CHAPTER 5: Out of the Shadows (Part 5)

Hogwarts Grounds

September 15th, 1995

10:50 a.m.

"You did what!?" Daphne hissed, her eyes almost dripping with fury.

Harry was walking with his fellow Slytherins as they walked to the Care of Magical Creatures area near Hagrid's shack. The morning wind was breezy and comfortable as the group made their way down the grounds.

After last night's colossal failure, he'd been avoiding all the others in hopes of not having to tell them about his midnight encounter with Granger. He managed to not talk to them all morning, ignoring them in classes when they tried to send him signals to join them, and refusing to go to the Great Hall and give them the chance to ambush him.

Double period of Herbology had been incredibly boring, but at least he managed to get some reading done after in their History of Magic class. However, the constant hunger coming from his stomach didn't make his day any better, and the time that the Care of Magical Creatures class was about to begin, Harry accidentally stumbled upon the group, leaving him defenceless to their ambuscade.

"You can shout louder, I don't think they heard you back in the castle," he remarked idly, noticing that Hermione, who was walking ahead of them with the rest of the Gryffindors, had not missed her screech and turned to look in their direction.

"You absolute moron!" She continued, being more careful with her voice as she let the group walk on ahead. "You had one job! Listen in on them and then tell us what they were planning, not acting on your own! Not even someone like Goyle could fuck that up!"

"First of all, I think you're heavily underestimating our family-sized friend." Goyle gave him the finger, and the rest of the Slytherins glared at him. "Second, I know what I did is not ideal, but-"

"Not ideal?" He'd never seen Daphne look this crossed, not even when Blaise stole her wand in the middle of class and didn't give it to her for a couple of days. "Potter, you might as well have tossed our plan into the rubbish!"

"I didn't manage to get them to change their plan, so it's not like I ruined everything." He insisted. "Besides, we still have the thingy-"

"If you think that Granger isn't going to figure out how you listened in on them, you haven't been paying attention! You're still underestimating her, and everyone else! Get off your high horse, you're not as wise and mighty as you might think."

"Yeah, mate," Theo smiled awkwardly. "You really fucked it up."

"I told you that bringing in Potter was a mistake, but none of you listened!" Malfoy complained.

"I'm gonna fix this," Harry told them.

"And how are you planning on doing that?" Daphne inquired sardonically.

"Well, I'm gonna start by giving you back the thingy to prove that this won't happen again." He really didn't want to have to do this, but at this point, he didn't really have any other choice.

"Oh, that was besides the point, Potter. I had made up my mind on that before you even finished telling us about what happened."

"Alright, tough crowd," Harry mumbled.

"What else will you do?"

"Well, first I need to know what we're gonna do. What do you think of Granger's idea?"

Greengrass stayed pensive for a while. "Well, let's just said I'm glad Granger handed you your arse because I happen to agree with her, that's a great why to start fighting back against Umbridge."

"You're agreeing with the Mudblood?" Malfoy asked sceptically.

"She is a Mudblood, but she isn't devoid of a brain like you, Malfoy." Daphne rolled her eyes. "We need to start by undermining Umbridge from the shadows, and this is how we do it. I don't know what the deal is with Potter, but trying what you suggested to her last night was idiotic. I thought you were supposed to be smart!"

"I am," Harry said through gritted teeth. "The smartest thing we can do is to eliminate Umbridge before she gets any more power."

"It's impossible, we talked about that. As much as we would want to do that, we can't. But we banding the students together before she gets more control of the school is setting up strong foundations to be able to make it through the year."

"What if we just kill her?" Crabbe suggested as if proposing a casual night out.

"I'm gonna try to ignore how insignificant murder is to a guy who sleeps right beside me and focus on the logical aspect of your idea," Harry said, slightly disturbed. "Well, first let's talk about how it's pretty much impossible to kill someone at Hogwarts given the amount of house-elves, portraits, and ghosts inside the castle. There is no one corner that isn't heavily watched at all times. Then there's the wards of the castle that immediately alert the Headmaster if a murder has been committed inside the grounds - which extend to the forbidden forest and Black Lake as well, in case you were wondering - and where it happened, making it impossible to get away with it. And finally, Umbridge holds one of the highest positions in the Ministry, which means that it would be a top case where the Aurors would use their whole power to investigate and find the murderer, something that's incredibly easy even without all the things I mentioned before, because of things like Veritaserum, Legilimency, and other methods that we may not know about. Does that answer your question, or should I come up with a few other reasons why that's a horrible idea?"

"Settle down, settle down," Professor Grubby-Plank told them before Crabbe could say anything. "Is everyone here? Good. Now, if you will all join me-"

Daphne rolled her eyes, giving him a look before walking to the left side, followed by Theo, Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, and Bullstrode. Not really feeling like going and hanging out with the Gryffindors, specially since he'd been avoiding Granger's eye the whole morning, Harry went with them.

"Now, can anyone tell me what these things are called?" The Professor continued, but Harry wasn't paying attention anymore.

"Alright," he whispered into Daphne's ear. "I have an idea."

"Oh, great, another one of your ideas. Tell me, how do you propose to fuck the plan up this time?"

"What do you want me to say, Greengrass? That I fucked up? I know I did, but unlike you, I'm prioritizing on finding a way to fixing my mistake rather than focusing on it like you are. So are you going to listen to me or just continue trying out jokes for your stand-up routine?"

Daphne looked at him, almost seeming disgusted. "You're so weird."

Harry put up the fakest smile he could. "Bite me."

"Mister Potter," Grubby-Plank called out to him, interrupting his conversation.

"Yes, ma'am?" He asked.

"Will you stop flirting with Miss Greengrass and tell me what these are and where they can be found around the world?"

The Slytherins behind him sniggered, and Daphne deftly elbowed him. "I wasn't-" Harry groaned silently before looking down. "Oh, those are Bowtruckles - tiny stick people that live up in the trees. I think they're found only in Europe, mostly in England and Germany."

"That is correct, Mister Potter. Though, I would suggest finding other ways to describe them than tiny stick people. Five points to Slytherin. Now, as Mister Potter stated-"

"What's your idea?" Daphne insisted once the Professor had focused on the Gryffindors.

"Well, the whole point is for the Gryffindors to be the ones who take all the risk, right," she nodded. "But at the same time, we're gonna have to get involved if we're gonna make sure that Umbridge doesn't beat them. We had the microphone, but like you said, Granger's probably gonna find out about it soon."

"All I'm hearing is how you're telling me you ruined the whole plan."

"So," he continued, ignoring her interruption. "We're gonna have to be close with them, except that there's no way they are gonna trust us because of how tense house politics between Gryffindors and Slytherins have been this year. Not unless, someone joins them in taking a risk."

"Are you suggesting we scapegoat one of the others?" She asked, slightly surprised.

"No, I'm suggesting that we scapegoat me." He sighed. "Let's face it, it'll be a cold day in hell before the trio trusts you, Parkinson, Draco, or pretty much any other Slytherin. The only possible options are most likely Blaise or me, but Blaise is smart enough to know that the risk is too big to be worth it."

"And you're not?" She asked sarcastically.

"Of course I am," Harry all but spat. "But I want Umbridge out, and if none of us is on the inside, we're gonna have to take an even more public stance against her, which is something I don't want. Besides, I'm the reason why we're forced into this position."

"Alright, we'll go with your plan." She said dismissively, before waving his hand at him and signalling to stop bothering her.

Harry wasn't surprised that she had taken up his proposal as fast as she did. It was honestly incredibly stupid of himself to take that much risk, and it would make it so that she was completely absolved of anything, obviously she wouldn't question him or try to dissuade him. A part of him hated himself for agreeing - no, suggesting this in the first place. He must be going soft, or stupid, at this point, he didn't see a difference between the two.

The rest of the class with Grubby-Plank was as boring as he thought it might be, he was surprised to find that he missed Hagrid as the teacher for the class. At least there was always something large and majestic to look at, and he didn't shy away from the interesting creatures. After that, Potions was as big a torture as always, though he managed to not lose any more points for the house, which was more than Longbottom and Weasley could say.

Finally finishing his classes for the day, Harry wasn't really in the mood for training or doing homework, even though he had a few more essays that people had requested of him during the day. So instead of heading for the Room of Requirement, the library, or even the Slytherin common room, he went to what the students called the rec room.

The rec room was actually not a place installed by the founders, headmasters, or even teachers. Instead, it was a large, abandoned classroom located in the third-floor. Back when Hogwarts was filled to the brim with students and all the classrooms were used, this used to be the teacher's lounge. However, as time went on and Ministry schools opened around the country, diminishing the population inside the castle to only those of the biggest and most notable families around, as well as the most gifted or richest Muggle-borns, the staff was cut and the teacher's lounge was moved to a smaller room on the ground floor, leaving this one completely abandoned and ready to be used.

Over the years, the students had filled it with a bunch of stuff. There were chess, Gobstones, and exploding snap playbenches for people who enjoyed those games. Tables also filled the centre of the room, for people would sit down in those tall stools and eat or do something else. Couches and armchairs could also be found all around the space, those were usually the most fought for places in the whole room and were usually occupied by the popular students of the school. It had pretty much everything a teenager could ask for in a recreational room.

All the teachers new about how the abandoned classroom was being used, they had since the students started occupying it around the late 1700s. Some headmasters allowed it, one of them being Dumbledore, and even saw it as the perfect way for inter-house interactions. Other headmasters, the more conservative ones, outright banned it.

Harry had never been a personal fan of the room himself. It was always separated by pseudo factions, and the feeling of sitting alone there wasn't exactly the ideal Friday night for him. But today, with nothing better to do, he decided he didn't have anything to lose and headed over to waste some time - only to instantly regret it the minute he entered.

The room was filled to the brim, which wasn't a surprise given how it was Friday afternoon. Pretty much the whole castle was there, with some notable exceptions, mainly that of the Gryffindor trio, the try-hard students who focused solely on school, and the whole Ravenclaw Quidditch team.

Harry looked around, there was no organized set-up; there were groups of just girls, groups of just guys, mixed groups, groups of just one house, groups of multiple houses, groups of teams like the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, the Chess club, the Gobstones team, among others.

Just as he was about to turn to leave, he heard someone calling out his name. "Potter!"

Harry turned around and found Theo and Blaise waving him over from the nearest corner. Too late to leave the room, he sighed and walked towards them.

"Hey, guys, what's up?"

"Don't be a stranger," Blaise said cheerfully. "Sit down."

Harry was slightly shell-shocked that they would invite him, but he didn't let it show. Not that they would've noticed anyway, given how they jumped right back into whatever conversation they were having.

"He's taking over Bole as captain, and he's intense, like intense intense - dude wants us to wake up at five in the morning every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to train from six to nine. Like, even without taking into consideration that five in the morning in an inhumane hour to wake up at, classes start at nine thirty! How can he expect us to shower, get ready, and then walk up all the way to the castle!"

"Why don't you just quit, man?" Blaise asked.

"Quit? Quidditch? Have you gone mental!"

"You were just complaining about it!"

"I mean, yeah, but it's Quidditch. Besides, you know how my parents are about it, they love having a Quidditch superstar son."

"So humble," Harry said sardonically, instantly regretting the comment.

Theo looked at him, and then laughed. "Oh, please, as if you're humble."

Relieved that Nott had taken his comment as banter rather than an insult, Harry smiled. "Well, we're Slytherins, we're nothing if not proud of our achievements, aren't we?"

"Exactly! Besides, rumour is that Snape is going to make me the captain next year, so quitting now would just be stupid!"

"Well, of course they'd make you captain!" Blaise chimed in. "Who else? Malfoy?" The three laughed.

"He's not half-bad, I mean, we would've won on second year if it wasn't for the whole Chamber incident stopping the Quidditch Cup."

"Yeah, but McLaggen was the seeker that year, and he sucked! Weasley easily beat his arse in third year"

"Yeah, but she's a menace! Best seeker in the school and all."

"Someone has a crush," Blaise teased.

"I mean, she is hot. Have you seen her this year!?"

"Why don't you ask her to marry you already?" Harry deadpanned.

"Who knows, I just might." He shrugged with a smile.

"Come on, Theo," Blaise sounded disappointed. "Weasley? She's… fine, I guess. But Daphne, man, she is something else!"

"Here he goes again," Theo rolled his eyes amusedly.

"What!? She's hot hot."

"You sound like every other boy from the school!" Nott laughed. "I get it, she's not bad to look at. It's just… she's a bit mean."

Harry snorted a laugh, unable to contain it. "Really?"

"She is!"

"Hey, some people like mean," Blaise said with a saucy grin.

"If you're looking for mean, then you should go for Parkinson." Theo commented.

"She's too mean-"

"But you just said-"

"There are levels, obviously. Besides," he turned to Harry with an impish smile. "I think Miss Parkinson is already smitten with someone else."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry asked, taken off-guard.

"Oh, please." Harry looked at him with a blank face. "My God, you really didn't know, did you?" Theo laughed his arse off.

"What!?"

"She's into you, mate! Big time! Has been ever since you came back from summer holiday."

"You're joking," Harry said with an awkward chuckle. "You are joking, aren't you?"

Nott doubled over laughing.

"We're not," Blaise told him. "You really haven't noticed? Ever since the sorting feast, she's been looking at you as if you're the juiciest piece of steak in the whole of Scotland."

"What? No she hasn't."

"Dude!" Blaise looked almost desperate. "Come on! She always sits beside you! She always makes up whatever excuse to talk to you! She even tolerates you when you're in your asshole moods, no offence."

"Yeah, I gotta break it to you, man. If you're doing that to look cool, it's not working as well as you think."

"What- I don't do it to be- that's beside the point! She's not into me!"

"We're telling you she is. She actually smiles at you, and acts all flirty with you. All we get are her you disgust me glares, and that's if we're lucky."

"I don't know why you look so disgusted, Pansy is really good-looking, at least when she doesn't look like she's planning how to murder you." Theo commented. "Don't you think so?"

"No! I- I don't know!"

"Well, who do you fancy, then?" Zabini asked.

"No one," Harry said, completely serious.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No."

"Who do you think is the hottest girl of our year?"

"I- I don't know. I don't really give that much thought to that."

"Now I know you're joking," Theo said.

"I'm not!"

"Come on, man." Blaise was almost exploding from agitation. "We're fifth years! Look around you, everyone in our year or above is dreaming about shagging, bending over backwards trying to shag, or actually shagging! You can't tell me that you aren't!"

"You do masturbate, don't you?"

"That's not a private question at all," Harry remarked dryly.

"Just shut up and answer!" Nott said anxiously.

"I mean, yeah, like once a week, why's that such a big deal?"

"Well, at least now we know you're interested. Do you fantasize about boys or girls?"

"We don't judge," Blaise winked.

"Girls," Harry answered, not amused by the interrogation. "Anything else that you want to know of my personal life? Maybe where I hide my Gringotts key?"

"Well, if you really insist…"

"Piss off."

Theo laughed. "I think I know what's wrong with you, Potter."

"Besides his hair?" Blaise added cheekily.

"No, I don't think I've figured out that one quite yet."

"My hair is fine."

"You look like you slept for five days straight while your head is being used to nest a brood of birds, and just woke up."

"I'm not changing my hair."

"It won't take long, just a little bit of-"

"Okay, I'm going to go now."

"No, stay!" Both boys shouted, stopping him before he could even stand up.

"Fine," Harry grumbled.

"You see, your problem is that you've talked to like three people in the past ten days. You need to hang out with people more, rather than sticking to the loner image you've built!"

"Before you say anything," Blaise interrupted just as Harry was about to open his mouth. "We know you love your loner persona, it's part of your charm, and it's actually worked at making you the tall, brooding, mysterious guy that every girl loves."

"Now if only he would drop the rudeness," Theo mumbled.

"I'm not doing this as an act!" Harry defended himself. "This is just who I am."

"Then a little change won't hurt you." Blaise said brightly.

"Look," Nott continued. "We're not telling you to change your whole personality or anything, we're just saying that it wouldn't hurt if you stopped being so anti-social - and with how popular you've become this past few days, it would be good for you to have more friends."

"I don't need friends." Harry said mechanically.

"You might not, but the Quidditch team needs a chaser. Come to the try-outs, if it doesn't work out, we won't bother you about this ever again. Besides, you're turning out to be good at everything all of a sudden, you might be just what we need."

"If I do this, you'll leave me alone?"

"Yes!" The both of them shouted.

"Then fine, I'll do it." Harry said stiffly.

"Great! You won't regret this, I promise!"

Harry stayed with Blaise and Theo for the rest of the day, surprisingly not having a horrible time. He didn't speak much or interact with them, instead opting to listen as they talked about pretty everything and nothing, constantly coming back to the three big topics they seemed to like; Girls, gossip, and Quidditch.

Draco and his two cronies ended up joining them around two hours after he had arrived, and even though Blaise and Theo weren't nearly as open as before, they still had plenty of fun. It was weird seeing Malfoy in this environment, he was used to constantly see him trying to boss around people rather than interacting with them like a normal teen.

It was, however, when Daphne and Pansy arrived when Blaise and Theo seemed to have the most fun. Not only teasing him for Parkinson's apparent crush, but also Malfoy for his many attempts to try and woo Greengrass, all ending up in colossal failure. "You'll see," he had told them. "One of these days, she's gonna be mine."

Unfortunately for Malfoy, that only lead to more laughter.

By the time the girls decided to join them, the teasing had been long gone, and the group of Slytherins just talked around the couches until it was time to head to the Great Hall for dinner. It wasn't until half-way into eating that Harry realised that the topic of Umbridge or the trio's plan had not come up even once. This had been the longest time he'd spent with his house-mates without being in class or talking business, and he had a shockingly decent time.

A cold feeling inside him spread at the realisation and Harry felt as he closed himself off mentally in the middle of dinner. A burdening feeling was weighing him down, he could feel as any joy he may have felt over the afternoon evaporated from his system. There was a reason why he'd stopped trying to befriend the Slytherins and kept to himself - it was easier, and people couldn't hurt you if you didn't interact with them.

He'd promised himself he would never be weak after that night, and a simple reminder of what would happen if he broke that vow quickly snapped him back to his reality.

Suddenly, he felt himself drowning in a sea of strangers and rivals. The feeling was suffocating, and he felt the need to run and not look back. But before he could, someone caught his eye as his eyes travelled through the Slytherin table. Michael was looking at him, his eyes wide and his shoulders hunched. It was a plea.

Harry stopped his inner turmoil, controlling his breaths, before discreetly looking at the door to the Great Hall. Thankfully, it seemed that the kid understood, because a couple of minutes later, he stood up and walked out of the room, looking everywhere but in his direction.

A few minutes later, he excused himself from the table and told the others that he was going back to the common room. He answered their joking remarks and requests for him to stay with a cold, detached rejection that completely changed the ambience of the table.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked Michael as soon as he saw him outside.

"I can't do this," he said shakily. "I can't go back. Please don't make me go back."

"Calm down!" Harry snapped, instantly wishing he hadn't as Michael looked up fearfully at him. "I'm sorry, it's just- bad day. Sorry."

He knelt down in front of the kid, making himself shorter. "Look, it's just for tonight and tomorrow. After Saturday, you won't have any more detentions, okay." Michael nodded weakly. "Remember what I told you. After this, just keep your head down and just say yes to what Umbridge asks of you, and I promise you'll be fine. After tomorrow night, you won't have to go back to detention, and I'll be waiting outside for you both days, okay?"

"B-But I can't! My hand, i-it hurts all the time. And my friends, they're starting to notice, they've heard me crying at night and have been laughing at me. I just- I just want it to stop, please make it stop."

"I… I'm sorry, I can't." Harry said, feeling like the biggest piece of shit in the world. "And about your friends, ignore them, they're not really your friends. If they keep doing that, just tell me, and I'll make sure that it doesn't happen again. Okay?"

"O-Okay."

"And listen, we can continue applying the Essence of Murtlap on your hand. You should've told me it still hurt, we're going to keep at it until you're okay. Trust me, in a few weeks, this will just be-"

"Potter!"

Harry groaned, turning back.

"What do you-"

A searing pain exploded on the right side of his forehead right before he fell down because of his awkward position.

"Neville!" He vaguely heard someone shout.

Harry looked up only to find Longbottom looking down at him, eyes red with anger and hist fist shaking on his side. Granger and Weasley were running towards them, the former looking alarmed, while the latter was almost pleased.

"Stay away from Hermione! Stay away from Ron! And stay away from me!"

"Harry-"

"Michael," he interrupted him, standing up slowly without backing away from Longbottom, the cut on his eyebrow stinging like a small burn. "I'll catch up with you later."

The kid leaned in and whispered. "Should I tell a t-"

"No," he replied calmly. "I got this, go."

Michael looked conflicted, but did what Harry told him. Once he was sure that the young Slytherin was gone, he finally spoke to Longbottom, who was being held back slightly by Granger.

"I have to say, you Gryffindors have some funny ways to greet their classmates. Nice way of being prefects, you two, your friend just punched me, and you aren't even going to take away any points."

"You know, I don't remember seeing that. I think you're lying, Potter." Weasley said nastily.

"Oh, I know a goldfish has a bigger brain than you, Ronniekins." He grinned, quoting the nickname the twins used on him. "But Granger is pretty smart." He turned to her. "Are you really going to ignore your prefect duties because this time it's your friend who's the attacker?"

Hermione looked conflicted, his words clearly affecting her, but not enough to actually make her punish Neville.

"Pity, can't say I'm surprised, though. No matter how hard you three try to be better and holier than the rest of us, you aren't."

"Leave her alone," Neville snarled.

"Oh, I almost forgot about you," Harry remarked idly. "What do you want that was so important, you decided to interrupt my conversation?"

"Cut the bullshit, Potter, I know what you did last night! I know how you ambushed Ron and Hermione and then threatened her."

"Neville, please, let's go," Granger insisted.

"No, no, please. Stay. You already punched me in the face, the least you could do is finish our conversation. And no, I didn't threaten Granger, I made her a proposition, one that would benefit both of us-"

"I don't give a shit what you did, you and your snake friends are going to stay away from her-"

"Or what? I've already shown everyone I can out-duel you without even trying, and if you don't think I can't whip your arse around with my bare hands, then you are solely mistaken, Longbottom. So the next time you even think of coming at me like that, remember how much I would enjoy kicking your fat arse all the way back to Gryffindor tower."

Without waiting for an answer, Harry walked past the trio, hitting Neville on the shoulder as he did.