13 - Adapting and Learning

Zabini and the Hunter girl were about to enter the Great Hall when Harry caught up to them. Zabini glanced at him before going his way to their table, Harry noticed he looked at people that way only when they were out of the common room. He needed only one night and early morning to understand that about the Slytherins, they acted differently inside their territory. And if Draco and Zabini were the norm, they probably act even more different inside their own dorm room. Maybe that's what everyone expected them to be like, even Hunter didn't act as hyper as before as she sat down beside Zabini; they were opposite Draco and Harry. All first-years sat with an older student just like Uncle Sev asked.

Harry tried in vain to talk to Draco who had a stone face in place and completely ignored him. Harry should be satisfied already. He was in his Uncle Sev's House, he had a warm bed, delicious food, new and fitting clothes, his Aunt treated him to kisses and hugs and bedtime stories, his cousin played with him openly, even the Harry Hunting started to be fun. All those good things happened to him, was it bad that Harry wanted something more? Maybe one day he would have a friend just like the normal children.

"The first thing you need to know about Hogwarts is there's more food than you will ever be able to handle. The variety is big and most students keep to the junk. As a Slytherin, you have to eat healthy. It doesn't matter if you want to eat only sweets, you have to eat your share of healthy food. You'll be thankful for that later in life. Make sure to follow this untold rule and Snape won't give you extra homework or a detention for nothing.

"I don't know my other duties yet, but if I understood the purpose of the adapting month then this is part of them." She handed them each a sheet of parchment with a simple map of the castle. "This will help you get around easier. Given time, you'll know it by heart."

"What are these?" Harry pointed to a strange-looking set of stairs, he thought they were stairs.

"Those are stairs. More specifically they are moving staircases. Be careful around those, they don't have a pattern for moving around, you could end up lost or late for a class because of having to take a different way. Don't ever wait for them to go back to the original position; they won't! Just between us, I think they do it out of spite." Harry was the only one chuckling at that.

"Good morning, Ms Hunter." Harry perked up hearing his Uncle's voice and greeted him back in one voice with the others. "I see you started your duties already, the others are listed here." He handed her some papers and greeted each of them before leaving to talk with the next group. Harry still felt a bit awkward being called by his surname and nothing bad happening.

"First years do get it easier, huh. These are your classes schedules, memorise them. This week we'll meet after dinner and I will help you with homework, then it'll be every Saturday mornings. Since you guys got this morning free, use it to explore a bit. Get used to the castle and see which way is faster to your classes. After breakfast, we'll get down to get a featherlight charm cast on your bags. The last thing, for now, is about History of Magic, the class is utterly boring and has no purpose aside from nap time. As Snape says, I strongly advise you to use that time appropriately. Either get ahead in your homework or use the time to study actual History of Magic. Any questions?"

"How can it have no purpose? And how are we getting good grades if we don't pay attention?" Harry asked frowning.

"You'll see if you still think like that after your first History class… Anyway, if you're worried about missing something in class, you can set up a dicta-quill, at least I haven't seen any Professor against using it as long as the person is also paying attention. Oh, but instead of charming one, it's better and faster to buy it from owl order if you don't already have it."

They talked a bit more and ate breakfast. By the time they went back to the dungeons his cousin still hadn't arrived, though Hunter said it was still early by Hufflepuff's and Gryffindor's standards.

OoO

"Come on, Ron, we'll be late for breakfast!"

"Coming!"

Dudley and his newfound best friend rushed down the stairs and into the Great Hall to find there was still plenty of food to eat. They slowed down and sat together grinning to each other and started filling their plates with all the options available. Dudley was about to get seconds when Professor McGonagall thrust a piece of paper to him. She had a reproving look and pursed lips, reproving what he hadn't the faintest idea. Dudley took the paper and saw some sort of timetable there. As he noticed the Professor was still there, he elbowed his friend to get his. He heard a low huffing sound and some muttering he couldn't understand coming from the Professor, not that he really cared.

He and Ron tried to make sense of the timetable in vain deciding to ask someone for help later and went on with their breakfast. Not even five minutes after that they heard Hermione's shirking voice scold them.

"If you don't hurry up, you'll be late for classes! You don't even have your books with you!"

They had a silent conversation just exchanging glances and it was decided, Dudley would always be the one to handle Hermione. "We don't even know what we have next!"

"We have Herbology now. Didn't you get a timetable from Professor McGonagall?"

"You mean these?" Dudley showed her what they had just gotten from said teacher. "You can understand these? Wow, you're really smart!"

Hermione seemed torn between angry, ashamed, and happy. Who could understand girls? At least she still walked- ran with them back to Gryffindor Tower, then to the appointed classroom. They made it in the nick of time seating near each other.

OoO

Hermione was quite happy to tell Dudley and Ron what books to get and where to go. Dudley and Ron were even happier not worrying about what they had next, their timetables now forgotten somewhere inside their bags. And let's face it, who would want to worry about school when they had someone to do it for them? Although Hermione was a bit like a mother, according to Ron, Dudley was actually thankful that at least one of them understood what was going on. Good thing lunch was coming, he downed his potion on the way to the great hall and had to explain to her that he was on them to get healthier. Of course, she nagged him about what he was putting on his plate telling him it was all wrong. Truth to be told, he was eating in a way Uncle Sev wouldn't like, but there was just so much food and so many options his mind was blown away. He relented to Hermione's nagging and at least put less food on his plate and more vegetables, sure that would be enough to please his Uncle, right?

"Hey, Tiger!" His cousin smiled up and sat beside him earning an approving sound from Hermione as he plated his lunch.

"Raven! Didn't see you all morning! Where were you?"

"I was exploring the castle with Dra- Malfoy and Zabini. This place is brilliant! It's so big we got lost at least three times!" His cousin was as difficult to get as any girl to him, there he goes with both excitement and sadness on his face. How could anyone have both? Suddenly Dudley thought his cousin would go a long way befriending Hermione, they were a lot alike.

"What about classes?" Hermione was frowning like something Harry said offended her.

"Oh! We don't have classes Monday mornings." He shrugged and kept eating and glancing over to his House's table. That got Dudley curious and he followed his eyes to see a glaring Malfoy and a snickering boy beside him. When he turned back to his cousin, he was paying attention to Hermione again.

"You should use that time to study then, not wander around. We're here to learn Magic, Harry!" Hermione's passion for studying was so big, it almost contaminated Dudley, almost. Thank god he had Ron to play, and Neville... Where was he by the way?

"I know that. But we didn't have any classes yet, what's there to study?" He sounded a bit nervous now. Harry always got nervous around people, nothing new there; he got a lot better after Uncle Sev came into their lives.

"Well, you could read ahead on our textbooks for example."

"We did that before coming here," Dudley commented. "I don't remember everything, though. Harry's the one who knows them by heart. What do you have after lunch, Raven?"

His cousin threw him a grateful look before answering he had Defence Against the Dark Arts and Herbology. Again, Dudley had no idea what he was grateful for. To be fair, his cousin would be grateful for a "thank you" and would make a happy dance whenever Dudley gave him a cookie he didn't want anymore.

"We had that in the morning! We can meet up after dinner to get started on our homework then! We can even discuss what we had versus what you had, surely the students wouldn't ask the same things, right?"

"Sure, we can do that next week." Seeing the new offended/confused look on Hermione's face, Harry added to his answer. "Our adapting upperclassman, woman, told us to meet up with her after dinner to explain more about Hogwarts and to help with our homework. She said we're doing that this whole week and then every Saturday till the end of the month."

Hermione seemed to be content with his explanation, but it didn't make any sense to Dudley, or to Ron who voiced their thoughts. "What is an adapting upperclassman?"

It must be something difficult to understand since Harry actually bit his lip and thought hard how to explain that to them. "It's like some older student helping the first years get used to things here. Un- Professor Snape explained that better last night when he was talking to us. Hunter said that there's a lot of untold rules too and that she would teach them to us. Don't you have one? What did your Head of House tell you?"

"What rules?" "Who's Hunter?" Hermione and Ron quickly fired off their questions, there was no doubt about their priorities there.

"Hunter is our adapting upperclassman, woman. I don't know yet, Hunter will tell us tonight, but I think it's more Slytherin rules than school rules."

Hermione nodded her agreement again. About what? Who knows? "Well, we don't have that in Gryffindor, at least no one told us anything like that yet. And Professor McGonagall only handed us our schedules this morning."

"Yeah, and it's really difficult to understand them too! We would be lost without Hermione!" Ron nodded vigorously to agree with that.

"I thought it's like the ones we got back in primary school." Harry was cocking his head to the side like he always did when he was confused about something. Dudley heard Healer Heart and Uncle Sev talking about Harry being able to always get his way when he did that coupled with a look into his eyes and that they should never tell him that.

"It's quite different from those, Harry. Look." Hermione showed him the one they received from McGonagall and then pointed to the one she made earlier, that one was like his primary school schedule. "See, they're quite different."

Harry nodded and pulled his out showing it was more like the primary school one. "You did that!?" Dudley asked surprised his cousin was as smart as Hermione to make it from the other one. As Harry shook his head to say no, Dudley muttered with a voice not so low about why they had it harder and why didn't they get the easy one.

OoO

Hermione prompted them to go to the tower to get their books for the next classes. Harry, who already had his books with him, asked if he could go too. Not seeing why not, the three of them trudged up to Gryffindor Tower telling Harry how nice it was up there.

As they passed the portrait, all eyes locked in on Harry. He could hear some whispers asking what a Slytherin was doing up there in their territory, some others were like last night calling him the boy-who-lived. Hermione went straight for what he imagined was the girls' dorm while his cousin pulled him upstairs to see his room. They told him as they went through their trunks that all first-years shared the same room. The same happened with all other years, Harry thought that was a good opportunity to keep his mouth shut and not tell them that he shared a room as big as this with only two other guys and they kept saying it was too small to fit all of them there.

Harry bid them goodbye separating from them to go to his own class. Since he still had ten minutes, he took his time getting there. Gryffindor Tower was really different from the Slytherin Dungeons. Harry tried hard to think of a good word to describe it, good meaning something that is good. He could only come up with noisy, stuffy, and too bright. Of course, bright is a good thing, but for someone who spent most of his life in a cold cupboard and had to take care of the garden under a scalding sun, bright wasn't all that good. Besides, it hurt his eyes when it was too bright. The furniture looked a bit worn out, as in Dra- Malfoy and Zabini would never touch it; it looked cosy enough though. That's it! Cosy! That's a good word!

Harry got to the classroom when Zabini and Dra- Malfoy were entering. Zabini was the only one to beckon Harry to enter and seat with them, so Harry did just that. He sat beside Zabini, on Zabini's other side sat a scowling Dra- Malfoy. It wasn't even a full day of calling Draco- Malfoy by his first name and already Harry found it difficult to not call him that. He always wanted to be like the normal kids and have friends, it was ridiculous that he thought Uncle Sev's godson would actually become one. Who would want to be?

OoO

After leaving Herbology, they went straight to dinner. Harry was tempted to make a detour to his Uncle Sev's and ask about having an aspirin or whatever magical equivalent he could take. He thought better and just went on, it wasn't that bad a headache — no matter that it had been there since DADA, it was already less hurting by the end of Herbology. He had worse pains in life, a minor headache would only get his Uncle tired of him; no one likes whining.

"Something the matter, Harry?" Zabini asked him the question but was looking Draco's way. Malfoy's. Draco's. It was inside his head so he could call him whatever he wanted, he could dream and have fantasies about having a friend if he wanted. He just had to be careful not to let Draco know he wanted him as a friend when Draco clearly didn't.

"I'm fine. Thank you, Za- Blaise." He called Harry by his first name, so he should do that too, right?

Draco scowled at Blaise's smirk. Now calling him Zabini was for nothing if Harry started using his first name. It should be only Draco he was close to. They were already sharing secrets, what did he need Blaise for? And lunch with the Gryffindors? With the Weasel and the Mudblood?! He was lucky Draco still hung out with him, otherwise, that would have sealed his fate in Slytherin. And what a bad fate it would be.

"Come on, Harry, Hunter should be waiting for us." Harry glanced at Draco before scurrying after Blaise. For a moment there Draco thought he would apologise, after all, it was his fault they... It was his fault and he should apologise for... Draco stood and left the Great Hall; he did have that appointment. And it would be nice to spend some time with Har- beneficial to gather information from Hunter.

OoO

They were sitting around one of the few tables in the common room waiting for Hunter. Harry noticed another group of first-years who were doing the same follow an older housemate somewhere. He was about to ask Blaise if he knew where they were going when Hunter arrived and shooed them down the same way the other group went. She went past them and waved her arm like she was showing an attraction on a tour for tourists. He knew because he had seen it in the telly before.

"And this is one of the perks of being a Slytherin! We have much more space than the ones up in the towers. Hufflepuff actually has a lot of space too but not as much as us. Anyway, this particular corridor has a few small study rooms and it's one of those we'll use for your adapting period. Oh, there's a library on the end of this corridor by the way."

She was right in saying it was small, at least compared to their rooms. A wide table as some they saw in the library earlier that morning, three chairs to each side of it and a bookcase only as tall as the table.

"Now that we're sitting and all cosy and before someone asks the obvious, some books in our library are the same in Hogwarts main library but not all of them. The books were either donated to Slytherin library by other Slytherins, of course, or current Slytherins leave them there so everyone has access while they're here; sadly, these last ones leave Hogwarts together with their owners. You can identify them by a square piece of parchment with the letter B written on it and stuck to the binder."

"Why have the same books here and in the main library?" Blaise asked but didn't seem confused.

"Comfort? Laziness? I don't really care; I just thank my luck for the commodity of not having to climb stairs."

"I wonder what other Houses have in their libraries…" Blaise had a creepy dreaming face on now. How can anyone dream and be creepy at the same time?

"Don't hold high expectations over that snakeling, only the Ravenclaws bothered to make their own library. Do keep ours as a secret, though, will you?" She turned to Harry with such a serious expression that he even sat straighter. "I know you have your cousin in Gryffindor but do try to avoid spending too much time with him at least this week, ok. It's just in your best interest to fortify your power base in Slytherin before branching out to other houses."

It must have been written on his face that he didn't understand because Draco set out to explain. And wasn't that a happy thing? At least he wasn't angry enough to ignore his confusion; maybe he still had a chance at being friends with him if he cared enough to make it easier for Harry.

"What she means is that people barely know you and instead of trying to get to know your housemates, you go out of your way to spend that precious time with lions who you also barely know. And don't use your cousin as an excuse because you already know him enough to not need more time with him. You need to spend time with your housemates."

"And there's also the problem that they personally didn't like the specific lions you were hanging out with. Anyway, moving on from this topic." Hunter completed. "Another nice thing about the new system is having us more experienced snakes making you a better version of yourself. Each snake is different and has its own singularities, but we do share a common trait. Can you guess what it is?"

Harry thought she was doing good in her teacher mode, even if he didn't know the answer. Luckily, Draco and Blaise had good guesses of their own.

"Snakes always benefit from any situation." Was Draco's guess while Blaise followed a line Harry personally liked more. "Family is the most important for a snake, so we look out for each other, and family doesn't need to share blood but just need to be welcomed into the nest."

"Both are correct. Personally, I think Zabini's answer is a good follow up to Malfoy's. We do seek benefit as any human being. Even if the benefit is just us making our loved ones happier, that is still a calculated benefit. Do take time to go over things and think if some action is worth, sometimes people won't understand you — even other snakes may not — but be selfish and think of the long run instead of the immediate. You'll encounter many a Slytherin who likes to force people into accepting them when they are not nice to them."

She chuckled as did the other two, to Harry it made sense not to accept someone if they are not nice. "As muggles say: you attract more bees with honey. You have to choose carefully what your honey will be. Let's learn by example, shall we? Potter, how does Professor Snape attract people?"

"He's great!" Harry said without thinking much and took some more minutes with the others looking deadpanned to him before he elaborated. "He's the best with potions but he doesn't like people getting close. So, his looking and acting scary will make people only go to him when it's really needed. Since he has us, kids, to take care of it helps keep us in line. And because others are afraid of him, it's reassuring for us to know he's there to protect us… Is that right?" He wasn't very confident but the more he thought and the more he said, the more it made sense.

The other two boys were gaping at him while Hunter smiled proudly. "Let's make this a lesson not to underestimate the one with Gryffindor tendencies for you two, and a lesson to always think before blurting things out to you, Potter. But yes, it's a perfect answer! I'm surprised you grasped that much from this short interaction with the school. Now you three will have homework from me that I want presented on Saturday: pick a staff member and analyse them like Potter just did Snape. Moving on."

After that, they went through calligraphy and how to better write and present essays. The most important point was to always pay attention to the length the teacher asked and to surpass at most an inch, they wouldn't want to be the ones wasting their time. Being concise and coherent was also a given. They practised it with the homework from that day — and would keep practising it that week. Neither Draco, Blaise nor Harry needed the calligraphy book she had brought them, nevertheless, Harry asked if he could keep the copies to share with his cousin who still wasn't that good with quills — Hunter sighed but relented and Harry hugged the life out of her for it.

OoO

Later that night Blaise was the first to sleep as soon as he hit the bed. Draco closed his curtains to read this or that. Harry also closed his but laid awake thinking about the things he learned that day.

So, everyone had a reason to act a certain way, even if Slytherins were more deliberate and conscious than others. Currently, Draco was the one who baffled Harry. At first, he thought the blonde wouldn't want to be his friend (and thought he didn't even deserve his friendship) but he always tried to make Harry understand things and be more comfortable with things. Hunter had said that Blaise's explanation of snake taking care of each other because they were family came from them benefiting. The only benefit coming from Draco being nice to him would be Harry being happy with him. Making loved ones happier like Hunter said… Maybe Draco already thought of him as part of the family and Harry was just overthinking things. He smiled and slept thinking beautiful thoughts and having even more beautiful dreams.

-OoO-

Author's Notes:

First of all, I apologize for taking so long to update this. I'll admit to procrastinating a bit (a lot), then life happened, the sh** happened, then depression and anxiety, then I got slightly more functional. Well, a lot of other ideas and projects ended up taking precedence (my first original is almost finished, thank god). As always thank you so much for the favs, follows and reviews.

About the new stories, I will hold myself down until they are finished being written (or very far ahead) before I start posting anything. They are good though, so I hope you guys will like them (I know I do).

About this specific story and the other one (You can't choose family), they are part of my New Year's resolution of publishing a chapter a week. It doesn't mean they each get new chapters weekly, but biweekly (aka fortnight, every two weeks, etc). The day of posting is on Sunday (at no specific time). Just so you can rest your heads, this story already has another chapter written, and the other one has at least 4 (they are a bit big so will be split into more, possibly). So, we are covered for January at the very least :)

Evans was Lily's surname before she became a Potter by marriage, I personally think it's too much of a coincidence having a new "muggleborn" with the same surname. (I don't remember why I put this specific comment here, but it was written on the draft I began years ago back in 2017)

Thank you, Meester Lee, for pointing that cops in the UK don't carry guns around. you see, in my country (actually it's just more common in my city) they carry even rifles, and it's already normal for us to think it's like that. I should have made some research on that, I stand corrected. However, it will be really difficult to change it now after so many years, so I'll just leave it there.