"Then you stole that special map from Neville and his friends. Neville and his friends had a falling out about that. Their trust in one another has been broken, and they'll probably never get what they had back.
Your actions have broken and irreparably damaged another person's friendship, but you don't care about that at all."
...
"My father helped to create that map, not the Longbottoms," he spat in his own defence. "So did my godfather. It was mine by right, not Longbottom's and Weasley's, mine!" He countered with disgust and anger at the thought of Ron's dirty hands holding such a treasured item, one of the few links left to his father.
She nodded her head in understanding, her blonde ponytail dancing as she turned back to face him. "Yes, I understand that, Harry," she admitted with a soft, sad smile. "You don't have much of your family left, so you grasp at the things that remain, seizing them, just like you said Tom Riddle did. But you don't feel guilty about the fact that those five boys now believe that one of them stole it. Not a bit. I look at you, and I see a miniature Tom Riddle in the making." He was shocked to the core at such a remark, at being compared to a mass murderer, one whose followers killed his parents.
"I looked him up, you know," Penny continued. "He was charming, smart, and hardworking, all the things that you appear to be, but look at what he became... I can't help but wonder if you will be the same?"
Ignoring the remark about Tom Riddle, his anger swelled. "So you're upset with me because I'm a cold-hearted bastard?" Harry asked her, his anger seeping into his voice. "I am what I am, because I didn't have the luxury of a real childhood. Yes, I'm a jerk and a manipulative asshole, a schemer and a plotter, but it was what I needed to be to survive!" he freely admitted with a snarl.
"Unlike you, Penny, I didn't have a loving mother to hold me. I didn't have someone to mend my cuts. I didn't have someone to whisper words in my ears to drive away my childish fears.
I grew harder, I grew smarter, I grew colder, more calculating, because I had to. I stole food, so I wouldn't starve, to numb the pains in my empty stomach. I learnt to manipulate bullies to beat up others, so they wouldn't hurt me anymore," he admitted with indifference as his anger turned to rage, churning and boiling, slamming against the emotional barriers he'd built from childhood and later fortified with magic.
But it all proved inadequate to hold back these turbulent tides, laughable even, his emotions shifting, becoming unstable, becoming chaotic.
"I'm a product of my environment," he added as he turned to walk away from his friend. "Since I've come to Hogwarts, Penny, I've been nothing but honest about what I am, though you are only just starting to see it, it seems."
"There you are, playing the guilt card again, Harry," Penny expressed with another sad shake of her head. "Deflecting all the blame onto your relatives. I knew you would use that as a defence, and yes, I know your childhood wasn't cosy, it was rough. Hell, I doubt words could truly describe it. But you're no longer with your relatives, you're no longer under their thumb, you're no longer being bullied or beaten, yet you still operate the same way," she argued.
"And yes, you're right, and I'm only just starting to see you for what you truly are, and I don't like it. You're not the lost boy I first saw as just needing a friend. Not the lost boy needing a shoulder."
Sighing, he quickly moved to leave the room when he felt the first tears stir in his eyes, before he abruptly stopped and turned back to face her one final time. "I am what I am," Harry voiced defiantly, despite his eyes betraying the emotional pain he was feeling at his friend's harsh words.
"If I was such a cold, manipulative, heartless bastard as you so believe, why haven't I then claimed Hermione's life debt already? Why have I chosen to ignore her all this time when such an intelligent young girl like her could be such a useful future asset to me? Someone I could easily use?" he asked the older Ravenclaw as she frowned in response.
"But thank you for reminding me of that oversight I've obviously made," he voiced coldly, despite the unshed tears in his eyes. "But consider this, last year I killed for you; I killed that troll and held you in my arms as you slowly died. I had your blood on my hands," he voiced, looking back at her coldly, angrily.
"I didn't have to fight that troll; I didn't have to risk my life for yours. I could have easily run away like cold, ruthless logic would have demanded, but I didn't; I stayed. Without a moment's hesitation, I leaped into the fight. I put my life on the line for yours, and I would do it again, because you are my friend, no matter what you believe about me. Afterwards, when you were in the hospital wing, I checked on you daily. I was there dutifully waiting for you to wake up."
"So call me what you want, Penny," Harry expressed sourly, coldly. "But I do think of you as a friend. I don't think of you as purely an asset for my gain."
"What are you going to do, Harry?" Penny questioned nervously.
"You're a smart girl, Penny. You've already made it clear that you think you know me so well," he voiced, his lips curling. "So why don't you work it out?" he answered, before leaving the room and slamming the door shut behind him as he went. Every part of him screamed at him to go to the Gryffindor common room that instant and claim the Gryffindor for himself, to screw Penny over, to get back at her for hurting him so badly.
In the end, he buried that destructive impulse, instead choosing to head to his own dorm room. Tears freely flowed down his red cheeks. His emotions were out of control, raging like a confused and wounded beast as he fought to control them, to bring order back to chaos, to restore his emotional balance.
"I've grown soft, too soft," he muttered as he walked towards his room, the tears streaming down his puffy face as his door opened automatically for him. "Never again," he promised as he locked the door with a silent flick of his wand, the high-security charms activating while he slipped into a lotus position on his bed, before he heard someone try to open his door.
Ignoring the harsh knocking and attempts to open his bedroom door, he quickly slipped into his rampaging mind, into his magical core, trying to tame the emotional beast within him.
'Never again,' he promised himself as he slipped deeper and deeper into his magical core, vowing that he would become stronger.
Reaching his core, a sense of inner peace came over him, calming his emotions. He slowly opened his eyes, only to be met by another pair of sharp yellow feline eyes, inches from his own. The spiritual tiger stared right back at him, as if judging him, weighing him, its breath hot on his face as the winter snow continued to gently fall around them. The tiger spirit slowly circled around him, silently weaving between the snow- and ice-covered pine trees, never taking its eyes off him.
The tiger was young, perhaps a young adult like himself, but it had jagged scars running along its beautiful orange and gold fur, the signs of battles won, of hardships overcome. This tiger was a survivor, a creature that had endured hardship and countless trials, forged and hardened in the fires of adversity, changed but not broken; it was him.
With this realisation, he felt a permanent, lifelong, and immutable connection form between them. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. Then it leapt at him. In mid-leap, it turned into a creature of white energy, maintaining the form of a tiger, but with hints of orange and gold. It crashed into his body, merging with him, infusing him as the spiritual magic coursed through his veins, touching him everywhere at once, every cell of his being, as he felt his magic shift and alter.
Then he felt it, the changing, accompanied by a sudden, unexpected rush of pain along his glowing limbs, amongst his cells, as every fibre in his body felt like it was on fire from the inside. The fire of change grew steadily stronger until he was harshly brought back to the waking world, to the reality of his dorm room.
Looking down at his glowing limbs, they shifted and changed before his eyes. He watched in awe and wonder as he realised what was happening to him. Even as he felt the touch of an animal mind pressing against his own, merging with his own, his world started to shift and change around him as he fell forward onto his huge, glowing paws and sharp claws.
Then it happened. His senses were suddenly bombarded with new sensations and information, of new smells and new sights, of new colours his human eyes had never seen but could now perceive with his new eyes. He even gave a growl instead of a gasp.
Harry James Potter, Lord of the Most Ancient and Noble Houses of Potter and Peverell, acknowledged heir to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, was now an animagus. Just like his godfather was, just like his father before him. A wave of calm washed over him, and in its wake, his doubts and fears just disappeared.
...
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