AN: I wanted to thank everyone for reading/following the story. It means a lot. I don't read all the reviews right away because I am still having a little trouble writing what I want when I get a negative one. I'm sorry if I confused anyone with the relationships in this one. I updated it in the description. I figured that I had a couple years to play with before things had to be set if I wanted to stay true to cannon, something I am not sure about yet. Anyway, it's more fun than I thought it would be to play in this wonderful world that we all love. Thanks again.
2 September, 1998, Hogwarts
"What did you do to him?!" Pansy screamed.
"I didn't do anything to him, I found him this way!" Harry responded.
"Sure you did!" Pansy said as she ran over and pushed Harry to the side as kneeled next to Draco's limp form. "You were just waiting for a time that he was alone so you could attack him!"
"If I wanted to hurt Draco I would have already done it. I had more than enough opportunities before." Harry said back as he brushed himself off. "Besides, I wouldn't have sent a Patronus for Madam Pomfrey if I had attacked him." Harry said reasonably.
"How do we know you didn't do that to cover yourself Potter?" Harry spun as he saw Theodore Nott moving slowly towards him with his wand already drawn. Harry hadn't noticed Nott arrive with Pansy.
"Put that wand away Mr. Nott!" Madam Pomfrey commanded as she entered to corridor. She was followed by professors McGonagall and Slughorn. "We don't need any more foolishness here today."
Nott grumbled as he slowly put his wand back in his robes. Pansy also had an extremely upset look oh her face, though whether is was because Nott didn't get to hex Harry or because Draco was laying bloodied on the floor he couldn't tell.
"Potter, tell me what happened here." the Headmistress said.
"I had just finished with Defense and I was walking back to the common room before dinner and I found Draco in a heap here on the floor." Harry explained.
"Liar!" Pansy shouted. "Defense was over 20 minutes ago. Why were you just coming now? You just wanted to get Draco alone so you could do this! Who knows what you would have done if I hadn't come looking for him!"
Headmistress McGonagall gave Pansy a sharp look put quickly turned her gaze to Harry and said, "Why were you so late coming from class Potter?"
Harry turned his eyes to the floor before saying, "Ginny and I have been having some problems. I wanted to talk to her after class but Professor Weasely kept her late for some reason so I sat outside and waited for her."
Their attention was taken away from Harry when they heard Madam Pomfrey mutter, "That is odd. These wounds weren't made by magic. Someone beat this boy with their bare hands." She quickly stood up and continued. "Well I need to get him up to the hospital wing to get him fixed up."
"I'll come with you Madam." Professor Slughorn said. He looked like he was at a loss of what else to do.
"Will he be alright?" Pansy asked.
"He will be fine. This will be no problem to get sorted out. The bigger problem will be finding out who would do this." Pomfrey said as she levitated Draco and headed away.
After they were gone Pansy turned back to Harry and said in a menacing voice. "I'll get you for this Potter. You just can't stand someone being better than you so you had to ambush him and beat him like a filthy Muggle."
"Miss Parkinson! That is quite enough! There is no evidence that Mr. Potter did this. If he had beat Mr. Malfoy as badly as he is than his hands and robes would be covered in a fair amount of blood. Also, as you said you came around the corner and saw him standing over Mr. Malfoy without performing any kind of cleansing spells I think it is clear that he had nothing to do with it. He did send his patronus after all to get help." the Headmistress finished with a slightly sympathetic tone.
"Whatever." Pansy huffed. "I know he had something to do with it. Come on Theodore. Let's make sure Draco is ok." Pansy said as she turned and walked away.
"I'll be seeing you Potter." Nott said menacingly.
"Great, just what I need. Another Slytherin after me. This is turning out to be a great year." Harry mumbled to himself although not quietly enough for McGonagall to here.
"Now, now Harry." she said as she patted him on the shoulder as they started to walk toward Gryffindor tower. "You did everything correctly. You called for help when you saw someone hurt and didn't over react when you were provoked. You did everything you should have done." McGonagall said with a smile before she continued. "Are you sure you didn't see anyone leaving the corridor when you came upon Malfoy?"
"No Headmistress. I was kind of upset with how things ended with Ginny but I think I would have seen someone running by me. They must have heard us arguing and left the other direction."
"That's was my thinking as well. Thank you Harry for everything. I do think it would be a good idea for you to stay out of the Slytherin common room for a few days however. Who knows how those two will try and stir things up towards you. I know you did nothing wrong but some prejudices die hard. It doesn't hurt to be careful." the Headmistress finished as they reached the staircases that led up to the common room. "Off you go now, and do keep your eyes open."
"Yes ma'am." Harry smiled at his former head of house. "I'll do my best."
As Harry walked up the steps he thought about all that had happened today. He had surprisingly good lessons and had learned a lot. Unfortunately his personal life was still a mess. So that was par for the course. He didn't want to have to worry about someone attacking students even if for now the only person attacked was Malfoy.
Luckily the common room and dormitories were free of students. He was treasuring these last few minutes of quiet. He was sure the story was already spreading through the student body and he would be bombarded with questions when he made it down to the Great Hall. 'Oh well. No point putting off the inevitable.' he thought to himself as he made his way down to dinner. Even though he was somewhat used to being stared at and whispered he had never been able to completely shut it out. He had assumed that was behind him, well the staring and whispering bad things any way.
Harry walked into the Great Hall with his head down. He hoped that with dinner in full swing most of the students wouldn't notice him. It worked for a bit but by the time he reached the Gryffindor table and found his friends a great deal of the student body was looking in his direction. As he sat down and mumbled hello to his friends he chanced a look around and was a bit surprised by what he saw. There weren't many dirty looks coming his way. In fact a great deal of them were actually smiling at him. He even got a couple of thumbs up.
"Did you really beat up Malfoy?" Ron asked around a mouthful of food. "I would have loved to have gotten in on that. Why didn't you tell me you were going to jump him?"
Harry turned to his friend with a slightly confused look on his face. Before he could retort however Hermione interjected, "Of course Harry didn't beat Draco. How could you even think something like that?" She turned to Harry and quietly asked "You didn't beat him did you?"
"Of course I didn't beat up Malfoy. How could you think I would even do that? I might not like him much but if I wanted him hurt we had a couple of opportunities last year to do that. You were there Ron, remember?" Harry said a bit more forcefully than he wanted to.
Everyone around Harry looked a little ashamed after his outburst. It was loud enough that most of the Hall heard him say it. It didn't take long for everyone to go back to their normal conversations.
"Well what did happen then?" Neville asked. "I heard he was beat pretty badly."
"I was just walking back to the common room after defense when I found him. He was slumped up against a wall. And yes, he was beat pretty badly. The odd thing was that there was no magic used. He was physically beat."
"Well he was terrible to muggle-borns. Maybe one of them decided it was time to teach him a lesson." Dean said.
"I didn't see or hear anything before I found him. It could be someone in our defense class or someone with a free period right before that was waiting for him." Harry said.
He looked over at the Slytherin table. Nott and a couple of the older students were shooting the occasional dirty glance over at Harry but the rest of the table was talking amongst themselves. Actually the glaring group was a bit isolated from the rest. Harry wondered what that was about.
"Why were you so far behind us after class Harry?" Neville asked.
"I tried to have another talk with Ginny." Harry said rather dejectedly. "It didn't go well at all. She still wants to break up. I guess we really are done."
"Don't worry mate, I'm sure she'll come around." Ron said as he patted Harry on the back.
"I don't know Ron, you know she can be stubborn. I'm not sure what else I can do. Trying to talk to her about it again doesn't seem like the best idea. It'll just make it harder. Besides, I can't have her hating me. I want to play quidditch again and I can't have the captain pissed at me."
"There is no way she would keep you off the team! Is there?" Ron asked.
"I don't think Ginny would be that vindictive. She wants the best team and Harry is the best Seeker. I think Harry is right for now though. It wouldn't do to make her more upset though." Hermione said.
"Thanks Hermione." Harry said.
Harry went back to his dinner feeling a little better. He was still upset about everything with Ginny but at least it didn't look like everyone thought he was behind the attack on Malfoy. Thank Merlin for the little things.
"Excuse me Harry. Might we have a word?"
Harry looked up from his dinner to see Daphne, Meg and Astoria standing behind him.
"Oi! What do you lot want?" Ron shouted at the three Slytherin girls.
"Ron! Honestly! Control yourself!" Herimone shouted as she elbowed her boyfriend in the ribs.
Daphne gave Hermione a thankful nod and looked back at Harry before continuing. "We just wanted you to know that we don't think you attacked Draco." as she motioned to the other two girls. "In fact most of the house doesn't. We were hoping to turn things around in Slytherin this year. We didn't want this to get out of hand between our houses before the year even gets going."
"Thanks for coming over and telling me Daphne. It's nice to know someone is trying to make a change. Do you know how Draco is doing?" Harry asked.
"We haven't heard anything yet. Nott came down dinner but wouldn't say much. Pansy won't leave his side of course." Daphne snorted. "I'm not sure Draco will be happy about that. He seems more annoyed with her than normal since we got on the train yesterday."
"What does it matter how Malfoy is doing?" Ron mumbled. "He's a git and will always be a git. Somebody beat him up, big deal. He's done more to demean, belittle and terrorize anyone that wasn't in Slytherin for the past 7 years. Maybe he will finally learn his lesson."
"Ronald! How can you even think that? Draco may not be the nicest person but no one deserves to be beat like that. I know we just finished a war but that doesn't mean that violence is the answer! You sound just like he did all those years. It's time to start letting it go and move on." Hermione finished. Turning to Daphne and Meg she said, "Are you ready to get started?"
"Where are you going with them?" Ron asked.
"None of your business! I was going to let you in on what we will be working on but after your comments tonight I think I'll just make you wait to find out just like everyone else." Hermione said with her chin up in the air. Harry knew that look. It was the 'No matter what you do I'm not saying anything' look. It was usually reserved for when Harry and Ron asked to look at her homework but it looked like she was branching out what she would use it for.
"Let's go ask McGonagall first." Daphne said. "It won't do any good to work on this and go through all the trouble if she won't even let us use it when we are done."
"Good idea Daphne." Hermione agreed. With that she got up from the table and started to walk up to the head table without even a second look back at Ron. This was the first time that Hermione had really gone off on him in quite a while. He seemed to have forgotten how to respond as he was still sitting there with his mouth hanging open. At least it wasn't full of food.
"Mate, you might want to rethink some things." Harry said to Ron, and to the table in general. "We all might. You might not know this but Draco had the chance to turn the three of us in when we were at Malfoy Manor. He recognized me even though my face was messed up from a jinx that Hermione put on me to try and disguise me. He lied to his aunt and that gave us the time to get help and escape. Then he could have killed me in the Room of Requirement when we were looking for the Diadem but he didn't then either. His mother even lied to Voldemort's face and said that I was dead. None of the Malfoy's took part in the final fight. They were just trying to find each other."
Looking back at Ron he continued, "If we let our hate and past prejudices determine how our lives then we are not better than the ones that tried to kill us for the last 3 years."
Harry looked around the table and was heartened to see that everyone that heard him seemed to be at least thinking about what he said. He started to get up from the table when he glanced behind him. It looked like he had a bigger audience than he relized. There were quite a few from the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables that had overheard what he had been saying to his friends. As he made his way out of the Great Hall he received more than a couple nods. Well if there was going to be any kind of shift in thought maybe it could start now.