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Two sharp raps rang on the cupboard door.
“Boy!” Aunt Petunia hissed. “Supper.”
Harry blinked crust out of his eyes, took in a weak, gasping breath.
Artificial light from the corridor bent under the forearm-by-forearm sized door, a fine white line falling two-thirds of the way over Harry’s shoulder.
It was half six, if Harry had to venture a guess. The men had already eaten. Uncle Vernon was about to leave for the club. Dudley was stomping around upstairs, heavy footfalls dully thumping somewhere above Harry’s head.
Harry’s brain moved slow, sluggish. He sniffled, bit down a yelp at the stabbing pain in his throat and sinuses.
Aunt Petunia was getting him up. She had decided to feed him today. Harry’s stomach lurched at the thought. It must be a Saturday or a Sunday, and she must be preparing to take Dudley to footie.
Click-click-thud. The door swung open.
Aunt Petunia was a bird-like woman, with a long neck and a sharp beak of a nose, rail-thin in her limbs but sturdy in her trunk. She stood with her neck craned forward and both hands on her wide hips, perched like flapping wings while she squawked out Harry’s orders.
Petunia was gaunt from years of self-imposed malnourishment, bound to a neurotic quest of vanity that left her skeletal and pinched and rawboned. She squinted and scowled, because Uncle Vernon never allowed her to wear glasses.
Harry thought Aunt Petunia might have been pretty once. In a severe kind of way, at least, but it was hard to tell. Uncle Vernon didn’t keep any pictures of his wife on the walls of their house.
Aunt Petunia hauled Harry up by his elbows, nails digging into his flesh, and dragged him toward the kitchen.
Harry bit back his cries and whimpers. His knees hurt. The skin there was stiff and made crackling sounds when he tried to straighten his legs, pulling away from the inevitable carpet burn.
Smack! Wooden spoon on the back of his neck, sharp and splintering.
Harry had zoned out, gone still when confronted with a chair at the kitchen table. He scrambled up and Petunia withdrew, setting about the kitchen to feed them.
Harry was used to Petunia’s eating schedule. Once every three days, like a python. Supper only. Meals were for weekends only, while weekdays were for meal replacements. Bland, white foods. Harry was the only one she imposed her own eating schedule on. Jesus, he envied Vernon and Dudley.
Harry sat at the kitchen table alone, swinging his feet as far as he dared. The bubbling between his ears was loud. It pounded in his head, up and down like an orchestra, compounded with his splitting sinus pain.
Harry wondered if Petunia was actually going to feed him as well as herself, or if she was just piddling around the kitchen to let off steam. Sometimes she made the food, then changed her mind and threw it all out. Harry couldn’t get his hopes up. He swung his legs, pain in his knees distracting from the pain in his head.
Smack! A wooden spoon split Harry’s raw knuckles.
“Stop that,” Petunia snapped. “Sit still.”
Harry fought tears.
“Mum!” Dudley screamed from upstairs. “Canny find my shoes!”
Aunt Petunia whirled around violently, wielding the wooden spoon at Harry like a sword. “Go get Dudley’s shoes!” She hissed, eyes manic-wide.
“Harry’s coming, dear!” She called kindly back.
“Ach, Mum!” Dudley groaned. “I don’t want the freak touching my shoes!”
Smack! A plastic bowl clattered in front of Harry, milk splishing-splashing, rocking back and forth while the sounds pulsed in poor Harry’s ears, wordless and tonal.
Buckwheat. Plain, unsalted buckwheat. Harry slurped on the leftover milk first, fought every urge to start shoveling the solids into his dry mouth. Milk spattered the table.
“I’m coming, darling!” Petunia shouted, dusting her apron. “Clean that up,” she snapped at Harry.
Harry couldn’t make himself leave the food. It was like he was possessed, mind gone, gripping the bowl with both hands.
Petunia’s eye twitched. She snatched Harry’s bowl away, dumping her own into the bin as well.
“Pet, I need my club jumper.” Uncle Vernon appeared in the doorway, tugging on his gloves.
Uncle Vernon was a fat hog of a man. Even though he proudly stretched to his full height, he stood an entire head and shoulders below his spindly wife, and more than four times wider. Despite his massive bulk, Uncle Vernon was strong— his body a thick, meaty barrier that beat and struck and pounded with all the brute force of a raging bear. Wrath made him deceptively agile.
If Harry had to pick just one word: Vernon was brutish. An ugly, fat, brutish orc.
“It’s hanging upstairs in your armoire, dear,” Aunt Petunia replied pleasantly. “Third from the left.”
“Jesus, Pet, can’t you get it? You know you’re better with these things.”
“Mum!” Dudley shouted.
“Coming, Dudley, darling!”
Harry coughed.
Vernon started, as if just noticing his nephew was in the kitchen. He settled on a glare, opened his fat mouth to spurn him or chastise him.
Petunia threw the wooden spoon down with a clatter and rounded on Harry.
—
“That aunt of his be a real minger,” Seven said. “Scabby old hag.”
Four made a humming sound of agreement. “Frogge bicche.”
“Muggle cunt,” Three disdained. “She should be kissing his fucking feet, the worthless whore. Even a halfbreed mutt is a god among her kind.”
Six clicked her tongue. “Ach, and we never treated children like that in my day. Proper sinful.”
“The boy’s life is bloody upsetting,” said Five. “Almost wish he’d give up and run. Worked out fine for me.”
Thirteen was unimpressed. “The orphanage was worse.”
“And did they beat you there?” Six asked.
Thirteen sniffed.
“So no, then.”
“Bugger off,” Thirteen sneered. “Fucking hag.”
“And what did you just call me? That’s no way to speak to your elders, boy.”
“Do not concern yourself with him,” Three said dryly. “The boy is a nitwit like his slag of a mother.”
Four fixed Three with a heavy glare. “Dwergh.”
“Ach, foul,” Six clicked her tongue. “Is not the poor man’s fault the inbreeding stunted him. Is not his stature there lay the problem. Anny don’t need you coming to my defense, Rowena.”
Three scowled. “I am not short,” he bit out the words with disgust and haughty disdain.
Thirteen sent Six a murderous glare. “Bite your fucking tongue before you address the Noble House of Gaunt, Helga.”
“We are not first-name friends, boy. Marvolo, control your brood.”
“He is no brood of mine.”
Thirteen looked ready to murder Three all over again.
“Oi!” Five snapped. “That’s bloody enough. You’re going to get the rest of them riled up. All for naught.”
Thirteen slunk back into his seat. “Shut up, Rionach. Blood traitor.”
“I’ve faced bigger than the likes of you, boy. Real bigots. Witch hunters, too. Say all you’d like. I’d sooner cower for a flobberworm.”
Six almost rolled her eyes. “Don’t exert yourself, Mess Gaunt. The boy is of dull mind.”
“Ach, Helge!” Four snapped. “Hende. The wain’s chors be ny. Routh, but they hav not fed him mete.”
“Does anyone know what the fuck she’s saying?”
Harry’s stomach growled.
“Disgraceful,” said Seven. “Say, shall I—?”
“No,” Six replied emphatically. “Every time you have made the boy to steal food, there have wrought naught but trouble.”
“Be there still grains of rice,” Two said mournfully. “In the knees.”
“Helena, lambkin, pray wol returne to chambers,” Four fretted. “Holp ye not bear witnes.”
“Merlin’s beard,” Thirteen derided. “Your bitch progeny is an adult. Stop coddling her.”
“Bobolyne, wol naught hav ye speak churl of mine dotter.”
“Seriously, does anybody know what the fuck she’s saying?”
“Oi,” Seven called, “The minger aunt is reaching for the switch. Strike her, Harry! She is not a woman, but a foul hag! Strike her down!”
“Godric, stop telling the boy to hit his aunt.”
—
Stinging pain. White-hot stinging pain, little pinpricks of it. Aunt Petunia’s nails gripped into the spare flesh of Harry’s thighs as if to drag him off the chair by force. She opened her mouth and Harry flinched pre-emptively.
Petunia came to face Harry’s bloodied knees, where red grains of rice made bloody indents in the bony flesh. They stuck out of the inflammed skin like tiny bones.
Petunia made a disgusted sound. She stood back up, Harry letting out an involuntary whimper as her nails withdrew. “The kit is in the toilet,” she deigned to say. “Clean that up. Use the disinfectant. Do not touch any of my furniture until you do.”
Harry nodded silently. His eyes stung but never teared, dry and waterless from dehydration.
Petunia disappeared into the corridor with Vernon. She reappeared wearing her nice overcoat and gloves.
Dudley stood behind her, scowling at Harry between his fat jowls. His eyes shone with something like triumph. Or sociopathic glee.
Dudley was made up of the most hideous parts of his parents.
Short and squatty and fat like Uncle Vernon, pinched and scowling and squawky like Aunt Petunia. Petunia’s sharp beak and sour mouth were unsightly on Petunia’s thin frame, but became downright grotesque when shoved between Vernon’s blubbery cheeks and chins. Dudley was strong like Vernon, his bulky mass lending itself to pummeling and clubbing and wailing, an unmovable boulder of sheer mass.
But Dudley’s most monstrous trait, in Harry’s opinion, was his unquenchable, insatiable need to gobble up everything constantly. Food, attention, gifts— Dudley was a glutton. A loud, squawking glutton.
Petunia snapped her jaws, stretched them like she needed the bones there to crack. “We’ll be back by half eight,” she said vaguely in Harry’s direction. “And the downstairs better be spotless.”
Harry hobbled to the toilet with bleeding, bowlegged knees. He wasn’t stupid, he knew what an infection was. He knew the itchy, red, swollen skin around the grains of rice was a bad sign. He’d tried to pick them out in the dark of his cupboard, but he’d missed some.
Stupid. Stupid, he thought to himself. Now he’s going to die and Aunt Petunia’s going to have to pay to bury him and she’ll be proper fuming, like she was when Uncle Vernon’s mum died and Petunia had to shell out five-thousand pounds for her funeral.
The cabinet was too high up. It taunted Harry from its place above the sink, half a meter out of Harry’s reach. He’d have to crawl up there, somehow.
Harry paused to consider.
He crawled up onto the lid of the toilet bowl, clutching the sides for dear life, the porcelain dangerously slippery under his bare feet. He wobbled, lost his balance, and reached desperately for the sink’s edge.
—
“Merlin, I can’t watch,” Eleven said faintly. “Someone, please, tell me when it’s over.”
“Have no fear, Hepzibah,” Seven replied bravely. “The boy will be alright. His courage will see him through. Onward, Harry!”
Six started praying.
Thirteen sent a murderous glare at the whole lot of them.
Five looked pained, like she wished to reach out to Harry and just do it for him.
“If he dies, do we die as well?”
Nine sounded bored. “We’re already dead.”
—
Harry awoke in a cold sweat.
The memory was an unpleasant one.
He dreamt of it often, but he didn’t usually wake up before he relived cracking his teeth on the sink and laying immobile in a bloody concussed heap on the floor of Aunt Petunia’s toilet for two hours.
“Mr. Potter,” Professor Vector’s voice, sharp and unamused. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Perhaps you can enlighten us.”
Hermione glared at Harry, equal parts incredulous and condemning. Harry was certain that had she been sitting in range of him, she would have kicked him awake ages ago.
“Sorry, professor,” Harry replied. “Could you repeat the question?”
“Divinitas invenitur ubi lineae secant. Fuscus said it in his Meditationes Numero Septem . What does it mean?”
Harry didn’t do any of the reading, but the words flowed out with ease. “Divinity is found where the lines intersect.”
“Very good.” Begrudging, annoyed Harry got it correct. Professor Vector loved embarrassing a lazy student. “And astrologia et divinatio sunt eventus mathematicae provectae?”
“Astronomy and divination are results of advanced mathematics.”
“Exemplaria quae de numero trium et septem universaliter inveniuntur.”
“Patterns involving the numbers three and seven are universally found.”
“Repetitio septenarii numeri in trinis invenitur omen mortis vel exitii.”
“Repetition of the number seven within sets of three is an omen of death or destruction.”
“Fortuna dici non potest ex numero quattuor.”
“Fortunes cannot be told from the number four.”
“Congratulations, Mr. Potter.” Professor Vector tapped her wand to the blackboard, Harry Potter appearing in the first-place slot of the Daily Participation Points leaderboard. Draco Malfoy fell to second. “Mr. Malfoy, you’ve got competition.”
Malfoy glared at Harry. He was scowling and slouched over, elbows on his desk in an uncharacteristically uncouth lack of poise. He looked murderously jealous.
Harry shot him a shite-eating grin.
Draco’s expression darkened. His scowl deepened, blue eyes turning black in shadow.
Harry stifled an absurd laugh. Merlin, he tried to say with his eyes. This is a stupid, childish thing to care about. We might as well be fighting over gold stickers.
Hermione clicked her tongue and frowned, chastising Harry for provoking Malfoy. She seemed angry, too. Hermione Granger had fallen to third place. It wasn’t her fault Professor Vector avoided calling on her— whether by a mild prejudice against muggleborns or a general distaste for know-it-all question-hogs, Harry couldn’t say.
“Can anyone tell me how Fuscus disseminates his theorem of seven circles?”
Hermione’s hand shot up. Draco’s followed just a moment behind.
Harry was feeling petty. He raised his hand, too.
Ron’s eyes nearly bugged out of his skull. He was a bit green, sick at the prospect of Harry turning into a second Hermione. “What on earth’s gotten into you, mate?”
Professor Vector looked surprised. Harry couldn’t blame her, he was usually shite in her class. “Mr. Potter?”
“Intersectiones septem circulorum divinas veritates revelant.”
—
“Who taught him that?”
“Not I,” said Six. “I haven’t the faintest notion why any of us would.”
“Ach, nay,” Four replied. “By my troth, the bairn fares hardy enouf.”
Eleven shrugged. “I was hopeless in mass.”
“The language of the invaders,” said Seven. “Wouldn’t dream of speaking it.”
“Rionach?”
Five shrugged.
“Corvinus, you’re bookish.”
“Not I,” Ten replied. “I never had an ear for languages. Parseltongue was the only one I could master, a singular feat which was greatly vexing.”
“Marvolo, you wouldn’t—“
“I would not.”
“Gormlaith wouldn’t…?”
“She could not,” said Five. “Please, I beg of you, do not wake her.”
They all cast their eyes on One. He gazed steadily back, blank and seemingly uninterested. No, his bored gaze seemed to say. Obviously not.
“Merope?”
Twelve hummed, eyes white and unseeing. She was ghost-like, as per usual, and less than half-present.
“Tom?” Six asked. “Was it you who taught the boy?”
Thirteen gave her an unfriendly glare. It was an uncomfortable look, too, and a juvenile one. Like he was fighting to cover up intellectual insecurity. Thirteen hated not being superior in every possible domain, hated feeling unequipped or off-centered.
“Well?”
“No,” Thirteen gritted out. “I did not.”
Fourteen shook his head once, mutely.
Everyone turned, slowly, to Nine.
She spared them an unimpressed glance. “This is the worst way for you to learn things about me.”
“You speak Latin?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was here when Rome was.”
“You’re that old?”
“Not that old,” Nine said defensively. “My many-greats-grandsire was a boy when they left. Vestiges of them lived on in Devonshire for fifteen generations after Britain fell to the barbarians.”
Two wrinkled her nose. “I was young during the Norman invasion,” she said, sounding much more lucid than usual. “Yet, I do not speak French.”
“They call it the occupation now.”
“Who gives a fuck? Why would you pass that down?”
“Stop asking me questions.”
“Ach, nay, but ther bey none need ouf sparple.”
“What the hell else did you give the boy?” Three demanded.
Nine gave a noncommittal hum.
“The child is weak of mind and blood,” said One from his place outside the group. He’d grown rather disgusted, his fine features twisted up into a mask of aloof distaste. “Lend him not one iota of your power, not one of you. Such effort ‘tis wasted on a halfblood bastard.”
“Merlin, Salazar. You are a wet blanket on our party.”
—
Harry needed a piss. Ron and Hermione were both giving him the cold shoulder, albeit for different reasons, so it was easy to slip away into the nearest toilet after class ended.
Harry stood at a urinal and covered himself as much as he could, still suspicious that Moaning Myrtle might appear. Still not comfortable with the fact that the voices in his head apparently saw everything he saw, his cock included.
The toilet door shut with a subtle, elegant thud, so quiet Harry hadn’t even heard it open in the first place.
“What was that?”
Malfoy.
Harry quickly tucked his cock back into his trousers and turned round. Malfoy was glaring so hard Harry thought the vein in his forehead might really burst.
Harry shifted his other hand to his wand. “What was what?”
“Arithmancy,” Draco almost hissed the word. “For a year, you’ve been slacking off. Sleeping in class, turning in homework late. Now, during the hardest unit of the course, you decide to just show me up? Out of nowhere?”
“It’s one class, Malfoy. You’ll live.”
“No, Potter, you must have cheated. What was it? An intelligence spell? A memory charm?”
“You sound mad.”
“You sound bloody mad!”
—
“Oh, the blond one is quite upset.”
“Our Harry bested him.”
“So he corners the boy in the toilet?”
“Cowardly little rat,” Seven sneered. “Kill him, Harry! Kill him now! To do so could only be honourable! Quick, boy, lest he get the better of you!”
“Godric, stop that.”
“Smite him, Harry! Quickly!”
“I’m not going to kill him,” Harry replied wearily. “Stop telling me to kill him.”
“Really,” said Nine. “The boy cannot solve every problem by murdering the culprit.”
The whole lot of them fixed her with a look. We did, their eyes said.
Nine sighed. “I heard it when I said it.”
—
“Potter, who are you talking to?”
“What?” Harry started.
Draco’s eyes were narrow, suspicious. His gaze darted nervously around the toilet, like some hidden adversary might be there. “Who are you talking to?”
Blue, blue eyes. Piercing blue eyes, nearly white, full of suspicion and vigilance.
“Um—“ Harry stuttered. “Sorry?”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Malfoy’s hand rested on his wand holster. His eyes darted around like they might catch Harry’s friends under the invisibility cloak. “There’s someone else here.”
“No!” Harry insisted. He cleared his throat. “Uh, no. I think out loud sometimes.”
Draco stared in disbelief. “You think out loud.”
“Yeah.”
“You just told someone to stop telling you to kill me.”
“Right, er—“
“You’re a shite liar, Potter.” Malfoy’s grip tightened on his wand. “Who else is here? Where are they?”
“No one! There’s no one else here.”
“Liar. Bloody liar. Who else is here? Tell me now, or I’ll start firing at random.”
“You can’t! You’ll break the toilet!”
“I’ll—“ Draco cut himself off in disbelief. “I’ll break the bloody toilet?”
“Really, Malfoy,” Harry’s just babbling nervous nonsense now. “The heir to a noble house should have more respect for ancient magical artifacts. These toilets are from the time of the founders! Salazar Slytherin himself used these toilets!”
“Used these—“ Draco looked lost. “Potter, are you quite alright? Did one of your moronic teammates hit you with a bludger? Gryffindor’s O-Line is notoriously clumsy. Do you—“ Draco looked deeply uncomfortable, off-kilter. “Do you need Madam Pomfrey?”
“Yes!” Harry almost shouted in relief. “Yes, I need Madam Pomfrey. The hospital wing. Oh, the head trauma, it burns! Thank you, Draco! You’ve saved me!”
Draco blinked dumbly.
Harry disappeared out the door as fast as his feet could take him.
—
“Our boy really is a shite liar.”
“Ach, routh, bet e is,” said Four. “Pour lad.”
“Which one of us gave that to him?”
“Hepzibah, I’d wager. Never known an old witch who could school her tongue.”
“Oi,” said Eleven, “Come over here and I’ll school you.”
“Muddy cunt.”
“Goblin-mouthed bitch!”
“Enough,” Harry begged. “Please. You’re getting me in trouble!”
—
Malfoy was following him.
Harry was sure of it, and oh, how the tables had turned, because Harry was feeling grossly creeped out by the inelegant, unsubtlety of it.
“Merlin,” Harry wonders aloud. “Was I that bad at stalking when I did it?”
“Aye, lad, you were,” says one of the voices in his head.
Jesus, how embarrassing.
For a fortnight, now, Malfoy has been everywhere Harry looked. Sometimes he was alone, usually he was with his cronies— Crabbe and Goyle— or his friends, Parkinson and Zabini. Every time Harry caught Malfoy’s eye, the blond prick would lean over and whisper something in Pansy’s ear or Blaise’s ear.
All this over an Arithmancy lesson and a, by their standards, mild confrontation in a toilet? It seemed ridiculous. Laughably so.
Harry groaned under his breath. “What will make him leave me alone?”
“Kill him!” Came a voice from between his ears. “Cut him down!”
“No,” Harry muttered back. “Any more ideas?”
“Tell him the truth.”
Harry can’t discern which one of them said it. The voice was breathy, feminine. Soft.
“It is sound love advice,” the voice continued. “That truth be the bearer of good tidings.”
“Do not offer the boy love advice, Helena.”
Ah. There’s the answer.
Wait, what?
“Love advice?” Harry said too loud.
Malfoy’s eyes snapped to his, a hard glare.
Harry dropped his gaze, went back to searching the library shelves.
“They are not in love, you dimwit whore. They are men! Rivals! Enemies!”
“Star-crossed,” the feminine voice hummed. “Forbidden. Perhaps, requited?”
“That’s precisely the kind of romantic nonsense that caused you to be beheaded by your ex-boyfriend.”
“Oi! Too far! Is not her fault she’s dim-witted. ‘Tis Rowena’s fault for laying with a dimwit!”
One of the voices gasped.
“Oh, but he wasn’t a dimwit,” said another. “He was kicked by a horse.”
“He was inbred.”
“I’m fairly certain the blond is inbred.”
“Malfoy is not inbred!” Harry snapped.
Silence.
Everyone in the library turned to stare at Harry.
“Yes, Harry,” Hermione said slowly, from far across the room. “We figured.”
Malfoy stared at Harry with an absolutely baffled expression, almost horrified, and stunned out of his usual insults.
Harry fled the library.
—
“What in the bleeding hell are you playing at?” Malfoy hissed, cornering Harry in yet another toilet.
“Huh?” Said Harry, brilliantly.
“Shouting at everyone that I’m not inbred? What is your game here?”
“I hear voices.” Harry blurts it out before thinking.
A moment of silence.
“…Yes, Potter,” Malfoy replied slowly. “Most of us do.”
“No, I mean— I hear voices in my head, Malfoy.”
“Yes, most of us have a voice in our head.”
“No,” Harry gave a frustrated sigh. “I hear multiple voices in my head. In addition to my own. Lots of different voices. A dozen of them or more. They tell me to do things, or not do things.”
It’s the first time he’s said it out loud.
Draco stared at him.
“Oh, Merlin,” one of them said. “Now he’s gone and done it. They’ll burn him at a stake in the town square before daylight.”
“They don’t burn the lunatics anymore. They’ll ship the boy off to the bin with all the other lunatics. The crazies hospital.”
“Doth the bin have muggle cable?”
“No, Helga, the magical hospital does not have muggle cable.”
“Drat.”
Malfoy kept staring. “So, you’re… mad.”
“Actually, I lied. I don’t hear voices. I’m just out to get you.”
“Potter.”
“Sorry.”
“So you’re, like,” Draco looks uncomfortable. “Mad, then? Actually mad?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The boy is perfectly sane!”
Harry coughed.
“Okay,” Malfoy paused. “This was very odd. Goodbye, Potter.”
Malfoy flees the toilet this time.
Harry contemplates calling Gilderoy and begging him to share details on the Obliviate spell.
—
“Merlin, that was hard to watch.”
“Do not discourage the boy,” Two hummed. “One day, he shall find a lover who accepts all of us.”
Three makes a disgusted sound.
“Again with the love shite. We get it, you were a love witch.”
“He is but a boy, Helena, he should focus on his studies.”
“By my troth.”
“See, your mother agrees. And they are young men, Helena. They may fool around, as youths do, but it is a mere confusion. They cannot love.”
“You look so like your father,” Twelve said, reaching out a hand.
Thirteen reared back in disgust.
“That was hard to watch.”
“Grace of Merlin. If I could die again, I would.”
—
Harry avoids Malfoy as long as he can. He avoids him so purposefully that he looks up one day and realises, with a sharp jolt of surprise, that he’s nose-to-nose with Draco on the quidditch pitch, the golden snitch plummeting between them.
Gryffindor is playing Slytherin for the Cup. Duh.
“Wake up, Harry!” Ron shouts from the goalpost. “Move!”
Harry shakes his head and realises Draco’s gone. So is the snitch.
Where—?
“There!” One of the voices whispers.
A hundred feet below Harry, the snitch bobs and weaves through a triangular formation of Gryffindor chasers. Malfoy’s headed straight for it.
Fuck, Harry will never make it in time!
“Jump, boy!” Says one of the voices. “Jump now! For Glory and Gryffindor! Jump!”
Harry plummets toward the ground.
The stands erupt in cheers. Harry’s caught the snitch in his mouth. Again.
—
“Best flier of his age,” Seven boasts. “Best Quidditch seeker this castle’s seen since we built it. Anything to say to that, Salazar?”
“Still a halfbreed,” One grumbles.
“A halfbreed with a powerful immunity to the Dark Arts.”
“Do not wind him up, Hepzibah. The old man becomes tetchy.”
One frowned, his face twisting up into something very unpleasant. “My age distinguishes me.”
“Stop making the boy jump from his broom,” Six gasped, her hand where a heart used to be. “Oh, but mine nerves cannot take another!”
“Twice in seven years is hardly egregious.”
“Never knew your nerves to be so fragile, Helga.”
“Oh, you are hopeless,” Six replied. “Hopeless, the whole lot of you. Godric, you died by falling!”
“Aye, but I died well, and with honour.”
“Did you not sire so many bastards as well, Salazar? On creatures and mudbloods alike?”
Seven erupts into raucous laughter.
Thirteen looks like he just ate a bee.
“Many a halfblood bastard came from Slytherin loins, I hear.”
“Ach, but e ded so,” said Four. “Anny caut maney a whor germ betwixt is scrawney legs. Salasar came te me anny fixed maney a germpotion fer im, bet swor me te secresy e ded. Fares hardy te keep whin e walk lik a dead hors.”
Harry sounds tired. “Please stop talking about magical STDs.”
—
Draco corners Harry in the toilet again. “That settles it. You’re mad.“
“Am not mental. They told me to, so I did.”
Draco looks aghast. “You jumped off your broom mid-flight because the voices in your head told you to.”
“Just one of the voices,” Harry replied defensively. “Not all of them.”
“Not—“ Draco gave a bitter, disbelieving laugh. “Yes, because that’s so much better. You’re only partially mad, Potter. Huzzah.”
“Oh, piss off, Malfoy. You could congratulate me.”
“Congratulate you?”
“Yeah, instead of whinging like a bitch.”
“Like a—“ Draco sputtered, went pale. “That is—“ He composed himself quickly, but his cheeks remained tinged pink. “I suppose I should expect you to use crass muggle vernacular, Potter.”
Harry was hung up on Draco’s reaction. It was almost like— “Have you never heard the word bitch before?”
Draco’s rose flush turned fuschia. “Potter, that is highly inappropriate.”
“How about twat?”
Draco gasped.
“Cunt?”
“Enough!”
Harry laughed. He couldn’t help it.
“You’re mad!”
“You’re mad.”
“I’m certainly angry.”
“Oh, sod off, Malfoy. Jesus.”
Draco’s nose wrinkled. “Is that another muggle swear?”
“Kind of.” At Draco’s frown, Harry said, “Yeah, actually, it is. A bad one. So bad it’d make your Mum keel over.”
“Stay away from my Mum!”
“That’s what she said.”
“What?”
“Nothing, just— sod off, Malfoy. Jesus.”
“You’re a cheater, Potter. A dirty cheater, in class and in Quidditch.”
“You’re a sore loser.”
“Lunatic!”
“Inbred.”
Malfoy gasps and whirls around, slamming the toilet door shut behind him.
—
“Well,” said Six. “That could have gone better.”
“Aye!” Seven agreed. “They could have duelled! Spilt blood for their honour! For their Houses!”
“Violence is not the answer, Godric.”
“Aye, violence is a question,” said Five. “The answer be yes.”
“I forget how much of a Gaunt you are, Rionach.”
“I forget, myself.”
Three gave a disgusted scoff.
“Malfoys are a wretched people. Part veela, you know. Vapid little creatures they are. Our boy can do better for choice of enemies.”
“Voldemort is his enemy!” Thirteen insists.
“Voldemort was his enemy, and a weak one at that.”
Thirteen sends Nine a murderous glare.
“Leave the boy be, Noctua. Voldemort was his first attempt at political usurpation. Of course it was juvenile and inelegant.”
“Juvenile? Inelegant?”
“Malfoys are not of dirty veela blood. That was Anglo-Saxon propaganda against the Normans.”
“Our boy can do better than a bloody Norman.”
“I believe the Malfoys are Gaulish, no?”
“Mixed blood, is what they are,” One scowls. “Marrying halfbreeds without discretion. Theirs is a disease they brought to England.”
“I still think they are in love.”
“No one pays you to think, Helena.”
“Ach,” said Four, “Spech not te mine dotter. Thou art a forked-toung harlet.”
“Merlin above, I still don’t know what she’s saying.”
One turned around. “What say you, young Black?”
Fourteen spared them all an indifferent glance. “I say the boy’s father is a halfbreed twit.”
“Nay,” Seven replied. “That’s no way to speak of your in-laws, boy.”
“Tis something about their white hair,” Five mused. “Seeps all the white matter from their brains, I think.”
“Ach, the Lovegoods, too. And the Rowles.”
“Rosiers as well.”
“The boy’s grandmare was a Rosier, yes? He never stood a chance.”
“Fine choice of an enemy, indeed.”
“‘Tis a shame you wasted yourself, Regulus. England needs more true, noble purebloods. See, now, what occurs when the wizarding world is left in the hands of halfbreeds and muggle dogs.”
Seven was unamused. “They still have a right to an education, Salazar.”
“Blasphemy! See, now, what they’ve done to your precious Hollow, Godric! Nando’s! Subdivisions!”
“I have no idea what any of you are on about,” Harry whispered under his breath, “But please, stop. I have to go revise for the Transfig exam or Hermione will kill me.”
—
Draco is avoiding Harry.
It’s a head-spinning change, to go from seeing Malfoy everywhere to seeing him nowhere. Harry thought he’d find himself relieved. Instead, he finds himself on edge, distracted, either snapping at his friends or ignoring them outright.
But Malfoy, the sodding git, never gives Harry the time of day. He walks the corridors with his nose held haughty and high, aloof with disdain. He never so much as spares Harry one singular glance.
“Alright, mate?” Ron asks, face-down in his food, shoveling it from plate to mouth and back again.
Hermione fixes him with a reprimanding look. “Stop staring at Malfoy, Harry. He’s leaving you alone for the first time, ever. You should take advantage of this time to revise for Transfiguration.”
“Am not looking at Malfoy, I’m—“ Harry searched desperately for an excuse on the Slytherin side of the Great Hall. “I’m admiring the embroidery.”
“The embroidery?” Hermione twists around. “What, like on the banners?”
“Yes, on the banners. They’re new banners! Very beautiful.”
Hermione sends him a look. “Harry, those are the same banners that have been hanging there since first year.”
“No,” Harry says simply. “They’re new.”
“Right,” she said doubtfully. “Okay. Focus on Transfiguration, please. Promise me you’ll spend the week revising and not stalking Malfoy.”
“I don’t— I do not stalk Malfoy, I’ve never stalked anyone. I don’t stalk.”
“You are kind of obsessed with him, mate.” Ron doesn’t look up from his meal, just speaks between bites. “I mean, I don’t blame you, ‘cus Malfoy’s bloody annoying and his dad’s definitely a Deatheater, but he’s all you talk about, mate.”
“He is not all I talk about,” Harry insisted. Malfoy’s white head bobbed up from the Slytherin table and Harry’s eyes snapped to him, followed him across the Great Hall.
Ron finally looked up from his plate. He shot Hermione a look. “Right.”
—
“Our boy is miserable.”
“Ach, poor lad. He needs his mortal enemy.”
“Voldemort is his mortal enemy,” Thirteen insisted. “Malfoy Jr. is a petty schoolboy rival, and nothing more.”
“Can it, Tom. Three generations of that family, you made your Lieutenants.”
Thirteen sniffed. “They are far below Voldemort’s calibre.”
“They outlived Voldemort, did they not? All three of them?”
Thirteen gave an offended huff.
“Young heartbreak,” Two mourned.
“Helena, they are boys. They hate each other. Their families hate each other. Life is not one of your ridiculous tales of romance and if it were, ‘twould not occur between two youths.”
“Still, you must admit our boy is miserable. He hardly eats, he hardly sleeps.”
“Young Harry needs a duel to liven him up, to reinvigorate his spirits! Young wizards yearn for honour and blood. Challenge the white-haired troll to a duel, Harry!”
“The boy should attend to his studies, Godric. He is at school.”
“Nonsense, our boy is a warrior! Battle-hardened!”
“He is also a secondary school student.”
Harry looked longingly at Malfoy and— bless him— sighed.
A weary, longing sigh.
“…No,” said Five. “Is he…?”
“Certainly not,” said Eleven. “We would know, wouldn’t we? If he were…”
“No, he couldn’t be. Not our boy.”
“No, not our boy.”
—
Harry missed Draco.
There, he said it. He misses him. He misses the attention, their squabbles, the electric charge in the air when they geared up to fight each other. Something is missing, he knows, and it has to be restored.
So, Harry corners Draco in a toilet.
“Wotcher,” Harry says, shutting the door behind him.
“Merlin!” Draco jumps, shoves his cock back into his trousers and whirls around.
Harry gives a little wave.
“Potter? What are you doing here?”
“Your shirt’s untucked.”
Draco glances down and turns pink, starts shoving the tails of his shirt into his trousers. “What do you want?” He says, suspicious and uncertain.
“I miss us.”
“What?”
“Us. The squabbling. The fighting. Our rivalry. I miss it.”
Draco looks at a loss for words. “Merlin,” he settles on. “You really are mental.”
“Yes! Yes, exactly. That’s what I miss. The name-calling, too.”
“…You want me to be mean to you?”
“I want us to be mean to each other.”
“You’re pathetic, Potter.”
“Yeah, like that.”
“You aren’t that important to me.”
“Yeah, you’re getting it.”
“Are you bloody mad?”
“Well, you might be overdoing it now. Though, I suppose we do have some time to make up.”
“Potter—“ A strange expression crosses Draco’s face. “…I have class.”
Harry’s face falls.
“Prat.”
A grin almost splits Harry’s face apart.
—
Three frowned in disgust. “I will not live inside a deviant.”
“You cannot die,” said Nine. “So, I fear you must.”
“He is not a deviant, he is our boy! He is our Harry!”
“Our Harry might be a homosexual.”
“A homosexual,” Six clicked her tongue. “And for a Malfoy.”
“No, certainly not. Our boy is not a deviant. We would know, would we not?”
“Aye, we would know! Harry’s a man! A warrior! A paragon of courage! He could not be a homosexual.”
“I am certain that many Gryffindors grew up to be deviants, Godric.”
“Nonsense! Not from my noble House.”
“Oi, love witch,” says Five. “Care to weigh in, Helena?”
Two hums, but strangely, does not reply.
—
Something has changed in Harry and Draco’s relationship.
Harry can’t put a name to it, but their interactions have thawed. There’s something lighter there, something light-hearted, something mutually amusing in every glare and casual insult that they throw at each other.
Harry puts the pieces together after he finds a couple of old sissy mags under Sirius’ bed at Grimmauld Place.
He flips halfway through the first magazine before he realises what he’s looking at. A leather-strapped naked bloke is spread-eagle on the centerfold.
Harry closes it quickly and shoves the mess of magazines back under the bed.
Oh, he thinks. “What do I do now?”
—
“Love potion,” Twelve said.
“Oh, absolutely not. Harry, listen not to the whore. She died abandoned in her childbed.”
“He loved me.”
“Loved your minge, morelike.”
“Oi, language! Tommy’s just a boy and that’s his father you speak of.”
“It’s Tom,” Thirteen said with cold indignance, drawing up to his full height. “And I’m nearly a century old.”
“A spring bird, you are.”
“Ach, ‘tis not the boy’s fault he is a rape babe.”
“I am not a rape baby!”
“Your mother got the best of your father, boy. Yours is not the shame. Pity, there lies such danger in conceiving or siring children under the influence of a love potion.”
“Someone should put you on a list, Salazar.”
“My husband loved me,” said Twelve.
“You drugged him. Harry, do not drug this young man.”
Harry mumbled something that sounded like, “Wasn’t planning on it.”
“I still say, our boy is not bent.”
There’s a murmur of agreement through the crowd.
Fourteen looks up from his perch outside the group. He sounds bored. “I say he is.”
“Oh, can it, Regulus.”
—
Harry came clean to Ron and Hermione.
He had to, because they threatened to cut him off if he didn’t tell them what’s been going on with him.
“Harry,” Hermione sounded hesitant, her voice unbearably gentle and mild, like she thought Harry might break at any second. “Muggles have words for these things. Have you heard of schizophrenia? Or dissociative identity disorder, maybe?”
Ron looks green.
Harry sighed. “Hermione, come on.”
“You’re the right age for schizophrenia symptoms to start manifesting, Harry. And after everything you went through when you were young, it’s entirely possible you may have developed some kind of dissociative disorder. Or a personality disturbance. Or, sometimes, psychosis just happens!”
“Am not mental, Hermione. Jesus.”
“So it’s a curse, then?” She sounds doubtful.
“I don’t think of them as curses, they’re just… there. They’ve always been there. Sometimes, they even help.”
“They told you to jump off a broom and you think that’s helpful?”
“…I caught the snitch.”
“So?”
“So, Gryffindor won the game.”
“We won the— oh, Merlin. You could have died, Harry!”
“Also, I’m in love with Draco.”
Ron coughed ‘til he choked.
“…Malfoy?” Hermione asked, pale as a corpse.
“Yeah. Draco Malfoy.”
“In love with him? Romantic love?”
“Yeah.”
“Harry, we need to get you to the hospital wing.”
—
“Merlin’s beard,” Three derided. “The boy is bent. Which one of you passed that down?”
Seven raised an eyebrow at Ten.
“I did not give the boy homosexuality.”
Nine spared him an unimpressed glance.
“That is a very rude implication, Noctua, and I do not appreciate— I am not a homosexual.”
“‘Tis a brave new world, Corvinus,” said Seven. “If ye were, we could turn a blind eye to it.”
“I am not a homosexual!”
“Am not saying you are!”
“Homosexual?” Said Eight, blinking slowly some distance away. Her tired eyes narrowed, searching the group for a deviant among them.
“Return to your slumber, Gormlaith. Corvinus is not a homosexual, nor is anyone here.”
One cocked an eyebrow.
“Can we stop with the eyebrow-raising? Perhaps none of us gave the boy homosexuality. Perhaps, Harry himself is simply homosexual by nature.”
“Nay, ‘tis the abuse he suffered from that wretched aunt.”
“You cannot know that with certainty, Godric.”
Thirteen scoffed. “Who gives a fuck?”
“Mayhaps he got it from you, Tom.”
“I am not bent,” Thirteen insisted. “Half of you watched me have sexual intercourse with Myrtle!”
“Aye,” Seven said doubtfully. “But you did it from behind.”
“So?”
“‘Tis the most homosexual of positions.”
“I—“ Thirteen stuttered. “I never— how dare you—!”
“Oh, stop that, Godric. Leave young Tom be. He died a virgin, ‘tis tragic enough.”
“I am not a virgin!”
“Ach, but ye did not spend in Mess Warren. Or on Mess Warren. Ye did not spend at all.”
There’s a murmur of agreement through the crowd.
Thirteen flushed cherry-red. “So?”
“So, your purity is intact if you performed but did not spend. God sayeth so.”
“God did not say that!”
“He did.”
“Where?”
“‘Tis no fault of mine you are illiterate, boy.”
—
“I love you.”
Draco coughs until he’s blue in the face.
“You don’t have to say it back.”
“Say it back— Potter, we’re in a toilet!”
“Yeah, that seems to be our thing lately.”
“We do not have a ‘thing’!”
“Oh, we definitely have a thing.”
“Love—“ Draco sputters. “We’re men! Rivals! Bitter enemies!”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah! So we can’t— it’s not—“ Draco trails off.
“I love you.”
“This is not romantic!”
“What?”
“The first person to tell me they love me and I’m in a bloody toilet!”
“Well, sorry, Malfoy. Didn’t think you’d want me to romance you. Sorry I didn’t invite you out to the unicorn glen.”
“I would not have gone,” Draco sniffed. “I would have assumed you were luring me there to attack me.”
“Right, yeah. So: toilet.”
Draco stared dumbly.
“Is there anything you want to say, or…?”
“I hate you!”
“Yeah, but there’s love, too.”
“There is not! You’re mad! You hear voices! You— you’re a halfblood!”
“Now you’re just being petty.”
Draco falls into a stunned silence.
“It’s okay, Malfoy. I love you. You don’t have to say it back.”
“This is a trick, isn’t it? A nasty trick. There’s someone in here, spying on us.”
“Nope. Just you and me.”
“You’re mad. And I’m leaving.”
Harry’s heart fell, uncertainty creeping in. Merlin, did he get it wrong? Did he ruin everything?
Draco hesitated in the doorway. “Prat,” he said, and disappeared.
Harry grinned.
—
“Unbelievable.”
“Our boy, a deviant.”
“Ach, bet e is stil or boy.”
“A shame he did not return Harry’s affections,” Twelve hummed. “I can recommend a very good love potion recipe.”
“Piss off, Merope. Merlin’s beard.”
“This is disgusting,” said Thirteen.
One spat.
“I don’t care what you think,” Harry said aloud. “Just don’t make my mind a hell to live in now, right?”
“…Suppose we could take a vacation,” Six said.
“And go where? The colon?”
“Probably not the colon.”
“Oh!” Five yelped. “Oh, that is crass! Harry is but a child yet, he’ll be doing no such filthy act with that Malfoy boy!”
“Aye, our boy’ll be doing the bending.”
“Godric!”
“I was thinking the lungs. Mayhaps, the pancreas.”
“Could be interesting. Something different.”
“I’ll try not to take offense to that,” Harry said dryly.
“Someone take Gormlaith. Do not wake her, but— yes, you can drag her.”
The group began to leave, one by one.
For the first time, Harry was alone in his own head. Merlin, he couldn’t wait to kiss Draco. He bet it’d be even better without his fourteen guardians jumping in to offer their two cents on his choice of lover or, Merlin forbid, his kissing technique.
Malfoy subtly caught Harry’s gaze from across the Great Hall. He looked to and fro and, discreetly, raised his hand to give a little wave.
Harry waved back.