Harry wasn't the first one into the Room of Requirement, nor was he the last. No, for once, he came in nearly precisely in the middle. Which left him standing, offbalance, as he evaluated the groupings. The Slytherins still seemed closed off, for the most part (It wasn't his to fix, he chided, knowing that he'd think about it anyway, because he couldn't help but think about it.). Blaise Zambini seemed to be making it his mission to be as open as all the other Sytherins were losed, his teasing smile a sharp contrast to Notta nd Malfoy's blankfaced stares. Harry didn't know how they managed to do anything BUT play poker, with faces like that! Maybe he should ask...
Hermione Granger bustled in, half a dozne papers flapping under her arm - and Ron Weasley had a few more. Scratch that, was that Lavender Brown, scowling at them? Jealous easy, much?
The Hufflepuffs entered in two groups - the girls strangely not giggling. And when the Hufflepuff girls weren't giggling, they had this stout set to their jaws, one that said, "I know who you are. And I'm not impressed." It kind of made Harry want to stand up straight.
Zach entered with the Hufflepuff men, his boasting voice cascading round the entire room.
Harry Potter, for all that ol' Snape often accused him of grandiosity, really disliked the boastfulness of the Hufflepuff. If Zach's pride hadn't gotten him the job of minding the whole show, Harry Potter would have been even more incensed with it.
Even so, he didn't particularly want to hear it, and sen this gaze casting elsewhere. The Gryffindors, aside from Hermione an Ron, were gathered together, talking and spinning tales. Harry's eyes moved past, finding the Ravenclaws (undoubtedly the first ones here), not grouped together, but in various places around the room. And with half a dozen different books. Harry'd often wondered why anyone else did a single thing toward running this club - wouldn't the -? Ah, no, Harry thought looking at Davies - A ravenclaw can generally outread any of the other houses, but that doesn't mean they've always practiced what they've read.
Harry'd seen that in action last year, of course, and he planned to help keep the Ravenclaws focused on the practical this year.
The Slytherins were spread out too, in a loose sort of cluster - the kind that was more difficult to actually hit, that that near huddle-hug the Gryffindors were in.
As a matter of fact, that gave Harry an idea...
"Alright, anyone needs more practice with the Patronus charm, come with me." Hannah said, with a firmness in her voice that it generally lacked. Most of the Slytherins strode along with her, as she paced towards a boxlike room, perfect for practicing defense. Harry followed most of the Slytherins, glad that no one was looking back towards him. He was even more glad that Hermione and Ron weren't here - in fact, there wasn't a single Gryffindor, and the two younger Hufflepuffs were looking strangely sure of themselves.
"Has anyone managed a corporeal patronus?" Hannah asked, and Harry raised his hand, along with a single Ravenclaw and the Hufflepuffs. "Not to worry, if you can conjure anything at all, you'll get it in time."
"For now, let's see how you've done." Hannah said, starting to cast herself. Her Patronus leapt into the air, a swan in flight - and Harry remembered exactly how mean the swans could be, ducking gently out of the way when it seemed like it might try going through him.
Harry concentrated, himself, finding the memory of lunging for the snitch, of it floating just out of reach... right on top of Malfoy's head. "Expecto Patronum," He whispered, and saw the shimmering silver curtain- a half cast spell fit for the half-happy memory. Harry wondered if he put just a bit more happiness into it, what form the Patronus would take. Probably something avian, he thought to himself.
Harry's example got the Slytherins working, and he saw Pansy Parkinson casting the charm, nearly shrieking it in that ear-grating tone she had when she was furious at something. And yet, despite sounding more furious than happy, there was a glittering cloud of silver.
Goyle was next, his casting slow and calm - running like golden syrup, smooth and ... somehow elegantly solid. Like the grace of a plough horse stepping out, as if it was pulling a beer truck.
Daphne Greengrass and her sister cast next, and theirs together didn't hold a candle to the other two. But still, they had a flicker. Harry's eyes studied them, noting how they looked at each other. Perhaps... a bit of physical contact? Maybe... it wouldn't hurt.
Vincent Crabbe didn't even have that much to show for himself, he mangled the spell, and tried again, and mangled it again.
"Let me try," Draco Malfoy ordered, stepping in front of the lunkier boy. "Expecto Patronum." Draco Malfoy intoned, his voice crisp and clear, as if he'd decided that today, he'd order magic around, and it would obey, simply because Draco Malfoy hadn't even the concept that it wouldn't. Harry Potter found himself wondering how much of that was just crafted pretense, and how much was self-fulfilling prophecy. As far as he knew (which, admittedly, wasn't much), Malfoy had stepped onto the Hogwarts Express wanting for nothing except opposition. Hmph. What do you give the person who's got everything? An opponent. Harry rather vaguely had the idea that Malfoy would enjoy the joke, if only it wasn't Harry Potter telling it.
Draco Malfoy's curtain of silver was man high, and wider than Crabbe. Goyle's in contrast, was small, but surprisingly scintillating. It had the look of rain falling through sunlight, all sparks and flashes.*
"Beautiful..." Harry said, in a voice soft as a whisper. Goyle nodded slightly, before letting the spell dissipate, leaving Harry with the uncertain knowledge that Goyle'd heard him.
"Expecto Patronum!" Blaise said with a flair, and his patronus seemed like it was trapped in the sliver wall, half emerging, half fading behind it.
"You're doing great!" Hannah said, looking at Blaise, who preened under the attention. Harry thought, 'I have never seen Zambini try that hard in class. Granted, I generally only see him in Potions... That's got to be it, or at least part of it,' Harry thought, straightening and his face brightening, 'Snape asked why he'd encourage an illicit class... Well, now I'm seeing why...'
Nott was near the back of the group - quiet as ever, saying "Expecto Patronum" ... over and over. He didn't seem to be having any luck at all. And from the tense, nearly explosive look of his body, he was about ready to destroy something. Was this the first time he'd not managed a charm? Or was it just... what charm he wasn't managing. Did he think it ... meant something, like tea leaves?
Softly, as Milicent demonstrated her Patronus, which came and went like flashing light, Harry trod around the group. He had the rather vague awareness that eyes were watching him, and yet he didn't let on that he could feel that. More particularly, he didn't look to see who was watching. What he was doing wasn't that secret, after all.
Rosier's shimmering curtain seemed to wrap around her, and Bulstrode's older brother smirked as he managed, on the fourth try, to actually get it to work. Mostly. It fell like a firework, a big bright white ball and then falling sparks.
Harry was around halfway around, when Edwyne's patronus tried to form on top of him. It fell like a tricklewaterfall, and he cupped his hands below it, saying, "That tickles!" The sparks fell through his hands as if they weren't there.
This set off a tussle, a splashfight, as the pile of Slytherins found each other's patronii and began shoving, touching, playing with them as if they were water. Soon, they had figured out that only the spellcaster could actually interact with the Patronus. So they were doing mostly ineffectual ambushes and backstabbery and sheer and simply play.
Harry let this go on for a while, still walking around to the back - (Hannah was being singularly ineffective as a teacher, as she tried to get Zambini to splash her with his patronus.) Harry closed his eyes, mentally casting a muffling spell around the study group. Up his too long sleeves, His finger waved the correct wand position."Aquamenti!" Harry thundered from the back of the group.
"No need to be such a spoilsport, Potter." Daphne said reproachfully.
"Yeah, Gryffindorks ruin all the fun!" Pansy continued.
"Break time's over, time to focus. Everyone, from the top." Harry said, only to receive odd glances from half the purebloods. "Everyone, try it again, regardless of how well you did last time. Remember, the point of this is a corporeal patronus, even if you don't make it today, or next week. You've got the whole year, I hope and pray." Harry spat out the last part with a fervency that made a few Slytherins (most notably Draco Malfoy) look a dash taken aback.
Harry didn't let the looks bother him. He'd been getting strange looks since he was eleven, and at least these were deserved.
No, something else entirely was bothering him. He'd have expected... did expect, was expecting that there would be plenty more failures. This... this whole group, their success rate, spoke of putting a lot more than a few hours into training.
But...
But...
Given that, why had no one managed a corporeal patronus? Harry knew that finding the memory was difficult, but... everyone? His mind boggled at that one.
When all the normal options seem unfounded, look for the barely possible. Harry'd heard that someplace (probably Hermione) and he'd thought about it a lot beforer this day. Today, the unwelcome and ... understandable? conclusion was that the Slytherins were hiding their Patronus from the rest of us.
Wait, where had understandable come from?
Harry really didn't need anyone telling him he was getting more paranoid than the Slytherins. His own mind knew it well enough.
"What are you thinking?" Harry asked, finally managing to approach Theodore Nott from the side.
"I'm not," Theo Nott said quietly.
"Well, Mister Nott, I think that's your problem." Harry's white smile flashed across his face, "It's rather hard to think of nothing with everyone else around."
Nott's dark brown eyes flashed up at Harry, looking at him suddenly, skeptically.
"Here, I'll help." Harry said, and he raised a hand.
Instantly, they were surrounded by what seemed like a wall, but wasn't... just darkness.
"What-?" For once, Nott looked bewildered.
"The room, for today at least, is configured to aid in teaching. As I required this, it provided." Harry Potter said confidently. **
Nott simply blinked at him, his face carefully blank.
"As I was saying, you might benefit from a lack of distractions. Don't mind me, I'll just act like I'm not here either." Harry Potter said.
Nott shifted uncomfortably, and then Harry started to talk, trying to keep his voice low and warm, mimicking as best he could Snape's cadence. "Peace is the absolute lack of everything, lack of motion, lack of people, lack of everything. Let me lower the light a little" Harry said, lowering it until it make a deep twilight haze. "Just close your eyes, and feel yourself extend, drawin into the world that does not move, just as still and just as solid." Harry kept talking, glad that Nott had closed his eyes without having to be told. "As solid as stone, as deep as the sea. As high as the moon, and then you're free." Harry reflected that it didn't matter quite what he said, as Nott was supposed to be focusing on other things; Harry just kept talking, conjuring solidity out of nothing but the wisps of dreams. When Harry's eyes caught Nott's breath slowing, his shoulders relaxing, Harry said, in a whispersoft voice, "Now cast."
Nott, having memorized the spell's casting, said firmly, "Expecto Patronum." His eyes were still shut, so he couldn't see the sudden shimmer of silver, brief as a blink, falling out of nothing, fading to nothing.
"Very good," Harry said quietly. "Try it again."
Nott nodded, very slightly, as he continued to meditate. "Leave it all behind, your body, your aches, your everything. Just picture yourself floating on a mirrordark lake."
Minutes passed, and Nott eventually cast again, successfully. His eyes were wide as he took in the falling shimmer - that lasted longer, and was softer than earlier.
"Ready to go back?" Harry Potter asked, and Nott gave a slow nod, his back turning ramrod straight as he pivoted to have his back facing the wall as they reappeared.
As Harry Potter and Theodore Nott reappeared from... wherever they'd gone, Harry's eyes immediately found Hermione, with her arms crossed, glaring daggers at Draco Malfoy. Malfoy also had his arms crossed, but looked haughty and arrogantly smug. Before he could even get out a word, Luna Lovegood poked him, "Solid. Very solid. 9 out of 10 solidity." Parvati looked at him hungrily, asking with a honey-drenched voice, "Were you two really...?" Lavender Brown elbowed her friend, and Pansy snickered, saying, "If so, that was pretty quick work..." Jessie, a younger Ravenclaw, looked at them wide-eyed, and asked, "Who was the..." before turning so beet red that she couldn't get the words out. Ron, behind the gaggle of girls, was beet red, and looked like he wanted to say - something! But, of course, he'd been rendered so inarticulate that no words were appearing.
Hannah gently cut through the confusion, asking Harry, "Did it work?"
In response, Harry merely nodded at Nott, and Nott gently cast the Patronus, his slow movements almost drawn through molasses. Even the silver rain he conjured fell slower than everyone else's.
"Well, that's one way to give someone a happy 'memory'" Lavender leered. (Beside her, Parvati whispered to Harry - "you're going to tell us allll about it, right? tell us everything!" Harry started to flush, as he started to - very belatedly - figure out what people had been implying. That was- okay, first of all, Harry'd never do that during class! And - with Nott? Harry didn't even know the bloke. And he was a bloke, after all, and that mean errughghhh. No! They'd been all of five minutes***, and that was all it had taken for the gossips to go kaka crazy.
"What worked?" Goyle asked, seemingly immune to all the subtext. Harry Potter, having seen a shred of intellect from the stalwart boy, suspected that he was simply choosing to ignore it.
"Nothing." Theodore Nott said, in a soft but firm voice that carried. "I thought of nothing, until everything else just wasn't there anymore. No distractions, no pain, no irritants." The last Theodore Nott said looking at Blaise Zambini, and even Harry Potter knew Slytherins well enough to know that wasn't a coincidence.
"What about everyone else? What were you thinking about?" Hannah asked, "Maybe I can help..." The Slytherins were eyeing her skeptically, and looking at each other with about the same level of unease.
Harry Potter didn't think about any of that, though. He was focused on Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. "In line for remedial lessons?" He asked, his grin wide enough to be mocking.
Parvati actually blaunched, but Lavender just giggled, "Of course not, Harry, we were just... wanted to see what happened to you!"
"Sounds like you'd already made up your mind, even before I could get a word in edgewise."
The two girls giggled, sighed a dreamy "Oh Harry," and turned to go back to their group. As that had been the point of talking to the daft bints, Harry warily chalked the interaction up as a win. He continued watching their backs until they were out of natural earshot.*
Quietly, Harry Potter asked Crabbe, one of the few who hadn't managed a Patronus at all, "What were you thinking about?"
Crabbe looked at Potter, as if sightly dumbfounded that anyone would take the time to talk with him, let alone care about his answer to a question. Pansy stepped up, saying with a crafty smile, "My memory's the first time my mother hugged me and said she loved me." At that, Hannah looked nearly maudlin. Harry, on the other hand, was struggling to not show his entire emotional portfolio on his face. For one thing, that would be singularly unhelpful, as Pansy would assume that was directed at her.
"Wait, did you actually believe me?" Pansy said, her face bright and sharp as crystal, as she let out a peal of wicked laughter, "You did! You really, really did!"
"Alright, everyone, once more from the top." Draco Malfoy said, taking a turn around the room and adjusting Wyatt's arm and Gudrun's back as he went. Harry Potter turned and went the other way, taking the cue to not ask more questions.
Slytherins and their secrets. It said a lot about someone, when they thought their nearest and dearest secret was their happiest moment.
Harry Potter knew a lot about that, actually. And he'd heard something in what Pansy said that made his blood want to boil.
As the DA meeting came to a close, the Slytherins left hurriedly, somehow mingling with the Hufflepuffs without directly touching any of them. Blankly, Harry watched as the Gryffindors and the rare Ravenclaws broke up into groups, packing up and getting ready to leave.
Naturally, that meant that Ron was ambling over towards Harry, "Ready to go, mate?" He asked amiably.
"I'll be up in a bit." Harry Potter said, crossing his arms. He'd let a bit of the tension he felt seep into his words... (which was good, otherwise Ron'd spend the entire time wondering what Harry was up to).
Ron studied his friend for a long moment, before nodding and saying, "Don't stay too long, or Snape might getcha." Harry let out a soft laugh at this, both at the way things had changed, and the sure knowledge that Snape really would have him in detention if he got caught.
Harry waited until everyone had left (Ron had corraled Hermione so that Harry didn't have to deal with her too, for which he was thankful. For all the times when Ron was a rubbish friend, he'd have these moments of absolutely ordinary awesomeness).
Harry sat down, closed his eyes, and began to unwrap himself. He'd been pretty focused on not blowing up at Pansy Parkinson.
Now, now he just wanted to let off some steam.
"Reducto!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet as his spell exploded a priceless vase. Spells passed through his mouth like water, as he vented his outrage ... at life, at everyone, at himself especially.
Harry'd thought it was bad enough, after all, when he was just the freak - the kid who deserved to be forgotten. But, listening to Pansy earlier - no one who had loving parents ever would think of saying something like that. "The first time my mom said she loved me."
"Ha!" Harry said, his laughter bitter and broken. No one said something like that, because moms said that often enough that kids just took it for granted. The first time, for Ron, or Gin or well, anyone - was well before they could remember.
Harry hated this world - a place where kids were abused, were neglected, were abandoned.
He wanted everything to stop. He wanted to take back time, to give Pansy what she'd never had. What he'd never had, for that matter.
His parents were dead. What excuse did hers have?
Another vase exploded, and Harry sent a tendril of flame at a tallboy, whose dry drawers sputtered into flame.
Was everyone like that? Harry thought - most of the people I don't know, in some state of suffering, of worthlessness, of pain?
Harry made an astrolabe swing through the air, spinning as it flew. It embedded itself in a wooden door (how had that gotten here?) with a satisfying clunk.
Harry cast, and cast, and cast again, tears starting to leak down his cheeks as he made a fist, his hands pummeling a huge stuffed teddy bear.
Harry Potter didn't care - he wanted all the rage out, and so spells or muggle means were just as good to him.
Slowly, as his anger and frustration dwindled, Harry returned to thinking. Was there anything he could do?
... And that was the wrong thought to think, as Harry descended back into destruction, sending the entire room quaking with his fury.
Again and again, he destroyed object after object, until he felt just like a hollowed out shell, with everything that had animated him completely drained out.
Harry Potter slumped to the floor, staring down listlessly.
At this point, Greg Goyle emerged, and strode over to Harry, "Alright then?" He asked in that solid manner of his.
Harry Potter looked up at him, blinking. "What are you -? How'd you-?" He asked incoherently, in a dull monotone that belied the curiosity inherent in the questions.
"You looked fit to strangle a grown hog, earlier." Goyle said, his face approving as he nodded at the flinders all around them. "Meant to make sure you didn't summon Fiendfyre or something stupid like that."
Harry Potter nodded, standing - too drained to even wonder how Goyle would have stopped him. "I'd better go."
Goyle just nodded, and watched Harry Potter stumble out.
By the time Harry Potter had gotten upstairs, gotten himself changed out of the sweaty robes, and was ready to be civilized with other people, all his dormmates were curled up in beds, peeking out the curtains.
"Harry! There you are, mate!" Ron said in his usual cheerful tone, well ready to disregard any unpleasant manner that Harry'd had earlier. Ron always knew when Harry'd meant something, and when he hadn't. It was one of the things Harry liked best about his friend.
Harry sat down on his bed, his still gangly legs hanging off of it. Around them, the other Gryffindors were listening... "You said you needed some help with something?"
Ron got that goofy smile on his face again, and Harry instantly knew this was about Lavender Brown. "Yeah, so, um, there's this girl I like..."
"Lavender Brown" Harry prompted, slightly concerned that Ron had actually forgotten that he'd already told Harry.
"Yeah," Ron said, "You were right, Harry - If I want her to notice me, I have to do something."
Harry wanted simultaneously to sigh, cover his head in blankets and go to sleep - and to jump up and help Ron plan an escapade fully as loud and obnoxious as the Weasley twins had ever done. Harry Potter finally settled on just being quiet.
"Are you going to ask her out?" Neville said finally, his solid voice echoing faintly in the room.
Shamus said in his Irish lilt, "Oi, he can do better than that!"
"That's right, mate, we're on the case!" Dean said, starting a sketch of God Knows What. Harry wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he equally knew that he was coming along for the ride, come hell or high water.
So, Harry took a deep breath and started contributing, letting the brainstorming session wash away any residual anger in the sheer font of creativity.
*The japanese call this Kitsune's Wedding, and Americans' a sunshower. Just as beautiful as a rainbow.
**Harry has no idea what sort of creativity and confidence it takes to convince the Room that this, in particular, was a good idea.
***actually ten.