Terry frowned. "Wait, is that -"
"Don't worry," said Penelope Clearwater, who was there to guide them. "There were no loopholes. Well-worded, Potter, you should be a lawyer."
Harry Potter blinked at that. Ah, yes, Ravenclaw prefect. "Thank you," he said. "I think."
"When you try to find the Great Hall, you will get lost." Penelope stated this in the tones of a flat, unarguable fact. "As soon as you do, ask a portrait how to get to the first floor. Ask another portrait the instant you suspect you might be lost again. Especially if it seems like you're going up higher and higher. If you are higher than the whole castle ought to be, stop and wait for search parties. Otherwise we shall see you again four months later and you will be five months older and dressed in a loincloth and covered in snow and that's if you stay inside the castle."
"Understood," said Harry, swallowing hard. "Um, shouldn't you tell students all that sort of stuff right away?"
Penelope sighed. "What, all of it? That would take weeks. You'll pick it up as you go along." She turned to go, followed by the other students. "If I don't see you at breakfast in thirty minutes, Potter, I'll start the search."
Once everyone was gone, Harry attached the note to his bed - he'd already written it and all the other notes, working in his cavern level before everyone else woke up. Then he carefully reached inside the Quietus field and pulled the Cloak of Invisibility off Harry-1's still-sleeping form.
And just for the sake of mischief, Harry put the Cloak into Harry-1's pouch, knowing it would thereby already be in his own.
"I can see that the message is passed on to Cornelion Flubberwalt," said the painting of a man with aristocratic airs and, in fact, a perfectly normal nose. "But might I ask where it came from originally?"
Harry shrugged with artful helplessness. "I was told that it was spoken by a hollow voice that belled forth from a gap within the air itself, a gap that opened upon a fiery abyss."
"Hey!" Hermione said in tones of indignation from her place on the other side of the breakfast table. "That's everyone's dessert! You can't just take one whole pie and put it in your pouch!"
"I'm not taking one pie, I'm taking two. Sorry everyone, gotta run now!" Harry ignored the cries of outrage and left the Great Hall. He needed to arrive at Herbology class a little early.
Professor Sprout eyed him sharply. "And how do you know what the Slytherins are planning?"
"I can't name my source," Harry said. "In fact I have to ask you to pretend that this conversation never happened. Just act like you happened across them naturally while you were on an errand, or something. I'll run on ahead as soon as Herbology gets out. I think I can distract the Slytherins until you get there. I'm not easy to scare or bully, and I don't think they'll dare to seriously hurt the Boy-Who-Lived. Though... I'm not asking you to run in the hallways, but I would appreciate it if you didn't dawdle along the way."
Professor Sprout looked at him for a long moment, then her expression softened. "Please be careful with yourself, Harry Potter. And... thank you."
"Just be sure not to be late," Harry said. "And remember, when you get there, you weren't expecting to see me and this conversation never happened."
It was horrible, watching himself yank Neville out of the circle of Slytherins. Neville had been right, he'd used too much force, way too much force.
"Hello," Harry Potter said coldly. "I'm the Boy-Who-Lived."
Eight first-year boys, mostly the same height. One of them had a scar on his forehead and he wasn't acting like the others.
Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion -
Professor McGonagall was right. The Sorting Hat was right. It was clear once you saw it from the outside.
There was something wrong with Harry Potter.
Chapter 15: Conscientiousness
"Frigideiro!"
Harry dipped a finger in the glass of water on his desk. It should have been cool. But lukewarm it was, and lukewarm it had stayed. Again.
Harry was feeling very, very cheated.
There were hundreds of fantasy novels scattered around the Verres household. Harry had read quite a few. And it was starting to look like he had a mysterious dark side. So after the glass of water had refused to cooperate the first few times, Harry had glanced around the Charms classroom to make sure no one was watching, and then taken a deep breath, concentrated, and made himself angry. Thought about the Slytherins bullying Neville, and the game where someone knocked down your books every time you tried to pick them up again. Thought about what Draco Malfoy had said about the ten-year-old Lovegood girl and how the Wizengamot really operated...
And the fury had entered his blood, he had held out his wand in a hand that trembled with hate and said in cold tones "Frigideiro!" and absolutely nothing had happened.
Harry had been gypped. He wanted to write someone and demand a refund on his dark side which clearly ought to have irresistible magical power but had turned out to be defective.
"Frigideiro!" said Hermione again from the desk next to him. Her water was solid ice and there were white crystals forming on the rim of her glass. She seemed to be totally intent on her own work and not at all conscious of the other students staring at her with hateful eyes, which was either (a) dangerously oblivious of her or (b) a perfectly honed performance rising to the level of fine art.
"Oh, very good, Miss Granger!" squeaked Filius Flitwick, their Charms Professor and Head of Ravenclaw, a tiny little man with no visible signs of being a past dueling champion. "Excellent! Stupendous!"
Harry had expected to be, in the worst case, second behind Hermione. Harry would have preferred for her to be rivalling him, of course, but he could have accepted it the other way around.
As of Monday, Harry was headed for the bottom of the class, a position for which he was companionably rivalling all the other Muggle-raised students except Hermione. Who was all alone and rivalless at the top, poor thing.
Professor Flitwick was standing over the desk of one of the other Muggleborns and quietly adjusting the way she was holding her wand.
Harry looked over at Hermione. He swallowed hard. It was the obvious role for her in the scheme of things... "Hermione?" Harry said tentatively. "Do you have any idea what I might be doing wrong?"
Hermione's eyes lit up with a terrible light of helpfulness and something in the back of Harry's brain screamed in desperate humiliation.
Five minutes later, Harry's water did seem noticeably cooler than room temperature and Hermione had given him a few verbal pats on the head and told him to pronounce it more carefully next time and gone off to help someone else.
Professor Flitwick had given her a House point for helping him.
Harry was gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached and that wasn't helping his pronunciation.
I don't care if it's unfair competition. I know exactly what I am doing with two extra hours every day. I am going to sit in my trunk and study until I am keeping up with Hermione Granger.