Chapter 46: Chapter 43: The Halloween Slug-club party
Harry critically looked at himself in the mirror and ran his wand slowly down his left sleeve.
While he had decided to attend Slughorn's party so as to counteract the Prophet's article depicting him as some sort of cheater, he didn't really have the clothes for the occasion. Muggle wear was obviously out, and the only wizarding clothes he owned were several iterations of the Hogwarts uniform. This would have normally been enough, considering he was a student, but the goal of today was to go there and have people notice, and talk to him. That's why he'd decided to change up his wardrobe. While the robes were seemingly immune to his level of transfiguration, probably due to the small amount of magic he was able to feel imbued within them, the colour-changing charm was fair game.
After almost an hour of effort, Harry finally nodded, satisfied. He'd tried out several different designs but had eventually settled on a base colour of white. White robe, white hat, white leather shoes. His red hair and green eyes stuck out but remained uncomplemented by the outfit, which is why he'd coloured his left sleeve red, and his right sleeve green. To match his features. All in all, he looked loud, garish and like someone out to be noticed. Not something he'd ever done before. However, while he had been fine with having no public image, he wasn't alright with having a negative public image.
For all that Harry was unlikely to stay in Britain for overly long, depending on the situation with Voldemort, he was still here at the moment. It was better for as many doors to remain open while he was still present, so he might better prepare himself for his departure. To that effect, Harry had forged a plan, of which the first part was to attend a socialite party. He grimaced at the need for such a thing and exited the dorm room, where Penny and Cedric were waiting for him. Other Hufflepuffs also turned to look at his odd colouration, or perhaps due to his newfound fame, but they quickly lost interest.
"Very bright," Penny said.
Cedric meanwhile, crossed his arms and tilted his head with squinted eyes. "Should I wear something similar when I get my invitation?"
"Hey, don't steal my style," Harry rebuked. "Just wear your Quidditch robes, it's what you'll be famous for, right? First game next week."
Cedric nodded, "White Quidditch robes with yellow and black high-lights, or the national team robes." He decided, while Penny rolled her eyes next to him, before blushing.
"There is a dress I wouldn't mind wearing," she muttered distractedly.
"Get a good grade on your potion O.W.Ls and I'm sure you'll get an invite. Alternatively, you could make a compendium of all those little improvements you've been making to the potions we've been practising. I'm sure Slughorn would be impressed," Harry suggested, but Penny shook her head.
"I'm nowhere near as good as the half-blood prince yet."
"Who's the half-blood Prince?" Cedric asked while looking around the warmly lit Hufflepuff common room as if to check that the person in question wasn't hiding somewhere in the crowd of Hufflepuffs. Harry couldn't help but snort, at the ridiculousness of both his friends.
"The half-blood prince is a sixth-year student whose notes we found in a potions textbook. He made a lot of improvements to the brewing process and isn't someone Penny should be comparing herself to quite yet," Harry said pointedly while looking at his slightly too humble female friend. "Anyway, I have to go. Try to finish the homework on the werewolves, which I don't have to do, while I'm gone. That way we can explore the castle or something this weekend," he said as a goodbye and strode out of the common room into the wide corridors of the castle.
He disillusioned himself when out of sight, not wanting to be disturbed and knowing that his current outfit would make a target out of him for any passing Slytherin. The drama provided by the house system truly was as self-generating as it was pointless.
The walk to the room that Slughorn apparently requisitioned for his larger parties wasn't overly long, but it did pass through Slytherin territory. While Harry had made "peace" with whoever the kid who'd tried to bully him last year had been, the rest of the house wasn't too kindly disposed to Harry and he occasionally found himself dodging an errant jinx or hex in the hallways.
It was perhaps due to the time that Harry had taken to prepare his outfit, but when he finally knocked on the door leading him to the dinner party, it became clear that he was the last to arrive.
The euphemistically portly, and the realistically fat professor opened the door and allowed Harry entry into a well-lit hall already filled with a variety of people mingling around small circular tables at elbow height which carried a variety of little foods. A house-elf occasionally flitted by with a tray of colourful drinks but slapped away the hand of any student who tried to reach for it. Alcohol was clearly only for the visiting adults.
"Glad you could make it, my boy!" Slughorn proclaimed to Harry as he led him inside, "Your mother attended a great many of these parties as well after her OWLs, you can't put a price on talent, I say." He rambled onwards as he led Harry through the room, in which Harry didn't recognize anyone, other than James Potter and Sirius Black, who were involved in a private conversation in a far-off corner. Eventually, Harry was deposited in front of what appeared to be a Gryffindor prefect, but not before having pointed out to him the name and occupation of a variety of people, ranging from the owner of a chain of apothecaries to a professional Quidditch player.
"Now Charlie, this is Harry, a second-year who's been doing exceptionally well academically and who's advanced one grade in Charms and two in Arithmancy, I trust that you can show him around," Slughorn said, before promptly departing to talk to what appeared to be a group of ministry officials.
Harry blinked at the brusque way in which he'd been chaperoned to his final destination, before turning to the tall red-headed boy in obviously second-hand robes. "I'm Harry Evans." He introduced himself lamely and stuck out a hand. Charlie Weasley wasn't necessarily the kind of person he'd come here to talk to, but leaving would have just been rude.
They shook hands, at which point Charlie smiled awkwardly. "I don't really know what the point of me showing you anything is. It's my first time here," the young man said. They both shared an exasperated look and chuckled. Deciding that it wouldn't be a bad idea to have shared a few words with a future dragon handler, or whatever, Harry went to stand by the other redhead.
"So what makes you special enough to be invited for this illustrious evening?" he asked as he tried to blend out the brightly coloured banners hanging from the ceiling and the red fairies flying around providing light. He needed to figure out if anyone important was attending this Halloween party.
"Ah, well. I made Captain of the Quidditch team this year. I also have decent grades, I guess? I don't really know, to be honest." Was the reply, "And you, other than school, I mean?" he asked, while Harry was busy narrowing his eyes at an older gentleman with a handle-bar moustache. He was wondering if the man was Crouch, the current minister of magic before he realised that he had a wizard-born friend to talk to.
"There's nothing really special about me if you ignore academia. I don't even like attention," he admitted. "I only came because of the article that was recently written about me. I need to fix my public image."
Charlie hummed loudly and whipped back and forth on the balls of his feet, "Prophet's a load of dragon dung if you ask me. I'm attending with a date, but she ran off to talk with a relative who unexpectedly came as well and hasn't come back."
"Can you point out who the people here even are, if you recognize any?" Harry asked, discarding from his mind the irrelevant information about Charlie's date.
The boy perked up and brought up a hand to his chin, where a very wispy red something was trying to grow, and failing. "My dad works at the ministry, so I've actually seen a few of these people before," he said proudly. Then he started pointing out some of them.
A group of well-built middle-aged men taking up the food-bringing service of not one, but four house elves were retired Quidditch players. Next to them was a group of musicians apparently called "The Weird Sisters," which was doubly weird since all of them seemed to be men.
Other than that Charlie recognized many ministry workers, one of which had been the man with the handle-bar moustache Harry had been eyeing earlier. Not the minister, apparently.
The boy's finger was in a perpetual state of movement as it identified attendant after attendant as if Charlie were pointing prisoners in a place with lots of prisoners. The finger eventually halted one man dressed in long black robes with long unkempt hair and a ridiculously large beaked nose. "Don't know who that is," Charlie muttered, while Harry stood, dumbstruck. "But the man he's talking to must be Gilderoy Lockhart, my mum's read some of his books," he said, as he put down his hand and nodded at the brightly dressed fop wildly gesticulating at a long-suffering Severus Snape.
Harry's mind went a mile a minute as he considered the man, who, for all intents and purposes didn't look any different from what he would have looked like had he become a Hogwarts professor. But he wasn't a Hogwarts professor. What was Severus Snape, someone who'd been last heard completing his potions mastery in Germany almost a decade ago doing at the Slug club?
The participants of the conversation that he and Charlie were observing seemed to notice the observation and looked their way in an oddly synchronised manner. Their reactions, however, couldn't have been any different. Whereas Lockhart made some excusing gestures at Snape and started making his way to the two students, the latter of the two simply stood rooted in place and looked at Harry as if he was seeing a ghost.
"Boys!" Lockhart said as he walked up to them in wide and pretentious strides. "You don't have to stare from across the room," the man continued. "If you want an autograph you just have to ask. I always have time for my adoring fans," he finished and struck a hero's pose with his fists on his hips in front of Harry and Charlie, who shared an awkward look.
Thinking on his feet, instead of on his brain, Harry quickly deflected the blonde man to Charlie, "My mate Charlie was wondering if he could get an autograph for his mum. Big fan, big fan," he said, patting Charlie on the back and extradited himself from the situation.
Charlie shot him a betrayed look while Lockhart started chattering at him, asking about the specifics of what kind of message he should address to Ms Weasley. Harry meanwhile, began walking towards Snape, dodging house elves carrying trays that covered them entirely, making them look like little walking tables, and other guests. Snape for his part seemed to gather himself and continued standing there. Perhaps this was why he didn't notice James Potter sneaking up on him and starting what appeared to be a normal and cordial situation.
Harry grimaced and stopped in place with a sigh. Snape was one of the few people whom he actually wanted to ask about what had happened to his mother, considering he should have, at the time of Harry's own conception, still been her best friend and, as a Slytherin, have been well-placed between all the usual suspects whom one might have assumed responsible for the act. It wasn't like Harry was dying to know who his father was, but he felt like the empty gap that represented his knowledge about Lily Evans between the rape and his birth was one of the puzzle pieces he needed to understand the mess that was this world.
While he could ask James Potter the same question he would ask Snape once the two of them were done with their conversation, he wanted to wait until the man was on his way out in his tenure as defence professor. If the conversation turned bad, or if Harry didn't like the answer he got, he wanted to spend as little time as possible in the man's presence.
"Wotcher Harry," a voice suddenly said from beside Harry. He turned around to glance at Tonks, who looked as she always did, just that today she had actually decided to forgo the perpetual pendulum she seemed to exist in between jeans and t-shirt and school uniform. She was wearing a nice and slightly low-cut green dress and with her purple hair could have passed for a fairy, the way muggles conceived them to be. Her breasts seemed a bit larger than usual, and Harry wondered if she'd made them bigger, or was simply wearing some special sort of bra.
"Hello, Tonks," he replied dully, as people streamed past the two of them in their position in the middle of the room.
"Any reason you're standing in the middle of the room, like a muppet?" she asked. Without bothering to answer Harry went over to one of the bone-shaped pillars interspersed around the room, very spooky.
Coincidentally James and Severus were talking on the other side of the pillar. Harry tried to listen in while Tonks meandered over, but couldn't hear anything other than a faint buzzing.
Was that how being on the wrong end of a muffliato felt like?
"There's a person I want to talk to, but someone beat me to the punch," he eventually told the curious girl who'd followed.
She raised an eyebrow, "Who has the honour? Are you going to challenge them to a duel?" she asked, causing Harry to snort.
"No, I wouldn't like my chances. They're the last person who graduated Hogwarts early, so I wanted to ask them about that," he answered.
Tonks crossed her arms. "So you like your chances against me, huh," she stated.
"We'll find out soon, how my chances stand," Harry said coolly. Tonks simply smirked. However, her smile quickly turned flustered as she stared at something behind Harry. A hand suddenly clasped itself on his shoulder and his heart-beat quickened. He turned around, not knowing what he was expecting exactly, but was disappointed to find that it was only Professor Potter smiling at him awkwardly, brown hair askew as always.
"Mr. Evans, nice to see you," the man said and Harry noted that the man was dressed in what appeared to be an auror's uniform. Brown trench coat and all.
"Good evening, professor," Tonks eeped with a red face before Harry had the chance to answer. She got a quick smile and a nod from the man, who then immediately turned back to Harry.
"There was something I was wondering if we could discuss. Do you mind stepping aside?" the man asked and waited for the answer.
Harry shot a disappointed-looking Tonks an apologetic smile as he and James retreated slightly towards the walls cutting in the festivities. Harry didn't know if this was necessarily a good look for Professor Potter, from the odd glances they were getting from the other guests, but that wasn't his problem. "Is anything the matter, professor?" Harry asked while James, for all intents and purposes, fidgeted.
The man shook his head, "you're not in trouble. I was just curious about something, I was recently talking to Professor Flitwick and he told me you were interested in duelling?"
"It seemed like a nice ambition, I read about the duelling championships in the library and some of the pictures gave me ideas. It looks really cool. I went and asked Professor Flitwick for help, but he told me he wants to see how I do with the increased academic workload before he allows me to commit to anything."
"What have you been working on recently, kinetic repulsion? It was a very powerful spell you used in the classroom," the professor said.
"I actually realised recently that I have no good defence against transfigured beasts, so I was working on my reparifargo," Harry admitted, to which James shook his head.
"That's a waste of time, untransfiguring the attacking creatures lets the opponent keep momentum. Better to take control of the animation or to simply blast it with an explosion, the debris can function as an attack if aimed properly," the man muttered.
Harry sighed as he realised that the auror was right. If all he did was undo what his enemy had done, he would never regain any sort of momentum. He frowned as he thought about how quickly he'd learned all the things Flitwick had suggested he learn. "That's exactly the fear that I had, that I would waste my time being inefficient. It's why I went to Professor Flitwick for help. However, I do have to thank you for the most recent class, I hadn't realised object repulsion could be so powerful. Is that how you managed to defeat Greyback all those years ago?" he asked, at which James shook his head.
"The papers misreported that. I wasn't able to defeat Greyback. What I didn't manage to teach was that werewolves come in categories, and Greyback has such a powerful connection to his inner wolf that he's very difficult to pin down," the man admitted with a grim face. His posture became more stiff, possibly because he was remembering something unpleasant.
"How did you do it then, professor?" Harry asked, not caring for the man's discomfort. He'd almost gotten him killed last year with his collaboration with Twix, he could bear being uncomfortable for a bit if it meant Harry's curiosity would get sated.
"It was common to wear an emergency portkey to battle back then," James muttered with a far-away look. "Usually hidden, but Greyback was transformed. The necklace was obvious. I managed to scramble the location and send him off," he finished.
"Well, let's hope he landed somewhere and sea and drowned like the dog that he was," Harry said simply, getting a queer look from the professor. "I've read up on the war, the man was a monster and deserved
whatever fate befell him."
"I agree," James said darkly, "but we've trailed off topic. I came to you because of the essays that you corrected for me during detention."
"Did I do them wrong?" Harry asked, he didn't remember there having been anything complicated in them. He couldn't imagine that he'd made a mistake.
Professor Potter shook his head. "No, it was good actually, it really lightened my workload. Just made me think that there was perhaps a way in which we could help each other. If you correct the weekly essays of the first-years, I could take some time to teach you a few things. How to counter animate transfigurations for example. You'll encounter them in the duelling circuit if you stay serious about it."
Harry considered the proposition and realised that he would be getting quite a good deal. A chance to get private instruction from someone competent, months before Flitwick would even consider it, apparently. The thing was though, he thought he was making good progress with the duelling dummy and with Tonks showing him what tricks awaited him at the higher levels. He hadn't particularly enjoyed grading the exams…
"Once a week, I grade then some instruction?" Harry asked and got a nod. "You got yourself a deal, professor," he said with a tired grin as he considered his increased workload. Well, the duelling dummy was going to be here next year, while James likely wouldn't. Either the curse would do him in, or Harry would be able to remove the valuables from the room of requirement and give up the location of the diadem Horcrux, after which James wouldn't have a reason to stay anymore. He extended a hand towards the relieved-looking professor and they shook on it. He saw Tonks staring at them from behind a pillar, seemingly not enjoying the party.
Before he could say goodbye to the professor and go ask her what was up, something disturbed the festivities. The volume of the conversations rose to a shriek as magicals in robes jumped out of the way, tumbling over house elves and ripping off Halloween decorations as they went down. The disturbance seemed to be moving in Harry's direction and so his first instinct was to pull out his wand to defend himself, but he lowered his guard when he saw what was causing the commotion. A shining white bull ran through the crowd and stopped in front of James and by default Harry. It opened its mouth and a male voice came out of it.
"Werewolf attack at Godric's Hollow, you're needed, Head Auror Potter," it said in a clear and crisp voice for everyone at the party to hear. As pandemonium erupted, so did James Potter. Not caring about doors or any such concepts, the man turned in place towards the large ornate window that he and Harry had been inadvertently talking in front of. Not bothering with magic the man punched the stained glass, shards falling outwards, before hefting himself onto the ledge and jumping off.
Harry stood there, frozen for a second, before he turned his head to see head auror Potter zooming out of Hogwarts bounds on a broom. It was too dark to see beyond the grounds, but he imagined that the man apparated once he'd left them behind.
Suffice to say, the party didn't continue long after and Harry was one of the first to be ushered to bed by a worried Slughorn and escorted to the dorm by a silent Tonks.
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