“I hate Defense.”
Theo barely looked up. “Is this because Crouch ignores you, hates Slytherins, or refuses to teach us anything?”
Harry slammed his textbook down onto the table. “All of the above. This is a disgrace to magical education. All theory of defensive magic and defusing the situation and hello, if someone’s coming at you with a brick because they haven’t got magic or at least their wand, they can still bloody hurt you!”
“Keep it down,” Theo hissed, glaring around the library. They were in a pretty isolated corner, but Harry took the point. He sat down, still fuming.
“It’s okay,” a quiet voice said. “No one else heard that.”
Harry and Theo both shot to their feet, wands out and aimed in the direction of the speaker.
“No need for that, either.” He was a square-jawed boy with dark hair clipped into an undercut, faint bags under his eyes, and a skinny, underfed frame. Ravenclaw blue and bronze trimmed his robes.
“Who are you?” Theo demanded.
The boy bowed mockingly low. “Elias Graves, at your service.”
“…Harry Potter,” Harry said.
“Yes, I know.” Graves stood and looked at him. It was a little creepy. Something in his eyes wasn’t… normal. Even Harry, who knew perfectly well he was all kinds of messed up, found himself wary of this boy.
Theo shoved his wand back in his pocket. “What are you doing back here?”
“Oh, dear, have I stumbled into something private?” Graves mused. There was no innuendo in his tone, just that same detached interest. “Apologies. I just like wandering. It’s a comfort. I’m not allowed to take books off the shelves without permission.”
“Why not?” Harry said, frowning.
Graves laughed. Harry suppressed a shudder. “Too many detentions for illegal research or experiments, I suppose. I can’t imagine why they get so worked up about it, but there you have human moral blinkers at their finest. Be seeing you.” He wandered away in the direction he’d come.
“Ooookay,” Theo said. “That was… please tell me that look on your face doesn’t mean what I think it means.”
“I could,” Harry said, still staring in the direction Graves had gone, “but I prefer not to lie to you.”
Theo sighed. “Are we also going to collect Loony Lovegood?”
Harry raised his eyebrow.
“First year Ravenclaw. Social outcast like you would not believe. Not quite up there with Graves in the creep factor, but the birds shun her almost as much.”
“It’s barely October,” Harry said. “How in Circe’s name is she already a complete outcast? They’re usually better about that.”
Theo shrugged. “She’s loony, I’ve heard. I forget her real first name. Wanders around at weird hours, makes no friends. Talks about all these magical creatures that don’t exist.”
“How do you know?” Harry said.
“…what?”
“How do you know they don’t exist?”
Theo frowned. “Well, no one’s ever proven them. Only she and her father believe in them.”
“So?” Harry snapped. “I’ve already learned four dueling-style spells that you said were impossible for anyone below fourth year to master. Just because people say there are limits on magic doesn’t make those limits true, it just means people are too stupid or narrow-minded or sheeplike to push the boundaries. Who knows if there’s some kind of weird Seer variant in her family magic and she really can see things other people don’t?”
By the end of the little speech, his voice was more passionate than he’d wanted and he was leaning forward across the table, hands gesturing as he talked.
“Er… sorry,” Theo said slowly.
Harry took a breath and recentered himself. “Accepted. I think, on occasion, that we have… different perspectives on magic,” he said. “You grew up around it, Theo. You know what it’s supposed to be able to do and what the supposed limits are. I’ve already gone past those limits at least four times just because I didn’t know they were there.”
“Everything would be easier if more muggleborns acted like you,” Theo grumbled. “You can be a bloody Mudblood sometimes but still.”
Harry laughed. “Instead of like Granger?”
“Ugh.” Theo yanked open his Charms textbook. “Don’t get me started. Let’s sort out this engorgio charm so we don’t look like idiots in front of Vihaan after lunch.”
***
That night, at their potions practice, Bole showed up dragging Mercer Kershaw and Longbottom had Smith in tow.
“I’ll owe you one,” Smith said perfunctorily, slamming his cauldron down next to Longbottom’s. “I’m good at Potions but I still need the practice.”
Harry shrugged. He didn’t actively dislike the blond Hufflepuff, which was more than he could say for most people. “And you?” he asked the Ravenclaw first year.
Kershaw blushed a little. “We weren’t allowed to brew at the orphanage. Almost all my classmates have already, except the Mudbloods.”
Longbottom flinched. “That’s a slur,” he said angrily.
“…sorry,” Kershaw said. “Muggleborns, then. Bole said… I could come practice.”
Harry glanced at Bole, but she didn’t even look up from setting up her own station. “My brother suggested I reach out,” she said drily.
A gift from Asten, then? Wherever this came from, Harry would accept it. “You’re welcome, as long as you work hard and don’t disrupt anyone else,” he said coolly.
Kershaw nodded hard. “Yeah, of course. I just want to learn.”
Ravenclaw, right. Harry nodded and let him join in. It was a little strange tutoring the Ravenclaw in a first-year potion while he went through the one for Friday with Longbottom, Smith, and Bole, but Theo did his own thing and that was one less person to worry about and Harry had always been adaptive.
***
Quidditch practice was brutal. “You’re twelve, so you’ve got a modified workout, but you still better be in good shape,” Flint said, thrusting a notebook at Harry. “Workouts are in there, follow along and come to me if you’re getting too sore to function so we can modify it. I know pain-testing spells so you better actually be sore and not just whining.”
Privately, Harry was very sure his pain tolerance would surprise even Flint, but he just nodded agreeably.
“You fly on this for today,” Flint finished, chucking him a broom.
Harry glanced it over. Nimbus 1900, decent condition. “Whose is it?”
“Doesn’t matter. Fly it,” Flint said. “Uniforms are in your cabinet. Get changed and get your ass out on the pitch in ten, everyone else is ready.”
“You said practice started at five,” Harry said.
“It does, they were here early.” Flint folded his arms and waited.
Portia had taught him a few basic spells to find hidden things. Harry cast them on his cabinet before he opened it, and his uniform before he put it on. The trousers were heavy canvas with pads on his knees, and they tucked into his ankle-high lace-up boots. For practice they just wore a green-and-gray jumper in place of full uniform robes, and the leather harness, with back and shoulder pads, went on over the top. Harry flicked at the harness as he tugged it over his head. There were two, one on a hook labeled practice and one labeled match, and the training one had weird little loops on it.
Flint showed him what the loops were for as soon as Harry stepped back out into the foyer, carrying his borrowed broom. “Hold still,” he said brusquely, clamping little metal clips to the loops. “These are weights. We dial up the density like the weights we use for lift as you get used to them. Fly with weights in practice and you’ll feel like there’s no gravity when the match rolls around. We’re starting you on the lowest setting. Don’t whine, you’re twelve, and I don’t want to have to explain to Pomfrey how we fucked up your growth patterns or anything.”
“Has that happened?” Harry said, rolling his shoulders. The weights were barely noticeable right now, but he suspected they’d feel a lot worse after an hour in the air.
“Oh yeah,” Flint said, beckoning him out. Harry noticed that Flint’s weights were both larger and showing a high setting on the tiny indicators. “Happened to a Gryffindor my second year, and a Slytherin a few years before that. Pomfrey lights into all the teams.”
“Usually it’s a careless captain, and we haven’t got that problem,” Bole said, sticking his head in from the pitch. “Are you lot coming?”
“Hold your hippogriffs, Bole,” Flint said, flicking him on the shoulder as he muscled by.
Bole grinned at Harry. “Don’t mind him, he’s always grouchy. Ready for this?”
“Yes,” Harry said, following him out onto the pitch.
No, he thought, looking at the rest of the team. They were all significantly bigger. Even Derrick, who was slender, and Bletchley, who was short, both had a huge weight advantage on him.
“Don’t worry about being small,” Bole said in an undertone as Flint beckoned them all together. Pucey levitated the box of quidditch balls over. “You’re Seeker, and young, so you won’t be running body-check drills with us yet. After tryouts no one wants to see you get hurt.”
There was an undertone there, and Harry cocked his head and considered the potential benefits of quidditch protection. Personally he liked flying more than he cared about the game, and he’d tried out mostly because he could spend more time in the air, but most of the student body took quidditch really seriously. Slytherins might hate him but if he was their Seeker, they’d be more careful.
How useful.
“Right,” Flint barked. “Form up. Thirty minutes of passing drills, Chasers and Keeper. Bole and Derrick, take Potter and warm him up with the Bludgers. Don’t dent him too much. Potter, just figure out the broom and practice dodging. You read the manual?”
“Yes,” Harry said.
“Good. So you know you’ll have lots of Bludgers coming your way, and lots of fouls against you.” Flint smiled nastily. “Since you’re little, that means get good at dodging because you’re not big enough to handle a Bludger hit or body-check.”
Harry nodded. He’d always been good at dodging.
By the end of practice, two hours later, he was very, very glad for that particular skill. Harry stepped off his broom drenched in sweat and feeling like his harness weights were dragging him into the dirt. There were bruises all over his shoulders, back, and legs from Bludgers he was too slow to dodge, and his hands were sore from clutching the broom, and he saw a snitch behind his eyelids every time he blinked.
Somehow, he’d actually had fun.
“Still alive?” Derrick said, pausing to look him up and down. She was already changed out, while Harry was still trying to get the harness off. “Bole and I didn’t whack you too hard?”
“I’ve had worse,” Harry said. He paired it with a self-deprecating smile that got a return grin from Derrick, but there was something worried in the set of her eyebrows that made him remember, too late, that normal twelve-year-olds probably hadn’t gotten semi-regularly thrashed in childhood.
She shrugged it off. “You didn’t do too bad today. We might actually have a shot at the Cup this year.”
“No might about it,” Warrington said, cuffing Harry on the shoulder on his way to his own cabinet. “Seeker was always our toughest spot. You’re already better than Higgs.” He chucked his broom into its spot and glared at Harry. “But don’t get a big head, he sucked.”
“I find it hard to believe that there was no one better, if I can outfly him at twelve,” Harry said, finally yanking his harness over his head.
“There wasn’t,” Bletchley said coolly. “We had tryouts every year.”
Warrington snorted. “Also, Slytherin Seeker is basically a walking target. Most of us have better self-preservation than that.”
“Good to know,” Harry said, with heavy sarcasm.
Both Bletchley and Warrington grinned at him, and then stopped immediately as soon as they realized the other one had reacted in the same way. Harry noted that byplay and went back to being quiet and unobtrusive. The rest of the team chatted about the practice as they put their gear away.
He wasn’t used to the gear and took the longest to change out, which was great because the showers were empty by the time he went to use them. The changing room wasn’t, though, when Harry came back out wrapped in a towel, and he tensed and went for his wand when he saw Flint and Bole waiting for him.
“Easy,” Bole said. “This is a debrief, Potter, not an ambush.”
“Do you always shower with your wand?” Flint said.
“Do you always corner your second-year teammates like this?” Harry sneered, making no move toward his cabinet. He hated the vulnerability of wearing only a towel, and the way it left various small scars across his chest and arms visible, but changing would be admitting how uncomfortable he was.
Flint snorted. “Our new teammates, yeah. We need to talk about the schedule and your broom.”
“We’ll wait in the lounge,” Bole said. “Put some clothes on.”
Harry waited until they’d left before he unwound and hurried over to his cabinet.
“Well?” Severus snapped, as soon as Flint and Bole returned to the lounge.
“He’s changing,” Flint said.
“About jumped out of his skin when he saw us waiting.” Bole could always be trusted to say more than strictly necessary. “What twelve-year-old takes his wand to the shower?”
“That one, evidently,” Flint drawled.
Severus frowned at him. “It’s astounding to me that your apparently adequate vocabulary never seems to make it into your essays, Mr. Flint.”
Flint didn’t outwardly flinch, but a dull flush colored his ears. “I’ll work on that, sir.”
“Do, or I cannot guarantee that you pass my class, and you know I do prefer that my snakes are capable brewers.” Severus didn’t allow even a hint of a threat to color his tone. Flint was clever enough to pick up on it, and politeness was a lot less damning in Pensieve review.
Flint nodded.
Severus examined them. “Mr. Potter performed adequately today.”
“Yeah, and he had no idea you were here,” Bole said, settling back into one of the room’s armchairs.
“I would be shocked if a second year could see through my Disillusionment Charm,” Severus said. “You’re satisfied with his place in the team?”
Bole glanced at Flint. “Bletchley could be a problem.”
Severus cocked an eyebrow.
“Blood purity,” Flint said with a roll of his eyes. “Subtler about it than Bulstrode’s lot, but enough that he might take issue with Potter.”
Fortunately, Severus kept a close enough eye on his students’ politics to have expected this. “You will make it clear to him that Quidditch is to come first,” he said.
“The minute he does something—” Flint began.
“No.” Severus shook his head. “Before. I won’t have us faltering during the Slytherin-Gryffindor match next month because of dissension in the team. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Flint said.
“Excellent.” Severus heard the knob begin to turn and braced himself.
It was growing easier to weather the sight of Harry Potter. For one, the longer Severus knew him, the more he began to see how the boy was different from either of his parents, rather than the similarities. For another, he’d gone to some effort to tame the Potter hair, so it no longer gave Severus flashbacks to second-year James Potter pushing him down the stairs.
The boy’s eyes widened a bit on seeing Severus but that was his only reaction. “Professor Snape.”
“Sit,” Snape said.
Potter did as he was bid, perching on a chair that Severus noted maximized the distance between the boy and the room’s other three occupants.
“It seems Slytherin has found a new Seeker,” said Severus, who didn’t want this to take any longer than absolutely necessary. “You are permitted use of the Nimbus 1900 during the school term since I understand you cannot purchase one of your own.”
The boy shook his head slightly and didn’t react otherwise. Severus began to feel unnerved by the twelve-year-old’s self-possession. He could tell Flint and Bole felt more or less the same, although they weren’t as good at hiding it as Severus.
He’d hidden far stronger emotions from far more intimidating people than this child.
“Will you be able to after this year?” Severus said.
“No,” Potter said.
Severus’ lips tightened. “Should you have access to a broom this summer, would you have the opportunity to practice?”
Potter took his time forming an answer. “I might for a brief period at the end of the summer.”
While at Nott Manor, Severus inferred, based on a conversation he overheard between Larkin Haigh and an apothecary in Diagon Alley. “Owl me, if you find yourself in such a position,” he said drily. “The rest of our team practices on their own in the summers. We wouldn’t want you behind.”
“I’ll do my best not to be,” Potter said. His eyes flashed at what Severus actually hadn’t intended to be an implied rebuke.
“Here’s the practice schedule,” Flint said, handing Potter a roll of parchment. “One-hour practices Monday through Thursday as soon as class lets out, with a thirty-minute workout after. Forty-five minutes of cardio on Fridays. Two-hour practices Saturday morning, with lift in the afternoon, and an hour plus cardio on Sunday. We’ve modified yours to account for your age—lower weights and lighter cardio workouts. You’ll catch up to us over this year and next year.”
Potter scanned the list and nodded.
“Your academics are not to slip,” Severus said. “Last year’s performance was adequate. Should quidditch cause Slytherin to no longer hold the top position in your year, I would be displeased.”
This time, Potter got the message. The Granger chit had come in second. Severus had never met the girl but the colleagues with whom he was on speaking terms had described her as a bossy and condescending child, albeit one who didn’t always mean to alienate people as much as she tended to. He was not to allow a Gryffindor to take the top spot from him. “Yes, sir.”
“You may go,” Severus said. “I understand you have an essay due in Potions tomorrow.”
“It’s completed, sir,” Potter said. Severus was accustomed to easily telling how much of a student’s respect was real and how much was mockery, but with Potter he couldn’t at all. Or perhaps he was just expecting mocking false respect from James Potter’s son, and projecting suspicion onto a genuine response.
He made himself refocus. Too much psychoanalysis usually led him to drink. “Good.”
Potter nodded and left the lounge, a heavy bag slung over one shoulder.
“Harry Potter can’t afford a broom and can’t fly,” Flint muttered. “Kid’s a fucking mystery.”
“Language,” Severus said halfheartedly. He knew they swore, they knew he swore, but because everyone was either a teacher or a student, they couldn’t swear in one another’s presence. One of the social rules Severus loathed so much.
Flint resisted rolling his eyes, with unsubtle effort. “Yes, sir.”
“He’s friends with Portia,” Bole offered.
“Friends,” Severus said, dubiously. He didn’t think Potter and Nott could be counted as friends and they were inseparable. That was in large part because he was pretty sure something was very wrong with the Nott boy, but still.
Bole shifted in his chair. “Of a sort. They brew together.”
Severus went over schedules in his head, as well as a few conversations with Slughorn. “Slytherin and Ravenclaw have Potions together?”
“N—oh shit,” Bole said.
“You just admitted that they brew outside of class,” Flint deadpanned. “Which is against school rules. To a professor.”
“I’m not sure where my sudden deafness came from, but I seem to have spaced out of the conversation,” Severus said loudly. He did not want to deal with this, so he was going to pretend it hadn’t happened. Potter and Bole were by all accounts competent students. If they blew themselves up, he’d blame it on Ravenclaw curiosity. “How does Potter know your sister?”
Flint didn’t even bother hiding his eye roll this time.
“A study group,” Bole said.
Much better. “Study group,” Severus said. “Right. Such inter-House unity is something we should cherish. Both of you get out.”
They did, in a hurry.
Severus rubbed his temples for a moment before he locked up the lounge and followed them.
Potter was waiting just inside the entrance hall. “Professor,” he said, almost hesitantly. “Whose broom is it?”
Severus eyed him and didn’t respond.
“I would like to know,” Potter said, “in case they think I owe them for it.”
He didn’t want to be blindsided with an unexpected debt, is what he meant. So very unlike Lily or James. “It is of no concern,” Severus said. “The owner offered you its use for the good of Slytherin, and that is all.”
Potter looked skeptical of the concept of a no-strings-attached loan like this, but he had the sense to not push Severus any harder, and just vanished down towards his dorm with a polite “Good night, sir.”
Severus returned to his rooms and drank a headache potion instead of firewhiskey. Seeing Potter on the broom had brought back memories of his father. Harry Potter’s lack of flying experience was obvious, while James had clearly grown up with easy access to children’s brooms, but they had the same unconscious grace.
For a moment, he closed his eyes, remembered sneaking out and doing Chaser drills until the sun came up on a stolen broom, remembered Potter and Black mocking him in the halls for his clumsiness in the air. Remembered Rhymus Jigger trying to convince him to try out, insisting that Severus had potential even if he’d have to work a little harder than some natural talents. Remembered showing up at tryouts in third year, hearing Potter and Black and a whole group of their friends in the stands loudly mocking the idea of Snivellus actually making the team, fleeing back to the dungeons before anyone saw that he’d come. Lily had never heard about the incident. Her friend Marlene McKinnon was there, laughing along with Black and Potter and the rest, and Severus hadn’t wanted to make Lily upset with her friend.
It was stupid in hindsight. He’d let them run him off the field in shame when he should’ve stuck it out. Severus tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling and swallowed the bitter taste of regret. He forgave his teenage self for the cowardice, if not Black and Potter.
He’d still barely flown since that day. Severus’ Nimbus 1900 was almost brand-new. At least now someone would get decent use out of it.
***
“What are you learning?” Theo said, eyeing the massive compendium of charms Harry had checked out and was currently poring over.
“Magic,” he deadpanned.
Theo hit him with a pillow. Harry cursed him with Jelly-Legs and took his wand. He only gave it back half an hour later when he thought his point had been made.
***
Anthony Goldstein shrieked as his elbow slipped and he whacked his forehead on his desk.
McGonagall broke off mid-lecture and frowned at him. “Mr. Goldstein, that is the third time you have fallen asleep today. I understand you Ravenclaws tend to sacrifice sleep at the altar of your intellectual pursuits, but if you could please nap somewhere other than my class?”
“Of course, sorry, Professor,” Goldstein muttered, blushing hotly.
No one thought to look at Harry except Theo and Bole. Theo took it in stride but Bole’s gaze was frank and considering.
A note from her landed on his desk a few minutes later. What’d he do to you?
Harry sighed and scribbled a response. Heard Longbottom’s stories lately?
He sent it back and Bole nodded slightly when she read it. They’d all heard Longbottom’s mumbled confessions about how Goldstein went after him in History and Potions. Harry needed a target for spell practice and Goldstein had just made himself the most logical option.
Granted, he needed the spell for something else, but still.
***
Theo flicked a finger at the strap over Harry’s shoulder. “Remind me why you’re wearing this?”
“So I’m used to it,” Harry said, making a face. The leather quidditch harness and weights fit under his robes, barely. Luckily the weights were small and he’d bought his robes with room to grow. “The older players all have heavier weights.”
“Yeah,” Theo said. “’Cause they’re older.”
“I’ll get better faster doing it this way.” Harry fastened his closed-front school robes over his shirt and trousers and studied himself in the mirror to make sure there were no bumps.
Crabbe came into the bathroom and slammed into Theo from behind, bumping him into the sinks.
The larger boy went into a stall, chuckling to himself. Theo watched him go with an absolutely blank expression.
“Don’t get caught,” Harry reminded him.
“Duh,” Theo said, wand already out.
He caught up to Harry halfway to breakfast, looking as close to happy as Theo ever did. “He won’t tell.”
“Of course not,” Harry said. “He’d have to admit you beat him.”
***
“Want to come watch?” Harry said in an undertone.
Goyle scowled at Harry and Theo both, but he didn’t bother to try and join their conversation.
“Absolutely,” Theo said.
Harry subtly made sure the Invisibility Cloak was secure in his pocket. His Undetectable Expansion Charms still needed a lot of work before he could fit Raza in one, but the Cloak was thin, and it actually fit in an only somewhat expanded pocket without making a lump. It was a last resort for tonight. Revealing the Cloak to Theo was acceptable, barely. Revealing it to Davis was quite a risk.
The boys met her in the common room at eleven thirty. Davis and Parkinson waited together. A sixth year watched them go with a warning to not get caught.
Harry went over his game plan.
-----
If this went south, Tracy fully intended to throw the Gryffindors under the bus.
It wouldn’t even be hard. They sucked at lying. She wasn’t great, but she was better than a bloody Gryffindor, and Potter and Nott could convince a kneazle its mother was a crup. The Gryffindors would get so indignant the Slytherins were lying they wouldn’t even remember to defend themselves.
Also, she really, really hoped this duel didn’t end up one of those statistically unlikely cases where the second got called in. Tracy was an average witch and Runcorn was an average wizard in terms of magical power, but she did not want to have to duel anyone. Mostly she was here because Potter asked her and that was a public tie she wouldn’t pass up.
The three of them sneaked through the castle, following Potter’s lead. He knew his way around way better than a second year should. The longer they walked, the more Tracy was sure that he spent a lot of time wandering after hours.
“We’re fifteen minutes early,” Potter murmured when they got to the trophy room. His icy green eyes swept over the room. Wilhelmina thought he was cute. Tracy just thought he was kind of creepy. It was an unpopular opinion in the girls’ dorms, but then again, they didn’t spend as much time with him as she did.
She glanced sideways at Parkinson, the most difficult of all of them to understand. Her dark eyes were pinned on Potter.
Tracy might have been a follower and well aware of that fact, but she was not naïve or oblivious. Parkinson scared her almost as much as Potter, had done so even before Vane tried to get into her things halfway through first year and Parkinson did something to Vane’s nail polish that turned it to acid. She went to the hospital wing and had to have all her nails regrown.
“Do we hide and ambush? Please?” Nott said.
“No,” Potter said. “I have another idea, for after I wipe the floor with him. We just wait.”
Parkinson went to poke through some old trophies. Tracy shrugged. It was as good a way to pass the time as any.
“This witch got like, three Special Awards for Services to the School in the same year,” Nott said, holding up a tarnished trophy from the seventeen hundreds. “Wonder what she did.”
“Fought off a Cerberus?” Parkinson suggested.
Potter scoffed. “Like anyone would be stupid enough to let a Cerberus into Hogwarts.”
“You never know,” Tracy said. “Dumbledore can be pretty incompetent.”
“The media would have a field day,” Nott said dismissively.
“It’s Dumbledore,” Tracy said uncertainly. “Mum’s never been shy about her disdain for magical press. She calls the Daily Prophet a biased state-controlled gossip-obsessed rag on a good day.”
“She’s the Muggle?” Parkinson said.
Tracy realized her slip and winced. “Yes.”
Potter snickered. “Don’t act like I’m going to bite, Davis. My mother was muggleborn. I’d be the worst kind of hypocrite to judge you for it.”
She smiled, a little weakly.
Parkinson laughed at them both. She had never given Tracy crap for her heritage but then again she’d never stopped Bulstrode from doing it, either, just watched how Tracy reacted. Potter was doing that now.
“You have magic,” Nott said lazily. “That’s what matters.”
“And thank Circe for that,” she said sincerely. She loved Mum but the thought of living like that—like a Muggle—was kind of depressing. They were one of few unnobled families who’d managed to hold onto their ancestral seat, which meant they had wards the Trace couldn’t pierce. Tracy had grown up doing simple magic with a practice wand. Mum had to do everything by hand.
Nott was watching Potter very closely. Tracy couldn’t figure out why.
Thankfully, the Gryffindors showed up then, breaking the tension. Their voices carried down the hall. Granger was hissing about how they shouldn’t be breaking the rules, Weasley was mocking her to shut her up, and Runcorn was speculating that the Slytherins wouldn’t even show up, being awful cowards.
“I can’t wait to prove that prat wrong,” Nott murmured.
Parkinson’s smile glimmered in the darkness.
Mum told her once about fish that swam with sharks, lived near them, and ended up safe because they were useful. Tracy felt like one of those fish right now—surrounded by colder, meaner versions of herself, sharks with sharp teeth and sharper smiles.
The lions tripped in the door and stopped short upon seeing the Slytherins.
“Hey, Weasley,” Potter said. “Funny seeing you here. Out for a stroll?”
“Cut it out with the sarcasm,” Runcorn spat. He and Weasley both glared at Potter like the colors of his tie were a personal offense. “Let’s just get on with this, shall we?”
“Gladly.” Potter pulled his weird two-wood wand out of his pocket and spun it idly around his fingers. Everyone’s eyes were drawn to the weirdly hypnotic movement. “Tracy?”
Hearing her given name from him was still a surprise. “Ready,” she said, pulling her own wand and crossing her arms. She did her best to channel some of Zabini’s arrogant disdain. Nott shot her a look of approval so she must be doing something right.
Runcorn tapped his wand on his leg and glowered. Tracy raised an eyebrow at him. The little Gryffindor was challenging her. Idiot. They were pretty even in terms of power and she didn’t want to fight him, but if she did, she had no doubt how it would play out. Tracy had spent all of first year getting into impromptu duels with Bulstrode and Vane. Some soft Gryffindor second year without the stomach to do actual damage wouldn’t be able to win against her.
Also, in the end, it came down to who wanted to win more, and she was in Slytherin for other reasons than her ability to judge who would have power.
Slowly, Tracy grinned at him. Runcorn stepped back before he caught himself and scowled.
Potter and Weasley stepped up into the middle of the room. Tracy and Runcorn stepped off to the side, wands ready but held at their sides. The duelists bowed. Tracy caught a flash of something feral in Potter’s face before he schooled it. A hint of the same twisted expression that had simultaneously intrigued and unnerved most of Slytherin last year.
“Three, two, one… Mark,” Nott called.
Tracy’s grip on her wand tightened.
It wasn’t quite a rout. Whatever you wanted to say about the Weasleys—and most of Slytherin had quite a lot of unflattering things to say about them—they were no slouches with magic. This Weasley was more fluid with his wand than Potter, more comfortable with the idea of having magic.
But in the end, it didn’t matter. After trading spells for a minute—and Tracy noticed Potter stuck to a lot lower level of spells than he’d used in the infamous Bulstrode duel—Weasley took a tarantallegra to the chest. The spasming of his legs left him wide open and Potter disarmed him with ease.
Tracy caught Weasley’s spinning wand. Heart thumping in secondhand adrenaline. She flipped it around and handed it to Potter hilt first.
“Thanks,” he murmured, looking up at her from under lowered brows, and for just a second she saw the appeal—
Then the image of that savage, vicious snarl from last year’s duel forced itself onto her retinas and the effect was gone. Tracy smiled tightly and stepped back.
“Are you done, Weasley?” Potter said. “I’d really prefer that you quit calling me a traitor.”
“You are,” Weasley said plaintively. Runcorn ended the dancing curse and Weasley got to his feet. “Your parents were Gryffindor.”
Potter sighed sharply through his nose. “They didn’t raise me, Weasley. I have no memories of them. Why in Merlin’s name would you expect me to be so influenced by who they were?”
“But they died for you!” Granger said, hair crackling.
“Yep,” Potter said. “And I’m doing my level best to live up to their sacrifice. Make something of my life. Ergo, ambition.”
The Gryffindors faltered. Tracy’s eyes widened as she realized Potter had managed to put a Slytherin value in terms the lions would understand and stopped them in their tracks. Nott and Parkinson smirked—obviously they’d caught on, too.
Tracy grinned fleetingly before she controlled herself.
“And now, the encore,” Potter said. “Somnus.”
Nott’s voice rang out with his, and then Potter’s voice snapped off a second time, nailing Granger before she got her wand all the way up for a shield.
Tracy blinked. She hadn’t known about this plan but damn if she was going to show that in front of Parkinson.
Nott whipped out a pack of Exploding Snap cards. “Who wants to play a game?” he said with a leer. “We’ll have to stop halfway through… and one of us has to sit out.”
“I’m terrible,” Potter said. “I’ll watch.”
So Tracy was subjected to the very odd experience of playing half a game of Exploding Snap on the floor of the trophy room next to three sleeping Gryffindors with Nott and Parkinson while Potter poked around old medals.
“We’re halfway, ish,” Nott noted.
Potter nodded and pulled his attention away from the trophies. “Put the cards in their hands, or near them like they’ve fallen. Prop them up, too.”
Tracy and Nott did most of the propping, while Potter and Parkinson arranged the cards. It only took a few minutes and then the four of them stepped back to examine their tableau.
“They’ll wake up before morning, though,” Tracy felt like she had to point out. Even though challenging Potter felt—weird. “Somnus is a pretty weak spell in general, and no one comes around here.”
“Not without a tip-off,” Potter said.
“If you go to anyone they’ll rat you out, too,” Parkinson said.
Potter shook his head but didn’t explain.
He led the three of them down one floor and into an unused classroom. “Wait here,” he said quietly. “Twenty minutes.”
Then he disappeared.
For a few minutes, Tracy and Parkinson and Nott eyed each other silently.
“Anyone else know what he’s doing?” Parkinson said.
Nott’s eyes were calculating. “I can guess.”
Both girls heard the unspoken but I won’t tell and let it drop. Nott leaned on the wall and hummed some weird creepy tune. Parkinson pulled out a nail file. Tracy eyed her. Parkinson put a lot of work into being seen as the vapid fashion-obsessed bimbo, even in Slytherin, but something about it seemed off.
Potter came back almost twenty minutes later on the dot, grinning ear to ear. “Filch is about to walk in on three Gryffindors in the trophy room who fell asleep in the middle of a game of Exploding Snap,” he said.
Parkinson stared at him. “You got the Squib on your side?”
“No one’s ever nice to him,” Potter said. “It’s amazing how chronically ostracized people respond to a bit of kindness.”
Nott shifted.
“Filch,” Parkinson muttered, shaking her head. “On the side of a student. I don’t get you, Potter.”
“Yeah, no one does,” he agreed. “Let’s go.”
They filed out of the unused classroom. Tracy found herself grinning. A good night on all counts.
Of course, that was when Peeves ricocheted around the corner and screeched at them like one of Mordred’s conjured demons.
Tracy shrieked. Parkinson’s wand was in her hand already, same for Potter, but both of them registered that spells wouldn’t do anything against Peeves. “Run,” Potter hissed. “Filch gave me carte blanche for tonight but other teachers’ll come—”
“STUDENTS OUT OF BED!” Peeves bellowed, right on cue. “STUDENTS OUT OF BED ON THE SECOND FLOOR!”
“Peeves!” Potter barked out. “Five galleons’ worth of Dungbombs for you to shut up and leave us alone tonight.”
Peeves’ eyes popped out of his head. “Oooh, ickle Potty knows how to plaaaay,” he singsonged. “Deal, Potty-wee-lad, but I won’t be getting you out of this tonight, oh no I won’t!”
“Do you have five galleons for Dungbombs?” Nott hissed.
Potter kept on running down the hall. They could hear doors slamming. “No,” he said, “but people owe me favors who can—just—who knows a place?”
“Here.” Parkinson yanked them aside. Tracy understood at once.
“Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom,” she said. “Brilliant.”
“Yes, I am,” Parkinson said with a smirk.
The four of them tumbled inside. It was big, dark, and echoey. All the girls knew to avoid this bathroom because of Myrtle’s tendency to flood the place, sometimes literally while you were on the toilet with your knickers down. “Quick,” Tracy hissed, “into the stalls.”
Somehow she ended up jammed into one with Nott. She wasn’t sure if this was the best of three bad options, the worst, or the middle. He didn’t even look at her, though, his entire attention focused toward the hall.
Someone gasped daintily. Parkinson hissed something inaudible from the next stall over.
“Are you Myrtle?” Potter said, his voice smooth, soft, friendly. He was such a good actor it sent chills down Tracy’s spine sometimes.
“Yes… who are you?” the ghost girl said.
“Harry Potter.”
A flick of Myrtle’s robes appeared through the stall wall separating them and then disappeared. “Who are you hiding from?”
“The teachers,” Parkinson said, still softly. Vulnerable.
“I should tell on you, you know,” Myrtle said severely. Tracy closed her eyes.
“Please don’t,” Potter said desperately. “If you do we’ll get in ever so much trouble… and they might come back and watch your bathroom, wouldn’t they? Because they’d know students hide in here. And then you wouldn’t have as many people to talk to.”
Myrtle was silent. “I suppose… no one wants to talk to a dead girl, though. So does it matter?”
“I want to talk to you,” Potter said. “I think you’re interesting. What’s it like, being dead?”
Myrtle gasped again, but in delight this time. Tracy opened her eyes and stared at the wall between her stall and Potter’s like it would reveal his secrets. Next to her, Nott was shaking in silent laughter, hands clamped over his mouth.
“It’s very strange,” Myrtle said in a husky voice. “Like… floating, and not being quite… real. Real enough to feel things in here, but not out here. And lonely.”
“You must’ve seen all sorts of things, though,” Potter said. “Met so many interesting people, even if only for a moment. Could I come back and talk to you sometime?”
“Well… I suppose. It is a girls’ toilet, though, you know.”
Potter laughed softly. It invited you to join in. “Yes, I’m aware, given that I’m hiding in here with two girls and a girl ghost. I’d only come when there’s no one in here, though.”
“All right,” Myrtle said, sounding delighted. “Would you like me to cause a diversion so you can get away? I do love blowing up the toilets.”
“That would be lovely, thank you,” Potter said warmly.
Myrtle giggled. Giggled. Dear Merlin.
Potter eased open his stall door. Nott schooled his laughter and followed suit. The four of them crept out of the bathroom, and then down the hall a little ways, wary of banging doors and searching teachers.
They’d barely taken refuge behind a tapestry when a massive bang, shrieking, and the sound of rushing water came from behind them. Several teachers started running instantly.
Potter peeked around the edge of the tapestry. “Vihaan, McGonagall, Sinistra,” he reported softly. Tracy winced. Getting caught by them would’ve been bad. Sinistra was fine but McGonagall wasn’t nearly as open-minded and fair as she liked to pretend and Vihaan hated Slytherins no matter how much he tried to pretend otherwise. “I think they’re gone, let’s move. There’s a secret passage about fifty meters down the hall that lets out near the Hufflepuff common room.”
“How do you know where the Hufflepuff common room is?” Parkinson asked.
Potter’s smile was a gleaming flash in the darkness. “Lucky guess.”
They made it back to the common room without incident.
-----
Severus stopped mid-bite and stared at the Gryffindor table.
Weasley, Runcorn, and Granger were clearly being isolated. Aggressively isolated. Which was bizarre, because as the brilliant muggleborn, Granger embodied McGonagall’s political beliefs and was shamelessly favored by nearly all her professors. Weasley’s family was wealthy, with a father high up in the Ministry and the mother running a prominent charity, Dumbledore’s protégés and allies. Runcorn was a halfblood, but his mother was from a very old family, and being a Gryffindor friend of Weasley and Granger had automatically made them quite the Golden Trio.
Until today.
Sighing, he resigned himself to listening to the staff table gossip, which he usually tuned out. It was banal and he could usually feel his brain cells dying as he listened. Fortunately, he didn’t have to listen very hard; he and Horace usually sat with one another so they could discuss Potions journals when Horace wasn’t tipsy, and Horace was very looped in with the gossip.
Today was no exception. “Horace,” he murmured, “why is the Gryffindor hourglass so low? Not that I’m complaining, of course, but even the Weasley Demons haven’t lost one hundred fifty in one night…”
Horace leaned in. “Quite a tale, m’dear boy, quite a tale… Argus found them sleeping in the trophy room midway through a game of Exploding Snap! He said his familiar alerted him to the students out of bed, the clever creature. Peeves started bellowing down the second-floor corridor, so there’s some suspicion that other students were out and about, but no one caught them. Nasiche and Charlotte found the baby lions… as you know, neither of them is overfond of that House.” He winked. “It was quite a setback for dear Minerva, eh? This’ll change the House Cup betting pool!”
Which you should not, as a professor, participate in, Severus thought but did not say. They had had that argument before and it always ended in a stalemate. “How… exciting,” he said drily, returning to his breakfast.
Exciting, and odd. His eyes, out of some instinct, drifted to his own House table. None of them was so clumsy as to mock the Gryffindors or announce their complicity.
But. Nott and Parkinson were swapping conspiratorial glances every few seconds, and Davis kept subtly glancing at the hourglass. Potter was unreadable, as usual, but if Nott and Parkinson and Davis were involved, so was he. Undoubtedly.
That boy was trouble.
Severus sighed heavily. Loathe as he was to admit it, Harry Potter was not his father. Nor was he his mother. He was something not either of them, something else, something much more Slytherin than either Lily or James ever could have dreamed.
Would he have been this way raised by them, Severus wondered, or had his childhood destroyed any Gryffindor part of him left over from his parents? The world would probably never know.
Well. It wasn’t his problem. Slytherin political battles were well and truly out of his jurisdiction as long as they stayed in-House and the physical damage was kept to a minimum. Potter could collect his minions, play the game, fight his way to the top or fail, and Severus could keep himself out of it.
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