Sunny Suzuki and the Stupid Traitorous Rat

At first, they were just doodles. 

They were little forgettable sketches in the corners of Sunny’s notebook, ones that he never remembered drawing, small insignificant drawings that blocked out words with their black ink. He would be in class, turn away from his notes for a second, and when he looked back there a sketch would be.

It was always the same thing, a weird cartoony ghost that was shaded in completely. 

They were pretty easy to ignore, even when they became more and more frequent as the days passed. It took him about a week of what he saw as a ‘random daily quirk’ for him to realize what was going on. Somebody– or many somebodies, he suspected– was drawing in his notebook. Was trying to draw something specific in his notebook, something he put together early on and knew all too damn well. 

His conclusion was simple: the Slytherins (cough Draco Malfoy) found out about his boggart, and were now trying to use it to torment him. Or maybe the Ravenclaws in his year decided to hate him and make him suffer on top of generally avoiding him. Though ‘generally avoiding him’ was a bit of an overstatement, lately a handful of kids in his House were trying to talk to him during meals or in the Commons when he was just trying to get a wink of sleep… which was honestly much worse. 

Either way, the result was the same. In every other class, he would find that stupid sketch of a cartoony shaded-in ghost at the edges of his notes, of his essays, of his fucking textbooks. 

He would erase it, ignore it, move on with his life, and the cycle would repeat. 

Over, and over, and over. 

Today he had Potions, which meant that just about every Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in his year were shoved inside of a low-ceiling ex-dungeon classroom and forced to magically cook in front of a magical pot while cooperating with each other, loyalty held by exactly zero official agreements other than a silent communal wish of not blowing the other up. 

In other words, it was chaos. A nuclear danger level of chaos with some of these side effects of incorrectly done potions, but a quietly occurring one. Any explosion would be met with another one from Snape (which would somehow beat the former’s strength tenfold), and so they all knew to keep their shit together lest suffer the consequences. 

To his luck, the class had an uneven number of kids now thanks to him, so he never had to actually partner up with anybody. Everyone already had their partners and he was the only one ‘left out’, which was more than fine by him. 

At the end of class only one person per group turned in their potion, so it never mattered before– Snape never knew about his solitary work, and as far as Sunny was aware, he never cared.  

And of course today was the day Snape noticed the particularly odd number of this class, and made it very evident that he did, in fact, care a lot.  

“Mr. Suzuki,” he began, that dead-inside voice of his carrying across the classroom halfway through boiling time and stopping everyone (including Sunny) mid-brew. The students looked up from their notebooks and cauldrons, every single one of them dialing in and staring directly at Snape or Sunny himself. 

Oh great. 

Sunny’s hairs stood straight, and he swallowed down a full-body tremor that rose up in his chest. 

Three weeks worth of Hogwarts later, and it still felt weird hearing his name come from any of the ‘main’ characters. 

Snape sat by his teacher’s desk, elbows on the table and fingers intertwined. The books didn’t lie about his greasy spaghetti-looking hair, sickly pale skin, deep dead black eyes, but the films definitely dragged his age through the mud. No offense to Alan Rickman or anything, but this guy did not look in his fifties. He looked barely past thirty, which made all the aforementioned statements a tad more concerning for a man this young. 

“Where is your partner?” he drawled, every word dragging itself out with unbearable slowness. “Unless you wish to tell me that you were incapable of finding one for this lesson.”

For this lesson alone made it abundantly clear Sunny shouldn’t correct the Professor’s understanding of the timeline of events. He swallowed, and only managed to shake his head in response, hoping to all the gods that may exist in this universe that Snape would understand his attempt at saying nope I’m not incapable and I’m brewing my potion just fine thanks . 

For the first time he hoped the guy, being a powerful mind-reading wizard and all in the books, would use his damn mind reading powers on him without his explicit verbal consent. 

But of course, it was clear from day one in this damned reality that the gods hated him.

“No?” the Professor said, clearly not getting the hint as he raised an eyebrow at Sunny. So much for a powerful legilimens. At least that took care of the whole ‘are they reading my mind at all times’ worry. “Well, I suppose it would be rather difficult to…” He paused. Or maybe he didn’t pause, he just spoke that slowly. Sunny couldn’t tell. “...find someone willing to tolerate a partner that lacks instruction.” 

…what was that supposed to mean? 

No, no, seriously. That sentence could be interpreted in too many different ways and all of them were equally mildly insulting. Was he trying to refer to Sunny’s lack of magical education or his apparent muteness and lack of capability to ‘instruct’ someone during group work…? 

He knew he should be worried about the deepening glare in Snape’s expression at his confused-instead-of-ashamed response, but he didn’t care. He slept only like five and a half hours last night and got even less the night before. His head was dizzy and full of bees and could barely think straight, much less pick out his priorities properly. 

God, he just wanted to sleep. 

At Sunny’s blank stare back, Snape’s expression turned sour. 

“Mr. Suzuki. Join a group.”

A pause, a real one this time. 

“Now.”

Miraculously, Sunny's brain finally caught up with events and he blinked himself to focus, snapping his posture upright. Ah shit, the (still boiling) contents of his potion couldn’t just be left in his magical pot. He pointed at his cauldron, swallowing again. Please, voice, work. 

“The… the potion…” Great job! Two words!

Snape didn’t look proud of Sunny’s achievement. “It will be discarded, obviously.” Holy shit the way that last word was said unlocked way too memories of the movies. “You are lucky to have a moderately adequate potion boiling in your cauldron, Mr. Suzuki. Otherwise, solitary work in a partnered potion would’ve had… disastrous consequences befitting one of your skills.” 

Was that a compliment? The wording made him unsure. 

The glare in his professor’s face said no. 

Sunny, knowing this battle was not one he wanted to fight, held back his sigh and nodded. He grabbed his pens and threw them into his bag, letting them drop somewhere down the bottom where he’d probably find them again, and turned around to take his notebook–

He stopped. Froze in his tracks.

Stared. 

Stared, and stared, and stared some more. 

“Something the matter, Mr. Suzuki?”

Sunny shook his head minutely and grabbed the notebook, snapping it shut with way too much force. He stalked his way to the closest table, fixing his face to be as cautiously neutral as he could. 

The two Hufflepuff girls he just intruded upon didn’t even complain when he unceremoniously dropped his bag with a loud thud against their wooden table, something that bled through his stiffly indifferent expression making them eerily silent as they glanced at each other nervously. 

Fuck it, he didn’t care for their anxiety. He had enough of it on his own, they could handle a snippet. 

Sunny turned his attention to their potion, already noticing three different mistakes– color, amount of bubbles, level of transparency– and tried to force himself not to think about what he just saw. Naturally, he failed. 

Inside his notebook was a drawing. A drawing he didn’t make. Typical at this point, but yet…

This was no real issue before. And he didn’t think it would be an issue now. And of course, the moment Sunny fell into such a conclusion was when shit hit the fan. 

Why?

Well.

The drawing got accurate.  

And he and he didn’t even erase it this time, with Snape breathing down his neck.

…Two facts made the future of his sanity something to be concerned about (even more than usual).

For one, Something was etched into the pale-yellow pages of his notebook in black ink, and this time he showed enough of a reaction in front of enough people for the perpetrator– whoever they were– to know they got the ‘design’ right. 

And two, the recital’s anniversary approached with October, and nobody was here with him to mourn. 

.

..

.

The ironically good thing about having faked his sister’s suicide meant that Sunny was almost immune to bullying. 

Being twelve years old in a small town with a smaller school meant that, much like Hogwarts, secrets didn’t last. The few months he spent there before Headspace was finalized in his head were hell. Actual, burning, festering, agonizing hell. 

He couldn’t focus on algebra when Johnny two seats behind him was whispering about the tragedy of his sister’s death, he couldn’t answer a teacher’s question when Cassandra loudly gossiped about how Mari killed herself because she hated her little brother so much, he couldn’t show up to class in time when his locker had been flooded with different version of Mari’s “suicide notes” that the kids “just happened to find near his house”, he couldn’t eat during lunch when every bite of any food reminded him of Mari’s cookies, Mari’s love, Mari’s death, Mari’s death, Mari’s death. 

The people who whispered, even when the whispers weren’t of cruel intention, were people who knew him. People he grew up with, people he liked, people he knew in return. Their compassion and concern during the first few months were, if anything, even worse than the disgust or sadism. He didn't deserve their care, their worry, their time. Each kind word and action felt like acid on his skin and a permanent print on his soul. 

When it came to whether or not people tried to be sensitive to his situation, he was, as the saying went, damned if they did, and damned if they don’t. 

And here? Oh, please. A few sketches on notebooks, a few odd looks during class or whispers in the hallways, this was nothing compared to those months of mental and emotional torture before Mom let him finally leave school for good. 

That wasn’t the problem. 

The problem was that he was almost immune to bullying. 

The problem were that these were magically created sketches. 

The problem was that he couldn’t. Fucking. Leave. 

The problem was that the sketches didn’t stop. Not after one week, not after two, not after three. They grew in numbers, in frequency, in size too, he would find at least three different Somethings in the morning and then another twelve throughout the day, be it in his notebooks, drawn in the wood, painted in the lighter colored walls– hell, he found a large page filled with Somethings inside of his bed. 

The problem was that when he touched the drawings, some of them would immediately disappear. 

The problem was that he didn’t know if it was magic anymore or his own fucking brain. 

The problem was that he was losing his goddamn mind. 

He didn’t get any more sleep. Not in a healthy way, in any case. The shadows of his bed were too dark and no longer comforting, the silence from the curtains too stifling and suffocating instead of shielding, the windows only tempting in the worst ways possible, so tempting, so, so, so, so tempting. Instead, he slept during classes, in the library, in empty classrooms during lunch– anywhere that was safe and soothing. 

Sunny was always quiet, was always introverted, always anxious, and so the tiny changes in his behavior– if he was a little more closed off, a little more tired, a bit more grumpy– they all went unnoticed. Lupin made an off-hand comment once about holding off on his caffeine because Sunny didn’t seem to be getting much sleep at night, but after the mere phrase almost brought him to actual tears Lupin didn’t dare mention it again in case it upset him.

He was pretty much treated like something fragile by most of the staff, with a few of the Professors all too aware he had thin skin by now. Even McGonagall, who was originally so set in her faith in him and just as strict with his education as any other student, had loosened up during her horribly difficult Friday Transfiguration lessons. He wasn’t sure why she of all people changed. Maybe it was because of his awkwardness, or his lack of enthusiasm, or the visible bags under his eyes. Maybe it was a mix of all three. Maybe something else entirely. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. 

The problem was that he wasn’t fragile, not exactly. 

He was a ticking self-destructive bomb. 

“You seem upset,” said an airy voice from behind him, and Sunny, despite his startled jolt, didn’t turn around.

He was in the Ravenclaw Commons, slumping into one of the surprisingly comfortable couches and enjoying the gentle lick of the fireplace’s heat on his skin. His classes had ended and he’d be going to see Lupin in a few hours. Originally this was supposed to be a time where he got some shut-eye, some rest, some blessed sleep, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen now. 

“I don’t see your tie… did the nargles steal them? They are very ambitious little things. They like to steal my shoes, too.”

Nargles. Stolen shoes. 

Oh. 

Luna?

Sunny opened his eyes, and they burned and throbbed as soon as his eyelids slid open, begging for more rest. He ignored the feeling with practiced ease and sat up a little straighter, glancing behind him. 

Yup, Luna. 

She looked like a little kid, was his first thought. If his memory served him correctly, which it often didn’t do, she was only… what, twelve right about now? Something like that. About his age. Or– well, sort of… not really. Ish? 

Back home his body was seventeen and all, but after a void of nothingness for a memory of anything after Mari’s death and living inside of his own head for quite a few years, a common thing for him to bring up during therapy was his mental maturity. 

He felt seventeen the same way a little kid would feel more ‘mature’ than others whenever they happened to be the oldest one in class by a month or two. It felt like a lie half the time, as if he had to put in the effort to convince everyone and himself that he was as old as he claimed. With so much of his memory gone, there was a sharp and uncomfortable disconnect between his body that had aged and his mind that was left behind. 

It was very common for him to have to consciously remind himself that he was actually older than he felt. His therapist worked with him on that the most– pretty hard to integrate yourself back into society and make new friends if you feel uncomfortable interacting with most people in your age range. Basil, Aubrey, Hero, and Kel were some of the only exceptions, and that was because they treated him with the same level of care and teasing patronization the ‘baby of the group’ title implied they would do. 

Ironically, being back to his thirteen year old body again– stupid shrunk height aside– was one of the most freeing things he’d felt while being stuck in this world. 

…in any case, back to Luna. 

Her white-blond hair was loose and fell serenely down her back and front, her crystal blue eyes matching the tie of her uniform. It reminded him of Atticus’ eyes, but only thanks to color. Hers were bright and innocent in a way that his boss’ weren’t. He missed the old man strangely enough. He should write to him again sometime soon. 

She only wore a skirt, a buttoned shirt, and her black tights. No shoes in sight.

Luna looked at him with a peaceful little smile, her head a bit tilted. She had two dangling earrings, each with a hooked cork.

Sunny stared. 

She stared back. 

The two of them stood there in silence for what felt to be a solid hour until Sunny realized that, oh right, she asked a fucking question. 

Why was he like this?

“N-no,” he said, clearing his throat. “No, uhm… the nargles didn’t steal them. I just left it in my bed.”

“I see,” said Luna as if that clarified all the mysteries of the universe, and she nodded with a smile, walking forward. “Do you mind if I sit with you? You look like you could use a bit of company.”

Sunny didn’t know how to feel about Aubrey’s favorite character sitting next to him, but it’s not like his mental health could get any worse at this point. Plus the last thing he wanted was to turn her away and hurt her feelings somehow.  And… she was also right. He could use a bit of company. Any friendly company was one hell of a welcomed change. 

She was already sitting down before he could reply though, so it’s not like it mattered anyway. 

“Hm. Do you mind if I read? I promise I will be quiet,” she asked, taking out a book from somewhere his mind was too dizzy to notice. Luna turned to him, and he managed a nod. She smiled. “Thank you.” A pause. “You should rest, you know... there’s a nest of Wrackspurts in your head right now… it is easier to make them leave if you sleep well.” 

Sunny nodded again, ignoring the little comment about a nest of whateverspurts growing in his skull, and leaned back into the couch, slumping a little deeper this time. 

The flame from the fireplace felt a little bit warmer. 

And with the quiet sounds of flipping pages, Luna’s company made sleep come a little bit easier. 

.

..

.

Five weeks. That was how long the sketches had been going on for. 

Sunny gave up trying to make out which were real and which were hallucinations about two weeks ago. 

He didn’t care enough. 

He literally didn’t have the energy to. 

And when the colors in Headspace became more vibrant, he found that he didn’t have the energy to care for that either. He still couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, the only vaguely interesting thing that happened in those dreams being Omori, who would sometimes stand beside him, hover above him, or linger around the corners of his vision. 

He gave up trying to avoid the stupid place. As long as he got a shred of solid sleep he didn’t care. 

Luna’s company in the Commons became routine, to his reluctant delight. After classes, before Lupin, he would lay on the couch and sleep, and she would sit beside him and read. She didn’t talk to him which he was immensely grateful for, always keeping her attention to her books. Somehow she seemed to know that all he wanted was company instead of conversation. He wasn’t sure how, but that was another thing in the list of shit he didn’t care about. Her nice presence let him sleep, getting something close to a two hour nap, and that was that. 

Whenever he was awake though, a strange emptiness settled inside of him. A heavy pit of nothing that sat in his chest, a void of dead weight that he carried wherever he went. It made him feel sluggish, slow and stupid in both body and mind, never quite feeling the touch of texture or the clarity of thought. He was a ghost watching his own body move and talk, controlling it through will but not consciousness. 

It was a familiar feeling. 

A very, very, very familiar feeling. 

He didn’t flinch at the sight of the sketches anymore. Nor did he freeze, or grimace, or frown. He erased the drawing, or passed his hand through it depending on the day, and moved on. 

More and more often the sketches were the kind to fade when he touched them. He wasn’t sure if it was because the spell to create an illusion was easier than the spell to create actual ink, or if he had lost it and the drawings stopped being made a while ago. 

He didn’t want to know the answer. 

Lately, he didn’t really want anything at all. 

—

Suzuki was acting strange. 

Ironically that wasn’t a strange fact by itself, but somehow these last few weeks he managed the miracle (curse?) of acting even stranger.  

Harry picked this thought over as he and Ron and Hermione made their way down to the forest, to the same typical spot where Hagrid’s lessons took place. It was a cold and grey afternoon, the mid-October breeze chilly and crisp, encouraging him to dip his head lower into his scarf. The other two were chattering– or, well, bickering– about the usual unimportant topics that they did, and he didn’t feel guilty once he stopped paying attention and allowed their voices to fade to background noise. 

Despite his personal vow to let the entire Suzuki matter rest, Harry couldn’t help but keep an eye on him ever since Goldstein approached him and Ron. He didn’t know why exactly his mind decided to fixate on the bloke, but it did, so when his already odd behavior began to have a sudden shift it was hard not to notice. 

For one, he wasn’t scared of Harry anymore. Neither was he scared of anyone else, really, not in the way he had been the first few days. But Harry knew it wasn’t because of any ‘built trust’ or some sudden relief or anything of the sort, because replacing Suzuki’s former anxiety was this really odd and really off apathetic indifference towards everything and everyone around him. 

The most recent and obvious example Harry could think of was how he didn’t even bat an eye when Professor McGonagall paired them up a few days ago. The whole time Suzuki was dead silent and perfectly compliant, letting Harry practice on their shared mice without caring and while not lifting a finger to do anything himself. He didn’t run or flinch or pale when Harry spoke to him (neither did he answer or smile), and it was such a bloody unnerving turn in attitude Harry didn’t even try to talk to him to ask about Malfoy or the supposed boggart incident. 

There was also this strange new divide amidst a few of the Ravenclaws when it came to seating arrangements during mealtimes, one that built up gradually over time. 

A handful of them would sit far, far from Suzuki, either completely ignoring his existence or (as was the case with Goldstein) watching him intently, as if they were waiting for something interesting to suddenly just happen. A reaction, most likely, though Harry couldn’t fathom what the reaction would be for. 

And then some others would sit close by, almost surrounding Suzuki like some form of a human shield. Keeping steady company, a few of them sometimes sending glares at the formerly mentioned Ravenclaws as if they had personally insulted them. This group was smaller, composing of an auburn-haired girl Harry got along with during Charms– named Turpin, he could recall from the few times they partnered in class– the boy Ravenclaw prefect whose name he couldn’t remember for the life of him, some blond first or second year girl, and two other boys whose names he didn’t know. Only Turpin and a few of the boys glared, though the blond one seemed to be almost as airheaded as Suzuki himself. She smiled a lot though. She seemed nice. 

Whether they were friends or simply acquaintances was unclear. Suzuki never spoke to them while he ate, or even so much as looked at them really, but they stuck around despite that. Harry wondered whether the boy even noticed they were there at all, given his lack of engagement. It certainly seemed to him like he didn’t, or if he did, he didn’t care much. 

Overall it was just weird. 

Something was going on, and while he didn’t know what exactly it was he knew it was nothing good. 

The Slytherins had also been very quiet and subdued these past few weeks, which was rubbing him the wrong way. He spotted Malfoy with his little group of friends in the library more than once, and they were always whispering and giggling, waving their wands and clearly practicing spells that Harry was never close enough to identify. 

“Just… reading and practicing magic in the library? Oh Harry, I reckon they’re just studying. Really, you’re overthinking this,” Hermione said (scolded, honestly) when he brought his worries up a few days ago, shaking her head. “I agree with you, it’s certainly odd Malfoy hasn’t done anything yet– but really, I doubt that it’ll be too bad. He’s already fixed by now anyway, I reckon he just… I don’t know, let the matter rest?” 

Yeah, because that sounded so much like Malfoy. 

“What’s with you all of a sudden anyway? I thought you didn’t like Suzuki.” 

Harry didn’t have an answer for that, so he promptly ended the conversation by bringing up their Herbology homework. 

Few hours later he brought it up with Ron, and his friend was a lot more attentive, nodding along with a grim expression. 

“Yeah, reckon he’s up to something big and nasty. Nastier than usual, I mean. You weren’t there Harry, but I spotted Malfoy a few hours after Suzuki hexed him– he was bloody furious when he found out what happened… I really don't like this, not at all.” 

So yeah, Harry’s mind had been kept busy the past few days to say the least. 

He just hoped Hagrid brought in some creature that was crazy enough to get his mind off of things. Last class they had to track wild gnome prints throughout the “more allowed” edges (under supervision) of the Forbidden Forest, which while time-consuming and moderately dangerous, the activity wasn't exactly the level of mental stimulation he wanted. 

Another stomach-curling flight with a hippogriff sounded almost appealing right about now, but Harry had eaten plenty that day and didn’t feel like having all that good food jump back up no matter how lovely riding Buckbeak again would be. 

“Ah, Harry, Ron, Hermione! There yeh are, we were almost abou’ to leave without yeh,” said Hagrid once they arrived, a bright grin on his bushy face. Harry looked up with a matching smile, ignoring the exaggerated eye roll Malfoy was doing in the corner of the crowd of students. 

Hagrid clapped his hands, nodding to everyone and turning around to lead them into the woods. “Now tha’ everyone is here, we can go ahead an’ begin… Last time most of yeh weren’t able ta finish trackin’ yer gnomes, but that ain’t no worry now, we’ll do it one more time as a class.”

That earned him a wave of quiet and resigned groans (or in Malfoy’s case, loud complaints) from the students, but Hagrid only chuckled heartily and shook his head. 

“Now, now, yeh’ll thank me later when this comes up in yer exams! Hop teh it, folks, come on.” 

Everyone followed the Professor deeper into the woods, the crowd dispersing and trickling into their typical social clusters. The Gryffindors as well as a few Ravenclaws stuck closer to the front, while most of the Slytherins and remaining students lingered by the back. Suzuki was amongst the second group as per usual, which wasn’t surprising. He was farther from Harry that way after all.

Hagrid’s booming voice was reviewing the topics they’d covered last class while assigning new readings to do for the week, but Harry, well aware that Hermione was jotting this all down in her notes like a religiously dedicated scribe, allowed his thoughts to wander. 

It was really nice, walking in the woods like this. 

This close to the main grounds, the Forest wasn’t as dense as it normally was, with plenty of walking space between every towering tree. But even so the thick green foliage of leaves blocked out most of the sunlight that had barely managed to squeeze through the clouds that afternoon. Only dim ambient light gusted between the branches and bark, a mild luminescence born out of the soft bounce of light that drifted aimlessly within the woods. 

Shadows were not dark nor heavy, simply spreading out and growing like weeds, ever present and unmoving. 

It was peaceful in a dead, quiet, still sort of way. The area they were exploring wasn’t all that inhabited, something Hagrid assured them time and time again whenever someone anxiously spoke up, which meant that the deeper they went the more isolated from the rest of everything they were. 

Harry was familiar with isolation in ways he never wanted to be, lonely darkness a childhood friend he grew up with during his years with the Dursleys and the cupboard. Now that he was free from them he was very used to the feeling of constantly seeking out the overly loud and the exciting, the vibrant and exhilarating. 

Not very often did he have the time to simply walk in tranquil silence and allow himself calm. Even less often did he have the chance to appreciate that sort of feeling. 

He didn’t have to be afraid of solitude anymore, not here, not within Hogwarts, with his friends. 

It was a strange idea to grow accustomed to. 

So lost in his peace he was, that Harry didn’t even notice when his footsteps slowed. He gradually fell back in the group, further and further behind and closer to the Slytherins and less-enthusiastic Ravenclaws. 

It was only because of this that he was present to hear Malfoy’s hushed words. 

“...you ready? Are you sure it’ll work?” he asked, the cautious hiss of his voice piquing Harry’s interest immediately. 

Harry slowed his pace even more, craning his ear as discreetly as he could. It didn’t seem he’d have to try too hard to be sneaky though, as Malfoy and his friends (Crabb, Goyle, and Parkinson) were all too wrapped up in their conversation to notice. 

“It’ll work, we practiced this often enough–”

“–do you have the drawing?–”

“Of course I do Vince, don’t be stupid. You all remember the spell?”

“Yes, is he close enough?”

“I believe so, yeah.” 

“Should we do it now?”

“The big oaf isn’t looking, we should do it now–”

“No, we have to wait! A bit more space…”

What were they talking about?

Harry decided to risk it and turn his head, looking at the group. Luckily for him, they weren’t looking his way at all. He followed their gazes. 

Ah. 

Unluckily for Suzuki, they were staring directly at him. 

He frowned, Ron’s words surfacing in his mind. 

“Yeah, reckon he’s up to something big and nasty. Nastier than usual, I mean.”

Harry opened his mouth, making up his mind and about to step in and confront Malfoy–

But then, 

“Hey, Suzuki!” barked Goyle, and although Harry flinched at the sudden spike in volume, Suzuki did not. 

The boy stopped in his steps, turning around and staring at the group with an unimpressed, bland expression in his face. Even though the call was only directed at one person, a few of the Gryffindors that lingered behind and some other Ravenclaws (Turpin among them) stopped as well, also turning around with curiosity or apprehension depending on the person. 

Suzuki tilted his head, and asked with a deadpan voice, “...yes?” 

Harry looked back at Malfoy, who was wearing a wide, cruel grin. His hands began to reach back to his wand, because while Suzuki certainly didn’t look defensive right about then, he had a feeling he’d have good reason to be when it came to their antics. 

He heard someone in the group mutter quietly a spell he hadn’t heard before, then another one mutter the same one, as if layering on each other. 

Malfoy’s face suddenly twisted, a horrified look dawning over him. Harry didn’t fall for it. That was the same expression he wore every time he mocked Harry for his fear of dementors, whenever he pretended there was one right behind him only for him to turn around and see Crabb and the others wearing their hoods over their faces and making ‘scary noises’. 

Suzuki did fall though, a sudden twitch of concern pulling his brows down ever so slightly. “What are you–”

And sure enough, Malfoy pointed and cried out in a fakely terrified voice. 

“S-something behind you!” 

Harry moved sideways to be able to look at where behind Suzuki he was pointing, curious on who was pretending to be the next ‘dementor’ so he’d know who to hex. 

What he saw was no fake dementor. 

It was a massive black… thing, looking kind of ghost-like but not quite. It shifted and grew and grew and grew in size, pure white at the center with an unnervingly glitchy slit that made it look like a goat’s ‘eye’. Harry couldn’t help but take a step back, a shiver running up his spine. That thing looked rather freaky. He understood the usage of spells now, at least. Whatever charms they were using, it must be creating that barmy illusion. 

He looked back at Suzuki, who had spun around immediately once Malfoy pointed. 

Something inside of him twisted.

Harry thought he knew how Suzuki looked when absolutely terrified, after all of those weeks during summer where the boy ran away frightened off his mind. 

He was dead, dead wrong. 

Suzuki was pale as a sheet, frozen stiff as ice, eyes open wider than his irises. His pupils had shrunk, his breath constricted, and every single inch of his body was very visibly trembling even from several feet away. 

Harry couldn’t help it when his frown deepened, the twist turning sharper. 

Last time he saw someone this terrified was Ginny last year, with Tom and the basilisk. 

“Suzuki,” he began, taking a step forward, but never got another word in edgewise. 

“Malfoy you bastard!” Turpin yelled, her face twisted into rage as she pushed past a few students and began stalking forward, her wand already drawn. “That’s a new bloody low, even for you!” 

As quickly as it came, the illusion dissolved immediately. 

Everyone else from the front finally noticed the commotion in the back and Hagrid began heading towards them, unaware of the reason for the sudden chaos. 

“Hey, what’s happenin’ here–” the Professor started, but could barely finish his question before Suzuki stumbled back and sprinted straight into the woods. 

Harry thought he knew how quick the boy could be. He was wrong about that too. 

The only thing that so much as hinted where Suzuki ran off to was a flash of black robes and the ruffled bushes he pushed past. 

“I– Mr. Suzuki!” Hagrid cried after him, taking a few steps forward and confused beyond measure. His face soured and he turned back to the rest of the group. “One of yeh better go after him righ’ now, an’ I want ta know exactly wha’ happened…” 

Turpin was already chewing Malfoy out, other Ravenclaw and Gryffindor witnesses all chiming in and trying to explain the same story from different perspectives, voices overlapping. Ron and Hermione approached and were frowning at Harry, aware he was there to see it too, the same question in their gaze. 

“Harry, did you see…”

“It was Malfoy,” explained Harry quickly, still staring off into the spot where Suzuki ran off to. “He and his friends summoned– summoned something, an illusion charm I reckon, I’m not quite sure what it was. I’ve never seen it before. Whatever it was, it scared Suzuki half to death…”

And in all the chaos, nobody actually ended up following after him. 

A million different thoughts passed through Harry’s mind, with such speed and ferocity it felt as if time had slowed down for him to think. It felt like hours of contemplation, even if in reality, this would be a split-second decision. 

He should go after him, a part of Harry said. Follow him, find him, and help him. 

Ignore him, the other whispered. He’ll run from you, just like before. 

He doesn’t deserve your kindness after rejecting it so many times. 

Harry was close to listening to the second voice. 

He was very, very close. 

But then he remembered those wide eyes, that pale face, that shine of pure cold unfiltered fear.  

Rejection be damned, he couldn’t just abandon him. 

Harry swallowed, legs moving and body deciding before he reached his own conclusions himself. 

“Stay here and explain things to Hagrid, I’ll find him.” 

He could hear Ron and Hermione call out after him, but Harry broke into a sprint before either of them could object, passing by everyone and rushing through the same bushes Suzuki did before.  

.

..

.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to find him, but still less than Harry expected. A bit more than five consecutive minutes of walking in anxious silence to be exact. It felt a lot longer than that though. 

The Forbidden Forest was vast and the perfect place to disappear if one put their mind to it, but luckily for everyone involved Suzuki had run off into a direction that remained at the ‘shoreline’ so to speak of the woods, a direction that headed farther away from the group but not necessarily deeper into the forest. It was a relief truly, Harry was in no mood to deal with acromantulas or something potentially even worse. 

At first it was aimless walking, keeping his path to a single steady direction and simply hoping and praying that it was the right one to go. 

But after a little while he saw Suzuki, far enough away to barely make him out. 

Or rather, he felt him. 

That prickle of energy, the electricity in the air, the sense of something ticked off. It was the same feeling he’d felt all those weeks ago back in that antique’s shop, right before the glass of the windows were shattered. He recognized it immediately– it was rather hard to forget after all, after an experience like that. 

Suzuki’s special brand of accidental magic. 

Hopefully Suzuki wouldn’t break anything else this time though, like Harry's bones or his pride (again).

…he followed the sensation before he could convince himself otherwise. 

The more he walked, the stronger, more tangible the energy grew. Buzzing and humming all around him, and the unease that had begun to curl in his stomach tightened into an even more anxious knot. If he could feel it from a distance, he didn’t want to know how it'd be when he actually reached him. 

Only after about a full minute of walking, of jumping over roots and ducking beneath branches, did he actually see with his eyes a sign of Suzuki’s presence. 

The sign came in the form of an obliterated tree. 

Well, trees. 

It was only a thin broken twig at first, but then it became ripped chunks of deeper, inner-circle bark, and thick fallen branches, crumbled uprooted roots. 

“Bloody hurricane passed here,” mumbled Harry to himself, trying to find comfort in the sound of his own voice. The still air swallowed the sound, turning it numb to his ears. He tiptoed over a particularly agitated root, being careful not to touch any of the destroyed nature. He wasn’t sure why, maybe a part of him deliriously believed that the destruction was contagious, like some sort of an illness. 

After trudging deeper into what was increasingly looking like a bombed zone, Harry found him, and his breath fled from his lungs. 

Suzuki was sitting slumped against a tree, knees drawn to his chest and fingers digging into his head. He was breathing in and out erratically, face twisted into an ugly cry as tears flooded down his cheeks. 

“...not real, not real, not real, not real…” he was mumbling over and over again under his breath. 

As genuinely upsetting the scene was, that wasn’t what made Harry freeze in place. 

He had stepped inside of an orbit of death. It was the only way he could describe it. Surrounding Suzuki in a perfect ring was wreckage. The grass was dead, the soil upturned, the trees had either fallen completely to the ground or had crashed into adjacent fauna, bushes crumbled and all leaves ripped to shreds. 

Most alarming of all was the black something wrapped around Suzuki’s body, like a tight rope and flowing silk all at once, running down and swallowing the land around him in these shifting shadows thicker than light. It ran between the grass blades like rivers, grew upwards across the destroyed trees like vines. They seemed to almost pulse, dark veins with rushing particles of black energy that grew and faded in density in waves. 

“...w-what,” breathed Harry, eyes growing wide. 

The boy continued to cry, gut wrenching sob after sob punching out. 

Like a mother, the shadow had condensed into an almost humanoid figure closer to him, around him, cradling his head and neck in its arms.

Harry fought to regain the capability to draw breath. 

What the bloody hell was that. 

He stumbled forward in dizzy disbelief, and regretted it immediately when the shadows growing in the ground lurched. 

Harry yelped as they wrapped around his ankles and pulled. He fell flat on his arse with another shout, sitting up immediately in panic as the bloody thing started to wrap around the rest of his body. 

“G-get off, get off, get off, get off– LUMOS!” 

Harry wasn’t even sure when he had grabbed his wand but it was in his hand now and he used it, brandishing the bright light beaming from his wand’s tip straight into the shadows. 

It did nothing. The light was swallowed whole. 

The thing continued to grow, and grow, and grow, and Harry snapped to look over at Suzuki. 

“Hey– hey, stop it, stop this thing, stop it–!” 

Suzuki didn’t hear, ears gently blocked by the shifting, shadowy hands of the black thing.

It wrapped around Harry’s waist and his arms, creating ugly folds in his uniform. But right as it reached his chest, right as it ran over his heart, it stopped. It simply froze in place.

His heart was beating out of his ribs. 

Oh bloody hell, thank God. It didn’t go away, no, but it had stopped.  

Harry stood deathly still, his own breathing almost as erratic as Suzuki’s. In, out, in, out. Only almost though, because while this thing clearly had it out for him, it wasn’t… actually hurting him. The stringed regions of his body felt numb, fuzzy, as if they had been smeared with a thin stripe of anaesthetic cream. But they didn’t hurt. 

That energy, that buzz, that strong sensation of leave leave leave he’d felt with Suzuki’s magic, it thickened the air around him. But as Harry sat there, roped within the Shadow Vines, he noticed something that was equally as reassuring as it was terrifying:

Whatever this black thing was, it wasn’t Suzuki’s aggressive magic. 

There was a trace of him in there, that much was for sure. Harry could feel that familiar warning as clearly as a slap across the face, spoken with the same exact voice as the rest of the tangible magical unease that curled around him. 

But there was something else pulsing through these black veins of magic, and oddly enough he recognized it too. 

That strange sense of other, that gut feeling that something was off, that same feeling that drove him crazy the past few days with how weirdly Suzuki was acting– it was as if it had gained a physical manifestation, as if it had been twisted and concentrated into this thing for one reason or another, now detached and separate from the original source that was the boy in this form. 

Suzuki wasn’t listening to him, couldn’t listen to him, but maybe– and God, did Harry know he sounded insane while thinking it– maybe this Shadow thing would. 

“Hey, uhm... h-hello there, hi. Erm. Let me go, please,” said Harry to Shadow with a surprisingly steady voice, because he’d faced weirder things before and frankly this was up to par for the usual crap he’s had to deal with. “You know, I… I…” 

He swallowed, and remembered the warning feeling, the leave order. 

Now that he thought about it, unlike Suzuki’s accidental magic, this Shadow didn’t feel hostile. 

It felt… protective.

“...I won’t h-hurt him, I promise.”

Shadow’s ropes tightened, and Harry’s breath hitched, alarm shooting adrenaline so quickly through his systems he almost felt dizzy–

–and then they uncurled from him, the numb feeling sliding away with its retreating grip. 

He huffed out a short and shaky breath, gasping as his hand gripped his chest and he scurried back a few feet, still laying on the ground. 

“O-oh,” he croaked, blinking. “Erm– b-brilliant, yeah, thanks...”

Bloody hell he didn’t expect that to actually work. 

Harry stared at nothing for a few moments, breathing in and out, brain rushing to process all of this. 

The Shadow continued to circle around him and Suzuki, dancing along the edges of the debris, creating an almost perfect outline of the aforementioned ‘ring’ of destruction. Harry frowned with a thick swallow and glanced around, heart steadying the longer he sat there and nothing happened. He watched the Shadow closely. 

Was it swallowing the damage? Feeding off of it somehow?

A few seconds passed where he did nothing but gaze. 

Oh, he realized once he looked around enough. It’s not feeding off of the damage, it’s containing it. 

He looked back at Suzuki, who was still crying uncontrollably. 

He’d asked Hermione about accidental magic a few days after school started. Apparently it only ever happened when you were really, really young, or… very emotionally unstable. Magic followed emotion after all. If someone didn’t have control over their magic or their emotions, things capsized this way rather easily. Of course, things weren’t always blow-up-a-tree(s) level of bad, but it’s not like Suzuki ever had someone teach him how to use his magic before, and with his age his magic likely naturally grew out of proportions. Missing out on two years must be worse than Harry thought. 

And while Harry didn’t want to be mean about it, he knew that Suzuki wasn’t young enough to qualify for the former reason this could be happening. 

“Whatever it was, it scared Suzuki half to death…”

Empathy carved a pit in his gut. 

“Hey,” began Harry in the gentlest voice he could muster, slowly rising to his feet.

He patted down some dirt from his clothes and stepped forward, and to his surprise the Shadow curling across the ground parted away to give him space. Huh, neat. 

"It’s– it’s okay, yeah? It’s alright, calm down…” 

To his even bigger surprise, the humanoid Shadow began to dematerialize, shifting its ‘weight’ (if he could call it that) to the rest of the vines and rivers it was spreading across. Suzuki’s crying had lost its previous force, quieter now, like a whimper. 

Harry felt deeply out of place. Bloody hell, he never saw anyone cry like this before. It felt wrong, to just step into something that was so deeply vulnerable and private. But he was here now already. Too late to just leave. As the saying went, he made the bed, may as well lie in it. 

“Erm… everything– everything will be fine, yeah? Everything… everything will be okay, you’ll be okay, just take a breath and uhm–” 

Suzuki froze, his crying abruptly stopping. Harry, who had taken several steps forward by now, froze a well. 

He almost thought he’d successfully calmed the other down, until the boy broke back into deeper and even worse sobs, the kind that ripped through your throat and left it raw and aching afterwards. 

Harry’s expression twisted further and knelt down, what on earth was he doing wrong, grabbing Suzuki’s shoulders. He trembled beneath his grip. 

“Oh, please stop crying,” he begged, voice small and unsure. What the hell was he supposed to do?! He wasn’t equipped for this! Damn it, he should’ve let Hermione come along– she might know what to do. “Uhm, erm, it’ll be okay, alright? Malfoy’s a git, I know it better than most, and… and I’m sorry he was a git to you, you didn’t deserve it.” 

That much, a still-salty part of his mind continued, but Harry didn’t dare say that. 

“It’s alright, really. Hagrid will put him in detention, or something like that, and– and maybe we’ll tell Professor McGonagall, or, erm, Professor Flitwick in your case, and then… then they’ll do something about it. It’s going to be fine, I promise, just please calm down...” 

Suzuki didn’t stop crying, and even when he continued to try and assure him with the most comforting words his mind could possibly create for another entire minute, not a single thing he said seemed to be reaching him. 

Not real, not real, not real, he continued to whisper in a broken voice, over and over again like some sort of mantra or prayer. 

Harry was at a complete loss of what to do. 

And so, against his better judgement and all the social laws that would state his need to respect the personal space of another fellow classmate, Harry sat down with his back laying against the same tree and reluctantly pulled Suzuki into a sideways, very awkward, very stiff hug. 

This, more than anything, seemed to be the most effective strategy. 

At first Harry thought he’d mucked it up and made it worse, because Suzuki stopped crying again and froze up the same way he did earlier. 

But instead of breaking into somehow-even-more-terrible sobs, he let out a weak, horrible whimper, and crumbled. 

Harry actually yelped a little in surprise, having to quickly readjust his grip and his entire sitting position as Suzuki evidently lost all power to hold himself up, entire body weight collapsing as he clung to Harry with a contradictory force. His previous discomfort of intruding in something private doubled, if not tripled, and he was tense and stiff as a board for a solid ten seconds before hesitantly wrapping his arms tighter around the other. 

He sat there for who knows how long, holding the weeping boy in a slowly relaxing embrace. Harry was burning in the face with embarrassment, hoping that Suzuki would forgive him for the invasion once all of this settled down and praying that he didn’t give him another reason for avoidance. At this point, Harry would bloody well avoid himself.

“It’ll be okay…” he kept muttering during this time for lack of better words to say. “...you’ll be fine...” 

The only thing that stopped him from moving away was the comfort that this was working. The Shadow retreated, pulling back and returning to Suzuki as if he were some sort of a black hole sucking all the weird black energy in. The tension in the air drifted and dwindled until it slowly ebbed away, that electricity fading more and more as the seconds passed.  

Harry remained there, keeping his embrace tight and steady, waiting and waiting until it felt right enough to do anything else. 

.

..

.

To his relief, even though it took ages, Suzuki calmed down. 

The sobs stopped first, and then so did the sniffles and harsh breaths and shaky whimpers. 

It took Harry about a full minute of uninterrupted silence and ringing in his ears to realize Suzuki had fallen asleep. Well, fallen unconscious more like. No wonder, given his magical explosion and emotional meltdown. Harry would’ve felt drained too. 

Although he was relieved for the worst of it all to be over, he was now in a bit of a predicament. 

How on earth was he supposed to bring Suzuki back?

At this point he was sure they’d both been gone for at least a full fifteen to twenty minutes, and it would take another ten to go back if Harry decided to carry the boy all the way. If he could even do something like that in the first place, he was in no delusion of his rather weak stature. 

Should he wake him up?

Should he wait?

Surely the others would come to get them sooner or later…

But would that be worse than just bringing Suzuki along? 

Thankfully, the time Harry spent there sitting and contemplating his options was enough time spent for Hagrid to find them first. 

“There yeh two are,” said Hagrid with audible relief once he arrived, his breathing a bit haggard as if he’d been running around quite a lot. Though the relief quickly morphed into shock as he glanced around the still-destroyed ring of wreckage, eyes growing wide. 

“Harry… wha’ happened here?”

“I don’t know exactly,” said Harry slowly and truthfully, swallowing down a dry throat. He didn’t mention the Shadow for some reason, the way it shielded Suzuki, the way it contained his magic. Neither did he mention the warning in Suzuki’s magic, the hostility in it, the wreckage he knew it caused. For some reason, something in his gut didn’t let him so much as open his mouth about any of those things. “It… it was like this when I got here.”

It felt like a secret, like a private and deeply personal fact he’d stumbled into. He didn’t want to betray Suzuki somehow by spreading it around. 

Hagrid nodded, accepting his answer with a grim expression. Then it was easy work of him picking Suzuki up and carrying him to the Hospital Wing, Harry following closely in toe. 

Apparently Hagrid had dismissed class early so that he could search around for Harry and Suzuki– an endeavor that took him much, much longer to do compared to Harry, a fact he couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of– and Malfoy and the others were all given immediate and extensive detentions with him after school and were all going to have to speak with the Head of their House later this evening. 

Generally speaking, everything had been dealt with. Everything was fine. 

So why couldn’t Harry shake off the feeling that something was still off? 

He didn’t stop himself from glancing at Suzuki the entire way back, the unnerving feeling never quite leaving. 

That sensation…

It was more subdued, now. More subdued than it had been these past few days, more subdued than he could remember it being ever since it began being present in the first place, but it was still there. 

Whatever was in that forest, whatever was cradling Suzuki, holding him close, keeping him safe and… his magic… contained…

Whatever it was, now that he knew what to look for, Harry couldn’t help but feel like it followed them back. 

“Are yeh alright, Harry?” asked Hagrid, giving a concerned glance his way. He must've been making a face. 

“...I don’t know,” Harry answered truthfully one more time, shrugging.

Suzuki didn’t wake up until they reached the Hospital Wing and Madam Pomfrey began gushing over him. He seemed to be fine, albeit very tired and sort of unaware of his surroundings, and Harry was sent away immediately so that she could take care of him. He didn’t mind having to leave, he wasn’t sure how to feel about anything just then. 

Whatever that Shadow was, Harry couldn’t help but feel like it never really left at all. 

—

Sunny had a massive fucking headache. 

He woke up in the Hospital Wing, laying on one of the beds over the blankets. It was evening, a little after dusk. The light swimming in from the tall and lean windows was dim and softly blue, with plenty of candles and enchanted objects creating warm yellow or orange glows inside of the infirmary. 

Every inch of his body was throbbing and aching as if he’d been run over by a truck, and Sunny sat up with a groan, sliding a hand down his face. His skin felt sticky with dried sweat. The texture caused him to shiver in discomfort. Eugh, what the hell?

“You’re awake,” said Lupin’s happy voice beside him and Sunny immediately jolted, snapping to look over at him with wide eyes. The Professor raised his hands amicably. “Ah– my apologies, I can never seem to stop startling you, can I?” He chuckled apologetically, smiling a little. 

Sunny blinked at him, mouth ajar. 

“...what are you doing here?” he barely managed to ask, voice thin. 

Lupin’s smile faded, and he sighed, dipping his head as his hands dropped to his lap. There was a heaviness in his tone when he spoke, a tilt of guilt that Sunny didn’t like to hear at all. 

“You didn’t come to your lesson at our typical time and so I grew concerned, and I left to fetch you myself when I met with Professor Flitwick. He explained the situation and is currently speaking with Professor Snape about the matter. Mr. Suzuki, I… I am deeply sorry, if I knew any of this would’ve happened I would have never made you face that boggart.” 

Sunny was caught off guard. 

And also confused beyond words. 

What on earth was this guy on about???

What situation?

He racked his brain, scouring his memories. The last thing he vaguely remembered was just walking down the forest during Care of Magical Creatures, and then… nothing, really. It was all a foggy blur. Nothing unusual by now, he often didn’t remember most of his days here at Hogwarts lately. Strangely enough, even though he didn’t care about that before, it left a bitter, bitter taste in his mouth now. 

That disconnect between him and his life that distanced him from the nerve wracking reality these past few weeks inexplicably got thinner overnight, more fragile, and Sunny suddenly couldn’t help but feel deeply unnerved at the gaping nothingness in his memory. 

“Ah… right,” he mumbled anyway, slumping forward with his elbow resting on his propped knee and his forehead leaning against his hand. “Uhm. It’s okay, really. Even I didn’t know it’d escalate to… this.” 

Whatever this was. 

If he couldn’t remember it though, he knew it was nothing good. Sunny grimaced. 

What the hell happened? And most importantly, what did he do? 

.

..

.

A few hours later he was discharged. Lupin spent that time with him, mostly keeping company but also going over some theoretical lessons on History and Herbology (Madam Pomfrey didn’t want Sunny doing anything practical until he was ‘well rested’ unfortunately). 

During his time he learned through context of the few things Lupin said that apparently Draco and his lackeys pulled some really bad prank on him, and that this caused him to have a Big Mental Breakdown. 

The reason Madam Pomfrey didn’t want him doing any magic was because, during said meltdown, he supposedly exuded huge amounts of energy that depleted him significantly. This also explained why he was sore as shit.  

All in all, he didn’t have the greatest of days. 

Sunny suddenly didn’t mind his foggy memory. It was probably for the best that he didn’t know exactly what went down. 

He was now walking back to his common room. Dinner had ended a little while ago and he already ate inside the infirmary, so all that was left to do now was shower and go to bed. He knew the charms needed for the cleaning thing Atticus did during summer, but the comfort of the actual physical shower was the only thing that stopped that psychological feeling of still being dirty, so there was that to look forward to. 

The corridors were gloomy and ominous at this time of the night, lit torches flickering and dimly lighting the way with their golden glow. The massive nearly cathedral-sized windows ran down the right side of the walls, and Sunny could see through them the darkness that settled over the rolling hills surrounding the school. It was quite pretty, nighttime was always pretty in his opinion, but also a little unnerving so he didn’t look for long. 

He was about to turn towards the dreaded Crazy Fucking Stairs of Chaos™  when a voice made him stop. 

“Suzuki!” they barked, and his stomach did a flip. 

Oh fuck me it’s Draco. 

Goddamnit. 

Sunny forced his feet to plant in place, keeping his expression as neutral as possible as he looked back. 

Malfoy looked two seconds away from constipation, red as a tomato in the face and ears practically fuming with furious smoke. His wand was drawn and that made adrenaline shoot through Sunny immediately, heart beginning to beat faster as he took a step back. 

“You dimwit stupid piece of–” Malfoy growled as he stalked forward. “Do you have any idea how much your pathetic little crocodile tears ruined things?! Of course you don’t, you don’t have a brain do you, nooo no no no, the only thing inside of that thick skull of yours is a damn faucet of water!” 

Wildest insult, thought Sunny to himself with too much amusement, but said humor was fading quickly the nearer that tip of the wand got to his body. He pulled out his own wand from his pocket, taking another step back. 

“O-okay uh, how about we think about this–” he started, but didn’t get the chance to continue. 

“Expelliarmus!” 

A shot of red sparked from somewhere else and hit immediately, Malfoy’s wand flying out of his hand with a surprised shout from him and Sunny alike. 

Oh shit. 

Only one person went for that spell 24/7. 

Harry? 

Sunny did a double take, snapping to look behind him. 

Yup, that’s Harry alright. 

Potter had his wand drawn, a frustrated determination set in his face. He looked every ounce of the main character that he was, green eyes flashing with irritation and wearing a snarl that could put Malfoy’s to shame. Sunny felt actually insane that he was there to see this, but that feeling was nothing new so he pushed the following vertigo down. 

“You absolute prick, get away from him!” Harry shouted, moving forward and keeping his wand held high. 

Sunny blinked, absolutely stunned. He was helping him now? Sunny thought he usually tried to avoid him nowadays. When did that change?

What the everloving fuck was going on?!

“Stay out of this Potter, you’ve meddled enough,” snapped Malfoy without a hint of fear, though he backed away a fair amount of steps, walking backwards towards his fallen wand. 

Harry moved in front of Sunny, staying two feet or so in front of him, as if shielding him. “I’ll stop meddling when you stop being such an arse– don’t you think you’ve gotten in enough trouble? Go cry to your father you git, I’m sure he’d love to hear about this.” 

“Please,” scoffed Malfoy with an eye roll, turning his head to glare Sunny’s way. “I’m not the one who’s running away from things here. You know Potter, I think he could give you a run for your money, he’s even more of a damsel in distress than you are.”

“Oh you want to talk about being melodramatic? You? Hah! Don’t make me laugh.” 

“With a pathetic existence such as yours Potter, I’m afraid I can hardly come up with a better joke.” 

As entertaining and absolutely fucking insane watching this back-and-forth was, Sunny could hear footsteps and the familiar swish of long robes coming from somewhere down the hall. He stood up straighter, clearing his throat. 

“Uh, guys–” 

Too late. 

“Well, well, well… what do we have here?” came Snape’s drawling semi-bored voice from the side as he dramatically entered with a flare of his cloak. Everyone froze on the spot. The Professor stopped walking, raising an eyebrow at the scene. “Hm. Two against one? How… dishonorable.” 

Sunny only now realized he never actually put his wand away. 

Ah, shit. 

“Professor Snape, these two attacked me when I was only trying to go back to the Commons!” said Malfoy with a rather convincing waver of fear in his voice, pointing at a gobsmacked Harry and an already-resigned Sunny. “I had my back turned, didn’t even see them arrive! They deserve to be severely punished, I don’t feel safe anymore…” 

Aaaaaahhhh shit. 

Harry let out an incredulous, “what?!” but Sunny only threw his head back with a silent plea to the gods, closing his eyes and just waiting for the second shoe to drop. 

“Is that so?” Snape said, and there was a cruel smile in his voice. Goddamnit, stupid teacher, stupid Malfoy, stupid everything. “Well, we ought to remedy this immediately. Revenge cannot go unpunished, not when Mr. Malfoy is already serving his own consequences with dignity.” 

Dignity his ass.

Just as Sunny expected, by the time that particular conversation ended he and Harry got detention together. 

And lost fifty points each. 

Snape had enjoyed himself way too much at his and Harry’s misery. Though most of said enjoyment was probably thanks to Harry’s reaction, who looked ready to set everything and then himself on fire. Either way, he and Malfoy left with matching looks of satisfaction on their faces, and to add insult to injury they left towards the opposite side from the stairs.

It was so obvious Draco wasn’t heading to his Commons, and yet Snape believed him anyway!

…well, Sunny suspected it was less about believing and more about having an excuse to fuck up Harry’s life. 

And fuck it up he did, a month of weekly detentions was no joke. 

Guilt churned in his gut, and Sunny frowned to himself. Harry wouldn’t have gotten in trouble if he didn’t step in. 

“Bloody pieces of utter, complete…” Harry was gritting his teeth, fuming to himself as he glared daggers at the direction the other two left. It was really funny watching him trying not to curse for whatever reason. He threw his hands up, huffing in indignation. “I can’t bloody believe it! This is so unfair! He believed Malfoy so quickly, it’s so– so– ugh! I swear, one of these days I’m going to–” 

Sunny never found out what he was going to do, for his mouth moved and he pushed the words out before his brain could shut his voice down. 

“Thank you,” he blurted out, so much energy put into those two words he spoke in an actually normal volume for once. 

Harry stopped dead in his ramble and turned around, a look of surprise on his face. A beat passed, then two, and the stunned eye contact was so uncomfortable that Sunny cleared his throat and looked to the side, scratching his neck. 

“F-for, uh, saving me there, you know? You didn’t… have to do that…” Aaand the sound was dying again. He swallowed, and continued in a quieter mumble. “So, yeah, uhm, thanks.” 

Another few seconds of pure silence passed, and then Harry’s face split into a smile. It was so bright and genuine and such a shift in his previous mood it caught Sunny completely off guard. 

Potter shook his head, grinning. “Yeah– yeah, sure. I mean, of course, erm, anytime really. He’s– Malfoy’s a prat to everyone, so don’t take it personally. You don’t have to be afraid of m– him.” He stopped there, but there was something in his tone that said he was originally going to continue and add something. 

Sunny waited, but after a prolonged pause it was clear to him that Harry wasn’t going to actually say it. He just nodded, then, and took a step back. 

“I, uh, should go. It’s late, and stuff,” mumbled Sunny, voice dying down to a whisper as he held back a grimace at himself. 

Harry nodded enthusiastically, jolting upright and beginning to walk away with an excited wave. “Oh– oh yeah, of course, right. Erm. Well, see you around then Suzuki! Bye!” 

“Uh, bye,” said Sunny weakly with a smaller wave, watching him go with a mildly dumbstruck expression. 

Well then. 

That– that was that. 

…what a weird, weird, weird fucking day.