"So, um, Draco," Harry said as they and some of the other Slytherin first-years made their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast one day. "I gotta ask some things."
"Again?" complained Blaise. Pansy cuffed him on the back of the head and he gave her a glare but didn't protest any more.
"Go ahead," said the Malfoy boy.
"Why don't they say You-Know-Who's name?" Harry asked.
"He cursed it," Draco replied.
"He cursed… a word?"
"A name, actually. His own; that's how it works. An old spell, to find out if people are talking about you behind your back. The Dark Lord must have repurposed it. But to cast it over all of Magical Britain… if you said the name, the Death Eaters found you within minutes. Eventually, people learned to respect the man."
"Why so many titles? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, You-Know-Who, The Dark Lord, maybe others as well?"
Draco shrugged. "Fashion, I suppose. There were multiple sides during the war, you know."
Harry found himself not wanting to know where Draco's people had stood during that time.
"Using one name or the other could be a political statement," the boy continued, "but for most of us, it's really just habit. You grow up hearing history one way, and then it just sticks." He paused for a moment. "You probably shouldn't ask questions like that too loudly, though. Politics can be… divisive."
"Maybe we could draw him up a list of rules of etiquette?" offered Pansy gently.
"Please," said Harry.
"I suppose we could," said Draco. "Enough to keep the awkwardness at bay around members of other Houses, at least."
A list never materialized in written form, but over breakfast, Harry was inundated with a litany of rules, and he felt even more awkward obeying them, no matter how much the others claimed it was second nature to them. Hold the fork in the wrong hand, continental-style. This hand was for muggles, the knife went in the other one. Don't leave your wand out on the table while eating, it's a legal provocation to duel the person across from you if he suspects you just poisoned his drink. And for the love of Merlin, if someone sneezes, do not say "Bless you". You'll just sound like some poor ignorant Muggle.
Harry kept visiting the library during his off hours, trying desperately to brush up on the culture of his new home. Maybe he'd never fit in, but he could stand out less—or at least, stand out for being Harry the Boy-Who-Lived, not for being Harry the Muggle-raised Halfblood. So he read newspapers (apparently someone named Celestina Warbeck was in a highly public legal battle over a previous marriage whose divorce papers may or may not have arrived in time from a foreign country whose ceremony may or may not be recognized by certain authorities anyway), he read a how-to guide for Muggleborns trying to acclimatize themselves (this book had the most promise but delivered the least, since it was written by a pureblood witch and contained such useless advice as "be prepared to be amazed by wizard technology—leave behind your steamboats and telegraphs, and prepare for the broom and floo!"), and Harry read history books.
Never one to ask questions in class, Harry wasn't about to start now, but he noticed that he was one of the only ones who actually paid any attention to Professor Binns. Sure, the man was dull, but even hearing about goblin rebellions provided so much context to the rest of Harry's magical experience. No wonder the employees of Gringotts had been so cold to Harry; how else would they treat the wunderkind who was responsible for dismantling the Death Eaters? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named hadn't exactly been pro-goblin, but he wasn't anti-goblin either, and anything that shortened the Wizarding Civil War must have been an unwelcome event in their eyes. And the history of house-elves was particularly fascinating. Apparently they were descended from a race of wood elves (which in turn may or may not have been related to some theorized ancestral elf-goblin hybrid), and while their magic was largely orthogonal to humans', there had been some recorded instances of elfin wand usage in the early Middle Ages, before the subjugation of the minor races. Hermione seemed particularly interested at this part, but then again, she took copious notes in every class.
Speaking of Hermione, she was in the library every day as well. For the first two days, she insisted on moving tables whenever he sat down, but after day three, she grudgingly allowed him to sit across from her on the first try. Harry noticed that she read books on every subject, but mostly on spellwork. He had the momentary thought that she would have been a nice friend, not just for her temperament but because she was so good at everything, and a voice inside his head noted drily how Slytherin a thought that was, but on the whole, he was probably happier with Draco and the others on his side. In fact, he realized with a feeling of both alarm and heart-melting warmth, he hadn't had to escape from any bullies since arriving. No, people seemed afraid of him. They skirted around him in the halls, most didn't make eye contact, and, well, Hermione here was exhibit A, wasn't she?
Harry caught sight of the title that she was reading. Curses and their Counters: A Practical Guide. That reminded him of something Professor Quirrel had mentioned in class. "So, what is the Curse of the Bogies, anyway?" he asked her. When Hermione didn't respond, Harry repeated the question, but then left it alone. He kept reading his magazine (apparently the Weird Sisters were a troupe of men?), and it wasn't until much later, when Hermione was on her way out, that she said to him something that sounded like "Malefactum," and she was completely gone before he realized it was probably the incantation for that spell.
Harry and Hermione didn't talk much during their encounters in the library, but he took her continued presence as a positive sign. She had been slightly insufferable on the train, but ultimately, she wasn't malicious, and Harry couldn't help but feel for her. Surely she had to have noticed she had no friends, and even if that didn't bother her, well, he'd been in that situation himself plenty often.
So it was with a bit of worry in his heart that he noticed one day that Hermione was nowhere to be found. She was in the Library every day, without fail, but now she wasn't here; come to think of it, she hadn't been in History class that day, either. Maybe she was just sick or something? It was a poor excuse, but Harry couldn't think of anything else that it could be.
But then he didn't see her at the Great Hall at dinner that evening. I hope she's all right, Harry thought. Despite her being a Gryffindor, he kind of liked the girl. She was a little different from the others, and if she got picked on sometimes, it only made Harry think of himself in some ways.
"You all right, Harry?" asked Draco, no doubt wondering why he was so forlornly staring at the Gryffindor table, of all things.
Harry managed a weak grin. "Yeah. Fine."
He was saved from having to explain himself any further when the doors burst open and in came the screaming figure of Professor Quirrel.
"Troll! Troll! In the dungeons! Thought you ought to know." And the man fainted on the spot.
The Great Hall erupted into chaos, children screaming and dropping their food, heading for the door (as though it were any safer outside than in).
"SILENCE!" roared the voice of Albus Dumbledore, and the student body came to attention. "Prefects, lead your houses to the dormitories. Teachers, follow me to the dungeons."
The Houses lined up and filed through the doors, and once they'd left the Great Hall well behind, Marcus Flint held up a hand for them to stop. "As a few of you noticed," and here he glared at a couple particularly insistent sixth-years, "those troll-infested dungeons are obviously where our Common Room is. We can't stay in the Great Hall, as we're under orders to leave, and so we'll go to the Common Room as told—but I think we'll just get lost on some of the upper floors for an hour first. You know how the castle likes to change."
A couple of the younger Slytherins smiled in appreciation, and Flint directed them to ascend the next staircase they could find.
It was about fifteen minutes later, somewhere on one of the upper levels (they'd just passed a girls' bathroom), when a horrid smell came down the corridor behind them. Now, there were smells, and there were bad smells, and Harry being the one to do most of the chores at his aunt and uncle's house had a certain familiarity with both types, but Aunt Petunia never even let the garbage smell this bad; in fact, the only smells this pungent tended to come from the dumpsters from which Harry had never scavenged dinner no matter how hungry he'd ever got (although not for lack of temptation).
Someone screamed.
Immediately, Flint let out a crack from his wand, shouted for the Slytherins to follow him down the corridor, and quickly, and the entire House chased off after him.
"Wait," Harry said a moment later, just realizing the scream had come from behind them, not from among them, and grabbed the arm of the nearest person he could find. "There's someone in that bathroom." He dashed around the corner.
"In there? At this time? I really don' think—oh, Merlin's sake—" and Pansy and Draco came around the corner behind him.
The scream issued again, this time louder, and the sound of something breaking echoed from within the bathroom.
"Just leave it," Draco said, his voice getting desperate. "There's nothing we can do. Do you want to die?!"
But Harry had already opened the door to the bathroom, and inside was a colossal twelve-foot humanoid, gray and small-headed, smashing sinks and stalls one by one with a man-sized club.
This time it was Pansy who grabbed Harry's arm. "Come on!" she hissed in his ear. "You absolute idiot! You're going to get us killed!"
But Harry wasn't having any of it. There was someone in there, he was sure of it. What else was the troll going for? Overpowering Pansy, he took another step into the room, and caught sight of Hermione Granger, pressed against the far wall, a look of horror fixed upon her face. As the troll raised its club to strike, Harry grabbed a broken piece of sink near him and lobbed it at the back of the thing's head. Slowly, the troll turned, a confused expression on its face, wondering how the little girl had hit it on the back when she was so clearly facing its front, only to discover a second set up little humans on its other side. It took a long look and grinned.
"Damn it!" Draco said, and he and Pansy dragged Harry out into the corridor. The troll advanced on them slowly, and once it had backed them against the wall—they could outrun its legs, but the reach of its long arms kept them from going around—it raised its club once more, and Pansy shrieked and covered her eyes with both hands.
"Noceo!" came a voice from beside them, and a thin jet of black light struck the troll directly on the fist. When nothing appeared to have happened, it simply grunted and chuckled, but a moment later, it stared at its own hand, and everyone present realized that the first two fingers on its hand were dissolved clean away. Next to him, Draco gasped, and Harry took no time in repeating whatever incantation the stranger had uttered.
Harry's aim was relatively good, and another bolt took off two more fingers.
"Stop!" Draco called out, panicked. "Stop! You're hurting yourself!" He swatted at Harry's wand arm, which was beginning to bleed. Then, giving up on distraction, Draco physically wrested the wand out of Harry's hand and led him away from the troll's side.
One more Noceo, and the last finger went; the troll was still staring confusedly at its own hand when, nothing holding it up any longer, the club fell of its own accord and smashed into the troll's head. Poleaxed, it fell to the floor in a heap with a giant crash.
Harry leaped forwards over the body. "Are you all right?" he asked the bathroom's occupant.
"I-I think so," Hermione squeaked.
"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me," said the stranger, and Harry turned to find that it was Theodore Nott, the long-haired boy from breakfast.
"What?"
"You risked us all for this Muggle?"
"She's not a Muggle," protested Harry. "She's a witch!"
"Close enough," spat Theo, but Draco wasn't having any of it. "Politics later," he said, livid. "Especially yours, Harry. Now let's get out of here before anyone notices, all right?"
Harry barely had enough time to send Hermione one pitying glance before his friends dragged him out of the hallway and through a secret passageway into a tunnel down that brought them to the dungeons. It was fortunate they left when they did, too, as Harry heard the heavy sounds of adult feet in the hall behind them as soon as they made it down the tunnel.