Chapter 10
The night of Halloween, or rather, known as Samhain in the wizarding world, Harry felt it.
Lady Magic was stirring in the air, and the boundary between the dead and the living was the thinnest it would ever be.
It was a day where the dead and the living could interact, and magic was charged in the air.
Something was going to happen.
Magic had whispered it to him, and to Harry, it was like a current on his skin. As it was on every special day, Harry was left almost breathless with anticipation.
Today was the night that his parents had died, the night that the supposedly Lord Voldemort was defeated, and it was celebrated with a feast.
Harry had never known his parents – and he never would – it wasn't like he particularly mourned their death.
But sometimes, he wondered whether or not he would have turned out so… different from everyone else. But then, Harry supposed, they could also have been just like him.
The thought made him smirk.
A scan across the Great Hall, and a wandering eye told him that one professor was missing from the table.
Professor Quirrell.
And wasn't that just suspicious?
With what he heard about the supposed curse on the defence against the dark art's position, was it any surprise that whatever was going to happen tonight had to do with their dear professor?
Harry made eye contact with Severus, but the man shook his head ever so slightly when Harry tilted his head at Quirrell's missing person.
Across him, Ron was stuffing his face, much to Draco's disgust.
"Ron, can you not eat like a civilised human being? You may be a blood traitor, but you're a pureblood!"
Ron rolled his eyes, but obligingly slowed down the rate at which he ate.
Draco continued to rant. "Honestly, it's like you've never had etiquette lessons in your entire life." There was a very pregnant pause, and Ron looked away from Draco's direction.
The indignation on Draco's face slowly morphed into pure horror. "You haven't, had you?"
Draco looked this close to tearing his hair out. There was a strangled sound that he made that Ron and Harry very politely didn't mention.
"No!" the blond whispered to himself, aghast. "What did I expect, really? You didn't even take a look at the schoolwork before Hogwarts started!"
Ron made an offended sound. "What does it matter?" He was a little pissed that his family was called a blood traitor family by Draco.
Draco also seemed to catch the glares from the usually happy Hufflepuffs around him, and he shrunk a little.
"Sorry," he said clearly, and the bunch of Hufflepuffs that had been glaring at him looked away, placated.
And wasn't that a trip on its own?
Draco couldn't get over that he was actually being forgiven for the slip of his tongue just by using the words 'sorry'. No wonder Harry said he could be a true Slytherin in Hufflepuff by using it to his advantage.
All of the people he consorted with – of which, all of them ended up in Slytherin – he knew better than to expect to be forgiven with just a few words.
It was why, before meeting Harry and Ron, he never once muttered the words 'I'm sorry' to anyone.
Now, though, just this one word gave him so much leeway. As long as he could properly use his expression to his advantage, that was.
Draco smacked Ron's hand that had snuck out to grab a loaf of bread. "Weasley," he hissed.
"Malfoy," Ron hissed back. But there was an edge of humour at the corner of his eyes, whereas Draco was being completely serious.
Draco huffed and moved nearer to Ron. "Look here. I'll teach you, so you better learn it!"
Leaving Ron to Draco, Harry instead turned his attention to things that deserved his attention more.
The magic in the air was reaching a crescendo, and unbeknownst to everyone else, Harry's eyes glowed as magic sung.
Harry took in a deep breath as the magic-charged air filled his lungs.
As always, whenever it reached his point, Harry felt completely and utterly alive in a way that he would never feel on an ordinary day.
Magic flooded through his veins, and it wound tightly under skin. It felt like sparks, it felt like a low sear of fire throughout his body.
Harry wondered, as he always did, whether or not this was what people felt like when they got high, so to speak.
At this moment, Harry could practically feel the curl of anticipation in the magic under his skin, and sure enough, the doors to the Great Hall burst open amidst the celebratory atmosphere, causing some students to jump in shock.
The doors admitted Professor Quirrell into the hall, and he was running in, tripping over his own feet.
There was a look of abject terror on his face, as if he was being chased by someone.
Had Harry been anyone else, there would have been a big grin on his face, but as it was, Harry's eyes just glowed more than usual, and there was a little smile on his face.
He had to force himself not to smile when everyone else's expressions changed to confusion and shock.
"Troll in the dungeons!" Professor Quirrell shouted, and Harry couldn't have hidden the slow curl to his smile if he tried.
If there was any proof needed that Quirrell's stutter was fake, it was here and now.
Rather than fear, Harry could tell that the man was excited. And so was his parasite. There was a slow, burning satisfaction that rippled through the core, and despite himself, Harry found his eyes drawn to the man.
The chaos that exploded in the Great Hall was something that helped hide his sudden interest. Helped to hide the sudden onslaught of delight that rippled through Harry's body.
Taking a breath, and wiping the smile from his lips, Harry looked at Ron and Draco, only to find that they were already looking at him.
Well, nothing they'd probably already not seen.
You didn't live in the same dorm as someone else without them finding out about what your personality was.
It didn't matter how much you tried to hide it. A person couldn't keep up their mask for that long, even if Harry was a genius in his own right.
But still, Ron and Draco were still following him, which made him wonder whether or not they actually did have the necessary Hufflepuff characteristics for them to be so loyal.
Well, it was all the better for him, of course.
Dumbledore clanged a goblet with a spoon, calling for order. "Order, order," the man said, "prefects, take your House back to the common room!"
Slowly, the Great Hall descended into a silence so stifling that some people found it hard to breathe.
Nervous fear bled into the air, and Harry almost found himself unable to breathe, but for a different reason than everyone else.
The nervous anticipation in the air was like a sweet drug to him, with how it spiked in the air.
Harry wasn't used to feeling emotions for anyone outside of himself, though he did consider his followers 'his', and thus there were some lesser emotions that were extended to them as well.
However, when so many people felt the same thing in a confined space like this, it was enough for even Harry to feel it through the magic laced in the air. With them unconsciously leaking magic from their bodies due to fear, it was such a heady thing that it took all of Harry's considerable willpower for him not to act out.
To be honest, self-control wasn't quite part of Harry's repertoire. He just never saw much of a need to.
But there was something holding him back.
Across the hall, there was a cry of, 'Hermione Granger is missing!' and the hall once again exploded into an uproar.
Harry licked his lips as the upper years gathered them up, hushing and reassuring the lower years.
The Slytherins quickly settled their House in the Great Hall.
Though Dumbledore didn't mention anything about their House, they weren't fools. No one was willing to chance coming across the troll upon going back down to their common room.
Ravenclaw departed first, quickly clearing out in an orderly manner though they looked worried.
Gryffindor was next, but not without many of them blustering and pasting brave expressions on their faces.
The Hufflepuff prefects moved quickly, herding their House back to their common room.
It took more than half an hour for everyone to get settled down, reassured that the professors would take care of the troll.
Seeing that there was no sense in waiting up, the prefects sent them to their bed.
No one was in much of a mood to do anything besides rest, so almost everyone went to sleep soon.
Harry, on the other hand… well.
He was going out to meet a certain someone.
Slipping out from the common room, Harry's footsteps were soundless as he followed the call of Lady Magic.
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