Windows

P.O.V Kai Shinra

The movement of his new dormmates registers easily through the light sleep he has fallen into. There was no need to set any alarms, as nobody told him when he would be required in the Great Hall. So, he just didn’t fall into deep sleep. It isn’t quite as relaxing, but until he has time to set some wards on his bed curtains, he will refrain from being caught unawares in the dorms.

He gets up, stealing himself into the bathroom before either of his roommates are awake enough to protest.

The marvels of magic mean that he doesn’t spend an overly long time getting ready, slipping out of the bathroom with still damp hair and avoiding the uncomfortable situation of having Vincent Crabbe knock on the door demanding to be let inside while he is in a state of undress.

He knew, of course, that Hogwarts isn’t exactly known for their political ideas including equal rights. He just didn’t expect to face such blatant discrimination as soon as he arrived. If it was just the student body, that would be fine, he could handle them. But the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who was chosen for the position by the government, essentially said that she supported pureblood supremacy. In front of the whole school.

And the headmaster, who is well known to believe No-Maj-borns equal, just let her. There have to be some other going ons, but he doesn’t know enough about the political system in Britain to figure out what exactly it could be. So, he will just have to guess and choose how to present himself based on his conclusions.

His own House obviously doesn’t enjoy his presence. Pansy Parkinson was an uncomfortable conversation partner, short as that conversation may have been. And his Head of House, the second highest authority for the remainder of his schooling, sent him up before making important announcements. Sent him to his room like a misbehaving child for daring to exist.

There is no way his housemates would fill him in if he didn’t give them something in exchange. The problem is, what can he possibly give a pureblood of high social standing that is not only equal to whatever information they can give him but also recuperates the damage to their reputation if someone finds out that they talked to him.

Considering that thought and the fact that his Head of House, whose name he still doesn’t know, told his yearmates to make sure he isn’t falling behind academically, this is shaping up to be an exceedingly lonely year. He isn’t sure how frowned upon it is to make friends outside of Slytherin, but if none of his housemates are talking to him a month from now, he will find himself a study companion that understands his need for secrecy and just not tell his House about it.

Plans made, he packs an extended bag with all school supplies that he could possibly need and some emergency food, just in case. Gregory Goyle is leaving the bathroom by the time he is done.

“Vin, what do we do with the mudblood?”

“Snape told us to ‘take care of him’.”

“Yeah?”

“And Draco wants us to bring him to breakfast.”

“Okay.”

It’s almost hurtful. Well, it is hurtful, he is in control of most of his emotional responses and control is not achieved through ignorance or denial. But it’s an abstract kind of hurt. He doesn’t really think that they know his name. Besides, he is a stranger, someone they do not value. He didn’t expect them to put themselves against the majority of Slytherin for him.

Rationalize it all you want, it’s still unpleasant.

“Mudblood. We are leaving.”

Crabbe advances in his direction in a purposefully menacing way, as if they think they would need to drag him kicking and screaming.

To breakfast.

“Of course, please don’t concern yourself with me, I will follow you if I can’t find my way on my own.”

This is going to get exhausting fast. If they draw the line at using his name instead of a slur, then he draws the line at his own levels of comfort. Meaning that he will be in as little contact with his housemates as possible.

Crabbe just gives a noncommittal grunt as a response, but Goyle seems to have priorities.

“Come on Vin, who cares if the mudblood doesn’t get breakfast, more for us.”

“Right, let’s go.”

Checking again that he has all his books, and that his hair isn’t just dry but also up to the standards of purebloods, he leaves to go after them. The way to the Great Hall isn’t overly complicated, and he memorised it yesterday, but the Slytherins don’t have to know that. People are kinder if you don’t perform outside of their expectations.

His roommates don’t greet anyone on their way down. He doesn’t see any of his other yearmates and suddenly realises that they might be a little late. Or early, but he wouldn’t be surprised if they made him late on purpose. It is just mildly surprising that they would make his roommates late as well.

No matter, whatever the consequences may be, they would probably only befall him. And he would never get anything done if he felt bad for people actively trying to harm him. Maybe not in a physical way, but it reinforces his need for distance from the rest of his House.

He keeps close enough to them to not look like he is following them like some lost puppy, he won’t be able to afford many shows of pride in the near future, better to take what he can get now. But it is in its own way aggravating. They walk slower than he normally does, and an uncharacteristic amount of annoyance wells up in him.

Making sure not to frown he retreats slightly into his mind to inspect the feeling while not loosing awareness of his surroundings. The annoyance is caused by his hurt, his roommates disregard that he is a thinking and feeling being without a second thought, and shame joins the now tempered annoyance.

He is not ashamed of his hurt, he is right to feel hurt, because they were hurtful. Their circumstances and peer pressure don’t change that. He is ashamed because his unmonitored and therefore natural reaction to this hurt was to lash out against them.

The only thing you can control in this world is yourself.

He can’t afford not to be in control of his emotions in his current situation. As soon as he can, he will have to find an undisturbed place suitable for deeper meditation. Right now, he can’t focus on this new problem.

He pulls out of his mind and fully back into reality when they reach the doors to the Great Hall. Instead of remaining calm by assessing all emotional responses and reacting to them, for now occluding his emotions so that they don’t reflect on his face or in his eyes will have to do.

Nobody really pays them any mind as they walk to their table, but the hall is filled with people. They did really set him up to be late, however, nobody was leaving yet, so there should be enough time to finish a small breakfast.

Why then go out of their way to make him late? The answer makes itself rather obvious as the Slytherin Head of House strides toward them with a fierce scowl on his face.

A small dip into the man’s mind reveals him to be a good occlumens with solid defences that many legilimens would have trouble going around. Most notably, they seem to be created as a warning system. To intrude on his mind without him knowing is made as difficult as possible and Kai doubts that anyone in Britain would be able to do it.

He doesn’t notice him.

Retreating from Professor Snape’s mind with knowledge he was previously denied, and the Professor’s name, he steels himself for the trouble his housemates just landed him in.

“Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Goyle, I expect another talk about tardiness will not be necessary.”

The confirmation that they didn’t throw his roommates under the bus just to get him into trouble is good to have. He doesn’t know what he feels about it.

He pushes his emotions further down.

“’Course Professor, we had some trouble waking up ‘s all.”

“Yeah, won’t happen again.”

Professor Snape turns to him, obviously dismissing them. They don’t waste any time getting to the food and he has to consider the possibility that he won’t get to eat breakfast today.

“Mr. Shinra, tardiness on your first day is unacceptable, report to my office after dinner.”

Is this his first detention? Or a less official way to get him alone. Maybe to teach him a lesson?

“Of course, Professor Snape, I am very sorry.”

His voice lacks too much emotion, making it sound almost mocking. At least it does if one already expects him to have no respect for the professor.

“Professor Snape, sir.”

How petty. He doesn’t even finish that thought before pushing it down. Malfoy and Zabini are laughing silently behind him. They are however discreet enough. The speech Professor Snape gave yesterday evening applies to him, if only conditionally.

They will make him seem like a bad student, and they won’t stop discriminating against him in public, but they will not openly attack him.

“Of course, Professor Snape, sir.”

More emotion this time, hopefully this will be enough to end the conversation soon.

“Here is your schedule. I suggest appearing on time for every subject, any and all complaints by another teacher will reach me.”

“Thank you, Professor Snape, sir. I will endeavour to follow your advice.”

The professor seems to be more agitated now than he was at the beginning of their conversation. He isn’t sorry, can’t be, really, with all his emotions so far away, and he doesn’t really care about the professors advice.

A small spark of sadism enters Professor Snape’s eyes, “Miss Greengrass, if you are leaving to attend your classes right now, please escort Mr. Shinra to the classroom. He doesn’t know his way around yet and it wouldn’t do if he got lost.”

Why do they insist to keep him away from breakfast? It doesn’t serve any purpose and he carries emergency food around anyway. He pushes that thought and the accompanying anger down. Not right now.

“Yes, Professor Snape. Shinra, follow me.”

Greengrass isn’t really hostile. But her behaviour enhances the injustice and makes the righteous anger crash back into him. His Occlumency shields are solid enough that nothing shows on his face, but he still has to push the emotion down again. Locking emotions away more effectively is sadly not something he can do safely without proper meditation.

He nods towards Greengrass and Professor Snape before following the witch to his first lesson.

She doesn’t try to talk to him while walking to their class, instead she opts to pretend like he doesn’t exist. She doesn’t check if he is following her even once and enters the classroom without a glance backwards.

He supresses his emotions before he even feels them and spends the beginning of his class in a weird kind of limbo. Not feeling anything negative is an odd rush, the mere absence of the expected hurt is euphoric. It’s dangerous for a reason, but he basks in it. Before he stopped feeling it, he didn’t realise just how stressed he was.

The class begins and as it shapes up to be mostly a repetition of the material the Hogwarts students completed last year; he focuses minimally on taking vague notes while he mostly retreats into his mind.

No matter how euphoric it makes him feel, supressing his emotions to this degree can have consequences he would rather avoid.

Focusing on the supressed emotions he slowly but surely pulls them all back up again. Checking that his Occlumency shields are holding up and that nothing important is being said he starts to evaluate his emotions carefully.

Outrage and anger are caused by hurt. The hurt is caused by his environment. He can not remove himself from the environment. There is no way to change the others.

The only thing you can change is yourself.

He doesn’t desire to change. Actually, the mere thought of having to change because of his environment is appalling. The idea that he should accept that his House would never see him as an equal and that they will continue to disregard and hurt him is appalling.

This means he cannot change the others. And he will not change himself. He cannot completely remove himself. He cannot remove the others at all.

He cannot endure it.

He could probably endure the systemic and malicious discrimination he is facing for a few months. But if he is exposed to such an environment the damages will be greater than any benefit Hogwarts can possibly give him.

No amount of regular cleaning and rigorously kept order would protect his mind from the kind of hurt this would cause him.

And no qualifications would be worth it.

Maybe he needs to look into the British laws of education. If he can endure this year, he might get to leave the school the year after. As soon as he completes his OWLs, he should be free to drop out. But it might be different in Britain.

But can he really trust himself for an entire year while he is surrounded by people who hate him? He does have track record with similar situations that indicates that it might be fatal to try. On the other hand, his parents will not welcome him home before the holidays. And there is no way he can live alone in the magical world without resorting to crimes. This is also something he refuses to do.

If he can’t leave and he can’t stay, then what is he supposed to do?

“Mr. Shinra,” he pulls out of his mind rather abruptly, straightening up from ‘his absentminded note taking’, “can you tell me what the definition of a switching spell is?”

“A switching spell is a spell of the transfiguration sub-category switching. Any switching spell requires more than one target, all of which the caster has to be aware of and is often described as transfiguring both objects into the other object simultaneously. It is theoretically possible to switch objects with strongly differing sizes, however only wixen well-versed in transfiguration would be capable of such a feat.”

“Correct. 2 points to Slytherin. I might call on you more often during classes, than I do with other students, as I do not know which point of your education you have reached in transfiguration. If you ever feel singled out, please don’t hesitate to inform me.”

He just gives her his best grateful smile and a nod in acknowledgement. There is no way he would be doing anything like that, ever.

The class carries on and he returns to his earlier activities.

The situation is such that he is being discriminated against. Inside his own House because he is a No-Maj-born and outside of it, if Professor Snape’s private opinions can be trusted, because he is a Slytherin. He can not leave Hogwarts and he can not change his House. Probably, maybe he should look into that as well. But, no, even if he gets resorted ‘having been in Slytherin’ would haunt him. And there is no guarantee that the hat would sort him differently this time around.

If he can really not leave, he needs to stay. And if he needs to stay, he needs to find a way to survive staying. Not that they would kill him. Probably.

There are multiple possible ways to make his stay more bearable, which one he should use remains to be seen. He will have to do some research and test some of his classmates’ reactions to some of his actions. Maybe delve a little deeper into the mind of his Head of House.

With the most important matter settled he moves through his mind to find his academical knowledge. There he creates a filing cabinet for all knowledge he is likely to acquire in Hogwarts, based on his schedule. Then he creates connections to all other places he has stored knowledge on those particular subjects on. This way he would easily remember the answers to questions even if he wasn’t in his own mind to look for them.

An elbow connects with his side causing his quill to scratch through half a paragraph of completed notes. They aren’t completely unreadable, but if he was taking notes to study with them, he would rewrite the whole paragraph.

Bulstrode is laughing silently next to him, and Malfoy and Parkinson are looking at each other, matching malicious grins on their faces.

Greengrass sees him looking and turns away. Her face is as controlled as it always is.

He adjusts his quill and resumes writing where he left off.

By his best estimate the class is going to end soon. Therefore, he checks over his notes again, noting key points into a file for the file cabinet. Having control over his memories is useful. Noone mentions how much work it is when they praise its usefulness though. If the order by which memories are sorted is changed, every memory needs to be sorted manually. It can become a mostly automated process within mere months, but unique conditions, like a new environment, throw the process off.

He spends the last few minutes of the class looking “attentively” at the professor. Would she insist on the politest possible way of address that is seen as proper in a school as well? Does professor Snape insist on it with all No-Maj-borns? Or only with students he doesn’t like? Would that mean that he dislikes him for something other than his parentage? But what could Professor Snape know about him that would make him hate him?

The class ends without him reaching any more conclusions and he needs to hurry after the other Slytherins to their next class.

“Why does Professor McGonagall insist on revising the whole curriculum from last year? She never made us do something like this before.”

He is learning quickly that Malfoy can be expected to complain about everything. And Parkinson can be expected to fuel the flames.

“But Draco, it’s obvious, isn’t it? She thinks the mudblood needs an adjustment period. And because she is such a Gryffindor, she wants to give him one. It’s all rather sweet, don’t you think?”

Open conversation apparently doesn’t count as violating Professor Snape’s rule of no infighting outside of the Common Room. At least they seem content to talk about him as if he isn’t present. Being expected to answer would be more exhausting.

They grow tired of him almost immediately and Malfoy thinks up another topic of conversation.

“At least we have potions now. Snape is going to let us brew something interesting.”

“Don’t be happy too early, we share the class with the Gryffindors.”

This might be the first thing he heard Nott say. He is suddenly glad that “How not to offend English purebloods: a comprehensive guide for the travelling American wix” covered the Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry. With how little inclined everyone seems to explain anything to him, he would have had to resort to Legilimency far too often.

“Don’t remind me. I will have to witness Saint Potter’s subpar skills in the fine art of potions long enough even if they never come up in conversation again.”

The Potter in question is probably the same Harry Potter that positively flooded the media over the summer with a smear campaign against him. Here he is, wallowing in self-pity over the discrimination he faces because of his blood status, while some kid is being accused of being a dirty liar in a nationally distributed newspaper. At least they will never think him important enough to do something like that.

Vaguely he wonders how many of his peers will let their opinion about their school mate be formed by popularist media instead of trying to get to know him.

It’s not really his problem, British people should deal with British celebrities.

Luckily, they arrive at the next classroom, the moving stairs may make memorising the way a little tricky as these things go, but it’s not the greatest navigational challenge he ever faced, so he will be fine.

The classroom is rather badly lit, but besides his own preference to work in natural lighting the classroom is set up as a very well-equipped potions lab. He isn’t completely sure, but there seem to be runes etched into the walls. A tedious way to create a simple ward, but one used often. It is much easier to alter a rune etched into the wall than it is to change anything on a highly volatile ward stone.

Sure, that also makes it easier for others to change said wards, but the potions classroom isn’t warded against intruders. It only has to keep the people inside alive through one unfortunate potions accident or the other.

The equipment itself isn’t overly new or fancy, but it is well cared for and up to safety standards. It’s more than he expected of a school not overly praised for the potion brewing capabilities of its students.

A group of loud students in red rimmed robes enters the classroom. Their general distaste of the room and the company keep him from introducing himself, but he watches them group together. Amusingly the Houses each occupy one side of the classroom.

Professor Snape sweeps into the room, and he hurries to take a seat, his yearmates were an even number before he joined them, so he expects, correctly, to sit alone.

The Potions Professor merely taps the blackboard with his wand, making the ingredients and a step-by-step guide for preparing a potion appear.

“As this is your OWL year, I will expect all of you, except Mr. Longbottom here, to be capable of brewing a potion without blowing yourselves and your surroundings up.”

He pauses for effect and the one Kai presumes to be Longbottom blushes slightly.

“The first potion for this year is the Draught of Peace. It’s not an overly difficult potion to brew for those among you gifted with the ability to read instructions and follow them. Do not worry if you are too much of a dunderhead to follow the instructions, there is a very real chance that you will relieve the world of your incompetence, at least semi-permanently. Now get going.”

He collects his ingredients, reads through all the steps and lights the fire under his cauldron. The Draught of Peace isn’t hard to brew. The consequences of minimal distraction however are apparently often disastrous enough to elevate this potion into the fifth-year curriculum in Britain.

Luckily distraction is rarely a problem for him. Instead, he even has time to observe the others.

Unlike what Malfoy said, Harry Potter isn’t terrible in potions. Granted, he probably isn’t going to turn in a perfect result, but he seems to be doing well enough. The same cannot be said for who he suspects to be Longbottom.

Rather than just having trouble with the subject, he appears to have trouble with the professor. Professor Snape is an imposing man and unpleasant to boot, but he shouldn’t provoke this kind of reaction in a student.

The Gryffindor is breathing shallowly and when Kai focuses on his hands, he can see small tremors shaking them.

No teacher should cause their student legitimate fear and outrage fights its way to the surface again. He pushes it down.

Sometimes there is a need to learn. For whatever reason sometimes that need to learn outweighs the need to be away from a source of fear. Mentors one is afraid of aren’t ideal, but not everyone has the luxury of choice, for whatever reason. Besides, he knows that name. If Longbottom is related to Augusta Longbottom in any way, he does have the power to leave this situation.

Augusta Longbottom is a powerful person and matriarch of an old, pure family. She is one of the few people he investigated closer when he tried to get a feel for the political climate in Great Britain.

He shouldn’t concern himself with the apparent problems of people much better equipped to handle them than him. Besides, if Augusta Longbottom can not solve the problem, neither can he.

He finishes his potion, taking care to avoid Professor Snape’s eyes as he stalks around the classroom. The silvery vapour that emits from his cauldron isn’t as clear as Malfoy’s, but good enough to indicate a success.

He bottles a sample the way he watched Zabini do it and hands the vial in.

There is some resentment. He is calm enough to acknowledge it without having to stop himself from feeling it. He should be instructed in the way things are done in Hogwarts. There should have been a question whether he feels up to brewing a Draught of Peace in an unfamiliar environment with unknown safety measures. But they just left him to his own devices.

His Head of House, luckily, seems to be content to wait until this evening before dealing with him again and Kai surprisingly leaves the class more settled than he entered it.

It is around midday, still earlier than he would prefer eating lunch, but today he is glad about it. While he can certainly go longer than this without food, he rarely has reason to.

He shouldn’t have reason to go without food in Hogwarts.

Most of his problems seem to be less about him not being able to endure the treatment and more about him knowing that he shouldn’t have to.

The other Slytherins are beginning to file out of the room, and he follows them closely enough to not make the Gryffindors question their ‘unity’.

Lunch passes quickly and so does the mind numbingly boring Ancient Runes class. Professor Babbling appears dedicated to proving her name wrong, speaking slowly and clearly but also trying hard to sound intelligent. The unfortunate result is that her tone and manner of speaking lulls her students into sleep while her unnecessarily complex choice of words requires said students’ full attention to be understood.

He will have to self-study using the required book as a guide. Hopefully that will be enough to pass his OWLs in the subject. He would like to get a NEWT in Ancient Runes, and he is decently sure that he needs at least an Exceeds Expectations to qualify.

As boring as Ancient Runes was, he would prefer it over Defence Against the Dark Arts with the Ministry approved Professor. The people taking this class seem unconcerned, which they probably shouldn’t be. People like her don’t stop once they deprive one group of their rights. Clearly, she hates No-Maj-borns right now, but given enough time she will turn against halfbloods and later whatever purebloods don’t agree with everything she says. Though it wouldn’t surprise him if she is against creature rights as well.

The aforementioned woman enters the classroom, though most of the students don’t seem to notice. True to form she burns the spelled paper bird some Gryffindor enchanted to fly around the class. The girls face looks crestfallen, but Professor Umbridge just looks happy with herself.

“Good morning children.”

He doesn’t consider himself an adult, but being called a child is uncomfortable. And it’s not like its morning, they had lunch more than an hour ago and he knows that she was in the Great Hall as well. She raises her wand to write on the chalk board.

“Ordinary Wizarding Level examinations, also known as OWLs. Study hard and you will be rewarded. Fail to do so and the consequences may be severe.”

She giggles, he wasn’t aware that people actually did that, as if their prospective punishment brought upon them by assumed laziness is delightful to imagine.

He didn’t notice them before, but in the front of the classroom is a stack of books. With another flick of her wand, they distribute themselves among the students. Is she capable of wordless spells? Or is she just clever enough to make it seem that way?

The book looks rather theory heavy, and he tries to gauge the likeliness of her paying attention to him to decide whether opening it yet is worth it. She is staring at the books, but not at him, so he looks over the index quickly. His theory is easily confirmed, even leafing through the book doesn’t unearth a single practical exercise.

Another class that he will only pass with sufficient self-study.

“Your previous instruction has been disturbingly uneven. You will be glad to hear that this year you will be following a Ministry approved curriculum. Yes?”

He follows her eyes to a Gryffindor girl, most of the Gryffindors are leafing through their books but hers is closed, indicating that she either never bothered to open it or is done perusing its content already. Not that anyone could talk, they Slytherins are just better at hiding what they are doing.

“There is nothing about using spells in here.”

None of the Slytherins would have stated that in presence of Professor Umbridge. There is a reason the Houses have their respective images after all, he wasn’t completely sure.

“Using spells? Whyever would that be necessary? I can not imagine why you would need to use defensive spells in my classroom.”

“We will not be learning magic?”

That too is something a Slytherin would never say. But he does admire the tenacity of the boy. If he got dragged through the proverbial mud the whole summer, he would be much less willing to pull attention to himself than Harry Potter is.

“You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure risk-free way.”

“What use will that be if we are attacked? It won’t be risk-free if –“

Now he is pushing the limits of bravery and veering into recklessness. Potter is sitting further in front than him, so Legilimency is out. Meeting eyes isn’t a requirement, really. But it makes it significantly easier.

“Students will raise their hand if they want to speak in my classroom.”

Silence settles over the Gryffindor side of the classroom.

“The Ministry believes that a theoretical course is more than enough to let you pass your examinations, and that is what school is –“

“And how is theory supposed to prepare us for what is out there?”

Potter left the territory of recklessness and is headed straight for stupidity. Cutting Professor Umbridge off? The woman has proved herself bigoted and even sadistic, making her consider him a target is not on his to-do list. Just what is Potter thinking?

“There is nothing out there, dear. Who would you imagine might attack children like yourself?”

Potters jaw sets, clearly that isn’t a question he even has to think about. Currently the answer would be too many random citizens that read the stupid Ministry approved newspaper.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe Lord Voldemort.”

Zabini draws in a slightly lounder than average breath. Malfoy straight up flinches. Crabbe and Goyle turn to Malfoy, either in concern or for directions, he can’t tell. Multiple Gryffindors and Slytherins alike start shaking their heads. Nott is so still he isn’t sure he is still breathing and Greengrass looks like she bit into the most disgusting pastry imaginable and is too polite to show it but also too disgusted to pretend nothing happened.

“Hah. To make this quite plain, you have been told that a certain dark wizard is at large again. This is –“

“It’s not a lie. I saw him. I fought him.”

Some students start looking like they would like to leave now, thank you very much. Come to think of it, he would like to leave now, too.

“Mr. Potter –“

“So according to you, Cedric Diggory dropped dead of his own accord?”

He doesn’t actually know who this is. None of the newspapers he subscribed mentioned him. Apparently, they were too busy hounding Harry Potter.

“Certainly not! Cedric Diggory’s death was a tragic accident.”

“It was murder, you must know that, you know –“

He really wants to know what Potter is thinking.

“See me later, Mr. Potter. My Office.”

Predictable consequences for predictable transgressions. What is not at all predictable is how his slight, mostly playful, prodding suddenly opens Potter’s mind to him. The Slytherins at least know how to keep their surface thoughts inside their own mind, Potter had no such basic decency.

The rest of the lesson gets drowned out by misery. He doesn’t catch glimpses of the causes, but every memory he stumbles onto while trying to untangle himself from Potter’s mind is accompanied by waves of misery.

Pulling back by force might hurt Potter and Professor Umbridge will cause the Gryffindor enough of a headache later, there is no need for him to do the same.

He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He never wanted to hurt anyone.

Grass and cold earth under his hands.

He also really doesn’t want to learn Potter’s secrets.

Stone against his back, a burning line of pain along his forearm.

Potter probably has a scar there.

This is why it’s much more ethical to enter the mind of an occlumens. At least those trained in Occlumency know how to keep their secrets tucked away. It’s almost impossible to stumble over them, unlike Potter’s. He is not even trying to get any order in his mind.

He regularly meets No-Majs with more structured minds.

A cooling body clutched against him. Dread. Applause.

He tries not to think about the implications of the impressions he felt.

When he finally manages to untangle himself from the pain and the cold and the cheering, the lesson is almost over. She doesn’t look at him and probably plans on ignoring him. That suits him well.

Luckily, he gets to have dinner before Professor Snape expects him, the evening is bound to be exhausting and after seeing this he isn’t sure he can pull himself together that fast.