It was only once Harry had claimed his dorm bed and crawled into it, that he began to actually wonder if he would be in any trouble for dunking a girl into the lake. It seemed, in the dark of the night, sheer luck that had been on their side. She'd been horrid, he reasoned. And continued to be, even after being dunked.
As an eleven year old boy, it was hard for him to understand that being dunked underwater may perhaps encouragesomeone to be nastier. This couldn't possibly occur to him (unless he experienced it himself). It was the folly of most eleven year olds: empathy.
"Lucian," he whispered into the dark canopy. "Lucian."
"What?"
"...Reckon she'll tell?"
"Dunno."
"Okay," Harry said back, and that was that. They tried to get some sleep, and eventually the excitement of everything that day had brought overwhelmed their youth.
Harry yawned and bundled the blankets around himself. He thought, despite being in Slytherin, his parents would be happy for him. No matter the jokes Sirius would make about his House, they would be happy. He was happy to be here - some small fission of pride was burrowing itself inside him already. And most importantly, he hadn't broken a single thing. His magic had been so wonderfully well-behaved - being in a new environment didn't seem to exacerbate... anything.
He didn't need to have an accidental magic episode at Hogwarts. It was his fresh start, where no one knew that even last week he couldn't control himself when Archie wouldn't give him back his wand. He'd let him hold it for a second - and then the little twat wouldn't give it back - and it was his -
And then it happened again, and Harry made things go boom in Potter cottage. It was humiliating, so close to leaving for Hogwarts.
But he felt it would be alright. Nothing should've worked out as well as it did today, and it did all the same.
It had only been a night, but Harry had a good feeling about this year.
The next morning, absolutely no one woke up on time. It was only due to one of the boy Prefects banging on the door that anyone jolted from their deep, content sleeps. Marcus Flint got so mad that he threw his pillow at the door, but this lacked any oomph because it was, after all, a pillow. And he had to march over and pick it up again, which was a bit funny to the other boys.
It seemed in the bathroom they were all in competition as to who could get in and out as fast as possible. They'd done some introductions last night, talked a little, and slept in the same room. Essentially none of them really knew each other, so they naturally bickered like old siblings.
"Shove over," Terence said to Colin, who was indeed purposefully trying to block him from the sinks.
"Won't," Colin said. Colin Cresswell had a decent bit more experience with siblings than the others, being one of five Cresswell boys. This made him top of the pyramid so to speak.
"Harry," Miles asked easily over the chatter. "Say, do you look anything like your brother?"
He scoffed, low in the back of his throat, "No."
"Never seen the Dark Lord's defeater in person, have you?" Flint asked Miles. "It was a bit of a letdown if you ask me."
Harry laughed, and this was like permission for all the others. Brushing his teeth and looking into the mirror, Harry knew his words to have been true. He and his little brother didn't look alike, not at all by his estimation.
Archibald was tall for his nine years, and he wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses just like their dad did, over his brown eyes. He had wild hair too, sticking in every direction and impossible to cut or control. It still managed to look pretty cool, though Harry hated to admit that.
Harry, on the other hand, had green eyes like their mum. He didn't need glasses - in fact, he had incredible eyesight. His hair had barely any life to it. Sure, it was black like his father's, but that was the only similarity. Perhaps it curled a bit at the ends if you squinted. But, it was their faces that really set them apart. Archibald had a square-set jaw and thin mouth, whereas Harry had a dangerously narrow chin and cheekbones encroaching on his under-eyes. He had his mum's mouth too, fuller and prone to emoting. Archibald had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose and cheeks - Harry was pale as a ghost and only ever burned. So no, he didn't see a resemblance between them at all.
"What's up first?" Lucian asked at large, pulling on his jumper over the standard white button-up.
"We've got Defence," Harry said. "Which ought to be brilliant."
"Duelling," Flint grunted. But it was an excited grunt, Harry thought.
"Yeah, I hope so," Miles said.
Breakfast was an excitable affair; Harry had brought Vexing Hexing! with him to show it off to his new dorm mates, and it worked a charm. "How'd you get your parents to buy this for you?" Cassius Warrington asked. "My mum's afraid for me to learn hexes outside of school."
"I got it from my parents' room. Dad's got loads of his old books, never noticed."
"Ach, my mum locks up everything. House is like a museum," Cassius complained. "Pass the eggs."
With high hopes and devious plots, the Slytherin boys hiked their way up to the Defence classroom - getting turned around three ways, and knocking over one (1) suit of armour. The entire time, Graham Montague sulkily lingered behind them. Lucian was still ignoring him, and Graham was too moody to try and insert himself into the group. The last bit of their adventure was when Miles got himself stuck in a trick step before the Defence corridor, and they needed a sixth year Gryffindor to help pull him out.
"It aches," Miles told them proudly.
Class was awful. They'd sat down as quietly as eleven-year-olds can manage and watched the woman at the front desk flip through her papers as everyone filed in. They had this class split with the Gryffindors, unfortunately. Harry and Viola sought each other out with narrowed eyes and sat as far away from each other as possible. Lucian cracked his knuckles, and Harry appreciated his input even though Viola was too far away to hear that.
And while it was bad enough to have class with the Gryffindors, the class itself was a complete letdown. There was no duelling or even any spells. They spent nearly two hours listening to a 'safety with wands' lecture. The only person Harry saw taking notes was Montague, and when Graham noticed he was looking he scowled at Harry and covered his paper with his arm.
As if Harry wanted to look at his boring safety notes.
And even though the class was long, droll, and very awful, Harry was enjoying himself. He had somehow, seamlessly, become socially accepted in his year. Again, he was unsure if these people were his friends just yet, but so far it did indeed seem that simple.
"Luce," came the now more familiar voice of Lucinda Nott, whom Harry had met on the train and so on. She was also in Slytherin. "Talk to Graham yet?"
"No," he said.
She rolled her eyes, and so did the girl next to her - one of those twins, Harry thought.
It was a bit annoying to have trekked halfway across the grounds to the Defence classroom and then have to go all the way back to the dungeons for Potions. The only saving grace was that they had Potions with the Hufflepuffs, so that meant goodbye to Viola Richmond and the other Gryffindors. And after Potions was lunch hour, which Harry was already craving. "So what was it? What's the big thing?" He asked Lucian.
Lucian shot him a look. "It's nothing."
Harry did not want to be in the dark any longer, and as they huddled outside the closed door to the Potions classroom he decided to go and ask Graham Montague about it later, when no one would see him talking to the boy. He didn't want to risk his newfound belonging in 'the group', but Harry was a snoop. He just had to know.
The door swung open silently but still a lot of people jumped - one would expect a big bang from such a sudden movement.
"Well? Don't lurk," came the voice from above their heads. "Find a seat." This was their Head of House, Professor Snape. He taught Potions, obviously. Otherwise it would be quite strange that he would find himself in the classroom at that exact time, sneering down on a slightly cowed group of eleven year old children.
Professor Snape cut a... figure. He was very tall (or maybe the children were very short, it was hard to tell for them at this age), and had long, thick hair as black as ink. It looked shiny, a bit wet, and the style of it did nothing to lessen the sharp angles of his face and striking nose. It was slightly crooked, like a punch that didn't heal right, and his mouth seemed to be pressed into a permanent look of dissatisfaction. He had very dark eyes, pointed brows, and a ghostly pallor. Harry, upon really looking at him for the first time, did not find it strange that such an unfriendly looking man could be labelled 'unfair'. He looked terribly stern, outside of just looking plain frightening.
Although he couldn't be all that bad - being part of a semi-to-very public vigilante group. Right? Right.
"I will not waste my time or breath to induce interest in this class. Interest is meaningless. Talent is potential. Effort is paramount." He peered down at his subjects, looking vaguely ill. "Colour me surprised if just one of you has what it takes to be a master of the Art." A pair of Hufflepuffs across the row from Harry and Lucian began to straighten themselves up and thusly so did Harry and Lucian on example.
"I will provide correction, and your books... a somewhat passing form of instruction. If you feel the need to ask questions, attempt not to. Working through your own mistakes will make up a large amount of your time in my class." He sneered again, or maybe that was Snape's idea of a smile? Not encouraging. "And I can assure you... you will make many, many mistakes." No, definitely a sneer, that.
Harry was wary, because just yesterday his mum and dad had warned him about this Professor. But on the other hand, with a mum who worked in potions, he thought he could survive the class. She didn't just work with potions, she liked it. That meant managing to incorporate one million and one anecdotes about potions into every conversation ever.
They were going to make the Boil-Cure, which Harry was relieved by. So far, so good. It was a fairly simple potion, though he quickly learned that Lucian was not to be trusted with the slicing, dicing, cubing, or crushing of any of the ingredients. "You just put them in the cauldron," Harry said quickly, taking away the mortar and pestle. "I'll tell you when."
Snape liked to hover it seemed - like a great spectre of doom, he loomed over each cauldron making snide remarks or even worse, small sounds of derision that provided no directions as to what was about to go wrong. Harry didn't know if it was his parents' words influencing his perception or just the reality, but he imagined that Snape lingered longer and narrowed his eyes more when he was hovering over Harry and Lucian's cauldron.
"I suppose you thought it quicker to add the dried nettles ground, did you? And now I see more of a turquoise than green... you realise precision is a necessity, not a choice, Mr. Potter... don't you?"
"Lower your flame lest you set fire to your robes, Mr. Potter," he added as he swept by again. Without understanding Snape's tone, and general demeanour, these comments may sound helpful to the unexperienced. But Harry was wary. Although the Professor was far harsher to the Hufflepuffs, Harry did notice that he was the only Slytherin that Snape made any commentary on - excluding Marcus Flint, who had managed to actually sprout something from inside his cauldron. That was too extraordinary to ignore.
Still, in the end, Harry bottled what he thought to be a pretty good (at least passing) vial of Boil-Cure. When he brought it up to the front table, labelled neatly with both his and Lucian's names, Snape scoffed at him but did nothing else.
There was something there, Harry was sure, but it wasn't as horrific as he'd feared. Or his parents had feared for him. But the fact remained, Professor Snape was a bit scary.
"And if we've got a problem, a larger one - " Cassius was saying as they left for the Great Hall, stomachs rumbling.
"We don't go to Snape," Terence said. "He hates to be disturbed, that's what the prefect Murk said."
"He's our Head of House," said one of those twins from earlier. Harry thought one of them was named after a flower? "He's meant to help, you know."
"Well go ahead, knock on his door at the wrong hour and see what potion you end up in," Miles said. "You know, he was on trial with my uncle, back in the day."
This was great gossip. "Oh," she gasped. "What'd he do?"
"I dunno," Miles said. "He got off, didn't he? My uncle on the other hand..."
"I'd hope he's innocent," Harry said. "Else what is he doing here?" As much as the Order of the Phoenix was an open secret… Harry was pretty sure he shouldn't go around announcing that Professor Snape was a member of said group — so it was probably safe to trust he wasn't some master criminal.
"Getting off doesn't mean they're innocent," Lucian said rather wisely.
