Chapter Three of 'For the Game'

[lomonaaeren]

“Detention.”

It had become such a common word that Harry hardly noticed when Snape said it anymore. He just nodded distractedly and went back to working on cleaning up the remains of his Color-Changing Potion.

Ron was the one who was indignant on Harry’s behalf, once they’d got out of the Potions classroom. “Why don’t you ever say anything back?” he demanded, as they walked towards the Great Hall.

“Snape hates me for some reason I can’t figure out. My roommates hate me for the You-Know-Who and blood status thing. Do you think speaking up will make a difference?”

Ron hesitated for a long moment, enough that Harry began to wonder if he had finally found the thing that his Gryffindor friend wouldn’t put up with. Then Ron shook his head with a sigh and turned around to face him in front of the Great Hall doors. “No.”

“Exactly. I can stand up for myself when I have to, but a lot of the time, it’s not worth it.”

“Even if you fail Potions?”

Harry snorted. “Failing a class isn’t the worst thing in the world. I have to worry more about surviving.”

Ron studied him. Then he smiled. “Wish someone would tell that to Granger.”

Harry smiled back. Hermione Granger had calmed down a little in class since she had managed to survive a troll by dodging and running, instead of subduing it with spells or something. Harry still didn’t know how a troll had broken into the school or how it had managed to nearly catch Granger, but it wasn’t his problem. “Maybe someone will, someday.”

They waved to each other as they entered the Great Hall and went to their own tables. As usual, Harry took a seat on the end of the bench and cast a detection charm on his food. It was the second charm he had mastered after Reparo. It would find things like food and potions, but also spit, which Malfoy sometimes still did.

“Potter.”

Harry sighed and glanced up. Nott was sitting next to him. “Yes?” he asked. At least if Nott asked him to pass the potatoes or something, he could do that.

“Blaise and I want to talk to you. Ten tonight, in the common room?”

Blaise was Zabini’s first name, Harry remembered after a moment of struggle. And then he heard the other words, and snorted a little. “Nice try,” he said, turning back to his food.

“What?”

“Snape told us that any first-year in the common room after curfew would be treated the same as if they were running in the corridors. I know you remember, Nott. Nice attempt to get me in trouble, but I’m not going to fall for it.”

Nott stared at him for a little bit. Then he leaned over to whisper to Zabini. Harry ate while considering what essay he should do that evening. He was already almost done with Charms, but Snape might check during Friday’s Potions class even though the essay he’d described wasn’t supposed to be due until next week

“We don’t mean to trap you.”

“But you might end up doing it anyway, is that what you’re saying?”

“Why are you so paranoid?” Zabini asked, leaning around Nott to squint at him.

Harry stared at him, asked, “Are you serious?”, and then realized that Zabini was. He pointed down the table at Malfoy and shook his head. “He tried to get me in trouble and destroyed my things and threatened to kill my owl, and you just stood there. Why would it be any different now?”

“We’re not Malfoy.”

“So your traps are subtler?”

Zabini made a rough snorting noise and stood up from the table. “He isn’t interested, Theo, let’s go.”

Nott eyed Harry for a long moment. Harry stared back. He hoped that they didn’t expect him to suddenly change his mind and just forget about everything Malfoy had done. Harry hadn’t disliked the kids who had been afraid of Dudley the way he had with Dudley, but he had still disliked them.

“Yes,” Nott said, although it wasn’t clear what he was saying “yes” to. “Let’s go.”

They turned and walked away, and Harry shook his head and went back to his meal, ignoring Malfoy’s whinging. Regular meals were the best part of Hogwarts other than magic and Ron.

*

“I’m—really sorry, Hermione.”

Harry paused around the corner, curious. He had been on his way to meet Ron on the Quidditch pitch. Ron’s twin brothers were going to let Ron and Harry borrow their brooms to fly a bit.

But it sounded like Ron was talking to Granger. Harry didn’t know why. Or what he had to apologize to her about.

“Are you ever going to say something like that again?”

“No. No. You’re brilliant. Not a nightmare.”

Harry reckoned that he was Slytherin enough to appreciate secrets. He slowed down and crept to the very edge of the stands the audience sat in during the Quidditch matches, then peered at Ron and Granger. Ron was bright red, and Granger looked like she was on the verge of crying.

When did he call her a nightmare?

“It’s your fault I was in the bathroom.”

“I know.”

“It’s your fault the troll almost killed me.”

“I know.” Ron sounded almost as ashamed as he had the day that he’d admitted he’d fallen for Malfoy’s attempt to lure him out past curfew, and lost Gryffindor a bunch of points.

Harry pursed his lips in a silent whistle. That was why Granger had been in the bathroom, then.

He felt a little bit of hurt that Ron had kept the secret from him. But, well…

Ron didn’t need to tell him everything. Just like Harry hadn’t told Ron that he’d set Malfoy on fire, or how bad the bullying could get sometimes, or the weird way that Nott and Zabini were acting lately. It was all right for friends to have secrets from each other.

It wasn’t the end of the world.

Because of that, Harry was smiling when he came around the corner of the stands, and although Ron turned redder and Granger took a little step away at the sight of him, everything was fine.

Granger even stayed to watch them fly, and told Harry at the end of the afternoon to call him Hermione. Harry wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have two friends now.

He could almost have flown back to the school without a broom.

*

Harry rolled his eyes when he opened his bed curtains the next morning and saw that his robes were cut and torn again. Malfoy didn’t learn.

“What are you going to do about that, Potty?”

Harry turned and watched Malfoy. Nott and Zabini were staring at him from their own beds. It looked like Crabbe and Goyle were probably still asleep.

Harry held Malfoy’s eyes as he drew his wand. Malfoy only sneered, probably because he thought Harry would just repair his clothes and nothing else. Instead, Harry aimed his wand at Malfoy’s trunk, sitting at the foot of his bed, and whispered, “Diffindo.”

Even though he was still holding Malfoy’s eyes and he’d whispered the incantation, Harry had put a lot of power into the spell. It hit Malfoy’s trunk and tore straight through the wood and the lock, landing with so much force that the trunk almost exploded. Malfoy’s robes, or at least the ones that had been folded on top in the trunk, turned into a floating mess of cloth shreds.

“Potter!”

Malfoy hopped out of his bed with his wand held at the ready, and Harry rolled out of his own bed and dodged the first hex that Malfoy threw at him. The room was a lot smaller than some of the spaces he’d run away from Dudley and his gang in, but Harry had practice dodging in small spaces, too. And he was angry.

Malfoy, it turned out, didn’t have nearly as much practice at dodging. And he was afraid.

Harry saw that the first time he accepted a Stinging Hex on his left arm and cast with the right one anyway. Malfoy yelped as Harry’s own Stinging Hex landed on his foot, and actually bent down to rub the pain away.

In the middle of a duel.

Harry charged.

Malfoy yelped again as Harry tackled him to the floor, and kicked away the leg Malfoy tried to raise to throw Harry off him. Harry sat on Malfoy’s chest and aimed his wand at the git’s throat. Malfoy was coughing and choking. “Do you yield?” Harry asked.

He thought he sounded like a prat, but he had seen a duel in the common room the other day, and this was what the older student who won had said. Of course, she hadn’t been sitting on the other student at the time.

Malfoy stared up at Harry with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. Then he nodded. He seemed too shocked to say anything else.

Harry stood up and walked over to his own bed, where he started casting Reparo as fast as he could. His arm was trembling pretty hard after breaking Malfoy’s trunk open and then the duel, but he would do this. He needed robes to wear today, and it wasn’t like any of the others would help.

“Potter.”

Harry glanced over reluctantly. Zabini was standing there with his arms folded, and Harry sighed. “Are you going to say that I have to fight you, too, or something?”

“Who trained you?”

Dudley Dursley, but you wouldn’t know him. That was on the tip of his tongue to say, but Harry knew it would only make things worse. He shook his head. “I didn’t get trained in dueling or anything, if that’s what you mean.”

“But you must have!”

“Why? Because I’m a dirty half-blood who beat a pureblood?”

Zabini opened his mouth and closed it again.

Harry closed his eyes. He was tired, and it had nothing to do with magical exhaustion, which he wasn’t even sure he was feeling anyway. “I’m going to go get changed,” he said. “Don’t touch my stuff.”

Zabini and Nott both kept staring at him as Harry gathered up the best of the robes to cast Reparo on, but they didn’t say anything else. Malfoy kept avoiding his eyes. Crabbe and Goyle kept sleeping.

Harry sighed as he wandered into the bathrooms. He shouldn’t have listened to the Hat’s words about real friends in Slytherin. It was a stupid piece of headgear. What did it know?