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Harry didn't remain long at Hagrid's after Umbridge left. He had a niggling feeling that she would be waiting for him, watching as he walked back for the slightest infraction. She hadn't given him a detention since he had stormed out of the room but Harry knew that wouldn't last forever. Soon enough she would get frustrated by his attitude towards her and snap. It was just a matter of time.

The Slytherin common room was a large burst of silver and green and a couple of fireworks exploding near the ceiling. Harry froze at the sudden burst of noise and color that overwhelmed his senses and it took a couple of seconds for him to process what was happening.

"SLYTHERIN WON!" Pansy shrieked upon seeing Harry enter the common room. She grabbed his arm and dragged him further into the room, forcing him to be fully surrounded by the exuberant celebrations.

"Yeah, I gathered that," Harry responded dryly as he tugged his arm out of Pansy's grip. "This seems like a bigger celebration than I remember other matches being."

Pansy rolled her eyes. "Blame Malfoy. After winning his first match as Quidditch Captain—something that hasn't been managed in quite a few years, mind you—he insisted on a large celebration. Want a butterbeer?"

Harry snorted. "Typical," he said but nodded as a reply to Pansy's question. She grabbed his arm again and pulled him over to a study table that was being used to serve refreshments. She quickly passed him a butterbeer from the quickly dwindling supply.

"Anyways, where were you? When we didn't see you in here, Draco was almost frantic at the thought you might have decided to go to the match anyways."

"While I can now fly without something life-threatening happening to me or those flying with me, Quidditch still doesn't interest me. I went to see Hagrid. He's back."

Pansy's grin dimmed a bit. "Does that mean he's taking over Care of Magical Creatures again?" she asked.

"Yes, and Umbridge will probably be inspecting one of his first classes," Harry said. Pansy grimaced.

"I hope he gets to meet her beforehand," she said. "He's not my favorite person—don't give me that look, Potter. I'm allowed to have opinions—but no one should face her inspections without at least meeting that dreadful woman. I'm starting to question if she's even a woman. I've seen hags with better fashion sense than her."

Harry chuckled. "Mutated toad?" he suggested. Pansy shrieked with laughter.

"A transfiguration project gone wrong," she agreed. "Drink up! Join in the celebrations, even if you don't care about the reason why we're celebrating. Everyone needs a break right now."

To appease Pansy, Harry raised the bottle, tilting it towards her in a small salute and took a few obligatory sips. It must have satisfied her because Pansy turned her attention on to someone else and left Harry alone for a few minutes.

The teen surveyed the room, easily spotting his yearmates. Many of them were in the center of the room, supporting Draco and celebrating his win. A few were off to the side, like Tracey and Blaise and Daphne and Theo.

Harry's eyes had skimmed over Daphne and Theo, taking note of their presence but a few heartbeats afterwards, they had snapped back to the pair. They were standing quite close, almost embracing, and seemed to be leaning closer and closer until—

Yep. That was a kiss.

Harry averted his eyes once it became apparent that neither Daphne nor Theo were going to pull apart any time soon. He purposefully kept his gaze away from the portion of the wall they were standing against, not quite ready to be confronted with that sight for a second time.

"Are you okay?"

Harry jumped as Tracey spoke up from behind him. He turned to face her and held in a sigh as he realized she wasn't looking directly at him but rather over his shoulder in the direction of Daphne and Theo.

"I'm fine," he said quickly. Apparently too quickly as Tracey frowned at his answer.

"I thought you and her were a couple," she said, gesturing in Daphne's direction.

"Last year," Harry replied. "Mostly for appearances."

"I realized that," Tracey said in a dry tone. "Especially when you didn't mention that her to anyone this summer. Still, I wanted to make sure you're okay. I wasn't sure how invested you were into that partial relationship."

"Partial?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You just admitted that it was for appearances' sake," Tracey said. "I'm not going to call it an actual relationship, especially since I'm pretty sure nothing happened besides a few kisses on the cheeks and holding hands. Remember, I know you too well."

Harry grimaced. "I don't know how to feel about that," he said. "But I'm fine. Why would I be bothered by what they're doing? I never had any real feelings for Daphne."

"Is that why you can't look in their direction?" Tracey asked before shrugging and walking away when Harry gaped at her.

As much as Harry wanted to act like he didn't care what Daphne did or didn't do, the truth was that he was hurt and he was surprised by how much he was hurt.

And that was why he had asked Daphne for a heads up before she decided to officially end things. Then he could have avoided her for a few days until he had time to process the situation and brace himself for any unexpected emotions. He had hoped that Daphne would at least honor his request but apparently she hadn't.

Harry downed the rest of his butterbeer in a few large gulps before he wandered away to find some place to discard the empty bottle. He found the rubbish pile in one of the far, rarely used corners of the common room, where a first year was sitting alone.

"Don't feel like celebrating?" he asked Sarah Entwhistle, who appeared to be finishing up some homework.

"No," she said simply, barely noting his presence.

"Did you go watch the Quidditch match?" Harry asked, trying to engage the girl. He didn't like the fact that she was sitting alone, off in a corner. It felt wrong, especially when no one else in the room was sitting by themselves.

"Yes. It was boring," Sarah replied. "All sports are boring to watch. I'd much rather be doing something that I can actually participate in."

"You could participate in the celebrations," Harry suggested. Sarah finally looked up at him and blew out some air.

"They scored lots of points and someone caught a tiny ball to earn more points. What's there to celebrate?"

Harry couldn't help but chuckle.

"It does seem silly when you put it that way," he admitted. "But some people get passionate about things that seem silly to others."

"I suppose," Sarah admitted reluctantly.

"What about you?" Harry asked. "What are you passionate about?"

"I want to own my own business," Sarah said, ducking her head slightly.

"That's pretty cool. What kind of business?" Harry asked.

Sarah gave a small pout. "I don't know any more," she said. "I was starting to come up with ideas but then I got my Hogwarts letter and everything changed. There's a lot more that can be done with magic."

"Magic's pretty world changing, isn't it?"

Sarah nodded.

"It's hard though sometimes with my parents," she said quietly. "They don't completely understand magic and my brother can't show them because apparently it's against the rules to use magic in the summer."

Harry chuckled at Sarah's put out expression. "Do they like magic?" he asked.

Sarah bobbed her head. "They think it's fascinating," she said. "But they just get frustrated when they can't explain something about the magical world or help us with our homework. They think that parents are supposed to be able to help with those things but they can't."

"What do—"

"Potter!"

Harry snapped his head around as someone shouting his name cut off the question he was about to ask. He sighed and stood up when he saw a group of sixth and seventh year girls waving him over. Glancing at Sarah revealed that she had already gone back to her homework and ignoring everything around her.

"We're starting to get worried about you, Potter," one of the girls said as Harry approached the group. He raised an eyebrow as he waited for them to continue. He had never really interacted with the older students in Slytherin, besides the Prefects occasionally, so he wasn't sure what this might be about.

"You've been hanging out with mudbloods a lot. We're getting concerned about the way you've been handling yourself. It's not Slytherin-like at all."

Harry internally groaned as the leader of the group of girls started talking. She was a seventh-year, one that had tolerated Malfoy during the first few years and even encouraged his anti-muggleborn and anti-Gryffindor and Hufflepuff comments.

"Granger we could understand somewhat, since everyone knows she has a tendency to cling on to anyone who is the slightest bit nice to her, but you shouldn't be concerning yourself with the house abomination. She's not going to make it here. Everyone can see that."

The other girls were nodding in agreement while Harry gave them a tired look. He rubbed his scar in frustration before he turned away from the group and stalked away. He was tempted to go sit by Sarah to prove that he wasn't going to listen to them but he didn't want to bring any hardship onto her. So far Sarah's life in Slytherin house had been relatively peaceful and smooth and he didn't want the first year to be targeted because of him.

"What kind of nonsense were they spouting off?" Tracey asked when Harry sat down on the sofa between her and Blaise.

"How do you know they were spouting off nonsense?" Harry asked.

"I know that look on your face. And I know them. The years tend to mingle a lot more in the privacy of dorms—at least among us girls. They're utterly ridiculous and don't have a lot of friends outside their group, even among Slytherin house. So what nonsense were they telling you?"

Harry sighed. "They don't think I've been keeping the right company."

Both Tracey and Blaise laughed.

"You're one of the last people who needs to worry about that," Blaise said. "A person only needs to worry about their connections when they need to make a name for themselves. You made your name and place in history a long time ago."

"And it's caused enough misery and headaches for three lifetimes," Harry said. "Being famous isn't all that it's cocked up to be."

Both Blaise and Tracey laughed and the trio sat in silence for a moment. Harry shifted uncomfortably as he felt eyes on him and when he looked around, he saw the same group of girls staring at him, silently judging.

"Ignore them," Tracey said. "You can afford to ignore them. They don't know what they're talking about half the time. Honestly, I think they're just wondering how you got Sorted into Slytherin."

"What?" Harry asked.

Tracey shrugged. "You haven't noticed? You're not like the typical Slytherin—which isn't a bad thing necessarily. But it makes it difficult to pin you down or predict what you'll do next to those outside of our year. They don't know what drives you or what your goals are and it makes them edgy."

"I'm fine with that," Harry decided. Blaise muffled a snort of laughter at his attitude before passing a butterbeer and a cauldron cake over to Harry from a pile he and Tracey had claimed for themselves.

"Settle in," Blaise told Harry. "This party is going to last for a couple more hours."


The celebrations over the weekend had taken Harry's mind off of Umbridge and her growing control over the school but it wasn't to last. At breakfast on Monday, she was sitting at the head table in bright pink robes that would have put Lockhart's flashy collection to shame and the color was seared into Harry's mind for the rest of the day. He lost count of the amount of times throughout the day he saw a swish of pink disappearing around the corner or a flash of pink out of the corner of his eye.

Tuesday wasn't much better. Care of Magical Creatures took place in the morning and it was their first lesson back with Hagrid as the professor. Harry's gut twisted nervously as Hagrid directed them into the Forbidden Forest. He didn't know what the lesson was but he could already tell it would be one Umbridge wouldn't approve of if she decided to inspect this class.

Everyone was nervous to enter the Forbidden Forest and there were quite a number of shrieks when the branches snapped and the wind rustled the leaves on the ground. Even Harry felt a little bit twitchy as the nervousness from his classmates added to his own discomfort that came from walking through a place that had been off-limits since his first year.

However, Harry's nerves were soon replaced with extreme interest as they were introduced to creatures that he couldn't quite see. He could sense that they were in the clearing, feeding on the meal that Hagrid had brought to them.

It was odd, being surrounded by creatures that you couldn't see. Harry could only hope that they didn't have a taste for human flesh, like the Blast-Ended Skrewts from the year before.

Harry glanced over at his classmates. Nearly all of them were wearing frowns of confusion or looking around for the creatures that Hagrid was calling. Only a few didn't seem disgusted. There were only two exceptions—Neville and Theo. Neville was a pale, sweaty mess while Theo just looked disgusted and actually took a few steps back so that he was standing more behind Draco.

Actually make that three expressions. Draco was paler than normal and while he looked confused, he was staring in the same direction that Theo and Neville had been. Once Hagrid announced that they were studying thestrals, Draco turned two shades paler.

"Hem, hem."

Harry let out a small groan at the familiar, fake cough, no longer concerned about Draco's reaction to the thestrals.. How had Umbridge found them? They had gone deep within the forest, off any of the marked paths, and had walked for about ten minutes. There was no way she should have been able to find them unless she had been following the group from the beginning and Harry hadn't seen her when the class had congregated by Hagrid's hut. The teenager really hoped that Hagrid had told her where they would be, because he wasn't thrilled with the idea that a professor was stalking students and that's what it currently felt like.

"Hello again," Hagrid said, giving Umbridge a smile. It was the first time Harry had ever seen a genuine smile directed toward the woman and while it was slightly disturbing, it spoke of Hagrid's friendly nature, even with dangerous people and creatures.

"Don't do anything stupid," Pansy murmured into Harry's ear, leaning over.

"Why do you think I would I do something stupid?" Harry asked under his breath. Pansy gave him a flat look.

"Let the Gryffindors handle this," she said. "Let them handle Umbridge. She's been targeting them the most and honestly, I'd like to keep it that way. Imagine how furious Professor Snape would be if one of us managed to shift her attention away from Gryffindor house to Slytherin."

Harry grit his teeth but nodded when Pansy continued to stare at him, silently demanding proof that he was going to listen. He wanted to defend Hagrid but Pansy had brought up Professor Snape and Harry couldn't disappoint or anger his father. The amount of pressure the Potions Master was under was enormous and Harry refused to add to it. Severus didn't need to worry about having every action scrutinized by Umbridge, which she would start doing if she wanted to ruin Slytherin house.

"Please continue teaching as usual." Umbridge's high voice pierced the air and Harry focused his attention on the two professors. Hagrid's smile was gone and he looked bewildered as Umbridge acted out her words.

"Professor Umbridge, are you okay?" Everyone turned to stare at Hermione, who was bright red. "You look like you're being attacked by a hive of bees."

"I can assure you that's not the case, Miss Granger," Umbridge replied, turning a purple-red from a mixture of anger and embarrassment.

"Flies then?"

"No."

"Because she ate them all," someone muttered loudly. Umbridge spun around to face the speaker.

"Detention, Mr. Finnigan! Now, Miss Granger, why are you asking these ridiculous questions when you should be learning?"

"Well, your arms flailing looked quite ridiculous and it was distracting everyone, including Professor Hagrid from his lesson. We're trying to learn but it's quite difficult when you're constantly interrupting with questions that honestly sound quite ignorant."

"Detention, Miss Granger! For the next week! I've never witnessed a student being so rude to a professor before!"

Hermione's red face faded into a slight pink but she showed no signs of regret. Instead, she stared at Umbridge defiantly until the older witch was forced to look away.

"Continue teaching," Umbridge ordered Hagrid, now completely purple. She turned to decide which students she would question first and who would give her what she wanted to hear but all of the Gryffindors were giving her hostile looks. The stout woman turned toward the Slytherins and her eyes landed on Pansy and Harry, who crossed his arms in slight irritation. Pansy kept her gaze anywhere but on Umbridge. After a few seconds, the woman huffed and claimed Draco and Theo as her first targets.

Harry tried to pay attention to Hagrid's lesson but Umbridge's piercing voice kept breaking through his concentration and he found himself straining to hear what his classmates were saying about Hagrid. It was too much to hope that there would be no negative comments about Hagrid and his teaching methods. However, Harry left the class feeling that maybe, just maybe Hagrid stood a chance against Umbridge. None of his classmates had said anything too horrible and most of the comments were focused on the creatures they had learned about rather on the man himself. Thankfully, Umbridge never approached Harry for his opinions and the prefect was reluctantly thankful. He wanted to confront the woman about her attitude but that would only land him in detention and Harry didn't want a repeat of that.


Sneak Peek for next time:

"You'd be surprised how many men are uncomfortable with the thought of living in a dead man's house with the deceased's widow."


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