The High Road by Anesidora Nichole

Harry was surprised by how quickly time went by at the school. Much quicker than at home and he found he enjoyed being around children his own age. He was spending a lot of time with Hermione who it turned out did have a sense of humor, albeit a dry one, and was probably the smartest person in their year which definitely wasn't hurting his marks when they had to work in teams. Of course, some of the other Slytherins were making fun of him for hanging around her with remarks ranging from 'well, you have to take into consideration the way he was raised' which rankled him to simple asking him where 'your Mudblood girlfriend is' which he thought was stupid. His roommates did not join in, he noticed, but they didn't exactly jump to his defense either. He was finding that house loyalty only extended so far.

Worse was the fact that it seemed to be making things worse for her, too. One day, when he overheard her defending him to a Gryffindor who apparently took issue with his house, he considered that maybe it wasn't the best idea to be friends with her. He really was trying to help her, though. He'd convinced Neville and Ron to let her join them in their now regular games of Exploding Snap and asked Neville to try to be nice to her. Of course, Neville was pretty much nice to everyone.

He'd tried to give her some advice, too, after the fifth time her hand shot up in Charms class to answer a question. He hissed, "Hermione."

She looked at him, completely oblivious, and whispered back, "What?"

"I'm not trying to be mean, but you look kind of like a know-it-all when you raise your hand for every single question."

She looked at him blankly, "But I know the answer."

"Yeah, I know, but . . . Everyone knows you're really smart, Hermione. You don't need to keep trying to prove it to them."

She had stopped trying to answer every single question after that though Harry sometimes caught her mouthing the answer to herself. He grinned at his new friend and wondered if he should invite her to visit this summer vacation. He knew his mum would like her.

Harry was getting headaches nearly every day around the same time and was missing so much Defense Against the Dark Arts that he was pretty sure Madame Pomfrey thought he was skipping class He vaguely wondered if he was allergic to something in the classroom. Luckily his grade wasn't suffering too much because Hermione was always there with her copious notes and willingness to recount the lecture nearly word for word.

No, if he was going to skip a class, it would definitely be potions because Snape was being undeniably weird. He had hardly yelled at Harry for the past week, though he had given him detention for being a few minutes late for curfew because he'd gotten lost, but even the detention had lacked Snape's usual edge. Whatever the older man was up to, Harry wished he would just stop and go back to normal. It was making him uncomfortable.

Things reached the peak of weirdness on Friday when the class was waiting outside the potions classroom for Snape to arrive. Snape kept the classroom door locked whenever class wasn't in session to discourage ingredients from going missing or illicit use of the room. Harry was leaning up against the cold stone wall next to Hermione waiting for the last bit of his headache to fade. He could see trouble coming because a couple of Slytherins were whispering and elbowing each other. He knew Hermione could see it coming, too, but she resolutely ignored them.

"Granger. Granger!" Called a stocky Slytherin boy. He looked annoyed when she ignored him and tried again, "Mudblood. Hey, Mudblood."

"Leave me alone," she snapped. Harry didn't know why she didn't just hex the lot of them and teach them a good lesson.

"That's not nice, Mudblood." Said a girl who Harry identified as Pansy Parkinson, a friend of Malfoy's. "That's not polite."

Harry drew his wand because, honestly, he'd been listening to this stuff all week. He'd take his detention just to wipe the smug look of their faces. The boy was ready, though, and fired off a hex before Harry managed to take aim. Unfortunately, the spell wasn't aimed at Harry but at Hermione who staggered when it hit her, causing her to drop her books. For a moment, the spell didn't seem to do anything but then Hermione let out a little cry and slapped at her leg.

"What -” Harry began but Hermione wasn't listening to him. She had begun to move around frantically, slapping at her own body and whimpering.

"Harry! Harry, get them off!"

Harry didn't know the counterspell, though. He wasn't even entirely sure what they had cast on her. "Hermione. Do you know the counterspell? Tell me so I can cast it."

She wasn't listening, though. She was shaking frantically trying to cast off whatever invisible being they had set on her. The Slytherins seemed to just find it hilarious. Harry was angry and embarrassed by his house all at the same time and was about to demand - at wandpoint - that they remove the hex. That was when Snape showed up. One minute he wasn't there and the next minute he appeared behind the laughing Slytherins as though he had literally popped out of thin air. Harry expected him to smirk or sneer, but he didn't. He didn't look happy at all. With a wave of his wand, Hermione collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily.

"Who?" He demanded in his quiet, silky voice. No one answered, of course, but simply stared at him. "I assure you that if someone does not want to come forward, I will not hesitate to check each of your wands."

Snape would, too. Of this, everyone was fairly certain, and then that person would be in twice the trouble for making Snape waste his time. So it was an extremely reluctant Slytherin who raised his hand. "Ah, Mr. Vaisey. A zero for the day, I think, and you can meet me in my office tonight to discuss rule number two that I mentioned the night of the Opening Feast."

Hermione's cheeks were tinged pink as she got to her feet and Harry knelt to help her gather her books together. She was unusually quiet throughout class and Snape called her to stay after. Harry gathered his stuff a slowly as possible, wanting to overhear their conversation. Hermione said something Harry hadn't quite caught and he strained to hear.

"Why do you want to go home?" Snape asked.

Harry was surprised. He knew that things weren't exactly great for Hermione, but he had no idea that she was quite that miserable.

Hermione sighed and shifted from leg to leg before answering, "I just thought . . . I mean, I'm different in the Muggle world. I just thought I would fit in here. But apparently this isn't the right place for me, either. Everyone hates me. I was better off in the Muggle world where people just mostly ignored me."

"Miss Granger," Snape said sternly, "There is nothing wrong with being extraordinary. It is not unusual for people who are especially gifted to face some level of persecution."

Hermione blushed at being called 'extraordinary' and 'gifted.' Snape continued, "Now, I know it is difficult to deal with bullies and I'm going to give you something to help."

Snape rummaged around in his desk and found a sickle floating in the bottom one of the drawers. He tapped it with his wand and handed it to her. "If it ever gets out of hand again like it did today, just squeeze this really hard and I'll come try to help."

Hermione turned it over in her hand a couple of times and then said, "You don't have to do that, sir."

"As I said, it's getting out of hand. You should be learning; not constantly looking over your shoulder. Besides, it usually doesn't take more than two detentions with me to get my message across." Snape smirked, "Isn't that right, Mr. Potter?"

Harry jumped and realized he had been blatantly listening and not even pretending to get his things together anymore. He muttered, "Right. Hermione, let's go. I wanted to take a walk around the lake. We're not going to have too many nice days left."

Hermione dropped the coin into the pocket of her skirt and left with Harry. They walked in silence for a while as Harry tried to sort things out. The look Snape had given Harry just before they left had suggested that his assistance had not only been for Hermione's benefit. This had two disturbing implications; one, Snape and been paying enough attention to notice that Hermione was Harry's friend and two, that Snape apparently cared that Harry cared that the girl was being bullied. The problem was that Snape sometimes went through these periods where he treated Harry decently and they were inevitably short-lived. Then Harry ended up feeling like an idiot for buying into it and believing that Snape might actually be able to stand him.

"I think he's kind of nice," Hermione admitted suddenly.
Harry stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her, "No, he's not, Hermione. He did a nice thing. One nice thing."
Hermione gave him a look that suggested she didn't really see the difference between being a nice person and doing one nice thing. Gryffindor.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Although Harry and Hermione had gotten close in the last week, Harry couldn't trust her to help him with his weekend plans. She was a bit of a stickler for the rules and Harry had too much at stake to risk her telling on him. He decided to recruit help from elsewhere and lurked in the boy's bathroom until Malfoy came out of the shower wrapped in a bathrobe.

"Malfoy."

"What?" He was throwing his towel in the bin which immediately made it disappear, supposedly to the laundry rooms.

"I need to talk to you."

"Fine. I'll meet you back at the room."

"No!" Malfoy gave him a weird look, "I don't want the others to hear."

"Potter, I'm not having a clandestine discussion in the boy's loo."

"Just shut up and listen for once, okay?" Malfoy sighed and raised his eyebrows expectantly. Harry knew that despite himself he was curious. "I need your help with something. It's really simple. If Snape asks you where I am tomorrow --."

Malfoy cut him off, "No."

"You didn’t let me finish!"

"I'm not getting involved with your little scheme to outsmart Snape."

"Just say I'm with you!"

"Why would you be with me? We're not even friends and Snape knows it."

"Just cover for me."

Malfoy turned to leave, "No means no, Potter."

Harry sighed dejectedly. He didn't know who else to ask and he didn't have anything to bribe Malfoy with. Money was laughable given the boy's inheritance probably filled more than one vault at Gringotts and Harry was pretty sure Malfoy didn't want to be his friend. Malfoy was looking at his pitiful expression and said, "What are you going to be doing tomorrow that you're not supposed to be doing?"

"Never mind."

"Tell me," Malfoy commanded, "Or I won't help you."

"You're not going to help me anyway."

"I might change my mind."

"You won't."

"Fine," he turned to leave again.

"Malfoy," Harry said, "I just want to go visit my mum. She's going to be in Hogsmede and I'm going to sneak down there to meet her."

He looked confused, "Why don't you just ask Snape to take you down there to visit her?"

"Because then he'll want to come," snapped Harry.

"Why don't you just ask Snape if you could scrub the dungeon floor with your toothbrush? You'll get the same result."

"Are you going to help me or not?"

"Yes," Malfoy said after a moment's pause, "But if he finds out, don't think I'll hesitate to throw you under the bus."

"I wouldn't expect any less."

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Saturday, Harry woke up feeling confident and excited about his plans for the day. He dressed in some comfortable Muggle clothes and rummaged through his trunk. Finally he found the gift Sirius had given him the day he had taken him to Diagon Alley. It had belonged to his dad, and he had not had the opportunity to use it yet. Sirius had told him not to tell anyone that he had given it to him and Harry had kept his promise. He slipped it on and carefully picked his way through the busy hallways and out onto the grounds.

There were a lot of students out enjoying the nice weather. Harry hurriedly made his way in the direction of Hogsmede. He realized that he fully expected someone to stop him; for some sort of alarm to go off when he stepped outside the bounds of the castle. For him to be instantly transported into Snape's office where the man would be awaiting him with switch in hand. But none of that happened. It was almost too good to be true.
He took off the cloak once he was sure he was out of sight of the castle because it was getting warm. It was extremely quiet on the path to Hogsmede; almost oppressively so. The only sound was his feet against the path. It was perfect; though he was starting to get one of his headaches. He hoped it wouldn't last all the way through lunch with his mum and ruin their day together.

When Harry was suddenly completely robbed of his sight and hearing, he experienced an utter terror he had never known. It was complete sensory deprivation and it was horrible to suddenly be so cut off from his environment. He didn't know what happened; was it some sort of spell to make him stay put until someone from Hogwarts could come fetch him? The bodybind spell hit him from behind and he fell to the ground, unable to catch himself. Everything hurt. To his horror, he felt wetness on his face and realized they were tears. He had never been so frightened in his life.

He felt himself being moved magically and felt completely vulnerable. His head was pounding horribly and his body ached from where it had hit the ground. It was only a few terror filled moments until he was dropped in a heap on the ground. His eyesight and hearing returned as suddenly as if someone had removed a blindfold. He was in the woods and standing over him was Lucius Malfoy.

"Mr. Malfoy?" He said stupidly and for one wild moment he thought the man had saved him from his attacker. It only took him a second to put two and two together, though.

As much as he disliked Lucius Malfoy, it had never occurred to him the man would ever try to hurt him. He was a friend of Snape's; they had gone to his house for dinner and the man had bought him a gift every Christmas. He had known him for a long as he could remember. The man's face was not curled into an ugly look of hatred, though.

Lucius kicked him, none too gently, and Harry cried out, his hands instantly going up to nurse his injured side. The man spoke with unconcealed anger, "Oh, my. Where is your filthy Mudblood mother now?"

Harry opened his mouth to retaliate, but Lucius waved his wand and Harry found himself unable to move his jaw, "Now, now. An adult is talking."

"Make quick work of the boy, Malfoy." Harry whipped around to see Professor Quirrel watching the scene with cold indifference. Could today get any stranger? It suddenly occurred to him that they were going to hurt him; really hurt him if not kill him. He was strangely glad his jaw couldn't move because he feared he would beg for his life.

Lucius was apparently having too much fun to heed Quirrel, however, and looked for all the world like a cat that had finally captured a mouse.