I know this was a long time coming but I've edited it, re-edited it, re-written whole parts and edited it again wanting it to be perfect. Halloween was another of the scenes that inspired this fic. Enjoyxx
P.S comments fuel me :P
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A weeks worth of classes passed him by. Harry and Nott found an empty classroom not too far from the dungeons for them to practise Occlumency in. Mostly it was guided meditation, but Nott seemed to be able to hold the state of mind for longer and longer each session.
Zabini and Greengrass had started to join them in the common room on Wednesdays to practise the transfiguration spells they were still working on and to write up their essays. Heiress Greengrass was very proper and she got a dangerous glint in her eye when she thought for even a moment that someone might think her less capable because she was female.
Harry was of the opinion that women could be more dangerous than men. Uncle Vernon and Dudley tended to be more straight forwards. Violence was their weapon. The anger rose inside of them, they took it out on Harry and then it was over. A predictable ebb and flow of emotion and immediate consequence. Aunt Petunia was different.
She nursed her grudges. Letting her anger out seemingly at random, fast and vicious. She would be the one to pinch him when they were out in public, to claw her nails into his arms when she pulled him somewhere, to give him a sharp humiliating slap around the face. When he was younger she would scrub his skin with a wire brush once a week in the bath until he was old enough to wash himself. She was the one that spread rumours about him to the neighbourhood, so that everyone was against him, so that everyone always thought he was up to no good. Which sometime he was and it made it all the more difficult to steal food so he didn't starve to death. He could withstand a beating easily but Petunia's punishments were always cruel and unusual.
Harry supposed he had learnt more from Petunia than from Vernon.
Zabini chatted to him and Nott sometimes when they were in their dorm. It was all small talk but Harry knew he was being felt out. He could appreciate Zabini's cool manner, most of the time he looked either bored or disinterested. He had a sort of casual-charming slouch about him that was too perfect not to have been studied.
He'd also finally began taking his morning run. He had worked himself up to three full meals a day and was starting to put on some much needed weight. He'd convinced Nott to come with him and although the other boy couldn't run for as long as Harry could, Nott had agreed that a wizard probably shouldn't rely on his magic alone. Harry thought that once Nott could keep up better the two of them could add some dodging exercises. There were some spells that you just couldn't shield and it would be a long time till they were strong enough to cast a powerful shield to protect themselves from higher level spells.
They still found themselves showered and dressed before the other boys were pulling themselves from their covers. The two of them walked into the Great Hall that morning discussing the potions essay they were going to hand in after breakfast. Harry had only just finished dishing up a plate of sausage, bacon and beans and was reaching for a slice of toast when a snowy white owl landed next to him.
Harry stared at the owl with a momentary shock. The sudden silence of those sitting around him told him that everyone had noticed that he didn't get post. Conversation took up again as he reached to untie the roll of parchment attached to the bird's extended foot. He didn't think for a second that the rest of the table wasn't now watching his every move.
"Who's it from?" Nott asked beside him.
Harry scowled at the messy hand as he attempted to decipher it.
"It's from the Gamekeeper. He's inviting me to have tea with him after lunch." As he got to the end he felt his eyebrows rise and he looked at the owl still perched beside him. "And he's giving me this owl."
"Didn't know you were so friendly with the Gamekeeper, Potter?" Greengrass said with once delicately raised eyebrow.
Harry snorted. "I'm not. Dumbledore sent him to escort me to Diagon Alley when my relatives couldn't take me. As soon as we got there, I convinced him to get a drink so I could shop in peace. I barely spoke to him. Supposedly, he knew my parents and wants to talk about them." He shrugged. "He's been working here so long, I'm sure he knows everyone's parents."
The owl pecked at his hand. He narrowed his slightly at it. "What am I supposed to do with an owl?"
"You send mail with it Potter." Malfoy sneered down the table. "If you have anyone to send letters to."
"Yes, how clever of you, Malfoy." He answered back without missing a beat. "Why don't you inform Crabbe and Goyle? I'm sure they will wish to know of your extraordinary discovery."
He barely batted an eyelash in the blonde direction, while people sniggered around him, still pondering the owl. To his friends he continued as if he hadn't been interrupted.
"My Aunt won't tolerate a bird in the house. It's why I didn't bother getting myself one. I can use one of the school owls if I'm in need." Not that he would ever send a letter to the Dursleys.
"She can stay in Nott Manor for the summer if you want? We've got a small owlery." Nott offered after swallowing a mouthful of breakfast.
Harry hummed noncommittedly. "Alright. I have no letters right now. I'll name you later. Go on." He shooed the bird and it took off flying away with the other departing owls.
"Are you going to go meet the Groundskeeper? I've heard his hut is full of dangerous beasts." Nott asked cutting up a sausage.
Harry took a careful bite of his toast and pondered as he chewed. Nott didn't push and the two of them were soon making their way to Potions.
"I think it would be prudent to see what Dumbledore wants." He murmured to the other boy.
He watched Theo out of the corner of his eye as he turned to regard Harry. His face grew slightly pinched around his eyebrows, then he nodded.
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As Nott handed in another of their perfect potions to Professor Snape, Harry made swift but careful movements to clean and pack away their equipment. By the time Nott was back at their bench, he only had to put a few of his things away before they were slipping out the door ahead of their classmates. Once they were out of the out of the castle and heading down the hill to the only hut on the grounds, they broke into a run. Neither wanted to advertise their visit to the Groundskeeper if they could help it.
The hut sat quite close to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. It was the closest Harry had gotten to the forest and closer as he was, he could see the very air in between the trees ebbing with magic. It was a dense, thick kind of magic, somewhat similar to the environ of the Greenhouse that their Herbology classes were held in but different. Older, stronger, darker.
He could sense the tension running through Nott, no matter that the boy tried to hide it. Harry was apprehensive as well. While it was extremely unlikely, from what Harry had seen, that he would attempt to hurt them; Hagrid was a huge man. When he opened the door, Harry and Nott barely came up to his waste.
The man was easy to read, each emotion and thought plastered across his face. He was a bit taken back that Harry hadn't come alone, which put the two of them slightly on edge but they kept their polite Slytherin masks as they were invited inside and replied easily when asked about how their classes were going.
Harry had immediately noted the four small, high windows, not easily accessible, and the three doors, one leading to a bathroom, one the one they came in through and the last exiting on to the steadily growing pumpkin patch that would be ripe from harvest by Halloween. The room's over-large furniture and cluttered interior gave it a rather claustrophobic feel to it, but most of the miscellaneous objects were hanging off of hooks in the ceiling or piled on to high shelves that covered almost ever wall. Nothing Harry deemed a tripping hazard in the event of a hasty get-away.
A get-away that seemed completely unnecessary until a newspaper that had sat on the table caught his eye. He'd ignored it until that point because Zabini read the newspaper that morning and had informed Nott and himself about the interesting articles before the owl had appeared. But then he read the date on the top of the print. The newspaper was almost three weeks old and yet it sat pristine on Hagrid's table. The front page was a story he had already heard a thousand times over.
However the story in front of him gave Harry two new pieces of information that the gossip mill had left out. The day Gringotts had been broken into was the same day Harry had first visited Diagon Alley with Hagrid. And not only was he there but he had gone down to the very vault that someone had attempted to rob. The small brown package Hagrid had picked up for Dumbledore, 'Hogwart's business, very important.'
Interrupting Hagrid, Harry drew attention to the article.
"That's the day we were there, Hagrid." Harry watched as the man stilled as his eyes twitched from side to side as though expecting someone to pop out of the woodwork.
His reaction had caught Nott's attention and the other boy gave Hagrid an intense once over.
"Puhh, nothing to worry yourselves over." Hagrid snatched up the newspaper and Harry put everything he had into not flinching away from the massive man.
The boys shared a subtle look before Harry changed the subject by asking about the flora and fauna of the Forbidden forest. Once they had assured him that they were most definitely not going into the forest themselves and were merely curious, the man was happy for tell them about his many forays into the haunting trees.
The two of them missed lunch but they headed back just before dinner. As they were walking back up the hill Nott casually inquired, "Gringotts?"
"What was that newspaper doing there? It was three weeks old." He asked back allowing the edge he had been supressing when in Hagrid's hut, back into his voice.
Nott thought for a moment before answering. "It was left there for us to notice. Dumbledore probably visited the oaf early this morning, suggesting he invite you for tea."
They both silently agreed that the Groundskeeper himself wasn't smart enough to plot. He pondered a moment about his deep distrust for Dumbledore. It could only be Riddles memories, as the boy had distrusted Dumbledore as much as Dumbledore seemed to distrust Tom. But then again Nott and all his housemates had shown an equal amount of wariness and dislike about the old man.
"What do you know about him?" Harry asked keeping his eyes ahead focused on the castle rapidly nearing.
"Supposed to be a prodigy when he was at school, a Gryffindor obviously. Not sure what he did till he became Transfiguration teacher here at Hogwarts. But he's always been political. Father said he stayed out of the war with Grindelward right until the end when they had their famous duel. Then when the last war was in full swing it was him that kept up the resistance mostly. The Ministry was in disarray and half turned against itself."
As Nott spoke Harry nodded. The Headmaster was a powerful figure in the wizarding world as a whole. He'd heard people talk about him as though he were a living legend.
"And of course, he's the one that's been assuring the nation of your safety all these years. The ministry wanted to take custody of you back then but by the time anyone asked about the Boy-Who-Had-Saved-Them-All you'd already been spirited away somewhere." Nott's nose scrunched slightly along with his sarcastic tone. "That's why most people think you've been living in some manor somewhere, possibly on the continent."
Harry couldn't help the snort of disgust.
"Instead I've been living in obscurity in the muggle world with no knowledge of my heritage." He'd thought himself a freak, an aberration, alone.
"You didn't know about magic at all, did you?" Nott questioned, the two of them slowing their pace as they approached the main doors.
Harry shook his head. "They told me my parents were drunks, who died in a car accident. That they found me on the door step the next day..." He frowned. "Do you think that bits true because I always thought it was weird? Who leaves a baby on the front step in the middle of the night?"
Nott shrugged and Harry shook of the question for another time.
"The real question is why does Dumbledore want me to know about what ever someone's trying to steal from him?"
Again Nott shrugged. Harry didn't have any explanations either so he would just have to keep his eyes open.
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September turned into October and everyone was settled as the weather began to get colder. Classes were much the same as before, although they were beginning to move on to slightly more complicated material. Harry, Theo, Zabini and Greengrass had fallen into a comfortable routine and Harry had begun to regard the other two as tentative allies as they spent more time together talking and studying.
Harry had always hated Halloween. He used to watch Dudley brag about his costume to all who would listen. Aunt Petunia would take him out while Harry was locked in his cupboard and Dudley would come back with so many sweets he was usually sick by the end of the night. And Harry would have to clean it up while his Aunt dotted on the great lump, putting a cool flannel on his head.
As far as Harry could tell it was a holiday celebrating greed and excess.
Now he knew it was the anniversary of his parents death, he wanted to celebrate even less. So he didn't go with Nott down to the Great Hall for the feast. Instead he took the candle and an apple he'd gotten from the house elves and headed for the astronomy tower, as far away as he could get from the raucous laughter echoing through the halls, and celebrated a traditional wizard's Samhain. A remembrance of ones ancestors and family who had passed on beyond the veil.
He had never seen a picture of his parents but he knew his mother had red hair and his green eyes. He knew his father had had glasses and the same sticky-up hair that Harry had before he'd grown it out. So he pictured people like that as he sat cross-legged and, with a little concentration, lit the candle with the tip of his finger instead of his wand, setting the apple as offering beside it. He thought about golden bubbles and his mother's arms.
It was a very basic rite, not the full Samhain ritual he only knew through Tom's memories. Wizards had a religion of there own but it had been practised underground for the last three hundred years. The official reason was that they were Dark but it was really about scaring the muggleborn off with 'paganism'.
He watched the flame dance in the breeze and thought about the parents he didn't know. Would they be disappointed that he was a Slytherin? Would they be proud of him for what he had accomplished in these last months?
It was impossible to tell. They weren't the drunken wastes that his Aunt and Uncle had told him they were. What he had heard from Hagrid and the other teachers were as two dimensional as his relatives tales. They only told him the best of them if they mentioned them at all.
Should he even care? They were dead after all. They weren't here to see him. Or judge him. He didn't usually allow other's thoughts of him to affect him, why should he let some parents that might as well be imaginary dictate his actions now?
He watched the flame dance in the wind, feeling slightly guilty.
Harry remembered his mother begging for his life, offering her own in his stead. He would honour their memory, at least. They had given their lives for his and he would always be grateful to them for that.
After a little while he began to get cold. Even with his thick school-cloak wrapped tight around him, it was still Autumn in Scotland. He left the candle burning where it was and headed back down to the Dungeons. He'd bring a few books into his bed and shut the curtains, warding everyone else out. He wasn't in the mood for company.
He was on the second floor when the smell reached him. Like an open drain and sweaty feet. He wrinkled his nose and sped up slightly in the hopes of passing the stench. As he was passing the girl's bathroom he heard a scream and a loud crash from within. He paused for a moment, deciding whether to pass without at least taking a look.
Hesitantly Harry stuck his head round the door.
Although he'd never seen one before, his new memories helpfully supplied the answer. It was a troll. It stood almost eight feet tall, it's thick skin was a grey-green and lumpy. He also knew trolls had limited to no intelligence and were magically resistant like giants and dragons.
His heartbeat kicked up and began to pound in his ears as he began to run. Then he saw Granger scramble out from under the wooden debris that used to be cubicles.
It was plain to him that the girl would be killed. She hadn't gone for her wand, even if it's use was limited as a first year. He didn't have time to track down a teacher. And if he did and they came back to a puddle of first year, the student body, if not everyone else, would blame him. He was supposed to be some saviour and people were already angry at him being a Slytherin instead of whatever they had assumed he would be.
If she died, he would get the blame.
A strange calm came over him as he made his decision to fight. His brain began going through spells that could be useful, spells he wasn't sure he could pull off but he didn't have a choice and the doubt was only momentary. Still standing in the doorway, Harry lifted his wand and pointed it at the trolls back. He had to distract it from her first of all.
"Reducto!" The spell hit the troll's thick back.
It was his first real test of his magic. He hadn't even had a real duel yet, and the continued spats with Malfoy didn't count. Yet here he was with a troll in front of him and he really might get himself killed!
He fired two more in quick succession. He wanted the troll to follow him into the hall where there was more room for manoeuvrability. His plan seemed to be working as the troll turned to him and seemed to forget all about Granger.
Harry took two steps back, refusing to let his enemy leave his sight for even a moment. It lurched at him and Harry took a few more steps into the hall. It wedged itself back through the door and Harry held off blasting it in the face in case it gave up on him and went back for Granger. As it finally got free and into the corridor, it lifted it's wooden club up over it's head, intent on squashing him.
"Bombarda!" He cried waving his wand in a large circle before throwing the force at the club.
It exploded and Harry turned his face away, protecting his eyes from the splinters with his other hand. The troll's hand had also been damaged and it cried out and began trying to grab him with a renewed urgency, splattering blood along the stone walls. He needed something that could do more damage.
A spell popped into his head. He ducked under the trolls hand and rolled, jumping back to his feet as he'd done to avoid Dudley and his gang many times before. Then he was making a slashing motion, aiming for the trolls almost non-existent neck.
"Sectumsempra!" He hissed putting as much power behind it as he dared without draining himself completely; there was every chance the spell wouldn't work how he wanted.
He wasn't sure the spell would make it through the skin even though in Latin it meant 'always cut'. So he might have put a little more force than was necessary. He had wanted to cut into the carotid artery, where the troll would loose it's blood volume the quickest and limit oxygen to the brain.
The curse did break the skin, but also the muscle if not the bone. The trolls head was thrown back, the open throat spurting gore on to Harry as he stood below. He managed to close his mouth and eyes as he felt the warm liquid splash across his face and sink into his robes. He scrambled away so as not to be crushed by the troll's lifeless body as it fell forward and the head followed loosely behind bouncing at his feet with a squelch.
For a second the head at his feet was all he could look at even as he felt the heated, foul-smelling blood begin to cool across his skin. The bathroom door opened and Harry raised his wand on instinct.
And lowered it when he saw it was only Granger sticking her head out the doorway. Her eyes widened as she took in his blood splatter appearance and the near headless corpse laying between them.
Hurried footsteps came into earshot and Harry spun around to see Professors McGonagall, Snape and Quirrell running towards them. They skidded to a halt in front of him, their eyes flicking from him to the body behind him. Quirrell wavered and grasped at the wall as if to keep himself from fainting and began retching.
"Mr Potter!" The head of Gryffindor exclaimed.
"Yes, ma'am?" He answered mildly surprised at how even his voice was, but mostly he felt a strange disconnect.
She spluttered but quickly regained her composure.
"What happened here?" She demanded.
Harry kept his eyes on Professor McGonagall not wanting to look at his Head of House who was sure to be furious.
"I was heading back to the common room Ma'am, when I heard a scream from inside the bathroom. I stuck my head in, to see what was happening. The troll had cornered Granger." He tilted his head in her direction and the teachers looked, for the first time realising she was there.
"Are you alright, Miss Granger?"
Harry held back a snort. No one asked if he was alright and he was the one to go against a bloody troll. Well, it was bloody now anyway. He resisted a smirk. Maybe he was a little hysterical.
"Y...Yes, Professor." Granger stuttered moving around the troll. ""I...He saved me."
That made Harry stiffen slightly. It was all he needed, more hero worship. But then he thought he could maybe use that. To 'save her' hadn't been his main objective. His thoughts had been more along the line of 'you can't leave the muggleborn to die, it'll be practically confirmation of your Dark Lord status.'
"I was in the bathroom and then the troll just came in and started trying to hit me with it's club." Granger rambled, her voice shaky.
Harry turned to look at her and caught Professor Snape's intense glare. Oh he was definitely angry, furious even, but there seemed to be a question in his eyes too. Harry hoped it was, how did he kill a mountain troll and not Where did he learn a spell he made and only shared with the Dark Lord?
Granger's eyes kept flickering between the near decapitated troll and the growing pool of blood that would hopefully not soak into his boots, the teachers and himself. Her robes were stained and a bit wet and there were splitters in her hair. Her splotchy face made it obvious she had been crying but Harry thought that might have been before the attack.
"How did a troll even get in?" She continued. "The mountains are kind of far even for a troll? And wouldn't it have been attracted to Hogsmeade first? How did it get past the Wards?"
Harry thought that rather obvious. Someone had lured it here and let it in.
Then Granger started to shake and her eyes focused more on the body between them.
"She's going into shock." He pointed out to the surrounding grown-ups.
"Yes, come Miss Granger, lets get you up to the infirmary." Professor McGonagall made her way around the troll and put her arm around the girl and started leading her away.
She gave Snape a significant look and glanced at him before she left. Harry reluctantly turned back to the other professors.
"You can deal with this mess, can't you Quirrell?" Snape turned and swept away with a sharp, "Potter, with me!"
Harry walked quickly to catch up and tried to figure out where they were going. He didn't think returning to the common room, which was probably full of scared or excited children, covered head-to-toe in blood would be a good idea. Rather disgusting smelling blood.
Snape was limping slightly, even though Harry could tell he was doing his best not to let it show. Harry put that fact away and pretended he didn't notice.
Snape led him to his office. Harry followed him in when Snape made an impatient gesture. As the door shut behind them, Snape turned back to face him and started put locking and privacy charms on the door. His body was still in full-alert mode and being trapped in the room with his Head of House, who disliked him strongly, did nothing to relax him any. He watched the man's spell work and the magic as it wove around the door and the walls surrounding them.
He idly wondered if he could get through the spells quick enough to escape if he had to. He already had two plans formed in his head, that were doomed to die a short death, when Snape half limped over to his desk and turned to him.
"Why weren't you at the feast?" Snape voice was low but he said the words through closed teeth like he was doing everything he could not to completely blow up.
"I didn't feel like celebrating, Sir." He said as evenly as he could, he wasn't about to tell the man why he wasn't there.
Snape was taken aback for a second and it was obvious he did know why Harry wasn't at the feast. At least someone seemed to remember his parents death.
"Where were you?" Snape asked slightly more tempered.
"The astronomy tower, Sir." He clenched his hands and realised he was still holding his wand.
He hesitated in putting it away while locked in but after a moment, Harry tapped it with his thumb and pinky and it disappeared back into it's holster. He wouldn't have a chance anyway. Snape watched the move with calculating eyes.
"Why didn't you get a teacher, or at least a prefect, when you encountered the troll?" Snape was leaning over him slightly, being more intimidating that usual.
It didn't faze Harry though and he couldn't keep in the snort that answered that question.
"Yes, I can see the papers tomorrow. Boy-Who-Lived, comma, Slytherin, leaves muggleborn to die. The next Dark Lord, question mark." He raised his eyebrows at Snape daring him to disagree.
There was no way the Professor had missed what some of the more stupid students said about him.
Snape frowned at that response and Harry briefly wondered if he had crossed a line but he seemed to accept it. Silence hung between them and Harry didn't shift nervously as he'd seen other students do under Professor Snape's intimidating gaze. He matched his Head of House's stare and waited.
"And what spells, may I ask, a first year could possibly know that could kill a full grown mountain troll?" Snape seemed more curious now than angry.
This had to be answered carefully and Harry had been thinking how to arrange his reply since the teachers arrived in the corridor.
"I've had... Difficulty, shall we say, with some of the other students since my arrival. So I've taken to reading ahead in the subject of Defence." Snape's eyes narrowed slightly. "I cast a few blasting hexes to get it's attention and lure it into the hall where I had more space. I blew up it's club and then put all I had into a cutting hex. I thought to slice the neck not decapitate it but I fear I put a little too much into it in my panic."
Vague but not too much so. Not the exact truth but none of it a lie either. Professor Snape would know that too. He wasn't the Head of Slytherin for nothing. But would he push?
The Professor just stood there and stared. The smell was starting to get to Harry and there wasn't anyway his Head of House didn't smell it too with a nose that large.
"May I go clean up Sir?"
"You will return to the dormitory." He turned and made his way around his desk.
"Like this?" He sneered.
He didn't want to turn up in the Slytherin common room trailing troll blood on the fine carpets. He didn't want everyone and their dog talking about him killing a troll. Some would take it as proof of his evilness, others would take it as a challenge. All in all it was attention that he could sorely do without.
"Everyone will want to know the troll has been handled." And a vicious smirk rose across his Head of House's face, as he flicked his wrist and the door burst open.
Harry forced his face carefully blank.
"Yes Sir." He gave him a brief nod and left.
His annoyance rose as he reached the entrance. He let out a sigh before straightening his back and spitting the password. The stone wall before him parted revealing the common room as up in arms as he'd ever seen it. Everyone was still in the room talking amongst themselves, waiting for Professor Snape to announce the Troll handled. He'd graciously left that task to Harry.
Everyone grew silent as they saw him stand there.
He stepped into the room and calmly headed for the his dorm so he could get under a shower and wash away the foul smell that drifted about with him.
"Apologises for the stench. The Troll is dead." He said to the room before mounting the stairs and looking at no one.
Maybe he had been more out of sorts than he realised because of his encounter with the troll? Maybe he was just tired? But as he threw his robes and shirt on to the floor in a pile so it was easier for the elves to clean up, he was surprised when the door opened behind him.
Usually he'd have locked it and set an alarm spell but he had forgotten.
Nott stood in the doorway, staring at the scars that littered Harry's torso.
Theodore Nott had grown up quite lonely. His mother, Mariella Nott nee Turpin had had a weak constitution and had died when he was eight. She'd had three stillborns after his birth and the last had killed her.
With only his father and no siblings, he had ended up spending quite a lot of his time alone in the Nott Estate. Lord Nott had a lot of work to do, what with his seat on the Wizengamot and the various other Nott Family interests. In Theo's free time, spent away from various tutors his father hired, he had gravitated to the Nott Family Library. There wasn't just spell books in there. There was all kinds of fiction and history books and journals written by his ancestors.
The only time he'd ever met other people his age was when his father was invited to parties and gatherings with the other pureblood families.
The problem with that was that the Malfoy Heir was an annoying snob with no appreciation for knowledge. The first time they'd met he'd made fun of the book Theo had brought with him and threatened to throw it in the fire. Pansy Parkinson, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle and Millicent Bulstrode had all been there and they'd all laughed along with Malfoy.
Theo had retaliated by finding the nursery and using his anger-filled 'accidental' magic to rip some of Malfoy's stuffed animals apart. He'd gotten in quite alot of trouble for embarrassing the Family in front of important allies.
Their subsequent meetings as they got older hadn't gone any better. Nott had just got more subtle and cunning in his revenge, usually setting up a way for Malfoy to embarrass himself. It always happened eventually because Draco had almost no tact and spent a lot of his time offending everyone around him.
This was why he had been sort of dreading going of to Hogwarts when he had received his acceptance letter. He knew he could do just as well if not better if he carried on his studies with his tutors but his Father had talked about all the connections he was sure to make. Because really that was what Hogwarts was about for the children of the Ancient and Noble Houses. Making alliances and forging relationships that they would go on to use as adults.
Nott didn't particularly want to form a relationship with the Malfoy Heir and he knew, as a likely Slytherin, he would be expected to follow the idiot. He'd ended up sharing a compartment on the train with future Ravenclaws and had a good conversation about various things they had all read and wondered if that would be the last time.
Then the Hat had put him in Slytherin and sealed his fate.
Except, Harry James Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, last Heir of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter had been sorted into Slytherin with him. He had the Potter hair but had grown it out like the traditional Heads of Houses tended to do, as the last Heir to a Family without a Head he was well within his right. He had piercingly green eyes that seemed magical just for their unusual brightness and colour. He had walked with a straight back, confident without swaggering like Malfoy did, as he made his way to the stool.
When he sat across from Nott he had returned his nod with an exact equal depth, a sign he considered him an equal even with the hype surrounding The-Boy-Who-Lived. He had decided to watch the boy. He wasn't very subtle about it either.
As Potter dealt with Malfoy's shoddy attempt at showing his dominance, Nott had actually felt a small hope begin to grow in his chest. Maybe the next seven years of his life wouldn't be hell?
Potter turned out to be intelligent, driven and dryly humorous, if slightly clueless about some aspects of wizarding life. The fact that they had found themselves in the famous Hogwarts library on their first day had been almost a sign for celebration for Nott.
Their arithmancy project took up quite a bit of their time but Potter never complained or hinted that he would rather be playing exploding snap or the other banalities their year mates seemed so interested in. They also spent a lot of time reading and practising spells they'd read about. Potter focused on Defence against the Dark Arts as well as various jinxes, hexes and charms that could be used for concealment.
He'd brought some interesting books with him even if they were all on the very legal side of things and he hadn't hesitated to swap with Nott. He understood the Slytherin way of the deal. Plus he hadn't batted an eye at some of the darker books he'd asked his father to send.
They had chatted civil-ish with Greengrass and Zabini and Potter hadn't fallen for any of their conversational traps and he'd immediately agreed that Malfoy was only a Slytherin because of his abundant ambition and that he had no cunning to speak of.
It had all led Nott to make a decision he knew his father would probably disagree with. Potentially in a painful way. Especially since he didn't really know Potter's political views at all. If he had any.
He was going to pledge alliance.
Once he'd decided that, Theo had began wondering how exactly to go about doing it. He knew the words to say of course and the action that went with it. But he didn't know where to do it or when? He couldn't just walk down to the common room one morning and just... Do it. And there was no guarantee that Potter would know what he was doing.
But then Samhain had fallen on them and Potter had been distant. It had taken a moment to remember what should have been obvious. When wizards celebrated Halloween they were celebrating the anniversary of the Dark Lord's defeat. Most forgot the two people who had died that night.
He'd let Potter go off on his own at the boy's insistence and had sat in his place and ate the food looking at the overly muggle decorations with hidden disgust. Malfoy's disgust was realised with a long and loud rant while he stuffed himself full of sweets with almost as much gusto as his two followers. Then Quirrell had announced a Troll had gotten in somehow.
He'd immediately thought of Harry. Had he already gone back to the dorm? He'd said he was going up to the astronomy tower, that was as far away from the dungeons as one could get. Nott had been shuffled into the middle with the other scared first years, Malfoy looking particularly pale.
He had kept an eye on every turn and dark corridor hoping Potter would appear and ask him what was going on. Upon arriving at the dormitories he had run up the stairs to find their room empty. He'd rushed back down to find one of the prefects.
He'd ended up finding Gemma Fawley, who at least wasn't guaranteed to just shrug Potter's absence off and hope the troll got him.
"Potter's not here." He huffed at her shoulder urgently. "He wasn't at the feast."
"Well, where is he then?" She had glared down at him.
"I don't know. He was going to go up to the astronomy tower."
"Then he'll be fine up there." She'd flicked her pale blonde hair.
"But he could be coming back and he doesn't know about the Troll." He had insisted, raising his voice slightly.
She had huffed. "I'll go tell the seventh year prefects."
Theo didn't know how much good that would do but there wasn't anything else he could think to do. He'd hovered close to the fire with the other first years. Malfoy was spouting rubbish about what his father would do when he heard about it, but Zabini and Greengrass had moved over to him.
"Where's Potter?" Blaise asked quietly so the others wouldn't hear over Malfoy droning on.
"I don't know." He said probably a little too shortly.
"Why wasn't he at the feast with every body else?" Greengrass spoke sharply.
"Think about what day it is and who he is." He stared at the door to the common room willing Potter to appear.
Daphne made a noise at the back of her throat.
"Yes, of course." It wasn't an apology but it had an apologetic tone.
The sound of stone scrapping as the door opened cut through the common room and everyone turned, probably expecting to find Snape with news on the Troll roaming the corridors supposedly nearby.
Instead they found Potter, hands behind his straight back, covered head-to-toe in grey-ish viscera, looking for all to see like some kind of conquering hero. Or possibly an avenging demon.
"Apologises for the stench. The Troll is dead." He said to the room as he began to cross it without a second glance at anyone.
The silence in the room lasted until everyone heard the door close behind him and then it burst into conversation about what had just happened. Theo turned to Zabini thinking quickly.
"I'll get you a copy of Harry's history notes for the term so far and the next two lessons if you stall Malfoy as much as humanly possible."
Zabini looked as careless as normal but Theo could see the gleam in his eye. Harry was the only Slytherin that managed to stay awake in History but Potter knew they were practically gold and hadn't traded them for anything yet. He didn't think Harry would mind trading them for this.
"They'll be for your eyes only." He warned before allowing Zabini to shake his hand and follow Potter up the stairs, through their dorm and into the bathroom.
He pushed the door open and took in the scene before him as Potter turned on his heel, wand slipping into his hand.
Potter was scared. Not just whoops, there's been an accident. Scars that ran thick and rough across his back, one over the top of another at slightly different angles but he could tell the hand that held the whip was right handed.
It wasn't just his back either. At first he only saw the tops of his arms and shoulders where the whip had clearly ripped through the skin. Then he turned and saw his chest had another slash across it running from just under his right nipple to just above his left hip. An old, quite large burn wrapped around his right arm, as if something boiling had splashed it.
He was skinny too, skinnier than Nott had realised. Thinner than he should have been. Theo couldn't have said he was all skin and bones though as a thin layer of wiry muscle covered his body that rippled and readied as Potter watched him.
"Close the door." Potter said, low and even, not taking is eyes of him.
He came back to himself and hurriedly closed the door behind him. Potter nodded to his left when he turned back around. Then he watched Potter fired privacy spells at the door.
Green eyes focused on him. Potter didn't put his wand back in the holster strapped to his burnt arm.
"What happened?" He found himself asking. "With the Troll."
Potter didn't answer at first. He watched Nott with a blank face. Potter was particularly good at blank faces, especially for an eleven year old. The scattered marks that littered his skin were probably why.
"I killed it." He said it as if he'd been talking about the weather.
Silence passed between them. Theo let the shock ripple through him. He'd killed it. As it subsided another feeling began to sweep him up. Excitement.
This was the moment.
He knew Potter was powerful and this just proved it. Theo knew he wouldn't have stood a chance against a troll. He didn't know what Potter could or would do but he knew he wanted to be on Potter's side of whatever was going to happen.
"I, Theodore Nott, pledge allegiance to you, Harry Potter, for the remainder of our school days." He intoned, holding out his left arm for Potter to take.
He visible started, standing straighter and hesitantly putting away his wand. Then he took a step, crossing the space between them and grasped Nott's arm just below the elbow.
"I, Harry Potter, accept this pledge and your allegiance for the remainder of our school days. So mote it be."
The magic ran and settled over the two of them. Potter didn't shiver as he had when they made the secrecy oath between them. He arm flexed as he let go of Theo. His piercing gaze had yet to leave him.
He let his own gaze drop to take in the lines drawn across the other boys flesh more obviously. He knew Harry had grown up with his muggleborn mother's sister and her family. He'd gotten the feeling that they didn't get on. Potter purposefully didn't talk about them and while it might have been for security reasons, it had made Nott wonder. When he did it was 'My Aunt' and 'My Uncle' or 'The Dursleys', never 'My family' or 'My House' or their names. There was a noticeable distance.
The scars filled in gaps and told the rest of the tale. They were very deliberate, very violent. And he'd been left to heal on his own. On the rare occasion his father resorted to violence he always healed Theo after as if it had never happened. He couldn't have his Heir covered in scars, it could only reflect badly on him.
Potter's eyes grew wary once again but they didn't hold the almost inhumanly blank look that they had when he entered.
"This is a secret." Harry said with an edge in his voice that dared Nott to repute it.
"Of course." Nott nodded his head slightly. He hesitated before adding. "My father is not a nice man."
He wasn't going to say anymore and by the look on Potter's face he knew he wouldn't have to. The other boy leant on the sink and sighed, allowing himself to look a bit more tired. Harry went to run a slightly shaking hand through his hair but the moment he encountered what Theo assumed to be Troll blood, he grimaced.
"I need a shower or two." Harry looked up at Theo again, searching his eyes for something. "Will you go check out the common room? See if you can find out how everyone is taking this."
Theo smirked and nodded, knowing it would be helpful to know if the two of them were likely to get jumped tomorrow.
"I bribed Zabini with your history notes to run interference on Malfoy, so you should be alone for a while." He called over his shoulder as he slipped out of the door, after Potter unlocked it.
As he entered the common room to the still flowing hub-bub of wild gossip and mumbled schemes, he felt elated under his cool Slytherin mask with only the barest smirk. He'd never expected Hogwarts to be so great.