Knight Bus for the Troubled Chapter 1
Un-betaed, haven't edited it yet. Hopefully this post will push me to write some more.
Chapter 1
Harry looked at Ron’s adoration as he stared at Mione re-appearing with a couple of books that she quickly brought from her endless library at their new house. Harry quickly averted his eyes and sipped his cider since every time Ron or Mione or both caught him staring at them, the conversation morosely tended to turn to the subject of loneliness, companionship and then partners. The switch between subject is becoming less and less subtle.
Harry had already taken up their advice and started to see a psychologist to ease his friends’ minds from the silly idea that he was depressed, but they thought that talking about Harry’s current “health status” (as if he didn’t hear the ‘mental’ before ‘health), also helped. It did help sometimes. A few times. Okay, a couple of times, then Harry had just been super uncomfortable and lowkey tried to make his friends understand this without stating so outright.
But today Harry didn’t have time for a pseudo-psychology session with his best friends, he just wanted one of Mione’s theories to tell him how the hell he saw and talked with a younger version of Malfoy.
“I need a sample of all the food and drinks that you keep in the bus, as well as your and Kreacher’s vitals so I can make a few inquires. I’m no healer after all,” said Mione sitting down on the bench beside Ron and adjusting her cardigan.
For a moment, Harry couldn’t understand why Mione wanted to know what he and Kreacher ate and drank (maybe she wanted the recipe of their pear marmalade?), when he took a look at the titles of the books that were levitating above the tea table. “Delayed Effects of 70 Hallucinogens in Common Herbs and Food Ingredients” and “Uncanny Effects of Depression on Magical Cores: An Ethnographic Approach.” Okay, thought Harry, they were going to talk about his mental health after all.
Harry loved his best friends, he truly did. They had gone through hot and cold with him and for him, they rooted for him but also called him out on his bullshit. However, since he started to see a psychologist, Harry lived in constant worry that his friends approached him differently now. He understood why Mione had chosen such books, Harry had also supposed that he had hallucinated the encounter at first, but Kreacher had seen the younger Malfoy too, and despite his thorny attitude, he wasn’t barmy.
So Harry sat in front of his best friends for a couple of hours in the patio behind the Burrow. They didn’t feel the autumn cold since they were magically protected by the gushes of wind that were slowly, rhythmically stripping down the brightly colored trees marking the borders of the surrounding fields. Harry half listened to Mione correlating Harry’s stress with illusions created as a self-defense mechanism, and half reminded himself of the worn-down wooden bridge, at the edge of the Weasley’s property, where Gin had told him that she wanted to put herself first, so she couldn’t go on staying with someone who had fallen out of love with her but was too obsessed to even realize it.
Gin never expanded over who or what Harry was obsessed with, because she was right about the most important thing.
Every time Harry visited the Burrow, he thought about the day he admitted to Gin that he didn’t love her in that way anymore. He wanted to interrupt Mione and ask her if they should talk about tis instead of stress-induced hallucinations, but she looked so happy, helping her childhood friend with her knowledge, her hands a flurry of activity as they leafed through pages, handled a glass of cider, and occasionally stroked Ron’s hand that rested idly on her knee.
Harry also considered telling Ron about Gin and his memories, but talking to Ron about how the shop was going, about living together with ‘Mione, and about Quidditch, that he couldn’t speak up after all.
Lindsay Morgan was a second year Slytherin student who was sobbing in Harry’s carefully cooked chestnut-based soup because despite a year of practice and all her best intentions, she hadn’t carried out a smooth conversation with the mermaids yet.
When Harry got on the bus to help people in trouble and started somehow boarding Hogwarts students, he did read the blasted History of Hogwarts, both the old and the new edition among other books. But for the love of Merlin, Harry wasn’t understand what the girl was so upset about.
In roughly half an hour of grumbling and crying, he had only understood that there was a room in the Slytherin quarters were the walls were made of extra-thick magical glass and one could see in the lake like in an aquarium.
Harry knew this because the girl had talked about the Slytherin dungeon and gossipying mermaids, and a room where Slytherins and mermaids made sense in the same sentence was described in the History of Hogwarts. The talking with the mermaids part, the book did not say, so what the girl was specifically upset about was lost to Harry. There had been Slytherins, traditions, signs and dating advice involved, possibly cheating at a fifth year potion for Potions class, but Harry wasn’t sure he heard that correctly amongst the heaving breaths and tears.
Harry took a deep breath and looked at Lindsay’s shaky hands as she slowly came down from her outburst and ate the remnants of her soup. He thought about what was the best course of action here. Offer more food to stall for time? Offer a nap and hope that she wouldn’t want to talk about this later? Trying to lowkey ask her to repeat everything from the beginning? Offer advice in generaly and hoping that something hit the mark?
All such strategies tended to work fine with students from all houses but Slytherin, and with most muggle children and teenagers. These methods didn’t work with Slytherins, rich muggles who were used to have their way too often, as well as bullies and wannabe delinquents.
Harry tried to turn his mind from stereotypes and generalizations as much as possible, but in his experience, he had many more difficulties dealing with Slytherins than any other individuals. They could see through his roundabouts easily and demanded what they had expected as they boarded the bus. For Harry to fix their issue perfectly. Sometimes Harry could honestly help them, sometimes he could not.
Harry knew that this was due to his lack of knowledge and experience about the wizarding pureblood society, but that didn’t stop him from trying to help the children in some way. This time, though, he understood nearly nothing about the context. He had to find a way to make Lindsay repeat the whole store in a clearer way somehow, and then console her, hopefully without making her cry again since Harry’s chest always constricted with second-hand pain when he saw children cry.
Before he could reformulate his next sentence, the bus ground to a halt. Possibly another Hogwarts student?
Kreacher’s got this one, Harry assured himself, and he didn’t stand to greet the newcomer, but he did take a look outside out of habit, to check where the bus was.
Outside, the night had turned into a muddled puce color.
Before Harry could say or do anything, the world quickly darkened until it was nighttime again.
That must have happened because of the impossibly young Malfoy. Since the world outside had gone back to its proper natural hue, did that mean that Malfoy had walked again from the bus again?
As soon as Harry realized that he was worrying about the probably-imaginary younger self of a total git that was actually Merlin-knew-where, Harry tuned his attention to Lindsay. Merlin curse him if he couldn’t find a way to help her by the end of her ride in the bus.
“So, Lindsay…” said Harry, reclaiming the attention of the girl from her plate.
“If this… tradition of talking to the mermaids isn’t relevant before the fifth year, and you’re a second year… you don’t need to worry about it now, right?”
Harry hoped that his words would reassure Lindsay a bit, but she snapped her head up and looked at Harry as if she was recalling the nastiest curse she knew. As Harry had extensive, first-hand experience of how precocious and creative Slytherin students could be, he felt rightfully terrified of that 12-year-old girl sitting next to him, despite her soft-looking woolen cardigan, her red puffy eyes, and her bushy black braid with flash pink glitter in it.
Suddently, Harry heard somebody snort nearby. He turned around, and the impossibly young Malfoy was standing in the middle of the corridor of the bus, his arms crossed over his chest as he casually leaned over a pole. He was looked at Harry and Lindsay, and his eyes did a magnificient job of conveying a mixture of uncertainty, amusement, and curiosity.
“Hey,” greeted Harry in time to remember that he wasn’t supposed to know Malfoy’s name, at least this particular Malfoy’s.
So far, the best theory that Harry had about the situation was that this Malfoy was some kind of very powerful hallucination created by Harry’s over-stressed magical core. This was Mione’s most articulated theory, and Harry went with it in his mind in a simple attempt to remain as sane as possible. At least stress was a medical condition. The alternative was to think of himself as actually fucking crazy, or to think that the bus had somehow started to travel through time. Harry didn’t have the time and energy to dedicated himself with either alternative, so he picked Mione’s theory. Therefore Harry had decided to play it safe with whatever this Malfoy was or represented.
Instead of replying to Harry, Malfoy threw him an upset look, as if he was too confused or even intimated by something to talk to Harry. Harry recognized that look, children and teenagers who got that look on them later disclosed that they hadn’t trusted Harry almost until the end of their ride, that they had been suspicious of him even as their instincts and magic had reassured them that they were in a safe place.
Thus Harry simply nodded and tried to look as reassuring as possible and felt elated when Malfoy, although still frowning, nodded back.
“What are you doing, talking about a Slytherin tradition to somebody who’s so obviously Hufflepuff?” said Malfoy to Lindsay with only a hint of his usual sneer.
Harry immediately opened his mouth to tell Malfoy to tone it down a notch, but Lindsay bounced back quicker than he thought.
“I bet Griffindor,” she said with a tone of finality.
“Wait, there’s a bet going on about me?” asked Harry, half-horrified and half-pleased.
Lindsay shrugged in that manner that pre-teen girls used when they were damn sure that they weren’t going to tell anybody their secrets, shy of torture and death itself.
Harry turned to Malfoy, trying to convey ‘can you believe this kid?’ with his face, but he recalled how deep house loyalty could run in Slytherin, and wasn’t even bothered when Malfoy rolled his eyes at him minutely and said-
“We Slytherins run bets about anything and everything, and we’re actually able to keep secrets. You won’t get anything from her” - which made Lindsay focus back on Malfoy, her hands nervously tugging at her Hello Kitty pajama bottoms. The little kittens were charmed to move in a series of evening habits, such as bathing, brushing their teeth and reading bed-time stories. Harry was increasingly amazed at how seamlessly some items of muggle pop culture were being absorbed by the wizarding markets, but he always refrained himself from stating so for fear of being teased by the troubled children and by his friends.
“’We Slytherins’? What year are you? Who are you?” asked Lindsay, her sharp gaze memorizing everything about Malfoy.
She doesn’t recognize him, thought Harry, whose fear that he needed to explain the presence of a de-aged, acquitted, ex-Death Eater that was officially missing. Now he just needed to worry about Malfoy parading his family name to Lindsay. Harry tried to quickly think about an explanation, when Malfoy replied.
“Fifth year,” said Malfoy simply, looking down. That was so incredibly out of character for the teenager that Harry remembered, that he had to actively fight himself from asking Malfoy what the hell was wrong with him right then and there.
But thank Merlin, Lindsay didn’t know the difference, so she nodded and commented morosely on the OWLs before refocusing on Harry.
“Alright, what didn’t you get? I’ll repeat it.”
But before Harry could answer, Malfoy interrupted.
“Why are you telling him about the mermaids? Didn’t anybody tell you that you’re not supposed to spew Slytherin traditions to just anybody?”
Harry was about to retort, when he was interrupted again.
“He can help me,” grumbled Lindsay, and at that point Harry knew better than to try and speak up again.
“Why are you so convinced?” asked Malfoy.
“Because everybody says so. I’ve started hearing about him before school, then so many people were talking about him in school. Except doing homework for you and stuff, the Hogwarts Knight Bus’ keeper will help. That’s what they say.” Lindsay ended her explanation with a furtive glance at Harry, who pointedly ignored Malfoy’s unsubtle snort at the mention of the bus’ unofficial nickname, and focused on how to say his next words in a reassuring tone.
“Lindsay, thank you for the vote of confidence. I’m glad that students at Hogwarts are saying good things about their experience in the bus, but-“ Harry caught himself at the last second before saying something like ‘although it pains me to admit so, Malfoy may be right.’
“-but I wasn’t a Slytherin. I don’t know much about this mermaid tradition and, truthfully speaking, I didn’t get much out of your explanation before…” trailed off Harry, but Lindsay followed his line of reasoning and blushed.
“I was too busy crying myself stupid.”
“Hey, don’t say that. You can cry all you want here. You sounded like you’ve been very strong and kept everything well and hidden until now.”
Lindsay tried to subtle wipe the tears that were threatening her composure by scrubbing her whole face quickly.
“Yeah, you don’t survive 7 years in Slytherin if you cry before you master the silencing charm,” she said, looking outside of the window.
In Harry’s peripheral vision, Malfoy shifted against one of the poles of the bus, the second nearest to Harry and Lindsay’s seats. If Malfoy was aiming for subtlety in his eavesdropping, his technique needed some serious work. Harry thought about asking Malfoy to move away, but considering that Malfoy was not even supposed to exist, Harry was reluctant in letting him get too far out of this sight. Plus, Lindsay appeared to have accepted Malfoy’s presence in stride, even accepting the possibility that a fellow Slytherin could ridicule her in front of her house-mates. Clearly Lindsay was stronger than Harry imagined.
Thus Harry learned how there was a room in the Slytherin dungeon that looked very close to where the Lake’s community of mermaids lived. Hundreds of years ago, a deaf student started teaching the mermaids sign language out of loneliness, and by the end of her seventh year, she had managed to spread sign language to the whole community of mermaids and to a handful of Slytherin students.
If befriended, the mermaids taught many tricks to the students, and offered advices that were rarely malicious and dangerous. Learning sign language and talking to the mermaids was not exactly ‘mandatory’ in Slytherin, but sign language was a dead useful way to concoct plot behind the professors’ and the other students’ backs. There were also in-house traditions that dictated how fifth year Slytherin were supposed to achieve the best academic results of the school in the Aquatic module of Care of Magical Creatures, choose and ace the potions based on the Aquatic module in Potions, and follow the mermaids’ dating advices at least 3 times during the course of the first semester.
“I don’t even care about that, though!” growled Lindsay, her tiny hands closed in fists on her thighs.
“I want to become a healer of aquatic creatures. How can I become one after more than a year of practicing sign language? And the mermaids hate me! And those who don’t constantly laugh at me!” Lindsay’s voice broke only at the very end, probably because she had already cried once, but as Harry knew well by now that emotional 12-year-old boys and girls could burst into tears and anger very quickly and many time in the course of a few hours, he mentally commended the young witch for her resilience.
“Why do you think that some of the mermaids dislike you?” asked Harry as kindly as possible.
“Hate. They hate me. I don’t know why, but every time I ask them something, anything, they tell me to drown myself!”
That was so weird that Harry couldn’t help but frown. He had no idea what to say, and he was rescued by Lindsay’s glare towards Malfoy. Harry followed her gaze and couldn’t believe what he saw. Malfoy was snickering. He was bent forward slightly, and he was covering his mouth with the back of his hand, but his eyes were almost closed, and the baby fat around them that would soon turn into wrinkles was scrunched in unmistakable mirth.
Harry had learned that magical pictures were to be treasured because the shot absorbed quite the amount of magic from the photographer. In that moment, watching Malfoy almost laughing for the first time in years, Harry didn’t care whether Malfoy was a figment of his fucked up brains, or if the bus had stumbled in an alternate world, Harry only knew that he craved a magical photocamera to capture that moment, magic absorption be damned.
Lindsay grumbled in annoyance beside Harry, and he suddenly came back to reality.
“If you’re going to at Lindsay, I’m going to have the bus stop and drop you off.” Harry almost never needed to resort to such a last-ditch counter-measure, as the threat of being dropped off without so much as a word of advice was usually enough to deter bullies from laughing at the pain and discomfort of others. Thankfully, the strategy worked again.
“No need to take drastic measures, Mr. Keeper,” drawled Malfoy, straightening his posture but sounding as if he was still fighting the urge to laugh.
“You don’t need to be upset about the mermaids hating you,” added the blond boy, talking to Lindsay.
“On the contrary, one of them likes you in that way.” Malfoy stepped away from the pole and took one of the seats in front of Harry and Lindsay’s table. He looked at them both with an expectant expression, but he soon got the idea that his words didn’t make any sense to his interlocutors. Then Malfoy huffed a short, exasperated sigh before continuing.
“Most merpeople communities are still firmly attached to the old legends and beliefs. Among which is the belief that those who suffer death by drowning will be reincarnated in the nearest merpeople colony. If you want to become an aquatic creatures healer, you must know sign language well already. If, because of this, you caught the attention of a mermaid, the others are telling you to drown yourself so you can join her as soon as possible and be happily ever after and all that.”
“Wha-..But… drowning?!” sputtered Lindsay in shock and embarrassment.
“Drowning,” confirmed Malfoy without batting an eyelash. “It sounds macabre but it is what it is. Every time I asked the mermaids for dating advice, they’d tell me to drown him?”
“’Him?’” squealed Harry without a second thought, at the same time as Lindsay squealed a “Really?” but with much less panic and with much more hope in it.
“Understandably, Malfoy’s reaction was to frown at Harry in a ‘what the fuck’ manner. This was again confirmation enough that Malfoy had not recognized Harry, which, at this point, didn’t even puzzled Harry that much. It was just another quirk in a mad situation.
“Truly,” continued Malfoy, looking back at Lindsay.
“But so many mermaids have told me to drown myself now… And what about those who laugh at me?”
“Mermaids are terrible gossipers, and they’re very protective of each other. Let’s hypothesize that the mermaid who’s infatuated with you is shy or didn’t mean to reveal her secret, the other mermaids are helping her by telling you to join them and by proxy to join her. Those who laugh at you...” trailer off Malfoy, shrugging minutely, “they’re probably just making fun of your obliviousness. Although, in your defense, if you haven’t asked for dating advice yet, you had no way of knowing the mermaids’ habit.”
Lindsay nodded slowly. She took some time to wrap her head around what Malfoy had told her. In the meantime she stared at nothing in the way people stare at objects without seeing them, as their minds are reeling. Lindsay stared at her empty plate, saw it vanish, and stared a bit at the newly-appeared mug of steaming liquid before she idly wrapped her hands around it.
Similar mugs appeared in front of Harry and Malfoy. A quick sip told Harry that Kreacher was using him as a guinea pig for his new home-made digestive herbal mix. Harry didn’t mind as long as their passengers got the already ‘tested’ brews.
Lindsay sipped her tea for a couple of minutes before looking intently at Harry for a few moments, then looking sheepishly at Malfoy before settling for starting down at her mug.
“So… to make the mermaids stop making fun of me…” Lindsay didn’t use a questioning tone, but Harry heard the plead for advice in her tone anyway.
“Talking directly to the mermaid who’s infatuated with you would be the most straightforward course of action here,” started mulling Harry. “Either by rejecting or accepting her interest, you can make the mermaids stop making fun of you.”
When Harry heard a snort coming from Malfoy’s seat, he was ready with a reprimand, but Malfoy had already started talking.
“That would be good options if we weren’t talking about merpeople,” said Malfoy, and then turned to Lindsay. “If you reject your mermaid you’ll make them all hate you for real, no matter what she does or doesn’t tell the others. On the contrary, if you tell her you like her, even if you don’t actually, you’ll gain the most possessive, needy, jealous creatures on school grounds. A friend of mine is like an enamored mermaid and she’s an absolute terror. Just go with the Slytherin way: string your mermaid along until the end of school and tell her to keep her friends in check around you. That will solve the problem,” finished Malfoy, looking self-accomplished. But Harry was starting to see red at the suggestion.
“How can you say something like that? Giving false hope to somebody who’s interested in becoming your partner is cruel and heartless.”
“Cruel and heartless will be the mermaids’ reaction once Lindsay here rejects the avanches of her mermaids,” retorted Malfoy immediately, meeting Harry head-on.
“It’s still a terrible thing to do. Couldn’t Lindsay buy some time by being honest and telling the mermaid that this is too sudden?”
“The other mermaids will make fun of both and double their jeers to speed things along.”
“They can be so pushy?”
“Absolutely. Merpeople love a good show. And if Lindsay buys time in that meek way you suggested, they’ll see it for the half-assed excuse that it is and ridicule her for years. You need to approach merpeople by biding your time and sneaking up on them. Stringing the mermaid along, playing coy with her, that’s going to keep everything calm for Lindsay to learn something from the merpeople.”
“Asking the time to make up your own mind is not an half-assed excuse, it’s a legitimate reason. We’re talking about a queer relationship, an inter-species queer relationship. Shouldn’t Lindsay be entitled to some time to at least figure out her own sexual identity?”
“She can play coy while figuring out anything she desires. Second year is a tad precocious for untraditional escapades, but it’s never too early to learn the Slytherin way of getting oneself out of a bind. Plus, in fifth year every Slytherin becomes at the very least bisexual at some point,” finished Malfoy with a casual shrug that absolutely did not match the rising tide of panic and excitement that Harry felt at the words.
“You-Um… I mean, so, you…” stammered Harry, feeling more flustered than the moment he first kissed Cho and Ginny.
Malfoy regarded him with a bored, questioning frown and Harry sipped his brew as he debated within himself whether taking the coward way out and not finish the sentence would still be considered Griffindor-y. Probably not.
“Scintillating conversation. I’ll be going to, then,” said Malfoy, sliding out of his seat gracefully.
Harry wondered at Malfoy’s words until he took a look around and saw that Lindsay was gone, their mugs were too, the faint clanging sound of the dish-washing spell resonating in the air because the bus was not moving, its engine almost silent. Harry wanted to ask Malfoy what Lindsay was going to do in his opinion, what their debate taught her, but Malfoy was already slipping into the night without so much as a goodbye.
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Chapter 1
Harry looked at Ron’s adoration as he stared at Mione re-appearing with a couple of books that she quickly brought from her endless library at their new house. Harry quickly averted his eyes and sipped his cider since every time Ron or Mione or both caught him staring at them, the conversation morosely tended to turn to the subject of loneliness, companionship and then partners. The switch between subject is becoming less and less subtle.
Harry had already taken up their advice and started to see a psychologist to ease his friends’ minds from the silly idea that he was depressed, but they thought that talking about Harry’s current “health status” (as if he didn’t hear the ‘mental’ before ‘health), also helped. It did help sometimes. A few times. Okay, a couple of times, then Harry had just been super uncomfortable and lowkey tried to make his friends understand this without stating so outright.
But today Harry didn’t have time for a pseudo-psychology session with his best friends, he just wanted one of Mione’s theories to tell him how the hell he saw and talked with a younger version of Malfoy.
“I need a sample of all the food and drinks that you keep in the bus, as well as your and Kreacher’s vitals so I can make a few inquires. I’m no healer after all,” said Mione sitting down on the bench beside Ron and adjusting her cardigan.
For a moment, Harry couldn’t understand why Mione wanted to know what he and Kreacher ate and drank (maybe she wanted the recipe of their pear marmalade?), when he took a look at the titles of the books that were levitating above the tea table. “Delayed Effects of 70 Hallucinogens in Common Herbs and Food Ingredients” and “Uncanny Effects of Depression on Magical Cores: An Ethnographic Approach.” Okay, thought Harry, they were going to talk about his mental health after all.
Harry loved his best friends, he truly did. They had gone through hot and cold with him and for him, they rooted for him but also called him out on his bullshit. However, since he started to see a psychologist, Harry lived in constant worry that his friends approached him differently now. He understood why Mione had chosen such books, Harry had also supposed that he had hallucinated the encounter at first, but Kreacher had seen the younger Malfoy too, and despite his thorny attitude, he wasn’t barmy.
So Harry sat in front of his best friends for a couple of hours in the patio behind the Burrow. They didn’t feel the autumn cold since they were magically protected by the gushes of wind that were slowly, rhythmically stripping down the brightly colored trees marking the borders of the surrounding fields. Harry half listened to Mione correlating Harry’s stress with illusions created as a self-defense mechanism, and half reminded himself of the worn-down wooden bridge, at the edge of the Weasley’s property, where Gin had told him that she wanted to put herself first, so she couldn’t go on staying with someone who had fallen out of love with her but was too obsessed to even realize it.
Gin never expanded over who or what Harry was obsessed with, because she was right about the most important thing.
Every time Harry visited the Burrow, he thought about the day he admitted to Gin that he didn’t love her in that way anymore. He wanted to interrupt Mione and ask her if they should talk about tis instead of stress-induced hallucinations, but she looked so happy, helping her childhood friend with her knowledge, her hands a flurry of activity as they leafed through pages, handled a glass of cider, and occasionally stroked Ron’s hand that rested idly on her knee.
Harry also considered telling Ron about Gin and his memories, but talking to Ron about how the shop was going, about living together with ‘Mione, and about Quidditch, that he couldn’t speak up after all.
Lindsay Morgan was a second year Slytherin student who was sobbing in Harry’s carefully cooked chestnut-based soup because despite a year of practice and all her best intentions, she hadn’t carried out a smooth conversation with the mermaids yet.
When Harry got on the bus to help people in trouble and started somehow boarding Hogwarts students, he did read the blasted History of Hogwarts, both the old and the new edition among other books. But for the love of Merlin, Harry wasn’t understand what the girl was so upset about.
In roughly half an hour of grumbling and crying, he had only understood that there was a room in the Slytherin quarters were the walls were made of extra-thick magical glass and one could see in the lake like in an aquarium.
Harry knew this because the girl had talked about the Slytherin dungeon and gossipying mermaids, and a room where Slytherins and mermaids made sense in the same sentence was described in the History of Hogwarts. The talking with the mermaids part, the book did not say, so what the girl was specifically upset about was lost to Harry. There had been Slytherins, traditions, signs and dating advice involved, possibly cheating at a fifth year potion for Potions class, but Harry wasn’t sure he heard that correctly amongst the heaving breaths and tears.
Harry took a deep breath and looked at Lindsay’s shaky hands as she slowly came down from her outburst and ate the remnants of her soup. He thought about what was the best course of action here. Offer more food to stall for time? Offer a nap and hope that she wouldn’t want to talk about this later? Trying to lowkey ask her to repeat everything from the beginning? Offer advice in generaly and hoping that something hit the mark?
All such strategies tended to work fine with students from all houses but Slytherin, and with most muggle children and teenagers. These methods didn’t work with Slytherins, rich muggles who were used to have their way too often, as well as bullies and wannabe delinquents.
Harry tried to turn his mind from stereotypes and generalizations as much as possible, but in his experience, he had many more difficulties dealing with Slytherins than any other individuals. They could see through his roundabouts easily and demanded what they had expected as they boarded the bus. For Harry to fix their issue perfectly. Sometimes Harry could honestly help them, sometimes he could not.
Harry knew that this was due to his lack of knowledge and experience about the wizarding pureblood society, but that didn’t stop him from trying to help the children in some way. This time, though, he understood nearly nothing about the context. He had to find a way to make Lindsay repeat the whole store in a clearer way somehow, and then console her, hopefully without making her cry again since Harry’s chest always constricted with second-hand pain when he saw children cry.
Before he could reformulate his next sentence, the bus ground to a halt. Possibly another Hogwarts student?
Kreacher’s got this one, Harry assured himself, and he didn’t stand to greet the newcomer, but he did take a look outside out of habit, to check where the bus was.
Outside, the night had turned into a muddled puce color.
Before Harry could say or do anything, the world quickly darkened until it was nighttime again.
That must have happened because of the impossibly young Malfoy. Since the world outside had gone back to its proper natural hue, did that mean that Malfoy had walked again from the bus again?
As soon as Harry realized that he was worrying about the probably-imaginary younger self of a total git that was actually Merlin-knew-where, Harry tuned his attention to Lindsay. Merlin curse him if he couldn’t find a way to help her by the end of her ride in the bus.
“So, Lindsay…” said Harry, reclaiming the attention of the girl from her plate.
“If this… tradition of talking to the mermaids isn’t relevant before the fifth year, and you’re a second year… you don’t need to worry about it now, right?”
Harry hoped that his words would reassure Lindsay a bit, but she snapped her head up and looked at Harry as if she was recalling the nastiest curse she knew. As Harry had extensive, first-hand experience of how precocious and creative Slytherin students could be, he felt rightfully terrified of that 12-year-old girl sitting next to him, despite her soft-looking woolen cardigan, her red puffy eyes, and her bushy black braid with flash pink glitter in it.
Suddently, Harry heard somebody snort nearby. He turned around, and the impossibly young Malfoy was standing in the middle of the corridor of the bus, his arms crossed over his chest as he casually leaned over a pole. He was looked at Harry and Lindsay, and his eyes did a magnificient job of conveying a mixture of uncertainty, amusement, and curiosity.
“Hey,” greeted Harry in time to remember that he wasn’t supposed to know Malfoy’s name, at least this particular Malfoy’s.
So far, the best theory that Harry had about the situation was that this Malfoy was some kind of very powerful hallucination created by Harry’s over-stressed magical core. This was Mione’s most articulated theory, and Harry went with it in his mind in a simple attempt to remain as sane as possible. At least stress was a medical condition. The alternative was to think of himself as actually fucking crazy, or to think that the bus had somehow started to travel through time. Harry didn’t have the time and energy to dedicated himself with either alternative, so he picked Mione’s theory. Therefore Harry had decided to play it safe with whatever this Malfoy was or represented.
Instead of replying to Harry, Malfoy threw him an upset look, as if he was too confused or even intimated by something to talk to Harry. Harry recognized that look, children and teenagers who got that look on them later disclosed that they hadn’t trusted Harry almost until the end of their ride, that they had been suspicious of him even as their instincts and magic had reassured them that they were in a safe place.
Thus Harry simply nodded and tried to look as reassuring as possible and felt elated when Malfoy, although still frowning, nodded back.
“What are you doing, talking about a Slytherin tradition to somebody who’s so obviously Hufflepuff?” said Malfoy to Lindsay with only a hint of his usual sneer.
Harry immediately opened his mouth to tell Malfoy to tone it down a notch, but Lindsay bounced back quicker than he thought.
“I bet Griffindor,” she said with a tone of finality.
“Wait, there’s a bet going on about me?” asked Harry, half-horrified and half-pleased.
Lindsay shrugged in that manner that pre-teen girls used when they were damn sure that they weren’t going to tell anybody their secrets, shy of torture and death itself.
Harry turned to Malfoy, trying to convey ‘can you believe this kid?’ with his face, but he recalled how deep house loyalty could run in Slytherin, and wasn’t even bothered when Malfoy rolled his eyes at him minutely and said-
“We Slytherins run bets about anything and everything, and we’re actually able to keep secrets. You won’t get anything from her” - which made Lindsay focus back on Malfoy, her hands nervously tugging at her Hello Kitty pajama bottoms. The little kittens were charmed to move in a series of evening habits, such as bathing, brushing their teeth and reading bed-time stories. Harry was increasingly amazed at how seamlessly some items of muggle pop culture were being absorbed by the wizarding markets, but he always refrained himself from stating so for fear of being teased by the troubled children and by his friends.
“’We Slytherins’? What year are you? Who are you?” asked Lindsay, her sharp gaze memorizing everything about Malfoy.
She doesn’t recognize him, thought Harry, whose fear that he needed to explain the presence of a de-aged, acquitted, ex-Death Eater that was officially missing. Now he just needed to worry about Malfoy parading his family name to Lindsay. Harry tried to quickly think about an explanation, when Malfoy replied.
“Fifth year,” said Malfoy simply, looking down. That was so incredibly out of character for the teenager that Harry remembered, that he had to actively fight himself from asking Malfoy what the hell was wrong with him right then and there.
But thank Merlin, Lindsay didn’t know the difference, so she nodded and commented morosely on the OWLs before refocusing on Harry.
“Alright, what didn’t you get? I’ll repeat it.”
But before Harry could answer, Malfoy interrupted.
“Why are you telling him about the mermaids? Didn’t anybody tell you that you’re not supposed to spew Slytherin traditions to just anybody?”
Harry was about to retort, when he was interrupted again.
“He can help me,” grumbled Lindsay, and at that point Harry knew better than to try and speak up again.
“Why are you so convinced?” asked Malfoy.
“Because everybody says so. I’ve started hearing about him before school, then so many people were talking about him in school. Except doing homework for you and stuff, the Hogwarts Knight Bus’ keeper will help. That’s what they say.” Lindsay ended her explanation with a furtive glance at Harry, who pointedly ignored Malfoy’s unsubtle snort at the mention of the bus’ unofficial nickname, and focused on how to say his next words in a reassuring tone.
“Lindsay, thank you for the vote of confidence. I’m glad that students at Hogwarts are saying good things about their experience in the bus, but-“ Harry caught himself at the last second before saying something like ‘although it pains me to admit so, Malfoy may be right.’
“-but I wasn’t a Slytherin. I don’t know much about this mermaid tradition and, truthfully speaking, I didn’t get much out of your explanation before…” trailed off Harry, but Lindsay followed his line of reasoning and blushed.
“I was too busy crying myself stupid.”
“Hey, don’t say that. You can cry all you want here. You sounded like you’ve been very strong and kept everything well and hidden until now.”
Lindsay tried to subtle wipe the tears that were threatening her composure by scrubbing her whole face quickly.
“Yeah, you don’t survive 7 years in Slytherin if you cry before you master the silencing charm,” she said, looking outside of the window.
In Harry’s peripheral vision, Malfoy shifted against one of the poles of the bus, the second nearest to Harry and Lindsay’s seats. If Malfoy was aiming for subtlety in his eavesdropping, his technique needed some serious work. Harry thought about asking Malfoy to move away, but considering that Malfoy was not even supposed to exist, Harry was reluctant in letting him get too far out of this sight. Plus, Lindsay appeared to have accepted Malfoy’s presence in stride, even accepting the possibility that a fellow Slytherin could ridicule her in front of her house-mates. Clearly Lindsay was stronger than Harry imagined.
Thus Harry learned how there was a room in the Slytherin dungeon that looked very close to where the Lake’s community of mermaids lived. Hundreds of years ago, a deaf student started teaching the mermaids sign language out of loneliness, and by the end of her seventh year, she had managed to spread sign language to the whole community of mermaids and to a handful of Slytherin students.
If befriended, the mermaids taught many tricks to the students, and offered advices that were rarely malicious and dangerous. Learning sign language and talking to the mermaids was not exactly ‘mandatory’ in Slytherin, but sign language was a dead useful way to concoct plot behind the professors’ and the other students’ backs. There were also in-house traditions that dictated how fifth year Slytherin were supposed to achieve the best academic results of the school in the Aquatic module of Care of Magical Creatures, choose and ace the potions based on the Aquatic module in Potions, and follow the mermaids’ dating advices at least 3 times during the course of the first semester.
“I don’t even care about that, though!” growled Lindsay, her tiny hands closed in fists on her thighs.
“I want to become a healer of aquatic creatures. How can I become one after more than a year of practicing sign language? And the mermaids hate me! And those who don’t constantly laugh at me!” Lindsay’s voice broke only at the very end, probably because she had already cried once, but as Harry knew well by now that emotional 12-year-old boys and girls could burst into tears and anger very quickly and many time in the course of a few hours, he mentally commended the young witch for her resilience.
“Why do you think that some of the mermaids dislike you?” asked Harry as kindly as possible.
“Hate. They hate me. I don’t know why, but every time I ask them something, anything, they tell me to drown myself!”
That was so weird that Harry couldn’t help but frown. He had no idea what to say, and he was rescued by Lindsay’s glare towards Malfoy. Harry followed her gaze and couldn’t believe what he saw. Malfoy was snickering. He was bent forward slightly, and he was covering his mouth with the back of his hand, but his eyes were almost closed, and the baby fat around them that would soon turn into wrinkles was scrunched in unmistakable mirth.
Harry had learned that magical pictures were to be treasured because the shot absorbed quite the amount of magic from the photographer. In that moment, watching Malfoy almost laughing for the first time in years, Harry didn’t care whether Malfoy was a figment of his fucked up brains, or if the bus had stumbled in an alternate world, Harry only knew that he craved a magical photocamera to capture that moment, magic absorption be damned.
Lindsay grumbled in annoyance beside Harry, and he suddenly came back to reality.
“If you’re going to at Lindsay, I’m going to have the bus stop and drop you off.” Harry almost never needed to resort to such a last-ditch counter-measure, as the threat of being dropped off without so much as a word of advice was usually enough to deter bullies from laughing at the pain and discomfort of others. Thankfully, the strategy worked again.
“No need to take drastic measures, Mr. Keeper,” drawled Malfoy, straightening his posture but sounding as if he was still fighting the urge to laugh.
“You don’t need to be upset about the mermaids hating you,” added the blond boy, talking to Lindsay.
“On the contrary, one of them likes you in that way.” Malfoy stepped away from the pole and took one of the seats in front of Harry and Lindsay’s table. He looked at them both with an expectant expression, but he soon got the idea that his words didn’t make any sense to his interlocutors. Then Malfoy huffed a short, exasperated sigh before continuing.
“Most merpeople communities are still firmly attached to the old legends and beliefs. Among which is the belief that those who suffer death by drowning will be reincarnated in the nearest merpeople colony. If you want to become an aquatic creatures healer, you must know sign language well already. If, because of this, you caught the attention of a mermaid, the others are telling you to drown yourself so you can join her as soon as possible and be happily ever after and all that.”
“Wha-..But… drowning?!” sputtered Lindsay in shock and embarrassment.
“Drowning,” confirmed Malfoy without batting an eyelash. “It sounds macabre but it is what it is. Every time I asked the mermaids for dating advice, they’d tell me to drown him?”
“’Him?’” squealed Harry without a second thought, at the same time as Lindsay squealed a “Really?” but with much less panic and with much more hope in it.
“Understandably, Malfoy’s reaction was to frown at Harry in a ‘what the fuck’ manner. This was again confirmation enough that Malfoy had not recognized Harry, which, at this point, didn’t even puzzled Harry that much. It was just another quirk in a mad situation.
“Truly,” continued Malfoy, looking back at Lindsay.
“But so many mermaids have told me to drown myself now… And what about those who laugh at me?”
“Mermaids are terrible gossipers, and they’re very protective of each other. Let’s hypothesize that the mermaid who’s infatuated with you is shy or didn’t mean to reveal her secret, the other mermaids are helping her by telling you to join them and by proxy to join her. Those who laugh at you...” trailer off Malfoy, shrugging minutely, “they’re probably just making fun of your obliviousness. Although, in your defense, if you haven’t asked for dating advice yet, you had no way of knowing the mermaids’ habit.”
Lindsay nodded slowly. She took some time to wrap her head around what Malfoy had told her. In the meantime she stared at nothing in the way people stare at objects without seeing them, as their minds are reeling. Lindsay stared at her empty plate, saw it vanish, and stared a bit at the newly-appeared mug of steaming liquid before she idly wrapped her hands around it.
Similar mugs appeared in front of Harry and Malfoy. A quick sip told Harry that Kreacher was using him as a guinea pig for his new home-made digestive herbal mix. Harry didn’t mind as long as their passengers got the already ‘tested’ brews.
Lindsay sipped her tea for a couple of minutes before looking intently at Harry for a few moments, then looking sheepishly at Malfoy before settling for starting down at her mug.
“So… to make the mermaids stop making fun of me…” Lindsay didn’t use a questioning tone, but Harry heard the plead for advice in her tone anyway.
“Talking directly to the mermaid who’s infatuated with you would be the most straightforward course of action here,” started mulling Harry. “Either by rejecting or accepting her interest, you can make the mermaids stop making fun of you.”
When Harry heard a snort coming from Malfoy’s seat, he was ready with a reprimand, but Malfoy had already started talking.
“That would be good options if we weren’t talking about merpeople,” said Malfoy, and then turned to Lindsay. “If you reject your mermaid you’ll make them all hate you for real, no matter what she does or doesn’t tell the others. On the contrary, if you tell her you like her, even if you don’t actually, you’ll gain the most possessive, needy, jealous creatures on school grounds. A friend of mine is like an enamored mermaid and she’s an absolute terror. Just go with the Slytherin way: string your mermaid along until the end of school and tell her to keep her friends in check around you. That will solve the problem,” finished Malfoy, looking self-accomplished. But Harry was starting to see red at the suggestion.
“How can you say something like that? Giving false hope to somebody who’s interested in becoming your partner is cruel and heartless.”
“Cruel and heartless will be the mermaids’ reaction once Lindsay here rejects the avanches of her mermaids,” retorted Malfoy immediately, meeting Harry head-on.
“It’s still a terrible thing to do. Couldn’t Lindsay buy some time by being honest and telling the mermaid that this is too sudden?”
“The other mermaids will make fun of both and double their jeers to speed things along.”
“They can be so pushy?”
“Absolutely. Merpeople love a good show. And if Lindsay buys time in that meek way you suggested, they’ll see it for the half-assed excuse that it is and ridicule her for years. You need to approach merpeople by biding your time and sneaking up on them. Stringing the mermaid along, playing coy with her, that’s going to keep everything calm for Lindsay to learn something from the merpeople.”
“Asking the time to make up your own mind is not an half-assed excuse, it’s a legitimate reason. We’re talking about a queer relationship, an inter-species queer relationship. Shouldn’t Lindsay be entitled to some time to at least figure out her own sexual identity?”
“She can play coy while figuring out anything she desires. Second year is a tad precocious for untraditional escapades, but it’s never too early to learn the Slytherin way of getting oneself out of a bind. Plus, in fifth year every Slytherin becomes at the very least bisexual at some point,” finished Malfoy with a casual shrug that absolutely did not match the rising tide of panic and excitement that Harry felt at the words.
“You-Um… I mean, so, you…” stammered Harry, feeling more flustered than the moment he first kissed Cho and Ginny.
Malfoy regarded him with a bored, questioning frown and Harry sipped his brew as he debated within himself whether taking the coward way out and not finish the sentence would still be considered Griffindor-y. Probably not.
“Scintillating conversation. I’ll be going to, then,” said Malfoy, sliding out of his seat gracefully.
Harry wondered at Malfoy’s words until he took a look around and saw that Lindsay was gone, their mugs were too, the faint clanging sound of the dish-washing spell resonating in the air because the bus was not moving, its engine almost silent. Harry wanted to ask Malfoy what Lindsay was going to do in his opinion, what their debate taught her, but Malfoy was already slipping into the night without so much as a goodbye.
.
.
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