AN

Boggart.

In the last part of this chapter. But nothing graphic, I think? What did Lynea say again? Parents, the dark, Death. Sounds pretty accurate. There's also fire.

February to March 1994, 3rd year

As February went on and the weather became steadily warmer, the dark rings underneath Harry's eyes grew darker and his attitude became more snappish again. The boys assured Lynea that it wasn't nightmares or they would have noticed – but Harry could have just put silencing charms around his four-poster to make sure his nightmares wouldn't wake them, so she wasn't convinced.

With the whole school on high alert after no less than two break-ins from Sirius Black, there was no way for them to give Harry some time alone. Harry never requested it, either.

There was another Hogsmeade visit and a Quidditch match to observe, but while they made Harry happy, they didn't help him sleep. Lynea was not the only one who was worried, yet all their worries aggravated Harry even further. At more than one point, Lynea thought she saw guilt in his eyes and she assumed at first it was because of his attitude towards his friends, but slowly realized there was more to it.

It took until March for the truth to come out. In the early morning hours of a fine Sunday morning, Lynea was woken up by a piece of parchment softly poking her cheek. It was a note from Professor Snape, requesting her presence in the common room. She threw on a robe and climbed into a pair of shoes and then descended the stairs, still yawning.

Professor Snape was standing in the middle of the room, a silvery piece of cloth draped over one arm, holding Harry with the other.

"Professor?" Lynea asked, a vague idea already forming in her head.

"Ah, Miss Fawley," Snape drawled. "Thank you for joining us, despite the early hour. I shall come straight to the point. Mister Potter here apparently thought he was above the rules and sneaked out at night."

"Despite the danger that an escaped convict, the Dementors and the Creatures of the Night pose," Lynea said flatly, giving Harry an unimpressed stare.

Harry flinched and avoided her eyes.

Snape's lips curled upwards. "Indeed. I have already taken fifty points from Slytherin and assigned detention for a month. You will take it from here?"

Lynea nodded and took the Invisibility Cloak he was offering her. "Of course, Professor."

She waited for their Head of House to leave the room, before raising an eyebrow at Harry. "That was your way of getting some time for yourself? Sneaking out at night? How long have you been doing this?"

Harry mumbled something.

"What was that?" Lynea asked.

"Since December," Harry muttered.

"And you were outside every night?"

"Not every night," Harry said. "Only a few every week and never on the Full Moon since you told us about Lupin – I'm not that stupid."

"But stupid enough to risk being caught by Professor Snape. Which means Black could have easily caught you, too."

Harry flinched. "It was Filch who caught me. I tripped over a bloody trick step, because he suddenly came around the corner, and the cloak slipped off."

"What would you have done if it had been Black instead of Filch?"

Harry bit his lip and said nothing.

"I will inform the others before breakfast and I will make sure the rest of the house knows," Lynea said and cut off any protests with a dark glare. "And I will confiscate your cloak."

"What?" Harry took a step forward and raised his hand as if to grab the cloak out of her hands. "But I need that!"

"For what?" Lynea said in a sharp tone that made Harry recoil immediately.

"For – For Hogsmeade. You said I couldn't go without the cloak. And – and that cloak belonged to my father. It is the only thing I have from him."

"Then you should have taken better care," Lynea replied coldly. "Do you even realize how dangerous that was? You deliberately put yourself in danger. And for what? To wander the halls alone at night and fall asleep during the day, making us all worry unnecessarily."

"If you would just – listen to me," Harry said through clenched teeth. "If you would let me explain …"

"Then what?"

"I was getting mad! I never had any moment for myself, not even when I went to the dorms. You were all stifling me, keeping me caged. I felt like I was suffocating. I just wanted some time alone, so I could bloody think!"

"We all feel like that, Harry," Lynea replied, her voice still cold.

"You're not the Boy Who Lived. People don't look at you like you're either some prized object or going to be the next Dark Lord."

"Don't they?" Lynea asked softly and Harry stared at her for a moment.

"They don't whisper behind your back all the time," he then said quietly. "They're not after your life. And no one got hurt, anyway. I only endangered myself."

"And your wellbeing doesn't matter?"

"That's not what I meant."

"But it is, Harry. That's precisely what you meant. Your parents sacrificed their lives to safe yours and you just go and endanger it like that?"

"What do you even care?" Harry exclaimed. "You're not my mother. You don't even think that death is a bad thing."

"Because it isn't. But that is not the point, Harry. Death will claim your life when He deems it is time, but a murderer will not honour that. And I am not the only one who cares about you. Have you ever considered how many people would grieve for you, should you die?"

I expected better of you, lay sharply on her tongue, but she bit down on it to prevent herself from saying it out loud. She had implied it heavily enough.

It was the type of recklessness a thirteen-year-old boy would resort to, Lynea realized, and she wondered what that said about herself – that she would never have thought about doing such a thing, nor imagined Harry would.

"I –" Harry scrunched up his whole face to prevent the tears from falling, but it didn't work.

Lynea sighed. "Go to bed. Get some sleep. Think about my words." And then she turned on her heel and went up to the girls' dormitories again, ignoring the boy silently crying behind her.

Maybe she had been a bit too harsh on him, but life was unfair. It was unfair to all of them.

This was what it meant to be a leader. And perhaps she was perfect for it, after Draco had shown time and again that he was weak, in his own set stubbornness and pride. Lynea was cold and indifferent in truth, but not mean and she tried to be empathetic where she could. Lynea had power – power in her grand-aunt's teachings, power in the name associated with the white strand in her hair. She was by no means the most powerful in her year, if it came to what was taught at Hogwarts, but that hardly mattered in a real life-and-death situation, where only Harry could best her as of now. And Lynea's family was neutral – the Fawleys were. But the Lémures were, too, if she were to ever accept their name – more so than the Fawleys, even. The Notts weren't. But there was only her uncle Nereus and Theodore would not join the Dark Lord, given the choice.

If she thought rationally about it, then Lynea was perfect for the position. But she still hated every single part of it. At least they didn't expect her to actually guide them. She only had to mediate conflicts and not make the wrong decisions when necessary. Whatever those were.

What a mess.

o

Slytherin House was greatly displeased with Harry. None of the other three houses would have ever guessed it from the outside, but it was very noticeable in the common room. The third-year students were especially angry, because they cared more about Harry than the lost house points.

Harry was just miserable.

He apologized directly after Lynea informed the others of what had happened and made sure to be on his best behaviour. They also were back to their usual group formations, which made it a bit more bearable for Harry, because he could distract himself by letting the more talkative Draco take the lead in conversations. But that did not change the situation.

He did seem to come to terms with what Lynea had told him eventually, though, and whatever happened during detentions with Snape – which Harry refused to talk about – apparently sped the process along. Lynea wondered what Professor Snape could possibly be doing. He was still acting the same way as always in their potions lessons and Harry didn't outwardly treat him any differently, either. But she didn't press Harry for answers. That was his decision.

Still, she kept a close watch on both of them whenever she could. She was proficient enough in both potion brewing and at multitasking to do so and still notice what was going on around her. Which was why Lynea instinctively raised a shield between Harry and herself and the cauldron, when something sailed through the air, past her head – and not a moment too late, because not only did whatever had been thrown into their cauldron splash, it also made the potion bubble and spit hot liquid everywhere. Ruined potions were not fun to deal with.

"Miss Fawley, what is the meaning of this?" Professor Snape loomed over them.

He waved his wand and the spitting potion vanished. Lynea dropped the shield. Beside her, Harry let out a quiet sigh of relief.

"Whatever landed in our cauldron didn't cause a violent reaction," Lynea said, ignoring Harry's sharp intake of breath. "It seems to have only rapidly increased the temperature, so I think it might have been fireseeds. Just a small bundle, not nearly enough to cause an explosion, fortunately."

Which had probably been an oversight on the perpetrator's part.

Professor Snape narrowed his eyes and then turned around to face the class. "Can anyone in this room tell me, why they thought it was a good idea to throw anything into another cauldron?"

Lynea saw one of Weasley's friends duck his head slightly and avert his eyes. Professor Snape's attention immediately snapped to him.

"Mister Finnigan, care to explain?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. Sir."

While Professor Snape verbally thrashed Finnigan and his housemates, Harry leaned over to Lynea. "What does Finnigan have against us?"

"House rivalry," Lynea replied quietly. "The Gryffindors from our year have been pretty tame so far, apart from the occasional dark glaring or verbal insults. I had hoped they would keep it to that."

"But why now?"

Lynea shrugged. "Beats me."

"Ten points to Slytherin for using wandless and nonverbal magic to cast a Shield Charm," Professor Snape said as he swept to the front of the classroom and then he barked, "Back to your potions, everyone!"

Lynea did not know for sure what had motivated Finnigan to sabotage their potion, but she made an educated guess when they entered the Great Hall for lunch. The third-years were the only Slytherins not covered in scarlet and gold glitter from head to toe. The glitter was obviously magically enforced and could not just be brushed off or washed away and the teachers had not lifted a finger to help so far, but Professor Snape was looking murderous up at the teachers' table.

"I thought the Weasley twins were up to some mischief," Pansy said thoughtfully. "They acted awfully suspicious during breakfast."

"We might not interact with them very often," Lynea said, "but I am glad they still seem to consider us their friends."

"Amazing, how one single snowball fight can change things," Pansy said. "I wasn't even at the school when it happened."

"Maybe it was easier leaving us out of it as a whole, rather than going after individuals," Lynea said.

"Harry, where are you going?" Draco asked.

Harry gave him a grin, his eyes sparkling. "Getting up to some mischief." And then wandered over to the Gryffindor table to greet the twins.

"He's going to get revenge on Finnigan, isn't he?" Lynea asked.

Draco smirked. "Serves him right."

The revenge took form as some kind of transfiguration that made Finnigan sprout long, grey, animal ears and a tail and forced him to hee-haw every now and then. It made the Slytherins laugh for quite a while. Until their next Defence lesson, at least, when Professor Lupin proudly presented them with a rattling wardrobe and told them he had finally found a Boggart for them.

Lynea briefly wondered whether it was the same one Harry, Theodore and Blaise practiced on for Patronus lessons, but Harry later told her Professor Lupin still had that one.

Suffice it to say – it didn't go over very well.

After the fourth failed attempt – which was, incidentally, Lynea's – Professor Lupin had to stop and let them take a break.

By then they had seen Millicent's parents and cat dead on the ground, Theodore's father telling him that he was abandoning him forever, Daphne's little sister Astoria dying right in front of their eyes and Lynea's father stepping out of the wardrobe with a fire burning in his eyes and his hands.

Lynea knew that Naenia didn't have a greatest fear. She had heard the story of her grand-aunt facing a Boggart in class before. (She had also heard a story about Tom's two encounters with Boggarts from a very thoughtful sounding Naenia. Lynea realized only now that the Dark Lord was afraid of his own death – or had been, in any case.)

Lynea sometimes wished she was more like her grand-aunt.

Professor Lupin went over everyone's individual fear and discussed with them how they could best use the Riddikkulus Charm. It went better after that.

Harry made his Dementor stumble and then flail around, trying to get the tangled robes off its head.

Vincent, who had already startled at Lynea's Boggart, let a large bucket of glittering water appear over his own burning body and drenched his Boggart in it, leaving a second Vincent behind, unharmed and glittering in green and silver. (Lynea knew exactly where he had gotten the inspiration from.)

Gregory's Boggart seemed to be Death, Himself, in the form of a dark and looming skeleton-like figure that slowly reached out and drew your life out of you – or it looked like it did, from Lynea's point of view. When Gregory called out "Riddikulus!", music appeared out of nowhere and the dark skeleton began to dance.

Seeing Lucius Malfoy in a pink ballgown was a sight to behold, if one forgot the way he had told Draco what a great disappointment and failure he was, how embarrassing his existence was – a disgrace staining the Malfoy family tree.

Tracey was afraid of the dark and when it was her turn, everything went black. Then a faintly glowing shape of something started to reach for her out of the darkness. The next moment, there was a click and a lamp turned on, hanging from the previously shapeless being and casting it in a warm light, showing off the large, black eyes of an adorable, if overlarge puppy.

The only ones who didn't face off against the Boggart were Blaise and Pansy. They were the lucky ones whose chances were cut off by the school bell. They also hadn't finished off the Boggart, which was probably good for the Hufflepuffs. (Or not, depending how you looked at it.)

The Slytherins were all glad to flee the room and have an unhealthy amount of hot chocolate for lunch.

Neither Daphne, nor Millicent or Gregory could look Lynea in the eyes for weeks afterwards, though she never acknowledged their fear of the one she worshipped. It was only natural for most, Lynea reminded herself, and she wouldn't judge their greatest fear just as they would not judge hers. The Slytherins kept each other's secrets, not willing to expose such weaknesses to anyone outside their little group.

All in all, facing off against a Boggart had been a terrible experience.