Chapter 5: I - Introductions
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Harry puts on the Sorting Hat and startles by a deep voice in his ear.
"Yes, yes, what have we got here, a new mind ready for moulding! Now, where to put you?"
"You tell me", Harry says.
"A Gryffindor you are not. A Ravenclaw not either. Also not one for Hufflepuff and you are hiding just a little too much for Slytherin. Now, where to put you?"
Harry is silent.
"A secret for a secret then! You will be sorted into the fifth house, the SECRET HOUSE!"
Harry stands up, puts the hat back, and walks towards the fifth house table there is. The ones sitting there are not cheering. Instead, many eyes meet his, unmoving and unblinking. It dawns on him that they're no teens and children.
There is a young man with green eyes and light brown hair sitting next to another very tall man, his hair a little longer and a darker brown.
A short blondish man in a green hunting jacket has the perfect features for a grin but his face is empty.
A pale, black-haired man has startlingly blue eyes and wears a tan coat.
A dark skinned man is sitting next to him, he has an aura most authoritative.
The pasty looking man on his other side could pass as a lawyer with his immaculate suit and he is nearly bald, his piercing eyes standing in contrast with his round face.
Next to him sits a dark skinned man with a matching suit, though he is completely bald and does not have the other's few remaining bushes of grey hair.
The youngest among them is a redheaded girl, older than Harry by just a few years with big, greenish-brown eyes.
Harry looks back at the teacher's table, on a sudden whim to make out the fifth head teacher. He finds him.
A man with curly brown hair and a short beard meets his gaze with blue eyes. There is a presence. But it is not Quirrell's disgusting one, no, it could not be further from that-
The man smiles.
Harry wakes up.
One moment he startles because the transition from standing in a brightly lit hall to lying tangled up in a thick blanket in near darkness is jarring.
Then, waking world logic kicks back in and in those few moments Harry has before he forgets about the nonsensical dream, he is dumbfounded by what he's seen and heard.
Adults as students of the fifth house. The Hat with that voice. What the-
Soon, even the vague notion that he dreamt anything at all fades away and he is left unable to go back to sleep. Honed instincts have it that he wills his trunk to make no sound when he opens it and the door to shut silently behind him, as to not wake anyone else up.
The common room is empty at this hour and he only knows the castle's layout well enough to know that it's too twisty and turny for him to find the Great Hall alone anytime soon. Great Hall, yesterday night, him- come to think of it, he has free reign over the castle, the chance of walking into him outside of the already dreaded class hours is too big for Harry's liking, he will keep with the rest of his housemates for now.
Housemates that aren't here to either show him to the Great Hall or keep him otherwise company, so he-
-won't go grab something to read, no, instead the charmed serpent portrait above the lit fireplace is looking straight at him.
He walks over to the fireplace and it slithers down along the black background it's painted on, they meet each other halfway.
Harry doesn't move but the snake's coils travel slowly back and forth, along the left then the right side of the lower frame. Its head never wavers from where it's poised in the middle to inspect him, tongue flickering and slanted pupils unmoving.
It hisses.
Years ago he explained how snakes differ from other animals in that they seemed to communicate more vocally and yesterday introduced him to Parsel.
It's a shame he doesn't speak it.
(Except he does)
("Are you one of us, I cannot tell", she asks and his answer-)
-Tears at the back of his throat, presses down on his windpipe and air escapes him with a hiss when he responds, though mangled as the bare human throat restricts the finer undertones of a language not spoken.
('No, other. Although I'm been with your kind from th' beginning.')
Flaring its hood briefly, the snake coils in on itself. The writhing lengths of shimmering scales part just enough to allow one eye to peek out.
Did he... just talk to it?
He needs to sit down.
Harry takes a few tentative steps back and flops onto one of the couches, the snake still in his line of sight.
Is it... afraid?
But afraid doesn't quite describe the flightiness of an animal on edge, one that may have recognized something bigger than itself and has yet to decide upon a course of action.
He doesn't want it to fear him.
(Didn't intend for it to, back when he helped design it-)
(An uninvited memory rears its head)
('What are you up to this ti- Gabriel, what exactly is that?'
'Fancy seeing you around here, Michael! What do you say? Beautiful, isn't it?'
'Samael, did you encourage this?'
'Why the ruffled feathers?'
'An egg-laying mammal with poisonous spurs and a beak.'
'To each their own. My serpents got Parent's approval, whatever this is-'
Gabriel gives an indignant flare of their Grace.
'-should get Their approval. You could try making something as well.'
'I'd rather not intrude upon Their Creations.'
'Are you sure? You want to be the only archangel left out?'
'Does that mean Raphael-'
Gabriel intercepts.
'Why'd you think this little fellow here has electroreception as well?')
(But Michael was not to be swayed, apparently)
(Upon seeing the phoenix, Samael, Raphael and Gabriel exchanged a look and never brought it up again)
(Snide remarks and ambiguous jokes don't count as bringing it up)
Lost in himself, he watches the flames crackling in the fireplace. They are just dim enough to not blind, to not disrupt his peaceful state. Remind him that he is no longer supposed to welcome the way his inherent coolness, which lingers deeper than his bones and scarcely makes itself known nowadays, repels the radiating heat. Plays with it, reaches what it can't, completes and is completed by it.
The students who exit the corridor from the fifth year's room don't have it ingrained in them to be quiet when everyone else is asleep. They converse while walking in and when they spot Harry sitting there by himself, they come to a stop and watch him.
He makes a point of looking at them briefly before turning back to the fireplace, he is not in the mood for conversation quite yet. So while a steady trickle of other early risers starts to congregate in the Common Room, Harry is left alone.
Then, along comes Zabini, the first other first year. The couch under him shifts with the added weight of someone sitting down on the other end.
"Good morning, Potter."
"Hello."
It's silent until Harry's gaze lands on the serpent portrait above the fireplace again. It's watching him still.
"Do tell, what exactly is the deal with Parselmouths?", he asks. "I heard speaking to snakes is considered dark magic but I fail to see why."
Zabini throws him a considering look.
"So you did grow up among muggles. Be careful not to let your ignorance show too much, it wouldn't do any good if the wizarding world were to learn about how little their saviour knows. Not only is Parsel extraordinary rare, He Who Must Not Be Named was the last known wizard to speak it and you'll understand why that taints the perception the public has on that particular skill?"
"Hm. Also, I suppose I - what was it? Ah, yes - I already let my ignorance show around you. So do you mind also telling the guy who grew up among muggles why everyone is so bent on who affiliates with whom and what name belongs to what house?"
Zabini looks carefully blank when he takes Harry's expression in.
"Just how have you been spending your time? I assume you got introduced to magic when your letter came, which must have been well before the start of the term. So how come you are this uninformed?"
Beneath his chipper mask, Harry answers just as blankly.
"I was learning more about magic itself than politics. They don't interest me, in the end it's all an assembly of petty squabbles for vain power. There's no unity to it, no real weight."
"What an outlook to have in your position. In terms of power you are as good as a pureblood, thus you can't afford such an attitude. You are a Slytherin and you will come to learn our values in the next years, you can't just up and dismiss everything you stand for now-"
"What I stand for?" The wording rings deep and Harry restrains his swiftly risen anger behind flashing eyes. "What I stand for, Zabini, is what I alone decide. Nobody gets to tell me that. If I find your values appealing, though you will have to excuse me if I do not take interest in powerplays that are beneath me, then I will support them because I decided to do so myself."
"Who are you to say that the workings of our world are beneath you?"
"Someone who-"
(Never had to fight to rise to power)
"...Someone who grew past the age of arguing with other children about who is better based on what their families do." Not that Harry ever partook in such arguments himself, though the point still stands.
"Our ways of governing have served us perfectly well for centuries. The families with the purest heritage are also those best fit to lead because they aren't tainted with muggle blood, they know what's best for the wizarding world. Don't speak so laxly of something you've only just begun to learn about."
Harry huffs and leans back in the couch.
"You're right. Who am I to say that it's beneath me to contribute to a system that stands in its own way, whose members prefer to tear each other down over something as unimportant as blood instead of working together to further a society that is still stuck in the 17th century? With or without magic, people are people. But one side flew to the moon while the other has wax dripping down from the candle that hovers above the table in the pub that is the entrance to one of its most vital hotspots and it makes you wonder what went wrong."
If they'd get their heads out of their rears and started acknowledging advancements in nonmagical sciences and technology - the untapped potential hurts.
Zabini has gone silent and it seems he forgot to close his mouth completely. Then he is himself again and a frown draws his lips into a thin line.
"The moon - You can't possibly be serious, Potter. If you feel the need to lie in order to have arguments for your side, this conversation is over. At least try to make your lies seem believable in the future."
With that, he stands up and just before he is out of earshot, Harry calls after him:
"I never lie, Zabini."
There are more people in the room now, some are staring at him with various degrees of subtlety but what else is new. Harry can't yet make out anyone else from first year in the ever-growing mass of black robed students.
"Don't we have to go to breakfast?", Harry asks someone who looks to be about a fourth year. "Or do we wait for something?"
"That something is Professor Snape and he - he is to make his yearly introductory announcement for we of House Slytherin are a unit and he does good reminding us all of that. Then we'll go to breakfast, yes."
Funny how her tone changed in the span of one glance at who she's talking to. Harry thanks her so very sweetly and goes back to sitting on the couch before it'll be undoubtedly taken.
It's him who stands up again after picking up on the change of tone in the ambient noise. The students gradually cease talking and are in the process of forming a half-circle around a figure, Harry can't distinguish anything else because he's too short.
Begrudgingly he paves his way trough the others, makes the conscious decision to not think about how he has yet to see someone smaller than him and comes to a halt at the front.
One look from the oily-haired man's black eyes if enough to shut the remaining few mutters in the far back up.
"I shall not waste my breath on introductory words or by repeating to you the very qualities that got you sorted into this house-"
His eyes find Harry. When he locks his gaze onto him, his face is devoid of emotions but the sneer is all the more evident in his voice.
"-but I might just as well make an exception for our new resident celebrity. Who only recently learned that Slytherin stands for the cunning and resourceful, represents the ambitioned and the determined and is where those fit to lead find true friends."
His eyes and those of Slytherin. On Harry, the lot of them.
Harry, who thought he could bear negative attention but Professor Snape's scathing words crack his defense and allow the stares to intrude and infect his confidence.
His gaze latches onto Snape's and he forces himself to not let go, the tension in his shoulders, which he forces not to draw up or sag, is grounding him.
"We all know of Mr. Potter and his great achievements, do we not? Aren't we most honored to be the house to welcome him in its lines? Utterly laughable delusions. Because make no mistake, by no means did Slytherin gain a brilliant student but a halfwitted muggle. We all just as well know of his upbringing. However, famousas he is, he will with no doubt draw all eyes to him and in turn to House Slytherin, which is most unfortunate, seeing as the weight of his inadequacy will fall onto us tenfold."
His head is held high but that only serves to remind him of how they still tower over him. That Snape doesn't quite look him in the eyes but at a point above only serves to make him feel smaller.
Harry makes the mistake of glancing around and once he lost Snape's cold glare, he can't muster the will to look up and past the others to find it again. The stone floor before him looks to be just as cold anyway.
"This year more than ever, I expect to see no misconduct that will tarnish Slytherin's reputation further than the presence of Mr. Potter here is already destined to. You will study hard like those fit to play in the Quidditch team will train hard for us not to loose our standing, seeing as despite the weight dragging us down, Slytherin still is more than capable of defending both cups and I won't accept anything less."
(Will he let himself be dragged down by this?)
When he straightens back up, Harry's eyes are green. They reflect the ambient light so well, they might just glow themselves. With a smile and a slight sideways tilt of his head, he looks Snape in the eye while he decides that he doesn't like him.
Snape's baleful glare narrows. It's silent until he scoffs out a "Dismissed" before whirling around and exiting the common room, robes billowing.
Conversations pick up again, as does a genreal movement to head out. Out the corner of his eye, Harry makes out Zambini's tall dark shape next to a pale one that can only be Malfoy and some of the girls in their year, so while the Slytherins get going, Harry stays hangs back around his fellow first years. He thinks.
Because he is too busy staring to pay who he's next to any mind, just navigating Hogwarts' hallways is a full-on experience in and on itself.
The portraits are moving. Not that that's new but there are so many of them and seeing a medieval lady walk over into a giraffe's frame is certainly something. The tapestry moves as well. The armours don't.
A slab of brick wall catches Harry's eye because he could've sworn it was door-shaped the second prior.
When he looks up at the ceiling, the dusty chandelier's light casts a shadow of something that's not there.
A cat is yowling bloody murder as it runs past them, chased by a translucent pearly dog whose floating bones are visible, leaving a cold chill in its wake.
A chill of the same sort, if only stronger, passes by his back. Harry whirls around and it's the bloody ghost who hovers above him, if he's looking at or past him is not to be determined clearly with the ghost's thousand-yard-stare that seems to be as much a part of him as the bloodstains. Deranged shrieking grows louder as something dubbed "Peeves!" and "the bloody poltergeist!" is drawing closer.
"That deranged menace Dumbledore's too soft to banish" turns out to be a short man with a bell-covered hat and a bucket in hand, though his wicked expression morphs into one of horror upon getting too close to Harry and he books it trough a wall, which leaves the tangible bucket behind. It cascades down and spills its sickly green and sickly slimy contents.
Clearly the bloody ghost, who now leisurely passes the same wall Peeves fled trough, is the reason for the latter's distress.
When they get to the - of course moving - staircases, every student is bent on skipping past three steps in particular, no matter how ridiculously it may make their robes flutter and it obviously hurts some egos. Harry gets his answer when Goyle doesn't and it results in him hanging on to dear life as there is suddenly nothing under him. By the combined efforts of Crabbe and some more older students, they get him out.
And then there's the Great Hall. Harry only now gets around to properly taking it in. Sadly, he can't keep on standing and gawking like a buffoon in the middle of the way.
Even prying his gaze away from the charmed ceiling to see where he's sitting down at the Slytherin table feels like an affront. Though at the smell of breakfast, a bout of aching pain in his gut reminds him of how badly he needs to catch up on eating, but before he can make sense of the overwhelming array of foods and decide, he's interrupted.
"Feeling more sociable today, Potter?" That's Malfoy cutting in. "Not too late to mend that awful first impression."
Not this again. Harry's gaze locks on an apple on a plate about a meter out of his arm's reach and while he answers Malfoy, he wonders if, after this passed month, he still is up to the task of summoning it manually.
"My first impression was bad but Quirrell's" - the name alone is almost enough to vanish his ravenous appetite but Harry concentrates on the apple and banishes the man from his mind "- was worse. I honestly don't get how nobody else sees him for what he is."
The apple flies into his opened hand. It's suspiciously quiet where Malfoy is sitting and when Harry turns around, the other is looking at the apple in his hand with forcefully restrained awe.
"Did you just summon that apple wandlessly?"
Harry wonders anew, this time if he can still draw his wand without making a fool of himself. He raises the apple-less hand, flicks his wrist and there, it slides into his grip before he retracts it just as smoothly. That's what pleases him, not Malfoy's now dumbfounded expression. That rather confuses him.
"What, can't you do anything without a wand?"
"Are you - you are. You are serious. How can you not know that wandless magic is..." He trails off and for all Harry has known Malfoy for a short while, it's jarring to see him speechless.
"That wandless magic is what?", Harry inquires.
"That, unless we're in in Africa here, wandless magic is nigh impossible to do, especially for an untrained, muggle-raised halfblood."
Pure spite is what fuels Harry to hover the apple and spin it a good ten centimeters over his opened hand without it taking the few moments to let his magic work, all the while he's not breaking his flat stare at Malfoy.
"Ah yes, I heard the lions are lovely around here." He indicates the red-gold Gryffindor table while the apple falls back into his palm. "I hope I won't be disappointed, now that'd make me sad."
Someone nearby snorts and that someone is Nott, seated across them. Under their questioning looks, he reigns his smile back in and raises an eyebrow at the both of them.
"Something the matter?", he asks them, before addressing Malfoy. "I thought you planned on introducing Potter to real wizarding culture. Go on, don't get distracted."
Malfoy narrows his eyes minutely at Nott before he dismisses him by turning his attention back on Harry. The latter is already talking around a mouthful of apple and it's only the situation's surrealism that keeps Malfoy from remarking on that.
"Intr'duce me t' culture, huh?", Harry asks, then swallows. "Then explain to me why wands, better yet, the lack thereof is this big a deal. I get that they're there to be an easy outlet for magic and allow for more precision but is it really that weird to do small tasks without bothering to draw a wand?"
Says he whose wand is at his fingertips at all times but then again, laziness doesn't have to follow reasonable rules.
"A true wizard doesn't lower himself to do 'small tasks' that are below his and his magic's dignity, because a true wizard is one affluent enough to have house elves at the ready to do just that for him. You know what a house elf is, correct?"
"Yeah. But I get the feeling that's not all there is to it."
Harry spins around, catching quite a few pairs of eyes before they can be averted timely, and asks "Anyone else care to elaborate?"
It's the blonde first year girl sitting next to Nott who does, not even bothering to pretend she didn't listen in on their conversation.
"Daphne Greengrass. Wandless magic is difficult, it is hard to control, should it even manifest at one's will, so only masterful wizards have a tight enough grasp on their magic to even attempt using it wandlessly. Of course in some regions, like parts of Africa and America, they don't use wands from the beginning but frankly, there is a reason the absolute majority of wizards uses one and you'll excuse if it is surprising that of all people, you with your muggle upbringing seem to have this level of control."
It's Harry's turn to be dumbfounded.
"How can you not know how to handle your own magic? It's literally a part of you."
"Better yet, how can you?" Greengrass counters after a blank moment on her part as well. "I don't think I've made it quite clear enough just how difficult it is. You can't tell us that you just up and did it and it came to you without complications, that's impossible."
"Granted, it took a little, but it worked", Harry shrugs and leans back slightly. "Now that you say it, I think I may have passed out for a day straight after first doing it, even if all I did was make light, open and close a lock and repair a torn paper. Not even well, I might add. Then again, I was three? Four?"
"Why in Merlin's name did you need push yourself to do all that wandlessly when you were four at most?", Malfoy asks.
Harry's face falls. Just for a moment, he has his relaxed expression immediately pasted back on, but that one moment is enough to cast a light not good-looking, should that statement not have done so already.
"Anyway, I kept on trying new stuff out, even found a nice"- safebut he already said too much- "place to practice. Thing is, I thought my little games were primitive compared to what actual wizards and witches can do."
That's not the case if the looks of his housemates are anything to go by.
"Primitive, what even-" Malfoy sets on and then goes over into muttering to himself in frustrated disbelief.
"What exactly does 'trying new stuff out' mean with you?", Zabini asks from next to Malfoy.
"Sparks, hovering some items, changing colour and shape of some and the size of others and... yeah, all-round manipulating like that, that's about it."
Because even at these rather minor achievements the others are starting to look increasingly incredulous, he isn't all that keen on adding 'going invisible for like a second'. They wouldn't believe him.
(One day, Harry will plomp Zabini down in front of a computer and show him.)
But there's also a certain undertone to their awe and it's Nott who gives it a voice:
"You do realise how close you were to either death or completely loosing your magic, don't you?"
He-
"Excuse me?"
-doesn't.
"Pushing your magic like that from such a young age on - and doesn't that sound like a whole other rabbit hole -" Harry does not waver, he maintains steady eye contact, "- you did say you passed out. That'd be overexertion and you could've not woken up again, but it could also have seriously stunted your magic's development. Nonetheless, not only did you manage to do wandless magic at that age, you somehow also balanced that fine line between honing it and not exploiting it to the point of no return."
Conserving his magic, letting it grow along with him and not stunting it by overuse certainly hadn't even made the list of his priorities. Because Harry knew it to be his to absolutely rely on and that didn't include going easy on it.
(Excruciatingly weak as it is compared to what he should be capable of, it didn't disappoint)
(How picky can he still afford to be at this point?)
(He should never even have been in the situation to have that question cross his mind at all, curse them all for it-)
"I don't know what Professor Snape's issue with you is, Potter," Nott says, bringing him back to the discussion at hand. "But he may have miscalculated for once."
Harry is smiling, of course he is, but why is it suddenly so hard to fight that smile down when he has worn it long enough to show acknowledgement?
"Tha-"
On that one syllable, Harry chokes. Gone is the smile, his leaning slightly back and his idle fiddling with the bitten apple. It also doesn't look like he will get to eat anything more, gone is his appetite as well.
Because that sensat- because Quirrell is back.
"Wha-oi, watch it with that bloody thing!"
Malfoy and his startled exclamation upon abruptly finding himself on the other end of Potter's wand is maybe a bit over the top. Or it isn't.
He will be damned if he ever admits it, and be it to himself, but Malfoy inwardly rejoices in relief when he catches on that Potter isn't directing that glare atbut pasthim, that his wand is aimed at something behindhim. His wand that is a piece of barely refined wood, a brutishly long thing that, in one instance of morning light flaring along its length, looked more imposing than even Father's finely carved and decorated one.
"What's going on, Potter?", Greengrass asks.
Malfoy pretends he was also looking at Potter questioningly all along.
"He's coming. How do you not notice a thing?"
"What don't we notice?"
"Who are you talking about?"
But Nott's and Zabini's questions are ignored.
Malfoy sits with the Great Hall's entrance behind him. Potter's unnerving focus wanders from his general direction to and past the masses that enter and make their ways to their tables, now Slytherin's isn't the only fully occupied one anymore. Still, even with the thick of the students out of the way it takes Malfoy a moment to make out the jittery jester who is supposed to teach them to defend themselves against dangers, and be these dangers but traditional practices inherent to the true wizarding heritage.
His learned disdain for the Dark Arts' fall from grace aside, Malfoy sees Potter's ridiculous behavior start up anew and has to act. Professor Snape was right in that the student body's attention would be drawn to him.
"By Merlin, Potter, snap out of it. You don't see us watching Quirrell like a frenzied thestral smelling blood."
"Judging by how yesterday went, you won't get him to react anytime soon", Zabini drawls lazily.
"It's Quirrell he's so... focused on, no?", Greengrass asks, looking back and forth between Potter and the object of his ire. They can all agree to that.
"Didn't you notice how he seemed to know that Quirrell was approaching before he even entered the Hall?", Nott asks. "Better yet, he spotted him in the midst of a crowd right away."
Greengrass takes the words right out of Malfoy's mouth.
"You don't believe there's a sense to this madness, do you?"
Nott blinks slowly.
"I'm just stating the obvious. For example, compare Potter right now to how he was when Professor Snape finished his speech."
Against their will, they have to admit that Potter's open animosity towards Quirrell gains a new weight after he openly smiled in Professor Snape's face.
It's quiet until Greengrass takes Malfoy's words again.
"I get the feeling nothing about him makes any sense whatsoever."
"Believe me, Greengrass", huffs Zabini, "You're definitely not alone in thinking that, not after my other encounter with him."
A moment of circling around one another follows. For Zabini to keep Greengrass and the others waiting to the point of asking without giving in to the urge to share and for Greengrass to outwait Zabini. Because one rarely gets to experience being a dumb, impulsive child when growing up in string-pulling, sophisticated families.
"I've had a chance to take a peek at Potter's point of view", Zabini elaborates just when Greengrass was about to take that breath and ask. "Or rather, the messy construction zone there."
He recounts the essentials of their conversation.
"If that isn't going to be a challenge", Greengrass states with a pull to the corners of her mouth.
Malfoy tsks. "Who does he think he is. He well and truly has no idea what he's talking about. I-" At that, he squints as if what he says next almost hets stuck in his throat. "I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, with his background and all. But there better be a good reason he was sorted with us in the first place."
"Now, now, we don't want to antagonise the future Merlin our house won any further than Professor Snape already did, do we? That'd be unlucky", Nott interrupts. "The Potter heir, future inhabitant of the Potter's Wizengamot seat and an influential public figure. Who has yet to learn the fullest magic has to offer."
And when he says fullest, he doesn't mean the fullest of just light.
"Of which I can assure you I am working on", Malfoy states curtly. He doesn't need the others interfering.
"Draco", Greengrass replies. "The Harry Potter. Openly convinced and using his fame to bring the banned practices back. This is not the time for just the Malfoy name to swoop in and secure the quest and its prizes, this concerns and benefits all of us."
And when she says 'us', she doesn't mean the fullest of the wizarding world.
"What I do hope you all have so cunningly accounted for is the tripping jinx he could throw into your plans out of nowhere", Zabini says. Which, true.
"But first things first", Nott counters. "We'd need to stake out his position in the first place before we can so much as predict something like that."
They all still when, suddenly, the statue in their midst that so blissfully ignored them and their conversation stands up and is about to move away.
"Where do you think you're headed?", Malfoys calls out. "We still haven't gotten our schedules yet."
Potter was headed somewhere where Quirrell isn't, as is made apparent by how he visibly makes an effort to sit back down. But they all can bear to be in the same Hall as their professor and later on in the same much smaller classroom, he'll have to as well.
The delivering owls come and go, the Hall starts to clear out, two of the other houses already having gotten their schedules, and some of the Professors leave as well to prepare. One of them standing out by how his absence makes Potter visibly relax.
So he's serious about whatever farce he's playing here. Malfoy says as much.
But Harry's too busy lamenting the disappearance of food and plates from the table, still, he at least has his apple to finish.
And finish the apple he does, it's certainly more productive than bothering to react to Snape's venomous look when he doesn't hand but nearly slams the schedule in front of him.
His spirits somewhat lifted again, he immediately brings them back down by asking "Hold up, what does Quirrell even teach?" and promptly dreading the next day and Thursday, when he'll have Defense class.
On the other hand, Harry can't but look forward to to just about every other subject because there's so many of them and they'll all be magical-
This first day they will start with Transfigurations, Charms and Herbs, in that order. He feels like skipping to the classroom. But he doesn't. Only feels like it. In his chest, something big itches to be made air and he can't wait to start class.
Still on his happy high, he isn't deterred by his classmates' variations of "What are you doing-" when he goes straight for the cluster of Gryffindors that'll have class with them and singles out one of the boys.
"Hey there, Ron!"
"It's Weasley to you, Potter."
That one bit-out sentence is enough, the cold blanket to smother the good mood he had going on there.
"What?"
Ron is now openly glaring.
Then again, Harry can work well with cold.
"Is there a reason you act like the train ride never happened?"
"Yes there is, look at what colour your crest is! Did you really think I'd fall for- I'd fall for your slimy Slytherin schemes?"
"What schemes? I greeted you since, and I think you need a reminder, we've already broken the ice yesterday."
"And it was a mistake." Over his shoulder, Ron shoots a quick glance two of the three other Gryffindor boys. "A damn bloody mistake."
"Yes, I see a mistake too", Harry wills his tone to betray nothing, "Though not the one you're thinking of."
To that, Ron has no answer. Just like Harry has no desire to keep standing in between the green and red fronts, he turns heel and keeps his head high and his gaze too. Pretends that he doesn't meet the other's looks that reek faintly of unspoken I told you sobecause his keeping his gaze high means he just about meets them at eye level.
"See?", Malfoy starts up. "There are people plain undeserving of your attention and if you payed heed to my advice, it would have saved you the trouble in the first place. At least you know better by now."
"Hm. Maybe I do."
"Add to that that all other houses seem to have that innate aversion to us", Nott supplies from the sidelines, "And you've got yourself the reason to stay with us. For the better, I might add, I doubt you'll find a certain open-mindedness for the finer arts of magic elsewhere."
"Open-mindedness?", Harry asks with a smirk he can't quite hold in. "Elaborate on that."
Nott cranes his neck to look around Harry and Malfoy, saying "Another time. Here's not the place and Professor McGonagall is coming anyway."
Indeed, chatter on both sides dies down when the stern witch in question unlocks the classroom door and they all trickle in to find their seats. Harry is already sitting when it dawns that this time around he'll likely have a bench neighbour so he looks around and waits to see what'll happen.
He'd have thought Malfoy to go with either Crabbe or Goyle but the two walking mountains squeeze to sit together instead. They're both so large, how can they both be as large as Dudley, it looks like there are two fourth years sitting there surrounded by firsties and that, like the two of them, takes up so much room in Harry's thinking, he didn't notice Malfoy taking place on the seat next to him.
Harry blinks in confusion.
I means nothing. Him and Malfoy, they don't have the same backstory as Harry and his past classmates, atop of that the other is making himself to be his guide of sorts and Harry is a fool to think he chose to be his seat neighbour out of the goodness of his heart.
He has his materials out and ready and doesn't even have to wait for something to happen because McGonagall is already upfront and, under the general rustling of books and parchments being taken out, brandishing her wand and making entire blocks of texts and explanatory illustrations appear and disappear one after the other on the chalkboard.
Malfoy is also no longer busy unpacking, instead he asks "What kind of quill is that?"
"Why are you so interested in my qui-"
"Is there a problem?"
"No, Professor", is both their kneejerk answer to McGonagall's question posed over her shoulder. She musters them. The rustling slowly dies down as more and more people have their items at the ready.
"Then I expect you to stay focused", McGonagall remarks before flicking her wand again, which replaces the last wall of text with a simple headline:
The Essentials Of Transfiguration
She turns around and that single strict motion is enough to keep anyone of them from so much as thinking of doing something other than pay attention.
During her following long and demanding lecture, even those who are just robotically copying the board and have stopped understanding don't quite dare to slack off either. Malfoy has no time to throw more than four disdainful glances at Harry's not-quill. Harry too is busy enough to ignore the scratching of quills. Nails on chalkboard have nothing on that infernal sound.
Then comes the demonstration. Desk to pig and back.
Harry is ecstatic.
Then comes their task, to make a match a needle and he is a little less ecstatic because, honestly, he expected a little more. A sentiment shared my many others but Harry is the only one to retain it, like he is the only one to manage the task.
Malfoy, not all that successful on his own part, keeps glancing increasingly often at Harry's now-needle then back at his own matchstick.
"Do you need help?", Harry asks before he can think, although he himself doesn't know why or even how he should and could help in the first place.
"I'm trying to get the hang of it on my own, that's what this is all about in the first place", Malfoy short of snaps back between gritted teeth. Then, after a beat- "But thank you, I suppose."
When Harry juggles his object of practice between being a needle and a matchstick, the spell's incantation growing faster and quieter the more often he says it, it's not out of spite like at breakfast, but boredom. He waits for McGonagall to finish correcting Neville from-the-train Longbottom's pronunciation so he can maybe get something else to do while practicing how good he is at transfiguring the thing without looking. Though something else gets ahead of that.
"How are you doing that?"
The high voice isn't saying the incantation or talking to someone close by, it's directed loudly across the classroom. From the red to the green side. Harry looks around, there is Granger and she's looking straight at him with her brows furrowed.
Harry glances down briefly at the matchstick that's been a needle and then not anymore some many times by now. Granger has followed his line of sight.
"Ha-Potter, how are you doing that?"
Does he have something better to do than indulge her? He finds his gaze flitting to McGonagall who is inspecting his work from afar before she looks him in the eye and gives an appreciating nod while simultaneously giving permission. No, he doesn't have anything better to do, at least for now.
Because he doesn't feel like answering back across the classroom, even if they're all so courteous and have fallen silent, he grabs his matchstick and invites himself onto the free seat next to her while not allowing himself to think about how the one next to him wasn't empty anymore.
"Like this", Harry says, wand raised and the incantation on his lips. Before him, there lays a needle.
Granger takes it and inspects it. Her frown deepens when she doesn't find a single flaw in the shiny metal, even the eye is there. She puts it down gingerly, takes her wand and points it at her own matchstick, imitating Harry perfectly, down to the wand movement. Her matchstick remains unchanged.
"That's exactly what I did, but it didn't work. So. How exactly are you doing that?", she asks anew.
Harry looks between their wands.
"It just comes to me."
Her frown turns sour and she huffs.
"Well to me it doesn't. I follow every step thoroughly, just like you did, but nothing will work. Perhaps I ought to try harder-"
One second to the next he isn't in the classroom anymore but in the dark. He knows making light is possible but he tries hard and often and it won't come. Maybe if he tries harder-
He's back and the grip around his wand, strong enough to make it tremble, anchors him in the present. But the flashback also served to make him realize something.
Harry grins at Granger and her sour disposition.
"I know what your problem is."
Faced with a potential solution, Granger can't hold the frown for long, it'd distract her from listening attentively. Or maybe it's listening to a possible solution for a problem that makes her forget to keep it up.
"This is magic, not mathematics", Harry explains. "Things won't come together by themselves because you follow the rules, there's a little something you yourself need to add into the equation."
"And that is?"
"Magic."
She blinks at him, then blinks some more.
"Just what do you think I was doing until now?"
Harry isn't deterred.
"Just what do you think happens when someone who isn't a witch takes a wand, points and moves it while speaking foreign words? The same thing. It's the magic that's missing."
Going by her expression, she is not quite catching on. Going by the befuddled looks everyone in their vicinity sports, they aren't either. Thus Harry elaborates.
"Granger, let me guess. When your magic first showed, it's likely that you did something way more elaborate than turning a matchstick into a needle, am I right?"
"Yes, I returned a battered old book to looking- What does that have to do with this?"
"The magic. It's there, you have it. But that's just it, you don't know how to actively call upon it, that's what this exercise is all about. That everyone here is strong enough to transform a tiny piece of wood is out of the question, it's about the technique. Incantation and wand movements, they are just means to an end, they guide your magic to do what the spells are supposed to, but it's you who has to get the hang of, well, bringing your magic into the equation."
Granger is silent, as are the others. Finally, she mutters "That isn't what's written in the books."
"Do the books tell you how to walk as well? This is something instinctive, no one else can teach you that."
She doesn't acknowledge him further but Harry knows that's because she is concentrating on what he said, bent on doing this trick he told her of. He knows that, how does he know that-
"That was a very apt explanation, Mr. Potter, fifteen points to Gryff- to Slytherin. You can return to your own seat-" She addresses the rest of the class. "-while everyone else resumes work. For your own sakes, do work on your inconspicuousness."
But there is no real bite behind her reprimand. Just how, Harry observes on his way back, the talk that picks up again is less talkand more incantation. Attempts at incantation.
"Somehow I find myself doubting you grew up without any prior knowledge about magical workings at all", is how Malfoy greets him. A snide compliment but a compliment nonetheless.
"None I didn't teach myself", Harry answers. "It's not like I just know things..."
Harry never lies. Still, he trails off, unsure. Knowing things, if that isn't a subject that has no logical reason to be as touchy for him-
No. He is here now and he will stay in the here and now.
Harry looks away from Malfoy and to his side of the desk. The needle is there. He could ask McGonagall to give him another task or he could do something else instead...
Malfoy doesn't like that it had to be the mudblood. Doesn't like that she was the one to coax that rather... exotic explanation out of him, never before has he thought of magic as something instinctual, like it is but an animalistic trait rather than the power only their kin is high enough to tap into.
He observes his fellow Slytherins. There is definitely a different tinge to their concentration than before, when he stealthily assured himself that he was not the only one not succeeding. And by the looks of it, they seem to be onto something.
That something being following Potter's lead. Primitive, really- then again, his eyes did not deceive him at breakfast.
But if magic is to be treated as something one does instinctually, that doesn't negate that wizards, at their very being, are above all other. That they control something muggles can't begin to comprehend as easily as they breathe.
He quite likes that idea, Malfoy admits to himself with a tiny smile.
Which is when something explodes next to him.
The force throws him sideways, off the seat and to the ground. There's ringing and it's both in his ears and around him, a metallic sort of sound echoes and finds its end engulfed by the loud ruckus of a classroom scrambling to look around to see what happened.
By the time Malfoy has wobbled back to his feet, McGonagall is already there and by Potter's side. Malfoy doesn't see much of him but he hears the other repeatedly assure his well-being.
Potter's side of the desk, on the other hand, is less desk and more charred black skeleton.
"-g's broken, I'm alive, I'm fine."
Almost. Because there is the itty bitty tiny problem that Harry can't tell for sure who he's talking to, though it should be McGonagall. Her voice is one of the ones nearby, coming from the wall of black-robed figures with specks of green and red if he squints. Atop their robes are the pale ovals all faces have been reduced to for him, one of the darker ones is perhaps Zabini's and that's about as far as his observations go.
He'd need his glasses to see more and he voices as much.
Harry hears the uncomfortable shift in their tones when they realize that, hears McGonagall command them back to their seats and doesn't see how Nott steps forward to take his glasses from Granger, who picked them up and was in the process of bringing them to him.
"Here", Harry hears Nott say and the familiar frail form of his glasses falls into his palm.
Harry puts them back on and sees the world again, though trough fingerprints. Whatever, he'll get wipe them or get used to the stains in no time. What does leave a bad taste in his mouth that won't go away as easily, however, is how vulnerable he was in that one moment in front of them all.
Blinking past the fingerprints, there is McGonagall and, oh bloody hell, that's the desk he was sat at. How does he not have so much as a scratch?
"Mr. Potter, what were you doing before all of this happened?", McGonagall asks as if she talks to someone who snatched another kid's lunch, not sent a desk flying.
They are among the only ones standing, like the next lesson will be brought to the rest of the students by the both of them. Not that Harry minds, he has questions himself.
"Nothing concrete, actually, I hadn't yet decided if I wanted to shape or colour the needle after I finished enlarging."
"Those spells are not yet in your curriculum, where did you even get their movements and incantations?"
"Spells? I wasn't doing spells."
"What do you mean by that?"
The Slytherins sat next to him at breakfast have an inkling that is confirmed when Potter answers.
"I was doing... let's call it wandless magic with a wand? Because I did use my wand and but I didn't use spells when I tried to do my thing. I can assure you that an explosion was not what I had in mind for that needle."
McGonagall has a sneaking suspicion.
"You told me of your wandless abilities before. Did you, just now, attempt to cast that way again but with your wand this time around?"
"Yeah."
That sneaking suspicion of hers is not so sneaking anymore.
"And when you attempted to manipulate the needle, you had an approximate end result formulated in your mind, which you wished to achieve by continuously and magically changing the object. Am I right to assume that?"
"Yes."
"And when you cast wandless magic before, it takes you a while of concentration to have something happen."
"...Yes."
And there she has it.
"Which is where the problem lies; What you do when you don't use a wand is manifesting magic with hardship. Now if you have your wand out, it serves to remove the obstacles and you'll find yourself being able to cast a great deal easier, but that, if one casts magic but doesn't cast a spell, is a problem. The sudden influx of its power is too vast to be controlled."
She indicates the table.
"Because magic is, by its very nature, volatile and shifting and if one doesn't have a very tight grasp on it or said grasp slips, unwanted and often disastrous outcomes, like we've seen happen just now, are the consequence. Frankly, you got off lucky with just the classical explosion."
"So if what went wrong is about the control-"
"Do not so much as finish that sentence. Much arithmetic, linguistic and runic work has gone into the development of every last spell there is, their associated wand movements and incantations, as to assure that said control is already granted. I will have to deduct twenty points from Slytherin for this, Mr. Potter, and, should you attempt such freestyle magic again, that number will increase exponentially. Reparo."
(To Hell with it. His power only knows limits on a scale almost beyond celestial, not this)
Harry stands by and watches as his desk makes itself brand new again. Malfoy was leaning against the wall next to it, he can't be blamed for not feeling like sitting down at half a desk.
Meanwhile, behind her frown, McGonagall hides a smile. She has to hand it to James Potter's son, he's the youngest to receive a warning about getting too experimental with magic too soon. The next people who she expected to have that talk with were either the Weasley twins or a few of the Ravenclaws.
When they exit the classroom, the murmurs from the Gryffindor half waft over.
"Imagine being that much of an overachiever that you get points off!"
"Hey now, we should be thankful. We don't want Slytherin to win the House Cup the seventh year in a row."
"But that explanation Potter gave was pretty good..."
"No. He's still a Slytherin, no matter who or how good he is."
Maybe the Gryffindor boy who said that feels something because he turns around and finds himself pinned down by said Slytherin's stare.
"Got a problem?", the boy bites out.
Harry just keeps on looking because the longer he looks, the more cracks in the boys bravado he can make out and it's interesting to behold. Even some other Gryffindors who side with their housemate fidget nervously.
"As much as someone would have a problem with the Gryffindor way of narrowminded thinking, yes."
But it isn't Harry who's answered, it's Nott. Who's standing next to Crabbe who, along with Goyle, are standing next to Malfoy who's standing next to him. When'd that happen?
The Gryffindors don't flank their housemate as closely and before they can close in in support, he has already rolled his eyes and retreated. With their face gone, the other Gryffindors scatter as well, to the winds and their next class which is also Slytherin-Gryffindor mixed.
"I can't tell if I'm touched", Harry starts up. "Or if that's just a regular everyday occurrence between Slytherins or Gryffindors."
"You're in for a surprise, then", Nott deadpans while Malfoy groans "Is it that hard to just say thank you?"
"Thank you. No, it really isn't."
And if that last remark came out a little less cutting than he intended, it's not like they know that.
Harry's first impression upon seeing Professor Flitwick is glee that he finally gets to be taller than someone and he immediately reprimands himself for it. His second is that, for all the white beardery, the tiny professor can still get excited much like a young child. Like when he falls over once coming across Harry's name on the list and when he applauds him for his "innate grasp on the spell, marvelous charmwork Mr. Potter!"
"Do you still not need help?", Harry asks tongue-in-cheek when he catches Malfoy staring again. Malfoy, who narrows his eyes before he shoots back "Yes, I do. You can help me by not exploding this desk either."
"That's fair."
Later, after lunch and before Herbology, it's Malfoy's turn to raise an eyebrow to hide his befuddlement and ask "Do you... need assistance?"
"Thing is, I don't know", Harry replies after waving the dark green tendrils of a plant that is all around him with its vines away from his face. Why it only cocons and surrounds him and leaves everyone else to gape dumbly on the outside (with him doing that on the inside), he has no clue.
"By Merlin, no!" Judging by how Professor Sprout sprints towards them from where she closed the greenhouse door behind the few stragglers, there seems to be a reason to worry.
"Away from him. AWAY! Incendio!"
But instead of fleeing the trail of flames that escapes her wand, the tendrils weave into a tall wall in front of Harry and they won't budge. Even when a hole is burned straight trough them.
He has his wand at the ready when the charred vines crumble and give way to see the slack-jawed expression on Professor Sprout as she lowers her own wand. But in tune with the shifting of the remaining vines that starts up again, she raises it, though another spell doesn't yet leave her lips.
The vines start tangling themselves up in front of Harry anew, an erratic air to them as they start getting all up in his face.
"Can you not?", he asks while giving in to the urge to tap them sternly with his wand. The plant stills and retreats quickly.
Professor Sprout's ready stance shifts into one of concern when she walks up to Harry to inspect him.
"Are you alright, boy? Where did it get you?"
"Nowhere. Why, what was that plant?"
But the last of his words seem to be lost on her as she lights up in boundless amazement.
"That's incredible! Devil's Snares are usually docile in such bright environments, I've never seen one move this actively in daylight! Not to mention that it withstood the actual heat and flames..."
She grows quieter as she starts muttering something about "abnormal behaviour" and "study later". Finally, with a cheerful clap, she snaps back to attention, as does the class. They leave with aching arms from repotting what definitely weren't daisies because daisies don't emit a faint tune when tapped on the petals.
On the way back there's that wall again that this morning seemed to be a door too when they passed it and then they're in the Slytherin Common Room. Which-
"-is underwater, isn't it?"
"You're starting to catch up on things", because apparently none of them can give a simple 'yes' or 'no'.
What they do provide, however, is good ambient noise. Sitting at a table, the day's work strewn out in front of him, Harry finds that he can concentrate on doing homework easier than ever. The voices talking all around him don't distract him. The opposite is the case, they bridge a silent gap in his consciousness he wished he'd left behind along with the darkness of his cupboard.
It's soothing. It's painful. It's interrupted by a sound somewhere in between an inhale, a slurp and a hiss.
There's a cat chewing on his shoelaces. It lashes out to leave four red stripes on his hand when he wants to shoo it away. Eight when he tries again and his lace comes out slobbery on top of that. Hellcreature finally in hand, Harry looks around for who may be its caretaker. Caretaker because the cats back at Mrs. Figgs' made it clear that they all also did as they pleased, though to less bloody obnoxious extents.
He spots the by now familiar faces of the other boys and the slightly less familiar ones of the girls in first year where they occupy a section of the seats by the fireplace for themselves. They're talking.
Naturally, he needs to bring himself into this obviously very important conversation as smoothly as possible:
"Guys? Do you know whose stupid cat this is?"
The girl with the heavy jaw jumps up.
"That's my Rochester. Why are you talking about my Rochester that way? Also, stop holding him like that."
Which Harry does. Still at his arm's height but that's... not a great altitude and this is a cat anyway.
"Don't mind Milicent", says the girl next to her lightly. "She is the only one her cat doesn't bother and as such, she never believes us when we tell her otherwise." The sentence is finished with a snide glance sideways.
"Maybe," Milicent retorts, "Rochester would leave you be if you didn't step on his tail all the time."
"How does his tail even get in my way when I'm minding my own business all the time?"
Harry, who watched this exchange like a tennis match, is having his attention diverted by a call from Nott, who indicates Malfoy, who indicates a comfortably free spot between him and Zabini.
He sits down and, like a switch is flipped, the conversation strays from pets to remaining introductions and in turn family matters. There's Milicent Bulstrode, Lily Moon, Pansy Parkinson, Tracey Davis and Sophie Roper.
Needless to say they're all pureblooded future holders of their families' respective Wizengamont seats. He feels like he will have quite an interesting time here.
•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•
Edit: corrected Blaise Zabini's name because somehow I always read and thus wrote his name as 'Zambini' and I'm sorry for that one