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The Art of Self-Fashioning	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 26077 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Eighteen—Honed

            Harry stepped off the train and smiled a little when he saw Terry waving to him from near the carriages. He’d actually sat with Neville, Weasley, and Granger on the journey to Hogwarts, since Neville hadn’t wanted to leave them and had dozens of questions to ask Harry. Harry found it surprisingly easy to discuss Transfiguration theory with Granger without her guessing what he wanted it for. So it had been enjoyable enough.

            But Neville turned pale and jumped, and Harry glanced at him in concern. Neville pointed. “Do you see them?” he whispered.

            “What?” Weasley was scanning the area with his wand out. Harry approved. If he supported Neville like this all the time, it would help Neville survive the war.

            “The th-things pulling the carriage.” Neville pointed at what Harry thought was empty space. “Look! Don’t you see them?”

            Harry looked in interest at the empty shafts of the carriages. He had never wondered what pulled them, but then again, he hadn’t thought to. There was so much magic at Hogwarts that it had seemed like the simplest explanation.

            Now he wanted to chide himself. Of course things weren’t as simple as that. He had to learn to look more beneath the surface.

            “They’re called thestrals,” said Terry suddenly behind him. Harry jumped, and heard Cross hiss in displeasure from his shoulder. “You can only see them once you’ve seen death.” Harry glanced at him and saw his eyes fixed on the same spot Neville’s were. “They—they’re creatures of death. Like really thin horses with bat-like wings. Right, Longbottom?”

            Neville shot him an intensely grateful glance and then nodded. “I reckon I can see them now because I saw Cedric die,” he whispered.

            Harry wondered for a second if Terry was going to bring up the rumor that Neville had killed Diggory himself, but he only nodded and tugged on Harry’s arm. “Come on, Harry, let’s get a carriage.”

            Harry let himself be pulled. Weasley and Granger seemed happy now that they knew Neville wasn’t crazy, and he had something he wanted to ask Terry.

            “So who did you see die?” he asked, when they were settled in that particular carriage alone and rolling towards the castle. Harry concentrated as hard as he could, trying to hear hoofbeats, but there was nothing.

            Terry jumped. Then he scowled at him. “Merlin, Harry. That’s not the sort of question you ask in polite company.”

            Harry smiled. He liked this Terry, who sometimes told him off and had written angry letters to him a few times during the summer, better than the one who was always concerned about him. Harry really didn’t need the concern, but sometimes anger was beneficial. “Sorry. I just wondered….”

            Terry frowned out the window for a second, then said, “Oh, hell,” like he enjoyed the fact that there were no prefects or professors around to correct his language. “It was a long time ago. And nothing like the way Cedric died. My great-grandmother had this idea that everyone should be there when she went. So we all go summoned to her bedside and had to stay there for two days while she demanded Death show up for her.”

            Harry nodded slowly. He had never seen a human die, but he supposed that was the best way to see it if you had to.

            “Do you wish you could see thestrals?”

            Harry blinked and looked up. “No. Why? I mean, they sound interesting, but it’s the sort of thing I could find out from a book, and from you.”

            He tried to smile, to make Terry smile with him, but Terry’s smile was a little shadowed. “Because I think that’s one of the strange things about you. That you don’t mind death. I mean, I saw you flying with your eagle, and you must have seen her kill a lot.”

            “Yes, but there’s a difference between the way animals kill and the way humans do it. The way animals kill to keep from starving is different from the way humans kill because they want to see something die.”

            Terry jerked a little. “Well, but if a Nundu was charging at you and you could kill it to save yourself, then wouldn’t you do it?”

            “I don’t know much of anyone who could kill a Nundu,” Harry observed, but Terry scowled at him, and Harry smiled dutifully back before he thought about it. “Yes, all right. I would do that. But if you’re going to kill an insect just because it’s there, or a rat because it bothers you, is that thoughtful and defensive?”

            “No,” Terry muttered.

            Harry nodded. “I don’t really want to see people die.” I want to see them suffer. “I just thought thestrals were interesting, and I never heard of them before. I assumed the carriages moved by a different kind of magic. I shouldn’t have assumed that. I should never assume anything, the way I shouldn’t have thought it was okay to ask you that question about who you’d seen die.”

            Terry was looking at him oddly. Of course, that wasn’t a new experience. Again Harry looked calmly back, and Terry sighed and rubbed his temples. “All right. As long as you don’t want to see someone die to see the thestrals…”

            “No. I’m not weird in that particular way.”

            Terry laughed dutifully, and by the time they reached Hogwarts, they were talking of other things. But Harry did look thoughtfully at the empty air between the carriage shafts as they got out again, and wondered if he could get Hagrid to tell him about thestrals.

*

            “Hem hem.”

            Harry looked straight at the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Dolores Umbridge, that was her name. She wore pink constantly, and a sweet smile that Harry knew and felt comfortable around because it was familiar from Aunt Petunia’s face. She despised him and people like him, and that meant Harry could do anything he liked to trick and outwit her.

            “Mr. Potter,” she cooed, and bent down next to him, as if she would whisper secrets. But she didn’t lower her voice, so everyone else in the class could still hear. “I noticed you are close to Mr. Longbottom. The one who spreads so many lies about You-Know-Who having returned from the dead.”

            “You really noticed, professor?” Harry looked back at her with wide eyes, and had the feeling that she would have liked to read his mind. That was different from the feeling he had with Snape, which was that the man was reading his mind.

            Umbridge gurgled a little and patted his hand. “I try to notice such things about all my students, dear,” she said. “And I think you should keep your distance from him. He’s a liar.” For a second, her hand tightened on his, and Harry looked down and watched the marks appear on his fingers. “And crazy. You wouldn’t wish that mental imbalance to pass on to you, would you?”

            Harry looked straight at her again. She kept smiling, but the smile faded a little when Harry didn’t back down.

            Harry knew what Neville would probably say. He was telling even Weasley and Granger to stay away from him, that it was too dangerous and he contaminated everything he touched. But Harry didn’t care about his marks in Defense the way Granger did, or what people thought of him for being friends with Neville.

            “I wouldn’t wish to get a mental imbalance from anyone,” he said.

            “Good. Hem.” Umbridge started to straighten up.

            Harry looked at her hand.

            It took a moment, but she flushed pink as sunset. Then she stood there looking at him for a second, because he hadn’t said anything aloud. Harry thought she didn’t really know how to take points for cheek.

            In the end, though, she gave him a detention and sailed back up to the front of the classroom with a tight frown on her face. Harry went back to reading Slinkhard’s book, which was boring, basic information that he replaced in his head with Latin incantations.

            “Did you have to do that, Harry?” Anthony whispered behind him. “We didn’t have any Ravenclaws with detention with her before.”

            “She gives fierce detentions,” mumbled Michael, who normally never talked in class.

            Umbridge turned around, and she had a constipated expression on her face. Harry supposed it frightened the others, though, because they did shut up. Harry thought about the marks he had seen on Neville’s hand, the ones he had covered up and lied unconvincingly about to his other friends.

            Well. Only part of it was deliberate, but that works out well enough. I’ve been meaning to talk to her about this.

*

            “You will write lines,” Umbridge said, and held up a quill. When Harry looked at it, he could sense the waver of the Wild around it.

            Ah. The end of the quill had a sharp tip, as expected, but it also was alive. Harry could sense the will in it, struggling fiercely, wanting to get out and cheer up skin.

            “With this quill,” Umbridge went on, probably unaware that he had spent any time looking at the quill—she didn’t seem to notice much of what went on around her, or she would have realized Neville never could have murdered Diggory—and held it out to him.

            Harry took the quill and studied it some more. The circle of the Wild was right around the tip, and nowhere else. He wondered if this was another one of those Transfigurations that fell in between classes. It had certainly changed the quill into something not an object and not an animal, although with attributes of both.

            “Get on with writing your lines!” Umbridge’s voice was a squeal, as if she had already said that several times, although Harry was sure she hadn’t.

            He looked up mildly, and she recoiled in front of him. Harry shrugged to himself. He had that effect on some people, and he wished he knew why. Well, it was obvious with someone like Malfoy, who had reason to be wary of him, but other times Harry thought he looked at people with a normal expression and they were still afraid.

            “Yes, Professor,” Harry said, and sat down at the desk waiting in front of Umbridge’s, which had a piece of parchment already on it. “What am I to write?”

            “‘I will respect my superiors.’”

            Umbridge was grinning proudly, as if she had come up with the words all by herself. Since Harry doubted that, he only watched her blandly back, until she scowled and waved at the parchment.

            Harry lowered the quill against the parchment, more curious than ever. If the quill didn’t have skin beneath it to bite, then how was it going to work?

            Then he saw. The swirl of Wild around the quill’s tip reached out and intersected with the aura of life around his own body, an aspect of the Wild he barely bothered to pay attention to most of the time. Since he knew exactly what he wanted to Transfigure his own body into, he didn’t have to fight past the Wild of another being or create it as he did if he was changing an object into an animal.

            When he moved the quill, the little link between its Wild and his scratched the words into the back of his hand. Lines of blood appeared on the back of his hand at the same moment as lines of ink appeared on the parchment. Harry nodded. The skill behind the Transfiguration of the quill was masterly, and the pain less than the kind he had suffered when growing his claws.

            “Do you know who made these quills, Professor?” he asked absently, as he felt the blood flow and the quill dig deeper into the Wild of his aura. If used often enough, the lines would scar over. Harry had no intention of letting that happen. But it was clever.

            Umbridge didn’t say anything. Harry looked up. She was cringing behind her desk, eyes shifting back and forth between his hand and the quill.

            “Is something wrong, Professor?” Harry asked. He wondered if she had expected screams. Still, it seemed silly to be more disturbed by the lack of screams than their existence.

            “The Blood Quill should have hurt you,” she whispered.

            “Oh, it does,” Harry said, as he wrote another line and the cuts on his hand opened a little more. “But some things are more important than pain.” He reached the end of five lines and stood up. After all, she had never told him how many he had to write.

            Umbridge continued to cower as he marched up to the desk. “For example,” Harry added, his voice lowering, “what will happen if someone were to hint to Professor Snape that you were using quills like this on his Slytherins.”

            “I haven’t!” Umbridge breathed, eyes wide. “No Slytherins have received detention with me!”

            Of course they haven’t, Harry thought. Sly enough to keep their heads down in her class, and anyway, they have a vested interest in pretending Lord Dudders hasn’t returned. “Well,” he said, “shall we correct that to the future tense? What might happen if you were to use these quills on his Slytherins in a detention?”

            “I won’t! I won’t!” Umbridge tried to sit up and twist her mouth into a sickly smile. “Do you want immunity for your fellow Ravenclaws, too? I wouldn’t mind giving that to you. It’s the Gryffindors who cause all the trouble, anyway…”

            Harry smiled at her. “I want the quills.”

            “What?” Umbridge’s hand strayed towards a drawer of her desk, even as she tried to open her eyes and burble innocently. “But that’s the only one! The one I keep for…” She swallowed back the words that were forming on her lips, maybe because she’d got a good luck at Harry’s eyes.

            “We both know that’s not true,” Harry said softly. “Give me the others.”

            “Or what?” Umbridge seemed to be recovering some confidence, maybe because he hadn’t attacked her yet. “You’re only a student! You can’t challenge a professor!”

            Harry smiled, and looked at the rows of china decorations hanging on her walls, most of which had yawning or squirming kittens on them. A few of the cats hissed at him. But when he held up his wand and spoke the soft incantation, “Commuto catillum felim,” the hostile noises stopped, and the mad-eyed grey cat that leaped from the plate onto Umbridge’s desk hissed at her instead. She gasped and pulled her hand back, eyes darting from him to the cat.

            Harry nodded. “Imagine how many cats could come awake in the middle of the night and creep up on you,” he whispered. “Imagine how soft a cat’s paws are. Well, no, I don’t think you have to imagine, I think you know. You won’t hear them coming…”

            “Take them, take them!” Umbridge was almost shrieking as she pulled the drawer open and tumbled twenty or twenty-five quills onto the desk. “Take them all!”

            “Thank you,” Harry said, and smiled at her as he picked them up. All of them squirmed and snapped with their little individual bits of the Wild, and tried to bite at him. Harry conjured a bag, one of the Charms he was good at, and slipped them inside it. “And no one needs to say anything, do they? Or go anywhere.” He stroked the back of the cat that stood on Umbridge’s desk staring at her.

            “No, no,” Umbridge said, and stared at the cat with a dread that Harry enjoyed. It was the kind of dread she had wanted to inflict on other people, and it was very fair for it to be turned back on her instead. “Of course not.”

            “Good.” Harry smiled and Transfigured the cat back into a china plate. It fell on the desk with a clatter that made Umbridge clap her hands across her mouth, as if she thought he would change his mind if she made the slightest sound. Harry nodded in approval to her and slipped out of her office. The quills clattered together in the bag. Harry cast a Silencing Charm on them and slipped the bag into his pocket.

            He felt good enough to go down to the dungeon workroom. He wished he could have gone flying with Yar, but it was dark and she would be roosting high in the branches of a tree. He hummed to himself as he walked.

            This year was already going better than he’d thought it would.

*

            “I think I am going to have to do a spell of unbinding.”

            Minerva tilted her head back to watch the eagle Albus was so concerned about circling overhead. She made no answer. For a Transfigured creature brought to life out of objects, which would simply return to those objects, one shouldn’t be sad. Their lives were always gifts, not ones that were brought into the world through the act of creation. They weren’t going to be harmed by it any more than conjured objects were hurt if they were banished.

            But that was the modern, new-fashioned view. The old-fashioned one, the one that spoke of the Wild as an aura of life, whispered that it was wrong to hurt any creature through unbinding them into their components.

            “What is the eagle supposed to have done?” she managed to ask with difficulty as Albus aimed his wand.

            “It left Hogwarts and wandered about Surrey, and then returned to Hogwarts,” Albus replied, looking at her.

            “Surrey? I don’t understand.” But Minerva felt a prickling rush of understanding up her back, thinking of Severus’s suspicions, and of her own when Harry had brought the kitten he’d Transfigured for Neville to the hospital wing.

            Still…

            How could Harry have made this creature when he doesn’t do that well in class anymore? How could he have kept it secret? And why an eagle? The kitten was to answer an immediate need for companionship, but an eagle is not a companion in the same way.

            “Augusta told me that the Longbottoms used to own some property there, not far from the Muggle town where I found the bird,” said Albus, with a grim nod overhead. “There’s a possibility that the Death Eater who made this eagle thought they still owned it, and he would find Neville there.”

            “But the eagle stayed all summer?” Minerva argued. She knew she sounded weak. Most of her attention was absorbed by the turmoil in her head.

            I should tell him. If Harry can do that sort of Transfiguration, and he’s doing it on his own and not thinking of the consequences, he needs to be guided. And Albus has gifts Harry could learn from.

            It’s also illegal to do things like that unless you’re in class or under an apprenticeship. Albus might not want to teach Harry. He might want him sanctioned and away from the school. If he thinks that Harry is a dangerous influence on Neville…

            And what would Harry do if he was expelled from Hogwarts? Would he turn Dark? Would he turn against Albus? Would he even join the other side of the war?

            Minerva had to shake her head at the last, though. Harry would never join the madman whose followers had tortured his parents, especially when those particular followers were now back with him.

            “Minerva? You know something about this?”

            That was the voice of the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, not her old friend, not the Headmaster, not even someone who had once been a Gryffindor with her and was inclined to overlook Gryffindor politics. Minerva drew in a tortured breath and looked at her feet. She knew Albus used his Legilimency indiscriminately, and she wanted to make the choice about what information to give up.

            “I don’t know if I’m right about it,” she admitted. “Give me the chance to investigate and see what I can learn.”

            Albus was silent. Then he said, “I know you did that the first part of the summer, and you found nothing.”

            Minerva lifted her head. “That was because you asked me to look among students who had already left the school.”

            Albus’s eyes widened. Finally he said, “I have never known anyone to master such things so young. Even I did not…I experimented, but I would never have done it without the consent of my master.”

            Minerva nodded sharply. “But you had the luxury of an apprenticeship.” They were rare these days, at least for Hogwarts students. Most modern wizarding parents seemed to have decided that their children should only learn basic spells; those who had rare talents either had to learn on their own or had to find masters to teach them outside the school.

            “There is that.” Albus studied her thoughtfully, and the edge she had found frightening was gone from his voice. “You think you can convince him to join our side?”

            I never said that. Minerva had another plan in mind, one that ought to satisfy Albus, if not as much as Harry’s recruitment to the Order of the Phoenix.

            But it would be better for Harry.

            So I’ve made my choice, after all. Minerva put her hands on her hips and looked hard at Albus. “I don’t even know if it’s a ‘him’ yet.”

            “I’m sorry, my dear. I did assume.” Albus smiled at her. “But whether her or him, seventh-year student or sixth, I do hope that you’ll persuade them to see how needed their talents might be in the war.”

            If it’s who I think it is, then I’m going to have more trouble than with any other task I’ve ever taken on, Minerva thought, while she smiled and said a few meaningless words. Because Harry has his own agenda. And I don’t think any of it has to do with us.

*

            Harry covered a yawn with his hand. He’d spent too much time last night studying the Blood Quills, and he’d barely made it back up to Ravenclaw Tower, with some patrolling prefects on his trail. It made things worse that Anthony was a prefect now, and sat around polishing his badge and talking about his ambitions to catch rule-breakers.

            “Harry.”

            Harry looked up in astonishment. He was sitting in Professor McGonagall’s classroom, but she wasn’t here yet. And Neville was leaning in the doorway, Dapple balanced on his shoulder, when he should have been on the other side of the school, near Professor Sprout’s greenhouses. If Neville was going to skive off a class, Harry definitely didn’t think it would be Herbology.

            “What’s wrong?” Harry asked quietly, coming over to him at once.

            “Hermione thinks we’re not going to learn anything under Umbridge,” Neville whispered back. “We’re thinking of forming our own defense group. You know, to practice for our OWL’s.”

            Harry blinked once, and then again. “Who would teach us? Granger?” He admired Granger’s devotion to her studies and to Neville, but he didn’t think she would be a great teacher. She didn’t have the patience, and would probably only lecture.

            “No. Me.” Neville smiled at him, but the smile withered fast. “You know, because I’ve had all the advanced training.”

            Harry looked carefully at him. “Is this something you want to do? Or something Granger put you up to doing?”

            Neville sighed and lifted a hand as though he was going to trace the lightning bolt scar on his forehead, then let it drop again. Come to think of it, Harry didn’t remember seeing him ever actually touch it. “It was her idea, but I agree with her. And not because of OWL’s,” he said, and lowered his voice even further. “A war’s coming.”

            He has more reason to know that than anyone else. Harry nodded. “Well, let me know where the meetings will be.”

            “All right.”

            “Mr. Longbottom, I think you have a class now,” said Professor McGonagall’s brisk voice behind them. “With Professor Sprout, if I’m not mistaken. Go before I take points from Gryffindor.”

            Neville squeaked and scurried, while Dapple rubbed his head continually against Neville’s cheek. Harry looked a little sadly after him. He still didn’t have that much self-confidence, and Harry thought someone who was going to teach a secret Defense group should have a lot of that.

            He’d turned to go back into the Transfiguration classroom himself when Professor McGonagall coughed behind him. Harry turned around. “Yes, Professor?”

            For a moment, he thought Professor McGonagall was going to tell him something immediately, but she only closed her mouth, sighed, and shook her head. “Into the classroom, please, Mr. Potter, and take your seat. I’ll want to talk to you when the class is over.”

            Harry nodded and moved to sit down. It was probably about his relatives again, he thought. Well, he knew what to say to that.

            He didn’t know it was a conversation that would change his life. How could he have known that?

*

            You are a coward.

            Minerva didn’t even have the will to deny her self-accusation. All the while that she lectured on some of the commonest questions on the Transfiguration written exam in the OWL’s, she watched Harry, his head bent over his notes. He wrote down what she said, or some approximation of it. Probably better than most of the others, given what he wrote in his essays.

            And all the time, she now suspected, he was hiding much greater talent than she had thought was the case. Why not? James Potter had been supremely talented in Transfiguration.

            But the hiding concerned Minerva the most. Did he think she would tell him to stop? Report him at once to the legal authorities or recommend that he be expelled without listening to his reasons for hiding? He had plenty of excuses for distrusting other adults, but she had not thought they applied to her.

            She moved through the theory without stumbling—this was one of the classes that were the same every year—and then stepped aside as the rest of the students departed. Potter stacked his notes away neatly and stood by his seat awaiting her.

            Minerva wondered, as she walked towards him, why she had never noticed before how far away his eyes were. He looked as if he had a private joke of his own going on, and it was about someone not there, and he would go on appreciating the joke by himself even though no one else would ever share it with him.

            He started a little when his eyes fell on her, but he nodded and asked, “What did you want to talk to me about, Professor McGonagall?”

            Minerva paused. She had intended to build up it to slowly, but she wondered now if that was a good idea. Harry looked poised, able to deflect it.

            The way he’s deflected my concerns about his relatives. And he never made the promise to stop Transfiguring animals last year, after Neville’s kitten, did he? Only told me that he knew it was dangerous.

            So she attacked straight on.

            “I highly suspect the eagle the Headmaster has been tracking is yours, Mr. Potter,” she told him. “I managed to convince him not to unbind it, because frankly your bird is advanced Transfiguration work and deserves better than that. But you do need to start practicing your skills with proper supervision.” She took a breath that she needed deeply; she felt winded, seeing the way Harry had frozen in response to her accusations. “Therefore, although it’s old-fashioned and will require a lot of paperwork from the Ministry, I am offering you an apprenticeship with me. It’s the best, safest way. You’ll receive the kind of specialized teaching you need, and with some…judicious words, we can convince the overly concerned that you’ve been under my tutelage all along. Which is partially true.” She shook her head, and her wonder and her frustration broke out at once. “Why did you hide this from me, Harry? Why wouldn’t you have come to talk to me about it? You knew I could have helped you with it.”

*

            Because of this. Because of this.

            With how hard his heart was banging in his ears, Harry was surprised he could still breathe, much less stand still and listen to Professor McGonagall talk as if nothing was wrong. But there he stood. He wasn’t even swaying yet.

            “Harry?”

            And now Professor McGonagall was bending down and staring at him with kindness in her eyes, and it was too much, too much.

            The eagle the Headmaster has been tracking.

            I didn’t even sense him doing that. I’ve failed Yar.

            More than that, I’ve failed Mum and Dad.

            Because an apprenticeship would keep track of what he was doing. Professor McGonagall would never approve. She would tell Harry that he needed to pay attention to his schoolwork. She would say that he shouldn’t try to Transfigure himself and make himself stronger and better and learn more about the way human bodies changed. She would hate his wandless Transfiguration. She would be upset when she learned the way he talked to Remus and other people, and if she ever learned that he had Obliviated Snape and Malfoy…

            Harry felt as though a dozen Muggle missiles were rushing at him all at once, and he had to be prepared.

            I could use a Memory Charm on her, too, Harry thought, but a second later he decided it was useless. She’d obviously been talking with Dumbledore about this. If she suddenly forgot, Harry was going to get more attention directed at him.

            Harry’s only hope was that Professor McGonagall had come and talked to him first, without revealing his identity to Dumbledore. Maybe Dumbledore didn’t know anything except that someone existed out there with the ability to Transfigure an eagle out of a collection of random objects.

            “Harry? Please sit down. You don’t look good.”

            Professor McGonagall had Transfigured a chair from something. Harry hadn’t even seen what. He sat down hard and closed his eyes, feeling less like a wild animal, the way he usually felt, and more like a machine.

            He knew Professor McGonagall was kneeling down in front of him, but he didn’t open his eyes. His mind was spinning frantically, and he only knew a few temporary strategies that could get him out of this.

            Then use them. Stall. You can make a long-term plan later. You’ve already stayed here too long anyway. What do you care about OWL’s and NEWT’s? What use would they be to you? You’ll be living a different life after Hogwarts anyway, and this quest could be all your life long.

            Harry opened his eyes and smiled at Professor McGonagall as calmly as he could. “I’m surprised that you noticed, that’s all, Professor.” His voice was odd, but adults never noticed when his voice was odd. The chances were that no one would now, either.

            Professor McGonagall gave him a strange look, though. “I still want to know why you hid, Harry. With your talent, you could have received extra encouragement and tutoring long ago. Careers are open to you that aren’t open to the average student who will take an Acceptable NEWT in Transfiguration and forget about it, or never qualify for the NEWT class at all. Why didn’t you come to me?”

            She sounded hurt.

            Great.

            This was the problem, Harry thought, with having adults pay attention to him. They acted like it was strange that Harry didn’t want the attention. And Professor McGonagall ought to know better. She knew all about the Dursleys. Why should Harry have trusted anyone with the things he was doing? Either they would think it was freakish and want him to stop, or they would think it was dangerous and want him to stop.

            And he couldn’t stop.

            “Harry.”

            Harry looked up. He was surprised that Professor McGonagall was speaking in that tone. Unless she had already decided that he was strange and weird and not worthy of being helped. Which would hurt, yes, but at least it would get rid of the apprenticeship danger.

            Then he realized she was staring at his hands.

            And her face was appalled.

            “What have you done to yourself?” the professor whispered, taking his hand and turning it over. When she pressed down on the back of his hand—something no one had done since he came to Hogwarts—his claws shot out. “Oh, Harry.”

            Harry tried to flinch away, but his claws were still out, and he wasn’t used to maneuvering with them like this, where someone could see. He scratched one of Professor McGonagall’s fingers, and with a sharp exclamation, she let go of him.

            She looked up at him with gentle, concerned eyes, and Harry knew she wasn’t rejecting him, but she was rejecting part of him. The part that had clawed hands and didn’t want anyone else to know what was going on, and that meant he could never trust her again, and he had to find some way to get out of here—

            He raised a Shield Charm as she reached for him again. She hadn’t expected it, which meant that it could bounce her hands off, but she was already standing and reaching for her wand.

            “Under the care of Madam Pomfrey and someone like me, we can reverse the transformation,” she told Harry quietly, soothingly. “I promise that you won’t be in trouble. The Ministry need never know. Albus will have to, but when I tell him—”

            Harry shook his head. He couldn’t stay to listen to this. He couldn’t stay to let someone undo all the transformations that made him stronger and faster. And then they would find his dungeon workroom, and he would probably be urged to confess why he’d done this, and maybe they would find out about his parents and tell him he had to live his own life instead of helping them, and they might convince him, he knew his own weaknesses, sometimes he had longed for a life like that the way Neville longed to lay down the burden of being the Boy-Who-Lived, and then his parents would remain in hospital, no one had cared to help them so far—

            He leaped off the ground, longer and faster than even the leap he’d made to the top of Lupin’s bookcase the night of the battle in his rooms, and got to the classroom doorway while Professor McGonagall was still turning. For a moment, their eyes met.

            Harry saw the fear in them. Not of his claws, but of what he wanted to do.

            It was the way he had always known it would be.

            He took off, leaping down the corridor. It was already past the time when most students had gone to lunch, and he met no one. He was casting Summoning Charms as he went, calling his trunk and books and clothes from Ravenclaw Tower. Mice ran after him, and Cross was waking up and running towards him, too.

            He would have to catch Yar and take her to the Forbidden Forest. He would have to remove whatever kind of tracking magic the Headmaster put on her.

            And then leave. Go.

            The look in Professor McGonagall’s eyes…

            I should never have been so careless. I should never have trusted her. She doesn’t understand. I knew she wouldn’t.

            I have to be on my own.

*

            Jester: Harry actually does fear regretting what he’s doing. It’s the reason he reacts so badly here.
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The Art of Self-Fashioning