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lomonaaerenTitle: The Peculiarities of Professor Potter
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Background Harry/Theo/Draco, mostly gen
Content Notes: AU (Harry is not the Boy-Who-Lived), Slytherin Harry, angst, discussions of child abuse
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1900
Summary: Harry Grayson didn’t know why Professor Lily Potter was taking such an interest in him. He didn’t even take Muggle Studies. And this particular conversation she’d called him into her office for was the weirdest one yet.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Solstitial Shorts,” shorter fics being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. Read the summary, as otherwise it’ll be hard to understand what’s going on here.
The Peculiarities of Professor Potter
“Please have a seat, Harry.”
“It’s Mr. Grayson, Professor. Please.”
Harry did sit down in front of Professor Potter’s desk, focusing on his feet for a second. For some reason, being called in front of this professor made him feel like he was still wearing the ratty trainers and secondhand Muggle clothes that he’d arrived in for his first year. Even Professor Trelawney, who sometimes babbled about Harry’s death, was never this—
Unnerving.
Harry still looked up in time to see Professor Potter flinch as if he’d offended her. Harry sighed to himself. He didn’t know what to make of her.
Professor Potter was slight and pretty, with red hair that swirled around her shoulders like flame. All her students seemed to like her. And she had bright green eyes that Harry had to admit he’d always been curious about. They were the exact shade of his own.
Or the shade he saw when he looked into a mirror, anyway. Everyone else told him his eyes were more blue, or hazel. Harry thought that probably had to do with his damaged eyesight.
Bloody Aunt Petunia and her frying pan.
But Professor Potter would stare at Harry as no one else did. It sort of reminded him of his first year, when he was a Muggleborn Sorted into Slytherin and had attracted all sorts of unfriendly attention. But he’d proven that he could duel, that he was a powerful wizard, and that had disappeared.
And Draco and Theo had made more of it disappear.
Harry smiled at the thought of his triad mates, and maybe that reminded Professor Potter that she wanted his attention on the conversation, because she gave a little cough. “Now that you’ll be leaving the school in a few days, Mr.—Grayson, I wanted to have a conversation with you.”
“Yes, Professor?” Harry asked, a bit curious. It sounded like the conversations that Heads of House had with their students, but Harry’s Head of House was Professor Slughorn, and Harry had already talked with him. He was entirely approving of Harry’s plan to start an import-export business with Draco and Theo.
Professor Slughorn had even hinted, with a broad wink, that he knew what the business would really be importing and exporting, and that he could introduce Harry, Draco, and Theo to some of his contacts who could help them.
“I wondered what field you had considered going into?”
“Oh, Potions will have something to do with it,” Harry said. That was an expected answer, given that it was his best class, and all the professors probably knew that since Slughorn was prone to bragging about Harry.
He brags more because you’re a Muggleborn, and he still has trouble believing a non-pureblood is good at Potions.
Harry internally shrugged. It didn’t matter that much. He had forced respect out of his pureblood Housemates, and he had forced respect out of the pureblood Professor Slughorn. As long as he could get what he wanted, it didn’t matter that much to him how they thought of people with his blood status. He’d had to take charity before his first year, accessing the funds for Muggleborn orphans to pay for his school supplies, but after that, never again. He’d had protectors. He’d proven himself.
“Surely you can tell me more than that?”
“Professor, why are you interested? I’ve never taken Muggle Studies. I’m not in your House. I know that you might have a friendly interest in me as a professor would for a student, but frankly, it’s a little strange that you’re this interested. It’s not like you’re my mother.”
Professor Potter turned pale. Harry watched her narrowly, as she looked at the floor and swallowed.
Then she whispered, “When I was in Professor Slughorn’s class myself, I had somewhat of a talent for Potions. He—he considered it unusual in a Muggleborn. He praised my talent but discouraged me from pursuing any discoveries in the field, saying that it would be too hard for me to be taken seriously with my blood status. I wondered…”
Oh. Harry blinked. He hadn’t considered that, some kind of attempt to establish Muggleborn camaraderie, but he supposed it made sense. From Professor Potter’s perspective, anyway.
Harry himself had never really cared about making common cause with people in his blood status group. Blood status was an accident of birth. Purebloods weren’t better because of it, and Muggleborns weren’t worse, but it also didn’t make Harry want to band together with other people in loving-kindness. There were no other Muggleborns in Slytherin, as far as he knew. Even the half-bloods tended to keep it quiet. And the Muggleborns in other Houses tended to stay distant from Harry because they assumed he shared the attitudes of the rest of the Slytherins.
Harry might have been lonely if he didn’t have Draco and Theo, but he did. And he had his magical power, which had been the thing to sway Draco and Theo to his side in the first place, and negotiate that convenient little—
“Mr. Grayson?”
Harry blinked and paid attention to Professor Potter again. Even if he didn’t like her, he shouldn’t have allowed his attention to wander that obviously. He still had another few days where she could make his life difficult. “Sorry, Professor.”
“Professor Slughorn has supported you?”
“Yes, Professor.” He had. Partially because Harry was the kind of relentless Slytherin who wouldn’t be put off by a description of difficulties, and partially because Harry had helped Slughorn out of a…conundrum regarding his former relationship with the Dark Lord.
Harry smiled a little. The Dark Lord had accepted an oath from Harry to provide him with potions and a cut of the money from his future business, and in return Harry wouldn’t have to take the Dark Mark and wouldn’t be persecuted as a Muggleborn.
In fact, the Dark Lord was so impressed with Harry that he had allowed Harry to persuade him that Professor Slughorn deserved to keep his mind and memories, instead of having them Obliviated. Harry didn’t know what the Memory Charm would have erased, and he didn’t need to know. What mattered was that he had his Head of House pathetically grateful to him and the Dark Lord impressed.
Life was going to be so much easier now.
“And you’ve never…wanted to find out what happened to your parents?”
Harry jerked his head up, eyes narrowed. “How do you know anything about that, Professor?”
“Horace mentioned something about it once. So did Albus.”
Professor Potter’s eyes were wide and searching his. Harry stared back, unamused. “I was raised by my Muggle aunt and uncle, Professor,” he said, barely able to keep his voice polite. “My mother dropped me off on their doorstep with a note that told them my name and nothing else. I don’t even know if she was married to my father or not. I don’t know either of their names.”
Professor Potter flinched again, probably at his tone. Harry tapped his fingers on his knee. He didn’t like thinking about the Dursleys. Honestly, he wasn’t sure why they’d kept him. But he’d endured year after year of their telling him he was the bastard son of a whore and a wastrel, and locked him in the cupboard, and telling him he was a freak, and laughing as Dudley and Ripper chased him.
It had fostered a burning desire in Harry to never be helpless again, and the Sorting Hat had sat on his head for all of two seconds before crying, “SLYTHERIN!”
Harry didn’t think even Neville Longbottom, Boy-Who-Lived and paragon of all things kind and Gryffindor, had been Sorted so fast.
“I’m only trying to understand, Mr. Grayson. I find you perplexing, that’s all.”
Harry abruptly decided that he didn’t care if he did serve detention his last few days in Hogwarts. He stood and shoved his chair back. Professor Potter sat up, her mouth opening slightly.
“With all due respect, Professor,” Harry said, fighting to keep his voice level, “I don’t care about your interest in my home life. I don’t care how perplexing you find me. I’ve earned my place, I’ve decided what I’m going to do, and it has nothing to do with you. Good-bye.”
He turned and left her office, ignoring the way she called after him. He had Draco and Theo to meet for discussions of their business, and some snogging, too.
I do indeed have a place.
Harry smiled slightly, and lengthened his stride.
*
Lily Potter sat still, her head in her hands.
How did it all go so wrong?
Harry had been a possible target of the prophecy. Even after Voldemort had faced Neville and fallen, Lily hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. Not all the Death Eaters had been captured, after all, and there were still people disappearing without a trace. She and James had discussed it, and decided, in their intense fear for their son, that he would be safer in the Muggle world.
He would grow up there, and someday he would come to Hogwarts, and then they could tell him the truth.
They’d had to work spells on him, of course, because there were people who knew them so well that they could take one glance at Harry’s green eyes, his messy black hair, and assume he was Lily and James’s son. So Lily had cast the spell that would make Harry’s eyes look a confusing mixture of blue or hazel to everyone except himself. James had used the potion, with a bit of his blood, that would permanently straighten Harry’s hair and alter his facial features, essentially removing the most visible parts of his Potter heritage.
And they’d worked a spell that would make sure the Dursleys would keep Harry safe and never tell him his mother’s name or that she was magical. A note that claimed his name was Harry Grayson and he was the son of a Muggle was the only final touch needed.
Lily shuddered and curled in on herself.
We didn’t know what we were doing.
As far as Albus could theorize, or Lily herself, the combination of the spells, especially what could be considered a magical disownment on James’s part, had locked in place to make Harry a different person. Lily had opened her mouth to speak to her son when she escorted the new students into the Great Hall during his first year, and found herself unable to say a thing.
And then he had gone to Slytherin, and she had discovered that trying to write him an owl did no good, either.
James had tried to approach him. Sirius, Remus when he’d taught at Hogwarts for a year, Albus, Minerva. All of their mouths and hands were stopped as effectively as with a curse.
Harry Grayson he had become, and Harry Grayson he remained. Lily had to watch helplessly from a distance as her son went to Slytherin, as his laughter echoed out hard and cold, as he became the friend and probably more of two Death Eaters’ sons.
It’ll bring him to the notice of Voldemort. Someday, I’ll get the news that he died.
Harry would never know his sister Arianna, his brother Patrick. He would never have his true looks restored to him. He would never know what he could have been, the childhood he could have had.
He would never call them “Mum” or “Dad.”
In the silence of the world created by every choice except Harry’s, Lily began to cry.
The End.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Background Harry/Theo/Draco, mostly gen
Content Notes: AU (Harry is not the Boy-Who-Lived), Slytherin Harry, angst, discussions of child abuse
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1900
Summary: Harry Grayson didn’t know why Professor Lily Potter was taking such an interest in him. He didn’t even take Muggle Studies. And this particular conversation she’d called him into her office for was the weirdest one yet.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Solstitial Shorts,” shorter fics being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. Read the summary, as otherwise it’ll be hard to understand what’s going on here.
The Peculiarities of Professor Potter
“Please have a seat, Harry.”
“It’s Mr. Grayson, Professor. Please.”
Harry did sit down in front of Professor Potter’s desk, focusing on his feet for a second. For some reason, being called in front of this professor made him feel like he was still wearing the ratty trainers and secondhand Muggle clothes that he’d arrived in for his first year. Even Professor Trelawney, who sometimes babbled about Harry’s death, was never this—
Unnerving.
Harry still looked up in time to see Professor Potter flinch as if he’d offended her. Harry sighed to himself. He didn’t know what to make of her.
Professor Potter was slight and pretty, with red hair that swirled around her shoulders like flame. All her students seemed to like her. And she had bright green eyes that Harry had to admit he’d always been curious about. They were the exact shade of his own.
Or the shade he saw when he looked into a mirror, anyway. Everyone else told him his eyes were more blue, or hazel. Harry thought that probably had to do with his damaged eyesight.
Bloody Aunt Petunia and her frying pan.
But Professor Potter would stare at Harry as no one else did. It sort of reminded him of his first year, when he was a Muggleborn Sorted into Slytherin and had attracted all sorts of unfriendly attention. But he’d proven that he could duel, that he was a powerful wizard, and that had disappeared.
And Draco and Theo had made more of it disappear.
Harry smiled at the thought of his triad mates, and maybe that reminded Professor Potter that she wanted his attention on the conversation, because she gave a little cough. “Now that you’ll be leaving the school in a few days, Mr.—Grayson, I wanted to have a conversation with you.”
“Yes, Professor?” Harry asked, a bit curious. It sounded like the conversations that Heads of House had with their students, but Harry’s Head of House was Professor Slughorn, and Harry had already talked with him. He was entirely approving of Harry’s plan to start an import-export business with Draco and Theo.
Professor Slughorn had even hinted, with a broad wink, that he knew what the business would really be importing and exporting, and that he could introduce Harry, Draco, and Theo to some of his contacts who could help them.
“I wondered what field you had considered going into?”
“Oh, Potions will have something to do with it,” Harry said. That was an expected answer, given that it was his best class, and all the professors probably knew that since Slughorn was prone to bragging about Harry.
He brags more because you’re a Muggleborn, and he still has trouble believing a non-pureblood is good at Potions.
Harry internally shrugged. It didn’t matter that much. He had forced respect out of his pureblood Housemates, and he had forced respect out of the pureblood Professor Slughorn. As long as he could get what he wanted, it didn’t matter that much to him how they thought of people with his blood status. He’d had to take charity before his first year, accessing the funds for Muggleborn orphans to pay for his school supplies, but after that, never again. He’d had protectors. He’d proven himself.
“Surely you can tell me more than that?”
“Professor, why are you interested? I’ve never taken Muggle Studies. I’m not in your House. I know that you might have a friendly interest in me as a professor would for a student, but frankly, it’s a little strange that you’re this interested. It’s not like you’re my mother.”
Professor Potter turned pale. Harry watched her narrowly, as she looked at the floor and swallowed.
Then she whispered, “When I was in Professor Slughorn’s class myself, I had somewhat of a talent for Potions. He—he considered it unusual in a Muggleborn. He praised my talent but discouraged me from pursuing any discoveries in the field, saying that it would be too hard for me to be taken seriously with my blood status. I wondered…”
Oh. Harry blinked. He hadn’t considered that, some kind of attempt to establish Muggleborn camaraderie, but he supposed it made sense. From Professor Potter’s perspective, anyway.
Harry himself had never really cared about making common cause with people in his blood status group. Blood status was an accident of birth. Purebloods weren’t better because of it, and Muggleborns weren’t worse, but it also didn’t make Harry want to band together with other people in loving-kindness. There were no other Muggleborns in Slytherin, as far as he knew. Even the half-bloods tended to keep it quiet. And the Muggleborns in other Houses tended to stay distant from Harry because they assumed he shared the attitudes of the rest of the Slytherins.
Harry might have been lonely if he didn’t have Draco and Theo, but he did. And he had his magical power, which had been the thing to sway Draco and Theo to his side in the first place, and negotiate that convenient little—
“Mr. Grayson?”
Harry blinked and paid attention to Professor Potter again. Even if he didn’t like her, he shouldn’t have allowed his attention to wander that obviously. He still had another few days where she could make his life difficult. “Sorry, Professor.”
“Professor Slughorn has supported you?”
“Yes, Professor.” He had. Partially because Harry was the kind of relentless Slytherin who wouldn’t be put off by a description of difficulties, and partially because Harry had helped Slughorn out of a…conundrum regarding his former relationship with the Dark Lord.
Harry smiled a little. The Dark Lord had accepted an oath from Harry to provide him with potions and a cut of the money from his future business, and in return Harry wouldn’t have to take the Dark Mark and wouldn’t be persecuted as a Muggleborn.
In fact, the Dark Lord was so impressed with Harry that he had allowed Harry to persuade him that Professor Slughorn deserved to keep his mind and memories, instead of having them Obliviated. Harry didn’t know what the Memory Charm would have erased, and he didn’t need to know. What mattered was that he had his Head of House pathetically grateful to him and the Dark Lord impressed.
Life was going to be so much easier now.
“And you’ve never…wanted to find out what happened to your parents?”
Harry jerked his head up, eyes narrowed. “How do you know anything about that, Professor?”
“Horace mentioned something about it once. So did Albus.”
Professor Potter’s eyes were wide and searching his. Harry stared back, unamused. “I was raised by my Muggle aunt and uncle, Professor,” he said, barely able to keep his voice polite. “My mother dropped me off on their doorstep with a note that told them my name and nothing else. I don’t even know if she was married to my father or not. I don’t know either of their names.”
Professor Potter flinched again, probably at his tone. Harry tapped his fingers on his knee. He didn’t like thinking about the Dursleys. Honestly, he wasn’t sure why they’d kept him. But he’d endured year after year of their telling him he was the bastard son of a whore and a wastrel, and locked him in the cupboard, and telling him he was a freak, and laughing as Dudley and Ripper chased him.
It had fostered a burning desire in Harry to never be helpless again, and the Sorting Hat had sat on his head for all of two seconds before crying, “SLYTHERIN!”
Harry didn’t think even Neville Longbottom, Boy-Who-Lived and paragon of all things kind and Gryffindor, had been Sorted so fast.
“I’m only trying to understand, Mr. Grayson. I find you perplexing, that’s all.”
Harry abruptly decided that he didn’t care if he did serve detention his last few days in Hogwarts. He stood and shoved his chair back. Professor Potter sat up, her mouth opening slightly.
“With all due respect, Professor,” Harry said, fighting to keep his voice level, “I don’t care about your interest in my home life. I don’t care how perplexing you find me. I’ve earned my place, I’ve decided what I’m going to do, and it has nothing to do with you. Good-bye.”
He turned and left her office, ignoring the way she called after him. He had Draco and Theo to meet for discussions of their business, and some snogging, too.
I do indeed have a place.
Harry smiled slightly, and lengthened his stride.
*
Lily Potter sat still, her head in her hands.
How did it all go so wrong?
Harry had been a possible target of the prophecy. Even after Voldemort had faced Neville and fallen, Lily hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. Not all the Death Eaters had been captured, after all, and there were still people disappearing without a trace. She and James had discussed it, and decided, in their intense fear for their son, that he would be safer in the Muggle world.
He would grow up there, and someday he would come to Hogwarts, and then they could tell him the truth.
They’d had to work spells on him, of course, because there were people who knew them so well that they could take one glance at Harry’s green eyes, his messy black hair, and assume he was Lily and James’s son. So Lily had cast the spell that would make Harry’s eyes look a confusing mixture of blue or hazel to everyone except himself. James had used the potion, with a bit of his blood, that would permanently straighten Harry’s hair and alter his facial features, essentially removing the most visible parts of his Potter heritage.
And they’d worked a spell that would make sure the Dursleys would keep Harry safe and never tell him his mother’s name or that she was magical. A note that claimed his name was Harry Grayson and he was the son of a Muggle was the only final touch needed.
Lily shuddered and curled in on herself.
We didn’t know what we were doing.
As far as Albus could theorize, or Lily herself, the combination of the spells, especially what could be considered a magical disownment on James’s part, had locked in place to make Harry a different person. Lily had opened her mouth to speak to her son when she escorted the new students into the Great Hall during his first year, and found herself unable to say a thing.
And then he had gone to Slytherin, and she had discovered that trying to write him an owl did no good, either.
James had tried to approach him. Sirius, Remus when he’d taught at Hogwarts for a year, Albus, Minerva. All of their mouths and hands were stopped as effectively as with a curse.
Harry Grayson he had become, and Harry Grayson he remained. Lily had to watch helplessly from a distance as her son went to Slytherin, as his laughter echoed out hard and cold, as he became the friend and probably more of two Death Eaters’ sons.
It’ll bring him to the notice of Voldemort. Someday, I’ll get the news that he died.
Harry would never know his sister Arianna, his brother Patrick. He would never have his true looks restored to him. He would never know what he could have been, the childhood he could have had.
He would never call them “Mum” or “Dad.”
In the silence of the world created by every choice except Harry’s, Lily began to cry.
The End.
