[Living For Tomorrow] Chapter 7 - Winter Holiday

The wide, circular room with its unusual magical artefacts and the large number of portraits hanging on its walls was becoming increasingly familiar to Harry considering how many times he had been called to talk with the Headmaster over the past two-three years. 

It was Sunday, a day after the Hogsmeade trip, and, as he had predicted, Dumbledore summoned him to his office. The old headmaster wasn’t alone; the Head of the Ravenclaw House was there as well. 

“Mr Potter, could you please tell us where you were yesterday, around noon?” Flitwick asked. 

Harry let out a sigh. “What did I do this time?”

“Do you mean to say that you have not heard about what happened to Marcus Flint, Graham Montague, and Lucien Bole yesterday?”

“Who?” Harry asked, playing the part of a confused person perfectly.

It wasn’t difficult for him to do that because he hadn’t known about Flint before his little brother told him about him, and he still had no idea who the other two were supposed to be. 

Dumbledore and Flitwick exchanged a furtive glance. If it were a different student, they would accuse them of playing the fool, but when it came to Harry, it was entirely possible that he had no idea who they were. While his younger brother, the Boy Who Lived, was like a social butterfly, Harry was the complete opposite. Flitwick suspected that Harry didn’t even know by name most of his fellow housemates, to speak nothing of other houses’ students. 

The Headmaster leaned with his elbows on his desk and interlocked his fingers as he peered into Harry’s eyes searchingly. 

“Those three were brutally assaulted yesterday in Hogsmeade. Skull and leg fractures for Mr Bole and Mr Montague, and severe bruising, broken shoulders, and multiple broken ribs for Mr Flint. Even with Madam Pomfrey’s expertise, it will take a few days for Mr Flint to make a full recovery.”

“Oh no! Anyway. What’s that got to do with me?”

The old wizard felt the corner of his left eye starting to twitch. Flitwick seemed to have lost his patience too, and he said directly:

“Mr Potter, how about we stop beating around the bush? Those three bullied your little brother, and you decided to enact vengeance on them instead of coming to me or Professor McGonagall to talk about it.”

Despite the professor’s outburst, Harry’s expression didn’t change one bit. 

“I didn’t go to Hogsmeade yesterday, professor. I was with Matt, helping Mr Angus with something in the forest. Then I went to the library and studied Animation Charms. So, unless you think I can be in two places at once, how does your accusation make sense?”

Flitwick didn’t know how to respond to that because he had already asked the other students about Harry’s whereabouts at that hour, and Dumbledore had asked the portraits about it too. Everything he had said checked out. 

When the two professors remained silent, Harry pressed on:

“Even if I could be in two places at once, does it sound reasonable to you that I could beat three guys all by myself?”

Never taking his eyes off his, Dumbledore asked:

“If you have nothing to hide, would you mind letting me examine your wand?”


⁂


“Headmaster, are you letting him get away with it that easily?” Flitwick asked. “We both know he’s the culprit. He has a history of retaliating violently against anyone who bullies his brother. Then there is the incident at the beginning of the year too.”

“Oh, I have no doubt it was him,” said Dumbledore. “But what can I do? We have no proof. As far as I know, there is no way to fool Prior Incantatem. And he has more than one alibi. Irma confirmed that he was in the library, and you said that some Ravenclaws saw him in the common room around the time the three boys were attacked in Hogsmeade. He had covered his tracks perfectly this time.”

The old wizard brought his interlocked fingers in front of his chin, taking on a thinking posture. 

“And it’s not just that. His calm throughout the entire time we questioned him was. . . unusual.”

“I noticed that too,” Flitwick said. “Is he a sociopath? Even if he were to be innocent, any other boy his age would have raised his voice or become agitated at suddenly being accused of doing something as heinous as that. He didn’t show any reaction.”

“Calling him a sociopath is taking it too far. I think it’s more of a case where he had already expected us to call him and prepared himself for how to act and what to say.” 

“. . . What are we to do with him, Headmaster?” Flitwick said in a worried voice. 

“For now, all we can do is watch and wait,” Dumbledore muttered, seemingly lost in thought. “If there is any consolation, that is that his actions were always in response to someone harming his brother.”

“That’s hardly a consolation! He can’t just lash out at people every time they slight his brother. He would never be able to function in society like that!”

Dumbledore sighed. 

“Those three bullies did not just slight his brother, Filius. They physically assaulted him. Three young men had put a beating on a 12-year-old boy, for no reason. If that is a mere slight in your eyes, I am curious to find out what you consider severe. Your stance on this matter needs some adjusting because I also happened to hear some stories about what is going on within your own House, to one of your first-year students. Being called names, her textbooks and shoes vanishing mysteriously. . . need I continue?”

It was exceedingly rare for the Headmaster to voice out his displeasure at him so directly, and Flitwick became silent. 

After a few seconds, Dumbledore spoke again.

“I am not saying that what Mr Potter did was right, but things are not always black or white. He was 4 years old when Voldemort broke into his home and murdered his mother in front of his eyes before trying to kill his younger brother too. I know from his grandparents that Harry still remembers what happened that day because they had sought my counsel before.”

The tiny professor paled at hearing those words. 

“He. . . he remembers that?”

Dumbledore nodded gravely. 

“I can only imagine what an impact such a traumatic experience could have on the frail mind of a young child. . . I believe that what Harry needs at this moment is not punishment but guidance. We cannot punish him anyway; we have no proof he is the culprit. Therefore, instead of antagonising him, the best course of action would be to guide him and try to make him understand that we are here for him. That he can rely on us to help him. That he does not need to do everything alone.”


⁂


The rumours of what Harry had done to Marcus Flint and his two friends spread like wildfire. By Sunday night, there was not a soul in the castle who hadn’t heard about it. Some of the younger students found it hard to believe, but the older years knew better than to dismiss them. 

Even Felix Brunt, Harry’s self-proclaimed rival, did not dare cross his path the entire day and tried to sit as far from him as possible during the meals in the Great Hall. 

But the one who was affected the most by what had transpired was Fleur because the family of four that Harry had seen approaching while he was beating the shit out of Flint were none other than the Delacours. 

Fleur and her family had seen Marcus Flint’s curled-up body being shaken from the powerful hits he took, and they also heard the sounds of footsteps as the invisible assailant ran away. 
 
‘It’s not just a rumour. It was definitely him,’ Fleur thought.

She still remembered the night after she had blown up at the DADA Professor, and Harry had taken her to the kitchens. The two of them both used a Disillusionment Charm to sneak through the corridors and Harry’s spell had left a lasting impression on her because it had turned him completely invisible. 

As night came and it was time for everyone to go to bed, Fleur lingered in the Common Room longer than the rest. Even Elora and Elspeth retired for the night, leaving Fleur fidgeting in front of the fireplace all by herself. 

It was then that Fleur realised that there was only one other person in the common room. It was a young girl, most likely a first-year, with long, unkempt blonde hair and grey eyes. Barefoot, wearing radish earrings, and holding a big mooncalf plushie in her arms, the young girl made for a rather unusual sight. 

“‘Ey, are you alright?” Fleur asked when she noticed the strangeness of it all. 

It was too late for a girl as young as her to be sitting in the common room at that hour. Furthermore, why was she barefoot? It was November! 

“No, I’m not alright,” the girl said. Her voice sounded as though she was on the verge of crying. 

Forgetting that she was supposed to be a boy, Fleur came to sit on the sofa next to the little girl and put a hand on her shoulder. 

“What’s wrong? What ‘appened?”

“I’m cold. And I’m tired. But I can’t find my shoes. . . and the door to my bedroom won’t open.”

“What do you mean it won’t open?”

“I tried to open it with Alohomora, but it didn’t work. Marry and Anne are locked inside, and they can’t come out either.”

Fleur frowned. 

“I don’t believe it! Come, let’s go to Professor Flitwick! You can’t spend the entire night ‘ere, in the Common Room!”

She took out her wand and conjured a pair of fluffy, white bunny slippers for the little girl. 

“Let’s go to ‘is office.”

“Right now? Is it not too late?” the girl asked. 

“It is, but ‘e is the ‘ead of the ‘ouse. It’s ‘is job to fix this kind of problems.”

The little girl’s face reddened as ‘Florent’ took her hand in his and led her out of the common room. Still, the bunny slippers that the kind older boy had conjured for her were so comfortable that she forgot about her embarrassment. 

“This is the first time we talked to each other,” Fleur said as she walked with the young girl towards Flitwick’s office. “I’m Florent. What’s your name?”

The little girl smiled shyly as she looked up at ‘him’. 

“I’m Luna. Luna Lovegood."


⁂


Having been admonished by the Headmaster earlier that day and now seeing actual proof of his words—there really was bullying happening in his house—Professor Flitwick’s anger was a sight to behold. 

The entire House was woken up, and the Ravenclaws were called into the Common Room while the tiny professor screamed at them for half an hour, making ample use of the Sonorus Charm to drive his point across. 

Mary and Anne, the two first-years who had locked Luna out of the bedroom, and a group of third-year girls in whose room Flitwick found Luna’s shoes, all of them got detention with Argus Filch for nearly two months, until the end of the semester. 

Nobody had ever seen the kind and affable Charms Professor ever lose his cool like that, but it was a mixture of multiple factors that had led to this outcome. In the first place, Flitwick rarely ever intervened in disputes between students from his House. 

That being said, his outburst that night had put the fear of god in the Ravenclaws. 

When Flitwick finally ended his angry rant and sent everyone back to their rooms, Fleur also went together with Harry to the bedroom. It was only after they closed the door behind them that she was reminded of why she had hesitated to go to sleep before. 

Unlike her, Harry seemed to have no care in the world as he got into his bed and pulled the curtains. 

“Good night, Florent,” he said. 

“Good night, ‘arry.”

That night was anything but good for Fleur. Truthfully, she was scared of being alone in the same room as him after seeing what he had done to Marcus Flint and the other two boys. Even if she had not witnessed the entire thing from the beginning, she saw the aftermath clearly. The screams of the boy with a broken femur were sending chills down her spine even now, almost two days after the incident. 

‘Would he have killed them if we weren’t there?’

Fleur had never witnessed such violence before. Wizarding France was peaceful, and she and her family lived in a quaint Wizarding village in Southern France where nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. Furthermore, her former school, Beauxbatons, valued order; hardly any incidents ever took place. 

‘I heard they don’t have proof that it was him. . .Maybe he really wasn’t involved, despite what the rumours say. I’ve seen it before too; rumours are often not true,’ she tried to calm down by telling herself that. 

Alas, peace did not come to her easily. It was into the wee hours of the morning when she finally fell asleep. 


⁂


The following month and a half passed with no other incidents taking place, but Harry did notice that a sort of wall had appeared between him and the rest of his friends. They had not addressed it, and Harry was not particularly bothered by it either since, except for the times when they were having meals together, he had always been mostly by himself or spending his time with Matthew. 

The most noticeable was the change in Florent’s behaviour. The French boy used to try to include Harry in everything they did and often invited him to play or study together. But that was mostly a thing of the past. Lately, Florent seemed more preoccupied with mothering a first-year student, Luna Lovegood. 

The quirky little girl was a lively and amusing addition to their group, and the other two girls, Elora and Elspeth, took a liking to her too. 

It was not only Harry, but many other Ravenclaws also found it strange to see a 15-year-old bloke be so dexterous when it came to braiding hair, and acting like an elder sister, but they just chalked it up to Florent being gay because Elspeth was the gossiping type who couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. Before long, half the school had found out that Florent was gay and that he and Harry may have a thing for each other. 

‘Ridiculous,’ Harry thought as he packed some of his belongings into his trunk. ‘I like girls. I’m as straight as they come. And Florent . . . well, he might be gay. But so what if he is? Why is everyone so interested in other people’s love lives?’

By making use of a few spells, it took him less than 10 minutes to finish packing for the Christmas holiday. 

Now, all that was left was to have breakfast in the Great Hall. After that, he and Matt would take a Thestral carriage to Hogsmeade, to the Three Broomsticks, where their grandparents were waiting for them. 

A soft pop was heard, and Harry turned around to see one of Hogwarts’ House Elves appear with a stack of clothes in his hands. The elf put the clothes on Florent’s bed and then quickly disappeared with another pop.

Normally, it was rare to see the House Elves at Hogwarts because they did most of their chores during the night. It seemed like Florent must’ve asked them to wash his clothes on short notice. 

In his rush to vanish from the bedroom, the House Elf put the stack of clothes down rather haphazardly, and one article fell on the floor. 

Harry went to pick it up, but when he grabbed the piece of clothing off the floor, he froze like a statue. 

It was a pair of black, flimsy lace underwear with a small, cute black bow sewn on its front. 

It was most definitely not something that a guy would wear! He never even thought that girls actually wore such naughty underwear in real life! He’d never seen a pair like that anywhere other than in porn magazines, to say nothing of actually touching them. 

As luck would have it, at that moment, the bedroom door opened and Fleur walked in with three white bath towels in her hands. She was coming back from the shower. 

Fleur’s eyes fell on Harry who standing next to her bed and then on the piece of clothing that he was holding. Outside of her control, the towels fell down from her hands and she stared at Harry in disbelief, frozen, as though she had short-circuited. 

For ten infinitely long seconds, the two of them stared at each other, mouths ajar, unable to find their words, both their faces turning an atomic red. 

“I-, the elf, he dropped this on the floor. Ugh, yeah, I was just putting it back.”

He put the flimsy pair of lace underwear on top of the stack of clothes and then walked slowly towards Fleur—toward the door; Fleur just happened to be in the way. 

It was as if the Devil himself possessed him in the next moment because Harry stopped by the still-frozen-in-disbelief ‘Florent’ and patted him on the shoulder before saying:

“Don’t worry, mate. We’re all different people, with different tastes. I don’t judge.”

He was just about to pass through the door when a girly scream came from behind, and Florent stammered as he shouted after him:

“You! Wait! 'Old it right there!”

He did not know what came over him because, at the sound of Florent’s shout, his body instinctively entered ‘survival-mode’ and he broke into a run down the stairs. 

The sound of a second pair of footsteps came from behind, and Harry was terrified to see the French boy running down the stairs after him with a ferocious, almost aquiline look on his face.

“Shit!”

In his panic, he started jumping 2 and 3 steps at a time and clashed with several people on his way down, even making one of them stumble back and fall onto his butt like a duck. 

Looking over his shoulder, Florent was chasing after him like the freaking Terminator. 

They sprinted through the common room and slammed through the eagle door before continuing their run through the corridors, causing a huge ruckus as many portraits and even several ghosts started talking with great interest about what they were witnessing. 

Five minutes later, having run and climbed up and down many staircases at full speed, Harry was breathing as if his heart was going to jump out of his chest. 

‘Bloody hell, is he a robot?’

The French boy was hot on his tail, seemingly not winded out in the least. 

Eventually, the last of his stamina ran out, and Florent finally caught up from behind. Two slender hands grabbed Harry by the shoulders and yanked him with an almost inhuman strength before pushing him roughly against the wall of the corridor. 

With a beet-red face and blue eyes glistening with unshed tears, the French boy shouted at him:

“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK!”

In a mixture of panic and exhaustion, Harry just stared at Florent wide-eyed, unable to say or do anything other than gasp for air, at the end of his rope from how hard he had run. 

A few moments later, Fleur let go of him and burst into loud, almost desperate-sounding crying, burying her face into her palms. 

It wasn’t enough that most people thought she was gay, but now they were going to think that she was also a pervert who wore women’s clothes!

C’est fini. 

Kaput. 

She was finished. 

Her social life was over. 

As for Harry, he slid down the wall, letting himself fall to the floor. There could be a hungry dragon in front of him now, and he would still not move an inch from where he sat. He was as tired as a dead dog. 

Thankfully, at some point, the French boy decided to leave, running away and leaving Harry behind. 

Neither of them went down to have breakfast that day, and they didn’t speak a word to each other either, not even after they arrived in Hogsmeade and everyone went their separate ways. They were too mortified with embarrassment to even glance at each other, let alone talk. 


⁂


A loud sound of Apparition was heard as four people appeared out of thin air in front of a stylish, two-story Gothic cottage. They were the Potter family: Harry, Matthew, and their grandparents, Fleamont and Euphemia. 

Despite the crazy incident that happened earlier that day with his roommate, Harry’s worries and other distracting thoughts vanished the moment he stepped through the door of his home, and he filled his lungs with the sweet smell of freshly baked apple pie. 

He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. 

“It’s good to be home!” he said, smiling. 

Due to his eyes being closed, Harry didn’t notice the massive black dog who suddenly leapt at him. Caught unprepared, the momentum and the weight of the dog who slammed into him like a missile was too much and he fell on his back like a bowling pin. 

“Sirius?!” Harry shouted in both surprise and joy, all the while trying to cover his face to stop the dog from licking him all over. “Seriously, stop it, you’re not an actual dog!”

Not one to watch from the sidelines, Matthew also threw himself on the back of the big dog, unwittingly crushing Harry under their combined weight. 

Fleamont and even the stern Euphemia started chuckling together at their exuberant family; Christmas was unanimously the Potter family’s favourite holiday. 

“Yuck, I think I got some dog saliva even in my hair,” Harry said in chagrin as he stood up. 

Reverting to his human form, Sirius stood up and took Harry and Matt both into a bear hug, lifting them off their feet. Harry and Matthew returned his hug just as tightly; the two boys simply adored their godfather. 

“I didn’t know you’d spend Christmas with us this year,” Harry said. 

“When have I ever missed out on it?” 

“Never. But we thought you’d go with your fiance to Vienna,” Fleamont answered instead of Harry. 

“That was all her idea, not mine. It was never my intention to leave my family and go with some woman god knows where.”

“That is not just some woman. Is she not your fiance?”

“She’s my fiance no more! I’m a free man once again!”

Matthew sniggered at his words. “Classic Sirius.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!”

“No, he’s right. That’s so like you!” Harry supported his little brother. 

“Indeed,” Euphemia also said, nodding sagely. 

“Oy, I gave up on my relationship to be with you, and that’s how you treat me?!”

The old lady walked to Sirius and embraced him dearly while everyone else was laughing. 

“Don’t worry, son. I’m sure you’ll find the right person one day.” 

“Well, let us not stand in the hallway. Let’s go in the living room, and you’ll tell us how your latest relationship went tits-up again.”

"Fleamont! Don't be crass!" his wife admonished him, but there was no heat behind her words. She wholeheartedly agreed with his words.

Now that they were all seated on the two sofas in the living room, Sirius said:

“There’s not much to talk about, really.”

At Euphemia’s pointed look, he shrugged his shoulders. 

“Look, I thought she was a good enough girl, but she had been pushing for marriage a bit too insistently for my taste. We’ve known each other for what? Four or five months? People don’t rush into marriage so quickly, do they? Anyway, I decided to put an end to it yesterday, when she gave me an ultimatum: either I go to Vienna with her or we go our separate ways. Who the hell does that? You should’ve seen her face when my answer was instantaneous. She was gaping at me like a fish on dry land.”

“How do you always find the bad ones?” Euphemia asked and let out a long, suffering sigh. 

“Gold diggers flock to money like flies to shit,” Sirius said and then clapped his palms once. “Enough about my love life. What’s the plan for this Christmas?”

“We will spend the first day of Christmas by ourselves, as a family. But we will have some visitors on the second day of Christmas,” Euphemia said. 

“Oh, do tell. Who is it?”

“The Grangers-”

“Who?” Sirius asked. 

“-I was about to explain before you rudely interrupted me. You’re never going to change that bad habit of yours, are you?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Good grief,” Euphemia let out an exclamation, but she smiled. “They are the parents of a Muggleborn friend of Matt.”

“It’s a girl friend,” Harry supplemented. 

“Ooooh!” Sirius let out a sound and elbowed Matthew in the ribs. “You player! Only in your second year, and you’ve already gotten yourself a bird?”

Matthew’s face quickly turned as red as his hair when Sirius started teasing him. 

“We’re not like that!” he tried to say, but Sirius pretended that he did not hear him. 

“Tell me more about her. What’s her name? Is she pretty? How did you get together?” 

Harry had the time of his life laughing at Matt, whose flush had spread now from his face to his neck and to the tips of his ears. His face looked so red that you could cook meat on it. 

“I told you we’re not like that!! We’re just friends! And what are you laughing at?! At least I made a girl friend, not a boy friend!” Matt snapped at Harry, who was having a little too much fun at his expense. 

Not that got everyone’s attention. 

Remembering what had transpired only a few hours earlier, in the morning, Harry’s face involuntarily got red too. . . and that did not bode well. At all. Sirius was grinning like a shark who smelled blood; that’s how eager he was to hear more details. 

Due to Sirius’ repeated interruptions and annoying comments, it took Harry nearly 15 minutes to explain to them the real situation: the fact that Flitwick had all but demanded him to look after the transfer student. 

By the time Harry was done with his little story, it was almost noon, and Euphemia stood up and went to the kitchen. 

Matt and Fleamont stayed behind to chat with Sirius, but Harry, as conscious as ever, was quick to go after his grandmother and help her out. . . much to their House Elf’s not-so-hidden displeasure. 

“Master Harry, let Remy do his job! It’s Remy’s duty to help Mistress Effie!”

“Are you sure about it?”

Euphemia smiled at him. “Leave it to us, dear. Remy and I can handle it. Go and wait in the living room with the other boys. I will call for you all when it is ready.”

Harry threw one last look at the House Elf before leaving the kitchen. Inwardly, he could not help remembering what the ghost professor of History of Magic had told them in class about his suspicions regarding the 18th-century Goblin Rebellion. 

‘I’ve also heard a rumour that Armando Dipett didn’t just fall into his Potions cauldron and drown, but that he was pushed into it by his House Elf. . .’

He let out a sigh and stopped in the hallway for a few seconds to clear the negative thoughts from his mind before returning to the living room. 

‘Remy would have no reason to do anything like that,’ he told himself. ‘Gran and the rest of us have always treated him kindly.’

Nevertheless, he made a mental note to have a talk with his grandparents at the end of the holiday before going back to Hogwarts.