Ah, his second year. The year the entire school turned on him as a whole… for the first time, anyway. He supposed he'd felt something similar before but that didn't mean that it hurt any less the second time around especially when the stares he received were now loaded with hate and fear. Fear!
Few remained loyal to him but some of the Gryffindors slowly earned his trust. Ron's brothers, Merlin, how he loved them. They embarrassed him to no end and their antics constantly drew attention to him. Still, Harry wouldn't hold a grudge against them. They'd saved him from a whole summer with the Dursleys, after all, and introduced him to the first woman who had embraced him since his mother died. The twins had their way of showing they weren't impressed by the rumors surrounding Harry so he was fine with whatever they did.
Professor Snape was still the same but Harry couldn't forget the hesitant way he'd regarded him when Harry spoke Parseltongue during the duel. That measured, evaluating look. It showed no fear but something else that Harry desperately wanted to decipher. He'd saved him once when Harry suspected the worse of him. This time, Harry wouldn't make that same mistake again. No assumptions.
His Defense teacher turned out to be just as dangerous as he was incompetent. Harry no longer had any expectations regarding the adults around him and wasn't that surprised though the Headmaster – who'd hired said teacher - did drop in his consideration. Despite the small disappointment in one that looked infallible, Harry still expected the Headmaster of a school full of young children to do his job properly and to come to him in a time of need and rescue him like he had done during his first year – preferable before Harry was wounded again. He needed to feel like he was safe at school. At this point in his short life, Harry still had hope, he still believed.
Hagrid's vacation to Azkaban bothered Harry more than he thought it should considering how he felt about the man now. But the simple fool was most likely innocent and Harry didn't believe the black diary enough to consider him capable of writing that horrible message on the wall. And he had given him his first birthday cake and the album with photos of his parents. Perhaps it was meeting the Minister and finding that one of the most powerful figures of his new world was utterly and helplessly useless, passing along unfair judgment to please the people who filled his pockets. Just one more disappointing adult. On that same note, Hagrid was as good as dead to him. Follow the spiders? Really? How detached from reality did you have to be in order to send two kids in search of a family of giant carnivorous spiders in the same forest where one of them had almost died once before?
Meeting Voldemort for the fourth time was just as pleasant as the first three. That Harry had once again almost died at school was bad enough. That he had to save a little girl from being possessed while fighting a giant snake seriously ended any thoughts of safety he might've had towards Hogwarts. True, Harry had been the one to place himself in such a dangerous position but would it too much to ask that he receive something more than a sword to fight a giant snake? How about an army? How about one good man? If Fawkes hadn't decided to help and save a poisoned boy out of his own accord, Harry would've died. His third encounter with one of the many forms of Lord Voldemort almost became his last.
It was nothing if not weird. Harry now owed his life to a bird, a hat, a teacher who apparently hated him and a car. He supposed the Headmaster was on that list somewhere but only just barely. The Headmaster had left him with the Dursleys. He had hidden an object Voldemort wanted right under the beds of children. He seemed to have no control over what happened in the Forbidden Forest, and Professor Snape's behavior towards his students. He had barely managed to save him during his first year at Hogwarts, had abandoned him during his second, leaving him at the mercy of a freakish young Lord Voldemort. His staff choices were ridiculous. So strike…something, the Headmaster was out. Harry didn't hope any more. There was no trust there. That the Sorting Hat had believed sending him to Slytherin was a good idea was something he never told the old man. It was his secret and no one else's. If Dumbledore thought his silence to be strange as Harry stood in his office, he said nothing of it.
It couldn't be helped that he found so many similarities between himself and Riddle. He didn't know what to feel about the strange Head Boy and his aspirations. Harry felt the darkness inside him for the first time but it was pushed away by one single thought: he'd saved someone's life. Even if he did nothing of himself for the rest of his days, the fact was that there was an innocent young girl walking this Earth who would've died if Harry hadn't lived past that fateful Halloween. He supposed that making Lucius Malfoy lose the house elf that had almost killed Harry before made him feel stronger and more confident. Strange how some things had stopped affecting him at this point while others – like being able to give Mr. Malfoy the smuggest, most vindictive smirk – was suddenly so much more important. The fact that a couple of friendly words were enough to make the elf practical worship him didn't feel too bad either.
Harry accepted the pats on his shoulder, the well-wishers' words at the Platform in London, the beautiful smiles. They seemed to think it was normal that he rarely smiled back, pointing out that he'd been through so much this year ("poor kid!") and conveniently ignored who'd put him through hell for most of it. Harry watched them, remembered and judged them all in his head. And found them guilty. Of disloyalty, of cruelty, of stupidity, of ineptitude. He kept his friends close. The loyal ones, the only people who mattered. And he found that was enough for now.
Two days into his holidays he realized something else. Malfoy might never had targeted the school with his vile object had Harry not been there. In a way. That meant. That it was all his fault. Right? A good number of people had almost died because of him and it was only through sheer dumb luck that none of the petrified students – and cat – hadn't lost their lives because someone thought it would be interesting to release a giant snake while Harry was at school. And if he could figure it out, surely so would the closest people to him as well. They probably had already and secretly blamed him.