HP fic: Unto the Breach, chapter 2, part one
Abbe Faria: In return for your help, I offer you something priceless.
Edmond: My freedom?
Abbe Faria: No, freedom can be taken away, as you well know. I offer you my knowledge.
Count of Monte Cristo, 2002
*
Chapter Two
Harry had sent off a quick, brief one-lined letter indicating his House association early the morning after the sorting, before breakfast. He knew Edgar would reply later on in the week, near Friday, to give Harry a chance to explore and learn a bit more about Hogwarts before departing any knowledge of the place.
Once the first week was over, Harry knew there were things he just had to tell Edgar about; and by the end of that first week, there were several things that Harry was absolutely sure about.
The first was Severus Snape: the man hated him.
Although he was Harry’s head of house, the man made it clear that he didn’t like Harry, wouldn’t tolerate Harry, and would most certainly not help him out under any circumstances. In their first potions class, with the Gryffindors, Snape quizzed Harry on material he knew to be well beyond the standard first year text-and it was only his prep before hand with Edgar, and Kettleburn’s cryptic suggestion after Diagon Alley, that helped him along.
Afterward, Snape decided that exercising vitriol on Harry was worthless, and stopped speaking to him altogether. His first essay, a detailed, thoughtful piece of the uses of foxglove in their swelling solution, was given an ‘A’ whereas Theo’s barely legible, last-minute and very rushed essay was marked as an ‘EE.’ Harry decided the class was no big loss, and focused instead on ensuring his potions were not tampered with and could easily settle for poor grades-Cedric informed him that their OWLs and NEWTs were graded from an outside source, and they were the only grades that mattered.
Other than Snape, the other professors seemed to get along with him well enough; as promised, Harry saw Kettleburn with Caesar that first Friday, and the man declared the python to be “blooming beautifully” under Harry’s care. He then introduced Harry to Rubeus Hagrid, the keeper of keys at Hogwarts and the groundskeeper who knew almost more than Kettleburn. The giant-because there was no other word Harry could use to describe the man-was a bit unsure if he was to be aloof at Harry’s Slytherin sorting, or bawling about how he knew him when he was a baby.
They finally settled on friendly, especially after the three ended up conversing on the differences between snakes and dragons.
Flitwick, his Charms instructor, was impartial and didn’t seem to notice at all what crest he wore on his robes; neither did Professor Sprout-but when he caught her sniff of distaste when she moved past Malfoy, Harry decided that his association with Cedric Diggory must have helped him. Harry didn’t even comment on the uselessness of Quirrell to Edgar.
Finally, Professor McGonagall, who had smiled at him during his sorting, was unnecessarily strict and behaved rather like Snape had-at least, at first. Once she realised he was answering her questions correctly (along with Granger), and he performed his needle-to-pin before anyone else, she revised her opinion. He was given beaming smiles from her since.
The second thing Harry was sure about was that he had mortally offended several classmates of his when he was sorted into Slytherin. His name was whispered in the hallways, and his blatant association with Theodore Nott, as well as being a Slytherin, created uproar amongst the students. In particular, there were three students who were the most affected: Ron Weasley of Gryffindor, who looked as though he just learnt Santa didn’t exist; Ernie McMillan of Hufflepuff, despite Cedric’s very public backing of Harry’s sorting; and Susan Bones, who shrieked whenever she saw him and turned in the opposite direction when he wandered down the hall.
Harry wasn’t sure if he was amused or completely mortified. Theo seemed to think it one big laugh, and sniggered whenever he saw Susan Bones and Ernie McMillan in their Charms class, which they shared with the Hufflepuffs. Still-he didn’t let it bother him too much. He was at Hogwarts to learn magic, to defend himself and Eddy from the Dursleys and Dudley’s friends, and to only please his younger brother and make him happy.
To Harry, the idea seemed completely alien that people would expect him to be something when they knew nothing about him. The books he and Eddy bought in Diagon Alley seemed to reinforce the image that Harry was truly Clark Kent in disguise, but with a wand. The details the books gave about his ‘special training’ and ‘magical prowess’ were laughable.
One such person had learnt that first hand, and had triggered Harry’s respect, albeit, reluctantly. Within days of his sorting, Harry decided that he would assume the persona of a diligent, studious pupil and would not hide his intelligence. This did lead to him and Theo spending a fair amount of time at the library, along with another boy who was sorted into Slytherin (and one whom Malfoy had not considered and therefore did not hold court with on the train): Nathaniel Moon.
On the first Friday of the week, the three boys were going over their transfiguration homework when they were interrupted by a large tome landing next to Nate. The three looked up in surprise-a girl with very bushy brown hair was looking at him, two expressions on her face: wariness, and sheer stubbornness. She settled for stubbornness.
“May I sit here?” she asked.
Harry shared a glance with Theo and Nate; they nodded, slowly. “It’s a free country,” retorted Harry, finally, recognising the girl as Hermione Granger, Gryffindor.
Granger sat, flipped open her book, and then, bluntly, said: “I’ve read all about you, you know; in Dark Wizards through the Ages and Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century.”
Harry cringed. “Oh?”
Here, she paused. “I thought books never lied.”
Harry sighed. It was a common mistake she made; Edgar had once thought the same, years ago, and learnt that books could lie just as easily as a human could. Granger continued speaking.
“First off, they only ever call you Harry but your name is Henry,” she said, tartly. “And they were confident that you would end up in Gryffindor.”
“Clearly, he’s not,” answered Theo, bewildered, and slightly sullenly.
The girl rolled her eyes. “I know that, thank you very much.” She turned back to Harry. “I grew up in the Muggle world, I didn’t even know I was a witch so I got all these books to learn from and then I get here and learn they were wrong-but I was so pleased to be the first witch in my family, and my name is Hermione Granger.”
She said that all in one breath, and very quickly. Harry was impressed, although Theo and Nate’s glances indicated that they were not.
The boys all mumbled their names and went back to their books, but whenever Harry and his friends were in the library, she sat with them, and when they saw her in the halls, she would try to strike up a conversation with Harry. Once, she even sat down at the Slytherin table at lunch, and promptly ignored the glares and slurs that were directed at her while she sat next to Theo.
Harry had to admit it took courage to do it, and applauded the sorting hat’s decision to place her in Gryffindor, even if he didn’t know why she persisted to converse with him and his friends.
He confessed this all the Edgar in his letter to his younger brother, unsure if he should make an offer of friendship and create waves early on in his Hogwarts years, especially with the rampant prejudice, or not. However, he didn’t linger on the subject.
He detailed exactly where the entrance to the Slytherin dorms was, though, to Edgar, in case of any emergencies when he came to Hogwarts the following year. Harry then proceeded to explain the layout. The ceiling was low and thick stone, and the rooms were small but shared between four instead of clumping each year together (he shared with Theo, Nate, and Zabini, although like Cedric said the boy was more of a loner, eager to do his own thing and not anyone else’s).
Harry had a moment of panic when he realised he was going to be sleeping in a pocket of stone formed underneath the lake, but then figured that there would be spells to prevent leaks and cave-ins, and then spent the rest of the page in his letter detailing what he thought to be the most amazing part of the Slytherin dorms: the reflection pools.
Although Harry couldn’t figure out their purposes, other than to look cool, the reflection pools in the Slytherin dorms were just small, but very deep, pools of water that looked down into the lake from the dorm room floors. Somehow, the water was clear and there were blobs of light that illuminated from below, casting eerie blue, purple, and white flecks of light against the walls of the dorms. A larger pool was near the very front of the Slytherin common room, with an invisible bridge that led from the school entrance to the dorms.
Harry settled fairly quickly into a routine at Hogwarts, and kept his correspondence to Edgar steady despite his homework and the social activities he participated in with his friends.
Eddy was happy that Harry had a few, solid friends in Theodore Nott, Nathaniel Moon and Cedric Diggory, but he also cautioned his big brother to maybe look elsewhere for others? Caesar, the opinionated snake that he was, chimed in that Voldemort was most likely biding his time and that Harry could use a larger support base-or rather, a large character based-if anything were to happen.
The letter arrived on October 30th, and Harry spent the time before the Halloween feast the next day asking Cedric who he thought Harry should socialise more with. Cedric replied he would think about it, but the decision was quickly taken out of the older boy’s hands.
He was sitting with Theo and Nate at the Slytherin table, laughingly explaining about a bad fall the Hufflepuff Keeper took when Cedric accidentally flew past him at the same time as a Bludger during their practice, when Quirrell ran into the Great Hall.
“Troll! Troll in the dungeons!”
Harry immediately frowned, ignoring Malfoy’s girlish scream a few seats down. There were no exits or entrances in the dungeons that lead outside of Hogwarts-he would know, with his dorm down there. Wouldn’t the portraits or ghosts have seen something?
“Prefects! Take your students to their common rooms!” Dumbledore’s voice was amplified in the Hall, and here Harry and Theo shared an eye roll. Yes, send the Slytherins where the troll was; very smart.
As the Slytherin first years passed the Gryffindor first years, in the main entrance way (they were going up, the Slytherins down), Harry overheard Ron Weasley and Parvati Patil.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” the girl was hissing at the redhead.
He shrugged. “No. Why should I?”
“She was crying all afternoon!”
Here, the redhead looked uncomfortable, but Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas caught his attention and he gratefully left Parvati standing alone near the back of the Gryffindors.
“What happened?” asked Harry, curiously. Edgar did say it was going to get him in trouble one day. “Who’s crying?”
Parvati jumped, not expecting to hear the voice. Theo and Nate stood behind Harry, watching the rest of the Slytherins descend into the dungeons. The Indian girl swallowed, glanced at Harry, and made a decision. “Hermione Granger. Ron was really mean to her after Charms and she spent the rest of the afternoon crying in the girls’ bathroom on the first floor.”
The little Gryffindor then dashed off, attaching herself to the straying Gryffindors. Harry felt his lips purse.
“Oh, no you don’t,” began Theo, seeing the look. “First off, Edgar’s not going to like being the only Potter left if you get killed on a rescue mission.”
Nate chuckled. “And you don’t know where the troll is either.”
Harry frowned. “She hasn’t been all that bad, you know.”
Theo shuffled. “I reckon…” he then sighed. “Oh, fine. Let’s go save the Gryffindor.”
Harry shot Theo a grin that his friend returned, and Nate began walking quickly towards the first floor bathroom. They found it easily, although their noses were beginning to wrinkle up at the stench of rotten sewage that was creeping up on them the closer they got to the bathrooms.
Harry looked in both directions before dashing into the girl’s, with Nate and Theo on his heels. “Granger!”
A low snuffle caught his attention and a stall door opened; Granger’s bushy head peaked out, her eyes red rimmed from crying.
She blinked at the three boys standing by the sinks. “What are you doing here?”
Nate glanced back, at the partially opened bathroom door, his nose wrinkling more. The stench was getting stronger. “We heard about Weasley… and during dinner Quirrell announced there was a troll loose in the school. Harry was pretty sure you didn’t know, so we came to tell you.”
“Troll?” asked the Gryffindor, pale. Her voice was rather high-pitched.
“Yeah,” replied Theo. “So, hurry up, dry your eyes; we need to go.”
“So… these trolls,” began Granger, her voice still high, “are they really tall with rough looking skin tinged brownish green? Really stinky?”
Harry paused, considering her words, and then gagged as he took a deep breath. The scent of sewage was overwhelming, and he nearly bent double, in an effort not to retch.
“Harry!” moaned Nate, clutching at his friends’ shirtsleeve. Caesar, hidden underneath Harry’s shirt and wrapped around his neck and upper torso, chimed in as well.
“I do suggest you look behind you, Henry,” he hissed, sounding almost dry and crotchety.
Harry obeyed, eyes watering, and took a fumbling step backward, dragging Nate and Theo with him. The troll had lumbered its way into the girls’ bathroom, and instead of Harry and his Slytherin friends performing a rescue mission for the Gryffindor, they were all now in need of a rescue.
“Wands out!” shouted Harry, nasally, as he tried to breathe through his mouth and ignore the stench of the troll.
Where were the professors? He wondered, as he, Theo and Nate formed a line and held their wands out in front of them, their bodies sideways to make a smaller target. Granger remained crouched behind them, half in the toilet stall and half out, but her wand was in her hand as well.
“What now, Harry?” asked Nate, his voice low as he spoke out of the corner of his mouth.
Harry felt his mouth settle into a straight line. Was this what the sorting hat meant when he had a touch of destiny about him? He was so sure the hat meant Voldemort… not fighting some troll like St. George fighting a bloody dragon.
“Now?” he repeated, stiffening as though he was facing Dudley and his gang of friends, in a 6-to-1 fight, with the odds against him (and did Harry ever know that the odds were against him and his friends here). “Now, we show this troll what the Slytherins are made off!”
Theo paused, barely. “And what are Slytherins made of, Harry?” he asked, drawling the vowels out through his mouth.
Harry’s eyes glittered in the flickering light that reflected from the candles hovering above the mirrors in the girls’ toilets, and had Edgar been beside him-or even Cedric-they would’ve recognised the glitter for what it was: a dark promise of strength and retribution; Slytherin cunning with Gryffindor bravery, Ravenclaw intelligence and Hufflepuff loyalty.
“On three!” said Harry, ignoring Nate’s heavy breathing and Theo’s audible gulp; behind him Granger was murmuring under her breath.
Caesar was hissing in time with Harry’s countdown, his own words of encouragement bolstering Harry’s esteem. “Three… two… one… confringo!”
Harry shouted the blasting curse, from his book of 1001 Hexes; beside him Theo and Nate shouted their spells: “Defodio” from Theo, which had Harry raise his eyebrows in surprise at the Dark intent of the spell against a troll, and “expulso” from Nate. Granger’s “wingardium leviosa” was incredibly tame compared to the three boys’ choices, but then again, they were pointing their wands at a target that had the potential to kill them.
Harry had learnt early in life that force would only respond to force, and not passivity. Dudley and his friends wouldn’t go whinging to a teacher if Harry managed to beat the bollocks out of one of them, because they would have to explain why he would beat them in the first place; Harry reasoned the same would be used in this situation. He and his friends came to tell Hermione Granger about the troll-all self-serving of course, everyone knew she was the brains of the class and three Slytherins could easily use those brains to be in their debt-and had the ill luck to run afoul with the troll and responded accordingly. Everyone knew Theo and Nate came from pureblood families; both with ties to suspect Death Eaters, and Harry’s own past against Voldemort could be excused as a reason to use deadly force.
The noise was deafening as all the spells hit their target and a sonic boom shattered the mirrors around them, causing Granger to shriek in surprise and dodge backwards to avoid the falling glass. Theo managed to duck the majority of the glass; vaguely catching Harry’s interested at how quickly he protected himself. However, Nate and Harry received the brunt of it, several sharp, but rather small, shards slicing their arms as they rose to protect their heads.
All four first years were crouched in various places in the toilets, with only Hermione unscathed from being in the stall. Even Harry was slightly dazed from the destruction their spells made, and the noise. His ears were ringing, and he thought later that must be the only reason why he didn’t hear the professors enter the toilet.
He certainly heard McGonagall’s screech, though.
“What in Merlin’s name is going on here?”
Harry glanced up, Theo and Nate beside him and Granger peeking her head around the stall corner.
Flitwick, Quirrell, Snape and McGonagall were all standing clustered around the entrance, mouths agape as they took in the dead troll oozing green pus-like blood from the very large hole in its chest, and the knot on its head from Granger’s spell, to the glass shards on the floor and in the sinks.
“Potter! Nott! Moon! And-Miss Granger!” McGonagall gapped. “Explain yourselves!”
Harry blinked, his mouth opening and ready to defend his friends, when Granger spoke first.
“Please, Professor, it’s my fault,” the girl began timidly. Immediately, Harry and the other Slytherins adopted innocent ‘don’t look at me’ expressions, turning to Hermione to listen to her. “I read about mountain trolls, you know, and when I heard that there was one loose… well, I just had to see it, didn’t I?”
She ducked her head, ashamed, and Harry nearly applauded her acting skills.
“I completely underestimated them, though,” she whispered, stricken. “I was stuck in the toilets and hiding when Harry and Theo and Nate came in and distracted the troll to save me.”
Snape snorted. “Three Slytherins helping a Gryffindor? Highly unlikely.” At his pointed look at the dead troll, he continued, “And that is hardly ‘distracting’ a troll, Miss Granger.”
“Our grades aren’t that good in history,” defended Nate, to Harry’s surprise. “Everyone knows Granger has the best grades.”
Theo shrugged, and continued. “We figured that if we helped her out, she’d help us with our school work. Why in Merlin’s name would we want to help a Gryffindor know-it-all like her?”
A flash of pain crossed Granger’s face, and she blinked quickly to hide her tears at Theo and Nate’s blatant dismissal of her. However, she glanced up at Harry, who caught her eye and gave a quick wink, before turning to the professors. “She owes us a life debt now, anyway,” he shrugged. “We might as well collect.”
Snape clearly disagreed with a sneer directed at Harry. “Be as that may, three students who did not listen to the headmaster will receive punishment.”
“As will you, Miss Granger,” interjected McGonagall, clearly disappointed in her favourite student. “Ten points from Gryffindor, and thirty from Slytherin.”
Snape shot McGonagall a dirty look, and then another at the three boys which promised an additional punishment behind the scenes.
Caesar made his opinion clear following that, stating, “I highly doubt anything the smelly one comes up with will be difficult for you, Henry, after your life at the Dursleys.” The snake paused and then continued, “And as for your nest-brother, Theodore, he is like you. You know hardship. Possibly the Moon child will falter.”
Quirrell was staring at the troll with an ill look on his face, and he weakly leaned against the tiled wall and slid to a crouch. Flitwick seemed entirely unsure how to handle the situation, so he finally said, “Now, now, the four of you should return to your common rooms-the feast is concluding itself there instead of the Great Hall.”
The four first years nodded and gingerly picked their way through mirror shards and splatters of green pus, exiting the toilets and walking in silence towards the entrance hall. They paused at the divider, Granger turning to the stairs to go up to the Gryffindor tower.
“Thank you,” she finally said, looking still very pale.
Harry shrugged. “It could’ve been much worse, Granger. And you didn’t have to say anything about us.”
The girl shook her head. “I had to.” Her eyes still looked suspiciously bright. “You didn’t have to come for me. You could have walked by.”
Nate chuckled, mirthlessly. “We might be Slytherins, Granger, but we’re not monsters.”
She shared a watery smile with the three boys and then said, “Goodnight,” turning and starting up the steps. The boys continued down towards the dungeons, each privately wondering at Snape’s punishment. Whatever he decided to dish out, however, wasn’t going to change anything-the good that the three did far outweighed the punishment.
*
None of the Slytherins decided to remain at Hogwarts for the Christmas break, and Harry was eager to return to Privet Drive to see his younger brother and hear all about his own adventures instead of reading about them.
Harry sat with Theo, Nate and Hermione in a compartment on the way back to London on the Hogwarts Express train; the three Slytherins had oddly adopted Hermione after the troll incident-or, Harry mused, perhaps she adopted them? The girl sat with them in the classes they shared, and spent her time with them in the library. She hadn’t sat at the Slytherin table again, after her first disastrous attempt, but no one bothered her again after Ron Weasley was brought to the hospital wing thoroughly hexed, and refusing to tell the professors-or his brothers-who hexed him.
Cedric had stopped by for a few minutes, wishing them happy holidays and giving them their gifts, which surprised Harry. Although he bought presents for his friends, including Cedric, Professor Kettleburn and little trinkets for the rest of the professors who taught him, he wasn’t expecting anything in return except from Edgar.
Snow was swirling about outside the compartment windows, creating a picturesque Scottish winter landscape, but the closer they got to King’s Cross and London, the fields barely had a dusting of snow and mainly everything was grey, damp, and dark.
Theo and Nate met their fathers, both who apparated them away quickly from the platform itself after they said their goodbye’s to Harry and Hermione, with neither Pureblood family willing to remain behind nor “chat” with the halfblood and mudblood. Hermione and her parents offered to drop Harry off at Victoria Station so he could catch a train to Guildford. From there, Harry would take a cab or bus at the station to his relative’s.
The Grangers were a nice, unassuming couple, both with rather large front teeth and wide, beaming smiles, asking question upon question about Hogwarts and magic in general. Harry had the feeling that they were glad that their daughter wasn’t lonely and had friends-even if they were wizards.
At Victoria Station, the Granger’s waved their goodbyes, heading to Reading. Harry waited until the car disappeared in the traffic, and then made the rest of his way to 4 Privet Drive under his own steam.
It was nearly nine at night by the time he arrived, freezing and shivering in the cool air, but his brothers’ eager, happy face when he answered the door made Harry warm inside.
*
Part Two
Edmond: My freedom?
Abbe Faria: No, freedom can be taken away, as you well know. I offer you my knowledge.
Count of Monte Cristo, 2002
*
Chapter Two
Harry had sent off a quick, brief one-lined letter indicating his House association early the morning after the sorting, before breakfast. He knew Edgar would reply later on in the week, near Friday, to give Harry a chance to explore and learn a bit more about Hogwarts before departing any knowledge of the place.
Once the first week was over, Harry knew there were things he just had to tell Edgar about; and by the end of that first week, there were several things that Harry was absolutely sure about.
The first was Severus Snape: the man hated him.
Although he was Harry’s head of house, the man made it clear that he didn’t like Harry, wouldn’t tolerate Harry, and would most certainly not help him out under any circumstances. In their first potions class, with the Gryffindors, Snape quizzed Harry on material he knew to be well beyond the standard first year text-and it was only his prep before hand with Edgar, and Kettleburn’s cryptic suggestion after Diagon Alley, that helped him along.
Afterward, Snape decided that exercising vitriol on Harry was worthless, and stopped speaking to him altogether. His first essay, a detailed, thoughtful piece of the uses of foxglove in their swelling solution, was given an ‘A’ whereas Theo’s barely legible, last-minute and very rushed essay was marked as an ‘EE.’ Harry decided the class was no big loss, and focused instead on ensuring his potions were not tampered with and could easily settle for poor grades-Cedric informed him that their OWLs and NEWTs were graded from an outside source, and they were the only grades that mattered.
Other than Snape, the other professors seemed to get along with him well enough; as promised, Harry saw Kettleburn with Caesar that first Friday, and the man declared the python to be “blooming beautifully” under Harry’s care. He then introduced Harry to Rubeus Hagrid, the keeper of keys at Hogwarts and the groundskeeper who knew almost more than Kettleburn. The giant-because there was no other word Harry could use to describe the man-was a bit unsure if he was to be aloof at Harry’s Slytherin sorting, or bawling about how he knew him when he was a baby.
They finally settled on friendly, especially after the three ended up conversing on the differences between snakes and dragons.
Flitwick, his Charms instructor, was impartial and didn’t seem to notice at all what crest he wore on his robes; neither did Professor Sprout-but when he caught her sniff of distaste when she moved past Malfoy, Harry decided that his association with Cedric Diggory must have helped him. Harry didn’t even comment on the uselessness of Quirrell to Edgar.
Finally, Professor McGonagall, who had smiled at him during his sorting, was unnecessarily strict and behaved rather like Snape had-at least, at first. Once she realised he was answering her questions correctly (along with Granger), and he performed his needle-to-pin before anyone else, she revised her opinion. He was given beaming smiles from her since.
The second thing Harry was sure about was that he had mortally offended several classmates of his when he was sorted into Slytherin. His name was whispered in the hallways, and his blatant association with Theodore Nott, as well as being a Slytherin, created uproar amongst the students. In particular, there were three students who were the most affected: Ron Weasley of Gryffindor, who looked as though he just learnt Santa didn’t exist; Ernie McMillan of Hufflepuff, despite Cedric’s very public backing of Harry’s sorting; and Susan Bones, who shrieked whenever she saw him and turned in the opposite direction when he wandered down the hall.
Harry wasn’t sure if he was amused or completely mortified. Theo seemed to think it one big laugh, and sniggered whenever he saw Susan Bones and Ernie McMillan in their Charms class, which they shared with the Hufflepuffs. Still-he didn’t let it bother him too much. He was at Hogwarts to learn magic, to defend himself and Eddy from the Dursleys and Dudley’s friends, and to only please his younger brother and make him happy.
To Harry, the idea seemed completely alien that people would expect him to be something when they knew nothing about him. The books he and Eddy bought in Diagon Alley seemed to reinforce the image that Harry was truly Clark Kent in disguise, but with a wand. The details the books gave about his ‘special training’ and ‘magical prowess’ were laughable.
One such person had learnt that first hand, and had triggered Harry’s respect, albeit, reluctantly. Within days of his sorting, Harry decided that he would assume the persona of a diligent, studious pupil and would not hide his intelligence. This did lead to him and Theo spending a fair amount of time at the library, along with another boy who was sorted into Slytherin (and one whom Malfoy had not considered and therefore did not hold court with on the train): Nathaniel Moon.
On the first Friday of the week, the three boys were going over their transfiguration homework when they were interrupted by a large tome landing next to Nate. The three looked up in surprise-a girl with very bushy brown hair was looking at him, two expressions on her face: wariness, and sheer stubbornness. She settled for stubbornness.
“May I sit here?” she asked.
Harry shared a glance with Theo and Nate; they nodded, slowly. “It’s a free country,” retorted Harry, finally, recognising the girl as Hermione Granger, Gryffindor.
Granger sat, flipped open her book, and then, bluntly, said: “I’ve read all about you, you know; in Dark Wizards through the Ages and Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century.”
Harry cringed. “Oh?”
Here, she paused. “I thought books never lied.”
Harry sighed. It was a common mistake she made; Edgar had once thought the same, years ago, and learnt that books could lie just as easily as a human could. Granger continued speaking.
“First off, they only ever call you Harry but your name is Henry,” she said, tartly. “And they were confident that you would end up in Gryffindor.”
“Clearly, he’s not,” answered Theo, bewildered, and slightly sullenly.
The girl rolled her eyes. “I know that, thank you very much.” She turned back to Harry. “I grew up in the Muggle world, I didn’t even know I was a witch so I got all these books to learn from and then I get here and learn they were wrong-but I was so pleased to be the first witch in my family, and my name is Hermione Granger.”
She said that all in one breath, and very quickly. Harry was impressed, although Theo and Nate’s glances indicated that they were not.
The boys all mumbled their names and went back to their books, but whenever Harry and his friends were in the library, she sat with them, and when they saw her in the halls, she would try to strike up a conversation with Harry. Once, she even sat down at the Slytherin table at lunch, and promptly ignored the glares and slurs that were directed at her while she sat next to Theo.
Harry had to admit it took courage to do it, and applauded the sorting hat’s decision to place her in Gryffindor, even if he didn’t know why she persisted to converse with him and his friends.
He confessed this all the Edgar in his letter to his younger brother, unsure if he should make an offer of friendship and create waves early on in his Hogwarts years, especially with the rampant prejudice, or not. However, he didn’t linger on the subject.
He detailed exactly where the entrance to the Slytherin dorms was, though, to Edgar, in case of any emergencies when he came to Hogwarts the following year. Harry then proceeded to explain the layout. The ceiling was low and thick stone, and the rooms were small but shared between four instead of clumping each year together (he shared with Theo, Nate, and Zabini, although like Cedric said the boy was more of a loner, eager to do his own thing and not anyone else’s).
Harry had a moment of panic when he realised he was going to be sleeping in a pocket of stone formed underneath the lake, but then figured that there would be spells to prevent leaks and cave-ins, and then spent the rest of the page in his letter detailing what he thought to be the most amazing part of the Slytherin dorms: the reflection pools.
Although Harry couldn’t figure out their purposes, other than to look cool, the reflection pools in the Slytherin dorms were just small, but very deep, pools of water that looked down into the lake from the dorm room floors. Somehow, the water was clear and there were blobs of light that illuminated from below, casting eerie blue, purple, and white flecks of light against the walls of the dorms. A larger pool was near the very front of the Slytherin common room, with an invisible bridge that led from the school entrance to the dorms.
Harry settled fairly quickly into a routine at Hogwarts, and kept his correspondence to Edgar steady despite his homework and the social activities he participated in with his friends.
Eddy was happy that Harry had a few, solid friends in Theodore Nott, Nathaniel Moon and Cedric Diggory, but he also cautioned his big brother to maybe look elsewhere for others? Caesar, the opinionated snake that he was, chimed in that Voldemort was most likely biding his time and that Harry could use a larger support base-or rather, a large character based-if anything were to happen.
The letter arrived on October 30th, and Harry spent the time before the Halloween feast the next day asking Cedric who he thought Harry should socialise more with. Cedric replied he would think about it, but the decision was quickly taken out of the older boy’s hands.
He was sitting with Theo and Nate at the Slytherin table, laughingly explaining about a bad fall the Hufflepuff Keeper took when Cedric accidentally flew past him at the same time as a Bludger during their practice, when Quirrell ran into the Great Hall.
“Troll! Troll in the dungeons!”
Harry immediately frowned, ignoring Malfoy’s girlish scream a few seats down. There were no exits or entrances in the dungeons that lead outside of Hogwarts-he would know, with his dorm down there. Wouldn’t the portraits or ghosts have seen something?
“Prefects! Take your students to their common rooms!” Dumbledore’s voice was amplified in the Hall, and here Harry and Theo shared an eye roll. Yes, send the Slytherins where the troll was; very smart.
As the Slytherin first years passed the Gryffindor first years, in the main entrance way (they were going up, the Slytherins down), Harry overheard Ron Weasley and Parvati Patil.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” the girl was hissing at the redhead.
He shrugged. “No. Why should I?”
“She was crying all afternoon!”
Here, the redhead looked uncomfortable, but Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas caught his attention and he gratefully left Parvati standing alone near the back of the Gryffindors.
“What happened?” asked Harry, curiously. Edgar did say it was going to get him in trouble one day. “Who’s crying?”
Parvati jumped, not expecting to hear the voice. Theo and Nate stood behind Harry, watching the rest of the Slytherins descend into the dungeons. The Indian girl swallowed, glanced at Harry, and made a decision. “Hermione Granger. Ron was really mean to her after Charms and she spent the rest of the afternoon crying in the girls’ bathroom on the first floor.”
The little Gryffindor then dashed off, attaching herself to the straying Gryffindors. Harry felt his lips purse.
“Oh, no you don’t,” began Theo, seeing the look. “First off, Edgar’s not going to like being the only Potter left if you get killed on a rescue mission.”
Nate chuckled. “And you don’t know where the troll is either.”
Harry frowned. “She hasn’t been all that bad, you know.”
Theo shuffled. “I reckon…” he then sighed. “Oh, fine. Let’s go save the Gryffindor.”
Harry shot Theo a grin that his friend returned, and Nate began walking quickly towards the first floor bathroom. They found it easily, although their noses were beginning to wrinkle up at the stench of rotten sewage that was creeping up on them the closer they got to the bathrooms.
Harry looked in both directions before dashing into the girl’s, with Nate and Theo on his heels. “Granger!”
A low snuffle caught his attention and a stall door opened; Granger’s bushy head peaked out, her eyes red rimmed from crying.
She blinked at the three boys standing by the sinks. “What are you doing here?”
Nate glanced back, at the partially opened bathroom door, his nose wrinkling more. The stench was getting stronger. “We heard about Weasley… and during dinner Quirrell announced there was a troll loose in the school. Harry was pretty sure you didn’t know, so we came to tell you.”
“Troll?” asked the Gryffindor, pale. Her voice was rather high-pitched.
“Yeah,” replied Theo. “So, hurry up, dry your eyes; we need to go.”
“So… these trolls,” began Granger, her voice still high, “are they really tall with rough looking skin tinged brownish green? Really stinky?”
Harry paused, considering her words, and then gagged as he took a deep breath. The scent of sewage was overwhelming, and he nearly bent double, in an effort not to retch.
“Harry!” moaned Nate, clutching at his friends’ shirtsleeve. Caesar, hidden underneath Harry’s shirt and wrapped around his neck and upper torso, chimed in as well.
“I do suggest you look behind you, Henry,” he hissed, sounding almost dry and crotchety.
Harry obeyed, eyes watering, and took a fumbling step backward, dragging Nate and Theo with him. The troll had lumbered its way into the girls’ bathroom, and instead of Harry and his Slytherin friends performing a rescue mission for the Gryffindor, they were all now in need of a rescue.
“Wands out!” shouted Harry, nasally, as he tried to breathe through his mouth and ignore the stench of the troll.
Where were the professors? He wondered, as he, Theo and Nate formed a line and held their wands out in front of them, their bodies sideways to make a smaller target. Granger remained crouched behind them, half in the toilet stall and half out, but her wand was in her hand as well.
“What now, Harry?” asked Nate, his voice low as he spoke out of the corner of his mouth.
Harry felt his mouth settle into a straight line. Was this what the sorting hat meant when he had a touch of destiny about him? He was so sure the hat meant Voldemort… not fighting some troll like St. George fighting a bloody dragon.
“Now?” he repeated, stiffening as though he was facing Dudley and his gang of friends, in a 6-to-1 fight, with the odds against him (and did Harry ever know that the odds were against him and his friends here). “Now, we show this troll what the Slytherins are made off!”
Theo paused, barely. “And what are Slytherins made of, Harry?” he asked, drawling the vowels out through his mouth.
Harry’s eyes glittered in the flickering light that reflected from the candles hovering above the mirrors in the girls’ toilets, and had Edgar been beside him-or even Cedric-they would’ve recognised the glitter for what it was: a dark promise of strength and retribution; Slytherin cunning with Gryffindor bravery, Ravenclaw intelligence and Hufflepuff loyalty.
“On three!” said Harry, ignoring Nate’s heavy breathing and Theo’s audible gulp; behind him Granger was murmuring under her breath.
Caesar was hissing in time with Harry’s countdown, his own words of encouragement bolstering Harry’s esteem. “Three… two… one… confringo!”
Harry shouted the blasting curse, from his book of 1001 Hexes; beside him Theo and Nate shouted their spells: “Defodio” from Theo, which had Harry raise his eyebrows in surprise at the Dark intent of the spell against a troll, and “expulso” from Nate. Granger’s “wingardium leviosa” was incredibly tame compared to the three boys’ choices, but then again, they were pointing their wands at a target that had the potential to kill them.
Harry had learnt early in life that force would only respond to force, and not passivity. Dudley and his friends wouldn’t go whinging to a teacher if Harry managed to beat the bollocks out of one of them, because they would have to explain why he would beat them in the first place; Harry reasoned the same would be used in this situation. He and his friends came to tell Hermione Granger about the troll-all self-serving of course, everyone knew she was the brains of the class and three Slytherins could easily use those brains to be in their debt-and had the ill luck to run afoul with the troll and responded accordingly. Everyone knew Theo and Nate came from pureblood families; both with ties to suspect Death Eaters, and Harry’s own past against Voldemort could be excused as a reason to use deadly force.
The noise was deafening as all the spells hit their target and a sonic boom shattered the mirrors around them, causing Granger to shriek in surprise and dodge backwards to avoid the falling glass. Theo managed to duck the majority of the glass; vaguely catching Harry’s interested at how quickly he protected himself. However, Nate and Harry received the brunt of it, several sharp, but rather small, shards slicing their arms as they rose to protect their heads.
All four first years were crouched in various places in the toilets, with only Hermione unscathed from being in the stall. Even Harry was slightly dazed from the destruction their spells made, and the noise. His ears were ringing, and he thought later that must be the only reason why he didn’t hear the professors enter the toilet.
He certainly heard McGonagall’s screech, though.
“What in Merlin’s name is going on here?”
Harry glanced up, Theo and Nate beside him and Granger peeking her head around the stall corner.
Flitwick, Quirrell, Snape and McGonagall were all standing clustered around the entrance, mouths agape as they took in the dead troll oozing green pus-like blood from the very large hole in its chest, and the knot on its head from Granger’s spell, to the glass shards on the floor and in the sinks.
“Potter! Nott! Moon! And-Miss Granger!” McGonagall gapped. “Explain yourselves!”
Harry blinked, his mouth opening and ready to defend his friends, when Granger spoke first.
“Please, Professor, it’s my fault,” the girl began timidly. Immediately, Harry and the other Slytherins adopted innocent ‘don’t look at me’ expressions, turning to Hermione to listen to her. “I read about mountain trolls, you know, and when I heard that there was one loose… well, I just had to see it, didn’t I?”
She ducked her head, ashamed, and Harry nearly applauded her acting skills.
“I completely underestimated them, though,” she whispered, stricken. “I was stuck in the toilets and hiding when Harry and Theo and Nate came in and distracted the troll to save me.”
Snape snorted. “Three Slytherins helping a Gryffindor? Highly unlikely.” At his pointed look at the dead troll, he continued, “And that is hardly ‘distracting’ a troll, Miss Granger.”
“Our grades aren’t that good in history,” defended Nate, to Harry’s surprise. “Everyone knows Granger has the best grades.”
Theo shrugged, and continued. “We figured that if we helped her out, she’d help us with our school work. Why in Merlin’s name would we want to help a Gryffindor know-it-all like her?”
A flash of pain crossed Granger’s face, and she blinked quickly to hide her tears at Theo and Nate’s blatant dismissal of her. However, she glanced up at Harry, who caught her eye and gave a quick wink, before turning to the professors. “She owes us a life debt now, anyway,” he shrugged. “We might as well collect.”
Snape clearly disagreed with a sneer directed at Harry. “Be as that may, three students who did not listen to the headmaster will receive punishment.”
“As will you, Miss Granger,” interjected McGonagall, clearly disappointed in her favourite student. “Ten points from Gryffindor, and thirty from Slytherin.”
Snape shot McGonagall a dirty look, and then another at the three boys which promised an additional punishment behind the scenes.
Caesar made his opinion clear following that, stating, “I highly doubt anything the smelly one comes up with will be difficult for you, Henry, after your life at the Dursleys.” The snake paused and then continued, “And as for your nest-brother, Theodore, he is like you. You know hardship. Possibly the Moon child will falter.”
Quirrell was staring at the troll with an ill look on his face, and he weakly leaned against the tiled wall and slid to a crouch. Flitwick seemed entirely unsure how to handle the situation, so he finally said, “Now, now, the four of you should return to your common rooms-the feast is concluding itself there instead of the Great Hall.”
The four first years nodded and gingerly picked their way through mirror shards and splatters of green pus, exiting the toilets and walking in silence towards the entrance hall. They paused at the divider, Granger turning to the stairs to go up to the Gryffindor tower.
“Thank you,” she finally said, looking still very pale.
Harry shrugged. “It could’ve been much worse, Granger. And you didn’t have to say anything about us.”
The girl shook her head. “I had to.” Her eyes still looked suspiciously bright. “You didn’t have to come for me. You could have walked by.”
Nate chuckled, mirthlessly. “We might be Slytherins, Granger, but we’re not monsters.”
She shared a watery smile with the three boys and then said, “Goodnight,” turning and starting up the steps. The boys continued down towards the dungeons, each privately wondering at Snape’s punishment. Whatever he decided to dish out, however, wasn’t going to change anything-the good that the three did far outweighed the punishment.
*
None of the Slytherins decided to remain at Hogwarts for the Christmas break, and Harry was eager to return to Privet Drive to see his younger brother and hear all about his own adventures instead of reading about them.
Harry sat with Theo, Nate and Hermione in a compartment on the way back to London on the Hogwarts Express train; the three Slytherins had oddly adopted Hermione after the troll incident-or, Harry mused, perhaps she adopted them? The girl sat with them in the classes they shared, and spent her time with them in the library. She hadn’t sat at the Slytherin table again, after her first disastrous attempt, but no one bothered her again after Ron Weasley was brought to the hospital wing thoroughly hexed, and refusing to tell the professors-or his brothers-who hexed him.
Cedric had stopped by for a few minutes, wishing them happy holidays and giving them their gifts, which surprised Harry. Although he bought presents for his friends, including Cedric, Professor Kettleburn and little trinkets for the rest of the professors who taught him, he wasn’t expecting anything in return except from Edgar.
Snow was swirling about outside the compartment windows, creating a picturesque Scottish winter landscape, but the closer they got to King’s Cross and London, the fields barely had a dusting of snow and mainly everything was grey, damp, and dark.
Theo and Nate met their fathers, both who apparated them away quickly from the platform itself after they said their goodbye’s to Harry and Hermione, with neither Pureblood family willing to remain behind nor “chat” with the halfblood and mudblood. Hermione and her parents offered to drop Harry off at Victoria Station so he could catch a train to Guildford. From there, Harry would take a cab or bus at the station to his relative’s.
The Grangers were a nice, unassuming couple, both with rather large front teeth and wide, beaming smiles, asking question upon question about Hogwarts and magic in general. Harry had the feeling that they were glad that their daughter wasn’t lonely and had friends-even if they were wizards.
At Victoria Station, the Granger’s waved their goodbyes, heading to Reading. Harry waited until the car disappeared in the traffic, and then made the rest of his way to 4 Privet Drive under his own steam.
It was nearly nine at night by the time he arrived, freezing and shivering in the cool air, but his brothers’ eager, happy face when he answered the door made Harry warm inside.
*
Part Two