A/n: So, I had an anonymous review from a Guest that said I was underestimating the impact of child abuse. I'm assuming he/she was talking about the Dursleys and how they treat Harry. I would gladly start a discussion on my views in psychology, but I won't bore every one with it, so if you're out there 'Guest' send me a PM and we can talk in a friendly manner :)
To keep it short, I'll say that I myself have never suffered abuse, and I don't have a degree in psychology, so I won't claim to know all about it. But I think Harry is not acting unreasonable given the circumstances.
Also, there are enough fanfics out there about the Durlseys and Vernon being horrible to him, and I'm not focusing on that in this story. It's long enough as it is.
With this said, I'll leave room for the thirtieth chapter of Nevar. Enjoy :D
Chapter 30.
To Join or Not to Join
"The light!" Harry hissed as quietly as possible.
If the person in the hall, probably the surveillant on the girls' side, opened the door to the cupboard, she would immediately see the open trap door and the light filtering through it from the basement. They had to get the light out, or she would know someone was there!
The two friends raced at the same pace as their hearts towards the other end of the room to find the switch they'd turned on earlier. Harry's legs were the quickest, and he had the best reflexes to dodge the many obstacles, and he reached it first, almost slamming into the wall as he flicked it down, effectively shrouding them all in sudden darkness.
Far away at the other end of the room came the sound of an opening door… She had opened the cupboard. If a light went on, she would see the open trap door…
A few seconds passed, feeling like entire minutes to the two panting boys. But then the door simply closed again. The woman hadn't turned on the light, and without it, the cupboard corner would've been too dark for her to detect the open trap door, since Harry had turned off the light in the basement too.
They sighed together in relief, and feeling that they'd had quite enough adventure for one night, and more than pleased with the discovery of a new and exciting secret, they rejoined Harry's bedroom, where Ron was sleeping in Jeff's bed, and gave themselves over to exhaustion.
The next morning at breakfast, the two mischievous friends were obviously more exhausted than usual, dark shadows had formed under their eyes. Hermione was seated across from them, and Neville had had the courage to sit right next to her. It was still a challenge for the nervous boy to speak full sentences fluently, so he rather listened than joining the conversation, but he seemed nonetheless comfortable being among them, and even looking at them rather than inanimate objects on the floor or on the table.
At first, Harry was certain that they would get another lecture from their female friend, given that they'd almost been caught. He wasn't sure what the punishment was for boys found in the girls' dormitory, but from the look of the school and their accent on 'propriety' and good reputation, it must be quite severe; even if their intention hadn't been to infiltrate the girls' side of the building and just to find a way for Hermione to meet them more often than only during meals and for a short hour after school before she got to studying.
Because she really did quite a lot of that these days. Even for Hermione, she was studying more than usual. And the strangest thing of all was that she wasn't really getting more work done. It had struck the raven-haired boy as odd a few weeks ago, but he hadn't really paid more attention to it, having his own work to keep up with.
Hermione didn't protest on their adventure though. She looked quite enthusiastic at having found a meeting place for them, away from everyone else, and halfway between their dormitories. Even the idea of having to crawl through a trap door in a messy cupboard and into a basement smelling of damp mould and dry dust didn't seem to put her off.
That was the reason why the surprised Harry asked her if she was all right. It wasn't the first time, he'd asked her before, and she always replied the same.
"I'm fine. This school is just more demanding than I'd anticipated." She sighed.
"Hermione." Ron began in his grave voice that he used when he thought she was being silly or exaggerating. "You anticipated something the likes of university. It can't be any worse than that!"
The bushy-haired girl shrugged as she played with her piece of toast. It didn't look like she had any desire to put it in her mouth. And now more than ever, Harry got the feeling that something was bothering her.
"Are you behind on your homework?" He inquired on a light tone, trying not to make her suspicious, which was really hard with Hermione. If he asked a direct question about what was going on, she would shut herself off entirely. Harry recognized the mechanism, he'd used it more than a few times when they were still going to school in Surrey and he'd had trouble with his aunt and uncle.
"Well…a little." Hermione admitted, looking for once more uncomfortable than the puffy-cheeked boy seated next to her. "I…I got…detention." She spoke as if the world was soon coming to an end and they had to discuss how to kill themselves.
"Wait! What?" Ron blasted immediately. Harry wished his friend didn't just always blurt out what came to his mind without considering the consequences, and tried to pull at his arm under the table to make him back off.
"Who gave you detention?" Harry asked more calmly, pretending he wasn't all that interested as he continued eating his eggs.
"It's…two teachers, in fact." She looked worse and worse, her face going a pale shade of green. Ron's eyebrows pulled up higher and higher.
"Were they offended when you taught the class in their place, or something?" He sounded baffled. Their female friend would never disturb a class in any other way than giving away all the answers.
Hermione shook her head, her toast now completely abandoned. "I just didn't hand in my homework on time."
Ron had opened his mouth to say something, very probably something insensitive, and Harry pulled at his sleeve once more to let him know that he would speak instead.
"Is it that long essay that you had trouble with for history?" He mused aloud. Maybe she hadn't thought the result was satisfying and had refused to hand it in the way it was. To her something like that would make sense.
"No." She sighed. "It was just some minor things… I forgot about them."
There was a sense of wrong in her words. Harry felt that it wasn't really what had happened. First, Hermione rarely forgot anything, and if she did she always spotted it on time. And second, she always did minor things immediately, sometimes even before she left the class in which the homework had been given. She didn't waste any time to get something ready and out of the way for the more important things.
Either she was lying and there was another reason why she hadn't handed in her homework for two separate classes, or she had in fact forgotten to do it and that would be a sign that something was bothering her enough to make her so oblivious. In either case, there was a disturbance in the perfected study machine that was Hermione Granger.
But for the time being, Harry felt that inquiring further would only make her feel worse, so he decided to keep his eyes open for the time when she would come to him to talk about it.
Well, he hoped that she would. In the end, he had never willingly opened up to his friends about the touchy subjects. Should he ask her then? Instead of letting her come to him?
He looked up from his plate, but before he could say anything more, Hermione had subtly steered them to another subject.
"There's a new bit of gossip going around in the girls' dormitories." She said on a light, airy tone.
"Who's it about this time?" Ron wondered, sounding a little tired of all the girl chat that their friend brought to the table. In most cases it was just barely more interesting than study talk.
But Hermione's eyes flickered up in amusement this time, and it got the attention of the three boys sitting around her. "Draco." She stated.
Ron snorted. "That's nothing new. They're giggling about him all the time." He was a little annoyed.
Since the weather had started bringing them armies of murderously thick rain and loud, staggeringly strong winds for the autumn, both girls and boys had been forced to flock together in the hallways around the common dining hall during breaks. The school structures were much older than the more modern dormitories, and the high ceilings allowed for the animated whispers and conversations the groups of girls exchanged to echo all around them.
It had been interesting and a little funny at first to overhear everything they said, but after the first week it was just exasperating the boys, who just wanted to go outside and do something instead of having to suffer through all that chatter!
"The first and second years, yes." Hermione explained. "But the girls from the years above him don't usually talk about him."
Draco was quite popular among the youngest girls, but the ones older than him weren't interested in a young little brat, no matter how he looked or who his friends were.
"What are they saying?" Harry asked, his curiosity flaring. Her eyes certainly looked like she thought it was interesting.
"You know Camille Noir?" She looked at the three of them in turn as they nodded. Camille Noir was a fourth year student, and unlike her surname predicted, she had a golden blonde mane of hair falling to her shoulders, and clear blue eyes embedded in a slightly freckled face. To almost everyone she was known as a very sweet and bright girl, and had some success with older boys from the fifth and sixth years, who thought she was very cute. Hermione had already brought them the gossiping news that Camille had gone out the previous year with Oliver Wood, the football team captain and head of the boys' dormitory. Also a very popular guy among all the girls in school.
In short, everyone knew Camille and probably her entire love life. This was a boarding school after all, and there just weren't enough students for everything to remain anonymous.
"What about her?" Ron asked, sounding just a little bit more interested now. He always gazed after Camille for a second whenever she passed them in the halls or on the grounds, though he kept assuring them he had no interest whatsoever.
"They're saying now that she has something going on with Draco. It's a mixed atmosphere among the girls. Some love the match, because they both have fair hair and eyes, but a lot are resentful of Camille now, or envy her." Hermione whispered. Then she straightened up and spoke in a harsher tone, "Which I think is silly, really. There is no evidence that Draco is seeing anyone."
Harry was slightly puzzled, wondering why Hermione was suddenly speaking louder, as if she wanted someone to hear her. But the nature of the information that she had just related to them was keeping his attention elsewhere.
Draco with a girlfriend? Harry had never even bothered to look at girls, let alone consider going out with one. He was still very much at that stage where girls were strange creatures to be avoided. Hermione was an exception, but she was hardly girly, except for the bits of gossip she sometimes brought them.
On the other hand, Draco was already thirteen, and by the end of the year would turn fourteen! Harry was still trailing behind with his measly ten little years. When he looked at it that way, it really wasn't fair! Just because he'd been born three years later, his older friend would always be somewhere ahead of him, with one foot into a world that Harry couldn't reach.
The raven glanced sideways at his red-headed friend. Ron had already showed some interest in girls. He was one year older of course, but was that really such a big difference? Maybe he should start paying more attention to the herds of girls moving around the school.
But really, it looked like more trouble than it was worth. Love and such. In all the books he'd read, it had ended tragically, or the lovers had had to go through so much that it was hardly appealing.
Sure, the passion of it had spoken to Harry. It was an adventure, a foreign concept after all. But the boy, despite his obvious maturity, was not at all aware of sexual matters and anything remotely related to it.
So it came rather as a surprise when he discovered just how much sex and everything that has to do with it was a topic of conversation among the boys in the dorms. When boys visited each other's rooms or held little gatherings and parties in the night, if they did not talk about it all evening, there was at least one moment where the attention would shift to such matters.
Usually, the elder boys spoke about their experiences, and the younger ones listened. If the first or second years had anything to say, it was usually something they'd heard from older siblings, or seen their parents do by accident. Their innocent minds drank in everything the upperclassmen said and practically considered it as the gospel, discussing it later when they were back in their own rooms or between classes at school in hushed tones. It was their form of gossip.
Seeing as Harry wasn't particularly interested, and both he and Ron were a little uncomfortable with the boys of this school and still had trouble fitting in very well, they didn't participate much, and only caught snippets here and there.
That is, until they joined the football team.
"Oh, come off it!" Draco drawled, leaning back into one of the mouldy sofa's of the underground room, by the painting of the fat lady in the pink dress that they'd come to refer to as 'The Fat Lady'.
Harry started to open his mouth in protest, but Hermione took their defence before he could utter a syllable.
"Actually…I think it's a good idea. It would help to fit in more and make new friends among the students." She said.
"I have friends! I introduced you to all of them!" Draco countered, turning to her for she was sitting next to him on the two-person sofa. They were facing Ron and Harry on the other couch. It was their usual sitting arrangement on the few evenings they gathered there every week.
"I meant," Hermione argued back. "that they could make their own connections, develop…you know…a network."
"You make it sound so official." Ron frowned at her. "It sounds like we're a bunch of politilitians."
"It's politicians, Ron." The knowledgeable girl corrected immediately. "And in this kind of school, it works the same way as politics. It's all about who you know."
"That's not true." The third-year fell in. "I've never had to do anything like that."
"That's because it's easy for you." Hermione said, and she sounded both envious and accusing.
"That's true." Harry agreed with what Hermione said, finally finding a moment to speak again. Heated discussions among the four of them were always…intense. "You just make friends like that, like it's a piece of cake." And I don't. He thought but didn't add.
It wasn't something the raven liked to admit, but during the many gatherings that they had in their own private hiding place under the dormitories, they had come to an unspoken agreement of openness and honesty. In this isolated room, among themselves, they had started to feel in a safe bubble, comfortable enough with each other that they shared most of what preoccupied them.
Not all. There were clear, though unspoken, boundaries. No one ever brought up Draco's father, or Harry's parents for example. And the raven had still not found out why Hermione still acted unlike herself sometimes, why he had the feeling that she was hiding something from them. She hadn't come forward with it, and he didn't want to confront her or put her on the spot.
"What do you mean, just like that?" Draco turned on Harry now. "How else are you supposed to make friends? It's not like you have to work for it, or think about it. If you like someone, and they like you, it's fine."
Hermione shook her head at Draco and sighed. That was not something the blonde appreciated: feeling like he was considered an idiot, an ignorant child. And by someone two years younger than him!
"Making friends is not that simple." The first-year girl explained. "For anyone who is at ease with the social conventions and has all the characteristics that endear them to other individuals in this society at this particular moment, it's quite effortless. But the dynamics going on within groups, be it human or animal, is more complicated than you'd think. It may feel natural to you, and that's why you don't think about it, but when you lack something, or a certain ability and ease with relations and conversations, it becomes a complex task that has to be performed with effort and care. Take Neville for instance." She added when it looked like she'd lost Draco and Ron. "You see how his speech problem affects his ability to communicate with anyone, and how it impedes his progress in making new connections.
Now, social isolation can as much be the cause as the result of stuttering, so I really can't say anything for certain. It's not an exact science, you know. What I meant is that for many people, being a part of society is difficult. Don't take it for granted."
Harry was amazed. It was perfectly true. As she said it, he found that he agreed completely. He had never thought of it that way or in such complex terms, but he had felt that…lack of social skills, or whatever his problem was, with many people before. It was never easy to fit in anywhere. In fact, the only places where he had 'belonged' in his entire life had been with his parents, and right this moment in the basement of the dormitories with his three best friends.
"I'm officially naming you Einstein the second." Ron muttered, turning away from Hermione as if in disgust. Luckily the girl knew better than to be offended by his rudeness, she understood he just hadn't followed her explanation and was disgruntled about it. The redhead didn't like to be excluded because he couldn't follow, but he didn't like to ask for explanations either.
"Einstein was a physicist, not an anthropologist, or whatever this speech was about." Draco intervened, jumping on the opportunity to say something, because he simply didn't know how to respond to what Hermione had said. She was eleven for Merlin's sake! It was no wonder no one wanted to be friends with her, if she said things like that all the time!
Ron could only glare at Draco for having been corrected yet again. Tension was rising, as it quite often did with their conflicting personalities and interests and lives. Harry had always found himself as the diplomat between Ron and Hermione, and had continued with that role when Draco had joined.
"Anyway," he started in a tone that was obvious he was trying to change the subject, effectively reverting to the topic they had started with. "The football team's try-outs for new players are next weekend, and we were invited to go. Though it was more like a challenge. Oliver was provoking everyone to make sure we would all come."
"They're all wazzocks running around a pitch," Draco made it clear he was still against the idea, whatever Hermione said about 'networking' and the 'dynamics within social groups'. "Too afraid to dirty themselves to touch the ball. It wouldn't be like playing in your backyard." He addressed Ron. Draco had joined once or twice in one of the Weasley football games before he moved away to Somerset, and he'd never mentioned them again because Harry was in fact better at it than him. (Something, finally!)
"Look, they probably won't even take us, so why can't we just try?" Harry hadn't been so determined to go through with it at first. He'd just thought 'why not?' and had proposed to Draco to join too, but since he was being so opposed to it, Harry had started to want it more and more. Draco telling him what to do or not to do always made him want to do the exact opposite, because it really wasn't fair that the Draco still often thought himself the 'older' and therefore 'superior' one.
"Because it's stupid! Oliver and the rest, they're just…you know."
But there was nothing more he could say. The apparent dislike the blonde held for the team captain and dorm head was inexplicable. They'd clashed on the first day Draco had started school, and ever since the hostility had grown worse. He did not want to lose his Harry to the enemy camp. And Ron either. The red-head was his friend too, after all. No one could steal his friends.
The silence made it clear that Harry's attempt at dissipating the tension had failed. He glanced awkwardly at Hermione, whom he hoped would have another dazzling explanation to clear things up. It was with surprise that he saw her fixing him with a significant look, as if she were trying to communicate something to him.
He returned her a questioning look, for he really had no idea what she had in mind. In the end she rolled her eyes at him, then started to speak in a tentative, careful tone.
"The fact that you're practically allergic to Oliver Wood…does it have anything to do with Camille?"
Now it was Draco's turn to look at her questioningly? "Camille?"
"Camille Noir." She specified. "From fourth year."
"I know who she is." Draco snapped.
Both Harry and Ron had started leaning forwards, highly interested in the conversation Hermione had sparked to life. The raven had completely forgotten the matter of the gossips involving Camille and Draco. It had been two months since the first time Hermione had brought it up, and apparently it was still circulating, or else she wouldn't have paid enough attention to it to bring it up again now.
"Well…" The girl bravely continued. The blonde third-year was getting these really scary eyes, the ones everyone shied away from. "She went out with Oliver last year. I heard her tell another girl about it."
"Yes, I know, Hermione." Draco's voice was arctic. "I still don't understand what she saw in that clown."
That remark earned a glance from Hermione to the two others. Clearly she thought it meant something. But in these matters, Harry really felt as clueless as his Weasley counterpart. He couldn't fathom what she was thinking. Was Draco really going out with Camille? But in the four months since the start of term, and all the time they had spent together, he'd never mentioned it.
"Is it because she went out with him that you dislike him so much?" Hermione pushed further.
A thunderstorm broke out in silence behind Draco's grey irises, directing thunderbolts at the girl sitting next to him. She cringed slightly, but the corner of her mouth twitched in satisfaction. She had her answer. Yes, Draco like Camille. And she was surprised to find herself as pleased about it as all the gossiping girls from her dorm. Camille was really bright and cute and sweet. It was one of the few Hermione had come to like, even though she'd barely exchanged a word or a greeting with her. (Camille was a fourth year after all.) If Hermione could have wished for a good enough girl for one of her friends to have a crush on, it would've been her.
It wasn't such an easy conclusion for the raven however. Being a boy, and being younger, he was far behind Hermione in such matters. He was feeling quite lost and he kept quiet, thinking that he really needed some time to himself to mull things over. For instance, he needed to really think whether Camille could be considered as attractive. He'd heard many say it, and Ron clearly was affected by her, but he himself really had to think about it.
With the realisation that it was already past midnight, and that it was only Wednesday and they had to get to class in the morning, Hermione and the boys split up to return to their respective dorms and rooms. Ron slept in Harry's room, and Draco in his own that he shared with his friend Benjamin, leaving the discussion about joining the football team unresolved. They didn't even speak to each other or said goodbye. The blonde was really put off.
But once Harry had made a decision, there was no dissuading him. The next weekend, both he and Ron stood in borrowed sports shorts on the pitch by the tree-line, in the freezing fog of a December morning, listening to Oliver's instructions among a group of other first and second years that had decided to apply.
As it turned out, Draco had been right. Most of the boys ran around as if they didn't need Oliver's instructions, deeming to know for themselves how the sport was played. They didn't work together either, for each seemed to think that they were the star player and would dribble all the way through the enemy's defences to score goals single-handedly in a glory of applause. They were more worried about puddles of mud than running after the ball, because they all wore shoes that had cost their parents three hundred quid and their mothers would have them hanged if they dared to tarnish the new shine of them. (The logic behind it being that once they look used you cannot show them off anymore.)
And as it turned out, Harry had been wrong. For all the reasons listed above, it was precisely him and Ron that were picked by an exasperated Oliver Wood to join his team.
"Let's face it, you're no gold, but at least you act as an actual team player with spirit!" He told them in the changing room once all the rejects had left. "I need spirit! Motivation! You have to want the ball, but you also have to be able to give him to another player because you also want to score! We need to win, all right! I can't let Flint get away with another victory."
Oliver could rant and rant for hours in heated speeches that ended in him talking to himself most of the time. The two first-years learned in the following practice sessions like all the other team members that it was simpler to just nod and stare and wait for it to be over, because going against Oliver meant that practice would be shifted to begin at six o'clock in the morning on both Saturdays and Sundays. Something no one wanted and certainly not in the bitter cold and darkness of the winter months.
Despite Oliver being a little competitive and overly enthusiastic at times, Harry thought he was a good team captain. He was kind and fair, and even though Harry and Ron were just reserve players and still had a few years training before them to play in an actual match against other schools, he included them as much as he could.
The other players were nice enough. They were more concerned about playing than about their appearance while doing it, and that made it just a little easier for Ron and Harry to relate with them and be included. But being the little new ones was hard. All the other were from the years above them, and they were a little intimidating. They liked to tease them and give them menial tasks like fetching water bottles and sports gear and such when Oliver wasn't there to defend the ever so holy team spirit.
It wasn't like they were bullies though, so Harry and Ron were able to put up with it, and enjoy playing like they'd done so much in the haphazard back yard of the Weasley family. It felt familiar and a little bit like home in this alien and intimidating place.
One thing the raven found himself regretting after his first week of having joined the team. And that was the fact that his best friend was still angry that Harry had gone through with it despite his protest. Apparently, Draco had taken it as a kind of betrayal, and had refused to eat breakfast or dinner with them any longer, or to share a bed with Harry, or to sit next to him in European Literature.
This was a separation worse than the one the raven had endured during the two years they'd been apart. While he hadn't been able to see Draco in person back then, he had been able to communicate with him constantly by mail. Now he could see Draco, but couldn't speak to him. And the raven felt painfully lonely all of a sudden. A kind of ache in his chest that he hadn't felt since he'd abruptly lost his parents. It was enough to make him slip away from time to time by day or by night if he could, and seek out Hedwig who he knew was sometimes to be found in an imposing oak tree that stood proudly by the entrance gate of the school.
He suspected that she went back and forth between that tree and Hagrid's place, because she often disappeared for a week at a time. She probably couldn't miss either of them. And Harry was glad. What would he do without her to appease his heart when it was wounded?
I am SO floccinaucinihilipilificationly (it's not the right use for the word but I just wanted an original word for once :p But it's an actual word, you can look it up if you want) happy with all the reviews on the flash forward!
I said it many times, and it has probably lost all its meaning, but THANK YOU! It was floccinaucinihilipilificationly fantastic! (again not the right use of the word but from now on I will adopt it as a synonym for 'very', because I'm tired of all the others)
I'm getting more and more excited to start the second part, which I've decided to call 'Snow' because both you and I seem to prefer that title. I'm estimating that I'll be able to post the prologue for the sequel before the end of the month. So we have time to build up all the anticipation and explode in fireworks for the start of the second part ^^
I'm just kidding of course. I'm just getting all worked up by myself, sorry :p
But it means a lot to me to see all your reactions to what I write. It makes it all worth it, and I can't wait to see what you all think of this chapter. Open the floodgates and don't be afraid to drown me in reviews, as you can see it can only do me good, even if you feel like criticizing some thing or other, I'm always willing to work on my flaws :)
THANK YOU! (and please don't think I'm crazy now for shouting at you like that, and for using weird words in the wrong way :s)
Aoiika
