Harry suffers through History and leaves Binns’ classroom feeling equal parts sleepy and annoyed. Herbology at least lets him take out his mood on the beating eggberry plants they’re assigned to prune but he’s still fuming a bit by the time he sits down for dinner with Neville, Faye, Lavender, and Parvati.
“Binns is so terrible,” he complains.
“Are you just now realizing this?” Faye says. “Because if you are I have serious questions, starting with, are you deaf?”
“No, I just never cared,” says Harry with his nose in the air in his best imitation of Draco Malfoy. Neville and the girls laugh.
Parvati strikes a huffy pose. “My father will hear about this!”
“And then I’ll sic my goons Dumb and Dumber on you!” Lavender says with an exaggerated leer.
Ron elbows second year Lachlan MacGregor aside and drops onto the bench next to Harry. “What’s so funny?”
“We were imitating Malfoy,” Harry says.
“Oh, yeah. That git.” Ron scowls across the room. “I’d love to give him what for…”
Harry sees the annoyed looks on the others’ faces and sighs. Why does this have to be so hard? He can’t hang out with the other Gryffindors of his year or Ron and Hermione will follow him and then he feels guilty. But if he just hangs out with Ron and Hermione, he’s missing out on the chance to make other friends. But he also can’t just ditch Ron and Hermione—they’ve been his friends for two years. They were his first friends. They went after the Stone with him. Hermione set a professor on fire for him. Ron went after the basilisk with him, and Harry has no doubt Hermione would’ve been there too if she hadn’t gotten petrified.
“They are too evil!” Ron’s strident voice makes Harry realize he’s completely checked out and missed something important.
“I’m not going to argue with an idiot,” Faye spits out, slapping the table and getting up. Lavender and Parvati are going too, Lavender grabbing a last soft roll from the basket in front of her. “It’s like trying to make a rock see sense. Frustrating and pointless. Coming, Neville?”
“I’ll c-catch you later,” Neville says.
“No loss.” Ron rolls his eyes and dumps an enormous portion of potato salad on his plate. He takes a huge bite. “Girls are weird.”
Potato bits go flying across the table, including on Harry’s plate. He stares at it and decides he isn’t hungry anymore. “I just realized I haven’t finished, uh, Snape’s essay. We’ve got Potions tomorrow.”
“Harry! You said you had all your homework done!”
Ron looks up from his food. “‘Mione, where’ve you been? You were right behind me after Herbology!”
“I had to tie my shoelace,” she says stiffly. “Harry! Your essay! I told you—”
“It’s done,” Harry snaps. “I just need to add a bit! He always docks me points for breathing, if I can sneak something extra in there to make it up, I will. I’ll see you guys later, okay?”
“But—” Ron says.
“Could w-we talk ab-ab-about mine?” Neville says. His ears are red but he holds eye contact and continues strongly. “Snape h-hates me too.”
“Of course. Come on.”
Harry rubs at his eyes when he and Neville get to the entrance hall. “Thanks for staying, Nev.”
“No problem.” Neville gives him a hesitant smile that Harry returns full force.
Lavender, Parvati, and Faye are sitting around one of the big tables when they get to the common room, and wave the two of them over immediately. “I see you made your escape,” Parvati says.
“Said I had to finish my Potions essay.” Harry digs in his new expanded leather backpack. His potions book is in there already, since he can fit all his textbooks and the weight management charms keep it from hurting his shoulders. “If she asks, I added that bit about iron dust at the end, okay?”
“Your secret’s safe with us,” Lavender says with a smirk, tapping her nose. Parvati mimes spelling her lips shut.
“Thanks, guys.” Harry sets out his quill so it looks like he was just using it.
“Harry…” Parvati makes a shushing noise but Lavender ignores her. “Look, people have been wondering forever why you hang out with them.”
“What people?” Harry says, shoulders tightening.
“Everyone.”
“Lavender,” Parvati says, exasperated.
“What? It’s true!”
Faye leans forward. “What they’re trying to say is that Ron’s a bad mannered git who acts like he’s five, and Hermione bosses everyone around and thinks she knows best, and they’re kind of rude to… well, everyone.”
“I don’t really want to get involved in this,” Parvati says, “but yes to all of that, and also they’ve totally hogged like, all your attention since first year. Hermione told me not to try to talk to you last year because, and I quote, it would stress you out too much with the whole Heir of Slytherin thing.”
Harry’s eyes widen. “What…”
“Ron bullies anyone who w-wants to b-b-be your friend,” Neville says quietly. “Last year I w-wanted to sit with you in Herbology one t-time and he shoved me out of th-the seat and t-told me you wouldn’t…”
“Wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who’s barely a wizard,” Lavender finishes. “I saw it. Sorry, Neville, I was tied up in a patch of knotvines or I’d have told him off. And I mean literally tied up. It sucked.”
“I had no idea it was so bad,” Harry says honestly. “I… I never had friends before Hogwarts. My cousin liked to—to beat up anyone who tried to be nice to me at school.”
“That’s awful,” Lavender says with a frown.
Harry shrugs. “It’s fine now. I’m here, aren’t I? And for what it’s worth I’m sorry for them.”
“Well, good news is this table’s too small to fit any more people,” Faye says with an evil little grin. “So when they come back they can’t join us.”
“They’ll try anyway,” Parvati says darkly. “Hermione has no sense of what no means.”
“Doubt her parents ever said it to her.” Lavender shakes her head.
Harry frowns. “She just wants to help, though.”
“Well, sure, but when someone says no thank you, that means back off, and until she figures that out I’ll keep my distance,” Faye says.
“Anyways.” Neville says, a little too loudly. “Wh-what d’you think of the new DADA professor?”
Lavender sniffs. “He desperately needs help with his wardrobe.”
“Maybe he hasn’t got much money and that’s why he took the job,” says Parvati.
Faye nods. “Explains why he’d be desperate enough. I mean, honestly. Just look at the last two.”
“No one’s lasted longer than a year for decades,” Lavender says. “My mum told me it’s not just a rumor. Literally, no one. I think the position’s really cursed.”
Harry remembers something and winces. “Bollocks, I just remembered I promised Hagrid I’d go say hi tonight after dinner.”
“We can say you went to bed already,” Faye says.
“I’ll go close my curtains and spell them shut,” Harry says. “Thanks.”
Lavender grins. “Just don’t get caught.”
“I never do.”
Harry waves goodbye, heads up to his room, and digs out the Cloak. His new trunk locks, which is good, because Ron used to go through his old one looking for homework to copy, and he’d get weird about it if he found out just how expensive a trunk Harry’s got now.
Casting a sticking charm on the curtains takes him a few tries, but it’s better than turning them to stone. Harry pulls the cloak on and sneaks downstairs. Lavender and Parvati are going through a magazine together, Neville appears to be drawing a cutting of the beating eggberries, and Faye’s reading a Muggle novel. Harry’s tempted to go pick up the magazine or something to startle them, but none of them know about his Cloak and this isn’t how or when he wants to share that secret. So he waits by the portrait hole until someone comes in, darts out through the gap, and takes off for the grounds.
It’s a warm night. He’s not surprised to find Bear sleeping outside Hagrid’s hut in a soft patch of grass. Harry checks around, sees no one, and calls out, “Bear!” softly.
Instantly, the dog leaps to his feet. He looks around wildly, scenting the air, until Harry tugs off his cloak. Bear comes bounding over and knocks Harry clean off his feet, standing over him and covering his face with licks. Harry, laughing, tries and fails to shove him off.
“S’that yer, Harry?” he hears Hagrid call.
“Yeah!” Harry scrambles out from under Bear. “Hi, Hagrid. Had any classes yet?”
“Naw, yer in my firs’ ever one!” Hagrid waves Harry over.
Harry eyes the enormous man as he walks over to the house, Bear at his side. “What’s it on, Hagrid?”
“Nope, can’t tell yer, s’gonna be a secret!”
Time to be blunt. “Hagrid. Remember last year when you said ‘follow the spiders’ and Ron and I almost got eaten by Aragog’s family?”
Bear sits up very straight.
Hagrid blushes again. “Now, don’ judge him jes’ fer that, Aragog’s won’erful–”
“I know you and he get on really well.” Harry resists the urge to bang his head into the wall. “But Hagrid, seriously. You’re amazing. You’re really strong, and I’ve seen you pick up burning pots barehanded. For Merlin’s sake you kept an acromantula as a pet in the castle. He might not hurt you, but he was about to hurt us. We would’ve died if the Weasleys’ insane car hadn’t shown up and saved us.”
Bear is staring at Hagrid very intently.
“I know…” Hagrid deflates. “Yer righ’, Harry. ‘M sorry.” He wipes at his eyes with a handkerchief the size of a small tablecloth.
“No, don’t be sorry.” Harry reaches out and grabs his hand. “We went into the Forbidden Forest, alone, at night. It was also our fault. That was… super dumb. But something that you think is easy to deal with probably isn’t easy for us to deal with.”
“All righ’,” Hagrid says. “It’s hippogriffs.”
Harry can’t have heard that right. “It’s hippogriffs?”
“Bloody beautiful, they are, wait’ll you see them.”
“Hagrid.” Harry really, really wishes Armando Dippet hadn’t expelled him. Bear licks Harry’s cheek in comfort. “Okay. Hippogriffs it is. How were you going to introduce us, exactly?”
“Well, I’m goin’ ter bring everyone out to the paddock, an’ line ‘em up so everyone can see, an’ then ask fer a volunteer. An’ then after that, everyone can go up ter their own hippogriff!”
There are so many things wrong with this plan. “Hagrid, can I suggest an idea?”
Hagrid nods enthusiastically. “Go on then, Harry, yer know I’m new to this teachin’ thing.”
“All right, so first of all…” Harry thinks quickly. It’s not like he’s an expert on teaching, either, but come on, common sense. Surely he’s got at least some. “Maybe demonstrate first? So everyone can see? That way we’ll know what to do, and then have people line up and go one at a time. If everyone’s approaching hippogriffs at the same time, you can't watch them all, and what if someone gets hurt?”
Hagrid frowns. “D’yer really think so…?”
Harry is so bad at this. He wants to just give up and shout at Hagrid that he can’t just expose everyone to something like a hippogriff with no warning. Harry read the Monster Book, thank you very much, and it’s very clear that a hippogriff is a class XXX creature. “Hippogriffs are class triple X. That means a competent wizard should be able to handle one, but Hagrid, we’re not competent adult wizards, we’re kids, and it’s a class with all four Houses. You can just bet someone’s going to do something stupid.”
“All righ’,” Hagrid said. “An’ that way, I can give everyone advice specially!”
“Exactly.” Okay, that was one disaster hopefully headed off. “You’ll do great, Hagrid, I know you will. They’ll love it. Just remember we need to be a load more careful than you do, yeah? We’re smaller, and not as strong, and we don’t already know this stuff like you do.”
“I will. Thanks, Harry.”
“No problem.” Harry grins at him. “I want to talk with Bear for a bit outside, but I’ll yell before I go back to the castle. That all right?”
Hagrid frowns at the window. “I dunno… this mess wi’ Sirius Black an’ all…”
Bear barks twice, two sharp reports that echo around the cabin.
“Yeah, I jes’ bet Bear’d make short work o’ him,” Hagrid chuckles. “All righ,’ but only ‘cause yer got yer guard, here.” Bear licks his hand and Hagrid pets him roughly on the head. “Atta boy.”
“Thanks, Hagrid!” Harry darts out the door and runs along with Bear for fifty feet or so until they come to one of the many rocks jutting out of the hillside leading back up to Hogwarts.
Bear throws himself at the ground in a sprawl and Harry sits down next to him, leaning back against the rock. “I had an okay day, Bear. I think Divination is going to suck, though. The professor’s a fraud, she gave us this whole talk about how the ‘Sight cannot be taught, only those rare students with the Gift are worth her time’.”
From Bear: a discontented rumble.
“I know, right? If you lead with that, no one’s going to bloody try!” He huffs. “I think Transfiguration will be good this year, though. McGonagall’s got us studying evolution and DNA so we can talk about animate-to-animate transfigurations at the end of second term. She showed us how she can turn into a cat, it was wicked.”
Bear rolls over on his back.
Laughing, Harry leans over to scratch his stomach. “What else… oh, I got in kind of a fight with Ron and Hermione today.” He explains the incident after Divination, what happened over dinner, and his chat with the other third years in the common room. “I had no idea they were so… well, territorial. And rude. I knew Hermione never got on with the girls in her dorm but I thought they were just… I dunno, silly.”
Huffing, Bear tilts his head and gives Harry a stare.
“Yeah, if anything I was silly. I mean, they are kind of girly. But they’re both nice. Lavender and Parvati, I mean. We’re going to study tarot cards together. Even if Lavender is a little… uh, harsh, about Hermione sometimes. And Faye is great. It’s just that Hermione’s been kind of… condescending to them, and Ron’s been awful to Neville. Did you know he pushed Neville to the ground just for trying to sit with me in a class last year?”
This elicits an angry little growl.
“I didn't notice, and now I feel bad about it. And it sucks! They were my first friends, Bear, but that doesn’t mean they’re the best ones, and… I never had any friends before Hogwarts. I was just so grateful to have any I never thought about how weird it is I only had the two. Everyone else seems to have a couple people they’re close with and then a bunch they’re like… looser friends with.”
Bear demands more belly rubs, which Harry gives.
“And now I’m making more friends, and it’s great. I like Neville a lot, and Faye. I was surprised Pansy’s all right, what with her being a Slytherin, and she’s been nasty for the last few years, but Faye told me how a lot of those kids get in trouble at home if their parents know they’ve even been nice to an “undesirable” in public. It’s so dumb. Susan seems really nice, and Padma’s wicked smart. I talked potions with her for an hour on the train. Zach’s not… nice, exactly, but I like him.” He hesitates. “I wonder if I can talk to Theo Nott here… probably not. Maybe I’ll write a letter and ask if he’d want to study with me somewhere out of the way.”
Bear barks, which is probably approval. Harry flops down on the grass next to him and stares up at the sky.
“You’re a good listener, Bear.”
Bear licks his cheek.
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