Other People's Choices | By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 24374 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5 |
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Chapter Twenty-Six—Light
Harry streaks around the Quidditch pitch on his broom. The wind makes him clench his teeth and stings tears out of the corners of his eye. He kicks the broom sideways and veers and spins, and for a minute, the sky and the ground trade places.
“Harry!”
He rolls his eyes and rolls himself back upright, at the same time. He never gets the chance to do anything “dangerous.” He agreed to let his friends come and watch him fly so that he wouldn’t get in trouble for sneaking out of the school alone. Isn’t that enough for Hermione, instead of having to do everything safe? She never objected when he was playing Quidditch for Gryffindor.
“I’m fine,” he says, and swings towards the side of the pitch where she, Ron, Blaise, and Theo are all sitting in the stands. Greengrass must have wandered out a few minutes ago, because she’s there too, now, eyes fastened on him. Harry scowls at her. She gives him a cool smile.
“You really ought to be playing Quidditch,” she murmurs. “Draco offered the Seeker position to you. Why don’t you take it?”
Harry’s tired of talking about it. Or maybe he’s never actually told Greengrass his reasons, but he doesn’t need to, either. “I don’t want to play this year,” he says, and turns to Hermione. “But I was perfectly safe doing that roll. It only looks dangerous to someone who doesn’t play Quidditch.”
Hermione leans forwards and puts a hand over his. Her eyes are huge and bright with concern. Harry almost thinks she’s going to cry. “But you’re doing this because you can’t take out your emotions any other way, Harry. Do you really want to do this? It would help so much if you talked to someone—”
Harry catches the way Blaise is looking at them, and he’s almost positive Blaise said something to Hermione. He pulls his hand back, ignoring the way Hermione flinches and takes a little hurt breath. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not. Harry, I can see it—”
But Harry is paying attention to something else. There was a movement at the edge of the Quidditch pitch a second ago, and he’s vigilant when it comes to things seen from the corner of his eye here. Last year, it always would have been a member of the Slytherin team trying to send a Bludger at him extra-hard or something.
It’s on the ground, not in the air, though. There’s a black dog crouched there, almost invisible from behind the tree it’s using to hide, staring at him.
Of course Harry knows who it is. He doesn’t think he can forget any of the things Remus told him, and this particular one is burning and shimmering on his brain.
He thinks about shouting for a second. But the black dog—Black—is just looking at him, and he’s sure that he would either make his friends panic or bundle him back inside the school at once. He feels so much better with the clear air blowing in his face.
Besides, he thinks it’s strange that Black is only sitting there instead of attacking at once. That’s what he wants to do, isn’t it? It’s what makes him a murderous Death Eater.
So Harry doesn’t snap. He holds Black’s gaze, and he holds his mouth shut, too. Then he turns back to Hermione and interrupts the lecture she’s giving him, which he hasn’t even paid attention to up until that point.
“Hermione, I’m fine, really. I understand the restrictions are for my own good.” The words make bitterness bubble in his throat, but he has to get through this, he just has to get through this, until Voldemort is defeated. “And I’m ready to go back inside now.” He swings his broom over his shoulder.
“But you need to talk to someone.”
“I am,” Harry retorts lightly. “I’m talking to you.”
“Harry! You know that’s not what I mean—”
“Give it a rest for right now, Hermione.” Ron’s voice is cheerful, and he slings his arm around Harry’s shoulders with no sign of hesitation. Not for the first time, Harry wants to give thanks for his Gryffindor friends. “You’re welcome in our Tower for a while, mate. To play some Exploding Snap?”
Harry’s heart aches. Yes, that’s what he needs right now, what would make him feel even better than being outside and wondering about why raving mad dog Animagi aren’t attacking him. To be back in the familiar atmosphere of Gryffindor Tower, laughing and watching the twins try to sneak up on Ron—
“I’m afraid that we can’t allow that,” Blaise murmurs.
“Yeah,” Theo adds, sounding a little apologetic when Ron turns around to glare, but not much. “We can’t possibly follow Professor Snape’s orders if Harry is running into another House’s common room.”
“It’ll only be for a few hours,” Ron says, and rolls his eyes. “Sit outside the Fat Lady’s portrait for all I care. But Harry needs this. He needs to spend time around more than just two people who’re friendly to him.”
Theo starts to say something else, but Blaise puts a hand on his arm and stops him. “You know, I heard one of the first-year Hufflepuffs bragging the other day about how her older brother is in Gryffindor and lets her in through the portrait.”
Harry blinks. Ron, not seeming to pick up on the subtext, shrugs. “Yeah, her name is Annelinda Gorzug and she’s annoying as hell. What about it?”
“If people of other Houses can visit the Gryffindor common room…”
“What? No!” Ron’s cheeks flame hotter than Harry’s ever seen them, even when he’s talking about Quidditch or chess. “You’re not going to visit our common room!”
“I fail to see how that’s different from young Miss Gorzug.” Blaise is watching Ron as if he’s an interesting new Potions ingredient, but he catches Harry’s eye and winks. Harry jerks his gaze away. He feels—strange, knowing that Blaise is manipulating Ron and even agreeing a little with it. “You said she was annoying. We haven’t been worse than annoying in the last few months, have we, Weasley?”
“But she’s a Hufflepuff! And Padma Patil’s a Ravenclaw! You’re Slytherins!”
“So is Harry.”
Harry wonders for a second if Ron will drop the arm on his shoulder, but he just clenches it and drags Harry closer with a snarl at Blaise. “That’s different. He was Gryffindor first. He’s always going to be part of us. You’re just—”
“My friend,” Harrys breaks in quietly, because Blaise’s face is getting noticeably paler even with his dark skin. “If you can bring me into the Gryffindor Tower, you can make an exception for him, Ron.”
Ron glares at him. “Mate.”
“Either all Slytherins are banned, or none are,” Harry says, and raises his eyebrows a little when Ron continues to look betrayed. “I know no one ever has before, but not many Gryffindors bother to make Slytherin friends, either, do they? Now that you have—and I know you’re really friends with them and not just me, Ron, or you’d complain more—you can bring all of them in.”
“Other people will get upset,” Ron mutters, sliding his foot along the grass as if he wants to scuff it up.
“And, of course, you care so much about other people,” Harry says, and nudges him in the ribs with his elbow until it’s either bend over and cough or smile. Luckily for both of them, Ron picks the second one.
“It would be kind of fun to see their expressions when we show up with some Slytherins in tow.”
“Then let’s go,” Harry says, and feels more at peace than he’s felt in days as he walks towards Gryffindor Tower with both sets of his friends.
He doesn’t even feel the urge to look over his shoulder for the black dog.
*
“What is he doing here?” someone snaps the moment the portrait hole opens up and Harry climbs in. Hermione is still in the corridor behind him, but she can hear the sentiment clearly.
She exchanges a frown with Ron. She would understand that reaction if Zabini or Nott had been the first in, but she thought, like Ron, that most people in Gryffindor still thought of Harry as one of them. He was Sorted into Slytherin against his will, after all. That ought to be clear to anyone who watches him mope around and avoid most of the people in his new House.
“He’s here because this is his home,” say two voices at once, and Hermione smiles. She never thought she would be grateful for Fred and George’s habit of speaking in tandem. At least it’s less annoying than when they finish each other’s sentences.
“Yeah, piss off, Cormac,” someone else adds.
Cormac—oh! McLaggen. He’s a fourth-year boy who always seems to be sneering about something and sometimes flexing his muscles when the older Gryffindor girls are around. Hermione can’t say she likes him much. But some people must, because she’s heard him described as the most popular Gryffindor in his year.
“I just see a silver-and-green tie climbing in here—”
There’s a complicated squeak. By the time Hermione gets in, behind Ron and Harry and just in front of Zabini, Cormac is hanging upside-down in the air and Fred and George are looking at him as if he’s an interesting specimen. One of them leans towards him and whispers something. Most people are probably far enough away in the common room not to hear, but Hermione can.
“There’s this marvelous Muggle invention,” says the one who might be Fred, and his brother nods vigorously behind him. Hermione blinks. She never thought of how unnatural it would be to hear them not speaking in tandem. “Called a zipper. It pulls down and just opens the thing it’s attached to. Splits it in half. Wonder what would happen if we tried to do that to you, McLaggen?”
Cormac’s eyes are so wide that Hermione winces. “I—I don’t—”
“You don’t think, that’s right,” says the other twin, and he flips Cormac back upright just before Hermione would really have to interfere because of how red his face is getting. “And you don’t deny Harry his place in his home when he wants to visit. There’s a lot of things you don’t do, and it’s helpful for you to remember them. All right?”
“Right.” Cormac gulps and scurries away. Hermione watches him go with a twist of pity in her chest.
“But there are other Slytherins here, too,” Parvati says suddenly. She’s sitting on a couch near the fire, and now she makes a face Hermione never knew she could make and pulls her legs towards her as if she’s trying to ward someone off. “What are they doing here? They didn’t used to be Gryffindors!”
“No, but they’re my friends.” Harry is calm and keeps his gaze trained on Parvati the whole time. Hermione studies him. He’s changed since he went into Slytherin, and making new friends and being more manipulative isn’t the most of it. He’s more confident, too. Maybe he has to be, because otherwise the Slytherins who aren’t his friends would push him around. “And they can come with me if they want. Parvati Patil, this is Blaise Zabini and Theo Nott.”
“I know who they are,” Parvati says, and stands up, shaking her head so that her hair tumbles down around her neck. Hermione doesn’t know why she does that. She thought it was a flirty gesture the last time she saw it, but this doesn’t seem like a time when Parvati would be trying to flirt. “I don’t want to associate with them.”
“That’s your right, of course,” Nott says, and gives Parvati a little bow that makes Hermione have to choke back a giggle. “I won’t blame you for succumbing to Gryffindor prejudice. Even Harry did at first.”
Parvati, who’s turned mostly towards the stairs, whips back around. “I’m not going to let you chase me out of my own common room! And I’m not prejudiced!”
“My mistake, then,” Nott says, and he smiles and sits down in the chair on one side of Harry. Ron starts to take the one next to him on the other side, but Zabini is already sitting there. Ron blinks for a second, then flops down on the couch that Parvati was sitting on.
Parvati takes yet another chair, scowling. Lavender does the same thing, although Hermione thinks her scowl is a little lighter. Sometimes she’s seen Lavender watching Nott with a wistful look on her face.
“Exploding Snap, mate?” Ron asks, and flicks the cards out. There’s a bang as two of them come too close together, for all Hermione knows—she doesn’t play enough to know everything about them, and they’re boring—and Ron jumps, then laughs.
Harry is already looking better. “Yeah. Come on, spread them out on the floor over here, so Theo and Blaise can play, too.”
Ron does that, and they bend over the cards. Hermione sits down on a squashy stool and watches all four of them start to play. Soon enough, even Nott is flushed and even Zabini is smiling, if reluctantly. And Parvati and Lavender and a few other people are leaning nearer to try and figure out what’s going on.
“Thank you. He needed this.”
Hermione jumps and glances over her shoulder to find Greengrass standing there. “How did you get in?” she blurts. “No one invited you!”
“No one didn’t invite me, either. Everyone was paying too much attention to the boys to notice another Slytherin following them in.” Greengrass drags a stool up beside Hermione and gives a detached look around the room. “In some ways, I like this. It looks a lot warmer than the dungeons. There’s too much green and gloom there.”
“I thought that was something no Slytherin would ever say.”
“And I didn’t think any Gryffindor would extend us an invitation to come back to their Tower, either. You shouldn’t believe everything you hear about House stereotypes. People do that for Harry, and look how it’s damaged him.”
Hermione props her chin in her hand. “It would have been easier for him to transition into being a Slytherin if he wasn’t always hearing how evil you lot were, that’s true. And what do you want from him, Greengrass?”
“What makes you think that I don’t want the same things that Blaise and Theo do?”
“Because I know what they want. They want Harry to rise to the top of the Slytherin power hierarchy and carry them with him. But I don’t recognize you having a rivalry with Malfoy or anyone else recognizable in the hierarchy. So what do you want?”
“Of course what you recognize is always the most important thing, Granger.” Greengrass flips a piece of hair out of the way of her nostrils. “There are different ways of being a leader and a follower. My concern is much more with the greater powers moving beyond the school.”
Hermione narrows her eyes. “Like Voldemort?”
She nearly misses the way Greengrass flinches and clenches her hand into a fist on the other side of the stool. Then Greengrass laughs, a brittle sound, but low, so that no one else glances away from the increasingly violent game of Exploding Snap. “Of course not. He isn’t even back yet.” This time, her eyes are narrow as she stares at Hermione. “But some of the same structures that made his rise possible the first time are still in place, I’ll have you know.”
“Of course,” Hermione says, and she manages not to roll her eyes. “All right. But I don’t see how Harry can affect those larger power structures. Maybe when he’s older. Not right now.”
“You’ll learn.”
And Greengrass is dismissive and curt enough that Hermione can tell it isn’t worthwhile trying to continue the conversation. She turns back just in time to see Harry fling his head back, laughing, his hand reaching out to snatch a card away from Ron’s fingers just as it sparks and explodes.
Hermione’s breath catches. He looks so much younger than he did a few hours ago. He really wants to be here. It really is his home. That’s the truth, not just something Fred and George said to intimidate Cormac.
It’s not possible to reverse the re-Sorting, of course. Hermione is sure that Professor Dumbledore would have done that already if it was. He wants Harry in Gryffindor as badly as the rest of them.
But if he wasn’t in Slytherin, then Zabini wouldn’t be putting out a fire in his eyebrows right now and Nott wouldn’t be scowling ferociously down at his cards. And Greengrass wouldn’t be sulking on the stool next to her.
Hermione can’t say she values these new additions all that much. Not yet. Any more than they value the person Harry is instead of the one they want him to become.
But there’s potential here, in Gryffindors and Slytherins laughing together in the same common room.
*
SickPuppy: Thank you! And at least some of the tactics worked.
Kain: Snape will, but he isn't yet sure exactly what Harry is bothered about, so it'll take a while for him to figure out what he's doing wrong.
Blaise's talent is one that he's uneasy about potentially having. It's going to take him a while to admit that he has it.
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