Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (as you should all realise by now).

A Change of Identity

Chapter 21: Lonely in a Crowd

By the time the term was a month old Harry was thoroughly depressed. He couldn't walk along corridors without hearing snide comments about him from the other students. The Gryffindors were not guilty of it; they evidently had too much sense than to ignore their head of house's warning about bullying Harry. But the other houses, Slytherin in particular had no such qualms. And neither were the Slytherins above casting the odd hex in Harry's direction whenever they could get away with it, which seemed to be quite often. Harry resisted the temptation to retaliate, knowing he would be risking expulsion if he was caught. However, he knew that one of these days he was likely to snap. He was completely friendless since his housemates would only have anything to do with him if absolutely necessary, such as when someone had to partner him in class. He'd gone down to Hagrid's hut one day, with the intention of taking up the gamekeepers offer to come and talk to him if he wanted to. Unfortunately Granger and Weasley were there already and Harry had had to go back to the castle.

Harry knew that Hagrid was distressed over an incident which had happened when he'd been teaching the third year Gryffindors and Slytherins. Malfoy had insulted a hippogriff and the creature had broken his arm. Consequently the said hippogriff was under threat of execution. It seemed that Weasley and Granger had taken it upon themselves to help with Buckbeak's defence and consequently spent large periods of time with Hagrid. Personally Harry didn't care if there was one less hippogriff in the world or not. But a side effect of the incident was that Malfoy was making the most of his injured arm- which Harry was pretty certain Madam Pomfrey had healed immediately. Whenever they were in Potions Malfoy would claim to need help preparing ingredients. Every time he did this, Snape would order Harry to do whatever was needed, even if it meant Harry's own potion was neglected as a result. On three occasions Harry's potion had been completely ruined through no fault of his own and Snape had given him extra homework as a result. Harry was finding it hard to quell the thoughts of revenge which were resurfacing. Normally he was good at potions since he had grown up hearing about them.

Harry's work was suffering too. True, his written work was all good. But he was having trouble with his wand work. He knew what the problem was of course. He was well aware of how a wizard's magic is closely related to his state of mind. And being depressed as he was, was no help to performing magic. Professor Flitwick kept piling extra homework on him, telling Harry that he needed to work harder at the theory in order to do the practical. His father on the other hand had left Harry alone. Harry was sure that he was going to ask Harry about his problems soon and wasn't looking forward to it. Even with Snape he'd never been one for talking about his feelings much and he certainly didn't feel ready to do so with a father who had only recently accepted him as his son.

Harry managed to last until the second week in October before he lost control. He was walking along a corridor after classes on the Friday afternoon when he heard Malfoy behind him talking loudly about the approaching Quidditch season.

'Of course, Slytherin are bound to win the cup again,' he was saying. 'Mind you, perhaps the Gryffindors will be pleased since my broom used to belong to one of them. They'll feel they have a share in the victory.'

'Expelliarmus!'

The thing which really annoyed Harry was that McGonagall had disarmed him before he'd got his curse out. If he was going to be in trouble he at least wanted something to show for it. By the time the defence teacher had marched him to his father's office Harry was fuming. Then he had to stand outside for ten minutes while she gave her report. By the time McGonagall emerged and Harry's father beckoned him into the office he felt as if he just wanted to smash a few things.

'Sit down.' Harry did so, staring defiantly at his father who returned his gaze steadily for a minute before speaking.

'Do you realise, Harry, that had you actually managed to curse Malfoy before Professor McGonagall intervened you might well have been expelled? You do remember the warning the headmaster gave you at the end of last term?'

'Maybe I don't care anymore.' Harry looked down at the desk, aware of a slight tremble to his voice which gave lie to his comment.

'And maybe you do care. I know you are being provoked rather a lot these days. But you cannot afford to lose control of yourself.'

'I've been trying!' Harry snapped back at him.

'I know,' replied his father softly. 'But it doesn't seem to be enough, does it?.'

Harry made no reply to this. He knew he couldn't keep going as he was but he couldn't think that there was anything his father could do about it. There was silence for some time and then Harry became aware that his father seemed to be rummaging in a draw of his desk. After a minute he brought out something and passed it across to Harry.

'Take this,' he said. "This" seemed to be a large piece of silvery cloth. As Harry tentatively took it an end of it covered his left hand. To Harry's astonishment, both his hand and that section of cloth seemed to have disappeared. Suddenly he realised what it was. He looked up at his father, hardly able to believe that he would give him something so valuable as an invisibility cloak.

'It's been in our family for years.' said his father. Normally it gets passed on to the eldest son when he begins Hogwarts. I think its high time you had it. I wouldn't advise you to use it for rule breaking at present, but if you can move around the school without being seen you should have an easier time of things.'

Harry left his father's office hidden by the cloak and managed to make his way back to his dormitory without running into any trouble. Over the next couple of weeks he discovered that if they could not actually see him, the other students didn't bother to talk about him. It seemed that they only did so to annoy him when he was within earshot. But although the cloak gave Harry respite from the constant taunting and, in the Slytherins' case hexing, it did nothing to ease Harry's loneliness. In truth, Harry had felt a lot less isolated during his long punishment. Being surrounded by people, none of whom wanted anything to do with him was far harder to cope with than being segregated.

Harry spent quite a lot of time thinking about his father. He was beginning to think that the man had a fair bit of sense. He wasn't trying to push Harry into confiding in him but was trying to help him out as best he could. But the invisibility cloak meant a lot more to Harry than just a means of hiding. It was a family heirloom. Professor Potter would not have given it to Harry unless he truly thought of him as his son. For the very first time since his identity had changed Harry felt a sense of belonging that mere legalities and pronouncements could not achieve. He might not have a proper father-son relationship yet but he was part of a family. And there was one other point. His father had told him not to use the cloak for rule breaking "at present". It suggested that at some stage he did in fact expect that Harry would use it for just that purpose. That meant that he thought Harry would one day be in a position where he could afford to think about breaking rules. Harry couldn't imagine that time arriving in the near future but he hoped that his father was correct. It would be quite nice to be normal.

Halloween came and lessons were suspended for the day. Almost all the school who were in third year or above queued up to leave the school to go to Hogsmeade. Harry was quite glad not to have to go through that ordeal. First you had to wait while Filch checked his long list of those with permission to go. After that you had to pass the two Dementors stationed outside the front gates. Harry still shivered at the memory of what the dementor had done to him. Instead he spent most of the day in the library. In the evening he decided to skip the feast. He could just about cope at normal mealtimes with cold looks and no one talking to him but he didn't want that experience on what should be an occasion for celebration. Instead he just wandered around the school. Eventually he heard the thundering of hundreds of feet telling him that the feast was over and he went into an empty classroom, standing at the window staring out at nothing, waiting for the corridors to clear again. Suddenly the classroom door opened. This didn't concern Harry. He had his cloak on and there was no reason for anyone to come near his window. But suddenly, at the same moment as he heard a locking spell performed on the door, someone grabbed Harry by the shoulder and the hood of his cloak slipped off his head. Harry turned around and saw the menacing looks. He was in trouble.