A Darker Form of Magic

Harry reported to the Hogwarts library right after breakfast and was met with a particularly stern looking witch waiting for him in the hall.

"You will reshoot the sections that I tell you to and will not go anywhere near the Restricted Section, or speak unless I speak to you first," Madam Pince said, her voice grating on Harry's ears like nails on a chalkboard. "Is that clear?" Harry nodded firmly to the question, all too used to nonverbal communication. The witch almost seemed to smile at the sight as something dark twisted in the boy's stomach at the familiarity of it all. "Alright then."

Harry followed the witch into the school library and almost gasped at the sight.

There were shelves upon shelves of books that stood so tall that ladders had to be installed to reach anything above half way. All of the books were hardback and bound in leather like old tomes from stories. There were already some other students gathered in the library despite the early time, nose deep in books with more in a great pile beside each of them. Harry wasn't surprised to find that most of them were either Ravenclaws, NEWTs students, or - more worryingly so - both .

Madam Pince led Harry over to three tall stacks of books , easily doable, if not closing in on triple the boy's weight. Harry had to crane his neck back just to see the top of each stack.

"You'll resheleve one of these stacks each day," the librarian quietly explained before drawing her wand and flicking it at the stack nearest to the pair. The books immediately took on a silvery hue to them and glided gently to a table in about twelve or so more manageable piles. "Once you finish your stack for the day you're free to go." And with that, the witch walked over to her desk and sat quietly with her own book though Harry could still feel her eyes on him.

Looking down at the piles, Harry found that the books were actually already arranged by section for him, all Harry had to do was find the books' places on the shelves.

Harry saw no point in wasting more of his day and grabbed the pile closest to him, Advanced Charms, and got to work. A part of Harry thought that he shouldn't have been surprised with the way that his limbs seemed too heavy for his body now that he was away from the other Slytherins and the common room, but it was still a good hour or so before he'd made much of a dent in the stack. He let himself get lost in the action of searching titles and names to distract him from it all well enough. He'd been sick plenty of times in his childhood before and still expected to work, so it really wasn't all that bad.

"Harry," a short voice called from behind the boy, making him twist and almost drop the books in his hand.

The boy spun and raised the book in his hand like a blade on instinct, pointing it at the throat of the girl now in front of him. Hermione squealed and raised her hands by her head, a slight look of fear entering the Ravenclaw girl's eyes.

"Sorry," the boy said sheepishly, lowering his hand slowly so that the other could see his every movement. Hermione did the same though Harry could see the distance that she had created.

"It's fine," Hermione said softly, but they both knew that it wasn't, not to her. A heavy silence stretched between the pair for a long moment, something that Harry didn't like hearing, but had no experience in fixing. He couldn't just curse and the pair laugh it off like he and Jude might. "I heard that you got into a fight," the Ravenclaw said at last, eyeing the deepening bruises on Harry's face with no amount of subtlety.

Harry only shrugged. "Not as intriguing as the Ravenclaws reading half off the books in the library before the end of the second week of school."

Hermione smiled, but Harry could tell that it was a little more forced than it should be. "Thank you," the witch said softly, almost as if lying. Maybe she was. "I heard that my name was tossed around in there."

"Course."

Harry watched as the girl sullenly gathered her things and began to walk away, before pausing. Hermione didn't look back at Harry, but he knew that she was speaking to him. "The books that you are shelving now have information in them pertaining to you, if you wanted to know more about that night," she said quietly before slipping away, the words landing heavily between them like a parting gift. Harry was staring at where the girl once stood and wondered just what he'd done.

But he knew, of course he did.

It didn't take any sort of genius to know that those that come from pretty homes would be put off by the actions of those that were made by bloodied knuckles and knives. Harry was starting to think that this was one of the reasons that Slytherins always seemed to stick so close to one another, the other three houses didn't like the cruelness that stuck to them like a second skin- that they were raised to think was love.

Harry sighed and looked down at the book in his hand, Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century . A part of Harry just wanted to put the book back on the shelf and carry onto the next section, to not ponder and investigate the lives of two people that he's never known before, but the rest of him wanted to know just how he ended up where he did; how he came to grow up alone.

It really wasn't much of a choice at all.

Opening the book, Harry flipped to the last chapter: The Fall of The Dark Lord , and read through every sentence with a care that he had never truly possessed before. That was how the boy learned that Voldermort had hunted down his family, just as Hagrid had said, and found. Them in a wizarding - muggle town called Godric's Hollow. It's how he learned that they had died on Halloween, a holiday that his Aunt had always seemed to hold a special hatred for that went beyond its magical affiliations. Now he knew why.

October 31st, 1981.

The sickness that Harry always felt in the main castle washed over him in droves. Harry let it.

—-

Fred and George were sitting at one of the tables in the Gryffindor common room with plans for future products drawn up before the pair, when the portrait hole opened and their youngest brother stepped heavily through, his robes and skin cracked in mud, and his face badly bruised all over from Madam Pomfrey not having bruise balm in stock just yet.

"How did detention go, little Ronikeens?" George asked, his voice loud so that it would call the attention of everyone else.

"Little Ronnie's first detention-" Fred lamentated, casting his hand dramatically over his face.

"-with Filch no less," George continued, watching the way that the youngest Weasly at Hogwarts seemed to almost growl as he stomped across the common room .

"Mom's going to be so proud," Fred called, enjoying the way Ron went pale as he walked past, ignoring the pair.

"I can't wait for the Howler to come, Gred," George called loudly as the door to the first year dorms slammed shut.

"Indubitably so, Forge," Fred agreed before his face grew more serious and the pair simultaneously quieted back down as if they'd never had such an outburst at all. "But seriously," the twin said to the other, sitting normally once more, "what could Ron have possibly said to make Harry Potter of all people hit him?"

George tapped the feather of his quill against the table and wondered the same thing.

The thing with Harry Potter is that the boy is an enigma. All of his the Gryffindor - Bloody hell, all of Hogwarts - had been expecting the savior of the wizarding world to go straight to the house of lions as fast as the Malfoy boy had gone to Slytherin. No one had expected him among the snakes. While everyone had expected a loud boy, they got a quite, reserved, analytical one that somehow managed to get close enough to Warrington to give him the nasty gash that he's been sporting since breakfast the first day of term if the twin's guess was right.

Where the Weasley twins had expected the Boy Who Lived to look strong, Fred and George found a concerningly underweight boy that somehow always managed to look sickly.

A true anomaly.

"I hear that he's serving detention with Pince tomorrow..." George said, an idea blooming in the boy's mind. He could see that his twin shared it even before the teen opened his mouth to speak it.

"I could use a book or two."

—-

Harry ignored the way that his arms shook under the weight of the books that he was carrying, his body in no way built for such long hours of moving things as he was even before the sickness set in as profoundly as it had. The books that had seemed so pretty only a day before now looked little better than rectangular demons that Harry was sure multiplied each time that he turned his back on them.

Still better than whatever the Weasel has to do , Harry forced himself to believe so that he wouldn't be left alone with bitter thoughts for hours more. Harry had already spent ten years like that, he didn't need anymore.

Exhausted as he was, Harry couldn't find any remorse for his actions, not even with the way that Hermione - of all people - seemed to be avoiding the library like the bloody plague while he was within it, only sneaking down during the middle of meals. He knew that - knowing how everything would go - Harry still would have punched the bastard again.

Harry stared up at the ladder before him as if he was contemplating just dropping dead where he stood and froze when a feeling of normalcy washed over the boy. Harry turned quickly and saw two boys that looked identical to one another walking towards him from either side of the aisle. Harry's skin didn't prickel with magic as they drew closer, but he could still feel it there. Nor did he feel suffocated like he had only a few moments before. Harry felt completely normal , as if he was still in the muggle world or in the field where it was easy to forget the quiet sing of magic.

He felt his wand slide into his hand like a blade, destructive and beautifully deadly, before he even bothered to speak to the Weasley twins. "If you're here about what I did to your brother, then you really should have picked a less public place," the boy quickly warned, eyeing the pair wearily.

Harry had heard that the twins were gifted students, but virtually harmless, saving most of their energy for pranks. But Harry knew that anyone could easily turn violent if prompted enough. After all, Uncle Vernon had only been mean before Harry's magic had started to present itself.

"Gred, I think the snakes is trying to get us alone so he can fight us for ickel Ronikeen's honor," the twin on the right, George if the rumors on how they swtietvhef their names like this was to be believed, said in a voice that sounded much too light for someone intending to cause harm.

"Seems that way to me, Forge," Fred agreed. Harry could feel the twin's eyes studying him carefully, as if he had found something that he hadn't expected to.

Harry only shrugged.

"We're not here-" Fred started, his eyes still as curious as he stepped closer.

"-to fight."

"We just-"

"-want to know-"

"-why you and-"

"-Ron did," George finished.

Harry didn't bother attempting to look at the twins as they spoke and just fiddled with his wasnas he listened instead. "I get it, you're twins," the Slytherin boy said irritably. "You can stop with the back and forth now."

The boys seemed to almost pout and Harry sighed. "Look," the boy said tiredly, the respite from the foreign magic not truly enough to bring back the energy that Harry had spent shelving books for three hours now. "Your brother decided to insult two of my friends and I have anger issues. Shit happened," the boy explained before moving to the ladder, book in hand. Harry raised an eyebrow as Fred stepped forward and held the ladder still as Harry climbed it, but none of the three said anything about it. "Do what you want about it, but I don't regret it in the least."

"Ooh, a snakey with a backbone," George cooed, handing Harry another book and earning him his own confused look. "Not very snakey of you."

Harry took the book and shrugged once more. "Slytherins are loyal to their own," he said in lieu of a proper explanation.

"So Ron insulieted a Slytherin then?" Fred asked, sounding more curious than anything else that he might have.

"And a Ravenclaw," the younger boy was sure to add.

Harry saw the twins glance at one another before identical sly grins crept across their faces.

"Tell us, Mr. Snakey-" Fred started as George handed Harry another book.

"-what do you think about pranks?" The other Weasley twin finished.

—-

Sunday morning Harry walked into the Great Hall with the other Slytherin first years with a small smile curved on the boy's lips that Blaise noticed and raised a questioning brow to, but the smaller boy only shook his head slightly.

Wait , the gesture seemed to say.

The other boy only shrugged.

There was a good ten minutes before the post came when the Weasley twins walked into the Great Hall, each of the boys dramatically dressed in as much green as they had been able to find (which really wasn't much; only a shirt, beanies, and scarves since they come from an all Gryffindor family). The twins stutter forwards, the eyes of the Gryffindors immediately gravitating to their most chaotic members.

But the twins didn't walk to their own table.

From the Head Table, McGonagall watched, mystified, as Fred and George walked over to the Slytherins and sat on either side of Potter, shooing the Malfoy boy and Zabini boy away from the smallest snake's side. The twins, from what the Deputy Headmistress could see, pretended as if the entire occurrence was normal and moved to grab food, piling it onto their plates and Potter's as well as if it was the only natural thing to do.

She was even more surprised when she saw the ever rule following Percy Weasley walk into the Great Hall and scan it slowly for his siblings, only stopping once he'd found the misplaced pair. Instead of yelling at the two boys though, McGonagall almost has a stroke as he joined them at the table next to Ms. Parkinson, sitting opposite of the strange trio.

Snape sighed heavily and wondered if he should have seen this coming as the three redheads are at the Slytherin table as if they had been sorted into it themselves. The boy may be more likes the wolf then the Potter that the potions master had grown up with, but Lupin had still been a Marauder nonetheless. He was also sure that the wolf had been the one to plan most of the group's more intelligent 'pranks' during their school years. Still, he couldn't even find it in himself to reprimand the three Weasley brothers, not when he and all of the other Hogwarts staff knew just what was coming in a few minutes' time. He'd want to be on the other side of the hall too.

Harry smirked into his water as the Weasel walked into the Great Hall and stopped short at the sight of his siblings. He wiped the look clean from his face though as the youngest Weasley boy stormed towards the Slytherin table with righteous indignation, and a fire in the boy's dark eyes.

"What in Merlin's saggy balls do you think you're doing, Potter?" The Weasel asked angrily and quite loudly too.

"Language, Ronald," Percy chastised primly, fitting in nicely with the posh manner of the Slytherins around him as the twins gasped dramatically and immediately moved to cover the ears of the children closest to them, much to Draco's and Blaise's displeasure.

"Yeah, language, Ronald ," the brothers chorused before being shaken off by the younger Slytherins.

"I didn't do anything," Harry said, boarding the line of lying. The Ofer Weasley brothers had chosen to sit by Harry on their own, he just might have given them the idea to do so the day before.

"So you're not trying to corrupt my siblings with one of your little Slytherin schemes?" The boy asked, waving a hand at the other three red heads.

Harry sighed tiredly despite feeling normal once more in the Weasley twin's presence. "Look, Weasel," the Slytherin started, ignoring the way that more than one of the other snakes choked on their food at the name. "Sorry, but obviously you've mistaken me for someone that gives a shit. Please tell me where you got that idea from so that I can never do it again."

The other boy blundered, looking between those around him, but seeming to have nothing to say anymore.

"Now look at what you've done!" Fred exclaimed, gesturing at the Slytherin surrounded by Weasleys.

"Shame on you, Ronniekins," George joined in. "Corrupting the youth."

"Hardly," Draco scoffed good naturedly, taking a sip of his pumpkin juice as if to distract himself from the fact that he was being civil with more than one of the Weasley clan. "Harry came that way."

Harry only shrugged, not fighting the accusation. Especially not when he was proud of it. "It's true."

"Bloody Slytherins," Ronncireed before walking to his own table and his friends there.

Just in time for the post to arrive.

The owls descended in the usual flurry of madness and motion, swooping down and gliding as feathers fluttered down and letters were dropped in front of their owners. The Weasleys and most of the Slytherins all turned to watch as a particularly flat faced owl landed messily on the table in front of Ron. None of them could see exactly what it held in its beak, but Harry could tell from the way that everyone leaned away that it wasn't going to be pretty.

And Harry was right to think so.

" Ronald Weasley! How dare you get into a fight, and on only the second week of school no less !" A disembodied voice screamed into the hall. Harry could see all three Weasley boys wince and knew that it must be their mother. " Think of what example you are setting for your sister! "

The letter continued to scream on from there but someone cast a silencing charm to mute it. However, that person was slightly misguided in their attempts to help since the letter - the Howler, as the twins had called it the day before - only started its speech once more, screaming even louder than before.

"Really?" Percy Weasly asked, his eyes flicking between his brothers.

"Never too early for pranks," Fred said, a sly grin on his face that sometimes made Harry wonder how most of the Weasleys didn'tgo into Slytherin.

"Or owls, dear brother," George finished.

By this time the Gryffindors were beginning to look for seats among the other houses as well, only to find none as everyone was already down for breakfast, and the smarter Gryffindors had already done just as the older Weasleys and moved when they saw the Howler coming unmistakably closer.

"I'm off then," Harry said, rising from the table and nimbly avoiding the pair of hands that tried to grab him.

All three Weasleys stared down at the barley touched plate of food with concern for the small boy as the first year Slytherin walked away. It looked as I'd he'd hardly eaten a thing at all.

"Is it normal for him to eat so little?" Fred asked, pointing to the abandoned plate beside him.

The other Slytherins glanced at one another quickly, unsure of what to do. They all knew the answer, it was just a matter of whether or not they wanted to share it with the Gryffindors.

The Weasley brothers watched the silent communication with thinly veiled fascination. All three of them knew that Slytherins were well adept at such silent conversations, but it was interesting to see it in first years, only two weeks in at that. None of the three knew of the ways of taking that one learned when they were not allowed to speak at all.

"He's been doing better with it actually," Blaise said at last, ignoring the betrayed look from Draco as he spoke. "He ate a lot less the first night."

Blaise looked at Pansy and blatantly ignored the silently fuming blond. Both him and Pansy had noticed the sickly mess that seemed to cling to the smaller boy with the fierce grip of a dying man. The way that just being in the castle seemed to make the boy ill if he wasn't among another Slytherin, how he seemed to become even worse during defense.

Mrs. Malfoy had instilled on holding off on testing Draco for what kind of magic the boy held after the last war, but Blaise's and Pansy's parents had not held the same reservations. The pair knew the signs, felt them themselves to a much lesser extent, it was why they wanted to get the smaller boy to Snape. They'd seen him helping some of the older Slytherins, giving them potions to help with the adverse effects of being in the castle.

Only Blaise thought that there might be more to it than just magic.

The Slytherin had seen the way that Harry was too small for someone their age, the poor condition of his glasses, and the way that he flinched at loud noises and sudden touches that almost everyone else seemed to shrug off.

Blaise knew just how cruel adults could be. His mother had already had seven husbands over the years, each of them dying in the same suspicious way as the others.

He couldn't remember his own father or even what number the man had been, but the Slytherin boy knew that the man hadn't been innocent. His mother - though she always married rich - was not longing for money, having more than enough of her own to suffice for any whim. Nor was she someone that killed for the fun of it, though she had plenty of blood on her hands.

She was someone, Blaise knew, that would do anything to protect those that she called hers from the first time that she saw even a sign of violence coming their way. Husband number six had been ill before the brisket had even set on Blaise's skin.

Seeing Harry run at the youngest Weasley boy that day, Blasie couldn't help but thinking that his mother would like the smaller boy a lot too.

—-

The last day of detention was going relatively smoothly for Harry as he spent hours on end firing the Ravenclaws under his breath and plotting just how likely he could get away with cursing the next one that added a book to one of his piles. The calculations weren't favorable, but as the number of books rose higher the Slytherin found that he cared less and less about that.

"Where can 8 find a book on advanced summoning charms?" A voice asked firm the boy's right.

The younger Slytherin reordered a growl as he turned to see the figure of Marcus Flint, a Slytherin fifth year, smirking at him. Harry had seen the older boy around Warrington from time to time in the common room and knew what his stance on the younger snake was by now.

"Already struggling that much are we?" The younger boy asked him with a sweetness that he'd learned from Petunia before his voice fell flat. "Top shelf, two over from where the ladder is now," Harry said boredly before toning back to the books he'd been sorting through before.

" Potter !"

Harry tired quickly to the source of the sound, hearing the genuine alarm in it as he did so. He felt his arm moving before he'd even fully registered that something was coming, falling towards him, as caught a particularly thick copy of a Charms textbook, his body slightly sagging under the weight. He was sure that if it were to actually have got him, a concussion wouldn't have been far behind the action.

Turning his head up to the older boy, Harry openly glared at the other Slytherin as he climbed down the tall ladder. "What the fuck are you playing at, Flint?" Harry growled, thrusting the book at the Oder boy's general direction and enjoining the way that he scrambled to get it in a good hold.

"Bloody hell, Potter," the older boy cursed quietly, careful not to draw any more attention than they already had amassed. "I wouldn't try anything in public , you know that." Harry then watched as the older Slyherin's eyes flickered from the boy himself to the book that the elder now held in his own hands. When he spoke again he almost looked as if he saw signing a death warrant for himself. The younger boy loved it. "You have some good reflexes on you," Flint complimented. "Ever thought about playing Quidditch?"

Harry felt a brow raise at the sudden question but otherwise showed no outward reaction. "You help me put away the rest of these books and I'll consider it."

Flint sighed but relented as Harry had known that he would. "A snake to the end," he thought that heard the other mutter as the hungry look in the older boy's eyes was too great for him not to agree. "Quidditch Pitch tomorrow before breakfast."

Harry handed the older Slytherinna book.

—-

"Damn it," Marcus cursed from the ground as he watched Potter dive and rise in the air as if he'd been born for it and not the Earth at all. He groaned as the boy raised his hand over his head triumphantly for the third time in under an hour, the practice snitch fluttering desperately in the younger boy's grasps.

Sometimes Marcus hated his own curiosity, especially when it meant that both Warrington and Higgs were going to kill him for it.

He called the boy back to the ground and watched with something almost resembling empathy as the boy complied only reluctantly.

"You have potions first, right?" Marcus asked as soon as Potter was in front of him. The boy only nodded. "Come on then."

Potter followed Marcus quietly as he led them into the silent dungeons. The older Slytherin shivered as the cold washed over him, but noticed with a minute interest the way that the younger boy seemed to become more alive then he had seemed since setting foot on the ground once more. It was still only a shadow as to how the boy usually looked in the common room, but it was intriguing enough to warrant a second glance.

Snape was sitting at his desk when the boys walked in but Marcus didn't fall for the man's cold gaze. He knew just how much of a soft spot the Professor had for his snakes. Anyone who paid proper attention could see the way that the man watched them all carefully at the start of the year and the more jumpy Slytherins soon found themselves in Jew homes if that had been the problem- it was the Slytherin coldness that Marcus knew that the potions master hid behind.

Who didn't?

"You two better have a good excuse for coming here so early," the professor griped, putting down his quill as he did so.

"I found you a new seeker," Marcus said confidently, though he noticed the way that the youngest Slytherin seemed to draw in on himself almost protectively as the professor's gaze turned on the younger boy.

"We already have a seeker," Snape said dismissively, waving the boys off.

"Higgins is constantly one step from academic probation," the fifth year reminded the man, "and Potter is simply better." Snape and Potter both seemed to still at the last part, the younger boy's cheeks noticeably flushing from the simple spoken fact. "You want to beat Gryffindor again this year, right?"

Marcus smirked as the potions master muttered something that sounded a lot like a curse and knew that he'd won.

"Reserve seeker," the Slytherin Head of House conceded, but Marcus knew that he could hear the for now in it.

A good season was coming, he could feel it.