Harry stormed down the hall in a right rage. He felt the fizzle of magic on his fingertips, and stifled the flow, pressing against the energy like a rubber skin. He knew that he should calm down before approaching Minerva, but he was passed the point of caring whether or not he was terrifying. Or insolent.
He rapped the sleeping gargoyle on the head. "I need to speak with her."
The gargoyle looked at him drowsily, and though it appeared like he did nothing, he knew a small alarm had gone off in her office. He tried not to tap his foot or pace.
He had just come from three fights. All different people. All of them older years picking on Slytherins. Harry had had enough. Five people were now hanging upside from the rafters, another two were fighting off vines ensnaring them to the columns, and six were struggling to remove themselves from the pit of tar Harry had lain in the floor. Harry didn't often push much power into his spells. They shocked better than they endured. But he had decided to forgo measured control. Professor Sprout might be able to sever the vines and Flitwick might be able to charm the students down from the rafters, but it would take them at least two hours.
The stairs moved, and Harry strode inside, too impatient to ride them. He knew if he knocked he was just going to sound obnoxious anyway so he barreled through the door without waiting for permission.
"Harry!" McGonagall exclaimed, rising from her desk. "What on earth is wrong with you?"
"This school is a joke."
"I beg your pardon?" she sputtered.
He leaned over her desk. "This school is a bloody joke," he said again more slowly. "I just stopped three fights in the halls, all of them targeting Slytherins."
"I'll remind you that this is my office, Potter," she said, glaring. "You will not use that tone."
"Maybe I'll give you the proper respect when you start doing you job."
"Detention, Potter!" she said, standing. Her yellowing eyes were shocked, staring at him as if seeing him for the first time. "How dare you-"
"How dare I?" he challenged, unbothered, as he had never been before, by authority in her gaze. "Why haven't you done anything? This has been going on since school started, and you've been ignoring it."
"I have ignored nothing," she said, straightened. She had gathered herself, turning Harry into another indignant student and not a comrade of war. "I have no reason to explain myself to you, Mr. Potter, even if you assume you do."
The words found their intended target but it was nothing but a glancing blow. He was more hurt by her effort to corral him than the dig at his pride.
"Bollucks," Harry snarled, stepping away from her desk. "Your students are being harassed, and you're not doing anything about it."
"And I suppose all those years you and Mr. Malfoy were at each other's throats was just for jollies," she responded, gazing down at him from high cheekbones.
Harry inhaled. "This is not about me and Malfoy! They are lynching them, Minerva. They were hanging an eleven-year-old over the top of the moving stairs."
"The charm on the stairs-"
"Do you think he knew that?" he interrupted again, begging her to understand and not a little confused about why she didn't. "He was scared out of his wits. He thought he was going to die."
She shook her head. He knew before she spoke that whatever left her mouth would just be platitudes. What was needed wasn't investigation, weren't words to soften the face of parents and students who would throw more of a tantrum over slapped wrists than a boy hanging upside down over a banister.
He was already shaking his head before she finished, another show of disrespect that had her nostrils flaring. Harry met her gaze. He wasn't her student. Not anymore. And she only just remembered.
"You still have detention for the disrespect, Mr. Potter, but I will take what you said into consideration."
He didn't want her consideration, but he didn't tell her that. It took him a moment to understand that the feeling in his chest was disappointment.
"I'll do something even if you don't."
"Is that a threat, Mr. Potter?"
"If threatening you would work I would do so," he said with a cold look, hurt that he even had to say that. "I don't make threats, Headmistress. But I stood up to Voldemort and I stood up to the Minister. I can stand up to you too, and I can stand up to the rest of the school as well.
"This is wrong," he said, watching her. "And you don't care enough to do anything, if you cared at all," he said, and that at least made her flinch.
Having won nothing, he walked out, careful to close the door as if his emotions weren't rolling in his gut. He waited until he was much further down the hall to exhale. His weakness lasted only a moment.
He might have convinced everyone that he had some hidden power, but he knew the truth. He could only hope that this was not another fight that required him to lie in front of an enemy's wand. He didn't know if he could survive another martyrdom.
o.O.o
Draco was sitting at the Gryffindor table that Sunday, three days after Harry had spoken with McGonagall. He was talking to Hermione about a recent article in a potion's journal. Something about blood purity that had Hermione fascinated rather than affronted.
Though he was in the middle of animated conversation, his leg was currently running up and down Harry's beneath the table. Ron was sitting beside him, twitching whenever they accidentally brushed against him but bearing it like the best friend in the whole world. Harry swore to buy him a broom for that. When the mail came, Harry scooted back, disentangling their feet. Draco looked at him, guilt on his face as he'd done something wrong, but Harry smiled at him and watched as three birds disengaged from the parliament and landed before Ginny.
"Harry," she said, interrupted in her conversation with Pavarti. "What are these?"
"Why are you asking me?"
She stared at him, trying to judge his expression, and Harry looked back as innocently as possible. After a few spells, Ginny untied the letters. Wrinkling her brow, she tore the first and read. Slowly, her mouth started to fall open. She snatched up another and skimmed it, finding mostly the same on the third.
"What did you do?" she asked him in a high, startled voice.
Harry held out his hand, asking for the letter, as if he didn't know perfectly well what was written there. She gave him an unimpressed look and handed it over, allowing Hermione to inspect another.
"They're apologies," the girl said, surprised.
"What did you do to them?" Ginny asked again.
It was rather impossible for Harry to even pretend to be astonished, but he finished his pretend reading and asked, "Why do you think I did anything?"
Ginny was unamused.
"Merlin, Harry, you didn't kill anything did you?" Ron asked, shoveling the eggs around his plate.
Harry frowned, this time looking (somewhat) genuinely insulted. "I don't think Golden Boys don't going around killing small animals."
Ron gave him a bug-eyed look, mouth gaping to reveal his food. "Blimey, you killed someone's pet."
"I did not!" he huffed. He flicked his hand casually in a manner that he must have picked up from Draco. "I might have tracked their signatures and I might have had a few words with them, not threatening in the least," he added, unpleasantly reminded of his conversation with McGonagall. He looked up and found her watching him, an unpleased look about her face. "But of course I didn't because leaving school grounds without permission is against the rules."
"Yes, and you wouldn't dream of breaking the rules now would you?" Hermione said sardonically, breaking his attention from Minerva.
He shrugged, finding no reason to defend himself.
Draco looked like he wanted to vault across the table and kiss him. He barely kept his seat, eyes shining like two five-pence. Merlin, how the hell did a look say "fuck me" so bloody loudly?
The birds were leaving, and Harry suddenly realized that he hadn't gotten any letters. The faces around him revealed much the same bemused apprehension.
"I guess they finally figured out to adjust the wards," Ron mumbled.
Harry set down his utensils, watching the windows. Something didn't feel right.
Sure enough, in the now empty air, a single bird made its way through the hall. Only a few students watched the latecomer until it landed with four balanced flaps in front of Harry's plate. Settling itself, it held out its leg, a bored expression in its face.
Harry stared at it. It had no distinguishing marks, and either he or Draco would have sensed Dark magic already. Beyond the strangeness of the situation, there was nothing that shouted danger and he could think of no reason not to pull the string, allowing it to drop to the table. The bird ruffled its feathers and after a quick preening flew off.
"Harry, I don't think you should…" Hermione trailed off.
No matter how much they stared at it, it remained nothing more than a crisp envelope. Fighting an itch on his shoulders (I'mjustparanoid), he ran the usual tests on his fan mail. The emphatic spell turned faintly pink, rolling into shades of the color until he cut off the spell.
"Harry," Hermione said again.
He snatched it away from her stretching hand, glaring at her for the attempt. She glared right back.
"You don't know what that is."
"It's a letter," he said, feeling no notable difference in weight. The more he thought about it, the more he felt stupid.
"Harry, don't be daft," Draco said, his voice just a tad higher than normal.
It was probably just a normal letter. Maybe from the Ministry. For all he knew it could be from Oliver Wood or Cho, expressing some small grievance that he'd forgotten.
"Harry," Hermione said in her warning tone, the one that said she knew exactly what was about to happen and was going to cuff his ears for it.
He ignored her. He wrapped a ward around his hand, pulling up the wax. Someone across from him hissed. There was only a single folded piece of parchment.
TRAITOR!
The burning bubbling against the ward, streaking through in slivers of fire. He dropped the paper, ironed and white as it had been upon arrival, but already his hand had burst into flames, his magic eating the spell only a pace slower than the fire.
A few people screamed. Hermione, clever witch that she was, already had her hand soaked in the jar of murlap that she kept everywhere she went, along with a bezoar. She grabbed Harry by the wrist and spread the mixture lucratively. The fire sizzled, spitting, waiting to burn through that too.
"It's not a deterrent," she said tersely, grappling him up. "We need to get to the infirmary."
Harry did not respond, concentrating on fixing another ward beneath the burning. Once it eat through the murlap, it would have to fight through another layer of magic to get to flesh. He wondered what curse they could have missed?
"… deserved it," a Ravenclaw muttered at his back.
"What did you say?" Ron demanded.
Harry dithered, making Hermione hiss, snatching at his sleeve like an angry cat.
"I said he deserved it!" the Ravenclaw said, standing. "Defending scum like the snakes!" He gave a potent stare to Draco, who had started shielding the letter to carry for investigation later.
He didn't have time to deal with this. He followed Hermione down the aisle.
"Hey, I'm talking to you!" the student shouted at his back.
More than one voice reacted, after all Harry's hand had just burst into flames. Obviously, he needed medical attention.
"I don't talk to idiots," he said over his shoulder, not keeping fast enough for Hermione's tastes.
"Coward!" the student shouted.
Harry didn't even bother responding. He made it to the door when the Ravenclaw shouted again.
"Just like a little snake. Hanging around them so much, you must have turned into a coward and a bully too."
Harry stopped.
"Don't you dare," Hermione hissed, her nails digging into his arm.
He turned around. "What do you know about being brave?" he said, voice low and intent. His hand popped and hissed.
"You think you're a hero," Ravenclaw said, gaining momentum. "But where were you during the war? Where were you when we were being tortured by your precious snakes?"
Harry felt his breath hasten, something cold crawling into his eyelids. "The Slytherins aren't my anything. They are their own. Do you think I'll stand aside and let you assume righteousness?" he said, bowling over the boy's words. Without realizing it, he had stalked forward. "Do you think I'll stand by and let you torture them just because you're own bloody pride's been damaged?"
"You have no idea what..." the boy started, breathing hard as he looked away. "Those monsters did."
"You have no idea what I've done."
The words came from a deep place, one he liked to pretend didn't exist. He'd murdered a professor when he was eleven. He'd faced a basilisk. For long moments of a lifetime, he'd been Voldemort.
His hand caught on fire, but the ward kept his flesh from being singed. It was ignorable.
"Do you even know who hurt you?" he dared. "Or do you just call them Slytherins and be done with it? You have no idea what they've been through." He eyed him in disgust. "Yet you can stand there and preach to me. I've met Death Eaters like you."
The boy flinched. "We're nothing like them!"
Harry lifted his brow. He couldn't say anymore. Not when his opponent was nothing but a child.
"You're right," he said softly. "Draco's nothing like you."
He turned back to the doors. Hermione was staring at him, her eyes on his face rather than his hand. He didn't know what he looked like to her, but he didn't enjoy it. Finally, she snapped out of it. With a curse she would deny later, she took hold of his sleeve again and bolted out of the hall.
He hated mail.