"Simply wonderful to have this talk with you Harry my boy, if you ever need advice on your autograph again I am more than willing to help out! I am, as they say, an expert on the topic!"
Harry didn't even have to pretend to smile a big grin.
I mean you couldn't help but laugh: Lockhart was so bloody ridiculous it was simply the funniest thing. So incredibly stupid and full of himself, so insanely egotistical and infatuated with himself, he was like a toy Harry took great joy in batting against the wall just to see how long it would take him to notice. To this day the man's marvelously well-manicured head had not noticed Harry was in no way taking him seriously and it was simply the funniest thing.
"Of course, professor, thank you for the tips. I'll need to know it someday, after all." He layered it on thick so that anyone with two fully developed braincells would know he was absolutely full of shit.
Lockhart ate shit for breakfast though, apparently. And enjoyed it, too.
"Very good, very good—us men of fame should stick together, of course! Any time, any time," He waved if off distractedly, already focusing on the book Harry had complimented him on as if basking in his own glory. He didn't notice Harry slip out the door, much less the girl who followed him quietly… and the useless professor completely forgot he was supposed to be running detention with Harry's successful distraction, and he promptly and gleefully neglected to remember he was supposed to be having her write lines or something.
Once safely out the door and a brisk walk away from the Defense classroom, she breathed a sigh of relief.
"I was going to kill him if I actually had to sit through that detention." Melinda admitted, far too calmly for Harry to properly tell if the death threat was legitimate or not.
He could understand it to a point; Harry acknowledged he was in the minority of those who found their inept professor legitimately funny. Everyone else was either naïve teen girls who had celebrity crushes and thought he could do no wrong or actual rational human beings who were infuriated by Lockhart's… well, him.
He was too much to explain properly in so few words, but it was well summarized by being a maddening example of secondhand embarrassment personified.
"Fair," He gave her that one. They turned a nearby corner and Daphne greeted them, leaning against the wall casually and shooting a smirk pointedly at her roommate.
"Told you he could do it."
"You failed to tell me how he would do it though." Melinda was not amused—she clearly hated the ego-fest that had just happened in front of her, even if Harry had been playing it up for the camera, so to speak.
"I can't predict him, are you crazy?"
"If I told Slytherins my methods they'd never actually deal with me," He pointed out in his own defense. She just rolled her eyes at the both of them.
"Which is what makes you so interesting. Who knew Slytherin had a gambling problem?"
Harry tossed his head back to laugh in wild amusement on that sheer concept. "Never would've called that, although if I had to venture a guess I definitely would've pegged either you or Blaise."
"Do not loop me in with that psychopath!" Daphne instantly shot back, nose in the air as she lead the charge back down the hall.
"About that deal though," Melinda cut back to the topic at hand, clearly not the joking type with her posture straight as a ruler and face an impenetrable mask as she met his gaze. Daphne had warned him that this particular Slytherin had an agenda all her own: most others had clear allies even amongst the snake house where rule #1 was to trust no one, but she was an island on an uncrossable sea. The fact she'd asked for this favor wasn't exactly unusual, but she wasn't there to make friends—she roomed with Daphne but by the grey heiress's own admission they'd only spoken a handful of times, and all of it strictly for business. Current theory was that she had no hobbies… or that she was a secretly a robot.
Which proved there were either some muggleborns or gossipy half bloods hiding in Slytherin house because Harry had confirmed, with much hilarity, that both Draco and Blaise (his current best pureblood examples) had no freaking clue what a robot was. He'd tried to explain it a couple times just for his own amusement as they clearly could not wrap their heads around the concept.
"Yes, yes, you're giving me info and I'm giving you a study date," Daphne winked at Harry who instantly swatted her shoulder.
"Shut up, it's not a study date."
"It's funnier if I call it a date though."
"Sure it is, but not at my expense and not when it's in turn of helping you with your convoluted deals!" He insisted.
"Then why are you looking to have a study session alone with Tracy Davis?" Melinda was absolutely brutal in her bluntness, which took Harry off guard.
"That… is a very complicated topic but trust me when I say it's not to date her!" And he wasn't about to explain to this Slytherin he only just met on a personal level about his goal to get Slytherin house to like him—given he'd jumped at the chance for this deal in order to get on Melinda's good side, it might sour this whole exchange they were having. Daphne however fully knew about his master plan and was looking highly entertained by him getting put on the spot.
"No." Melinda faced forward again as if done with the conversation which made him flail a bit wildly.
"What do you mean no?"
"No, as in I don't believe you."
He spluttered while Daphne had to look distractedly behind them as if she heard something to hide her expression.
"You know you're remarkably blunt for a Slytherin."
"If you have to lie, you're not a good Slytherin." She declared bluntly again and now Harry was looking to Daphne for help because… what the hell?
Either Daphne had heard it before and wasn't surprised or she agreed because she simply looked challengingly back like… you wanted to meet her, now what are you going to do?
And honestly, he had no idea. This girl was weird even by his standards.
As they walked in the general direction of the Great Hall and Harry scratched his brain trying to figure out a quip to respond to that declaration with, he heard something like gas being let out of pipe—soft, but precise and piercing, something cold about it making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He blinked and looked around, thinking maybe it was a pipe or…
Daphne saw him look since she was walking slightly behind them, and raised a brow.
"Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Like a pipe or something."
"Uh… not really?"
…ll… s….mi…
He stopped walking dead, instantly listening harder.
"Harry?"
"Shush," he put a hand up and Melinda stopped too, both girls noticing his tone and giving him odd looks.
…ill…th…mine…
That was… not just a pipe hissing, those were words. Right!? It had to be… he just couldn't quite tell what they were saying but it… it had to be words, he could almost make them out…
…l…oo long… ne… mine… kIlL…
He tensed up, definitely having heard that right. Daphne saw his face and punched his shoulder, and despite the force he didn't even blink, just nodding to her unspoken demand.
"You seriously can't hear that?"
"No—what on earth are you talking about?"
death
"Uhhh," His eyes widening, hearing that loud as day and realizing that probably wasn't a good sign. "Pretty sure it's a disembodied voice."
"That only you can hear?" Daphne challenged with one eyebrow cocked. He gave her a very unamused look.
"Ha ha, fine I'm crazy, everyone already knew that." Cue eye roll. "But seriously Daphne, this is Hogwarts. A disembodied voice is not the weirdest thing in this castle,"
"He has a point." Melinda allowed much to Daphne's annoyance. "A ghost?"
"Then why am I the only one who can hear it?" He frowned.
hUnGRy… toO… loNg…
He felt a shiver race down his spine as it was definitely louder now, and the words unfortunately clearer.
That… is so not good.
"Also… whatever it is, it sounds unpleasant. Maybe a bit too malicious to be a ghost, least the ones we know of."
"Hm… a dark object maybe?" Melinda considered thoughtfully, seeming more invested in being a detective than actually talking to him, which would be funny if he weren't so distracted right now. "Lockhart is dumb enough to have one on him and not realize what it is."
"That is a very good point that's horrifyingly possible." He admitted, before the hissing-pipe sound went off again and it… felt like something huge shifting against the ground. It set every hair on his arms on end, the same way looking up at a troll four times his height made him feel hyperaware of how small and not that good at magic he was.
The voice shifted… and it was definitely farther down that hall now.
"It's moving," he realized with eyes widening, only taking a step before Daphne had locked a hand around his upper arm with a grip commanding enough to leave bruises.
"And you were going to follow it!? You really are just Gryffindor enough to be an impulsive moron! Dumbass Gryffindor! Do not." She scolded rather viciously for him having only taken a step.
"I am not a puppy Daphne," he defended himself while shaking her off, but had to admit she had a point. "I just don't want to just let it wander off… what if it's truly dangerous and someone who, you know, can't hear it stumbles on it first?"
The girls exchanged very loaded looks that seemed to say they were acknowledging he had a point… and also that they were not so very concerned about other people over their own hides. They weren't Blaise though, they weren't actually going to admit that out loud and now that he'd pointed it out they couldn't ignore that the morally right thing would be to address it for the sake of others.
Still hesitant, Melinda offered an olive branch. "Well what was it saying, first of all?"
"Uh… kill… death… must eat..." He gave them a dry look. "You know, pleasantly harmless stuff like that."
Daphne didn't seem amused with his humor as her lips twisted into a vaguely McGonagall-like shape of disapproval and concern. "We should tell a teacher. Snape would take us seriously if we told him we thought it was a dark object… leaving out the bit where you were the one who heard it, that is."
"True… problem being it went that way." He pointed and both girls seemed to realize at once with a sinking expression on their faces… that he was definitely pointing towards the Slytherin common room. There was a moment of silence as they took in that unfortunate reality for a second.
Shockingly, Melinda was the one who moved first, straightening her posture back to its original ruler stiffness and lifting her chin high. "Then come to the common room with us and keep an ear out. If you can hear it in there then we have bigger problems anyway."
Another brave Slytherin!
Harry was overjoyed to discover this but decided to keep it to himself as he highly doubted it'd be taken as a compliment.
"If you're sure," He said instead, and while Daphne didn't look it, Melinda just nodded once and lead the way.
"This is…" Daphne shook her head. "No, I'll shut up and you just keep an ear out," She ordered him and he gave a mock-salute as he quickly tried to follow Melinda's footsteps. She was quite a bit taller than the two of them actually and her legs significantly longer so he was very much almost jogging, to his annoyance.
Still, they made it to the common room surprisingly without further issue. He did keep an ear out but… they'd maybe spent too long talking about it and it had moved off somewhere else, his moment to follow it having been interrupted. Not that Daphne was wrong exactly, following disembodied, murderous voices probably was a bit too Gryffindor for his reputation—at least while standing next to two snakes. If he'd been with the twins he was sure they'd have followed it all night until they got bored or figured out what it was… or gotten cursed if it really was a dark object, but you know the twins were always down for something like that.
When they got to the common room Daphne opened the door for him and silently ordered him in while Melinda made a beeline down the hall—probably to go find Snape which Harry hoped wasn't too far if he wasn't going with them the whole way. Still, Melinda seemed to be a woman on a mission so he didn't bother her as he just obeyed and went into the Slytherin dorm to wait for them.
He'd never actually been in here free range like this, he'd always been escorted by one of his Slytherins, although thankfully there was sparse attendance and it was super quiet apart from the sound of paper and quills scratching. It was reasonably late on Tuesday night after all so there was a peak amount of homework to be done.
He did a quick scan and grinned, seeing only one open snake at what he was now mentally referring to "Theo's corner", or the seating area containing the armchair he somehow knew Theo had claimed.
He plopped down at the table across from Blaise, who looked up from the essay he was writing and blinking a bit blearily, clearly not expecting anyone to come bother him and especially not expecting to see Harry Potter of all people grin widely at him.
"…wait… you don't live here." He noted far too late as his mind was clearly still deep on whatever work he'd been doing.
"I'm having troubles with a disembodied voice, don't worry about it." He waved it off before getting comfy in his chair to make the point.
The tall Slytherin seemed to visibly consider asking, before shaking his head and going back to writing his essay. Clearly it took more brain power than he currently had to expend on weird Gryffindors at the moment.
With a light snort Harry pulled out his own Charms textbook to start reading too. He didn't really feel like doing homework but the snake den was one of the quietest places to get things done aside from the Library, and if Blaise (who was normally his biggest distraction here) was going to ignore him to do his work then it only seemed appropriate. Charms was not his favorite either so it he was forcing himself to work he might as well read the next chapter they were going to get to in class to make his life easier.
It wasn't typically Harry's style to just let any adults "handle it" on anything, but honestly bodyless voices, even foreboding ones, were not the weirdest thing Hogwarts had ever thrown at him. Not even the most dangerous frankly, so he was concerned for sure, but not alarmed. The idea that Lockhart unknowingly had a dark object on him was a bit too plausible unfortunately, and while he remembered Theo's phrase of 'just because it makes sense doesn't make it true', he was finding it hard to get worked up over it, much less actively think of what it could be if not that.
And of all the professors, Snape was pretty clear about his priorities. Although he may have been quite a bit of a bastard, he was nothing if not on Slytherin's side and any danger to his own house would be looked into thoroughly. Of all he was, stupid was probably not one of them, so he would probably be able to do something about it, or at least identify the problem to a point. Moreso than Harry could at the moment, and more so than Harry wanted to at the moment with everything else he had going on.
Just this one time he'd let someone else deal with one of his problems—before it became one of 'his problems', actually.
It took longer than he expected for the girls to finish their business, as he'd actually fully completed the chapter and was making small notes about things he thought were going to come in handy in the margins when they returned, also slipping into the table and once again pulling Blaise from his deep thoughts.
"What party is this? I know I'm popular but I'm trying to do Potions homework here." He complained sharply.
"We told Snape and he said he'd look into it." Melinda confirmed, completely ignoring the grey heir much to his indignation.
"And when he says that…"
"He'll run some scans for dark objects and other things I'm sure we don't want to know about to double check." Daphne nodded. "You didn't hear anything here, right?"
"Nope…" he glanced at the mantle beside them which had been alarming silent too while he'd read, giving a put upon sigh. "Although someone silenced the mantle already. Drat."
They scoffed. "Serves you right; pretty sure that was done within minutes of hearing about your little ability."
He gave them a sly wink. "Too bad I made a deal to keep Blaise from telling everyone immediately so I had a full week before people found out to talk to every decorative snake in here. For the Slytherin common room there's an appropriately absurd amount in here you know."
Both Daphne and Melinda's faces dropped like a ton of bricks, Daphne's in particular going from amused to very much not amused in a heartbeat. Melinda just looked vaguely disgusted.
"You didn't."
"I was well compensated," Blaise confirmed it himself as he went back to his homework, much to the girls' unease.
Melinda made a face, properly disgusted now. "Next time I ask to do a deal with you… don't involve him." She gave Daphne a positively filthy look and the ravenette pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Harry, you didn't have to tell us you did that." She scolded, sounding very done with everything right about now.
"Oh but it's so much more fun to see you sweat about it." He told her brightly, and for some reason she stared at him in shock… before getting this furious look on her face and grabbing the nearest book on the table to chuck it at Blaise—who was not prepared for that and got hit in the shoulder, causing him to flail wildly in indignation.
"What was that for!?"
"It's your fault!"
"What's my fault?!?"
"He gets it from you!"
Blaise stopped mid-shout to do a double take, abruptly grinning happily. "Really? Oh I'm honored you think of me as a role model Harry dear—what else can I teach you? How much do you know about poison?"
Daphne gave a wordless shout and threw a pillow from the couch behind her at him, which he deftly dodged without dropping his grin an inch.
Harry wanted to politely decline so as not to play into Blaise's insanity, but caught himself as he opened his mouth. He couldn't help but admit knowing about poison, particularly when being friends with a future black widow, was probably a really handy skill to have. Who better to learn it from than directly from the source of the person most likely to poison him one day?
"Not much actually," he admitted, clearly not against learning more, which caused Blaise to almost toss his homework behind him and clap his hands happily as if he was about to spill the juiciest gossip he knew.
"Yes!"
"Hell no," Melinda rolled her eyes and walked away without another word as Daphne was abruptly armed with another pillow, a vein ticking in her forehead.
"Harry you can't be serious!"
But the talk of poisons and Daphne being right there reminded him of something. "Actually Daphne you might want to sit down for this, cause I had an idea over the summer about poisons that the two of you might want a piece of." He nodded, referencing to two heirs of grey business tycoons, and they blinked in surprise.
"We don't deal together, you understand," Blaise drawled like it was obvious, and Harry waved that off impatiently.
"Yeah whatever, then you two can fight over it." He should probably be more concerned that Daphne was now more interested at the implication she'd get to pick a fight with the Zabini family as she obediently sat back down—still clutching the pillow to her chest though.
"Okay I'm listening. Piece of what?"
"Either of you two know a shop called Osmias' Optical Solutions?"
000
"But they don't teach Alchemy because Transfiguration is the more refined version of it these days. It's like Transfiguration before Transfiguration was Transfiguration—the principles don't apply anymore since Transfiguration disproved most of it. Or how like muggles think science replaced Alchemy from back in the dark ages," Hermione pointed out, nevertheless pulling the right textbooks off the shelf and handing them over.
Mr. Flammel (Nick, as he apparently was fine with being called) had recommended several books on the topic, but Harry's hadn't wanted to merely write an inquiry to Bethany's Books to ask if they had copies he could just buy, since he was worried Dumbledore would intercept that letter and get suspicious about why he was reading up on Alchemy textbooks… specifically ones he suspected Nick had recommended to Dumbledore himself back when they were closer friends. There was still a small chance he'd read that first letter he'd sent out to the Flammels after all, even if he was choosing to trust their enchanting abilities in keeping the rest of their correspondence from being read by outside eyes. More than a small chance actually... he'd sent that first letter with Hedwig as his main distraction from his more urgent and secretive letters, so the hope was actually that Dumbledore had read that one instead of any others, so it was safer to operate under the assumption that the Headmaster knew he'd been in contact with the Flammels, at least once.
Still, if he wanted to start reading them before a break when he could just go to Contrair Alley himself to buy them, his only bet was that Hogwarts had to have them buried somewhere in the library. And if you wanted to find an archaic non-class-related book, Hermione was your woman for the job. Or maybe Madam Peirce since technically she was the librarian, but she was scary… and adults who worked at this school were not safe from Dumbledore somehow eventually knowing about it too. Him bringing up very specific, supposedly outdated books would be of interest, even if only mildly, but Hermione true to form didn't even question it.
Or, she did, but more about why he wanted these books at all.
"Well I really like Transfiguration and learning of the history of it seems interesting even if it's not strictly useful anymore." He half lied with a shrug. "But what I think is going to be the most useful part is the method of thinking Alchemy used."
"Method of thinking?" Hermione repeated incredulously.
"Yeah, like questioning why everything is like it is. I wasn't the best science student back in grade school but isn't that like the scientific method? Questioning something then trying to prove it?" He'd paid attention in classes of course but his goal had been to do worse than Dudley: which was a difficult feat for sure. Getting the right answers had never been his objective and he was aware of the scientific method's existence but couldn't quite remember the details. He was fairly certain Nick's description of questioning everything had sounded very familiar though.
Maybe he'd look into getting some muggle textbooks too; maybe Bethany's Books would even have them given that might count as an 'odd solution' for a bookshop.
Or maybe Hermione would just tell him.
"The scientific method is making an observation, asking a question, forming a hypothesis, making predications of that hypothesis, testing the prediction, and then recording that to determine a new predication based on the test results." She repeated almost automatically in a way that told Harry that was probably verbatim from some muggle textbook somewhere. Seeing his surprise she elaborated with a slight puffing up of her chest. "I got to take third form classes my last year at my old school."
"Really? That's just impressive," here she was taking classes two years ahead while he would not be sharing his muggle school grades ever. It was still embarrassing even with the excuse he was trying to be a bad student. "I need to write that down though, I'll definitely forget it."
"I could walk you through it if you'd like?" She offered eagerly and while his first instinct was to say no (Hermione could go on about academic topics if he let her) he couldn't ignore the eagerness in her voice.
"Sure, maybe we can start on this too, to see how the two relate," He held up the Alchemy book and she made a face despite following him to the nearest empty table to set their things down.
"You can't use that in any Transfiguration essays though, they're not on the approved list."
"There's an approved list?" He blinked, almost doing a double take as he opened a brand-new journal he had on him to begin a new subject of notes. "Of Transfiguration textbooks?"
"Of course! You have to use something credible after all for actual work."
"Then what's the point of having an entire library at our disposal if we can't use certain books? And when did we get that list?" He asked incredulously and she paused, tilting her head slightly.
"Oh… just for information purposes then, I guess. And it's on the back of the rubric!"
"There's a rubric?"
"Harry." Hermione sounded very disappointed, and honestly Harry was too. He apparently wasn't as good of a student as he thought he was.
"Okay my bad, but I haven't gotten below an O yet so I'm doing something right." He was also starting to doubt his sanity because he was fairly certain McGonagall hadn't handed out a rubric… ever? Maybe once or twice, maybe even with the syllabus at the start of the year that he may or may not have immediately thrown out, but certainly not after assigning each bit of homework or essay.
He would probably just ask the Transfiguration teacher himself if he was crazy or not though—he could only imagine Hermione would get very worked up if he started arguing with her about the existence of a homework rubric.
"Let's just start with the scientific methods again—what were the steps?" She was happy to be distracted and repeated the steps again, even slow enough he could jot them down correctly. It did seem very logical and he decided to just jump right in. "Okay, my first observation then is that rocks are harder than wood."
Hermione blinked at him widely.
"…what? Of course they are?" She sounded very confused, much to his amusement.
"Yeah but we're talking Alchemy here which is the study of stuff. Materials and such. So, my observation is that rocks are harder than wood. Then according to this, I need a hypothesis."
"Well… wood is organic. Rocks are minerals."
He frowned, thinking that over…
"Okay, maybe I went too broad… maybe I should just focus on rocks. Some rocks are harder than other rocks. And my hypothesis is that some rocks are made of cotton."
She jerked back a little, as if almost affronted. "What!? No they're not!"
"Yeah but this is just my hypothesis. So I then I'm gonna make a prediction that if I set certain rocks on fire, they'll burn. If none of the rocks burn then I'll get a new hypothesis, and eventually whittle down what a rock isn't. Right?"
"I mean… that's how the scientific method would work, but you already know it's not cotton." She insisted.
He gave a sly little grin, taking a pebble he happened to have in his pocket (you never know when the Transfiguration need would arise so he always had a collection of weird things in his pockets—turning pebbles into mice had literally saved is life only a couple months ago so he wasn't about to let that go anytime soon) and slipping out his wand. He put the pebble on the table and taped it gently with a simple wand movement following quickly after.
"Isn't it though?" he picked up the little tuft of cotton the rock had turned into and she blinked rapidly at him.
"Well of course now it is, you just transfigured it!"
"So say I burn this? Would the ashes revert back into a rock when I cancel the spell?"
Now she looked mad for some reason. "You can't just make up your own rules if you're trying to disprove a hypothesis!"
"I'm trying to figure out what the rules even are." He insisted. "Like you can't Transfigure lead into gold permanently, but why? Even if you disfigure the gold it simply reverts to lead eventually—but you can permanently transfigure lead into glass or wood. Why is gold special? If I do this will I find any special rocks that can't be turned into cotton or go back to rocks if they're burned? Do you think I'd find a pattern there?"
"But why does it matter?"
"Because I want to know how it works." He shrugged. "Doesn't it bother you that even teachers sometimes just say 'because magic' for the reason about why some things are what they are? What if there's some kind of science that can back some stuff up? I mean wouldn't it be science if we start testing spells like they're only theories that can be disproven?"
"Theories aren't hypotheses," She corrected automatically and he tried not to roll his eyes.
"But you see what I'm saying right?"
"I guess so." Although she didn't look too amused. "But this won't help you on any homeworks or essays."
"Believe it or not Hermione, I actually don't care too much about homework." He admitted, and now she looked actually insulted. "You're the best of our class by a longshot, don't you like knowing things just for the sake of knowing them?"
"I guess so," but she really didn't sound convinced, although the compliment to her intelligence did relax her some. "But you're not going to find real answers, probably only more questions. Someone has bound to have already done this in making Alchemy outdated so the answers are probably somewhere in upper year Transfiguration books."
Which is a really good point… made by someone who had 100% faith in the teachers and book-writers of years past.
Harry had approaching zero faith in humanity at this point in his life and was a bit more of a skeptic in people's ability to… well, do anything really.
If anything, he was almost positive if a muggleborn started trying to incorporate the scientific method into a Transfiguration textbook, it wouldn't be in the Hogwarts library. Hell, it might not even have made it to being published if the owners of the publishing companies were pureblood—which they almost undoubtedly were and almost undoubtedly did, given that despite the "modern" age your blood status still seemed to be at least 70% of your prospective future career status in the wizarding world.
"I've read a bunch of those Transfiguration books… let's just say I'm pretty sure no one has considered trying to disprove a Transfiguration spell before. If it works, people write a book on what they did without much detail on why or how they got there. In fact, that seems to be nasty habit most wizards have." He complained lightly.
She opened her mouth to clearly argue and he cut her off gently. "And you may be right, and it is already in a book somewhere I just haven't read yet—I would still like to do the experiments myself to figure it out my own way. I'm a hands-on learner like that."
Hermione seemed to sit back and accept that reasoning a bit better than the "books could be wrong" concept which Harry was starting to think might be a loosing battle.
"Well burning rocks is probably not the safest place to start. In science class before, we used to put stones in water to see which ones float or dissolve, so that's probably safer."
"Good point," He couldn't exactly start lighting things on fire in the library—that is how one got themselves banned from the library probably. "I actually did some reading last year on types of rocks so we can start by brainstorming all the types of rocks we can and then let's go throw it in the lake to see what happens." He suggested, and while Hermione rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of it all, she did smile a bit excitedly at the idea of using science to figure out how magic might work.
"I think I know a couple books that can help with that," She offered.
Because of course she did.
Harry just let her go grab them and got to work, thinking a bit more about rocks on a Saturday afternoon than he honestly thought he ever would.
000
It was later at night when he'd laid in bed and totally failed to get to sleep that he was at his desk, quill in hand again to face something he'd been putting off for a bit too long. Spending the afternoon discussing and throwing rocks into a lake with Hermione, while very fun and surprisingly informative, had not been the greatest use of his time… or, it was, it just also reminded him he did have some bigger things to address. Or, more important and time-sensitive things to address and he simply had not been willing to confront it yet.
And it took form of the letter on his desk he still hadn't responded to, with a man on the other end who really probably needed a response right about now.
Remus Lupin.
His letter was… nice? No, it was nice. He sounded like an extremely genuine guy, and that made Harry feel all the guiltier for his rather unkindly thoughts on the dilemma placed before him. A dilemma Remus had been only so kind as to explain fully and simultaneously exonerate him from any obligation or responsibility in dealing with it if he didn't want to.
Which made it even worse somehow.
First, hearing about how werewolves were treated by the world from Daphne had set his teeth on edge, in a vaguely infuriated but hopeless sort of way. He was dead set on changing the Gryffindor/Slytherin dynamic, but he could only really handle one social systemic issue at a time, and somehow fixing the house issue sounded easier than the werewolf one. Not that he didn't care, but that was not on his immediate list of things to be able to fix.
In fact, it sounded like he'd need to be an adult in a position of power to do shit about it, sort of like a Mr. Malfoy-like position rather than a twelve-year-old Hogwarts student.
He'd marked it down as a long-term goal but he wasn't nearly there yet—he had far too many short-term things that needed to happen first.
Second, hearing about Remus fighting for him from Axeclaw was… huge.
It was massive, actually, and the main reason Harry couldn't push it from his mind even temporarily… even if he maybe wanted to. The first thing on his list was getting Sirius Black a trial, but he couldn't just set the Remus issue aside for once that was cleared. His mind and his heart literally could not shake it and sometimes he'd find the reminder wiggling in the back of his brain and he only felt guilty for trying to ignore it.
Besides, it was all connected somehow. According to Daphne, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and his own father had been best friends, and something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Harry didn't know the exact timing of it all, but if he thought about it from Remus' perspective… James and Lily Potter had died because Sirius Black betrayed them (theoretically) and killed Peter Pettigrew. By that logic, that betrayal probably happened all at one time or someone would've been able to stop it… so really, Remus Lupin had lost all four of his supposed best friends in on go. Be it one day or over a couple days… that had to have been one of the worst weeks of his life.
Against his will Harry imagined loosing Draco and Neville within a couple days of each other and physically could not form the thought from how hard his whole body rejected the idea. Add maybe Seamus, Dean, Fred, George, Blaise, Theo… any of them also dying or disappearing at once and he felt positively sick to his stomach.
To be totally honest, Harry wasn't sure he'd outlive them all by long if that actually happened.
And then… in the midst of what had to be an almost inhuman amount of grief, Remus had still decided to fight for the orphaned child of his now dead best friends despite probably knowing no one would even treat him like a human being for the attempt. He'd gone for it anyway and been laughed out of the ministry. He'd been rejected by society itself and needed to flee to the muggle world just to have basic human rights… and then if what Daphne said was true, would still be haunted and harassed by wizards who just wanted to kick the werewolf occasionally to let him know he still wasn't human enough to be given kindness or even just left in peace.
Harry was mad Remus had never reached out before. There was no denying it, he couldn't change how he felt about it. There was resentment and some genuine bitterness this man had never even tried once in eleven years before Harry had reached out first.
But he accepted those feelings and decided he could forgive, too. He would forgive, and he would do better as a person… be more like Neville if he could, because eleven years or not, today would be different. He blamed Remus for not reaching out but frankly it sounded like Remus was blamed quite a bit for many things not his fault so Harry was going to keep those harsh thoughts to himself.
He'd re-read Remus' letter many, many times… the way he rambled a bit as if not wanting to stop writing because he knew this might be his only chance if Harry decided he didn't want to keep in contact… and this very melancholy as he knew he couldn't keep a letter going forever and that he needed to confess what he thought Harry didn't know. It showed some real grit that he had the mettle to come out and openly confess what he clearly fully expected to cause Harry to never speak to him again. Not necessarily because he wanted to, but because he was hyper aware of how it could impact Harry's own future.
Another reason Harry would never voice his resentment: Remus' logic of having him not be associated with a werewolf was out of concern for his future. He clearly didn't know that Harry would've gladly taken that stigma in exchange for never having set foot on the Dursleys doorstep.
Then again, if Remus had raised me, I wouldn't know how bad the Dursleys truly were. Grass is always greener, as they say.
He sighed wryly to himself.
With all of that bouncing around his head and gnawing away at his stomach, there was no godly reason Harry shouldn't have written Remus back right then and there after getting his letter. His words about… about how his parents would've been proud of him, the pictures… pictures he'd mostly had from Hagrid's photo album except one he'd never seen before that he absolutely loved to bits… pictures that were more than a little worn to the point Harry honestly thought Remus probably gave him hisonly copies from how well-loved but shabby they were…
Remus Lupin deserved more than this, just from what little Harry knew of the man by now.
There was a kindness to him that Harry knew he himself didn't have. A silent, painful resistance and pride that reminded him too much of Neville.
He deserves more than my selfishness, and I haven't even met the man properly, he slumped in his chair, a dark cloud forming over his head.
"My family doesn't care and since you were raised with muggles maybe you won't care… but I know families like the Malfoys—they'll care a lot."
Just like he couldn't shake this need to write back to Remus, he couldn't forget Daphne's words either.
He couldn't forget Draco's face when Axeclaw told him about Remus being a werewolf. How Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy had said nothing.
He knew what the Slytherins would say. Let's pretend they weren't biased against werewolves and just avoided them for the politics of it all, each and every one of them would tell him not to do it. Think of his future… think of what he was trying to do with them. He could almost see some of their annoyed, if not betrayed faces when he told them he was essentially choosing a werewolf over ever playing their game again. After he'd tried so hard, after he was still trying so hard… he'd need to leave the board for good if they knew he was friends with a werewolf.
And that was only if they didn't actually care, it was just politics… like Daphne's attitude about it all. She seemed fine with it but was dead serious about never bringing it up to her again. Harry was pretty sure Theo would actively hate it and stop talking to him, and… and he was pretty sure Draco would not be thrilled.
He might make the effort because this was important to Harry… but he would not be happy about it. Somehow he just knew that.
But I'm not a Slytherin, I'm a fucking Gryffindor. Neville would actually give up on me if he ever found out I cut Remus out just because he was a werewolf—that's too far, even for me.
No… he was definitely going to write Remus back. He wanted Remus in his life, and despite still feeling uncertain about the whole thing in general, that much was solidly true. If nothing else, he wanted to get to know Remus more, and that was a defined fact.
Remus deserves more than me, he winced at the unkind, but brutally honest thought.
It was just… he was absolutely going to write Remus back, he just hadn't yet because… he needed to be smart about it.
The cruel truth was that Harry's future would be severely handicapped by being openly connected to Remus. He still wanted the man in his life, so the obvious answer was that the connection simply couldn't be open.
But how the honest fuck was he supposed to put that in a letter exactly? How was he supposed to tell this man that yes, he wanted to keep writing him letters but oh, can this whole thing be secret please? Can you just not tell anyone you know me and I'll do the same?
He sunk darkly into his chair, depressed. He was selfish and vain as a defined personality trait, but that was over a line even by his standards.
But what else was he supposed to do!? Remus even specifically said so himself: if Harry risked his future for Remus' sake, he wouldn't be happy about that either. Remus would only blame himself even harder for something he couldn't control and Harry would hate that too, on top of never be able to run for prime minister.
Annoyed at the conundrum he sat up sharply and ripped off a new piece of parchment from it stack and slammed it onto the desk in front of him. He needed to get over it: if Remus had the balls to broach hard topics without hesitation, Harry owed him the same decency. He didn't have time to find a better solution, it'd been several days already and at this point Remus was probably thinking he'd chosen to never write him back and feeling like shit right now. And that also made Harry feel extremely guilty with every passing hour he still hadn't written this damn letter.
In exchange for doing this to him, I'll do something useful with my freedom. Forget the shop or whatever halfass idea that was; if I'm going to hide our connection and make him hide it too, then I'll make it up to him by using that to actually be minister or something—and I'll make werewolf laws or something so no one can touch him again.
If he'd learned anything from infiltrating Slytherin house, is that you couldn't do anything from the outside. You had to be one of them to start making change—so he had to make everyone think he was one of them and start changing things before they realized he was just an imposter trying to get his way. He had to make them think he was just this normal wizard who didn't care for werewolves at best like every other normal wizard out there, and then only when he was making laws or creating some system to protect werewolves would people realize he'd been lying to them the whole time.
You know, like a Slytherin.
Gryffindor was going to fucking hate him for this if they ever found out, but he honestly didn't care. He was going for results, not the moral high ground here.
If he truly were Slytherin he wouldn't write back at all, but as it was established he definitely would be writing back, he was still Gryffindor enough for his moral compass for the time being.
He forced himself to start writing, wincing a bit as he hated his own words that he needed to get down onto the page… but also feeling slightly relieved and hopeful that despite this horrid start, it would be a start of something new and very hopefully important.