Originally Posted on AO3 March 2024 to April 2024
complete in 7 chapters
One moment was all it took.
For once in his life, Harry takes notice. A simple observation is all it takes to find himself entangled with a peculiar pair of Slytherins that will turn his life upside down.
AN
Half of this is crack and half of this is feelingsTM. OC is a Necromancer.
We'll start sane. Give Harry some time to get used to his new besties for a chapter or two.
1995, 5th year
One moment was all it took.
The library was a place Harry frequented more often than he wanted to this year because of the impossible amount of homework their teachers kept assigning in preparation for their O.W.L.s – frequented on his own more and more on top of that, because Ron and Hermione were incredibly busy with their prefect duties, had been ever since December had started and with it the holiday season.
He didn't notice it at first, too frustrated with the book in front of him, trying to make sense of the text. Writing an essay about the properties of scurvy-grass and lovage and their uses in potions hadn't sounded hard, shouldn't have been hard – yet Harry could not make any sense of the paragraph in his book at all.
He couldn't hear them, which was probably why it took him so long to notice – they must have cast some kind of silencing charm to not alert Madam Pince – but one glance. One glance was all it took. One moment of wandering eyes getting caught on the two people sitting not far from him, seemingly deeply engrossed in a heated discussion, one moment of catching the exact moment the girl glanced over to look at Harry's hands.
They were Slytherins, Harry realized, quickly turning his head and pretending to read his book. From his own year, even, though he couldn't remember their names. He vaguely recognized the girl, but could not place her at all. He should have, considering that salt-and-pepper hair was rather unusual at their age. But Harry – Well. Harry did not pay all that much attention to people he did not interact with. The boy, at least, looked a bit more familiar – mousy hair and mousy face clouded by disdain.
Oh.
Harry had seen that expression aimed at the Thestrals in Hagrid's class.
They were talking about him. They must have been, even if the girl was the only one who ever looked in Harry's direction and seemed to be focused on his hands and nothing else.
"Excuse me."
The two Slytherins paused their silenced conversation to look up at him and Harry had to suppress a flinch when the girl's unnaturally white eyes fixated on him as she waved her hand and the air shimmered briefly around them.
No one said a word.
"I er –" Harry faltered.
The two Slytherins kept looking at him calmly, waiting. Neither of them spoke.
Right.
He took a deep breath. "I couldn't help but notice that you keep looking at me."
The boy blinked, then turned to his partner, who kept looking at Harry with her unnerving eyes.
"I was waiting for you to finish with that book," she said.
Oh. Not his hands, then, but the book his hands had been resting on.
"Is that why you kept looking over? I noticed you staring at it."
The girl blinked. "Hm? Oh, I was looking at your hand, actually. You have quite the interesting traces of magic lingering everywhere, but your scars are the most fascinating."
Before Harry could react to that or even think too hard about it, she continued, "I noticed it before, of course. Either way, that book is unfortunately the only copy left in the library, because it's the one that cannot be checked out."
"What – What do you need it for?"
"Extracurricular research."
Extracurricular research? With the insane amount of homework assignments they had?
"I'm surprised, I must say," the girl continued. "I didn't take you for someone interested in advanced potion brewing."
"He's not," the boy said quietly. "He probably didn't even realise what kind of book he had taken from the shelves."
Harry thought he was right to feel insulted at that. (Even if it was true.)
"I'm –"
"Are you done with it, then?" the girl interrupted him. "Did you find what you needed? If it's Professor Snape's assignment you're working on, then Fundamentals for a Potioneer would be a better read, by the way." She gestured to the heavy tome next to her elbow.
Harry eyed the book, then her and the boy next to her warily. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because it's the truth?" The girl looked at her fellow Slytherin.
"Because we need to look up something in The Fine Art of Potion Brewing and you are still in possession of the only copy currently available in the library."
The girl grinned at Harry. "We don't need to take it away, if that's what you're worried about. We could just sit here – or at your table, if you want – and leave it when we're done."
Still septical about the whole situation, Harry slowly slid the book the girl had gestured at over to himself and opened it. "Which pages would I need, then?"
"That depends," said the girl.
"If you want to focus on scurvy-grass and lovage first, 42 onward," said the boy.
"If you want to focus on the influence ingredients can have on each other and what causes them, 394."
"There are a lot of directions you could take this essay. Fundamentals for a Potioneer will have them all."
"Or almost all."
A day ago – no – less than an hour ago, Harry would have never imagined himself sharing a table with two Slytherins, working on his Potions homework in – well, relative peace, actually. Even if they kept distracting him. The two had laid open The Fine Art of Potion Brewing between themselves, put their heads together above it and then gotten into yet another heated discussion soon after. Harry couldn't hear anything, of course, because the girl had excluded him from the 'one-way volume adjustment spell' once more with a wave of her hand and a shimmer of the air.
Oddly enough, Harry didn't notice a thing when Ron and Hermione appeared, though she must have adjusted it to include them.
(Harry would not realise that the Slytherin girl had been casually using non-verbal, wandless magic as if it were nothing until much later and by then it was too late to panic over the implications.)
"Mate, what are you doing over here?" Ron asked, eyes narrowed at the Slytherins.
"Doing my homework?"
"With a pair of snakes?"
Harry looked at the two snakes in question, expecting – something. Hostility, perhaps. Annoyance, at the very least. But the two (whose names Harry still could not recall) were simply watching Harry and his friends calmly.
Harry turned back to Ron. "Yes?"
"Why?"
Still no input from the Slytherins.
"They – er – helped me out?"
Ron gave him an incredulous look. "They helped you out?"
The lack of reaction started to freak Harry out a bit.
"Oh, is that Fundamentals for a Potioneer?" Hermione spoke up, looking at the book with great interest. "I've read that in second year. It adds a whole new perspective to the class, doesn't it?"
"You read it in second year?" the girl asked. "What for?"
Hermione blushed. "Oh, that's – it was for – for a little side project. Though I didn't actually find what I needed."
The two Slytherins tilted their heads in unison – now they were really freaking Harry out.
"Side project?" the boy asked.
"Do tell us more," the girl said. "We're working on a little side project, ourselves."
"Really?" Hermione put her hands on the table to lean in closer. If she had held any reservations about the two Slytherins before, they were completely forgotten, now. "What are you working on?"
"A way to make the utmost use of the synergistic effects of myrrh and frankincense to counteract the decrease in potency that most buffer solutions unfortunately cause for potions either ingredient is used in."
"That sounds quite advanced," Hermione said, a gleam in her eyes. "You must be pretty good at potions."
"Why, of course," said the girl. "We're Professor Snape's star students."
Harry blinked. "You are?"
Snape only ever praised Malfoy to the heavens, as far as Harry could remember.
As if she had read his mind, the girl smirked. "Oh, dear. It seems you fell for the Draco diversion."
"He is excellent at distracting people," the boy agreed, before focusing back on Hermione. "Would you like to hear what we've worked out so far?"
Hermione promptly sat down, Harry and Ron seemingly forgotten. "I would love to!"
When Harry glanced at this friend, he saw his own bewilderment mirrored on Ron's face.
o
Harry did pay more attention from then on – at least in Potions – and realised that the two Slytherins had actually told the truth. Nott and Lémure were Snape's best students. It was simply harder to notice among all the loud praise Malfoy constantly received, but undeniably there – an approving nod here, a murmured word of praise there, a (Harry couldn't believe his eyes) small smile when they handed in their vials at the end of a lesson. From what Harry could see, Snape never once had to correct them or ever made a single remark about anything they could improve on.
Harry didn't quite know what to do with that information at first.
He cornered them in the library less than a week later, slapping down the essay he had painstakingly copied just for this.
"If you had graded my potions essay, what would you have given me?"
Nott raised an eyebrow, but did not comment on what Harry only then realised must have come across as a pretty rude gesture.
Lémure tilted her head at his essay, considering, humming to herself.
"Sit down," she told him without looking up, "Madam Pince does not approve of people pacing in her library."
Harry sat down.
Eventually, Nott looked up from Harry's essay. "As a fair teacher, this would earn an Exceeds Expectations."
"As a slightly or not-so-slightly biased teacher in your favour," Lémure continued, "an Outstanding. And as a teacher biased against you, an Acceptable."
"I got a D," Harry said quietly.
He didn't know why he told them.
There were no judging looks.
Instead, Lémure nodded – as if she had already known, as if it was perfectly understandable. "And that is what I would have given you if I were Professor Snape."
"He is a good Head of House," Nott said. "But he was never fit to be a teacher."
Harry dragged a hand over his face. "Why is he doing this? As if I didn't have enough on my plate already!"
Nott and Lémure gave him identical pointed looks.
"This attitude is exactly why," Lémure said.
"I don't have an attitude!"
Their looks intensified.
Harry felt the sudden urge to throw something. Preferably a book. At Snape.
"Have you ever considered holding your tongue and not rising to any baits?"
"I am holding my tongue! Constantly!"
"Not in Defence," Nott muttered.
"What was that?" Harry asked sharply, earning himself a look of deep disapproval that only made the urge to throw something across the room stronger.
Lémure's expression, in contrast, turned into amusement – complete with a glint in her eyes and a hand on her cheek as she gave him a dark smile.
"You know," she said in a low tone, "You are not doing yourself or your cause any favours like this. No one ever believes those who need to shout to be heard. The moment you raise your voice, the validity of your argument decreases significantly."
Harry didn't care that the snarl leaving his mouth only confirmed her words. "Oh, so you also believe I'm a liar?!"
"No," she said in her infuriatingly calm, darkly amused tone. "We believe you. All of Slytherin House does."
"Then why – You do?" Harry blinked, finding himself momentarily stunned. Then he narrowed his eyes. "You're certainly not acting like it."
"Of course all of Slytherin House knows you are telling the truth about the Dark Lord's return. That doesn't mean they will support Dumbledore's favourite trophy Gryffindor in any capacity. Just because we know the Ministry is corrupt and the Daily Prophet the most unreliable source of news, doesn't mean we want to do anything about it. I believe things are much more advantageous to most on our side as they are."
"Advantageous to … your side?"
"Not the Dark Lord's side," Lémure said as if she had read his mind. "Truly, Potter, the world has many more shades of grey than you think it does. Slytherins are pushed to use anything to their advantage and play the game of politics, because that is what our house is – that is what all houses are: a self-fulfilling prophecy."
"What do you mean by that?"
This, finally, earned him a roll of her eyes. "We don't start as self-centred schemers, as hard-working pushovers, as nerdy know-it-alls, or as self-righteous saints. We grow up to fill those roles, because we are put into places that force us to grow into them."
Next to her, Nott nodded as if this was a perfectly normal thing to say – something everyone already knew.
"I don't understand."
"I did not expect you to."
"Now, hang on a second!"
A quiet laugh interrupted him.
Harry stared.
"Are you – Are you laughing at me?"
"Yes," Lémure admitted freely. "You are very refreshing to talk to, you know?" She smirked at him. "Mr Self-Righteous Saint Potter."
The chair scraped across the floor as Harry abruptly stood up. "Excuse me?"
"You may be excused."
"Oh, screw you!"
"No, thank you!" Lémure called after him as Harry stormed out of the library and her laughter followed him the entire way.
o
"I did not expect you to come back," Nott said quietly. Harry could not read his face.
He shrugged. He wasn't actually sure what had made him approach the Slytherin.
He looked around. "Where's your other half?"
This, at least, elicited a raised eyebrow. "Rhea and I are hardly two halves of a whole. She is off to work on her own, personal projects."
"Really? I always seem to catch you two together."
Nott gave him another unreadable look. "You really do not pay much attention to your surroundings, do you?"
"Hey! I play plenty of attention!" Harry protested.
"Please refrain from getting us thrown out of the library."
"What?" Harry snarked. "No silencing spell today?"
"What need would I have for it when working on my own?"
Harry blinked. Yeah, that did make sense.
"So what are you working on?"
"Homework."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Which one?"
That earned him yet another unreadable look, but then Nott did push the book he had been taking notes from over to lie between them. Harry looked at it, realised it was for an assignment he still had to work on as well, and then decided 'Why the hell not?'.
"Mind if I join you?"
Nott's silent company was, Harry reflected later, actually rather nice for some reason. He didn't know what to do with that.