A/N Leave a review if you enjoy the story, it helps a lot in convincing me to write! Also, it helps me gauge interest in whether or not i should keep this story up, so if you enjoy it just leave a comment! Enjoy!
Harry laid on his comfortable four-poster bed, gold and red surrounding him. The colours surrounding him being Gryffindor colours further brought his subconscious back to everyone's treatment of him. The jibes and glaring were growing old, it was becoming a less common occurrence but everyone was still mad at him for something he hadn't done.
However, thinking about Gryffindor reminded him of Astoria and her bubbly personality. He hadn't expected anything to come out of the sorting but Astoria made him feel a certain way, not like he was in love with her or anything, she was just a friend, or at least he hoped so. He just felt comfortable around her, able to talk about anything.
It was interesting getting to know her, she was actually quite similar to him. She enjoyed flying but not quidditch, which echoed Harry's own views, he really only used quidditch as an excuse. He even picked up on some of her quirks that were also similar to his own when he asked her about her family. She had gotten all quiet and clammed up, basically the exact same way he did when he was asked about his childhood, so he immediately changed the topic sensing her discomfort.
Overall, he had really enjoyed talking with her and was hoping to get to know her better. After all, Neville shouldn't be his only friend, he should make more. Not that he didn't like Neville, but he just felt like he could talk more freely with Astoria.
He groaned and rolled out of bed, knowing that he had to get up for the day ahead of him. It was his first day of classes, and just like usual, his schedule was awful. He had Care of Magical Creatures, then Herbology, a study period, lunch, another study period, and then double Potions.
Herbology was definitely Harry's favourite out of the three, not that he didn't like Care of Magical Creatures, but after seeing the book Hagrid had assigned, he was quite a bit nervous. Potions itself wasn't that bad of a class, but Snape made it so much worse.
Harry felt his face darken even as he thought about the greasy-haired git. He still didn't understand why Snape was so adamant to hold the childish grudge against his father, therefore carrying over to himself. He sighed to himself, knowing that it was probably going to be a long day.
As he walked down the stairs of his dorm fully dressed and prepared for the day, he decided to sit down in the common room and wait for Astoria in hopes she hadn't already gone to breakfast.
His hopes were soon confirmed when he saw her beautiful eyes looking bored as she descended from the stairs of the girls dormitories. The most likely reason she was looking bored would be because of her fellow year mate babbling in her ear. If Harry could remember correctly, he believed her name was Romilda Vane.
The second Astoria saw him her eyes lost their bored sheen, excitement clearly shining through. She gave Harry a warm smile, politely excused herself from Romilda's one-sided conversation before walking over and joining Harry.
"I was wondering if you might like an escort to breakfast," Harry said, a similar smile gracing his face.
"What a gentleman," Astoria declared, eyes shining with mirth. "However'eth would'eth I make'th it to the great hall without'eth thine's help" she laughably delivered with an awful shakespearean accent.
Harry let out a chuckle at that one.
"You do know I don't need an escort, right?"
"Of course, how would someone as powerful as you need an escort, you could kill someone just by using that Shakespearean accent," Harry teased, jabbing her in the ribs. "Now let's go get some breakfast."
"Now that's something I can agree with," Astoria said, and they began to walk off to the great hall to enjoy a meal with each other.
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Herbology had gone well, they had fed the venomous tentacula, and except for a small nick on the back of his leg, Harry had got off free. Care of Magical Creatures was a disaster, but not for him.
Draco Malfoy, the bloody idiot, had been fooling around and a Hippogriff clawed him in the arm. It didn't even look that painful, but the bloody sissy milked it for all it was worth. Draco was clearly making an attempt to try and get Hagrid fired, so in that aspect, Harry felt sorry for the half-giant.
Now he just had to navigate through the last minefield of the day, double Potions. Harry walked into the gloomy dungeon and looked around. The only other person in the class was Astoria's sister Daphne, the ice queen of Slytherin. From the small glint of information he had gathered from Astoria at breakfast, he deduced he did not want to sit by her if Astoria's description of her sister as bitchy, cold, and heartless was anything to go by.
He eventually settled on a seat at a table in the corner of the room, hopefully, more out of the way so Snape wouldn't torment him. Neville came in soon after, setting his bag down on the floor next to Harry.
"Hey Nev!"
"Hey Harry. You don't mind if I sit here?"
"Course, not Nev, as Snivellus would say, I need someone to make me look better," Harry jabbed, eliciting a smile from Neville in the process.
"Speak of the bloody devil," Neville murmured, glancing up towards the front of the room. Harry's gaze soon followed and not to much surprise, Severus Snape, the Potions Master, had just entered the classroom, black cape billowing behind him. Snape looked really angry, fuming even, as it took him two tries to correctly copy the instructions onto the board.
In his usual manner, Snape said, "The instructions are on the board, get to work." But what surprised Harry was the fact he passed up on the opportunity to patrol the classroom and pick on students, instead disappearing into his personal office.
Harry knew something was wrong, messing up the instructions was one thing, but passing up the opportunity to torture children, including the son of his rival was something the normal Snape would never do. Harry's mind was twisting around coming up with all sorts of theories, however, Neville nudged him. Harry looked over at him, and Neville mouthed "Ingredients."
Harry looked around and saw that everyone else had already gotten their ingredients, so he went up to fetch them by himself, ignoring most of the stares that were being thrown his way. He looked up at the board and saw that they were supposed to be making a girding potion. Harry grabbed the dragonfly thoraxes, fairy wings, and flying seahorses, but had to search around for a little while longer to find the Doxy eggs.
Harry dutifully brought the ingredients back to the table to find Neville had already set up their cauldron, fire going strong underneath.
It must have been the look of shock on his face, because Neville said "What? I'm actually really good at potions, the only reason everyone thinks I'm not is because Malfoy sabotages me every time."
Harry took careful notice of the way he had spat the word Malfoy out like a curse word and suddenly an idea came to him.
"I'll try to put up a temporary lasting shield charm," Harry said, "That should protect it"
"You can do that?" Neville asked, a slight look of awe crossing his face.
"I think so," Harry said, smirking.
Harry pointed his holly and phoenix feather wand at the cauldron and softly intoned 'Protego Tempus' raising the wand slightly towards the sky signifying that it was a protego variant.
"Now we have our very own timed shield," Harry said with a smug grin lighting his face up.
Neville just grinned at his friend's antics.
They went through all the motions necessary for their potion, and two factors surprised them. The first being the fact that the potion was almost exactly the way it was supposed to be, only a few shades darker, and the second one was that the rest of the class was really far behind, most being halfway, Hermione and Ron being a slight bit ahead of them.
They vialed up their potion before signing it with their names and depositing it where they were supposed to turn in their finished products. As he walked out of the classroom, Harry looked at Hermione and nearly laughed. He couldn't tell what was funnier, the look on her face that Harry and Neville and finished faster than her and with a near-perfect potion, or the slight stutter she had as he walked out.
Harry just had to get a last jab in, so as he walked out he said: "Stop stuttering, you sound like Quirrel." And then he walked out, still chuckling to himself.
Neville split up with him, telling him that he was going to head to the greenhouses to do some work for Professor Sprout.
Harry took the opportunity to tease his friend and as he was walking away hollered "Be careful Nev, I don't want any baby sproutlings running around!" Harry could see Neville's blush from far away but before he could respond he took off around the corner with a smile on his face, whistling a tune on his lips.
What he didn't expect was as he rounded several further corners and climbed a staircase was to hear soft crying. Harry followed the sound, taking several left turns before he finally saw her. Astoria was bunched up, almost in fetal position, sitting against the wall. She had a letter in her hand, and tears in her eyes, and Harry thought about how he should approach the situation.
He carefully walked up beside her and sat down. He slung an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in closer to him, giving her what hopefully felt like a comforting hug.
"What's wrong Astoria?" he softly questioned.
In between quiet sobs she managed to get out "I-i-its my f-f-family" she said before more tears began to silently fall from her eyes "they k-kicked me out because of my disease and now that I'm not in Slytherin it's the final straw"
"They kicked you out of their family?" Harry asked, astonished.
"N-n-no not yet, but I'm not allowed to go home."
"That's terrible Astoria," Harry said, "but I'm sure things will get better," he attempted to encourage her.
"No, it won't," she said, anger beginning to overpower her sadness "They don't need a daughter with a freak disease, they have their perfect icy bitch already," she ranted, bitterness clearly shining through her tone.
"It's okay Astoria, and what do you mean freak disease?" Harry asked confused
"It's my stupid blood curse," Astoria said. "My ancestors were cursed and it got passed on to me, but of course my mother doesn't see it that way. She thinks anything that's different is freaky," Astoria explained, tears occasionally still slipping out of her eyes.
Harry just pulled her closer, resting her head on his shoulder sensing that right now she just needed some comfort.
"Don't worry Astoria, whatever happens to you, we'll go through it together," he said flashing her a warm smile, "because that's what friends are for"
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Harry after comforting Astoria had returned to Gryffindor tower, she had told him she needed a minute so he left her, he really just hoped she would be okay. He had not even known her for that long and he already cared about her a lot.
As he hopped through the portrait hole after giving the password, courage (even the passwords were taunting him), to an irate Fat Lady, he saw Neville sitting on a couch newspaper clutched in his hands.
"Watcha' reading Nev?" Harry asked, plopping down next to him on the couch.
"Just something about how the Ministry is sending more Dementors to Hogwarts, they think Black is gonna target you."
Harry contemplated this, "The Dementors were those piss annoying things from the train ride right?" He further inquired.
"Yep," Neville said, popping the P.
"Hmmmm, those things were not cool, the chill really bothered me. I heard they made Malfoy shit his pants though" Harry said grinning.
Neville let out a snort. "I think if that were true we would have heard about it by now."
"I know," Harry said smiling "but you were being a boring bessie so I needed to make you laugh."
"Hey!" Neville protested, "I was reading The Daily Prophet."
"I still can't believe you buy that shitty newspaper, they just shovel it to their readers."
Neville raised an eyebrow "Would you rather me subscribe to and read Witch Weekly?"
Harry quickly realized the issue if the look of horror on his face was anything to go by. "Nope," he said also popping the P, "keep reading that shovel of shit, I don't want anything witch weekly related anywhere near me."
It was as Neville let out a chuckle that his tawny brown owl, Apollo, came swooping in with an envelope bearing one of the few seals Harry recognized, Gringotts.
"What's it say Nev?" Harry impatiently asked as Neville cracked open the letter and passively scanned it. Harry was slightly scared of what it said when he saw that Neville's complexion had suddenly gotten a lot paler.
"C'mon Nev?" Harry asked inquisitively. "What is it?"
"What are the chances," Neville muttered to himself. "It's a marriage contract, to Hannah Abbott."
Harry let loose a laugh at that, "Good joke Nev, I believe the marriage contract part, but there's no way you're lucky enough to get one for the girl you've been crushing on for the past two years!"
"Not joking," Neville said, a smile gracing his face as he passed Harry the piece of parchment.
Harry scanned through it for a few seconds before he found what he was looking for. "You lucky bastard!" Harry exclaimed because, sure enough, the name of Neville's wife to be was indeed Hannah Abbott.
"But how are you going to tell her?" Harry asked, a wicked grin coming across his face.
Neville further paled at the idea of telling his crush that they were going to get married.
Astoria, having overheard most of the conversation walking in through the portrait hole approached the two friends, one still retaining a face of shock.
"On the bright side, it's someone in the sacred twenty-eight! You know your grandmother would never have let you live it up if it wasn't, preserving the Longbottom honour and all." She offered up, smiling at the reference to Neville's helicopter grandmother.
"That's pretty fair," Neville said, thinking about just how much his grandma would have killed him.
"Um, I'm feeling a little left out, what's the sacred twenty-eight again?" Harry inquired, face betraying his bewilderment.
At this question, both Neville and Astoria turned to stare at him, dumbfounded looks on their faces. Harry awkwardly ran his hand through his hair as their gazes tore him apart looking for any hint of untruthfulness. Finally giving up, Astoria sighed before launching into her explanation.
"The sacred twenty-eight are houses of the Wizengamot. They have also been known as the Ancient and Noble houses." Astoria said, looking for any sense of recognition.
Neville then took over.
"Yeah, the sacred twenty-eight are made up of mostly pureblooded houses, such as Potter, Longbottom, Greengrass," he said gesturing to each of them in turn, "Bones, Abbott, Macmillan, Boot, Diggory, Malfoy," a slight look of disgust came across his face at the name, "Nott, Parkinson, Rosier, Zabini, Davis, Brown, Goldstein, Macavoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Gaunt, Smith, Jones, Li, Lovegood, Bulstrode, Dagworth-Granger, which is not Hermione's house, she got inheritance test which proved she wasn't" a cruel smirk came across his face at this reference, "Slughorn, and McCallister"
Astoria picked it up, figuring Neville was out of breath, "out of those, houses Gaunt, Dagworth-Granger, and McCallister are all extinct, wiped out from the last war, or even previously. Below the Wizengamot's houses is a setup similar to the English muggle concept of the House of Commons, however, Purebloods will never admit it. Above the sacred twenty-eight are the most revered houses. This includes the founders of course, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and Slytherin, as well as houses Emrys, Le Fay, Peverell, and Elcrux. Each of these houses are famous for some aspect of them. The founders created Hogwarts, Emrys and Le Fay were the houses of two of the most powerful magic wielders of all time, Peverell was believed to be the masters of death, and Elcrux produced long lines of the most powerful archmages in the wizarding world. These houses have the ability to put an automatic veto on any bill submitted to the Wizengamot, unless challenged by another revered house. When you think about it, the politics is actually quite simple." Astoria finished explaining.
Harry took a few minutes to process the new information before responding with a question that he had been holding onto. "If my house was one of the pureblooded sacred twenty-eight, then how come I had to spend my youth with the Dursleys, shouldn't somebody have vetoed that idea, or at least voted against it? From what I've seen I can't imagine most purebloods would willing send someone to live with muggles."
Astoria and Neville both pondered this question. Truthfully, they had no idea, this would require further research. They spent the rest of the day and evening explaining to Harry the wizarding world's politics, only bother to take a quick stop to eat dinner in the great hall.
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Harry had a free period, Neville was in Divination, which Harry had declined taking, partially because Ron had taken it, partially because he just thought that the branch of magic was mostly useless. He had just left Gryffindor tower, hoping to find somewhere quiet and peaceful where he could study, after all, it was a bit difficult to focus with rowdy teenagers hollering in his ears. Creating much noise, both towards him, and in general when people were playing games such as exploding snap and gobstones.
So as Harry wandered out of the tower's portrait hole, his mind wandered somewhere else. He was brought back to the conversation with Astoria he had yesterday. He still wasn't sure why someone would be so vile as to kick their own family member out just for having an ailment. It quite seriously reminded him of the Dursley's, so his own experiences fueled the new anger he felt towards Astoria's family; after all, nobody could hurt his friends and get away with it. If he had to say, that would probably be his personal flaw, he would take his loyalty to those who truly cared about him to any levels, even if that required him doing something potentially dangerous or illegal.
However, thinking about his and Astoria's relationship cleared the angry thoughts away, bringing him to a happier place. He enjoyed his time around her, she just made him felt human, and when he conversed with her, she just gave him the feeling that he could confide in her. He was still biting back the idea of telling her about his family situation, after all it would seem insensitive after she had all but been exiled from hers. Her help in finding more about his family in the wizarding world, and teaching him the necessary politics were definitely appreciated. He had never realized how much knowledge he lacked; in fact, he was quite surprised Ron, being a pureblood, had never mentioned it, not even a passing reference.
In order to get his mind off of his old friend, Harry turned his thoughts back towards finding somewhere that he could study peacefully, because while not as serious as Hermione, he still cared very much about his grades and performance in school.
As he snapped out of one of the long thought tirades that he tended to go on, he noticed something very peculiar about the hallway he was standing in. At the end of the hall was a floating ball of veridian (A/N Credit to Dave for this word 😊) light, almost beckoning him to come closer and touch it. The ball itself was almost radiating warmth, not enough to burn, more like a nice pleasant sunny day. Harry reached out to grab it, but just as his fingers were about to breach the surface of the strange floating orb, it darted right out of his reach. He tried again only to experience the same result, the orb floating away. Harry decided to repeat the same process, but instead of being focused on the orb itself, pay more attention to the way it was going, since he had noticed in his previous attempts the light had gone the same direction.
Harry followed then ball throughout many of the different corridors of Hogwarts, taking sharp corners, even going through different shortcuts he had never known existed. The ball eventually came to a stop, floating in front of a tapestry on the seventh floor. This time when Harry reached out for the orb, it beckoned him to touch it, his hand floated right through it, the light disappearing.
What happened next was very strange, Harry heard a voice in his mind whispering 'Walk back and forth, what you need will appear'. Albeit reluctantly, Harry began to follow the instructions of the strange voice, thinking of the fact that he needed a place to study. Once he had completed his third pace back and forth, to his utter surprise, he realized that a set of sturdy double doors had somehow appeared where the tapestry used to be. They seemed to be made from dark oak, with inlays of silver, and a pair of plain iron handles. Harry gently twisted the handle, before carefully pulling the door open, unsure of what might lay behind. To add to his surprise from earlier, behind the beautiful antique double doors was what might be described as his ideal study room. It was about the size of the Gryffindor common room, a bit smaller though. It kept up with the theme from the door, pillars of dark oak wood, different inlays of silver throughout the room, however it also added a deep rich purple, found on the trim of the silver couches and the drapes covering the windows.
Harry heard a crackle, turning his head he spotted a fireplace which was producing the warmth he had just began to feel. Sitting next to the fireplace was a comfy looking recliner with a coffee table next to it on one side, a bookshelf on the other. Harry walked over, pulled a book out of the bookshelf, A Beginners Guide to Offensive Spells, spread himself out comfortably on the chair and began to read. 'I could get used to this' he thought to himself as he turned a page of the book, 'I could definitely get used to this'.
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