A/N: i guess this will keep going! i don't really have a plot fleshed out, but i'm hoping it'll come to me as i write. i like this version of harry too much to not keep going with it!
Harry flinched every time the floo came to life and another one of his classmates stepped out. He couldn't help it. In the Days Before, Harry had disliked travelling by floo, but hadn't minded it either, not really. In the Days After, to put it simply, he was glad he and Draco had been the first to arrive, so no one but Professor McGonagall had to see him be sick in the potted plant in the corner of her office.
Andromeda hadn't come through with them, of course, but he was sorely missing her presence. Saying goodbye to Teddy, too, had made him feel as though he was ripping his heart into tiny little pieces.
He stood close to Draco, their shoulders brushing, as their classmates stepped through the floo. Pansy Parkinson was on Draco's other side, looking studiously grim and aggressively avoiding eye contact with Harry. Dean and Seamus and Neville had come through, had said their hellos to Harry, but were now standing on the opposite side of the room chatting with Ernie MacMillan and Justin Finch-Fletchy. According to Parkinson, Goyle had decided last minute to attend Durmstrang instead.
All in all, it looked as though there were around twenty five eighth years returning. Harry flinched again as the floo flared and Theodore Nott stepped through, felt Draco's' hand brush his wrist. He missed Ron and Hermione sorely in this moment, more than he had missed them yet. Something about being at Hogwarts made their absence feel profound.
"Your attention, please!" He jumped and winced as McGonagall clapped her hands to bring the group to attention. He wasn't the only one, either. Draco's hand that had been brushing his arm suddenly gripped his wrist hard.
He thought that McGonagall looked slightly abashed, but she didn't say anything to address it.
"Your trunks have been sent ahead to your rooms, as I am sure you are all aware," she began. "Since you are all here, I will show you to the eighth year common rooms." A mumble of surprise went up from the group, but she quelled it with a look. "Hogwarts will not be a pleasant place for most returning this year, you all are expected to be supporting the younger years in their transition back into the castle. We have made the decision to keep the eighth years from having ties to any particular houses."
"But-" someone protested, maybe Dean or Seamus, it was hard to tell.
"No arguments," said the Headmistress firmly. "You are here at my request, and if necessary I will see you leave at my request, too."
In the Days Before, Harry would have been furious and probably argumentative. His identity had been Gryffindor through and through, moreso because he had asked to be placed there. Now, in the Days After, he simply exchanged a bemused look with Draco. He might be angry if he had to share a room with Zacharias Smith, but nothing could really get him riled up these days.
He noticed the Slytherins had stayed uncharacteristically silent, too. Harry, Draco, and Pansy had taken up space at the back of the group almost immediately, and somehow Zabini had ended up on Harry's other side. He tried not to look worried by this turn of events, where he was surrounded by the people the rest of the school hated most.
Harry leaned in towards Zabini. "Reckon any arrangement is fine so long as I don't end up sharing a room with Smith."
He was gratified to hear Zabini snort in response, although the other man didn't look at him or acknowledge him in any other way. Harry didn't exactly know why he was trying to make friends with them, even Draco had given him a bemused, although not ungrateful, look.
He couldn't help but think, though, that perhaps the prejudices that had fed the war, that had already been in place, were as much the fault of those in the Hogwarts houses that constantly demonized Slytherins. Perhaps people became what you made them.
And maybe, there was a chance they could change that, starting now. They were all children in a war, after all. Andromeda had said that to him often. You were a child. You are a child. You are allowed to grieve and you are allowed to change.
He missed her more than he had thought he would, for someone who had only been in his life for a short time. He felt his eyes glisten slightly and winced to himself. In the Days Before, he would have been angry. In the Days After, he was apparently just a sap.
The eighth years followed McGonagall out of her office and down the spiralling staircase into the main body of the castle. It had been rebuilt well, a far cry from the castle's appearance when they had all gathered for the two month anniversary of the battle. Paintings had been restored, walls rebuilt. But everywhere Harry looked, he saw flashes from the past in his mind eye; crumbling walls, curses flying, Fred falling, Colin Creevy still on the ground, Lavender Brown's body broken on the corridor floor.
He was broken from his reverie by a sharp elbow to his ribs, and he looked around wildly, breath coming in gasps. Draco on his other side was engrossed in a whispered conversation with Pansy and didn't seem to notice his near-breakdown.
Blaise Zabini, on his other side, was looking at him. "Not the time, Potter," was all he said when Harry made eye contact. Harry mumbled a quick thanks back, working to calm his racing heart.
He was dimly aware of their location, somewhere underground, near the Hufflepuff common rooms, when Professor McGonagall stopped walking. She stood in front of a carving on the wall that looked to be the Hogwarts crest. Dimly, Harry wondered if this was on the Marauder's Map, although he knew it wasn't. He was torn between wanting to ask Hermione if she could change the Map to include the eighth year common room, and not wanting to touch anything his father had made.
"Me nunquam obliturum," McGonagall said in a clear voice. Draco stiffened beside him at her words and Zabini shifted on his other side. Harry had no idea what he meant, but of course those two could somehow speak Latin. There was a great creaking and the crest split down the middle. It continued splitting to the floor as the wall moved horizontally out until a comfortably wide doorway was formed.
"You're expected in the Great Hall for lunch in an hour where I will provide you more instructions for your first week here and what to expect upon the arrival of the rest of the Hogwarts students. Until then, you'll find your room assignments posted on the far wall. I will not hear any arguments or requests to switch rooms, these are final." With a last look at all of them, she spun with a swish of her robes and departed down the corridor.
There was silence for a moment, finally broken by Neville. "I'm never going to remember that password," he groaned. The Gryffindor boys at the front laughed, and then the tension was broken and they surged in.
Harry couldn't find it in himself to laugh, or push to the front the way he would have done in the Days Before. He didn't understand, not really, how they could be cheerful, being back at Hogwarts. Every step, every turn he made, walking as a living person in a place where so many had died, felt like a slap to the face.
He followed the crowd inside, sticking close to Draco, Parkinson, and Zabini. He felt a kinship with them; it was definitely strange, seeing as how Pansy had all but offered him to Voldemort during the Battle. But they were subdued; he could feel the anxiety from all of them, mirroring his own. He no longer had it in him to be boisterous, not in the Days After. Maybe he truly had belonged in Slytherin all along. Or maybe, as Andromeda had said, grief had changed him.
The common room was warm, reminding him distinctly of the Gryffindor common room. A fire was already burning in the fireplace to their right, warming the air. There was a mishmash of chairs and couches spread around it, as though the professors had simply dug up any undamaged furniture they could find in the castle. Bookshelves lined the wall opposite, and chairs and tables were scattered around. Presumably the professors expected them to get more studying done here, rather than in the library – or perhaps it was just to mimic the Ravenclaw common room. The lack of windows, however, was already making Harry feel distinctly claustrophobic.
Across from where they were standing were two hallways. A crowd was clustered against the wall between the hallways. Harry assumed that was where the list of room assignments. He couldn't find it in himself to care who he ended up with, particularly.
He only partially noticed Blaise disappear from his side and shoulder his way into the crowd; then reappear almost as quickly. Harry jumped when a hand landed on his shoulder. "Looks like it's you and me, mate," said Zabini into his ear.
Harry shrugged. "Could be worse."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Blaise responded theatrically. "Don't worry, Weasley was shafted with Smith. I'm sure you'll hear so many stories it'll be like you lived with him anyway."
"You sound much too cheerful about that," Harry responded. A strange warmth was pooling in his stomach, though. Sure, Hogwarts was undeniably different. But perhaps it was still home.
He was broken out of his introspective mood by Parkinson storming over.
"What is it, then?" asked Draco, looking mildly alarmed. Harry didn't blame him; Pansy looked particularly murderous.
"Granger," she ground out. Harry snorted, surprising simultaneously himself and the three surrounding him.
"She's not that bad," he said, when Pansy turned her look of fury on him. "She might fold your socks, though. She likes things alarmingly clean."
Blaise burst out laughing, likely at the horrified look on Pansy's face. Even Harry found a small smile from within himself.
"I don't even want to know how you know that," Draco's voice said in his ear. Harry shuddered at the proximity but shrugged in response. Honestly, he only knew from Ron's complaints about how Hermione was while they were staying with her parents in Australia, but he was not about to say so. He felt suddenly very weary.
"Noticed you don't have a room, Death Eater," came a voice in front of them. It was Zacharias Smith, of course. Harry was utterly unsurprised, although he was more surprised to see Justin, Ernie, and Seamus flanking him.
"I have my own," said Draco with a shrug. Harry could see the lines of tension in his body, though, and clearly Pansy could, too. She put a calming hand on his arm. Harry tried to ignore the flare of jealousy in his stomach as Draco leaned into her touch.
"Better for all of us," Smith responded snidely. "I'm shocked they even let you back in." Before anyone could react, he spat, hitting Draco on the face.
Harry felt himself draw his wand and raise it. It wasn't conscious, was completely instinct – something that remained from the Days Before, perhaps. He saw a flash in his peripheral vision – Zabini, also drawing his wand.
To his surprise, Justin, Ernie, and Seamus all drew their wands, as well. Ernie and Seamus had their wands trained evenly on Zabini. Justin, though, Harry realized with shock, had his wand trained directly on him. At least when they made eye contact Justin had the presence of mind to look slightly abashed.
His breathing was coming faster, now. He hadn't stared down the other end of a wand since Voldemort; he hadn't thought his first day back at Hogwarts would find him doing the same thing. He couldn't think of any spells to cast, couldn't move all of a sudden. It was like everything in him was frozen and screaming, like the night Dumbledore had petrified him on the Astronomy Tower. Bile rose in his throat and he swallowed it down.
"Stop," it was Draco's voice, quiet but commanding, clearly directed at Harry and Blaise. He glanced at Zabini, who dropped his wand, gaze remaining on the four in front of them. Harry followed suit, turned his eyes to Draco as the other boy wiped the spit off his face, rolled up his sleeves to display his Mark – faded, but there.
Zacharias Smith, Harry was pleased to notice, looked slightly nauseous at the sight.
Is this what it had been like in Slytherin, the past six years? Always waiting for conflict, striking before others could strike, unquestioningly doing what Draco said? Although in the past, Draco would never have asked anyone to stand down, Harry knew with certainty. Draco would have led the fight. Harry would never have stood down, either. Not in the Days Before. Nor would he have taken direction from anyone else like this.
Harry felt Smith's eyes lock onto him. "There's no reason for you to be around them, Harry. We can talk to McGonagall, or the Minister. I'm sure they'd switch your rooms for you. If anyone deserves their own rooms, it's you. Not this scum." He indicated Draco with a jut of his chin.
"I think I can decide that for myself, thanks," Harry said, shocked at how clear his voice was. It was instinct again, that was driving him. Consciously, he mostly wanted to be sick. "I'm happy to room with Zabini for the year."
Blaise, to his credit, inclined his head slightly in Harry's direction, although his eyes still hadn't left the group before him.
"Still," Smith blustered. Harry felt Zabini, Pansy, and Draco shift around him. At first he thought they were trying to extract themselves from the situation, but he realized they had closed ranks behind him to mirror the stance of the other four – had closed ranks to protect him. "You don't have to associate with them. Parkinson tried to hand you over to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
Harry couldn't help it – through the panic, he snorted. "Yes, and instead I went to him willingly," he countered. "We were all doing our best to survive, we all lost people, Smith. I don't blame her; neither should anyone else." He turned his voice, then, to the crowd that had gathered around them. Most of them looked slightly incredulous. Hannah Abbott was looking rapidly between Harry and Zacharias. Neville and Dean were standing to the side, speaking with each other in rapid whispers. Nott looked distinctly uncomfortable, but was standing resolutely near Neville and Dean.
Despite what he said, Zacharias just smirked at him. "We'll see what your friends will have to say about being replaced by a bunch of bloody Death Eaters when they get here, then." He turned suddenly and the crowd dispersed along with him, presumably heading to their dormitories as though nothing had ever happened.
Harry was promptly sick all over the floor.
"Merlin, that's twice in one day," Draco groused as Zabini vanished the evidence with a flick of his wand.
"Twice?" Zabini asked, almost gleefully. Harry shot him a dark look.
"I need to…" he said, and paused. What he needed, in all honesty, was to talk to Andromeda and hold Teddy. Neither of those were options.
"Come on," Draco finally said after a moment of uncomfortable silence. "Let's just go to the Dining Hall, we need to be there soon regardless."
Harry felt him nod along with the others as they traipsed out of the Common Room, the door grinding closed behind them. "What does the password mean?" Harry asked as they left.
Pansy laughed softly. "It's from an old Latin song. It translates to I will never forget. Fitting, all things considered."
Harry felt queasy all over again.