AN: Sorry this chapter is a little late today. My parents are on vacation this week, so my normally free mornings have been taken up by driving by to check on their pets. Also, I forgot to mention it last chapter, but thanks for all the positive feedback so far on the story, which hit 1000 followers last week. Thanks a lot guys!
Birthdays and Bullies
Hermione Granger had been depressed all day. When she had gone downstairs to say 'good morning' to Harry all he'd said back was the same. During breakfast she had hoped that maybe an owl would deliver something for her, but Hedwig was absent. Worst of all was that today, of all days, she had to go to flying class without Harry there. She still didn't feel safe on a broom, but after watching Harry fly she was a little more confident as long as he was nearby. He had promised to catch her if she fell. Sadly, Quidditch players were apparently exempt from flying class, and the team had wanted to work on strategy during that time this week.
Normally none of this would bother Hermione too much, except the flying. But today was her birthday, and it seemed that her best friend had completely forgotten! She sighed as she headed towards the Great Hall with Parvati Patil for dinner. Harry had left their last class early, confident (and rightly so) that the ghostly teacher wouldn't even notice, and she hadn't seen him since.
"Parvati, where are we going?" Hermione asked as she was pulled past the double doors to the Great Hall and down a flight of stairs on the other end of the corridor, "Aren't the Hufflepuff dorms down here?"
Parvati just smiled mysteriously and led Hermione around a corner to a painting of a gigantic bowl of fruit. She stopped for a minute, frowning as she fiddled with the fruit in the bowl before a green pear giggled at being touched and expanded into the third dimension, turning into a door handle of sorts.
"Parvati? What's going on? Where does that go?" Hermione had never seen this door before. How did Parvati even know where it was? It's not like people randomly went around touching the paintings looking for secret passages, though obviously that should go on her to-do list.
She was even more mystified when Parvati opened the painting-that-was-a-door and revealed a huge kitchen filled with tiny little gremlin-creatures scurrying back and forth. She followed her friend into the kitchen to find a table set up off to the side. Harry was walking over to them with…
"Parvati?" Hermione shrieked as she jumped away from the girl beside her, "What's going on?"
'Parvati' laughed beside her as she gestured at her robes with her wand and changed them from Gryffindor to Ravenclaw colours, Padma, "Sorry to startle you, but my sister couldn't have kept quiet on the way here. We switched just before History."
The real Parvati stuck her tongue out at the two as Harry made it to them and gave Hermione a big hug.
"Surprise! Happy Birthday Hermione." He said as they walked over to the table, where Dudley, Neville, and Justin were waiting as well. Now that she wasn't freaked out about doppelgangers, Hermione had time to take in the party decorations and streamers hung up around this corner of the kitchen.
"Harry, are these House Elves?" Hermione asked as they walked, remembering Harry mentioning them after his meeting with the headmaster. She could see now that there was a birthday cake with twelve candles on it surrounded by platters of lighter food than they normally had up in the Great Hall set up on the table, "There's so many of them!"
"Yeah, apparently they know when people call their names. The headmaster called the Head Elf when I met with him in his office during the first weekend. I came down here a week ago right after Quidditch practice and called him to ask whether we could have a private party." Harry laughed as he recalled, "I had to get them to tone it down though, when they first said yes they were talking like it was going to be as overdone as the welcome feast."
"Happy Birthday Hermione!" Dudley, Neville, and Justin said in unison as they made it to the group.
While she thanked them Hermione noted that there was a small pile of gifts on the table as well, one of them was clearly labelled in her parents' handwriting even, causing her to raise an eyebrow questioningly.
"We asked everyone to send your presents to Professor Mcgonagall." Dudley explained, knowing Hermione's next question would be whether all this was allowed, "She knows we're down here, and sent the presents with one of the elves a few minutes ago."
After everyone had sat back down at the table they ate relatively quickly so that they could move onto the delicious looking birthday cake, and presents after. Once Dudley had finished his second helping the group began singing 'Happy Birthday' to Hermione, causing her to tear up and almost fail to blow all twelve candles out in one breath.
"Are you okay Hermione?" Parvati, the real one, asked when she noticed the tears in her friend's eyes.
Hermione sniffled as she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief offered by Justin, "I'm okay. I'm just so happy… I… I didn't have any friends before I met Harry and Dudley. When I was growing up I never had a birthday party with friends, just my parents and sometimes an aunt or uncle. When I found out I was a witch my biggest hope was that I could make friends here."
Hermione got up at this point and went around the table, giving each of her friends a hug and thanking them for being there. When she finished with Harry, he stood to embrace her and smiled.
"Did you think we wouldn't do something for you just because we're at school?" He asked her as they sat back down.
Hermione looked down in shame and mumbled an answer that no one could hear.
"Huh?" Dudley said, straining to hear.
"Ithoughtyouguyswouldfindnewfriends!" Hermione gasped and slowed down, "I thought that we wouldn't hang out as much anymore once you had other magical people you could be around instead of me." She added emphatically, before curling up in shame again, Harry scooted his chair over and wrapped an arm around her.
"You're my best friend, Hermione. Not just the first magical person I met." He said, his voice seeming to fill the area with calm, "Of course we'll still hang out, and of course we're gonna celebrate your birthday."
Hermione smiled at her best friend, then jumped slightly when a slice of the cake popped onto a plate directly in front of her without warning.
"Looks like the elves think you should cheer up." Harry said, laughing, "It IS your birthday, after all."
Hermione smiled back at Harry before joining him in laughing. The passing elves popped slices of cake in front of everyone and they dug in. Harry gave Dudley 'the look' when he asked for a third slice and the Hufflepuff sheepishly moved it over to Justin when it materialized in front of him. Justin just laughed and ate the slice, no point in wasting it.
"Which do you want to open first?" Parvati said, gesturing at the presents once the elves has popped all the dishes away.
Hermoine looked at the pile on the end of the table, there were six in total, she noted. Her parents' was closest, so she decided to pick it up first. She carefully pulled the tape off of the paper and removed the box without ripping anything, smirking at Dudley the whole time. Hermione remembered how he tore through his presents at his own birthday and kept rushing Harry through his presents at his, but she wanted to savor this.
Hermione wasn't sure what she was looking at when she opened the box until she picked it up, immediately dropping it back into the box and emitting a squeak of embarrassment.
"What was that?" Neville asked.
"It's exercise clothes," Hermione said, blushing, "my mum said in her last letter that she wanted me to start running with Dudley at least twice a week."
"Aunt Petunia told me the same thing." Harry confided. "She didn't think the stairs were enough."
"Yes, but does she want you to wear this?" Hermione asked, picking up a pink pair of shorts to show him. She sighed in relief as she did, noticing a few pairs of longer gym pants as well, mostly in pink and light blue.
"Well… no." Harry said, barely containing his laughter.
"Do muggles really wear things like that?" Parvati asked as she inspected the tiny garment in Hermione's hands with interest.
"Normally only when they plan on running or working out, and usually not outside." Dudley answered for her, "It's already getting too cold to not wear sleeves and pants outside, so it's a good thing they sent longer stuff too. I'm hoping we find a room we can use when winter hits. Though we wouldn't really be able to run then, just sit-ups and jumping-jacks and stuff."
Hermione went to put the clothes back in the box, secretly a little disappointed in her parents' gift, why would they embarrass her like that if they knew that she would be opening it among her friends? Then her hand bumped against something hard at the bottom of the box that she hadn't noticed at first. She reached under the clothes and found a book carefully taped to the bottom.
"Oh my gosh!" Hermione squealed as she held it up, the embarrassing clothes completely forgotten for the moment, "How could I forget this came out last week?"
It was a mystery novel, a new one in a series that Hermione particularly liked. Mysteries and Crime novels were her favorite fiction stories even after learning she was a witch. Once she had read the back cover, Harry handed her the first two in the series from where he'd hidden them in his bag. She squealed all over again and hugged Harry tight, she was now looking forward to rereading the series before getting to the new one.
"I've never read muggle fiction before." Padma said as she looked at the back of the first book in the series, "After you re-read them can I take a look?"
"Of course!" Hermione said as she picked up the gift from Justin, opening it to reveal a new set of quills, as well as several reams of parchment, "Oh thank you Justin! I broke so many quills trying to get the hang of it. I've been thankful for those seminars."
"Yeah," Justin said with a chuckle, "I remember you getting frustrated over it when we were doing homework in the library. Plus, Harry mentioned that you tend to overwrite for essays, so I figured you'd be needing more parchment."
Hermione stuck her tongue out at him good naturedly as she set the box aside and went to pick up the gifts from Neville and the Patil sisters. Both were clearly books even without touching them, Hermione knew these kinds of things, and that meant she couldn't decide which one to open first. Dudley recognized her dilemma and came to her aid with a coin, one flip later Hermione used her nails to cut the tape on Padma and Parvati's gift and slide it out of the wrapping.
"Thank you Parvati! Padma!" Hermione hugged each in turn before showing the others the book they'd gotten her, Magical Histories of India: An Overview.
"It's the kind that has English on one side and Sanskrit on the other." Padma explained, "That way, if you want, you can learn a little of the language in addition to the history."
"That's perfect." Hermione said as she cracked the book open to take a quick look.
"Finish opening the others before you start reading or you won't get done tonight." Harry chided her.
Hermione grinned at Harry as she opened Neville's gift, which turned out to be Five Hundred Tips for a Healthy Greenhouse.
"I asked Harry before I got it, to make sure you would actually be able to use it. Since you and Harry like herbology and potions." Neville said when Hermione didn't look quite sure about the book.
"Huh? But we don't have a greenhouse? And neither of our yards are big enough." The birthday girl looked at Harry in confusion.
"Mister Lupin has someone cleaning up the Potter properties for us." He explained, "There's a room for greenhouse at one, and I asked if we could get started this Christmas getting one up and running. We can stock it with plants we'll be using for the next couple years here at Hogwarts and get some extra practical work in."
"Oh Harry! That will be wonderful!" Hermione hugged him yet again before hugging Neville as well, "Would you come by when we do that to make sure we get everything right?"
"Sure, if my Gran will let me." Neville answered.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Dudley declared, handing Hermione the gift he'd gotten her, "I know you wanna save Harry's for last, so here you go." He added with a laugh.
Hermione decided to have mercy on Dudley for the one present, and opened it quickly. But she still avoided ripping the paper or making a mess. She'd already noticed that the house elves were making the trash paper disappear once it was dropped and she didn't want to make their work any harder by shredding the paper first. Opening the box, her eyes fell upon a plain looking stethoscope, but when she examined the chestpiece she found a lot of small, runic symbols that she didn't recognize carved into both the metal handle, as well as the bell.
"I didn't know what to get you after Harry told me what he and mum got," Harry elbowed him, not unpainfully, "and I didn't want to just have my name stuck to the bottom of his gift, so I tried to figure out something cool. I asked a sixth year in Ravenclaw to make some modifications to this last week."
Dudley picked up the stethoscope to show her, "It has some magic marks on it that make the sound better than normal. Like having a speaker in someone's chest." He smirked, "They also work on the air. If you point it at someone you can hear what they're saying if they aren't too far away. It works for about a hundred feet, but any magic in the way interrupts it, according to Professor Flitwick. I asked him to make sure it would work right since a student made it."
"That's really neat Dudley." Hermione said as she accepted the device back from him, "I never really thought of using magic to just improve non magical devices like that."
"You have to be sorta careful when you do that." Neville added, "If you take a muggle artefact and enchant it then it's not supposed to do anything it couldn't do before. Just in case it falls into muggle hands."
"That makes sense." Harry agreed, "Magic would get out pretty quick if someone enchanted a car to fly or something."
Finally Hermione picked up the one from Harry, which he explained was also from his aunt and uncle. It was light and squishy, like Mrs. Dursley had wrapped a bag instead of a box.
"Oh it's pretty!" She exclaimed as she unwrapped the gift, once again being careful to make Dudley wait. He was laughing about it this time. The gift was a bag. A bright red book bag with her name in gold letters with black borders all around. Attached to the bag was a little note signed from the Dursleys and Harry, 'Happy Birthday Hermione, enjoy your own mini-TARDIS.'
Hermione peeked inside the bag once she'd opened it and gasped in shock, "It's actually bigger on the inside! There looks like four bags of space in here!"
Neville and the Patils weren't sure why the muggle raised were so interested in that, space expansion charms may be too advanced for them, but it wasn't really that hard to find one in Diagon Alley was it? Though the Gryffindor, or possibly Najash, colours were very nice.
"It's from a Television show," Dudley explained after Padma had asked what 'TARDIS' meant, "The Doctor is a time traveller from another planet that travels around in a ship as big as a world on the inside, but it's just a phone booth on the outside. The ship is called the TARDIS."
Meanwhile, Harry was explaining to Hermione that her bag actually continued to expand quite a bit more based on how much she put in it. But she would need to be careful about it since there was no organization charm, too many books would mean she couldn't find what she was looking for.
"Will you bee's needing anything else Mister Harry Potter Sir?" an elf asked after Hermione had moved all her books into her new bag.
"No, thank you guys, the food was brilliant. The cake too." Harry said, "Right Hermione?"
"Oh yes!" Hermione gushed, "Thank you, this has been my best birthday ever. Is there any way I could thank you, anything I could get you or something?"
The elves all looked at her strangely, "Elves not be needing pay," The closest elf to her said, "We's love to serve, Missy Hermy-Owny!"
Hermione's mouth dropped open for a few seconds before her mind caught up with her, "Do you mean you're not paid? At all?"
"Of course not," Neville said from across the table, "they're house elves."
"BUT THAT'S SL-" Hermione started to yell, scaring the elves into retreating several feet, before Harry put his hand over her mouth.
"Hermione, calm down." Harry said, she looked at him like he'd betrayed her, "I didn't know about that before I asked them to do all this. But really, if Neville is that calm about it there has to be something more than just slavery." He glanced over at Neville, begging him to provide context.
"Elves don't just like work, they need it." Neville said, drawing blank stares from his muggle raised friends, "I mean. They bond to a wizard, or to a place like Hogwarts, and get magic in exchange for work. I'm not sure on all the specifics and all, but I remember that Hogwarts has more house elves than anywhere on earth."
"That still just sounds like slavery." Hermione pouted.
"Let's learn a little more before we go on a crusade, okay?" Harry asked, "We still have some time, what do you want to do for the rest of your birthday? Besides reading your books."
The friends spent another hour sitting and talking, even trying out a magical card game that Neville had brought called 'Exploding Snap' before Professor Mcgonagall entered the kitchens and told them that they needed to head back to their dorms. As they were splitting up in the hall, Dudley pulled Harry and Hermione aside.
"You guys have potions with Slytherin tomorrow, right?" He asked the two.
"Yeah, whats up?" Harry answered.
"You remember Ron? Weasley?" Harry nodded, barely concealing his grimace from his cousin, "I know you don't like him that much, but I talked to him alone a couple days ago and-"
"How?" Harry interrupted, "He stays glued to Malfoy."
Dudley grinned, "Funny story, Malfoy and his two henchmen run away whenever my wand sparks at them. Which it does pretty easily. So I just walked up and said I wanted to talk to Ron and all three of them sorta left him."
"You're going to get in trouble that way Dudley!" Hermione admonished him.
"Yeah yeah," Dudley waved her off, "do you remember earlier this week when all the Slytherin's hair turned green? No one can prove it, but he thinks the twins did that. Anyways, he was stuck with green hair for two days because no one would help him get rid of it, not even in his own house."
"Dudley, I'm sorry, but he doesn't like us. Particularly me!" Hermione said.
"Actually he doesn't have a problem with you, I asked." Dudley returned, "Malfoy and a couple older Slytherins sort of run that house. According to Ron, they wouldn't even be civil to him if he was nice to you. They at least acknowledge he's there in class, he says he may as well be invisible otherwise. And no one else is willing to be friends with him because apparently his family is 'supposed' to be Gryffindors. Sorting Hat or not."
"What do you actually want me to do then?" Harry asked.
"Just try and give him a second chance?" Dudley offered, "He likes Quidditch, you could relate over that." Harry didn't look convinced, "He looks really depressed. He doesn't like being around Malfoy, he just doesn't have a choice, and he says when he went to his brothers they told him off for being a Slytherin. He just doesn't seem to have any friends, and I was hoping we could change that."
Harry frowned for a moment. Growing up, Dudley was always really good at knowing when someone was actually just rough around the edges and when they were really jerks, "Okay," Harry conceded, "I'll pair up with him in potions tomorrow, Neville's getting to where he can prepare ingredients without too much coaching now."
"You really think so?" The boy in question asked from down the hall, they'd spent a few hours over the week practicing but he hadn't felt he'd improved that much.
"You just need to learn to calm down when Snape is hovering over you and you'll be fine." Harry said to Neville before turning back to Dudley, "I'll talk to him then. But if he insults Hermione or my parents or something like that again, that'll be it."
"Cool, thanks Harry."
"Professor Snape, Harry." Hermione added as correction, causing Harry and Dudley to chuckle.
"Alright." Professor Mcgonagall said as she emerged from the kitchens, "I think I told you to get to bed. Curfew is not for ten minutes, so I see no reason to give you passes."
Seven students scurried for their dorms.
o0-0oo0-0oo0-0oo0-0o
"You're sitting over here today, Weasley." Harry said to the redhead to stop him from continuing on to sit by Seamus, who had originally volunteered to partner with Ron after what happened with Hermione last week.
"Uh, okay Potter." Weasley said after a moment's hesitation as he moved over to Harry's workstation and sat down, only then noticing that Neville was working with Hermione this time.
As he sat down, Najash slithered out from Harry's sleeve and onto the desk. The Slytherin blanched and leaned away as the serpent coiled up and rested on the corner of the desk farthest from the burner and began staring at him.
Good thing I left Scabbers in his cage today, Ron thought to himself as he eyed the snake warily. Potter had begun openly carrying his snake around with him since last weekend; supposedly there was a riot in the Gryffindor common room when it happened, and Potter was the school pariah for a day instead of Ron. But somehow after the first day most of the Lions were completely fine with the snake and Ron highly doubted that it was just the colour. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff followed Gryffindor in calming down just as quickly.
"I thought you didn't like me?" Ron asked as he broke his staring contest with the snake, "What made you change your mind?"
"I haven't yet," Harry answered honestly as he finished wiping out the inside of their cauldron and placed it beside the unlit fire, "but my cousin thinks you aren't as bad as Hermione and I do." Harry looked over at Weasley, "I usually trust him on things like that, I'm not always the best at telling if someone's an alright bloke."
"Right scary, your cousin is, Malfoy won't tell me why he doesn't wanna be around him," Ron answered before lowering his voice so as not to be heard by his housemates, "do you know? It's like he's scared your cousin will attack him or something."
Harry carefully considered whether he should answer, obviously Malfoy hadn't spread the story of what happened on the Hogwarts Express so telling Weasley would be giving him ammo. But between Malfoy and Weasley it was no contest, Malfoy was the person Harry disliked most in Hogwarts. Giving Weasley something to hold over him could keep the blond ponce off their backs for a while.
"Malfoy invaded our train cart on the Express just like you did," Harry explained with an even voice, though still making it clear that he continued to resent Weasley's actions and words that day, "but he was more aggressive about it and had his yes-men with him. When he started calling Hermione and Neville names, Dudley threw a thunderclap at him to run them off."
"Draco Malfoy is afraid of loud noises?" Ron asked incredulously.
Harry raised an eyebrow at Weasley, "Real thunder has a source, Dudley coated his wand in lightning to make it do that." Not entirely true, as none of it was actually intentional. But close enough, and it sounded more threatening than reality anyways.
Ron's mouth dropped open for a moment before he collected himself, "That's awesome, no wonder. But how did he learn that kind of magic, being a m-"
Wealsey froze mid-sentence as Harry fixed him with an icy glare, he could swear that the snake's eyes squinted into a glare as well to mimic his owner.
"Weasley," Harry said, his voice low to prevent anyone not immediately nearby from hearing, "I told Dudley I'd give you exactly one more chance. If you talk that blood-crap about Hermione, or Dudley, that's it."
Ron glanced over to the Slytherin side of the room, where Malfoy and Nott were watching him intently, before speaking even lower and making it hard for even Potter to hear him, "I'm really sorry, I'm not like that. I swear! I didn't mean anything by that, I was only gonna say 'muggleborn.' It's just that elemental magic is supposedly really hard to learn. Like, impossible without a teacher, and you guys all made it clear you didn't have any tutors before school."
Harry frowned, "We'll see, but first let's get through class. For starters, you aren't going to argue with me about instructions while we brew today. We are going to do it right, which means weighing everything, and preparing ingredients the way we are supposed to."
"I'll try." Ron replied, "Maybe I'll actually learn something in this class if you're teaching me."
"You could have learned from Hermione if you'd listened." Harry muttered as Professor Snape entered the classroom and began the day's brewing, you couldn't really call it 'instruction' or 'teaching'.
It didn't take long for Harry to figure out why Weasley's potions were grades were abysmal, he only seemed to read the first few words of each step in the instructions and then assume he got it all from that. Several times Harry was forced to stop him and make him reweigh or reprepare things where the red headed boy just didn't seem to put forth any effort at all. At least Snape had left Harry alone ever since Hermione had sent his aunt a letter about the potions teacher last week. He wasn't sure what Aunt Petunia had said in her letter back, but Hedwig had delivered it directly into the hands of Professor Mcgonagall only one day later and Snape had seemed to actively avoid all three of them all week since, even in class according to Dudley.
The potion they were preparing today was a skin-fortifying potion that utilized, among other things, a small amount of bark from a Wiggentree, this was the last ingredient required before leaving the potion to sit for exactly twenty-four minutes and twenty-four seconds. Unfortunately, twice now Harry had been forced to explain to Weasley why crushing was not 'just the same' as grinding and that it didn't matter if one of them was easier to do, one of them was the right way. Harry was getting ready to just take the bowl with the bark in it when Weasley finally relented and began grinding it like he was supposed to be doing. As he worked, Weasley discreetly nodded his head towards the Slytherin side.
When Harry glanced that way, he saw Malfoy and Nott quickly look away, but he was sure that they were in the process of nodding back to Weasley. Or was that his imagination? Regardless, it was clear favoritism that those two almost never had to actually do any of the difficult parts, since Crabbe and Goyle weighed and prepared all their ingredients for them.
Harry set the timer as soon as he had finished stirring in the Wiggentree bark and leaned back in his chair to stretch. It had been rather tense brewing with Weasley, he didn't check anything so Harry was constantly ready to stop him from just dumping something into the cauldron while Harry was doing something else.
"Sorry about earlier. Being difficult I mean." Ron muttered under his breath after a few minutes of silence, causing Harry to look up at him from where he'd been reading ahead in their textbook, "I saw they were watching. Slytherin is supposed to hate you."
Harry nodded stiffly and almost missed the look of shock on Weasley's face as he returned to his book, which caused him to glance back up and around in time to see a chunk of Valerian Root flying across the room towards their cauldron.
Three for three, Harry thought to himself. He didn't think he had time to try and catch the root since he was reclined in his seat and angled away from it so instead he reached for Najash, who quickly wrapped around his hand, while at the same time he kicked out at Weasley's chair, pushing the boy into the aisle and pitching himself over backwards. The root landed in their cauldron just as Harry hit the floor and caused the potion to violently erupt over the space they had been occupying mere seconds before.
"Potter!" Snape shouted from where he had been hovering over Parvati and Lavender's still unfinished potion, "What do you think you are doing? I should have known your success before was just luck. Ten points from Gryffindor."
"Professor, it wasn't Potter." Ron said from the floor, still in shock over how fast Potter had responded to the danger.
"There is no need to take responsibility for his failures Weasley, Potter is just a student like everyone else." Came Snape's gruff reply.
"But it was Malfoy, sir. He threw something in the cauldron." Ron pressed.
The room was deathly silent, save for the bubbling of cauldrons in the room, as Snape turned his glare upon Ron Weasley, "Surely I misheard you," he hissed, "Mister Malfoy, a member of your own house, is fifteen feet away. How was he responsible for this?"
"I told you, sir." Ron answered, his voice shaking as his Head of House glared down at him, "Malfoy threw something in our cauldron. I froze up when I saw it, if Potter hadn't pushed me over then that potion would have blew up on me."
"You're welcome, Weasley." Harry said from the floor where he was carefully cleaning his robes where a little of the spilled potion had gotten on him. Weasley shuddered when he noticed that Najash was currently wrapped around Harry's neck to avoid interfering with his arms or hands.
Snape sneered at the pair before looking over at the Slytherin side of the room, "Mister Nott. Did you see Malfoy throw something, as Weasley suggests?"
"No sir." The Slytherin responded before smirking at the two students still on the ground.
"Mister Weasley," Snape continued, looking back at the redhead, "detention with me tonight. Making up stories to try and get your housemates in trouble is not how you get ahead in Slytherin."
"But sir!" Hermione objected.
"Five points from Gryffindor, Granger," He interrupted, "I did not ask you. Potter, Weasley, that will be a zero for the day. Clean this mess up and get out."
Harry and Ron cleaned up their station in silence and left together as soon as they were done. As much as she wanted to, Hermione didn't have it in her to just walk out of the class behind them.
"Sorry about that." Ron said once they were out of sight of the potions lab, "When I saw him throw that I just froze up. You definitely saved me a trip to the hospital wing though, thanks Potter."
"No problem, I don't like seeing people get hurt." Harry answered, "But if a brick fell and hit Malfoy on the head, I might laugh a bit before making sure he's alive."
Ron wasn't sure what to make of that, but a new realization hit him as they passed the corridor that led to the Slytherin dorms, "I'm gonna be in for it tonight when I try to tuck in. Five knuts says I can't even get out of bed in the morning after all the hexing Malfoy and the others will do to me."
"Is it really that bad?" Harry asked.
"My family is all Gryffindor." Ron responded, "You remember that howler my mum sent me?" Potter nodded, "That's the only thing I've gotten from home. A lot of my quills and parchment went missing the first week, but when I wrote home asking for help my mum sent back the letters unopened. That's how bad it is that I'm a Slytherin. I'm surprised Percy hasn't demanded my rat Scabbers back, he was originally Percy's. But so far he's been the only one that'll talk to me, and he still looks down at me for this." He pulled on his green tie as he finished ranting, "But he did help me get more writing supplies.
Harry was stunned, Weasley's own family was ignoring him? Over something as silly as what house he got sorted into in school? At least Percy seemed to be able to look past it mostly.
"Well that's just ridiculous," Harry stated, "your school house doesn't mean anything."
"Try telling my mum that." Ron deadpanned. "She can be a right terror when things aren't how she wants them. It never really bothered me much until I was the thing out-of-place. It was always the twins she was yelling at because of their pranks and stuff. But they've been in trouble plenty already and she hasn't written a single howler at them. Last year she'd sent two by the end of the first month, I remember cause I was upstairs when she was making them. They're just as loud on the other end."
Harry furrowed his brow in thought as they walked, slowly, towards the Great Hall; there was no point in getting there too early because the food wouldn't be set out just yet.
"You should bring all that up with Snape in your detention." Harry finally said.
"That won't help," Ron whined, "he's gonna spend the whole time yelling at me for going against a Slytherin in the classroom. That's like, the biggest House rule. Slytherins are supposed to always stick together in public. No public in-fighting."
"Sounds like Hufflepuff to me." Harry returned with a chuckle, "If it gets too bad you should see Professor Mcgonagall. She is the Deputy Headmistress."
"Why would she help?" Ron asked, "I'm not a Gryffindor."
"She's deputy of the whole school, not just Gryffindor." Harry answered, "She's in charge of all the students, and she's supposed to not be biased in it, so I'd give it a try."
Harry frowned anew, why was the Deputy Head also a Head of House? Even if she was fair, the fact that she was Head of Gryffindor obviously discouraged other houses from coming to her with issues.
As Ron thought about what Potter had said for a moment while they walked, the Great Hall came into view.
"I'm meeting with the headmaster and Professor Mcgonagall at the beginning of lunch about Najash. So I've got to head that way." Harry said as he indicated a door further down the corridor that led up.
"Alright," Ron replied, "thanks for the advice about Mcgonagall. But, can I ask you one more question before you go?" Potter nodded his head cautiously, "What did you do to make the school stop coming down on you about your pet? On Sunday almost all of Gryffindor avoided you over it, but everything was mostly back to normal by Monday evening."
Harry laughed, "That was Dudley's idea, I just told everyone who'd listen the story of how Najash saved my aunt. She was attacked by an adder in her garden and Najash took the other snake mid-strike to protect her. He's great, and Gryffindor loves a hero story. It didn't hurt that while I was telling it, Hermione or Parvati would have Najash playing in their hair."
Ron nodded at that, his eyes glancing to the arm he had seen the snake slithered under the sleeve of earlier, "He doesn't seem nearly as scary as I thought he'd be when everyone was still whispering about it and no one had seen it yet. One of the most common rumours floating around was that you were hiding that you were a parseltongue."
Harry frowned at that, "Yeah your brothers, the twins, told me about that. That's why I started showing off Najash when I did."
"Cool, thanks again Potter."
"Harry." He returned, "If we're going to try and be civil, then call me Harry. In the non magical world last names are saved for people with authority and people you don't like."
"Okay, uh, Harry." Ron replied, "I guess, call me 'Ron' then?"
"Sure thing… Ron," Harry said as he began heading off to meet with Professor Mcgonagall before going to the headmaster's office, "and if your housemates keep bothering you then feel free to hang out with us sometimes."
"Thanks." Ron wasn't sure if he could really trust his eyes and ears. After three weeks of seeming to hate his guts, Harry Potter was offering to be his friend? It's not like he didn't understand why Harry didn't like him too much. Three weeks in the Slytherin dorms had taught him how much words could hurt, especially ones that weren't obviously hurtful. Malfoy had managed to turn 'ambition' and 'cunning' into insults. But Potter seemed like the type to hold a bit of a grudge; and it wasn't until several nights after the Sorting that Ron had realized just how badly he'd stuck his foot in his mouth that day, when Nott had insulted Ron's uncles Gideon and Fabian, who'd died in the war, by joking about the Death Eater's who'd "gotten away from them.''
