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Chapter Five—Flickering Rumors

“Did you hear that someone tried to kill Longbottom?”

Harry grunted vaguely, immersed as he was in the Defense tome in front of him. He had to learn Defense on his own since Quirrell was useless as a teacher.

Apparently, Malfoy wasn’t deterred by Harry’s lack of interest. He leaned closer and whispered across the table, “Someone tried to send a lightning bolt at him when he was on a staircase! It was only the staircase shifting at the right time that saved him.”

Harry did blink and look up at that, because it sounded like lightning bolts on staircases were something he might have to be afraid of himself. “And it wasn’t just an older student practicing?”

“Well, none of them admitted it! And apparently someone grabbed Longbottom in a bathroom last term and tried to drown him, too!”

“Huh.”

Malfoy had paused dramatically, and looked disappointed that Harry wasn’t asking breathlessly for more details. “That doesn’t matter to you?”

“It might if it was careless older students practicing or bullies roaming the school and trying to drown everybody. But otherwise, not really, no. Why would it?”

Malfoy leaned nearer and stared at Harry as if trying to see his brain through his hair. Harry just looked back. He had paid the debts between them, and he knew that because Malfoy had drunk the potion Harry had given him. He couldn’t be trying to intimidate Harry into giving him more, paying him more.

“Because Longbottom is the Boy-Who-Lived,” Malfoy whispered. “The one who defeated the Dark Lord. And the Dark Lord wanted to kill Mudbloods, and you’re a Mudblood, so the Boy-Who-Lived is your champion, and someone who tries to kill him is a threat to you!”

“So you think I’m also likely to get lightning aimed at me on the stairs?”

Malfoy floundered for a moment. Harry watched him and waited. But Malfoy didn’t say anything for almost a minute. So Harry asked, “Are you warning me, or are you passing along a threat?’

Malfoy flushed violently and jumped to his feet. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Grayson,” he snapped. “None.” And he ran away to the corner of the common room where Crabbe and Goyle were waiting for him, like toys he’d put down while he played with another one. Now, he flung himself into a chair and seemed to start furiously whispering with them. Parkinson leaned nearer to hear.

Some of the older Slytherins glanced rapidly back and forth between Harry and Malfoy, and then stared at Harry as if waiting for him to explain himself.

Harry raised an eyebrow at them, not inclined to explain, and went back to the Defense book. It didn’t matter to him if someone was aiming for Neville Longbottom. Harry knew that he wasn’t one of the people Longbottom would want to save.

He was a Slytherin. He wasn’t protesting the unfairness of being called a Mudblood. He was putting himself first, the way he’d always wanted to, but never had the knowledge or power to do until he left the Dursleys.

It mattered little to him if Longbottom was threatened. It might matter if he died, but Harry couldn’t know that, either. He had to keep his head down and work the best he could.

*

“I wondered if I might speak to you for a moment, Mr. Grayson?”

Albus was careful to use Harry’s assumed last name. He knew that he would be tripping over his own tongue or having his voice lock up in his throat if he tried to call him “Mr. Potter.”

Even though he so wanted to. Unlike most of the people around him, Albus possessed the magical strength to see through the glamours that James and Lily had cast on their child. The boy’s hair was darker and messier than it looked, his eyes a fierce and blazing green. He could burn through the world like his parents could.

Or cut through it like a knife.

Harry halted and gave him a calm look. “Yes, sir?”

“If we might speak elsewhere?” Albus stepped back into an alcove that was out of the general flow of the corridor and gestured for Harry to follow him.

Harry stared at him with those disconcertingly radiant eyes for a long moment, seeming to ignore the way that a few of the Slytherins behind him shifted. Then he said, “Yes, sir,” and followed Albus into the alcove.

Albus sighed deeply when they were alone, and when he had raised a Privacy Charm with a wordless flick of his wand that would keep even other professors from spying on them. Harry followed the motion with his eyes and far too much silence.

“There is something that was brought to my attention, and I have been remiss in not sharing it with you right away, Mr. Grayson.”

“Yes, sir?”

How contained he is. Even the magic, which eddied around most young children, was contained with the boundaries of Harry’s body, and if Albus had walked past him casually in the street, he might have thought he was a Squib.

“The last time a Muggleborn was Sorted into Slytherin, their life was in danger,” Albus said. “I wondered if you had considered switching to another House? The Hat cannot make it official, but you could be sheltered with that House’s students and share their classes. You would be a Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff in truth despite the Hat not shouting it.”

Harry’s head snapped up, and he stared at Albus. Albus dipped beneath the surface of his eyes and found his thoughts racing so fast that no Legilimency could read them. It wasn’t uncommon with young children, whose heads were full of unformed, chaotic thoughts, but Albus was a little surprised that Harry managed to stand there so calmly, given that.

Then Harry gave a sharp sigh through his nose and said, “No, sir.”

“What?”

Harry gave him a long look, as though he didn’t understand the way Albus was floundering. Albus understood it well enough, of course. Why would someone want to stay in a place where their life was in danger because of something as foolish as blood purity? If anything, Harry, as a Slytherin, should want to preserve his life.

But Harry said evenly, “I’m happy enough with Slytherin, sir, and with where the Hat placed me. May I go now?”

“Have you considered well what I said to you, Harry? That your life might be in danger—”

“I heard you, sir. But so far, people have just offered a few hexes and nothing worse than most of the other first-years get. I’m happy enough.”

Albus stared at him. It hadn’t occurred to him that his offer might be refused. Why would it? The traits that had caused Harry to be placed in Slytherin were the ones that should lead him to want a way out now.

“If you are sure,” Albus said at last. “My office is always open to you.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Albus had to stand there and watch as the boy he had so nearly rescued slipped away from him, and from his parents and the family that wanted to embrace him.

*

“What did the Headmaster want?”

Draco wasn’t pleased with the hissing tone his voice had adopted, but, well, it didn’t happen, the Headmaster singling out a first-year Slytherin like that. Unless they had done something enormously inappropriate, of course, but Draco was all but sure Grayson hadn’t. He spent so much time around the other boy that Draco was sure he would have noticed.

And besides, Grayson wasn’t really the sort to play pranks or hex people in the corridors. He was—

What? A Muggleborn, but what besides that?

“He thought that I would want to leave Slytherin and be in some other House because of the prejudice against my blood status.”

Draco nearly knocked the button he was attempting to transfigure to the floor. Professor McGonagall gave him a stern look. Draco bowed his head and waited until she moved on to scold the Hufflepuffs before he said out of the corner of his mouth, “What?”

“Yes. Apparently the last time a Muggleborn was Sorted here, their life was in danger.” Grayson shrugged, peering closely at the button. He wasn’t good at Transfiguration the way he was at Potions. “But I told him that I’d been hexed lightly and nothing else.”

“Lots of people have called you a Mudblood!”

“I know. But I don’t consider that the same kind of danger.”

Draco shook his head. This was part of what he found so baffling about Grayson. Muggleborns was loud and pushy, he thought. Just look at Granger. Or the few Draco had seen when he went with his parents to Diagon Alley this summer, and watched a couple of them bawling about how they had to wear robes and why couldn’t they wear normal clothing?

But Grayson just pushed ahead. Draco thought he would have stared at the Muggleborns bawling about the clothing and waited for them to go away, instead of doing anything one way or the other about it.

Much the way he did about the name Mudblood.

It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t the way that Draco thought a Muggleborn should react.

Draco frowned some more and went back to Transfiguring his button, because that was honestly something he needed to be better at. And at least if he couldn’t solve the mystery of Grayson quickly, it meant he would have something to poke at for a while during the seven years he was at Hogwarts.

I’m so smart, it’s good for me to have a mystery that I can’t solve that fast.

*

“Catch it!” Flint ordered as he released a little golden ball.

Harry raced after it on the Cleansweep that Bletchley had lent him. Harry was going to keep an eye on Bletchley later and see if he thought Harry owed him a debt, if Harry needed to brew for him.

But right now—

Right now, for the first time in his life, maybe, the thoughts blew out of Harry’s head and vanished with the wind.

He grabbed the Snitch and laughed aloud as its wings hammered against his palm. Then he turned and swung upside-down to dodge the Bludgers that the Beaters were aiming at him.

That part was no problem. They might honestly hate him for his blood status and not think they needed to preserve his skull right now because he would only be the reserve Seeker and not the real one until next year, but so what? Harry had experience with dodging things that people who hated him threw.

And maybe next year, they’d like him a little better.

“Again!”

Harry spiraled up into the air after the Snitch at Flint’s command, and then dived when it did. It went through the Keeper’s hoop, and so did Harry. It dived into the grass, and Harry followed it, pushing his broom.

Someone shouted something. Harry twisted to the side to avoid what he thought was a Bludger, and stuck his hand out.

The Snitch slammed into his hand as if he’d been born to catch it.

Harry pulled himself upright on the broom, hunched under a Bludger, and flew back to Flint, who was hovering in front of the broom shed and staring at him. When he held out his hand with the Snitch in it, Flint cracked a vicious smile.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re reserve Seeker.”

And if the team didn’t exactly pour congratulations over him, it didn’t matter. Harry could feel the joy beating in his chest like a second heart anyway.

*

“I’m sure you got an Outstanding mark on your Potions exam, Mr. Grayson,” Slughorn said, with the kind of wink that made Harry wish he would be a little less obvious. There were sure to be a few frustrated classmates of his glaring at his back.

But he could hardly say that to the professor he hoped would help him get connections someday, so he smiled and said, “Thank you very much, sir.”

Slughorn clapped his back with a chuckle and sent him on his way. Harry returned to the Slytherin common room and leaned back against the wall for a moment, taking a deep breath. He didn’t want to relax long, because that would look like he was weak or couldn’t handle the exams due to his blood. But he was glad the stress was over.

Glad, too, of the pouch of Galleons that he had charmed silent and carried slung under his armpit. It had turned out that brewing the Default Draught and selling it to older Slytherins who were constantly dueling each other or being affected by spells they practiced for their OWLS and NEWTS was profitable.

“Grayson.”

Harry nodded to Nott. “Hello.”

“How well do you think you did on the exams?”

“Outstanding in Potions.”

Nott snorted and slung an arm along the fireplace mantel. Technically he appeared to be watching a chess game in which Malfoy was conquering Goyle, but Harry knew there was more to it than that. “Of course you did. I meant other than that? How do you think you did?”

“I’m not sure,” Harry said, keeping his voice soft and his head bowed a little. He had to seem submissive, not too weak but just weak enough. Certainly wouldn’t do as well in the exams as a pureblood student who had been studying magic since before he could walk. “All right, I hope. At least an Acceptable in Charms and Transfiguration.”

“I’m certain I did much better than that.”

Harry nodded his agreement. Nott was instinctively brilliant at everything, it seemed, except Potions. And even there, he probably could have succeeded and pushed himself to be better without Harry’s tutoring.

Nott leaned towards him. Harry waited. If he wanted to tell Harry a secret, honestly, the middle of a noisy common room celebrating the end of exams was probably a good place to do it.

“Where are you staying this summer?”

“Knockturn Alley.”

Nott shifted. Harry watched his face, but Nott only said, “That seems like a dangerous place for someone as young as you are to stay.”

Harry shrugged. “It doesn’t matter a lot. If I have money, then people will let me pay for a flat. Someone will,” he added, when he saw the way Nott’s eyebrows were rising. “And there won’t be people to fuss about a child being on his own the way there would be if I tried to stay in Diagon Alley, the way I thought I might at first.”

“Is that better than going back to the Muggle world?”

“Yes.”

Nott watched him for a little longer, as if Harry were puzzling. Harry ignored that. Nott had grown up with a magical family, so of course he had relatives he liked and a place to be. He never had to go into the Muggle world unless he wanted to. He couldn’t possibly understand the constraints Harry was working under.

“If you say so,” Nott murmured at last, shaking his head as if to show that he thought Harry was mad.

Harry just shrugged, and then Nott went over to watch the chess game, and left Harry standing alone. Harry half-smiled into the fire, shifting so that he could feel his little bag of Galleons hung underneath his armpit.

It was a start. It was a more than good enough start.

*

“Did you hear that they found the one who was trying to kill Longbottom?”

Harry blinked and glanced up. He’d been alone in his train compartment for most of the journey, but now, for some reason, Malfoy had invaded. Crabbe and Goyle were lurking behind him, and Harry thought he caught a glimpse of Nott’s hair behind them. Maybe Nott wanted to hear the rumors Malfoy was talking about.

“I heard people talking about it at breakfast this morning, but I didn’t pay much attention.”

“It was Quirrell, of all people! They found him dead in his office with a huge wound in the back of his head. He was obviously a Dark wizard who was playing with curses, and he probably resented Longbottom for killing the Dark Lord.”

Harry just shook his head. He didn’t really understand Longbottom’s fame, or how many people thought that a baby could do anything. But it didn’t really matter. All that did was that the mystery had been solved, and so it wasn’t someone going around killing Muggleborns, or an older student or professor would be at the school next year.

“How odd.”

“Especially since no one seems to know exactly what curse could cause the wound in the back of his head,” Nott said softly, leaning around Goyle. “A number of different ones could have, I suppose.”

He stared at Harry as if he should know the name or nature of the spell, but Harry only shrugged. “Sounds dangerous.”

“Yes.” Nott pulled back after a moment and left, shaking his head. Harry ignored that, too. Nott sometimes seemed straightforward and easy to understand, and at other times acted so cryptic that Harry couldn’t be bothered trying to figure out why.

“When are your awful Muggle relatives going to pick you up?” Malfoy asked, flopping into the seat across from him. Harry tensed for a second, but then decided that Malfoy was only calling them that because he thought all Muggles were awful. He didn’t know about how the Dursleys had treated Harry.

“I’m going to stay in Knockturn Alley, actually.”

“Really?”

Harry had to explain again, but at least Malfoy, because of his prejudice against Muggles, didn’t take much convincing that this was a sound plan. Or maybe he knew less about the potential dangers of Knockturn than Nott did. He just shook his head in the end and then looked hard at Harry.

“You know, Grayson, you’re all right for a Mudblood.”

“Thank you,” said Harry, and he meant it as much as Malfoy meant what he had said.

*

For some reason, Professor Potter was waiting when the train pulled into King’s Cross. Harry had paid her a little more attention after her weird actions towards him, and he knew that she didn’t have a child old enough to attend Hogwarts yet.

In case she was looking for him, he made sure to slip off in a cluster of other children and head straight for the Floo that would take him to the Leaky Cauldron. From there, he knew, it was only a short walk to Knockturn Alley.

Where he would find danger, and risk, and people who probably wanted to use him.

But where there was freedom, too.