บท 318: Chapter 318: A Change in Perspective
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I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.
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2nd September 1995, Hogwarts (Earth 2)
Harry Potter didn't know what he expected when McGonagall asked him to show the new guy around. He couldn't admit that he found him interesting; his actions during the Hogwarts Express were more than enough to make him good in Harry's books. Hermione also saying that he was a brilliant wizard probably helped a bit.
However, as they spoke to each other during their tour, Harry realized just how much of an understatement that was. For one thing, Smith didn't seem to care about Harry being the boy who lived… Normally, he was met with reactions of either awe or disdain – most recently, the disdain was far more common than he liked – but not Smith… He just… didn't care.
Even Ron and Hermione were awed to meet him in their first year. There was always some kind of expectation there, one that was absent when he looked into Smith's eyes and that fascinated Harry to no end…
It hadn't taken long to realize just how perceptive and knowledgeable Smith was about practically everything. It was different from Hermione somehow, and Harry found himself listening to him more. Maybe it was because he was surprisingly insightful about the situation…
Harry knew from his friend that the boy had no plans on staying past his OWLS, and literally had no opinions on the coming war. He tried to understand it from a tactical standpoint instead of the battles. All in all, Smith looked to be some kind of scholar and adventurer, two contradicting roles that he had only seen in one other person, Bill Weasley… Harry couldn't help but think that they would have gotten along well enough.
Of course, in a typical manner, Draco Malfoy and his Slytherin cronies decided to ruin things by attacking them for 'being too close to their dormitory'. Thankfully, Harrold was given the chance to leave first before their fight… It was pretty likely that a few of them would have ended up in the infirmary… That would have been a poor introduction to Hogwarts for any newcomer.
Harry prepared himself to fight an overwhelming number of attackers at once as Smith walked away. Unfortunately, Malfoy decided to get the last words in, "Yeah don't worry, you can have Potter back for your little orphan club in no time. He'll be alright after a little time in the hospital room, probably… Not that anyone will care if something did happen. No one will miss him… or you for that matter. Must be so difficult to be all alone in the world…"
His blood froze at the proclamation. He didn't know that Smith was an orphan too. How did Malfoy even know that? His father, probably… Or maybe Death Eater spies…
Smith froze right as Malfoy finished speaking and suddenly, wooden doors closed at both ends of the corridor… Harry was pretty sure there weren't supposed to be wooden doors. He heard Smith speak up, "Manners maketh man…"
He turned and gave them all a questioning look, "Do you know what that means?"
Harry didn't know what that meant and from the looks of it, neither did Draco and his cronies. However, a smug small smile grew on his face, "Then let me teach you a lesson…"
Flint was the first one to break and cast a hex at Smith, who had his wand ready and batted the spell back with the speed of a bulger… The spell returned back far faster than Flint could react, and he found himself thrown back with boils growing all over his face.
All of this happened in a fraction of a second and everyone, including Harry, was just gaping at the unconcerned boy. He just gave them a sly look and asked, "Are we going to stand here all day, or are we going to fight?"
The Slytherins just turned towards him with obvious anger in their eyes. Malfoy was the one who started casting this time, and the others followed his lead. Smith, once more, batted the spells towards other spells, creating explosions when they met each other, hiding him from the others.
When Montague wanted to follow up with another spell, Harry noticed his hand being pushed by an invisible force right as his spell was about to be fired. The movement caused the spell to misfire and hit Warrington instead. Malfoy turned to him in surprise, only to be caught with another spell, making him grow horns on his head, from Adrian Pucey.
Harry would have been smiling, if it wasn't for the sheer incredulity he felt at what was happening. Especially as the dust settled and Smith was just standing there looking unimpressed.
That seemed to anger Crabbe and Goyle even further since they ran at him to punch him physically. It was all they probably knew in terms of combat anyway…
For some reason, Smith didn't seem bothered and when Crabbe was about the punch him, he leaned back and conjured some kind of weird wooden hook that grabbed his hand and redirected it to hit Goyle in the face. He then quickly batted away an incoming spell towards the Goyle, sending him flying back towards his comrades, and he put Crabbe in front of him, turning him into some kind of human shield that was hit with three other spells at once…
Smith casually let Crabbe fall to the side and gave the remaining people a smug grin. Only Malfoy, Flint, and Warrington were still up, and they were glaring at him as if they wanted him to spontaneously combust into flames. Flint seemed to have had enough and sent a sickly purple spell at him which he batted back once more, only for the trio to dodge this time.
They gave him a smug look only to freeze as Warrington fell down, unconscious… The spell had somehow rebounded off the wooden door that Smith had conjured at the start of the fight and hit him in the back.
Flint cast a weird yellow curse that Harry had never seen before, while Malfoy cast a cutting curse. This time, Smith actually shielded himself and the cutting curse rebounded back, hitting the yellow curse which was split in half and also rebounded back at the casters.
Whatever that curse was made Malfoy and Flint conjure shields of their own, which broke and knocked them back a bit… The blond boy was about the cast another spell, only for his hand to twitch and hit his last ally with it. The older boy froze, petrified by the spell, and fell to the ground…
Smith walked slowly towards Malfoy who kept desperately casting one spell after another at him. Every single spell was countered effortlessly, redirected towards the walls. Malfoy must have gotten desperate since he cast some pretty silly jinxes in the middle too for some reason.
The new student was barely a few feet in front of Malfoy when he redirected one last spell that turned his arms and legs to collapse as if they were turned into jelly. Seriously, that was a first-year spell and Malfoy cast this spell at a clearly stronger opponent… What was he thinking?
For a fraction of a second, Harry imagined hitting Voldemort with this spell. Now, that would have been hilarious…
The Slytherin looked at Smith with a scared look on his face. The new student just raised an eyebrow, "From my estimation, the spell should fade in ten minutes… That's more than enough time for you to get your friends to the Hospital Wing… So, that means you shouldn't have any trouble coming to our next class. It was a pleasure to meet you, Draco Malfoy…"
"You'll regret this…" the pureblood retorted.
"I don't think so… After all, if you do talk to anyone, you'll have to tell them that I beat you while you had me heavily outnumbered, and without me, I even cast a single spell… That wouldn't be such a good look on you, would it?"
Merlin's beard! Now that Harry thought about it, other than conjuring the wooden doors and the wooden hook thing, that weird hand twitch spell, and the shield he conjured near the end, Smith hadn't even cast a single spell. None of them were actually offensive spells even…
With that said Smith turned towards Harry and brightened, "Oh, right. Shall we continue with the tour?"
Harry absentmindedly nodded and walked alongside Smith, still stunned to silence. As he walked away, he noticed that the wooden doors that Smith conjured, had disappeared while he wasn't looking. It took around five minutes of silence before he exclaimed, "How did you do that?"
Smith gave him a weird look, "Do what?"
"You're kidding, right?"
Smith snorted, "Yeah, I am. It was nothing, really. Just stretching a bit…"
"You beat them with their own spells. You even made it look easy…" Harry spoke up with an admiring tone.
"In a fight, having more people isn't always a good thing. I'd have had more trouble against three duellers that know how to fight alongside each other, than twenty that have never fought together before. This is a bit of an extreme example, but in a real fight, they would have tried to shield each other, maybe even have a formation and try to trap me…"
"This was amazing… Maybe if everyone could fight like you, we'd have a chance against Voldemort!"
Smith didn't seem very enthused by the idea, "Too bad I'm not getting involved in any fight in Britain…"
That perplexed Harry to no end, "I don't understand… You hurt the children of his Death Eaters. Voldemort will go after you whether you like it or not."
However, the new student simply snorted, "If he had revealed himself, then maybe yes. He'd have had to put boundaries and show that his followers couldn't be messed with. However, he's hiding, and there's a good reason for it. No single wizard, no matter how powerful, could conquer an entire country by themselves. It doesn't matter if he's back or not if he doesn't get his forces back. You have to understand that the Dark Lord spent years before the first war, gathering followers, building an army, and gaining influence through them… He doesn't have that now, not even a bit, and it'll take time and secrecy to achieve that…"
"So, you admit that he's back then?" Harry replied with a victorious look.
"No, all I'm saying is that the fact that a lot of gold was spent to discredit you as much as possible, gold that could be traced back to the victims of the Imperius Curse in the first war, even if it's Fudge spending it… They don't want you talking because you obviously weren't meant to have survived the third task. Imagine if you had actually died that night, and Diggory hadn't grabbed the cup. Then you would have simply disappeared, never to be seen again. Dumbledore would have probably proclaimed that the Dark Lord was back and shut down immediately since he would have no proof. Years later, the Dark Lord would have returned, with an army at his back, and political influence in the ministry. He would have been in a far better position… Your survival and the fact that you told Dumbledore everything, ruined a good portion of it. Now, he has to hurry and regrow his forces before the ministry finds out about him and declares a state of emergency."
"Why would that help?"
Smith groaned, "Most of his recruits come from outside the country. There aren't really a lot of werewolves, giants, and vampires in Britain because of the pretty severe laws here. Even his followers in Britain fled the country to avoid Azkaban, and it took time to call them back. Britain declared a state of emergency would get its neighbouring countries to impose more strict measures against travel to Britain, pretty much freezing the Dark Lord's recruitment efforts and forcing him to commit with the forces he had. I don't see that happening though…"
Harry gave him a confused look, "Why is that?"
"Because Fudge's campaign relies pretty heavily on Lucius Malfoy's donations. With an election coming next year, he can't afford to antagonize the man too much, and he also can't afford to have a crisis on his hands… He made his bet that you're lying, because either way he'd be removed from office; he knows that he's a peace minister, not a wartime one. He won't go back on any of his decisions short of a proper attack with the Dark Lord at the helm, something that is irrefutable and that the entire world would see…"
"I can't just do nothing."
Smith rolled his eyes, "You already did enough by surviving the third task. Yelling at everyone about the Prophet lying will achieve nothing. You can't convince them because they won't be without the ministry making a statement and that will not happen without Fudge basically throwing his career away… Malfoy attacking you like he did, in broad daylight is already proof that they want you to look unstable. Umbridge will be firmly on his side and will continue to make life different for you. She will bait you during class, and try to subtly discredit you. And if you let it get to you, you will be playing right into her hands…"
"What am I supposed to do, then?"
"Why you need to finish the tour, of course… I'm starving and we still haven't had breakfast yet."
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AN: I hope you liked this chapter. I've been having a lot of fun writing this arc tbh. The Umbridge first class should be in the next chapter and I'm so excited. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
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Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.
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