If you think Snape is a good man, especially after Hermione is attacked by Malfoy thing... you have issues. Snape is a raving sociopath with few if any redeemable qualities. Liking him is fine, he is complex, but to call him good is... ew. He is a child abusing bully that got his rocks off from harming others. He should have been killed off far more painfully, Harry naming his kids after him was gross. Yeah, I'll name my kid after a man that hurt others, traumatized children and treated me like garbage... just... it was dumb.
When Harry woke Saturday morning, a sense of pure joy overtook him despite the misery of the prior day. Purpose was a drug and he was high on it's majesty in so many ways. Even seeing that Ron hadn't waited up for him could not stop Harry's happiness, if Ron had cast him aside so easily than he would not worry about it. Ron was not worth the effort anymore. He was done with fair-weather friends.
Harry dressed and went down the spiral staircase into the common room. The moment he appeared, the people who had already finished breakfast broke into applause again. Growling, he said. "I did not put my name in that Goblet, stop praising me. I have no interest in eternal glory or the whole spiel. I am famous enough for the murder of my parents, why would I want even a sliver of more fame?" His words slammed into everyone, who gaped at him. "That is what I was trying to tell you yesterday, but as per usual in this hell hole we call school, I am going to have a miserable time, trying to survive people killing me so you people do not have to lift a single finger in your defense."
He walked resolutely over to the portrait hole, pushed it open, climbed out of it, and found himself face-to-face with Hermione.
"Hello," she said, holding up a stack of toast, which she was carrying in a napkin. "I brought you this...Want to go for a walk?"
"Good idea," said Harry gratefully before throwing his arms around Hermione. "Thank you for not treating me like garbage, you are the best friend I have ever had. Frankly, you might be the only real friend I've had. Thank you for not abandoning me, judging me and just... being amazing. I really do love you, your know that right?"
Hermione flushed. "I love you do too, Harry... come on."
They went downstairs, crossed the entrance hall quickly without looking in at the Great Hall, and were soon striding across the lawn toward the lake, where the Durmstrang ship was moored, reflected blackly in the water. It was a chilly morning, and they kept moving, munching their toast, as Harry told Hermione exactly what had happened after he had left the Gryffindor table the night before. To his immense relief, Hermione accepted his story without question.
"Well, of course I knew you hadn't entered yourself," she said when he'd finished telling her about the scene in the chamber off the Hall. "The look on your face when Dumbledore read out your name! But the question is, who did put it in? Because of Moody's right, Harry...I don't think any student could have done it...they'd never be able to fool the Goblet, or get over Dumbledore's -"
"Voldemort did it. I had a dream." Hermione gaped. "Yeah, I know." He told her about the dream, of the things he heard, the criticisms about him and so on. "They weren't wrong. I am lazy, isolated and just... I need to do better. We are going to do better, and I want you to help me... please?"
She nodded. "Of course, but Harry you need to tell Dumbledore!"
"No, I don't, they were right, he is not to be trusted. He has screwed us over a dozen times, putting me back with the Dursleys for years. I am done with that. I am taking my life into my hands... but Hermione if you tell anyone about this, I will never talk to you again. Ever, do you understand me? Done, completely, forever."
She went pale, her hands shaking. "I... why?"
"Hermione, stop looking at Dumbledore like some god and use that big brain of yours. Think of the last three years plus this year already...think of the Dursleys and how much they have hurt me, they used to lock me in a closet for my room. Please, if you love me, you cannot tell anyone this."
She sighed. "Okay... I... I promise... but only if you promise to write to Sirius."
"I don't trust him to tell not tell Dumbledore anything, so I will not be giving him all the details. I need to rely on people I can trust directly, like you. Anyway, I can't use Hedwig, so I'll go to the Owlery."
They went up to the Owlery. Hermione gave Harry a piece of parchment, a quill, and a bottle of ink, then strolled around the long lines of perches, looking at all the different owls, while Harry sat down against a wall and wrote his letter.
Dear Sirius,
You told me to keep you posted on what's happening at Hogwarts, so here goes - I don't know if you've heard, but the Triwizard Tournament's happening this year and on Saturday night I got picked as a fourth champion. I don't who put my name in the Goblet of Fire, because I didn't. The other Hogwarts champion is Cedric Diggory, from you're okay, and Buckbeak - Harry
"Finished," he told Hermione, getting to his feet and brushing straw off his robes. At this, Hedwig fluttered down onto his shoulder and held out her leg.
"I can't use you," Harry told her, looking around for the school owls. "I've got to use one of these."
Hedwig gave a very loud hoot and took off so suddenly that her talons cut into his shoulder. She kept her back to Harry all the time he was tying his letter to the leg of a large barn owl. When the barn owl had flown off, Harry reached out to stroke Hedwig, but she clicked her beak furiously and soared up into the rafters out of reach.
"Stop being a brat!"
If Harry had thought that matters would improve once everyone got used to the idea of him being champion, the following day showed him how mistaken he was. He could no longer avoid the rest of the school once he was back at lessons - and it was clear that the rest of the school, just like the Gryffindors, thought Harry had entered himself for the tournament. Unlike the Gryffindors, however, they did not seem impressed.
The Hufflepuffs, who were usually on excellent terms with the Gryffindors, had turned remarkably cold toward the whole lot of them. One Herbology lesson was enough to demonstrate this. It was plain that the Hufflepuffs felt that Harry had stolen their champion's glory; a feeling exacerbated, perhaps, by the fact that Hufflepuff House very rarely got any glory, and that Cedric was one of the few who had ever given them any, having beaten Gryffindor once at Quidditch. Ernie Macmillan and Justin FinchFletchley, with whom Harry normally got on very well, did not talk to him even though they were repotting Bouncing Bulbs at the same tray - though they did laugh rather unpleasantly when one of the Bouncing Bulbs wriggled free from Harry's grip and smacked him hard in the face. Harry thought even Professor Sprout seemed distant with him - but then, she was Head of Hufflepuff House.
This only added to his rage, and turned it into hatred for Hogwarts.
He would have been looking forward to seeing Hagrid under normal circumstances, but Care of Magical Creatures meant seeing the Slytherins too - the first time he would come face-to-face with them since becoming champion.
Predictably, Malfoy arrived at Hagrid's cabin with his familiar sneer firmly in place.
"Ah, look, boys, it's the champion," he said to Crabbe and Goyle the moment he got within earshot of Harry. "Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt he's going to be around much longer...Half the Triwizard champions have died...how long d'you reckon you're going to last, Potter? Ten minutes into the first task's my bet."
Crabbe and Goyle guffawed sycophantically, but Malfoy had to stop there, because Hagrid emerged from the back of his cabin balancing a teetering tower of crates, each containing a very large Blast-Ended Skrewt. To the class's horror, Hagrid proceeded to explain that the reason the skrewts had been killing one another was an excess of pent-up energy, and that the solution would be for each student to fix a leash on a skrewt and take it for a short walk. The only good thing about this plan was that it distracted Malfoy completely.
"Take this thing for a walk?" he repeated in disgust, staring into one of the boxes. "And where exactly are we supposed to fix the leash? Around the sting, the blasting end, or the sucker?"
"Roun' the middle," said Hagrid, demonstrating. "Er - yeh might want ter put on yer dragon-hide gloves, jus' as an extra precaution, like. Harry - you come here an' help me with this big one..."
Hagrid's real intention, however, was to talk to Harry away from the rest of the class. He waited until everyone else had set off with their skrewts, then turned to Harry and said, very seriously, "So - yer competin', Harry. In the tournament. School champion."
"One of the champions," Harry corrected him.
Hagrid's beetle-black eyes looked very anxious under his wild eyebrows.
"No idea who put yeh in fer it, Harry?"
"You believe I didn't do it, then?" said Harry, concealing with difficulty the rush of gratitude he felt at Hagrid's words.
"Course I do," Hagrid grunted. "Yeh say it wasn' you, an' I believe yeh - an' Dumbledore believes yer, an' all."
"Wish I knew who did do it," said Harry bitterly. 'Dumbledore probably knows but won't tell me, can't get his favorite toy to be too independent now.'
The pair of them looked out over the lawn; the class was widely scattered now, and all in great difficulty. The skrewts were now over three feet long, and extremely powerful. No longer shell-less and colorless, they had developed a kind of thick, grayish, shiny armor. They looked like a cross between giant scorpions and elongated crabs- but still without recognizable heads or eyes. They had become immensely strong and very hard to control.
"Look like they're havin' fun, don' they?" Hagrid said happily. Harry assumed he was talking about the skrewts, because his classmates certainly weren't; every now and then, with an alarming bang, one of the skrewts' ends would explode, causing it to shoot forward several yards, and more than one person was being dragged along on their stomach, trying desperately to get back on their feet. "Ah, I don' know, Harry," Hagrid sighed suddenly, looking back down at him with a worried expression on his face. "School champion...everythin' seems ter happen ter you, doesn' it?"
Harry didn't answer...
The next few days were some of Harry's worst at Hogwarts but also some of the best. The closest he had ever come to feeling like this had been during those months, in his second year, when a large part of the school had suspected him of attacking his fellow students. He and Hermione had never been closer, they spent hours reading together on spells and whatnot, Hermione's vast repertoire being used to educate him on countless spells and subjects. She even helped him work on the theory of Potions, his idea, to give Snape no more reason to be an abusive monster than before.
Harry had come to hate the students of Hogwarts on a deep, profound level. All of them. The Gryffindors thought him glorious, Hufflepuffs a glory hog, Slytherins a free target, Ravenclaws a cheater. He hated them all, every one of them. He lost all respect for the staff as well, many of which actually added to the vitriol or just ignored it. He would get back at them all one day, he vowed that.
He even knew how... it was a dark thought, one that he was almost ashamed to admit, he would not fight Voldemort, if and when he returned, he would not help stop the man unless he was personally attacked. Why defend a people that actively hated him for things beyond his control? He was done being a pawn.
Meanwhile there was no reply from Sirius, Hedwig was refusing to come anywhere near him, Professor Trelawney was predicting his death with even more certainty than usual... however other than that his schoolwork was much better than before. Without Ron to distract him and a sense of purpose he never had before, plus more studying than ever, he was excelling at magic and written work. He got the summoning charm on the first try! Not even Hermione managed that!
Double Potions was always a horrible experience, but oddly enough now it had changed. It should have been a monstrous thing, with the abuse and bullying and whatnot, but now adays he just couldn't care about the hate he was getting. He had already detached himself from it all. He had reduced his care to only Hermione and Sirius and Hedwig and maybe Hagrid. He would not, could not, care about the stupidity and judgment of others.
When he and Hermione arrived at Snape's dungeon after lunch, they found the Slytherins waiting outside, each and every one of them wearing a large badge on the front of his or her robes. For one wild moment, Harry thought they were S.P.E.W. badges - then he saw that they all bore the same message, in luminous red letters that burnt brightly in the dimly lit underground passage:
SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY-
THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION!
"Like them, Potter?" said Malfoy loudly as Harry approached. "And this isn't all they do - look!"
He pressed his badge into his chest, and the message upon it vanished, to be replaced by another one, which glowed green:
POTTER STINKS!
The Slytherins howled with laughter. Each of them pressed their badges too, until the message POTTER STINKS was shining brightly all around Harry. He felt the heat rise in his face and neck.
"Oh very funny," Hermione said sarcastically to Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls, who were laughing harder than anyone, "really witty."
"Want one, Granger?" said Malfoy, holding out a badge to Hermione. "I've got loads. But don't touch my hand, now. I've just washed it, you see; don't want a Mudblood sliming it up."
Harry hated that damn word. He had reached for his wand before he'd thought what he was doing. People all around them scrambled out of the way, backing down the corridor.
"Harry!" Hermione said warningly.
"Go on, then, Potter," Malfoy said quietly, drawing out his own wand. "Moody's not here to look after you now - do it, if you've got the guts -"
For a split second, they looked into each other's eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both acted.
"Funnunculus!" Harry yelled.
"Densaugeo!" screamed Malfoy.
Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in midair, and ricocheted off at angles - Harry's hit Goyle in the face, and Malfoy's hit Hermione. Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up - Hermione, whimpering in panic, was clutching her mouth.
"Hermione!"
Ron had hurried forward to see what was wrong with her; Harry turned and saw Ron dragging Hermione's hand away from her face. It wasn't a pretty sight. Hermione's front teeth - already larger than average - were now growing at an alarming rate; she was looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, toward her chin - panic-stricken, she felt them and let out a terrified cry.
"And what is all this noise about?" said a soft, deadly voice.
Snape had arrived. The Slytherins clamored to give their explanations; Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Malfoy and said, "Explain."
"Potter attacked me, sir -"
"We attacked each other at the same time!" Harry shouted.
"- and he hit Goyle - look -"
Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi.
"Hospital wing, Goyle," Snape said calmly.
"Malfoy got Hermione!" Ron said. "Look!"
He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth - she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape's back.
Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, "I see no difference."
Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.
It was lucky, perhaps, that both Harry and Ron started shouting at Snape at the same time; lucky their voices echoed so much in the stone corridor, for in the confused din, it was impossible for him to hear exactly what they were calling him. He got the gist, however.
"Let's see," he said, in his silkiest voice. "Fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention each for Potter and Weasley. Now get inside, or it'll be a week's worth of detentions."
Harry was done. " No."
Snape turned, eyes glittering with rage. "Excuse me?"
"I said no. I am done with you and your cruelty. You weak little man. I recognize none of your authority, nor that idiot Dumbledore's. I will not be taking your classes, I will not be accepting your detentions. You won't get your rocks of abusing me. Merlin, how anyone allowed a weak, vile piece of garbage to be a professor I do not know. All I know is that I am done with you."
Turning on hell, he marched from the hall and away, to find Hermione and help her in any way he could.
However, about a minute later he ran into Collin Creevey. "Oh, Harry, I am to take you upstairs! All the champions have got to go, I think they want to take photographs..."
Harry glowered at the boy. "Great more crap..."
"It's amazing, isn't it, Harry?" said Colin, starting to speak the moment Harry had closed the dungeon door behind him. "Isn't it, though? You being champion?"
"Yeah, really amazing," said Harry heavily as they set off toward the steps into the entrance hall. "What do they want photos for, Colin?"
"The Daily Prophet, I think!"
"Great," said Harry dully. "Exactly what I need. More publicity."
"Good luck!" said Colin when they had reached the right room.
Harry stopped at the door, and a wicked idea came to him... a wonderful, evil, awful idea. He had always wanted to reveal the Dursley's evil, but now he had the chance to reveal so much more than that... and perhaps he would... perhaps he could...
Oh, he had so, so many ideas...
Chapter end, tell me what you think in the reviews.
This was a joy to write. I have so many ideas.
Love, your Ninja Overlord,
Mika.