Lupine Tendencies

Harry walked into the dungeons to find an eerie room filled with students who didn’t dare speak a word. He had to stop himself from chuckling at the stern look Severus was shooting at him from his position at the chalkboard. 

“Ah, yes, our new celebrity… five minutes late.”

Harry put his hands behind his back and leaned a bit on one foot with an innocent expression on his face. The amused gleam in his green eyes that looked so much like Lily reincarnated ruined the effect for someone who knew the woman as well as Severus did. 

“Sorry, professor, I got lost on my way down.”

Bullshit. This room was one of the ones Harry frequented the most due to its constant occupant, Severus. The students, however, didn’t know that, not that it mattered. He never needed a good reason to take points from a Gryffindor before. 

“Ten points for being late and unprepared. Look at a map next time and find a seat, Potter, before I kick you out.”

Harry gave a sarcastic salute before turning to find the seat left purposefully open by his new blond acquaintance. 

“That’s okay, professor, I’ll make you give them back to me before class is over,” he promised with enough confidence to surprise even the brash and generally foolhardy Gryffindors 

He could almost hear the sneer in the man’s voice as he responded, “we’ll see, Potter.”

With that, Harry walked over to Malfoy’s open seat and took the spot with a smile as he attempted to ignore the gasps from pretty much everyone in the classroom who wasn’t there for the beginning of their alliance. 

“Do you have a death wish, Potter? No one talks back to Professor Snape.”

Harry scoffed under his breath. “I’m not one for formality. I’m not just going to sit down and take bullying, even if it is from someone like him. If that creates problems between us, then that is on him. It isn’t my responsibility to cater to his immaturity.”

Draco looked shocked at his new companion’s strong proclamations. The boy was determined and unafraid to speak his mind; Draco had to give him that. 

“Whatever you say. It’s your funeral.”

They looked up to the board, and Harry almost groaned when he saw his professor writing down the steps to make a fire resistance potion. One of the perks of basically living with a master of potions was the insane amount of information he learned on the subject. The stoic man refused to let him be anything but a natural at the subject. Severus said that potions had to be ingrained in his DNA with how good his mum was. To Severus’s credit, he was absolutely right. The subject came naturally to him. It was just like cooking in his eyes, and he’d been doing that for quite a few years before he was taken in by the staff of Hogwarts.

Unfortunately, that meant his current situation would be comparable to the legitimate apprentice of a master chef being asked to make cinnamon toast for breakfast. A spell could send him to sleep an eighth of the way into it, and it would still come out perfect. Severus’s class was not going to offer him respite from his normal, tortuous day. It was, in fact, probably going to be one of the worst parts of it.

“Maybe you weren’t just boasting," Malfoy complimented, sounding more than a little impressed. "Are you even paying attention to the potion?”

Harry looked toward the blond boy with an ample amount of confusion until he noticed that his hands were habitually following the steps on the board while he was complaining in his head. He was unaware he’d already started; he was moving on auto-pilot, nothing more. It was simply too easy, too boring. Stirring the potion until it turned a deep blue, Harry looked at Malfoy’s potion to see him doing much the same. 

“Are you?” Harry shot back.

Malfoy seemed offended by the very thought of it. “Focus? On this? You’ve got to be kidding me, Potter.”

Harry popped the cork on his salamander blood flask before eyeing about two tablespoons of it into his potion and stirring anti-clockwise.

“How the hell do you live through this?” Harry asked incredulously.

Malfoy grew a devilish smirk as he added blood to his own cauldron and started to stir with his off-hand. His other one, meanwhile, slipped into his robes and grabbed his wand. 

“You want to see how I survive here, Potter?” he was almost vibrating with mirth as he withdrew his wand and flicked it wordlessly at his potions case. “Watch this.”

Harry’s eyes widened when a very small amount of liquid extracted from an erumpent’s explosive horn floated from its vial and hovered between them silently. The two of them then subtly watched as it flew over to the cauldron of Ronald Weasley. It slipped in with a quiet plop when the redhead went to grab the shreds of bursting shrooms he'd just chopped for the first step of the potion. 

It took only a second for him to realize what was about to happen. Erumpent horn liquid gave explosive properties to whatever it was injected into just like it did when the erumpent stabbed something with its rhino-like horn. In a potion, it normally didn’t activate until something reactive was added to it or a spell agitated the mixture. It just so happened that bursting shrooms, the first ingredient in the fire resistance potion, were known for having minor explosive properties if the fungus detected movement near it. When the two mixed together, the erumpent’s horn liquid gained its reactive component, and the small dose of rather inconsequential explosive power from the cut-up shrooms would dull the lethality of the otherwise monstrous explosion to that of a harmless joke.

Ron added the shrooms with a scrunched face of concentration, but both he and his partner, Neville, let out yelps of surprise when the potion immediately began to bubble over the cauldron lid. Harry and Draco had to conceal their laughter with their sleeves as the potion then exploded into a cloud of unpleasant smelling fungal matter with only enough concussive force to make the two unfortunate victims squint their eyes. Harry was very impressed with the amount of knowledge Malfoy displayed with his prank. It took a lot of split-second predictions about how different, individual ingredients would work together. If he had used erumpent horn juice with something more dangerous, it could have wiped out the whole classroom; and if he'd used something else to activate the shrooms, it might not have been enough to truly make a scene. Balancing them to create something harmless but substantial enough to be amusing took a level of skill that might have gone unappreciated by a less astute potioneer.

Their amusement only increased further when the smoke cleared to reveal an outwardly irate Snape who was blatantly attempting to conceal his own amusement. The two pranked students gulped, neither possessing enough knowledge of potions to know why or how such an unexpected reaction came to be. Severus obviously figured it out despite Malfoy’s brilliantly hidden subterfuge. It seemed, though, that the potions professor had no intention of punishing the instigator. Perhaps the man was just as sick of dealing with incompetents as Harry and Malfoy were. 

“And what are we doing over here?” Severus asked condescendingly.

“I-I don’t know, professor,” Ron said back. “I just added the mushrooms. I don’t know how that happened.”

Severus sighed as he grabbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Obviously.”

Severus turned around to go toward the front of the room again, and while his back was turned, Harry decided that he could push it further. The blond looked at him with startled eyes as Harry flicked his own wand at Malfoy’s case. Three ingredients floated up to meet their gaze: Erumpent horn liquid, some pearl dust, and a couple of rose thorns. Malfoy couldn’t hold back a shocked laugh that he had to suppress with a louder cough. 

The erumpent horn had an obvious use, but rose thorns and pearl dust were common ingredients in many different types of potions. The pearl dust was an ingredient that was known to add a sensation of adoration to the love potions it was used in. The thorns were meant to create an intense, possibly even violent, but short-term infatuation compared to the rose petal, which made a softer, tamer, and longer feeling of arousal. All that was left was to find someone who still had only unmixed bursting shrooms in their potion, and the only two slower than Ron and Neville were Crabbe and Goyle. 

Harry flicked his wand at Goyle’s potion while his other hand went to grab his glass stirrer, and Malfoy's open mouth was more than enough to make Harry cackle under his breath. Both of their throats burned from how hard they were trying to keep their laughs inside of them. The Slytherins’ potion turned violently pink in an instant and boiled over into an explosion of mist that engulfed them completely. Severus turned around immediately, and his disappointed face twisted into one of surprise when he saw an opaque mass of pink mist. He could just barely smell the floral scent that came from rose thorns, and he immediately looked at Harry with an accusatory glare that only made the boy have to try even harder to keep his near-hysterical spasms under control. 

Snape looked at the effect the potion had on the two boys once the smoke cleared with an analytical eye, but Malfoy finally lost the ability to contain himself when he saw Crabbe and Goyle staring at each other with starstruck, glassy eyes. He expected it from Malfoy, but he should’ve known that Potter would be the one he had to look out for. The only trait Harry really got from his father was his habit of expelling his boredom by ruining the days of other people. While it was far more endearing in the Potter boy than it ever was in his malicious high school nemesis, he really should have kept a closer eye on him.

Snape was just barely able to catch both of them with a stunner before they could spring at each other with artificially induced passion. He was thankful that none of the class besides the Granger girl, a few of his Slytherins, and the two instigators knew what was about to happen. Malfoy and Potter, though, were losing it at their desks while pointing at the two stunned children. He was about to scold the two of them; that specific prank probably went just a bit too far when second-years were the targets, but that was before he noticed how genuine and childish their amusement was. He was deeply invested in both of those two students, one as a godfather and the other as a mentor.

They were both extremely isolated students who dealt with their similar, difficult situations very differently. Malfoy dealt with his lot as the heir to an aggressive, dark family by developing an unhealthy sense of superiority while Harry dealt with his situation by becoming aggressive, standoffish, and extremely mischievous. Neither of the two of them, though, really had fun for the sake of having fun. Their jokes and pranks were more to hold off thoughts on what would come in the future than they were to actually amuse them. The first potions class they had together might have been the first time that Severus actually thought they were honestly acting like kids in a very long time. He couldn’t bring himself to stop them, so he decided to talk to them about having just a little restraint in the future. For now, he had an antidote to brew. Luckily, the hastily added thorns and pearl dust did not make for a particularly strong potion, so it would be easy for him to break its hold on them. 

“What are you looking at?” Snape sternly asked of the gaping class at large. “This isn’t a show. Your potions are due at the end of class, so get brewing.”

Harry and Malfoy, having already finished with their potions, did not try extraordinarily hard to calm themselves. A small smile grew on Severus’s face once he turned around. Perhaps he was being a bit harsh when he recommended that Harry stay clear of his godson. The two were clearly good for each other; even a stubborn bastard like himself could see it. His concern, however, was what would happen once Lucius Malfoy decided to strengthen the grip he had on his son.

Harry stood before the Great Hall entrance, his previous good mood completely ruined by the noise coming from the rambunctious student body. He promised to avoid this place with everything he had, and he never made promises lightly. 

“Harry, I know you wish to avoid the hall, and I know it isn’t just because of your senses. People will begin asking questions if you refuse to attend two-thirds of your daily mealtimes. I don’t care what you do to make the noise more bearable, but I expect you to attend at least two of your three meals in the Great Hall.”

Of course, Severus would be the one forcing him to participate in social events with other students. That was fucking rich coming from the most introverted person he’d ever met including himself. He pushed the door open and looked toward the Gryffindor table. It did not make him happy to witness the pure chaos that was the school’s most energetic and rambunctious group of students. He eyed the table one more time, looked at Severus Snape, glanced at the other side of the room, and showed his middle finger loud and proud to the potions master. He was commanded to attend the feast, but he wasn’t told where he had to sit. Fuck Severus and his “for your own good” orders. 

Turning to the right side of the Great Hall, Harry immediately began walking to the Slytherin table despite his placement in Gryffindor and almost sighed in relief when he noticed a spot was open next to Malfoy. He could see Snape’s face from his position at the far side of Slytherin’s table, and the man almost seemed to be daring him to sit where he was heading. Looking down the staff table, he saw that Minerva was equally daring him to abandon the house he was sorted into. Unfortunately for the two professors, Harry’s middle finger was more of a legitimate sign of rebellion than some kind of humorous joke. 

Harry walked up right behind Malfoy and tapped him on the shoulder. The blond boy looked behind him and up to see who wanted his attention, and a nasty smirk plastered itself onto his face when he saw the red robes of the Gryffindor he now considered a rather amusing acquaintance. How could he not after the shit they'd just pulled in potions that very morning? 

“You really don’t do things in halves, Potter, do you? Sure, you can sit down. Goyle can take the seat across from us when he finally gets his fat arse down here.”

Harry plopped onto the seat and praised Merlin himself that he knew the sensory dampening jinxes he'd applied on himself in the hopes of making the Great Hall bearable. He saw the suspicious, wary, and even angry stares given to him by the Slytherin students surrounding Malfoy. It took about five seconds for Draco to address the problem.

“Potter and I have started partnering in the classes we share. I don’t give a damn if you don’t like lions, but you leave him alone while he's with me…” he glared at every member of his house with unwavering eyes that demanded absolute compliance. “Understand?”

Harry looked around the table and counted in his head the number of people he thought would be actually dangerous. It was true that many Slytherins were in families both old and talented enough to have their family magic passed onto them by their predecessors, but Harry wasn't sure exactly how many of them were the direct heir or how quickly they would take to their family's style of casting. Malfoy certainly would be proficient with his family's magic, and it was something that Harry wasn't sure he fancied a fight against. 

"From left to right, Potter, you have Nott, Bulstrode, and Crabbe." He said, pointing at each as he went. "To my left is Parkinson, and Goyle is still lumbering around somewhere."

Harry nodded politely to signify that he understood and extended his greetings to each of them. He ate a bit of food before he allowed his eyes to wander. He'd been so preoccupied with his perpetual state of boredom-induced misery that he'd almost forgotten one of the reasons he didn't kill himself on the train ride to his metaphorical prison. It was only due to the sight of a second-year girl at the end of the Slytherin table closest to the professors that he was reminded, and it hit him with the force of a truck. 

"Malfoy," he asked with hardly contained interest. "Who's that chick down there?"

Malfoy followed his pointing finger and squinted. Malfoy's eyebrows rose marginally when he saw whom Harry wanted to identify. That girl wasn't a person that anyone wanted to get involved with.

"You mean the blonde one, wavy hair, medium length?"

"Yeah," Harry said immediately. "That one."

"Daphne Greengrass. She's our year. You're telling me you didn't know she was here?"

Harry didn't even deem that question worthy of a response. Anyone who was someone knew that she was here. It was impossible to miss an heir to the Greengrass family.

"I'm going to talk to her," he stated like it was little more than a fact of reality instead of the near impossibility it actually was.

"Really, Potter, you want to get friendly with the Ice Queen? You've got to be taking the fucking mickey. Her family wouldn't let her within fifty meters of you."

Harry smirked dangerously.

"Oh, but where's the fun if the relatives are on board?" Malfoy was looking at him with wide, horror-filled eyes, so Harry decided to relent just a little. "Besides, this has nothing to do with getting friendly. This is something I've been looking forward to for a while."

Now, Draco looked interested. It was too bad Harry had already hopped up and started walking toward her end of the table. Heads followed the Gryffindor as he moved from one group of snakes to another, but Harry only had eyes for the Greengrass girl. Not even Severus's warning gaze could stop him once he latched onto something he wanted, and a growl deep within him egged him on. His inner demon and his wand were both shaking with excitement. They were practically begging for some action. This decision was beyond his control the moment he realized it was one he could make.

"Hello," Harry said with a slow, confident drawl at the end of his greeting as he slid into the seat next to Greengrass. Unlike with Malfoy, the open seat next to her was not a coincidence. People were giving her space for very good reasons. "How're all of you doing?" 

Blaise Zabini gave him a short glare from across the table. Some unidentified girl with black hair to the left of Greengrass leaned forward to give him a very similar look.

"What do you want, Potter?" snapped Zabini with a hard tone. 

"Awe, no small talk?" Harry asked innocently. "Fine then." Harry looked straight at Greengrass despite the fact that she was pointedly ignoring him. She would acknowledge him if he had anything to say about it. There wasn't even a question about it. "Greengrass, I want a duel."

He said it quietly so no one but her closest friends would hear, but the two of them looked as if they’d been struck across the head with a frying pan. Nobody, and that meant fucking nobody, challenged a Greengrass to a duel. Nobody, that was, except for idiots, extremely skilled wizards, and Harry Potter apparently. 

He couldn't help himself. The need to challenge people who interested him was beyond his control. It was habitual, compulsive. He couldn't have stopped this conversation if he wanted to, not after the prospect of a good fight was presented to him on a golden platter.

"Why would you want to duel me?" she asked in a light, gentle, feminine voice that didn't do justice to the power he knew she possessed.

"Call it a personal endeavor."

Zabini was staring at him with affronted and shocked eyes. The girl sitting next to Greengrass looked more uncomfortable than Harry was when Severus and Minerva decided to gang up on him and give him the talk. Greengrass, though, just looked bored. She wasn't interested in a fight, and that just wouldn't do.

"No offense, Potter, but aren't you struggling in pretty much every practical subject?" Greengrass scathingly insulted him with an innocent tone.

The growl in his soul deepened at the doubts she expressed about his magical prowess. He wanted to do nothing more than prove her wrong in front of the whole school, but restraint was necessary here. This had to be legit, or he would be getting into a heap of trouble.

"Perhaps," Harry admitted. "But I don't see how that would affect you at all."

"Because I don't want to waste my time with a boring duel," she shot back with no mercy.

His entire being plus his wand roared at the insult. 

"Tell you what," he said with a cocky grin. "I'll brew you any potion you want if you take my duel and win."

The girl couldn't look more uninterested. "Come on, Potter, we're second-years. What could you possibly offer me that I couldn't buy myself?"

Again with the doubt. It was starting to piss him off. 

"Name it, Greengrass, and stop talking shit on baseless assumptions. There isn't a potion out there that I can't fucking make if you give me enough time. Now, tell me what you need for me to get a duel."

Greengrass smiled in the most annoyingly condescending way. "Fine, I want a bottle of Felix Felicis, Nothing less."

Well, fuck, he did tell her she could shoot high, and he wasn't lying. He'd need Snape's help and a shit ton of oversight, but if that was what it took, then that was what he'd do. 

"Done, I want to do it at 7 P.M. today by the great lake. I want you to have plenty of material to use it. I want it private too. I don't care for an audience."

It was true. Albus would be mad enough that he was showing a few of his true abilities to a Slytherin with Death Eater relatives. If the whole school got wind of their duel, their entire shtick would be ruined. She actually laughed at his bold statement. 

"You're going to need more than a T in defense for me to duel you with my family magic, Potter. I don't much fancy getting tossed in Azkaban for murder."

Harry didn't respond, mostly because he didn't care. He'd make her use it whether she wanted to or not. He was too busy being giddy that he actually got to duel someone with the Greengrass family magic. He really wished that he could've challenged her father, but being a Death Eater in Azkaban kind of put a stopper on that desire. 

With a huge smile on his face, he walked back to the Gryffindor table and took a seat next to the golden trio plus Ginny and a few other kids in his own year. He was in such a good mood that he didn't even care whether he sat around the obnoxious lions anymore. Severus finally got his wish. Harry was happy that he managed to do two of the things Severus wanted him to avoid the most before he gave the professor what he wanted. 

"Why're you so excited, Potter?" shot a glowering Ron Weasley.

He wouldn't have answered that question in any other circumstance, but he was really feeling good, so he decided to show some generosity. "Oh, I just accomplished a goal I've had for a while now."

The vast majority of his Gryffindor year-mates did not care enough to push him further than that. He did notice that Ginny was giving him odd looks from her position next to him. Harry wondered why she didn't press him like he expected her to, but it was then that he realized she was purposefully restraining herself directly because of what he'd said last night in the hospital wing. He wasn't sure why her intentional restraint made him feel content, but it did.

The bell rang not even a few minutes later, and Harry got up to go to the greenhouse. Herbology was one of his least favorite classes, but he could be having History of Magic right now, and he'd still be in a great mood. 

It was about an hour before dinner time, and Harry was walking down to the Great Lake with a light spring in his step. His face was practically glowing. It wasn't difficult for him to admit that his idea was probably very stupid, but the staff of Hogwarts knew him and accepted him as he was. None of them really expected him to be able to sit completely still the entire year. They could barely keep him behaved for a week.

Albus and Severus both called him to the headmaster's office right after Herbology and told him in no unclear terms exactly what they expected him to show and not to show. It was paramount that they keep what he could do under wraps for as long as possible. The more time the enemy spent underestimating him was more time for them to choose the proper moment to strike with an unexpected amount of force. Harry told them about his discussion with Hermione where he revealed that his education wasn't sub-par but focussed elsewhere on things like runes. 

Albus and Severus both saw this as a decent move, and they recommended he keep the impression that he was a below-standard core subject student while showing a bit of his true skill in the important elective subjects like runes and arithmancy. That was fine with him, especially when he considered that a Slytherin with as much knowledge as a Greengrass would probably expect a Potter to be good at runes. 

Harry's right hand fiddled with the fingerless glove on his left. He agreed to keep wand-focussed spellwork to a minimum while making use of the kinds of creative runic schemes that a Greengrass would expect from a competent Potter. They didn't need the Death Eaters to believe he was completely useless; they just wanted them to believe he was quite a bit more useless than he actually was.  

Harry could still remember Severus's words from before he'd left the man's office. "Be careful. You're stronger than her, and you've faced people with specialty magic, but you've never faced an opponent with family magic before. It's going to be an encounter that you can't prepare for until you see it. Don't think that just because you're more powerful and experienced that she isn't a threat."

Severus Snape was one of the most amazing duelists he'd ever met, and that pool included Albus Dumbledore himself. He would be a fool to not take the man's advice. If he thought someone would be a challenge, then they were someone to be wary of. 

He smirked when he got to the lake and saw the blonde girl leaning against a tree with a bored expression on her face. That smirk turned to a frown when he saw the dark-skinned student who could only be Zabini leaning on the tree beside her. 

"I said I wanted this private, Greengrass. Bringing your friend isn't making it private."

The girl scoffed. "Sure, you want me to come to some random place alone to get jumped by a bunch of stuck-up lions? No thanks."

Harry gestured around him while turning his head as if looking for something hidden among the fields. "Well, as you can see, I came alone. If you want that duel for a chance at some liquid luck, I want Zabini gone."

The two Slytherins looked at each other. Harry could tell that Zabini was more than hesitant to separate. Greengrass, though, seemed to be more comfortable with the thought of facing him without backup.

"Go, Blaise. If there are any Gryffindors waiting around here, I'll just send them all to the hospital wing together."

The boy glared daggers at Harry before walking past him with a vague threat to end him if anything happened to his friend.

"Yeah, yeah, Zabini, I'm sure she can handle herself. I'll make sure she gets back to the castle once I beat her."

The boy sneered viciously. "You don't stand a fucking chance, Potter."

Harry waited until the Slytherin walked out of sight, then whipped back to face Greengrass with a huge smile as he grabbed his robe and yanked it off to reveal him wearing a rather thin, black, long-sleeved shirt, long combat pants, and black boots. He wouldn't normally bring such attire for a friendly duel, but this was a special occasion. 

"So, Greengrass, how do you wanna do this?" Harry asked playfully as he bounced lightly a few times and shook his arms to get his body ready for intense movement. "You cast first, then I cast? Maybe I can go first if you’d rather. We'll make a day out of it."

Greengrass withdrew her wand from her sleeve with a resigned expression. "Let's get this over with."

"Au contraire, Greengrass,” he said with an exaggerated bow. “I want to take my time."

Harry grabbed his wand from his side pocket and flourished it in front of him with a playful grin. He flicked his wand and sent a jelly-leg jinx flying across the yard at Greengrass, only to watch it sail past her when she took a small step to the side. She looked extremely disappointed at the schoolyard prank spell he'd just used against her.

“You really shouldn’t have asked for this, Potter.”

Her wand lit up with a slew of different colors as she slung one spell after another across the clearing. She could hardly have been said to be using something as snappy and efficient as a spell-chain, but it was a damn sight scarier than anything that could be expected from a second-year. It may have seemed a little cold to throw so much at a poor kid who started off a duel with a jelly-leg jinx, but he was the challenger, and she wasn't known for her mercy. It was with an ample amount of disbelief that she watched him start to pivot around her magical projectiles like he was playing some sort of crack-infused game of dodgeball instead of blocking them like a civilized wizard. 

It wasn't until she completed her sixth spell that she realized why he was so confident despite his lack of magical talent: he was an extremely physical duelist. Aiming with a wand was not very hard if it was given enough attention. Despite how much training she had, though, she found it very difficult to get a good reading on him. He didn't cast back, and he didn't cast shields, but he refused to stop moving. All of that speed and coordination combined with a focus on movement instead of magical prowess created an unorthodox dueling style that would undoubtedly cause problems for quite a few duelists who didn't know how to cope with such a slippery target. In a few years, he would be a rather formidable opponent.

That, however, was still some time away, and she wasn't most duelists. Until he got that experience, there was no realistic way for him to relieve the pressure she had on him. That pressure would build the longer he had to dodge all of her casts, and he would eventually crumble. She would begrudgingly admit that her newest challenger was not as much of a pushover as she thought he would be. In the end, though, he was going to lose just like the rest.

Her opening was found within Potter’s subtle inclination for dodging to the side of his wand-arm. He apparently had a preference for keeping his off-hand closer to attacks than the one holding his weapon. It wasn’t a horrible thing to want, she supposed, but it meant that his movements became predictable quickly to an attentive opponent. She shot a jelly-leg at the boy’s center mass just to spite him for the only spell he managed to cast in the fight so far, but this time, she sent a stunner just a bit to the boy’s right directly after her first spell. It was a classic read, and he didn’t know that he'd fallen for it until it was too late. He dodged right into the path of her stunner, and she knew that it was over before it'd even made contact.

… A shiver went down her spine as the boy’s eyes glowed yellowish-green. 

The jelly-legs beamed past him, and he crouched low into the ground even as his body continued moving right. His leg muscles flexed, and power wormed throughout his lower body. Leaping even further to the right with the speed of a demon, he dodged the stunner by a wide margin. It was unnatural, freakish, the way he so efficiently controlled his own body and pushed himself with such force. Humans weren’t supposed to be able to move like that. He sailed at least three entire meters before sliding against the grass to stop his momentum. The way he loaded his body into the slide so he could take off toward her with maximum efficiency was possibly even more shocking than his Olympic feat of jumping three entire meters from a standstill. 

The boy’s carefree, supercilious aura was completely gone, and it was replaced by an unhealthy amount of bloodlust and deadly determination. Her previous steadfast confidence in her own victory ended up playing against her when it suddenly crashed to the ground by her feet. Their situations flipped so quickly that she could’ve gotten whiplash. It would certainly explain why she suddenly found herself frozen to the ground as he sprinted at her with a horrifying speed of at least 30 kilometers per hour. The boy’s body was hunching and swaying in terrifying, bestial ways to accommodate his animal-like speed in a form that wasn’t built for that kind of movement.

Her panic and sense of self-preservation finally overcame her body’s failure to reconcile between fighting or fleeing, and she tossed a stunner with as much power as she could pump into it at the boy speeding at her in a straight line. They started their duel much further apart than they would’ve in an official match, but he closed the distance so astronomically fast that he was almost in her face when he blocked her stunner with the first bit of actually competent spellcasting she’d seen from him since the start of the year. She got one look at the malicious mirth in his glowing eyes before she felt the distinct sense of agony that came with a booted heel shoving itself into her gut. 

The force of the impact was great enough to break gravity’s tight hold on her body, and she went careening in the air toward the Great Lake. The damn body of water was pretty much cold all year long. Even when it was in the middle of summer, it still held a consistent 23 degrees celsius. The freezing water half-engulfed her before her back smacked against the muddy floor of the lake’s entrance.

It was a good thing she was used to the cold. 

With soaking wet robes, she stood herself up and glared at the boy standing between her and the castle. Her shoes were still in the water, and they were beginning to feel prickly and numb. Potter couldn't have been smiling any wider as she stepped up onto the grassy bank. The pain leaving her body as time went on got replaced by a burning sensation of anger and annoyance that seemed to light her bright violet eyes on fire. The boy chuckled just loud enough for her to hear it, but the dangerousness about him didn’t fade away with his amusement.

His cocky attitude only made her annoyance flare more intensely. She went easy on him purposefully to avoid hurting the poor fool, and his response was to push her further with his rotten attitude. Her wet hair hung just past her shoulder blades now that it was wet to the point of being straight, and the cold locks pressing against her neck made her body shiver.

This was how he wanted it? 

She huffed out a slow, smooth breath filled to the brim with condensed fog. 

Fine.

She saw Harry’s amusement turn into something much more sinister as his eyes latched onto the cloudy breath leaving her mouth. A water droplet clung to the very tip of her hair before letting go and falling to the ground. Harry’s senses allowed him to focus on things at a much higher level than most, and he almost couldn’t contain himself as he watched the droplet freeze over in an instant before it plopped onto the ground as a solid piece of ice. A light web of white frost stretched across the grass by Daphne’s wet shoes, and the water covering her body would've turned solid as well if she didn’t dry herself with a silent flick of her wand. 

She was an analytical individual just like many people in her house. The slight crouch in her opponent’s stance didn’t escape her, and the way he held his wand loosely in his right hand showed a level of comfortableness with his weapon in high-stress situations that she wouldn’t expect from someone as inexperienced as she originally thought him to be. The boy’s eyes were still glowing in a way that was oddly reminiscent of Dumbledore's twinkling irises. She was unfamiliar with his usual eye color, though, so it wouldn’t be silly for her to mistake the two very distinct phenomena for each other. What she wasn’t unfamiliar with, though, was the feelings he displayed with his magic. 

Muggles and mages alike held the same ability to read the emotions of others based on body language and facial expressions. People were adept at showing how they felt when they wanted to with nothing more than the way they physically expressed themselves. Magic, however, was intimately tied to the thoughts, desires, and emotions of the beings who possessed it. It was extremely personal to each individual, and magic itself was tailored to the things it resided within. It was because of this that mages and magical creatures had the ability to express themselves in ways that non-magical things couldn’t. With people possessing concentrated amounts of magic, it wasn’t unusual for their emotions to be displayed directly through their magical aura when their feelings were particularly intense. 

The boy in front of Daphne made no attempt to disguise or suppress how he felt, so the emotions within his head were so blatantly swirling around him with his magic that she could almost feel them herself, and they were sickening. Her father and his despicable friends held the same kind of excitement when they polluted her house with their scummy presence, and they held that same abhorrent sense of satisfaction when they inflicted pain. The boy’s emotions were unmistakably more primal and simplistic in nature compared to the more twisted, convoluted ways they justified their own senseless need for violence, but the core parts of their auras were so similar that they might as well have been painted by the same artist. It was that more than anything that made her magic flex around her. 

Claws grew from Harry’s fingers at a similar rate that ice grew across the ground around Daphne. His vision was laser focussed, but his mind was starting to feel hazy with the three magical entities merging within him due to their shared excitement of finally getting something he wanted for the first time since he was told to attend Hogwarts by his mentors. If only for a little bit of time, he was about to be able to cut loose like he used to during his lessons with Severus, Albus, Minerva, and Filius. He doubted that she was as skilled as them, but she was in a class of her own at a place like Hogwarts. Experienced or not, this would be the first encounter he got to have with family magic, and he wanted to prove to Severus as much as himself that he could compete with the big-shots. 

Daphne noticed that the boy reached down to his left hand and stuck his thumb under the cuff of the glove covering it. She thought it odd that he only wore a single glove, but she ignored the oddity when he slid it off of his hand and let it fall to the ground beside him. It still took her a while to gather enough power to perform her family magic efficiently, but when she finally felt like there was enough, she spent no time hesitating. He was certainly more competent than she thought he would be, but there were precious few who could stop her now. 

Harry waited patiently for her to finish charging. If it was a real fight, he would've ended it immediately, but he wasn’t here to crush her; he was here to get a taste of family magic. Harry couldn’t help but find it beautiful how the air before the tip of Greengrass’s wand crystalized until it formed a chunk of ice cut into the shape of an extremely sharp cone.

This was the magic he wanted to see. A family pushing a specific branch of magic to the point that none could hope to replicate it without the family’s direct instruction. Generations of work, experimentation, research, and training culminated into one style of magic that more resembled a form of art than simple spellwork. The common populace couldn’t even begin to approach the level of specialty and power contained within the skillset he now faced. Goosebumps grew on his arms and legs as she threw the spike at him with enough speed to pierce through a stone wall. The Ice Queen, the last in a family of cryomancers since her father was contained in Azkaban after slaughtering twelve elite Aurors on his own about nine years after the war’s end. 

He looked at the black diamond tattooed horizontally across the width of his palm and lost himself in the white circle placed in the center of it. Her’s was the first bit of family magic he’d ever seen… except for the one passed down to him by his father through the books he kept in the family library. Conflicts between family magics and the heirs to the family were an extremely important part of determining the amount of power each family owned.

He’d never felt very close to his parents or his lineage, and his family magic wasn’t truly meant to be used in conflicts like this… but in the moment, right there and then, he felt so connected to them that he could touch their skin and see their smiles as they egged him on. Severus told him not to reveal too much and to keep himself under the radar for the sake of allowing the Dark Lord to underestimate him, and he would do as he was commanded by his teacher, but the Potters weren’t extinct, and he would not let any of the houses that used his parents’ graves as stepping stools to their current status make any mistake about what house was going to sit at the top. 

The Potters were ALIVE, and Harry James Potter was going to show them why even Bellatrix-Fucking-Lestrange hesitated to face his father in his prime!

Harry didn’t expect to feel the need inside of him to show his dominance and display his power like he did. His wand was feisty, and he already knew that his condition made him more inclined to violence and displays of superiority; he was prepared for that, but he wasn’t prepared for just how badly he desired to prove that he was beyond her for nothing more than his own family’s pride.

Perhaps it was how useless he felt while stuck in school, or maybe it was repressed anger over his dead parents coming back when he experienced something that reminded him of them. More than likely, he felt it was all of those things working together to force him into doing something stupid. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop himself from crossing his off-hand to the other side of his body and swinging his palm at the spike about to hit him.

Daphne regretted slinging the ice as soon as it was released. She let her emotions from memories of her father influence her actions too much. It was one thing for him to land a hit on her; it was another thing entirely to deal with something like that.

Wizards and witches were notoriously bad at dealing with physical attacks due to their hyper-focus on all things magic. It was because of this that dueling a Greengrass was generally considered a suicide mission. She especially regretted what she did when she felt the boy’s aura take on a strange mixture of somberness, excitement, and a strong desire to prove himself. It was foolish of her to think of a child as similar to Death Eaters. While their feelings may have been similar before, no Death Eater had the emotional capacity to feel such a range of complicated emotions. She was almost certain that she was going to end up severely hurting him, and she was completely certain of it when she saw him attempt to smack the icicle on reflex. 

Harry’s hand approached the ice, and he was extremely careful to make sure the surface of his diamond tattoo pressed against its smooth surface. Power coursed through his arm as he pushed his magic into the ink-forged rune just like he did with the locked doors of the train cabin in the Hogwarts Express. He felt no resistance against his hand because the moment his inked skin came in contact with the ice, the frozen water tore itself apart on an atomic level. It was the most potent form of disassembling magic possible, and it was delivered in the form of his family’s rune of destruction. His hand flew past the non-existent icicle, and he stepped forward with his momentum to aim the wand in his other hand at the gobsmacked girl.

“Bombarda,” He growled with a power behind his voice that few of his peers could hope to challenge. 

Harry wasn’t about to hold back or refuse to make use of an advantage, so he spared no expense with time or power as he shot the explosive curse at his adversary. He smiled widely when she managed to get ahold of herself just in time for a wall of ice about two meters tall and one meter wide to shoot out of the ground and take the curse for her. It was unfortunate for her that he read her like a book and sent a destructive curse instead of a spell meant to affect her person. She would’ve been better off taking it with a shield. As soon as it came into contact with her physical barrier, the wall exploded into tons of tiny shards of ice along with his curse’s detonation. 

Daphne was struck so dumb by Potter’s display of power that she almost didn’t get her wall up in time. Her father told her all about the different kinds of family magic, and he always seemed to be particularly interested in the Potter’s. It was no mystery to those who truly paid attention that their family magic had to deal with runes, and they all knew that their specialty was embedding their most powerful ones on their bodies to eliminate the need to draw them in a battle. Instantaneous, powerful, wordless, wandless magic; that was the power of the Potter family specialty. They were walking blueprints of magic, capable of dishing out terrifying displays of power with nothing but the runes they inked into their skin… and the family apparently had a new canvas for them to inscribe their artworks of destruction on. 

She knew about their power, but she assumed, like most pureblood families, that their legendary magic was lost with the death of the eldest Potter. Families didn’t write down their secrets due to the fear of having them stolen and their power subsequently taken away. The magic was instead passed down by mouth to the eldest child alone, and it was only among the Lords and future Lords that the magical knowledge was taught. Despite its usual secrecy, James Potter must’ve found a way to pass his magic to his son without being present. 

That knowledge was game-changing. It meant that a powerful family was not nearly as gone as she'd thought. A new player entered the game, and not one family expected it. All of those thoughts running through her head and all of the implications that came with it almost got her struck with an extremely powerful explosive curse, but she wasn’t a Greengrass for nothing. 

Harry knew exactly what the Greengrass family magic was, and he was counting on having the upper hand once she got a glimpse of his own specialty magic, but he was astounded when he discovered exactly the scope of power he was dealing with. His explosive curse blew the ice wall into hundreds of tiny shards, but every single one of them was forced to suspend itself in the air without exception when she pointed her wand at what looked to be the floating mass’s center. It was like she could fix them in place despite the outside forces acting upon them. 

The uncountable amount of tiny shards floated higher in the air and flew at him like an army’s worth of arrows. He would’ve erected a wall of his own with transfiguration, transformation, or conjuration; but he was told to keep things down to only a few of his family runes. Severus thought that it was okay for him to show his prowess with a bit of his family’s magic to shake up the remaining free death eaters, but he was supposed to hide the majority of his skill lest Voldemort actually deem him a threat to himself, his inner-circle, or his plans. It was one thing to show current powerful families that there was a legitimate Potter, magic and all, on the rise; it was much different to become a potential wrench in the Dark Lord’s agenda. 

Crouching to gain potential energy in his leg muscles, he pushed off of the ground and jumped even further to the side than he had at the beginning of their fight. One might have thought that such speed and strength would be a result of more runes, but they would be wrong. His physical prowess was not at all uncommon… assuming that people knew to look among the right strata of people. If Greengrass assumed it was his runes, though, he wouldn’t correct her. While he personally didn’t care who knew, Severus would blow a blood vessel if he shoveled any more stress on the poor Slytherin. 

Thinking that he avoided the projectiles, he was once again floored by the power she possessed when they curved in the air to follow his jump not a second after he landed. He couldn’t help but marvel at the implications of such an ability despite how fucked he was if he didn’t do something. To think that they took cryomancy so far that they could even manipulate such an insane amount of specific pieces of ice from so far away. Severus was going to be so pissed, but he was starting to get into it. He wasn’t expecting her to be as competent as she was. 

Harry’s wand disappeared when he banished it to the holster on his thigh. Grabbing onto his right sleeve, he pulled the fabric of his shirt down to just below his elbow. Wrapped around his wrist was a tribal band tattoo depicting a simplistic black flame. He clenched his hand into a fist and pointed it at the approaching ice, charging the rune stock full with his power. A chuckle came from his mouth as the tips of his runic flame band turned bright orange. It felt so good to finally use the powers his father gave him. 

The very tips of his orange tattoo peeled from his skin and began to wave and crackle in the air as if transforming into literal flame before his very eyes. The way the 2-D tattoo traveled up his skin and into the very real three-dimensional fire made it look almost like the tattoo was feeding into it and giving it fuel. It was one of his favorite runes solely because of its pure beauty and ingenuity.

Runes were nothing more than a catalyst for magic to almost everybody, but it was so much more to his family. It was about more than just combat effectiveness; it was about showing their mastery of runic expression to the utmost degree; it was about showing other mages that runes were their magic. His fire rune didn’t just summon flame like the rest of them did; his tattoo became the fire because it was made by a fucking Potter, and nobody would ever be able to mistake his family's runes for the garbage created by the rest of the petty runic mages who claimed to be "masters" on the subject.

The flame from the band on his wrist twirled and flickered around his closed fist, but it soon expanded into a gigantic cone of twisted flame that engulfed the approaching ice and turned it into vapor almost instantaneously. The horizontal tornado of fire followed his hand as he threw his arm over his head and descended on Greengrass like a whip when he dropped it to the ground. To her credit, she wasted no time throwing up a solid dome around her in order to block the fire. His column of flame slammed against it with the power of a god, and he was surprised that her defense held firm and refused to melt despite the overbearing heat. He could keep his flame on it until one of them gave in, but now wasn’t the time to give her a chance to counterattack; now was the time to press his advantage.

Ending the stream of flame and letting the edges of his tattoo sink back into its original 2-D state, he rushed at the dome with his left hand stretching to touch against its surface. He knew that she must have realized he stopped his attack, but he doubted that she was prepared for such a speedy approach. She was most likely much too preoccupied with what other runes he had on his body to expect such a straightforward use of one she already knew about. It was a big gamble because if she did expect his rush, she could turn him into a pincushion with her currently smooth dome of protective ice. That, however, only egged him on further. If she expected him to be wary of such aggressive defense, then she wouldn’t be expecting a bull-headed rush like he was performing at the moment. 

The very second his hand touched the dome, the entire structure ripped itself to microscopic shreds. He smiled devilishly when he saw her wide eyes, and he pulled his left hand back while drawing his wand with the other from the holster on his right thigh. She had a spell on her lips; he knew she was about to blast him. It was so very fortunate that he was just a few milliseconds faster due to the element of surprise. 

“Depulso,” he commanded the instant he drew his wand enough to point the tip at her body. 

It was the first “quickdraw” spell he’d ever performed, and he was glad that his hip-fire accuracy didn’t fail him despite the absence of any kind of practice. She was so close to casting something, but she was sent flying bodily back to the lake before a syllable could leave her mouth.

Last time, she landed in the water, but she was already in the midst of throwing around magic-intensive spellwork, so it wasn’t difficult to utilize her cryomancy on a whim like it was the first time. A mass of surface water froze into a circular platform as soon as the souls of her shoes brushed the lake’s surface. More ice froze behind her as she slid across the slippery platform until she managed to force the ice to wrap a few tendrils of frozen water around her shoes to stop her momentum. By the time she came to a halt, she was standing at the back of what looked more like some kind of super long oval of floating ice than a circle. 

A smile slowly grew on her face, and she let out a small laugh as she realized that she was actually beginning to enjoy herself. Below average, her ass. Potter was very good. She’d become so resigned to her fate at Hogwarts that she’d begun to forget just how fun a duel could be when she wasn’t fearing for her life or dreadfully outmatching her opponent.

Directing the ice platform to approach the shore while she walked across it, she allowed herself to really start getting into it. By the time she stepped off of the ice and onto solid ground, her magic was swirling around her like it hadn’t in years. Potter was basically giddy with the excitement swimming in his eyes. Her heart fluttered with adrenaline-induced exhilaration, and she got ready to show the Potter heir just what a Greengrass could do when someone so arrogantly decided to duel one of them next to a body of water.

“WHAT IN MERLIN’S NAME IS GOING ON HERE!?”

Daphne was launched back to reality in a second upon hearing the absolutely irate voice of one of the most strict adults she’d ever met. At the very least, she thanked every god she knew of, the woman was marching straight up to Harry Potter instead of her. 

“I COULD SEE THE FLAMES FROM THE CASTLE!!!”

Potter looked distraught. She couldn’t blame him much though. She would be too.

“I-I’m sorry, Professor McGonagall,” Harry could just barely stop himself from saying Minerva in such a stressful situation. “We were just having a bit of fun.”

The old professor looked about ready to box his ears until not even Poppy’s potions could cure the high-pitched squeal he would be living with for the rest of his life.

“A bit of fun?” she asked incredulously. “A BIT OF FUN!?”

She poked the boy right on his chest, and Potter cringed as if it'd physically wounded him.

“You could have killed each other!” she then pointed at Hogwarts with a whip of her hand. “Inside the castle!”

Harry looked about ready to protest, but something in the transfiguration master’s eyes stopped him short.

“Now!”

Harry hung his head dejectedly and began slinking back to the gates. Daphne attempted to look as inconspicuous as possible while she began her own trek, but the intense feeling of impending doom stopped her in her tracks.

“And you, young lady!” Minerva said sternly with fire in her eyes. “Just be hopeful that Professor Snape doesn’t hear about this because Merlin only knows the kind of field day he would have with you!”

It was after this that the two of them began slinking back to the castle together as they each attempted to shield themselves from Minerva McGonagall’s fury.

“Detention with me for both of you!!! Four weeks!!! And fifty points from each of your houses!!!”

Harry looked back at her with glum eyes. “B-but!”

Minerva’s eyes looked like they could kill them if she but directed magic to her pupils. “I better not hear a single word from you, young man! Four weeks, the both of you!”

The two children walked back to the castle in silence while the head of Harry’s house stayed behind to get rid of the ice and property damage left in the wake of their duel. He had so much pent-up energy from getting denied the rest of their duel, but that was infinitely better than the torturous boredom he’d been dealing with so far. He thought about looking over and complimenting the girl on her skill because he was honestly impressed. 

That, though, was something he wouldn’t do. Malfoy was one thing; Harry was offered a mutually beneficial alliance for the time being, and he had a lot more control over the situation than Malfoy knew due to his attachments with pretty much every professor in the castle.

Greengrass, however good of a duel she gave him, was offering no such thing. She was a much more risky companion, mostly because Severus knew almost nothing about her and had no connection with her family. Severus and the esteemed Lord Greengrass provided very different services to the Dark Lord, so they never interacted much. All he knew about the imprisoned Greengrass was that he was extremely dangerous and exceedingly loyal to Voldemort.

It was poor form to make judgments on a child based on their parents, but he could hardly be blamed for being cautious. He was comfortable with dueling because their plan could handle the dissemination of some of his abilities should she turn out to be a leak. Partnering with her as he did with Malfoy, though, required more than he had. 

They crossed the castle’s entrance and got a few steps into the cool, open room before the Zabini heir approached them and gave Daphne a once over before once again shooting a glare at Harry. 

“So how bad did you beat him, Daph?” he asked with an insufferable smirk.

It was hard for Harry to tell what mood she was in because of how well she contained herself. Her words, however, gave it away immediately.

“Just… shut up, Blaise.”

She began to walk away without a second of hesitation, but the boy was quick to follow her. “Come on! Did you beat him or not!?”

Harry turned away to walk back to his common room. He might as well face the masses now; they were going to corner him eventually. Point deductions were not made a private affair. They might not know how he lost them, but they would most certainly know that it was him. If he had to deal with it eventually, well, he might as well deal with it sooner rather than later.