Diospyros

Harry got up early the day after the first-years were sorted. The Slytherin boys' dormitory was large and quiet, each student having a room to themselves. He liked the interior arrangement of his room; Glass chandeliers were attached to the walls, green light radiating. The window was dark most of the time, showing very little of the bottom of Hogwarts' Black Lake. The stone floor was gray that tended to black, cold and smooth as marble. The bathroom was small, a rectangle with a bathtub with shower, a toilet and a sink, all in a marble similar to the floor in the room. The best part was probably the dresser he got, made of heavy wood with crystal glass being held by a silver base with snake carvings.

The common room wasn't full, but any noise dropped to whispers as he walked past the other Slytherins to the Great Hall. Some showed caution, others a disconcerting repressed anger – although, fortunately, these were minimal glances.

The dungeons were, at least from the general route he took to the Slytherin common room, very dark as a rule. The torches illuminated the corridors shamefully, but leaving an eternal gloom that would make life difficult for anyone who needed to look for something on the floor. Some corridors didn't even have torches, being in a deep and frightening pitch black, which only got worse with the cold of the place. It was a relief when he finally reached the ground floor, where the Main Hall is. It was much warmer, and sunlight streamed in through glass windows set in wide holes in the castle walls.

The tables were sparsely full when he presented himself at the Slytherin table. Most of the older years were there, probably getting ready for a long day of classes, and the younger years were scattered. Whispers accompanied him all the way to his place, without much excitement due to the time of day, but very quick due to the number of students. His breakfast was a little irritating, with so many eyes on him.

The hall filled up little by little, the younger students finally waking up to start their day. The cacophony of cutlery and plates being pulled and scraped resounded through the chamber amidst the lazy voices and morning greetings of the students. Neither Adrien nor Ron Weasley were in sight, which means they must still be asleep. Susan and Hannah appeared to still be asleep as they slowly munched on their fasts.

A bang from the ceiling woke up all those who were still drowsy, scaring them. A huge contingent of owls invaded the Great Hall, a confusing cloud of colors spreading across the tables behind their owners. Harry would be lying if he didn't say he was scared too, but no one needed to know that. He observed many boxes, letters and newspapers falling onto his colleagues' plates and scattering food over the sides. A dog-faced girl, Pansy Parkinson, if he’s not mistaken, narrowly escaped having an overturned glass of juice in her lap. It would have been funnier if he himself hadn't had to dodge a cup of tea that fell when Iggy, the Potter family owl, landed in front of her.

— Hello boy – Greeted the owl, who winked. Something about the bird seemed tense. — Did you bring me something?

He couldn't say he was too surprised to see a fluttering howler hiding beneath the owl, inside his plate. The bird's tension was understandable.

— Hmm.

Iggy stood up, flapped his wings, and retreated into the air away from Harry. The other Slytherin students stared at him with a unique range of emotions. Malfoy looked vicious, while Greengrass looked almost sorry for him. Whispers ran around the other tables as the other students realized what he had received. The bright red letter shook and smoked, looking like it wanted to explode from swallowing its own contents. Well, whatever.

“HARRY POTTER!”, James Potter's voice was recognizable. “YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO EXPLAIN FOR!

“I KNEW SUNNY WAS SPOILING YOU, BUT SLYTHERIN? SLYTHERIN? I'M SURE I CREATED YOU BETTER THAN THIS!

“LET’S TALK WHEN YOU GET BACK HOME!”

The letter shone, tore and burned, the ashes falling onto the bacon that was initially on the saucer. His ears hurt to the point where he couldn't even make out the scattered murmurs, but the heat he felt wasn't particularly aimed at the other students. He took a tissue and turned the bacon and ash into it, rolling it up. He grabbed a cup of strong tea and stood up, leaving the Great Hall in search of a trash can and a less noisy place to relax his ears. His obstinate path ended up making him ignore the presence of the professors, where Lilian Potter was shaking with rage in her place next to a man with a hooked nose and greasy hair.

***

Professor Sprout was a small, disheveled, dirt-stained woman, but she was actually very kind to the students in her first Herbology class. She had apparently been especially kind to Harry after the howler incident. Well, goodwill is goodwill.

It was a long and rather dirty study session with the Ravenclaws. Their whispers were drowned out by the rustling of the many plants in the greenhouses, one more annoying than the other: moving, scratching and making noises that no being without lungs should be able to make. Harry found one particularly interesting, one capable of laughing only when someone walks past her with their back turned.

It was when he arrived at Transfiguration class that a switch seemed to change. Professor McGonagall was certainly not someone to anger.

— Transfiguration is one of the most complex and dangerous magics you will learn at Hogwarts. Anyone who does something stupid in my class will leave and won't come back. You are warned.

Her table turned into a pig with a simple gesture of the wand, and it turned into a table again as soon as she repeated the gesture. Harry wasn't intimidated, but he left on record the information not to provoke her.

The class was a bit boring, if he was looking for a word to describe it. He didn't find any practical value in writing down concepts of a needle transfiguration charm, at least not with how unlikely it was to be on the exams. Practicing the charm was more satisfying considering the accumulation of experience. At least he was sure it was very satisfying to understand the feeling of his magic moving to transfigure something. He even managed to get a smile from the professor when he showed his needle, earning some points.

History of Magic was a class that Harry politely recorded as “Uncommentable”.

Spells was probably the funniest of the classes so far. Prof. Flitwick was shorter than all the first years, even the shortest student in the class (who was possibly Harry). He had to stand on a pile of cushions so he could watch all the students, and he smiled excitedly at anything that made eye contact. Unfortunately, there was no real magic in this class, although the notes were more worthwhile than the ones for Transfiguration.

Defense Against the Dark Arts class was, with the mildest politeness, the worst class Harry could have expected. The room stank of garlic paste, and there were ridiculous decorations like a cabinet that the professor said held tools for trapping Dark creatures and bottles of protective potions. Prof. Quirrell still proudly brags about the turban he wears, saying he got it from an African prince after he got rid of a vampire for him, but he always changes the subject when someone asks that story. In the end, his own stuttering made it difficult for him to capture any adequate information from the content. Who hires a professor who stutters?

Already tired of classes, Harry dragged himself to the Slytherin table on Friday to go to his last class of the week: Potions. This would be his first time taking a class in the subject, so he was a little curious to know what it would be like. Hopefully, it would be something worthwhile.

The room was funny; it was deeper than the Slytherin common room. It was cold enough to give you goosebumps even without the disturbing sight of embalmed animals floating in glass jars on the shelves. The benches were made of polished stone, with torches providing good lighting – which is quite surprising overall.

— Oh, yes – Prof. Snape spoke softly as he made the list. – Adrien Potter. Our new celebrity.

Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle giggled, hiding their mouths with their hands. Snape ended the call and faced the class. His eyes were black, but unlike any Harry had ever seen, they were cold and empty. He felt a bit sorry.

— You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of brewing potions – he began. He spoke barely above a whisper, but they didn't miss a word. Like Professor Minerva, Snape had a gift for effortlessly keeping a class silent. – As we don’t make foolish gestures here, many of you may think that this is not magic. I don't expect you to really understand the beauty of a cauldron cooking over a slow fire, with the smoke shimmering, the delicate power of liquids that flow through human veins and bewitch the mind, confuse the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame , cooking glory, even zombifying, if you aren't the bunch of empty heads that usually tell me to teach.

More silence followed this short speech. Harry didn't find it particularly intimidating. Hermione Granger was sitting on the edge of her desk and seemed desperate to start proving that she wasn't an empty-headed person.

— Potter! – Snape said suddenly, turning to Adrien. – What would I get if I added powdered asphodel root to a wormwood infusion?

Adrien made a very indicative blank expression.

— I don't know, sir...

Snape's face twisted into an expression that Harry found particularly ugly on his face.

— Let's try again, Potter. If I asked you, where would you get bezoar?

Hermione Granger stretched her hand into the air as high as she could without getting up from her desk, but Adrien had no idea what a bezoar was. He tried not to look at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were shaking with laughter.

— I don't know, no, sir.

Snape’s expression twisted even more.

— Did you think you didn’t need to open your books before coming? – There was something between irritation and disgust in his voice.

Adrien forced himself to keep looking directly into those cold eyes. He had leafed through the books at home, but did Snape expect him to remember everything he had seen in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?

Snape continued to disregard Hermione’s shaking hand.

— What's the difference, Potter, between wolfsbane and monkshood?

At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretched toward the dungeon ceiling.

— I don't know – Adrien said in a low voice. – But I think Hermione knows, why don't you ask her?

A few boys laughed; Adrien's eyes met Seamus's and Seamus winked.

Snape, however, was not pleased.

— Sit down – he snapped at Hermione. – For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood produce a sleeping potion so strong that it is known as the Undead Potion. The bezoar is a stone taken from the goat's stomach and can save you from most poisons. As for Wolfsbane and Monkshood, they’re plants from the same botanical genus. So? Why aren't you copying what I'm saying?

There was a sudden noise of people picking up quills and parchment. And above that noise Snape's voice:

—And I'll deduct a point from Gryffindor for your impertinence, Potter.

Harry didn't know exactly what to feel about his brother's blatant irritation towards his head of house. If anything, he didn't blame Adrien for not knowing the answers. He himself wasn't too far above Adrien's laziness.

The class proceeded somewhat chaotically. Snape separated the students into pairs and walked between the benches, evaluating the potions. He criticized everyone, but was gentle with Malfoy, whom he seemed to like. Harry ended up being ignored for most of the time until Neville, who was next to him, managed to melt the cauldron of his partner, Seamus Finnigan.

— Foolish boy! – Snape scolded. – I suppose you added the porcupine bristles before taking the cauldron off the heat?

Neville whimpered as boils began to pop up on his nose.

— Take him to the hospital wing — Snape ordered Seamus. Then he turned angrily to Harry and MacDougal, who were working together. – You, Potter, why didn't you tell him not to add the bristles? Thought you'd look better if he made a mistake, didn't you? Harry turned his head fully to the professor, briefly stopping to trim his hair.

— A failure just lowers the overall average. It doesn't make sense to want to look better when my own grade would be low.

Prof. Snape didn't seem to expect him to answer, so Harry went back to cutting the bristles while the professor stared at him without expressing anything. MacDougal didn’t say anything either, although Harry could sense his nervousness at being around Snape. Probably only Draco and Harry didn’t mind, although for different reasons. In the end, their potion turned out to be satisfactory and they labeled it into vials, leaving them on Snape’s desk.

MacDougal was a suitable partner, so he said goodbye to him and went to the hospital wing to check on Neville. Adrien stomped a little angrily as he left the class, but it didn’t seem to be directed at anything other than Snape. He thought it best to let Ron take care of his brother for now.

***

Harry noticed, on the board in the common room on Sunday morning, a notice about the start of flying lessons on Thursday. It wasn't a subject he was very keen on, but he didn't mind too much, even though it seemed to be a formula for disaster to unite Gryffindor and Slytherin in a class on flying broomsticks. 

Malfoy was a cornerstone among the first-year students; he would tell lame, miraculous stories about being an early aviator to anyone who would or wouldn't listen, recounting adventures and feats in the air that usually ended with him narrowly escaping from Muggle helicopters. Harry found him a particularly inventive boy, although not very good at reading an audience's response. Unfortunately, he turned out not to be the only one. 

According to Simas Finnigan, he had spent most of his childhood flying around the countryside on a broomstick. Even Ron told anyone who would listen about the time he almost crashed a hang glider on Charlie's old broom. MacDougal proved to be wittier than Harry had anticipated when he said that he himself had been taught about brooms from an early age, and Mila Bulstrode surprised everyone when she commented very precisely on broom maneuvers and models like someone with experience in the subject. 

Hermione Granger is, however, more nervous than you usually see her. Almost as much as Neville. That wasn't something you could learn from a book - not that she hadn't tried. At breakfast on Thursday morning, she tired them out by talking about flying tricks she'd read in the library on Quidditch Through the Ages. Neville, unfortunately, practically hung on every word she said, desperate to learn anything that would help him hold onto his broom later on, but everyone else was overjoyed when Hermione's lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the post. 

Harry received a copy of the Daily Prophet, which he had scheduled to receive in a few days. It was a very poor quality newspaper, to be honest, but no other wizarding newsletter was any different then - when in Rome. His name on the front page didn't do much to boost his opinion of the paper either. 

Lord Potter sends his son a screamer on his first day! Could there be a family problem between the Potters?

By Rita Skeeter

Firstly, he wanted to know how Rita Skeeter had been informed about what had happened, and secondly, he wanted to know how the Prophet had been so slow to publish such a big piece of news. Did they bother to do any more research before publishing it? Harry wouldn't put too much hope in that.

It has come to our attention at the Daily Prophet that Lord James Potter, Lord of the House of Potters, sent a howler to his youngest son, Harry Potter, on the first day of school, comments Rita Skeeter, correspondent for the Daily Prophet. Apparently, Lord Potter didn't like his son's sorting.

“We were surprised when he ended up in Slytherin,” a Slytherin student, who asked not to be identified, told Rita Skeeter when asked. “But no one expected him to get a howler just for that. I think even the Gryffindors were a bit embarrassed when they heard the howler.”

The howler in question, readers, said: “HARRY POTTER! YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO EXPLAIN FOR! I KNEW SUNNY WAS SPOILING YOU, BUT SLYTHERIN? SLYTHERIN? I'M SURE I CREATED YOU BETTER THAN THIS! LET’S TALK WHEN YOU GET BACK HOME!”. But did Lord Potter really raise his children?

According to Adelaide Wickens, career secretary at the Department for the Enforcement of Magical Laws, Head Auror James Potter hasn't left his job much for a while for some time now.

“Since he took on the job, he's been working several hours overtime. He usually stays in the office, but he also goes on patrols with the Ministry's aurors. I've already recommended that he see a Mediwizard to check that he's healthy, working so hard really isn't good, but he's always rejected the idea.”

Would James Potter really have raised his son “better”, as he said? Perhaps the situation in the Potter family isn't as good as it seemed at the Charity Ball in July. Is it really safe for someone with a blatant prejudice to be in a position of authority?

Lord Potter could not be reached for comment. Lady Potter did not reply to the Prophet's letter before the edition was published.

Well, it was a reasonable article, within what Harry had come to expect from Rita Skeeter (which, much to his own chagrin, wasn't much). It wasn't particularly tense or slanderous either, so he didn't see much reason to worry. Especially with so few students having access to the Daily Prophet at Hogwarts, which basically boiled down to a few older seventh year students who were supposed to be looking for jobs in the classified section.

When Flying class arrived, the fatigue from Defense and Transfiguration weighed on him, along with the discomfort of receiving looks of pity or malice from the students who had apparently read Skeeter's article. Fortunately, none of them came up to him to comment or ask anything. It was better than nothing.

The Flying professor, Madam Hooch, arrived as all the students gathered. She had short, gray hair and yellow eyes like a hawk's.

— Come on, what are you waiting for? – she asked sharply. – Each one beside a broom. Let's go, hurry up.

Harry looked at the broom. It was old, and had straws sticking out at odd angles.

— Stretch your right hand over the broom – ordered Madame Hooch in front of them. – and say “Stand up!”

— STAND UP! – they all shouted.

Harry's broomstick sprang into his hand immediately, but it was one of the few that did so. Hermione Granger's simply rolled over on the floor, and Neville's didn't even move. It took MacDougal three calls before he finally managed to grab his, and Bulstrode didn't even make hers struggle. He thought the broomsticks' temperaments were quite tiresome sometimes.

Madam Hooch then, after everyone had grabbed their brooms, showed them how to mount them without slipping off the other end, and went down the rows correcting their grip. Adrien and Ron were apparently pleased when she told Draco that he had been holding his broomstick wrong for years.

— Now, when I blow the whistle, give a strong push with your feet – said the professor. – Keep your brooms steady, leave a few centimeters off the ground and come back down bending your body a little forward. When I blow the whistle... three... two...

But Neville, nervous, frightened, and afraid that the broom would drop him to the ground, gave a strong push before the whistle even touched Madam Hooch's lips.

— Come back, boy! – she shouted, but Neville rose like a cork coming out under pressure from the bottle, four meters, six meters. Harry saw Neville's face, white with fear, peering down at the ground as he gained height, saw him exclaim, slide sideways off the broom and...

BOOM! – a thud, a cracking noise and Neville fell face down on the grass, sprawled. His broom continued to rise higher and higher, and began to float unhurriedly towards the Forbidden Forest and disappear from sight. Madam Hooch leaned over Neville, her face as white as his.

— Broken wrist — Harry heard her mutter. – Come on, boy, get up.

She turned to the rest of the class.

— None of you are going to move while I take this boy to the infirmary! Leave your broomsticks where they are or you'll be expelled from Hogwarts before you can say "Quidditch". Come on, dear.

Neville, face stained with tears, holding his wrist, limped away with Madam Hooch, who was hugging him by the shoulders. As soon as they were out of earshot of the class, Draco burst out laughing.

— Did you see his face, the jerk?

Some other Slytherin students joined in the chorus, Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle. Nott seemed to give the shadow of a smile, but quickly blinked out of sight.

— Shut up, Draco – Parvati Patil snapped.

— Wow, defending Neville? – said Pansy Parkinson, her pug face twisting in childish mischief. – I never thought you'd like melted butterscotch, Parvati.

— Look! – said Draco, throwing himself forwards and picking something up from the grass. - It's that rubbish Neville's nan sent.

A Remembrall sparkled in the sun as the boy held it up.

— Give me that here, Draco – said Adrien in a low voice from the Gryffindor side. Everyone stopped talking to take a look.

Draco let out an evil chuckle.

— I think I'll leave it somewhere for Neville to pick up, how about up a tree?

— Give me that – shouted Adrien, as he watched Draco jump on a broomstick. Harry thought that was enough.

Staring at the orb in Draco's hand, he pointed it with his wand and muttered:

— Accio.

The glass orb slipped from the weak grip of Malfoy's fingers and glided through the air into Harry's hand, who discreetly stowed his wand in his holster.

— I'll give it to Neville as soon as class is over – he said evenly, tucking the Remembrall into a pocket in his cloak.

Draco looked genuinely annoyed with him, while Adrien looked a little relieved. His brother wasn't an evildoer, but he certainly wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer so he could think about the consequences before taking off after Malfoy. His relief must have come when he finally realised what he had almost done.

Harry wasn't too surprised when they continued arguing, but the Remembrall was safe enough in his pocket. He couldn't say he was surprised when Malfoy annoyed Adrien and flew off, but he felt like scratching his eyes when his brother followed the blond without even thinking. He hoped that Professor McGonagall wouldn't be too hard on him when she came in, shouting at his brother from the air.

— Never... in all the time I've been at Hogwarts... - Professor Minerva almost lost her voice in astonishment and her glasses flickered endlessly as she hurried across the grounds. – ... How dare you... you could have broken your neck...

— It wasn't his fault, professor...

— Quiet, Miss Patil...

— But Draco...

— That's enough, Mr. Weasley. Potter, come with me now.

Adrien had a truly terrified look on his face as he followed Professor McGonagall into the castle, glaring at Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, who grinned maliciously. Harry received a panicked look for a moment, but there was nothing he could do.

His brother should have known better than to trust him to save him from a flagrant breach of the rules.