Monday and Tuesday passed as normal for the trio, but Wednesday morning saw Harry and Hermione meeting a nervous looking Daphne in an empty classroom after she had slipped them a note during breakfast. After they assured her that nobody had seen them enter, Daphne explained.
"I think you both need to see this," she said as she pulled a button from the pocket of her robes. It featured a picture of a smiling Cedric Diggory with the words "Support Cedric Diggory – the REAL Hogwarts Champion!" flashing around the perimeter.
"I don't understand, Daph," Harry said. "We all know that Cedric actually is the only real Hogwarts Champion. Why would we be upset about this?" Daphne simply raised a delicate eyebrow and tapped the button with her wand. The image swirled and was replaced with a picture of Harry with the words "Potter Stinks!" in bright red letters across his forehead.
"I'll give you three guesses as to whose clever idea this is," Daphne said, "but I bet you'll only need one."
"Malfoy," Harry hissed, his hands fisted at his sides.
"Right in one!" Daphne mock cheered. "He's been passing them out all morning. He's already given one to every student in Slytherin and quite a few from the other houses, even some in yours. He plans on having everyone wear them during lunch today as, and I quote, 'a surprise for old scarhead.' He seems quite proud of himself." By now Harry was seeing red. As he made his way to the door, intent on hexing himself a ferret, he was stopped by two pairs of feminine hands gently grabbing his shoulders.
"Harry, stop," Hermione pleaded gently. "You know attacking him will only end badly for you. Sure, you may enjoy cursing the git, but think of the punishment Snape is bound to heap on you if you do. Besides, if you go after him now, Malfoy will know that someone tipped you off about the buttons, and that could mean trouble for Daphne." The Slytherin witch gave Hermione a grateful smile, before turning a sympathetic gaze towards Harry.
"She's right, Harry. This is exactly the reaction Malfoy expects from you, to go charging like a lion without considering the consequences. It's become a game of sorts between Snape and Malfoy actually, to see which one can push your buttons the worst. They're nothing but a couple of bullies, Harry, and by going after them directly you play right into their hands." She could see that Harry understood what the girls were saying, but the helplessness she saw in his brilliant green eyes broke her heart. Gently placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, she shared a look with Hermione pleading with the other girl to back her up. Seeing Hermione's accepting nod, she turned back to the dejected boy between them.
"You can fight back, you know. The trick is to not give them the reaction they expect. By doing the unexpected, you play their game with your rules, and that's how you win." Seeing the questioning looks on both Gryffindors' faces, Daphne gave them a sly grin. "How do you feel about releasing your inner Slytherin, Harry?" Hermione's face immediately broke in to a grin to match Daphne's, with Harry's just a few seconds behind her.
"Did I ever tell you that the Sorting Hat actually wanted to put me in Slytherin?" Enjoying the shocked looks on both girls' faces, Harry drew out the silence for a few moments before explaining. "It's true! In fact, if Malfoy hadn't been such an arse when I first met him, I may have let it!"
"You mean to tell me that I missed out on knowing you for three years because of that pompous arsehole?" Harry blushed and nodded. "Oh, that does it. This is personal now!" Daphne's grin was predatory, making her friends secretly vow never to get on her bad side.
"Well you know I'm in," Hermione added. "That ponce has been a pain in my backside for as long as I've known him. I'd love to see Harry knock him down a peg." Sporting a look of mischief that would make the Marauders proud, Harry nodded once and gave Daphne his full attention.
"Teach me."
-ooOoo-
As Harry and Hermione sat in their usual spots at the Gryffindor table during lunch, they noticed the noise in the unusually packed great hall changed from the normal lunchtime chatter to a mixture of excited whispering and quiet snickering. This was their cue that Draco Malfoy was making his way over for a visit. Keeping his attention firmly on the plate in front of him and quickly going over Daphne's lesson from that morning in his head, Harry showed no reaction when Malfoy's drawling voice signaled to the great hall that the show was starting.
"Well Scarhead, are you ready to show everyone just how big of a phony you are? I bet you don't even show up for the first task. You'll probably be too busy hiding under your bed trying not to wet yourself!" Malfoy's remarks were met with quite a few snickers and guffaws, but most of the Hogwarts students were holding their breath, eagerly anticipating the explosion they all knew was coming. To their great surprise, both Harry and Hermione continued eating calmly and conversing quietly together, not giving Malfoy or his goons so much as a glance. Nonplussed, Malfoy pressed on.
"What's the matter, Potter? Can't hear me over the know-it-all's incessant nagging? You think maybe if you give her enough attention she'll let you shag her? Lord knows you'd be the only one that would want to!" Sharp breaths were taken around the hall, and those students sitting closest to the pair instinctively moved back, not wanting to be caught by any stray spells which would surely be flying any second now. The tense silence dragged on as neither Harry nor Hermione showed any sign of having even heard Malfoy's taunting. Deciding to go to his main attack, Draco tried again.
"What do you think of the buttons, Potter? I've only had them since this morning and I've already run out! It seems not everyone is as taken with you as you would have us believe!" At this point Harry finally raised his head, casting a disinterested glance around the hall. He saw buttons on the robes of everyone at the Slytherin table, as well as most of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, and even a few Gryffindors. More interesting to Harry were the reactions, or rather the lack thereof, of the people sitting at the head table to the confrontation occurring in the middle of the hall. Professor McGonagall looked murderous, but judging by her glances between Malfoy and Dumbledore she had been instructed by the headmaster not to interfere. The man himself looked on with his customary twinkling eyes as if watching a marionette show in the park. Flitwick and Sprout looked concerned, and Harry noticed the charms professor's hand twitching for his wand. The look on professor Snape's face was not one that most people thought the dour potions master was capable of: undisguised glee. Harry smiled to himself at the dark fury etched on Hagrid's features as he struggled to remain seated. Finally turning to Malfoy's smirking face, Harry gave a bored shrug before returning to his meal. By now people were beginning to wonder who the imposter at the Gryffindor table was and what they had done with Harry Potter. Where was the temper, the screaming, the punches thrown or the curses cast? Since when did Potter have such control over his emotions? And why was Granger not jumping to his defense as usual? Clearly this was not the same Harry Potter and Hermione Granger that everyone was used to, and many were beginning to wonder just what had Malfoy gotten himself into. Draco himself, embarrassed that his plan to rattle Potter in front of such a large audience had failed so completely, was about to find out just how different Harry Potter really was. As Harry laughed at a comment made by Hermione, Draco's temper finally exploded.
"How dare you sit there and ignore me, you pathetic half-blood! You and your filthy mudblood whore are a disgrace to proper wizarding society and should be banished from this school, along with all the worthless muggle-lovers and blood-traitors! You're pathetic, Potter. When my father hears of this he'll make sure that you're both tossed out of here quicker than you can say 'pureblood.' Then it won't be long before you're both found dead in a ditch somewhere, just like dear mummy and daddy!" By now it was clear to everyone that something had gone terribly wrong. Making fun of a cheater was one thing, but publicly insulting the son of two war heroes of the wizarding world, who happened to be a war hero himself, and in front of an international audience, was something entirely different. Many were rethinking their decision to take part in Malfoy's little button game, but everyone was too shocked by what they were hearing to do anything more than stare open-mouthed at the vitriol spewing from the mouth of the blonde buffoon.
Harry had been pleasantly surprised by how easy he had found it to remain calm throughout Malfoy's verbal assault. After Daphne had explained to them the essentials of dealing with his abuse, it had been easy for them both to get the better of him by not giving him the reaction he wanted. She had explained that by ignoring him completely, it forced him to try more and more extreme measures to get a rise out of them, inevitably drawing more negative attention than he cared for. At some point he would either back off completely due to embarrassment – or escalate to rage-induced violence. Daphne had been adamant that should he attack them, they should only do what was necessary to end the fight while causing as little actual harm to the git as possible. While neither found that to be the ideal response, they both saw the logic in maintaining the high road throughout the confrontation. That being said, neither one of them was stupid. While they had been calmly weathering the verbal assault of the junior Death Eater, they had each discreetly drawn their wands and held them hidden under the table, while keeping alert for the first sign of an attack that they knew by now was coming. They didn't have to wait much longer as the sight of Neville's eyes widening from across the table alerted them to the moment they'd been waiting for. The curse was still leaving Malfoy's lips as Harry spun in his seat, his shield halting the spell fired from a few feet away. Quicker than anyone could follow three surprised Slytherins found themselves wandless, silenced, and petrified on the floor of the great hall, surrounded by the shocked expressions of their classmates and under the steady wands of an angry pair of Gryffindors. The resulting silence was broken by a bellow from the head table.
"One hundred fifty points from Gryffindor and a week's worth of detention to both of you for this outrageous display! Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger, let's see if scraping cauldron bottoms for a few hours a night has any effect on your total disregard for school rules! If it were up to me you'd both be expelled and halfway to London by nightfall!" When neither student moved to acknowledge him, the potions master was livid. "Well? Do either of you two dimwitted fools have anything to say for yourselves?" Harry and Hermione both turned calm expressions to the fuming professor.
"No, sir," said Harry, before he and Hermione quietly collected their bags and made to leave the hall. Smirking, Snape delivered his customary parting blow.
"I didn't think so. Maybe you're not as arrogant as your father after all, Potter." Snape's smirk grew into a wide grin as Harry stopped and turned to face him.
"I'm afraid you misunderstood me, professor. What I meant was that Hermione and I refuse to serve any detentions with you for what happened here today. We were clearly acting in self defense, and as you can see, apart from some dust on their robes no students were harmed at all during the altercation. In fact, if anyone should be serving detentions, it's these three." Harry nudged the petrified Crabbe with his foot. "They're the only ones that actually broke any rules."
At this point Voldemort could've waltzed through the doors of the great hall singing show tunes in a leopard print leotard and nobody would've noticed. Even the normally unflappable headmaster was agape at the two students' audacity at publicly defying the nastiest professor in England. On the other hand, Professor McGonagall looked like Christmas had come early. She was elated that someone had finally stood up to the hated potions master, and especially glad that it had been two of her very own lions to have done it. Noticing said potions master quickly gathering steam for a record-breaking explosion, she decided that it was finally time for this spectacle to end, Dumbledore be damned.
"Quite right you are, Mr. Potter. I believe that it's quite obvious to everyone present just who the guilty parties are. I hereby return one hundred fifty points to Gryffindor and neither of you will be serving any detentions for your actions here today. I further award you each seventy-five points for your impressive restraint in the face of such disgusting behavior. Let it be known here and now that any further use of that dreadful slur against muggleborns will result in detention and loss of house points! This school prides itself on being a place where children can come and learn magic safely regardless of their origins, be they magical or muggle." Here she turned to address the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang specifically. "I would also like to apologize to all of you for Mr. Malfoy's abhorrent behavior today. Let me assure you that he most definitely does not in any way represent the school or its students with the garbage you heard from his mouth. He and I will be having a serious discussion very soon with regards to what is and is not acceptable conduct at this school. Now then, I believe we have had quite enough entertainment for today. all of you kindly finish eating and make your way to your next class. Thank you." As the students began making their way out of the hall, Snape and McGonagall were engaged in a silent battle of wills across the head table. After a few moments of furious glaring, Snape gave a great huff and stormed out of the hall, nearly knocking over any student unlucky enough to be in his path. Looking quite satisfied, McGonagall gave the headmaster a smug look before joining Harry and Hermione at the Gryffindor table. She released the three attackers and escorted them from the hall as other students came up to say a few words to their new heroes. Draco glanced back into the hall and thought he saw Harry and Hermione talking to Daphne Greengrass, but he couldn't be sure before McGonagall whisked him off to her office for the conversation she had mentioned.
Dumbledore was too deep in thought to notice any of this byplay however. His mind was in turmoil over the unusual actions of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger just a few minutes ago. He, like everyone else that knew them, had been expecting the situation to escalate quickly as soon as Mr. Malfoy began his verbal assault. Knowing the boy as Albus did, he was mildly surprised at Harry's lack of reaction to the personal insults, but was downright shocked that he didn't immediately jump to the defense of Ms. Granger. Ms. Granger's own lack of response to anything said to or about her led the headmaster to believe that the two had been prepared for the confrontation ahead of time. He wondered if they had been coached on how to deal with Mr. Malfoy and Professor Snape, since the manner in which they had handled the situation seemed much too…Slytherin, for them to have come up with it on their own. Then again, as each year seemed to demonstrate, Harry Potter was nothing if not full of surprises.