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Chapter Text

Technically, he hadn't been watching where he was going – he'd been lost in his own thoughts, not all of them particularly fair and reasonable and generally just wandering around the train to avoid sitting in his compartment like a spare lump while Hermione and Ron had gone off to do whatever Prefect things they were being introduced to. He'd bumped into whoever she was and then tripped on his own robes and fallen backwards onto the floor, right on his ass in front of whoever, but he'd still been ready to apologize and retreat back to the compartment he'd left Hedwig in with his trunk.

Right until he heard Parkinson's nasally little tsk and the spiteful little chuckles of her hangers on. Perfect.

“Very graceful, Potter,” Parkinson remarked sounding somewhere between annoyed and scornful. “Shame for you Puddlemere wasn't here to see that.”

“The Prophet says he's a deranged madman,” another voice pitched in, thick with exaggerated fear. “Maybe he's completely lost his wits.” Another snicker, though standing up, Harry couldn't say it had been a particularly witty comment.

He looked up at them properly for the first time. Inwardly, he groaned. Parkinson of course led the little triangle of snakes in front of him, and it did appear that a summer of him being slandered in the press had done a lot of good for her. She'd grown into her face and lost the haircut that exaggerated her harshest features; and well, not like Harry was ever going to fancy Pansy Parkinson but it did make it that much more annoying to stare at her, dressed in her immaculate robes of whatever it was that gave the witches of Hogwarts from wealthier families that sleek silky look that he never talked about but he knew pissed off Lavender and Parvati to no end.

Apparently all minds were working on the same track, as two of the three girls looked him up and down with smug, superior sneers plastered on their faces, taking in his least-worn pair of Dudley's old trainers and the muggle hand-me-downs that more than peeked through where Harry's robes had not only been hastily thrown on to begin with, but further rumpled during his tumble.

“An eclectic choice, Potter. The poverty of a Weasley paired with Granger's muggleishness. It's almost cute.” The taller girl wrinkled her nose. “I hope you've washed it well at least. We don't want mud mucking up Hogwarts.”

Tracey Davis. Always with the passive aggressive little quips about mud this and filth that. Hermione had actually flipped her lid in third year when she'd discovered that the girl in Parkinson's little clique who most went on and on about purity of this and tradition of that was a halfblood herself.

Ron had taken it more in stride. “Stuff like that, the ones that get into it have to be more pureblood than pureblood, don't they? Really stuffy lot. Dad's always moaning about that sort and the things they get up to at the ministry, trying to impose all that bollocks all the time. Says there's one woman, Bridges something, that's worse than Malfoy on all that bloody nonsense.” He'd shrugged, and then helped himself to another serving of roast potatoes as Hermione had continued to seethe.

Well – Davis hadn't needed the summer to grow into anything at all. She had always been, if not something any of the Gryffindor boys would admit to in front of the Gryffindor girls, fit. Taller than Parkinson, more willowy with a long curtain of dark red hair that flowed beyond her shoulders and halfway down her back in a rich, thick mane. Brighter than Ginny's and while Ron's sister usually kept hers out of the way as best she could – 'for quidditch', she'd said once to someone, Harry couldn't recall who, when asked – Tracey's hair was a riot of fire that looked like it had never so much as seen a broomstick or a floo and would jinx the first person to try and introduce them.

“- are they anyway? They didn't...” Davies' face suddenly glowed. “Oh, how precious! Granger and Weasley are the Gryffindor prefects, aren't they? Precious Potter didn't get picked.”

Curiously, Parkinson didn't seem as thrilled about that discovery as the other two girls. Harry did a bit of mental calculations of his own quickly enough.

“Yes, I'm sure they're extremely jealous of me, not being a captive audience to Malfoy's delightful company,” Harry replied as dryly as he could. Parkinson's scowl suggested at least part of that had hit, and it seemed a good time to call it quits on a high note. “I suppose having run into you evens us all out.” He turned to go, turning his back on them like they were no real threat to him. Which, fair enough, they weren't. He'd battled dragons and dark lords – three bitchy classmates supporting the other side weren't going to cause him problems on the bloody Hogwarts Express.

“Let's go, Ladies. We wouldn't want to give the Headmaster an excuse to give Gryffindor a thousand points before the sorting.” Two confirmed grunts of affirmation at that.

He should have let it go. There was no real reason to pursue it. It was a given the third girl was going to make some parting shot and he'd already landed his own on Parkinson well enough. It wasn't even like what she said made particular sense, since Harry was more in the habit of having to make up losing points for doing such audacious things in Snape's classroom like breathing. He was fairly sure he'd never had a year where he'd come out more than a handful of points ahead at best.

And it wasn't like he was on speaking terms with the Headmaster right now anyway, apparently, so if they wanted to make some snippy comment about one Albus Dumbledore, he was fairly certain the Headmaster could handle it on his own.

But by Merlin had he been putting up with a lot this summer, first in absolute silence and then in on-again, off-again dribs and drabs throughout his time at Gimmauld Place, with the cherry on top being that sorry excuse for a trial that had almost seen him expelled from Hogwarts. He couldn't lash out at his friends – they had already apologized, and he owed them better than that anyway. He couldn't lash out at Voldemort or the Death Eaters, nor Minister Fudge, nor The Prophet, nor Dumbledore nor Snape (yet) nor even the Dursleys.

But three Slytherin snakes? Well... needs must.

“What on earth is that supposed to mean...” he turned around, facing the three who turned once more to face him. “... Astoria?” He knew full well the Greengrass in his year was Daphne, he'd only had to listen to her snicker behind Pansy's robes for five years after-all. But he also knew it pissed her off something rotten to be mistaken for her younger, less plain sister ever since she'd been one-upped by the younger girl at the Yule Ball, causing a fit that would have been the talk of the rest of the holidays if not for the fact Ron and Hermione had so spectacularly one-upped her in front of everybody.

Daphne Greengrass was... well, it was easy to see why Pansy had taken the top spot in their little triangle. Birdlike, maybe, Harry decided. Her face too long and too pinched, nose and mouth and eyes a little too sharp. Long blonde hair that hid her face rather than Lavender's or – may Hermione never hear him say so – Fleur's, shone a spotlight on their pretty features. Not ugly by any means, but definitely the third of the three.

He'd heard rumors that she was sick, something quite serious, and he'd seen her more often than not during his own stays in the infirmary, but other than noting the pattern he'd never been inclined to follow up on it, much less actually talk to her. Her prissy glares had never contradicted that assumption.

There was a spark to her eyes though, an electricity running through pale, cracking ice and more than once he suspected it was a very good thing indeed that for all the time she spent cuddled up with Pansy, she'd never really been on the inside of whatever bullshit Malfoy planned on an annual basis.

So it was weird she'd say something so utterly nonsensical.

All three girls though had matching sour expressions, so whatever she had said made a great deal of sense to them.

“As if you don't know, Potter.” Parkinson flounced, then began to turn away again, storming down the corridor and into their – presumably – compartment. “One hundred points for wiping your own bum, Mr. Potter. Two hundred points for playing chess, Mr. Weasley. Two hundred points for standing up to your own friends, Mr. Longbottom. Pathetic.”

The door slammed shut.

Harry stood their for a minute, utterly confused. Nothing like that had ever happened at Hogwarts, it was like they were mad about some bizarre version of himself that didn't even exist. What on ea-

His eyes widened. Something like that had happened. But not... surely everyone had an ounce of sense to realize something more had been going on, what with Quirrell just disappearing a day later.

Harry frowned. He'd been in the hospital wing, hadn't he? He had no idea what the rest of the school had thought or been told about him saving the whole bloody school from Voldemort's resurrection – at least the first attempt, he corrected himself with an internal wince.

But even so, surely something would have been said. The Flamels had died shortly after, right? Dumbledore had... sort of... said as much. And did everyone just assume Quirrell had vanished for a lark before the end of term? Surely something...

Or did most of the school, now being told he was an attention seeking liar by the Minister himself, convinced that Dumbledore had given Harry... sixty, was it, House Points simply for having courage... at the last second to take the House Cup from Slytherin.

Well... bollocks. What an unexpected and unnecessary shitshow to dump into his lap.

He should still just turn around and give this some thought. Maybe there really was some bad blood with Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff he could put to rights, though in his defense everyone at the time had been just as happy to see Slytherin lose as the Gryffindors had. And really the points he had won had only made up for the points he'd lost for doing nothing more than helping Hagrid.

But the hell of it was he really wanted a fight. Especially now that he had the lay of the land of what they were nattering on about it. He grinned. He marched – strutted – up to the compartment door, and gleefully yanked it open.

Three heads flicked towards him in an instant. Greengrass sat alone to his left, moving forward with the train. Parkinson and Davis sat across from her, Davis closer to the window, their trunks lined up beneath it, a small stack of magazines in the otherwise empty space next to Greengrass.

Three sets of eyes narrowed.

“Potter! What are you doing, you absolute ingrate,” Pansy hissed. “Maybe you really did bump into us on purpose. The mudblood's absence really hurts you that much, does it?”

“Don't call her that,” Harry snapped, fighting the urge to reach for his wand. “She's worth ten of y- I didn't come hear to talk about that,” Harry interrupted himself, though his anger at Parkinson did not diminish. He took a quick breath and continued before they could set him off again.

“You're wrong about the points. In First Year, I mean. I don't know how you could honestly believe something so stupid, but that's not what happened.”

Davis let out a nondescript sigh and Parkinson just looked at him now like he were mental. Greengrass, he noticed out the corner of his eye, was not looking at him at all, having picked up one of the magazines beside her, as if his presence bored her.

“Uh, yes, it did actually.” Parkinson spoke with exaggerated slowness. “We were there, you know. What, the whole school was confunded?” She turned up her nose. “As if. Try again, Potter. This is pathetic, even for you.”

Was he going to really do this? Apparently, yes. “I know what Dumbledore said, and I don't know what the rest of you lot were told when I was in the hospital wing.” Greengrass tensed at that, and Harry tried and failed to remember if she'd been there that time, too. “But surely someone thought it was weird that I was in the hospital wing for days and Professor Quirrell just disappeared out the blue at the same time.”

Of all the reactions he might have expected, an uneasy shared glance between the girls – even Greengrass over the cover of her magazine's declaration – 5 Ways To Charm Your Wizard! - was a little unusual.

“We don't know what you're talking about,” Parkinson said a moment later, though not meeting his eyes.

“Sure you don't,” Harry went charging forward like one of Marge's dogs after a five year old, relishing being on the other side of the savage chase. “You know full well that Dumbledore didn't give me and Ron and Hermione points for playing chess or being brave, but for saving the bloody school.”

“You really are every bit the deranged glory seeker everyone warned us you were,” Davis declared when Parkinson stayed silent. She gave her long curls of flick, sunbeams dancing on sunfire. “Why don't you go away now before we go and inform a prefect you came into our compartment and starting raving like a banshee?”

A streak of fury seared through Harry; deeper than his scar, deeper than his heart. Maybe Ron had a point, but this stupid, flouncing girl, a halfblood who associated with people to whom that sort of nonsense actually mattered, had the gall to dismiss him like trash for having saved her from an actual monster who would be happy to murder her mother or father or whoever it was responsible for the 'half', while she had slept in her bed happy as a clam surrounded by the likes of Parkinson and Greengrass and Malfoy and the rest of them.

The purebloods, he could, from time to time get. Not the murder and death eaters and you know, all the stuff that Malfoy went on and on about. Malfoy was exceptional as a prat. But as much as he loved Hermione to pieces, he could understand how from time to time, maybe, something like S.P.E.W., or her lectures on what exactly was wrong with the Muggle Studies curriculum even after she'd dropped the class, could ruffle even more reasonable feathers the wrong way.

He had, in his own way, just tried to blend in – he didn't exactly have the greatest impression of living in the muggle world, and other than some private amusements at things like seeing wizards trying to dress as muggles, he'd more or less just swam with the way the wizarding world was. Yes, he was locked in war with Voldemort and that wasn't going to change anytime soon, but he didn't go out of his way to try and change day-to-day life in the wizarding world. Which, he thought ruefully, look at what good that had done him.

But! Why Hermione rocking the boat annoyed purebloods, even when he thought she had a point or at least they were way over the loony side by thinking Voldemort was the answer... like he said, he could kinda get it.

But fucking Davis? What right did she have whatsoever to not just go along with it all, but promote it. To act like Malfoy was right. To – however she might justify it to herself – throw one of her own parents under the bus. Like if he were to sit here and curse his own mum... it was sickening.

He looked at her, really looked at her, trying to pierce the mask of her pretty perfect face haloed in heat to the mass of worms and filth that lay beneath it. He stalked forward, ignoring the indignant yelp from Parksinon as he did so until he was standing right in front of Davis, staring her down to the dismissal of everything and everyone else. Nobody had pulled a wand on him, and he doubted they even would if they hadn't already.

He thought about what to say, and then figured he could say quite a bit. It's not like Voldemort was unaware that the Philosopher's Stone had been at Hogwarts in his first year, or much of his adventures since. And if Voldemort hadn't seen it leaked out since then, especially now, he didn't see what difference it would make now.

“In our first year, when you were making new friends with the children of Death Eaters, Voldemort was at Hogwarts,” Harry almost whispered, voice soft and just loud enough that Davis and even Parkinson leaned forward towards him, demands he leave apparently forgotten. “He was possessing Quirrell's body – his face was covered by that turbin he always wore, and he was at Hogwarts to steal the Philosopher's Stone.”

“That's bullshit,” scoffed Pansy, blinking as if coming out of a trance. “The Philosopher's St-”

“Belongs to the Flamels. Who entrusted it to Professor Dumbledore for safe keeping. And Voldemort tried to steal it. And he would have; if me, Ron, and Hermione hadn't stopped him.” He enjoyed the way Tracey flinched at every use of Voldemort's name.

“The Dark Lord is dead.” Pansy tried again.

“Fuck off, Parksinon you know he's not. Whatever nasty little lies you all gossip about this school term with the Ministry's support, you know full well he's back. I know you know he's back. I saw him, and how all your fathers grovelled before him.” That wasn't strictly speaking true, he couldn't remember what names Voldemort had said exactly, who specifically had been there. Maybe Greengrass or Parkinson hadn't been, what with everything that happened that night he hadn't kept track. But he remembered Malfoy being there for sure, and there's no way the other snakes did not know.

Nobody said anything. Harry gave a satisfied nod.

He stepped closer, so that his legs brushed up against Tracey's knees, even as she leaned back in her chair further away from him. There was a spark in her eyes now though, a curiosity lit in those green orbs that so delightfully contrasted with her hair and smattering of freckles. Eyes that reflected his own right back at her; if looks could kill then two declarations of the Killing Curse. Her face was even prettier when her nose wasn't turned up like he'd just taken a crap in the middle of the compartment.

He leaned forward, taking pleasure in stealing her space, the way her comrades had stolen so much from him.

“It wasn't easy, stopping him.” Harry continued in the same, soft tone. “We had to get past a giant Cerberus and an even larger Devil's Snare. Ron almost died winning a chess game where we were the pieces against a set of enchanted set of stone, larger than life, pieces. Hermione saved me from poison, and in the end I had to face Voldemort alone.”

“Harry held up his hands. “The stone was about this big,” He mimicked holding a decent sized pebble, a large egg. He made as if to toss it up, and Tracey's eyes followed, even as of course nothing actually happened. “It was a complex bit of magic protecting the stone, but it could only be taken by someone willing to safeguard it, but not use it. Unfortunately for me, the magic gave me the stone right when Voldemort wasn't even six paces away.”

Harry's grin, already slightly feral, now turned nasty. “Unfortunately for him, the protections given to me by my mother, my muggleborn mother, meant that he couldn't actually touch me.” Harry held up his hands. “The last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital wing was Voldemort trying to take the stone from me, while my hands gripped his face and burned him alive.”

“I kept Voldemort away for four years, starting then.” He finished. He leaned it a little bit closer. “So now, Davis, you know why Dumbledore gave me those points.” He flicked his hands forward, hoping to make her flinch.

For the first time since entering the compartment, things did not go quite how Harry had planned.

She did not flinch. Tracey's knees, up till now bound together more tightly than Harry's copy of Monster Book of Monsters, fell apart like a cheap trunk and he fell forward, his legs now rubbing up against the inside of her thighs and his hands on either side of her against the compartment wall where he steadied himself above her. Her eyes and mouth jumped into matching sets of Os, and the fire in her hair had somehow made itself at home in her pupils that were now far larger and closer than Harry ever had made their acquaintance before.

Had her lips always been that pink?

Parkinson gasped, a sharp intake of air and Harry's head jolted toward her, fingers already preparing to push of the wall and grab his wand. But she didn't look outraged at all. A little confused, perhaps, but also, oddly hungry. Anticipatory.

That left the third. Who did reach for her wand and did cast a spell behind his back.

A privacy charm, aimed at the fourth wall. Silence, except for the thump of the door closing itself behind them as the magic settled, and then nothing but the clack-clack-clack of the Hogwarts Express, still many many miles away from Hogwarts.

Nobody spoke. Beneath him, Tracey squirmed, moving this way and that but never closer nor further away from his own hands and knees and eyes.

“I think, that P-Potter- owes us a few explanations about things over the past few years,” Greengrass said after a moment, sounding oddly choked. Well, Harry couldn't blame her for that. “It seems like there are a number of things that we, that we ought to know.”

Parkinson's eyes darted from him and then behind him to Greengrass. Apparently Davis didn't get a vote on these things, or maybe it was Davis's fault for still doing an imitation of a statue beneath him.

“I suppose,” Parkinson said at last, as if tasting every word on her tongue before letting it out. “After all, it's not often that one can get Potter alone without his hangers on, and it's always a good idea to get to learn more about your, your enemy.” She licked her lips. “We've captured Potter.”

That was an odd way of describing the situation as far as Harry could tell, and Harry had never imagined the word enemy could be said in such a throaty, husky way before.

He didn't contradict her though.

The air hummed. Had someone other than Greengrass cast another spell in here? He shouldn't be here. Whatever was about to happen, even if taken at completely face value, was going to be very wrong indeed. He shouldn't be telling the likes of Parkinson or Greengrass anything, not least about how he had stopped their side before. Or Davis, who not minutes ago he had considered the worst type of person imaginable.

He had nothing to say to them.

“They say he slayed a Basilisk.” Greengrass said, sounding almost clinical, as if detaching herself from what was going on, like he nor she were even here. “I don't believe it of course,” she amended quickly, “but perhaps he might enlighten us as to what really happened in our second year.”

He was ready to spin around and tell her where she could take her skepticism of his basilisk slaying and shove it up her cauldron if not at that exact moment, a very different snake jumped. A hand, a single finger really, soft as a feather, had poked his trousers from beneath his robes. Barely a brush, and hidden from her two companions by his forward leaning and his robes and the sheer absurdity of the moment.

He looked down. Tracey's – no, by Merlin, Davis' – stared heated defiance right into his crotch. Her mouth puckered, as if she found everything about this incredibly distasteful. It was the hottest thing he'd ever seen.

And then rubbed him again.

By Merlin, what the hell was he supposed to do now! Apparently, his body had decided that whatever he did, anything so bold as actually moving had for all intents and purposes been chucked right out the window.

“I suppose we could.” he said at last, not daring to look at any of them. “Talk.”

Parkinson scooted ever so slightly over. “Why don't you sit down here, Potter.” she said, sounding as if she couldn't quite believe what she were saying as she tapped the space she had created while steadfastly not looking at it. “Daphne can keep an eye on you that you treat us like the proper ladies we are as we... interrogate you.”

“No!” Tracey yelped, voice filling the compartment and Harry for a moment feared the privacy charm might not hold. Pansy jumped and turned toward her. “Potter doesn't deserve to sit with us, he is fine where he is.” Tracey went on, voice wavering only slightly. Her hand shifted.

It was an impressive display of snobbery for a girl whose hand was now doing its best to give his balls a friendly squeeze. Deciding that he in for not one but two knuts and might as well be in for a galleon, Harry made a show of billowing out his robes with his far hand and then, no longer occupied for the moment leaning against the wall, surreptitiously grabbed his wand, which with a flick and swish he vanished his trousers. On the Hogwarts Express. So that Tracey Davis could have a better grasp of his bollocks.

He wasn't completely loony. He wasn't starkers. He still had his underwear although dainty fingers were now burrowing their way passed that particular issue. He pulsed.

She froze. She looked up at him. He gave the tiniest of nods. Put his hand back against the wall.

Her hand reached into his pants and of all things, she tickled him.

Who would have thought Tracey Davis had a sense of whimsy. But then, who would have thought anything of the last few minutes.

“I'll stay where I am then,” Harry grunted. “I don't want to rock the boat.”

“Maybe you do have some manners after all,” Parkinson replied, though she scooted back into the empty spot far closer to Davis than where she had been sitting before. And if her eyes hinted knowing to Greengrass, she kept her thoughts on this to herself.

Greengrass shuffled as well, to the other side of her bench so that she were no longer directly behind Harry, but angled so as to more be part of the organic group, her magazines apparently forgotten.

“So there really was a Basilisk?” Pansy prompted.

At the word Basilisk, Tracey's inquisitive hand stopped its explorations, her fingers wrapping around him and giving him a less than gentle squeeze. He winced and shot her a look. She looked oddly sheepish.

“Right. Yes. The basilisk” – and there it was again, another squeeze, not quite as harsh as the first one, but still firm enough, a deliberate act. A small smile, lacking its usual malice, ghosted over her face.

“It was about fifty feet long. I think, Very old and strong. It, the uh, Basilisk-”

Another squeeze, and then her fingers padded over him.

So that was the name of the game, was it?

Harry turned his head away from Tracey completely, though he did give her thighs, inside of which he had still been leaning, a tiny nudge with his knee, pushing himself another inch into her space. Looking now straight into Parkinson's eyes – if nothing else came out of all of this he'd still never, ever be able to take Malfoy seriously ever again, he thought with not inconsiderable malicious glee. And then he resolved to not think about Malfoy another moment he was in the strange alternate reality of this compartment.

“Let me start over, I need to collect my thoughts.” He cleared his throat.

“So. The Basilisk. Slytherin's Basilisk. This is the story of the my big, scary Basilisk.”

Chapter Text

Granted, he and Davis weren't exactly being subtle about what was going on; he was still leaning over her and half grunting like some monster out of a Lockhart tale, and surely his robes weren't doing a perfect job of hiding Davis's increasingly assertive expeditions up and down and back again, eyes still glaring daggers at the target of her fascination even if she didn't seem too likely to actually stop petting him anytime soon.

He was absolutely certain that Greengrass and Parkinson had figured something was up, though damned if he knew why they were letting their friend fondle his todger right in front of them without so much as a catty comment.

“So, Potter, do go on,” Greengrass's voice broke through his increasingly one-sided thoughts with clear bemusement. After the phoenix saved you from the basilisk, after the basilisk bit you, and then you stabbed the basilisk, and then you took the basilisk fang... what happened next?”

“With the basilisk.” Pansy added not at all helpfully. He almost bit his tongue as Tracey's hand clamped around his hilt and just settled in for a good long squeeze. His eyelids fluttered and for a moment everything looked oddly gray.

“He doesn't know,” Greengrass said after a moment, sounding triumphant. “He's making the whole thing up as he goes along!”

“I'm not,” he declared to the spot on the wall above Tracey's head between his hands, a knot in the wood of the compartment wall that would do for a conversation partner. If he looked down at Tracey he'd only make things worse. “I stabbed the diary with the b- with its fang and the magic possessing Ginny disappeared almost at once. Fawkes flew us out of the Chamber of Secrets shortly after that, along with Lockhard and Ron.”

Damned if he was telling the Slytherins anything specific about Tom Riddle.

“Hmm,” Pansy said, looking at him and theatrically putting her finger to her lips. She sucked on the tip, like Hermione on a quill when deep in thought over an essay in the library. “I don't know, it sounds awfully convenient, doesn't it?”

“I don't care what you think,” Harry managed to get out, doing hero's work keeping his hands from clenching, though at which of the three were most vexing him, who could say at that moment?

“Weasley one never saw the fight, neither did Weasley two, nor Lockhart. It sounds like just the sort of thing a glory seeker like you would see as an opportunity to spin a fabulous tale about. No doubt to pander to Hogwarts tarts thick enough to be impressed by such stories. And we've already agreed that the Headmaster is not a reliable witness to these sort of things.” Daphne sniffed.

“You won't be laughing if I showed you the Chamber of Secrets,” Harry bit back. His words caught up with him a moment later. “Not that I, well, no.” Bloody Davis was gently kneading the tips of her fingers over his tip now, her nails featherlight. And that did make it hard to make concentrate on things he wouldn't be doing or showing after whatever this was, came to an end.

“Quite right, you're our prisoner right now, Potter – don't get it into your head that witches like us would ever have anything to do with you.” Parkinson declared, a little more forced than clearly intended, as if needing to reestablish the mad magic of the space.

“I wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole,” Tracey added, looking up at Harry with an expression suggesting butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. “No matter how well you may – may – have handled beating a large snake.

Well, Davis was the expert on that now, wasn't she? The words died on his tongue though, because listening to her insults went down a lot smoother when she was stroking him to oblivion. Silence, perhaps, was the better play here.

So engrossing was that thought that Harry almost missed Parkinson looking at Greengrass as an evil grin spread across the former's face; and then a flash later, two spells hit him in quick succession.

He got as far as cursing them – without magic, unfortunately – both to high heaven and actually managing to pull his wand out his pocket, swallowing a yelp as Davis tugged at him in surprise right as he tried to jump back from her into a more workable position. His eyes watered, his wand raised in his hand... and his robes suddenly rolled up like rug all the way up to his chest, exposing his naked legs and, as his crotch now felt unusually airy, he looked down just in time to see his pants crumble to the floor in an unwound pool of thread.

Well, this was different, and less pleasantly so. Davis seemed paralyzed, face looking on in horror now, even as her hand still very firmly indeed around his cock.

Greengrass snickered. Parkinson shook her head as if seeing something that mildly disappointed her.

“It looks like my mother was right again,” she said a moment later as Davis and Harry just remained there in stunned silence. “Halfbloods may look like us, even act like us from time to time, but give them half a chance to return to their baser instincts and they'll be there rutting like savages before you can say quidditch.”

Harry tried to stand up fully, maybe have a crack at breaking the curse on his robes or at least shielding himself a bit and then giving Parkinson what-for, but Davis still seemed to have forgotten she had him well in hand. He could only imagine what this really looked like, hunched over her like a half savage as she held on to him like a baby elephant. Fuck him, what an idiot to think this had been going surprisingly well.

“I suppose we can't really blame you, Potter, you've never had a better influence to teach you proper manners,” her eyes shifted to Davis. “But you, Tracey... I thought when we became friends, we would drum this uncouthness out of you.” She shook her head in faux sadness. “Go, sit next to Daphne – we clearly need to put a bit of space between you and our captive if we're going to get anything more out of him.”

Of all things, Davis actually nodded at that! She let him go – and woah, was that a larger dose of disappointment going through him than he'd prepared for. God, he was never letting anyone find out about all this! Greengrass flicked her magazines into a tidy pile across the compartment onto the trunks with a single snap of her wand, and Davis sat down next to her, eyes still blazing and defiant.

Why did she have to have been such a bitch for the past four years?

“As for you, Potter.” Pansy went on as if this were all in line with her worst expectations. “Well, you've clearly shown your true colors, a jumped up barbarian even if you have the Potter name. I'm going to have to take control of your wand for so long as you're with us.”

Well, Harry was just about to tell her it would be a cold day in hell before he handed over his wand to the likes of her, no matter what was actually going on, before he saw a flash of determination in Parkinson's eyes and she reached out, quickly as if to prevent herself overthinking it, and simply grabbed his cock like it were something they were studying in Herbology. His eyes widened, moreso when she then yanked it towards her with an imperious, “sit down, Potter.”

“Ow, fuck!” He cried out. He glared at the dark haired girl who had been a nuisance for the first four years of his time at Hogwarts before now turning into a very different kind of problem. “It's not a bloody beater's bat, you know!”

“Oh! Sorry!” Parkinson yelped, letting go and flapping her hands. “I didn't – sorry, Harry!”

Silence fell upon them all, the spell apparently broken. Whatever else was going on, for Parkinson to apologize to Harry, and do so sincerely even if only in the heat of the moment, it was apparently too much.

Almost.

“It's fine,” Harry said after a moment, swallowing – his throat suddenly very dry. He could pretend that everything up to now had just sort of happened in the thrill of the moment, whatever the hell it was. But this... this was his own contribution to keeping this nonsense alive. Because as bad of an idea as this all was, now in the midst of it damned if he were ready to call it quits so soon.

“I... apologize, for being such an unruly captive,” Harry spoke tentatively, role-playing the magic back into existence. Fake it to you make it.

It... worked.

“At least Potter is capable of learning how to approach his bettes,” Greengrass offered a moment later, a conspirator in this clown show. “Pansy my dear, I know it's much to ask of a lady of such standing, but if you could please disarm Potter once more.”

Pansy nodded a little woodenly, and without looking at him – much – she reached out and with great deliberateness grabbed his cock, which was doing a very good job of making its presence known.

“Bendy, excellent for charms,” Tracey giggled under her breath. Pansy glared at her before turning back towards him.

“Take your arms out your robes... Potter,” Daphne spoke again after Pansy had taken him in hand. “So... so we know you're not hiding anything else in them.”

Slowly, he shrugged the robes off his shoulders, the top pooling behind him on the bench where he sat next to Pansy, the spell one of the two had cast on his robes coming to an end so that he sat there starkers on top of his robes, wearing only his muggle trainers. Which probably only added to the deviancy of the whole thing. He'd be chucked out Hogwarts for sure if he were caught now, a single Hermioneish voice scolded in his ear before he shut it out forcefully.

Maybe in the past five years he'd been in odder positions – he'd faced all manner of things after all – but at that moment nothing in particular came to mind to rival this. Greengrass's eyes flicked to the door and she cast another spell towards it, and then turned back to him and Pansy.

“What should we question Potter about next?” Greengrass asked. Pansy's hand began to stroke up and down his length. She was in a better position than Tracey had been in, and he was properly worked up now as well as perversely enjoying the sheer outlandishness of the thing now that it was all out in the open as it were.

“I want to hear about the Dementors,” Tracey said at last, quietly.

“What?” Pansy squawked. “Morgana's tits, Trace – talk about a mood killer.”

Greengrass shuddered.

“No, no.” Davis now looked him square in the eye for the first time since their silent duel that had ended in their agreement to do... what they had done. “They say Potter can cast a corporal Patronus. That he can killed one hundred of the... of those things.”

Parkinson was quick on the beat, and turned towards him, looking at him pensively for a moment before a grin crossed her face, less snarky that it might have been, given the warble in her tone and the shiver that went through her. “Is that true, Potter. Can you make something as a impressive as a Patronus come out your wand?”

“Yes,” Harry said, voice heavy and eyes equally dark as he looked down at Pansy. “It's a stag. And I don't know if it... if it killed any of those things, but it certainly gave them all a very nasty scare.”

Parkinson began to pump him for real now, slowly and experimentally but more than Tracey had been able to do in their poor attempt of clandestine shenanigans, and Harry took another breath. “They say you have to have a truly pure and happy memory to make a Patronus, and pure certainly doesn't describe, you, Potter.”

He had to marvel at her ability to remain her bitchy self even as she was on the Hogwarts Express to getting his spunk all over her.

“You'd be surprised what I get up to from time to time,” he hissed. Parksinon raised an eyebrow at that, though her eyes darted back to what she was doing with this dick and he saw a flash of uncertainty within them.

“I think he could do it, with the right incentive,” Tracey quipped. “The right memory.”

“What memory did you use?” Daphne asked, and for the first time in quite some time the question seemed genuine, without any hint of innuendo or mockery.

Well, he still wasn't going to tell her about his godfather of all people, of rescuing him and his thought that he would be leaving the Dursleys forever.

“I thought about coming to Hogwarts. My first time on a broom. Going to class.”

“Merlin, going to school was the happiest you'd ever been,” Daphne interrupted. “My goodness, what life must be like with muggles.”

His face darkened. Greengrass noticed, because her mouth clomped shut with an audible click and she slapped a hand over her mouth. Merlin, what the fuck was he doing.

“Hey, hey!” Parkinson interrupted, sounding aggrieved. “Why is it stopping? Potter – why... oh Daph you stupid twat.”

“I think we've had enough.” Harry grumbled, leaning back up. He'd have to sneak back to the compartment in only his robe which was a bit deviant, but he could chalk this all behind him. He doubted Parkinson would be quickly telling Malfoy about this, nor anyone else.

“Potter, no Potter.” Parkinson sounded genuinely upset. “Greengrass is just being a bitch. You get used to it. I – a truce, okay. Just you.” She added quickly. She shared a glance at the other two girls. “We won't say anything about muggles or stuff. If Greengrass speaks out of turn, we'll silence her.”

“It was just something to say,” Greengrass half apologized, half clarified, and half... somethinged. “Anyway, you don't want us to stop giving you a completely hard time, do you?”

Up till today, that is exactly what he would have wanted.

“We can figure out the line when it comes to me, later,” Harry found his mouth saying. “But you have to leave my friends out of it. I'm not... I'm not doing this if you bring up my friends. Or my family,” he added after another moment. Not that he really gave a toss about the Dursleys, but on principle they didn't have the right.

Pansy nodded quickly, followed by the other two. “Not just with me, but in school, too.” Harry clarified. “For as long as we're doing whatever this is.”

Pansy scoffed. “Don't go getting all full of yourself, Potter. This ends at Hogsmeade.” She paused. “But deal, just in case we decide to talk.”

“Now, I'm going to do this,” she grabbed his dick once more and began pumping him again from head to hilt. “And you're going to show us that supposed Patronus. I mean it!”

“I don't believe he can do it,” Greengrass added in what was clearly supposed to be a reset of the challenge than any actual doubt.

“Try thinking about how happy you were when telling us all about the Chamber of Secrets,” Davis advised. Harry snorted in shocked.

“If you can even remember that far back,” Parkinson added. “By the look on your face your brains are practically falling out your ears. You might as well be a We-... a uh, addled house-elf. Whenever you're ready, Potter, we haven't got all day.”

It didn't really take very long after that. Pansy might not know exactly what she was doing but it didn't seem to be something that took too long to get the basic gist down, and not like he was complaining either.

“Do... do the girls in Gryffindor do this for you, Potter. Their lion hero?”

“No! No.”

“So I'm the first then? Or are you muddying yourself with muggle slags over the summer?”

Harry tried to glare, that was pushing on thin ice there, but Parkinson had picked up the pace a bit. “No. No they aren't like that.”

“So I am first!” Pansy declared. “Well well that is quite something, isn't it. The Boy-Who-Lived loves girs in green, does he?”

“Second,” Tracey whispered, barely audible. Harry didn't agree with either of them, trying to concentrate on his wand – the one he needed to make the Patronus work.

“Expecto Patronum!” He called out as firmly as he could, doing his best to keep his motion firm and precise. A large cloud poured from his wand; enough that Daphne let out a yelp, but hardly as fantastic as Prongs.

Merlin, he didn't want to think about Sirius, or staying with the Weasleys, or Hermione's praise at a time like this.

He looked away from his wand, at Tracey sitting across from him on the bench next to Greengrass. She stared directly back at him. No longer though, was it a duel of killing curses, even if she looked annoyed at his catching her watching him watching her.

It wasn't a memory, but the thought stirred through him. What would it be like if this, this thing, was the cracking of the shell. That he could break through the shield of pureblood nonsense she'd encased herself in, bring her out of it, a Slytherin on the side of good... and then, mission accomplished, shag her something rotten. On the quidditch pitch. The high table in the Great Hall. Over the quidditch pitch!

He tensed.

“Expect Patronum!”

A giant stag ripped its way out of his wand, filling up the space between them. It's head shook in triumph, antlers touching the ceiling of the carriage.

“Ewww!”

Harry's head snapped towards Parkinson, remembering it was she and not Tracey who he was technically attached to at the moment. Parkinson who was now looking at him in disgust once more.

Prongs was the only thing he'd fired off. He felt his dick pulse once more and then dribble. But yep – Pansy Parkinson, little miss pureblood princess who went around every day as if the floor were made of the bodies of people she barely tolerated, and a decent enough streak of his spunk across the cuff of her robes.

“Clean it off, clean it off.” Pansy flailed her arm, letting him go as she now scowled at him thunderously. “Why didn't you say it was going to do that!”

“I didn't know?” Harry stumbled for a response

“You didn't know!? Are you honestly retarded, Potter. Eww!”

Finally she had the wherewithal to reach for her wand. But then, Tracey's hand stopped her.

“Wait.”

Parkinson scowl turned towards Tracey. “What do you want now, you're as much to blame for this as he is.”

“Yes, so half of that's mine.” Tracey quipped back, quick as a flash. “And-I-wanna-taste-it.”

“You what?” Greengrass shrieked. Pansy's scowl turned to dumbstruck too. Even Harry suspected his face was doing a good impression of shock. But Tracey didn't say another word and simply dapped on perfectly made up finger into the streak of Harry's jizz, white on black, and before anyone could say another word had put it to the tip of her mouth, tongue flicking out like a... well, like a snake.

“You whore,” Greengrass hissed, sounding less-than-horrid about it all things considered. Tracey made a face. “Ugh. You should do better, Potter.”

“I should... what?”

“It should taste better.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“I don't know, you're a wizard, figure it out,” Davis snapped. Then, undercutting her entire point, she reached out for Pansy again. Pansy drew her arm back.

“No, that's enough for you.” A pause. “Is it really that bad?”

Davis shrugged, looking more than a little embarrassed. “It's not great.”

Parkinson put the tiniest drop on her finger, and then shock of shock Greengrass leaned over and did the same.

“I agree, you need to work on it, Potter” Greengrass said after a moment.

“If he could improve the taste, we could sell it to Bertie's,” Parkinson said after smacking her lips. “We could have every witch in the country nibbling on it and they'd have no idea what it is,” she snickered, like somehow this were a joke on them.

Harry didn't know what to think; every witch in the country snacking on his cum was a journey in avarice far beyond anything he'd ever contemplated before.

After the girls finally did clean up, they sat around in oddly companionable silence for a bit after that, nobody sure what to do. Harry pulled his robes back on and eventually just half lay there taking in the scene around him. He should go back and visit his friends soon, they'd probably be finishing whatever they had to do soon enough, and they'd miss him, for all that he were still a little cross, and perhaps even envious, of them.

Pansy looked out the window and seemed to have the same sort of thought, breaking off from her conversation with the other two girls. “It's getting late – we'll be in Scotland soon if we aren't already. She looked at him, nibbling at her lip. “We already know most of what happened last year of course. But tell us about what happened after, you know.”

“I thought we all understood you already knew.” Harry bit back. But Pansy didn't get cross, she just shared a look with the other two girls, and shook her head.

“We know it happened,” Pansy admitted in a hushed tone. “But that's all we know. Even Dra- even what we were told, was only just that it had happened and that we needed to be quiet about it.”

“I think you've already mucked that one up,” Harry responded with a sour chuckle. “What with telling me you know about it.”

“Nothing that happens in this compartment leaves this compartment,” Parkinson replied at once, completely serious. “Nor anywhere else, if we decide to continue... talking... throughout the year. Maybe.”

Harry slowly, almost traitorously, nodded. “So long as nothing you say could endanger my friends, I won't tell anyone about this.” He let out a horrified sigh. “God, if my friends found out.”

“So we are all agreed then,” Greengrass clipped in, the voice of detached authority once more. “This thing of ours, if we decide to keep seeing Potter from time to time, is to be treated as completely secret.”

Davis looked a little sad at that. Maybe there was more there than he dared hope. Though Merlin, was he moving too fast.

“Okay.” Harry said at last. “Okay,” the other three joined in, a staggered echo.

The line had been crossed. Still... well, he'd been doing most of the heavy lifting, even if Parkinson had basically wanked him off in the end.

“I'll tell you, but I want to see, at least one of you. Like how you got to see me.”

There was silence at that. It stretched. Perhaps he had pulled the string too far after all. He had thought though, that given an excuse, maybe Tracey really wo-

“I'll do it.”

Harry's head turned. He repressed a sigh. It really wasn't that Greengrass were ugly or anything, she wasn't. She was pretty even if her features were too long, too sharp to really ever be beautiful. And she just... well, she wasn't Tracey, were she?

Still, it wasn't an offer he was going to turn down. Parkinson and Tracey both looked quite surprised, and they both looked at Greengrass before turning to him, oddly apprehensive.

Harry nodded. “Alright then.”

Greengrass let out an annoyed tsk. “Thanks ever so, Potter. You certainly know how to charm a lady.” But she was standing up, fiddling with her robes. “Just the top. I'm not showing that to a boy like this, even Potter.” She looked up at him, glaring. “And I swear if you ever call me Astoria after this, I'll hex your willy off even if we're in the Great Hall when you say it.”

Harry nodded. “Fair.” He admitted. Slowly, Greengrass continued working with her robes until she stood, in half her glory, before him.

He stared, his throat went very dry. Even Davis in all her fire seemed to be muted and half-hazy in the background. Maybe he hadn't given Daphne half the credit she deserved, after all. Uncovered, her face seemed a better fit for her body, a slender neck and bare shoulders tickled by the tips of her hair. Her breasts, not particularly large but ripe on her small frame, the space above and between them suddenly urging him for a kiss overtook him stronger than any charm or hex.

Merlin.

“You can say something, you know.” Daphne said, nervousness clear in her tone and a scowl more mask than anything else beginning to creep onto her face. She started to reach back for her robes.

“No, don't do that.” Harry said, still staring. “Sorry – just, uh, wow.”

Parkinson snickered.

“You're perfect,” Harry blurted, and Parkinson's spiteful show came to an abrupt halt. “I just – well I have no idea what to say.”

“Can I touch them?” He said a second later before he had time to think it through. Daphne paused.

“Alright,” she said after a moment, sounding detached once more, but in an airy, out of body way than she usually did. She stood up and then sat herself facing him, in his lap. Scooting against him, feeling his cock up against her bum brought more thoughts to mind, though for now he remained firmly focused on her breast. Unsure what to do, he gave one a gentle squeeze. A thumb traveled experimentally over a nipple, then around the edge of the areola, dusky compared to the fairness of the rest of her.

“Right, well Potter, if you can keep up your end of the bargain as you molest Daphne, if you please?” No comments about unwitting savages this time around.

“Yeah, ok,” Harry said, voice sounding a little distant. He moved a bit, pulling Daphne a little closer into him. Boldly, he reached into the opening in her robes and traced a finger down her spine. When his hand reached the small of her back, he pulled her a little closer still. She pushed against him pleasantly.

“Doing alright there, Daphne?” he asked, saying her name aloud for the first time.

She nodded, eyes full of understanding.

His hands settled on her hips as she leaned forward, breasts pressing against his open chest.

Well, if he had to recount the graveyard, there were certainly worse ways of doing it.

“So, the trophy was a portkey...”