Survivor

“...Hello?” 

No one answered.

His mind was empty. Harry wasn’t even sure that he liked the man he’d partnered with. He was cynical, twisted, insulting, arrogant, and cold. At the same time, he’d saved Harry’s life. Through all of the harsh commentary and emotional disconnect, he’d been there. Harry knew nothing of the man’s motives or desires. All he knew was that, whatever they were, he’d actually helped. 

It wasn’t like the help Iris gave. The stranger cared little for mushy feelings or familial love. It was a cold, calculated sort of help. Despite that, it was something he’d begun to rely on and value. Iris’s help was something he adored, but it was the stranger who seemed to know what he wanted, what he needed, and had enough of the same inclinations and skill to guide him there. Without it, he felt lost.

He was sitting in an uncomfortable hospital chair, looking down at Daphne from his position next to her bed. Harry hadn’t moved since he’d woken up that very morning, about ten hours after he’d passed out by the first floor staircase. Iris was there when he’d regained consciousness, and she’d reluctantly helped him over to the chair. He was sure she’d said many things to him, some of which were probably very comforting and filled with love. 

Harry, unfortunately, didn’t hear much of it. 

She’d stayed by him for a while, until Pomfrey came over and told her that the best thing to do for him was to give him some space. He’d heard that, but he didn’t argue. Being alone felt like the most appealing option for the moment. Pomfrey was the only exception because she was, of course, necessary to handle Daphne’s wounds. 

That was what she was doing at the moment, casting spells at his friend’s wrapped up legs. Even as covered as they were, he could tell they were mangled. When the woman finally stopped her analysis and started messing around with the potions by Daphne’s bed, he talked for the first time since waking up.

“Is…” He stopped to swallow, his throat slightly too tight and too raw for him to string a bunch of words together. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Oh, dear,” she said as she looked over at her young patient with a sad smile and understanding eyes, obviously finding something within his sudden break away from silence that he’d missed. “She’s… not doing well. You were very brave getting her all the way here. If she’d stayed down there all night like that, she probably wouldn’t have made it.”

Harry nodded to himself, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. He didn’t feel very brave right now. In fact, he was so angry with himself that, had there been a mirror in front of him, he wouldn’t have been able to look at it. Scowling with his head lowered, he looked at Daphne’s pale face. At least it didn’t look as bad as it did last night.

“... And what about now?”

“Excuse me, dear?” she asked, not hearing him due to how soft his voice was during his question.

“I got her back to the castle. How will she turn out?”

“I’m not…” she said before pausing, probably mentally arguing over whether or not she should give away patient details to an obviously traumatized boy. With a sigh, she decided to be honest despite his age. He was the one who had saved her life. If anyone deserved to know, it was him. “I think she’ll pull through now that I’ve got her stabilized. Her legs, though, I’m not sure if she’ll be able to use them again… It’s too early to tell. I’m keeping her asleep for a few weeks to see if I can’t do anything about the residual dark magic in her legs, and we’ll get a clearer picture after we can start a little bit of physical therapy.”

Too early to tell…

He wanted to vomit again. He was the reason they were down by the forest in the first place. Harry was forced to teleport them to a spot that got them in trouble explicitly because he’d chosen to take his revenge instead of running when they’d had a chance of getting away without a scratch. Even after all of that, after she’d told him she was done, she pushed him. He should’ve been the one on that bed, but he wasn’t because the person he’d put in the line of fire took the curse for him. 

A few minutes passed as he stared down at Daphne’s bed. He probably would’ve sat there for hours without a single thought crossing his mind if the door to the hospital wing didn’t open. The matron was nowhere to be seen, which was probably the only reason the two aurors were able to come in here without a tense argument between themselves and a rather stubborn old lady. Behind the two aurors, however, was someone he didn’t want to see at all.

Daphne’s father…

The man was standing just as tall, just as proud as he was back at the station before Christmas break. His face didn’t twitch as he walked up to the bed and conjured chairs for himself and the two aurors with him. Harry couldn’t glean even an ounce of emotion from the man as he stared down at his daughter. It wasn’t until the man slowly looked up and met his eyes that he could see it, the hate. 

It wasn’t the kind that he was used to seeing. He had a lot of experience with hate, but it was the wild, fear-induced revulsion that came from being different, other. This was a rational, calculated hate that came from a person who’d thought through everything they knew and found him wanting. 

“Mr. Potter,” one of the two aurors said. “I’m Auror Mitchell. We’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”

Harry glanced between the two men, careful to keep his eyes just far enough away from their own that true Legilimency was impossible. “Do I need to get a lawyer?” 

The look on Lord Greengrass’s face made it seem like he did, but Auror Mitchell simply laughed. It was a kind, open laugh. Mitchell’s expression was inviting and easy-going. It was as if Harry were talking to a friend. It made him want to scowl, but he forced a relieved look on his face anyway.

This man was a dangerous one, manipulative too. 

“Oh, no,” he said, still chuckling as if Harry had told him the funniest joke he’d ever heard. “There won’t be any need for that. You’re not in trouble. We just want to get a clearer picture of what happened.”

“Okay,” Harry responded, leaning forward just a little and relaxing his posture to make it seem as though he held nothing but innocent trust for this new auror.

Mitchell wasn’t the only one who knew how to be emotionally manipulative.

“It is, of course, totally fine if you’d like to have your guardian here to provide support.”

Did he want Iris to hear this? What was he going to have to say for this? How bad was it going to get if they figured out something they shouldn’t know? The stranger wasn’t here to give him advice and protect him. It was just him in a room with two aurors, a vengeful father, and a shit ton of powerful and dark magic that was unaccounted for. 

“No,” he answered without hesitation. “No, I don’t need her here.”

“Okay then,” Mitchell said. “How about you just walk us through the night.”

“It started with our detention. We were sent down to the edge of the Forbidden Forest to fill in holes. Hagrid said they were made by something called nifflers. We were maybe halfway through with it when Daphne pushed me out of the way of a curse. I don’t know what it was. All I know was that it shattered her legs.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that, Mr. Potter, and I hope your friend gets better,” Auror Mitchell said, and he seemed genuinely saddened by what he’d said. “What happened next?”

“He turned on me, sir. I didn’t last long.” 

“We did see some strange things down at the scene, one of which being a large, metal snake and a full-sized grandfather clock. Is that something you can account for?”

Harry gave a small nod. “The snake was something my guardian made for me. I had no idea she’d made it to do that until after it happened.”

“And why did she make you something like that, Mr. Potter?” the auror asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“It’s… probably because she was afraid after what happened on Halloween. I was one of the kids caught up in the attack. A Prefect saved me.” 

It was technically the truth.

“Oh,” the auror said, definitely acting falsely surprised by the news. “You’ve had a rough go of it, Mr. Potter. Can you account for the clock?”

“That was me, sir. I made it when he shot something at me. I panicked.”

“You made something like that?” the auror asked incredulously. “On the fly too?” 

Harry nodded, and the man gave a small laugh in response.

“Minerva said the kid was good when she looked at the scene with us,” the other auror pitched in heartily. “I didn’t really believe her at the time.”

Harry glanced between the two, and he started to think that things might actually go well for him. That was, at least, until Lord Greengrass cut in harshly.

“And what of the immensity of Dark Magic we found there? Can you account for that?”

Harry just barely stopped himself from making eye contact with the man, and he fought back a sneer in favor of a startled, nervous look that he carefully turned into a guilty one over the course of a few seconds. “I’m sorry, sir. After he tossed me with a spell, I passed out. I don’t remember anything until after I woke up.”

Lord Greengrass snorted, leaning back in his chair. The man glared right into his very soul. Harry didn’t meet his eyes in the slightest. Without the stranger here, the most he could do was wrap his magic around himself. A dedicated mental attack was something he couldn’t resist, and he wasn’t sure about the laws regarding when, where, or if Legilimency was legal in a questioning like this. 

Seeing Harry avert his eyes, he developed a malevolent grin and looked over at Auror Mitchell. “You see that?”

Auror Mitchell sighed, leaning forward in his chair. “Mr. Potter, are you certain you don’t remember anything? nothing at all?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” was Harry’s chosen response. 

“And you’re willing to hand in your wand to prove it?”

Harry’s heart almost stopped in his chest. He hadn’t thought to overcrowd his wand history. Daphne told him he had to do that, but he was a little preoccupied with not letting her die to think about it, and his magic was well and truly shot at the moment. Long story short, he was fucked if they looked at his wand. 

What could he do though?

If he said no, then his entire story was suspect. Who knew what they might look into and find if they didn’t get their clean answers today? He had no choice. If he refused them now, then he was doomed anyway. Nodding, he reached for his wand on Daphne’s nightstand and handed it to the auror.

His heart rate shot through the roof as the man raised it in front of him and brought out his own wand. “Priori Incantato,” 

It was incanted in a dull whisper. The man seemed almost as sad to see the results as Harry was to see the end of his freedom. Harry had no clue what the hell the stranger casted while in his body. All he knew for sure was that the spells were almost certainly illegal. He first watched his many attempts at Alohomora pop up. After that, it was the spells he’d used to create some kind of transportation for Daphne. 

He was certain of his imminent departure for Azkaban when the next spell to show up was somehow the levitation spell he’d used on his shattered grandfather clock and the transfiguration he’d used to make it in the first place. He controlled the breath he released upon seeing that he wasn’t about to go to prison, and he sent a mental thanks to the stranger despite the fact that he wasn’t there. Even in his absence, the man was looking out for him. If he wasn’t so sure of the wizard’s previous malicious intent toward him, he would’ve called the stranger kind.

At least his magical promise meant that betrayal was pretty much impossible now.

Auror Mitchell gave him a smile and handed back his wand. Harry thought that the auror was probably hoping Harry didn’t do anything actionable, and seeing his wand’s history apparently proved it to him. Nobody wanted to believe a child could do something so horrid. That was good for him because, for once, he actually didn’t do anything. The relieved expression on the aurors’ faces were matched by an equivalent level of rage behind the careful neutrality displayed by Lord Greengrass.

“There was so much Dark Magic on the grounds that it still clings to the grass and floats in the air. There’s no way that Mr. Potter is completely innocent in its performance. Why would a Dark Wizard use so much incriminating magic when his two targets were unconscious?”

“We saw his wand for ourselves, Lord Greengrass,” Auror Mitchell said in Harry’s defence. “The more important question to ask is why Mr. Potter would do all of that just to drag her back up the castle and submit himself to questioning.”

“We can find out his motives with just a drop or two of veritaserum. Would you submit to that, Mr. Potter?” Greengrass dangerously offered.

“Lord Greengrass!” the other auror exclaimed, seemingly offended by the very mention of doing such a thing. “We can only offer the use of veritaserum if there’s reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, and his wand came back clear.”

Harry stayed silent, knowing that the words of the aurors on his side were far more swaying than his own were likely to be. The authorities were with him, and that was telling. No way was Lord Greengrass getting his way with this. Still, these insinuations and accusations were beginning to grate on him, and he yearned to give the man a piece of his mind.

“And those wounds on his arm?” the man asked with a sharp smile, letting his mask slip just a bit in his anger. “The medical records on his arm are just so interesting. Everything on his body healed just fine, but his arm, for some reason, wouldn’t heal even a little. Should we get the nurse’s opinion on the cause of his wound because I know they weren’t made by some kind of curse.”

This brought the two aurors to a pause, and Harry looked down at his tattered, bandaged arm. There was a lot of blood on the previously white strips of charmed cloth. Under it was a severely injured limb covered with slices, a messy cut, and three brutal gashes. Pomfrey asked him about the wounds when he’d woken up, and he’d lied, but he knew why they didn’t heal.

It was a sacrifice.

He’d chosen to trade his body, blood, and pain for magical power. Once a trade was given, it couldn’t be taken back. Magic itself had deemed his trade worthy of the power to unlock the castle door, and it’d taken the injuries he’d caused as recompense. Madam Pomfrey couldn’t heal his wounds because he’d given them freely and sealed their loss with his acceptance of magic’s blessing. The nurse could bandage it and keep it from getting infected, but any attempts to make it heal faster than normal or take his pain away was an impossibility. 

Everyone else was staring at his bandaged arm too, and Harry swallowed lightly. The emotions surrounding those wounds, the pain and helplessness he’d felt, they weren’t fun to remember. He didn’t regret them in the slightest; he just wished he was strong enough that the sacrifice wasn’t needed.

“Mr. Potter,” Auror Mitchell asked after a moment of hesitation. “Why won’t your arm heal?”

Harry looked up at the man and stared into his eyes, refusing to flinch at what he did or shy away from the poorly veiled accusation. “When I got to the castle door, it was locked. I spent everything I had left transfiguring the stuff I needed to carry Daphne back. I didn’t have enough to magically unlock the door… so I cut my arm with a stone until it didn’t matter how much I had left.”

The two aurors looked as though they were experiencing a mix of horror and disbelief. Lord Greengrass was undeniably satisfied, but Harry still didn’t look away. Lord Greengrass wanted to crush him, and he was not going to let him have his way.

“You…” Auror Mitchell started. “You cut up your arm with a rock to use sacrificial magic?”

Harry nodded, noticing that the man seemed disgusted but, just maybe, respected him a little bit more despite that. “It was either that or letting Daphne bleed out.”

“Merlin, kid,” the second auror mumbled under his breath. “Where did you even learn something like that?”

“It wasn’t too hard,” Harry smoothly lied with a shrug. “I already knew that magic was a trade. Muggles have all sorts of ideas about magic running on sacrifice. I was desperate, and it wasn’t a stretch to think that I could trade something else if it would let me trade my own energy.”

Auror Mitchell shook his head at the explanation, seemingly buying it. 

Lord Greengrass, however, moved in for the kill. “You do realize, Mr. Potter, that sacrificial magic is considered dark, correct?”

Harry didn’t respond, deciding to play dumb as he looked at the aurors for confirmation. Auror Mitchell grimly nodded his head, and Harry understood that, while he was going to get away with this, he wasn’t coming out unscathed. Lord Greengrass was out for blood, and there wasn’t much Harry could do to explain away his unhealable arm.

“I wonder, Auror Mitchell,” Lord Greengrass asked the man conducting the questioning. “If we have enough cause for veritaserum now.”

The man glanced between Lord Greengrass and himself. Harry, despite not trusting the man at first, was beginning to like him. It was obvious that Auror Mitchell didn’t want to get Harry in serious trouble over this. At the same time, the law was the law. 

“We might have enough to offer it,” Auror Mitchell reluctantly admitted. “You do realize, Lord Greengrass, that he used illegal magic to save your daughter, right?”

The man didn’t budge in the slightest. “Yes, but only after putting her there in the first place and doing whatever it was he did before dragging her to the castle.”

“We still have the wand evidence though,” the second one chipped in to help Harry’s case. “We know he didn’t cast anything illegal before the unlocking charm. Are we really going to push this so far? He used Dark Magic, but he did it for the best of purposes. I agree with reprimanding his methods, but do you really want us to punish him more harshly after knowing his motives were pure?”

“Asking for nothing but the truth is hardly pushing for more than he deserves,” Lord Greengrass exclaimed in an attempt to defend his proposition. “If he’s really lying about what happened, then he doesn’t have a right to keep his deceit hidden.”

Auror Mitchell gave a small nod and looked back at him. “Will you give a magically binding promise that the only Dark Magic you used last night was with the sacrificial magic?”

Harry considered it for less than a second before responding, “Yes.”

Magic accepted his words, and he knew that the other three could feel its approval. Greengrass was still absolutely livid, but it accomplished his purpose, and he allowed himself to feel relieved at the way the aurors relaxed. His words weren’t anything less than the truth. He was sure the stranger did more dark magic in his body, but that didn’t mean he did it. Magic apparently thought that they were separate enough entities for his promise to ring true. It was a risk, but it was a comparatively small one to the things he’d been doing recently. 

“That’s good enough for me,” the second auror said. “Mitchell?”

Auror Mitchell nodded and stood up, patting a vastly displeased Lord Greengrass on the back. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not giving a kid veritaserum with what we’ve got.” The man then looked at him with a very serious glint in his eyes. “As for you, we will have to put your sacrificial magic on your record. It will serve as a warning, nothing more. That kind of magic isn’t acceptable, young man. I understand the desire to save your friend, but don’t do it like that again. Not many people will be as lenient as us.”

Harry gave a nod, knowing deep within himself that he’d gladly do it again as many times as he had to if it suited him. It seemed to satisfy them enough, however, for them to leave with a few more parting words. As the door closed, Harry realized that Lord Greengrass wasn’t going anywhere. He was staring blankly at his unconscious daughter. That was, at least, until he gave Harry one more searing glare before sweeping from the room. 

Harry, not much caring what Lord Greengrass thought of him, ignored the look he'd been given and lost himself in his chair until Madam Pomfrey stormed in and forced him on the bed. She was furious. Obviously, within the time the aurors had left the castle to go back to the scene, they’d let Madam Pomfrey in on his illicit spellcasting. 

"Sacrificial magic, Mr. Potter?” she exasperatedly asked. “Will wonders never cease!? You used a sacrifice to perform magic on empty; it’s a miracle you didn’t do any permanent damage! How you thought that idea was good is beyond me, you silly boy! I don’t even want to see you think about using magic for at least the next two weeks.”

Of course, he'd damaged himself.

Personally, he thought that it had less to do with him using sacrificial magic and more to do with him using a burst of Legilimency after he'd run himself dry, heedless and uncaring of the consequences magic might've had in mind for his unbalanced debt. His ability to use magic wasn’t part of the original deal, so the sacrifice wouldn’t have taken it. As “dark” as people were pretending that magic was, it had very stringent lines that it wouldn’t cross. What he wasn’t willing to give, it wouldn’t take, just as surely as it wouldn’t give to him what it thought his sacrifice wasn’t worth. 

His cuts stood as proof of that point.

Still, the nurse’s advice was sound. He could feel the negative effects of him doing something as simple as using magic to back a promise, and that was some of the least strenuous magic he could perform. The zouwu, another bit of magic that came naturally to him, was firmly out of his reach as well. He didn’t dare attempt to draw on its power when the wall between himself and his other form was so obvious that it might as well have been tangible. 

The lack of power that he used to possess made him feel raw and naked. His magic was a presence as constant and unwavering as the stranger, and he’d lost both of them. How was he meant to feel safe when the thing that set him apart and pushed him beyond the influence or control of others was absent? It was his safety net, and it was now as if he were balancing on a tightrope with nothing to catch him if he fell.

The next day, he was released from the hospital wing with strict orders to stay away from spellcasting and come back every other day to have his bandages changed. He was upset mostly because getting kicked out meant that he could no longer listlessly hang around in a chair beside Daphne's bed until she woke up. The dismissal, though, was not a request, so he was sent out despite his attempt to protest her decision. 

The first thing Harry did when the hospital door closed behind him was put on a face of practiced neutrality. Without access to his magic, the only defence he had left was the natural ones he kept around his emotions. If they thought he was unshakable, then he was unshakable. Their perception was everything. That was his plan until he got through the portrait to his common room.

It changed quickly.

From the moment he stepped into the green-tinted room, he could feel the eyes on him. He expected them; he would’ve been a fool not to. Everyone knew about his injuries, and everyone knew that Daphne was even worse off than him. Their looks weren’t ones of sympathy or childish intrigue though. Some of them were, yes, but specific others were looking at him with purpose. 

Harry initially suspected that those stares were merely the result of curiosity. It was understandable that they might’ve been measuring him up after he somehow survived an attack by a wizard using such dangerous magic, even if they were as certain as he was that his survival had nothing to do with his own skill. He understood that this wasn’t the case when he caught Malfoy’s eyes flicking down to his bandaged arm with that same fucking look.

They knew…

Of course, they fucking knew. He should’ve seen it coming. The mark on his record was supposed to be nothing more than a warning, something that was there for the eyes of law enforcement only in case it happened again. After spending so much time with those conniving, vindictive muggles, he should’ve realized that this secret wasn’t going to be kept. 

His new theory was confirmed when he took count of everyone staring at him with the same expression as Malfoy. Every last one of them had at least one family member firmly positioned within an important part of the ministry. Those fucks must’ve taken a peak at the reports after finding out that something was going on at Hogwarts. The stranger was always cynically talking about how corrupt the ministry was, and this was proof of it presented on a silver platter. Their kids were only an owl away. It took just a few scribbles of their stupid, ornate quills to pass the information along.

Hiding a scowl, he forced his way through the weight of the eyes on him and stormed into his room with as much dignity as he could muster. Closing the door firmly behind him, he approached his bed and flopped down on it. He had about five seconds before Jason crawled up on the bed next to him. Harry didn’t think he looked happy.

He’d bet all of the money in his vault that Jason was about as pissed as he could’ve possibly been. Harry left him in the room when he went out for his detention with Daphne. He had a cloak, but he found out that it was very cold at Hogwarts, and he knew that Jason was bound to have been uncomfortable in the stifling heat of his thick clothing for long. Not wanting to inconvenience his friend for a few hours of detention that he earned by being an arrogant jackass, he went alone, and he was extremely glad that he did.

He wasn’t sure what the stranger did in his body, but he knew it probably wasn’t conducive to keeping the things around him alive.

If Jason had somehow died because of him, Harry wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t have been tempted to follow. As it was, Jason was alive and angry. That was something he could deal with. He was actually feeling pretty good until Jason hissed. It sounded as angry as he knew Jason was, but that wasn’t the problem.

“Jason?” he asked quietly.

His friend hissed again, and Harry’s heart stopped in his chest. “Jason, stop playing around.”

His oldest friend hissed again and slid closer to him on the bed. Harry’s eyes flew wide open, and, unlike in the hospital yesterday, a bit of bile rose in his throat when an inkling of cold fear gripped the nape of his neck.

He couldn’t hear his friend.

Harry was about to have a breakdown when Jason touched the side of his head with his nose. It was gentle, calm, and it knocked him out of his panicking mind. As it turned out, his previous definition of being alone was wrong. He’d taken Jason for granted, not even counting him among the people he had with him because his best friend being there was a given. 

Harry understood very little about parseltongue aside from the fact that he could understand it. He’d assumed that the ability was natural, passive. He thought it was something he just had. It wasn’t until now that he realized he’d been taking his abilities for granted too. Parseltongue was tied to his magic. If he ran out of too much, he apparently lost his ability to use it. It wasn’t as if he had any extra muscles or some kind of shit in his ears. It was his magic translating things for him as it came and went, and his magic was gone.

Unable to hold back all of the tears, he stubbornly dragged the sleeve of his robe against his eyes and pulled Jason into his arms, rocking himself and his friend in a painful but familiar mimicry of what he used to do in his cupboard. It was so dark in his unlit room that his brain could almost convince himself that he was actually back there. He decided that he couldn’t possibly have been back at the Dursleys, though, because it'd never been this bad.

Jason was always with him in his cupboard, talking, comforting him, keeping him sane.

He sat there and rocked long after he got tired. He found that it was impossible for him to relax enough to go to sleep. He’d grown used to Jason being there with him. Losing magic for a while was a strike to his confidence, but losing his ability to talk with Jason was like losing a limb. It was worse than being defenceless or vulnerable; it was the feeling of being incomplete, lesser. 

He was reintroduced to yet another aspect of living in his cupboard when his tired brain eventually slipped between the seams of time. There was no natural light in the room, and there wasn't a clock in sight. Once he got tired enough to lose a bit of his natural sense of where he was in the day, it became easy to simply fade away and let the seconds turn into minutes and hours until he felt as though time were washing over him instead of allowing him to move through it. 

He was so lost within himself that he almost glued himself to the back of his headboard when the door to his room opened. He would swear, in that moment, that he could see his Uncle Vernon sticking his fat fucking arm through his door to grab him. It went away quickly when he saw how far away the intruder was and suddenly came to the only somewhat relieving notion that his visitor wasn’t here to hurt him.

“Lumos,” the voice incanted.

It sounded like Snape, not that Harry could visually affirm that with his eyes once the blinding light of his professor’s spell shot into his unadjusted pupils. He didn’t flinch at the light, and he was actually very proud of that fact. Instead, he sat there and stared back at the figure from behind the glare of his lit wand.

“Mr. Potter?” the man asked, and Harry knew that this was most definitely the head of his house. “Are you okay?”

Being asked this, for some reason that he couldn’t presently comprehend, hit him like a freight train. It took him a moment to respond, but he eventually did. He was as surprised as his professor was when the words he spoke were actually honest instead of a smooth, confident lie to hide the mess underneath.

“I can’t understand him, Professor,” he said in a crackly, dehydrated whisper.

The man seemed to understand perfectly because he brought his wand down and covered the light slightly with his other hand, approaching him with measured, obvious steps. Harry was tempted to move away, but he didn’t, not when the man was so purposefully slow with his movements. Once Snape was close enough to his bed, he knelt down next to it, and Harry could finally see the man’s face instead of the intense light of his spell. 

“Parseltongue requires just a little magic to use, Mr. Potter,” the man explained in a shockingly soft voice. “It will be one of the first things to come back. Once you have enough, it will start flowing without any control of your own. You may have lost your voice, but you haven’t lost the bond. The thread is there; you can feel it, can’t you?”

Following Snape’s orders more on reflex than any conscious decision of his own, he looked within himself like he'd started to do when casting a spell for the first time. It only took a few seconds to find the familiar tug on his very soul that pointed directly at Jason’s resting form in his arms. That knowledge calmed him immensely. 

Harry jerkily nodded his head once he found it, and Professor Snape gave a nod in return. “I know things have been rough for you lately, but you still have to attend meals. It’s been a day and a half, Mr. Potter. Starving yourself will do nothing for your friend.”

Harry wanted to do literally anything other than go to a place like the Great Hall, but he gave a nod anyway. He was sure that he wasn’t going to be able to stomach anything. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Professor Snape was asking for a debate, so Harry decided not to waste anyone’s time. He’d go to the hall, get some food, move it around his plate, and leave ten minutes later. 

Once Professor Snape retreated from his room, Harry slowly swung his feet over the side of his bed and pushed himself onto his legs. They were wobbly and uncertain, but they worked. He took a moment to acclimate himself to moving after a solid twenty-something hours of being curled up on his bed when he glanced at Jason. He felt a pang at not being able to ask his friend to come with him, but he was saved from asking when Jason coiled up his arm and rested around his neck. This wasn’t where Jason usually preferred to be, hidden underneath his robes, concealed until he wanted to reveal himself. No, he was perched proudly on his shoulders for everyone to see.

And see they would…

Jason was bright-fucking-green, and he contrasted against Harry’s black robes more prominently than even his tie. Still, it imbued him with more confidence than he had before. His friend was there with him, protecting him, standing by his side. It was an overt sign of support, one that any kid or professor was going to notice immediately. 

He stumbled through the castle to the Great Hall in something of a daze. He made it all the way through the open doors before he realized that he had no clue where to sit. He and Daphne used to be together, and they always claimed a spot early. Everyone was already here now, and he was alone. That hesitation gave him time to notice that almost everyone’s eyes were on him.

He looked pale and haggard, his robes were disheveled, and his hair was messy in a way that was immediately different from its usual, almost intentional raffishness. He was a mess, and his eyes were probably bloodshot from the lack of sleep. He could only guess, really, but he had enough experience with his current appearance from seeing himself in the bathroom mirrors while cleaning at the Dursley household.

Their eyes were burning through his skin.

He could see the uncomfortable stares from the children in general, even the older ones. Just by glancing at their faces, he could pick out which ones were told about his incident by their parents, and he watched as some of them went from suspicion or disgust to fear upon seeing his snake. There were rumors running around about the identity of his familiar, but this was the first time anyone outside of Slytherin had physical proof that the rumors held substance. If he was being honest, he wanted to run right then and there.

Instead, he buckled down and desperately searched for a single open chair. His eyes naturally latched onto the person he'd called out to when Daphne was on death's door. It was Gemma Farley, and the seat to her left was vacant. He went to it without thought. 

He plopped down in the open space, feeling so relieved to be in the midst of a crowd instead of standing on his own that he missed the way the table almost rippled when he sat where he did. He didn’t notice the way Rosier gave the Prefect an incredulous stare from his position to her right or how a few of the older students a bit down the table gave him guarded glares. With Jason giving everyone around him except for Farley a dirty look, people moved just a bit away from him as he reached for some food. His plan to push shit around on his plate until Snape let him go was in action, and he was about to leave ten minutes later when Hedwig flew down from the Owlery and dropped two letters on the table.

It was dinner at the moment, and mail was normally given during the morning. No rules explicitly banned the delivery of mail at specific meals or anything, but it was still an abnormality. Harry thought that it was probably one born by the fact that he was hunkered down in his room all of yesterday, only coming out where Hedwig could reach him at this very moment. He ignored the way everyone’s stares were renewed and simply reached for the letters.

He hesitated when he saw the names on them. One was from Ginevra, and the other was from Iris. The first one gave him an ounce of joy that he’d been missing since Daphne was injured so severely, but the second one filled him with dread. He hoped that Iris was someone capable of handling his choice of magic to save Daphne, but there was also a chance that such a pure woman would shy away from such disgusting spell work, and he hadn't told her, so she'd heard it from someone else too.

Her parents worked at the Ministry...

Too afraid to even begin opening that letter, he went for Ginevra’s instead. When he opened it and started reading from the top to the bottom, he very suddenly wished he would’ve just gone with Iris’s because he soon discovered that Arthur Weasley was the head of a law-enforcement department, small as it was.

The letter was written in a furious scrawl. Ginevra was absolutely pissed that her parents were demanding that she stop writing to him, and she wanted to know what could’ve possibly happened. Harry knew that she was someone who liked a bit of… exciting magic, but he wasn’t sure how actual sacrificial magic was going to go with her. This bullshit was all so perfectly horrible that he almost gave a sardonic grin upon seeing everything come together.

His world was falling apart around him.

It all started with a stupid need to get revenge on those fucking Ravenclaws, and the resulting effects were just getting more catastrophic as each domino fell in sequence. It was almost glorious, the way he was fucking things up further as each hour turned into another. Trying and failing to not care about it, he crumpled the letter in his hand, jammed it into his pocket, and walked away as he more carefully put Iris’s in the other one. Fuck whatever Professor Snape wanted him to do. He showed up to the Great Hall, got stared at, and then had the rest of his support structure shrivel up and die in front of his eyes. He should’ve just stayed in his room.

That night, he finally fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. It was unfortunate that he woke up the next day feeling no better. Walking quietly from his room, he saw that it was very early in the morning. That was good; it meant nobody was going to be in the Great Hall. 

His rumbling stomach demanded food, and it was beginning to get violent after so much time being denied. Huffing at what he felt was his own weakness, he decided that he could go down to the damn Great Hall and eat something if he could risk so much for the mere morsels he used to take at his relative’s house. With that in mind, he left with Jason still wrapped around his neck. 

He was glad to have been proven right about the amount of kids in the Great Hall. Only a few of the more eccentric Ravenclaws were at their table. Most of them were there to get an early start before heading over to the library in time to take up the vast majority of the seats before the rest of the student populace could even think about getting some studying in. It was one of his pet peeves about the house of ravens, actually. At least they tended to get done relatively early in the day, so all he had to do was wait until the afternoon to go do his shit. If he waited too long, however, the nightowls of Ravenclaw were bound to show up en masse, so he had to carefully weave his way between them if he wanted to do his work in a peaceful environment. 

Their eyes naturally fell on him. It was grating, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as when it was almost the entirety of the student populace. Taking his seat at the Slytherin table, he slowly began to fill his plate with whatever he could find around him. This wasn’t about enjoying a meal; he wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. 

His hand clenched against his fork when a certain redhead entered the Great Hall and began walking over with purpose behind every step. God damn it, if it didn’t seem like the entire school was conspiring against him. This was possibly the last person he wanted to see at the moment. He didn’t know if he had the patience to deal with any taunting, but he certainly didn’t have the power to do anything about it either way.

Weasley took a seat right beside him, only taking a moment to glance at the snake. Apparently, Ronald wasn’t afraid of his friend. That was something he wished was shared among the other students, but it worked against him here. If Weasley was afraid of Jason, maybe this situation wouldn’t have happened.

How did the little bastard know he was here anyhow?

“What do you want, Weasley?” Harry asked as he played around with the food on his plate. “You got what you wanted; isn’t that enough? Ginevra isn’t allowed to speak to me anymore. Your parents saw through my charade.”

“Look, Potter, I don’t like you, and I didn’t want you around her,” Ronald said to him with a straight, serious face. “... But you helped me and Neville when we were in a rough spot. Greengrass didn’t deserve what happened to her, and neither did you. If it was Neville down there… I’d use anything I could think of to help him too. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll talk to my mum about Ginny.”

Harry didn’t really know what to say, so he simply went with a quiet, “Thank you.”

Weasley gave nothing beyond a nod and got up to walk away. Harry stayed in his seat for quite a while, not doing anything in particular. It was strange to have someone like Ronald give him support when everyone else seemed to be just fine with letting him suffer. He was right when he said that people were snakes just waiting for him to fall from his pedestal back during his quidditch tryouts. 

Eventually, he slowly consumed enough that his stomach didn’t actively hurt, and he left before the crowds could get to him. He absentmindedly decided that going to the common room was asking to encounter the smug pricks delighting in his situation, so he went to the one spot he was reasonably guaranteed to meet absolutely noone. It didn’t take long for him to reach the hospital wing doors, and he sighed to himself when they blessedly opened without trouble. He was worried that Madam Pomfrey had them locked, but she didn’t.

He headed toward the end of the room and sat down in the chair beside Daphne’s bed that he’d recently claimed as his temporary property. He leaned a bit to his left side after a few seconds and reached into his right pocket for Iris’s letter. Pulling it from its confines, he looked at it as one might’ve stared at a loaded gun pointed in their direction. In some ways, Harry would’ve actually preferred the gun to what he was actually holding. 

He sat there for a long while, doing little else but taking in the front of the envelope as a sharp, searing sort of pain grew within the center of his chest. He knew the feeling of anxiety all too well, but he was the first to admit that it never really got easier to handle. The letter was so very Iris. Her first name was written with a sprawling, beautiful script that was more comparable to calligraphy than writing. The true identifier of the sender though, even more so than the name written in front of him, was the little animated doodle of a spotted horse running around the bottom of the envelope. 

What would he see if he opened it?

He tentatively reached for the seal only to find that it was as if an invisible barrier was standing between his skin and the paper. He physically couldn’t bring himself to do it. This was the breaking point; he knew it. If this collapsed too, if even she turned away, he didn’t know what was going to happen. The letter was practically burning his fingers as he held it, and it only took a few short breaths for him to lose his courage and shove it back into his pocket. 

With his elbows against Daphne’s bed, he pressed his forehead into his palms and lost himself in the white sheets in a desperate attempt to just make it stop. He didn’t want to think, not when every thought he created was about how badly things could go for him at this point. Luckily, he succeeded in his task. It was most of the entire day later that he was brought back to reality by the voice of Madam Pomfrey.

“Come on, dear,” she said gently as she laid a hand against his shoulder. It was very telling to anyone who knew him that he didn’t flinch at the unexpected contact. “It’s time to give your bandages a change.”

He gave an empty nod and turned in his chair, extending his arm for the nurse to take. She gently grasped him by the wrist and started to unwrap the bandages. He made a slight face at the uncomfortable warmness that followed the bandage’s removal. It was charmed with many things to keep his wound clean and safe from infection, but his personal favorite addition to them was the cooling charm. It helped bring the bleeding down at the start and kept him at least somewhat comfortable throughout the duration of his healing. 

All of that was soon forgotten when he saw the back of his arm. Now having time for his body to process the wound and start dealing with it, the area around his cuts were an angry red. Far more unsightly than that was the purple, swollen skin around his three more brutal attempts to meet the requirements of his sacrificially powered unlocking charm. It didn’t feel good, but he was also very aware that these wounds, if they did scar, were going to be far better than the others on his body and the only ones he wouldn’t despise with every ounce of his being. 

Madam Pomfrey took a few minutes to examine each of the cuts. She used a few spells to check on their progress and make sure they weren’t getting contaminated despite the charms. He heard her mumble under her breath about how she would’ve applied a numbing charm if he wouldn’t have made the stupid decision of sacrificing his pain for the power to cast his spell. Harry sometimes forgot that he was technically still paying for the charm he used. Every single second he spent with those cuts on his arm and the pain they entailed was balancing the books. Until magic got its due, his exchange wasn’t complete.

It didn’t take much longer for Madam Pomfrey to rebandage his wounds. Once they were on and the charms were applied, his arm was once again covered in a swathe of unreasonably comfortable bandages that doubled as a cold compress. He moved his arm around a bit, getting the somewhat painful kink out of his elbow and suppressing the cringe that came with the inevitable stretching of his many cuts. Harry gave a small nod to Madam Pomfrey when he was sure everything felt good, and she gave one back.

“You have about an hour before the hospital wing closes,” she informed him as she walked away.

He only stayed for about half of that time. Harry didn’t want to wait until dusk to return. That would only end with him walking in alone and volunteering himself as Slytherin house’s temporary source of amusement until he managed to plow through the crowd and into his room. No, it was much better to walk in a bit before the sun set and hopefully get into his room before anyone noticed him. 

The stone hallways were quiet, calm. Harry suspected that most everyone would be at dinner about right now. Professor Snape told him that he was expected to be there too, but his potion’s professor could honestly go fuck himself. No way was he going to endure another meal under the spotlight of the entire school and its brainless occupants. 

He wasn’t even sure why the man cared so much about what happened to him. Harry was grateful for the man, of course, but that didn’t mean he trusted him. Professor Snape, while an amazing teacher, was far from the personable type. For some reason, though, the man was particularly tolerant of Harry talking to him, asking questions, and seeking advice. Even after the dark magic incident, Professor Snape still was yet to abandon him to the whims of the school at large. How was he meant to trust someone who helped him so much when he had no discernible motiv-

“Stupefy!”

A red bolt of light flew from around a corner and smacked him right on his neck, which was exactly where Jason was perched. His friend went limp in an instant, and Harry twirled to face his assailant only for a pale light to wash over his turned back. Knowing that the castle was at dinner didn’t inspire him with much confidence, but one thing he knew from personal experience was that noise generally fucked up a good plan. That was the entire reason he got caught sending Preece and Rickett for a ride down the main staircase. He opened his mouth to give a shout.

His voice made no sound.

It was almost as if ice water was thrown in his face when a hand reached from behind him and grabbed the front of his robes. He was violently shoved against the hallway wall, and he glared at the person pinning him. That glare twisted horrifically when the boy grabbed his stunned friend and tossed him onto the floor. His assailant’s face was obscured by shadowy darkness; it must’ve been a spell because even the boy's raised hood couldn't cover his features so perfectly. 

“Should we kill it?” one of them asked as they approached from around the corner.

“No, you idiot!” exclaimed the third fuck standing right behind the one who'd grabbed him. “It’s his familiar. The aurors are already around here. We aren’t giving them a reason to look at us!”

This was different to anything he’d experienced in magical Britain. It was unique, even when compared to the attack against him and Daphne. That man had hurt him through magic alone. This was a mix between magical and physical, the second of which he hadn’t encountered from a human since running from his relatives.

“You fucked up, Potter,” the one grasping his robes said as he leaned in close. “You really thought you could just join up with Farley without any consequences? She comes around and, all of the sudden, you miserable half-bloods think you can do whatever you want!? Well, maybe this time, she’ll finally learn to stop fucking around with us.”

Why the fuck was this guy talking about Farley of all people?

Harry had never been a fighter, not physically. The zouwu allowed him to do that, but he wasn’t built for muggle combat on his own. He could run all day long, but Dudley taught him well enough how good his odds were once he was cornered. Still, there was one thing he could do in this very specific situation because this boy didn’t have the experience of his cousin.

Throwing his leg up, he kicked the one holding him right between the legs as hard as he could, and he sneered as the boy crumpled to his knees. God, it felt fucking good to hurt someone after the days he’d just been through. He even managed to get a second one in before the other two could grab him, viciously kicking the hands that'd shot to cover his damaged privates. With the element of surprise completely lost to him, he struggled and writhed against the two as he sarcastically, mockingly, perhaps even hysterically laughed at the groaning boy he'd kicked without making even a single peep of noise. 

“Are you good!?” one of the two asked their third member. 

“Fuck it,” the second said. “He’ll be fine. Just bring the little bastard!”

He tried his damndest to pry himself from their grips, but they were much older, much bigger, and much stronger. Magic was the only way he was getting out of this, and that was something he didn’t have access to at the moment. Oh, if the zouwu was there, he would’ve killed all three of them; he didn’t care even a little about the consequences. 

He only fought harder as they began approaching a door. If that was where they wanted him, then the only thing he could be sure of was that he couldn't let them get there.

One of the boys flicked his wand at the door and silently opened it. He tried to kick them as they shifted their grips to the back of his robes and tossed him into the room. He tumbled onto his front, just barely catching himself with his hands before he smacked his face against the floor. The meat of his palms scraped nastily against the stone, but he ignored it in favor of jumping to his feet and turning to meet them head on.

“Finite!” one of them incanted.

Harry made a mad dash for the door, his footfalls once again making noise, only for it to get unceremoniously slammed in his face. Harry was extremely confused and desperately panicking at the same time. His hand went to the pocket with Iris’s letter and felt for his wand. Pomfrey was going to be pissed, but he wasn’t just about to let them trap him in here. He was ready to do what he had to do to get out.

But there wasn’t anything to cut himself on.

He didn’t know what else to sacrifice, and his jumbled mind wasn’t doing a very good job of brainstorming. Harry instinctively reached for the door handle, pushing down on it as hard as he could. They must’ve locked it with magic, and he couldn’t do shit about it unless he had the power to counter it. 

He was about to try and break the window on the other end of the room to create something capable of harming himself for a sacrifice when something started violently pounding against the floor, almost frantic with its chaotic tempo. Looking at the source, he saw that it was a wardrobe, one of the only pieces of furniture in the entire room. 

It was shaking like something big was thrashing around inside of it. Knowing what he did about a fair few magical creatures, he was understandably terrified of whatever rested inside. He prepared for just about anything from a gigantic spider to an honest-to-god demon. The shaking suddenly came to a stop, and the door clicked as it opened just an inch. It creaked as, millimeter by millimeter, it slowly swung wider, revealing more of its darkened interior until a human hand wrapped around the edge of the door and pushed it the rest of the way.

He drew a vicious blank as his uncle emerged from the cabinet and stared right into his eyes.

“Hello, boy,” his uncle said, his voice sounding absolutely flawless. Harry would’ve known if it was fake; it’d haunted his nightmares for weeks after he'd gotten away. “It’s been such a long time.”

What the fuck was this?

Harry’s wand was up immediately, and he glared at his uncle with everything he was worth. The effect was somewhat ruined by the wild glint in his eyes and the paralyzing fear swimming in his pupils, but he did it anyway. 

“Oh, come on, now,” his uncle taunted him, completely unworried. “We both know you can’t use that thing.”

“Y… You aren’t real,” Harry barely stuttered out of his constricting throat, his hand shaking horribly as he held his wand with all of the strength he possessed. 

The humongous, lumbering man took a few steps forward, relishing in the way that drawing out his approach affected the boy. Harry knew that this couldn’t be his uncle, but the gait was undeniably perfect. It was in the way he leaned into his step, pushing his foot onto the ground from his heel to his toe with agonizing patience, knowing that every single delay, no matter the length, only made it sweeter once he finally arrived. Terrorizing him was an artform to Vernon, and there just wasn’t any way someone else could’ve replicated that to such a horrifying degree. 

“But aren’t I?” Vernon asked with a long, slimy grin that pushed his fat cheeks into ugly, pronounced dimples. “You used to say the same thing to yourself all the time when I'd come to drag you from your cupboard. Were you ever right?”

The words rang true, resonating within his very being and only scaring him further with its accuracy. He took a few instinctual steps away from the man, but his back hit the damn wall. He had nowhere left to go. His breath evolved beyond shaking and into the realm of hyperventilation. His mind was whirling, and he could feel the adrenaline in his system trying to force him into running or fighting.

He knew that both options were impossible.

The man finally got him trapped in a corner of the room, and he found himself paralyzed as his wand was smacked from his hand. It clattered across the floor, and Harry tried to press himself far enough into the wall that, just maybe, he could get lucky enough to sink into it. Chuckling with lighthearted amusement, his uncle knelt down to match his level in a sick parody of the way Iris would do it when he was scared or upset, and he reached his meaty hand out to brush the back of his fingers against Harry’s cheek.

It was a gesture filled with mock adoration, and it gave him an unbearable desire to scratch himself until he could no longer feel the man’s touch on his skin or his own fell off, whichever came first. This wasn’t his uncle; it was physically impossible. The thing in front of him was ten times worse. Vernon Dursley couldn’t have faked any sort of love for him, not even as a backhanded way of hurting him. It made things easier, in a way, that the man used to be consistent during their interactions.

“You poor thing,” he cooed gently, like he was trying to get Harry to open up and lean into his presence. “You actually thought you could get away, didn’t you?”

Harry tried to tilt his head away from the offensive, repulsive touch, but that only pushed the man to wrap his large fingers around his chin just like he always used to when he didn’t want Harry looking away.

“You really thought that things might be better this time,” his uncle said as he almost caringly forced Harry to look up into his dark brown eyes. “You tried to hide what you know you are. You wanted to trick them into loving you, but they see now, don’t they? I tried to tell you so many times, boy; I don’t know why you could never understand.”

Harry was starting to suffocate. His lungs were taking in air, but it wasn’t getting into his blood. He was starting to get light headed, but he couldn’t do a single useful thing. It was just like in his dreams, his memories. He was useless, exactly like he always used to be. He thought he was better; why wasn’t he fucking better!?

“You aren’t worth being loved, Harry,” he whispered as he smiled almost sadly down at him. “You’re a freak… I watched you corrupt my house with your poison for a decade. That won’t change just because you got your silly little magic or a brand new mum. How many times do people have to leave you before it finally gets through your skull that the problem is you? When will you finally realize that you deserve what you got!?”

Vernon’s words had already cut to the bone like a serrated knife after the first sentence. Everything after that was just brutalizing his corpse. Through everything his uncle had ever done, from the mental to the physical, this was somehow the most Vernon Dursley had ever wounded him.

He'd never felt more pathetic.

His eyes burned with tears that he promised himself he wouldn’t shed, but after everything he'd fucked up, breaking a self-made promise hardly topped the list. The grip on his chin was so hard it hurt, and his spent tears rolled over the man’s pudgy, sweaty fingers until he let go and brought his hand back. Harry knew what was about to happen, and, for probably the first time in his life, he welcomed it. Anything was better than hearing more of those biting words, even something as horrid as this. 

He was seconds away from the cold but blissful release of pain when the door to the room got ripped from its hinges and flew across the room. Harry wasn't aware enough to look over at his savior, but his uncle turned to greet the newcomer with wide eyes. That was, at least, until Harry was greeted with the terrifying sight of his uncle twisting and collapsing into himself until a small, emaciated child stood in his spot.

Harry thought it looked a little bit like he used to in some ways.

The boy was extremely small, but he could see the potential for extraordinarily good looks underneath the boy’s boney form and unnatural palor. He wore a raggedy uniform consisting of a plain shirt, black trousers, and a somewhat thicker overcoat. His hair, kept contrastingly immaculate in comparison to his clothes, was swept over to one side and seemed rigorously groomed. Despite the obvious care put into his appearance, he seemed anything but composed. He looked scared, broken, and desperate. This, even more than his looks, stood in likeness to himself. 

That was, at least, until the boy was reduced to ash in an instant. Harry stared down at the remains of the boy who used to be in the form of his uncle, and he tried once again to make the tears stop. When it didn’t work, he turned his head to see who'd saved him. He got about a second to see the face of Professor Quirrell looking down at him with something resembling concern in his eyes before Harry lost the willpower to remain conscious.