowledged him as your godfather, so he really had no
claim even though the attempt was made.”

Clearly… Remus Lupin definitely was not in his parents’ will as his godfather, and if what
Axeclaw was implying was true and the Ministry’s bureaucracy (their ignorance and bias)
could not only overwrite but ignore magic in favor of their paperwork when it didn’t suit
their prejudices, it was likely his parents couldn’t legally file a will with Remus’ name on it
like that. They’d had no choice, but they’d done it magically anyway.

What struck him about this conversation though… was that this Remus guy had tried.

If Harry had been harboring any resentment about where this man had been all his life,
despite the nonsense werewolf prejudice, he found himself forgiving the man he’d never met
a little. Despite a childhood with the Dursleys… all those horrible memories…

Remus Lupin had tried.

And… he’d failed, apparently.

Being ‘laughed out of the ministry’ as Axeclaw put it was a wince-inducing thought for sure
but…

Someone had tried, for him.

And given up, which was less amazing, but still.

Harry could count on one hand the amount of people who’d ever gone to bat for him, and he
was thrilled that it sounded like there was a legitimate chance this Remus Lupin would be
one of them.

He wanted me.

The thought was almost intrusive in nature and he felt his breath catch in his chest.
With everyone else dead or unable to help me, all that time ago he’d wanted me.

The Dursleys… didn’t.

They never wanted me, not for a single second and they made that abundantly clear.

But Remus had.

The unfairness of it all, the fact someone had wanted to take him in and been denied in favor
of those who vehemently hadn’t and then spent his entire childhood blaming him for that
decision he’d had no part in… that was a whole other can of worms. The injustice about why
Remus had been denied was another issue he just didn’t have the emotional capacity to
confront for today.

He’d grown up thinking he was a very unwanted child, and today he was learning that had in
fact not been true at all.

Someone had wanted him.

All details and reality aside… that made his chest feel oddly tight.

He’d spent too long in silence though, he knew he still had a charade to wear and glanced up,
again back at Mrs. Malfoy as she’d brought it up first, after all.

"…what about Sirius Black then?”

She straightened up a bit and nodded once. "The prevailing theory is that he was the one to
sell your parents out to the dark lord. He is in Azkaban for that, as well as the murder of a
dozen Muggles and yet another of your father's friends—Peter Pettigrew."

“Oh.” He purposefully sounded crestfallen… but honestly he didn’t really have to pretend.
That was still insanely depressing to hear no matter if he’d heard it a couple times before.

A joyous surprise though, was Draco picking up on a piece of that and asking the real
question at heart here all on his own.

"Theory?" Draco chirped towards his mother, and Harry realized as the two adults exchange
yet another loaded look, that this might be a clue he hadn’t had before.

Either Sirius Black was innocent and wrongly convicted, insane, or he was evil. Definition of
evil aside, the Malfoys had been dark back during the first war.

Mr. Malfoy had been a death eater.

And no, I am not giving that too much thought today, I’ll go insane. He scolded himself.

What was important was that, while they probably couldn’t speak to if he was insane or not,
they might know if Sirius Black was innocent or evil.

After all, chances were Mr. Malfoy knew damn well if Sirius Black was also a death eater.
He wouldn’t say that outright obviously, but whatever reaction he had…

And going but the lengthy look he was exchanging with his wife, it was quite the bit of
unsaid history he was hiding.

"He was never given a trial. Given the timing of it all, I was not in the position to call for
such a thing." Lucius finally admitted, mainly towards Draco’s inquisitive eyes, his voice
smooth with no hesitation despite the long pause. "Not that I cared to."

And despite being kind of rude to admit he hadn’t cared that Harry’s only magical relative
might’ve been incarcerated in hell wrongly, frankly the honesty was oddly refreshing in a
way.

“I did, however. Annoying as he was, he was my cousin. There were definitely worse
relatives in our family to have that title." Narcissa frowned, kind of taking Harry off guard
with this random bit of information. "But Lucius was right, it wasn't worth risking our own
family since we had no proof either. And Draco, you'd just been born, we had more to worry
about than what Sirius did or did not do. It’s not an excuse of course, just a fact. I do not
regret being implicit, as my own family came first.” She delicately tucked a piece of Draco’s
hair behind his ear almost fondly as she explained, and Harry knew this random confession
was more for her son, so that Draco didn’t think poorly of them more then anything for
Harry’s benefit.

And honestly he was fine with that.

He was more wrapped up in the realization that he might’ve misjudged Slytherins a bit.
Either she was lying, or she was using honesty like a weapon to throw them all off, and worse
is that even if Harry knew that he still didn’t know what she was trying to throw him off the
trail of.

Or… she really was telling the truth… and then that would mean… what?

It was… very believable, this explanation. Which only made it that much more confusing—
why would she suddenly confess that? If he were a full Gryffindor he would hate her for
condemning someone, much less someone who should’ve been close to him, for such selfish
reasons. Was she banking that he understood Slytherins enough not to condemn her? Did he
even understand Slytherins enough to recognize her intentions were understandably selfish,
or did he hate that? Or was he just so thrown off by her being so randomly honest about it to
get upset right now, but he would later? Did it even matter?

Was she not aware he already kind of had condemned her?

What is she playing at?

He didn’t know what expression he was wearing, but he suddenly realized Mr. Malfoy was
smirking at him and he immediately dropped his attention back to the table where his family
tree was written—or at least pretended to.

That’s right, I already don’t like her. Don’t think too hard on it.
“Is that all for today, Mr. Potter?”

Harry glanced at the time and realized they did have a bit more time before they needed to be
back at Hogwarts, and the letter in his pocket suddenly got a bit heavier as he remembered
the other things he needed to ask. He could just hand the letter to Axeclaw and it would tell
him about Dumbledore probably being the one to cast the mail ward and such, but everything
else… he kind of needed an answer, and he wasn’t going to get another chance to speak face-
to-face with the goblins until Christmas easily, if that since he wasn’t sure he’d be allowed to
leave the castle without an adult (and more importantly without Dumbledore knowing he was
going to Gringotts specifically).

He didn’t want to give away any more information then strictly necessary though, not in front
of the Malfoys at least. He’d already told Draco though so…

Wait, finances. Mr. Malfoy at least would appreciate if it were just about finances.

“Uh, I did have a couple questions actually, on my last statement. But ah… I think you said
you had a potion to stop the aftereffects?” He hinted, and the goblin nodded.

“Correct, I will retrieve it; should only take a moment.” He gathered his tools and began
pushing his cart out, Draco dragged him back from the table to force him to sit again.

“Seriously, are you okay?”

“Honestly no, that super sucked.” He flashed him a weary grin and the blond made a face.
“But there’s a potion to fix it though so don’t worry so much.”

“You’re an idiot.” He deadpanned, choosing not to sit beside him but stand in agitation.
Which matched his father who also chose to continue standing although with a lot less
tension in his posture.

“I am impressed you’re taking an interest in your finances at such a young age, Mr. Potter.”
Lucius commented in something like approval and Harry did not know how to take the
compliment.

“Ah… thank you sir.” He shifted a bit in his chair. “I thought it… relevant.”

He had kind of hoped they’d take the subtle hint to excuse themselves while he talked
privately with his account manager but either they missed it (not likely) or they were willing
to commit the social blunder of ignoring how awkward them listening in on this would be in
the name of gathering information. Not that he could blame them.

Or maybe it wasn’t weird for adults to oversee children when they were attempting to do
adult things.

Not that he’d know, what responsible adults actually did. Maybe he was imagining things.

He wasn’t imagining how awkward this was though.

And either Draco had been getting so much better lately but apparently getting too comfy
with his parents right behind him made him forget every lesson in observation he’d ever
learned because he was being pretty damn oblivious to Harry’s tension.

“Is this about what you mentioned earlier?” He asked curiously.

I’m going to hit him when we get back to Hogwarts and I don’t think his mother will hex me
for it.

Harry gave him a look but he just blinked wide grey eyes back balefully.

“What? What’s that for!?”

“I don’t believe he wants us to know what it was he mentioned, dear.” Mrs. Malfoy sounded
very amused as she clued her son in, and Draco blinked in surprise again, looking between
his parents and Harry as if only just realizing several things.

“Oh… but that…?” He tilted his head. “Should we leave then?”

“Draco.” Harry had to lean forward and put his head in his hands, and he heard Mr. Malfoy
actually chuckle under his breath.

“What!?” Said oblivious blond demanded, knowing he was at the butt of the joke but not
what the joke actually was.

“It’s a wonder Blaise hasn’t eaten you alive yet.” He snarked back, and Draco’s face flushed
a bit pink in frustration. Harry just fully gave up because at this point there was no point, he
might as well just come clean. Also he was tired and his headache was getting worse so he
just couldn’t bothered. “I kind of wanted to talk to Axeclaw alone but I going to take a guess
that either adults don’t often just let children talk finances with account managers alone very
often, or to leave would be a waste of potential information. Or both.” He sighed bluntly.

He saw Mr. Malfoy smirking again as he resumed “looking” at the parchment on the table
like he wasn’t fully listening in.

“Oh.” Draco stared at him, brow furrowing slightly as he took that in. After a pause though…
“If you wanted the conversation to be private, we would leave.” He announced, speaking for
his parents who both seemed to pause and glance at him for it.

The best part?

Draco was telling the truth.

And for Harry it pulled out the first genuine smile from him in what felt like a week, even
despite his growing headache.

“And that Draco, is why you’re my favorite.” He told him matter-of-factly, and Draco did a
double take as if wondering if he’d missed another social clue somehow. Harry just smiled
widely at him, but he wasn’t about to make Draco put his money where his mouth was and
attempt to get into a power struggle with his own parents. Clearly they wanted to stay, and if
Draco demanded they leave… well.

Harry was not going to be the reason for internal Malfoy family conflict.

He took mercy on his friend and just continued. “It’s alright. And yeah, it’s about the things I
mentioned earlier—I saw them on my statement and didn’t know what they were for.” He
lied, praying Draco at least took the hint that he didn’t want the adults present to know he’d
seen his parents’ will.

Thankfully he seemed to at least catch that and nodded, tilting his head. “I did suggest it
before though… my parents might know.” He nodded, looking at his dad specifically who
looked up as if just hearing his name, like he hadn’t been clearly eavesdropping.

“About what specifically?” Lucius nodded openly.

There was really no point in hiding it anymore, and Draco was right, Mr. Malfoy was
probably the guy to ask so far as properties went at least. Harry hid his grudging sigh—the
end was near so he just needed to get his information and back to Hogwarts as soon as he
could. He'd deal with the breech of information to untrustworthy parties later, once his more
imminent need for truth was sorted.

Axeclaw took that very moment to walk in, a large scroll of parchment in one hand and a
capped potion in the other;, Harry acknowledged him with a nod and then turned back to the
Malfoy patriarch for his question.

“Well… I saw I had a lot of properties, or inherited them, but the one I wasn’t able to find
any information on was something called Longsgate.” He admitted. “I just wanted to know
what it was.”

“It is indeed a property, and a rather infamous one in some circles.” Lucius agreed, but didn’t
seem that interested.

“So far as it concerns your account, Mr. Potter, the property was actually willed to the Mr.
Lupin we just discussed,” Axeclaw cut in, his ‘helpful’ tone back telling them he wasn’t
happy to be left out of the conversation when he was only gone a minute. Given the annoyed
snarl Harry got when he was handed the potion by the goblin in question, he also knew this
was stupid questioning since he knew Harry had read the will. This was all just wizarding
games he didn’t care for.

Harry cared though, when he saw the outright surprised look on Mr. Malfoy’s face, and
glancing to the side realized Mrs. Malfoy looked similarly taken off guard.

“Really? It was willed to Lupin? Surely the Potters knew though.”

“Knew what?”

“As a werewolf he is not permitted to own property, nor receive inheritance of any will.”
Axeclaw explained, clinically in his facts but the brutality of that information hit Harry hard.
But wait… they wouldn’t put his name on the will because werewolves can’t adopt children,
but they would let my parents will him a property even though he couldn’t accept it?

That has to mean…

Mrs. Malfoy stood now to stand by her husband and saw his expression, nodding once at
him. “Indeed. No matter if the Potters willed the land to him, the ministry likely seized it
immediately.” She confirmed what he already suspected, and it was yet another reason to
hate this wizarding government.

They let his parents make the blunder and approved the will that way just so they could take
the property the second they died. If they rejected Remus as his godfather because of what he
was, they definitely knew he couldn’t inherit property and they’d done it anyway.

Most of the ‘wealth’ of ancient and noble houses was their assets instead of their gold—their
books, artifacts, land. Legal or not Harry saw this as outright theft and it pissed him off.

Or… he was about to get pissed off before Axeclaw brandished every single one of his
wicked sharp teeth and Harry realized that the goblin was actually grinning.

“Indeed it is unfortunate news. Especially when you consider the nature of the Longsgate
property.” He sounded far too chipper and not only did it freak Harry out but the Malfoys
actually looked disturbed through their masks too. “Several generations back, a rather
eccentric Potter patriarch of the day decided he wanted his descendants to have the chance to
test their mettle against unique, exotic, and dangerous beasts. Hunting wild magical creatures
was much more popular in centuries past and laws on protected species not yet in place, so he
feared many of the greatest offerings of nature would be hunted to extinction. And in fact he
was very correct as many dozens, if not hundreds of species since that day have been entirely
wiped out, or nearly so as Longsgate remains one of the only places many species still exist,
even in such few numbers. In his concern of this he spent his lifetime seeking out and
capturing a wealth of creatures, and creating what is in essence the world’s most dangerous
zoo.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “That’s Longsgate. It’s a zoo?”

“Well. A zoo implies cages, caretakers… any amount of security at all.” Axeclaw did his
sharp grin again and Harry felt a chill run up his spine—in a good way this time. “My
understanding is that Mr. Lupin only set foot on Longsgate long enough to ‘claim’ his
inheritance before removing himself from the property. From what I hear most of the ministry
officials who went to… seize the property, were never found. Although a rescue mission into
Longsgate is not something many volunteer for so I don’t believe anyone looked too hard for
them.”

Harry couldn’t help but grin.

Okay, my parents were awesome.

“I suppose that is… fitting.” Mrs. Malfoy seemed a cross between genuinely impressed and
judgmental of the extremely Gryffindor vengeance tactic that was, all the while trying to
pretend she was not impacted at all.

“At this moment Longsgate exists in this… limbo. Mr. Lupin officially inherited it, although
legally he has no right to it. The ministry was not able to seize it though so legally it can still
be tracked and reclaimed by the previous owner—meaning you as the sole member of the
Potter family. With the proper paperwork, that is.” Axeclaw explained.

Harry caught on the pointed use of the word legal.

“Magically though…?”

“Magically both you and Mr. Lupin share ownership. It’s a unique property as it can’t exactly
just be gifted away; the original creator of it ensured only someone with the Potter bloodline
would be able to access most of it and the associated enchantments ensuring that have not
been undone despite what laws have or have not been put in place since the property was
established. There was the magical inheritance done when it was willed to Mr. Lupin that is
magically binding, however that does not remove the pre-existing magical inheritance claim
you also have to it simply be being born to James Potter. The ministry could legally of course
request Gringotts to undo said enchantments on the both of you, but they have not yet paid
that fee.”

Which meant the fee was probably exorbitant and they were far too cheap to bother just for
some dangerous animals that’d sooner eat them rather then than actually be useful or
valuable. They thought they were getting a some free real estate by stealing it from a
werewolf and really just inherited a problem they weren’t willing to even set foot on much
less pay to upkeep. All this time Harry hadn’t even known that this property was technically
his (maybe the ministry didn’t even know it was still technically/magically still his) and
clearly Remus hadn’t been living there so they were probably content just to let the property
rot, happy in their knowledge they’d cheated a werewolf out of yet another thing even if they
didn’t even want it themselves in the first place.

Assholes, Harry promptly decided. Not that he hadn’t already had his suspicions.

But it also meant Longsgate was probably unattended, and empty. And full of dangerous
creatures of course but… that was good information to have. He didn’t know what he’d do
with it, but he liked it a lot.

“Any other questions?”

“Yes, just one… something else I didn’t recognize and I’ve no idea what it is: the Eileen
Prince Foundation?”

“It’s a scholarship fund, for Hogwarts students. Your mother created it in honor of a friend of
hers.” Mr. Malfoy, surprisingly, answered almost immediately and when Harry looked at him
he actually met his gaze instead of pretending to only casually know this information.

“A scholarship fund?” He repeated slowly, not having seen that coming. But he supposed it
made sense… he… he actually didn’t know how much Hogwarts tuition cost, he hadn’t ever
asked despite all the other things he’d paid attention to—not having enough money for
something was thankfully not one of his many problems at the moment. As a premier school
as Hogwarts claimed to be, it would make sense it wasn’t cheap and that scholarship funds
would only go hand in hand.

After all, given what he knew about the Weasley family then there had to be ways to support
financially struggling families to give their children an education.

A theory which was promptly blown out of the water by Axeclaw.

“Indeed, the only stipulation to receive this fund is that the recipient is not a pureblood.”

What does that… eh? I mean yeah, pureblood typically come from money but that’s not
always the case. I mean I can’t think of an example right now aside from the Weasleys but…
why would my mother make that the rule specifically?

Mr. Malfoy simply lifted his chin a bit. “Not that it matters of course.”

Completely disregarding the glaring exception the Weasley family was. Which, if what Draco
had told him start of last year was because the two clans didn’t exactly see eye to eye.

Yeah, not the audience to get into the details.

“Do I need to do anything to keep it going then?” He turned back to Axeclaw, who inclined
his head.

“I will assemble the proper paperwork required and owl it to you for you to decide what to do
with it. It is not actually connected to the Potter account but was in your mother’s name
alone, so I was not involved with the details and the previous account manager who was the
main contact for it has since died. It has stagnated in the years without someone tending to it
but if you would like me to incorporate it into the Potter account responsibilities I would be
able to do so.”

For a fee, obviously.

“Please,” he nodded, finally realizing that might be it and he still had an undrunk potion in
his hand and the dizziness was only getting worse so maybe he should call it. “I don’t have
anything else for today—thank you Axeclaw.”

The goblin nodded once as Harry uncapped and downed the potion he was holding without
hesitating. True to his expectations it was awful—like pure lemon pulp with chunks of rancid
peanut butter and poppy seeds poorly blended in.

The only saving grace was despite him having the urge to vomit from the taste and texture, as
soon as he lowered the bottle and coughed out the horrible feeling on his tongue, his
headache began lessening as if someone had undone the clamp on his forehead and a warm
feeling flushed through him to the tips of his fingers and toes. Probably replenishing all the
blood he’d lost, hopefully.

He still felt dizzy but it was way more manageable now, and the sudden relief of the tension
and pain just made him flat out tired. To the point where he got the feeling he could probably
take a nap once they got back to Hogwarts actually.

“A pleasure doing business as always, Mr. Potter.” The goblin intoned, accepting the empty
bottle back—along with the letter Harry had silently wrapped around it.
 Bloodline
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

“Harry, if I could make a suggestion?”

I would like nothing less, actually.

He bit down forcefully on his thoughts though and turned to Mrs. Malfoy as politely as he
could.

They were back at Malfoy manor, something about the floo connection between the head of
the school board’s home and Hogwarts not being quite as suspicious as one going to
Gringotts and back. At least, if someone brought it up the questions would be coming to
Lucius, who seemed very confident in his ability to handle that.

Said father was now speaking to Draco off to the side, and the body language was clear
enough that Harry knew to just stand there and wait for them to be done doing whatever it
was they were doing, despite how much he would’ve loved to just turn right around and head
back to Hogwarts instead of dawdling any longer. Particularly in this particular manor.

Particularly with this particular woman, who now had the perfect opportunity to corner him
in a conversation once again. Had he been a better Slytherin he would’ve asked after the
peacocks or her embroidery since technically they’d had those small talk conversations
before, but he’d let his tense silence speak for itself.

He doubted she didn’t notice, and more assumed she just didn’t care about his discomfort
when she spoke. He didn’t actually say anything, but he did politely look at her as if to
continue, which she took easily.

“I’m sure a lot of that information will need to be thought over as it was quite a bit all at
once. While you consider it all though, I would advise that Lupin would be a good contact for
you… with some reservations.” She had no outright expression on, which made it hard to
pinpoint what she was after with this conversation, and he frowned a bit.

“Because he is a werewolf?” he couldn’t help himself.

Her smile gave nothing away.

“More because he is a coward.” She admitted, and he felt himself blink a bit in surprise. “It is
not strictly his fault, but so far as spines go, his is certainly on the weaker side. Just
something to be aware of.”

“Alright,” He allowed, not really sure what to make of that. It was weird enough to hear a
Slytherin call a Gryffindor a coward, and he knew there had to be more to it, he just… wasn’t
about to get into it today, nor was he about to pick her brain for details. He was sure that was
a bad idea.

Thankfully she seemed just fine with that short answer, and both were saved by Draco and
his father returning to them after their side conversation.

“That should be all then. Study hard Draco,” Lucius put a hand on his son’s shoulder to
which the smaller snake seemed to puff up as he nodded assuredly. One glance at Harry
though, and Mr. Malfoy seemed to reconsider. “Before you go though, there is a spell I’ve
taught you Draco that Mr. Potter here would likely get more use out of than most. It might be
prudent you teach him when you have a chance.”

“Oh?” Draco tilted his head, and Lucius just drew his wand and made a sharp stabbing-like
motion, which Harry watched carefully.

“Serpensortia.” He intoned clearly, and Harry jumped a bit as a huge black snake spun to life
as if thread had materialized and wrapped around itself until suddenly it was a living,
wriggling, breathing snake hissing wildly around at them in shock at its sudden existence.

Draco immediately perked up in excitement. "Oh yeah! You'll be great with this one then!"

Harry went from looking at his friend’s eager gaze back down to the sudden snake, and like a
radio tuning in suddenly the hissing filtered through his ears properly.

"Where am I? Who ruined my nap!?" It was totally furious and literally spitting mad, huge
fangs bared in indignant rage at apparently being woken up. Looking closely though Harry
saw its deep black scales had a very distinct blue shine to the light that he actually found
incredibly beautiful.

“Sssorry about that, we didn't mean to wake you." He told it politely, and it immediately
stopped hissing to turn around and stare lidless eyes at him.

"He talksss?"

“Hello…”

"Ha! It works!" Draco grinned triumphantly. Lucius looked between Harry and his son for a
moment before nodding once.

"Teach him this spell Draco, it will be worth his while."

"Right," the blond nodded obediently. "It's actually a pretty simple one, especially given that
you're so good with transfiguration. It shares some principles, I think."

"What, summoning and transfiguration?" Harry wondered, not really having touched the
subject before.

"It's not really summoning, that's a bit too high level for second years."

"Oh, so it's not a real snake?"

"No," Lucius chimed in. "It will fade when the spell does in a couple hours and is more easily
banished than a summoned snake."

"I see." He turned back to the snake still curled between them all, who was still looking at
him in a way only a snake could. He bent down a bit to address it more face-to-face. "Did you
know you weren't a real sssnake?"

"No idea."

"Apologiesss."

"I don't mind, if it meansssss I can go back to my nap."

Harry was pretty sure that was just death, or the fake-snake equivalent of death, but decided
not to comment out of politeness.

"Would you be my companion until you return to your nap then?" He liked this one, it wasn’t
like the mantle snakes nor the boa at the zoo—this one was definitely dumber and that kind
of made him very endearing. Like a duckling cluelessly about to walk out into traffic, he had
the urge to scoop him up. Though urges aside he was under no illusion that a snake was
anything like a duckling so he figured asking permission was best.

He bent down and opened his hands in invitation but let the creature choose for himself, and
as expected the snake gave a soft hiss, the equivalent of a serpent hum, as it slithered
immediately toward him.

"I ssssssuppose I don't have anything better to do. I'm very venomousssss you know, is there
ssssomeone I can bite?"

"Not at this moment, maybe another time."

"Ssssounds good. You're warm blooded yesss? Thisssss will be great, I can have another
nap."

"Pleassse do." Harry was highly amused as it curled itself into his hands and let itself be
picked up, then slithered and bobbed like a curious cat until Harry let it up on his shoulder,
where it immediately wiggled around to get comfortable. That nap-position ended up being
loosely around his neck, just under the collar of his shirt and well out of sight thanks to a
mental thought ensuring his invisibility cloak made any stray exposed black scales disappear
from view. The scales were smooth and quickly became warm against his skin, so it was
oddly nice actually.

"Yessss, that's the ssspot." It sighed contentedly, muscular body writhing once like he was
settling in for a long nap—it was enough that Harry almost yawned too, since he already felt
like a nap himself from the blood test ritual taking so much out of him.

All situated and reminded of his desire to get back to the castle, he looked up once more to
see all three Malfoys staring at him.
Mrs. Malfoy smiled politely at best. Draco and Mr. Malfoy on the other hand, both did that
look-away-quickly thing like the ceiling was suddenly going to start raining on them and they
were rightfully surprised by that odd turn of events.

Huh. Guess it’s genetic.

000

Snape was indeed waiting on them when they got back to the castle, but spared no words as
they immediately fled the Headmaster’s office. Given the risk of it all (not knowing if the
Headmaster would suddenly come back early or not, for one) the lack of hesitation was
probably a good thing. Harry pulled the edge of his invisibility cloak up his neck some, just
in case the Potions master spotted his new living accessory, but the bat simply disappeared
down the hall as soon as the gargoyle slid shut behind them.

He didn’t ask, he barely looked at them, he just walked away.

There was no way he wasn’t curious though, or…

“Does he know?” He turned to Draco as they walked a much calmer pace back down the hall
—vaguely towards the Great Hall since they might’ve been able to snag some very late
breakfast after the hell of the morning it’d been. Not that Harry was exactly hungry but some
tea at, say, the Hufflepuff table where he could have a nice conversation about nothing
important sounded rather lovely.

Oh wait, I have a snake on me… maybe we shouldn’t be wandering too close to non-
Slytherins right now.

“That you’re a parselmouth? Yeah, I couldn’t get him to help without telling him.” He blond
admitted. “He also knew this was for a blood test, but he didn’t ask for details.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Not unless he asks and not unless he has a really good reason for me to share. He was a right
pain about helping in the first place.” Draco pouted slightly, which dragged a small smile to
Harry’s lips.

“Well, I guess I wouldn’t mind if you could get a perfect Potions grade or something out of
the deal. If you could work me not failing into the bargain too, I’d appreciate it.”

“Ha. I doubt even handing him a copy of your bloodline tree outright would get that.” The
blond snickered.

Harry was cut off from responding when they turned the corner, and surprise of all surprises
they found Nott casually leaning against the corridor wall, a very familiar looking sleek
object under his arm.

“Is that my broom!? The hell are you doing!?” Draco’s indignant cry confirmed Harry’s
suspicions, but Theo just rolled his pale eyes and held it out as if this were the world’s
biggest chore for him.
“Quidditch try outs got pushed back. You can still make it if you go right now—also you owe
me one now.”

“Really!?” Harry lit up at the sudden good news, but Draco didn’t even hesitate as he
snatched the offered broom and took off down the hallway without a backwards glance.

“Fine, I owe you!” He called distractedly over his shoulder as he bolted, Harry laughing
lightly after him as he turned to Theo—who just rolled his eyes again.

“Tell me you didn’t do that out of the kindness of your heart?”

“Of course not, but I’m not telling him that.”

“Did you even do it?”

“No, but I’m taking credit.”

“Fair… can I ask who?”

“No. Flint made the call to push it back a couple hours—maybe someone did something,
maybe he just did it arbitrarily.” The tone implying even if he did know of some deal going
on, he was not about to give anything away.

“Alright then.” Harry grinned, not even bothered by the lack of communication. Draco might
have a chance to get on the team then, he didn’t have to choose between his friend or his
passion after all.

There was some nervousness about it, since if someone had done this to try and get
something out of the Malfoy heir by doing him this favor and hoping Draco felt obligated
enough to repay in kind, it might back him into a corner he didn’t want to be in. But, Draco
had jumped at the chance and hadn’t looked back, so foolish as it may be… like Harry
reaching out to Mr. Greengrass, maybe it was simply worth the risk in Draco’s mind.

Despite the undercurrent of uneasiness, there was still an intense amount of relief in this turn
of good fortune. He only hoped Draco’s skill lived up to the (his) hype and he actually made
it on the team.

The fact his first quidditch match of the year might be against Draco lifted his spirits
significantly.

“Were you headed to breakfast?” Nott asked, and honestly Harry was pretty interested in just
going back to bed right now (the morning had taken a lot out of him) but… his new friend
hiding under his collar meant going back to the lion’s tower was likely a bad idea. With the
cloak there was a chance no one would notice, but if they did…

The concern also reminded him that he needed to talk to Blaise before the guy got bored of
keeping secrets and started gossiping without permission. He needed to think of what to say
to Blaise in the first place even but… sooner was definitely better.
Also, he wanted to be able to congratulate Draco, or at least be there for him if it didn’t turn
out so well once try-outs were done.

“Can I hang out in the Slytherin dorm for a bit? That was… a lot. Don’t think I’m ready for
Gryffindor right now.” He admitted, and thankfully Theo just nodded blankly like he didn’t
care either way, turning to walk in the right direction and Harry following suit at a calm pace.
The snake around his neck shifted some in the draft castle air and he lifted his collar a bit
once more to shield him. He considered giving it a name, even in just his own head, but if it
was going to disappear in a couple hours that seemed like a waste somehow.

“Interesting time?” Was all Theo asked about it as they went.

“For sure.” Harry blew out a tried breath, the understatement that was making him even
wearier. “I believe I need to have a conversation with Blaise when he’s free.”

“He took off after breakfast and I didn’t ask, so Merlin knows when he’ll be back.” Another
eye roll which Harry smiled at, and they just walked in compatible silence through the halls.

The lack of tension, urgency, or even obligation to talk was actually really nice, too.

He felt more open to talking when no one was pestering him about it, and despite his calm,
cool, and collected act, Theo had been the one who’d almost fainted when he’d first spoken
to the mantle snakes. Blaise was the one he was doing business with, but he knew Theo
wanted an answer almost as bad. He was either just too respectful to pester him by asking, or
he knew he had nothing to trade for that information and wasn’t even going to embarrass
himself by trying.

Despite how uninvolved he claimed to be, he had come up to the second flood with Draco’s
broom to give him news he wanted to hear, and was going to let Harry into the Slytherin
dorm with no fight. Both could be argued to also benefit him somehow (Draco would feel
indebted by the gesture, he could keep Harry close to get information out of him, etc)… but
for some reason Harry’s instinct was saying that was not all there was.

It could be the main reason obviously, but there was also something else to it, Harry was sure.

“I know you’re not going to ask but… I did find some answers. Should probably tell Blaise
first but, I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as I was dreading it’d turn out to be. I think.”

One blue iris flickered to side-eye him as he spoke, before looking ahead casually.

“That’s a slight relief.” He paused, a long couple seconds as if considering before continuing.
“I was under the impression a blood test could be a bit… unpleasant.”

“Yeah, can confirm. Turns out there’s a potion to cure you of the effects mostly, though I had
to ask for it specifically.” He sighed in annoyance.

“Oh.” He blinked. “I wonder if that’s… common.”

“If it is I’m about to get really pissed.”

Theo gave a soft scoff which Harry thought was probably his version of a laugh, and perked
up. “Not gonna lie, I’m exhausted though.”

“I can only imagine.”

They walked in comfortable silence the rest of the way, Harry automatically stopping several
meters before where he knew the door was so Theo could use the password in peace, still
hyper-aware that he was a guest here. He had a feeling a lot of his… welcomeness in this
dorm balanced on the fact he did not make himself at home exactly. Him knowing the
password would probably get whoever ended up spilling it in trouble, so he was fully
planning to go to his grave pretending he didn’t know it, even if he somehow did pick it up.

It wasn’t until he was passing by Theo as the Slytherin held the door open for him to pass
into that he got close enough for the sharp-eyed bookworm to notice his… obvious addition.

He didn’t shout, thankfully since there were people milling about the common room in front
of them, minding their own business, but Harry noticed him freeze solid and the fact he was
staring blatantly at his neck was kind of a big give away.

He blushed a bit and pulled his collar up pointedly.

“Um… it’s a serpensortia; Mr. Malfoy showed me. Er… another reason not to go back to
Gryffindor just yet.”

Theo… nodded after a long pause and just lead the way into the common room as if that
hadn’t just happened, which Harry was thankful for.

000

While probably not the best location, Harry found himself unable to keep his eyes open as he
dozed lightly in what felt like the middle of the Slytherin common room. Because of how the
different areas were segmented, each little sitting area was its own personal, semi-private
bubble, so while he knew he was literally in “enemy” territory, it didn’t seem to matter. Not
to his weary eyes at least.

Despite it still being pretty warm weather for early fall, the castle was drafty and the fireplace
they were sitting in front of was cozy as hell. Theo had plopped himself down into what was
clearly “his” chair as he curled up like a cat, unearthing a book from seemingly nowhere and
diving in, totally content to ignore his guest as Harry occupied the equally cozy armchair
across from him. Theo had agreed to let him hang out in the Slytherin dorm, he did not agree
to entertain or talk to him and honestly Harry was totally fine with that—he’d had enough
talking for now, and he knew there’d be plenty to do later that he wasn’t much looking
forward to.

The silence was in no way awkward as it never seemed to be with Theo, the fireplace
crackling and the magically muffled murmurings of conversations happening in other sitting
areas were amazing background noises that seemed to lull him right off of consciousness.
The snake curled around his neck was snoring soft, hissing snores and had warmed up to his
own body temperature, which despite the lack of fur was honestly kind of cuddly and
comforting. Not to mention his body was blatantly exhausted after the bloodline ritual despite
the potion curing him of the discomfort of it all, it’d still gone through some major events. If
anything the relief of it all being over was enough to make his limbs limp in blessed
relaxation after the tense morning.

He’d had half a thought not to fall asleep out here and had pulled out Dell’s journals to try
and read a bit to get his mind off things. But… he wasn’t even sure how many pages he’d
actually read, much less if he’d actually absorbed any of the words on the page and not just
stared at her handwriting blankly, before he was suddenly blinking blearily back to
consciousness at a sudden motion nearby. It had been a solid surprise nap and he had no idea
how long it had really been, but Theo had not budged from his position across from him, nor
did he do more then shoot one sharp glance at their interruption before going back to his text,
pointedly ignoring it.

Wherever Harry had drifted off to was cut off sharply by voices coming into their area,
suddenly becoming clear as the muffling enchantments gave way to the newcomer’s
approach.

“Well what did you expect; I told you that you should’ve offered to buy their brooms.” It was
a surprise to see Tracy Davis herself, close enough to their alcove for her voice to be heard,
but the reason was clear enough in that she was talking to Draco—his hair was wet and he’d
changed his robes, so he’d clearly gone to try outs and gotten cleaned up already. The Malfoy
heir was obviously intending to sit down with him and Theo, and Davis had followed to
continue their conversation.

“And as I told you, there was no need. Clearly.” He sneered, chin up proudly—which told
Harry all he needed to know.

“Congratulations then,” he smiled and Draco flashed him a grin while Davis rolled her eyes
and just walked away rather than acknowledge him.

“Watch your back, Malfoy.” She called behind her uncaringly, and the blond just scoffed
openly although she was already gone.

“Not a chance.” He huffed under his breath as he stole the chair beside Harry’s. Upon his
questioning look he explained. “She was also at try outs. She likes quidditch: she’s not that
good.”

“How much does good mean in comparison to politics?” He asked, sitting up straight again
and trying to subtly stretch the nap out of his muscles. Embarrassingly enough he had to bite
down on a yawn too.

Draco frowned as he considered the question.

“I mean politics matter but winning is the most important thing. People want to be on a
winning team, not just on the team—Flint would be a lunatic if he let politics dictate all his
captain duties because then he’d just be the captain who couldn’t lead Slytherin to victory.”

“I mean he’s still going to be that captain, but I see your point.” Harry smirked.
“Over my dead body.” He immediately snapped back, but also couldn’t help but grin at the
reminder.

Because just going off the context clues, he’d made it.

“What was that about the brooms then?”

Draco waved that off in annoyance. “That’s politics. I could’ve bribed my way onto the team
by getting them all the new Nimbus 2001 series, but there’s more reasons not to. And it didn’t
matter: I knew they’d all get them anyway and true to form they all had them at tryouts
today.”

“Not sure if you care but you would’ve gotten a ton of flack from the Gryffindors for that too.
More than typical, I mean.”

“Yeah I definitely don’t care about that, but the point remains.” He dismissed that promptly as
he settled back into his chair. Harry smiled fondly over the decision anyway although he
doubted he was in any way part of it.

Draco let his talent instead of his father’s money do the talking instead, which Harry liked
quite a bit honestly. He wouldn’t have judged Draco either way, not out loud at least, since
there could’ve been a million political reasons to do it the bribing way, but he was happy it’d
worked out like this instead. The Gryffindor part of him was much happier at least—now
having a solid grasp of the Malfoy elders it was easier on his nerves that he was doing things
himself and not needing to lean or involve his parents, who could have a million of their own
ulterior motives going on even with their own son. This way, it was Draco himself who’d
achieved something and the pride he felt for his friend was purer than if it’d been tainted by
worry at the strings his father’s money came with.

“In any case, if I’d bribed my way onto the team, strategically the person Flint would’ve
kicked off to have me on would’ve been Higgs.”

“Terence Higgs? The seeker?” Harry blinked. “You don’t play seeker.”

“I’m awesome at every position, thanks.” He snarked, but there was no heat or conviction
behind his sarcasm. “But yeah no, I’ve only been training my whole life to be a chaser, so
that would’ve sucked. I mean I’d still love to be on the team no matter what role I got but
given the nature of the role and the pressure, with my lack of training… yeah that would’ve
sucked.”

“Don’t get me wrong, going head to head with you like that would’ve been fantastic—but
mostly because I can definitely beat you when you’re playing my position instead of the one
you’re actually good at.”

“Seems like a hollow victory.”

“I’m a hollow person—I like winning; don’t care about the details.”

Theo scoffed lightly into his book as Draco rolled his eyes.
“You should’ve been in Slytherin.” The blond complained.

“People keep saying that.” He mused playfully, earning yet another eye roll. “So politically
speaking you didn’t replace anyone right? They had an opening after Montague.”

Both Slytherins smiled automatically at the reminder briefly before Draco waved his hands
enthusiastically.

“We did have competition: Pucey is one of the current beaters but same deal, he got onto the
team somehow but beater wasn’t his preferred role, he also wanted the open chaser spot. I got
it though, so he’s stuck as beater which he’s fine with, I guess? Not thrilled and also he’s not
half as aggressive as Flint wants him to be so I’m sure there’ll be some kind of switch or
something before games actually start.” He ranted a bit.

The Slytherin quidditch team alliance was a concept Harry was more than familiar with at
this point—it was no secret amongst Slytherin house (or the rest of the school if they cared to
pay attention to it, which they didn’t) and it had been the center of Draco’s attention for the
past several weeks leading up to try-outs. He hadn’t quite understood the gravity of it last
year, but he sure as hell had had plenty of deeper in-depth conversations about it since he’d
gone after Montague last year—him being part of the alliance and him also having been
dropped like a sack of potatoes meant a lot more than Harry had originally realized. Blaise in
particular still liked to talk in lofty, breathlessly happy tones about the boy’s demise and was
delighted to fill him in on all the intricacies about why it was so entertaining that Harry had
initially missed.

Adrian Pucey and Terence Higgs were outer members of the alliance—they got onto the team
in their own ways not strictly related to their talent so they were clearly useful to the alliance.
Both were dark, but more… Theo level dark. So, dark, as in to hell with the Ministry and it's
stupid laws, but were mainly after self-preservation and success, not so much because of any
belief system they may or may not buy into. Pucey was in the twins’ year level and Higgs
was a fifth year so they’d played against them both a lot and confirmed they were the least of
their worries—average players and also decent (ish) enough for Slytherins in their opinions.
They were about appearances and politics and success, and also apparently had a passion for
quidditch while they were at it, but they weren’t exactly death eaters in training.

The same could not be said about Marcus Flint the captain. Harry had a healthy distance and
education about Slytherin politics and was starting to be able to tell the difference between
those that chose to be dark because it was the safest, quickest way to power and success in
certain situations, and those who didn’t give a shit about idealistic things like that and were
dark for, well, appropriately dark reasons. It was one thing to play the part and be arrogant
and self-centered—it was another to genuinely truly believe certain people were scum
beneath your heel and deserved to suffer simply for being beneath you.

Draco, Blaise, Theo… they wouldn’t be hanging out with Hermione for either appearance’s
sake or simply because they genuinely just didn’t like muggleborns, but none of them would
go out of their way to hex her because they honestly, earnestly hated her as a person (Blaise
might if he discovered some arbitrary bit of blackmail on her, but that was kind of different—
he wouldn’t be violent about it, even if he would absolutely be cruel). They had appearances
to maintain and also had some beliefs Harry didn’t agree with about the sort of people they
chose to hang out with, but they didn’t want Hermione specifically to just up and die. They
didn’t care about her enough to have those kind of thoughts, probably. Not to say they would
care if she did up and die randomly, but they wouldn’t care if she didn’t either—they cared
absolutely zero, essentially.

People like Flint though…

Flint would throw a hex just because he could. Just because he hated muggleborns and
thrived off their suffering.

If Voldemort was still around and recruiting death eaters, he wouldn’t be one of those who
joined out of social pressure or fear or to protect loved ones—no he’d join freely, willingly,
and damn near gleefully probably.

Given he was the captain of both the team and the alliance apparently, he really set the tone
for how the alliance was run and what it acted on. Given how strong and influential it was
within Slytherin house, branching into almost every year level and made up of several big
pureblood names of different reputations and strengths… it was a big dominating force in
Slytherin politics. And all that meant Marcus Flint was a Big ProblemTM that no one could
really do much about.

The only saving grace—so says Blaise and to which Theo looked like he vehemently agreed
—was that Flint was apparently dumb as a rock. He had the control pretty much by dumb
luck and being good at quidditch, but a lot of the larger schemes the alliance got up to was
definitely not his idea, and if he claimed anything was of his own creation, then the most
common belief was that someone has just tricked him into thinking it was his idea in the first
place. He was one of those loud trouble-makers who picked fights and forced other
Slytherins to follow his lead in front of the other houses in the name of appearing as a united
house, but there was a lot of mumblings here and there about how bloody annoying that was.
Harry was amused to note that several people seemed to have beef with specific Gryffindors
only because Flint picked a fight for them and now were pissed a Gryffindor had hexed them
or gotten one over on them—in a fight they hadn’t wanted to participate in, in the first place!

Thankfully his dethroning of Montague had rattled Slytherin enough to pause a bit more
when Harry was in the vicinity, regardless of what Flint was up to. They had to walk a fine
line of course, but the less fights that got started the less grudges got started too—and long
term that was a good thing.

The rest of the Slytherin quidditch team alliance wasn’t any less of a problem either though.
The other beater, Lindsay Gold, was actually a half-blood seventh year who came from a
family of cut-throat businessmen and women—not even Draco could confirm what her
family even did though and Blaise had only grinned far too evilly when he heard that
question so Harry had promptly decided he didn’t want to know. She was aggressive enough
for Flint’s liking which had bad written all over it—Harry remembered many bludgers
coming his way courtesy of Ms. Gold so he was extremely on guard with her.

Miles Bletchley was the keeper Harry actually didn’t know much about aside from he played
almost as dirty as Flint in a game and was on his shit list only for being a terrible sport and an
infuriatingly competent goal-blocker. The last was Cassius Warrington, who was frankly the
tallest Slytherin Harry knew of, towering over pretty much everyone despite only being a
fourth year. He had a face like stone that was permanently set to a neutral expression of an
angry scowl and was typically right beside Flint when the seventh year was picking fights.
He was actually a pretty decent chaser but Harry was thinking he was likely more Flint-level-
dark then anything else which wasn’t good. Both Warrington and Bletchley had the
pureblood status dark-leaning people loved and matching family businesses/inheritances you
couldn’t scoff at, so both were troublesome players in the political game.

These people all aligned was… yeah, Harry saw how big of a deal it was now that he’d been
doing this for a while. He really wanted to ask what Draco was going to do now that he’d
made the team—yes the guy loved quidditch but he couldn’t not see the kind of opportunities
he was presented with right now and be tempted at least a little bit. Dark as the alliance was,
it was powerful as hell and the kinds of things he could do with this…

Well, if Harry were in the same position he’d be plotting hard right about now. Draco hadn’t
told him anything but he trusted his friend had something planned, and would just wait for
him to share it when he was ready—or if he wanted to share, that is. He really hoped Draco
would though because the curiosity was undying.

“Sounds like you beat a lot of people out though.” He noted, if both Tracy and Pucey had
gone out it wasn’t just up for the taking then.

“Several, I think there was about twelve people total.” Draco puffed up proudly, and you
know Harry could let him have this one: it was entirely his achievement and he’d done it
successfully.

“Congratulations again then, I look forward to beating you.”

“Oh ha,” He rolled his eyes. “What have you been up to then this morning?”

“Oh, uh… not much.” He confessed, suddenly realizing he still didn’t know what time it was.
If twelve people had tried out and Draco still had time to change afterwards, it’d definitely
been a while.

He didn’t want to confess he’d just fallen asleep like a child, and pointedly ignored Theo who
was smirking into his book. For once Harry was thankful he just stayed quiet with his
knowledge.

“Was reading a bit but really just waiting around for Blaise for obvious reasons.”

“Right,” Draco blew out a breath, leaning back slightly as if the better part of his day wore
off to remind him there was still business to be done after this morning. “How’s your new
friend then?”

“Awake against his will is seems,” Harry smiled in amusement as he placed a hand pointedly
over his collar, having tuned it out mostly but definitely aware of the soft grumbles beneath
his ear about people talking too loudly over his nap. At his touch he felt the snake writhe a bit
and poke his head up to see what was happening.
Draco just shook as head as he caught sight of it as if he still couldn’t believe that had
happened.

"You can't go back to Gryffindor tower with that thing, they'll flay you alive."

“No need to tell me that.”

"Potter." A new voice cut in brightly, and the man they’d been waiting on finally appeared,
Blaise smugly leaning between his and Draco’s armchairs casually. “To what do we owe the
honor? And what have we done with the lions now that's upset them?"

"Nothing yet, Draco is just concerned my new friend will earn me some hassle when I go
back." Harry deflected the probe for gossip a bit too politely to believed, and sure enough the
tall Slytherin cocked a rather snarky brow at him.

"New friend?"

Theo pulled his book up over his face when Harry grinned as mischievously as he knew how.

"Sir, this boy just insssulted sssnakes. Could you ssscare him a bit for me?"

"Eh? He DARESSS?" The curious probing head instantly reared up, popping out of his collar
and hissing violently in the shake equivalent of a bellow—less than a foot in front of Blaise’s
face where he was leaning over his armrest. “WHERE ISSS HE!?”

Blaise flailed, remarkably managing to not make a sound although had he been a lesser man
he probably would’ve shrieked given the expression on his face. To his credit he gave a wild
spasm of his whole body—and given how bloody tall he was that was quite the motion—and
did a neat hop almost a full meter back. As he landed he had both hands over his heavily-
breathing chest and was staring wide-eyed indignation and shock at the snake, as if he were
an old century woman who’d just been flashed somehow.

“Oh my god,” Draco scoffed loudly before dissolving into laughter, and Harry couldn’t help
but join him at least briefly before stroking the angry snakes head to calm it down, feeling
more bad about riling the fake-creature up than scaring Blaise to be honest.

"Ssservesss him right!"

"Indeed. Thank you, Sir."

He gave a silent huff and glared at Blaise once more for good measure before sinking back
down into his collar and snuggling up to his warmth once more.

Blaise, for his part, continued to stare as he processed what had just happened while Draco
was almost crying on the seat beside him.

"…what the hell, Potter."

“I’m impressed you didn’t scream.” Harry had to admit, even if it was complimenting Blaise
it was the truth. Boy had composure at the weirdest of times.
"It's a serpentosia, it'll fade in a couple hours but he can't go back to Gryffindor like that."
Draco finally collected himself enough to wipe away a tear and explain.

Blaise made a face. “That’s not the only reason—you have approximately five minutes to
spill before our deal expires and I go tell everyone. You siccing a snake on me only makes
my motivation stronger,” He snarked, finding his way to the remaining seat left in the area
and holding himself tall like he hadn’t just flailed like a loon. He did make an almost
pointedly large arc away from where Harry was sitting though, much to his amusement.

“Don’t be like that, I’ve been in this seat for hours—where were you then?”

“Classified,” He drawled uncaringly, sinking with regal posture into his seat that in no way
looked comfy. “And I don’t care where you’ve been, now you’re on my time. So spill.”

“Impatient much,” he rolled his eyes but gave a large breath. He felt… well still kind of blank
about the whole thing to be honest, but the nap was nice, Draco’s success was a nice pick me
up, and scaring Blaise had been the cherry on top. No time like now to get into this when he
felt relatively fine for once.

“Okay so… yes, it is… a distant relation. Very, very distant.” He admitted, and noted Theo’s
book had at some point vanished and he was acting like he’d always been part of this
conversation. That was kind of amusing.

He did not need to elaborate on what relation he was talking about since both seemed to press
their lips a bit more in consideration. Killer poker faces of course, especially since they’d all
been half thinking this was going to be the case for a week now. The surprising part though…

"Apparently Salazar Slytherin's youngest daughter was believed to be sterile—she never had
kids. Or, we thought she didn't. She was a squib so probably disowned or at the very least
hidden, and every one of her descendants henceforth was muggle."

Blaise's eyes bugged out, while Theo blinked as if he hadn’t quite heard that right.

"Woah, woah, woah… you're telling me it's not connected to the Potter line? That it was your
muggleborn mom's side!?"

"We saw it, clear as day." Draco confirmed simply, earning an almost comical double take at
the news.

"The whole line is non-magical until my mother—she’s the first witch since Salazar's
daughter herself." He explained a bit more, watching their reactions carefully.

"That…"

Clearly, he was not sure what to make of that. None of them were, it seemed, as they sat in
silence for a moment to take that in.

It wasn’t a direct line of course, but to have a magical ancestor like Salazar Slytherin to then
be muggle for centuries… the pureblood in them was probably having a conniption trying to
figure out what to think of that. Or at the very least trying to figure out what they should be
thinking about it. Harry most certainly hadn’t had time to really ponder over what he himself
thought about it yet, so it wasn’t like they could take their cues from him either.

“Okay, so… you are Slytherin’s heir. Or one of them, but it’s not like… previous allegations
were exactly wrong either. With how a blood test works, no wizard since Slytherin himself
has been able to produce a blood test to prove previous thoughts wrong.” Theo spoke slowly
as if he were thinking out loud, and Blaise narrowed his eyes as if wondering if he should
buy into that or not.

“Except for my mother apparently who probably never took one. Or four.” Harry admitted.

Blaise raised a brow incredulously. “You took four blood tests?”

“Three, but yeah that… was probably not good.” Draco admitted. “Turns out there’s a potion
to fix it though.”

“Really?”

“You have to ask for it specifically, the goblins don’t just give it to you.”

“Really? Bloody hell,” And yes, Blaise looked very pissed about that news, so Harry
suspected there’d been many blood tests or goblin rituals Slytherin families took part in that
would’ve made curing potions extremely worthwhile. Maybe he should mention to Axeclaw
how much some purebloods would be willing to pay for those potions if he could remember
to offer them up front.

“The nap makes more sense then.” Even Theo was looking at him rather sympathetically.

“What nap?” Draco frowned and Harry brushed by that topic real quick before Blaise could
catch interest too.

“The point being yeah, Theo is probably right. I am also a Slytherin heir, ignoring any others
out there who claim similarly. I would have no way of confirming that from my particular
blood tree which isn’t information worth doing anything with. It also explains the
parseltongue and is honestly a relief that the relation is so distant and direct, not… something
closer to this generation.”

Meaning chances were unless Voldemort also had a muggle parent—and given his rhetoric
that was laughable—he probably wasn’t descended from the same squib daughter of Salazar
Slytherin. He was probably claiming lineage from one of the other well-known children who
had very magical bloodlines for centuries before getting lost in the muddle of a pureblood
intermarrying-web, meaning Harry’s own relation to him was removed by literally dozens
and dozens and dozens of generations. In fact he hadn’t even inherited much of Slytherin’s
own magical signature so they were even more far removed still—magically and physically
and every other way.

For all intents and purposes, he wasn’t related to Voldemort and fucking hell was that a relief.
“Realistically yes, but it’s still the same family line even its far removed and from a mostly
muggle family at that. It’s the superstitions that will make this important.” Theo frowned, and
Harry almost felt that fly right over his head.

“Excuse me? Superstitions? What superstitions?”

“It’s stupid.” Theo confirmed. “But most old families tend to half-heartedly believe it even if
they know it’s not true. Like crossing yourself when you spill salt—it’s been proven that’s
bullshit even in the magical world but almost everyone still does it.”

“It’s a thing amongst purebloods, about family magic. Like today, with you inheriting the
Monroe family name—you inherited their magic now too.” Draco explained a bit more
clearly. Harry did recall that… he was happy he seemed to have a huge dose of Monroe
family magic over his name instead of merely his father’s or (clearly) his mother’s line. “The
Monroe family was an Ancient and Noble house, they can will magic to people. Not every
bloodline can.”

“Really?” He blinked, not having even considered that. “But I know others have… at the risk
of sharing too much, my account manager at Gringotts said many people have willed me
inheritance since many family heirs were killed off in the war.”

Blaise raised one brow but shrugged. “If someone wills you magical inheritance, it isn’t like
gifting you sudden magical capacity or skill. I doesn’t do anything to you actually—it means
your children and your bloodline after you would now have a mix of many seemingly foreign
magical signatures not from either parent. It’s actually pretty common honestly, childless
witches and wizards with nieces, nephews, godchildren, friends’ kids they want to inherit a
piece of their magical signature—it happens all the time. Pretty sure I got a few from a
couple of Mother’s exes.”

Grim as that extremely nonchalant admission was, Harry did feel slightly less weird about so
many apparently willing him things—Axeclaw most certainly hadn’t phrased it like that last
year.

“Monroe is different though. There were only ever seven Ancient and Noble houses, and
Monroe was one of them. Now Potter is too.” Theo got back on point.

“It’s because I avenged them, yeah?”

“Right of The Conqueror.” Draco shrugged, and seeing Harry’s questioning look continued.
“It’s one of the ancient magics; not very useful actually but has its own prestige in a way.
‘Whoever kills the beast, owns the beast’ is a saying you’ll hear tossed about a lot too—an
act of revenge or victory from someone of noble lineage triggers it. So if someone of a noble
house kills a magical beast, that beast is theirs. Similarly, Monroe was wiped out and by
killing the one responsible your bloodline as a noble one got the spoils—meaning everything
Monroe left behind if there was anything to get. Since they were an Ancient and Noble
house, that means their magic. Technically only Ancient houses can transfer magic to
someone while they’re still alive—in every other situation the gift is for the recipients
children who aren’t born yet. I’m sure you actually avenged many bloodlines that night the
dark lord fell, but you wouldn’t know it—your kids would though.”
Harry tried to absorb that, flashing back to some of Daphne’s lessons and realizing the gap
he’d been missing.

“The Potter line was a noble line, so the fact I of noble blood—somehow—committed a
magical act of victory against the person who happened to wipe out a family of ancient blood
whose magic could be transferred… then it did.”

“Essentially, yes.” Draco nodded.

“So there are only seven Ancient and Noble houses but I take it there are a ton of Ancient or
Noble houses.”

“Yep. They’re all over the place—Ancient houses are, obviously, old as hell. Noble houses
are a bit pickier—you can actually gain nobility for your house in your lifetime but you can
also lose it. Wielding a noble weapon, performing some noble magic—the ways are countless
although in modern days it’s less common. Most fancy noble weapons have been locked up
tight in vaults for centuries and the specifics on what is considered noble magic have long
since become archaic. It doesn’t change much these days.” The blond waved it off.

“But getting back to the point here, Ancient and Noble houses aren't titled that way just for
sounding awesome, you know." Blaise pointed out bluntly. "They say Ancient families, which
Slytherin definitely is, have inherited magic from their long line of ancestors, and it's not
limitless. That's the joke about why Longbottom seems to struggle so much—all his old
relatives are still alive and eating up most of the family magic. In reality it works over
generations, not just because your grandparents are alive or anything, but the saying goes that
the first born always has the most magic because there's only so much in a generation able to
be given out. That's why a lot of pureblood families only have one child, as the common
belief is that the second will have less magic as there is inherently less family magic available
after the birth of the first.”

Theo huffed quietly, giving Harry a pointed look. “Yet another reason the Weasleys get a lot
of shit, though one of the more pointless, superstitious reasons for sure. Even by my
standards and I don’t even like them."

"I think I get it… I think."

"It's a pureblood superstition that's never been confirmed. And pureblood families have a lot
of those to be sure, but that one is a bit ridiculous even for the most zealous of families."
Blaise rolled his eyes, before pausing as if considering if over once more. "But why would
your mother's line be muggle until her? It wouldn't not make sense that the other lines had
just finally died out enough to give her side a share of the family magic. The Dark Lord
probably wanted to be the sole heir and did a good job ensuring he was the only one. That he
knew of at least."

"Well, if you remember he did try and kill me as a baby for no apparent reason other than that
he hated my parents in particular." Harry countered just as skeptically.

"He… did go personally." Theo allowed, rather quietly.

There was a tense pause as the three Slytherins exchanged significant looks. It didn’t take
much for Harry to fill in the dots either even though he hadn’t grown up around potentially
death eater adults: Voldemort probably could’ve, probably usually, sent death eaters to do his
dirty work for him. But no, the night Lily and James Potter died, he was there personally.

As if it was personal—enough to warrant going himself when you didn’t have to be a

Ravenclaw to realize at that point in the war he didn’t need to do anything personally at all.
His sudden downfall at the hands of a toddler had been sensational news not just for the good
thing it was, but also because up until that night, Voldemort had been winning the war.

He had the people, the resources, the power. Everything had been going his way and he’d
been winning—only to suddenly choke in the eleventh hour it seemed. Why would he have
gone personally to kill an infant? Of the many men, women, and children he’d killed, why
had he chosen that night to go himself instead?

If it was personal… if it had to be by his own hand… there were only so many known
reasons for why that could possibly be, and Theo’s implication that this might be one of those
reasons wasn’t wrong by any means. It was just very twisted, but at this point Harry’s opinion
of Voldemort literally could not be lower so it wasn’t a shock.

"So… maybe that was part of it. He wanted to erase the family side-branches so he would
have all the family magic." He put together.

"It doesn't really work that way. First of all, how the hell could he have known you were also
a descendant in the first place? And secondly, he was already born, he can't retroactively gain
more family magic just by killing family members. So at best he was ensuring his child
would be the strongest since Slytherin himself—and pardon me while I barf at that thought."
Blaise—the untouchable Slytherin and possibly one of the only people who could get away
with saying something like that—mimicked barfing and still somehow looked composed
while he did it.

"Same." Draco and Theo chorused almost immediately, but they were much quieter and
reserved about it.

“We can speculate all we like but I’m sure the longer we sit here the more theories we can
come up with. Just because it makes sense doesn’t make it true.” Theo brushed off the
conversation in its entirety, and the other two Slytherins seem to automatically agree as they
leaned off. Harry perked up, since that sounded like one of those common Slytherin sayings
that Theo was just repeating, and it was an interesting one for sure.

“Well if we’re not speculating then we are planning.” Blaise announced, locking his gaze
onto Harry’s pointedly. “I’m going to tell the whole school. You know I have to.” He sniffed
dryly like that was obvious, which yeah, it kind of was. “But since I’ve been cornered into a
deal then how would you like me to tell everyone?”

Harry sat back in his chair at gave that direct question some last minute consideration. He
had been thinking about it on and off, even when he was procrastinating he couldn’t exactly
shake off this looming event of the whole school learning about his ability. He knew what he
wanted, he just only had a vague outline of how to actually go about getting it—and maybe
he should let Blaise have some creative license in how he went about doing it then and just
leave the details to him. He was a gossip whore after all, he was probably a craftsman of his
words and his dealings, so if anyone could do this, it’d be him.

He just had to convince Blaise to want to do it first.

“Alright,” he agreed and they gave him their attention in interest to what he was going to
decide on. “You can tell whoever you like, but you need to phrase it like it’s a good thing.”

He announced it plainly, and the three Slytherins exchanged looks again, some which were
too subtle for even Harry to gleam much from. He did, however, already kind of guess where
their minds would’ve wandered after this discussion and this blunt declaration.

“Look, not that I care about your feelings but… hm, how to say this delicately?” Blaise
drawled rather sardonically, but he actually did hesitate as if trying to figure out his words.
Harry rolled his eyes and spared him the trouble.

“Let me guess, if the dark lord does come back, given we’re on blatantly opposing sides for
obvious reasons, you’re not going to side with me or him. Am I anywhere close?”

All three of them stared at him, openly. Lord knows what Draco and Theo were thinking
though as their poker faces were firmly back in place, but Blaise blinked several times
rapidly.

“Oh. Well… okay then, so long as you already know.” He shrugged, gesturing for him to
continue.

“Yeah, I know.” He sighed a tad morosely.

It was certainly a grim thought, but one he’d first recognized and developed very early into
his first year at Hogwarts when he was more actively focused on infiltrating the Slytherin
table. He could read the writing on the wall—he wasn’t an idiot who thought that anything
he’d done with the Slytherins so far would’ve been possible if the Dark Lord, AKA his
blatant enemy, was still around(because there was no way around that solid fact Voldemort
wanted him fucking dead and Harry was not even going to pretend for a second the feeling
wasn’t absolutely mutual).

Theo was a great example—he was here to survive, no matter his true opinion on the matter.
Blaise was untouchable, but that didn’t make his logic any less Slytherin. If it came down to
choosing sides in another all-out war where Harry was clearly on one side, with Voldemort
on the other and right back in the position of power he used to be over their families… well,
Blaise would instantly revert back to true neutral and stay the fuck out of the fight, and the
Nott family was well known to be pitch black in alignment. Whatever that meant, Harry
hadn’t wormed his way into Slytherin house under the assumption he was going to change
any of them. They were still Slytherins. Not once had he ever considered or thought them to
be different than they were—that was never the point of befriending them.

The only thing he hadn’t… truly dedicated any hard time or effort into confronting mentally,
was Draco.
He… couldn’t think about Draco, in this hypothetical situation. He was too terrified of asking
and finding out the answer. Or, simply terrified that his answer might be I don’t know.

He didn’t know what the worst option of the two would be either.

He shoved those thoughts aside quickly and pointedly kept his gaze on Blaise instead of
drifting to the side to even catch a glimpse at what Draco’s reaction to this conversation was.

“I’m sure most people who matter would be able to figure that out too. But you’re a self-
proclaimed gossip whore and I’m your self-proclaimed friend. It would make sense you’d be
thrilled to have a new source of potential gossip, right?”

Blaise pressed his lips together unhappily.

“I guess.”

“And you’ve never denied you only stooped to talking to me because I was interesting. This
makes me more interesting, right?”

“I guess…” He grudgingly admitted, but Harry could tell he was being swayed slightly.

“You would have every reason to tell Slytherin house that it’s a good thing because I’m on
your side so if they play nice to the two of us it can be for their benefit—I can now find out
their secrets and if I’m your friend, that means you can too which would obviously make you
happy. And to anyone outside of Slytherin you can simply phrase it like it’s interesting, not
that big of a deal. That it would only make sense for The Boy Who Lived to have an ability
that would match the dark lord.”

“You hate being called that though.” Draco chimed in, like Harry didn’t already very much
know that.

“But I’m not stupid enough to think everyone else doesn’t call me that behind my back
anyway.”

“Playing to their expectations… Gryffindor and Hufflepuff would fall for it easily.” Theo
acknowledged, also grudgingly impressed it seemed.

“And Ravenclaw would be too analytical about how it’s even possible to be too angry or
impressed either way. And I’m totally okay with neutral in this situation.” He raised his hands
as if washing himself of this ordeal, and Blaise crossed his arms over his chest in a pout as he
mulled the offer over.

After several seconds he seemed to come to his conclusion.

“Okay, you have me mostly convinced. Just one last thing.”

“Oh?”

“Are you on my side? Because if that’s not a lie, all the better.”
Harry gave a wicked grin as he scoffed the question off. “Like I said, I’m a Gryffindor and
you’re my friend—your opinion on the matter be damned. I will hold you accountable on
most things as good friends should and no I will not let you steam roll me because I now
know exactly who you are and what you’ll do if I’m not on my toes… but yes, I am biased
towards friends, so I’m on your side Blaise.”

The tall Slytherin was instantly on his feet and clapped his hands together loudly, enough that
several others glanced over at the sudden intrusion into their muffled bubbles.

“Well, that settles that! Time to go tell everyone!” He was loud enough and also uncaring
enough that there was no way the whole common room hadn’t heard that, and also no way
they didn’t see the mild glare he shot down at Harry before he went. “I know I promised but
waiting this long has been killing me.”

“I’m sure,” He snickered, and then laughed loudly as Blaise all but skipped away and
plopped himself just across the room for his first target. Some seventh years from what Harry
could see, and he tried not to let what he knew they were talking about get to him, forcibly
shaking it off and turning to Theo as the bookworm piped up.

“I’m not sure that’s wise.” He didn’t sound objecting, but simply rather sage. And yeah,
admitting friendship to Blaise Zabini was probably not the best of his life choices so far, but
for once it was an honest one he couldn’t precisely regret.

“Gryffindors aren’t typically known for putting wisdom over emotions, and I am one of those
since a lot of people keep forgetting.” He pointed out.

Theo gave a brief, but visible smile.

“Fair.” He allowed.

Whether they were going to talk politics some more or move topics, Draco’s stomach took
that moment to growl loud enough that they both heard. Looking at the blond though he was
staring at the ceiling, ears deep pink in embarrassment.

It was a good reminder though that Harry hadn’t eaten anything today either—and Draco had
gone to quidditch try outs so he was probably in even worse shape. Although, he wasn’t sure
how many calories a goblin ritual burned but was willing to bet a lot probably.

“Lunch?”

“Please.”

000

The day had been long, but it wasn’t over yet as Harry finally escaped and wearily climbed
his way up to Gryffindor tower. He was so tired, he was sad to realize he hadn’t even noticed
when his serpensortia friend had vanished from around his neck, but he was also far too tired
to even make a mental note to get Draco to teach him that spell ASAP. He’s make more
concrete plans later, when he had the mental capacity for something like that.
His lunch had been exceptionally late and so instead of attending dinner he was going to use
the rare blissfully sweet silence of an empty lion’s den to collect his thoughts, and then go to
bed early. Maybe he’d start tomorrow fresh like today had never happened.

He also wasn’t avoiding the first large gathering where he knew the new rumor of his
language abilities would undoubtedly spread like wildfire. The only person he owed a real
explanation to, not just having him hear it from a rumor, was Neville. He vowed to wake the
boy up early tomorrow morning and clear the air before the rumors got too bad but before
Blaise got a some reigns around the rumor mill itself—but tonight he was just too tired to do
anything.

A lot had happened, and his mind was buzzing. As the several very important things of equal
criticality he’d learned of today were just too much for him right now, his mind settled on one
of the quieter, less important things he’d noticed after his conversation about Ancient and
Noble houses as he sat at his desk and tiredly brought out a piece of parchment and a quill.

Either they hadn’t noticed or simply didn’t bring it up as being slightly irrelevant to the
conversation at hand, but Harry had pulled a rather important piece of information from his
mini-lesson there about Ancient and Noble houses.

He’d inherited the Monroe family magic, he could prove that with his blood test this
morning. The requirements for inheriting magic from and Ancient and Noble house were to
commit and act of magical vengeance or victory against the person who’d wiped them out.
Obviously Voldemort had been the perpetrator, and obviously Harry had, somehow, gotten
vengeance over him. Killed him or simply reduced him to that ghost… that apparently
counted.

And that meant… it was a magical act that had killed Voldemort that night. Not a fluke, not
an accident—Harry’s own magic had to have done something. Or his father even, as the only
other person with Noble blood in the house that night… but he didn’t think so. He’d have to
check, but it sounded from the way Draco phrased it that he inherited the magic… and if
James Potter had performed some magic that killed the Dark Lord, Harry wouldn’t have
inherited the Monroe family magic since he was already alive, but maybe his kids would’ve
instead. The Potter name wasn’t Ancient and Noble that night, none of James Potter’s magic
could be willed to his son outside of what he’d given him as his biological father.

Conclusion: Harry Potter had done something with his own magic to kill Voldemort that
night.

As for what the hell it was he’d done… that was still as much of a mystery as ever.

But still. He never really considered much on what had happened that night… he was still an
orphan, and he was still an orphan who had a ton of problems on his plate and had since
pretty much the day he learned his parents hadn’t died in a car accident after all. He
understood that the mystery of it all was also part of his fame and intrigue—but most of the
time he tried hard to pretend his fame and intrigue didn’t exist so he never spent much time
pondering over the fact not even he knew the truth about that night.
 He still didn’t think it was worth that much brain power, honestly. As previously mentioned,
he was still an orphan and he was still an orphan with a lot more pressing problems and
knowing the truth of that night will not change a thing about his current situation. I

But still.

It wasn’t like it was unimportant so he quietly filed this new information away, to ponder
over another day.

Today though, he had different plans in mind to occupy his evening before crashing for the
night. And then afterwards, he was going to sleep a full night with as many dreamless sleep
potions as he could, and then drag Neville out into the quidditch pitch for a full day of
football, Gryffindors, and absolutely no more snakes, bloodline talk, or politics until Monday.

He just had one thing to write, before it could slip his mind yet again.

000

Dear Mr. Lupin,

Someone I reasonably trust told me that you were once a friend of my parents, and I thought
I'd say hello. So, hello.

I'd love to hear more about my parents if you have the time to tell me, and more about
yourself. Also, that person I reasonably trust says you're mostly in the muggle world, and I
was kind of curious about how a wizard went about doing that. Actually getting a job in
the wizarding world doesn't seem like too much fun the more I think about it so that might be
an option.

My owl's name is Hedwig--feed her treats and she won't bite you.

I look forward to hearing back,

Harry Potter-Monroe.

Chapter End Notes

Guys Helen McCrory, the actress who played Narcissa Malfoy, died and now I feel
slightly bad for making her character so terrifying. RIP Helen <3
 Correspondence

Dear Mr. Potter,

A Curious Thing Is a Friend.

We were most intrigued by your letter pertaining to our stone: rest assured we don't blame
you in the slightest for Voldemort taking an interest in it, as there have been many a dark lord
of the past who went after it in one way or another. We found it quite amusing to hear of your
suggestion to remake it because we've actually done such a thing several times already, if you
can believe it, but many seem to think the process quite laborious when the truth is far from
it. The Hogwarts Headmaster is one of those people. I tend not to correct people who
overestimate my abilities, it’s a compliment to the ego.

Albus is an old friend but very concerned in this day and age while we've often been removed
from today's coming and goings for many centuries. We destroyed the stone as he suggested
and had not planned to tell him about how easy it would be to make it again—it'd be greatly
appreciated if you could leave that little tidbit out of your conversations with the Headmaster
should you have them. He is quite old himself but unlike Penny and I, he actually ages, and I
believe one of the affairs left to get in order is our departure from this day and age is to, let
us say, let him overestimate the timeliness of our demise. We shall lay low for a while and
resurface in some years with some new Alchemy to show for it—Penny and I wish you much
luck in your future endeavors and hope to one day meet you properly in a much different
tomorrow. If you can keep our secret, I'd be happy to write occasionally if you have any
Alchemy questions—Albus did away with that class for some reason decades ago but it can
be a fun time if you know what you're doing. You seem keen enough to bring up the obvious of
re-creating the stone, but also genuinely kind enough to consider reaching out about it. If you
have even a passing interest I’ve copied a list of potential texts that might interest you.

I am aware letters are often not the safest method of communication, and in that case the
blank parchment included is rather special. If you wish to reach out again, write your
response on it and when finished, tap your wand on it repeating the first sentence of this
correspondence. It’ll make it hard for anyone who doesn’t know the phrase to read what’s
written.

Best of luck young man,

Nicholas and Penelope Flammel

000

Dear Mr. Potter-Monroe,

I can’t quite put into words how good it is to hear from you, it was a wonderful surprise to get
your letter. I was indeed good friends with both of your parents and you cannot imagine my
joy to get a letter from you. I did attempt to reach out through the years, however I was
assured you were safe at your aunt's and didn't want to interfere. If I remember what Lily said
about Petunia correctly, she probably wouldn't have been too happy with an owl showing up
out of nowhere anyway. I hope you are well? Your relatives are okay?

What would you like to know about your parents? I will do my solemn best to describe them
however I would think maybe you'd want to know a little more than their favorite subjects or
their favorite colors. Red and Defense for your father, blue and Charms and/or Potions for
your mother, by the way. It’s been so long I worry the years might’ve blurred my memory a
bit, but rest assured my best memories of your parents were when they were about your age. I
swear it feels like yesterday. You’re a second year now, I believe? I think your father and I
really became good friends about that time as well. Lily and I were some of the more
bookworm-ish Gryffindors from the start so we were friends right away starting first year;
she always had this amazing way of seeing the best in people, which was good as I was and
perhaps still am a tad shy and she wouldn’t take no for an answer when studying for Defense.
That was my best subject so she ‘borrowed’ my notes quite often.

Your parents didn’t actually get along most of their time at Hogwarts, if you can believe that.
James saw her on the train first year and was instantly obsessed, but she had no time for
juvenile pranksters of course! She always was much more clever then all of us, from the very
start. It wasn’t until much later when James had done a lot of growing up in about sixth year
they stopped bickering enough to realize they were actually suited for each other—it actually
surprised us all quite a bit when she finally said yes. James had been asking her out every
other week since day one of Hogwarts and she’d gotten very creative in different ways of
turning him down and saying ‘no’ for years, so you can imagine the whiplash.

I realize that might make it sound like James was immature and… well honestly yes he was,
but weren’t we all? He was extremely talented at Transfiguration although certainly did well
in other classes, even if he cared very little for schoolwork. He was a chaser on the quidditch
team and a damn good one if you’ll excuse the language, he probably could’ve gone pro if he
hadn’t been dead-set on being an auror since he was old enough to know what it was, like
both his parents before him. McGonagall would’ve done anything to see him go pro at one
point I think—she’s a rather strict teacher but that seems to fly right out the window when it
comes to quidditch if you’d noticed.

I think what James was proudest of though, what he might claim himself as his shining traits
during his school days, was what a prankster he was. And I mean that very literally. Our
group of friends actually, although some were certainly more instigators than others, was
very involved in doing more pranks than homework on the average day. If I could kindly
request for you not to tell McGonagall the part I played, I will confess about half the banned
items on Filch’s list and a good third of the existing rules about curfew and proper behavior
in the Great Hall were directly because of some of the mischief we managed to make in seven
short years. If Filch gives you an unreasonably hard time simply because of your last name…
I am so sorry.
I’m trying to think of things James might find important for your time at Hogwarts…
probably most importantly is that access to the kitchen can be found on the bottom floor, east
corridor, tickle the pear in the largest fruit painting and a door will open. The house elves in
there are happy to give you any treat you want at any time of the day—James was a big
treacle tart lover so they always seemed to have one primed and ready for him any time we
went. I am not sure I’d condone it but he would likely also say to ensure you pull at least one
prank a year to keep things light—don’t waste your life on the boring details. Although in
equal part I can almost imagine Lily whacking him over the head for that: she would
definitely encourage grades over nonsense, but I’m sure you can find a nice balance between
the two. I performed my fair share of pranks alongside James after all, and those were some
of the best moments of my life. I never let my grades suffer for it of course, so if it’s possible
I’d recommend both?

If you are interested in pranking, we did leave behind a rather useful tool that I think is still
locked up in Filch’s office. It’s a map we created that shows the entirety of Hogwarts and
quite a bit more if you know how to look. It’s got a lot of tricks to it and if you can manage to
get your hands on it, I think you’ll find it worth it for many reasons. We poured our souls into
it so if you’re looking to know your father more, it might be invaluable. All you need for it, is
the right words.

I’m a bit overwhelmed, it feels like there’s so much I could say about James and Lily, but
when faced with writing it all down I don’t know where to begin. How do you encompass two
entire people into a single letter? I’ve attached some pictures I had saved of them; we didn’t
take too many during our school days unfortunately so they’re kind of hard to find but I hope
you don’t already have them. I would be happy to keep thinking of things and write more if
you have any other questions or specific stories you’d like to hear… letters are not the most
secure method of communication ever and some of our prank stories specifically I may have
to edit for young and/or prying ears. Most other things should be fine though.

If you do not wish to continue writing to me, I do completely understand. I do not know if this
trusted resource of yours told you about me, but I am a werewolf. Lily, being raised by
muggles, didn’t quite understand the gravity of that I don’t think, and since you were also
raised mostly in the muggle world you may or may not fully understand it either. In essence
the wizarding community sees werewolves as dangerous, which we are to a point of course.
One night a month it’s an indisputable fact, although I do my best to get out of people’s way.

I’m sure if you ask around your friends you’ll get a lot of mixed takes, mostly negative. What
people think is one thing, but you should know that associating with a werewolf can make any
future careers or friendships you might’ve had very difficult. James knew as soon as second
year, the clever fool actually figured it out himself given we did share a dorm room, and Lily
found out in fifth. Both chose to still by my friend, despite it ensuring that Lily would likely
not get to own the shop she one day wanted to open (she never decided on what the shop
would be though) and James had half an eye on being Minister even—him publicly standing
by me much less just having been friends with me during school back when nobody knew,
ensured that would never happen.

But Harry you are not your parents, you’re your own person and I fully understand if you
want this to be our last communication, and call this a mistake on your part at best. It is not
selfish in any way, there have been some truly selfless people who made a similar choice for
the safety or success of their friends and family even. If you have hopes and dreams, I would
be heartbroken if you chose anything less then to follow them for your own sake, or if I were
the reason you could not reach them.

Thank you for reaching out, it meant the world to hear from you and to know you’re okay. No
matter where you go or what you choose, your parents were always a bit insanely,
irrationally biased about loving you and would be so incredibly proud of you, no matter who
you’ve grown up to be.

All the best,

Remus Lupin

000

Dear Mr. Potter

The gift basket was lovely, thank you kindly for the consideration, though I didn’t think my
whisper-down-the-lane message warranted such gratitude. I know Susan told you about my
chocolate weak point, and while as a ministry official I must declare that I cannot be bought,
I will in fact not say no to chocolate.

It is both refreshing and a bit concerning to hear I have an ally though, especially
considering the source of our apparently shared displeasure. You’re Susan’s age but given
your note I can only imagine you’re taking more from my words then even I mean so I feel
pretty safe in my use of rather vague language. The hat almost put me in Ravenclaw but I
talked it out of it—I’m going to take a wild guess and say you had a similar encounter with
the snake house?

I can only imagine what grievances you had that made the gift basket worth the investment,
but consider me intrigued. I’ve got my own of course and maybe someday we can share a cup
of tea to vent our annoyances; bottling it up is never healthy after all although there’s not
much to be done given the state of the world.

Let’s keep in touch! Susan has told me all about that football club you started and it sounds
fascinating. She was never one for sports so the sudden interest has been a riot. I was a
beater myself back in the day so the new conversation topic had been great, although I’m still
struggling to understand the rules. Perhaps you could provide me a summary as I’m pretty
sure Susan has changed them twice now or is at the very least contradicting herself and it’s
not very easy on someone trying to learn.

Thank you again for the gift, I’ve eaten half of it already.

Best,
Amelia Bones

000

Mr. Potter,

After looking into the potential mix-up with your original mail ward, I have indeed been able
to identify and trace where your mail since your parents’ death has been stored. It has been
moved to your trust vault and sorted for things of more importance. Most is fan mail of some
kind given your celebrity status, although a copy of all the missed Gringotts and Hogwarts
communication has been provided in the parcel attached to this letter.

Additionally attached is the details on the Eileen Prince Foundation fund. Hogwarts tuition
went up about five years ago and the initial funds Lily Potter placed inside of it dried up.
With your permission I can take over management of this Foundation which includes
identifying potential new students to Hogwarts who may be eligible and ensuring there is
enough funds in the account to support them. Barring no changes to the Hogwarts tuition
price this coming year, I will compile the amount required and provide the report reflecting
as much to you the soonest you are available this upcoming summer. I would need your
permission in person and am assuming there will be questions best done face to face.

Axeclaw

000

Dear Mr. Potter,

That paper you sent was quite a read! This development is simply remarkable if you’ll take
this old man’s opinion! How many years I’ve been using Transfiguration and never
considered this—and the world of possibilities! You could write a paper on every spell ever
written and how you break down one spell into dozens of others means you’ll be churning out
new and unique spells in your lifetime—ah! Simply incredible!

I would propose a trade: I’d love to hear about all your new spells and your work into this
discovery and I will trade some information on Alchemy since I fancy myself quite the
professor if I do say so myself. Don’t tell Albus but I did teach at Hogwarts a couple years
after I attended myself near its founding, and the teaching was well fun but the, ah, teaching
children bit turned out to be the unsurmountable challenge. I was simply reminded why
Penny and I never had kids: no clue what to do with them. I’m a better researcher clearly. I
don’t think anyone favored me as a teacher either so the feeling was mutual. I do hope that’s
not the reason Alchemy was done away with as a subject, although it was 300 years ago so
I’m not quite sure why it would be. Still.

In any case, in addition to those texts I recommended last time, I’d like to talk some about the
history of Alchemy before getting into the details or any practical magic as I find what our
predecessors did incorrect is just as insightful as learning what we now do correct. As you
just proved, at any time we can discover we’ve been doing it wrong all along so learning
about the past is always interesting. I don’t mean to be biased given I’ve lived through a lot of
said past but I digress.

I’ve attached a paper I wrote a while back about the origins of Alchemy, although originally
it was called “tinctures” or “metallurgy” in Western Alchemy. Which is a whole other topic
—ancient Alchemy which was thousands of years before my time even was actually developed
separately on three separate continents: in the land known as modern day China, the
subcontinent of India, and then of course the origin of most of Western knowledge,
Alexandria in ancient Greece. Most of what I can speak to is known as Western Alchemy;
from my understanding the ancient metallurgy art created in India later became far closer to
today’s Herbology or even Potion crafting, and the Chinese style is an extremely close
guarded secret passed down from the larger known ancient family trees of that society. I did
make an attempt to learn more about it but was essentially told to get lost and I would not
recommend trying it yourself—wasn’t a fun time, I’ll leave it at that given your age. How old
are you again?

So far as Western Alchemy goes, there was a time when it was considered one and the same
as Potions and Transfiguration even, but as magic evolved and the practice of writing things
down and educating others on it became more common practice, the subjects split and
further refined until they became what we consider it to be today. Alchemy as you’d practice
it is less a separate topic of magic (as I would say most of history’s Alchemic principles and
theories have thus been proven wrong) and more a way of approaching magic to create new
and unique magics of any type or sort that you may be interested in.

Most people in modern day who speak about it or teach it focus on the materials themselves,
which is of course the critical factor, but the true spirit of Alchemy is to always question the
materials themselves. The query is never ‘what can this material do?’, it is ‘WHY does this
material do this?’. Finding out what a material can do is the easy part, even a garden gnome
can eventually figure out that a rock is hard and cotton is soft, but the more you dig into WHY
cotton is soft or one rock is harder than another, then you start to get places. As you read and
experience your education even normally, always ask this question and if you have the
curiosity and initiative to find these answers yourself, you’ll be an Alchemist in no time no
matter if you never take a class or finish an Alchemic textbook on it in your life. No matter if
you never find your answers either! It is all about the mindset I find, not so much the success.
As I’ve proven though, given enough time and eventually success will come as well. I am a
firm believer that all we know at this moment is that we know nothing—one day, no matter
how far away that day is, we will all be proven wrong and everything we once knew will be
irrelevant. Perhaps that’s an immortal’s philosophical take on life but I’ll stop preaching it
when I’m proven wrong and it hasn’t happened yet. And isn’t that a paradox worth pondering
over, eh?
In any case, I hope you take my offer up on the trade, and anything specific on Alchemy
you’d like to hear please do let me know, I can go for hours on this.

Yours,

Nick

Harry my dear, I hope you don’t mind too terribly, but I’ve made some edits to your paper
from a grammar perspective. Never fret if it feels like a lot of corrections, I’m a tad picky
about grammar and comparatively Nick is centuries old and still cannot form a coherent
sentence on paper when it comes to academic work. I am typically the one double checking
his writing and have for hundreds of years—it is never without hassle. Hopefully you will
be easier to work with; he’s such a stick in the mud about his writing. He can’t take any
criticism, but it’s honestly unintelligible. You’re already well on your way—take my advice
and don’t be like him. He knows about Alchemy and baking but take any other advice he’s
giving you with a grain of salt.

Stay safe,

Penny

000

Sylvester,

In exchange for a blanket debt from your family I’m sure there’s much I can do to see your
dog star gets its due. Unfortunately, I am unable to accept a debt from the star itself without
its own sworn word but rest assured one from a linage such as yours is plenty satisfactory.

I have already gotten started as an opportunity presented itself the other day and I elected to
jump on the chance. I’m thrilled with this deals so thought it only polite to have some news to
share in our first correspondence.

As it turns out there was already a party interested in making contact with the dog who
shared your interests of sort—either the justice or the punishment although they did seem
fairly confident in the former, surprisingly. Since we’ll be working closely it seems, trust me
when I say, White is not someone to be trifled with in any way. They are most certainly know
what they are doing.

I ensured White made contact safely and confirmed that none are any the wiser that the
meeting has happened. It is with a mix of emotions that I can confirm the dog star claims to
be innocent. White believes them, and frankly I’m not a betting soul but I would bet quite a
bit on White’s judgement.

Of course nothing is confirmed until under Veritaserum in court, but it is something. Getting
to court will also not be so easy as there are some difficult names who are actively attempting
to prevent this potential mistake from seeing the light of day, for obvious reasons I’d hope. It
will take time, unfortunately more time than I had initially hoped, but while we have that time
please consider our contingencies. If justice is found, what would you like me to pursue as
the best course of action? In court, once the truth is uncovered, I will have to act accordingly
in real time—I will need to be aware of your preferences in detail prior to that day. Make as
many potential scenarios and reactions I should be taking in advance so we may be prepared.

I hope this letter finds you well and look forward to our partnership.

Fields
 Growls
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Any sane witch or wizard did not visit Azkaban on a careless whim. Not even if someone
within its walls might’ve meant something to you once, the chances of ever seeing them
again were slim, so the effort of making it there and then enduring the wretched island itself
for any amount of time was more often totally pointless.

Not just because no one was ever released from Azkaban. No ‘out on parole’ or ‘released for
good behavior’ or any such muggle terms—no ‘ten to twenty years’ or minimum sentences, it
was always for life. Azkaban ate souls, devoured them into nothingness, it never gave
anything back. To be condemned to the island was an eternal sentence, and the sheer vastness
of the mass graves beneath it’s foundation made for one of the most terrifying inferi pits in
existence. Because you never walked free—people banished you to this isle and promptly
forgot about you for good, ensuring that one day you would simply be part of the bones
buried here and nothing more.

The international wizarding communities—those that knew about the British wizarding
prison at least as it was all rather hush-hush—condemned this place as heinous and vile. A
war crime even, although she was fairly certain that was a muggle term that hadn’t yet tainted
magical communities in the UK.

The Black family believed in many things, some better than others and some not so
convenient in certain eras, but one of those things that Narcissa had always taken a liking to,
was the concept of a second death.

The first death was when you breathed your last. The second was when someone spoke your
name for the last time.

In many ways, Azkaban was a way to live your second death before your first—most people
outside of this island did their best to speak in hushed tones in quiet corners when discussing
the crimes you might’ve committed to land yourself here, avoiding speaking your name less
someone overhears you speaking about ‘taboo’ subjects. Anyone who might’ve once cared
about you would grieve your loss like a real death since there was no chance to ever see you
walk free again… and even if there was, there would be no way you’d be the same person
who walked out of this place as who was dragged in.

Azkaban was death. If your wife or husband was sentenced here, your marriage was
automatically annulled, and their estate liquidated for your convenience. That was how final a
sentence here was.

So most people did not visit inmates here. They mourned, they grieved, they moved on.

And even you had the inclination to visit once or twice anyway, the trip was, to be frank,
horrible.
Apparition was banned so you needed to travel by boat on ever-stormy waters across the
channel, which was bad enough, but then you were physically and magically searched, and
relieved of your wand while on the island which was frankly so far below what purebloods
deemed acceptable it was quite literally rock bottom. Especially considering the most
obvious downside: the guards.

Walking with dementors escorting you while wandless… it was unthinkable for a Slytherin to
willing put themselves in a disadvantaged position like this. Prisoners also talked, most of
them driven well mad after only a couple months in this place, so they screamed at you as
you walked by, spilling secrets easy as breathing. It was a great way to gather information if
you dared risk it, but it also meant there was no way anyone else who visited wouldn’t know
you’d been here.

In fact, Narcissa hadn’t made it three meters into the first corridor of the prison before she
deduced the Minister, a woman from the Davis family, and a muggleborn man had visited in
recent months. She filed the information away for later although doubted it’s usefulness.
Well… maybe not the Davis woman, she could probably use that. And anything on the
Minister was good, although him visiting the prison he was technically in charge of wasn’t
that suspicious.

Still.

Best not to dawdle.

She had genuinely thought getting into Azkaban without anyone being any the wiser would
be… more difficult. She needed to have this conversation in person, she needed to make it
home unscathed, and she needed only one person to ever know she’d actually done this: her
target.

Not even Lucius would approve of this kind of thing (less the point of the trip and more the
being unarmed for any portion of time bit), so she simply didn’t mention her afternoon plans
at breakfast this morning. They didn’t always agree and on this battle they were of quite
differing opinions on who would be the best guardian for the young Potter—they hadn’t been
able to come to a consensus so really, whoever got there first would win. So, it needed to be
done and it needed to be done quickly, less her husband beat her to the punch. It
unfortunately meant she didn’t exactly have his support, but it wasn’t like she needed it—it
wouldn't be the first time she’d walked her own path much to Lucius’ displeasure.

She had some amount of her own personal funds to spend should she need to be discrete
however there wasn’t a good way to bribe the people she needed to without dipping into their
shared vault. Or taking a chunk out of her Black inheritance fund which was mostly supposed
to be inherited by Draco someday, so she hesitated touching that even if this little excursion
probably wouldn’t have taken much of a dent… too many ‘small’ deductions would add up,
she knew.

She had a thing for the delicate, beautiful, and exorbitant—she understood her own shopping
habits to not make that a habit in the first place.
She had plenty of contacts and favors to cash in so it was only a matter of going about
checking in with her network of allies—only to be started when one of them said she wasn’t
the only one interested in something similar.

“You didn’t hear it from me, but someone else wants the truth. I’ll get you in with none the
wiser, in exchange you just need to tell me if he’s really innocent. The truth.”

She agreed to the deal.

But she would do no such thing without some certainty that whatever truth she delivered
would not harm her future plans… but a little digging here and there, and she had a name.

Sebastian Greengrass.

By all accounts he was a fellow grey ally, but by all accounts she honestly didn’t know what
to make of the man. He was no nonsense and stern, hard to read even for her… but readable
he eventually was. His youngest daughter was not going to live long, born with an illness that
made her delicate and his eldest took a lot after him except with a bleeding heart that
Narcissa didn’t need to be at Hogwarts to see. They were dealers but they were no Zabinis.
Invaluable, but they had a light-tinted moral code they kept tight under lock and key.

Just because Greengrass family probably sympathized more for the light than the dark didn’t
mean a thing in the end though. If it was for a deal, it would be done—be it Albus
Dumbledore or the dark lord himself. Personal opinions had never impacted their business,
although they certainly had plenty of those opinions—more so than the typical Slytherin, she
noted.

Which put her in an interesting position. Who has asked Greengrass for this truth? Or, was it
not even the truth he was after? Should Sirius be innocent… and Narcissa had always been of
the camp that he probably was… the Minister was dead in the water so far as his career went.
Someone after any scrap they could get on Fudge would definitely start here, however…

Fudge very much did not want what could potentially be the greatest blunder of his career to
see the light of day.

He was so unsubtle it was pathetic, but people got fired, had their wages docked, even
arrested and kept for interrogation for weeks just for poking their noses close to this issue.
Narcissa had half a mind when Draco was just learning his letters that if it were convenient
perhaps Sirius should at least have a trial—but it was far from convenient actually.

In fact, it was hard to get this opportunity, even for her who thought herself quite a talented
snake.

Not that Fudge was talented, but he legitimately had perhaps too-much power and was stupid
enough to use it blatantly for selfish reasons. She’d voiced her half-thought to Lucius but
even he, who’d wormed his way into being a close confidant to the Minister over the years,
had never been able to make a dent in Fudge’s rock-solid refusal to admit he might’ve been
wrong. You couldn’t speak sense into a rock after all, no matter how clever a speaker you
were—and Cornelius was certainly stupid and closed minded enough for it to feel like
speaking to a brick wall sometimes.

In fact, he’d shut down so hard several years ago when Lucius brought it up delicately, that
he’d refused several of their invites to dinner afterwards. They’d decided then that
jeopardizing their in with the Minister wasn’t worth it, they’d have to find another way.

But years had passed, and no opportunity had ever presented itself.

She hadn’t actively looked as she had a son to raise, a house to run, and politics to sway, but
had she noted some convenient opportunity in front of her she would’ve taken it. It just
hadn’t happened upon her as of yet.

Now it wasn’t about convenience though, this was about Harry Potter.

More importantly, this was about Draco.

The difficulty of this task was not something to scoff at even considering what a dunce Fudge
was—the twat had power and was dangerous with it and this was the one thing he could not
be manipulated away from. The fact Greengrass had arranged for this was… telling.

It meant he was being paid very, very well.

Unreasonably well, actually.

First there was the ministry clearance: any visitor needed to be cleared to enter via the wards
around the island and this was the one ward that they hadn’t cheaped out on when hiring
Gringotts for the job. No one set foot on this island without Fudge knowing and he would
know immediately where said visitor had gone since Sirius apparently had his own
personalized ward probably for the sake of Fudge keeping tabs on his career’s greatest
mistake. A lot of the bribe money Lucius had slipped into Cornelius’ pocket over the years
probably went to this ward because she’d learned a thing or two about Azkaban’s protections
from the goblins over time and she knew this was one of the best. To be able to pay enough to
a goblin of high enough skill to slip into not only Azkaban’s ward, but then Sirius’ own ward
while not tipping off their original employers… it was not a small sum of money in the least,
and that being said by an extremely wealthy woman who didn’t often think those thoughts.

Then there was the island itself, actually putting up with being here was unpleasant and there
were still the few actual human guards who monitored things. They would either have to be
diverted from work on a particular day, distracted while she was here, or bribed into turning a
blind eye. Which, was easier said than done as you didn’t just volunteer to be a guard on this
god forsaken island, you had to be the hardest, most righteous ass, ‘by the book’, there’s-no-
grey and evil-is-evil-and-deserves-to-die kind of auror to be willing to spend any kind of time
on Azkaban just to ensure prisoners never saw the light of day again. Even she found trying
to convince or bribe those types of people not worth the effort it’d take to just have them
killed instead, but sudden deaths of Azkaban guards were a bit higher profile than most. Too
many suspicious deaths of Azkaban guards could easily be seen as an attack on the prison
itself and would only strengthen security.
The last and most critical challenge though: the dementors themselves.

They couldn’t be bought or persuaded, they followed only Fudge’s orders (to a point) and
part of that ministry approval piece of the puzzle was not only allowance past the wards, but
also Fudge’s personal order that that visitor was allowed on the island and for the dementors
not to suck out their soul. Without that order then anyone who wasn’t supposed to be here
was attacked and left an empty husk of who they arrived as. Given the hundreds of them in
this prison, no matter how talented a witch she fancied herself, she wasn’t going to get
around that.

So when she set foot on the island and two dementors didn’t attack, and instead seemed to
escort her from a couple meters behind her as she traced her way through the corridors of
Azkaban to where she was instructed the right cell was, she wasn’t too proud to admit she
had no idea what Greengrass had done.

The deal was that no one would know she was here—that suited Greengrass too from what
she understood. So clearly Fudge hadn’t given the order, and yet…

The idea that Sebastian Greengrass knew how to undermine the Ministry’s control on the
dementors of Azkaban was, frankly, fucking terrifying.

Horrifying, if you will.

It also meant her rather flippant thoughts of their bleeding hearts would be kept firmly to
herself and she probably owed the grey family a bit more respect than she’d previously
afforded them.

She took a deep breathe and quickened her pace without seeming to be in a rush or anything.
She’d taken several calming draughts before getting off the boat to prepare for this, and she
only had a certain amount of time until they wore off. She was an extremely level headed
person so keeping calm was easy for her, but still… she’d done enough wrong in her past that
the effects of the dementors were already eating away at the corners of her mind and she
wanted to be long gone before the potions wore off and the full effect of Azkaban started
eating her alive.

It was cold, and damp, and completely miserable here. Prisoners were screaming at her madly
and she tried not to imagine she heard her sister’s voice lost in that cacophony of noise
somewhere.

Glamours would not work under the ward so she went physical with her disguise, shielding
herself in a long white cloak and white robes beneath it already turning slightly grey from the
grim of this place that seemed to pollute even the air around her. She had the hood pulled all
the way up and a white scarf pulled up over her nose to shield most of her face—not very
creative, but effective enough for this trip. It only had to last less than an hour, if that, and she
picked up her pace quickly as she followed the directions she was given and memorizing
every twist and turn of the hallways to ensure she knew her way back too.

True to what she’d heard, Sirius’ cell was with what could be considered the ‘highest
priority’ prisoners. She recognized many as death eaters, but made sure not to visibly turn her
head towards them. Checking the few cells before her target, she saw many lifeless bodies
sprawled on the ground of the dingy, bare cells. Either in sleep, exhaustion, hopelessness,
soulessness, or death—she didn’t know and if they weren’t eavesdropping on her then she
didn’t care.

The dementors behind her fell back and seemed to peak their nightmarish hooded heads into
nearby cells as if double checking if they consume or not. She heard soft whimpers and one
gargling half-screech so she knew those nearby were more than preoccupied temporarily as
she went to the bar of what she assumed was the right cell.

And she had to assume she’d counted correctly and this was right one because the figure
inside looked… almost nothing like the cousin she’d one had. The threadbare rags were
pathetic enough, but the positively skeletal nature of his frame and the pure greyish-blue tone
of his skin meant he very easily couldn’t just been an enchanted inferi instead of a man. He
lifted his head as if sensing her there and his face too… filthy, gaunt, merely skin stretched
across bones at best. The pits beneath his eyes were dark as ink and his eyes…

She almost did a double take because his eyes were… clear?

“Sissy?” She almost didn’t hear it, his voice all but broken from disuse—or many years of
screaming and a damp, drafty cell slowly tearing away at it. But heard it she did, and yes…
that was definitely him. He might’ve looked surprised even but he was visibly exhausted and
beaten, and there was so little left of his face there probably wasn’t much there to form real
expression anymore.

“Sirius.” She greeted, not lowering her scarf but placing one finger over where her lips were
to remind him of listening ears. Whether he got that or not, she didn’t give him a chance to
speak before continuing—she was on a time limit after all. "I'll refrain from asking how
you've been and skip the niceties for now."

His lips twitched, barely, lacking any actual mirth. She was sure this place had stolen all of
that from him long ago—her too, as she was truly feeling the effects of this place and felt no
warmth at the bad joke. She didn’t need to feel a thing to play a part though.

"You're my first visitor in eleven years." He stated flatly, blank almost but also quite…
strongly, for someone in his state.

She paused.

"Am I now?" Narcissa frowned behind her mask, something… itching at the back of her
brain. "I am aware the werewolf has been trying to visit but he is denied visitation rights to
Azkaban as a dark creature." She stalled for time, watching his eyes react to that news,
growing deeper for a second as he lifted his head higher.

Whatever flashed there faded in a second though—the light of hope seeping out of him just
as quickly as it had sparked to light from the dementors less than ten meters away.

But still, he knew and his face seemed to reflect an… intelligence she wasn’t expecting.
That was it though, wasn’t it?

He wasn’t insane.

He was calm and talking and despite drowning in soulless breath and the deep dragging
feeling of the island itself, he hasn’t lost himself even a bit. He was miserable and sick and a
broken man without question, but he was not insane.

She knew what insane looked like, after all. She’d been raised by it. Her closest sister was
practically the definition--she was intimately aware of what insane looked like.

And this was not it.

"Moony… did that? Does he think I'm guilty too?" He asked genuinely, sincere despair
echoing much more confidently around his naked cell now.

Narcissa took half a step back and smoothed out the front of her robes.

"Who knows. Most condemned you immediately of course, but the lack of a trial causes a lot
of the truth to be muddled, in certain circles."

Translation: most dark and grey families knew he likely wasn't guilty at all, or at least there
was a good chance he wasn't. Or at the very least he’d been imperioused—he was too loyal to
James Potter for it to be anything else, and there'd never been a whisper of Sirius Black in the
dark circles of the last war. It was only the Light idiots who had ever for a second thought
him earnestly guilty… or believed the lie that perhaps he’d gone insane.

Talking to him now, if he had spent the past eleven years in this hell-on-earth and could still
speak in full sentences coherently, with no emotion, Narcissa knew he hadn’t gone insane
when he was still a free man.

“And then of course a decade passed and even those with doubts simply pushed it from their
minds. It’s all in the past now, after all.” She pressed him a bit, testing.

And it worked, as he scowled openly all of a sudden. Anger, not muted this time.

It would make sense: dementors suck away all good emotions, but anger wasn’t necessarily
good. It could be genuinely evil and nasty, so of course he would still be able to feel it.

"What do you want, Narcissa?" He demanded, his weariness giving way for half a second to
be flushed with warm, growing vitriol.

Ah… that was the question then, isn’t it. No time to waste beating around the bush.

"Do you want a trial, cousin?"

He stared at her for a long minute, almost… distrusting. Of course he couldn’t feel hope, but
she assumed he was warring with that lack of emotion when they both knew it definitely
should’ve been there.
"Yes." He got out, breathless.

"You're not guilty, are you."

"No.” His face twisted in that gnarled anger once more before calming. It probably took too
much energy to keep it going long. “Peter was the rat. I lost my temper and tried to kill him,
yes, but he cut off his finger and fled. He's an illegal Animagus—literally a rat—so it was
easy for him. I convinced James and Lily to use him since I was clearly the obvious choice—
he would've been a safer choice. What a load of crap that was."

He said it so blankly, but she could feel the haunted echo seeping from his tone, like marrow
slowly draining from abandoned bones when the flesh had long since turned to ash.

She only nodded, accepting this for once as a truth she didn’t need to question.

"Why would you help me." He asked.

"My son. Draco." She put a hand over her heart as if that would sway him of her honesty. She
knew it wouldn’t as he never knew her as a mother, but she was being honest, and it frankly
didn’t matter if he believed her or not. "Of all else I am, good or terrible, I am a mother who
loves her son. And my son has become close with a boy who desperately needs a family; for
Draco's sake there is little I won't do, even if that means coming here and bringing suspicion
on myself in order to free you."

“Free me…" He frowned, eyes closing as if in weariness as he tried to grasp this concept.
"Who… family…"

Okay, so maybe he wasn't all there.

"Harry Potter, cousin. Your godson." She insisted, and his silver eyes widened at the
reminder, jaw dropping slightly as in seemed to sink in.

"Your son… Harry…" He repeated almost too quiet for her to hear.

"He's a fine young boy, Harry. He's the spitting image of Evans, and Draco considers him his
closest friend. The boy has come to visit a couple times and now it is clear he is not fine with
the living arrangements Dumbledore set for him. I believe it is abusive in nature, the muggle
vermin they are."

"What?"

He instantly animated, and oh yes, the anger wasn't stolen here. It burned hotly as if singing
off the damp despair in the air.

She leaned in, voice low in a solid hiss, smooth like ivy but firmly unyielding because he
needed to hear her.

"Use this anger and live, cousin. Do not do anything foolish to risk your position and I will
see about getting a trial. If you love your godson then sit tight and play nice and you will
have your werewolf and your godson back in time."
His chest was moving in silent breathes, almost hyperventilating to a point as his anger took
hold and probably overwhelmed him with emotion he hadn’t had to deal with in years. He
moved, but didn’t seem to know what to do with his own body.

"I…." He seethed, seeming to be unable to speak. Too furious to form words as his
expression twisted with anger unimpeded by kindness or love or rationality. All of that had
left him along with the warmth of his body eleven years ago.

“Do you hear me, Sirius?” She demanded, more urgently now.

She never had anything against her most foolhardy cousin, but he was impulsive. He was the
very worst parts of a Gryffindor in his brashness and callous selfishness. As a teen if she’d
ever been able to look past his being sorted into the lion’s house, his total disrespect for the
way Slytherin operated and how he spoke and acted without giving an utter fuck who he
insulted or trampled on had made cutting him off only too easy. She never had time for that
shit, and past opinions and familial ties aside, they’d both been perfectly content never
speaking or dealing with each other again.

He hated Slytherins and she could not stand to deal with stupid Gryffindors.

Things had changed and she needed to deal with him now out of necessity for her own plans,
but that simply meant she needed to nip those impulsive, selfish and narrow-minded instincts
in the butt immediately or else this would all be for nothing.

“Sirius!” She all but snapped at him.

“Save Harry,” He snapped right back at her, dementor-twisted anger dripping from his tone
and fire burning intensely in his eyes. “Forget about me and save him!”

“He’s safe at Hogwarts right now and I’m doing that by saving you, you idiot.” She hissed.
“But that means no matter what you hear or what you see you will say in this cell until you
are called for your trial. If you cannot do that simple task then Harry will go right back to
those muggle vermin who beat him!”

“I can’t just do nothing!” He insisted.

“You will or I will murder you slowly myself for ruining my plans.” Her face twisted in a
glower, pulling her scarf down to be sure he saw the full glory of her glare. Unfortunately he
was just as much of a Black and had a matching death stare of his own. “I can take care of
this if you for once in your life think things through. You yourself just confessed that Lily
Evans and James Potter are dead because you could not form a decent plan to save your life!
Or, rather, to save the lives of anyone you love.”

He was on his feet and slamming his hands into the bars of his cell.

“NARCISSA!”

She refused to back off, simply pulling her scarf back up coldly, safely from the right side of
the cell door.
“Don’t blame me for being honest, cousin. If you had formed a plan like a Slytherin, like
you’d been raised… you would not be in this cell right now. Lily and James would not be
dead, and Harry would be a safe little Gryffindor raised by people who loved him. Not
another you or me or—” She scoffed, rather loudly and out of character for her but the bitter
irony was unavoidable. “Or yet another Regulus, huh?”

His knuckles were white, and they cracked and began to bleed from how hard they gripped
the bars, something indescribably written over his face.

She struck while the iron was hot.

“You cannot do anything. You are helpless. Suffer on that if you’d like, but I will fix this now
and I do not care if you believe me or not, I simply need you to obey.” She tapped the cell
door sharply, once. It echoed coldly in the stone cell. “Stay put.”

She poured every ounce of authority and compulsion she could into those words, and she
watched them pierce his eyes like blades into his psyche.

He wasn’t truly a Black.

He felt pitiful things like guilt.

And that was why he was weak—why he was locked away and why he would be
manipulated now.

It was why he was loved by many.

Although all those many guilty, foolish people who loved him feared to remember him now.

When his eyes grew dark, she knew she’d won. She couldn’t well do more but hope he
actually listened to her now, and then continue to chip away at her plan until it bore fruit—
despite preferring to work carefully, the quicker she could do this the less time it would give
Sirius to get impatient and do something stupid.

Point made, she turned to flee the prison with her chin raised high.

Only for the very blood in her veins to ice over, freezing her to the spot she stood as
extremely real growls suddenly echoed out loudly from the other side of the cell door too
close to her left.

Her breath froze in his lungs, a fear she hadn’t felt in decades seeping into her skin and she
was just… paralyzed.

Something roared and she jumped, the cell dark once she’d stepped away but every sense she
had was screaming that there was a monster right there and to flee immediately—every hair
on her body standing on end from the terrorizing sound.

Right… Sirius Black was an outcast to the family name, but no matter what he’d chosen in
life or the tattered family tapestry, he was still the blood heir of one of the purest and most
pristine magical bloodlines in existence. The fact he had not sided with the dark lord was a
big deal back in the day as he’d been trained essentially since birth to be someone worth that
title… and she was keenly reminded that her old family had been brutal in many ways.

So far as Narcissa was aware, Sirius had never once used his training once he reached
Hogwarts.

But she remembered her own upbringing, remembered Bella taking to her own with the
utmost glee. She remembered the things her sisters had eventually been capable of.

She remembered her father saying Sirius had once been a prodigy. She remembered vivid
nightmares of him beating down Bella when she could not outmatch their little cousin despite
being older, despite wanting to outshine the true Black heir if only she could just manage it.

Narcissa suddenly remembered the way Sirius had once been very good at avoiding
punishment by following orders.

Before he threw it all away, that is—all that talent and power and legacy for some mudbloods
and some freedom.

She’d almost forgotten that sliver of relief she’d felt, buried beneath everything else when
she’d watched her cousin get sorted into Gryffindor instead, when she realized all that talent
and power and legacy was not actually going to be the noose around her neck for the duration
of her life until it wound too tight to breathe.

Right. Anger was the only option of manipulation in Azkaban, but it may not have been the
safest.

She knew how to play the anger of a Slytherin… perhaps she did not quite understand the
lions as much as she fancied she did.

No… no, she was fairly certain she understood Gryffindors.

But she could admit she probably forgot that Sirius was first and foremost a Black, perhaps…
a little too quickly.

Yes, but she remembered quite clearly now.

The growls seemed to echo around the corridor loudly, and the cold of this island of hell
made her shiver a bit violently. She needed to get out of here—time was not on her side and
as her heart beat faster she knew those calming draughts she’d taken before coming ashore
were wearing off a lot faster than she’d hoped they would.

She gently touched the stone wall beside her as if to steady herself. It felt disgusting, slick
with grime and death like the skin of a corpse.

"As I said, be patient. You will have your moment, but only if you wait for it. I remember you
were a very brash sort so hopefully over a decade in here has taught you a lesson—you may
have been sorted into Gryffindor but your blood is the purest of Slytherin, and Slytherin does
not necessarily mean dark. Use that, and obtain victory for everyone here, not just to exact
one moment of revenge—but to achieve the happiness of your godson. If you destroy his
chance of having a family because of your impulsiveness, I will kill you myself, Azkaban
walls or no."

The growls increased, and she risked one glance behind.

He was there in the bars, silver eyes burning into her with something that set a different type
of chill over her skin. He might’ve played the part of a innocent, sane prisoner well, but now
he truly looked mad… and yet she could tell her words were biting at his psyche. Hopefully
they’re take root and twist inside of him until he believed them too.

Hopefully his belief would be enough.

"I will be seeing you then, Sirius."

She fled.

The growling filled the entire cell block with a vengeance, seeming to grow louder just to
chase her out since the man himself was stuck, unable to follow her to properly express his
anger.

Once she was far enough away to be clear of the noise and the exit was firmly in sight as she
made her hasty retreat…she smirked.

She had a feeling this would be quite interesting.

000

Harry was pretty good at blocking out whispers. The neighbors on private drive had never
actually spoken to him personally, but instead everything they’d known about him had come
through Petunia’s waspish rumors and Vernon’s grumbling complaints about their delinquent
nephew, so Harry assumed they’d believed the absolute worst about him. He’d seen the cross
streets to avoid him and lock their car doors if they saw him out gardening, so he knew it was
bad.

Dudley too, without anyone to stop him and his parents actually encouraging it, had made up
truly outlandish things about his cousin and him punching anyone who dared get too close to
the tiny Potter into submission meant kids his age had a lot to whisper about too. Also, kids
sucked at moderating their voices to it was less whispers, and more just blatantly talking
about him when he could clearly still hear them.

And since starting Hogwarts all bets were off: he was fully and confidently weird even by
muggle standards, much less wizard ones. But that had always been fine, it was his choice
and also he was vain enough to not mind the stares and whispers.

Now though….

There were… certainly a lot of whispers to deal with all of a sudden, and the sheer volume
was surprisingly disorienting.
He wanted to say he only cared about what his important people thought about him being a
parselmouth, but somehow his list of important people had expanded significantly and oh
yeah, he was kind of involved in the whole house unity initiative things he’d kickstarted so
when the houses all started acting funny he definitely noticed. His dormmates were clearly
the most imminent people as they lived with them, Neville clearly having the highest priority,
but after their early morning football practice the day after Blaise got to work on the rumor
mill that seemed to have been smoothed over.

Neville… was definitely surprised, eyes getting impossibly wide when Harry told him, but he
got over it pretty quickly considering. Even fessing up his lineage conundrum, the blond had
simply been just as stumped as Harry himself was before seeming to come to terms with it.

“I think you’ve made it pretty clear you don’t care about tradition so far. Besides, I’m fairly
confident in you being you regardless of what I think on the matter so… uh, are you looking
for my opinion on it?” Neville had rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly when Harry had
pressed for more of a reaction.

“Well yeah? You’re a pureblood so it means more to you. I didn’t even know this was a thing
until I accidentally talked to a snake in front of Slytherins.”

Neville gave him the driest look at that, which had Harry blushing a bit.

“My Slytherins that is—no one I didn’t want knowing at first!” He defended himself.

“Well… as much as I hate to say it, the Slytherins are the ones whose opinions really matter.
They’re the ones who’ll cause trouble over it. I guess… some Gryffindors might be offended
somehow? Or be afraid I think. I can’t imagine most will think it much worse than you sitting
at the Slytherin table—you didn’t notice how much they hated that at all last year, so this’ll
probably be fine too.”

Harry blinked.

“Wait what?”

“Yeah, exactly.” Neville’s blue eyes traced over his face carefully, as if trying to determine if
his surprise was real. “I think you think you understand Gryffindors maybe… a bit more than
you actually do. If you don’t like what upper years say or do, you somehow just… ignore
them?”

Well damn.

An angry fifth year Gryffindor isn’t exactly as deadly as an upper year Slytherin—if they
don’t have a wand in their hand I’m pretty safe usually, unlike a slightly peeved Slytherin
could spell some unknown disaster before I know what hit me.

“Huh.” He frowned, scratching his brain. He… really didn’t have the capacity to worry about
that at the moment, but it wasn’t like it wasn’t a problem. “If I miss something huge could
you like… tell me? I know the whole school is going to know soon enough but I might’ve
overextended myself.” He confessed.
For some reason Neville looked happy at that admission.

“Sure. Maybe you should just focus on the first years for a bit.”

Harry didn’t really know where that came from but he wasn’t against it, so he agreed and
they easily got back into playing around in their lazy morning practice.

Dean and Seamus knew they were on the pitch and came down to meet them later in the
morning to join in, and since it was obvious they hadn’t heard yet, Harry had decided to
graciously fill them in.

“What!?” Seamus had all but shrieked, although Dean looked just as lost at that reaction has
Harry had been. One quick lesson on Slytherin’s lineage later and he too looked taken aback
but not outright against it or anything.

“Harry you can’t tell anyone that! Bloody hell if the Slytherins find out—”

“They already know.” He admitted, derailing the Irishman’s tirade.

“Oh.” He blinked. “Shit—what are you going to do!?”

Harry was very amused his first reaction was trying to protect him, unaware it was all under
control already—and that was precisely why he loved Seamus.

“I actually found out because I accidentally spoke to a decorative snake in the Slytherin
common room—Draco saw me do it and enlightened me on why it was a big deal. Blaise
actually is the one telling the whole school so he’s in control of the rumor mill to an extent,
so I hope it won’t be too bad.” He shrugged. “I knew everyone would find out somehow so
having someone on my side do it the way I wanted it to happen was my best bet.”

Dean perked up with a smile. “Blaise is good at rumors—that was a good call.”

Which made Harry narrow his eyes at the tall Gryffindor who just smiled ‘innocently’ back.

“Okay what has Blaise told you?”

“Nothing much.”

Harry did not believe him.

But, he shelved that as not quite relevant at the moment.

“Ignoring that for now, as for handling the Slytherins—Blaise’s got that. He’s phrasing it like
this is something good in their politics somehow, and also I’ve been in their common room.
They’ve got decorative snakes who’ve heard all their little schemes for a while now and I’m
the only one who understands them; the threat to their secrets is enough to get them to back
off for the foreseeable future, trust me.”

“Huh, fair enough.” Seamus seemed reassured by that if not still visibly agitated by the whole
thing. “But bloody snitch, parseltongue?”
“Ha! You said it too!” Harry jabbed a finger in his face indignantly and Seamus instantly
retaliated.

“It’s your stupid bad habits rubbing off on me, nothing more! Buzz off!”

They dissolved into squabbling and eventually got back to kicking around the ball, but other
than Seamus continuing to give disbelieving remarks periodically about how it was possible,
none of them seemed too tripped up by the development. Dean seemed to pick up on the fact
this was not a small development, but like Harry didn’t have the background to truly care
himself, and Neville of course resumed his focus on struggling to be a goalkeeper more than
what they were talking about.

They stayed out and played for several more hours, and slowly but surely the football club
learned where he was—and also started to hear the rumors themselves so joined in not only
to play but also confirm for themselves that the rumor was true. Luckily the club at least had
long since gotten over their hesitation in just talking to him themselves—he wasn’t a
celebrity or some strange creature, he was part of their club and got just as dirty as the rest of
them playing games. He missed goals and got outrun by better players and also gloated
playfully when he made a good steal or a successful goal, he wasn’t a teacher or an authority
figure or anything more than a classmate.

And a classmate who’d proven to love to talk to any and everybody many times—most of
them were in this club because they’d been cornered by him at one point or another in the
first place—so thankfully they were happy to just walk up to him and ask.

Many had varying reactions, a lot falling into either the Dean or Seamus category since there
were a ton of muggleborns in the muggle sport club who didn’t get it and wanted
confirmation on why this was a big deal, but also a ton of generous and understanding half or
purebloods who mostly seemed concerned about what Harry was going to do. A quick
conversation soothed most of them and then getting down to play some football relaxed any
other concerns they had.

There was a third group though, which was where the likes of Hannah and others seemed to
fall. They seemed hesitant to approach him, but once they did and he confirmed the rumor for
them, they seemed to just gape a bit with wide eyes.

“…oh.”

Was all Hannah had said before awkwardly getting back to the pick-up game they were
playing.

As for what that meant… hell if Harry knew.

Still, for the first day after the news had spread through the Hogwarts rumor mill, things had
gone pretty smoothly if he did say so himself.

Monday when classes started up again though, he definitely noted how much of the school he
hadn’t infiltrated yet. There was a large population of the upper years who, outside of the
snake house, took to blatant whispering and staring when he walked through the Great Hall at
meals, in the library, or in the halls even. Luckily his year level seemed familiar enough with
him to either keep it to themselves more tactfully, ask him to his face, or simply get over it
decently quickly, so his actual classes turned out fine. By Wednesday all second years seemed
to be over it and thankfully were more focused on the potions exam Snape had sprung on
them for this Friday. Not to mention the new quidditch team line-ups were announced the
same day his parseltongue rumor had broke so the two topics of conversation seemed to
compete with each other and eventually quidditch won out as the more interesting of the two.

Harry had overheard a couple Ravenclaw seventh years in the library muttering about it
Friday afternoon and they also seemed to just toss it up as something reasonably impressive
for “The Boy Who Lived” to possess, and while any other time that would piss him off, it
seemed Blaise had done his job well. They weren’t mad or disgusted, and by the following
weekend most of the school seemed to be generally with the program—or at least the blatant
whispering and stares had seriously eased off.

Theo thought it was likely because he was openly talking about it to anyone who asked.
Rumors got bad when people started making shit up and with no one being able to confirm
anything one way or another they tended to spiral—especially amongst children who had
poor understandings of what was possible or not in the real world and still had a bit of
childhood imagination in them making things worse. With pretty much the entire football
club and all second and first years being able to say ‘I asked Harry himself and he said…’,
any time some wild rumor came up it was stomped out pretty quickly as being unreasonable.

It was exhausting, don’t get him wrong, because he ended up having essentially the same
conversation literally hundreds of times, and then started having repeat conversations when
the same people would come back to him to confirm if a new rumor was true or not. He was
very relieved when even the twins got tired of it all and started dramatically following him
around as ‘body guards’, telling people to get out of his way or he’d sick a snake on them.

The twins being the twins, they got away with the drastic flair and earned many laughs,
which got more of the people their year levels (3rd to 4th) seeing how unreasonable bringing
up a dead horse every conversation was.

The people who were his biggest concern were definitely the upper years—particularly
Slytherin and Gryffindor house. He knew the older Slytherins weren’t going to do a damn
thing right now, but that would not remain the case forever, he knew. He’d have to keep an
ear to the ground and just get ready for whatever it was they’d end up doing with that
information but he knew he likely had plenty of time until that day.

So, ironically, his biggest issue was going to be the upper year Gryffindors who, true to
Neville’s warnings, were not thrilled with this in the slightest. Thanks to being reminded to
look for once, he found the dirtiest looks and nastiest rumors were definitely sourced there.

Luckily, peer pressure worked better on Gryffindors than most others so when most of their
underclassmen got over it within a week, the upper years started keeping their suddenly less-
popular opinions to themselves in turn. They still talked about it amongst themselves though
which Harry was sure was only deepening their negative stances on the matter with people
who agreed with them. There was suddenly a distinct lack of warmth in his own house
 though that was hard to miss, which was… weird. Gryffindor was supposed to be the warm
house with their cozy common room and boisterously friendly people. When a decent chunk
of a previously extremely loud, bustling common area was very noticeably silent when you
walked by, you didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to notice.

In a single week Harry suddenly found the polite ignorance and respectful distance people
kept to each other in the Slytherin common room much more comfortable.

His own house aside, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw reacted pretty much how he’d expected:
Hufflepuff were some of the first to get over it and dismiss it as some random “Boy Who
Lived” talent, while Ravenclaw was visibly scratching their brains trying to work it out. It
was him sitting at their table for breakfast one day and getting drawn in by Lu and some of
his year mates on the how debate that he realized they didn’t know about him actually being
related to Slytherin. They were talking about the parseltongue trait being genetic or not,
theorizing about his lineage, and other such things they were brainstorming and it was almost
immediately clear they didn’t know Harry had confirmed his relation to Salazar Slytherin.

He didn’t immediately correct them and went back to Neville, who confirmed as much that
he didn’t think Gryffindor knew that much either.

He wondered at that for an afternoon before deciding he wouldn’t bring it up himself. No one
had outright asked if he knew and therefore he would be fine just letting the matter drop—the
Ravenclaw prevailing theory that maybe parseltongue wasn’t genetic like everyone thought it
was seemed to be picking up a little steam and if people went with that instead of getting
suspicious about his bloodline, it would probably suit him better in the long run. He wasn’t
going to hide it exactly, but he wasn’t going to bring it up of his own volition either.

Besides, if the full story hadn’t gotten out, then it was probably Blaise’s doing, probably on
purpose for some specific reason only he knew. Harry hadn’t actually wanted the school to
know about his ability, he just knew that it eventually would and wanted to get on top of it,
and the tall Slytherin had actually done a great job breaking the news as Harry had requested
it be done. If Blaise had his own agenda while he was doing this, although it was probably
against his better judgement, Harry let it slide.

But eventually, as all things do, time kept moving on.

Chapter End Notes

Little short but wanted to get it out, writer's block is a bitch.

Thanks to everyone who wants to engage! I have seriously taken some of my major
future plot points from some of your comments, I enjoy reading them a lot and yall are
quite creative :D
 Pumice

“Simply wonderful to have this talk with you Harry my boy, if you ever need advice on your
autograph again I am more than willing to help out! I am, as they say, an expert on the topic!”

Harry didn’t even have to pretend to smile a big grin.

I mean you couldn’t help but laugh: Lockhart was so bloody ridiculous it was simply the
funniest thing. So incredibly stupid and full of himself, so insanely egotistical and infatuated
with himself, he was like a toy Harry took great joy in batting against the wall just to see how
long it would take him to notice. To this day the man’s marvelously well-manicured head had
not noticed Harry was in no way taking him seriously and it was simply the funniest thing.

“Of course, professor, thank you for the tips. I’ll need to know it someday, after all.” He
layered it on thick so that anyone with two fully developed braincells would know he was
absolutely full of shit.

Lockhart ate shit for breakfast though, apparently. And enjoyed it, too.

“Very good, very good—us men of fame should stick together, of course! Any time, any
time,” He waved if off distractedly, already focusing on the book Harry had complimented
him on as if basking in his own glory. He didn’t notice Harry slip out the door, much less the
girl who followed him quietly… and the useless professor completely forgot he was supposed
to be running detention with Harry’s successful distraction, and he promptly and gleefully
neglected to remember he was supposed to be having her write lines or something.

Once safely out the door and a brisk walk away from the Defense classroom, she breathed a
sigh of relief.

“I was going to kill him if I actually had to sit through that detention.” Melinda admitted, far
too calmly for Harry to properly tell if the death threat was legitimate or not.

He could understand it to a point; Harry acknowledged he was in the minority of those who
found their inept professor legitimately funny. Everyone else was either naïve teen girls who
had celebrity crushes and thought he could do no wrong or actual rational human beings who
were infuriated by Lockhart’s… well, him.

He was too much to explain properly in so few words, but it was well summarized by being a
maddening example of secondhand embarrassment personified.

“Fair,” He gave her that one. They turned a nearby corner and Daphne greeted them, leaning
against the wall casually and shooting a smirk pointedly at her roommate.

“Told you he could do it.”

“You failed to tell me how he would do it though.” Melinda was not amused—she clearly
hated the ego-fest that had just happened in front of her, even if Harry had been playing it up
for the camera, so to speak.

“I can’t predict him, are you crazy?”

“If I told Slytherins my methods they’d never actually deal with me,” He pointed out in his
own defense. She just rolled her eyes at the both of them.

“Which is what makes you so interesting. Who knew Slytherin had a gambling problem?”

Harry tossed his head back to laugh in wild amusement on that sheer concept. “Never
would’ve called that, although if I had to venture a guess I definitely would’ve pegged either
you or Blaise.”

“Do not loop me in with that psychopath!” Daphne instantly shot back, nose in the air as she
lead the charge back down the hall.

“About that deal though,” Melinda cut back to the topic at hand, clearly not the joking type
with her posture straight as a ruler and face an impenetrable mask as she met his gaze.
Daphne had warned him that this particular Slytherin had an agenda all her own: most others
had clear allies even amongst the snake house where rule #1 was to trust no one, but she was
an island on an uncrossable sea. The fact she’d asked for this favor wasn’t exactly unusual,
but she wasn’t there to make friends—she roomed with Daphne but by the grey heiress’s own
admission they’d only spoken a handful of times, and all of it strictly for business. Current
theory was that she had no hobbies… or that she was a secretly a robot.

Which proved there were either some muggleborns or gossipy half bloods hiding in Slytherin
house because Harry had confirmed, with much hilarity, that both Draco and Blaise (his
current best pureblood examples) had no freaking clue what a robot was. He’d tried to
explain it a couple times just for his own amusement as they clearly could not wrap their
heads around the concept.

“Yes, yes, you’re giving me info and I’m giving you a study date,” Daphne winked at Harry
who instantly swatted her shoulder.

“Shut up, it’s not a study date.”

“It’s funnier if I call it a date though.”

“Sure it is, but not at my expense and not when it’s in turn of helping you with your
convoluted deals!” He insisted.

“Then why are you looking to have a study session alone with Tracy Davis?” Melinda was
absolutely brutal in her bluntness, which took Harry off guard.

“That… is a very complicated topic but trust me when I say it’s not to date her!” And he
wasn’t about to explain to this Slytherin he only just met on a personal level about his goal to
get Slytherin house to like him—given he’d jumped at the chance for this deal in order to get
on Melinda’s good side, it might sour this whole exchange they were having. Daphne
however fully knew about his master plan and was looking highly entertained by him getting
put on the spot.

“No.” Melinda faced forward again as if done with the conversation which made him flail a
bit wildly.

“What do you mean no?”

“No, as in I don’t believe you.”

He spluttered while Daphne had to look distractedly behind them as if she heard something to
hide her expression.

“You know you’re remarkably blunt for a Slytherin.”

“If you have to lie, you’re not a good Slytherin.” She declared bluntly again and now Harry
was looking to Daphne for help because… what the hell?

Either Daphne had heard it before and wasn’t surprised or she agreed because she simply
looked challengingly back like… you wanted to meet her, now what are you going to do?

And honestly, he had no idea. This girl was weird even by his standards.

As they walked in the general direction of the Great Hall and Harry scratched his brain trying
to figure out a quip to respond to that declaration with, he heard something like gas being let
out of pipe—soft, but precise and piercing, something cold about it making the hair on the
back of his neck stand on end. He blinked and looked around, thinking maybe it was a pipe
or…

Daphne saw him look since she was walking slightly behind them, and raised a brow.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Like a pipe or something.”

“Uh… not really?”

…ll… s….mi…

He stopped walking dead, instantly listening harder.

“Harry?”

“Shush,” he put a hand up and Melinda stopped too, both girls noticing his tone and giving
him odd looks.

…ill…th…mine…
That was… not just a pipe hissing, those were words. Right!? It had to be… he just couldn’t
quite tell what they were saying but it… it had to be words, he could almost make them out…

…l…oo long… ne… mine… kIlL…

He tensed up, definitely having heard that right. Daphne saw his face and punched his
shoulder, and despite the force he didn’t even blink, just nodding to her unspoken demand.

“You seriously can’t hear that?”

“No—what on earth are you talking about?”

death

“Uhhh,” His eyes widening, hearing that loud as day and realizing that probably wasn’t a
good sign. “Pretty sure it’s a disembodied voice.”

“That only you can hear?” Daphne challenged with one eyebrow cocked. He gave her a very
unamused look.

“Ha ha, fine I’m crazy, everyone already knew that.” Cue eye roll. “But seriously Daphne,
this is Hogwarts. A disembodied voice is not the weirdest thing in this castle,”

“He has a point.” Melinda allowed much to Daphne’s annoyance. “A ghost?”

“Then why am I the only one who can hear it?” He frowned.

hUnGRy… toO… loNg…

He felt a shiver race down his spine as it was definitely louder now, and the words
unfortunately clearer.

That… is so not good.

“Also… whatever it is, it sounds unpleasant. Maybe a bit too malicious to be a ghost, least
the ones we know of.”

“Hm… a dark object maybe?” Melinda considered thoughtfully, seeming more invested in
being a detective than actually talking to him, which would be funny if he weren’t so
distracted right now. “Lockhart is dumb enough to have one on him and not realize what it
is.”

“That is a very good point that’s horrifyingly possible.” He admitted, before the hissing-pipe
sound went off again and it… felt like something huge shifting against the ground. It set
every hair on his arms on end, the same way looking up at a troll four times his height made
him feel hyperaware of how small and not that good at magic he was.

The voice shifted… and it was definitely farther down that hall now.
“It’s moving,” he realized with eyes widening, only taking a step before Daphne had locked a
hand around his upper arm with a grip commanding enough to leave bruises.

“And you were going to follow it!? You really are just Gryffindor enough to be an impulsive
moron! Dumbass Gryffindor! Do not.” She scolded rather viciously for him having only
taken a step.

“I am not a puppy Daphne,” he defended himself while shaking her off, but had to admit she
had a point. “I just don’t want to just let it wander off… what if it’s truly dangerous and
someone who, you know, can’t hear it stumbles on it first?”

The girls exchanged very loaded looks that seemed to say they were acknowledging he had a
point… and also that they were not so very concerned about other people over their own
hides. They weren’t Blaise though, they weren’t actually going to admit that out loud and
now that he’d pointed it out they couldn’t ignore that the morally right thing would be to
address it for the sake of others.

Still hesitant, Melinda offered an olive branch. “Well what was it saying, first of all?”

“Uh… kill… death… must eat...” He gave them a dry look. “You know, pleasantly harmless
stuff like that.”

Daphne didn’t seem amused with his humor as her lips twisted into a vaguely McGonagall-
like shape of disapproval and concern. “We should tell a teacher. Snape would take us
seriously if we told him we thought it was a dark object… leaving out the bit where you were
the one who heard it, that is.”

“True… problem being it went that way.” He pointed and both girls seemed to realize at once
with a sinking expression on their faces… that he was definitely pointing towards the
Slytherin common room. There was a moment of silence as they took in that unfortunate
reality for a second.

Shockingly, Melinda was the one who moved first, straightening her posture back to its
original ruler stiffness and lifting her chin high. “Then come to the common room with us
and keep an ear out. If you can hear it in there then we have bigger problems anyway.”

Another brave Slytherin!

Harry was overjoyed to discover this but decided to keep it to himself as he highly doubted
it’d be taken as a compliment.

“If you’re sure,” He said instead, and while Daphne didn’t look it, Melinda just nodded once
and lead the way.

“This is…” Daphne shook her head. “No, I’ll shut up and you just keep an ear out,” She
ordered him and he gave a mock-salute as he quickly tried to follow Melinda’s footsteps. She
was quite a bit taller than the two of them actually and her legs significantly longer so he was
very much almost jogging, to his annoyance.
Still, they made it to the common room surprisingly without further issue. He did keep an ear
out but… they’d maybe spent too long talking about it and it had moved off somewhere else,
his moment to follow it having been interrupted. Not that Daphne was wrong exactly,
following disembodied, murderous voices probably was a bit too Gryffindor for his
reputation—at least while standing next to two snakes. If he’d been with the twins he was
sure they’d have followed it all night until they got bored or figured out what it was… or
gotten cursed if it really was a dark object, but you know the twins were always down for
something like that.

When they got to the common room Daphne opened the door for him and silently ordered
him in while Melinda made a beeline down the hall—probably to go find Snape which Harry
hoped wasn’t too far if he wasn’t going with them the whole way. Still, Melinda seemed to be
a woman on a mission so he didn’t bother her as he just obeyed and went into the Slytherin
dorm to wait for them.

He’d never actually been in here free range like this, he’d always been escorted by one of his
Slytherins, although thankfully there was sparse attendance and it was super quiet apart from
the sound of paper and quills scratching. It was reasonably late on Tuesday night after all so
there was a peak amount of homework to be done.

He did a quick scan and grinned, seeing only one open snake at what he was now mentally
referring to “Theo’s corner”, or the seating area containing the armchair he somehow knew
Theo had claimed.

He plopped down at the table across from Blaise, who looked up from the essay he was
writing and blinking a bit blearily, clearly not expecting anyone to come bother him and
especially not expecting to see Harry Potter of all people grin widely at him.

“…wait… you don’t live here.” He noted far too late as his mind was clearly still deep on
whatever work he’d been doing.

“I’m having troubles with a disembodied voice, don’t worry about it.” He waved it off before
getting comfy in his chair to make the point.

The tall Slytherin seemed to visibly consider asking, before shaking his head and going back
to writing his essay. Clearly it took more brain power than he currently had to expend on
weird Gryffindors at the moment.

With a light snort Harry pulled out his own Charms textbook to start reading too. He didn’t
really feel like doing homework but the snake den was one of the quietest places to get things
done aside from the Library, and if Blaise (who was normally his biggest distraction here)
was going to ignore him to do his work then it only seemed appropriate. Charms was not his
favorite either so it he was forcing himself to work he might as well read the next chapter
they were going to get to in class to make his life easier.

It wasn’t typically Harry’s style to just let any adults “handle it” on anything, but honestly
bodyless voices, even foreboding ones, were not the weirdest thing Hogwarts had ever
thrown at him. Not even the most dangerous frankly, so he was concerned for sure, but not
alarmed. The idea that Lockhart unknowingly had a dark object on him was a bit too
plausible unfortunately, and while he remembered Theo’s phrase of ‘just because it makes
sense doesn’t make it true’, he was finding it hard to get worked up over it, much less
actively think of what it could be if not that.

And of all the professors, Snape was pretty clear about his priorities. Although he may have
been quite a bit of a bastard, he was nothing if not on Slytherin’s side and any danger to his
own house would be looked into thoroughly. Of all he was, stupid was probably not one of
them, so he would probably be able to do something about it, or at least identify the problem
to a point. Moreso than Harry could at the moment, and more so than Harry wanted to at the
moment with everything else he had going on.

Just this one time he’d let someone else deal with one of his problems—before it became one
of ‘his problems’, actually.

It took longer than he expected for the girls to finish their business, as he’d actually fully
completed the chapter and was making small notes about things he thought were going to
come in handy in the margins when they returned, also slipping into the table and once again
pulling Blaise from his deep thoughts.

“What party is this? I know I’m popular but I’m trying to do Potions homework here.” He
complained sharply.

“We told Snape and he said he’d look into it.” Melinda confirmed, completely ignoring the
grey heir much to his indignation.

“And when he says that…”

“He’ll run some scans for dark objects and other things I’m sure we don’t want to know
about to double check.” Daphne nodded. “You didn’t hear anything here, right?”

“Nope…” he glanced at the mantle beside them which had been alarming silent too while
he’d read, giving a put upon sigh. “Although someone silenced the mantle already. Drat.”

They scoffed. “Serves you right; pretty sure that was done within minutes of hearing about
your little ability.”

He gave them a sly wink. “Too bad I made a deal to keep Blaise from telling everyone
immediately so I had a full week before people found out to talk to every decorative snake in
here. For the Slytherin common room there’s an appropriately absurd amount in here you
know.”

Both Daphne and Melinda’s faces dropped like a ton of bricks, Daphne’s in particular going
from amused to very much not amused in a heartbeat. Melinda just looked vaguely
disgusted.

“You didn’t.”

“I was well compensated,” Blaise confirmed it himself as he went back to his homework,
much to the girls’ unease.
Melinda made a face, properly disgusted now. “Next time I ask to do a deal with you… don’t
involve him.” She gave Daphne a positively filthy look and the ravenette pinched the bridge
of her nose.

“Harry, you didn’t have to tell us you did that.” She scolded, sounding very done with
everything right about now.

“Oh but it’s so much more fun to see you sweat about it.” He told her brightly, and for some
reason she stared at him in shock… before getting this furious look on her face and grabbing
the nearest book on the table to chuck it at Blaise—who was not prepared for that and got hit
in the shoulder, causing him to flail wildly in indignation.

“What was that for!?”

“It’s your fault!”

“What’s my fault?!?”

“He gets it from you!”

Blaise stopped mid-shout to do a double take, abruptly grinning happily. “Really? Oh I’m
honored you think of me as a role model Harry dear—what else can I teach you? How much
do you know about poison?”

Daphne gave a wordless shout and threw a pillow from the couch behind her at him, which
he deftly dodged without dropping his grin an inch.

Harry wanted to politely decline so as not to play into Blaise’s insanity, but caught himself as
he opened his mouth. He couldn’t help but admit knowing about poison, particularly when
being friends with a future black widow, was probably a really handy skill to have. Who
better to learn it from than directly from the source of the person most likely to poison him
one day?

“Not much actually,” he admitted, clearly not against learning more, which caused Blaise to
almost toss his homework behind him and clap his hands happily as if he was about to spill
the juiciest gossip he knew.

“Yes!”

“Hell no,” Melinda rolled her eyes and walked away without another word as Daphne was
abruptly armed with another pillow, a vein ticking in her forehead.

“Harry you can’t be serious!”

But the talk of poisons and Daphne being right there reminded him of something. “Actually
Daphne you might want to sit down for this, cause I had an idea over the summer about
poisons that the two of you might want a piece of.” He nodded, referencing to two heirs of
grey business tycoons, and they blinked in surprise.
“We don’t deal together, you understand,” Blaise drawled like it was obvious, and Harry
waved that off impatiently.

“Yeah whatever, then you two can fight over it.” He should probably be more concerned that
Daphne was now more interested at the implication she’d get to pick a fight with the Zabini
family as she obediently sat back down—still clutching the pillow to her chest though.

“Okay I’m listening. Piece of what?”

“Either of you two know a shop called Osmias’ Optical Solutions?”

000

“But they don’t teach Alchemy because Transfiguration is the more refined version of it these
days. It’s like Transfiguration before Transfiguration was Transfiguration—the principles
don’t apply anymore since Transfiguration disproved most of it. Or how like muggles think
science replaced Alchemy from back in the dark ages,” Hermione pointed out, nevertheless
pulling the right textbooks off the shelf and handing them over.

Mr. Flammel (Nick, as he apparently was fine with being called) had recommended several
books on the topic, but Harry’s hadn’t wanted to merely write an inquiry to Bethany’s Books
to ask if they had copies he could just buy, since he was worried Dumbledore would intercept
that letter and get suspicious about why he was reading up on Alchemy textbooks…
specifically ones he suspected Nick had recommended to Dumbledore himself back when
they were closer friends. There was still a small chance he’d read that first letter he’d sent out
to the Flammels after all, even if he was choosing to trust their enchanting abilities in keeping
the rest of their correspondence from being read by outside eyes. More than a small chance
actually... he'd sent that first letter with Hedwig as his main distraction from his more urgent
and secretive letters, so the hope was actually that Dumbledore had read that one instead of
any others, so it was safer to operate under the assumption that the Headmaster knew he'd
been in contact with the Flammels, at least once.

Still, if he wanted to start reading them before a break when he could just go to Contrair
Alley himself to buy them, his only bet was that Hogwarts had to have them buried
somewhere in the library. And if you wanted to find an archaic non-class-related book,
Hermione was your woman for the job. Or maybe Madam Peirce since technically she was
the librarian, but she was scary… and adults who worked at this school were not safe from
Dumbledore somehow eventually knowing about it too. Him bringing up very specific,
supposedly outdated books would be of interest, even if only mildly, but Hermione true to
form didn’t even question it.

Or, she did, but more about why he wanted these books at all.

“Well I really like Transfiguration and learning of the history of it seems interesting even if
it’s not strictly useful anymore.” He half lied with a shrug. “But what I think is going to be
the most useful part is the method of thinking Alchemy used.”

“Method of thinking?” Hermione repeated incredulously.

“Yeah, like questioning why everything is like it is. I wasn’t the best science student back in
grade school but isn’t that like the scientific method? Questioning something then trying to
prove it?” He’d paid attention in classes of course but his goal had been to do worse than
Dudley: which was a difficult feat for sure. Getting the right answers had never been his
objective and he was aware of the scientific method’s existence but couldn’t quite remember
the details. He was fairly certain Nick’s description of questioning everything had sounded
very familiar though.

Maybe he’d look into getting some muggle textbooks too; maybe Bethany’s Books would
even have them given that might count as an ‘odd solution’ for a bookshop.

Or maybe Hermione would just tell him.

“The scientific method is making an observation, asking a question, forming a hypothesis,

making predications of that hypothesis, testing the prediction, and then recording that to
determine a new predication based on the test results.” She repeated almost automatically in a
way that told Harry that was probably verbatim from some muggle textbook somewhere.
Seeing his surprise she elaborated with a slight puffing up of her chest. “I got to take third
form classes my last year at my old school.”

“Really? That’s just impressive,” here she was taking classes two years ahead while he would
not be sharing his muggle school grades ever. It was still embarrassing even with the excuse
he was trying to be a bad student. “I need to write that down though, I’ll definitely forget it.”

“I could walk you through it if you’d like?” She offered eagerly and while his first instinct
was to say no (Hermione could go on about academic topics if he let her) he couldn’t ignore
the eagerness in her voice.

“Sure, maybe we can start on this too, to see how the two relate,” He held up the Alchemy
book and she made a face despite following him to the nearest empty table to set their things
down.

“You can’t use that in any Transfiguration essays though, they’re not on the approved list.”

“There’s an approved list?” He blinked, almost doing a double take as he opened a brand-new
journal he had on him to begin a new subject of notes. “Of Transfiguration textbooks?”

“Of course! You have to use something credible after all for actual work.”

“Then what’s the point of having an entire library at our disposal if we can’t use certain
books? And when did we get that list?” He asked incredulously and she paused, tilting her
head slightly.

“Oh… just for information purposes then, I guess. And it’s on the back of the rubric!”

“There’s a rubric?”

“Harry.” Hermione sounded very disappointed, and honestly Harry was too. He apparently
wasn’t as good of a student as he thought he was.
“Okay my bad, but I haven’t gotten below an O yet so I’m doing something right.” He was
also starting to doubt his sanity because he was fairly certain McGonagall hadn’t handed out
a rubric… ever? Maybe once or twice, maybe even with the syllabus at the start of the year
that he may or may not have immediately thrown out, but certainly not after assigning each
bit of homework or essay.

He would probably just ask the Transfiguration teacher himself if he was crazy or not though
—he could only imagine Hermione would get very worked up if he started arguing with her
about the existence of a homework rubric.

“Let’s just start with the scientific methods again—what were the steps?” She was happy to
be distracted and repeated the steps again, even slow enough he could jot them down
correctly. It did seem very logical and he decided to just jump right in. “Okay, my first
observation then is that rocks are harder than wood.”

Hermione blinked at him widely.

“…what? Of course they are?” She sounded very confused, much to his amusement.

“Yeah but we’re talking Alchemy here which is the study of stuff. Materials and such. So, my
observation is that rocks are harder than wood. Then according to this, I need a hypothesis.”

“Well… wood is organic. Rocks are minerals.”

He frowned, thinking that over…

“Okay, maybe I went too broad… maybe I should just focus on rocks. Some rocks are harder
than other rocks. And my hypothesis is that some rocks are made of cotton.”

She jerked back a little, as if almost affronted. “What!? No they’re not!”

“Yeah but this is just my hypothesis. So I then I’m gonna make a prediction that if I set
certain rocks on fire, they’ll burn. If none of the rocks burn then I’ll get a new hypothesis,
and eventually whittle down what a rock isn’t. Right?”

“I mean… that’s how the scientific method would work, but you already know it’s not
cotton.” She insisted.

He gave a sly little grin, taking a pebble he happened to have in his pocket (you never know
when the Transfiguration need would arise so he always had a collection of weird things in
his pockets—turning pebbles into mice had literally saved is life only a couple months ago so
he wasn’t about to let that go anytime soon) and slipping out his wand. He put the pebble on
the table and taped it gently with a simple wand movement following quickly after.

“Isn’t it though?” he picked up the little tuft of cotton the rock had turned into and she
blinked rapidly at him.

“Well of course now it is, you just transfigured it!”

“So say I burn this? Would the ashes revert back into a rock when I cancel the spell?”
Now she looked mad for some reason. “You can’t just make up your own rules if you’re
trying to disprove a hypothesis!”

“I’m trying to figure out what the rules even are.” He insisted. “Like you can’t Transfigure
lead into gold permanently, but why? Even if you disfigure the gold it simply reverts to lead
eventually—but you can permanently transfigure lead into glass or wood. Why is gold
special? If I do this will I find any special rocks that can’t be turned into cotton or go back to
rocks if they’re burned? Do you think I’d find a pattern there?”

“But why does it matter?”

“Because I want to know how it works.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t it bother you that even
teachers sometimes just say ‘because magic’ for the reason about why some things are what
they are? What if there’s some kind of science that can back some stuff up? I mean wouldn’t
it be science if we start testing spells like they’re only theories that can be disproven?”

“Theories aren’t hypotheses,” She corrected automatically and he tried not to roll his eyes.

“But you see what I’m saying right?”

“I guess so.” Although she didn’t look too amused. “But this won’t help you on any
homeworks or essays.”

“Believe it or not Hermione, I actually don’t care too much about homework.” He admitted,
and now she looked actually insulted. “You’re the best of our class by a longshot, don’t you
like knowing things just for the sake of knowing them?”

“I guess so,” but she really didn’t sound convinced, although the compliment to her
intelligence did relax her some. “But you’re not going to find real answers, probably only
more questions. Someone has bound to have already done this in making Alchemy outdated
so the answers are probably somewhere in upper year Transfiguration books.”

Which is a really good point… made by someone who had 100% faith in the teachers and
book-writers of years past.

Harry had approaching zero faith in humanity at this point in his life and was a bit more of a
skeptic in people’s ability to… well, do anything really.

If anything, he was almost positive if a muggleborn started trying to incorporate the scientific
method into a Transfiguration textbook, it wouldn’t be in the Hogwarts library. Hell, it might
not even have made it to being published if the owners of the publishing companies were
pureblood—which they almost undoubtedly were and almost undoubtedly did, given that
despite the “modern” age your blood status still seemed to be at least 70% of your
prospective future career status in the wizarding world.

“I’ve read a bunch of those Transfiguration books… let’s just say I’m pretty sure no one has
considered trying to disprove a Transfiguration spell before. If it works, people write a book
on what they did without much detail on why or how they got there. In fact, that seems to be
nasty habit most wizards have.” He complained lightly.
She opened her mouth to clearly argue and he cut her off gently. “And you may be right, and
it is already in a book somewhere I just haven’t read yet—I would still like to do the
experiments myself to figure it out my own way. I’m a hands-on learner like that.”

Hermione seemed to sit back and accept that reasoning a bit better than the “books could be
wrong” concept which Harry was starting to think might be a loosing battle.

“Well burning rocks is probably not the safest place to start. In science class before, we used
to put stones in water to see which ones float or dissolve, so that’s probably safer.”

“Good point,” He couldn’t exactly start lighting things on fire in the library—that is how one
got themselves banned from the library probably. “I actually did some reading last year on
types of rocks so we can start by brainstorming all the types of rocks we can and then let’s go
throw it in the lake to see what happens.” He suggested, and while Hermione rolled her eyes
at the ridiculousness of it all, she did smile a bit excitedly at the idea of using science to
figure out how magic might work.

“I think I know a couple books that can help with that,” She offered.

Because of course she did.

Harry just let her go grab them and got to work, thinking a bit more about rocks on a
Saturday afternoon than he honestly thought he ever would.

000

It was later at night when he’d laid in bed and totally failed to get to sleep that he was at his
desk, quill in hand again to face something he’d been putting off for a bit too long. Spending
the afternoon discussing and throwing rocks into a lake with Hermione, while very fun and
surprisingly informative, had not been the greatest use of his time… or, it was, it just also
reminded him he did have some bigger things to address. Or, more important and time-
sensitive things to address and he simply had not been willing to confront it yet.

And it took form of the letter on his desk he still hadn’t responded to, with a man on the other
end who really probably needed a response right about now.

Remus Lupin.

His letter was… nice? No, it was nice. He sounded like an extremely genuine guy, and that
made Harry feel all the guiltier for his rather unkindly thoughts on the dilemma placed before
him. A dilemma Remus had been only so kind as to explain fully and simultaneously
exonerate him from any obligation or responsibility in dealing with it if he didn’t want to.

Which made it even worse somehow.

First, hearing about how werewolves were treated by the world from Daphne had set his teeth
on edge, in a vaguely infuriated but hopeless sort of way. He was dead set on changing the
Gryffindor/Slytherin dynamic, but he could only really handle one social systemic issue at a
time, and somehow fixing the house issue sounded easier than the werewolf one. Not that he
didn’t care, but that was not on his immediate list of things to be able to fix.

In fact, it sounded like he’d need to be an adult in a position of power to do shit about it, sort
of like a Mr. Malfoy-like position rather than a twelve-year-old Hogwarts student.

He’d marked it down as a long-term goal but he wasn’t nearly there yet—he had far too
many short-term things that needed to happen first.

Second, hearing about Remus fighting for him from Axeclaw was… huge.

It was massive, actually, and the main reason Harry couldn’t push it from his mind even
temporarily… even if he maybe wanted to. The first thing on his list was getting Sirius Black
a trial, but he couldn’t just set the Remus issue aside for once that was cleared. His mind and
his heart literally could not shake it and sometimes he’d find the reminder wiggling in the
back of his brain and he only felt guilty for trying to ignore it.

Besides, it was all connected somehow. According to Daphne, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin,
Peter Pettigrew, and his own father had been best friends, and something had gone horribly,
horribly wrong.

Harry didn’t know the exact timing of it all, but if he thought about it from Remus’
perspective… James and Lily Potter had died because Sirius Black betrayed them
(theoretically) and killed Peter Pettigrew. By that logic, that betrayal probably happened all at
one time or someone would’ve been able to stop it… so really, Remus Lupin had lost all four
of his supposed best friends in on go. Be it one day or over a couple days… that had to have
been one of the worst weeks of his life.

Against his will Harry imagined loosing Draco and Neville within a couple days of each
other and physically could not form the thought from how hard his whole body rejected the
idea. Add maybe Seamus, Dean, Fred, George, Blaise, Theo… any of them also dying or
disappearing at once and he felt positively sick to his stomach.

To be totally honest, Harry wasn’t sure he’d outlive them all by long if that actually
happened.

And then… in the midst of what had to be an almost inhuman amount of grief, Remus had
still decided to fight for the orphaned child of his now dead best friends despite probably
knowing no one would even treat him like a human being for the attempt. He’d gone for it
anyway and been laughed out of the ministry. He’d been rejected by society itself and needed
to flee to the muggle world just to have basic human rights… and then if what Daphne said
was true, would still be haunted and harassed by wizards who just wanted to kick the
werewolf occasionally to let him know he still wasn’t human enough to be given kindness or
even just left in peace.

Harry was mad Remus had never reached out before. There was no denying it, he couldn’t
change how he felt about it. There was resentment and some genuine bitterness this man had
never even tried once in eleven years before Harry had reached out first.
But he accepted those feelings and decided he could forgive, too. He would forgive, and he
would do better as a person… be more like Neville if he could, because eleven years or not,
today would be different. He blamed Remus for not reaching out but frankly it sounded like
Remus was blamed quite a bit for many things not his fault so Harry was going to keep those
harsh thoughts to himself.

He’d re-read Remus’ letter many, many times… the way he rambled a bit as if not wanting to
stop writing because he knew this might be his only chance if Harry decided he didn’t want
to keep in contact… and this very melancholy as he knew he couldn’t keep a letter going
forever and that he needed to confess what he thought Harry didn’t know. It showed some
real grit that he had the mettle to come out and openly confess what he clearly fully expected
to cause Harry to never speak to him again. Not necessarily because he wanted to, but
because he was hyper aware of how it could impact Harry’s own future.

Another reason Harry would never voice his resentment: Remus’ logic of having him not be
associated with a werewolf was out of concern for his future. He clearly didn’t know that
Harry would’ve gladly taken that stigma in exchange for never having set foot on the
Dursleys doorstep.

Then again, if Remus had raised me, I wouldn’t know how bad the Dursleys truly were. Grass
is always greener, as they say.

He sighed wryly to himself.

With all of that bouncing around his head and gnawing away at his stomach, there was no
godly reason Harry shouldn’t have written Remus back right then and there after getting his
letter. His words about… about how his parents would’ve been proud of him, the pictures…
pictures he’d mostly had from Hagrid’s photo album except one he’d never seen before that
he absolutely loved to bits… pictures that were more than a little worn to the point Harry
honestly thought Remus probably gave him his only copies from how well-loved but shabby
they were…

Remus Lupin deserved more than this, just from what little Harry knew of the man by now.

There was a kindness to him that Harry knew he himself didn’t have. A silent, painful
resistance and pride that reminded him too much of Neville.

He deserves more than my selfishness, and I haven’t even met the man properly, he slumped
in his chair, a dark cloud forming over his head.

“My family doesn’t care and since you were raised with muggles maybe you won’t care… but
I know families like the Malfoys—they’ll care a lot.”

Just like he couldn’t shake this need to write back to Remus, he couldn’t forget Daphne’s
words either.

He couldn’t forget Draco’s face when Axeclaw told him about Remus being a werewolf.
How Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy had said nothing.
He knew what the Slytherins would say. Let’s pretend they weren’t biased against
werewolves and just avoided them for the politics of it all, each and every one of them would
tell him not to do it. Think of his future… think of what he was trying to do with them. He
could almost see some of their annoyed, if not betrayed faces when he told them he was
essentially choosing a werewolf over ever playing their game again. After he’d tried so hard,
after he was still trying so hard… he’d need to leave the board for good if they knew he was
friends with a werewolf.

And that was only if they didn’t actually care, it was just politics… like Daphne’s attitude
about it all. She seemed fine with it but was dead serious about never bringing it up to her
again. Harry was pretty sure Theo would actively hate it and stop talking to him, and… and
he was pretty sure Draco would not be thrilled.

He might make the effort because this was important to Harry… but he would not be happy
about it. Somehow he just knew that.

But I’m not a Slytherin, I’m a fucking Gryffindor. Neville would actually give up on me if he
ever found out I cut Remus out just because he was a werewolf—that’s too far, even for me.

No… he was definitely going to write Remus back. He wanted Remus in his life, and despite
still feeling uncertain about the whole thing in general, that much was solidly true. If nothing
else, he wanted to get to know Remus more, and that was a defined fact.

Remus deserves more than me, he winced at the unkind, but brutally honest thought.

It was just… he was absolutely going to write Remus back, he just hadn’t yet because… he
needed to be smart about it.

The cruel truth was that Harry’s future would be severely handicapped by being openly
connected to Remus. He still wanted the man in his life, so the obvious answer was that the
connection simply couldn’t be open.

But how the honest fuck was he supposed to put that in a letter exactly? How was he
supposed to tell this man that yes, he wanted to keep writing him letters but oh, can this
whole thing be secret please? Can you just not tell anyone you know me and I’ll do the same?

He sunk darkly into his chair, depressed. He was selfish and vain as a defined personality
trait, but that was over a line even by his standards.

But what else was he supposed to do!? Remus even specifically said so himself: if Harry
risked his future for Remus’ sake, he wouldn’t be happy about that either. Remus would only
blame himself even harder for something he couldn’t control and Harry would hate that too,
on top of never be able to run for prime minister.

Annoyed at the conundrum he sat up sharply and ripped off a new piece of parchment from it
stack and slammed it onto the desk in front of him. He needed to get over it: if Remus had the
balls to broach hard topics without hesitation, Harry owed him the same decency. He didn’t
have time to find a better solution, it’d been several days already and at this point Remus was
probably thinking he’d chosen to never write him back and feeling like shit right now. And
that also made Harry feel extremely guilty with every passing hour he still hadn’t written this
damn letter.

In exchange for doing this to him, I’ll do something useful with my freedom. Forget the shop
or whatever halfass idea that was; if I’m going to hide our connection and make him hide it
too, then I’ll make it up to him by using that to actually be minister or something—and I’ll
make werewolf laws or something so no one can touch him again.

If he’d learned anything from infiltrating Slytherin house, is that you couldn’t do anything
from the outside. You had to be one of them to start making change—so he had to make
everyone think he was one of them and start changing things before they realized he was just
an imposter trying to get his way. He had to make them think he was just this normal wizard
who didn’t care for werewolves at best like every other normal wizard out there, and then
only when he was making laws or creating some system to protect werewolves would people
realize he’d been lying to them the whole time.

You know, like a Slytherin.

Gryffindor was going to fucking hate him for this if they ever found out, but he honestly
didn’t care. He was going for results, not the moral high ground here.

If he truly were Slytherin he wouldn’t write back at all, but as it was established he definitely
would be writing back, he was still Gryffindor enough for his moral compass for the time
being.

He forced himself to start writing, wincing a bit as he hated his own words that he needed to
get down onto the page… but also feeling slightly relieved and hopeful that despite this
horrid start, it would be a start of something new and very hopefully important.
 Pumpkins
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Harry knew he had messed up when someone caught his hand tightly and almost pulled him
off his feet to stop him from walking obliviously into what sounded to be a shouting match.

He startled, and blinked up at a very tense looking Dean who just dragged him further up the
Gryffindor dorm stairs back towards their room where he’d just come from—it was only then
he noticed there was some shouting going on in the main common room down below that
was distinctly less chaotic and friendly than it normally was. In fact, it sounded like an
argument that was actually rather sour in nature.

“What’s happening?” He blinked, only going up a few steps before he refused to move and
Dean just sighed.

“Ron’s at it again.”

“Ron?” He blinked and listened… realizing he recognized those voices. And one was a very
distinctive Irish brogue. “Seamus and Ron are going at it?”

That was totally news to him… he hadn’t given Ron Weasley much thought at all this year
since… why would he? He had enough problems and the piggishly insensitive comments his
fellow red head constantly brought up without thinking was not something he had time for.
Come to think of it though, he’d stopped seeing him at the football club which was just fine
by him. Them both being there was only ever a tenuous truce at best and Harry had to
actively force himself to be cordial and pass him the ball to be a good teammate, not because
he actually wanted to. Ron choosing not to show up on his own was a pleasant convenience
and nothing more, so far as Harry was concerned.

“They do that sometimes.” Dean said by way of explanation, like that wasn’t something
completely new to Harry.

“I didn’t realize,” He admitted, looking down the stairs towards the common room once
more, Dean putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him before he even considered going down
anyway.

“Yeah, I know. We all know.” Dean sounded both exasperated and amused all at once.
“Seamus has been actively trying to keep you two apart and on the most part Ron’s been
keeping to that, but he’s got new friends who are just encouraging him to be even more of a
git than he already is.”

“New friends…” Harry repeated slowly, realizing quite suddenly that it was extremely stupid
to think that he could monopolize the Gryffindor second years and expect Ron to just… I
don’t know, disappear? Clearly he had to go somewhere, he lived with them for hell’s sake,
had all the same classes they did… and he was still human so he’d clearly been sitting with
someone at meals and during breaks. And it clearly hadn’t been any of their year who Harry
was firmly all friends with, nor first years since Harry also had a tight watch over them too,
which meant…

Upper year Gryffindors. Who, according to Neville, were probably the people in the school
most ready to hex him for being so chummy between houses. Clearly them and Ron had
something in common for their distaste of Harry Potter, and being friends with older kids
probably made the thick-headed Weasley a bit braver and feel more untouchable than he’d be
normally on his own.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathed, a sinking feeling in his chest making it a bit hard to swallow. He
couldn’t help but think this was all his fault… and he hadn’t even realized Seamus was
playing referee for him behind his back. Or maybe not behind his back at all, maybe Harry
really was just that bad of a friend to have not noticed.

“You don’t have to be sorry, he does it cause he wants to,” Dean shrugged, eyes flickering at
him in something slightly searching, as if visibly trying to dissect what was going through
Harry’s mind right then. “You can thank him later though; let’s just go back up.”

Harry still hadn’t made up his mind on if he wanted to respect Seamus’ attempt to help him
by staying out of it or go down there to save him from the second youngest Weasley’s
stupidity, when a loud shout seemed to echo up the stairwell from the argument below them,
just a touch louder than the rest of it, and bellowed in a fit of rage.

“HE’S A FREAK!”

Harry blinked, and just for a split second, the stone stairwell was too-white linoleum and it
was littered with crushed porcelain—the smell of sweat and warm soapy dishwater and terror
like a solid presence on his tongue. Terror tasted like copper, in a nasty way. A numbing way,
even, as it made the tip of your tongue too heavy to speak.

He coughed as he realized too late he’d forgotten to breath. The stairwell smelt sharply
castle-like… old and slightly musty stone that you tended to not notice after a while but it
was still an ancient castle, magical or not.

“Harry?” Dean had grabbed onto his shoulder more tightly but he couldn’t meet his eyes.
What had just…?

"Bad little brother," a new voice joined in suddenly—and this time it was alarmingly close to
the stairwell entrance, along with the sound of a light scuffle. Harry would’ve said he
recognized it, if it weren’t filled to the brim with something close to unadulterated venom.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" A similar, but somehow more distressed voice joined in.
"Apologies everyone, we're going to have words with little Ronnikins here,"

"You dumbass,"
"What are you—hey let go of me! Guys what are you-!?"

Dean tried to pull them away but it was just too late, and then suddenly three Weasley
brothers were on the stairs right in front of them—all three freezing solid in shock to see who
was staring back at them. It would’ve been funny in any other situation, with Fred and
George practically holding Ron up between the two of them to forcibly drag him up the
stairs, only to freeze solid. Even Ron’s stupid freckly face was just a mask of total shock as
they stared each other down. It was so stupidly timed it was practically a cliché comedy
sitcom, but the only person here who’d get that here would be Dean.

Going by his face though he probably wouldn’t appreciate the comment though.

Heh… and Harry didn’t actually find it that funny after all.

One of the twins got there first, expression shattering into horror.

“Oh fuck. Please tell me you didn’t hear any of that.”

His twin immediately mirrored that expression while Ron’s face went tomato red in an
instant.

“Well I meant it!” He defended himself defiantly, trying to thrash out of their grip but the
twins immediately refocused on wrestling him into submission.

“Shut the hell up Ron!” Dean snapped, but as he put a hand on Harry’s arm again, Harry
automatically jerked out of it, face getting incredibly hot out of total mortification of this
situation.

This can’t actually be happening, he wanted to whimper and only barely managed to weld his
mouth shut and prevent anything from coming out. He didn’t know what to do or say, and he
was horrified that he felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

In his head, large, kind hands had been slowly sewing him together over the course of the
past several weeks. Each thread a kind smile from someone who meant something to him, a
casual conversation over good food, a distraction that left him feeling playful and light.

It almost made him forget that he still had gaping holes carved into his brain, and as the
threads strained to hold that vast hollowness together he was reminded of how feeble he
really was.

And god he just… he hated feeling this way.

It used to be alarming and terrifying and his breath would come too quick as he felt like he
was going to come apart at the seams… but now he was just tired. Just totally exhausted and
done with having his day trampled on and totally fucking ruined by something as stupid as a
word or a glance or a mere change in the wind that reminded him of something—anything—
that wasn’t his carefully constructed paper mâché world of a carefree Hogwarts student who
had nothing worse going on in his head than a Potions exam to prepare for, or a quidditch
game to win.
It wasn’t Ron.

Okay, maybe it was. A bit.

This time it was Ron, but that wasn’t what made his arms hang limply at his sides and his
shoulders seem to lose whatever energy was holding them up.

So it was kind of about Ron, but it wasn’t really about Ron.

It was really how bloody tired he was of needing to be on edge with his own mind. Because
of fucking course his totally fine day was now just in shambles and there wasn’t anything he
could do about it but stew in it until he had to put on a brave face for someone else… and he
just didn’t have the energy right now.

He 100% would’ve turned around and just gone back to bed, but that was where the Weasley
brothers were headed, and it was also where Dean would undoubtedly be able to follow him
to ask if he was okay.

Perish the thought.

He just wanted out because this was mortifying and just yet another moment he couldn’t keep
it together, and at this point it wasn’t even upsetting, it was just flat out bullshit. Frustrating
and constricting. Why couldn’t he just be normal for hell’s sake!?

Get it together.

He was plowing past the three blocking his way before he knew it, holding his breath as if he
needed to steel himself to make it past much more dangerous obstacles than some classmates.
If they said anything he didn’t hear it, almost pointedly ignoring them—blocking everything
out if he could, actually.

The common room felt oppressive and hot. He felt eyes and felt the quiet that rained down on
them all when they realized who had just come from the stairwell, and he only made it
halfway before he just ran.

Who cares. Just get out.

It didn’t matter what they thought. That they saw him flee like a very un-lion-like coward.

It really, honestly didn’t matter.

He recalled that he liked running when he was in the hallway. The endorphins once you
pushed past the start, the familiar rhythm… there was nothing to push past this time either as
he was just running, and then it became normal and something he could do when he couldn’t
do literally anything else.

So he didn’t stop.

000
Hagrid was who-knows where… probably in the Forbidden Forest or doing something in the
castle or… something.

So Harry was sitting in the grounds keeper’s garden behind a truly ridiculously sized
pumpkin. A Hagrid-sized pumpkin, he should say. He had never grown pumpkins himself but
he thought it was a stupidly large pumpkin for this early in October—usually they came
ready to harvest a bit later than this, but then again this was Hogwarts. Magic could probably
be involved…and although he thought Hagrid couldn’t use magic, he also was very
suspicious about that pink umbrella he carried around that was in no way large enough to
protect even his large fluffy head from a bit of rain should he get caught in it. In any case, the
keeper of the keys had never indicated he cared much about rain or fussed over getting a little
wet to be so openly devoted to carrying a tiny pink umbrella around with him at all times.

Wasn’t any of his business though, probably.

The large pumpkin worked in his favor as it was large enough for him to sit in quite
comfortably should it be hollowed out, so was more than enough to hide him if he nestled
himself between it and the garden wall, a large bush of some plant he did not recognize to his
side and hiding him quite effectively. The fact his invisibility cloak was, for once, actually up
over his head and actively invisible was just extra insurance.

There was also a lot of beetles in a garden, and something he’d learned from his
transfiguration sprint last year, was that beetles were awesome mediums to play around with
some low-level transfiguration spells. Beetles to buttons was one of the first spells he learned
that were technically above his current level last year, and he’d slowly been picking around at
turning beetles into other things too. Beetles were particularly interesting in that the way their
tiny bodies were built, if you did partial transfiguration spells, you could turn a beetle into
anything of an equally reasonable size, and that new creation would always keep its pretty
rainbow-colored wings of its previous form. One might think doing partial spells would
technically mean you’re doing the spell wrong, but in reality with his new theory of how
spells fall when you cast them… it was more a matter of just never letting the spell fall all the
way. He could perfectly control at what point the spell stopped so he could play around with
turning beetles into other things but stop it just before it lost its wings.

The wings didn’t get much stronger than they were originally, but that’s why beetles were
perfect. Ants and flies had tiny little weak wings that couldn’t do anything but lift an ant or a
fly body. Beetle wings, Harry was learning, could lift flowers or feathers and more. The
garden had limited materials with which to test what beetle wings could lift, but it was
definitely a lot more than Harry was expecting. They could probably lift even more if he
could somehow play with their size… maybe enlarge the beetles first before transfiguring it,
making it one smooth movement to seem like one seamless spell? They just started learning
about the engorgement charm in class recently which was probably his answer, but he didn’t
have quite the knack or the desire to be so playful with charms as he was with transfiguration.
For the right purpose he could probably find the motivation, though he certainly didn’t have
that motivation today. Maybe something to consider later.

He didn’t know how long he half-sat, half-squished himself behind Hagrid’s pumpkin playing
with beetles so that he was thinking of nothing but the wonderful distraction that magic was,
but he’d made quite a lot of progress into changing beetles into floating, flying flowers by the
time someone inevitably intruded on his little bubble.

He was planning on it being Hagrid. The man wouldn’t notice him hidden in his garden on
his way back to his hut unless he was specifically stopping by the garden for some reason and
Harry had to reveal himself in order to not get stepped on, but in any case he’d been prepping
himself to untangle his legs from beneath the pumpkin and go follow the keeper inside for a
gallon of tea and some rock cakes when he did make it back. After sitting on the soft, slightly
damp dirt of the garden for some untold amount of time, the blazing fire that was always
going in the tiny shack was more than welcome too. Hagrid was a presence that didn’t count
towards his ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone’ mood he was in, Hagrid was just… Hagrid.
Large, fluffy, unjudgmental, kind Hagrid who wouldn’t even question it but would
undoubtedly be totally thrilled to see him as always.

That’s all he really wanted right now, to be honest. To have someone overjoyed to see him
but to not ask if he was alright or any other pointed question he wasn’t in the mood for.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t Hagrid who tracked him down. He wasn’t… displeased to see them,
but they definitely were not his top picks at the moment given what had just happened. He
had half a mind to just sit silently there while invisible and let them walk right by him… but
he heard the garden gate clang open and the soft crunching of feet against the dirt were
coming right for him.

Something went off in his instincts and he somehow just knew that they knew he was here.

It was a split second decision, but he wasn’t ready tell anyone about his invisibility cloak, so
he just tossed the hood back and was immediately visible again. Just in the nick of time too,
as despite how much advanced warning that was, he was still surprised enough to have his
heart jump when two pairs of eyes peered over his pumpkin curiously to spot him.

“Well hello there Apples.” One of the twins noted in a ‘surprise’ that did in fact not feel like
surprise at all.

“How the hell did you know I was here?” He pouted, and they grinned in sync.

“We have our ways.”

Harry groaned and slumped a bit more into the dirt under him, continuing to spin his wand in
his hand, making no move to get out from his hiding spot even after being caught. With a
careless flick of his wrist, a slightly flattened yellow tulip with shiny wings splattered with a
harmless little puff directly into one of their faces, and the automatic pout told Harry that one
was most likely George. Probably.

"Just so you know,” Fred hummed a bit gentler than the twins normally were, while George
spat petals out of his mouth in annoyance, “We locked him up where no one will find him.
We'll let him out tomorrow."

"Probably." George clarified a bit too cheerfully. Which was a lie since they had classes
tomorrow and if Ron skipped then Percy would be after the twins’ blood and they weren’t
about to be hassled that much.

No need to elaborate who he was but honestly Harry was beyond Ron Weasley at the
moment, although the twitch he felt in the back of his brain remembering the echoing insult
around the stairwell certainly didn’t feel good… it wasn’t the cause of his mood.

The irony of the fact that Ron was probably locked in a broom cupboard somewhere was not
lost on him. Given he knew what it was like to be trapped, one would assume he’d feel more
sympathy than the average person on the topic.

He didn’t though. Despite knowing he should care a lot more, he calmly noted his own
apparent lack of mercy and decided to ignore it.

"Can you do that?" He lifted a brow casually, and got a synchronized shrug.

"We're his brothers,"

"It's more allowable than if someone else did it, right?"

"I suppose…"

"Either way…" Both clapped their hands loudly in front of them at the same instant and did
an odd little bowing motion with their heads. Given they were peering over a pumpkin it was
an awkward pose, but Harry assumed if they’d been standing face to face normally they
would’ve been bowing to him.

"We apologize for our brother."

"He's always been a thick idiot,"

"We never paid him much attention other than pranking him to realize he'd gotten so…"

"Yeah. Bad or whatever the hell that was."

"It surprised us too, we never expected that behavior form him."

"But it's not acceptable and we're sorry."

They repeated their motion once more and Harry could only blink at them in surprise. But
that was… nice?

"You two don't have to apologize for his actions. You've always been nice to me, and he's
always been a, uh…"

Hm, they are his brothers so I shouldn’t be too harsh maybe…

"A jealous prick?" George helpfully filled in for him and Harry nodded his allowance. He
probably would’ve been a bit harsher but that was still accurate.

"Who knew? We weren't expecting it," Fred scratched the side of his nose balefully.
"Should've seen it coming; he's our little brother so it's our responsibility to knock him
straight when he's being a prick."

"And we've been sorely lacking in our responsibilities, and you've paid the price for it."

Harry couldn’t help but smile at them. That was another Gryffindor thing he’d never really
had a chance to wrap his head around, or maybe it was a sibling thing his orphan ass just
missed out on. Taking accountability for others… Harry just couldn’t imagine doing that. He
was accountable for himself but everyone else made their own decisions; why would he
apologize for the way someone else acted?

The closest thing he could think of was him defending Draco to the other Gryffindors his
year, but even then that was more convincing them to give the Slytherin a chance and letting
Draco make his own impressions. He could act on behalf of someone, but for them?

He was starting to see it a little better with Colin, Luna, and the other first years. He did feel
partly… involved? If that was the right word… he was involved with them and felt the urge
to guide and teach and help them if they needed it. If Colin were to go around snapping
pictures without consent like he did when he first got to Hogwarts, Harry would probably feel
a little personally offended that the boy had just ignored him and went back to his less-
civilized habits. He’d only known Colin a couple weeks though, the twins had had Ron as
their brother for twelve years. They were way more involved and invested in Ron’s life just
because they’d lived in the same house and had shared the same world for most of their lives
together.

Harry didn’t have someone he was so close to that he felt invested in how they acted or were
perceived by others. Draco maybe? He cared of course, but he wasn’t Draco’s keeper, the guy
could do what he wanted. He could be proud or annoyed by his friend’s choices but like hell
was he ever going to speak about those choices to others on Draco’s behalf. Not enough to
need to apologize for sure.

It was just an odd thought. New. And he had no idea if it was a lion thing or a sibling thing.

Either way, he wasn’t sitting behind a pumpkin because of anything the twins did or did not
do, that’s for sure, and they deserved to know that.

He shot them a reassuring smile "Thank you for sticking up for me, but I make a point to
judge people on who they are, not who their families are. You two have always been good
upperclassmen, good friends even. Ron has always been rude and cannot seem to respect
personal boundaries neither verbally nor physically. That's on him, not you."

He bit lip for a moment, hesitating only a brief second before deciding and giving them a
warmer smile. "I shouldn't have let someone like him get to me that way. I'm not going to let
him bother me again, so don't you two worry. You two are fine as you are and I think he's
learned his lesson after whatever you've done to him."

Fred smiled just as warmly back, but over his own smile George narrowed his eyes
suspiciously.
“No offense Apples but you never struck me as the gracious type like that.” He called him
out with a playful tone, which Harry automatically rolled his eyes at. Goddamn George being
the more cynical of the two immediately knew the fluffy, politically correct answer
(according to a Gryffindor at least) wasn’t all there was to it.

“I mean we’re good… I’m not about to like Ron though.”

“Fair.” He sniffed delicately. “We wouldn’t ask you to be after what he’s done.”

“How much of that did you hear, exactly? If you don’t mind saying.” Fred frowned
nervously.

“Honestly, not much.” Harry plopped his head back and it bumped against the garden wall
thickly. “It wasn’t just Ron, I was kind of in a bad mood already. I should’ve just…” he
trailed off, because he wasn’t actually sure what he should’ve done. Not given a shit like he
used to not care?

If only he could do that again. He wasn’t sure when he’d lost his ability to ignore
unimportant things that only served to bring him down. Ron definitely should’ve fallen into
that category.

“I mean you deserve to be at peace in your own dorm.”

So does Ron, the devil’s advocate side of him unhelpfully chimed up, but he was uncharitable
enough not to say that out loud. He made a face automatically though.

“So… if you forgive us, we hope this means when we invite you to ours you’ll still say yes?”
Fred chirped up hopefully. “We were planning to invite you for a holiday sometime but we
underestimated how much you and Ron don’t get on apparently.”

“Ron will unfortunately be there but we’ve got three other brothers and Ginny—and Mum
would eviscerate Ronny if he so much as glared at you in her presence, trust us.” George
swore.

“Plus Luna lives right across the valley, I know you and her get on.”

That pulled a small smile from him and he gave a brief, airy laugh. “Thanks guys. I guess it
would depend, but with you two and Ginny and then I guess your mom too he’d be
outnumbered, so I could probably deal with it. I do live with him now and he’s never said any
of that to my face since the other guys in the dorm don’t side with him either.”

Ron was only getting brave because he had upper classmen on his side—they were probably
there in the common room during that scene with Seamus which gave him confidence. When
he was outnumbered or the minority, at least right now he didn’t have the courage to say
anything against the majority, and like it or not Harry had enough friends at this point for it to
be really hard for someone without an actual spine to confront him head on.

Luckily for him, Ron didn’t know how hard he’d been struggling lately. He didn’t know if he
confronted Harry outright, he’d probably just crumble into a sobbing mess if Neville wasn’t
right beside him when it happened.

And Harry could only imagine the ego boost Ron would get from crushing him like that, as
publicly as he could make it if he could manage to swing that.

Yeah, it was for the best only people like Neville and Draco knew how unstable he really was
in the wake of the summer.

“Yay!” Fred cheered, ignorant of Harry’s darker thoughts and gleefully already planning what
they’d do on holiday. “You can have his bed, he can sleep on the floor.” He offered up
brightly, jerking his head at his twin.

“Oi,” George was not amused. “How about you sleep on the floor?”

“I’m older.”

“Mum can’t keep us straight as teenagers, there’s no way she kept us straight as babies. I
could be older!”

“That’s a depressing thought.” Harry chimed into their back-and-forth routine lazily and they
shrugged in sync.

“Magical twins, what can you do?” One of them huffed with a dramatic, put-upon sigh.

That wasn’t a term Harry recognized though, as he tilted his head curiously. “Magical twins?”
He repeated.

“Yeah, even our magical cores are too similar to tell apart.”

“Before we learned to speak not even healers could tell us apart— unless Mum was up for
getting one of us a muggle tattoo or something there’s just no way to tell, and she clearly
wasn’t going to agree to that.”

“Our uncles, her brothers, were magical twins too and they had the same problem.”

“Neither knew which one was older till the day they died,” They recounted as if it were the
most dramatic story ever told and Harry really was interested.

“What if they just put a block on one, not the other? Or different blocks?” He wondered
curiously.

“Nope! Our cores aren’t just similar, they’re the same.” George explained.

“If I got blocked but spent too long near him, he’d end up blocked too. Or my block would
un-do itself to match his, more likely.”

“Part of the reason we’re pranksters I think—Mum could never get the accidental magic
block to stick so we may have caused some mayhem. More than anticipated at least.” They
shot him a very pointed wink and Harry let his face go as horrified as he could get it.
“Poor, poor Mrs. Weasley… and she still decided to have more kids. She’s either a saint or
insane, but given that she gives me chocolate for Christmas I’m going to assume she’s a saint
and you two are just devils.” He scolded them playfully and they made a show of being coy
about it.

“Hey, that’s on her.” They shared a brief snicker, before George jabbed a finger down at him
to reference the fact they are still talking over a pumpkin. “Are you ever going to come out of
there? Is it even comfy?”

“Comfier than it looks,” He admitted. “And you came to find me.”

“I mean true.” They allowed, before suddenly exchanging evil looks that Harry didn’t like at
all.

Before he could get properly wary though, they were suddenly clambering down over the
pumpkin and somehow managed to squeeze themselves into the tiny spaces on either side of
him. Harry gave a shout of annoyance as he was thoroughly squished to the point it was
actually hard to breath—harder still because they were snickering to themselves like their
own deviousness entertained them greatly and the laughter constricted the space even more.

“Guys-!” He grunted but struggled to even breath to form the sentence properly.

“Well what do you know!”

“It is kind of comfy!”

“No—it’s—not!” He grumbled, attempting to elbow them but it was so tight that was rather
pointless. He was completely pinned and it only took a second or so to give up completely.

It was warmer, he did have to admit that.

“You sure you’re okay though?” Fred circled back to the original question at hand and now
that he was trapped, Harry could only roll his eyes and lean his head back against the garden
wall.

“We could punish him more you know. We’ve a meter long parchment of prank ideas we
haven’t gotten around to yet and he essentially just volunteered for acting that way.”

Harry glanced between them… they were extremely close and he could tell down to the
freckle they really were identical. Magical twins indeed.

He already thought he had them well figured out, but he took the opportunity to look even
closer still. Literally in all ways physical and magical they were identical… but the one
who’d asked if he was alright, his eyes were softer: eyelids slightly wider, more intent upon
the person in front of him. The other had slightly darker eyes. Not in color, but his eyelids
were down a little more, he was less open and slightly more suspicious of the world around
him.

Slightly, but still.

He’d already been slowly categorizing their two different personalities, both in what they
showed the world but also those rare moments they did act noticeably different, and he might
be imagining it but he liked to think those personalities could be picked up on in their
expressions too.

“Thanks Fred. I really am okay, don’t worry about it; it’s not the first and won’t be the last
time someone talks nonsense about me like that but I appreciate you stepping up.” He smiled
and glanced to the other twin to his left, how close they were meaning he needed to rotate his
neck all the way around. “I wouldn’t be against some pranking I guess… I just hope you
don’t punish him too badly. I know you two—George—are a bit vindictive and he likely got
way worse than a detention from you. He was just being an idiot, not purposefully malicious
I don’t think.”

He refused to give Ron the credit that he was intelligent enough to be actively evil, more than
just a dense idiot who had stumbled on the worst insult he could’ve picked at the wrong
moment in Harry’s life, when he wasn’t as emotionally steady as he used to be.

As I used to be, what the hell… I’m twelve.

Almost didn’t notice both twins faces went blank in shock, but he smiled since he was
expecting it

“Wha—me? I’m not vindictive!” The one Harry pegged for Fred exclaimed, and he lifted a
brow. Any time someone actually guessed them correctly, they automatically assumed each
other’s identities to throw them off. Hell, sometimes they did it the other way just to keep
people on their toes, so it was no surprise no one ever bothered to go through the effort of
telling them apart. They weren’t exactly helpful on the matter, more like actively trying to
stop people from figuring it out… and there were very few out there that were even matches
for the Weasley twins.

“Maybe vindictive is a strong word, but George,” He pointedly turned his head from Fred to
his other side, to the correct twin and watched their faces stutter as they tried to figure out
what their ‘synced’ reaction to this should be. “Is slightly more prone to getting even, as it
were, from what I’ve noticed.”

“It was weird enough you knew our preferences, but calling us out like that,” George huffed,
shaking his head

“Have some decorum Apples, please. You’re blowing our cover.”

“What, in front of the pumpkins?”

“Pumpkins talk you know.” Fred said it so matter-of-factly that Harry had to pause and
wonder if that was a magic thing he just didn’t know or it they were fucking with him.
Honestly either could be true.

“Are we that obvious?” George complained.

“I dunno, I’ve been paying attention. You have to have keen eyes to sit at the Slytherin table.”
Fred glanced down at him and then his brother, which was odd since George didn’t; he was
more looking at the pumpkin in front of them. Them not mirroring each other and making
movement differently was pretty damn obvious since they tended to always move in sync.

“You might be onto something then… pretty sure there’s a Slytherin or two who can tell us
apart. Not that they care to, but I think they can.”

George looked annoyed but Harry didn’t ask since by the way Fred pointedly readjusted to
get comfortable instead of meeting either of their gazes, he had a feeling his twin wasn’t
happy he’d said that. Wasn’t the first time Fred had dropped a hint that George didn’t, and he
quietly shelved it… he’d need to come back to that later.

His sixth sense told him that the twins had some kind of… disagreement about something
that they weren’t willing to show anyone else outside of the two of them. Had a bad feeling it
was about Slytherins though and knew he didn’t want to press too deeply into that in case it
ended up being ugly. He loved the twins and owed them a lot—the last thing he wanted to do
was get into an argument with them; had a feeling he’d end up pranked to hell and back
before they could ever make up.

The conversation needed a topic change anyway.

“More importantly though, I don’t know how you guys found me, I’m pretty sure I was well
hidden.” He frowned, because really… clever or not, an invisibility cloak was still an
invisibility cloak. Unless there was some kind of revealing spell he didn’t know about…?
He’d have to be careful if something like that did exist, much less that students could use it.
He’d have to be doubly careful in the Slytherin dorm at the very least.

They exchanged looks before getting slow grins, nodding to each other once.

“Well, about that…”

“We have something interesting that might make you feel better!”

“Yeah, but as our triplet you have to swear not to tell a soul about it! Particularly any
Slytherins cause they’d blow a gasket to know we had this,” George snickered.

Harry couldn’t help but smile, sitting up a bit to nod eagerly. “I’m a pretty good secret keeper
I like to think—I won’t tell anyone, on my honor,” He crossed his heart and that seemed to be
good enough for them as they grinned and pulled out what seemed to be large folded mass
of…blank parchment?

“Now watch carefully,” Fred instructed as they put it in his hands and George pulled out his
wand, tapping it once.

“I solemnly swear that I’m up to no good,”

Harry blinked… then balked at the spiraling words written on a page.

 Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
are proud to present
THE MARAUDER'S MAP

Mischief… wait…

“Harry?”

One of the twins seemed to realize something was up, but he barely heard them, mind rapidly
spinning gears as something triggered quietly in the back of his brain.

“Wait.” He hissed, suddenly sitting up and touching the map—one of the handwritings the
was gracefully spilling ink onto the magical paper being a bit too familiar.

“What are you doin—oof!” Fred was summarily kicked out from behind the pumpkin and
plopped into the garden dirt so Harry could scramble out and get to the bag that had been
wedged under him, digging through it roughly until he found right book he’s stored the letter
in.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!” He was half ranting as he snapped open the letter and
rescanned it, eyes drinking in the words until it clicked, his mouth popping open in shock.
“Oh… my god.”

“What?”

As his answer Harry whipped out his wand from his sleeve and tapped on the paper George
was still holding in his lap as Fred sat up curiously too.

“Mischief managed.” Harry said almost gleefully as he tapped the page—and the ink
disappeared.

Fred and George gave him twin dumbfounded looks, and this time he didn’t think it was an
act; they were both just that flabbergasted. He loved it when people looked at him like that so
he just puffed up proudly.

“How’d you know!?”

“It took us months to work that out!” They cried indignantly.

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good,” Harry tapped the page again, scooting closer to
George to see it over his shoulder, watching the intro message once more and what looked to
be a map forming before his eyes… of Hogwarts? “Tell me more about what it does first and
I’ll explain what I think I know.” He demanded and they made faces but relented.

“It’s a map of the castle; we nicked it from Filch’s office during a detention.”
“But it shows everything. Not just the hidden hallways and tricks of the castle—of which
there are many!—but also the people. See?” Fred leaned over to unfold a bit at the bottom
and sure enough Harry recognized the lake, the grounds… Hagrid’s Hut… and three little
names over footprints hidden right outside.

He felt a thrill as he traced his fingers over it curiously, eyes wandering to the rest of the
castle… seeing students in the halls, a huge mass of people in the Great Hall… Dean and
Seamus were on the quidditch pitch, probably kicking the ball around… even McGonagall
sitting in her office.

“This is how you don’t get caught, isn’t it?”

“Part of it. We learned a lot of hiding places and shortcuts from this thing for sure; makes
getting around easier.” George admitted.

“But the Marauders themselves—they’re our mentors in the pranking art for sure! They
must’ve been pranksters themselves because they give us tons of ideas and even have some
good suggestions on how to work on prank spells if we’re stuck on something!”

“To create a map like this and name it as they did, they’d have to be. They’re pretty fun
honestly.”

“Okay but is that a good enough explanation? How?” Fred nudged his shoulder pointedly
and Harry gave a wry smile.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I know who are least one of the Marauders is, and I have
a suspicion about the other three.”

“What!?”

Both twins had wide eyes, looking almost afraid to know.

Harry poked the map, specifically over where they were sitting and saw ink blotches spin to
life in the boarders of the map.

“Let’s say… Mr. Prongs, if I guess your name would you be able to confirm if I’m right?”

Hm… Mr. Prongs is not sure we’d ever considered something like that when making this map.
What do you think Mr. Padfoot?

Mr. Padfoot doubts it, the goal is to never get caught isn’t it?

Mr. Moony would like to point out the reader could be a snitch or merely a teacher and just
being clever about it.

Mr. Prongs agrees; we probably wouldn’t admit to anything just in case. No need to self-
incriminate.

It wasn’t until Harry was watching the words talk amongst themselves that it really hit home
the dark irony of it all.
“Oh my god Moony—I just realized why you named yourself that! That’s so unclever, what
the hell!?”

Oh dear, you must know me well then.

Mr. Padfoot would like to agree it’s a stupid name.

Mr. Moony is pointing out that you named me that you jerk! I would not have picked the
name but you wouldn’t stop and then it stuck; I refuse to take the blame for this.

Mr. Prongs thinks it’s a cute name. Quite fitting.

Mr. Moony doesn’t want to hear a thing from you on the matter, Mr. Fork.

Mr. Prongs resents that.

Mr. Wormtail is enjoying this quite a lot. Although he agrees that Mr. Moony is a bit grim.

Mr. Padfoot takes offense in the name of grims everywhere. How dare.

“They’ll be at it a while if we just let them go,” George admitted, giving Harry an
exasperated sigh.

“So you two and them were meant to be,” He snarked back, earning some snickers.

“So if you were to guess…?” They nudged with an undying curiosity written on their faces.
Harry was amused by it but also knew this was… a bit too closely related to some sensitive
information.

Still.

If he were to trust anyone, he could probably trust the twins. They were not actively related to
this situation, more like very supportive third parties and… if they’d had this map for a while,
they might actually have more of an understanding of things than Harry himself did.

For whatever reason, his brain didn’t make the decision, his heart did. And he decided to just
spill it honestly for once.

He took a deep breathe to cleanse out the hesitant feelings he still had about it, and
pretending none of this bothered him.

“I can tell you but you have to swear never to tell anyone. Like you haven’t ever told anyone
about this map but even more so… it’s really important.”

They instantly sat up straight in sync and mirrored crossing their hearts. “On our honor!”

“We’ll never breathe a word of it!”

“Ever! Now pleeeeease?” They begged.

Harry smiled fondly.

“Okay then… Mr. Moony is a man named Remus Lupin.” He glanced down at the map to
only one sentence reacting.

As Mr. Moony suspected there’s no way to confirm nor deny that. It’d be a bit silly to give the
mischief away so easily.

“I know. But I know you are… which means the other three are probably Sirius Black, Peter
Pettigrew, and James Potter, though I don’t know which is which.”

Mr. Mooney would like to say that’s a wild theory if true.

Mr. Padfoot agrees; what a wild ass theory that is.\

Harry looked up from the map and saw the twins’ jaws were practically on the floor.

“Oh-”

“Merlin.”

“Harry!”

“I know… I only just learned about them too, so this is some insane timing. But I just started
writing to Remus and he even said they were all pranksters back in their days at Hogwarts,
and his letter…” He couldn’t help but smile, holding the letter that was still open in his hands
a bit tighter. “The words to open and close the map are written slightly differently. I did
notice I just didn’t… think it meant anything but…”

Something twisted in his stomach and he grabbed his wand to tap on the page once more.

“Mischief managed.”

It was fine when he wasn’t thinking about it, but realizing… realizing one of those silent
voices of ink on the page was his father….

Having it open felt like they were listening and something inside of him hurt. He didn’t know
if he wanted the father he didn’t know, or the echo of who his father had been as a Hogwarts
student, listening to him. He didn’t exactly feel very proud of himself right now, and he
didn’t know if he wanted his father witnessing him like this either.

Whatever expression he was wearing told the twins enough and they didn’t question him
doing so, George just folding the map up without a word and leaning into his shoulder
silently.

“Why did you say Mooney was a weird name?” Fred offered as a distraction instead, still
dead curious of course but also picking up on the need to move topics.

Harry only half smiled before the seriousness of it sunk home.

“That’s one of the most important things to keep quiet. Who the Marauders are less so, but
Moony…” They nodded silently, faces betraying how significant they understood this to be.
“Remus is a werewolf.”

Both their eyes went wide and Harry had a brief moment of wondering if he should be telling
people about Remus condition… not that it wasn’t something Remus told people himself, but
he was also extremely ashamed of it. Felt… wrong, if not also pertinent.

His suspicions were correct though then George got over it first and snorted rather loudly.

“Yeah, that’s pretty dumb.” He agreed. “Moony… that’s a laugh for sure.”

“Or clever, depending on how you look at it!”

“Well if Mr. Padfoot came up with it I’m willing to think it’s just plain dumb.” He
maintained, which made Harry realize…

“You know them then… or the them from the map. Their personalities to a point.” He tried
not to frown but he knew he was only partially successful. The twins seemed respectful of his
struggle though… suddenly hyper aware themselves they now knew his father more than
Harry did. Even if they weren’t sure which Marauder it was and it was only inky words on a
page, they still had a better understanding of James Potter than Harry did, and they could see
it stung a bit.

“To a point yeah; no idea how the magic of this thing actually works… there’s really nothing
else like it.” George allowed.

“Typically, ordinary objects that can talk without you knowing where it’s brain is kept are
classified ‘dark’ or just plain dangerous.”

“We really shouldn’t have gone messing with this, but we learned some minor dark magic
detection spells and after talking to them a bit we don’t think it’s actually that bad.” They
hedged. “If your dad created it, it’s probably not that bad!”

“But Sirius Black also probably had a hand in it…” Fred countered, looking less at ease
about that than hearing Mr. Moony was a werewolf, which to Harry was both promising and
bad.

“Well… if they made this as school he hadn’t gone insane yet, right?” George scratched his
nose, unsure. Before they could go too far with that line of thinking though, Harry found
himself speaking.

“That’s… another thing.”

They paused and looked to him, and he had a moment there where he could’ve said never
mind or change the subject or… any number of things he could’ve done. Telling the truth was
probably the last thing he should’ve done, by his own instincts and experiences.

That’s exactly what he ended up doing though, for some reason even he couldn’t properly
explain.
“I have reasonable evidence to say Sirius Black is innocent… and I’m working with some
Slytherins to try and get him a trial.”

For the third time in less than ten minutes, they stared at him with wide eyes. At this point
though, after the shock of the map, the Marauders’ identities, and Remus being a werewolf,
they got over it quicker than before. Instead in only a couple seconds they were exchanging
very loaded looks.

“Well,” George frowned, slowly absorbing that information. “Slytherins would have the in…
I guess. And Dad talks shit about Fudge all the time, I can get why going to him to just have
him tried would be… unhelpful.”

“If Fudge really put an innocent man in jail, he’ll be doing everything he can to keep it quiet.
His career is over if it gets out.” Fred agreed.

“I would hesitate to say the Minister of Magic would actually stoop that low… but we’ve
seen what a few dinners with Lucious Malfoy will have him spitting. Man’s got no ideals of
his own, he just does whatever the person who convinced him last tells him to.”

Harry had never heard the twins talk politics but it was kind of impressive actually. They
were definitely Gryffindors though if puppet politicians were bad things to them. Or maybe
that was because he mostly talked shop with Draco, whose father was the one doing the
manipulating. It was an interesting perspective switch for sure.

“What are you actually doing then?”

“At the moment I’m still just planning… I’d like to think it looks promising though.” He
deflected, not sure if he actually wanted to drag them into the specifics of it all. From
Daphne’s explanations of everything though, the Weasleys were very open minded about
muggles and non-human creatures, although Harry was pretty sure calling werewolves “non-
human” was just premeditated prejudice seeping into the textbooks they read.

He knew from Daphne that the Weasleys had the toilet-water reputation they did, in no small
part to how accepting they were, even welcoming in people they should’ve at least kept it
quiet about. That was a far too Slytherin concept though; the Weasleys on paper were
blatantly good people which was definitely going to be their downfall, being open and
accepting to a detriment.

To be clear though, Harry in no way thought it was bad thing at all.

He was too pessimistic and practical not to see the huge disadvantages of being a genuinely
good person in a world like this was, though. He had no interest in being disadvantaged when
he was already only barely treading water here, and he at least knew the twins were damn
competent to ever let being too trusting be their downfall.

“And you really do think he’s innocent?”

“I have it on as good authority as I can trust a Slytherin to be.” He shrugged, and thankfully
going by their expression they knew exactly what that meant. And they also seemed to trust
that source of information quite a bit judging by Fred’s very concerned frown.

“That sucks, so much.”

“Seriously.”

Probably an understatement, Harry sighed, trying not to think too hard on it. “Part of this
plan though, and I guess for the foreseeable future actually even if this works… is that right
now no one can know that I know about Sirius. So far as anyone is concerned, I still think
he’s guilty and no one is working on freeing him.”

“Secrecy is the best defense,” George agreed, holding up the map pointedly. “Actually, Mr.
Moony is the one who says that all the time.”

Harry felt his heart warm at that… maybe Remus wouldn’t hate him for this after all.

The twins just might though, he winced.

“I agree completely… which is why I’m also going to ask you guys to not tell anyone I know
about Remus either. So far as anyone’s concerned I’ve never talked to him and don’t plan to.”

They frowned, not quite seeing that logic as easily as the one about the surprise trial for
Sirius Black that had an active enemy trying to stop him.

“I get not talking about Black since the Minister would just stop it, but why Remus?”

Harry winced again, but straightened his spine. “Okay, this is going to sound bad… but long
term goal here… I’m going to try to be Minister of Magic one day, or at least someone in
power. I have a very specific reason for choosing that life goal and it happened because I met
Remus.” He leaned in pointedly, trying to be as grave as he knew how to be to impress upon
them the importance of this all.

“Okay…?”

“I know you two know how werewolves are treated in the wizarding world.”

“Which is bullshit, for the record.” George scoffed.”

“And I agree with that—whole heartedly! Which is why I’m going to change it.”

“How exactly? By being Minister?” Fred blinked in surprise. “That’s not the worst goal to-”

“That’s only half of it.” He admitted, shifting a bit at their hesitant gazes. “I’m… going to
play the part, if that makes sense. I’m going to do it the Slytherin way, by being buddy-buddy
and playing the part that’ll get me the most popularity when it comes to a public vote. And…
I will never be able to do that if everyone knows my godfather is a werewolf.”

Be it the shock of the confession of what he was going to do or something else, they
disregarded the godfather bomb in favor of just looking horrified.
“You’re going to pretend to hate werewolves!?” Damn Fred, too keen and hitting it right on
the head despite how brutal that sounded. And unfortunately for Harry, it was both true and
exactly what he would be doing.

“If that’s what it takes,” He struggled to get that out, but it was true.

“You’re really not going to tell anyone!? You just said he’s your godfather, you’re just going
to keep your entire relationship with him secret like that?” George seemed a bit sharper and
more angry rather than aghast like his brother, and Harry felt the shame he already felt about
the situation flare uncomfortably in his stomach.

Yeah, he already knew this fucking sucked, he didn’t need to be scolded and judged for it too.

“Fred, George, be serious for a second.” He got out sharply, and they paused their indignation
for a moment to listen, thankfully. He took a steadying breath but their opinion of him was
important to him, against everything else he liked to think about himself it was, so it was
critical they understood this. He really, really hoped they would.

“The only way to change prejudice laws is to be in power. I’m never going to be in power or
get my way if people have already written me off.” He let the sadness of the fact sink into his
voice, and it wasn’t hard to do. “I hate it, I really do… from what little I know of him, Remus
is a genuinely good guy… but to change werewolf laws then I have to pretend I don’t care
about werewolves now, and then by the time I’m in power it’ll be too late for anyone to stop
me making changes. Slytherin or not, given I’m playing their game against them.

Guys, I was all set to open up a shop in Diagon or something with my life until I met Remus:
no matter how I act right now, he’s still going to be suffering with stupid, prejudice anti-
werewolf laws making his life hell. So if I can choose to become Minister and one day help
him and others like him, I see no reason not to play the bad guy at least temporarily. If I need
to lie and keep secrets to give him a chance, you bet your ass I will do it without remorse.”

He met George’s eyes pointedly and the twin blinked almost as if taken off guard by the
directness. “Weren’t you the one who told me being brave is being brave enough to love
without hesitation? Well, I’m not hesitating in doing what I think is best for Remus, even if it
seems brutal now. It absolutely sucks and I hated having to ask that of him, but someday he
won’t be hunted by the Ministry or thrown out of shops if I can make this all work out. And I
just have to hope that’ll be enough to make it up to him.”

He knew it sounded more defensive than he meant it, but he really didn’t want them to think
poorly of him. Besides, he hadn’t put it into so many words before but as he spoke he gained
confidence in this plan. It was many years off but this was something he could work towards,
something he could do…

Once he got his freedom.

That was first and foremost… but knowing where he wanted to go in life gave him stability.
Saying it out loud gave it this credence it hadn’t had before. He’s said it, and more
importantly he’d said it to people he trusted and respected, so now it was time to live up to it.
He was going to be held accountable by more than just himself from here on out now that
he’s gone and fessed up out loud.

In any case, he assumed this wouldn’t be the last bullshit law he’d end up adding to his
agenda. There would be more and he was sure they’d eventually has some opinions about
things too, being future businessmen themselves. The more he thought about it, the more
having power was attractive… maybe it would be attractive to them too, and they’d let the
moral grey area he was working in here slide for now.

And every time those thoughts crossed his mind, he tried not to think too hard on the hat’s
words about Slytherin leading him to greatness… especially since it was turning out to be
true. If he could only figure out how to play the game and win when he was up against a lot
of extremely talented, far more experienced players.

The penny dropped when George, who definitely looked as if he felt like he’d been called
out, nodded once. What surprised Harry was that Fred looked to his brother like he had no
idea what he was about to say, which made him pay all the more attention.

“…I think there’s more to our rule then.” He decided, the judgement and indignation he’d
just had gone, deflated and replaced with something… hesitant. Not happy exactly, but
determined. “We think being brave means not hesitating to love, but… there’s more to it, isn’t
there? Loving someone unconditionally doesn’t mean shit if it only hurts people in the end.
You have to be smart about it too.”

For some reason he seemed… extremely sad to admit that, even if his eyes seemed to resolve
something.

For once Fred said nothing, glancing between the two of them almost uneasily.

“I don’t think there’s a rule in existence that fits every situation.” Harry allowed. “But in this
case yeah… I’m going to do right by Remus even if it’s maybe not the best situation now.
Even if it really feels wrong, I just have to make it right someday then. I’m doing it because I
want to help him, not because I’m ashamed or afraid of him.”

“Okay yeah, you just have to change society’s attitude.” Fred scoffed, breaking the suddenly
tense atmosphere again, which Harry appreciated.

“Fair point. Maybe that’s not the solution then, but I will find one.” He said it with full
confidence… mostly because he had to. Some lion-like part of him he really didn’t use very
often coming out strong and telling him… he made a promise. Even just to himself on
Remus’ part, he made a promise and everything in him was keening to see it through.

Or maybe it was still a Slytherin thing too—the art of the deal and keeping their bargains on
point of death.

Or maybe that was just something the two rival houses actually had in common with each
other.
“Somehow I believe you,” George seemed very weary to admit that, while Fred suddenly
grinned.

“Even if maybe it sounds like lunacy,” they teased and Harry could only sigh.

“But you’ll keep quiet about it then? I know it seems wrong but… please help?”

“Interesting conversation ‘bout pumpkins then!?” A loud voice made all three of them jump,
and magical map or not, none of them had noticed Hagrid coming up the path to stand his
hulking frame over them, and now that they were not behind the pumpkin it was kind of
obvious he had three kids sitting in the soft wet dirt of his garden. “It’s getting’ too cold to be
doin’ tha’, come on in fer some tea you three!” He beckoned them with a huge hand, his
other lugging a sack of something up the path and into his hut.

They let out light laughs in reaction to the honest scare that was, Fred getting up first and
pulling Harry to his feet by his hands. He didn’t let go for a moment to catch his attention
seriously.

“We’ll keep your secrets if you keep ours.” He finished their conversation, George nodding
once beside him as they then made their way to the cabin, dusting off their dirty clothes as
they did so.

“Thank you.” He agreed, not quite sure what secrets aside from the map they were talking
about but suspecting there would be more in the future he’d need to hold close to the chest.

He could do that though.

And while the trade aspect of that agreement sounded very Slytherin-like, Harry knew it was
also meant much more warmly than anything a snake could ever trade for. If felt way more
like friendship this way, especially as they ended the day breaking their teeth on rock cakes
by a roaring fire.

000

Thanks to the twins and a quick look at the map, Harry was able to catch up with Dean and
Seamus just as they left the Great Hall after dinner, he himself going to head in to find
Neville but knowing he had something to get off his chest first.

It was already dark and there were only a couple people milling about; Dean saw him first
and waved as they crossed paths.

“Y’ alright there Harry?”

“Yeah,” He flashed him a smile that he actually meant this time, knowing Dean deserved his
own apology—or maybe just gratitude. More than Harry knew he showed most of the time,
anyway. Now though was a harder conversation to have as he turned to the Irishman.
“Seamus, I-”

Seamus didn’t even stop walking and as he passed him clapped him hard on the shoulder—
hard enough that Harry stumbled forward a bit in shock, only to look up to blue eyes less
 than an inch from his own.

“Shut the fuck up.” He was told in no uncertain terms, patted on head like a child, and then
ignored as Seamus kept walking back to Gryffindor tower like that hadn’t just happened.

Harry had to just stand there in shock.

Dean looked highly mused and snickered loudly, mostly at Harry’s expression he was
suspecting. “I told you he does it cause he wants to.”

“…well fine then.” Harry gave up, something light and fluttering settling over his heart. “Do
you know what sweets he likes?”

“Cinnamon, the heretic.” The tall Gryffindor sniffed in disgust, choosing to follow Seamus
without another word and leaving Harry standing in the entrance way wondering just how on
earth he deserved people like this in his life.

Chapter End Notes

Apologies for the delay, this was difficult to get out.

 Instinct
Chapter Notes

ヽ(*・ω・)ﾉ

Harry—

That paper was brilliant! Honestly I was a bit overwhelmed with the sheer concept, but going
over it in depth and hearing your theories about what’s possible, I can only be excited! If you
forgive the reminiscing for a moment, your father was undoubtedly brilliant, particularly with
Transfiguration, but let me tell you now that you’ve left him in the dust with this for sure.
Your mother and I were the bookworms of our year to a point, but mainly for the desire to do
well in school inspired by inherent love of learning and magic in general; never would I have
thought to even try for something like this and I highly doubt I’d have even succeeded. Your
mother definitely would’ve had the ingenuity for something so out of the box, but even
probably not until she was a full adult! You likely outshine us all with this talent and passion
of yours and since I’ve only had a couple letters and a few memories of you as a child, I
confess I was still imagining you as your parents’ son. Let me tell you I’m far more blown
away with the individual you actually are, and I am not at all put out by it; I’m more just
thrilled at the person you’re undoubtedly going to grow to be.

I have no qualms with your other plans either; in fact I support them entirely for perhaps
selfish reasons. As I said, do not let me ever get in your way. I’m honored you want to push
for such a lofty goal on my behalf, but I do hope it was already a dream of yours that I
perhaps contributed to at most. This Transfiguration discovery of yours proves you have the
ability to do whatever you want in life and I do hope you choose to do that, to your full
potential. It promises to be extremely interesting!

I cannot tell you how happy I am to hear about the map too. You’ve said this parchment is
protected somehow so I think I’ll risk sharing a little more detail if you’d like; it sounds like
the Weasley twins have a much better use of it at the moment but if you do end up borrowing
it I can explain a bit. As you figured, I was Moony and what I’m sure you’re very interested in
is the fact that James was Prongs. I think the origin of the others’ nicknames it’s maybe a
conversation safer had in person no matter if I do trust your enchanted parchment… the map
could get you into some trouble at school, but to be blunt, that story could probably get you
into legal trouble too. Not that it matters too much with the three involved being removed
from us currently. Let’s just say that James’ favorite animal was a deer and we teased him
greatly for it.

Also, given you may be a Transfiguration prodigy I do not want to give you any ideas; I can
practically feel McGonagall’s wrath already. Remind me when you start your fifth year and
I’ll come clean, promise.
Speaking of school, I know you had asked about me being in the muggle world which I didn’t
really address in my previous letter. I think you understand that giving too much information
on my current whereabouts is less than ideal since my mail is very much constantly
monitored, but if this letter is safe I can explain a bit more. Honestly it’s not that big of
difference living in the muggle world, as I still visit Diagon and St. Mungos freely, and I use
magic within my home but not in the muggle public as all wizards do. You grew up in the
muggle world, so you’d know the jobs are very much normal muggle jobs; currently I work in
a shop and occasionally tutor. I do not have a muggle teaching certificate so it’s very
unofficial but I had always had an interest in learning and teaching. Most times it’s A-level
prep as well so I did go back to get my own muggle schooling certifications after graduating
Hogwarts and not having much luck there so far as jobs go. I needed to know the muggle
subjects I’d need to be tutoring people on at least! Of course I take off a couple days every
month which, without proper explanation or a muggle doctor’s note, normal jobs don’t
appreciate so I do tend to move around roles quite often. I think my favorite is always local
run bookstores; they have so much character to them.

You’re clearly a driven young man, but did you have any interests outside of being Minister
one day then? How is school going in general? I admit I am also pretty interested in any
recent pranks the twins might have pulled; if you wanted to get involved I could perhaps give
a suggestion or two… of the old marauders I was the one who never got caught, or at least
never got a detention for it, since it sounds like you’re not quite as reckless with it as maybe
James would’ve been. For example there was this incident with a grindylow that I maintain
to this day I have no idea how it got into Flitwick’s office…

Remus had a very particular way of writing letters, Harry found. He was always so composed
and the pages long, filled with tales and this polite language Harry knew he himself didn’t
use very often. He liked to talk, but writing long letters wasn’t exactly his thing; the journals
he had with Draco were one thing as it was a live conversation almost, but writing five pages
of correspondence was rough on his hand and his attention span.

He didn’t know what Remus looked like but he imagined this faceless man sitting at a table
and patiently writing all this out, so intent and tolerant as he took the chunk of time to sit
down, draft and write an eloquent letter several pages long. Harry was almost annoyed by
how little of a reaction he had to any of the harsh topics Harry had struggled so hard to write
down the first time… or maybe Remus did struggle and was simply a professional at hiding it
in letter form.

Harry considered himself much better at reading people rather than letters, and he did wonder
what Remus would be like in person considering everything he’d learned thus far.

Remus was very diligent in responding quickly, and if ever there was a delay he was
apologetic. Most of the times he gave an answer but one time he did not… Harry would’ve
wondered if he didn’t already know he’d sent his own letter the day of a full moon, and the
fact it took Remus almost four days to respond back wasn’t exactly unexpected. The timing
sort of was though, since Harry clearly knew he’d be indisposed maybe the day of or before it
for whatever preparations he did, but wondered what could be happening in the days
afterwards. Maybe, as he said, his current job wasn’t pleased with his absence, and he had to
focus on that for a time.

Before Harry knew it they were exchanging quite a lot of letters, and while he still felt he was
holding a lot back, he also found himself being honest in ways he normally wasn’t. Remus
seemed like a solid Gryffindor with maybe a few keen Ravenclaw habits here and there, but
he was a genuinely good guy who was very like-minded with the Weasleys in his own, shier
way. As a werewolf people already hated him on the most part so he too could be free to be
open and accepting to others like the Weasley clan was, without fearing his reputation could
somehow get worse.

That meant though, that Harry hadn’t quite spoken too much on say, his finances or the fact
he’d read his parents will or anything else he as a twelve-year-old Gryffindor probably
shouldn’t have done on his own… Remus was his godfather and while the man was, so far,
totally hands off in not dictating what he did with his life, Harry still sensed that Remus
would be one of those adults who might be a bit too overly concerned with him operating on
his own. Like McGonagall—he trusted her a lot, but he didn’t exactly go to her when he
needed to go to Gringotts for a bloodline test; she’d be way too involved.

He absolutely did not even hint at the topic of Sirius Black. He knew Remus would be
heavily invested at one point with the way Harry’s plans were going, but the man very
pointedly tip-toed around saying the supposed convict’s name in his writings even when he
was cheerfully recounting some tale from his days at Hogwarts. He was clearly trying to
share a part of himself, trying to give Harry his own memories of his father, and the
unchangeable fact was that in each and every one of those memories Sirius Black had been
right there. Every prank and quidditch match and failed date with his mother, Harry knew
when Remus talked about James Potter’s adventures that Sirius Black had been right beside
him, an invisible part of the story that was being told. Unmentioned but irrefutably there,
though it seemed Remus was purposefully trying to erase him from the way the tales were
recounted.

Harry could’ve been angry that Remus was heavily redacting stories meant to bring him
closer to the man his father had once been, but he wasn’t. Somehow… like he’d been blessed
with a moment of skill in divination, he could almost feel Remus’ pain. How each carefully
tailored story stepped around Sirius Black and the cutting and editing caused him near
physical pain to do so. How it hurt the werewolf to remember the past in the first place but
was making an effort so Harry could hear more about his father.

It was easy to believe Remus just didn’t want to burden him with the tale of what Sirius
Black had supposedly done and didn’t want to broach the topic at all right now, with Harry
being this young. Not over letter at least.

It was even easier to believe that Remus still felt pain over losing everyone in one night and
was avoiding needing to have that horrifically agonizing conversation with someone he’d
held as a babe.

Harry knew a thing or two about running away. He couldn’t exactly hold it against the man.
So, Harry was definitely holding back and he felt some amount of guilt over it. Turnabout’s
fair play though as Harry knew Remus was holding back too… not just about Sirius Black but
also when he talked about what he was doing with his life and some of his highly
underplayed summaries, like when he said things like ‘last minute trips to the ministry’ or
‘wasn’t able to pick up that potion ingredient’ or whatever else it was he was doing when
talking about his days. Harry knew from Daphne that the ministry occasionally ‘arrested’
werewolves just to interrogate them and make sure they knew they were being watched
before kicking them out the door again, harassing them essentially because no one thought
that was an asshole thing to do and dismissed it as “keeping an eye on dangerous creatures”
or some bullshit. He also knew most stores in Diagon refused to sell to dark creatures so
when Remus casually mentioned he struggled to get something to complete whatever project
he was working on, Harry could fill in the blanks about what store had refused him service
and what might’ve been said.

Over time he developed a low-key hatred of Diagon Alley to be honest. He didn’t know
which stores were on his shit list as Remus was far too vague, but he had a very Lucius
Malfoy-like urge to become Minister with all haste and levy some unreasonable taxes on
some certain people someday. Actually, he didn’t even know if that was a power the Minister
of Magic had…

I should probably look into that, he thought in chagrin.

For as much as they didn’t say to each other in this weird dance they did to keep their letters
an even, warm-hearted correspondence, Harry was really taken off guard by how much he
did end up saying. Using Nick’s very graciously provided parchment that was protected from
prying eyes even if they knew Remus’ mail was 100% being monitored, Harry found himself
in conversations he never in a hundred years would’ve thought he was ready to talk about.

First, Remus was a lot like McGonagall in how he treated Harry’s intellect as that of an
equal, not a child to talk down to or explain things to in a condescending way. He did have
some really good explanations for things, even better than McGonagall on some topics as
apparently he’d been a very good student once, but he was not a Transfiguration teacher nor
even an expert or anything like that. There was a ton of topics he was no authority on, and in
fact had either forgotten since it’d been over a decade since his last test on the subject or had
never learned in the first place given how deep into the topic Harry himself was—far beyond
what the Hogwarts curriculum dictated, that’s for sure. In that case Remus turned into an
excellent brain-storming partner, creating his own wild theories in response to Harry’s own,
and even if Harry went about trying and failing to make progress with them, his eagerness
and creativity to spitball some crazy ideas of his own as suggestions for Harry’s work was
actually a ton of fun.

Some part of Harry recognized Remus as a teacher or mentor of sorts… but on

Transfiguration at least he never claimed to be better or a figure of authority on the subject
compared to Harry himself. In fact many times he simply asked for more detail or
explanation on things Harry was talking about, and quickly came around to just deferring to
his expertise rather than claiming he, as the “adult”, should know more or some nonsense. He
was a very gracious ‘teacher’ in that sense at least.
But what really caught Harry’s attention was how up-to-date Remus was on muggle topics
too, since his side gig was to tutor privately. Rather selfishly Harry zeroed in on the potential
of that, wondering if Remus could help him take his own muggle A-levels in the future, given
having options in both worlds was simply good planning—you never knew what you’d need
and despite it not being his favorite subject he was pretty sure that math was critically
important to be a functioning adult. And for some reason it was only taught optionally at the
UK’s “premier” wizarding school once you turned thirteen.

Remus was very deflective when talking about his work and Harry already knew he
undersold himself quite a lot. He didn’t outright say it but he did ask curiously after certain
topics which Remus was happy to help with, and Harry started dropping hints and
compliments about his teaching skills, hoping he’d either get the idea or be inspired himself.
He very much didn’t want to push though as Remus seemed… well, like a pushover honestly,
and Harry wasn’t about to actually go trampling on him since pretty much everyone else
already seemed happy to do that. If he didn’t acknowledge the hints then Harry knew he
didn’t want to talk about it and was fine to leave it at that.

Maybe he’d pick up a copy of a muggle curriculum somewhere and then just ask Remus
specific questions about it as he went.

He felt a lot less motivation to do that compared to his Transfiguration work though, which
was more of a hobby at this point. Extra school work had no appeal to him despite him
logically knowing it was important; he didn’t know if he’d actually do it without a teacher
holding him accountable, honestly. He was already thinking he had too much going on this
year to focus on it but some part of him recognized he’d always find a way to procrastinate if
he didn’t actually want to do it… which he didn’t really. He just knew it was important is all.

Aside from academic work though, Remus was also a surprisingly sympathetic ear. He’d
asked after any friends Harry had made, and before he knew it Harry was spilling pretty
much his entire stream of consciousness about everyone he knew. It hadn’t started off that
way but something about Remus was just… open, and unrealistically easy to confide in, so
that before he really realized what he was doing, he’d already told Remus everything.

Meeting Hagrid for the first time, his troubles with Ron, how Dean and Seamus started the
football club with him and had had his back pretty much since day one, how Neville was
literally a ball of squishy sunshine, all about the Weasley twins which Remus clearly had a
preference to hear more about, Hannah and his suspicions of her gossiping hard behind his
back, how Susan had given him bruises on his shins in a pick-up football game the other day,
Lu and Luna and Ginny and Colin and…

And eventually he actually confessed his Slytherin friends too. All about Daphne being his
snake-tutor, his victory in winning Theo over, him trying to survive Blaise in general, how
weird Melinda was, how he was trying to win Tracy over… and then Draco.

There was this genuine worry he had that Remus would hate Slytherins like all Gryffindors
did. Even Neville wanted little to do with them, and given how similar the Marauders and the
Weasley twins acted, and how a lot of Remus’ stories were about pranks specifically targeted
towards Slytherins… well, Harry had some valid concerns.
His suspicion was proven right thankfully, when Remus only asked after them more, wanting
to hear more stories of them as people instead of commenting on Harry’s very eclectic choice
of friends—he never commented on them actually, he only ever wanted to hear more about
who they were to Harry himself. He didn’t even hint that he thought it odd or weird that his
arch enemy happened to live in the same dorm room as him while his best friend was actually
the most Slytherin-y a Slytherin as you could get. He didn’t even bat an eye when Harry let
slip in retelling his latest trouble with Blaise that the event had happened in the Slytherin
common room… meaning he was allowed into the Slytherin common room which was
definitely a brand-new concept to an old-school Gryffindor. He didn’t even comment on Theo
who… given some rather large hints dropped in the past, came from one of the darkest
Slytherin families out there, but instead just praised Harry for winning over the tough nut to
crack and wanted to know more about how they were getting on this year too.

It seemed, for all intents and purposes, that Remus was not at all phased by his Slytherin
adventures; something Harry had a suspected but was very happy to confirm for himself.

What startled him to his core though, was when instead of simply accepting it and moving
on, out of nowhere it seemed, Remus suddenly confessed his mother’s best friend when
starting Hogwarts had been a Slytherin too.

When he’d immediately asked for details, Remus had simply deflected again and said they
hadn’t worked out. But he reassured him that Harry was his own person, and this friendship
was his to keep or break, whatever he chose to do with it in the end. Lily Evans had had the
same right and she’d done what she’d needed to.

Which was an incredibly vague thing to say, but Harry knew what he was trying to do. He
didn’t want to poison his and Draco’s friendship with tales of all the ways a
Gryffindor/Slytherin friendship had failed in the past, being yet another voice of dissent that
it was a bad idea on all accounts. Because it’d never happened before so clearly it meant it
couldn’t ever happen, right?

But today was different. Him and Draco were their own people, they weren’t their parents or
anyone else, and it was their decision on how to move forward alone.

In a way, Harry honestly appreciated not being told the truth outright. It was probably for the
best, once he’d thought about it a bit more.

But it was very reassuring to hear he had one more thing in common with his mother though,
just as it was also comforting to hear someone understand from the start that just because he
had this in common with her, didn’t mean he was her. He was still Harry, through and
through. His mother’s son for sure, but still his own person.

Remus had won many points in Harry’s book for navigating that minefield near perfectly,
being an open, unjudgmental ear while still being ‘adult-like’ enough not to comment on
people like a friend or like he knew them. Remus was still more of an adult than Harry really
knew how to handle, since Hagrid barely counted and teachers, even McGonagall, were
always strictly business… which meant he really didn’t talk to adults about his actual life
much.
Or… uh, ever.

Had that ever happened?

He couldn’t recall.

Given every adult he could name had either proven themselves untrustworthy or he’d never
even given them the chance to show they could be trusted in the first place, he figured Remus
was kind of it.

An adult ally, huh? He mused, thinking over Draco’s advice. The problem being that despite
Remus being someone Harry probably could trust, he was also unfortunately not a good ally
to have for most of his current problems. As a werewolf he couldn’t adopt children, he was
watched constantly so he couldn’t really act on Harry’s behalf without the entire Ministry
knowing immediately, and honestly the man already seemed to have more than enough
troubles going on in his life without Harry burdening him with more. Even if Harry asked
him to get some books he didn’t want people knowing he was reading, like say some
Alchemy texts, chances were Remus would try but would get kicked out of the store before
he could buy anything… then not only would he feel like shit for being treated like shit but
then also feel like he’d let Harry down and…

And yeah. Harry wanted to trust Remus but unfortunately the poor werewolf was a bit too
limited in what he could do.

Actually, that didn’t mean he couldn’t trust Remus, it just meant he couldn’t really ask the
man to help too much. He did believe Remus would, if he could, it’s just… well, that was
why Harry was going to be Minister someday. Then maybe things would get better, he hoped.

The real turning point though, Harry almost missed.

In fact, it was so subtle he wasn’t quite sure he was imagining it until he sat and tried to recall
what he’d written in his last letter… because Remus had randomly brought up his second
Christmas at Hogwarts, in which his father had sent him a necklace.

Weird.

Okay, not too weird once Harry remembered in his last letter he’d spoken in depth about his
own Christmas last year, mainly by way of explaining how he was working out how to tell
the twins apart and him getting them different gifts. Each gift had been important,
particularly Draco’s Transfiguration textbook (that he dropped a few hints at being less than
light although Remus either hadn’t noticed or decided not to comment on it). Then there was
his love of sweets, Mrs. Weasley’s sweater and Percy’s kind reaction to it, even the
Slytherins’ gifts before they acknowledged him as a real friend and how much fun it was
figuring out what each meant, politically at least.

The big one though, was him slyly mentioning he’d received a very beautiful cloak from his
father. Since the Marauders had been wild pranksters, there was no way on earth Remus
didn’t know about the cloak, and he thought that would be what got the biggest reaction. He
was a little disappointed when Remus didn’t even acknowledge the cloak, and instead told
him about his necklace.

Harry couldn’t even think the necklace was that important though, when it was clear from the
tone that Remus had hated the damn thing to the pits of hell.

James was seething the entire day about it. Pomfrey almost stunned him, which was an omen
back then as she did in fact ending up stunning him several times before we graduated from
him making scenes in the Hospital Wing.

Harry had finished the letter like he always did but had to go back to that part later because…
something just didn’t line up.

Why was my Dad mad about it? Remus clearly didn’t like it, but he didn’t sound mad…

Well, Remus never sounded mad. Even when telling very edited stories in which Harry knew
he’d been trampled on by the bigoted world around him, the kind werewolf never seemed
mad… just a tiny bit sad sometimes. Resigned even.

That was probably what happened to you when you were treated poorly your whole life
though. You didn’t get mad unless you knew your self-worth and were enraged that someone
would dare—

Harry paused.

He re-read that portion of the letter again.

Remus hadn’t commented on anyone—not the twins who he clearly enjoyed hearing about,
not Draco’s questionable reading material despite Harry’s hints, Mrs. Weasley’s kindness,
and certainly not his dad’s cloak which Harry knew should’ve been a highlight. But the man
didn’t say a word about any of it, he only recounted his own tale and then moved on like that
hadn’t happened, changing the topic back to quidditch.

There was something there, but Remus was far too subtle for Harry to figure out just what the
heck he was trying to do… like how he’d put the map’s words into one of his letters, but
somehow even more obscure. Harry suspected this was somehow another kind of clue he
just… didn’t know what he was trying to say. Especially since this was a protected parchment
and he should’ve been able to speak freely, which implied there was another reason he
couldn’t just out and say it.

Remus liked to share as much as he could in response to Harry’s own honestness, but that
was the first time he’d ever mentioned his own parents and he didn’t do it again.

It wasn’t until two full days later when Harry was getting ready for the day in the bathroom,
brushing his hair out in the talking mirror and deciding to wear the necklace the twins had got
him last year. He’s just finished clipping it on and adjusting it in the mirror, hands deeply
scarred as they adjusted where it lay…
He felt himself stutter a bit, as if his whole mind and body had skipped a beat. It left him off
balance for a brief moment.

…oh.

Suddenly not very hungry, he turned around and decided to walk around the lake instead of
attending breakfast that day, the necklace around his throat burning him like he was a
werewolf too from how hyperaware he was of it.

Pure metals were easier to come by in the wizarding world… probably because of
Transfiguration being how a lot of stuff was made, since it was a thousand times easier and
probably didn’t require as much cost or labor as it would in the muggle world. That meant
normal stuff in the muggle world was typically aluminum or stainless steel or something
more “common”, and I mean there was little reason not to use that stuff in the wizarding
world except for this attitude everyone had about ‘pure silver’ being the best metal for any
application.

With a wave of your wand you could spin a sliver chain and clasp any old trinket to it when
you had magic. Pure silver was a lot easier to come by in this world; it wasn’t nearly as
expensive or rare or difficult to make with magic and so a ton of things were made of it
because of that “purity” attitude people had… but it was most particularly used for jewelry.
Purebloods has this thing: they wouldn’t even bother wearing it if it weren’t real precious
metals because otherwise was just too ‘pedestrian’ (read: muggle), but honestly that wasn’t a
big deal. Harry knew the necklace he was wearing was real silver, even with the Weasleys
being pretty well known for being strapped for cash—it wasn’t weird or exorbitant to get
someone a silver necklace in this world at all. He’d barely even given it a thought when
wearing it in the past year.

So… what were the chances that the necklace Remus’ father had given him was also a silver
necklace?

Probably pretty high, actually.

It would also explain why James Potter was causing enough of a scene in the hospital wing
on Christmas day for Pomfrey to get mad at him for it.

Harry wondered a few moments on why… why had he brought that up out of nowhere…

But he also realized the gaping holes in his own life. How he wrote pages and pages about
friends and teachers, about Draco and the Slytherins when it was clear he was hesitant about
sharing those relationships with anyone, writing about his muggle school in an attempt to
convince Remus to be a teacher in a roundabout way, writing about quidditch and football,
about how he was still getting used to the wizarding world but wouldn’t give up his muggle
clothes, his school work and his plans for the future, how the twins gave him an open
invitation to their house over breaks…

Not once had Harry mentioned his relatives. The people who supposedly “raised” him.
Not unlike how Remus purposefully didn’t mention people that Harry knew for a fact were
supposed to be there in the story he was telling, but were very pointedly not.

It wasn’t like Harry just didn’t want to talk about the muggle world, he clearly did—he had,
in depth even. He hadn’t realized he’d been so obvious in not talking about a part of his life,
to the point Remus could read all the things he wasn’t saying by choosing not to write them
down when asked what was important to him.

Harry had told Remus almost everything he did care about, and he thought he’d been so
careful in withholding the things he didn’t want an “adult” catching onto… he’d completely
forgotten to even mention his relatives because… well fuck them honestly.

He should’ve mentioned them in one way or another, said they sent him a book for Christmas
or lied that Petunia had ever hung his homework on the fridge not just to humiliate him in
that it was worse than Dudley’s. If Remus had been friends with his mother then he probably
knew Petunia; if he didn’t know her that well he could still probably guess that she didn’t
care about magic at least, so it wouldn’t be weird to mention maybe that they had no interest
in owl mail or anything so he hadn’t talked to them in a while. He could’ve lied to ensure it
wasn’t so obvious he was avoiding talking about them.

But he hadn’t done it on purpose. He’d spilled a lot to Remus and was a bit unnerved how…
true most of it was.

Gryffindor or not, he had a very snake-like apprehension of things like truth.

Or maybe Blaise’s lecture on poison had gotten to him more than he’d thought it did.

Either way, he would’ve been way more concerned if he wasn’t also still struggling to figure
out what exactly Remus was after with this. It was such a subtle hint, Harry’s own
experiences might’ve just skewed the implication into thinking Remus’ father was anything
like the thrice-damned Dursleys… but he had this uneasiness that he was dead on with this
assumption.

Just because it makes sense doesn’t make it true, that’s what Theo had said and Harry had
been looking for an excuse to use that logic, but his instincts were telling him to just shut up
and keep it simple.

He wasn’t overthinking this, Remus was telling him without stepping on his toes about it.
Like he didn’t comment on his choice of friends or career plans or anything else—they’d
only been writing a couple of weeks but Harry already knew that he wasn’t commenting on
Harry. He wasn’t trying to do anything.

He was showing him something by not saying it outright, even on an enchanted protected
parchment where no one else would see it.

But what was it?

He watched the giant squid surface out in the middle of the lake, one long tentacle curling up
then flopping back down into the murky depths below, the surface slowly returning back to
its deceptively calm surface.

It doesn’t change anything.

He thought, not necessarily happy about it. Not necessarily sad either just… conflicted.

All it means is that Remus knows not to talk about it either. Good.

And in a way it’s convenient… I should’ve lied to throw him off the trail but I forgot to, and
now he suspects but he won’t do anything, cause he gets it. Which is good… I don’t have to
lie, we can just move on.

All the better, he could keep writing his letters to Remus and not worry he’d slip up about the
damn Dursleys. That was good. Comforting even.

He watched the ripples out in the middle of the lake until it got late enough that he really
needed to head in for class, only some very testy toddler mandrakes threatening his hearing
finally refocusing him from the odd start to his day.

000

“You’re kidding!”

Neville groaned, curling up into a smaller ball on the lounge he was currently wallowing in,
Dean and Seamus nodding their heads a bit too vigorously on the couch across from him. The
Gryffindor common room was blissfully warm after a particularly brutal quidditch practice,
since October had been nothing but rain so far. Angelica had been kind enough to teach him
a drying-off spell but he wasn’t quite good enough at it to not set his robes on fire just yet so
his hair was still damp and he had a chill that the roaring fire was only just staring to ward
off. He’d come down from changing to see a very morose Neville trying to become one with
his chair while Seamus and Dean were talking strategy as intently as if the topic were sports,
however when he sat down to hear exactly what they were talking about he’d been a bit
thrown.

“I guess it makes sense, if not a bit morbid. Living people celebrate birthdays and dead
people celebrate death-days. I remember Nick telling me about that club of his; bunch of
pricks if you ask me.”

“Exclusive pricks apparently.” Seamus snorted. “He’s asked Neville to pretend to be suitably
terrified of him to increase his credibility or something with the other ghosts.”

“At least that’s not going to be hard,” Said blond muttered, head still buried in his knees and
Harry leaned over to pat him on the shoulder gently, though he smiled wryly while he did it.

“Nick is such a nice ghost though, if the rest of them are that terrifying then why would he
want to be part of their little club?” He wondered aloud.

Neville groaned again, the idea of spending an evening with a bunch of ghosts named the
“Headless Hunt” making his stomach twist sharply.
“I should’ve just let Peeves ink me.” He huffed. Apparently, Peeves had been throwing
balloons of ink and Nearly Headless Nick had warned him off… but instead of just accepting
Neville’s thanks had instead coerced a party invitation into his hand and the meek Gryffindor
just hadn’t been able to say no.

Harry was less amused at the Gryffindor ghost than he was previously for tricking Neville,
but also grudgingly impressed the guy who played such a jovial deadman to all the younger
years had such a con in him. Also a 500th death-day sounded like a huge event. Harry really
liked Halloween but he was also insanely tempted by the concept of a party.

“Come on, we can make a thing of it! It’s his party and it’s on Halloween so let’s get the
twins to steal as much candy as they can and bring it down with us.”

Neville peaked one blue eye up at him balefully, still hesitant but seeming reassured Harry
was so into it.

“You sure?”

“Absolutely! McGonagall would never let actually harmful ghosts into the castle even just to
visit for a party so they’ll just be a bunch of dead people at best—snobby dead people going
by their exclusivity I guess. The worst thing we’ll have to survive is small talk!” He
encouraged brightly, and Neville lifted his head cautiously to consider that.

“I mean… going by the title of their club, none of them have heads.” Dean pointed out.

Neville let out a wail of despair and curled up again, Dean just putting his hands up in
surrender at Harry’s glare.

000

“Trick or treat!”

“Excuse me?” Blaise looked overly suspicious at the Gryffindor marching up behind him in
the hallway, turning to look as far down his nose at the redhead as he could when Harry
smacked him in the face with a handful of assorted candies. Blaise’s preferences were a
closely guarded secret (by him) probably because he didn’t want to make the contact-sport
that was Slytherin gift-giving too easy on people because he was a troublesome dick, so
Harry had made a wild guess. He wouldn’t be too put out if it turned out Blaise hated
almonds, in fact.

Neville gave a quiet ‘eep!’ from behind him at the violent presentation of the candy as Blaise
froze, letting the candy that had just nailed him in the face fall to the floor almost pointedly
before glaring down at Harry.

Who, in turn, just shot him a grin as he much more politely handed another packet to Theo,
who accepted it gently with a questioning eyebrow raised as his only reaction.

“In the muggle world kids say ‘trick or treat’ and you either get candy or have to do a trick.”
“Then I choose trick!” Blaise demanded without hesitation, but Harry had almost expected it
since he already had his wand in hand—twisting it once to turn the tall Slytherin’s tie into
marble, forcing him to gag as it strangled him and caused him to stumble forward wildly
from the weight.

“Done!” He chirped brightly, addressing Theo while ignoring the suffocating Slytherin beside
them. Theo wisely chose to do that same.

“You really like Halloween, huh?”

“I do; isn’t it supposed to be a huge deal in the wizarding world too?” Harry pointed out.

“I guess.” Theo shifted, glancing at Neville over his shoulder but didn’t react. “I just thought
it might be associated with… unpleasant anniversaries is all.”

Meaning this also happened to be the night his parents were killed, exactly eleven years ago
tonight. Not that Harry had known that until last year, and not that for most of his life he’d
even known much about his parents to mourn their loss. Halloween had always been an
interesting night for him, as in he’d always been interested in it. It had never been something
bad before, and Halloween at Hogwarts as awesome.

He wasn’t about to let imagined grief ruin something just because there did happen to exist a
reason he could’ve been sad—he wasn’t sad, and that was it, he felt no need to question it. He
had enough issues without wondering if he should feel sad about something.

“You’re right,” he sighed a tad too dramatically. “This is the anniversary of the night I almost
got squished by a troll! All the more reason to be happy I’m alive!” He cried in fake emotion,
Theo blinking before smiling slightly, knowing he’d been caught.

Harry snickered, shoving another load of candy into his arms. “Oh my god you’re such a
downer, just take the sweets and enjoy the feast!”

“Fair.” He agreed, looking at the candy, though seeming to have thoughts elsewhere. He did
look up to nod at their clothes though. “You’re very dressed up for a feast, right?”

“Thank you for noticing! Yes, but we’re not going to the feast, we’ve been invited to a
party!”

“What party!?” Blaise seemed to instantaneously stand upright at the word ‘party’—his tie
missing. Harry noted there were chunks of marble on the ground from where he’d freed
himself.

Huh, I didn’t even notice that happening.

“It’s Nearly Headless Nick’s 500th death-day and he’s having a party with a bunch of other
headless ghosts. I can’t imagine there’ll be food for living people though, hence the bag of
candy,” He gestured to his bottomless shoulder bag, which was now filled with an obscene
amount of goods the twins had procured from Honeydukes for him.
It was very last minute, hence why he couldn’t just order it himself, but now that he knew the
map existed (and that there was a tunnel that lead right to Honeydukes’ basement) the twins
had a habit of lightening their inventory and just leaving the money behind. Harry had them
leave enough galleons to cover the inconvenience as well (though he had to wonder how they
hadn’t questioned what was happening at this point), and he was very much enjoying being
the candy fairy right now in handing it out—not that everyone wasn’t going to be able to eat
their fill at the feast anyway. It was the spirit of the thing.

Blaise frowned in distain. “On one hand I’m offended I’m not invited. On the other hand,
Gryffindor’s ghost…and ghosts in general.”

Harry sighed, ignoring him but catching sight of Neville and being very impressed that for
once in a blue moon, the grey heir and the meekest of the Gryffindors seemed to be totally on
the same page so far as how they viewed this party.

“You all are so lame, it’ll be fun!”

“Good luck with that.” Blaise sniffed at him. “We are on our way to the feast though, before
you so rudely interrupted us.”

“That’s it, I’m taking the candy back.”

“Don’t you dare!”

Harry ignored his shrieking and also the candy, not really having meant that threat as he
looped his arm around Neville’s and pulled them off down the hallway briskly.

“Happy Halloween!”

“Happy Halloween.” Theo offered blankly while Blaise just continued cursing at him—still
picking up the candy though.

“I’m surprised he didn’t hex you,” Neville offered quietly once they were far enough away
but Harry shrugged it off.

“One thing I’ve learned is that Blaise is far more creative than that.” Which did not seem to
comfort the blond in any way, but he was sufficiently distracted once they got to the dark and
dingy lower hallway that this party was apparently taking place in.

As he was vain at heart he’d taken the opportunity to finally put some of his nicer muggle
clothes to good use, though he wasn’t sure if a death-day party was something you wore
black to like it was a funeral, or bright colors like you would a birthday. He figured every
dead person at this party would be distinctly ghost colored anyway, and wearing the clothes
they died in like all ghosts did, so it was probably up to his discretion and what he wanted to
wear. He knew it was going to be in the dungeons and it’d been getting rapidly colder for
only mid-autumn, so he had on a slightly oversized deep blue wool sweater over beige pants
with a silver scarf tossed over one shoulder, matching the many sparkly silver baubles he’d
carefully placed in his braided hair.
Neville had very gallantly let him pick out an outfit for him to wear too, since he didn’t seem
to care either way, more focused on surviving the event in the first place. Knowing he wasn’t
very flashy and didn’t get cold quite so easily, over his black school pants and shoes, Harry
had found (transfigured for his purposes) him a slightly thinner mustard cardigan over a
white button down done up to his chin, which was quite a smart look on the rosy-cheeked
blond, if he did say so.

If they happened to be dressed up in the wrong house colors, Harry didn’t care. Colors
belonged to everyone, in his opinion. Same reason he made one of the football teams’ colors
a very tasteful green and refused to hear commentary about how the color of trees and nature
was too Slytherin-y.

What nonsense, honestly.

“You’ve made it!”

Nearly Headless Nick’s bright cheer caused both of them to jump as they almost walked right
by the doorway the event was being held in. Harry was slightly taken aback by the sheer
number of ghosts milling around, since it was very off-putting to encounter an entire crowd
of people but not having heard or sensed them at all before setting eyes on them. Given they
were all dead and floating above the ground they made no footsteps, they weren’t breathing
and the huge table of ghostly food (it looked rotten… unfortunately for his candy-ladened
stomach) that made no noise on ghostly plates and cutlery. It was only their voices that would
give away they were there, but as pretty much only them and Nick currently had heads on
their necks, conversation seemed to be a bit stifled in the dingy room.

Neville was stiff as a board and frozen like a deer in headlights as Harry responded a bit
breathily to Nick.

I do like parties… but this is weird.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” He told Nick instead, forcing a smile with more effort than he normally
had to. “Neville told me all about your invitation and I thought I’d help.”

“Excellent! The more the merrier! You must meet the Headless Hunt then, come, come.” He
seemed to be enjoying his 500th death-day at least, which was probably the important part
Harry allowed as they followed him into the room a bit more.

Or… he did and then had to grab Neville’s hand to force him to keep up.

Then again, if Neville faints that’ll prove to these assholes that Nick truly is that scary and
it’ll give us an excuse to leave early.

Looking at Neville, he was petrified but not quite that petrified. Which was probably good;
Harry acknowledged he was a monster for having that thought in the first place even if it was
on Neville’s behalf.

He almost didn’t hear the ghost Nick had introduced them to start talking, being very thrown
off that the voice was coming from not the space where his head should’ve been, where he’d
automatically looked, but from the head in the man’s hands.

Harry wasn’t really listening as he just stared at the odd sight.

… really wish we’d gone to the feast instead.

000

…k…ill…

Harry felt ice race over his skin, hand automatically snapping out and getting an iron lock
onto Neville’s, who jumped about a foot in the air at the sudden touch when he was already
on edge from talking for far too many ghosts for either of their liking this evening.

“Har-?”

He didn’t give him a chance to even ask as he bolted for the door, hearing several ghosts say
something in surprise but not giving a flying snitch. Neville stumbled but quickly got the
message and was running alongside him now too. It probably would’ve been easier to let go
of his hand and just run… but Harry had a bad feeling sinking deep into his stomach and he
was almost afraid to let Neville out of his grasp.

It felt close. Whatever it was… they were too deep down in the castle and Harry just knew
they had to get to higher ground, they needed to get away from it. His stomach twisted…

He felt clammy. He hadn’t felt this way in the safety of a Hogwarts hallway since he’d turned
a corner on a late night like this and been met with a hooded figure at the end of the hallway.

Maybe it the sugar or the rotten food at the party, but he very nearly threw up. He was
nauseous but he was too focused on running and trying to get enough breath in his lungs to
run that he kept it together.

They got to the top of the hallway and they had to pause—both from the dead sprint up
several flights of steps they’d just done but also for Harry to strain his ears and try to hear a
hint of what he was looking for over his panting. He slipped out his wand on reflex, thinking
of something—anything—that might work on whatever this was. It if was a physical threat he
could work with that… if it wasn’t what could he do…?

“Harry?” Neville gasped, looking scared.

Even more so when Harry gave him a dead serious look. “Take out your wand.” He
commanded and Neville did so without question, which was good, but still looked insanely
nervous to do so. “There’s something here… I’m not sure what it is exactly but I hate it.”

His eyes scanned the seemingly normal hallway… the hyper-aware feeling that something
horrific was right beside them was fading… thank god.

But, that meant it had moved, and he didn’t know where. It wasn’t a comforting feeling by
any means.
“Sh-should we tell the teachers?”

“I got the Slytherins to get Snape involved… he should’ve been looking into it.”

“Snape?” Neville seemed taken off guard by that, and not quite so comforted.

“Whatever this is, it’s dark. Figured he’d be the guy who could recognize it best for whatever
it was.” He explained, and that certainly had Neville agreeing a bit more.

“Okay, probably…but if he hasn’t done anything and you’ve sensed this before, maybe we
should tell more than just him.”

Harry had assumed Snape would tell the other teachers… Dumbledore even, since despite
being a questionable old man still played the part of a headmaster and would probably want
to know the things happening in his school. If Snape hadn’t, that would be… well, not too
bad if they caught it in time. That meant two separate groups of students had gone to their
house heads with the same issue: that would get it more attention and perhaps get it figured
out sooner.

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go tell McGonagall, she’ll at least be more concerned about it.”

He walked carefully as if he expected to see a troll around every corner, and Neville copied
his cautious steps automatically, not needing prompting to be overly cautious but now even
more so that Harry—who was never hesitant—was on high alert. Running into a troll wasn’t
even that bad a concern to have given it was exactly a year from the night he’d almost met his
end that way.

“Do you have any ideas of what it is?” Neville asked quietly as they picked their way overly
carefully though the candle-lit hallways.

“Not really… I brought it up to Daphne and we thought it was some kind of dark object.
Maybe Lockhart accidentally brought it in with him since last time we sensed it, it was
around his classroom… and he’s certainly stupid enough not to know a dark object from his
own pretty ass cheek.”

“Why do you have to say it like that,” Neville complained in a resigned way.

“I’ve never set eyes on anything I just sometimes get this really bad feeling and can almost
hear something like a disembodied voice promising murder and death and things like that.”

“…oh.” He got out in an eep, raising his wand in a slightly trembling hand.

Harry watched Neville’s grip on his wand and felt a surge of unease too. Not just for what
they might encounter, but also how the hell he was supposed to protect himself and his friend
if something popped out at them. The reminder of the troll and how helpless both he and
Hermione had been somehow more fresh than it’d been all year… he was younger then, only
by a year but still, and wrapped up in his own terror and fight for survival. If he’d been able
to think as clearly as he could now in a tense situation, he would’ve been a lot more terrified
for Hermione too back then. He should’ve been more scared for her—for the two of them
rather than just his own selfish self-preservation.

She hadn’t been the one hurt in the end which was honestly just luck, he recognized in
hindsight. It could’ve been her, and he wasn’t sure he was okay with that. He didn’t exactly
enjoy getting crushed by a troll, he would’ve chosen that no one got crushed by a troll, but if
he had to pick between the two of them he wasn’t exactly going to pick Hermione. He
wouldn’t enjoy it or volunteer exactly but he absolutely wouldn’t pick her to take his place
instead if the world somehow worked like that.

Similarly, if something popped out at them now he recognized that it might not be him that
got hurt. Neville somehow had worse luck than Harry himself did…and his stomach was
twisting into tight, ever-increasingly painful knots the more that thought ate away at him.

“Do you know any shield spells?”

“No,” Neville’s voice wavered as he answered.

“The stunning spell?”

“Y-yeah, I think so…”

“If it’s corporal, use that one. If it ends up being a ghost or something you can’t touch or hit
though, you know the giggling charm, right?”

“Yeah?” Neville blinked, surprised by that turn. Harry flashed him a reassuring grin.

“Use it on yourself. Theo told me if you can’t escape a dark object, using an intensely light
charm on yourself won’t save you exactly, but it’ll keep you alive until you can get help. In
most situations.” He wasn’t completely sure that this mystery threat wouldn’t be too powerful
or something, but it was a start.

“R-really?” His blue eyes seemed to absorb that… then he nodded, hand shaking slightly less
on his wand grip.

Harry got it. Having a plan helped, a lot.

Having no idea what the threat was and no plan for what the fuck to do when it came for you
was a lot more terrifying. Even if it was just a basic tactic for bare minimum survival, that
was better than nothing.

Despite his caution, he really didn’t sense anything else for the rest of their journey, choosing
to head back to the Great Hall where the feast was probably still going on, if not just about to
wrap up given the late hour. Not that he was dropping his guard for a second but as the
rumbling of a huge crowd echoed through the halls and he realized the entire student body
was leaving the feast and headed for their dorms at once, he did feel safer. People, crowds,
teachers… it was way more reassuring than wandering alone in the candlelit hallways of a
creepy castle on Halloween night, with his instincts on red alert keeping him on his toes.

Wait…
He paled, stomach flipping again when he realized the Slytherins leaving he feast would be
headed towards their dorm… directly back to where they’d just come from.

He didn’t know if it was still there, whatever it was, but if they’d truly run from where it
lived in the depths of the castle and getting farther away was safer…

The same fear that gripped him when he realized he didn’t know how to protect Neville made
him truly nauseous as he realized Draco was probably very unwittingly walking right back to
potential danger. And Harry wasn’t even there to be able to try to protect him.

“Draco,” he got out, sounding choked to his own ears and Neville snapped his head over at
his face, which Harry knew was probably as pale as the ghosts they’d just ditched. “They
Slytherins are walking right toward it…”

It only took a moment but the blond nodded more resolutely than he had been.

“I’ll tell McGonagall.”

Harry could’ve hugged him to death right there but settled for a thankful look before he took
off running—Neville going right for where the sounds of the crowd were loudest. He’d be
safe, with the group of lions heading back to the tower pretty much just on the end of this
hallway…

He couldn’t say the same for the Slytherins, who he knew were going to head for the hallway
one over as the quickest way back right down towards the dungeons.

He bolted, pouring on the speed with his wand firmly in hand, and felt his heart leap when he
made it around the bend to see the crowd of Slytherins already entering the side hallway
entrance. A frantic glance around and he didn’t see a single second year… going by where
they sat, the first and second years were probably leading the way.

He darted into the crowd, knowing he was doing himself no favors by knocking into people
when he couldn’t avoid it in a house that only barely tolerated him to begin with, but he
didn’t care. He avoided shoving as much as he could but heard several sharp comments shot
his way that were immediately out of range of his hearing given how fast he picked through
the crowd.

Thankfully, he got to the front in record time and picked out a very unique blond head out of
the throng.

“Draco!”

The Malfoy only got to half turn at the sound of his name before Harry latched onto his arm
and dragged him off to the side of the crowd forcible, eyes wide and frantic. He saw Blaise
and Theo in the crown blink in surprise at his sudden appearance too.

“Harry!?”

“Something’s wrong,” was all he got out before someone screamed.

The entirety of Slytherin house seemed to either jump or immediately tense towards the
sound, Harry and Draco too although Harry’s automatic reaction was to grip his friend’s arm
even tighter in defense of whatever it was. As it turned out though, it was a Tracy Davis
who’d turned the hallway corner first of the crowd to see whatever it was.

Pansy Parkinson, standing right next to her, burst out laughing as she saw it too.

As if he somehow had both learned to apparate and also somehow do it on Hogwarts’

grounds, Theo was suddenly right next to Harry’s shoulder, and frankly Harry was okay with
that as he gripped his wand tighter, raised in front of him.

Blaise somehow had much less self-preservation than the normal Slytherin and was
immediately in the next hallway to check it out, face lighting up in… something. Not quite
joy but definitely not fear—but something had his total, captivated interest, in an almost
vindictive way. Like someone who had never known they could feel this way, whatever it
was he was feeling.

“Oh Malfoy, you’re definitely going to want to see this,” He shot at his roommate’s direction
without tearing his eyes away, and then they were promptly separated by a crowd of older
Slytherins—half having seen it and others who wanted to—now all talking at once.

Draco lead the way this time, Harry far more hesitantly following him just to peek around the
corner. But… something in his gut told him he really didn’t actually want to know.

000

The chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, Beware.
 Frozen
Chapter Notes

Look at this freakin adorable fanart that And_ShinyVersion drew! I am so flattered and
this is just the cutest thing!

https://boladeplastilina.tumblr.com/post/686733165691289600/is-burning-red-by-
nonamewriter-this-fic-inspired
https://boladeplastilina.tumblr.com/post/686733794066219008/more-art-of-burning-red-
pls-rb

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Harry didn’t want to admit it, but he was kind of afraid.

Obviously the writing in blood on the wall, the poor petrified Mrs. Norris, the mysterious
entity that only he could hear that set every one of his nerves on edge constantly… that was
all very well concerning. Everyone was concerned.

No, it wasn’t just that… and he really didn’t want to admit it, but he was lowkey freaked out
by Blaise.

Like the guy’s reaction to the whole event truly put him on edge, and for the first time he was
blissfully happy that he was in Gryffindor and didn’t have to deal with that psychopath right
now.

“I told you.” Daphne was gracious enough to leave it at that, a very serious look in her eye
cowing him properly.

“I mean you did, but he’s also funny.” He defended himself like that made it any better.

“Did I miss something?” Seamus asked more of Dean, who was tying his shoes beside him
and looked up like he’d only half heard what they were talking about.

Despite all the uncertainty of whatever had happened Halloween night, they had a great turn
out for today’s football game. They finally had enough players who were practiced enough to
form two full teams that would put on an actual event and not just have the twins not-so-
subtly bully those who were still trying to pick up the basics of the game only to have one of
their ankles nearly broken by a frustrated Susan. The quidditch season officially picked up
next weekend (Gryffindor versus Slytherin, let’s just say Harry was about to literally combust
from excitement and leave it at that) but for this weekend word had gotten out about this
unofficial game actually being something important, given Harry suspected the two team
captains—Lu and Susan—had some kind of wager going. He didn’t know what was on the
line but the two of them were positively bloodthirsty for a win right now. Honestly it was a
shame Oliver couldn’t come today as he would probably like the enthusiasm the most, even if
he was very much quidditch-obsessed and had thus far not even considered learning the rules
of football.

At this point enough people were in the club to have friends who weren’t, and those
bystanders still wanted to see their friends play, which snowballed into a not-so small crowd
gathering on the side of the field now too. It was by no means the draw that quidditch had for
sure, but it really felt like something what happened here as they actually had an audience,
their transfigured uniforms for their “pick-up” teams, a scheduled time the game would start,
and even a referee!

Ginny had picked up the rules lighting fast but was still more of a quidditch player—she
wasn’t confident enough to play herself in a game this level but, with some encouragement
from Harry and Luna, had volunteered to be ref. Luna was an assistant ref of sorts too…
though no one was sure how much she was actually paying attention to the game, hence the
“assistant” title. The only thing they were missing that would make it a truly official-feeling
event was a commentator, since anyone who wanted to play was welcome and Lee, the de
facto commentator for most events, was actually on the field next to George and rearing to go
with the rest of them. Harry figured he probably would be on the quidditch team if he could
be, not just commentating it, if only there were more spots or even sports options at Hogwarts
than one game that only allowed seven players per house.

Harry even spotted some teachers in attendance as well, which was definitely a first as, no
matter what they preached, there were no muggleborn teachers at Hogwarts who would care
about a muggle sports club (not even the Muggle Studies professor which Harry wasn’t even
going to get start on less it ruin his mood). The scale that the club had become was definitely
levelling up with this game and he really hoped it would continue. Not that he had anything
to do with it at this point—Lu and Dean had been the real leaders pretty much since this
school year had started and he gave them all the credit; he’d literally just shown up today
ready to play where Susan told him to.

The absolute best part in his opinion though, was that Neville had been picked for goalie,
even if he was on Lu’s team and Harry was potentially going to go up against him, the fact
he’d been one of the top picks had clearly boosted his self-confidence a bit… even if he
looked like he was about to throw up from the nerves and pressure of what was about to
happen.

Harry’s stomach hadn’t exactly been that great before his first quidditch game to be fair, so he
didn’t have a ton of words of wisdom that would make it better unfortunately. Knowing he’d
probably only make it worse, he’d given all the encouragement he could at breakfast this
morning, but was letting Neville lie down behind the net to stare at the sky as he attempted to
not die from his nerves in peace.

They still had a good hour before the game started and they were just warming up; the
audience was still gathering and they didn’t even have all their players yet so they weren’t
rushed, just casually stretching and such. It wasn’t often you had all four houses in a
conversation like this either, and Harry was finding all of them were quick to jump to the
gossip mill funnily enough.
Not that the current gossip wasn’t more than worth talking about, given its dark nature.

Harry sighed at Seamus question, really having no idea how to begin answering it. How did
one explain Blaise?

“There are Slytherins, then there are psychopaths like Blaise.” He began in a weary tone,
earning an amused look from Dean and a very perturbed one from the Irishman beside him. It
didn’t help that Daphne was nodding way too gravely beside him in agreement, like a somber
hype man. “I don’t want to say he’s… excited? That’s not the right word… I guess I should
say he’s far more intrigued by the whole chamber ordeal than anyone else.” He explained a
delicately as he could.

Daphne scoffed very loudly.

“Intrigued? He talks about it the way Lu talks about technicalities. The guy is deranged.”

“Oi,” Lu huffed from where he was stretching on the ground, not strictly pleased about the
comparison.

“I mean, the ‘Chamber of Secrets’ is a Slytherin thing, yeah? I thought they were generally
more happy about it than anyone else. That’s certainly what I’ve heard Parkinson say.” Susan
looked more to Daphne as she said it, and the ravenette shrugged.

“I can’t speak for everyone of course. There are some who don’t think it’s bad that the rest of
the school fears us a little more than they did last week.”

Harry hummed slightly off-key. “Well, I get the feeling most don’t actually think much about
it at all—it’s more a hoax to them than an actual threat.”

“Really?” Both Lu and Seamus seemed to be genuinely surprised by that news.

“It’s a bit dramatic for Slytherin’s tastes.” Daphne conceded. “We do have our share of drama
queens but they uh… they’re also not the cream of the crop exactly in the clever department.”

That earned some snickers, which Daphne didn’t seem to mind even at the expense of her
house.

“Like say Flint would be dumb and dramatic enough to try something like that, not to
mention cruel enough to go after Mrs. Norris in a heartbeat even. But I highly doubt he’d
actually be skilled enough to petrify someone. I heard some upper years saying that’s above
seventh year magic, easily; it’s stuff you learn beyond schooling.” Harry explained.

If he heard upper years say it in the Slytherin common room, going by how the enchantments
worked in that space Harry knew it was information they wanted to be known. He was happy
to play his part about it, because he figured it was pretty true… to a point.

Magic you learned “beyond schooling” to the rest of the houses would mean things only
adults knew. To Slytherins though, that meant things of a darker nature you had to learn from
your parents outside of Hogwarts; not necessarily that it was hard but that you had to have
the connections to learn it elsewhere.
Daphne nodded in agreement with his words, and he knew she was in on it. By implying only
an adult or some other entity could do this, it made Slytherin less of a suspect—less of a
target to the rest of the school. It also brought it all in-house, where Slytherins could deal
with each other now in peace, as they tried to figure out who was responsible.

Slytherin did mostly think one among them did it… kind of… but they weren’t applauding
them either if it did turn out to be a snake. The blood on the wall was tacky and flashy and it
wasn’t something they thought worth being proud of. A strong Gryffindor could kill a cat and
write a threat on a wall to scare people; a Slytherin would kill a cat and send it to its owner in
a box with a threatening note to get some blackmail or leverage or something… what good
did panicking the whole school do but put Slytherin in the hot seat with everyone? Unless
that of course is what they wanted, which would imply it wasn’t a Slytherin at all. Or they
were a Slytherin who needed the school to be terrified of them to work on some plan they
had… although everyone was scratching their heads on what on earth would require that,
much less whatever it was that couldn’t be done in a much simpler way without the threat of
being expelled if caught.

Daphne was right, some Slytherins loved that they were more feared and were gleefully
playing into it. Flint was the biggest offender of the crime, for sure, and unfortunately the
loudest. A much larger population of Slytherin house liked the power of being feared, but
since it wasn’t strictly useful in most cases they were more ambivalent. Some were finding it
harder to enact plans and make deals with non-Slytherins since their reputation had taken a
dip and were flat out annoyed by it even.

The real problem was the fact it was powerful. And they tended to call it an “it” if they
weren’t focused on pondering over a “who” because, having more experience with darker
magics than most, the snake house was still not fully convinced the thing that’d done this was
a person at all. It very well could be but before they went on an all-out witch hunt (no pun
intended) within their own house they were keeping their options open. Keeping their minds
open to all the possibilities of what the threat could be, so as to not miss anything if the
evidence did happen to present itself.

Luckily, only Harry himself, Draco, Blaise, and Theo knew that Harry being a parselmouth
was tied to his bloodline, making him the “heir” the threat spoke of. Everyone else had long
since adopted the attitude that parseltongue was not as inherited an ability as everyone had
always thought it to be.

The very next morning after the Halloween incident, Blaise had been the one to corner him
outside the great hall before he could go in for breakfast, Draco and Theo hot on his heels as
they knew what he was doing—Theo probably because he had to know for the sake of
sleeping at night and Draco probably to stop Blaise from eating his best friend whole in his
ravenous need to know the truth. They’d flat out asked if he’d had anything to do with it.

He’d gone with honesty, explaining he’d known something was wrong and Daphne had
Snape working on it; how he’d known the same thing was wrong with Neville at the Death-
day party and come to stop them from going down into the dungeons… and he’d confessed
flat out that he had nothing to do with it. He had no idea what he’d turn the corner to see that
night, same as the rest of them—he hadn’t even known you could petrify people or what the
Chamber of Secrets even was until Neville had told him that night before bed, when he
hadn’t quite understood why everyone was freaking out (besides the obvious attack, that is—
Slytherins wouldn’t care even if Mrs. Norris had been fully killed, but the news of this
‘chamber’ clearly rattled them in a way that’d told Harry it was more important than he
realized).

Most people would be skeptical of course, even if they would have to accept his words at
face value since torturing people for information outside the great hall was probably
something only the most skilled could get away with.

Blaise though, seemed to immediately accept that he was telling the truth.

And he’d burst out laughing in a truly maniacal way that had Harry avoiding him ever since.
Draco seemed to support this tactic even if it meant he was sitting at the Slytherin table less,
his expression every time his roommate was brought up telling Harry that he really didn’t
want to know what insanity Blaise was up to right now.

He’d maybe gotten too comfortable hanging out with the grey heir that, despite him logically
knowing it was a bad idea, he still hadn’t cared and had been happy to hang out with the guy.
Now that his instincts went off as if there were a troll behind him every time Blaise sat down
across from him at lunch these days, it made it much harder to forget and he was realizing
what everyone else in the snake house had been trying to tell him since day one. Apparently
his self-preservation skills were not as refined as he thought they were.

Or maybe they were, and it was just Blaise, since he’d noted that Theo had dropped off the
face of the planet and was not sitting near anyone at any meals now. In fact he only knew the
boy was still eating at all because Draco had let slip he’d been occasionally bringing the quiet
mouse food from where he was hiding in the depths of the library outside of classes this
week.

Whatever the fuck Blaise was up to notwithstanding, it didn’t really leave them with a whole
lot of answers with-or-without the knowledge that Harry was in fact technically Slytherin’s
heir. The very worst suspicion of his is that someone somehow knew the results of his
bloodline test and figured doing malicious attacks like this with the “heir” tossed in as a red
herring in his direction, to throw anyone off the scent of who was really behind it. Thing was,
no one else knew about his heritage issue so no one even knew to “suspect” him, making it a
pretty useless red herring if that was the case.

Harry doubted this writing on the wall was actually related to him, even if his paranoia made
that extremely difficult to accept. At the very least, Blaise was the one who made sure no one
knew he was Slytherin’s heir and batshit crazy as the dude was, he knew how to run the
gossip mill so Harry was reluctantly willing to trust he’d kept that secret for now.

Which meant even knowing more than the rest of the school, they still had no idea who or
what could’ve done it. Something powerful was pretty much the only generally accepted fact,
despite how the rumors were churning up crazier and crazier suggestions as time went on.

“I’m still a fan of the theory that it’s somehow Lockhart’s fault.” Lu hummed, sitting up
properly from his stretch. “Not that I can think of what on earth he did, but to me it’s more
than plausible that he’s accidentally done something horrific.”

“Completely agree,” Daphne deadpanned.

“Besides, the Defense position is cursed; no teacher lasts more than a year so it would make
sense that this somehow ends up in his removal.”

“Yo,” Seamus and Dean perked up at that, giving themselves a shared grin before high fiving
slyly.

“Is he that bad?” Susan hesitated, looking a bit disappointed which made Harry roll his eyes.

Lu popped up from the ground to give her a frazzled shout, “Not you too—don’t look at his
pretty face think of the horrible content of his teaching!”

“Nerd,” she scoffed, eyes glinting playfully at his indignant cry.

“Not wanting to be attacked by grindylows does not make me a nerd!”

“I wonder if there’s something we can do,” Harry ignored that fight and looked mostly at
Daphne. “Like, with no idea what it is the only thing that’s probably likely is that it’ll happen
again. Is there anything we can do to protect people?”

“Actual defenses against the dark arts are family secrets.” She shrugged, a bit wryly. “Even if
someone did have a protection against whatever threat this is, there’s no way they’re spilling,
much less sharing. Trust me if I had something to sell I would, but the lack of information
makes it hard.”

“I mean Slytherin can’t be that asked about it, can they? The message seemed to be targeting
muggleborns.” Seamus pointed out.

But he hadn’t even finished before Harry was shaking his head. “Just the same, it could also
be a ploy to pin the blame on Slytherin house and cover their tracks. Besides, ‘enemies of the
heir’… frankly Slytherins are at each other’s throats more than they are anyone else’s these
days, I don’t necessarily think they’re safe.” He also left out the glaring weakness in that
argument than there were muggleborn Slytherins. Everyone very pointedly did not speak
about that though, particularly those individuals, and Harry wasn’t about to out them when
they were already working at a disadvantage within their house.

“Petrifying a cat and attacking students are whole different levels of crimes here too,”
Surprisingly, it was Susan who gave that rather cold judgement, but then again her aunt was
the head of law enforcement so she probably had a gravely level head instilled on her for a
while now. “Mrs. Norris was intelligent and had above-human senses that could’ve given
whatever this thing is away, so it would make sense she’d have to go. Petrifying, not killing,
particularly when we have mandrakes growing in our greenhouses literally year around…
maybe the intent was not to harm but to scare. That would line up with it being too flashy an
attack for Slytherin and Harry’s suggestion that it’d just to throw us off who really did it. To
go from torturing animals to actually attacking humans is a huge escalation that typically
takes years, and hopefully they’ll be caught long before then given they’ll probably have
other warning signs. You have to be an expert psychopath to act 100% normal but be killing
animals and attacking people in your free time, after all.”

Harry perked up at that… not necessarily good news exactly, but it was comforting to hear at
least that the threat above them probably wasn’t imminent or something. It made being able
to enjoy activities like a weekend soccer game a bit easier.

He also enjoyed the way Daphne narrowed her eyes slightly, as if she’d forgotten temporarily
with how buddy-buddy they’d been getting in the name of winning this football game, that
Susan was probably the closest thing in Hogwarts right now to a cop. And her sharp
deduction skills probably reminded the grey-oriented businesswoman to be on her toes.

If what Neville had told him was true and things like nepotism and confidentiality weren’t
really things in the wizarding world, anything Susan told her aunt could potentially be used in
a court of law. Which was extremely fucked up but also apparently how this world worked,
so best be careful about it.

“You still say that like this is human. If it’s a dark object?” Lu countered pointedly.

“Well then hopefully it’s Lockhart’s fault and he gets fired at the end of the year—problem
solved.” Seamus snickered and earned several amused snorts as well.

“Oi! Are you guys going to keep fraternizing or are we going to strategize at any point?”
George (Harry was only 70% sure) waltzed over and kicked the ball he, Fred, and Lee had
been practicing with into their circle.

“Oh that’s right—you’re dead to me starting now.” Susan sniffed with a mock glare shot Lu’s
way who calmly flipped her the bird before stalking back to his chosen side of the field and
she did the same, like a switch flipped and the chatty air they’d had being replaced with
something that would not have shocked anyone had there been actual lightning striking the
pitch.

“I supposed that’s my cue,” Harry recognized dryly, glancing to Seamus and Dean who got
up to follow Lu while he suspected he was supposed to follow Susan in a show of solidarity
given she was the captain for this. “Do we know what that’s about yet?”

“Not a clue.”

“I wouldn’t ask.” Seamus sniffed and Harry thought that probably wise advice.

“Okay, well anyway I hope you lose.” He waved cheerily and they waved just as cheerily
back.

“Get stuffed!”

Harry laughed with his back to them as he jogged after Susan… only to need to do a double
take as he ran down the field and realized he recognized a face in the crowd that he really
wasn’t expecting to see today.
With an evil grin he purposefully slowed his run and then was oh so casually walking like
he’d just gotten tired, giving a half-hearted wave to the girl whose glare would’ve peeled
paint off a wall when she realized what he was doing.

“Fancy seeing you here Davis, come to cheer me on? Or cheer for my death?”

Her eyes were probably the palest he’d ever seen blue be, her hair rivaling Draco’s in how
unnaturally white-blonde it was. She really looked like she could literally breath frost and the
frigid glare really didn’t help.

“I don’t see why I can’t do both—the only reason you’re getting my support is that Daphne is
on your team, you know that Monroe?”

“If I die then I’m assuming the match will be postponed. Standard quidditch rules you know,
deaths mean the game is written off as a draw.” He pointed out.

“Okay you can live; I’ll be cheering for your serious maiming then.”

“I’ll take it!” He grinned a bit too flippantly. “All I heard from that is that you’ll be cheering
for me!”

“Fuck off,” She rolled her eyes and he enjoyed making a show of obeying her by spinning on
his heel and heading to his original destination at a much more leisurely pace.

When he made it to the huddle where Susan was already laying down the gameplan for those
who’d already gathered, Daphne shot him a look.

“I saw that.”

“Saw what?”

She rolled her eyes and returned to listening to what Susan was saying; Harry just grinned a
bit to himself and figured, for as complicated as things were getting, he also thought maybe it
was also an improvement.

000

Blaise was on his way to the owlery.

It was a very normal thing to do, something that every student did at least once, though more
likely dozens, hundreds, thousands of times in their tenure at Hogwarts.

No one would think anything of it if they saw him. Well, a Slytherin might suspect simply
because despite his efforts there was no way any decent snake would think him innocent for
sure, and would immediately assume he was up to something… but so far as his actions went
there was nothing anyone would be able to call him on. He even had a decoy letter in his
breast pocket should anyone question his empty hands.

No one did though because he didn’t run into anyone—he’d heard about the muggle game
happening on the fields today. It was supposedly a rather high turnout which was probably
where everyone was, and he was half disappointed to need to miss it only because he was
fundamentally against being left out. If there was a crowd then he definitely wanted to be a
part of it, to be able to see whatever anyone else was seeing first.

Although honestly the idea of a muggle game without any brooms sounded dreadful. He
didn’t even like quidditch but at least then there was a small chance of death or grievous
injury to keep him hopeful. Running around the muggle way on a sport he understood even
less seemed like a drag.

Even then, he couldn’t quite shake the displeasure at being left out, or even just generally
being uninvolved. It was irritating.

He walked with purpose and a slight smile on his face, confidentially towards his destination.
Even if someone had been around (like say the thousands of paintings on the wall) they
would never suspect a thing given this was how he always acted.

Inside… his mind fluxed.

Hogwarts was getting interesting.

Not that it hadn’t been entertaining enough so far—at least 50% of his entertainment
definitely coming from the oddity that was Harry Potter and the opportunities to torture
Draco that came along with him. Last year had been plenty interesting he supposed… he
hadn’t been bored exactly as he went about setting up his position in Slytherin house and
taking notes the best he could. Not much an eleven-year-old could really do with the training
he’d received from Dalia Zabini, he could only start laying the groundwork for when they
were all older and hormones started to make it hard for people to see straight. That was his
only way he’d make much progress with people his own age after all: if they couldn’t see him
properly enough to remember not to trust him.

And well. It wasn’t like he could do much during his Hogwarts years anyway, and if people
were still that clueless after graduation then they were practically asking for it. This was all
essentially just practice, but he’d known he had a couple years before he really needed to start
focusing more. He liked running Hogwarts’ rumor mill much more to be honest, so he was
happy to have that occupy him for the time being.

Mrs. Norris had changed the game though.

Draco liked to call him the untouchable Slytherin… and he loved the way that sounded. He
leaned into the title proudly, flaunted it even, because to someone like Draco it was even true.
First, second, hell even third year Slytherins didn’t have to worry too much about things
bigger than their own reputations and upcoming tests and quidditch games. Some worried
about parents when they were home on break, about family reputations and cold households.

Blaise was only so happy to concern himself with those things too… but Mrs. Norris changed
it all.

It stung a bit… Draco’s flippant words, his jealousy even, that he only barely tried to hide at
how apparently easy Blaise had it. And he did, honestly, since for now it was true. Hogwarts
as a game and it wasn’t that hard for him, truthfully.

The words did sting though… particularly when he felt sweat cling to the back of his neck
imaging what his mother would say about some of his choices.

What she was going to say when she heard about Mrs. Norris.

Untouchable, huh? He smiled blankly to no one.

Petrification was nothing to fuck about with.

It was dark magic, plain and simple. In fact it was one of the spells in which there was really
no ifs, ands, or buts about it being questionable or mislabeled—it was dark. It wasn’t
anything like the hardening charm or the full body bind curse, it was fundamentally different
and the difference came from the intent behind it.

It wasn’t something humans could do, that was for sure.

True petrification was a dark magic almost as old as magic itself, and it had never once been
something that belonged to humans. Humans were capable of both light and dark magic all
they wanted, they could both give and take life as it pleased then. Only a creature of pure
dark magic could cease all life in its tracks without prejudice or hesitation, simply by a means
of existing; only a couple of dark creatures in existence had ever formed the ability, in fact.

One of those creatures was rumored to be gorgons, creatures that hadn’t been seen since
ancient Greece, even in the magical world. Even now they were more myth than actual
beings, tales of them popping up throughout history here and there pretty well believed and
even verifiable if you did enough digging… but they really weren’t too common anymore.
They were seen as exceptionally dangerous, given they could turn people to stone with a
single look, so even if they ever did surface, they didn’t live long.

People tended not to remember the origin of petrification spells, since in modern times there
was a lot of misinformation and rumor about certain things like this. The full body bind curse
and plenty of other dark spells used in the last war that were cheap mockeries of petrification
at best; their existence and use had thrown a lot of confusion about, until most people thought
it dark magic that was a very well-kept secret. People even brought it up in government every
so often to argue on if it should be an Unforgivable. Gorgons were just myths or exceedingly
rare dark creatures that also had this ability after all, they weren’t the progenitors.

If the Zabini family had anything to do with that rumored fact, he couldn’t precisely say.

It wasn’t like it was common knowledge that the Zabini family could trace their origins all the
way back to Ancient Rome.

Right down to the razing of Ancient Greece, and the theft of its many wonders, in fact.

Blaise made it to the owlery and went right up to an open window, almost precisely before
the clock tower above him started to chime.
He slipped an object from his pocket and offered it up to an owl that landed on the open sill, a
velvet purple ribbon tied around its neck. It tapped its beak on it twice before flapping its
wings harshly once and taking off just as sharply as it’d landed, without sparing him a glance.

He opened the pocket watch and watched the shimmering glass surface flicker a couple
times… clicking it shut before turning on his heel and walking back down the owlery steps
just as calmly and assuredly as he’d arrived.

Say nothing

He’d be lying if his said he wasn’t slightly disappointed.

It wasn’t his first choice of plan, but he also knew better than to disobey his mother.

Hogwarts could’ve gotten way more interesting if the stakes were truly this much higher than
a failed test or the same old Slytherin politics he’d been running circles around since birth
practically. He’d had so many brilliant ideas of how to use this… the most profitable being
offered protection if someone were willing to pay enough for it.

Draco, for instance… was definitely his parents’ pride and joy, and Blaise could probably
safely bet many promises and favors being pledged if he could ensure the boy’s safety. Or at
least a chance at safety, as creatures with petrifying eyes tended to avoid each other for good
reason.

Not that he had those. Not that certain dark creatures would know that.

So many missed chances, he pouted internally. I don’t know how mother expects me to get at
the Malfoy inheritance with Harry Pretty Potter in the picture—this would’ve been my only
chance to even get close. Though… honestly Mr. Malfoy would likely just take Draco out of
Hogwarts than pay too much… probably. Hm, I wonder what that tipping point would be?

…not that it matters, as I’ve been told to do nothing.

He blew out a breath in annoyance as he ducked under a tapestry for a shortcut—no paintings
in here so for a brief moment he scrunched his face in annoyance before schooling it once
more as he slipped back out into an open hallway. This could’ve been so much fun to hold
over people’s heads… especially Harry, who was clearly desperate to know.

Not… that he couldn’t still have some fun, he considered carefully…

Everyone knew Harry Potter was a parselmouth about now, but they didn’t know he’d been
hearing a “voice”, twice now. Greengrass, the poor excuse of a Slytherin, knew and hadn’t
figured it out yet even with the discovery that Mrs. Norris had experienced a true
petrification. There was no way of knowing if Melinda Lyles had made the connection on her
own but Blaise rest assured she wouldn’t act even if she had.

And where would the atmosphere go, if everyone knew what they were up against?

There was absolutely no mystery or intrigue if you knew what was after you, was there?
He grinned to himself, deciding to do his family proud in burying some information right
beside their exes. He was still obeying his mother if he not only didn’t provide the
information, but ensured no one got to it either.

He was walking through the halls of Hogwarts once more, headed back to the common room,
and just as he was approaching the main steps down to the dungeons, it occurred to him that
perhaps he should be afraid.

He stood no chance against a basilisk, probably.

No one did.

If it were just a creature acting on animal instincts and such, he was probably okay.

But not if it weren’t just an animal, but instead properly motivated by… say, whoever wrote
those words in blood on the wall…

…he shrugged, not too bothered as he all but skipped down the steps in front of him with a
smirk he couldn’t quite tamp down.

000

Harry had never jumped off a cliff before, but he thought maybe he understood what it felt
like… in both soul and body, unfortunately. Jumping off a cliff without a broom or a
parachute, he should say. Maybe there was water at the bottom, but from high enough a
height it didn’t really matter anymore; it was still going to really bloody hurt.

He wasn’t afraid of heights so he would probably jump of his own free will… and then just
as he made impact with the water he’d realize maybe that was a bit too high, even for him.

Gryffindor vs Slytherin.

Normally that phrase would cause his eye to twitch and this random compulsion would
surface that made him want to pinch whoever had said it as hard as he could. Today though,
in the context of quidditch, he was nothing but thrilled.

Maybe only him and Draco were in the air today with something like good sportsmanship
and friendly rivalry singing in the air, while everyone else was genuinely trying to kill each
other, but for some reason in the context of quidditch that didn’t bother Harry at all. It was to
be expected in such a violent game, and he could die just as easily falling off his broom or
getting hit in the head with a bludger and boom—no more Harry Potter, just like that. The
thing about bludgers too, was that they were exceptionally hard to see coming sometimes if
your focus was elsewhere… like say, anywhere else in the wild game being played.

Or maybe even on a fluttery golden snitch just out of his fingers’ grasp as he raced through
the air at speeds that made his heart forget it needed to keep beating sometimes, like it was
clinging to him for dear life in fear at what its pilot was doing with their body.

Bludgers kind of just appeared and you had to have killer reflexes to dodge or sense them. In
an actual game, you didn’t even get the telltale woosh warning their imminent arrival as they
really couldn’t be heard over the screaming stadium and Lee’s bellowing commentary about
whatever goal someone had just scored behind him.

Harry was practically peaked in excitement and adrenaline induced thrill—not quite fear but
the near-death nature of the game definitely had his fight or flight churning double time, and
he was pouring it into his reflexes and the sheer speed he was pushing his broom to go. Draco
was here, in the air with him and while they weren’t head-to-head as seeker and chaser, he’d
seen the faces the blond was shooting at him when they had a brief moment to breath and it
was just so fucking fun.

It was a great game. Pretty evenly matched, a nailbiter making them work even harder and
fly even faster and reach even deeper for just another inch against their opponents and the
thrill of the game and the bloodthirsty desire to win was just so catching and—

--and Harry had spotted the snitch and almost forgot to breath as he leaned flat down and
dove for it, the wind a sheer tunnel around him and only Osmias’ very clever contacts
preventing his eyes from ever drying out even under such conditions. His ears went almost
deaf to the roar of the chaos around him and the bludgeoning wind, the pull of gravity from
his dive and sharp turns as he dodged and dove for the snitch with every ounce he had
making his stomach actually do real somersaults in a sickeningly exciting way as the world
spun and lurched around him in his wild maneuvers. He was so excited to nab this tricky little
snitch and taste the thrill of victory—this game of all games! He always loved winning and
the ear drum shattering cheers from the stadium, it was already a feeling he loved more than
anything but to win this game in particular when Draco was only just so far away and
clashing against him and he would win despite that and it would just be so—so--!

He almost dislocated his shoulder lurching just that tiny bit farther, balancing precariously on
his maxed-speed broom beneath him, very dangerously leaning too forward on it than was
safe to just get that tiny bit more reach and—

--his fingers closed around the always surprisingly warm gold metal-!

CRACK

The air was ripped from his lungs as his arm caught fire.

He automatically yanked it back to his chest as if to get it away from the flames like someone
who’d just accidentally touched fire, but that only doubled the agony, causing black spots to
appear in his vision and making flying extremely difficult as his balance almost gave, the
broom wavering dangerously beneath him to the point he needed to drop his speed
immediately or he was going to go careening into the stands uncontrollably. Either that or it’d
tilt down by the handle from how far he was leaning forward and he’d start spinning front
over end until he fell off, and in fact he almost did do that—his mind blocking out the pain in
his arm for a split second, overridden by the sheer fear of the imminent broom crash he had
to deal with and just barely getting it under control. It was so close he felt his stomach surge
as if to lose his breakfast from the heart-stopping scare.

The world spun from an onslaught of pain from his arm and he had to clench his jaw shut and
lean forward on his now-slowed broom weakly to keep from passing out as the black spots
refused to fade even as he started focusing on how the hell he was supposed to keep
breathing with this agony.

Somehow though, he didn’t manage to let go of the snitch, although he fumbled with the
handle of his broom to grip it more tightly with his legs as he switched hands to grab the
snitch with his good arm, cradling his hurt one into his stomach to get it out of the way
awkwardly, a bolt of lightning ripping up his arm as he jostled it and he gave a small cry of
pain automatically.

Fuck that hurts!

“Get down!” A plume of red appeared in front of him and the handle of his broom dipped
forward dangerously steep the same time he heard Lee’s voice bellowing across the entire
stadium that Gryffindor had won. His stomach dropped again at the sharp decline in the air,
only to jump right back up into his throat as a bludger whipped right by where his head had
been a second ago. His hair fluttered violently and he realized it had whipped through his
falling ponytail, from how close that was.

“What the hell!?” Another voice echoed the early shout in exactly the same tone.

It was the twins, he realized, as George was suddenly on his other side with his beater’s bat,
whacking away the bludger that did a sharp u-turn mid-air to come back after them, Fred
rising from where he’d pulled Harry’s broom down to brandish his own weapon in
annoyance.

No… it wasn’t after them, it was after Harry.

“This bloody-” Fred swatted it back once more and Harry remained still in the air cradling his
clearly broken arm and letting the twins do their work. He didn’t want to move and risk
making their job harder, just thankful they were here as they watched the ball make a hairpin
turn to beeline right for him once more. What was wrong with it!?

“Is it cursed!?” Wood dropped down, the rest of the Gryffindor team now circling nervously
at the scene happening but not getting too close to interfere with the twins who were still zig-
zagging in a predictable pattern around Harry to intercept the rouge bludger. They’d always
been good beaters, but now it was clear that since they knew where the typically-random
balls were going, they were even better—it was a simple matter of gauging how hard they
were hitting it away and timing when it’d be able to come back to hit it again, and they
quickly and seamlessly picked up the pattern as it came back again, and again, and again.

“Hooch!” Several players called for help, or at least guidance on the situation, and the referee
began circling as well with a baffled look on her face.

“I’m not sure, it’s never done that before!”

No shit, Harry instantly scowled, both internally and externally he was sure. Do something!

“Yeah no shit!” Angelica voiced his thoughts bluntly, looking worried but also just as
annoyed with the referee as Harry was.
“Warrington!” A new voice barked, and they glanced up to realize the Slytherin team was
also circling much higher above them, most watching on in interest and none looking that
worried apart from the blond that had shouted, grey irises locked on the bludger with an
eagle-eyed intensity. “Blast it!”

“Eh? But-”

“I’ll buy the school a new set, just blast it.” Draco snapped at him, and for a second year he
had a tone that the fourth year just rolled his eyes at, but complied. He whipped out his wand
and in half a second the bludger exploded in a plume of leather and fluff, the twins waiting a
couple of seconds tensed as if ready for another attack, before relaxing when they realized it
was fine.

“Mr. Malfoy!” Hooch balked, but Harry had enough and just dropped in the air back to the
ground, Draco instantly following suit to avoid her scolding and the two teams following
their lead quickly. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as his feet hit solid ground once more,
shoving the snitch into his robes pocket and flinching as he shifted, his arm stinging sharply
to remind him of its situation. It was really broken, probably shattered if the numb feeling up
to his shoulder and the faint blue tips of his fingers meant anything. If ever he doubted that
getting hit with a bludger hurt like a bitch, the doubt had gone from his mind entirely now.

Still, somehow it was a good pain. If that made sense.

Not a torture curse or starvation or a cut or muscle weakness or nausea or fear or anxiety…

Good old broken bones. So simple.

Or, maybe I’m just in total shock, he admitted mentally to himself.

“Shit, let’s get you to the hospital wing,” One of the twins was right beside him immediately.

“Isn’t Pomfrey usually nearby for matches though?” The other countered.

“You’re not going to pass out are you?” Angelina was suddenly there too, looking angry for
some reason.

“Great catch Harry!”

“Shut up Wood!”

“Everyone back up.” A sharper, higher tone sliced through the Gryffindor chaos like a knife
through butter, and for some reason all the red around him jumped back a bit in surprise,
Harry blinking widely as Draco was suddenly right in front of him, green quidditch robes
standing out amongst the sea of color around them—not a single other Slytherin in sight,
predictably.

Draco’s face was blank, but he was right on him and gently touching the tips of the fingers
Harry had cradled to his stomach. “Can you feel your fingers?”

“Not a thing.” He admitted honestly.

“Even this?” He pinched them, and Harry just shook his head. “Sit down—you, you so called
captain, go get Pomfrey. She’s on the west stand.”

Wood blinked in surprise at being called out, then his brow furrowed as he opened his mouth,
presumably to argue given a Slytherin, and a second year at that, had just ordered him to do
anything. He didn’t get the chance though as Angelina had him practically by the ear and
were both suddenly sprinting through the crowds of people spilling out onto the field—most
screaming either cheers, boos, or in fright at the rouge bludgers.

“Yo Apples, you’re taking this pretty well.” Fred chirped as he helped Harry lower himself
one-handedly onto the grass, where he just took a large breath and tried to steady himself.
Oddly, he felt fine.

“Either I’m in total shock, or this just doesn’t hurt as much as getting crushed by a troll or
tortured by a teacher.” He blurted out.

“Wait what?” Fred blinked.

“I’m going with shock,” Draco shot him an incredulous look before lightly bopping him on
the head as a reminder to shut the hell up.

Yeah, probably a good idea.

“Harry my boy!”

“Oh my god,” Katie deadpanned in absolute horror at the approaching blond head atop a
mass of periwinkle robes made his way through the crowd like they were all here to see him
and not cluster around both the winner of the match and an extremely injured student. She
and Fred had hands under his arms to help lower him down but he felt them both tense once
more as if wondering if they should try and flee with him to avoid whatever this lunatic was
about to do. How he got here before Pomfrey, was both a mystery and a miracle.

And not a good one.

“Uh… how bad is this going to be.” He wondered to himself, but also realized he’d said that
aloud. Not sure if he’d meant to do that.

Draco’s face made a very interesting twitch.

“Weasleys, if you care about Harry you’ll get that man away from us.” He hissed so
venomously Harry was surprised that was English and not parseltongue honestly.

Fred and George blinked at the blond in shock at being addressed so randomly, and then each
other in equal amounts of alarm as they realized what was being asked of them. What was at
stake actually.

Either Harry was more out of it than he though or the twins practically teleported to suddenly
throw themselves at Lockhart who caught them automatically in surprise—even more so
when both twins exploded into the most ridiculous display of crocodile tears Harry had ever
witnessed.
“Save us professor!”

“Oh it’s horrible! Dreadful!”

“Oh the humanity!”

“Help us!”

“It’s horrific!”

“Who could’ve done this!?”

“Professoooooor!”

“My dear boys, don’t fret! I am here, I’ll fix it immediately!”

Neither twin let up their fake sobbing for a second though to let Lockhart get another word in
edgewise; he didn’t seem upset about being begged for help despite the fact they weren’t
actually letting him progress a step farther to even do anything. The rest of the crowd that had
formed in the chaos quieted a little, seeming conflicted on if they were trying to get a glimpse
of Harry, or stare openly at whatever the heck the Weasley twins were performing right now.

Thankfully, Lockhart’s distraction from the actual matter at hand was enough time for
Pomfrey to arrive and squeeze past the clustering of people that only seemed to be growing
instead of shrinking, giving a few sharp remarks that got people backing up finally.

Harry only half noticed her, also still watching the twins dramatic weeping like he couldn’t
quite look away.

He watched George wipe a snotty nose on Lockhart’s periwinkle robes without the professor
noticing and burst out laughing.

Which very much didn’t sooth Pomfrey who shot him a look, one which Draco shared.

“Shock, then.”

“Definitely.” Draco agreed with her although it wasn’t exactly a question. He then took
Pomfrey’s gentle attempt to make Harry lie down as an invitation and put a hand over his
face to shove him flat against the ground impatiently.

“Draco,” he complained, only to be shushed— the pain suddenly tripling in his arm for one
brief instant before it vanished, so quick he immediately told himself he probably imagined
it. He automatically clenched his hand as feeling returned and tried to lift his head to look
down—only for Draco’s hand on his forehead to shove him back down into the grass before
he’d gotten more than an inch.

“Stay down.” Came the snappish order.

“What just happened?” Harry blinked at the sky in a daze.

“I fixed the broken bone as much as I can for now, but it is still weak so please refrain from
moving too much, Mr. Potter.” Pomfrey explained, and he felt her wrapping something
around his forearm carefully. “Given your magical core I’ll not be making the same mistake
twice, so you’ll be coming back to the hospital wing until it’s fully healed. Also while the
bone is set, you are still in shock so please lie still for a couple minutes.”

“Alright…” He blinked, Draco’s face suddenly coming into view and giving him a skeptical
look. It took him a couple seconds too long to realize what it was for. “I said alright Draco, I
do mean it. I won’t move until Madam Pomfrey tells me to, I promise.”

His silent stare said he blatantly didn’t believe him but had to let it go for now. Harry just
rolled his eyes and blinked up into the blue above him, trying to breath for a moment… that
was a lot of emotion and things that had just happened in a short amount of time for him to
take in, and he didn’t think he was doing that great a job of it. Or, you know, maybe it was
that shock.

He kind of zoned out, staring at the sky, but before he knew it he was on the floating stretcher
Pomfrey had and was whisked off to the hospital wing. He thought he probably could’ve
walked on his own if he could just rest a couple minutes but going by Draco’s expression as
he followed them up to the castle he decided to just stick to his word and lie still for a bit. His
head kind of throbbed so he didn’t mind the coddling too much.

He was given several potions of various levels of disgusting before the Madam finally let him
get up—not to leave unfortunately but simply to change into the white infirmary clothes
provided so he could spend the night. He would’ve complained a bit more if she didn’t have a
very handy spell to wave her wand and dry him off, completely removing the grim of the
hard game he’d just played, and also a cup of something tea-like that instantly warded off the
chill he’d developed from being outside on a brisk autumn day so he was, in fact, quite
comfy in his hospital bed.

He was considering being pacified enough for tonight and saving his complaints for
tomorrow when Draco plopped down into the chair beside his bed, looking very hassled.
Harry bit down a smile as he pointedly sipped his tea, wanting to tease him for being out of
his always-composed persona he typically had be deciding his friend was stressed out enough
for today.

“Troublesome Gryffindor… now I have to buy the school new bludgers.” He complained
although Harry could tell that was not the actual issue he had with this situation, just the one
he was sticking to.

“How ever will you survive the bill.” He snipped dryly, enjoying Draco’s eye roll. “You sure
bossing around a fourth year like that was wise?” He wondered aloud.

“Warrington is a bit of an odd case.” The Slytherin half shrugged, not really too concerned
over it. “He really is pretty neutral even amongst Slytherins, despite his family having a dark
affiliation, so he wouldn’t actually mind helping out a Gryffindor if backed into a corner like
that—at least one we officially like, like you.” He ducked his head in acknowledgement at
that and Harry had to grin over his teacup. “Also, of everyone in the air that time, he’s got the
best aim and best control in casting a spell, plus he knows enough dark arts that he probably
canceled out any enchantments on it when he hit it. A normal blasting curse can’t do that.”

“So by singling him out you were basically complimenting his skills.” Which he probably
wouldn’t be too upset about. Admittedly, hitting a moving target with so little hesitation with
a dark spell that doubled as an enchantment remover without hitting any of the two teams
circling in the air right then was damn impressive. In a whole stadium it told the more
observant of the school that Warrington wasn’t a push over, and he was very dangerous.

Most Slytherins, particularly dark-leaning ones, would be pretty pleased by that, so Draco
had made a pretty good call on a fly like that. He’d saved his Gryffindor friend but also
hadn’t suffered politically for it, something Harry had to be happy about on Draco’s behalf
but also frankly his own.

“Something like that, yeah. It wasn’t just flattery either; I would’ve tried to blast it if I could,
but I’d probably have hit someone and just made a fool of myself.” Draco admitted, which
Harry had to think over for a moment.

Accuracy like that really was a skill, and Harry wondered if he had it. After a couple
moments of thought though, he realized aside from hand-eye coordination, his aim with
spells wasn’t that impressive. It wasn’t like throwing or catching something, it was a whole
other level of magical ability—dueling was one thing as the duel lanes were straight, but even
Draco who was good at magic and charms, in a straight lane like that it’d be relatively easy to
dodge his spells.

Huh.

When, in real life, is your opponent directly in front of you and not allowed to move too far to
the left or the right? Real fights have a million moving parts, so accuracy in a real fight is
way more important… but it’s probably WAY harder to learn too.

The clear answer was to work at getting better accuracy, but that didn’t stop the life-
threatening issues he seemed to be having now. He was attacked by a troll only a couple
weeks into being in the wizarding world, and a bludger during a school sanctioned event less
than an hour ago, so there was literally nothing to say he wasn’t going to need to fight for his
life tomorrow. Hell, his next murder attempt could come in the next five minutes and he
would have no way of seeing it coming or defending himself if his goal was to wait the years
it took to get a high level accuracy with magic.

There was another way though, something he could do now…

Potters don’t need to see the broad side of a barn to hit it. Doesn’t matter if I’m accurate if
I’ve got range big enough that my opponent can’t dodge it even if they tried.

I’m gonna need to think on that one probably, but seems doable for now… depending on the
opponent I guess. Voldemort himself is probably still above my level and will be until I
graduate most likely.
He made a face, recognizing it was probably the potions he was on to prevent the shock
making it easy to think of such drastic things without being too concerned over it. Usually it
stressed him out more, to think such existential thoughts, but now it seemed like his mind
was just autopiloting on logic without much input on his behalf. It was kind of useful though
as morbid as some of these ideas were they were also pretty good ideas if he did say so
himself.

“Earth to Harry… you’ve got that look on your face like you’re plotting something again,”
Draco called him back from his drifting thoughts, and he realized he was zoning out again.

“How do you get better at accura-” Harry cut himself off and dropped his head sharply to
where he realized Draco had reached out to touch his injured arm to get his attention again, to
which the blond instantly lifted his hand away as if burned.

“Sorry—did I hurt you?” He immediately back pedaled, but Harry totally ignored his panic
as he instinctively reached out and grabbed onto his wrist, distractedly using his other hand to
put his teacup down on the table behind him. “Harry?”

“Wait a second… do that again.”

“Do what?”

“Touch my arm again!” He commanded and despite looking entirely baffled and his cheeks
tinting a slight pink, Draco gave in.

"Ah… okay?" He gently lay his hand back over the bandaged arm Harry was offering in his
direction, and after a second or so Harry’s eyes went wide as he realized.

It felt like snow.

Ice cold, deep like a snow bank, soft and vast around the edges and something… pure about
it.

The cold was the most distinct thing of all, and he instantly realized he’d definitely felt his
before, as the small ache left over from whatever Pomfrey had done slipped into nothingness
like a snowflake disappearing against your hand and the cold it left behind skating numbly
over your bare skin.

"Woah…"

"Harry? You alright?"

"I noticed it before but it wasn't… I mean, sometimes your hands make my skin go numb."

Draco stared at him openly.

“…what?"

"You don't really touch people ever which is why I noticed the rare times you do, but you’re
always very cold. I thought it was just me or my imagination since it was so rare but… my
arm hurts, and it doesn't when you touch it. It feels cold but it doesn’t hurt."

Draco dropped his blank stare of surprise from emerald eyes meeting his own down to where
his hand rested over his arm, almost pointedly keeping it in place now. "I… have no idea
what that means."

"Me neither." Harry confessed.

They exchanged looks… but there was a world-renowned healer conveniently one room over.

In only a couple minutes Madam Pomfrey was waving her wand over Draco’s hand still over
Harry’s arm in a diagnostic spell, before she visibly startled and lifted her wand back up in
surprise.

“Dear me!”

“What is it?” Harry was dying to know, Draco holding it in better but his own curiosity also
written clearly over his expression, even if he was distinctly uncomfortable with the attention
too.

"Why this is incredibly rare, but it seems Mr. Malfoy here has a latent healing ability. Very
minor, but his magical signature has a small healing attribute to it which is likely why you
feel no pain—it's the same as a numbing potion with a slightly increased healing factor. I
don't suppose you bruise very often or easily, and when you do they don't stay long, do they,
Mr. Malfoy?" She asked of him, and his grey eyes blinked.

"I've never noticed, honestly." He confessed.

Harry though, had a distinct flashback to first year when he’d punched him in the jaw over
Neville’s Remembrall… since he’d been paying close attention obviously, the bruise on the
Malfoy heir’s jaw had disappeared in just over a two days when he was certain he'd clocked
him with his full strength. Ron had had a welt on his head for a damn near month without
Pomfrey’s help in healing it, and given they were two first years with not that much
physically different, it was pretty clear Draco had healed much faster than Ron had, for no
apparent reason. Until now, evidently.

It wasn’t the only clue he’d had though. Hugging him in Diagon Alley, any time he’d ever
held his hands… after the summer he’d had, he hadn’t given it a ton of thought but he’d
recognized the feeling. It wasn’t just cold, it wasn’t just snow…

Novocaine. Draco feels like novocaine.

You don’t realize it if you’re not in pain but that’s exactly what it is.

"Interesting.” The Madam genuinely did seem intrigued by it, which seemed to make Draco
even more uneasy. “I could of course run some more tests to determine the actual cause of
this, if you'd like."

"It's good to know I guess but not strictly useful, is it? It's not like I'm going to heal his arm
by sitting here for a couple minutes." He pouted some, to which she nodded her head
gracefully to that point.

"No, you'd need constant contact for several days to heal it entirely and that's only increasing
Mr. Potter's own healing rate very minorly. However, you're young, and this kind of natural
ability without a wand is insanely rare, I cannot understate that enough; it wouldn't be
unreasonable to think you could hone this skill so that it would become something useful
someday."

Draco arched his eyebrows a bit skeptically. "And how would I do that?"

She explained, "There are meditation techniques and simple exercises I can look up for you.
Knowing more about medicine would help you understand what you can and cannot do of
course, and a good side effect is an increased magical capacity because of the practice. Since
you can't use a wand for this type of ability you'll have no directional tool to help funnel your
magic, which means your magic control will increase simply as part of learning."

Whatever Draco was going to say to that, and whatever it was it promised to be something
sassy or dismissive as always, it disappeared in a puff of smoke when Harry didn’t even
notice his expression and instead put his free hand over Draco’s as it still rested numbing his
injured arm and gave him a wide-eyed look of wonder.

"How amazing would that be if you could heal people just by touching them," He gaped in
awe, because this was absolutely amazing.

He knew Draco was special, he always knew he’d looked up to him in many small ways for a
thousand different reasons… but this was something incredible to someone who’d felt an
unfair amount of pain in his short life so far. And now, to realize his best friend had a touch
that could make it all just go away…

Honestly, he didn’t want to let go. Didn’t want the pristine cold to disappear and the ugly
burning of pain and blood to muddy his mind. He was so sick of it that this felt like a breath
of fresh air—a change in luck or the weather that promised something good for once instead
of something foreboding and deadly like pretty much everything else in his life.

Whatever Draco was going to say disappeared. He’d probably been leaning more in favor of
the 'more powerful' part of that explanation anyway, but one glance at Harry's expression and
his plans course corrected almost instantly. It was so fast he never even really acknowledged
that it wasn’t his idea from the start.

"I mean it can't hurt to learn, since apparently I'm a natural." He puffed up arrogantly and
basked pleasantly in the blinding grin of excitement Harry gave him in return.

The Madam gave him a very telling smile as she nodded. “Of course. Let me pull some basic
texts for you, and I can show you a simple exercise for you to get started. I warn you now
that it’s a very slow process and will take quite a bit of practice, though most start after their
Hogwarts graduation and begin secondary training at St Mungos. It’ll seem to take an
eternity but you’re starting years ahead of your future peers if you pursue this.”
“Right,” Draco seemed less thrilled with the grind he was being presented with, but seem
mollified by the idea he was going to be seen as a prodigy compared to others his age
someday.

“We can practice together!” Harry offered excitedly, elaborating at Draco’s confused look.
“There’s really no one I can work on Transfiguration with anymore besides McGonagall but
now we both have something unique to work on we can do it together, right?”

Besides Transfiguration and Potions for obvious reasons, they really didn’t study together too
much anymore and hadn’t really since the early part of first year. Slytherins were extremely
individual learners who preferred to do their own thing and only work with others or ask for
help if they really needed it, and even if they were friends and Harry wouldn’t use that
against him, Draco still preferred to work alone mostly. He was more willing to ask for help
on Transfiguration than anything else, but he still did his own work and mainly stuck to
having Harry double check his work just in case, and not every time either. He was prideful
in his ability to do academic work on his own, after all; Harry would be too if he also didn’t
dread Charms and History and had little remorse in copying off other people’s homeworks
when offered, or he could trade for someone else’s notes.

This was kind of beyond normal school work though, and Harry’s Transfiguration work had
long since stopped being something he could actually talk to people his age about. Draco
would be the only one at Hogwarts at all learning healing so he’d also be totally on his own
too… and well, if they were going to be alone they might as well be alone together. It would
also give them more opportunities to hang out as those chances were not so frequent now that
they were both on sports teams, Harry had his own troubles to need to work through, and
Draco was fully entrenched in surviving Slytherin at this point to make hanging out too high
of a priority on the day-to-day. It was something they wanted to do but it didn’t outrank a
great deal of other things.

Training their specialties would be a good excuse though and it was something they could do
together, something Harry had jumped to immediately and now that he pointed out something
Draco also clearly was on board with.

Being able to catch up with his best friend who was already considered a prodigy and being
able to stand on a more equal level with him was also something Draco was secretly keen on,
though he kept those thoughts firmly beneath the surface and as deep as he could bury them.

“I suppose it depends on what this training even is but I don’t see why not,” He agreed with a
brief smile of his own.

“Luckily the first exercise is very simple, if not deceptively the hardest.” Madam Pomfrey
smiled a bit wryly and conjured a chalice, setting it on the hospital table in front of Harry and
with a simple tap it filled with water. “I am going to cast a simple pain reduction spell, it is
one of the simplest healing spells and likely even more simple for you Mr. Malfoy, given
your innate affinity for them. Watch closely to the water surface.” He commanded gently and
made a simple jabbing motion with her wand. Both boys watched the surface ripple, not quite
like it was poked but as if someone were blowing across its surface gently—the weird part
though was that the ripples seemed to bounce of the edge of the cup and come back to its
original side, before disappearing.
“The ripples mean what type of spell it is?” Draco titled his head, and Pomfrey smiled a bit
proudly.

“You learn fast, Mr. Malfoy. Indeed it is: every spell has a unique signature that can be
reflected in water. Since practicing on actual injured humans is not quite ethical and can be
extremely dangerous for both the caster and the test subject, spells are practiced on water.
Once the proper pattern is achieved you will know it will also work on something living.”
She wagged her finger at him with a look that had him sitting up straight in his chair. “I will
check your progress on using spells on a water cup but you will not test spells on humans
until I give you permission. It is exceptionally dangerous and if you are experimenting on
anyone without supervision from an actual trained healer I will expel you from this school
myself, am I clear Mr. Malfoy?”

“Yes Madam,” he gulped, and even Harry felt a little pale from the aura she suddenly had,
even through his shock potions. Luckily it disappeared just as fast as it had come and she
returned to smiling calmly like the hospital matron she was.

“That is all there is to it, actually. Normally you would use your wand however as you are
practicing an innate ability I would suggested simply letting your magic circulate into the
water, experiment and practice until you find the pattern of the spell you are looking for, and
then practice it repeatedly until the sensation is familiar to you.”

“Are there no incantations or anything?” Draco blinked in alarm.

“There are, however they’re meant to be done in combination with a wand. I suspect they’ll
only restrict what you will eventually be capable of if you learn with that kind of leash on
you. If you are quite serious about learning healing I can teach you proper spell casting and
incantations when you are much older and more practiced, however I think it best to start in
this way. You will give yourself quite a foundation that can be better refined under a proper
tutor later after you’ve made some headway with your ability.”

Draco didn’t look very sold on the idea but didn’t exactly argue, instead tentatively reaching
out and cupping the chalice experimentally to test it out. After a couple solid seconds when
approximately nothing happened, his face balked in stricken horror.

“Oh no…”

Madam Pomfrey chuckled in deep amusement. “It’ll be a long battle Mr. Malfoy, I do wish
you luck.”

Harry also had to burst out laughing at Draco’s dreading expression, which seemed to be the
nail in the coffin of his resignation.

Still, he did manage a small smile as emerald eyes watched him with rapt attention as he gave
it another go and figured… it was going to suck, but it probably wouldn’t be too bad.

He hoped.

000
The change in luck Harry thought had found him that afternoon turned out to be a lie when he
was woken in the middle of the night by distressed voices and many shuffling feet bringing
someone new into the Hospital Wing. It was almost impossible to ignore as he heard the
familiar voices of Madam Pomfrey and McGonagall talking and only just barely bothering to
be quiet… the reason clear when their audible distress got his own instincts on edge and had
him sitting up in bed sharply.

He blinked awake rather quickly, unable to shake the threat of danger as voices he trusted
echoed around the hall seeped in worry and fear. He fumbled to his bedside table and felt a
brush of relief as he found his wand and clutched it tightly.

He was out of bed and shivering as his bare feet hit the cold stone floor in an instant, before
freezing as he heard another voice—deeper, much less welcome. If it were just McGonagall
he’d have gone to her immediately, but Dumbledore’s voice had him rooted in place and
mind snapping awake to figure out what he was doing before he let his presence be known.

“—tell the students? Albus you know what Severus said, we need to tell them something.”
Harry had never heard McGongall sound so distressed and he felt his own fear pick up in
response to it.

“We can only tell the truth, that we do not know what caused it.”

“Surely not Headmaster, it will incite more panic!” Madam Pomfrey did not sound nearly so
warm as she did when talking to students.

“We do not have more information to give unfortunately. As it is, I will need to contact the
Creevys at once. Minerva if you could continue to coordinate the teachers in a full search of
the school to see if there’s anything else that can be found.”

“Of course… but Albus-”

“There is nothing more we can do for tonight, Minerva. I will set a staff meeting before
breakfast tomorrow to reconvene but this is all we can do for the time being.”

“Nonsense, we could call the Ministry this very moment.” Pomfrey had no mercy in her curt
tone, and Harry head the old man sigh deeply.

“If nothing can be found then I have no doubt it will come to that, Poppy. But please… for
tonight let us collect ourselves.”

If something happened that needs calling the cops then waiting is not how that works, Harry
frowned, though he still didn’t know what had happened. He was highly on guard at the
mention of the Creevy family though…

Colin… please be okay.

“At the very least I am contacting St Mungos to have him transferred there by morning.”
Pomfrey insisted.
“The mandrakes are grown here at Hogwarts, it would be best if he remains here to be able to
get that treatment as soon as possible.”

“Those mandrakes will not be ready until damn hear the end of the year and I am expected to
care to the injuries and health of this entire school Headmaster—I am telling you now I
cannot give this boy the treatment and attention he deserves with my current responsibilities.”
Harry felt a shiver up his spine that had nothing to do with the drafty castle… he’d never
heard Madam Pomfrey sound like that and frankly it had his heart beating just as hard as
turning a corner to meet a dark cloaked figure in an empty hallway. “I am contacting St.
Mungos to have him transferred there by morning; you can tell Mr. and Mrs. Creevy that in
your correspondence.” The Madam informed Dumbledore, she did not ask him.

There was a long silence before Harry heard another soft sigh.

“Very well, Poppy. I understand.”

“You both are needed elsewhere and I have a child to attend to.” Came the unspoken but no
less clear dismissal and then came the rustle of clothes as the two professors made their exit
and the Madam got to work. He did hear McGonagall say something quietly but was unable
to make it out.

“See to the school Minerva. I have work to do.”

That seemed to be it as fading footsteps left the hospital wing in silence again, aside from
Pomfrey’s seeming rapid movements and a distressed clucking of her tongue echoing
somberly about the vast room.

Harry was focused on staying silent but as he stood there in his hospital pajamas, barefoot but
want in hand and hiding behind the white curtains around his bed, he… kind of knew what he
was going to see if he peeked out now.

The question was if he was actually ready to face it or not.

…although, he supposed, it didn’t really matter if he was ready or not; that’s not how the
world had ever worked. And it wasn’t about what he felt, it was about Colin.

Colin, Luna, Ginny, the other first years he’d taught to fly a broom and who came up to him
with Football or school questions… people only a little younger than him but who inspired
the most lion-like part of him to want to protect them as fiercely as he had ever wanted
anything before….

It didn’t matter if he was ready, if it was to protect them.

He peered around the white curtain he was hiding behind quickly, and got a clear view of the
end of wing.

He bit his tongue until he tasted blood and knew he was not going to sleep again tonight.
Chapter End Notes

Apologies being away for a bit; though it's not the first time this one felt much harder
than my normal writer's block. Though it's the wrong fandom, one of my most beloved
content creators of all time, Technoblade, recently passed away from cancer and
honestly I am wrecked over it. To confess, fanart of him was what inspired me to write
this story in the first place, and he has been an inspiration in both writing and many
other ways of my life.

His sharp, sarcastic wit and creativity, his determination and confidence was (is) who I
hope to emulate, and I find myself writing characters with a bit of him mixed in all the
time because he and his characters were just who I thought of when I thought of
complex, inspiring main characters. His character in every story BECAME a main
character or the highlight of the tale even if that's not what was originally, intended
because he was just the funniest, wittiest, most interesting person in any game he was
playing. There's no such thing as an uninteresting side character to him, and over time
that has become a huge pillar of my writing.

I don't think I will ever get over losing an inspiration like him so young, when he had so
much life ahead of him. When he could've done so much more. It sounds so stupidly
cliché but just imagining all he COULD'VE done and how it all is now over hurts in a
way I have never experienced before, in a way that sounds so disgustingly disingenuous
coming from some random person on the internet who didn't know him and never could.
I just desperately wish he had gotten those chances--I wish healing magic were real and
people didn't die from incurable diseases. I wish for a lot of things in vain like a
everyone else, I suppose.

I didn't expect to feel inspiration to write again for a long while but Technoblade always
had a way of inspiring me, and apparently still does despite being gone. I wish I could
give him a happy ending, I wish I could give everyone who has lost happy endings... I
selfishly wish I could give myself a happy ending too. I can't do any of that though, I
can only give the characters I've created for this silly little fanfiction that mean so much
to me their happy endings the best I could, so I've actually completed the very last
chapter of this story. Now it's only a matter of telling the story from where we are now,
up until it can reach that ending. This fanfiction has already been going for years now,
and I suspect it'll need a couple more to see completion, but I am quite resolved to see it
through, eventually.

Thank you everyone who does stick around despite my slow updates, I do genuinely
appreciate you. Kind comments and your beautiful fanart inspires me more than I can
say, I just hope to honor those gifts by doing my best by keeping at it in writing this self-
indulgent tale. Slow as it may be I intend to keep writing steadily, for as long as I'm
alive.

Blood for the Blood God.

 Enough

Not that she would clear him without being fully healed, but Madam Pomfrey was
understandably distracted when the morning came and cleared Harry to return to his dorm
pretty easily—more easily than normal, he felt. She did say to check back in after dinner for
the rest of the week just so she could double check the fine hairline cracks on his bones were
healing as expected and to take it easy on the advanced Transfiguration until they disappeared
though. He didn’t have much issue with that: anything to not have a repeat of his previous
issues and if that meant it took longer for him to rebound from incidents then so be it.
Magical medicine was already pretty incredible; to have a shattered elbow fixed in an instant
before he’d even left the quidditch pitch was convenient enough to be reasonable about other
restrictions he supposed.

Frankly though, he didn’t care about his arm or his Transfiguration right now.

He made beeline for Gryffindor tower, a dark thundercloud over his head that seemed to part
the seas of people around him, breakfast in the Great Hall having broke recently and so
everyone was up. Everyone had heard.

He had no idea what Dumbledore had told the student body, nor did he care. Given Pomfrey’s
reaction it wasn’t enough and Harry wasn’t generous enough towards the old bastard to give
him any credit for it either.

He couldn’t protect Colin.

Fuck, that bothered him, but he couldn’t. He’d failed.

He’d convinced himself the threat wasn’t imminent and that the teachers would protect their
students, but they didn’t have any more clue than the children they taught about what this
threat even was. No one knew anything, least of all Dumbledore so whatever he had told the
school at breakfast had been a boldfaced lie at best.

Unless it wasn’t—unless Dumbledore did know and he’d failed too.

Failed to protect Colin.

Harry snarled to no one, but he saw some third years scurry off rather quickly as he barreled
down the hallway, on a mission.

Consider Dumbledore a dead man if I ever find out he knows what this thing is and still
failed Colin.

He would’ve kicked the portrait open if he didn’t need to give the password to open it, but the
Pink Lady did jump aside pretty hastily in response to his sharp growl. Realizing he’d scared
her he forcibly reeled it in some… yes he was angry, but it was reserved for Albus
Dumbledore and whatever had hurt Colin, not his dormmates.
“Uh oh.” He heard someone say somewhere to his left and made an effort to control his face.

“I’m calm!” He announced because he knew people were looking at him.

“Liar,” the accusation was rather gentle and Harry only accepted it because it turned out to be
Seamus, sitting by the fire with Neville. “You were in the hospital wing so I’m guessing you
heard first actually.” He patted the seat beside him as if trying to get him to chill out but
despite coming closer to speak to them, he didn’t take the seat.

“I know what actually happened but what did Dumbledore tell the school?”

“He said Colin was attacked and is being looked after, and that the teachers are looking into
it. Everyone knew pretty quickly though that it was another petrification, like Mrs. Norris.”
Seamus admitted.

“Is he serious?” Harry was so done with incompetent adults at this moment. “A student was
petrified, which is insanely dark magic and he’s going to set schoolteachers on the case? Not
call the Ministry or, I don’t know, shut down the school or-!?”

“Harry.” Neville stood up with that too-sensible tone of his and Harry didn’t want to hear
reason right now.

“You heard what Susan said about escalation—it didn’t take years it took days! That’s Auror-
business if I ever heard of it— get Amelia Bones in here! And he just what, dumped horrible
news on the school at breakfast and then told everyone to go about their days likes nothing’s
wrong!? Like it’s not still out there right now? In the hallways of the school we’re supposed
to be living in!?”

“Harry.” He just repeated again and despite him having no interest in being calm about this,
the blond’s tone had him pausing.

“But Neville, he—!”

“I know.” His eyes flickered… and Harry felt bit bad, realizing the meekest of the
Gryffindor’s wasn’t thrilled about this either. His posture belied that despite maintaining a
calm front, he was pretty scared about the situation himself, and Harry was sure him being
unreasonable didn’t help. “But take a breather: Luna was the one who found him—she
already told us.”

Harry was horrified.

He spun on his heel to leave immediately, knowing nothing but that he needed to find her
right now, but a firm grip slipped around his wrist and pulled him back. He would’ve
thrashed if it weren’t obviously Neville giving him a serious look.

“The mandrakes we’re working on can cure a lot of different types of paralytics, including
petrification. You know I’m helping Sprout with them and they’ll mature in a couple months.
It’ll be okay.” He insisted quietly.

Harry tried, he really did but…

“I have to go find Luna.”

Neville gave up, bowing his head a bit with a sigh.

“I’ll come with you.”

000

He didn’t need to even ask the twins because he sort of knew where Luna would be, should
she be upset or needing to clear her mind. It would definitely be outside, and given the school
no longer felt totally safe would probably not be a courtyard, which left around the lake, by
the edge of the forests, or somewhere in the quidditch pitch. Since the pitch had a lot of
hiding places and would take hours to check it all, he was pretty thankful that she ended up
being by the lake, after only maybe a half hour walking the grounds to see if they could spot
her tell-tale hair from afar.

Even better for them, she was perched on a large boulder on the far side so she was
practically a light house from how her hair beamed in the morning air, even from quite a
distance.

Obviously, given Harry’s own very distinctive locks like a lit beacon in his own right, she
saw them coming from a mile away and let them approach without moving.

“Luna.” He breathed, a tiny bit in relief to set eyes on her and know she wasn’t frozen in time
too.

“Hi Harry. Neville.” She greeted in her calm, otherworldly way, giving no hint of being upset
or anything. “Glad you’re out of the hospital wing. If you were worried about me, I’m
alright.”

“Good, because I’m not.” Harry huffed bluntly, clambering up to sit beside her on the rock.
She seemed a bit startled by that and opened her mouth to say something, but he just put a
hand on her shoulder with a huff. “I don’t need to hear what happened if you don’t want to
talk about it, I just needed to set eyes on for you for a second.”

She stared at him with her wide, mirror-like eyes… before eventually pulling her knees more
tightly to her chest in a hug and nodding silently.

Harry was impressed by her… she clearly had a handle on maintaining a strong front, of
handling things well with an impressive mental fortitude. Given an excuse to just… be the
first year she was, she seemed to soften half an inch and actually accept the comfort for what
it was.

After a beat of silence, she found her voice. “Everyone is saying it’s Slytherin’s monster. Like
the writing on the wall said, about the chamber of secrets being opened.”

“A monster?” Harry blinked, not having heard about that. He’d been told about the chamber
itself but up until now the discussion was still up in the air about if it was a who or a what. “Is
that an actual thing or are people jumping on the Slytherins again?” He wondered aloud.
“It is a thing,” Neville piped up actually, standing below them in front of the rock to give
them a moment but offering his two cents for this at least. “I mean, it’s a thing so far as any
legend goes, but it wasn’t made up just for this incident. Slytherin having a monster locked in
the chamber of secrets was just as much a legend as the chamber itself— most people thought
both were myths until this started happening, but… if the chamber ends up being real there’s
a chance the monster part of it would be too.” He allowed, though seemed rather pale and
nauseous at that confession.

“That’s… not good. The Slytherins implied it was still mostly rumor about if it was a thing or
a person behind this.”

“I mean it could be both. If it exists, someone had to open it and then the monster could be
the one doing the attacking.” Luna tilted her head reasonably.

“Or, it could be the work of a human whose just using the chamber as a deflection.” He
countered. “Salazar Slytherin lived how long ago? I don’t suppose there are a lot of magical
monsters who can live hundreds of years like that, are there?”

“Not a lot.” She admitted in a light, kind of meek tone. “By the time a creature gets that old,
even if they weren’t born with the ability they could have learned the power to freeze people
like that.” She rested her chin down on her knees, curling just a bit tighter in the cold fall air.
“I don’t know if Madam Pomfrey even knows what kind of freezing it was though. Not a
frozen soul or anything, his skin was like stone.”

Like petrification, but the implication being that maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it only looked that
way.

Hm.

His own internal brainstorming about this threat was dropped down a level in his mind
though as he watched her curl in on herself some, her soft tone softening his own brashness
as well. He tossed an arm around her shoulders and she gave a small smile to lean back into
him gently.

“He’ll be okay.” He reassured, channeling more confidence than his own nerves about the
whole thing would let him feel.

“I know.” Luna sighed heavily, but also in a confidence that Harry knew kind of dwarfed his
own. She really did have a handle on this, he was the one freaking out apparently, much to his
chagrin. She offered him a small smile as if a peace offering. “I’m more concerned over what
you’ll do when you find the person who opened the chamber.”

Harry winced, hoping that wasn’t his reputation now.

“Well… I hope Neville will talk sense into me before I do anything too stupid.”

He shot said blond a weak smile as Neville turned back around from watching the lake to
give him an honest glare for that. And huh, he didn’t think he’d ever seen Neville glare
before… that was really amusing.
“Do you think someone else will be attacked?” Luna interrupted their silence exchange with
a growing sense of concern in her voice that alarmed him.

“What do you mean?”

“The last time something like this happened, attacks kept happening until someone died.
Then the school threatened to shut down but they placed the blame on one student and
expelled him. Everything stopped but Daddy thinks it was because of the threat of sending
everyone home, not because they got the right person. Clearly Dumbledore thinks so too
since he gave them a job.” She explained, apparently not realizing that this was total news to
Harry.

“Wait what?”

“Hagrid.” Neville filled in for him softly, and Harry whipped back around to look down at
him with wild eyes.

“Hagrid? Wait back up, this happened before!? And they blamed Hagrid?”

“He um…” Neville cleared his throat a bit awkwardly, and thankfully the Ravenclaw beside
him took pity in explaining.

“My mum loved magical creatures like I do. Like Hagrid does.” She admitted, eyes kind of
misted as she recalled the memories. “He had a bunch of illegal pets when I was little—Mum
even used to help him relocate some of them when they got too much. She said he’d been
doing it his whole life though so she didn’t mind.”

Harry couldn’t even dare think that weird, considering he helped relocate a baby dragon from
Hagrid’s hut only last year, and by Neville’s expression they were thinking the same thing.
Obviously Hagrid didn’t just become that way recently, he’d probably been a lovable, too
gullible animal lover since birth, so it wasn’t crazy to think he’d been that way during his
school days too.

He’d brought home an illegal dragon, it wasn’t that much of a stretch to hear he got caught
with an illegal pet as a student too, and it wasn’t even that outrageous he was expelled for it
either, given he would’ve gotten caught without their help only last year.

But…

“If Hagrid’s pet actually killed someone, even Hagrid would know it’d gone too far. He’s
extraordinarily reckless so it wouldn’t be a shock if it did happen, but he would never forgive
himself either. He certainly wouldn’t be buying dragons and giant dogs now, not to mention
bringing them into the castle again!” He exclaimed, not able to suspend his disbelief over it
long enough to give this theory much credit.

“Yeah,” Neville nodded, “Which is why Gran never thought that was actually it. He just got
blamed for it.”
“Dragons?” Luna tilted her head almost comically to the side with bugged eyes, but the
second years exchanged quick looks and decided to keep that one quiet.

“Uh… story for another time.” Harry deflected hastily.

“And the fact Dumbledore then hired him as the Groundskeeper when he was expelled pretty
much cemented in everyone’s head that he didn’t do it, he just took the fall. I mean the aurors
didn’t even get involved: if he did have malicious intent he’d probably be in Azkaban, not
employed at the same school he theoretically threatened.” Neville continued the train of
thought to also distract from the dragon slip.

“You two sure know a lot about this.” Harry looked between them suspiciously but they just
shrugged.

“My Gran was at Hogwarts when it happened. She almost lost her seventh year to the school
shutting down and still talks about it.” Neville confessed.

“Mum ended up with a lot of Hagrid’s relocated pets, so I heard a lot about him growing up.”
Luna shrugged too. “Never got to meet most of them though—Mum was worried they’d eat
me.”

“How am I not shocked.” Harry drawled. “Still. That means Hagrid took the fall—which is
bullshit in its own way of course, but he doesn’t seem too torn up about it now at least. The
more concerning part is that the real culprit got away.”

“It was fifty years ago though. It can’t be the same person.”

“Maybe not a person.” He countered, giving a helpless little shrug at Neville’s look but given
Luna’s iron clad ability to believe she seemed not too alarmed by the notion. “All I know
about magic is that it keeps surprising me. It could very well be something else—a ghost, a
spirit, a poltergeist we don’t know about, some crazy creature we just haven’t discovered
that’s secretly hiding in the walls…”

“It’s true, it doesn’t have to be human.” Luna perked up. “Although they did spell a warning
in blood, in English.”

“So an intelligent force, for sure.”

“I don’t know. It stopped when the school threatened to shut down. That meant whoever it
was, they’d miss something with no people here. Or, they’d be one of the ones sent home.”
Neville rained on their parade some but it was a valid point as they tilted their heads back to
consider it.

“But how could it be the same person?” Harry frowned. “The only brand new person this
year is Lockhart, and forgive me if I laugh at the chance he’s got something to do with this.
Not that he couldn’t be an asshole like that, but the chances he’d actually be competent
enough to hurt anyone is funny.”
“True.” Luna agreed thoughtfully, which made him grin. “He’s not nearly old enough in any
case.”

“Maybe it’s the descendant of someone at the school during that time. Almost every
pureblood and most half-blood lines at Hogwarts right now have had someone with their
name enrolled almost constantly in the past century.” Neville pointed out which suddenly
blew open the narrowing down that they’d been doing, going back to literally half the school
as a supposed suspect. Seeing their disappointed faces he gave a very weary sigh. “You guys
aren’t going to figure this out in one conversation, in one morning you know. The teachers
and Dumbledore don’t even have a clue right now.”

Harry instantly made a face like someone had put spinach on his plate. “You put way too
much faith in Dumbledore. Bet you anything the old bastard was at Hogwarts the first time
this happened too and did he do anything? Betcha he didn’t,” He realized he was being a bit
waspish and made an effort to reel it in again when he caught Luna looking at with him a
confused expression. No need to corrupt the youth or anything, she was plenty smart enough
to figure out on her own what a quack Dumbledore was for herself someday. “I mean even if
he were at Hogwarts back then, still no one figured it out. They blamed Hagrid and I think the
one thing we can agree on from this conversation is that the chances of him having actually
done it are close to none. The fact Dumbledore told the school, what… to sit tight at
breakfast this morning? Yeah no—anything less than, ‘morning everyone, here are the Aurors
I called to help the situation given a student was attacked last night’ means he’s already not
doing enough this time either.”

“I… guess…” Neville seemed very unsure but unable to argue with the logic apparently.
Harry had flat out told him he didn’t like the Headmaster so he knew, but he suspected
Neville’s gran was a huge Albus Dumbledore fan so he was working off a lifetime of hearing
the man’s praises sung.

“He could’ve called them privately, so as not to alarm anyone.” Luna, ever the optimist, and
Harry would rather chug lemon juice than burst her bubble so he nodded immediately.

“He could’ve, that’s true.”

Like bloody hell he did though. If he did, it was for appearances only or because the school
board told him to… although given Mr. Malfoy is head of the school board the chances of him
demanding Hogwarts get the Ministry involved is also kind of low.

Harry would bet a lot of money no one had told Dumbledore to do anything and the decrepit
snitch had decided that meant he wasn’t going to do anything. God he hated that guy.

“Well with the teachers and possibly Aurors on the case hopefully it’ll be cleared up soon.”
Neville gave his own shot at optimism, and Harry bit his tongue rather than drag them both
down with his dark thoughts.

Letting the adults take care of things was the mistake he’d already made, and look what had
happened.
Colin had paid that price. Harry had gone about his business and played around with friends,
gone to classes and practice and clubs, all the while being comforted by the knowledge that
someone else was taking care of it for once… and Colin was the one who’d gotten hurt.

Somehow that was just worse. It was like realizing when he was running with Hermione with
the troll, then Neville at the death day party… the fear that he was going to get hurt by
something coming barreling around the corner was certainly a thing, but it had nothing on the
gut-wrenching terror that whatever the threat was, it was going to get someone else around
him. Neville, Luna, Draco… and god damn it Colin. All the first years he’d been teaching to
fly and his friends in all four houses, the twins and Hagrid and…

He hated being so powerless. He’d looked on the bright side once and he’d been proven very
wrong to do so.

But…

He whipped around and flashed the Ravenclaw beside him a carefree smile that didn’t quite
penetrate his heart.

“Let’s leave it to them then, and Neville will keep us up to date on those Mandrakes, right?”
He tossed him a glance, to which the blond straightened up noticeably.

“Of course!”

“Then no use worrying holes in our stomachs. Speaking of stomachs, did you even eat
breakfast?” He demanded.

“I don’t believe so,” She shrugged in that airy way that made his brow twitch.

“Well that won’t do so come on,” He hopped off the rock and pushily waved her down as
well, which she complied much more gracefully than he had.

“Closer to lunch at this point honestly,” Neville pointed out as they started walking.

“Honestly that’s fine by me—I’m way more interested in a sandwich at this point.”

Thankfully their optimism wasn’t spoiled and the conversation turned light… Harry’s worries
being for nothing in that Luna very much did not actually need him right now, but he still felt
better to have them close and being able to talk normally to people again, even for a moment
or two. The world felt better this way, warmer a degree or two.

Inside though, he felt cold.

I can’t let this happen again.

000

“Draco…! Draco!”
“I said not now; you’re overreacting!” The blond shot his friend a stern look and kept
plowing forward towards the Potions classroom for their last class of the week, despite
Harry’s attempts to get in front of him to talk.

“You father’s on the school board and a tad overprotective from where I’m standing—what
do you mean he’s not going to do something?” Harry hissed, still not able to believe his
partner was so uncaring about this situation. Weren’t Slytherins supposed to be the ones with
the good self-preservation skills!?

“Harry, shut up.” Draco whipped around and grabbed his wrist suddenly, making him jump
before yanking him off to the side of the hallway where the flow of student traffic hopefully
wouldn’t stop to pay much attention to what they were saying. “It’s not so simple, and I
thought you’d be on board with this. You said you hated Dumbledore too.”

He froze, not sure where that had come from.

“Wait, what did I miss?”

“The headmaster is as incompetent as he is nosy, at least that’s what Mother says. Clearly he
wouldn’t be forgiven if a student actually died so they don’t think it’ll actually go that far, but
the longer he does nothing and keeps telling the parents everything is fine when this all is
going on, the more incompetent he’ll look.”

Oh no… oh no, no, no…

“They want to use this as an opportunity to get rid of him as headmaster.” He put together
slowly… and despite the utter dread in his stomach, he had to admit it wasn’t the worst idea.
Hogwarts being in actual danger aside, he was always down for a plot to get rid of
Dumbledore, particularly if he didn’t need to get involved to see it happen. Draco nodded
pointedly, seeing he understood, but Harry shook his interest off to refocus back on his fears.
“But are you sure he wouldn’t let someone die? Didn’t someone die last time!?”

“Last time?” Grey eyes widened noticeably, and Harry really didn’t like how uncommon this
knowledge Neville seemed to have was.

“That’s what Luna and Neville said. Neville’s gran was a student here fifty years ago when
this happened last time, and it only stopped after a student died. I don’t know if Dumbledore
was headmaster back then or what happened to the headmaster if he wasn’t though,” he filled
him in quickly, still feeling this… this urgency to do something now and being a bit frustrated
Draco wasn’t about to get on board with that approach.

He did frown though, clearly hearing him and giving it some thought. “I’ll tell my father. I’m
not sure he knew that bit.”

Thing was, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t… this was a dangerous game of chicken to play
and Harry didn’t quite trust Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy not to think certain risks being worth it in
the end. He was pretty sure his idea of acceptable risk in this situation was much different
from theirs.
“I didn’t think you’d be into a dangerous game like this. Blaise maybe, but…”

“If it is Slytherin’s monster, then technically Slytherin would be safe, wouldn’t they?”

“I told you about that voice I heard?” He demanded, nearly desperately and Draco frowned
even deeper.

“Yeah…? You don’t think…”

“That maybe it’s the same thing? How could I not!?” He huffed. “And if that voice I heard
was this thing that’s attacking people, then it’s not nearly so sensible like that! It’s murderous
Draco, that’s it. I don’t think it cares if you’re a Slytherin or—or anything in particular but
something else to kill!”

Harry hated that despite Draco frowning like he was finally hearing him, he still did not look
nearly as panicked as he himself felt right then.

“Harry, are you okay?”

He blinked, cheeks flushing in anger. “I am not the problem here, the bloody monster is! Yes
Draco I’m fine—that’s not the issue!”

The blond looked like he really wanted to say something before visibly thinking better of it
and shook his head.

“…we have to get to class. We’re about to be late.” And Harry had no idea why he sounded
so fucking disappointed right now, how the hell—

“How can you think of things like classes when we’re all at risk of getting attacked right
now!?”

“Because between a mysterious threat or an angry Snape, one is a guarantee right now while
the others is a chance! I’m not unconcerned exactly, but we have to keep moving. We have to
go to class, we can’t just melt into puddles and hope the world works itself out, or drop
everything to just worry about things we can in no way fix right this second… so let’s just
continue our lives for the time being and talk this through later. I promise right after class we
can talk the whole afternoon if you want.” Grey eyes drilled into his and Harry wanted to—to
do literally anything but that but…

He really wouldn’t be able to do anything if he got kicked out of Hogwarts for blatantly
skipping classes. He’d already skipped four in order to spend time with Luna and throughout
the week because he was too wound up on trying to do something to be able to bear sitting
through his classes, and he knew even being McGonagall’s favorite would not save him for
long. Snape actively hated him too, so if he ever found out he purposefully skipped a potions
class, he was dead meat.

Another knot twisted itself to life in his stomach, but as he already had several living there it
wasn’t much to shove past it.
“Draco…” He complained, hating how soft his voice was. He didn’t want to—he wanted—he
didn’t know what he wanted but he wanted—

The Slytherin grabbed his hand and gave a tight squeeze, the snowy cold of his touch
reminding Harry of his new skill, which was a nice reminder honestly.

“Come on, the world will not end in the two hours it takes to brew a potion!” He insisted.
“When we’re done come sit at the Slytherin table for lunch and we can talk through a plan of
action if that will make you feel better. Nott is the most paranoid person I know; he’ll
definitely have a suggestion or two yeah?”

“…fine.”

“What do you think you’re doing!?”

Both boys jumped nearly out of their skins, Harry whipping around with his wand in hand
almost instantly. A part of him was startled that he’d gotten so good at reacting that fast…
and another part of him felt a tad sad that his paranoia had forced him to actually practice his
reaction time in amongst all the other magic he was learning these days.

Yet another part of him was fully prepared to transfigure someone’s necktie into a snake as
fast as he could get his wand up, if he didn’t catch himself just in time when he recognized
the familiar orangey-red hair.

It would’ve been really awkward if he’d hexed Percy Weasley when the poor pompous
prefect wasn’t even looking at him right now, but instead had hands on his hips like a
nagging mother hen scolding his younger brother. And it wasn’t the twins for once.

Harry didn’t even want to know when Ron’s face flushed red in embarrassment at the scene
Percy was making.

“Percy, come on-”

“What on earth are you doing in the girl’s lavatory? And Moaning Myrtle’s at that! Leave the
poor girl be she’s got enough to deal with!” He scolded sharply and Ron was clearly trying to
back out of the situation as fast as possible before even more people milling around the
hallways hearing this stopped to stare—and more importantly snicker, which seemed to set
Ron off very easily these days.

Harry quickly turned around, deciding that was none of his business, and if Ron saw him
looking during an embarrassing moment, somehow it’d end up being all his fault and he
could not handle a fight with that dunce right now. He startled a bit when he turned back and
realized Draco was not looking at the scene at all, but was staring right at him with an
unreadable expression.

“What?”

“…can we go now?”
Harry gave in and slipped his wand back into his sleeve with a tired nod. “I said fine… but
you promise lunch?”

“Obviously. Why would I lie.” He griped before turning and leading the way, Harry needing
to jog a bit hastily to catch up with him. What was the attitude about? “Did you read ahead
this chapter?”

“No…”

“Harry,” The disappointed tone set the hair on the back of his neck on end, even more than it
already was and he hated it. Particularly because he had no desire to fight with Draco; the
blond was in the right if this were a normal day at Hogwarts—

—oh but fun fact, it wasn’t.

“I can’t focus Draco. How can I do this—how can anyone do this? Just—just pretend
everything is fine!”

Grey eyes looked straight ahead as they walked but somehow Harry already knew what
expression he had on. “For this one hour, everything is fine, Harry. How else would you like
me to tell you that? It’s not going to attack in broad daylight and I agree it is a problem, but
we can’t fix it in one day. I will help you do whatever it is you’re trying to do, but you have
to go to classes in the meantime.” He got tossed a look before they were suddenly descending
the moving steps and needed to pay a bit closer attention so as to figure out the best route
down without getting separated. “I’ve never seen you struggle at being a Slytherin before,
you know. Here I thought you were better at it than me from the start.”

“Excuse me?” he yelped, doing a mini hop to make it onto the right staircase in time as it
started moving. He gripped the railing while they paused, unable to do anything until it
stopped. “What exactly am I doing right now that so un-Slytherin-like then?”

“I mean I guess it still counts since you’re concerned over the future, over what to do right
now but… I mean the point of most our plans is to take our time. The long game, you know?
You’re certainly still a Gryffindor if you can’t handle one Potions class and need to do
something right now to fix it.”

Harry scowled but he had a point. Operation Fox had taken months to even think of much
less the months it took to pull off… his plan to get Sirius out of prison to avoid Private Drive
had a one to two year timeline, his plot to end the house rivalries was a 7-year plan, his goal
to reverse werewolf laws was a decades long strategy… in fact, most of the truly worthwhile
things he’d ever done in his life, he’d taken a lot of time, careful planning, and studying to
get done. Hell, even manipulating the Dursleys into leaving him alone had been something
he’d carefully woven his entire life.

There weren’t a lot of things he’d ever been this impatient about.

He slumped a bit, but gripped the railing he was holding until his knuckles went white.
Gryffindor meant a lot of things to him but…
But this felt awful.

This feeling of… of being trapped, of wanting out, of wanting to crush something so that he
could calm his paranoid heart… that couldn’t be what being a Gryffindor meant. He really
didn’t think this counted as impulsive—did it? If this is what being a lion was, it completely
sucked he only felt it when he was feeling like a lion trapped in a cage being tossed into the
ocean to slowly drown: prideful and angry but utterly powerless to change his fate.

He didn’t answer by the time the staircase stopped, and by now they were cutting it far too
close, so they just ran as fast as they could the last stretch before descending into the
dungeons. He really should be getting his brain in gear: it wasn’t really fair that he’d slacked
on his reading and was blatantly leaning on Draco for their potion grade today, so he really
should shove this away for later…

But even as he tried to force his brain to list out potion ingredients and fix his facial
expression so that Snape wouldn’t sense weakness, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that all
of this… wasn’t going to be enough.

000

Despite all the warnings and being intimately aware of how dangerous Transfiguration was
(sometimes when he closed his eyes he could still see Quirrell dying, still feel the ghost
sensation of a hand turning to ash in his own grip) he had still never felt afraid in the Potions
classroom. He’d never felt afraid in the Transfiguration classroom either despite those
dangers, but maybe that’s because he was most likely a prodigy at that topic, and as the
snakes would say, it’s hard to be afraid of an enemy you know well… unless that only meant
you knew what a threat they were. He knew what Transfiguration could do, he’d seen it first
hand actually, and even then he’d never felt wary of it.

Logically speaking he knew that Transfiguration was only the second most dangerous topic
taught at Hogwarts, and that the first belonged firmly to Potions. He’d even managed to
forgive Snape half an iota when Draco pointed out that, despite being a complete prick while
he did it and belittling the poor lion to tears every time he did it, Severus vanishing Neville’s
potions and giving him zeros or making him re-do it was also a safety precaution. Draco,
from across the room and clearly the best of the class even without Snape being heavily
biased, flat out told the both of them that Neville’s attempts were usually so poor that those
potions exploding could easily kill him and the four people around him too. So… he was an
asshole for doing it the way he did, but execution aside even Snape would be in trouble if
kids routinely died in his classroom so he had sharp eyes for dangerous situations like that. It
was maybe the only thing he was actually good at as a teacher… and by maybe, Harry meant
it was literally the only redeeming quality about the man. He sucked bludgers as a teacher in
every other way.

So while he wasn’t comfortable here, he also never felt strictly afraid either. He sat waaay too
close to Seamus in Charms class for this to be what got him anxious, when the Irishman
inadvertently blowing him up was a much higher probability in his day-to-day-life. In fact,
Seamus had once lit both his and Dean’s beds on fire which is what prompted the dorm rule
of ‘no magic unless you already knew you could do the spell’, and spell practice was a
common room or empty classroom activity.
He wasn’t anxious exactly, but he sure as hell was on high alert. Not because of Snape or
Potions though, mainly because of the petrification mystery monster, which he didn’t think
was that weird at all. Why everyone was not also on high alert, he did not know, and he was
too tired of arguing with Draco about it for now. He also… didn’t exactly want everyone to
freak out like he was freaking out right now, as he wasn’t exactly enjoying this. He didn’t
want to drag everyone else down if they were somehow just okay right now…

So he wasn’t exactly paying that much attention to the potion, but he certainly was watching
his fingers to ensure the ingredients he was chopping were going to be Draco-acceptable
when it came time to add them to the potion, but left the actual brewing and potion crafting to
the Slytherin who seemed very absorbed in his work. They were a pretty good team as Harry
knew to just shut up and obey the strict orders he was getting—and when Draco said the
pufferfish eyes had to be cut into perfect isosceles triangles he really meant it so he did his
best and left the blond to it.

It was probably because he was mostly just on standby, ready to hand Draco the ingredients
he needed and also wound up like a wire he was so on edge, that he saw it just in time. He
recognized it instantly as the bright yellow and purple wrapping was very familiar in
Gryffindor tower, who all just loved to chuck firecrackers at people. If you tossed a
firecracker into the fireplace, it’d actually roar like a lion like a fun party trick, and it
happened a lot.

He didn’t actually see who threw it or where it came from, he only got less than a second to
realize it was falling for them—and that Draco was leaning over the cauldron, completely
absorbed in his careful stirring.

It hit the potion the same second Harry got a fist into Draco’s robe and yanked, tossing him
back as hard as he could with only one arm awkwardly flailing out. He hadn’t needed to lean
on his reflexes that hard in a long time, but he gave Quidditch and his snitch-catching
practice a lot of the credit.

How he’d actually reacted fast enough for that was kind of not important the next instant,
when the potion exploded violently.

Draco hit the bench behind them and flailed as he was thrown, but luckily he was then three
steps back and out of the mostly-vertical blast radius. Harry’s hand was still fisted in his robe
and was angled from the toss—but the half of him closest to the potion was suddenly on fire.

Oh g o d

iT hURt

Stunned, he immediately crouched beneath the bench but sealed his lips tightly and refused to
make a sound. Oh god his skin felt like it was melting right off his bones and closed his eyes,
trying not to pass out as black spots invaded his vision—

The searing pain wavered as even his good side was suddenly ice-cold, and he was with it
enough to realize someone was pouring water over him. It was clean and frigid and somehow
it felt both relieving and instantly worse on the side of him that still felt like someone was
ripping his skin off slow and surely and—

And it was gone.

He blinked, looking down and realizing despite being soaked and his right hand being
noticeably red, he was fine. He touched his face but there too the pain was gone. It smarted
something awful though, like he’d just been slapped on every inch of the entire right side of
his body, but compared to the pain a second ago it was nothing.

He sighed in relief.

“Harry,” Draco was crouched in front of him, pale face positively grey. It was about then that
he realized Snape was moving away from them, hissing violently and a vein coming out of
his forehead as he dressed down the classroom for the culprit.

Right, genius potions master. Even if he hadn’t seen it, Snape probably already knew what
would cause a reaction like that, and for once was not going to blame Harry for doing this to
himself… most likely because doing so would imply less of Draco’s potion-making skill, not
because he wanted to give the red-headed Potter he hated a break after that ordeal. Harry
would let it slide because he also recognized, despite everything, Snape had just instantly
fixed him of whatever that wrecked potion had been doing to him instead of making him
crawl himself up to the Hospital Wing.

He was still a bad teacher.

But Harry had been in pain, and now he wasn’t. So… Snape got a pass for today.

“Harry look at me! Are you alright?” He realized Draco was still right in his face and reeled
everything back in.

“...yeah.”

He stood, probably too quickly because the blond flailed and hastily copied him, but still
looked freaked out. Harry realized Blaise was also staring at him, kind of surprised from the
bench behind them, but he didn’t have time for whatever the tall Slytherin was up to today.

He looked at their workbench, but it was ruined—cauldron still intact thankfully but the
ingredients around it were scorched. There was no way Snape would let them just skip
brewing though: he would if Draco were the one who got hurt, but as he hadn’t, there was
just no way. So, he grabbed the duster and started cleaning the ingredients without a word,
trying to remember what he’d need to get from the supply closet to start over from scratch.
His textbook was kind of singed so it was hard to read the list of ingredients through the
dusting of soot over it now…

“Harry,” cold hands gripped his wrists to stop him and he froze in surprise. Draco looked
him dead in the eye, unamused. “What are you doing?”

“Ah… starting over?” He said, like it was obvious. Because if kind of was?
He felt like the silence following that statement was… perhaps a little too noticeable. When
he glanced over his shoulder though, the tables behind him were all very purposefully
minding their own potions.

He looked back at Draco who faltered, looking unsure.

“You’re soaked, and that potion… don’t you need to go to the hospital wing?”

That’s right, Draco’s hands feel nice. He half remembered, kind of ignoring Draco’s original
statement but the reminder of the last time he’d seen Madam Pomfrey and Draco’s grip on his
still-stinging wrist was nice actually. Cold like snow and free of pain… it was pleasant.

It centered him some.

“Snape is never going to just let me leave, and besides, you’re the one who said the world
won’t end in the time it takes to brew a potion. So, let’s just get it over with.” He half
shrugged, not understanding why his friend seemed so… worried?

After a long silence he just nodded and walked back to the ingredient storeroom with a
determined look, and Harry took the cue to finish cleaning up the ruined workbench, cleaning
the soot off both their knives just in time for Draco to get back and hand him the ingredients
once more.

Since he’d literally just done this and now had some practice and know-how under his belt,
and Draco was a fantastic potion brewer, they still finished about when everyone else did too.
Still took an hour but it honestly flew from how intently Draco was working, like he was
going for a world record for how fast this potion could be finished.

By the time they handed their bottles in and were cleaning up for a second time… Harry
realized just how cold he really was.

He gathered Draco had been the one to pour the water. Harry trusted him even if the water
hadn’t done a thing in reality, as his understanding of the potion was better than anyone else’s
and whose to say that hadn’t kept him alive until Snape could make it across the room? Harry
had no clue what a firecracker did to a potion like this so… he didn’t care about his wet
clothes. His outer robe was definitely soaked but hadn’t penetrated deeply so his shirt and
pants beneath were the dry side of damp. At most his sleeves were soaked through as that’s
where the potion had hit as well, but it wasn’t unbearable.

The dungeons were drafty though, and the Autumn was well upon them.

Without the potion to focus on, he suddenly shivered.

Draco just got back to their area from turning in their work, and definitely noticed it by the
way his face flattened, unamused.

Harry blinked as he was stared at disapprovingly.

“What?”
“…the dorm is down the hall. Come warm up a bit before lunch.”

The chair across from Theo’s by the roaring Slytherin fire seemed extremely tempting
actually, so Harry found himself nodding immediately.

“I mean I won’t argue with that… I’m not that hungry anyway.”

“You’re not skipping lunch.” Draco immediately put his foot down which made him make a
face. “I’m serious—I’m still not convinced you shouldn’t be going to the hospital wing right
now.”

“But you promised me we’d talk,” He immediately shot back and the blond rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I promised I’d talk to you at lunch. Ergo, we’re not skipping lunch.”

Harry cursed under his breath, but he wasn’t wrong. “Damn Slytherins and their
technicalities…”

“Pay better attention to the wording of promises next time,” He was given a rather sassy look
before being beckoned while he lead the way out the door. Given how close they’d cut it to
brew two potions in one class period, they were one of the last ones left… the last stragglers
with dead potions in their cauldrons that nothing could save now despite how they were
winding down the remainder of class time desperately trying.

Once safely in the hallway, on impulse Harry grabbed his hand once again and made the
blond jump nearly out of his skin, whipping around to give him a wide-eyed look.

“What-”

“Your hand feels nice. With the numbing thing,” He told him quietly, and despite the pain
long since disappearing over the past hour, the gentle snow of his touch was still very real…
even as he shivered in the drafty dungeon hallway, Draco’s cold was still in no way
unwelcome.

Draco caught up with what he was saying and his face closed off slightly, but he held onto his
hand slightly tighter.

“Right,” He remembered, shifting his weight some. “I… I did ask Madam Pomfrey about it
after that conversation we had. She gave me some things to try.”

“Really? With the cup, right?”

“Yeah,” The blond scratched his nose a bit awkwardly, glancing down the hall briefly. “It’s a
bloody pain honestly… but I’ve been giving it a go here and there.”

Harry couldn’t help but smile.

He didn’t know why he just…

Draco was watching him, particularly watching his face as if searching for something…
before he reached up with his free hand. Not suddenly exactly as he moved slow enough that
Harry could’ve stopped him or leaned back or stepped away or any of a dozen things to avoid
it… but even then, he was still somehow startled when the Slytherin put his snow cold hand
over the side of his face, palm resting against his cheek.

The snow was… much stronger this close to his brain somehow. He felt almost dazed from
how it permeated his skull and soothed away what felt like a coil that’d been ruthlessly
tightening behind his forehead for ages now.

Almost against his will his shoulders dropped some of their tension.

“Does it hurt?”

“What?” Harry blinked, kind of breathless from the sudden shift. Did what hurt? Nothing hurt
right now, it was kind of nice… light and lofty feeling even…

“This… it looks like a cut or something.” Draco frowned, thumb going across his cheek…
and suddenly Harry tensed, all the coils in his shoulders coming back full force as he realized
what cut he was looking at. “Harry!?”

He didn’t know how pale he’d gotten, but Draco had watched the blood drain from his face
and to say it was alarming was putting it mildly. Harry clutched at his cheek automatically,
stepping back once and Draco took the hint to let him go, floundering a bit.

“That… this wasn’t from the potion.” He managed to get out, feeling a little dizzy.

Right… I never told him. It was under Madam Pomfrey’s glamour last year and then I took to
hiding it under magical make-up over the summer. It’s not waterproof though…

The only saving grace here is that the scar on his cheek was faint enough that the magical
make up which evened your skin tone worked on it, but not his lightning bolt scar. That one
still had the muggle makeup on it to hide it, which seemed to have held up if Draco still
hadn’t seen it yet… it was hard to believe he would comment on the one on his cheek before
that.

“You have to calm down… take a breath, it’s okay.” Draco’s calm tone made his racing
thoughts center just a little more, but he also refused to take the hand he had on his cheek
down. He just… he couldn’t do it.

Not now that he knew people could see it and—is that what everyone had been staring at?

“Harry!”

He refocused again, seeing Draco’s worried expression and trying to calm down. This wasn’t
anything… how could he be so… why was this so…

“It’s from last year.” He found himself blurting out, and the blond paused, brow furrowing.

“Last year?”
“Yeah and I—I was hiding it, I guess. Since it’s ugly and I hate it,” He clutched his cheek a
bit more aggressively, trying not to see the emotions flickering over his friend’s face at that
childish confession. “I was just—I guess the water washed it off or whatever. It’s fine, it
doesn’t hurt, it just looks bad.”

“It doesn’t look bad, I was just worried it still hurt.” Draco corrected him kind of sharply but
Harry didn’t want to hear it.

He…

I can’t do this.

“I have to go.”

“What happened to lunch!? At least come warm up-”

“I’m sorry I just—can we talk tomorrow? Maybe lunch then?” He all but begged, already
moving down the hall and still refusing to drop his hand. Draco faltered, seeming caught for a
second before he paused… and didn’t follow him.

“I… yeah. Okay.”

“Promise?” Harry offered him a weak apology smile, which he accepted with a twitch of his
lips. Maybe a smile, but the warmth was mostly in his eyes.

“I promise lunch, yes.”

“Jerk,” He managed to joke, just barely… the two of them offering silent, yet fond smiles as
apologies for everything they couldn’t say before Harry ran off down the dungeon hall.

000

“You sure?”

“Please just do it.” Draco sighed, because he was sure, even if he didn’t like it.

Daphne gave him a rather sympathetic look, but she also understood exactly what he was
thinking about right now, so she didn’t push any further. That incident was… bad.

Even worse was how Harry had reacted to it.

Slytherin had suspected ever since the incident with Quirrell last year, but now… now
everyone knew. The fact the Zabini demon had seen it firsthand meant the entire house would
know before they got back to the common room down the hall.

It was one thing if they knew, since they were close to him… maybe they wouldn’t use it
against him. But it wasn’t just them: the upper years of Slytherin house were only just biding
their time for over a year now, and this was a big, big weak point in the seemingly
unbreakable character that was Harry Potter. If he fell apart now, it was going to get bad…
and there wasn’t really much any first or second year Slytherins could do about it.
The only people who had a chance at fixing this certainly weren’t in Slytherin, and by
Draco’s sudden request to her, he knew it too.

Daphne herself wasn’t thrilled about it, but she knew for a fact it probably paled in
comparison to what the blond in front of her was dealing with. Draco was probably dying
inside but…for some reason, he wasn’t showing it.

He used to suck ass at hiding his expression; like, he had a good poker face but not nearly
good enough to actually hide from a fellow Slytherin. The Malfoy heir had still had firstie-
vibes with how easily read and malleable he sometimes was, but now… she had no idea what
he was actually feeling when he’d come to her for this trade.

I mean obviously he was worried about Harry, no one would think otherwise. And the request
itself made a ton of sense: he needed to be sure someone was going to make sure Harry got to
the hospital wing or at least didn’t self-combust once he was out of Slytherin’s range to be
able to monitor him.

But for his actual reaction to what had just happened… he was a blank slate who was here for
business, nothing more.

“What are you going to do?” She asked. She was doing this trade for dirt cheap, mainly as a
favor because she also had the ulterior motive of making sure Harry had eyes on him right
now. That meant she had enough good will to get away with asking something so casually,
she hoped.

“I’m going to the hospital wing.” Was all he said, blank as a wall as he walked by her without
a backwards glance. “I’m late for a lesson.”

000

Harry ended up in the Library, perched on one of the study tables and feet rocking the chair
he was supposed to be sitting in absent-mindedly as he stared at the large bookcase full of
Transfiguration texts.

He’d read or leafed through quite a lot of them, he was realizing as he scanned their covers
for something to catch his attention. There were certain texts that had turned out to be useful
that he’d actually purchased himself from Bethany’s or Flourish’s, since they were handier to
just own a copy and keep in his bottomless bag. He hadn’t read all of them cover-to-cover
exactly, but he knew when and which ones to pull for any situation or topic he was on. The
rest of the books here… he’d opened and read a page or two before realizing the author a)
didn’t have an editor going by the grammar or reading level, b) didn’t have a peer review
given the opening sentences usually said something blatantly untrue or too dogmatic for his
tastes, or c) were written by robots apparently and were completely, utterly boring to him no
matter if they were at least fact checked or not. A good 70% of the books he hadn’t yet
touched were fourth-year and higher texts he’d strictly been forbidden from getting into until
the blocks on his magics were totally off, and while he was really tempted right now, he knew
not to cross Madam Pomfrey… and McGonagall at that. He 100% believed they somehow
had trackers on those books just in case he touched one preemptively and he wasn’t about to
risk it.
(He had argued that reading was not the same as practicing magic but for some reason
McGonagall had still put a cap on it to only a year ahead of his current level while restricted
like this. Which, Harry for one, thought was ridiculous… not that he was going to tell that to
her face.)

Transfiguration had never really felt like work to him. I mean it did, but not in a way that had
him looking for something else to do or take breaks from it like everything else he learned in
his classes. No… Transfiguration was what he came to when he was tired of everything else
and looking for something more enjoyable. It was still work to read and practice and ponder
over how he could use these spells, but he could easily spend an entire day doing nothing else
and not feel the need to take a break; it didn’t seem like he’d ever get tired of just whiling
away his hours on the topic.

Somehow, his killing time over the past year and change meant he’d put a huge dent in this
section of the Hogwarts library, as he was looking but he wasn’t seeing anything blatantly
new. He’d already re-opened several books he thought were new only to realize he’d
definitely checked them before and had just forgotten what their covers looked like. This
place was huge though and there were other sections that were still considered
“Transfiguration”, but the farther away down the aisles you got the closer it got to
Transfiguration/Potions or Transfiguration/Charms, or the history of Transfiguration which
held no interest to him… essentially Transfiguration adjacent topics but not the real meat and
potatoes of the subject he was looking for.

In a situation like this where he was at a loss, he should probably go to McGonagall… but he
hadn’t really visited her office for a while now. He couldn’t quite bring himself to sit in front
of her and act like nothing was wrong, or like he was just there for a question.

He didn’t have a specific question to bother her with, he just wanted to get lost in the topic
for a bit. If he didn’t have something specific prepared when he went to her, she’d start
asking other questions that he absolutely refused to be part of right now.

A distraction, he was looking for a distraction, and usually Transfiguration would be of help
but…

Hm. Maybe I should just properly read through one of the books I have.

That option was less fun, as it was all topics he already kind of knew or had a basic grasp of,
and he was looking for something totally new to distract himself.

He felt better after a positively scalding shower and taking far too long fixing his hair and his
face after the train-wreck that was this morning. His body felt tired after everything but his
mind was still going a thousand miles an minute so, he needed something to make his brain
stop thinking about things he didn’t want it too but activities like quidditch and football were
right out… he wasn’t hungry so…

Reading one of his current texts seems too dull right now. Maybe one of the Alchemy texts
Nick had given him?

Nah, that sounds like work.

He pouted, not nearly as interested in learning just for fun when it wasn’t something he
genuinely liked. He wanted to do something fun… that didn’t involve other people for a
moment because he was just tired of all that right now.

The only upside of this entire day is that somehow almost getting boiled by a rouge potion
seemed to snap him out of his hyper-fixation on the monster, at least temporarily. It could
come wandering down this Library aisle right now and Harry would be too tired to do
anything about it besides let it eat him or whatever it is it did. Petrify him?

Honestly petrification, lying in a bed unaware of all that’s happening out here… it doesn’t
sound so bad.

He instantly leaned back, hands behind him to stare at the ceiling with another pout. Those
probably weren’t good thoughts to be having, and he wasn’t entirely with it right now but
even he knew that. He didn’t know what would drive Draco insane more: how he was
constantly freaking out about the monster and wanting to do something about it like the
Gryffindor he was, or if Harry suddenly decided he didn’t care if he got eaten by a monster.
Either one sounded like Draco was going to have a heart attack by the time this school year
came to a close… or the school shut down, whichever came first.

Wait… there’s one book I haven’t read yet, that McGonagall wouldn’t know about!

He sat up and started digging through his bag, but since he hadn’t thought he’d get around to
it for a long while yet it was buried pretty far down. Still, magical handbags came in handy as
with only a bit of searching it popped up and he slipped it out with a tremor of nervous
excitement. He had half a paranoid thought that someone might catch him reading this out in
the open but… it wasn’t like it was obvious that this wasn’t like any other book sitting on the
shelves around him. It looked pretty normal and wasn’t even cursed, it was just… a book.

The incriminating part would be the content of said book, as when Draco had given it to him
for Christmas last year, he’d warned him not to get caught with it. Having not read it yet he
didn’t know for certain but… going by that, Harry was pretty sure this was a book on
something the Ministry wouldn’t approve of being circulated to the masses.

Meaning dark arts.

Meaning Transfiguration dark arts which was way cooler.

He still wasn’t really sure what he thought about the ‘dark arts’ in general, given Hufflepuff
through Gryffindor acted on default like it was a naughty word as a given. The “Defense of”
such a thing was an entire class they taught here but given both his teachers hadn’t, like,
taught them anything that useful Harry still wasn’t sure specifically what was so forbidden
about it all. Even if he were going to be reading this book he would still like to know the
counter-curses obviously, but that was true for every branch of magic automatically—why
was there no “Defense Against Transfiguration” class then? In his opinion Transfiguration
was waaay more dangerous and could probably benefit from having a counter-class, but no,
both the subject and the counter-subject were taught in one class so… why were the dark arts
different?
He still didn’t have a good definition of what the dark arts were, to be perfectly honest. He
didn’t know what made it dark or bad or whatever… all he knew is that Slytherin’s attitude
towards it was that no one spoke about it because you could definitely get in trouble for
doing something stupid like that, but none of them were against it. It was a strictly unspoken
thing but Harry had picked up that the ‘family magic’ they spoke about was probably all
considered ‘dark’, and for both legal reasons and also to be sure you had an ace up your
sleeve, it was a closely guarded secret within said families. It was a ubiquitous, normal thing
to them though.

In fact it was so common and just not a thing that anyone cared that much about in the snake
house, that an argument could be made that the rumor “all Slytherins were dark wizards”
wasn’t… technically untrue.

Slytherins were, mostly likely, all using dark arts so technically yes, they were all ‘dark
wizards’. They were certainly not all inherently evil though, as Harry knew Draco’s parents
had taught him plenty before coming to Hogwarts, and if you told him that the little baby
cactus firstie-Draco had been last year was inherently evil because he’d listened to his
mother, then forgive him while he laughed in your face.

Since he’d been warned Draco and Blaise were horrible examples and Theo was literally dark
aligned, Harry considered Daphne instead. She was a true businesswoman and you bet your
ass that if the dark arts had a good deal or gave her an advantage over anyone, meaning
literally every non-Slytherin who didn’t learn this branch of magic because they were told not
to, then she sure as hell had a few under-the-bar spells in her arsenal.

And well… that’s exactly what Harry wanted.

Since second year had started there wasn’t a spell he’d done in class that he hadn’t also
practiced to be able to do while running, or on someone sneaking up behind him, or from a
wand in his sleeve or lying on the floor or—or a lot of contingencies his increasingly
paranoid brain had thought up over the weeks since the summer. Since Quirrell really.

And while it made him a good student on the surface, it also made him hopefully more
dangerous someday. In the aftermath of everything he’d gone through in the magical world so
far, the one thing that had been driven harshly home into his soul was that he was weak.

He hadn’t even been able to fight off Vernon fucking Dursley who was a muggle and a fat pig
whose greatest bit of exercise was walking to the fridge each morning. What about an actual
troll or even Fluffy? Let’s not talk about Quirrell or bloody Voldemort or—now we have
mysterious voices and monsters to deal with and it was all just further proof that Harry wasn’t
enough to fight against any of it.

He was twelve.

He was average at Defense and frankly kind of bad at Charms.

He was great at Transfiguration though, and he knew it. It was the only thing he could cling
to that he could actually do right now, in the face of a lot of things he knew in his bones he
was not strong enough to save himself, or anyone else from.
He had a very passible knowledge base of most other second year topics, but he could
probably take the fourth year Transfiguration exam this afternoon and pass it, if not even get
an Outstanding on it. If McGonagall would let him into these books in front of him, by
Christmas he was sure he could pass the OWL even.

But he couldn’t, because he wouldn’t break the trust she’d put in him… but he also needed to
learn more because no matter how concerned she was about him racing ahead, she was also
unfortunately one of the adults who hadn’t done anything when he’d mistakenly trusted that
they would. She wasn’t doing anything, at least that he knew of, and he refused to do the
same.

He needed to act and if preparing was the only option he had right now, then so be it. If a
book of dark Transfiguration was his only option right now, then so be it.

He wasn’t going to rush too far into it… his first objective was to figure out exactly why this
was considered ‘dark’ in the first place, and then make the choice of if he was ready to
continue learning it or not. But he saw now reason not to get started and learn the truth
himself as soon as possible.

If it would also double as an excellent distraction, all the better.

Unfortunately, he only got through the introductory pages before he sensed a presence and
snapped it shut automatically, paranoia still high.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he realized who it was though.

“Harry?”

“Hey, Hermione…”

The curly-haired girl gave him a rather weak smile, clutching a huge book to her chest as she
walked down the aisle. It shouldn’t have been so weird, she practically lived here among the
books like Moaning Myrtle haunted the downstairs bathroom. It would’ve been weirder if he
hadn’t run into her here.

“Are you okay? I saw what happened in Potions.” She was kind enough to be concerned so
he gave her as genuine a smile as he could.

Everyone knew at this point, even those outside of the class. Gryffindor lost over a hundred
points after all, as despite both a Gryffindor and Slytherin having been caught in it, somehow
it was still Gryffindor’s fault. Not that anyone was shocked, given the class it had happened
in and the bat that ran it.

“Yeah, jerk that he is Snape actually fixed me no problem.”

“I’m… kind of surprised honestly.” She admitted and he gave a dry snort.

True. I still think it was only because it would’ve killed me if he hadn’t and he’s proud of his
record of having no deaths in his classes despite the dangerous topic.
He didn’t voice that though, instead giving an exasperated, “Yeah.”

He didn’t really understand when her brown eyes didn’t lessen their intensity, and instead got
closer as if inspecting him. Kind of in his personal space to be honest, but Hermione never
picked up on stuff like that and she never meant anything by it so he just let it go when it
came to her.

“Are you sure you’re okay? That was a fire protection potion: half finished like that it was
practically an incendiary!”

I actually had no idea what the potion was, nor did I care. He admitted to himself… and
stupidly enough his only emotion to that news was relief that his hair didn’t burn off. God
damn he was vain.

“Well that explains why it hurt so much,” He tried to joke but she didn’t seem amused at all.
In fact, she glared at him rather aggressively for the attempt at humor so he faltered
awkwardly. “Hermione, I really am okay. Snape fixed me in an instant; it was over in like a
second.”

“Did you go to the hospital wing?”

“Yes, and I’m fine.” He lied right to her face, but he wasn’t about to deal with this from her
too. Draco was more than enough, and he knew Neville was going to say something when
they caught up tonight as well.

“If you’re sure… do you have any idea who did it?” She relented some but her concern at
least shifting to the supposed culprit and Harry froze.

I… didn’t even think about the fact someone did that… on purpose.

Where… where the fuck was his head at? He was so wound up about monsters and dark lords
that when someone actually attacked him, as in maliciously put a firecracker in a dangerous
potion, he’d just… not even acknowledged it? He didn’t even think about the fact that it
wasn’t just an accident or a chance happenstance, but that there was clearly an aggressor.
Snape even took points off Gryffindor despite not knowing who the real culprit was…
meaning there was obviously someone responsible for roasting him. Someone had meant to
do that to him.

No, forget that… someone had tried to kill Draco.

Draco had been the one leaning over the potion, Harry had just been handing him things from
the side. Draco had his entire head over the cauldron when the firecracker caught Harry’s
eye… if he hadn’t grabbed him, there was a chance the blond’s lungs would’ve been roasted
and he would’ve been dead in the seconds before Snape could get across the room to them.
He could’ve been blinded or permanently disfigured as he’d been so close… would Snape
have even been able to undo that level of damage so quickly?

He automatically gripped the book in his arms so tightly he felt the cover deforming under
the strain. Something… ice cold, seeped into his stomach.
“It had to have been one of the Slytherins right? Who do you think?” Luckily Hermione
either didn’t notice his face or he was better at controlling his expressions than he thought he
was, but her innocent detective tone pulled him to the surface once more as a good
distraction.

Right… everything he’d just been planning was out the window right now.

Forget everything: he was going to find whoever had nearly killed Draco, and he was going
to kill them.

Hermione was brilliant, she’d be a good person to bounce things off of. All the quicker to
find them.

His focus snapped center and he pushed the emotions he may or may not have to the side to
concentrate on the problem at hand with a clinical approach.

“Well… the more I think about it, even if they wanted to stick it to me somehow a Slytherin
would never purposefully mess up a potion to do it. They know Snape actually really cares
about potions and they’d never actually risk pissing him off to that level.”

“Wait so… you think it was a Gryffindor?” Hermione’s brown eyes got wide as if the idea
had never crossed her mind. Which was a very Gryffindor thing to do: lions never suspected
other lions under the inherent belief they were all the good guys, and even if they did do
something then it was probably for a good reason so it was okay. It was one of the reasons the
snake house hated talking to them: they couldn’t stomach the attitude, particularly not when
Slytherins were mostly pessimists who were inherently aware of that fact that no one was
entirely good.

Everyone had a weak point, after all.

Harry however, liked the Gryffindor blind spot of thinking they were always in the right. As
he himself was also a lion, it absolved him of a lot of things without even trying, no matter
what he was actually doing, since his dorm mates usually defaulted with the ‘well he must’ve
have a good reason to do something so shady’. If he were anyone else he’d be called out or
hexed as a dark wizard before anyone asked a question.

“A firecracker in a cauldron? Seems very Gryffindor to me. Or a very ballsy Slytherin which
I’m struggling to believe but still possible I guess. And while I’m sure it wasn’t one of the
Gryffindor guys I also know Lavender avoids me like the plague.” He glanced at her
pointedly because… well Hermione did share a room with her. “I mean, I thought everyone
our year generally got along well. You haven’t heard them say anything like, that evil right?”

“No… I mean they’re… gossipy, for sure. They say mean stuff but not plotting to hurt
someone kind of level.” She hedged, seeming uncomfortable as she shifted her weight.
“Also… did you and Ron make up then?”

Oh shit I forgot about him.

“You forgot about him,” Hermione sounded oddly disappointed, and he winced. Could she
read his mind!?

“Ah… yeah I might’ve.” He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. He gave it some honest
thought but… he couldn’t quite see it. “But he’s also not that… I mean he talks a big game
but he never actually does anything, you know? How would he get away with throwing that
from across the room, but then Dean and Seamus are the ones being screamed at? Seems a bit
trickier than something Ron Weasley could do. I mean I don’t like him but I don’t think he
would. I didn’t think anyone our year would.” He confessed.

“Not even the Slytherins?” She countered with a frown.

“If Blaise had done it he’d have already told me just to rub it in my face. He’s kind of crazy
so that would check out but anyone else…? Risking Snape’s wrath seems not worth it for
something he could fix with a wave of his wand. If they were gonna take a risk that big it’d
have to be for something way more lasting or humiliating or something.”

What he didn’t say, was that if the potion was really that dangerous, the snakes would
absolutely know it. If one of them were actually trying to kill Draco, there were much
cleverer ways to go about it than so publicly like that, and going toe-to-toe with Draco and
Snape over potions knowledge was not a good idea, flat out. Banking on this potion killing
Draco and blaming it on an accident was never going to happen as Snape, a literal genius at
potions, would know immediately that it wasn’t a mistake in brewing, but an outside
ingredient that had gotten involved. If a Slytherin were the mastermind, then the intent was
not to kill anyone since the plan was way too badly made for something like that. Which
meant it had to have been for humiliation or pain or something and… frankly no matter how
much they hated either him or Draco, risking getting caught by Snape was in no way worth it.

The only ones stupid enough to think they’d get away with it, or at least stupid enough to
think humiliating him worth that risk, would be Crabbe and Goyle who… back to Harry’s
argument with Ron, he sincerely doubted would actually have been able to successfully pull
that off.

“I’m overthinking it maybe… who knows, maybe Peeves was invisible or something and has
a death wish.” He shrugged, although he half suspected Snape would’ve warded his
classroom from the poltergeist… maybe even with school permission since it was a
dangerous subject and having a prankster around that couldn’t be contained or told what ‘too
far’ was, was not a good idea.

Could you kill a poltergeist? Harry was very willing to give it a shot.

“Well… I’m not sure about the Slytherins but I’ll listen to see if Lavender and them say
anything.” She offered diplomatically, not seeming convinced at all but also at a loss.

“Thanks Hermione… I’d really like to find out if I can.” He made his tone as soft and
harmless as possible so she didn’t suspect the active murder he was plotting. Luckily she
smiled eagerly at him with a firm nod, so she bought it.
“Of course! I’ll keep an eye out.” She agreed easily and he flashed her a smile. “In any case,
what were you reading?”

I should’ve figured there was no chance she wouldn’t ask.

“Transfiguration again. This one kind of sucks though—the author clearly doesn’t know what
they’re talking about again.” He deflected easily.

He grinned at her very annoyed, yet playful pout. “I hate how you do that! Books are great
resources, how would one get published if it wasn’t true?” She insisted. She always hated
when he started calling books trash because of their writing styles or because the authors
were clearly making shit up, and it was always great entertainment to him.

“Very easily in the magical world apparently. If I could wave my wand and make a book
appear, I can put anything I want in it, regardless of if it’s true! And people don’t like to
question things in the wizarding world so people just buy it.”

“But it wouldn’t have made it into the Hogwarts Library if that were true!”

“Are you sure about that?” He chuckled, because he knew for a fact it was. Half the books in
this one section were written by people Harry was fairly sure would never be able to pass the
Transfiguration OWL of today. Before she could blow a gasket or he started coming off too
condescending, he had an idea and dug into his bag once more. “Actually, I have a book you
might like that will help you understand where I’m coming from.” He found it easily and
handed it over.

She eagerly accepted the new book, needing to place the huge one she was holding down on
the table for a second to take it and happily examined it—only for her face to drop a bit.

“Alchemy again?”

“Oh come on, we had fun with it last time, didn’t we?”

“I mean I guess… but I didn’t need to set things on fire to know rocks aren’t made of cotton.”
She gave him a flippant look and he rolled his eyes.

“That’s so not the point, the point is to question things and to understand why things happen.
I really think you’ll like it; give it a read!”

She still looked unconvinced, but Hermione was also never one to turn down a book
recommendation either so she got over it and gave him an earnest smile.

“Alright I will… thanks Harry.” She clutched the new book tightly to her chest, face
flickering some. “Did you… did you finish the book I gave you before? On the study of
emotions.”

He winced before he could stop himself but gave her a reassuring wave when she wilted
some at that reaction. “I didn’t finish it yet but I mean to! The first one was really helpful, I
promise… I haven’t punched anyone this year, have I?”
Which pulled a very small, exasperated smile from her. “I guess not.”

“See? It’s totally working, and that’s thanks to you!”

“But I hear you’ve been bullying the first years so I really think you should finish the next
one.”

“Wha--!?” He spluttered a bit wildly, having been called out so bluntly like that, and she gave
an honest laugh.

She shifted a bit uncertainly. “Did you eat dinner yet? The Great Hall’s about to be open.”
She offered.

“I’m really not that hungry,” he admitted honestly. After the day he’d had… but instantly
realized he’d messed up when she positively wilted in front of him. Oh, right… she didn’t…
really have a lot of close friends, from what he saw. Hence the haunting of the library being a
common occurrence. He plastered on a smile instead, despite really wanting to not show his
face in the Great Hall after word about today’s potions class had undoubtedly spread to the
entire student body by now. “But I probably should have something small after that potion
incident… I’ll come sit with you at least for a little bit.”

He offered the olive branch, but she lit up like it was the moon he’d offered instead. He
would probably bail early in the meal, feigning the need to get some rest after his incident
today, but he also wasn’t about to trample on her kindness either.

He really, really wasn’t hungry though.

000

Whatever Harry had been expecting when he got back to his dorm, it certainly wasn’t Neville
standing in the middle of the room with his arms wrapped around himself.

He’d been certain he would’ve had time to himself here, dinner was barely half over and he’d
slipped out after listening to Hermione regal him with her homework troubles for thirty
minutes. The fact Neville had beat him back here meant he hadn’t gone to dinner at all, but
instead was waiting on him.

“Neville?” He blinked in surprise, because the blond faced him head-on so it was kind of
obvious he had something to talk about.

Not that Harry hadn’t completely been expecting it, but the meek Gryffindor usually waited
until he was settled to slink up to him and quietly ask if he was okay rather than… whatever
this was.

And this was certainly something as he watched the blond see him and his apparent
nervousness just… evaporated. He stood up straight and dropped his arms to the side to give
him a smile. And even though that smile reached and filled his blue eyes with warmth like
sunlight… somehow Harry still felt slightly nervous that there was more to this than he could
see with his eyes.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” He asked, directly to his face.

Which, Harry hadn’t ever really seen him do before so he was really taken off guard.

“Of course! I mean obviously, yeah…” He was curious and also kind of… unnerved when
Neville walked over to Harry’s own bed and sat on it without an invitation. Not that he
needed one obviously but still. “What’s up?” He wondered wildly, plopping down beside
him. It was a familiar position—they’d talked loads, exactly like this a hundred times before.

What Harry was completely not prepared for, was that this wasn’t a conversation they’d had a
hundred times before—not by a long shot.

“Harry, you’re… probably my best friend, you know that?” Neville came out of nowhere in
announcing that, and Harry froze completely solid in surprise at the sudden tone shift. “I
know I’m not your best friend, but that’s okay. Draco is more decent than I ever gave him
credit for; Seamus won’t stop picking quidditch fights with him and he’s very polite to
everyone even if he’s not strictly friendly. You’re really important to me and I don’t have an
issue with him: I don’t want you thinking any differently.”

Harry could only gape at him soundlessly for a second.

“Where did that come from!? I mean, I’m glad… last year I know…” He trailed off, feeling a
little clammy remembering how Neville had avoided Draco like the plague only last year.
Only a couple months… weeks ago? To go from refusing to talk about him to suddenly
acknowledging the blond Slytherin… made him very, very nervous. “Neville?” he pleaded
for an explanation.

“Don’t be worried.” The golden blond only offered a kind smile. “I know you don’t want to
hear that people are worried about you, but will you accept that you have a lot of people who
care about you? That you’re my best friend and I’m lucky to have you. That everyone around
you is very happy you’re in their lives, just being yourself.”

He didn’t know how exactly… but there were suddenly tears streaming down his face.

What the hell…?

Neville just offered his hand, and it wasn’t until then that Harry realized he’d very pointedly
been sitting a foot away without touching him. But now he was offered, and Harry grabbed
the offered appendage with both hands, leaning into his side sharply for the support because
he couldn’t do this… whatever this even was! The supposedly meek Gryffindor remained
strong, sitting upright and letting him lean into him without a reaction but a gentle squeeze of
his fingers.

“Neville.” He demanded, but just got a pleasant smile. Absolutely no comment or judgement
at all about his tears. “Why!? Why with—with all of that…?”

“I won’t tell you what to do or ask you to tell me anything at all. You never have to tell me
anything, but it won’t change the fact you’re my friend. Do you believe that?”
Oh god it hurts.

“Yes,” Was all he could get out before the tears turned into a sob… it felt like there was a ten
ton weight bearing down his neck that forced his head to bow, weakly putting it on Neville’s
shoulder. And it was the truth, remembering back to when they’d returned from break… how
Neville hadn’t pushed at all. He never pushed, he just cared… he was just there.

He couldn’t handle it and he sobbed.

Something cracked inside his head and tears came flooding out… and he was completely
helpless to stop them, like a river surge ripping him under and him weakly struggling to
survive beneath the unstoppable torrent. The boy beside him shifted and slipped his hand
away, only for arms to gently wrap around him, light as a feather. Harry responded in kind by
grabbing his middle like a python and squeezing the ever-loving life out of him with all the
strength he had. If the blond couldn’t actually breathe like that, he didn’t make a sound of
protest or try to stop him.

He just cried.

He cried so hard he forgot to breath until a hand on the back of his shoulder blades pressed
sharply to remind him to take in an ugly, sobbing breath of air every so often.

Neville just accepted it, he didn’t push at all or say a word. The fact he’d somehow known
how close Harry actually was to the edge… that he’d purposefully pushed him with kind
words and then caught him just as kindly made Harry want to curl into a ball and die.

He didn’t know why he felt like a piece of shit, but he really, really did right then. Everything
about how awful this entire week—year? Life?—had been sunk deep into his flesh and
weighed at him heavily. He felt like he was drowning, and now that it was in his own tears he
felt pathetic and… and raw.

Eventually… eventually, using all his strength to hug the life out of his friend sapped him of
his energy and he relaxed the hold to something more reasonable. He was a full mess right
now as he finally managed to remember how to breathe through the rapidly cooling tears on
his cheeks… mixed with hot ones still coming down freely though he forgot about trying to
stop them temporarily.

“I… where d-did all that come from?” He asked wetly to the window behind Neville’s
shoulder as he got a gentle squeeze back.

Neville’s silence had seemed… very purposeful. Very heavy, actually. As he finally spoke,
Harry could feel him well up and consider his words very carefully as he found his answer
and shared it gently.

“…someone better at potions than me told me what it had to have felt like, to have it explode
on you like that.” Harry frowned, not understanding where he was going with that at all.
“Harry… you didn’t make a sound. You didn’t care. You weren’t even angry.”

…what could he say to that? It was true, wasn’t it?

“You’re certainly not weak Harry… I just wish you didn’t have to be so strong.”

He inhaled almost against his will… tears, somehow hotter than before slipping over his
cheeks with a renewed vigor.

“I don’t…”

What do I say?

“I know I can’t understand, but I also know some bad things have happened to you, for that
to have meant nothing. You don’t have to tell me anything, you don’t have to tell anyone
anything, but I want you to know I know something happened. And that I care, without any
details at all I still care.”

Harry gripped him harder still, almost afraid to let go.

God what did he do to deserve Neville?

Probably nothing.

He didn’t deserve Neville.

No one did.

“I-I really am okay— it didn’t—well it hurt but it wasn’t…” He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t
get the words out, but Neville just waited for him to work through it with unending patience.
“It was over so fast I didn’t really….”

All the blond gave was a mild hum of response, accepting that.

But the potion was not why he was crying right now. Not at all.

Why am I crying then?

And he was sobbing again like a broken mess but no, it had nothing to do with the potion.
The hands on his back running soothing circles now to remind him to breathe were
unbearably kind, but no… they weren’t comforting him about the potion either, somehow he
knew that.

He realized far too late that he was shaking like a tuning fork, and Neville’s arms around him
were light and unrestrictive, not too hard—Harry was the one giving him a death grip.

“N-Neville?”

“I’m glad it didn’t last long, if nothing else.”

He was shaking so hard he couldn’t even really see straight and if he let go an inch he knew
he was going to completely unwind at the seams, shaken to pieces like a toy robot breaking
apart under a toddler’s careless thrashing—the arms around him the only thing holding him
together right now.
It didn’t really hurt, the potion. It was over so fast how could he care about something like
that!?

… it didn’t hurt… it didn’t hurt… it didn’t hurt…

He clenched his eyes tightly shut, not sure what his brain was doing to him now.

It had nothing on the cruciatus

Oh.

Is that what he’d been avoiding thinking about?

Why had he…?

As if he’d suddenly been electrocuted he flailed, jumping back and practically shoving
Neville’s arms off of him. He very ungracefully leaped back as if fire had appeared between
the two of them and he needed to get away, standing in an instant but frozen with his feet
rooted to the floor because couldn’t move away from him or he was certain he’d die but he
also—he couldn’t—he couldn’t face Neville like this.

He actually felt like he was going to throw up. He felt absolutely sick.

Because somehow he’d completely forgotten… no, he’d shoved it away. It had been the
fiftieth blow to his brain and his heart and his soul so he couldn’t stomach it back when he’d
first learned, and somehow he’d taken the knowledge and shoved it so far down he could
pretend the world was fine for half a second. He could go to classes and brew potions, play
quidditch, read books, and talk about nothing—he could go about his life because he’d taken
all of it and shoved it away. Locked it up and swallowed it. He kept going and he left to what
he couldn’t fix for a plan for tomorrow, like a good little Slytherin—

A Slytherin that he wasn’t.

His whole body felt cold. So, unbearably, horrifically cold.

His hands were shaking uselessly in front of him, like he wanted to do something with them
but had no idea what, and the tips of his fingers were completely numb. It was so hard to
breathe like this, and he wasn’t even crying he was so fucking terrified.

He’d buried it under everything else over the summer, but that last part of his parent’s will
that he’d been ignoring for the sake of keeping Neville close to him… because if Neville
knew he’d breached his trust like that he’d—and Harry couldn’t lose him or—

He was horrified.

He was so horrified he couldn’t even form words.

It filled him to the brim and made him want to give a blood curling scream because this was
unbearable.

Alice and Frank Longbottom were tortured into insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange

Neville.

Neville?

Gentle and shy and despairingly kind Neville, who just… who just took it all and never said a
word and he—his parents--!?

Harry hadn’t wanted to think about it but he now knew exactly was curse had been used to
torture Alice and Frank Longbottom, to remove their sanities from this earth and away from
their child. He knew exactly what kind of spell had made Neville essentially an orphan like
him, for all intents and purposes. He knew exactly what made him so gentle with someone
who was seemingly out of the god damn mind right now. He remembered too vividly how
he’d begged for nothingness instead of that hell on earth… he wondered in a daze if he
wouldn’t have gone insane eventually too, if Voldemort hadn’t decided on killing him
instead.

Oh yeah, death was way better than that.

Death was way better than that.

But Neville… Neville.

Neville who didn’t even look offended or concerned that he’d been shoved off, who just
peacefully lowered his hands to his lap from where they’d been tossed off (his touch had
been so light—was he expecting that to happen!?) and how his words from earlier were now
piercing into Harry’s psyche with enough force that he wondered if he wasn’t going to go
insane from this instead.

Neville hadn’t wanted anything to do with Draco… in hindsight it was obvious why.

But instead of rightfully keeping his distance or even seeking revenge if he could get it…
he’d decided to accept Draco instead.

He’s… decided to… to accept…?

Harry didn’t understand. He couldn’t. How could anyone understand this!?

How could you understand kindness?

He broke suddenly then, shoulders slumping and burying his face in his hands as he sobbed
once more. How could someone like him understand how incomprehensibly brave this quiet
Gryffindor was for being willing to forgive an enemy for the sake of a friend? For someone
rotten to the core like him? He in no way deserved this.

How could he forgive someone who caused him pain just by existing, just to be able to stand
by someone who he believed didn’t even acknowledge him as that dear a friend back?

Harry was just… completely disgusted with himself.

NO ONE deserved Neville Longbottom. But least of all me.

“Harry?” his soft voice finally broke into the world that was slowly crumbling around him,
and Harry flinched violently. He still had no idea how he could be so forgiving, so kind, and
it fucking terrified him honestly because he didn’t know what to do with it. But Neville didn’t
care if he was terrified, he just offered his hands very, very calmly. “What do you want me to
do?”

Harry felt his heart squeeze in his chest as he forgot to breathe.

Then it just… all came spilling out.

Everything.

Every terrifying thing that haunted his nightmares: hooded figures in dark hallways and hot
sheds, the sound of summer crickets muffled by wooden walls and windowless hallways that
never end. Every single thing Quirrell had said and done, the terror and the scars on his
hands, his cheek, his chest. Disgustingly guilt-tinged werewolves and betrayal, bloodlines
and fear. Voices in the walls and small cupboards. Humiliation and pretty red hair. Colin and
monsters and hands that crumbled to dust in your palm. Voldemort and muggles and trolls
and snakes and lions and everything.

Everything.

Neville just… sat there and took it.

His expression didn’t falter, he didn’t get angry or look worried. Harry was a complete
fucking mess and he knew none of the words made much sense, but Neville was smart and
probably the best listener there was, so he could probably fill in a lot of the gaps of the
senseless, babbling story. He never so much as flinched, but his calm look only got more
reassuring as Harry cried harder and the confessions got wilder and less coherent.

The reassurance that he wasn’t going to react or say anything meant Harry just kept going,
and it snowballed until it just didn’t stop.

He talked until his throat hurt and he didn’t even know what he’d said anymore; he was
pretty sure he was actually repeating things now, but he couldn’t stop any of it and it all just
—it came spilling out and he—he couldn’t—

“…the cruciatus?”
It was the first thing he’d said in all this time and Harry just… froze solid. He reeled all his
panic tightly inside and stared with wide, agonized eyes into the blue ones looking up at him.
Neville wasn’t angry but… his posture had cooled a lot. His expression and his hands were
still open and inviting even if Harry didn’t dare grab onto him again, but there was a chill that
had descended over him that even he couldn’t stop as they got to the topic Harry couldn’t
face… but he also could not keep from him either.

He was so full of shame he wanted to sink to the floor and disappear.

“I know,” he confessed in a rush, the words just tumbling out. He couldn’t face him, shaking
like a leaf as he put his face in hands again and bowed forward like he didn’t know if he
could keep standing through the horror of this confession. He was terrified… he didn’t know
why he was so terrified of Neville of all people but he was. Even then… he couldn’t bear to
pretend he didn’t know now that he remembered everything that he’d been running from. “I
know I—I read my parents will—I—your parents were in it and I—I didn’t mean to but—but
I—"

“My parents,” the blond repeated… calm but heard his voice wavered painfully.

Harry felt like he’d been stabbed through the heart.

It was so real he clutched at his chest just to be sure there would be no blood. He wasn’t sure
if he was happy or disappointed he wasn’t actually dying when there was none.

The last thing he’d wanted was to hurt him… he couldn’t bear to hurt him… to hurt Neville
of all the people in the world who didn’t deserve to be hurt— he let out a sob, giving way to
sound of wordless despair.

“I’m sorry,” He sobbed, helpless.

I can’t protect anyone, and I couldn’t even do this.

Suddenly, there was an iron grip around his wrists that yanked hard enough to make him
stumble, and he blinked awkwardly through tears until he let Neville sternly pull him back
down to sit beside him on the bed again. He didn’t let go of his wrists, in fact gripping them
tight enough it almost hurt, forcing Harry to look him in the eye.

Finally he was more than just calm, and now there was compassion and fear and… and
something he couldn’t place as Harry fretted what he’d say.

“What happened to him?”

“What?” He breathed unsteadily, but Neville was steady as a rock. His grip tight and his eyes
very, very intent.

“To Quirrell.”

What happened to him? Harry thought hysterically.

Well… he couldn’t fall any farther. He’s already messed it up, and Neville had asked.
So he told him.

The god’s honest truth this time came spilling out and horror filled his throat with bile as he
actually put into words what he’d done. The crumbling hand, the Transfiguration… ah, but he
clung to Transfiguration and even as the vivid images came back with an ugly reminder of
how filthy he truly was to be able to resort to things like that, it didn’t hurt when thinking
about the magic… it was just magic after all, magic he loved… and Transfiguration was safe.

It was safe. He could handle talking about it… never mind what he’d done, it was all just
Transfiguration.

The only reason he was able to say it all, is that Neville didn’t waver an inch. He just took it
in, calm as ever.

“He’s dead?” was all he asked. Nothing in his tone gave away what he felt about it, so Harry
felt numb as he answered honestly.

“Yeah.” He admitted, weakly. At some point he’d dropped his head down again, unable to
meet the blue eyes looking intently at him. He wasn’t brave enough. “I-I can confirm
everything McGonagall warned us about with Transfiguration… even simple principles are
deadly. It wasn’t that h-hard to be honest, I mean I… I w-was only a first year.”

He was almost afraid of admitting that even to himself… to admit it out loud… much less to
Neville…

Kind, forgiving, just Neville.

The only true Gryffindor Harry actually believed in. Someone with a soul of shiny gold and a
moral compass that pointed true north… admitting he’d killed someone, every gruesome
detail and how it’d been easy to do it even…

Hands around his wrists tightened and pulled him up to look up. He was a bit surprised how
close Neville had gotten, inches away and blue eyes locked on his.

“Good.”

Harry stared back at him.

…what?

His heart… ached.

He didn’t know if he needed to be forgiven for what he’d done. It was self defense after all, at
least that’s what he told himself… and would’ve told others though no one had asked… and
maybe he’d never admit but it still felt…

He silently dropped his head against Neville’s shoulder in something like… relief?

Relief that the arms around him didn’t hesitate, and were much, much stronger now than the
light hold he had before.
He was just… being forgiven for something he didn’t even know had been under his skin all
this time, tears flowing more freely but… not as painfully anymore. He cried harder and…
simply fell apart.

“I should’ve told you… I should’ve….”

The supposedly meekest Gryffindor didn’t say anything else. He didn’t answer him, but
whatever Harry was apologizing for here, he sensed Neville certainly wasn’t holding it
against him. He wasn’t asking for an apology or an explanation or a plan or anything.

He was just here.

 Watching

"What do you think? It's nice right? I love the color on you!"

Neville didn't really get… colors, exactly… certainly not the way Harry got them somehow.

However, looking in the mirror to examine his friend's handywork, he had to admit he liked
the sweater vest he'd been put into… it was warm, first of all, with big stitching of thick
material for the brisk weather, and a nice, light, off-brown sort of color. He didn't get what
specifically about this color was so great but Harry had seemed annoyed by the fact the entire
school could only pick from one of four colors to dress in… not that Harry himself had ever
paid attention to that trend at all, but still.

They had their uniforms but there was also a lot of leeway given for practicality, so yes their
outer robes were standard for colder months but what you wore under it mattered less, so
long as it was neutral, presentable, and you had your tie on. In warmer months no one ever
got detention for not having their black robes on, or missing ties if you were working in the
greenhouses or leaning over cauldrons in potions and similar things that the strict uniform
would interfere with.

Harry seemed to really like talking colors and his muggle clothing was… wild, to say the
least. He didn't wear things like that under his black robes though as he could read the room
and knew neon teal t-shirts probably weren't in the spirit of the Hogwarts uniform, so he kept
things like that for non-class hours. He had been getting more and more creative with what
he wore with his uniform though, but had been very faithful to the "neutral and presentable"
guidelines set before them while still being very unique and interesting every day. Not the
white button down, poorly-tied tie, and black slacks every other guy in Gryffindor wore,
that's for sure.

They'd made a deal, over the past couple weeks, which is how Neville ended up also dressing
like this… or having Harry hand him things to wear each day that he had no willpower to
even argue about.

He'd always known his friend was an early riser, but he also suspected it wasn't exactly a
good thing to be operating on that little amount of sleep, given they went to bed at roughly
the same time, yet Harry was always up hours before Neville could drag himself into
wakefulness. They'd reached an agreement that Harry would stay in bed and try to rest more
at least an hour more than he had been, and in exchange when he did "wake up" officially,
Neville would get up with him. Spending too many hours before sunrise with his own
thoughts hadn't been doing him many favors so he agreed to take his calming drafts before
bed and stay there until Neville got up, which he'd thankfully been very good about sticking
to so far.

Neville wasn't sure if the extra sleep (or rest at least since he suspected he was just staring at
the ceiling if he woke up too early accidentally) was actually doing him any good, but he
couldn't be much worse than the alternative.
So, now up far earlier than he'd have chosen to be, they had some time to kill between the
two of them in the mornings now. Harry spent a lot of time getting ready since he had the
time to spend, but since Neville was just… there also, he'd suddenly decided that they both
needed to get ready with the same amount of gusto.

Not that he'd forced anything on him just yet, but Harry had also gleefully started unearthing
clothing from apparently nowhere and was also now scarily good at Transfiguration to be
able to tailor it right to him and… well, Neville was just bad at saying no. Besides, he'd never
been that concerned over what he wore, and he'd have his black robe over it all day anyway,
so it didn't really matter that he was now wearing brown slacks and shoes that definitely
seemed to be muggle but were very comfy for how odd they looked… as well as things like
sweater vests and jumpers over his white collared shirts that were all colors he'd never
imagined himself wearing before.

Things like off-brown and undercurrents of green or mauve were all totally foreign concepts
to him as colors used to be 'just brown' to him… and frankly they still were 'just brown' to
him, but the nuances in different colors seemed to be very important to Harry so he didn't say
anything and just put on the clothes he was handed.

He also trusted the red head, because true to form, regardless of what the color was called,
even he was able to recognize that the new sweater vest really made his dark blond hair
seem… more gold somehow? And it also didn't look bad with his Gryffindor tie either, as
matching the bold lion-red to things was not easy, and why even most girls stuck to whites,
blacks, and greys beneath their school assigned colors. Black clashed with nothing after all.

He'd also not pushed a hair clip or bauble or anything on him as of yet, sticking just to clothes
and Neville admitted with Harry picking out the clothes and tying his tie for him, he looked a
lot more put together than any version of himself he could've come up with. At least now he
looked like he had his life together, no matter what the reality was. Harry had even gotten his
permission to trim his hair up a bit and it looked much less… juvenile? Was that the word?
His old haircut was the one he'd had for most of his life, meaning ever since he was six or so,
but now that he was twelve, almost a teenager at that… he supposed this new style was nicer
for that purpose at least. Maybe people wouldn't baby him as much someday then.

He doubted Harry would ever be one of those people though, as he fixed his hair for him,
beaming over his shoulder in the mirror.

"I do like it," he admitted, because it was true. He couldn't quite share the joy Harry seemed
to have, but he also liked that this small thing made him happy.

"Yay!" he cheered, fixing his own hair before leading his way out of their dorm bathroom. "I
wonder if breakfast is open yet," He wondered aloud, though much quieter as their
roommates were still snoring soundly back in the main dorm. Sometimes Harry asked him to
braid his long red hair for him, but today seemed not to be one of those days… which meant
it was a better day than normal.

That was good. Hopefully breakfast would have something very filling and he'd actually eat
all of it for once.
"It probably will be by the time we make it down there." He agreed, grabbing both of their
bags as Harry made faces at Ron's very grating snore behind his curtains. He sighed silently.
"Come on…"

Harry happily chatted about their Transfiguration test later today (ugh, please don't remind
him) while they walked, and then the conversation turned to football, which Neville could
actually participate more in. He was… not the best but he had been the default goalie for
most of their games thus far this year. He liked to think he was doing much better at it
recently and by Harry's very energetic praise felt a bit more confidence to keep trying. He
wasn't sure what the real point of being a good goalie was but… he wasn't exactly the star
talent at anything else in his life, so it felt good to have something for once.

They were very early to the Great Hall, in that breakfast was not technically served yet…
however the house elves below would never let someone who was hungry go without, so
when they sat, tea and small biscuits appeared on the plates before them. Neville figured real
breakfast would appear in maybe twenty minutes or so....

Hogwarts had set meal times but it was very generous with start and end times. It normally
depended on when kids were actually hungry, and while there was only a handful of early-
rising kids milling about right now, mostly doing homework or minding their own business at
their corners of the tables, once there was about a dozen kids or so ready to eat then food
would start appearing regardless of if it was technically on time or not.

It was kind of nice, to be able to sit and actually talk at a normal, if not slightly quieter than
normal volume. Being able to talk lowly and actually be heard in the Great Hall was a rare
thing, but something that had been growing on Neville as they settled into this new routine of
theirs.

They chatted a bit, still on football which was nice… but unfortunately it didn’t last long
since, as always, someone called to grab Harry’s attention.

“Good morning you two,” The girl in question walked up casually… a lot more casually than
Slytherins normally did to the Gryffindor table, although it probably had something to do
with the fact he and Harry were literally the only Gryffindors currently sitting here right now.

“You’re up early,” Harry gave her a look and Daphne just shrugged it off, nodding her
greeting… Neville was slightly surprised she even acknowledged him. Most Slytherins
didn’t… and he half worried Harry would wonder why—

But he was sufficiently distracted when she handed him a letter wordlessly, and Neville was
then less concerned about Harry’s suspicions, and more so about the new tension in his
shoulders.

“Don’t look so worried, I believe it’s good news.”

“Good news…” he repeated, still staring at the letter like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to open
it or not.

Harry had told him everything so… he kind of suspected what was in it.
“Why don’t you leave it until after breakfast. We have a break before Herbology anyway.” He
suggested quietly and Harry frowned a bit before locking eyes for a moment and deciding to
listen. Luckily, he’d been doing that more lately.

“…I guess I will.” He agreed, slipping it into his robe pocket safely. Greengrass raised a
brow.

“Not curious?”

“Of course I am, but I’m eating first,” He shrugged flippantly, like it wasn’t a big deal. Like
the real reason wasn’t that if he read the letter, then he’d be too worked up to eat and Neville
would make disappointedly worried eyes at him until lunch.

She didn’t push, giving a shrug. One glance around the room and she actually slipped into the
table beside him, making Neville blink.

“If you don’t mind… are you talking about the game this weekend?”

“Why, looking to be on our team?”

“I might have an interest…” She deflected coyly, and Neville couldn’t really argue… she was
one of the better midfielders in the club so far. Only really the Weasley twins, who were
damn near the best at it, had her beat so far.

He figured it was the Slytherin-y-ness probably…as the current only snake in the club,
Daphne had a real knack of sticking to the middle of the field and making some very clever
plays, which usually worked now that people had relaxed enough around her to listen to her
when she called the shots. Her and Marissa, a fourth year Ravenclaw had been proving to be
just as much trouble as Fred and George could be sometimes, though if they were on the
same team Neville would feel less anxious about needing to defend against tricky plays like
that… then again he really wasn’t interested in facing the twins, who could read each other’s
minds apparently. He was just thankful they’d settled as midfielders too, not forwards…
although Susan was a forward who did apparently whatever she wanted regardless of rules
and she was on the opposite team this weekend…

He winced at the reminder. She was kind of terrifying and kicked really hard.

“Thinking about Bones, huh? She’s certainly a problem, isn’t she?” Greengrass chuckled at
him and he felt his cheeks get hot. Was she a mind reader!? “If you let me on your team I
may have a plan or two that should have her cooling it some.”

“I mean…” He didn’t really know, since no one really let anyone onto their teams or not. It
was still unofficial enough that people just sort of grouped together and the team captains
who’d decided to kick off a game were responsible for filling out their teams with 11 people
and back-ups if needed.

“Otto is our team captain this week, you’ll have to ask him— though I’m not against it,”
Harry gave her a knowing looks and she made a face. Right… Otto being a third year
Gryffindor and not on the best of terms with Slytherins in general. Harry must’ve felt
benevolent today though because he just chuckled. “I’ll ask him when he comes down for
breakfast.”

“Thanks,” She gave him a thankful grin, before jumping right into the new tactic she wanted
to use.

Neville… ate a biscuit and listened carefully.

000

“Again.”

Draco felt sweat pooling on his brow and winced as he wiped it off. He thought himself
pretty athletic given his dedication to quidditch for practically his whole life, and especially
recently now that he was on the team, but this was a whole other monster altogether.

He put his hands in the air around the goblet in front of him and strained to gather the energy
needed to perform the spell, just barely reminding himself to clear his thoughts and refocus
on the feeling he’d found that echoed through him, the one that caused the right ripples to
appear across the water in the cup before him. He was not used to the trial-and-error forms of
learning things but to say he probably wouldn’t be forgetting it any time soon was an
understatement…

That being said, just because he now knew the feeling of how to do it correctly, didn’t mean
it was easy to do several dozen times in a row.

As evidenced by the last ripple disappearing on the water’s surface half a beat too early
compared to all the other times he’d done it.

“Hm,” Madam Pomfrey hummed neutrally. “That seems to be your limit then. Remember the
strain you just felt in performing that spell and if you’re ever in that situation again you will
cease healing immediately, even mid-spell if need be. You understand how to cancel healing
spells?”

“Yes Madam.” He nodded, that being one of the first things she’d ever drilled into him, along
with quite the lengthy and far-too-detailed lecture about exactly what kind of gruesome
things even simple spells that didn’t finish properly could do to a human body.

“Good. I will reiterate that this particular spell, if incomplete because of a lack of magic or
concentration, can turn one’s skin inside out on the appendage you’re working on. For arms
and legs that’s unfortunate but you will kill someone should it be their torso or their head.”
She explained bluntly, and while he’d heard it before he still felt disgusted by the reminder.

“Yes Madam.” He kept his thoughts to himself though. He hadn’t quite realized she was
testing his endurance for this, he thought she was testing him on his ability to perform this
spell: the first one he thought he’d mastered, and it was an extremely basic one to heal a
minor scrape: even a paper cut might be too deep for this low-level spell for how basic it was.
The only promising thing about it though, was that he’d done it entirely wandless, without an
incantation, and the entire spell took only four or five seconds to complete.
Which he thought was pretty good but—

“It is a decent start Mr. Malfoy, however you will need to keep at it until it can be done
within a second. When done with a wand that spell is nearly instantaneous. Also given the
amount of power you are using it would probably be suited well for a scraped knee or palm,
however in its full form it should be able to absolve someone’s entire body of abrasions and,
at its peak, even remove sunburn entirely. My advice is to keep at it until you can build the
power and speed for performing it. I commend you for being able to do it successfully
multiple times in a row however: that is a critical first step.” She was brutal as ever in giving
strict praise where it was due, but also having no mercy at all in how far he still had to go.

As he wiped the sweat from his brow he grimaced in thinking how long just getting this far
had taken him.

“Yes Madam,” he sighed instead. “I don’t suppose you’re going to teach me anything else to
keep it interesting while I work on this?”

The woman gave him a very indulgent smile that scrunched the wrinkles of her eyes in a
lighter manner than she’d been addressing him in thus far.

“I do not suppose I will. To build your ability into a powerful one I’m afraid the only way to
do it is one step at a time. I suspect once this is mastered you will have the understanding to
move onto other spells slightly quicker than this first one… but unfortunately building your
magical reserves to be able to heal continuously, using stronger spells than these basic ones,
can only be done through repetition and dedication. You may have the skill to learn a new
spell, however you do not have the magical prowess for it just yet. Practice until you can no
more and eventually you will.”

“Right…” He already suspected that given her warnings before, but it was still depressing to
hear.

“I will give you a comprise, if you’d like?”

He perked up instantly, anything but the slog he’d been going through sounding mighty damn
appealing right then. “How so?”

She gave him another indulgent smile before reaching to the side of her desk with a stack of
small journals that’d been there since he’d arrived at her office for his lesson, clearly having
been prepared in advance for this.

“Our agreement thus far was to help you develop your ability. Have you given any thought
into what more you’d like to do with it, in the future?” She prompted.

“Like… actually being a healer versus just someone with this ability?” He clarified, flexing
his hand pointedly and she nodded patiently.

She had explained the difference—he could have this ability just fine, that was just something
unique about him… but to actually be called a healer he’d need a lot more training and the
intent was to attend St. Mungos for a certification of sorts after his Hogwarts graduation.
Pomfrey had explained that most started from scratch as graduated wizards with NEWT level
knowledge in Charms and Potions, and it took them two to three years to get their
certification. He, as a second year without any kind of NEWT level knowledge in anything,
but with a private tutor and this inherent ability of his, could probably study for it during his
time at Hogwarts and she suspected it would only take him maybe a couple months to get
that certification upon graduation. And even that would be just going through the motions to
get the paperwork in order mostly.

While that was all well and good, it was a lot of work if he wasn’t actually planning to be a
healer. He could just keep training his ability and call it there, if he wanted to, turning it into a
clever party trick at best and pursue anything else with his career instead. Or, if he intended
to actually become a healer…

Honestly… he still didn’t know.

He hadn’t truly given a ton of thought to what he would do with his future, he was pretty well
preoccupied by just trying to survive his school year and he’d always had this vague
understanding that he needed to be prepared to get ahead in the world but…

But what does ‘get ahead’ mean exactly? What is ‘success’? The objective goal is to make
wealth for the Malfoy name but we are the richest in Wizarding Britain already. I could own
businesses and such like father does without it being my entire life, right?

When he stopped and really thought about life after Hogwarts… waking up in the morning,
what would he want to do with his day? Eat breakfast, play quidditch… if he wasn’t a
professional quidditch player he’d definitely like to own a team maybe, which would be a
decent source of income too, but then in the off season there was only so much that could
actually fill up in a day…

His cheeks turned a light pink when the brutally honest side of him admitted quietly that
really… whatever day-to-day life he lived, he knew he’d want to see Harry in it. Even if it
was just catching up with him in Diagon or doing… whatever it was that Harry was up to
because come hell or high water Draco knew Harry would always be up to something no
matter what it was…

The idea that he would spend his days stuck in a solicitor’s office like his father or doing
political tea parties like his mother… was truly not appealing to him. It sounded dreadfully
boring even if that’s sort of what he felt like he should be doing somehow.

Really… despite how bad everyone said he was at it, being with people was the highlight of
his day. He could only take so much studying alone or flying by himself before he went
insane; part of the only reason he and Blaise somehow manage to become sort-of friends was
that neither of them could handle being isolated islands of people no matter how bad an idea
it was to get involved with each other. They weren’t Nott who would happily never talk to
another human again and be just fine. No… Draco found he gained energy from talking and
engaging with others.

So yeah, he sucked at manipulation and playing the Slytherin game, but he did honestly enjoy
trying. He liked talking and he thought he was slowly getting better at it as he developed his
strategy of how to become the kind of Slytherin he wanted to be. In his current day-to-day,
the ‘high’ points were always when he’d engaged with someone somehow. Even if it was an
argument or something negative, he still preferred that to not speaking or keeping to himself.
He hated being ignored way more than he hated getting into conflicts or arguments, that’s
how basic his desire to be with other people was.

So yeah… sitting in an office or playing house would get boring immediately.

Other than working in a shop or some other kind of basic public service job, what kind of
profession guaranteed human contact every day? There was almost no way to be a healer
without dealing with people constantly, which he kind of liked the sound of in a weird way.
He did not feel overly empathetic or soft, like the traditional concept of what a healer should
be like, but Madam Pomfrey sure as hell wasn’t soft on him as she’d gone about giving him
these lessons. In fact, apart from some smiles spared here and there, she wasn’t really that
empathetic at all.

Most of Hogwarts knew intimately how scary she was—Sprout was the portly motherly-type,
but Madam Pomfrey had always been terrifying. He had no desire to be subservient exactly
but… heaving the Madam’s sort of reputation was in no way unattractive to him if he could
somehow replicate it someday.

He could totally fake some smiles in the name of being ‘comforting’ when it counted, but if
being pretty uncaring otherwise was okay… and going by the Madam’s attitude it clearly
was… then it didn’t sound like a bad life choice at all. In fact the idea that it required skill in
Charms and Potions, two of not only his best but his favorite subjects, kind of made it feel
like this was well suited to his personality type. The physical work itself had his interest
already and he wasn’t against learning more as he genuinely enjoyed the topics too as they
were pretty cool.

Besides, it didn’t hurt that a healer was viewed as a very esteemed position in the wizarding
world. Aside from Aurors it was one of the only professions that required more education
outside of what Hogwarts taught (and no Malfoy was about to become an Auror, thank you).
There was value and prestige in the role and given Madam Pomfrey was setting him up to be
able to get his certification in record time, would make him one of the youngest healers alive
right now and add even more prestige to the job.

Would it bring esteem to the Malfoy name? It would be a weird career choice for sure, but
yes it actually would.

Was it light or dark tinted? Depending on how he used it, it could go either way or even
strictly grey which was perfect. That flexibility was really attractive particularly since he still
had no other solid plans (…and he suspected that he would need to be pretty agile to keep on
top of whatever Harry was doing at any given time).

Was it useful? Oh Merlin yes it would be, just imagining the kind of deals he could strike was
mouthwatering.

Was it profitable? Potentially, again depending on how he used it, and he was sure he could
find a way to turn a profit someday post-Hogwarts. He knew his mother paid a pretty penny
to have private healers look at her family and friends rather than ever go to St. Mungos
herself, and he could probably take that leverage pretty far in the right situation.

Did he think he’d like it?

Actually… yes, surprisingly, he realized he just might.

There was more, because of course there was more. Things like what happened if the Dark
Lord returned… being a healer was a lot like being a potions master, and Severus had already
proven that being useful to someone with more power was a great way to stay alive. On the
exact opposite side of the spectrum, if the Dark Lord never came back and Draco could
happily have Harry in his life in one way or another, he already knew damn well that being
able to heal broken bones and minor cuts was going to be critical since Harry didn’t seem to
be any less danger prone as time went on—in fact it only seemed to be getting worse.

The potion incident had… rattled him, some.

He’d heard the whispers and been there after last year’s incident, on the train ride home under
a silent truce with Longbottom as they just watched Harry try not to unravel into string before
their eyes. He had really hoped his friend would’ve reached out to him over the summer to
talk things though, but Harry hadn’t contacted anyone… and maybe he still didn’t quite
understand how bad that actually was, but he knew now it was worse than he’d been fearing.
He now regretted doing nothing, not pushing harder or just showing up at his door
somehow… he wasn’t sure what exactly he should’ve done but looking back, he now knew
for certain he really should’ve done more.

Even now he hated the fact he had no clue what he should’ve done, all he knew was that he
should’ve done it.

“Don’t be so dense,” Blaise had rolled his eyes at him after Harry had disappeared after that
potions class. He still had no idea how much the tall Slytherin actually heard of their
exchange, but he suspect it was more than he would be comfortable with. “Only
professionals don’t make a sound when you burn the skin off half your body. Your pet
Gryffindor is more impressive than you, you spoiled brat.”

Draco had ground his jaw until it ached, particularly because the Zabini heir had sounded
legitimately annoyed that he still hadn’t figured out what they all apparently knew. Nott had
stared daggers at him, blue eyes piercing his soul silently as if asking if he were being serious
right now…

But Draco hadn’t been able to say anything. He was still trying desperately to catch up and
was realizing he was failing people spectacularly right now. It completely sucked, on top of
the fact he was positively ripping his hair out that Harry wasn’t okay and he didn’t know what
he should be saying or doing.

He didn’t know how to fix things.

He didn’t know what to do.

His hands could ease pain but he had never once been someone Harry would open up to for
comfort or shelter or just to get a weight off his shoulders, and at this point even Draco
wasn’t oblivious enough to not see that. Harry didn’t share things with him and while he’d
once been content to just wait him out, he now knew there would be no out-waiting Harry
Potter. Or, he could out-wait him, but Harry would not be the person he met last year
anymore by the time he made it through everything he’d been suffering through on his own.

And that kind of terrified him.

He already knew things were different. Harry was anxious and being more Gryffindor-like,
not because of a choice or his pride, but because he was stressed and not willing to be smart
about things anymore. He was panicking almost, about everything. Where had the guy who’d
plotted for months just to destroy Montague gone?

Draco unfortunately knew.

That guy was kidnapped by a teacher and he was not okay after it. People still didn’t know
the details as only Harry and the ex-Defense professor (may he rot in Azkaban) knew what
actually happened that night, but that meant Draco was completely in the dark. Everyone else
apparently was able to fill in some context clues and he was not sure why he couldn’t.

His pride and stupidity would only cost Harry in the end though. It didn’t matter that he
wanted to be the one his best friend came to for help, for some reason the fiery Gryffindor
just wouldn’t do it… not with how he was, maybe. Maybe Draco was doing something wrong
or just not being approachable enough or… or something—but it didn’t matter!

Despite how he hated it, he admitted defeat.

He couldn’t do shit right now, so he asked for help.

Greengrass was way safer than Blaise and the only one who had a shot in hell of approaching
any Gryffindor to make a deal given her involvement with them through the football club.
Besides, he was pretty sure she was genuine friends with Harry at this point and had her own
worries about him—something that was proven correct when she agreed to it for practically
nothing, when he would’ve offered a lot more in exchange for her help.

He didn’t ask who she’d gone to or what deal she’d struck, all Draco knew was that Slytherin
couldn’t help Harry right now… it had to be a Gryffindor.

The lions were better at things like emotions and impulses, and certainly Harry was neck
deep in his right now, unable to see anything else beyond whatever was invading his mind
and his heart. It stung that he needed to concede to Gryffindor but… Harry was a Gryffindor
in the end, though everyone (including him) liked to forget that fact.

While he didn’t know… Draco did suspect it was Longbottom who’d finally stepped in, given
Harry was practically glued to his hip ever since that incident.

If he were a better man he would’ve been thankful to the quiet lion, but he was just silently
keeping his petty annoyance (jealousy) to himself. The only thing he felt happy about was
that Harry seemed to… be a bit brighter now. He’d been looking very haggard since the start
of second year, to be honest.

Still, Harry visited the Slytherin table for meals but it’d been mostly just that: visits. There
was a lot less hanging out, or he was splitting his time more evenly between the four houses
now, which is when Draco realized just how often he’d actually been sitting with them this
year. He wished it’d go back to the way it was, but…he also knew Harry was happier this
way.

He liked people too, just in a far more friendly way than Draco did. He could at least
understand wanting more people than just the likes of Blaise who just heckled him
constantly… though he still wished he himself would rank just a tiny but higher in the red
head’s priorities every time Draco watched him sit with Hufflepuff at lunch or chose kicking
a football around with Ravenclaws over catching up over study sessions.

He kept all those mortifyingly childish thoughts to himself though, in the safety of his own
head and made sure no one ever knew he was thinking them. Least of all Harry.

But because he suddenly had more time than before to himself, he was a good student who
was always on top of his homework, and shockingly enough quidditch couldn’t take up all
his daylight hours, he now very often ended up in the Hospital Wing, taking Madam Pomfrey
up on her offer to instruct him a bit on his ability. Her office was now a pretty familiar sight
and she was a good teacher, if not someone more strict than McGonagall, which Draco had
not realized was possible.

Weirdly enough, she was a lot like his mother though and he knew to shut up and nod
respectfully when powerful witches were instructing him on things he knew he was nowhere
near their level on, so he’d slipped quite easily into her good graces by being a polite and
obedient student. Draco had a lot of pride as a Malfoy but he wasn’t stupid—the Madam was
actually terrifying and the more lessons they had where she detailed extremely graphic
injuries without blinking or how to effectively utilize mind altering charms, the more he his
posture straightened and the more polite he got. She was one witch he had no interest in
crossing, and luckily she laid out clear rules about what got on her bad side and what was
approved very early on, so he could play by them very well from the start.

He kind of liked the clarity. He was struggling in Slytherin politics because 99% of it was
implications and subtext and pre-knowledge and ever-changing power dynamics… all things
he was very bad at picking up on in the moment if he didn’t know about someone ahead of
time. Having someone literally spell out in a neat, bullet-pointed list of things that were
allowed and things that would piss her off was actually a breath of fresh air, so he found that
despite ending up here to kill the excess of time he suddenly had, once he was here he
actually genuinely did enjoy it.

Over time… he also realized his previous plan, his desire to let Harry be… he could do that
as a healer. Harry could go off and do whatever dangerous thing the wanted to do, and if
Draco were useful to him, if having someone who could heal him right there by his side was
in any way a reason for Harry to admit he needed help if maybe he otherwise wouldn’t…

Honestly, it was kind of worth it.

Because Merlin knew Harry wouldn’t actually admit defeat that easily, Draco was going to
have to do this on his own and then just be there in case it became clear to him that Harry
could use a hand.

Because honestly, what else could he actually do? This last incident had proven he was
entirely helpless to help Harry in any other way, but he could now fix a minor scrape, and
maybe one day do even more so… while he struggled to catch up with how to fix a mind and
a heart, he could at least fix a body.

Draco operated under the general belief that Harry didn’t really need him. To be brutally
honest, Draco probably didn’t need him either… in fact his life was a lot harder simply
because he’d decided his best friend was a Gryffindor.

But this, in his very Slytherin way, was what he wanted from his life, so really it should be
about what he could do to get it first, then everything else second.

And he wanted to be someone Harry would want to need.

He straightened up under Madam Pomfrey’s gaze, holding his hands out for the documents
she was holding.

“I haven’t exactly decided but… I wouldn’t be against learning what goes into it.” Because he
couldn’t make it too easy or commit to something like this without a lot more thought… but
he was intrigued, to say the least. He didn’t have a better plan, he should say, and starting
early could only help.

“Of course,” She seemed to accept that logic with a twinkle in her eye, handing the papers
over easily. “Then while you practice this spell you can also learn some basic knowledge of
healing as well. I think the second one in this pile is of the most interest to your practical
practice.”

He noted the top-most document was a very official looking Tenets of Healing with the St
Mungos’ symbol at the bottom which was probably the introductory booklet on what it took
to be a healer, however lifting it up to see the second one… he blinked in surprise to see a
packet that was very much handwritten.

“Occlumency?” He tilted his head. “I’ve been learning it for as long as I can remember from
my parents.” He admitted.

“Most Slytherin children do, as I understand,” She agreed, but tapped her temple almost
pointedly. “Healers’ minds are meant to be more secure than most, as we see people in their
weakest states, and can know confidential things about someone simply by the nature of our
job. In that Tenets of Healing journal, you’ll find one of the most important rules is secrecy,
and the art of maintaining your patients’ secrets to the point of death. Occlumency is a critical
part of being able to accomplish that, and therefore healers have their own form of
Occlumency that is, to put it plainly, a higher form than you would learn anywhere else. They
are designed specifically to be unique barriers to protect medical knowledge and a patient’s
health status.”
Draco snapped his head up, eyes going wide. “Really!?”

The implications…

She cut his wild thoughts off with a tap to the paper he was holding. “This document outlines
the bare minimum, however the actual technique is only for those committed to being
healers, not those who are dabbling, I should say.” Her eyes sparkled in amusement as he
huffed, realizing he’d been caught.

“So I wouldn’t learn it until I was serious about being a healer,” He deduced.

“Yes. And let me be clear, you must actually be serious about being a healer, not simply say
you are… believe me I will be able to tell the difference, Mr. Malfoy.”

He felt a shiver race up his spine under her gaze and… yeah, he thought she probably could.

“I understand.” He relented immediately, not willing to cross that firm line in the sand until
he was a lot more sure than he currently was.

“Still, being good at Occlumency even as it’s traditionally taught will only help your focus as
you go about mastering these spells, particularly as you are learning them without a wand,
which takes several times the amount of focus than learning them normally would take. Some
believe that a good mental space will allow your magic reserves to grow more quickly—
there’s no official evidence for it, but it’s a wives tale told amongst healers in training.”

“Alright, I can take a look…” He shifted through the papers to see what else was in here,
seeing titles for what seemed to be a list of beginner charms unrelated to healing but should
help develop the right skills, an intro to healing potions, and even a journal on magical core
properties, but it was the last and the thickest of the provided works that got him making a
face as he saw the cover picture.

Pomfrey chuckled at his reaction. “That is, of course, the main point of healing: to understand
the human anatomy and what it is that you will be healing. Magic is much cleaner than
muggle medicine, but it’s still important you learn how a body should work, to be able to
know when or what the injury to it is, so it is a great place to start if you’re going to get into
the theory beside your practical practice.”

Blood had never bothered Draco one bit, but he had to admit the book’s cover having an
image of a body without its skin was off-putting enough for his taste’s. Although if he was
going to be getting into this, being squeamish about bodies was something he’d have to get
over pretty quickly.

He had to admit though, he was kind of curious too.

He’d never given much though to how or why his body did what it did, and it was interesting
to know he could learn it all.

“Can we start with this then? The basics I guess before I start reading.”
“Very well. Take notes: let’s start at the foundation of the human body, which is the skeletal
structure,” She began without fuss and he already had his notebook out as he started writing
it all down quickly.

000

“Excuse me!?” Tracy Davis still hated him, but thankfully she seemed to have reached the
conclusion she wouldn’t be able to shake him off no matter how much she wanted to. She
was visibly annoyed and muttering darkly but didn’t say outright no when Harry set his best
puppy dog eyes on her. “You have a lot of gall, Potter,” She sneered.

“I don’t want to know the password I just need a way in is all! Would it make you feel better
if I traded for it? How about some Transfiguration notes?”

“That feels even worse!” She snapped, but contrary to her words spun on her heel and walked
back to the wall where she’d just left the Slytherin common room to let him in. “I’m not
being bribed, you’re here because some other lunatics allowed it is all, not because of
anything I did, you hear?” She warned him and he made a show of zipping up his lips.

“Not a word, I promise!”

“What are you even doing in there?” She huffed, pointedly not opening the door until he
answered which was easy enough.

“Well I need to drop a note off for Daphne and also promised to give Theo some of my notes
in exchange for a new book he found. McGonagall let slip there’ll be a pop quiz this week so
I figured he’d want them sooner rather than later,” He slyly slipped in that info for her benefit
as well, trying to butter her up, and by the twitch of her brow she knew exactly what he was
doing. “And to be totally honest… I want to ask one of the snakes on the mantle if they know
anything about the petrification monster that’s eating first years.”

She blinked, kind of taken off guard by that last one.

He eye twitched but… like everyone else, she wasn’t unaffected by the threat the monster
posed and if it was Slytherin’s monster, then the mantle snakes that Salazar Slytherin himself
supposedly enchanted might know a thing or two.

Surprisingly, it was Dean who’d pointed that out when he confessed his concern over the
monster. He hadn’t had a chance to theorize with Draco and the other Slytherins yet, not
really mentally ready for the kind of effort that would take, but at Neville’s encouragement
he’s started by trying to brainstorm with the other Gryffindor guys as a warm up of sorts.
That discussion had been, predictably, kind of outlandish and still somehow skewed into
already assuming it was Slytherin’s monster and that it was definitely the murderous voice
he’d heard (Harry thought so too but he still had no proof as of yet, something his roommates
were happy to ignore). Seamus and Dean seemed very on board with the idea that some
Slytherin was the culprit, not really hearing the ideas that it could be a spirit or something
more troublesome, so it went about as Harry had suspected it would.
Their ideas of where to find out more though were far more practical than anything Harry
had come up with though, and even better yet they were things he could actually do right
now that he didn’t have to plot or practice for. Dean’s idea to talk to the snakes was flat out
brilliant, but Seamus had also suggested they explore the castle as a group to see if Harry
couldn’t find the voice again… which he was not going to tell his Slytherin friends about,
particularly since Daphne had already called him stupid for even attempting to do so earlier.

Thing was, there weren’t exactly Aurors wandering the halls right now so Harry felt if he got
petrified at least he wouldn’t need to freak out about it for the rest of the school year until the
mandrakes were ready, and then it’d be him and not someone else. Also, doing anything,
much less doing it with friends he trusted, was better than just sitting here in his own anxiety
that someone else would get hurt while he was in his dorm doing nothing to stop it.

Stupid, maybe, but his roommates were completely down to jump into the fire beside him
and somehow that made him feel better. They wouldn’t break curfew and would most likely
just end up wandering the halls together to kill time—he’d already gotten them to promise
that if he did find something they were running to the nearest teacher to report it, not
confronting it themselves, which seemed like a decent compromise.

Tracy looked like it physically hurt her to admit that was a pretty good reason to need to get
into the snake den… he was really the only one who could talk to them and if it helped stop
the attacks then she would benefit from it too. So without dignifying that with a response she
just opened the door for him. He thanked her profusely as he slipped in—which she ignored,
but he tried!

He hadn’t lied at all, all three of his objectives of visiting were true, but he also happened to
pick a time when he knew neither Daphne nor Theo were actually here. You could never
predict where Blaise would be in a given day but Harry lucked out that he didn’t seem to be
here either as he made his way as casually as he could through the room. He tried to act both
like he belonged there so as not to stick out, but also not like he owned the place since those
that did notice him would surely take issue with that. He was usually never here without an
‘escort’ so to speak, so despite someone having to let him in, he was unaccompanied right
now and knew that would be a red flag to some. So, he kept his head down as he made his
way quickly to the mantle.

He slipped behind Theo’s chair to kneel by the fire, and he saw all the snakes recognize him,
but the two massive ones around the carved trees in particular lifted their heads in interest.

“If it isssn’t the Ssspeaker.”

“Sssorry to bother you. I wasss hoping to asssk you a few quessstionsss if you didn’t mind?”
He offered back politely, and the one closest to him hummed.

“If I know an anssswer, then you are welcome to it.”

Harry was thrilled the snake was far more helpful than human Slytherins, because he’d been
prepared to need to beg or convince the beings and was thankful it wasn’t necessary. The
littler snakes had been a ton of help back when he was learning the gossip they’d overheard
in the common room, but they didn’t really seem to have that deep of an attention span: the
two bigger ones at this specific fireplace, the biggest in the entire room in fact, seemed to be
much calmer and less vapid somehow. Hence why he was hoping this one would be able to
tell him something a little deeper than who was dating who, or who had blackmail on who
and so forth.

As if sensing the depth of conversation here, the dozens of tiny snakes carved around the
mantle seemed to quiet down and appeared to be watching this exchange curiously as their
bigger friend took the lead.

“Do you know anything about the attacksss that have been happening in the ssschool this
year? Have you heard othersss talking about it or anything from Hogwartsss itssself?”

The snake lifted its head some to be level with him, humming quietly.

“Attacksss? No, I have not.”

“I have not either,” The other large snake chimed in, much to Harry’s disappointment.

“A ssstudent was petrified earlier thisss month. Ssso was a cat, with writing in blood on a
wall claiming that the Chamber of Sssecretsss hasss been opened, and the asssumption is that
there’s a culprit who did that writing, and who maybe opened the chamber then. People are
sssaying it is Ssslytherin’s monssster.”

“I do not know Ssslytherin’sss monssster.” The far snake said, but the one closest to Harry
turned to its partner before looking back at him calmly. Hesitantly almost.

“If such a chamber exsssisted in Sssalazar’sss time, I did not know it. However, I recall
sssomething like that after hisss time. Another one asssked us of that not too long ago.”

“Really!? Who? Was it recently?” Harry was floored. Who else was a parselmouth!? That
was almost bigger news than there being a monster at all!

“Not ssso recccently… there wasss a boy. Very charming… he was a ssspeaker too. He
ssspoke of the cassstle wallsss and sssecret passagewaysss. He plotted how to win againssst
hisss enemiesss, and plotted attacksss as well, though it did not ssseem to go as
sssuccsssesssfully as he wanted it to at timesss.”

“Another ssspeaker? Do you know how long ago?” Harry had a sinking feeling in his
stomach.

“I do not recall. Time fadesss and lurchesss, but there have been many generationsss of
facesss I recall, sssince.”

That wasn’t exactly good… and Harry had a bad feeling he knew who the other speaker of
some unknown amount of years ago was. He had no idea how old Voldemort actually was,
but it didn’t really matter as there was really only one most recent parselmouth in history
besides Harry himself, who also happened to have very well-known violent tendencies that
may be interested in attacking his fellow students…
He’d been a Slytherin. He probably once sat in this very spot and asked these snakes some
questions of his own, as the only person who could understand the relics Salazar Slytherin
had left behind.

The thought did not make Harry feel too good, to be honest.

“Do you remember hisss name?”

The snake paused a long… long time as it considered that. It took nearly two minutes of
dead, nearly awkward silence but then…

“…Riddle.”

“Riddle? Are you sssure?”

“It isss all I can recall.”

“I mean even that isss very helpful, ssso thank you.” Harry ducked his head at the creature
who flicked its stone tongue at him as if acknowledging that. “Can I asssk…?Why do you
remember but the othersss don’t?”

“I am the oldessst.” It said blankly. “I recall many facesss. Including the face of the man who
carved me, and who enchanted me to guide my sssiblings here. We are not real sssnakes after
all, we are ssstone enchantmentsss for Sssalazar’sss children.”

The other snakes had short memories, they were only there for either decoration or time-of
guidance. They could remember a couple years back it seemed, but nothing more than that…

This one was carved by Salazar himself though, likely for his actual descendants who
should’ve been the only ones who could speak the snake language. Harry was intrigued to
say the least.

“Do you have a name? Mine isss Harry.”

“I may have forgotten it over time.” It admitted. “I do not need one either.”

“If you’re sssure,” He relented, but kind of fascinated by the stone being. It had to be
hundreds and hundreds of years old which was wild to wrap his mind around. It being an
elder he actually respected for once, he felt the urge to be more polite than he normally
was… it just had that distinguished air about it somehow. “Do you know what the other
ssspeaker meant about the passsagewaysss?”

“He found large tunnelsss hidden in the wallsss. If Slytherinsss monssster exsssisssted, he
wanted to ussse them to move unssseen.”

Which, completely checked out if that voice he’d heard from seemingly nowhere had just
been hidden in a wall. And if that was really it… he was going to need to check that out if he
could. He was pretty good with Serpensortia now, that might be the opportunity to really test
it out…
He shelved it for a moment, but he’d definitely circle back to that as soon as he could.

“Ssso you don’t know if Slytherinsss monssster really exsssisssted, nor what it would be?”

“I do not. My creator never mentioned sssomething like that to sssomething like me.”

Which would also check out… Salazar probably had no need to tell one of his enchanted
decorations one of his most important secrets after all. It was just a stone décor in the end, not
a confidant as back then parselmouths probably weren’t as undeniably rare as they were
today.

Still… it wasn’t the information he’d been after, as it didn’t tell him much about the attacks
happening now except that the monster probably wasn’t disembodied, it was just moving
through secret passageways in the wall… but he was finding a path Voldemort had once
walked, as if sensing an echo he’d left behind. Was Voldemort’s real name Riddle?

There had to be people like Neville’s gran that knew him then. He had to be old but not that
old that no one alive remembered what he was like before he was the ‘dark lord’ everyone
feared…

Harry wasn’t sure why it was so important. Maybe it was the idea that knowing who this
enemy was as a human first, made him a lot more manageable than just… He-Who-Must-
Not-Be-Named.

“What a look of concern you have, child.” The snake broke his thoughts and he did a double
take, realizing his expression had probably gone off the rails some.

“I didn’t think you’d underssstand human facesss that way. Apologiesss.”

“I’ve had time to practice. And children are easssy to read.” Harry didn’t like being called a
child, but he allowed that the snake was a thousand years old so everyone probably looked
like a child to him.

Then again, he was only twelve so… maybe he should just shut up.

“I am worried about the attacksss. The boy who wasss petrified wasss a friend.” He
admitted. “You’ve been a great help in other waysss, but I ssstill don’t know what to do about
the threat here.”

“I know of no creaturesss that prefer petrification but the gorgonsss.” It admitted, and Harry
made a note of that.

He seemed to remember a DADA class that talked about how gorgons were humanoid, and
mostly wiped out hundreds of years ago… they were malicious, at least in the story taught to
them, but intelligent like humans or werewolves or vampires or any humanoid ‘dark creature’
was. Given what he’d learned of how the magical world treated werewolves, Harry had
decided to not make a judgement on any supposed ‘dark creature’ until he’d met one himself,
so he shelved that implied accusation away for much later.
“At the very leassst, if it isssn’t Sssalazar’sss chamber or hisss monssster, then there isss
sssomeone claiming it and attacking people under that guissse.” He frowned, trying to think
through it. If it wasn’t a gorgon, what else petrified people? This snake who’d actually met
Salazar Slytherin couldn’t even confirm if the chamber or the Slytherin monster even existed
at all so… he really had less than he started with.

“I am not the only sssnake in the cassstle, merely the oldessst that I know of. Sssalazar
carved many more outssside this room, ssso go look for them. Perhapsss they will know
more.” It gently soothed him and he relaxed his shoulders some… that was a good idea.

These snakes were stuck to a mantle after all, but Salazar Slytherin had once been one of four
people who owned this entire castle… he hid the chamber somewhere, if it existed, but he
could’ve carved snakes in a million other places outside of the Slytherin dorm as hints or
guides or for fun, etc. If one happened to be in a very prominent location… maybe it had seen
something!

Now instead of just looking for disembodied voices, maybe he could repurpose the
Gryffindor boys’ search they were doing later into a snake hunt instead. He didn’t think he’d
looked close enough at wall decals and paintings other than briefly glancing at them as
landmarks since he got here, but maybe now was the time to take a hard look at them all.

“That’sss actually a brilliant idea: I’ll do that! Thank you ssso much, sssir.” He bowed to it
again, and it flicked it’s tongue silently.

“Hm… you ssseem lossst.”

Harry lifted his head, surprised. “Do I?” It just stared at him without answering, and he
remembered it’s purpose with a wave of nervousness. “You sssaid Sssalazar created you to
help. What isss it that you were meant to tell Sssalazar’sss children?”

“Information if I had it. Guidance assss well, if asssked.”

“Did the ssspeaker before me ever asssk for your help?”

“No. The ssspeaker of that time did not often asssk me for guidanccce or adviccce. He
complained often when hisss plansss did not work, however if they were susssesssful I doubt
he would care enough to mention it to me.”

“That ssseems a bit rude.” Harry was sympathetic as was only polite, but also recognizing
they were probably talking about Voldemort here, him being polite seemed to be a minor
issue at best.

“It isss jussst the way sssome little sssnake are.” It hummed, in a tone that said it’d be
shrugging if it could. If it had shoulders, that is.

Harry pressed his lips, a bit curious but also nervous about the answer.

“What other adviccce could you give me? I’m not a natural sssnake.”
“No? You ssseem just fine to me. Though I could tell you are not of thisss houssse.” It
admitted, though not unwelcomely. “If there wasss anything to sssay, it would be to sssmile
more. I would tell that to all the children here if only they could underssstand me.”

“Sssmile?”

“You are children. While you are in thisss hall, you are children—mossst importantly you are
Sssalazar’sss children. Clevernesss isss a great desssire, but it all ssseemsss ssso ssseriousss.
There isss no point, if you are unhappy.”

Harry felt… cold, in a way. ‘There’s no point if you are unhappy’? Did it even matter if he
was unhappy if he wasn’t alive?

Because if he went back to the Dursleys, if another teacher betrayed them, if the monster
turned out to be as murderous as it sounded… if someone he cared about died, then it didn’t
matter how happy he was now.

“What if there are dire consssequencccesss if I don’t sssucceed? No matter my age, I’ll likely
die before the sssummer is out if I can’t do thisss, and do it myssself.”

“Sssalazar would be ssso sssad to hear it.” It sounded genuinely sorrowful too. It was nice
that it at least acknowledged his fears, not dismissing them as outlandish ramblings of a
twelve-year-old, but the sadness also seemed… bigger, somehow. “If that isss the cassse,
then at leassst ssspend less time worrying about it. Do it well, but make it far more effortlesss
then that.”

“But it’s not that easssy. It isssn’t effortlesss.” He grit his teeth, though forcing himself to
keep polite.

“Then make it ssso.” Harry got the feeling it’d be smiling at him if it could. “If you cannot
do it easssily, then you are gracelesss. You will run out of time and effort to give.”

“I don’t know what that meansss.”

“Very well.” It seemed it was fine with his lack of understanding and his frustration, which
was kind of annoying. “Isss that all you need of me?”

He ducked his head respectfully despite his annoyance. “It isss for now… thank you for your
guidance.”

“I do not mind Sssalazar’sss children, even if you claim not to be one. It was interesssting…
and I wish you luck with your challengesss, young one.”

“Thank you. I may need that luck.”

 Action
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Sylvester,

Thank you for the contingencies you provided, I do hope to be able to react appropriately on
your behalf when the time comes. I believe I understand what is not acceptable to you and
will do my best to prevent any of it from coming to pass.

I have some good news and some bad news, but rest assured I am dealing with the new
challenges that have arisen, it just may take longer than either of us are going to be too
pleased by. I mentioned there are some who are vehemently in opposition of seeing this get-
together take place, as I’m sure you can already name a few. The major issues are a Bonbon
and a Lemon… I would’ve much preferred the Lemon never find out about this party until it
was too late, but that was frankly wishful thinking. Lemons always know unfortunately: their
hooks into government are even more expansive than mine. (I’m told they love paintings too.)

I have dealt in the help of the White parties, and they suggested a good work-around for the
amount of power the Lemon has, at least for this situation. It is too sensitive even for coded
letters such as this, so I’ve left it at Gringotts with your account manager if you could make a
point to stop by over the holidays. It has also come to my attention the interference this
particular Lemon has over vacation plans you may or may not have, so your request of the
Moon to be a back-up to the Star may need to happen sooner rather than later. If you do not
already have Christmas plans, Ms. Fields will be giving you an invite and I’ll see to it you
can view the Moon together.

The Bonbon is far less tricky, but it is quite troublesome in its own blunt way. I hope Ms.
Fields has explained the concept of tagging people in this industry, and let’s just say the
Bonbon has nearly depleted itself by tagging people to prevent the gathering from
proceeding. The Whites are some of the most prolific taggers when it comes to chocolates and
have agreed to halt such activity for the time being so that the Bonbon may dry up eventually,
but it’ll take a while. I originally had a party date to share with you, however it’s been
canceled and postponed half a dozen times already for… managerial incompetence, shall we
say. I won’t get your hopes up until the date is as sure as I am possible of being.

I plan to spend the coming weeks doing plenty of tagging myself, and will reach back out
perhaps over the holidays once you’ve had a chance to consider the gift I left at Gringotts for
you. Never fear the lack of news in the papers—that’s actually a good thing until the day of
the gathering when the whole world will need to be aware what the Bonbon has done—I have
something special in mind, considering your feelings on the matter. The more people involved
in the discussion now, the less useful my tagging will be and the slower it will go. If we would
like to have progress made by summer then once again, secrecy is our friend.

Best holiday wishes,

Fields

000

One good thing about working with Mr. Greengrass, was that Harry actually trusted the man
to do what he promised he would, come hell or high water. He might be the only adult
currently in his life right now that Harry actually believed to be both competent, and honest
about his actions.

He was being well compensated after all.

Which was probably the beauty of working with full-blooded Slytherins he supposed, the
beauty of trading rather than just… trusting someone at their word. You had to worry about
motives and truthfulness if someone just promised you things, but if you were literally paying
someone for a service then there was a more concrete assurance they would actually follow
through. In most businesses even that wasn’t ironclad, but in the Slytherin business… with
the reputation the big grey families like the Zabini and Greengrass names had, Harry finally
had faith someone was doing something and that they were actually going to keep their word
about it.

It would probably cost him an arm and a leg when the debt finally came due, but for now…
he was relieved he had someone in his corner who was just doing things on his own in order
to achieve one of Harry’s own goals, and Harry himself could actually just go to class like
normal without worrying about it.

The letter was very insightful even if Harry had already suspected that some of that would
happen when he first decided that Sirius Black needed a trial. They avoided saying the word
‘trial’ in the letters as that was a red flag for any eavesdroppers for sure, and Harry was
amused by the other code names they’d come up with. He had no idea who the White parties
were, but since Mr. Greengrass was the one dealing with them on his own, and Harry trusted
him to be as confidential about it as possible, it didn’t truly matter though he was certainly
curious. He himself had come up with the Dog Star on a play off his godfather’s name, and
the Moon was self-explanatory as the only werewolf in the situation.

He thought himself pretty clever for thinking up Sylvester though; he picked it on a whim,
but he rather liked it. If he were referencing Sirius Black by a play off his name, with an
animal theme of a dog no less, it made sense to try and be an animal himself. He had never
even considered what his spirit animal would be if he had one, but his favorite professor was
a cat and you know… cats and dogs, they kind of went together….

And if a pureblood (mainly a Slytherin) managed to get their hands on these papers and
somehow knew enough about old-fashioned muggle cartoons to know who the hell Sylvester
James Pussycat Sr. was, they frankly deserved to eavesdrop on these conversations. He was
less concerned over the muggleborns figuring it out as they were, generally, more likely to be
on board with getting an untried man sitting in prison his day in court.

‘Bonbon’ was also easy as Harry already knew the confectionary-named Minister of Magic
would hate the idea of a trial for an innocent man he’d sent to Azkaban: from the start he’d
fully expected that man to be his number one enemy in getting the trial to see the light of day.
‘Lemon’ was much harder, as while context clues told Harry that Mr. Greengrass was
probably talking about Dumbledore, he had no clue why the Headmaster got pegged with that
codename.

Maybe because I pressed my lips unpleasantly like I’m eating something sour every time the
old bastard is brought up. Ha…

Dumbledore getting wind of this was not a good sign, but the only saving grace is that he
hadn’t connected that Harry himself was involved in it. He’d explained his priorities to Mr.
Greengrass and had been very clear that he wanted out of Dumbledore’s thumb if possible,
which was one of the driving forces (that he would admit) for getting his godfather back
instead of being put with muggles on the Headmaster’s orders. Harry having any autonomy
or power in Dumbledore’s eyes was probably going to be seen as a threat to whatever his
own plans were, plans that involved Harry being a pawn and little else given how hard he’d
been trying to cast him in an ‘idiot Gryffindor hero’ type role. Therefore, hopefully Mr.
Greengrass would take the hint that the Headmaster could not know that Harry was the one
who initiated this.

There were tons of reasons the Greengrass family could be trying to get Sirius Black out of
prison, the most obvious and technically true reason being they were being paid to do it on
behalf of someone else. Given Harry hadn’t really shown his true colors to Dumbledore yet,
and the man still thought him a hapless Gryffindor clone of his father, there was no reason for
him to assume Harry was the one paying him to do it so long as Mr. Greengrass kept his
employer quiet. There could be a hundred other interested parties… like say the Malfoys
even, given Narcissa was his cousin and had openly admitted she’d had half a thought to try
and free him herself over the past decade. It hadn’t been convenient enough for her, but
paying the Greengrass family to take care of it would certainly be easy, as the Malfoys
definitely had the money to splurge on it. Dumbledore probably knew before they set foot
into Hogwarts that he was friends with Draco, and would obviously know about the Malfoys
going grey… it was only too logical to make the assumption that the recklessly rich
pureblood elites were tossing some money at the Greengrass family on a whim to butter up
their son’s best friend, entirely without Harry’s input.

Maybe there were death eaters who thought Sirius Black one of them and wanted to see if it
was true or not. Maybe Sirius himself, as an ex-heir to a really wealthy line had managed to
get a message out to the Greengrass family himself. There were a lot of more plausible
reasons that the Headmaster could jump to and then waste time investigating, before it’d ever
cross his mind that a twelve-year-old Potter from one of the lightest bloodlines had made a
name-debt to a very prominent Slytherin family in exchange for their help.

That is, so long as Mr. Greengrass kept it quiet and Harry acted like he knew nothing for the
time being.

Which, on that topic, the comment about paintings really got him paranoid as why would it
need to be specifically called out that Dumbledore liked paintings? Particularly right after
talking about how connected the old man was… and the fact that Hogwarts had thousands of
talking paintings that could move frame-to-frame literally lining the Hogwarts hallways
made him very, very nervous. Was Mr. Greengrass really implying that the paintings were
spies? Were all of them spies!?

Harry desperately tried to think if he ever had a conversation he didn’t want Dumbledore to
know about in a Hogwarts hallway. The twins’ and the map happened outside in Hagrid’s
pumpkin patch, his confessions with Neville always happened in the dorm or common room
where the only paintings were of lions that just roared thankfully… at least he hoped they
didn’t talk. Or that there wasn’t a parselmouth equivalent that could speak to lions walking
around.

The Slytherin common room had natural landscapes and the dungeon hallways were actually
just blank walls now that he thought about it… and suddenly Harry wondered if that wasn’t
very much on purpose given how important secrecy and private conversations were to the
snake house. It was another point of proof that maybe paintings being the Headmaster’s ears
was maybe true, and… oh god.

Ugh, that was going to make him even more paranoid than he already was, he was sure.

On the bright side, he was at least comforted by the measures Mr. Greengrass seemed to be
working on. Daphne had mentioned that ‘tagging’ just meant ‘bribing’ people in a more
polite way, and while it kind of shocked him that Fudge himself as Minister of Magic was
bribing people, in hindsight he didn’t know why he hadn’t already assumed that was the case
of every politician in this nepotistic world. Probably because he was still a Gryffindor at heart
who was raised by muggles where, in the muggle world, if a politician was that blatant about
their corruption they’d typically get more shit than ‘yeah he does that sometimes’. Not all
politicians were punished in either world for their misdeeds, but muggle politicians at least
gave an honest go of belying an honest front so people didn’t get too pissed. How blatant this
bribery seemed to be was… alarming.

If ‘other chocolates’ meant other politicians, then there seemed to be a very complicated web
of bribery going on, and because he was clearly MVP of Harry’s life right now, Mr.
Greengrass was dropping some money in bribes as well to get in on it and combat Fudge’s
meddling until the asshole ran out of money to cover his mistakes with. Harry knew he didn’t
have the mental fortitude or energy right now to get into which politicians were bribing who
and what or why, so it was a huge relief that someone else was just taking care of it for him.

It also showed how very important a name-debt actually was, given this was probably no
small amount of money, effort, and risk being spent on this request of his. The risk it posed
alone was telling, particularly for a notoriously neutral grey family (who somehow stayed out
of the last war and to whom not even Voldemort would touch) actually going head-to-head
with the Ministry for once was huge.

Harry wanted to be worried about what he’d end up needing to do to repay all this someday
but… honestly he was at capacity so he’d deal with that later.

Hopefully decades from now when he was an adult with something the Greengrass family
would bother wanting from him. If he became Minister of Magic someday since that was
already the plan, hopefully it’d be a matter of maybe changing some laws they found
inconvenient—that wouldn’t be the end of the world, he supposed.
But let’s not think about that right now or I’ll explode.

More pertinently for his immediate future versus his far-off future: Christmas with Remus.

If he was interpreting the letter correctly, Mr. Greengrass wanted him to get to know Remus
as soon as he was able to, for some reason. Not that Harry was going to argue that as he very
much wanted to get to know the man too, but he’d still been waffling over staying at
Hogwarts for break or actually convincing his unrecognized godfather to let him visit. He’d
dropped hints in his letters but Remus had very purposefully not responded to any of them,
and given his situation and how they wanted to keep their contact secret, Harry had felt bad
imposing on him when he clearly had a lot of baggage about it.

Given that he struggled to maintain a job, Harry suspected he had very little to his name. He
also knew he had the pride of a Gryffindor and was humiliated to need to admit that, or ask
for help or anything. Harry didn’t even know if he had a house that he could even visit,
which is why he’d hesitated in pushing too far and putting the man in that awkward, frankly
mortifying situation of needing to confess that. That he was a grown man being forced to
confess that to a twelve-year-old probably made it a lot worse, and Harry knew he’d never be
able to convince Remus of how much he did not care about shit like that.

The werewolf was also very intensely self-depreciating and far too nice (read: skittish) about
‘forcing’ his presence on others who may not want a ‘dark creature’ around. The effect was
multiplied tenfold when it came to anything about Harry, now that he’d done the unforgivable
thing of telling the truth that he needed their relationship to be quiet for the sake of his future
and his Slytherin friends.

On one hand Harry was happy Remus was so totally in support of whatever antics he was up
to right now… on the other hand he felt like a piece of shit because he suspected Remus was
already completely prepared to hide their connection for his sake from the beginning, and
asking him to actually go through with it felt filthy and wrong. Even if it was for very
practical reasons. Practicality did not mean he in any way felt good about what he was doing.

All of that meant Harry didn’t want to just… demand to visit him, when he was already
inconveniencing the man quite a bit. He sure as hell wanted to obviously, but he’d been very
conflicted about actually doing that to Remus on top of everything else. Not to mention the
logistic nightmare it’d be, given Dumbledore would probably not remain out of it if he
suspected Harry had any other options but the muggle relatives he’d chosen to place him
with. He wanted Dumbledore nowhere near Remus and so if he did visit the werewolf he
needed to be sure the Headmaster never knew about it. Not until Sirius was free and situated
as Harry’s new legal guardian to prevent the old man from interfering with what he did with
his summers, at least.

He hadn’t been confident he could actually do all that though, which is yet another reason he
hadn’t pushed harder.

Now… if Mr. Greengrass wanted it, he couldn’t exactly argue given it was probably
connected to getting Sirius his day in court, even if Harry had no idea how. It was literally the
least he could do, to go along with the man’s plan that he was giving so much effort to on his
behalf… and if he was going to be making sure who Harry was really visiting remained
secret, Harry actually had faith he could make this visit without Dumbledore knowing!

He wouldn’t have been able to make that opportunity for himself, but if Mr. Greengrass was
asking him to do this and clearing the way for him, his other hesitations seemed far less
important. Even if the worst scenario came true and Remus didn’t have someplace to go,
Harry still owned that apartment in Contrair Alley until the end of the year and they could
have their holiday there. But Harry wasn’t going to take Remus’ nerves or self-depreciation
as an excuse anymore.

Mind resolved, he immediately began mentally drafting the letter he was going to write to his
godfather, entirely sure he could convince the man to cave and spend Christmas with him.
Kind as he was, Remus was also sort of a doormat and Harry knew he himself had a far more
forceful personality if he turned his worse habits all the way up to eleven: he could totally do
it.

He was only part way through when he froze, realizing…

Wait… this is a real Christmas? I get to have a real Christmas with someone?

Last year had been the best Christmas in his entire life by a lot and he didn’t even have
Neville or Draco beside him. He’d been so caught up in the ‘legal guardian’ thing that he
kind of skimmed over the idea that, if he weren’t at Hogwarts or at the Dursleys, he’d be…

Well he hadn’t ever had a conversation with Sirius Black, much less met him to know what to
expect with that. Same went for Remus technically, as he hadn’t yet laid eyes on the man but
at this point he felt like he knew the guy from their many letters. Enough to be able to
manipulate him into saying yes to things at least, which was very tellingly one of Harry’s
metrics for how well he knew someone or not.

And since he knew Remus, to a point, that meant he could almost picture actually… having a
Christmas… somewhere.

With someone. Who he’d wake up on Christmas morning with and actually want to wish
them a good holiday. Who’d open presents with him and have Christmas breakfast and do…
holiday things.

Oh my god what do you do on holidays? I mean I know what you’re supposed to do but what
are we going to do?

He was… kind of thrilled all of a sudden. This was happening, it wasn’t just a possibility or
something he was plotting: with Mr. Greengrass’ help this was the plan, and when school let
out and everyone went home on the carriages, he’d be right there with them!

He couldn’t tell anyone he was going anywhere except whatever excuse Daphne was going to
provide to him, but he could at least be comforted by the knowledge he was going home to
family like everyone else was.
He felt both light as a feather and terrified—not in a bad way this time. Kind of like when his
broom almost bucked him off at a couple hundred feet in the air: scary but also like someone
was winding up a key on his back so he could go buzzing around the room in senseless
happiness.

He just… got up from his desk and paced around the dorm room like he wanted to start
packing but also had no idea what he should pack right now, anxious but in a great way and
unsure where he should put his hands.

If he recognized Neville was looking in amusement at him from where he’d been reading on
his bed, he didn’t show it.

000

“It seems you’ve kept true to your word in not rushing ahead.” McGonagall nearly praised
him in that strict way of hers as he completed what felt like his hundredth spellwork drill
before her narrowed eyes.

Just like last time, every single spell he’d performed had glowed the telltale blue of a
correctly performed spell… although he hadn’t informed her about the joke book spells he
now knew too. He knew those were at least fourth year spells that she wouldn’t be too happy
to hear he’d been doing on his own, but in Harry’s head if he could do them even with one
remaining block on his magical core, then how hard could they really be?

He would let her know he knew them another time, and just leave out the part about when he
learned them. For now he just beamed up at her widely and gave his best puppy dog eyes.

“I promised I would! Did you really doubt me that much? When have I ever broken a
promise when it came to my health?” He demanded, only half-jokingly. It really didn’t make
much sense, how she never seemed to trust him despite him having over a year of dedicated
work under her, never once breaking her rules… even if he really, really wanted to
sometimes. At the very least she didn’t know about any rules he may or may not have broken
for her to always be leaning towards narrowing her eyes at him instead of just trusting him.

He had heard the warnings about his magical core loud and clear and had no desire to go pop
one day so he’d really taken them to heart! More so than anything else about his health, in
fact, yet she still acted like he was only telling her ‘yes’ to appease her while doing whatever
he pleased.

She pressed her lips together, also seeming to recognize that valid point.

“I suppose you haven’t. You have unfortunate luck, but I can agree it has never been your
fault.” She allowed a tad gentler than she normally was, and he straightened up slightly in
triumph. “Perhaps it is also that unfortunate luck that your father was one of the worst
troublemakers I ever had the honor of teaching… old habits die hard I’m afraid and if I were
not on my toes at all times with him then Gryffindor house would likely not be standing
today.”
Harry… was taken aback slightly, but had to smile despite it being a lot less wide than it’d
been a minute ago.

McGonagall hadn’t really ever talked about his parents before, aside from mentioning his
father’s prankster habits and his mother’s intelligence in very passing ways. Part of him liked
that, as she treated him as his own person from the start, not just a remnant piece of two long-
dead people like a lot of other adults did—Harry had even caught Hagrid doing it although
you couldn’t get angry at Hagrid. He was Hagrid.

This time though, he didn’t hate it as much. The reminder that she knew his parents way
better than he did, didn’t sting quite as much as it did last year.

I wonder why.

He pressed his lips, wondering if he would hate to ask more about them. Normally
conversations about back then… did not make him happier. At least not as happy as he
always hoped learning about his parents would. There was still too much… baggage, he
supposed, for it ever to feel quite as light as talking about quidditch or his friend or
Transfiguration.

Still. He hadn’t had as many opportunities to hang out in McGonagall’s office this year as he
had last, since he seemed busier than ever, particularly now that he was allowed into the
Slytherin common room his politics had been getting stronger. His connections with the rest
of the school were only ever increasing so there was always someone to bother, not just his
favorite professor. Besides, he’d come insanely far in Transfiguration so he didn’t need to be
in here every day asking questions about how things worked anymore: now he had a base
understanding of his own and only visited when he wanted to spit ball new ideas or argue
with her about some new piece of information he’d found on his own (he’d also started
reading that dark Transfiguration book as his new frontier of discovery and that was never
going to be something he let her know he was looking into) so with less to talk about, there
were overall less visits.

He didn’t talk to her as often as… as maybe he’d like to even, so the opportunities to actually
talk about something like this were much rarer. He still wasn’t sure if he was ready but… he
was still curious and today was a good day, so he gave it a shot.

“Was he really that bad? Like, Weasley-twins level bad or…?” He lead her. She sighed, not…
unwillingly exactly, more like she had a lot of memories assault her at once and they all had a
slightly bittersweet tinge to them.

“I would venture to say Mr and Mr. Weasley are worthy successors, but your father was a in
league of his own. He had more help, I should say.” She offered, but he saw her eyes flicker
to the side.

Indecision.

Harry realized she knew damn well about Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew.
She both had known them as students, as well as knew the story that everyone believed how
those four had ended up, at least.
And he knew about the map so… yeah, Fred and George were a team of two pranksters, but
as a team of four Harry was sure that the ‘Marauders’ as the map called them were in a
league of their own.

He got that she still saw him as a twelve-year-old, despite being willing to talk
Transfiguration with him like he was an adult, a peer even, but her strict concern about his
health and part of the reason she’d been so easily manipulated into defending his paper for
him last year, was that she also saw him as a child. He understood why, even now, she was
not bringing up Peter Pettigrew or Sirius Black to him. It was a brutal story to hear for a
child… as if learning that Voldemort had killed his parents and genuinely tried to kill him
was any better, though he also get that he needed to know about that since everyone else
around him did.

Only people like Daphne knew about the horrible crimes Sirius Black supposedly committed,
because her family was connected to information like that, but while everyone attending
Hogwarts as a student knew about him being the Boy-Who-Lived, very few would know
about Sirius Black without someone filling them in. While he still thought someone
should’ve told him about what the man supposedly did in the same conversation they were
informing him about Voldemort, he also realized those were two different urgency-levels of
information that an adult looking at a child might feel the need to edit.

Also, Hagrid had been the one to tell him, and again, you couldn’t get mad at Hagrid.

He could totally get mad at Dumbledore for sending Hagrid of all the people to be his
magical-world tour guide as, despite how much he loved the gentle giant, Hagrid was not a
trusted resource for a lot of things. He was also technically, legally not allowed to use magic
so… what the fuck.

No, I already know Dumbledore had a long game and manipulating Hagrid was part of it.

He brushed that off as old news—he’d already been angry about it but at this point there was
nothing to be done.

His opinion on it aside, he understood at least why McGonagall and all the other adults he’d
crossed paths with who had once known his parents hadn’t told him about Sirius Black and
Peter Pettigrew.

What Harry didn’t know was why she wasn’t saying anything about Remus right now.

She didn’t know that he already knew about all these people, so he couldn’t exactly just ask
outright or anything. There was also the fact that he hadn’t told anyone except Neville about
Remus just yet, and it kind of had to stay that way for the foreseeable future. As much as he
liked her, McGonagall was still way too close to Dumbledore and it only took one ‘oh it’s
nice to see Harry connecting with his father’s old friends’ in a passing conversation for not
only his own plans, but potentially whatever plans Mr. Greengrass was working on to be
completely ruined by that old Lemon’s interfering.

He couldn’t risk it.

“Did he have a lot of friends?” He faked his best innocent look, before dropping it onto a
frown. “Was he one of the Gryffindors who hated other houses? Something Hagrid said made
me think that.”

“He did have a lot of friends,” She admitted, wincing a bit. Good, he didn’t want her
elaborating on James Potter’s friends, because if she did decide to tell him about them,
Dumbledore would know he knew which would still cause problems. Mostly for Remus,
probably, as basically the only remaining ex-friend still alive and walking free right now. “I
don’t think he ‘hated other houses’ precisely, but I do know he got into many spats with the
Slytherins during his stay here, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Harry made a show of pouting deeply at that, so she would in no way miss how unhappy he
was with his father over that behavior. She seemed slightly uncomfortable, which is exactly
what he wanted.

“You are certainly unique Harry, in having so many friends within all four houses. It was a
different time back then when the two houses’ rivalry was at its worst.” She defended her old
student rather halfheartedly. “The fact the war was still going strong I’m sure did no one any
favors.”

That… was a slightly good point. He couldn’t claim to understand what living in a time of
war was actually like, as despite him being an orphan being the price for it, he was blessed
with only having lived during a time of peace. Again, opinions aside he could at least
understand there not being a ton of Gryffindor-Slytherin friendships, if at all, given the
harshness of what Voldemort was capable of and the world he may have created.

He pouted further. “Was my mom like that too?”

McGonagall actually smiled this time, losing her discomfort some. “Not at all; she wasn’t
nearly as invested in the rivalry, and from what I saw made some good attempts at being a
diplomat between the two when she got a chance. I believe she had some early friendships
with a Slytherin or two as well, although… it did not last from what I saw.”

Harry blinked.

Mom …

Something… warm, filled his heart. He wasn’t weird at all for befriending a Slytherin… he
just took after his mom?

For some reason it made him… indescribably happy, but unspeakably sad at the same time.

The worst part was, he knew exactly how it had fallen apart. If it’d been anyone but him and
Draco, he wasn’t sure they would’ve made it half as far as they had, after all. The fact he was
a Transfiguration prodigy and also a Gryffindor that probably should’ve been in Slytherin
was the only reason the snake house accepted him now… but in the middle of a war? For
Lily Potter the muggleborn?
She was up against far too much without the luck and fame and bloodline her son now
possessed to ever survive those odds and remain friends with another younger-year Slytherin
who was probably just as powerless as Draco was right now. Except Draco was also heir to
the richest family in Britain and had the complete support and love of his parents… which
was not something pretty much any other Slytherin had.

He could tell by how Blaise spoke about his mother—in a tone beyond reverence, and closer
to terrified obedience sometimes.

He could tell by how closed off Theo was, and mere rumors Harry had heard about the boy’s
death eater father. How even under the promise of educating him on Slytherin politics,
Daphne had delicately danced around the implication of how Lady Nott had died.

Hell, he could tell by how Daphne spoke about her father like a business partner, like he was
a tool for her own use—just as she probably was to him. Maybe she didn’t fear him but it
certainly wasn’t the father/daughter duo he would hear about if he asked Hannah about her
dad, for sure.

No… Draco very noticeably had parents who loved him dearly.

And if family situations were the only thing that mattered, then Draco should’ve been in
Gryffindor and Harry should’ve been in Slytherin.

So no, Draco was a special Slytherin as he was a good snake who also had support and
wasn’t fighting the world alone like everyone else around him was. Yes he’d chosen wrong
by being friends with a Gryffindor, but he had every other advantage possible to survive the
backlash that would bring upon him.

Lily Potter’s Slytherin friend… likely had none of that.

Maybe they’d been like Theo or Daphne. Maybe their parents would’ve beat them senseless
for daring speak to a Gryffindor all the while Slytherin house shunned them entirely (maybe
they would lock them in a shed to rot). Maybe their parents would just cut them out of family
deals and training as they’d proven they couldn’t make good judgements (maybe they would
call them a freak). Maybe they were a half-blood or, god forbid, a muggleborn with no
protection and were hexed and harassed by their own housemates, their own dorm mates
while they tried to sleep safely in their own bed until they couldn’t take it anymore (maybe
they were an orphan with no one to help).

Maybe they also tried… until surviving the snake house became far more important than
being friends with Lily Potter—a muggleborn no one.

Yeah… Harry saw exactly how it had ended.

But, his mother had tried.

Just like he was trying now.

Just like Draco was trying, no matter how he struggled sometimes.

It simultaneously broke his heart but also filled it with warm, expansive air that seemed to
chase the chill from his fingertips. He didn’t like thinking about how close him and Draco
had actually come to not being able to beat the odds, but he was thankful that, despite what it
felt like sometimes, they were the lucky ones in this situation. It still felt like there was a
whole ass mountain in front of them that they needed to move, but they actually had the tools
and the help to do it—which clearly, was not something everyone had gotten.

He'd only ever considered himself lucky in a darkly morbid kind of way. Lucky that
Voldemort hadn’t killed him, though he still lost his parents. Lucky the troll hadn’t crushed
him, it just broke half his bones instead. Lucky Quirrell hadn’t murdered him, he was just
tortured and scarred for life as the price paid.

Lucky he’d gotten out of that shed. Lucky that he had the atmosphere bulbs and extra food
and water prepared so that he didn’t starve or die of heat stroke in the mid-June heat… so that
he could live in complete darkness for months and then live with that aftermath.

Yeah… when he considered how lucky he was, it was never in a good way.

Now though, finally… he considered himself lucky in a way that he’d gotten blessed with
everything he needed to keep Draco.

Going into Hogwarts first year not knowing anything, he’d gone in with brash confidence
that he’d make it work and Draco would tag along or they just weren’t meant to be friends…
with over a year of experience with the snakes though, he now knew how insurmountable a
challenge he’d inadvertently set Draco up for, but somehow the two of them were still able to
do it.

That was nothing but pure, dumb luck… and for once, it was entirely in his favor.

It lifted his spirit a lot.

“Do you know who her friend was?” He had to ask, he had to know if they were still out
there…

Her expression shut off some, but gave him a rather wry look. “Unfortunately, I’m sure they
would not appreciate me sharing that with you.”

The decline was polite but firm. So… they were still alive, for one, and the relationship was
probably very much over given whatever had happened between them. Harry was pretty sure
he could guess how ugly it had been too, so he couldn’t even fault the person, whoever they
were, for wanting nothing to do with Lily Potter’s son now.

They were also someone McGonagall cared about not upsetting, so she was going to keep
their secret, which was interesting. Not that it narrowed it down, as she could know tons of
people he didn’t from how long she’d been teaching here, but they weren’t completely gone
from her life either if she still cared that way.

“I guess that makes sense,” He sighed in defeat, and she tilted her head at him, curious.
“Does it?”

“I mean yeah. Being friends with Draco was hard enough, because Slytherin is really into the
politics of things like I told you.” He shrugged.

“You did mention something like that…”

“You’re probably right it was even worse during a war so like, I get it. There’s a million
reasons Draco and I were lucky enough to be friends openly but it’s not something a lot of
people would get to do, especially not before.”

“I didn’t realize it was so serious.” McGonagall frowned, genuinely seeming to mull it over.
“I admit I’ve never fully understood how Slytherin operated, although through our talks I’m
realizing it’s much deeper than I assumed.”

Which, said a lot given how long she’d been working here… decades, easily, and the snake
house was still a mystery to her? At some point it was because she’d chosen not to look or try
to understand, which wasn’t a good thought for him to think about his favorite teacher but…
she was a Gryffindor.

Choosing or just not believing that there were those different from you was one of the lion’s
house absolute worst bad habits.

But it was also further proof that Harry was definitely her favorite, because now she was
starting to question and be curious about the snake house, only because of their conversations
together? Nothing in the past several decades or even her own time at Hogwarts had ever
caught her interest or curiosity before?

No, it didn’t matter… he was already biased to like her so he was just going to ignore that
previous bias of her own, and jump at the chance to catch her up to speed if she was willing
to listen to him now.

“It really is! I mean there are a lot of children of death eaters in Slytherin so the fact I’m
Harry Potter should mean they hate me for life, but then you have Draco, whose got
everything and is able to balance it out sort of. Like they care about status and information a
lot and Draco got tons of training from his parents to know stuff in advance, he’s pureblood
and has money and reputation and he’s Professor Snape’s godson so no one can bully him for
being friends with me. I’ve also learned how to be polite and with being good at
Transfiguration I can trade my notes for information from them which they like, so they’re
chill with me now and don’t bother us as much as last year.” He explained, kind of in a rush.

He wasn’t about to go very deeply into things as the deeper you got, the more he knew the
Gryffindor she was would start to turn her nose up at some things, but as a brief introduction
that was good enough. Particularly since she seemed very alarmed by all that already.

“How… interesting.” She cleared her throat, obviously not sure how to take all that. “To be
honest I didn’t know Mr. Malfoy was Professor Snape’s godson.”

She didn’t? Oops—was that supposed to be a secret?

Oh shit Snape is going to kill me—

“I don’t think Professor Snape likes me that much, but I am thankful for him protecting
Draco at least. Draco is my best friend and I’d really hate if Slytherin rejected him just for
being my friend but Professor Snape has done a lot to protect my friend so I can’t be mad at
him.” He switched on a dime and babbled a bit hastily to cover that slip, not entirely lying but
laying on his ‘appreciation’ of Snape a lot thicker than he actually felt it.

He recognized he sounded rather childish, but he was twelve, and he wanted her to focus on
the Gryffindor ‘because he’s my friend’ bullshit excuse they always bought in hopes she’d
forgive Snape’s apparent nepotism. Like the dungeon bat wasn’t already blatantly biased, but
Harry very much did not want the news that he was the one who let slip Snape and Draco’s
relation get back to the potions professor because he would never pass his potions OWL then.
At the very least if McGonagall recognized it as a good thing for her favorite student, it
wouldn’t be an issue maybe…

It seemed to work to a point as her eyes softened—as much as they ever did at least.

He wasn’t quite sure why she seemed… sad about it though?

“You’re actually thankful for him?”

What a weird question, he frowned internally, but instead plastered a smile on his lips for her
benefit.

“He’s still a mean guy kind of but yeah, I am. I at least get how much the Slytherins love him
and why. He hates me for sure but he loves Draco and since I love Draco too that’s kind of all
that matters.”

Yeah, he was laying it on thick, but it was true enough. It was exactly what the Gryffindor
head of house would want to hear, too, as evidence by her entire posture seeming to melt
some.

She smiled at him, still in that sad kind of way. “That’s very kind of you to say, Harry.”

Is it? She must be closer friends with Snape than I thought—gotta watch out for that. Guess
complaining about him to her isn’t a good idea.

He hid any inner grievance he might’ve had with the dungeon bat and smiled widely at her,
like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“He’s still mean though!” He joked and she gave an amused sort of sigh.

“I know he’s a difficult kind of professor, but-”

“Actually, he’d not half as bad as Hooch, to be honest. At least Professor Snape actually
knows something about his subject matter, although he could be more subtle about some
things.”
He blurted it out on instinct to get away from needing to lie about how much he “loved” the
bat who was trying to fail him and his fellow lions, but then he remembered:

Oh yeah, I fucking hate Hooch. Let’s stop talking about Snape and let’s talk about that bitch.
That’s way more interesting…

He kind of felt like Blaise in how vindictively riled he suddenly was now that he had a new,
safe target to set his ire on, but he kept the maniac grin off his lips.

McGonagall, for her part, looked startled by the sudden tone shift.

“Madam Hooch is a retired quidditch player, you know.” She began, quidditch nerd peeking
through for a moment before she shook it off hastily. “If we can get off subject for a moment,
can I ask why you feel that way?”

Oh where to start.

“In your first letter to me, you told me brooms were dangerous and that’s why first years
couldn’t have them. Then I get to Hogwarts and the first flying lesson we have, Hooch tells
us to get on a broom and just do it. I’m the weird one who has some skill, and most
purebloods knew what they were doing, but the fifteen or so muggleborns in that class were
essentially purposefully being put at risk for no good reason at all, and to make matters
worse, Neville paid a price for it. And he’s my friend so I took it a little harder than I
would’ve if it’d been someone else.” He ranted immediately, letting the vitriol he hadn’t
realized he’d been saving for that woman since that flight lesson over a year ago resurface
and spill out into his tone.

It felt good to just be… righteously angry again. For no other reason than that he was sure he
was right and that person deserved to be at the other end of a dressing down. He felt more
like his old self suddenly and ball got rolling.

“Hogwarts has some phenomenally bad teachers, but Hooch takes the cake because in my
first two weeks here the only student who got hurt was under her care, and she had the
audacity to blame Neville for her own incompetence. Neville struggles with a lot of stuff, but
that one was her being a horrid teacher— not his fault despite the fact her words mean he
now blames himself anyway and refuses to even get near a broom ever again. And his mother
has just as many trophies in the award room as my father does—it’s grossly unfair that I can
enjoy something that connects me to my parents while Neville can’t just because Hooch
sucks!”

McGonagall seemed visibly flabbergasted, and if Harry weren’t fuming right now thinking
about strangling Hooch, he might’ve laughed at her uncharacteristic expression.

“You’ve never said anything,” She got out, alarmed.

“Well she is an adult and also the referee for quidditch matches. If I sassed her, our games
would be forfeit because I can only assume someone so incompetent as her would let bias
like that sway the points she calls.”
“I can assure you she would never.” The teacher seemed visibly taken aback and indignant
he’d even suggest such a thing. She was insanely into quidditch as well obviously, so Harry
had a feeling she was on good terms with Hooch… unfortunately unlike Snape, he wasn’t
about to go easy on the woman who’d let Neville introduction to Hogwarts go so fucking
terrible he still wouldn’t go near a broom no matter how much Harry and the other guys
begged him.

She hurt Neville.

No one… and I mean no one gets to do that.

Maybe he would’ve forgiven her over time if Neville hadn’t become literally the only thing
keeping him sane right now… but at this point he was so far beyond people who looked
down on his sweet, wall flower friend.

He didn’t want to actually form the thought that he’d love to kill her, but he was dangerously
close. He knew it was just his temper talking but even then, he was finding it very hard not to
slip his wand into his fist and squeeze in hopes his anger would miraculously find her and
make her pay.

He shook it off, anger focusing into his words. Logically he knew he couldn’t attack her but
he could twist her image into something awful, and he was going to use every Slytherin tactic
he knew to do it.

He put his nose in the air and sniffed, unsatisfied.

“And here I have no proof of that. Clearly she attempted to kill every single muggleborn in
my year, so she’s probably one of those…people who say nasty things like mudblood and
such.” His tone implying people would’ve been replaced with a far cruder word has he not
been talking to a teacher, and she clearly got the message by the way her face paled some.
“Frankly I don’t want anything to do with those nasty sorts. Not even the worst of the
Slytherins I hang out with say it because they’re at least smart enough to know better to do so
in front of me, even if they think it. I can only imagine someone so bad at their job would
both think it, and be foolish enough to actually say it out loud. Much less do it openly in front
of all four houses!” He cried for dramatic flair.

“Harry! I assure you she’s nothing like that, she just…” But she had to trail off because Harry
put his hands on his hips and gave her a very pointed look.

What did she just…? Just what?

He clicked his tongue in the best impersonation of her he could get. “What excuse could she
possibly have for handing a bunch of muggleborns dangerous brooms and saying ‘have at it’?
How is that different from me getting a broom on my own, which is clearly against the rules?
Okay so maybe she wasn’t actively plotting to kill them, then at the very least she doesn’t
give a snitch about them or their safety. She expected a bunch of eleven-year-olds who didn’t
know humans could fly a month prior a dangerous vehicle with no training and just… let
them fly off? You like quidditch and Madam Pomfrey said you were a chaser back in the day!
Would you give a first year a broom their second week here with no instruction? It’s that easy
that anyone can do it, huh?”

It's “so easy” in fact, that when I could fly immediately it meant I was a prodigy that had to
be on the quidditch team a year early.

Not everyone was a supposed prodigy, therefore… flying wasn’t easy. And as an ex-player,
McGonagall damn well knew that.

Also, frankly, it was dangerous. He loved it, but his love of it didn’t blind him to the fact that
it was hard work, and he’d very purposefully watched Colin and the other first years like a
hawk when he taught them to fly so they didn’t go wild or fly off—Hooch hadn’t done
anything like that. She didn’t even have a broom near her to go catching students if
something went wrong, she just stood on the ground like a dumbass and scolded Neville
when he struggled to land again.

Instead of nearly any useful instruction, she’d taught them to lift their brooms with an ‘up’
command… which is something Harry had literally never once done since that lesson and he
flew all the time. It was in no way easier than just picking it up like a normal human being…

Honestly wizards—they overcomplicate a lot of shit.

McGonagall didn’t seem comfortable, but he could see her brain churning behind her
unapproving eyes.

“I understand where you are coming from… I admit one of the first exchanges we ever had I
warned you about the dangers of brooms and you seem to have taken it to heart. I still don’t
believe Rolanda meant harm… but I do see you point that harm was done, due to
negligence.”

He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and puffing his cheeks out like a child.

“She wasn’t even on a broom to teach us. I had to go catch Neville or he would’ve broken his
neck! All she did was scold him! We could’ve had Professor Binns as our flight instructor
and it would’ve gone better, because at least he wouldn’t even notice one of us dying to be
able to scold us about it.”

She sighed audibly, very weary. “Harry…”

“It was more than negligence—all she did was hand us our brooms! I could’ve bought a
broom before I got to Hogwarts and done the same thing!”

“Which is blatantly against school rules, as I warned you.” She reminded him in a warning
tone, but he just puffed up more.

“But the only difference between that class and us doing it unsupervised is that we were
together! I still had to be the one to catch one of my classmates, and I’m apparently a natural
at it. What would’ve happened if I fell? Since I was the one doing the catching of others, and
she didn’t even leave the ground to try to help, that means if I didn’t happen to be good at
flying I would’ve died two weeks into my Hogwarts stay?” He complained—before jolting as
it the truth actually hit him like a brick wall. “I mean, besides the other two times I actually
nearly died that year.”

McGonagall… looked openly dismayed and stood sharply, coming around the desk to put
firm hands on his shoulders. He wasn’t sure what expression he was wearing, but he kind of
didn’t want to know going by her reaction.

He kind of liked the firm grip holding him in place too… it was kind of reassuring that he
wasn’t about to float off into space, as if there were a threat of him doing just that. She wasn’t
a touchy person, even if she weren’t his teacher… so the sudden closure of the distance was
comforting.

“Harry… I hear you. I understand now that what happened wasn’t acceptable and I’ll look
into it.” She promised, no longer pushing back and he decided to just shut up and nod mutely.
“That being said…”

She trailed off some, and he could tell she wanted to ask.

But he didn’t want to answer so he just turned his head to the side and pouted a bit.

“Not that it matters… I taught Colin and Ginny and them how to fly this year because I didn’t
trust her not to kill them… not that it did anything to protect Colin.”

The hands on his shoulders tightened slightly.

“…about that.” She squeezed once more before stepping back and leaning over her desk
briefly, pulling up a sheet of paper that had been resting there. “While I can’t share many
details on the investigation happening, there was an idea brought forth to train the students in
case of another incident. I thought you might appreciate the practical approach.”

She handed him the paper and he blinked when he took the meaning in. Technically, it was a
flyer, clearly meant to be posted somewhere public to Gryffindor.

“A dueling club?” He tilted his head, considering that. “So… other students are still going to
be the ones doing the catching.”

She looked visibly pained, but still put a hand on his shoulder in a weak attempt at comfort.

“I will do everything in my power… but the truth is we still know so little. Having students
be able to defend themselves from threats is never a bad thing, even if this entity that harmed
Mr. Creevy is caught.”

He stared at the paper, but...

It was exactly what he thought about, almost constantly these days as he learned magic.
Every new spell he learned, he also learned to do it while running or from his sleeve or at
someone behind him… he was training as hard as he could to be able to use what magic he
had to defend himself if he needed to, he was already doing that…
But…

But…

“…what spell could this club teach me that would protect me from a troll? Or a teacher?” He
mumbled quietly, almost kind of ashamed he’d actually admitted that concern to her… but
she was also the one he went to most when he had questions about magic.

Transfiguration would be his ticket to power, because at this point he had an ‘acceptable’ in
charms and defense so… she and her subject would be everything he had to go on for now.

He didn’t know how dueling other students was actually going to change anything though.
Students… were not the problem here, and he wished people would stop pretending he had
nothing more than homework to worry about when he’d come withing inches of death FIVE
times in the past calendar year alone—and none of them were homework or classmate
related.

A troll, that he had no idea had been let loose in the school.

A unicorn killer in a forest, while on a detention McGonagall herself had given him.

A cursed broom that he’d been willing to just ignore but probably shouldn’t have.

A teacher he was supposed to be able to trust, who’d tortured him instead.

And then… fucking muggles and that god damned shed.

Oh wait… let’s not forget about the potion that roasted him in class the other day. He
supposed that one was classmate related, but then again… Snape had not let that happen,
performing as an actual teacher for once in his life.

Maybe that’s all they were though… teachers. Teachers gave homework and stopped
classmate squabbles… they also couldn’t do shit about abusive relatives or trolls or the
fucking dark lord.

He winced… maybe he’d been too harsh on them before. Yeah there was nothing he could do
but… besides at least acting like this was a problem, there really wasn’t much they could do
either, was there?

Maybe he’d given them too much credit.

Maybe he wasn’t paying attention, because he was so lost in his darkening thoughts that he
was startled to realize he was being hugged—tightly.

He blinked widely at the ceiling over her shoulder as McGonagall hugged him tightly, and he
very belatedly put arms back around her in shock.

It only lasted a brief time before she let go, straightening without a word to her original regal
posture… and gently fixing the hair clip he had to keep his hair out of his face.
“We’ll just have to see about that sort of magic then, but in the meantime a good first step
would be to remove your last block. Shall we take a walk to the Hospital Wing this evening?”

His eyes widened, instantly eager.

“Really!?”

“Indeed… your drills shows no error and if Madam Pomfrey agrees you’ve healed entirely,
then having this block won’t do you any good during a duel.” She nodded down to him and
he perked up. “Although I suppose I should ask first… do you intend to join this club?”

Huh.

Being asked my opinion is a nice change of pace.

“I think so… I’m still not sure what I could learn that would actually help, but at the very
least I know my friends will.” He admitted.

She gave him another approving nod. “I understand. Against your year mates you’re right, it
may be mostly for their benefit. I wouldn’t suggest opposing upper years just yet… however,
if you have time after the Madam clears you, I may be able to at least instruct you on good
dueling etiquette, and a spell or two appropriate for your magic level.”

Not year level.

Magic level.

And he was easily almost above fourth year right now.

He looked up at her with stars in his eyes and she simply guided him to the door gently.

“Are you serious? Are you actually serious?”

“I am quite serious Mr. Potter, so if I am allowed to take that as a yes then come along…”

“Cool!” His brain finally caught up and he all but lead the charge out of her office, her sharp
clicking heels easily outpacing him almost immediately despite his eagerness.

She huffed, although amused enough that it could’ve been a polite laugh.

“While it may be ‘cool’, yes, I will warn you now the difference between fighting fellow
students in a sanctioned duel and fighting an enemy. Your spellwork for Transfiguration is
excellent but given your magical core I am telling you now you will struggle with control—
particularly reigning things in so as not to harm people unnecessarily.”

“Right,” he agreed, mind racing immediately.

He listened close as she lectured him the entire way to the Hospital Wing about the tenants of
control in a duel, and he even had a few things to share back about his ‘falling’ method of
spell casting which she agreed would warrant some experimenting with before using on real
opponents. The fact she was willing to talk, like, actual battle tips and tricks…

Like, actually help him help himself…

Because yeah, maybe she couldn’t help him in all honesty. In the moment he’d need help the
most, most likely he would be alone, or would need to be the one protecting someone else,
like with Hermione and with Neville… with Colin and everyone else he just wasn’t around to
protect when they needed him.

Suddenly, he realized… the helplessness he felt when Colin was attacked and he just hadn’t
been there to protect him…

McGonagall might feel something a little similar.

For some reason, that made tears prick at the corner of his eyes, but he shoved them down to
deal with that unidentified emotion later. He was about to be checked over to see if he was
healthy right now so he had to put his game face on and get ready to actually learn some
magic that might save his life one day, right here and right now.

And maybe he was a Gryffindor at heart, because being able to do something finally felt
really good.

His mood only got higher still when they finally reached Madam Pomfrey’s office and
McGonagall knocked, only waiting a moment before entering and…

“Draco?” Harry blinked, of all the things he’d been expecting, seeing his friend sitting at
Madam Pomfrey’s desk while she was looking over his shoulder at something was not it.

“Harry!” He yelped, ears going red but posture stiffening immediately. “Wait—are you
hurt!?”

“I believe this is scheduled, actually, although you made good time on the spellwork drills. I
wasn’t expecting you for another forty minutes,” Madam Pomfrey straightened up, checking
her pocket watch pointedly.

“Scheduled…?” Draco frowned, looking from the Mediwitch back to Harry expectantly.

“I mean I didn’t know but Professor McGonagall said my spells are okay to remove the block
I’ve had on since the start of the year,” He explained mainly for his benefit, but he was both
curious himself—and also could see McGonagall was taken off guard by his appearance here
too. “What are you up to? I know you said you were practicing but…?”

The apples of the blond’s cheeks turned a light pink but he lifted his nose pompously anyway.

“Practice is slow going so I’m reading up on theory in the meantime, just to supplement some
things.” He explained a bit too casually.

“I had no idea you had interest in healing, Mr. Malfoy.” McGonagall lifted one brow at him,
though he refused to meet her eye.
 “It’s a hobby.” He insisted, slightly defensively.

Madam Pomfrey chuckled, coming around the desk to grab a book on one of her shelves.
“Today is a small test of sorts I’m having Mr. Malfoy do to check his understanding of the
topics we’ve been discussing so far.” She flipped the book open to a middle chapter with
apparent ease and placed it in front of Draco, who blinked in surprise. “While I check over
Mr. Potter here, in case you are curious about the magical core theory needed for this you can
find it here.”

“Really?” He perked up, abandoning his supposed test to grip the book now instead.

“Oh no,” Harry groaned, half dismayed. “He’s going to be even more of a worry-wart if he
knows about my health issues… is that a good idea?”

“Given he’ll likely be the one next to you next time an incident occurs, would you rather he
be ignorant?” The Madam countered smoothly as she ushered both Transfiguration student
and teacher out of her office and back into the main wing. And you know, Harry had to give
her that point.

“Oh no,” He still said, earning twin chuckles from the women escorting him.

Thankfully none of them saw Draco with his head buried behind the book as it went neon red
in mortification.

Chapter End Notes

And now for a segment where I put the songs I've been listening to that inspire me to
write these characters. I like assigning songs to people, so as the story progresses I'll try
to share a couple new ones here and there. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear
them to see what inspiration will strike. For real though I'd love to know what song
people think fits Blaise lmao...

Up first is Harry! Which, of course as the main character could never have just one...

Badass!Harry: Pomegranate Lips (Derivakat)

Sad!Harry: All the Magic (Karliene)
Happy!Harry: Happy Now (Pentatonix)
 Blooms
Chapter Notes

I have no idea why writing from Blaise' POV is so hard for me but alas it is... he's quite
the psychopath, I have to say.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“Keep your spine straight, shoulders back. Front foot should be pointed at your target and
back foot a quarter turned—keep your weight balanced between ball and heel so that you can
move in an instant!” Harry repeated the lessons he’d only just learned from McGonagall to
his new students, who obeyed quickly and fixed their postures hastily.

He smiled as he put a finger on Ginny’s wrist and pushed it down a couple inches.

“Not so high—if your arm is straight out like that you’ll get tired quickly. It’s okay to have a
bend in your elbow just to keep it at the ready. Remember, you need full arm flexibility to be
able to react with any type of spell that might be appropriate for whatever your opponent is
throwing at you. Also, you need to be able to see over your own hand at what it is that they’re
throwing,”

“Right,” She had a serious look on her face and corrected her arm, knees bent like she was
ready to tackle someone. He was very amused how into this she was getting, and suspected if
the dueling club continued to be a thing then she was going to be a really good fighter
someday.

In comparison, directly to her left Luna looked so calm that she might be ready to hex you, or
simply drop her wand from how loose her grip was, and she was standing casually enough
that it seemed like a stray wind might topple her. He would’ve commented on it if he hadn’t
already seen her lazily flick her wrist this way and that, only for very accurately placed
charms to go zinging all over the room as if she were dancing with them.

She had mentioned her father once taught her some self-defense… so the fact she was being
harassed by her own housemates seemed purely a benevolent choice on her part rather than a
lack of capability. Harry was going to leave that battle for another day though, as today was
for dueling only—they didn’t have much time until the club began after all.

His group of first years had both shrunk and grown… they were most noticeably missing
Colin and Harry was trying hard not to think about how quiet it was without him there
snapping pictures at literally everything they did. Even being quieter than he would’ve liked,
they’d still increased in number from their original flying lessons though, as now every single
first-year Gryffindor boy was here, probably because they were the most affected by what
had happened to Colin, and therefore the most unnerved by it. Gryffindor boys were also the
type most likely to be comforted by learning how to defend themselves against this
mysterious monster, so it made sense to have the representation… although Ginny and
Melody were still the only two representing the Gryffindor girls. He knew there were at least
four more who still hadn’t shown, not that he was judging that exactly.

They’d expanded on other fronts too, as Basil, the first-year Hufflepuff Susan had practically
thrown at him, had convinced his best friend Toddy to come too. They were having a little
too much fun trying to catch each other with laughing charms rather than focusing on their
footwork, but they were polite when he spoke up at least.

The most exciting part though, had come out of nowhere when two first-year Slytherins had
approached him and asked to join when they somehow heard he was putting on these little
classes in prep for the dueling club.

He’d looked up all the first years’ backgrounds just so he was aware of them like every other
snake would be, but other than making sure they weren’t picking fights with the Gryffindor
first-years, hadn’t approached them too much yet. He was letting them get used to Hogwarts
and pick up on how ‘Harry Potter’ was seen in Slytherin house before he got involved.
Knowing they were at the bottom of the barrel hierarchy-wise, and how Slytherin usually left
firsties relatively alone if they shut up and just tried to learn their place in the world their first
year here, Harry had copied that behavior so as not to sabotage them. He was a controversial
character after all, and demanding upper years deal with him was not the same as bullying
someone younger than him, who didn’t know any better, into dealing with him. Brand new
snakes would not immediately know how to deal with an upper year getting in their faces
without insulting both the Potter name, and also not get them ostracized by their own house.
If they talked to him without knowing any better, they would have no idea Harry was
essentially ruining their reputation for them as they might be seen as Draco was—conspiring
with a Gryffindor, and the Boy Who Lived at that.

So he’d kept his distance to let them work it out. Let them get a feel for Hogwarts and
Slytherin house in particular, and maybe in the later half of the year he’d reach out slowly to
see if they had anything worth trading for yet and get the dealing going.

That plan had been blown out of the water when an unpredictably brave girl with long brown
hair and hazel eyes walked up to him when he was sitting doing Charms homework with
Draco in the Slytherin common room, and asked to be included in his unofficial class.

To be completely blunt, Lake Evergreen was a phenomenal Slytherin.

She was pureblood, not outwardly dark, not obscenely wealthy but robes of a very fine
design and make. She knew exactly what she was doing when she asked him, and as a firstie
with nothing to trade she’d given him big eyes and promised that she’d get along with the
Gryffindors this year in exchange for his help as an upper year.

Which was amazing for several reasons.

First of all, doing it in the Slytherin common room meant people knew, and she knew that
they knew. Second, she’d known exactly what he wanted in his heart of hearts: for Slytherins
and Gryffindors to get over their old rivalry, and since she had nothing to trade she’d gone for
his heartstrings instead. Thirdly, her words were very careful in saying ‘his help as an upper
year’.

That did not mean help with the dueling club specifically.

It just meant help.

Harry recognized immediately that she was asking for not only help with combat, but also
perhaps schoolwork… perhaps protection from the other Gryffindors who might be the ones
picking the fights in the first place, since he’d already very much proven he’d bully any first
year who started the fight, even if they were in his own house. She was essentially asking to
be put under his wing, in exchange for following his rules.

She’d done it in her own common room so that everyone knew that helpless little firstie Lake
Evergreen now had Harry Potter as her mentor… which meant she’d grabbed a lot of power
relative to her position very quickly, considering she’d only been at Hogwarts a couple
months. She must have seen how he’d commanded (ahem—threatened) all the first years into
peace in the hallways and picked up very quickly how wary the snake house was of him and
decided she could definitely capitalize on it.

Because he was still a Gryffindor, and he had heart strings with which to attack, and perhaps
unluckily for Harry it was a damn effective method. In true Slytherin fashion, it was almost
too good of a deal to pass up, so Harry hadn’t needed to think long before accepting.

Draco had witnessed the whole thing and been much more wary, warning him that it probably
wasn’t a good idea… but he really couldn’t quite give a quaffle.

She could be using him, she could walk in the start of next year and start hexing Gryffindors
left and right since this deal was only to be nice for now, but it still wouldn’t matter. She was
still a first year, who had no better chance of surviving whatever monster was roaming their
school halls than Colin had… at the very least, he wouldn’t turn anyone away from this self-
defense lesson of sorts, no matter who they were or what their motivation was. She hadn’t
defined what help meant and neither had he—he could still be as careful as he needed to be
with her.

Besides… Harry only pretended to be able to predict Slytherin motivations, but he also had a
sixth sense for when the motivation wasn’t Slytherin at all.

In fact, while he wasn’t about to bring it up to anyone, he was pretty sure Lake’s motivation
was tightly interconnected with the boy who’d been right behind her when she asked for the
deal not only for herself, but the both of them.

There was… shockingly little known about Alden Cork, and he was dead quiet even when
Harry was encouraging him to say a spell louder to get more strength in his core to cast it
properly. Even Daphne knew nothing about him, which really…

It meant he was probably a muggleborn.

He was smart enough to say nothing about that though and keep firmly to himself, and it
seemed his year mates were ignoring that silent fact too. Harry suspected there were several
muggleborns throughout the snake house, but you’d never know it from how secure that
information was, for obvious reasons. If Lake had her shit together, then comparatively Alden
seemed to be silently drowning and hoping no one noticed if he disappeared suddenly.

Harry genuinely could not imagine how hard this kid probably had it. He had literally nothing
going for him except for the fact Lake seemed to have aligned herself with him and was
taking him along for the ride.

Muggleborn or not, he was in Slytherin, so he had a goal or at the very least wanted to get
somewhere with his life. Harry could relate and the boy was certainly not going to find too
much help in his own house, so maybe it was pity or sympathy or whatever… he was willing
to pass on what he knew and do what he could for them in exchange for them supporting his
own goals.

Best of all: as a muggleborn, the idea that he’d end up siding with the dark or with someone
actively preaching the death of people like him as Voldemort did, was laughable. Not that it
couldn’t happen as you never knew, but Alden was a Slytherin was had as good a motivation
as anyone to side with “Harry Potter”, so it was likely this relationship would be a long-term
one for survival purposes while he was at Hogwarts.

And Harry could totally work with that.

For almost the same reason though, he was exceptionally wary of Lake as she was sharp as a
knife despite being able to play helpless-firstie-with-puppy-dog-eyes outstandingly well…
but he considered it a challenge worth taking.

“Is there any spell we can learn that would actually be useful for a duel though?” Lake herself
spoke up in amongst all of their practicing, unafraid despite the room being mostly
Gryffindor boys… who were still looking at her with wide, suspicious eyes, but firmly polite
under Harry’s acidic stare daring them to start shit in front of him.

“Hm… I had given that some thought,” He tapped his chin, but it was a hard conundrum.
Lake very obviously was already trained by her family—her posture was immaculate and
simply oozed confidence in how she held her wand and placed her feet. There was no way
she didn’t know ten hexes and dark curses from her parents to use in real combat, if not a
friendly duel exactly. Her partner across from her had a death grip on his wand though,
despite his shoulders being up straight and face otherwise blank, so he doubted she was
asking for herself.

He wasn’t about to make the same mistake in teaching them spells above their year level for
fear of damaging their magical cores. His was special but like hell was he going to risk their
health, even if McGonagall and Pomfrey wouldn’t personally quarter him if they ever found
out about it, but that meant he was limited to the spells taught to first years only.

Aside from Transfiguration which he’d gone completely out of order on, he knew the main
offensive spells you learned in first year would be the severing charm, the fire-making charm,
the knockback jinx, and the verdimillious charm—half of which were second semester
lessons they didn’t know yet. The severing charm was a bit too reckless for him to teach a
bunch of younger years in preparation for a duel—he didn’t want them actually using that
and accidentally cutting someone’s hand off. The fire-making charm sounded a bit excessive
and from what he remembered the knockback jinx was pretty tough (prodigy at Charms, he
was not…). The only one that had real promise was the verdimillious charm which was
specifically meant for use in duals and would conjure large, lightly damaging green sparks.
The only defensive spell taught was the smokescreen spell which was useful enough as the
only shield-type spell in first-year range, and it would actually be helpful if, say, a monster
were coming at them down a hall and then needed a quick getaway.

The twins had also come in clutch and explained some of the more mischievous spells they’d
learned over the years, trimming it down to a couple that even first years should be able to do
within the week they had until the club started. Things like the laughing charm (which it
seemed some of them already knew), the full body bind hex, and a monster hair growth jinx.
The last one didn’t seem too useful but it was also very funny to see someone’s eyebrows
grow over their eyes to blind them temporarily. And besides, in a duel it mattered less what
the spell was and just so long as it was considered an incapacitation or a ‘hit’, and for a first
year it would still count.

“We only have a week so the verdimillious charm and the smokescreen spell will be our best
bet at a safe offensive and defensive pair. If we have time I’ll teach you a couple jinxes to
switch it up if you want.” He decided, and she tilted her head curiously at him.

“I heard you were really good at Transfiguration—do you know anything useful with that?”

Harry mentally flashed back to a melted club raining down on a troll, and Quirrell’s choked
death-gurgles as the blood in his body was replaced with water.

“… not unless you want to kill a troll.” He deflected and she startled. “I’ll tell you what: if
you’re still interested later in some offensive Transfiguration I can teach you, but it’s way too
dangerous for a duel against someone you don’t want to kill—McGonagall will actually
murder me if I start spreading Transfiguration dueling tricks to first years.”

“Oh,” She frowned, considering that with eyes alight with whatever was churning behind her
gaze. “I didn’t realize Transfiguration was that dangerous.”

“It’s the second most dangerous after Potions! So maybe later with that stuff, let’s just focus
on winning some duels first.” He clapped his hands and they all perked up as he launched
into a demonstration of the smokescreen charm.

Lake Evergreen kind of terrified him, since she wasn’t quite sly enough to cover her blatant
interest in dangerous magics, but he knew she would be soon. What she wanted it for
though…

Harry was just gonna have to stay on his toes and hope they used it against monsters in the
Hogwarts hallways, not each other.

000
“Is he still not talking to me?”

“Don’t question it, just enjoy the silence.”

Blaise felt a vein in his temple twitch and spun around to give the peanut gallery standing
behind him a venomous snarl.

He must be losing his touch though, because Harry just beamed while Draco didn’t even look
away from the stage they were setting up in the Great Hall.

“Blaise! It’s been so long since you acknowledged me I thought you’d forgotten about me!”
The red headed jerk didn’t even admit his betrayal and the Zabini heir whipped around again
to openly ignore him.

It was hard though… he sincerely wanted to pick on him instead.

The audacity, of when he’d heard about this dueling club obviously he’d gone to tell
everyone in the entire useless school, except the red-headed prick behind him had already
known.

Way to ruin the joy of gossip, asshole.

“What did you do?”

“Me? Why are you asking me what I did!?” Harry’s indignant cry made Blaise feel slightly
better, and he glanced over his shoulder in a show of casualness to see the other Gryffindor
boys settling in beside them. They were awfully… not uncomfortable standing and sitting
with them when the years gathered like this, or when they had classes together.

Blaise wasn’t strictly uncomfortable either, as they were all potential targets someday so no
use in burning bridges, but there was also the matter of appearances to keep. That in no way
explained why a bunch of lions, who didn’t care about appearances in the first place, had no
issue standing right next to them though.

The answer, as Blaise was quickly finding was usually the case, circled back around to the
lovely Harry Potter-Monroe to whom had taken a seat atop one of the empty tables in the
Great Hall with the ever-present sidekick that was Longbottom firmly by his side. Over the
course of the half hour where people filtered in to see what this dueling club was about, he’d
been slowly crowded with people who wished to stand or sit near him. Like a magnet that
had most people’s attention and interest, good or bad, people gravitated towards him… and
evidentially, sometimes that pulling force exceeded the distaste for being near others.

For example Nott was still here, but he was at the far end of the table from the direction the
Gryffindors had appeared, like a planet being kept in place around a sun but simultaneously
repelled by larger planets on the other side of its orbit. Draco of course sat next to Harry, but
hadn’t acknowledged Longbottom sitting on his other side, like two tightly spinning moons
that wouldn’t leave their planet but were forever stuck at opposite poles by sheer opposing
magnetism to each other.
Blaise himself had done it, impishly standing right in front of him to block his view in
retaliation for ruining his gossip earlier, but him purposefully annoying the boy wonder back
there was still him paying attention to, and choosing to stand near, the famous Boy Who
Lived. He supposed he himself was a comet—heedless of any planet or asteroid belt in his
way and keeping a definite distance most times… yet he always found himself circling back
eventually.

For some reason.

Potter had been infiltrating a lot of corners of Hogwarts lately, which meant you ended up
with this weird grouping of people: Slytherins, Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs all
mixed together, and not by house or friend group, but by how close of friends they were to
Harry. How tight was your orbit, how strong was the gravitational pull…

Blaise was annoyed.

As the center of his own universe, the implication someone else was the sun in this metaphor
pissed him off. Maybe that was why the slight annoyance and tiny grudge over his
interrupted gossip was easier to hold onto that it would be otherwise.

In the end it didn’t actually matter though—nothing did. It was just another small detail that
was a bit out of place.

“Well you’re always very polite to the Slytherins so if he’s mad at you, I’m assuming it’s
something you did.” Dean continued like he didn’t hear Harry’s indignant tone.

Blaise felt better.

He spun around so fast Longbottom nearly startled right off of his seat and all the Gryffindors
did a sharp double take.

“That’s it! Harry dear you’re ousted from my favorite Gryffindor position for being a bitch—
Thomas you’re it.”

Harry’s wide green eyes looked betrayed for half a second before lighting up and cackling
madly.

Thomas, to his credit, just titled his head as if not sure how to take that.

“I’m not sure I have a favorite Slytherin.”

“Yes you do, and you have to say it’s me now.” He snapped.

“Ah… alright?”

“Blaise, I found out literally one day before you—what could you have possible done with
less than twelve hours notice?” The Potter asshole had the audacity to ask, which Blaise took
full offense to.
“Everything—where have you been? Pay attention! I could’ve taken over Hogwarts already
with that kind of forewarning!”

“Which is maybe why it’s best he didn’t tell you,” Draco drawled uncaringly, yelping as he
got hit on the shoulder immediately for it. “Stop hitting me because you’re mad at him!” He
complained.

Blaise looked as far down his nose as he could at the red head looking too-innocently at him,
though the slight smirk to his lips gave him away. He sneered.

“Well I can’t hit that one. He’ll just bite me.”

“I’m not a dog.”

“But you are a bitch,” He waved his hand dismissively over his shoulder, making a show of
being done with them and turning back to the stage, relishing in the way Potter choked on air
audibly at the sharp retort. He even got a snicker from a stray Ravenclaw in the nearby
crowd, which was mildly entertaining.

“How did you know about it ahead of time, Harry?” Finnegan chirped up curiously, although
Blaise had already figured it out the instant he realized his gossip wheel had been ruined.

“McGonagall told me.” He admitted.

“You really are her favorite…”

“I mean yeah but this time it wasn’t technically because of that. I still had that magical block
on me and she wanted to be sure it got removed before the club started, so it came up in that
conversation was all.”

“Oh that’s right! So you’re finally free?” Dean cheered him and he flashed a pleased grin for
the many onlookers that perked up at that news.

“Yep! All good by now!”

It posed a slight problem, Blaise considered.

Magical power was a nebulous topic in that it was difficult to categorize people just because
they had more or less sheer capacity for magic than someone else. Any clever Slytherin with
a weak core still had a slight edge over, say, a Hufflepuff with a larger-than-average core just
by virtue of being willing (and eager) to play dirty and trick their opponent into a trap, even
if they couldn’t go wand-to-wand and win in a direct clash. Power combined with control
was a much better indicator of someone’s strength, but control was very hard to quantify as
you could be great at ten spells but horrible at a hundred others.

Just because you had a lot of magic did not necessarily mean you could use it. Blaise never
discredited anyone as a non-threat just because of weakness or arbitrary magical strength, it
was just poor tactics.

Potter though, was a bit of an outlier.

Being stronger than someone else in terms of magic was not usually something to get worked
up over, however being twenty times stronger than anyone else your age wasn’t something
you could just ignore. Blaise was no expert on magical core theory, but the fact Potter had a
magic block on for the entirety of this year so far and, frankly, just forgot about it was a red
flag and a half. Blaise had watched him, never for a second forgetting the fact his magic was
leashed while the weirdo sat in front of him in Charms, still completing spells averagely
quickly compared to the rest of the class. And let’s not even pretend that everyone didn’t
notice how he had the entire year’s work in Transfiguration already done, and how he'd just
hand it in and start doing other homework during that class period with McGonagall’s
permission.

If he hadn’t openly told them, literally no one—not even a Slytherin or a Ravenclaw or a

single teacher in this second-rate school—would’ve been able to notice that he had a magical
block on until just recently.

Even worse, is that he wouldn’t have told them if he didn’t get caught with the potions at
meals almost immediately. Blaise could read people like he could breathe air, and while he
didn’t always know the motivation or what they were hiding, he always knew when they
were hiding something. Harry had told them it was because he’d pushed himself too far in
upper year Transfiguration work, which was an exceptionally reasonable excuse—it made
almost too much sense in fact.

Blaise knew for certainty that it was a lie because of how oh so reasonable the explanation
had been. Only muggleborns or those raised by muggles cared about making everything
make perfect sense when they lied, because if they actually knew a thing about the wizarding
world they’d know life and magic certainly did not work so sensibly as they thought it
should. He didn’t even need the deduction though, as he could tell the instant the words came
out of his mouth by the way the Gryffindor’s smile had been ever so slightly too calm. Blaise
had had a year of eating meals with him at this point: he knew when the boy wonder was
lying by now. He didn’t even need the full year honestly, he could tell by last Christmas.

As for if he cared if anyone was lying to him… ha, no.

Lie away, he didn’t give a fuck.

In fact he kind of loved it when people lied to him. It was just so cute that they genuinely
thought they’d get away with it.

While he didn’t know the actual reason Harry had a magical block on, he also knew if
Madam Pomfrey was involved then it was a sincere threat to his magical core—and therefore
everyone around him. As someone who ate lunch with him periodically, Blaise wasn’t
questioning the decision.

The only thing he would maybe question was why he’d lied to Draco, because it was clear
the Malfoy heir didn’t know the real reason either—he wasn’t lying when he’d commented
on the potions so he very genuinely didn’t know the actual reason.

That was a bit interesting, as in he’d made note of it… but he didn’t actually care enough to
do anything about it. He would just sit on that knowledge and wait for something else to pop
up that maybe was related—maybe he’d get to use it against them someday. That would be
fun, maybe. Or maybe not.

Maybe it would be just another boring thing cluttering up his brain.

Anyway, while none of that mattered, the fact Harry had his core released in preparation for
today’s duels posed an imminent problem he needed to give attention to. There was a none-
zero chance he would get paired up with the red headed menace and in that case, he needed
his wits about him.

Because the power was one thing… it was a significant thing, but it was only one factor.

Power and control was the name of the game, and unfortunately Mr. Monroe had an intense
amount of competency with a wand in addition to his apparent unparalleled magic power.
Since the start of this year, his comfort with a wand had skyrocketed, and as the snake house
in general was hyper-aware of anyone who may pose a threat to them, there weren’t many
who hadn’t noticed that he walked a lot like a pureblood who’d been trained in magic since
birth these days. Pretty much only Draco and some first years seemed to have not noticed,
actually.

He'd been around when Harry had traded some Transfiguration lessons to others in the
Slytherin common room, and even if he wasn’t in on the deal and had to sit elsewhere in
another sitting area where he couldn’t hear what was being said, he still watched like a hawk
and very much noticed how he seemed to forget to say some spells out loud when he was
doing a demonstration. Not being able to hear didn’t matter, as his lips didn’t move as he
moved his wand, and things started transfiguring in front of him flawlessly.

Also, he didn’t care about quidditch but even Blaise knew being the youngest seeker in a
century both at Hogwarts and in the professional sport of quidditch in general, meant he had
the hand-eye coordination and reaction time that beat out everyone around him by miles.
He’d attended enough games out of obligation to know first hand at this point too.

To top it all off, shattering your arm and still being able to hold onto a snitch and not fall off
your broom, being roasted alive by a rouge potion without making a sound and then brushing
it off immediately… yeah.

Mr. Monroe would do fine before Lady Zabini if it ever came to that.

Anyone with that kind of pain tolerance wasn’t going to shy away from some second-year
level spells in a public duel.

To top it all off, he’d destroyed an upper year Slytherin with only a harmless defensive spell
being cast to prevent a scene from happening at breakfast. He didn’t need a wand to be a
fucking threat and half, but given the weapon and the clear goal of fighting someone, Blaise
was thrilled to see him go destroy some fools… and not so thrilled with the none-zero chance
he’d be one of them.

Blaise himself was very good. He was trained by his mother after all.
Reality was though, he most likely wasn’t as good as Harry right now. He had power and he
knew how to use it, he was dangerously clever, he was still an annoyingly unafraid
Gryffindor who wouldn’t back down because of pain or fear, and he had the repertoire of
spells, at least in Transfiguration, to be a real fucking problem to fellow second-years who
didn’t have high level magic they could lean on here. At least not that they could show in
front of teachers as plenty of Slytherins knew a couple dark ones that’d do the trick in a real
fight.

Still, for a ‘friendly’ duel, Potter had all the advantages here.

And to be beaten by him in this public forum would be a blow to Blaise’s pride that he wasn’t
willing to take, so he had to think carefully about what he needed to do should it happen. It
was a small chance, but a none-zero one was still a chance, and only a fool wouldn’t prepare
anyway.

As he mulled it over, he sighed as he realized the only viable weakness the guy had was his
mental stability which was, let’s say, about as good as Blaise’s right now… but he didn’t
wear it nearly as fabulously as he did. That was a trump card he was saving for a better day
though so it wasn’t useful in this setting.

Hmmm… he’s weak to Charms and I bet he doesn’t know any good shields. Then again with
his power he could probably break through most of my shields, or at least the ones I can use
publicly… and his reaction time means I’d be the one at a disadvantage if I tired
overwhelming him with volume. Maybe psychological, if I play purely defensive and don’t
attack for as long as I can hold out and just wait for when his guard drops?

He tisked at the mediocrity of his tactics. This is why he didn’t get into head-on fights—
destroying people’s reputations was so much easier.

“On that topic, me knowing about it wasn’t favoritism but I’ll tell you what is: she promised
me I get to go first once we start this thing.” Potter continued behind him, ignorant of the
Zabini’s internal musings.

“No way!”

“Better you than me, honestly. I’ll just take notes as I’ve never dueled before.” Thomas
sighed wearily.

“I doubt many our year level have, I don’t think.”

“Jokes on you, Slytherins grow up knowing the rules so good luck.” Surprisingly, Draco
actually addressed Finnegan with a haughty sniff, and even more surprisingly was that the
Irishman didn’t even take offense, he just gave a dreading groan.

“Oh great…”

Blaise knew Draco had been getting too chummy—he couldn’t keep his trap shut when it
came to quidditch and the two of them were nerds about it. Minus one point for the weakest
snake of their grade—including Mr. Monroe here somehow, who was, in fact, still a
Gryffindor even.

“I just have to hope I’m up against a Slytherin then.” Harry gave a wicked grin as if not
bothered at all by the apparent disadvantage… which confirmed to Blaise the worst possible
scenario here:

Potter knew how good he was, and he was actively looking for an actual challenge to him.

It was one thing if he had all the advantages in combat against others his age but was still
nervous for his first fight or underestimated himself… that he knew and was confident in his
own abilities was a whole other monster altogether.

Blaise automatically made a face of disgust, but deflected with his words.

“Ironic, given you’re the one always preaching the snakes and lions get along, aren’t you?”
He sniffed down his nose at him.

“I just want a good fight is all,” He countered smoothly, unbothered.

Bitch knew he was going to win, and it pissed him off.

He couldn’t help but bare his teeth just a bit.

“With that attitude I hope you fight Longbottom first.”

Blaise immensely enjoyed the way the meek Gryffindor’s face paled dramatically at realizing
that that was a possibility, and Potter’s cockiness vanished in a puff to instantly turn to his
friend with reassurances, completely abandoning the exchange with everyone else to focus on
his sidekick.

Predictable.

Merlin he hated predictable things. Harry was usually more entertaining than that.

Serves him right though. I hope he’s forced to knock his little shadow right off the stage
himself.

Blaise’s uncharitable mood got worse as he turned back to where the stage seemed to be set,
and the teachers were gathering to begin the club session. Lockhart who was apparently
running this thing was unfortunately there, but so was Snape, McGonagall, and Flitwick.

Unfortunately, a Potter vs Longbottom duel is even less likely than me fighting the bitch. The
cat and the shrimp wouldn’t do that to Longbottom and there are much better ways to fuck
with Potter that Snape would probably choose over torturing Longbottom even more than he
does in class already. I mean it’s a predictable win for Potter so it’d be such a basic choice
when Snape is far too much of a dramatic bastard for it to be so simple.

Lockhart is a wild card though—maybe I could catch his eye and have him pick Longbottom
somehow? I mean, if the dunce would ever pick up on that, which I doubt. Nah, too much
effort given Harry will know I had a hand in it and will get pissy about it. I still don’t know
exactly where the line in fucking with Longbottom is before he sees me as a legitimate enemy
and it’s not worth it for now.

“Alright everyone, gather round! How excellent to see such a turnout for my little experiment
here! Are we all excited for a little demonstration?” As Lockhart caught everyone’s attention
with his flamboyant gesticulating, Blaise rolled his eyes and abandoned his mission of
blocking Harry to walk back and plop himself between Nott and Draco grudgingly.

He wasn’t acknowledged but for once he was fine with it, just leaning back and trying not to
let the annoying teacher’s insane narcissism irritate him too much. Lockhart didn’t seem to
care much that the purpose of this club was to teach them how to duel, and more an
opportunity for them to witness his own dueling prowess apparently.

“If we’re just gonna sit here watching him duel I’m going to leave.” Nott muttered darkly and
Blaise gave him a lazy look before sighing at the ceiling. The sky was a horrifically ugly pale
blue today.

He was bored again.

That was never good.

He was still bored, even when Lockhart asked Snape of all people to help him do his
demonstration. It was a horrible idea befitting of the imbecile and Blaise already knew how
it’d end… he didn’t even feel anything to watch the Defense professor get his ass handed to
him, nor as he gave a great bluster about letting his opponent win. The students around him
were greatly enjoying it all, some girls who were somehow still smitten with his charming
smile sympathizing with Lockhart—it made him want to gag.

I wonder what we’re having for dinner…

Lockhart wanted to move right into the student attempts now that they’d had a
demonstration, but McGonagall cut him off sternly and forced her way onto the stage despite
the man’s loud ego trying to take up the entire platform. She insisted that while the
demonstration was nice they were all still second-years, half of them being muggleborn who
didn’t actually know the rules and so she was going to assist Flitwick in giving them the
proper run-down.

Flitwick had been a dueling champion? Blaise hadn’t known that.

Maybe he’d be a tad less flippant towards the man, since apparently he could hold his own
more than he’d previously thought. Or maybe not.

How old was he again? He had to be part goblin or something so it was hard to tell. Old
though—his heyday was far away at this point.

This was dull. He already knew the rules and they were getting very dumbed down, baby
rules here for a beginner lesson. He really hoped he was up against a muggleborn, as he
wasn’t interested in fighting in general and just wanted an easy win. Then again that would
be even more tedious so maybe he wanted someone like Susan Bones who promised to be the
most aggressive Hufflepuff of the choices today while still being manageably easy to beat.

Why did I even come? Am I really gonna get any good information here?

As much as this was unfortunate, he supposed he needed to know who won what matches
and potentially what grudges came from them. This had a huge turnout so he couldn’t skip
something everyone else would be witnessing firsthand, the same reason he went to quidditch
matches despite being dead bored there too. Not that any non-pureblood would put up much
of a show, and not that any pureblood worth their brains would show their actual potential in
a farce like this, but it might be an opportunity to see how people handled themselves in a
fight. More likely, it’d highlight the weakest links of them all which was useful in its own
way, or would be eventually.

He really didn’t like direct combat though, there were so many other ways to do things.
Eventually it would be more relevant but that was when they were older—how they showed
their mettle in a second-year dueling club would be stale information in only a couple years
when they’d all gained some more experience and knowledge. Who was good at fighting now
was only good information for like, a couple months at best, as everyone would progress and
get better pretty quickly.

Maybe he could pick out the weakest links and leave them somewhere for Slytherin’s
monster to eat.

That might be funny.

Unfortunately Longbottom is definitely one of those weakest links and Harry would get mad
at me for that. Ugh.

Idle thoughts of ‘accidental’ deaths were put aside when McGonagall finally got to the
bloody point and called Harry up, and now Blaise actually gave a shit. It was a very small
chance he’d be called, but as Snape stepped forward to be the one to pick Potter’s opponent,
the Zabini relaxed almost entirely. There was no way the man would pick him—his mother
had already had a conversation or two in the past with the potions master and Blaise knew he
was immune to Snape’s petty waspishness.

But that meant there were only a few juicy choices left to really cause Harry some distress
and as Blaise thought about it…

“Draco. Get up here.” Snape’s voice was as curt as it always was but now it had the effect of
silencing the already pretty attentive crowd when they all realized what was about to go
down.

Blaise smiled blankly as he enjoyed how flustered Draco was to stand and immediately
follow the path his friend had just left through the crowd up to the stage. It was amusing that
he didn’t see that coming.

By Harry’s abashed look up on the platform, he probably had suspected this would be the
case—at least once he saw that Snape would be the one picking his opponent if not
necessarily before that.

“If Draco goes easy on him, he’s done for.” Nott mumbled, and Blaise was only mildly
surprised he was actually offering commentary. The bookworm had an impenetrable shell but
this fight was going to prove mildly interesting, maybe.

The youngest Malfoy teered on the assumption he’s only friends with a Gryffindor as a
means to an end, mainly to upper years in the snake house. On the other hand, the lions only
accepted him because they thought (and were partially correct in assuming) that Harry
owned his ass. If Draco went easy on his publicly acknowledged friend, then Slytherin would
eat him alive, but if he went too hard or crossed some arbitrary line to the morality-obsessed
Gryffindors, the lions would do it themselves.

It was a touchy line to walk, and Draco wasn’t nearly a good enough Slytherin to pick up on
the nuances of what both houses would deem acceptable. You needed success to look good to
the snakes, but you needed to be honorable to the lions… and unfortunately snakes would
only accept a flawless victory and lions only cared about their honor so Draco wasn’t going
to look good no matter what he did.

And honestly, if Harry even suspected Draco was holding back, then Slytherin and
Gryffindor would be the least of the Malfoy’s problems, so it would probably be smart to
pacify the boy wonder first and worry about everyone else later.

Blaise’s brow twitched when, in a moment of annoying self-reflection, he recognized that

might the tactic Draco had been following from the start.

“He’s screwed,” He decided instead, because this was a complicated situation and Draco
wasn’t talented enough to come out of it unscathed, that was for sure—no matter what other
thoughts there were besides it, that was the main point anyway.

His best bet was to restrict his spell usage to things above-board only, act quickly and
aggressively but follow the rules of a duel to the tee. Even then, it wouldn’t be enough for
Slytherin to say he ‘put up’ and Gryffindor would think him a sneaky underhanded bastard
even if he only used tickling charms. He was fucked.

Blaise would’ve been more excited about that if the only interesting thing about it was the
curiosity over why Snape was interested in screwing his godson over like that. Surely he
knew Potter was going to accidentally make Draco’s life hell over this regardless of if they
were “friends” or not? Did he want to drive a wedge between them?

Seemed tastelessly petty.

Then again, it’s Snape. I like being petty but he makes petty look unappetizing.

Blue eyes tilted in his direction, even if Nott’s head didn’t move from where his chin rested
on his hands, braced against his knees.

“You’re certainly in a mood.” He noted.

Warily, even.

Which wasn’t even unreasonable given the atrocities Blaise had been known to commit when
he was in a mood.

He put his nose in the air. “I just hope this is interesting enough is all.”

“How could you think it wouldn’t be?”

“Hm.” He didn’t honor that with a response, instead wondering wildly how Nott had picked
up on his thoughts. “Are you an empath? Usually I’m a better actor than that.”

He didn’t receive an answer, just an eyeroll.

Which was annoying because if someone could read him without his permission then it was a
threat, and he’d hate to have to kill a roommate when Nott hadn’t strictly done anything yet.

Theo’s luck seemed to be high today as considerations of him being a loose end were derailed
by an unexpected voice beside him.

“Do you really think Malfoy has no chance?”

He blinked, head snapping back to his left and—oh right. Draco and Harry had vacated their
seats, which meant he was somehow now sitting next to a Gryffindor. Not Longbottom as the
blond had pulled a Nott and disappeared rather than be sat next to him, which was the
expected, understandable reaction, however…

What was not the sane reaction was that fact the other two lions had filled the gap to break
into a conversation with him, and Dean Thomas was showing his muggleborn by not being
the tiniest bit wary of him. Blaise narrowed his gaze at them briefly, given neither Finnegan
nor Thomas were potential targets—in fact they were on the ‘avoid’ list so far as his mother
was concerned. Or more like, she didn’t care to know they existed and would expect him to
act the same way.

However, they were Harry’s roommates and Mr. Potter was a player and a target.

Perhaps it was a chance to gain information, and as a default it was safe to keep friends rather
than make enemies unless you knew them well enough to have them as an enemy in the first
place. They’d been polite and casual in class since with Harry and Draco bringing the two
groups together by force he’d been unable to avoid them thus far, and he suspected it would
remain the case for their duration at Hogwarts.

He wasn’t Draco though, so he had no intention of getting too friendly… but friendly enough
for now. Perhaps they would prove useful someday: they were Harry’s people after all, and
he’d already invested a lot into Longbottom with noticeable results, even if minorly. Someday
was worth waiting to see when it came to the red headed menace’s crazy plots.

“About the duel? Who knows,” He smiled playfully and put his own chin on his hand.
Thomas tilted his head since clearly he had no idea they’d been talking politics, not who won
the fight. “Harry is obviously more competent but then again you’re a muggleborn… you’ve
never dueled before and neither has Harry, while Draco was raised with a wand in his hand.
How would you fair?” He challenged.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to use magic before Hogwarts,” Finnegan betrayed his
ignorance—and he was a half-blood even, he should’ve known better. Then again, he was a
Gryffindor.

“That’s so cute,” He grinned instead, voice deceptively fond. Staunch rule-followers were
just so naïve it was precious… if not also kind of disgusting.

Like a toddler was adorable in a germy, snotty way.

“I probably wouldn’t do too well, but Harry’s far more aggressive than I am. I mean, worse
comes to worse, he’ll chuck his wand at him and punch him if magic doesn’t work.” Dean
actually answered Blaise’s rhetorical.

And well, the image of Potter throwing his wand at Draco and nailing him in the head with it
to win a point was amusing enough that Blaise couldn’t help but really hope that’s exactly
what he did.

“I would pay so much money to see that,” He cooed eagerly, earning another eyeroll from
Nott.

Finnegan laughed. “Oh my god can you imagine Snape’s face if he did that?”

“Forget Snape, McGonagall might finally crack if her star pupil goes completely rouge like
that.”

“Oh Harry please do something interesting like that,” Blaise perked up at the exciting
prospects, not loud enough for anyone near the stage to actually hear him but more as a wish
to the universe.

He so loved when things were interesting and for some reason only monsters and red heads
ever seemed to do fun things these days. Everything else was so incredibly dull he almost
missed his mother.

“Are you hoping Snape or McGonagall snaps then?” Thomas challenged.

“Hm… both?” He shrugged, and they snickered. “I just want it to be interesting, please.”

“I mean I’m sure it’ll be entertaining at least—Harry’s only ever beaten people, he’s never
like fought someone who was fighting back right?” Thomas shrugged.

Fair enough. Montague never even had a chance to fight back given he didn’t know he was a
target until it was too late. And he’s only ever picked on Weasley, Draco, or first-years who
certainly weren’t threats to him.

However… it still wasn’t strictly true.

“I mean he was attacked by Quirrell, though no one saw it to be fair. He’s been in at least one
life-or-death fight before which is far more than Draco has under his belt.” He dismissed.

Only to realize he was getting twin stares of shock. Maybe not shock… maybe just horror.

Which made no sense whatsoever as he was sure he’d told the entire school about it at the
end of last year, including Gryffindor and most particularly their year level.

“Did I say something not true?” he challenged them but they just looked away, clearly
dropping it.

Hm… weird.

Although, Longbottom was now sitting on Finnegan’s far side and pointedly wasn’t look in
their direction, with no discernable reaction although there was no way he wasn’t
eavesdropping on this conversation. Which meant he probably knew the details or had heard
more about it than the other two did… though why they’d seemed so taken aback was a
curiosity.

Harry had literally been in the hospital wing, and these two in particular had visited him
while he recovered. They’d seen him on the train, everyone had seen the way he’d fallen
apart. This was certainly not news to them… so what the fuck?

Then again, Gryffindors had this ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality. There was a good
chance no one had brought it up since the end of last year… there was no way they’d
forgotten though, right?

A teacher attacking a student was kind of a huge deal after all, regardless of the fact that
student was the Boy Who Lived and their roommate of all people. Not that he cared but even
he wasn’t just unaware when Nott had broken ribs, and lions claimed to be so much more
sensitive about people than anyone else aside from maybe Hufflepuffs.

Oh! Maybe they’re bad Gryffindors—that would be hilarious.

“Alright, now that everyone is in position—on my mark!” Lockhart ripped them from their
conversations about the duel to actually start said duel, and the room quieted down to sit
back and watch what was about to happen.

While Blaise had been preoccupied apparently the two duelers on stage had reached some
silent agreement because the discomfort in their stances had faded significantly. Annoying as
it was to admit, Draco had improved a lot over the past year, at least in his body language, so
it wasn’t strictly easy to interpret what he was thinking right now. When they first met there
was no use in even calling him an open book, he was a bloody billboard plastered on the side
of a mountain, in that he not only didn’t hide anything but actively seemed to be trying to get
people to notice him for some reason.

It was a bit rich for Blaise to call anyone else an attention whore but then again, the basis of
their friendship did not run deep aside from their distinctly shared personality traits.
In any case, as fun as that had been for all of two weeks, what little Blaise could pick up from
his body language wasn’t very useful at this point, when he was standing on a stage and
cautiously locked down on his straight posture for the crowd watching them. He could tell he
was nervous mostly by deduction and not because Draco’s shoulders or his expression or the
grip on his wand told him anything, which was a minor inconvenience.

Mr. Potter though… had always been much harder to read. Not because he was good at
hiding what his body quietly signaled into the world for others to pick up on, but because
what he was signally never made any fucking sense.

Which was reason #1 why Blaise hadn’t lost interest in him even as months had dragged on
and eventually turned into a full year a this point, which was a record for him by a long shot.

For example, right now… there were a lot of reasonable emotions he might be feeling, to be
dueling for the first time in such a public place, up against his self-proclaimed best friend at
that. There was no way he was oblivious to what the political ramifications of this would be
to Draco, even if he didn’t have the full picture he was sly enough to know a couple things
and assume the rest. As a Gryffindor he could be feeling some mushy, nonsensical things, but
even as a Gryffindor who had quite a few qualities in line with Slytherin house there was
plenty of other things that could be racing through his mind right now, not related to
remembering the rules or trying to think of which spell to cast first.

Blaise could assume he was thinking and feeling most of those obvious things.

He was not signally any of it though.

No… his body language very, very clearly displayed that Harry was fully intending to try and
kill Draco right now.

And the future black widow couldn’t help but plop his chin on his hands with a goofy smile
because oh how he loved when the red head got all riled up like that.

No matter what words came out of his mouth or the expression on his face, sometimes Mr.
Monroe here had this posture about him, this tension that most snakes would know well even
if it was pretty hard to recognize on a day-to-day basis. Out of context, you almost never
noticed how the lines of one’s shoulders or the jut of a chin meant anything more than the
way the body moved normally in casual, or even animated conversation. There was a
difference though, in how the same exact motions could be seen completely differently in a
life-or-death situation.

Fight or flight, perhaps.

You had to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice or put up a fight—when confronted with an
unsurmountable danger sometimes you needed to be able to muster the courage or the power
within you to not only fight, but fight to kill.

Kill or be killed.

Inflict or be inflicted.
That seemed to be a thought that floated through his favorite Gryffindor’s lovely red head a
lot, ever since he’d met the boy but a lot more recently for sure. The fact he seemed to come
to terms with the idea that he’d much rather be a predator than prey and therefore acted on
that desire born from fear pretty young in life was simply fascinating.

Early on, even Blaise hadn’t immediately picked up on it, but when Potter had
unceremoniously sat at the Slytherin table that first day and everything Draco had been
hinting at truly hit him that this was a thing they’d have to deal with, obviously Blaise had
started to pay a lot more attention. It did not take him long to realize the boy was off, for
sure… but he hadn’t truly witnessed it until they’d learned to fly their brooms, and for what
might’ve been the first time in decades he’d gotten to witness an accidental magic incident at
Hogwarts.

Not because of fear or confusion as most accidental magic incidents in general were, but
because of anger.

Even Blaise himself had never had an incident because of anger or something that wasn’t fear
or inattention. Not that he was a very angry person but… it had caught his attention, and
more importantly it put together a few clues for him that was all he needed to figure the rest
out.

Ever since it’d been simply fascinating to watch the way Harry interacted with the world—
who he considered to be friend and who he considered to be foe. He claimed people as
friends, verbally and with his actions, and yet…

And yet, Draco and Longbottom were the only two in most of last year that he didn’t
instinctively lean away from, or subconsciously tense like he was getting ready to lash out if
he needed to.

It was very telling that he leaned all over Draco, actually, particularly when he was at the
Slytherin table, in ‘enemy territory’ as it were. But even from this distance Blaise had
watched him do the exact same thing to Longbottom at the Gryffindor table, which was
supposedly ‘home turf’ was it not? Obviously the boy didn’t feel very comfortable anywhere
and given he’d almost died three times last year alone there wasn’t even anything Blaise
could tease him for about it since it was just a reasonable attitude to have at this point.

What really sold him for good on this complete loon though, was when he’d confronted
Montague—and not for the obvious reasons that that was literally the best thing to have ever
happened while he was eating breakfast.

No, what had really just taken him and beat him over the head with a club, was how Harry
had straightened up and spoke directly into Montague’s eyes—then undid his little
transfiguration trick on his sleeve to ‘free’ his opponent a bit… and he hadn’t leaned away.

The first Slytherin besides Draco that Blaise had ever seen the boy not tense around like he
was getting ready to dodge or bite them, and it was a fucking enemy.

An enemy he’d so completely conquered that he felt zero fear in dropping his guard and
daring the third year to try and do shit about it. He wasn’t about to defend himself if
Montague had decided to hex him right then, nor was he about to attack his opponent himself
since he’d already won.

Slytherins liked success.

Blaise liked success like he liked water.

They liked their personal success a lot, don’t get him wrong… but Merlin there was
something magnificent about witnessing a beautiful victory too. It didn’t really happen too
often as snakes weren’t nearly as show-boaty as lions were, but given how delectable that
event had been he could tell some had been reconsidering that a tiny bit.

This year, one might’ve assumed Mr. Monroe would become even more closed off given the
severity of his latest near-death experience, but true to Blaise’s expectations on the wild
child, he never could’ve predicted how things had actually changed.

The weirdest for sure was that Harry had started leaning away from Draco. It was obvious
from the first day of term, and it didn’t happen that often but enough to be noticeable. It sort
of got explained away after the potion incident though, as Draco’s complete failure to
understand had honestly pissed even Blaise off a tad more genuinely than he’d been prepared
to deal with. He was sort of annoyed the potion hadn’t roasted the blond’s pretty face off
instead of Harry’s, so he could understand that the Malfoy had probably fucked up the
friendship check after the Quirrell incident and was suffering the consequences of that.

Honestly, if the boy couldn’t figure out the cruciatus implication when it was so fucking
obvious then he was hopeless.

How angry that made him was a topic for another day though.

Another interesting change had been that a couple more people had managed to wiggle their
way into Harry’s bubble so that he didn’t constantly seem to want to either ditch them or kill
them for the entire Great Hall to see. The Weasley pranksters for one, his roommates in
Thomas and Finnegan, and most first years after he got to know them for a couple weeks.
Seems he had a soft spot.

Greengrass seemed to fluctuate: half the time he seemed to relax around her but at any given
moment, or even halfway through a conversation, he’d tense up again. For some reason he
only ever seemed to want to flee from her though, not attack— which was a shame as she
would’ve been his top pick to get metaphorically murdered after Montague. Hm… actually
maybe second top pick, putting Flint The Troll first, because he was more immediately
troublesome than she was as just a gross person.

What really pissed him off to unbelievable levels though, was how 0.2 seconds after Mr.
Potter’s parselmouth reveal, how he seemed to just completely accept Theodore the shut-in.
Blaise never regretted not carrying his books with him more than he did at that moment to
have not been there to see their reactions, and Nott had done everything to hide it from him,
with some success annoyingly enough. Harry’s posture had totally evened out when talking
to the quietest Slytherin these days, and clearly was not about to attack him or feel threatened
by him anymore, and he knew Nott had picked up on that as well.
He did not reciprocate obviously, and Blaise was sure he was planning on something utilizing
that obvious weak point in their Gryffindor, though he refused to even give a hint about what
it was, the bastard.

All in all, Harry’s reactions were always so interesting… and true as always, even now
during this duel when Draco was supposedly one of the few people he’d never feared, the
weird lion was standing there looking ready to commit murder regardless of who it was that
was standing in front of him.

And it had nothing to do with fight or flight anymore: this was all fight.

And it was a mouth-watering premeditated aggression too, of someone going into the fight
before them fully intending to win no matter what needed to be done to obtain that victory.
Fighting in defense was not the same as fighting for the thrill of rage or the taste of blood,
and Mr. Potter had it in spades right now. A calm, cooled aggression dripped off the lines of
his shoulders and snapped out into the air with the click of his heels on the stage in a slightly
off-putting impersonation of McGonagall honestly. His eyes didn’t flicker and his head was
held high enough to be proud without losing solid, realistic grip of the situation in front of
him.

Never dueled before my ass.

Malfoy was proud because he was born to be that way. It was natural, effortless and
prestigious— grating as that was to admit.

Despite reflecting confidence on both sides of the stage, their body languages did not match
right now, so to repeat his earlier sentiment… Draco was screwed.

Maybe this will be interesting… if Draco actually dies or comes close then the day won’t be
completely wasted then.

“Ready yourselves! Severus if you would,” Lockhart wrapped up whatever the hell he’d been
saying as the duelers raised their wands and got into position, and Snape looked like he’d be
rolling his eyes if he were the sort to break his mask that way.

Instead he simply raised his wand between them and without preamble, gave the signal.

To his credit, Draco did not hesitate and displayed reasonable ability as a pureblood by firing
off four hexes immediately, going as fast as a twelve-year-old possibly could to fling spells
out as aggressively as possible. Good spells too with decent range, as he called out a stinging
charm, a laughing charm, but also a slicing spell and bat-boogey hex too.

Blaise gave him a 7/10, given that was probably the best he could’ve done even if it was
predictable and not that interesting, it was still the only viable choice he had and he’d
executed it admirably. While he was loathe to give the mediocre Slytherin that much credit,
he could at least acknowledge he’d obviously been trained as the Malfoy heir, and his parents
had not slacked in his education. Blaise had been trained too but grudgingly acknowledged
the blond had slightly better speed than he did.
What was far more interesting though, was that despite that speed, Harry was completely
undisturbed by the assault and proved once again that he’d been named the youngest seeker
in a century for a damn good reason as he physically dodged each spell. Not even that hastily,
but with a neat step here, then there, then a brief lean back and a tilt to his head and not a
single spell landed without him actually raising his wand or startling like he was dodging on
instinct. Each move was calm and purposeful like his reaction time was so far ahead of his
opponent’s speed that it was nothing to just… move out of the way of an oncoming spell like
one would casually brush by someone in a crowded hallway, leaning your shoulders to the
side to not bump into them without giving it a thought.

While he dodged he even lifted his wandless hand and, for some reason, slipped one of the
ever-present hair clips out of the long tressed of blood red hair floating around him. The
wand in his other hand moved like water as he dodged the last spell, saying something low
enough that Blaise couldn’t hear it from this distance, and then suddenly a small yellow bird
was flying from his palm directly at Draco.

The Malfoy blasted it out of the air as soon as it got in range, displaying an impressive
accuracy to hit a moving target so small… only for everyone to do a wild double-take when
the bird exploded into a plume of glass and showered over the blond sharply. Draco
instinctively raised his arm to shield his eyes from the tiny shards of glass biting into him
from the force of the explosion, and nearly missed Harry’s follow up stunner with his blocked
vision, only just barely managed to physically dodge it as well by stepping to the side—
though it was more of a stagger and far less graceful than his opponent had done it.

The crowd got louder, rustling and shifting and a lot of soft ooh’s and ahhh’s at the rapid-fire
exchange as everyone got wrapped up into the show before them.

“What even happened!?” Finnegan exclaimed only half-quietly, which was something Blaise
actually agreed with. How had that bird been glass? He knew the boy was good at
Transfiguration but he had no idea what that even was.

“He transfigured it into a glass bird right before Draco’s blasting curse hit it.” Nott mumbled,
not really for Finnegan’s benefit but because it was obvious most people had missed that.

Blaise felt… kind of cold, as the implications of that made him a bit horrified.

But also thrilled too.

If he thought Draco had good accuracy to hit a small target like that, then it paled compared
to Harry’s if what Nott was saying was true. That he could not only hit his own projectile
from behind, but time it so that it would hit just before his opponent’s own pin-point spell
landed… that it’d been so fast even Blaise had missed the motion… that was insane.

He’d known Harry was going to be a good fighter, that he definitely had the upper hand…
but he was kind of happily horrified to realize even he had underestimated just how good he
probably was at this point.

The fact that Blaise really doubted he could beat the red head in a duel himself made him
almost breathless, a grin hijacking his lips almost before he could stop it.
He couldn’t dwell too long on those thoughts as the intense exchange didn’t halt at all, and
the pattern repeated itself a couple more times. Draco launching a series of aggressive and
wide-ranging spells and Harry either physically dodging them or summoning/transfiguring
objects to take the hit for him while occasionally launching a spell himself at his opponent at
far less frequency. The pace was fast and neither opponent was missing openings; given they
were both jocks in their own right they both had the stamina for this exchange to last quite a
while unlike most others their age.

So far as magical capacity went, Draco had clearly been trained rigorously in the past to be
able to keep firing off spell after spell like this without tiring, and Harry… well, given he was
now free of blocks that hadn’t impaired him so far this year anyway, no matter how much
Draco had ever trained, the Gryffindor still would not be running out of power before the
blond did. Probably ever.

It only took a minute of this exchange for the most notable difference between the two to
present itself: skill level. They seemed to be matched so far as this duel went, but the types of
spells being cast were really telling as the exchanges dragged on. Draco had a huge variety,
clearly having successful grasp on everything they’d learned in class so far but also a huge
breadth of knowledge beyond school-taught spells as well that he likely learned from his
parents or other sources. He was keeping them mostly above-board too, while being watched
by this many people and several teachers, so the implication he knew just as many spells of
the darker sort was notable.

Not only was his variety impressive, but the speed he could set them off combined with their
complexity and instant variation was quite tricky. He was jumping between charms and
transfiguration, hexes and curses and spells of all sorts, offensive and defensive casts as
easily as the wind changed direction. It was truly the kind of intelligence and skill only a
pureblood who’d grown up being trained in magic could display so young, but also the kind
of clever complexity only a pureblood raised Slytherin specifically could execute so cleanly,
instinctually even.

Draco would’ve been a very formidable foe for most others their year level, one of the better
fighters for sure apart from maybe the stronger Ravenclaws and Slytherins in their grade.
Blaise recognized that Snape had probably known just how good Draco actually was and had
been banking on that actually-quite-impressive skill to shine through and win his godson
some points in front of the snake house, rather than be the liability Blaise had originally
assumed it’d be.

Snape had a Harry-Potter-sized blind spot though, because despite how surprisingly good
Draco was, he wasn’t up against any old Gryffindor and the potions master had made a
mistake in thinking this would be an easy win for his godson.

Admittedly, Mr. Monroe’s spells were very one-note, and he lacked his opponent’s trickiness
and diversity, even his spell-casting speed was noticeably slower. Everyone could assume at
this point that no matter what spell he cast back at Draco, there was a 9 out of 10 shot the
attack would be Transfiguration in nature. Predictable things were usually a liability, and
being a one-trick pony was a bad tactic in most scenarios.
The thing was, despite managing to get off only one spell for every ten that Draco was
bombarding him with, each and every one of those attacks was damn impressive.

Draco had a huge breadth of spells at his disposal, but they were all generally recognizable
spells that a second, even third year at times, should be reasonably capable of.

Blaise was looking, but even as he watched the boy like a hawk, he didn’t even recognize
half the shit Harry was unearthing to launch at his opponent. The only thing he knew for
certain was that it was Transfiguration, it was most likely far above what a normal second
year should be able to do, and it was fucking powerful. The amount of magic he seemed to be
pooling into each spell was insane, as he watched what should’ve been a normal transfigured
bird take three hits from Draco before finally dispelling—transfigured creatures should not
be able to withstand magical attacks, which meant the amount of magic Harry had used to
create that creature required three times the amount of magical power from Draco to cancel it
out.

So yes, he was much slower and far more predictable than his opponent, but it didn’t matter.

And Blaise could only say ‘predictable’ with his tongue in his cheek, because while everyone
knew whatever spell he was about to cast was probably going to be Transfiguration, that fact
that it was so far beyond second-year skill level that they didn’t even recognize most of it
meant knowing that it’d be Transfiguration was essentially useless.

It took about two minutes and honestly too many spells to keep track of for the round to come
to a conclusion, but what an exciting finish it was. Draco had clearly picked up on the intense
danger associated with Harry’s spells so while he didn’t let up on his constant assault, Blaise
could tell the wariness—fear even—of every time Harry lifted his wand to start in on his next
attack was getting to him. As it took Harry ten times as long to manage to get a spell off, the
comparatively long periods of time Draco had to just wait for it and somehow manage to
react in time for the unknown, positively insane attack about to come his direction was eating
away at his nerves quickly.

Thus far he’d done an excellent job of responding as his own reaction time wasn’t something
to scoff at, and despite the fact he needed to hit Harry’s transfigured creatures multiple times
to neutralize them hadn’t made him stumble noticeably. In fact it was genuinely impressive
that he could hit a moving target of a transfigured bird or rat or cat multiple times in a row
before it reached him, fast enough and without hesitation, even if that would’ve startled the
fuck out of anyone else when their first spell failed to do the job properly. Blaise could
almost see him try and gather more magical power to try and finish the creatures in one or
two spells—but he just couldn’t do it. He didn’t have the magical capacity that Harry did so
while it was fine that he’d attempted it just to see if he could, he had the good sense to
abandon that tactic pretty quickly.

Draco’s fraying nerves started to reflect in the types of spells he was leaning on, as they
started to get slightly more dangerous as if to try and throw Harry off guard or make the red
head just as wary of him in return. It failed epically though as Harry continued to calmly
dodge harmless tickling charms and debilitating slicing hexes with the same calm, unaffected
steps on light, casual feet without seemingly any fear.
The Malfoy heir ratcheting up his spell intensity was ultimately his downfall though, as he
launched several blasting charms in a row at his opponent, which would’ve been a very
deadly attack against anyone else.

It was almost as if Harry had been waiting for that though, as he dodged the first two—and
calmly lifted his wand to intercept the third on dead-on. It was as if a mirror had rippled to
life from the tip of his outstretched wand, only the size of a dinner plate and semi-translucent
as it flowed, spiraling out into existence like liquid mercury and becoming abruptly solid the
instant Draco’s hex made impact with it. The hand-eye coordination needed to seemingly
catch an oncoming spell in such a small target area seeming to come to the Gryffindor
effortlessly as the mirror reflected the spell without so much as a jolt to the one reflecting it.

It didn’t reflect perfectly but caught at an angle, so that the blasting hex bounced right back
towards Draco but downwards, and hit the wooden stage directly between them violently
enough that a significant chunk of it exploded into a plume of woodchips and splinters.

Harry’s wand slashed outwards to the side the same moment the spell hit the stage.

Instantly every single last splinter clouding into the air was suddenly a needle, and they
launched themselves at Draco who had no chance of deflecting or dodging so many tiny
targets. The needles were so thin and silvery in the naturally lit Great Hall that the only
reason Blaise even knew they were there was because there were thousands in a cloud,
glinting like sparkles from the distance he was, but he’d never have been able to pick them
out individually, much less in the split second it took to completely overwhelm their target
and make a full pin-cushion out of him.

He heard as the crowd inhaled almost as one before it exploded into cheers and cries of
shock, many people suddenly talking all at once about the impressive feat.

Nott put a hand over his mouth silently, blue eyes wide enough to betray his fear.

Blaise clenched his fists automatically, but he couldn’t stop grinning.

That… was really something.

The only downside was that Draco seemed to be fine, unable to move for a second with the
needles piercing him in probably a hundred places over his body forcing him still rather than
bear having them go deeper, but Snape stepped in immediately to call the point—one wave of
the potion master’s wand and the needles were banished and the stage returned to its former
state without so much as a crack. Draco seemed to brush it off quickly but was visibly shaken
by the shock that attack had been, wiping a small pin prick or two of blood from his cheek as
he rolled his shoulders. Harry had been vicious with that one but he still somehow avoided
Draco’s head, so his face and eyes were unscathed but despite the needles being invisible
from where they were watching in the crowd, going by his posture before they were
vanished, a lot had hit his body and his limbs.

Talk about brutal.

‘Magic is the hand the wields it’ after all. That wasn’t a dark spell as turning bits of wood
into needles was literally the first thing everyone learned in Transfiguration class, but god
damn there wasn’t really a way someone could use that seemingly basic, impractical spell in
a more aggressive and deadly way. If he hadn’t purposefully avoided aiming for Draco’s head
then needles to his eyes or into his mouth would’ve been the end of him in this duel for sure.
Even if Madam Pomfrey could fix that pretty easily, it was still ruthless.

But more than that, Blaise could turn one match into one needle. Harry had just done that a
thousand times with one wand movement.

One silent wand movement at that. And that wasn’t even the wand movement they all knew
to turn a piece of wood into a needle, it was different and silently cast and multiplied by a
thousand of what anyone else their age could do with the same knowledge they’d been taught
in class. No one even used that spell once they took the test on it because it was frankly kind
of useless in a day-to-day application, it was just supposed to be an introduction to how
Transfiguration worked on a small scale.

Harry had turned a useless spell that any first year could do and made it fucking terrifying.

Magic is the hand who wields it indeed, and if Mr. Monroe was that hand then they all should
be incredibly cautious of any and all magic he had to show them.

“Oh shit,” Thomas muttered quietly beside him, and while not as terrified as Nott given he
probably didn’t quite pick up on the nuances of why that display of skill had been so
terrifying, still knew enough to be significantly impressed. “I mean I knew he had it in him,
but that’s insane.”

So the Gryffindors acknowledged how aggressive their boy wonder was. Unlike if a snake
displayed the same aggression, they didn’t seem to have a problem with it. If a Slytherin had
used the same simple spell so ruthlessly, Gryffindor would burn them at the stake as being
dark and violent.

But Harry was one of them so obviously it was okay.

Blaise was willing to ignore it this time though because he was now enjoying this duel a lot
more than he thought he would. Honestly it’d only be better if he had some popcorn…

“Well we all knew he was a Transfiguration prodigy. That’ll be downright terrifying given
time, won’t it?” Finnegan chirped brightly.

“Given time?” Blaise repeated incredulously—like it wasn’t already pretty damn horrifying?

Thomas rolled his eyes. “You sound way too happy about that.” He complained to his friend
who just shrugged it off, but at least he could recognize what a problem it would be if Harry
got comfortable with the idea that he was strong. “Still, I get what you’re saying now about
purebloods having the experience. I had no idea Malfoy had all that.” He, for some reason,
addressed Blaise again who didn’t mind as he was hyped by the turn of events here and knew
Nott wouldn’t give a shit about his babbling.
He was also pretty amused that the lion was actually complimenting a Slytherin right now.
Further proof that Malfoy had gotten too chummy, but whatever.

“It was decent, I’ll admit.” He allowed with a sniff.

“Most of that we don’t learn in class, do we?”

“Obviously not—purebloods learn from their parents and if you had any ambition to be
strong you’d learn things on your own time to have the edge. Lame as he is, Draco can at
least study seriously, so he didn’t embarrass himself or anything.”

“I think he did a bit more than just not embarrass himself—it was impressive wasn’t it?”

“Says the muggleborn.” Blaise clicked his tongue but true to his suspicions, Thomas just
chuckled lowly instead of taking offense to it.

“Suppose I would’ve embarrassed myself then.”

“Most likely.” He drawled but didn’t look away from the stage as the two opponents prepped
for the next round. Snape was clearly stalling some to give his godson a moment to recover
from that attack—his poker face was an iron wall as always but it didn’t take much to realize
he was likely regretting putting Draco in this position as he realized his mistake in
underestimating the Boy Who Lived.

Blaise wondered idly why he was still doing that… sure, most of them also dismissed the
rumors about the boy as just a fancy title more than someone with actual merit, but it hadn’t
taken more than a week tops to realize there was so much more to him than that. So much
more threatening about him actually, which was the more important part of it all. Snape
seemed to be actively trying not to see or be reasonable about who Harry Potter actually was,
and since he was a death eater Blaise was going to assume it was blind prejudice. Which was
very lame of their head of house to not be able to overcome that and actually take advantage
of it in any way, but he hardly cared about Severus Snape on a good day to give a shit about
whatever was wrong with him now.

“Did your assessment of Draco being screwed change at all after seeing that?” Thomas asked
him.

“Not at all—he’s still properly screwed.” He scoffed, although this time he definitely meant
in terms of winning this duel. “For many reasons obviously but let’s put it in simple terms:
Draco’s strongest spell he can show in front of teachers is serpensortia.”

He heard a couple Slytherins and Ravenclaws standing behind them snort in amusement at
that, obviously eavesdropping though the Gryffindors beside him tilted their heads.

“What does that do?”

“It summons a snake.”

“…ohhh,” Finnegan finally caught up, rubbing his chin as he evaluated that with new eyes.
Spell types only scratched the surface of why Draco had no chance here, but to dumb it down
for the lions it served it’s purpose. In essence: Draco could be as good a Slytherin as he like
to think he was, but Harry would still be better. He could summon all the snakes and be as
clever as he wanted, and Mr. Monroe would simply take control of those snakes and
overpower him in the end, all the while using ‘light’ spells in incredibly dark ways that
wouldn’t get him in trouble, while even those blasting hexes would catch Draco some heat on
being too aggressive.

There was no way to come out of this smelling like roses, that was for sure.

“Ah… so Malfoy is fucked.”

Blaise coughed to hide the laugh that threatened to bubble up from his chest at Thomas’
succinct interpretation.

He wasn’t wrong exactly.

For many reasons.

With one point to Harry and enough stalling and subtle glares shot the red head’s way, Snape
finally relented and backed up to signal the start of the next round. Blaise had to wonder if
Draco was getting tired here and knew he couldn’t pull the same trick twice, but was
interested to see what he could do even.

He was about to be annoyed when, the instant Snape signaled the next round to start, Draco
went for the same tactic as before of launching a barrage of spells at his opponent lightning
fast. He was actually surprised though when the variety of the spells vanished, and instead
seven stinging jinxes in a row flew out much faster than before.

The stinging jinx was a good choice for speed—its wand movement was just a small, simple
little flick and the incantation two syllables. You could churn them out pretty damn fast even
if you couldn’t do it silently, and Draco’s speed was already very high compared to Harry’s.

Finally, Harry seemed to actually startle and he stumbled a bit. Not only because Draco had
completely abandoned aiming for obvious targets like the head and torso, but because he had
tossed his own predictability out the window and was aiming everywhere. The spells were
going for not only limbs and feet, for the body and the head, but also the stage right in front
of where Harry was standing, over his head, and even purposefully seeming to miss him
entirely as if just begging him to step right into it as he dodged the last one.

One might think Draco had been backed into a corner and was going wild in desperation to
land a hit, his aim become sloppy because of it, but Blaise easily picked up that that wasn’t
he case at all. Harry could read him like a book and Draco knew it now, so his only option
was to go wild enough that he wasn’t thinking about where he was aiming, therefore his
opponent couldn’t read his movements in time to dodge.

And more impressively, was that it worked.

Compared to how long the previous round lasted, this one was over in twenty seconds tops
and it felt noticeably short. Blaise could tell many in the crowd were startled when Harry
didn’t even manage to get a single spell off in his defense before he stumbled under this new
cadence, and a stinging hex caught him in the shoulder as he tried to dodge it and failed. The
force of it combined with his angular movement whipped him around and he fell to the stage
floor in a heap, though he sat up in a second looking pissed—seeming more mad he’d gotten
hit rather than even acknowledging the painful hit to his arm.

There were cries of indignation but also thrilled cheers to the exciting fight.

Blaise had to clap along with those alongside him as they gave their own audible reactions,
kind of stunned that had actually happened.

So… Draco wasn’t a pushover.

That was certainly news to him.

Ah… but he was still an impulsive fool because Blaise could see even from here the sweat
the blond had broken out into. He’d just cast no less than thirty stinging jinxes in a row as
fast as he could, and it had visibility taken the wind out of him to do so.

Harry, on the other hand, looked completely ticked off and his brilliant red hair seemed to
stand up in a frazzled way somehow, like a pissy cat’s dander going up. As he stood and
barely acknowledged McGonagall fixing his shoulder, his green eyes were positively on fire
with determination as his mind raced over what his next move would be, while Draco was
actually panting from the effort he’s just expended.

So, yes it was impressive… but he’d made the red-headed monster angry, so he was still
thoroughly fucked.

The last round began without further ado as Snape didn’t give a fuck about letting Harry have
a breather, but no one was complaining in their eager desire to see how this would conclude.

And like that they were off before anyone could really absorb what had just happened—and
Blaise made an audible noise of glee when Harry completely gave up the ghost and ran at
Draco.

Oh please punch him, he begged the universe, even clasping his hands in front of him as if
that would work, and while that did in fact not happen, it was still enthralling that Harry had
finally switched to the aggressive and was not about to be held back by conventional dueling
norms. The stage was long and narrow and while there was technically no rule of how far
forward or back you could run, there were marks on the floor signaling where you should,
traditionally, be standing.

Completely disregarding those marks he ran forward and Blaise nearly giggled to see how
badly Draco startled, panic written across his face that not even Slytherin could fault him for
because… come on really. If Harry Potter was running at you then you had no idea what was
going to happen and that was fucking terrifying.
Harry got there first, feet carrying him into the middle of the stage before Draco could get
one spell off, and with a very loud crack that echoed so sharply in the Great Hall the crowd
actually jumped some, he seemed to throw a spell at Draco as if he were chucking a baseball.

To his credit, Draco got a shield up in time, a notably dark leaning shield too. Desperate
situations called for desperate measures after all, but no matter what type of shield it was the
sheer force and magical power behind the impacting spell flung him back. While he remained
standing he flailed back to the edge of the stage as his shield couldn’t absorb the entire force
of the impact—which Blaise had not even known was a thing until now. If it’d been a normal
‘light approved’ shield, that spell would’ve ripped right through it, he was sure—and it
wasn’t even that impressive of a spell! From what he could see it was only the verdimillious
charm, which was a glorified sparkler at best, not a truly offensive spell at all!

Draco instantly reverted to trying to overwhelm him with fast jinxes in panic at how close his
opponent had gotten, but he was more tired than before and far too thrown off by the
aggressive assault to be near the same level as earlier, and by now Harry had already realized
what he’d done and was not about to startle under the barrage a second time. He ducked and
weaved as he physically dodged the spells with a lot more intensity on his face than before,
so it wasn’t as effortless to him as it’d been in the first round, much less that he was so much
closer to Draco and had even less time to react and dodge, but he was still able to do it.

While he dodged, Blaise suddenly realized he was moving his wand.

But not spells were coming appearing he was just… moving his wand? After a second or two
he caught on that he was moving his wand in the same motion over and over and over and
over…

What on earth was he doing?

Blaise lost count of how many times he did that motion as the red head was never stopped
moving to dodge Draco’s assault and slowly making his way closer, light feet nearly dancing
across the stage so at not to get hit but still, he never stopped moving for a second like it was
the world’s most complicated dance. The way his crimson hair flung around him like ribbons
curling in the air around his wild, graceful movements really sold the vision that this was a
performance, not a duel.

Blaise was sure no one could look away—he certainly couldn’t.

And then, Harry jabbed his wand forward like a fencer would lunge, a neat arc to his back
and back leg straight, hair tossed back like a plume of fire and arm stretched out like he could
stab Draco through the heart if only his wand were a sword instead.

“Orchidenemious,”

He didn’t yell it but everyone practically had their breaths held to see what was about to
happen, so the large room was quiet enough that his clear, stern voice commanding the spell
into existence was heard by everyone.

Blaise felt a chill over his arms as he didn’t recognize the spell at all, but somehow he knew…
Flowers… bloomed into existence.

Thousands and thousands of them actually, every color one could imagine and they flurried
like a snow storm completely covering the stage, like each individual petal was alive and
wriggling in the air. It spun into a huge plume of kaleidoscope colors as the whole room
suddenly smelt like fresh cut grass and wildflowers, smacking them in the face with it’s
intensity, and with the enchanted ceiling above them being a clear blue sky it was almost hard
for a second to remember they weren’t actually sitting outside right now.

Especially because there was a noticeable increase in heat as the expensive room was laced
with one rippling, lazily soft but slightly unnaturally warm breeze.

It moved as one, the cloud of flowers, like a horizontal tornado forming a massive wind
tunnel at its target and completely obscuring Draco from view as he disappeared into the
mass of flowers. They heard him yell and Blaise had to laugh out loud when the split second
later he saw the blond riding the cloud—or more accurately, the plume had swept under him
like a tidal wave whisking a rubber duck out to sea. It launched him up and then it all fell—
but he landed safely on his back atop a veritable mountain of flowers that finally settled down
lifelessly.

A mountain of flowers that was off the stage, actually, which meant the point went to Harry.

Even Snape needed a moment to raise his hand to give him the win, blinking in surprise and
too taken off guard by the oddest display of magic he’d ever seen to actively glare for once,
everyone else also seeming to be shock for a second or two—

Before there was an insanely loud amount of cheering that made Blaise’s ears hurt.

“Holy shit! Holy shit!” Finnegan and Thomas were ecstatically jumping around with each
other, and while he and Nott couldn’t help but agree to a certain point, were a lot more
composed. Even if that composure was a level of shock that that had even just happened
right now.

Still… Harry had a very proud look on his face, but Blaise saw he’d also broken out into a
sweat. That… should not be possible with someone with as much magical power as he had,
which meant…

It meant that spell was quite something, whatever it’d been.

Only monsters and red heads are interesting these days… but that might be a tad redundant
given that red head was definitely a monster too.

000

Harry hadn’t felt this much adrenaline since his first quidditch matches. Maybe he was a
junkie because somehow he’d gotten used to the thrill of flying hundreds of feet in the air
with only a broom beneath him and bludgers coming at him from every angle, so it’d been
quite a while since he felt this much exhilaration in a good way.
And he loved it.

That… probably said something about himself but he wasn’t really to face that yet.

He was sweating hard, that last spelling having taken a lot more than he’d been expecting,
but the satisfaction that it’d gone exactly the way he wanted it to was so sweet he couldn’t
stop grinning and his head was light as a feather. Or maybe that was the endorphins…

Fighting Draco had been unfortunate, but at the same time he wasn’t super shocked by it
given Snape was involved. Merlin knew what the man was thinking by picking his godson
but whatever it was, no matter how much he cared about Draco that wasn’t about to stop him
from giving his first honest go at seeing how good a fighter he actually was.

Not the supposed ‘Boy Who Lived’ or any other title or rumor people said about him—he
needed to know just what he was actually capable of and how far he had to go when it came
to defending himself or fighting off actual enemies. This was his first real shot and no matter
if he didn’t want to actually hurt Draco, he also respected his friend a hell of a lot: he knew
the blond was one of the most talented people he knew and therefore was actually a perfect
person to test himself against as a good metric. So far he’d only ever mock-dueled with a
couple first years who posed him no challenge, but this…

This was his marker to know if his personal training was actually doing shit to prepare him or
not.

So, friend or not, he’d taken it as seriously as he could without crossing that line into actually
maiming or harming his opponent. If he couldn’t win without that control after all, then he
hardly considered that a real win.

On the other hand… after Quirrell, after having those memories brought up and confessed to
Neville, to McGonagall… it had weighed very, very heavily on him. His training to be able to
do magic while moving around and everything else was a constant, but recently he’d also
semi-confronted the idea of his own helplessness.

It wasn’t a good mental conversation to have, but indeed he’d started to reflect on it at least a
little bit.

Fact was, he was pretty darn helpless against most foes. He liked to act cocky with others his
age but against an adult? Against Voldemort?

Ha, no chance.

Last year with Quirrell, even when he’d had a wand in his hand he’d been left without much
of a clue of how to—forget win, how to even survive except to break the rules of
Transfiguration, which left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He wasn’t Voldemort. He shouldn’t need to cheat to win.

Against Voldemort himself that was fine because the bastard deserved it, but against normal
opponents he’d be as dark as the Dark Lord himself if he couldn’t use his talent to fight
properly. Without resorting to those brutal, technically illegal tactics. Particularly since
McGonagall had taken many hours in this past week to give him personal instruction on how
to duel using Transfiguration, and he felt he owed her so much that to be able to do this
properly in her eyes was the bare minimum required of him as not only her student, but as the
human being she was treating him as.

All that being said… he felt accomplished by this fight in a way he’d never really felt before.

He’d put so much effort into this and, he was pretty sure, he’d actually done it.

Glancing to the side of the stage, McGonagall was actually smiling widely, and gave him a
very proud nod. Which, was all the confirmation he needed that oh my god yeah I actually
did it!

His heart clenched and he couldn’t help but grin back, before remembering the boy he’d just
tossed off the stage and ran the rest of the arena’s length to inspect for himself his friend was
alright. He was so light headed from everything that he burst into laughter at the very pouty
and prickly look he was getting from below, Draco still flat on his back amongst a sea of
sweet-smelling flowers and now glaring at him in that way only he ever managed to be able
to.

Something annoyed but fond, insulted but also proud.

Cactus indeed—only he ever manages to look like that, he giggled to himself.

“You alright?” He called instead, not quite managing to wipe the shit-eating grin off his face.

“Sod off.” Came the terse reply as he sat up and kicked at the flowers petulantly, but Harry
could see the corners of his lips were itching to smile, if only he wouldn’t lose face by doing
so.

Harry really did appreciate how seriously Draco had taken this duel. They’d talked at length
about magical combat this year, even before the dueling club was announced, merely because
with Harry’s new attitude about self defense he’d wanted to know everything about how
witches and wizards traditionally, and untraditionally fought to prepare himself. Draco had
been an incredible resource as clearly his parents had trained him well, but actually facing
him was a whole other beast in and of itself… and the blond knew how serious Harry was
about it even if he still did not fully understand why. The wonderful thing about Draco is that
he rarely needed a why… he supported him anyway with no question about why Harry so
desperately needed to train himself so intensely like this.

No, he hadn’t really questioned it, he’d just given it his all when he’d seen Harry silently ask
him to before the duel started. Harry knew there’d been other things on his mind when Snape
called him up, but one pleading look and he’d seemed to set it all aside to fight him all out,
merely because he’d asked.

Harry was thankful for it, unbelievably so.

Honestly thank Merlin for Draco because he’d even managed to get under his guard despite
Harry trying everything not to let his wild heartbeat get to him, trying so hard to ignore
throughout the entire fight how sick to his stomach he felt when remembering the last times
he’d ever needed to raise a wand to someone. Harry’s defenses had been so incredibly high in
desperation to win and prove all his effort worth it… but Draco had managed to slyly sneak
past it anyway with lightning fast spell work and excellent battle sense.

Harry knew, had it been anyone else, he might’ve just curled into a ball on the stage
hyperventilating that he wasn’t enough and he couldn’t do this—

Ah.

But it was just Draco.

Just a little stinging jinx that didn’t hurt that much, and just his best friend giving him a
decent spar right now. Draco was not about to hurt him, and he respected the Malfoy heir as
one of the strongest of their grade so it wasn’t that much of a comment on his own skill, and
more so he actually felt some pride at his friend’s proven talent—talent he’d always believed
Draco to have, right from the start.

Harry knew that was the only reason he was able to get frustrated about his loss instead, how
he was able to stand once more and get fired up for the next round—the only reason his ego
and his anxiety did not cripple him at the lost point.

He’d felt a little bad about the needles thing as he thought maybe it was slightly too far, but
then again Draco had shown to be a really tricky opponent to deal with and, well…

Match to needle.

It was his first instinct even as a first year who knew nothing, so when he’d accidentally
broken the stage and saw all that wood he’d just kind of acted. It wasn’t until he saw how
Draco froze in pain, unable to move while literally being pinned in place that he thought he
might’ve gone too far—but Snape had fixed him in an instant the same way he’d fixed him
after the potions incident. Draco had been shaken but also ready to fight again pretty quickly
so Harry hoped he’d forgive him for that. It was a duel after all, that was normal right?

He'd been a little cautious after that though, unwilling to just instinctively hurt someone like
that again, so he’d already been toying with non-lethal attacks even after Draco nailed him
with a stinging jinx. The pain and frustration at his loss cleared his mind the way his temper
always did and he’d gotten the idea for this new spell almost as if it’d simply been waiting
for him the same way the improved duro spell for Operation Fox had simply fallen into his
lap.

Orchideous was the spell he’d shown Draco back in Diagon, the one where flowers bloomed
from the tip of your wand. It was a spell from a joke book, and he was fighting Draco,
someone he’d already shown it to so the memory seemed to trigger something for him. It was
a harmless spell and he was thankful to be fighting his best friend right now so… why not
give him flowers again?
The thing about this particular spell was that, at it’s core, it appeared as if you were conjuring
flowers from nothing, but more technically on the Transfiguration side of things you were
transfiguring air into flowers. Transfiguration had a ton of blurred lines when it came to
things like conjuring and summoning, as those were two inherently different magics while
sometimes it appeared as if you were ‘conjuring’ something, when really you were merely
creating something from the air itself. It was definitely one of the harder things to do in the
subject but Harry had had a lot of practice.

There were only certain things you could create from the physical air around you, and
flowers were one of them. Flowers, as he’d already practiced and proven, could easily be
transfigured into beetles just the same as buttons could and vice versa—a spell which he was
exceptionally good at. So… say he conjured a flower and immediately half-transfigured it
into a beetle following the ‘falling’ method he’d invented for duro… then all of a sudden he
had a flower with wings he could control as he liked.

So let’s say you did that a couple thousand times… you had quite a large amount of flowers
at your disposal.

Potters don’t need to see the broad side of a barn to level it.

Even he couldn’t do it in one go, but his magical core had been burning as if itching for an
excuse to go wild ever since Madam Pomfrey had taken off the block, and it had surprised
him as he’d never really actively noticed what his magic was doing beneath his skin before, it
was always just sort of there. It did what he wanted when he wanted it to, it just was… but to
actually feel it bubble like lava in his stomach was a new, thrilling, kind of itchy feeling like
he wanted to burst out of his own skin.

He wasn’t stupid so he’d immediately informed Madam Pomfrey of the feeling, but luckily
she relented that because of what he’d already done last year, his core really had simply
matured or grown larger than what his physical body could normally take. So he was still in a
twelve-year-old body but he’d stretched his core to be able to do fourth-year level magic and
now that he’d spent several weeks not doing that, it was all cooped up like one’s legs would
be if you sat cross-legged for 24 hours straight.

And the only way to really stretch magic that was feeling a bit restricted, was to use it.

Given the go ahead to stretch his wings so to speak, and recognizing that he needed a lot of
power to pull this spell of properly, he’d decided to fall back on his ‘falling’ strategy once
more.

Honestly, in hindsight there was no reason he should’ve thought this would work. He’d never
tried it before, he’d just assumed that it would work given how he’d used it before, but really
it was just a wild guess that this was actually how magic worked and somehow he’d been
right. Which was a relief because he might’ve died of embarrassment if he’d done all that
running around and waving his wand about only for a grand total of nothing to happen in
front of all his classmates—heaven forbid he never would’ve lived that down.

He hadn’t really questioned that it would work at the time though, and looking back he was
abashed at his own baseless confidence, even if this time it had worked out.
His ‘falling’ method of performing a spell was useful in that if the start and end of a spell was
point A to point B, anything could happen between those two points and the spell didn’t nod
need fall in a straight line down, which meant he could get as creative as he liked in doing
whatever between starting at point A and ending up at point B. McGonagall hadn’t been
lying in that the potential uses were endless, even if not everything he tried always worked,
he could still keep trying almost indefinitely and still stumble upon things that did work
eventually. It did get boring so he had a ton of uses already for the improved duro spell, in
which he could now turn things into not just ‘stone’ as the original spell was phrased, but into
all types of stone—he could use one spell but end up with porcelain, pumice, marble, granite,
and even things like salt and chalk! Literally any type of stone he could think of he’d found a
way to use one spell to do it all, and though he was still working out how to make that useful,
it was at least promising that he could start to do it with any other spell someday too.

He'd even used it in this very duel by turning the bird he’d launched at Draco into a very
fragile, delicate obsidian that shattered violently when blasted apart, though he was sure most
people thought it was a type of glass.

Actually, is obsidian a type of glass? But it’s also a rock? I’m gonna need to look that up…

In any case, his instinct about orchideous was that it would also work the same way he’d
proven duro could, meaning he could start and finish the spell in the same place, but he could
also take some creative liberties with what happened between point A and point B. In this
case, he needed to cast a modified orchideous which meant altering the pattern between start
and finish, but he also needed to cast it about thirty times to get the right amount of flowers
he estimated he needed to swallow Draco up like he imagined. I mean technically he was
actually grafting two spells together, orchideous which ‘conjured’ flowers and a modified
scarabaeibus which would turn a flower partially into a beetle to give it wings. Except
following his ‘falling’ principle, he could ‘start’ orchideous to conjure the flower, perform his
partial scarabaeibus in the middle of it, then ‘finish’ orchideous all in one motion to make it
appear that he was conjuring a winged flower from nowhere.

But he didn’t want to stop there, because he estimated he could create maybe forty to fifty
flowers per spell, which wasn’t nearly enough, and if he just had flowers hanging out around
him while he built up the right amount then Draco would have time to see what he was doing
and try to counteract it. He couldn’t multitask in controlling the winged flowers to avoid
attacks while also creating more, he didn’t think, so he needed them to become visible to
Draco all at once and launch them all at him before he could stop them.

Again, there was no way he should’ve expected it to work, but somehow he just… knew it
would. Maybe he’d reached a level of Transfiguration that he knew he knew things, but he’d
forgotten how he knew things at this point, his base knowledge had simply gotten out from
under him and made conclusions for him before he could stop and think about how it was he
got there. Whatever the reason for his foundationless confidence, he’d still acted on it in the
end, which meant he had instinctually started to ‘chain’ his spells together.

Anything could happen between point A and point B, and he was already inserting an entire
spell right into the middle of another spell to combine them. Was there then any limit to how
many spells he could shove into the middle of another spell?
He figured, not technically. The limit was how much magical power he had to pull it off, and
as no one ever let him forget it, he had plenty of that.

So he’s started changing as he dodged Draco’s attacks, doing the wand movement of his new
spell that created a winged flower, but he never actually finished it. He just ‘started’ the spell
over and over and over… and over and over and over and over…

Honestly he’d completely lost track of how many times he did it as it became an automatic
hand movement he was doing while mostly focusing on dodging Draco’s jinxes. After what
had to be a full minute of doing it though he’d really begun to feel a severe drain on his
magic, which was an entirely new feeling for him.

He’d pushed… not wanting to not have enough flowers for his attack but also being cautious
of magical cores going boom that everyone around him had been unsubtly hinting at. He
didn’t want drain himself completely and lose control of the spell, but it was kind of
fascinating as he pushed and pushed, to feel how each new performance of the spell sliced
away a little more of his magical stamina until it was actually very noticeable that he didn’t
have much left in reserve to be doing this. Never once had he ever felt a lack of magic or
been tired like some of his classmates were at the end of a rigorous class, but now he realized
exactly what they must’ve been feeling—it was super weird.

As a sweat broke out over his brow he realized he should call it here, enough flowers or not.
It only took a moment to find and opening and finally finish the spell with a countless amount
of spells shoved inside of it—and the effect had been perfect.

He’d never doubted that it would work, but as soon as Draco landed safely on the ground it
hit him that that confidence was wild. It actually had worked but… god damn.

Maybe I’m just lucky,

He sighed, wiping his brow of its perspiration and flexing his shoulders some as he got used
to the brand new feeling of being magically drained after his whole life of never having this
issue before. That was a huge waste of magic he’d just dumped over his best friend in the
form of flowers, but he couldn’t think of a better use for it.

He grinned and as he relaxed the flowers faded back to nothing, back the air they’d once been
as the pure magic holding it all together dissipated and the room flushed thickly with the
scent of flowers once more before also slowly dispersing. Draco huffed as he got up from the
stone floor now, dusting himself off but giving him a wry look as he chuckled and hopped off
the stage.

Lockhart was saying something really loudly and probably talking about how famous he was
again, but Harry could not give a fuck about him right now as he looped his arm in Draco’s to
pull them back through the crowd. He vaguely recognized McGonagall and Snape were
trying to regain control of the very excited crowd of second years to continue the duels, while
Lockhart was in no way helping and instead hyping them up more, so thankfully they could
slip away from the stage finally.
“You okay? For real though,” He asked Draco quietly as everyone they passed gave a loud
cheer or tried clapping them on the back as they parted way for their retreat.

Grey eyes flashed him a slightly warmer look that showed his amusement beneath the
pouting front he had on.

“What do you think practicing this healing factor is even for? They’re already gone.” He
brushed it off, showing him his wrist and Harry felt bad to see small streaks of blood here and
there where the needles had once been, now vanished but the pinpricks of blood left behind
now dried and smeared across his skin. True to his word though, Harry realized there was no
active wound.

Well that’s a relief.

He blew out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, grabbing Draco’s wrist tightly as if
to reassure himself, to which the blond just gave him a subtle smile back as they returned to
their original seats.

“Congrats Harry!”

“That was so cool!”

“Well put Malfoy as well, I have to say!”

The Gryffindors cheered and Draco tensed a bit to actually be complimented by a lion but
chose to remain blank and not really acknowledge it. Harry accepted their cheers on both of
their behalf instead to cover, flashing them all an abashed smile and thanking them for their
accolades.

“Thanks everyone—it was a lot of fun! Kind of terrifying too though,” he only half joked,
catching the incredulous look Blaise shot at him. Also, Blaise was sitting with the
Gryffindor… what?

“You don’t say?” Nott mumbled sarcastically off to the side though his sharp hearing picked
it up.

Harry was more distracted when Blaise seemed to unfold himself like a jungle cat ready to
pounce on him and he considered that far more in need of his attention for now—mostly his
caution actually, not just his attention.

“You stabbed him with needles then showered him with flowers. Do make up your mind on if
you actually want the boy dead or not, dear.” He cooed, sweet as honey but the sharpness
hidden beneath it not missed.

Harry just rolled his eyes, gripping Draco’s wrist a bit tighter behind him as if to reassure he
was still there, and snow-cold fingers twisted to squeeze back.

“My first thought was to turn the stage into porcelain, but I didn’t know if I wouldn’t just
crash through it too nor how not to get myself injured as well while doing it.” He admitted
with a shrug, deflecting away from the fact this duel had been against Draco specifically…
for some reason he wasn’t fully comfortable with that line of conversation and would rather
talk tactics instead. “Besides, orchideous is a fourth-year spell I just learned, so I was trying
to show off for Professor McGonagall a bit, I think.”

“That’s not the spell you said though.” Theo immediately pointed out with a frown, damn
observant as always and unwilling to let things slide.

“No, I fixed it a bit for my purposes. Normal flowers don’t have beetle wings.”

He said it like it was obvious but then he realized literally everyone was just staring at him
now.

Seamus suddenly shook his head and muttered something Harry missed, but Blaise leaned all
the way forward to get into his face which forced him to give the tall Slytherin a warning
look for whatever he was up to.

Thankfully the Zabini didn’t start shit, he just gave him a narrowed, unpleasant look that he
normally reserved for Daphne.

“You… really are a weird one.” He decided succinctly.

“Thanks Blaise, love you too.”

“Flowers with beetle wings?” Dean tilted his head curiously, and Harry shrugged it off
immediately.

“It’s magic. Anything should be possible.”

“That’s not how magic actually works though.”

“Lame.” He huffed. “You just need to be more creative is all!”

“I think the world would’ve ended long before now if everyone was as creative as you.”
Blaise sneered, tone implying ‘creative’ was somehow a scandalous word. As if Blaise
himself weren’t the walking, talking, human definition of scandalous.

Wizards, honestly.

Draco nudged his side to catch his attention once more, inclining his head to the main point
here.

“Seriously though. Summoning and conjuring charms are fifth-year material, so you
summoned flowers only to transfigure them into flowers with wings?”

“Sort of, though not technically,” He relented, seeing they were all genuinely intrigued—
particularly the Slytherins and he didn’t really need an excuse to talk Transfiguration to be
honest. Most of the time they were actually telling him to shut up, so it was actually a
refreshing change of pace.
“Summoning and conjuring is still a bit above my level, but orchideous doesn’t really conjure
flowers out of nowhere, it’s actually transfiguring the very air around you into the flowers.
The real intent of the spell is to create a bouquet at the end of your wand.” He held up his
wand to make the point and out bloomed several gorgeous blossoms on its tip. Huge white
lotus flowers with bright yellow stamens—he hadn’t made these earlier as they were much
too large but now he could flaunt his skill easily on this relatively small scale compared to
what he’d just done.

He didn’t even realize he hadn’t said the spell out loud during this demonstration, but the
Slytherins sure did and shared brief looks over his head.

He continued, “I essentially created a ton of flowers with wings from the air itself, so no
conjuring involved. Although technically it isn’t purely orchideous but I also threw half of a
scarabaeibus in there too, so it was like one and a half spells done in the same motion.”

“One and a half?” Theo blurted out incredulously, being awfully chatty for being in close
proximity to Gryffindors, but perhaps it was just the fascination—or disbelief—about what
Harry was talking about.

“Scarabaeibus is a button into a beetle or vice versa, but you can do it backwards and also
not with a button but a flower instead. If you turn a flower into a beetle but stop halfway in
the transfiguration process, you end up with a flower with wings. So… half a spell as I only
had to start it but not finish it to get what I wanted.” He shrugged, both annoyed but also kind
of flattered that they were staring at him like he had a second head. He was proud of his
Transfiguration skill, what could he say?

“Several thousand times simultaneously?” Draco deadpanned, only half amused.

“I’ve transfigured more than a million beetles at this point; they’re great practice material. It
came naturally.” He flippantly deflected the unspoken accusation that he was crazy for this
magical development.

“You know I hate to agree with Blaise on anything, but you really are a weird one.” He
commented lightly and Harry would’ve been more indignant over it if his grey eyes weren’t
soft when he turned to make a face at his teasing.

They didn’t get a chance to say much more as the rowdy crowd finally settled down and
McGonagall was primly calling up new students for the next duel. They just took their seats
again, and although people kept leaning over to congratulate the two of them on the wild
show they’d just put on, Harry was relieved to finally sit back down again with Draco safely
by his side.

It turned out well, he thought.

He’d wanted to test himself and… in a way, he felt he’d made progress. He’d changed, he’d
improved… and this showed he still had a long way to go, but all this effort he’d been putting
in… it was working.
 He couldn’t help but yawn though as they settled down to watch the next duel, Draco leaning
comfortably into his side and the relief that everything had worked out soothing the tension
he always seemed to carry around with him. On top of all that, he also realized he really was
tired from how much magic he’d just expended on that fight… maybe there was something
he could do about that…

He was so wrapped up in his own self-satisfaction at his victory, that he failed to notice the
group of sixth-year Gryffindors grouped behind him with dark frowns on their faces.

Chapter End Notes

By far the most popular people to pick songs for seems to be Theo and Blaise--not that I
blame yall, they're fun.

My picks for Blaise are:

People I Don't Like by UPSAHL

DICTATOR by Rei Ami
 Peace
Chapter Notes

Ah, this may be a controversial one again.

Once more, thank you to those who simply stop reading if you don't like it, I really don't
need a comment about it.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“Apologiesss, we have not ssseen anything like that.”

“Our memoriesss are not that long though,”

The snakes painted into the fourth floor portrait were apologetic enough, although the maiden
sitting beneath the tree they were nestled in seemed oddly perturbed at their hissing, much
less that Harry was talking to them. He was finding that paintings definitely had a bit of
personality from whatever the subject matter was, however typically if a snake or two was
painted in, it was usually for decoration and lacked any amount of personality or memory.
Not that it was too surprising, as the painter was likely not a parselmouth and thought snakes
to be, you know, snakes, so had painted them with boring, slightly dumb, animal-like
personalities.

He was a little bummed as he’d had different iterations of this same conversation about forty
times now and despite how many paintings and portraits Hogwarts had, they were almost out
of ones with snakes in them.

He sighed audibly.

“Don’t worry about it, thank you anyway.”

“I mean I’ve been looking at the stonework but I don’t see any snakes carved there either.”
Dean offered, at this point able to tell from Harry’s reaction what the snakes had said even if
he couldn’t speak parseltongue himself. He was craning his neck as they walked to get a good
view of the intricate architecture of the castle, the arching ceilings and various types of
carved features here and there, of which there seemed to be many styles and types throughout
the halls, clearly done in different eras throughout the thousands of years this castle had
stood.

“Me neither,” Seamus agreed, splitting the load to check out the baseboards and carved stone
tiles on the floor through their journey. “Come to think of it, Slytherin hasn’t been a popular
guy in centuries. If he did carve snakes here and there, I bet a lot got destroyed over time.”

Harry groaned, hating how realistic that sounded. Some young, reckless Gryffindors of years
passed would definitely take a blasting curse to a carved snake, particularly if it were
enchanted to move like the mantle snakes had been. Also now that they’d been paying close
attention to the stone floors and hallway, it was very obvious that not all of Hogwarts was as
old as the original foundation, as large portions were clearly renovated throughout time, even
if those renovations were hundreds of years ago at this point. There were seldom few places
that Salazar Slytherin’s original carvings would be entirely intact.

“So this was a massive waste of time.” He complained to no one, glancing around the empty
hallway they were in.

“Well we at least tried—would’ve been a loose end if we never gave it a shot,” Seamus
shrugged. “The original plan was to wander around to see if you heard the voice again and
that was never guaranteed to work.”

“Guess you’re right…” He sighed again, continuing the walk down the hallway and
searching his brain for any place they hadn’t checked yet. The dungeons and most of the west
towers seemed to be the oldest parts of the castle where what they thought the original
stonework seemed most predominant, but they’d already scoured that. The dungeons were
actually first on this list given near the Slytherin dorm seemed the most likely for surviving
snake carvings to be and was where he’d heard the voice before. It hadn’t turned up anything
this go round though. “I wonder where Biscuit went,” He hummed and chose to ignore the
scoffs his friends gave behind him.

“I still can’t believe you named him Biscuit.”

“What are you, Hagrid?”

“Oi!” He whipped around to stick his tongue out at them. “Hagrid calls terrifying things cute
names—Biscuit really is harmless, I’m telling you! He’ll be so put out that you’re making
fun of him like this!”

“Oh yes, please tell him I apologize,” Seamus deadpanned and quickly dodged Harry’s
attempt to swat at him.

The other part of this search was to check out the passageways the mantle snake had told him
about, and to do that he’d decided to practice his serpensortia a bit… and much to his
delight, the same snake that Mr. Malfoy had conjured weeks ago now had reappeared. Harry
was sure it had to do with his mental image of what he was trying to conjure somehow
creating the same snake, but as they were already aquatinted and he realized he could keep
summoning the same snake as often as he wanted, he decided to give his new friend a name.

He thus dubbed the gleaming, dark blue snake Biscuit and sent him off to check out if he
could slither his way into those secret passageways collect some intel on them. Though he
wasn’t sure if Biscuit would remember details from the last time he was summoned if Harry
let the spell lapse, so he really had to find him again before it wore off.

“It’s getting late, we should probably head back to the dorm in a bit. Pretty much every
teacher saw us wandering about by now so half of them probably suspect we’re up to
something.” Dean offered that bit of sage insight and for some reason Harry felt like he was
being called out personally even if he hadn’t said it in so many words.
Glancing over his shoulder at the guy and seeing his smirk, he scowled because he was
absolutely getting called out.

“I’m not that much of a troublemaker Dean. When have I ever been out after hours?”

“I dunno, you just give the vibe that you would in a heartbeat if there was something
interesting enough to skip curfew for,” He shrugged far too innocently, still pretending to
look at the ceiling for any potential snakes despite them having gone down this hallway twice
already.

Seamus didn’t even pretend to be nonchalant and laughed loudly.

With a grumble Harry just stomped away, pretending not to see Neville’s silent, but really
amused grin as he followed suit.

“After all this, I’m kind of hungry though. You think the twins will have brought snacks
back?”

“At this hour good luck, I doubt there’ll be any left even if they did.”

Harry paused, tilting his head as he realized they were still pretty low in the castle, so the
kitchen entrance the twins once told him about was only a couple halls away. His only
hesitation was…

He shook it off immediately. There was something unsettling about his apparent distrust of
house elves—he knew damn well why but… he’d also met Turel and heard more about them
by asking innocuous questions at the Slytherin table here and there. Dobby had been… odd.

Not normal.

An outlier.

He stopped walking, trying not to let it show how uneasy he was about it, but he was kind of
hungry too and had been meaning to get over this at some point. Besides, he had all his
Gryffindor mates around him right now, so if he couldn’t be brave with this crew then he
didn’t deserve to be in the lion’s house, probably.

“Actually… the twins told me how to get into the kitchens. It’s not far if we wanted to check
it out.” He offered, turning and ensuring his face was as neutral and casual as he wanted to
appear to be.

“Wait really!?”

“And you’ve been sitting on this information how long?” Seamus accused, mostly playfully
since he now seemed way more excited about a late night snack than anything Harry
might’ve been hiding.

“No comment,” He dismissed, intending to never actually give voice of why he hesitated so
long to do this. He was kind of a mess at the time so he didn’t think when he’d trauma
dumped all over Neville a couple weeks ago he’d actually voiced out loud ‘oh yeah on top of
all this I’m also kind of distrustful of house elves now’ since it seemed… petty?
Unimportant?

Like yeah, it was a hangup he had, but also he had more important hangups to actually worry
about in a day. This one seemed stupid even to himself.

Particularly because despite having not enjoyed the entire experience of being trapped at
Malfoy Manor, Turel had not been the worst part of it by far. He wasn’t quite sure what was
clouding his judgment right now, but the excitement of his friends and the promise of a late
night snack was motivation enough to at least try.

He lead the way to the painting the twins had described, and tickled the pear. Even being so
long in the magical world he still sometimes felt like an idiot doing weird things like this, but
it passed in a moment when the entire painting swung forward at invisible hinges to let them
slip around it (bit weird they needed a door five times the size of Hagrid to let creatures that
barely came up to his knee in and out, now that he thought about it).

To say the scene was overwhelming, might’ve been an understatement.

Approximately a hundred elves all turned to them with huge, really inhuman eyes blown
wide at the sudden arrival of some human children, and Harry felt every hair on his body
stand on end like he was a cat.

And then they were all running at them in a huge mob—and it was only the fact he backed up
right into Neville bodily when he reeled back, making both of them stumble awkwardly, that
prevented him from fleeing the kitchen immediately.

“Misters!”

“What is young ones doing down here so late!?”

“Would you like some tea?”

“Crumpet, sirs?”

“Yous is Gryffindors?”

“You’re out very late Misters!”

“Is there something yous be needing sirs?”

“Oh Merlin there’s so many,” Seamus eyes were spinning in his head too as he tried to take in
the chaos going around but being unable to focus on any one thing with so many tiny beings
speaking to him at once, but he had a big grin as he accepted the cup of tea that had
materialized before him politely. “Oh thanks! My name’s Seamus by the way,”

“Hello Mr. Seamus!” Three house elves nearest him chorus with big grins, clearly pleased to
make his acquaintance.
Neville’s hands on his shoulders and watching Seamus beam down at a cluster of little
creatures that barely came up to his knees made Harry realize the… ridiculousness of this all,
actually.

“You good?” Neville righted him awkwardly and Harry brushed it off quickly, glancing
around and trying to absorb the chaos as quickly as possible. It wasn’t as easy as doing it in
Gryffindor tower though.

“Yeah… not exactly expecting a full army of them honestly,”

“No kidding. They say Hogwarts is the largest employer of house elves, given the size of this
place.” He allowed, not seeming to notice anything with his friend’s behavior. He was
probably attributing his jumpiness to any one of his other issues (of which there were plenty
to choose from, honestly) and Harry was just going to let him do that.

As he turned, looking for something to focus on that wasn’t the wriggling worms in his
stomach, he had to do a double take at Dean.

Who, in the approximately ten seconds they’d been here was already sitting in a tiny chair by
the fire across the room, mug of something in his hand already and happily picking out his
favorites on the tray of salty snacks being presented to him—two elves holding the tray
above their heads, on their tippy toes.

“Isn’t he a muggleborn? How is he not more startled by this?” He blurted out, incredulously.

“Nothing ever bothers him, particularly not when promised food.” Seamus rolled his eyes,
seemingly suspiciously used to being abandoned but his self-proclaimed best friend in favor
of snacks. Harry had not known this about his roommate and made a careful note of that
given Christmas was coming up fast.

Also, it was very hard to take this as seriously as his nerves wanted to when Dean had his
face full of crackers already, clearly more focused on the cheese cubes in front of him than
the house elves handing them to him.

I mean he is the tallest of our year so far, maybe it’s a growth spurt, Harry allowed, although
he was kind of thinking maybe this was also just him too.

“Would yous be liking something to eat as well, sirs?” A house elf jumped and waved its
little arms to grab their attention again out of the crowd of elves still grouping around them.
“We have snacks or full meals, salty or sweet? Maybe just some tea or hot chocolate?”

“There’s pumpkin juice as well!”

“Or butter beer!”

“Coodey that’s too much before bed!”

“Oh, sorry sirs…”

“Do you guys have anything left over from supper tonight? I really liked that Shepard’s pie
we had.” Seamus wondered, immediately getting swarmed and dragged over to where Dean
was for a seat by a dozen tiny hands gently prodding him.

“Ah! We can makes you a brand new one!”

“That’s alright, I don’t need that much-”

“Sit here and we be right back Mr. Seamus!”

“Oh—well—thank you then,” He chuckled, letting it go.

“Anything we can get you Misters?”

“Um… just some tea,” Neville smiled down at them kindly and literally two seconds later
they were pouring some for him that he thankfully accepted. Harry wasn’t really hungry so
he was kind of about to do the same thing when an elf ran right up to his side and offered him
a bowl almost pointedly.

“For you Mr. Potter sir!”

He blinked, doing yet another double take at the colorful candy being presented to him—
normally Hogwarts only ever had this out the weeks leading up to Halloween, so it was pretty
unseasonal to see actually.

“Candy corn?” He blinked, but he did accept the bowl without thinking because… well,
candy corn was great. Probably too much sugar for right before bed so he wouldn’t eat too
much but heck yeah.

And then he realized how weird this was and looked down at the little elf smiling up at him,
startled.

“Wait a second, do you know me?”

“My name is Nodky, Mr. Potter sir! I works in the mornings when everyone else is preparing
breakfast, for the early risers.” The elf explained cheerfully and Harry reeled back in surprise.

Of course… from the beginning, when he woke hours and hours before everyone else and
even to this day now that he was up a bit later with Neville, tea and small snacks would
always appear to tide him over until breakfast was served. He’d obviously assumed it was the
house elves, given it would magically appear at his elbow whether he was in the Great Hall
or the Gryffindor common room, but it had never crossed his mind it was the same elf for the
past year and a half now.

He hadn’t questioned it when he got candy as a side with his tea at five in the morning right
before Halloween, but in hindsight Nodky had learned his preferences somehow and since he
was only on ‘early riser’ duties apparently, that meant he knew Harry’s preferences
specifically. Also, given that he’d been on potions to help his magical core issues for the past
several months and they always appeared specifically in his goblet and not someone else’s
during meals in the Great Hall, it would make perfect sense there was one specific elf
assigned to him and watching his meals and potion intake. Madam Pomfrey had even warned
him she’d know if he didn’t finish one of his nutrient potions, and he was now realizing he
was stupid to not realize she had employed an elf to spy on him and what he ate.

He felt abruptly bad that he’d literally never given this possibility a thought before now,
when Nodky had clearly been babysitting him this entire time he’d been at Hogwarts.

“Oh my god thank you—I had no idea. The morning tea is really appreciated you know,” He
told the little creature, who seemed to vibrate in excitement at the praise.

“I’m glad sir! If you’d ever like something in particular just call my names! There are only a
couple early risers and I’m happy to be helping!”

“Thank you Nodky, that’s very kind of you.”

The elf seemed to vibrate with excitement and bounced around. “We have treacle tart here as
well if you’d like some!?”

Another one of his favorites—so Nodky really did know. For some reason Harry was just
warmly fond about it instead of perhaps more concerned he’d unknowingly been stalked by
an elf. Particularly given his history.

“I probably shouldn’t have too much sugar before bed—maybe I could have a bit of that
Shepard’s pie Seamus is having?”

“Right away sir—comes and sits!” Nodky lead the charge happily and the other elves parted
way for him taking charge, much to Harry’s amusement.

This… was not nearly as bad as he’d been fearing it’d be, and honestly he felt a little silly for
putting it off so long. He also felt kind of thankful to have met Nodky, in a weird way: it felt
better for there to be a person behind his meals if that made any sense. It was more
comforting, somehow.

“We can’t stay too long, it’s almost curfew,” Neville pointed out but still sat beside them at
the tiny table by the fire the elves had already set for them.

“We’ve got a bit of time, it’ll only take us like ten minutes to get back to the tower if we eat
quickly—” But Dean was suddenly uninterested in soothing Neville’s worries when the elves
set down a new dish of steaming Shepard’s pie and immediately heaped it onto their plates.

Harry snorted, blowing on his own serving since it was piping hot before tossing Neville a
wink.

“If we’re late and get caught, we’ll just blame Dean’s growth spurt.”

“Yeah, I’m sure someone like Snape will buy that,” Seamus rolled his eyes, but then watched
Dean completely demolish the entirety of his serving and record time and reconsidered.
“Actually… maybe he will.”
With warm food and good company, Harry suddenly felt a lot more at home in a kitchen than
he had since coming to Hogwarts.

000

“For Merlin’s sake control your owl!”

“Aw, she didn’t mean it, she was just saying hi,” Harry defended his lovely snowy pet as she
fluttered away from Draco’s flailing arms in defense of his own. And owls didn’t really have
expressions exactly but by the way Bastian was on Draco’s shoulder and leaning into his
owner, he probably would’ve been cowering if owls could do such things.

“She’s a menace!” The blond cried indignantly, shielding Bastian the best he could although
the bird was comically larger than the average owl, so it was pretty useless.

Hedwig nipped at Harry’s ear as she settled onto his own shoulder.

“Don’t worry Hedwig, you come by it honestly.” He stroked her feathers soothingly like she
wasn’t the bully in this situation.

Draco gave him a narrow look, but ended up just rolling his eyes in resigned exasperation.

“Bastian, you’re like triple her size—just whack her next time.”

“Don’t do that!”

“She has it coming!”

Hedwig chimed in with a light cooing sound as if she agreed with the blond. Bastian just took
off out the owlery window before she finished, and Draco slumped in defeat against the
windowsill.

Harry couldn’t help but laugh as he fed her some treats, which she happily accepted. “That’s
my girl, you tell him…”

“I hate you so much. Bastian is the victim here!” Draco pushed off from the window to walk
back over and hand him the letter that was the original purpose of this entire game they were
playing here.

They still sent letters to each other despite being in the same castle, picking up the habit from
last year… somehow surviving the months long break they’d had over the summer. They…
had not yet retouched their journals since the school year started, despite there being a decent
amount of pages left in them. Blood didn’t come out of enchanted paper like that so while
Harry didn’t know what Draco had done with his, Harry’s own copy was at the base of his
trunk. While he couldn’t throw it out, he wasn’t intending to write in it again.

Hence the letters game had started again, and the slower pace felt nicer in a way. If he wanted
to go back and forth with Draco then he’d find his way down to the Slytherin common room
and speak to him face to face. Their letter volley was much slower and less like they were
looking for an immediate reaction to their words, more like they were trying to express
everything that wasn’t so easily said out loud or brought up in normal conversation, putting it
onto paper in hopes the other would read it and be able to put it together.

Harry had… tried to tell Draco some things, but it never really felt like it came out right. He
could at least admit that the potion that roasted him had fucking hurt like a snitch and about
the scar on his cheek and all that… but not so many details that he knew the blond was sorely
lacking. He wasn’t quite sure what his hang-up was but he found himself talking about any
and everything with Draco except some really important points that…

Well, maybe someday.

Maybe one day when he was writing one of his letters the words would simply come to him
and spill out onto the page and it will be done. The hurdle of just… just telling him seemed
insurmountable when looking into grey eyes right in front of him, so he kept writing letters
and maybe one day it wouldn’t be so hard anymore.

If anything, he had faith Draco would wait for him while he figured it out.

It was a comforting thought, and these days he could smile properly as he accepted the letter
he was being handed, although he was rather curious about it. Draco had specifically told him
to come to the owlery to get this letter himself, and despite them goofing off and trying to
exchange letters via owls despite being in the same room, they hadn’t ever hand-delivered
their letters before.

“What is it?” He wondered, noticing immediately it was much thinner and stiffer than
normal. Draco wrote novels worth of pages, and in hindsight it was a good thing he owned an
Eagle-owl to carry those heavy letters constantly.

“Open it and find out—it’s not a howler I swear.”

“Well I wasn’t thinking it was until you said that!” He complained, but dutifully opened it…
surprised when the silver, thick-stock paper gleamed very magically up at him.

He blinked, realizing…

“And invitation?” He tilted his head.

Draco’s cheeks turned a light pink, but he coughed to clear his expression quickly. “My
family hosts a winter party at Yule every year—or most years I should say. Last year we went
abroad.” He explained, and Harry remembered… he had been sad he couldn’t spend his first
free Christmas with his closest friends but had still loved the first holiday break at Hogwarts
—the first break where he wasn’t required to do chores from dawn till dusk, he should say.

“Wait, I’m invited?”

“Of course,” Draco gave him a funny look, shaking his head in dry amusement. “That’s if
you wanted to come. It is at my house,” He pointed out and when Harry tensed as he put two-
and-two together, he elaborated. “You don’t have to worry about my mother, we’ve discussed
it at length. She’s hosting it for her own reasons and has plenty else to do, and besides
greeting you she’s going to be leaving the people I invite to me to handle.”

Harry could tell he had worked hard to win that battle with his mother and whether you could
trust her normally didn’t matter—she’d give anything to her son so could believe she would
keep her word on it. He at least believed she’d keep her word to her son now that she’d given
it so…

He would be tempted… except…

Except… he’d already made plans.

Plans he hadn’t told Draco about yet.

And… out of nowhere, suddenly he couldn’t just lie and say he didn’t want to go—not when
Draco had put honest effort into making him feel comfortable at this party if he wanted to
accept it. The guy really did not deserve to be lied to in return for his efforts… but Harry
wasn’t sure telling the truth would be that kind either.

“Harry?” Obviously, Draco could tell by his face something was off.

“I…” He bit his lip for a second before dragging in a breath quickly. “I didn’t tell you
something.”

“What?”

“I didn’t tell you something because I thought… you might not want to know about it.”

“Okay…? And it has to do with Christmas?” Draco just tilted his head, seeming unbothered
by this random direction.

Harry winced.

“Remember how we found out about my godfather? Or… godfathers, plural.” He hedged,
and watched Draco’s expression flicker—before a calm neutrality fixed itself over his face.

“Sirius Black. Obviously I can’t forget that. Him and…”

“Remus. The werewolf.” Harry swallowed, watching him for any little reaction… but the jerk
had really come into himself in Slytherin because he gave nothing away as he just nodded
once, and Harry could tell it was 100% on purpose.

“I remember.” Was all he said to acknowledge it.

The blankness was nerve-wrakcing as he had no feedback on what he was thinking right
now… but on the other hand it was also kind of nice that there wasn’t an outright rejection
either.

“I reached out to him.” He blurted out before he could chicken out, trying not to overanalyze
the way Draco blinked rapidly a couple times at that. “I didn’t tell you because… because I
know it goes against how you were raised and Slytherin politics and all of it… I told almost
no one and Remus promised to keep the fact we’re talking a secret too. I mean I—I care
about him after getting to know him, he’s my godfather even if only unofficially. But still… I
know, for example, Theo would never talk to me again and everything I did to get Slytherin
house to accept me last year would be ruined if anyone knew.”

It all came tumbling out in a deluge of word vomit, and there was something in his throat that
made it hard to swallow as he ducked his head apologetically. “I saw your reaction at
Gringotts and thought… that you might not want to know.”

Draco just stood in silence for a full minute and Harry let him, trying to keep his own
composure so Draco wouldn’t see how nervous he was about this conversation.

And eventually…

“… of course I want to know.” The blond decided, words particular as if he’d given them
great thought already and meant every syllable in an articulate, purposeful way. Harry looked
up to meet his gaze, daring to hope. He regretted it though when he was immediately flicked
on the forehead hard enough that he yelped and clamped his hands over the new red mark he
had—probably right next to his hidden scar though Draco didn’t know it. “You don’t need to
edit yourself just because of my opinion, idiot. Weren’t you the one who punched me in the
face only a year ago for some similar reason? Why would you care what I think?”

Harry forgot the pain on his forehead in an instant as he realized how true that point was.

Except…

He smiled broadly despite feeling the beginnings of tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

“I don’t think it works that way anymore. That was last year, when I’d known you two
months… now what you think is a bit more important to me than that.” He admitted, and to
his credit Draco kept his composure despite his ears turning a but red. “I didn’t want you to
think I was betraying everything I’d built to be able to sit at lunch with you in peace.”

The blond just gave a put upon sigh. “It’s nice to hear, I won’t lie… but I don’t need you to
change on my behalf. Although if you could be a tad less danger prone I’d be less stressed.”

“Draco.”

“I’m just saying.”

Harry’s smile slowly dropped as he returned to the point, feeling a bit more confident now
that this wasn’t going to turn into a trainwreck or an argument. “I mean I guess all this is to
say…I think I’m going to spend Christmas with Remus. And given how I can’t let anyone
know what I’m doing or where I’m going, I probably can’t make this party. I’m sorry.”

He apologized, even if technically it was a halfhearted excuse at best. He probably could

attend if he left Remus at home and didn’t tell anyone where he was coming from… but he
also didn’t know yet what precautions Mr. Greengrass had in place for this holiday trip. He
didn’t know if there’d be wards or if being seen at a public event would catch Dumbledore’s
attention and have him tracking him back home at the end of the night…

No, it was safer to just stick with Remus unbeknownst to everyone, to stay in the muggle
world away from magical eyes and ride out the break. Being with Remus was also part of Mr.
Greengrass’ plan somehow, and since he had no details he did not want to rock the boat and
ruin something accidentally. Anything that jeopardized his placement this summer couldn’t
happen no matter how crushed he was to disappoint his friend like this. One party wasn’t
worth it, no matter how much Draco meant to him.

There would be other Christmases… so long as he wasn’t forced to go back to the Dursleys,
because in that case he really doubted he’d even see another Christmas, with or without
Draco.

Thankfully his friend seemed to understand that the half-hearted excuse had a lot more behind
it than he was willing to actually admit right now, and didn’t call him out on it. Instead he just
crossed his arms over his chest and gave him a long, muddled look.

“…”

“Draco?”

His thin lips pressed into a twisted line before he gave a weary sigh, seeming to decide
something against his better judgement.

“Are you… sure that’s a good idea?”

It took Harry maybe… a bit too long to realize what he was saying.

And when he did it felt like the run was ripped out from under him, and it was only by sheer
instinct he managed to remain upright—but he felt really fucking off balance for a second.

And kind of paled in uneasiness, actually.

“You don’t like werewolves.” He realized aloud. Not so much asking… noticing more like,
and he watched Draco’s shoulders tense.

“Look, we’re talking about this first, okay? Let’s not…” He shook his head as he fumbled
with his words in a way he hadn’t done since last year. “Okay, okay, let’s just… okay,
admittedly…no, I don’t. And I did think about it. If it was… how I was raised or…
whatever.” His eyes flickered away and the arms over his chest tightened, body language
betraying his discomfort. “Look, I’m not going to give you a hard time about not wanting to
be around my mother so I’ll call you a hypocrite if you judge me for this.”

He didn’t even snap at him, although Harry could tell at any other time Draco would be
spitting something sassily to be cornered like this. Right now… he wasn’t though. He was
distinctly uncomfortable but by the way he struggled to meet his gaze, Harry knew he was
being honest… and he wasn’t enjoy it any more than Harry had a couple minutes ago.

Fuck.
Maybe he was still in shock about it, but he didn’t get automatically mad either. He did not
like it… but his temper remained beneath his skin while his mind raced.

‘Let’s talk about it’, he said.

So… okay.

“I’m not going to say I’m not upset. But… I get it. I think.” Did he? Was he lying right now?
How did he even start to being with this!? All he could think to ask was: “Can I ask why?”

Given the opportunity to explain, Draco still didn’t seem that thrilled about it, but he went for
it anyway.

“Werewolves are dangerous. Maybe not all the time, but they are. And maybe this one is
different, I get that, but that doesn’t change the fact there are a lot of bad ones too. I’m not
saying it’s right, but my family in particular has historically been… at odds with darker
creatures.” He gave a grudging huff, like even he knew this was bullshit but he didn’t exactly
have any other truths available to him right now. “If I’ve learned anything from being in
Slytherin it’s that time heals a lot, but not everything, and honestly I don’t think it even
should be expected to heal some things completely. Our grandparents could do shit and it’ll
still be my problem, right here today with my own peers for what their grandparents did. I get
it. I had to think long and hard about it when my family changed alliances, and what that was
going to mean for me interacting with people moving forward, given everything we’ve done
in the past. We were aligned with the dark for generations, and that will never just go away.
Malfoys have done people wrong. Those wronged people are owed their own hatred for us
for it.” He stated as if these were inescapable facts… and to him, they were. Not that he was
thrilled about it, but he was never going to be dismissive of the potential threat long-held
grudges posed to him. He was a Slytherin through and through, he wasn’t that naïve or stupid
to think there would never be consequences for not just his own actions, but from the actions
of others before him.

Grey eyes finally met green ones as he embraced how unfomfortable this confession was, but
knowing he had to be heard anyway. “All of that means, in my head, that werewolves have
very real reasons to hate me and my family specifically, for nothing I’ve personally done.
That means in return there are very real reasons to be wary of them. I can understand that
they may hate us and to me, that means they’ll always be a threat.”

Harry… didn’t know what to say.

“…nothing will ever get better with that line of thinking.”

“There’s also the fact I cannot shake the actual dislike too. I guess not of anyone in particular
or because of their disease specifically, but of the sheer bad political choice it’d be to get
caught dead consorting with a werewolf. You, given your fame, might be able to get away
with it, but considering my goals in life, I never could. And frankly I don’t want to.” He put
his chin up in that arrogant way of his, and Harry wilted. “I’m just being honest with you. I
can cover for you about where you went so people won’t find out, but my family is way too
connected and watched for me to get away with going near him without it somehow getting
out. Not without a lot more protection in place, at least.”
He wasn’t wrong—that was the very reason Harry himself was hiding the connection to
Remus in the first place. Not only for his own future prospects, but just Draco being friends
with a werewolf sympathizer would ruin his own ambitions. At this point everyone knew
they were close—if Harry went down, he’d take Draco with him even if he never meant to
put his friend in that position.

Obviously Draco was aware of this too, and he still chose to remain friends with his crazy
Gryffindor friend. Even now that Harry was confessing he was doing something that would
potentially devastate his relationship with Slytherin house and make both their lives hell if
anyone ever found out… he was here. He wasn’t running or telling him not to do it, he was
accepting that Harry was taking a risk that would impact both of them… he just didn’t want
to take the risk himself.

Harry really wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be thinking or feeling right now.

“Thanks.” He started, because… he at least knew Draco had been honest with him, and he
appreciated that. “I don’t agree but it wouldn’t change anything.”

He made that abundantly clear though. It wasn’t agreement it was just… tentative
acceptance.

“I don’t agree with you not liking my mother. And no, it changed nothing right?” Draco
pointed out, eyes finally betraying how nervous he was when the minutes ticked by and
Harry hadn’t yelled or had a real reaction yet.

And his point was… agonizingly accurate in an infuriating way.

It was so much harder the other way around… but that was exactly the reason Harry decided
that he had to get over it.

“Right. Right that… yeah okay.” He blew out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding,
still feeling kind of clammy. “In the spirit of honesty then, I will say that no matter what fears
or dislike you have of him, Remus is my only chance to get away from my relatives right
now. My only chance at a family, no matter what illness he has.”

“I know.” Draco frowned, his tone extremely heavy… he really did understand the gravity of
it.

“And I went with your parents to do the blood test.” Harry felt the need to point out, to which
the blond let out a sigh and nodded along.

“I know. I know you didn’t want to, but you did anyway. I can be just as polite if it comes to
that, I promise. But that was an extreme situation, I didn’t push it on you I don’t think.”

Harry wasn’t so sure about that, he’d still felt very cornered but… he got what he was saying.
Don’t push Remus at him, but the times they had to be in the same room for one reason or
another, he’d play nice. He did not hate Remus personally—he just didn’t know the man and
had no desire to know him either. In a lot of ways it wasn’t personal at all, but that somehow
made it feel uglier.
Given the… horrific nature of it all, this was already asking a lot for the Slytherin who was
batting zero, considering he was friends with Harry Potter of all people. Harry had a partial
control over the school now, and because of that people were leaving Draco alone… but if
Harry tarnished his own reputation and Draco joined him in it, Harry might come out the
other side alright, but Draco would be in an even worse position than he was last year.
Because he wasn’t just a clueless firstie anymore, he theoretically should ‘know better’ and…
and it would hurt his politics a lot more than Harry would ever feel it.

He was suddenly vividly remembering the conversation with McGonagall about his mother’s
Slytherin friend… how they had fallen apart. How he’d understood exactly how it could’ve
happened.

If Draco was ever caught being even slightly friendly with a werewolf or a werewolf
sympathizer, he’d get ripped apart by his own house and… and maybe that would be the
tipping point in deciding it wasn’t worth being friends with a selfish Gryffindor who
wouldn’t even meet him halfway.

It was the gut-wrenching terror at the idea that he could lose Draco over this that made his
decision for him. His hands felt ice cold and it had nothing to do with the unseasonable chill
or the windy owlery, lips numbs as he just nodded his head once.

“Okay.”

It was all he could do, and it came out kind of quiet. Not quite defeated but… more gentle
than he normally was.

Draco gave him a searching look, as if silently asking him if he meant it.

“Really?”

“Yeah really. I said okay.” He repeated.

He got another look… before his grey eyes softened noticeably.

“…look at us. Communicating and shit.”

Harry couldn’t help the surprised snort that ripped out of him, startled by the spike of humor
after such an awful conversation. When Draco chuckled along, arms finally dropping from
where they’d crossed and shoulders releasing their tension, Harry couldn’t help but feel
washed in a fondness he’d almost forgotten he had.

Without warning he closed the gap and tossed his arms around his friend to hug the life out of
him, and if he was surprised, Draco got over it quickly to free his arms to hug him back. It
was so cold outside but the cold that sunk into Harry’s robes from the body in his arms was
so much nicer, in a way that had nothing to do with the chilly wind.

Despite all the other emotions swirling around his brain right now, he just focused on the
person in his arms right now, and the fact he had Draco here with him now. Everything else
was secondary, because at the core of it all he couldn’t lose people.
He wouldn’t survive it.

But god damn, it was easy to be considerate of others when you agreed with their values.

To be considerate of someone else’s belief when you fundamentally didn’t believe in them…
was way harder than he was expecting it to be, had he seen this coming. Which, he probably
should’ve, but the idea that Draco could hold onto the bullshit ideals that, admittedly, most of
the wizarding world also held had seemed so impossible to him he hadn’t wanted to give it
thought before. He didn’t want to believe it was even possible, because it felt so fucking
wrong and he loved Draco so why…?

As a Gryffindor he felt this bone deep need to take a stand and fight for something if he
thought it important. To speak out against things he thought were wrong, not to just let shit
happen in front of him… but as someone whose best friend was a Slytherin, he also didn’t
actually know if this was the hill he needed to die on right now. He just didn’t know if this
was a battle that was actually wise to fight right now, since it would probably be the one that
cost him the war in the end—and if he lost the war here, he also lost Draco. There had to be a
better way to figure this out, but it would take time and planning like everything else
worthwhile to Slytherins—he couldn’t fight like a lion right now and win against a snake, it
was completely pointless.

Maybe the real reason he wasn’t just jumping into a screaming match right now is because he
actually didn’t know what he was supposed to be fighting for—his heart wasn’t fully in it
because he had no idea what winning even meant right now. That he got Draco to lie to him
and say he liked werewolves when he didn’t? Or did he want to change Draco, his best
friend, because he really didn’t like something about him right now?

He felt uneasy and flat just thinking about it.

Realistically, Draco wasn’t going to hate on werewolves or go out of his way to make their
lives hard, but he also wasn’t going to go out of his way to help them either. He wanted to be
hands off, to stay out of it entirely—which was probably him meeting Harry and is ideals
halfway.

What Harry wanted to do was argue with him until he saw sense, but that… that wasn’t him
meeting Draco’s ideals halfway. That wasn’t compromise.

He was still kind of surprised how… well, polite they’d been. This easily could’ve been a
blow-out fight, given his temper and Draco’s pride… and a part of him still wanted it to be a
blow-out fight because he honestly thought he could win that.

However… that wasn’t compromise.

Maybe he would win that fight, but Draco was his friend, and beating him into submission
seemed over the line even for him. It probably wouldn’t actually be a victory. Just like going
too far in a duel would’ve been hollow, sometimes you had to do it the hard way, the much
harder way, to make it worth it.
And as he thought about it, Harry realized… just like the duel, Draco probably knew he
wouldn’t win this fight, if it had come to it. But he’d brought it up anyway and silently asked
for peace and discussion, trusting Harry to be reasonable and have mercy despite the fact he
already knew he was going to hate it.

He would be a terrible, terrible friend if he trampled over him anyway, completely

disregarding the trust he’d just showed.

It was just… everything in him didn’t agree. It did not compute how Draco could look at a
man he’d never even met and think lesser of him because of something he couldn’t change!?
There was prejudice and something disgusting like classicism dripping all over it and it did
not compute that clueless, malleable Draco was the one doing it.

Then again, like the Gryffindor vs Slytherin thing wasn’t also pure prejudice and generational
trauma? That was exactly what Draco was talking about here: avoidance and getting rid of
the hate first was a decent first step even if it didn’t feel like enough. This particular Slytherin
was going to mind his own business and let Remus mind his—he was not going to hate him
though… and that was… progress.

Progress?

Well, it certainly didn’t feel like nearly enough, but it was progress none the less, maybe. It
was one step, when they still had a continent to cross.

Thinking long term though… Draco was the future of the Malfoy family. Even his parents
had hated werewolves, and here Draco was making the step to be indifferent about it. His
children, the next generations… maybe they’d have a chance at acceptance instead. In a way,
it meant more that he was even attempting this, as tradition and heritage meant everything to
the snake house, and Draco was willing to change what that meant for his family line by
starting today.

It didn’t feel like enough, but Harry also recognized this was way better than the alternative.
Draco could’ve decided to stand his ground and start demanding Harry begin to hate
werewolves and non-human dark creatures too, and that would never happen. Flipping the
script though… Harry realized that was exactly what Draco was willing to do for him now: to
change, to make one step, to start believing in something he had never believed in before.
For no other reason than that he knew Harry wouldn’t be able to accept blatant prejudice the
way he’d shown it before, and despite not being able to rid himself of it entirely, was making
a shot at compromise and peace instead.

Despite everything else, Harry couldn’t quite spit on that effort by telling him it wasn’t
enough.

It would have to be enough for now, because he decided wrong or right, he wasn’t going to
lose Draco over this—he just wouldn’t.

It did further resolve him though. It cemented the fact that he needed to be in charge and he
needed to be able to make brutal changes in this world, so bullshit like this didn’t rip people
apart anymore—more importantly it wouldn’t threaten to rip his friends from him. Although
he didn’t agree, he couldn’t dismiss Draco’s concerns either, so he needed to be strong
enough to stomp down those who’d treat others unfairly, but at the same time ready to stop
even the past victims from going for blood. Just because Harry agreed with them honestly
didn’t mean children of hatred like Draco and other Slytherins were going to be prompted to
change if they were just in danger.

Fuck, this was hard.

He didn’t like it at all.

It felt just as wrong as keeping Remus a secret in the first place, the idea of needing to protect
the people who’d been in the wrong all this time too.

But… things had changed. He hadn’t realized it until this conversation, but now he could
never do what he’d done last year, in punching Draco and walking away without a backwards
glance because he didn’t agree… he couldn’t walk away anymore and Harry was not exactly
sure when that had happened. He didn’t want to fight, he wanted things to move forward
differently because he didn’t want to just throw a punch or a hex then walk away… he
couldn’t do it.

Draco was way too important to him to throw him aside just because of one fight.

One disagreement…

And it was a hell of a disagreement but Draco was right… he hadn’t put up a fuss when
Harry had confessed he didn’t want to be around Lady Malfoy, and here he was saying he
didn’t care for Harry’s own family. He’d only exchanged a couple dozen letters with Remus
over the past couple months, he hadn’t even met the man… but Narcissa Malfoy had raised
this boy in his arms and loved him dearly, and Draco loved her just as dearly back… and still
he hadn’t made it an issue that Harry didn’t want to be near her.

Reasons… the deep seeded reasons he didn’t want to be near Remus aside, though it was so
fucking hard to separate the reasons from the action… reasons aside, Harry could not hold
this against him. He’d forever be a hypocrite, and the worst kind too—the one that refused to
stretch even a little bit for someone he loved. Did you really love them if you weren’t willing
to treat them how they treated you?

He needed to shake these thought off before he spiraled, honestly.

Reasons he didn’t like Lady Malfoy, reasons Draco didn’t like Remus… that was a much
bigger fight.

What they could do about it now was simple though: he didn’t need to be near his mom and
Draco didn’t need to be near his godfather. The two of them were the friends here, and this
was their life they’d agreed to spend partially together—everyone else were additional factors
neither of them had agreed to if being friends were just another deal that Daphne was making
for him. And changing variables after the agreement was a big no-no.
Harry had promised to be his friend… Draco agreed to be his friend back. Draco had never
agreed to become a Gryffindor or sympathize with werewolves or anything else.

Harry himself was owed the same thing. He agreed to be Draco’s friend, but he didn’t agree
to buy into werewolf prejudice or pureblood rhetoric or consort with the elder Malfoys or
death eaters…

It was just so much harder the other way around, and he knew his Gryffindor was shining
through in the ugliest way possible right now. It was so much easier to be understanding if
you already agreed.

“I can hear you thinking.” Draco commented into his hair, and Harry made a face into his
shoulder that he couldn’t see.

“I’m just reaching a balance here,” He complained. “Readjusting and stuff.”

“You’re not mad?” Draco sounded genuinely worried about this as he let go, taking a step
back to check his face again as if he could read the truth from his eyes alone.

Harry just gave a very tied sigh, letting him step back but not quite giving up the grip he had
on his forearm just yet.

“No.” He admitted, and was a bit surprised at how honest that was. “I think you of all people
know how I’m not the most understanding person ever, but I’m working on it okay! Don’t
judge me while I get there!” It was half a joke but also not a joke at all.

Thankfully Draco did know that and in fact did not judge him. Instead, he smiled a smile
harry had never seen on him before…and kind of took his breath away.

He was just so… so happy Harry was trying… for him.

It really broke his heart a bit.

He really was just a selfish person, wasn’t he? If the one time he was making an attempt for
someone else was considered so special that it made Draco smile like the sun was rising just
for him today.

“Don’t worry about Yule.” The blond comforted him with a wave of his hand, dismissing that
whole thing and giving an encouraging look as he changed the subject. A bit tactlessly, but
Harry also eagerly grasped the chance to talk about anything else for now, and think these
way deeper thoughts over some other day. “Will you be busy for Easter break?” He asked.

Bit of a weird direction change, but Harry was on board if it meant not worrying a hole in his
stomach that he was going to lose his friendship with his best friend over prejudice. Literally
anything but that was welcome right now.

“I thought people usually stayed at Hogwarts for that?”

“Usually yes, since most people have plans that can’t be left alone. Besides, it’s not that
celebrated a holiday, not like Yule is.” He agreed, but gave a bit of a shrug. “My plans have
been going reasonably well though… I think. It won’t impact anything if I stay or go, not this
year at least.”

Must be a long, long term plan then.

Harry was curious, but knew better than to ask.

He gave his Easter break a thought and realized he didn’t have much of an answer
unfortunately.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I have some errands to run over Christmas break, which is another
reason to need to visit Remus—ah!” He burst out, causing Draco to startle visibly for a
second at his sudden shout. “I should call him Mooney… that’s his nickname and it’s more
secure that way. Since I’ll talk about him to you but for both our sake’s no one should know
in case we’re overheard.”

The Slytherin blinked before regaining his composure—not without a wrinkle to his nose
though.

“Right… but Mooney?”

“Apparently my dad gave him that name, so it wasn’t either of our ideas.” He rolled eyes.
“But anyway, my plans are starting to move a bit and I’m thinking Easter will be about
crunch time. I’m actually working with someone and they’re mostly in charge of things for
now, so it’ll depend on how fast things pick up. Maybe it’ll be over by Easter, or maybe I’ll
need to use that break to assist with it or something—I don’t know right now.” He explained,
feeling awkward not going into details, but it was also very par for the course in Slytherin
house.

Slytherins made plans. Slytherins very rarely told people about their plans. No one really
took their Easter break in that house because that was peak ‘crunch time’ for most plans to
come about. Draco hadn’t told him his plans and neither had Harry, but they’d been clear at
the beginning of the year they were working on something on their own. Nothing about what
he’d just said should be suspicious to a Slytherin, since that was precisely the game they
played.

It still felt weird to be actively explaining something without giving any details about why,
but technically it wasn’t weird.

Luckily Draco had gotten used to how his house worked, so he clearly didn’t think twice
about it.

“That makes sense,” He allowed, not pushing for details which Harry was thankful for.

“Why? Did you have another suggestion?”

“Have you ever been to a tea tasting?”

“A what?” He had in fact not, but he was certainly interested. “Like a tea party?”
“Not at all,” Draco chuckled, “Really high-end teas are sold from specific sellers and you go
to tea tastings to check them out. It’s a bunch of people in a room who all taste it, then bid for
the volumes they want, as there’s only so much supply made in a year.” He explained and
Harry’s eyes got wide at the very tempting distraction this was. “My family always
participates as Mother’s teas are really critical to that hosting thing she does—she sends
father to do the bidding though, because he knows what she likes and he likes to make
connections with the other people who attend.”

It wasn’t hard to see why he brought up Easter break then. “And you wanted to go?”

“Only kind of—just me following my father around would be a bit boring, but I think it’d be
fun if we went together is all.” He admitted, ears going pink again as he fidgeted. “Besides,
events like this are super common, not just with tea… you’ve been learning about your
finances and stuff, and learning the whole ‘bidding for limited supply’ thing is really big in
pureblood society, in business in general. I thought you might like to watch how it’s done
first since you’ll probably end up needing to do it yourself someday, if you keep your interest
in business.”

That… was actually a really, really good opportunity. It sounded like this was how
purebloods did a lot of business, how large amount of money flowed—and Harry was sure
there were tons of politics shenanigans happening behind the scene. The fact Mr. Malfoy
goes himself and doesn’t just send someone to pick up his teas for him with his wallet meant
it was much harder than just buying some products, Hell, even the fact that you had this one
chance to buy a year’s supply of something… it was clearly a high stakes and critical event.
He hadn’t even known something like this existed thirty seconds ago but he already
recognized this was a clear window into how a lot of pureblood society ran, and if he was
going to get farther in the world he needed to be part of it… preferably now.

It was 90% for the introduction to politics, the connections he’d be able to make and the
things he could learn by diving into something like this, but the other 10% was that it was
obviously also a really good opportunity to make some serious profit. The Potter name was
already quite wealthy, but he needed all he could get to be Minister someday, and it would be
nice if he didn’t just deplete his ancestor’s earnings, but also generated something to add to it
in his lifetime.

“That sounds really interesting actually… is it limited seating? Since it sounds restrictive.”
He asked immediately. Draco was probably right that he needed to visit this kind of event
first, and then prepare actively for the next chance he got. Draco could tell how eager he was,
but had already assumed he would be when he brought it up, so he just seemed vaguely
amused at his reaction.

“Not technically, but there are restrictions on the number of bidders. I think anyone can
attend, but you have to have an invite from the seller to actually bid, meaning you have to
have a connection to them somehow. You can’t just write to them outright asking to be
invited, someone has to refer you and then the seller will need to invite you of their own free
will any time there’s something to sell. Which also means you need to be a valuable buyer or
you’ll stop getting invites.”
“Wow,” That is some serious pureblood shit. Well, whatever, using it to my advantage for
now. “How hard is it to get a referral?”

“Not that hard, almost any pureblood could, and given you’re a Potter the benefits of being
the one to refer you would be better than whatever they could get from you.” Draco
shrugged.

A reputation boost, huh? That meant he really had to think about who he’d asked to give him
the reference. What an interesting power play—and he had all the cards for once!

Draco could see his mind going a mile a minute and offered him a sly smile.

“The main seller for this tea tasting is a Greengrass. Getting an invite isn’t the hardest thing
but you do need to trade a bit—it’s not that complicated though, so like interesting texts or
even just flat out money can buy you the invite. Events like this are mainly money generators
so it’s very common to just buy the invite, but it can be pricey to do it several times a year.
It’s not looked down upon to trade favors or artifacts instead though, only if it happens
occasionally.”

“So you buy the invite, buy the inventory, buy excess inventory if necessary to ensure you
keep getting chances to buy more invites later… the Greengrass family really has the market
cornered, don’t they?”

Draco snorted, but had to agree. “On foreign imports, for sure. Tea in particular comes mostly
out of Asia—at least the stuff most purebloods bother buying is. Since that side of the world
is so isolated even in the magical world, you need to take the trip manually which really only
the Greengrass make a business of doing. Most families in Britain don’t even have a single
contact on that continent so they really can just do what they want in selling the goods.”

“Some monopoly,” Harry muttered, but he couldn’t help but be impressed. At least Daphne
was one of the most reasonable people he’d ever met: her deals weren’t outrageous and while
she always got an advantage out of her trades she never returned anything less than perfectly
fair for what was being exchanged. If that was the tendency of her whole family, who
obviously cultivated that reputation very much on purpose in order to secure safe business
partners, then Harry bought into it immediately. He’d drop quite a few galleons in the name
of securing his future political career with full faith whatever he bought from them was worth
the money.

“Tempted?” Draco prodded.

“Very,” He agreed instantly. “Unfortunately my plans come first so I’ll have to see what’s
happening over Easter closer to the date, but if I can make it I’d really like to check it out.”

“I thought you would,” the blond smiled. “So don’t worry about Yule… just enjoy your
break. We might still have Easter, and if not then guarantee there’ll be half a dozen gatherings
over the summer we could go to. Most probably won’t be for tea exactly but late summer is a
popular time for selling inventory.”
 Harry couldn’t help but feel a bit better at his reassurances, despite how many things Draco
didn’t know were wrong with that statement.

For one, if he couldn’t get Sirius out of prison by summer then he wasn’t going to be staying
in this country for long.

But… let’s not think about that for now. Maybe Sirius will be out by Easter and we can go
look at some fancy tea with Mr. Malfoy like it’s an actual break and we’re just kids hanging
out during our free time.

Or Hogwarts will close by Easter thanks to the monster turning kids to stone, and we’ll have
all the time in the world.

Harry shook those thoughts off quickly. He was definitely spiraling.

Instead he smiled pointedly and leaned into Draco side, trying to feel as cheerful as he
wanted to be right now.

“Thanks Draco… I think I’d really like that.”

Chapter End Notes

I've got a long list of songs for Harry and Draco, but for this chapter:

Love Someone: Lukas Graham

"If you love someone, you make room,"
 Scales
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

“Thank you again for doing this… I know you have like a hundred people competing for
your time right now, and some of them pay better.” Susan sighed, weakly slumping into her
notes in defeat.

She wasn’t wrong exactly since finals were almost upon them, and Harry’s ability in
Transfiguration made study time with him a very high-demand commodity. Which was nice
as it made him feel very wanted and popular despite the fact he was very aware people were
just using him for a better grade.

She was also very right in that Slytherins sure as heck did pay better, and while she wasn’t
very buddy-buddy with them in general, Susan was one of the few non-snakes who paid
attention and respected how that particular house operated. She probably took after Madam
Bones quite a bit in that despite being a Hufflepuff, she was very aware how the whole
politics and favor-trading thing worked and didn’t automatically hate them for it, merely
respecting the game for what it was despite not wanting to play herself. It was nice she
recognized that Harry could get quite a lot of things by trading his study time with the
Slytherins, but instead he was happy to spend time with non-Slytherins for free—or
friendship and the pursuit of knowledge, which the other three houses would appreciate a lot
more.

He laughed off her comment easily, stretching a bit since they’d been at this for quite a while
now. “Who says I’m not getting anything out of this?”

“You know I hate it when you do that.” She groaned, setting down her own quill too, thankful
for the break.

“Do what?”

“Scheme or whatever.”

“How am I supposed to get anything done without a scheme or two?” He defended himself
flippantly, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t a devious little shit when he wanted to be.
Susan was already very well aware of that fact, after all.

Truth was, despite how he liked the power trip of having pretty much everyone he knew beg
for his time, he also got tired of it really quickly. He had no desire to spend from dawn till
dusk studying, and no matter how much he liked Transfiguration, having the same
conversations about first, second, and third year level Transfiguration skills when he was
already several years ahead of that got so unbelievably boring.

Also, basics of supply and demand was that if there was low supply, the demand would be
even higher. With that in mind as they reached the homestretch of time before finals and their
professors started layering on the homework and prep-work for the exams, he’d very
purposefully pulled back on the amount of time he spent doing last-minute Transfiguration
lessons with people. At this point he was really only studying with his roommates (sans Ron,
obviously) and had a two hour mini-lecture of his own once a week in an empty classroom
with all his collected first years, of which he’d managed to gather some from all four houses,
including Lake and Alden representing the snake house as always. The constant exposure and
strict no-fighting environment Harry had cultivated during their time together seemed to
slowly but surely wear his little Gryffindors down and he was happy to say that at this point
they didn’t seem to care at all that they were sharing a classroom with Slytherins anymore.
They certainly weren’t friendly exactly, but being completely apathetic of each other’s
existence was a good first step.

In reality, most people who could plan ahead of time to think to ask him for help had already
gotten their time in—meaning Slytherin and Ravenclaw had already done study sessions with
him on spells that had given them trouble during the semester as they were learning them,
and no longer needed to binge their notes to prepare for finals (though the eagles definitely
were still doing that). He had put together nice little packets of relevant spells, easy
explanations, and references if needed that were quite handy if he did say so himself,
particularly as the twins happily helped him with a duplication spell to make dozens of copies
since that was a bit above his skill level in Charms. He’d handed them out to his first years
already, done a few last-minute favors with his year mates, and even had a third-year packet
for some upper years who were willing to swallow their pride and ask for them. He was
really thrilled that he even snagged a few third year Slytherins who paid extra in their trades
just to be sure he never let anyone know about it.

The packets meant he could still help people without needing to actually spend time studying
with everyone, so it was a win-win on all fronts. Neville was an angel who Harry would be
studying with on all subjects so he was immune to that arrangement, and he also owed Dean
and Seamus far more than he could ever truly pay them back for as they played mediators
between him and Ron, so clearly they were exempt as well. Draco probably would’ve been
an exception too, but he actually didn’t need the help—again, they’d studied together
throughout the semester and so he seemed to have his finals pretty much in hand; the blond
didn’t seem worried about it at all.

In fact, Draco seemed to be extremely preoccupied by something else entirely, something

Harry had originally assumed was the exams but that apparently wasn’t it given he had no
interest in studying with anyone right now, not just him. It felt like they hadn’t seen each
other in forever but he also didn’t want to disrupt whatever his friend had going on right now
as he obviously had his mind set to it. Since they weren’t going to see each other over break
Harry was just assuming he was working on a new scheme to fill the time and let him be for
now.

All in all, he wasn’t as busy as a lot of people assumed he’d be. He was studying his ass off
on his own subjects beyond Transfiguration since he was by no means a prodigy in anything
else, but he wasn’t accepting offers to study with anyone new right now unless the deal was
too good to pass up.
Studying with Susan now was a bit of a special situation, in that she was really struggling
with the Hystrifors spell, which was transfiguring a porcupine into a pin cushion. She could
actually do the spell decently well, but they were probably going to be quizzed on the theory
behind it too and she was struggling to wrap her mind around it despite having his notes
packet, having asked McGonagall for another explanation, and studying with her housemates
about it too. Some things just weren’t as easy to learn as others and he could tell she really
needed the assistance so he made an exception to help her through this one spell.

It was different than someone else asking because they wanted help—Susan had honestly
tried every other option available to her with no great success, so her ask was a bit more out
of need than convenience—with that in mind Harry was only too happy to be of service, this
time genuinely as a friend.

I mean… he would’ve done it for that reason alone, the power of friendship and whatnot…
but he also knew having Madam Bones on his side was going to be critical for, not just
saving Sirius Black, but pretty much every other goal in life he had right now. She was the
lady in charge of law enforcement and a fellow Dumbledore-hater, so maintaining an
immaculate relationship with the Bones family was high on his list of priorities.

He also loved Susan to bits, but he wouldn’t be the lion that almost got put in the snake house
if he didn’t keep that key fact in the back of his mind as he operated too.

He felt less bad about that mindset than if he’d had those thoughts about anyone else, since
he was fairly certain Susan also kind of realized he was in contact with her aunt more than he
was outright telling her. Nepotism was seen as normal in this world after all, and despite how
nice Susan was she was also a pureblood who probably didn’t think twice about using her
aunt’s connections as her own—nor would she think it that outrageous that Harry would use
their friendship to get close to her aunt if need be. Susan always seemed to be on her toes and
very conscious of who she was talking to at all times: she never excluded anyone but Harry
knew for certain that if she didn’t trust him or his scheming as he put it, then Madam Bones
would be getting a letter and all contact would cease without Susan actually needing to break
off the friendship herself.

It was in this dreadfully transparent dishonesty that he never bothered to hide that he was up
to something with her, despite never actually giving her the full picture of what it was. She
didn’t ask though, seeming content not to know—perhaps for now only, and one day she’d
come collecting. Harry would really have no way to lie to her when that day finally came,
though he trusted her enough at this point he would probably be okay telling her the truth
eventually.

Which was rare, he hardly told the truth if he could help it. But Susan was so solid and
discrete, the true definition of a reliable Hufflepuff, that he was sure his secrets would stay
safe with her even if she disagreed. They probably wouldn’t stay secret from Madam Bones
though, given how he’d seen them interact so far, but he thought he and the head of the
DMLE had very like-minded goals so that probably wouldn’t be the worst… so long as it
happened in the future, preferably when Sirius was free of Azkaban for good.

“I suppose if you weren’t scheming I’d be more concerned at this point.” She allowed.
“If I weren’t scheming I’d hope that would mean I’d finally reach inner peace. When that day
comes please congratulate me instead of reporting me to the authorities for being suspicious.”
He snipped and she rolled her eyes with a grin, the tension in her shoulders leaving some.
The struggle of studying this spell had clearly been getting to her when her genuine hard
work had not been yielding fruit; Harry couldn’t only sympathize.

“Still, thank you for doing this.”

“Your gratitude is making me blush. Maybe this is why I don’t do things without trading for
them—sheer embarrassment.”

“Embarrassed to be seen as a nice guy?” She challenged with a snicker.

“I dunno, I’ve never really considered if people think of me as nice or whatever. I care more
on if they think I’m a celebrity or an asshole—of which I’d like to be neither. If being seen as
overly nice means I can’t take people to task for being pricks though then I’m not sure being
nice is good for the image,” He ranted a bit, never really having given any of this thought
before.

What people thought of him?

… on the most part people who walked up to him with pre-conceived notions of who the
“Boy Who Lived” was, he immediately just didn’t have time for them. If they approached as a
friend he had never really thought twice about what they thought of him… he was usually
more concerned about if he liked them and if they were going to cause problems or not.
‘Were they a threat or a friend’ was the question at any given time, and that most he
considered what someone thought about him as a person were people like Draco and Neville.

He cared about his reputation because he knew Slytherin was watching him with a bloody
magnifying glass about things like that to see if he was worth letting sit at their table for
meals, but reputation never meant the same thing of if they liked him or not.

Prime example was Theo. Harry was pretty sure the quiet snake didn’t really dislike him as a
person, not even last year where he’d refused to speak to him—that front was all about that
bad rep he had in being THE Gryffindor according to the reputation that preceded him. He
knew for a fact that Blaise liked him a lot, but should he ever become of ill reputation, he was
sure he’d get dropped like a sack of potatoes in favor of survival.

Slytherin held his attention most days as they needed that attention—if he took his eyes off
the situation over there for a second he’d have sharks circling him immediately, since they
could smell weakness like a Great White could smell blood from leagues away. The other
houses though… they didn’t have nearly the same emphasis on reputation, what they had was
something closer to gossip that changed weekly with the wind. He cared less, or should he
say he was less wary of them and what they thought because nine times out of ten they’d get
over their whispering and juicy rumors if Harry just ignored it and made himself known in
each house by playing quidditch and football with them all like nothing was wrong. The
whole parselmouth thing had proven that pretty well.
Or, well, he thought he understood the situation until Susan’s expression got a little softer at
his words, like she was pitying him?

What’s that about?

She glanced around almost as if to double check they weren’t going to get overheard, since
they were in the Great Hall right now, but the other groups had self-distanced enough to give
everyone enough space to work independently. Hagrid had been making trips all afternoon to
put up the decorations and drag in each of the 12 Christmas trees one by one, and since
dinner was still a ways off and finals had everyone occupying every corner they could in
study groups, the Great Hall was a popular place as you could talk about topics with others
without feeling like you were intruding on people’s study space compared to if you were
trying to study with others in your dorm, the common rooms, or the library. Also a bonus to
studying here was that his tea cup was never empty or cold as he now knew Nodky was
keeping watch on him here so he could keep working always refreshed.

Happy the nearest group at the Hufflepuff table was far enough away to not be
eavesdropping, she gave him a sympathetic look that he did not understand at all.

“I hope you’re not taking what they say to heart.” She gave him a frown, tone clearly saying
she was here if he wanted to talk.

Harry though, just blinked at her.

“…what they say?” He repeated, not computing.

Why do I feel like they’re not saying nice things going by her tone?

She seemed to realize in an instant and her face dropped into a look of shock.

“Are you serious?” She demanded indignantly, taken aback.

“Um… Neville told me apparently if it’s not nice I have the superpower of being able to just
tune people out.” He admitted, and she rolled her eyes, sympathy disappearing in a huff so
she only looked exasperated now.

“Must be nice.” She complained in a tone that caught his attention, titling his head some.

“… are you taking what they say to heart?”

“’What they say’?” She repeated with another eye roll and he gave her that one.

“I mean I haven’t heard anything bad but going by that reaction I feel like I need to have a
conversation with someone.”

Susan gave an amused chuckle at that, but actually smiled at the (only half joking) offer.
Even if that smile was kind of sad looking… so he shut up and let the silence speak for itself.
She eventually worked up to get what was clearly bothering her off her chest.

“…don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I envy the Slytherins.” She admitted with a slight wince.
“Eh?” He blinked again. “That’s completely not what I was expecting you to say. Not sure
what I was expecting but it definitely wasn’t that.”

All she could do was shrug a bit. “I wouldn’t tell this to any other Gryffindor but of all people
I’d think you’d get it.”

“I guess,” He allowed, not really seeing how she could be just randomly jealous. He did like
the snakes, obviously, but he hadn’t ever sat there and earnestly wished he’d been in their
house instead or ever regretted his decision to be in Gryffindor.

Which was encouraging to realize actually, as people had been making a lot of comments
about how he should’ve been in the snake house these days. It was honestly kind of
refreshing to realize that he himself did not for a second think he was actually wrong to be in
Gryffindor, which was a surprisingly well-adjusted attitude he didn’t expect from himself.

Huh.

Susan was obvious to his internal revelation here as she frowned, putting words to her own
struggles as she confessed, “Sometimes, it’s hard to tell if people even care about what
they’re saying. Like, they’re nice or friendly but also… are they talking because they’re
being friendly or do they actually want to, like, talk?” She ranted a bit, and yeah it really did
feel like a guilty confession so Harry just shut his mouth and nodded along. “Slytherins never
say anything unless they really mean it. Even if maybe it’s not nice or they sit in silence… at
least when they do say something it’s because it means something to them.”

She clearly hadn’t spent a lot of time with Blaise, which was, you know, good for her mental
health so he wasn’t going to bring that up. Instead:

“Trust me there are some nonsensically chatty snakes over there, but yeah, I do think I get
what you mean. Not a big fan of pointless small talk, huh?” He allowed.

“Not really.” She slumped into her notes a bit listlessly.

“If you wanted to talk about more serious stuff…?”

“That’s not it either, I don’t have some big troubles to share or anything. I’m sure if I really
needed to talk through something serious or had some trouble my housemates would be more
than happy to support me, which I’m thankful for… I just wish normal conversation had
more weight than it feels like they do.”

He did get that somehow… Gryffindor did talk a lot with nothing really important coming
out of it most of the time. It was fun and ‘nice’ and all that, talking about essentially nothing
like chatting about today’s classes or recent quidditch news, whatever was in the paper or the
weather…

Honestly, when put into perspective like that, Harry could not name what his dormmates had
talked about at breakfast last week—it was literally gone from his memory for good now, as
it had not been important enough to remember something like that. They’d probably talked
about the football season being on pause because of the snow, probably about their
homework given its notable increase lately… but the specifics? Harry couldn’t repeat them if
he tried.

But he could recall literally every word said at the Slytherin table for lunch two weeks ago, as
Daphne had spilled a lot of critical information about some pureblood drama that Harry
suspected he would one day care about if he ever attended a tea tasting or something like that.
Also, the witty banter between her and Blaise was one of his favorite past times from how
clever it was, so the whole thing had stuck with him. Words within the snake house just had
this… as Susan put it, weight that other daily conversations didn’t.

Not that he wouldn’t have gone insane if that’s all he did, should he have been put in
Slytherin. Sometimes he liked talking about nothing and just being chill with people without
it needing to be so critical all that time… which was probably why he split his time between
the two houses as much as he could, to mix it up maybe.

“Maybe that’s petty.” She misinterpreted his silent pondering over that as judgement, but he
waved her off quickly.

“It’s not wrong though.” He acknowledged genuinely. “I think Slytherins come to mind
because they’re a bit backhanded—everything they say has double meanings and they
consider it a sport to say one thing and have it mean multiple other things. Maybe you’re
picking up on that.”

“Even if I tried to replicate that, it means little if no one else picks up on it.” She complained
lightly, and speaking of schemes… he really couldn’t help himself as he got an idea.

“True… but instead of wishing something different of your current friends, you could just
add some friends to your arsenal who would.” He offered as diplomatically as he could, and
she blinked at him this time.

“What?”

“I’m saying, why don’t you get some Slytherin friends if you’re craving some mental mind
games?” He grinned and she stared at him like he’d grown another head.

After a brief pause to absorb that:

“You say that like I can just pick up friends at the store.” She said it in a deadpan but Harry
could tell she was partly amused too. He shrugged.

“I mean that’s what I do. Just go up and adopt one of them, trust me it works great.”

“Why do I just not believe you?”

“What about Daphne?”

Susan almost did a full double take before her face flickered some. “Greengrass huh…”

“You play against each other all the time in the football club, don’t you? If she’s a worthy
rival surely she’s a worthy friend right? And Davis hates me but I have a suspicion she’ll at
least give you half a chance if you’re on good terms with Daphne. You not being a Gryffindor
means you’re already way ahead of me in making them like you!”

She looked like she was honestly tempted by this suggestion, but then suddenly shot him an
exasperated look at that last part.

“See, this is why I don’t trust you—‘making them like you’ is not how people typically talk
about making friends.”

“Excuse me, the results speak for themselves! You’re my friend right?”

She gave the mother of all eye rolls and sent a very clear message about what she thought of
that.

“Oh, I highly doubt I would’ve given you the time of day if Hannah didn’t have a massive
crush on you last year.”

Wait what?

He did his own double take that time as… that made no sense, did it? Susan paused too as she
realized he had no immediate response to that and froze.

“… excuse me?” He asked. Not so much because he hadn’t heard but more… because what?

Her face flushed as she balked, getting angry but clearly because she was now completely
mortified she’d let slip something he didn’t already know.

“How the hell do you not notice these things!?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do not tell her that I was the one who told you that! Also she got over it like immediately so
this is dead news! Don’t get worked up over it!” She explained before forcibly dropping her
voice into angry whispers less they be overheard, still blushing hard as she realized she’d
slipped up.

“Oh my god,” He was just… flabbergasted.

Maybe he was kind of flattered, but honestly he was more just shocked.

Hannah had always just been his friend… although in hindsight, them trying to just watch the
football club from the sidelines last year rather than participate until he’d forced them by
ultimatum suddenly made a lot more sense.

Susan suddenly got over being embarrassed and gave him a very critical warning look. “You
don’t have to look like she’s the last girl on earth you would’ve ever considered liking, you
know.” She defended her best friend and he fixed his face immediately even if was just
bottling up the reaction instead.
“Sorry, that’s not what I meant. I do like Hannah— as a friend is all! Literally has never
crossed my mind to date anyone to be honest, it’s not about her specifically!”

“I’ve seen you flirt with a Slytherin or two though.” She pointed out in a near disapproving
tone, but she just made his world shift to the left five degrees.

“Excuse me?” He exploded once again, unable to bottle that reaction up for sure. She sighed
a very world-weary sigh, putting her face in her hands.

“Why are you like this.”

“What!? Susan what? If you’re talking about Blaise then it’s a complete joke, you do know
that right!?”

“Zabini? No, stop, I don’t want to know,” She snapped her head up in alarm before
immediately deciding against following that line of conversation. “You’re telling me you
don’t even have a crush on anyone right now?”

“I’m twelve?”

Why did that come out as a question?

He shook it off immediately.

“I figured there’d be an ‘eventually’ for that kind of stuff but uh, no?” He defended himself.
He’d really been underestimating how much girls talked about this stuff apparently.

He also did not understand the look she was giving him.

“Well… if you ever do figure it out you have to tell me who you’re crushing on because I’m
dying to know what your type is.”

“Susan what?”

“It’s a girl thing.” She shrugged like his shock meant nothing to her.

“Okay? I guess?” He just went with it, mind too frazzled by that many shocks in a row to
really absorb any of this. “What is even happening right now?”

“As fun as this is, we’re really off topic. Going back to this spell really quickly… be honest
with me, what are my chances on it?” She changed the subject rather tactlessly, which he
didn’t appreciate because he had a lot of questions right now… but also, something told him
he was probably happier not knowing, so he let it drop with a reluctant grunt to announce his
displeasure.

“Fine… so far as your chances? It really depends on what the question they ask is. Luckily
for you though…” He turned around the parchment he’d been writing on while she took
notes and slid it in front of her, and Susan wilted a bit when she realized.

“That hopeless, huh?”

He gave a little shrug. “I’m pretty sure you’d get it eventually, but you’ve got other classes to
study for and spending so much effort on one spell seems like a waste. At this point just cut
your losses and flat out memorize that instead.”

He had done enough poking around McGonagall to know generally what kind of question
they were going to be asked about this question, meaning how to compare the theory of how
it worked to other animal-based transfiguration spells. Susan really had put in the effort to try
and learn this but sometimes it wasn’t that easy… and she could do the spell just fine, so this
muddling over theory wasn’t going to be that important for her in life in general. She’d put in
her dues and it just hadn’t yielded results so he was fine simply handing her the answer she
could memorize for the exam instead of wasting brainpower on this one sticking point. He’d
been sure to copy the wording she’d been using as they talked about this too, so it wouldn’t
sound like his words. He was pretty sure McGonagall wouldn’t notice as he had a rather
distinct method of writing at this point and he’d paired the paragraph he’d just handed to
Susan way down to make it realistic it’d come from her instead.

Besides, with the amount of his notes floating around Hogwarts, he was 100% sure
McGonagall would notice those he’d helped study compared to those producing entirely
unique essays. Since she knew Harry and Susan were friends it would only make so much
sense that Susan was probably regurgitating something Harry had told her during one of their
study sessions. He was sure people like Seamus and Dean would also have quotes of
something Harry had said in their essays, just because that’s how they learned some of their
Transfiguration principles, which meant if everyone was clearly pulling from his knowledge
then Susan would blend right in and not be overtly noticeable copying him instead of citing
him. It was only one question after all.

She slumped but accepted it, hanging her head in defeat. “You’re right… thank you for this.”

“No problem at all! Sorry to not be of more help.”

“It’s a me-problem at this point. I’m not sure why I can’t wrap my head around it,” She
pouted, but did seem relieved to finally close her notebook, hiding the parchment within its
pages for safe keeping.

“Some things are just like that… I mean, I’ve got Transfiguration down, but don’t ask me
how my Charms final is going to go,” He sighed dramatically and she smiled a bit more
reassured at that.

They finished gathering their things now that the session was silently being called to an end,
Susan stretching some pointedly while he packed his books away, keeping an easy pace as
they left the Great Hall. He leaned back, putting his hands behind his head as they made their
way back through the castle, but it felt nice to have nothing urgent to do anymore, work done
and now it just being a matter of what kind of play they wanted to do.

“You know, you never really answered me about whatever they are saying about me that I’ve
apparently missed.” He pointed out.

“Do you really want to know? Aren’t you happier not knowing?”
“Depends… how bad is it?”

“Hmmm… knowing you, maybe not that bad? If you actually cared about this kind of stuff
that would be new.” She suddenly let out a laugh, seeming amused by her own realization.
“Actually, maybe I shouldn’t tell you more for their safety than your feelings.”

He instantly figured it out.

“Let me guess, it’s the anti-Slytherin sentiment that really freakin’ hates me because I have
breakfast with them sometimes?”

“That’s pretty much it. I’ll spare you the specifics of the nasty things I’ve heard they’re
saying, but essentially it sounds like a group of upper-year Gryffindors aren’t thrilled about
you in general. And yeah, mostly about the Slytherin thing.”

“If they wanted Harry Potter the celebrity then I can’t say I’m that upset I disappointed
them.” He made a face and she just gave him a vaguely amused look like she had expected
that.

“I’m not entirely sure what their exact problem is. The fact they haven’t just confronted you
is a little weird, given I would’ve thought that’d be Gryffindor’s thing.” She admitted.

“Honestly me too… maybe they’re just hoping the rumors or whatever will get to me
eventually?”

“Joke’s on them given you didn’t even notice until I flat out told you. And I’m not even in
your house!”

She snickered and he had to smile at that, even if it was a hit to his ego somewhat.

“I had always figured I had no power with the upper years… like our classmates sure, and I
can bully first years into playing nice, and even the twins are great allies to have in the
fourth-year area… but older years who’ve already spent most of their time at Hogwarts
picking on Slytherins until there isn’t just prejudice but genuine bad blood between them
probably wouldn’t ever really work.”

Susan turned from where they were walking to give him a genuinely perturbed frown.

“You’ve actually given it that much thought?”

“Of course! The goal is to be at peace here, and I can’t be at peace if everyone around me is
hexing each other. Also my Slytherin friends would not be nearly so chill if like, Seamus
sitting right next to me was going around calling them slimy snakes or something, so getting
everyone on board was always the plan.”

“I didn’t realize it was a real conspiracy here, you schemer.” She grumbled.

“A conspiracy of one, but yeah whatever.” Harry waved her off uncaringly. “You can’t judge
me, you’re benefitting from it too! It’s not just Gryffindor and Slytherin, although they’re the
worst for sure, but you hanging out with Lu and being free to sit at the Ravenclaw table is
also a side effect of me deciding house lines were bullshit you know. You wouldn’t even
know he existed if not for the football club given he’s in a different house and a year older.”

“I suppose I can’t argue that.” She allowed a bit grudgingly. “Well, in any case…. how much
specifically do you want on these rumors exactly?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like… you want to know, but how many details? There’s anti-Slytherin sentiment of course
but…” She trailed off pointedly.

He pressed his lips together as he considered it but… as negative as it’d probably be, he
wanted to know. And it was probably better to hear it from someone who represented the
general Hogwarts student body better than someone like Blaise while he had the chance.

“The short version, if there is one.” He decided.

“Well, it sounds like they’re not really over the ‘you being a parselmouth’ thing. Given the
timing with this chamber opening and also learning about your ability, they think it too
obvious or suspicious.”

He sighed, but even he could see how that had happened.

“I mean, I never hid the fact I could talk to snakes, I literally didn’t know that wasn’t a
normal wizarding-world thing until Draco pointed it out.”

“We know.” Susan just shrugged it off. That was right, they’d talked about it in the football
club when it had happened, so most people who were familiar with him on some level
already knew it wasn’t some grand secret to him, it just so happened to have worked out that
way. The fact the timing was so close to the chamber thing was… unfortunate, but if he were
to be the culprit, letting that information get out would’ve been a really bad play as it’d do
exactly what these upper years fell for: tie him too closely to the Slytherin bloodline.

Luckily most people had reached their own assumption that being a parselmouth wasn’t
actually tied to being Slytherin’s descendant before the ‘Slytherin’s heir’ warning was written
in blood on the wall, so even if it had crossed some people’s mind how ironic or suspiciously
related those two separate events were, they hadn’t voiced it.

Except these upper years, obviously.

He was happy they didn’t seem to be getting much steam in the rumor mill with this
perspective, but he wanted to be sure to discredit them if he could.

“I thought the idea of the Chamber of Secrets actually being opened was still up for debate
though? Like Slytherin itself thought it was a hoax given writing in blood on the wall is
frankly a lion thing to do for how dramatic it was.”

“Not to Marcus Flint.” Susan just gave a simple shrug and Harry pinched the bridge of his
nose in exasperation.
“God damn Flint… you do know his own house hates him, right?”

“I picked up on that, yeah. Upper year Gryffindors who are forced to share classes with him
while he’s going on and on about how Slytherin’s monster is gonna get all the filth apparently
did not pick up on that.”

“So he’s running his fat mouth and his year Gryffindors are now of the belief that this
mythical chamber has opened and that Slytherin’s heir is running around siccing a monster on
muggleborns?”

Susan gave him a pointed look.

He balked but then burst out laughing.

“Oh my god, they think it’s me!?”

“Yep.”

“The hell?”

“You’re a parselmouth, seems to be all the explanation they need. They’re clearly of the
camp that you have to be Slytherin’s descendant to have that skill.”

He snorted bluntly, but he had to give them an ounce of credit there.

Technically, they’re not wrong. No one knows about that though, and it was clear Blaise did
that on purpose so I’ll let it be for now. It helps me right now in any case as it splits people—
if everyone knew I was actually distantly related to Slytherin then their horrendous theory
that I’m this ‘heir’ would get far more traction than I’d like.

With that being said, he decided to lie instead.

“I’m not saying they’re right, but I guess I do see how they logic-ed that one out. Stupid as it
is there’s a train of thought there I suppose.”

“They also think that’s why He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named couldn’t kill you.”

“Eh?” His head snapped around to her in surprise, but relaxed when she didn’t seem that
bothered by it, merely relaying news she’d heard without being concerned over it. That was
good… it had even less credence than their Slytherin’s heir theory then.

“That you already has some dark and twisty power protecting you from his dark and twisty
power or something.” She elaborated, but even as she said it, Harry could tell she thought it
was just as ridiculous as she was making it sound.

On one hand, he’d never heard anyone speculate about how he’d survived the dark lord as an
infant, so it was kind of a shock to hear something like that brought out of nowhere.

On the other hand… that was a pretty fucking ridiculous theory. If he had some dark and
twisty power that was strong enough to vanquish a dark lord, then why the hell did a bunch
of muggles give him so much trouble?

He couldn’t help but laugh loudly, perhaps slightly hysterically at the ridiculousness of it all.

“I take it all back, they’re dumb as trolls.” He decided loudly for Susan and the empty hall
around them to hear.

She gave a gentle laugh of her own when she saw he wasn’t offended by any of this. “Luckily
they seem to be a loud, and frankly ignored minority. Most people who’ve actually met you
and talked to you for three seconds would know that if you had control of this monster you’d
immediately use it to kill whoever actually attacked Colin.”

“Excuse me?” He was about to be offended before she locked him with another look. He
suddenly realized her point and immediately gave in. “Okay that’s a fair. I’d like to think I
wouldn’t kill them… but turnabout’s fair play, I’d totally petrify them if I could.”

“Figured.”

“What exactly is my reputation again that everyone thinks I’m that violent?”

“You bully first years as a hobby.”

“Why does everyone keep bringing that up!? I also teach them Transfiguration and dueling!”
He exclaimed jokingly.

“That doesn’t balance anything out you know; life is not a game of scales. You can’t do
something bad to someone and then also something good and expect them to cancel out.”

He had to pause—as in, physically stop walking for a moment— and tilt his head to the side
as that hit home with him.

…huh.

“What a blunt way to put it.” He complained, immediately wincing as he put together that…
perhaps he thought a bit too much like that in trying to ‘make things up’ to people sometimes.

Remus… Neville… Draco… Seamus, Dean, Hagrid, even Susan right here and right now—
anyone he’d ever wronged or lied to he’d always told himself he’d ‘make it up’ to them one
day or by doing ‘this’ or… any manner of things. Some mythical day when he had control of
his own life and could get things he wanted or things he thought others would want in the end
too, if only they could silently forgive his dishonesty and lies by omission…

He shook it off quickly, realizing those were some dark thoughts he’d start spiraling into if he
didn’t keep it light for today.

“Realizing some things?” Susan teased, ignorant of the slight crisis she’d triggered and he
only just barely managed to squash.

“Shut up.” He made a show of petulantly pouting but was relieved when she let it go easily,
not sensing his hesitation there. The fact they’d stopped walking for a moment caused Susan
to actually look at there they were standing though and did a double take.

“Wait a second, where are we going?” She suddenly realized their aimless direction while
they were chatting.

“Gryffindor tower?”

She blinked and then looked at him… and blinked again.

“Okay, but why am I going to Gryffindor tower? I’ll head back and see you later then,” She
made to turn around but he instantly looped his arm around her’s and made a show of pouting
—none of which she bought for a second.

“Noooo Susan come oooon—we just studied for hours let’s play a game of exploding snap or
something!”

“In Gryffindor tower!?”

“Why not?” He gave her his best devilish grin and she made a hard face.

“We just talked about upper years hating you for not being lion-like enough and you invite
me right into the den? You really do have a few screws loose, don’t you?”

“No, you said they hated me for being too chummy with Slytherins, and you’re not a
Slytherin! What the honest to god hell would they have to say about me being friends with a
Hufflepuff?” He demanded.

“I really don’t think you get the nuances here. The implication was they hate you for being
chummy with Slytherins, but you not keeping to your house in general doesn’t earn you a lot
of points with anyone.”

“With anyone?”

She paused, and allowed a slight correction. “With Gryffindor.”

Harry had to slump some, because he’d kind of expected that answer but at the same time…
it was one of those things is wasn’t ignorant of, he just really, really didn’t want to pay it any
attention in hopes it’d just go away.

“…am I actually that stupid or have I never really noticed how isolationist Gryffindor is?”

She relaxed, giving him another pitying look. “I mean… no one likes to think they’ve got
prejudice or that they share something in common with their enemy. Both Slytherin and
Gryffindor are pretty isolationist, yeah, said from the perspective of an outsider. I’ve never
had any trouble talking to a Ravenclaw but… you’re by far the friendliest Gryffindor I know.
Everyone else kind of keeps to their own little in-house cliques.” She admitted, and seemed
genuinely uncomfortable with needing to say it.

‘Friendly’ probably wasn’t the right word. The lions had a great reputation of being ‘the good
guys’, but they didn’t actually mix out-of-house any more than Slytherin did. You could have
a conversation with a lion and they come away thinking you a great person, but they wouldn’t
pick a non-lion as their best friend or invite them to meals or do anything more than have
some small talk-level conversations every now and then.

The football club had been going a long way for that, but in hindsight even Dean and Seamus
didn’t really hang out with Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs now that the season was paused due to
the snow. They’d chat for hours about upcoming games but hadn’t exactly seen them in a
Ravenclaw study group this month. They were definitely in their own little bubble, and Harry
had an unkind thought to wonder if that’s why they were putting so much effort into Ron
instead of bluntly ignoring his existence like Harry did—he was still a Gryffindor, so even if
they didn’t like him they were trying to make it work.

Family before everything else, and Gryffindor had this unspoken ideal that their loyalty to
each other was more familial in nature than other houses. No matter the conflict, you sucked
it up and forgave each other because you were all Gryffindors and that meant more than
anything else in the end.

But Harry was also blood related to people like Salazar Slytherin and Petunia Dursley—and
honestly he didn’t know which one was worse. He knew next to nothing about his father
other than that he played quidditch and was a prankster, while Dell Monroe felt like a long
lost sister to him through her journals.

The blood purists in the snake house might clutch their pearls to hear him say it, but blood
ties meant nothing to him.

Words like ‘family’ meant nothing unless you gave it meaning. This… unspoken expectation
that he had to put effort into anyone just because they were ‘one of them’ itched at the
defensiveness he always got when people tried to boss him around like a bad case of poison
ivy.

Ironically, his rejection of ideas like blood and family would probably have both Gryffindor
and Slytherin mad at him. Maybe he found that deeply amusing in a dark way, but he
wouldn’t go talking about this too openly in either snake or lion dead.

Luckily he was talking to a badger who was much more straightforward than most of his
other friends.

“Lame.” He decided bluntly, and true to his suspicions Susan just laughed softly at his
reaction. “But I mean it’s not like anyone would put up a huge fuss to see you there, right?
Come on, play a round of exploding snap at least!”

Susan had softened slightly over the course of this conversation, but he could tell she wasn’t
that swayed. Instead, she got a glint in her eye.

“I mean… I might say yes to a game or two but we don’t have to go to Gryffindor exactly if
you wanted to—”

“Wotcher there Harry!” A bellowing voice caused them both to jump a bit, needing to move
immediately from where they were standing blocking the hallway to make way for a huge
form that came round the corner suddenly. Hagrid, who’d been in and out all day carrying
those big Christmas trees and other decorations into the castle, came bustling by in a huff
holding yet another load…

Although Harry had to do a double take in disgust for a second.

“Oh my god Hagrid—why are you carrying around a bunch of dead chickens!?” He
exclaimed, and the giant man paused in whatever mission he’d clearly been on to give a
crumpled look.

“Oh, somethin’s been killing my roosters all year and I’ve ‘bout had enough! Gonna see if
Flitwick has a charm or so ta catch the little bugger,” He complained, certainly looking upset.

“Did you need to bring the dead rooster with you to show him?” Harry half joked, indicating
the iridescent feathers falling to the floor around them, but surprisingly Susan piped up.

“I mean a fox or some predator would’ve eaten them right? That’s not even bleeding.” She
pointed to the dead bird in the groundkeeper’s hand, seeming very unperturbed by the sudden
scene for someone not that familiar with Hagrid herself.

“Aye, tha’s what’s been botherin’ me—it’s been happening’ in broad daylight and I’d figure
if it were some other critter tha’s just the way life goes, but I’m pretty sure these poor fools
‘ave been strangled like someone’s gonna cook ‘em up,” He complained, certainly sounding
like a toddler upset his toy had been broken… if he were eight feet tall and talking about
murdering chickens while holding their corpses.

“Wait, you think it’s a person?” Harry startled. Particularly because, given their conversation
topic just now, the only other animal killer of recent history had gone after Mrs. Norris and
could also somehow petrify things apparently.

Susan, for some reason, was much less surprised.

“I mean, it’s a rooster. If it were waking people up at ungodly hours, sleep deprivation can do
crazy things to people. I can empathize although I probably wouldn’t resort to killing them.”

“Holy shit Susan—are you serious?” Harry gaped at her, but she could only shrug.

“There’ve been some incidents in Hufflepuff caused by some serial snorers. Don’t ask.”

“Like hell, I’m absolutely going to ask,” He exploded but she pointedly ignored him.

Hagrid seemed a bit perturbed by this conversation too, seeming to lose some of his steam in
marching towards Flitwick’s office. “Ah… perhaps I should be askin’ Sprout for her input
then,”

“I’m not saying it is a person, just that I wouldn’t be surprised!” Susan defended herself and
her house, although a lot less aggressively than one might think. “Roosters are really
annoying Hagrid, maybe ask one of the professors to put a silencing charm on the next batch
you have.”
“Silence them to save their lives? I had no idea you were so brutal,” Harry could not believe
this conversation, but for some reason he was enjoying it immensely. Particularly when Susan
gave him an annoyed look for his teasing.

“You are not one to talk, jerk. The whole school saw you stab Malfoy with needles,
remember?”

“Point taken, but that was legal in a duel and murdering Hagrid’s pets is a bit bigger of a deal
than a detention—isn’t that a literal crime?”

“Not technically if it was self-defense.”

“Self-defense from a rooster?”

“They’re pretty aggressive you know.” Susan shrugged matter-of-factly. Harry hated to admit
she had a point, and Hagrid specifically had a history of owning dangerous pets, one such
incident technically ending in his expulsion of Hogwarts so there was no way that would hold
much water as an argument.

Not that Susan knew that, but Harry was suddenly reminded sometimes that Madam Bones
was pretty much the entire wizarding world’s sense of justice and her niece had clearly
inherited a strict and clear understanding of how the law worked in this magical society. He
struggled to argue against her when she got like this.

Still, he crossed his arms over his chest half playfully.

“Susan, did you kill the roosters?”

“What!? No!” she shouted at him, instantly realizing what he was doing by his smirk and
punched him in the shoulder. Which actually really freaking hurt, he realized as he had to
clutch it harshly to fend off the incoming bruise. “You asshole! No I didn’t kill them, I’m just
saying it you want to catch whoever did it or at least stop it from happening, any professor
could put silencing charms on them next time and Professor Flitwick also probably knows a
ward or something to track who enters your property, or at least your chicken coop Hagrid,”
She explained, and the giant man seed to follow that… somewhat. He didn’t seem 100% sure
on if they were joking around with that conversation but then decided to believe that they
were, and accepted her words instead.

“I’ll go speak ta Filius then— thanks you two! Good luck with the exams if I don’ see ya
before then,” He cheered as he continued his journey.

“Thanks Hagrid!” Harry called but sighed a bit at the reminder of the dreaded week ahead of
them. He immediately yelped when Susan gave him a sharp kick to the shin once more for
good measure. “Sorry, sorry! I just thought it was funny you were so chill about murdered
chickens is all!”

“Baseless accusations like that aren’t cool, you know how the rumor mill works around here,”
She huffed.
Harry couldn’t deny that given his own position with the upper years of his own house, but
thought they were safe enough given it was just them an Hagrid for that… although she did
have a point, Hagrid had a habit of repeating things he may or may not fully understand.
Should he go repeat any of that conversation given he’d clearly missed all the subtext and
sarcasm, that could cause some nasty rumors to appear…

Huh… and Harry had been getting pretty cocky in his ability to choose his words carefully
these days. Maybe that was a bit of misplaced confidence.

“Sorry,” he apologized more sincerely. “Do you really think it’s a person killing them
though? Given the other pet killed we know of was the infamous one that hurt Mrs. Norris.”
He pointed out, and Susan sighed a bit.

“Honestly who knows. With the chicken thing the best bet Hagrid has is to set up a ward and
catch them in the act next time. Aside from Veritaserum there’s not a lot of good ways to
properly convict someone of something they’ve already gotten away with.”

“Wait what? So if I get away with something no one can retroactively punish me for it?” He
frowned and she shot him a wary look.

“I mean… there are ways but it’s difficult. The most pivotal are witness accounts, which is
why baseless accusations are the bane of my existence,” She pierced him with a glare which
he put his hands up in surrender at. “If someone is accused of a crime, and there’s no proof of
the crime itself, the first thing to lean on is witness accounts of what they saw happen. If
that’s enough to convince the court then the Veritaserum is brought out and it’s proven or
not.” She explained. “But we don’t have any idea who or what killed those chickens, so
without someone to accuse there’s not much we can do since no one saw anything or even
knows if someone did kill them or not.”

Harry felt a twitch in his brain at how wildly this world’s justice system worked.

“What’s Veritaserum if it’s the end all be all?”

“It’s a truth potion, but one of the most powerful in existence. It’s only legally used in a court
setting to get confessions from people put on trial. There’s a ton of arguments around it since
it’s a magic that takes people’s will away and forces them to out themselves, like some other
nasty dark curses that exist, so it’s only used when absolutely necessary if a judgement can’t
be obtained through other means.”

“So… it’s dark magic. But because the Ministry uses it they don’t call it that.” He pointed out
and she did a sharp double take, looking disturbed.

“Excuse me?”

Oops… she’s a snake sympathizer but is not actually Slytherin enough to buy into that logic…
duly noted.

“Er, never mind—it just sounds like it would solve a lot of issues legally and stuff if you
could get people to confess that easily.” He deflected.
“It’s not ‘that easy’—Veritaserum can only be made by potion masters, it’s pricy and needs to
be secured from tampering to be admissible in court. Then there’s the ethical reasoning—it’s
one thing if someone asks for it to prove their own innocence but if you force it on someone
who doesn’t want it, where does that leave you?”

“I think I’ve had worse potions forced on me than one that makes me honest for a couple
hours.” He deadpanned, earning himself another glare that he wasn’t taking this seriously.
Thing was, he certainly was very invested in this conversation, for deeply personal reasons.
“And seriously, what does cost or ethics matter compared to the general safety of the world in
ensuring real criminals end up punished for their crimes? And for that matter, ensure innocent
people don’t end up in Azkaban.”

Susan stared at him, uncomprehending.

“What do you mean innocent people? Innocent people would ask for Veritaserum and that
would be that. Innocents don’t end up in Azkaban.” She said with the utmost of confidence
that scraped at Harry’s very soul to see displayed in front of his eyes so blatantly.

He opened his mouth but immediately had to reel it in… Mr. Greengrass had said secrecy
was their friend until the time was right but… it was just so hard not to snap back as
aggressively as he wanted to. All his hackles were raised but he needed to take a breath and
realize her candor and assuredness in the justice of the world was not her fault—and half of
him didn’t want to ruin that belief for her either. Half of him really did, but the half of him
that cared about his friend and didn’t want to upset her so harshly on a random December day
like this won out.

With great difficulty he just barely managed to keep it to himself for the sake of his
supposedly innocent godfather.

He couldn’t just let that stupidly naïve statement go though.

“Given the court system seems to be a big game of ‘he said, she said’, how sure are you of
that Susan?” He demanded rhetorically and was going to leave it there even if she argued
more about it.

Which, surprisingly, she didn’t… or maybe not that surprisingly because Susan seemed
entirely stun locked by that statement and was just gaping at him like a fish that he’d actually
said that to her.

Sharp and clear view of the world indeed.. anything that muddled the scenery seemed to
paralyze her.

Harry felt only a little bad about it. The world was not black and white no matter how much
she believed, and also maybe wanted it to be.

He felt they were probably going to keep staring at each other for a minute or so as they
failed to figure where else to go with this conversation, but as he searched for something to
change the topic, they were suddenly interrupted once again by a sudden shriek from down
the hall.
Harry tensed, wand instantly in his hand before he realized it was just Peeves causing a
commotion one hall over.

Then he realized what the poltergeist was saying.

He was sprinting before he even fully realized what his body was doing, barely thinking
twice to following the screaming as fast as he could force his feet to hit the stone floor to get
there an instant quicker. He whipped around the corner and needed a second to absorb what
he was seeing but fuck when he did—

There was a student on the ground.

Nearly Headless Nick was floating seemingly above him, more still than any ghost Harry has
seen in this school thus far, and not reacting to the chaos going around him.

Peeves was zooming around the hall shrieking up a storm but distinctly not in the light
hearted way than he normally was.

And Alden Cork had whipped around to see the newcomer in the hallway, looking pale as
death but only slightly not so afraid to see that it was Harry who’d gotten there first.

“I—I d-didn’t—!?” He stammered, and Harry walked briskly to him and shoved him sharply
behind him to examine the situation further, wand still in hand and hackles raised for
whatever danger still lurked about.

Footsteps against the stone behind them preceded a sharp inhale of shock.

“Justin!” Susan had obviously followed him, recognizing the student on the ground. Now
closer and drawing Alden back from him… yeah, the Hufflepuff was definitely petrified.

Harry listened, but other than Peeves and Susan’s cries of alarm at what happened he heard
and sensed nothing in the hallway but them.

“Slytherin’s done it! Slytherin’s little monster did it! Bad little snake eating up the
muggleborns! Little monster, little monster!” Peeves was cackling in a maddening way and
Harry had the sharp urge to use his raised defenses to shoot a spell at the annoying pest—he
knew from experience it’d only make his annoying antics amp up though so just barely
refrained from attempting to hex him.

It was then that everyone else who had heard the poltergeist screaming finally caught up and
came to investigate. Students spilled into the hallway from wherever they’d been and started
screaming, the commotion as they realized someone else had been petrified immediately
becoming a crowd-control issue in minutes. Where had they even come from!?

“Justin!” Some Hufflepuffs clearly recognized their house member in despair, and Harry
realized he was getting a lot of looks and questions shot his way too.

“Everyone back off! Someone find a teacher!” He shouted and that seemed to shake some
sense into at least a couple people.
“What happened!?” An upper year Ravenclaw looked pale and almost afraid to come closer
—no one wanted to walk over the no man’s land where Justin was lying which put a weird
space between them.

“I don’t know, they were both like that when we got here,” He deflected, hating the way
people were looking up at Peeves as if only just realizing what he was saying and wanting to
get on top of whatever the fuck they were thinking. “The three of us were just walking—
Peeves shut the hell up! If you’re going to pick someone to blame then blame me!”

“H-Harry?” Alden squeaked behind him but Harry just took a step back to ensure the first
year was closer to his back and as far out of sigh as he could get him. Unfortunately he was
small for his year and Alden wasn’t, so it only partially worked.

The poltergeist above them seemed to pause at his words then got a truly demented look on
his face.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh the lion is a liar!? Little lion liar, little lion lair!” He teased annoyingly,
but Harry just rolled his eyes at the new name. Technically it was true and the piece of shit
wasn’t calling Alden a little monster anymore so it was an improvement.

Most people knew he was a lair anyway. What he was lying about was anyone’s guess though
and he wanted to keep it that way.

“Mr. Potter!”

Of all the teachers who could’ve reached them first, Harry was relieved it was McGonagall.
He was less relieved by the look on her face and knew that him being her favorite didn’t
mean shit when another student was petrified in the middle of the hall and she had a crowd of
students to deal with—but hey, at least it wasn’t Snape.

“Professor,” he greeted, taking her attention so it lay on him and not the first year behind him.
“We really don’t know what happened, I swear,” He pleaded with her and she gave him a
stern look before turning to the crowd.

“Everyone evacuate the area now! Prefects ensure the classrooms are empty and stand at the
end of the hall to turn people away. Everyone move it, now!” She commanded them sharply.
“Ten points from Ravenclaw for failing to follow orders—ten points from Gryffindor for the
same reason! Everyone move!” her point deductions got people in gear and just as fast as
people had started to gather they began to disperse—or more like flee to prevent their house
from losing the house cup before the day was out.

As she snapped to the crowd to clear the area around Justin, Harry grabbed Alden’s upper
arm and pushed him back towards Susan who half-caught him in shock.

“Harry what-”

“Take him back to the Slytherin dorm. Tell no one what you saw.” He ordered, as serious as
he’d ever been.
 They locked eyes for a second and he could see she wanted to ask.

He could see she was fundamentally against lying or deflecting or whatever the fuck it was
he was doing but—

But she grabbed Alden’s hand and then without a further word disappeared into the crowd
like they were fleeing McGonagall too.

Honestly, that was a huge gamble as Susan was the rule follower to end all rule followers
given her sense of justice. There was no reason she had to believe in him just then, much less
do something against what she considered objectively right without an explanation or even a
single good reason she should aide him in lying to a teacher.

He was thankful to her that she did it anyway. He owed her, big time for this.

She might not think life was a game of scales but either way, he definitely owed her one.

“Mr. Potter, follow me,” McGonagall focused in on him again with a sharp command as the
crowd situation got under control, and he straightened his posture in face of what was ahead.

“Yes Professor.”

Chapter End Notes

For some reason I have like ten songs for Susan because I love her but to name a few:

Lips are Movin: Meghan Trainor

W.I.T.C.H : Annapantsu
That’s My Girl: Fifth Harmony
 Weight
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Harry barely spent much time being surprised over how calm he was, to be left in
Dumbledore’s office by McGonagall as she went back to deal with Justin’s situation.

He had too many things racing through his head to waste time being upset or nervous,
because the next however-many-minutes this conversation took would be extremely critical
to a lot of things. He had never had a direct one-on-one conversation with the Headmaster
before, not counting last year after the Quirrell incident. Given the situation and his
headspace at the time, that interaction had barely counted towards anything and was sure
Dumbledore had dismissed most of his oddities back to whatever his preconceived notion of
‘The Boy Who Lived’ was.

He tried to get his thoughts in order and took a deep breath. He hadn’t been able to get back
to his graveyard since he’d locked everything away when Voldemort had clearly tried to get
in his head, but despite how little he’d been paying attention to that issue, he tried to center
himself and remember the techniques in Hermione’s book to calm himself.

First: compartmentalize.

This was not the man who’d condemned him to the hell on earth that was the Dursley’s. This
was not the man who’d abandoned him as a babe, the one who was blocking him getting out
of those muggle pigs’ pit-of-a-home.

No… Dursleys who? None of that had ever happened. He was not mad at Dumbledore, he
was just a bit unnerved to be meeting his school’s headmaster so suddenly like this.

He was a normal school boy who’d just seen something traumatizing. Alden and Susan had
been standing behind him sure, but they had nothing to do with this.

He had no clue who Sirius Black was and had never plotted a single scheme in his entire life.
He was a gutsy Gryffindor who thought first of himself and his friends—if ever he gave
much prior thought to anything, much less too deeply.

Yeah he sat at the Slytherin table, but Draco was his first friend he’d met at Diagon Alley—
Dumbledore already knew that as Hagrid had 100% told him. He was really good at
Transfiguration because McGonagall had 100% told him. He was friends with a lot of people
in different houses, because the paintings on the walls the twins and Mr. Greengrass had
warned about 100% told him about his activities no matter where he went.

He couldn’t avoid the things Dumbledore already knew for certain, but he could play into
them.
Dumbledore wanted ‘The Boy Who Lived’… that’s why he was even as involved as he was
in the first place, why he made the assumption he’d gone after the troll himself last year, why
teachers in particular always seemed surprised when he did something decidedly not lion-
like. Harry suspected Dumbledore was crafting this… reputation about him that only people
who actually saw him routinely in classes were starting to figure out wasn’t really that
accurate. Since their direct contact was thankfully minimal, Harry was banking heavily on the
fact the headmaster’s arrogance or pride would have him continuing to believe in the ‘Boy
Who Lived’ persona and letting all the tiny things he’d been seeing slide for now.

All Harry had to do, was not say or do anything that broke away from this person
Dumbledore clearly thought him to be—or maybe wanted him to be. There had been a lot of
high-caliber manipulation happening for years now to try and get the kind of light-minded
pawn, so he was sure Dumbledore would only be too happy to think himself successful if
Harry could only play the part right.

He was betting a lot of the hope the headmaster didn’t know about him running away from
the Dursleys this summer. Most of the time he spent in Diagon was under the cloak or with
Draco, and the old man didn’t have the eyes into the Slytherin families’ business enough to
know if Harry had been staying with Draco or not. If brought up he planned to outright lie
and say he’d stayed at Malfoy manor on permission of his relatives. He was fairly certain he
could get away with it as he now knew what the manor looked like to be able to slip in some
details, if asked themselves he was very sure Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy would agree to it just to
stick it to Dumbledore, and also as a wizard himself there was a good chance no one would
actually ask the Dursleys what had happened.

Who gives a fuck what a muggle thought, after all? No one in this world, that was for sure.
Dumbledore never asked the Dursleys if they’d wanted the ‘freak’ nephew over a decade ago
so little chance he’d have the decency to check in with them now. If he ever had for a second
he’d know about the cupboard and the shed so yeah, Harry was pretty sure he wouldn’t
actually ask about the Dursleys or his summer plans so he could put those concerns from his
mind for now.

The main thing he was hoping against all hope though, was that he had no idea about Sirius
Black or the trial happening. Obviously this old bastard had been interfering with Mr.
Greengrass’ plans, but as of now he was banking on the idea that Dumbledore thought Harry
had no idea what was happening, much less suspect he was involved. He’d done everything
he could to hide it, and maybe he’d intercepted Hedwig to know he’d contacted the Flammels
once, maybe he’d even intercepted enough letters to know about Remus… but he couldn’t
know about Sirius.

That was the one thing he had no back-up for. He’d taken too many risks before and now it
was time to see if that had cost him the battle temporarily… the only thing he could do was
play dumb.

What is the Gryffindor reaction? If the headmaster brought up Sirius Black… he should ask
who that is. If he got deflected, great… if he got any kind of answer, he needed to get angry
about the man who supposedly betrayed his parents. He could do angry—he was particularly
good at getting angry if he unleashed some of his restraint, so that wouldn’t be hard. Maybe
he could get angry enough Dumbledore would send him away—even better!

But no, all of that was superfluous nonsense—right now he was a normal second year
Gryffindor whose biggest concern was if he was going to get in trouble for finding Justin
petrified just now, that was his only concern.

To be honest, the only thing he had only a weak back-up plan for right now, was if Susan
ratted him out.

She’d agreed to play along in the moment, probably trusting he had a plan, but in time if the
plan worked out and it wasn’t in line with her sense of justice (like say Alden getting a
detention for it or something) there was still a chance she’d come forward with an eyewitness
account of what actually happened. And apparently those eyewitness accounts meant
everything in this world’s justice system, so he’d be properly screwed if that came to light.

It was a gamble to trust her but he was blatantly choosing to trust her anyway. Perhaps he
could appeal to the Hufflepuff in her, not to out him as a liar in the name of being a friend
like he was trusting her as a friend right now. He really hoped he could convinced her that
Alden being the culprit would make zero sense given how little he knew of the magical world
right now (four months ago he didn’t know what a Slytherin was, much less that he once had
a chamber to go writing about it on walls) and that pointlessly accusing him and getting him
involved would help no one.

Still, if she did rat him out, in the grand scheme of things him being proven a liar wouldn’t be
that bad. He could easily spin that to Dumbledore without breaking cover, claiming he only
did it to protect a friend… and his suspicion of Alden being a muggleborn in Slytherin mean
he felt particularly inclined to help this friend out specifically. That would just be him being
an impulsive Gryffindor who did something foolish to protect a comrade, which should tie
perfectly into the ‘Boy Who Lived’ persona… at least he hoped the headmaster would buy it.

He shook his head sharply, trying to center his thoughts.

Forget everything, focus only on the situation. I’m just a normal student who is worried
about me, or my friend, getting in trouble when we did nothing wrong. That’s it.

Someone actually attacked Justin just now, in broad daylight at that! That’s the real problem
here.

That’s right… the petrification monster had attacked again. That was totally something way
more important and relevant right now to bring up than any other topic.

“Thinking hard, Mr. Potter?”

He snapped his head up in alarm, heart leaping for a moment before he realized the shelf that
had spoken to him had a tattered looking lump of cloth that he recognized. The Sorting Hat.

He was a bit annoyed but kept it to himself, sighing away the scare that had been.
“I think you can guess the sorts of things I’m thinking about.” He deflected, and a rip in the
fabric opened to chuckle lowly.

“That I can. Bit of advice… relax, young man.” It said. Harry would’ve been even more
annoyed by the condescending nature of an old magical hat telling him to just relax when it
had no idea what he was going through right now…

But, in actuality… this hat had been inside his head before. And for some reason it didn’t feel
like the advice was to comfort him… it was actual advice, as in something he should do right
now for his own benefit. The hat’s rumpled cloth didn’t give anything away so far as a face
that he could read, but Harry certainly tried to understand before realizing he had nothing left
to lose at this point.

He pressed his lips together at the dubiousness of it all, but still took a deep inhale and tried
to focus.

The only thing he had to worry about, was if he was going to get in trouble for finding Justin.
That was it… everything else didn’t matter right now.

And then he repeated it a couple more times for safe measure.

He’d been so anxious while preparing for this conversation, now that he was sort of ready or
in a steady state… the waiting was getting to him. He glanced around the office curiously and
noted it was kind of impressive. So many books and random magical trinkets that could’ve
done anything… part of him worried at least one object in here was probably a recording
device or something to lull visitors in to a false sense of security but… there really wasn’t
anything he could do about that at the moment. He was so wrapped up in his paranoia that it
took him an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize there was a big ass bird looking
right at him from off to the side of the headmaster’s desk.

He felt a bit stupid not to have immediately noticed it given it was bright red… but after a
couple seconds of examining each other, he realized those red feathers were incredibly faded
and half were falling out. It hadn’t caught his preoccupied attention as it was dead still atop
its perch, the posture and how it weakly lifted its head belying that it was incredibly old.

That’s right… Harry had heard that Dumbledore owned a pet phoenix. This bird was a
phoenix? It seemed… rather lackluster honestly. Then again it wasn’t at it’s prime, who was
he to judge it when it was in this sorry state.

He wasn’t sure why he was surprised he kept his pet bird in his office, he always kind of felt
magical pets would have more free reign than this. That being said, it was super old, maybe
this was a personal choice on the bird’s part since flying seemed like an exhausting task for
such old wings.

The bird lifted its head suddenly, the most movement Harry had seen from it thus far, as if it
could hear his internal rambling thoughts and took him up on that challenge.

Unfortunately, it accepted the challenge by bursting into flames.

Harry let out a shout of alarm and skittered back several steps to get clear, heart hammering a
million miles and hour in his chest at the frightening turn of events.

Oh my god the bird caught fire!?

“Harry?”

A rasping voice startled him once more, double so as he was also watching a bird crumble to
flames before his eyes right now as he whipped around to see the headmaster himself
entering his office.

“P-professor!” He got out, frankly completely thrown when ten seconds ago he’d been so sure
he could handle this. “Your bird—I—there was nothing I could do--!?” He gestured wildly to
the situation, awkwardly trying to convey what the fuck had just happened and completely
failing.

To his relief and confusion the old man just chuckled lowly, seeming unbothered by his pet
burning alive in front of him.

“He just caught fire-!”

“And about time too,” Dumbledore hummed, throwing Harry for a loop yet again. Seeing the
boy’s confused expression in front of him, he gave a calm smile as he continued. “He’s been
looking dreadful for days. Pity you had to see him on a burning day.” He said, almost
apologetically even.

Then it hit him.

It’s a phoenix. Fire is kind of their thing, isn’t it?

He felt like a bit of an idiot for panicking but was frankly just relieved this wasn’t going to be
yet another thing he had to defend himself against.

“Fawkes is a phoenix, Harry. They burst into flame when it is time for them to die, and then
they are… reborn from the ashes.” The headmaster explained as if Harry weren’t already
feeling pretty stupid right now, coming over to wave a hand over the tiny pile of smoldering
ash beneath where the bird had once perched.

As if one cue, a tiny head popped out of the pile of soft grey and gave a little baby chirp as if
confirming he was still here. Harry wasn’t that heartless and automatically smiled a bit, as it
was kind of adorable.

He kept the smile in place, focusing on the cute little chick in front of him rather than the
man beside it as Dumbledore kept talking.

“Fascinating creatures, phoenixes. They can carry immensely heavy loads… their tears have
healing powers…”

I will admit phoenixes are kind of cool. Not sure why we’re talking about your pet though
when I thought I was supposed to be in trouble.
“Wait! Professor Dumbledore sir!”

Harry jumped yet again when the door behind them burst open, Hagrid’s immense frame
coming bumbling into the office without warning, ripping his attention from the cute baby
bird and back to the situation at hand.

“Ah, Hagrid,” The headmaster turned, not startled or alarmed or even that unsurprised which
annoyed Harry yet again though he squashed that thought immediately. He was a normal
Gryffindor right now, remember that!

“Professor, Harry is innocent! I was jus’ talkin’ to ‘im and there’s no way he coulda—”

“Hagrid, Hagrid… never fear, I do not suspect Harry of anything.” Dumbledore waved him
off, and Harry tried not to tense up at the words, instead choosing to keep his mouth firmly
shut like he had no idea what was going on.

Which, to be fair, he didn’t.

Inside he was very well confused: what even was happening right now? Were they actually
going to suspect him of something without even asking anything? How did Dumbledore even
know what was going on right now?

“O-oh… oh alright then,” Hagrid seemed a bit embarrassed by his outburst and shifted his
great weight. “I’ll ah… I’ll wait outside then… sorry ‘bout that then,” He waved it off
awkwardly, shooting Harry an encouraging thumbs up that he did not understand but waved
automatically at the giant anyway to tell him it was okay.

“Harry…” his attention was called back to the headmaster, who was looking at him with an
infuriatingly patient and kind look that had him immediately shifting his gaze back down to
the baby bird now nesting in its pile of ashes around it instead of meeting the look.
Something about how grandfatherly this attitude seemed would certainly set him off, he
knew it, and he really couldn’t afford to lose his temper right now.

The only way he could get away with looking down though was to act like he was nervous so
he shifted his own weight and played meek—every lesson that had ever been beaten into him
about acting pathetic in front of Vernon Dursley less he get locked in a cupboard for acting
too cocky coming out without even trying. He’d had a lifetime of practice already so no
matter how long it’d been and how far he’d come since needing to do this, it was only too
easy to snap back into the posture and keep his face as blank as he could.

After all, Dumbledore had the power to restrict him just like Vernon had been able to lock
him in a cupboard. The instinctual need to avoid threats to his autonomy and freedom made it
easy as beathing to bite down on everything else and be as blank and unimportant as he
needed to be right now.

He was just a normal Gryffindor after all.

He was just a normal kid who didn’t want to be scolded.

He was so unimportant and inconsequential he almost willed the headmaster to look right
past him and forget he was even here.

“My boy… is there something you want to tell me?” That kindly tone came again, playing
the patient grandfather role very well Harry had to admit.

He was curious about a lot of things, for sure, but none of it really mattered.

When he looked up to finally meet the old man’s gaze, the only thing he could focus on was
that he wanted to disappear and get out of here as soon as possible. He didn’t want to need to
defend himself and he didn’t want Alden to get in trouble either, but he couldn’t really do
anything about any of that so the best solution right now was to get away.

Maybe curiosity would win another day, but today was about survival.

“No Professor,” he said instead, hoping if he didn’t bring anything up, then he wouldn’t need
to talk or defend about any topic.

And for some god damned reason, it actually worked.

Dumbledore simply gave a sigh and nodded, looking down to gently pet Fawkes on his little
baby head in response to his mild chirps. “Very well. I assure you that you are not in any
trouble… I won’t keep you too long. Off you go.”

Wait… that’s it?

“Thank you professor,” he got out, almost mumbling it but keeping his meek posture in place
as he ducked his head and backed out of the office as quickly as he could. He did glance back
at the old man but he was dusting off some ash from atop Fawkes’ head so Harry took the
opportunity to make his escape.

“Ya alright there ‘Arry?” Hagrid was, to his word, waiting outside the office for his own turn,
but Harry could only nod numbly.

“M’ fine… I’m not in trouble apparently so that’s good,” He admitted.

“As is right! I’ll tell Dumbledore how you were talkin’ to me just as it ‘appened, don’t you
worry about a thing,”

Harry deflated some, wanting to say that probably wouldn’t help but decided trying to
explain that to Hagrid was so not worth the effort. He’d take whatever information the
headmaster could gain from that over needing to spend any more time on this for now.

“Thanks Hagrid,” was all he said instead. “I’m gonna head out then, need to make sure my
Hufflepuff friends are alright with what happened.”

“Right, right, off you go! Stay safe,” the giant man instantly waved him off and went back
into the office, letting Harry finally free.
Hyper aware of the paintings on the walls he made his way through the hallways with
urgency, mind racing but also somehow not thinking of anything. It’d been wiped blank by
the pressure of that situation and the… well abruptness combined with how little had actually
happened made his head spin. He needed…

He needed a moment to figure out just what the fuck was going on right now.

Luckily, he ran into just the right person.

“Harry!?”

He turned to see Daphne running up behind him, eyes wide—Tracey Davis right on his heels
looking a bit confused and wary of the situation.

“Daphne,” He blinked… yeah, Daphne might know.

“I heard what happened—is it true!? What on earth just—eep!” She squeaked as he grabbed
her hand and dragged her into the nearest classroom, Tracey startling and following
immediately despite looking unnerved. He let her, not really caring if she overheard this as he
trusted she’d keep her mouth shut. “What’s going on!?” Daphne demanded, seeming to
realize by his expression something was up.

“I have no bloody clue right now,” He admitted in a huff, suddenly pacing the room wildly as
he tried to piece it together and the girls seemed to realize he was wound way up right now.

“Start at the beginning then: they’re saying you found Justin Finch-Fetchley petrified just
now? But also something about Nearly Headless Nick and Alden Cork?” Daphne prompted,
snapping into business mode.

Harry paused in his pacing, clearing his thoughts.

“You tell no one, got it?” He announced bluntly, and she nodded immediately in agreement.
“Alden found both Justin and Nick petrified. I didn’t even know it was possible to petrify a
ghost, but here we are.”

“Oh shit,” Tracey paled, looking uneasy at that news while Daphne just got grim.

“That’s not very promising, no. But you’re saying Cork found them?”

“I was nearby with Susan Bones. Peeves saw Alden with the petrified and started making a
racket, and I got there first—pretty much half the school immediately after that though.”

“You covered for him?” Tracey blinked in complete surprise and also a slight twist of disgust
if he wasn’t imagining that. Harry allowed a brief look at the lack of faith, but overall didn’t
have time for that.

“Alden Cork and Lake Evergreen are friends of mine.” He informed her with a dead serious
tone that got her snapping her jaw shut immediately. If she took it as a threat to back off those
firsties, he was happy to oblige. “What’s important is that McGonagall seemed to accept that
I was the one to find them and just sent me to the headmaster’s office.”
Now Daphne realized the problem, crossing her arms over her chest.

“What happened.”

“That’s the thing: nothing.” He huffed, and both their brows raised as one.

“Excuse me? What do you mean ‘nothing’?”

“I mean I watched his pet phoenix or whatever catch fire for a second, and then he asked me
if I had anything to tell him. I said no and he sent me on my way.” He recalled bluntly.

Tracey gave him a critical look, eyes flickering to Daphne’s back for a second before tisking.

“And you’re… upset about this?”

“I mean, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It is kind of suspicious.” Daphne allowed, and Harry
tossed up a hand in a ‘thank you’ sort of gesture.

“First of all, I was brought immediately to his office and he made me wait for like ten
minutes or so but like… how did he know what had happened already? He told me I wasn’t
in trouble but like, not one teacher has even asked me what happened so was I about to be in
trouble without me having ever said anything? How did he know I’m not the culprit here or
even what happened to decide I’m innocent or not? He didn’t ask me anything but if I wanted
to offer up any information which obviously I didn’t, so I said nothing and he let me go.” He
ranted a bit, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just—what the hell is his problem?”

Daphne finally relaxed some, seeming half amused—or she would’ve if things weren’t so
tense.

“With Albus Dumbledore, it’s definitely dangerous to keep talking so saying nothing was the
better play. You don’t get any information unfortunately, but on the bright side neither does
he. That’s good for now.” She didn’t say it but he knew she meant ‘good for the plan’, until
things started happening and they no longer needed to hide Sirus’ upcoming trial. Anything
that could’ve risked Dumbledore catching on that Harry was involved with that was too big a
risk to take at this point, not when they were this close. “So far as how he knew… well, you
know the theory. The paintings talk so if it had to do with a student being injured then they
probably told him.”

“Okay, so why don’t the paintings tell us who petrified them in the first place? It happened in
the same hallway after all, in the middle of the day!” He countered and she had to pause.

“Well… wait, what hallway was it?”

“Second floor above the entrance hall—I was heading to Gryffindor tower from the Great
Hall.”

“That only has murals, doesn’t it? Do they count as spies?” Tracey tossed out there, but it
only made them frown harder.
“Okay, so best case scenario, McGonagall relays to Dumbledore that she caught me—along
with about fifty other students at the time—in the hallway around Justin, who was petrified.
Peeves was shouting about how we did it, and I stepped forward to catch McGonagall’s
attention, but I said nothing else. There was no proof of anything, and I was just a kid in a
crowd at that point. McGonagall also likes me so I’m betting she didn’t phrase it like I was
the culprit exactly, I’m sure. How then, did Dumbledore decide I’m not in trouble? He asked
me nothing.”

Daphne’s eyes softened, and she gave a tired sigh.

“Harry, I don’t think you should question this.” She admitted and he blew his top.

“What!? Why not!? That’s about as suspicious behavior as there’s ever been in this stupid
bloody school—how can I just ignore it!?” He demanded hotly.

“Because he’s favoring you.” She said bluntly, and he was pulled up short.

“What the hell does that mean? Why would he-” but as soon as he started to form a question
he realized and felt sick. “Are you actually serious right now?”

She gave him a sympathetic look. “Unfortunately, I am. Like I said, don’t question it, just run
with it.”

“Gross,” he complained, feeling distinctly nauseous all of a sudden.

“Ah, excuse me but what? For those of us who don’t do implication well, what’s that old
bastard up to now?” Tracey raised her hand in annoyance at being left out.

Daphne gave her an amused look and with Harry’s ‘whatever’ gesture as permission she
elaborated a bit more.

“Because of some other shenanigans we have going on right now, we’re aware that
Dumbledore is meddling specifically in Harry’s life, quite a lot actually. The reasoning isn’t
exactly secret: ‘Harry Potter’ is practically a celebrity title to most of the wizarding world
and an icon of everything anti-dark and anti-dark-lord and such. Dumbledore has his own
‘anti-dark lord’ agenda to uphold so theoretically those two figures should be on the same
side… in reality Harry hates the man but needs to pretend to be one of his little pawns less he
make an enemy of the leader of the light, which would be a real problem.”

She gave him another pitying look which he accepted because it wasn’t a great situation to be
in and he admitted it.

“Harry could’ve actually been the culprit just now and even then Dumbledore would’ve let
him off. Can’t have his budding little ‘hero’ think his headmaster wasn’t on his side, after all.
Being brought to his office at all was probably McGonagall actually being a fair teacher in
thinking Harry needed to be questioned and not realizing he wouldn’t be. Dumbledore likely
wouldn’t have called him in at all if he hadn’t been forced like that… or it was all a farce
from the beginning to garner trust and favor like he always does. Making Harry think he was
about to be in trouble only to let him off would make him look like an ally.”
Harry tapped his foot on the stone floor unhappily. “So he’s giving me the Gryffindor
treatment essentially. On the one hand this is great: it means he’s completely bought or is at
least pointedly ignoring my less-than-upright traits and probably doesn’t think me capable of
any schemes or anything. On the downside it’s so fucking gross I wanna hurl.” He
complained.

“The ‘Gryffindor treatment’? What is that exactly?” Daphne raised a brow, seeming very
amused by this turn of phrase.

He snorted. “One of Gryffindor’s worst traits is keeping things ‘in the family’, so to speak.
Fellow Gryffindors always get the benefit of the doubt without question, while you always
jump to conclusions with outsiders. It’s a bad habit they have but it usually means I can do no
wrong in their eyes simply because I’m ‘one of them’. Or… I start consorting with outsiders,
then they get personally offended by it somehow.”

“Speaking from experience?” Tracey drawled dryly.

“My inner-house politics are my business, and they’ll get over it. Because, as I just said, I’m
a fellow Gryffindor which means I can do no wrong.” He snipped. “That our bloody
headmaster is also blatantly playing into that bad habit is not a great sign to be honest.”

“I mean, he’s doing it to someone he thinks is a fellow Gryffindor,” Daphne pointed out, and
Harry blinked.

“Oh, you think… he’s trying to manipulate me the Gryffindor way?”

She snorted automatically. “The idea there’s a Gryffindor way to manipulate someone is
hilarious, but yes that’s pretty much what I’m saying. He’s attempting to build credibility as a
fellow lion which, as you said, in your house is all the credibility you need. By treating a
fellow Gryffindor as infallible you end up treating them back the same way, right?”

It’s so simple but so unbelievably effective… at least amongst lions it is.

Harry felt like he was getting a glimpse at just how Dumbledore had managed to gain so
much power in society and was feeling a bit overwhelmed honestly. How fucking twisted was
that…

…but also, kind of brilliant.

He hated to admit it, but it was actually masterful to realize how to manipulate one of the
most wild houses like that, and it was so simple but so effective he was kind of getting his
mind blown right now. And, against his better judgement, Harry realized that he, being a
Gryffindor himself, could completely use this tactic himself if he needed to… and he had
made an established goal of being minister one day so…

“What are you thinking right now? You give me anxiety when you look like you’re planning
something reckless,” Daphne cut into his racing thoughts and he schooled his face.
“Oh don’t mind me, just having an internal crisis realizing how easily manipulated
Gryffindors are. And here I thought it was like herding cats sometimes but it’s way easier
than that apparently—and Dumbledore is using that to toy with us all!”

The girls stared at him for a long second…

Then Tracey cracked first by snorting a laugh but trying to smother it in her shoulder
awkwardly.

“What.”

“Nothing… just spoken like a true Slytherin, which is weird given you’re—” Daphne just
gestured to all of him looking mildly amused, but he just rolled his eyes.

“Not helping.” He complained. “I was so ready to lie my ass of in there and it was all wasted!
Now I don’t know what to do with myself!” He flailed his arms about helplessly and got
some mixed looks in reaction. “Also his bird just bloody died—like yeah it comes back to life
but is it the same bird!? Shouldn’t he be more upset about that?”

“And now you’re rambling. Is there anything else important about this that we should know
or are you just venting?” Daphne refocused him and he huffed.

“I dunno. I guess main outcome is don’t tell anyone about Alden: I was the one to find Justin
if anyone asks, okay?”

“I mean I could do that for free given we’re already in business plenty, but…” She looked
over her shoulder at Tracey, who just rolled her eyes.

“I’ll keep your damn secret. It’s not like I care, nor would anyone ask me anyway.” She
dismissed, and she could’ve been lying… but he also recognized that Tracey was probably
closer to a ‘normal’ Slytherin than the ilk that Harry himself hung out with. She didn’t feel
the need to trade for every little transaction, particularly because this one was so small she
could care less who found Justin, just that the petrification monster was still on the loose.

Harry considered himself on very good terms with Daphne now too so he was hoping her
being Tracey’s best friend would have her keeping her word for free this once.

“Thank you, it’s much appreciated,” He could still be polite about it though.

“Why do you care about a couple of firsties anyway?” She was curious but he just flashed her
a disarming grin.

“Speaking of manipulating Gryffindors, let’s just say Evergreen is an expert and even
knowing what she was doing I couldn’t help but get on board. I’d watch out for that one if I
were you,” He gave them some ‘friendly’ advice and enjoyed the way they seemed to
genuinely mull that over for a second.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Daphne smiled briefly.

“Is there something I can help you with though?” Harry offered, realizing she’d been
searching for him first, he’d just commandeered the conversation so far.

“I was mostly concerned about the petrification news honestly, but actually yes while we’re
at it,” She slipped a letter from her robes to hand over, and he suspected he knew what this
was. Thankfully Tracy seemed used it and looked bored rather than curious. “You’re friends
with the Weasley twins, right?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Do you trust them?”

“Uh, yes?”

She smiled a bit grimly. “Then you might want to cash in a favor with them… or ten.”

000

Susan had no idea what to do.

“It’s okay, it’s okay… I’m gathering you don’t want to tell me where the Slytherin dorm is,
which is totally fine, but can you make it there on your own? How about we go to the
hospital wing—Madam Pomfrey can give you a calming draft,” She tried to comfort the boy
in front of her but she kind of knew this was all falling on deaf ears.

In her mind, Slytherins always seemed so… put together.

The boy having a full-on panic attack in the dungeon classroom they’d found themselves in
was anything but composed though. She felt a bit bad that this was so out of her depth…
‘friendly’ house or not, none of her dormmates had ever flipped out this hard before, over
what felt like a simple misunderstanding at best. Yes he’d stumbled upon a petrified student
but she’d had no idea a Slytherin could care that much about someone of another house…

If you weren’t Malfoy at least, and really he only cared about one Gryffindor in particular.

Still, the idea that Draco Malfoy would ever be the sobbing mess curled into the corner of the
room like Alden was seemed very improbable. Even if Harry were the one to have gotten
turned to stone, Susan assumed Malfoy would be after blood, not crying about it. No matter
what she thought of the guy, Draco was no slouch and he was not meek or unafraid of
fighting back… he just kind of looked that way sometimes since he was always standing next
to Harry who was all that but worse.

Draco was just one guy though, not the entirety of Slytherin house, as she was quickly
learned by being forced to confront a crying snake and having no idea what to do about it.

She knew the Slytherin dorms were down in the dungeons, but not precisely where. She’d
gotten Alden down here as it wasn’t that far from where it had happened, but as she tried to
narrow it down the first year at ripped himself from her grip on his wrist and fled into the
closest empty classroom. She’d followed out of instinct but… the fact he’d ended up
hyperventilating and sobbing into his knees had taken her completely off guard. She really
just… had no idea how to handle crying people.

Well, technically she did, as in Hufflepuff a solid hug and an offer to go get some hot
chocolate to talk it over went pretty far most of the time. The crying people she’d comforted
in the past were usually upset over fights with friends or family, over a failed test, over the
stress of finals, over a sad book they were reading, or something like that.

This was different.

Something was really wrong, but she had no idea what it was.

She knew damn well that a hug and some hot chocolate would not be appreciated though, as
he wouldn’t even let her near him without freaking out ever harder. So she’d was just
standing here, not doing anything to help him right now, but she also could not leave him
when he was like this—it seemed unspeakably cruel.

All she could do was kneel in front of him and keep trying to talk sense into him over his
unrestrained sobbing, worry gnawing at her stomach that it didn’t sound like he was
breathing properly from how harshly he was hyperventilating right now.

“Hey! It’ll be okay! They’re going to fix up the petrified by the end of the year when the
mandrakes come in—or, ah, you’re a first year so you don’t know what those are yet, but
they’re plants that will cure the petrification and everyone will be alright then! You can ask
Professor Sprout about them, she’s really nice in explaining all that to those who are
concerned about.” She babbled nervously. She didn’t mention Gryffindor’s ghost because she
had no idea how you fed a ghost a potion to cure them of their petrification… much less what
force on earth could petrify a ghost at that, but she left that part out for now. Nearly Headless
Nick had already died in any case.

The crying didn’t stop and he didn’t lift his head from his knees. Susan worried at the bottom
of her lip.

“If you’re worried about what Peeves said then he’s an annoyance at best, don’t pay him any
mind! And uh—well, if it’s about what McGonagall might think then she’s really rational,
even if you’re a Slytherin she’ll be fair I promise!”

That somehow got a reaction, although it didn’t sound good. He literally choked on his own
cries and snapped his head up, face pale and eyes bloodshot, looking worse than a ghoul
honestly.

“You can’t tell her!” He shrieked, panicking. “I really didn’t do anything!? I was just walking
—I didn’t—I didn’t do anything! I was just trying to find Lake—she said she was in the
Library but I got lost!” He wailed, stuttering and breathless as he really wasn’t breathing
right.

“It’s okay! I believe you, I believe you!” She tried to put hands on his shoulders in comfort
but he flinched away from her touch so hard she jumped back as if electrocuted.
“I’m going to get expelled,” He gasped, face white as parchment—he really looked like he
was about to throw up and she panicked a bit too.

“What!? No you’re not, I promise you you’re not! I believe you just found them, and no one
is accusing you of anything!” She tried to reason, but she could tell he was barely hearing
her.

“I’m going to get expelled… I just got here—I thought magical school was supposed to be
fun,” He whimpered. Tears were streaming down his face and she could tell that despite
having eyes on her, he was looking right through her instead. “How do people get petrified!?
What even is a poltergeist…? Is this even better than being home? Do I have to go home?”
He paled even more somehow. “She’ll kill me for having left… oh god…”

“Alden what!?” Susan was taken aback, highly unnerved by this.

“Is this better? I don’t know if this is better—I don’t want to go home but I don’t want to stay
here anymore,” He gasped weakly, helplessly. “Slytherin is terrifying and Lake is terrifying
and McGonagall is terrifying and—and everyone is so—it’s all so—!? People are getting
turned to stone and I—I—I don’t know if this is better?”

“I know it’s really scary right now but the Professors will figure it out—and if not then the
Aurors will get called in, you’ll see,” She tried to sooth him but he blinked,
uncomprehending.

“What are Aurors? What’s so scary even magical teachers can’t fight it but Aurors can?” He
begged for any answer and she pulled back in surprise again.

But also… her stomach sank some.

“Alden are… are you a muggleborn?”

His eyes widened and he bit his lip, but just nervously shrugged. “I… I’m n-not supposed to
tell anyone that… Lake said the upper years will torture me if they find out.”

Susan felt a little sick but tried to offer a small smile.

“I’m not sure about them but it’s not a problem for me, okay? But that makes a little more
sense… if you have no idea what’s going on, I’m sure that’s really scary.”

“Harry’s the only one who will explain things,” He blurted out, voice trembling and Susan
blinked.

“Harry does?”

“I don’t understand anything that’s happening in this school… even McGonagall, when she
gave me my letter didn’t explain anything—she didn’t warn me about Slytherin or
poltergeists or that the stairs move or the paintings that talk. I don’t know any Latin or what
Aurors are or if the Groundskeeper is even human—Harry says he’s nice but he’s so scary…!
I don’t like heights but they made me get on a broom and I almost fell and I don’t understand
Potions at all but if I’m not good at it my dormmates look at me like I’m crazy and call me a
bad snake,” He was rambling fast now, all of it coming spilling out. “I don’t know what’s
going on and if I ask a teacher they just laugh it off like everything about this world isn’t
terrifying and weird and no one seems to care! I—I don’t know what I’m doing wrong!” He
sobbed again, helpless and hopeless and begging someone to just give him an answer for
once.

Susan though… realized she had none.

There were plenty of muggleborns in Hufflepuff, but this was the first time she’d ever seen
someone fall apart because of the differences between magical and non-magical world. It had
never crossed her mind that the things she’d grown up with might be… frightening, to those
who’d never seen it before. Didn’t really know what was scary about a paintings but from
how he said it she realized the very walls around them—the thousands of paintings
decorating Hogwarts’ halls—unnerved him. They very castle itself was alien and
overwhelming, and the magical people inside of it didn’t think anything wrong with it so he
must’ve felt… very alone in his fear.

She had never considered this to be a thing before, so she really just didn’t know what to say.
That it’ll ‘be okay’ seemed hollow as… she realized she had no idea what things were
scaring him right now, except the entire magical world in general. How did she apologize or
sooth concerns over her entire way of life? She had no idea where to even start as it was just
her life up until this point, she didn’t know enough about the muggle world to be able to
speak to the differences much less assure him the two weren’t that different.

Their magic theory class that all firsties took last year had seemed painfully boring as it was
all just the bare essentials of magic, and only now with an eleven-year-old sobbing in front of
her did she realize why they even had that class at all. Because to her it was nothing but
something to doze through or a study period her and Hannah spent writing notes to each
other, but for some… it was revolutionary, literally world-breaking information to them.

But even that class hadn’t talked about basic basic stuff like paintings. She had never given
paintings this much thought in her life before and it was really starting to make her sweat
about everything else she didn’t know as she struggled to come up with a single word of
comfort for this kid right now.

Muggleborns never noticeably struggled at Hogwarts, so far as she’d noticed… but she
hadn’t quite realized how much effort they’d probably needed to give to catch up and make
the same grades as everyone else. She’d spent so long trying to learn one spell for
Transfiguration and had failed because she just didn’t ‘get it’, but what did her muggleborn
classmates just ‘not get’ because they hadn’t grown up with magic?

Going by Alden’s panicked rant here… probably a lot.

But they never talked about it because they were in the magical world now, and were
expected to just figure it out—or more accurately, were expected to just know it without
anyone really having said anything. They’d all laughed at the wide-eyed firsties getting lost
on their first weeks of school or how in awe they seemed at everything in the magical castle
before it became old news but… realized for a population of those first years, it really
probably wasn’t a laughing matter at all. Maybe there was a humor in it, but if people
laughed yet never actually explained… that had to be very confusing and isolating. But they
kept it to themselves in an effort to fit in with the magical world around them.

A muggleborn Slytherin probably had it so much worse than one in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff
though, as in other houses it was just a bit isolating. For a snake though… it was literally life
or death to either catch up or be eaten alive by your housemates. That pressure, placed on the
tiny shoulders of an eleven-year-old… had to be insane.

Susan was only twelve herself but already felt kind of nauseous at the mere idea, she couldn’t
imagine what Alden was going through right now.

But… she was now vividly aware of why Harry had practically tossed this tiny snake at her
and said to get him out of there. McGonagall was strict and scary already, even to a
Hufflepuff, but as the lion house head, to a first year Slytherin she was probably as terrifying
as they came and Alden probably would’ve fainted rather than handle being questioned by
her.

If she’d had any misgivings about deflecting what had happened, they were gone now.

I mean she still had uncertainty over why her when she could only sit here uselessly repeating
the same empty banalities again as Alden just cried harder when he’d finally opened up in
begging for help and she was here listening but… unable to say anything meaningful back
that could stop his fears. Or his tears.

Suddenly, the classroom door popped open with a dramatic bang, and they both whipped
around in surprise—Susan about to tell whoever it was to get lost, before she recognized the
curtain of red.

You could literally see him across the crowded Great Hall with ease, or effortlessly pick him
out in the air of a quidditch match with a dozen other people flying at high speeds—he was
recognizable from any distance with that hair.

And despite not knowing when it had started, she felt a distinct sense of relief at his arrival
and realized that was something Harry had always kind of been able to do no matter who he
was crashing in on. He gave the very comforting aura of being sure of himself, and whether
you could agree with his tactics or not he always seemed to have a strong opinion or know
what to do in any situation presented.

Even if it was insane, even if it was frankly just weird—he always knew what to do.

And given how lost she felt right now, she was immensely relieved to see him.

“H-Harry!” Alden got out thickly, forgetting to cry for a moment since he also seemed just as
reassured and hopeful to see the Gryffindor as Susan herself was.

“There you guys are,” He chirped in satisfaction, closing the door behind him and slipping a
large piece of parchment into his outer robe for some reason. “I went to the Slytherin dorm to
check up on you but no one had seen you.”
He came over to crouch in their little circle here, seeming to entirely ignore the fact Alden
was clearly in the middle of a breakdown with his casual tone, and the small Slytherin
stammered awkwardly.

“I—I can’t… I can’t-”

“Oh hey, that’s fine… honestly I said it in the moment but going back probably wasn’t the
wisest move, I just couldn’t think of another safe place. This is pretty good though,” Harry
waved him off in a gentle, unconcerned tone as he ruffled Alden’s hair in a friendly, brotherly
way. “You don’t have worry, Dumbledore thinks I’m the one who found him and we’re gonna
keep it that way. He’s a manipulative old bastard so he doesn’t punish Gryffindors and I got
off free—we’re all good here.”

Susan was horrified.

“Wait what?”

Harry had the gall to just sigh as if explaining was too tiresome and gave her a wave-off of
her own. “I’ll explain later. Your aunt doesn’t like Dumbledore right? Maybe ask her about it
again and listen closer this time.”

“I… I guess.” She frowned, distinctly unsure yet again. Yes her aunt had always had a
distaste for the headmaster but… actually now that she thought about it they’d never sat
down to just talk about the exact reasons why.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Alden offered up meekly once again, this time clearly to the
person he was very hopeful could actually help him—and Harry never disappointed as he
gave an amused chuckle.

“Honestly? Me neither. I literally just learned earlier today that accusing people gets you
halfway to prison even if you didn’t do anything. Luckily I’m me so accusations never stick,”
He shot the kid a wink and Alden sniffled with wet eyes up at him, but had thankfully
stopped actively crying for the moment. “For you though, I’ve already taken care of it. I have
one of your housemates running interference so the story from here on out is that I found
them—I don’t think anyone really noticed or cared you were there and if someone does try to
bring it up we can squash the rumor. The Weasley twins are taking care of Peeves, and I’ve
taken care of Dumbledore and McGonagall. If you go back to your dorm like nothing’s
wrong then no one will even mention it to you.”

Alden sniffled, still giving shuddery breaths that you couldn’t help after sobbing your heart
out… but nodded once in understanding. Whatever all that meant, clearly it had more
comforting power than Susan’s empty ‘it’ll be okay’ had been.

“Here,” Harry dug into the bag he always had on, suddenly pulling out a familiar periwinkle
potion and placing it in Alden’s hand.

“Do you just carry those around with you?” Susan couldn’t help but ask, eyeing it in surprise.
“If I do that’s my business,” He sniffed like it was a joke, skimming right by whatever
implication she meant to turn back to Alden pointedly. “It’s a calming draught—should help
stop the shuddering you got going on right now. Also I’ve got a ton more if you want them,
you can take as many as you want and won’t overdose like you would on muggle medication.
Also they don’t taste as bad as normal potions although they’re pretty chalky to be honest.”

The Slytherin looked very uneasy as he gripped the glass of the potion, but clearly trusted
Harry’s words a great deal to go for it anyway as he popped the cork and squinted his eyes
shut to down it. Once done he looked down in much milder surprise, his color coming back
instantly and the tears going cold on his cheeks.

“Oh…” he blinked, admiring the effects as they took hold.

“Pretty nice right? Magic comes in handy sometimes.” Harry joked.

“That… is pretty cool…”

“Again, take as many as you need if you need them, there’s nothing wrong with needing the
help. Why do you think I carry so much around? They’re bloody great, they are, I’ll tell you
that.” He offered, deftly pulling out six more from the bag and lining it up on floor between
them as he spoke. Alden looked at the abundance before him for a second… then nodded
again.

Susan couldn’t really argue since her entire suggestion had been to go to Madam Pomfrey for
one anyway. Still… the fact a student was walking around with more calming draughts then a
medic usually had on hand at a time, much less that he was handing it out to other students
freely like this felt wrong somehow.

Not that she was going to bring it up as the crying had stopped, and for that she was thankful
enough to ignore everything else.

Harry was not paying her any attention though to see if he face had betrayed her
disappointment, nudging Alden’s shoulder annoyingly to get him to speak up about what was
bothering him.

“…I feel like I’m doing everything wrong.” The kid admitted quietly.

“Well, I’m telling you now that you’re doing just fine. You’re a first year, your job is to learn
and take it all in… and you’re doing just that. I know it’s a lot, but you don’t need to make
any grand plans until you understand more about this world: step one is knowing what the
situation is in its entirety and step two through however-many-it-takes is the actual practical
stuff. You just surviving this year and learning as much as you can, even if it’s a lot, is all
that’s asked of you, and I think you’re doing a great job so far.”

He could only curl in on himself some, seeming to silently take those words in but not
looking very satisfied about it. Harry sat up and leaned his head back thoughtfully, the motion
catching as always when his hair fell back over his shoulder in a bloody cascade he didn’t
even seem to notice.
His eyes lit up as he got an idea, bright and enthusiastic as always.

“Alden, do you have a goal?”

“A goal…?”

“Hm… maybe a dream is a better way to put it. Anything you want to do with your life?
Anything you want of the next year or month or day?” He explained warmly, patiently.

“… I’m going with Lake for Christmas break. I… I want to have a fun Christmas for once.”
He admitted, so quietly Susan was not sure she’d even heard that right.

Harry clearly did though as he lit up like the Christmas tress upstairs.

“What a coincidence, so am I! I found some family I didn’t know about before but will get to
meet for the first time this break and am really looking forward to it.” He confessed himself
and Susan almost broke her neck doing a double take because what!? What did he mean
family? He was rather infamously an orphan, and anyone claiming anything close to the
Potter lineage was a huge deal.

Harry wasn’t paying her any mind though as he clapped Alden on the shoulder comfortingly,
and his next words had her deciding that bloodline bullshit was actually not important right
now.

“How about this for a goal then: you want to have fun every Christmas for the rest of your
life.”

She would’ve been confused about that random, seemingly common wish if the wide-eyed
look of wonder on Alden’s face, as if that suggestion was the answer to life itself, didn’t
make her feel like she was probably witnessing something she shouldn’t.

“But…”

“It’s possible. Fun fact: that’s my goal too.” He admitted with a gentleness Susan didn’t think
Harry even capable of, but realized he knew exactly what he was doing when Alden’s eyes
got even bigger somehow, round as saucers and the forgotten tears making them all the more
heart wrenching somehow. “Go enjoy your Christmas, forget all this for a little while, and
when we’re back why don’t you, me, and Lake sit down to talk about how we can get you
your goal. I’ve made a little progress on mine already so we can compare notes.”

He clung to every word, before nodding numbly once again.

“Bit less scary if you have a plan, right?”

“Yeah.” The small snake admitted… seeming to consider it for a second on his own before
taking another potion sitting beside him and finishing it much more willingly this time. While
he did so Harry suddenly got as grabby as he always was and went about fixing his hair for
him—Alden running hands through it during his meltdown made it a ruffled mess and as if
he was familiar with this treatment the younger year didn’t stop him. He did make a grunting
sound though as Harry used the bunched up sleeve of his iridescent cloak that he always wore
to rub tears and snot from the firsties face roughly.

That was a bit more like Harry though—he certainly cared, but he also cared about you like a
bull in a China shop might.

“Alright, why don’t we go get some snacks in the kitchen to bolster ourselves after all that!”
He announced brightly.

“Can we do that?” Alden asked in confusion the same time Susan asked, “You know where
the kitchen is?”

“’Do I know where the kitchen is’, please,” The red head scoffed jokingly, properly tossing
his hair over his shoulder in an exaggerated manner. “The Weasley twins told me about it first
year—I’ve only visited for the first time recently though as, fair warning, it’s really freaky for
those who haven’t met house elves before.” He shot that last part mainly to Alden who
blinked again.

“Lake has a house elf that brings her things from home… Posti, I think?”

“So you’ve met one! Great!” His cheer dimmed some into a dry look. “The Hogwarts kitchen
has about… two hundred or so? And they all run at you when you walk in asking if you want
snacks or tea or something, so it’s really overwhelming… but there’s all very nice and happy
to make you whatever you want, so it’s worth knowing. It’s also worth going with a friend for
your first time,” He winked, and Alden hesitated but nodded that he wanted to try, accepting
Harry’s hands and was promptly hauled to his feet.

Susan remained quiet as she stood too, very out of her depth. Hearing Harry explain
something so basic like house elves as if they were scary was… eye opening.

“Posti is nice,” the small Slytherin admitted, frowning. “Lake is so mean to her though.”

“I mean in Slytherin there’s a difference between ‘mean’ and ‘cold’, but yeah… purebloods
in general don’t think twice about house elves so they don’t really see how horrible the whole
thing is from our perspective. Since I’m a trouble maker I have one of the Hogwarts elves
tailing me all the time and we’ve chatted a bit—I really do think they’re happy to serve
though it takes some getting used to.” Harry had an arm over his shoulders to pull him
towards to door, chatting like this was normal and Susan wasn’t once again thrown.

“Horrible?” She couldn’t help but blurt out, Harry giving her a dryly amused look over his
shoulder.

“Permanent enslavement of an entire race looks really bad on paper, pretty much always. I
mean it looks bad in person most of the time too, but in the muggle world things like slavery
are a huge ‘no-no’. You get tossed in prison if you try to short someone their wages much
less have another living creature as your servant, unpaid, for their entire lives.”

“I mean yeah obviously, but they’re-” Before she could finish she cut herself off, freezing for
a second.
 Harry didn’t seem… anything in particular, not mad or upset, but the lack of his normal
disarming cheer was enough to make her words die a bit. The green eyes staring at her made
her distinctly uncomfortable, as she had no idea what he was thinking right now.

“… they’re ‘just house elves’?” He finish for her slowly, voice betraying nothing. “Be that as
it may, the normal world sees all living creatures as… you know, living creatures. It’s this
world that for some reason thinks common decency only applies to some.”

… Susan couldn’t respond.

He paused only a second before perking right back up at the first year under his arm like that
hadn’t just happened. “On the bright side I’m starting to think house elves genuinely are just
happy to serve, weird as that is. And they make the best treacle tart I’ve literally ever had, so
let’s go see if they’ll make us some,” He pulled Alden to the door once more, and the kid just
blinked, clearly having clung to that conversation with an innocence in his eyes that made
Susan uneasy. He was for sure taking in the words, but she wasn’t really sure he if got the
gravity of that casual exchange.

To be fair, she wasn’t really sure what she took from the conversation either.

“You got a favorite dessert?”

“Um… I do like the lemon bars they have sometimes...”

“Ugh, you and Draco with the sour things,” Harry complained but leading them from
classroom and away from any pervious heavy conversation without looking back.

Susan could only trail after them quietly again. She did want to see the kitchen and had no
real reason to leave but… she also felt like she was missing something, or just… wasn’t on
the same page as those two anymore. But really… had she ever been?

She went with them but kept mostly to herself, trying to shove her discomfort down but…

…the way he’d said ‘normal world’ instead of ‘muggle world’ wouldn’t leave her alone.

Chapter End Notes

This scene in Dumbledore's office was always weird to me, particularly in the movie
where it's set up like Harry's in trouble but they talk about... literally nothing. Nothing
plot important at least, except introducing Fawkes to be the deus ex machina later. For
this story I take it as Gryffindor nepotism at it's best.

I don't have a good song for Alden but would love some suggestions!

Another for Harry and Draco though:

Like Real People Do: Hozier
 Separate
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

“You’re not coming?”

Severus wanted to stick his head into the cauldron they were standing over rather than face
the grey eyes he knew were looking at him with disappointment, but he managed to do
neither. He just continued stirring the potion calmly, not losing track of which rotation this
was thanks to years of practice.

“You sound too much like your mother.” He commented in no small amount of defeat.

He sensed rather than saw Draco pout beside him, near his elbow given how short the boy
was as he too took careful note of the potion’s color change rather then dignify that with an
answer that would only get him in trouble, surely.

This potion was quite far above second-year level for someone his age to be learning, but
when Severus had mentioned that he always spent Saturdays brewing potions to restock the
hospital wing, Draco had very bluntly invited himself to bear witness to it, which was such a
Narcissa thing to do Severus was starting to realize there was no hope for the boy. For as
much as he seemed proud to live up to ‘his father’s’ legacy, he was becoming more and more
like his mother and it never failed to terrify Severus.

He'd been fooled, for sure. Tricked, as it were, into thinking he was becoming Lucius’ son’s
godfather, given the boy was practically his clone, but the more he started repeating things
only Narissa Black would’ve ever said the more Severus was losing hope.

Actually, his hope was well and truly dead at this point because he knew if he so much as
glanced at the boy beside him right now, Draco would be giving him sad, disappointed eyes
that his godfather wasn’t attending the infamous Malfoy Christmas ball and Severus would
undoubtedly be guilted into showing up anyway.

But that was absolutely not going to happen, because he knew for a fact Draco’s ‘plus one’
was a red headed menace and Severus would rather stick his head in this half-finished potion
than be trapped in a room to mingle with anyone, but very particularly a Potter.

Not on his life.

“I have a conflict Draco, perhaps next year.” He lied smoothly.

“You’re lying,” The boy bluntly outed him, and Severus felt his temple twitch.

This brat…

He finally looked down at him with a mild glare, earning a grey-eyed stare right back, just
much more unwaveringly.
“How blunt of you.” He frowned, and no it was not a compliment.

Draco just stuck his chin up in defiance. “At this point I don’t care how bad people think I am
at manipulating people, because the fact is I am. But I’ve learned recently that being actually
honest with people freaks my housemates out and now people are actually properly wary of
me again. It’s been great!” He chirped and yes, he definitely sounded happy about this
development.

Severus silently cursed Narcissa to the pits of hell.

“Again, you sound like your mother.”

“I mean, what are you going to do if it’s the truth? I know you’re lying, you just don’t like
talking to people.” Draco complained, Severus suddenly deciding letting him stay to be a
peanut gallery over his potion brewing as a terrible idea. This used to be his safe space, it
used to be peaceful… now he was just stressed.

Draco had always been seen as a rather mediocre snake given his inability to read between
the lines in most cases, much less that he seemed unable to do anything with the information
he did obtain. The thing was, apparently he did notice quite a lot, just not the sort of things
other snakes typically gave a shit about.

Things like how others felt about certain topics. Peoples’ opinions on things did not typically
mean much to Slytherin house, as in the end it never stopped any of them from making the
deal or the trade. It was, frankly, information most considered superfluous.

Draco didn’t though.

Draco suddenly found it very important to know what people thought about… well,
everything.

And, quite spontaneously he’d suddenly developed not only the ability to nail it when
deducing someone’s emotions on a topic, but also the brazen bloody confidence to throw it in
peoples’ faces to knock them off their guard. Because yes, Severus did not want to make
small talk in a stuffy ass pureblood party, but no one in their right mind had ever called him
out on that to his face besides Minerva once about seven years ago—and she’d regretted it.
At most people called him a dungeon bat behind his back to reference his anti-social
tendencies, and the Slytherins he had around him like Lucius had always politely invited him
to things while tip-toeing around his distaste for crowds.

No one, in their right mind, had ever just gone up to him and called him a recluse like this
twelve-year-old boy beside him was doing now.

He also couldn’t just turn and glower at him as he really did need to focus on completing the
potion properly. Blood replacement drafts were tricky, and he wished the boy would stop
talking so he could concentrate.

But he also couldn’t just let Draco get the final word and incorrectly think he was somehow
in the right.
“And what exactly are you hoping to achieve by being uselessly honest?” He challenged.

“I’m not being honest, I’m just telling people when their lying sucks.” He huffed, crossing his
arms in protest and Severus actually spared the potion a moment to simmer and shot him an
incredulous look, to which he got a defiant look volleyed right back. “No one has ever held
back when telling me that I suck so why the hell would I hold back either? You tell me all the
time I’m too naïve and up front about things so it’s only fair I tell you right back that no one
ever believes your angry persona or whatever, everyone just knows you don’t like talking to
people.”

Severus felt a headache coming on but forced himself to keep his composure for the sake of
finishing this damn potion.

“If you’re aware of that then why are you still talking?”

Draco gave a little scoff. “What, so all your lessons about me being too considerate of others’
opinions meant nothing? Or was your opinion the exception somehow? I’m not supposed to
care what anyone else thinks except you, then?”

Hm… this ‘mentor’ thing might have backfired a bit.

“In the spirit of being honest, then yes, that’s exactly it.”

He could almost sense Draco roll his eyes behind him but he did fall silent then as the most
complicated part of the potion came up. It required adding the precise right ingredients at
exactly the right pace, and as the ficedula roots needed to be chopped exactly three seconds
before being added in while stirring counter-clockwise at one full turn every two seconds,
Severus needed all this attention and dexterity for the next couple minutes to complete it. He
did note in the back of his mind that Draco’s silence implied he knew how difficult this part
was and was letting him do it in peace… though he was sure he hadn’t taught or even given
the boy the texts about this particular potion yet.

So he’d been doing his own reading, it seemed.

He did enjoy the silence and sense of order that came from giving his entire focus to a potion
he’d done many times before, as despite his experience it still required his full attention
momentarily. The sense of peace the routine-yet-difficult task afforded him was nice, and as
he finished the remaining steps he let it rest at a low simmer where it would stay for the next
eleven minutes, giving him a small break.

He glanced back at his godson who was dutifully writing in one of his journals what he’d just
observed, and it never failed to make Severus slightly uneasy at just how intently he was
always watched when Draco wanted to know something. Why he wanted to know this potion
was beyond him though.

He did however, get very suspicious when he couldn’t help but notice he was writing these
notes of his beneath a very detailed drawing of what looked like a human heart—clearly
shakily done in his own hand but not a half bad rendition either, clearly copied carefully from
something else.
“Is there a reason you’re so interested in the circulatory system then?” He raised a brow,
Draco lifting his head from his note to stare blankly back at him.

“Is the blood replenishing potion not related?” He countered.

“Technically.” Severus allowed, but not about to let it drop. “That is not strictly needed
information when learning to brew it though.”

The blond frowned some, putting his quill in it’s well beside him almost distractedly. “Yeah
but… technically it’s not unimportant either. You said rate of ingredient adage was directly
related to the rate of absorption, and the rate of absorption is directly linked to how big
someone’s circulatory system is to be able to handle this potion. Which means the circulatory
system or how big or old someone is, is directly related to this potion’s dosage. You would
need double the amount of potion I would in order to get the same effect, and that would be
kind of important to know when giving it to someone, right?”

Severus stared.

To be truthful, he’d very rarely ever given someone one of his potions to drink. This one in
particular he gave to Madam Pomfrey in bulk and he was just now learning she was probably
dosing it out properly depending on who she was giving it to—adults or children, as needed.
Of course he knew about dosages… but everything he made was for adult dosages, he had
never considered until this moment that children might actually need smaller volumes than
what he bottled.

Not that he was about to admit that—he was the potions master here, thank you.

“That’s not precisely information that will be on any test.” He deflected instead, and luckily
Draco just rolled his eyes.

“That’s really hypocritical coming from you—half of what you teach me will never be on the
OWLs or any test that you don’t write yourself. Isn’t the purpose of brewing potions to give
them to people eventually? I would think knowing how to do that properly would then be
pretty important.”

He made a point, but that’s not really how the world worked.

“Healers diagnose and dose potions—potion masters simply create them. I brew for the art
and the craft itself.” He said simply, checking the time as he did so to meter how long he had
left until he needed to start stirring again.

He didn’t see Draco’s face flicker behind him as he did so.

“So healers don’t brew the potions but they are expected to know how they work?”

“I’m sure you could ask Madam Pomfrey if you’re that curious.” Severus gave a shrug, not
really understanding this line of questioning. “There’s a lot more to healing than just knowing
the potions and charms required, just as there’s a lot more to brewing potions than a healer
would ever have time to understand properly. I know the Madam can brew better than anyone
else at this school besides myself, but she rarely does so when she has me at her disposal.”
He explained.

Draco’s face frowned even more deeply. “Ironic since she said you could probably heal the
best in the school besides her.”

Severus paused… and pointedly turned from the potion to raise a brow at his godson who
froze at the look he was getting.

“So you have talked to her already.”

“Were you… not aware of that?”

“Was I supposed to be aware?” He countered right back, suspicion making itself known.
“When are you spending large amounts of time in the hospital wing then, Draco? I know for
a fact if you were injured then Narcissa would be in my ear immediately about why I didn’t
inform her.”

Grey eyes flickered to the side a bit, but then he just shrugged with a tense air about him.

“It’s not me, it’s Harry. Idiot gets hurt all the time,” He half muttered, and Severus was not
touching that with a hundred-foot pole.

The last half of the semester had been relatively peaceful for him, Severus finally managing
to just ignore the Potter brat’s existence most of the time. Draco seemed to be busier and not
just hanging out with that menace for no reason so the topic rarely came up outside of class
times, and even then Draco being a diligent student meant Potter also just shut up and brewed
beside his partner. It left Severus free to happily pick off points on the Gryffindor side of the
room and completely ignore them.

The most serious thing to note had been that damn firecracker nearly roasting the boy… but
he hadn’t had a reaction and actually finished the potion again without complaint. Ever since
the boy had been near silent in his class, Severus catching him eyeing everyone in the room
warily and knew the boy was now just on guard against a repeat. Which, good because
potions were dangerous and now he was taking it seriously.

It had to have hurt, Severus knew that better than anyone. He wasn’t about to lose his record
and let anyone die in his class, much less this specific brat that was so critical to Dumbledore
for some reason… much less Lily’s son.

He would not let the boy die, obviously he wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t let anyone die because he was a teacher damn it.

But he also was not about to think twice about the red-headed terror’s non-reaction either,
because he seemed fine enough, so fine he was.

Draco’s comment to how much Potter got injured did make him realize the boy probably was
more than a little danger prone, so spending a lot of time near Madam Pomfrey was probably
the reason he was suddenly asking about the difference between healers and potion masters.
And now that he was thinking about it, he hadn’t really had a conversation with Poppy in a
bit—at least not the strictly business exchanges they’d had where she informed him what
potions she needed restocked. Actually these days he often just found a letter on his desk
with the requests; she hadn’t been down to make the visit herself in… well at least a month
but he honestly couldn’t remember when it started.

He couldn’t be too shocked either, Potter alone probably took up half her time with injuries,
much less being on call for if another petrified student was found. The real reason though, he
suspected, was that she was much closer friends with Minerva, who was not his biggest fan at
the moment.

That the Gryffindor head of house was so clearly favoring the Potter brat and actually picking
arguments with him in staff meetings for his bullshit all of a sudden was really fucking
annoying, but Dumbledore didn’t seem to care to intervene at all. At this point he was losing
steam in actually being willing to fight back because she was exhausting and stubborn as
hell; he just didn’t have the energy or time for that anymore when there were actual staffing
things to discuss. It didn’t help that no one ever really came to either of their aides—at least
not publicly. Severus strongly suspected Pomona and Filius agreed with Minerva but were
keeping it to themselves for the sake of peace or neutrality or something.

However, none of them ever made casual trips to his classroom to talk, pretty much ever.
Being isolated in the dungeons was one thing, but it had never really stopped anyone before
when visiting Aurora in the astronomy tower if he were to go about making comparisons.

Not that he was complaining… he suspected the lack of visitors was actually partly the
reason why his semester had been so peaceful, so he kind of enjoyed it. It was that he also
wasn’t unaware of the tensions and divides happening amongst the staff right now, so he
wasn’t overly shocked that Poppy had silently chosen a side herself and was keeping a
distance between them.

However… just because he wasn’t personally missing any of them, didn’t mean this was a
good thing ultimately. The dark lord having possessed Quirrell last year was a bad omen, as it
implied he was not nearly as gone as everyone would love to think. If there was any chance
he could return… Severus was hyper aware that his only value after all this time was as a spy
to Dumbledore on the dark lord’s behalf, and frankly vice versa as well. If something were to
ever happen and the lines got more firmly drawn, Severus did not want to be on the wrong
side of it—he wanted to be able to play both fields and therefore be able to choose which side
had the best chance of survival.

Poppy distancing herself was… not good. She was infamously strict, but one of the strongest
neutral parties in this entire school. He had heard tell that she’d once declined a personal
invite from the dark lord himself and was not only still alive but perfectly fine so… she was
not someone he wanted as an enemy. While he didn’t mind the distance, he needed to know
she still accepted him, because Minerva clearly had public issues with him now and those
two women were the closest to Dumbledore personally—if they began questioning him
openly, while it might not ultimately change things now, he was sure the headmaster would
start to reconsider things in a time of open war.
He did not believe Dumbledore would ever discard him, going off of his reasons for
switching sides.

He did however believe that the senile old bastard would start to share less with him in a
heartbeat if he wasn’t squeaky clean in his shows of loyalty, and since Severus needed
information like he needed air to survive, that couldn’t happen.

On the flip side, if the dark lord ever commanded him to obtain information on one of his
colleagues, and Severus only struck up a conversation with them for the first time during a
time of active conflict, after years of being divided, he would immediately be far too
suspicious of a spy.

Which meant… he shouldn’t be picking fights with Minerva anymore, and he should be
making some effort to communicate with his coworkers. He needed to sooth the divide
between him and them before anything else happened and it was too late.

Ugh.

“Are you thinking of socializing with people again?” Draco brought him out of his internal
musing and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Why would I tell you that?”

“I was just saying… it was kind of obvious.” Draco stuck his tongue out and Severus flicked
him on the forehead to get him to shut up—earning a loud complaint of pain as a reward.

“I’m not going to your little party as I have duties to attend to here. Winter break is for
students, but teachers still work to plan for the coming semester and I had planned to discuss
things with my colleagues without interruptions.” He glanced pointedly at him in reference to
the interruptions he was talking about.

Draco rolled his own eyes that time but gave up, releasing a hefty sigh.

“Fine, whatever…” He grumbled. “I would think you’d want to get out of the castle given
there’s a petrification monster wandering around.”

Severus just tisked, unphased.

One of those more important things to discuss at staff meetings over him bickering with
Minerva just so happened to be this petrification issue, but Dumbledore was only too happy
to eat up time letting two of his staff members slide back-handed comments at each other
rather than addressing the monster in the castle. Still, it came up every time the staff gathered
and at half their meals at this point and they’d gotten nowhere.

They’d run every ward and diagnostic spell known to man—and a couple Severus knew that
the Ministry might not strictly know he knew—but the castle was the same as it always was.
For all the traces they’d found, students were spontaneously just turning to stone with no
apparent cause, and the idea it was some kind of creature, specifically Slytherin’s creature of
some sort, was yet to be proven.
The idea the Chamber of Secrets was even real was yet to be proven, as Severus had done a
lot of research in his life as head of Slytherin house with zero evidence to support that myth
had even an iota of truth to it. It was a fairytale that got passed down to get little snakes
exploring the halls of their school in hopes of finding it, like a generational prank more than
anything of actual substance.

From what he’d gathered from his own house, the whole Mrs. Norris thing seemed a little too
dramatic for a proper snake… not that they didn’t have some serious duds in their ranks but
let’s just say those unsharpened blades did not quite have the talent to unearth a petrification
spell on anyone. The cat had also been cut open for her blood after being petrified they’d
found, so there was a good chance some twisted student found a frozen Mrs. Norris and
decided to pull a prank. That was something someone like Marcus Flint would do in a
heartbeat, and going by the loud boasting he was doing during potions classes to get a rise out
of his lion counterparts, Severus could easily buy he’d done it just to cause animosity and
fear.

He wasn’t against it, not entirely. He knew enough dark arts that he doubted any kind of
sudden attack or weird flux in the castle would permanently damage him, so he personally
was not that worried. Besides, the potion to fix it was pitifully easy, Poppy could do it in her
sleep once the mandrakes came in, and Pomona was growing enough to get them a ten year
supply of disenpetrification brew, so it really wasn’t that big a deal if it did turn out to be the
castle just deciding to freeze people randomly. In a couple months it would be easy to fix and
Severus kind of hoped it was just the castle being weird… Hogwarts was plenty weird and
frankly he’d seen it do weirder in his time living here.

Honestly he kind of understood: if he needed to spend a thousand years housing so many

annoying brats and angsty teenagers, he’d start petrifying people too if he could. He probably
wouldn’t last ten years much less however long Hogwarts had been putting up with their shit.

But even if all that weren’t pretty believable, the most likely reason was the rumor he’d
picked up on that Lockhart had unwittingly brought some dark object with him and had no
idea he was causing this mess.

That man, was absolutely useless.

Worse than dumb, because he was just clever enough to have an ego the size of the moon and
was really fucking annoying about it. Severus had been avoiding him like the plague, as
seeing him at staff meetings was frankly too much of him already.

He was so confidently incompetent though, Severus didn’t doubt for a second he’d picked up
something insanely dark and was probably fucking wearing it with his stupid sparkly robes
distracting everyone away from whatever it was. He’d done a couple subtle wards to see if he
could find anything on the idiot but nothing had come up… but even without proof Severus
hated him so much he couldn’t help but still believe it was somehow the buffoon’s fault.

The nail in the coffin though was trying to bring this suspicion up to Dumbledore, who’d
dismissed him out of hand.
Severus had worked for the so-called leader of the Light long enough to know that if Albus
Dumbledore dismissed your concerns, it was because he had something to do with the
concern in the first place. Maybe he genuinely didn’t know what this petrification deal was
all about, but he was sure as help benefitting off of the situation somehow and didn’t want
people to look closer.

The fact parents were not contacted en masse, how the Ministry had not been informed nor
Aurors permitted to come onto school grounds, how barely any time was given to discuss the
issue at staff meetings, how their own fucking headmaster gave them no guidance or game
plan about what to do or how to comfort their students’ concerns and everything they’d done
so far had been of their own initiative… and then finally, how any concern or suggestion to
what it might be was dismissed or given a grandfatherly nod of support but no concrete
confirmation or attention, really drove home that Dumbledore didn’t want this situation to
change at all. Either he also believed it was just the castle being weird, or he knew something
they didn’t and wasn’t sharing… or neither of those things were true and Albus had no idea
what it was but was still using the situation to his advantage for something else entirely
unrelated, giving zero fucks about the students and staff who might get petrified before the
potions were done.

Not that he ever cared.

And well, if Dumbledore wasn’t going to care, and more importantly wasn’t going to make
him pretend to care for once, then Severus was not wasting a second more than necessary on
something clearly the headmaster was handling. For better or worse, as by now Severus knew
better than anyone that Albus Dumbledore was fully capable of using any situation for the
worse, but at the very least he knew he was not expendable to the old man, so he’d probably
be fine. He had never been able to do anything about Dumbledore’s complicated schemes
anyway, so he was just going along with it for now.

He wasn’t spending any more time on it until he was told otherwise, and that included giving
credence to Draco’s comments about it either.

“That’s for me to worry about, never you mind.”

The boy huffed, but had mercy for once and dropped it, finally switching back to potions as
he always did.

“Where did you get the ficedula root?”

“I have a trusted Herbologist I get most of my rarer ingredients from,” Severus gave him
another blank look. “No I’m not telling you where.”

“Why not?”

“For some reason your sudden interest in obtaining materials makes me think you’re brewing
behind my back.”

Draco looked offended, small face crumpling into a scowl. “That’s cruel, when have I ever
broken one of your rules? Like I’d risk you being my tutor just to blow myself up on a
NEWT level potion.” He made his annoyance at Severus’ implication about his intelligence
known.

“Why do you need ficedula root then?”

“I don’t, I’m just curious about where someone would get random things like this. I know for
a fact it’s not sold in stores in Diagon but I did see it in Contrair Alley once. I was suspicious
is all.”

Severus fully turned to give him an incredulous look.

“When have you been to Contrair?” he was very taken aback… as a half-blood obviously
he’d slunk his way down there a time or two, particularly because those Odd Solutions or
whatever they were really were handy sometimes… but on his life he would’ve never
imagined a Malfoy would set foot on that street.

Draco’s ears went red but he puffed out his chest defiantly. “Harry took me once. It was lame
but it had it’s uses.” He refused to be embarrassed although his posture clearly said he kind of
was.

Severus wanted to say more but he was honestly distracted by the news. Ficedula root was
notoriously difficult to grow, much less harvest, which is why he had so far needed to order it
from a specialty Herbologist on Hogwarts’ dime for the hospital wing. He’d never actually
been able to purchase it himself given how pricy it was due to its rarity and difficulty. It was
so difficult in fact, that St. Mungos sometimes requested him for blood replenishing potions
when they ran short, and sometimes it was definitely because the on-site potion brewers over
there couldn’t find the ingredients they needed to get the proper potion volumes in stock. His
Herbologist contact actually specialized in only six ingredients, but they were all insanely
difficult plants to cultivate, and the man spent his entire life on those six plants alone thanks
to the specialty.

That it was being sold in a shop down in Contrair Alley had him highly intrigued and
suspicious. Either it was a terrible knock off, badly yet cheaply grown… or it was genuinely
publicly available ficedula root and if that were the case he was making a trip as soon as the
students were out of the castle for break.

“Interesting. What exactly did you see then?”

Draco tilted his head as he remembered back. “The most interesting was the ficedula, but I
guess also the literal bucket of Theraphosidae hair was also pretty cool. I have no idea how
they got that much, you’d need to shave like a million spiders, easily.”

Another very difficult ingredient to get. He needed to start going to Contrair apparently.

Severus was thrilled the conversation had gone back to potions, much less his favorite topic
of where to get the ingredients he needed. The less he needed to ever give thought to… well,
literally anything else, the better.

Merry Christmas to himself indeed.

 000

The potions master was so enthralled in tending to his potion and listening to tales of the
Contrair Alley Apothecary, he didn’t see Draco silently close his book behind him, tucking
the notes on healing out of sight before his mentor could wonder too closely about it.

Yeah… Draco probably wasn’t the best snake out there. He knew he missed a lot of things he
shouldn’t—things everyone else thought were obvious. He knew Theo in particular was
silently getting angrier by the day that he wasn’t picking up on things, but Draco was so lost
as to what he wasn’t seeing that at this point he didn’t really know how to catch up.

What he did know though, after over a year in Slytherin house and delicately (desperately)
walking the tightrope game between Slytherin and Gryffindor for the sake of everything he
wanted out of life, was how to read people.

He did not know why Theo was mad at him, but he knew the mousey Slytherin was silently
pissed. Despite the fact the guy never so much as snubbed him or glared at him, he knew by
the way blue eyes would follow him over that ever-present book sometimes when he and
Blaise were talking around him. Theo never joined the conversation but sometimes Draco
knew whatever he was saying was pissing his quiet roommate off to the pits of hell.

He did not know why but he knew Greengrass was extremely upset about something, always
when it was them and Harry talking at lunch or some study session. He didn’t know what
triggered it but he could clock on immediately when something in the conversation reminded
her of whatever was on her mind that seemed to be churning in her stomach sickeningly.

He also had no fucking clue why Blaise did anything that he did, but he also knew the Zabini
heir was well and truly unhinged going by how honestly happy he was anytime someone
brought up the petrification monster haunting their school days now.

He resigned himself to his fate, because he also unfortunately knew a little bit more about
how Gryffindors worked compared to his own house, and they were way easier to read.

Harry, was easy to read.

Draco had no idea what triggered any of his moods, but he could also see when his best
friend was upset from across the Great Hall. He could tell he was pissed off no matter his
poker face, and he could tell when he was trying not to cry even if he was actively smiling or
laughing it off. He could tell how afraid he was to even breathe a word about that werewolf
of his, how terrified he was that this would be the thing that finally made Draco walk away.

Again, he resigned himself.

If only he could figure out why Harry did anything he did, his life would be much easier
but… so far that perception remained out of his reach for now.

Draco didn’t know why anyone did anything, but he could practically sense what they felt
about it at this point. He’d only just recently started attempting to use that skill to actually get
his way when he could, and as always he had only gotten bold enough to use it first on his
godfather before anyone else. Severus would always cut him back down to size if he was too
overconfident, or if whatever tactic he was attempting to use sucked, he felt safer to do it to
his mentor who wouldn’t immediately use it to ruin his social life like Blaise would.

Still… despite feeling like he had a safety net here and being perhaps a bit too cocky with his
godfather, he was not really expecting for it to work… quite so well.

Things Draco knew about his godfather: the man loved potions more than anything in the
world, he did not like talking about the dark lord, he did not like socializing with anyone
(ever), and above all… he wanted nothing to do with Harry.

Even worse than talking about Gryffindors, even worse than talking about Dumbledore or the
dark lord or inviting him to a hundred tea parties with his mother, Draco knew Severus would
rather him spit into the potion he was brewing right now than ask him his thoughts about
‘Harry Potter’.

And Severus took potion brewing about as seriously as he took breathing, so Draco knew
his… maybe not hatred, but his die-hard dedication to ignore that Harry even existed was a
very powerful thing.

Again, Draco had no idea why, but he suspected Severus would ignore every red flag
imaginable if they just so happened to be waving over Harry’s head—anything at all to avoid
the topic of that particular Gryffindor.

Draco knew he wasn’t a good liar, especially not to his godfather who’d practically taught
him everything he knew about the skill. So when he’d come close to bringing up the lessons
on healing he’d been taking from the Madam, and Severus hadn’t known what he was talking
about… he’d back pedaled instinctively.

Information was a Slytherin’s lifeblood and it was very rare Draco ever knew something
someone else didn’t, but especially his godfather. Just because he didn’t often get a chance to
use it didn’t mean he hadn’t learned the lesson to shut your mouth and never give away
information for free since birth.

The only person immune to his new ability to pick up on peoples’ emotions thus far was
Madam Pomfrey, whose prim and business-like mask never wavered a second to give him a
clue what she actually thought about anything. But, he already knew she was scary so he
didn’t push too hard with her out of respect… and a healthy dose of fear.

He was under the impression teachers talked to each other, so he had never really thought to
just bring up to his godfather his apparent penchant for healing. In fact last time Madam
Pomfrey had patched up a burn he’d gotten from sitting too close to Finnegan while he blew
up yet another charm, by the time he’d gotten back to his dorm he’d had a letter from his
mother waiting on his bed to scold him about being more careful. The Madam had clearly
informed his mother who had sent a house elf to deliver her words—all of it probably hadn’t
taken 40 minutes, tops.

Things his mother knew, Severus ultimately knew since he was her eyes on her son while at
Hogwarts, so Draco hadn’t even considered his godfather wouldn’t know. He’d fully assumed
his parents and pretty much every other adults in his life knew about his new ability and
hobby here, but if Severus didn’t know then… potentially, his parents didn’t know either.
Actually, Draco was completely sure his parents didn’t know, because if his mother knew
then she would have told Severus to watch him like a hawk to ensure he wasn’t doing
anything dangerous given it was an unknown ability to her.

But WHY would Madam Pomfrey not tell his parents? She told them everything else!

Then again… he couldn’t read her. He had no idea what she thought about anything, but he
did trust her implicitly. She was too freaking intimidating to dare question, so he just
hadn’t… ever.

And maybe he’d panicked for a moment, realizing he was now caught between two choices:
follow the Madam’s lead and say nothing, or confide in his godfather what he’d been up to
for weeks now. Months, honestly, entirely oblivious that his new hobby was apparently a
secret?

I mean, it didn’t have to be a secret, right? Why would he hide anything from his godfather or
his parents?

As soon as the thought formed though… he instinctively decided to keep it to himself.

For now.

No apparent reason exactly, he just decided was all.

So he’d brought up Harry, and true to his suspicion Severus had dropped the subject like a
hissing snake and been happily distracted by the talk of potions ingredients, no longer
pressing the question line of why Draco suddenly cared so much about how potions were
used in healing. Talking about ingredients he certainly did seem to be in a much more chipper
mood than Draco had ever really seen him be before… which just further drove home the fact
that even his own godfather didn’t really enjoy talking to him about anything non-potion
related. He didn’t take it personally as Draco was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone on earth his
godfather actually liked to talk to—the fact he let him in here in the first place was probably
enough.

It was just a hobby, after all. He didn’t need to bother Severus with something he’d probably
get bored of eventually.

Besides, Severus didn’t want to talk about Harry so… he probably wouldn’t want to hear
how he discovered this ability, nor why he’d been looking into it in the first place. He might
have a stroke.

Convinced he was doing his godfather a favor by keeping his new hobby to himself, he
relaxed back into talking potion ingredients since it was their last chance to catch up before
break.

000
“Thank you again!”

“Don’t mention it… I mean that literally.” Melinda didn’t even blink twice to let him into the
Slytherin common room behind her, immediately walking off to her dorm rather than
acknowledge him more than that, but he took it as a win. While she still had approximately
zero interest in dealing with anyone (the issue with Lockhart seeming to be an isolated
incident) she also didn’t seem to take issue with anyone either.

Which was promising when it came to Gryffindors, less so as it also applied to people like
Pansy Parkinson to whom she was routinely sitting with at meals and in classes. Girl
probably should’ve been grey for how little she actually care about… well, anyone actually.

And Harry wasn’t giving up exactly, but he considered this complete indifference about his
presence an acceptable status quo for now.

Saving Melinda for later though, he had some people he wanted to wish a happy break to
before they all parted ways tomorrow morning… and if he was trying to distract himself from
the sheer excitement and fear about actually getting to finally meet Remus in person and have
a real Christmas with someone he might consider family for once, he was also ignoring that
for now.

The Slytherin common room was actually very populated, as true to his suspicion even the
most uptight of houses wanted to just laze around and chat after finals had officially been
declared done. He hadn’t had a chance to see any of his snake friends since the testing had
started, given they were all way too busy last-minute cramming to bother with him and he
sensed his presence would be unwelcome.

Also, the other houses had very much demanded his appearances: Ravenclaw for his
feedback on how his Transfiguration final went, and Hufflepuff because as they finished tests
wanted to have celebratory meals after each one and he was somehow expected to attend all
of them. Gryffindor, in true lion fashion, had a meltdown right before each test when
everyone realized they hadn’t studied properly and needed to emergency cram, so he’d stuck
to Gryffindor tower to show some house pride for once and participate in the last minute
memorizing episodes. Which, he said as if he weren’t one of them doing the exact same thing
before his Charms and History of Magic finals; he only really had his act together for
Transfiguration and everything else thanks to some good study partners over the semester.

Still, that meant his balance between houses was off and he at least wanted to wish Theo a
happy break.

Screw Blaise and he’d be talking to Draco every day anyway.

He didn’t want to draw attention to them but he also wanted to check in on Alden and Lake to
see how their first finals had gone, though despite everything else they’d been struggling with
thankfully school work had never been an issue for either of them. Overwhelmed as he was,
Alden had a much quieter interest in magic than someone like Colin, but he still had the first-
year-wonder of reading textbooks like they were fantasy novels which made learning much
easier.
Still, as he did a quick scan of the area to be sure he wasn’t going to step into something he
shouldn’t in the more-crowded-than-normal common room, and before he could locate any of
his targets, a figure came running at him.

He almost had his wand in hand in defense at the sudden motion since no one ran in the
Slytherin common room—

—before he realized it was Blaise and oh yeah… the Zabini heir did whatever the fuck he
wanted.

“Harry my love.” He was instantly on him and Harry had to take step back at the sudden
harassment. Someone was excited and he vaguely wondered who’d died.

Since his awareness was up from the scare, he noticed a table of fifth or sixth years in the
center area whip around at his arrival with wide-eyed looks.

Weird. What was their problem? He’d been here all year, why were they surprised now?

He couldn’t really focus on that though, when Blaise was practically shaking him to grab at
his attention.

“Gross,” He huffed bluntly at the endearment, but Blaise had gossip in his eyes and clearly
didn’t care about his reaction. “What’s up?”

“I would like to make a trade!” He announced proudly, concluded with a short: “Fuck off
Greengrass.”

Harry blinked.

“Wait what?” Then he turned to where the tall Slytherin was looking and did a double take to
realize Daphne had somehow appeared behind him and was now scowling harshly up at
Blaise.

“You bitch!”

“You snooze, you lose—now shoo!”

“I’m gonna vomit,” She drawled acidly and went to shove past him, but he neatly dodged her
shoulder check like it was nothing, having fully expected it.

Without missing a beat he had an arm looped in Harry’s and was dragging him off to the side
of the room they normally didn’t sit at—to one of the smaller tables with only two chairs and
Harry immediately knew something was up if this needed to be private. He didn’t think he’d
ever had a proper one-on-one with Blaise before and not sure how good of an idea this was.

“Come, come—much to discuss!” Blaise practically sang and it didn’t really help his nerves.

“I’m not so sure I want to trade with you right now. Seems like a lot of stress for the
holidays.”
“Oh please. It’ll be fun!”

“Define fun.”

“It’ll be interesting!”

“Define interesting.”

“It’ll be profitable!”

“Hm.” Harry had to admit that was actually tempting. He was not exactly in need of money
but given who this was there was a possibility he wasn’t talking about galleons when he
meant profit. Blaise tended to consider information worth way more than money.

On the other hand Daphne clearly wanted to beat him to it and she usually meant money, so
he’d have to find out.

As he was promptly dumped in a seat, he resigned himself to his fate.

“Okay, what’s this about then?”

“Rumor has it you’re attending a tea tasting this spring,” Blaise immediately jumped to it
with a glint in his eye that Harry didn’t like.

“I never confirmed anything of the sort. Considering maybe.”

“But you’ve been invited.” Blaise didn’t ask and Harry instinctively knew not to give him
any information. Draco had said whoever gave him his official referral would have a huge
political advantage and despite having freaking shrugged when he said it, going by the two
grey heirs’ intense reaction to this news he was wondering if the Malfoy hadn’t seriously
underplayed something here.

“I didn’t say that either. What do you want?” He demanded bluntly.

“Don’t be like that, I’m not necessarily after your referral… though if you wanted to let my
mother give you one I’m sure we could think up a price to suit your tastes,” His eyes glinted
but at least he already knew Harry was most likely not going to take him up on the offer.

That being said… he hadn’t given it a ton of thought about who he would ask, but if letting
him flee to Italy for a summer on the Zabini’s family dime was a worthy the price he may
have to reconsider some things.

“I’m weighing my options currently. Obviously, I have a lot.” He shrugged nonchalantly

instead.

“I had figured, but you have one more if you wanted it.” Blaise waved it off uncaringly.
“What I’m really after is that if you’re going to be attending tastings and reopening the
previous Potter deals, obviously you’ll have pretty much anyone you want as potential
buyers… but only if people know you’re selling.” He gave a sharp grin.
Harry used every trick Hermonie’s book on controlling your emotions ever taught him to
keep his face straight and pretend like he was musing this over carefully.

Truth was, he had no idea what the ‘previous Potter deals’ were. Obviously they’d died out
with his parents but apparently people were very interested in getting them back now that he
hinted he was going to start taking an interest in his bloodline’s businesses.

So he put on a face and bluffed the best he could.

“So you want to what, be my advocate? Or in true gossip-whore fashion you just want to be
the ones spreading the details of my business.” He tried to figure out.

Blaise had the decency to look humble, despite the fact Harry knew he was only doing it to be
polite.

“I mean obviously my family would be buyers as well, you know how it is.” He flashed a
grin and Harry schooled his expression into a narrowed look that he hoped was interpreted
correctly as being wary of him as always instead of more than a little concerned over what it
was he wanted to buy, much less why. “You don’t need to be a friend of the family to make a
little purchase here and there though, that’s just normal business. But just think of how many
people are interested in buying but aren’t sure how to get in contact with you? My family
would be only so helpful getting you the right people, right?”

Harry tapped the table in front of him distractedly like he was considering it—in reality he
was just trying to imagine what this previous family business his father once had that people
wanted so badly. He was trying to think of how many people there might be, but honestly he
had no fucking clue.

He would not be cluing Blaise into that weakness though… but something caught his
suspicion that he decided to take a gamble on.

He tapped a finger to his chin with a playfully narrowed look. “Given I’m an orphan I’ll
admit I’m still getting back up to speed with everything I’ve inherited, but I swear I don’t
recall there ever being a Zabini name in any of my father’s previous dealings.” He mused,
forcing down a grin at Blaise’s sniff.

Caught him.

“Alright so maybe Potters of past haven’t really cared much for Slytherins besides that one
moment of insanity where they married into the Black family,” He admitted, sounding
annoyed by that. “But you dear are so much different than those that wore their reputation of
rampaging lions so proudly… you’re so much more flexible than that, aren’t you?”

He locked onto his gaze and Harry vividly remembered Susan’s comment about flirting with
Slytherins in the worst possible time.

Hoping to distract how his cheeks got hot he glared, praying Blaise interpreted it as anger
instead.
“That is my family you’re talking about there,” Righteous anger was believable from a
Gryffindor, he hoped. No reason to let this asshole know how little Harry actually cared about
blood ties and the useless reputation of people long since dead. He was the last living Potter
so whoever he became was what the name now meant, that was the end of it. “I will admit
you’re not wrong, I would be willing to work with Slytherins at large—with anyone actually
if the price was right, honestly. And if I could trust them, that is.”

“Insulting my pride as someone who upholds their end of the deal is a bit rude dear,” Blaise
snipped politely—for him. “I didn’t do you wrong with the parseltongue nonsense, did I?”

Harry had to admit, he really hadn’t let him down at all. He just wasn’t sure if he wanted to
say that out loud officially. Decided to skate right by that question.

“Just because I would be willing to work with anyone under the right situation, doesn’t mean
I think this is the right situation. I’m taking this slow as I am only twelve right now and
frankly have bigger plans than business for this current year. I was only considering attending
the tasting this spring, and even then only as an attendee to see it myself for the first time.”

“But when you do decide you have something worth selling, you’ll think of little old me?”
Blaise batted his eyes but Harry just rolled his.

“You make it very hard not to think of you so I’m sure I’ll have the thought. Whether that’s
good or bad for my mental health is left to be seen.”

“So you do think of me! I knew you loved me,” He teased in a freaking purr of all things and
Harry was pretty sure his cheeks didn’t get red but had a horrible moment where he wasn’t
entirely sure if he’d controlled that blush or not.

He was saved by a sudden interruption from a certain blond—who’d almost had a stroke
when Daphne oh so helpfully pointed out that his Gryffindor was getting quite cozy with the
Zabini heir across the room, enough to make Harry blush apparently.

“Draco!” Harry chirped as he crashed into their little conversation here, happiness to see him
taking a sharp left turn to see the expression he had on, hackles visibly raised. Not that he
was very surprised it was directed at Blaise—even Blaise didn’t seem very shocked by this,
just rolling his eyes with a smirk.

“Blaise.”

“How did I know you’d have no decorum in interrupting a business talk, Malfoy?”

Draco paused half a second to glance at Harry to see if that was actually true, but the red head
just waved him off that he was good. With that out of the way he nabbed the collar of Blaise’s
robe in a fast enough motion to make a seeker proud and immediately dragged him off.

“I’m just gonna steal him for a moment to talk—be right back.” He announced.

“Oi unhand me.”

“Actually make me Zabini,” Draco snapped and Harry couldn’t help but be very amused
when Blaise fumbled to try and get out of his hold and ultimately failed—awkwardly gagging
as he was choked by his own collar by someone much shorter than him pulling him from his
chair.

Harry did so love it when Draco won a round against his housemates as it didn’t happen
often, and despite walking and talking with a lot more grace than expected out of any twelve-
year-old, Blaise was actually kind of clumsy. Draco and himself were the athletes, but if was
very clear Blaise was not when confronted with good old-fashioned muggle manhandling
like this.

For some reason it made the insane Slytherin much more human… or at least it was
comforting that Harry could probably just trip him and run away if it ever came to that.

Then again, physical threat was not the reason half of Slytherin house lived in fear of the
Zabini name.

He brushed that entire exchange off, making a note to catch up with Daphne about her take
on all this tea tasting business. He had plans to make it to Gringotts over break so he
probably didn’t need to ask her what business they were hoping he was about to take up again
if Axeclaw could fill him in instead. Harry had already done a lot of business with Daphne
since first year anyway, and was thinking he should probably spread the wealth some more
with his dealings… not even taking into consideration that he already had a blanket open debt
with the Greengrass family, which was more than enough right now… frankly too much
even. He was even less inclined to have them be his referral than the Zabini family, although
since it was a Greengrass hosted tasting, and it sounded like many other tastings would also
be of Greengrass ownership, he still wanted to hear what she had to say.

He stood, spotting Daphne and Tracy in their own corner but saving them for later when he
spotted his real target in his normal seat and went over to plop down across from him. Theo
glanced up over his book but very pointedly looked back down at it rather than greet him.

Harry hesitated for a moment at that but went as polite as he could.

“Hope your finals went well Theo.” He offered and blue eyes snapped up at him, causing him
to sweat a bit. “Ah… I came to wish you a happy break is all. Are you staying at Hogwarts?”

“No.”

The word was flat and short, and with no further explanation he dropped his eyes to his book.

And you know, Harry could read the room, so he winced and shut his mouth, leaving him to
it. It wasn’t that weird as most Slytherins were going home given the dangers happening at
school right now, but also something about his tone told him to shut up like right now.

Harry himself didn’t like talking about his breaks either, so that was fair. He couldn’t exactly
share that he was going to stay with a werewolf either, as Theo was still very much dark and
was the one most likely out of his friend group to have actual animosity, not just fear or
distaste.
Still, at the icy look that was shot his way when he just continued to sit there like a moron,
Harry pointedly opened his bag and pulled out one of Dell’s journal to start reading himself
so as not to make it awkward.

Yikes, someone is not in the mood.

He didn’t really want to piss him off either, so he pointedly shut up and bowed his head over
the book himself and sensed more then saw Theo relax half a beat as he minded his own
business.

No matter what a foul mood he was in, Harry always thought the silence with Theo to be
kind of comfortable. The quiet Slytherin certainly never felt the need to actually start a
conversation, and would actually much prefer it if Harry shut his mouth for once, so he felt
rather free to do just that.

He was here to kill time after all, since they still had several hours before the parting feast,
and until Draco got back from dealing with whatever Blaise had done, he could just sit here
and relax with some light reading himself.

First it was a one-on-one conversation with Blaise, now getting to just read with Theo… I’m
really getting lucky today, He mused to himself rather pleasantly. He’d probably end this
night screaming over and exploding snap game in the Gryffindor dorm so the peace before
the storm was actually a good call.

Although… as much as he loved Dell, he was looking at the page and most definitely not
reading it, his mind still caught up in the business Blaise had hinted about. Not that he could
sit here and suddenly recall what dealings they were after, he’d have to wait to ask Axeclaw
about that over break but… pretty much everything else about this tea tasting was interesting.
He really didn’t have the capacity to deal with it right now given finals first, Remus over
break, then obviously Sirius’ trial at some point early in the new year… and now that finals
was at least done his stomach flipped to realize that trial was closer than ever on the horizon,
he just didn’t know how far out. From Mr. Greengrass’ letter, it was soon… he just didn’t
have any more specifics about it than that and it made him a bit nervous.

Hopeful in a painful way as he was trying really hard not to get his hopes up and ultimately
failing because at this point, his hopes were raised and there was nothing he could do about
it. He just needed to sit here and hope against all hope that things turned out okay and this
blanket debt to Sebastian Greengrass was worth it in the end.

There really wasn’t much he could do about that, and despite how nervous/excited he was to
spend Christmas with Remus, given it was tomorrow and he really only had to just wait one
night’s sleep away for it to be here, it also seemed to be easier to handle than any sort of
long-term anticipation.

Which meant there were only few ways of distracting himself now that finals were over and
he couldn’t do anything but wait about his other two most important concerns, why not think
a little harder about this business nonsense? Not that he didn’t really have the time for
business stuff like this except… at this moment, while waiting for everything else to either
happen or not, yeah he kind of did have the time.
He would save what the business was for later but… what about his referral? It was clearly
important if Blaise had risked openly looking like he was competing with Daphne for it,
much less that Daphne herself had tried to intercept him immediately when he got to the
common room. If he sat here and honestly tried to consider who he might actually ask for a
referral though… the Greengrass family already had probably too much of his business and
trusting the Zabini name was a gamble at best. Yes it might pay off fantastically but he was
sure there’d be strings attached to it too… and anything that blatantly gave Dalia Zabini more
power when the entirety of Slytherin had let the one and only “Boy Who Lived” right into
their dorm purely by her word of approval alone felt like a really bad idea.

Even blatant dark lord supporters hadn’t said a single word about him being here or so much
as looked at him funny, which meant she was a person even someone dumb as a troll like
Marcus Flint knew to obey by shutting his stupid mouth for once in his life. Hell, Snape
hadn’t even acknowledged it despite there being no way he didn’t know there was a
Gryffindor in his house’s common room and openly hating Harry Potter in particular… the
fact he frankly pretended like he didn’t know Harry was here said more than enough.

The Greengrass family did not need more business, and the Zabini family did not need more
power.

To be blunt, the Malfoy family did not need more money either, so while Draco might’ve
been his next best option, the cavalier attitude he’d had about it when informing him of the
importance of the referral implied the Malfoy family itself was kind of above the power-play
these pureblood gatherings entailed. Harry could very easily imagine that Mrs. Malfoy did
not struggle to obtain whatever tea she wanted through whatever means possible, be it
walking in and getting first dibs on the sale because she was, well, Lady Malfoy, but also
because she could put down whatever price she wanted to in order to secure the products.

Actually no… Draco had said his mother sent his father to these tastings on her behalf, which
meant Mr. Malfoy would obtain what his wife asked of him or look like a fool to his family,
and that would likely never happen. With a blank check that was probably not much of a
concern for him though.

So, not the Zabini, not the Greengrass, and not the Malfoy families.

Who would be the best person—best family— to ask for a referral?

… surprisingly, Harry’s next thought of who to ask was actually the Weasleys.

He’d never met Mr. or Mrs. Weasley though, so when he said ‘the Weasley’ family he
actually meant Fred and George specifically. They had never once hidden their intent to one
day open a joke shop in all the time he’d known them, and were advanced enough in magic
to already be designing pranks and joke products as fourth years—and while the teachers
gave them detentions and everyone laughed about their antics dismissively, it actually did
take a lot of magical ability and business chops to just start making a business like they had
been. They were teenagers but had never once hidden the fact they had legitimate, physical
products to sell and in fact were already selling simple dung bombs and other school-banned
paraphernalia to their classmates and underclassmen literally daily.
They actually had a ton of ambition that on paper would’ve put them in Slytherin if they
weren’t, you know… the twins. The hat probably knew that, ambition or not, they’d have
blown this entire dorm up within weeks of being put here if that had actually happened, and
they were also reckless and wild enough to fit right into Gryffindor anyway. No need to risk
mentally scarring an entire house and/or leveling a quarter of an ancient castle just because
some upstart red heads also had a bit of ambition in their blood.

Besides, after hearing their ‘brave enough to love’ spiel, Harry also wouldn’t have put them
anywhere else but the lion house.

Still, they were the next people Harry thought of when he considered who he wanted by his
side in future business deals, because frankly apart from Daphne they had the most practical
experience with it so far. They weren’t as diverse in their business adventures as a Greengrass
would be, since they were focusing on one particular business goal, but that didn’t mean they
didn’t know what they were doing.

Besides… Harry was already very much in their debt after what he’d asked them to do.

To be fair to her, when Daphne asked him to cash in some favors with the twins, she was not
aware that Fred and George Weasley were already people Harry trusted more than he trusted
pretty much anyone else.

In fact, there were exactly five people in Hogwarts that Harry would openly trust for no
reason, which actually boiled down to the only five people who currently knew about Remus.
Neville and Draco, obviously, Daphne as an honest businesswoman who was keeping a lot of
secrets for him right now, and of course, the twins.

Even still, of those five people, only Neville actually knew everything.

Everything from what happened with Quirrell to the Dursleys and more—he’d seen him
break down and he knew all the dark things he thought about himself, so in every important
way, Neville knew everything.

The one thing Neville didn’t know about though, was Harry’s plan for world domination—
and by that he meant becoming Minister of Magic specifically in order to wreck some havoc
on old, purist society as soon as he could get away with it. His roommate was aware that
Harry had a general desire to change the world to make it a better place for Remus someday,
but Harry hadn’t really clued him in on any of the specific tactics he was considering
employing to get there… most of which would be Slytherin in tone and he just knew the
meek Gryffindor would give him sad, disapproving eyes about all of it so he refrained from
bringing it up for now.

The twins on the other hand, were the only people who did know. Not only did they know,
but after their conversation earlier this week, they seemed a little more on board than they
had before when Harry was pleading his case back in Hagrid’s pumpkin patch.

Not that Daphne had known that the twins already knew about Remus, and not that Harry had
informed her of that either and just said he’d ask them about it. The actual conversation had
gone much better than he knew Daphne had feared it would go, because in truth Harry hadn’t
had to cash anything in at all—he could actually tell the twins the entire plan, and before he
could even get around to actually asking them, they were completely down to do it for free
anyway.

You see, the main issue with him going home for break was that Dumbledore would
immediately be suspicious that he didn’t have eyes on him. Obviously any Slytherin would
happily lie and say Harry was with them just to be able to lie specifically to the headmaster’s
stupid old face, but if the cover was that Harry was going to spend Christmas in a Slytherin
household, the old coot would definitely take issue with that. And it would be very
inconvenient if Dumbledore had any time to plan or counteract Harry’s holiday plans,
particularly as that would put Harry himself in a direct conflict against Dumbledore himself.
At the very least he’d likely be called back to the headmaster’s office in an attempt to be
‘convinced’ to change his mind to maybe stay at the castle instead, and going off Daphne’s
advice that her father seemed to very much agree with, the less Harry needed to actually
speak with Dumbledore, the better.

They were so close to the trial so avoiding letting any information slip was critical, and the
best way to keep the old Lemon in the dark was to just continue being a normal student by
whatever the portraits on the wall could relay back, and also for him to only find out he
wasn’t where he was supposed to be after the fact. Yes it would cause suspicion as there was
no way to hide the fact that no one would actually know where Harry had spent his break
once he returned to the castle, but Dumbledore learning about it too late was better than him
learning beforehand and getting a chance to do anything about it.

There would be fallout, as Dumbledore would eventually realize he didn’t know where Harry
had spent his break, but they just had act natural and pretend nothing was wrong until the trial
finally happened. By then it was too late and Dumbledore could think whatever he wanted
about Harry’s suspicious activities, because if Sirius Black was truly innocent he’d be
released as Harry’s guardian by summer and even Dumbledore wouldn’t be able to stop the
media parade that Mr. Greengrass was preparing to ensure nothing interfered with the ‘happy
ending’ of the magical world’s most infamous orphan finally getting a family again.

No matter how light he claimed to be, no matter how light he looked in the eyes of the public,
even Albus Dumbledore’s reputation couldn’t defeat the ‘lightness’ that he himself had
created around the ‘Boy Who Lived’s reputation. If he tried to intervene with the trial or after
Sirius was officially deemed innocent, he would not be smelling like roses in the eyes of the
public. They probably would not condemn him exactly but they were all banking on the fact
Dumbledore wouldn’t cross the public eye too much just to keep Harry under his thumb.

Once it was too late, it was too late.

No one was stupid enough to think Dumbledore wouldn’t immediately switch tactics and find
another way to keep Harry—possibly Sirius as well in this case—‘on his side’ at least
publicly, but so far as sending him back to his relatives… that tactic would be dead in the
water.

Which, was all Harry really wanted out of this deal.

He was sure the old bastard’s manipulation would come back around to haunt him in other
ways, but he wouldn’t be faced with ever seeing the Dursleys again and that was good enough
for him.

All they had to do what make it to the trial.

Which, in practicality, meant Harry just needed to make it through Christmas without letting
Dumbledore know where he was, but most importantly let him know that he was with—or
even knew about— Remus.

And that is where the absolute MVPs of this plan, the twins, came shining through.

You see, Harry had told everyone he was staying in the castle over break throughout most of
the semester—in the beginning of the year it had actually been true, up until Mr. Greengrass
said he needed to visit Remus instead for some reason. He still stuck to that story apart from
a few exceptions he trusted, but even when he’d parted McGonagall’s office earlier today
after showing her a new draft he’d had on some of his work, she’d waved him off, very much
implying she expected to see him over this break, here in the castle with her.

He felt a little bad about not correcting her, but it was also a great sign that Dumbledore
probably fully expected the same thing.

Which is why when he was on the front steps tomorrow with his things packed, standing with
everyone else getting into the carriages to start the journey back to King’s Crossing, and most
people asked what the fuck he was doing, he could confidently tell everyone, ‘Oh, I didn’t
mention? I’m spending Christmas with the Weasleys!’.

Mrs. Weasley had been kind enough to invite him after all, but no one except the twins knew
he’d politely declined without giving a reason why. The twins themselves were going to just
be hamming it up, particularly when Ginny and Ron had probably polar reactions to the news
they were getting an addition for their holiday, the twins playing it off like they’d
purposefully kept it a secret as a prank, which was frankly a bit too believable.

The twins, however, had actually arranged to ditch their family once back at King’s Crossing
to meet up with their brother Charlie in Diagon, who was home visiting for the holiday, and
their parents wouldn’t be expecting them home until dinner later that evening. They would of
course take their friend Harry with them on the Diagon trip, however Harry was never going
to actually make it to meet the second eldest Weasley son, but instead get out under a handy
invisibility cloak through the Leaky Cauldron to muggle London.

He had Remus’ promise to meet him several streets away at a little café Harry had seen last
time he was in the city that he though was quiet and out of the way enough not to earn too
much attention—muggle or otherwise. Remus himself was very worried about this entire
thing and had asked him approximately 23 times via letter if he was sure he wanted to
actually visit him, to which Harry had announced he would be at this shop at this expected
time and if Remus wanted to stand him up that was fine, but he really hoped his unofficial
godfather would—as ex-Gryffindor at that—find the courage to meet him there.

Clearly unable to argue against that, a defeated werewolf had given his word he’d be there.
Harry felt a little bad about steam rolling him but also, his self-deprecating issues were not as
important as the two of them getting a real Christmas with family for once in… well, Harry’s
entire life but he was also assuming a very long time for Remus himself.

The thing was, while he was off hiding from the rest of the wizarding world and most
particularly Albus Dumbledore and enjoying his Christmas, eventually the twins would get
caught about lying on Harry’s whereabouts. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were not actually
expecting him, so they wouldn’t question it, but Ron or Ginny might wonder and say
something when the twins came back with Charlie, but no Harry Potter in tow. Fred and
George were reasonably sure they could deflect the situation, saying they were just joking or
flat out lying about Harry staying with them in an attempt to convince him to come back to
the Burrow with him, which clearly failed. If asked where Harry had gone, something neither
twin seemed very convinced their siblings would do but if they did ask, they were going to
brush it off and say ‘friends’.

If really pressed they’d say Draco’s house, and while Mr. and Mrs. Weasley might tisk about
it, they probably wouldn’t do anything.

They would absolutely end up telling Dumbledore though, when the headmaster finally
caught up, be it hours or days too late to realize Harry had left the castle under the premise of
visiting them. He wouldn’t immediately get suspicious since the Weasley clan was
considered one of his most staunch supporters, but eventually he would 100% be checking in
with the Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, perhaps nonchalantly asking how Harry was enjoying his
stay… and the truth would undoubtedly come out.

The twins didn’t really understand how nosey Dumbledore was, nor did Harry tell them that
was his logic of the truth inevitably coming out, but they as pranksters seemed to agree that
eventually their lies would come up as they always seemed to in the end. And yes, they were
willing to just take the fall for lying and no, they wouldn’t betray him even if their parents
ordered them to spill.

Because Harry had been honest to them that this deception was so that he could spend
Christmas with Mr. Mooney, who was their idol.

Their hero, who was a werewolf and who would get a lot of flack if caught hanging out with
the famous ‘Boy Who Lived’ by pretty much everyone and their mother, and so to spare him
they were so totally on board to go down as pranksters that would do the Marauders’ legacy
proud.

Daphne had been worried that Harry was going to have to ask them to take the fall for
something without explaining why they needed to keep it a secret, hence the many cashed
favors suggestion. However, the twins were completely ready to make this deception pretty
much as soon as Harry had explained what he wanted to do. Since he felt indebted to them
for their show of unquestioning solidarity though, he made a mental note to tell Remus about
the favor the twins had done them both and have ‘Mr. Mooney’ write them something, which
he was sure Fred and George would fangirl over and happily ignore how long they’d
probably be grounded for this.
So yeah, he owed them quite a bit and would’ve loved to ask them for their referral… but the
brutally realistic side of him knew the Weasley family likely did not have a referral to give. It
sounded like these tastings were about as ruthlessly pureblood as it got, and it was them not
participating in events like this that was yet another reason for the Weasleys’ poor reputation
in Slytherin society. A minor one, all things considered, but a reason all the same.

A slightly larger reason was probably the fact that the Weasley clan probably could not
financially participate in any of these types of events, and going off what Draco had said, if
you weren’t a contributing guest then you’d eventually stop getting invites. Harry suspected
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had stopped getting invites perhaps a long time ago for many reasons
along the way, and he didn’t want to be so rude to assume but… it was also kind of obvious.

In any case, it was the twins he wanted to pay back and the referral would be mainly a
business opening for their parents—and he really doubted Mr. and Mrs. Weasley would care
to do anything with the opportunity even if they were handed one this way.

He’d never met them, but the twins could be kind of blunt when talking about their parents…
although, they were fourteen-year-olds clearly in the midst of some family tiff about their
rebellious nature or whatever, as if that were not entirely expected of two professional
pranksters. From what Harry had gathered, it sounded like the elder Weasleys weren’t 100%
supportive of their middle-most sons going into business and wanted them to join the
Ministry like their father. Which, Harry was thankful he and the twins agreed was a horrible
idea for many reasons and they would in fact not being doing that.

Overall, the elder Weasleys were much more Gryffindor coded, in that they were either a
stay-at-home mother or working for the law without questioning anything since they
considered that to be the ‘right’ things to do. While the twins did not begrudge their parents
their life choices, they were also at the point that they could recognize they did not want the
same things for their own lives and were branching out. It didn’t sound like those
conversations were going so well though, which probably partially accounted for why they
were so ready to blatantly lie for him even at the cost of being grounded… Harry had an
inkling that they’d be grounded most of break anyway, for other supposed crimes their
mother believed they committed over the semester.

Differences of opinion aside, giving their parents the business opportunities they wouldn’t
use that the twins wanted for themselves probably wasn’t a good way to pay them back. If
Harry got his referral and some reputation at these tastings as a good buyer, then someday he
would be able to refer the twins instead, which might work out better for everyone.

In fact, he knew it’d be a long time before the twins had a strong business going that
provided the capital to actually participate in these tastings, so Harry could probably obtain
them whatever materials they needed with his own money in exchange for their
unquestioning support so far. He was hyper aware of Susan’s wording about his misguided
‘paying people back’ for the things he did to them but… this was business, it was just how
things went! He was pretty sure the twins were business-savvy enough to get it at a least…

Still, he made a note to ask the twins just in case, but he wasn’t counting on them.
Who else to ask though? He knew a lot of purebloods, but he wasn’t sure what he really
wanted out of the deal.

Maybe it would convince people like Tracy or Melinda to work with him more, but then
again it was with their parents and that ‘good will’ wasn’t worth it. Something like this
sounded like it was expected of him to trade for something physical… like outright money or
some artifact he wanted…

He lit up as he realized he could probably get his hands on a lot of very interesting
Transfiguration texts that wouldn’t be kept in the Hogwarts’ Library…

Hmmmmmmm…. I should probably start trading for more than notes and favors at some
point… I bet there are a ton of cool, technically dark things out there that Slytherins might be
willing to trade for…

Maybe it was because he was now looking almost dreamily off into space as he imagined the
possibilities instead of even pretending to read, but he finally caught on to the fact those
upper years from earlier were… pacing.

The center of this common room was lowered down two steps to give a stage-like area for,
Harry was assuming, if someone needed to announce something or grab everyone’s attention.
Almost no one ever sat there because the entire point of this place was not to be overheard,
but those upper years had been earlier… which, at the time Harry didn’t think twice about
because the place was more crowded than normal so maybe they’d just run out of
comfortable space despite the many options of smaller, quieter corners to choose from.

He certainly noticed now though, as they’d gotten up and were now doing laps around the
room, circles around the center area and mumbling to themselves… but Harry caught on
immediately that they were watching him very closely every time they passed by.

Frankly, it wasn’t casual at all, they were blatantly trying to eavesdrop on his little area here
despite the fact him and Theo were not talking. Which felt… insanely improper for the
Slytherin common room. He wasn’t even a snake but felt almost mortified they were being so
fucking rude right now, much less so unbelievably obviously! Right in the middle of the
common room for half the house to see!

What the hell? They should know, even if I were talking, that the enchantments would prevent
them from hearing anything I didn’t want them to hear. They’re at least fifth years, for hell’s
sake…

He felt like a church lady clutching her pearls at the indecency of it all… and belatedly
wondered if this is how people had felt when he’d sat at the Slytherin table for the first time
last year. He closed Dell’s journal and fanned his cheeks with it some, slightly embarrassed in
hindsight, much to his chagrin.

Hm. What to do about this… no way I can just confront them—in the Great Hall, sure, but in
the Slytherin common room that’s not appropriate… but it’s also really fucking annoying.
 They’d just passed by for a third time and Harry glanced over at his reading partner. Theo
probably noticed but also didn’t give a shit, book over his face and this very dark aura
signally everyone not to bother him.

Right…

Plan B was across the room but Draco had managed to get Blaise into a chokehold, the two
of them wrestling again which, true to Theo’s warning earlier in the year, was an alarmingly
common occurrence. Harry was just impressed that no matter what they did to each other,
they never rose their voices enough to be heard out of whatever enchanted alcove they’d
retreated to.

Plan C then…

He got up and left his bag and Dell’s journal on the table to mark his spot, and on his way
across the room almost purposefully cutting across the fifth years’ path in front of them as if
to signal that he knew what they were doing. They just froze like deer in headlights and let
him go, which confused him more.

It was subtle but he was essentially provoking them by getting their way suddenly, but they
didn’t look mad or offended at all.

Even weirder. Are they wary of me? I mean even if they were why would they show that
they’re wary of me?

He frowned to himself as he only went a couple dozen feet away to slip into the seat beside
Tracey Davis—who immediately shot him a warning look while Daphne was just amused
from across the table. Both had nothing in front of them, they’d clearly just been chatting.

“Hey,” He drawled playfully.

“What do you want.” Tracey ground out, unamused while Daphne rolled her eyes.

“I saw you talking to Zabini. No way you’re here to talk shop.”

“Maybe later—I’m off business for break but let’s talk in the new year,” He winked and she
huffed, letting it slide. “I just came to wish you a happy break but also… are those fifth years
pissed at me or am I paranoid? Scratch that, I know I’m paranoid but is this me being
paranoid or have they been walking in circles for like ten minutes now?”

“I did notice that. And they’re fifth years, by the way.” Daphne hummed, apparently having
noticed as well but clearly hadn’t cared much about it. “I mean not that I know of. It’s not
like they’re gonna hex you in the middle of the common room.”

Open violence in the common room was way too drastic for an upper year’s dignity, much
less on a second year to whom hierarchy implied someone of their age should be able to
squash with mere words and a power play or so. And besides, on the topic of hierarchy, given
what this particular second year had done to Montague last year, that would be stupid.
Not to mention the actual reason no one had ever given him a hard time here was the fact he
was here on permission of Dalia Zabini. That was the one thing no Slytherin was about to
make a fuss over unless Harry himself screwed up enough to give them a reason to kick him
out, but if Daphne or Draco hadn’t called him out on something he was doing that was
offensive, then there truly wasn’t anything big enough to warrant this sudden suspicion.

“You can’t overhear someone if you walk by their area, right?”

“Not if you don’t want them to; the enchantments still work so long as you’re underneath the
arch in the ceiling, and they’re not.”

“That’s what I thought so what the hell are they doing?”

Daphne subtly examined the still-circling upper years over his shoulder for a couple
moments, and then gave a gentle snort. “No idea. You might just have to deal with it.”

Harry couldn’t confront them, as despite how unsightly they were being right now it would
be poor form on his part as well. Unless you were on friendly terms or had business to talk to,
the number one unspoken rule of the Slytherin common room was to leave each other alone.
Harry would’ve picked a fight in a heartbeat, but he was an outsider here and knew to play by
the rules… even if the stalking was making his paranoia go haywire.

Having to just deal with it was making him anxious.

“Ugh.”

“You could go back to your own dorm,” Tracey grumbled, and Harry flashed her a peace sign
jokingly.

“Spoken like someone whose never heard how freaking loud it is over there! Even getting
stalked it’s still more peaceful here, especially since everyone is all amped up from finals
being over.” She just sneered and Harry gave her a friendly wave before slipping back to his
area, sensing he’d interrupted whatever the two had been talking about so left them to it.

He couldn’t have been gone two minutes, but by the time he returned to his seat he found
Blaise and Draco also having rejoined their normal positions… and Theo was nowhere to be
found. Right, he was clearly not in the mood and the other two were still snipping back and
forth with each other. Not loudly, but they were talking which was enough to ruin the peace
Theo had clearly been enjoying.

Seeing his return Blaise gave him a disarming smile. “He interrupted our conversation but do
we have a deal?”

Harry only pretended to think about it while he sat back down.

“Hm… nah.”

“Oh come on,”

“I’m doing things my way for now. You’ll need something better to trade if you’re really that
serious.” He smiled ‘innocently’ with a shrug, causing the tall Slytherin to tisk and cross his
arms over his chest, unamused.

“And here I thought after your little snake trick we’d have a profitable working relationship
from now on!”

“Just because I acknowledge the parselmouth thing landed in my favor doesn’t mean it’s
suddenly a good idea to trade with you regularly. Seems like a dangerous thing to get into.”

“I mean I can’t deny it but ugh—boring.”

Harry almost did a double take and made a face.

“Hm.”

“What?” Draco was curious at that reaction, but also sort of wary.

“I’ve never been called boring before.” He’d been called a lot of things before but boring had
never been one of them, and he wasn’t quite sure why he was so offended.

Blaise shot him a kissy face and immediately got flipped off.

Not that he cared one bit, seeming to light up as he remembered something. “On that note, I
have a bone to pick with you!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, about your little first years.”

Harry was instantly on guard, closing off for a second to meet Blaise’s warm eyes. He didn’t
seem to be any sort of way that would entail he was up to no good, but also the bastard was
an insanely good actor when he wanted to be and Harry hated that he couldn’t immediately
tell when Blaise was trying to throw him off. He was already paranoid about the sixth years
still passing by their area now so this topic had his hackles raised instantly.

“My first years? What about them?”

“I want Cork.”

Harry knew his face betrayed his emotions on the topic, and was please to know he wasn’t
crazy when Draco also gave his roommate a look that clearly implied he was in disbelief at
just how fucking unhinged this guy was.

“I refuse. Get your own first years.” He declared bluntly, crossing his arms. “Actually no,
don’t do that, leave them alone at least until Easter break to give them a fighting chance. I
know you don’t have a heart but that’s at least Slytherin tradition, yeah?”

“Eh,” Blaise just rolled eyes. He didn’t give a fuck about tradition and probably never had,
only following the unspoken rules on a whim until now.
“What the fuck do you even want with him? Also neither of us own him, you do realize that?
Because knowing you, you might not realize that…”

“I can protect him better than you can.” He counted simply, which was not a real answer—
not that Harry expected anything else.

That is unfortunately true… however.

“Too bad, they came to me and I’m upholding my end. If they also want to deal with you
that’s their right, but I’m going to be advising them very strongly not to do that.”

“Again: boring.”

“How dare you.”

It was highly concerning that he was in any way interested in a first year. Blaise, so far, acted
as if people lower than him in the hierarchy just didn’t exist, which meant pretty much all the
first years and half their grade level. Alden being a muggleborn was a badly kept secret as
obviously the snake house would figure it out, but he was a Slytherin, he was one of them
so… he was somewhere in a grey area between an ally and an enemy. While most people
aside from Lake wouldn’t likely deal with him or become friends with him for fear of the
political consequences, to a measly first year of their own house who couldn’t do anything
anyway, there was no honor or things to be gained from bullying him or having a great deal
of animosity towards him unless he did something blatantly muggle-like.

Slytherin put a lot of emphasis on bloodlines and family ties (family power) but those were
positive weapons to them. Blaise had the Zabini name to give him a leg up, same as people
like Draco and Daphne had their family names to give them influence and credibility… but
most of Slytherin did not have the sheer power behind their family names even if they were
to be old and pureblood. If you were a normal Slytherin without a ‘big’ family name behind
you, you were still a Slytherin. You didn’t have as many legs up as someone from a known
family might have, but you weren’t inherently outcasted just because you were a ‘normal’
Slytherin. No one liked to be normal, but the fact of the matter is most of the house consisted
of those sorts of houses.

In fact, a good third of the house consisted of half-bloods, or had a half-blood parent, though
Harry was wildly guessing at those numbers given no one ever talked about it.

People like Blaise and Draco would flaunt their family names, but if you didn’t have
something positive to flaunt from your last name, you just refrained from ever mentioning it.
From what Harry had seen, people only ever called people out on their unspoken family
histories if they were in direct conflict with each other and were using it as a weapon—
though if two suspected half-bloods were the opposing parties then it never got brought up.

It was a matter of politeness in the end, a respect only given to fellow Slytherins. For
example, Tracy might hiss unpleasantly at her Hufflepuff muggleborn classmates, but her
housemates wouldn’t ever point out that her grandparents had been half-bloods themselves. If
Tracy lost her marbles and tried to pick a fight with Daphne though Daphne with the very
pureblood name of Greengrass behind her would easily crush her arguments to dust.
With all that in mind, Alden was… an ant to anyone who considered themselves pureblood.
He posed literally zero threat because one slight hint reminding him of his status and he
would not be able to win against anyone in his house. He posed no challenge, no risk, and no
reward to even look his direction. Slytherins typically had more class than to go stepping on
ants all the time when they had better things to do with their days, and bigger threats to deal
with more importantly. Just like how Blaise never really looked twice at anyone lower than
him in the hierarchy because he felt it was just a waste of his time, most of the snake house
didn’t really care about those who posed them no threat so long as they remained quiet and
out of the way.

Of course there were exceptions. People like Marcus Flint who, Harry was sure, had not even
realized there was a muggleborn in his house for how dumb and unobservant he was, and
who if someone did just bluntly inform him of that fact would happily torture Alden right out
of Hogwarts like the malicious cunt he was.

Slytherin itself didn’t really consider people like Flint to be shining representatives of
themselves, so no one with any amount of brains ever really told him shit. If he couldn’t
figure things out on his own, most happily let him drown.

The polite thing to do was to flat out ignore things like muggleborn or half-blood status, in-
house in Slytherin at least. Only if those muggleborns and half-bloods kept to themselves
though and didn’t go catching unwanted attention, causing a disturbance that would make
those more powerful than them take notice—or worse, take issue with them.

So the fact Alden had caught Blaise’s attention was so not good.

Yet, on the flipside… by even asking about it instead of just doing whatever he was planning
on doing with Alden, Blaise was recognizing that those two firsties were “Harry’s”. They
were under his protection of sorts and even Blaise bothering to ask permission proved that
people took that protection genuinely seriously. If the untouchable Slytherin had to ask, there
was a good chance the rest of the house had the same understanding that Lake and Alden
were off limits unless they wanted to deal with Harry too.

Even better, they already knew how pissed Harry would be if they tried anything behind his
back, and considered it a threat worth avoiding. Harry was thrilled to realize this meant most
people considered him a danger genuine enough to not merely cross for no reason—even
Blaise!

Fuck yeah. I wonder where this would put me in the hierarchy of things at this point…

Ah, but thoughts of grandeur later. Right now he had a psychopathic Slytherin to ward off.

“Blaise, you’re really fucking scaring me right now. Why on earth do you need a first year?”
He demanded, although they all knew he really meant ‘Why do you need a muggleborn?’.

The idea he was acting like their slightly younger classmates were toys or chess pieces he
could just ask for was highly unnerving and he wasn’t shy about admitting that outright.

Of course Blaise just tilted his chin up, clearly having no intention of explaining himself.
“I cannot wait for the day you learn about it dear, however that day is not today.”

“Bet you anything he’s considering feeding them to the monster.” Draco only half joked as he
slunk back into his seat, Blaise rolling his eyes dramatically.

“Oh ha, ha… they’re not the ones I was considering feeding to it.”

“You’re actually deranged, you know that?”

“At least I wear it well.” He shrugged carelessly, not offended.

But Harry sat up straighter, realization hitting home and a warning bell going off somewhere
in his head.

“If I find out you fed a Gryffindor to it I’ll end you, hear me Zabini?”

“Hear that Draco? I’m Zabini now. And I thought we were engaged.” He complained dryly.

“Absolutely not.” Harry cut him off without hesitation. “I’m serious though, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” He dismissed, also leaning back into his couch and very much not actually
caring about whatever threat was being made at him. “I thought better of it anyway—it’s
much more interesting to let it happen naturally and just take the gamble of who it’ll attack
next.”

“I can’t believe it’s been this long but none of the teachers still have any clue what it is.”
Draco pouted.

Neither he nor Harry picked up just how sharp Blaise’s grin was, although it was definitely
unnerving on all accounts.

“Well we all knew they were incompetent. Hey, maybe the school with close!”

“Don’t even joke about that!” Draco groaned, running hands over his face.

“Oh I know! How much will you bet me that it’s one of Hagrid’s pets that got loose?”

Harry was instantly suspicious, considering what happened last time someone made a false
accusation about one of Hagrid’s pets and his new understanding that accusations, even
unfounded, got you halfway to Azkaban he was not about to let any rumor relating to Hagrid
just fly.

Both snakes saw his expression and clocked on immediately—Blaise in glee but Draco in
horror.

“Wait, do you actually know something!?” the blond beside him cried but Harry just patted
his shoulder comfortingly.

“… about Hagrid’s pets, yes. And that this monster definitely isn’t that.”
“Harry…”

“There is no way I’m telling Blaise any of that,” he shot him a significant look of ‘I’ll tell you
later’ , which thankfully convinced him to drop it although he still looked very concerned.

“You see, and this is why I daydream about feeding lions to monsters.” Blaise himself was
annoyed to be left out so bluntly but also not strictly offended by it since even he knew it was
just common sense not to tell the unabashed gossip things you didn’t want the school to
know.

Be it his annoyance compounding or him finally reaching the end of his patience, but his
head snapped to the side as those pacing sixth years looped by their sitting area and got them
to jump at the sudden glare they were getting from the Zabini heir, picking up their pace to
walk away quickly.

Draco tensed slightly beside him and Harry knew not to interfere the same way he
instinctively knew not to move if a snake was coiled to strike in front of his face. It wasn’t
often he saw Blaise actually lash out at someone and knew it wouldn’t be pretty—those
upperclassmen were four years older than them but that mean nothing when it came to the
untouchable Slytherin if he were to be properly motived.

Luckily he seemed to be more annoyed than properly pissed off and just made a clicking
noise with his teeth as he leaned back almost too pointedly relaxed.

“Your stalkers are annoying.” He decided, tone distinctly soured from the playful bickering
they’d just been having.

“So you noticed them too,” Harry perked up, tone light to keep the conversation from being
pulled into Blaise’s irritation.

“Obviously. I didn’t care when it was just you they were bothering.”

Harry rolled his eyes but expected nothing more from the guy. He distractedly tapped the
journal still lying on the table in front of him, trying to recall the stalkers’ faces and names
without making it obvious by looking directly at them as they stopped pacing to stand on the
other side of the center area from them… clearly they still wanted to stalk him but were too
afraid of Blaise to pass by so casually again.

So being friends with him has some perks along with the dangers, he mused to himself,
relieved they’d finally stopped.

“Did I do anything specifically lately? I mean I can guess why they’d take issue with me in
general but no idea why they’d be so obvious about it right now. They’ve had all year to do
this, why now?”

“Nothing I can think of,” Draco tilted his head, giving a thoughtful look. “Now that I think
about it though, when did those three start being buddy-buddy? Have Cross and Bensley ever
worked together?”
 “They’re both dark but the Cross family never even set eyes on the Dark Lord, whilst the
Bensley practically licked his feet. Cross does stock trades and always ends up marrying
Ravenclaws, whilst the Bensley are practically inbred Slytherin and have been coasting on
family money for forty years.” Blaise rattled off what he knew uncaringly, since apparently it
wasn’t even worth enough to bother withholding or trading for.

“So no, there’s no overlap between them. Except apparently they don’t like me enough to
start taking strolls around the room to stalk me.”

“Hatred is the great uniter.” Blaise said like he was somehow either sage or wise.

“Isn’t that supposed to be love?” Draco argued.

“Ah, but hate works just as well!”

Harry pressed his lips into a line, hating how much that rang true. He also hated how easily
his mind immediately jumped to how to use that logic to benefit himself… particularly in the
run for Minister one day.

The holiday couldn’t have come at a better time. He really needed to take a break and stop
getting lost in the snake nonsense for a bit, recalibrate on the Gryffindor side of things and
start fresh in the new year.

Blaise and Draco bickering about things like love and hate distracted them enough not to see
the eavesdropping sixths years suddenly start to suffer from their hair and faces changing
shapes and colors, forcing them to flee the common room before anyone could notice.

Chapter End Notes

I never run out of songs for Blaise, and am just cackling with this one:

Poor Unfortunate Souls: Annapantsu

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