Connections
By the end of Harry's first month at Hogwarts, he felt he knew the castle inside and out. It had quirks, it still surprised him on a regular basis, but he no longer got lost trying to find the Transfiguration corridor from the dungeons or getting to lunch after Charms.
Harry and Pansy had made a game of finding their way through the castle to class, starting off in opposite directions and racing to see who reached the next destination first. Or who could use the most secret passages, or go the farthest distance and still arrive on time. They got a lot of odd looks, but Harry was confident that the pair of them knew more about the castle layout than anyone else in their year.
If one set of stairs were acting up he knew closets or tunnels or hidden stairs to bypass to any given floor, though once he had to cross the castle three times to reach the Potions dungeon on his way down as the stairs were in a singularly unhelpful alignment. He'd started to sense the flow of the castle, the way it moved made sense to him in the same way that spell incantations did, or the order in which potions ingredients were added.
Partway through the fifth week of term, the Defence classroom moved itself away from the fourth floor, what was previously its door now opening onto a small cupboard instead.
Harry and Pansy looked at each other, then Harry felt himself breaking into a wide grin regardless of any attempts to suppress it.
"I bet I know where the classroom went," he said excitedly. The other first-year Slytherins were whispering among themselves, and Professor Quirrell was nowhere to be found.
"Alright, where?" Pansy asked.
"Second floor. And you know what else?" Harry couldn't even wait for her to ask, he was so excited by his deduction. "This closet was from the other end of that hall," he gestured behind them to where a hall led in one direction to a dead-end and in the other to a rickety old wooden staircase that creaked a different musical note on each step.
"So?" Pansy asked as Harry paused for breath.
Harry grinned. "So I bet that unused classroom, R-722, the one with the invisible floor that was giving everyone vertigo, is down that hall now. The second-floor classroom will be up on the seventh now, and Defence will be on the second."
Pansy snorted softly. "That's an awfully specific and convoluted explanation, Harry."
"I'll bet you three knuts that I'm right." Harry couldn't have explained why he knew how the rooms would have shifted, any more than he could have explained why the stars and moon moved the way they did and aligned just so, but he was sure of his deductions.
"If you're that certain, why not make it ten sickles?"
"Can you afford it?"
Pansy nodded, offering her hand. Harry shook it, then sprinted off down the hall.
"Wait!" Pansy called after him, but he just raced down the musical steps two at a time and skidded around the corner at the bottom. A group of Ravenclaw girls gave him a disapproving look as he slipped by them, but he ignored them.
He caught sight of a pale brown snake approaching slowly up the hall, and paused long enough to ask its permission to bring it with him, to which it agreed. "Good, I'll have a message for you to deliver," Harry hissed, and the snake lazily acquiesced.
Pansy caught up to him as he took off running again, the snake coiled around one arm.
"I just need to check something," Harry said, slowing as they neared the Charms corridor. He paused to open one door, only to close it hastily as he'd nearly walked in on Professor Flitwick's class. He opened the next door, which also opened onto the Charms class. Professor Flitwick gave Harry a brief reproving look, but didn't pause in his speech. Harry hastily closed that door too.
"What are you doing, interrupting classes?!" Pansy hissed.
"I just had to be sure. The connection is strongest between the second and third floor, so it might have changed the Charms classrooms. But I overheard a couple NEWT students debating it, and they said the rooms move less the longer the teacher has been here."
"So Defence," Pansy began slowly, and Harry nodded.
"Because it's Professor Quirrell's first year, his classroom doesn't have any reason to stay still for him."
"My mum says the castle just changes like it does because so many people have wanted it different over the years, the magic just seeped into the place," Pansy said. "One teacher wants a shortcut to their office, so the stairs swing around for them, one professor wants the classroom next to the privy so the rooms shift about, advanced students play pranks where walls pretend to be doors, and the walls just keep doing it. . . stuff like that."
"It doesn't matter why the castle is the way it is," Harry said impatiently. He glared at the moving staircase; it was rotating toward them, but too slowly. He wanted to get to the second floor now.
"So where are we rushing off to?"
"Defence Against the Dark Arts," Harry said, still grinning. "And you're about to owe me ten sickles."
The stair finally arrived and Harry charged down it, Pansy right on his heels. They reached a stretch of little-used corridor containing several disused classrooms from back when Hogwarts had supported a significantly larger student body.
It made Harry quietly furious, thinking about how much Voldemort's war had cost the wizard world, and more than a little sad. But nothing could be done about it now.
He pushed the thought away and paused beside a fabmiliar-looking door. "Defence classroom, at your service."
He set down the snake. "I need you to find the master-not-master and tell him to come here. Can you do that?"
The snake flicked its tongue in an irritated gesture. "With the utmost ease, large one. Be thankful I'm in a good mood today."
Harry couldn't be offended. He still was exhilarated from his discovery.
"Thanks," he hissed, then turned back to Pansy.
"Want to go see the dragon?"
Pansy deadpanned. "What?"
"The dragon," Harry repeated. "Professor Quirrell won't be here for several minutes. There's time to check out the old cupboard."
"Harry, I'm glad that you found our classroom and all, but you're just talking nonsense now."
Harry smirked at her. "Come on, Pansy. You're smarter than that. Remember what we were talking about? The way I said the rooms had moved?"
Pansy sighed. "Ye-ess?"
"Where did the room that was here go?"
"The seventh floor, if you were right."
"Which means room R-722. . ." Harry prompted.
". . . would be at the end of that hall, where the closet that's now in the Defence classroom's spot was?" Pansy said, sounding confused.
"And what's unique about R-722?" Harry asked.
Pansy thought a moment, then gasped aloud as she got it. "Its invisible floor! The third floor is where the dragon is, down the corridor just underneath where that closet was. So if R-722 is down that hall on the fourth floor now—"
"We'll be able to look down and see the dragon safely, without sneaking in at the risk of death!" Harry finished.
Pansy glanced around the deserted, dusty hall. "Yeah, let's go!"
They only made it halfway before all but running into Professor Quirrell, on his way down with the rest of the class in tow.
"Thanks, Harry," he whispered, winking. Harry nodded back, and he and Pansy rejoined the group as they trouped down to the second floor. There wasn't time to visit R-722 just yet, but the thought of seeing a real live dragon kept Harry distracted all through the class.
Though shorter than usual due to the missing classroom, the lesson seemed interminable. Professor Quirrell was demonstrating - or trying to - a spell which produced small electric green sparks which could be used defencively, offensively, or as a signal. He'd never mentioned it in Harry's private sessions, so he assumed it to be Ministry-mandated foolishness, and didn't even try to pay attention.
All he could think about was the dragon.
The moment class ended, he and Pansy grabbed their bags and charged off. They'd done this often enough that no one commented on it, at least not before they were out of earshot. Harry led the way up two flights of stairs and down another, through a tapestry concealing a secret passage, and finally up the rickety steps. The creaking notes rang out discordantly as Harry and Pansy ran up them.
"Moment of truth," Pansy said excitedly as they reached the door at the far end of the hall.
"It says R-722," Harry said gleefully, and pushed the door open.
He saw at once why the classroom had been discontinued. It looked like thin air, a few desks and chairs floating unmoving upon no surface at all. He tentatively put one foot out, but the floor was as solid as any he'd encountered.
Pansy stepped gingerly after him. Then Harry looked down past the lack of floor and at the most terrifying, majestic sight of his life.
The dragon was huge, its room much larger than the classroom above. It lay sprawled on its side far below them, a deep purring growl causing the invisible floor to tremble.
The scales were dark and glossy, shimmering in the torchlight, glinting in golden brown or deep red-black as the beast breathed.
Harry stared down at it, speechless with awe. He'd seen magic, met goblins, and turned a salt-cellar into a chickadee, but this was something else completely. Nothing he'd ever seen, nothing he'd ever imagined, could compare.
Wordlessly, Pansy passed over ten sickles, one by one. Harry absently shoved them in his pocket, entranced by the quiet shifting of powerful muscles, the perpetual movement of the flicking tail that set light to glinting off the walls and ceiling.
Once, the dragon turned over in its sleep, rearing half up to standing and flaring its wings to such a span that Harry flinched back. Then it tucked them back in behind itself, lying back down at a slightly different angle, and resumed its deep rhythmic breathing.
Neither Harry nor Pansy were on time for lunch that day.
Despite his less than stellar wandwork, Harry settled comfortably into the top half of the class. Draco consistently out-performed him, as did a handful of Ravenclaws - and of course Hermione Granger - but Harry was driven by his desire to learn everything he could about how to control his magic. Being able to sense the flow of magic beyond just incantations was starting to pay off, allowing his intuitive jumps to come to correct conclusions almost as often as not.
It made writing homework scrolls easier, though every time he had to strain to remember who had made which important magical discovery he wished Binns wasn't quite so hard to listen to. He knew that he was missing a lot of important information in History of Magic lectures simply because their ghost-teacher's voice made for such soothing background noise to his thoughts.
With the History classes always either right after lunch or at the end of the day, it tended to be more an exercise in falling asleep subtly enough not to be caught for most students. Harry, despite his best efforts to the contrary, usually ended up in a half-awake state of drifting daydreams.
He spent more time staring at the architecture of the huge lecture hall than paying attention, simply because Binns' voice was perfectly and exactly pitched for calming background noise. And lulling. Staying awake was a struggle. Harry occasionally tried to study his books on his own during the class, but Binns was just relevant enough to be completely confusing and attempting it usually resulted in getting dates and names hopelessly confused with each other.
The one good thing about the ghost teacher's lethargy-inducing teaching was that, though History of Magic was the one class attended simultaneously by the entire year from all four houses, with everyone busy sleeping there was little chance of the shouting matches that usually occurred when Pansy and Hermione were in the same room. Or Weasley and Draco, or any number of house-based rivalries farther away from Harry's personal sphere of acquaintances.
Harry's general avoidance of everyone except Pansy and her friends had cemented his reputation by now. The whispers and rumors had died down simply because he wasn't interesting any longer and there were new things to talk about other than that the boy-who-lived was a Slytherin.
The vast majority of the students had just accepted that Harry Potter wasn't interested in interacting with people - some attributed it to aloofness, that he considered them all unworthy of his company, while others whispered darkly that he simply hated wizards and would rise up to destroy them all one day.
A few, though, still stubbornly considered Harry some sort of traitor to their cause. Not a week went by but that some Gryffindor or Hufflepuff jostled him or hissed at him or 'accidentally' tripped him in the hall.
Harry tended to ignore the events as laughable, and thankfully infrequent despite their regularity. Compared to his treatment at primary school by Dudley's gang, these wizards were pathetic pretenders. Pansy, though, took the incidents quite personally and ended up in more than one yelling match with those from the offending houses.
She would fume for hours afterward, and though Harry did his best to calm her he was secretly pleased that she cared so much. Though it did make him worry about her.
They looked up a few common low-level jinxes as independent study after learning about the counter-jinxes in Defence, and then some more interesting ones once they found the right books.
Thanks to Quirrell's private lessons Harry's magical strength was marginally greater than most first-years, and Harry made sure everyone knew it. He never threw the first spell, but if anyone targeted Pansy he did not hold back.
Unfortunately, his uncooperative wand made his spell strength moderately irrelevant as he tended to fail spells at least as often as they succeeded, even in the rare events where he actually got the wand movements correctly.
The best defence would be proving to everyone that they couldn't afford to take him lightly, so he didn't let such obstacles discourage him. They only fueled his determination to succeed. And if his first and second hexes didn't work, well, his third or fourth would and they would hit hard.
And that's how he ended up in Snape's study for the fifth time, on Thursday the seventeenth of October, having become engaged in a scuffle with Gryffindors immediately following their weekly flying lessons.
"Detention again, Mr. Potter?" Their head of house seemed resigned. "Must I remind you again that we are not Gryffindors to go throwing ourselves recklessly at any target we see?"
"I was only protecting myself and my friend, sir," Harry said firmly. "Slytherins stick together, and they came after us."
"Yet dueling in the corridors is against school rules, Mr. Potter. If you did not retaliate, and simply reported them to me or another teacher, you would not be in this situation."
Harry met Snape's eyes firmly. "I will not back down and let them think me weak, Professor Snape. I am a wizard, not a muggle, and I will use my power to protect myself and my friend."
"And getting detentions along with your adversaries demonstrates what, exactly?" Snape asked. "They know how to get at you. They know how to manipulate you. Or aren't you paying attention? What does it matter to them their own detentions, when they know they're dragging you down with them. And you are letting them."
"Only until I can show them that crossing me isn't worth the gain," Harry replied. "I just don't know the right spells, or I don't have the power to cast them. Yet."
"More blunt force is rarely the answer. You are changing, Harry Potter. And not, I think, for the better." Snape watched Harry a moment, then picked up his quill and began writing in his log. "You'll be serving your detention with me, Saturday morning, nine o'clock. Send in Miss Parkinson on your way out."
"I can't believe he split us up again," Pansy fumed. "Sending me to help Hagrid with the acromantulae? That half-breed oaf should just exterminate the lot of them, what is he keeping them around for?"
"Acromantula venom is used in several advanced potions," Harry said. "It's useful to have a nest of them around, but they need to be corralled properly. I'm surprised he'd use students, though, especially first years."
Pansy continued ranting, diverted but not defused. "And me, paired with that foul lout of a blood traitor. Where did Weasley learn to cast actual magic, anyway? His father's too busy looking after muggles, must be those brothers of his."
"The twins aren't so bad," Harry said. While Ron Weasley was one of those who seemed to be personally affronted by whatever symbolic gesture Harry had made by taking so long under the hat and ending up in Slytherin house, his brothers had never really taken sides in the matter. They stayed mostly out of it, from what Harry had seen, and even seemed occasionally to be more on Harry's side of things, albeit quietly.
"I'm surprised he could afford coursebooks at all, even if half of them are handed down," Pansy said venomously. "I'd challenge him to a proper duel this instant if I could."
Harry snickered. "You think he'd really accept?"
Pansy gave a derisive snort. "He fell for Draco's little trick twice. He's a real bludgerbrain that one."
"But he is pureblood," Harry said. He smiled and added slyly, because he knew it would annoy her, "You could do worse."
"Harry Potter, you take that back right now," Pansy hissed, apparently not in the mood for levity.
"You could also do better," Harry acquiesced. "Quite easily."
"Acromantulae," she said again, kicking at the ground.
"You know, I think I heard that Ron Weasley is terrified of spiders," Harry remarked.
Pansy stopped walking, a slow smile crossing her face. "Oh? How fortunate."
They walked in silence for a time, the mood partly recovered.
"Everyone's talking about that empty classroom with the invisible floor," Harry pointed out as they walked down the marble stair in the center of the entrance hall.
Pansy turned as they reached the courtyard, gave a dazzlingly ridiculous smile. "Oh, I know. Who do you think told them?"
She reached into her pocket with a jingling sound which suggested a considerable number of coins.
"Pansy, did you sell information about that classroom?"
"Of course. We wouldn't want to horde such valuable knowledge, but there is something to be said for exclusivity. I couldn't give everyone the secret, they had to have some advantage over the others."
"How exclusive are we talking here?" Harry asked.
"Oh, about thirty or so students besides you and I. Want to go back and watch? They probably have a class in and we have a free period."
Harry shook his head. "I need to move."
Pansy nodded, and they made their way to the lakeside.
Harry had taken to running back and forth in front of it, to work off his constant energy excess. He knew it was probably bad exercise practice, suspected that he should do warmups or stretches of some sort, but he didn't know how and the wizard world was not the best for physical education.
Pansy watched with her faintly amused expression, one that on anyone else would be accompanied by a toss of her hair and a muttered 'boys'. Harry raced across the yard, tapping each tree he came to, weaving around and between them, then back again.
Harry returned, grinning and breathless. "Do you want to practice our spells first," he asked eagerly, "or do the written work?"
"Spells," Pansy said, a glint in her eyes. "Definitely spells."
Harry found his usual position at one end of their usual glade of small trees, while Pansy took her own. They had developed the practice game over the past weeks, incorporating each new class's practicals into it.
It had started near the very beginning of term, when Harry showed Pansy lumonitio and she in turn had shared her tardo jinx - a simple spell which slowed the movement of its target for a few seconds. Neither of them knew more spells than those, but that was quite enough for the pair to get on with.
At first they'd started off tagging tree-trunks, then each other, then selecting targets worth points and adding complex rules for what order and how frequently each spell could be used.
Harry's wand worked unreliably and Pansy's pronunciation had been sloppy, leading to a roughly even match. By now, with the addition of a half-dozen jinxes (and their appropriate counters) and nearly as many charms, the practice game was an unwieldy thing that would have taken longer to explain to anyone than it did to play.
Any bugs or animals that entered the practice area became transfiguration targets. Bonus points were awarded for complex transformations, for casting while moving, or hexing your opponent while they were moving.
Points had to be taken in sequence, moving from one target to another, and were scored higher for switching quickly between targets. Certain sequences, certain designated areas on either the opponent or the trees and rocks around, netted you bonus score as well.
And, of course, blocking a jinx (which happened quite infrequently, spells flew fairly fast and neither Harry nor Pansy were that quick yet) or enacting successfully the newest charms or spells counted double.
It wasn't the most effective way to learn, perhaps, but Harry thought it was certainly the most fun. As it mostly involved the pair of them running and dodging, failing to cast spells and laughing at themselves and each other, it almost never failed to work through whatever Pansy was annoyed about and cheer them both up.
"You know, we could start our own club," Harry said once they were worn out enough to call a break.
Neither had successfully cast Quirrell's green spark spell yet, but Harry had managed to transfigure a tortoise that wandered into their practice area into an only slightly turtle-patterned dinnerplate. Granted, the tortoise hadn't been moving very quickly, but he was quite proud of that transfiguration. They'd both agreed it was worth several extra points.
Harry flipped the plate between his hands as he warmed to the idea. "I'm sure everyone else is bored silly trying to practice spells by repetition in the library."
"We'd need to be at least third year and have permission to form group," Pansy said.
Harry leaned back and grinned at her. "Finally given up on my making alliances?"
"Never," Pansy said. "You should talk to Draco again, I'm sure that now he sees you're making so much progress in class you could be friends. It would benefit you both."
"It is nice with just the two of us, I suppose," Harry said, deliberately ignoring her advice. "If we invited too many people things could get crowded and annoying pretty quickly."
He still owed Draco an unspecified favour, and wasn't keen to offer him chances to earn more. Though they got along fine during and after Flying lessons, Draco had his own group of friends and Harry wasn't comfortable enough with them to approach the group under other circumstances.
Pansy shot him with her slowing jinx. He lazily tried to dodge, not quite evading the spell.
"Yo-u nev-er told me the coun-ter-jinx for that one," Harry said, his words prolonged weirdly by the jinx.
"I know," Pansy said with mock sweetness. "That's rather the idea."
"I do-n't min-d," Harry said. "Bu-t you rea-lize this means I'll have to hunt down a new jinx and not tell you the counter." The weak spell wore off as he was talking, and he grinned up at Pansy. "We should probably get in to dinner, or we'll miss all the good stuff."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Potter," Pansy said with exaggerated aloofness. "Dessert is the good stuff."