A/N: Shorter chapter, but I hope you enjoy it! Thank you so much for the reviews (and to those reading this in the first place), I treasure each and every one of you!
Chapter Three: Magic Word
Tracey Davis was in a state of deep distress. Her first-ever day at Hogwarts had shaped up to be an absolute bust. Used to having her own bedroom as opposed to a shared dorm with a group of girls she hardly knew, she'd barely slept the night before, and her newfound conviction that the world was a terrible place was only compounded when she'd dropped Blinky in a puddle outside the greenhouses on her way to Herbology.
Blinky was more than an ancient, tattered stuffed rabbit- he was a friend. As an only child with few friends in her life, Blinky had been there for everything, and now his beautiful synthetic fur smelled like... like puddle. If only she knew the spell to clean him and make him right again. Her parents knew how, and normally they'd fix Blinky up in a jiffy, but Mummy and Daddy weren't here, and Tracey didn't quite trust her older housemates enough yet not to laugh at her for being a baby if she asked them for help. After all, she was eleven, and while it was already embarrassing to admit you slept with a stuffed bunny, it was even more embarrassing to admit you kept him in your bag for your first day of classes, just to have a friend nearby.
She could always go to Professor Snape. She knew that. Tracey wasn't a foolish girl; she could see that a great deal of the stern housemaster's coldness was a front put on to scare them. And yet the eleven-year-old was also smart enough to see that a great deal of it wasn't an act, and as she'd only known the man for a day she wasn't yet quite sure where the line was drawn.
Besides, she couldn't ask Professor Snape now; he'd hauled the Boy Who Lived and Draco Malfoy out of the common room fifteen minutes before, and she'd missed the whole thing because she'd been... occupied, so to speak, in the ladies' room.
This, of course, was the worst affront by far. A bad night's sleep was rotten, but then you slept well the following night and the universe righted itself once more. Even Blinky had been through worse scrapes than this (he'd once survived a terrifying encounter with a rottweiler that left him with only half a floppy right ear); Tracey knew eventually he'd dry and the smell would fade away.
But missing Harry ruddy Potter, the defeater of the Dark Lord himself, losing his temper and launching himself at that absolute tit Draco Malfoy? Tracey didn't think she'd ever forgive herself for choosing that moment to choreograph a few movements of her own.
"But what was it like?" She'd been begging the older students for details for the better part of a quarter of an hour now, though the details hadn't changed since the first time they'd told her what happened. "You're sure Potter didn't use dark magic?"
"He didn't use any magic." Lucian Bole was patient, but she could tell that patience was starting to wane. "I told you, it was over faster than you could say 'Death by Snape'."
"Was it scary? Did anyone bleed?" Tracey had never seen a fight before, and she wanted a detailed account of the violence. "Were there weapons?"
A ripple of laughter spread through the room. Pansy Parkinson, one of the girls in Tracey's year, rolled her eyes from where she sat on a low sofa and said theatrically, "For goodness's sake, Tracey, it was nothing. Stop being such a baby."
A pillow soared across the sofa, catching Pansy's shoulder and the side of her head.
"Someone's high and mighty!" cried Daphne, the thrower of the pillow, who was also in their year. "You shrieked like a five-year-old!"
Pansy glowered, but not with much conviction. "They each got in maybe two swings before the prefects broke it up. No blood. It was a little disappointing, to be honest."
"But why was Potter so angry to begin with?" Tracey asked, picking up the fallen pillow and hugging it to her chest, enraptured. "He's barely said a word to anyone."
People glanced sideways at one another; the mood changed, but only slightly.
"Draco was being a knob," Adrian Pucey said at last. "It turns out Potter was probably raised by Muggles, and it looks like he might not know that much about magic. So Malfoy was a Malfoy and made things worse."
The idea seemed impossible- Harry Potter not knowing about magic? He was the hero of the magical world! How could he not know? Why hadn't he been told?
"That's not why Potter lost it, though," a seventh year (Tracey believed, she wasn't entirely sure) cut in. "It was what he said about his mother."
"I was getting to that!" Pucey said in his most self-important voice just as Tracey asked, "What did he say about his mother?"
"Well..." Pucey glanced both ways, as though Snape might be sitting on the mantle or peeking from behind a bookcase. "He called her... you know."
"Called her what?" Tracey asked, oblivious.
Pucey glanced both ways again. "C'mon. You know..."
"Mudblood," Bole said simply, rolling his eyes. "It's just a word. Are we really going to have that whole debate again?"
Indeed, half the room had stiffened, while the other didn't react at all.
"It's a terrible word," Clara Holdsworth murmured. "It's the word He used."
"It existed before him!" cut in a girl whose name Tracey hadn't yet learned. "And the way I look at it, it's the sentiment that's rotten, not the word itself. We should make it a normal word. Another word for someone with Muggle blood, so that when people try to use it as an insult, it's just as normal as saying they have brown eyes."
"Malfoy wasn't exactly observing that Potter's a half-blood," Pucey pointed out. "And what do you know? You're a pure-blood too!"
"I'm a half-blood and it doesn't bother me," someone called out, and before Tracey could stop herself, she said, "I'm a half-blood too."
All eyes turned to her- a fresh voice on a topic they'd argued to death among themselves for years? And from a half-blood, no less? It almost negated the fact that she was a first year.
Tracey's ears turned red. She didn't know what to say- she didn't like the word. Neither did her father, a Muggle who'd met her mother at a dance club in Manchester during the war. Her mother wasn't a fan of it either, and had warned Tracey she might hear it at Hogwarts, especially if she followed suit and was placed in Slytherin. Her parents had both warned her it was just a word and not to let it hurt her, but she knew it was more complicated than that, especially since half of Mum's family didn't talk to them.
Of course, there was the half who did talk to them, and they were lovely. That being said, Tracey had still heard Uncle Maximilian use the phrase at Easter dinner once, not in an insulting way, but a matter of fact one, in that "same as brown eyes" way the girl Tracey's name didn't know had suggested. He'd apologized quickly, with a laugh, and Tracey's parents had laughed it off as well, but through their laughter she could see what the word meant to them.
All eyes were on her; she had to say something. Tracey licked her lips, thought it over, and said, "I think it's a rotten word and people shouldn't ever say it. But I also understand where you're coming from, even if I don't agree."
Various sets of eyes glanced at one another, then Millicent called out, "Well said, Mudblood!"
Tracey looked at her, saw she was smiling, and burst into laughter herself.
Harry had been dragged by the ear before, usually from somewhere on the ground floor of the Dursley's house to his cupboard. That being said, he'd never been dragged by the ear down multiple corridors that, by Harry's estimation, were about a mile long each. He kept bumping into Malfoy, whose ear was enclosed in a vice grip of its own.
Before long, his stinging ear was the least of Harry's worries, as he found himself being yanked through a doorway and suddenly released in front of a polished, deep chestnut desk as his housemaster stormed around to the other side. He pulled open a drawer and removed a ruler, which he placed on his desk with an air of ceremony. Before Harry could process this, Snape swooped down, his face inches away from either of the two boys.
"Speak honestly, and this will return to its drawer unused. Cross me, however..." Snape straightened himself, his expression no less furious. "Do not cross me."
The boys both murmured rapid affirmations that they would, indeed, tell the truth, and Snape sat down, motioning for them to do the same.
Silence. Harry glanced at Snape, then at Malfoy. Were they supposed to speak first? Tell what happened? Harry knew it was all going to come out, but going first would make him look like a snitch. He hesitated, then glanced at the ruler.
"Potter threw the first punch!" Malfoy shot out, glaring at his lap. "Sir."
"He called my mother a bad name," Harry mumbled, certain this wouldn't matter. He had thrown the first punch. Snape was going to send Malfoy back to the common room, then thrash him senseless. "He said she was a Mudblood, sir, and that her blood is filth, and that's why she died."
Snape didn't move. In fact, it was a little scary how much he didn't move. He was like a statue, barely alive, just staring.
"Then he hit me!" Malfoy argued. "All I did was say a word- he started it!"
"I wouldn't quite say he started it, Malfoy," Snape said, his voice inscrutable. "But he certainly did finish it."
Upon entering the common room and discovering the two boys conducting themselves like common zoo animals, Severus had none-too-gently escorted each of them to a corner while obtaining a hushed summary of what had occurred from Higgs. The details were brief, but enough, and at that point he'd 'requested' their presence in his study, nearly yanking their ears off in the process.
"You never call someone's family filth," Snape said, his voice sharp. Malfoy shrank back slightly. "Not anyone, and especially not a fellow Slytherin."
Malfoy didn't say anything, instead continuing to study his lap.
"Look at me." Snape stared directly into the eyes of the reluctant boy. "How long have you known me?"
"All... all my life, sir," Malfoy said quietly.
All his life? Bloody hell balls, Harry thought, Malfoy was friends with Snape?
"Has your father ever told you I'm a half-blood?"
Malfoy's head, which had been sinking downward again, shot up and he stared at the housemaster in utter shock.
"My father was a Muggle. He worked at a paper mill. Not a single drop of magic in his blood." Snape leaned forward, elbows on the desk, his long fingers interconnected. "Now tell me, Mr. Malfoy, what does that make me?"
Malfoy gaped like the goldfish back in one of the classrooms at Harry's primary school.
"Go on, tell us," Snape said, his voice taking on a tone of sarcastic curiosity. "You were so kind to inform the entire house what you think of Potter's blood. I'd love to know what you'd call me."
"A... a half-blood, sir," Malfoy said in a low voice.
"It also makes me a wizard. As are you. As is Potter." Snape's eyes shot over to Harry's so quickly it caught him off guard. "As for you, Potter, I'm disgusted. Brawling like a Neanderthal? Is that all you're capable of? What an embarrassing little display, and in the Slytherin common room no less."
Harry was quite certain the man was about to haul him over the desk and start applying the ruler, so severe was his expression. But he remained seated as he said, "Only fools allow words to provoke them into just the reaction their taunter wanted. A Slytherin never takes the bait. A true Slytherin is better than that."
"Sorry, sir," Harry all but whispered, staring intently at a spot where the top of the desk met its side.
"I don't care that you're sorry. I care that that you learn," Snape growled at the two of them. "You will return to your dormitories, and go to bed immediately."
"It's eight o'clock, sir," Malfoy burst out, unable to help himself.
Snape stared at him, leaving plenty of time for Malfoy to shrink back in his chair and squirm. "And for the rest of the week you'll both be going to bed at seven. Do you have any questions?"
Harry had many questions. Is this an evil house or not? When do I call someone by their first name, and when do I call them by their last name? Is it true that Crabbe is descended from Merlin or was he lying?
"Get out of my sight," Snape said after neither of them answered.
He rose up and yanked open the door, motioning with the ruler that both boys were to leave. They scurried past and down the hall, but not before he could land one solid thwap to each of their backsides.
They walked in silence toward the common room. Harry stared straight ahead, dreading having to spend even more time than usual alone with such an absolute wanker. Malfoy was mercifully silent, but as they grew closer he couldn't hold back any longer.
"How did you survive?"
Harry stuffed his fists in his pockets and said what he suspected he'd be saying for a long time to come. "I don't know."
Malfoy pondered this. "What are your Muggle relatives like?"
"Awful."
This seemed to cheer Malfoy up a bit, and he said, "This bedtime thing is rubbish, isn't it?"
"Could've been worse," Harry said shortly, and after a pause, Malfoy nodded too.
"I suppose you're right."
They reached the common room, and once they said the password and the wall slid open, they found themselves facing a common room that had very suddenly gone completely silent.
Harry didn't know what came over him, but it came over Malfoy too, and it came down to one thing- they'd both made absolute bell-ends of themselves, and the only way to avoid being an object of mockery was if they'd suffered a far worse fate than they actually had. Malfoy started it, surreptitiously rubbing his backside and walking stiffly across the room. Harry quickly copied him, and it was sympathetic faces and only minimal sniggering that met them as they made their way to the dormitories. Of course, they didn't see those kind faces transform into ones of hushed laughter at the two actors over-milking it once they were gone, but that, too, was intended.
Severus had always had a soft spot for the Astronomy Tower. He and Lily used to slip up there before things had gone sour, gazing at the view as they talked about their new lives at Hogwarts. The boy's eyes really were just like hers, encased in a face that really did look just like his. Severus mentally sighed, reminding himself that it really wasn't healthy to hate the memory of a teenaged boy with the intense passion he did, but all the same, it wasn't hurting anyone. The boy was clearly different than James had been, and damnably earnest. That was the Lily in him, for better or worse. Severus allowed himself a fond thought toward her memory, before turning back to the task at hand.
"There you are." Minerva was huffing slightly as she came up the stairs, balancing herself on the stone wall at the top. "I've been looking for you."
Severus raised an eyebrow; nothing in her demeanor suggested anything was amiss. "Are we having nightly visits, then? I hadn't realized I'd earned that prestige."
Minerva rolled her eyes at him and motioned for him to scoot over on the stone bench he'd inhabited.
"Hush," she said, taking a moment to catch her breath. "You knew I'd be curious."
Severus took a sip from the flask he'd brought with him, silently wishing he'd been allowed to have a drink and enjoy the view in peace. "Some might find a preoccupation on one child over hundreds of others detrimental, Minerva."
"But he's not just a regular child," Minerva argued. "And you know it, Severus. Don't shame me for that."
"He is a regular child," Severus said, and offered her a sip from his flask. "Go on, don't be high and mighty, you know you want to."
Minerva glared but took a none-too-small gulp of Ogden's Finest before saying, "How can you say he's just like anyone else? He defeated the Dark Lord. Of course we need to treat him like an ordinary child, but we both know he isn't one."
"And no one knows how he defeated the Dark Lord, much less himself. He's a child, Minerva, and you know it. Can't you see it in him?" Severus shook his head. "This is the time when a person is shaped. Don't put a weight on him he can't be expected to shoulder."
Minerva didn't reply straight away, instead staring over the ramparts for several long moments before saying, "What if we end up needing him?"
"Then that day will come," Severus said, letting just as much time pass before saying, "I hope it never does."
"You're preparing for it, though," Minerva said, not quite as a question.
"Of course," he said simply, and she nodded.
"Are the students treating him well?" Minerva asked. "I'm sorry, Severus, you've done a wonderful job with the house, but you know the families some of them come from."
Severus would never admit any wrongdoings within his house to the head of Gryffindor, or to anyone outside of Slytherin for that matter. He shook his head, and conveniently forgot what had occurred between the Potter child and Lucius's son.
"They've all been very respectful," he said. "No one asks about his past."
Minerva regarded him with undisguised admiration. "I'm impressed. Really, Severus, I am. I can't deny that in Gryffindor they wouldn't leave him alone."
"To be fair," Severus said, "I did threaten to thrash them if they tried."
Minerva stared at him- she knew of Severus's Snape's methods- and gave off such a look of disapproval that he couldn't help but laugh.
"Oh, for goodness's sake, it all but never happens-" (a slight exaggeration, but well meaning) "-though to hear them tell it, I start every day by hurling them through a glass window."
Minerva couldn't help but smile at this, and even Severus felt the corner of one lip turn up the slightest bit.
"Well, we've talked about my little nightmares, what about yours?" Severus said, accepting he would not get his much desired alone time.
"They're nightmares," Minerva said with a short bark of laughter, and they settled in to talk.
"Did you have a broomstick?"
"No." Harry stared up at the ceiling, counting the stone tiles. "Not one that could fly, at least."
"What about a Snitch?"
"A what?"
"Did you have a stove?"
"Did we what?" Harry rolled over to stare at Malfoy, who was sitting cross-legged on his bed and regarding him with reluctant curiosity. "Of course we had a stove."
Malfoy shrugged, then stretched. "Muggles live like it's the Dark Ages. I wouldn't be surprised."
"What do you even know about Muggles? Have you ever met one?"
"I have too," Malfoy said, puffing himself up indignantly. "My father asked one for directions once."
"So you must be an expert," Harry shot back.
God, he hated Malfoy. He wished he had gotten a couple of harder punches before they'd been pulled apart. Then again, a small part of him whispered, he is trying to ask now. He's still a git, a much larger part shouted.
"I'm just saying," Malfoy snapped, folding his arms across himself. "All right, I'm sorry I called your precious mother a Mudblood. Happy?"
"Fine," Harry said. "It's over."
They sat in silence. After a while, Harry turned out the light next to his bed, but before long Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, and Zabini were hurrying in, first year bedtime having been called.
"That was wicked!" Theodore shouted, leaping onto his bed. "You're both insane! What did he do to you?"
"It was terrible," Malfoy said darkly, staring into the distance as though he were a soldier returning home after a long war. "I can't talk about it. I hope you understand."
All eyes turned to Harry, and he nodded, quickly flopping onto his stomach. "Twenty-two with a ruler. I won't be able to sit for weeks."
They were met by a combination of belief and scorn, often both from the same person. But Harry was fairly certain they'd come out relatively all right in the regard of their housemates, and they now had an air of toughness around them to boot. Harry allowed himself to be drawn into conversation with what he suspected could become new friends, all the while dreading spending extra hours with Malfoy every night for the rest of the week.
