CHAPTER 42: United in Grief (Part 5)

Fifth-Year Slytherin Dormitory

December 3rd, 1995

8:15 a.m.

He could feel the headache before he even woke up. An overwhelming sensation paralysing his every thought, replacing it with a single sentence that washed over him like cold water.

I fucked up.

There was no inherent knowledge of why or how exactly he fucked up. Last night's events felt fuzzy, the alcohol creating a wall between him and his memories that was slowly coming down as he woke up. It was a feeling, perhaps a message his fucked up body was sending to his brain. He had felt pain, this wasn't it. It was different, and in some ways, it was worse. Laying down still, he could feel the entire world spinning around him. His stomach contorted into itself, sending cries of agonies to his mind as it combined with his headache and gave him the worst nausea he had ever felt.

He hadn't dared open his eyes yet - and he didn't intend to. With how shit he was feeling with just breathing, opening the gates to a new sense would likely leave him blind. He could only grunt in discomfort as he dug himself deeper into his bed.

He was never drinking again. Never letting another drop of alcohol into his body.

As he stretched his legs and pressed his face deeper into the pillow, he felt his legs bump into a foreign object. He stilled immediately, not making any sound as he waited. Memories kept flooding his mind, but none enough to explain this. Him drinking with Pansy. Montague. The Quidditch team. What else was he-

A groan from only a few inches away stopped his rattling mind cold as a face finally popped into his mind.

Daphne.

It was like a dam bursting. He could see her face. Feel the way her lips clashed against his. The way every corner of her skin felt as his hands wandered aimlessly. The moans and groans that had felt so good last night rang in his mind like crashing bells.

Harry's eyes snapped opened, and he almost scurried out of the bed completely. He jumped over to the other side of the bed, his heart freezing slightly as the curtains fluttered, revealing a bottle of Firewhisky on top of his nightstand. How had that ended up there? Did he bring it up last night? Did Daphne?

The bed was a mess, with the sheets and cover haphazardly covering the actual cushion -a blob of blond hair that seemed to go in every direction was sprawled on top of the other pillow. The blond hair moved, her face peeking out from underneath the mess, as two hands appeared from under the blankets and brought the covers up to enclose her bare chest.

She was naked! He was naked.

"Oh," Daphne groaned, relaxing slightly as she sent him a tired glare from behind her hair. "It's just you. Fuck, it feels early. What time is it?"

"I… you… we… what?" He finally shouted.

"Ugh," Daphne rolled her eyes before reaching for her wand on the floor and waving it in the air, the hour revealing itself to the both of them. "It's barely eight! Why'd you have to wake us up?"

"You're in my bed!"

"Still catching up, I see? Just how drunk were you last night?"

"Drunk enough to do… you, I guess?" He snapped back. "Fuck, what did we do last night?"

Daphne scoffed, though there was a perverse amusement to it. "Quite a bit, actually."

"What did I do?" The tormenting words left his mouth unbidden. He had fucked up, his body had known it since before he had even woken up.

"You didn't seem to mind last night," Daphne shrugged, before looking downwards with a grin. "You don't seem to mind now either."

"Wha-" He turned down, his erection in clear display for her to see. "Oi!" He snatched one of the pillows from the bed and used it to cover his crotch.

"Whatever," Daphne sighed before uncovering herself, baring her perfect figure for him to see. Fuck, perfect was a meek word to describe it. He could stare at it all day and still not get enough. On another occasion he might have, might have even pushed for seconds. But now, he was too stunned to do anything but give an appreciative glance.

Suddenly, an alarming thought flashed across his mind.

"Did we-"

"Yes, I'm on the potion," she said dismissively.

"You've done this before…" He asked slowly, squinting at the girl.

"You didn't seem to care last night," She sneered, suddenly defensive.

"I don't," he said firmly before faltering. "I'm just… well…"

Daphne's eyes almost popped out of her head, her hands quickly removing the hair covering her face. "This was your first time?"

His silence gave her the answer she wanted.

"You're fucking with me, right? That… can't have been your first time!"

"Why not?"

"Well… you know," she waved her hand ambiguously. "You're fucking with me."

"I'm not! Fuck, how can you be so calm?"

Daphne rolled her eyes. "It was just sex, Potter. Bloody good sex, but still just sex. Don't make it a bigger deal than what it is." She suddenly squinted at him. "And don't you dare tell anyone about this. If I find out you told anyone, I swear to God, we are not doing this again."

"Again?" Harry asked, flabbergasted. "Who said I even want to do this again?"

Daphne gave him a look. "Everyone wants to do it again, and for once, I wouldn't mind."

"We are not doing this again," he stated coldly. "This was a mistake."

"That's what you say now," she said calmly. "But you didn't see yourself last night. I've never seen someone like that, been with someone like that. You fucked me as if you couldn't breathe without your cock inside me. Felt it too. The raw need that was pouring out from you, so addictive, so irresistible, I couldn't get enough. That was the best fuck I've had in my life. Soon enough, you'll realise just how much you need this, how much you came to depend on the escape last night brought you. And when you do, you'll realise that you're being an idiot for resisting it so much."

"I don't need it," he said through gritted teeth as Daphne began getting dressed. "I don't need you."

"There's nothing wrong with casual sex," she shrugged, as she finished putting on her bra.

"It's not the sex, it's the partner."

That stopped Daphne in her tracks, a cold glare immediately settling on her face.

"I'm gonna let that pass, as I know you cared about Susan-"

"Let that pass?" His eyes flared with barely restrained anger. "You don't let anything pass. There is nothing you can do to me, no way of stopping me from doing or saying whatever the fuck I want. Or have you forgotten about Montague so soon?"

She gulped in an almost unnoticeable manner, but kept her gaze fixed on his eyes.

"Get the fuck out of my sight."

Daphne scoffed but picked up the pace as she finished dressing herself before pulling out a miniature cloak from her pocket and enlarging it with her wand. With one last glare, she disappeared behind the invisibility cloak as the curtain opened with a flutter before it closed.

Letting out a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding on to, Harry settled into his bed with his back to the headboard. Scenes from the night kept flooding into his brain, overwhelming his senses.

Daphne on her back as he kept thrusting forward, her tits juggling back and forth rapidly. Daphne on all fours as Harry spanked her without stopping his movements as he came inside her. Daphne stroking his hair as he went down on her while also fingering. Daphne looking upward as she sucked on his cock with her eyes looking larger than normal.

Daphne.

Daphne.

Daphne.

"Fuck!" Harry screamed, grabbing the pillow beside him, the one filled with her scent, and launching it to the curtains, its magic stopping it in its tracks without even causing a flutter.

It had barely been three weeks since Susan had died and here he was: drinking, laughing, playing Quidditch and fucking Daphne. Daphne Fucking Greengrass.

A devastating feeling of shame and regret crashed against him in a sobering manner.

"What did I do?"

Hogwarts Corridor

December 5th, 1995

8:45 p.m.

The corridor was empty as the two of them sneaked around the corner, just as they knew it would be. It was a familiar corridor to them. After all, the snake den was a popular place for their pranks.

Fred and George Weasley, both hidden underneath a cheap, badly woven and constantly failing invisibility cloak from a Zonko's knock-off brand. The price on these things were abysmal, something they had both agreed to change once they opened Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes with the money Neville had given them from last year's tournament.

Taking the money, knowing that it was coated in the blood of Cedric and Krum, had been a disquieting notion, but it was something Neville had profusely insisted on back at the end of last year. They really needed the money, he knew that, and it would be for a good cause, but he could feel the weight of those two deaths as they took the bag. He was sure George felt it too.

They would pay it back tenfold to Neville, to Cedric and Krum, to Fleur. To all the champions that went through whatever had happened at that Graveyard. It was the least they could do.

He could still remember that night. The silence that dropped upon them as all the champions had entered the maze together, set on doing the task as a team in a move that surprised almost everyone in the stands. But as the time went on, the silence turned eerie. When the task had lasted an hour, he could remember the whispers around the stands and within the judge's table. The tension grew by the hour, the teachers' even began scouring the maze for the champions, but they were never found.

It was almost at the three-hour mark, when the judges were about to decide to cancel the challenge and send a search team to find them, that the champions finally showed. In a flare of blinding lights, the four of them appeared in front of the maze, and though relief and joy was clear from everyone at first, it quickly turned into dread as Neville and Fleur began weeping over the bodies of the two fallen champions.

He would never forget Ginny's terror-stricken face, palely looking at the scene before uttering those two words that would change their lives forever.

He's back

She knew before Neville even said anything. It had been concerning, chilling. They had theorized it might have been the possession from the diary still having a grip on her, a connection that had been created between You-Know-Who and her. Thankfully, Dumbledore had dissuaded that notion after a thorough mental analysis of her. With the diary destroyed, it broke off any and all connections that may have been formed during her time she was almost possessed.

And yet, she still knew.

Neville hadn't been the same since that night. He'd grown moody, withdrawn, violent. This wasn't the same shy kid that entered Hogwarts, wide-eyed and scared of his own shadow. This wasn't the same young teen that nervously took Hermione to the Yule Ball and fumbled through the tasks, facing dragons and grindylows while barely getting out alive. He was a husk of his former self, the events of the graveyard dragged him like a ship's anchor. At times, he wondered if the kid had even left the graveyard.

He didn't know Neville well, neither he nor George hung out with him. He was always too timid and stuck-up to a certain extent to include him in their pranks. But he was Ron's best friend, he had spent whole day's at the Burrow, at with his family, helped with the chores their mother gave them even when she insisted he shouldn't participate in them. He was a Weasley in all but name.

And now You-Know-Who was back, he and his Death Eaters. The monsters that had ruined so many lives, killed so many people and tortured much more. The ones that were manipulating the media, claiming him and Dumbledore were liars, turning the whole Wizarding world against them while You-Know-Who was allowed to grow back to his former strength under the protection of the shadows.

They were all snakes. Slytherins of the worst kind, everyone knew it. There was no greater tie in a Wizarding World a wizard could have than to their Hogwarts house. It was what defined them, an identification of their character, their brand that marked them to the world. Not even family ties were strong enough to matter more than their house. And if you were a Slytherin, you were a Death Eater.

It was inherent, the mere traits the house prized paved the road to perdition. Their ambition, giving them an endless stream of goals that would never satisfy them. Their cunning and resourcefulness, a device they use to reach said goals. Their self-preservation, an unshakable instinct that would never allow them to take a stand against evil. Their ruthlessness a means through which they would step over anyone, destroy lives so long as it serves their goals or their self-interest. And their traditionalism a warped perspective that would turn them into bigots.

It was inevitable, a lesson their family learnt the hard way when their uncle sold out his two brothers to the Death Eaters to get a promotion at the Ministry of Magic. And now his daughter was a Slytherin as well. That side of the family was rotten to its core, it was something his mother had told them since before he could remember, and it was one of the things everyone in the family had agreed to wholeheartedly.

Perhaps not all Slytherins started out evil, but they eventually turned evil. It was common knowledge in the Wizarding World, you couldn't trust a snake. The Slytherins constantly complained about it, calling it prejudice to them, but it was the truth. They could never change, snakes shed their skin, but they were still the same slimy creature deep down.

And Harry Potter was the worst of them.

A snake in all the sense of the word. A manipulative bastard who used the DA to gain popularity and get into Bones' pants for a quick shag. One who, after he had no more need for the DA, quit it and blocked them from re-entering the Room of Requirement even after all of Hermione's attempts to crack the code to the room. The group had been suspended until after the Winter Break, a necessary step into making sure Umbridge didn't find them all and expel them.

It wasn't something he and George were particularly worried about, however as most of the DA hadn't even done their OWLs, they faced a real punishment if they were expelled. Especially Neville, who was being persecuted by a Ministry who was waiting for him to put a single toe out of line, and Hermione, who was a muggle-born without any connection to magic that would save her from being sent back to the muggle world obliviated and with her magic bound.

Potter had abandoned them, left them for dead, even though he knew You-Know-Who was back. Without classes to defend themselves, they wouldn't stand a chance if any Death Eater came knocking. Not that it mattered to the Slytherin, he had proved himself capable of murdering Death Eaters without blinking, and the ministry allowing him to walk along the Hogwarts corridors a free man!

What a joke.

He hadn't cared, as he decided to stop protecting the kids at the Three Broomsticks to get revenge after Dolohov had murdered Susan. And because of it, four Hogwarts students had been killed in the cross fire. Those murders were on Potter's hands, and yet, the Ministry had done nothing.

How many more kids need to die because of Potter's purposeful ignorance and self-interest for the Ministry to look at him for what he is.

A murderer.

One in a sea of future murderers, rapists, and Death Eaters. The Slytherins didn't bother on hiding it, showing their bigotry and hatred for Muggle-borns, blood traitors, and Half-breeds. And now openly advertising their murdering nature and reckless care for the lives of others. The teachers did nothing about them, the Ministry did nothing about them.

It was up to them to get off their arse and take a stand against them, against Umbridge, against You-Know-Who himself. The adults tried to hide it from them, but a war was coming, and they would play their part. Playing pranks at Hogwarts would have little impact apart from create chaos for Umbridge and the mini Death Eaters, but it was something.

They had big plans for once they left the castle for good.

"You ready, Freddie?" George whispered to him, and Fred gave an almost unnoticeable nod.

"Never been more ready for anything," Fred said with a nod as a euphoric feeling began rising through him. "Let's ruin the snakes' night, shall we?"

Fred and George reached into their pockets before each pulling out a small black detonator. It was shaped as a small bell with two miniature feet and a detonating trump with a button on top of the device. One of their favourite creations, one they had finished long before Umbridge had banned the use of magic in the castle completely.

Once the button was pressed, the detonator would begin moving around, duplicating every fifteen seconds - each detonating their respective product every minute before exploding into pieces after ten minutes - pieces that were already imbued with a vanishing charm that would take into effect quickly after the explosion itself. They were rapid and with the duplication, there would be thirty-two hundred detonators across all the dormitories and the common room, enough to get every single Slytherin more than once.

Each contained a potion that was detonated in aerosol form, one of their personal works that they hadn't launched or even showed to anyone. Not even Lee. Making the prank completely untraceable to them, though Umbridge would surely suspect them.

Walking so that they were standing next to the entrance of the Slytherin common room, the twins waited for a few seconds before a snake came sauntering down the hall.

"Sovereignty," the snake drawled, and the portrait promptly opened.

Without needing any form of communication, both twins pressed the detonator's button and dropped it on the ground. George slightly lifted the invisibility cloak so that they could exit and charge straight into the Slytherin den. The portrait closed, and it only took a few moments before a loud boom resonated across the hall, accompanied by the screams and yells from the snakes inside.

The twins looked at each other before sharing an identical grin.

Fifth-Year Slytherin Dormitory

December 10th, 1995

12:45 a.m.

With December nearing its half-way point, the castle had begun growing unbearably cold. The constant need to apply warming charms every fifteen to thirty minutes was growing within the student body, unfortunately it wasn't something they could do as Umbridge had taken to randomly checking several student's wand every morning and evening feast in order to see if they had cast any spell within the last twenty-four hours.

It was a gamble very few people were willing to risk, the low odds didn't add any favour to unimaginable consequences, especially for those who hadn't taken their OWLs yet. It had been a miracle Daphne hadn't been caught that night.

The Inquisitorial Squad had been mostly useless over the past three weeks, Umbridge's Educational Decrees had been more than formidable, doing all their work resulting in them just gaining the privileges a prefect has, such as the bathrooms and common area they had.

However, there was the event that the whole castle had been talking about over the past two days, that being the attack on the Slytherins. Some arsehole, probably the Weasley twins, had infiltrated the Slytherin Common Room and left behind a gift, a hellish prank that left all the Slytherins in the infirmary as well as filled the common room and dormitories with puking and defecation.

It was an army of miniature, bomb-like things that released a magical aerosol potion that targeted the whole house. There were two variants, a red one and yellow one. The yellow gas caused a random part of your body to grow to ten times its usual size. It wasn't just limbs and noses; it was eyes, teeth, shoulders, jaws. The lucky ones just fell to the ground or were stuck to it without being able to move. The unlucky ones had a plethora of broken bones, exploded eyeballs, and large cuts inside their mouths.

The red gas wasn't any better, forcing anyone who breathed it to vomit or shit his pants the second it reached their system. It acted like a modified purging potion, one extremely elevated in its intensity. It was much more violent than anything he'd ever seen or heard whenever he had studied the effects of the purging potion.

It took the whole day for Madam Farley, their new matron after Pomfrey was fired, to fix up every single Slytherin and a restless day for the House-Elves that fixed up every inch of the Slytherin quarters.

Their investigation led nowhere, as there was no conclusive evidence as to who did this, something Umbridge wasn't happy about but couldn't do anything without it. There were various suspects, with the biggest ones being Lee and the Weasley twins, but even after Umbridge had a personal sit-down with each of them they got nowhere. Every suspect had their belongings raided and personally examined by Umbridge, and while they did find several prank objects in each student's bag, none of them matched the description of what had happened at the Slytherin Common Room.

So besides a week's detention for everyone who got found for obtaining and smuggling disallowed objects into Hogwarts, the culprit was never officially found. Even after Harry and several other members of the Inquisitorial Squad assured Umbridge, this had the Weasley twins' MO written all over it.

Several whispers were going around the Slytherin Common Room vowing retaliation and ways they could target the Gryffindors and strike back just as hard, if not harder, than they had. The experience hadn't been pleasurable for anyone, and there was a sense of wounded pride between the Slytherins - one severe enough that he and Warrington had a small moment of agreement when they were talking to the other Slytherins about Umbridge's course of action.

There was no doubt in his mind, there would be a retaliation from the Slytherins, but it wasn't going to be one he was going to be involved in. Though in the past he would have been the one leading the charge and attacking the twins back before even going to the infirmary, he simply didn't have time for that. With his weekly and obnoxious meetings with Kieran, the Quidditch practices, and the final exams about to start as there was less than two weeks before the term ended, he didn't have time for that.

And yet, it was none of those things were currently on his mind as he twisted and turned in his own bed, seeking some rest. None of those things that were truly the main focus on his mind anymore. Not even finding and murdering whoever set Dolohov loose could keep enough of his focus.

A troubled night was nothing new to him, he'd had more of those than he'd care to remember, but this was different. Never before had there been a sense of drowning guilt consuming at him, his mind raked of images of Susan watching him as he got drunk and partied right before fucking Daphne. Her present during every second of their act on his bed, listening to everything Daphne was telling him, to everything he was telling Daphne.

You're a monster, she constantly reminded him. I'm dead because of you, and you don't even take more than a couple of weeks before fucking the first whore that crosses your path. It should've been you. You should be dead, and I should be alive.

And he couldn't help to agree.

No pain ever compared to the feeling of utter helplessness against your own guilt. There was no obstacle that could not be overcome, no sense of pain or anger that could not be conquered. But if your own spirit was fighting against you, blaming you, tormenting you, what could you use to defeat it?

He wanted it to stop, needed it to stop. He couldn't live with this suffering, couldn't go about his day with the constant reminder of his betrayal of Susan, of the girl who had died because of mistakes he had made. But the more effort he put into forgetting, ignoring, attempting to overcome it, none of it brought any solutions to it.

And why would it? There was no denying it anymore, no way to excuse himself of it. Perhaps before, it could've been considered a tragic accident, an unnecessary dead brought upon by a madman's delusions. But he hadn't cared about it, hadn't cared a girl he supposedly cared about had died because of him. Hadn't bothered going to her funeral when Madam Bones came to him and told him about it, before he curtly and forcefully rejected any notion without letting her finish. And he certainly hadn't cared about it as he fucked the first girl who paid him any sort of attention.

He was a monster. Susan wasn't the one who deserved to die, he was.

And that was the problem, that was the reason why there was no way of overcoming it. You can't be against something when you know, deep in your heart, that it's right.

Harry let out a defeated sigh before ridding his body of the sheets that covered it. It was clear he wouldn't be getting any sleep any time soon, if any at all tonight. The best thing he could do was to focus on something productive, trying to keep his mind busy for as long as he could.

Rubbing at his eyes, Harry disentangled himself from the covers and jumped out of bed, only to immediately trip with something on the floor. Managing to catch himself on his hands without making much sound, Harry exhaled a frustrated breath before his eyes turned to the object he had stepped on, the one that had clattered across the room - though thankfully it didn't seem to wake up anybody.

It was a round, cylinder-shaped glass with a large rectangular tag adorning its middle, its words written in an extravagant font.

The Firewhisky bottle, the one he had been erratically forced to hide the morning after the Quidditch game while still nursing the terrible hangover he had gotten. He had forgotten where he had hid it, had it been underneath his bed? Behind his nightstand?

Standing up, Harry picked up the bottle, his eyes scanning it mindlessly. He could still remember that night, the way his feelings began to gradually numb, how they were replaced by an alluring buzz inside his mind. How he began feeling good about himself. How Susan stopped haunting his mind for a night, just one night of peace.

Harry kept staring at it, his eyes getting lost in it as his mind resisted it. But why? Wasn't this the solution he was seeking? The perfect way to rid himself of all these intrusive thoughts, thoughts he shouldn't even be having. Thoughts he could stop himself from having with just one little sip?

It didn't matter that there wasn't a party, it was better that way. He wouldn't be fucking Daphne, wouldn't be having fun. It was just to help him sleep, to help him have peace. Wasn't that what she would have wanted? For him not to suffer? He deserved to suffer… but did he need to? The pain could stop, the guilt could stop.

What was the point of living with that? Susan was already gone, she was dead, nothing he could say could change that. But he could stop himself from suffering because of it. This was it, his way to move on, his way to get better. Happiness in liquid form.

Before he could doubt himself, Harry opened the bottle.

That's it for this chapter. Thank you all for reading!

Next chapter, we'll see the final pieces of set up for the Winter Break being put in place as we get ready for the culmination of the United in Grief arc.

Next chapter will be posted September 25th on FFN and AO3.

By the time I'm posting this, I'm three chapters ahead and am in the middle of the following arc titled The King's Gambit. If you are interested in learning how to get early access to them, join my discord server using the following link: discord . gg / jyPfbGqhJT

As always, thank you for reading, favouriting, and commenting! I appreciate all of you! :)