A/N: Whoops. My apologies for the multi-month delay between chapters! I had this fic more or less written... but my urge to edit keeps bringing it down a different path, and as I obsess and tinker and rework, time keeps passing!
I value your reviews and the fact that you're reading very much. Thank you for reading my odd little universe.
Chapter Nine: The Little Things
"A p-p-pleasure as always, S-S-Severus." Quirrell stuck out a hand that trembled nearly as much as his smile. "Y-Your thoughts are always i-i-illuminating. We'll have to do it a-again sometime."
"Indeed," Severus said, shaking Quirrell's hand curtly and almost immediately striding out of his office, not looking back or giving the man a chance to prolong the visit further. Severus was a fast walker, but today he moved even quicker than usual in his hurry back to the dungeons.
There was only one word to describe the past hour, and that was excruciating. It wasn't anything new; for years Quirinus occasionally badgered Severus to discuss the latest issue of Magical Studies Review, particularly their semi-regular section on new safeguards against the Dark Arts. Usually Severus was able to find an excuse to postpone as long as he possibly could but eventually, usually after endless and unasked for prodding from Minerva that he be more social for once, he'd have to accept or risk crossing the line from acceptably rude to unacceptably rude. Not that Severus cared much, but Minerva unfortunately did, and she never shut up.
Upon accepting Quirinus's invitation, Severus inevitably found himself forcing down sips of Earl Grey that tasted as though its tea leaves had sat in a container without a lid for decades before making their way to the confines of Quirinus's small, sparsely decorated office. The conversation was always painfully stilted, although Quirinus was at least trying, something Severus admittedly couldn't say about himself. The entire thing reeked of two playmates forced together by two sets of parents who were absolutely convinced the pair should be best mates, with only one of the two children at all interested in this arrangement.
Severus supposed he could be a bit kinder to the man, and he was polite, or at least as polite as he was capable of being to anyone, but when it came down to it there were precious few people he felt he could confide in, and not one that he could confide in truly and completely. Which was exactly the way he preferred it.
He'd already made it to the dungeons and considered himself safe from any further conversation when Minerva rounded a corner, apparently on her way back to the staircase to the Great Hall.
"There, you're still alive, aren't you?" she said with a small, satisfied smile. "How was it?"
"None of your business," Severus shot back just as quickly. "But if you must know, it was horrid."
"Conversation with people different from you is healthy," Minerva said flatly, then conceded, "But he isn't quite the same as he was, is he?"
"Is that why you were so insistent I spend time with him? To get a second opinion?"
"A sixth or seventh is more like it. Pomona and Filius have noticed it as well. And Poppy, and Irma, and-"
"You don't need to recite the entire staff list, Minerva," Severus said, starting toward his office once more, and by now Minerva knew well enough that this was an invitation to follow.
"Sybill has her theories as well." Minerva didn't bother to hide her rolling eyes. "I'm sure you can imagine."
"Death? Pestilence? Other horrendous plagues?"
"She's certain he'll be dead by the end of the year, which I suppose is a sign we'll be graced with his presence for many years to come."
"Someone should say something about that turban of his," Severus muttered, more to himself than to Minerva. "You can smell the garlic from half a corridor away."
"Is that what he's stuffed in there? I've been casting an odor deprivation charm on myself whenever he passes," Minerva said, tapping her nose. "I hate to say it, but it comes in handy with some of the third and fourth years returning from summer holidays."
They'd reached Severus's office, and he paused at the door. "I hope you don't expect to be invited in."
"Certainly not."
"Good." He unlocked the door with a tap of his wand and gestured inside. "Now that that's out of the way, what gives me the pleasure of somehow bumping into you? Certainly you have better things to do with your Sunday evenings than pester me about Quirinus Quirrell of all people."
Minerva glided in without missing a beat and lowered herself into the chair opposite Severus's desk. He lowered himself into his own chair and summoned over a both a teapot and a bottle they'd been working their way through for the past two months.
"Which one?" he asked, motioning at the two, and raising his eyebrows when she gestured at the teapot. "Are you going soft on me, Minerva?"
"I still have papers to grade for tomorrow," she shot back, though she didn't hide her smile. "And though it pains me to say it, I'm not as young as you are."
"My goodness, Minerva, you're certainly letting things go until the last moment, aren't you?" Severus said, his eyebrows still arched. "I finished my grading Saturday evening."
"Well, a thousand hurrahs for you." Minerva waited for Severus to tap his wand against the teapot, and for it to be filled with the finest from the Hogwarts kitchens. Only when Severus summoned the milk and sugar, then began to pour a cup for both of them, did she add, "And I know you're lying."
Severus didn't bother to hide his brief smirk either. He was. "You never answered what you're doing here."
"Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with either you or your playtime with Quirinus." Minerva added a bit of milk to her tea before reaching for the sugar dish. "One of your first years was wandering around the third floor, so lost he couldn't find his way back to the stairs. He was wandering in circles, the poor thing. I knew you'd lack the ability to show mercy if he was even a minute late, so I brought him back before your ludicrously early curfew kicked in."
"The first years aren't expected to in the common room until eight and you know that, Minerva. It's six-thirty," Severus said, then added, "Besides, isn't your first year curfew eight-thirty?"
"Never mind that," Minerva said, taking a first sip of tea, pausing, then setting it down to cool more. "And at the rate that child was lost, it would have taken him years to find his way back."
"Was it Goyle?" Severus said. Minerva's surprised expression answered his question, and he snorted. "That poor thing wasn't lost at all. The first years just discovered the trophy room, and the older students are egging them on with stories about the duels that have taken place there over the centuries. There were so many hushed discussions of them attempting their own I've had to forbid them completely from going anywhere near it."
"He was just outside the trophy room," Minerva admitted, shaking her head. "I'll never know how you know so much about your students while managing to keep up with everything else, Severus."
"I spend time in my common room," Severus said simply, and Minerva rolled her eyes.
"I do spend time in my common room," she insisted, though there was a protective guard to her tone.
"I never said you didn't," Severus replied in his most pleasant tone, which wasn't particularly pleasant, but Minerva was able to decipher it well enough.
"Well, that's why I'm here. But you have to admit, Quirinus isn't... well, he isn't quite..." Minerva trailed off, pursing her lips and sighing slightly.
"He isn't the same. No, you're not wrong." Severus pursed his lips as well and gazed over Minerva's head, at the stone wall just above the door. "The stutter. The twitchiness. He was always exhaustingly timid, but he's nearly unbearable now."
"What do you think happened in Albania?" Minerva asked. "He took the year off, and came back a different man."
"To the point that Albus didn't give him his old Muggle Studies position back, and instead..." He trailed off, determined not to give into self-pity, especially not in front of Minerva.
Minerva studied Severus for a long moment. "You do realize that's a compliment, don't you? He wants to keep you around. No one lasts longer than a year. No one, not since..."
"Let's not discuss that conspiracy theory again, shall we?" Severus said, rolling his eyes.
"You believe it as much as I do. You just pretend you don't and act superior." Minerva didn't press the subject, and instead said, "Albus must not expect him to last longer than a year at Hogwarts. Something is wrong." She was silent for a long moment before sighing deeply. "He isn't confiding in me. Not on this."
Severus could see Minerva wanted sympathy, so he gave it the only way in which he was capable. "You'd have to be daft to think he's confiding in me. All I hear is 'Keep an eye on Quirrell'. Nothing more, nothing less."
"What are your theories?"
"I don't have any," Snape said. It was something of a lie, while something of the truth. He didn't have any concrete theories, not ones he could trust, not yet. But he was working on them, and well on his way to something far more solid than the wisps currently flying around that needed to be put in order and made sense of. "But when I do, I'll tell you."
"You're lying again," Minerva said lightly, then paused. "What do you think of the new Muggle Studies professor?"
"Burbage? She's perfectly decent, I suppose. And she's not quite new anymore, she started last year." Under Minerva's gaze, Severus added, "What? I barely know the woman."
"She certainly seems to pop in and out of the dungeons quite often. I'm surprised at you, Severus," Minerva said with a self-satisfied smile at Severus's instant indignation.
"What on earth are you implying?"
"Nothing at all," Minerva said, returning to her tea. "Nothing to work you up so much, certainly."
"I barely know the woman. What she does in the dungeons in her spare time is her own business," Severus said, spreading out his arms as if to show he had nothing to hide. "Though I suppose I understand where you're coming from. It does seem to be a common pastime of the elderly to try to match up every young person they know, whether it's warranted or not."
Minerva snorted, but a flash of something that was undeniably related to 'hurt feelings' flashed across her face, and Severus paused before uttering two words that rarely crossed his lips. "I'm sorry, Minerva. I meant to say those approaching middle-age."
This time Minerva actually laughed, a genuine laugh, though she added, "Give up while you're only slightly behind."
Twenty minutes later, Severus strolled through the common room, only half paying attention to his Slytherins, who tended to be particularly rambunctious on Sunday evenings, determined to wring out whatever last bit of freedom they could from the weekend before returning to a full week of classes and the drudgery that came with them. After far too much time stewing with his own thoughts, he glanced up at the first year boys, engrossed in a game of Gobstones at one of the coffee tables.
Malfoy and Potter were sitting side by side, and though there didn't seem to be any love lost between the two, the pair seemed... cordial, at least. Just as they had for the past couple of weeks now. Severus watched for a moment longer, thinking of the letter from Lucius Malfoy in his study- the several letters from Lucius Malfoy, along with the letters from quite a few other Slytherin parents. They'd be showing up in person soon, just as they did every year, particularly those with children in the younger years. Severus knew he'd have to be prepared for the inevitable interrogation about his loyalty, and exactly what he was teaching his Slytherins, but it wasn't as though it would be anything new. Just more of what he dealt with every year, and he always came out on top, though he suspected Potter's presence might throw an added wrench into things.
"Would you like to join us, sir?" Goyle called over. The first years had paused their game and had turned to watch him watching them. It seemed his attention hadn't gone unnoticed.
Severus raised his eyebrows at the notion he'd find any pleasure in being squirted in the face by vile smelling liquid. He rose from the leather sofa he'd been attempting to relax on and walked over to the group. Without missing a beat, he cuffed the back of Goyle's head with a whack that was entirely noise and zero bite, not that the others would realize that, nor would Goyle ever admit it to them.
"That's a reminder to do as you're told and stay away from the trophy room," Severus said in his lowest voice, the one that somehow still frightened his younger students, and most of the older ones. "Unless you'd like a visit to my study?"
"Sorry, sir," Goyle said, ducking his head, cheeks flushing. "Won't happen again."
"It shouldn't have happened today," Severus said, and strode back to this couch, perfectly aware of the shocked looks from the group that that was the end of it.
Severus was capable of leniency sometimes, even if it was cushioned in a heavy layer of snark. He smirked to himself at their undisguised surprise, trying his best to push aside thoughts of Quirinus and of the letters he'd have to deal with from his mind for now.
The week had flown by. Harry couldn't quite believe it was Thursday already, but it was, and the Great Hall was decorated splendidly for the Halloween feast, with clouds of live bats flying overhead (much to Millicent Bullstrode's terror, though she refused to admit it, instead struggling poorly to hide her flinches and gasps each time they swooped low) and candlelit pumpkins illuminating carved eyes and mouths.
The Dursleys hadn't been fans of Halloween, though they reluctantly allowed Dudley to go out in costume with his friends. This usually involved mild vandalism of some sort, not that Aunt Petunia would ever acknowledge her sweet baby boy was capable of such a thing. Harry wasn't thinking of the Dursleys today, however, instead focusing on the strange attention he found himself undergoing.
Being the subject of unwanted attention wasn't exactly new to Harry; he dealt with it every day from the other houses. Their whispers and stares weren't anything new, and the fact that there were more whispers and stares than usual would have likely gone completely unnoticed by Harry under any other circumstances if the Slytherins weren't acting strangely as well.
It wasn't over-the-top. Not like the pointing and undisguised gaping that he'd grown so used to when outside the safety of the common room. But it was there. Just that morning, as they'd lined up to be inspected by Snape before trundling off to breakfast, Tracey had mumbled "I'm sorry" so quietly it took Harry a moment to realize she'd said it at all.
"Sorry? For what?" he asked. She hadn't bumped into him or anything.
Tracey just flashed him an odd look, then looked straight ahead as Snape grew closer. Harry did the same, not pushing her on the subject, and she didn't bring it up again. He had completely forgotten about it until he and Vincent both found themselves side-by-side in one of the boys' lavatories, washing their hands.
"You're all right?" Vincent asked suddenly, not making eye contact as he lathered his hands with soap.
"What?"
Vincent just shrugged, still not making eye contact, his motions slightly awkward, though Harry wasn't sure how much of that was just Vincent being Vincent.
"I'm fine," Harry said, slightly bewildered.
"All right, then," was Vincent's response before rinsing his hands off and heading to the paper towel dispenser.
While he couldn't quite say what precisely was odd about the encounter, Harry couldn't help but feel as though he was missing something.
Even the older students were in on it. It wasn't that they were doing anything much, and it wasn't as though he was being lavished with attention. It was the same amount of attention he always got, but there was something strange about it, something he couldn't articulate. Terence Higgs clapped him on the shoulder as he passed by at lunch and though he didn't stop to chat, instead joining the other prefects further down the table, Higgs had never done something like that before.
Five minutes later, as Harry reached for the last bacon sandwich, his hand brushed against Draco's, who'd had the same idea. They both paused for the briefest of moments, then Draco, with an expression that made it seem as though he were dying, pulled his hand back and muttered, "You take it."
Harry stared at Draco, who in turn glared at the space above Harry's head. He'd been much less of a prat lately, still a bit of a jerk at times, but significantly easier to be around after apologizing for the incident with Neville in the common room. That being said, giving up the last sandwich for Harry was a move so alien that it couldn't help but seal the deal that something extremely unusual was happening.
The rest of the day was more of the same, with the rest of the school staring and gawking to the same extremes they had the first couple of weeks of classes, and Harry's fellow Slytherins being themselves, but somehow slightly different. It was as though there was something they all knew that he was in the dark over, and finally, as everyone settled in for dinner, Harry braced himself and turned to Daphne.
"What's going on?"
Daphne gave him an odd look as she took a seat on the bench next to him. "What are you talking about?"
"Everyone's acting strange. Not strange strange, but as though I've got a sign on my back, and I don't know what it says." Harry's words came out in a tumble and he kept his voice as low as possible, so as not to be overheard. "What's going on? Just tell me."
Daphne stared at him for a long time, and Harry couldn't help but notice that as quiet as he'd tried to be, both Blaise and Millicent had heard him as well, though they were determinedly acting as though they weren't.
"Come off it," Daphne finally said, her cheeks flushing red, unable to make eye contact with him. "You know why."
"That's another thing," Harry protested. "No one will look at me in the eye today. I really don't know, Daphne. If you won't tell me, maybe Millicent or Blaise will."
Blaise and Millicent's faces both reddened as well, though they at least at the decency to finally look at him, as did Daphne, who managed to quickly mutter, "Your parents."
Harry stared at her for a moment- then it all came to him. Hagrid standing in the hut on the rock, the Dursleys cowering. There'd been so much happening. So much to take in. Learning he was a wizard. Who Voldemort was. That his parents hadn't died in a car crash. That they'd been murdered. That he'd survived. That he was famous. The truth behind all the strange incidents plaguing the first eleven years of his life. That he was going to be leaving Privet Drive. That he was going to a school for magic. That they were leaving then and there.
It was so very much to take in that Harry was still slightly overwhelmed when he thought of that midnight, even if the overwhelming emotion was joy at learning he'd be leaving the Dursleys behind. But there were still bits that remained, bits that remained unprocessed only until they came up again.
Hagrid leaping up from the couch, furious at learning Harry had been told his parents died in a car crash. Telling him the truth about their death.
"All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an' — an' —"
Considering everything else he'd learned in that brief moment in time, Harry found himself focusing not nearly as much on the exact date his parents had died as how they'd died. But sodding hell, it had been today. Today, ten years ago. And everyone was thinking about it but him.
"Right," he said after an entirely too-long moment, the word catching in his throat. He swallowed, then tried again. "Right. Of course."
The three were staring at him, even odder expressions crossing their faces. Harry ignored them as the feast appeared on the golden plates before them. "Food looks great. Let's eat."
Harry had only just begun to reach for a baked potato, refusing to acknowledge whatever the situation around him was, when the doors of the Great Hall burst open and Professor Quirrell came dashing toward the head table. Harry whirled around, as did the rest of the Slytherins, and watched as the man slumped against the table in front of Dumbledore.
"Troll— in the dungeons— thought you ought to know."
And with that, he fainted completely.
"You will follow the prefects and return to the common room immediately," Professor Snape hissed at the Slytherins assembled in the entrance hall, his voice magnified just enough for them to hear, as the rest of the houses scurried to their own common rooms haphazardly. "Two lines. If I hear so much as a single toe steps where it shouldn't..." He paused just long enough for dramatic effect. "It won't be the ruler."
Harry thought back to Higgs' joke about Snape having a cane and involuntarily shuddered. Out of the corner of his eye, he briefly thought he saw Ron Weasley dash up the marble staircase, followed by Neville Longbottom, but his attention was quickly snapped back to Snape, who was fixing him with a pointed stare.
"Do I need to repeat myself, Potter?"
"No- No, sir," Harry said quickly.
"The troll isn't in the dungeons anymore," Snape said, before the question could be raised. "Several portraits have reported seeing it several floors up. You are safe." He paused, then added, "You will be safe if you don't do anything foolish."
And with that he was gone, hurrying after the other professors on their way upstairs, wands drawn. It was a somewhat subdued Slytherin house that made their way downstairs, careful to not do anything that could be reported back to their housemaster as being foolish. The moment they were in the common room and the stone wall slid shut behind them, everyone exploded into noise and conversation.
"A troll! An actual troll!"
"I wish we could have seen it. Imagine seeing a real troll!"
"We could still see it if we're careful-"
Laughter, jeers.
"Yeah, I'd like to see how that works out for you, Bole- you'd never bloody sit again!"
Within moments, golden plates appeared around the common room, and just a second later the food from the feast appeared on it, and the laughter and cheers reverberated off the dungeon walls. While Harry would normally join in the festivities with just as much intensity as his housemates, he found himself barely paying attention to what he was loading his plate with and wandering downstairs to the first year boys' dormitory.
He placed his food on his bedside table, aware he wasn't supposed to bring dinner into the dorms and not caring, then flopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling, a troll the last thing on his mind.
It was typical, the more he thought about it. Typical that everyone knew the day his parents died better than him. After all, they'd known he was famous before he did. Known how his parents had died before he did. He thought back to that early night at Hogwarts when he'd fought with Draco in the common room. The insults had goaded him on, particularly the ones about his mother. But it was the fact that Draco was laughing about something he hadn't even known about for years, something Draco knew long before him- that was what had been going through his mind when he threw the first punch.
Typical, really.
Harry continued to stare at the ceiling, his food untouched, feeling remarkably sorry for himself, only sitting up when he heard movement at the door. Vincent, Greg, Blaise, Theo, and Draco filed in, each carrying a plate of food, and joined him on their own beds.
"What are you doing here?" Harry asked. "Did they catch the troll?"
Theo shrugged. "No clue. It's too loud up there."
Harry was torn between the urge to tell them to just leave him alone with his thoughts, and to feel grateful to them for seeking him out without making a big fuss of it. It hadn't occurred to him until now that it was unusual for the Dursleys not to have told him the day his parents died, and he was suddenly overcome with a sense of indignation. They hadn't told him the truth about how they'd died either, but that was something Harry could somehow handle. It was worse, but it was so grand in scale that it was typical of the Dursleys. It was the smaller things that confounded him now, along with the fact that he was shouted at to not ask questions for asking anything at all about the people who'd sacrificed their lives for him...
There wasn't much outright sympathy in Slytherin, but there was something there the Dursleys didn't have, something Harry would understand years later was empathy. Harry wasn't used to being the recipient of it, at least not as far as he could remember, and now he found himself overwhelmed by a dizzying sense of gratitude, and anger, and an aching feeling deep within he couldn't name.
Vincent finally broke the silence. "Is it true you didn't know your parents died today?"
Blaise hurled a pillow at him, hard, and Vincent very narrowly missed spilling his dinner everywhere.
"Oy! Watch where you throw that thing!"
"Learn to keep your stupid mouth shut!"
Harry reached for his plate and shoveled a mouthful of slightly cold beans into his mouth, not because he was hungry, but because he didn't know quite what else to do in that moment.
"Sorry," Vincent said quickly. "We weren't going to say anything at all, but... we thought you knew. It just seems weird that you didn't. Didn't your relatives tell you?"
Harry swallowed. "No," he said simply, then took another bite.
"Drop it," Draco finally said from his bed. "He doesn't want to talk about it."
Harry glanced at him, waiting for the insult, but none came, nor did any revelations about the fact that Harry's aunt and uncle didn't particularly like him. Vincent obliged, and before long the conversation had turned back to the troll, and where it was now, and whether the teachers were dueling it as they spoke.
"We're going to find a place to duel soon," Greg said wistfully. "Someplace Snape won't catch us. It'll be incredible."
"Snape knows everything," Blaise said, shaking his head. "By the time we figure it out we'll be at the end of our seventh year."
"I still think we can use the trophy room if we're careful- if we could sneak out one night-"
Five snorts of laughter met Greg's fanciful suggestion, including from Harry, despite himself.
"He can't watch us all the time," Greg argued, as though they hadn't had this conversation multiple times.
Their dishes vanished back to the kitchens once they were finished eating, but the Slytherin first years were too worked up from the excitement of the night to go to sleep. Besides that, it was still early. They were all readying to go back up to the common room, Harry included, when he found himself speaking despite himself.
"My relatives," he said, then paused before going on. "They're awful. They didn't tell me anything."
"About your parents?" Draco asked, after the room had gone silent for a long moment.
"About anything. I didn't know I was a wizard until my eleventh birthday. I didn't know magic existed." To the shocked looks he was now receiving, Harry explained, "They hate magic. Everything about it. They didn't tell me anything. They said my parents died in a car crash. I found out the truth from Hagrid when they wouldn't let me open my Hogwarts letters and tried to run away to stop them from coming. The school sent him to come get me."
More silence. The back of Harry's neck suddenly felt hot, and the feast in his stomach churned uncomfortably. What was he doing? Was he insane? Once those words were said, he couldn't take them back. And now-
"It makes sense," Blaise finally said. "Not that- not that they didn't tell you."
"What?" Harry asked, barely hearing his words.
"It makes sense," Blaise said again. "The way you are."
"You don't know so many things. Things everyone knows," Vincent added. "We wondered why."
"Oh," Harry said, and they all fell silent again.
It was Draco who broke the silence this time. "You said they told you about magic a few years ago."
The others looked at Draco in surprise, and Harry realized with surprise of his own that Draco had kept the conversation they'd had while suffering through one of their many early bedtimes between them.
"I lied," he said simply. "What else was I supposed to say?"
"They sound terrible," Draco finally said, then, almost to himself, "My father thought you were in a palace somewhere, training to be the next Dumbledore."
Harry couldn't help but laugh at this. "I was in Little Whinging, in a tiny... bedroom, wearing my cousin's hand-me-downs."
"Is that why your clothes look like that?" Theo asked. Harry didn't answer- his Muggle clothing was still far too large, but he'd managed to shrink it somewhat while continuously practicing the shrinking charm Snape had taught them in the common room weeks ago.
By the time they finally made it back to the common room it was nearly lights out, and while Harry still carried the bewildering multitude of emotions he'd entered his dorm with, they were subdued somewhat by the presence of his dormmates, who finally knew the truth, more or less, and weren't laughing at him. Neither were they being overly nice nor bending over backwards to show how sorry they were for him- not that that was something a Slytherin would ever do. He knew their style. His style, too. Harry was grateful for it.
Snape returned to the common room just before nine, his mouth a thin line and his expression furious, though it became quickly clear that fury wasn't directed toward anyone present.
"The troll has been subdued," he said once the house had risen to their feet and stood awaiting his news. "Any injuries were mild. Tomorrow will be business as usual. Off to bed, all of you. Now."
With that, he left as quickly as he'd entered, and the upper years immediately burst into protest to no one in particular that it wasn't close to their bedtime. Harry didn't stick around, instead heading back to the dorm. Draco and Greg followed.
"Something happened," Draco said once they'd brushed their teeth and changed out of their robes. He flopped backwards onto his bed. "He was angry. Something went wrong."
"'Any injuries were mild'," Harry repeated. "Did he mean the troll or someone else?"
"I suppose we'll find out tomorrow," Greg said.
Harry nodded. As the others filed in and got ready for bed themselves, he found himself overcome by the urge to thank Draco for being... well, Harry wasn't quite sure what word to use beyond 'decent'. But then again, he doubted it would be taken well, and it didn't really need to be said in the first place. Instead Harry just muttered good night before turning out his lamp and flopping onto his own bed.