Extremely long authors note at the end of this chapter, so I'll just say, please enjoy! (and review?)

Chapter Fourteen: In Which Harry Cannot Understand

Hermione was back in classes early the week following her accident, much to Harry', Blaise', and the rest of the first years' disappointment. Though the boys had not personally witnessed the event, having been in McGonagall's office writing ten times each the transfiguration textbook's ten rules against the improper use of magic, they had a newfound admiration for Adrian, the reason for Hermione's suffering.

"She was being her usual know-it-all self," Tracey retold more than once. "Telling Rose and Adrian how against the rules it was to duel on school grounds and the like. And the fight itself was amazing; you should have—"

"Granger, Tracey," Daniel would have to cut in.

"Fine, fine—so Granger gets in the way of a bounced spell and goes flying into the air—and Adrian takes control of her and flies her around and then drops her and bam! She's half-buried in the courtyard."

Though annoyed to no end that they had missed this happening, by the end of the week the story had been told so many times that the boys knew more details, both factitious and fallacious, than those who had actually been there.

Hermione had taken to lecturing anyone who would listen—mainly her puppy-like follower Neville Longbottom—about why exactly dueling was banned on school grounds. "Did you know," she said matter-of-factly in Transfiguration one Thursday, when someone had made her ears turn red with a grossly distorted version of the story in which she had been trying to seduce Adrian when he attacked her, "That the headmaster himself served detention for dueling on the grounds? It says so in Hogwarts, a History. After that he joined the dueling club, where dueling can be safely practiced."

"That's not exactly a scare story, Granger," said Blaise, to the hearty agreement of the Slytherins (and the snickering of the Gryffindors).

"Quiet," said McGonagall, sweeping into the room with such a Snape-like impression even the Slytherins fell silent. "Now, before we begin," she said, reaching her desk. She turned with narrowed eyes to look over the students, so that no one dared even glance away, "As you are well aware, it is Halloween, meaning this evening is the feast. Whereas the Great Hall normally opens at four thirty for supper, tonight's feast will not begin until seven thirty. Likewise, first period tomorrow has been cancelled—but Professor Snape has assured me that your test has not been, and that your homework should already be done and thus will be collected as usual. No questions? Good. Open to page eighty two…"

Amid the groans of the rest of the class, Harry, Blaise, Daniel, and Tracey were unaffected by Snape's memo. The room Snape had instructed them to practice in was another extra potions lab, so they had had everything they had needed to practice the potion they were being tested on. The had made it four times, once using each of the students' ingredients, and by the fourth try even Tracey was feeling confident she would pass. While the potions had brewed, they had even had time to do their usual potions homework, too, so they did not share the other students procrastination worries.

Harry found he was liking being ahead in his classes. With the four first years working together, there was always one of them who could figure out why the potion was not working or whether it was Orgerthrop the Fifth or Svrdenblag the Second who led the goblins to victory in the 1432 battle against the water sprites of the southern British Channel. Even Tracey had proven her worth as a study partner, as she enjoyed such trivial History of Magic details—most likely because she was the only one of them who could stay awake through Professor Binns' weekly lectures.

"It's because we've just had lunch," she explained. "I've too much energy to sleep through History! Besides, it was obviously Orgerthrop the Sixth—Orgerthrop the Fifth died in 1383—"

Whatever the reason, even with Blaise' and Daniel's antagonistic relationship the quartet stuck together, and their efforts were beginning to show.

"Well done, Potter," said McGonagall as she passed out graded quizzes at the end of class. "I'm beginning to think you'll have your father's aptitude for Transfiguration!"

Harrie looked at the page, finding only two red marks and the grade—eighteen out of twenty. He knew Daniel had gotten another twenty, but McGonagall had not praised her, or Blaise, whose page was marked nineteen. Silently Harry shoved the parchment into his book bag and followed his friends out of the class.

"Well what do you know, Harry," Blaise said sarcastically as they joined the masses heading to lunch. "You've become an honorary Gryffindor!"

"Oh, put a sock in it," Harry grumbled. "What was it the Carrow twins were saying about the Slytherin Halloween party?"

"How it's the best party of the year and this year they've gotten three extra house elves, thanks to the Malfoys?" Tracey suggested.

"Yeah, that," said Harry. "What is a house elf, anyways?"

"Don't change the subject!" Blaise laughed, throwing an arm over Harry's shoulder as if he could physically stop the topic from getting away from him. "I think it's high time we put your fame to good use! To—I don't know, get me out of flying?"

Harry was skeptical. "How do you expect that to happen?"

"Oh Professor! I'm the Boy Who Lived! My parents saved the wizarding world! But because I was orphaned and so, so lonely all by myself in that big, bad muggle place, where I was practically treated like a house elf, I get so lonely without my friends around. Won't you please, please let Blaise stay with me during flying lessons? I'd be safer with someone else around, and so much less alone…"

"Why did you make my voice so high?" Harry asked between laughs. "And really, what is a house elf?"

"More importantly, which Professor is that supposed to work on?" Tracey asked, at which point Daniel slyly suggested Snape, sending the Slytherins into a whole new round of laughter.

As they made to enter the Great Hall, they were stopped by a Ravenclaw who looked to be in his seventh year. At the sight of him, Blaise released Harry and moved ahead of the group.

"Hello, Blaise," the boy said pleasantly. "Mum sent an owl."

Harry studied the pair carefully as and folded piece of parchment was handed over. Though the older boy's skin was perhaps a shade darker than Blaise's, and Blaise's face was rounded by a youthful softness that the older boy lacked, it was clear from their high cheekbones and tall noses that the boys were related. Blaise had pointed out his brother to Harry before, but their paths had never previously crossed.

"Thanks," said Blaise, accepting the letter and tucking it into his robes. "Anything new?"

"Not really. Another boyfriend dumped, but I think it's a different one than the one she had when we left," the boy said calmly. He turned to the other first years; curiously peering at them with eyes solemn yet friendly, and to counter Blaise's golden irises, fully black. "A strange sight, seeing you with Blaise, Daniel… and this must be Harry? A pleasure, of course. But I'm afraid I don't know you." Stepping around his younger brother, the boy offered a hand to the wide-eyed Tracey, who stared at it for a moment before shaking it daintily. Later, the other three would remember instead that she had curtsied. It was that sort of daintiness.

"Tracey Davis," she said with a smile.

"Mordred Zabini," he replied. "A pleasure to meet you as well. While I'd love to stay and chat, the stomach calls…"

Tracey quickly released the seventh year's grip, having held it for too long already, and he stepped away from her, disappearing into the Great Hall with a quick nod to Harry.

"Blaise," the blonde girl asked dreamily as they took their seats at the Slytherin table a minute later. "Your brother's a capable wizard, isn't he?"

"Well, he's not in Ravenclaw for nothing. He's one of Flitwick's favorites."

"And your family is rich, right?"

Blaise raised an eyebrow—it was a habit they had all started to pick up from their house head. "Well, bluntly speaking, yes," he said. "Why do you ask?"

"It's settled, then!" Tracey said gleefully. They all stared at her blankly. "Your brother," she pointed emphatically at Blaise as she said it, "Is the lucky man I'm going to marry!"

"Marry?" Blaise demanded, hardly noticing as Harry splurted pumpkin juice on him. "What, are you insane? You can't marry my brother!"

"Well, not right now, of course," Tracey said with a frown. "But when I've graduated, assuming I've not found someone else…"

"No, you'll not!" Blaise snapped. "And you can't, anyways! My brother is—"

"Too old? When we won't be so different. My mum's almost eight years younger than my dad."

"No, that's not—he's—"

"Engaged?" Tracey guessed. "That can be broken off."

"No—"

"Got Plans after Hogwarts? He'll have six years to—"

"No, you idiot!" Blaise groaned. "My brother's gay!"

Although Blaise's shouting attracted some peculiar looks from nearby students, and it managed to pause Tracey for a moment. Only a moment. "Well," she said, "That can be dealt with."

They all sighed and turned dejectedly to their meals.

"I've been wondering," said Harry over Tracey's dreamy sighs, "though rather afraid to ask—how is it you two know each other, Blaise? Daniel? And how does Mordred know you, Daniel?"

Blaise defiantly took a bite of some sort of noodle dish, marking the end to his participation in the conversation, but Daniel did not seem too opposed to sharing. "Mordred is my half-brother, too," she explained. "On my father's side, of course. Madam Zabini intended to marry my father, so he got involved in a diplomatic mission in Africa involving my great grandparents on my mother's side, and through that met my mother, who had arrived from England to help smooth things over. Of course, he and my mother really did marry, and had my brother and I together. But one does not just escape Madam Zabini—"

Blaise slammed his goblet on the table, for once breaking his ritual mealtime silence. "Enough of that!" he snapped. "Jeremiah Harper left my mother pregnant with my brother, and when she finally saw him again he had a family with two children. My father, who had actually married my mother years before she was pregnant with me, had just died, and Harper dared taunt her over this—while at my Great-Aunt's summer gala, too. He committed social suicide, and actual suicide later on, the coward that he was."

Harry looked back and forth between the two. "I—I'm sorry. I didn't know your father was dead, Daniel."

She shrugged. "He was a git for not telling my mum about Mordred, and I never really knew him, anyways. Besides, like I said, one does not simply escape Madam Zabini…"

"Er, right," said Harry, turning back to his lunch Of course he had heard the rumors about Blaise's mother as a professional widow but as Blaise got quite testy when the topic arose out of respect for his friend if nothing else he was inclined to ignore the rumors.

"So we are like sisters!" Tracey suddenly exclaimed, turning to Daniel in a delayed revelation. "Half-sister-in-laws-to-be!"

Daniel was unimpressed. "I somehow find myself managing to be in agreement with Blaise," she said. "You will not be marrying Mordred!"

"Say what you will," Tracey said defiantly. She crossed her arms and tossed her curls, trying for an elegantly proud look, but being only eleven the effect was lost. "I am destined to become a Zabini!"

Blaise groaned again. "Then you'll have to marry one of my cousins," he said shortly. "And that would require moving to France, as they don't much like Britain's weather."

"What have we got this afternoon?" Harry asked, eager to change the subject. He already knew, of course, but that was beside the point.

"Herbology," said Daniel. "But we've got a free period, so that's not 'til one. We could go down to the lake; the weather's nice."

"Hey!" Tracey said indignantly. She had just got around to helping herself to noodles. "Give me a chance to eat, would you?"

"It's not our fault you've been too busy mooning over Mordred to be sensible," Daniel muttered, but Blaise had also gone back to eating, so the finished pair just sat and waited.

"So your brother—I mean, your full brother—is he also Ravenclaw?" Harry asked to fill the time.

"No; he's Slytherin," Daniel replied. She pointed down the table to a sixth year cluster, where one black boy sat reading, oblivious to the conversation around him. "But he might as well be Ravenclaw."

"You said yourself that you were offered Ravenclaw by the sorting hat," Harry recalled. "Must run in the family."

Daniel shrugged. "Well, honestly Micky would not have done well in Ravenclaw. He likes to read, but he's still an idiot. He would have been shunned in that house."

"Some of the Ravenclaws aren't so bright," Harry countered, thinking of one in particular who was having trouble in charms. She had consistently made a book more dusty when the spell was supposed to wipe it clean.

"No, I mean—intellectually he's fine. But when he closes the books he can be a real prat." Daniel shook her head, taking off her glasses to clean them. Harry resisted the urge to mimic the action, suddenly all too aware of the finger prints smudging his vision. "He's kind of a spoiled brat, having lived with my grandmother's family when we were little—I was still a baby, but he was old enough for the pampering to affect him. And you know why my name is Daniel? Because Micky wanted a little brother, and threw a temper tantrum when my mum tried to make it Danielle. Mum had just given birth and was exhausted and my father couldn't have cared less if I were named Edward Tredrich Alfred the Seventeenth, so Daniel stuck, and while we lived in Africa I was treated as a boy."

"Are you done?" Blaise asked with a bored poke at his leftovers. It was impossible to tell whether he meant to ask Tracey or Daniel, but Tracey took it to mean her and nodded, so they all stood and left the Great Hall, eager to enjoy the clear day.

—

—

—

Herbology ended at three pm, and the Slytherins were overjoyed to escape.

"Who knew that there could be so many ways in which pumpkins could be incredibly dull?" Blaise moaned, picking orange fibres out from his nails. Professor Sprout, in an attempt at a Halloween themed lesson, had them gutting different breeds of pumpkin for the evening's jack-o-lanterns, including a particularly nasty one that someone had the wonderful idea to crossbreed with the magical equivalent of a Venus fly trap, such that included in the guts were half-way decomposed rodent skeletons.

"Dinner's not 'til seven, right?" asked Tracey, her stomach voicing its thoughts on the manner in a loud grumble.

"Seven thirty," Blaise corrected. "So we've five and a half hours to kill. But—we've finished our homework, and I don't much feel like practicing today… any ideas? Harry?"

"Actually," said Harry, "I told Hagrid I'd go and see him this afternoon. You're welcome to come along, of course."

Blaise frowned, wrinkling his nose. "I'll pass, thanks. I rather value my teeth."

"Well I'll go," said Tracey. "I like Hagrid. He's so simple. It's homely."

Daniel and Blaise looked at each other with something less than pleasure. "I'll come too," the girl decided in a flat tone. "Don't want to be stuck with that one."

"Or I with you," Blaise said, but then he sighed. "All alone on Halloween—how unromantic. Are you at least going to drop off your books?"

They had time to spare, so even though the dungeons were in the opposite direction of Hagrid's hut they followed Blaise into the nearest courtyard so they could enter the castle.

"It's Levi-Oh-sa, not Levioh-Sah," an annoyed voice greeted them. "It's no wonder she hasn't got any friends!"

Harry looked across the courtyard to see Gryffindor first years streaming out of one of the towers. The speaker, looking sullen while the other Gryffindors laughed around him, was none other than Ron dWeasley."

"Who are they talking about now?" asked Tracey, while this tmie Harry posed the more important question—"They're just now getting to levitation?"

In answer to Tracey's question, a girl came pushing through the other Gryffindors, knocking into Ron so forcefully his bag fell to the ground. Its contents scatted around it. "Hermione, wait!" Neville Longbottom cried. He was trying to catch up with the girl, but in trying to avoid a fallen quill he stepped onto a loose sheet of paper which slipped out from under the boy and sent him flying into Ron's bag so that it split and what little had been left inside joined the rest of Ron's belongings across the walkway.

"Neville!" Ron shouted angrily.

The klutzy boy was already up and running after the girl. "Sorry, Ron!" he shouted back.

"Oh, Gryffindors," commented Blaise. "They don't even know how to do a simple reparo! How sad."

Harry nodded in agreement with the others—it was sad, especially considering Granger had known the spell before they'd even gotten to Hogwarts—but lagged behind as the others continued their treck to the dungeons. When the other three rounded the castle doors, he quickly pulled out his wand and turned back to the Gryffindors gathering Ron's things. Aiming carefully at the bag lying torn open on the ground, he muttered, "reparo!", then quickly moved to rejoin his friends.

—

—

—

"What's this I hear about you lot being at the top of your classes?" Hagrid demanded cheerfully, handing the three Slytherin first years extra strong tea brewed in oversized mugs. Harry and Daniel pretended to sip, making Hagrid beam at him, while Tracey addressed the question.

"They say practice makes perfect, right?" she said cheerfully. "Besides, we're not actually the top of our classes; there's a few Ravenclaws and everyone's favorite Gryffindor to consider. And Professor Snape still prefers Draco Malfoy."

"That's not how I've been hearing it!" Hagrid boomed. Harry and Daniel glanced at each other skeptically, wondering which part exactly Hagrid found fault with. "Although…. There must be some of yer da' in yeh, Harry, what wit' the stories I hear from Professor McGonagall."

"My father?" That caught Harry's attention.

"He ewas always I' 'imself inter trouble, him an' 'is gang. Always teasin' yer mum. She couldn't stand 'im, at yer age."

Harry took time to process this. His mother had not liked his father, at Harry's age? This made Harry frown some. Liking or disliking someone—it all seemed so permanent. He did not like the Dursleys. He had never liked the Dursleys. He liked Blaise, and Tracey, and Daniel—he had since they'd first met, and in the last month the bonds between them were truly solidifying.

What about Ron, or Draco? He could not say he liked Draco, and he could not say he disliked Ron. But with Ron as a Gryffindor, Harry doubted they would ever have any sort of a functional friendship. As for Draco—Harry was finding more and more that he did not want to like the boy. He was arrogant, rude, and narrow-minded—had his mother thought that of his father, at his age?

The comparison of his and Draco's relationship to that of his parents' made Harry grimace.

"…and then he tripped and landed on the bag, and it tore right in half!" Tracey concluded with a grin, drawing a hearty laugh from Hargrid and bringing Harry back into the hut. How long had he not been paying attention? Hagrid's laughter made his head ring.

"Oh, first years, "Hagrid said cheerfully, taking a long swig from his tea mug.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Daniel grumbled. After all, they too were first years.

"Nothin', othing'," said Hagrid. The tears in his eyes betrayed his mirth. "Don't yeh mind it."

"In any case," said Daniel. "It has been lovely, but we've got to get back to the dungeons before the feast for some Slytherin business, and it's almost four thirty."

"Yes," said Harry, actually jumping at the prospect of escape from the hut that seemed to confining. Had he been lost in thought so long? It seemed as though every time someone mentioned something odd about his parents Harry lost track of time. He found it rather annoying. Harry wondered whether Blaise or Daniel got the same way when their fathers were brought up, but he knew if he asked them about it they would just repeat Blaise's lonely orphan boy-who-lived speech and tease him mercilessly.

"Oh," said Hagrid, not trying to hid his disappointment over the abrupt cut-off. Tracey shoved the remnants of some sort of cookie—when had she gotten that?—into her mouth and pushed Fang's oversided head off her lap so she, too, could stand. "Well, don't be strangers, yer hear? 'specially you, Harry," the giant man said as they filed out the door. "And Harry, he added, just before the boy coiuld leave. "Yer should come down by yerself sometime. We can have a good long talk 'bout yer parents."

"Right," said Harry, though he was still put off by how he had lost track of the conversation. He felt, after a moment, a bit awkward about leaving it at that. His imput to the conversation had been two words, and now he was practically fleeing the man, after all. So before leaving, he added, "Thanks, Hagrid."

The grin Hagrid offered made Harry a bit embarrassed to have automatically categorized the man's offer as 'to be conveniently forgotten.' But what could he say? In Blaise's words—he was a Slytherin, after all.

"You all right, Harry?" asked Daniel. Once more Harry experienced the awkward sensation of being thrown back into the present. He blinked, realizing they were in the same courtyard as before, about to enter the cast.

Maybe I should have been in Ravenclaw, he thought a bit bitterly, referring to the way members of that house could often be caught staring dreamily into space after ending a sentence prematurely.

Belatedly: "Sorry?"

"You've been about as focused as a Gryffindor trying to study today," the girl said bluntly. "Please tell me you did not eat the pumpkin seeds Sprout said would make you high?"

Harry laughed. "Nah, I'm not a Gryffindor!" It was a running joke between the Slytherin quartet, started courtesy of Blaise's constant employment of the term whenever a Gryffindor tried to insult him, and conveniently applied to both of Daniel's comments. "Anyways, your brother—I mean your full brother, not Mordred—is a Slytherin too, so hasn't he told you what the party will be like?"

Daniel shook her head. "Not a word," she grumbled. "Just that I'd learn as a first year."

"You have to swear an oath at the beginning," Tracey piped. "My cousin told me you're sworn into secrecy in Salazar's name."

"If he was sworn into secrecy, how did he tell you that?" Daniel asked, making Tracey frown, seriously considering the question.

"Well, maybe they don't make you swear not to tell anyone about that part?" she suggested.

Harry's scar sent a violent jolt of pain through his skull as they passed the Great Hall, where through the door he could see Flitwick levitating hundreds of jack-o-lanterns made, Harry suspected, from the pumpkins they had gutted earlier, up to encase the usual candles that lit the false sky. His scar had been hurting more and more often since he had arrived at Hogwarts; varying in intensity from a prickling sensation as he sat down for dinner to a sharp stab like this on, strong enough to wake him from a nap during an especially boring lecture. Blaise invented all sorts of reasons for the pain, ranging from a portrait of him hitting its head on a cupboard to a magical allergy; Daniel had given him looks that warned him to stop being a baby; Tracey had gone on tangential rants about this uncle's bruise that lasted twenty years to that aunt's phantom third limb, and by the end of these stories no one was really sure how they related to Harry's scar. He had tried to ignore it—it had occasionally hurt him back at Privet Drave and he had never made a big deal of it—but it made him irritable when it struck out of the blue like that. So much so that in response to Tracey's solution for the discontinuity in her secrecy story he snapped, "Or maybe they never swore anything?"

The remainder of the trek to the dungeons was silent.

—

—

—

Blaise proved easy enough to re-locate; although not at the fireplace the quartet usually occupied Draco Malfoy's posse had laid a similar claim to a cluster of the common room's black leather furniture in the very center of the room. "Harry," the blond boy greeted with a rather cold voice, betraying the smile he so easily flashed. "Blaise here was just talling us that you'd gone down to Hagrid's for tea. Frankly, I'm surprised you're all still in one piece."

"One piece?" Harry repeated.

"Yes," Draco confirmed. He leaned back in his couch, throwing an arm jauntily over the ornate backing. "It's hardly disguisable—his brutish nature. I'm surprised they even let him live on the grounds. Father always says he's a danger to students…"

"Have you even met Hagrid?" demanded Harry, still feeling a bit brash due to the only somewhat subdued throbbing of his scar. He looked to Blaise, who seemed as keen as possible to escape the circle of chairs, his hands gripping tightly at the arm rests as he sat so far forward in his seat he looked about to fall right out of it. Harry did not blame him. His earlier thought of Draco as someone he was not sure he liked had solidified into downright distaste—although perhaps that was the scar speaking? "Never mind that," he said over Draco's attempt at an offended reply. "Blaise, weren't we going to work on our history homework before the feast? You were supposed to meet us with the books."

"Right you are!" Blaise agreed with excessive enthusiasm, jumping out of his seat. "It totally slipped my mind, chatting with our good friend Draco here…"

"History homework?" Pansy, who Harry had not noticed sitting between Crabbe and Goyle on the couch across from Draco's, asked distastefully. "Merlin, you lot are getting to be as bad as Granger!"

For some reason Harry had to fight back the urge to defend Granger, though the idea of defending her would, on later reflection, make him want to gag. "Oh, you won't be joining us, then?" Tracey asked. "You know, we've been having the most interesting discussions about the Seven Proclaimations of Svrdenblag the Second recently—"

"Well, it's been a pleasure talking with you lot," said Blaise over everyone else's collective groans. "You all have some very interesting ideas about the way the world should be. A shame our discussion has been cut short."

"Indeed," said Draco, still staring at Harry with that unpleasant smile. "Perhaps next time Hagrid invites you to tea Harry will consider staying here too. I'm sure my father would be delighted to send some stories for the Harry Potter."

Harry bit his tongue. It a necessary precaution, to hold back a great deal of words mainly directed at telling Draco that there was no way in hell he would be having any sort of discussion regarding Hagrid or any of Draco's father's stories without the end result being a punch to the blond boy's face, and quickly made for the stairs to the boys dormitory. The other three were only a step behind him.

"Merlin's beard is Draco a prat!" Blaise moaned as the door clicked shut behind them. "My brother warned me about families like the Malfoys and their bratty little princelings, but honestly…"

"Families like the Malfoys?" Harry repeated, kicking off his shoes and rolling onto his bed, not bothering to draw the silken green curtains aside. The darkness was soothing, to some extent.

"Wizarding Royalty," Daniel clarified. "Or so they like to consider themselves."

"Malfoys, Parkinsons, Crabbes, Goyles—how on earth did they all end up together, our year?" Blaise asked. "Can we file this as some sort of wizarding conspiracy?"

"Oh, come now. Don't act so superior. You're a pure-blood, too, and I know for a fact your mother has gone to all the Malfoy's parties for the last four years, at least."

"You only know that because you were there too, Harper," Blaise growled.

"And if you weren't such a brat, your brother would have taken you, too, Zabini."

There was a moment of silence, then Harry was moaning as Daniel pulled open his bed curtains. The green light filtered in from the lake-lights only seemed to irritate his scar more. "Don't think you can hide away from us in here, Harry," the girl growled. "Malfoy and Blaise aside, even you have been more of a prat than usual today." Harry's response was to roll over and bury his face in his pillow.

"Oh, leave him alone, Dani," said Tracey. "Obviously he's just homesick for the muggle world—"

That got him moving. The pillow his face was buried in a moment before was swiftly thrown across the room, missing Tracey by meters but close enough that the intended target was clear. Harry's horrible aim proved to be the perfect cure for the tension that had built up in the room, and all four dissolved into fits of laughter, though that, too, seemed to irritate Harry's scar.

"It's really bothering you, isn't it?" Daniel observed when the mirth had dissolved a bit, watching as the boy rubbed at his forehead in what was becoming a habitual action. "Or are you just being a wimp?"

"If you're going to make fun of him, stop acting like you care first," Blaise ordered. He had fallen into the seat next to his own bed, while Tracey sat on the trunk resting at its end. "But really, Harry, maybe there was something at Hagrid's that got it acting up? Maybe Draco was right and it wasn't tea he gave you…"

"Don't tell me you're siding with Draco about Hagrid!" Harry said incredulously. "Didn't you hear the way he talked about him? It was like he didn't even consider Hagrid human." Blaise said nothing, but Harry caught the glance that passed between him and Daniel as she sat down beside Tracey. "No," he said, sighing, "It was just tea. And it's almost better now, anyways. What do you say we play some chess?"

"Oh," said Tracey, clearly disappointed. "So we're not going to discuss Svrdenblag the Second?"

"No!"

—

—

—

When the bell tolled seven times, Harry and Blaise put away the chess set, and the girls went back to their dormitory. The boys dug through their drawers for the proper clothing to wear under their robes, and abandoned their sneakers for black dress shoes. They felt strange wearing their full robes again, having grown accustomed to the day to day uniform and cloak, and definitely felt quite foolish donning on the pointed hats that had been collecting dust atop their wardrobes since the opening feast, but when they came down to the common room they found the whole of their house in similar wear.

"These hats are ridiculous," Tracey complained as the girls rejoined the boys. "Honestly, they haven't been in fashion for decades. Someone ought to petition to remove them from the uniform!"

Harry turned to agree, but was cut off by a voice both quiet and commanding; "Quiet," ordered Professor Snape. Silence rippled through the room as the Slytherins turned to face their head of house. "Now," he said when they were all settled. "As usual, the Slytherin House Party will occur after the feast. During the feast, however, I expect all but the assigned managers in the hall at all times. As we have had, oh, issues in the past with certain students trying to return to the dorms before the feast's end," he looked pointedly at the first years, and they all shifted on their feet, having all discussed the idea many times during the last week, "Certain steps have been taken to ensure that this will not occur. As soon as you exit the dorm, you will trigger a protection charm in the wall that will prevent the entry of any student. If you still insist on trying, however, Miss Hawthorne has taken the liberty of applying an array of wards, my personal favorite being one which will compel you to come running back to the great hall singing at the top of your lungs muggle children's songs, and no, not currently knowing any will not protect you, Zabini." Blaise deflated somewhat, reversing his half-way completed turn to Harry. "However," Snape continued, cutting off the muttering his warning had triggered. "If that is not enough to hold you back, Mr. LaConner has informed me of his need for test subjects for his NEWT-level potions. I will know if you so much as descend below the first floor at any time in the duration of the feast, and will consider that as volunteering."

Harry had never seen Snape look so plainly gleeful—if you could read his smirk to represent that. But even more unusual, as he watched the man address his students, Harry found there to be little coldness in his warnings, that when his students giggled and laughed at the prospect of humiliating someone by forcing them to sing muggle songs, his mouth twitched with amusement, that he was not looking down at the house but out at it. Somehow this calm, amused man seemed strange and unfamiliar to Harry, even though he'd sat in the Potions laboratory twice a week since September and tried to see past the man's harsh attitudes. Now that he had seen beyond them, Harry only felt more confused.

Following their House Head's warning, the Slytherins filed out of the common room, chatting eagerly among themselves about the feast and party to come—although whenever a first year got too close the party-talk was abandoned. Together they climbed up from the dungeons, taking the same route they took on a daily basis but buzzing with enthusiasm. When they entered the Great Hall, their expectations were exceeded.

The Great Hall glowed orange in the light of the hundreds—thousands—of jack-o'-lanterns' Harry had seen Flitwick charm earlier. Ghosts—more ghosts than Harry had even known existed—chatted amongst themselves and the students as they patrolled the walkways between tables overladen with the feast already beginning. Pumpkin soup sat in bowls on the Slytherins' plates as they took the same seats they had for the opening feast; the skeletons remaining from meat dishes lorded over them and snapped at those who tried to take the food out from under them; spaghetti twisted around itself like slithering snakes; tiny self-refilling cauldrons held juices of different colors and textures that, when poured, created apparitions out of the steam.

By the time the dinner dishes started to vanish from the tables, either by fading into ghostlike shells of themselves that dissolved at the slightest wind or by the food contained on the platters transforming into spiders or rats or cave pixies, and new dishes heaped with deserts of all shapes and sizes began to take their places when no one seemed to be looking, most of the students were already groaning with pleasure and pushing back from their seats. Tracey was unafraid of the chocolate crickets that wriggled over each other, chirping fearfully as they tried to escape, and bit into more than a few with crunches that made Harry's stomach turn.

"I can't eat another bite! I swear my stomach's about to burst," Blaise proclaimed, although he sounded far too light-hearted for anyone to believe him.

"Hopefully there's not more food at the Slytherin Party," worried Harry. Though the pain of his scar had finally dissipated, it had been replaced by a buzz of good food and strong butterbeer, stolen from further down the table by Crabbe or Goyle at Draco's request. His stomach really did feel about to burst, so much so that the very thought of another helping of pumpkin pudding had him tasting bile.

"Oh, I'm sure there will be," Draco cut in from across the table. Harry wondered how the blond had even heard him over the din of the Great Hall. "Our house elf brought with him a whole supply of sweets freshly delivered from France."

"Really, guys," Harry sighed, sinking even lower into his seat. "What on earth is a house—"

"TROLL!" someone screamed as the doors of the Great Hall slammed open. "IN THE DUNGEONS!" Professor Quirrel came running down central aisle. "Troll in the dungeon!" He came to an abrupt halt dead center, staring at the Head Table over the sudden paralysis of the hall. "Thought you ought to know."

As the professor's body hit the ground in a dead faint, the hall erupted again, as benches were scraped back, students crashed into each other, dishes were overturned. Harry was not as quick as the rest of his table mates to stand; the bench was pulled out from under him and he fell down between it and the table, his head colliding with one of the plates that had slipped and making his vision fade in and out, the noise of the hall vanish—no, that was Dumbledore speaking.

"Prefects, escort your students back to the dormitories. Teachers, with me."

While the other tables were quickly draining of students, the Slytherins stayed stock-still. Harry stood in time to see Rose, Adrian, and the three other Slytherin prefects clustering around Dumbledore. Their house, obviously could not so easily retreat to their dormitories—but where was Snape? The man was not there to quiet the rising voices of his students with a few choice words.

"Is your scar hurting again?" Daniel asked Harry as he gingerly rubbed his forehead.

He shook his head, peering around the Great Hall. "I hit it on the table, I think." Though maybe it was his scar. He could not tell, with all this excitement. "How does a troll get into the dungeons?" he asked Blaise incredulously.

"I bet it's those Weasle-by twins," said Draco. "Thought they'd have a little fun and prank us Slytherins."

Harry did not have time to reply that that did not answer his question before Adrian had hopped up onto the end of the Slytherin table, so he was standing amidst the first years. He was wearing boots, Harry noticed, black leather boots with pointed toes visible at the base of his robes as his heels squished frightened candy bugs—but Harry must have hit his head extremely hard for him to be paying attention to that.

"Sit," the blond head boy commanded simply from his perch above them, and they all sat, hesitantly. Adrian may not have had the same level of natural authority that Snape could so easily draw on, but there was not a person at the table who had not been at one point at least teased, if not sent to the hospital wing for weeks on end, by the young man who seemed to tower over them so easily. "For now, we will wait here, until the professors return from their search." Harry turned just in time to see the last of the Great Hall's many doors shut behind the trailing robes of one of the professors. "The line Snape set earlier regarding volunteering for my potions testing has been moved to these doorways. I am also looking for additional volunteers to participate in some hands-on research for a paper on the practicality of certain curses being taught in self-defense classes in many well-known training centers. Asking to use the loo will be considered volunteering for that. Capice?"

The Slytherins nodded, expecting at any moment for Adrian to crack, steal one of their wands, and jinx them all until their heads were indiscernible from their feet. Yet the wizard simply jumped off the table head, returning to his four prefects, and directed them each to one of the bigger doors in the hall.

"Merlin's beard!" Quirrel suddenly shouted as Rose was walking past him. "I'm late!"

"Professor Quirrel," the prefect greeted him. "Glad of you to join us again."

He stared at her a second, not seeming to understand why she was there. "C—c—c–certainly, M—miss Haw…th—thorne," he stammered out. "And—ah," he turned on heels to the head table. "I ou—ought to g—go… T—to find the tr—troll, you know…" The defense professor ran out of the Great Hall almost as quickly as he had run in, not giving anyone a chance to point out that the dungeons' door was on the opposite end of the hall.

"We're doomed," Blaise commented glumly. "With anyone like that looking for the troll we're sure to be here all night. There goes our party!"

When Professor Snape finally came back to the hall, it was nearly eleven thirty, and most of the Slytherins had taken to napping on the floors under blankets conjured by some of the older students. Harry was too tired to care at that point that the party had been cancelled, and wandered back to the dungeons with the others half in a dream and collapsing into his bed for a fitful sleep being woken frequently by the stinging of his scar.

Extremely Long Author's Note: if you'd rather not read my silly rants, feel free to skip ahead to the last little paragraph!

First off: apologies for the long wait! I have just returned from 3 weeks spent in Japan, and Uni orientation, and have been taking my host brother around town for the past week doing all sorts of crazy things. Although I wrote the first 5,500 or so words while in Japan, typing up these words has turned out to be rather troublesome, partially because I was halfway thinking in Japanese while there so grammar and spelling got a little wonky, and because this chapter was very, very slowly written over those 3 weeks and finished in this past one, meaning the style took a lot of work to shift so that the pieces kind of work together. Not only was I attempting to think in a language with relatively reversed grammar from English, the three books I had time to read while there were a) "Anasi Boys" by Neil Gaiman, b) "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern and c) "The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead" by Max Brooks. If you have read any pairing of those books, you know that they have both extremely different subject matter and extremely different writing style, and as someone whose writing is rather easily influenced by the style of good books they are reading there are noticeable shifts in style in this chapter. For that, I do apologize.

Also, because this chapter just grew and grew, it, logically, came to take more and more time to complete.

I'm just glad to have gotten finished with this chapter at last! To all the people who have taken the time to review in my absence, thank you so much for your comments! To the people who disliked "The Rose Arc", don't worry! That is the last planned narration outside of Harry' and Snape's POVs for a looooong time to come. Harry and I have recently had some bonding time—and yes, this does mean that his character should solidify quite a bit more in the next few chapters.

On what is turning into the more defensive part of this A/N (warning, ranting, redundant, and not exactly pertinent to anything in particular): We're getting into some much more important stuff regarding the overarching story plot, which no, has not been fully revealed at this point in the series, so please stop pestering me about how you don't understand how this detail or that relates to the overarching plot of the whole story. I will clarify now: this is a story with a plot extending at least through the time of the 7 books, and will have some MAJOR deviations to canon. The plot of Harry's first year largely revolves around the plot of the first canon book, but my writing brings in quite a bit more details of day to day life and the sort of things the current main canon deviation (Harry being in Slytherin) would change. The plot of the whole story has a lot to do with how the simplest things could have completely changed Harry's fate, and I will be killing and saving characters that at crucial points were in canon saved and killed, and the like. Consider this my official disclaimer, which seems rather redundant to be including in something published as a fanfiction, that I am not a perfect writer, that things I include in each chapter will not always be entirely understandable until the next chapter or maybe even years' worth of chapters has been posted, and that canon will change.

Some other important things to clarify, which I have tried to explain as best as I can by this point but from a few reviews on this story/others…

Daniel Harper is a girl. Yes, her name is Daniel, a usually male name. That is briefly covered in this chapter, in case it bothered anyone that it had not been explained.

Blaise Zabini is a boy. Blaise Zabini is a boy. Blaise Zabini is a boy.

Rose Hawthorne and Adrian LaConner are Slytherin upperclassmen (5th and 7th years, respectfully) and OCs designed to fit into the roles of older Slytherin students, as there are few canonically and Harry would definitely have to occasionally interact with his upperclassmen if he were in Slytherin, and have their own side-stories that weave them into the overarching plot. Now that I've lain groundwork for their characters they will not necessarily be mentioned every chapter, but they are still important characters to keep in mind for the future.

Because no one is really sure how to handle many of Hogwarts' logistics, I have these clarifications to make: 1) Harry's class size is around 40 students, with older classes being relatively smaller and younger classes being much larger, a topic that will be discussed later on. 2) Harry's class schedule: in first year, there are 4 possible class periods in a day (plus the possibility of flying and astronomy) and each house has 2 classes a day, typically one in one of the morning periods and one in the afternoon, excepting double potions. Charms, Transfiguration, and Potions all have classes two days (Potions as an individual house's class followed by double potions Slytherin/Gryffindor and Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw) and DADA, Herbology, and Hist. of Magic once a week. Older students have more possible class periods, different distributions based on year, and, in some cases, different teachers from the younger students. Some staff see fit to use time turners. As it is rather impossible, I am not sticking to Jo's scheduling.

Unrelated question: anyone have some good exclamations beyond "Merlin!" and "Merlin's Beard" that I can work into the story? When they're all older, swearing will prove quite convenient, but until then…

That's all, folks! (finally?) If you read this all, I am amazed and proud of you. If you didn't read any of the A/N but this bit, please review anyways; I need the comments and critiques! I am not sure when the next chapter will be up, as I am moving into my dorm next week and starting class the week after, but your reviews always encourage me to get my butt in gear.