Harry arrived at Hogwarts late and with a strange-looking bird on his arm. Ron, Hermione and Luna had been very worried when he'd not shown up on the train. But he'd slipped into a seat with no warning or fanfare just as the first years lined up to be sorted.
"What the bloody hell is that?" Ron asked.
"Where on earth have you been?" Hermione scolded at the same time.
"This is my new familiar, Hedwig, and I missed the train. It was weird. Mama dropped me off at the station but I couldn't get through to the platform and then this house elf appeared and anyway, I'll tell you later."
Harry's eyes were wide and dilated, almost fully black with a ring of fluorescent green shining like he was a living flashlight. His hair looked thoroughly windswept and the shadows trailed even farther and darker behind him. Hermione decided not to ask how Harry had gotten to school on time. She eyed up the snowy owl which had jumped off Harry and stood unnaturally still next to him. Its eyes blazed the same vibrant green color as Harry's own. If she'd had to guess, she would have thought the thing was taxidermied if she had not seen it move. Hedwig did not blink, did not move, did not seem enticed by the scents of food wafting through the air. "She was a birthday gift from my mama," Harry continued, either ignoring or oblivious to his friend's unease. "I raised her all by myself so I think it's natural she became my familiar after that."
"Very nice," Hermione faltered after an awkward moment. "Now we'll be able to send letters over break, it'll be nice."
"Yes, nice," Ron agreed after another second. Silence as thick as Harry's unnatural shadows lingered in the air until McGonagall's "Lovegood, Luna" pulled the trio's attention to the sorting.
"Aw," Harry complained as she was instantly sent off to Ravenclaw. "I was hoping Luna would join us."
"Well Ravenclaw does suit her," Hermione said. "Ron, your sister looks extremely nervous. You didn't let Fred and George convince her she'd have to fight a troll, did you?"
When Ginny Weasley joined them, she stared at Harry for a long moment, her eyes wide and cheeks blushing. Then her expression shifted to confusion, she looked at him a little harder and a shiver forced its way up her spine.
She'd always imagined Harry Potter being this tall, brave boy with kind eyes and a wide smile. But instead he was… creepy. Weird. Off. He was fairly short, lanky and wild - his eyes glowed, his grin was manic, something about him just screamed danger bad go away! Like he was a wolf blending perfectly into sheep's clothing. She sat next to the twins instead, but the hint of dread didn't go away until she was finally up in her dorm.
Hopefully, Tom would be able to explain what she'd noticed.
...
Their first class, to everyone's disappointment, was double Potions. Even Harry, long exempt from suffering directly, was not excited. And Harry liked brewing potions, unlike most students. But it was simply too early to sit in a stuffy classroom and get yelled at for several hours. Besides, Snape refused to let him work the way his mama did. At home, Harry usually balanced at least two potions at once, so that while one was simmering he could work on the other one. (It had taken him getting bored, wandering off, instantly forgetting he was brewing, and having the room explode twice before his mama put her foot down.) Harry could already feel the walls closing in and his restlessness showing through as he bounced on the balls of his feet as they waited at the door for their professor to let them inside.
But Professor Snape was quiet. The class filed in, sat at their stations, and watched as the professor stared out into space for a long moment, eyes clouded. No one spoke until a hesitant Malfoy called out to him. Snape snapped back to reality, swished his wand to write instructions on the board, and then calmly walked into his office and shut the door behind him. The silence lingered for another second as the students sat there, stunned before frantic whispers broke out, growing louder and louder as no adult came to correct them.
While the rumors about Snape's odd behavior quickly moved to outlandish territory, including one first-year who was convinced the professor had been one of the Weasley twins under Polyjuice, Harry quietly slipped away from his friends after dinner and summoned his parents.
"So, I can move on to haunt someone else now?" Lily asked, the violent gleam in her eyes burned like fire and lit up the room in flickering red light. "Severus is very guilty for how he treated his students, I want to move on to some of the Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy, perhaps?"
"Or one of the fuckers in prison?"
"James! Not in front of our son!"
"Sweetheart," James protested. He'd gotten a Fanged Frisbee from somewhere and was juggling it, more focused on catching it than on the glare from his raging wife. "Our baby boy is a murderous apathetic necromancer. I think he'll survive if he hears a few naughty words."
"I've only killed a few people," Harry protested. "And not for fun or anything. And mama swears a lot, it's nothing I've never heard before."
Lily rolled her eyes and continued on. "Well, I think we ought to start with the people who caused the most trouble. Malfoy, the Lestranges -"
"I'd say Bellatrix Lestrange, but she's already insane, isn't she? Would she even notice, I wonder?" James asked.
"We won't haunt her like we did with Severus. It would be pointless to try. We could set her sheets on fire or drown her in the toilet. I don't know what the prisoners have access to but we can get creative."
"So our son can't hear a naughty word but he can hear you gush about drowning someone?"
Harry laughed at their easy bickering as he grasped at darkness. He didn't know exactly where Azkaban prison was, but he focused on it nonetheless and sent his parents off after their target. Despite having just finished dinner, his stomach grumbled again from the use of magic. Where were Ron and Hermione, he wondered. Was it too late to go to the Great Hall for a snack?
....
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