Sun and Moon (Pt.1)

[cywscross]

Fandom: Harry Potter

Summary: When Harry Potter is due to start Hogwarts, everyone expects the Boy-Who-Lived. No one is prepared for who they actually get.

 

“RAVENCLAW!”  The Sorting Hat shouts, and the whispers begin, sweeping through the Great Hall like a wave.

It’s definitely not as bad, Harry reflects with jaded amusement as he makes his way to the Ravenclaw table amidst tumultuous applause, as it would’ve been if he was placed in Slytherin.  But people already expect the Golden Boy, and the Golden Boy shouldn’t go anywhere except Gryffindor.

Harry is looking forward to correcting their assumptions.

Eventually.

~0~0~0~

School is nowhere near as interesting or taxing as the first time around.  Harry quickly establishes himself as something of a prodigy within the first two weeks of class without even trying, inevitably gets points deducted by Snape for being a showoff, and ultimately spends the majority of his time with his nose in one of the many books he brought with him from the Potter library.

It helps pass the time.  He isn’t here to make friends or even make nice.  It wasn’t even his – or his wife’s – choice to return to their child selves shortly before Harry turned eleven, but they’re here now so they may as well make the most of it.  Another ten-year war is not something Harry wants to go through again, but at the same time, there’s no need to rush when they’re this far back and Voldemort is still a parasite attached to the back of Quirrell’s head.  It’s better to play innocent student for now under the calculating eye of the Headmaster, at least until summer arrives and Harry moves out of the Dursleys’ house for good.

The thought makes him smirk.  Dumbledore’s face when the old man discovers Harry’s emancipated status is a sight that Harry would pay money to witness.

“Mr. Potter,” Flitwick squeaks, interrupting Harry’s absent daydreaming.  “Perhaps another demonstration of the Wand-Lighting Charm?”

Oh Merlin.  Harry suppresses a sigh and lifts his wand instead.  He managed Lumos when Flitwick started them on it but there are still a lot of kids who don’t have it down yet.  Harry is the only one who can do it with a hundred percent success rate, which is why he’s often his Head of House’s guinea pig when the diminutive wizard wants one of his students to give a solid demonstration.

“Lumos,” He intones, and the tip of his wand obediently lights up once again.  He can almost swear his wand is sighing for him out of sheer mind-numbing boredom.  Just to make things slightly less coma-inducing for himself, he flicks his wand once, resulting in the light detaching itself from his wand and hovering in the air like a firefly.  Three more flicks and three more glowing blue-white orbs join the first, pulsing in front of him like physical heartbeats.  Harry even goes so far as to send the lights whizzing once around the room before settling them back in front of him.

“Oh well done!”  Flitwick looks thrilled and proud all at once.  It probably doesn’t hurt that Harry’s in his House.  “Very well done, Mr. Potter!  Thirty points for achieving a much higher level of the charm!  It takes quite a bit of concentration and practice to maintain several Lumos at once, and even more skill to maintain them at a distance!”

The professor beams once more at Harry before turning back to the rest of the class and breaking down Harry’s wand movements for the students’ benefit.  Harry just flicks his wand again with a silent Nox, extinguishing all four lights at once before he bows his head and returns to the Charms essay he’s been working on.  It was only assigned at the beginning of today’s class, and it isn’t due for another two weeks but Harry figures he may as well finish it now to give himself more free time for his own studies later.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ron sneering childishly at him, and Hermione with her lips pressed into a thin line.

Harry ignores them.  The former – in both timelines – has never been able to see Harry without the money and fame of the Boy-Who-Lived and Lord Potter, and once Harry made it quite clear that they were not friends – despite Ron barging into Harry’s compartment on the train, and then attempting to ingratiate himself to Harry during the first week of school by following him around at every opportunity, striking up one-sided conversations about Quidditch and slimy Slytherins and how crazy it was that Harry didn’t become a Gryffindor, right up until Harry turned cold eyes on him and got rid of his unwanted hanger-on with a few barbed truths about the boy’s dismal work ethic and unrelenting prejudice – the redhead has been hurling insults about everything from Harry’s personality to his dead parents at him, growing increasingly frustrated when Harry isn’t at all affected by anything Ron throws at him.

Hermione on the other hand has never liked it when she isn’t the very best in academics, which means she’s been scornful of him since the first day Gryffindor and Ravenclaw shared a class together.  Hermione can perform Lumos as well, but her success rate is only about seventy percent, and she certainly can’t pull off what Harry just did.

Honestly, Harry doesn’t care.  Not after they both abandoned him for ‘going Dark’ when he broke away from Dumbledore’s control – not to mention his infuriating insistence that Harry be constantly kept out of the loop, and even denying him his inheritance, using Harry’s money to fund the damn Order – and began delving into more dangerous spells and using more underhanded tactics in battle.  He escaped several compulsion charms courtesy of Dumbledore only by the skin of his teeth when Hermione thought she knew better and reported everything Harry was researching to the Headmaster when their friendship was still fraying instead of completely shattered.

And Ron was already turning his back on Harry even before Theodore Nott approached him – wary but desperate – for a way to escape his fate as a Death Eater just because his father expected him to be one, and Harry opened the Potter Manor for the Slytherin to call home.

In the end, even Harry wasn’t surprised when the lines changed from Light against Dark to Light against Dark against Harry, a three-sided war with Death Eaters on one side, the Order on another, the Ministry split between the two, and Harry and anyone who wanted refuge or was willing to fight for Harry’s ideals or both on the last.

It tore Britain – and then Europe – apart.  Harry won’t see it happen again.  And he won’t make the mistake of trusting the wrong people again either, Ron who never got over his jealousy of Harry, Hermione who believed in authority far too much to rebel the way Harry did, Dumbledore who never stopped expressing his twinkly-eyed disappointment of Harry, who never stopped trying to either bring Harry to heel or capture and/or kill him once Harry started thinking for himself instead of remaining the Headmaster’s naively compliant weapon, and a whole slew of others whom Harry walked away from once he realized that every last one expected him to die for them, turning against him the moment he refused to be their Chosen One.

Harry used to be more forgiving.  He gave Ron a second chance in fourth year after all, even though that betrayal from a so-called best friend hurt far more than Harry wanted it to.  But that was a war and a lifetime ago, and he has very little fucks left to give, especially for people who will use him or betray him whenever it suits them.

When class ends, Harry packs up and heads for the door.  It’s a day like any other, but at least his essay is finished, and he has a letter to look forward to.

~0~0~0~

Luna love,

How has your week been?  It has to have been better than mine, if only because you aren’t surrounded by children and an old goat who has already invited me to his office twice to ask about my lack of a social life.  He had the gall to ‘suggest’ Weasley as an ‘excellent friend’; I almost hexed him just for that bollocks.  Besides, Weasley won’t want anything to do with me now that his jealousy issues have overtaken all common sense, and Granger has been shooting me dirty looks every time a professor so much as nods their approval in my direction.  That’s probably partially my fault.  I confess, I might be answering questions and performing spells beyond what is strictly necessary, and of course, I can always downplay my skills, but the petty part of me is always vindictively satisfied.

Enough about them though.  I miss you.  I really should sneak out over the weekend and meet up with you.  Perhaps a date in Diagon Alley?  Or good old muggle London?  I find it an utter travesty that I have never taken my own wife on a date before I put a ring on her finger because we were too busy fighting a war.

I wish you were here with me already.  Hogwarts is dull, even with Voldemort so close at hand.  I preoccupy myself with new spell creations and runic compositions, as well as familiarizing myself with all the responsibilities my parents never got around to sorting out.

How is the case for Sirius coming along?  Even Bones will need more than a rat animagus sent to her if she wants to bulldoze both the Minister and the Wizengamot into allowing a trial for Sirius, although it will certainly be a pleasure to perhaps bounce Wormtail around a bit when it comes time to capture him.

I’ve been considering approaching some of the Slytherins, the ones who sided with me in the war.  If all goes to plan, there won’t even be a war, but since when have we ever been that lucky?  Contingencies are always good to have, and if I extend my hand now, perhaps some of Voldemort’s former and prospective Death Eaters will at least refrain from returning to him this time around.  Thoughts?

Yours,

Harry