The second morning dawned with the same pale light, but the atmosphere in the dormitory had shifted. The shock of the previous night had faded, replaced by a buzzing, awkward curiosity. Harry, following his ingrained ritual, had once again turned his back to the room to change from his pajamas into his school robes. The movements were swift, practiced, a desperate ballet of concealment.
He had just pulled his trousers up, his back still to the room, when he felt a tentative tap on his shoulder.
He froze, his fingers fumbling with the button. Slowly, he turned.
Ron Weasley stood there, his face a spectacular shade of crimson that clashed violently with his hair. He shuffled his feet, not quite meeting Harry's eyes.
"Uh, mate?" Ron began, his voice unnaturally high. "Look, I... we were talking last night. After you... y'know."
Harry said nothing. He just stared, his body tense, waiting for the ridicule, the revulsion.
Ron took a deep, fortifying breath. "It's just... we're all guys here. It's a bit odd, to be sure, but I don't get why you'd want to hide that." He gestured vaguely, his own cheeks burning. "That thing is like a horse. If I had a... a *wand* like that," he whispered the last word, blushing even harder, "I wouldn't hide it. I'd... I don't know. Parade it about a bit."
The statement hung in the air, so utterly absurd and unexpected that Harry couldn't formulate a response. He had braced for an attack, for disgust. He had not prepared for... envy? Baffled admiration?
Seamus, from his bed, let out a low whistle. "He's not wrong, Potter. It's a weapon, that is."
Dean nodded, a grin spreading across his face. "Yeah! You could win a duel without even drawing your proper wand. Just drop your trousers and the opponent would faint from sheer shock."
Neville, looking deeply traumatized by the entire conversation, made a small squeaking noise and pretended to be very busy tying his shoelaces.
Harry looked from Ron's earnest, embarrassed face to the others' looks of awed, juvenile fascination. They weren't mocking him. Not in the way he was used to. They were looking at him as if he'd revealed he could breathe fire. It was still objectification, but it was a different, less hostile flavor. It was the way they might look at a particularly impressive Quidditch player or someone who owned a Nimbus 2000.
It didn't make the feeling of being a freak go away. But it... reframed it. In the brutal, simplistic hierarchy of eleven-year-old boys, being unnaturally, legendarily well-endowed was, apparently, a point of prestige, not shame.
"It's not a gift, Ron," Harry said finally, his voice flat. "It's a curse. It's why everyone stares. It's why girls giggle and point. It's why I can't have a normal life."
Ron's brow furrowed, the concept too complex for his current worldview. "But... it's brilliant," he insisted, simple as that. "Who cares what a bunch of girls think? They're all mad anyway."
The conversation was cut short by the bell for breakfast. The moment broken, the boys finished dressing and clattered down the stairs. Harry followed, his mind reeling. Ron's perspective was so alien, so fundamentally opposed to his own lived experience, that it was almost incomprehensible. To Ron, it was a prize. To Harry, it was the brand that marked him as other.
The Great Hall was its usual noisy self. The whispers and stares were still there, a constant, humming background radiation to his existence. But today, something new was added. As he walked to the Gryffindor table, a few of the older boys—seventh-years with the beginnings of beards and the confident swagger of athletes—gave him nods of what looked like... respect? One of them, clapped him on the shoulder as he passed.
"Heard the stories, Potter," he said with a grin. "Carrying on the family tradition, eh? Good on you."
Harry just stared, bewildered. What tradition? What was happening?
He slid onto the bench next to Ron, who was already loading his plate with kippers. Hermione was across from them, her nose buried in *Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1*. She peeked over the top of it, her eyes carefully scanning Harry's face, not his body.
"You look... confused," she observed.
"The boys... they think it's... good," Harry muttered, so low only she and Ron could hear.
Hermione's eyebrows shot up. She glanced at Ron, who was now enthusiastically describing the virtues of different types of sausage, and then back at Harry. "Well, from a purely biological and social-dominance perspective, in a homosocial male environment, displays of exaggerated virility are often misinterpreted as markers of status," she said, as if reading from a textbook.
Harry and Ron just stared at her.
"She means blokes think having a big one makes you the boss," Ron translated through a mouthful of food.
"It's a reductive and frankly problematic interpretation," Hermione sniffed, "but essentially, yes."
"See?" Ron said, turning back to Harry. "Brilliant."
Harry pushed his eggs around his plate. It wasn't brilliant. It was just another cage, another set of expectations. He was no longer just the Boy-Who-Lived; he was the Boy-with-the-Impossible-Cock. Neither was a identity he had chosen.
The morning's classes—History of Magic and Astronomy—were a merciful reprieve. Professor Binns' droning lecture on the Goblin Wars of 1612 was so stupefyingly boring that even the most curious girls couldn't stay awake, let alone stare. Astronomy was a daytime class, mostly involving star charts, which required everyone to keep their eyes on their parchment.
The real trial was announced after lunch. A flock of school brooms, old and twiggy, was laid out on the Quidditch pitch. Flying Lessons. With the Slytherins.
A fresh wave of anxiety washed over Harry. Flying was one thing. But flying involved mounting a broom, a activity that would put his... situation... on prominent, unforgiving display. The tight fit of his trousers, the act of straddling the broom... it was a nightmare scenario.
"Oh, brilliant," Ron said, his eyes lighting up. "Real flying!"
Harry just felt sick.
They trooped down to the pitch with the rest of the Gryffindor first-years. The Slytherins were already there, standing in a neat, smug line. Draco Malfoy was holding court, boasting about some daredevil feat he'd apparently performed on a broom as a child. His eyes, cold and grey, found Harry immediately, and a nasty smirk played on his lips.
Their instructor, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, grey hair and yellow eyes that reminded Harry of a hawk.
"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."
Harry found himself standing beside a broom that looked even more battered than the others. Its twigs were splayed at odd angles. He glanced to his right. Hermione was there, looking intensely at her broom as if she could intimidate it into behaving with sheer willpower. To his left was Ron, who was already whispering to his broom, "Up! Come on, up!"
"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch, "and say 'Up!'"
"UP!" everyone shouted.
Harry's broom jumped instantly into his hand. He was surprised by the warm, tingling sensation that shot up his arm. It felt... right. Natural. He saw Hermione's broom simply roll over on the ground, and Ron's had leapt up but smacked him hard in the face.
"Now, once you've got a firm grip, mount your brooms," Madam Hooch instructed. "On my whistle, you push off hard from the ground, hover for a moment, then lean forward slightly and touch back down."
This was it. The moment of truth. Harry took a deep breath, swung his leg over the broom, and mounted it. The position was as exposing as he'd feared. He felt the familiar, cumbersome weight between his legs, now pressed awkwardly against the rough handle of the broom. He adjusted his stance, trying to find a comfortable position, which was impossible.
He chanced a look around. As predicted, the female students from both houses were staring. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were whispering behind their hands, their eyes glued to his lap. Pansy Parkinson was sneering, but her gaze was fixed on the same spot. And then there was Daphne Greengrass. She wasn't giggling or sneering. She was watching him mount the broom with the analytical focus of a strategist observing a knight take its position on a chessboard. Her expression was one of cool approval.
But the most unsettling look came from a different direction. Millicent Bulstrode, a hulking Slytherin girl with a face like a bulldog, was staring at him with an expression of raw, undisguised hunger. It wasn't curiosity or giggling embarrassment. It was a primal, possessive want that made his skin crawl. She looked like she wanted to devour him.
"Ready?" Madam Hooch called, raising her whistle to her lips. "On my count! Three... two..."
But before she could reach "one," Neville Longbottom, nervous and over-eager, pushed off hard. He shot into the air like a cork from a bottle, his face a mask of terror.
"Come back, boy!" Madam Hooch shouted, but Neville was spiraling out of control, clinging to the broom for dear life. He slid sideways, slipped, and with a terrible cry, fell. There was a sickening crack as he hit the ground and lay in a heap, his wrist bent at a grotesque angle.
Madam Hooch rushed to his side, her face pale. "Broken wrist," she tutted. "Come on, boy, it's all right, up you get." She helped a sobbing Neville to his feet. "I'm taking him to the hospital wing. Everyone is to keep their feet firmly on the ground while I'm away. If I see a single broom in the air, the one riding it will be out of Hogwarts before they can say 'Quidditch'. Understood?"
There was a murmur of assent. The moment she was out of sight, however, Draco Malfoy burst out laughing.
"Did you see his face, the great lump?" he jeered. Then his eyes fell on the ground where Neville had fallen. A small, glassy sphere was glinting in the grass. It was the Remembrall Neville's gran had sent him.
Malfoy snatched it up. "Look! It's the fat little crybaby's Rememberball!"
"Give that here, Malfoy," Harry said quietly. The anger that had been simmering in him all day, all his life, found a focal point.
Malfoy's smirk widened. "I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find. How about... up a tree?" He mounted his broom and kicked off effortlessly, hovering about twenty feet above them. "Come and get it, Potter!"
Without a second thought, without a moment of fear, Harry swung his leg over his own broom.
"No!" Hermione gasped. "Harry, you'll get expelled!"
But her warning was lost in the roar of blood in his ears. He kicked off from the ground, and the world fell away. The fear, the shame, the constant, grinding pressure of being watched—it all vanished, replaced by a wild, soaring freedom. The wind whipped his hair back, and the broom responded to his slightest thought as if it were an extension of his own body. He soared up, level with Malfoy, the castle and the grounds spread out beneath him like a magnificent map.
The students on the ground were dead silent, staring up, their previous giggles forgotten in the face of this raw, natural talent.
Malfoy looked shocked, then furious. "Give it here," Harry called, his voice steady, "or I'll knock you off your broom."
"Oh, yeah?" Malfoy sneered, but he looked less sure of himself.
Harry leaned forward, and his broom shot towards Malfoy like a bullet. Malfoy, panicked, threw the Remembrall into the air and dove for the ground.
Harry didn't hesitate. He tilted his broom into a steep dive, the wind screaming in his ears. He saw the tiny, glinting ball falling, falling... he stretched out his hand, and with inches to spare, he caught it, pulling out of the dive in a smooth, breathtaking arc just feet from the ground. He landed lightly on the grass, his heart pounding, but not from fear. From exhilaration.
For one, glorious moment, he had just been a boy on a broom. A talented, fearless boy. Not a freak. Not a legend. Just Harry.
The moment was shattered by a shrill voice.
"HARRY POTTER!"
Professor McGonagall was striding across the pitch, her face white with a mixture of shock and fury. He was done for. Expelled on his second day.
But her expression, as she stopped in front of him, was not purely angry. There was a blazing, incredulous light in her eyes. "I... I have never..." she began, her voice trembling. She took a deep breath. "That was... the most magnificent piece of flying I have ever seen from a first-year. Foolish! Reckless! You could have broken your neck!" She paused, her eyes drilling into him. "Come with me, Potter."
She marched him towards the castle, leaving a stunned silence in her wake. As they entered the entrance hall, she didn't take him to her office or to the headmaster's tower. Instead, she led him to a classroom where a boy with straw-colored hair and a blue and bronze sweater was reading a book.
"Wood!" Professor McGonagall called. "I've found you a Seeker."
The conversation that followed was a whirlwind. Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, looked from McGonagall to Harry with dawning, ecstatic comprehension. The rules about first-years not having brooms were explained, then summarily dismissed. The gift of a Nimbus Two Thousand was promised.
Harry was being made the Seeker. For Gryffindor.
When Professor McGonagall finally dismissed him, telling him to go to dinner, he walked out in a daze. He had a talent. A real, tangible talent that had nothing to do with scars or curses. It was his. He had earned it.
He returned to the Gryffindor common room, where the story had already spread like fiendfyre. He was mobbed the moment he came through the portrait hole. Everyone was clapping him on the back, cheering. For the first time, the looks he was getting were filled with pure, unadulterated admiration. He was a hero. The boy who had faced down Malfoy and won. The new Gryffindor Seeker.
Ron was beaming, his chest puffed out with pride. "You were brilliant! You should've seen Malfoy's face! He looked like he'd swallowed a bogey!"
Even Hermione approached him, a small smile on her face. "You were very... aerodynamic," she said, the most sincere compliment she could muster.
For a few hours, Harry basked in it. He was just Harry Potter, the Seeker. It was intoxicating.
But as the excitement died down and he headed for bed, the real world began to reassert itself. As he climbed the stairs to the dormitory, he passed Lavender Brown and Parvati.
"...and did you see how he looked on that broom?" Lavender was sighing to Parvati. "So powerful. I heard the Potters are just... gifted riders."
They giggled, and their eyes, full of new, intense interest, followed him up the stairs.
The euphoria evaporated, replaced by a cold clarity. His flying talent hadn't saved him. It had just made him a more appealing prize. He was now the Boy-Who-Lived, the Heir-to-the-Blessing, and the Natural-Seeker. Each title was another layer of attraction, another reason for them to stare, to want, to hunt.
He had found a moment of freedom in the sky, but he was still firmly tethered to the earth, and to the legacy that defined him. The hunt was still on, and his spectacular flight had only made the hounds more eager.
The next few days bled into one another, a monotonous tapestry woven with threads of whispered speculation, giggling glances, and the occasional, hollow victory. Hogwarts, for Harry, was not a castle of wonders but a labyrinth of eyes. He moved through its corridors like a ghost, trying to be insubstantial, but his legacy was a beacon that drew every female gaze.
It happened in Potions, when a Hufflepuff girl named Sally-Anne Perks spent the entire double-period staring at his lap with such intensity that she added powdered root of asphodel to her wormwood mixture instead of the other way around, creating a foul-smelling green goo that ate through her cauldron. Snape, his lip curling, had deducted twenty points from Hufflepuff with a sneering remark about "incompetence borne of idle-mindedness."
It happened in Charms, where two Ravenclaw third-years, who had no business even being on that corridor, "accidentally" dropped their books right in front of him. As they bent over to pick them up, their synchronised move was so blatantly calculated to give them an angled view that even Flitwick, usually oblivious, blinked and muttered about "unseemly loitering" and took ten points from Ravenclaw.
It happened in the library, where Madam Pince, a human hawk with a distrust for all living things, had caught a group of Gryffindor girls—ones Harry didn't even know the names of—clustered around a table not with books, but with a hand-drawn diagram that looked suspiciously like a crude anatomical chart. She had confiscated the parchment and banned them from the library for a week, her silent fury more terrifying than any point deduction.
Harry didn't much care for the points. The house cup was an abstract concept, far removed from the grim reality of his daily existence. But any time the spectacle he provided resulted in a Slytherin losing points, a grim, satisfied smile would touch his lips. It was a small, petty revenge, but it was his.
So far, nobody in Slytherin had been anything but unpleasant. Draco Malfoy and his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, were a constant source of sneering comments about his clothes, his fame, and his friends. Their brand of cruelty was simple, brutish, and predictable.
But he did notice a change in one of them. Pansy Parkinson.
At first, she had been Malfoy's echo, her high cheekboned face that seemed fixed in a permanent sneer, her comments about " Gryffindor scum" and "mudbloods" dripping with venom. Her initial looks towards Harry had been of pure disdain, as if his very presence was an offense to her pure-blood sensibilities.
That was changing.
It had all started after the flying lesson. In Herbology, a shared lesson. They were harvesting Bubotuber pus, which smelled like petrol and required dragon-hide gloves. Harry was working carefully with Ron, trying to avoid the acrid sap. He felt a stare more intense than the usual giggling curiosity and looked up.
Pansy was watching him from across the greenhouse. But the sneer was gone. Instead, her head was tilted, her dark eyes calculating. She wasn't looking at his face. Her gaze was a slow, deliberate journey down his body, pausing at his hands as he worked the plant, then lower, to where his posture as he knelt was most revealing. Then, her eyes met his. And she slowly, deliberately, ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. It wasn't a nervous gesture. It was a message. A promise. Her look all but yelled, 'I may want to talk to you later.'
Harry quickly looked away, a cold feeling slithering down his spine. It was different from Daphne Greengrass's cool assessment. Daphne was a chess player, looking at him as a key piece on the board. Pansy's look was raw, acquisitive, and intensely physical. She wasn't thinking about legacy or bloodlines. She was thinking about possession.
The encounter left him unsettled. For the rest of the day, he caught glimpses of her. In the Great Hall, she was whispering fervently to a group of other Slytherin girls, all of whom then glanced his way with new, appraising eyes. In the corridor between Transfiguration and lunch, she managed to fall into step beside him for a moment.
"The famous Potter," she said, her voice a low purr, quite different from her usual shrill tone. "I hear you're quite the flier. And... other things."
She didn't wait for a response, melting back into the crowd of Slytherins with a smirk.
That evening, as Harry sat in the common room attempting to tackle his History of Magic essay on the "Uses of Dragon's Blood in the Fourteenth Century," he found his mind wandering back to that look. As long as that "talk" she wanted wasn't about how his... *wand*... was the biggest thing next to a broomstick, he supposed he wouldn't mind having it. The thought was startling. Pansy Parkinson was unpleasant, rude, and a Slytherin. But her interest, for the first time, felt directed at him with a strange sort of acknowledgement, not just the myth. It was a dangerous, slippery thought, and he shook it away.
Ron, who was wrestling with the same essay, groaned and threw his quill down. "This is hopeless. Who cares what some moldy old wizard did with dragon blood seven hundred years ago?"
Hermione, whose essay was already three feet of neatly scripted parchment, looked up with disapproval. "It's fundamental to understanding the development of modern potioneering, Ronald. And it's not hopeless if you apply yourself."
"Easy for you to say," Ron muttered. He then noticed Harry's distracted expression. "You alright, Harry? You've been quiet."
"Just thinking," Harry said evasively.
"Is it about the Slytherins?" Ron asked, his ears turning red at the thought. "That Parkinson girl was giving you a right weird look today."
Hermione sniffed. "Pansy Parkinson has the emotional depth of a teaspoon and the tact of a rampaging Erumpent. I wouldn't waste a single thought on her."
But Harry was. Because in the twisted economy of his new life, even the hostile attention of a Slytherin like Pansy was a variable he had to consider. It was another form of the hunt, yes, but it was a straightforward one. She wanted something from him, something simple and carnal. In a strange way, it was less complicated than Hermione's intellectual guilt or Daphne's political maneuvering. It was a transaction, plain and simple.
The following day, during a rare free period, the confrontation he half-dreaded, half-anticipated occurred. He had found a secluded corner of the library, behind a stack of books on medieval transfiguration accidents, hoping for a moment's peace. He was reading *Quidditch Through the Ages, losing himself in the history of the game, when the sound of footsteps made him look up.
Pansy Parkinson was there. Alone. She leaned against the bookshelf, her arms crossed.
"Hiding, Potter?" she asked, her voice a low murmur that wouldn't carry.
"Reading," he corrected, closing the book slowly.
"A likely story." She took a step closer. The library was silent around them, the dust motes dancing in the slants of light from the high windows. "I've been watching you."
"I noticed," Harry said, his voice flat. He refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing him uncomfortable.
"You're not what I expected," she said, her eyes scanning his face, then deliberately trailing downward again. "All the stories... the great Harry Potter, vanquisher of Dark Lords, heir to a... prolific line. I thought you'd be more... arrogant. You always look like you're trying to disappear."
"Maybe I am," he replied, holding her gaze.
She smirked. "A waste. If you had what I think you have, you shouldn't be hiding. You should be using it." She took another step, now only a few feet away. The scent of her perfume, something floral and cloying, reached him. "There are people who would appreciate a wizard of your... stature. People who understand power, in all its forms."
"Is that what you call it?" Harry asked, a bitter edge to his voice. "Power?"
"It is power," she said simply. "The oldest kind. The kind that makes people do stupid, wonderful things. Malfoy talks about his father's gold and influence. That's borrowed power. What you have... that's yours. Inherent." Her eyes glinted. "We could be... beneficial to each other, Potter. A boy like you needs allies in Slytherin. And a girl like me... appreciates unique assets."
There it was. The proposition. It was as crude and transactional as he had imagined. She was offering herself as a shield, a connection to the snake pit, in exchange for access to the very thing he despised.
He looked at her—at her calculating eyes, her smug certainty. She saw him as an asset, a trophy, a key to a different kind of status. She was no better than the giggling girls, just more direct about her intentions.
"No, thanks," he said, picking up his book again. "I'm not interested in being anyone's asset."
Her smirk didn't falter, but it tightened at the edges. "That's a shame. Opportunities like this don't come often. Think about it, Potter. The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. There's a whole grey area in between. And it's a lot more... comfortable... with the right friends." She pushed off the bookshelf. "The offer stands. For now."
She turned and walked away, her heels clicking softly on the stone floor until the sound faded.
Harry let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He felt soiled. The encounter had been brief, but it had left a film of grime on his soul. She was right about one thing: it was power. But it was a power that corrupted everyone who came near it, including him. For a fleeting second, he had felt a twisted thrill at her offer, at the idea of wielding this curse as a weapon. It was a dark, seductive thought, and it scared him more than any Basilisk or Dark Lord ever could.
He looked down at *Quidditch Through the Ages, but the words were just blurry shapes. The hunt continued, but the predators were changing their tactics. And he was starting to worry that if he wasn't careful, the cage he was so desperate to escape would become a throne he'd be forced to occupy, whether he wanted to or not.