Harry didn't want to admit it, but he was kind of afraid.
Obviously the writing in blood on the wall, the poor petrified Mrs. Norris, the mysterious entity that only he could hear that set every one of his nerves on edge constantly… that was all very well concerning. Everyone was concerned.
No, it wasn't just that… and he really didn't want to admit it, but he was lowkey freaked out by Blaise.
Like the guy's reaction to the whole event truly put him on edge, and for the first time he was blissfully happy that he was in Gryffindor and didn't have to deal with that psychopath right now.
"I told you." Daphne was gracious enough to leave it at that, a very serious look in her eye cowing him properly.
"I mean you did, but he's also funny." He defended himself like that made it any better.
"Did I miss something?" Seamus asked more of Dean, who was tying his shoes beside him and looked up like he'd only half heard what they were talking about.
Despite all the uncertainty of whatever had happened Halloween night, they had a great turn out for today's football game. They finally had enough players who were practiced enough to form two full teams that would put on an actual event and not just have the twins not-so-subtly bully those who were still trying to pick up the basics of the game only to have one of their ankles nearly broken by a frustrated Susan. The quidditch season officially picked up next weekend (Gryffindor versus Slytherin, let's just say Harry was about to literally combust from excitement and leave it at that) but for this weekend word had gotten out about this unofficial game actually being something important, given Harry suspected the two team captains—Lu and Susan—had some kind of wager going. He didn't know what was on the line but the two of them were positively bloodthirsty for a win right now. Honestly it was a shame Oliver couldn't come today as he would probably like the enthusiasm the most, even if he was very much quidditch-obsessed and had thus far not even considered learning the rules of football.
At this point enough people were in the club to have friends who weren't, and those bystanders still wanted to see their friends play, which snowballed into a not-so small crowd gathering on the side of the field now too. It was by no means the draw that quidditch had for sure, but it really felt like something what happened here as they actually had an audience, their transfigured uniforms for their "pick-up" teams, a scheduled time the game would start, and even a referee!
Ginny had picked up the rules lighting fast but was still more of a quidditch player—she wasn't confident enough to play herself in a game this level but, with some encouragement from Harry and Luna, had volunteered to be ref. Luna was an assistant ref of sorts too… though no one was sure how much she was actually paying attention to the game, hence the "assistant" title. The only thing they were missing that would make it a truly official-feeling event was a commentator, since anyone who wanted to play was welcome and Lee, the de facto commentator for most events, was actually on the field next to George and rearing to go with the rest of them. Harry figured he probably would be on the quidditch team if he could be, not just commentating it, if only there were more spots or even sports options at Hogwarts than one game that only allowed seven players per house.
Harry even spotted some teachers in attendance as well, which was definitely a first as, no matter what they preached, there were no muggleborn teachers at Hogwarts who would care about a muggle sports club (not even the Muggle Studies professor which Harry wasn't even going to get start on less it ruin his mood). The scale that the club had become was definitely levelling up with this game and he really hoped it would continue. Not that he had anything to do with it at this point—Lu and Dean had been the real leaders pretty much since this school year had started and he gave them all the credit; he'd literally just shown up today ready to play where Susan told him to.
The absolute best part in his opinion though, was that Neville had been picked for goalie, even if he was on Lu's team and Harry was potentially going to go up against him, the fact he'd been one of the top picks had clearly boosted his self-confidence a bit… even if he looked like he was about to throw up from the nerves and pressure of what was about to happen.
Harry's stomach hadn't exactly been that great before his first quidditch game to be fair, so he didn't have a ton of words of wisdom that would make it better unfortunately. Knowing he'd probably only make it worse, he'd given all the encouragement he could at breakfast this morning, but was letting Neville lie down behind the net to stare at the sky as he attempted to not die from his nerves in peace.
They still had a good hour before the game started and they were just warming up; the audience was still gathering and they didn't even have all their players yet so they weren't rushed, just casually stretching and such. It wasn't often you had all four houses in a conversation like this either, and Harry was finding all of them were quick to jump to the gossip mill funnily enough.
Not that the current gossip wasn't more than worth talking about, given its dark nature.
Harry sighed at Seamus question, really having no idea how to begin answering it. How did one explain Blaise?
"There are Slytherins, then there are psychopaths like Blaise." He began in a weary tone, earning an amused look from Dean and a very perturbed one from the Irishman beside him. It didn't help that Daphne was nodding way too gravely beside him in agreement, like a somber hype man. "I don't want to say he's… excited? That's not the right word… I guess I should say he's far more intrigued by the whole chamber ordeal than anyone else." He explained a delicately as he could.
Daphne scoffed very loudly.
"Intrigued? He talks about it the way Lu talks about technicalities. The guy is deranged."
"Oi," Lu huffed from where he was stretching on the ground, not strictly pleased about the comparison.
"I mean, the 'Chamber of Secrets' is a Slytherin thing, yeah? I thought they were generally more happy about it than anyone else. That's certainly what I've heard Parkinson say." Susan looked more to Daphne as she said it, and the ravenette shrugged.
"I can't speak for everyone of course. There are some who don't think it's bad that the rest of the school fears us a little more than they did last week."
Harry hummed slightly off-key. "Well, I get the feeling most don't actually think much about it at all—it's more a hoax to them than an actual threat."
"Really?" Both Lu and Seamus seemed to be genuinely surprised by that news.
"It's a bit dramatic for Slytherin's tastes." Daphne conceded. "We do have our share of drama queens but they uh… they're also not the cream of the crop exactly in the clever department."
That earned some snickers, which Daphne didn't seem to mind even at the expense of her house.
"Like say Flint would be dumb and dramatic enough to try something like that, not to mention cruel enough to go after Mrs. Norris in a heartbeat even. But I highly doubt he'd actually be skilled enough to petrify someone. I heard some upper years saying that's above seventh year magic, easily; it's stuff you learn beyond schooling." Harry explained.
If he heard upper years say it in the Slytherin common room, going by how the enchantments worked in that space Harry knew it was information they wanted to be known. He was happy to play his part about it, because he figured it was pretty true… to a point.
Magic you learned "beyond schooling" to the rest of the houses would mean things only adults knew. To Slytherins though, that meant things of a darker nature you had to learn from your parents outside of Hogwarts; not necessarily that it was hard but that you had to have the connections to learn it elsewhere.
Daphne nodded in agreement with his words, and he knew she was in on it. By implying only an adult or some other entity could do this, it made Slytherin less of a suspect—less of a target to the rest of the school. It also brought it all in-house, where Slytherins could deal with each other now in peace, as they tried to figure out who was responsible.
Slytherin did mostly think one among them did it… kind of… but they weren't applauding them either if it did turn out to be a snake. The blood on the wall was tacky and flashy and it wasn't something they thought worth being proud of. A strong Gryffindor could kill a cat and write a threat on a wall to scare people; a Slytherin would kill a cat and send it to its owner in a box with a threatening note to get some blackmail or leverage or something… what good did panicking the whole school do but put Slytherin in the hot seat with everyone? Unless that of course is what they wanted, which would imply it wasn't a Slytherin at all. Or they were a Slytherin who needed the school to be terrified of them to work on some plan they had… although everyone was scratching their heads on what on earth would require that, much less whatever it was that couldn't be done in a much simpler way without the threat of being expelled if caught.
Daphne was right, some Slytherins loved that they were more feared and were gleefully playing into it. Flint was the biggest offender of the crime, for sure, and unfortunately the loudest. A much larger population of Slytherin house liked the power of being feared, but since it wasn't strictly useful in most cases they were more ambivalent. Some were finding it harder to enact plans and make deals with non-Slytherins since their reputation had taken a dip and were flat out annoyed by it even.
The real problem was the fact it was powerful. And they tended to call it an "it" if they weren't focused on pondering over a "who" because, having more experience with darker magics than most, the snake house was still not fully convinced the thing that'd done this was a person at all. It very well could be but before they went on an all-out witch hunt (no pun intended) within their own house they were keeping their options open. Keeping their minds open to all the possibilities of what the threat could be, so as to not miss anything if the evidence did happen to present itself.
Luckily, only Harry himself, Draco, Blaise, and Theo knew that Harry being a parselmouth was tied to his bloodline, making him the "heir" the threat spoke of. Everyone else had long since adopted the attitude that parseltongue was not as inherited an ability as everyone had always thought it to be.
The very next morning after the Halloween incident, Blaise had been the one to corner him outside the great hall before he could go in for breakfast, Draco and Theo hot on his heels as they knew what he was doing—Theo probably because he had to know for the sake of sleeping at night and Draco probably to stop Blaise from eating his best friend whole in his ravenous need to know the truth. They'd flat out asked if he'd had anything to do with it.
He'd gone with honesty, explaining he'd known something was wrong and Daphne had Snape working on it; how he'd known the same thing was wrong with Neville at the Death-day party and come to stop them from going down into the dungeons… and he'd confessed flat out that he had nothing to do with it. He had no idea what he'd turn the corner to see that night, same as the rest of them—he hadn't even known you could petrify people or what the Chamber of Secrets even was until Neville had told him that night before bed, when he hadn't quite understood why everyone was freaking out (besides the obvious attack, that is—Slytherins wouldn't care even if Mrs. Norris had been fully killed, but the news of this 'chamber' clearly rattled them in a way that'd told Harry it was more important than he realized).
Most people would be skeptical of course, even if they would have to accept his words at face value since torturing people for information outside the great hall was probably something only the most skilled could get away with.
Blaise though, seemed to immediately accept that he was telling the truth.
And he'd burst out laughing in a truly maniacal way that had Harry avoiding him ever since. Draco seemed to support this tactic even if it meant he was sitting at the Slytherin table less, his expression every time his roommate was brought up telling Harry that he really didn't want to know what insanity Blaise was up to right now.
He'd maybe gotten too comfortable hanging out with the grey heir that, despite him logically knowing it was a bad idea, he still hadn't cared and had been happy to hang out with the guy. Now that his instincts went off as if there were a troll behind him every time Blaise sat down across from him at lunch these days, it made it much harder to forget and he was realizing what everyone else in the snake house had been trying to tell him since day one. Apparently his self-preservation skills were not as refined as he thought they were.
Or maybe they were, and it was just Blaise, since he'd noted that Theo had dropped off the face of the planet and was not sitting near anyone at any meals now. In fact he only knew the boy was still eating at all because Draco had let slip he'd been occasionally bringing the quiet mouse food from where he was hiding in the depths of the library outside of classes this week.
Whatever the fuck Blaise was up to notwithstanding, it didn't really leave them with a whole lot of answers with-or-without the knowledge that Harry was in fact technically Slytherin's heir. The very worst suspicion of his is that someone somehow knew the results of his bloodline test and figured doing malicious attacks like this with the "heir" tossed in as a red herring in his direction, to throw anyone off the scent of who was really behind it. Thing was, no one else knew about his heritage issue so no one even knew to "suspect" him, making it a pretty useless red herring if that was the case.
Harry doubted this writing on the wall was actually related to him, even if his paranoia made that extremely difficult to accept. At the very least, Blaise was the one who made sure no one knew he was Slytherin's heir and batshit crazy as the dude was, he knew how to run the gossip mill so Harry was reluctantly willing to trust he'd kept that secret for now.
Which meant even knowing more than the rest of the school, they still had no idea who or what could've done it. Something powerful was pretty much the only generally accepted fact, despite how the rumors were churning up crazier and crazier suggestions as time went on.
"I'm still a fan of the theory that it's somehow Lockhart's fault." Lu hummed, sitting up properly from his stretch. "Not that I can think of what on earth he did, but to me it's more than plausible that he's accidentally done something horrific."
"Completely agree," Daphne deadpanned.
"Besides, the Defense position is cursed; no teacher lasts more than a year so it would make sense that this somehow ends up in his removal."
"Yo," Seamus and Dean perked up at that, giving themselves a shared grin before high fiving slyly.
"Is he that bad?" Susan hesitated, looking a bit disappointed which made Harry roll his eyes.
Lu popped up from the ground to give her a frazzled shout, "Not you too—don't look at his pretty face think of the horrible content of his teaching!"
"Nerd," she scoffed, eyes glinting playfully at his indignant cry.
"Not wanting to be attacked by grindylows does not make me a nerd!"
"I wonder if there's something we can do," Harry ignored that fight and looked mostly at Daphne. "Like, with no idea what it is the only thing that's probably likely is that it'll happen again. Is there anything we can do to protect people?"
"Actual defenses against the dark arts are family secrets." She shrugged, a bit wryly. "Even if someone did have a protection against whatever threat this is, there's no way they're spilling, much less sharing. Trust me if I had something to sell I would, but the lack of information makes it hard."
"I mean Slytherin can't be that asked about it, can they? The message seemed to be targeting muggleborns." Seamus pointed out.
But he hadn't even finished before Harry was shaking his head. "Just the same, it could also be a ploy to pin the blame on Slytherin house and cover their tracks. Besides, 'enemies of the heir'… frankly Slytherins are at each other's throats more than they are anyone else's these days, I don't necessarily think they're safe." He also left out the glaring weakness in that argument than there were muggleborn Slytherins. Everyone very pointedly did not speak about that though, particularly those individuals, and Harry wasn't about to out them when they were already working at a disadvantage within their house.
"Petrifying a cat and attacking students are whole different levels of crimes here too," Surprisingly, it was Susan who gave that rather cold judgement, but then again her aunt was the head of law enforcement so she probably had a gravely level head instilled on her for a while now. "Mrs. Norris was intelligent and had above-human senses that could've given whatever this thing is away, so it would make sense she'd have to go. Petrifying, not killing, particularly when we have mandrakes growing in our greenhouses literally year around… maybe the intent was not to harm but to scare. That would line up with it being too flashy an attack for Slytherin and Harry's suggestion that it'd just to throw us off who really did it. To go from torturing animals to actually attacking humans is a huge escalation that typically takes years, and hopefully they'll be caught long before then given they'll probably have other warning signs. You have to be an expert psychopath to act 100% normal but be killing animals and attacking people in your free time, after all."
Harry perked up at that… not necessarily good news exactly, but it was comforting to hear at least that the threat above them probably wasn't imminent or something. It made being able to enjoy activities like a weekend soccer game a bit easier.
He also enjoyed the way Daphne narrowed her eyes slightly, as if she'd forgotten temporarily with how buddy-buddy they'd been getting in the name of winning this football game, that Susan was probably the closest thing in Hogwarts right now to a cop. And her sharp deduction skills probably reminded the grey-oriented businesswoman to be on her toes.
If what Neville had told him was true and things like nepotism and confidentiality weren't really things in the wizarding world, anything Susan told her aunt could potentially be used in a court of law. Which was extremely fucked up but also apparently how this world worked, so best be careful about it.
"You still say that like this is human. If it's a dark object?" Lu countered pointedly.
"Well then hopefully it's Lockhart's fault and he gets fired at the end of the year—problem solved." Seamus snickered and earned several amused snorts as well.
"Oi! Are you guys going to keep fraternizing or are we going to strategize at any point?" George (Harry was only 70% sure) waltzed over and kicked the ball he, Fred, and Lee had been practicing with into their circle.
"Oh that's right—you're dead to me starting now." Susan sniffed with a mock glare shot Lu's way who calmly flipped her the bird before stalking back to his chosen side of the field and she did the same, like a switch flipped and the chatty air they'd had being replaced with something that would not have shocked anyone had there been actual lightning striking the pitch.
"I supposed that's my cue," Harry recognized dryly, glancing to Seamus and Dean who got up to follow Lu while he suspected he was supposed to follow Susan in a show of solidarity given she was the captain for this. "Do we know what that's about yet?"
"Not a clue."
"I wouldn't ask." Seamus sniffed and Harry thought that probably wise advice.
"Okay, well anyway I hope you lose." He waved cheerily and they waved just as cheerily back.
"Get stuffed!"
Harry laughed with his back to them as he jogged after Susan… only to need to do a double take as he ran down the field and realized he recognized a face in the crowd that he really wasn't expecting to see today.
With an evil grin he purposefully slowed his run and then was oh so casually walking like he'd just gotten tired, giving a half-hearted wave to the girl whose glare would've peeled paint off a wall when she realized what he was doing.
"Fancy seeing you here Davis, come to cheer me on? Or cheer for my death?"
Her eyes were probably the palest he'd ever seen blue be, her hair rivaling Draco's in how unnaturally white-blonde it was. She really looked like she could literally breath frost and the frigid glare really didn't help.
"I don't see why I can't do both—the only reason you're getting my support is that Daphne is on your team, you know that Monroe?"
"If I die then I'm assuming the match will be postponed. Standard quidditch rules you know, deaths mean the game is written off as a draw." He pointed out.
"Okay you can live; I'll be cheering for your serious maiming then."
"I'll take it!" He grinned a bit too flippantly. "All I heard from that is that you'll be cheering for me!"
"Fuck off," She rolled her eyes and he enjoyed making a show of obeying her by spinning on his heel and heading to his original destination at a much more leisurely pace.
When he made it to the huddle where Susan was already laying down the gameplan for those who'd already gathered, Daphne shot him a look.
"I saw that."
"Saw what?"
She rolled her eyes and returned to listening to what Susan was saying; Harry just grinned a bit to himself and figured, for as complicated as things were getting, he also thought maybe it was also an improvement.
000
Blaise was on his way to the owlery.
It was a very normal thing to do, something that every student did at least once, though more likely dozens, hundreds, thousands of times in their tenure at Hogwarts.
No one would think anything of it if they saw him. Well, a Slytherin might suspect simply because despite his efforts there was no way any decent snake would think him innocent for sure, and would immediately assume he was up to something… but so far as his actions went there was nothing anyone would be able to call him on. He even had a decoy letter in his breast pocket should anyone question his empty hands.
No one did though because he didn't run into anyone—he'd heard about the muggle game happening on the fields today. It was supposedly a rather high turnout which was probably where everyone was, and he was half disappointed to need to miss it only because he was fundamentally against being left out. If there was a crowd then he definitely wanted to be a part of it, to be able to see whatever anyone else was seeing first.
Although honestly the idea of a muggle game without any brooms sounded dreadful. He didn't even like quidditch but at least then there was a small chance of death or grievous injury to keep him hopeful. Running around the muggle way on a sport he understood even less seemed like a drag.
Even then, he couldn't quite shake the displeasure at being left out, or even just generally being uninvolved. It was irritating.
He walked with purpose and a slight smile on his face, confidentially towards his destination. Even if someone had been around (like say the thousands of paintings on the wall) they would never suspect a thing given this was how he always acted.
Inside… his mind fluxed.
Hogwarts was getting interesting.
Not that it hadn't been entertaining enough so far—at least 50% of his entertainment definitely coming from the oddity that was Harry Potter and the opportunities to torture Draco that came along with him. Last year had been plenty interesting he supposed… he hadn't been bored exactly as he went about setting up his position in Slytherin house and taking notes the best he could. Not much an eleven-year-old could really do with the training he'd received from Dalia Zabini, he could only start laying the groundwork for when they were all older and hormones started to make it hard for people to see straight. That was his only way he'd make much progress with people his own age after all: if they couldn't see him properly enough to remember not to trust him.
And well. It wasn't like he could do much during his Hogwarts years anyway, and if people were still that clueless after graduation then they were practically asking for it. This was all essentially just practice, but he'd known he had a couple years before he really needed to start focusing more. He liked running Hogwarts' rumor mill much more to be honest, so he was happy to have that occupy him for the time being.
Mrs. Norris had changed the game though.
Draco liked to call him the untouchable Slytherin… and he loved the way that sounded. He leaned into the title proudly, flaunted it even, because to someone like Draco it was even true. First, second, hell even third year Slytherins didn't have to worry too much about things bigger than their own reputations and upcoming tests and quidditch games. Some worried about parents when they were home on break, about family reputations and cold households.
Blaise was only so happy to concern himself with those things too… but Mrs. Norris changed it all.
It stung a bit… Draco's flippant words, his jealousy even, that he only barely tried to hide at how apparently easy Blaise had it. And he did, honestly, since for now it was true. Hogwarts as a game and it wasn't that hard for him, truthfully.
The words did sting though… particularly when he felt sweat cling to the back of his neck imaging what his mother would say about some of his choices.
What she was going to say when she heard about Mrs. Norris.
Untouchable, huh? He smiled blankly to no one.
Petrification was nothing to fuck about with.
It was dark magic, plain and simple. In fact it was one of the spells in which there was really no ifs, ands, or buts about it being questionable or mislabeled—it was dark. It wasn't anything like the hardening charm or the full body bind curse, it was fundamentally different and the difference came from the intent behind it.
It wasn't something humans could do, that was for sure.
True petrification was a dark magic almost as old as magic itself, and it had never once been something that belonged to humans. Humans were capable of both light and dark magic all they wanted, they could both give and take life as it pleased then. Only a creature of pure dark magic could cease all life in its tracks without prejudice or hesitation, simply by a means of existing; only a couple of dark creatures in existence had ever formed the ability, in fact.
One of those creatures was rumored to be gorgons, creatures that hadn't been seen since ancient Greece, even in the magical world. Even now they were more myth than actual beings, tales of them popping up throughout history here and there pretty well believed and even verifiable if you did enough digging… but they really weren't too common anymore. They were seen as exceptionally dangerous, given they could turn people to stone with a single look, so even if they ever did surface, they didn't live long.
People tended not to remember the origin of petrification spells, since in modern times there was a lot of misinformation and rumor about certain things like this. The full body bind curse and plenty of other dark spells used in the last war that were cheap mockeries of petrification at best; their existence and use had thrown a lot of confusion about, until most people thought it dark magic that was a very well-kept secret. People even brought it up in government every so often to argue on if it should be an Unforgivable. Gorgons were just myths or exceedingly rare dark creatures that also had this ability after all, they weren't the progenitors.
If the Zabini family had anything to do with that rumored fact, he couldn't precisely say.
It wasn't like it was common knowledge that the Zabini family could trace their origins all the way back to Ancient Rome.
Right down to the razing of Ancient Greece, and the theft of its many wonders, in fact.
Blaise made it to the owlery and went right up to an open window, almost precisely before the clock tower above him started to chime.
He slipped an object from his pocket and offered it up to an owl that landed on the open sill, a velvet purple ribbon tied around its neck. It tapped its beak on it twice before flapping its wings harshly once and taking off just as sharply as it'd landed, without sparing him a glance.
He opened the pocket watch and watched the shimmering glass surface flicker a couple times… clicking it shut before turning on his heel and walking back down the owlery steps just as calmly and assuredly as he'd arrived.
Say nothing
He'd be lying if his said he wasn't slightly disappointed.
It wasn't his first choice of plan, but he also knew better than to disobey his mother.
Hogwarts could've gotten way more interesting if the stakes were truly this much higher than a failed test or the same old Slytherin politics he'd been running circles around since birth practically. He'd had so many brilliant ideas of how to use this… the most profitable being offered protection if someone were willing to pay enough for it.
Draco, for instance… was definitely his parents' pride and joy, and Blaise could probably safely bet many promises and favors being pledged if he could ensure the boy's safety. Or at least a chance at safety, as creatures with petrifying eyes tended to avoid each other for good reason.
Not that he had those. Not that certain dark creatures would know that.
So many missed chances, he pouted internally. I don't know how mother expects me to get at the Malfoy inheritance with Harry Pretty Potter in the picture—this would've been my only chance to even get close. Though… honestly Mr. Malfoy would likely just take Draco out of Hogwarts than pay too much… probably. Hm, I wonder what that tipping point would be?
…not that it matters, as I've been told to do nothing.
He blew out a breath in annoyance as he ducked under a tapestry for a shortcut—no paintings in here so for a brief moment he scrunched his face in annoyance before schooling it once more as he slipped back out into an open hallway. This could've been so much fun to hold over people's heads… especially Harry, who was clearly desperate to know.
Not… that he couldn't still have some fun, he considered carefully…
Everyone knew Harry Potter was a parselmouth about now, but they didn't know he'd been hearing a "voice", twice now. Greengrass, the poor excuse of a Slytherin, knew and hadn't figured it out yet even with the discovery that Mrs. Norris had experienced a true petrification. There was no way of knowing if Melinda Lyles had made the connection on her own but Blaise rest assured she wouldn't act even if she had.
And where would the atmosphere go, if everyone knew what they were up against?
There was absolutely no mystery or intrigue if you knew what was after you, was there?
He grinned to himself, deciding to do his family proud in burying some information right beside their exes. He was still obeying his mother if he not only didn't provide the information, but ensured no one got to it either.
He was walking through the halls of Hogwarts once more, headed back to the common room, and just as he was approaching the main steps down to the dungeons, it occurred to him that perhaps he should be afraid.
He stood no chance against a basilisk, probably.
No one did.
If it were just a creature acting on animal instincts and such, he was probably okay.
But not if it weren't just an animal, but instead properly motivated by… say, whoever wrote those words in blood on the wall…
…he shrugged, not too bothered as he all but skipped down the steps in front of him with a smirk he couldn't quite tamp down.
000
Harry had never jumped off a cliff before, but he thought maybe he understood what it felt like… in both soul and body, unfortunately. Jumping off a cliff without a broom or a parachute, he should say. Maybe there was water at the bottom, but from high enough a height it didn't really matter anymore; it was still going to really bloody hurt.
He wasn't afraid of heights so he would probably jump of his own free will… and then just as he made impact with the water he'd realize maybe that was a bit too high, even for him.
Gryffindor vs Slytherin.
Normally that phrase would cause his eye to twitch and this random compulsion would surface that made him want to pinch whoever had said it as hard as he could. Today though, in the context of quidditch, he was nothing but thrilled.
Maybe only him and Draco were in the air today with something like good sportsmanship and friendly rivalry singing in the air, while everyone else was genuinely trying to kill each other, but for some reason in the context of quidditch that didn't bother Harry at all. It was to be expected in such a violent game, and he could die just as easily falling off his broom or getting hit in the head with a bludger and boom—no more Harry Potter, just like that. The thing about bludgers too, was that they were exceptionally hard to see coming sometimes if your focus was elsewhere… like say, anywhere else in the wild game being played.
Or maybe even on a fluttery golden snitch just out of his fingers' grasp as he raced through the air at speeds that made his heart forget it needed to keep beating sometimes, like it was clinging to him for dear life in fear at what its pilot was doing with their body.
Bludgers kind of just appeared and you had to have killer reflexes to dodge or sense them. In an actual game, you didn't even get the telltale woosh warning their imminent arrival as they really couldn't be heard over the screaming stadium and Lee's bellowing commentary about whatever goal someone had just scored behind him.
Harry was practically peaked in excitement and adrenaline induced thrill—not quite fear but the near-death nature of the game definitely had his fight or flight churning double time, and he was pouring it into his reflexes and the sheer speed he was pushing his broom to go. Draco was here, in the air with him and while they weren't head-to-head as seeker and chaser, he'd seen the faces the blond was shooting at him when they had a brief moment to breath and it was just so fucking fun.
It was a great game. Pretty evenly matched, a nailbiter making them work even harder and fly even faster and reach even deeper for just another inch against their opponents and the thrill of the game and the bloodthirsty desire to win was just so catching and—
--and Harry had spotted the snitch and almost forgot to breath as he leaned flat down and dove for it, the wind a sheer tunnel around him and only Osmias' very clever contacts preventing his eyes from ever drying out even under such conditions. His ears went almost deaf to the roar of the chaos around him and the bludgeoning wind, the pull of gravity from his dive and sharp turns as he dodged and dove for the snitch with every ounce he had making his stomach actually do real somersaults in a sickeningly exciting way as the world spun and lurched around him in his wild maneuvers. He was so excited to nab this tricky little snitch and taste the thrill of victory—this game of all games! He always loved winning and the ear drum shattering cheers from the stadium, it was already a feeling he loved more than anything but to win this game in particular when Draco was only just so far away and clashing against him and he would win despite that and it would just be so—so--!
He almost dislocated his shoulder lurching just that tiny bit farther, balancing precariously on his maxed-speed broom beneath him, very dangerously leaning too forward on it than was safe to just get that tiny bit more reach and—
--his fingers closed around the always surprisingly warm gold metal-!
CRACK
The air was ripped from his lungs as his arm caught fire.
He automatically yanked it back to his chest as if to get it away from the flames like someone who'd just accidentally touched fire, but that only doubled the agony, causing black spots to appear in his vision and making flying extremely difficult as his balance almost gave, the broom wavering dangerously beneath him to the point he needed to drop his speed immediately or he was going to go careening into the stands uncontrollably. Either that or it'd tilt down by the handle from how far he was leaning forward and he'd start spinning front over end until he fell off, and in fact he almost did do that—his mind blocking out the pain in his arm for a split second, overridden by the sheer fear of the imminent broom crash he had to deal with and just barely getting it under control. It was so close he felt his stomach surge as if to lose his breakfast from the heart-stopping scare.
The world spun from an onslaught of pain from his arm and he had to clench his jaw shut and lean forward on his now-slowed broom weakly to keep from passing out as the black spots refused to fade even as he started focusing on how the hell he was supposed to keep breathing with this agony.
Somehow though, he didn't manage to let go of the snitch, although he fumbled with the handle of his broom to grip it more tightly with his legs as he switched hands to grab the snitch with his good arm, cradling his hurt one into his stomach to get it out of the way awkwardly, a bolt of lightning ripping up his arm as he jostled it and he gave a small cry of pain automatically.
Fuck that hurts!
"Get down!" A plume of red appeared in front of him and the handle of his broom dipped forward dangerously steep the same time he heard Lee's voice bellowing across the entire stadium that Gryffindor had won. His stomach dropped again at the sharp decline in the air, only to jump right back up into his throat as a bludger whipped right by where his head had been a second ago. His hair fluttered violently and he realized it had whipped through his falling ponytail, from how close that was.
"What the hell!?" Another voice echoed the early shout in exactly the same tone.
It was the twins, he realized, as George was suddenly on his other side with his beater's bat, whacking away the bludger that did a sharp u-turn mid-air to come back after them, Fred rising from where he'd pulled Harry's broom down to brandish his own weapon in annoyance.
No… it wasn't after them, it was after Harry.
"This bloody-" Fred swatted it back once more and Harry remained still in the air cradling his clearly broken arm and letting the twins do their work. He didn't want to move and risk making their job harder, just thankful they were here as they watched the ball make a hairpin turn to beeline right for him once more. What was wrong with it!?
"Is it cursed!?" Wood dropped down, the rest of the Gryffindor team now circling nervously at the scene happening but not getting too close to interfere with the twins who were still zig-zagging in a predictable pattern around Harry to intercept the rouge bludger. They'd always been good beaters, but now it was clear that since they knew where the typically-random balls were going, they were even better—it was a simple matter of gauging how hard they were hitting it away and timing when it'd be able to come back to hit it again, and they quickly and seamlessly picked up the pattern as it came back again, and again, and again.
"Hooch!" Several players called for help, or at least guidance on the situation, and the referee began circling as well with a baffled look on her face.
"I'm not sure, it's never done that before!"
No shit, Harry instantly scowled, both internally and externally he was sure. Do something!
"Yeah no shit!" Angelica voiced his thoughts bluntly, looking worried but also just as annoyed with the referee as Harry was.
"Warrington!" A new voice barked, and they glanced up to realize the Slytherin team was also circling much higher above them, most watching on in interest and none looking that worried apart from the blond that had shouted, grey irises locked on the bludger with an eagle-eyed intensity. "Blast it!"
"Eh? But-"
"I'll buy the school a new set, just blast it." Draco snapped at him, and for a second year he had a tone that the fourth year just rolled his eyes at, but complied. He whipped out his wand and in half a second the bludger exploded in a plume of leather and fluff, the twins waiting a couple of seconds tensed as if ready for another attack, before relaxing when they realized it was fine.
"Mr. Malfoy!" Hooch balked, but Harry had enough and just dropped in the air back to the ground, Draco instantly following suit to avoid her scolding and the two teams following their lead quickly. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as his feet hit solid ground once more, shoving the snitch into his robes pocket and flinching as he shifted, his arm stinging sharply to remind him of its situation. It was really broken, probably shattered if the numb feeling up to his shoulder and the faint blue tips of his fingers meant anything. If ever he doubted that getting hit with a bludger hurt like a bitch, the doubt had gone from his mind entirely now.
Still, somehow it was a good pain. If that made sense.
Not a torture curse or starvation or a cut or muscle weakness or nausea or fear or anxiety…
Good old broken bones. So simple.
Or, maybe I'm just in total shock, he admitted mentally to himself.
"Shit, let's get you to the hospital wing," One of the twins was right beside him immediately.
"Isn't Pomfrey usually nearby for matches though?" The other countered.
"You're not going to pass out are you?" Angelina was suddenly there too, looking angry for some reason.
"Great catch Harry!"
"Shut up Wood!"
"Everyone back up." A sharper, higher tone sliced through the Gryffindor chaos like a knife through butter, and for some reason all the red around him jumped back a bit in surprise, Harry blinking widely as Draco was suddenly right in front of him, green quidditch robes standing out amongst the sea of color around them—not a single other Slytherin in sight, predictably.
Draco's face was blank, but he was right on him and gently touching the tips of the fingers Harry had cradled to his stomach. "Can you feel your fingers?"
"Not a thing." He admitted honestly.
"Even this?" He pinched them, and Harry just shook his head. "Sit down—you, you so called captain, go get Pomfrey. She's on the west stand."
Wood blinked in surprise at being called out, then his brow furrowed as he opened his mouth, presumably to argue given a Slytherin, and a second year at that, had just ordered him to do anything. He didn't get the chance though as Angelina had him practically by the ear and were both suddenly sprinting through the crowds of people spilling out onto the field—most screaming either cheers, boos, or in fright at the rouge bludgers.
"Yo Apples, you're taking this pretty well." Fred chirped as he helped Harry lower himself one-handedly onto the grass, where he just took a large breath and tried to steady himself. Oddly, he felt fine.
"Either I'm in total shock, or this just doesn't hurt as much as getting crushed by a troll or tortured by a teacher." He blurted out.
"Wait what?" Fred blinked.
"I'm going with shock," Draco shot him an incredulous look before lightly bopping him on the head as a reminder to shut the hell up.
Yeah, probably a good idea.
"Harry my boy!"
"Oh my god," Katie deadpanned in absolute horror at the approaching blond head atop a mass of periwinkle robes made his way through the crowd like they were all here to see him and not cluster around both the winner of the match and an extremely injured student. She and Fred had hands under his arms to help lower him down but he felt them both tense once more as if wondering if they should try and flee with him to avoid whatever this lunatic was about to do. How he got here before Pomfrey, was both a mystery and a miracle.
And not a good one.
"Uh… how bad is this going to be." He wondered to himself, but also realized he'd said that aloud. Not sure if he'd meant to do that.
Draco's face made a very interesting twitch.
"Weasleys, if you care about Harry you'll get that man away from us." He hissed so venomously Harry was surprised that was English and not parseltongue honestly.
Fred and George blinked at the blond in shock at being addressed so randomly, and then each other in equal amounts of alarm as they realized what was being asked of them. What was at stake actually.
Either Harry was more out of it than he though or the twins practically teleported to suddenly throw themselves at Lockhart who caught them automatically in surprise—even more so when both twins exploded into the most ridiculous display of crocodile tears Harry had ever witnessed.
"Save us professor!"
"Oh it's horrible! Dreadful!"
"Oh the humanity!"
"Help us!"
"It's horrific!"
"Who could've done this!?"
"Professoooooor!"
"My dear boys, don't fret! I am here, I'll fix it immediately!"
Neither twin let up their fake sobbing for a second though to let Lockhart get another word in edgewise; he didn't seem upset about being begged for help despite the fact they weren't actually letting him progress a step farther to even do anything. The rest of the crowd that had formed in the chaos quieted a little, seeming conflicted on if they were trying to get a glimpse of Harry, or stare openly at whatever the heck the Weasley twins were performing right now.
Thankfully, Lockhart's distraction from the actual matter at hand was enough time for Pomfrey to arrive and squeeze past the clustering of people that only seemed to be growing instead of shrinking, giving a few sharp remarks that got people backing up finally.
Harry only half noticed her, also still watching the twins dramatic weeping like he couldn't quite look away.
He watched George wipe a snotty nose on Lockhart's periwinkle robes without the professor noticing and burst out laughing.
Which very much didn't sooth Pomfrey who shot him a look, one which Draco shared.
"Shock, then."
"Definitely." Draco agreed with her although it wasn't exactly a question. He then took Pomfrey's gentle attempt to make Harry lie down as an invitation and put a hand over his face to shove him flat against the ground impatiently.
"Draco," he complained, only to be shushed— the pain suddenly tripling in his arm for one brief instant before it vanished, so quick he immediately told himself he probably imagined it. He automatically clenched his hand as feeling returned and tried to lift his head to look down—only for Draco's hand on his forehead to shove him back down into the grass before he'd gotten more than an inch.
"Stay down." Came the snappish order.
"What just happened?" Harry blinked at the sky in a daze.
"I fixed the broken bone as much as I can for now, but it is still weak so please refrain from moving too much, Mr. Potter." Pomfrey explained, and he felt her wrapping something around his forearm carefully. "Given your magical core I'll not be making the same mistake twice, so you'll be coming back to the hospital wing until it's fully healed. Also while the bone is set, you are still in shock so please lie still for a couple minutes."
"Alright…" He blinked, Draco's face suddenly coming into view and giving him a skeptical look. It took him a couple seconds too long to realize what it was for. "I said alright Draco, I do mean it. I won't move until Madam Pomfrey tells me to, I promise."
His silent stare said he blatantly didn't believe him but had to let it go for now. Harry just rolled his eyes and blinked up into the blue above him, trying to breath for a moment… that was a lot of emotion and things that had just happened in a short amount of time for him to take in, and he didn't think he was doing that great a job of it. Or, you know, maybe it was that shock.
He kind of zoned out, staring at the sky, but before he knew it he was on the floating stretcher Pomfrey had and was whisked off to the hospital wing. He thought he probably could've walked on his own if he could just rest a couple minutes but going by Draco's expression as he followed them up to the castle he decided to just stick to his word and lie still for a bit. His head kind of throbbed so he didn't mind the coddling too much.
He was given several potions of various levels of disgusting before the Madam finally let him get up—not to leave unfortunately but simply to change into the white infirmary clothes provided so he could spend the night. He would've complained a bit more if she didn't have a very handy spell to wave her wand and dry him off, completely removing the grim of the hard game he'd just played, and also a cup of something tea-like that instantly warded off the chill he'd developed from being outside on a brisk autumn day so he was, in fact, quite comfy in his hospital bed.
He was considering being pacified enough for tonight and saving his complaints for tomorrow when Draco plopped down into the chair beside his bed, looking very hassled. Harry bit down a smile as he pointedly sipped his tea, wanting to tease him for being out of his always-composed persona he typically had be deciding his friend was stressed out enough for today.
"Troublesome Gryffindor… now I have to buy the school new bludgers." He complained although Harry could tell that was not the actual issue he had with this situation, just the one he was sticking to.
"How ever will you survive the bill." He snipped dryly, enjoying Draco's eye roll. "You sure bossing around a fourth year like that was wise?" He wondered aloud.
"Warrington is a bit of an odd case." The Slytherin half shrugged, not really too concerned over it. "He really is pretty neutral even amongst Slytherins, despite his family having a dark affiliation, so he wouldn't actually mind helping out a Gryffindor if backed into a corner like that—at least one we officially like, like you." He ducked his head in acknowledgement at that and Harry had to grin over his teacup. "Also, of everyone in the air that time, he's got the best aim and best control in casting a spell, plus he knows enough dark arts that he probably canceled out any enchantments on it when he hit it. A normal blasting curse can't do that."
"So by singling him out you were basically complimenting his skills." Which he probably wouldn't be too upset about. Admittedly, hitting a moving target with so little hesitation with a dark spell that doubled as an enchantment remover without hitting any of the two teams circling in the air right then was damn impressive. In a whole stadium it told the more observant of the school that Warrington wasn't a push over, and he was very dangerous.
Most Slytherins, particularly dark-leaning ones, would be pretty pleased by that, so Draco had made a pretty good call on a fly like that. He'd saved his Gryffindor friend but also hadn't suffered politically for it, something Harry had to be happy about on Draco's behalf but also frankly his own.
"Something like that, yeah. It wasn't just flattery either; I would've tried to blast it if I could, but I'd probably have hit someone and just made a fool of myself." Draco admitted, which Harry had to think over for a moment.
Accuracy like that really was a skill, and Harry wondered if he had it. After a couple moments of thought though, he realized aside from hand-eye coordination, his aim with spells wasn't that impressive. It wasn't like throwing or catching something, it was a whole other level of magical ability—dueling was one thing as the duel lanes were straight, but even Draco who was good at magic and charms, in a straight lane like that it'd be relatively easy to dodge his spells.
Huh.
When, in real life, is your opponent directly in front of you and not allowed to move too far to the left or the right? Real fights have a million moving parts, so accuracy in a real fight is way more important… but it's probably WAY harder to learn too.
The clear answer was to work at getting better accuracy, but that didn't stop the life-threatening issues he seemed to be having now. He was attacked by a troll only a couple weeks into being in the wizarding world, and a bludger during a school sanctioned event less than an hour ago, so there was literally nothing to say he wasn't going to need to fight for his life tomorrow. Hell, his next murder attempt could come in the next five minutes and he would have no way of seeing it coming or defending himself if his goal was to wait the years it took to get a high level accuracy with magic.
There was another way though, something he could do now…
Potters don't need to see the broad side of a barn to hit it. Doesn't matter if I'm accurate if I've got range big enough that my opponent can't dodge it even if they tried.
I'm gonna need to think on that one probably, but seems doable for now… depending on the opponent I guess. Voldemort himself is probably still above my level and will be until I graduate most likely.
He made a face, recognizing it was probably the potions he was on to prevent the shock making it easy to think of such drastic things without being too concerned over it. Usually it stressed him out more, to think such existential thoughts, but now it seemed like his mind was just autopiloting on logic without much input on his behalf. It was kind of useful though as morbid as some of these ideas were they were also pretty good ideas if he did say so himself.
"Earth to Harry… you've got that look on your face like you're plotting something again," Draco called him back from his drifting thoughts, and he realized he was zoning out again.
"How do you get better at accura-" Harry cut himself off and dropped his head sharply to where he realized Draco had reached out to touch his injured arm to get his attention again, to which the blond instantly lifted his hand away as if burned.
"Sorry—did I hurt you?" He immediately back pedaled, but Harry totally ignored his panic as he instinctively reached out and grabbed onto his wrist, distractedly using his other hand to put his teacup down on the table behind him. "Harry?"
"Wait a second… do that again."
"Do what?"
"Touch my arm again!" He commanded and despite looking entirely baffled and his cheeks tinting a slight pink, Draco gave in.
"Ah… okay?" He gently lay his hand back over the bandaged arm Harry was offering in his direction, and after a second or so Harry's eyes went wide as he realized.
It felt like snow.
Ice cold, deep like a snow bank, soft and vast around the edges and something… pure about it.
The cold was the most distinct thing of all, and he instantly realized he'd definitely felt his before, as the small ache left over from whatever Pomfrey had done slipped into nothingness like a snowflake disappearing against your hand and the cold it left behind skating numbly over your bare skin.
"Woah…"
"Harry? You alright?"
"I noticed it before but it wasn't… I mean, sometimes your hands make my skin go numb."
Draco stared at him openly.
"…what?"
"You don't really touch people ever which is why I noticed the rare times you do, but you're always very cold. I thought it was just me or my imagination since it was so rare but… my arm hurts, and it doesn't when you touch it. It feels cold but it doesn't hurt."
Draco dropped his blank stare of surprise from emerald eyes meeting his own down to where his hand rested over his arm, almost pointedly keeping it in place now. "I… have no idea what that means."
"Me neither." Harry confessed.
They exchanged looks… but there was a world-renowned healer conveniently one room over.
In only a couple minutes Madam Pomfrey was waving her wand over Draco's hand still over Harry's arm in a diagnostic spell, before she visibly startled and lifted her wand back up in surprise.
"Dear me!"
"What is it?" Harry was dying to know, Draco holding it in better but his own curiosity also written clearly over his expression, even if he was distinctly uncomfortable with the attention too.
"Why this is incredibly rare, but it seems Mr. Malfoy here has a latent healing ability. Very minor, but his magical signature has a small healing attribute to it which is likely why you feel no pain—it's the same as a numbing potion with a slightly increased healing factor. I don't suppose you bruise very often or easily, and when you do they don't stay long, do they, Mr. Malfoy?" She asked of him, and his grey eyes blinked.
"I've never noticed, honestly." He confessed.
Harry though, had a distinct flashback to first year when he'd punched him in the jaw over Neville's Remembrall… since he'd been paying close attention obviously, the bruise on the Malfoy heir's jaw had disappeared in just over a two days when he was certain he'd clocked him with his full strength. Ron had had a welt on his head for a damn near month without Pomfrey's help in healing it, and given they were two first years with not that much physically different, it was pretty clear Draco had healed much faster than Ron had, for no apparent reason. Until now, evidently.
It wasn't the only clue he'd had though. Hugging him in Diagon Alley, any time he'd ever held his hands… after the summer he'd had, he hadn't given it a ton of thought but he'd recognized the feeling. It wasn't just cold, it wasn't just snow…
Novocaine. Draco feels like novocaine.
You don't realize it if you're not in pain but that's exactly what it is.
"Interesting." The Madam genuinely did seem intrigued by it, which seemed to make Draco even more uneasy. "I could of course run some more tests to determine the actual cause of this, if you'd like."
"It's good to know I guess but not strictly useful, is it? It's not like I'm going to heal his arm by sitting here for a couple minutes." He pouted some, to which she nodded her head gracefully to that point.
"No, you'd need constant contact for several days to heal it entirely and that's only increasing Mr. Potter's own healing rate very minorly. However, you're young, and this kind of natural ability without a wand is insanely rare, I cannot understate that enough; it wouldn't be unreasonable to think you could hone this skill so that it would become something useful someday."
Draco arched his eyebrows a bit skeptically. "And how would I do that?"
She explained, "There are meditation techniques and simple exercises I can look up for you. Knowing more about medicine would help you understand what you can and cannot do of course, and a good side effect is an increased magical capacity because of the practice. Since you can't use a wand for this type of ability you'll have no directional tool to help funnel your magic, which means your magic control will increase simply as part of learning."
Whatever Draco was going to say to that, and whatever it was it promised to be something sassy or dismissive as always, it disappeared in a puff of smoke when Harry didn't even notice his expression and instead put his free hand over Draco's as it still rested numbing his injured arm and gave him a wide-eyed look of wonder.
"How amazing would that be if you could heal people just by touching them," He gaped in awe, because this was absolutely amazing.
He knew Draco was special, he always knew he'd looked up to him in many small ways for a thousand different reasons… but this was something incredible to someone who'd felt an unfair amount of pain in his short life so far. And now, to realize his best friend had a touch that could make it all just go away…
Honestly, he didn't want to let go. Didn't want the pristine cold to disappear and the ugly burning of pain and blood to muddy his mind. He was so sick of it that this felt like a breath of fresh air—a change in luck or the weather that promised something good for once instead of something foreboding and deadly like pretty much everything else in his life.
Whatever Draco was going to say disappeared. He'd probably been leaning more in favor of the 'more powerful' part of that explanation anyway, but one glance at Harry's expression and his plans course corrected almost instantly. It was so fast he never even really acknowledged that it wasn't his idea from the start.
"I mean it can't hurt to learn, since apparently I'm a natural." He puffed up arrogantly and basked pleasantly in the blinding grin of excitement Harry gave him in return.
The Madam gave him a very telling smile as she nodded. "Of course. Let me pull some basic texts for you, and I can show you a simple exercise for you to get started. I warn you now that it's a very slow process and will take quite a bit of practice, though most start after their Hogwarts graduation and begin secondary training at St Mungos. It'll seem to take an eternity but you're starting years ahead of your future peers if you pursue this."
"Right," Draco seemed less thrilled with the grind he was being presented with, but seem mollified by the idea he was going to be seen as a prodigy compared to others his age someday.
"We can practice together!" Harry offered excitedly, elaborating at Draco's confused look. "There's really no one I can work on Transfiguration with anymore besides McGonagall but now we both have something unique to work on we can do it together, right?"
Besides Transfiguration and Potions for obvious reasons, they really didn't study together too much anymore and hadn't really since the early part of first year. Slytherins were extremely individual learners who preferred to do their own thing and only work with others or ask for help if they really needed it, and even if they were friends and Harry wouldn't use that against him, Draco still preferred to work alone mostly. He was more willing to ask for help on Transfiguration than anything else, but he still did his own work and mainly stuck to having Harry double check his work just in case, and not every time either. He was prideful in his ability to do academic work on his own, after all; Harry would be too if he also didn't dread Charms and History and had little remorse in copying off other people's homeworks when offered, or he could trade for someone else's notes.
This was kind of beyond normal school work though, and Harry's Transfiguration work had long since stopped being something he could actually talk to people his age about. Draco would be the only one at Hogwarts at all learning healing so he'd also be totally on his own too… and well, if they were going to be alone they might as well be alone together. It would also give them more opportunities to hang out as those chances were not so frequent now that they were both on sports teams, Harry had his own troubles to need to work through, and Draco was fully entrenched in surviving Slytherin at this point to make hanging out too high of a priority on the day-to-day. It was something they wanted to do but it didn't outrank a great deal of other things.
Training their specialties would be a good excuse though and it was something they could do together, something Harry had jumped to immediately and now that he pointed out something Draco also clearly was on board with.
Being able to catch up with his best friend who was already considered a prodigy and being able to stand on a more equal level with him was also something Draco was secretly keen on, though he kept those thoughts firmly beneath the surface and as deep as he could bury them.
"I suppose it depends on what this training even is but I don't see why not," He agreed with a brief smile of his own.
"Luckily the first exercise is very simple, if not deceptively the hardest." Madam Pomfrey smiled a bit wryly and conjured a chalice, setting it on the hospital table in front of Harry and with a simple tap it filled with water. "I am going to cast a simple pain reduction spell, it is one of the simplest healing spells and likely even more simple for you Mr. Malfoy, given your innate affinity for them. Watch closely to the water surface." He commanded gently and made a simple jabbing motion with her wand. Both boys watched the surface ripple, not quite like it was poked but as if someone were blowing across its surface gently—the weird part though was that the ripples seemed to bounce of the edge of the cup and come back to its original side, before disappearing.
"The ripples mean what type of spell it is?" Draco titled his head, and Pomfrey smiled a bit proudly.
"You learn fast, Mr. Malfoy. Indeed it is: every spell has a unique signature that can be reflected in water. Since practicing on actual injured humans is not quite ethical and can be extremely dangerous for both the caster and the test subject, spells are practiced on water. Once the proper pattern is achieved you will know it will also work on something living." She wagged her finger at him with a look that had him sitting up straight in his chair. "I will check your progress on using spells on a water cup but you will not test spells on humans until I give you permission. It is exceptionally dangerous and if you are experimenting on anyone without supervision from an actual trained healer I will expel you from this school myself, am I clear Mr. Malfoy?"
"Yes Madam," he gulped, and even Harry felt a little pale from the aura she suddenly had, even through his shock potions. Luckily it disappeared just as fast as it had come and she returned to smiling calmly like the hospital matron she was.
"That is all there is to it, actually. Normally you would use your wand however as you are practicing an innate ability I would suggested simply letting your magic circulate into the water, experiment and practice until you find the pattern of the spell you are looking for, and then practice it repeatedly until the sensation is familiar to you."
"Are there no incantations or anything?" Draco blinked in alarm.
"There are, however they're meant to be done in combination with a wand. I suspect they'll only restrict what you will eventually be capable of if you learn with that kind of leash on you. If you are quite serious about learning healing I can teach you proper spell casting and incantations when you are much older and more practiced, however I think it best to start in this way. You will give yourself quite a foundation that can be better refined under a proper tutor later after you've made some headway with your ability."
Draco didn't look very sold on the idea but didn't exactly argue, instead tentatively reaching out and cupping the chalice experimentally to test it out. After a couple solid seconds when approximately nothing happened, his face balked in stricken horror.
"Oh no…"
Madam Pomfrey chuckled in deep amusement. "It'll be a long battle Mr. Malfoy, I do wish you luck."
Harry also had to burst out laughing at Draco's dreading expression, which seemed to be the nail in the coffin of his resignation.
Still, he did manage a small smile as emerald eyes watched him with rapt attention as he gave it another go and figured… it was going to suck, but it probably wouldn't be too bad.
He hoped.
000
The change in luck Harry thought had found him that afternoon turned out to be a lie when he was woken in the middle of the night by distressed voices and many shuffling feet bringing someone new into the Hospital Wing. It was almost impossible to ignore as he heard the familiar voices of Madam Pomfrey and McGonagall talking and only just barely bothering to be quiet… the reason clear when their audible distress got his own instincts on edge and had him sitting up in bed sharply.
He blinked awake rather quickly, unable to shake the threat of danger as voices he trusted echoed around the hall seeped in worry and fear. He fumbled to his bedside table and felt a brush of relief as he found his wand and clutched it tightly.
He was out of bed and shivering as his bare feet hit the cold stone floor in an instant, before freezing as he heard another voice—deeper, much less welcome. If it were just McGonagall he'd have gone to her immediately, but Dumbledore's voice had him rooted in place and mind snapping awake to figure out what he was doing before he let his presence be known.
"—tell the students? Albus you know what Severus said, we need to tell them something." Harry had never heard McGongall sound so distressed and he felt his own fear pick up in response to it.
"We can only tell the truth, that we do not know what caused it."
"Surely not Headmaster, it will incite more panic!" Madam Pomfrey did not sound nearly so warm as she did when talking to students.
"We do not have more information to give unfortunately. As it is, I will need to contact the Creevys at once. Minerva if you could continue to coordinate the teachers in a full search of the school to see if there's anything else that can be found."
"Of course… but Albus-"
"There is nothing more we can do for tonight, Minerva. I will set a staff meeting before breakfast tomorrow to reconvene but this is all we can do for the time being."
"Nonsense, we could call the Ministry this very moment." Pomfrey had no mercy in her curt tone, and Harry head the old man sigh deeply.
"If nothing can be found then I have no doubt it will come to that, Poppy. But please… for tonight let us collect ourselves."
If something happened that needs calling the cops then waiting is not how that works, Harry frowned, though he still didn't know what had happened. He was highly on guard at the mention of the Creevy family though…
Colin… please be okay.
"At the very least I am contacting St Mungos to have him transferred there by morning." Pomfrey insisted.
"The mandrakes are grown here at Hogwarts, it would be best if he remains here to be able to get that treatment as soon as possible."
"Those mandrakes will not be ready until damn hear the end of the year and I am expected to care to the injuries and health of this entire school Headmaster—I am telling you now I cannot give this boy the treatment and attention he deserves with my current responsibilities." Harry felt a shiver up his spine that had nothing to do with the drafty castle… he'd never heard Madam Pomfrey sound like that and frankly it had his heart beating just as hard as turning a corner to meet a dark cloaked figure in an empty hallway. "I am contacting St. Mungos to have him transferred there by morning; you can tell Mr. and Mrs. Creevy that in your correspondence." The Madam informed Dumbledore, she did not ask him.
There was a long silence before Harry heard another soft sigh.
"Very well, Poppy. I understand."
"You both are needed elsewhere and I have a child to attend to." Came the unspoken but no less clear dismissal and then came the rustle of clothes as the two professors made their exit and the Madam got to work. He did hear McGonagall say something quietly but was unable to make it out.
"See to the school Minerva. I have work to do."
That seemed to be it as fading footsteps left the hospital wing in silence again, aside from Pomfrey's seeming rapid movements and a distressed clucking of her tongue echoing somberly about the vast room.
Harry was focused on staying silent but as he stood there in his hospital pajamas, barefoot but want in hand and hiding behind the white curtains around his bed, he… kind of knew what he was going to see if he peeked out now.
The question was if he was actually ready to face it or not.
…although, he supposed, it didn't really matter if he was ready or not; that's not how the world had ever worked. And it wasn't about what he felt, it was about Colin.
Colin, Luna, Ginny, the other first years he'd taught to fly a broom and who came up to him with Football or school questions… people only a little younger than him but who inspired the most lion-like part of him to want to protect them as fiercely as he had ever wanted anything before….
It didn't matter if he was ready, if it was to protect them.
He peered around the white curtain he was hiding behind quickly, and got a clear view of the end of wing.
He bit his tongue until he tasted blood and knew he was not going to sleep again tonight.