Temper
“I wonder how DADA will be like.” said Zabini the following morning.
“Hermione had this class yesterday, she said it was terrible. The teacher is not even making us do practical. We’ll read theory all year with her.” Responded Harry.
“I knew she wasn’t right from the beginning. How will we pass our final exam? It requires and a theory and a practical test.” Shook Nott.
“Will you do something about it? Try and talk that idea out of her head?” asked the raven.
Zabini shook his head. “Even if we tried, it wouldn’t work. I suggest we keep it lowkey it there. I’m sure the other classes already argued with her.”
“But it’s our Owls year! We can’t not do magic. There must be some way to make her change her mind.”
“Look, Potter is not wrong.” Intervened Greengrass. “We should give it a shot. We are Slytherins for God’s sake, we can find a way to make it work, you know; use any means to achieve our goals and even if it does not at the end, at least we will be able to say that we tried.”
“Well, when we fail, I will tell you that I’ve warned you.”
With that, the group went to their herbology class. It went fairly well. Professor Sprout made the now usual speech about the importance of this year, and then went on with the lesson. The Ravenclaws kept quiet during the class, which was great.
Time passed quickly and it was soon time for their next subject; DADA. When they entered the class, they discovered that Professor Umbridge had assigned them seats. That was a first! Even more, instead of the usual two per two tables, it was now single seats.
“Wands away now children, we won’t be needing them this year. I made a completely new program for you. It will include everything you should have learned in the past but didn’t by the lack of a competent teacher. It was also approved by the ministry, something missing with you other teachers.”
Greengrass rose her hand high in the air.
“Yes, miss…”
“Daphne Greengrass, Madam. Why won’t we need our wands this year? Don’t we have practical to do?”
“I believe you will manage just fine without it dear. Besides, you will know enough by your readings that I’m sure you will all be able to master the charms first try during your practical exam by the end of the year.”
“I do not believe so, I’m Theodore Nott by the way, mastering charms and hexes take a lot of work. Some wizards take years of practice in order to obtain the perfect result.”
“Those wizards must have not study them enough then. Knowing the charm is an important part of mastering a charm, more than practicing it. How else would you understand its true purpose? Yes mister…”
“Malfoy, I looked through the pages and did not see any traces that demonstrate the steps into achieving the hexes. How are we supposed to perform them at the exam if we don’t even know the movements and incantations required?”
Malfoy had a point there. After some further investigating, Harry found out that Malfoy was right. The books he had purchased only explain the effects of any charms, when to use them and who were the wizards to invent them. They did not display the requirements needed in order to perform them.
The professor flushed, taken aback. She seemed to hesitate a second before finally answering.
“That is the reason I’m here. At some point, I will demonstrate them to you, your job will be to memorize them. It could be hard, but it is an effective way to exercise the memory.”
At this point, Harry was boiling with rage. What she said made no sense. There was no way to learn properly just by reading books. The only thing stopping him from talking right now, was the constant reminder of the warning Hermione had given him the day prior. Though, Harry knew that it wouldn’t last long, one more thing coming from her mouth and Harry would explode.
“How are we supposed to manage to remember that many charms. There must be at least a hundred. Besides, the reason we do practical and essays is because the human brain remembers way better from constant practice.” Continued Malfoy.
“Where did you hear such a thing mister?”
“Professor Snape told us in 1st year and he had no reason to lie.”
Their teacher was despaired, she was red and struggled to find a good reply. Harry was amazed, the Slytherins were amazing at arguing. They simply had wonderful arguments and knew how to use statements to their advantage.
“That is enough, I am the teacher and you have no right to question my authority. I can see that no one taught you how to respect your superiors. If I hear another word from you, you’ll get detention, I am clear?”
Harry had enough, if Hermione taught that he could keep quiet, then she was wrong. “The class is literally called Defence against the dark arts, yet you won’t teach us how to. What will happen to us if we are attacked? We won’t even know what came after us before it is already too late! We will be eaten right on the spot by Voldemort’s followers.”
“Detention Potter! I want to see you right after class.” “Now students, I will make myself clear. First, we will not practice magic. It is non-negotiable. Second, some people have declared that a certain someone has risen up from the death. I reassure you; he is well and good dead.”
“But he is back! Cedric was killed for a reason!”
“Enough Potter, I want to see you the entire week for detention. Cedric’s death was no more than a tragic accident. I have made myself clear?””
Harry gritted his teeth. He was so enraged, little to nothing was restraining him to hex his professor. Maybe he could use this occasion to finally use the ones taught by his godfather. He was about to retorque when a hand landed on his shoulder. Zabini shook his head slightly, mentioning him to stay silent. He clamped his hands and hardly stayed quiet the rest of the period.
Classed passed slowly with Harry more and more angry as time went on. The boy didn’t know how much longer he would last before exploding again. It had to be before long though since Harry would be in detention as soon as it finished.
When the lesson was dismissed, Harry waited for the rest of them to exit the class. Then, Umbridge motioned him to follow her. She led him to her office. The place was awful. The walls were all painted with a disgusting shade of pink and there were multiple representations of cats all over the place. A lot of them were mewing, it was an insufferable noise. Everybody could turn crazy just by staying in that place.
Harry took a sit from the numerous standing chairs all over the place, as if the professor expected ten people to have detention at the same time. He was about to take a quill out when he was. Interrupted by Umbridge.
“You won’t be needed a quill Potter. I’ll give you a special one I want you to use. Now, as for your detention you will be writing lines. I have chosen two instead of one. After all, you want everyone to know you are special, so you will receive a special treatment.” “Your lines will be ‘I must not tell lies. As well as ‘I will respect authority.’”
“How many times?”
“As much as it takes to sink in.”
Harry did not quite understand what she meant by that but did not give it too much thought. He was about to begging when he noticed that he didn’t have any ink.
“Professor, I don’t have any ink.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t be needing it.”
Harry started writing the first line. He was surprised to see it was written in red, blood red. Just then, he felt a sharp pain on the top of his right hand. He looked over just in time to notice “I must not tell lies” slowly fading within his flesh. He could not believe his eyes. These quills were taking his blood in order to write. With wide eyes, he turned to Umbridge, the professor was already fixing him.
“A problem mister Potter?” She asked in a marvellous tone.
Not wanting to give her any satisfaction, Harry shook his head and went on to write the second line. This time, it appeared on his right forearm. This continued for hours. Harry even missed dinner. At some point, Umbridge decided to call it a day and waved him over. She took his hand in hers and started to examine it, the arm was bright red.
“It does not have the effect I want them to have yet, but will we have a week to remedy that. Now go.”
Harry practically ran out of the room. The boy was so angry he could put fire to the whole school. Just then, he noticed Dobby waiting for him by a door.
“Go away Dobby, I’m not in the mood.”
“Dobby only wants to show Master Potter a secret of mine. On the 7th floor, there is a room called ‘the Room of requirements’ to find it, just walk three times over a statue holding a snake while thinking of any type of room you need. There, Master Potter can relieve the anger Dobby can feels without hurting anyone.”
“Thank you, Dobby.”
-------
Harry made his way to the 7th floor and found the aforementioned statue. He walked past it while thinking ‘I need a room to relieve my anger’. True to Dobby’s words, a door appeared on the wall. Without preamble, Harry made his way inside. The room was very spacious. There was little to nothing except some mannequins as office of targets.
Without waiting a second, Harry took his wand and started to fire any spells that crossed his mind. He fired shots after shots, screaming. The boy took all his anger built up during the summer. He hexed the mannequins for having to live with the Dursleys, for Dumbledore tensed mood, for his friends’ lack of interest towards him and the whole wizarding world for calling him a liar and detesting him.
After two hours, Harry was calm enough to not fear he would kill anyone he met. He caught his breath and casted a tiempo. Harry’s eyes went wide, it was a few minutes before curfew. His tantrum had lasted a while longer then Harry intended to, or perhaps it was the detention that had lasted a long time.
Carefully, Harry made his way to his dorm. At one point, he got lost after attempting a detour in order to avoid Filch. It took him a lot of time before finally reaching the entrance of his common room. It was very late and the boy was beyond exhausted.
Harry was barely able to keep his eyes open; he was so tired that he could not even bring himself to be surprised when he saw his classmates waiting for him despite the time. When they saw Harry, they quickly got up from the couches they were seated on and made their way to the raven. They were about to open their mouth before Harry interrupted them.
“Not now, I am too sleepy to talk properly. I’ll tell you everything you want to know if you just let me sleep right now.”
With that, he went upstairs and jumped in his bed without removing his clothes. As soon as his head touched the pillow, he fell asleep.
-------
Groaning to himself, Harry made his way to the Great hall. He had just delayed the conversation with the Slytherins. He had claimed that he was too hungry to say something coherent, which was true considering the fact that he did not eat dinner the previous night. He had to promise them to talk after breakfast to keep them from arguing.
When they reached the common room after breakfast, he was brought to his dormitory along with all his classmates.
They sat around the chiminea and waited for Harry to talk. When they understood he wasn’t going to say anything, Malfoy out of all people started to lose patience.
“Well Potter, care to explain what crossed your mind back in DADA? You clearly aren’t a real Slytherin if you can’t catch when you need to BACK OFF.”
“Enough Draco.” Reprimanded Zabini. “But Potter, he is right. You must learn to decipher a lost cause. Back then, it definitely was. And when it is, stop, make the other believe he was right, prepare your revenge and strike when the other least expects it.”
“I can’t just sit around and do nothing.” Harry was in despair.
“Well, you’ll have to do it anyway. It is how you act as a Slytherin, and since you are one of us now, we will not tolerate anything but that. We will teach you how to be one of us. Starting by teaching you how to control your anger.” Said Nott.
“But first, we want to understand what happened in your head and during your detention.” Continued Zabini.
Harry sighed, he hated this, but he knew it was mandatory if he wanted them to stop hovering over him.
“Voldemort is back”
“Don’t use his name.” interrupted Malfoy.
Harry rolled his eyes. “He is back, he is becoming more and more powerful as we speak. We should learn how to defeat ourselves so we can survive in case of an attack. However, this lady is putting all her might to prevent us to defend ourselves. We will all be dead before we know it.”
“You don’t fool us Potter.” Interrupted yet again Malfoy. “It may be a factor to your outburst, but it isn’t the only. What’s the rest of your story?”
Harry sighed and decided it would be best to just tell truth now.
“They don’t believe my warnings. Nobody does and it is so frustrating. All I want is the wizarding world to be safe, but how could it if anyone is denying the inevitable? I’m trying to warn them, to protect them, in return they are calling me a liar and detest me. That’s what bothering me the most and hearing Umbridge say it like that made me break.”
“First Potter, not everybody believe you are lying.” Started Zabini.
“Look around yourself, you are surrounded by people knowing the truth. You are in the one house believing in his return.” Continued Nott. “Hell, how could we not when some of our parents witnessed his reborn?”
“Don’t look so surprise Potter.” Said Parkinson, entering the conversation at last. “There’s no need for us to deny it. You saw them, that’s a fact. We do believe you that’s another one. Even more, we want you to tell us what happened at the graveyard.”
“You want me to tell you? Don’t you already know?” asked Harry.
This time, Malfoy responded. “Our parents’ stories are clearly made up. Each one they’ve told us is different. We want to know what truly happened and since we can’t trust our parents, we are asking you.”
And Harry did them tell, it was hard, Cedric’s death was still fresh in his mind. Harry felt so much better that someone actually believed his except the Order of the phoenix. It was nice to have someone willing to hear the whole story for once.
“That’s crazy Potter, the Dark lord is such a horrible person. To do that to a kid.” Greengrass said while sadly shaking her head.
“Aren’t you his follower though?” asked a confused Harry.
Zabini shook his head sadly. “I thought you had understood that, we are not our parents and that being in Slytherin doesn’t mean we support the dark lord.”
“Yes, we do hate muggleborns, but it doesn’t mean we want them all dead and tortured.” Continued Parkinson.
“Why do you hate them anyway? What have they ever done to you?” pondered Harry.
The rest of the lot exchanged glances, unsure of what to answer.
“Well, we have to hide, always making sure not to be seen and be extra careful.”
The argument made no sense. Even if it was the truth, Harry knew from their faces and body language that it was not whole. He just told them one of his traumas, one that hunts his dream and they couldn’t even answer a simple question? He is regretting ever trusting them. Harry was about to make an outburst when it hit him. What if they did not want to tell him because it involved the Dark arts? That made sense, they did not know Harry practised it. Well, practise was a big word, since he almost only read about it. Satisfied about his theory, Harry nodded slowly, promising himself to discover their secret.
“We believe you Potter, and we sympathise with what you have been through, but you really need to control your anger. Countless events will threaten it in the future, and you can’t lash out every time, you’ll go nowhere with that.” Said Nott.
“I will help you meditate.” Said Travis, to Harry’s surprise. “I’m quite good at it.”
“Thanks, and maybe you are right, I should lower that temper of mine. That way I can actually think before doing something.”
“Great. Now, what about detention?” The girl smiled.
“She only made me write lines, there had to be hundreds, I stayed there forever!”
Harry did not know why he did not want them to find out about the blood quills. Maybe he did not want any of their pity or derogatory comments.
-------
True to Hermione’s words, the two friends were not able to meet during the weekend. Harry didn’t mind though. The conversation with the Slytherins he had Saturday morning was some sort of breaking point for them. For a reason the boy didn’t catch yet, they were all more comfortable around Harry and vice versa.
Harry got to know Zabini and Nott even better. The previous days, the boys only did small chats, but they could now take on bigger subjects, like what’s going on in their life. They were still a lot of topics avoided but they surely weighted less, from one point of view (the war still mattered a lot) than the ones talked about.
Harry learnt that Zabini’s mom had had countless husbands but only one child while Nott has an older brother named Alexander. He also discovered that their, and mostly all the other’s relationships with their respective families were cold and not close. The adults always preferred their numerous duties over their children, giving the task to raise them to the house elves. It was so sad and depressing!
Parkinson and Greengrass also became looser with Harry. The girls were participating in the conversations more and more frequently. Harry was beginning to enjoy their company a lot. The later bit made Harry unsure. Parkinson had been horrible to him, and especially Hermione and now the boy was being extra friendly with her, did he just forgive four years of hatred in a single weekend? Apparently so. That thought made Harry disgusted with himself, but he could not help it, Parkinson was a great person when she made efforts.
At one point, Parkinson brought up his new uniform, a topic the boys had quickly moved on.
“I wanted to tell you since the first night, I’ve literally been holding my tongue for forever. The green looks way better on you than the red! You should buy new clothes though, the ones you are wearing on weekends are atrocious, it makes my eyes burn. Come with me on the next Hogsmeade weekend, it is non-negotiable. We’ll also look for products in order to tame your hair.”
“Don’t try to argue with her Potter.” Warned Greengrass. “She always ends up winning, don’t lose your time.”
At least, Harry did not need to be preoccupied with Malfoy. The boy had talked but not much and had spent most of his time with the remaining 5th year Slytherins. Harry was not ready to bury the hatchet, so it was perfect for him.
The weekend had passed so fast. Now that is was already Monday morning, Harry was dreading his meeting with his new House head. He was waiting by the door and tried to delay the fatal moment for as long as he could.
Eventually, Harry had no choice, he knocked on the door and was greeted by a “enter” from his professor.