Chapter Text
Influences
“You could be great, you know…”
Harry doesn’t want greatness. “After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things,” a wandmaker’s voice says to him, “terrible, yes, but great.” If that is greatness, he wants nothing to do with it.
“A thirst to prove yourself…”
All he wants is to secure his place in the wizard world, the place he’s always been denied in the muggle one.
“Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness…”
“Not Slytherin, not Slytherin!”
A blond boy stands on a stool in a robe shop, prattling on about his future sorting. Harry Potter doesn’t like the boy who makes him think of Dudley; he doesn’t want to be a ‘Slytherin’ like that boy.
“There’s not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin,” a half-giant declares. “You-Know-Who was one.” The gamekeeper can hardly be faulted for saying this, not when it was a Slytherin who saw him expelled to cover up his own crimes. But it turns Harry against the house of green and silver even more.
Harry meets a redheaded boy. He’s the third person who’s ever shown him kindness since his parents died. The blond boy comes again, seeking the friendship of the Boy-Who-Lived and insulting the redhead. Harry turns him down. The redhead says that his parents would hate him, were he a Slytherin.
The blond becomes a Slytherin in a second. Harry doesn’t want to be anywhere near him.
“Not Slytherin, not Slytherin!”
But the Sorting Hat is old – older than the redhead or the half-giant or the wizard who scarred Harry. It brushes past the boy’s refrain, formed out of opinions and actions of a few biased individuals. A House is more than just one of its members, after all. It sees the language of serpents on the boy’s tongue, just like another half-blood some fifty years ago. It sees his will to survive, just yet another half-blood some twenty years ago (though said half-blood, currently sitting at the staff table, would forever deny the comparison). It sees a boy who has only thrice been shown kindness since infancy – by the gamekeeper and by the redhead and by the redhead’s mother – and only shown it once in return, to a caged boa constrictor.
He is not a Hufflepuff; their passivity will not suit him, and their tight-knit bonds he will view with suspicion. (Maybe in another world, Harry Potter would still have faith in others, but here he must find it on his own.) He is not a Ravenclaw; their zeal for knowledge will overwhelm him, for any love of learning was driven out of him long ago. (Maybe in another world, Harry Potter would have found refuge from the Dursleys in a library, but here he has only ever known school as a place to be trapped with Dudley.) And while he is close to being a Gryffindor, he is not; that house would teach him that his worth is to be a hero, but that is not the role which is best for the boy.
The Sorting Hat is old and wise, but not all-knowing. Harry Potter screams “Not Slytherin,” and it should listen. Let him be a Gryffindor, or even a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw.
“You will see, child… better be SLYTHERIN!”
Reactions
Harry’s robes turn green and silver as he hesitantly walks to his table. Most of its length is already filled with older students; all of the open spaces are near where the Dudley-like blond is sitting. Draco Malfoy, the boy who was so arrogant and spoiled in the robe shop, who tried to claim Harry’s friendship and insult Ron on the train. Already, the sorted Slytherins circle around the young Malfoy, and they leave an empty spot at the very end of the table for him. He sees the expressions on their faces. He is not welcome. (Why did he ever expect to be?)
The robes of the Boy-Who-Lived turn green and silver as he walks to his new house. Albus Dumbledore is surprised; he’d thought that knowing about his Gryffindor parents, being introduced to the Wizarding World by Hagrid, and being helped through the platform by the Weasleys would ensure that young Harry went to the house of the lions. He’s self-aware enough to know that manipulating a young boy like that is hardly moral. But the Boy-Who-Lived has become a symbol of hope, a symbol of the defeat of Voldemort. A Gryffindor Boy-Who-Lived would continue to be such a symbol, but a Slytherin… the Light needs someone else to rally around. Perhaps the other child of prophecy could use some encouragement; maybe an adventure or two would let young Neville’s hidden Gryffindor courage shine through. Meanwhile, Severus will ensure that Harry Potter does not fall to the dark.
The robes of James Potter’s child turn green and silver as he walks to Severus Snape’s house. The sorting is certainly a surprise, but as he gazes at the messy hair and glasses of his newest snake, it is obvious to Severus what has happened. Clearly the spoiled upbringing afforded the Boy-Who-Lived has left him in a state similar to many of the wealthy heirs and heiresses entering his house. (Draco Malfoy comes to mind.) The snake pit should teach him some Slytherin self-preservation that will make it easier to fulfill his vow to Lily. His position as a spy won’t allow him to favor Potter – not that he would ever favor the heir to the blasted Marauders anyway – so he will ensure Potter gets some discipline instead.
The robes of the boy who rejected Draco’s hand turn green and silver as he walks toward where the blond boy is sitting at the table. He tried to make friends with Potter like his father requested, but he was rejected, and rather rudely at that. He will not forgive easily. Already, his father’s name lets him command the respect of his classmates. He is pleased to see that Potter knows his place in Slytherin from now until he begs Draco for forgiveness. Potter is an outcast, a pariah. And an outcast he will remain.
The robes of the boy who Ron thought was his friend turn green and silver as he walks to a place that the redhead will never follow. For a few fleeting hours, Ron was the best mate of the Boy-Who-Lived, but now it’s clear that Harry Potter was a slimy snake in disguise. Better that Ron know now and cut ties. Nothing good comes from Slytherin. (Children repeat what they’re told, and Ron Weasley has never been told anything else.) And the hat sends him to Gryffindor, as he ought to be. Dean, Seamus, and Neville seem like good mates to have, even if Neville is a little shy.
Beginnings
The Slytherins are led to their dorm. The password, ‘boa constrictor’, brings a small smile to Harry’s face. The prefect tells him that Slytherins are mistrusted, hated by the rest of the school. It’s hardly unfamiliar to the delinquent nephew of the perfect Dursleys. The prefect tells him that Slytherins stand united outside the house. An older student asks if that rule can be changed given circumstances. The eyes on Harry tell him what those circumstances are, and the lack of answer is an answer in and of itself. The prefect tells him that within the house, people are free to resolve disputes as they see fit. Harry is weak in body and knows nothing about magic. But he’s survived being in a weak position before. The prefect tells him that the most important rule is not to get caught. Harry knows how to do that, but he also knows that won’t stop people from punishing him anyway.
He shares a dorm with five other boys. He’s the last one inside, and his trunk sits beneath the bed furthest from the door. Whether it was there all along, or the other boys moved it there, he does not know. Malfoy does not acknowledge his existence. The other boys follow the arrogant blond’s lead. He sets the alarm on his mechanical watch. He does not expect the other boys to wake him up.
Harry is the first one to wake. He showers with the expediency he learned from the Dursleys and dresses in his wizarding robes. It takes a few minutes of practice before he can walk in them as he does in regular clothes.
The other Slytherins wake up soon after, and Harry follows them to the Great Hall for breakfast. They do not speak to him, and when he tries to join their conversation about what class they think they’ll have first, Malfoy looks at him like Harry is the most worthless person he’s ever met. It’s hardly anything he hasn’t seen before. When his head of house delivers his schedule, he says “Mr. Potter” with a deep loathing. Harry has heard that before, too.
The other Slytherins take this as a sign that Harry is a free target. By the end of the day, he’s been shoved in the hallways between classes three times. Only two of those cause bruises, both mild.
The Gryffindors and the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws – they stare and whisper. The stares range from overly curious to downright rude, and the whispers from questioning to venomous. Why did the Boy-Who-Lived betray us, they wonder.
The teachers are at least cordial, but sometimes he sees looks of disappointment heading his way. He’s not the Boy-Who-Lived they expected.
Harry tries to sit next to Ron Weasley in Transfiguration. He’s turned away.
Harry has experienced all of this before in Little Whinging. So why does it seem so much worse here at Hogwarts? Maybe because he had hope, hope of a world of brilliant magic, hope of a brighter future, and it was taken away by a single word from an old hat.
By the time Friday morning comes around, the shoves have progressed to jinxes and hexes. He trips, not over his own robes but over thin air. A trip to the library verifies the existence of a tripping jinx. His robes change colors – he recognizes the basic version of that spell from his Charms textbook. He has no hope of learning either spell; he can’t even shoot out white sparks consistently.
His dorm room is his only refuge, oddly enough – perhaps out of some sense of honor on the part of the other boys or perhaps because one of them realized that attacking Harry in his sleep would open themselves up to reprisal in kind.
In Potions with the Gryffindors, there are an odd number of students. The Gryffindors pair up evenly, and the other Slytherins do too. Harry is left as the odd one out, and Professor Snape does not comment on it. (Not that Harry expects him to do anything.) His glasses aren’t good enough to see the recipe from the back table, so he memorizes the details on the blackboard as he gathers his ingredients. Some of the instructions are odd, but he’s memorized more complicated recipes, more exacting instructions, for Aunt Petunia’s kitchen. Still, this is magic and he’s working with half the manpower so he decides to copy it down onto parchment before he begins. The professor snaps at him for dilly-dallying, so he hastily finishes scrawling the remainder of the recipe before hurrying back to his place.
Harry sees why the brew is meant to be done in pairs. For a novice brewer, it is nearly impossible to do alone. But he has cooked massive, intricate Sunday dinners for his relatives for years, and he manages. By delaying, he avoids one potential mistake when he sees Neville Longbottom melt his cauldron. For some reason, the professor expects him to have caught his classmate’s mistake. Nevertheless, Harry makes sure he doesn’t make the same error and turns in his brew just before the bell.
(Severus Snape sees the arrogant son of James Potter trying to show up his classmates by brewing on his own and producing a subpar product because of it. If any other Slytherin had submitted it as their first ever brew, he would mark it as an Exceeds Expectations, at least. But this was Potter, so he gives it an A. It’s a shame that the boy lacks Lily’s talent in the craft. Never mind that he brewed an E-level potion with no help on his first day.)
Loneliness
Harry is lonely. Then again, he has never known how to not be lonely, really, so this is par for the course.
Here’s the problem – the children of the Dark, of the Death Eaters and their sympathizers have been raised from birth to believe in the glory of the Dark Lord and to be Slytherins. And so the Slytherins hate him, the destroyer of their lord. Not all of them, but enough, and peer pressure is a powerful thing.
And here’s the problem – the children of the Light have raised from birth to see Slytherin as the hotbed of all that is wrong and evil in the world. And so the other houses hate him, the betrayer of their ideals. Not all of them, but enough, and peer pressure is a powerful thing.
This leaves Harry with nobody. Well, almost.
Rubeus Hagrid still invites him to tea, and Harry comes alone. Hagrid hates Slytherins, but he has seen Harry sitting alone at his house table. It reminds Hagrid of himself. The gentle half-giant reassures Harry that he doesn’t hate the boy for his sorting. (The ever-open man is able to suppress his disgust at the green and silver robes until he learns to ignore them.) The pariah of Slytherin slowly opens up to the keeper of the keys, but he finds it hard to trust. And a single adult does little to quench his loneliness.
Harry enjoys the freedom of flying on a broom, where Madam Hooch’s eagle eyes make sure that no one can bother him. In his first lesson, Neville Longbottom breaks his arm, dropping one of his possessions, a glass ball; Draco Malfoy steals it and plays catch with it. Harry considers stepping in for a moment, then reconsiders. Slytherins are supposed to stand together, and to break that rule would see his house come down on his head even worse. Besides, surely one of his Gryffindor friends will defend him?
The glass ball breaks.
Draco Malfoy never considers challenging him to a midnight duel. He far prefers the cruelty of completely ostracizing the Boy-Who-Lived from his own Hogwarts House while the reputation of Slytherin does the same for the other three.
Harry knows that he has only one chance of surviving seven years of the entire school gunning for him – and that’s magic. So he learns magic. He is no Ravenclaw, delving into tomes of obscure theory and lore and adding an extra six inches to his essay to share interesting trivia he found in his supplemental reading. Instead, he tears through his course texts, reading only as much theory as he needs to get the spells to work. Meanwhile, he reads up on offensive and defensive spells, starting with the book that Hagrid had prevented him from buying in Diagon Alley. He does nothing with the knowledge, not yet. Harry is a Slytherin, a serpent – or at least now he is. He will lay in wait until he is in a powerful position, and then he will strike.
He allows himself no respite, save his flying classes and his weekly visit to Hagrid. He finds an easy magical shield in his books and repeats the wand movement and incantation until it works. Then he practices it again and again until he can cast it with barely a thought. Then he forces himself to do it all silently – nonverbal casting, the books say, is a matter of willpower, and that’s one trait Harry has in abundance. He does this practice every day until he has no more magic in his body, then he writes his homework and goes to sleep.
By Halloween, Harry has gotten used to not speaking to other Slytherins. That doesn’t stop a Ravenclaw from pointing out that his parents died ten years ago today and claiming that he dishonors their memory. He likes to think that James and Lily Potter would love him unconditionally, like Petunia and Vernon love Dudley. The rude Ravenclaw’s comment makes him doubt, though, for Hagrid has told him that his father was a proud Gryffindor who often pranked Slytherins. (The line between pranks and bullying is far too thin – Harry would know.) He is not particularly hungry that night – he’s missed meals before and is far more well-fed here than at the Dursleys – nor does he want to deal with the Great Hall tonight. So he wanders, and he wanders… into a mountain troll.
Harry smells it a few seconds before he sees it. The massive, clubbed monster eyes him hungrily, and he backs away slowly. It steps toward him – long, lumbering steps that will catch him soon – so he runs.
The troll’s long and steady walking gait still keeps pace with the boy’s rapid, eleven-year-old strides. He is the MVP of Harry Hunting, but he is out of practice and cannot keep it up forever. His eyes dart left and right for an open door that he can slip inside. He doesn’t see that it’s a girl’s bathroom and doesn’t realize that it’s occupied until he sees a crying girl with bushy brown hair with red, weeping eyes standing at a sink. He vaguely recognizes her as the girl who went around helping to find the lost toad on the train and rattled off all the books he was in. He hasn’t interacted with her since.
“There’s a troll coming this way!” Harry shouts to warn the girl. He isn’t entirely sure of that identification, even, for he hasn’t spent much time on dangerous magical creatures. Spells are his first priority.
“That’s prepost—” she begins to protest but is cut off by the bathroom door being demolished in a single, massive blow from the beast’s wooden club. The girl screams. Harry can’t blame her.
The troll struggles to move in the confined space, so Harry runs to the far end of the room, hiding himself in the most distant stall from the door. “Come on!” he shouts at the girl. “You need to snap out of it if you want to get out of this alive!”
That seems to be enough to get the girl to join him in the stall, shutting the door behind her. The troll approaches them, leaving behind a trail of utter destruction. If they can’t figure out a way to defeat the troll soon, they’re dead. Harry is the best at spells among any first-year Slytherin, but he has no clue what a troll’s strengths and weaknesses are, beyond the obvious.
“Trolls!” he demands of his stall companion. He knows from observation that she’s a massive bookworm who spends all of her time in the library. If anyone would know how to take down a troll, it would be her. “Tell me everything you know about them!” The troll is four stalls away.
The girl seems to find some stability in being asked to recite facts. “Trolls are large human-shaped creatures. Their ministry rating is four-X.” The girl speaks faster than Harry has heard anyone speak before. The troll is three stalls away.
“They are unintelligent and incredibly prone to violence, especially mountain trolls. They have immense physical strength and thick skin, which resistant both to sharp objects and to magic.” Two stalls away.
She continues to list facts about troll habitats and diets, but Harry doesn’t really listen. The troll cannot be defeated. All they can do is protect themselves. Pointing his wand at the stall door, he remembers the very first incantation he ever learned, on day one of transfiguration. “Mutatio lignum in metallum!” he whispers, willing the wooden panels and door to become three barriers of solid steel. He pushes magic out of himself as fast as he can, hoping it will be done in time. One stall away, and the club approaches their stall door, but the transformation is complete.
The girl sitting next to him has been shocked into silence, but Harry does not care. He is out of magic and ideas, and he can only hope the transfigured steel walls will hold against the wooden club long enough for help to arrive or the troll to lose interest. The trolls’ first hit lands with a thunderous boom and dents the metal – but only dents it. It worked! The second hit lands in a different spot than the first, proving that the troll is not smart enough to aim for the same spot twice.
After a dozen or so hits (Harry doesn’t bother counting exactly), Harry hears the voice of Professor McGonagall dealing with the troll in a few swift spells. She undoes the transfiguration and scolds them for chasing after the troll when they were told to return to their dormitories.
“I was never told that. I wasn’t at the feast,” Harry says. “Neither was she.”
“Why not?” the Professor asks.
“Tonight is the night my parents died.”
That is enough for the transfiguration professor to let him off with a word of congratulations for his impressive feat of magic before she focuses on the girl. A scowling Professor Snape accompanies him down to his dormitory. He doesn’t get any praise, but he doesn’t get beratement either. It’s a win.
(Ron Weasley doesn’t remember his know-it-all classmate until far too late. Neville Longbottom remembers, but a few biweekly meetings with the headmaster haven’t given the confidence to bring something like that up to his friend. Hermione Granger isn’t inclined to give her roommates any more details than strictly necessary about her near-death experience, so the rumor mill twists the story a dozen different ways by the next day.)
Friendship
“Why did you stay?”
The girl – Hermione Granger, Harry remembers once the life-or-death situation has passed – sits down at the small table the boy usually occupies in the library. He’s currently taking notes on the casting of several spells that are well beyond his level, but he needs to know anyway. Slytherins don’t play fair.
Harry Potter looks at her questioningly. “Stay?”
“You could have run while I was frozen, left me to my fate. No one would have faulted you for it.”
Her question isn’t a bad one. In the heat of the moment, why did he ignore the selfish option? The hat had said he had bravery, courage. (Just not enough for Gryffindor.)
“You’ve done me no wrong,” he says. And she hasn’t. Sure, her babbling on the train about all the books he’s in was annoying, but at least she did it to his face, not behind his back. Not to mention, she was kind that day, helping another student find his toad. “Why would I?”
“You’re a Slytherin,” she says matter-of-factly, as if it explains everything. Which, to be fair, it does. “You hate me.”
“Malfoy may not like you,” he says, guessing based on what he’s heard from the blond about his exploits bullying Gryffindors and the muggleborn. “But I don’t like him.”
Harry knows that Hermione Granger knows a lot – everyone in first year knows that – but as she takes in his last statement, he sees in here eyes that her intelligence is more than mere regurgitation of facts.
“I suppose not,” she says. “And really, either way, I should have started by thanking you for saving my life.”
Harry knows that he could end the conversation here. But there are some things you can’t do without at least creating the possibility of friendship, and surviving a twelve-foot-tall mountain troll is one of them. And he’s lonely. Thinking back to what he’s seen of Hermione Granger in the past two months, he takes a leap.
“Why weren’t you at the feast last night?” he asks.
“Ron Weasley said something quite rude to me in Charms yesterday, that I was insufferable know-it-all and it was no wonder I had no friends.”
Harry had suspected something like that, given what he saw last night, but the confirmation is was makes him willing to show a little vulnerability in return.
“An older Ravenclaw insulted me in the halls yesterday,” he reveals. “He said that I was insulting my parent’s memories by being a Slytherin and reminded me of the anniversary. It put me off my appetite, so I went wandering the halls instead.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say!” Hermione exclaims.
“So was what Ron said to you,” Harry counters. “I thought he was a good and fun guy when we sat together on the Express, but he hasn’t said a word to me since…”
He lets the unspoken conclusion to that sentence hang out there for a while.
“He was right, though.”
“Who?”
“Ron. That I don’t have any friends.”
“Well, neither do I, really, except Hagrid and Hedwig. But one’s an adult and the other’s an owl, so it’s not quite the same.”
This gets a small laugh from the girl, quiet enough for Madam Pince not to notice and shush them.
“Since I’m friendless and you’re friendless,” he suggests hesitantly, “why don’t we try being friendless together?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s just called being friends,” Hermione says. “If you’re sure…”
“You should know,” he warns, “that being friends with a Slytherin probably won’t make anyone in Gryffindor like you much. Or Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw for that matter.”
“They hardly want anything to do with me as it is.”
The burgeoning friendship of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger is a curious thing. Harry doesn’t trust easily, but he resolves to give this attempt at friendship his all. He trusts in the courage of the girl who could recite facts about trolls as one bore down on her, who was sorted into the house of the brave despite being the most Ravenclaw person he’s ever met. And likewise, Hermione Granger does her best to connect to the strange boy who saved her life. It might not work save for the sharing of loneliness and of a transfigured toilet stall. And slowly, they go from hesitant acquaintances to best friends.
Harry learns that she loves her parents and her books, sometimes not in that order. She is quite impressed with how Harry has read ahead in his defense texts but dismayed at his explanation as to why.
“Wouldn’t your head of house help you?” she asks when Harry describes the systematic silence and bullying campaign against him by his housemates.
“Why would he?” he counters.
“Because he’s a professor! He’s supposed to protect his students!”
“Supposed to doesn’t always mean does, Hermione,” he says. People are supposed to care for their family. People are supposed to treat all children in their care well. People are supposed to sleep in bedrooms, not cupboards. None of that stopped the Dursleys. And the adults in Little Whinging by and large chose to believe that Harry was a delinquent rather than that the Dursleys were anything less than an upstanding couple, although most would agree that a six-year-old delinquent made little sense.
“It would be the word of one first-year against the entire house, if he would even be willing to hear me out in the first place. Besides, it’s largely my fault.”
“Your fault?”
“Draco Malfoy approached me on the train. He and Weasley started insulting each other; I defended Weasley and was rather rude about it.”
“That doesn’t justify the entirety of your house turning against you! It’s supposed to be your family!”
Harry is rather glad that he chose to have this conversation in the private classroom they often meet in, instead of in the library. Hermione is getting rather loud.
“Malfoy’s name has a lot of influence. If I wanted to, I could apologize to him or try to get back in his good graces. But no.” Harry shakes his head. “My house is my family, and I’m quite used to family that hates me.”
(The next day, Harry tries to talk to Professor Snape about the bullying problem, for Hermione’s sake. As expected, he’s ignored.)
They find a balance between themselves that works. Hermione pushes Harry to do his best on his written classwork and reading, and Harry pushes Hermione to excel at her spellcasting. Working like this, they become the unquestioned top students in their year, save in Herbology and Potions. Herbology, because Longbottom dominates, and Potions, because well…
Hermione tries to partner with Harry in Potions, telling her dormmates to brew as a trio. They look at her funny, but she insists. Professor Snape forces them to go back to their previous arrangements. “Mr. Potter has been confident enough in his abilities to brew by himself for the past two months. I see no reason why he should need help now.” Hermione is torn between her respect for teachers and her innate aversion to injustice. A shake of the head from her friend – her first friend – tips the scales toward inaction, and she silently leaves Harry alone at his cauldron once more.
“That was entirely unfair!” she says when they are alone later that day.
“Of course, but it is what it is.”
“How can you be so blasé about this? You’re having to do twice as much work as anyone else.”
Harry shrugs before pulling out the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 to end the conversation.
“We see the world differently,” he remarks later. “You believe that figures of authority are usually right and fair, and that when they aren’t, they can be changed. I believe that figures of authority are rarely fair, and this cannot be changed. Not by us, not by children.”
“That’s a rather cynical way of seeing the world.”
“Never said it wasn’t.”
“Maybe that’s why you’re a Slytherin, and I’m a Gryffindor,” Hermione hypothesizes.
“Maybe,” Harry says, and the matter is dropped.
Onward
Time moves on. Neither Harry nor Hermione care much for Quidditch, so they don’t attend the Gryffindor-Slytherin match. Quirrell has no reason to curse any broomsticks.
Hermione mentions one day the three-headed dog that she encountered when trying and failing to stop the Gryffindor boys from sneaking out at night on some adventure. Harry is interested, and when the pair go to visit Hagrid (Hermione having joined after Halloween), he reveals that Fluffy is guarding something for a man named Nicolas Flamel. It’s a moderately interesting research topic, but Harry doesn’t let it occupy too much of their time, not when he needs to learn every spell he can to defend himself against his housemates.
When Christmas comes, Hermione leaves and Harry is left alone in the Slytherin dungeons. After two months of having a friend, Hermione’s absence makes the boy rather miserable. For presents, he only gets a wooden flute from Hagrid, a book on counter-curses from Hermione, and a fifty-pence note from his uncle. (The Weasleys are passing acquaintances, so he never gets a sweater knitted with love. The Headmaster decides that performing additional research on the third Hallow is a better use of it than returning it to a Slytherin boy of uncertain character.) Still, the feast alone makes this the best Christmas he’s ever had.
When Hermione returns, a hole in his heart is filled. For the first time, he lets himself be hugged. He rather enjoys it.
Hermione lets him know that somehow, the Gryffindor boys have found out about Flamel and what’s beneath the trapdoor, and they identified him using a Chocolate Frog card, of all things! Knowing that the Philosopher’s Stone is in Hogwarts is interesting, but not really Harry’s concern. He doesn’t need unlimited gold or immortality anyway. He has his magic and Hermione’s magic, and that’s enough.
Hagrid getting a dragon’s egg is a disaster waiting to happen. Watching it hatch is fun, but watching it nearly burn down Hagrid’s hut with them inside said hut is less fun. They aren’t friends with Ron Weasley, so the idea of contacting Charlie never occurs to them. Instead, they convince Hagrid to fess up to Dumbledore, who somehow manages to use his influence to make Hagrid’s dragon breeding legal and arrange for its transport to a sanctuary.
Not all is well, though. The bullying of Harry increases after Halloween once it’s clear that Harry’s found a friend despite all odds. Hermione is targeted too for a little while, but when she lands in Madam Pomfrey’s care four times in a week, Professor McGonagall goes on a warpath and Professor Snape is forced to warn the Slytherins that continued targeting of Hermione Granger will be met with harsh consequences. All of the hostility directed at her is redirected to Harry himself, and he shoulders the added burden without complaint. (McGonagall does nothing about Harry when Hermione mentions it. Or maybe she does and Snape filters it out of the message he passes along. Either way, Hermione is safe and Harry is more unsafe than ever. Something breaks inside the girl, just a little.)
After Christmas, the Slytherins return with renewed hostility and an arsenal of curses that fall short of forcing the professors to perform a full investigation. Harry is a twice-daily visitor to Madam Pomfrey. She takes pity on him and helps him learn healing spells and curse reversal. She tries to bring the matter to the rest of the staff, but since Harry is always hexed from behind, he can never name his attackers, so they remain unpunished.
Around Easter, Harry is able to maintain a constant full-body shield (albeit a low-level one) in the hallways. It drains him to the point that his in-class spellwork notably suffers. It’s less than ideal, but it’s better than the alternative.
Exams come, and with Hermione’s help, Harry does fairly well. His magical endurance has built up enough that he can use his shield and still have enough magic to complete the exam tasks. When exams are over, he relaxes with Hermione in the sunshine, listening to her voice as she stresses over test questions that she almost certainly got right. It’s not unpleasant.
Until the day of the Leaving Feast, the pair don’t hear the rumor that the Gryffindor first-year boys went into the third-floor corridor, though Hermione vaguely notes that Longbottom is in the Hospital Wing. That night, they see the Great Hall decked out in Slytherin colors until Dumbledore hands the aforementioned boys massive amounts of house points for strange-sounding accomplishments. The hall turns red, the lions celebrate, and Harry and Hermione are confused. They could probably piece together what happened from the rumor mill if they wanted to, but Harry doesn’t really care, and both despise gossip on principle.
Hermione has secured Harry a place at her house this summer, and Harry has secured permission from the Dursleys through a carefully worded letter containing such phrases as “I won’t be a burden on you” and “free of my freakishness”. It’s distasteful, but it works.