Chapter Text
Harry Potter was not an idiot.
There was plenty of evidence to the contrary — his grades were mediocre at best, his 'best friends' treated him poorly, he ran amok through wixen society seemingly without a single thought about consequences — but despite all these facts and his current predicament of being tied to a gravestone, watching as his blood dripped off a dagger and into an enormous cauldron, Harry was not an idiot.
He had the finely honed reflexes of an abused child, the seeming sixth sense of when a person with power over him has gone from benign to dangerous, the uncannily honed ability to blend into the shadows and not be noticed when he didn't want to be. There wasn't much room for childish naivete when mistakes were paid for in blood and suffering. Those instincts served him well until he turned eleven and an enormous man in a coat smelling of wet dog broke into a rickety lighthouse shack on a rainy island to announce that Harry was a wizard. Being magical didn't come as any real surprise, but learning that his relatives knew and lied about it made his teeth ache. Finding out that popular opinion painted him as some kind of hero when someone left him on the doorstep of a non-magical home to be found with the milk made him want to rip his hair out at the roots.
Like any child who was aware that every adult in his life could be waiting to spring a trap, Harry knew from the moment that Hagrid refused to give him his Gringotts key that this beautiful new world of magic was just another trick. No matter how much richer the world felt with magic swirling through the air, no matter how fantastical the sights of Diagon Alley, this new world wasn't necessarily better than his old one. Any group of people who believed that an infant could single-handedly defeat a Dark Lord — never mind that Harry didn't yet know how to define a Dark Lord, he knew that was ridiculous — were not any safer than a street of people who believed that an underfed child in excessively large clothes while living with an otherwise solidly middle-class family was anything but a victim of his situation. Ignoring the reality of two parents who died protecting their child was just as stupid as ignoring all the shouting that Vernon and Petunia Dursley pretended couldn't be heard beyond the very average walls of their very average English suburban home. The fact that Hagrid dropped him back at the home of the people who had fled cross-country from his Hogwarts letters without providing instructions on how to get to his new school only cemented that opinion.
So Harry waited until the enormous man disappeared and immediately headed for the bus stop. The ride back into London was long, but worth it to sneak back into the Leaky Cauldron and rent a room from the young woman who'd taken over the evening shift. She'd given him and his clothes a long, judging look before nodding briskly and taking his money. Despite his relief at her lack of questions, that pointed to exactly nothing good.
Gringotts had been enlightening. Goblins didn't particularly care about a wixen orphan, but they did have great interest in hearing how said wayward orphan was unaware of his accounts in a way that no respectable Heir should be. That translated into just enough help to get his Heir ring, a list of Goblin-provided services and their associated fees, and a scathing recommendation to go to a reputable tailor and bookseller to replace his rags and start reading, because he had very little time to learn anything about the world he was already supposed to know how to navigate.
As a result, Harry went to Hogwarts with a much nicer trunk than the one Hagrid had pushed him to buy, nutrient potions and stomach soothers that made it easier to eat a portion that approached a meal, and a trunk compartment full of books that were decidedly not part of the curriculum. He'd gotten himself new glasses, a fortnight's worth of clothes that weren't falling off his skinny shoulders, and boots that weren't pre-worn by his cousin. And with that thin veneer of armor, he'd proceeded to do exactly as he was being guided to do: sorted Gryffindor and made friends with Ron Weasley.
Why adults in this ridiculous world wanted him to run headfirst into danger remained beyond his understanding, but he knew . The teachers didn't teach, they lectured, or in Snape's case, didn't even do that . They expected him to be like his parents without providing any insight as to what his parents were actually like. They turned a blind eye to a child who only ate half of what his friends dumped onto his plate. They allowed sabotage in class and 'pranks' that were hurtful if not outright malicious in the corridors. Hogwarts was only better than Privet Drive in that he had a bed and was served three meals a day, and didn't have to cook, clean, or watch out for Uncle Vernon lest he get a belting. There was Snape's unwarranted vitriol, of course, but Harry was used to vitriol, and none of the teachers would actually strike a child. Exploding potions and unfair marks, of course, were fair game. It wasn't hard to figure out that he was meant to be a middling-average student and some kind of hero outside of class. That had been made clear when he was dragged onto the quidditch team.
Quidditch wasn't so bad, though. It meant Harry was allowed to fly , which was the best thing he'd done in his entire life. It also marked the entrance of the Weasley twins into his life. They swooped in like the bludgers they managed so well out on the pitch, bracketing him in during meals and sneakily sliding food onto his plate while running a never-ending stream of chatter more effective against Ron's bluster and Hermione's harping than an actual wall. On days when his magic practically bristled under his skin, they took him to the commandeered warded classroom that had become their own personal lab and rambled about their inventions until Harry felt less like he was going to fly apart.
It was easy enough to be lazy with his homework and his casting, and Hermione certainly never caught onto the fact that someone could study without spending all their time in the library. Hermione loved the library, but something about it set Harry's teeth on edge. Plus, Hermione wasn't a fan of anyone being better at anything than she was, and the library was her territory. Harry knew better than to infringe on the space of territorial creatures, which meant only going to the library when she dragged him by the arm. He took pains not to be better . At least on parchment. At least where anyone was watching.
Harry liked the shadows, and the shadows of Hogwarts seemed to like Harry back well enough.
Maybe it was the years spent in a cupboard, but Harry felt the most calm with his back pressed in dim corners with only a solid wall behind him and exits always in sight. He liked escape routes and rarely lost himself in anything to the point where he didn't notice someone approaching. Hogwarts' shadows were plentiful and accommodating, and sometimes he imagined that they almost nudged his feet or shoulders when he sneaked around, alerting him to any dangers. It was, he reasoned, a magical castle. Nothing was out of the realm of possibility.
While someone was pushing Harry toward the mysteries of the third floor corridor and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry was watching. He watched the Slytherins strike out before anyone could hit first, the Hufflepuffs huddle up to protect their youngest, the Ravenclaws attempting to shove whoever they perceived as cuckoos out of the nest, and Gryffindors prowling for the weak even if they wore red and gold. Few people were interested in Harry's tentative, careful attempts to at least make acquaintances with anyone outside his house.
Hannah Abbot and Susan Bones were nice and almost too happy to help with his questions about growing up in the magical world, but the Hufflepuff boys in his year were decidedly not. Padma Patil of Ravenclaw and Theodore Nott from Slytherin both preferred books to conversation, but weren't opposed to sitting in silence, and Nott had shoved a Runes primer into Harry's hands when Harry asked one too many questions about what he was reading. That was the sort of companionship Harry could appreciate. Draco Malfoy and his hangers-on — Crabbe, Goyle, and Parkinson — wouldn't even look in his direction. Blaise Zabini smiled with too many teeth but was funny in the dry, cutting way that Harry worked very hard to keep from ever slipping out his own mouth. Daphne Greengrass was a viper beneath her pureblood manners, a fitting complement to Zabini's humor. All the Slytherins were clearly weapons in the midst of honing, and there was something seductive about that blend of darkness and shine. Slipping Ron and Hermione was difficult, but when Harry managed, he usually sought out the Slytherins. It was where the Hat wanted to put him — and where someone definitely didn't want him to go — after all. The twins noticed, but after assuring themselves that Harry was fine amongst the snakes they let him be.
By the time Hermione and Ron practically shoved Harry headfirst into going after the Philosopher's Stone, Harry wished he'd spent more time reading and verbally sparring with Slytherins and less time humoring bullying Gryffindors. For lack of other options, Harry slapped his hands over a man's face and felt him burn to death beneath his fingers, and something cracked within his chest as he fainted from the drain of whatever magic allowed such a completely unreasonable thing. He'd woken three days later only to be told by a twinkling Headmaster that he'd done well by killing a possessed teacher who had tried to kill him first. Then he was sent home to his terrible, abusive relatives with a pat on the head and an ache in his chest, and Harry realised an important truth:
Albus Dumbledore might be a great man , but he wasn't a good one.
This held true through his second year, when children being petrified by a mystery beast didn't lead to the closing of the school, even if he would’ve hated having to go back to Little Whinging early. Albus Dumbledore twinkled and his staff watched a school full of children ostracize an innocent while allowing yet another possession-by-Dark-Lord that should have led to Ginny Weasley's death. Harry didn't even like her — he only liked Ron half the time — but somehow he found himself in the Chamber of Secrets with a deranged snake whose jaws could swallow him whole and the ghost of a teenaged Dark Lord. Somehow he killed said deranged snake with a sword that fell out of a hat at the cost of an enormous fang through the arm. Something cracked in Harry as he stabbed it through the diary and collapsed back down to die, a scream rising in his throat that never managed to escape from behind his teeth. He'd been swallowing down his screams since he was old enough to understand the danger of emotional displays. A hollow feeling settled behind his ribs even as Fawkes cried on the wound, the metaphysical sensation of something jagged lodged inside his breastbone.
He returned with Ginny Weasley and a sword, covered in blood and muck, and no one had even considered sending him to the hospital wing. Stumbling back to Gryffindor tower through his comforting shadows, he ran into Nott, who definitely should not have been out of the Slytherin dormitory but was anyway. They sat in a corner wrapped in shadows and Harry talked until felt like he could stand up again without the ground shaking out from beneath his feet. Theo was good at making Harry feel like he wasn't going to fly apart without saying a single word.
Something cracked in Harry's chest when a hundred Dementors swarmed himself and his godfather, but he clenched his jaw and kept the scream and his soul inside until rescue came in the form of his future self. Who else would rescue Harry Potter, after all, besides Harry Potter?
Something cracked as Harry dropped to the ground to avoid the stunners of an entire group of adults willing to blame a group of children for casting the Dark Mark into the sky, a spell no one had seen since those children were in nappies. But something else in him healed just a little tucked under the comforting arm of Charlie Weasley as he shared stories about his favorite dragons and stroked Harry's hair with gentle, calloused fingers.
Something cracked when his name came out of the Goblet of Fire and a whole school turned against him yet again, but Harry had given up on even trying to argue. The ragged edges of his magic bristled over his skin for weeks, but nobody heard his protests and he stopped voicing them entirely. His Slytherins understood, and Harry understood them, so he didn't begrudge the lack of public defense. Harry sneaked around Hogwarts in the comfort of his invisibility cloak and the shadows that seemed to swaddle him in a chilly kind of embrace.
Something cracked when he was burned by the fire of a dragon he'd spoken to the day before, begging her understanding and promising no harm to her eggs. He wasn't angry that she wanted her freedom from the idiot landwalkers who kept taking her future children. He was angry at the idiots who allowed two baby dragons to perish beneath their mother's terrified feet as she screamed her pain and then her mourning to the sky.
Something cracked when he found Ron at the bottom of the Black Lake and realised how wrong everyone was about who he'd sorely miss. The merpeople had halted their advance at the anguished whine that emerged from his throat, responding with a chorus of soothing croons. They didn't protest when he snatched a tiny blonde girl as well, removing the fire-aligned veela child that foolish wixen forced into their waters.
Something cracked as he watched Cedric Diggory's lifeless body fall to the ground.
And when Voldemort put a finger to Harry's forehead, Death Eaters crowing as Harry's entire existence was reduced to the agony in his skull, the jagged ache in Harry's chest finally shattered . He didn't notice rope tearing and stone cracking as wings burst forth from his back, didn't feel fangs slide through his gums or notice as his hands became claws and scales shimmered protectively over his skin.
Finally, after four long years, Harry screamed.