Predictably, the entire school spent four days speculating wildly about the first floor bathroom that smelled like cooking rotten meat, the troll that hadn’t actually been in the dungeons, and the supposed involvement of Harry Potter, Theodore Nott, Neville Longbottom, and Hermione Granger.
Harry and Theo fended off questions from their house mates by saying they got caught up in the crossfire when a Gryffindor did something stupidly brave for a friend. The other Slytherins sniggered and believed this excuse quite readily. Granted, it was true.
The Ravenclaws asked sharp questions, and Justin watched Harry wearily retell the story with clever eyes, and Harry was pretty sure at least Justin and Sue could tell he was downplaying the story—he was in fact, very much so, since he didn’t want to get a reputation quite yet as the sort of person who burned trolls alive in bathrooms—but they didn’t push, for which he was grateful.
Theo was actually the hardest to deal with.
“I thought I saw you drop your wand,” he said one day, randomly, while they were working on an essay for Charms.
Harry hoped the slight flinch of his hand went unnoticed. “Yeah, but I picked it up again. Obviously.”
Theo looked at him with glinting eyes and stopped asking questions.
***
In all this, Harry had almost forgotten about his ongoing feud with Jules.
He was forcibly reminded in Defense a week after Halloween when Jules loudly and pointedly struck up a conversation with Weasley in which Weasley repeatedly drew attention to Jules’ Seeker status. And how young he was. And how everyone said he was so spectacularly talented. And how he was going to carry the Gryffindor team to the Quidditch Cup for the first time since Charlie Weasley left.
Harry spent three hours in the library looking up the various anti-jinx protections on Quidditch brooms and how one might conceivably get around them.
***
The next Saturday was the first Quidditch game of the season.
The entire first-year Slytherin cohort packed into the stands together. Even Malfoy and Harry’s rivalry (Harry had not forgotten Malfoy tripping Neville in potions) was set aside for the sake of cheering Slytherin House.
They were all decked out in green and silver, and one of the fifth years came around and taught them a charm that sprayed green and silver confetti from their wands. This almost instantly resulted in a game that involved spraying confetti in each other’s hair. Malfoy was particularly dismayed when Greengrass dumped a load of it directly onto his perfectly slicked back blond head.
The Weasley twins’ friend, Lee Jordan, was commentating. He announced the Slytherin team— “Flint, Pucey, Wright, Higgs, Bletchley, Derrick, and Bole!”—to loud cheers from the Slytherin section with mingled support from Ravenclaw, and the Gryffindor team— “Wood, Spinnet, Bell, Johnson, Weasley, Weasley, and Potter!”—to even louder cheers from all the other students. Harry rolled his eyes at the favoritism and lost himself watching the game.
The teams were neck and neck for ages. Flint fouled Jules in a collision that Harry was pleased to think would probably leave his brother bruised. Spinnet nailed the penalty shot, unfortunately. The Gryffindor Chasers were a machine, and their Keeper was a maniac, and the Weasley twins weren’t called the “terrible twins” or “Weasley terrors” around the Slytherin common room for nothing. And then there was Jules, who was clearly a natural on a broom even if he did look shockingly small compared to Terence Higgs.
And because apparently every aspect of Jules Potter’s life just had to be as dramatic as possible, someone started hexing his broom. “Someone” being Professor Quirrell. Harry aimed his binoculars at the teacher section as soon as Jules’ broom went bonkers, assuming correctly that only an adult killed in the Dark Arts would be able to jinx a well-warded high-end broom. Sure enough, there was Quirrell, maintaining eye contact and muttering under his breath—but Snape, too.
Harry had his wand out ready to do something drastic when he noticed Hermione worming her way into the space beneath the stands.
“Merlin,” he muttered, “she’s too clever for her own good.”
Hermione rushed along—knocked Quirrell headfirst into the teachers in front of him—Harry checked on Jules, whose broom had abruptly stopped its bucking—back in the teachers’ section, Hermione set fire to Snape’s robes and disappeared into the back of the raised viewing section.
Jules spat out the Snitch and waved it about in the air and the match dissolved into chaos.
Theo stared at Harry, who was ignoring the post-match chaos and focusing his binoculars on the teacher section. “What just happened?” he said.
Harry lowered the binoculars and looked at Theo and Blaise. “Quirrell just tried to kill Jules Potter. Hermione set Snape on fire and saved Jules’ life.”
Both boys blinked.
“Come on,” Harry said suddenly, noticing that Hermione and Neville were following Jules, Weasley, and Finnegan off the pitch. “I’m pretty sure they’re all convinced Snape is a would-be murderer, we need to set them straight.”
The Slytherins easily tracked their Gryffindor allies and enemies to the gamekeeper’s hut. Harry had been down here once for an extremely awkward tea that he’d rather not repeat and hadn’t been invited back. This time, he didn’t even knock, just paused long enough to identify the voice inside as Hermione’s and pushed the door open.
Jules was on his feet in an instant. “You slimy snake—”
Then he registered Theo, who was looking around with glorious contempt, and Blaise, who wore his trademark I’m–laughing-at-a-joke-you’re-too-stupid-to-get smirk. Harry could see Jules’ anger ratcheting up a few notches into “speechless with rage” territory.
“I’m going to guess you’re mad because you think my Head of House just tried to kill you,” he said, trying to emulate Theo’s composure.
“How’d you know that?” Finnegan demanded. “Were you in on it?”
“Really?” Harry sighed. “Fratricide? Come on, Finnegan, it’s not as if Slytherin has nightly meetings where we plot Gryffindors’ untimely deaths.”
“Believe it or not, we actually have more important things to do than obsess over you,” Theo said. “Like study, which most of your lot could stand to try.”
Hagrid looked alarmed at the rising tensions. “Hey, let’s—let’s keep it civil, all righ’?”
“Of course,” Harry said pleasantly. That, he was good at—acting pleasant when he didn’t feel it at all.
“Harry, Theo, we—we don’t just think Snape tried to kill Jules,” Hermione said. “I saw him—he was holding eye contact and casting nonstop, all the marks of jinxing a broom—”
“I know,” Harry said. “I looked into it.” He paused to smirk at Jules. “But, of course, what you didn’t notice is that Professor Quirrell was also holding eye contact and muttering spells.”
“That only tells us one of them was jinxing the broom and the other was casting a counterjinx,” Hermione argued.
Harry nodded. “Exactly. Which is why, as soon as you knocked Quirrell face-first into Professor Sprout in your mad dash for Snape, I checked on Jules. His broom was fine, after Quirrell’s concentration was broken and before you sidetracked Snape by setting him on fire.”
“Nice touch, by the way,” Blaise added. He’d warmed slightly to Hermione once she learned to be careful about accidentally shoving her genius in everyone’s face all the time and calmed down in class.
“Hold up,” Finnegan said. “Hermione, how come you’re going by first names with Nott?”
“How come you get to control who her friends are?” Theo retorted.
Neville blinked; apparently either the freedom to choose your friends was a foreign concept or he was surprised at Theo coming to Hermione’s defense. Or both. Harry suspected both.
Finnegan flushed a dull crimson that reminded Harry unpleasantly of his uncle. “Because you lot are—are nasty, that’s why—”
“We fought a troll together,” Hermione snapped, rounding on the Stooges. “If that doesn’t put us on a first name basis then I don’t know what would!”
“Also, Finnegan, that was ages ago,” Harry said. “Do try to keep up.” He looked around. Weasley looked stunned, Hagrid confused into silence, and Jules actually thoughtful. “Questions? No? I’ll be going, then.”
“Wait,” Jules said suddenly. “You—Harry, Snape was out skulking around on Halloween. We think he was going after whatever—whatever’s hidden in the third floor corridor.”
“You mean beneath the Cerberus?” Theo said.
Jules shot to his feet. “You know about this?”
“Well, it was an educated guess,” Theo said. “Thanks for the confirmation.”
Harry was watching Hermione and Neville. “You know something else, too,” he said. “That you’re hiding.”
“Hagrid… may have let slip that it has something to do with Nicholas Flamel,” Hermione admitted.
Hagrid leaned forward, suddenly angry. Harry flinched back a step and reflexively dropped a blank mask over his face. The room felt half as small as it had a moment before and he had to fight the urge to bolt. He stared resolutely forward and ignored the concerned looks he was getting from Blaise and Theo. “You were supposed’ta forget abou’ tha’!” Hagrid said.
“Sorry,” Hermione said, not looking very sorry.
“I’ve heard enough,” Harry said, then looked at Jules. “I hope it’s clear that as a first year, you have no business going near whatever’s going on in the third floor corridor. Or interfering with the plans laid by people loads older and smarter than you. Or just smarter. Meaning don’t mess with my plans, either. Later, Hermione, Neville.”
Getting out of the hut was an enormous relief.
He and Blaise and Theo were halfway up to the castle when Blaise coughed and said, “I’m guessing you’d prefer I not tell them Nicholas Flamel is the creator of the Sorcerer’s Stone,” he said.
Harry choked.
Theo laughed. “There’s that Slytherin discretion.”
“I think I can guess what the dog’s guarding,” Harry said darkly. “Should we take this to Snape?”
“He hates you,” Theo said bluntly. “He might hate your brother more, but he hates you. It’d be better coming from Blaise or me.”
“But you should come,” Blaise said. “To answer questions. Just, you know, stand there and look sorry for existing.”
“Oh good,” Harry said. “I don’t even have to fake anything.”
“Has anyone ever told you your sense of humor is rather dark?” Theo drawled.
Harry thought. “No, actually.”
“Well, your sense of humor is rather dark,” Theo said.
“Noted.”
***
Snape scowled as soon as they walked into his office. “Yes?”
“Sir,” Theo said respectfully, “we thought you should know that Jules Potter, Ron Weasley, and Seamus Finnegan know about whatever it is the Cerberus on the third floor is guarding, and they know it’s connected to Nicholas Flamel. They’re also partially convinced that you tried to kill Jules Potter today during the match.”
Snape very precisely laid his quill on his desk and focused the full strength of his glare on the three of them. Harry was suddenly glad he’d agreed to let Theo take point on this one. It felt rather like Snape could look into his mind.
“How did you come by this information?”
Theo explained that their Gryffindor acquaintances Granger and Longbottom had told them what the Three Stooges learned about the Cerberus, and then Harry’s observations from the students section, Hermione’s arson attempt—though he left her an unnamed Gryffindor—and finally Hagrid’s latest slip. He finished with, “Blaise knows a bit about alchemy, Professor, so we’re pretty sure the thing the Cerberus is guarding is the Sorcerer’s Stone. Hermione Granger’s clever, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they figure it out eventually, but we didn’t say anything.”
“Thank Merlin for small mercies, then,” Snape sighed. He looked at Harry with an unreadable gaze. Harry suddenly thought with prickling certainty that he shouldn’t make eye contact with Snape for very long, and looked down. “Five points to Slytherin for your discretion and for thinking to bring this to a professor. Potter, a word. Nott and Zabini, you may go.”
“We’ll wait outside,” Blaise muttered on the way out.
Harry braced himself as the door closed on his friends’ heels.
For a few long seconds, Snape remained silent and Harry’s eyes stayed aimed at the edge of his desk. Then—
“I’ve noticed that you don’t seem to receive owl post, Mr. Potter.”
Well that was random. Harry probably didn’t do a good job keeping his surprise, suspicion, and irritation off his face. “No, sir,” he agreed.
“Is there a reason you’re refusing to meet my eyes, Potter?” Snape’s voice absolutely dripped condescension.
“I—I try to follow my instincts, sir.” And Harry’s were screaming that he ought not make eye contact. Interestingly, they weren’t reacting with fear to Snape’s anger. At least, not like Hagrid’s. He was afraid of Snape, of course, but no more than any self-respecting Slytherin.
Another heavy pause. “Your instincts are clearly not inherited from your father, then,” he said drily.
Now that was a test. Probing for a reaction. Harry figured out what was going on here—Snape was trying to figure out the relationship between Lord Potter and his Heir. He kept his face carefully blank. “I’ve only known him a few months, sir, I really couldn’t say.”
“Mmm. You may go.”
Harry nodded and left as quickly as he could without looking like he was running.
***
Weasley and Malfoy’s sniping only got worse as November crawled towards the winter holidays. Gryffindor marched around in obnoxiously high spirits after the Quidditch victory, and Weasley seemed to consider it a personal pride thing even though he’d had nothing to do with them winning. He was even more puffed up about it than Jules, which was saying a lot.
Jules at least seemed to have decided on a truce between him and Harry. They ignored each other in class and kept their respective house mates from hexing each other blind. If Harry pretended not to notice some of Malfoy’s hissed spells shot down the corridor at the Stooges, he could always just say that he didn’t exactly hang out with Malfoy.
So Jules had slid down from the To Do List to the Watch List. This left Malfoy at the top of Harry’s To Do list. He’d been an insufferable prat to Neville for ages and strutted around the common room like a peacock, annoying even the fifth years and pretending he was at the top of the pecking order among the firsties. He was not, but so far he hadn’t tried ordering anyone but his crew around, and until he made the first push Harry was willing to stay out of the Slytherin power plays and let him have his delusions.
When it came to Neville, though, Harry wasn’t going to just let it lie.
“I know for a fact you finished the essay on powdered spine of lionfish two days ago and we haven’t got any other Potions homework,” Theo said flatly. “So I’m a little confused why you’ve spent four hours with four Potions books, all of which are third year level or higher.”
Harry didn’t look up. He’d taken over almost an entire table in the library with scribbled calculations, predictions, and notes he’d taken during an experimental brewing session the previous evening that dragged on for three hours. “Aren’t you observant,” he muttered absently.
“You’re not going to explain what this is, are you?”
“Nope.”
Theo heaved a sigh.
Blaise wandered over just in time to catch it. “What was that for?”
“Harry’s been spending too much time with Snape,” Theo said mournfully. “He’s gone all cryptic.”
Blaise surveyed the table. “That looks horribly boring and I’d much rather go back to my Charms practice. Theo, you coming?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Theo said, but his attention lingered.
Harry ignored them both. He had work to do before double Potions with the Gryffindors tomorrow.
***
He deliberately dropped his cauldron when pulling it out of the storage space, setting up a clatter and bringing a derisive scowl and a sneering order to work with Longbottom from Snape. Harry pretended to be annoyed and got Neville started carefully smashing snap-pod seeds with a mortar and pestle. Harry kept half an eye on him, a very small fraction of his attention on his own work, and the rest of his attention on Weasley and Malfoy. Who almost invariably ended up brewing together when Snape got annoyed with Harry and put him with Neville.
They were brewing the Numbing Potion today, which came out a thick green-gray paste and could be spread on skin for powerful temporary loss of sensation. Harry had spent loads of time going over the ingredients in detail, brewing the potion, and experimenting with adding or removing certain ingredients, until he struck on the right inputs. It was a relatively minor change but it would have a dramatically different result.
“No, no—stir slower,” he muttered to Neville. “Add a quick reverse stir—here, like this.” He grabbed Neville’s hand and guided the boy into a single anticlockwise stir before pushing him back to clockwise. The potion, which had been veering distinctly away from the olive green it should be at this point and towards sickly mustard yellow, turned back to olive.
“Thanks,” Neville muttered, and kept stirring, slower this time. Harry was relieved to see that two months of drumming potions knowledge into Neville’s head every time their study group met, which was several times a week now, were starting to pay off. If slowly.
He glanced over at Malfoy and Weasley’s cauldron again, tuned out their hissed argument and quiet insults, and studied the shade.
Olive green with just a hint of gray. Perfect timing.
Harry cocked his head, concentrated, and just as Weasley turned to get a knife and Malfoy looked down at his book, he wandlessly lifted three toad livers and a cup of Brazilian spotted slug slime from Weasley’s open Potions kit into their cauldron.
The livers and slime slipped into the cauldron without a splash.
Harry bit his lip. That was the easy part; the toad livers would negate a finicky combination of three other ingredients that created the numbing effect. It left the base effect—targeting nerve cells—intact. The slug slime did the opposite of the previous affecting ingredients; it’d react with the leftovers of that reaction plus the toad livers to send targeted nerves a message of brutal pain. Harry had tested it on himself and knew it was not a pleasant experience.
So now he had to make sure Weasley and Malfoy got to share the fun. Which was the hard part.
On a whim, he glanced over at Jules and Finnegan’s cauldron, which was bubbling away merrily and nowhere near the drab olive-gray the potion should be right now. Harry checked on Neville and was pleasantly surprised to see that while it wasn’t really the right color and probably wouldn’t do much actual numbing, Neville had managed to more or less follow the instructions without supervision and not blow up the cauldron. An inert potion was better than an explosive one.
It figured that Harry was studying how to cause potions disasters at the same time as Neville was finally figuring out how to avoid them.
He swept a little extra calcite into Jules’ cauldron, causing it to hiss and spit a few yellow sparks, and while everyone was distracted, Harry turned his focus back to Malfoy and Weasley.
A large chunk of mashed wormwood lifted itself out of Malfoy’s potions kit and into their cauldron.
The next second—chaos. Malfoy and Weasley’s cauldron exploded and sprayed both of them with the modified Numbing Paste. Neville jumped violently. Harry’s targets promptly started yelling in pain and trying to wipe it off, which of course only smeared it around more. Malfoy had taken the brunt of it and appeared to have gotten some in his eyes, but Weasley was pretty solidly spattered, too. Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, and the beefcakes all caught a bit of the fallout and started complaining about the pain, adding to the noise.
Harry looked down and discovered that Neville had managed to knock over their cauldron; he scrambled back away from the spreading Numbing Paste, which had been passable before but was now reacting with leftover ingredients on the worktable and turning a nasty hissing shade of purple. Bullstrode and Parkinson’s cauldron spilled as well.
A loud BANG from Snape’s wand silenced everyone except Weasley and Malfoy. Snape waved his wand and vanished the potion covering both of them; with it gone, their nerve cells stopped sending shrieking messages of pain to their brain and they resided to hiccupping sobs. Malfoy had actual snot on his face and had never looked so disheveled.
Snape force-fed each of them a Calming Draught, vanished the two spilled potions, checked over the others who’d gotten a bit of spray, and declared the day a failure on which no one would be graded. He’d assigned everyone an essay on the properties of calcite; now they had another one to make up for the lost lesson on the history, brewing process, and applications of the Numbing Potion. He examined the remainder of Weasley and Malfoy’s potion in their cauldron while the rest of the class scrubbed down their work stations and put everything away.
Only then did he sit them all back down and glare balefully. “Mr. Weasley. Mr. Malfoy. Did either of you add toad liver to this potion?”
“W-what?” Weasley stuttered. “Toad liver? N—”
“Why would we have added toad liver?” Malfoy said. “It’s not one of the ingredients, sir.”
Snape ignored him. “Brazilian spotted slug slime? Mashed wormwood?”
Harry’s respect for the man’s Potions skills grew.
“No,” Malfoy and Weasley said, looking confused and shaky instead of just shaky.
Snape turned on the rest of the class with the darkest scowl Harry had ever seen. “It seems,” he said with quiet malevolence, “that we have had a deliberate and carefully planned act of sabotage today.”
Harry kept his face blank. He didn’t look at Theo or Blaise and knew they’d have the good sense not to turn around and stare at him.
“You will all submit your wands for examination with Prior Incantatem of the last hour,” Snape said, eyes lingering on Harry, “and if I find any evidence of magical interference with Weasley and Malfoy’s potion…”
He trailed off menacingly. They all got the message.
Harry solemnly presented his wand to Snape when it was his turn in line. He was careful to avoid eye contact with his Head of House while Snape touched his own wand to Harry’s and said softly, “Priori Incantatem.”
Ghostly shapes left his wand, showing the practice Harry did with Switching Spells that morning before leaving his dorm, the counterspell for the Jelly-fingers Jinx, and a quick Reparo Harry had used to fix a torn page of his notebook. Nothing that would indicate he’d been magically levitating Potions ingredients around the classroom.
Snape let him go at last. “This is… acceptable,” he said, sounding like each word had to be dragged out of his mouth. “Who did you use the Jelly-fingers counter for?”
“Longbottom, sir.” Harry still needed to figure out the caster. Neville thought it was an upper year Ravenclaw but hadn’t been sure.
Snape pressed his lips together. “Mm. You may go.”
“Thank you, sir.” Harry slipped out of the classroom.
He was immediately accosted by Blaise and Theo, who glared him into silence and went straight for a nearby unused room.
“You did that,” Theo said flatly.
Harry crossed his arms. “What makes you so sure?”
“Beyond the fact that you’ve been obsessively researching potions for three days and Snape was clearly impressed with how clever and pointed that sabotage was?” Blaise said drily.
“Circumstantial evidence,” Harry said, a term he’d picked up from listening to Aunt Petunia’s crime TV shows.
Theo shrugged. “And I saw you glaring at Malfoy’s cauldron right before a couple toad livers and some slug slime ended up in that cauldron. Wandlessly.”
Harry looked at both of them, debating with himself. He’d hoped to keep his wandless magic to himself longer and was a little annoyed at himself for not being more careful. “So what if I did?” he said slowly.
“It was brilliant,” Theo said. “I’m not torqued off about the sabotage; it was well done and Malfoy’s a prat. Very Slytherin of you. Just—wandless magic?”
“I had a lot of time on my hands when my stupid relatives locked me in a boot cupboard for days on end,” Harry said flatly. Blaise, who hadn’t gotten most of the details about Harry’s life with the Dursleys, blinked with shock. “Once I figured out the weird things that happened around me were linked to me, I started trying to control it.”
“Do something,” Blaise said.
Harry’s fists clenched as he concentrated; last period had been tiring, and he hadn’t slept much the last few days, but—
Blaise slowly levitated a few inches up off the floor. He yelped in surprise. “Put me down!”
“That wasn’t a very Slytherin reaction,” Harry said, letting him down.
Theo’s mouth was open slightly. “Harry, do you—do you understand how rare this is?”
“I looked it up,” Harry said, wishing they’d stop making such a fuss. It wasn’t like he’d defeated an undefeatable curse. That was his brother. This was just… stubbornness, mostly. “It’s pretty rare, but I can’t do more than a few really basic things, and I get wicked headaches and super tired if I try too much—I’m getting a headache now, actually…”
“Still,” Blaise said. “That you can control it at all…”
Harry really didn’t like how they were both looking at him in a way that threatened to cross the line from impressed to awed. He didn’t want to make people feel awe. At least, not these people. He wanted Theo and Blaise as—friends. If that’s what they were.
“The troll,” Theo said suddenly.
Blaise frowned. “What?”
“I knew you didn’t have your wand!” Theo said, snapping his fingers. “No wonder you were so tired—I can cast Incendio just as well as you, and it doesn’t leave me completely loopy—you set the troll on fire wandlessly, didn’t you?”
“…maybe,” Harry said slowly.
Blaise whistled.
“Don’t go getting a big head,” Theo said. “Just because you’re some kind of wandless prodigy doesn’t make you better than us. You’re still pants at Charms and History of Magic.”
“Everyone is pants at History of Magic,” Harry protested, but the tension was broken, and he was immensely relieved that they managed to move on with their day without treating him differently.
***
Harry cornered Malfoy in the bathrooms the next day.
“Potter,” the other boy said when he noticed Harry leaning silently against the wall by the door. “What do you want?”
It was accompanied by his usual sneer.
Harry smirked at him. “Good to see you’ve come back from the hospital wing, Malfoy.”
Malfoy glared. He’d been irate when Snape marched him and Weasley up there to make sure their Potions dousing hadn’t caused any side effects. “What do you care?”
“I don’t,” Harry said flippantly. “Just giving you a warning. In the spirit of Slytherin house unity and all. I’d focus on Weasley and the other Potter, stay away from Neville Longbottom, and quit calling Granger a Mudblood to her face if I were you. Otherwise things might get… painful.”
Malfoy looked confused, then shocked, then angry, then—angry still, but also a little afraid.
He grinned at Malfoy, a sharp-edged thing he’d learned from Blaise. Malfoy’s face got a little paler.
“See you at dinner,” Harry said cheerfully, and turned around, shoulders prickling as he turned his back on Malfoy, but no hexes came for him.
His gamble paid off.
“How’d that go?” Theo said when Harry rejoined him and Blaise in the common room.
“I think he’ll redirect his squabbles towards the Gryffindors who are actual prats from now on,” Harry said, already pulling out his books. He had a Charms essay to write and Astronomy work to do before class. “Potions should go a lot easier without Malfoy needling Longbottom every ten minutes.”
“And we get to watch the Malfoy versus Weasley Show,” Blaise agreed. “Works out beautifully.”
***
He wrote James again in mid-November. It had been ages since he had even attempted to communicate with his father, and with Jules still giving Harry the cold shoulder and Christmas approaching, he figured it was time to do something.
James,
I haven’t heard from you all term. I’m going to assume you’re mad at me for being in Slytherin. (If not, please tell me why you never wrote back, and you can ignore the rest of this paragraph.) I didn’t choose this House; the Hat put me here and when I argued it wouldn’t listen.
Technically that was a lie but Harry was willing to tell some minor lies if that’s what it took to stay on decent terms with his father for now.
Some of the Slytherins are decent. Theo Nott’s a good guy. He’s not prejudiced like some of the others. Blaise Zabini isn’t a huge fan of Muggle-borns, but he’s coming around. I still think Malfoy’s a git. He’s always being followed by these two beefcakes named Crabbe and Goyle. If you know their fathers—is being huge and stupid genetic for those families?
I’m in a study group that meets a couple times a week. We’ve gotten thrown out of the library four times already for getting too loud, mostly when Theo and the Ravenclaws get into it about something. Theo likes arguing and the Ravenclaws like debating. The other kids in the group are Daphne Greengrass, Tracy Davis, Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Sue Li, Anthony Goldstein, Hannah Abbott, and sometimes Lisa Turpin.
It was almost painful to be so obvious about the fact that his study group contained students of all four Houses, two names James would recognize as Muggle-borns, and several others who were probably halfbloods, but Harry wasn’t certain his point would get across if he wasn’t horribly blunt. James was a Gryffindor with no tact.
Neville and Hermione and Theo and I took down a troll on Halloween. Theo and I were walking around, and Neville came out of nowhere babbling about a troll in the dungeons and how Hermione was in the bathroom and wouldn’t know about it. We decided to grab her on our way back to the Great Hall, except the troll wasn’t in the dungeons; it was on the first floor and it almost killed us. We made it out and even got House points out of it.
I bet you already heard about it from Jules, but the Quidditch match was super dramatic, and he flew really well. He’d definitely talented. I’m going to try out next year, but I doubt I’ll be as good.
Another painful sentence.
Harry chewed his lip, thinking about how he wanted to phrase this.
There’s a list going around of everyone who wants to stay over the holidays. I’m going to assume you don’t want me at home since I haven’t heard from you all term. If I’m welcome at Potter Manor for Christmas break, owl me back and I’ll take my name off the list, but for now I’m marked as planning to stay here.
-Harry
Theo snatched it out of his hands and read the letter. “That’s nicer than he deserves,” he muttered, passing it off to Neville, who scanned it and nodded agreement. The three of them were sitting in the library, waiting for the rest of their study group to show up so they could prep for the Transfiguration mid-year exam.
Harry grabbed it back. “I’d rather have somewhere to go over the summer, thanks.”
“If he won’t have you at home, you’d be welcome at a bunch of places,” Theo said. He hesitated. “Including my house, but—our fathers aren’t exactly on good terms. It could get… complicated.”
Neville looked confused. “Wouldn’t he be happy to take in Harry, then? To make James mad?”
“Not necessarily,” Harry said. “I’m in Slytherin but I’m still a Potter, and the Notts and the Potters don’t get along.” He couldn’t believe he was yet again explaining subtleties like this to Neville. “It’d drive my father even farther away from me if I went to one of his sworn enemies’ houses for the summer. And it would cause tension between Theo and his father if Theo insisted on giving me a place to stay, which would be a rude thing to ask on my part. Best for everyone involved if I just… I don’t know, I could just stay at the Leaky Cauldron for a few months. Maybe I could ask Goldstein; he’s always going on about how empty his house is over the summer…”
“You—you could stay with—me,” Neville stammered. “If—if you need to. I’m sure Gran would love to have you.”
Harry met Theo’s eyes when Neville blushed and looked at the table. It was almost too easy.
“You sure, Nev?” he said uncertainly. “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you…”
“It’s not,” Neville said, looking immensely relieved. Possibly he’d been expecting Harry to laugh him into silence. “Really. The house is huge and empty, and—and there’s not that many kids around. Plus—your dad wouldn’t be able to complain, I’ve been hanging around Jules for ages—”
“Thanks, Neville,” Harry said. His sincerity wasn’t faked exactly, but—well, he was definitely expressing it way more than he usually would. “I can’t tell you… I mean, this means a lot. I’ve been really worried about next summer. And about—about Dad not wanting me at home, I mean…” He bit his lip.
Neville patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “I mean—that’s what friends do, right? Help each other out?”
“Yeah,” Harry agreed gratefully.
Theo winked at him.
Neville turned back to his Transfiguration book, the tips of his ears a bit red, and Harry returned Theo’s faint smirk.
***
James Potter never replied. Harry tried to tell himself that he didn’t care and signed his name on the “staying at Hogwarts” sheet with a flourish.
Theo and Blaise swapped glances.
“Oh go on, I know you lot want to go home,” Harry said, more snappishly than he’d meant to.
“You could come with either of us,” Blaise said.
“Right. Go stay in Italy with you and your mother, who my father hates, or go stay with Theo, whose father mine hates even more?” Harry shook his head. “We’ve already gone over all the reasons those won’t work.”
They had, in detail, around and around in circles, before settling on the Longbottoms as a safe option and running their little con on Neville. And by “con,” Harry meant planning out how to ask a friend for a favor in the politest way possible with the best odds of success.
His friends paused.
“For Merlin’s sake,” Harry said. “Seriously. I’ll be fine.”
“There’s a whole gaggle of Weasleys staying and apparently Potter’s hanging around to keep Ronald company,” Parkinson said, sitting down rather abruptly at their table in the common room. “You might actually want backup. Which is why I’m staying here.”
Harry eyed her warily. He didn’t know what to make of Parkinson. She was too smart to be over there hanging onto every word out of Malfoy’s mouth, which told him either she was hitching her social chariot to his, was running a long game on him, or had some kind of familial obligation like the one he’d gathered bound Crabbe and Goyle to the Malfoys. “I don’t know if I trust you to watch my back, Parkinson,” he said slowly.
“I’m hurt,” she said, smirking. “We Slytherins stick together, after all.”
Harry narrowed his eyes at her.
“It won’t be so bad,” she said. “I hear you’re on good terms with the Weasley twins.”
There it was. “I am,” Harry said, fighting back a smirk of his own. “Let me guess, you want something from them in exchange for being my backup over the holidays.”
Parkinson sighed. “And after I went to all the trouble to lead into it.”
“I’m not in the mood for word games,” Harry said dismissively. “What’s the bargain?”
“They’ve an uncanny ability to creep around,” Parkinson said. “If you can find out who Lucas Roberts’ secret girlfriend is from them, I’ll put my name down and back you against the Weasleys.”
Harry cocked his head, considering.
“It’s not a bad exchange, actually,” Blaise said.
Parkinson pouted. “You say that like you’re surprised I can drive a good deal, Zabini.”
“Merely surprised you made it with Harry,” Blaise said cuttingly.
“He’s got something I want,” she said, grinning. “Pull with the Terrors.”
“Deal,” Harry said.
They shook on it.
***
Three hours later, after trading the incantation for a jinx that would yank someone’s trousers down Harry had learned from a Slytherin fourth year, Harry walked back into the Slytherin common room and walked past Parkinson without so much as looking at her on his way to Theo and Blaise. However, a particularly canny observer, such as Theo Nott, would notice that a bit of paper fell out of Harry’s hand and neatly onto Parkinson’s half-finished Charms essay. Parkinson swept it into her hand under the guise of rolling said essay into a neat scroll and read it while she tucked the scroll into her bag.
Elizabeth Osborne, Gryffindor fifth year.
That same clever observer would also notice that no matter how good Parkinson was at hiding her feelings, especially for an eleventh year, she looked positively gleeful as she collected her things and left the common room.
Theo glanced at Harry, who’d had his back deliberately turned, and shot him a subtle wink.
***
Harry endured Malfoy’s pointed comments about him not having family to go back to for two days before he got a hint of a cold shoulder from Greengrass and Davis and decided he ought to put a stop to it before his standing in Slytherin, always slightly precarious, took a turn for the worse. The next time Malfoy made a crack, Harry turned around and coolly said, “At least none of my relatives are in Azkaban, Malfoy. I’ll take my family over yours any day.”
Malfoy fired the first hex. Harry dodged and retaliated with one he’d learned from the twins. Malfoy promptly lost the ability to speak any language but Swahili and consequently to cast spells. One of the prefects warned them about dueling in the common room, but without any real force to it since the “duel” was over almost as soon as it began. Harry had learned ages ago that most spats could be settled with magic as long as nothing except the participants sustained any damage. Malfoy stormed away in a towering rage and Harry received approving nods from Greengrass, Blaise, and, surprisingly, third year Chaser Adrian Pucey, who’d been sitting nearby.
Blaise and Theo boarded the train with almost the entirety of the school and headed south to meet their families, promising to write at least once over the holidays.
On the first morning, Harry and Parkinson found themselves in the common room after breakfast with only two other students and no homework. Parkinson decided to start teaching Harry wizard chess and trounced him thoroughly. Apparently it was tradition for one of the seventh year prefects to stay over the holidays if any other Slytherins were also—this year it was Spencer Wright, who was occupied with studying for NEWTs but nevertheless managed to take an hour or two to coach the first years in chess. “We’ll keep doing this during the holidays, just so I don’t have to listen to you argue with your pieces all the time, Potter,” he said coolly, but Harry appreciated it anyway and resolved to send the prefect a box of chocolates for Christmas.
His Christmas shopping gave him trouble. Theo was easy; Harry simply filled a box halfway with Theo’s favorite sweets and topped it off with a set of Muggle novels about Greek gods and a boy whose father was Poseidon. All of their covers were Transfigured to look like volumes one through five of a complete compendium of Brazilian flora in case Theo’s father had opinions on whether his son should be reading things written by Muggles. Blaise got another box of candy and a wand holster like Harry’s except nicely engraved with snakes and a stylized BZ, since he was always going on about how convenient Harry’s looked. Beyond that, though, Harry was at a loss.
He sat down in front of Parkinson at breakfast on the second day with a determined expression. “I need advice on Christmas gifts,” he said bluntly. “You’ve the best grasp of what people would like, and frankly, I’ve never been in a position to give or receive gifts before.”
Parkinson eyed him cannily. “And what do I get in exchange?”
Harry played the trump card he’d bargained for the night before. “Immunity from the Weasley twins for the rest of the year,” he said instantly.
She coughed midway through a bite of toast and glared at him, probably for making her do anything so unladylike. “How did you manage that?” she demanded.
Harry smirked. It hadn’t been all that hard; he’d heard from his Hufflepuff friends that Fred and George had charmed Cedric Diggory’s broom to coat its grip in oil whenever Diggory got near a Snitch. It was an open secret but the twins got off scot free. He’d simply threatened to go tell Percy Weasley about the prank if the twins didn’t grant immunity to a person of Harry’s choice. “Let’s just say having connections in other Houses has its benefits,” he said. “You in?”
“Done,” Parkinson said instantly, as Harry had known she would. A week ago, any Slytherin who walked through a certain door on the fourth floor ended up with brilliantly red hair for a full day, and there wasn’t much Parkinson considered as valuable as her hair. She whipped out a quill and parchment, shoved her breakfast things aside, and eyed Harry with an expression that made him suddenly wonder if he’d regret giving Parkinson an opportunity to dish out advice, which was a favorite pastime of hers. “For starters, let’s figure out who you’re getting gifts for.”
He flatly refused to tell her what he’d gotten Blaise and Theo, since the Muggle novels were a complication no one needed and he couldn’t very well reveal Blaise’s gift and not Theo’s. They worked their way through Harry’s list of acquaintances. He ended up sending sweets and simple but personalized letters to Hannah Abbott, Justin, Anthony, Sue Li, and Lisa Turpin; he skipped sweets for Hermione since her parents were dentists and instead found a homework organizer that was charmed to remind her of due dates and proofread any of her essays that she put into it with a convenient Copying Charm he wrote on a bit of paper and tucked into the front cover. For Neville, Harry and Parkinson settled on sweets plus an actual collection of books detailing the weirdest plants discovered on each of the seven continents over the last five years, which made Harry laugh. He refused to explain the joke.
The girls were harder. Harry dug his heels in about jewelry until Parkinson flatly told him that he should remember what he’d read about pureblood culture and buy them each a bracelet. He let her pick the bracelets, since he hadn’t the faintest idea what was tasteful and what wasn’t, made sure that neither one of them was too ridiculously expensive, and sent them off along with more sweets and slightly more formal Christmas letters.
The twins were easier. Harry placed a large owl order with Zonko’s joke shop, wrapped the box without even opening it, and smirked at the thought of all the havoc the twins could cause with its contents. Everyone knew the Weasleys were short on gold. He highly doubted either of the twins would be able to afford so much from Zonko’s on their own. Parkinson looked disapproving, but since she was already on the safe list, she couldn’t exactly complain.
Harry stewed for a while before he brought up his father and brother with Parkinson. He didn’t want to air his family’s dirty laundry for her, but it wasn’t exactly a secret that he was on poor terms with his biological family—he was here over Christmas for Merlin’s sake—so he finally just took a deep breath and went for it. They argued for an hour before settling on a gold cloak pin for James shaped like a lion and a red scarf with a warming charm for Jules.
Their truce continued with amiable meals, chess lessons with Wright, and then more games played just against each other. Harry got progressively, if slowly, better. He also started sneaking out to fly in the mornings before breakfast. He’d gotten quite good at creeping around the castle undetected, thanks to his insomnia, and he reckoned he knew the secret passages of the school better than any of the other Slytherin first years. Parkinson—Pansy, now, apparently—figured that out almost right away and negotiated another agreement by which she’d bring any particularly interesting tidbits she learned to Harry, spread rumors how and when he wanted, and keep any of his secrets she learned to herself for the rest of first year if he spent an hour a day for all of break showing off his secret passages. He agreed, and only kept the most secretive, obscure, and useful to himself. He fully expected her to be selective with what information she passed him, no matter what their agreement was. It was the Slytherin way.
He figured out pretty quickly that she might be only middling skilled with a wand but she was brilliant and slightly terrifying about the gossip mill. She was a first year, for Merlin’s sake, and it seemed like she had dirt on half of Slytherin House.
Harry did his level best to avoid Ron and Jules. Fred and George—he was almost certain Fred was the slightly wilder twin, though he couldn’t be sure—were a constant presence, somehow managing to walk on the knife’s edge between hilarious and irritating. Harry picked up a few entertaining jinxes from them and in turn taught them one of the simpler ward spells from the book Theo had sent him last summer. It was maybe the fourth closest to legal in the book. The twins shot him knowing smirks when he warned them not to let a teacher hear them cast it.
They roped him into a snowball fight. Parkinson sat it out but Harry teamed up with the twins against Ron, Jules, and Seamus, who lost spectacularly. Harry knew that was mostly due to the almost psychic bond between the Weasley twins, but he definitely got some satisfaction out of wandlessly mashing a snowball into Jules’ face. He only left when the twins decided to charm snowballs to bounce off the back of Quirrell’s turban. Harry didn’t fancy detention over the holidays.
On Christmas Eve, Wright pulled Pansy and Harry and the fourth year Eva Price aside and told them all their gifts would be in the common room since there were only four of them and it was Slytherin policy to never let anyone celebrate Christmas alone. Price just nodded and left. Wright sternly made Harry and Pansy sit back down and spent an hour and a half drilling them on basic spells to detect harmful enchantments, cursed objects, and booby-trapped or malicious gifts. “We’re Slytherins,” he said. “We make enemies. It’s not unheard of for Gryffindors to send nasty bits our way, which completely violates the spirit of the hols. If anyone does that, come to me, we’ll figure out who it is and how to get them back once term starts up again.”
“Unofficial rule nine,” Pansy said, smirking. “Always get even.”
Wright grinned. Harry was forcefully reminded that he’d made Prefect in Slytherin House for a reason. “Exactly.”
Harry thought it was all a bit foolish, since he probably wouldn’t be getting gifts anyway, but set himself to learning the spells with vigor. Any new wandwork was an advantage.
He rolled out of bed the next morning at his usual hour and headed out to the common room with a book, fully expecting to be the first one there. Instead, he was confronted with a new version of Pansy. Her entire face was bright with excitement and she was literally bouncing on the sofa.
“Who are you and what’ve you done with Pansy?” he said. “Pansy would never be so unladylike as to bounce.”
“Oh, stuff it, Potter,” she said. “It’s Christmas. Honestly, if I didn’t think I’d get hexed, I’d have already gone to wake Wright and Price so we can open presents already.”
That was when Harry realized there were four piles of gifts by the hearth, and one of them had a package facing him with Harry Potter written on it in bold black script. His eyes flew wide. “I got presents!”
“Well what were you expecting?” Pansy sniped. “You bought gifts for loads of people.”
“I—er—I guess I didn’t think about it,” Harry said sheepishly. “I’ve never gotten presents before. Well. Once a coat hanger and an old sock.”
Pansy stared at him. “The Muggles didn’t treat you well, did they.”
Harry shrugged, suddenly awkward. He didn’t want to break unofficial rule eight: when it came to blood politics, live and let live. As far as he could tell, being Muggle-born didn’t make you any worse a wizard or witch, just gave you a culture shock handicap to overcome. He’d been subtly helping Justin and not so subtly helping Hermione figure this out for months, after all. And he didn’t think that all Muggles could be as bad as the Dursleys were. Just based on statistics. But stepping up to defend Muggles was a great way to end up with jinxes hitting your back on the way in and out of the common room, so the most Harry ever did was retaliate cleverly and quietly whenever one of the first years used ‘mudblood’.
“They… weren’t great,” he said finally. “My aunt and my mum didn’t get along, I think, and my aunt took it out on me. Most of the kids in school seemed all right. My cousin’s a beast. He looks like a pig trying to pretend to be a boy.”
Pansy shook her head. “I can’t believe they let a pureblood grow up Muggle,” she said. “It’s a tragedy.”
“I’m not technically pureblood,” he reminded her. “My mum was Muggle-born.”
“She at least had magic,” Pansy said. “Step above Muggle, right there. And by all accounts, she was a brilliant witch for all that. She had more NEWTs than anyone in her year. And your family on your father’s side is as pure as they come.”
Harry had first learned this over the summer in his cultural research, and now as then it made him uncomfortable to realize he’d be as inbred as Malfoy if James Potter hadn’t had the good sense to marry a Muggle-born. He promptly changed the subject. “Have you started checking for booby traps?”
“I tried,” Pansy said. “Didn’t find anything. I’m not sure if that’s because there’s actually nothing or if I’m just doing the spells right. Charms are about the only wandwork I’m any good at.”
“I’m pants at it,” Harry said. “Come by our study group sometime; if you help us out with Charms we’ll swap for everything else.”
She shrugged like she didn’t care either way, but Harry definitely saw some interest there. He ran through the checking spells on his own pile of gifts, trying to stomp down the queasy-excited feeling in his stomach at the thought that anyone had bothered to send him gifts, and turned his wand on Pansy’s pile without being asked. He was using the ash wand today, since it seemed to do better than the holly with jinxes, curses, ward spells, and anything remotely Gray or Dark. The holly was better for Transfiguration, Charms, and shields.
Eva Price stumbled into the common room not long after, hair messy and eyes half closed. She mumbled a good morning and made herself a large mug of tea from the set in the corner. By the time Wright joined them, Price was on her third cup and looked a lot more awake.
Wright sat down and eyed the first years, who were both clearly excited and trying their best to be polite, well-mannered Slytherin children.
“It’s Christmas,” he said, and shredded the wrapping paper of his first gift, smirking at them. “To hell with manners.”
Harry and Pansy needed no more prompting. They both tore into their piles.
Harry’s was the smallest, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was still shocked he’d gotten things at all. Neville had sent him a book about rare Potions written by a great-grandfather who was the last Potions Master in the Longbottom family. Another book came from the twins, except this one was spelled so that if you pressed a bit of parchment in it, said parchment would become disguised as another page of the textbook until you wanted it back. Greengrass, whose family, Pansy mentioned in an undertone, owned a clothing design retailer, sent Harry a massive box of clothing which he took to mean that his fashion sense was somewhat lacking. He glanced inside and could tell the things were all high quality, charmed to grow at least two sizes with him, and tasteful colors and styles. He couldn’t wait to go through it more later.
Davis sent him sweets and a hat pin in the shape of a curling silver snake. Theo had somehow gotten hold of a pair of shoes spelled to resize to fit the wearer and make no noise while they were worn. I’ve got my own set, his accompanying note said, and now Blaise has, too. Should be useful for creeping up behind Longbottom. Blaise, in turn, gave Harry sweets and a handsome raven-feather quill. He got yet more sweets from most of the members of the study group, plus a pack of ballpoint pens from Hermione cleverly spelled to pretend to be quills if you told them “I’m a wizard”. He showed the gift to the other Slytherins, none of whom had seen a pen before and were reluctantly fascinated. Wright even traded a package of Dungbombs for one of the enchanted pens. “Bloody useful for taking notes in class,” he said, “NEWT year and all, I can’t believe no one’s shown me these things before…”
Price sniffed. “I suppose the Muggles had to get some things right.”
Harry was rather surprised to find a book on Quidditch Chaser solo drills lying unlabeled and unwrapped in his gift pile. He cast an extra few spells on it to make sure it wasn’t something else disguised as a book that most first years would drool over before he picked it up.
“You think no one’s noticed you sneaking out to fly in the mornings, Potter?” Wright said. “The team’s going to need more decent Chasers next year, and Malfoy’s more suited to Seeker than you are. I’ve been watching; you fly like you were born to it. I’m going to drill you ragged for the rest of the holidays. No way am I going to graduate without someone who can at least try to replace me.”
Harry tried to hide how happy he was at that prospect. The favor of the seventh-year Prefect and star Chaser would help cut down on the looks he got from the upper years that ranged from wary to outright hostile, and if he could get on the Quidditch team next year he’d be even more secure. Plus, it was a chance to fly.
He probably didn’t fool anyone.
Harry reverently set the book aside and grabbed the last package, an oddly lumpy thing wrapped in brown paper. He opened it and paused. “What in Merlin’s name…”
The sweater inside the package was knitted of soft wool, and it looked both homemade and wonderfully warm. It was green with a silver H on the front.
“Sweet Merlin, what’d you do to get a Weasley sweater?” Price snickered.
Harry held it warily by the shoulders. “Is that what this is?”
“The Weasley matriarch makes them every year for all her kids,” Price said sneeringly. “I didn’t know you were on such good terms with the blood traitors, Potter.”
“Just the twins,” Harry said. “Mostly I think they think it’s funny watching Ron Weasley turn red whenever he picks a fight with me and then can’t find any comebacks.”
Price shrugged and lost interest.
“Don’t wear that,” Pansy said in a low voice.
“I’m not an idiot,” Harry muttered, setting it aside. “Only in my dorm. It looks really warm.”
Pansy eyed it critically. “I suppose.”
He definitely surprised Pansy with the filigree necklace he’d bought from the same catalogue she used to find gifts for Greengrass and Davis. “Harry!” she said, immediately starting to extract it from the box. “How’d you know I liked this one?”
“I saw you keep flipping back to the page,” Harry said smugly. “You left the catalogue in the common room. I was worried you’d already asked your parents for it…”
“They say one piece of jewelry from them a year ‘til I’m thirteen,” Pansy said, rolling her eyes. Harry was still not used to the much more vibrant version of Pansy he’d been seeing since the holidays started and the rest of their year shipped off home. He wondered for the first time if she had reasons of her own for wanting to not go back to her parents for Christmas, and had just been using the deal with him as an excuse to stay. “And I already picked out a different one for that.”
For his part, Harry was pleased with the soft leather fur-lined waterproof gloves Pansy gave him, and set them with the rest of his gifts. Looking at the pile made him feel warm inside, almost enough to bury the prickling awareness that he hadn’t gotten anything from either his father or his brother.
Pansy and the others clearly didn’t miss it, either, but at least none of them had the bad grace to bring it up. It was one of those moments where Harry was fiercely glad to be in Slytherin, where everyone understood that families got messed up and when they should back off and leave you alone. Even Neville probably would’ve tried to talk about it and then Harry would’ve had to restrain himself from hexing the other boy into silence. He might’ve only had up to a mediocre second year’s knowledge of hexes, but it was definitely more than anything Neville could cast. Not to mention Neville’s extremely fragile confidence. Harry losing his temper with Neville would not end well.
All the meals at Hogwarts were good, but the house-elves had really outdone themselves for the Christmas Eve feast. Harry ate until he was positively stuffed and pulled a wizard cracker with Pansy. “Oh, look, a chess set!” she said excitedly. “Excellent, I’ll take the Wart-Growing Kit, I can use that on Bulstroke and you can stop borrowing my spare pieces, they’re starting to complain that I don’t like them—oh sweet Merlin—”
Harry followed her horrified expression and choked on his treacle tart. While they were distracted with the banging and smoke-emitting wizard crackers and their own desserts, the professors had been drinking. Dumbledore was wearing a flowered bonnet in place of a hat and had two white mice on his shoulders. Harry was just in time to see a red-faced Hagrid kiss McGonagall on the cheek. He fully expected her to hex him, but she giggled.
Harry turned to Pansy, feeling slightly green. “Tell me I imagined that.”
“If you had, I’d worry about your mental state,” she returned, looking equally disturbed.
***
The rest of the holidays passed in a bit of a blur. Harry sat down with Pansy to work through their homework; he breezed through his Potions and Defense work, nailed the Transfiguration practical and attacked the essay with enough grim determination to bust it out in two hours, spent an evening recording Astronomy observations, and floundered his Charms work for another two hours before Pansy took pity on him and helped. He returned the favor by proofreading her Potions essay and then letting her read over his.
“You explain things so much better than the book,” Pansy complained.
Wright took to drilling Harry in the mornings from five to six and at night from eight to nine, with Pansy tasked to keep an eye on the Gryffindors and run interference if any of them decided to come out to the Quidditch pitch. He worked Harry ragged but Harry had never had such fun on a broom in his life. Wright seemed more grimly pleased after every training session. In the afternoons Wright cast Notice-Me-Not charms on himself and Harry and they lurked in the stands, spying on the Weasley twins, Ron, Jules, and Finnegan as they ran drills. Wright kept up a low running commentary on their performance.
“We’re going to keep doing this, Potter,” he said determinedly three nights before their classmates came back. “Every morning, up at five and behind the castle by five-thirty. I can drill you for exactly forty-five minutes out of my day, and you can work on your own for thirty more. Not on the pitch; the Gryffindor captain’s a maniac and he’s out there all the bloody time charming Quaffles to fly at his face. We’ll stay over the lake.”
Harry readily agreed. Just the chance to fly on a decent team broom instead of the school ones was worth the grueling practices, and he’d need all the help he could get to catch up to Jules before next year. Not to mention Malfoy, who’d undoubtedly be trying out for the team as well. It wasn’t even really an inconvenience; he tended to wake up around five or six most mornings anyway. He reviewed what he spent the most time on outside class and decided that he could sacrifice some of the time spent playing Exploding Snap and Gobstones in the common room to homework hours and use what had been his late-night homework time for practice with the ash wand, which had previously happened in the mornings before anyone else woke up. It’d be rough, but manageable. Definitely no worse than some of the bad months at the Dursleys, and here, he actually liked all the things he was doing.
***
That very night, Harry decided to test out Theo’s gift.
He was delighted to find that the shoes were sturdy, had grippy soles and good support, and made absolutely no sound no matter how fast he ran. It was almost eerie to feel his feet slamming against the ground without any accompanying noise other than his breathing, and he got so lost in the feeling that he almost ran straight into Peeves. He was only saved by the fact that Peeves’ back was turned. It gave Harry a precious two seconds to dive into the nearest classroom and freeze.
The poltergeist’s cackling laugh faded into the distance.
Harry exhaled, long and slow, and turned to glance around the room he’d found.
It looked like an unused classroom, much like the one he’d found the Weasley twins in the first week of school. Dusty desks and forgotten, empty bookshelves were shoved haphazardly into the corners. The weird part was that a huge, ornate mirror, almost twice Harry’s height and set in a beautifully worked golden frame, sat right in the middle of the room.
“Bizarre,” he muttered, walking closer and careful not to look closely at its surface in case it was dangerous. Peering at it from the side, he saw words engraved on the top. Backwards letters. Harry stared at them for a long second, muttering to himself, and against his will found himself very tempted when he figured out what they said.
I show not your face but your heart’s desire.
That could be useful information.
He was just about to look in the mirror when a scuffle of feet in the corridor and a muffled curse tipped him off. Harry instantly ducked down behind a desk in the corner and held his breath.
“Ow—gerroff, Ron—”
Oh Merlin. It was Jules and Weasley.
Harry clapped his hands over his mouth to keep from laughing.
He peered around the edge of the desk and saw Jules stuffing a bit of cloth into his bag. Weasley was busy scrambling up in front of the mirror, where he promptly froze and dropped his jaw.
“Jules,” he said in a strangled voice, “Jules, I—”
“What do you see?” Jules said eagerly.
“I’m—I’m alone, not like yours—I look different, though—I’m older—and I’m Head Boy!”
Yeah, that’s about as likely to happen as me getting re-Sorted into Gryffindor.
“What?” Jules said incredulously. He seemed to think the same.
“Yeah—and Quidditch captain! I’m holding the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup—”
He rounded on Jules suddenly and eagerly. “D’you think it shows the future?”
“How can it?” Jules snapped. “Harry’s in Slytherin, not Gryffindor, and I saw him wearing red robes…”
Harry actually had to pause and think that one over. Jules’ heart’s desire involved him in Gryffindor?
It was almost nice.
Something deep in his stomach longed for that—for family. For him and Jules to be brothers like they should have instead of this toxic state of constant rivalry.
Harry kicked that hunger until it retreated into the dark cave it came from. He had a new family—Slytherin. A dysfunctional one, where you had to ward your bed and play word games with every breath, but a family just the same. He had friends who’d watch his back, and the potential to be great. That was what he wanted.
“Wonder why it shows your family and not mine,” Weasley grumbled. “Look again, see if it’s the same—”
They shuffled about, switching places.
“Yeah,” Jules breathed, almost like he was in a trance. “Yeah, we’re—we’re standing outside the Manor, my dad’s there—he looks so proud—and Harry’s with me, except he actually looks decent and not like a git, and he’s wearing Gryffindor robes, and I’m holding a broom and wearing my Quidditch gear, and he looks happy for me—”
“So nice to know you only want me around as a member of your fan club,” Harry drawled, sauntering out of his hiding place.
Weasley and Jules both drew their wands.
“Gardus!” Harry said, deflecting what looked like a Body-bind and a Jelly-legs.
“What are you doing here, you snake?” Jules sneered.
“Wow, you do that face almost as well as a Slytherin,” Harry said with mock surprise. “I’m here because, apparently, sneaking out at night is a genetic trait.”
“Did you hear?” Weasley demanded suddenly. “What we said?”
Harry grinned and loosened the damper he kept on his eye color just a little, knowing his eyes would be eerily bright green in the low light. “Quite a shallow heart’s desire of yours, Weasley.”
The other boys blinked.
“Honestly, didn’t you sort out the clue?” Harry said, pointing to the top of the mirror. “Read it in reverse, ignore the spaces. I show not your face but your heart’s desire.”
James looked caught between longing and fury. “What—so what we saw—”
Harry shrugged.
“You shouldn’t have eavesdropped,” Weasley snapped, ears burning. “Now we you know ours but we don’t know yours—”
“Go on, Harry,” Jules said. “Or are you not wizard enough to handle it?”
Harry blinked once. He couldn’t have known exactly how nervous his eerie composure was making the other boys. In Slytherin, it was normal, even expected, that you be controlled all the time. And with his upbringing, Harry was better at it than most firsties. To the Gryffindors, though, he was practically a foreign species.
His mind was racing. He knew he was being manipulated; it was unbearably clumsy and obvious, but even so Harry was furious at the implication that he couldn’t handle whatever he’d see in the mirror and also deathly curious what it was. And Jules and Weasley didn’t seem to have suffered any side effects, except possibly being extra snappy, but they were both gits even on a good day—
Face a study in boredom, internally seething with nervousness and curiosity, Harry walked around the edge of the mirror and looked at his reflection.
For half a second, he thought he was looking at James. Then Harry realized this wasn’t James, but an older version of himself. Early twenties, probably, wearing purple Wizengamot robes and the ring of Lord Potter on his finger. Theo, Blaise, and Neville were with him, all of them endlessly happy and confident. This Neville had swapped pudginess for muscle, timidity for good-natured ease; Blaise was as cutting as ever and Theo’s smirk was the same. Harry’s older reflection—whose hair was just mussed enough to be stylish, but tamer than Harry had ever seen his own or James’ or Jules’—looked at the real Harry and shot him a wicked grin.
For just a second, a physically painful combination of joy and aching hunger took root in his stomach.
Harry tore his eyes away. He didn’t need to sit here and stare at a dream; that would get him absolutely nowhere.
“Powerful mirror,” he murmured, glancing at it with respect and quickly stepping to one side.
“Well?” Jules prompted.
Harry lifted his chin and met his brother’s eyes. “Seems your ideal future involves having me as a lackey, little brother, but mine doesn’t involve you at all. Just me and my friends, healthy and happy and somewhere in our twenties.”
“And you said mine was boring,” Weasley scoffed.
“I said shallow, not boring. You’re apparently hungering for the Quidditch Cup as your ultimate goal? Really?”
“I suspect it’s far more complicated, my boy.”
All three of them jumped. Harry’s reaction was the most violent; he spun towards the source of the voice, wand in hand and falling into a crouch, shoulders hunched in case a blow was coming—
It was just Dumbledore, shimmering into view from where he’d been standing invisibly in one corner. “Mr. Weasley, I believe you to be wanting all the things your brothers achieved individually,” he said gently. “To set yourself apart by accomplishing it all instead of just a part. Mr. Potter and Mr. Potter… well, it seems your childhoods have affected what you see in the mirror as well.”
Harry had his wand stowed and his face blank again by the time Dumbledore finished his speech, eyes twinkling kindly. They were bright blue and gleaming, the opposite of Snape’s but somehow Harry got the same distinct feeling that eye contact was a bad idea. He focused on the floor, faking respect.
“Headmaster,” Jules stuttered, sounding terrified, “I’m—I’m sorry, we—”
“No apology necessary,” Dumbledore said with a smile. “I will take no points tonight, provided you all return immediately to your dormitories. The Mirror of Erised is a powerful magical artifact; I can blame none of you for falling into its allure… Although, Harry, I must commend you for your willpower. Few can so easily step away from their first glance into the mirror.”
“Thank you, sir,” Harry said stiffly.
“Rest assured, it will be moved after tonight,” Dumbledore said, a trace of sternness entering his voice. “Many have wasted away staring into the mirror at their heart’s desire. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
With that, he shooed the three boys out the door and closed it firmly.
Harry turned around and found Jules glaring at him. “Just listen to him go on about our childhoods,” Jules muttered. “So what if the Muggles were a bit mean to you, it doesn’t give you the right to—”
“A bit… mean… to me?” Harry echoed, spine straightening and eyes lighting up with the full force of their natural poison-green shade.
Jules glared right back, Weasley hovering like an angry red shadow behind his shoulder. “Yeah, a bit mean,” he repeated. “I had to go through years of intensive training, my childhood wasn’t exactly peachy either—”
“I’m sure dodging the paparazzi was ever such a challenge,” Harry sneered.
Jules snapped his wand out. “Furunculus!”
Harry dodged easily. “Expelliarmus!” he cast, and snatched Jules’ wand out of the air just in time to step out of the way of a Body-bind from Weasley—he retaliated with a Jelly-legs Jinx that Weasley barely blocked—called on his wandless magic to coat the floor in a bit of ice, making Weasley slip—
It was all the opening Harry needed.
He disarmed Weasley, caught his wand, too, and stepped forward until he was nose to nose with Jules. “My childhood didn’t involve paparazzi,” he said softly. “My childhood involved frying pans to the head and spending my summers running from my cousin and his gang of baby thugs. My childhood ended around the time I turned four. The next time you try to pretend you’ve dealt with anywhere close to as much crap as I have, I will show you exactly what I’ve learned in Slytherin.”
Jules was dead silent. And that was definitely a trace of fear in his eyes.
Harry relished it.
“If that’s all,” he said pleasantly, switching off the icy fury and giving the two a disarming smile, “I’ll be going now.”
He dropped their wands on the floor and walked away.
Behind him, Jules gripped his wand in a hand that was not shaking and wondered, after half a year of telling people scornfully that Slytherin would turn his brother into a Dark wizard, whether he’d actually been right.
Inside a classroom, next to an enchanted mirror, Albus Dumbledore ended the spell that had allowed him to eavesdrop on the boys and sighed heavily. At least the elder Potter had managed to handle things without resorting to violence; Albus would’ve been forced to step in if that had happened, and even he had winced when Julian willfully dismissed the trials poor Hadrian had had to endure. Albus would carry the guilt of that on his shoulders for the remainder of his life. He knew he’d had a role in convincing James that sending Hadrian to the Dursleys would be for the best.
But he would carry it, and he would not allow himself to fall prey to doubts and regrets and second thoughts. What was done was done, and it had been for the best. For the greater good. Julian Potter had to grow up strong, protected, and ready to step into his role as the Boy Who Lived. A brother would only have been a distraction.
Albus put thoughts of schoolboy squabbles out of his mind. The Potter twins would work out their differences or they would not. In the meantime, he had more important work to do.
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