It was a heavy foot that dug under his stomach and flipped him to his back, waking him up.
"Wake up!" Piers said, rolling him over again until Harry groaned in pain as his body rolled onto the icy wooden floor.
"Get up, Harry!" Dudley said, looming over him in full Smeltings uniform.
"Why?" Harry groaned.
"Breakfast!"
Harry groaned again and sat up. "I'm not hungry."
"Who cares, we are, and we need to lock the door, so you need to get out of here!"
Harry scratched his messy head and got weakly to his feet. He was never a very good morning person, let alone a good person to wake up from the floor.
"By the way, are you alright?" Dudley asked, now sounding like he cared. "Do I need to pummel anyone?"
"No, you don't need to – pummel – anyone." Harry muttered, tramping out of the room and down the hall to the end, where he was bunked.
He could have just walked in, seeing as it was his room, but he had forgotten his room key and he didn't think jiggling the handle would have gone over one way or another. So he knocked on the closed door first and waited.
He was about to reach and try for the handle when it was pulled open by Kenny. Harry had really hoped he wasn't in – even if it meant he had to go to classes in the crumpled uniform he was already wearing – but no such luck for him. After his first look at Kenny's naturally stern face, he settled for looking permanently over his very wide shoulders.
"Where'd you sleep – the floor?" Kenny asked in a voice that was neither here nor there.
"Yeah," Harry muttered, trying not to lose his nerve. He also tried not to remember that Kenny was the first person he mentioned the secret in his case file to.
Kenny just stood there for another moment, then said, "Your hair is a mess. You need a shower," and he walked past Harry out of the room, his bag over one shoulder and the scent of his aftershave left behind.
Harry looked after him, and Kenny looked with soft eyes over his shoulder back to him just before he walked out of sight. Harry went into his room and closed the door, leaning against it. He was in the grip of something strange today; he liked to think that maybe it was the feeling that things had gotten as worse as they could, and might get better from here.
Harry gathered up his clothes to rush to the bathroom for a shower. All the week before, Kenny had been in about half his classes, and this week was no different, only this time he didn't harass Harry at all; he just left him alone – occasionally commenting on something Harry was lacking, such as a shower or a meal. Harry wasn't sure if he liked this new Kenny or not, but in a strange way, Kenny seemed to have accepted his presence – as a little kid accepts the presence of a new baby in the house; it had to be cared for and you had to be gentle with it, but even if it changed things it couldn't hurt you.