Magic and Bluejays
Lord, she coming. First, however, I need to get through writing this stupid Hogwarts Express chapter. It's been through 2 full scraps and a major re-write and... you know what? Have at it. I like this much of it, so I'll post this much here and continue to fix it before posting on AO3.
Concrit welcome on this, it is a draft!
Most of the train to Hogwarts was empty since people who arrived this early were still mostly out on the platform waiting for friends. The carriage where the Prefects’ meeting was held was near the front, just behind the engine and a carriage with an employees only sign. Figuring thats where the snack trolley started, Harry Potter wanted to try a compartment closer to the front than he normally had. Gryffindors tended to be near the end of the train while Ravenclaws were nearer the front, but he was sure his friends would find him eventually no matter where he sat. He wanted people to assume he was a transfer Snape picked up from France at least until he got to the school where he could better evade public opinion. With long red hair tipped in black like a fox’s tail, high-quality thin lens glasses that emphasized his mother’s features instead of obscuring his eyes, and a coming of age that had him growing to look more like his mum in general, he wasn’t very recognizable. Most of a month in hospital getting his head shrunk by mind healers and the curse scar healed properly meant the usually red and irritated scar on his forhead was now a hair-thin line that was nearly impossible to see without bright light and an invasion of his personal space. In robes bought in Paris that were wonderfully androgynous he was easily mistaken for a girl, the traditional cut high-quality robe and waitstcoat he wore something The Boy Who Lived with his baggy mismatched muggle rags would never wear. The idea that he’d set a trend and caused a lot of people who read Witch Weekly to wear outfits that weren’t fit to use as dust rags was something the tailor said that Harry ignored to process later, and it still sat poorly in his head. Thankfully he had his emancipation as a ready excuse for why he changed his look now. He could just say he’d never been allowed, and leave it at that.
The second carriage open to students had at least one upperclassman or trunk in each compartment already, but there was one near the lav in the second that he claimed by leaving his trunk on the seat. There was a remote possibility that someone would recognize the trunk, especially if it wasn’t in the hands of a long-haired redhead in traditional wizard clothing, but with Hedwig’s cage shrunken inside he hoped only his dormmates would recognize it, if anyone did. He double-checked the security spell Sirius showed him, which would cover anyone who broke through it in bright red paint and feathers, and headed back up the train.
The first open carriage of the train had no compartments, just rows of bench seats with fold-down tray tables on the back of each row. MacMillan was there already, with a few older students Harry didn’t know well. The stout blond boy had the Defense book laid out in front of him on the tray table close to the window. He’d been decent back in second year about the whole Heir of Slytherin thing, and not too rabid about supporting Cedric, so Harry cautiously took a seat on the bench across the center aisle from him and hoped to make some kind of conversation. Ron and Hermione did a lot of the talking even when he was with other kids, and the mind healers had gone through a whole thing about him hiding behind them too much that hurt his Gryffindor pride.
“That book’s thick as treacle,” Harry said. “I hope the professor makes up for it in class, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Eh? Yeah, it’s a thick one. Better than Lockheart’s nonsense, at least,” the Hufflepuff said. “Sorry, I don’t recognize you.”
“Bonjour, I’m Master Snape’s new apprentice, fresh back in England from Paris,” Harry babbled, a bit nervous despite himself, and the older prefects all turned around to look. “He’ll be right hacked off if we ruin his big announcement, so we should probably keep the finer details in this compartment if we can. I got cornered by Lord Malfoy on the platform when Master Snape dropped me off, though, so I’m sure some people saw that. Best I can do now is keep the rumor mill starved for details, so I’ll just sit on my family name if you don’t mind.”
“I’m all for keeping him in a good mood,” MacMillan agreed. The older students nodded.
“What year are you in?” The tall brunette asking the question had pinned the Head Girl badge to her lavender casual robes. The badge was blue and bronze for Ravenclaw.
“Fifth, and I’ll be playing a bit of catch-up so Master Snape doesn’t plan for me to help with prefect duties until the second term, but the Headmaster might overrule that at the meeting he’s in right now,” Harry said. Other prefects were tricking in, and Malfoy looked at Harry’s seat choice with open irritation. Pansy Parkinson was just behind him, so Harry figured they wanted to sit together and hopped across the aisle to sit next to MacMillan. Parkinson giggled a bit and pulled Malfoy down onto the now free bench.
“Are you behind?” a seventh year Slytherin boy asked. Harry decided to tell as much of the truth as he could now, when people wouldn’t be judging him as The Boy Who Lived and deciding not to listen to any of it because it didn’t fit their expectations of how he should be.
“Last year was awful for me for a dozen reasons, and I had a curse put on me that has been making it hard for me to concentrate and giving me insomnia since I was really little. They made me wait until I was fifteen to get it removed, which Master Snape thinks was very stupid and unnecessary. The specialists we were working with this summer all agreed. Master Snape may not be the nicest person, but he really does hate it when kids get hurt, especially when it’s any kind of on purpose. We got to know each other after he helped me out with all that, he thinks he can get me up to standard enough to take the arithmancy O.W.L. this year despite never taking the class before, and then we had the bonding ritual just a few days ago.”
“You’re doing three years of Arithmancy in one?” MacMillan asked, aghast.
“That sounds like Professor Snape’s work ethic,” the Slytherin seventh-year boy said sagely.
“I went to muggle primary school, long story don’t ask, and he says that I remember the maths I learned there well enough that I should pass as long as I put the work in. It’s the N.E.W.T. score that really matters, anyway, so I just have to do well enough to get into sixth year Arithmancy,” Harry said with a shrug. “He doesn’t expect straight ‘O’s on my O.W.L.s because I’m starting on the back foot, just passing marks, but he wants passing marks in at least ten and no excuses. I’m just glad he didn’t ground me from playing Quidditch if I want to.”
“You any good?” Malfoy asked.
“I love flying,” Harry replied vaguely.
“Do you know why Professor Snape’s plan for you to start prefect duties late wouldn’t be approved by the Headmaster?” the Head Girl asked. A school owl flew in with a scroll with a wax Hogwarts seal, and she turned to take it while she talked. “Masters tend to have total control over their apprentices, and Slytherin has two prefects per year already as far as I’m aware. It’s always nice to have another person available in case somebody needs to switch up the schedule, but we should be fully covered.”
“There’s some kind of silly thing going on with the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher he warned me about, not that I know why one thing would effect the other short of him having to teach some of their classes,” Harry said. “That’s a total guess, by the way. I just can’t think of anything else that would throw things off, and he couldn’t rather than wouldn’t give me details, which irritated him on its own so there wasn’t much I could read into it beyond that he doesn’t like it. He had been hacked off about the whole thing since whoever it was got the post, so I assume the new Defense Professor either isn’t qualified or has upset him personally some way.” “Who was upset by the new Defense professor?” Anthony Goldstein asked as he walked in. The Ravenclaw took a seat ahead of Harry. “Professor Snape,” MacMillan said. “Is he on the train?” Hanna Abbott asked as she chose the bench behind Malfoy and Parkinson. “This is Professor Snape’s new apprentice,” Malfoy cut in. “We haven’t had proper introductions, yet.” “And you won’t be having any. Professor Snape wants to have his big announcement at the feast tonight,” the Head Girl called out over the gathering group. “Snape’s Apprentice stays nameless and as unknown as possible unless you want to step on his cloak about it, so we’re not. End of.” “It isn’t just Master Snape the new Professor rubbed the wrong way. From what he said even Professor Sprout is upset, though that might be a bit of cause and effect,” Harry said. “Why would Professor Snape being upset make Professor Sprout upset?” Abbott asked. The older students weren’t even trying to pretend they weren’t listening. “No, no, the other way around. She was at the bonding ritual for my apprenticeship and they act…” Harry trailed off, waving a hand vaguely as he tried to come up with something without saying anything too personal.
“What’s this hot gossip?” asked a sixth year girl that asked Harry to the Yule Ball, getting up to take a seat closer to Harry. All he could remember about her was that she was a Hufflepuff and wore about three times as much perfume as necessary. “No!” Harry shouted, raising both hands defensively. “Not like that. She’s married to one of her old apprentices for Merlin’s sake. I was trying to figure another way to say they act a bit like she’s his mum. I… He told me he lost his mum before he graduated, and Professor Sprout was his Herbology teacher too; I think she sort of scooped him up like an especially grumpy stray cat. If not immediately, then when he started as a professor. He’s only, like, thirty-something, you know? Anyway, I think if someone was mean to her he’d start looming menacingly around the place until they backed off or earned a hex.” With his expressive gestures, his sleeve fell all the way down and exposed the flapping bluejay. “Oh, that’s so pretty!” A seventh-year Gyrffindor girl said. He really should know her name, but she’d never so much as given him the time of day and very deliberately ‘wasn’t taken in by famous Harry Potter’ as she made clear whenever he approached a prefect for anything. “Is that the bondmark or just a tattoo?” “It’s my bondmark,” Harry confirmed, and then was swamped as all the prefects wanted a closer look at it. He ended up scrambling onto the back of the bench Goldstein was sitting on, pressing against the window, and grabbing onto the curtain rod for stability to escape the sudden lack of personal space. “SIT DOWN!” The Head Boy shouted as the train lurched into motion, causing most people to stumble. The brunette Hufflepuff glared in disappointment at everyone from the front of the carriage. Harry wondered if he practiced mimicking Professor Sprout to get that look just right. “Have you all lost your minds? Let her alone.” “Not a her,” Harry said, pointing to himself from his perch as the rest of them slid back into their seats. Outside, parents were waving goodbye to the departing train. “It’s not just the hair, it’s the way that waistcoat lays over the robe,” Malfoy said. “It’s pulling your waist in, flaring out the fabric at your hips, and giving the illusion there’s something hiding under the top to give you a girlish shape.” “I know what I look like, and like I said before I don’t mind it,” Harry said, walking on the back of the bench a couple steps so he didn’t drop down on MacMillan’s books. He gathered his courage as he stepped down onto the seat where he’d been sitting before. “I’m queer, and it’s a bit like a compliment in my book if you think I’m pretty.” “Wouldn’t gay boys want someone that looks like a guy?” MacMillan wondered aloud. “Queer doesn't just mean gay,” Hermione said from the back of the carriage. Ron looked like he wanted to push up closer, but there weren’t any empty seats left except in the very back.
“And with that, we should get started before we go off on an inappropriately wild tangent,” the Head Girl said. “We’re all going to pretend we know nothing about Professor Snape’s new apprentice when we leave this meeting, so we don’t ruin his big announcement at the feast tonight. If you’ve made it this far without realizing that getting on his bad side is a bad idea not even Merlin could help you. If you aren’t a prefect or a quidditch captain, or an apprentice to a professor, get out. Let’s get this done and dusted.” Nobody left, everyone settled down into silence, and she started to read off the scroll the owl brought. “All of last year’s fifth and sixth year prefects are returning as sixth and seventh years. New fifth year prefects are: Hannah Abbott, Anthony Goldstein, Hermione Granger, Ernie MacMillan, Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, Padma Patil, and Ron Weasley.”
“Weasley?” several people said, looking back at the taller redhead incredulously. There was general muttering over how most people expected the headmaster to pick Harry Potter. “George isn’t still mad he didn’t get the apprenticeship, is he?” Harry asked to cover the rather unflattering comments. Ron looked at him weird then smirked as he caught on to the subject change. “The twins are a law unto themselves, mate. If anyone thinks I’m going to do what Percy couldn’t to keep them in line, they’ve lost the plot,” Ron said. “Best I can do is give McGonagall a bit of advanced warning for the big things. I think it should be fine, though, since Snape helped them with their patent and they want another star from the potions’ guild like nothing else. Just don’t eat anything they offer you without asking them what it does, first, though anyone in here should be smart enough to know that much already.” Harry gave Ron a thumbs-up, and the meeting continued on from there. The upper years introduced themselves in a flurry of names Harry mostly absorbed. After that, it was basically a rehash of all the school rules prefects were expected to enforce and listing out the usual point deductions for each infraction. Prefects could take a few more or less based on circumstances, but they couldn’t take points from other prefects and were expected to focus on policing their own house. More than twenty points would need a written explanation. Prefects could report infractions worthy of detention to a member of staff, but couldn’t assign detention themselves. They could also report actions of distinction if someone was helpful in a way that should earn points, but couldn’t give any out. It was in the official scroll the Head boy and girl had that Snape’s apprentice wasn’t starting as a teaching assistant until next year at the earliest and might not be part of the patrol schedule until second term, confirming what Harry had told them. “The name’s been burned off this paper, I can only assume by Professor Snape himself, so he’s serious about not spoiling his announcement,” the head boy said with a nervous laugh. “I’m tempted to just keep you safe in here wrapped in cotton batting.” “I really wouldn’t try locking me in anywhere,” Harry said, his smile showing too many teeth to be friendly. “Well, I was thinking he’s too nice to be bonded to Professor Snape, but there it is,” one of the older Hufflepuffs said. “Fred and George came back right terrified of the pair of them, when Snape picked him over George,” Ron added from the back. “I’m nice,” Harry grumbled. “Just, not indiscriminately, and I’ve been locked up just to make other people feel safer before and that’s not on.”
“You what?” MacMillan said, leaning away from Harry before checking himself and very carefully trying to look neutrally pleasant. “Part of that long story,” Harry said, realizing he’d said more than he should. “Master Snape got me out of it for good, and you can ask me to explain after you know my name if you want to, not that I’m likely to answer.” “Oh, shit,” said one of the four older Slytherin prefects. They shoved their heads together to have a muffled conversation. Malfoy and Parkinson weren’t sitting close enough to join in, and looked very put out by it. “You need anything related to getting pulled out of where you were, you can come to us directly,” the Slytherin seventh-year boy, Arturous Stems, stood up and waved at the other Slytherin prefects. “Professor Snape did the same for me. Nobody is welcome to ask me about that, and if you badger anyone about what we might be talking about expect me to take it personally.” “Thanks, Stems, I’d like to get back to my trunk for reasons I think you can guess, so… Can we drop it for now?” Harry said. Stems nodded and sat down, clearly getting the message.
“I think we’re about done,” the head girl, Conifer, said. “Unless someone has questions.” When nobody did they declared the meeting closed, and most people started moving out of the carriage to find their friends. MacMillan didn’t move, clearly intending to use the tray table as desk space to study for a while. This was probably meant as a dining car but used for studying since everyone ate in their compartments when the trolley came by, and that was probably why the upper-year Ravenclaws liked to claim compartments close to the front of the train. Once the prefect meeting was over, anyone could come use the space and there was a schedule for one of the seventh-year prefects to always be here in case someone needed them in addition to the patrol schedule that was now written across a board at the front of the car. Ron and Hermione were scheduled for the back end of the train first thing and then again just before arriving at Hogwarts. Harry hung back to avoid the initial crush of traffic, and found himself surrounded by all six Slytherin prefects crowding in the seats in front and behind him. The air got fuzzy, a muffling spell wrapping around them.
“Are you living with the professor now, or do you have to go back for inheritance reasons?” Stems asked quietly. “I’m emancipated, I’ve already inherited my father’s estate, and there’s a friend of the family willing to put me up in exchange for helping him out with the house. It was a moldy pile when he moved in, but it gets better every day. By winter holidays it should be nice and cozy, at least in the most important areas.” That should be sufficiently vague. They would likely assume he means Lupin once they realized who he was. Stems whistled lowly.
“Emancipated? That’s lucky. I got yanked out in third year, after a bad spring break. My family isn’t wealthy enough to bother worrying about being disowned, so I just left. I was living in the Professor’s spare room for part of the following summer, and then the professor found a second cousin of mine that wanted me around,” Stems said. Malfoy’s pointy face was scrunched up in total confusion. “Yanked out of what?” Malfoy asked. “My mum’s magic flared up when I took your mum’s hand at the station. There is no way you’ll understand without detailed diagrams and several hours to think it over,” Harry said with a shake of his head. Malfoy puffed up in indignation. “I mean that as a compliment to your parents,” Harry added, and then Malfoy was confused again. “Yeah, Malfoy’s got a winning hand in that game,” Stems laughed. “Don’t dismiss him too fast, though. He’s good at understanding people, and you’ll be sharing a dormroom for the next few years.”
“That assumes a lot,” Harry said with a bright smile. “You seem like a Slytherin to me, and you said you aren’t a girl anymore,” Stems said, leaning back with a casual shrug. “Some reason you don’t think you’d be in your master’s house?” Harry held up his left arm, and all of them got a good look at the image of a bluejay in flight. “I assume you’ve seen the papers recently. We should run. It would be smart to run, to save our skins and never look back, but we’re too brave and loyal to do that. Maybe a bit of that stubbornness that borders on stupidity, too, but mostly bravery. Master Severus should never have left France, or if he did he shouldn’t have come back to England. Not with a bluejay on his arm instead of a snake and skull. He wouldn’t do it, though. He’s Hogwart’s Head of Slytherin House, and he’ll hold the line until the castle falls around him.” “Professor Snape was really a Death Eater in the way?” the sixth year girl asked.
“He was a spy in the inner circle working against you-know-who. He talked his way around it as if he’d been a double-agent so neither side questioned his loyalty. He was prepared to do it all again if he had to, but then when our bond overwrote the dark mark, well, there’s no explaining that except the obvious. His bond to me was more important to him than whatever made that other mark. It’ll be on sight, if you-know-who comes around. For either of us.” Beside Harry, MacMillan swore. “You’re inside the privacy spell?” “I won’t say a word, I’m not that suicidal,” he replied. “Olive,” Stems said, shooting the other seventh year an irritated look. “Sorry, the seats aren’t very big,” Ollive Olmo said. “So, it’s true then?” MacMillan asked. “You-Know-Who is back?” Malfoy, Parkinson, and the sixth-year boy looked down to avoid eye contact, while the rest shared MacMillan’s expectant expression. “Do any of you think Harry Potter capable of killing Cedric Diggory in cold blood? Because that’s the best explanation if he’s not back,” Harry said. “I’m not sure exactly what the English press was saying, but in France the British Ministry was torn to bits about that whole thing.” “You mean Potter’s trial? I heard he got off on a technicality,” Parkinson said. “Which one?” Harry asked. “The technicality that defending a muggle family member from a six-X creature when they already know about magic neither breaks the statute of secrecy nor is an unexcused breech of the underage sorcery laws, or did you mean the technicality that participating in the tournament to his best ability emancipated him so the trace shouldn’t have still been on his wand to register the spell being cast in the first place?” “Wait, the muggle was a member of his family?” Stems asked.
“His cousin, who he’s lived with since, well, you know,” Harry said, trailing off with a shrug. It was weird talking about himself in the third person like this. Beyond the huddle of Slytherin prefects (and one unwilling Hufflepuff) the carriage was nearly empty. A few people had come in with books or a late breakfast, but they stayed in the back well away from Stems’ group, and the head boy and girl were at the far front. “The Minister didn’t seem to know the details before the trial, so someone hadn’t bothered to do even the most basic fact-finding. Not that there could have been, since they decided to snap his wand over it inside of five minutes late in the evening after-hours and had to be talked down to treating it like he’d been shooting off fireworks in front of Buckingham Palace. There was an interview in the French papers when it first happened, and his solicitor put out a statement explaining it all when the case was dismissed. Wasn’t that published in the Prophet?” “It certainly wasn’t,” Parkinson said. “So you know all about it? How?”
“Only one magical hospital in Paris,” Harry said with a shrug. He was blushing a bit, more because he was flustered trying not to give himself away than from embarrassment. “Master Snape came to check up on what the interview implied, we got to know each other, and it really was all over the French press the last month. Madam Maxine came, and the French Minister, and lots of other people coming and going all the time. The Weasley twins are impossible to miss, and George really did ask to be Master Snape’s apprentice while I was still bedridden. I was too sick to notice much in the middle of the month when they were pulling the curse off me, and Master Snape was with me every other day through the worst of it, but the broad strokes were known to everyone on that floor of the hospital no matter how off their head they were. There are privacy spells so I can’t tell you anything about the health of other patients, but it was tcompletely impossible for me to miss.” Considering it was happening to him, that is.
“Snape. At your sickbed. For more than a week.” MacMillan’s mind was blown.
“He absolutely does not have a soft gooey center, it’s spikes all the way down, but the spikes are all pointed outward. If you’re brave or lucky enough to make it inside, the spikes will protect you too,” Harry said. “He would have been at Potter’s sickbed too, if he could manage it,” Malfoy said. “Professor Snape would know first hand what went on, so we might be able to ask him. My Father told me what he knows about it, of course, but Professor Snape wasn’t around for tea. Mother has him over once a month, usually, so she was quite worried. We get the French papers, of course, though I didn’t believe half of what I read. Potter’s always being so dramatic.” “Pot meet kettle, Malfoy,” MacMillan said. Harry bit his lip to stay silent. He wasn’t supposed to know anyone. “Where’s your trunk? Professor Snape packed it for you, right?” Stems asked. “He did back on the fifth of August, yeah. Didn’t miss a thing, and I’d pay good money for a picture of my aunt’s face when he laid into her about it,” Harry said. “The trunk has some really nice anti-theft spells, but it’s still, you know, everything.” “Let’s get it. You can stay in one of our compartments,” Stems said, standing up. “Assuming you are sorted Slytherin, is there anything we’ll need to know? Things that might set you off that we should try and avoid?” “Master Snape reconfigured the class schedule to be less explosive. Beyond that, I think I’m good,” Harry said. “No more Longbottom in our class?” Parkinson said. “Thank Merlin for that.” “It’ll be Gryffindors with Ravenclaws and Slytherin with Hufflepuffs,” Harry said, nodding. “Sounds like I dodged a hex,” MacMillan said. “Longbottom really is that bad,” Malfoy said. “It was always a bit fun watching him implode, though it ruined my shoes more than once when he was sitting near me.” Harry felt the privacy spell pop around them. “Master Snape says the Ravenclaws who want to experiment too confidently should be humbled by class with the Gryffindors, Gryffindors need someone to match Granger’s energy to make some slackers more obviously behind, and the Slytherins could do with seeing what consistent hard work looks like when it’s at home,” Harry said. “Ha!” MacMillan laughed. “Sounds like Professor Snape’s favorite fifth-years aren’t his own.” “I was just taking a breath. Fifth-year Hufflepuff needs to see Slytherin creativity and not plod along in mediocrity by doing everything by the book,” Harry finished. “It should be a better mix all the way around, so both fifth-year potion labs should be less likely to go bang or fizzle.”
