No Fortress Is So Strong, Chapter 07
Title: No Fortress Is So Strong
Summary: In 1981, the two Potter sons had their fates switched, and Nicolas Potter became a famous face. But there are those that know the truth, that the real Chosen One was the younger child. The Slytherin. Now, two brothers share a destiny.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Brothers. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes & Caveats: See chapter one.
Many, many thanks go to my intrepid team of beta readers: Micah and Salazire, who are thorough and clever and absolutely fabulous.
“When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life.” ~Antisthenes
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Chapter Seven: The Welcoming Feast
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“What platform was it again?” Michael asked, looking around uncertainly.
“Platform ten,” Harry replied, injecting just the right amount of exasperation into his tone.
“Oh yes, of course,” Michael said, still looking a bit lost.
“I’ll be fine, Michael,” Harry said bracingly. “Don’t worry about me, it’s just a school train. It leaves at eleven o’ clock, so I should go.”
“You already have your ticket?”
“Yes, the Professor brought it to me.”
“Oh, right. Of course.”
“Of course,” Harry sighed. “I should go, now. I have thirty minutes and I want to get a good compartment.”
“I’ll wait for you to get on the train,” Michael said.
“Michael,” Harry said in exasperation. “You are not going to sit around here for a half an hour to watch me board a train. It’s a student train Michael, and they have guards. You have a job. You should go.”
Harry used all the force and persuasiveness he could muster, and inflected his voice with it. Michael seemed to sag under the onslaught.
“Yes, you’re right,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear it. “I should get to work. You’ll be all right here, by yourself?”
“Yes, Michael. I’ll be fine.”
“All right, then,” Michael said, once more looking uncertain. Sighing, Harry stepped forward and gave the man a brusque hug. When he pulled away, Michael looked much calmer and more relaxed. “Very good,” he said. “Have a good term.”
“See you in June,” Harry replied. “Goodbye.”
He waved at his social worker as he left the station, then looked down at his ticket in relief.
“Platform nine and three quarters,” he muttered under his breath. “Nick said the barrier…?”
He looked up at the barrier dividing platforms nine and ten, which seemed very solid and brick-like.
Harry glanced at his owl Hedwig, who was perched freely on top of his trunk.
“Ready, girl?” he breathed, and she bobbed her head silently. “All right, let’s go.”
Harry determinedly pushed his trolley directly at the brick barrier, building up speed. At the last second, he closed his eyes. A scent suddenly hit his nostrils, a tingling sort of smell, with layers of hot metal tracks and steam and underlying avian scents. It smelled like magic.
Harry opened his eyes, and took a deep breath of it.
-----
“You’ll be staying there for Christmas, I presume?” Aunt Petunia asked, her mouth twisting as she stood by, watching Nick haul his trunk from the boot.
“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he said indifferently, heaving hard. Abruptly, the trunk fell out of the boot with a clatter, and Nick winced. Rocky squawked irritably from his cage.
“Sorry, Rocky,” Nick said apologetically, and his owl puffed his feathers out, his way of saying that Nick was most certainly not forgiven for waking him up during daylight hours.
“And the spring holidays?”
“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” Nick said wearily, shoving his trunk onto the trolley beside the car. “I won’t see you until next summer. Have a good year. Goodbye.”
Aunt Petunia didn’t bother to respond as she and Uncle Vernon got back in the car and drove away. Letting out a breath in relief, Nick took hold of the trolley and wheeled it into the station, looking around for Jon or Katie or, most importantly, a smaller, black-haired boy with glasses.
He didn’t see anyone he knew, and it was already eight minutes to eleven o’clock, so Nick hurriedly pushed his trunk over to the barrier and leaned against it casually. He fell through a second later and felt a broad smile stretch across his face. He’d missed this world.
He stood on tiptoes, trying to see over the ocean of brightly-clothed people. He couldn’t find Jon, since Jon was someone who got easily lost in a crowd, so he focused on searching for a certain boy with black hair. He spotted Cedric Diggory, now a fourth year, and Harold Dingle, who also had dark hair, plus several other dark-haired young boys. Even so, he didn’t see any tell-tale glasses until he fought his way towards the train. There, sitting beside the tracks on top of his trunk with his legs swinging, was Harry.
Nick knew at once that it was him. It wasn’t just the wild black hair or rectangular glasses, but the slight build that suggested he would one day have long legs and strong shoulders. It was the line of his spine and how his shoulders connected to his neck. It was because you could dye his hair red and give him a scar over his eye and he would look just like Nicolas himself.
Nick whooped in delighted joy and shoved his way through the crowd. They parted before him like butter around a hot knife and then his way was clear. There was his brother, standing in front of him with an expression of astonished happiness. Suddenly, they were flinging themselves at each other, colliding in an awkward, long-limbed hug that knocked Harry’s glasses askew and set the two boys to laughing at themselves, sheepish and gleeful.
“Harry, Harry,” Nick said over and over again, clutching at his brother’s sleeves.
“Nick,” Harry said, laughing. “Nicolas.”
“You look just like me!” Nick exclaimed, fidgeting madly in his enthusiasm.
“Yes,” Harry smiled, and then behind them the train whistled. Panicked but laughing, the two brothers both grabbed at Harry’s trunk, which was sitting closest to the train, and heaved it aboard, then clambered back out to get Nick’s. They were barely onboard before the train whistled again and began to inch forward. They stuck their heads out the open door and waved to the crowd on the platform, just for the fun of it, at nobody in particular and everyone at once. On either side of them, students hung out of windows and leaned out open doors, waving and calling out to loved ones, a wildly shifting sea of brightly coloured sleeves.
Then the train picked up speed and inched around the bend, and the platform was gone.
“Come on, let’s find a compartment,” Nick said, grabbing the handle of his trunk. He dragged it down the train, looking left and right until he spotted the compartment his friends were in, and then opened the door. “Hey,” he said, poking his head in. There was a chorus of greetings back, and he led the way inside. “This is my brother, Harry,” Nick said proudly. “Harry, this is Harold Dingle, Jonathan Bonham, and Cormac McLaggen. That’s Katie Bell, Leanne Haack, and Victoria Frobisher over there. They’re my house and year mates.”
“Hello,” Harry said, nodding at the introductions. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Hi Harry,” Katie smiled at him from the window seat. “Nick’s told us a lot about you. Will you be in Gryffindor, do you think?”
“That’s one of the Houses, right?” Harry asked uncertainly. Katie’s jaw dropped and she turned to glare Nick, who looked abashed.
“You haven’t told him about the Houses? Nick!”
“We haven’t seen each other in ten years!” Nick said defensively. “We’ve been talking through letters, that’s all. I guess I never got around to it.”
“Ten years!” said one of the other girls, fair-haired and blue-eyed. That was Victoria, Harry thought, so that would make the slight brunette girl Leanne.
“I’ve been living in a series of foster homes, since our relatives would only take in one of us,” Harry explained. “We were very young when it happened.”
“But the Houses, Katie,” Nick reminded her when she opened her mouth. “There’s four, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. We’re all Gryffindors.”
“Gryffindor is far and away the best House,” one of the boys said. Harry turned to him, forcing a smile with effort. “Cormac McLaggen,” the boy informed him helpfully, reaching out a hand.
“Harry Potter,” Harry replied, shaking it perfunctorily. “Then you must be Jonathan, yes? And Harold.”
“Yes, I’m Jon,” the brown-haired boy said, smiling, and Harold nodded his head in confirmation.
“Hi,” Harry said, and went to start a conversation as he sat down, but he was interrupted by the door opening.
In the doorway there was a group of three boys, led by a boy not much taller than Harry himself, but he was colourless where Harry was dark. This boy had white blond hair of the sort normally only found on very young children, which was slicked back to show his pale and rather pointy face.
“You’ll be Nicolas Potter, then?” the boy asked, looking straight at Harry’s brother. “I’m Draco Malfoy. Yes, those Malfoys.”
“Oh, er…what other Malfoys are there?” Nick asked, perplexed.
“Yes, exactly,” Malfoy said, lifting his chin. Harry blinked in astonishment. Beside him, Nick didn’t look any better, especially when Malfoy stepped forward with his hand outstretched. “You’re a Gryffindor,” Malfoy said, making Gryffindor sound like one would say idiotic maggot, as if it was something repulsive and pitiable, “but you must have some taste. You don’t have to associate with this riffraff any longer. I can help you there.”
Until then, Nick had been gaping in stunned confusion, but Malfoy had made a mistake. When he got to this riffraff, he turned his silvery grey eyes directly onto Harry’s serviceably worn Muggle clothing, with a sneer tautening his pale features.
Nick jumped to his feet, with a face like a thundercloud.
“I can choose who I make friends with for myself, thanks very much,” he said furiously, “and I don’t need a little upstart first-year like you to tell me how to do it.”
There was a deathly silence, where Malfoy took a step back in surprise that quickly turned to anger. Behind him, his two goons cracked their knuckles menacingly.
“You’ll regret that,” Malfoy hissed hoarsely. “My father can make life very unpleasant for people like you.”
“Regret not taking advice from a pipsqueak like you?” Nick asked viciously. “Someone who comes in and insults my brother? No, I’ll never regret that.”
Malfoy turned unpleasant eyes on Harry, who had gotten to his feet.
“You’ll regret it,” he swore again, this time staring straight at Harry. “I guarantee it.”
“Get lost, pipsqueak,” Jon said from behind Harry, having also gained his feet.
With one last black glare at them all, Draco Malfoy and his as-yet-unnamed sidekicks retreated, slamming the door shut behind them.
“What a little snot rag,” Leanne said airily. “Good for you, Nick.”
Nick blushed.
-----
Harry would have described the rest of the trip as uneventful - if a magical train ride could pass uneventfully.
Perhaps it would be better to say that the remainder of the journey passed without major incident. Harry mostly listened to the second years’ chatter, occasionally sharing a grin with his brother. At midday, the witch pulling the trolley rolled by, and Harry bought anything that looked interesting.
No one bothered them after Draco Malfoy, although many people craned their heads in their direction when they walked by. The afternoon slowly faded away and the three girls excused themselves to the toilet to change into their school robes, and the boys took turns doing the same while the others kept watch at the door. Harry’s robes were the only ones without a patch or coloured tie - they were entirely black. Black lining, black tie; the older students told him that the colours would change only after his House had been announced.
The rest of the train journey seemed to pass swiftly now that they were in their robes. Within minutes, they could feel the train begin to slow, and a voice sounded through the train, instructing them to leave their belongings on the train. They would be taken to the school separately.
It was full dark when the train pulled up at the station. The darkness seemed to muffle the noise of the students and elevate the sense of tension and anticipation. Harry followed Nick off the train and onto the platform, which was lit with large hanging lanterns. The last quarter moon glowed fat in the sky, larger and closer than he’d ever seen it. The entire world seemed to be holding its breath.
Then a light caught Harry’s eye. It was a torch, bobbing towards them in the darkness. As a collective whole, the student population turned to silently watch it approach, growing larger and brighter in the darkness.
The lantern came to a stop before them, the warm glow illuminating a broad, bearded face which towered above even the tallest seventh year.
“Firs’ years,” he called, voice booming over the students. “Firs’ years, to me!”
“Go on, Harry,” Nick whispered, nudging him. “We’ll see you in the Great Hall.” Harry took a step forward and nodded, then turned and made his way through the crowd to the towering man.
“Tha’ e’ryone? Righ’, follow me!”
The man turned and strode away, lantern held high. A trickle of students followed him, joining into a darkly clad river. Harry’s senses were running riot - like Diagon Alley and Platform 9 ¾, the lands and woods around Hogwarts positively teemed with magic. He shivered in mixed excitement and dread - there was something inherently dangerous about this place.
Harry loved it.
The giant man led the first years down a rough forest path and around a bend. Harry was lucky and didn’t encounter anything to trip him, but the boy beside him wasn’t as fortunate. His foot caught on an exposed tree root and he stumbled, swearing inventively as he went down onto one knee.
“Bloody hell,” Harry whispered, snickering. “I haven’t even heard some of those.”
Grumbling, the other boy managed to untangle himself and stood back up. He was tall and had very dark skin, at least from what Harry could see in the very dim light of the giant man’s lantern.
“Harry Potter,” Harry introduced himself, staring straight ahead. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other boy glance at him.
“Blaise Zabini,” came the whispered reply, after a pause. Then, “I didn’t know there was another Potter.”
“There is,” Harry replied.
“What relation?”
“Younger brother.”
There was another long pause as they moved quietly along the path, until, “A pleasure, Potter.”
“Likewise,” Harry whispered, smiling in the dark, and then there wasn’t any more time for talking. They had just emerged from the woods onto the rocky shore of a lake, the water gleaming still and black in the moonlight, reflecting the many lit windows of an enormous, sprawling castle.
Harry’s jaw dropped a little in awe.
“Welcome to Hogwarts,” the giant man said in a low voice, while the students craned their heads back and stared.
There were boats moored on the lake’s shore, twenty-six of them, small and wooden and flimsy looking. The giant man directed them towards the boats, four to each one. Harry clambered in with Zabini, a girl with blond pig-tails, and a plain, weedy-looking boy. When they were all situated, the shoddy-looking boats glided through the water by themselves in a long row, until the castle loomed above them, gigantic and intimidating, turrets stabbing at the dark, star-studded sky. That feeling of dreadful anticipation increased, until Harry was barely breathing.
They sailed right under the castle, through the strands of vines that obscured the entrance to a deep, underground cavern. The boats dragged themselves onto the pebbly shore at the base of a wide staircase, and they all clambered out and looked around in fascination. There was a set of double doors at the top; oak, towering and elaborate, which the giant man led them up to and knocked on three times, the sound thunderous in the silence.
It opened at once, revealing Professor McGonagall in another pair of emerald green robes, these ones much finer than the ones she’d worn to take Harry to Diagon Alley. Still the same, however, was the no-nonsense expression and the tight bun. She glared out over the group of students with a slightly malevolent air, one that said quite clearly, don’t cross me.
“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” the giant man said, and the Professor nodded briskly.
“Thank you, Hagrid,” she said, and Harry noted the man’s name. “I will take them from here. Come in, students.”
She led the way into a smallish room and then left them with the crisp instructions to smarten themselves up. In the quiet, tensions rose. One girl began to whisper frantically, reciting spells she’d read about and wondering which one she’d need. Harry’s mouth curled into an amused smile.
Beside him, Zabini seemed to be giving Harry a closer look, now that there was light in which to do so. Harry turned his head and returned the favour, still smiling. He had been right about Zabini’s skin - it was very dark, although there was something else in the structure of his face that hinted at mixed ancestry. His slanting, cat-like eyes and peculiar last name made Harry think he had some Italian heritage in his bloodline.
That done, Harry turned his attention onto the rest of his year mates. Draco Malfoy was holding court in one corner, expounding on something at great length to his blocky cohorts. In another corner, the other boy who had shared a boat with them leaned against the wall, stringy hair hiding his face. The whispering girl was starting to gnaw on her nails near the door, a cloud of brown curls atop her head. One boy had brilliant red hair, bright where Harry’s brother’s was dark. It made him look like his head was on fire.
Harry studied the room and its occupants carefully until McGonagall finally returned.
“We’re ready for you now,” she said. “Line up, two across.”
Harry found himself beside the bushy-haired girl, with Zabini just behind him as they moved out of the antechamber. There was a low-level murmuring from the vast hall as they entered, from the nearly three hundred black-robed students conversing in low tones. As the first years entered, the thrumming sound died away, replaced by expectant silence.
Harry glanced up at the staff table, his eyes automatically going straight to the old, white-haired wizard in the centre. That would be the Headmaster, he thought, and blinked when the old man seemed to feel his gaze and turned a pair of bright blue eyes directly on him. Harry held the gaze uncertainly until the old man looked away again, distracted by the grey-haired woman beside him. Then Harry’s eyes wandered down the table and stopped on a tall, dark-haired man in black robes.
Harry recognized that unfortunate profile easily, despite the fact that he hadn’t seen him in months and didn’t even know his name. It was the man who had called him Wednesday’s child.
A pair of black, black eyes flicked over to meet his.
“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,
But don’t judge on what you see,
I’ll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat than me.”
Harry turned and stared. Nick had mentioned the Sorting Hat, he remembered, but he was rather sure that Nick had failed to mention that it sang.
“You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat,
And I can cap them all.”
Harry turned and looked behind him at Zabini, who was watching the Hat sing with a bored expression on his face. When he saw Harry looking at him, he smirked. Harry turned back to the Hat as it continued to sing.
“There’s nothing hidden in your head,
The Sorting Hat can’t see,
So try me on and I will tell you,
Where you ought to be.”
It continued on from there, describing each of the four Houses and what personality went in each. The Hat finished its song to a rousing round of applause from students and teachers alike. It bowed to each of the five tables, then went silent and still.
McGonagall stood at the head of the line next to a stool and holding a long scroll. She informed them that she would read out their names, they would sit on the stool and place the Hat on their heads, and go sit with the House the Hat called out.
“Abbott, Hannah,” she said briskly, and the girl with blonde pig-tails that had shared a boat with Harry and Zabini stumbled out of line, pink-faced and nervous. She sat on the stool and placed the Hat on her head. It deliberated for a moment, and then…
“HUFFLEPUFF!” the Hat shouted, and the table on the far right burst into applause.
“Bones, Susan!” McGonagall called next, and then again…
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
“Boot, Terry!”
“RAVENCLAW!”
And down the list they went. Mandy Brocklehurst joined the Ravenclaw table with Terry Boot, and then Lavender Brown became a Gryffindor. Millicent Bulstrode, a blocky girl with a wide, pallid face and stringy brown hair became the first Slytherin, while Justin Finch-Fletchley sat down at Hufflepuff.
The bushy-haired girl beside Harry turned out to be “Granger, Hermione,” and became a Ravenclaw, and a boy named Neville Longbottom became a Gryffindor despite being so nervous that he actually fell over his own feet on his way to the stool, then ran off still wearing the Hat.
When his name was called Draco Malfoy swaggered up to the Hat with his steps full of arrogance and assumed superiority, and got placed into Slytherin before the Hat even touched his pristine silvery hair.
A girl named Alice Moon went after Malfoy and got placed into Hufflepuff, and then the weedy-looking boy, “Nott, Theodore,” into Slytherin where he sat across from Malfoy and his two goons. then they hit the P’s, starting with Pansy Parkinson going into Slytherin, then a pair of twin Indian-looking girls got separated, “Patil, Padma” going into Ravenclaw and her sister, “Patil, Parvati” into Gryffindor. Next, a Hufflepuff girl, “Perks, Sally-Anne,” and then…
“Potter, Harry.”
The Hall abruptly went quiet, then a low thrumming murmur rippled through the ranks. As Harry moved out of line and made his way towards the Hat, the whisperss of the students closest to him become understandable.
“Potter, did she say?”
“I didn’t know there were any other Potters.”
“A relative, you think?”
“Must be. Cousin, probably.”
“Not a brother, surely?”
“He definitely looks enough like him to be a brother, if you ask me.”
Harry lifted his gaze to the far left, where Gryffindor table was. At the end, surrounded on all sides, Harry caught sight of Nick’s distinctive dark-red hair before he sat on the stool, then the Hat fell down over his eyes, and a small voice spoke in his ear.
“The littlest Potter, I see. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Ah,” Harry said intelligently.
“Yes, I have. He’s too clever by half, your Headmaster. Remember that.”
“All right,” Harry murmured uncertainly.
“Where shall I put you, then? Clever, oh you’re very clever indeed, and eager to prove it. Not one for Ravenclaw though, your talents lie less with theory and more with common sense. You have strong, strong loyalty to one person in particular. This kind is not a Hufflepuff’s loyalty, either. You’re cunning, and you’re brave, goodness yes, very brave indeed. I think that will aid you very well in your time here at Hogwarts, you’ll need to be brave, especially in…”
“SLYTHERIN!”
There was a long, pregnant pause as Harry pulled the Hat off his head, and then he nearly fell over as the entire Slytherin table exploded into cheers, their previous polite and dignified clapping gone out the window. Harry froze in startled surprise in the act of replacing the Hat on the stool and simply stared at the Slytherins.
Up at the staff table, the Headmaster looked down at him with an interested gaze. The black-haired Professor at the end was pale faced from shock.
“Well,” the Headmaster said quietly as he watched young Harry Potter shuffle towards his new House table. “This might prove to be very, very interesting.”
Harry caught one glimpse of Nick’s disappointed face before he was engulfed in his standing House mates, feeling hands grab his arms, his shoulders, and clutch at his sleeves. Bewildered, he let himself be guided by many hands to a seat, which ended up being next to one of Malfoy’s goons. It wasn’t until Professor McGonagall created several loud bangs with her wand that everyone settled down. Even so they still snuck sideways glances at Harry as the rest of the Sorting recommenced with “Smith, Zacharias,” and “Summers, Jackson,” who both became Hufflepuffs. “Thomas, Dean” became a Gryffindor, so did “Weasley, Ron,” the redheaded boy, and at last, “Zabini, Blaise,” joined Harry at the Slytherin table and the Sorting was finished.
The Headmaster then stood, smiling cheerfully at the students, and spoke the most bizarre and meaningless words Harry had ever heard, then clapped his hands and sat down. At once, the tables were buried under the most food Harry had ever seen in one place in his entire life. A low-level murmur filled the hall as students began to serve themselves.
“Got yourself into Slytherin, Potter?” Malfoy said maliciously from his spot on the other side of his goon. “How on earth did you manage that?”
“By virtue of being extraordinarily brave, according to the Hat,” Harry said, still bewildered. “I thought that Gryffindor was the brave House? That Hat’s cracked.”
One of the older students cackled, while several others muttered to each other in confusion.
“You’re cracked, Potter,” Malfoy said, looking uncertain. “What claptrap is this?”
“Too lazy and selfish for Hufflepuff, too dumb for Ravenclaw, too brave for Gryffindor, an automatic Slytherin?” Harry asked. Several students laughed at that conclusion.
“Marcus Flint,” the older student who’d laughed before said, stretching down the table to offer Harry his hand. “Quidditch Captain.”
“Nice to meet you,” Harry said, knowing that his ears were red. A chorus of introductions came his way from those closest to him, including the two fifth year prefects Arlene Hallswayde and Gaius Capper.
“Who’s that professor there?” Harry asked when the introductions slowed, and found practically the entire table turning in the direction he indicated. “The one with the black hair,” Harry provided, bemused.
“That’s our Head of House,” Flint said, turning back to his food. “Professor Severus Snape, Potions Master.”
“I’ve met him before,” Harry said blithely.
“When did you meet Professor Snape?” Zabini asked from across the table.
“He brought me two messages last year - although, come to think of it, he never told me who they were from,” Harry said.
“So why would you need to ask?” a sixth year prefect asked.
“He never told me his name, either,” Harry replied.
“Sounds like him,” Flint said, grinning broadly.
“He calls me Wednesday’s child,” Harry said, suddenly wondering if he could get an answer to the puzzle that had been plaguing him for months.
“Like the rhyme?” the prefect asked.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “He called it Monday’s Child but told me to look it up myself, but I never got the chance.”
One of the girls in Harry’s year, Daphne Greengrass, recited,
“Monday’s Child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is one of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child labours hard for a living,
But the child that’s born on the Sun’s day,
Is cheerful and bright and strong and gay.”* 1
“No wonder I couldn’t find it,” Harry mumbled. “I was looking in the wrong places.”
“It’s been around in various forms and languages since Mithraicism was the primary religion,” Daphne explained. “There’s even supposed to be a Muggle version, though they use their Sabbath day tradition.”
“Oh,” Harry said, taken aback by the confirmation. “It’s not a wizarding poem, then?”
“Of course it is,” Malfoy sneered. “They stole it from wizards hundreds of years ago, and got it wrong, to boot!”
Harry didn’t really know what to say to that, so he moved on.
“At any rate,” Harry said, injecting a bit of pensiveness into his tone. “He said I wasn’t born on a Wednesday at all, so I’m not quite sure what he was on about.”
“Obviously telling you to stop moping,” Zabini said knowledgeably. “Wednesday’s child is one of woe.”
“How perfectly bizarre,” Harry said, shaking his head.
“That’s the Professor,” Flint interjected. “Subtle to the core.”
“Just don’t get him angry,” said one of the fourth year girls nearby. “That’s a really, really bad idea.”
Fervent nods echoed this.
“Eat, Potter,” Flint said, noticing Harry’s empty plate. “You’ll starve if you don’t, and nobody’s going to tell you the route to the kitchens on your first night here, that’s for sure.”
Harry shot the sixth year a dirty look, which only got him a smirk in reply, but then he relented in the face of common sense and served himself some chicken and a jacket potato.
While he ate, the conversation was taken up by a group of third years down the table, turning it into a lively discussion of Mithraicism and the development of Christianity. Harry eventually decided that wizards danced around both religions without being one or the other, or anything else.
Closer around him, the first years started discussing the Headmaster’s blazingly bright blue robes, decorated with gleaming moons and stars.
“Muggles always depict Merlin as a wizard with a big white beard and stars and moons on his robes,” Harry said, including himself into the conversation. “Do you think it’s deliberate, the Headmaster, I mean?”
“You mean, like some obscure joke?” Daphne asked curiously. “Most of us wouldn’t know that. I didn’t know that.”
“Must be for the Mudbloods,” Malfoy grimaced, rolling his eyes. “What a crackpot old fool.”
“You don’t like the Headmaster?” Harry asked in surprise.
“The Malfoys aren’t on good terms with Dumbledore,” Pansy Parkinson piped up. It was the first time Harry had heard her speak, and he concealed a wince at the sound. Pansy Parkinson had an unfortunate sounding voice, grating and naturally inclined to be whiney. Harry hoped that for her sake, she outgrew it.
“Anyways, Merlin was a scrub wizard,” Daphne continued. “He was around before wands, and before men really lived long enough to grow a white beard. There are a lot of paintings of Merlin in history books - brown robes, brown hair, brown eyes, the lot. Very unassuming looking.”
“So it is a joke, then,” Harry said, turning to look up at Dumbledore. The Headmaster had a towering, pointy hat on, made of blue velvet and with a giant crescent-moon shaped ornament hanging from the tip, with two golden tassels dangling from each point. He couldn’t help it, he started to laugh quietly.
“I think it’s positively repulsive,” Malfoy said airily.
“It’s funny,” Harry disagreed. “Especially since Merlin didn’t actually look like that.”
Malfoy snorted and looked away, as if Harry wasn’t even worthy of an answer after that statement.
“Hey, Potter,” a fourth year boy called from down the table. “Are you a cousin?”
“Brother,” Harry said, not seeing any reason to lie or pretend to not understand. There was a slight ripple down the table, a whispery noise as approximately seventy student robes brushed against one another. A feeling of subdued excitement permeated the air.
Harry looked around in bewilderment. Many pairs of eyes met his own, and he caught glimpses of lightning-quick smiles and knowing looks. He blinked uncertainly, feeling lost and out of place.
Suddenly, the goon beside him - who was apparently named Goyle - stiffened, half-turned around in his seat, then scooted sideways until he’d squished Malfoy between him and the other goon, Crabbe. Malfoy’s protests were muffled and indistinct.
Across from Harry, Zabini looked grey and wide-eyed. The whole table had fallen silent.
There was a breath of icy air on Harry’s neck. Stiff and uncertain, he slowly turned around to look.
Only fierce control of his own body let him avoid the indignity of shoving himself backwards and over the table, for floating directly behind him was a gaunt-faced ghost with deadened silver eyes staring directly into Harry’s own. There were silvery splotches all down the ghost’s front, and Harry realized with a distant chill that they were bloodstains.
For a long moment, boy and ghost stared at each other, still and silent; then the ghost bent at the waist and peered closer into Harry’s eyes, smiled an eerie little smile, and finally straightened and floated away.
Harry let out a breath of air, echoed by all the students closest to him.
“What was that?” Zabini asked breathlessly. “I thought the Baron didn’t acknowledge anyone who wasn’t dead!”
“The Baron?” Harry asked weakly.
“The Bloody Baron, Slytherin’s ghost,” Flint provided, watching the ghost glide away. “And Zabini’s right - I’ve never known him to acknowledge anyone but another ghost, or, in an emergency, the Headmaster or Slytherin’s Head of House. I’ve never seen him do anything like that before, although he’s the only one who can control Peeves so he must do something when he has to.”
“I wouldn’t mind him not doing it again,” Harry said uneasily. Beside him, Goyle finally found the remnants of whatever courage he had and got off poor Malfoy - who was looking thoroughly mussed and very irritated - in favour of serving himself a fourth portion of steak.
“Whatever you do, Potter, keep hoping that,” Flint said ominously, and as if agreeing, the remaining food disappeared from the plates (and off the fork in Goyle’s case, much to his dismay), replaced by desserts of every kind.
“Who is Peeves?” Harry asked suddenly, as he finally noticed Flint’s mention of the name.
“Hogwarts’ resident poltergeist,” Flint provided. “Crazy sod, stay away from him. You’ll know when you meet him - he’ll probably dump something viscous and slimy on your head that is impossible to get off.”
“Oh,” Harry said wryly, and absently helped himself to the rice pudding.
The conversation then turned to innocuous things - Quidditch scores and test marks and upcoming classes, until they were too full to eat another bite and the dessert vanished from the tables. The Headmaster stood once more to speak.
He informed them that the Forest that bordered the grounds was forbidden to students, as well as the rightmost corridor on the third floor. He then led them through a short but perfectly bizarre rendition of what was apparently the school song. Harry mouthed along half-heartedly, but mostly listened to the inventive melodies several other students chose - particularly a pair of redheaded twins that had to have been related to Ronald Weasley, who both chose a funeral march, of all things.
At last, at a cue Harry clearly missed, the students all rose to their feet. A prefect started calling the first years to order at the Slytherin table, telling them to stay together if they didn’t want to disappear and never be found again. Only, there was a voice calling over the crowd, shouting Harry’s name.
“Nick!” he called back, searching for his brother. “Nick?”
“Here, Harry!” Nick said, and there he was, shoving his way through the milling crowd. Harry rushed towards him, relieved.
“I wanted to be in Gryffindor with you but the Hat was weird and said I was really brave and that was good because I would need to be brave in Slytherin, and I think that stupid hat’s cracked!”
Nick looked at him, startled, then laughed.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll still spend as much time together as we can, right? Whenever we can.”
“Yes,” Harry said firmly. “Yes, definitely.”
“Good,” Nick said, and for a moment he just looked at Harry, seemingly memorizing his face. Harry found himself doing the same, until the Slytherin prefect called to him impatiently and Harry stole a quick hug from his brother.
“I need to go,” he said apologetically. “Don’t want to disappear without a trace, and all that.”
“Bye!” Nick said, waving as Harry hurried away. “See you tomorrow at breakfast!”
Harry waved back and vanished into the crowd.
Chapter Eight