Harry Potter and the Year he Broke Free

Chapter Twenty-Two: Firewhisky

The front door slammed shut with a bang, and shortly after Mad-eye arrived in the kitchen, robes bundled tightly around him. It was absolutely freezing outside; no weather to be doing Order business, in his opinion. Mad-eye had always hated the cold.

He nodded at them. "Molly, Sirius," he said in his usual clipped tone. Magical blue eye still spinning in its socket, he too grabbed a chair and collapsed into it. "So, what you nattering about?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Nice to see you too, Mad-eye. Next time would you mind not slamming the door? You might set off my mother again."

"And none of us want that," muttered Molly as she swirled the dregs of her tea round in the mug. Sirius scoffed.

"Sorry." he barked, not sounding apologetic whatsoever. "Anyway, what were you talking about?"

"As paranoid as ever." said Sirius with a smirk. "Well, it's not too interesting. Just discussing my godson is all."

This time Mad-eye laughed. "You think I'm paranoid - I'd hate to see what state that one's in when he's my age. Don't think I was that bad at fifteen."

Sirius' smile dropped, and Molly's gaze hardened on the ex-auror, making him cough uncomfortably.

"I'm guessing that's what you're talking about, then?" pressed Mad-eye. Sincerity was not his strong suite, and neither was tact apparently.

"Yeah." mumbled Sirius sadly. "He does seem off, you agree?"

Mad-eye sighed, deep in thought. "I didn't know the lad too well, but considering what he's been through, I'd have expected it either way. All of that rubbish with the dark lord over the years, and then having a whole six months alone to cement any..." he gestured wildly. "I don't know... trauma? Maybe worth sending him to a mind-healer."

"He'd never go," tutted Molly. "Too stubborn, and Harry tends to think he can sort things out himself. He doesn't have a good sense of when he just needs to take a break. I remember Ron always saying that would cost him one day."

"Let's just hope that's not today," grimaced Mad-eye. Sirius nodded, subdued with one hand supporting his chin on the table.


Meeting with Cho had gone well. Harry had strolled into the Great Hall, pleased from the fact that not one person had laughed at him in the hallways. The crowds swimming around him weren't exactly friendly, but not outright hostile either. It was a win in his books. He guessed it was because of the recent victory against Ravenclaw that had changed everyone's opinion of him.

Cho walked up to him shyly, nervously smiling as she tucked a strand of her glossy black hair behind one ear. "Hi, Harry. Do you want to talk now?"

Behind her, he could make out a gaggle of Ravenclaw girls (Harry presumed they were her friends) giggling and nudging each other excitedly. He felt his face heating up slightly. "Uh, sure. How about we grab a sandwich or something and walk round the grounds a bit?"

She nodded, and sandwiches in hand, they made their way out of the hall again - with some catcalling and wolf whistles - and into the courtyard. Harry wasn't too hungry, so ate rather slowly. He watched Cho picking apart her sandwich self-consciously, nibbling bits and pieces of the bread. She caught him staring, and blushed deeply, a gesture which he returned. Oh god, did she think he was a creep for watching her? He didn't have much else to do now that he'd eaten his lunch. Did his hair look stupid? Is that why she was looking at him now? Or did he have food on his face? Harry hoped not.

Dating is annoying, he thought. Wait - is this a date? You could hardly count walking with someone round the grounds romantic: he'd done it with Ron and Hermione a million times. Harry felt his stomach fluttering and tried desperately to smother the butterflies, only succeeding in making himself blush even harder. Merlin.

"So, what colour robes are you wearing? I'm going with a dark blue, but I do have a sort of light pink dress if that fits better with your outfit?" said Cho quickly.

Harry was unprepared to say the least. "Oh, I'm just going with some black robes. Traditional." he grinned awkwardly at her. When did this weird feeling he had in his stomach go away?

She nodded. "Good, good. Black goes with almost anything. Apart from brown. Thank god I don't own any brown dresses." Cho chuckled anxiously, and then a pained expression came over her face.

That settled Harry's nerves a little. It seemed she was almost as nervous as he was.

"Hang on," Cho paused. Harry being taller than her had loped a step or two further until he realised she'd stopped. "Is it an inky black or more of a smoky grey?"

Shit. If there was one thing he didn't know about, it was fashion. "Umm... does it matter?" Harry replied cautiously.

She gave him an exasperated look. "Of course it does!" Cho hissed, and then began to explain. "The grey would completely ruin pink, we'd look like fish... tuna and salmon. That'd be so embarrassing." she shook her head.

Harry was about to interject, but she powered on. "Last year, me and Ced wore silver and black. That went well, since his was inky black. Like coal. Are you getting it so far?" he nodded numbly, not sure what else he was supposed to say. What in the bloody hell was she going on about?

He cleared his throat. "What- what about the blue?" it was a brave attempt - how would she take it?

To Harry's relief, a smile broke out across her face. Thank merlin, her stern expression was starting to worry him. "Yeah, that'd be lovely. So, about the flowers for the corsages..." and she was off again.

Harry lost interest almost immediately, just uhming and ahing in the right places, smiling and nodding. Him and Ron had come up with that method after Hermione kept accusing them of never listening to her. They still pretty much ignored her, but rather than staring into space tried to look at least slightly interested in the fascinating species of hereditary bumble-greens and their magical origins.

Half an hour later, they had completed a loop of the entire school grounds, so decided to head back inside and into the warm. Besides, they had finished their discussion and Harry was clear about what to do with the flowers and whether he should wear a bowtie or normal tie after Cho had hammered the instructions into him multiple times. Her friends were standing near the entrance to the school, clearly waiting for her to get back. They all squealed at her and Harry's approach.

"Alright, I'll see you round, Harry." said Cho as they grew nearer and nearer to the end of the path. They stopped, and She gave him a peck on the lips before bounding over to her friends. "See you next week!" she yelled as they all went in.

Harry was in shock. Frozen. Did she- just kiss him? Oh wow. Harry felt himself blushing furiously before remembering that he had snogged someone previously. Sure, they were basically strangers, but he was not inexperienced in this field. Oh, get a bloody grip, Harry! He stalked inside and instead of heading to his room like he usually did, changed his path to the Gryffindor common room.

It wasn't much of a snog to be fair, more of... the kiss you give your aunt when she's going home. Harry had seen Dudley have to give ones to Aunt Marge plenty of times, usually on the cheek rather than lips. The kiss hadn't even been enough to trigger any of those... flippy feelings when you're mid-snog. Or before. Once a very nice looking witch (or was it a wizard?) had winked at him across the bar, and Harry had to excuse himself in the bathroom to er... get control of himself.

Whoever they were, they had vanished by the time he returned to his table. Harry sighed as he thought of a wasted snogging-session opportunity. Maybe more... they were extremely good-looking in Harry's opinion. But lack of experience would most likely embarrass him, since although a few kisses had gotten very heavy, Harry didn't exactly feel the urge to go further. Like there was something missing.

And he had considered more than a few women, but none of them seemed right. Maybe he was just picky. But since he was only fifteen, Harry wasn't too worried yet. Still he wondered... if an opportunity presented itself with Cho... what would he do?

In a very short span of time, Harry found himself at the portrait of the fat lady. She was slumped against a pillar, drool creeping out of her mouth as she slumbered.

"Hello?" he asked loudly. The fat lady startled, waking up mid-snore.

She glared at him. "What do you want?" she said irritably.

"Was wondering if you wanted to join the healers at St Mungo's." at her confused look, he groaned. "Can you just let me in already?"

"No need to be so snippy about it," she grumbled. "Password?"

"Crystal Snowflakes."

The portrait swung open, revealing utter chaos. Fred and George were standing on tables, swigging butterbeer and yelling about their new products. A small group were gathered around, cheering loudly after every sentence. Music was blasting from some forgotten corner, something about stirring a cauldron. Whatever it was, it was racy and prompted people to dance. A huge banner hung from one wall, 'GRYFFINDOR FOR THE WIN' plastered on it in an eye-wateringly bright red. A moving lion painted below it roared every so often, scaring the shit out of everyone. A table had been set up clumsily and was covered in butterbeer, biscuits and some items from honeydukes. Harry also spied some crisps, but couldn't see too well from the swell of dancing Gryffindors blocking it.

"HARRY!" yelled Fred, jumping down from the table, wobbling for a second and then yanking his arm. "THIS IS THE GUY WHO WE OWE OUR WHOLE BUSINESS TO!"

At this, the crowd roared even louder, giving Harry the hunch that maybe they'd had too many butterbeers. Probably a bit of something stronger too.

"Afternoon, Harry!" bellowed George. He too leaped off the table and swaggered over to him and Fred. Harry could just about hear the clinking of coins in his pocket over the noise.

"HEY! WE SOLD A LOAD OF OUR SHIT! WE'RE RICHHHH!" Fred positively screamed, making Harry clap his hands over his ears.

"That's pretty obvious. And well done, mate." replied Harry weakly. The twin had said that far too close to his eardrums for his liking.

Both of them grinned. "Them fake wands went down a treat as well - we'd better get cracking on the shield hats. But first, PARTAYYYYY!" George yelled the last part, and the crowd went wild.

"Well, we'd best be off," they said in unison.

"Business deals to make," said Fred.

"Ladies to enchant," added George with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Oh, and Harry, here's your cut." before Harry could protest, the twins had dumped a pile of fat galleons, glinting sickles and knuts into his hands.

"Hey, guys you didn't have to-" but they had swept into the crowd, and honestly, Harry couldn't be arsed to go and find them. Hey, he wasn't about to go and return the cash they had graciously handed him. Harry meandered through the common room, bobbing slightly to the music as he gathered up a butterbeer and a chocolate bourbon. He was just about to reach for a custard cream when someone yelled: "STOP!"

Harry swivelled round to find Neville jogging over to him, covered in... feathers? Shaking his head, he looked again to confirm what he saw. Yep, Neville was indeed smothered with yellow feathers.

"Harry! Don't eat that!" the other boy smacked the biscuit out of his hand where it landed on the table.

"Oi, that's my biscuit!" protested Harry angrily.

Neville shook his head. "No, they're canary creams. Turns you into a great flipping bird." he said, picking a stray feather out of his hair.

Harry laughed. "I'm guessing that's a Weasley product?"

"Sure is. Hey, do I have any more feathers on me?"

Harry looked Neville up and down. "I think you're fighting a losing battle there mate. Embrace the canary!"

"Yes! Embrace the canary," Neville repeated to himself. He put his head up straight, and strode back into the crowd, introducing himself as the canary man. It seemed Neville had more than the recent quidditch victory to give him a bit of confidence. Harry wandered around a bit more (after thoroughly checking his food) on the hunt for whatever everyone else was downing that had them so excited. Soon enough he spotted a bottle of firewhisky poking out of some of the sofa cushions. Score! It was mostly full too!

He swiped it under his jumper and scurried up to his old dormitory. Parties weren't really his thing, but the booze that came with them... As he neared the door, he heard voices behind it, but decided to brush it off. Who cares if there are other people in there? Harry was still feeling warm and fuzzy from the butterbeer he drained, so didn't hesitate to push open the door.

Ron, Seamus and Dean were all sitting cross-legged on the floor, engaged in a game of wizard's chess. From the way they were positioned, it looked like Ron and Seamus were the ones in a match and Dean egging them on. At the squeak of the door, all of them switched their attention to the newcomer standing at the door.

Oops. Harry shuffled about awkwardly in the doorway, scuffing his shoe on the floor.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing back here?" said Seamus, his voice rising steadily.

"Woah, Seamus chill. No need for another fight." Ron said cautiously.

They all turned to stare at him, some glares pointed with fury, others of curiosity or a mix of both.

"Umm... can I come in?" at their wary glances, he added, "I come bearing gifts," and removed the bottle from his jumper.

All of their eyes went wide, and after a few garbled versions of "yes!"' Harry jumped onto a nearby bed, and transfigured a few empty shampoo bottles, pens, and even a plant pot into shot glasses and filled them sloppily.

As the afternoon (now evening) wore on, Harry's aim got even worse until he poured half of it onto the bed. Dinner was completely forgotten, and by the time Seamus unearthed a third bottle from the depths of his trunk they were all completely shitfaced.

"I'm hungry," moaned Ron, flicking some paper across the chess board.

"OI! YOU'RE RUINING THE GAME!" bellowed Harry as he impatiently shoved the red-headed boy away from them. Ron collapsed into Dean, who smashed into Neville. The boy still retained some feathers in his hair, and they refused to let him in until he brought up at least two plates of food. All of them started giggling wildly. Ron reached over for a custard cream, and was replaced by a giant canary as soon as he bit into it.

Harry laughed even harder at that, and Seamus smacked him over the head with a pillow. "Harry! Your move!"

He peered down at the pieces, which were now all Teletubbies, and moved Tinky-winky into Po's place, smacking the poor red creature to the other side of the room.

"YESSS!" he roared. "I WON!"

Seamus started to cry. "N-no you didn't, that wasn't fair! You vanished Lala anyway, so that doesn't count!"

Ron giggled drunkenly. "Who's Lala? Is she pretty!"

Dean swooned. "Very," he remarked. Him and Ron sighed.

"Neville, stop snogging the pillow!" yelled Seamus. "That's mine, you git!"

Neville wailed. "Ron, he's trying to take our nest!"

"DON'T YOU DARE, HARRY!" he yelled, jumping on top of the unsuspecting Boy-Who-Lived. Harry screamed, engulfing Neville's cries that he had gotten the wrong person and flapped his hands uselessly against the redhead's face.

"What in the devil is going on in here?" Roddie McGuffin poked his head round the door, and was completely taken aback. Dean shrieked and lobbed a biscuit at him, smattering the Head Boy's face with chocolate crumbs.

"Oh fuck," whispered Harry. They were for it now.


"Just what did you think you were doing?"

"Have we met? My name's the canary man," said Neville politely, offering a hand to a pissed-off looking McGonagall. Her nostrils quivered with pent-up fury, and after glaring at his hand for a few seconds he finally dropped it, cowering under her gaze.

She huffed. "Thomas? Do you have any explanation for this?"

Dean trembled, and gave a loud dry sob before announcing, "It was all Ron's idea! I didn't want to do it, but he said he'd kill my hamster if I didn't!"

"Mr Weasley?" McGonagall asked with her eyebrows raised and gesturing at the now weeping boy in the corner, sobbing about his poor Tibbles.

"Don't look at me! Dean doesn't even have a hamster!" Ron glared at the other boy.

Dean lifted his head out of his hands, suddenly having stopped crying. "Oh yeah, I don't have a hamster, do I..."

Professor McGonagall sighed in exasperation. "You imbeciles! What on earth possessed you to get so utterly hammered I don't know!"

Ron giggled. "She said hammered," he nudged Neville, and they both descended into fits of giggles.

"I will be owling each of your parents immediately-" almost at once, they all fell silent. Except for Harry.

"Woah, you can owl to the afterlife now?" he smirked. Ron snorted, and laughed until tears started running down his face.

McGonagall shook her head. "Your godfather, Mr Potter. I'm sure he can deal with you."

"You sure about that?" Harry hissed. Literally hissed, in parseltongue. Everyone paused, an awkward silence filling the room. The atmosphere seemed to freeze, astounded stares pointed his way from McGonagall, Ron, Dean and Seamus. Basically, everyone but Neville.

Neville smiled broadly. "Aha, you must be the snake man! Pleased to meet you, I'm the canary man."

Harry stretched out his arm to meet Neville, vigorously pumping his hand. "Pleasure to meet you too."

"I will ask you not to speak in that- that language, please Potter." warned McGonagall. But her usual air of self-importance and stern glare were gone, replaced with something like fear.

Harry grinned maliciously. "Don't like that so much, do you? Really, parseltongue has been given a bad name. So many amazing magical feats can only be performed using Parsel-magic, yet you still fear it. Why? Just because Voldemort can speak it? And of course jealousy must spike your tempers. What you can't understand you fear." Harry delighted in hearing the harsh coils of s's hitting his ears, and everyone else in the room cringing as the hisses rang out into the air.

"But enough of the serious shit. I can say whatever I please. Wanking fuckballs!" he yelled. Perhaps they all imagined he was secretly gathering a snake army to come and eat them all. "Asshats! Shitheads! Pissssss!" Harry relished the very evil sounding prolonged s and how it made the entire room cower in fear.

He sucked in a breath, and was about to go again when he realised who was at the door.

"Oh, uh... hey, Sylvia." Harry said meekly, swapping tongues again. After realising parseltongue wasn't as diabolical as everyone made it out to be, he researched and practised it quite thoroughly. Part of him wished he could have someone to practise with though. However since the only person alive who could also speak it was Lord Voldemort he had come to the conclusion he wasn't that desperate.

Sirius frowned. "What were you doing, Harry?"

Seamus squeaked and came out from under the chair he was hiding under. "H-he was setting a ba-bas-basilisk on us!"

Harry snickered. "You wish."

Sirius took one look at his and the other boys' flushed faces. Ron was swaying slightly and humming under his breath, Neville was introducing himself to a portrait of Tessini Rocksand (a young witch in charge of inventing the forgetfulness potion) and Dean was patting his head, feeling his hair suspiciously. Harry was staring out the window, gaze fixed on what looked like two grasshoppers...'mating'.

"Hey, hey guys come look at this! It's inside the other one!" shrieked Harry. All of the boys came rushing over to the window, previous confrontation forgotten as they pressed their faces up against the glass and ogled at the two insects outside.

Sirius looked over at McGonagall, who had one hand over her chest, had her eyes wide open and fixed on the wall opposite.

"Erm, Professor McGonagall? Are you alright?" said Sirius gingerly as he stepped round the cluster of boys and touched the witch's shoulder gently.

She jumped. "O-oh, yes, yes, I'm quite alright Sir-Sylvia." McGonagall caught herself just in time, looking up to see the wizened face of Sylvia Shortstaff rather than Sirius Black. He wore a glamour most of the time, and it took some getting used to.

"What is going on here?" he (she?) said, gesturing at all the rowdy teenagers crowded round the room currently smushing their faces up against the window.

"They all sampled rather a lot of firewhisky. Also, could I speak to you and Harry in there? I wanted to talk to you about a few things," she replied, gesturing to the door on the right. It led into a room identical to her main office, except with less furnishing. Minerva couldn't see the need for a second office when Albus first allotted her a space, but now she saw perfectly clear. Sometimes people needed to be split up, lest they injure one another or a private matter need to be addressed.

She (he?) nodded, and called out. "Harry! Could you come in here for a second, we need to talk to you."

He obliged, and after unsticking himself from the window followed them in.

"Am I in trouble?" he whispered, peering up at the other two in the room. Sirius had briefly removed the glamour, which everyone was thankful for. It was weird talking to some little old lady knowing it was Sirius underneath. McGonagall was tutting and glaring at him disapprovingly, whereas Sirius looked like he was trying to hold back laughter.

"Here, mate. Have this." He reached into his pocket and chucked what Harry dimly recognised as a sobering solution before throwing the pink liquid back. It squirmed down his throat and disintegrated the alcohol swimming round his insides. It was the equivalent of having your head dunked under cold water. Very effective.

"Whew. Thanks. But Merlin, the taste always gets me..." muttered Harry, trailing off as he remembered drunken nights with people he barely knew from the pub. He smiled.

McGonagall sighed dramatically. "Well, if you're quite finished, I suggest we discuss what happened today."

Flopping into a nearby chair, Harry groaned. "We're always discussing 'what happened today'. Can't we just let it be?"

"I'm afraid not. So, you got your entire dormitory drunk, and then decided to shout about in Parseltongue." McGonagall glared at him. "At least that's what I assumed happened. I myself am not fluent in the language."

"You were mostly right. Actually there was quite a bit of swearing in there too," Harry added.

"I thought it was a myth: you being able to speak Parseltongue. James and Lily would... well, do you know why?" asked Sirius. His sentence sounded almost stilted, like he changed the course of it mid-speech. In fact his voice sounded strangled, and there was a pained expression on his face as he spoke.

"Nope. The goblins down at Gringotts reckoned it was something to do with the Gryffindor and Slytherin blood in my veins."

"What?!" yelped Sirius. "You're related to Salazar Slytherin?"

"Yup. And Godric Gryffindor. I'm not entirely evil, you know. Only like... I don't know, a third sounds right. Not sure." The teen shrugged. "I got the rings to prove it."

"Go on then, let's see."

Harry stuck out his hands, and the four rings adorned on various fingers came into view. There was a built-in charm that enabled you to hide the house rings if you so desired, which came in handy to stop people staring.

Sirius traced the reddish-amber ring, finger tracing the Potter coat of arms. He grinned fondly. "James used to wear that. He said he'd only take it off over his dead-" he paused, voice stopping short.

McGonagall coughed. "Is that the Peverell coat of arms? I don't believe I've seen that since I was a girl."

"Peverell as in the Tale of Three Brothers?" said Sirius, eyebrows shooting up.

"Yes. I'm related to the Peverells, Gryffindor and the Potters through my dad, Slytherin through my mum." Harry said, watching the adults in the room widen their eyes in surprise.

"How come they never told me then?" Sirius demanded, affronted.

Harry shrugged. "Probably didn't know. Plus there are many other people related to them too, it's just I'm the closest heir."

"That makes sense," said McGonagall with a curt nod. "But still, could you have just avoided the firewhisky? You are underage, you know."

"Only for buying it," he pointed out.

The Professor sniffed. "I'm going to have to report this. And Potter, I warn you; just because Professor Umbridge hasn't found a suitable way to keep you under control yet doesn't make you untouchable. Mark my words, her and Minister Fudge will find a way to punish you." she sighed.

"I must deal with the other boys in there. Whilst I do blame you for supplying the alcohol" (Dean had admitted it earlier, and Harry had been too out of it to deny it) "the others did consent to the drinking. Sirius, Harry," she nodded at both of them before departing through the door.

Sirius blew out a breath. "Harry - is this because of what I said yesterday?" he said, wincing.

"What?" Harry stared at him confusedly.

"It's just, well," he stammered. Sirius gulped, and seemed to get his words under control. "I've sometimes drunk because it's easier than facing what's bothering me." Sirius lifted his gaze from the floor to Harry's eyes. "Usually your dad or Remus were there to sort me out and help me talk through."

"No."

"Sure? You can't mess around with this stuff, Harry. It can really hurt you, you know?"

"Yeah. I just saw the bottle on the sofa, went up to the dorm and met them all there. At least we've kind of made up now." said Harry. He reached out to touch Sirius' shoulder. "I'm really fine, Sirius."

He didn't look convinced, but ruffled Harry's hair. The teen grimaced and pushed away from his godfather, laughing and stumbling. Sirius laughed, barking cries that Harry always thought symbolised his animagus form.

"You would tell me though, if you had a problem?" Sirius asked him. He still wore a casual grin, but Harry could see how much weight his answer would carry. This was essentially Sirius asking if he needed help; if the saviour of the wizarding world needed saving. Harry could tell him everything: about the nightmares that tormented him every night, the cutting, the anxiety that pumped around his brain constantly. He could tell Sirius how utterly terrified he was that after all he'd been though, that something had gone wrong. That Harry was... wrong. Bad. Broken.

"Of course I would," he replied, smiling despite feeling his heart being crushed under the weight of his lies.


*I don't own any characters, all rights to J.K. Rowling.

**Hey guys! I know this chapter is one of the stupidest I've written, but hopefully the ending should make up for it. I just fancied a bit of silliness. Thanks, Tea33 xx.

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