Forget-Me-Not by Sa-kun
Summary: Everyone seems to have forgotten that the Boy-Who-Lived exists. Harry's friends don't remember who he is. It's a struggle for Harry to hold on to reality as he knows it, while at the same time coming to terms with who he really is. He finds Snape an unexpected ally in the struggle that ensues to reclaim his identity. 6th year AU. (Harry is gay)
Categories: Teacher Snape > Trusted Mentor Snape, Parental Snape > Guardian Snape, Teacher Snape > Professor Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Charlie, Draco, Original Character, Other, Pomfrey
Snape Flavour: None
Genres: Angst, Family, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery
Media Type: None
Tags: Alternate Universe
Takes Place: 6th Year
Warnings: Alcohol Use, Neglect, Profanity, Romance/Slash
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 17 Completed: No Word count: 94180 Read: 75303 Published: 19 Oct 2010 Updated: 25 Nov 2011
Chapter 4 by Sa-kun
Author's Notes:
Someone asked about Ron and Hermione. There is a perfectly logical reason for their absence. It's going to take a few chapters to get there, though. Let me just say there will be no bashing, of any kind, whatsoever.

Also, for those of you who worry about that sort of thing: No, Malfoy won't come in and magically become best friends with Harry. Absolutely not. It's a question of class: Malfoy is a proper upperclass prick. Harry is no where near upperclass. Malfoy will make an appearance every now and then, but that's it.
—CHAPTER 3—

That night, only Neville had really talked to him. Most everyone else was ignoring him, if he was lucky. He really fucking hated it when people just stared. He just… Harry closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again and stared resolutely at the canopy above his bed. He just hadn't expected Ron and Hermione to look the other way, too. Still. He'd hoped, right up until just a couple of hours ago that they'd only made the most of the summer together, but tonight…

They wouldn't even look him in the eye. It looked like they barely even recognised him, the way their gazes slid over him so effortlessly as if he was made of air. It hurt. Fuck, it hurt so much!

He'd lain awake in bed far too long, his mind racing. When left alone for too long, Harry had a tendency to let his thoughts run wild. He'd always been like that, and he'd sort of always known about it, too. Ever since Hogwarts, though, he'd always had friends who helped him balance himself, kept him stabile. He wasn't sure if they'd known as much, Ron and Hermione, but that didn't make it less true. Over the summer, he'd had both Derek and Charlie. Harry felt a sharp pang inside. Right now, he had no one.

Right now, he wasn't sure he even wanted Charlie to be around, either. The whole day, he'd made sure to keep himself busy in the annual rush to Hogwarts. Very, very busy, just so that he wouldn't have to think. But right then, he was alone in bed without anything or anyone there to distract him.

Charlie hadn't kissed him, this morning. There hadn't been any hugs, either. Just a casual, almost aloof, playfulness. At the time, Harry'd been too tired and hungover, but he wasn't feeling that way right now, was he? Charlie had been distant, hadn't he?

Here, I'll apparate you to your friend's, then I have to go. But Charlie hadn't exactly looked at him when he'd said it.

Charlie hadn't looked him in the eye even once.

Harry squirmed. His body was itching. Well, not itching, exactly, but his body felt...weird. The shadow touch of Charlie's hands was still there, he realised, and it made him feel very strange. Not good, exactly, but out of sorts. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Charlie leaning down over him.

Harry's eyes shot open every time it happened.

His stomach was unsettled with a vaguely sick feeling.

Charlie'd known that Harry wasn't feeling anywhere near comfortable about sex, so why had he tried so hard to get Harry naked the night before?

It was a long time before Harry fell into an uneasy sleep.

—x—

The second day at Hogwarts that year was a Sunday. Harry was just about to exit the Great Hall when someone called out his name.

"Harry! Harry, wait!" Harry stopped and looked round.

Tom was hurrying to catch up with him, hair windswept and cheeks red. "Hi." He suddenly looked very shy.

"Hullo, Tom." Harry, somehow, made himself smile. "How're you settling in?"

Tom shrugged, and while the smile on the boy's face faltered a bit, the happiness didn't go away. "Great! Some of the boys in my dorm are very nice, others are not." Grabbing Harry's hand, he pulled him along, talking all the way, "There's a half-blood in my dorm, Mika, and we talked a bit last night—" Why wasn't he surprised that the Slytherins had sorted out bloodlines before going to bed the night before? – "The other two don't look like they like us very much. The girls are all right, I suppose, but I haven't really talked to them yet." Harry wasn't really conscious about where Tom was dragging him, right until he looked up and took in what his eyes were showing him properly. He found himself sat at the end of the Slytherin table, Tom smiling next to him and another boy staring at him with narrowed eyes from across the table. "That's Mika," Tom pointed out, still smiling.

"Tom—" Harry started.

"You said you wouldn't care." And how much hurt and broken trust could there be in a single sentence?

Harry bit his lip. "Tom, I wasn't lying. I promise. It's just…I'm not a Slytherin. I can't sit here."

"Yes, you can." Tom narrowed his eyes. "All the others do it."

"They aren't me," Harry somehow made himself say.

Tom's eyes were hard. "Harry," he said in a harsh whisper, "your own House don't like you."

Harry flinched. "Tom—"

"What do you think you are doing, Potter?" someone hissed in his ear. Harry startled, and rather badly at that.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed. Malfoy glared at him, eyes hard like stone. "I…was just talking to my friend here, Tom, about why I shouldn't be sitting at this table, but it's not going so well…" There was no fire in his tone, not a hint of the dislike or loathing that was usually there whenever he talked with Malfoy. For the first time since he was eleven, he wished he was somewhere else.

Even when he was twelve and everyone thought he was the Heir of Slytherin, he'd had Ron and Hermione. When he was fourteen, and Crouch Jr. had put his name in the Goblet of Fire, he'd had Hermione, and Ron once he came round. But now…now he didn't have anyone.

And he didn't have the foggiest idea why. There was a lump of lead in his stomach, in his heart. His hands were trembling.

"I promised Tom I'd still be his friend, no matter where he was sorted," Harry heard himself say.

"You promised," Malfoy said, deadpan. He sounded utterly disgusted.

"He did," Tom said. Malfoy barely glanced at the boy.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "I just didn't promise to sit at the Slytherin table with him. It's probably not a great idea for me to be here, I—"

"Harry, they don't want you," Tom pointed out again, only this time Malfoy was there and heard it, too. Harry watched as he took it in, and then looked round.

"Self-delusion, Tom. Didn't Derek ever talk about that?" Harry muttered.

Tom smiled a little. "It's not good for you, Dad always says."

"Keeps me sane."

"So why were you talking to Dad, then?" Tom innocently wondered, at the same time as Malfoy responded, "Indeed, Potter?"

"Yeah, Malfoy. Indeed."

"So, Harry," Tom spoke up again, "I wanted to send a letter home."

With a sigh, Harry reached for a piece of toast and slowly buttered it. The way everyone ignored him at his own table had driven away what little appetite he actually had. "Then hurry before I get a detention. Or get cursed," he muttered to himself. Tom sniggered at him.

"Can you teach me how to fly?" Tom asked later as Harry was buttering another toast, this time adding cheese to it as well.

"Madame Hooch does that."

"Are you not still banned, then?" Malfoy intervened, voice dangerous, "From ever flying on a broom again?"

"S'just for playing Quidditch, I think…"

Malfoy narrowed his eyes, elegantly resting his chin on an upturned palm. "I must confess, Potter." Harry turned a curious eye in his direction. "I am having difficulties reasoning as to why you are now an outsider in your…House."

Harry put down his toast, biting his lip. Tom was looking at him with his large, curious eyes. Harry quickly looked away, preferring Malfoy's calculating ones over the blatant innocence. "D'you want the truth?" Harry wondered.

Baffled, Malfoy nodded. "You would give the truth to me?" he sneered.

Harry hesitated. "S',not that," he mumbled, "S'just that I don't know what I did."

Malfoy looked at him, then twisted to look out over the hall, only to finally look back at Harry.

"I thought maybe it was because the Prophet ran that story about me being a Parselmouth, but that was before term ended, and…they were still speaking to me, then."

"What's a Parselmouth?" Tom promptly asked.

"Someone who can talk to snakes."

"Neat."

Harry smiled. "It comes in handy," he admitted. Especially during the long, late summer nights where he had been left outside by himself when he was little. Having small snake-friends had seemed like a blessing, then. Then there was always the time when he had accidentally set that large Brazilian loose after Dudley…that had been bloody marvellous. Even the basilisk had hesitated slightly, before attacking anyway as Tom Riddle overrode Harry's pleas.

"Why do you have an owl if you can talk to snakes?"

"Hedwig was a gift, and snakes aren't allowed at Hogwarts. Besides, there're not an awful lot of people who can talk to them."

"Some of my ancestors had the ability," Malfoy boasted.

For a moment, Harry felt insanely jealous. It showed on his face, he knew, because the next thing Malfoy said was, "Surely, you can't be jealous of me, Potter. You know what my father is."

Harry wasn't sure what that statement was supposed to imply. That Harry would do well to stay far away from Slytherins? Well, Harry knew that much himself already. Or did Malfoy mean it as a threat? A way of reminding Harry that he really had no business hanging around the Slytherin table, eating toast. Or maybe Harry was just too deprived on proper sleep and food, and reading too much into it.

"I don't know anything about my family," Harry ended up saying rather quietly. He turned to Tom. "Are you done?"

Tom shook his head. The bowl of sweetened porridge was still not defeated.

"Father says that you are crazy." Mika suddenly spoke up from the other side of the table.

Harry managed a grin. "'Course, I am. Who wouldn't be, if they had deal with half of everything I put up with?"

Mika looked a fair bit sceptical. "Okay," he said and shrugged, then went back to his toast.

"Potter."

"What?"

Malfoy's hand closed round his shoulder and squeezed tightly. "Meet me after dinner."

"Here?"

"Entry Hall," he decided.

"Why?"

Malfoy glared, then smiled coolly. "Because I didn't poison your toast."

What little that had remained of Harry's appetite promptly fled right then.

—x—

Leaning on the windowsill, elbows and underarms flat against the cold stone, Harry stared with a yearning longing at the flying figures over the Quidditch pitch. Their gold and red robes were very bright. It was only the second day of term, but it looked like the Gryffindor Quidditch team was already back in business. It hurt, really hurt, that he hadn't even been asked to join, even if he was only allowed to be an advisor or assistant coach or something. He was the best Seeker Gryffindor'd had since Charlie Weasley; Oliver Wood had said as much. Even Fred and George had. It made him angry, too, that no one had seen it fit to ask him. Yeah, he got that most of everyone, for some reason, suddenly didn't like him again, but what did that have to do with Quidditch? He was fucking good at it!

Someone moved in to stand next to him. Harry tensed a little, then saw the blonde hair and the Slytherin tie out of the corner of his eye. He sighed. "You know," he murmured, "I've done things before that weren't exactly acceptable for a Gryffindor. The worst of it, I think, must've been the Parseltongue, and the TriWizard fiasco. Not sure if that's something that was actually my fault, but… S'just, this time round…I really have no idea. I mean, yeah, I—" Harry paused. The latest catastrophically 'adventure', was the whole debacle at the Department of Mysteries. Losing Sirius. Harry swallowed to dislodge the lump in his throat. Did Malfoy know about that? Harry couldn't remember.

"D'your father tell you about the Ministry?"

"Before or after you sent him to Azkaban?"

Harry looked away. "Oh." He had almost forgotten about that. It was just easier, hurt less, if he blocked everything that had happened that night out. Of course, Derek'd advised him not to do that, but…

"I…I went there 'cause I thought my godfather was in danger, you know. I was prepared to go alone, cause, well. I just was. So when I was about to go to the Department of Mysteries, alone, my friends all went mad and they almost clubbed me just 'cause I'd even considered going alone. Even after, when everything was a pile of mess, we were still talking. But now…now they won't even look at me." Well, Ginny had tried to ground him in the beginning of the summer, but after a while she'd just sent Charlie to check up on him instead, and then after a while she'd sort of forgotten about it. That much, he felt safe to say. He figured, being the son of a Death Eater, Malfoy most likely knew that, and more, anyway.

"You truly don't know, Potter?" Malfoy drawled. The cold, haughty tone of Malfoy's voice turned his stomach.

Harry shook his head, clenched his hands into tight fists. "Spoke to another snake? Released a basilisk? Got signed up to a death quest by a Death Eater in disguise? Had visions of Voldemort? Thought myself to be Voldemort? His snake? Sod it, if I know…"

"Well, then, Potter," Malfoy said loftily as he moved to copy Harry's stance. "There was an article published early on this summer. It described in great detail the—"

"—how I grew up just like Voldemort did?" Harry took a little dark pleasure out of seeing Malfoy flinch again at the mention of that name. "God, and people buy into that trash?" He'd read the article. Snape had been there, he was rather sure of that, because he dimly remembered that Snape had scoffed at it.

"You look remarkably alike," Malfoy argued nastily. "The hair, the eyes, the…scrawniness. You and…Riddle."

Ah. So Malfoy was talking to him because he was confused about how Voldemort and Riddle could possibly be the same person. Harry's grin was just a little twisted. "Hard to get the picture of Voldemort to merge with a half-blood, is it?"

"Shut up, Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he muttered.

"Although I believe it was a pathetic attempt to make the Dark Lord more human, it instead served to mark you as a Dark Lord in the making," Malfoy summarised, neatly pushing any other implication to the side.

"Ain't that sweet," Harry muttered.

They stood in silence for several minutes before Malfoy spoke again. "What can you tell me of Tom West?"

Harry started. Tom? Why was Malfoy interested in a first year? "Not much," he said after a while, a touch on the side of caution. "He's got a younger sister. You can expect her in a year or two, though I think she might end up in Ravenclaw."

"Not a Muggleborn, then?"

Harry blinked, then forced himself to shrug. Of course Mafoy'd know you couldn't test Muggleborns for magic the way you could test if wizards were squibs. "Don't know, really. Didn't ask." Fucking wank. Why'd he even opened his mouth? Thanks to – or because of? Harry wondered – Derek, Harry was sprouting stuff he really had no business saying right, left and centre. "They've got the same biological parents. He's adopted. And, well, I was the only wizard round, really, so I told him about the Wizarding world. Don't imagine I got it all that accurately, though. Never really took an interest in history round here. It's so different from how Muggles write history, I don't know. I just never liked it. D'you think the Avada Kedavra was originally invented by Healers?" Oh, yes, no doubt about it. Harry was becoming a master at the art of babbling.

"Possibly," Malfoy replied, clearly rather startled. "And West still ended up in Slytherin, despite you being the teacher, as it were?"

Harry grinned and turned to face Malfoy. "Shocking, innit? I gave him Muggle parallels and he just said that as long as I kept talking to him, he'd be fine. Who's Mika?"

"Donovan."

"Death Eater kid?"

Malfoy shrugged. "Distant cousin, I think."

Harry doubted very much that Malfoy didn't know the lineages of every Slytherin in the school, going back at least five generations or something. Probably why, come to think about it, he'd asked about Tom.

—x—

Monday night, Harry was in the library, trying to read his potions text because he had a really strong feeling Snape would call on him as much and as often as he possibly could, if only to have an opportunity to throw him out. How he had passed his OWLs was still a complete mystery, especially to Harry. It wasn't going as horribly as he'd thought; somehow it was easier to study when Hermione wasn't urging him to do it and Ron wasn't there to moan about how bloody useless and sodding boring it was. Everything blurred together after a while, but Harry kept on reading. He had a feeling that if he didn't give up, sooner or later it would start making sense. It had to. It just had to! So, after a while, when he couldn't really keep the details apart in his mind any more, he began to cautiously write down notes in the margins of his potions book, and underline words. He'd never done that before, but he found it was right helpful. And, just to be even more stubborn, he used a biro he'd nicked off someone during the summer. It was much neater that way. And way easier to boot, too.

"What are you doing, Harry?"

"Hmmm?" Harry dragged the end of his biro across his lips, eyes narrowed. Then he looked up at Tom.

"Can I sit here?" the boy wanted to know.

"Sure…" Harry nodded. He went back to his potions text, quickly becoming engrossed in it again. He started rather badly because of that when a blonde head appeared between him and the book. "Tom?"

"I have potions, too, tomorrow, but mine doesn't look nearly as complicated. Is it difficult?"

Harry pursed his lips, then rolled his very hard shoulders. He was sore and stiff; he'd never really sat up and studied like this before. "Well," he began, "It depends, really. You have to be calm, precise, be able to take your time without taking too long. Follow the instructions, study a lot and not upset Snape, I suppose." Harry paused. "That's Professor Snape. It's been a while, but I think it's probably a bit like…chemistry? But a lot more dangerous."

Tom grinned. "I made bombs!"

Harry laughed, then ruffled Tom's hair. He promptly ignored the disgruntled look he got in return, of course. "Don't blow up anything in the dungeons. Professor Snape gets real fucking cross." And that was the lamest understatement of the year.

—x—

"—so tell me, Potter, what wouldyou use to stabilise a potion with in order to successfully obtain the necessary properties of the ingredients, which, because of their inherent instability will effectively cause the potion to erupt in your face?" Snape fixed him with a malicious look. Harry gulped. Sometimes, the questions just went right over his head.

"All potions or just that one, sir?" Harry stalled.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "They all share this trait. Which you would know, had you bothered to do the assigned reading."

He'd read that, really? Harry frowned, thinking as fast as he could. He remembered that part, vaguely. Then again, he remembered all of the potions, vaguely. That was a huge flaw, he realised, 'cause, yeah, he remembered most of what he'd read, but it was one big mess, all of it. The whole blowing-up-potions stuff, he believed, had had something or other to do with, um. Some sort of skin, maybe? He wasn't really sure, though, but something in him wanted, for some obscure reason, say 'Boomslang skin'. He just had no clue why. Still, that could be it. He hoped it was.

"Yes, Potter?" Snape prompted.

Shit. Harry froze. "Oh, um. Is it the, the Boomslang skin?"

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Is that a question, Potter?"

"No, sir."

Snape almost smirked. "Perhaps you should have made it one. Boomslang skin soaked in an infusion of lavender and chamomile extract would, instead of blowing your immediate surroundings up, negate the explosive tendencies. Five points from Gryffindor."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Gryffindors turn to glare at him. Not that there were many in this class, but still. Hermione was one of them. She'd never berated him for forgetting part of the correct answer. Not with a glare at least. Just admonished him to do his homework more carefully.

Harry told himself he'd take even more notes, and write even more in his book. It had helped, after all, if only a little.

He'd read a thesaurus, too, just to understand the bleeding questions Snape asked.

—x—

He'd been at school for two weeks when he realised that the person who'd gone through his trunk at Grimmauld Place, was also someone who had access to Gryffindor Tower. It hurt real bad, because…because…

Because it meant it had to be a Weasley.

And that hurt so much. It made it difficult to sleep at night, because the hurt gnawed in his stomach and stabbed at his heart, and it made it impossible to eat because he was never really hungry, just…faintly ill.

Everything Harry owned, every little possession he had to his name was in his trunk. His dorm mates knew that, Harry knew they knew that, which made it hurt all that more deeply again.

Everything he had in this world was in that trunk.

—x—

'It'll be fun,' Tom had said. 'We need an older student to supervise,' Tom had said.

Harry had sort of grimaced, sort of smiled, and agreed. He'd reasoned at the time that he needed something else besides homework to do. Turned out, homework wasn't nearly enough to keep him from thinking, or remembering.

He regretted it now, staring in dismay at the mess that had been Tom's potion. "What did you do?"

"Heating potion?"

"Heating potion?" Harry repeated. He shook his head, then grabbed Tom's potion book and scanned through the instructions. Fucking bag of wank, he thought, but he couldn't remember most of the potions he'd done last year much less first year.

The jar of Bluenecked beetle-eyes stood out as a likely suspect on the table next to the hissing cauldron. They weren't in the instructions. "You don't have those in a Heating potion, Tom!" Harry told Tom.

The guilty look on Tom's face said he already knew that.

"Tom," Harry moaned in dismay. "Didn't we have this discussion? You have to follow the directions; they're important. You can't just add something extra just to see what happens. This isn't Muggle experimental chemistry in science class, you know. Someone could get hurt, here, seriously hurt."

"I know. I'm sorry. I just…"

"What?"

"Sometimes I can't believe this is real," the boy whispered. "I just need to…know, you know?"

Harry nodded, heart heavy. "Yeah, I know, Tom. Now let's just clean up, okay? Do you know how to use Scourgify?"

"No."

"Okay," Harry said, "Like this." He waved his wand, without speaking the incantation. Tom frowned, and then tried to copy Harry's wand motions. "No," Harry said and moved to stand directly next to Tom, "like this…" and waved his wand again.

"Let's just play a game next time, okay? Like, Scrabble or something…" Harry suggested as they made their way out of the classroom. Tom sniggered.

—x—

Harry wasn't sure he knew when it'd started. First it had only been him and Tom, and they'd mostly just done their homework. Sometimes – but not very often because things tended to explode around Tom and then Snape'd notice and, well – he'd helped Tom make a potion or two. Rather often he'd helped Tom with his homework. They'd played board games, too. Mostly Muggle ones, because Derek and Alec had sent a few along with Tom. Harry had even taught Tom a bit about Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was just that sometime, during all that, Mika had started to tag along, and then Mika's friend Lucia, then her friend, then her friend's sister, then the sister's cousin and the cousin's friend, and on and on until there was regularly fifteen or so lower class Slytherins all clamouring for attention, help and a spot of fun.

It was right pathetic, he mused one night, that the only real proper company he had these days was with a bunch of kids a couple of years younger than himself.

The older the friends the Slytherins brought, the more hesitant and reluctant they were to step inside the abandoned classroom in the dungeons – not that it looked abandoned any longer; it was rather homely by now, littered with comfy cushions, desks, chairs and sofas. The new kids all looked as if they expected Harry to toss them out on their ear. He didn't, of course, he just smiled and greeted them, because what else could he do? At first he hadn't been sure if it was better that he simply went back to whatever it was that he'd been doing, or that he ought to go over and greet them. In the end, he'd simply shown them where their year mates were, and then gone back to his own homework. It'd take a few meetings, but eventually they'd warm up to him enough that they could talk. Maybe even play a couple of games, and then they'd realise, somewhere along the way, that Harry wasn't about to dismiss them, and they'd smile, open up a little, and shine as they allowed themselves to be happy.

It was starting to become something of a habit. There were always scheduled nights at least three days in advance. Everyone always knew that Harry'd be in the classroom on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

It was starting to worry him.

—x—

"Evening, Potter."

"Hiya, Malfoy."

Harry was stretched out on the grass, leaning back against the trunk of a tree on the east side of the lake. Malfoy must've seen him come out and followed him, because the tree was barely visible from the school, so he knew he couldn't possibly be. They hadn't spoken since the second day of term. Harry half-heartedly began to unwrap the parcel in his lap. Sandwiches he'd asked Dobby to bring him. He'd only asked for one, but, well. Dobby was like that. Harry sighed.

"Gives me four when I wanted just one. D'you want some?" he asked Malfoy

Malfoy sneered, gingerly sitting down next to Harry. "What are they?"

"Hope it's chicken, 'cause I can't stand the thought of ham right now."

"Hmm," Malfoy hummed as he reached for one.

"You're welcome," Harry drawled before picking a sandwich up himself. He doubted he'd manage to eat it all.

"West's integrated you quite a bit among the lower years," Malfoy said after a while.

"Noticed that, too," Harry admitted. "You know, Tom wanted me to supervise him when he did potions."

"Merlin forbid!" Malfoy actually shuddered.

Harry grinned. "Yeah, I'm not exactly brilliant, I know."

"So?" Malfoy asked, rather pointedly.

"So, what? Why d'you even want to know?"

Malfoy sneered. "Because I am a prefect, and it is my job to make sure my House mates aren't abused, misused or persuaded to become Gryffindorks."

Harry sighed again. "Mostly, we just do our homework. Sometimes we play Muggle board games, occasionally, I teach them a few spells."

"How disgusting."

"Innit, though?"

Malfoy just rolled his eyes. He reached for another sandwich, having already finished his first.

Harry was still struggling with his. He'd barely eaten half of it, and already his stomach was protesting that it really couldn't hold more food.

"The kids, they know no one really likes me at the moment, right?" Harry asked with a quiet voice.

"Yes. You do know that situation is not likely to change if you continue to stay in the dungeons after class?"

"I suppose I could always take them to the Room of Requirement, instead." Harry grinned brightly and winked when Malfoy favoured him with a highly and thoroughly unimpressed glare. It was just that he really didn't have anywhere else to go, or to take the Slytherins. The past week he'd taken to sleeping in the Room of Requirement, because someone in his dorm had taken to hexing and cursing his bed. His tendencies towards babbling aside, it was really information that Malfoy didn't need to have. Yeah, he'd been halfway decent this term, but Malfoy was a Slytherin. Maybe he was only doing it because it'd get him close to Harry?

Harry took another small bite of his sandwich. He hadn't been very hungry, lately. He supposed his lack of appetite had something to do with all of Gryffindor ostracising him, and the rest of the school just plain ignoring him, but…Harry grimaced, it wasn't like he'd any weight he could afford losing. If he didn't start putting some weight on soon, Pomfrey'd likely make good on her threat to tie him to a bed in the Infirmary and force-feed him.

When Harry was perfectly honest with himself, he knew that part of why he let himself be snared in by the Slytherins was that he wanted his – former? – friends in Gryffindor to react and pull him out, remind him of what scum they were and drag him back to the previously warm common room, somewhere he hadn't really properly been in weeks. He just felt more alone when he lingered there too long. Unwelcome and unwanted. Alienated. The better part of him, though, the larger part, relished in that the younger Slytherins wanted and liked him for what he had to offer, rather than for who, what, he was expected to be.

Back at the Ministry, everyone who'd been there, they knew what had happened, and how Voldemort had possessed him. They'd seen how easy it'd been for Voldemort to take him over, how little chance Harry'd actually had. They knew about how Harry had thought himself to be Nagini. And then that last article in the Daily Prophet… How far was the jump, really?

"Would you vouch for me?" Malfoy said, out of the blue.

"Hmmm?"

"When I am forced to make a choice, Potter. Can I count on you?"

"Me? Yeah. Sure." Harry shrugged. "Don't think my word's going to be worth a whole lot of anything, though."

To be continued...
End Notes:
C'est la vie


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