Chapter Four of 'Casualties of Politics'- The More Things Change

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Four—The More Things Change

“Harry, come on! What are you waiting for?”

Harry clenched his hands for a long moment and glanced at his brother. Felix was looking back at him with a small frown, obviously not understanding why Harry might be reluctant to step into the Great Hall and expose his head and eyes to the owls darting around delivering the morning post.

Then Felix followed the direction of Harry’s gaze into the Hall, and grimaced. “Oh. Um, yeah. Why don’t you wait ten minutes or so and come in, then?”

Harry nodded. That sounded good to him, even if that would only leave him a few minutes between the departure of the owls and the beginning of their first class. But Harry had spent a lot longer than that going without food. “Yeah, thanks, Felix.”

“What’s going on, mate?”

Felix started explaining to Ron and Neville in a low voice as they entered the Great Hall. Finnigan, Thomas, and the girls were already in there, and older Gryffindors streamed past without noticing Harry. Harry sighed and leaned on the wall, watching intently as the owls darted among the students, dropping off what he knew must be the Daily Prophet or letters, and then soaring out through the windows.

“Something wrong?”

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Nott was standing behind him, dressed in black robes with green edging and a serpent crest. Harry shrugged and looked away, not wanting to look at the snake and accidentally start speaking Parseltongue. So far, it had only happened that one time with a real snake, but why take chances? “Waiting to avoid the crowd so I can eat.”

“I don’t think so.”

Harry stiffened and gathered his magic close to himself, then tried to relax. He knew someone else would have drawn their wand, and he had to remember that! He’d promised himself that he would stop using his wandless magic for big things after the Sorting Hat.

“You’re going to prevent me from eating, Nott?”

“Not what I meant, Potter. I just don’t think you’re standing out here because you don’t like crowds.”

“You’re way too obsessed with me, Nott. Do your Housemates know about your crush on a pathetic little Gryffindor?”

Nott moved into sight, although Harry hadn’t planned to look at him. He was standing against the wall next to Harry, examining him intently. Harry turned his head away again.

“One of them said something like that last night,” Nott murmured. “Blond prat named Draco Malfoy. See him at the table there?”

Harry let his eyes drift to the Slytherin table, and sneered automatically when he saw Malfoy, whose hair looked a lot like his father’s. His magic shifted around him and uttered a crackle.

“I was right. You did use magic to compel the Sorting Hat.”

Harry made his eyes as cold as he could and glared at Nott. He would have to intimidate him without using magic. “Who cares? No one in power’s going to change their mind on the word of a kid most of them think of as a Death Eater in training, are they?”

“I wasn’t planning to use it against you, Potter. Only to say that I was right. The hat did want to put you in Slytherin, didn’t it?”

“It doesn’t matter if it did. It said Gryffindor.”

“What the hat says isn’t always what matters.”

Harry laughed aloud at that, although he stopped himself when he heard how shrill it was getting. He tapped the lion crest on his own robes. “I think a lot of people would disagree with you, especially in your House and mine.”

Nott gave him a smile that didn’t seem to mean anything at all, or be happy or angry or mocking, no matter how Harry looked at it. “See you in class, Potter.” And he levered himself off the wall and walked away.

Harry shook his head and examined the Great Hall. Most of the owls were gone, and the few that were sitting on the tables and hooting softly as their owners fed them were nowhere near the Gryffindor table. Harry took a deep breath and walked in.

There was a deep-throated scream from a large black bird sitting near Malfoy on the Slytherin table, and it turned towards Harry, feathers fluffed out and talons rasping back and forth on the wood as if it wished it had Harry’s skin underneath them. It leaned a little forwards, and its wings started to spread.

Harry brought his magic up around him and made it flash once, briefly, something that would probably look like light flashing off something metal he wore to most of the humans around him.

The black owl continued to stare at him, but its feathers went down. It seemed to recognize a predator who could hurt it if it came close. It bowed its head down to take some bacon from Malfoy’s plate, eyes still fixed on him.

The other owls in the Great Hall seemed to have seen the same thing, or decided the same thing. They went gradually back to eating, and Harry sat down next to Felix and reached for a bowl of porridge. He put brown sugar and raisins on it and ate slowly, despite the fact that other students were hurrying through their meals. A prefect, Ron’s older brother, was going to take them to their first class. Harry wasn’t worried about getting lost.

“Here’s your timetable, Potter.”

That was Granger, sounding as though she meant to be helpful, so Harry smiled and nodded at her and reached for it. He scanned it and sighed a little. They had Potions on Friday, which meant he could put off any sort of confrontation with the man that both Lily and James had described as a bully, but they had Transfiguration first thing today. Then Charms. Both wand magic classes, and where he would have to speak to the professors about remedial lessons.

“Felix was saying something about how you can’t use your wand?”

That was Ron. Harry nodded to him. “I have a disease that happens sometimes with students from the Muggle world,” he said, and swallowed what was left of his porridge. “I have to make sure that my magic comes through my wand instead of from outside.”

“I read lots of books that said wizards work for years to learn wandless magic.”

Granger. Nott had said the same thing. Not that Harry planned to pay attention to what someone who was weirdly interested in his life thought. He nodded to her. “Sure, but that’s after they learn to follow the rules by using wands first.”

That was the right tactic to take with Granger, as Harry had thought it might be. She nodded and turned away to begin bothering Finnigan about something.

“I’ll be right there, okay, Harry? Anything you need to tell the professors, I can back you up on.”

I should be able to manage by myself.

But Harry knew he couldn’t, and Felix had a lot more standing in this world than he did. The professors would believe him even if they were skeptical about Harry really needing remedial lessons. So Harry smiled at his brother, and nodded, and stood up to follow Percy Weasley to Transfiguration.

*

“All right, Mr. Potter.”

That was the only thing Professor McGonagall said when Harry told her that he’d need remedial lessons in Transfiguration, Felix was glad to see. He was hovering behind Harry in case his brother needed support, but it turned out he didn’t. Harry just nodded to the professor and then glanced over at Felix and smiled a little.

“See, I told you that you didn’t need to come.”

“I wanted to,” Felix said, falling in behind Harry as they left for Charms. And he had. He didn’t want Harry to feel like he was stupid or pathetic or—or lesser just because he had this sickness he needed help to cure.

Professor Flitwick, who taught Charms, squeaked and toppled off his pile of books when he called Felix’s name. Felix sighed a little, and Ron choked on laughter next to him. Harry just smiled and shook his head when Felix looked at him.

“Rather deal with what I have than that,” he murmured, and began taking notes as Professor Flitwick gave them a lecture on Charms theory.

Felix thought about that as they went to lunch, especially after Harry’s discussion with Professor Flitwick about needing extra lessons just produced a bit more of a reaction than his discussion with Professor McGonagall had. What would Felix choose, if it came to going to hospital, listening to people squeak or yell or cheer in reaction to his name, and having Death Eaters after him, or having a disease that prevented him from using a wand right away?

Maybe I would take the disease. After all, it wasn’t as though Harry’s problems with the wand were going to last forever. Mum and Dad had both said so. Once he had some remedial instruction, everything was going to be better.

*

“If it isn’t the weaker Potter.”

Harry watched Malfoy with as calm a face as he could. He couldn’t be sure it was showing no expression, but he was trying. And of course Malfoy would show up while Harry was standing outside the Great Hall to try and wait the few owls in there out.

The Slytherins had evidently had a class outside, probably Herbology, and were trooping past Harry into the Great Hall without a second glance. Well, mostly. Malfoy’s goons seemed eager to go eat, and two girls Harry didn’t know ducked past chattering, but a blonde girl gave him a curled-lip stare, and there was a girl who’d waited with Malfoy openly laughing.

Nott came to a halt a few meters behind Malfoy, with a dark-skinned boy next to him. Both of them were watching Harry with the same kind of blank expression that Harry had thought was just Nott’s game but seemed to belong to some other Slytherins, too.

“Better weak than having a Death Eater for a father,” Harry said softly.

Malfoy stopped laughing as if someone had strangled him. The girl next to him gasped. Nott and the other boy drifted a little closer.

“What did you say?” Malfoy growled, one hand darting into his sleeve for what would probably be his wand.

Harry coiled his own magic close to him. Nothing big, nothing like the Sorting Hat. He’d promised himself. But it was pretty easy to do something small. “Imagine, having problems with your ears, too.”

Malfoy’s wand came whipping out—

And soared out of his hand as Harry slid just a little bit of his magic around it and tugged. The wand clattered into the far corner of the entrance hall, bouncing off the stones as it went. Harry glanced in its direction, then turned back to Malfoy with as much fake concern as he could come up with. “Problems with your fingers, too? Wow, Malfoy, I’m sorry. Did your father torture you until you have tremors? I heard that’s a side-effect of the Cruciatus Curse.”

Malfoy’s face actually could get whiter, it turned out, but high spots of pink burned on his cheeks a few seconds later. He threw himself at Harry with something like a shriek emerging from his lips.

Harry dodged. He had plenty of practice doing that with Dudley and his gang. And even though the girl who had been standing beside Malfoy was exclaiming, hands on her cheeks, “Draco! Oh, Draco!” and Nott and the other Slytherin boy were staring, none of them were actually moving forwards to try and help Malfoy.

“What seems to be going on here?”

The voice was exceptionally cold. Harry hoped he hid his flinch well enough, but he wasn’t sure. He was sure, even before he turned around, that this was the Potions professor Lily and James had warned him to avoid.

The man was taller than most of the other faculty, except Dumbledore, standing with his arms folded and his black robes half-billowing around him. He had a piercing gaze, black hair and eyes, and the face of someone who would probably curse first and ask questions later, if at all. Harry drained all his emotion into a small corner of his soul at once.

It doesn’t matter what he says. He’s not your Head of House. He’s only a teacher. He can give you detention and take points, but his opinion of you as a person does not matter.

“Potter called my father a Death Eater, Professor Snape!”

Interesting that he didn’t mention the other things, Harry thought, and just stood there. Snape seemed to notice at the same time as Malfoy that Malfoy’s wand was still lying on the floor. He strode over and picked it up, then flicked it back to Malfoy. At least the git was smart enough to catch it.

“Go to lunch, Mr. Malfoy. And remember, no magic in the corridors. I would like a word with Mr. Potter.” He turned his head to take in the other students. “Mr. Nott, Miss Parkinson, Mr. Zabini, if you would follow Mr. Malfoy.”

Malfoy went off, muttering something under his breath about gits and Potters, and Parkinson went patting his arm. Neither Nott nor Zabini lingered, although Nott kept watching Harry like he was the most interesting thing around until the corner of the entrance into the Great Hall cut off his gaze.

He’s really weird, Harry thought, and turned to face Snape.

*

The second Potter child was strange.

Severus’s reaction on first hearing about him had been blank surprise, and after that, rage as to neither Albus nor Lily ever telling him that the Potters’ second son had survived that night. But no, apparently every piece of information about the boy would have been a “security risk.” In fact, the existence of the twins had been so tightly guarded that Severus hadn’t even known for sure which one had supposedly “died” at first.

Nor did he know where in the Muggle world Potter had lived, not for certain. But Albus’s mention of Lily’s Muggle family members…

There was only one choice, really.

Potter’s eyes were blank, and his face meek. He stood there as if awaiting punishment. Severus took a deep breath and tried to decide what the best course would be here.

He had heard the brat’s savage words to Draco, and normally Severus would have assigned a detention based on them alone. But he had also seen Draco draw, and then lose, his wand, and Draco was the one who had waded in with fists swinging. Severus would never take points from his own House, of course not, but his colleagues were aware of Potter’s problems with a wand, and penalizing Gryffindor as many points as he wanted to for words alone…

Severus and Slytherin House and possibly Draco would look like the losers in that situation, much more so than Potter deserving the point loss.

“I wish to know why you spoke the words you did to Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter,” Severus said, and kept his voice calm and controlled.

From the way the boy blinked, he hadn’t anticipated that. But he said only, “To get him to leave me alone, sir.”

Severus paused. Then he said, “There are less painful things you could have said.”

“Not if I wanted him to leave me alone, sir.”

Severus might have nodded in agreement if this was anyone else. Draco, unfortunately, had none of his father’s subtlety, or knowledge that sometimes one needed to retreat and pick a battle at a different time and place. He would probably strike at Potter as hard as he could if Potter did not strike back first.

Not that Severus could condone what Potter had done. He said, “If you say such words again, you will have a detention with me. Trust me, Mr. Potter, you do not want that.”

The boy’s eyes seemed to focus on him for a moment, instead of staring into whatever blank distance they had before. Then he nodded. “Yes, sir. I won’t say such words again.”

Severus frowned. That sounded much less like agreement than it would have from another student.

He needed to understand, so he pressed. “You should know that you will not receive such support as my colleagues have promised you in my class. You do not need your wand to do well in Potions for the first three years. I expect you to make an effort whether or not you are sick.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I do not care what your father has told you. Pranks are not tolerated in my classroom.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you attempt to sabotage another student’s cauldron, Slytherin or Gryffindor, out of jealousy, then you will receive that detention I have promised you.”

“Yes, sir.”

What will get through to him? Severus had expected some response, at least, even if it was just Potter rolling his eyes or acting bored or scowling rather than firing up in defense of his father. But he stood there and responded like he was a homunculus someone had forgotten to spell with a Human-Like Charm.

“Get to lunch, Mr. Potter.”

“Yes, sir.”

The boy turned around and walked away without looking back. Severus stared at his back and wondered if that was really what ten years of life with Petunia Dursley would do to a child. There was a sort of churning sickness in his stomach.

But, on the other hand, Albus certainly hadn’t said that anything was amiss with the boy. Perhaps he was simply the kind of spoiled hothead that his twin was, but without anyone to indulge him in acting like that for the ten years he had spent in his Muggle world, so it had twisted around and spiraled down into him.

Yes, that’s it, Severus decided as he made his own way to lunch. He’s acting like this in the hopes that someone will start asking questions and coddling him and giving him whatever he wants.

Severus half-sneered as he sat down and asked Minerva to pass the potatoes. The sooner the boy learned that the world didn’t coddle people, the better.

*

“All right, Mr. Potter. Feet spread apart, right underneath your shoulders. Arms loose. Breathing regular.”

Harry did his best to copy Professor McGonagall’s instructions, letting his breathing get as calm as possible. He lifted the ebony wand in his right hand and waited for her to nod to him. She had shown him the wand movements and the incantation already.

“Commuto!”

The spell did nothing. It was mere words leaving his lips. And there was nothing down the wand, not a spark.

Professor McGonagall glanced at him. “All right, Mr. Potter. What did you feel when you cast that spell?”

Blank despair rose up inside Harry for a second, making him feel like a sheet of parchment scrubbed clean. He almost wished he could be, that he could get rid of his memories of the Dursleys and his fear of Lily and James and his bloody disease and just be someone who had never existed before, the person they all wanted and needed.

But he couldn’t, and he knew it would be a bad idea to lie to Professor McGonagall. He shook his head and whispered, “Nothing, Professor.”

“Not unexpected for a first try. Try again. Concentrate on the image of the beetle that you want the button to become.”

Harry nodded, and aimed his wand again, trying to overcome his fears that the ebony would forever remain a piece of dead wood in his hand, that he would always be a freak even here.

“Commuto!”

Even though it would. Even though he was.

*

“Ah, Mr. P-Potter. You s-suggested that you n-needed extra lessons because your wand is not working properly for you?”

“Not so much the wand as my magical channels, sir,” Harry said as politely as he could. He had a pounding headache. The smell of garlic that filled Quirrell’s classroom went straight into his head and seemed to linger there. It was weird, because he hadn’t ever had an allergic to garlic when he lived with the Dursleys.

On the other hand, he’d never been around this much at one time. Neither Uncle Vernon nor Dudley really liked garlic that much, anyway, so he didn’t make a lot of food with it.

“Yes. You have King Canute’s D-Disease, I b-believe?”

Harry blinked once. “I didn’t know it had a formal name, sir. Mr. Ollivander said it was rare, so I thought—”

“It is b-becoming m-more common, Mr. P-Potter.” Quirrell crossed the classroom with surprising speed and plucked what looked like a thick book from the shelf. It was dark brown and had red lettering on the spine that Harry couldn’t read. “D-do you know who King C-Canute was?”

Harry shook his head. The name sounded a little familiar, but not enough to be going on with.

“He was an early British monarch.” Quirrell put the book down on the desk in front of Harry and traced his finger over the page he had opened it to. Harry leaned closer. It was a crude illustration of a man with a crown on his head and several others standing on the edge of a beach with waves curling in. “King Canute, to il-illustrate his hu-humility, showed his p-people that he had no c-control over the waves on the shore. It has become s-somewhat changed in the way that magical p-people relate to it, of course. For someone with King Canute’s D-Disease, it means that they have no c-control over something that should be el-elemental to a wizard.”

Harry buried his bitterness. At least having a name for his sickness would make it easier to look up in the library. “Yes, sir.”

“You w-will need more wand lessons in D-Defense, I think you are saying?”

“Yes, sir. Only if you want to give them, of course,” Harry added hastily, because asking Quirrell for extra lessons felt worse, for some reason, than it did when he’d asked Professor McGonagall or Professor Flitwick. “I know it’s going to take a long time. My wand doesn’t respond to me at all.”

Quirrell looked up from the page of the book that he was still staring at and gave Harry an intense look. “Not at all, Mr. Potter?”

“No, sir.”

“Then, ex-excuse me, Mr. Potter, but how did you b-bond with it?”

“There’s no bond, sir. The only thing that could be done was for Mr. Ollivander to find the wand core and the wood that reacted to me a little and make a wand out of those.” Harry tried not to resent the length of dead wood stuck up his sleeve. It wasn’t the wand’s fault, after all. It was just the way reality was. He was sick, and he had to work to overcome the sickness.

Quirrell leaned slowly backwards. “That is not the usual p-presentation of King Canute’s D-Disease, Mr. Potter. Usually it would simply give a slowness in working with the wand, not a complete lack of bond with it.”

Harry met his eyes evenly, ignoring the way that it felt as if his headache increased. “I know, sir. But my parents seem convinced that I’m not a Squib.”

“Not a Squib, no. But do you have King Canute’s D-Disease at all?”

“I don’t see what else it could be, sir.”

Quirrell went on looking at him as if he was the Potions professor and Harry was something he intended to pickle for an experiment. Then he waved a hand. “You may b-borrow the book, Mr. P-Potter. Perhaps it will give you some insight into your condition.”

Harry doubted it, but it was at least a book that meant he wouldn’t have to find a tome about King Canute’s Disease in the library. So he said, “Yes, sir,” and scooped up the thing to place in the bag over his shoulder.

“And I have t-time for the extra D-Defense lessons at six-o’clock this evening, Mr. Potter, if you are interested.”

Harry doubted they would have any more effect than the Transfiguration and Charms lessons had, so far. But he formed his face into a grateful smile. He was getting pretty good at those after practicing them for an entire month this summer. “Yes, sir,” he said, and slipped out of the classroom.

*

Potions on Friday looked like it was shaping up to be a disaster the moment Harry walked in.

Slytherins and Gryffindors sat on opposite sides of the classroom, scowling at each other. And everyone was paired up, at least among the Gryffindors: Felix and Ron, Finnigan and Thomas, Granger and Neville, Brown and Patil. Inevitable, since there were nine people in his year, that someone had to be left out and he would be that one, but Harry couldn’t hold back a sigh as he went to set up his cauldron on an empty table.

Someone’s cauldron crashed down next to him. Harry looked up at him and scowled when he saw Nott.

“Get out of here,” he hissed under his breath as he set out his ingredients and kept an eye on Snape pacing slowly back and forth in front of the classroom.

“There are nine first-year Slytherins, too,” Nott said softly. “And Professor Snape will make us pair up, anyway. He thinks three working together are going to cheat.”

“We could work alone!”

“I don’t want to.”

Harry would have snarled something at Nott, but Professor Snape began to speak then, and Harry turned back towards the front. He thought he saw Nott smirk from the corner of his eye. Harry didn’t hex him, or even try, but he wanted to.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potions making…”

The speech was a good one, which probably meant that Snape recycled it from year to year. Harry maintained a complete blank expression on his own face. He could see from the corner of his eye that Granger looked excited, Felix a little bored, Ron cautious.

Malfoy was smirking about something, but he stopped that as he caught Harry’s eye.

“Potter! The younger! What would I get if I combined powdered root of asphodel with an infusion of wormwood?”

Felix blinked once, then straightened his spine. Harry wondered if he should be trying to send his brother subtle encouragement or not. He decided that he wouldn’t, because he had no idea whether Felix knew the answer or not.

“The Draught of Living Death, sir,” Felix said, voice and eyes steady.

Harry experienced a moment of surprise before he wanted to sigh at himself. Felix remembered everything he’d ever read. Of course he would know the answer to questions like that.

Snape narrowed his eyes a little, and Harry wondered if he knew that about Felix’s memory, too, or if he’d even been told about it. Then he spun around to face Harry. Harry straightened as much as he could.

“Potter the older! Explain to me what a bezoar is and where you would find it if I asked you to look for it.”

“It’s a stone from the stomach of a goat, sir,” Harry said. “You can use it to treat a lot of poisons.” In reality, he only knew that because he’d seen the word in one of the history books Lily and James had told him to read, got curious about what it was, and gone to look it up. But why did it matter how he knew? Find out and survive, that was the important thing.

Snape definitely looked disappointed now, and turned away to question Neville about plants. Harry went back to arranging his ingredients.

“Impressive.”

Harry didn’t pay attention to Nott’s words. He wanted something, or he wanted to make some trouble for Harry. That was what pretty much everyone who had approached Harry in the first week aside from Ron, Felix, and Neville was like. Nott, admittedly, probably wouldn’t be like the giggling Hufflepuff girls who had asked if Harry could introduce them to Felix.

Harry half-smiled at the memory, and Nott leaned forwards. “Something funny? Can you tell me?”

Harry just shook his head, and looked up at the instructions Snape had made appear on the board. They were going to be working on a Boil Cure Potion, evidently. He turned towards the storage cupboards.

“Let me do that,” Nott murmured. “It’s less likely that someone will try to ruin the ingredients or jostle another Slytherin, and you can watch the cauldrons and make sure no one flings anything into them.”

Harry let Nott go with a shrug. The division of labor made sense to him, he supposed.

Even though he distantly wondered how in the world Nott thought Harry would be able to prevent someone from throwing something into their cauldrons without using a wand.

*

Theo checked the dried nettles over carefully as he made his way back to the table he was sharing with Potter—the interesting one. Yes, there were half again as many as they needed, in case someone did manage to sabotage the ingredients or they ended up rendering some of these unusable.

Theo put them down on the table and nodded to Potter. Potter nodded back and considered the fire under the cauldrons, which Professor Snape must have lit, for a moment before glancing at Theo.

“Did anyone try to jostle you or sabotage the ingredients?”

Theo smiled. “No.”

He hoped Potter would smile back, in acknowledgment of his cleverness, but more and more, it seemed that the responsive, powerful Potter on the train might never have existed. He nodded and studied the instructions before beginning to crush the snake fangs.

Theo worked slowly, spending as much time on observation of his partner as he did on the ingredients. This was a simple potion, one he had prepared for the first time when he was eight. He didn’t need to pay much attention to know what needed to be done.

Potter returned constantly to the instructions. He deferred to Theo when Theo suggested something. He didn’t answer any questions aloud, just nodding or shaking his head.

And he didn’t even make a motion for his wand during the class, as many of the magically-raised students did, as Theo had to prevent himself from doing, whether it was to adjust the temperature of the fire or float the ingredients into the cauldron.

Theo frowned to himself as he stirred the crushed snake fangs into his own cauldron. It didn’t make sense that Potter would be afraid of Theo or Professor Snape, even if he was afraid of his own parents. He would probably tell Theo off the way he had Malfoy if Theo annoyed him. And Professor Snape wasn’t his Head of House or someone his parents would particularly believe if he complained about Potter.

Yes, he can assign detentions or take points, but so can any professor. And I can’t believe Potter is this way with all of them.

“Have you made any progress on using your wand?” Theo asked, making sure to keep his voice low so that the clatter of cauldrons and Weasley and Potter’s brother arguing over whether their snake fangs were correctly crushed would cover it.

Potter’s head jerked a little towards Theo. Then he shook his head again and checked the instructions.

My fault for asking a question that can be answered by yes or no. Theo acknowledged it with a slight grimace and said calmly, “Let me phrase that another way. What’s the hardest thing about using your wand?”

“All the people who bother me about it.”

Theo had to smile. “Oh? I would have supposed taking remedial lessons is the hardest.”

Potter didn’t respond, but checked the instructions again and carefully lifted his cauldron off the fire before adding the porcupine quills.

“I really doubt it doesn’t bother you, to take remedial lessons,” Theo said, still keeping his voice pitched low, but now making it casually inquiring, innocent only to someone who wasn’t listening hard.

There was a sharp snap of magic around Potter for a second, and Theo blinked dazzled eyes. That had been like—tame lightning, as if it was curled up invisibly around Potter’s shoulders, and had flashed into existence for a second.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Theo pursued. He felt a touch of exasperation that he had to press this hard to get a basic conversation going, but he was bored to death with his roommates—all except Blaise—and the basic classes and spells and homework, and he still wanted someone who might understand. “You think—”

“I’m sure it was pretty hard to grow up with a Death Eater father, too.”

Theo paused, remembering now how he had seen Potter take Malfoy apart that day. But Theo wasn’t Malfoy, to lose his temper because of words. “Yes,” he acknowledged calmly. “Because he had political enemies, and they were always trying to find some way of taking me away from him. They succeeded finally, as I told you.”

“And you don’t think that maybe they were right and he did abuse you?” Potter kept his voice low, too, but Theo had what he’d wanted, all that attention focused on him. Potter was leaning forwards enough to press his stomach hard against the edge of the table, but he didn’t appear to be paying any attention to that. “He would have kept you away from most people, right, because they weren’t good enough for him. That kind of thing can stunt someone’s growth. And he probably didn’t see anything wrong with killing and torturing people—”

Theo felt his temper cresting. “Watch it, Potter.”

“Back off, Nott.”

And perhaps Theo even would have, now that he thought about it, but Potter turned around and hopped up on his stool, which was so bizarre that Theo shut up and blinked at him.

*

Harry had a splitting headache, worse than he’d ever had in Quirrell’s classroom, and could only suppose he was allergic to some ingredient in the potions, too.

Weak, pathetic little Potter. Can’t use his wand, gets attacked by animals, gets abused by Muggles, is allergic to everything at his magic school—

Now white stars and speckles were starting to fill his vision. Harry had no idea what was going on, but he hated the way that Nott’s words seemed to dig into him and pull at his bones and pry at all his secrets and—

From the corner of his eye, he saw a gout of potion leap out of Neville’s cauldron.

Harry leaped up on his stool without even thinking about it. Snape had been growling dire warnings as he swooped about the classroom, although he’d kept away from Harry and Nott, apparently because he wanted to just ignore any Gryffindors working with his Slytherins. One of those warnings had been about how much the potion could hurt if you got soaked with it.

Of course, once he was actually on top of the stool, Harry had to realize that no one else had apparently noticed Neville’s potion spilling. Nott was staring at him. So was Felix, craning his neck. Someone who sounded like Parkinson giggled. Malfoy outright laughed.

Snape spun towards him, looking as close as he probably ever came to smiling. “Potter, get down this instant! Ten points from—”

Then another, probably bigger gout of potion leaped from Neville’s cauldron, and this time, everyone saw it, and the smoke that followed it. It soaked the floor and the legs of the table and poor Neville, who groaned as boils started popping up all over his skin. Harry grimaced in sympathy and ignored the way Nott was still staring at him. After all, hopping up on the stool had been the right thing to do. The potion swept by right where Harry would have been standing, although it stopped short of Nott’s feet.

“Stupid boy!” Snape was descending on Neville, and he was berating him with all sorts of words about porcupine quills and fire, but what Harry thought, as he watched the potion seething, was that he felt better. His headache was gone, and so were the white speckles in his vision.

Huh. Maybe he’d been allergic to the fumes that Neville’s botched potion was putting out, then, instead of any one ingredient. Harry climbed down on Nott’s side of the table and retrieved his cauldron to finish the final steps.

“How did you know that you would be in danger from the potion?” Nott whispered to Harry as they put together small vials of their potion for Snape to mark.

Harry shrugged. “I didn’t know for sure. But I saw the potion react the first time—”

“The first time?”

“A gout of it came out of the cauldron before the one that soaked Neville. Just because you didn’t see it…”

Nott looked as if he wanted to argue, but he had been facing the wrong way, and Harry had only seen it from the corner of his eye. He ignored Nott as he handed his vial to Snape, who glared at him, and began packing up his cauldron. He would have to clean it without magic later, but then, a lot of people would have to. If anyone in their year knew the Vanishing Spell yet, Harry would be pretty surprised.

“Come with me to the library, Potter.”

Harry peered at Nott as they walked out the door. “Why?”

“It’s hard to study in the Slytherin common room, what with Malfoy constantly bragging. I was thinking it would be quieter to study in the library.”

Harry snorted. “I couldn’t help you, Nott. I’m struggling with the essays as it is, and I can’t help you practice magic.”

“You could,” Nott hissed, unexpectedly quiet and unexpectedly vicious. “If you would admit the gift you have, which is not a bloody disease!”

Then he turned and stormed in the other direction. Harry stared after him as he joined Zabini and stalked towards the Great Hall. Harry shook his head a little. Nott must not know much about King Canute’s Disease.

“Hey, Harry. Everything okay?”

Harry glanced up with the little smile that had become automatic when Felix asked him something. “Yeah. I just partnered up with Nott in Potions because there were an odd number of both Houses, and now he’s angry at me because he might not get a perfect mark.”

It was so easy to lie, Harry thought. He had never practiced it that much at the Dursleys’, because they never believed him anyway, no matter what he said. But he had known it would be necessary at the Potters’, and now he was pretty good. People’s assumptions practically made up half the story for him.

“Huh.” Felix scowled at Nott’s back. “Yeah, sounds like a Slytherin. Come on, let’s go back to the common room. Ron said that he knows this trick with a deck of Exploding Snap cards that…”

Harry walked beside his brother and listened and made noises in the appropriate places. He really wasn’t left out as much as he’d feared in Gryffindor, he thought. Felix always tried to make him feel included. And when he was watching people play chess or joining in a game of Exploding Snap, he could forget that he was weak and sick and had to lie all the time.

Weak and sick and lying and allergic.

Harry added another thing to look up to his mental tally, besides more information on King Canute’s Disease, wandlore, the history of the war with Voldemort, and all the topics their professors had assigned for homework. If he could find some commonality between garlic and one of the ingredients in the potion today, then maybe he could understand his headaches and the white speckles in his vision.

The last thing he wanted was to faint in either Potions or Defense. He put up with the rest of his weaknesses because he had to, but this, he thought he could probably do something about.