Possibilities

The next two weeks pass swiftly, a haze of burnt orange and homework, until the next day is Halloween. Harry can feel the weight of the following day sit heavy on his chest; sometimes, when we miss people, the simple act of breathing just takes a bit more effort than normal.

Another reason for his melancholy: Ron, Hermione and Draco. He sits at the Slytherin table, staring wistfully to where the two boys sit at the Hufflepuff table; Ron gesticulates wildly whilst Draco scowls at him, yet Harry can guess at the mirth in his eyes.

Hermione sits next to him, reading another book. They don’t really talk at breakfast; Hermione would rather read, and simply put Harry is not a morning person.

Hermione is still giving the two wizards the cold shoulder.

Harry wasn’t sure wether she was still mad or instead, too proud to be the first to break the silence - probably both.

Hermione had relented quite quickly and told Harry is her usual firm, bold manner, “This is between me and them, Harry, you don’t need to ignore them too.”

He talked to the boys during classes, in light of Hermione’s statement. However, he felt a burning desire to protect the young witch that had quickly become akin to family to him. She had stuck with him. And that was quickly followed by bitter resentment towards the two, although particularly Ron, for their bullish stubbornness and refusal to simply apologise.

Harry thought it hardly mattered whose fault it was, simply that Hermione was hurt.

He couldn’t understand why pride could be more important than that.

Draco’s eyes flickered to Harry, offering the boy a smile before leaving the Great Hall.

In light of what tomorrow was, Harry thought, he could really use his friends.

Hermione shut her book softly, sliding it into her bag and sipping the last of her water. The Slytherin table was quite empty now, most students having left to enjoy the last few minutes of respite before classes began.

“Harry,” Hermione grabs the boy’s attention, although her voice is soft, tentative.

“Yeah,” Harry replies whilst fiddling with a slice of toast on his plate.

His stomach does an awkward lurch, leaving him feeling as though he’s just fallen from a great height. He’s sure he knows what Hermione’s about to say.

It’s what earned him the small smile from Draco. Even the Ravenclaw who guarded his feelings with such ferocious intent, couldn’t help but show his innate charity to Harry today.

“I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now,” Hermione sighs. “Everyone deals with grief differently, and I think you’re the sort to prefer to deal alone.”

Harry shrugs, “I don’t know - probably. It’s just - ”

He breaks off, unsure of what he’s attempting to convey to the sympathetic girl.

“It’s just, I don’t even really understand what I’m feeling; I don’t know where to begin explaining it to someone else.”

Hermione nods morosely. “I just don’t want you to think you have to do it alone. I’m here, if you need to vent.”

She hooks her pinkie through his in a silent act of immeasurable comfort. “Ron and Draco, too.”

Her eyes flicker to the empty benches where the two wizards had sat previously. She gulps with emotion, the guilt forcing her forehead to crease. “I don’t want you to cut yourself off from people that will help you because - because of me.”

Harry swivels to her, “I’m not.”

He looks at her with such unwavering confidence, Hermione’s lips twitch at a smile.

“Good, I’d never forgive myself.”

Harry wakes up early on the thirty-first of October, cold; the duvet doing very little to protect the young boy from the harsh cruelty of the cold.

He sits up in the early morning gloom; a sickly grey-green colour like damp moss. The memories and pain bleed into him slowly, permeating the resolute exterior he’d been sporting the night previously.

The grief and loss rendering him colder than the Slytherin house ever could.

His emotions manifest themselves physically. There’s a hollowness in his stomach that aches, aches with memory and regret and desire for something he can never have. It renders himself with the compulsion to be violently sick and scream at the same time.

Harry let’s one, two, three tears drop from his eyes. It’s a slight trickle, his outlet of emotion. His small figure shakes with the vigour of his emotions.

He doesn’t show for breakfast, Hermione doesn’t make him. His warm appreciation for the witch his only respite in emotion.

History of Magic is Harry’s first class of the day, with Draco.

Checking the mirror before leaving his dorm this morning had informed him that although his eyes were a pale pink hue in the corners, nobody but a carefully trained eye would notice anything different about Harry.

Except, Draco would.

“Hi,” the young Ravenclaw greets. Harry can hear the emotion behind the boys words; uncertain yet wondrously warm, sorrow staining the greeting, with a doleful yearning to comfort.

“I don’t need your sympathy today, Draco,” Harry says resolutely. “I just need a friend.”

Draco nods. “Good thing I’m your friend, eh?”

Harry chuckles, “Sometimes, I suppose.”

As the class progressed, Harry and Draco’s conversation led on to Hermione; the first time since the incident t that night.

“How is she?”

Harry shrugged, dipping his quill in the jar of jet black ink. “She’s not angry or upset, if you asking,” he explains, “she won’t hex you if you talk to her.”

Draco nods, “I want to apologise to her.”

“Good. Do it.”

Draco’s eyebrows shoot up, “It’s not that easy, Potter.”

“It’s really is that simple,” Harry shoots back.

“I know it is, really,” Draco surrenders. “But I don’t know - my Dad always said - besides - ”

“Dont make excuses,” Harry warns, “You’ll regret it. She’s a true friend, don’t lose her over something as mind numbingly stupid as this.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Draco mutters. “Besides I have very little friends.”

Draco doesn’t sound bothered by this fact, simply content with the three people he has right now.

“I wonder why,” Draco mutters sarcastically, with jovial undertones; Harry knows it’s okay to return with a joke.

“They probably find you intimidating.”

“As they should.”

Harry leaves the class in much higher spirits than when he’d arrived, him and Draco chatting mindlessly.

Walking down the corridor surrounded by gaggles of students, however, he could see the stares and hear the whispers. He blanches.

‘How tragic’, mutters and older Hufflepuff to his friends.

Harry blanched.

He didn’t need their pity.

“It bother you, doesn’t it?” Draco’s eyebrows whispers. Something in his voice betrays the surprise in that; as though he somewhat expected Harry to revel in the attention.

“Of course it does. Sometimes I wish I was just Harry, not Harry Potter. Not just a survivor or some sort of convoluted symbol. I wish people could see I am more than just a tragedy.”

“Harry,” Draco whispers.

Harry’s eyes flit to meet Draco’s gaze. “I’m sorry.”

Harry shrugged, as if to say it’s not Dracos fault, but he can’t muster up the energy to say so.

They meet Hermione at the start of the transfiguration corridor.

Harry excuses himself, “forgot my charm book.”

He leaves, leaving the two standing side by side, a dejected hopelessness and forlorn duo.

“I’m sorry,” Draco says to her.

“I know,” she smiles up at him, a warm appreciation in her eyes that Draco knows is forgiveness.

“Is he…okay?” Hermione asks, casting her eyes to the retreating figure of the wistful boy.

“He’s been through so much,” Draco sighs. “He needs time. Time and us, I think.”

Harry finds his way to the Charms classroom just in time for the class. Despondently, he goes and sits next to his charms partner a Gryffindor by the name of Seamus Finnigan, who looked perturbed at Harry’s mere existence.

Harry didn’t like Seamus. He was one of the particularly overt Slytherin haters in the red house, and Harry often fell victim to his cutting words.

Another, delightful, thing about Seamus was that he couldn’t cast a charm to save his life.

Harry particularly enjoyed that.

Professor Flitwick, dubbed ‘An absolute genius’ by Hermione, stood at the front of the classroom attempting to quiet the gaggle of school children before him.

Flitwick was old and had a long straggly mane of grey hair; not like the spun silver of those in fairytale books.

“Today,” he announced grandly, “we will be learning the levitating spell.”

Queue five minutes (and two feathers, thanks Seamus) later, Harry could make the feather wobble and feebly pull one end off the table.

He looked wistfully over at Hermione as Seamus blew up yet another feather. She was sat next to Dean Thomas, a slightly less vulgar form of Seamus.

He was waving his wand around like a madman whilst the feather lay there unperturbed by the chaotic display above it.

Hermione was pinching her nose and glaring in displeasure. “Stop,” she cries as one of Deans wild gestures nearly takes her out.

“You’re going to get someone killed doing that, besides you’re saying it wrong.”

Dean doesn’t look best pleased by Hermione’s input.

“I don’t see you doing it,” he smirks at her.

Hermione flowers at him, sighs, and clears her throat. She clearly says the incantation and, to many people’s amazement, the feather rises up proudly to lord over the other students.

Hermione smiles proudly up at it.

Flitwick offers her a quiet, “well done”. But pays her no head otherwise.

Hermione’s shoulders sag.

“Hermione,” Harry cries breathlessly, still in awe at the young witches performance. “That was fantastic, really.”

Hermione grins up at him as they leave the classroom, her cheeks flushed at the sudden onslaught of praise.

“I - it was nothing - ”

Harry is about to cut in and tell her he distinctly disagrees and that she should have seen his meagre, and admittedly pathetic, attempt.

That is, before he hears the cold cruel words of the huddle of Gryffindor upfront.

He recognises them as those from the Charms class.

“Unbearable.” That’s Seamus.

“I mean,” Dean Thomas lets out a cold chuckle, “It’s a wonder she has any friends at all.”

“No wonder she’s a Slytherin, bloody Granger.” That’s Neville Longbottom, the shy, harmless boy from potions.

He’d never underestimate a Gryffindor ability to be cruel again.

“Hermione,” he gasps out, turning to the witch beside him.

He’s never seen her look so small. She’s rigid, like a board. Stuck in place, the only movement is the hurried rise and fall of her chest, and tears on her cheeks.

“Don’t listen to them, Hermione - I - ”

She shakes her head, gasping for air, “Not now, Harry. Please, not now. I just - I just need to be left alone right now.”

She runs off in the other direction, heading away from the cruel group.

Harry stalks up to them, shoving right through the middle. He makes a decided effort to shoulders as many as possible as he rips through.

“Oi!”

He swivels on his heals. Cold rage burning him from the inside.

“How dare you say that,” he spits. “You don’t even know her.”

He stalks away, before turning back to yell at them one more time.

“And you say we’re the bloody snakes, eh?”