Chapter 20, everybody! What a nice number.

Okay, so this sat for a long time because I wasn't sure how to proceed, and thinking on it had me wondering how a twelve-year-old took everything so stoically, which led to the chapter finally getting finished. It was also a nice way for me to process my opinions on some of the things saturating the news right now (and some of my old campus college experiences), so good things—except for Harry someone hug this poor boy. :(

TroyWeb, thanks for the reviews! Snips definitely needs his own theme music. And ooh yes, that would be good….

Thanks for the review, duj, glad you like it! :D

Harry Potter © JK Rowling

Harry's social experiences did not improve as the week wore on. Nor did it improve during the week after. Or the week after that—he finally did resort to wearing his invisibility cloak while in the library, which left Ron and Hermione a little frustrated at basically talking to thin air.

Hermione in particular thought he was being very silly.

"Honestly, Harry, hiding from everyone is only going to make it worse."

"Kind of have to agree," Ron said, not looking up from his Astronomy homework. "If people don't see you they might think you're off in the chamber plotting with your snake buddies."

"Being the focus of all that negative attention is just draining, all right?" Harry sighed—glanced at Snips huffing. "Don't you start."

"I mean I do get it—it's why we're going forward with this whole Polyjuice thing. When will that be ready?"

"Right in time for Christmas break," Hermione said. "It'll be perfect—almost everyone's going home so there'll be less people to question us while we're in disguise."

"I'm still not sold on essence of—Neville."

Neville had not been in the running for this, which alerted Harry to the fact that Neville had come over, still looking dour.

"Would you like to sit with us, Neville? Right there's free," Hermione said, pointing to a chair.

"Thanks," Neville said, sitting down. "Where's Harry?"

"Harry's currently hiding from the angry mob thinking he's the heir," Ron supplied.

"Oh. I mean I guess I would too." Blink. "Where, though? I just came from our dorm."

"Right here, Neville," Harry said, pushing the invisibility cloak off a little. "I was just getting really tired of the stares."

"I guess I can get that," Neville said—took a deep breath, obviously bracing himself. "And I don't think you did it, Harry—Luna and Colin are our friends."

"Thanks, Neville," Harry said, stuffing the invisibility cloak in his bag. "It's just frustrating—for everyone who does believe me it's like there's two that don't, and those people are just—really open about glaring."

"It's not that bad, Harry," Hermione stressed.

In response, Harry pulled out the list that Fergus had given him.

"What is this?" Hermione asked, looking it over.

"A list of people Fergus MacDougall asked me to avoid," Harry said, aware that his neck was pinking. "Because they bought charms to ward against me."

Ron snitched the paper, scanned it—"Justin Finch-Fletchley! What—of course he did, he still figures you set that snake on him."

"What are you going to do, Harry?" Neville asked.

Harry shrugged. "I really don't know—if I confront anyone on this, they'll just see it as guilt."

"Well you hiding could be construed as guilty as well," Hermione said, snapping a book shut. "I say we approach this proactively—I saw Ernie MacMillan in here earlier, we can talk to him about talking to Justin."

Talking to Ernie was a bit awkward, considering he was in a study group.

"What's he doing here?" one of the other students asked, indicating Harry. "Doesn't he have a monster to go consort with?"

"L-leave him alone!" Neville said, fists balling. "Harry isn't the heir, and he certainly wouldn't attack his friends! He's not even in Slytherin!"

"See, that was my point," one of the girls said.

"He was almost a Slytherin," the first student insisted.

"Oi—lay off, the lot of you," Ernie said, closing his book and standing up. "Let's go talk over here," he told the second-years.

"Careful, Ern, you might be next!"

"Before you comment, I shared that before the whole thing with the snake, and you didn't give me the impression you wanted it kept secret," Ernie told Harry once they were out of earshot.

"I was almost in Ravenclaw," Hermione piped up. "I don't see what the big deal about almost is."

"You can't talk to eagles, if you want a straight comparison."

"That we know of," Ron pointed out.

"That's true." Ernie turned back to Harry. "And I don't see it—not with Luna and Colin. So what did you want, Harry? If it's talking people down I've been trying that."

"It's about Justin," Harry started.

"I can't get him to agree to a face-to-face, Harry."

"Then can you at least tell him that I was telling the snake to stop? I didn't even realize I was speaking some other language until Ron and Hermione told me."

Ernie had a blank look now. "How can you speak a different language without realizing it?"

Harry didn't know and said so.

"But you can at least talk to Justin, right?" he asked.

"I'll see what I can do."

That was the most Harry could ask of him, honestly, and he spent the next couple of days at least trying to go about his day without hiding underneath the invisibility cloak. As Ron and Hermione insisted, not being seen was more suspicious than being seen.

But at least not being seen had the added benefit of not being glared at, of not being yelled at, of not being badgered and heckled and all but hexed and punched no matter how many times teachers came down on the offending students. It was really a lot to ask of a twelve-year-old, and it was getting to the point that he was pretty sure he was approaching something resembling a total nervous breakdown.

Having someone—at Gryffindor table, at that—hex his dinner to explode all over him was what got him there. Dripping soup, trying to keep from crying—at least with the Dursleys he had been able to get away from them—here there was always someone glaring at him and he had finally reached the end of his rope and he was not going to start sobbing he was not—

Fred and George ran in from the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables, tackling someone with the help of Lee Jordan, all of them yelling—Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff rushed the table, not sure what was going on but seeing their colors attacking Gryffindor and everyone was super-tense and Fred and George tackling whoever was the straw that broke the camel's back—Ron and Hermione tried to get him out of there but someone grabbed Ron and then Neville jumped on whoever had Ron and the Slytherin table was cheering on the chaos—

Once again, Dumbledore employed volume to restore order—pretty impressive volume held at length, to cut across the noise bouncing around the hall and the ringing in Harry's ears.

"Everyone who was injured, to the hospital wing," Dumbledore ordered. "Everyone else, to their dorms. Tomorrow your respective heads of houses will assign detentions and deduct points as they see fit."

"Come on, Harry," Hermione said, tugging on his arm gently. "We'll go get you cleaned up—"

Someone elbowed Harry hard in the back, which set off the whole fight again for another two minutes before the adults could restore order. Dumbledore had to finally resort to an immobulus charm, which left Harry half-picking himself up until he dispelled the charm a few minutes later.

"'Ere now 'arry, up yeh get," Hagrid said, having effectively waded through the fighting kids and hauling him upright. "Jus' a spill, don' fret—"

"I'm—" He couldn't get the lie out—Hogwarts had gone from warm and welcoming to openly hostile and he couldn't bring himself to handle being the concentrated focus of so much ire.

"Don't worry, Harry, we'll escort you back to the dorm," Fred said, coming around Hagrid's side. Snips was riding on his shoulder, flitted to Harry's, started chittering.

"Let those lions know we know where they live," George said. "And the veggie-pusher just about ate up Cormac's nose, that was impressive."

"You worry me, to be fair," Fred said to Snips.

"You ridiculous lot—prefects, escort this group to the dorm!" McGonagall called, moving her arm in a large circle to indicate them. "Hagrid, could you go with them? As for the rest of you I am ashamed of you—"

Hagrid ushered them out, Harry dimly hearing Slughorn telling the other heads of houses he'd be sending up calming droughts to their houses later, some of the kids might need them—

"Are you okay, Harry?" Hermione asked, keeping a hand on his arm.

"No," he answered thickly. Looked up morosely at his friends—noted the state of Ron's face. "Ron, shouldn't you be—"

"I'll go tomorrow," Ron said.

"Or maybe we'll have to lean on Gred and Forge to patch you up—they're good for that," Fred offered.

"If you trust them to do it, that is," George added.

"I trust Fred and George more than Donald," Ron said dully.

"That's true—shame on Donald, not jumping in."

"It'll be fine, Harry," Hermione assured him. "They'll find out who's been doing this and everything will calm back down."

Considering they ran into Justin, Ernie, and Nearly-Headless Nick—all petrified—on the way back up to the dorm, Harry very much doubted it.