Chapter Five

 

  Harry stopped just inside the doors to the Great Hall as everybody inside it turned to look at him. Startled, he looked over at the Slytherin table, trying to find Severus. The other boy had been a big help in Transfiguration, and he was very knowledgeable in Potions when Harry had questions for him. He didn't see him, though, even looking twice for the shoulder-length black hair Severus had.

  He walked over to the Gryffindor table, spying the auburn red of Lily's hair, knowing that James would be sitting next to her. As he got closer, he wondered why he knew that. Shrugging it off, since it wasn't quite a memory, he found the other boy and saw an empty space beside him.

  "Harry!"

  There was a loud chorus around him as James patted him on the back.

  "I see you survived!"

  Lily leaned around James. "Harry, how did you do that?"

  Shrugging his shoulders, Harry answered, "I'm not sure."

  He noticed Remus eyeing him. "You sound different. Is the Claritiserum still working?"

  Harry scrunched his eyebrows together as he thought. He hadn't noticed, but he didn't feel that strange compulsion at the back of his mouth. "I don't think so. Do you think I could lie?"

  Sirius laughed. "What's the capital of Scotland?"

  "Paris?" Harry nodded. "Yeah, I can lie now. I don't want to, though."

  "That's good," James said as he passed the pitcher of pumpkin juice to Harry. "Now, eat up, and if we hurry we can talk before our next class. What do you have?"

  Harry pulled the timetable out of his bag. "I have Arithmancy with the Ravenclaws. Advanced."

  "Whew!" Sirius said as he leaned over to look. "How'd you get placed in that class? Only the smartest students in Arithmancy get placed there. You are probably the first non-Ravenclaw in ten years to be there besides Remy, here."

  Harry wrinkled his nose when he saw the steak and kidney pie on his plate. Something deep inside him told him that he didn't like that particular dish. Reaching for a different bowl, he grabbed a dish of shepherd's pie. This was more like it.

  "They gave me a whole different bunch of tests and just placed me where they said." Harry gave a small laugh, not noticing the other staring at him. "It's weird that I can remember school things, even though I'm pretty sure I never /took/ Arithmancy before, but I can't even remember my last name."

  "That is weird," Remus agreed, a small grin on his face. "It will be nice, though, to have someone to work on my project now. The class has an odd number, so I was stuck by myself."

  "I could have helped you, Remus," Lily said. "I may not be in the Advanced class, but I would have helped you if you needed it."

  Remus grinned again. "Thanks, Lils."

  "Moony, you're admitting you need help?" Sirius said as he turned to the boy next to him. "I never thought to see the day."

  Peter laughed. "I thought that you, Padfoot, would admit that you liked...."

  Sirius held his hand over Peter's mouth. His face had darkened slightly. "Don't say it, Pete."

  Harry watched them all, a little confused by the nicknames. "Where did you get those names?"

  The three boys across from his shuffled around slightly in their seats as James turned to him. "Just some names we made up... two years ago?"

  Remus nodded, and Harry saw that he was finished.

  "Would you show me to the Arithmancy classroom? I need to stop by my new room to pick up my book for that," Harry asked.

  The other boy nodded. "I'm finished, are you?" Harry nodded. "Then let's go. I already have my book, so we could just go to your room and then head to class."

  "Thanks!"

 

******

  Severus looked up from the book he was reading to find Harry standing in front of him.

  "Hi!" the other boy greeted him. "Is it all right if I sit here?"

  Severus looked around the library. Off to the far corner he saw Potter and his gang watching them carefully. "You don't want to sit over there?" he asked in a cold voice.

  Harry shook his head, seeming to have ignored the tone of the other boy's voice. "No. I really liked talking to you this morning, and I was hoping you could tell me more about the potions you've been working on. After my experience with that Claritiserum, if you could produce a truth serum that didn't make you feel weird like it, it'd be great!"

  Waving a hand at the chair next to him, Severus eyed him carefully. After the fuss in the classroom, he wasn't quite sure what to make of the other boy. He was obviously powerful enough to get around the anti-apparation wards surrounding the castle, but he'd had difficulty understanding why a certain ingredient worked in the potion from this morning. Deciding that if he had trouble with that, Harry could be trusted enough for Severus to tell him about his pet project.

  "I can do that," Severus said, pulling his chair a little closer. "Just don't go around telling anyone else. I'm hoping that I can get the kinks worked out of it to sell to one of the big potions makers. I need the money for the schooling I need for my mastery in potions."

  Harry nodded and smiled softly. "I will. I think you'll make a great potions master, Severus. From what I saw today, you really know what's going on." The boy frowned slightly, and Severus thought that it didn't quite fit his face. "I certainly didn't. I have the feeling that potions isn't exactly my strong suit."

  Severus let a half-smile creep over his lips, knowing that only Harry could see it from the way he was facing. The boy in front of him was fairly modest, yet was very outspoken. He liked that fact, and hoped that they could become great friends - and maybe a little more if it worked out.

 

~*~

  James turned his back on the pair across the main room of the library. It was up to Harry who he spoke to, and as long as it wasn't Malfoy or his cronies, he didn't particularly mind. He was just glad that he'd talked to Harry before his friends had arrived, giving both boys time to talk about several things, including the war, and just why, exactly, Harry had wanted to talk to him about - which was why he hadn't been put into a house.

  Sirius, on the other hand, was ranting about how Harry was two-faced for talking to such a slimy git like Snape. Remus was sighing in an exasperated way, having heard Sirius' lecture on the evils of Snape the day before, all because he had a crush on the Slytherin boy. Surprisingly, Peter was voicing his distrust in the new boy.

  "I want to know why the Hat couldn't Sort him," Peter was saying. "It said all houses and none."

  Sirius nodded but didn't say anything, for which James was glad.

  "All that means is that he shows all the qualities of each of the houses," Lily said. "The Hat probably couldn't decide which would be the best for Harry."

  "Or the Hat couldn't tell from what Harry can remember," Remus interjected. "It could have felt that, because he has no true personal memories, the Hat couldn't put him into a specific house because it wasn't sure how Harry could adapt."

  James nodded. "It could be both."

  "Or it could be neither," Sirius countered.

  "Padfoot," Remus said. "Just because you don't like Snape isn't a reason not to talk to Harry because he talks to him."

  "Precisely," Lily added. "Besides, Snape needs friends as well. He never talks to any of the other Slytherins anymore."

  James looked at her. "How do you know?" he asked, curiously.

  She shrugged her shoulders. "From watching in class and trying to avoid Malfoy."

  James laughed. "That reminds me. Sarah Giles told me that Harry told Malfoy off in Transfiguration this morning. That Slytherin prat told him that he was speaking to the wrong people - meaning us and Snape - and that *he* would be better."

  Sirius grudgingly admitted that he'd talk to the Ravenclaw girl as well. "She said that Malfoy stuck his hand out and Harry refused to shake it, saying that he could figure out the 'wrong sort' for himself."

  "Malfoy's the 'wrong sort' all right," Remus said. "He gives me the creeps sometimes."

  James agreed. "He's certainly an iceman." He looked down at his Divination book, wondering why he had stayed in the class for five years. "Well, I think we'd better get cracking on our homework. I wanted to go down to the kitchens later tonight."

  Sirius grinned and picked up his quill. "We haven't been there in a while, haven't we?"

  "Not since we lost the map," Peter added glumly.

  Lily shook her head at the long face James felt on his face, as well as the other three boys' hang-dog expressions at the table. "It was your own fault. You didn't even look at it before you left that room."

  James gave her a sullen look. "At least I didn't have my cloak with us. Filch would have kept it as well. At least it was blank. I don't even want to think of what would have happened if Filch realized what it was."

  "That would have been bad," Peter said, nodding his head in agreement.

  Sirius and Remus nodded in a grave manner. "The end of the world as we know it," Sirius said in a grief-stricken voice.

 

******

  Harry found himself sitting next to a Ravenclaw named Skye Gordon the next morning. As Charms wore on, the more he felt the... he wasn't sure if he should call it darkness or what... but whatever it was he didn't like it. He had been hoping to sit next to James or Remus, but the only available seat in the classroom had been on the Ravenclaw side. Even sitting next to a girl named Sarah, who seemed friendly with Lily, would have been much better than the end seat he was seated at.

  Professor Flitwick had been talking about charms for the household, and Skye had been muttering under her breath that such things were for House Elves. Harry wasn't sure exactly who or what they were, but he felt sorry for them if they met up with the girl.

  He did like Ravenclaw's Head of House. The small man was full of energy, and his enthusiasm about Charms seemed to rub off on the students. It also helped that Harry found he could do these exercises a lot better than Potions or Arithmancy.

  Harry hid a smile at the thought of Arithmancy. Remus had helped him get up to speed on the class when the professor had gotten him lost. He was pretty sure he hadn't taken the class before, but Harry was certain that the professors wouldn't have put him in that class if he didn't know the subject.

  He was pulled from his thoughts by cussing next to him. It wasn't the first time that the girl had said something like it, but he didn't like the sound of the word 'Mudblood.' From the tone of her voice, it was nasty sounding. Thankfully the bell rang, and with a quick look at his timetable, he set off to the greenhouses, where he would have class with the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs.

  The few Hufflepuffs he'd met had been very nice, even if their head of house seemed a bit off his rocker. One of them, a boy named Gilbert Abbott, had shown him how to get to the library yesterday evening after dinner. He had eaten with the Ravenclaws last night and the group he'd been sitting with had left before he realized he didn't know the way to where James had said they could talk.

  When he got to the greenhouses, the professor, Handel, pulled him aside to finish the testing for the class. Harry wasn't sure if he liked him or not. He threw himself into his job so much that he often neglected his students. And with him being the Head of Slytherin, it wasn't the ideal situation. From what he had seen of the Slytherins he had already met, it was rare to find someone who... Harry guessed he could say tolerated the other students. Severus was one of the few who didn't seem to mind Harry talking to all the houses.

  Harry quite liked the other boy. They had talked about the war as well, and they had spent the rest of the time to curfew discussing how Severus' new potion could be used to help the Ministry catch criminals.

  A light touch on his shoulder made him jump, turning swiftly to see Madam Pince, the librarian, standing behind him with a startled look on her face.

  "I'm sorry for startling you... Harry, was it?" At his nod she continued, "It's time for the library to close tonight, you two. Five more minutes."

  Harry looked around and found the other corners of the library were already quite dark and the last stragglers but he and Severus walking out the doors across the room. He hadn't realized just how long they'd been talking.

  "I guess we should get going, then?" he asked as he pulled his books together.

  Across from him, Severus gave another one of those half-smiles he had been tossing at Harry. "Are you going to be spending the night with Potter, again?"

  Harry shook his head, curious at the tone his friend talked in. He couldn't quite distinguish what it was, but brushed it aside to answer Severus' question.

  "No. I have my own room," he said as the two of them made their way to the library's doors. "It's close to the hospital wing, since Madam Pomfrey wants me to take a potion every morning. Awful tasting thing it is."

  A snort came from Severus' direction. "That would be the nutritional supplement, I take it?"

  Harry laughed. "According to her, at some point I was severely malnourished, probably before the age of eleven."

  Severus didn't laugh, and Harry felt a little uncomfortable at his stare.

  "What?"

  "You laugh?"

  "Would you rather I get angry about it?" Harry countered. "I can't remember what made that happen, and at this point it seems like one of the few things I would rather not remember." He looked up and found they were ten meters from his door.

  Giving the password to the portrait of the young boy guarding his door, Harry looked at Severus.

  "I have Runes with you in the morning, don't I?" he asked.

  Severus nodded. "Meet you there?"

  Harry gave a half-smile. "How about after breakfast? I got roped into breakfast with a couple of Hufflepuffs, who wanted details on Potions this afternoon." He gave a small laugh. "My popularity is making my head spin."

  The other boy nodded and shifted his bag before turning slightly. "Breakfast it is, then."

 

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