:D Ugh...I'm still working on getting everything functioning once more on my computer. It's been a long week...
Harry stepped around carefully, watching Theodore's back with his anxiety running high. He wanted to grab him and embrace him and beg him to forgive him, but he knew better than to. If Theodore knew he was there in Hogsmeade, he had no doubt in his mind that this time around Nott would turn him in.
Theodore ran into Malfoy, accompanied by Zabini and Gregory, and the four of them wandered over towards the Shrieking Shack. Harry followed, hoping he wasn't making any noise in the process.
"I should have an owl from Father any time now." Malfoy was telling Zabini. "He had to go to the hearing to tell them about my arm...about how I couldn't use it for three months..."
Gregory gave a small sigh while Zabini snickered. Theodore, as Harry expected, remained silent.
"I really wish I could hear that great hairy moron trying to defend himself...'There's no 'arm in 'im, 'onest...'...that hippogriff's as good as dead..."
He stopped and Harry stopped too. A few feet in front of the group of Slytherins stood Ronald and Sally-Anne Perks, making it the first time Harry had ever seen the two together when not forced to be. Sally-Anne stepped away from her particep, eyes wide at the sight of the Slytherin gang, who all seemed suddenly very antsy and very excited.
"What are you doing, Weasley?" Malfoy asked and then glanced at the Shrieking Shack. "Suppose you'd love to live here, wouldn't you, Weasley? Dreaming about having your own bedroom? I heard your family all sleep in one room...is that true?"
Sally-Anne grabbed onto both of Ron's arms to keep him from leaping at Malfoy, but Harry was sure it wasn't her strength, but her will, that kept him there.
Malfoy gave a laugh. "We were just discussing your friend Hagrid. Just trying to imagine what he's saying to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. D'you think he'll cry when they cut off his hippogriff's..."
SPLAT.
Malfoy's head jerked around at the splatter of mud that had hit him and Ron, eyes wide, stood there in shock while Gregory and Zabini looked around in surprise. Theodore, calm and cool as always, simply stepped aside and leaned against a tree, awaiting the chaos about to ensue.
"What the..." Malfoy began to try to wipe his hair clean. "What was that? Who did that?"
"Very haunted up here, isn't it?" Ron had gotten his act together and taunted the blond.
Gregory looked scared and Zabini was worried, but Malfoy was almost crazed with horror. Harry quickly grabbed some more sludge and threw it at them again, this time catching Zabini as well as Malfoy.
"It came from over there!" Malfoy shouted, wiping at his face.
Gregory started forward, feeling around like a blind man. Not wanting to do more than get the Slytherin gang away, Harry picked up a stick and poked the boy in the thigh with it, sending the large Slytherin bolting away without even glancing back at a very distraught Malfoy.
"Come on!" Malfoy hollered and Harry, feeling a little vindictive, stuck out his foot to trip him up. This proved devastating as the cloak caught on Malfoy and was pulled off, just enough to show Harry's head floating there in the middle of the air.
Malfoy practically screamed, pointing at Harry's discombobulated head, and then he and Zabini seemed to disappear for how quickly the started running away.
Harry yanked the cloak back on and looked towards Theodore, who was still leaned against the tree, though he looked considerably more irritated then before.
"Harry!" Ronald rushed forward, but stopped before he could accidentally run into the other Gryffindor.
"I'm still mad at you." Harry said as he listened to Sally-Anne trying to cover up her sobs. "How you've treated me because of what Fate handed me...but...I'm not you, Ron. I'm not going to abandon you just because you're being a git. That's all. I have to get back to the castle."
He rushed past Ron and stopped only long enough to whisper to Theodore, "I'm sorry I picked on my new friends...I just..."
"House is more important." Theodore hissed at him. "I know."
Gut tight and mind fuzzy, Harry rushed back to the castle and exited the witch's hump only to find Snape standing there waiting for him. Sweat began to rush across his skin as he stared in wide-eyed horror at the calm features of the Potions Master.
"Having fun?" Snape asked coldly.
"I'm sorry, sir." Harry wasn't getting out of this one.
"Follow me." Snape instructed and turned on his heel.
Feeling completely guilty and abysmally depressed over what he had just found himself landed in, Harry followed without hesitation. They reached Snape's office, all dark and filled with slimy nasty things in jars and Snape stalked past his desk while commanding Harry to sit. Harry sat. On the other side of the desk, however, Snape remained standing.
"Mr. Malfoy has just been to see me with a strange story, Potter." Snape informed the boy, who just sat there prepared for his doom. "He tells me that he was up by the Shrieking Shack when her an into Weasley and Perks. He then states that he was standing talking to Weasley, when a large amount of mud hit him in the back of the head...he then saw an extraordinary apparition...your head. Floating in midair."
Harry stared at him, unable to speak or respond in anyway.
"You were in Hogsmeade." Snape's tone was too level to be a good thing. "And you got through the witch's hump to do so."
"Yes, sir." Harry nodded weakly.
"How did you know about it?" Snape asked darkly.
"Someone told me." Harry replied.
"Who?"
Harry stiffened and then shook his head. "I'm sorry...I can't tell you."
"And why can't you tell me?"
"Because I can't." Harry's jaw tightened. "I'm sorry."
"Potter..."
"I would if I could..." Harry stared down at his hands. "But I can't. I was in Hogsmeade. I'm in trouble. What's my punishment?"
Snape stared at him long and hard and Harry waited, wanting this to be over and wishing he hadn't defended Ronald in this whole process.
The man shifted, ears pinned back and the tip of his tail flicking thoughtfully. "I want you to tell Mr. Weasley you are no longer his friend."
"What?" Harry gaped at the Professor.
"In the Great Hall, where everyone can see." Snape continued without missing a beat. "And then I want you to do something else."
"What else?" Harry almost whimpered because he had a feeling he knew what it was his Professor was about to ask him to do.
Harry entered the Great Hall the next day feeling like a shell without anything in it. He walked towards the Gryffindor table where everyone was sitting and laughing and enjoying themselves and wondered if any of them would ever forgive him. He had a feeling they wouldn't, but he hoped...he really did hope...that they would...maybe, they'd even understand and forgive him and everything could go back to the way it was. Right now...they would hate him...soon.
Hermione had showed him just the night before a letter from Hagrid appointing Buckbeak's execution, but Harry couldn't bring himself to even feel sad about it. He was in a daze, empty...void.
He stopped, only realizing he had stopped walking and been standing staring when someone cleared their throat. Slowly, his eyes rose to stare at Ronald, who was giving him a peculiar, uncertain look.
Words started coming out of his mouth and it took time before Harry even registered what he was saying.
"...anymore. I don't want you talking to me. I don't want you even coming near me. It'd be best if you didn't even look my direction. It's just how it's going to have to be."
"All because of that Slytherin?" Ron was saying back fiercely. "You know, if you'd have just denied him..."
"I can't." Harry was suddenly aware of everyone staring at him and the Hall quieting. At the teachers' table, McGonagall had risen to her feet, but Snape had grabbed her arm to keep her there, much to her alarm. "I can't be near you. I can't be near someone too high up in their head to think that they can't be friends with someone as unbound as me."
"WHAT?" Ron roared.
"Words are power." Snape had said as they had stared at each other in his office. "If you want to disconnect from someone, your words will be enough. You are, in a sense, connected to Weasley. You must break this connection in order to finally be free from him."
"But how?"
"Words are power." Snape had repeated. "Remember...your names have meaning. Someone like you, boundless, cannot be tied down by someone whose name is so clearly pinned."
"I'm sorry." Harry was sure he was whispering, yet his words seemed to echo. "I'm free to be who I want. I'm free to be with whoever I want and I choose to be with my particep. You can't accept that...no matter what either of us says or does. I'm breaking away. I'm breaking from you."
It felt as if something snapped in his chest and the feelings of guilt and longing and heartache seemed to dissipate with it. He stared at Ronald, who was in shock, apparently having felt the same thing, and then he turned wordlessly and left the Great Hall.
Step one of his punishment was over, but it didn't feel like punishment anymore. He felt liberated as weights seemed to lift from his back. Taking a deep breath, like the freshest air he'd ever breathed, Harry went to the library without further delay.
"S'all my fault." Hagrid was saying after Harry and Hermione and Neville had asked him about the verdict. He explained how he'd been bumbling around nervously and the Committee had just done exactly as Lucius Malfoy had said.
"There's an appeal, though, isn't there?" Neville had asked. "We can work on that, can't we?"
They started walking up to the castle and Hagrid gave a great sigh once they reached the steps. "S'no good, Neville. That Committee's in Lucius Malfoy's pocket. I'm jus' gonna make sure the rest o' Beaky's time is the happiest he's ever had. I owe him that..."
Hagrid left, crying.
"Look at him blubber!" Malfoy laughed to Gregory, Crabbe, and Theodore. "Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic? And he's supposed to be our teacher!"
Hermione had rushed forward and suddenly punched the blond in the face. He staggered into Theodore, who fell to the ground hard.
"Don't you dare call Hagrid pathetic, you foul, evil little cockroach!" She screamed at the Slytherin as Crabbe moved to grab her, but Gregory shoved him away.
"Who's side are you on?" Malfoy shouted at Gregory, but quieted when Hermione's wand rose to point at the blond.
"Stop!" Gregory got between Hermione and Malfoy. "Stop!"
"Get out of the way!" Hermione shouted.
"C'mon!" Malfoy insisted, tugging on Gregory's sleeve, but he didn't wait for his fellow Slytherin.
A moment later, Gregory realized Crabbe and Malfoy had gone and he turned to follow while Hermione spun around to look at Harry.
"Harry, you'd better beat him in the Quidditch final!" She said shrilly. "You just better had, because I can't stand it if Slytherin wins!"
She started marching towards their next class with Neville in tow, but Harry completely ignored her and approached Theodore, who was now sitting, leaned against a wall.
"Are you all right?" Harry asked worriedly.
"You finally abandoning Gryffindor?" Theodore's eyes were coy. "When are you going to claim yourself a Slytherin?"
Neville gave a whimper from where he'd paused to wait for Harry, but Harry waved him on.
"I'll catch up with you in Charms." Harry told him before focusing on Theodore again. "Are you all right?"
"Just tired." Theodore's ears were pinned, but he didn't look angry, only exhausted.
"Taking too many classes?" Harry questioned. "You really do look like you're taking all of them."
"You're an idiot, didn't you know?" Theodore mumbled, eyes looking at Harry in an odd way that Harry couldn't discern. "Can you...go away now?"
"I guess." Harry whispered and then, without even thinking about what he was doing, reached forward to stroke Theodore's hair.
The Slytherin's brow raised, but he said nothing, his blue eyes watching Harry as the Gryffindor stood and finally left.
Hope you enjoyed!