[Living for Tomorrow] Chapter 9 - Valentine's Day

“For the last time, Luna, there are no records of any moon frogs!”

“Daddy said they’re real,” the younger girl said stubbornly.

“There is no life on the moon! There is no air! There is nothing there!"

“I trust Dad more than I trust you.”

“You don’t have to trust me! Just ask any Magizoologist, and they will tell you the same!”

“Just because most people don’t believe they exist, that doesn’t mean they are right. A few centuries ago, Muggles used to think that the Earth sat on the back of four elephants, and those who said otherwise were burnt at the stake for heresy,” Luna retorted. 

It was very unusual to see the cute and soft-spoken girl be so vehement about something. 

“Just let it rest, Lizzie,” Simon said, shaking his head. 

“How can I do that? The next thing she’ll tell me is that Santa is real or that Skin-Walkers exist!”

“I don’t know, Skin-Walkers may be real. There were multiple sightings of things that-” Elora began, pushing her round glasses up her nose. 

But when Elspeth looked at her with an expression of utmost betrayal on her face, the normally quiet girl burst into uncontrollable giggles. “If only you could see your face! Hahaha!”

At that very moment, Harry raised his wand, and one of the unused knives on the table turned into a round mirror that started levitating in front of Lizzie’s face. 

This time, it was not only Elora but also Florent, Simon, and even Luna; they all burst into laughter. 

“I’ll remember this, Harry,” Elspeth said darkly. 

“How are you so good at casting nonverbally?” Simon asked when his laughter subsided. “I’m just starting to get the hang of casting regular charms nonverbally. I reckon we’d only get to cast nonverbal transfiguration in the seventh year. What’s your secret?”

Simon was a sixth-year student and a Prefect at that; he was one of the better students in his year, yet he was still making baby steps in nonverbal casting. 

“Rrrots of prrractice,” Harry said before taking a bite out of a doughnut filled with apple jam.

His broken pronunciation made his friends snicker at him. 

“Still talking like that? Are you sure it’s not a curse? Just go to Madam Pomfrey already!” Simon said worriedly. 

Harry just gave him a thumbs-up. “Arrr good, rrrelax.”

His speech impediment was caused by a Mandrake leaf stuck to the roof of his mouth. Thanks to Sirius’ advice, Harry had cast a Sticking Charm on the Mandrake leaf so that it would never leave its place, regardless of whether he was talking, sleeping, or eating. 

Holding a Mandrake leaf in his mouth for one month was part of the process he had to go through in order to become an Animagus. If he took it out at any point, even for something as quick as brushing his teeth, the ritual would fail. He would have to wait for the next full moon and start from the beginning. 

He had only been holding that leaf in his mouth for a few days, so he was not used to talking with it just yet, but he was getting better. Considering that he wasn’t a chatty person outside of his interactions with Matthew or his small circle of friends, most people didn’t notice a thing. 

Soon, the time allocated to breakfast came to an end. Letting out a long, suffering sigh, Harry stood up from the table, grabbed his backpack, and started dragging his feet together with Florent, Elspeth, and Elora towards the Care for Magical Creatures class. 

⁂

“The bell’s about to ring. We’re going to leave you behind if you don’t hurry up,” Elspeth said. 

“I wish I could drop this useless class,” Harry muttered as he hurried to catch up to the rest. “I can’t wait for the sixth year.”

“Why do you ‘ate this class?” asked Florent. 

Since the start of the second semester, the French boy had been avoiding talking to Harry while they were alone in their shared bedroom, but he had no problems engaging in conversation when others were around.

“I don’t hate it. . . I just think it’s a complete waste of time. It’s even worse than DADA; at least I can nap there,” Harry said, kicking away a rock on the beaten path leading to the Creatures Class. 

“I don’t think it’s useless. What if you want to get a Puffskein pet in the future? Or if your garden is being destroyed by a knarl, you would know ‘ow to get rid of it,” Fleur tried to reason with him. 

Harry made an annoyed face. 

“That’s exactly the problem! Who gives a shit?”

“Excuse you, I care! And Florent cares too!” Elspeth retorted.

Fleur nodded. “Oui, I find it very useful for daily life.”

“Oh, come on! This class should be about teaching us how to defend against dangerous creatures, not learning about the mooncalves’ diet or how to groom a kneazle, for God's sake!”

“I agree with Harry,” Elora unexpectedly took his side. 

“You’re antagonizing me on purpose again. You’re still angry at me for eating your pudding, aren’t you?” Elspeth said in an accusatory voice. 

“No, I just think that there should be a mixture of both harmless creatures and dangerous ones. Professor Grubby-Plank isn’t bad, but Kettleburn was much better.”

“Are you mad? Kettleburn made us pet a Chimaera in our second year!” Elspeth said, outraged. 

“No, Kettleburn was brilliant! Name one interesting creature that Grubby-Plank showed us in the last two years,” Harry said. 

“We saw a Unicorn last year! And we also got to interact with Centaurs last semester.”

Harry faked an exaggerated yawn. “Boooring.”

They continued to bicker like that until they finally arrived at the stables where the class of Care of Magical Creatures was being held. 

Expecting the old female professor and a bunch of kneazles to be waiting for them, Harry and his friends were greatly surprised to see a different person standing in front of the group of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs gathered there. 

“Whoa!” Elora and Elspeth both let out a quiet gasp. 

It was a mountain of a man. He had to be the tallest and burliest man any of them had ever seen. He had well-kempt shoulder-length brown hair, and he was wearing grey wool trousers, black leather boots, and a long, brown, leather coat with a beige button-up shirt underneath. 

Despite his gigantic physique, he looked rather distinguished. Of course, his impressive beard also played an important role in making people get that impression. He had a very long beard styled into a neat, thick braid that reached his belly button.

Two minutes later, after their group arrived, the few remaining students also joined the class, and the man started speaking. 

“Good afternoon! My name is Rubeus Hagrid, and I’m a Magizoologist. Professor Grubby-Plank has some personal matters to attend to, so today, I will be holding her class.” 

“Is she alright?” a brown-haired girl from Hufflepuff asked. 

“Don’t worry, nothing bad happened to your dear professor,” Mr Hagrid said. His kind, friendly smile put everyone’s worries to rest. “Now, come along, everyone.”

“Professor, where are we going?” 

“To the Forbidden Forest. According to Professor Grubby-Plank’s notes, you have yet to cover Thestrals in class, and they are mandatory for OWLs,” Mr Hagrid replied. 

“. . . Will we be alright?” Elspeth asked in a quivering voice. “Last time we went to the Forbidden Forest, three years ago, we were nearly eaten by the Acromantula colony.”

A chorus of murmurs broke out from the rest of the students at her words. None of them had forgotten the many traumatic things that they experienced when Professor Kettleburn was still teaching. 

Mr Hagrid let out a loud, merry chuckle. 

“With me around, there is not a single creature in the forest that can harm you,” he said as he took out his long wand and patted his chest twice with his other hand. The sound made by his meaty hand hitting his wide chest was like that coming from a war drum. 

“Merlin, that’s not a wand, that’s a stick for beating cattle,” Harry heard one of the Hufflepuffs nearby whispering to his friends. 

“Forget about his wand, look at him. What did they feed him?” 

“He’s got to be a Half-Giant or something,” the other Hufflepuff replied. “There’s no way regular people can get that big.”

As they walked together with the group towards the Forbidden Forest, all the students started talking amongst each other. Having heard their whispers, Fleur nodded her head. 

“They may be right. The ‘Eadmaster of Beauxbatons is also about as tall as Mr ‘Agrid and she’s rumoured to be ‘Alf-Giant too,” she said in a quiet voice. 

“I know for a fact that he’s a Half-Giant. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of him; Mr Hagrid is a famous Magizoologist, and he's never been ashamed of his heritage,” Harry answered. 

“You know of him?” Elspeth said in shock. 

“What’s with that tone?” Harry shot back offended. “Of course I know him! He wrote the best book on Dragons that you can find on the market. It goes into detail about all 10 extant species of Dragons! Even Newt Scammander spoke highly of it!”

Elora, Elspeth, and Fleur stared at Harry as if he had grown two heads.

“Why are you acting so surprised? Isn’t it common sense to learn all there is to know about creatures that are dangerous and strong enough to kill you?”

“Oh. . . it makes sense now,” Elora said, nodding sagely. 

“I see, I see. True,” Elspeth also nodded. Finally, the two redheads agreed about something that day. 

Fleur started giggling, but when Harry glared at her, she cleared her throat and coughed. 

“Sorry, your English sounds so funny,” she said as an excuse. 

In all fairness, Harry’s inability to pronounce ‘R’ and ‘L’ at the moment sounded quite funny but they all knew that wasn’t what Florent was laughing at.

“If it’s not strong enough to kill him, he don’t want it,” Elspeth said in a broken English on purpose. 

As her long-time best friend, Elora quickly followed up:

“If it don’t blow him up, he don’t care.”

“Oh, just shut it,” Harry said in annoyance. 

“If it don’t got poison breath, he don’t need it.”

“If it don’t burn him to a crisp-”

Harry walked ahead, leaving his little group of friends behind, much to their amusement.

⁂

The class taught by Mr Hagrid was the most interesting Creature Class for Harry that year.

Although things became uncomfortable for him when it turned out that he was the only student among all the 5th-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs who could see the Thestrals, and they all broke into murmurs, he did not let it get to him. He tuned out their whispers and focused on the Thestral he was assigned to, brushing its long neck gently. 

Unknowingly, his behaviour did nothing but make the others look at him even weirder. After all, to most wizards and witches, Thestrals were a symbol of death and a bad omen. Moreover, people tended to be afraid of things that they could not see or understand. Yet there was Harry, brushing the neck of an invisible horse and feeding it raw, bloodied meat which disappeared into the invisible creature's jaws.

⁂

It was evening, almost two hours after the curfew, but Fleur was still not sleeping. She was sitting at the sole desk in the bedroom she shared with Harry and writing a letter to her family. 

Although only two weeks had passed since the start of the second term, she felt the need to talk to someone honestly about her true feelings, her joys, her worries, and her frustrations. Unfortunately, although she had become rather close to Elspeth, Elora, Simon, and Luna, she couldn’t be herself in front of them. Her duplicity made it impossible for her to open her heart to others. 

‘I wonder, would they still want to be my friends if they found out that I’ve been lying to them this entire time? That I’m a girl, not a boy?’

‘Was it truly a good idea for me to take this path?’

She shook her head. Even if she did not want to do it anymore, she couldn’t simply stop. Not after all the trouble she had caused her family. They had to pull strings and cash in some big favours for them to convince Dumbledore to allow her to attend Hogwarts while disguising herself as a boy. 

‘Telling them now that I don’t want to do it any more would be like spitting on all their efforts.’

‘. . . I can’t do that. Besides, the alternative would be to get homeschooled. I wouldn’t be able to go back to Beauxbatons. And if I were to attend a different school as a girl, it would just be a repeat of what happened back in France.'

She had been a fourth-year student at Beauxbatons when her Veela Charm awakened. Unable to properly rein in her allure in the beginning, Fleur had unintentionally charmed many boys, among whom there also happened to be a seventh-year boy from an old pureblood family. . .

Fleur put her quill in the ink pot and stopped writing the letter momentarily as she looked at her reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall in front of the desk. A beautiful, blue-eyed, silver-haired, androgynous boy was staring back at her. Even with some Transfiguration spells changing her facial features and with the source of her Veela Charm, her hair, being reduced to a short, boyish haircut, she was still ridiculously good-looking. 

‘I wonder, how would my life have been if I were a normal girl?’

'No Allure. No inhuman beauty. But also no stigma. Just an average, blonde girl from France. . .'

She tried her best not to continue that train of thought. Her mother had told her many times never to be ashamed or spiteful of her heritage. There were countless women in the world who would kill to be in her place.

Unfortunately, she could not control her emotions so easily. Her fragile emotional state was further exacerbated by the hormone imbalance caused by the short length of her hair. 

Fleur stopped looking at her reflection in the mirror and blinked quickly. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, doing her best to calm down. She didn’t want to cry herself to sleep again. 

At that moment, the door opened and Harry walked inside. Involuntarily, Fleur quickly wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her blue pyjama top. If she had acted normally, Harry might not have given her a second glance, but her abrupt movements attracted his attention. 

Harry looked at Florent for a few moments, seemingly debating with himself whether to pretend he had not seen anything or ask the French boy if he was alright. 

“Hey, are you okay?"

After that incident before the Christmas holiday when Harry found Florent’s strange choice of underwear, the two of them seldom talked to each other when they were alone. However, in the end, he could not easily pretend that he had not seen that the French boy was on the verge of crying when he arrived in the room. 

Fleur cleared her throat and adjusted her voice so that she sounded like her normal self. 

“Of course. Why do you ask?” she replied while picking up her quill from the inkpot and acting as though she was busy with her letter. 

Harry made a pause. Concerned as he may have been for Florent’s well-being, he did not want to be too nosy if the boy did not want to talk about it. 

“I’ll take your word for it,” Harry relented. “But, if you ever need to talk about your day, I can lend you my ear.”

Seeing Florent remaining quiet, Harry scratched his cheek awkwardly. 

“Thank you," Fleur said in a quiet voice after a few seconds. 

“No worries.”

And with that, their conversation came to an end.

Fleur had expected the noise coming from Harry moving about to stop after five minutes, thinking that he would get in bed and go to sleep. It was almost midnight. 

Instead, she heard the sound of him changing into jeans. Out of her own volition, her face flushed. It took her entire willpower to keep her head down and not sneak a peek into the mirror at Harry. Normally, such cases where he would change his clothes in her presence were rare because Fleur always woke up before him; she was a girl, so she needed more time to get ready; as for evenings, Harry was never in the dorms at a normal hour. Usually, by the time he returned, she would be in bed, with her curtains pulled. 

“Um, ‘Arry?” she called out his name and turned around tentatively when it sounded like he finished changing. 

“Yes?”

“Sorry to pry. . . But I ‘ave been curious for a long time. Where are you going every night after curfew?”

Realising how intrusive her question was, she said quickly: “You don’t ‘ave to answer if you don’t want to! I was wondering if Professor Flitwick came for an inspection and asked where you are, I’d like to know what to tell ‘im.”

It sounded lame to her ears too, and Fleur couldn’t meet his eyes, looking at her feet in embarrassment. 

“It’s alright,” Harry said mildly. “It’s not like it’s some big secret. I’m practising magic.”

“Every night?!”

Harry nodded. “Yes. I can’t afford to laze around.”

“Is this not taking it too far?” 

Fleur was a very hard-working student herself, but if Harry truly was studying as much as he claimed he did, her efforts couldn’t compare to his. 

“Your spellcasting is already formidable!” she continued. “Even Simon isn’t as good as you, and ‘e is one year older and a Prefect too. I’m sure you would ace the practical part of the OWLs effortlessly!”

“This isn’t for OWLs,” Harry replied. “Surely you’ve noticed by now that I don’t particularly care about my grades.”

It was as he said. Fleur often saw him sleeping in any of the classes where he could get away with it, and he never participated in class to try to earn some points for Ravenclaw unless the professor called him out specifically. 

Just as she was about to ask a question, Harry said,

“It’s for my brother. Matt. . . he’s the Boy Who Lived. Many people treat him as a hero, but just as many would like nothing more than to see him die. If I don’t protect him, who will?”

For a few seconds, Fleur didn’t know what to say. It was the first time Harry was so forthcoming with information about himself. 

“People love to babble about how Hogwarts is the safest place in the country. But Matt was almost killed by our DADA professor last year. And it all happened right under Dumbledore’s nose. If I hadn't been there for him, he would’ve died.”

Fleur felt a node appearing in her neck. The mood was far too serious to consider that Harry might be pulling her leg. She was having a hard time believing that someone like Albus Dumbledore and the rest of the professors would allow a student to be in mortal peril, but Harry did not appear to be lying. 

“I-, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, I didn’t know that-”

Harry waved off her apology. 

“It’s fine. You have nothing to apologise for,” he said as he grabbed his backpack from the floor. He also patted his forearm to check one last time that the secret holster holding his illegal wand was there. “It’s not like I’m going around telling everyone about my activities.” 

“So that’s why you never spend time with us!” Fleur said in realisation. 

He chuckled. “Did you think I wasn’t hanging out with you because I was too arrogant or what?”

“No, but I thought that maybe you don’t like me all that much. Other boys don’t seem too 'appy with me in general.”

Harry wasn’t surprised to hear that. Nobody dared to antagonise Florent openly after witnessing Professor Flitwick’s rage the previous semester when he found out that Luna Lovegood was being bullied; but ever since the rumour that Florent was gay spread out, quite a few boys started making fun of him when they thought the French boy was not around to hear them. 

“They’re probably envious you have half the girls at Hogwarts thirsting over you.”

“W-What?? Thirsting?!”

Florent’s stammer made Harry snicker. 

“Oh, come on, don’t pretend you're not aware of it. Most girls get weak in the knees when they hear your accent. I heard some of them talking about it. If you also smile at them, then it’s all over. If I were you, I’d be extremely careful on Valentine’s Day this year.”

Her face reddening by the second, Fleur was staring at Harry, speechless. 

“Anyway, I have to go,” he said as he went to his trunk and pulled out his Nimbus broomstick. “We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay? Good night.”

And with that, Harry cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself and one on his Nimbus, and then he went out, leaving Fleur to steam in her own embarrassment all alone. 

Flying off the rooftop of the Ravenclaw tower, Harry headed straight towards the Whomping Willow as Sirius had instructed him. 

Although he was invisible, the violent tree still sensed his arrival somehow and started flailing its long and thick branches threateningly. Thankfully, one simple Freezing Charm took care of the sentient tree, immobilising it just long enough for him to enter through the secret passage leading out of Hogwarts’ grounds. 

⁂

When he came out of the tunnel and arrived inside the famed haunted house, Sirius was there, pacing around with his hands behind his back as he waited for him.

“Harry! What happened? Are you alright?”

The moment Sirius saw Harry, he rushed at him and fired one question after another.

“I’m fine, what’s the matter?” Harry answered, confused at his godfather’s behaviour. 

“You little shit. . . You sent me a letter saying you need to talk as soon as possible and that you can’t say more through a letter. I thought something happened to you!”

Harry was lucky he was wearing a beanie, or else Sirius would have given him a rough noogie at that moment. Instead, he settled for only pulling his beanie over his eyes and shaking his head a little. 

“Oh, sorry. I must’ve worried you. Nothing bad happened. I promise. I just need a favour. It’s something, well, not legal,” he said with some hesitation in his voice. “I need a time-turner. I tried to get one from the black market-”

“Are you being serious right now?”

“No, you’re Sirius,” Harry fired back the annoying pun that Sirius himself often made. 

“Leave the jokes for another time, Harry,” Sirius said in a grave voice. “What are you doing getting involved with the black market at your age? Are you out of your mind? And what do you need a time-turner for?”

“I know what I’m doing. This isn’t my first time going to Knockturn Alley, you know?” Harry said, crossing his arms to his chest. “Look, you promised me that you’d always be on my side. You said you’d help me if I ever needed something. I always try to solve my own problems alone but this is beyond me. Time-turners are much harder to get a hold of than I thought. It looks like only the Unspeakables have access to them. Even if I had the money to bribe one, I wouldn’t know where to find them. Their identities are secret.”

“If Lily heard I let you get involved with the Knockturn Alley denizens, she’d rip me a new one,” Sirius said. “You didn’t tell me what you need a Time-Turner for. If it’s something as unrealistic as going back in time to the day your parents died so that you could save them, forget about it. It’s impossible. Time travel doesn’t work like that.” (1)

“I know how time travel works, Sirius. I studied all there is to know about it. Events that have already happened cannot be changed. But I don’t need a Time-Turner to change anything. All I need is time.”

Feeling as though his godfather wasn’t convinced, Harry continued:

“I’m not strong enough. I’m not improving fast enough.”

“Harry, you started casting nonverbal magic in the summer before your 5th year. James, Lily, and I were considered prodigies back in the day and neither of us could do that at your age. You are exceptional already-”

“It’s not enough!” Harry involuntarily raised his voice. “I duelled Flitwick last semester. He treated me like I was a firstie. He didn’t take me seriously and still mopped the floor with me!”

“Bloody hell, do you hear yourself? Flitwick is one of the best duellists in the world! I reckon there are less than 10 people alive that could defeat him in a fair fight. Of course he’d mop the floor with you, what the hell did you expect?” Sirius cussed, exasperated. 

“If I can’t beat someone like Flitwick, how could I possibly beat Voldemort? I’m up against one of the most powerful wizards of all time, someone who lived over half a century longer than I did. How do you expect me to close this gap?” 

Realising that he was shouting now, Harry went to the rotten, putrid couch in the Shrieking Shack’s living room and sat down with a thud. Sirius came and sat next to him too, the old couch groaning under their combined weight. He put a hand on Harry’s shoulder and said in a kind voice:

“Nobody is expecting or demanding you to face Voldemort alone, Harry. You are still but a child. Keeping an eye on your brother is more than enough. Leave the dangerous stuff to us, to the adults. Me, your grandparents, and even Dumbledore. It’s our job to protect you.”

“These are just empty words and promises,” Harry muttered, frustrated. “When the chips were down last year, the adults weren’t there to protect Matt. Not you. Not gran and grandpa. Not Dumbledore or any other professors. It was me. I was the one who cast the Killing Curse at Quirrel. It was on me to save him.”

Sirius didn’t know what to reply to that. 

Harry stood up from the couch and grabbed his broomstick. 

“I didn’t expect much to begin with,” he said in disappointment. “But it’s okay. I’ll figure it out on my own.”

“I’m sorry, Harry, but I can’t, in good conscience, help you get a Time Turner. I could help you train. I could teach you all the combat spells that I know. Anything else you want, just say it. But meddling with time is too dangerous. Leaving aside the fact that we’d both end up in Azkaban if the Ministry were to get wind of our illegal actions, you could even end up killing yourself in the process! Please listen to me. I want nothing but the best for you.” 

⁂

 

In the end, Harry couldn’t convince Sirius to help him acquire a Time-Turner. His godfather was adamant about not letting him meddle with time. However, Sirius did keep his promise when it came to other matters. Ever since their conversation at the Shrieking Shack, they would meet up two times every week, in the weekend, and train. 

In addition, Sirius also guided and helped Harry with Animagus rituals. Holding a Mandrake leaf in his mouth for one month (from full moon to full moon) was only the first step. 

At the next full moon, he had to spit the saliva-filled Mandrake leaf into a small crystal phial that had received the moon’s pure rays. 

After that, he had to add one of his hairs, a silver teaspoon of dew taken from a place that had not seen sunlight or been touched by human feet for a full seven days, and the chrysalis of a Death’s-head Hawk Moth. 

At last, the resulting mixture had to be put in a quiet, dark place and it had to remain untouched and undisturbed for a long time. 

Thankfully, with Sirius’ guidance and Lady Luck’s favour on his side, Harry was able to do this troublesome process in one go. People who weren’t as lucky as him would end up having to repeat holding a Mandrake leaf in their mouths for half a year or longer because if the sky was cloudy during the second full moon, everything was wasted and they had to start again from the beginning. Fortunately for Harry, the sky was clear, with no clouds in sight, when it was time for him to spit out the leaf. 

Nevertheless, the ordeal was still not fully over. Now, Harry had to wait for a lightning storm; in the meantime, he had to chant the Animagus Transfiguration Spell every day at sunrise and sunset. If he omitted doing it even once, everything would be lost. He would have to start from zero. 

Alas, this time around, Harry wasn’t as lucky. It was already the middle of February but no lightning storms had come. 

⁂

 

On the 14th of February, right as he was about to enter the Great Hall for breakfast, Matthew Potter was suddenly yanked back as though an invisible hand had grabbed him from the scruff of his neck. 

He yelped, startled, but, unknowingly, whoever started pulling him over had also cast a Silencing Charm on him preemptively. Just as Matt started panicking badly, his body came to a stop and he found himself in front of his older brother, Harry. 

“Are you mad?! No, don’t answer, you’re definitely batshit crazy!” Matt shouted at him, red-faced from the scare he had been given. 

Harry snickered at his angry face. 

“Yeah, laugh it out. It’s sooo damn funny! Knee-slapping funny!”

“Aww, poor widdle Matthew got scared,” Harry cooed at him. 

As much as he cared about Matt, every once in a while, Harry felt the need to mess with him for a bit. After all, what sort of older brother never bullied his younger siblings? It was the law.

Still sniggering, Harry opened his bag and took out a thermos before handing it to Matt. 

“What’s this?” 

“It’s a thermos filled with Love Potion Antidote.”

Matthew sighed. 

“Really now?”

“Take it,” Harry said seriously. “I don’t even want to hear your arguments.”

Knowing that there was no winning against his older brother when he was talking seriously like that, Matthew relented and took the Thermos from his hand. 

“I sneaked out of the castle a few days ago to buy this thermos from Hogsmeade,” Harry said. “It has a Space-Expansion Charm cast on it and Weight-Reducing Charm too. You have around 5 litres of Love Potion Antidote in there. I brewed it myself last night.”

Realising the lengths to which Harry went for his sake, Matt couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed at his paranoid older brother anymore. 

“You should take a small gulp every hour or so. It should be enough to last you an entire week. And if anybody asks what’s in there, just tell them that it’s water. The antidote is tasteless and colourless so nobody will notice a thing unless they taste it themselves. But even with this, I suggest you still cast Detection Charms on your food and drinks for the next three or four days. With how famous you are, the older you get, the more attention you’ll get from girls. So you have to be very careful.”

A few minutes later, Harry finally stopped nagging him and the two brothers went to the Great Hall together. However, when he stepped through the tall and wide wooden doors, Harry stopped in his tracks at the explosion of bright colours that his eyes were hit with. 

“What the fuck.”

“What the fuck?!"

Harry and Matthew swore at the same time. 

The beautiful and majestic Great Hall looked unrecognizable. The tall and wide walls were covered with obnoxiously bright pink flowers and heart-shaped confetti was falling from the charmed ceiling. If that wasn’t bad enough, an army of Dwarves wearing Cupid outfits with white angel wings and golden harps were swarming all over the hall as they delivered various gifts or even recited poems and sang serenades.

Matt cried out in a scared voice when no less than eight Dwarves zeroed in on him.

“Harry, help!” 

Alas, at that moment, his reliable and overprotective older brother that he always depended on backstabbed him. Just like in the story of the man who tripped his friend to get eaten by the bear, Harry pushed his younger brother towards the Dwarves from behind and broke into a sprint towards the Ravenclaw table.

It was a betrayal that Matthew would never forget. 

 

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN:

(1) For those of you who may have forgotten, Harry Potter's canon time-travel follows the fixed timeline theory where anything that has already happened cannot be changed.

This is what the Ravenclaw bedrooms look like in Hogwarts Legacy: