...
His time at Hogwarts quickly settled into a consistent hum; it had been two months since the start of the year.
On an 'unrelated' note, Malfoy had yet to 'appropriately' react to his attempt at thwarting his little plot. A fact that had, at first, been something to be wary about.
At least according to Blaise.
He personally didn't think he had much to worry about, though the other was certain Malfoy was going to try paying him back for what he did. And while the fact he hadn't, yet, was somewhat bemusing, he didn't put too much focus on the matter.
Partly due to the fact the school had a knack for new and exciting drama, mostly from the older years. Malfoy himself was still set on his quest to torment the Boy-Who-Lived, a task that he clearly didn't have a clue on how to handle.
Each attempt by the blonde snake had ended spectacularly in Harry Potter's favor.
At the start of the year, Rodrick had found it somewhat amusing to see Malfoy fail so many times. Two months in, however, he was finding himself irritated with the famed hero. He didn't have a problem with the boy himself so to speak but more with the professors.
Each one, Professor Snape aside, of course, had decided that due to his past, the boy had some special circumstances that allowed him to avoid punishment whenever he broke school rules. The whole Quidditch nonsense was clearly not a one-time event. Which was really the only reason he found himself agreeing with Malfoy whenever Harry Potter had violated a rule, and instead of punishment, received a reward for his efforts.
Had it been any other student, he sincerely doubted they'd be as lucky.
Professor Snape was perhaps the only teacher not to give the boy special treatment, and in Harry Potter's mind that probably meant the teacher was against him. Which while was admittedly somewhat true- Professor Snape had a knack for following Malfoy's footsteps during their lesson. Or maybe it was the other way round.
Either way, even if said professor was purposefully antagonizing him, the sheer benefits the Gryffindor received from everyone else should've left him without any complaints. Yet, unfortunately for their potions lessons, Harry Potter chose to rise to every word, and in doing so, effectively cause their lesson to go on a tangent.
Frankly, the amount of time he'd had to put aside for the subject itself was almost criminal. Made worse by the fact he wasn't even getting any further into the subject, rather merely catching up.
He doubted the older years had such issues, which would mean it was solely based around the Gryffindor himself, meaning it was very unlikely to change for his coming years.
And frankly, that wasn't even taking in the fact he himself was a Grindelwald.
If Harry Potter received different treatment due to who he was, it made his own situation even worse, knowing that he had even fewer grounds to get any help for his circumstances. Given the only 'Benefits' he could think of being given to him would probably make his life more difficult.
Still, his internal crisis aside, the most recent event which still had Malfoy boiling over like a hot pan was when Harry Potter had received a brand new broom, which, as you guessed it, was another rule broken. Much like joining the Quidditch team, first years weren't exactly allowed their own brooms.
'For safety purposes.'
He figured the professor thought if the boy could survive a Dark Lord, then he clearly had nothing to worry about in terms of the flying monstrosity.
Honestly, at this rate, it wouldn't surprise Rodrick if Albus Dumbledore had already decided that Gryffindor would be winning the house cup this year, simply because Harry Potter was in it.
Even then Rodrick couldn't find himself to care too much about the broom fiasco, as far as he was concerned; as long as his feet remained on the ground, whatever happened in that hellish game didn't bother him. Another part of him was grateful for the distraction the boy provided, particularly from Malfoy.
He was genuinely at a cross-roads on how he felt regarding the celebrity.
...
He stared around his current surroundings; nothing in sight, the vast area before him was blank and void of any colour.
Now, given he'd fallen asleep mere moments earlier and expected to see his grandfather, it clearly wasn't going to plan. Given the lack of the three mirrors and aforementioned Dark Lord.
It unnerved him. In fact, he'd go as far as saying he felt suffocated. His mind burned through different kinds of explanations yet none of them seemed to make any sense.
He blinked once, his gaze locking onto the suddenly appearing... Object? It was a little too far to make out any discernable features.
Moving towards the silhouette, he quickly stopped on his feet when he noticed what the shape was.
It was a familiar-looking girl; he'd seen that hair enough times in the past couple of months to recognize it.
"Daphne," Rodrick called out to no avail. With a bemused expression, he moved closer towards the girl currently gazing away from him.
When the girl was in arms distance, he repeated the actions a few times to the same effect.
He braced himself and reached out with a hand and made to call her again before tensing.
She was freezing to the touch.
He gulped down whatever imaginary thing had built up in his throat- he was dreaming after all..?- before he attempted to turn her towards him.
The sight that met him made him recoil, his back hitting the hard ground as he stared up at the girl.
Her face was disfigured, one of her green eyes had been replaced by a gaping hole while her other eye looked devoid of life.
Rodrick made to speak, but nothing came out.
The girl in front of him decided to break the silence instead.
"You hesitated..."
The sentence echoed through his head, louder each time. Before he jostled up from his bed covered in sweat. His gaze snapped looked around his dorm, idly noting a snoring Blaise on the next bed.
What on earth was that!? Rodrick almost shouted out loud.
Attempting to get out of his bed, he promptly found himself drained of any energy,
What's going on..? Where his last thoughts before he drifted back onto his bed and the darkness consumed him into sleep.
...
The morning took longer to come than he'd expected, the extra-long sleep would've been appreciated, if not the searing headache. Attempting to get out of bed, he found himself completely drained.
The haunting words were still fresh on his mind, though, he quickly deemed it some nightmare and put it to the back of his head, instead electing to get himself ready for the upcoming Charms lesson.
It was with Gryffindor, which no doubt meant trouble was incoming.
Shaking his head, he made his way over towards the dorm-room mirror (Probably provided by Malfoy) and freshened himself up for the day ahead.
Blaise didn't look like he would be waking up anytime soon.
Rodrick let the boy doze off; Blaise had done the same to him previously which almost resulted in him been late to his History lesson.
'Call it an eye for an eye,' the thought however quickly repulsed him when he remembered the image in his dream.
Shuddering the slightest, Rodrick promptly made his way down to the common room where he spied Daphne and Tracey lounging around one of the sofas. He stopped for a moment, fearful of the missing eye before he braced himself and moved closer.
Tracey spotted him first, before pointing him out towards the girl.
Daphne turned towards him, a more cheerful smile on her face. Well, more than usual at any rate. Still, he almost missed the sigh of relief that echoed out of him when he noted both green eyes.
"Mornin'," He shrugged a greeting, the girl returning it with ease before she turned back towards Tracey. Rodrick taking the cue to take the seat beside her.
It was only then that he finally noticed the card in the girl's hands.
And the new scarf, for that matter. He hadn't seen that particular colour before.
"New scarf?"
Daphne nodded once, likely about to elaborate further before his gaze locked onto the red-head currently smiling and pointing towards herself.
"My mom helped me pick it out for her!"
He blinked in bemusement.
Why would Daphne need someone else to buy her a scarf?
He had up until that point had figured the girl to be well-off, mostly due to the condition near every one of her belongings seemed to be in.
Maybe he was wrong?
Or maybe the scarf was a gift-
Gift. Card.
He had a feeling those two items were supposed to represent something.
"What's the card for?" He questioned, his gaze lowering towards the said piece of paper.
Daphne, and Tracey at that, blinked in response.
"It's a birthday card," The two replied in unison, at which point they shared a look and grin at the fact they'd managed to do so.
"...What?" He deadpanned in response.
"..." Tracey elected for silence as a grave look took over her face.
"You do know what a birthday is, don't you?"
His eyes narrowed the slightest at the clear insult to his intelligence.
"Of course I know what a birthday is! It's the day you were born!"
"...Then... What are you-" Daphne had made to ask before electing to copy her red-headed friends' expression.
"Oh merlin, you've never gotten a gift before have you?"
"...I wasn't aware I was entitled one."
"Have you ever gotten a card?"
"No..? To be fair... I am not entirely sure anyone in my orphanage knew when I was actually born."
Daphne made to respond to the comment before he continued.
"I mean, I only found out the actual day because of a Hogwarts' letter." He shrugged, only to take in the clear disappointment on the girl's face and add more. "I might be able to get you a card, later today. Can't say the same about any actual gift tho-"
Daphne's eyes widened at his words, the girl likely shocked at the fact he wasn't going to-
"What!? Of course not! I don't expect you to do that at all! Gods! I am not that cruel! It's fine, really!"
"Colour me convinced," He deadpanned in response, only for his own eyes to widen the slightest at the embarrassment that suddenly colored the other girl.
"...So, when is your birthday? We can always make sure your first one here's goo-" Tracey had elected to join back into the conversation, only for him to, unfortunately, cut her off. A sheepish look on his face.
"Ah... It was kind of in, um, September..."
"...Why didn't you say anything then?" Daphne questioned, only to blink at the deadpan look he gave her in response. "Oh. Right. So which day is it then? We can always celebrate next year properly."
"Thirteenth," He shrugged. It certainly didn't sound like a bad plan-
"In the meantime, you will be celebrating your missed one with mine!"
He didn't really have a reply to that.
"I am pretty sure you're already sharing it with Halloween, what's one more wizard?" He supposed.
He wasn't exactly bothered about the fact. Frankly, he figured the girl/s cared more about it than he did.
When the girl's expression twitched, he figured he'd probably said that part out loud.
"You know that date, but not your own birthday?"
"Of course I do..." He remarked, somewhat offended, "I am from an orphanage, not the seventh century,"
Tracey rewarded him with a giggle.
He had no idea what to make of that.
The three of them eventually fell into silence for a second before Rodrick settled for explaining Blaise's 'absence' from the group. And, after clear disapproval from the redhead, the trio made their way over towards their first lesson of the day.
...
As they reached the door, they heard a pair of feet running towards them, almost crashing into Rodrick in the process, albeit until he'd merely moved out of the way. Blaise looked to be out of breath before he huffed and narrowed his eyes at him.
"Not. Funny," he stated in as much of a serious voice as an 11-year-old could pull off, which naturally made the rest of them start laughing at his expense.
"Apparently, it's a little funny," Rodrick couldn't help himself.
The boy gave off a small scowl before he fell in step with them. When the boy's mood refused to letten up, Rodrick playfully threatened to let it happen again, to Snape's lesson particularly.
Blaise took it with stride. He knew he was capable of a silencing charm. Which effectively made it a genuinely terrifying threat. "On second thought, it was kind of funny, wasn't it?"
It only made him laugh even more.
The two girls stared at the interaction with bewilderment before rolling their eyes and stated, in unison, with a mild hint of derision.
"Boys,"
...
Their lesson today? The levitation charm, which unsurprisingly Rodrick had no issue in learning. Having learned it years ago, and not even from his grandfather.
If you could use magic, even in a dream, the first thing you tried was anything remotely resembling telekineses.
It was practically a rule.
Though to be fair, he never really tried it outside the dreams. There was always a risk of complete embarrassment if it decided not to work. With the caretaker there... Well, it was difficult trying to practice in secret...
Even the other orphans didn't like her.
At the very least, he pretended he had some form of difficulty in learning it.
The Gryffindors, unsurprisingly took the opposite approach, in that, they did not know how to do the levitation charm but somehow acted out as if they had been using it for years.
Seeing all the students attempt and fail the simple form of magic was admittedly quite humorous. Blaise looked like he was about to explode, at least until he decided to spare him the misery and helped show him how it was done properly.
"You have to make sure each of the wand motions is equal in force. It's not just the waving and incantation that makes it happen. It's the entire process. Putting too much of a wave into the swish, and not enough in the flick results in your magic essentially fizzling it out."
"...The older years make it look so easy..."
"Well, to be fair, your only problem is the amount of waving you insist on. If you were learning it without a wand, it'd probably be easier."
Blaise gave him a deadpan look.
"Wandless magic isn't easy."
"Yes, it is," He flicked a finger and forced his own feather to hover a few inches above the table. "See?"
Blaise's expression twitched at the show.
He snorted in response.
He had admittedly wanted to help the girls as well. Unfortunately, they were two rows lower.
Blaise veiled his thanks and didn't question the fact he clearly knew the spell already. Noticing that, Rodrick turned his attention back towards the rest of the class to see their progress.
Malfoy looked like he had an idea of how it worked, his feather had managed to levitate a few inches of the table. On the other hand, somehow, one of the Gryffindors had managed to blow up their feather.
He himself stared at the burnt feather, shocked. How they were able to take a levitation charm and change it to an exploding one, he didn't have a clue. But it clearly required a special kind of talent.
Weasley looked like he was trying to hit the bloody feather with his wand with the way he was swishing it around.
Hermione Granger, was right next to him trying and failing to explain the correct pronunciation, which seemed to be his problem, unlike Blaises.
The girl however clearly had a good idea of the spell.
His own gaze refused to leave the two bickering Gryffindors, particularly because Ronald Weasley had decided that, instead of attempting it himself, he should challenge the girl to instead.
Granger obliged, and much to Rodrick's amusement managed to get the feather quite high into the air which in turn excited the charms professor.
"Marvellous Miss Granger, absolutely stunning." The girl practically beamed at the praise while Weasley looked like he just ate a rat.
Turning around Rodrick noticed a small frown on Daphne's face, while Tracey looked put out as well. Were they competing with her?
True to his thoughts Daphne then attempted to copy Granger and do the spell herself. Unfortunately, she made a small error in pronunciation and tried to lower her face to avoid the embarrassment when her feather refused to go up.
She had drawn too much attention when she'd attempted the spell.
One of the Gryffindors, the one that had managed to blow up his feather, tried to make fun of the situation.
"S'ppose this proves not all Purebloods are as good as they say. ay?" He practically jeered. Most of the students surrounding him started to snicker, some attempting and failing to hide their own, with even Malfoy looking amused.
Daphne's eyes seemed to narrow into steel at the comment, though she refused to make another attempt.
Rodrick chose that moment to poke Blaise.
"Watch this..." He whispered. "Why don't you try it then, see how good you are... But you know, this time maybe don't blow it up?" Rodrick called out towards the other boy. Earning snorts, mostly from the Slytherin students while Daphne didn't seem to notice given the lack of reaction.
"Alright then." Pronounced the Gryffindor student as he stared down at his new feather. After a moment of thought, said boy made another attempt at levitating his feather.
At which point Rodrick pointed his finger below the desk.
Instead of the feather going up. The Gryffindor himself started to fly up instead. The boy's whining in the air, was very similar to Nevile Longbottom's first flying attempt; which of course brought about waves of laughter from most of the students in the room, even the Irishman's friends.
"I meant the feather," Rodrick deadpanned, "At least Slytherins know how to aim a bloody wand," he added on whilst shaking his head.
The Slytherins, in particular, were howling with laughter at the floating boy at this point.
Looking towards Daphne, he saw a smile etched onto her face before smiling himself.
The charms Professor brought everything back under control once his own, minor, small fit of laughter ended, and reprimanded the boy on exceedingly bad spell-work.
It certainly took an enormous amount of effort for one to levitate themselves. Particularly because that really shouldn't have been possible in the first place, according to his grandfather at any rate. Still, if the faculty's opinion regarding 'Rules' was any indication, he doubted they'd even notice.
The class ended not long after that, Rodrick had been outside waiting before he was pushed aside by a Granger storming off.
'What's wrong with her?' He couldn't help the thought.
He was soon joined by Blaise who had a stony look on his face, no doubt due to the next lesson, History. While Daphne and Tracey were both still laughing from the flying Gryffindor.
"I can't believe he managed to levitate himself but not a feather!" Daphne scoffed.
"Oh yeah, I am sure it was his fault, and you know, not our resident wandless magic-users," Blaise snorted in response.
Rodrick silently cursed the boy before looking back towards two questioning pair of eyes. The pair's reaction after explaining what had occurred, however, was quite a surprise.
Daphne looked grateful towards him for his part before whispering to herself.
While Tracey demanded he taught her the spell later on.
'Ah, the joys of friends...'
After finishing their second lesson, the group made their way towards the Great Hall to join in on the Halloween feast, while Daphne broke off from the group at the entrance.
"I'll see you all at the feast, I just need to go to the bathroom first," She practically whispered the second part as she turned.
Tracey, for a moment, looked like she was about to join her before she and Blaise merely nodded their heads.
Rodrick promised to leave her a seat near them before they promptly went in their separate directions.
Yet, as he watched the others walk ahead, he found himself frozen, staring at the retreating girl.
For some odd reason, the words from his dream echoed through his head once again.
A moment later... He turned on his feet and went off after the girl, echoing the same excuse she had given, untrue as it was.
"The boy's bathroom isn't-" Whatever Blaise had attempted to say was ignored entirely.
...
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