Chapter 8
“What the fuck?” Harry yelped, trying to yank his wrist out of the tight hold of the tall Slytherin.
Seriously, Harry noticed, Nott was stupidly tall. He was about Ron’s height, but didn’t look nearly as gangly.
“Where are you taking me?” Harry demanded.
All Nott did in response was ‘shush’ him.
“Did you just shush me?” Harry incredulously asked.
“Yes, I shushed you, now be quiet,” Nott whispered back.
“Why should I? You’re literally kidnapping me,” Harry responded.
“I’m not kidnapping you,” retorted Nott.
“Yes, you are. You're taking me somewhere against my will.”
“Merlin, you’re free to leave at any moment you like,” Nott elucidated, “I promise I’m not going to kill you. Just be quiet.”
Harry didn’t want to listen to Nott. He was tempted to run away screaming ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ out loud, just to spite him, but he couldn’t deny he was curious about what the boy wanted. So, Harry shut up and let Nott lead him to what was hopefully not his demise.
After a few minutes of walking, Harry noticed that they were passing fewer and fewer students and entering darker, dustier hallways. He noted if he ever needed to potentially get away with murder, this would be one of his top 10 spots to do so. Places like the Chamber of Secrets and the Room of Requirement were much better suited for devious activities, but if he was in a rush, he supposed this hallway would do. Which also meant that this was a spot Nott, who did not have access to places like the Chamber of Secrets or the Room of Requirement, could very much get away with murder if he wanted.
All too familiar with random attempts on his life, Harry felt very much on edge as Nott finally stopped in front of what appeared to be an abandoned classroom. His capturer let go of his wrist and opened the door, holding his arm out to let Harry in first.
“Lady’s first,” Nott smirked.
And oh Merlin, if Harry wasn’t scared he was about to be killed in some way, he would have found that smirk terribly charming. Instead of being swept off his feet by good looks, Harry just rolled his eyes and walked through the doorway, trying to appear nonchalant while cycling through all the defense spells he knew in his head should worse come to worse.
The room itself contained rows of desks covered in dust, all facing a wooden podium, presumably where the professor would give his lectures. The podium had a large stack of yellow parchment, which further demonstrated how long it had been since anyone had entered this room. Great, Harry thought, it would take people some time to find his body. He watched as Nott shut the door behind him and used his wand to cast a silencing spell on the room.
“Who would be listening in at a place like this?” Harry couldn’t help but ask.
“You can never be too careful,” Nott responded.
Nott definitely had a point there.
“What do you want?” Harry asked, crossing his arms defensively.
“You are free to leave whenever you want,” Nott reminded him, “But all I ask is that you listen to what I have to say.”
With a quick spell, Nott got rid of the dust on a desk behind him, leaned back, and made himself comfortable. Harry followed in suit, clearing the dust off the desk behind him, but instead opting to sit cross legged atop the desk. He took note that Nott’s entire demeanor changed. No longer was he blank faced and emotionless. Rather, his Slytherin mask was gone and Harry could see the bags under his eyes. It was a look Harry was all too familiar with.
“I think for you to understand why I’ve brought you here, you need to understand a bit about my past,” Nott began.
Harry nodded, showing that he was listening.
“I was raised in a very Dark family. My father, when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was in his prime, was the Dark Lord’s main strategist. He was the brains behind many of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s attacks and was therefore, of course, held in high regard. What this means for me is that I have always been told that should He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named return, I would follow in my father’s footsteps. All my life, I have been taught everything there is to know about the Dark. I’ve been forced to study magical theory, thousands of political strategies, and even more war strategies. Anything my father deemed useful, I was forced to learn.”
Nott paused and took a breath. It looked like he was trying to mentally prepare himself for the next words he was about to say.
“Despite the way I was raised,” he continued, “I have come to the realization that I do not want to follow in my father’s footsteps. I really, really don’t want to serve the Dark Lord. I do not agree that Dark is best and that we should get rid of all Light magic. However, now that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back, my father has been implying that I am to take the Dark Mark next summer.”
Harry sucked in a tiny bit of air. He knew a thing or two about being forced into a war you don’t want to fight, and he could understand how horrible this situation must be for Nott. Still, Harry didn’t know why Nott was telling him all of this, so he kept quiet and let Nott continue speaking.
“That’s where, hopefully, you come in. You see, I propose a sort of partnership between the two of us. I heard about your trail. I’ve noticed how you have been acting around Weasley and Granger. I saw what happened before class with Professor Umbridge. I saw you do wandless magic in class today. I think there is more to you than what people know, and because of that, I think that we could work together to both get what we want. That is, a way out of this war.”
Though it was clear Nott was done speaking, Harry remained quiet. He turned over Nott’s words in his head, pondering what the best action was for him to take. It was a bit weird that Nott had noticed all that about him, but Harry chose to ignore that for now. Nott’s situation, to put it bluntly, sucked, but Harry still didn’t quite understand why he was coming to him of all people for help.
“You’re right,” Harry began, still trying to formulate his thoughts, “I do want out of this war, but I think the ways we want to achieve this are different, and I’m not sure how we can help each other.”
“Actually, I think there are many ways we can help each other. You know much of what there is to know about the Light, and I know everything there is to know about the Dark. I know thousands of strategies, my family has a lot of political power, I have access to thousands of resources that I know you can’t access due to your reputation as the Boy-Who-Lived. I’d like to think I make a very good ally.”
Harry had to admit Nott made a few good points, but he also thought some of his points were weak. Some of what Nott said was true though. While Harry knew much about the Light due to eavesdropping on the Order over the summer, he knew next to nothing about the Dark. He also knew that Nott’s family had a very strong reputation, which meant Nott could get things Harry could not. Nott wasn’t stupid either. He always finished within the top three of their year, although Harry had heard through the gossip mill that Nott probably could be first if he simply put more effort into his work. It was also clear that Nott was very strong magically. Stretching his magic out a bit to feel Nott’s magic, Harry noticed that Nott’s magic, while not taking up much space, was so dense it almost felt like he was approaching a brick wall. It was almost as if Nott was trying to conceal how much magic he had. Still, it wasn’t as if he necessarily needed Nott.
“How do you want to get out of this war then?” Harry asked, trying to find out more.
“Preferably,” Nott immediately responded, as if he had heavily thought this over before, “I would get out of this war by running away and hiding in a foreign country forever, but I know that my father would never allow that to happen. I would have to constantly live in fear of my father or someone else finding me, and I don’t think that’s a life worth living. Realistically, the way to get out of the war is to end the war, and I know you have the power to do that.”.
“Then why don’t you ask Dumbledore for help,” Harry countered, “I mean, you say you don’t want to join the Dark, and Dumbledore certainly has more power than I do, so wouldn’t he seem like the better option?”
“We both know that old coot is good for nothing,” Nott scoffed, “Besides, he hates Slytherins. He would just think I am lying to him to gain knowledge for the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”
“How do you know I don’t think the same exact thing?” Harry again countered, “I am considered Dumbledore’s prize piece. How do you know I won’t go blabbing to him right after this conversation?”
“I’m not sure I can prove to you that I am not working for He-Who-Must-Not-Be named, but I hope you can tell by my words that I want nothing to do with that tyrant. The best thing I can do is ask you to trust me. And, come on. I know you don’t like Dumbledore,” Nott stated like it was obvious, “I saw how you acted during the feast yesterday. You looked like you would rather die than listen to another word of Dumbledore’s. I think you’ve hated Dumbledore longer than you even realize.”
“How do you even know that?” Harry wondered, not really expecting an answer, “And that’s good in all, but do you even know how I want to get out of this war? It is not something most people would agree to.”
“No, I don’t know how you want to get out of this war, but I do trust you have a plan,” Nott agreed, “Tell me, Potter, how do you want to end this war?”
“I am going to kill Albus Dumbeldore and Voldemort,” Harry clearly stated.
No point in sugar coating it. That is what he was going to do. Yet studying Nott’s face, the boy didn’t seem to be surprised.
“How about you explain why,” Nott asked.
Harry paused and thought for a moment. Nott seemed content to wait for Harry’s response. He had thought about why, but he had never articulated it aloud to someone.
“By getting rid of both leaders,” Harry started slowly, “I can then work to reform our government to take a more neutral stance on both Dark and Light magic. I believe that nothing is inherently good or evil. It is how humans use things that makes their results good or bad. It is the same with Dark and Light magic. I could use Wingardium Leviosa to throw someone out a window, just as I could use Bombarda to save people trapped in a collapsed cave. As much as I hate the death of Cedric, it wasn’t the Dark magic that killed Cedric, it was the man who cast the spell. Dark magic isn’t bad. It is how people use it that makes the consequences good or bad. If we get rid of the polar extremes of both Light and Dark, then we will be able to change the world for the better.”
“I agree that Dark or Light isn’t intrinsically good or evil,” Nott stated, “And I wish more of our peers thought the same way, but what happens when you kill them both? Don’t get me wrong. I agree that killing them both is the best option we currently have, but if they are both killed by you, people will never listen to what you want and the government won't be changed in the way you want it. What’s your plan for after they are killed? In fact, are you even sure you can kill them both?”
It was a surreal experience talking about killing the two most powerful men on earth so casually in a classroom.
“To be honest, I haven’t thought much about the aftermath, but I know that I need to kill them both. I don’t think I can do it right now. I need to be stronger, but I know eventually, I could do it. No, I will do it, no matter what it takes. Those two have caused too much pain on this earth. It needs to be done.”
Instead of calling Harry unreasonable for not having a fully thought out plan, Nott smiled.
“If you partner with me, Potter, I can assure you that you will be able to achieve what you want. I can plan out the aftermath, as long as you work with me. I’ll be your strategist.”
Harry realized that he had probably been in over his head thinking he could take down the two most powerful men on earth all by himself. He couldn’t deny that Nott had a way of advertising himself. He was starting to convince Harry that with Nott on his side, he could truly end this war.
“So, will you agree?” Nott asked, reaching out his hand to shake as if this were some type of business deal.
Hesitating for a moment, Harry thought about what he should do. By the look in Nott’s eyes, he could tell that Nott almost seemed desperate for Harry to agree. Sure, his body gave off the air of confidence, but the eyes never lie. He came to the sudden realization that Nott must have almost been completely out of options to come to him of all people for help. Or, maybe Nott needed Harry to agree for some plot Voldemort had created? So many possibilities. He had no reason to trust Nott either. Carefully weighing the pros and cons of this deal, Harry finally reached a conclusion.
“We have a deal,” Harry affirmed, grasping Nott’s hand firmly and shaking it.
It may not be the smartest decision, but it was the best one Harry had right now.
“Great,” Nott sighed in relief, before seeming to remember himself and taking upon the Slytherin mask once again.
“Should we call each other by our first names then?” Harry wondered, belatedly realizing that was such a stupid question.
Why is that the first thing he is thinking about?
“Sure, Harry,” Nott responded easily, slowly drawing out his name as if trying to familiarize himself with the taste.
Harry wouldn’t admit this out loud to anyone, not even under Veritaserum, but the way the Nott had said his name gave him butterflies in his stomach. Harry really hoped he wasn’t blushing because that would be so embarrassing.
“Ok, Theodore,” said Harry.
“Please, call me Theo. Theodore is what my father calls me,” Theo scrunched his nose in distaste.
“Theo, then,” Harry corrected.
Then, Theo reached into his school bag, pulled out a golden coin, and handed said coin to Harry. Curiously, Harry turned the coin over in his hand several times, feeling the texture. At first glance, it looked to be a Gallon, but upon studying it further, Harry realized that the engravings were a bit different. Theo then pulled out a coin of his own.
“When you hold your coin and say occurrens, mine will heat up and vice versa. I figured this would be an easy way of communicating when we want to meet. Say you want to meet at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, say aevum and tell the coin that time and date. Then, the inscription on the coin will change to fit the offered time and date. If one of us can’t meet at that time, we say nullus, and the other's coin will turn cold,” Theo explained.
Harry felt his mouth drop a little bit. This was a seriously cool piece of magic, but was this just something that Theo had on hand? Or had he been planning this meeting? He placed the coin in his school bag, and without thinking much, he wandlessly and wordlessly cast a tempus. It was a little past noon. He hadn’t realized their conversation had taken so long.
“So you can do wandless and wordless magic?” Theo curiously asked.
Though his question was posed casually, Theo’s eyes looked sharp. He was looking at Harry as if he was a puzzle to be solved once again.
“Obviously,” Harry answered, a tad bit uncomfortable with such a piercing gaze.
Isn’t tempus a super basic spell?
“I think getting you strong enough to kill Dumbledore and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named will be a lot easier than previously thought,” Theo chuckled.
Harry wondered what Theo meant by that, but let it go. He had other things to worry about right now.
“We should probably get going for lunch,” Harry mentioned.
“Yeah, you're right,” Theo sighed, “But we can’t be seen together. It would cause too many people to talk if they saw the Golden Boy walking the halls with a Slytherin. You leave first and I’ll follow a few moments later.”
Harry nodded in agreement, stretched his magic out a bit to see if there was anyone in the halls and then quietly left the room. He shut the door behind him and did his best to act completely normal, which when you grew up with relatives who hated anything but normalcy, became a very easy thing to do. While Harry had no clue where in the Merlin’s buttocks he was in the castle, by stretching his magic a bit, it was easy to find where people were located and walk in that direction.
Soon, he was in the Great Hall. Then, he ate lunch alone, and went to his Transfiguration class. Harry found it extremely difficult to stay awake for the rest of the day. Since he hadn’t slept at all last night, nor had he gotten good sleep in a long time, simply keeping his eyes open almost appeared to be an impossible task. He vowed to himself that he would brew some Pepper Up potions in the near future to keep him more awake. Now that he thought about it, brewing some Dreamless Sleep potions also seemed to be a good idea. A book he had read in the Black library also mentioned a potion that could fix his eyesight, so maybe he should try that soon as well. Merlin, so many things to do already.
At the end of the day, instead of going to the Gryffindor tower, Harry decided instead to go to the Room of Requirement. He really didn’t want to deal with any of his peers at the moment, and he was in need of a peaceful place to rest, so the Room of Requirement seemed like the best option. If he continued to avoid going to the Gryffindor tower to sleep, that may begin to cause problems, but Harry thought one night of not showing up would be okay. He had done so before. Besides, Harry was rather certain that his doormates, maybe Neville aside, would be elated that he didn’t show up. Making his way towards the seventh floor, Harry paced back and forth three times in front of the tapestry, thinking about needing a place to rest and perhaps begin making the potions he needed.
When the door appeared, Harry opened it to find what seemed to be a modified version of the Black library. The whole fireplace setup was there, but now off to one end of the room there was a comfortable-looking, king sized bed, and on the other side of the room, it looked to be like a well stocked potion set up. Investigating the potions station in more depth, Harry saw that there were many, many ingredients now readily available to him, some that could possibly cost thousands of gallons. It had every single ingredient Harry could possibly think of needing and then some.
“Can you create things?” Harry asked the room, wondering how it was able to get all these things.
Paying more attention to the magic around him, Harry felt the Room tell him no, it couldn’t create things.
“Then how did this all get here?”
The large piece of parchment appeared once again and the Room wrote an explanation down.
‘While the Room cannot create things, it can shape things that have been left behind to fit the person in the Room’s needs. However, the Room cannot change the magic of a thing it shapes.
“So I’m guessing past students, or maybe even professors, have left objects behind, which you can then shape to how a person needs it to look like, but since you can’t change the magical properties of things, the ingredients you have gotten are actual ingredients left behind by people who have entered Hogwarts?”
Harry got the sense that the Room was shaking its metaphorical head yes. Basically, the Room was the ultimate pro at Transfiguration and Charms was what Harry was understanding. He could feel the Room laughing at such an assessment. However, who the hell leaves ingredients worth thousands of gallons? Who even brings those to Hogwarts in the first place? Harry decided that finding the answers to those questions would cause more headaches than necessary.
“Anyways, thank you for letting me come here. You are okay if I’m here, right?” Harry double checked.
‘Of course,’ the Room seemed to say.
Harry didn’t know why he felt the need to be so polite to a room of all things, but if this thing was at least semi-sentient, shouldn’t he treat it with respect? Pondering what he should do next, Harry decided that since he was so dreadfully tired, he should try to get some rest. Then, he would start brewing. He could work on learning things that interested him and growing stronger later, but if he tried to do that now, he would probably end up hurting himself more than helping himself.
Harry made his way over to the comfortable bed and didn’t bother setting an alarm. He knew he wouldn’t oversleep because he never slept long anyways. He was so tired that he even decided to forgo working on his occlumency, a practice he had maintained every night since first learning about mind magic. The moment he went under the covers, he felt his eyes drop, and instead of lying awake thinking of the past as he often did, Harry fell sound asleep.
A few hours later, Harry woke from a nightmare about Vernon hitting him, calling him a freak, and locking him in the cupboard for a week all because he had broken one of Aunt Petunia’s spare glasses. He thought it was better than waking up from seeing Cedric’s lifeless body, so he counted that nightmare as a win.
Casting a refreshment charm on himself, he made his way over to the potions station and debated what potion he should start with first: Pepper Up, Dreamless Sleep, or the eye correcting one. Well, what if instead he brewed all of them at once? As soon that thought appeared in his mind, the Room expanded and added two more cauldrons to the potions station. One of them was even made of pure diamond, something required for the eyesight potion. Who the hell leaves a pure diamond cauldron at Hogwarts?
Guess he would be making all three at once. Casting a wandless and wordless tempus, Harry saw it was 2:00 a.m. He wasn’t sure what time he had gone to sleep, only that it was after dinner, so while he didn’t know how much sleep he had gotten, he did know that he had about 8 hours to brew before his 10:30 a.m. class, which was Charms. He said about 8 hours because he would need time to clean up and actually get to the Charms classroom, meaning he would need about 30 minutes to do so.
With that amount of time, Harry predicted that he would be able to brew a few batches of both Pepper Up and Dreamless Sleep with no issue. It was just the eyesight potion that would be a problem. It didn’t just take one day to brew. It took several. While you weren't brewing throughout the whole process, you did need to let it sit for long periods of time, and Harry wasn’t sure if the Room could preserve itself while he wasn’t in it.
In response to Harry’s thought, the Room wrote on a piece of parchment, ‘The Room will stay as long as you need it to.’
He tried to convey his thanks to the Room through his magic. Then, he wondered if the Room had the exact recipe that Harry needed for the eyesight potion. While he remembered bits of the recipe from the library, he didn’t remember it all. This was definitely a grave oversight of his, and it would be terribly awkward if the Room didn’t have it. He could do Pepper Up and Dreamless sleep without any problem, but without the recipe for the eyesight potion, Harry didn’t think he would risk even trying to attempt what would probably be his most difficult potion to date. Suddenly, a book appeared in front of him, and while it didn’t seem to be the same book the library recommended him, checking the table of contents, Harry saw the book contained the exact recipe he needed. Again, thanking the Room through his magic, Harry got to brewing.
He decided in order to avoid cross contamination of each potion, he would craft each potion within their respective cauldron areas and make sure to cast a refreshment charm on himself each time he switched stations. If Harry did his timing right, he predicted he could make about 6 batches of 12 for the Pepper Up potion, 5 batches of 8 for Dreamless Sleep, and complete phase one of the eyesight potion. After each phase of the eyesight potion, the potion needed to sit for 12 hours, and while Harry may not be able to come to the Room as often as the potion required, a simple stasis charm could help him out a whole lot.
After merely one hour of his eight hour brewing session, Harry felt he could truly understand why some people love potion making so much. At one point in his life, he had wondered how people could dedicate their lives to brewing rather than casting magic. Now, he saw how easy it was to become enamoured with the logic of brewing. If one followed the steps, they could reach the perfect result. It was comforting. Yet while those certain steps should feel restricting, after all if you make one mistake, the potion could fail, Harry knew that those restrictions only meant you hadn’t explored the craft enough. Because he had read so much about potion ingredients over the summer, he understood you didn’t need to follow the recipe if you knew what you were doing.
It was a beautiful art, similar to baking a cake. If you have never baked a cake in your life, you would need to follow the steps. You would have no idea why certain amounts of certain ingredients must go into the batter, but you would know if you didn’t follow the steps, your cake would turn out wrong. Yet when you became more experienced with baking and understood the purpose of each ingredient, you could change the ingredients to suit your own tastes. It was brilliant and Harry loved it.
He could also say he was starting to understand why Snape was so hard on them in class. It was very difficult for someone to make a potion successfully when they had never heard of that potion until, sometimes, only ten minutes ago. If you asked someone to make a cake, but they had never even heard of a cake before in their life, it would be difficult for them to do so. That’s sort of how every potions lesson is, except the mistakes made in potions are more disastrous than mistakes made when baking a cake. So, yes, he could say he was starting to understand Snape’s unrelenting strictness a bit better now.
It seemed that in a flash, the eight hours passed and it was nearing the time he would leave for Charms. Harry, having edited his Pepper Up and Dreamless Sleep potions due to his knowledge of ingredients and adapting the recipe each time he brewed it, was able to make a total of 100 Pepper Ups and 70 Dreamless Sleep, very much only made possible by the rooms seemingly endless supply of ingredients. He didn’t dare try to mess with the eyesight potion since he knew that he didn’t understand the potion enough to do so safely, but he was okay with that. All in all, Harry was terribly proud of himself. While 8 hours of brewing should have made him exhausted, he felt rejuvenated, even more so after he drank one of his Pepper Up potions. His Pepper Up tasted so much better than the Pepper Up they learned in school. After cleaning up the Pepper Up and Dreamless Sleep stations, he honest to Merlin skipped to the Charms classroom. Harry blamed that on Pepper Up potion.
As he neared the Charms classroom, he forced himself to stop skipping. People already thought he was looney, no need to add fuel to fire. Arriving ten minutes early and taking a seat in the back of the classroom, Harry pulled out one of the books that the library gave him and a piece of parchment to take notes. He didn’t care to pay attention in this class, even if he did like Professor Flitwick. He just didn’t need to. Looking at the title, RuneCraft: A Beginner’s Handbook, Harry fidgeted with the seemingly permanent bracelets on his left wrist and began to read. Maybe now he could learn more about what the runes on his bracelet meant.
This class, being combined with Hufflepuffs, meant that nobody would sit next to him. Neville, the only person who would be willing to sit next to him, had several friends in Hufflepuff, so the only person who may have sat with him would definitely not. He was used to the solitude by now, so it really didn’t affect him. Rather, he was grateful because now he wouldn’t have to deal with potential questions of ‘why are you studying runes in charms class?’ and ‘since when did you take runes?’.
As he was reading, Harry noticed out of the corner of his eye that Professor Flitwick seemed to be surprised that Harry was in his class early, and the short professor seemed to do a double take when he realized that Harry was willingly reading something. Harry hadn’t realized that his reputation as a bad student had been that bad. When the class officially began, Harry briefly paused reading to say ‘here’ when Professor Flitwick took attendance and to see if the professor mentioned anything important about OWL’s, which he did not.
When the bell rang, Harry packed up his things and thought to himself that this had been the quickest Charms class ever. The book was highly fascinating, and while Harry was a bit confused by some of the new concepts, he didn’t feel as though he could never understand them. Briefly glancing at the board before he left, Harry took note that they had a twelve inch essay due next week on various applications of Cistem Aperio, which was simply used to open things. A rather easy task, but extremely tedious.
Heading to the Great Hall for lunch, Harry pulled out his schedule and double checked what his next class was. He sighed to himself when he confirmed it was Potions at 3:00. Merlin, not Snape. As he was nearing the Great Hall’s doors, he could just hear the man's dreary voice calling out ‘Potter!’ He heard the voice again, and then a third time, and then realized that he wasn’t imagining things. Professor Snape was actually calling for him.
“Potter!” the professor shouted for what may have been the fourth time.
Definitely not a good sign. What had he done now?
“Yes, professor?” Harry turned around and tried to politely ask.
To be snarky with the man now would be a horrible mistake.
“When I call you, I expect you to respond. Dumbledore has informed me that due your poor performance last year in potions, I am to give you personal lessons every Monday night starting next week,” Snape gritted out, as if every word he spoke terribly pained him, “You will meet me in my classroom at 8:00 p.m., on the dot. Do not be late.”
With great dramatic flair, Snape turned around, cloak blowing out behind him, and stomped off back down to the dungeons, not giving Harry a chance to respond. What did he mean about his poor performance in potions last year? Harry may not have done O level work, but he definitely didn’t get a T, as he knew some other students did. If he remembered correctly, he had passed with an A, so what did Snape mean? Thinking on the topic a bit more as he found a seat at the Gryffindor table and began to make his lunch, Harry realized that it probably had nothing to do with potions at all. It was probably an Order business of some sort. But what type of business? He was suddenly incredibly thankful for the sleep he had gotten last night and the Pepper Up potions he had brewed.
When Harry finished his lunch, he made his way to the library and decided to get all of his important homework done first rather than reading more about runes as he would like to. If he only did things he wanted to do, he would never get his school work done, which would go against his goal of being a good student. He sort of regretted not getting his Transfiguration or Defense homework during Charms, but oh well. The past is in the past. Honestly, he was very tempted to aim for the top spot, if only to piss off Hermione. Who knew if he could get it, but it would be interesting to try.
It took him all the way until he had to leave for potions to get his homework done, but he had finished all of his homework, including the footlong essay for Charms that was due in a week. Getting that out of the way would leave him loads of free time to work on things he wanted to instead, so Harry was happy with his work.
When he reached the potions classroom, Harry took the first seat he saw, not caring where it was located. Harry had heard that starting OWL year, as the potions got more complex, Snape began to assign the seats so that certain students would work with each other. While in the past he had thought this annoying, he now realized that this was probably a safety measure to make sure that students treated these more complex potions with the proper care they require. He knew that when Ron and him were on good terms before the whole Tri-Wizard tournament fiasco, if they had worked together on a complex potion, the room most likely would have blown up. So while the arranged seating brought no pleasure to anyone, Harry understood it.
The same could not be said for some of his Gryffindor peers, who, as they entered the classroom, could be heard groaning and whining about how they were so upset they wouldn't be able to sit with their friends this year. Harry noticed even some of the Slytherins complaining. Harry thought it wasn't that deep, but that may just be because he didn't have many friends at the moment. Right as the bell rang, Snape entered in all his dramatic fashion and ordered everyone to stand up and gather their things.
“Longbottom, next to Goyle in the front row,” Snape demanded, not even bothering to introduce what he was doing.
As Snape continued to list out pairs and their locations, Harry came to the realization that he was partnering Gryffindors with Slytherins. At first, he thought this was a horrible, terrible idea. The house rivalry will absolutely cause chaos. But when he thought about the pairs, he realized that there was an actual reason behind them. Take Neville and Goyle for example. Neville was a ball of nerves when it came to potions, while Goyle was rarely affected by anything. While many people believed Goyle was a bit dim, Harry knew that when it came to potions, Goyle was at least halfway decent and confident in the work he did. This meant the two could balance each other out. He paired Hermione with Tracey Davis, someone who, just like Hermione, strictly played it by the book, meaning Hermione wouldn't argue about the correct way to do something as she often did when paired with Ron or, when they were friends, Harry himself. There was a small amount of brilliancy to Snapes pairings that Harry could, unwillingly, give the man a bit of credit for.
“Potter with Nott,” Snape monotonously stated before moving on to the next pairing.
Harry widened his eyes a bit in surprise. Being paired with Nott, someone he had struck a deal with just yesterday, almost seemed to be fate. When Harry thought about it, it was probably the best pairing for him. To many, Harry was hot-headed and irrational. He didn’t think things through. On the other hand, all Nott appeared to do was think.
“Potter,” Theo courteously greeted.
Harry knew that they had to maintain that they knew almost nothing about each other in public, but he still wanted to hear Theo say his name again. It was strange, wanting such a thing, but Harry decided it was just because he was lacking in the friend department currently.
“Nott,” Harry curtly responded, not letting any of his disappointment show on his face.
“To test how many of you did your summer work, you will be brewing the Invigoration Draught. I expect all of you to know the thorough ins and outs of this potion since you had to write a 36 inch essay on the topic. Instead of collecting your essay, I will base your summer work grade off of how well you complete the potion. If you did not do your assignment, you better hope your partner did because the only resources allowed will be your paper and a list of ingredients. I expect this potion to be done by the end of the class period,” Snape explained.
Harry looked around and saw the anxious faces of several students who quite obviously did not do their essays. He wasn’t worried at all about this assignment. He had written the essay and this potion, while complicated in a few aspectects, was overall fairly easy. Harry silently mourned all the time he had spent on that potions essay, something he had worked rather hard on.
“I assume this will go fine?” Theo asked, tilting his head a bit to the side.
He was closer to Harry than what could be considered normal, and Harry could see the golden speckles in his hazel eyes. Startled by the sudden closeness, he tried to discreetly scoot back a bit.
“Yeah,” Harry responded, hoping his voice didn’t sound shaky, “I did the essay, even went a bit over 36 inches of writing. It should be a breeze. I’ll go get the ingredients if you’d like?”
“Never expected you to be an overachiever, Potter,” Theo said, “Sure, I’ll set up the station.”
Harry left to go get the ingredients, and when he returned, Theo was already done setting everything up. While they were brewing, Harry was surprised at how unawkward the whole situation was turning out to be. Sure, he had just struck up a partnership with Theo yesterday, but they had hardly ever talked to each other before then. When Theo had so courteously greeted him, Harry had assumed they would probably work in silence, dividing up the work evenly and minding their own business. Instead, there was fluid conversation between the two of them during the whole process. They constantly communicated what they were doing, and if one didn't understand something, the other was able to explain it. It genuinely surprised Harry how well they worked together. It was a type of functionality he had never been able to reach with another person before, not even Ron or Hermione when they were friends.
By the end of class, they had procured a perfect potion, and when Snape came over to collect their potion, Harry had to use all of his self control to keep from laughing at the professor's shocked face. Sure, the professor’s face didn’t remain shocked for long. He wasn’t Dumbledor’s spy for no reason, but Harry had seen the momentary slip up and that was everything. This was definitely the best potions class he had ever had.
Nodding bye to Nott and leaving the potions classroom, Harry made his way to the library once again and opened his book about Runes. He was hoping to finish the book before supper.
Proven right only an hour or two later, Harry finished his runes book and was left with a strong desire to learn more. According to the book, runes are symbols that represent specific things. The example the book gave to describe runes and their complexities went like this. The rune of a unicorn is synonymous with the number one. The number one, depending on the context, can represent wholeness or new beginnings. The rune letter Uruz symbolizes strength or healing, and again, when given more of the rune sequence, meaning more context, these meanings can change. Now, if you pair the unicorn and Uruz together in the correct order, place them on a creature who is injured, maybe lost a leg or something, and place a bit of magic into the runes, the combination of wholeness and healing can actually regrow the lost limb.
However, if you were to put Uruz and then unicorn, then the rune sequence would have a completely different effect. When placed on a creature, it would actually de-age the human while forcing the muscles to expand and become stronger, which could inevitably lead to the grotesque explosion of the person. The book went on to explain if you tilt these runes in a certain manner or reverse them, that can also affect their results, but neglected mentioning these results for the quote ‘sanity of the reader.’
Harry was starting to understand why Hogwarts waits until Third Year to begin teaching this subject. It sounded undeniably complex, yet Harry was finding that he quite enjoyed the challenge. Looking down at his bracelets, he was able to recognize several of the runes carved into the leather. While he could recognize what specific runes they were, right there was Kaunan and over there was Algiz, he had absolutely no clue what exactly the sequences meant. Harry hoped that if he studied the bracelets enough, he would eventually be able to work it out. Though having a better understanding of runes now, he could definitely tell that these bracelets were far more complex than anything he could learn overnight. It would take him some time, but he knew he could do it
Packing his things up, he went to super and then back to the Gryffindor tower. He had some things to grab from his suitcase before he went back to the Room of Requirement for his eyesight potion. He had about three hours before the potion could be touched again, so in the meantime he was planning on practicings some of the combat spells in a book the library had given him.
After telling the Fat Lady ‘mimbulus mimbletonia,’ Harry entered the common room, which didn’t have many people in it, and made a beeline for the boys dormitories. He wanted to get in and out of there as quickly as possible to avoid any confrontation. He knew he would have to return later tonight so that none of the boys reported him for not returning to the dorms, but he wanted to spend the least amount of time there possible. Unfortunately, before he could start making his way up the many flights of stairs, Hermione and Ron, who were sitting in front of the fireplace, spotted him.
“Harry!” Hermione called to him.
He was really tempted to just ignore her, but was slightly curious as to what she wanted. She made a ‘come here’ motion, and Harry very much did not want to go there, but decided to anyway. The look on Hermione and Ron’s faces were the type they had when they were scheming something, and while Harry most definitely did not want in on the scheme, he did want to know what they were doing. When he arrived at the fireplace, he decided to remain standing.
“Why don't you sit down, mate?” Ron asked.
“I’m okay standing, thanks,” Harry curtly responded.
Hermione sighed in annoyance but decided not to mention it any further. To Harry, that was just a signal that they wanted something from him.
“Well, Harry, as you know, Professor Umbridge is not teaching us the practical portion of spells this year, and… well… Ron and I were thinking, since You-Know-Who is back, that you could perhaps… lead a group that would help teach the practical portions of each spell?” Hermione hesitantly asked before continuing to explain her idea, “The group could meet every so often, and it would have students from all houses, all ages as well. ”
Harry could tell Hermione was studying his face and trying to gauge his reaction, but he felt they should already know his answer. There was no way in hell he was agreeing to such a thing.
“You have real battle experience, Harry,” Ron continued when Hermione stopped speaking, “You may not be the brightest in general, but you're definitely the best out of us in Defense. You’re the best option we got.”
For a moment, Harry could see the remnants of his friends in their faces. The people he had, at one point in his life, trusted with his life. He felt almost compelled to agree. Afterall, he could see the true desperation in their eyes. He guessed they were probably scared about the war. They looked as though they needed him, and growing up with the Dursleys, something Harry had always wanted was to feel needed.
Then, his runes bracelet heated up, and Harry noticed an odd smell permeating the air.
Studying fire, he realized that the smoke coming from the flames appeared to be white rather than grayish black. He examined Hermione and Ron’s faces with more attention to detail. The two had never been meant for Slytherin. Hermione’s face held thinly veiled annoyance, while Ron’s looked as if he had sucked on a lemon. He seemed to be trying to do a kind smile, but in reality, it appeared as a disgusted grimace. How could he have been so blind? How could he have, albeit momentarily, forgotten the things they said behind his back? How they had treated him?
“Harry,” Hermione interjected, disturbing his thoughts, “Look, I know we’ve been through a lot, but we need your help. Please. Ron and I will forgive you for all you’ve said to us. Consider it water under the bridge. Just, please?”
“I’m good, thanks,” Harry tersely stated.
Why did he need their forgiveness?
“What?” Hermione exclaimed, evidently shocked he had refused.
“Mate, seriously?” Ron angrily sputtered, “We are giving you a chance to be friends with us again, and you’re just saying no? Even if you don’t want to be friends, think of all the people who need your help! You’re just going to turn your back on them? ”
“Yeah, I am. I think I’ve made it perfectly clear that I don't want to be friends anymore. And I know it sounds like I’m turning my back on all these people, but I don't see why I need to be the one to help them. I’ve already helped them multiple times. They can practice on their own and ask their friends for help. I’m sure Hermione would love to teach anyone who asked her for help. I see no reason why I should have to become a pseudo teacher when Hogwarts is the one who should be providing a good education,” Harry explained.
“As much as it pains me to admit, Hogwarts isn’t providing a good education,” Hermione argued, “That is why we need your help. We need to do something about this problem, and you are the solution!”
“But I’m not the only solution,” Harry countered, “I’m just the solution that would allow you guys to do the least amount of work, all while taking upon a large burden by myself. I have things to do this year. I don’t have the time to teach everyone in Hogwarts Defense. It’s great if you guys want to have this little club, but I want absolutely no part of it.”
“Mate, what do you mean ‘you don’t have the time?” Ron condescendingly asked, “You don’t do much. We hardly ever see you around because always somewhere else goofing off doing Merlin knows what. I just don’t understand how you could abandon everyone like this. It’s not how the Harry Potter we know acts.”
“Yes, Harry, Ron’s right,” Hermione added, “You haven't been the same ever since this summer. We understand that Cedric’s death has been hard on you, but that doesn’t give you the right to treat us so horribly.”
Merlin, the mention of Cedric still hurts, and he had to fight hard to maintain his composure. He didn’t care that even though they had known each other for over four years, they still didn’t seem to understand him. He understood now that they were never his friends to begin with. He did, though, care about Cedric. The boy he couldn’t save.
“Look, you’ve understood so many things wrong about this entire situation that I’m not even going to begin to start to explain to you where you went wrong,” Harry explained in a monotonous voice, refusing to let any of his emotions show, “Before I leave this conversation, I just want you to know that I will never help you with this club. I don’t care what you think of me because of that.”
Harry then turned around and left the situation. It would cause him more harm than good than staying here and continuing to argue his case. He could also tell that the few students who were in the common room had stopped to watch their conversation, and he would rather avoid adding more rumors to the gossip mill, even if that was inevitable at this point. The smartest choice he could make right now was retreat. He could hear Ron and Hermione trying to call him back behind him, but he paid them no mind.
When he entered the stairway, Harry didn’t immediately walk up the stairs. Instead, he cast a simple charm that temporarily enhanced human hearing. While people often think that enhanced hearing is great, they soon find out that human hearing is the perfect level if you don’t want to constantly be hearing your joints move. He had learned this charm in their school book for this year, but it wasn’t something they had learned in class yet. He also knew that Ron and Hermione definitely did not have the foresight to cast a Silencing spell around them, meaning he could perfectly hear the conversation they were having right now.
“Why didn’t it work?” he could hear Ron say.
“I’m not sure,” Hermione responded with clear anger in her voice, “Dumbledore had said that this powder would make him more susceptible to agreeing with us, but it didn’t seem to work at all. I don’t know. We’ve never been told to try to magically influence him, so maybe we did something wrong? God, everything was so much easier when he liked us. Why did you have to be such a prick to him last year?”
Stretching his magic, he tried to see if he could find the powder, which was undeniably magical in nature, could be sensed. Immediately, Harry could sense a foreign type of magic in the air. It went all throughout the common room, but it was most concentrated around the fire, which would help explain why the smoke had been a suspicious color. That meant that it was probably the smoke that was spreading the powder, and because smoke goes everywhere, it was probably affecting everyone in the room without them even realizing. Studying Ron and Hermione’s magical signatures in more depth, he could tell they had cast some sort of spell around their mouths and noses. Harry guessed that it made them impervious to the smoke.
“I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t stand him when his name came out of the Goblet. I mean, he gets everything I want. I couldn’t take it anymore,” Ron paused as if stewing in his anger a bit, “Dumbledore’s going to be so mad, isn’t he.”
Hermione let out a sigh.
“Technically,” she said, “We haven’t failed yet. We just need to try again.”
“But he made it clear he didn’t want to talk to us, ‘Mione.”
“I’ll think of something. He’s just so annoying. I don’t understand why Dumbledore places so much value in him. Sure, he is ‘The Boy-Who-Lived,’ but that really seems to be his only credential. I dont get why he is so important to the war when other people would be much better suited.”
“You can say that again, and the way he acts…”
Harry went up the stairway, not caring to hear anymore of their words. He had heard what he had needed to hear. Dumbledore had put them up to this. At least he knew for certain they had never tried such a thing as magically influencing him before, but it also made him sad to realize that he had been so blinded by the thought of friendship that he failed to notice he was being manipulated. Harry was certain this was probably some goal of Dumbledore’s when he left Harry with the Dursleys.
When he reached the fifth flight of stairs, Harry was pleased to notice that no one else was in the room. Quickly, he grabbed the books he needed and put on his invisibility cloak, not wanting to face anyone else today. Leaving the room once again, he internally sighed about the fact that he now had to walk down five flights of stairs. That was better than walking up so many stairs, but it was still a great hassle for one to go through for only needing a few things in their room. He suddenly missed the muggle escalators and elevators and wondered why the Gryffindor towers didn’t have such a thing in place? He had seen that the ministry had elevators, so why doesn’t Hogwarts? It didn’t make sense. And what if a student had a disability? What would they do in this situation?
By the time he reached the Room of Requirement, he only had about two hours left before he needed to continue working on his eyesight potion. The Room, while it had maintained its previous look, had now enlarged to hold an entire duelling arena. When Harry was in the Room, he always kept his magic stretched out in case the Room wanted to communicate. It was because of this that he was able to sense the protective barrier around the arena that would prevent any spells from leaving the premise. That meant his potion was completely safe, no matter how much Harry messed up a spell.
To be honest, he was slightly annoyed that Ron and Hermione had taken up so much of his time. Harry wondered if he should just permanently move to the Room of Requirement, sleeping there instead of the Gryffindor tower to avoid conflict and have the time to do more important things. He wasn’t sure that any of the boys would report him for not showing up since they’d probably prefer to not see him at all. And if they did, well Harry could deal with that problem later. He decided he would think about that idea more at a later date because, for now, he had some defensive and offensive magic to work on.
Taking out one of the books the library had given him titled The Art of Magical Warfare: The Duelist’s Complete Spellbook, something he had already read, he flipped through the pages, deciding what spells to try out first. The book was a comprehensive guide to some of the most useful spells when it came to fighting. All the spells varied in complexity and there were three parts to the book: Neutral, Defense, and Offense. The Neutral spells were spells that either couldn’t be classified as purely offensive or defensive, or ones that had uses for both. The other two sections were self-explanatory. Harry knew that one of the ways to get stronger was for him to expand his spell repertoire. It was horribly humiliating when he was facing Voldemort and the only spell he seemed to know how to cast was Expelliarmus. Sure, he knew more spells than that, but it had been the only one he was proficient in. Mentally, he asked the Room if it could produce some dummies for him to practice on, and the Room happily obliged. He set a timer to go off a few minutes before he needed to continue working on his eyesight potion and got to practicing.
Harry decided to first practice these spells with a wand. While these spells were of varying complexity, all of them could be considered difficult. It was just a matter of how difficult the spell could be. After he mastered the spells with a wand, he would move on to wandless and then wordless. He needed to get good at wandless at the very least. What if he was in a situation where Voldemort wasn’t kind enough to return his wand to him once again? He needed to be prepared for anything. Wordless magic was important because what if someone vanished his mouth during a fight. If he didn’t know wordless magic, he would be essentially useless. Harry had never heard of such a thing happening, but he needed to be prepared for anything.
He decided to choose one spell from each section and go in that order. That way he wouldn’t be learning too much offense or too much defense. Having a well rounded repertoire was more important than just learning what he thought was fun. The first spell he chose was Ventus Spiralis. It was a neutral spell which allowed you to produce wind and control it however you wanted. To Harry, it was definitely one of the coolest spells he had ever heard of. You could force the winds into sharp spikes, which could cut and pierce your opponent without them ever seeing the weapons coming. You could create a solid shield of wind to protect yourself. You could use the wind to fling objects. If he really wanted, Harry was sure he could use the wind to make himself fly or float his opponent in the air. Harry almost laughed at the thought of Dumbledore floating helplessly in the air.
Next, he chose Protegium Impervio. It was basically an unbreakable shield. According to the author, it wasn’t technically unbreakable because extremely powerful magic like Fiendfyre could destroy the shield. However, it was close enough. Lastly, he chose Talea Artus, which would sever the limbs of a person in the area he aimed.
So, for the next approximately one hour and forty-five minutes, Harry practiced these three spells. At first, he practiced them on stationary dummies. Then, when that became too easy, the Room made the dummies move. The dummies couldn’t cast spells back, but they definitely gave Harry a challenge. Finally, the dummies reduced down to one dummy and that one dummy could cast spells back. It was like he was in an actual duel. Harry had no clue how the Room had done it, but it was extremely useful.
It was exhilarating, to say the least, to fight so freely. He loved dancing around the dummies, hitting them when they least expected it. He enjoyed dodging the singular dummy’s spells and casting back. It was amazing that, for once, he wasn’t cowering in fear. Sure, he really had only three more useful skills he could use, but that was three more than what he had less than two hours ago.
While he originally thought he was going to practice more spells within this time period, he hadn’t realized how hard trying to master three spells was going to be. Still, he wasn’t disappointed. These spells, if mastered correctly, could be extremely useful, and Harry would rather learn a few spells very well than know many and not be able to use them properly. If he put it into perspective, sometimes they only learned one spell during two weeks. The quickest they usually ever learn one spell was during an hour and a half class session. Harry had just learned three spells in two hours, meaning he really shouldn’t be disappointed. He was actually doing great by that comparison. Noticing he was sweaty from running around dueling dummies, Harry cast a refreshment charm on himself and went to work on his eyesight potion.
The next few days passed similarly, though without as much drama as the whole Hermione and Ron situation had caused. He would go to his classes, pay attention in the classes that he needed to, work on homework or read about runes or other types of magic in the classes he didn’t. Rather than spending his freetime in the library, he most often spent his time in the Room of Requirement. There was less disturbance there and the Room had every single thing Harry could possibly need. Afterall, its book section was much better stocked than the Hogwarts library. He also began spending his nights there, sleeping when he could, brewing different potions for fun while still working on the eyesight one, dueling fairly often as well. So far, no one had reported him, so he took that as a good sign. Being Quidditch captain, he also started organizing when tryouts would be. While people may not like him right now, their love for Quidditch triumphed over their hatred for him, so last year's players never argued with him when he talked to them about preseason training.
On Sunday night, Harry finished his eyesight potion. Fortunately, it looked like he hadn’t messed up. The color was the light greenish yellow it should be with purple speckles evenly mixed within, and the texture was just like gel, something which would undoubtedly be difficult to swallow. The potion itself was only about two ounces, strange because Harry had added more than two ounces of liquid alone into the potion, but the book had said that if you had a potion size larger than a double shot of espresso, you did something wrong.
Bottling up the potion but not bothering to put on a lid, Harry walked over to the bed and sat down, trying to ignore the disgusting look of the potion. Despite its small size, Harry noticed there was no way it was going down in one gulp. According to the book, the potion took twelve hours to fully take effect, and it also mentioned that it was better to knock back a specially strong Dreamless Sleep potion right after as to avoid most of the discomfort. It was about 8:00 p.m. at night, and Harry had brewed himself some of the strongest Dreamless Sleep potions of his life just yesterday. If he drank it now, his eyesight could be fixed by the time he went to Umbridge's class tomorrow morning.
Accio’ing his Dreamless Sleep potion wandlessly and wordlessly to his bedside, Harry stared at the potion in distaste for a few more seconds before gathering what was left of his Gryffindor courage and drinking the potion. Even when he turned the potion upside down, it was so thick that it took a few seconds to even start coming out the bottle. When he was able to start drinking the potion though, it somehow tasted… cold? It didn’t feel cold at all in his mouth, but it tasted cold. It was one of the weirdest feelings he had ever experienced and he was so glad he only had to take this potion once in his life.
After emptying the eyesight potion bottle, he could already tell the potion was working. His eyes started feeling as though there were fireflies dancing around in his brain and Harry immediately reached for his Dreamless Sleep potion, knocking it back far quicker than the eyesight potion. Almost immediately, he was asleep. He hadn’t even had the time to tuck himself under the covers, barely managing to throw his glasses off somewhere to the side.
Around six hours later, Harry awoke again, only this time, instead of fireflies in his brain, it felt as though two bricks were being slammed over and over again in his head. Immediately, he Accio’d another Dreamless Sleep potion and went back to sleep. Harry thought about how this would be the most sleep he had ever gotten, maybe in his entire life.
Another six hours later, Harry woke up again, and out of sheer habit, reached for his glasses. Tapping around the bedside table with his eyes still shut, Harry realized he couldn’t find them. So, he opened his eyes and looked around, realizing he saw his glasses a few meters across the floor away from him.
Wait.
He could see his glasses a few meters away from him. They weren’t merely a blob.
He could see.
Immediately springing out of bed, Harry looked all around him. The Room looked so crisp. He felt as though nothing could escape his attention. Were his glasses really that bad? Or did the potion enhance eyesight? Either way, he felt as though it may as well be cheating to use this eyesight to catch the snitch. How could he miss the snitch when everything was so clear?
He walked over to the potion book that contained the eyesight recipe and read the potion description over again. The description said the potion only brought you to 20/20 vision. It did not enhance vision. It astounded Harry that this was how most wizards saw the world. It was amazing.
Casting a quick tempus, Harry realized it was already 8:10 in the morning, so he needed to sprint to make it early to Umbridge's class. With how easily she handed out detention slips, he needed to do everything he could to not get on that woman’s bad side.
“Ventus Spiralis,” Harry muttered aloud, using the wind to bring everything he needed straight to him.
While he had mastered the spell with a wand, he was working towards a mastery wandlessly. In the past few days, he had learned many spells, but this seemed to be the one giving him the most trouble. It was probably due to the broad variety of applications and how focused you had to be to force the wind to do what you want.
Using his magic to thank the Room for allowing him to stay another night, Harry ran out the door. Thankfully, due to Dudley's favorite game of ‘Harry Hunting,’ Harry had learned to run very fast and made it to the pink toads room, which was all the way on the other side of the castle, in less than three minutes. He cast a quick refreshment charm on himself and did his best to regain his breath. A few seconds later, Harry heard the door creak open, signaling it was 8:15.
“Mr. Potter, delighted to see you here on time as usual,” the joke of a professor greeted.
“Of course, professor,” Harry insisted, trying to sound as genuine as possible, “I wouldn’t imagine anything but. This is such an important class!”
Harry wanted to rip his larynx out so he could never speak again. The words he said genuinely tasted vile in his mouth.
“Oh-ho-ho,” the toad chuckled, before seeming to do a double take on him, “I see you have finally gotten rid of your glasses? It’s a good look on you.”
With that, the disgusting creature turned around and strutted off towards the front of the room. Harry could only compare her to a peacock who had yet to realize all their feathers were horribly crooked and irredeemably dirty and that flaunting such things around was not something to be proud of. He felt absolutely disgusted by the professor’s compliment. He honestly debated Obliviating that memory from his head. He shuddered just remembering how she had looked at him.
Harry took his seat towards the middle left, as he had in the past few classes, pulled out his school textbook once again, and flipped to the page the class had last left off on. He also pulled out a few pieces of parchment for what looked like notes. However, on one of the pieces of parchment, he had written out all the most common runes, and on the other, he was practicing sequencing. That way it looked like he was paying attention to the class, but he was actually practicing something much more interesting.
The sequencing was very basic. It was stuff that the Third Years probably learned, but it was stuff that he needed to understand if he ever wanted to decipher his bracelets. He couldn’t rush this learning process, or else he could make terrible mistakes that could genuinely cause bodily injury. Neville sat next to him, as he always did in Defense class, and Harry briefly smiled and waved to the boy in lieu of greeting before going back to his work. Neville had returned the smile, before doing a double take, just as the Umbridge had, to look at his face, but evidently decided to not say anything. This was what he liked about Neville. Neville expected nothing of him, as he expected nothing of Neville. He knew if Harry wanted to explain, he would. Harry loved the simplicity of it all.
The class passed by in a flash. After class, Harry went down to the kitchens to grab some lunch, as he often did now to avoid the Great Hall, and went back to the Room of Requirement to continue on practicing combative magic. Later on, he arrived early for Transfiguration and worked on rune sequencing for the entirety of class.
After Transfiguration, he was inevitably forced to deal with the problem he had been avoiding for almost a week now. He had a lesson with Snape tonight at 8:00 p.m. on the dot, supposedly about potions but most likely not about potions. As much as he hated to admit, he was terribly nervous as to what the man’s goal was. Moreso, he was nervous as to what Dumbledore wanted out of his lessons with Snape. There seemed to be a million possibilities, yet none of them were realistic. Maybe Snape would train him in dueling? As if Dumbledore would ever arrange anything to help him. Maybe Snape would teach him about the war? With how insistent Dumbledore was that Harry should not be a part of the Order meetings, that definitely wasn’t true either. Was this really about potions? Nothing made sense.
He tried to distract himself to the best of his ability while in the Room of Requirement. He was going to do his homework, but realized that he had already finished it all. So instead, he tried to read, but his mind kept drifting off. Then, he tried to brew Angel’s Trumpet Draught, a poison that he had no use for but seemed fun to make, but potions only made him think of Snape and therefore the meeting tonight. Finally, he tried dueling the dummies. This actually worked, to Harry’s pleasant surprise. Dueling didn’t allow the mind to think of anything else, which was exactly what Harry needed at the moment. So, for the next few hours, Harry dueled. He didn’t do anything crazy or strenuous. He mainly worked on perfecting the spells he had already been learning, training so he could do them wandlessly and wordlessly. It should have felt repetitive, but instead it felt enjoyable and mind numbing.
Around 7:30 ish, Harry left the arena and ate some chicken and broccoli he had placed under a stasis charm for dinner. After he was done, Harry thanked the Room for all its help and began his dreadful journey down to the dungeons. While he didn’t take his time, he didn’t rush either to the dungeons. He knew better than to get there late, but he also really did not want to get there at all.
Still, time passes in the way it does and when you consistently place one foot in front of the other, you typically end up somewhere. Eventually, Harry found himself in front of the doors to the potions classroom. Checking the time, he saw that he was five minutes early and debated whether he should knock now or wait the five minutes outside Snape's door. The question was inevitably answered for him when the door creaked open and Snape glared down at him.