Chapter Four: A Reluctant Enemy
"What a milksop," Draco whispered among his friends in Defense Against the Dark Arts. They were gathered in a dim back corner of the class, a selection of his choosing. He clicked his tongue. "Trips over his name. This is a joke."
Harry looked to the quivering Professor Quirrell with pity and curiosity. Despite his noteworthy stutter, which Harry amounted to some mental disturbance, the man heading the class was flaunting a clear case of trepidation. Something else had him undone, something Harry instinctively knew emanated from complexities further than persistent stage fright. He had a mildly ill gut feeling about him, but it didn't deviate him from his learning, his building value system in simple note taking and listening with deep, earnest ears.
"My nose stings," sighed Goyle, who had begun to breathe predominantly through his dopey parted lips.
"The garlic, it's too damn intense in here," Draco muttered, covering his nose with a sleeve. "Wish that vampire would've sucked him dry out there in Romania."
Ron was toward the front of the class, seated beside the same boy Harry had seen him befriending the day before, Neville Longbottom. Besides his apprehensions regarding his professor for the hour, he'd been undergoing one of the most stalwart internal wrangles of his years contemplating just how to go up to Ron and give him the risky invitation. Doing it with his familiars in tow was out of the question unless, of course, Harry were to go ahead and lay good backfire to the whole project by relaying the ginger-haired 'blood-traitor' with an insult that was sure to amuse Draco and then some. Despite his insecurities and desperation, Harry would never stoop as low. He was just propped at a tragic crossroads in his mind, and he refused to let this ferment into the week. Ron had to be approached today, this hour. Harry made up his mind, glancing back and forth to his bored brood of the same House. He swallowed thickly.
As class let out, Harry packed up at a slug's pace. "I'll catch up with you all," he said between Draco and Crabbe. "I want to recheck a note over with the professor."
"You'll be late for Herbology though. His stammering out ten measly words will eat up over a minute," Draco retorted.
"Well, I'll be sure to get there on time. I can run fast." A bead of sweat was preparing to slide down from his hairline. "I'll just hang around two minutes tops."
"Suit yourself." Draco shrugged, turning the hunching backs of those flanking with a subtle but deft gesture. They trailed for the doorway as one. Harry shot a frantic eye onto Ron, scuffling over, saying nothing, simply looking into him with sincerity as he handed him the folded note. Ron held it by his side, unmoving. Neville blinked in innocent wonder beside the exchange, receiving a friendly nod from Harry. Then Harry was quick to wrap up his business, retreating to his desk to gather his things and clear himself from the room. He jogged up tagging behind Crabbe and Goyle with a small, careful smile of achievement.
Draco glanced over his shoulder, remarking, "That was fast."
"Changed my mind. I couldn't stand him," Harry said unabashedly, oddly masterful with the snide fib. Draco returned an acknowledging snort.
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If an underlying tremor gripped Harry during Professor Quirrell's class, the reaction amplified itself, rising to the surface while he was tucked at the end of a row in the shade of his next class, Potions. Professor Snape was dead silent, conveying an eerie sense of sobriety in his dark stride into the full classroom nestled in the dungeons. He stopped abruptly at his podium at the front, clasping his hands, skirting his black eyes up and down the rows, stilling on Harry, he could have sworn, for a fraction of a second longer than the others, leaving Harry to feel poked in the least.
Harry rolled his eyes downcast as Snape spoke on about his rigid curriculum. Harry listened with dutiful intent that matched his efforts in his earlier array of classes, but this time, he did so in part as though he were threatened. The tone of voice was sharp and smooth at once, instilling in each child the severity in repercussions of playing foolhardy hijinks under the professor's hanging nose and piercing eyes. There was a certain promise to anyone who crossed him that lingered on the side in addition to a subtraction of respective House points and detentions, but he never clarified what that had been, keeping vague. Although any imagination with a mild degree of strength could have arrived to a close gist. As such, Harry had the wits to be extra attentive about his own behavior in here.
Snape ended his course introduction on an opinion gathered over his twelve years teaching that true appreciation for the art in potion making was sparse in children and adults alike. Harry perked up a degree in his seat upon hearing this bit, as he regarded himself interested everywhere he went in and around this castle, this dreary section no exception, even with the walls lined with small animal carcasses preserved in some type of formaldehyde solution. The vacant beady eyes and striking postmortem positions of a few suggested demises of distress to Harry, but still, he wished to show the professor an appreciation in time, short time if could help it.
Attendance was taken, Draco having to swat at Crabbe's arm when his surname was called out and he had sunken into too deep of a snooze to respond. The professor's eyes flickered in a curt roll before carrying on through the list. A noticeable pause came more than midway through, causing Harry to lift his head and peek the professor's way. Snape's eyes cut through to the back of his skull. Harry tensed.
"Intriguing...having one of our own be someone so famous, so young…" Snape's lips drew thinner, an odd gleam seeming to go in his eyes. "For all the basking in freeloaded fame you've been doing, I'll admit to an obvious, salvaged, resourceful dignity in your person, Potter, as how else would you have landed yourself under Slytherin House?" He allowed himself a couple blinks after a while of intense ogling over the boy who could panic in outward peace. Snape pulled a slight frown. "Your ignorance, however, will have to be proven wrong." He resumed down the list in the dry, formal manner he had a minute earlier. Harry slowly unwound himself. In his peripheral view, he could tell Draco was eyeing him funnily.
Snape strolled the front of the class, his hands clasped behind him. "Potter," he drawled without turning an eye onto the boy, "what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Harry's breathing hitched again. "Wha?" he sounded out quietly, dumbly, under a sudden flustered heatwave. It was his first snag in the spotlight for a long while.
"Need I repeat myself?" Snape asked with gentle condescension.
"Oh, um, I heard you, sir, I just didn't understand you," Harry confessed in a low voice.
Almost placed straight in front of him in the row ahead, the wild-haired girl, Hermione Granger, who Harry was sharing numerous classes with, was squirming as though in a will to elongate her spine, her outstretched arm reaching for the stars. He was unsure if he'd seen anybody else raise their hand so much while he attended his old school, but he was fond of the undying passion she was no stranger to informing the world of. He wanted to take example himself, right this minute dreading that he lacked whatever she had or believed with all her heart she did. He assumed the bovine demeanor of either husky boy he'd befriended instead, calling nonverbal defeat.
"Alright, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar then?" He kept on Harry. Harry feared he'd wet himself soon. The pressure was unreal and inappropriate as well, he reckoned, and he was helpless to defy it.
"Dunno…"
Harry thought he overheard Hermione squeak out of frustration. He looked over to her deliberately, striving for his hassling professor to take clue, move on. It was a futile tactic, which was what he supposed he got for it being a weak one.
"I'm embarrassed to have someone quite so ill-informed placed under my House," Snape groused, flaming Harry's cheeks near puce. "Regardless of youth, I have higher expectations for those students in my select line. Now, I'll cut you some slack and assist you. Asphodel and wormwood concoct a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone extracted from the stomach of a goat and will save you from most poisons." He gazed Harry over again slickly, with a firmness Harry would have trouble shaking off his skin until far later. "I won't bother with another question then, you have made enough of a clown of yourself today. I do advise you bear that information in mind for the long term." He tore his eyes from Harry at last in a rake-like motion, sweeping them through everyone else. "You all should have your quills and parchment out by now…"
Mad ruffling sounded around the room. Harry was slow to register, stiff-limbed for the interim. Draco nudged him lightly. "C'mon, get yourself together," he quietly urged with a note of sympathy. Harry followed the request, sighing his lungs towards emptiness. He scrawled the rasped words down from immediate memory by a shaken hand, hurt and confused.
A couple minutes on, however, and circumstances seemed to lift. As customary, Harry and his fellow House friends were paired for their first assignment. They were to brew a basic boil-curing potion. Harry was appeased to watch the professor amble throughout the room, peering over shoulders beyond those on him. What unnerved him still, was the perfected air of graceful silence that refused to falter around him. Harry doubted Snape ever needed to shout to get a message through as he was so succinct already with his controlled straightforward monotone. For resembling a great, mean crow, he worked like a mouse. The tiny hairs on the nape of Harry's neck stood on end non-stop even as he loosened up in order to participate in their potion brewing, chipping in to weigh dried nettles while Blaise crushed snake fangs. Snape was recycling his observational route when he stalled behind his group again, weakening Harry's knees on the spot. Draco had begun to stew the horned slugs and clouds of green smoke and a keen hissing emanated outwards. Harry clenched his fists, hoping to God this was going correctly, for his own sake above the surrounding others.
"Excellent, Mister Malfoy," Snape intoned with the most subtle lilt. "Class, turn your attention this way. This is the procedure." He gave Draco's shoulder a curt, praising squeeze before trailing down the row, brushing past Harry coolly. Draco was looking happy as a clam at high tide. It was the first glow he'd seen of him.
Meanwhile, Neville, Ron, Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas' cauldron was producing lesser, awry results, Snape was not shy to point out. In fact, their cauldron had been reduced to a molten inky hunk, throwing off excess steam and oozing faulty potion out to burn and mar shoes. "Shite," Draco snapped, swatting the stunned backs of Goyle and Harry as he stepped onto his own stool, good as shipwrecked. They mimicked the action just as the raging acid ran to swathe the entirely of the dungeon's stone floor. Now Harry was shaking for the cases of the Gryffindor boys, Neville in particular, who was sprawled out atop the table moaning and hugging himself, springing blistering boils wherever flesh covered him. "What a clumsy clod," Draco breathed, not so careful to suppress a snicker.
"Idiot child!" Snape gritted out, standing over the helpless boy. Raising his wand, Snape flicked his wrist with ease to vanish the spilled liquid. "I believe I know what you executed out of order here, but would you care to take a guess?"
Neville whimpered, recoiling.
"You tossed in the porcupine quills before removing the cauldron from the fire, hmm? So precarious, but I'm not so shocked." Black wisps grazed Ron's pink nose as Snape whipped his head sideways to face Seamus with a glare. "Finnigan, take him upstairs to the hospital wing."
Seamus nodded in fastidious obedience, grabbing Neville's inflamed, limp hand and pulling him onto his feet. The tubbier boy was half draped over Seamus' shoulder as the two exited out into the corridor in an awkward, mutual waddle. "That's several points from Gryffindor," Snape said, sweeping away for his desk, having beaten Ron's cheeks a raw tone of red Harry had last seen in his Uncle Vernon weeks earlier when he cast Dudley into the serpent's tank. While Draco and friends suffered a collective fit of mocking giggles, Harry gaped at his feet once he stepped back down onto the floor with everyone, consumed with pity and defeat he couldn't afford to reveal.
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At five o'clock everyone was lounging in the Slytherin common-room, Blaise perusing over his notes from Professor Binns' class, Draco crossing his legs over the low-rise table lazily admiring the lit fireplace with half-lidded eyes where a couple second years were playing chess. Crabbe and Goyle sat in their perpetual states of dull servitude. Harry stirred at two past five, standing from the couch. He gulped in a hearty, silent breath for stabilization.
"I'm going to check out the library," he said lightly. "Be back within the hour, probably."
"You remember where that is?" Draco asked with disinterest.
"Um, yes, I think so. I'll find it alright," Harry said, picking up his rucksack. He moved out into the dungeons. While he disliked having to be so secretive around his new friends, his new family the way he saw it, he forcibly rationalized it was for the best, and maybe a temporary resort, however unlikely that was seeming to be. All thought and worry was scraped aside about that group, Draco standing out as the natural head of them, and he channeled every iota of deliberation in him onto his fast-upcoming meet-up with Ron. His heart rate was falling back into its habitual incline once he stepped up onto the first floor, where the soft sunlight of late afternoon roamed, fixing clarity in odd but somehow apt synchronization. 'Be tactful,' he said inside his head. 'Apologize, but easy on them too. Don't overdo it, he'll see through it.' Harry hadn't the chance to hang around Ron for such a period of time as to gather too many plain indicators toward his intellect, judgement and common sense, but he had enough to tell he was no absolute fool. Certainly, he had brain cells over Crabbe and Goyle combined at the very least. He would try to limit any sugar-coating also. It would do them good to be honest, blunt if necessary. He overthought all the journey to the library, which he indeed found without losing abundant direction.
Harry entered the library for the second time since arrival. Although it opposed his old one at public school by every shot imaginable, the sheer semi-stuffy, richly academic atmosphere pumped in a lost sensation of nostalgia, as he would crouch often against bookcases in hidden reading of his favorite tales in favor of joining the rest of the kids outdoors for recess. The tender but firm old librarian Mrs. Keele would sometimes stop by him in her rounds replacing returned books and drop a slap-on-the-wrist sort of scolding that he ought to have gone to play out in the sunshine, but Harry would smile back and explain he had been vacuumed too deep into Sherlock Holmes' latest murder mystery. In truth, it was hard for Harry to enjoy the soft breeze, singing birds and daylight when Piers Polkiss was wrestling him onto the cement court, dribbling his finest gushes of saliva with careless precision over his glasses, mouth and chin, Dudley guffawing soullessly overhead. Harry shook himself of the memory in his gradual head turning of the commodious two-story room where magic persisted. Books floated, noise was held at a minimum. Students of higher years were spread out or huddled together at working tables. Harry went down several aisles just to check out the titles, see what he was headed for in the years to come. That hyper swell which had been absent for the larger part of that day crept back, a flutter at the base of his throat. An education in wizardry reemerged as a wondrous thing to be cherished, if only it could have been regardless of who was responsible for the providing. He was certain his anxiety around Professor Snape would require weeks at the earliest to abate, but on a brighter note, there was the fascinating subject material, the 'inside' to lose himself to. Akin to a cooking class, but a thousand times more exotic and intriguing. He then recalled the professor's somber advice that he memorize that bit of information he'd been publicly quizzed on so arbitrarily, which gave him something to do once his talk with Ron finished. Ron. Harry's cheek bones prickled. There was little more time to mosey. He hurried over to the wide east window, sitting down in a rocking chair along the vacant corner. Ten minutes went by and he was immersed in his homework for McGonagall's class, completing the work after another twenty minutes on his lonesome. It was 5:36.
At 5:57 Harry was slumping his shoulders, settling into a regular frown. It dawned on him that actually expecting the Gryffindor to abide by his suggestion and go out of his way just to flatter Harry's wishes had been all but a brilliant idea. As a Slytherin, Harry conceded as the obnoxiously large old wall clock ticked 6:11, he should have reckoned any likelihood in the other's warmth was a nil factor, for understandable reasons. At 6:19 Harry might as well have melted into his seat, so disheartened he struggled to concentrate on his studying, Snape be damned for the night. It was dinnertime, but Harry was full of knots and would be for a while. He had gone over an hour empty on consideration of the friends he'd already secured and with such microscopic effort. It was official, he was selfish, no better than his cousin Dudley. He stood up and stretched for a minute or two, set on resigning to the common-room, wedge himself back between Crabbe and Goyle. It should have been enough.
"Hell," he sighed. For being so unable to learn greed from very early in his life, he sure did pluck it up here in a whirlwind, which worried him for several moments, but his latest sorrowful breath got caught in his throat halfway. He blinked feverishly ahead at the ginger head coming toward him.
"Ron," Harry greeted in dizzy delight, which he tried to fix. "Ron, how are you doing?"
"Alright," Ron mumbled with a shrug. His face was blank. "Sorry, I was just at dinner. Did you go?"
"No, wasn't hungry." Harry's palms grew moist. He crossed his arms, inhaling through his nostrils. "Um, um, so is it okay if we talk?"
Ron shrugged, seeming in a dull mood. "Yeah."
"Good." Harry wished he had some tea and biscuits to offer him, or perhaps butterbeer. "Let's sit over here." Harry spun on his heel and led them over to a clear table outside a historical arts section, even pulling out a chair for Ron. Harry cleared his throat, clasping his hands upon the table. Ron stared down at his lap, twiddling his thumbs.
"First, I apologize for what happened in the compartment the other day. I...don't know what to make of it, other than it was extremely uncalled for."
Ron shifted a notch. "You're saying you stood up to them? Those Slytherins you got Sorted with?"
"Uh, no, no, I haven't...done that exactly. Although I would surely take back how Crabbe just spat at you like that. And also, how I...made it look like I dismissed you."
"Well, it's alright. You made your decision."
"No, I wouldn't put it quite that way though. I very much want to be your friend, Ron." Harry was looking dead into Ron's more evasive eyes.
Ron's shoulders lurched then, his chest inflating in his gulping inhalation. "Harry, you turned your back on me, plain and simple. I came up to you, I thought I was doing nice showing you the basics, helping you out…" His voice tapered off. The hurt Ron wore on his face was rebounding to stab Harry.
"You did help me, Ron, honest. I really, really appreciate that we got to meet. Can I...Can I try to ask for a second chance? Could you maybe forgive me later on?"
"Maybe later on." Ron nodded once, more to himself than as a prospective gesture to Harry. "As for a friendship...I just don't think so, Harry."
A lump had formed in Harry's throat, tough to swallow past, and there was a tangled feeling below his chest. "Because...because we're in separate Houses?"
"Because we're in the most separate of Houses. When it comes to a bond or something between us...it's just not that possible." Ron was looking anywhere but up at Harry, appearing to shrink into himself worse the farther they spoke.
Harry had reasonable insight as to where they were headed, but he'd never felt so unprepared to go nowhere. A strain worked itself into his brow bone, his bottom lip quivering beyond his power. "But could we...just see?"
"What if we did? How would people from our own Houses look to us? Is it possible for them all to be understanding? It hasn't happened before from everything I've heard. I think it would put us both in a huge amount of trouble." Ron sighed, smoothing a hand through his hair. He stood up. "There's no point in this. I'm going to go. I'm sorry."
"Ron!" Harry fumbled to his own feet, taking deep breaths. "Wait...I just have to say, I don't think I'm like the lot of them, even though I was Sorted there, with them. I feel different, I swear I do. I feel...I feel open, and a lot of them feel closed to me, like they can't see more or something. It's that they're bullies, I could say, but, but there's something else to it too...I can't explain it yet. I just know I'm not like them."
"You must be at least somewhat. The Hat is always right. I mean, something in you is Slytherin. There must be a part of it down in you that you just haven't realized yet." Ron frowned at him, surrendering some sympathy as tears popped and rolled down Harry's cheeks. "I'm sorry again, Harry. This just won't work." He turned away then, walking out of sight. Harry reclaimed his seat after a few lonely minutes, only getting up and leaving for the dungeons when Madam Pince clippedly asked him to at five minutes to eight.