Summary- Harry thinks a day of normal student will start from now. If there was ever such a day- it certainly isn't today.

(Happy New Year my dear ones! Let no sin of the past hold us back- clear our hearts and move forward! A little late wish- but thank you for being with me so far and I hope I will have you for the days to come. xoxoxooxoxoxo All my best wishes for you all! )

Chapter-11

The Slytherin Prefect went through the remainder of her duties once more and found herself in a miss-step.

"Eh? Where is the new third year?"

The first years had been fed, watered, and herded to their den. The Slytherin common room was livelier now. They would all retire soon- friends had clasped each other on the train and on the way to the castle. They were warm and comfortable- any more socialization had to aimless.

Bar the prefects.

No matter their tiredness or the urge for the perfect comfort of their beds, they must allocate the first years, reconvene with their head of the house, reset the passwords to their entrance, and other pointless tasks.

She couldn't have lost a housemate- a new one, and the prefect's responsibility on the first day, now could she?!

She hurriedly asked her classmates if any of them had seen the wayward boy.

"No worries, Ji-Su. I took the liberty." Ru Ji-Su, fifth year and freshly made prefect, turned at the voice and hastily nodded to the dark-haired boy. He was younger than her, even if he was not as the prefect Ji-Su should have higher authority- or so the ignorant would assume.

"That was kind of you, Jugson."

Yeremiah Jugson, Fifth-year Slytherin, tilted his head to indicate the seat offered to her. The prefect didn't refuse- did not speak of the duties yet to be done.

The fourth-year took his seat and smiled at the wary prefect, "Wasn't it just? I meant to welcome him into Slytherin, but...hm.." He tsked regretfully, "He didn't seem to care for it."

The Slytherins surrounding him frowned at that. The first, second, and third impressions had been far from favourable.

Already, some faces had twisted in irritation.

"He did not seem very enthusiastic in joining Slytherin."

"Mayhap, he had been hoping for another house."

"His disappointment was very obvious in the sorting."

Jugson very kindly let those around him express their distress at the new student rejecting their friendly overture.

The prefect frowned deeply.

"Do you think we should tell them..."

The dark-haired boy interfered before the other could complete the sentence- it was very obvious to him to whom the prefect was referring to- and shook his head.

"For such a trivial thing- you want to admit defeat already? It has not even been a day." Jugson chuckled.

The girl sat back at the implicit reprimand and didn't put forward any suggestions. This timidity was precisely why even as a fifth-year prefect she would never be a challenge for Jugson's position.

The boy hid a satisfied smile.

His little group furtively looked towards the cluster around the fire-place. (Each and every Slytherin was seduced by power after all.)

But Jugson didn't bother turning. One day he would be sitting in the coveted seats as well. For the ambitious, envy was a puerile emotion.

"Silvan is one of us now; we wouldn't want our honour to suffer because of him." Jugson steered his peers gently. The rest nodded earnestly.

Despite his light words, Jugson had very seriously thought through the situation.

(For the inquiries that would be mild in delivery, not so in nuances.

He would not let even the slightest carelessness taint his future.)

Granted, he had been a tad hasty when he had approached the boy. Thankfully no one had noticed how casually Silvan had brushed him off.

Jugson was not keen on repeating the humiliation. So he turned to the third year who had been silent so far and smiled at the stiffening face.

"Tend to him well, will you? Don't let our house be shamed."

Yeremiah Jugson would remember that humiliation though. It would be rude otherwise.

The day of labour and the evening of excitement had the young body crashing down in the bed the instant it felt the softness.

And respite of a good night- while it could not bring him absolute peace- it soothed away the immediate jaggedness of the restless mind.

Harry woke up lightly muddled, the unease from last evening fuzzier now.

When the curtain parted, he could hear soft murmurs and rustles.

Ah.

Well, he supposed he was not living alone anymore after all.

He had not thought about this much.

Getting into Hogwarts...He had thought about only the immediate concerns that interested him.

The richness of Hogwarts library.

Also- the bountiful of divine cuisine prepared by Hogwarts elves.

(Harry did not think of his loneliness at all. Had not he been acquainted with the feeling for a long time now?)

The last he had been in a dormitory – was when he had been in another house when he had been in Gryffindor.

Being in Slytherin dorm was eerily familiar and yet not,

A Gryffindor dormitory was an explosion of red and gold. The colour scheme could have been garish but was instead made cheerful and bold.

Salazar Slytherin, on the other hand, favoured silver and green. He went for a declaration of nobility and succeeded too. Harry was not sure if the trim of gloom was a part of the decor as well - or was it his being a Gryffindor now that had the comparison appear more depressing?

At any rate, Harry had long adjusted ton live in Grimmauld's place- a haven for Dark wizards, teeming with cursed items and nasty creatures as it was,

The dark of Slytherin's dorms did him better than cheerful yellow or any red tones.

(was it because he was an adult that he was more accepting?

.

.

Nah. Ron would have screamed and cursed the place no matter whether he was twenty or eighty,

Also, his insistence that the place was made to raise dark wizards and witches would have gotten another Lumos in favour.

His distracted was brought back to the dorm by the sound of a slamming door.

Harry had retired early that night. He had not met his dorm mates or had not even thought about them- hair-pulling anxious as he had been about the small issues that had propped up like poisonous mushrooms.

In the morning light, he weighed the politeness of it and the fruitlessness of it.

He was contemplating still as he bypassed his dorm-mates and headed for the empty bath. Two pairs of eyes followed his back.

The bathroom was still steaming when he entered and promptly felt blinded.

Harry was thankful for the foggy the full-length mirror.

While letting the water flush away the rest of his drowsiness- Harry contemplated the mad storm his mind had endured. Sleep had calmed him down, but he was not sure if he was taken out of tempest entirely or was in the eye of it.

His parents. Sirius.

The thoughts that had been chaotic and vicious enough to shower new lacerations were not so passionate today.

But the questions remained.

What were his parents doing here?

Were they even his parents

Did not his Lord say that they had circumvented time?

Did that mean he was in the past? Or at a different time?

But timelines were not to be manipulated- not if everything were to remain perfectly fine as they were.

Was he one of the instruments that could twist the time?

Harry paused.

Ah. In frantic despair, he forgot -

He was Harry Potter no more and would not cause a major catastrophe by his very existence.

Then...

Could he approach them without risking the future?

Should he try risking the future?

"Hullo."

Harry stopped drying his hair and looked back at the boy talking to him. There was nothing memorable about him, and he knew if he stopped seeing him for a week, the boy would fade entirely away from his memory.

He attempted a half-smile, "Hullo".

.

It was not as if he did not know the existence of other worlds, other life. He did!

"You were in bed by the time we returned."

Harry hummed at the soft accusation, "I was more tired than I expected."

It was not as if he did not know the complexities of time and space- well, actually he did not.

The other boy, who had been squatting by the trunk, spoke up quietly, "But we didn't get to introduce ourselves."

Well- this boy was a bit more pleasant to hear. Harry smiled, "Very true. I am Hadrien Silvan. It is nice to meet you."

The first boy crossed his hands and narrowed his gaze, "Silvan? Haven't heard of a Silvan house before. Have you, Benjamin?"

Harry's mind drifted again-

.

And as his Lord had told him not to think too hard on it in human terms, lest his mind spontaneously combusts- the ever-curious Harry had not nagged him too much.

.

The boy- Benjamin- fiddled with a robe before pulling it out of the trunk. He didn't look at Harry as he answered.

"Not really- I can ask others."

"Why? We can ask Silvan here."

Harry had long turned back to getting dressed up.

The necromancer who had entered the school with the haughty idea- the entire world was his to play with- was no more than a ball of confusion and whys, hows right now.

At least his face did not mirror his inner turmoil.

"Well. Silvan?" The boy stood in front of him now.

Harry let his flustered thoughts pause in their dramatic re-enactment of panic of last night.

Harry turned half a gaze on him-the rest focused on getting into his pants, "Who are the esteemed people who want to know?"

Both boys flushed, one from anger and another from embarrassment. The quieter boy was the one to take up the mantle of conversation, "I am Benjamin Mason, third son of the Mason family. And this here is Eddy Troch, first son of the Trochs."

Harry hid a smile at the way Troch's chest puffed up a little.

"Thank you kindly for the kind welcome." After all, these two were in the dorms- the other two beds still had curtains drawn. "I will see you at breakfast."

Troch frowned a little. "Wait. You weren't there for the introduction last night."

There was one? Harry had aimed straight for the dorms-

The boy looked smug at Harry's realization, "Well, you should have waited for Jugson. He couldn't be bothered for you now- and he entrusted me with the task to welcome you to Slytherin."

"And what a warm welcome it has been."

The boy preened. "Yes, thank you. Now, "The boy turned serious and Harry looked appropriately apprehensive, "You are, uh... the loyalty to Slytherins is... Mason, you do it."

In the hierarchy of power, even something as useless as a flobberworm will have parasites.

Harry couldn't immediately figure out which one was the worm and which one was the parasite.

(Was he even interested?)

Mason sat up on his bed from where he was slumping like a rejected bag of, "Uhm. Jugson says the Loyalty to Slytherin comes before the loyalty to Hogwarts. Each Slytherin must uphold the pride and honour of being in the house. The in-house matters will be handled in-house before being brought to the head. And uh... your action will carry consequences if you are not careful."

Word-for-word.

The boy slumped back after having recited the stone-engraved words of their house.

"You didn't tell these to the first years last night, did you? They will run right back home if their welcoming includes threats of consequences."

Troch sneered, "Then they are too weak to be in here, aren't they?"

Mason looked to Troch and back at him, "No-o. This- this is only meant for you."

Harry quirked his brows and put a hand on his mouth, "A very warm welcome indeed. Thank him on my behalf if you will. I dare not impose on his time."

Troch seemed undecided between being confused and puffing out his chest in pride, but Harry had already left the dorm.

A single snort at the ridiculous situation that just happened and Harry had already forgotten the comedy.

Instead, he started to reclaim the peace of his mind – letting it into the trance with the recitation for the invocation ritual running through his mind.

The prefects handed out the time-table. Harry waited his turn.

A frowning boy with the gleaming badge handed him a parchment instead.

"The headmaster wants to see you, Silvan."

The conversation around him thrummed and attenuated immediately. Faces turned towards him furtively, lifted with subtle curiosity,

"Already? This will be the fastest expulsion in Hogwarts History."

"Eddie!"

"If you can think of any other reason for him to be summoned before even the beginning of first-class, Ben-

Harry nodded back to the prefect, but didn't obey immediately as propriety judged.

There was still dessert to come and Harry hadn't had a nice pie for ages now.

Where Harry had all his attention on the golden, gleaming plates in front of him, the rest of the Slytherins could not adapt themselves with his wilfulness.

"You won't be leaving?"

"You have to be brave enough to keep the headmaster waiting like that."

"Could be that he is just that close—" came a murmur.

There was a pause, where the speculators eagerly waited for him- dissected the expression of the young boy to see if there was any credibility to be lent to their 'whispered' gossip.

Whether the boy would blush in affirmation or cry in condemnation. At any rate, the information would be extracted this way.

Harry bit into his ham in leisure.

A thousand eyes turned away in bitter disappointment and ramped on the malice in their words- all better to provoke this prey.

Stupid thing should be completed earlier. Godric, this should have been done before he had bought the books.

Although now that he thought about it- it was Dumbledore who had pushed the books into his basket- so maybe, he wouldn't have too much trouble?

Harry finished his breakfast but lingered awhile on the table- blue eyes trailing over the various desserts lined up before him.

He was full.

But...

After careful consideration, Harry wrapped another piece of the pie in a napkin and got up amid his violently flustered housemates.

A/N-

So- I have a question. You guys might have noticed this chapter is a tad small? The original chapter was too long and I chose to break it up for better readability. Also the plot tends to run away from me and I thought shorter release will stress me out less. Seriously this is the third draft of the chapter. :'((
What I wanna know is which way is better for you folks?
I am working on one more story too.. which- really, the reason is my character personality tends to change per the mood I am in? And one Harry can't be noble one moment, naive the next, a little shit another moment. I mean he can-but it will take make him a Gary Stu kind of. Ehhh-
(Trying so hard not to let my characters bleed into one another, ugh.)
The point I am trying to make is the story is never at the risk of being abandoned. Ever. If there was ever a doubt of my readers-
Thank you for reading and please leave reviews!