Dark love.
Chapter 5: New Dorms.
A staff meeting was occurring the next morning, before breakfast, with an angry school nurse calling it.
"Minerva, explain why I have a student sleeping in the hospital wing, after nearly being killed by his entire house," she started off angrily.
The transfiguration professor was shocked, she knew Harry had been chased off, but not nearly killed, "Explain, I know he had been chased off, but not nearly killed."
Pompfrey nodded and explained, "Something everybody knows, at least later in life, but nobody teaches, is that spells interact with each other. The more spells on the same person, the more unpredictable the effects. (EN) In this case, Harry had several dozen spells cast at him at once. The spell interactions would most likely have killed him. So much for the bravery of Gryffindor, putting a second year against over half the house."
The head of the named house was angry, not only because of the insult to her house, but the fact that they would ambush someone like that. "I see, I will talk to my house about this. Now I assume you have some other issue?"
It was the headmaster that spoke up, as he had realized the problem, "Yes there is one, Harry is now unable to enter the dorms without a risk to his life, and with the majority of the house there chasing him out, it would count as an exclusion, meaning he needs a new place to sleep, and he can't stay in the hospital wing all year."
"Exactly, headmaster," Poppy said.
"The arrogant Brat probably did it on purpose. It would be just like him to cause problems in this way, just like he parades those things around," Snape said snidely.
"So you say he would arrange for him to be nearly killed?" Flitwick said coldly. He then turned toward the headmaster and said, "I offer the Ravenclaw dorms for him, on the condition that he teaches us what he knows of those two elementals that he has following him."
Professor Sprout was next, "I offer the Hufflepuff Dorms, with no strings attached."
Dumbledore was grateful that two of his professors stood up so quickly, and now was angry at himself for not allowing the resorting, Harry was now not a part of his house, and would be an outsider in a different house. It would've been better to allow the resorting.
"We should just let the brat sleep in in an empty classroom, that way he can learn some humility," the potions professor snarked.
Dumbledore glared at the professor, until this point, he had thought Harry was exaggerating how Snape treated him. Now he wasn't so sure. "Enough, Severus that suggestion is completely out of line. I will offer a choice of a privet room, or the two offered dorms. Minerva, I'm sorry, but twenty-five points for each student involved, as well as a school Quidditch ban for all students involved, and I'm reinstating the lost points Filius took off yesterday. We can't have almost an entire dorm ambushing a single person."
McGonagall's face went red in anger, but she couldn't argue about it. Although the Quidditch team will be almost completely gutted, and needs to be replaced.
Seeing that there were no other arguments, Dumbledore dismissed his staff to breakfast.
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After breakfast Harry was annoyed, he was called into Dumbledore's office. He was assuming that he was going to be yelled at, and/or blamed for the Gryffindor house being at such a low point total, that if the points weren't reset after each year, that they'd take over a decade to have a chance at the house cup again.
"Harry," the old man began, "We need to talk about where you will be sleeping. You have three options, a privet room, Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw."
"Privet," Harry immediately responded. "Ravenclaw would pester me with questions, and Hufflepuff would expect my instant loyalty. A loyalty I can't give easily. I do have a question, if I were to give you something I have a feeling was dark, that Malfoy Sr, slipped into my pocket, what would you do with it? Both if it was and wasn't dark."
Dumbledore was wondering what was up, Harry had plenty of opportunity to show how little he cared for the old man now, and has shown it each time, so why now... unless Harry didn't know how to deal with the item in question.
"If it was dark, destroy it, if it wasn't, I would give it back," came the answer, and he was privately unsurprised at Harry's answer to his question.
"Leilah, could you get that book for me?" the boy asked a shadowed corner where the dark element was leaning in while she watched the conversation.
"No problem," she answered, and stepped further into the shadows, and vanished. She then walked back a few seconds later, and handed Harry the notebook. Both of Harry's elementals were glad he was finally disposing of the damned thing.
"This book, it writes back when you write in it," Harry explained, as he held it out to the headmaster. "The diary has the name T.M. Riddle on the inside..."
Harry was interrupted as the aged headmaster lunged at the book and snatched it out of the boy's hand. Mumbling an apology he wrote in the book, and when he obtained a reply he snapped it shut. "Harry, you have done a great thing in bringing this to me. I will study this then destroy it. I will send someone with a key to your room, and it's location at dinner, please leave so I can start."
The Boy's eyes narrowed, but he nodded, and headed out, after all he had the rest of potions to finish skipping and self studying.
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Harry looked around his new lodgings and shrugged. It was rather plain but serviceable. He bed was smaller than the rest at the school, but since he used to live in a cupboard he couldn't really complain. He was just happy that his plan was coming together. He had sent off the rest of the required paperwork after meeting with Dumbledore, and the man still had no clue that the last threads of authority he had over him were going to snap soon.
Considering that if he doesn't get away from this school HE was going to snap, he felt justified.
He just had to hold out until Christmas.
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Time passed, leading through a relatively quiet September and October. The 'cold war' between the-boy-who-lived and his former house dragged on, with the house's reputation in shambles.
Then on Halloween it happened, it went from a cold war, to a near all out war.
It started with a pair of twins casting some prank spells at his back, to which he responded with some more offensive spells, limited though they are since he was only a second year.
His former house took exception at that, and started trying to hex him in the halls.
This led him to spending half of November in the hospital wings getting his curses sorted out, both the single ones, and the odd effects of multiple curses hitting at once.
There were some students with serious injuries from Gryffindor in the hospital wing right beside him, as he started using dangerous, potentially lethal spells in his own defense, and his elementals were also starting to remove limbs.
Speaking of the elementals they were close to begging Harry to allow them to up their responses, as they had a hard time protecting their partner/master while holding back.
Harry was close to giving permission, and damn the consequences.
It wasn't helped by the fact that the professors gave just him detentions, that he refused to attend, and ignored the fact that he was getting assaulted by a large umber of students.
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Twenty ninth of November.
Yet another meeting was being held to discuss Harry Potter, and this time, the conversation was much grimmer.
"Headmaster, my hospital wing this year has seen more students than in the last decade, all of the from the same house, and all of them put there after trying to attack a single boy, please explain why those students are getting off with just a warning?" the Mediwitch asked with a scowl.
Dumbledore was looking much more harried than normal. He hadn't expected the house that supposedly respected him the most to start these kind of concentrated assaults. He took a deep breath then replied, "Minerva, what have you done to stop them?"
"I have been giving detentions to Potter, as he has been using severely damaging, and near lethal spells,' came the response.
Snape sneered, and replied caustically, "And I suppose stopping those attacks before he needs to respond didn't cross your mind? It's obvious I don't like the boy, but even I think it's overdoing it to expect him not to defend himself from a entire dorm worth of foes."
"Minerva," the headmaster started in a hard tone of voice. "anymore attacks on Harry and we will have to use one of the most extreme punishments the school allows, right below expelling them. The next time Harry is attacked, the students will be confined to the dorms except at lessons and meals. They will be escorted to each class with their wands confiscated, and will not have them except for classes," he stopped at seeing his deputy headmistress opening her mouth to protest, "Minerva! These students have been assaulting a young man for nearly a month. He has spent half of it in the hospital wing, it needs to stop... NOW!"
at seeing the deputy headmistress gaping he decided to say one last thing as he rose to leave, "I will be talking to Harry personally, and try to stop him from feeling the need to escalate to fully lethal responses, but self defense has been established so I legally can't do more."
Dumbledore left a room gaping with his words.
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His talk with Harry showed that the boy was at the end of his patience, and the only reason why there weren't bodies yet, is that he was trying to avoid the trouble it would cause, but he told Dumbledore that the next time he was assaulted, he wouldn't hold back, they had more than enough chances to stop, and never took them.
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In the Gryffindor dorms, McGonagall was explaining what would happen if Harry was attacked again, and she was angry when she found out that the hostilities were started from her house towards Harry, and not the other way around like she had assumed.
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It was approaching Christmas, and the students going home were departing, and the headmaster was relieved to see that Harry was going as well. He needed the time without Harry around to work out how to prevent a bloodbath for the next half of the year.
The threat of punishment seemed to work for the last two weeks or so, but Dumbledore knew it was temporary, and he needed Harry to stay alive.
Looking at the piece of paper in his hand he sighed. It was the list of offenders whom had attacked Harry the last month, and knowing that a little over half the house was involved, with a quarter of them attacking multiple times was depressing.
As he watched Harry depart for the elemental realm directly from Hogwarts he gave a sigh of relief.
Little did he know that he wouldn't see Harry again for nearly two years.
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At the end of the winter holidays.
Leaving the elemental realm, Harry looked at an ancient building, and smiled. It was time to get settled in his new school.
Welcome to Mahora Academy young boy, we wish you luck.
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End chapter.
End Year.
EN: Short year, intentionally so. W/O diary, there was no chamber of secrets, and thus beyond Harry's feud with the lions, no real conflict.
EN2: yes the plan all along was to have Harry change schools.