PART THREE: A LESS THAN WONDERFUL START

"Care to explain, Mr. Potter?"

He'd expected McGonagall to be angry, so it was irritating that she only looked concerned when she ushered him into her office.

"Explain what, Professor?" Harry asked in a blank tone, careful only to let a helpless sort of befuddlement escape his neutral expression.

McGonagall sent him a reproving look that told him she clearly knew he was feigning his ignorance and waved a piece of parchment at him. "I noticed your schedule, Mr. Potter. It seems you have neglected to enroll in NEWT Potions."

Harry studied the wall beyond her, giving a careless shrug. "I don't really want to deal with Snape this year."

McGonagall's tone was slightly annoyed now. "You expressed last year a desire to be an auror. I spent hours persuading Professor Snape to let you in his class. You need NEWT Potions to pursue that career."

Harry glanced at her. "Sorry." He really wasn't. "You wasted your time. I should have told you this summer I'd changed my mind about the auror business."

"You no longer wish to become an auror?" Her tone was unreadable.

"Nope. Plus, as I said, I really don't want another class with that greasy git."

He waited for her outburst. She did not disappoint.

"Mr. Potter!" McGonagall shouted. "That's ten points from Gryffindor for speaking disrespectfully of a professor! You will apologize right now."

He rolled his eyes and lolled his head back to stare at the ceiling. "It's only what everyone else calls him." His eyes locked with hers, and, with a sneer, he enunciated slowly, "I am deeply sorry, Professor, that I called Snape a 'greasy git'... in front of you."

"Professor Snape, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said warningly. "And that's another five points. Honestly, Harry..."

Harry repressed the urge to roll his eyes again, but held it in check only by pondering the retaliation he'd receive at the hands of his dorm mates if he lost the house cup for them the first day of classes.

McGonagall was speaking again. He caught her midway though the sentence. "... very foolish to let personal dislike dictate your schedule. You may not get along with Professor Snape, but you must take larger issues into consideration--"

"I told you, I don't want to be an auror!" Harry interrupted. "What the hell else do you want, a written affirmation?"

He expected her to deduct more points for his language, but Professor McGonagall folded her hands and sat back in her chair, scrutinizing him closely. "Very well then, Harry." He disliked how she'd switched to his name. "Have you an alternate career path in mind?"

I don't know... Does 'boy murderer of a Dark Lord' count as a career path? he thought angrily, a small voice adding darkly, Or more like 'boy murdered by a Dark Lord'...

It's not like he had any other choice. It was either kill Voldemort or die himself, and either way his future was out of his hands. Become an auror... He couldn't even look that far ahead. He honestly didn't think he'd live that long.

He wasn't sure he wanted to.

Harry did not voice any of these thoughts. He stared at McGonagall in the heavy silence.

"Very well, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said at last. Her eyes softened almost imperceptibly. "Harry, you may not realize it, but as your head of house, and as someone who cares about you, I have your best interests at heart."

She shoved another piece of parchment across the desk, and as he picked it up, he noticed incredulously that it was a revised schedule. It included NEWT Potions. Harry cursed himself for not naming some alternate career, anything else. He knew what she was doing.

"You put me back in Potions!" he accused her, brimming with helpless anger. "I told you--"

"Harry, I will not have you sacrifice your future because of a personal grudge against Professor Snape." Her voice was firm and implacable. "You only have to deal with Professor Snape for two more years; this decision today you will live with forever." Her expression was now very compassionate. "If I were convinced your change in direction stemmed from genuine disinterest, and not from... lingering distress over the events last spring, I would be more willing to reconsider."

'The events last spring'. Is that what they called it when you dragged everyone you loved into a trap? When you got the one person who loved you as a father killed?

They argued several minutes more, but McGonagall would not budge from her decision. It was an infuriated Harry who stomped out of the office, consumed with something between anger and dread at the prospect of sitting in Snape's classroom the next morning.

Several steps into the Great Hall, he stopped, a solid obstruction amidst the students bustling about him, and wished with a sudden, fierce longing that he was back with the Dursleys. The feeling was so alien that it made him pause; never before had he longed for the quiet oppression of his relatives' company over the haven of his school. But now he wanted it, and he wanted it so desperately. He wanted his dark cupboard and his spiders and his chores.

But he didn't even have that anymore did he? He closed his eyes, the now-loving faces of his blood relatives flashing though his mind. No, even the Dursleys were tainted now with the cruel unpredictability of the wizarding world. They were obviously stuck in some weird spell or enchantment, or were enacting some elaborate emotional farce, and however much he'd hated the Dursleys before, at least he'd counted on them being their usual, nasty selves.

I really should ask Hermione about the way they were acting, Harry thought briefly before someone-- he saw a flash of a sneering, blonde boy-- shoved him hard, sending him careening to the floor.

"Careful, Potty," Draco laughed from above him as Harry forced himself back up to his feet. "You might end up in the hospital wing on the very first day of classes."

Draco had grown several inches over the summer, and filled out considerably. The hint of fragility about the boy's figure had vanished, leaving a younger version of Lucius Malfoy gazing down at Harry.

Harry was certain from the glint in Draco's eye that the other boy had noticed their sudden size differential and was hoping to egg Harry on into a physical confrontation. But Harry had learned something from his ban from Quidditch; better to let Draco attack him first. That was the only way to avoid a detention and yet more points lost from Gryffindor.

And besides, nothing Draco might do now could possibly hurt, not after the horrific events of last year.

"Don't you wish," he said coldly. "You know, it takes a lot more than that to land me in the hospital wing, Malfoy. Your father learned that last year the hard way."

Malfoy's face grew pale, his gray eyes narrowing into lethal slits.

Repressing a smirk, Harry pressed on ruthlessly, "Speaking of your father, how is Azkaban these days? How terrible it must be to fall so far-- such a powerful man, now a mere prisoner... Especially when his son can't even manage to avenge him properly." When the other boy grew impossibly paler, features pinched with a rage like Harry had never before seen on his face, the smaller boy felt a rush of pleasure and pressed on mercilessly, "Well, Draco? Weren't you going kill me, to 'make me pay' for what I did to your dear old dad? Didn't go too well on the train last year. Maybe you can do better this time." Smiling a little wildly now, he spread his arms to his sides. "Go ahead, Malfoy. Take your best shot. Make poor little Lucius proud."

Harry wasn't sure just what possessed him to provoke Draco, or just why he didn't find his own wand to defend himself. He just knew he'd been seized by a wild impulse, and he drank in the pleasure of Draco's malice. He watched with anticipation as Draco's eyes flashed with fury, as Draco raised his wand and issued a nasty-sounding curse that streaked though the air towards Harry--

And smacked straight into a hastily shot counter-curse. Harry thought he should be relieved, but was aware of an acute disappointment as he realized he was out of danger. Who had just--

"POTTER! MALFOY!"

Oh, hell.

Snape.

The infuriated Professor stormed though the suddenly subdued crowd of students who pressed around them in a circle; his wand was aloft, black robes billowing about his thin frame. He drew up to the boys, features pinched with anger, black eyes flickering back and forth between the two.

"What happened?" Snape demanded coldly.

"Potter provoked me!"

"Malfoy attacked me."

"Potter started it!"

Harry felt himself rage with cold satisfaction as Snape looked over the scene intently. Draco still loomed before him, wand held threateningly at the smaller boy. Harry's hands rested passively at his sides, his wand nestled safely in his robes. There was no way, no way, Snape could pin this all on him, however much he wanted to. He inwardly chuckled at the tense line of Snape's lips as the man struggled for reason to blame all of this mess on Harry.

Harry smirked as he watched Snape's dilemma, but it froze on his lips when Snape's eyes rested like two black coals upon his and he knew suddenly that Snape would inexplicably blame this on him anyway.

"Mr. Malfoy, return to your dorm. Ten points from Gryffindor for starting a fight, Mr. Potter, and detention tonight in my office," Snape snarled.

Harry stared at Snape.

"Right now!" Snape hissed, striding forward and grasping Harry's collar, hauling the boy with him though the Great Hall.

Malfoy smirked at Harry as they passed. Harry's head whirled in disbelief.

He couldn't speak. He was so angry. He could barely see; the fury was like a red haze blinding him.

This was so unfair. Snape needed to be stopped! The man had always been biased, but this was taking it too far! He couldn't get away with this!

Bastard, bastard, bastard... How I hate you, Snivellus!

His teeth were grinding so hard his jaw throbbed as he stumbled down into the coolness of the dungeons, still firmly in Snape's grip.

TBC