By the time they reached the common room, Harry was using reserves of patience he didn't even know he had. Dinner had gone by in complete silence as his new classmates just stared at him. He had even caught his head of house staring at him, a look of utter contempt on the man's face. Harry felt disheartened at that, as he had heard a lot of the man and thought he was great.
The first words he heard were laced in a tone that made him want to shudder. "Welcome to Slytherin, I'm your head of house, and if any of you break a rule or lose us house points, you'll be faced with my wrath. Now, the rules go as followed, don't lose any points, don't do anything that will get you or the house in trouble, if you just can't resist doing something that is against the rules, at least have the audacity not to get caught. So, does anyone have any questions?" Snape asked, a horrendous glare just asking them to catch his gaze.
"Actually," Harry said, "I do. Does it matter who we sit with during meals?"
Snape immediately turned his scorn onto the James Potter look-alike. After a moment of hateful glaring, he nodded. "You're to sit with your housemates Potter, and if by some chance you manage to make a friend from another house, you can sit with them during class. Any other questions?"
No one spoke up, and Snape smirked to himself. "Good, now girls, you'll go to the left and the first door on the left is where you'll be sleeping. Boys, you go to the right, your quarters can be found behind the second door. Potter, you get to sleep with your year mates, I'll let you find them," Snape said, turning and walking away with nothing else to say.
Harry sighed and wondered what he did to make the man dislike him already. He gave a quick cursory glance around the common room, most of the older students were scattered about, talking among each other, sometimes looking towards him. He just shook his head, and went in search for his dorm room.
When he found it, he also found the guys he'd be sharing the room with. He knew from a glance that some of them were children of former and current Death Eaters. Draco Malfoy was easy to spot, he was also the first to speak up.
"So Potter, you get resurrected as well, or have you just been hiding all this time?"
"I went to a different school Malfoy, I wasn't hiding," Harry said, going over to his trunk and waving his hand over it, checking for curses. When he found none, he opened it and took out one of his books.
"Well what school did you go to then?" Draco questioned, warily eyeing him.
Harry smirked and let a moment pass before he answered. "I went to Durmstrang," he said, closely watching the other boys face.
The surprised look of shock on his face made the silent dinner and stares completely worth it. He only wished he'd had a camera.
"You went to Durmstrang?" a different boy asked.
"Up until this year," Harry nodded.
"What was it like?" Blaise whispered, and Harry just looked at the dark skinned boy as he thought of what to say.
"I'll have to get back to you on that," he finally answered.
Just as he was about to close the green and silver curtain, one of the two bigger boys asked a new question, one that he had dreaded coming into this house because of.
"Can you teach us dark magic?"
He quickly turned to who asked him and shot a glare that would make Snape proud.
"Listen here and listen closely, " he said, his voice a low harsh whisper. "If you ever ask me such a thing again, I will personally demonstrate to you exactly what I've learned. And believe me, you don't want to be at the end of my wrath. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm closing my curtain and going to sleep." He gave each of them a dark look, before he closed his curtain and picked his book back up.
During breakfast Snape came around and handed them all their timetables. He stopped and looked at Harry's for a moment, and Harry could tell he was just wondering how on earth he had gotten into his potions class.
When he looked at his timetable, the lack of his old classes glared back at him. He only had four classes and the amount of free time he found himself with elicited a sigh.
"It's not that bad, look at all those free periods you have," Theodore Nott said, trying to cheer him up.
Harry just shook his head, not bothering to explain just why it had left him feeling morose. Before there could be any more comments, Harry got up and made his way towards the Defense classroom.
One of the only reasons he agreed to keep the class on his time table was to keep his skills sharp. He wasn't sure where to hold his expectation though, as he had heard almost every summer from Dumbledore how he was looking for a new teacher for the subject. If the teacher wasn't proficient enough, Harry would just have to find a different way to keep himself practiced.
Upon arriving, the professor immediately asked if he'd be willing to stay after. Harry nodded, and took a seat in the middle of the classroom.
The professor got the class moving right along. He'd ask question after question, all of which Harry knew the answer to, but he wasn't going to bring attention to himself. Not this way. So when the professor called on him to answer a question, he was a bit blindsided, having let his mind wonder.
"Sorry Professor, could you repeat that?"
The professor smiled, having been informed during a staff meeting that Harry didn't even need to be in the class. "I asked weather it's possible to shake off the Imperius curse."
In the back of class, the redhead from the carriage ride couldn't contain from commenting, "He wouldn't need to shake it off, he'd be casting it." Both Dean and Seamus laughed. The professor heard it as well, and with a quick look to Harry, he was surprised to see that the young man wasn't rising to the remark.
"It is possible, but it takes great strength of will. Often times the person that is placed under the curse won't want to fight it, it's too peaceful," Harry answered. During his last year of Defense at Durmstrang, he was subjected to the curse. Everyone had been, as it was part of the class. They were all told to resist it. Out of the twenty students, only two people were able to; himself, and another boy.
"Very good, Mr. Potter," the Professor praised, going onto another question. All the students around him gave him sort of knowing, wide-eyed, reproachful looks, to which he ignored.
By the end of class, Harry had counted at least six remarks against him, all from Ron Weasley. It was a true show of character that he had just ignored them all. The professor took a great deal of pride in noting this.
When everyone else was exiting, Ron made one last remark that Harry caught, "He probably wants to make sure he's not going to kill us or anything."
Harry once again let the comment slide, and turned to find the professor watching him.
"Mr. Potter, I just wanted to formally introduce myself to you," the man said, coming and sitting on the desk in front of him. "My name is Remus, I knew your parents."
Harry smiled and nodded. "I know sir, my guardians and Dumbledore made sure I knew where I came from."
Remus was a bit shocked, but he hid it quickly. Or he tried to. Harry caught it. "Well, how are you finding Hogwarts so far?"
"It's the first day; I haven't had time to gather an opinion one way or the other. So far I just find myself missing my old classes and friends," he answered, and Remus was once again a bit shocked at the honesty.
"Just what classes were you taking? I know you went to Durmstrang, and certain things are classified, so if you can't answer that's fine," he said, leaning forward.
"No, it's fine," Harry assured. "I was taking a combat training class, Durmstrang is the only school that offers that. I was also taking a dueling class, I was learning more about Healing, and then I was taking a Spell Creation class, and a Wandless Spells class. I actually finished my training in Human Transfiguration."
Remus didn't even try to hide his shock this time. No wonder Harry had sat there with a bored expression on his face for the entire class. He had so many questions, but he didn't want to pry, so he just smiled and stupidly said, "You won't find those classes here."
Harry laughed, but agreed. "No, but I plan to make use of the library. Dumbledore let me know just how vast it is."
Remus smiled, and couldn't keep his comment to himself. "You're just like your mother."
Harry's eyes widened and he looked at Remus as if he held all the answers in the world. The reaction was intense, and nothing that Remus was expecting. "I... No one's ever said anything like that to me before."
Remus wanted to apologize, or say anything that would assure him Harry was okay, but Harry just quickly got up and left without saying anything else.