Snape entered the headmaster's office with a face carved from stone. Dumbledore received him with a smile, as though he had been expecting the visit.
"Sit down."
"I'd rather not!"
Snape batted aside the chair Dumbledore had offered and raised his voice.
"Headmaster! What on earth did you tell that boy?"
Dumbledore answered in a measured tone.
"I told him that you committed a sin against James and Lily that can never be repaid, and that until it is, you have no choice but to protect Harry."
"Professor!"
"Severus. The fact that the child came to me is entirely your doing."
Dumbledore spoke with a warmth that did not soften the firmness beneath.
"The child found a way. He came to borrow my authority in order to stop you. That small creature had the audacity to meet my eyes directly and lay out, point by point, how unjust and unfair your methods of instruction have been. I wouldn't call it a particularly articulate argument, but the intent and the will behind it were unmistakable. A child of barely ten years, resisting an injustice."
There was nothing to say. That Snape favoured Slytherin above all others was an indefensible fact.
He had dressed it up, outwardly, as a matter of cultivating the loyalty of Slytherin house—students and alumni alike—but it was equally true that Snape himself harboured a genuine attachment to Slytherin.
Snape forced the words out.
"So you told him? That I was the Dark Lord's servant, that I eavesdropped on your conversation and passed along information that put his parents in danger?"
"I didn't go that far. If Harry has pieced that together, then either he worked it out through his own efforts, or... he drew it from whatever is etched into that scar."
Dumbledore was Hogwarts' benevolent headmaster. He had his eccentric qualities, but he upheld rules, pursued peace, and made the protection of children his life's work—a man of unambiguous good.
Yet there was another face to him.
The face that condemned lawbreakers, suppressed conflict, and held adults to an exacting standard the moment they ceased to be children.
Few knew Dumbledore as the executioner of evil.
"Severus. Do not lose sight of our purpose. You are free to be unkind to the children if you must, but you must not let it become so excessive that it distracts you from your duty. Continue as you have been—keep watch over the Philosopher's Stone."
"...I am watching it. I have not been negligent."
"No. Harry despises you. He will look for ways to obstruct everything you do. He is still a child, but Harry is a wizard. There is no telling what extraordinary method he might devise to interfere with you. And you still claim you have not been negligent?"
Whenever Snape stood before Dumbledore, he felt inexplicably reduced to a child himself.
Emotion. The emotion he had believed perfectly contained through years of Occlumency training, refined to make him a spy—it lay bare before Dumbledore, every last piece of it.
The feelings that had followed him since his school days remained, black as soot. The hollow ache of watching the girl he loved be taken by his enemy, and the guilt of having ultimately caused their deaths—these things never stopped tormenting him.
And then Harry had appeared. Harry, who was half James and half Lily, as though he existed to prove he was the fruit of their union—a boy who showed both of them at once.
To Snape, it was like having an old wound scraped raw. He had poured his discomfort onto the children.
"Severus. Be rational."
But to Dumbledore, even those feelings of Snape's were nothing more than something childish.
"I believe Voldemort is still alive. Whoever ransacked Nicolas Flamel's home and raided Gringotts is almost certainly connected to him. But Severus, as you well know, without evidence, truth cannot become truth. I have no wish to compel belief in others through force."
The Philosopher's Stone was bait.
A tempting morsel, designed to draw Voldemort out before Dumbledore.
If his body and soul had been shattered into fragments and he wished to reclaim a more complete existence, he would need the Stone.
And if he were to infiltrate Hogwarts to obtain it—
"I need evidence that he is alive before I can act. Watch carefully, and do not waste your strength on needless things."
"...Understood, Professor. However—"
"I know who you suspect. But even so, say nothing until you have found proof."
Dumbledore had lived for more than a hundred years.
He had been born a wizard in an age of reason and rationalism, had wielded formidable magical power through the cracks of war and violence, and had stood as the opposing pole in a maelstrom of madness and self-righteousness.
The man who had alone drawn the curtain on three eras.
The greatest wizard alive.
Witness to the age. Guide at the dawn.
Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Head of the Order of the Phoenix.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore spoke without expression, mechanically.
"I am, perhaps excessively, capable. And he has a precise talent for finding my weaknesses. I have no wish to hear your opinion and allow it to fix my thinking... No."
He paused. A brief shadow of regret crossed Dumbledore's face.
"I have no wish to 'make' an innocent person into a culprit through the force of my own preconceptions."
The longer a wizard has lived, the more secrets he carries.
It might be a magical contract.
Or information he cannot share with anyone.
Or perhaps a fracture in the values he had built over long years—a crack that opened when the world shifted and no longer aligned with what he believed.
It was for this reason that Dumbledore, even as he prepared for every contingency, refused to act on his own judgment alone.
Because his judgment carried the possibility of exceeding what the world could permit.
"But, Professor."
Snape, who understood this well, would ordinarily have nodded and withdrawn.
This time, he could not bring himself to do so.
"If we are thinking of Potter, we must act now."
He was the son of the woman Snape had loved his entire life. The only blood left behind by the childhood friend he had lost.
Even if he was the son of his enemy. Even if the sight of him was a source of resentment. Snape had to protect Harry.
"Something is wrong with Potter's condition right now. His manner of speaking, his entire bearing—it's completely different from before. I find it difficult to say precisely, but whenever I look at the boy, I am reminded of the Dark Lord. That is—"
"You think he is growing to resemble him through the scar?"
"...It may be so. Which is why—"
Snape asked Dumbledore to intervene directly, but Dumbledore shook his head with quiet finality.
Yet his expression was different from before. He offered Snape a reassurance accompanied by a cheerful smile, as though he had just discovered something rather interesting.
"There is no need to worry about that, Severus. Harry has something. Something I do not possess, and something you once had."
"Surely you don't mean—"
"Yes. Love. It is the force that compelled a timid boy to come and find me. The force that led a wayward young man to choose betrayal. The force with which a mother defeated the Dark Lord. As long as Harry has that, he will not go astray."
There he goes again with his talk of love.
Snape's expression said as much, plainly enough to be heard—but Dumbledore dismissed it without effort.
Harry Potter had changed.
He had once been an endearing boy—a little reserved, but capable of courage when it mattered. He would hang back and read the room, yet always step forward when it counted, and whether things went well or badly, he would grin with shameless ease.
Many people had loved the way his conversations ended with that attractive smile. He had plenty of friends, and even strangers warmed to him quickly.
Even older students from other houses would occasionally pull Harry aside for a chat. Some had shown signs of more deliberate interest.
But at some point, the colour of Harry Potter had inverted.
His cool smile carried not confidence but something precarious. He acted with reckless abandon, as though he had already wagered his life, and when something displeased him, he drove straight into it.
He spoke of Voldemort and his followers without hesitation even in front of Snape, talked back shamelessly when challenged, and stood his ground against older Slytherin students who came looking to put him in his place.
And remarkably, Harry had sent every one of them to the hospital wing.
Harry himself had ended up there often enough, but the one who always came away worse was the other party. Even against third-years, Harry Potter refused to simply take it—he would find some way, any way, to land a blow in return.
Before long, Slytherin had begun to avoid the very existence of Harry Potter.
Endless hostility. Relentless venom.
He was boundlessly merciful to his friends and boundlessly ruthless to his enemies.
He could shove someone's head into a toilet and walk away without a flicker of guilt.
If he or a friend was harmed, he would wait until the professors weren't watching and repay it tenfold.
And yet Harry was never short of company. With a dangerous magnetism and an uncommon charisma, he drew people to him and built a following entirely his own.
At some point, even within Slytherin, a current had begun to form—one that looked up to him.
"Why should we be afraid of him!"
Carina Malfoy snapped, her voice sharp with irritation. Barnette Crabbe and Gray Goyle, who still remained at her side, nodded with tepid reluctance.
With all of Slytherin cowed before Harry Potter, fewer students feared Carina in turn.
When she drew her wand, they barely flinched. When she actually moved to use it, the thought of Harry Potter would surface at the last moment and make her hesitate—and so now, no one feared Carina or went out of their way to avoid her.
There were even students who would call out mockingly as she passed: "Harry Potter's coming!"
The most infuriating part was this:
"You're not actually scared of that, are you, Goyle?"
"...You flinched too."
"I didn't flinch. I was checking my surroundings."
"Same thing."
"It is not!"
That she was genuinely being affected.
Harry Potter had become, among Slytherins, a word used in much the same way as Voldemort.
"U-um. Malfoy, Goyle. Maybe we should just... start avoiding him too...?"
Crabbe ventured the suggestion with great care.
"Professor Snape said it himself... that avoiding a werewolf isn't the same as being afraid of it. Maybe we could just, like everyone else—"
"Crabbe!"
Carina's eyes narrowed.
"Are you trying to betray us?!"
"No, that's not what I—"
"Are you that frightened of Harry Potter? Why? Because he's the Chosen One? Don't make me laugh. He's nothing but a common nobody. With slightly better luck than most!"
At the start of term, during flying lessons.
Malfoy had fallen from her broomstick, and Harry Potter had thrown himself forward to catch her.
She had been the one receiving help that day, but it hadn't felt unpleasant.
Carina, accustomed to being placed on a pedestal, had sensed it instinctively. The reverence in Harry's gaze.
Harry had been the one to act, but Carina had been the one in the position of power. Harry Potter had reached out—his eyes, his hands—toward her, worried she might be hurt.
She had fallen from her broom in an undignified heap, but even in that moment, Carina had been the protagonist.
Now it was different.
"I'm not afraid...!"
The cold gaze that sometimes felt like a dagger aimed directly at her heart, and the short exhale that seemed to say he was genuinely disappointed—
"I'm not... afraid!"
—these were attitudes he had no right to show her, and treatment she had no right to receive.
It was then that Carina spotted Neville Longbottom making his way down the corridor in a dishevelled shuffle. Harry Potter was a thorny problem, but Neville was as easy a target as ever.
Carina raised her wand. Here was a chance to prove she wasn't frightened in the slightest.
"I've just had a rather good idea. Why don't we practise the Leg-Locker Curse on Longbottom?"
Neville, caught by the Leg-Locker Curse, stumbled and toppled through the entrance to the common room. He pulled a miserable face and bunny-hopped his way toward the sofa.
Everyone dissolved into laughter at the sight of him—everyone except Hermione, who rushed over and attempted the counter-jinx.
When his legs came free with a snap, Neville stood up trembling.
"Neville. What happened? Getting some exercise?"
Harry said.
"It was Malfoy."
Neville replied glumly.
"I ran into her outside the library, and she used the Leg-Locker Curse on me to 'practise.'"
"Go to Professor McGonagall! You have to tell her what she did!"
Hermione urged him, but Neville looked thoroughly unenthusiastic. He said without confidence:
"I don't want any more trouble."
"Neville, you have to stand up to her!"
Ron was about to press Neville further when Harry rose to his feet, wand in hand.
The Gryffindors around him sensed the reckless smile spreading across his face and tensed—though their eyes held something expectant as well.
Harry twirled his wand.
"You said it was outside the library, didn't you, Neville?"
"Yeah... but why?"
"Why do you think?"
Tap. Harry closed his fingers around his wand and tilted his head.
"Can't let her practise on just you, can we? We'll have to practise back."
"B-but Malfoy always has the three of them together!"
"So what?"
Hogwarts was a wondrous place—and an equally suspicious one.
Broomsticks shook violently mid-flight for no reason. A troll three metres tall escaped from the dungeons. A three-headed dog stood guard behind a locked door.
The murderer of his parents strutted the corridors under the title of professor, and the headmaster who had defended that traitor reigned over the school.
Facing three classmates, at this point, barely registered as a risk.
"I'll be back in a moment."
Harry waved a hand and walked out of the common room.
He had taken only a few steps when Hermione came after him.
"Harry. Don't! Using magic in the corridors is against the rules!"
Harry said nothing, jerking his chin back toward the common room where Neville sat. Deprived of her moral high ground, Hermione shifted to practical concerns.
"But Malfoy will tell a teacher. She's cunning. You'll definitely get in trouble!"
"A bit of trouble never hurt anyone."
"Snape will give you detention. There's no telling what he might do!"
"Snape?"
Harry answered, his face a degree colder.
"I'm curious about that myself. Whether he'll use the detention as cover to quietly do away with me, or whether he won't."
"Harry!"
Hermione's mouth fell open. She glanced around to make sure no one had heard, then grabbed Harry by the shoulder.
"You've been strange lately."
"Strange? Isn't this place stranger?"
Harry spread both arms wide in an exaggerated gesture.
"People tremble at the mere name of Voldemort—the one who killed my parents. And the people who were loyal to Voldemort walk around like they own the place. They call me the Chosen One and all the rest of it, and in the same breath look down on me for not being pureblood. Does that seem normal to you?"
"But the things you've been doing are all dangerous, one after another. Someone is trying to take your life!"
"That's what I'm counting on, Hermione. I'm counting on someone making an attempt."
Harry's face, as he spoke of his own death with perfect composure, looked as though it might shatter at any moment.
"Then I'll know for certain. Who's an enemy and who isn't."
The madness in his manner frightened even Hermione. Harry shook off her hand and walked ahead.
It was then that Ron, who had squeezed out through the keyhole after Hermione, shouted:
"Oi, Harry! I'm coming too! You're not watching them hop around with their legs tied together without me, are you?"
He came bounding over, falling into step beside Harry with the enthusiasm of someone who hadn't a care in the world. With Ron chattering away at his side, the cold face Harry had shown a moment ago seemed almost like something imagined.
Hermione watched the two of them go, and with no real choice left, followed after them.
"You called for me, didn't you, Malfoy?"
The moment Harry saw Malfoy, he smiled.
It was attractive. But it was not a sociable smile.
It was the cool, unhurried smile of someone who had already decided what they were going to do.
"Surely you didn't use the Leg-Locker Curse on Neville for no reason at all? It's clearly a message meant for me. Otherwise you wouldn't have wasted your time on something so petty and pointless."
In the space of a moment, Harry had reduced Malfoy to a child who went around casting Leg-Locker Curses on passing students.
They had only been face to face for an instant, but the upper hand already belonged to Harry.
Malfoy spoke.
"...Harry Potter."
"That's right. My name is the famous Harry Potter. Is that all you wanted?"
Harry raised his voice so that everyone around could hear.
"You went to all this trouble just to look me in the face and say my name? Were you working up to a confession, perhaps?"
"What utter nonsense. I have no such intention, and I never will. Not ever."
Malfoy swept her hair back behind her shoulder. The platinum blonde that was the pride of the Malfoy family caught the light as it fell. For just a moment, the eyes of everyone nearby turned toward her.
The familiar gesture drove the fear away, and the confidence that had always sustained her came flooding back.
She was Carina Malfoy. Eldest daughter of the Malfoy family. Pureblood of the highest order.
She would not be broken by a Harry Potter of unknown origins.
Malfoy overcame her fear and raised her voice.
"I'm warning you, Potter. That's far enough."
"Far enough? What exactly do you mean by that?"
"Your behaviour right now is insolent enough, but that aside—"
People had begun to drift over, one by one, drawn by the commotion.
Carina Malfoy was every bit as well-known as Harry Potter. Before Harry had made his mark, Malfoy had held her own reign as Hogwarts' resident troublemaker.
This was, when you stripped it down, a contest for dominance.
A summit battle that would determine the next seven years.
"You picked fights with older students and duelled them privately. You caused a disturbance in Potions class, and you have shown insufficient respect to your professor."
Malfoy moved to publicly indict Harry before the assembled crowd—and to seize control of the situation at the same time.
"If you don't know your place, things will become difficult for you and for everyone around you. What happened to Longbottom today is your warning!"
Malfoy took hold of her wand.
Harry Potter might be making a name for himself, but he was still a first-year.
The students he had sent to the hospital wing hadn't been defeated in proper duels—he had attacked them through bizarre, unconventional methods, or struck back in retaliation. In terms of raw magical ability alone, Malfoy, who was in the same year, had no reason to feel inferior.
She was confident she could win if Harry drew his wand right now.
"Oh, a warning."
...About ninety percent confident.
Harry took a step forward, and Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle all flinched in unison, as though they had rehearsed it.
Leaving Ron and Hermione where they stood, Harry walked until he was directly in front of Malfoy.
"But that's strange, Malfoy. Where exactly in my behaviour do you see insolence?"
As though genuinely puzzled—with a smile that was both guileless and deeply unsettling—Harry raised his voice.
"I picked a fight? Ah, so that's how it looks when an older student tries to curse a first-year who just arrived and gets hit back? Embarrassing. If it were me, I'd be too ashamed to say a word."
Laughter erupted from the crowd around them. Harry seemed to savour it, nodding along as he continued.
"And what was that—showing respect to a professor? When did I lie? Is it a lie that Snape was that man's follower? Or is it a lie that he bullied children in a petty, contemptible way? When exactly did I say something untrue?"
More laughter.
Every student who wasn't in Slytherin was laughing. Gryffindor, of course, but Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw as well.
In a very short time, Harry had held the room and turned everyone else into his allies.
Crabbe and Goyle shrank back, unable to speak. Malfoy bit her lip.
It wasn't only the Slytherin side whose expressions had gone rigid. Hermione, too, was watching Harry and the crowd with anxious eyes, and she tugged at his arm.
"Both of you, stop it! Harry, we came here to get an apology from Malfoy for what she did to Neville!"
"Did we?"
Ron muttered, but fell silent when Hermione shot him a look. She stepped forward to mediate between Harry and Malfoy.
"Harry's behaviour has been excessive too, I'll admit that. But Malfoy, what you did was wrong! Apologise to Neville for using the Leg-Locker Curse on him!"
Hermione spoke with crisp precision.
In a children's quarrel, the one who steps in to stop it tends to draw the most resentment. And for Malfoy, the very concept of apologising to someone first was entirely foreign.
Malfoy turned on Hermione and snapped:
"Nobody asked you to interfere! Stay out of it, you Mudblood!"
The word Malfoy had spat out brought the atmosphere crashing down without warning.
It was different from when Voldemort's name had been invoked. Then, people had drawn back and gone quiet—a recoil born of dread.
But at the word Mudblood, the people standing nearby went rigid with anger. Even Ron stepped sharply in front of Hermione.
Harry felt the word land on him like something physical—a vile, unmistakable insult. And he moved immediately.
"*Locomotor Mortis!*"
Harry bound Crabbe's legs. Crabbe dropped her wand and went down.
Goyle and Malfoy moved at the same time. Goyle's Knockback Jinx struck Harry's hand and sent his wand flying.
An instant later, Ron threw himself at Goyle. Goyle shoved Ron hard and Ron hit the ground, but he managed to grab Goyle's wand. They hurled each other's wands in opposite directions.
Harry turned toward Malfoy, who was now alone. Malfoy swung her wand in desperation.
"*Ascendio!*"
The spell caught Harry across the head. He staggered—but took one step forward, held his ground, and drove straight at Malfoy.
Harry snatched Malfoy's wand and flung it away. Then he seized her wrist and shoved her back against the wall.
Thud. Malfoy's back struck the stone.
"Ow!"
Malfoy cried out. Harry said roughly:
"Watch your mouth, Malfoy."
"Let go—let go of me!"
"You're afraid to say Voldemort's name, but you'll throw that word around? You should be just as afraid of it!"
The people nearby flinched at the name Voldemort.
Malfoy was frightened too—but even so, she dug in out of sheer stubbornness.
"I'll say it as many times as I like! Mud—"
"Voldemort!"
A thin line of blood ran down from Harry's eyebrow. The place where Malfoy's spell had struck must have split open.
But Harry stared Malfoy down even as one side of his vision went red.
An eye stained with blood. A gaze filled with fury. Harry, who could speak the name of terror without a tremor, was frightening enough for anyone watching.
Carina Malfoy, however formidable, was a girl of ten.
She felt a cold jolt of fear.
"Voldemort tried to kill me and vanished. Are you afraid of a Voldemort who couldn't even kill one infant and disappeared? So afraid you can't bring yourself to say his name?"
"Uh... uh..."
"The fear you're feeling right now is false. Do you want to know what real fear is?"
Carina Malfoy had never, in so close a space, come face to face with anger this fierce.
She was the eldest daughter of the Malfoy family, and she had been loved by everyone. Every new person she met had adored her and looked up to her, and Harry Potter himself had once looked at Malfoy with reverence.
But that same boy was now, right in front of her, staring her down while bleeding.
Since leaving home, Malfoy had come face to face with naked, undisguised anger for the very first time in her life.
"Ugh..."
Pureblood or not. Witch or not. She was still a child of ten.
Carina Malfoy finally burst into tears.
"Waaaaaah..."
Harry was thrown.
Even Harry could not be cruel in the face of someone crying with such complete, unguarded grief.
The tears and the sound of sobbing washed the emotion out of him.
The anger that had filled him to the brim, the pain in his head—all of it vanished, and something like guilt began to creep in at the edges.
The grip on her wrist went slack. He could see the red mark his fingers had left on Malfoy's wrist.
"Waaaaaah..."
Malfoy wiped her tears with her now-free hand. He hadn't noticed it before, but the mark on her wrist was bothering him.
Harry took a step back, his voice coming out oddly hollow.
"Hey—why, why are you crying?"
"Hic—sob—I hate it, I hate it... hic. Volde—mort too. Mudblood—too. I hate all of it..."
Hearing Malfoy say Voldemort in her own voice, through her tears, actually startled Harry.
She didn't seem to know what she was saying. She was crying too hard for that, curling in on herself.
"Hic—you too—I hate you—waaaaaah..."
Harry flinched hard. It was utterly childish, but it was precisely the kind of thing that hit him hardest.
While Harry stood there momentarily unsteady, Crabbe, freed from the jinx, made her move.
"Leave Malfoy alone!"
Thud—Crabbe's stocky frame shoved Harry aside, and Harry, already drained of strength, went straight down.
In the meantime, Crabbe pulled Malfoy away. Goyle fell in alongside them.
They ran down the corridor, leaving nothing behind but the sound of muffled sobbing.
After the storm, silence.
Under ordinary circumstances, Slytherin had fled—everyone should have been cheering.
But tears have no house allegiance. Somehow the atmosphere had shifted into something that felt like Harry had been in the wrong.
The onlookers drifted away with uncomfortable expressions, or simply returned to their own common rooms.
Harry let his head fall back against the floor.
Ron came over.
"Harry, are you alright? Sorry—I should have kept hold of Crabbe."
"No. Don't worry about it."
Harry waved a hand. This was, if anything, a better ending. If he'd let her keep crying, it would only have made him feel worse.
If it ended here, that was fine.
"What is all this commotion!"
Of course, it didn't end there. Professor McGonagall came striding toward them, her voice sharp.
She looked down at Harry, lying on the floor with blood on his face.
"Potter! You're bleeding from your head!"
"I thought the blood might be rushing to my head, so I was letting it drain out. Has quite a lot come out?"
Harry answered with perfect shamelessness, and Professor McGonagall, furious to the tips of her hair, shouted:
"You've been brawling again! I told you clearly last time that one more fight would mean detention! I am thoroughly sick of this. In all my years, no one at Gryffindor has started this many fights in such a short span of time—no one but you! You will face consequences for this, Potter!"
"Why only me—"
"Granger and Weasley are included, naturally—everyone involved in this fight will lose fifty points each and receive detention! Now get to the hospital wing! Diggory, who was it that Potter was fighting with just now?"
It seemed Malfoy would be getting detention as well. Harry thought, on balance, that was probably for the best.
His head had gone cold. As the agitation faded, memories began surfacing one after another.
Why had he been doing this. He wasn't entirely sure. Harry hauled himself to his feet with some effort.
Through his blurred vision, the only thing that stayed clear was the image of Malfoy's tears.
I was supposed to change her, and instead I made her cry.
Harry walked down the corridor in an unsteady drift. He was dizzy and weak, but the anger he had felt before was gone.
In any case—after that day, Malfoy never used the word Mudblood again.
Malfoy no longer feared Voldemort the way she once had.
She had simply come to fear Harry Potter—the one who walked toward her saying Voldemort's name.