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Chapter Text

The gryffindor common room had never seemed to be an overly disruptive place to Harry and, in his eyes, was certainly not the "worse than casting sonorus on the rush hour crowd at waterloo" atmosphere that Hermione frequently compared it to. However as he stared down at the blank parchment in front of him, wishing beyond all hope that he might wandlessly turn it into the 'outstanding' potions essay he needed, Harry began to reassess his earlier musings.

"I know I'm no expert in the subject but I think you might need to write some words before Snape can give you a passing grade. Anyways, it's not due for ages so I don't know why you're bothering with it now."

Ron's sarcasm was more of a hinderance to Harry's mood today than had perhaps been intended but, often the more astute of the pair, Hermione intervened before the words had time to land their blow.

"Ronald!" She hissed. "I think Harry would prefer some peace and quiet right now, he told us what McGonagall said about Snape's grade requirements, we should be supporting him. Besides, it's due tomorrow afternoon."

"Yeh...ages away"

Luckily for Ron, Harry chose this moment to speak.

"I just don't get what it's asking me. What the hell is it talking about five uses for flobberworm fat, surely its only use is to make the potion work, right? It's not like you can use it to wash your socks or anything can you?"

Ron grimaced at the idea but it was Hermione who answered him.

"No Harry, definitely don't start washing your socks in flobberworm fat." She laughed then paused to think for a moment. "You know how, when you add wine to a meal, it's both for the taste and because the liquid helps to add moisture, yeah?"

Harry had made many meals such as this during his time at the Dursley's. "Mhm"

"It's the same principles for potions. Flobberworm fat can help make the potion more viscous so that later ingredients don't react too quickly as well as making it easier to consume."

"...right, so potions is basically just cooking but with really disgusting ingredients."

"Which also often have magical properties, but yes the basis is similar to cooking."

"Huh." Harry considered this. "That makes sense actually...I think. Ugh imagine if I made petunia a flobberworm and boomslang lasagna."

Harry laughed to himself at this afterthought but Hermione just rolled her eyes with a smile and tried restoring Harry to his studious state of mind.

"C'mon, I'll help you plan out this essay but after than you're on your own. If you're truly serious about this 'new start' for potions this year you can join me in the library later."

Ron watched with mock sadness as his chances of a game of exploding snap with Harry severely reduced, as well as many other future chess, snap, or quidditch games looking more and more endangered.

"The library!" He exclaimed. " but it's literally the first day of term, why would you two already need to go to the library – actually no don't answer that, it will only give me nightmares"

Harry laughed at his friend's usual response before turning back to his parchment, his determination to prove Snape wrong relit and the noise of the common room no longer bothering him.

Chapter Text

Tomorrow afternoon came around far too quickly for Harry's liking and with it, the dreaded double potions. Yet again he had been subjected to a night of waking up with Cedric Diggory's lifeless, yet somehow shocked, expression scorched into the back of his eyelids. All of this exhaustion made Harry perfectly happy to leave Ron with the task of complaining at lunch that day whilst he picked at his own pasta salad.

"Lord knows he loves a good grumble." Harry thought with a tired fondness as his friend waved his forkful of tart around a little too wildly.

"I just don't get where we're going to use this in our life y'know? If I'm going to play quidditch or join Dad and Percy at the ministry or even Charlie with the dragons, why would I ever need to be the one to brew a bloody pain relief potion or something, I won't be a mediwizard and even then I don't see Madame Pomfrey brewing any of her whatever the fuck she uses. Besides, if I really have to I can always go find some of those muggle tablet sweet things you were talking about that do the exact same, eyeball proteins or whatever"

"Ibuprofen Ronald, and you'd need to have muggle money to get them."

Hermione's response did not seem to deter their red headed friend from his worries or, it seems, his second helping of butterscotch tart, but she continued anyway.

"Ron, if you want to fail then feel free but don't complain to me when you get a howler every day from the lovely Molly Weasley and get rejected from any further education for not having one of the basic, required O.W.Ls."

"Blimey Hermione, give it to me straight eh." Ron stood from the bench with his friends whilst clutching imaginary pearls. "And you know as well as anyone that I'm not going to give that slimy bat the satisfaction of failing me. No, I'm going to study that stupid potions section in the library day and night for the next two years, even if it kills me"

"If you're not careful Ron, it'll be the walk to the library alone that kills you and that'd be like Christmas for Snape"

Falling into step beside his friends, the sound of bickering like white noise, Harry's mind took the opportunity to return to evaluating his dreams and considering how to make sense of them. It wasn't as if he could search the library for any mention of 'creepy dark corridors' and hope for the best. Perhaps he could ask Hermione, Harry thought to himself. After all, she seemed to know every book in the whole castle. Or professor Dumbledore, he considered next. Surely the old man would have some advice. In the end however, Harry decided the best course of action was to leave it be and not to bother anyone about it, after all, how dangerous could a dream of all things be?

Harry continued to mull this over until he was pulled out of his rumination by Hermione's gentle hand on his arm letting him know they had arrived at the potions classroom.

"Harry? You ok? I'm sure your potions essay will be fine you know, you still have all year to improve in potions. Besides it's not Snape who marks our actual OWL exam and you know that I'm happy to help if you need."

"Hm? Oh yeh sorry 'mione I was just thinking about, er, stuff." Harry continued talking before Hermione had a chance to question any further. "You know Fred and George were telling me earlier that Umbridge is even worse than any defense teacher we've had before! Even Lockhart -and that's saying something."

Hermione responded with equal disdain while Harry chose where to sit. He initially headed towards his usual seat between Ron and Hermione on the back row, as far away from Snape as possible but after an internal reminder about his required grade he took a moment to channel his supposed gryffindor bravery and took the end seat on the second to last row instead. Perhaps not the dutiful and excited student that Malfoy was but an improvement nonetheless.

"Essays out. Books out. The instructions are on the board, begin to prepare the necessary ingredients immediately." Snape’s terse voice gave the impression that somebody in the class had already made a grave mistake from the walk between the door and the desks. Harry had no doubt that the grave mistake in question was his own existence.

He groaned as he began gathering the ingredients listed in his recipe book and taking them back to his bench. He took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts.

"It's just like cooking" he told himself. "There is not a menacing probably-death-eater watching me do this and it doesn't matter if it goes wrong." Harry wasn't quite at the point of believing this but started anyway.

When he would cook a meal back at privet drive, Harry would measure out and prepare the ingredients into separate bowls in order to be able to watch the food more closely and prevent it from burning. At Hermione's suggestion, he decided to take this approach to his brewing and so commenced slicing, dicing, skinning, and crushing before the fire had even been lit. Once Harry began the actual cauldron work, he tried to just go with the flow and follow his intuition. After all he knew that in an art such as cooking, following a recipe to the exact letter never yielded the best results and what meal couldn't be improved by a couple of well chosen herbs or spices.

"You now have 5 minutes, for those of you with enough brain cells not to have turned your work into a potentially deadly concoction, or" Snape paused to give Neville a pointed and mildly concerned look, "a seemingly living creature, kindly place a sample in the vials I have provided and leave it on my desk, appropriately labelled."

Harry was not sure how he was supposed to know whether his potion was deadly or not so he settled with reading the description provided in his recipe book and compared it to the substance in front of him.

A green such as one might find on the skin of an olive – yep, Harry thought. He had never seen an olive particularly up close but Hermione was always rather taken with them at meals in the great hall.

Viscosity reminiscent of honey or begonia paste – he had no clue what on earth begonia paste was but Harry was definitely familiar with honey and as he gave his potion a poke with his ladle, he decided it was similar enough.

He continued through the list and eventually chose to risk it and bottle a sample for Snape to, most likely, insult and vanish but it was better than turning in nothing. He expertly picked a moment when Snape was too distracted reducing a 16 year old gryffindor to tears and swiftly placed his vial with the others, gathered his bags and slipped out after Ron and Hermione.

Chapter Text

Despite having just endured 2 hours of quality Snape time and Hogwarts' distinct lack of caffeinated drinks, Harry chose to swing by the library on his way to the common room and pick up at least one book on how to improve his potions work. He told Ron and Hermione as much and consequently was given a large stack of very complicated looking books on a variety of different subjects and instructions on precisely where to return them and how to do so.

"I don't want to be getting any angry post from Madame Pince saying that I haven't returned my books, she is a lovely lady, but I refuse to get on her bad side."

"Don't worry Mione I've got it all written down up here" Harry said, tapping the side of his head.

"Unless you have somehow discovered a hidden ability as a natural occlumens Harrison Potter, anything you have 'written down' can easily be skewed or forgotten and I don't want to risk that."

As a result, Hermione dug out a small piece of parchment, wrote down the instructions with a muggle pen that she always kept to hand, and put it in Harry's breast pocket before bidding him farewell and following Ron up the staircase.

Vehemently telling himself that he remembered the way from his first-year escapades and did not need to consult his marauders map, Harry set off on his journey to the hogwarts library, still partially hidden behind the huge stack of 'Summer reading'. After several instances of pretending that he had not heard a portrait mutter "the library is the other way" under its breath and was in fact going to turn around anyway, Harry eventually made it to the entrance and finally set down the books in the return box as Hermione had instructed. He then made his way to the potions section and began perusing the books available whilst attempting to regain mobility in his arm by moving it in a circular motion just as he would for a quidditch practice.

Around 45 minutes later, Harry had chosen 5 different books although only '10 recipes and fun facts to know by heart for the best results in school' and 'A to Z of common potions ingredients and all their uses'   were for potions. The other three were '12 ways to take your wand casting to the next level', 'the best charms for everyday practical use', and a book on past quidditch stars because why not. He wrote down the books and his name on Madame pince's list of borrowed books and walked briskly back to Gryffindor tower, eager to begin reading (not that he'd ever tell Hermione that though) but more importantly eager to go down to dinner and eventually to bed.

That evening, Harry sat on his bed with the curtains drawn so that nobody could see him. He had then cast a silencio charm as well as a lumos and began to read through his book, attempting any new spells that he came across, so long as they didn’t appear too dangerous. He very quickly came to the realisation that he would need to send an owl order to diagon alley and get himself a large notebook in which he could write down the most important parts of what he was learning. The potions books in particular contained a lot of information that Harry simply had not been aware of, whether that was due to inattention in lessons or Snape's inability to teach, he didn't know, however, it explained many areas of the subject that he didn't even realise he lacked knowledge in. Although this now meant a lot more work and a lot more books were needed, Harry took small comfort in the fact that his grade was likely fixable and was not due to his own incompetence as Snape had so often theorised. The pages and pages of new information quickly tired Harry out and, after trying hard to soldier on and perhaps delay the inevitable nightmares that usually accompanied sleep, he soon gave in, noxed his wand out and let himself fall into the realm of Hypnos.

Harry dreamt of the door. He dreamt of the black corridor with the door he never reached. He wasn't exactly walking but somehow, he knew that walking wouldn't be right. He glided forward at a strangely consistent pace until he was within reaching distance of the doors handle.

Finally, I can open the door and see what is behind it, see whatever strange thing is so important that I see it every damn night.

The door opened. Harry hadn't touched it.
"Kill the spare" a voice hissed next to him, no, it wasn't next to Harry, it was Harry. He watched in horror as his field of vision flashed a bright sickly green and once it cleared Cedric was stood in the doorway. His eyes were lifeless, his cheeks were hollow, and his skin was a dull grey.

"You killed me Harry. Why would you kill me Harry? I thought we were friends."

"Cedric- I-" Harry tried to speak but his voice wasn't there. Instead the same not quite human voice escaped along with a flash of red.

"Crucio" Harry sobbed with guilt as Diggory's screams filled the air, except it wasn't Cedric Diggory screaming, it was Amos Diggory's wails of grief being wrenched from his chest and soon Harry's own screams joined the accursed harmony.

Chapter Text

Harry bolted upright, gulping in the air as he escaped from the nightmare. He gripped his mattress tightly, as if he would float away at any second and steadied his breath as much as he could. Once he could think vaguely clearly again, he listened carefully to the noises of the dormitory around him. After hearing no sign of him having awoken anyone, he patted around his bed for his wand then cast a tempus charm before squinting at the fuzzy outline of the number 6. Harry sighed loudly before fumbling around his bedside table for his glasses and then swung his legs over so that he was sat at the edge of his bed. He opened a parting in the bed curtains so that he could see the nearest window and through it, the hints of a colourful sunrise, and then dragged himself off to the bathroom to get ready for the day ahead. Breakfast would not be served until 7 and so Harry chose to kill this time by once again opening a library book and looked for tips that may help him in his first lesson of the day: defence against the dark arts.

2 hours and a bowlful of porridge later, Harry had his second ever encounter with the evil, power hungry version of a Pygmy puff that was to be addressed as 'Professor Umbridge'. At his wizengamot trial he had thought Umbridge to be utterly harmless and rather delusional about her own power but as his newest defence professor's heels clacked against the stones, providing a steady rhythm to the slamming of the books on each table, Harry prepared to be proven wrong. He flicked through the small A5 book he had been given and his heart sank further each time he saw the phrase 'the ministry believes…' and safe to say it was very much sat at his feet by the 4th page turn. The book was a muddy sort of brown with a once silver, although now matte grey title that made it look very similar to the antique second hand books that Hermione often read, however unlike those books, this one seemed to have gained its colour through decades and decades of being sat, abandoned on a shelf, in an equally abandoned, spider infested cupboard somewhere in the depths of the ministry of magic. Harry peeled off the "Ministry approved" sticker on the front cover whilst Hermione questioned Umbridge on something that he supposed he should have been listening to.

"There's nothing in here about using defensive spells?" She stated cautiously.

"Using spells?" Umbridge looked at Hermione as if the notion was utterly ludicrous. "Well, I cant imagine why you would need to use spells in my classroom."

"We're not gonna use magic?" Ron voiced the concerns of everyone in the room, if not a little harshly, although Umbridge's next response caused Harry to react much the same way.

"You'll be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way." Her tone reminded him of when petunia would tell the neighbours that "dudders didn't fail art" in a way that suggested that she could not contain her excitement and expected an applause or celebration of some sort.

"What use is that?" Harry asked, genuinely curious. He was certain that reciting the spells that a basic protego shield would and would not block to Voldemort would likely cause him to drop all the dramatics and Avada kedavra him on the spot. "If we're attacked, it wont be risk-free." Many of his classmates murmured in agreement, including, to Harry's surprise, Draco malfoy. Although however seemingly reasonable this statement was, it only infuriated his professor more and lit a silent rage behind her eyes that he was not sure he entirely understood or deserved.

"Students will raise their hands when they speak in my class. It is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about." Having watched her completely sidestep the question, harry tried a more direct approach.

"And how's theory supposed to prepare us for what's out there?" He asked, making a show of moving his hair out of his face so that his scar was visible.

"There is nothing out there, dear." Umbridge responded in a sickly sweet voice.

Oh. So that's where she's going with this then is it?

"Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourself?" She continued, an unnecessary emphasis on 'children'.

"Oh I don't know. Maybe Lord Voldemort." Harry could not believe what she was implying but tried to ignore the anger deep within him threatening to boil over.

"Now, let me make this quite plain.” She now addressed the class as a whole. “You have been told that a certain dark wizard is at large once again. This. Is. A. Lie."

Oh no you fucking don't

"It's not a lie. I saw him. I fought him."

"Detention, Mr. Potter." She said with a finality that suggested Harry would be mortified by the thought of detention despite having watched a friend be murdered right before his eyes.

"Cedric diggory dropped dead of his own accord?" It still hurt to say his name but Harry didn't care. He failed to protect him in life but he was gonna fight like hell to defend him in death.

"Cedric Diggory's death was a tragic accident."

Harry stood from his seat in outrage and disbelief.

"It was murder. Voldemort killed him. You must know this." The name sent shivers around the room but it seemed to be the last straw for Umbridge.

"Enough! Enough. See me later, Mr. Potter. My office."

Harry gave no response other than to stare, momentarily speechless, before turning on his heels and marching out the door. He walked the corridors and descended stairs with no destination in mind. He was angry. So angry. He was red hot with anger and he knew he had to let it out but he could not think so he just walked. His steps took him to a scene he recognised from his second year and without a second thought he spoke, or rather, hissed.

"Open. Stairs."

A small part of harry laughed at the idiocy of his 12 year old self not asking for stairs down to a secret chamber made by salazar himself but ran down them anyway. He raced through the passageways and past the piles of rubble that remained untouched until he reached the central room. Hoping that his memory was correct in its recount of the fight and the walls of the chamber would not be harmed by simple spells cast by and angry teenager, Harry began firing. He fired every spell he could think of and imagined that the memory Tom Riddle had been replaced by an unarmed Dolores Umbridge. Flashes of red, green, purple, blue, and every colour in between, filled the space around him and illuminated the carcass of the basilisk that had been slain 3 years prior but eventually he tired. He slumped down against a nearby statue to catch his breath and watched his reflection in the water beside him. His mother's eyes watched back and Harry thought wistfully of her words in the graveyard less than a year ago.

"We are so proud of you Harry. You are so loved."

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a movement in the corner of his eye and carefully reached for his wand, instinctively squeezing his eyes closed before ever so slowly opening them again. Given his history in this particular part of the castle and the giant basilisk remains not so far away, Harry understood why his first reaction to the small snake slithering towards him was relief. It was a shining green and although minuscule in comparison to the basilisk, was still around the same width as his firebolt.

"Hello" he hissed calmly, looking into it's yellow eyes

Not a basilisk then, he thought with a laugh

"Hello, man of magic.”

"Oh, er, you can just call me Harry. My name's Harry Potter. Do…do you have a name?"

"We have no need of names Harry Potter but should you wish for us to converse you may call me any name of your choosing."

Suddenly Harry felt like it was a lot of pressure to name an animal he had just met, so went with the first name that came to mind.

"Alex?" It was good, he realised, as he didn't know whether the snake was male or female.

"Alex. Short for alexandros, defender of man. I like it."

"Um…yeh sure Alexandros it is then. Listen, I have a lesson I kinda need to go to and as much as I respect snakes and I'm sure you can be very dangerous, I would rather not risk the wrath of Professor McGonagall should I turn up late to her lesson."

Harry was certain that he saw Alex puff out his chest at the compliments but didn't want to risk offending his new friend all the same. "Do you want to come with me or would you rather stay down here?” Harry thought it would be a little on the cold side for a cold blooded creature such as Alex but did not want to intrude on the snakes possible plans for the day. “I can show you around the castle and I'll even let you scare some Slytherins. Bit silly to be put in Slytherin if you're scared of snakes if you ask me but who am I to question the wisdom of the sorting hat eh."

"You have many words Harry Potter but yes it would be a pleasure to join you. It is every serpents dream to inspire the fear that this Professor McGonagall does to you, I should like to meet her."

Chuckling at the face that McGonagall would make if she ever saw him carrying around a snake, Harry crouched to pick up Alex and let him coil around his forearm before pocketing his wand and making his way back to the staircase that led to the girls toilets.

Chapter Text

Surprisingly, no one noticed Alex, even when it seemed that Harry’s sleeve became suspiciously peckish. He would spend the day either coiled up, hidden beneath Harry’s robes, or out on the hogwarts grounds, hunting down some probably xxx category beasts from the forbidden forest. By night, he would slip, unnoticed, into Harry’s bed and would remain there until morning, or at least until he got fed up with being awoken time and again by Harry’s nightmares. Harry shared his irritation but had not discovered a way of dealing with them yet.

Maybe I need another trip to the library he often thought. In the end he decided that firstly, there would not be many books on ‘how to stop having nightmares about an evil dark lord that has you at the top of his to kill list’ and secondly, Dumbledore would certainly have a way of tracking his activities and Harry wasn’t too sure about revealing his nightmares to anyone quite so soon.

He sat on the gryffindor table, that morning, with Hermione and Ron in front of him and Ginny and Neville either side. He had half an ear in their conversation complaining about Umbridge but the rest of his mind was ruminating on the most recent chapter of his current potions book, a topic which he had come to rather enjoy outside of the classroom, meanwhile his hands were preoccupied with the journey from his bowl of cornflakes to his robes pockets.

For some reason or another, Alex had become very taken with the school breakfasts and frequently asked (although Harry would argue it was bullying) him to slip frosted cornflakes to where Alex would sit, usually hissing quiet threats at passersby.

“Alex shush, someone will hear you if you keep hissing so loudly and I don’t need any ‘heir of slytherin’ rumours to return thank you”

“Your house of the snake is an insult to serpents everywhere” Alex hissed back angrily

“Yes, they’re a disappointment to us all but its not my house, I’m in gryffindor and we represent lions”

“Send me more sugared corn, man of magic, or I shall bite your friend with the head of fire”

“That’s Ron and his head’s not on fire, he’s just ginger” Harry wasn’t sure what the recommendations were on snakes and sugar, but he complied anyway.

“IT’S A SNAKE! HARRY POTTER HAS A SNAKE!”

Oh bollocks

Harry froze as the shock rippled across the room and every head turned to look at him.

“It’s eating his cornflakes.” A second year ravenclaw stated dimly, perhaps not doing his house as proud as one would hope.

The whispering and muttering showed no sign of dying down and as Harry stole a quick glance at the staff table, he saw Umbridge beginning to look suspicious.

“Errrr, guys…I think we need to go to potions now” he prayed that his friends would understand follow him without question and to his greatest relief, they did not disappoint.

With a rushed goodbye to Ginny and Neville, who were now deep in conversation about what they thought Voldemort’s favourite part of herbology might have been, Harry and his two closest friends sped out of the great hall and consequently arrived early at the necessary potions classroom. The three of them stood in silence for a while in the corridor with Harry drawing shapes on the floor with his shoe, Hermione looking rather invested in a book, and Ron seeming very very interested in the newest cracks in the wall. Harry was fed up with the tension and so he chose to break the silence.

“You can ask me about it yknow” he said suddenly.

Ron chose to look perplexed as to what he was on about whereas Hermione broke out into a grin.

“Oh, Harry I think he’s adorable.” she sounded as if she genuinely meant it, “I mean I knew about the snake ages ago, but I wanted to wait until you introduced us”

“Hold on, you knew Harry had a snake and you didn’t tell me?”

“Well, I mean I wanted him to be able to tell you when he was ready”

“Hermione, what if it bit me in my sleep and then I would never know how I died?”

“Oh do be sensible Ronald, Harry wouldn’t have bought an aggressive snake, let alone a venomous one,” she turned to Harry, “right?”

“Errrr” He hadn’t actually given much thought to whether Alexandros was venomous or not and in hindsight he probably should have asked before picking him up.

“Alex, you’re not venomous, are you?”

“A wizard without his magic is as good as dead, a unicorn without its horn is only a horse, I must use my venom to kill, and I must kill to survive. Do you wish me not to survive Harry Potter?”

“He says yes” Harry summarised

“Yes?” Ron began to look panicked now. “Yes to what? What did you ask it?”

“Er yes he’s venomous and erm I didn’t buy him, I found him last Tuesday…” Ron and Hermione looked at Harry, mouths agape.

One beat.

Two beats.

“Mate,” Ron began slowly, “mate, trust you you find some random snake lying around and instead of thinking ‘hm this might be dangerous’ you just go ooo pretty snake and keep it as a pet!”

Hermione attempted to be the voice of reason but kept falling into a bout of giggles midway.

“Harry you really should be more careful you know; he could have killed you.”

They lowered their voices as the rest of the gryffindors and slytherins arrived for class

“Hey, he wouldn’t have killed me, his name is Alexandros.” Harry said, as if that would mean anything to either of them.

When they parted to find their respective seats, Harry looked up to read the chalk board and ice spread through his veins once he realised that today was the first of his assessed potions.

“Today, you will begin your paired brews. I deliberately did not announce this as it is designed assess the progress that you make throughout the year when working with another person…possibly with lower-than-average intelligence.” There were a couple of snickers around the room as Snape’s eyes landed very obviously on Harry when he said this. “Therefore, I will be deciding who your partners shall be, and it will be 1 gryffindor with 1 slytherin.” He had to raise his voice over the many groans and occasional non-PG comments. “There will be no complaining, no swapping, you will simply move to the necessary area and begin your work. I must also remind you that I am not here to babysit you and you will be expected to arrange time between yourselves to work on this outside of class hours, else risk a deduction in your grades.”

Although a great disappointment, it came as no surprise to Harry that when his name was called, the name of ‘Draco Malfoy’ followed after. He gratefully accepted the words of encouragement from his fellow housemates, feeling rather as if he was walking into a boxing ring, but made no complaint to Snape, knowing perfectly well that it would be fruitless. Malfoy had his head in his hands as Harry approached and seemed to be taking very deep breaths through his nose.

“Look, you cut the ingredients, and I’ll do the recipe. We don’t need to talk, and we can get this over with.” Malfoy directed quietly, surprisingly lacking in the usual venom that he would so often address Harry with, and instead sounding more resigned to them needing to spend so much time brewing together.

“Yeh sure, fine by me, just don’t fuck up the potion and blame it all on me I guess.”

Malfoy sneered back at him but said nothing and so Harry took a plate to collect the required ingredients before slicing, chopping, tearing, or dicing as the recipe instructed. After about half an hour, Malfoy slipped a piece of parchment over with a short sentence written in his spiky handwriting.

‘Can I see the snake?’

Harry had no idea what sort of trap this was supposed to be but to him, it was far too obvious and very poorly executed. Plus, he would rather keep ahold of Alex for now instead of handing him over to the son of a death eater.

“No?” He said aloud, making sure to convey the absurdity of the request and the obviousness of the answer.

Malfoy’s only response was to roll his eyes and return to the potion. The rest of the lesson went without incident and Snape stayed suspiciously vacant from their workbench, opting to bully Neville or Seamus instead. Harry supposed that at least one perk of working with Malfoy was that any insult or compliment Snape gave, he was giving to the both of them and God forbid he insulted the prince of slytherin, or worse, complimented a Potter.

Chapter Text

Harry had used many of his evening meals as a time to recuperate from his long days in an attempt to make it slightly easier to endure his nightly detentions with Umbridge. As it was a Friday, tonight was his last night of said detentions and, with the proper medical care and potions, he decided he might even be able to fully heal the grotesque ‘I must not tell lies’ cut that had been carved into the back of his hand through continuous lines with his professors cursed quill. Alex had not been pleased at being forced to stay behind during these detentions but eventually gave in to Harry’s bribery of extra cornflakes and stayed far away from the defence office. 

Unfortunately, when Harry appeared for the final time, it soon became evident that Umbridge was also aware that this was his final detention and seemingly wanted to savour the time, causing the words to cut deeper than they ever had before. At long last Harry found himself stood in front of her, hand outstretched for her to inspect, and praying beyond all hope that his legs wouldn’t buckle beneath him at least until he was out of her office.

“Yes, I think that should do.” Umbridge state thoughtfully, as if she were telling a baker which pastry she fancied. “I do hope the message has sunk in, my dear, I would hate for you to have to return.” She pouted with mock sympathy. “Now off you go, off to bed.”

Harry didn’t need to be told twice. He grabbed his satchel, mumbled a quick “good night professor” and beelined for the Gryffindor tower. It wasn’t until he collapsed on the first sofa he saw in the common room that he noticed how his vision was dark around the edges and realised just how much blood he must have lost. For some reason, both Ron and Hermione were sat on the sofa beside him (shouldn’t they be asleep?) and Hermione was pressing a vial of some kind into his hand.

“Whassat?” He murmured, wishing that she’d just let him sleep.

“It’s a blood replenishing potion Harry, drink it or I’ll drag you down to the hospital wing.”

Harry gave her a slightly irritated look at the threat, but she knew that he didn’t want McGonagall or Dumbledore to know about this and telling Madame Pomfrey would surely bring it to their attention. Mildly confused as to how she had procured the potion, he knocked it back in one gulp, grimaced, but immediately felt his senses return.

“Mione, why the fuck do you have random potions in your bag?” He eyed her school bag with a new cautiousness, wondering what else she might have hidden in there, after all, anything was possible given the time turner fiasco. “You didn’t steal it from Snape, did you?”

“Professor Snape, Harry, and no I did not steal anything from him. I just thought it common sense to have a slightly modified muggle first aid kit, and I happened to add some potions as part of it.”

“Well, I guess that makes sense.” He said just as Ron asked, “What’s a first aid kit?”

Pretending not to have heard Ron, Hermione began badgering Harry again.

“Look, I know you’ve said you don’t want to go to Professor Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall about this, but you really have to. This is extremely dangerous, and they can help you”

“Yeh mate, blood quills are illegal too.” Ron added.

Harry really was too tired for this, he just wanted to go to sleep, despite the nightmares that awaited him. “Guys, I appreciate the concern, I really do, but Dumbledore wants nothing to do with me right now, he wouldn’t even look at me at my trial. Plus, today was the last detention so can I just go to bed please?”

Much to Harry’s surprise, his argument worked and they both left him to trudge up the stairs, fall into bed next to a peacefully snoozing Alex, barely having the energy to take his shoes off, and promptly fall asleep.

Despite it being the first Saturday morning of the school year, Harry’s nightmares were just as bad as usual, and between the silent corridor and not so silent screams, he awoke in the normal early hours of the morning. As he reluctantly brushed his teeth, washed his face, and got dressed, Harry grumbled to his brain about being more considerate to people just trying to have a nice lie-in on a cold autumn morning and not waking them up at 6 in the bloody morning for no reason at all. His brain did not respond. As he still had an hour until the great hall would be opened for breakfast, Harry decided to write a letter to Sirius about his year so far. Settling down at a writing desk in the common room, Harry sat for a while, wondering how best to word his letter. He had been warned by almost every member of the order of the phoenix on separate occasions not to contain too many details, in case his letter was intercepted.

Hey Padfoot,

How are things going back in London-

He crumpled the parchment into a ball and chucked it into the fireplace. Can’t mention London. Out of curiosity, Harry rummaged through his bag until he found his everyday spells book and flicked to the letter E. There he found the exact spell that he had hoped for: eradato – to erase/wipe clean, pronunciation – air-a-DAH-toh, to be used on inanimate objects to remove any previous markings. Harry grinned and restarted his letter on the same piece of parchment.

Hey Snuffles,

How are things going with you? I miss you so much and I wish you could be here. Actually no, I wish that I was where you are, things have gone to shit here at Hogwarts. We have this new defence teacher who is so utterly awful at teaching that I almost miss Lockhart (almost). She doesn’t let us use our wands in class, she is so rude about “half-breeds” like werewolves or centaurs or anything, and she literally refuses to accept that our voldysnake friend has returned. Oh and she loves to give me detentions – I might even beat your record, but she just so happens to use blood quills as punishment so I’m not exactly invested in beating you. You wouldn’t happen to know of any treatments would you?

Anyways, wish everyone well from me, stay out of trouble, and I’ll see you sometime soon I hope.

Always your favourite,

H.

P.S – Ron made Gryffindor keeper (about time)

Harry read through his newest version of the letter again, checking for any slip ups. He decided it looked good enough and so he headed to the owlery with some treats for Hedwig. On his way back down, he slipped into the library (which, for some reason, was open at 6:30AM) and began searching through various medical books for how to treat a blood quill wound. After having completed the necessary errands, Harry finally allowed himself to sit down and eat some breakfast, which he chose to do whilst skimming through the medical potion's book he had just picked up. He enjoyed himself at first, but God forbid he had a peaceful meal. Around the time that Ron and Hermione arrived, so did the morning post, and judging by the whispers across the hall, today's daily prophet article was an interesting one. He shot a questioning look towards Hermione who had the newspaper open in front of her and Ron peering over her shoulder. That was, until he received a letter of his own and opened it eagerly and messily.

“It says that Sirius might have been spotted in London.” She explained to Harry.

“Ugh I bet it was bloody Lucius Malfoy, I think he recognised padfoot’s animagus at the station.”

“Oh, that absolute dickwad” Ron exclaimed, and Harry couldn’t agree more.

“Don’t say that around Malfoy junior, he’ll make sure his father hears about it.” He responded in his best Draco Malfoy impression.

“Hm? Oh no no I didn’t mean about the article I meant about this.” Ron waved the letter he had just received and eyed it with disgust. “Percy wrote to congratulate me for making the quidditch team, but he also said that you are a bad influence on me and that I should now associate with different circles. He’s absolutely unbelievable!” He looked at Harry with a fierce determination. “We’re in this together mate, I’m not leaving, and we’ve got a seriously messed up dark lord to be dealing with yeh? So, Percy can shove it, and we can save the world.”

Harry merely nodded at first. “Thanks Ron, that means a lot, really.” He smiled at his friend, wondering what he had done to deserve this kind of loyalty.

Not soon after, Harry was, once again, interrupted by a delivery, although this time, it was a simple paper aeroplane that read:

Potter – be at potions classroom 3 at 8AM, do not be late - Malfoy

This was going to be a long day.

“Better get going,” he passed the parchment to Hermione, “it’ll be the assessed coursework, and I don’t want to make the prince of slytherin angry now do I?”

Carrying his travel cup of coffee with him and Alex napping in his satchel, Harry made a detour back to his dormitory to leave his books, check his reflection in the mirror, and to pick up the woollen jumper he had left there before breakfast. Despite this, he still arrived at potions classroom 3 at bang on 8 o’clock, although Malfoy was already inside and brewing.

As Harry looked around the room, he noticed firstly that they were the only students there and secondly, that Snape himself was not present. He found that the classroom, although still windowless and dark, had a far more relaxed atmosphere than he was otherwise used to. Aside from the people occupying it, the room was much the same as during lessons. The room was lit by the flickering candlelit torches around the perimeter, although the brightness seemed to be magically enhanced. There were cupboards to one side that had various labels: cauldrons – L/M/S, ingredients storage, ingredients storage –DANGER-written permission needed, other equipment, and so on. As well as this, it seemed that someone, presumably Snape, had set out some standard ingredients on the table at the front of the classroom as he usually would for a lesson.

Harry set his coffee down on the front, left hand side workbench, next to where Malfoy was brewing.

“The fuck is that?”

“It’s my coffee?”

“Yes, I can smell that, Potter, I meant what is it in?”

“Oh, that’s my thermos.” He continued at Malfoy’s look of confusion. “It’s a muggle thing, it lets you carry hot drinks around while keeping them warm, I never have time to finish my coffee at breakfast.”

“Oh. Yeh me neither.”

Harry took that as signaling the end of the longest civil conversation the two of them had ever had. After a few minutes of sitting on the table, silently watching Malfoy brew, Harry decided to speak again.

“Should I-”

“No. Don’t do anything, you’ll just mess it up.”

“Why am I even here then, I could be with my friends right now, having much nicer morning.”

“Did you even bother to read the instructions, Potter, or did Hogwarts’ golden boy think himself too good for mere instructions?” Malfoy sneered at him as he spat out him name.

“Hey, I did read the instructions!” Harry had not read the instructions. “I just forgot what they said.”

“Well, it stated very clearly that ‘both students must be present at any point during the potion making process, or risk disqualification’, so unfortunately for both of us, we must endure each others presence every Saturday morning, until this potion is finished, so kindly shut the fuck up, and let me brew in peace.”

Harry merely huffed in response and walked over to the cupboard with the spare potions textbooks and began looking for a recipe he could practice in this time. He settled on Murtlap essence as it only needed half an hour and some pretty basic ingredients. Setting up his workstation at the other end of the bench to Malfoy, he began weighing and cutting, just as he would before cooking a meal, and tried to ignore the off-putting glances that his neighbour periodically sent. Around step 7, the recipe stated that the potion should be a yellow-brown sort of colour, yet Harry’s potion was very definitely a simple yellow. He was certain that he had followed every step and yet somewhere he seemed to have gone wrong.

“Stir it three more times clockwise, you added the dandelion too early.”

Harry did as Malfoy instructed, and his potion began to darken.

“Um, thanks.” He said quickly, although received no response, and made a mental note ask Hermione about the technicalities later.

10 minutes later, Harry had a cauldron of perfectly made murtlap essence and so, taking 2 large vials from the necessary cupboard, he bottled what he needed and vanished the rest, pretending not to have noticed Malfoy filling his own small vial.

Chapter Text

For the next couple of Saturdays, Harry would turn up at 8AM precisely, with his thermos, and brew one of the easier potions that required an hour or less, with Malfoy throwing pointers when Harry would get stuck, under the guise of “well, I don’t want you to blow up the whole classroom, just because you don’t know how to make a simple third year potion.” He accepted the assistance all the same. On the fourth week, Harry decided to arrive with a second thermos of coffee and placed it with a not-so-subtle thud, in Malfoy’s direct eyeline.

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s coffee. If you take it any other way than black, then forget it. I’m not your house elf.” After a pause he decided to tell the slytherin a bit more of the truth, “I appreciate the potions tips, okay? Take it or leave it.”

The both of them moved their attention back to their respective cauldrons, although would periodically take a sip from their thermoses and Harry felt a strange swell of satisfaction that he did not fully understand.

Over the weeks, Harry had taken care of the cut on the back of his hand, the appearance of which had greatly improved since the continuous application of some of the potions he made, in particular, the murtlap essence.

“Oh, Merlin’s saggy tits she cannot be serious!”

For once, as the trio looked on in disbelief at Umbridge, sat in the corner of their morning transfiguration class, Hermione did not berate Ron for his language and instead, fervently agreed. They had all, along with the rest of the school, seen the promotion to high inquisitor that Filch had hammered obnoxiously loudly into the wall outside the great hall, along with the notice that all teachers are to be inspected and assessed throughout the next few weeks.   

“Does she seriously think she can just ‘hem hem’ her way through Professor McGonagall and come out alive?” Ron continued as they took their seats.

Umbridge was sat in a dark corner, on a very small, uncomfortable looking stool, dressed in her usual visual assault of pink clothing, this time, topped off with a pink clipboard and a pink quill with a sparkly ball of fluff sat at the top.

“Oh, this is gonna be good, I’m actually looking forward to this lesson now.”

Professor McGonagall marched into the room, giving no indication that she was aware of the new presence, and her mere arrival settled the class into silence.

“Miss Brown, if you would kindly hand out a mouse to each student, (no don’t be silly girl, they won’t hurt you,) and I shall explain the objective of todays lesson.”

“Hem, hem”

“Now last lesson the majority of you successfully vanished your snail, or at least gathered the gist of the spell.”

“Hem, hem”

“However, using the vanishing spell on a far more complex animal such as a mouse requires a level of concentration which will not be possible unless-”

“Hem. Hem.”

“-unless I have the opportunity to finish my sentence without further interruption. Yes, Dolores?”

“I was just curious, Professor, as to whether you had received my note telling you of the date and time of your inspec—”

“Obviously, I received it, or I would have questioned your presence in my classroom” McGonagall said icily, before turning back to her class. “Now, as I mentioned, the nature and complexity of the animal will contribute to the complexity of the spell itself, I should think you’ll all agree that vanishing a fly is far simpler than vanishing a Hungarian horntail, the latter being nigh impossible, else I have no doubt that our very own Mr Potter would have done so.”

Harry sat in utter shock at this comment. He, along with everyone else, knew that Professor McGonagall had no interest in bringing any outside events into her teaching and was always fiercely against showing favouritism. His bafflement, however, was soon satiated as Malfoy, of all people, nodded towards Umbridge while he added his own comment for the sake of appearances.

“Yeh maybe you could have vanished the dark lord while you were at it, Potter.” His voice dripped with false sarcasm.

Harry turned to follow Malfoy’s gaze and saw that Professor Umbridge looked as if she was about to explode at the idea that her most hated student was receiving a compliment in public. He thought it was rather reminiscent of Vernon turning purple when Harry would miss a chore.

With the faintest hint of a smile, McGonagall continued with her instructions.

“I would like you each to think carefully about what it was like when you successfully vanished any or all of your snail last lesson. Think of what you were imagining, the wand movements, and the incantation. I want you to practice it 3 times with a partner before attempting it on the mouse, is that clear?”

“Hem, hem”

“I wonder, Madame high inquisitor, how you expect to ascertain any idea of my usual teaching methods if you continue to interrupt me? You see, I do not generally permit people to talk when I am talking.” Looking supremely unconcerned at Umbridge’s newest spout of furious scribbling, McGonagall set her class to work and gave occasional pointers as she made her way around the room.

By the end of the hour, Hermione had managed to vanish 3 different mice consecutively, Ron had a long wriggling tail left over, and although Harry’s mouse was nowhere to be seen, the frantic squeaking was still loud and clear, tempting him to release Alexandros from the confines of his bag in order to save his professor the hassle of un-vanishing it.

Later that day, Harry was unsurprised to see that the events of the morning still lay fresh in Umbridge’s memory even by the time that their defence lesson came around. Instead of the supposed ‘teaching’ she usually spent the lesson doing, she began an extensive monologue about the worrying state of the staffing body at Hogwarts.

“It really is quite appalling; I believe things at Hogwarts are much worse than I feared.” Somehow, she sounded genuinely sorrowful when saying this. “Take the history of defence against the dark arts teachers for example, dare I say that aside from me, Mr Quirinus Quirrell is the only one who would have a chance at passing a ministry inspection, that disgusting werewolf halfbreed Lupin certainly wouldn’t. Alas we may never know what ailment took over the mind of Headmaster Dumbledore when making that particular decision.”

Harry knew that Umbridge was trying to get a reaction out of him, but this knowledge did nothing to appease the anger building up inside of him.

“Her words anger you, my friend?” Harry was too full of fury to register his promotion to being his snake’s ‘friend’

“Yes, she fucking angers me, that werewolf halfbreed is a friend of mine.”

“You have many creature friends?”

Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to answer, as Umbridge interpreted this low hissed conversation as Harry muttering under his breath.

“Do you have something to say Mister Potter, or were you merely missing the sound of your own voice?”

“I was just thinking that of course Professor Quirrell would have been the one to pass the impeccable ministry inspection. After all, he did have Voldemort sticking out the back of his head. Not to mention that he tried to fucking kill me, but that’s what the ministry’s all about these days I suppose isn’t it?”

A ripple of gasps flew around the room.

“I think you have just earned yourself another week of detention, young man. Perhaps you didn’t quite get the message last time, Hm?”

Harry was almost shaking with anger at this point but reminded himself of the promise to Angelina Johnson not to miss anymore quidditch practices and of the new potions that he wanted to study before trying to brew them.

“Yes, Professor Umbridge.” He replied emotionlessly, hoping that she would leave him alone.

Thankfully he still had a significant supply of murtlap essence and had almost perfected the pain relief charm, however he still needed some blood replenishing potion, as he did not doubt that Umbridge would not extend his detentions until he was as pale as the Bloody Baron himself and begging for her to stop. Despite this, Harry felt that he could endure the three nights until Saturday morning when he would be able to make more.

**

Walking through the empty defence classroom and up the stone steps to the office above, Harry would not allow himself to feel scared. He was sure that Umbridge would only gain some sort of sadistic joy out of his fear and make him stay for longer. He took his seat, looking only at the page in front of him, so clear, so pale, almost asking for the complimenting tones of his deep, wine-coloured blood, to red as navy is to blue.

“Same as usual please dear, write until I say you may stop.”

He took a deep breath through his nose and picked up the quill with a slender hand that he refused to allow to shake. He put pen to paper and braced himself for the slicing pain and the almost comforting warm trickle that followed. I must, he clenched his left fist and his jaw as the barely scabbed words from the night before were torn open, not, tears began to prick behind his eyes but he blinked them away and told himself he did not care, tell, the pain began to numb his mind, lies, he saw in his mind, a bleak graveyard and a raspy, emotionless command, whispered all around.

“Kill the spare.”

Harry was determined not to think about that, about Cedric, about his friend who had died for merely standing by his side. I must, the damp coldness of a gravestone leaked through the back of his shirt, not, an icy blade was pressed to his forearm, tell, slowly, as if savouring it, the dagger was dragged along, through his skin and through his muscle, lies, Harry would not scream.

“Take my body back to my father Harry.”

Again and again, he wrote the words. Again and again, he sobbed and wailed and begged for forgiveness, but he would not make a sound. He sat in his chair, his back was straight, his lines were straight, his face was blank, he felt nothing. The hours went by, and the pages slowly filled with his bloody handwriting, the corners of the pages sitting in a steadily growing pool of the same blood.

****

Eventually, Umbridge gave a loud yawn and looked up from her paperwork.

“You’ll make a mess soon and I’m having the minister visiting in the morning, I can’t have that. I suppose you had better go to bed, off you go. Detention shall resume on Monday.”

Keeping himself from shaking as much as he could, Harry stood at walked out of the door. Too mentally exhausted to notice anything at all, he simply focussed on one step after the other, along the corridor, up some stairs, through another two corridors, up several more flights of stairs, through the portrait and, not registering whether Ron and Hermione were in the common room or not, up the stairs to his dormitory and into his bed, still refusing to feel anything.

The next morning, he felt worse than he had ever felt in his life. His nightmares were, if anything, worse, with the silent corridor feeling more and more realistic with every passing night and causing a migraine that would not go away. Without speaking a single word to anyone, barely feeling the time passing, Harry collected two coffees from the great hall and, feeling far too nauseous for any food, went directly down to potions classroom 3 as he did not want to give anyone else a reason to make his life difficult.

“God potter, you look like death.”

Harry did not trust his voice not to shake as much as the rest of him was and so he stayed silent, just handing Malfoy his drink and moving to his own workstation.

“Potter?”

Harry seriously did not have the energy for any of Malfoy’s insults today.

“Pot-”

“What Malfoy?” Harry felt a wave of lightheadedness and had to place a hand on the desk to keep himself upright. “I had a really shit day yesterday, so whatever you’re going to say, say it quickly and shut up. I’m not in the mood and I have a potion to make.”

“I-” Malfoy’s eyes darted to the hand Harry was using to steady himself. “Fucking hell, you’re bleeding.” He moved forwards and picked up Harry’s hand but without the extra stability, Harry had a much more difficult time remaining standing.

“God sakes, you’re so dramatic, Potter.” Harry rolled his eyes at Malfoy but there had been no malice in his voice. “Just sit here a minute, I’ll be back in a sec”

Sure enough, not long after Malfoy had disappeared through a door in the side of the room that Harry had never seen be used, he returned. However this time, he was not alone.

“Draco, it is eight in the morning, what on earth-”

Harry groaned loudly as he recognised that voice very well.

“Malfoy, I said I was fine, you didn’t have to go and get Snape to-, Professor Snape, sorry, -to do anything, I just needed to sit down for a minute.” But unfortunately, the damage had already been done and a very stern looking potions professor marched towards him in exactly the same robes he always wore for teaching.

Does he just have 20 of the same robes Harry wondered fuzzily.

“You had better not be wasting my time Mister Potter, I have much I need to be doing today- where in the hell did you get this sort of a cut from?” Snape had lifted Harry’s hand and undone the half assed bandaging that had been wrapped around the still bleeding cut that morning. He began to inspect the wound.

“Accident” Harry knew it was a stupid answer to give but he didn’t want Snape to get any new ideas about punishments for late homework, so he gave it a go anyway.

“One does not obtain the words ‘I must not tell lies’ carved into their hand by accident. Perhaps a more truthful answer this time or shall I lose my patience?”

In all honesty, Harry was surprised that Snape had even turned up with his patience, let alone still had some to lose.

“It’s nothing, Sir, just some detentions, I won't get any more, I promise.”

“As much as it sounds like an affective form of detention, it is also, an illegal form. I suppose you are far to proud to tell me the name of this person?”

Harry shook his head and winced as Snape applied pressure to a part of his hand.

“What have you been using to treat this? Or am I to assume that you managed to develop some common sense and actually went to Madame Pomfrey?”

Harry pulled out a vial from his pocket, although Alexandros seemed to have coiled himself around it and his two horns perked up at the disruption. Having detached the two, Alex slithered over to where malfoy had set their assessed potion to bubble and curled up by the fire, pretending not to watch while Harry handed Snape the vial.

“I usually have some murtlap essence that I made, it helps to sooth it and lets it heal quicker I think.”

Snape inspected the contents of the bottle.

“Hm. A surprisingly…. adequate…. potion.”

“Thank you, Professor, I’ve been practicing.” Harry guessed that that was as close as he would ever get to receiving a compliment from the man and was rather proud of himself.

“Draco?” Snape called over Malfoy, who had been flitting between giving the potion an occasional stir, watching Alex, and listening to the conversation. “I want you to go to my cupboard and fetch a blood replenishing potion, as well as some of the salve on the third shelf, it should be in a circular tub.”

Malfoy sped off through the side door once again and Snape turned back around.

“Now, you will drink the blood replenishing potion immediately, you may continue to apply the murtlap essence when you experience pain, but you will need to apply the salve I will give you every morning and you will keep it bandaged throughout the day. This is a cursed wound, and it will not heal properly if you do not follow these instructions. Is that clear?”

“Yes sir.” Although he was delighted to be receiving a salve that would help fully heal his hand, he was beginning to feel slightly weirded out by how calm and polite Snape was being to him. In a normal lesson he would have been insulted to high heaven by this point and would be scrubbing cauldrons until Easter. “Although I do have another two detentions on Monday and Tuesday.”

“Not any more you don’t, I shall arrange with the headmaster for him to give you an alternate detention on those two nights, perhaps if you practice some more of your potions, you might have a chance of passing your OWL exam.”

As if to answer Harry’s look of shock he added, “as insufferable as you are, I will not be allowing any student in this castle to be subjected to that sort of torture and I have a duty of care as a Professor”

Malfoy had returned by this point and once Harry had finished the vial of blood replenisher, Snape rose and walked to the door that led to Merlin knows where, giving him a warning.

“Do not be receiving any more detentions Mister Potter, my potions cupboard does not have an endless supply and nor do my sympathies. I will see you both in lessons.” And with that, he spun on his heals and exited the classroom.

Harry sat in a daze, listening to the crackling of the fire beneath the cauldron and the barely discernible snores of Alex beside it.

“Are you, like, okay now?” Malfoy questioned slowly.

“What the fuck was wrong with Snape”

“Huh? Snape was nice though?”

“Yeh that’s the problem. Snape’s never nice. Especially not to me.”

The two of them continued to chat as Malfoy brewed and Harry asked questions about the different ingredients, Alex even took the chance to climb up Malfoy’s arm at one point, who found it very amusing once Harry explained that Alex had a general hatred towards people and a very targeted hatred towards slytherins.

“Must be my natural charm and good looks then.” He had replied with a grin.

At that very moment, his stomach decided to do a somersault, causing Harry to believe that blood replenishing potions mixed with coffee perhaps didn’t agree with him as much as they were meant to.

Chapter Text

Dear Mr Potter,

I regret to inform you that due to the language and behaviour you have exhibited in recent days, you will be serving two nights of detention with Professor Severus Snape, on Monday (today) and Tuesday (tomorrow). This must take precedence over any prearranged clubs, meetings, and detentions, due to the time sensitive nature of the punishment that will be given.

I am particularly fond of fizzing whizzbees this term,

Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore

It appeared that Snape stuck to his word and Harry glanced up at the staff table to try and convey his gratitude, but Dumbledore seemed to be deep in conversation with McGonagall, and Snape was scowling darkly into his porridge. Across the hall, Malfoy was chatting to a fellow slytherin who’s name Harry thought might be Blaise Zabini but he wasn’t entirely sure. During their weekly potions sessions, Harry and Malfoy had come to an amicable acquaintanceship and often talked about various happenings around the school to pass the time. Most recently, Malfoy had been telling Harry about his friends Blaise, Pansy, and Theo and in return had listened to tales about Harry’s lesser-known friends Neville, Luna, and Ginny.

“-and then we would be able to- Harry? Harry have you been listening to a single word I’ve said?”

“Sorry ‘mione, sorry.” Harry gave her an apologetic smile. “I’m listening now, what were you saying?”

“I was saying that Ron and I have agreed that this would be a really helpful thing for everyone, we’re just not going to learn anything with Umbridge this year and we need to stay prepared for what’s to come. All you’ll have to do is turn up; we’ll sort out the rest. Please Harry, it would mean so much.”

Hermione had broached the idea to Harry last night: he would use his supposedly extensive knowledge of charms, curses, and spells to help a select group of student's study for their defence exams and be over all more trained than they had the chance of being with Umbridge as their teacher. He wasn’t sure what he apparently knew that everyone else didn’t and he was pretty sure that they all hated him for getting Cedric killed but he eventually decided to agree to it, not least of all because Ron and Hermione had finally agreed on something, and that is something for the history books.

“Yes alright, fine, what do I need to do?”

“All you need to do is be at the Hog’s head at 11 on the next Hogsmead trip. Ron and I will spread the word and sort out all the rest.”

As Harry rose from his seat, to make his way to the first lesson: care of magical creatures, Hermione turned to talk to Ginny who seemed to be the only one to give at least a sympathetic ear to the struggles and rights violations of hogwarts’ house elves.

As Halloween had come and gone, and the harsh bite of the November cold was here to stay, Harry tried his best to sustain a warming charm, while wrapping his scarf around himself as tightly as he could, making sure to cover his nose and mouth as well and inevitably inhaled the scent of his top quality broom polish. As soon as he realised that nobody was around, he pocketed his wand and allowed the warming charm to drop. As he had been reading his most recent library book suggested to him by the librarian (he was beginning to understand Hermione’s fondness for Madame Pince who always seemed to know which book would interest him next), he had seen a section on wandless magic and it had theorised that the basis for it was needing a powerful enough intent. Standing on the side of a Scottish hill in the depths of winter, Harry hoped that he would be able to gather enough intent before he either contracted hypothermia, or his fingers fell off from frostbite. He held out his palm in front of him, flat, and facing the sky. He imagined the fierce heat and the bright flame and stated loud and clear:

“Incendio”

The tiniest spark made an appearance for no more than a millisecond before it faded but it was enough to give Harry some hope. Relighting the flame in his mind’s eye, he imagined the sound, heat, and sight of it, focussing on how it would fight away the cold that seeped into his bones.

“Incendio”

A small flame, no bigger than those from a candle, hovered above his palm. He stared at it in wonder for the few seconds that it remained and then watched proudly as he let it flicker out. A few footsteps and a hefty slap on the back were the only warning Harry got before he was carried away with Ron and some fellow gryffindors.

“Come on mate, what are you doing just standing there? It’s bloody freezing out here and I’ll bet Professor GrubbilyPlank has some blankets or something.”

Harry nodded and the group walked as quickly as they could down to the currently uninhabited hut where Hagrid would usually live, ready for their lesson. He glanced over briefly at a group of slytherins that he was beginning to recognise, and Malfoy gave a slight incline of his head in acknowledgement but looked away as a dark-haired girl to his left made a comment about the lesson.

————————

Later that day, Harry stood in front of the door that led to Snape’s office. He had arrived 5 minutes early as he did not want to be late but did not want to seem too eager so watched those 5 minutes tick away until knocking on the door at the last second.

“Enter”

Harry entered. Snape was sat behind his desk and looked to be marking a class’ essays. He had moved a table into his field of view and on it, was a cauldron, a chopping board, and several knives.

“You will be brewing a potion of your choosing, fifth year only please, don’t be picking the easy way out. You may use any ingredients or equipment found in those cupboards,” he waved his hand to some corner behind Harry, “I will be here if you are in need of assistance but be warned: I will not do well with unnecessary interruptions. You may leave once you have bottled your potion and handed it in. Please begin.”

As Snape had returned to his marking, Harry set his bag down, shrugged off his robes, rolled up the sleeves of his white school shirt, and began to flick through his potions textbook. He quickly landed on the draught of peace as although it looked fairly difficult, he thought it might be able to help relieve some of his nightmares. After collecting the necessary ingredients, he carried them over to his table and began to prepare them, making sure to check that none of them had any time sensitive affects. He made sure to take his time on every step, stirring slowly, adding ingredients in as small amounts as possible, to ensure he achieved the exact colouration before moving on. There were several times where he added either more or added less of an ingredient than was suggested but Harry tried his best to stay confident and go with the flow. Once he reached the section where the potion had to be left to simmer, he turned down the heat and eventually, it turned a clear, flawless white and much to Harry’s amazement, emitted the faint silvery vapour that signalled a correctly brewed batch. He turned to collect a vial but when he returned, he found Snape peering into the cauldron and, out of instinct, Harry prepared to be insulted and told to re brew it.

“Draught of peace, is it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Interesting choice. Well, unless you have need of a vial for yourself, I should ask you to leave the rest in the cauldron, I dare say Madame Pomfrey will be running low in stock.”

Swallowing down his shock, Harry filled his own vial, pocketed it, and left the office, pausing only once to give a very hesitant, “thank you, sir”, to which he received a curt nod.

His detention the next day happened much the same and, although he brewed the potion for dreamless sleep this time, he was once again asked to leave the vibrant purple liquid for Madame Pomfrey to use. As he turned to leave once again, Snape spoke with a level of nostalgia and emotion that Harry didn’t think possible for him.

“You brew much like your mother did, you know, she was the best in her class.”

Harry merely stared at him, eyes wide, and his mouth open before Snape scowled and sharply ordered Harry to leave.

Harry felt as if he had swallowed needles and was sure he would sob if he tried to speak. He nodded his head and left with the new knowledge that his mother had enjoyed potions while also wondering whether Snape’s tea had a little more than just leaves in it.

Chapter Text

Just before he left to go down to potions classroom 3 as per usual, Harry had received a letter from Snape, containing a list of potions that he was advised to practice as well as some chosen to challenge him. As he skimmed through the lists, he saw that most were 4^th and 5^th year OWL level potions but some of them, a select few, were 6^th year NEWT level and it was noted that he could find the required book for these at the back of the classroom or the library. Harry folded up the piece of parchment and tucked it into the cover of his textbook, before picking up two coffees and heading out of the hall.

Malfoy turned around briefly at the sound of the door opening and gratefully accepted the warm cup. He seemed to be at a particularly difficult part of the potion, as he had the sleeves of his plain white, collarless top rolled up and his usually perfectly gelled back, silver hair had fallen into a more natural, although messy, off-centre parting that Harry thought suited him much better. Not that he thought about it often, of course.

“You know, you’ve seen my skills, I can help you brew the potion without messing it up, it is supposed to be a joint project.”

“No, no, no, it’s alright. Trust me, it’s much easier with just one person, otherwise the rhythm goes all off.” Malfoy ran his long pale fingers through his hair, looking very stressed.

“Well, if you say so. I’ll be over here but call me if you need any ingredients to be prepared or anything, yeh?”

“Yeh,” he responded absentmindedly, already preoccupied with tracing his index finger down the page that the textbook lay open on, checking that he hadn’t missed any steps in the recipe.

Eventually, Malfoy reached the point where he could leave the potion to simmer and immediately collapsed onto the chair behind him, putting his feat on the workbench, legs outstretched to the side and crossed at the ankles. He allowed his head to fall back and his eyes to rest for a moment, blissfully unaware that he was now being surveyed from head to toe by an entranced Harry Potter.

Harry watched as Draco’s chest rose and fell with the long steady breaths he took through his nose. At 6’1”, he was fairly tall for their age, but it gave him long, slender legs that, today, were covered by a pair of dark green, almost black, trousers. As he inhaled the strong scent of Malfoy’s specific aftershave, Harry realised that he had never seen him this relaxed and defenceless whilst in his presence before.

“Potter?” Malfoy gave a couple of exploratory sniffs into the air. “Why, in all of your golden boy glory, are you hand brewing your own expensive broom polish?” He opened his eyes and lifted his head to give Harry the necessary incredulous look.

“Am I? I thought I was brewing your stupid aftershave. I don’t remember what it’s called, it was just one of the easier 6^th year potions that Snape thought I could make.” Harry rummaged through several loose pieces of parchment in his bag before he found the recipe he had been following from a library book. “Here we go, it says its called ay-mot, a-mow, ah-more-ten-”

“Oh, sweet Merlin, please say you haven’t just brewed amortentia.”

“Yeh, that’s it!” Harry grinned up at Malfoy. “Why, what does it do?”

As soon as he had said it, Malfoy had secured his blank, uninterested, mask, which Harry now knew to be fake, placed their assessed potion in stasis, and had leapt up, seemingly eager to go about his day. He was halfway to the door by the time he answered.

“Why don’t you ask your should-be-ravenclaw friend, Hermione about it.” After a pause he added quietly, “I’ll understand if you don’t want to return next Saturday,” before he turned and left.

Feeling like he had just missed something huge, Harry took out his book and searched the contents.

Amortentia – page 12

He flicked to page 12 and began to read.

Amortentia (derived from the Latin ‘amore’ – to love)

If brewed correctly, those around will smell that which they will hold closest to their heart, whether consciously or unconsciously. If ingested, it will cause an obsession rather than love and any child conceived under the influence of this potion is rumoured to be incapable of love or empathy.

Harry couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t make sense of his thoughts and he didn’t understand. To him, the potion had smelt of Malfoy’s aftershave, but he didn’t like him like that, did he? He didn’t even like men that way. Except he just didn’t know, the only experience he’d had of any of this was the absolute shit show of the Yule ball the previous year and that was not where he wanted the bar to be. In a world of his own, he walked back to the Gryffindor common room, however, had decided not to seek advice from neither Ron nor Hermione, fearing their reactions.

Sunday came and along with it, the creation of the DA. Harry really admired Hermione’s organisation skills as well as her charms skills that she had executed on a piece of parchment as a security measure. After a brief speech in which Harry very nearly lost his temper, all those who wanted to join, signed the charmed parchment that vowed them to secrecy, causing Harry to be far less anxious about the small number of slytherins who had turned up.

On Monday, Harry managed to keep his mouth shut during DADA, narrowly sidestepping the detention that was hurtling violently towards him.

Tuesday, Harry performed a flawless confundus charm, earning himself 10 points and a plethora of compliments from Professor Flitwick.

Wednesday, Harry had mostly vanished his rabbit, Hermione being the only student to entirely vanish it.

The world kept spinning and Harry’s life continued, yet he had not stopped thinking about the revelation that apparently, he fancied Draco Malfoy. However, despite the constant thinking, he was no nearer to making sense of it and in fact, felt more and more confused the more time his mind spent on the matter. As he lay in his bed on Wednesday night, he decided to focus on what he did know. He knew that had nowhere near enough experience to be sure of his opinion on men, romantically. He knew that he enjoyed Malfoy’s company when they brewed together, although he didn’t think they were quite at the ‘friends’ stage just yet, and finally he knew that it must have been extremely difficult for Malfoy to have something so personal revealed about himself, almost entirely against his will. The next morning, he had made his mind up, so he wrote a short letter to Malfoy, slipped it into his pocket, and charmed it to fly over to him with the rest of the mail at breakfast that morning just as he had done to Harry at the start of the year.

Malfoy – meet me on the second floor, by the staircases after potions this afternoon. HP

As the two of them had their afternoon double potions session together, Harry would be able to tell relatively quickly whether Malfoy would be following his request or not and, much to Harry’s surprise, he did. Due to the public setting of their meeting place, Harry had donned his invisibility cloak and, after a low whisper in Malfoy’s ear to tell him he was there, Harry placed a hand on the slytherin’s back, carefully not thinking about how it felt. He gently veered him towards the second-floor girl’s bathroom where, due to a certain upsetting presence, Harry knew they would be alone and therefore could become visible again.

“Potter-”

Harry waved his hand at Malfoy in a shushing gesture and instead focused on the one sink that sported a serpent's head on the tap.

“Look Potter, if this is your way of luring me me out of sight so you can kill me in some horrific way then firstly, remember that I have my wand and could easily beat you in a duel; and secondly, I have been living with the Dark Lord in my house for the entire summer and I doubt you can kill me in a way that is worse than his so called ‘lessons’.” Despite his brave words and mask on nonchalance, Malfoy’s voice shook ever so slightly, and his hand hovered over his wand.

“Blimey, Malfoy, I’m not here to kill you” Harry gave a mildly concerned laugh and turned to stand facing him. “It’s okay, I’m only going to show you something, Open. Stairs.” He hissed the last two words in parseltongue towards the sink and, recognising the words, Alex appeared out of Harry’s pocket, causing him to laugh. “Don’t mind Alex by the way, he loves it down here, that’s all. After you?”

Malfoy shot Harry a suspicious look but evidently the newly appeared, spiralling, black, marble staircase was too mysterious and intriguing for him to resist. Wand in hand, he descended each step one at a time, always watching out for danger and consequently taking forever to get to the bottom.

“Did you particularly enjoy Mad-eye Moody’s lessons last year then, Malfoy?”

“Huh? Not really, why?”

“Oh no reason, you just seem particularly, y’know…constantly vigilant.”

“Oh, shut up, Potter, or I’ll hex you.”

Despite the threat, both young men wore wide grins. Eventually, they made it down the stairs, through the short corridors, to the entrance, and before they went in, Harry turned to explain.

“Basically, from the short time I’ve properly got to know you, you seem to be pretty, not secretive, but like, hold personal stuff closely you know?” Malfoy raised an eyebrow in a very Snape-like manner, but Harry continued. “And um, what happened last Saturday, it was a pretty personal thing for me to find out about you, which I’m guessing you’re not too happy about so I thought I’d try and make it sort of even and share something personal to me so erm, welcome to the chamber of secrets?” He finished off in a mumble, looking down at his feet and the many rat carcasses beneath them.

“The chamber- what- so it was true? You were the heir to Slytherin, and you opened it?” Malfoy dropped the I-dont-care mask and began to analyse his surroundings in awe.

“God no, don’t be so silly. This weird ghost thing of Tom Riddle was the heir, apparently. Anyway, go inside, it looks really cool.”

Malfoy obliged and stepped up into the huge pipe that led through. Once Harry followed, he found him to be rooted to the floor, staring, wide-eyed at the sight before him.

“It’s so…...big.”

“Well yes it was kinda designed for a giant basilisk to live in. On that note, meet Jeremy.”

“Jeremy?”

Harry pointed to the gargantuan shell of what used to be a deadly and terrifying beast, on a quest to kill all muggleborn wixen.

“Yeh, Jeremy.”

Malfoy scoffed in disbelief at Harry’s words, but he had already moved onto his next sentence.

“So, where’s that duel you promised me?”

“Duel? You want to duel in here?” Malfoy looked unsure of the walls, as if he was worried that any second, they would cave inwards and bury them alive.

“Yeh, it’s absolutely fine, see?” He fired a basic stunner spell at the nearest snake's head, which happily absorbed the magic without so much as a crack.

Seeing on Malfoy’s face that he had won the argument, Harry jogged down to the other end of the chamber and set himself up in a duelling stance, not bothering with any formalities.

“Rea-”

“Stupefy” Malfoy had not hesitated, but Harry’s quicker seeker reactions meant he dodged the spell with ease.

“Impedimenta”

“Confundo”

“Aguamenti”

Back and forth the two of them went, shielding, dodging, ducking, and when they were both sure that the other was competent enough not to get hurt, they introduced some more dangerous spells.

“Bombarda”

“Defodio”

“Oscausi”

Neither got hurt as the duel grew more and more fierce, there were cutting spells, dark spells, spells Harry had never heard of before and yet neither had the upper hand. Eventually, Harry simply sent up a shower of blue sparks to signal the end of the duel and an exhausted Draco Malfoy looked relieved to be able to rest, so joined Harry lying on the floor catching his breath.

“You are literally the first person, my age, who I have not been able to beat in a duel.”

A year ago, Harry would have thought Malfoy’s comment to be smug and arrogant but now, he read it as merely factual.

“Yeh well, no offence, but if I can’t win against you, I’ve got no chance against your oh-so-great Lord of the Dark Arts.”

An uncomfortable silence fell between them. They had always avoided this subject, Malfoy, the man soon to inherit his father's role beside the Dark Lord and Harry, the man seemingly destined to fight this Dark Lord.

“I mean I would offer to teach you some of the spells I know but I doubt you’ll want to use such dark magic.” Malfoy said quietly.

“To be quite honest, Malfoy, I couldn’t give a shit how dark the magic is, there’s no point sticking to the nice stuff if it just means I’m going to end up dead and Voldemort still living. I think I’d prefer to sacrifice my morality than my life.”

Malfoy nodded in understanding and as they lay peacefully, hidden from the goings on of the world, he nudged his hand towards Harry’s and there it remained. They weren’t holding hands, their hands lay next to each other, the backs touching, Harry’s brown to Malfoy’s snow and in that moment at least, they were both comfortable, together.

Chapter Text

“Hey Harry, me, Fred, and George are going to go do a bit of quidditch practice after dinner, y’know, before the game against Slytherin this weekend, fancy joining us?”

As the week and gone on, Ron had become more and more nervous about his first match as Gryffindor keeper in front of such a large crowd, and it didn’t help that they were playing against such a notoriously violent team.

“I’ll have a think about it, I have a couple of things I need to do first so don’t wait for me.” Harry responded, thinking of the DA lesson plans he now had to make.

Once they had finished their evening meal, they went separate ways at the doors to the great hall, Harry swiftly running upstairs to the common room, and Ron heading towards the quidditch changing rooms. During the very first DA meeting that he had held, Harry had been very unsure of what to expect and had, consequently, improvised a lot of it on the spot. Due to the several years of inconsistent, bad quality, teaching that Hogwarts had provided, there were many students who had worrying gaps in their knowledge and defence abilities. Harry had realised in that moment, that he would need to do a lot more planning for the one or two meetings occurring before Christmas as well as for the remainder of the year after that. The majority of the first session had been spent sounding out the most common gaps, as well as directly discussing what the group as a whole wanted to learn, it had originally been advertised as a way to revise and consolidate the defence against the dark arts course so that each student had the best chance at passing their OWLs or NEWTs in the subject. However, it was also no secret, to those who did not hide from the facts, that Voldemort had risen once again and, if they were to survive, every student in that room would at some point need to fight in the upcoming war, whether it was just to protect their own life, or the lives of their family and friends as well.

All of this ran through Harry’s head as he fished out a sheet of parchment from his bag and laid it flat on the common room writing desk, next to a coiled up Alex who had situated himself in the corner the moment Harry had sat down. He began his list.

Defensive

Basic shield spell – harder ones later

Dodging

Disarming spell

Patronus (?)

Healing spells (?)

Identifying opponents' spells

Offensive

Basic hexes and jinxes

Curses (?)

Knowledge about unforgivables

Creative uses of ‘harmless’ spells

Harry spent a long time ruminating and contemplating what to write down. He thought that, despite his small improvement here and there in the art over the weeks, wandless magic was perhaps a little too ambitious for a lot of the students but at the same time something like the patronus charm would be very useful to those who could achieve it with the proper tutoring. Most of what he had written overlapped with the course syllabus and would be a good way to prepare for duels and, as much as it saddened him, he knew that any death eater opponents in the upcoming war would not be going easy on them, even those who were just children. After a while of sitting, trying to think of more techniques he could teach, but to no avail, Harry decided that he would join Ron and the twins after all, and perhaps the break would allow him to have some new ideas, much to the disappointment of his new serpentine friend who opted instead to stay in the warm confined of the castle.

When Harry went flying, he would almost always have to leave his wand with his other clothes in the changing room and this evening was no different. Simply by walking across to the pitch with his firebolt, he was already shivering from the cold and wishing for a hot drink, but instead, he decided to test his wandless magic skills again. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of the cold, allowing it to encompass him and bite at his skin until it was almost unbearable, before casting a warming charm into his clothes. Although a little patchy, somehow missing one sock but not the other, and an intensely hot sleeve, he had mostly succeeded in his spell and was no longer at the harsh mercy of the Scottish winter. Feeling very proud of himself, he mounted his broom and soared off into the air, towards the two red heads trying to score against their youngest brother. They began a two a side match which, after about 20 minutes became more of a contest of doing very daring dives or loops or barrel rolls or basically anything that they could think of, and Harry genuinely could not have been happier.

A little while after the group had landed, Harry was overcome with a sudden exhaustion, likely due to the adrenaline having worn off, and so, as he shoved his hands in his pockets, he trudged back through the changing room doors and towards the Gryffindor common room. Occasionally needing to slip his fingers beneath his large, round glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose, Harry reminisced wistfully of the few times such as today where he genuinely felt like any other teenager. Sometimes Harry forgot that he was not just your average 15-year-old schoolboy, he was the boy-who-lived, the only hope in the oncoming war, the only light at the end of a very dark harrowing tunnel that the wizarding world had been trapped in for several decades so far. He felt the pressure far too often, with a new school rumour every week, looks of both pity and anger from strangers in the corridors, people he had never met would either wish him dead or were willing to lay down their life for him. He didn’t know which was worse. He should be worried about exams or parties or who his friends were dating, not whether a ministry employed teacher will actually go so far as to kill him for stating the truth about a genocidal madman. He was the centre piece in a game of politics and warfare, and yet he was blindfolded, spun around more times than he could count and hadn’t been told the rules, or even what he was supposed to achieve.

Harry’s thoughts had originated as a small breeze and yet now his mind seemed to be stuck in a hurricane, and he was becoming angrier by the second. Not having paid the slightest attention to his surroundings, he was not surprised to find himself stood at the side of his own bed and merely changed into his nightclothes and clambered in, still stuck in the storm of thoughts inside his head.

In his sleep he still had no escape from his enraged state, if anything his dreams seemed to feed off of it. Once again, he moved along the long silent corridor, not quite walking, and not quite human. The door loomed ahead, behind which surely stood the hollow face of Cedric Diggory, or a sobbing, pleading, Lily Potter, or perhaps a helpless Dolores Umbridge, having been subjected to her own vile punishment until she was barely a ghost of herself with her once bright pink clothes now stained a dark muddy red. Harry stopped, he tasted the air. Something was different tonight. Electric excitement sparked through his veins as he realised that someone else was present. Not someone here to haunt him with his own guilt or with his own gruesome, violent thoughts. An entirely new being with no disgusting emotions for an aftertaste. A fresh, clean, living shape, a shadow of intoxicating flesh and blood that called to him. From the moment Harry first struck, he didn’t see it as a person anymore. It screamed to him, louder and louder as he struck again and again, sobbing as it slumped against the wall, dulling the shine with smears of blood.

“Harry, Harry, wake up!” 

The words faded into meaning as Harry was pulled out of his nightmare and into reality. They sounded panicked but Harry didn’t have the time. He had to find Ron.

“Ron, your dad- he- I- Ron I need to- I can’t-” Harry was drenched in sweat and could barely breathe. A hand seemed to be pressed against his windpipe, blocking off the words that he needed to say. Why aren’t they doing anything?

“I’ll go fetch McGonagall.” A voice stated.

Yes, good, she’ll know what to do Harry thought frantically.

“Ron- I need to find- he- I have to- his dad-”

“Now, now Mr Potter, we need you to speak clearly now.” McGonagall’s voice was clear of any worry or concern, a skill she had spent many years perfecting. “I gather that this is to do with Mr Weasley’s father, yes?”

Harry had no idea how she had managed to appear in seemingly less than a second but it was the least of his worries at that moment.

“Yes, he- I was- it was like-”

“Speak clearly, Mr Potter.” Her sharp tone was simply to slice through the layers of panic, and it seemed to work.

“Mr Weasley he- attacked- snake-” he going to die, why the fuck aren’t they moving!

As soon as the words left his mouth, he found himself being marched down an empty corridor, still in a daze, following the tails of McGonagall’s dark red dressing gown. They stopped in front of a large gargoyle which Harry knew to be the entrance to the headmaster’s office and a spiralling staircase was revealed after a bark of “fizzing whizzbees” from the head of Gryffindor. Harry was too hidden in the smokescreen of irate panic and foreign emotions mixing with his, -or had they always been his? - to register anything more than his own fear. At the sight of the ancient headmaster, Harry felt his barely reduced rage relight and he fought away every urge to strike the man as he had done Arthur Weasley. 

“Harry dear boy, I think you need to explain what is going on, starting from the top.” Dumbledore addressed Harry in his words but stared down at his desk.

“It’s Mr Weasley sir, Arthur Weasley, he’s been attacked, by a snake. I think somewhere in the ministry, but I can’t be sure.” Why wont you look at me?

Snape, who had arrived mere moments after Harry himself, looked dubious and McGonagall looked horrified, but Dumbledore looked pensive for a moment. Eventually he spoke in a calm and levelled voice that rubbed Harry the wrong way.

“And why do you believe this?”

“Because I saw him, I was there, I was-”

“You were there?” Dumbledore seemed surprised at this yet shot his startled expression towards the other two Professors present instead of the boy delivering the information.

“Well, no, I wasn’t there, it was a dream - well, not a dream, it was definitely real - and I felt it all and I just know you need to help him.” Why are you wasting time, he could be dead for the love of Merlin.

“Where did you see this happening from Harry, were you there with Mr Weasley?”

It was such a specific question that Harry stopped for a second. What do you know, you doddery old bastard?

“No” he said cautiously. “I saw it from the view of the snake, I-” Dumbledore’s calm tone was infuriating Harry even more and it seeped into his words “I was the snake.” Will you at least acknowledge me goddamn it

The headmaster shared another worried look with the potions master before delegating. As Dumbledore sent his phoenix to who knows where and discussed the matter with McGonagall, Snape, and several portraits dotted around the room, Harry began feeling very invisible and irrelevant to the old wizard whom he once trusted so much.

“Professor.” He said icily through clenched teeth. The old man seemed not to have heard. “Professor!”  A twitch of the head told Harry that Dumbledore was listening, but he still only looked past him. With a burst of anger that was not entirely his, Harry shouted.

“LOOK AT ME!”

“Potter!”

Dumbledore held up a hand to silence Snape’s scolding while peering at Harry, his weary blue eyes meeting green with not a twinkle in sight.

“This whole year, you haven’t looked at me once. You came to my hearing, but you wouldn’t even fucking talk to me. What have I done to deserve this? Has your dear little weapon disappointed you?” He sneered the last words in an attack at the pity rolling off the headmaster in waves.

“Harry-” Dumbledore’s eyes dropped to his desk and he let out a wearisome sigh before turning to Snape, the only other professor still present. “I believe it is time Severus, Harry deserves some answers.”

Damn right I do

At that moment, the portrait of Phineas black, a previous slytherin headmaster, returned with word that Arthur Weasley had arrived at St Mungo’s, although looked to be in rather a bad shape. Dumbledore thanked Phineas, then addressed Harry.

“Harry my dear, I believe it would be best for you to return to Grimmauld place immediately, the Weasley’s will follow close behind and once you have rested and Arthur Weasley is stable, Severus here will explain things far more clearly.”

Harry didn’t have the energy to argue, yet he doubted he would be able to sleep anymore. He silently scooped up a handful of floo powder, stepped into the headmaster’s fireplace and announced “12 Grimmauld Place”, instantaneously being swept up in green flames and tumbling out, coughing and spluttering onto a soot-stained carpet, in the centre of London.

Chapter Text

“That 3rd floor room filled with Doxies-”

“I have a couple of things I need to pick up-”

“It might rain around 5 this afternoon, we’ll need to be quick”

Harry sat at breakfast with the inhabitants of Grimmauld place: Sirius, Remus, Tonks, Molly Weasley, Kingsley shacklebolt, Ginny, Ron, Fred, George, Bill. He listened to them discuss their plans for the day, discuss the weather, compliment Molly on her fried eggs; all of them pretending that everything was okay. He didn’t doubt that they were all under the impression that he was somehow fragile after what had happened and thought that the best way to deal with it was to act like normal, even though ‘normal’ seemed to be walking on eggshells around him and being overly caring. It pissed him off. He moved his eggs around the plate but didn’t eat.

“Molly dear, I love what you’ve done with the kitchen, that colour on the shelves makes it look so much more homely in here.” That was Remus’ attempt at a casual conversation.

“How lovely of you to say so, although I’m actually useless at that sort of thing, I usually leave it to Arthur to—”

Everybody stilled, a few shot a worried glance towards Harry who was dangerously close to incinerating his peas. He stood abruptly, the sound of the chair on the stone floor making some people jump.

“Thank you for the breakfast, Mrs Weasley, it was amazing. I’ll be upstairs if you need any help with the doxies later.” Harry smiled warmly at her, before leaving the room.

He didn’t understand why it was him that everybody was being so careful around. It was Mrs Weasley who nearly lost her husband, it was the Weasley children who nearly lost their father, those were the people who needed the support, not him.

“Harry, wait up!”

Harry was halfway up the first set of stairs and turned at Ron’s shout. Too late he realised his mistake and winced as his left ear was deafened.

“FILTHY MUDBLOODS! DISGUSTING HALFBREEDS! A DISGRACE TO THE FAMILY NAME—”

It wasn’t until the two of them had raced up the remaining two flights of stairs, had reached the room that they were to be sharing with Hermione, and had slammed the door that Harry could finally hear his own thoughts again. They both climbed onto Harry’s bed and sat side by side with their legs outstretched.

“I don’t know why someone doesn’t just curse her off the bloody wall or something.” Harry said as they listened to the muffled yells of Walburga Black.

“Mum says that they’ve already tried that, but it was made completely curse proof and permanently stuck to the wall so that she can ‘advise whoever is current Lord Black’, until the end of time.”

“Bloody hell, talk about family love, ey!”

Harry started to pick at the fluff on his hoodie sleeve. “Sorry about your dad by the way. It’s got to suck pretty bad.”

“Yeh.” Was the emotionless response that he received. They both looked forwards for a while. “I mean, I guess it could be worse though.”

Harry hadn’t heard anything more since his arrival at the wizarding hospital. “Have you heard from St Mungo’s then? Is he going to be okay?”

“We don’t know yet, he’s still in the ICU. He has to be okay though. He will be.”

“I’m sure he will be, mate, he’s a stubborn old man, your dad. After all, you must have inherited it from somewhere.”

Ron laughed at this and tried to subtly wipe away a stray tear that Harry pretended not to notice.

“Ron, if there’s anything I can do, please just ask, even if it’s just flying around a bit to take your mind off things or something, yeh? I want to help you get through this, just like you and Hermione always help me.”

Ron nodded gratefully and eventually the conversation turned to more mundane things such as how Hermione would be getting on at school without them – probably enjoying doing schoolwork in peace and quiet for once, Ron suggested.

A short while later, two deafening pops echoed through the room, causing Ron to yelp in fear and almost fall off the bed.

“For the love of Merlin’s saggy tits, do you two really have to just appear without warning like that!!” Ron swatted Fred and George each on the arm in a very Molly-esque manner.

“Absolutely, young brother, whats the point in having siblings if not to annoy the hell out of them? Hello Harry, how are you doing?” Fred switched topics too fluidly for Ron to get the chance to interject and Harry responded equally swiftly.

“I suppose all things considered; I’m not doing too badly. Although I would kill for a good night sleep once in a while.” He gave a slight laugh, not entirely sure how far off the truth the statement was.

“well, I’d say it’s a good job there’s plenty of other options that come in before blood rituals then” George responded in a light tone before listing some off, partly joking at first.

“Nice warm tea before bed,”

“Tried that.” Harry said truthfully.

“a bit of calming meditation,”

“Tried that”

“Exercise to tire yourself out?”

“Tried that”

“Potions?”

“Tried them all”

“Calming draught?”

“yep”

“Dreamless sleep?”

“yep”

“you’ve tried every potion there is that helps with sleep?” Fred asked, sounding slightly worried now.

Harry was not about to mention his growing acquaintance with Malfoy or the consequent brewing sessions and so he made up a white lie. “Yes, I owl ordered any that I found mention of in the school library, not a single one worked though, and I’ve had a nightmare almost every single night anyway.” He paused for a moment before saying quietly, “I really don’t know what to do anymore.”

Harry rarely admitted feeling helpless and so the following short silence was all the more emotive.

“I think…” George cleared his throat and restarted. “I think that this is where we may need to ask Bill for some help. I think that your only option left is to use runes, however they can be incredibly dangerous and should not be done by anybody who has anything less than a masters degree in the area. Luckily, Bill happens to have such a degree, and I believe he would be more than willing to help.”

“Runes?” Harry was almost annoyed with himself for not thinking of the idea himself. “And are you sure that Bill can help?”

“I am certain that Bill will be happy to do what he can, but I have no idea if he will have a solution or not. Fred and I can ask him later today if you like?”

“That would be great guys, thank you so much.” Harry didn’t dare imagine life without such intense insomnia just yet.

For a while, they rested in a comfortable silence, each man away with thoughts of his own, Fred and George occasionally murmuring about a possible new invention. The atmosphere was broken, however, as an awful sound rang out through the entire house. A sound that Harry recognised all too well. He had heard it in his third year whenever he was near to the dementors, that time the sound had come from his own mother. He had also heard it in his fourth year at the end of the final task. That one had come from Amos Diggory. Harry had heard that particular one every night for the past 5 months whenever he closed his eyes and yet the guttural wailing for the loss of a loved one was not a sound one could become accustomed to, no matter how many times they were subjected to it.

Harry and Ron shared a brief, horrified look before they grabbed the hands of Fred and George and side apparated with them down to the ground floor. The four of them landed on the black and white checkered tile hallway which was scarred and stained with the stubborn leftovers of many years of dust and grime having built up. Molly would never even look at the floor too long for fear of becoming dirty herself and she had always become infuriated at anyone who dared walk over it bare foot. The floor wasn’t a problem for her today. She was mostly limp and knelt on the cold floor with one palm flat on a tile. Remus stood at her side and held onto her other arm in attempt to provide some semblance of balance but simply held her as if she were a rag doll. Harry followed Molly’s empty gaze on his left to what she was looking at on his right. Dumbledore stood with his head bowed and looked solemnly downwards.

“I’m so sorry Molly, there’s just nothing further they can do now…” he spoke softly and sounded remorseful, but Harry could barely listen.

No. no no no no no. he can’t be dead.

Harry knew that there was no way Dumbledore was going to allow him to visit St Mungo’s, the publicity of the event meant it was bound to be a trap waiting to happen and yet, with Harry’s wand still in his and Ron’s bedroom and no licence to apparate, he had no way of getting to St Mungo’s without Dumbledore taking him. So, in his emotion fuelled stupidity, he did the only thing he could think of and plucked the long thin wand from where it was being twirled in the old headmaster’s hands. He levelled it at the man and made his demands.

“Take me to St Mungo’s. Right now.”

“Harry my boy, surely you understand why I cannot—” Dumbledore eyed the wand warily but did not seem to think it any threat. The others in the hallway had nothing to say and likely felt it was a reasonable request.

“Take me. There. Now.” The anger building up inside him was almost overwhelming and the desperation was harmonizing alongside it.

“Harry it is simply too dangerous—”

“I DON’T GIVE A SHIT IF VOLDEMORT HIMSELF IS THERE, YOU WILL TAKE ME TO ST MUNGO’S!!” He could no longer take it, he felt his emotions snap so realistically he could have sworn he heard the crack, but amongst it all, he held onto one singular thought: ‘I must get to St Mungo’s’.

Somehow, after a short dizzy spell and a mere blink, Harry was now in a pristine white reception area, pointing the headmaster’s wand at an old man sat in front of him, who had been reading a copy of the daily prophet but was now looking up in shock and the sudden arrival.

Chapter Text

Wasting no time at all, Harry mumbled a quick apology before pinpointing a sign that would tell him where the ICU was and then raced up the nearest set of stairs, two at a time. Once on the correct floor, he looked about for any sign of which room to go to but was met with identical, pristine hallways, eerily similar to those in the ministry he had dreamt about previously but in white as opposed to black. Harry did not doubt that the order would have followed him close behind, most likely with Dumbledore, and therefore he thought it best to don a disguise. With his new look in place, he approached one of the matrons nearby and put on his best ‘scared lost child’ look.

“Excuse me miss? Could you help me find my dad please, I don’t know what room he’s in.”

The matron in question turned to look at him with sympathetic eyes. She looked briefly at his hair, now a flaming red, then at his face which was dotted with various freckles, then down at his dirty ripped clothes, obviously hand me downs.

“Of course, my dear, Mister Weasley is just down the hall on your left, room 381.” She responded gently, sympathy pouring off of her.

Harry sped away as quickly as he could without looking suspicious and barged into room 381.

He knew in an instant that the sight he saw would fuel his ever-worsening nightmares for years to come. The man laying on the crisp white sheets wasn’t Arthur Weasley, it just couldn’t be. Arthur Weasley was a clumsy mess of a man who overflowed with love even after his seven children, wife, and Harry himself had received more than their fair share. His red hair only ever accentuated the warmth in his face and in his demeanour, the brightness of it reflecting the brightness in his face when listening to Harry explain a complex muggle invention. The last time they had met, Harry had left with a promise to attempt explaining ‘bluetooth’ and ‘wifi’ which was no mean feat “even to an incredibly knowledgeable man such as yourself Mr Weasley”.

The man laid out in front of Harry, staring up at the ceiling was not any Arthur Weasley that Harry knew. Sure, he had the red hair and the blue eyes, but they just didn’t look quite right without the crinkle of a smile. The man in room 381 had a strangely pale face and no hint of ever having laughed. Not like Arthur laughing at a prank from Fred and George before donning a serious ‘telling off’ face at a prompting from his wife. The sad, lonely man in this room could not be Arthur Weasley simply because this man was dead.

“I’m so sorry Sir” a voice appeared through the doorway but Harry couldn’t care less who it was. “We thought he had more time. We thought there was time for his family to say goodbye. I can give you a couple of minutes but not much more than that I’m afraid. I’ll be outside if you need anything.”

Harry didn’t respond to the voice; he hadn’t even noticed a person. He simply walked to the side of the bed and placed a hand on Mr Weasley’s shoulder, pretending not to notice the cold of the skin. He buried his anguish just below the surface and spoke as seriously as he could.

“Come on Mister Weasley, it’s time to go home. Ron’s getting scared so you have to get up now.” Harry’s voice broke slightly on the last word and a single tear fell onto the pristine bandages across Arthur’s chest. He ignored the thorns lining his throat and tried again.

“Mister Weasley it’s Christmas day tomorrow and I bought you this amazing gift, but you have to open it with everyone else back at headquarters, so you really do need to wake up.” Harry’s voice was so suffocated with emotion by the end that the words barely made it out and what his mouth couldn’t say, he allowed his tears to. He was so over come with helplessness that he didn’t notice a new presence until it spoke to him in a deep, ethereal sort of a voice.

“Do not be sad Harry Potter. Your wish shall be granted.”

Harry, now wearing his own features as supposed to those of a Weasley, turned to ask about the strange comment but found only empty space. Save for the ring on the chair of course, which was the only thing proving the interaction was not imagined.

“Harry?”

Harry heard the weak whisper moments before the door crashed open to reveal a furious looking Albus Dumbledore followed by Remus Lupin and Snuffles the dog.

“Albus!”

Whatever berating Dumbledore had opened his mouth to give was immediately dissolved upon the joyful exclamation from Mister Arthur Weasley himself. Remus and Harry were both rooted to the spot with identical expressions of disbelief before they raced over to greet the injured man while an ecstatic Snuffles jumped onto the bed. Dumbledore however, remained standing where he was with an expression that suggested that this was just the thing he had been dreading. When Harry met his eyes, he noticed a distinct lack of a twinkle but thought little of it due to an increasingly painful headache as well as an exhausted man he needed to welcome back from the (supposed) brink of death. 

Not long after, the door opened again, and a cascade of various red heads flooded the room. Presumably one of the healers looking after Mister Weasley had notified his family between their mutterings of astonishment about how miraculous of a recovery it was.

“YOU!” Mrs Weasley was now a fiery storm of simply too many emotions for her to handle and every ounce of it was directed at Dumbledore. “YOU TOLD ME HE WAS DEAD!”

“You must believe me Molly; I was sure-”

“MY. HUSBAND! THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN AND YOU LET ME BELIEVE HE WAS DEAD”

The entire room was now silent and watching to see how the greatest wizard of the last century fared against the fury of Molly Weasley guarding her family’s welfare.

Arthur spoke gently, “Molly my love, I’m ok now, that’s the main thing surely.” The weak attempt went unnoticed by both parties and Sirius, now in human form, even tried to hush him, too invested in the show unfolding before him.

“I promise you Molly, I truly believed that he was gone and had I known-” Dumbledore continued to speak as gently as he could to defuse the situation.

“WELL, HE DOESN’T LOOK FUCKING DEAD TO ME”

Dumbledore paused in shock at Molly’s uncharacteristically foul language.

“Get out.” She ordered quietly.

When he didn’t move, she repeated the command: “GET. OUT.”

Dumbledore finally admitted defeat and walked calmly to the door, leaving without another word. Molly merely ignored her awe filled audience and rushed straight to her husband.

“Oh, Arthur dear, I am so glad you’re better, you gave us such a fright you know!” she bent over to kiss him, making sure he didn’t move to get up. “You should be resting”, she had scolded.

Having found himself stood next to Ron, Harry leant over and whispered to him. “Your mum is bloody terrifying mate.”

“Tell me about it, I still have flashbacks to that howler in second year” Ron gave a shiver at the memory but his face was beaming with pride.

As they fussed around him, nobody mentioned the genuinely miraculous nature of Arthur’s so-called recovery. There was an unspoken understanding that, as a man of his wisdom, Dumbledore must have actually been speaking the truth when he had delivered the news of the passing, however, as he laughed and conversed with his family, they all refused to think to deeply about the situation for fear of breaking whatever deep and powerful magic had occurred.

Chapter Text

The rest of the Christmas holidays had passed with no real issues. Mr Weasley was recovering quickly, Dumbledore had made no further appearances and life at Grimmauld place settled into a comfortable routine until eventually, January came and with it, the return to Hogwarts.

“Are you sure you have everything you need? Your trunks? Wands? Books?” Molly Weasley was rushing about the place in a panic, evidently not having noticed the remarkably relaxed attitude that every one of her children had.

“Yes Mum. We all have all our things” George tried to reassure her before turning to Harry who was sat on the last stair, reading a book he had received for Christmas. “You’d think she wouldn’t have so many children with how stressed she gets if we breathe at the wrong time.”

They were all stood either in the hallway or in the kitchen. Remus was hauling out each person’s trunk and packing it into the back of a magically expanded car, while Sirius was, once again, going over their plan for operation ‘get Harry to Kings cross without him getting killed’ who in turn, was still not paying attention to anything other than his new potions book from Hermione. As he read, he thumbed the ring that he had acquired after the puzzling interaction at St Mungos, between his right-hand fingers, enjoying the comforting aura that it seemed to emit.

For the past several nights, Harry had had a recurring dream featuring a mystery figure who seemed to emit the exact same feeling as this ring; it wasn’t a threatening presence like in the dream-ministry corridor, nor was it warning him of any oncoming danger. It was merely there to relay a message and to ensure that Harry did what he must. A light kick on the shin shook Harry from his pondering and he glanced up to see Ron gesture that they were about to depart.

“c’mon mate, it’s time to move, I want to get a good seat on the train, and I’ll be getting it with or without you”

Harry shut his book, checked for his Wand, ring, and for Alex. The latter of whom had been making himself very scarce in a house full of people, except for the occasional entertaining fright. Comfortable that he wasn’t leaving anything behind, Harry allowed himself to be shoo-ed along by his best friend, knowing that he could settle down with his thoughts on the long train journey back to Hogwarts.

“Harry, are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been awfully quiet so far.”

Despite Hermione’s constant lecturing on how reading a book helps to exercise intellect and would improve essay quality considerably, she still eyed Harry cautiously now that he was adhering to her advice. He was sat opposite her and Ron in an otherwise empty compartment with his legs outstretched along the spaces next to him and Alex draped over them.

“Hm? Oh yeah, yeah, I’m good. I’m just finding this book really interesting.” He held up the same book he had been reading earlier and watched as his friend donned a rather smug, self-satisfied, sort of a look. “It’s just so much easier to understand potions when it comes from someone who is so passionate about the subject,” he tilted the book so that he could see the front cover, “Wilford Magnolis really knows his stuff.”

“Oh, I’m so pleased you like it, I was worried that your interest in improving potions at the start of the year was going to be a fluke, especially when you were partnered with Malfoy of all people for the coursework.”

Ron interjected with a noise of disgust at the mention of Malfoy but otherwise carefully avoided sounding too interested in a conversation about reading and school subjects.

“Malfoy isn’t actually too bad when we’re brewing, I guess he wants to get a good grade too. It also means Snape (sorry, Professor Snape) can’t mark too harshly without endangering is beloved godson’s grade”

Harry wasn’t about to reveal the newfound friendship between him and Malfoy, and he certainly wasn’t going to try and explain the strange civility that the last two conversations with Snape had had. As two members of Voldemort’s inner circle, even a rumour such as this could cost them both their lives and Harry certainly didn’t want that on his conscience.

Utterly exhausted but finally alone, Harry sat on his bed in the Gryffindor dorms hours later and began to open the mail he had received earlier at dinner. The first was very obviously from Dumbledore: the man used a very distinctive kind of parchment to pair nicely with his distinctive calligraphy style handwriting.

Dear Harry

After what I’m sure was a tiring yet exciting Christmas holiday, I am writing to ensure that you have not forgotten our previously agreed ‘remedial potions’ sessions that are to take place with Professor Snape. Due to the hasty departure following our initial discussion and the circumstances surrounding the reason for your ‘remedial potions’ I wanted to clarify our plans.

Professor Snape will be in touch soon but in the meantime, if you are ever in need of assistance, I am always rather partial to the newest ‘skiving snackboxes’

Yours

Albus. P. W. B. Dumbledore

Harry rolled his eyes at the thinly disguised message. Dumbledore was supposedly the strongest leader of the light and had spearheaded the secret society known as the order of the phoenix; yet, if this letter had been intercepted, he might as well have sent a group email with Voldemort CC’ed and a subject line of ‘wink wink’.

The next letter was far less extravagant and seemed to be a corner of parchment ripped from a larger, discarded letter if the partial words and ring of coffee stain was anything to go by. It simply read:

My office

7PM

S.S

“SHIT”

Despite having left dinner slightly early, a quick tempus told Harry it was already 7:04 and therefore time for him to begin planning his funeral. After grabbing his wand and shouting desperately for Dobby, Harry found himself popped to the dungeons and face to face with an angry potions master emerging from his quarters, presumably to begin a search for The-boy-who-needs-a-fucking-watch.

“I’m so sorry sir, I only read your letter once I was back in my dorm. I came as quickly as I could” Harry tried to flatten his hair and neaten up his clothes, although there’s only so much you can do for a pair of oversized jeans.

Snape didn’t seem to be in the mood for explanations or apologies.

“In.”

Snape stood to one side as the boy entered, then glanced up and down the corridor before closing, locking, and warding his door. He turned to address the adolescent celebrity who was stood in the centre of the square rug, awaiting further instructions.

“As you are aware, Headmaster Dumbledore has ordered me to teach you the subtle art of occlumency. I presume you have spent your Christmas reading up on the subject?”

Harry noticed the specific wording of Snape’s little introduction and understood immediately that his professor thought the ‘remedial potions’ to be a useless endeavour. In answer to the question, he shook his head at the floor.

“No sir, I have no access to books other than my school ones at headquarters.”

“You mean to say that you have forgotten the existence of the most densely magical wixen street known as Diagon Alley? Or did you simply wish to laze around for the week and hope that the knowledge would simply appear in your mind?”

Harry felt a pang of anger at the suggestions and raised his head to meet Snape’s eyes.

“No, of course not, but Dumbledore has forbidden me to go anywhere other than headquarters, privet drive, and Hogwarts.”

Snape maintained an unreadable expression as he surveyed the boy in front of him, seemingly searching for lies.

“Very well, we will address this matter later. It is likely that we will need to take a trip down to diagon alley, you will progress very little without the necessary literature to help guide you. Now, clear your mind.”

With barely enough time for Harry to register the words, Snape raised his wand and clearly stated “legilimens”

Chapter Text

An array of various memories began to pass in front of Harry’s minds eye, as if he were thumbing through a filing cabinet in the ministry. He saw moments from the previous day, moments from long weekends with Mrs Figg’s cats, moments from Christmas with the Weasleys, there were memories from every moment of his life, no order or grouping to them.

“Absolutely atrocious, I knew this would be a complete and utter waste of my time”

“Sir?”

“The only thing in your favour here, Potter, is the fact that your mind is so much of a mess that anyone attempting to gain information via this route would need the patience to sift through many memories of your pampered little life and hope that something of use were to turn up. As it is, the Dark Lord likely has this required patience as well as a clear bridge into your open mind any time you are asleep. Therefore, we will continue these lessons every damn evening possible until you have learnt the art of occlumency. I do not care how many tantrums you throw at the unfairness of it all, I refuse for my life to be jepourdised by a mere boy being unable to keep his thoughts to himself.”

Harry stared back at his professor; mouth slightly agape at possibly the longest string of words that the man had ever uttered to him. He supposed it had been a bit much to hope that the civility between them would continue into the one-on-one lessons that could well decide the fate of not just both of their lives but the entire wixen world, and yet he couldn’t help but be slightly disappointed. It was also the case (although he would admit it to no one) that the watered-down insults still stung slightly despite them being the same few on repeat over the past 5 years. Nonetheless Harry swallowed his pride and continued in a polite tone.

“Professor, would it be alright if you explained the premise of the mind arts and how they work please? I’m sure that the books will explain it in great detail for me, but I would be grateful for a starting point of what you would like me to do, just so that the lesson today isn’t wasted” he thought that sounded polite enough to sooth Snape’s irritation. “On account of my lack of preparation of course.” He added. Just to be on the safe side.

Snape’s glare latched onto Harry in search of any sort of attitude or hidden complaint but seemed to come up empty.

“Hm, yes, well I suppose the basis of it is that an intruder into your mind can only see things from your view and so in very crude terms, you are learning how to ‘see’ either nothing or more commonly, a prechosen scene with little to no significance. Without this, the intruder is only able to see the stray thoughts or memories that occur in response to a stimulus, such as a specific smell reminding you of your childhood and allowing the memory to play out. A person can however, influence emotions via legilimency and watch the memories that are triggered. I suspect that this is what Voldemort does during your sleeping hours, he likely feeds you anger and fear in order to see the types of things you would dread to see and ultimately can be used against you.”

Harry nodded in genuine interest and understanding.

“Yeh, I guess that makes sense actually. So basically, I should find something to think about that is strong enough to hold my focus even when I’m really mad?”

“Harshly put but yes, that is the premise. Now, I want you to come up with a list of possible ‘things’ that will hold your attention, it can be a memory or a made-up scenario, but I want you to imagine it in as much detail as you can every night before you sleep. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir, I’ll make sure to tell Hermione about it too so she can pester me non stop.”

Snape shot Harry an unimpressed look.

“Leave now and return tomorrow evening at precisely 7PM with a list of possible mind scapes. You are dismissed.”

Harry didn’t need to be told twice; he was on his feet and out the door in the blink of an eye.

On his way back, instead of calling for Dobby again (he tried not to make a habit of it), Harry decided to relish in the quiet of the castle so close to curfew by wandering slowly. He felt a hint more at peace than usual at this time of day and could almost see the enchanting fairy tale look to the dungeon corridors that his imagination showed so clearly at 11 years old.

“Psst! Potter!” a voice hissed off the dimly lit walls.

Harry jumped slightly and his hand hovered near his wand which was sticking rather ungracefully out of his jeans pocket.

“Potter, wait up!”

Now having recognised the whisper as Malfoy’s, he relaxed slightly and turned to see the blond jogging over to him. He was grabbed by the arm and dragged into the nearest spare classroom.

“Malfoy, what the-”

“Shut up, it’s almost curfew and this is important.” Malfoy’s tone left no room for arguments. “The dark lord is still staying at the manor. I thought it was just going to be a summer thing, but he was there for the whole of Christmas, so I think its pretty permanent now. Father is teaching me to guard my mind but until I’ve done that, you and I can’t be anything more than forcibly civil in case either he or the dark lord see the memories.”

Harry tried not to look as crestfallen as he felt at the idea of his developing friendship being put on hold at such a precariously early time. Fortunately, Malfoy continued his short monologue.

“The good news though, is that I managed to bring back a few books from the Malfoy library, but you have to keep them hidden, they’re…not the lightest of our collection.”

He presented a stack of 5 or 6 books with various titles pertaining to the slightly greyer side of magic as well as one titled ‘how the mind arts can help your casting, book 2: wandless magic’. Harry stared openly at them, delighting in the path forwards being spelt out so clearly for him.

“Thank you, thank you so much, this is amazing Malfoy, how can I-”

“I did this for both of our sakes Potter; no doubt father will be ecstatic at my newfound interest in all things dark. If anything, he will encourage me by sending more books via owl so that I am never at a loss for something ‘instructive’ to read.”

Harry didn’t dispute that for a single moment.

“Now go back to your little den, I’m not being caught with you after curfew. People will talk.” With that, Malfoy tugged open the door and strode back towards his common room, expensive dress shoes echoing each step as he went and a stunned Potter was left in his wake.

Chapter Text

As soon as he arrived back at the common room, Harry set down his newly acquired books on his bed, closed the curtains around him and opened the occlumency book, letting Alex peer over his shoulder and hiss an occasional question about the drawings. Naturally the first few pages were either blank, listing the other book in the series or paying tribute to the authors family, but as soon as he began the first line of the introductory paragraph, Harry was hooked. He learnt that occlumency was so closely linked to the mental focus and emotional regulation required for wandless magic that a study in one would help immensely in the understanding of the other. As well as this, Harry was overjoyed to read that the book listed several exercises that would help with gaining emotional control (as was apparently the first step in either art) accompanied by diagrams to ensure that all was understood. Long into the night, he drank up the information like he had been parched for it all his life but eventually his sensible side presided, and he began his first practise of ‘clearing his mind’ before falling asleep.

The next morning, Harry was awoken by his dorm mates moving around, deliriously preparing for an early start to the school day after two weeks of blessed lie ins. As usual, the pain from his scar was pulsating alongside his heartbeat, today’s being the worst he had had since perhaps the graveyard or the attack on Mr Weasley. However, slightly less usual, he had very little recollection of any sort of dream or nightmare having occurred and although a pleasant reprieve, it put him slightly on edge. Storing away his concerns for another time, he went about his morning routine and left to join Hermione downstairs in awaiting Ron. Something that was sure to take some time; it was his shower morning that day.

“Wo leshonsh firsht”? Ron asked through his mouthful of scrambled eggs and toast.

Prior to that, he had still been too asleep to form a full sentence, and his two closest friends were relishing in the peace and quiet by reading the daily prophet in silence.

“For gods’ sake Ron, do you mind?” Hermione snapped, the question being both regarding the speaking through food and interrupting her read. “Just like every single other Wednesday since the beginning of the year, we have defence first followed an elected subject before break time. Honestly, did you even look at your timetable?”

“Why should we even bother turning up to defence anyway, the toad has it out for me and I’ll be sent to McGonagall within the first 10 minutes.” Harry grumbled under his breath.

“You wouldn’t be given detention so much if you just kept your mouth shut and your temper in check.”

“What the hell are you trying to say, Hermione!? You know full well how hard I’m trying, I’m sorry that I actually cared about Cedric enough to not want his memory tarnished by the likes of her and that I’m the only one who gives enough of a shit to do anything about it.” Harry knew that he was out of line, but he was too wound up and his headache was refusing to ease.

“Harry, you know that’s not what I meant, I just-”

“Forget it. I’m going to get something from my dorm, I’ll see you at defence.”

With that, he stormed out of the great hall and towards the tower, now feeling slightly bad about his outburst but still stewing in the anger. He had decided to return for a quick glance at what Malfoy’s book had said about emotional control exercises and after deciding it was too much to memorise, he quickly jotted it down on a piece of parchment and pocketed it before leaving for his first lesson.

As he approached the classroom, he spotted Ron and Hermione slightly aside from the rest of the waiting students and Ron had his hand on Hermione’s shoulder, seemingly trying to reassure her about something. He approached them both and gave an apologetic sort of a smile.

“Look, I’m really sorry about earlier Hermione, I have this awful headache at the moment, and I stayed up far later than I should have. I didn’t mean to have a go at you like that, and I know I completely twisted your words. I have this little exercise that Snape mentioned for my, uh, ‘remedial potions’ that’s meant to help me and I was wondering if you’d give me a hand? I understand if you’d rather not after my dick move this morning though.”

Harry pulled out the piece of parchment and handed it to her. When she agreed to help, he explained what he needed her to do. It was really nothing more than distracting him and pointing out when he began to get swept up in the anger before making him consider what he wanted to do and the consequences of each option. The part that they both knew she would struggle most with is that she shouldn’t give any sort of opinion on his choice after he decides and is there simply to snap him back to rational thoughts every now and then.

“I’ll try my best Harry, but I feel like I might need someone to do this for me as well with the way that woman treats our education.”

In the end the three of them decided that they would look out for each other although they were all aware that Harry was who would need the help most often.

“Hem, hem?” Umbridge got the attention of her class. “If you could all come in and take your seats, please, we have a lot to get through today.”

They all shuffled in, took out their ministry approved books and prepared to ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘no ma’am’ at all the appropriate points.

When harry knocked on the potions master’s door at 6:58PM (better to be on the safe side) he felt rather more prepared than before and hoped that this lesson would go smoothly.

“Potter. In.” was all the greeting that Harry received. “Did you clear your mind last night? I shall know If you are lying so I would advise against it.”

“Yes sir, I did. I think it helped with the nightmares and the visions, but my scar hurt more than usual when I woke up.”

“Nightmares?” the curiosity in Snapes silky voice was evident but the concern was not.

“Yeh it was probably that emotion influence stuff you talked about yesterday but either way the occlumency seems to help.”

“Quite. The increased pain may be that Voldemort has detected an increased resistance and has in turn increased the force of his attack, keep track of the pain levels.” His tone was still matter of fact and showed no hint of sympathy. “Have you yet decided on a scenario to use as your mind scape?”

Harry handed Snape a list that contained his ideas as well as several crossed out or scribbled out options and stood silently as his professor skimmed over his writings.

“Most of these would be useless but it might be possible to work with a flying mind scape. I presume that is what you used before you slept yesterday?”

“Yes sir, I basically just played out a match in my head.”

“This is a good starting point however it is far better to imagine just yourself, having two quidditch teams would be too much to focus on and difficult to maintain. Play out chasing after the snitch and forget everyone else; I shall legilimise you while you do this then we will go from there.”

From then, a routine formed where Harry would clear his mind before bed, then the next lesson they would discuss the effects on his dreams and ever-increasing scar pain, before continuing with occlumency practice. This particular evening, Harry had managed to focus on his flying scenario for a significant amount of time while Snape sent various emotions into his mind, although he still stuck to the less distracting ones such as happiness or boredom. Nevertheless, Harry always left the lesson extremely exhausted and ready for a long sleep.

He had his hands in his pockets and was barely 20 steps from the potions office when it happened. He had enough experience now to identify the feeling in his head as occlumency, however he was also familiar enough with the pure evil of the presence to recognise it as Lord Voldemort. Not that any of this was any help amongst the skull splitting agony that emanated from his scar as a result of this forceful attack. It felt as though there was not enough air in the world to fuel the scream that Harry needed to let out. It took a little while but eventually he felt his consciousness slip away from him as the pain continued, although not before he heard a pair of racing footsteps and a hiss of parseltoungue in his mind.

“You have been practicinggg potterrrr. I congratulate youuu.”

Chapter Text

It wasn’t so much the smell of antiseptic cleaning potions as the stage whispers of some panicked voices that awoke Harry. More specifically it was one panicked voice and another clearly worried but level-headed voice attempting reassurance. Both were women but beyond that Harry wasn’t sure.

“What if the damage is permanent?”

“We shan’t know until he wakes up, until then, we can only monitor him.”

“But his scar, poppy! What if you can’t-”

“Minerva, please. I would appreciate if you would cease this line of questioning. You might wake him with all the noise.”

“At least then we would know he can wake up.” The usually stern professor muttered to herself.

The arguing seemed to stop here, and Harry began to ease open his eyes, stuck together slightly from so long unused. His entire field of vision was blurry – not unsurprising as someone had removed his glasses – except it wasn’t his entire field. There was something blocking his right eye, he couldn’t see anything through it. He raised a heavy arm to feel around and was somewhat relieved to discover a sort of cotton pad covering it, but his arm was quickly pulled down again by a third presence next to his bed.

“Leave it, Potter.” The unmistakable voice of Severus Snape ordered.

Before Harry had time to verbally or mentally question what Snape was doing here, the blurry figure of Madame Pomfrey rushed over.

“Mr Potter, how are you feeling?”

“I- wha-? I don’t- huh?” he made just as much sense as Ron being woken up for early morning quidditch practice.

He could make out Snape’s arm crossing over him to hand something to Pomfrey and felt the metal being slid over his ears before the world regained some focus.

“Your head my dear, how is it feeling?” the Matron smiled kindly down at him.

“Hurts a bit.” Harry said hoarsely. “Ow.” He added as an afterthought.

“Yes, that’s only to be expected I’m afraid.” She responded sympathetically. “Would you mind if I take a quick look at your eye?”

“Okay.”

Harry felt the cotton pad being lifted slowly and waited patiently for a second layer to be removed as well. From his left eye, he saw Madame Pomfrey look back at a concerned Professor McGonagall and give a minute shake of her head. McGonagall covered her mouth with a handkerchief and looked away.

“Wait what’s going on? What’s wrong with my eye?”

“I’m so sorry mister Potter but the attack on your mind was somehow done through your scar, however it was pushed too hard, and it caused your scar to split open again. The wound is now even larger than before and…it’s gone right through your eye, Harry. I’m afraid it seems I was unable to save it.”

Harry stared back at Madame Pomfrey in disbelief.

“Mirror. I need a mirror.” He began to sit up and look around frantically for any sort of reflective surface. He refused to believe it until he saw it with his own – well – eyes.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea just yet, you need to-”

Before she had a chance to finish her sentence, Professor Snape of all people had transfigured Harry’s glass of water into a mirror and handed it to him. In response to the looks he received he simply stated,

“he will see it sooner or later, it is best to get it over with.”

Harry reached out a hand to grasp the mirror but felt only air. Snape then guided his hand forwards slightly towards the object and sat silently as the boy before him took in his new appearance.

The majority of his face looked as it usually did, save for his hair being slightly greasier than usual. His scar, however, was a deep dark red with angry borders and, just as Madame Pomfrey had explained, it now lengthened downwards through his right eyebrow and into his eye. An eye which was now a dull milky colour, much like Trelawney’s crystal balls when they were filled with mist, and had only a distant memory of the usual piercing green his mothers genes had given him.  

Harry let his arm fall to his side and faced the mirror downwards into the hospital bed. Voldemort would be delighted about this. His friends would be horrified and god knows what the newspapers would say. He turned to Snape and began to plead his case.

“I tried sir, I really did. I tried to do everything you taught me, but it was just too much.” He hung his head in shame. “I’m sorry I let you down.”

“On the contrary Potter, you reacted no worse than I expected you to be able to and despite what you may believe, I know your abilities in the art to now be…adequate.” It sounded like it pained him to give such high praise. “I shall have your head if you expect me to repeat that.”

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.” Harry gave a small smile that he didn’t truly feel.

“As you are now technically fit and well, Madame Pomfrey has said that she will release you today and you may have your dinner in the great hall.” Seemingly predicting the unasked question, he added “you have only been asleep for one day and are to return to lessons either tomorrow or the day after.”

Snape then stood up and stalked toward the huge doors but paused once they opened. “Am I to presume this animal is yours?”

Harry strained his neck to peer at the floor and was delighted to see Alex slithering in, hissing about losing patience. He then was once again fearful of the coming berating from his professor.

“Yes sir, I promise you he isn’t dangerous, he stays in my dorms most of the time, but he must have been worried when I didn’t return yesterday.”

“Calm yourself Potter, I am the head of Slytherin, I’m hardly going to take points for a student looking after a snake.” He then stepped over said snake and turned to descend back down to the dungeons.

Harry was finally discharged near the beginning of the last lesson of the day and, not yet wanting to face any of his schoolmates, he went to the only place he would sure he could be alone – the chamber of secrets. Once he was there, he leant against a cold stone column, slid to the floor and sobbed to exhaustion. As he hugged his knees to his chest, he could truthfully say that he would rather stay there for the rest of time itself than go back to his life as it was and the thought of his friends was barely enough to convince him otherwise. Barely enough, but it was enough. The dark black ring clattered out of his pocket onto the floor and Harry picked it up to examine for the millionth time. Naturally, it looked the same as it always did: a black metal band that split apart like branches of a tree to encircle a deep black gemstone that was square in shape, but the two flat faces were raised like pyramids. For the first time, Harry decided to slip the ring onto his left-hand thumb as he decided that if it was going to hurt him, it would have done it by now. As soon as it was in place, the gentle aura that it had been emitting now blanketed Harry as if hugging him and the ring began to glow. As much as anything black could glow that is.

“Hello”

Chapter Text

“Hello” a voice said.

Harry scrambled to his feet and pointed his wand at empty air.

“Who is it? Who’s there?” he couldn’t see anyone and yet he could swear he felt the magic crackling around him. “Riddle? Is that you? Show yourself.”

“I have no form, Master, and although the occasional poet has taken a liking to calling me a riddle, it is not one of my colloquial names.”

“What do you mean? Why did you call me Master? My name is Harry. Who the hell are you?”

“I should have thought you’d know by now, Harry. We have met many times before, after all.” The voice still came from no particular direction but was in no way threatening. Harry was far more relaxed than he logically should have been. “Close your eyes, child. Feel our magic and recognise me.”

Harry lowered his wand slowly and allowed his eyes so shut, his right one still burning painfully. He could feel the strange familiarity of the magic around him and mentally delved into the effect it had on him. On a far larger scale than just the ring, it comforted him but in a way that made him feel as if he could do anything. It gave him determination and resolve. It gave him a fierce power that came from having nothing left to lose.

“Death.” Harry stated.

It wasn’t a question at all; Harry recognised the presence now and was honestly surprised that it took him this long. He had felt Death’s magic so many times over the years, the first time at his mother’s murder and the last at the graveyard mere months ago.

“Yes, master.”

“Master? Why do you call me that?”

“Because you are my Master of course. Every once in a while, someone comes along with enough power to be the master of death and even rarer, someone who has strong enough morals to not be corrupted by this title. It is a momentous occasion when these two things coexist.”

Harry was still trying to wrap his head around him having a conversation with death itself, he would untangle this ‘master’ business later on.

“Why do you need a master though? Surely you just get on with your little death business and that’s that?”

“Yes, for the most part. However, I regret to say that I have been known to get …bored… and perhaps push the limits of my ‘little death business’ as you put it. The last time this happened, I was bested by three powerful brothers, the Peverall’s I believe they were called, and they had me create what is now known as ‘the deathly hallows’. The elder wand, the resurrection stone, and the cloak of invisibility. Individually they are fairly powerful artefacts but nothing humanity can’t handle; however, they act to force me into seeing the consequences of such power when it is abused and dissuades me from swaying. As my master, these artefacts are rightfully yours although I advise you to act with caution. You already know of the cloak I speak of, the stone is sat in the ring you now wear, and, although another currently wields it, the elder wand will answer to your hand in a way no other wand can.”

“Right. I think I understand.”

“My magic will always be accessible to you, as will I. you need only call, and I will come. You must bear with me now; I have business to attend to I’m afraid.”

With that, the chamber was once again silent, except for the echoing drips of water. Harry could feel the extra magic now surrounding him and, thinking back to Death’s words, he said an experimental “lumos”.  The entire chamber was suddenly flooded with a radiant light emanating solely from Harry’s wand.

“Fucking hell!” was all he had to say before dazedly walking in the direction of the exit so not to be late for dinner.

Harry kept his head bowed as the predictable whispers rippled across the great hall. He knew he looked in bad shape and that everyone wanted to ogle at his newly blinded right eye, but he refused to put up with it today. Instead, he strode over to where Ron and Hermione were sat at Gryffindor table, snagged a couple of bread rolls and told them he would be up in the tower. On his way back through the grand doors right next to the latest ‘high inquisitor’ rulings, he crossed paths with Malfoy and, knowing they still had to ‘hate’ each other, he put on his best snarky voice.

“What the hell do you want, Malfoy.” He sneered.

Malfoy was still staring at Harry’s face and looked almost trance like.

“You look…” he paused for a moment before snapping back to reality. “Like shit, Potter. You look like shit.”

“Go to hell.”

Malfoy made sure to shoulder check Harry on his way past. It was the only way to get close enough to slip the note into his pocket. As soon as Harry was around the corner and out of view of the student population, he unfolded the parchment and read the neat writing.

I’ve made a plan for teaching you some dark arts spells – if you still want to. Father told me over Christmas that they expect me to receive the mark this summer, but I need to have death eater training beforehand. If you’re up for it, I’ll teach it to you as father teaches me, that way we can be sure not to miss anything.

Yours,

Malfoy

Harry looked at the ‘yours’ for slightly longer than normal and considered what was said. Malfoy’s plan was a sensible one and would, as he said, cover everything important. It would also give him an advantage if he also learnt each spell’s counter as well as how to identify it, something that he himself was teaching during the occasional DA session. He knew firsthand how helpful it was to know when to abandon a shield charm and opt for the good old ‘duck’ strategy.

Having now arrived back at him dorm, Harry began to rummage through his belongings, looking for a stray quill to write up his response and, upon finding one, wrote that he was on board with the idea and would also like to practice spells from the Malfoy library books he had been reading. He pocketed the note to slip to Malfoy later and once again picked up the book about wandless magic.

Since meeting Death earlier, Harry could still feel the electricity of the magic running through him and, although having had no ability to do so before, he could also feel his own magic intertwined with it, like two dancing snakes on the sceptre of Hermes or two dolphins spiralling up together from the ocean depths. As the book instructed, he cleared his mind and focussed solely on the feeling of the magic and guided it towards his upwards facing palm.

“incendio”

Immediately, a glowing sphere of fire appeared before him, flickering as if in a hearth. He let out a shout of joy even as the fire dimmed and snuffed out of existence. It needed work and it was only one spell but at least now Harry had a starting place. At least he knew what to work on.

A knock on the door averted his attention but he was still grinning slightly as Ron peered round the door.

“Harry? Do you mind if we come in? Hermione brought you a slice of butterscotch from dinner.”

Hermione’s head joined Ron’s in peering and Harry ushered them both in, Hermione ‘or worse expelled’ Granger never did care much about the rules around her occasional visit to the boys’ dormitory.

“If you’re still hungry we can always ask Dobby to bring us something from the kitchens, I’m sure he’d go spare.”

Harry supposed he must look really rotten if Hermione wasn’t about to object to Ron’s suggestion and go on another SPEW rant. He agreed that he wouldn’t be opposed to a little more food and allowed Ron to summon the eager house elf and give his dinner order. Meanwhile Hermione had sat herself down on the bed and began to concern herself with Harry’s eye.

“Oh, it does look sore you know, did Madame Pomfrey give you anything to put on it?”

Harry told her that he was to apply murtlap to it every morning and evening until it stopped looking red and then had to sit very still and “stop fidgeting” as his friend carefully coated his reopened scar in the cool paste.

As the evening went on, the three of them chatted, joked, and bickered about meaningless things and Harry felt at ease for the first time in a while. He might even go so far as to say he felt happy.

Chapter Text

Harry had been seething with quiet anger the whole day. He had woken up in a bad mood, his occlumency lessons had been paused, as per Dumbledore’s orders, the DA hadn’t been able to meet since before Christmas due to a particularly nosey high inquisitor, and he was stuck on an especially difficult potion at his Saturday morning practice. The potions ingredients were relatively expensive too, so Harry had been feeling more and more guilty every time it failed and yet another set of magical plant and animal parts were wasted. It felt like a ticking time bomb on when Snape would finally snap and yell at him not to come back unless it was with a pouch full of galleons. All in all, he felt like he was going nowhere and he was getting increasingly overwhelmed by all of this new magic he that was expanding inside of him, just begging to be released, just how if someone gave Dobby a huge bag of jelly babies, placed him under a silencing charm and gave him to Harry, the poor house elf would be positively quaking with excitement but unable to say a single word of his thanks to “master Harry Potter Sir”.

He, with the help of Ron and Hermione, was attempting to clear his mind of this anger as he walked into his defence lesson. Only single defence today, one hour and he would be free.

“You know full well wands are not needed in my class Mr Finnegan, 5 points from Gryffindor.”

Umbridge sauntered down the aisle, not even looking at Seamus as she spoke to him. It didn’t matter that he was using his wand to dry the ink on the essay he had completed minutes beforehand, a wand was a wand and to Umbridge, a wand was a threat.

“Probably because she can’t use her own wand and wouldn’t be able to defend herself against a literal twig.” Ron muttered to Harry who smiled weakly.

“Something to say Mr Weasley? Mr Potter?” even Crabbe and Goyle could have heard Umbridge’s hope that one of the two Gryffindor’s would answer back and start an argument.

“No, ma’am” they chorused.

“Wonderful.”

Neither party found it wonderful.

“As you should all have read chapters 5 to 8 of the ministry’s ‘how to keep order amongst chaos’ I should think you are all equipped to discuss it. Do make sure you’re taking notes as I will set an essay on the topic."

There was sullen movement around the classroom as students reached into their bags for scrap parchment and loose quills, nobody was actually going to use their notes. Harry had zoned out at the first word and was now brooding silently to himself, oblivious to the action around him.

“Mister Potter, since you think yourself so above the rest of the class that you need not take notes, perhaps you could start today’s discussion? Tell me, in detail, the three ways in which minority groups tend to gain power and supporters through spreading misinformation.”

Harry took a deep breath and focussed on Hermione’s hands gripping his own.

“Well, the three ways are consistency, coverage, and erm, consequences?” he cleared his throat to continue. “Consistency is either where lies are repeated so many times it begins to sound like the truth or consistency throughout the minority group so there are no discrepancies in the story. I think the book said something about the goblins and them gaining control of Gringotts. Coverage is about lies being printed in usually reputable sources such as mainstream newspapers, and consequences is where the minority group shows that they are able to face consequences for their cause, sometimes as a way to gain sympathy.” Harry recited the book’s passage to his desk, glaring the information into the cheap wood.

Umbridge looked disappointed at finding no fault in his word for word answer. “Quite correct, can somebody tell me a common word for those willing to face the most extreme consequences simply for attention?”

A Slytherin girl near the back raised her hand slightly.

“A martyr?”

“Very well-done miss Parkinson, 5 points to Slytherin.” She smiled sweetly at the slytherin, who merely winced back. “Now, for those of you who don’t know, a martyr is a person so indoctrinated in a cause that they are willing to give their own life for mere attention, in the worst cases, it is a child, perhaps a young man, who is forced into such an act.”

Remnants of a speech Dumbledore once gave began to float into Harry’s mind ‘it is the worst case when it is a child or a young man”

“This child martyr is often someone already in the public light and is liked by the population-”

‘He was loved dearly by everyone and for this to happen so publicly-’

“-meaning that, when ‘tragedy’ strikes, the public is more likely to side with them. Especially if it is someone who had a lot of potential-”

‘He had the potential to have achieved amazing things in his life-’

Harry was trying desperately to occlude against his Emotions. He was sure that Umbridge was doing this on purpose to get a rise out of him.

“It is unfortunate that these child martyrs are taken from us by such dark forces and it is the ministry’s utmost priority to protect you from these influences.”

‘It is unfortunate that Cedric was taken from us by such dark forces and I shall make it my utmost priority to protect every one of you from the people who took Mr Diggory from us.’

“Shut up about Cedric.”

Umbridge had obviously been keeping an ear out.

“Cedric? Nobody mentioned anything about Cedric.” She gave a sickly laugh of triumph. “As I have said many times before, Cedric’s death was a tragic accident as a result of the Triwizard tournament.”

“You know that is a lie!” Harry shrugged off Hermione’s hand and stood.

“It was merely an overlooked safety precaution and should never have happened.”

“What you overlooked was one of the most dangerous death eaters right under your fucking nose-”

“Language Mr Potter!”

Harry clenched his jaw as much as he could. “Shut up” he ground out.

“I will not listen to such vulgar accusations and lies-”

“WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP” harry exploded.

His things crashed to the floor and gasps rang out around the room, cutting through the silence. Umbridge was stood in front of him, eyes wide with fear as she grappled at her mouth. Except she had no mouth. In its place was smooth skin that reached over to cover her nose as well. She staggered backwards as she fought desperately for air, eyes frantic and legs barely supporting her. Tears fell as she began to lose hope. Harry watched. No one said a word. The door crashed open, and a disappointed Scottish voice cut through the silence.

“Mr Potter what is going-” McGonagall’s voice quickly morphed into horror. “POTTER, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING” she raced over to the now unconscious professor and cancelled the curse with a quick finite, tapping her cheek to try and wake her. When that didn’t work, she cast a ‘renervate’ and sighed in relief when the ministry official sat bolt upright, gulping down air. Eyes latching onto Harry, umbridge tried to speak through each breath.

“Expe-” she took another deep breath. “Expelled!”

Nobody knew what to do as Harry’s robes faded from bright Gryffindor red to the plain black kind that every first year enters with. Hermione tried to appeal to McGonagall.

“Professor! She can’t expel him just like that!”

“I’m afraid her new position as high inquisitor allows her to do just that for students and teachers alike.” McGonagall said sympathetically.

“But it wasn’t Harry’s fault, he was provoked into accidental magic. He doesn’t even have his wand with him!”

There were murmurs of assent from the whole class, including the Slytherins, much to Harry’s surprise. McGonagall lowered her voice, out of range of Umbridge’s pink ears.

“I don’t believe for one second that Harry has suddenly developed murderous tendencies but unfortunately we must go down the route of appealing the expulsion before he can be reinstated at Hogwarts.”

Harry hadn’t moved from where he stood and just looked numbly at the floor. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled as he listened numbly to the conversation.

Dumbledore paced around his office as Harry sat on the chair facing him, trying to look as small as possible. He had never seen the old man looking so concerned; It drew out the wrinkles and highlighted his long years. It was drawn all over his face like an unwanted piece of graffiti, concern for Harry’s actions and its implications on the kind of man he was becoming.

Chapter Text

After a lengthy floo call between Dumbledore and, presumably, the minister for magic, Harry was told that he would be allowed to remain in Gryffindor tower for the next two weeks, and was only to leave for mealtimes, while the circumstances and evidence surrounding his expulsion were reviewed. He was not to attend any lessons and could only interact with Professors if directly addressed. At the end of those two weeks, there would be a verdict one way or another and if allowed to return to his magical education, he was to be sorted into his house again and could then go back staying in Gryffindor permanently. If the verdict was for him to be permanently expelled, then he would not be permitted any sort of access to Hogwarts grounds.

Harry wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with his headmaster making such extreme compromises on his behalf but when it came to it, he merely thanked the man emotionlessly and departed the office, definitely not closing the door far harsher than necessary upon exit.

Whilst walking through the empty corridors of hogwarts (the student population would currently be at dinner), with Alex hanging across his shoulders like a scarf, Harry mulled over his situation. He was relatively sure that the various eyewitness accounts of his DADA class would prove that he had been consistently and unrelentingly baited to anger by professor Umbridge and especially since it had not been a direct or intentional spell, there would be no grounds on which to expel him. This didn’t stop him from worrying, however. He decided that was not particularly upset at his blanket ban from all day-to-day lessons and, if anything, Harry appreciated the extra time that it would give him to focus on his own pursuits of occlumency, wandless magic, and any darker spells that Malfoy’s family books were providing him with.

Having found himself now stood outside the portrait of the fat lady, Harry’s tiredness began to seep deep into his bones and with it, his still healing scar and remnants of his right eye burned painfully. Alex seemed to sense his discomfort as he periodically licked at the angry skin, perhaps in an attempt to soothe it. The entrance to the common room swung open after a suspicious look at Harry’s lack of Gryffindor colours and, before he had a chance to get another dose of cream for his eye, there was a shout.

“Harry! Harry, are you alright?”

Harry turned to see Hermione and Ron hurtling towards him at alarming speeds and barely managed a nod before he was wrapped in a tight hug and had a face full of bushy hair.

“I’m fine, Hermione, I promise. Dumbledore said that I could stay here while the ministry decides if I will actually be expelled permanently and I-”

“They can’t expel you for what that bitch pushed you to do”

Harry had to peer past his friends’ shoulders to see where the comment had come from and he was rather shocked to see that most of the Gryffindor common room was actually filled with people from his year as well as other years, all of whom were nodding vigorously at Dean’s (for it was Dean who had spoken) statement.  

It was Ginny who spoke next. “Yeh, I mean we all know how she treated to both in and out of lessons, plus all the stuff that just happened with, yknow…” she gestured broadly to her face and Harry translated that she meant the recent loss of his eye.

There were many other complaints and arguments from his housemates in Harry’s support, and he almost began to tear up at show of solidarity.

“Um thanks guys, that means a lot to me but I kinda just have to wait for the ministry to do their investigation now. Apparently they will be asking for statements from people at school so I guess that as long as they don’t ask too many Slytherins then everything should be fine.” He laughed weakly at his joke but all he got was many concerned expressions.

The entire great hall was silent as Harry walked to his usual seat at the table while flanked by his two closest friends. When he was sat, many of the Gryffindors made a show of asking if he wanted the bread passed down or if he fancied any of the cauliflower with his chicken pie. It took a little while but gradually, the chatter returned and the hall regained its usual mealtime atmosphere, even if there were still a few nervous glances or the occasional rude gesture from across the room. All in all, Harry realised that he was not the only student who had a guttural hatred for the evil Pygmy puff, and he was very likely not the only child who had suffered through hours and hours of torture at her hand, or rather, quill.

After a long and arduous mealtime, purposefully filled with meaningless conversation, Harry let Hermione know of his ever-present dull headache and as a result, they were up and on their way out in mere moments. Almost at the door, Harry spotted Malfoy leaning casually against the frame who, upon spotting his ‘rival’, pushed himself into the boy’s path and, much to Harry’s confusion, began loudly joking about the events of the day.

“Where do you think you’re off to Potty?” The Blond sneered coldly.

Harry could only stand there speechless, trying in vain to meet his gaze.

“Malfoy, what-”

“Think you’re too good for consequences, do you? Only the precious golden boy could attempt murder in front of 30 witnesses and still make it in time for tea.”

Malfoy’s tone was as harsh as it ever used to be, yet he couldn’t quite look Harry in the eye as he spoke. Not that Harry noticed over the grief of seemingly losing his new tentative acquaintanceship.

“Fuck off Malfoy, not all of us had death eater daddies to teach us how to do it properly.” His heart wasn’t quite in the insult, and he winced internally as he saw the words land their blow. Until he heard the oily words of the potions master from behind him.

“Mister Potter. detention. Now.”

Harry groaned and shot an apologetic look to Ron and Hermione as he turned and followed the black heels towards certain death.

Harry refused to admit to himself that Malfoy’s words had actually hurt but it was true that he had been convinced that their civility was genuine and was going to last.

I’m an idiot, he thought as he followed Snape through the dungeon corridors.

Finally at the entrance to the potion's quarters, Harry took a deep breath and tried to build his occlumency shields in preparation for the type of detention that came with insulting Slytherin royalty. He had avoided any occlumency practice since the attack that had partially blinded him, so his shields were slightly precarious, but at least it gave him something to focus on other than the fact that Snape had now locked and warded the door, before turning to look deep into Harry’s working eye.

“That is in no way the type of language that I expect from the supposed ‘saviour’ of the wixen world.”

“But Professor, Malfoy was-” Harry’s words were cut off both by Snape raising his hand as well as a sharp rap at the door. He was silent as his professor stalked across the classroom and, after a couple of muttered spells, opened the door for the visitor. The last thing Harry expected was the blur of blond hair that came hurtling in, accompanied by a string of panicked words.

“Harry, I am so sorry, I didn’t mean any of what I said, I promise I was just doing was Professor Snape asked me too, I didn’t mean to hurt you I swear, I just had to get you to argue back so that there was grounds for a detention, I didn’t want to-”

“Mister Malfoy, I do think that Potter has got the picture now.”

Harry had not got the picture.

“You mean that it was a trap? Just to get me in detention?”

“No, no.” Malfoy said, just as Snape nodded in the affirmative.

“Correct, Mister Potter.”

Harry was still at a loss and so tried his best to ascertain some more vital information that may help him to decipher the incomprehensible situation he was now in: “huh?”

“I asked for the help of young Malfoy here to engineer a situation in which I would have suitable grounds to give you several detentions, as I intend to ensure that you do not fall behind on either your training, your spell work, or your occlumency and my only means to do this is to appear to be punishing you for your bad behaviour.”

“You mean you’re going to help me?” Harry was now less surprised at the elaborate trap he had so neatly fallen into and suddenly struggled to believe that one of the men who hated him most in the world was apparently offering to help.

“Yes, Potter, I am going to help you.”