Chapter 19: Trouble Brewing

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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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3 September 1991, Hogwarts

Draco had stopped trembling and started to glare once more, "My father will hear about this…"

"And you'll tell him what? That you called someone's mother a Mudblood in the middle of the common room and that he asked you not to do it again after taking your wand from you and giving it back without using any magic. Good luck with that."

Harry didn't even wait for an answer and just grabbed a bag and went to the bedroom. After all, that book wasn't going to read itself.

When Harry woke up, having recollected what happened the day before. He really shouldn't have terrified the Malfoy boy this much. The blonde was nothing more than a spoilt brat, that had never been denied or reprimanded in his life. For some reason, the boy just didn't understand that insulting people in public was just a bad idea. Although, the boy did reveal his status as a Half-Blood, not that it mattered, really; most of Slytherin was made up of half-bloods.

Purebloods really were a dying breed, if they ever were a breed in the first place. The ministry's definition of a Pureblood was also very weird. While normally, a pureblood is a wizard or witch whose great-great-grandparents are all wizards and witches.

And yet, for some reason, old families like the Malfoys seemed insistent on not introducing a drop of Muggle blood in their families and only considered a wizard or witch as a pureblood if there they didn't have a drop of muggle blood in at least ten generations, which was frankly absurd.

With that in mind, marriage to half-bloods and the odd muggleborn are somewhat common. Honestly, normal people do not care about that, since the number of Purebloods was so slim. Less than a tenth of the population could be considered to be Purebloods.

Similarly, muggleborns were also quite rare. No one knew where they came from, or why they develop their magic, but barely three or four students are Muggleborn every year. Everything in between was considered a half-blood which was a very large pool of the population.

While Slytherin boasted that it didn't have any Muggleborn students, half-bloods were so common that they couldn't be discriminated against, and the fact that they are raised in the magical world seemed to calm them. Even the child of a muggleborn and a muggle was technically a half-blood and was considered part of the magical world from birth.

Now, if Malfoy knew that Harry grew up in the muggle world, things could have ended differently. But all the boy did was loudly insult his mother in the middle of the common room. Oh, Harry was angry, that's for sure and wanted to punch the boy in the face. Even if he wasn't enraged by the boy insulting his mother, he would have done something similar because it was a bad idea to roll over and let Malfoy walk over him. The boy would have tried to stretch the line – as all spoilt children did – slowly getting more daring each time. And Harry needed to nip that in the bud to have a peaceful year, even if he had gained the blonde's enmity for it.

Which really didn't matter to him. Harry had no intention of befriending the boy, and Malfoy probably had no intention of being civil to him.

Still, when Harry went to the common room and started reading one of his OWL books. OWLs included all of the critical elements in all the previous years of magical education, which practically made the books into some kind of student notes for every magical discipline. And they weren't even written with children in mind, which was Harry's biggest issue with his schoolbooks.

Considering that he had potions and herbology as his classes for the day, Harry chose to read the potions book. The first-year schoolbook was nothing more than recipes of potions, which wasn't what he was looking for. Luckily, summaries of the common ingredients in potions and interactions between them were in the OWL book.

Harry was so absorbed in his book that he didn't notice Blaise sitting next to him, "We're going to get our breakfast, do you want to join us?"

Harry looked up and saw him standing next to two girls, a blond girl with blue eyes that he recognized as Daphne Greengrass and a black-haired girl with round glasses and hazel eyes that he recognized as. Tracy Davis. The two girls were looking slightly nervous. Harry nodded, "Sure, let me just pack up my stuff."

Harry put a bookmark in his book and put it in his bag. He then grabbed it and joined the other Slytherins to make their way to the Great Hall. While they were walking, Greengrass asked, "Say, Harry, where did you get your school bag?"

"Just a small shop in Diagon Alley. It was recommended to me by the Trunk shop when I asked if they had any expanded school bags with featherweight enchantments. They just pointed me to a store that sold them. They're very practical and I leave all my books inside if I need them."

Davis glared at him, "Lucky you. I think I'll ask my mum to get me one. Walking up and down so many steps with heavy bags is so tedious."

Blaise chuckled, "I told you before, Tracy, that you don't need to bring every book with you to class."

"Hey, I don't bring every book with me!"

Daphne chuckled, "You do because you're scared of losing them like you did all your old toys."

The three of them continued to bicker while Harry just stayed silent and listened to them. He forgot what it was like to just be around people. Harry was alone for so long, with no one to keep him company but himself, that he didn't realize that the simple presence of other people his age could change things. Blaise, Daphne, and Tracy were just joking around like all kids their age did, and Harry was completely lost on what he should do.

Finally, Tracy chose to include him in their conversation during breakfast, "So, Harry, I heard you made Malfoy piss his pants."

Daphne just hit her friend's shoulder and glared at her, "Tracy! That's such an inappropriate thing to say," she then looked at him, "I'm sorry for her. She wasn't taught any manners."

"Hey, I was taught manners. I just choose not to use them," Tracy replied.

Harry snorted, "It's alright. And I didn't really hurt Malfoy, he just insulted my deceased mother, and I kindly asked him to not do it again."

Blaise snorted, "He was shaking at the end of it…"

"Well, I not so kindly asked him to not do it again," Harry drawled back.

The three Slytherins grinned before Daphne explained, "I'm glad someone finally put Draco in his place. He was such a prat growing up, constantly bragging about his mother and father."

"You're all familiar with one another," Harry remarked.

It wasn't exactly a hard deduction to make. The first year Slytherins had already been divided into groups the moment they were sorted. They definitely knew each other before attending Hogwarts.

"Yeah, we were all introduced to all of the other Slytherins in our year," Blaise answered, "for parties and stuff like that. Although our parents are all friends and are partners in a few businesses, so we saw each other a lot and became friends. As for Malfoy, we only met him during the ministry balls, during Daphne's birthday parties since his father had to invite him because they're both in the Wizengamot. But from what I heard from Daphne, I didn't want to be friends with him."

Well, that was pretty much elitism at its best. The parents only wanted their children to meet other children with similar stations, be it politically or financially. Magical Britain was also a somewhat close-knit society. There were barely more than a hundred thousand wizards in the British Isles, and so everyone knew the others, or at least, the ones similar to their station.

Although Harry stifled a snort when he heard Daphne mutter, "I wish I hadn't known him."

Their conversations continued, on the way to the Herbology greenhouse, for their lesson, which they had with the Ravenclaws. Professor Sprout seemed to prefer practical applications over just reading books and so taught them the basics of growing plants. They were barely more than basic gardening techniques like replanting, watering, and cleaning a few plants. Harry had never taken care of a plant in both of his lifetimes and yet didn't have any difficulty following the professor's instructions.

Although, some of the other Slytherins were very disgusted with the idea of playing with dirt. Pansy was practically in tears when her nails were ruined, and Draco was threatening everyone, even the plants, of telling his father about what he was forced to do. Tracy and Blaise didn't look particularly happy doing it either, but Daphne seemed a natural at it, and finished her task before anyone else, without a single stain on her robes. She must have some experience taking care of plants.

Thinking back on it, the lesson was probably meant for kids to get used to the idea of getting dirty during Herbology lessons. Everyone ended up sprinting to the bathrooms to clean their hands after the lesson. And they all made their way to the History classroom for their other lesson, this time with the Hufflepuffs.

Well, they weren't kidding when they said that it was taught by a ghost. The man was just slowly droning what seemed like the exact word for word from the book he recommended, and he didn't even try to change his tone at all. The sad thing was the History of magic could be a very fascinating subject, especially when it came to large scale magical battles and disasters. It was fascinating, and yet the man was boring.

Having read the book, Harry simply swiped back to his potions book and chose to continue reading it until the next lesson. Everyone was asleep minutes later. Adults would have a hard time paying attention to the lessons the ghost was lecturing on. Harry wondered if the man was as boring before his death. The worst thing was that Professor Binns didn't have any Junior Professors, since he didn't have one when he was alive, and he always taught in his routine schedule. Hell, the schedules were often very similar every year to match the ghost's own schedule for teaching that he refuses to alter even after his death. As for assignments, he never asked for any homework, and he corrects only the finals thanks to the school house elves. According to Gemma Farley, he doesn't even change the exams every year and copies could easily be bought from older students.

Now, the only thing Harry could see going on would be if he stopped using the book for some reason. And so, he endeavoured to owl order a dictation quill to take notes for him when he does something better during the lesson.

By the time the bell rang, the entire classroom, Slytherins and Hufflepuffs alike, were asleep, and Harry was halfway through his potions book. This lesson was two hours long, but they thankfully only had one of them a week.

In the end, it was time for the lesson he dreaded the most. Potions. He had no idea if Professor Snape held any animosity towards him. Did James Potter bully this Severus Snape as well, or did they not even know each other? Or perhaps, maybe Snape was never friends with Lily Evans at all.

From the looks of it, potions looked like a very interesting field of study, and Harry was interested in the specifics.

As he made his way to the dungeons, Harry hoped that the professor didn't dislike him on principle, since he was one of his Slytherin. Harry took a look at his schedule and realized that the class was also with Gryffindors. Well, that was a recipe for disaster.

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