Chapter 6
It was the day of the Yule Ball, Christmas, and Harry had woken up to an excited Neville. They went downstairs before anyone else and looked through the presents they had been given, Harry didn't get anything too large, the usual gifts including the jumper with a dragon on the chest that was knitted by Mrs Weasley.
When Nathan and his group came down they left, Nathan and Harry sharing a look that hid the violent intent behind Nathan's eyes.
Nathan had been rejected by Fleur the day before, wanting to take her to the dance and Harry had made the mistake of laughing at his brother. Nathan was changing, even more so than before he seemed to think highly of himself and his internal anger was almost visible.
"I need to do something about him" Harry said as he and Neville walked to have breakfast. They didn't have school so that were dressed in normal clothes. "He's only going to get worse."
"You mean Nathan?" Neville inquired.
"Yeah" Harry let out a sigh. "He needs to learn he isn't as good as he thinks he is, but I'm not sure how to do that other than to fight him. Something I'd like to avoid considering I have no idea who would win between the two of us."
"I've never seen him fight before. What is it like?" Neville asked.
"A lot like me, but that's to be expected considering we have the same teachers, Sirius taught me a little more when we were younger and Remus for him, which is probably why there is a slight variation, that as well as us being different." He pushed on the door to the Great hall and they entered, very few people were there. "Nathan is more violent when he fights and is very much an offensive type."
"Aren't you offensive too?"
"Kind of, but not as much as him. I prefer to have a balance between offence and defence, Nathan would prefer to have all the control in a battle and end it as quickly as he can." They took their seats. "What about you?"
"What about me what?" Neville asked, a little confused as to what the question was.
"Can you fight?"
"Well, not really. My magic took a while to show up so I never had all that prior training stuff that you and Nathan had."
"Most kids probably feel the same way. Maybe we should make a club to help practice or skills."
"That's a great idea!"
"Yeah, but there is one problem."
"Which is?"
"Where would we have it? And who would join?" he gave a sigh. "Not many people will want to be taught by a kid, they think the lessons are enough."
"True, but it might be better to start it next year anyway, it will give us time to set everything up and find members. Also, the whole tournament will be too distracting."
"We should also think about who else could help teach. After all, I'm not exactly the best when it comes to my range of spells."
xXxXxXx
The ball was exciting to begin with, but as the night dragged on the event was just a drag. His partner and he danced for a while, over an hour but she had to go help her friend who was experiencing some kind of issue with her friend, which left him alone.
Harry got a drink first. He felt pretty lonely, but he didn't want to drag Neville and Hermione away from their dance on his account. He ended up leaving the hall and walking outside the castle. He looked around before he addressed the eyes that were on him.
"Nathan what do you want?"
Nathan jumped out from behind a tree. Harry noted that his wand was in his hand. "Can't I just check in on my brother?"
"Yes, but you don't do that." Harry replied. "What do you want?" his eyes narrowed as he moved a hand behind him and grasped his wand. Nathan noticed and put his wand away.
"Relax, I don't want to fight you right now. Just wanted to ask you a question."
"Which is?"
"The second task. That golden egg or whatever. Have you figured it out yet?"
"Yeah."
"I'm ever so slightly impressed. Barely though." He walked over to his brother so they looked like they were having a conversation from the distance. "Do yourself a favour and don't tell the others, you need the edge. Don't be an embarrassment to our name."
Harry but his tongue before he could retaliate to the comment, although he wanted nothing more than to hit his brother. Nathan then left without saying anything else.
Harry remained for a while, sitting on his own before he decided to return to the ball. He was still cooking up ideas of how to deal with his brother until he entered the room.
Moving to a seating area he dropped into the comfort of the cushioned chair.
He watched the dance floor, his eyes drifting to the silvery blonde that was dancing with an older Ravenclaw. He couldn't help but feel his chest tighten slightly in jealousy, but he relaxed a little when he noticed the bored expression on her face.
He like the other boys all looked as though they were drooling over her appearance, he felt sorry for her. It wasn't the same, but he could relate to that attention and he wanted her to save her from it. Swallowing his fear he walked over to the couple as a song ended. They had stopped with the music so it was the best time to do it.
"Excuse me Roger" Harry interrupted the weak conversation they were having. They both looked at him, as did several of the others there.
"What is it Harry?" he said with some hostility, Fleur scowled at the response provided.
"I was wondering if I could have this dance?" Harry asked.
Fleur didn't give Roger a chance to reply and instead broke from him, then she offered her hand to Harry who took it and kissed the back of her hand gently. "It would be my pleasure Arry" she said as he did so. Roger's scowl was easy to see but Fleur didn't care, it was only because of her allure and she was too excited to dance with Harry.
In her opinion it was so much better to be with Harry, he wasn't exactly confident at dancing but it was good, he at least looked like he knew what he was doing, at least if you weren't as close as she was. It made her smile that he was willing to try so hard though.
She didn't know why, but just being around him made her happy, it also brought an image to her mind of when she had kissed him and blushed after he walked her home, it made her a little embarrassed, but that faded when she looked into his emerald eyes.
Even though he only asked for one dance Fleur insisted on several of them, and by the time she was happy to let him go… well not happy, but as close as she was going to get. The ball was over. Roger grunted at Harry in a way that gave him a foreboding feeling.
"Zank you Arry" Fleur thanked him as they left the room, arms linked.
"It's fine. I could tell that you didn't want to be there… but, I was wondering why you even took him if you knew he'd be like that?"
"I was set up with 'im last minute, I 'ad 'oped zat 'e could at least resist slightly, but zat wasn't ze case." She informed him.
"Well, I'm glad I could help" he said. She gave him a kiss on the cheek before they parted ways.
"On a scale of one to ten how bad did you want that to be on his lips?" her friend teased. Fleur had been unaware that she had been there until she had spoken.
"High."
"What about the number, I want specifics here Fleur" she pleaded, but Fleur paid it no mind and ignored the whining teen.
xXxXxXx
Nathan had just finished his nightly training session, walking out with a sweat he headed to the common room and then to the shower where he washed. He got several strange looks, no doubt wondering why he looked so tired, but it didn't matter. He didn't care.
The others had followed him and took showers after he had. It had been some weeks since the ball and he was still bitter over his rejection. "I can't believe she turned me down, but decided that she would dance with him of all people" he said as he changed into fresh clothes, a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.
Dropping onto his bed he lay a towel on his pillow to protect it from his still slightly wet hair. "Quidditch seeker, basilisk slayer and now the Hogwarts' second champion. I'm done with him." Nathan said.
"You were even nice enough to help him out" Ron added.
"Exactly!" Nathan gritted his teeth. "Don't worry, I think it's time we taught him and his following what true power was don't you?" he asked wickedly. Ron and Seamus seemed to agree, but Dean had a lot of hesitation and even though he said the words he knew one thing. He wanted out.
The next day their first lesson was defence against the dark arts. They were each given the task of creating group projects, split into groups of three. Hermione went with a group of girls so Dean pounced on the opportunity to help Harry and Neville, who were very cautious about him being in their group.
The project was pretty simple. Improve and write about their fighting techniques, they were given until next term to complete it due to the depth of the write up. Moody was probably trying to learn about how they each fought while sharpening their skills. Smart.
Next they had potions. A class which Harry was paired not with his normally friends but with Daphne Greengrass.
He assumed that she was going to be like the other Slytherins, but to his surprise she was actually a nice person. "I don't get why you go along with him" Harry said as they worked on their potion, glancing to Malfoy.
"I could say the same about your brother." She retorted.
"My brother has a very small following of people, he might be getting worse but he still isn't like Malfoy… yet."
"I guess that's true." She sighed as she cut up a strange looking ingredient and dropped it into the orange mixture. "Malfoy uses his family's power to get whatever he wants. No family in our house can stand up to him and even Snape favours him over us. We have to do it."
"Isn't your family also elite?" he asked.
"True, but we aren't as powerful as the Malefoy's. If we went head to head we'd lose."
"If there were more than one of you it would work."
"True, but as far as I know I'm the only one that thinks that way and it would make things difficult for my sister too."
"You're the only one in the whole of Slytherin?" he asked with a little doubt.
"No, there are others but I'm the only one that I know of in our year. My sister feels the same as I do and wants to do something about it, but we can't" she said as if she was disappointed in herself for not being capable, but it wasn't like she could instantly improve her families status to beat Malfoy.
"If you ever want to escape it all let me know, I'd be happy to help." He offered, he received a grateful smile in return.
"Thank you, I might just take you up on that at some point." She wanted to change the subject. "Tell me, what about your family?"
"Well, Nathan was born a little over nine months before me so he is the eldest in the family. After our parents died Sirius took us in and Remus also helped to raise us."
"Remus? As in Professor Lupin?"
"Yeah."
"To be fair you did seem pretty close with him." She stated to justify his claim.
"Yeah, well that is because he is like our uncle. We learned a lot from them from the moment we used accidental magic for the first time. We learned probably more than we should to be honest."
"Hence why you're more advanced in magic than most people in our year" she muttered, not meaning for him to hear, but he did and a smile appeared on his face.
"My brother started talking to this picture, Sirius' mother and because of that he picked up some of her opinions when we were young. I think that's why he is so different." He thought back to the screaming painting that always objected to them being in the house. "He isn't a purist though. After all we aren't purebloods so he would be hypocritical if he did believe in any of it… sort of like Tommy."
"Who?"
"Tom Riddle, the real name of Voldemort" she shuddered at the mention of his name. He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Relax, he isn't here to hurt you and even if he was using his name wouldn't be his reason to kill you or anyone, he'd just do it for the fun." She gulped at the news.
"Aren't you afraid of him… you know… after he took your parents?"
"No." he said without hesitation. "I don't think I should be, no one should be." She looked at him like he was mad, but as he continued his words made more sense. "Tom is going to kill everyone that won't give in to him whether they use his name or not" he let out a sigh. "Being afraid will change nothing, so there's no point being it. I'm going to enjoy my life and won't let the possible threat of Voldemort stop me."
He decided not to mention the fact that he was having repeated dreams caused by his scar, which he was convinced was more than that, after all, what else but something magical could explain why he and his brother were experiencing the same, there had to be some connection, and if he was to guess it would probably lie in the dark aspects of magic as opposed to the light and he needed to learn about it.
Author's Note: Next chapter is the second task. Please leave a review if you have the time. Daphne isn't going to be a romantic interest, she will be a friend in his eyes.
