Tension, Taunts, and the Strategy

Ron seemed to vibrate before he actually let out a roar and actually launched himself at Harry. Harry, who saw the attack coming, simply sidestepped the redhead and watched as he fell, landing in a heap on the ground. The rest of the class stared in disbelief as Ron sat up and glared at Harry.

" Urg, I hate you! " he shouted.

Just then the greenhouse door opened and Professor Sprout appeared. Looking around at the shocked faces of her students and finally seeing Ron on the ground,, clearly worked up, she bumbled over.

"What's the meaning of all this?" she asked, looking around.

Harry, who was busy staring at Ron, masked his internal glee as there was no way Dumbledore could expect to recover from this and turned to look at the small Herbology teacher.

"Honestly professor, I don't even know," Harry said with an incredulous voice.

"Yeah, Ron just went mental," Neville said, sticking up for Harry.

The rest of the class nodded and muttered about the redhead's outburst.

Sprout seemed to think for a minute before she shook her head and smiled at the class, "Right then, moving on. Hello, my name…"

Thinking about the argument, Harry smirked.

"You never did say, Neville, what did you do to his skin the first night?" Harry asked, remembering the green with glee.

Neville smiled lightly. "Well, he was being so… you know…"

"Ronald?" Harry prompted.

"Yeah," Neville agreed with a light laugh. "He kept going on about Slytherins and becoming your best friend and a hero and well, I just…"

"Turned his skin green," Harry said, laughing.

"He really is a git, you know," Neville said.

"I'm just glad I don't have to live with him for the next seven years," Harry replied.

Neville groaned. "Please don't remind me," he whined.

"Just think, seven whole years of him and his Gryffindor light speeches," Harry added gleefully.

"Why weren't you put into Slytherin again?" Neville asked jokily.

"Why, the house of snakes couldn't handle my glory," Harry said loftily before both boys started laughing.

"Well, hopefully Ron will leave his speeches behind. He can't honestly believe such rubbish," Neville said.

"You never know, some people will believe anything," Harry muttered darkly, before he added in a normal voice, "Well, I don't care as long as he leaves me alone."

"We've got Defence together now," Neville reminded Harry.

"Hopefully he'll stay as far away from me as possible," Harry said, his mind now on Defence.

Harry had been both longing for and dreading having his first Defence lesson with Quirrellmort. He had yet to find an answer about how exactly he was going to save Tom. Harry was not even sure if Tom was even saveable - Harry knew he needed Tom to be alive and, that without him, he would never achieve true happiness, never be whole.

Yet, he also knew that even before Tom created his first horcrux he wasn't a sweet innocent person; Tom had always been ruthless, cut throat, and determined. Harry was torn. Until he had found a way to return Tom's sanity, as much as he was able to, he didn't want to focus too much on how he felt about Tom Riddle.

Like it had whenever Harry had seen Quirrellmort in this life, Harry's scar fluttered as he entered the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Picking to sit in the middle, Harry, along with Neville, Hannah, and Susan, all slipped into place without any trouble. Quirrell was sitting at the front of the class waiting for them all to arrive.

Seeing as they had time, Harry leaned to his friends. "So ladies, are you excited for Defence?" he asked.

"I'm not sure, I heard from some of the older year badgers that Quirrell's got an awful speech impediment," Hannah whispered. "Everybody is talking about it - apparently it's because he upset some vampires."

Neville looked slightly fearful after hearing the word vampire. "Really? Do you think it's true?" he whispered, looking at them.

"Yeah, apparently he never had it before he left on his sabbatical," Susan said.

Harry leaned in conspiratorially, deciding to add some to the rumours. "I heard that's why his turban smells like garlic, it's to keep the vampires away."

Neville looked at them all with wide eyes. "You're joking," he said desperately.

Harry just shrugged. "Maybe, who knows?"

Neville looked slightly white and Harry decided to take pity on his friend. "I wouldn't worry Nev, even if he did annoy a group of vicious vampires, you're safe at Hogwarts."

Neville looked slightly calmer and smiled gratefully. "Yeah, thanks."

"R-r-right t-then class, my n-n-n-name is Professor Q-Quirrell…" After five minutes, Harry decided that when he finally fixed Tom, he would hit the man; the speech impediments were not funny and this was just too much.

By the end of the lesson, Harry was no closer to figuring out what to do about Quirrellmort. The man had not been obvious about observing Harry and, had it not been for Moody's teachings in Harry's last life, he probably would have missed the man's observations; he was smart about it.

....

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