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Harry can’t even look at the Gryffindor table. He remembers the disdain in Ron’s voice when he’d talked about Slytherin and he’s afraid he’ll see that same disdain now directed towards him.

It’s only his first day and he’s already messing everything up. Several of his new classmates try and draw him into conversation and even more of them are giving him strange looks and whispering. Misery clenches in his gut and his shoulders hunch up around his ears. It feels like he’s trapped in the Leakey Cauldron all over again except this time it’s without the comfortingly solid presence of Hagrid at his back.

Hagrid probably won’t even want to see him now. He’d been so scathing while he was talking about Slytherins.

People leave him alone eventually and dinner is finally over. They trudge to their dorms after the feast, in the dungeons of all places, which he thinks says more than enough about what the rest of the school thinks of them. Everyone immediately breaks off into their own friend groups, all these kids apparently already familiar with each other even though it’s the first day of school.

Even surrounded by kids that are supposed to be just like him, he’s still an outsider. Hagrid had said that there would be lots of kids meeting each other for the first time, and maybe that’s true in the other houses, but not in Slytherin.

If he couldn’t have gone to Gryffindor with Ron, couldn’t he have at least gone to Ravenclaw? One of the other Indian first years was sorted into there, and they would have at least had that in common. He doesn’t have anything in common with his housemates.

Malfoy calls out to him, gesturing for him to join him and the group of kids clustered around him, but Harry ignores him to go find his room.

Which has his name on it and Malfoy’s. Great. This is just perfect.

He tries to go to sleep, but can’t, tossing and turning and unable to stop thinking about how so much has gone wrong so quickly. What’s the point of being a wizard if it’s just going to be like living with the Dursleys? Except he won’t even get the respite from their disapproval by going to school, because this is school, and where he lives, and at least when he lived with the Dursleys he didn’t have to share a room with Dudley. This castle is huge. There has to be spare cupboard somewhere.

It’s hours later when Malfoy finally goes to bed. He opens their door then spends several minutes chatting with the door cracked, using a tone of voice that Harry doesn’t recognize before finally coming inside.

He’s quiet as he gets ready for bed. Instead of turning the lights on, he lets out a soft, “Lumos,” and Harry sees a light erupt from the end of his wand through his half lidded eyes.

He’s impressed, and hates that he’s impressed.

Malfoy falls asleep minutes after crawling into bed while Harry doesn’t manage the same until nearly dawn.

Why had the hat sorted him into Slytherin? He doesn’t belong here.

~

When Harry wakes up, Malfoy is already gone, his bed neatly made and his bookshelves filled with more things than seem like the reasonably could have fit in his trunk. His heart jumps and he scrambles out of bed, worried that he’s late, but when he checks the time there’s still an hour before classes.

He almost crawls back into bed to try and catch a few more minutes of sleep, but there’s not much point. He knows from experience that it won’t make him any less exhausted. Instead, he gets dressed as quickly as he can, trying not to feel too dejected about the Slytherin crest on his robes. He also knows from experience that wallowing in his own unhappiness won’t change a thing.

Harry steps into the common room, expecting it to be empty, assuming that everyone will do exactly what he is – heading for the Great Hall as soon as he’s up and ready.

But it’s not empty.

It’s nearly as full as it was when he’d gone to bed.

Everyone is up and chatting, clustered on couches and around tables, almost exactly as they were when he went to his room last night. The only difference is that there are trays of floating espresso gently bobbing their way among the students, although the older ones redirect them away with a flick of their wands whenever a younger year tries to reach for the dark, bitter drink. Several cheerful tea services are also circulating on side tables with legs that move on their own and no one seems to be restricting anyone’s access to those.

Some kids have their books out, even though they’ve yet to go to a single class, but most are bent over identical looking slips of parchment.

“Class schedule,” says a brisk voice. Harry looks up to see Agnesa, the girl with skin almost as dark as his who had led them to their dorms last night. She has a shiny prefect badge on her chest and her slick black hair is pulled back in a way that reminds him of Professor McGonagall.

He takes the paper she’s holding out to him.

She eyes him up and down and her frown deepens. He tenses, not sure what he could have done to get in trouble already, but she just tucks the stack of schedules underneath her arm and reaches out to undo his tie. “It’ll take some practice, but none of us really go for a simple knot. What I’m doing is a half-Windsor, no need to be dramatic on your first day. Any of your housemates should be able to show you. Except don’t ask Cassius, he only uses the Van Wijk knot.”

“Uh, okay,” he says as she finishes and then goes about straightening his robes on his shoulders. She eyes his hair, but seems to recognize a losing battle and lets it be. He looks at her tie, which is all crisscrossed and layered at the top. “What’s yours?”

“Eldredge,” she answers and then some of her sternness breaks as she winks at him. “I don’t tend to follow my own advice.”

She moves on before he can respond, passing out class schedules to two upper year students who have just stumbled into the common room and are chasing an espresso tray. A giggling girl about their age is using her wand to keep the tray just out of their reach and they seem too sleep deprived to notice the source of their difficulties.

There are some curious stares landing on him and one boy he doesn’t know waves at him. Harry returns it because he doesn’t know what else to do, but the discomfort at not knowing anyone when everyone else seems to at least know someone stops him from doing any more than that. He doesn’t linger in the common room, even though it’s obvious that everyone else does, but he doesn’t get far because he steps outside and walks straight into someone.

He stumbles, but he’s yanked upright and he’s looking right into Ron’s very pale face, made even worse by the bruises beneath his eyes. “I’m sorry!”

“Um, good morning,” Harry says, blinking.

“I really didn’t mean - I just didn’t think there was a chance you’d - well, shows what I know,” he scoffs.

Harry really isn’t following this at all. Maybe he should have made use of the tea trays before leaving. “How do you know where our common room is?”

“Fred told me,” he says dismissively, even though last night they’d said that their common room locations were supposed to be a secret from the other houses. “I just mean. What I’m trying to say is, Slytherin can’t be all bad if you’re in it, right? So, y'know. Sorry. Mum is always telling me that my mouth is going to get me in trouble and I guess she was right.”

Ron asked his brother about the common room then got up early and waited just so he could tell Harry he was sorry.

He doesn’t hate him after all.

“It’s okay,” he says warmly. “Thanks. How’s your common room?”

Ron’s shoulder slump, but he’s grinning, so Harry doesn’t think it’s because he’s said the wrong thing. “It’s great! I’ll sneak you in sometime, I think you’ll like it. Er, how’s yours?”

“Busy,” he says, thinking about all the chatter and chaos he’s left behind him. “Come on, let’s go to breakfast. Um, then we could walk to class together, if you want? We have charms together, I think.”

“Yeah, of course,” Ron beams, nudging him in the side before they head towards the Great Hall.

Or towards where they think the Great Hall is, anyway. This place is so confusing. He wishes they could have asked Mathius, the portrait guarding the entrance to the common room, but he only responds to passwords. Ron tells him about all his dormmates the whole walk to the great hall and then claps his shoulder before going over to his own table.

Harry is expecting to be alone at the table, considering how crowded the common room was, but that’s not entirely accurate. There’s a smattering of older students comparing their schedules to students in different houses. He’d thought that that wasn’t allowed, and he’s considering going to sit with Ron at the Gryffindor table when a girl he got sorted with waves at him and says, “Hi Harry.”

He walks over because it seems rude not to and sits across from her. “Hi, er,” he flushes, desperately trying to remember her name.

She grins at him. “Daphne Greengrass. I heard you’re rooming with Draco. Rotten luck on that.”

He tries to control his face but for a moment he must look as miserable as he feels.

Daphne’s grin shifts into a frown. “Oh, I didn’t mean - he’s not all bad, really.”

“Sure,” he says, because fighting with all his housemates probably isn’t the smartest idea.

She rolls her eyes. “He’s a bit self-centered, but he’s fun too, and smart. You should get him to look over your homework if you’re confused about anything. He’s kind of annoying, but Mum says he gets that from his father.”

“Hello Daphne,” Malfoy says, appearing out of nowhere to sit down next to her. She jumps, then glares at him. A black boy that had been sitting next to Malfoy in the common room snorts. “Insulting me and my father? I’ll remember that.”

Harry stiffens, because that sounds like a threat, like something Dudley might say, except Daphne just laughs at him and Malfoy doesn’t seem to mind.

A tan girl with dark hair sits next to him and he sort of wants to scoot away from her but he also doesn’t want to insult her. She doesn’t even look at him as she asks, “Why are you out here this early? Avoiding someone or looking for them?”

Harry wonders if she’s talking to him, but Daphne answers tartly, “Millie doesn’t need to be avoided.”

“Susan doesn’t get up early,” Malfoy says. “I don’t know why you thought she’d go to Slytherin anyway. She’s too political for that.”

“Well, she should be here,” Daphne grumbles. “How did you even know I was looking for her anyway?” She turns to Harry. “Draco is also a nosy gossip who knows everyone. That’s also very annoying of him.”

The girl next to him snorts and Malfoy – Draco, he should really call him Draco since they’re sharing a room – starts loudly exclaiming how he’s too well bred for that nonsense and far above anything as low brow as gossiping, and he sounds serious but everyone around them is smiling.

~

Harry Potter is boring and grumpy and Draco should be sharing a room with Blaise, damnit.

“He’s still adjusting,” Blaise says even though he and Theo have been sort of fighting for years and them sharing a room is far from ideal. They both insist the other started the fight that got them all grounded when they were seven. Draco knows it was actually Pansy but has been silenced upon the threat of her telling his mum that he snuck his broom out to fly without supervision.

Now that he’s allowed to fly whenever he wants, it’s not quite as big of a threat that it had been when they were little, but unfortunately Pansy has more than enough blackmail material to buy his silence indefinitely.

“Does he have to be so morose about the whole thing?” he scowls. Daphne wrinkles her nose and he amends, “Sad. Whiny. Gloomy. Glum. Really him and Filch are going to be a matched set at this point.”

“I’d be gloomy and glum if I had to share a room with you too,” she says. “You’re a bit of an awkward – no that’s not right – what was it that Mum said, Millicent, help me out here!”

Millicent pulls her head out of whatever book she’s reading, blinking several times as she processes Daphne’s question. “Your mother said that Draco’s an acquired taste.”

Blaise snorts and Draco’s eyes narrow. “That’s mean.”

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Millicent says, eyes drifting back to her book. “You guys are a lot and Harry was raised among muggles. Just try and be nice.”

“I’m always nice!” he protests. Pansy pats his shoulder, which can’t mean anything good.

“You guys,” Daphne mocks. “You’re a Bulstrode! You’re intimidating too!”

“Oh, very,” she says, not looking up at any of them.

Draco doesn’t wince only because someone would notice. “Anyway! He keeps hanging out with Weasley and not any of us and that’s just not on. Even if he makes the horrific and unconscionable mistake of choosing not to be my friend, he can’t keep consorting with Gryffindors.”

“I only understand half of what you say,” Daphne complains.

Blaise slumps back into the couch. “That’s because your parents don’t make you read aloud and opine on – er, explain the front page of the Prophet every morning.”

He and Blaise share a commiserating glance.

“Merlin,” Daphne says. “Do they really?”

“Everything has a price,” Draco says, because that’s a lesson his parents taught him early and well. “It just depends on whether you’re willing to pay it.” He pauses. “Luckily, we’re all rich.”

Pansy is giggling and Millicent is biting her bottom lip to keep from doing the same, which is really what he’d been going after.

Millicent’s mother is dead, which isn’t strange or unusual, but she was also a muggle. Millicent was never really allowed to play with them, always having to stay directly under her father’s eye. They went off and climbed weeping willows and chased fairies and hid in the wine cellar and Millicent had to stay next to her father, head buried in a book.

Draco’s pretty sure Daphne doesn’t know that. Mrs. Greengrass talks a lot but she doesn’t say anything that can’t be repeated and Millicent’s blood status is something that very much shouldn’t be repeated.

It’s not a secret, but no one talks about it, and that’s almost the same thing.

Greg and Vinny walk into the common room, Harry sandwiched between them and looking miserable about it. They’re both tall and big, taking after their father and mother respectively, but even knowing that doesn’t change how tiny Harry looks next to them. He’s not that much smaller than him, right? Sure, Draco meets his scar rather than his eyes when he looks at him straight on, but that’s not too big of a difference.

He makes a mental note to make sure Harry’s eating and not just crying into his food or whatever. Clearly that inferior muggle food hadn’t agreed with him and it’s good he’s back where he belongs.

“Guess who got locked in a classroom by Peeves,” Greg announces, one thick hand on Harry’s shoulder.

That gets everyone’s attention.

“You did not,” Pansy snaps, eyes blazing.

Harry shrinks even as he glares back. “Why would I lock myself in a classroom?”

“That’s not what she meant,” Millicent says soothingly and Harry’s shoulders lower. “Peeves isn’t supposed to do that.”

“Ron says he does stuff like that all the time,” he says, but at least he doesn’t sound defensive.

“Yeah, to other houses,” Pansy says. “He’s not supposed to do it to us. Where are the prefects? Or Professor Snape! We should tell him, he’ll take care of it.”

Draco doesn’t think Professor Snape is a good idea, but since he hasn’t figured out what’s going on there yet, he knows better than to say anything about it. Instead he gets to his feet and brushes off his robes even though they’re spelled to repel dust and dirt. “No need. I’ll speak to the baron myself.”

Vinny raises both his eyebrows. “Alone? Do you have a death wish?”

“He’s a ghost, he can’t actually hurt us,” he reminds them. Unlike Peeves. Poltergeists are so annoying, he doesn’t know why Dumbledore doesn’t just get the menace banished. “Also I’m not going alone. Am I?”

Greg groans, dumps his school bag on the couch, and says, “Fine. But if he yells at us, it’s your fault.”

“The baron doesn’t yell,” he says. He hoarsely whispers terrible things, or so the older students say. And his parents. And his friends’ parents. “Come along now, I have better things to do than wait for you.”

“Um,” Harry says tentatively, “it’s okay, you really don’t have to-”

“Oh, but I do,” he cuts him off, turning away from him as he straightens his tie and smooths his hair back. His mother had convinced him to cut it for the school year, but he hates how it tickles the back of his neck. Plus it’s so much more effort to make it look presentable now that he can’t tie it back.

Vinny throws his bag on top of Greg’s and they both roll their eyes as they fall into place a step behind him at either shoulder.

They’re only first years, but safety in numbers, and it really doesn’t hurt that they’re both as big as some of the third years.

~

Hagrid doesn’t hate him and even invites him to tea and Harry’s starting to think that maybe being a Slytherin isn’t so bad, or at least that it doesn’t mean that he’s lost every friend that he’d managed to make.

It’s the first Saturday of the year and Harry’s about to head out to Hagrid’s cottage when Draco says, “Oh, absolutely not,” and slams the door shut in his face with a wave of his wand.

He’s seen the older students do that too, but Draco’s the only one in their year who seems to really understand the magic they’re using. Daphne tells him it’s because Draco’s parents have been tutoring him since he was a toddler. He doesn’t know what that means, but Daphne has sounded sympathetic when she’d said it.

“What?” he snaps. They’ve mostly been ignoring each other this whole week, especially after Draco strode off and went to go give orders to a ghost. Harry doesn’t know how that conversation could have been anything but a disaster, but Peeves has left him alone since. He would have rather got locked in the classroom again then have one more thing singling him out from his housemates, but Draco hadn’t bothered to listen to him.

“What are you wearing?” Draco demands.

Harry looks down at himself. It’s the weekend, so he’s not in uniform. Draco isn’t either, although his clothes don’t look that different from their school uniform. “My clothes?”

The disgust on Draco’s face causes heat to rush up the back of his neck. He turns to leave, but Draco dives across the room to grab onto his wrist. “Stop! I didn’t mean - you can’t wear that.”

Harry refuses to turn to look at him so he doesn’t see the blush crawling up his cheeks. “This is what I have.”

“You’re a Slytherin,” Draco says. “You really can’t wear that. I’m not trying to be a jerk. You just, you just can’t.”

Frustration and shame mingle in his stomach. He knows how everyone is about appearances, but he doesn’t have a choice when wearing his uniform would be even more out of place -

“Wear mine,” Draco says.

That gets him to turn around and look at him properly. “What?”

“Wear mine,” Draco repeats. “I’ll talk to, um, someone. I know you have money, so we just have to get you to a shop. We’ll figure it out. But just wear mine for today. Okay?”

Harry hesitates. But Draco sounds serious and if he’s acting like this then their housemates will probably agree with him and he doesn’t want them all being disappointed in him. He just wants to keep his friends and to fit in and for everyone to stop staring at him. “Okay.”

He goes to Hagrid’s in pants that are only a size too big with no holes and a mint green shirt that he’d seen Draco take out his wardrobe but he’s almost certain belongs to Pansy.

Hagrid pats him on the back hard enough that he stumbles and offers him tea and rock cakes and asks about his classes and his housemates and his friends, never once tripping up over his house or saying anything bad about it. Fang keeps his head in Harry’s lap and drools all over his borrowed pants and the tight, miserable feeling that’s been sitting in his chest since the sorting hat called out his house slowly stars to ease.

The next day he walks out of his room to see Agnesa standing there reading a scroll with the tip of a quill in her mouth, wearing a bright purple dress that falls to the floor with a lot of gold jewelry on her wrists and her neck and purple flowers in her hair. “You look like a movie star,” he says earnestly.

“Hm?” She glances at him and tucks the quill in her hair. “What’s a movie star?” He’s trying to figure out a way to explain when she waves her hand dismissively and says, “Never mind that. I heard we’re going on a shopping trip?”

“Oh,” he flushes. “Yeah I - are you the one that’s, er, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she says, reaching out to smooth out his hair even though she knows that it never stays in place. “I love shopping. Let’s go. I think you’ll really like Hogsmeade.”

Agnesa leads him out the castle and through a path that cuts through the edges of the Forbidden Forest, which he thinks means they’re not allowed but Agnesa is a prefect and doesn’t hesitate, so maybe it’s fine. She asks him about his classes and how he’s finding the schoolwork and he says, “It’s just all so new still, but I don’t think I’m too doing too much worse than anyone else.” He likes defense a lot, but he keeps getting headaches during class, so liking it might not mean he understands it. But he feels like understands it, so maybe it’s just Professor Quirrell’s incense or something. He hesitates, not sure if this is a strange thing to ask, but eventually continues, “Daphne mentioned something about Draco having been tutored privately before. Do lots of kids do that?”

She grimaces and he’s worried he’s said something wrong but she doesn’t look or sound mad when she answers, “No, but he is Lucius Malfoy’s son.” What does his father have to do with it? “There are certain expectations. But you’d know all about that, I suppose.”

Harry’s still trying to puzzle that out when the crest over the hill and the village comes into sight before them, a splash of color and cheer against the grey trees with their equally grey leaves.

Hogsmeade is brilliant.

It’s like Diagon Alley, but cozier, and brighter. He wants to duck into every shop they pass, but Agnesa’s hand on his shoulder prevents him from straying.

“Pick up the pace,” she says, but her voice isn’t irritated. “If we have time, we can stop for some butterbeers on the way back.”

“What’s a butterbeer?” he asks, hurrying up to keep up with her long strides.

“You’ll like them,” she says, guiding him into a store that has a purple storefront and large tinted windows.

There are racks and racks of clothes, more like a muggle store than the place he’d gotten his Hogwarts uniforms. The door has barely closed behind them when a familiar voice says, “Oh, is there a ball going on? I hadn’t known.”

Agnesa’s eyes narrow, the meanest Harry has seen her look since she’d had to take points away from two third years. “It’s called dressing for the occasion, Percival, although I suppose your lack of occasions would leave your education equally lacking.”

Ron’s older brother sniffs, subtly lifting his nose. “Well, you are the expert in a lacking education if your arithmancy scores are anything to go by.”

Her smile now has teeth and Harry really wishes she wasn’t blocking the door. He doesn’t totally understand what they’re saying, but it doesn’t sound nice and it doesn’t look nice and he’d really like to be anywhere else. “Surely it’s your own arithmancy that needs a polish, since you’re conveniently forgetting that my cumulative score was higher than yours.”

“It was,” Percy says, letting the pause drag on a touch too long before adding, “Cumulatively.”

Agnesa raises her hands to her hips, her many bracelets jangling ominously.

Percy’s frown softens. “Harry, are you alright?”

“What?” Agnesa looks down and her arms drop back down to her sides. “You’re not looking great. Are you feeling okay? Do you have a stomach ache?”

She presses the back of her hand against his forehead as if checking for a fever. He’s never experienced it himself before, but he’d seen Aunt Petunia doing it to Dudley. He swallows, his mouth dry, then croaks, “No.”

Her eyebrows push together and she looks towards Percy, who grimaces and says, “Ah, Harry, Agnesa and I weren’t fighting.”

“Yes we were,” Agnesa says. Percy glares at her and her face clears while Harry does his best not to make any expression at all. “Oh no. Do your aunt and uncle fight, Harry?”

Only about him.

He shakes his head.

“Watch this,” she says before taking two big steps forward, winking at him, and falling backwards. Harry reaches out, but he’s too far away to do anything.

“Agnesa!” Percy shouts, lunging forward to grab her around the waist. He’s holding her at angle, practically dipping her in the middle of the store.

She loops her arms around his neck, grinning, and says, “Such a gentlemen. Five points to Gryffindor.”

His eyes narrow and he pointedly lets go of her.

However, Agnesa does not let go of him, so she drags him with her as she falls. Percy catches himself on his elbows to keep himself from landing on top of her, but their legs are tangled together. Agnesa’s hair is all messed up now, but she’s grinning like she doesn’t mind.

“Kids,” the shopkeeper says, and Harry looks over to see an old, thin man looking at them disapprovingly over his glasses, “this is a family establishment.”

Harry doesn’t know what that means but Percy turns bright red and scrambles upright. Agnesa just laughs at him, holding out a hand. Percy rolls his eyes, but obligingly grabs her hand and pulls her upright.

Maybe they weren’t fighting. Or not really fighting, or play fighting. It’s fine. Agnesa isn’t in front of the door now but he doesn’t want to leave anymore.

“We’re getting Harry a new wardrobe,” Agnesa says, pulling her wand from her hair to put her hairstyle back in place with a few quick flicks. “Want to help? Teaching you to dress properly should at least pay some dividends.”

“Yes, fine, but you say that like you didn’t steal all my herbology notes that year,” Percy says dryly.

Harry blinks. He hadn’t thought about it, but Percy does dress more like a Slytherin than a Gryffindor, all complicated ties and wrinkle free and everything just so.

Maybe he and Agnesa really hadn’t been fighting.

He’s not exactly an expert on friendship, but theirs is the weirdest he’s seen.

~

The problem with disliking Draco is that no one else does.

In the other houses, sure, but inside it everyone just likes him, even when he’s saying mean things or sneering or talking down to people. Harry doesn’t understand, and he’s not sure he wants to. People should be liked because they’re nice, and Draco isn’t nice.

He is sometimes helpful, like when he spoke to the Bloody Baron about Peeves or went to Agnesa about him needing to go clothes shopping, but even then he’s not being nice, just running roughshod over what Harry wants or thinks.

Unfortunately, he lives with him, and the fact that he and Draco aren’t getting along is starting to cause problems with other people.

Well, it’s really just Pansy, but he’s been informed by multiple people that she’s the type to hold a grudge. One of them had been Ron, of all people, who has toned down some of his remarks about Draco after finding out he got Peeves to leave them alone, but still the nicest thing he can say about Draco is nothing at all.

He tries to think of a solution to making friends with his roommate, but unfortunately all of his ideas involve talking to him, which past experience has shown just makes things worse. In the end he sits next to Daphne while she’s studying in the library, something that no one else in their house seems to do but that’s never seemed to stop Daphne like it does everyone else.

That’s why he likes her.

She sighs and pats his shoulder. “Draco is a Malfoy.”

“I know,” he says. Everyone knows.

He talks about his parents a lot.

“I don’t think you do,” she says and he narrows his eyes. “Draco is going to fight tooth and nail to be the head of our class and he’s going to look out for Greg and Vinny even though they’re not really friends and he’s probably going to get in at least one duel with a Weasley this year.”

Ron would probably be thrilled. “Um. Okay?”

She frowns. “My uncle is the head of the family and he has a daughter. Greg and Vinny’s fathers work for Draco’s. Blaise’s mother deals in money rather than power. Pansy has an older brother. Theo is just a Nott cousin.”

Harry literally has no idea what she’s saying.

Daphne huffs, leaning back in her seat with posture that Agnesa would scold her for. “Harry. Why do you think I’m in the library?”

“Because you like it?” he guesses.

“And why do you think Draco never goes to the library?” she asks.

How would he know that? “He doesn’t like it?”

She rubs a hand over her face. “Sure, Harry. That’s how Draco makes decisions. Based on whether he likes it or not.”

“You know how you always complain about not understanding anything that Draco or Blaise say? You’re doing that right now,” he tells her.

Daphne makes a face. “I am not. I have a very sensible mother who expects me to get decent grades and not get too many detentions and to make my little sister cry no more than once a week.”

Based on the stories Ron’s told him, that last part tends to work the other way around, but he knows better than to point that out right now. “Okay.”

“You’re not getting it,” she sighs. Before he can get mad, she continues, “Draco has to be perfect, or close to it. He has to get the best grades and be the best student and his father’s son. He’s doing all of that while also fretting about everyone else and what they’re doing because he’s nosy and he worries and wants everyone else to also be perfect all the time because that’s how he grew up and since he holds himself to being perfect, he thinks that everything else should be too.”

Harry blinks, sorting through the flood of words. “That’s crazy.”

“Draco’s crazy. Haven’t you noticed?” she asks. “He’s used to our imperfections but yours are new and vexing, as Blaise would say. You make him even crazier than he is normally.”

He doesn’t consider himself perfect, but something inside him still cringes at being called imperfect. But since Daphne is describing herself that way too, he tells himself it’s not something that he has to take offense too. “How am I supposed to make friends with a crazy person?”

“You’re asking me that?” she scoffs. “You’re the one friends with a Weasley and a half-giant. Draco can’t be that much of a stretch.”

“A half-giant?” he repeats in confusion.

Daphne just shakes her head at him. “If you were making nice with Draco, you’d know all the good gossip by now.” That’s not a good reason to be friends with someone either, although by now he’s familiar enough with his house that he knows that’s not a sentiment the rest of them are likely to share. “This isn’t even particularly juicy. Do you think most people are just nine feet tall?”

Oh, Hagrid. In hindsight, that probably should have been obvious. “Well, I didn’t think people could do magic either. How would I know?”

Daphne laughs at him but it doesn’t sound mean and it’s nice, to have someone he can ask and have explain things, even if her explanations don’t always make any sense to him.

~

Snape pushes some of his responsibilities onto the prefects because he’s their head of house more out of a lack of other options than anything else. Well, there’s Sinistra, but no one wants that.

Agnesa doesn’t mind. She’s a prefect because she wants responsibility, after all. Plus there’s a level of smugness she gets from having all of Snape’s personal passwords, even if it’s she can submit paperwork that he really should be the one doing.

“What do you want?” Snape asks after she barges into his office.

If she’s going to do part of his job, then she’s not going to knock. “We have a problem.”

He pauses in writing, looking up at her. She paces in front of his desk rather than sitting down, and that gets her a raised eyebrow. She doesn’t usually let her anxiety get the better of her. Another reason she’s a prefect.

“It’s Harry Potter,” she starts.

“Enough,” he growls, cutting her off. “I don’t care and I don’t want to hear it. Just give him detention if he’s giving you a hard time.”

Agnesa stares. It had been obvious from the beginning that Snape didn’t want anything to do with Harry, but she’d assumed that he just didn’t have any patience for the fame nonsense. Not this. “You have to care.”

Something about her tone melts his irritation into a frown. “Why?”

“Because he’s the Boy Who Lived and he was raised by muggles, which is bad enough, but they’re, well, they’re not good muggles and he’s so little and none of his clothes fit and his glasses prescription is out of date and he - you have to do something!”

Snape’s frown has deepened, but it’s not the sneer that he gets when he’s feeling especially mean. “Why are you telling me this? You could report it to the headmaster.”

Percy had said the same thing. She expects that kind of ignorance from her favorite Gryffindork, but Snape should know better.

“You have to care,” she repeats, “because the headmaster doesn’t. If he did, then this wouldn’t be happening. Harry told me that Hagrid picked him up, and no matter about the jokes everyone likes to make about him, Hagrid’s smart and he must have told Dumbledore. If he didn’t know already.”

Snape doesn’t insult her intelligence by pretending to misunderstand her. That’s why she likes him even if he’s sort of the worst. “You want me to try and outmaneuver Dumbledore? Be realistic.”

“No,” she says. “Harry Potter saved all of us. Whether it was a fluke or some protection or - anything it else, it doesn’t matter. The curse that should have killed Harry ended up freeing the rest of us and dooming him to a miserable life with an aunt and uncle who aren’t deserving of the title. I won’t stand for it. You have to do something.”

Snape won’t listen to her and kicks her out and she’s angrier than she’s been possibly ever.

When she goes back to her dorm, there’s a slip of paper on her desk with two words written in a familiar spidery hand.

Remus Lupin

~

Harry is doing his best to decipher his history of magic text book in the common room when a shadow falls over him. It’s sort of ominous, so he tries to match the energy by making his eyes wider and slowly looking up.

Cassius Warrington smirks. “You’re learning.” Harry’s still trying to figure out whether to be offended by that or not when he says, “I heard you’ve never ridden a broom before.”

“We have our first lesson next week,” he says. He doesn’t think anyone told Cassius he’s never flown before, because it’s obvious, but he doesn’t say that.

“Come with me,” he says, “the pitch is booked for Slytherin practice for the next couple of hours, but Flint is too hungover to do anything but make us run drills. Instead we’re making sure no one embarrasses the house during their first flying lesson.”

“Did I hear flying?” Draco asks, appearing out of nowhere and leaning against the back of the couch. Harry scowls then forces his face into a more neutral shape.

Cassius’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t call him on it. “You don’t need any introductory lessons. I know you’ve been riding a broom since you could stand upright.”

“Let me help then,” Draco says. “I know the rest of the team is taking a nap right now, since they are all also hungover.”

“You’re a gossip,” Cassius says. Draco beams. “Good work. Anyone else?”

Harry’s not sure why Cassius is asking Draco that, but then Draco surprises him by saying, “Blaise and Pansy are decent, and Greg has decent control but is scared of heights so it might not be a bad idea, and if he goes then Vinny will want to go too. Daphne definitely, she hates flying and won’t do it for fun. Millie loves flying and she’s good at it. Theo doesn’t but his control is great so it’s probably not even worth asking.”

“So Daphne, Greg, and Vincent,” Cassius summarizes. “Alright, let’s go get them then.”

“How do you know all that?” Harry asks.

Draco raises an eyebrow. “Weren’t you paying attention, Harry? I’m a gossip.”

The expression on his face is as smarmy as always, but Harry thinks that might have been a joke.

He lets his lips quirk up into a smile, since these days they’ve settled into simply not-friends rather than anything more antagonistic.

If nothing else, at least Pansy doesn’t glare at him anymore.

Harry thinks he could even see what friendship with Draco would be like when the two of them are literally flying circles around everyone else, something easy and natural in the way they toss the quaffle between them. Draco’s throws send it sailing far out of his reach but Harry always catches it before it even gets halfway to the ground.

“Merlin,” Cassius say, something calculating in his eyes. “You two are brilliant. You better try out for the team next year.”

“Flint won’t like that,” Draco points out but he’s grinning. “He didn’t get on the team until third year so he thinks that no one else should either.”

“Flint likes winning,” Cassius returns.

Daphne cautiously flies beside them, a death grip on the handle of her broom. Greg and Vincent are staying much lower to the ground. “I know why Draco’s so good at this, but what about you, Harry? You said you’ve never flown before!”

“I haven’t,” he answers, and almost brushes it off. But he’s a Slytherin, and his housemates are lots of things, but humble isn’t one of them. “Raw talent, I guess. Not all of us take years to be good at something.”

Instead of getting upset at the pointed comment, Draco seems pleased. “Keep that up and we might actually make a proper snake out of you.”

He hopes so. Otherwise it’s going to be a miserable seven years.

~

Percy has enough on his plate without having to worry about Harry Potter. The kid’s not even in his house, for merlin’s sake.

Unfortunately, Harry is in Agnesa’s, who’s determined to make it his problem for some reason. He’d complain about it to Penelope, but she hates Agnesa, and probably will continue to until she comes out ahead of her in the transfiguration rankings again. He’s staying out of it, but only because he’s ranked above both of them.

He’s on his way to potions when someone grabs his elbow and yanks him into a broom closet. He doesn’t know why the castle has so many of these. It’s not like anyone actually sweeps.

Agnesa shoves him into the corner then locks the door. He’s maybe sort of had a dream or two that started like this before. “We’re going to be late for class.”

“This is more important,” she says, which gets his attention. Agnesa’s holding onto the top spot in potions by her fingertips. “What do you know about Remus Lupin?”

He stares at her. She can never come to him with something normal. “Um. Wasn’t he a known associate of Sirius Black?”

She nods. “I need to get in contact with him.”

When nothing further is forthcoming, he sighs and rubs at his forehead. “Why?”

“I thought you didn’t want to get involved in this,” she answers, a touch to acidic to fall into their normal sneering exchange.

They’ve only had a real fight about one thing recently.

“What does Remus Lupin have to do with Harry?” he demands.

“I don’t know,” she says, “but I’m going to find out. Once you give me his contact information.”

“And how am I going to do that?” he asks.

“By asking your parents,” she says, which wasn’t what he’d expected. “Sirius Black was in the Order of the Phoenix, along with the Potters, and probably Remus Lupin. And so were your parents. I bet they still have some way to contact him, or at least a place to start.”

“The identities of the members of the Order of the Phoenix were never confirmed nor was the existence of such group ever acknowledged,” he says stiffly, wondering if he can push her aside and make a run for it before her spell hits him in the back.

Probably not.

She rolls her eyes. “Either it exists and your parents were members or thirteen years ago your mother killed my cousin for sport. Which, she was a Prewett, I guess I shouldn’t assume.”

“Agnesa,” he hisses, appalled and uncomfortable but not surprised.

Percy was only a toddler when the war ended. But Bill and Charlie had told him stories, ones that he’d refused to pass down, but he knows that his parents did not stand idly by during the war.

He’s still not sure how he feels about that. For better or worse, he doesn’t think he’s the type of person that could take that risk if he had kids who were depending on him. There were five of them then, five children who couldn’t take care of themselves, waiting for their parents to come home each night. What if they hadn’t? What if Dad or Mum had been in the wrong place or been a little too slow or gotten caught passing along information? Then he and his brothers would have been all alone -

Oh. They would have been put in the same situation as Harry.

Who Percy doesn’t think they have to worry about, because Dumbledore wouldn’t let anything terrible happen to the Boy Who Lived, and an outdated prescription and hand down clothes just happens sometimes. He’d dismissed it as Agnesa growing up too rich to know the difference between poverty and neglect, but even if that’s the case, what do they really lose by looking out for the kid?

He hates feeling put in his place by a Slytherin, even if it is Agnesa.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll send them a letter today.”

She softens, blinking at him. “Really? What do want in return?”

His moral superiority back. “We’ll call this one a freebie.”

Agnesa smiles at him, sweet and large enough that her eyes crinkle at the corners.

He ends up getting a detention for showing up late to potions.

Agnesa doesn’t, of course.

~

Ever since his conversation with Daphne, Harry has been paying attention to Draco. He sort of understands what she was talking about, even if he isn’t fully convinced.

Draco is always watching everyone. He knows everything. Not just things that he can learn from a book, but stuff about their classmates that Harry doesn’t understand how he can know at all. Considering they share a room, he doesn’t even want to think about all the things that Draco has picked up about him.

This is proven on Halloween, when Professor Quirrell interrupts the feast to announce that there’s a troll in the dungeon. Dumbledore orders everyone to return to their common room and Agnesa and the Head Boy are arguing about where to take them, since they obviously can’t bring them to the dungeons. Agnesa makes a bitter comment about how they should just seal the Great Hall until it’s handled and Harry almost misses the moment that Draco slips from the table and sneaks out into the hallway with the Ravenclaw students.

Harry should tell Agnesa, or Blaise, or do anything but what he does, which is take advantage of the chaos to follow him.

Draco breaks off from the Ravenclaws, heading down towards the dungeons. “Are you trying to fight a troll?” Harry demands.

Draco startles, whirling around to glare at him. “Harry! Go back with everyone else!”

He crosses his arms.

They manage their stand off for only a couple seconds before Draco is shifting his weight anxiously and saying, “Oh, fine, come along then. But don’t tell anyone about this.”

“Fighting a troll is stupid and we’re going to be expelled if we’re not killed,” he says but falls into step beside him.

“We’re not fighting a troll, don’t be ridiculous, my mother would kill me,” he says, “we’re going-”

They run straight into Ron.

He and Harry gape at each other while Draco put his hands on his hips and huffs, “If I’d known you weren’t going to be a complete jerk about this I wouldn’t have bothered.”

“Shut up, Malfoy,” he says, turning red. “I didn’t mean – she is a know it all!”

“You being stupid isn’t her problem,” he says. “Now come on before my only competition gets eaten.”

Feeling confused and like he’s missing half the conversation is fairly normal around Draco but Ron’s a new one. “What are you guys talking about?”

They resume hurrying towards the dungeon, Draco leading the way and peeking around corners before pushing forward. “You really need to pay attention to more than your cauldron during potions class.”

“I really don’t,” he says. Even if Daphne is the one that messes up, he’s the one that gets Snape’s disappointed stare. He doesn’t know what he’s done to gain his head of house’s ire, although considering the way he treats Neville, Harry supposes he should just count himself lucky.

“Hermione overheard me calling her a know it all and she went to cry in the bathroom about it and she hasn’t come back,” Ron says in a rush.

He frowns at his friend. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“I didn’t know she was listening,” he says defensively, then deflates. “Yeah, I know, Mum would be so disappointed.”

“So if we don’t want to be down one mu-” Draco glances at Ron, then continues, “muggleborn, we better hurry up.”

“I know that’s not the word you were going to use,” Ron says darkly. Harry doesn’t understand this conversation either.

Draco sniffs. “Yes, well, per your own words if it’s not said to her face then it doesn’t count. Besides, of the two of us, you’re the one that made her cry.”

Ron flushes and doesn’t say anything else until they’ve managed to make it into the dungeons and Draco goes to walk straight into the girls’ bathroom. He grabs Draco’s elbow, yanking him back. “What are you doing?”

“Troll in the dungeon? Priorities, Weasley. Besides, it’s a bathroom, not a changing room.” He shakes him off and strides inside. Ron and Harry share an uncomfortable glance, standing there for one minute, then two. They would have made it to a third, excepts that’s when the troll turns the corner and then they’re pushing each other into the door and shutting it behind them, remembering at the last second not to slam it.

Hermione is wiping her face with an actual handkerchief that has Draco’s initials monogrammed in the corner.

“Problem,” Ron says, voice up several octaves. He clears his throat then adds, “Er, sorry, Hermione.”

She gives him a tremulous smile and Draco’s eyes narrow. “Problem?”

Harry jerks his thumb towards the door. “Troll’s coming. It’s very big.”

Draco pales. “While I’m delighted you’ve found your manners, Weasley, I really must reiterate. Priorities.”

Ron makes a face, but Draco pushes past him and nudges the door open a couple inches then sticks his head out.

Well, Daphne had said that he was crazy.

Harry figures that it doesn’t say anything good about him that he joins him, peaking through the crack. The troll is heading in their direction. He might take the left down the hall before reaching the bathroom if they’re lucky, but Harry’s not feeling particularly lucky.

He’s jostled by both Ron and Hermione joining them, so at least his poor judgement isn’t just a personal issue. Draco whispers, “Anyone have any good ideas?”

“Yes,” Hermione says, sticking her arm out of the door and giving a precise, practiced swish and flick of her wand. Between her robe and her dark skin, she almost blends into the stonework, which is the only reason Harry doesn’t yank her back. “Wingardium leviosa.”

“You can’t lift the troll!” Draco hisses.

She ignores him, dragging her wand from side to side.

The suit of armor at the opposite end of the hall clatters and clangs. The troll pauses then turns, lumbering in the direction of the noise and then, amazingly, turning the corner.

Ron shoves Harry in the back and gives Hermione and Draco similar pushes that amounts more to him slapping their shoulders. “Run, run, go!”

They scramble out of the bathroom, moving as quickly and quietly as they can, taking the steps two at a time even though Harry’s legs are burning and he assumes everyone else can’t be any better off. They don’t pause until they’re out of the dungeons, collapsing against the wall, sweaty and exhausted.

“You,” Draco says, wiping his arm over his forehead, “are way too smart to be in Gryffindor.”

Hermione raises an eyebrow. “Well, you’re too brave to be in Slytherin.”

Draco scoffs, or tries to, but he’s too breathless to manage it. “No need to be rude.”

Harry hears someone laughing and then realizes it’s him, the relief making him giddy. Ron’s the first to join him and the other aren’t far behind, all them laughing at the absurdity of everything and getting away and maybe houses really don’t matter that much, not when two Slytherins and two Gryffindors are clustered together giggling in an abandoned corridor.

For the first time, Harry feels like he belongs, with none of the nagging doubt and discomfort that had been burrowing into his skin since Hagrid knocked down the Dursleys’ door.

They get moving again, occasionally breaking into snorts of laughter and elbowing each other in the side. They’re heading to the Gryffindor common room because they have no idea where the Slytherins ended up but before they get there there’s the sound of voices up ahead. Harry realizes that just because they got away from the troll doesn’t mean they’ve escaped the danger.

“-professors are all in the dungeons and we’ll find them faster if we split up!” Percy snaps.

“Patrolling the halls on our own is stupid enough as it is, we’re not splitting up,” Agnesa returns. “I know you’re worried about your brother and Granger but we won’t do either your kids or mine any good by getting killed.”

They all freeze. He and Ron glance behind them, seriously considering heading back towards the troll, but at best that’s just delaying the inevitable.

Percy and Agnesa turn the corner, their argument abruptly cut off as they come face to face.

“We can explain,” Draco says quickly.

Ron blinks. “We can?” Hermione steps on his foot. “Ow! I mean, yes. We can.”

Harry’s pretty sure they can’t, so he keeps silent.

Percy sputters, walking forward and grabbing the back of Ron’s robes and shaking him. “What were you thinking? Just about gave me a heart attack! And you, Granger, I expected better from you!”

Hermione’s face crumples and oh no, he can’t have that. “It wasn’t her fault,” Harry says. “She didn’t make it to the feast, she went to the bathroom after potions, so she didn’t know. We were just trying to get her.”

Agnesa raises an eyebrow. “And you didn’t tell the professors this because?”

He doesn’t have an answer for that, because he hadn’t even known about Hermione when he’d snuck away. He was just curious about what Draco was up to. He at least knows enough not to say that.

“They seemed otherwise preoccupied,” Draco says smoothly. “Snape practically ran out of the hall.”

Agnesa isn’t impressed. “Then you should have told me. It certainly would have saved us the trouble of realizing you all were missing and looking for you. You’re lucky the troll didn’t find you.”

Draco’s face doesn’t give anything away and he keeps his own perfectly bland thanks to years of practice with the Dursleys.

Ron grimaces and Hermione shuffles, looking down at her feet.

Gryffindors, Harry thinks, exasperated and fond.

“You – the troll – you’re grounded!” Percy shouts.

Agnesa is speechless for the first time that Harry’s seen. He assumes this is a very bad thing.

“You can’t ground me, you’re not Mum,” Ron says, because apparently one of his talents is digging the hole deeper. Hermione steps on his foot again, but it’s too late.

“Detention, then!” Percy’s eyes are wide and he’s jerking Ron back and forth as he speaks. Agnesa reaches out, then seems to think better of it and drops her hand. “Detention for all of you!”

“Are you going to tell the professors?” Draco asks.

“No,” Agnesa answers as Percy takes in a deep breath, presumably to yell some more.

He turns to her, betrayed. “Agnesa!”

“Do you want them expelled?” she asks. “I don’t. And by them, I mean your brother and Granger. Malfoy’s father will shut down the school before he lets his son get expelled from it, especially when it’s the school’s fault that a troll was inside in the first place, and no one is removing the Boy Who Lived from Hogwarts.”

Percy’s eyes narrow, but he must agree with her because he turns back to them. “Detention. And do not pull anything this stupid again. If you’re worried about something, don’t go running off to deal with it yourselves, alright?”

“Alright,” Harry agrees before anyone else can say something to get them into even more trouble.

He gets two skeptical looks in return, but they start herding them back with the rest of their housemates, so he assumes it’s enough.

That night, the troll cleared out and back in their dorm, Harry lies in bed and stares up at the pitch black ceiling. “Draco? Are you awake?”

“Yeah,” he says, but it comes out half slurred.

Harry almost doesn’t ask, almost lets Draco drift back to sleep. Almost. “Why didn’t you tell someone about Hermione? You didn’t have to go after her yourself.”

Ron didn’t tell because he didn’t want to get in trouble for making Hermione cry. But Draco didn’t do anything more than notice she was upset and that she’d gone to the bathroom. There’s nothing he would have gotten in trouble for.

The silence stretches out so long that Harry thinks Draco’s fallen asleep and has nearly done the same himself when Draco answers, sounding wide awake, “I have a reputation to maintain, Harry, and Hermione’s – well. There are some things I’m not supposed to notice.”

Harry thinks about what Daphne said and considers that being Draco must be exhausting. Pointlessly so. “You care too much about your reputation.”

He’s expecting that to get him a barb or cold silence, but instead he just sighs, “Probably,” then adds, “and you don’t care enough.”  

“Probably,” he agrees, and then they’re both laughing, softly enough that Harry barely notices when exhaustion finally tugs him to sleep.

~

Sometimes Percy wishes the public feud he has with Agnesa was a little more real than it actually is, if only so he wouldn’t feel obligated to let her pull him into things. “I’m not sneaking into Madame Pomfrey’s office and stealing her logs from twenty years ago.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Agnesa protests, “I’m asking you to ask your brothers to. They like a challenge.”

The worst part is that he knows George and Fred would do it gladly.

Penelope looks up from their potions homework. “I’ll do it.”

Agnesa’s eyes narrow and Percy feels his eyebrows rising. “What do you want in return?”

“You’ll find out when I ask for it,” she says.

Agnesa scowls, but she must be really serious about this, because she says, “Fine. Nothing that will affect my class standing, though.”

“Why are you going through this much effort to find out information about Remus Lupin?” he asks. “I already got you his last known address.”

And hadn’t that been a fun conversation to have with his father. He’s pretty sure his dad had to ask one of his friends in another department to look it up for him, and Percy’s not totally comfortable with his part in a misuse of government resources.

“I can’t just show up at someone’s house and harass them about their dead friends without ammunition,” she says hotly. Percy would really prefer if she didn’t do that at all. “Pulling his grades and school records are easy enough, but I can’t get into the medical records myself.”

Technically, she can’t get his school records on her own, but the head boy is Troy Thompson, who is also captain of the Slytherin quidditch team and beholden to Agnesa because her tutoring is all that’s keeping several members of his team from being forced off.

Marcus Flint probably owes Agnesa his first born or something for helping him pass transfiguration last year.

The Head Girl and Head Boy have access to student records and Troy won’t blink an eye at abusing his power to stay on Agnesa’s good side.

It’s too bad that Agnesa won’t let him forget about her being a Slytherin for a single moment. She’s pretty cool otherwise.

Later, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, he asks, “Do you think I bring these sort of things onto myself?” without giving any sort of context.

“Yeah,” Oliver says, voice muffled because of his glowing wand he that has clenched between his teeth. He’s still going over quidditch plays even though they have an early class tomorrow.

Sometimes he thinks the people that accuse him of being high strung have just never spent an afternoon with Oliver Wood.

~

Draco can’t believe that Agnesa is making them serve detention with Hagrid, of all people.

“Hagrid’s great,” Harry says cheerfully. “This won’t be so bad.”

He’s slightly less cheerful when he finds out that this detention is taking place in the Forbidden Forest, in the middle of the night.

Hermione, who realistically shouldn’t have received detention at all, turns an ashy grey and hunches her shoulders to her ears. Ron pats her on the back sympathetically.

“Isn’t this dangerous?” Draco asks, pulling his cloak tighter around him in the chill. “This can’t be a board approved punishment.”

Hagrid raises a single bushy eyebrow. “So now yer worried about danger from big scary creatures, eh?”

They all go very still, except Ron, who puts his hands on his hips. “They said they wouldn’t tell!”

“’M not a professor, am I?” Hagrid asks. “Would do ya right. Maybe next time you’ll think twice before giving yer prefects a heart attack.”

Considering every rumor Draco has heard about Hagrid, this all feels highly hypocritical, but he supposes none of them have the advantage of half-giant durability.

“How are we supposed to find an injured unicorn?” Ron asks after they’ve been abandoned in the dark and dangerous forbidden forest. The worst part is Draco can’t even complain to his father since that would necessitate a conversation about why he was given such a strange detention in the first place, and some things just aren’t worth the trouble.

“How about we don’t search for it at all and just stay right here until this madness ends?” he suggests. “Whatever is killing unicorns might think first years make a tasty snack.”

Harry shakes his head. “Staying still just makes us an easier target. We’re better off moving around if there actually is something that wants to find us.”

Merlin.

“You know, you being sorted into Slytherin is making more and more sense,” Ron says, but not in a mean sort of way, and Harry actually looks cheered by it instead of despondent.

Hermione takes a deep breath, her skin returning to its typical deep brown as she smoothes down the front of her robes. “Well, let’s get going. The sooner we find the unicorn, the sooner we can go back.”

Harry takes the lead, wand held aloft, even though Draco snidely points out that one of the Gryffindors should go first, considering their bravery and all. They get startled by several rabbits and something that Ron insists was a deer but Draco doesn’t think they got that lucky. Then again, it moved very quickly away from them, so maybe they are lucky.

It’s Hermione who notices the blood first, shouting, “Wait!” and then pointing in front of them. It takes Draco a couple seconds of staring to see what she’s pointing too, the little droplets of silver splattered on the ground. Harry raises his wand higher, increasing the intensity of the light with a flick of his wand. Draco can’t help but feel smug, although he does his best not to let it distract him. He’d taught Harry that trick.

The blood shimmers in a clear path ahead of them and they all exchange glances before going forward. The distance between blood splatters gets further and further, and Draco hopes that means the wound was closing and not that the creature’s heart started to give out.

“Oh, damn,” Ron curses.

The unicorn is seated at the base of a tree, eyes wide and chest heaving, exhausted and terrified. Its whole body looks silver so it takes him a second to place the blood dripping down it’s neck.

“Signal Hagrid,” Harry says grimly and Ron fumbles for his wand.

Sparks go up in the air and it gives them just enough light to see the hooded figure swooping straight for them.

For once, Draco really would have preferred to not be proven right.

~

They shout and stumble back, but pain flares across Harry’s forehead and he’s too focused on that to try and run. It doesn’t matter, because he realizes a second later that they’re not the target. The unicorn is.

“No!” he yells, bending low, scooping up a rock and throwing it with all the force he can muster. It bounces off the figure’s back.

It’s not heading for the unicorn anymore. Because now they have its attention.

Draco moans even as he whips his wand out. “Stupefy!”

The spell hits and slows the figure down, but doesn’t stop him. Hermione repeats the spell with similar results, but it’s still coming for them.

He doesn’t know the wand movements or even what the spell is supposed to do, so the chances of it going wrong are exceedingly high, but they’re running out of options. Ron kicks the dirt in front of them and jabs his wand forward in a wave. “Ventus!”

A strong gust of wind picks up the dirt and flings it beneath its hood. It rears back and blood red eyes meet his and sharp pain erupts all down his scar. There’s something terrible in its gaze that Harry doesn’t want touching him or any of his friends or the unicorn too weak to run away.

“We have to stop it!” he shouts. “Hit it again, whatever you can think of!”

Everything stops for a moment, the figure freezing in place and all his friends going still. He thinks it’s a spell until Draco whispers, “What in Merlin’s name was that?”

Harry doesn’t understand and before he can try to figure it out, there’s what sounds like a hundred voices speaking at once, over and on top of each other and getting louder with every second.

“Yes Speaker!” “We are coming.” “Hit bite kill!” “Kill the killer.” “Speaker asks speaker asks speaker is asking!” “Stop him stop him we can stop him.” “Bite and bleed and die.” “Close we are close and we are closer!”

“D-d-don’t!” the figure says, taking a step back and Harry’s eyes widen. He knows that stutter. He’s heard it before.

It was also the last time he had a headache.

“Too late!”

Snakes erupt from the ground, shoving themselves into the clearing, all shapes and sizes colors of snakes converging on the hooded figure with the terrible red eyes. It stumbles back, running, and the snakes give chase, tangling around its ankles and causing it to stumble, but it keeps going, disappearing back into the brush.

“I think that was Quirrel,” he says, turning, and he sees Draco and Ron looking stunned and Hermione confused, except they’re looking at him like that and not at what just happened.

“Your friends do not understand you, Harry Potter.”

A centaur trots over to them, a crossbow in his hands held in an easy grip as he looks into the direction the figure and snakes disappeared to.

He frowns. “Why not?”

“Oh, thank Merlin,” Ron says, so pale that his freckles are standing out in sharp contrast to the rest of his face. “Okay, I really get the Slytherin thing now.”

He stares. “What?”

“You’re a Parselmouth?” Draco demands. “Oh, this is so unfair. Damn.”

“What’s a Parselmouth?” he and Hermione ask at the same time, which is gratifying. Hermione’s really smart, so it can’t be that bad that he doesn’t know either.

Hagrid arrives just then, his own crossbow hoisted over his shoulder. “Oh, look at that! Ye found the unicorn. Good work.”

The centaur sighs.

Hagrid blinks. “Did somethin’ happen?”

“My father is going to hear about this,” Draco says, but instead of a threat, it comes out resigned.

Ron even goes so far as to pat him on the back.

~

Defense Against the Dark Arts classes are cancelled until further notice, on account of their professor having been caught attacking unicorns, drinking their blood, and then having gone missing.

The first two parts are conjecture and known only to a very small number of people, but Harry is convinced and his brother trusts Harry and unfortunately he does too.

“He’ll be fine on his own, you said,” Agnesa mutters, pacing back and forth angrily. “Nothing’s going to happen. I’m just being overprotective!”

Percy massages his temples. “I really don’t think you can blame me for not seeing this coming!”

“I think you’ll find that I absolutely can!”

Penelope looks up from her arithmancy homework. “Have you noticed that it’s always your two houses causing trouble for the rest of us? We have OWLS this year and no professor. We’re fucked.”

“We didn’t hire Quirrel!” Agnesa shouts. “We didn’t possess him! And fuck right off, as if anyone who cares about their grade depends on the professors for their defense OWL, we’ve been studying together for that since second year.”

“Possess,” Penelope repeats. “You think he was possessed?”

Percy wonders if bringing Penelope into this was the best of ideas, but that’s something they probably should have decided before they started shouting at each other in the study room where all three of them meet at the time they usually meet at. In their defense, it’s been a very strange couple of days.

“No, I think our perfectly normal arithmancy professor turned into a nervous wreck that drinks unicorn blood and attacks children the summer after he agreed to be the defense professor FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER!” Agnesa finishes. It’s a very good thing they’ve already applied sound muffling charms. 

Penelope just hums, as unflappable as ever. “Unicorn blood. Possession. Harry Potter. You don’t really think–”

“Give me another explanation that makes sense,” she says and her desperation sounds genuine.

Percy doesn’t want this to be true. Voldemort is gone. He’s supposed to stay gone.

His parents had never really believed that. It sounds like Agnesa’s hadn’t either.

“I’m going to do some research,” Penelope says, dumping her homework in her bag and getting to her feet. “Try not to work yourself into a panic attack over circumstantial evidence.”

“Fuck you too, Penny,” Agnesa snaps.

“Bye,” Percy says lamely, sort of wanting to follow her but not having a reason to besides Agnesa’s making a little too much sense and it’s freaking him out.

Neither of them speak while Agnesa takes several deep breaths and Percy wonders if he can use this as an opportunity to leave without getting yelled at.

“Percy dear,” Agnesa says, breaking the silence by speaking the exact same inflection as his mother. He hates that. “What is your stance on werewolves having children?”

“Uh, inadvisable?” he offers, trying to remember where werewolves had come in defense. He doesn’t think they have a paper on them. “There’s a nonzero chance it can be passed on to the child.”

“Not having, just raising,” she clarifies.

He really, really wishes he were dumber. He thinks a lot of things in his life would be easier. “Please don’t tell me that Remus Lupin is a werewolf.”

“Okay,” she says. “Now answer the question.”

“You want Harry Potter to be raised by a werewolf?” he hisses. He’s so glad that she waited until they were alone to bring this up.

“I want Harry Potter to be raised by someone who will actually take care of him,” she counters.

Well. What’s he’s supposed to say to that? He rubs his hands over his face. “It’s dangerous. He’s dangerous. Do you seriously want a werewolf raising Harry?”

“I think I need a werewolf raising Harry,” she answers, completely serious.

He drops his hand to stare are her. “What?”

“It’s been three months and he’s faced a troll and nearly gotten killed by Voldemort. Three months! Even if his aunt wasn’t awful, she’d be useless. What’s a muggle supposed to do for him? She’s not qualified. I’m not qualified. And Dumbledore isn’t either, if he’s letting this stand. A werewolf and former war hero may be Harry’s only chance to survive at this rate.”

He wants to tell her she’s wrong, but he’s worried that she may be right.

She continues, “Wolfsbane exists, and finding childcare for one night, maybe two, can’t be that difficult. You know, Harry and Ron are such good friends, and there are already so many kids in your house, what’s one more? Sleepovers are good for a child’s development.”

Percy’s positive she’s making that up, and even if she wasn’t, they spend nine months a year having sleepovers. “You want me to ask my mum if Harry can spend full moons with us before you even know if Lupin will agree to take him? Which, I’m sure she won’t mind, but this is insane.”

“I like to have a thorough plan of attack,” she says. He knows that. Unfortunately. “How much do you think Lucius Malfoy likes his son? Is eleven too young to leverage a relationship for personal gain? I’d say yes, normally, but they are Malfoys.”

Percy rubs at his forehead and wonders if things will ever get back to normal.

~

Being a Parselmouth comes with a certain reputation that Draco grudgingly admits he probably doesn’t want, even though he insists it’s extremely cool and something their house founder could do and it’s hard to think it’s bad when Draco is so unashamedly jealous over it. Even Ron thinks it’s cool, and Hermione, who hadn’t grown up hearing about it from either side, agrees with him.

With the secret of Harry’s ability to talk to snakes binding them, and having faced a troll together, and their murderous defense professor, the four of them end up friends seemingly against their will. Or, against Ron’s and Draco’s will. He and Hermione are all for it, and even Daphne has taken to hanging out with him and his Gryffindor friends with a minimum of sighing.

This is good for lots of reasons, but one of them is that it makes some of the things Draco says to him slightly less mortifying.

Harry wakes up to Draco staring at him from his bed, which is disconcerting enough, but then he says, “I know you signed up to stay here over the holidays, but you should go home with Blaise instead. Or with Daphne, but she has a younger sister that you will end up spending a lot of time looking after, so that’s something to keep in mind. Blaise is an only child.”

“What?” he yawns, reaching out to his bedside table for his glasses.

“I’d invite you to mine,” he continues, which definitely wakes Harry up, “but I need to get my dad to agree to some stuff and I don’t want you to get caught in the middle. Besides, my parents would eat you alive. You’re not ready for them yet.”

"What are you talking about?” Harry asks. Draco does this sometimes, just talks to people like they’re in the middle of a conversation even though they’re absolutely not. He’s seen him do it to enough people that at least he knows that it’s not personal, and they’re friends now anyway.

Draco offers him a weak smile then moves his gaze to the right, as if he’s uncomfortable. “Slytherins don’t stay at Hogwarts for the holidays. But you can’t go home. So you should stay with one of us instead. I already talked to Blaise and Daphne about it. Their families are good, they’re not as caught up in stuff, you know, as much as other families are. They won’t care if you use the wrong fork or whatever.”

Using the wrong fork isn’t even something he’d known to worry about before this moment. “Why can’t I go home?”

He hadn’t been planning to, obviously, but it’s not like he’d told Draco that.

Draco meets his stare and says nothing.

This time Harry’s the one to look away, an embarrassed flush working its way up his neck. “Daphne’s. I don’t mind little sisters.” Or he thinks he doesn’t, anyway.

“Okay,” Draco says, “I’ll let her know. You’ll have fun there, okay? It’s better than staying at the castle anyway.”

“Sure,” he says, offering him a smile, because Draco actually seems worried. “I’m sure it will be.”

Draco’s right, of course. It’s really annoying how often that happens.

Daphne is delighted that he’s coming home with her, and he was worried he was going to be a burden and hid away and that it was actually going to be significantly worse than being alone in Hogwarts for the holidays, but she’s so happy about it that it soothes some of those fears without him having to say anything.

They do have to take a portkey, which is new experience that he doesn’t enjoy at all.

Harry considers Daphne to be the more normal of his housemates, but that’s not say much. When he rights himself from the disorienting portkey and sees where it’s taken them, he turns to glare at her. “You said we were staying in a cottage!”

“This is the cottage,” she blinks. “Mama agreed that the manor might be a little overwhelming for you.”

The cottage is a three-story house at the edge of a river being held up with marble columns and - is that a tower? Two towers. And it’s like an upside-down triangle, bigger on the top than the bottom. Floating staircases are one thing, but seeing a house that absolutely shouldn’t be standing is quite another.

Even oddly constructed, it’s still bigger than any other house he’s seen. He doesn’t even want to think about what the manor is like.

“Daphne!”

A girl a couple years younger than them comes darting out the front door. Harry expects the snow to slow her down, but instead it leaps up out of her way and then settles back down behind her.

Daphne catches her little sister in a hug, picking her up and spinning her around. She lets her drop, then grabs her by the shoulders and shoves her in Harry’s direction. “Tori, this is Harry Potter. Harry, this is my little sister, Astoria.”

She looks a lot like Daphne in the face, but instead of her warm strawberry blonde, Astoria has hair nearly as pale as Draco’s. She looks up at them with big green eyes a few shades darker than his own for long, uncomfortable moments before her face settles into a scowl.

Harry’s trying to figure out what he could have possibly done wrong already when Astoria plants her hands on her hips, turns to her sister, and demands, “Why is he so nervous? What have you been doing to him?”

The relief is so sharp that he can’t contain his laughter.

Daphne glares and pokes her sister in the side. “Nothing! He came this way!”

He thinks he should be offended, but he’s still grinning at both of them.

“Kids!” There’s a tall, pale woman with dark hair standing in the doorway. “Come inside before lunch gets cold! You can play outside after!”

“That’s what warming charms are for,” Astoria grumbles, but she grabs both Harry and Daphne and drags them towards the cottage, or at least what these people consider a cottage to be.

The snow cheerfully jumps out of their way again. He thinks that it’s going to be pretty difficult to make snowballs if they have to chase the snow to do it.

~

Remus doesn’t get many visitors. He has few friends and those that he does have are disinclined to meet him at the edge of a middle of nowhere muggle village, especially when he’s decided against connecting his fireplace to the floo network.

So the last thing he’s expecting is a teenage witch banging down his door in the middle of winter, shivering and glaring at him like it’s somehow his fault. She smooths her face into a pleasant smile which instantly puts him on edge. “Hello, Mr. Lupin, my name is Agnesa and I’m a fifth year Hogwarts student. Can I come in?”

“Do your parents know where you are?” he asks.

She doesn’t so much as blink. “I’m here to talk to you about Harry Potter.”

Harry. He ignores the familiar clench in his chest and doesn’t look back to the box where he keeps all the articles he’d clipped out. He looks so much like James, although his friend would probably be rolling to hear that his son was sorted into Slytherin. Lily would have slapped some sense into him, he knows, but cheering for the Slytherin team would have sent him into the five stages of grief every game.

“You should invite me in now,” Agnes says. “It’s cold and I can’t perform any warming charms in the middle of a muggle town without setting off an alert at the ministry.” She frowns. “Although they must be used to your magic popping up here so maybe they wouldn’t notice.”

They’d notice. The ministry monitors him closer than most, searching for a spike of magic that they can use to raid his home and arrest him.

“You should go,” he says. “There’s nothing I can help you with.”

He starts to close the door and she jams her foot in it, her veneer of niceness dropped as she glares at him with all the scorn an inconvenienced teenage girl can muster. “Mr. Lupin, let me inside and hear me out or your lycanthropy status will be in every tawdry gossip rag I can bribe.”

How did she – “Who are you?” he snaps.

“Don’t you listen? I’m Agnesa, I’m a prefect, and Harry Potter is in my house and he’s my responsibility and he’s yours too and you’re going to help me or else.”

Of course she’s a Slytherin. “As you’re seemingly well aware, given my status there’s nothing I can do for Harry.”

He’d tried. Dumbledore had insisted it wasn’t safe.

“As you’re seemingly unaware, better a werewolf than the worst sort of muggles,” she retorts. It’s odd to hear McGonagall’s decade old words coming out of her mouth. “We can arrange for Harry to be out of the house when you transform, but I can’t exactly go and intimidate a bunch of muggles into acting correctly without landing myself in Azkaban. Also Wolfsbane exists.”

“Petunia isn’t that bad,” he says, taken aback at her vehemence. She and Lily hadn’t always gotten along, especially towards the end, but she’d loved her sister.

“She is, and if you’ll let me inside, I’ll tell you why,” Agnesa stresses.

Remus sighs and steps back.

“Thank you,” she says pointedly, whipping off her cloak and then giving him a betrayed look when he has no coat hook handy.

He’d really been hoping for a quiet afternoon. Instead he makes two cups of tea and listens as Agnesa fills him on how Harry’s first year is going.

At first he thinks she’s pulling his leg, but she insists everything she’s saying is the absolute truth. If the child neglect wasn’t bad enough, Harry seems even more prone to running headfirst into trouble than his father. It makes Remus feel a terrible combination of fond and terrified.

“I still don’t understand what you want me to do about it,” he says. “No court will award me custody even if Dumbledore wouldn’t interfere.”

“They don’t have to,” she says, hands clutching her mug. “The Dursleys can assign you to be Harry’s legal guardian. They don’t like him, they hate magic, and they don’t want him to come back and he doesn’t want to go back. If all they have to do is sign some paper to get rid of him, you think that they won’t?”

“It won’t be that easy,” he says even though his heartrate kicks up just at the thought of it. He doesn’t know the first thing about raising a child, but he promised James and Lily to look out for their son and he’d wanted Harry from the beginning. “The ministry will investigate.”

For the first time, Agnesa hesitates. “I told you that Harry has made friends with Draco Malfoy, right? And that he was the first one to really notice that something was wrong?”

“Yes,” he says, wondering where this could possibly be going.

“Lucius Malfoy has agreed to represent you if the ministry challenges your guardianship,” she says. “Which, considering the pull he has at the ministry, means that no one will be challenging your guardianship. No matter what Dumbledore has to say about it.”

He stares. “Why would he do that?”

Maybe this is some sort of plot to put Harry in danger. Although it sounds like Harry’s in plenty of danger already. But if Agnesa’s right, then Voldemort is back enough to possess professors, and everyone knows that the Malfoys were loyal.

“Because Draco asked him to,” she answers, “and Harry’s a Slytherin, so he’s one of ours now, and because it will piss of Dumbledore and historically speaking that’s something the Malfoys are all for. And because being seen on the side of Harry Potter will probably shake of the last of the shadows clinging to his family’s reputation from the war. Lots of reasons. Who cares? Don’t be a Gryffindor about this and get caught up in why someone’s helping you and if it’s moral or whatever. Focus on if they can help you. And Lucius Malfoy definitely can.”

“How did you find me?” he asks, because if it’s from the Malfoys or her own family or someone else who fought with Voldemort during the war then that probably means there is a deeper, nefarious reason behind this and he won’t have any part of it.

Except Agnesa gives the last answer he’s expecting. “Professor Snape.”

“Severus?” he demands, even though it’s been close to two decades since they were on a first name basis.

She nods then makes a face and shrugs. “Sort of. I went to him first about Harry and he said that he couldn’t help and he didn’t want to hear it, but when I got back to my dorm he’d sent me a note with your name on it and I went from there. I have a friend whose parents were in the Order of the Phoenix and that’s how I got your address.”

Remus leans back in his seat, drumming his fingers against his arm. “And Severus told you I was a werewolf?”

He can’t be that upset about it. Snape has held his silence for sixteen years and if ever there was a reason to break it, for Harry’s benefit is it.

Now it’s her turn to stare at him. “Merlin, no. Does he know? He hates werewolves. I assumed he wouldn’t have given me your name if he’d known. I found out by stealing your file from Madame Pomfrey.”

Remus understands all the words she’s saying but it still takes a surprisingly long time to piece them together because it’s not at all what he’s expecting. “To be clear, you went to Severus about Harry but he refused to do anything because of Dumbledore. But then he sent you my name and did not tell you I was a werewolf?”

“He didn’t tell me anything,” she complains. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to dig up deeply personal information on someone when they have no family, no public job history, and you’re only going off a name? If you hadn’t been mentioned in the articles about the night the Potters died, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.”

“Okay,” he says, the full weight of the responsibility he’s taking on settling over him.

She waits, and then when he doesn’t say anything further, raises an eyebrow and repeats, “Okay?”

“If it’s what Harry wants, then I’ll do it. I’m not sure even Lucius Malfoy will be enough to stop Dumbledore and the ministry, but I’ll try.”

Agnesa’s face lights up, relief mingling with her triumph. “Good! Good. Okay. Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine. We can do this.”

Remus despairs that his fate is in the hands of a fifth year Slytherin.

It’s not the first time, but he hopes it’s the last.

~

The first day back from holiday break, Harry slides into the seat next to him and nudges him in the side. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m hilarious,” Draco says instantly, forcing his lips not to pull into a grin. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to find that?”

“Hair Hold is illegal in several countries, including ours,” Daphne says, dropping into the seat besides Harry. “How did you even find that? My mother is very interested in the answer.”

“I gave her my bottle,” Harry says and Draco considers pretending to be offended, but the point of the gift was the joke, after all, so what he did with it after doesn’t really matter. He hadn’t actually expected him to use it.

His real gift is the several long and uncomfortable conversations he had to have with his parents before his father had agreed to represent Remus Lupin. It had been much more difficult than he thought it’d be, but the important thing is that they’d agreed in the end, so he’s doing his best not to obsess over it too much.

“Did you at least try it first?” he asks.

Daphne breaks into giggles and Harry grimaces. “It made my hair look like a helmet. My hair just doesn’t want to stay tidy, just give it up. I’m tying my own Windsor knots these days and I think that should be enough.”

“You know better,” Draco says, but contradicts himself immediately by reaching out to ruffle Harry’s hair and make it even more of a mess. Harry bats his hands away but he’s smiling. “Thanks for the chocolate frogs, by the way. I love those.”

“Who doesn’t like chocolate?” Harry asks. Draco knows from Blaise and Pansy that they’d gotten the same gift from Harry and he assumes his Gryffindor friends had received the same.

A foolproof plan, if he’s being honest. He decided to take it as a sign that Harry’s learning to think strategically.  

It takes Draco several minutes to notice the whispering happening around them and to twist his body to see what’s captured everyone’s attention.

There’s a tall black man scowling at the entrance to the Great Hall who makes his way up to the Head Table, directing that scowl to Dumbledore and crossing his arms over his chest as he drops into the seat next to McGonagall.

That certainly gets everyone’s attention, so Dumbledore’s sonorous enhanced clearing of his throat is really unnecessary. “Everyone, I’d like to introduce our substitute Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. He’s an auror who serves directly under Amelia Bones and has been generously lent to us by the ministry to complete out the year. Please give a warm welcome to Professor Shackbolt.”

The expression on Shackbolt’s face doesn’t invite any sort of warm welcome, but the idea of being taught by an actual auror is more than enough to make up for that.

~

Harry feels like things are finally falling into place and Hogwarts is someplace comfortable and easy and good. Ron and Hermione meet him to study and hang out and will even occasionally sit at the Slytherin table with him, even though they don’t seem totally comfortable about it. He doesn’t take it personally because he gets plenty of stares the few times he and Daphne sit at the Gryffindor table, although he assumes the reasoning is slightly different.

He partners with Daphne in all their classes and she even starts talking about him visiting the manor in summer, which sounds extremely intimidating, but also gives him a warm glow of pleasure that she and her parents and Astoria thought he was a nice enough house guest to want to invite him back.  

Everyone had told him that Pansy was irritated with him before, but he hadn’t known that what they meant because she mostly left him alone. He understands the difference now. He thought that she was cold and standoffish as a person, but now there’s none of that, just sharp humor and friendly smiles and ruthless, hilarious observations about whatever’s happening around them.

Now that he and Draco are friends, everything is easier.

Not just because it’s a lot better to share a room with your friend than your enemy or someone you tolerate, but because it bridges the gap between the other Slytherins he hadn’t been able to make friends with or had avoided him, like him making friends with Draco proved that he really was one of them. Or maybe him it’s just not constantly fighting against the fact that he’s a Slytherin too, but they happened at the same time so it’s hard not to connect them.

Professor Shackbolt is even grumpier than Professor Snape, but he’s so knowledgeable and all his stories are interesting and he not only explains everything, but explains the reasoning behind it too. Harry had found defense interesting enough when it was being taught by Quirrell, but under Professor Shackbolt it’s become his favorite subject. Plus he doesn’t get random headaches in the middle of class anymore, which really helps.

All this makes weeks the fly by, and they’ve firmly settled into spring with summer looming over them. His friends talk about summer plans and he nods and hopes that Daphne was serious about inviting him over because the thought of an entire, uninterrupted summer with the Dursleys is enough to make him as depressed as he was at the beginning of the year.

He’s goes to sleep on Friday looking forward to the next day when he has no real plans beyond trying to beg some more flying lessons out of Cassius and he’s shaken awake by Draco at far too early in the morning.

“Why,” he groans, rolling away from him and burying his face in his pillow.

“Get up and get dressed,” Draco says. “Agnesa is waiting. We’re going to Hogsmeade.”

“I don’t need more clothes,” he grumbles, feeling more awke by the second and hating it.

Draco tugs his blanket away, because he’s terrible. “We’re not shopping. We’re going to meet someone. Come on, get up, Agnesa didn’t get permission for this one so we have to get there before there are too many people up and about to see us leaving.”

The intrigue gets him to his feet and shuffling towards his wardrobe if nothing else. “Why are we sneaking? Who are we meeting?”

“The sooner you get dressed, the sooner you’ll find out,” he answers.

Harry rolls his eyes but pulls on jeans along with the green sweater he’d gotten from Ron’s mum. When they stumble into the common room, Agnesa is standing there in in dark charcoal slacks, a matching vest, and a white silk shirt with billowy sleeves that makes her dark skin glow and her hair is in a severe bun. That instantly gets him very awake, because Agnesa takes dressing for the occasion very seriously, and this can’t mean anything good. If she’d had on a blazer too then he would have simply refused to get in involved in whatever’s going on, and as is he’s still tempted.

“Very good,” she says shortly, turning and clearly expecting them to follow her.

“Can I know what’s going on now?” he asks.

She smiles at him then, but shakes her head, which he wants to huff about but based on Agnesa’s hair she’s not particularly in the mood for that. They walk silently out of the castle, sticking to the path that leads past the greenhouse to get to Hogsmeade, which is longer and more winding and completely devoid of people. Most of the shops aren’t even open yet, but Agnesa takes them to the Three Broomsticks which is serving breakfast to a couple yawning patrons. Harry wonders if it’s one of them they’re meeting, but Agnesa leads them to the back and knocks twice on one of the doors before pushing it open and gesturing them inside.

It looks like a room used for private parties, but his focus quickly shifts to the man standing by one of the tables. He has on dark brown robes, and he has greying hair and pale skin and warm brown eyes that are instantly fastened on him. “Harry.”

“Hi,” he says, feeling suddenly shy. “Have we met?”

The man smiles and he suddenly looks years younger. Harry mentally reevaluates his age, despite the grey in his hair. “Yes, but it was a long time ago.” He clears his throat. “My name is Remus Lupin. I was friends with your parents.”

“Really?” he asks eagerly, stepping forward before he can stop himself.

“Sit down,” Agnesa says. “Draco and I will get breakfast.”

Harry looks back uncertainly, but Agnesa is already turning away. Draco winks at him then shoves him towards Mr. Lupin, darting away before Harry can attempt to shove him back. Then it’s just the two of them. After an awkward moment staring at each other, Mr. Lupin takes a seat and Harry does the same, sitting across from him.

“You look just like your father did at your age,” Mr. Lupin says. “But you have your mother’s eyes.”

He’s heard that a few times since entering the wizarding world, but it’s still just as thrilling as the first time. The Dursleys didn’t have pictures of his parents and he hadn’t known how closely he’d resembled either of them, although he’d very obviously taken after his father. He’d assumed he’d gotten his eyes from his mother, but he hadn’t known. “What were they like?”

“James was a character,” he says, which is how Aunt Petunia describes people she doesn’t like, but Mr. Lupin says it fondly. “We went to Hogwarts together and we met waiting in line to be sorted. James already knew everyone and had his be – his friends that he’d knows since he was a kid around him, and I thought I was going to stuck being an outsider but he was too pushy and nosy to allow that.”

“He sounds like Draco,” Harry says.

Mr. Lupin lets out a bark of laughter, even though Harry is serious. “Well, they’re both rich purebloods, so I assume some similarities are inevitable. Your mother was very different and she and your father were at odds up until they started dating in sixth year. She was a muggleborn, entirely new to all of this and determined not to let anyone know that or for that to slow her down, pushing herself to the top of every class and cheerfully stomping on anyone who had something to say about it.” Harry wishes that described him, but honestly it makes him think of Hermione. “Neither of your parents were one to take anything lying down, preferring to fight their way out of any problem they got themselves into. I think it’s why they clashed so often when we were kids. It took a long time for either of them to learn how to give a little.”

Okay, now that sounds like him.

Agnesa and Draco return, carrying steaming plates that they set in front of each of them, but instead of joining them they commandeer a table in the corner, heads bent together and discussing something he’s too far away to overhear. He doesn’t dwell on it for long, instead pulled into a conversation with Mr. Lupin about his schoolwork and his classes and what friends he’s made. Mr. Lupin’s smile deepens when he mentions Ron, but he asks questions about all of them, including Draco even though he’s just across the room.

Harry worries that he’s being boring or strange, but Mr. Lupin’s gentle fondness doesn’t falter no matter how many twists and turns the conversation takes. Their breakfast plates have been picked clean and pushed aside for over an hour by the time their back and forth winds down. Agnesa must be paying more attention than it looks like she is, because she walks over and settles a hand on the back of Harry’s chair, Draco a half step behind her.

“Do you like Remus, Harry?” Agnesa asks.

Mr. Lupin tenses and Harry ducks his head, a shy smile tugging at his lips. “Yes.” He peeks up under his messy fringe. “Can I see you again? Or can I write, maybe? If you don’t mind.”

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” Mr. Lupin says. “In fact, I was hoping – of course I understand completely if you don’t want to, and that would be fine, as long as it’s what you want–”

Harry’s not following where this is going, and Mr. Lupin is cut off by Draco groaning and saying, “He’s trying to ask if you want to live with him instead of your terrible aunt and uncle.”

Agnesa slaps Draco upside the head, messing up his hair, but he doesn’t so much as blink.

Mr. Lupin has a flush across his cheeks and Harry’s heart is pounding, tentative hope blooming in his chest that he tries to push down and doesn’t quite succeed. “Really?”

“I would like that very much,” Mr. Lupin says. “I have a condition that made it impossible for me to take you as a baby, even though I tried. I still have that condition, but it just means you’ll have to spend a couple days of the summer with someone else looking after you.”

“Daphne already offered for me to visit,” he says quickly. “That wouldn’t be a problem.”

He’s sure of it. Or, Draco said that he wasn’t ready to handle his parents, but he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t intending to help, and getting yelled at for using the wrong fork is more than worth it. 

“Mrs. Weasley has also agreed to host you as necessary,” Agnesa adds. “Percy’s talked to her about it, so that’s an option as well.”

Mr. Lupin peers down at him, something cautious in his expression. “So you – you would like that? To have me as your guardian?”

“Yes,” he says. Mr. Lupin is nice and knew his parents and listens to him and probably won’t make him sleep in a cupboard or anything. Agnesa and Draco wouldn’t be here if they thought he’d do any of that. “Please.”

Mr. Lupin’s previous smiles were nothing to the grin currently stretching itself across his face, blinding and warm and making Harry’s eyes sting. He’s glad Harry said yes. He wants Harry to live with him.

He’s never been anything but an obligation before, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon always made sure he knew it. He’s never been wanted before.

“Good!” Mr. Lupin says, eyes bright. “Good, excellent! I’m, well, I’m new at this, but I’ll do my best Harry, I promise.”

“Me too, Mr. Lupin,” he says, not sure what exactly he’s talking about, but he’ll do his best too. He is a Slytherin, after all, that’s what they do. A new thought occurs to him. “What’s your condition? Are you sick?”

“Please, call me Remus,” he says. He hesitates and his eyes flicker to Draco, almost too quickly for Harry to notice. “Not exactly. I’ll tell you more later, and if it changes your mind I completely understand-”

“He’s a werewolf,” Draco says, rolling his eyes. “You’ll have to spend the full moon out of the house, but he’s safe enough the rest of the time.”

Harry blinks several times, sure that Draco is messing with him.

Mr. Lup – Remus sends a sharp look to Agnesa, who’s too busy staring at Draco. “How do you know that?”

“My mum told me,” he says. “I couldn’t figure out why Dad was putting up such a fuss when I asked and obviously I wasn’t letting it go and finally my mother explained. I told them better a destitute werewolf than neglectful muggles and that’s when my dad agreed to help.”

Harry had known that Draco and Agnesa knew something about his home situation, between his clothes and his glasses and not going home for the holidays to setting up this meeting with Remus, but it still makes him squirm uncomfortably to hear it stated so plainly.

“I wouldn’t say destitute,” Remus says, nonplussed. “That’s really all you have to say about it?”

Draco’s nose scrunches like he’s smelled something bad, but he seems to make an effort to relax his face before saying, “There are tons of people who would be happy to raise the Boy Who Lived, but Harry deserves better than that. He deserves someone who will love him and take care of him like my parents love and take care of me. Even if that someone is you.”

Harry can’t decide if that’s the nicest or rudest thing Draco’s ever said.

“Well,” Remus says, apparently equally at a loss. “Well – hm.”

“I don’t mind that you’re a werewolf,” he says. He’s heard older students talking about them and none of it was complimentary, but he heard a lot of terrible things about Slytherin before he was one. It doesn’t do him any good to rely on rumor, and just like meeting Remus in the first place, Agnesa and Draco wouldn’t be encouraging it if they thought it was too terrible. Also. “My parents knew, right? They must not have minded either.”

“Yes,” Remus says, eyes bright. “They knew. Your father was one of the first people I told.”

“See? Nothing to worry about,” he says firmly, even though he’s not sure what exactly he’s getting himself into.

He’ll find out soon, when he spends his summer with Remus and not Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

~

Draco is feeling optimistic about their plan to get Harry away from those terrible muggles and into – well, he’s at least not a muggle. Or evil. Probably.

Now that Harry’s agreed, all the time and set up his father had done from the holidays to now is falling into motion. The muggles signed the custody papers and his father had filed them with a clerk that had been suitably warned and bribed and it’s gotten approved by a judge that’s been in his pocket for decades, since it was Malfoy money that got her the seat. Draco had thought they’d have to fudge the character witnesses, considering both that he’s a werewolf and anyone who might like him is equally likely to tattle to Dumbledore. But Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had volunteered, and two purebloods, one of whom is a department head, isn’t anything to sneeze at in a court of law. His father had said they’d gotten others as well, and his tone had been so grudging that Draco assumes they have to be as good if not better.

“I don’t see the need for all the secrecy,” Harry says, laying upside down on his unmade bed. His neatness at the beginning of the year had been apparently had more to do with his home life than personal preference, and as soon as he’d figured out the worst that would happen to him for not cleaning up was Draco’s irritation, his side of the room had taken to looking distinctly lived in, as his mother would say. “Why can’t I even tell Ron? His mother already knows. And Percy!”

“The same reason we’ve all agreed not to tell anyone you’re a Parselmouth,” Draco says absently, not looking up from his charms book. If he doesn’t beat out Hermione for the highest score, he’ll do something that someone will regret. “Because people are stupid.”

Harry gives a large, heaving, melodramatic sigh that Draco’s almost impressed by. It’s enough for him to glance up from his textbook, his lips twitching at the corners.

“Secret means secret, not every person you know,” he scolds. “I haven’t told Blaise, have I? And he’ll definitely let me hear it when he finds out.” Harry pouts and Draco reigns in some of his exasperation to say, “Lots of people are going to be pissed when they find out, because people like to stick their noses into things that none of their business,” he ignores Harry’s look at that because everything he sticks his nose into is his business, otherwise he wouldn’t have known about it, “and it’s better for them to do that after everything is said and done. Possession is nine tenths of the law, which means we’re going to get you safely in Lupin’s home and under his guardianship before giving everyone a reason to panic.”

That’s how his dad had explained it to him and it made sense to Draco. Harry’s face drops, but he gives a grudging nod, so it must make sense to him too.

“It’s just a couple more weeks,” he says. “Focus on finals. Maybe let me and Hermione actually cram some information into your head instead of just goofing off with Ron and Daphne every study session.”

Based on Harry’s eyeroll, he assumes he shouldn’t hold out much hope on that front.

~

The end of year exams are over. Summer is in full swing on the Hogwarts grounds while the upper years finish their examinations and it’s just another week until the end of the year.

Harry had been looking at this time with a heavy sense of dread, but that was before. Now he’s got a dozen letters from Remus in his trunk and the promise of a summer better than any he’s had before. Besides Remus, he has invitations to Daphne’s home, and Hermione’s, and Ron’s. Even though they’re not that great of friends, both Greg and Vinny looked at him fretfully when the subject of summer plans had come up and he’d had nothing he could say, and he’s received invitations from them too the next day.

He really feels very bad about keeping Remus a secret, because while Draco may be the poster child for it, he really does have a whole house of nosy busybodies who see more than he wants them too. He used to find that kind of attention and scrutiny grating, but at this point he can’t help but feel warmed by it.

The first year Slytherins have all decided to celebrate their last day of exams by having breakfast by the Great Lake and lazing about there until lunch. Harry’s looking forward to it, which is probably why he wakes up with a searing pain along his forehead. At first he thinks he’s rolled over and hit his head against his side table, but he’s laying flat on his back in the middle of his bed and it hurts way more than that.

It's like he’s back in the forbidden forest all over again.

He pushes himself upright, grabbing his wand and lighting every lamp in the room with a sharp, “Lumos!”

Light floods the room and he looks around, but it’s just him and Draco, who’s groaning and rubbing at his eyes. “What’re you,” he pauses to yawn, “doing?”

“My head hurts,” he says, voice too high.

Draco blinks at him. “Um, I have some pain reliever potions somewhere? My mum sent a bunch with me.”

“No,” he shakes his head and grits his teeth when that sends another pulse of pain across his temple. “Not like that. Like – with the unicorn-”

“Quirrell?” he demands, understanding what he’s saying immediately. “You think he’s nearby?”

His head throbs. “My scar does.”

Draco swings his feet out of bed, stuffs his feet into his slippers, and grabs his wand. “Come on, we’ve got to tell Professor Snape.”

Harry doesn’t think that Snape will be all that happy about being woken in the middle of the night because his head hurts. “Draco-”

“He’ll listen to me,” he cuts him off. “And if he doesn’t, we’ll find someone who will.”

Harry nods, carefully this time, then grabs his own slippers and follows Draco to their head of house’s personal quarters. The tall, beady eyed woman in the frame frowns down at them. “You should be in bed.”

“There’s a security concern,” Draco says briskly. “We need to speak to Professor Snape. It’s an emergency.”

Her frown deepens, but they must seem desperate enough to be believable because she nods and disappears from her frame. Several long minutes pass, his shoulders getting tighter and tighter, before she returns.

Her displeasure has been replaced with concern. “He won’t wake up.”

“This really is important,” Harry says urgently.

“Yes,” she agrees. “Severus is a light sleeper. It’s almost as if, er, never mind that. His chest moves, but I cannot wake him.”

“What about the headmaster?” Draco asks and he really must be taking Harry seriously, because he never wants to go to the headmaster for anything. “Can you go get him? It really is an emergency.”

She nods and disappears again, but when she returns, she’s gone from concerned to outright agitated. “Headmaster Dumbledore has received an urgent summons from the ministry. He’s not on the premises. There were other portraits there and you were right about a security breach. Professor Quirrell has been seen heading to the third floor corridor.”

Oh no. He’s right.

Usually the thought doesn’t fill him with so much despair.

“The forbidden one?” Draco says. “What’s he doing there?”

She shrugs, wringing her hands.

“What about Professor Shackbolt?” Harry asks. “He’s an auror, right?”

“Yes,” she says, but doesn’t move from her portrait. “They can’t wake him up either. Or any of the other professors, it seems.”

Draco is worryingly pale and Harry feels lightheaded himself. “We can’t just let Quirrell do whatever he’s trying to do! Nothing good, probably! We have to stop him!”

How are they supposed to stop him? They’re just first years, and there are no snakes in the castle that he can use to attack him and no handy centaurs with very large crossbows.

But they can’t just stand there, there has to be someone else they can –

“Agnesa,” he says, interrupting Draco’s questions about the floo network, which is apparently down as well, of course. “We should get Agnesa.”

She’s basically an adult. She’ll know what to do.

The woman nods and leaves. Draco paces and Harry resists the urge to snap at him to stay still.

He’s almost decided to find another portrait when Agnesa turns the corner, mouth pressed into a grim line. She’s got on dark tight pants and flat boots that go up to the knee, a black clingy shirt and her hair braided back with her wand held in front of her.

Agnesa always dresses for the occasion. It’s an uncomfortable thought.

“You two alright?” she snaps, raking her eyes over them. They both nod. “Harry, your scar hurts?”

“Yes,” he says, although the pain has taken a backseat to the panic. “It’s Quirrell. The portraits confirmed it, he’s here and he’s heading towards the forbidden corridor and all the professors are asleep and Dumbledore is gone-”

Agnesa settles a hand on each of their shoulders and Harry takes in a deep breath while she says, “Good job going for the professors than then thinking to find me. You did just what you were supposed to, but I’m going to take care of it from here.”

“How?” Draco blurts.

“Go back to bed,” she says firmly. Her eyes go past them. “Ah, good, Desiree found you. Is she completing the other task I gave her?”

“Yes,” answers a hoarse voice that sounds scraped raw. Draco, if possible, turns even paler.

They turn to see the Bloody Baron hovering behind them, his expression as dour as always.

“The baron will escort you to your rooms and keep watch,” she says. “Go with him now.”

“But,” Harry starts.

Agnesa shakes her head. “Do not argue with me. Go to bed. I will handle this.”

Harry wants to argue, even if it had been his idea, because – because it had been his idea and he doesn’t want her getting hurt because of that.

“Be careful,” Draco says, then grabs Harry’s hand yanks him down the hall.

“Draco,” he hisses, “are we really just going to leave her to deal with it?”

“She’s a prefect,” Draco says, “and whatever she’s going to do, she’s going to be able to do it a lot better if she doesn’t have to worry about us on top of it.” They’re silent on their march back to the dorms, the baron following them as Harry fumes. Draco breaks it to add, “When I was younger, my parents told me that if they ever gave the signal, I was to hide wherever I could and say nothing and do nothing until they came for me. They said that if anything ever happened, the most help I could be to them was to keep myself safe for them. We should listen to Agnesa because if we don’t, we won’t be helping her, we’ll just be putting all of us in danger.”

Harry lets out a slow breath, forcing himself to relax even as he steps close enough to knock their shoulders together. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Draco agrees, voice low. “Me either.”

~

The kids and the baron turn the corner and she waits impatiently for Desiree to return to her frame. This is not good. This is extremely not good. If the floo network wasn’t down, she’d have some options but it is, and she doesn’t have the time to run to Hogsmeade.

“Let me in,” she orders as soon as Desiree returns. “Cadmium.”

She swings open.

Agnesa hurries inside, following the directions of several portraits to send her to Professor Snape’s bedroom. She feels bad about this, but it’s an emergency. He’s sleeping, seemingly peacefully, and that peace isn’t disturbed when she yells, shakes him, and sets off fireworks above his head. The scorch marks are going to be a little difficult to explain.

Whatever spell is keeping him asleep, it’s one she doesn’t know how to counteract.

She kicks Snape’s nightstand in anger then flees, feeling every passing second bearing down on her. She flings open the door from common room to the hallway outside and is relieved that Desiree had followed her directions.

Percy is standing there, still in his pajama pants and a sweater that his mother knitted him. “What’s going on? I tried to wake McGonagall and couldn’t and Desiree and the Fat Lady are saying that Quirrell is here!”

There are other people she should alert, probably, the Head Boy and Head Girl and the other prefects, maybe, at least Penelope, but Percy’s been the one who’s been by her side, however reluctantly, for all of this. He’s the one she can trust to understand the gravity and of the situation. “Quirrell, who’s almost definitely being possessed by Voldemort, is here and going after whatever’s being protected in the third floor corridor, and also probably Harry, because that’s twice now he’s lost to him and I don’t think a man who refers to himself as the Dark Lord wants there to be a third.”

Percy takes a deep, steadying breath then throws back his shoulders. “Okay. We have to stop him from doing whatever he’s doing and we have to protect Harry. Ideas?”

His calm seeps into her and she copies him, taking in a slow breath and trying to clear her head enough to think properly. “I can – I know how we can protect Harry. And all the other students. I think.”

“Okay,” Percy says, raising an eyebrow.

Snape shouldn’t have given her his personal passwords if he hadn’t wanted her to use them.

Except he’d given them to her with the expectation that she wouldn’t do anything like this and if Quirrell is anything less than Voldemort she’s going to be stripped of her prefect status and probably expelled.

She turns to the portrait guarding the entrance to the Slytherin common room, an imposing old man with a long beard who’s always reading a different book. “Mathius.”

He looks up at her and raises an eyebrow.

“We’re the only students out of bed, right?” she asks. “Everyone else is still asleep. Right?”

If it was any other time of year, the answer to that would be a resounding no. But everyone besides first years still has exams which means there’s minimal skulking about after curfew.

“None of the portraits have seen anyone else out and about,” he agrees.

Right. Okay. “The lockdown protocol, for the kids? The common rooms, the dorms, and the professors’ private quarters. No one gets in and no one gets out.”

“You don’t have the authority to do that,” Percy protests.

Mathius just tilts his head to the side. “You understand no one includes you, yes? You can initiate it, but you’ll need a head of house or the headmaster to end it. You’re not getting back inside.”

“I understand,” she says. She turns to Percy. “Do you want to go back to the Gryffindor common room? It’s okay if you do.”

“You can’t do this,” he says. She waits and he juts up his chin, crossing his arms. “But if you can, for some reason, I’m staying with you until this is all sorted out. Merlin knows what a mess you’d make of it on your own.”

When this is all over she’s going to do something really nice for him, like not rub her higher OWL scores in his face. Maybe.

“Lilium candidum,” she says to Mathias, using Snape’s personal password on something that he hadn’t given her permission to do for the first time. She wonders what he’ll be angrier about, this or the scorch marks on his ceiling. “Do it. Protecting the students is the most important thing. Stopping his stupid plan is secondary.”

He snaps his book shut. “Very well. Good luck.”

His portrait melts into the wall, a ripple of magic flowing over the bare wall. It’s not just Mathius, but every portrait frame sinks into the stone walls. If she concentrates, she can see the shimmer of protective magic running the whole length of the Slytherin common room.

She wishes she could do this to the whole castle, could keep everything locked in place and just run for help in Hogsmeade, but this is the extent of what she can ask for, even with a head of house’s personal passwords. To lockdown the whole castle, they’d need the headmaster, and if they had Dumbledore then they wouldn’t need to put everything in lockdown in the first place.

“What now?” she asks Percy, really hoping he’s not about to suggest they go after Quirrell themselves. She’s not confident she could win a duel against Quirrell before he went and got himself possessed by Voldemort and she doubts that’s improved their chances any.

He’s tapping his foot, a habit that makes him look constantly impatient, but he does it when he’s thinking without realizing, and Percy spends a lot of time thinking. “All the professors have been put under a sleeping spell.”

“Yes, I know that,” she says, doing her best not to snap at him since he is here helping her.

By the look he shoots her, she guesses she hadn’t been that successful. “What about those who aren’t professors?”

She had dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night. “Uh, the students?”

He rolls his eyes.

Oh.

Well, she had been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night too, and also it’s a terrible idea. “Hagrid? Really? He didn’t even graduate! He got his wand snapped!”

“He knows everything that happens around here, he’s a half giant, and it’s him or Filch,” he answers.

Merlin. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

Every second they stand here, talking, is another second that Quirrell has to do – well, whatever it is that he’s doing, which they both agree is something bad. “Fine. Let’s go.”

They’ve only made it to the front hall when the doors bang open. Percy shoves her behind him. She’s not sure if it’s sweet or brave or just idiotic. Her mother taught her all the good curses, after all.

Hagrid is standing there, wide eyed and his pink umbrella held in his fist. “Why’re the wards up?”

Wow. He really does know everything.

The explain quickly and Hagrid’s face darkens. She expects that they’ll have to convince him, have to tell him exactly why they think Quirrell’s possessed and why he’s after Harry and why this really was the best choice, but he just listens and believes them and says, “Go wait in the headmaster’s office. I’ll take care of Quirrell.”

“Um,” she stares. “You did – I mean, you know there’s a good chance that he’s not–”

“Don’t worry ‘bout that,” he says, and there’s a thread of amusement that Agnesa doesn’t understand at all. “Go.”

If this is how Harry felt when she told him go back to bed, then Draco deserves more credit for actually making him.

“Here,” Percy says, holding out his wand to Hagrid.

They both stare at him.

“Take it,” he insists. “You’re going to need more than your umbrella, Hagrid.”

For the first time, Hagrid looks uncertain. “What if I break it? I haven’t – I’ve got big hands.”

What an understatement.

Percy doesn’t so much as flinch. “Better it than you. Be careful, okay?”

Hagrid swallows then carefully takes Percy’s wand. His pointer and middle finger curl above the handle, but it’s not so bad. He probably won’t break it.

“To the headmaster’s office,” he orders gruffly.

Agnesa pats him on the arm because she doesn’t know what else to do and he smiles at her before turning and heading for the staircase.

Part of her doesn’t want to go and just wait in Dumbledore’s office, but the rest of her is very aware that she’s now the only one with a wand between them, so she says, “Come on. There’s nothing else we can do.”

It’s true and feels terrible. She’s not used to feeling useless.

The statue jumps aside at the sight of them, which is a little concerning, but she thinks that thing might be a little more than enchanted metal. They climb up the staircase and as soon as they step inside they’re overwhelmed by the sound of the portraits all yelling at each other.

The portraits glance in their direction then get back to arguing with one another. Agnesa collapses onto the couch, rubbing a hand over her face. Percy joins her a moment later, hands hanging between his knees.

“You know what would be really useful to have about now?” she asks.

His lips twitch up. “A werewolf?”

“Just saying,” she sighs, tipping her head back. “I’m just getting more and more convinced that it can only be good for Harry to have Lupin looking after him.”

Percy hums in agreement, rubbing a hand over his face.

Now that there’s nothing to do but wait, Agnesa feels herself crashing. The portraits’ yelling just sounds like white noise. “Wake me up if something interesting happens.”

“You’re not going to sleep right now?” he demands incredulously.

She flips him off, settles more firmly into the couch, then closes her eyes.

~

Percy, thanks having to older brothers and sharing a home with Fred and George, has developed a sense for when people are watching him sleep. He has a crick in his back and he’s scrunched up in his bed for some reason and his pillow is –

He’s not in bed.

His eyes shoot open and he looks up see Agnesa still asleep, curled into the corner of the couch, which is the first thing he sees because his head is in her lap.

Percy scrambles upright, face warm, and finds himself face to face with Headmaster Dumbledore, who’s looking down at them with his twinkling blue eyes.

“I can explain,” he says.

“No need,” Dumbledore says.

He reaches out and tangles his hand in Agnesa’s shirt and shakes her until she lets out a little displeased grumble and pushes him away, waking up slowly around a yawn. He’d already known that she’s an only child, but if he hadn’t then this would do it.

She looks over at him, then at Dumbledore. Her eyes narrow and she shouts, “Where were you? We needed you here! No wonder my parents are always saying you’re useless.”

This is his fault, actually. He should have known better than to make friends with a Slytherin. He didn’t listen to his mother’s very good advice and that’s why he’s going to be in detention until he graduates.

“Being precisely where one is needed most is an art I’ve yet to master,” Dumbledore agrees. “I’ve reset the wards you initiated. Only a few especially early risers noticed. I suspect Professor Snape would like to have a few words with you.”

This is the part where she apologizes and explains.

“I’m not sorry and I’d do it again,” Agnesa says defiantly.

Why is she like this?

Dumbledore seems amused, which just seems to make Agnesa angrier. He holds out a familiar wand to him. “Hagrid passes along his gratitude for the loan. It was quite useful.”

He grips the handle in relief. He hadn’t liked being without it. “He’s okay? What about Quirrell? What happened?”

Dumbledore places his hands behind his back, rolling on the balls of his feet as he thinks through his reply. If Percy didn’t know better, he’d think that Dumbledore was doing it to rile up Agnesa on purpose. “All is well. Quirrell’s plans were thwarted on every front. Hagrid managed to contain him until I returned and awoke those that had been cursed to slumber and Professor Shackbolt took Quirrell into custody. I’ve been assured he’ll return in time to proctor the remaining examinations.”

Percy hates that he’d been concerned about that and also that Dumbledore knew he’d be concerned about that. “Quirrell was taken into custody?”

He can’t bring himself to ask outright, to look Dumbledore in the eye and ask if Voldemort is really back and had been possessing their professor. But he has to ask, in some way, because he’s afraid that if he doesn’t Agnesa will and she won’t be subtle about it.

“What is left of him,” he answers gravely, which could be a comment on his mental state or what Hagrid had done to keep him contained, but Percy swallows and is very glad he’s sitting because he doesn’t think that’s what Dumbledore’s saying. It’s not like they hadn’t already assumed. But it’s one thing to assume and another for Albus Dumbledore to confirm it. “Perhaps it is best that those things which dwell in darkness be allowed to exist there for the time being.”

What?

“We won’t say anything,” Agnesa says, “but are you sure that’s wise? He’s coming after Harry and he won’t stop.”

Dumbledore looks at them both and some of his somberness lifts. “I had thought that the best course of action was to allow destinies to meet each other head on so all involved would understand the gravity of their circumstances before those circumstances ended in tragedy. Yet things have progressed quite differently than I anticipated and so perhaps there can be a level of distance, for now, that I had thought impossible.”

It is way too early and he’s way too under caffeinated for this conversation. Even Agnesa looks confused.

“As Minerva might say,” he continues, “I was so focused on the queen that I forget the pawns. A mistake of youth, I’m afraid, and so one I haven’t made in quite some time.” He sighs, “Ah, to be young again.”

Percy really can’t handle any more of this. “Are we in trouble?”

Dumbledore’s face isn’t moving at all but he’s definitely laughing at them. “For quick thinking and dedication to protecting your fellow students, I award both Gryffindor and Slytherin two hundred points each. For an impressive display of interhouse unity, I award you fifty points each.” Dumbledore pauses while he and Agnesa gape at him. “For being out of bed after curfew, I deduct fifteen points each. Now, off you trot. There are exams to study for.”

Neither of them say anything until they’ve taken the winding staircase back down and are once more in the hallway leading to the Great Hall.

“Did the headmaster just call us pawns?” Agnesa asks. “I don’t think I like that.”

“Honestly, I don’t really understand anything that just happened,” he says. “I’m going to shower and eat and study and try not to think about it.”

Agnesa snorts. “Unusually sensible for a Gryffindor.”

“I have my moments,” he says, then looks her up and down. “Are you okay?”

She grins at him, reaching out to squeeze his arm. “I’m okay. Thank you for your help last night. I’m glad I didn’t have to figure things out on my own.”

His face feels warm again. “You’re welcome.”

Of course, she then ruins the moment by pinching his side and cackling when he jumps away from her and trips over his own feet, but that’s about what he expected. She is a Slytherin after all.

~

Harry is being calm and reasonable about this and not freaking out because Mathius told him that Agnesa was fine and Mathius doesn’t care enough about him to lie to him.

“If you don’t stop freaking out, people are going to start wondering what’s going on,” Draco says, not looking up from his book. They’re in the common room, waiting, because Agnesa’s not in her room and she has to come back eventually.

“You haven’t turned a page in ten minutes,” he says. Draco turns to the next page. “What if-”

“If something happened, we’d have heard about it,” he interrupts. He’s right, but Harry doesn’t want to hear it. “There’s no screaming, nothing’s on fire, my father isn’t pounding down the door, so that means Agnesa did exactly what she said she’d do and she won’t thank us for causing panic over something that’s already handled.”

“But where is she?” He doesn’t not want to admit that comes out as a whine, but the judgmental look Draco sends him really doesn’t give him any other choice.

“Where’s who?”

They both jump up to see Agnesa grinning at them, wearing the same clothes they saw her in before and her hair awkwardly smushed to one side. “Are you okay?” Harry asks, remembering at the last second to keep his voice down. He’s so lucky that everyone else here is too absorbed in studying to pay attention to them.

“I’m fine, I really didn’t do any of the heavy lifting myself,” she says. “Don’t worry, Quirrell is taken care of. I imagine you’ll read about the particulars in the paper soon enough, but Hagrid and Professor Shackbolt handled the situation. Thank you, Harry. Without you to warn us, something terrible could have happened.”

The praise makes his face burn, but he says, “Thanks for – I mean, you know. For listening.”

“Always,” she promises, clapping him on the shoulder then ruffling his hair. “Now go join the other first years by the lake. I’m going to go get yelled at by Professor Snape. Possibly do some yelling myself, I haven’t really decided yet. I hope he hasn’t noticed the scorch mark.”

She ruffles Draco’s hair too as she passes, laughing at his yell and heading straight for Snape’s private rooms.

“See?” Draco says, smoothing his hair back into place. “Everything’s fine.”

“Yeah,” he says, and it feels like it really is, oddly enough. “Race you to the lake?”

Draco doesn’t answer, but he does start running, which Harry supposes is answer enough.

~

Draco almost leaves Harry to his own devices, but he hadn’t spent half the year putting up with his attitude not to make a nuisance of himself now. So he walks down the train peering into every compartment, Blaise trailing behind him although Pansy has callously abandoned them to hang out with Millie. It’s like pulling teeth to get her dad to let her visit anyone, so there’s a decent chance this is the last they’ll see of Millie until September.

He flings open the compartment door dramatically and is greeted with four grinning faces. Daphne says, “We were wondering how long it’d take you to show up.”

He huffs, crossing his arms. “I can go if I’m not wanted.”

“You can,” Harry agrees, “but you never have before so I’m not sure why you’d start now.”

“Do you hear this?” he asks, looking over his shoulder. “I’m being harassed. Besmirched. Antagonized.”

Blaise shoves him the rest of the way into the compartment and shuts the door behind them, dropping into the seat next to Daphne leaving him no choice but to sit next to Ron, the traitor. “You’re being annoying. Did you all hear about Hagrid?”

“Dad’s pissed,” he says.

Daphne adds, “My aunt is all up in arms about it, which is rich considering she insists she has Veela on her mother’s side of the family.”

The Gryffindors just look confused. Hermione asks, “What’s going on with Hagrid? Do you mean how he helped arrest Quirrell?”

“Professor Shackbolt recommended that his wand ban be removed in recognition of his actions,” Harry explains. “He’s a favorite of Amelia Bones, who had a Wizengamot seat and is the head of the legal department, so it’s probably going to get pushed through no matter how many people are mad about it, considering him being half-giant and all.”

Hermione blinks, absorbing that with a thoughtful frown.

“How do you even know that?” Ron demands.

Harry grins wide enough that his eyes crease in amusement. “Don’t you know? Slytherins are all gossips.”

Draco’s never been prouder.

~

Harry says goodbye to all his friends on the platform, promising to write and to visit, and then takes a deep breath to soothe the churning in his stomach and goes through the passageway, coming out on the muggle side.

What if Remus changed his mind, or got lost, or one of the people Draco and his dad were worried about found out and –

“Harry!”

He looks up to see Remus push off from one of the columns and rush over to him, dodging a sprinting woman and stopping in front of him.

“We won’t need to do this next time,” he says apologetically, grabbing Harry’s trunk from him and settling his free hand on his shoulder, steering them away from the platform. “I’ll meet you right off the train next year. How were your end of the year exams? Are you alright? I heard about what happened with your old defense professor. That must have been frightening.”

Harry has to swallow twice before he can make himself speak. “It was okay, really. I think I did okay on my exams, we should get the scores mailed to us in a couple weeks.”

“If there’s anything you need to improve on, we’ll do some studying over the summer so you’re all caught up,” Remus says. “I know you want to try out for the quidditch team next year and there’s a great field to practice flying in nearby. I spent enough time in school being forced into pickup games by your father that I’m not bad it myself. Our home is in a muggle area, but there’s a magical forest right at the edge. We can even invite some of your friends over and get a real game going. How does that sound?”

Our home.

He has a home, with Remus, who’s going to help him study magic and teach him how to fly and let him spend time with his friend and who wants him.

“That sounds great,” Harry answers, looking up at with a smile that Remus mirrors as soon as he sees it.

He’s so excited to go home.