Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling. The members of the Secret Sealing Club are the creations of ZUN.

Reality is sometimes undetermined until observation.

Chapter 17 – Green-Eyed Jealousy

In a sort of half-alert daze, Harry Potter walks down a seventh-floor corridor. For him, time has lost all meaning.

His detentions with Umbridge had long (?) since ended, but he does not rest. The scavenged Time-Turner provides him with an additional three hours in the day, in which he spends exclusively in the Room of Requirement, a place which has, to him, become his personal hideout, only known to him.

Within he reads scrounged-up books, learning esoteric spells from the texts generations of Hogwarts students have left behind; he trains with an almost religious fervour, drilling into both his body and mind how to dispense fire and death.

When the three hours are up, he spins back (if he wasn't already on reversed time) and tries to return to a semblance of normalcy, doing homework or more conventional reading in the library or common room, or even retreating to a certain Divination classroom, now also spelled to keep prying eyes away.

(Terry and the two Sues had concluded that Umbridge probably wasn't very good at magic.)

During the meetings of a nameless club he forces himself to remain energetic and encouraging, to be someone capable of being looked up to. He tries to being Neville into the spotlight; he notices his friend's potential, both at direct magic and at leadership, even if he doesn't see it himself.

But there is a crack in everything.

Sometimes he meets Neville or Luna in the corridors on his way back or forward, and they ask him about things he has yet to say, and he stumbles through the conversation clumsily.

Sometimes during club meetings he questions the utility of it all, if training schoolchildren to fight would be enough. He sees into Voldemort's mind itself, after all; knows its cruelty and its deadly skill through its own eyes.

And then there were the nightmares, which had returned. Harry himself didn't realise, but he was depending more on Merry as a bastion of sanity than he knew. Now, she was gone, and seemed to be avoiding him, even during classes. He dreamed Voldemort's dreams of releasing his servants from Azkaban, of seizing the Wand of Destiny, of his plans to persuade various Dark creatures to his side.

He dreams not just the thoughts of Voldemort, but also his own, unfiltered and chaotic. Merry had taught about cartomancy and dream interpretation, about Tarot and imagery, and he dreamt that he was a fool, stumbling around in darkness. He dreamt of butterflies that stirred hurricanes and memories, of ghosts, of his mother as she spread her arms in front of his crib.

Sometimes he remembered, and wrote them down. Other times he woke up with plain unease and panic in his heart. And on some nights, he sneaks out, back to his magical room, and casts until the unease in his heart returns to a manageable level.

Right now, on his way back, he could hear faint moaning.

Faint moaning, which he really should have left alone, but it just grated on his nerves–

Faint moaning, which he traced to a broom closet five paces down, which he strode to and flung open–

An obviously inebriated girl was curled up, surrounded by bottles of Firewhisky. Seeing him, she scrambled for her wand.

Harry rolled his eyes and dodged to one side, but the mispronounced spell fizzled out mid-air. He eyed the bottles, then the girl, then picked up the nearest bottle and took a long drink, which turned out to be a short drink as the girl snatched back the bottle.

"Get your own!" She cursed at him, both verbally and then magically. A dark purple bolt shot towards him, and Harry avoided it with a tilt of his head.

"I'm doing that right now." A wandless Summoning tore the bottle out of her hands and into Harry's, and, as yet another spell shot towards him, he instead swatted it back instead of dodging.

The girl's fingernails immediately began to grow at a visible rate, and she dropped her bottle (another Firewhisky) with a shriek, and began to fumble with her wand, thoughts of attack apparently forgotten.

For a few moments, Harry watched her struggle, taking contented sips of his stolen alcohol, simply indulging in the girl's distress.

Then, when it became clear that she wasn't going to be able to reverse her own spell, he sighed and raised his wand.

"Finite Incantatem. Immobulus. Diffindo."

As bits of elongated fingernail fell to the closet floor, Harry took in the girl's appearance more closely. She had choppy brown hair, which was slightly matted from sweat, and her skin was pale – not in a radiant way like Luna's, but a shade that brought to mind ill health and a lack of sunlight.

"What?" he remarked, as the girl glared at him without a word.

"Nothing. Now give me back my drink and sod off."

"I'll just report you to the Prefects, then." The word "vindictive" was as good as any a descriptor for Harry's mood right now, a state of mind in which one relished the suffering of others.

"Blackmail, Potter? So much for being a straight-laced hero."

"Fuck heroism." Harry took another swig, and noted the green trim of the robes. "And how do you mistake me for Harry Potter?"

"Give it up, Potter. You're the most recognizable figure in the school." The girl snarled at him. "Though some might be surprised that you go around cursing and blackmailing people. You might as well climb in here and start making out with me at this point."

"Well, if you insist." Harry swiftly entered the closet and closed the door behind him. The flash of fear on the girl's face did not escape him, though, and he sighed. "Relax, I'm not going to do anything."

To be honest, I don't even know why I'm doing this. Well, whatever.

"You owe me fifty Galleons for that bottle." The girl eventually said.

As his reply, Harry withdrew a few of the gold coins from his pouch and flung it at the girl. They hit her chest with a dull thud. "Five. Take it or leave it."

Another glare. "Suit yourself. If you're being charitable, I might as well take it."

"So, why're you drinking alone in a broom closet?"

"None of your damn business. Why is Harry Potter wandering around at night by himself?"

"Because I feel like it." Harry reclined backwards in the closet–well, as far back as he was able to. Even in this apparently relaxed posture, his eyes darted around everywhere, taking in his cramped surroundings.

Pillows on the "floor", and a blanket. Bottles haphazardly placed. And, in the corner, providing a source of light, was orange flames burning in a jar, which he had mistaken for light from the outside torches before.

The girl's wand lay by her side, and Harry decided he would Summon it if anything went wrong. Not that he expected the girl to attack him again – she had been steadily slurring her words more over her past few sentences, and he sensed no malicious intent, either.

But she's a Slytherin. Constant vigilance.

For a moment they sipped their drinks in silence, with a strange camaraderie.

"Say, Potter. What's so special about you? What…why's the Dark Lord after your arse?"

Right, definitely drunk at this point. That, or a very good actor.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Who wants to know?"

"Me! People say that you're special, that you're the one that's going to bring him down. I don't see anything special about you!"

"Yeah, well neither do I." Harry bitterly shot back. "But what's it to you? Don't you all want him to take over?"

"Fuck off, Potter." She took another swig. "You really think we're all one happy family under here?"

"Well, yeah–"

"Because we're not." The bottle met her lips yet again, and Harry was beginning to be sure that the girl was quite genuinely drunk. "Doesn't matter if you drink tea with the Malfoys. The Dark Lord is a monster, and all our asses are going to suffer." She looked straight at him. "You were there when he rose, weren't you? Haven't you seen how he treats his servants? Even his Inner Circle?"

Harry thought back to the Resurrection, thought back to how Voldemort was handing out Crucios without a thought. Inwardly, he agreed, but decided not to voice his thoughts out of spite. Instead–

Call it spite, call it stress, call it a petty impulse, to inflict suffering while still not being overly evil, to inflict a little retribution on the House that tormented him for so long–

(At least, in his drunken eyes and hazy memories–)

"What, your parents were there? Did your daddy get cursed by wittle ol' Voldy?"

His derision was met with a burning glare. "You know fucking nothing, Potter. You know who my parents are? The bloody Carrows. Oh, it's not enough that we're barely qualify for the upper class of purebloods and have to lick Malfoy's boots, but then you have a crazy aunt and uncle that are fucking each other–" She cut herself off. "No. No."

Harry absorbed this information to the best of his ability, given that he himself was a little tipsy at the point. Firewhisky was, after all, a form of whisky. This time, he wisely decided not to press the point. "You know, if we're going to swap stories about terrible families, I should probably tell you that I was more or less abused by my Aunt and Uncle."

Yeah, telling a potential enemy one of your emotional weaknesses. Could this possibly come and bite me in the ass?

…Nah, it'll be fine.

"My ass you were. Savior of magical Britain, the 'Boy-Who-Lived'–"

"Locked up in a cupboard under the stairs until the age of eleven." Harry interjected. "Beaten and forced to live like a House-Elf for his Muggle relatives."

Actually, now that I think about it, it's a miracle that I'm not more sympathetic to the Purebloods.

"Really, now?"

"Swear on my magic." Harry took another drink.

"Couldn't tell by looking."

"I know."

There was a long period of silence, after which Harry looked at the girl again, only to discover that she had fallen asleep. He debated stealing her wand, or looking through any of her belonging, but ultimately decided against it.

Carrow, huh? I'll remember that name.

Taking one more look at the fire in the jar, which seemed to fill him with a bit of nostalgia, he exited the cupboard quietly and shut its doors. As an afterthought, he took out his wand and cast the Notice-Me-Not Charm on it.

Can't say that I didn't try to help you.

~~[q]~~

There were as many magical theories about causality and fate as there were stars in the sky. Some said that destiny meant that certain events were inevitable, that a timeline's path was fixed in place tracing an unalterable arc. Other thought that fate was a thread that bound people together, for better or for worse.

But there was a particular magical theorist, one ███████ ███████, that thought that destiny was like gravity: the big ones warped everything around them, and the smaller ones had no choice but to be pulled along.

~~[q]~~

It was now three weeks to Christmas break, which Harry had mixed feelings toward. One good thing was that he had successfully managed to shout down Sirius into at least considering not letting the Weasleys come over, given his renewed distance from Ron.

Now all I need to do is convince him to let me go over to the Lovegoods. And now that I've seen this, the Diggorys.

Presently, he was in the Library looking through old copies of the Daily Prophet, trying to fulfill another item on his ever-growing to-do list, which was to find any clues about the death of his parents or the previous war.

Or the current war. During the summer he had received the Prophet but thrown it aside after barely glancing at the headline, assuming that anything pertaining to Voldemort would have made the front page. Now, after realizing that the Ministry was in fact trying to cover up everything to maintain a veneer of normalcy…

Harry turned the page, and his heart began to beat faster.

DIGGORYS GRIEVE FOR DECEASED SON; QUESTIONS ARISE AS FELLOW CHAMPION NOT IN ATTENDANCE

The game became clear to him, then. How easy would it have been to paint him with suspicion, when he had assumed that everything would be fine after just that small talk at the end of the previous year, when he had been distracted with the rise of Voldemort?

Harry tried to search his memories for the few interaction he had with them. The Diggorys had not been especially prominent, but they were humble, and well-liked, and Cedric himself had been popular an on his way to making Head Boy, from what he could recall.

No wonder everyone had looked at him with such eyes. He had been stupid. And he had not known about the social games, the etiquette and politeness of the wizarding world, no, of just people, plain and simple.

He looked around in his booth, then took out the enchanted Sickle and his wand to send a message to Susan.

~~[q]~~

"You didn't know?" Hannah asked.

"No," Harry said in a hollow voice. They were back in the usual Divination classroom; Terry was toiling away in the corner that he had partitioned for himself, working on a 'surprise project', or so he said. Harry didn't question the Ravenclaw's eccentricities.

Well, it wasn't as if Harry had anything to hide. About this matter, at least.

"I didn't know." Harry continued. "I mean…I was getting the Prophet, but I wasn't reading them cover to cover, and nobody was sending me mail or anything…" He looked from Hufflepuff to Hufflepuff. He knew that they probably had their own clique with others outside of his little club, but he was beginning to think of them less as a unit: Ernie, who was pompous at times but never afraid to speak his mind; Hannah, quiet but perceptive and caring; Susan, a stalwart heart with a steady hand.

Now all three faces looked at him with concern. "Well, that explains a lot. Well, not exactly a lot, but–"

"It does answer some questions." Ernie cut across Susan. "Many in our House were…are…suspicious, if you will, of your behavior. They thought you were snubbing the poor family, or worse."

"I really didn't know. I was locked up all summer, and I probably wouldn't have been allowed to go anyway." Harry said, somewhat despondently. "What do I do now?"

This was not something he could fight or bluff his way out of.

"You'll want to at least write them a letter." Susan said, after some deliberation. "Apologising and explaining your situation. The Diggorys are nice folk – they'll probably understand."

"Maybe less so after the work the Prophet's been doing." Ernie said darkly, only to be chided with a reproaching look from Hannah.

"That's probably all I can do for the moment." Harry said, after a pause. Wordlessly, he Summonned and rotated a desk to come to rest the correct side-up next to him, and did the same with a chair.

"Owls in and out of the school are being monitored, though." Terry spoke up from the corner, and everyone jumped.

"How do you know?" Ernie shot at him.

"Ravenclaws know everything." Terry said absently. "Nah, just kidding. We were playing around with Umbridge's security measures. Pads found that the so-called Inquisitorial Squad is probably reading our mail. A-B testing and all that."

The rest of the group collectively agreed to ignore what they couldn't understand. They looked around in silence for a bit, before Harry spoke up again.

"It's fine. I'll settle this."

"If you say so, Harry." Ernie nodded. "We'll leave you to it, then. But before that, can I ask something?"

"What?"

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"Why do you ask?" Harry looked up at the Prefect, pausing from taking out parchment and a quill.

"You look…tired. For the lack of better wording."

"Well, it's OWL year, after all." Harry shrugged it off.

"Again, if you say so, Harry. But don't hesitate to ask if you need help. You've more than earned that right." With that, the Hufflepuffs left.

I'm not hiding it very well, am I?

For a time, there was only the faint scratching of quill on parchment.

"Harry."

"What?" Harry replied, somewhat irritably.

"You need to be careful." Terry had turned his chair over to face him. "Your friend Hermione's not the first to take more classes than there are available slots in the timetable."

"Hermione's not my friend." Harry said on reflex.

"Yes, well." Terry ruffled his hair, salt-and-pepper faintly matted from a day's light perspiration. "Or maybe you've just found a way to travel abnormally quickly through the corridors of Hogwarts." He began packing up. "We all have our problems, yes? Let's just leave it at that."

He, too, left, leaving Harry alone to write his apologies.

~~[q]~~

"Excuse me?" Sirius said incredulously. "You want to do what?"

"I'll tell Hedwig to fly over." Harry said. "And I'll pass you the letter by Floo."

"Harry, you know it's dangerous for you to be going out–"

"Letters are being monitored by Umbridge." Harry continued. "So this is the only way."

"Merlin's beard, Harry, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you actually visiting them."

"You would know. And I'm going to visit Luna, too, and she'll know. They live in the same neighbourhood, remember?"

Sirius sighed. "Harry, while I'm not going to pretend to be your parent, and you know how I feel about this whole thing, but Dumbledore–"

"Dumbledore hasn't bothered to tell me anything. If he was concerned that I would accidentally reveal anything, he should have taught me, or even suggested, Occlumency."

If the old man wanted to be his guardian, he should damn well act like one. And if he wasn't, he had no authority over him. That was that, plain and simple, and Harry had spent many evenings talking it over with Sirius, trying to hammer in this fact.

Sirius threw up his hands. "Fine. You have a point. And I guess old Xeno's fine, if a housewife is in the Order anyway." Another one of the inconsistencies that Harry had puzzled out.

"And after that, sometime before I return to Hogwarts, I want to go to Godric's Hollow."

"Godric's Hollow? Why would you want to go back there?"

"Why else, Sirius?"

"But if it's to visit your parents, you should have…already…" Sirius began to speak, then slowed to a halt as the realization came.

"Side-Along Apparation. You can be under the Cloak. Or I can dye your fur some other color–"

"Don't even think about it." Sirius immediately responded. "Though there was that time when James and Peter–" He stopped speaking again.

"This conversation isn't going too well, is it." Harry deadpanned.

"No. It isn't. But I'm glad that I didn't wait until Christmas to give you this mirror."

"So everything's settled, then?"

"Not even close." Sirius shook his head. "Molly's going to be breathing fire. But, as you've become so fond of saying, it is my house, after all."

"And you're a Pureblood from a very old family. Maybe it's time you got around to using some of that influence."

His morning conversations with Neville were beginning to come in handy. Right now there was no plan, not even the shadow of one, just a faint inclination towards certain tendencies.

Then again, he was only fifteen years old. An untrained, inexperienced, and not quite socialized teenager. What was he going to be able to do, anyway?

Introducing another character when I've barely fleshed out the proto-DA? Rushing plot points so we can get to more exciting magical duels quicker?

Could this lead to poor-ass storytelling?

Nah, it'll be fine.

Review please!