Harry was more than ready for bed. Maybe that’s why he didn’t hear them until they were already upon him.  

He first realized something was amiss when a hex hit him from behind and both legs froze. His forward momentum sent him plummeting forward, and he hit the ground hard. Before he could react, a robe was flung over his head from behind and his arms were firmly pinioned behind his back. Another pair of hands snatched away his wand, and someone else grabbed his ankles. It had been perfectly executed – in a matter of seconds, Harry had been blinded, muffled, disarmed, secured, and carried away. He yelled for help, but a hard punch to his stomach left him choking and gagging. He could feel himself being levitated swiftly through the halls, and he frantically wondered what was going to happen. Were these Death Eaters? How had they managed to get inside Hogwarts? Where were they taking him? To Voldemort? Why hadn’t they simply killed him outright?

He heard low whispers, but they were nothing more than brief commands. He couldn’t make out any voices or identities, beyond the fact that they were male, big, and there were three of them. He was carried up the stairs – where were they taking him? Surely they should have just gone out the main gates and past the wards, but it felt like they had gone up the main stairwell, to the second floor. The levitation spell was abruptly ended, and he hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of him. Hands snatched him up, raising him by his wrists and ankles.

He was swung abruptly back and forth, then thrown high into the air. Airborne, he fought to get free of the cloak that was still wound around his head and upper body, but before he could do so, he hit the ground. And bounced. And hit again. And again. And again.

He barely had time to realize they had thrown him down the stairs before his head cracked sickeningly against one of the marble steps. After that, he was only dimly aware of his long, agonizing sprawl down the tall staircase. There were various flashes of white hot agony and then a period of nothing. He was groggily coming to, when he felt the cloak roughly jerked from around him and realized he must be at the bottom of the stairs. He couldn’t move, even if he had wanted to. His glasses had smashed and he could barely make out some shoes in front of him. He didn’t dare breathe, let alone moan, lest his awakening be greeted by a kick in the face.

Through the roaring in his ears, he could make out snatches of conversation – though the frequent gaps in meaning suggested that he wasn’t nearly as conscious as he had first thought. “…still alive then? He really is tough to kill. Little cockroach.”

“…Malfoy… certain?”

Harry felt a rough hand roll him over to slip something into his pocket. The sudden movement was too much for him, and it was a few moments before he swam back to semi-consciousness. “—find it there. The fact we used his wand means that as soon as they get suspicious and check, they’ll be sure they found the culprit.”

“The little prat will never even know it was gone,” one voice chuckled. “First he’ll find out about it is when they’re expelling him.”

“But he’ll say he didn’t do it. You know he’s one of Snape’s little favorites, what if that greasy git manages to get him off or starts looking elsewhere?” another whined anxiously.

The first voice spoke up reassuringly. “At the first sign that they think it might not be Malfoy, we’ll just grab his wand and snap it. Then they won’t have anything to go on. Relax, even if that happens, we’ll still have the fun of having seen Precious Potter try to fly without a broom and Malfoy get his wand snapped. That’s his great-grandfather’s wand. If he loses it, even without being expelled, Lucius will beat the tar out of him.”

“It’s a shame Potter didn’t break his neck, but we can’t have everything,” said the second voice. “Maybe next time.”

“Come on, give him back his wand and let’s get out of here. You never know when one of the ghosts will wander by.”

Harry felt his wand jammed into his side and couldn’t stifle a whimper of pain. The closest form responded with a final punch, right over Harry’s kidney. While he was writhing in agony, he heard their feet running away and he began to sob.

Everything hurt. His head, his back, his arms, his legs. He could feel blood running down his face from his nose, and he couldn’t move two fingers on his left hand. It took twenty minutes for the pain to abate enough for him to roll over, and another ten before he could get to his feet.

His sobs had finally given way to shuddering breaths which he fought to control as they just made his back and ribs ache more. He took stock of his injuries. As best he could tell, nothing was broken, except maybe the fingers, and even they looked pretty straight. He was certain that his back and legs would be a mass of bruises and when his glasses had snapped into three pieces, they had left behind cuts on his face. Harry managed to repair his glasses with a shaky Reparo, and then used a minor healing spell on the cuts. He staggered to the nearest lavatory and, once he had washed away the blood, was satisfied. He looked like death, but he was upright and there were no visible injuries.

He hadn’t completely understood what his assailants were saying, but two things were clear: one, they hated him, and two, they hated Draco Malfoy. Harry had a great deal of sympathy for the latter view, he was not about to participate in a plot against anyone, even Draco. Besides, if getting Draco expelled was what those three wanted, then he would do everything in his power to prevent it. His attackers’ words made it clear that they planned for Malfoy to take the blame for this assault, and if Harry hadn’t happened to overhear the little he had, he probably would have accused Malfoy. He hadn’t known that anyone else hated him enough to do something like this.

He took a deep breath and winced as three ribs sharply protested the movement. It was okay. He had survived. That was the important thing. No one else knew about it. That was important too. If he kept his mouth shut, then no one would have reason to interrogate Draco or check his wand. That would make those three good and mad, Harry thought with a vindictive grimace. Sorry to upset your evil plans, you bastards.

He was relieved that his worst fears – being abducted by Death Eaters – had proven not to be the case, but now he was forced into the unpleasant realization that there were others who hated him enough to try to kill him. Do other 12 year olds have these problems? he asked his reflection. What did I ever do to these people?

He still had no idea who the three were, but as he lay on the floor and they’d moved about him, he’d caught glimpses of a Slytherin badge, a scarf in Ravenclaw colors, and there had been a serpent pin on the cloak that had been used to engulf him. That meant this wasn’t something he could tell Snape about.

Aside from the awkwardness of it – “Here’s my essay from Professor Binns, and by the way, two of your House tried to kill me the other night. Can you give them detention or something?” – Harry had plenty of experience watching Snape give his Slytherins a free pass on any and all mischief. Harry couldn’t count the number of times that Draco started something with him or Ron in Potions, only to have Snape dock Gryffindor’s points while Draco strolled away smirking.

Yes, Snape was being a bit nicer to him now, but Harry knew just how important House loyalty was to him, and he was under no illusions as to where Snape’s allegiances would lie in a dispute between himself and two of Snape’s little snakes. He was just the Boy Who Lived To Annoy Snape, nothing more than an onerous chore that the Headmaster had assigned him. Harry’s only value to Snape – or indeed almost anyone else – was his eventual role in the war with Voldemort. It was for that reason that Snape had agreed to work with him, and since Snape couldn’t train him until their relationship improved, he had set about doing that. Harry might not understand much about families, but he did understand the difference between people you choose to be around and people you have to be around. Snape cared about his Slytherins because he wanted to; he cared about Harry because he had to.

Harry understood that. He really did. And he guessed that, if the choice was between not having someone care about you at all and having someone care because they were told to do so, he’d rather have the caring, however forced it might be.  Look at the Dursleys. They couldn’t care for him under any circumstances. Compared to them, Snape was doing an incredible job of being nice to Harry. There were times when he could almost believe that Snape liked him a little. Of course, Harry knew better, but sometimes it was, well, comforting to pretend that he was down in the dungeons because Snape actually wanted him there, not just because they had to get along so Harry could learn what he needed to know to defeat the Dark Lord.

However, even in his wildest fantasies Harry knew that Snape would never side with a Gryffindor (let alone him) against a Slytherin (let alone two), so telling anyone about the attack would just drive a wedge between them, and that would make it harder for them to train and easier for Voldemort to win. So, Harry sighed, this was going to be another time when he just had to pretend everything was fine. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had plenty of practice back at the Dursleys, though even they had never done this much damage at once.

Harry grimaced at the mirror. Why did he allow himself to believe that things would change? They didn’t, not really. He was still getting hurt, still hiding his bruises, and every day it seemed like more people were out to get him. Yes, he had Ron and Hermione on his side, and they were brilliant, but the three of them were just kids, for Merlin’s sake! Where were the stupid adults who were supposed to take care of him? Oh right. They were all dead.

He was stuck with professors who were busy figuring how to use him to defeat an evil wizard so strong that he could torture Snape just for fun. And yet Dumbledore thought that Harry was going to be able to waltz up and kill him – after all, he’d nearly done it once already, right? The fact that Harry was a baby at the time, had no idea what happened, still bore an agonizing scar as a reminder, and had lost both parents in the process didn’t seem to worry the Headmaster in the slightest. And why should it? It wasn’t like he would be taking on Voldemort; that was Harry’s task.

Then there was McGonagall. To be fair, she acted concerned about Harry, but she had a lot on her plate, being the Deputy Head as well as the Gryffindor Head of House, and she seemed to think that all of her charges should be as organized and self-sufficient as she herself was. And who else was there? Hagrid? Flitwick? Sprout? Hooch? Nice people, but all busy with their own lives and responsibilities. The Weasleys? Like they didn’t have enough kids of their own to keep them occupied. No, Harry knew that he was on his own, and most times it didn’t really bother him. It did annoy him that the adults, while too occupied with their own lives to actually help him, were nevertheless quick to dismiss him as a child and impose limits, withhold information, and just generally drive him crazy. But he figured that just went along with being a kid. Maybe, if he were lucky, his battle with Voldemort wouldn’t happen until he’d had the chance to enjoy being an adult, at least for a little while.