Lupine Tendencies

Harry stood at the door to McGonnagal’s classroom with a resigned frown on his face. His day was as boring as it normally was, and now, he had an exhilarating hour of detention to look forward to at the end of every day for the next four weeks. He couldn't begin to express his joy.

Pushing the door open, he saw McGonagall at her desk and Greengrass already sitting at the very left side of the classroom. Reading the room, he walked in silently and took a seat at the very right side of the room, opposite the irked cryomancer. He looked to his left and flashed Greengrass a signature wolfish smile, and he wasn't surprised in the slightest when she looked away with an annoyed huff.

Harry turned back to Minerva and awaited his punishment. He was sure that it would be something degrading or disgusting. Merlin knew the amount of horrid shit he had to do when he got on Severus's bad side. He kept watching, though, and his veins turned to ice with every passing second of inactivity. He should've known to never compare Minerva to Severus… he was a fool to think that man could ever compare to her. She knew him so well, and she must've realized that he was the instigator. This punishment was designed to torture him specifically, and it was so genius that only she could've thought of it.

Nothing.

Their punishment was to sit quietly at a desk with absolutely nothing to do for an entire hour every day. He could tell by Greengrass’s smile that she believed herself to have lucked out with such a mundane punishment; Harry would rather die, and Minerva knew it. Harry was an extremely hyperactive person. He needed to be doing something at all times. Even during class, he distracted himself with books that interested him, messing with spellwork he found fun, or even doing his most recent activity of joking around with Malfoy. Here, though, he was going to be forced to endure an entire hour where even tapping his foot would result in further punishment.

His illness only made his proclivity for action worse. It eventually got so bad that they even decided to bring him to a muggle doctor. It was almost cruel how she designed their detention to play against his own mind. He scowled at her, and Minerva looked so satisfied with herself that he was half-inclined to blow his way through the classroom door and go awol until Albus was eventually forced to make her reconsider. 

The old woman knew he was about to do such a thing too, and her smile grew malicious as she transfigured the wooden door into solid metal and coaxed the wall to stretch around it. Greengrass looked confused, and her eyes quickly skipped between the door, Minerva, and Harry; but Harry almost felt like curling up and fading away. The castle didn't just transform willy nilly. It was packed with extremely potent magic.

Forcing it to do something it didn't want to do required the mage to push enough power into it to overcome the magic already flowing through it. In other words, it was impossible. Cracking the wall with his fist just a small while ago was the result of the castle placing his hand's wellbeing over its structural integrity. In this case, it allowed Minerva to manipulate it for the purpose of ensuring his imprisonment.

The message was clear: Hogwarts supported his detention. He wouldn't be leaving until it let him. 

His head sank to the table, but he didn't dare close his eyes. Minerva wouldn't let him take the easy way out. There wasn't even a fucking clock. She must’ve taken it out before he entered to revoke his ability to lose himself in the clock's ticking. He was really going to be forced to do nothing for the entire detention.

Harry wasn't sure how long he sat there. It felt like an eternity to him, but he looked over at Greengrass and figured that she looked content enough to discredit his admittedly dramatic feelings. In fact, she seemed completely at ease. It actually kind of annoyed him that he was the only one getting punished here. He was the instigator, but, surely, he shouldn't be the only one suffering. Greengrass agreed to it just as much as he did. If he wanted to get technical about it, she was actually the one to escalate their duel to family magic. He was casting completely non-lethal until she threw a gigantic icicle straight at his chest.

A muffled knock on the metal door came through the wall, and Minerva shot him a warning glare before getting up. She then allowed the stone to fade away from the door and opened it. Two students were apparently there to ask her some questions. Detention or not, she couldn't just deny help to students in need. Harry smirked confidently. Now was his chance to relieve his boredom. 

Conjuring a piece of parchment and a muggle pen, he scribbled down a note, put a slew of charms on the paper, and banished it across the classroom without a word. Greengrass almost jumped when the parchment smacked her on the side of the face, and she looked at him disdainfully before choosing to hide it and give it a read before Minerva got done with her conversation. 

Daphne had been sitting in her chair peacefully, awaiting the end to her rather easy detention when a piece of parchment struck her right in the head without making so much as a sound. She was surprised when she discovered that her punishment was so lax, but she had a feeling that it had to do with something between Potter and the professor that she was unaware of. Whatever it was, she was thankful for catching a break.

That was until Potter decided to try and ruin everything with a stupid piece of flying paper. 

She grabbed it and put it on the desk before shooting Potter a glare that told him exactly what she thought about his attempt at tomfoolery. If McGonagall caught him enjoying himself, she would undoubtedly change the punishment. She was not about to let some idiotic Gryffindor ruin the easiest four weeks of detention she would ever get at Hogwarts. She looked back at the paper and squinted angrily at the message.

Could you look any more pleased with yourself over there?

Did he really take the risk of deepening his punishment for something as petty as teasing? The very thought of it made her irrationally irritated. She drew her wand very quickly and sent a mild stinging jinx straight at him. She could see the panic in his expression once he got over the confusion of seeing her draw her wand, but he couldn’t avoid the spell without jumping out of his seat, so he was forced to take it while muffling a yelp to the very best of his ability. 

Daphne folded her hands on top of her desk elegantly, and Harry decided that, yes, she could look more pleased with herself. He scowled at her with anger that wasn’t truly boiling within him, but he looked forward once again when Minerva closed the door and walked back to her desk while the wall reinstated itself as the door’s support. He noticed that Greengrass was trying very hard to subtly deal with the paper on her desk, and he smirked at her floundering.

She underestimated him so much.

With his hand hidden under his desk, he swished his wand and smirked when her eyes went wide from across the room. Exceeding Greengrass’s opinion of him was becoming a rather pleasant pattern. He watched her read the new message once it formed from the ink already in the paper, and it satisfied him that her pleased expression disappeared completely. Now that Minerva was sitting at her desk again, there was no opportunity for her to respond, so Harry was free to revel in the victory that was having the last word until she released them from her vigilant if ineffective watch. 

Greengrass twirled around the second they were out of earshot, and she didn’t look very happy. She stepped up into his personal space and glared up at him.

“What's wrong with you, Potter!? Are you trying to get us in more trouble?”

“Oh, come on!” Harry exclaimed as he backed up with his arms spread wide. “Where's your sense of adventure!?”

“It’s taking a back seat to my sense of self-preservation, and yours should be too!” she shot back incredulously.

He grinned roguishly at her. He was pressing her buttons, and he was having an ample amount of fun doing it too. Thinking quickly, he decided to push it just a tad further.

“You didn’t seem to mind so much while you were throwing around those ice cubes yesterday.”

He pressed a nerve by insulting her family magic, and he didn’t hide his amusement when her face went scarily dark despite her light hair and feminine complexion. “If you ruin this easy detention for me, I will be throwing much more than ice cubes.”

Harry’s eyes lit up with yellow, primal intensity upon hearing her threat, and he stepped into her personal space in a much more imposing way than she could replicate with her smaller frame. He couldn’t help himself when someone challenged him so openly. The impulse to push back was too much for him to resist even if he wanted to. 

“Are you sure you want to find out how our little duel would’ve ended?”

Her violet eyes grew brighter as well, and a gentle breeze of cool air blew past his messy, black hair despite how warm the castle was during the transition between summer and autumn. 

“I can promise that you don’t."

Greengrass then spun around on her heel and started walking away from him in a whirlwind of blonde hair, and Harry couldn’t help but smile at the very real nerve it took to be snarky in the face of one of his moods. It took a level of confidence that not many had. Even the wonderboy, Neville Longbottom, didn’t hold his composure well when Harry's affliction rose to the surface. She didn’t even bat an eye. Harry decided to not say anything back and let her have her moment for now. There was always tomorrow. 

As it turned out, there absolutely was tomorrow, but he did not count on Greengrass retaliating once she realized that he wasn't going to stop on his own. The two of them never really talked; there wasn't much time for that in detentions built around silence and tranquility. What they did do, however, was find increasingly creative ways to prod each other without Minerva discovering them. 

It became an odd kind of competition between them. Harry would do something bold that would push the boundary of being caught red-handed; Daphne would get annoyed with him doing stupid stuff that would eventually get them in trouble, so she would respond by doing something equally creative and risky to force him to stop. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve begun suspecting that she sort of enjoyed the game he'd started. As the days and detentions progressed, he found himself looking forward to detention instead of loathing it, and his rambunctious attitude continued to grow with every passing day… until it didn’t.

Daphne was walking to detention a little later than usual due to the stupid History of Magic essay she had to write. McGonagall's detentions proved to be quite the hindrance when it came to Binns and his incessant writing assignments. She wasn't necessarily at the top of the class, but she held high standards for herself. Falling behind was something she wouldn't allow to happen. 

Reaching the door, she saw Potter fumbling with the handle, and his frustration seemed to only increase with every failed attempt at getting the door to open. She stood by to watch for a second until it became clear that he wasn't going to achieve success anytime soon.

"Move aside, Potter," she drawled with possibly a little less apathy than she would normally use with the idiot. 

He moved to the side for her, and she reached the handle to twist it open. As she was doing that, she got a better look at the boy acting so uncharacteristically clumsy and quiet. By now, he would've normally been spouting some sort of rubbish at her, and she realized why he didn't almost immediately. 

Potter was normally a rather pale person, but his face was so white at the moment that he looked like his body had almost frozen over. He was slow to notice her looking at him, but he immediately moved to grasp the fabric of the sleeve above his right elbow with his other hand once he did. That, though, only succeeded in drawing her attention to the subtle shivers and spasms wracking his two upper limbs. 

"... Are you okay?" she asked as the door swung open. 

She expected some sort of caustic, sardonic, or otherwise annoying response. She was surprised to find that the short nod he gave her before walking silently into Professor McGonagall's classroom gave her less pleasure than she thought it would've. Following the rather slow, wobbly boy into the room, she took her seat at the front left side of the classroom like she always did. 

It was all too easy to see the concern in her professor's eyes when she looked at the boy. It wasn't all that surprising either. He looked absolutely ghastly. She watched him stumble into his seat and place his head on the desk. For the first time since they started their detentions, McGonagall didn't say a word and let him doze off. 

Finally, she got the detention she'd been fighting for all month. It was peaceful, uninterrupted tranquility that she merely had to wait through… and it was by far the worst detention yet. It was almost appalling to her that she actually preferred Potter messing around to seeing him lay against his desk as if it was his death bed. Time ticked in her head on and on for what she assumed to be close to an hour before McGonagall approached her desk and gave her a whispered request.

"Would you mind walking Mr. Potter up to his dormitory? I sent him to Madam Pomfrey earlier this morning, but he really shouldn't be navigating the staircases on his own," the old professor must've seen the reluctance on her face because she immediately backpedaled. "I can, of course, escort him as his Head of House if you're unwilling. I have a staff meeting tonight, but my duties as a professor come first. I was merely checking."

"No, professor," Daphne cut her off before the transfiguration teacher could go any further. "You have places you need to be. I can escort a classmate if you need me to."

The old woman gave her a kind smile very much unlike the person she'd come to see as a strict, tough, aggravatingly professional teacher. "Ten points to Slytherin, Miss Greengrass, for your willingness to help."

Daphne was floored. The woman was not averse to giving a Slytherin some points in class if they did something impressive, but she was not known for giving points for such trivial things to anyone, let alone a snake. Apparently, she found something about her acceptance of such a mundane task to be worthy of recognition. 

Her professor nodded her head and walked over to Potter before kneeling down and tapping his shoulder with a gentleness that she did not expect from McGonagall, and she discovered why when he shot up in his seat like lightning had hit him before calming down upon realizing where he was. Giving a small, apologetic smile to his Head of House, Potter looked around his desk and began to gather all of his things. Daphne got up and grabbed her bag too after casting a feather-light charm. Binns's essay might've been able to force her to bring her bag to detention, but it sure as hell couldn't make her carry the weight of all the textbooks she had to bring with it. 

Potter braced himself against the desk and stood in a way that almost screamed of the pain he was in, but his face remained impressively neutral as if he couldn't be bothered to care. He began to walk out of the classroom, and Daphne noticed the look her professor gave her. Knowing what it was the woman wanted, Daphne followed the sickly boy out of the room and began her trek to Gryffindor tower… wherever that was. 

Potter made slow progress, especially when it came to traversing the various staircases that stood between them and their destination. Daphne followed a bit behind him in case he fell but spent most of her time reading a small book on charms which she pulled from her bag a few minutes ago. 

The boy was very good at keeping his feelings off of his face, but it turned out that his magic was extremely expressive even outside of the dueling scene. She could tell that he was frustrated, and she had a feeling she knew why. He stumbled a bit when he made a bad step about halfway up a staircase, and Daphne pulled her wand in case she had to catch him. He managed to balance himself despite his illness, so she slowly replaced her wand into her robe pocket. Potter looked back at her just before her wand was put away entirely, and he sent her a glare that held only a small fraction of the heat she knew it could've.

"What?" she asked him. 

"Why're you here?" he asked back with a tone that suggested he was trying very hard to keep his question from sounding too snappy. 

"Professor McGonagall asked me to accompany you."

Potter's face instantly softened a bit as he let out a breathy, pain-filled chuckle. On the bright side, he had one of those cocky smiles on his face that she, unfortunately, came to expect over the month she'd been receiving them. As much as they annoyed her, it was a damn sight better than the forced neutrality he wore on his face all detention long.

"Of course, she did,” Potter teased. “And here I thought you were beginning to care."

She would be lying if she said that the reemergence of his usual, sarcastic demeanor didn't make her feel slightly better. 

"Don't flatter yourself," she responded with a faux air of haughtiness. 

Harry eyed her for a second before refocusing on the stairs in front of him. "Well, if you're being forced to babysit me, you might as well walk next to me. I don't fancy being stalked much."

He meant it too. His nerves were constantly tight during times like these. His instincts were coming out like they never did on a normal day, and they demanded that he act differently. Being followed by some girl he didn't trust as far as she could throw him put him seriously on edge. 

Daphne rolled her eyes but stepped up next to him anyway. The two walked in silence for a while, and she was fine with that. Harry, on the other hand, changed his mind a bit on what he was willing to say. She was helping him just because Minerva asked; and that, he thought, deserved something. He might not have been sure that he could trust her, but the stuff he planned on saying after their duel wasn't really that big of a deal, and he had a soft spot for people who went out of their way to help the old woman. 

"Your magic is impressive," he stated simply.  

She was surprised he decided to say anything about it. It was an awkward thing to mention so long after their duel and came a bit out of nowhere, but that was to be expected considering how little they actually conversed. Their interactions so far were restricted to a duel, borderline offensive verbal spars, and whatever it was they did in detention. She probably would've just nodded and kept to herself in a normal situation. Perhaps it was because of his clearly diminished state that she took his words seriously and decided to give him fair consideration. 

"Yours was as well."

And just like that, the awkwardness vanished. She could tell by the way his eyes brightened despite the pain etched into the lines on his face. Count on Potter to take off with a conversation once someone gave a boost to his ego.

"Ha!" he exclaimed with a victorious huff. "I knew you had fun."

His self-assured confidence was astounding; she had to give him that. 

"It was the first time I've had a family magic duel," she admitted. 

"Really?" His smirk was unbearable. "I wouldn't have known with how many icicles you were throwing at me."

If she was paying a bit more attention, she might've realized that the boost he gave to her own ego goaded her into taking off with the conversation as well. 

"You're one to talk. What even was that fire thing you did? It came out of nowhere."

Harry's eyes gleamed as he reached for his right sleeve and pulled it down a bit to reveal the tribal band of fire wrapping around his wrist. He reached across his body to let her see it better, and he could tell how interested she was in it. He couldn't blame her. The entire point of family magic was to be impressive. He would be failing his family name if she wasn't mesmerized by the runes he could make.

"So what?" she prodded curiously. "That just summons fire or something?"

It was a vague enough question that he could answer honestly without revealing secrets that might compromise the various complexities of his family magic. It was a question meticulously designed to allow her to poke around without sounding suspicious or greedy for information. It was safe.

and so utterly boring. 

"I'll show you how it works if you show me something cool you can do with your magic," he offered with a teasing smirk.

She looked at him with wide, incredulous eyes. That kind of show and tell was something families didn't do. It was so very fortunate for Harry that he wasn't raised in a traditional family. Things would be so much less fun if he had to play by some sort of arbitrary set of rules that determined what he could or couldn't show to whom. 

"Oh, come on!" Harry exclaimed with an excited smile as he said exactly the same thing he had almost a month ago. "Where's your sense of adventure!?"

She considered it very carefully for a few seconds before nodding. Showing family magic in a casual setting was very unusual, but it wasn't as if it really hurt anything. A side effect of the complexity within a family's magic was that seeing it performed didn't do anything toward discovering how it worked. Too much went into creating the specialties for it to be reverse engineered like that. She could show him in slow motion, let him examine every step, and he would still be a few centuries of research and half a lifetime of training away from replicating it. 

Her affirmation made Potter's smile turn almost feral as she watched the muscles in his right hand flex. The air around her pulsed with his magical energy, and she didn't attempt to hide the way she marveled at his tattoo when the top of the band turned into the distinct orange of flame before peeling from his skin and waving around his hand like some kind of animated wrist band. 

The two stopped in the hallway, and Potter turned to face her while extending his ignited wrist as an invitation. She stepped forward and looked at the fire as it swayed and flickered in the circle it drew around the end of his limb, and she couldn't help but find it beautiful how the bottom part of the tattoo flowed into the flame, creating a seamless gradient of two-dimensional black to very real, three-dimensional, fiery orange. 

"... is that actual flame?"

A good question, he supposed. It was certainly a unique way of creating it. He nodded in affirmation. 

"It took a bit of time to get it right, but, yes, it's real fire." He allowed her to examine it for a bit longer before releasing the flow of energy to the tattoo and letting it fall back onto his arm. Pulling his sleeve up, he looked at her. "Your turn."

She nodded stiffly at him and let her eyes fall closed. Magic pulsed from her as well, but it was different from Harry’s. Whereas his magic was sharp and intense, quickly injecting itself into his works of art, her magic leaked from every pore in her skin, soaking the air around her like a humidifier. Harry saw absolutely nothing besides her open palm as she pointed it toward the ceiling. A thin veil of fog formed above her hand exactly where her magic began to condense, and small pieces of ice crystallized within the vapor. The solid specks grew into small streams, which began to wind and meld with each other in a way that could only be described as hypnotic. 

Harry got a bit closer to properly watch the streams of ice dance together until they formed a rather large bud. He was confused at first, but that was before it splayed open into a beautiful flower, as if he were watching some kind of carefully captured time-lapse. It was so perfectly created that his brain was having a hard time distinguishing the glass-like ice sculpture from an actual flower. He wasn't ashamed to admit that he was enraptured by the amount of skill she displayed with her construct. 

She opened her eyes and smiled slightly at the results of her work, and she allowed herself to feel a bit prideful at the reaction he gave her. Everyone at Hogwarts of any real importance knew about her family magic, but it was a rare occasion when she actually displayed it to someone. To families that possessed a specialization, it was often thought of as an immensely private thing. The magic she held in her body was very literally the Greengrass family's claim to power. She possessed great strength, but it wasn't meant to be flaunted without a distinct purpose in mind. Frivolous users of family magic were nonexistent because part of the source of their power came from the mystery behind it. After what he showed her with his flame tattoo, though, she couldn’t resist the urge to show something of equal artistic value.

Seeing that he desperately wanted to inspect it, she held it out to him and let him take it. He stared at it like a wide-eyed child just seeing magic for the first time, and she forced herself to stifle a small giggle for the sake of her dignity. 

"... How long will it stay like this?" he asked her simply. 

It wouldn't hurt to reply honestly. "It’s only ice, Potter. It'll stay about as long as any other chunk of it would."

Harry seemed almost sad that it would be disappearing post-haste, but that sadness was replaced with excitement when he was struck with an idea. He drew his wand and pointed it at the flower with a very loose grip. She could tell how hard he was concentrating. His magic choppily burst at the end of his wand, and with it, a compact, pinprick-sized spike of metal protruded from the tip of it to make his wand look more like an instrument for carving than a catalyst for magic. He held his wand like a quill as he brought the sharp tip to one of the petals. She watched him engrave a simplistic, two-dimensional flower with petals protruding from a perfectly drawn circle placed right in the center. It was extremely small and practically unnoticeable on its surface, but she knew it was anything but insignificant when she felt him flare his magic and pump it into the design he had just drawn. 

"What did you do?" she asked quietly. 

He looked at her a little sheepishly. In all honesty, he was a bit afraid she might be offended that he messed with her artwork. He knew that he wouldn't appreciate anyone doing magic on his tattoos. 

"I… uh… put a rune on it," he answered with total candor. "It acts like a cooling charm would, but it can hold a lot more power since I can build on it later, and I can recharge it anytime I want. It won’t melt until I let it. Is that cool?"

Wow… he must really want to keep it . 

"Why's the cooling rune a flower?" she asked as her answer upon inspecting his addition to her art.

Harry looked at her with playfully condescending eyes. "Come on, Greengrass. I know you don’t know much about runes, but this is beginner magic! Spells are controlled by making sure your expressions match your intent. The runes have to be representative of what I want it to do, or it won’t work properly. How could I possibly think of 'cold' as anything else after watching you do that with ice?"

She was struck speechless. Her flower made a big enough impression on him that it would affect the symbol he drew to make a cooling rune forever? It actually took a bit of effort for her to collect herself after such a flattering statement. 

"So what about all of the other cooling runes you've made before?"

He smirked lightly while he started walking again. "Well, what matters is the connection when you draw the rune. They’ll still work just fine, but it'll be a little awkward to reconcile between my new one and the old ones." He looked at her with weak but happily squinting eyes. "Good thing I didn't make one into a tattoo, huh?"

Potter actually had very impressive charisma. There was a sense of appeal that came with his blatant openness. It took less than a single conversation for her to discern that he cared little for formality and less for filtering what he said. It was a refreshing breath of fresh air for someone so used to dealing with people who always had complex, ulterior motives that they hid behind false smiles, fake kindness, and fraudulent bravados. She could talk to every single pureblood with family magic in the school, and not a single one of them would come even close to asking for or giving the interaction she just had. It was a level of honest curiosity and spontaneity that wasn’t displayed by those who grew up learning to keep everything close to their chest. 

She was shocked from her train of thought when Potter collapsed against the wall in a sudden fit of coughs that sounded like they were trying to put him six feet under, and she reached for her wand in case he started falling over. Instead of giving her an annoyed glare like last time, though, he held up a placating hand and waved it dismissively. 

“I’m fine, really,” he said once he got control of his coughs. “I already have Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey hovering over me.”

Daphne recognized the way he was acting, and it made her extremely suspicious. It was the same sort of annoyance and disregard for his own safety that her little sister displayed all the time. It was true that Gryffindors generally got all uppity when it came to being treated with the care that their health warranted, but it was odd that his words were more reminiscent to those of her chronically ill sister than a too proud for their own good Gryffindor who just happened to catch a nasty cold. Either way, she supposed, it was irrelevant. How he handled his own sickness was his problem. 

They walked in comfortable silence until they finally arrived at the Fat Lady who, much to Daphne's surprise, was looking at Potter with an ample amount of concern. It wasn't that portraits couldn't display love, but it was extremely odd that it somehow came to care so much for a single one of the many students in Gryffindor in such a short amount of time. 

"Wattlebird," he said to the lady. The portrait swung open without a response, and Harry turned around. "Thank you for the company. You really didn't have to come."

She shrugged with a small tilt of her head. "If it makes you feel any better, I got quite a lot of points for it."

Potter squinted at her with obviously fake anger. "You used me for points?"

"Well, at first, I agreed to it because McGonagall had a meeting, but I guess helping you is my free pass to winning the cup." Her face was so fucking smug that he almost smiled at her attitude alone.

"Please, we both know that Professor Snape is your free pass to winning the cup."

She shifted her weight onto her other foot because her right one was getting uncomfortable. Oddly enough, though, she didn't particularly feel like walking away just yet. 

"I saw what you did in his class a month ago, by the way. I'm surprised you're still going positive with Professor Snape."

Over the month they'd spent in detention, she never got close enough during a time when she could get a proper look at his eyes, but she saw them during their duel, she noticed them after their first detention, and she saw them clearly now. They didn't change base colors or anything; it was honestly more like someone dropped a bit of fluorescent yellow into them and stirred it around.

Powerful mages often had something special in their eyes. Muggles weren't wrong when they called them "the window to the soul". It was a reflection of their very being, and that meant powerful mages had powerful eyes. Dumbledore's incessant twinkling and the Dark Lord's crimson irises were good examples. Potter's eyes, though... they glowed. It was no surprise that someone with a multitude of runic schemes branded onto their skin would have enough latent magic within them to display it through their eyes, but it was still a shocking thing to witness.

The pride and excitement she felt from his magic only gave more evidence toward her assumption. Something she said must've made his magic flare.

"Oh, really?" he asked with a mirth-saturated tone. "And what did you think?"

"I think that you and Malfoy are bound to get into a lot of trouble eventually."

Harry couldn't look any more confident. What could he say? He was in a good mood at the moment.

"Of that, Greengrass, I have not a single doubt." walking through the portrait, he turned his head for one last comment. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Daphne wasn't about to just let it end like that, and she just barely slipped in a few final words before the portrait closed behind him. "Not like I have a choice, Potter."

It shut not a second later. She turned to leave and found herself analyzing the portrait for a few seconds while it looked her up and down as if appraising her. Not caring much for the opinion of some barely sentient tower portrait, she turned and began walking back to the dungeons at a normal pace. It was a much shorter walk when she wasn't babysitting a boy sitting on death's doorstep.

She said her password to the ashwinder guarding her door, and it opened for her to enter. She was immediately met with the calming dark green that came from the light filtering in through the lake. In the morning, it would be a much lighter green from the sun. She wasn't sure which one she preferred.

"Where have you been off to?" 

There was only one female who would be waiting for her in the common room. She had a few acquaintances of her own gender that followed Parkinson around like a bunch of sycophantic fools, but Tracey was the only Slytherin girl who was close enough to truly seek her presence. 

"You know where I was."

Tracey tapped her foot impatiently. "I know where you were for an hour. You're forty minutes late."

"Yes, well, that's what happens when you have to escort someone all the way up to Gryffindor tower."

Tracey looked completely perplexed. "You escorted Potter to his dorm? Why the hell would you escort mysterious, didn't-come-to-first-year Potter to Gryffindor tower, and why did it take you forty whole minutes!?”

“Because, Tracey, mysterious, ‘didn’t-come-to-first-year’ Potter looked about ready to pass out, and McGonagall made me follow him.”

“Really?" Tracey asked with a bit of shock hidden carefully within her neutral expression. "What did he look like?”

“I don’t know,” Daphne said back with a shrug. “I guess like any sick person would. He was really pale and didn’t seem to move around really well. I don’t think he could’ve walked any slower if he tried.”

The half-blood girl puffed her cheeks out in quiet contemplation. “Eh… I guess it isn’t that weird for a wizard to get sick, right? He hasn’t been to school yet, so he hasn’t gotten used to all of the people spreading germs around.”

“Why would it be weird?”

Tracey just shook her head. “It isn’t. Just odd timing.”

They left it at that and walked to their dormitory. It was already late, and Potter managed to take up the rest of the time she would’ve had to stay awake and do whatever homework she had left. Whatever, it was better to go to sleep and do the work in the morning than do it now and accomplish nothing tomorrow.

----------

Harry stumbled into the Great Hall for breakfast the next morning later than he had all year. It became a habit for him to sit next to Severus for a while before breakfast started. Now, though, he would probably be forced to cut his meal short if he wanted to get to class on time. It was a shame too because he was extremely hungry. He always was the week before it happened. How could he not be with the amount of foreign magic forcing its way through him? 

He looked over at Malfoy’s group and saw the boy looking at him with a mix of curiosity and a bit of concern. The few weeks they'd spent together proved that the blond was far better company than he'd originally expected. Harry agreed to their alliance at first because the boy understood the plight of being far beyond the scope of pretty much every class he had, but it turned out that Harry genuinely enjoyed Malfoy’s presence. The two of them no longer had boring classes when they had them with each other though he had to admit that this was mostly because of the uncountable amount of pranks they pulled and how little they cared about paying attention. Harry was almost glad how spectacularly Albus’s plan shot back in his face. He was actually having fun acting the fool in school, and it was completely due to the fact that he disrupted every single lecture he had with his Slytherin companion. 

He gave a short nod to Malfoy, but there was no way in hell he had enough in him to walk all the way to the Slytherin table. Instead, he looked at the Gryffindor table and saw someone he actually didn’t mind sitting alone at the end closest to the door. 

Perfect.

He didn’t normally sit with the girl, but after actually talking to him, she transformed into a completely different person. She was almost incapable of not throwing playful barbs at him during every conversation they had and reveled in making fun of and generally fucking with pretty much anyone she wanted. It was that borderline nasty sense of humor that started endearing her to him. If she got annoyed, she could be a right vengeful bitch, and she never pulled a punch. She did her own thing, and he did his; but they got on well enough after his hospital wing visit that he would occasionally spend time with her if Malfoy was otherwise unavailable or Harry just didn’t feel like putting up with the entire group of Slytherin gits. Trying and failing to keep his stride even, he moved to the open seat right by the Great Hall entrance and practically fell into it next to Ginny Weasley. 

“Damn, you don’t look good. Are you sure Madam Pomfrey said you aren’t contagious?”

He smiled widely and dangerously. Even when his presence was unexpected, she still never failed to impress. Her never-ending wit was astounding.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, Weasley. It isn’t contagious. I told you before; this is a recurring thing. It just comes around every once in a while. I’ll be fine in a week or so.”

She nodded at his words and started back on her toast while scribbling down some more stuff on her half-filled piece of parchment with an annoyed expression on her face. So impressed was Harry with the ease of acceptance she had with his vague explanation that he couldn’t help but want to say something back.

“Are you struggling over there?” She shot him a glare that clearly asked why he gave a fuck, but Harry merely smirked and snatched a piece of toast from her plate before she had a chance to realize what he was doing. “Fine, whatever, not like I’m the one who might need help on something.”

Her glare only grew more dangerous when he took her food, but it turned somewhat hopeful at his proclamation. “You want to help me?”

Harry took a bite of the toast he'd stolen from her and shrugged light-heartedly. “I’m bored. Whether or not I relieve that boredom by helping you depends on if you’re willing to tell me what's up.”

With a sassy roll of her eyes, she pushed the paper over to him and let him see what she was working on. “It’s the full-body bind. I couldn’t do it last class, so I have to write this essay on it unless I can cast it in class tomorrow.”

Lockhart certainly upped his game after the threat he gave. Harry knew the man had it in him to at least somewhat teach the subject despite his personal lack of proficiency. Unfortunately, Lockhart's laziness sent him from one end of the spectrum to the other. Instead of teaching nothing to accomplish his goal of coasting by for the entire year, his plan was to teach something more advanced than his class could comprehend to overwhelm them into leaving him be. Oh well, Harry's threat was a spontaneous thing to help Dumbledore. An extremely rigorous and almost violently impossible course would help O.W.L and N.E.W.T scores more than teaching nothing would, and Harry didn’t care enough to try and push the foolish professor in the opposite direction. 

“Well, would you like help with the essay or actually casting the hex?” Harry asked, giving the Weasley girl a choice.

“You think you can teach me better than Lockhart?” she asked with a tone full of annoying skepticism.

“Undoubtedly, Weasley.”

The man knew a bit of magic, but he wasn’t Harry-Fucking-Potter

“Fine then,” she snarked. “Have a go.”

Harry nodded before looking over the essay to see what she actually had under her belt. 

“Do you use wand movements then?” he asked idly. 

She looked at him with a blank, lost expression in her eyes. Obviously, he'd said something she didn't completely get.

“... Do you not have to?”

Harry sighed. Students these days were something else, and Hogwarts apparently didn’t make sure that their magic students were reading the texts on magical theory.

“Did you not read your book on magic theory?”

Ginny looked away just a little bashfully. “Not all the way.”

“Merlin’s beard… Okay, then we have to go a little bit further back than the hex,” he waited for the girl to nod and continued slowly. “Magic for a wizard or a witch is nothing more than the ability to turn your desires into a real-world effect. In order to control the effect, though, you need to control your desires and bridge the gap between them and the real world. This is why a spell requires three things. You must first have a clear intent; you need to understand what you want and think of the way that you wish to accomplish it, and you need to make some sort of physical statement that represents your intent. After you do both of these things, your will to see the effect determines how much power you use.”

Ginny was looking at him with an expression that practically shouted how little she understood of his explanation. “... How does that answer my question?”

Harry resisted the urge to facepalm admirably. He was beginning to regret his offer. He should’ve known what he was getting into.

“Because, Weasley, your physical expression of desire can be whatever you want it to be. The only thing that actually matters is that your brain connects what you want to accomplish with a specific magical action. This is why a lot of powerful magic is done with rituals sometimes days or weeks long. Their complicated expressions, deep spiritual connection to the person’s desires, and clear relation to what they want to happen through the power of repetition and tradition makes casting the magic much less strenuous for the casters. The more you express, the less you have to rely on your own power and understanding of magic. Vice versa, the more power and understanding you possess, the less expression you need."

She still looked a little confused, so he decided to push it forward. He believed that she was smart enough to get it. It was complicated stuff, but he could tell she had power. She only needed to learn how to use it.

“Think about it. People who can cast without words or wands are masters in their craft. This is because they understand the magic they cast to such a level that their expression of desire can be little more than the flick of their finger or a look at their target. They rely almost entirely on their intent, knowledge, and power. Beginners like you, though, supplement your lack of understanding with the use of a conduit, saying the incantations that literally describe what you want to happen, and using the wand movements your teachers tell you to use in order to categorize different spells properly in your mind. It's like making a mini ritual to cast a spell. Instead of just making something float by wanting it to float, you focus on wanting it to float, say you want it to float, and swish and flick your wand because you had it drilled into your head to connect the easy, rhythmic motion with the levitation charm.”

She finally looked like she got it. His explanation got through to her. It was about damn time.

“So how does this help me with the body-bind?”

Harry tapped his fingers against the table and took out his wand. “Well, as I said, the physical expressions matter because they help you clearly envision what you want to happen and create a bridge from your intent to an actual effect. If you use wand movements, it only really helps if you truly, instinctively connect those wand movements to the spell you want to cast. This is why they are all different based on what type of spell they are. It isn’t some kind of objective thing; it's merely there to help you keep things in order like a mnemonic device. Do you have the wand motions memorized?”

“It’s a V motion followed by a horizontal sweep at the end of the V,” she said with a nod. 

“Correct!” Harry exclaimed cheekily. “But do you know why?”

She shook her head carefully. 

“Remember that these movements are there to help you categorize your magic. All types of binds have a V somewhere in them if you're casting with British-style wand movements; it isn’t just the full-body bind. I'm talking about the leg-bind, the tongue-bind, the finger-bind, the arm-bind. Hell, even the stunning spell starts with a V. The V is meant to make you think of binding, and the action after the V helps you separate the individual types of binds from each other. If you aren’t using the movements to help you keep things separate in your head, then they're useless. In fact, if you are spending time thinking about what you're doing instead of what you want to happen because you don’t use wand movements correctly, you're actually hindering your ability to cast properly. Either you take the time to use the movements as they're intended, or you might as well drop them. I did the latter, but if you have trouble casting without them, then using it properly can help a lot.”

The girl nodded but looked a bit sullen. “I haven’t been doing that at all. I’ve just memorized the movements and did the spell until it worked.”

Harry wasn’t surprised. “Most people force it just like that. It ends up working eventually, you know. After you do it enough times, the motion still gets stuck in your head, and you'll begin to instinctively think of the spell when you do the movement. Think of it like teaching a baby to connect a word to an object by repeatedly pointing at it and saying the corresponding word. If you do it the right way, though, and truly focus on making your motions actually mean something to you beyond their connection to each individual spell, it'll help your improvement massively.”

Weasley was in much higher spirits after the consoling words and drew her wand. “Can you walk me through the spell?”

“Sure," he conceded. "First, you need to think about what you want to happen. Make the intent clear. Imagine forcing my limbs to snap together, the pale sort of white that's going to web over my skin. Think of how it's supposed to feel when your muscles freeze up.” He waited a few seconds while she closed her eyes and pictured it. “Do you have it?”

He got a nod, so he started again.

“Now, imagine the wand movements. You didn’t spend the time to actually learn what they meant, but you can start now. Don’t just think of it as an arbitrary movement required for the spell to work. The V is a bind. When you do the V, you should be instinctively thinking of its representation for locking something in place. The line to the right after the V is the full-body. It's a representation for locking everything together. It's the culmination of every single type of bind put into one spell. Do you have everything separated in your mind? Do you understand the importance of the motions?”

She nodded again.

“Finally, think of how badly you want to freeze me. No essay for the rest of the day, and you'll prove to yourself that you can master magic. You must truly want the spell to work with every fiber of your being. The spell feeds off of your willpower. If you don’t want it to work or don't believe it will, then it isn’t going to.”

He could see when she opened her eyes that there was a hard determination behind them. They had an audience at this point. He knew that they were intrigued by his in-depth crash course on spell theory. She, however, didn’t see them at all. She was so focused on everything he told her that there was nothing but her, him, and the desire to master a spell.

It was time to see if his hunch was right. He could sense her magical core. Would she realize the potential that he could see in her, or would she fail like so many wizards and witches who never reached the point they could’ve? 

“Now, bind me."

She raised her wand and leveled it at her temporary tutor’s face. She could see it; she could practically feel the magic pumping through her arm. She moved her wand in the V motion and let her mind internalize the notion that V was the culmination of every type of body bind that she would ever learn. It was the base of an entire category of defensive spellwork.

The horizontal line standing for a full-body bind came next. It would lock everything together, freeze him in time completely. The words, “petrificus totalus”, the description of what she desired: to totally petrify, finished the "ritual". All three expressions and her unbendable intent culminated together so perfectly that it just felt right to send the bolt of white light from her wand. It hit Potter dead on, and she watched her magic turn him into little more than a plank. His arms stuck to his sides, and his legs flew together. He was about to tilt off of his seat when she mumbled the general counter-spell, and she couldn’t help but smile at his proudly gleaming eyes. 

“See?” he asked cockily. “You have it in you. It was your first real try in my book too. All it takes is a little thought and some mental discipline. You’ve got it all in there. If you use it, there isn't much you can't do.”

Ginny blushed against her will, but Potter couldn’t seem to care less. He looked so satisfied that she couldn’t help but wonder if he had some kind of ulterior motive for teaching her. Either way, she was very thankful. She had to wonder, though, why he was doing so bad in his classes if he understood magic to such a point that he could teach a first-year with barely a month of experience how to properly cast a second-year defensive spell. 

“... How do you know all of this?”

“Eh,” Harry said noncommittally. “I just read my fair share of books. If you were a book person, I’m sure you’d have figured it out too. Why do you think Granger is top of the class?”

“Really!?” she exclaimed incredulously. “She really got that good just by understanding what you taught me right now!?”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said placatingly. “What I taught you just now is nothing more than the basics of beginner spellwork. Any powerful witch with a bit of understanding can cast a spell they read in a book or get assigned in a class. The real mastery comes from taking that knowledge and advancing. The more complicated the spellwork and the less expression you want to use, the more difficult it will get to truly understand and master what you're doing. I’m sure you'll hit a bump eventually once you start getting ahead.”

“Still…” She mumbled a bit grumpily. “I feel a bit cheated. I wouldn’t have even gotten the spell at all, but I got in on my first try with a seven-minute explanation.”

“Yes, well, there was a reason that you were told to read your book on magical theory,” he retorted. “Just be glad that you have someone who was bored enough to help you out. Now that you’ve started getting how magic really works, I have a feeling you’ll start improving pretty fast.”

"Thank you."

He scoffed, “All I did was tell you how magic worked. You’re the one who did it.”

With that, he stood and began his slow limp to his first class. He had to leave far earlier than most to reach his classes now that every step hurt his joints so bad that his legs almost gave out on him. Nevertheless, he was in high spirits. He was rarely wrong when he thought he saw someone who had potential, but that didn’t mean he didn’t get a certain amount of self-satisfaction when he turned out right. 

"You sure I should be sitting next to you, Potter?" came the deep drawl that Harry had gotten so used to over the month of going to classes with a Malfoy. "I know we made an alliance and all, but I'm not sure my obligations extend to dealing with this."

Harry did nothing but glare at the fucking ponce. He refused to dignify the blond's sass with a response. 

"What?" Malfoy asked with a raised eyebrow. "Something got your knickers in a twist?"

Harry could not look any more unimpressed. 

"I swear to all that is holy, Malfoy, if you didn't somehow manage to make potions bearable for me, I would have dueled you weeks ago."

"Weeks!?" Malfoy exclaimed with completely fraudulent exasperation. "We only just met a few weeks ago. Do I truly tantalize you so much?"

Harry rolled his eyes but let his glare drop. He had to admit that Malfoy's particular brand of humor did wonders for his worsening mental state. He was honestly confused about where his companion got it from. Every account he ever got of Lucius Malfoy described him as uptight, bland, and arrogant. The Malfoy he acquainted himself with was only one of those things. Perhaps his mother was less of a prick than his dad. The boy had to learn it from somewhere. 

"If by 'tantalized' you mean horribly revolted and completely uninterested, then you'd be spot on," Harry retorted with a mirthful chuckle.

The two were ignoring whatever Lockhart was going on about, but they still stood up with the rest of the class and levitated their desks to the sides of the room before facing off like they were meant to. The man really did improve his lectures, but that didn't mean it wasn't still woefully below where both of them were. Today was a practical lesson or something. The two of them never really performed the spells they practiced on. Lockhart wasn't going to take the time to criticize them either way. 

Looking around, Harry saw that the students were attempting to use the smokescreen charm along with a simple disarm to catch their partner by surprise. Harry supposed that it was a decent idea for a second-year class. The real problem was that the smokescreen was generally so uninventive and stale that a simple sweep of the wand was enough to clear it. For now, though, it was sufficient. 

Malfoy caught on before him and created a smokescreen to conceal himself. Harry would not lie and claim that he didn't feel a temptation to simply dispel the magical smoke, but he was reluctantly keeping to Albus's orders to remain in the middle of the pack. As he didn't have the desire required to truly cast in most of his classes, the only time he had to consciously limit himself was in DADA. He liked the subject enough to become properly motivated even with the beginner practice, especially with Malfoy as a partner.  It was, after all, the area he most excelled in besides runes. In a way, it was sort of enjoyable to grab a win while limiting himself to such unimaginative spellwork. 

It wasn't hard to step aside from the disarming spell that shot at him from the fog. Malfoy may be concealed, but he was still stuck in the confines of his smoke. Making sure to use his words, Harry flicked a few back at the mass of smoke. Malfoy was just as blind as he was, so it wasn't as if he had to be careful about where and when he decided to cast. 

All was silent as Harry awaited the result of his attacks, but he wasn't surprised when he was forced to move again by a big ball of red light. Harry's joints were in so much pain from his sickness that he had to contain a groan as he moved, but that didn't mean he couldn't move just as gracefully as ever if he needed to. The main problem was actually the dark magic spreading within him. The closer it got to that time of the month, the more its magic started seeping into his own. It caused conflict between the two as each fought for dominance. His illness didn't just affect his mood, it literally changed the way his magic worked. It became more aggressive and malicious. It made it hard for him to contain himself to simple disarming spells. His body begged for him to up the stakes and really see what he could do against a Malfoy. The vestiges of a lethal curse tickled the tip of his tongue even as he forced it to spit out the ever so dissatisfying incantation of a disarming charm. It was just after his sickness ended that he felt such a strong inclination to fight Greengrass, and now he was trying to remain civil while in the throes of his pre-transformation. It was extremely difficult for him to contain himself. 

Control himself he did, however, and it cost him his wand when Malfoy’s blind casting finally landed. It enraged him more than he thought it would to lose due to fighting his own inclinations. He thought momentarily about attempting a wandless summoning charm to take his wand back before it could go to Malfoy’s awaiting hands. It disheartened him just a little that his loyalty to Albus’s plan ended up winning over his own desires, and he attempted to cradle his shattered pride as he took the walk of shame required for him to retrieve his wand from a smirking Malfoy. 

The blond twirled his opponent’s wand in his fingers to present its hilt, and Harry wrapped his fingers around the brilliant sycamore handle… Only to be met with a wave of disgust so strong that he was forced to bend over and gag to the side. 

“... Harry?” Malfoy asked with an amount of concern on his face that far surpassed anything he thought he’d ever give to the boy he met a month ago.

Harry didn’t hear a thing. The room around him was mute to his ringing ears, and the dull light of a cloudy fall day was blackened out by his laser-focused attention. His wand… His partner for as long as he could remember… it just lost respect for him. His eyes became so yellow that the green within them was almost lost. His black pupils stretched into vertical diamonds, and his teeth turned into the sharp fangs of a demon. His hand clenched around the handle so hard that it would've cracked if it was normal wood. 

His wand was sycamore, and it was notoriously adventurous, just like him, and just like the wolf. It yearned for theatrics and grandeur; it needed to display power, defeat strong foes, and participate in risky escapades. It was much less a faithful tool than it was a partner. It was barely tolerating his situation as a confined and stunted second-year only because he fought it with every ounce of his being. With Malfoy, though, he began to escape his situation not by resistance but by lazing off and fooling around. Even then, his wand stuck by him out of loyalty to the wizard it knew he was. This, though… to lose a duel to an opponent solely because he forced himself to abide by some silly, second-year curriculum. He was a Potter, not some fucking child galavanting around a school under Albus's thumb. His wand was revolting, and once he realized how complacently and submissively he bowed to Dumbeldore, he started to get angry with himself as well. 

"... Mate… Are you good?"

Rage revolved within him like a tornado of carnage. He swirled away from Malfoy and stormed out of the classroom before anyone could even dare try to stop him. He felt naked, exposed. His runes were his specialty, but his wand was his friend. The way it walled him off like it didn't even recognize him was agonizing. He didn't know where his feet were carrying him, but he was going somewhere; and wherever he was going, he was certainly going to do something .

Daphne, like every single other day of the month so far, was heading to detention when she heard a violent smash from the other side of the transfiguration professor's door. Perhaps if she was a Gryffindor, she might've stormed in on the off chance that danger somehow found its way to her poor professor's classroom. As it stood, though, she was not, and she chose to position herself near enough to the door that she could get a better grasp of the situation without possibly risking her safety. 

"Harry, please, I need you to calm down."

"CALM DOWN!? Minerva, my wand won't fucking listen to me!"

Listen to him?

"Getting angry like this isn't going to help that, Harry. I know it's hard to combat it right now, but if you can only remain patient, I'm sure it will work out."

The sound of a desk smashing against the wall echoed through the closed door. 

"Being patient is the exact reason I have this problem in the first place! Do you not see what this unbearable school is doing to me!? I am stagnating like I never have before, it is constantly angry and simmering, and my wand is so fucking bored that it would literally rather kill itself than be used by me!"

"But Harry, you must understand that this is best for you! It's the only way to keep you safe . I realize that this is difficult, but being a normal student isn't nearly as terrible as you make it sound."

"Not for me!" he screamed.

"Harry…" the old woman said in a gentle but firm voice, "you must get a hold of your anger. All you need to do is follow Albu-"

"No!" he cut her off with another crash to accentuate his denial. "I'm done with Albus and his stupid scheme. Fuck him, fuck his plans, and fuck you!"

Daphne jumped back just in time to avoid the door before it flew open with enough force to shatter the metal handle against the stone wall when it reached the end of its spinning radius. Daphne's first instinct was the look at the person who caused the damage. It was a shame that her response wasn't to step to the side. 

" Move, Greengrass," came the deadly command of one Harry Potter. 

His eyes were shining a bright yellow with tinges of green spread throughout. His pupils were vertical diamonds that reminded her distinctly of a cat. The way his furious glare latched onto her and demanded her attention sent a sickening chill up her spine. There was a power behind his stare that only someone like Dumbledore could emulate. It was as if his very magic demanded obedience. Her feet moved on their own as she stumbled out of his way, and he didn’t waste a second more of his time with his attention on her.

It was only when he stormed down the stairs and out of her sight that she realized her breaths were shallow and her heart rate was frighteningly sporadic. Never, never , had a person made her feel like that. Even her father and his twisted friends couldn’t produce enough latent malicious power to literally freeze her in her own body. 

Those slitted eyes, so dominantly yellow, were simultaneously unforgettable and unmistakable. She’d have to be mad as a child of a Death Eater to not know what she just saw… and it only made her feel worse. She should’ve thought it suspicious at the beginning like Tracey did, and her best friend hadn’t even talked to him before their conversation. A sickness that severe coming out of nowhere and lasting days for a wizard was very odd, and the way it seemed to give him an extreme amount of joint pain should’ve been a dead giveaway, especially considering when he happened to contract it. Combine that with an aggressive, wild personality and an inclination for fighting, fucking around, and generally making a nuisance of himself… it was so glaringly obvious that someone would either need to be unaware or uneducated to miss the signs. 

Unless, apparently, their name was Daphne Greengrass.

So much about their duel and his astounding mobility made sense now. He didn’t fight her out of some desire to do combat with another house or for a personal measurement of power; he fought her because his lycanthropy must have been driving him mad due to his current position as an unchallenged, under-stimulated student. What idiots decided that he would do well here at the level he was in. Werewolves needed to be challenged and interested. It was like an adrenaline junky and a victim of severe ADHD got crushed into a single person before getting a dose of animalistic instincts and a severe bout of insanity once a month. There was a reason that so many of them lived chaotic and/or dangerous lifestyles. 

It was no wonder he blew up like he did. Sicknesses that came with lycanthropy made the victims extremely irritable and touchy the further they got into it. Give it a day or two, and he could’ve lost it by dropping a quill while doing his homework, let alone burying a modest amount of frustration and anger for about a month. It was exceedingly dangerous for a werewolf to suppress their emotions exactly because of what happened once they inevitably got their pre-transformation sickness… and a powerful one just ran off in a rage with a wand and deadly runic schemes tattooed across his entire body. He could kill someone so easily, and McGonagall was still sitting in her classroom doing nothing.

He called the woman by her first name, so the professors must know him on a personal level. They really had to if a werewolf was going to start going to school with a bunch of schoolchildren around all year. The question remained, though, about why McGonagall didn’t stop him. Without a second thought, she ran to the only place she knew would be able to help.

A red pen slashed across an entire paper with enough force that the parchment really had no business remaining untorn. Stupid imbeciles and the lack of effort they put into their papers. That was the sixth one so far he had to completely discard because of just how blatantly they plagiarized the first library book they found on the properties and uses of unicorn horns. Honestly, it was like they thought the potions master didn't know the books his own school's library kept on his subject. It was about this far into the semester when he usually started wishing he could begin a crusade of expellings against the lazy bastards who just didn't care. That particular paper was the third time Mr. Pertz copied his responses from the library… 

They've only had three papers.

He was just about ready to start torturing himself with the next pitiful excuse for a potion's essay when his door slammed open with the force of a thousand hurricanes. 

"What in Merlin's name do yo-"

"Potter's on a rampage toward the first floor, professor! He's almost all gone!"

He didn't spare a millisecond to find out who said it; he was out of the door with his robes billowing in his wake the second "Potter" and "rampage" were placed in the same sentence. 

--------

The world was black around him as he stared at the wand in his hands. He couldn't even begin to think straight when his faithful companion was denying him. Harry wanted so desperately to make it understand his position, but that was extremely hard to do when he agreed with it too. He wasn’t pushing himself; he sat down and accepted the stagnation. All of that would have been complicated enough, but it was only a few days until the full moon, and dark magic was trying to push its influence on him as well. His emotions were whirling around him in a confusing mess of anger, pain, sorrow… He couldn't sort it out. 

A terrifying growl filled with the use of his vocal cords ripped out of his throat. Magic thick enough to see leaked from his arms and wrapped around his wand. 

No … that wand was HIS!

His magic began constricting it in a way that left no room for argument. It was so easy when his magic was infected with a darkness that practically begged to smother and suffocate everything it touched. A trembling smile actually grew on his face as he began to relish the challenge his wand just gave him. Too far gone was he to realize exactly how disgusting that thought was. If his wand wanted to leave because he was wasting away, then the only solution he could think of with his addled brain was to prove to it that he was the one meant to be its partner. 

He scowled when his wand started pushing back against his influence, but he smirked when he realized that his wand, as similar as it was to himself, decided to accept the challenge as he presented it. It wanted him to prove that he was better than the rest of them. It wanted him to show just what kind of man he wanted to be, and there was no better way to do that than pushing their magic together. It was through that pushing that he realized his wand wasn’t only protesting because of his position at Hogwarts; its protest was a long time coming. It saw the potential within him to be great, and it bound itself to him because of what it saw… but he had been trapped for a long time before he was shoved into Hogwarts. He might’ve been carefree, rambunctious, and adventurous just like it wanted; but he was never truly free. It was the Dursleys at first, then it was the looming shadow of Voldemort and their intertwined fate, and for the last few years, it’d been his adherence to his mentor’s plans for him. 

He knew why he had been so complacent during everything, of course. The old man kept no secrets from him. Severus, Albus, and himself spent many nights discussing and coming to terms with the solutions they found for their Voldemort problem. He agreed with them in the conclusions they reached, but in doing so, he allowed his life to be chained in a way that not even the Dursleys could replicate. 

Perhaps what they found was the only way to end things, but that didn’t mean he had to contain himself and suffer the consequences it had on his psyche until then. He would follow Albus, but he would do it in his own way. He was the one with the power to end it, and he was going to prove that he had the power right then and there with his disobedient wand.

He could feel the power from his wand begin to die, but that only made him push harder. The elation he felt while on the cusp of such a monumental moment was greater than anything he’d felt before. Only getting the better of Severus, Albus, or Voldemort himself could ever exceed it. His brain didn’t register the insane wind blowing around him or the ominous quaking of the usually calm lake. 

“Harry!”

The commanding voice demanded his attention, but he refused to halt the conquest for his wand’s continued loyalty to appease the likes of even Severus Snape. He stared into the man’s dark eyes with the intention of showing him that he was far from as lost as his mentor seemed to believe, but that only made Severus’s face grow darker. 

“You need to get a hold of yourself, Harry. This isn’t you.”

Harry’s magic pulsed harder around him as his newly stoked emotions pushed his dial far past its previous max. 

“No…” Harry snapped back with a frown. “It is you who wants me to be what I’m not.”

“Harry,” Snape implored. “I have never wanted you to be anything but yourself.”

The ground around them shuddered with the sheer amount of malicious power seething from his pupil’s very pores. He knew Harry well enough to tell that he was close to tears… and that, more than anything, convinced him that something was very wrong. Harry could yell like no other, and he was prone to extremely emotional outbursts when brought to any sort of peak, be it positive or otherwise. Crying, however, was something he almost never did. Just like his mother, tears were saved for only the most catastrophic of situations. 

“Then why…” Harry barely got out. “Why do you make me do this!?”

Severus took a few tentative steps forward and knelt to get closer to Harry’s level, “Make you do what?”

Harry looked incredulously at such a sincere but stupid question. Once again, just like his mother, the boy assumed that everyone was already on the same page as himself when it came to what he was feeling. 

“THIS!” Harry shouted while more dark tendrils wrapped around the strange light emitting from his wand. “Why are you holding me back!?”

“Holding you back!?” Snape questioned with an intensity that only came when he was extremely stressed. “Harry, I am many things, but a person who doesn't demand your best is something I am not. Are you truly so angry about your position at Hogwarts?”

Spiderweb cracks blew across the ground around them, and Severus had a very difficult time keeping his wand in his pocket. Harry did not realize just how intimidatingly powerful he got when he was in one of his fits. For someone as accustomed to war as Severus Snape, it took everything he had to stop himself from viewing Harry’s expulsion of such potent dark magic as a threat.

“It isn’t just Hogwarts!” Harry claimed loudly. “Both of you have always kept me sheltered!!! This is only the latest of attempts to keep me contained!!!” 

The world disappeared around both of them. Severus had his attention solely focused on the boy he came to care for tremendously, and it hurt him to watch Harry struggle so hard to keep in angry tears that fell anyway as if to spite him. 

“... I know I have to die…” he admitted with a pained face. “But is it so bad to want to live until then? How much more can you ask of me?”

It was like a tinted window in front of his eyes smashed along with his heart… That was why Harry had such a problem. All of them agreed together, with the caveat that they would try absolutely anything else they could before the end, that the only solution to the horcrux was for him to die when the time came, but Albus and himself continued to keep Harry protected like any reasonable mentor would while the boy was already fully aware of what awaited him at the end of his road. 

Harry never displayed any overt emotions about his approaching death. In fact, he was always extremely accepting of the entire situation. It was eerie, actually, that he was so at peace with his own mortality. Severus, though, knew the boy better than anyone, and he understood that Harry’s deepest desire was freedom. To someone like that, death would mean little. It wasn’t the end that he was scared of; it was spending the time he had before his death doing nothing that terrified him. Severus spent so much time trying to keep Harry safe and content when the boy wanted nothing more or less than to live his life as he saw fit. He already had to die for the cause, and all he asked in return was to achieve the limits of who he could become before the time came. Was there truly anyone in the world who could deny him that one simple wish?

Harry’s magic finally managed to push the light back within his wand, and Severus could tell that the energy he was using to contain the light was now flowing into it with a vengeance. The boy wanted to see how far he could go, and he had all but pleaded with his mentor to take him there. More than anything else to the boy, Severus was his teacher. Could he suppress his desire to help the boy grow when the picture-perfect student stood right before him with the amazing offer of allowing him to take the reins? Severus knew the answer before Harry even had time to finish the question.

“Show me then, Harry...” he said, and he couldn’t help but smirk at the boy’s absolutely radiant face. “Show me how far you can go, and I’ll take you from there.”

Harry couldn’t help the somewhat dark chuckle that sprang from his lips. After years of being told to learn to control his desire to go further, to resist the urge to become better ; he was finally given permission to let loose and discover where his limit sat. More and more of his energy flowed into his conduit, and he leveled his once again loyal wand at a gigantic boulder next to the black lake that served as a spot for some more, well, perverse student activities. It was a damn shame that it wasn’t going to be there long enough for him to use it himself. 

“Bombarda maxima,” he barely whispered. 

His wand glowed white as an orb of controlled energy grew on the tip of his weapon. He continued to let it grow while carefully keeping his energy condensed into the ball it needed to be. This wasn’t about speed or efficiency. This was about seeing just how far his magic could go. It was his mentor commanding him to discover his max, something he never got to do before. He refused to waste that opportunity by providing an underwhelming result. A high-pitched whistling threatened to burst both of their eardrums as it began to reach the point where he couldn’t properly contain it. 

His hand rocketed up with the kick of his wand as the ball of white light shot toward the rock with deadly intent. Harry watched his spell hit the rock with shining, diamond-shaped eyes. A dark sort of elation at the new path he just struck for himself was the only thing keeping him company besides a wide-eyed Severus. The night went silent as if even the grasshoppers understood the importance of what was about to happen. The huge boulder started shining with a brilliant, white light… and then it blew itself into oblivion. 

Severus covered his face to shield from the shockwave that managed to reach even their rather distant position. The sound of tiny pebbles clattering against the ground around him told Severus that the collateral was going to be enormous.

He had that much power?  

Severus and Albus together were brilliant teachers, and they understood just how different their styles of combat were from Harry. Both of them were disciplined duellers. Their movements were always controlled, calculated, and performed with deadly precision. Their magic worked in much the same way. 

Harry’s style was erratic, wild, and stock full of overwhelming strength. Never, though, did they think he could produce this much wanton destruction with a single spell if he decided to let loose. It seemed that Harry’s life wasn’t the only thing they may have deprived of freedom. Perhaps the boy would benefit more by being taught to let go in a responsible manner than by relentlessly controlling magic which very obviously thrived on running wild. 

When the dust finally cleared, Severus led Harry over to the boulder and found a crater to be the only remaining proof that something even existed there in the first place. Severus looked from the crater to his pupil and found himself smirking just as much as Harry was. The boy was correct. Both him and Albus obsessed over plans and subtlety, but Harry was the one who mattered now, and those two things were torture to the young Gryffindor. 

Well, at least the magical discharge Harry gave was large enough to calm his fraying nerves. The boy looked much calmer now that he let out all of the things weighing on him. Then, he collapsed into Severus’s arms. The man chuckled under his breath as he looked into Harry’s tired, emerald eyes. Of course, just because the boy might’ve had a point didn’t mean that he wasn’t extremely irresponsible when it came to giving a sensible amount of effort. Restraining his wand like he did before pumping so much power into a single spell drained him too much. 

“We will talk to Albus tomorrow about restarting your training. I still think you should stick with your year and keep your head down for now, but you are right that we shouldn’t be halting your training just because it isn’t strictly required.”

Harry smiled lightly before his eyes drifted close, “Thanks, Severus.”

The almost full moon lit the grass with its white light as the potions professor brought an unconscious Harry to the hospital wing. Poppy was going to be so pissed.

----------

Harry woke up in the middle of an infirmary that he knew all too well. He let out a groan as he rolled onto his side, but he was pushed onto his back by a firm hand that he also recognized. 

“You should know better than that by now, Harry.”

Said boy coughed heavily into his arm and looked at his babysitter with bleary eyes. 

“You should know that you’re talking to a wall by now, Severus.”

His mentor did not laugh at his response, but he could spot that slight upturn of Severus’s lips from a mile away. 

“My wand,” Harry commanded lightly. “I want my wand.”

The man reached for Harry’s wand and passed it to him with a warning glare.

“So long as you don’t use it until you are out of the hospital wing. You pushed too far last night.”

Harry looked to the window and duly noted that it was at least morning time. He wrapped his fingers around his wand’s handle and was met with the distinct feeling of cocky pride. He scowled at his partner but decided to keep it in his grip anyway. It seemed his wand was feeling quite good about how quickly it got Harry to pull himself out of their dreadful situation. Personally, Harry was still pissed off that his wand decided to leave him until he did what the damn thing wanted. He could tell that his wand couldn’t care a single bit less. 

“It left me yesterday,” He said in a calm but quiet voice.

The man seemed only slightly surprised, “Is that what set you off?”

“What else would it be?” Harry said waspishly. “it left me after I lost a duel against Malfoy.”

“Well, he is an accomplished wizard,” Severus granted with just a bit of a teasing tone.

“I would’ve won easily if I didn’t have to rely on two stupid second-year spells,” He grumbled, glowering at his mentor.

“Perhaps,” Severus admitted. “But he was using the same spells as you were, correct?”

“Yes,” He responded with irritation clouding his voice. “But he didn’t have the nearly undeniable urge to shoot a bone-breaking curse instead.”

“Ah,” Severus said with an understanding nod, finally getting to the crux of the issue. “Unfortunately, that is a problem you will need to overcome unless you're willing to kill every single opponent you ever face during your moments of sickness.”

Severus smirked at the way his pupil mumbled under his breath at the very real advice he was just given. As the teacher, though, he did feel a small urge to give some something more than just a bit of criticism.

“I know it's frustrating, Harry, especially since these specific urges are so new to you… But none of your opponents will be looking to cater for the hurdles you must overcome. In fact, they are going to do quite the opposite. It's better that you fail now and learn from it than to make a serious mistake in a battle because you refused to prepare yourself for your shortcomings.”

Harry scowled just a little, but it ended in a smile. It was such a Severus thing to say that he couldn’t find it within himself to be angry with it. 

“I will learn to control it.”

“See that you do,” Severus said while slowly standing up. “I'm going to go to my classroom. I expect that you will be released sometime later today… Do not push it.”

Harry nodded and let the man leave. His attention, though, was quickly caught by a swarming Madam Pomfrey who gave him three potions, all of which he wished he could throw into the wall, one of which he actually needed. It was so unfortunate that the one which tasted the worst was the one he was literally required to take lest he be arrested on the spot. Once they were all taken, Poppy told him to rest. Apparently, his magic was still recovering from last night. If he stayed put for the rest of the day, he would be getting off just in time for Minerva’s detention. 

----------

The newly repaired door to Minerva’s classroom opened with a creaking noise, and Harry was met with two sets of eyes the second he stepped into the room. He looked guiltily at Minerva, but she seemed extremely relieved to see him in a more normal state. One good thing about having outbursts like he did was that it generally quelled his irritation for a little while. That, unfortunately, only made him feel worse. Minerva didn’t deserve what he gave her last night, and he was reminded about the advice Albus gave him regarding Ronald Weasley and his harsh words at the beginning of the month. 

He walked to the desk he claimed for the entirety of his detention with Minerva, and he outright refused to look at Greengrass. He felt bad about what he did to Minerva, but he couldn’t handle whatever the hell it was that he was going to see when he looked at her. Kids never reacted well to him after an outburst, and she had to know about him by now. He probably should’ve told Severus someone knew. Maybe he would actually follow up on his offer to obliviate anyone who found out, but it was an entire night before he woke up. If she was going to tell anyone, the school would already know by the end of the week no matter what Severus did. He supposed he would find out for himself in just a bit. There would no doubt be an ample amount of confrontations for him to deal with soon enough.

Harry yelped with a harsh jump when something freezing cold rubbed up against his ankle. He had to force down his instinct to leap from his desk, and he settled down just in time to meet Minerva’s confused look with an apologetic one. The only good thing about being so jumpy for a week was that legitimate panic could be disguised as absolutely nothing. He couldn’t have been more surprised when he subtly looked to his feet and saw a mouse made of ice clutching a piece of parchment in its teeth. 

He couldn’t conceal a small smirk as he flicked his wand under his desk and levitated the undoubtedly disillusioned ice-construct onto his desk. It wasn’t uncommon for her to do something like this during their detentions, but she absolutely never initiated it. It was always a malicious response to some kind of immature thing he did. He shifted his eyes over to Miss Greengrass who was fiddling with her curly blonde hair with a soft smile on her face before he looked back at the mouse as it placed the rolled parchment on his desk and unrolled it for him. 

Walk with me after detention? 

He looked to the bottom of the small piece of parchment and saw two boxes labeled “yes” and “no”. He chuckled under his breath and flicked his wand to put a checkmark into the “yes” box. It was such a silly thing for her to do that he was almost proud. To think that the one who had been gunning for him all month long for his rule shirking was now breaking a rule right before his very eyes.

He folded the paper into the image of a plane using his magic and sent it flying over to land on her desk with a silent plop. Minerva was still grading papers with seemingly no idea of what nefarious things were going on under her nose, so he let himself relax. If he would’ve been looking at her for a few moments longer, he might’ve realized that she had a slight smile on her face. Harry would never know just how alike he and James were when it came to their pranking antics. She’d seen the boy’s father and all of his friends do the same thing for seven years straight. She’d have to be as aloof as Binns to not know when a disillusioned letter was flying around her own classroom. 

Harry was dismissed from his detention with a wave at the end of an hour and began his long trek from his seat to the Gryffindor tower when Daphne Greengrass walked up next to him and matched his pace. Neither one of them said anything for a bit. What was there for him to say? 

“Sorry for using dark magic on you,” ... Ha, that would be a great conversation starter. 

“I… uh… Didn’t tell anyone about your situation, you know, in case you were wondering.”

She looked extremely nervous, not that he blamed her. He couldn’t imagine that he would feel comfortable in his presence at the moment either. The fact that he did what he did last night only made it worse. He could only be glad that the passive effect the wolf had on his magic output wouldn't appear for a few days still.

It was easy enough for him to activate it himself after he got his ability to consciously bring part of the wolf into his normal form as everyone did around his age. The wolf was forged of dark magic, and that dark magic was extremely malicious in nature. Transforming into it in any way, shape, or form involved allowing that magic to mix with his own. If he reflected that magic outward, the dark magic would project its malicious intent on the minds of those around him. The feeling of impending doom, imminent death… The feeling of danger and terror… The feeling of prey in the presence of a predator; just being in his vicinity was enough to break most people if it was used at full force. 

He used it a few times so far that year, such as when he directed it toward the stupid pixies in Lockhart’s class or when he got excited during his small family magic duel… Or last night against Greengrass and Minerva during his outburst. Normally, it was up to him when it came out, but the closer he got to his transformation, the more the wolf merged with himself. If it were merely a few days later, Greengrass would’ve certainly left for good. Only extremely talented occlumens or transformed animagi could deal with it effectively.

“Thank you,” he said honestly. 

He had no clue if she was telling the truth or not, but he assumed that he should give her the benefit of the doubt considering she chose not to immediately run to the authorities like she could’ve. Oh, the headlines would be to die for. 

Harry Potter, Werewolf, used dark magic on the heiress to an Ancient and Noble House.

He would never see the light of day again. The dementors would have their way with him until he was nothing but a soiled rag left to naturally decay in an Azkaban cell.

“I… I didn’t tell anyone about the runes either.” 

Now, that made his eyebrows shoot into his hairline with surprise. The only reason Severus didn’t murder him on the spot was because they planned for the news about his family magic to spread around. It was the only thing about that entire situation they considered to be a given. Now, he was left feeling a bit silly. So much for the “ultimate Slytherin” with his “genius” plans. Greengrass kept the information to herself, and their duel was actually left as a private occasion.

“Really? Not even your mother?” Harry questioned with a great amount of surprise.

“Well,” She answered. “You said you wanted the duel to be private, so I thought you might not have wanted others to know. It did lead the ones who knew about the duel to assume that I won quite handily though." 

She smirked at what she said, and it made him feel loads better about the situation.

“I hope you don’t mind that.” She said, just a bit too proud of herself.

He laughed, and even though it hurt him on a physical level due to his progressing illness, it was more than genuine. 

“I’m sure I can deal with it, Greengrass, as long as both of us know who the real victor would’ve been.”

“Ha!” She exclaimed. “We talked about this already, and now I know that you had to use your lycanthropy to even stand a chance.”

His eyes started shining yellow-green both at the challenge and the pleasant feeling that came with having his lycanthropy referred to without the subtle undertone of disgust, fear, anger, or pity that normally came with it. He was even more impressed by Greengrass when she met his magically altered eyes head-on and refused to waver in his presence.

“I could’ve used more, you know, and I only activated two runes.”

"Oh?" She said, placing her hands on her hips. "And you think I gave you everything? I was just about to get serious when Professor McGonagall stopped us."

Harry chuckled to himself but went silent after a few seconds. She wasn’t the first person to figure out what he was, but she was certainly the first non-professor to take it well. He could say, without a doubt, that the conversation they were having was the absolute first of its kind among anyone even vaguely close to his age.

"Are you really not scared of me?" 

She looked at him and met his eyes.

"... Should I be?"

Claws grew from the tips of Harry's fingers, and he twisted his hand around slowly, shifting his eyes a bit to analyze them. 

"How should I know?" was his cryptic response. 

That, apparently, was enough for her. 

"I didn't know you could change whenever you wanted," she said, looking at his newly revealed claws along with him. 

"Really?" He asked curiously, both out of his depth in a conversation about his abilities and confused by her admission of her ignorance. "But you knew how to recognize one?"

"You learn things when your father is a Death Eater. Doesn't mean I know everything about them."

Fair enough.

"None of us can change when we want if we are too young," he explained. "Once we hit puberty, we slowly gain the ability to draw more out. It started with my eyes; I just got the teeth this summer," He laughed a bit at the memory. "Almost bit my damn tongue off when Hedwig spooked me during dinner one night."

She seemed to be listening with an ample amount of interest. Her acceptance was already odd; her comfortable curiosity was even weirder. Even more mind-boggling was that he had no idea why she seemed so okay with him.

"So why do you keep it off so much? Is it just to keep your secret?"

"Partially," he admitted. "the more comfortable you get with drawing on it, the more other things start to merge with you too: instincts, emotions, things like that. It's one of the many reasons why Greyback is so vicious."

"And how comfortable are you with it?" she asked with a bit of a mischievous tone to her voice. 

He didn't know if she was aware of how personal a question that was, but he had a good feeling she did. He wasn't one to shy away from adventurous questions, though, so he answered.

"Much more than most… a little less than some. I get along with mine better than a lot of us do."

"Interesting," She teased, but she seemed to mean it. 

"Why do you care to know so much?" he asked just a little pointedly. 

"What?" she asked back. "If someone busted a door open and started throwing around glares with dark magic behind them, you wouldn't be curious at all?"

Harry paused his limp back to the common room to run a hand through his hair. He sighed loud enough for both of them to hear it and actually gave a somewhat bashful smile. 

"Yeah… I suppose I owe you an apology too. I could spend a few minutes making excuses, but it's my problem to deal with in the end. I shouldn't have directed my temper tantrum on you."

"Well, I accept your apology," she said in a haughty manner. "If it makes you feel any better, this conversation is making up for it."

Harry nodded with a smirk and looked up to see that they were approaching the Fat Lady. 

"Okay then," he said. "I'd say you have about one more question before we get to my common room. If it'll make up for it all the way, then shoot."

She seemed to contemplate for a bit before asking her question, but he was slightly relieved when she did. Despite how it may appear, he really did feel bad about what happened the night before. Hopefully, her asking that question meant that it was water under the bridge. 

"You hardly interact with anyone but Malfoy, Weasley, and me. Why?"

"You really made sure that question evened the scales, didn't you?" Harry quipped. "I don't talk to most people because I don't think it's worth my time to talk to them. I talk to you three because I think you are. Are we square?"

"It was a little vague," she responded. "But sure."

They both stopped in front of the Fat Lady, and Harry thanked Merlin above that his sickness didn't give him a fit when he extended his hand.

"I'm thrilled," He drawled, smirking. 

She took the hand he offered, and the two shook on it. 

"I'll see you around, Greengrass." 

"Of course." 

With that, Harry said the password, and the two went their different ways. Harry was under the impression that Severus was rarely wrong, and the two of them agreed wholeheartedly that it would be a catastrophe if the general wizarding public got news of his condition. In this one instance, however, it seemed that Albus's infinite optimism won out. How fucking lucky was it that the first person since his adolescence to learn about his lycanthropy truly didn't care about it? He could only hope that it managed to stay that way because things could get much worse than they did last night.