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Chapter Two

"Our new celebrity."

Harry stared into Professor Snape's eyes and knew that he'd been right. This man hated him. Harry sort of wondered why, but, well, he'd never known why his primary school teachers hated him, either. It was better not to ask that sort of question. Keep his head down.

"Tell me, if you can, Potter, what are the ingredients of the Draught of Living Death?"

Harry blinked once and then saw the way that Malfoy was sniggering, and knew the game. Snape was trying to prove that he was stupid or something.

In another life, Harry might have been affected by it. But he could see Ron smiling at him from behind Snape's back, and he knew that his real friend wouldn't back away or think it was funny that he couldn't answer Snape's question.

He shrugged a little. "I don't know, sir."

"Perhaps your brain isn't all it's rumored to be," Snape said with an unpleasant smile, and Harry felt curiosity about questions he wasn't going to ask again. Who would be telling rumors about him to Snape? It wasn't like the Dursleys would write to a wizard. "An easier question. Where would you find the bezoar?"

"What's a bezoar, sir?"

"Stupid indeed. Rather like your father."

Oh. Was that it? Snape had hated Harry's father and so he hated him? Harry thought it was kind of a stupid reason, but then, if he grew up and had kids someday, maybe they would hate Dudley's kids, too.

"Sorry, sir. Don't know."

"One more chance to prove that you aren't stupid, Potter. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Harry did remember reading that wolfsbane was a plant, but he didn't know what monkshood was. He settled for shrugging.

"Really? Not even an attempt at an answer?" Malfoy laughed aloud, but Malfoy was an idiot whose opinion meant nothing to Harry. "Two points from—"

Snape shut up abruptly, his face tightening. This time, Harry didn't have any idea about what was going on. Snape glanced quickly over at the Gryffindor side of the classroom, this time, as if he thought someone over there was doing something they shouldn't. But it was only Granger with her hand in the air.

Snape turned back to Harry and said, "A detention, I think, Potter, for neglecting your study skills."

"Yes, sir."

Snape started telling them the answers to the questions then, and Harry wrote them down. He would be curious to look them up when he got back to the dormitory and see if any of them were in the first-year Potions textbook. Maybe the monkshood and wolfsbane one, since the book had mentioned wolfsbane, but Harry would bet they weren't going to brew the Draught of Living Death in first year.

"You're so stupid, Potter."

Harry ignored Malfoy again as he gathered up the ingredients for the Boil Cure Potion. He didn't think he would do it right the first time, but he would see about practicing on his own later. He would probably have to do that a lot. Quirrell wasn't a great teacher, either.

"Harry!"

The whisper came from the side. Harry glanced over, although he knew who it had to be. He only knew one person here who called him by his first name.

"Wanna partner?" Ron grinned at him and waved Harry towards his table.

All over the classroom, people seemed to suck in and hold their breaths. Harry snorted. Was it that unheard of for a Gryffindor to partner with a Slytherin in class?

Apparently it was. But Harry still gathered up his ingredients and moved over to Ron's side of the classroom. His back prickled, since he could feel Snape's stare, and he was almost sure that Snape would order him to move back.

But he didn't. Harry settled down triumphantly next to Ron, and they started working together.

It wasn't all fun and games. Poor Longbottom managed to make boils sprout all over his face and hands and melted his cauldron. He stood there moaning, and Harry flinched. Ron put a comforting hand over his.

"Madam Pomfrey can fix him right up."

"Madam Pomfrey?"

"The mediwitch, in the hospital wing. My brothers say she's amazing…"

Ron chattered away to Harry, and they came up with a sort-of Boil Cure, and Harry ignored the stares from the Slytherins. They hated him anyway. They hated him as much as they possibly could. Ron and working with Ron were great. They wouldn't take that away from him.

"You're so stupid, Potter."

Harry ignored the words coming from Malfoy, as he usually did. He was currently sprawled on his bed, working on his essay. He would carry it with him when he finished. He hadn't left his homework anywhere for the other Slytherins to rip up. He knew Reparo now, but he didn't think he was strong enough to reassemble hundreds of tiny pieces of paper.

"You should have known all this stuff from the time you were a baby. I thought you were being raised by people who actually cared about your education. I suppose I was wrong."

Harry ignored that, too. He had learned by now that lots of people had silly ideas about him because of these children's books about Harry Potter that portrayed him as some kind of dragon-riding, sphinx-taming hero.

It didn't matter. They were all a lot stupider than he was, if they had believed that kind of thing was real.

"I wonder what would happen if we destroyed something you couldn't repair. Your owl, maybe?"

Harry froze for a long moment. Then he looked up. Malfoy grinned triumphantly at him from where he stood by the foot of Harry's bed, and spun his wand idly between his fingers. He hadn't resorted to physical attacks yet, but—

"Did you just threaten to murder my owl?"

"Is it really murder, when we're just breaking a creature owned by a Mudblood? I wonder what you would do if you found feathers and blood all over your pillow tom—"

There was a pounding and a ringing and a roaring in Harry's head. Long streaks of red filled his vision. He had never been this angry, not even when Dudley had lied enough to get Harry locked up in the cupboard for two weeks.

He heard shrieks, but they were distant. And then someone yelled, "Potter! Potter, stop!" and Harry blinked and blinked again, and some of the anger retreated.

He was still seeing red, though. Literal red.

Malfoy was on fire.

Malfoy was shrieking and batting at the flames that were consuming his robes, but it wasn't helping. He staggered and sat down on the floor and went on beating at them. His voice croaked like a bulldog's.

Harry laughed.

Malfoy went still and stared at him. At the same moment, the flames died. Harry braced his hands on his bed so that Malfoy and the others, who were all staring at him, wouldn't see how tired he was. He thought it would be a very bad thing to appear exhausted in front of them now.

They can just think I stopped the fire because I wanted to. Not because I was too tired to keep it going.

"If you hurt Hedwig," Harry said, "you'll regret it."

He thought he should have thought of better words, that those were pretty weak ones, but they were apparently enough for Malfoy. He nodded rapidly, forcing himself back towards the wall, his head ducked and his arms rising as if he wanted to wrap them around his head. "Yes, yes, I get it, Potter!"

"Good," Harry said, and then he forced himself to roll over and go back to working on his essay.

The other boys in the room stared at him, but no one actually tried to interfere. Crabbe and Goyle just seemed too confused to do it. Harry didn't know what Nott and Zabini were feeling, but he didn't really care.

They only stood around when Malfoy threatened Harry and tore up his belongings. That meant Harry didn't care about them, unless they were going to do something one way or the other.

Oddly, it seemed that Nott had chosen to do something that evening. Harry was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, and he saw the movement behind him in the mirrors. He promptly grabbed for his wand, which he carried everywhere with him all the time. He couldn't fix that if they broke it.

"Potter."

Harry couldn't say anything with a mouthful of toothpaste. He settled for a grunt that he hoped Nott would take seriously.

"What you did…"

Harry said nothing, just brushing and spitting some more. Nott finally cleared his throat and said, "I've never seen someone use accidental magic that way."

Harry shrugged and spat in the sink, then gathered his toothbrush close while watching Nott carefully. Supposedly Nott was some kind of Potions genius, even though Malfoy was the one who bragged about getting good marks in that class. He wouldn't put it past Nott to poison his toothpaste.

Nott studied him. He had cold grey eyes that never seemed to reflect anything, not like Malfoy's.

"No one knew you were that dangerous," Nott said abruptly.

"If you decide to hurt my owl, you'll figure out how dangerous." Harry didn't know if he could repeat what his accidental magic had done to Malfoy on Nott, but he knew he would try.

Nott slowly shook his head. "I don't threaten owls, Potter. I just want you to know that at least one person in our dormitory respects you."

And then he turned around and left, while Harry stared after him. A second later, he shook his head and dumped some water on his hands to try and flatten his hair, which he did every evening before he went to sleep.

No, he didn't believe that. If Nott respected Harry, he would have tried to stop Malfoy from tearing up his books and clothes.

Harry went to bed with his wand clutched in his hand, and ignored the way that Nott and Zabini whispered together, looking at him occasionally. He also ignored the way that Malfoy smeared a salve Madam Pomfrey had given him on his hands.

Malfoy avoided his eyes. And he hadn't said a word about Hedwig. That was all Harry wanted for now.