All heads around the table snapped up. Suddenly the name 'Potter' could be heard circulating the room.
Flint scoffed. "You're bullshitting."
"Does it look like I'm… Bullshitting?!" Hermione shrieked.
Now the sounds of the common room were morphing into a cacophony of incredulous shouts and curses.
Daphne glanced at the Dark to see the whole group shouting and arguing.
Tracey glared at her. "I told you, Daph! Didn't I tell you!? I told you!"
Blaise sat gobsmacked. "No way. You must be exaggerating. That kind of ability, at eleven? That's just not possible!"
The other Slytherins around the table stared at the growing hubbub, faces slightly white.
Tracey turned to Blaise. "Even if all the duelling club members"-she swept a hand over the melting down common room-" are exaggerating somewhat, it doesn't change the fact that we should have reached out to Potter ages ago! And now it's too late. Everyone's going to be after him!"
Daphne took a deep breath. "Clearly, if this is true-and I don't not believe you, Granger-then I agree we might have made a small miscalculation."
Tracey scoffed. "You think?"
Hermione fiddled with the cuffs of her robes, looking very out of place without a book, quill, or wand in her hands. "He wasn't even tired by the end of it. He looked like he could just keep on going forever."
"Oh, Merlin." One of the other Slytherin's hands started shaking.
One mean looking third year a few tables away vomited onto the floor.
Daphne didn't blame him. She'd seen the looks many of the House had been shooting Harry for the last few months and she guessed that those cheerful smiles that Harry'd been shooting back would suddenly take on a far less than innocent meaning.
The arguing, shouts, expletives, and even the occasional wand draw, continued for what seemed an age, but was probably just a few minutes.
No one seemed to want to leave the common room. The entire house was focused on the door.
Tracey looked over to where the Dark sat.
Daphne followed her gaze to see the Dark's arguing had mostly died down. Malfoy poked at a parchment on the table as though it owed him money.
Tracey turned back, suddenly looking deadly serious. "Daph, the moment Potter walks in that door, you're going to invite him to sit with us. Before anyone else does. We cannot afford for someone like that to align himself with the Dark."
Hermione nodded.
All the other Slytherins, sat around the table, looked to her, faces worried and expectant.
She leaned back in her armchair and sighed. "Very well, I can see that events have overtaken us and we must make do the best we can. Thankfully, I don't believe any of us have unduly antagonised him, so we may have an opening there."
Flint suddenly looked uncomfortable.
She nodded towards Hermione, Tracey, and Blaise. "Get ready to make some space if necessary."
They all nodded.
A few more minutes went by.
Then, the door to the common room creaked open.
All noise ceased. All heads turned.
There stood Harry, but not as he'd been for the past few months. While before he'd been happy to wear a similar uniform to that worn by muggleborn students, he now wore what Daphne knew he'd worn on the Hogwarts Express. Traditional robes cut in the finest materials, fit for the young son of an Ancient and Noble House. Harry's public expression had changed too. While before he made his way everywhere with a happy-go-lucky face of carefree abandon, now his face was set, and his eyes were flinty.
She risked a glance towards Malfoy to see the young heir staring at Harry the way one might stare at a complex puzzle in a magical Mayan temple - great riches for success, instead death for failure.
No one in the common room made any move to approach him, or speak.
Harry surveyed the common room and slowly walked towards the middle, the space that was traditionally left wide open for people to walk through, and the area that had now become the unofficial divide between the Dark on the one side, and the Gray on the other. Each footstep sounded loudly on the hardwood floor and Daphne realised Harry wore iron tipped boots under his robes.
He reached the middle of the room, took out his wand-several people drew back-and conjured the exact same overstuffed comfy chair he'd conjured for her when they'd first met, almost three years ago. A few people gasped. Daphne couldn't help but smile.
Then he sat down, took out a book from somewhere, and started to read. Right there, in the middle of the clear, open, floor.
Tracey shot her a significant look.
Her slight smile vanished. Damn. Somehow, when she'd imagined this moment, she'd thought it would be with the majority of the common room chatting among themselves, not focusing with patronus like intensity on what she was about to do.
Carefully, making sure to stay as graceful as possible, she rose from her arm chair.
Immediately, every head swung to her, but she couldn't focus on them. She drew a stray strand of long, blonde hair behind her ear and made her way to the centre of the room.
As she approached, Harry looked up and snapped the book shut. He rose from his chair as slowly as she had from hers.
"Heiress Greengrass." His voice was dry and formal.
"Mister Potter." She stopped a few metres from him. "It would seem you have been holding out on us." She tried to project just the right amount of accusation, curiosity, and pureblood disdain.
Harry smiled. "I believe that you can learn a lot about a person by watching how they treat those who are below them. And it is very easy to watch, when you are believed to be that person."
She raised her nose slightly. "And what have you learned about me, Mister Potter?"
You could cut the air with a diffindo.
Harry waved a vague hand. "Things. Some good, some not so good. Either way, I would not care to speak about them in such a public place." He turned and surveyed the dozens upon dozens of staring faces.
"Oh?" She leapt at the obvious hook. "Then I must insist that you join me and my friends. I'm sure they'd be fascinated to meet you properly."
Harry smiled. "Heiress Greengrass, thank you for your invitation. I might just do that. Although I feel I will sit here for a little while more." He held the book he'd been reading up. "This book really is most interesting."
Daphne nodded, turned, and left.
Harry sat back down, re-opened the book, and continued to read.
As one wizard, the room seemed to turn, slowly and unstoppably, to focus on the other blond, sitting in the other armchair.
Seconds ticked by.
Then, seemingly attempting to match the grace shown previously by Daphne, Draco Malfoy, Heir of the Noble House of Malfoy, rose to his feet, and stepped towards Harry Potter.
...
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