Work Text
The first time Harry notices him, it’s during the scramble to get to the next class, when the students rush toward the moving stairs in a swarm that pushes Harry along.It’s just for a moment, a brief glimpse of dark hair, pale skin, and Ravenclaw blue from the corner of his eye, and then the crowd has whisked him away. There is nothing special about it–it can’t even be called an encounter. They never so much as made eye contact. He doesn’t know why the boy caught his attention in the first place–his fine features were normal amongst their pure-blooded school mates. Something about the way he carried himself, maybe, that made him separate from the rest of them, seem so much older than his short stature indicated.The stairs he and Ron are waiting on align with a hallway close to their Transfiguration classroom, and they scurry off them alongside a large portion of the other students on the stairway, Ravenclaw boy completely forgotten. The second time Harry sees him, he is nearly hidden in one of the alcoves of the Hogwarts halls, down on one knee talking to a short grey person-like creature. Harry has never seen such a creature before, and points the pair out to Ron to ask what it is as they make their way to the Great Hall for breakfast.Ron furrows his brow, a strange expression on his face. “That’s a house elf. They take care of all the cleaning and stuff. Who’s that bloke talking to it? You don’t generally see house-elves around, let alone talk to one.”Harry shrugs, as clueless as Ron. Then they walk past him, and he is once more forgotten in favour of more immediate concerns, like the hunger in their stomachs and their upcoming lesson with Snape. After that, the third and fourth and fifth encounters occur in a similar fashion, little more than passing glances in the corridors. Yet Harry finds himself making note of him on these occasions. Soon, Harry starts to notice him everywhere, and more importantly, everywhere he isn’t. He’s in the library with other students, but sits apart. He’s on the grounds on a sunny day, but wandering alone. He’s by the lake, tossing food to the Giant Squid, but separately from everyone else. He isn’t often in class, or at breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Harry doesn’t remember ever hearing anyone say his name. He must have heard his name at some point–during the sorting ceremony, or the roll calls each class took on the first day of class, but Harry hadn’t been paying attention then.He finds himself noticing him in the classes they share–Charms and Transfiguration–when he is there. He always seems to disappear after the first few minutes of class, only present during the handing in of homework and initial demonstration, and missing out on the rest of the class, where they practise the spellwork under the supervision of the professor. He stays through for any of their test days, but Harry can’t recall ever seeing him at the end of class on any other day. And Harry can’t seem to catch the moment that he disappears, even when he starts actively trying.Oddly enough, no one else seems to notice.Harry starts to half suspect he is a ghost.Finally, two months into their first year, during the first few minutes of their Charms class, Harry ventures to bring it up with Ron.“Where do you reckon that bloke goes all the time in class?”Ron looks up from the feather he’s supposed to be levitating–ignoring Hermione’s noise of frustration. “What? Who?” Always willing to be distracted, Ron immediately follows Harry’s jerk of his head to the dark-haired boy sitting near the doorway. He hasn’t left yet, having sat down after handing in his charms essay, but he also hasn’t really done more than take out his wand–he’s certainly not waving it around and yelling like most of the class. His partner is completely ignoring him too. As Harry and Ron watch, he smoothly tucks his wand away and picks up his bag, sliding the strap over his shoulder.The wild cacophony of everyone individually practising the spell (despite supposedly working in pairs) makes Harry nearly miss the moment the boy stands up–too busy ducking a particularly enthusiastic, but no more effective, attempt at the spell by Seamus.He watches the boy slip out the door just as Professor Flitwick calls out, “Oh, well done, Miss Granger! Look here everyone, Miss Granger’s done it!” and soon he is too busy trying to console a scowling Ron to wonder much longer about it.It isn’t really his business anyway, and if the Professors haven’t said anything about it, then surely it isn’t that big a deal? The boy clearly has no desire to draw attention to himself, and Harry can sympathise.He’s dead curious though.So curious, in fact, that he manages to convince Ron to go with him to the library, where he is practically guaranteed to find the boy somewhere amongst the stacks during the free period between Charms and dinner.They camp out at a table by the door and play chess while they wait–well, Ron plays chess, Harry mostly just follows whatever advice the chess pieces whisper-shout the loudest.Eventually, about ten minutes before they would need to head down to the Great Hall, their patience pays off. During what is looking to be the death throes of their third chess match, the boy emerges from the stacks. He carries no books with him that Harry can see, though he supposes they could be stuffed into his bag, and doesn’t even spare them a glance as he strides past them.Harry waits until he’s swept out the large doors and into the hallway, presumably off to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast. Harry and Ron will need to run to it since they aren’t leaving now–but first, Harry speed walks the way the boy had come, ignoring Ron’s grumbling and the sounds of him packing up the chess set.He doesn’t know how far back the boy went, but the shelves are sorted by subject, and the sections are large enough that there aren’t too many distinct subjects in this particular row of shelves.Harry slows to scan a few titles– Rituals at Night for the Determined Wizard , Runic Transcriptions of Olde, Timeless Transfiguration Tricks –just enough to figure out the subjects. He goes all the way to the very end of the row, finding it ends in stacks of faded newspapers and dusty record books.So, assuming the boy had been in this row, and hadn’t just exited from it after taking a few turns, he was interested either in rituals, runes, transfiguration, or newspapers. Harry wishes there was a way to see which things the boy had touched, but if there’s a spell for that, Harry doesn’t know it. Everything is dust free and in place to boot, and while there are several books missing, they could have been taken by anyone. Harry isn’t sure what exactly he was hoping to find. At least with this he knows where to check for the boy in the future. Maybe he’ll even manage to find out exactly what he’s been researching.Begrudgingly, he turns back to join up with an impatiently waiting Ron, and together they scurry off to the Great Hall.The boy hadn’t come to the feast, an event Harry had sort of assumed was mandatory, though that didn’t make sense once Harry put some thought into it. There wasn’t really a way to take attendance, and it wasn’t like they’d been told they had to come. It just seemed like the obvious conclusion given the fanfare. So where does he go to eat? Harry wonders as he finishes up the last of his potatoes. Could he be a vampire? They haven’t covered them yet in Defence Against the Dark Arts, but the illustrations in their textbook show vampires as pale and dark haired, like the boy. Harry immediately feels foolish for the thought–pale and dark haired fits a bunch of students, Harry included. The boy was almost certainly alive. Just mysterious. So he had to eat at some point, and if he never came to the Great Hall to eat then–“TROLL!” Quirrell bellows, sprinting through the doors of the Great Hall. “In the dungeons–thought you ought to know.” Quirrell topples over in a dead faint as the tables erupt into chaos, a cacophony of panicked shouts and chatter.Harry finds himself swept away by the chaos at first, the panicked fear and confusion blurring his surroundings, with a little bit of giddy excitement adding to the mania. Afterall, for all that the troll is surely a danger, it isn’t here . And something like this hasn’t happened before that he’s ever heard.The clamour of the Hall is brought to a halt by even louder and more attention grabbing fireworks, released from Dumbledore’s wand. Masterfully, he takes control of the room, and directs all students to return to their dorms.As the Gryffindors are led back to their dormitories in an anxious and whispering crowd by the Prefects, Harry tugs Ron toward the back of the group. Hermione, he notes, glares at them, but then huffs and resolutely ignores them–clearly still caught up over the incident with the three-headed-dog.“The boy is gone,” Harry hisses.“What?” Ron furrows his brow in confusion. “Oh, you mean that boy from the library. The one you’re obsessed with.”Harry frowns at him. He isn’t obsessed . Just curious about a boy who never seems to attend classes or interact with people and whom nobody else seems to notice as acting oddly.“He never showed up. That means he doesn’t know about the troll. We need to find him!”Ron is already shaking his head, “Why don’t we just tell the Prefects then? We have no idea where he is, wherever it is it’s probably safe enough–the troll is in the dungeons, and he’s probably in his dorm already.”Harry scowls. Everything Ron is saying is true, but he wants to find the boy for himself–to have an excuse to ask the boy what he’s doing and why he keeps skipping out on class. And how he keeps getting away with it. “He could be in the library again. If he had a quick dinner.”Ron gives him a dubious look. “Merlin, you really think so? Not even Hermione is that obsessed. Besides, the library is far away from the dungeons, if he is there then he should be safe enough.”Harry can’t come up with a good enough counter to Ron’s point, so reluctantly he subsides. Only, in the time they’ve been talking, the rest of the Gryffindor group has disappeared around the bend of the corridor. This wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem, given that the group is headed in the direction of the dormitory. Except as Ron and Harry jog along the corridors, they hear the muffled sound of large footsteps and a low groaning noise echoing from an area most distinctly not the dungeons.In fact, it’s coming from the corridor that leads to the library.Harry and Ron exchange a look.Harry’s says, That must be the troll! We need to go after it! If the boy is in the library he might be in trouble! Ron’s says, Do we have to? He’s probably fine. Without speaking, Harry dashes off down the corridor, Ron following closely, if somewhat reluctantly, at his heels.They sprint down two hallways, turn the third corner, and skid to a stop, frantically trying to keep quiet to avoid attracting the massive troll’s attention.It’s currently fixated on the moving figures fleeting their portraits, lumbering after them in slow, heavy steps, massive club dragging behind it, banging against the ground. Thump. Thump. Thump . Then the large, heavy library door sways open with a soft groan, and the boy is standing there, wide eyed, wand in hand, and frozen in shock. He clearly wasn’t expecting the noise he heard to be a twelve foot tall mountain troll.His eyes are locked onto the back of the enormous troll, then he blinks, shakes his head, and looks directly at Harry and Ron, who have managed to scramble behind a suit of armour that provides some cover from the troll. Frantically, they gesture for him to run towards them while the troll is still distracted.But it’s a futile hope–the troll is already turning toward the open library door, where the light from the library lamps is shining through, lighting up a patch of the corridor. Running toward Harry and Ron would only attract the troll’s attention, and while they can maybe outrun the troll while it’s not paying them any attention, their defence lessons have mentioned that they can reach speeds of up to 50 kilometers an hour. Harry definitely can’t run that fast. And the boy can’t possibly grab and swing the heavy oak doors closed in time. The boy obviously realises this too, as instead of going for the door or Harry and Ron, he ducks to the side, back into the library and out of sight from the troll.But the light of the open library door has caught the troll’s attention, and it follows the light toward the library doors with a slow, shuffling gait. There’s no way the boy can escape, Harry thinks in despair. He’s trapped.“Ron! We need to distract it!” Harry whispers furiously, trying to find something to throw–or maybe he should just make a really loud noise? He starts pulling at one of the suit of armour’s plates, trying to pry it off to throw at the troll, but they’re stuck firmly in place.The troll is stepping through the doorway of the library now, and if they do manage to distract it they might be able to run away and turn a corner before it sees them. It seems slow–maybe the textbook exaggerated? Or maybe this is just a particularly dumb and lethargic troll.Harry feels Ron take a deep breath beside him, and sees him brace his hands on the suit of armour, ready to shove. Harry quickly gets the idea, and follows suit.“On three?” Harry asks. At Ron’s grim nod, they count– one, two, three– then they shove the suit of armour in one great push. It wobbles a little in place, heavier than they expected. Together, they shove again, and this time they keep pushing, leaning their whole weight into it.The armour tips with a creak, seeming to hang in the air for a brief moment, and then smashes into the ground all at once, Harry stumbling to keep upright while Ron tumbles to the ground with it. The clattering and ringing clamour of colliding metal and stone echoes throughout the corridor, an awful racket that surely grabs the attention of everyone within a 50 metre radius. Which may possibly just be the two of them, the boy, and the troll, since the library isn’t near any dormitories and the Professors are all presumably in the dungeons, three floors down.But at least they definitely have the troll’s attention, especially since once it whips around, surprisingly fast–maybe the textbooks weren’t exaggerating–they are standing in full view of it, no armour to hide behind anymore, with Ron sprawled on the floor and Harry frantically trying to pull him up.The troll’s face twists up into an even more hideous snarl as it lets out an ear splitting roar that shakes the walls of the corridor, and it sets itself like it’s about to lunge, and Harry is very quickly coming to regret their bravery, 50 kilometres an hour running through his head–“ Epoximise.” The troll lunges forward, trips, and crashes to the floor. Or what used to be the floor. The floor around the troll has turned into a shallow pool of sticky, viscous, fluid-like goop, milky white and a little like the putty Dudley had put in Harry’s hair a few years ago. The sound of the troll colliding with the floor is more akin to a smack! than a crash! , the sound muffled and out of place.The troll barely has time to make a sound of confusion and try to lift a hand, tendrils of goop clinging to it, before–“ Reducto.” The troll’s head jerks back, howls of rage and pain almost drowning out the second and third, “ Reducto. Reducto.” The boy steps forward, out into the threshold of the library, now visible to Harry and Ron once more. He never takes his eyes off the howling and thrashing troll, never lets up on the quiet stream of Reducto s–each one punctuated by a flinch from Harry and renewed screaming from the troll, until the troll eventually stops its howling and subsides into soft whimpers and short twitches.They all stand there for a few moments in the near silence, looking at the still twitching troll, its face brutalised beyond recognition. The only sound is the quiet plip-plip-plip of dripping fluid from what remains of the troll’s face, echoing hollowly in Harry’s ears. Harry’s dinner threatens to come back up.Swallowing thickly, Harry’s eyes drift toward the boy. It was in self-defence, Harry thinks. More, it was technically in defence of them , since the troll had turned fully away from the boy and had been about to charge at Harry and Ron, who had frozen in panic.The boy’s already looking at them, expression tight, but nowhere near as panicked or scared as Harry thinks the situation warrants. But then, he hadn’t panicked at all, had he? He’d just calmly brutalised and taken down the troll using spells Harry hadn’t even heard of , without batting an eye . Hermione probably would have known them. Maybe there’s something to be said about reading books constantly after all. Harry looks back at the troll, stomach queasy. More than knowing the spells, it may be the ability to use them like that that makes it more impressive. And more disturbing.At least this explains why he skips class so often. Clearly, he doesn’t need the lessons.“Are you alright?” The boy asks. His voice is soft, an aristocratic lilt that reminds Harry of Draco, but it cuts through the thick silence like a knife through butter.Ron lets out a shuddering breath, “Blimey mate, how’d you do that?”The boy lets out a soft huff of laughter. “It’s not as impressive as it looks. Just a simple transfiguration and then Reducto.”Harry shakes off his daze and steps forward, taking care to stay as far away from the troll as he can. “I’m glad you’re alright. We noticed you weren’t at the feast and got worried when we saw the troll pass by the library. We know you’re in there a lot.”“You… came after me?” the boy asks, brows raised in obvious surprise.Harry flushes and glances down at the troll again; their help clearly wasn’t needed.A soft chuckle brings his focus back to the boy.“Thank you,” he says, extending a hand. “Reg, at your service. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”Harry reaches out to take his hand, flashing back to the last time someone offered to shake his hand. Reg seems much nicer than Draco. “Harry Potter,” he says. “And this is Ron Weasley.”Reg nods at Ron, and extends his hand to him as well. Ron shakes it awkwardly, clearly as unaccustomed to this kind of formality as Harry.“Well met,” Reg says, giving a slight dip of his head in a movement that’s almost a bow.Ron steps back, and an awkward silence descends upon them. Before it can go on too long, Reg looks both ways down the corridor, and says, “Do you know where the Professors are? I’d have expected them to have arrived by now, given the ruckus.”Hastily, Harry fumbles his way through an explanation of Quirrell, the troll supposedly being in the dungeons, and the evacuation. Reg hums thoughtfully, then turns around and heads back into the depths of the library. “I’ll be right back.”When he returns he’s holding a piece of parchment paper, which he folds into a paper aeroplane. Then he taps it with his wand, says, “To Professor Flitwick,” and throws it.Harry half expects it to travel the length of the corridor and drift gently to the ground. Instead, it swoops downwards, pulls up in a graceful curve, and zooms around the corner.“That should take care of that,” he says.They stand there in another moment of awkward silence – at least, it feels awkward to Harry. It evidently doesn’t to Reg, because he says, “Well, it was nice meeting you,” and turns back to go into the library.Harry looks at Ron. Ron looks at Harry.Ron shrugs. Then sighs, when Harry follows after Reg.Reg turns out to be sitting at the same table Harry and Ron were sitting at earlier, relatively secluded but with a good view of the corridor through the open doorway, and in this instance, the troll. Papers and books are sprawled out around him in semi-organized chaos, a Muggle pencil and eraser laid out next to a notebook that looks well used.He looks up from the thick text he’s scanning when Harry approaches, one eyebrow elegantly arched.“Mind if we wait here with you?” Harry asks.Reg blinks, looking somewhat poleaxed, then shrugs. “I don’t mind.”Harry pulls out the seat across from Reg, while Ron throws himself into the one beside Harry.Curious, Harry looks over the scattered papers and books, taking the opportunity to snoop without needing to stakeout a bookshelf. Newspapers? Law books? Harry had expected magic books. Something that would have advanced spells or secret weaknesses of magical creatures that would explain how he knew how to deal with the troll. This is surprisingly… mundane.“What are you looking at all this for?” Ron asks, picking up A Treatise of Magical Law for Criminal Cases Most Severe , a thick book with a plain blue cloth cover and faded gold lettering.Reg’s smile twists a little as he says, “Just some light reading. You never know when you’ll need to know how the law works.” A beat. “Or how to right a wrong.” Reg suddenly looks tired, weary, even grim, like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.“No wonder you’re a Ravenclaw,” Ron says after a slightly awkward pause, huffing out a breath as he shakes his head and leans back, dropping the book to the table with a dull thump.Reg only smiles silently, going back to the book he currently has open, occasionally referencing a newspaper, and writing down a comment or two into his notebook.He doesn’t get far before the quick patter of footsteps echo down the hallway, and then exclamations of surprise and horror interrupt Reg’s quiet post-battle study session.Professor Flitwick pops into view, looking down at the body of the troll, grimacing at the mess that used to be its face, and flicking out his wand. A few flicks of his wrist and the troll is lifting off the ground, the sticky floor sloughing off, and then being wrapped up first in cloth, then chains–a little like a very large and misshapen mummy that someone really wanted to keep from escaping.Professor McGonagall arrives then too, immediately looking around. Her gaze lands on the three of them, now standing in the entrance area of the library, as far away from the troll as they can manage while still being within talking distance of the professors.“Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Mr. Gabron! Are you three alright?” she demands. “What in Merlin’s name happened? You three should have all been in your dorms.”Reg blinks, “Did you not receive my message?”Professor McGonagall’s lips purse. “We did. It was very… succinct.” She unfolds a small piece of paper, and on it Harry can see written in neat, elegant print in dark lead pencil, The troll was encountered outside the library. It has been subdued. No casualties. “Setting aside the question of how the troll managed to make it all the way to the library, why were you three here?”Harry and Ron look at each other, then at Reg.Reg sighs, like he has to bear a terrible burden, and says, “My fault, I’m afraid. I lost track of time in the library and missed out on the feast. Harry and Ron realised I was in danger when they heard the troll and came to save me. It was just bad luck that the troll happened upon us.”Harry desperately tries not to make a face, keeping his eyes fixed on Professor McGonagall, occasionally flicking toward the trussed-up troll and Professor Flitwick, who is standing behind Professor McGonagall and is near vibrating with either anger or excitement.Professor McGonagall raises an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware that you two were friends with Mr. Gabron,” she says to Harry and Ron.Harry shrugs at her, unable to come up with anything that might sound convincing.Ron shuffles his feet and mumbles something about them seeing him in class sometimes.Reg gives another soft laugh and says, “I think they were just particularly observant. Either way, it was lucky they did, I might have been in trouble otherwise.”“Speaking of!” Professor Flitwick pipes up, “Who did that marvellous bit of transfiguration?”Reg’s gentle smile flickers for a bit, turning into a grimace for a brief instant before returning, so quick Harry almost misses it. “The glue was me. Just a spell I saw in a book that looked useful.”Professor Flitwick beams at him, “Ingenious! But why did you go for that one instead of an offensive one?”Reg hesitates. “I did go for an offensive one?” He says it like it’s a question, but slowly, like he doesn’t think he’ll like the response.“Well, yes, but did you cast the epoxy transfiguration before or after your offensive spells?” Professor Flitwick presses.“Before,” Reg admits, begrudging. “Trolls have magic resistant skin. I didn’t think I’d be able to bring it down quickly enough, given my limited repertoire and power.” Reg hesitates again. “Once it was stuck, repeated Reductos were used to render it unconscious. Or at least unable to mount an effective attack.”“Oh ho!” Professor Flitwick bounces on the balls of his feet, looking like he wants to applaud. “Well thought out! And in the heat of the moment too! I think that shall be fifteen points to Ravenclaw, for a well thought out and well executed plan. Well done!”Reg smiles slightly, and dips his head, shy. Then his eyes slide over to Harry and Ron. “Harry and Ron helped as well.”That sounds like a much more generous description of what Harry and Ron accomplished than what Harry thinks they actually managed, but Harry doesn’t say anything. Neither does Ron.Instead, they stand there, looking as tired and unfortunate as they can make themselves, and are each awarded ten points.Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick send Harry, Ron, and Reg back to their dormitories, Reg taking a brief moment to gather up his books and papers, leaving the ones he hasn’t signed out at the desk and stuffing the rest into his bag.The silence feels heavy between them until they turn the corridor, out of sight of the professors, at which point it becomes tense.Harry can’t hold back the questions anymore.“Why do you skip class all the time?” he blurts out. “And why are you really studying wizarding law?”Reg blinks, not expecting it. Then his gaze turns curious. “You noticed that?” His clear gray eyes drill into Harry with all the focus of Ms. Norris finding a student after curfew. “Interesting. You must have a strong mind–have you looked into mental magics, by any chance?”Now it’s Harry’s turn to blink. “Mental magics?”Reg smiles ruefully, “Evidently not. If you’re interested, I’d look up Legilimency or Occlumency. You might find yourself talented in one or the other.”“Mental magics?” Ron asks. “Aren’t those Dark?”Reg hums thoughtfully. “They can be. A lot of really terrible things can be done with mind magics, but I think that just makes it more important for people to learn about them. So that they can be aware of what an attack feels like, and how to defend against it. Ultimately, it’s a tool, and one inherently neutral in affinity. Whether it’s Dark or Light really depends on the caster.”“Ugh,” Ron’s face scrunches up, “You sound like a Slytherin.”Reg gives a sharp bark of laughter at that, and shakes his head. “If treating magic as a tool is all it takes to make one a Slytherin in your mind, then that comment reflects more on you than it does on me.”Ron flushes, mouth opening to say something no doubt offensive, and Harry jumps in with the first thing he can think of–“I saw you using a Muggle pencil. How did you get one? I didn’t see any in Diagon Alley.”Instantly, Harry feels stupid; he didn’t go to every store in Diagon, and surely there are other places you can get supplies. But Reg doesn’t make fun of him, though he does give Harry an odd look.“I brought it from home,” he says, “I’m Muggle-born.”That shouldn’t be as shocking as it is, but Harry still feels gratified at the way Ron makes a noise of incredulousness.“Muggle-born! I would have thought you were a pure-blood, with the way you act! No wonder I didn’t recognize the last name.” Ron stares wide-eyed at Reg, even more shocked than Harry.Reg’s eyes crinkle up in a smile, “Thank you, I suppose.”“Uh, sorry for assuming,” Harry says. “I thought, with the way you talk, and act, and know so much–”“Ah, I had a strict mother, and just happened to know a few extra spells that turned out to be useful.” Reg’s smile turns bashful. “It’s really not as special as it seems, I’m sure you could learn those spells easily too.”By now they’ve arrived at the split where the way to their dormitories separate, and Reg pauses for a moment after taking a few steps down the left branch of the corridor. He looks back at Harry over his shoulder, and says, “Anyway, it was nice meeting you. Hopefully our next encounter will be less exciting.” He smiles, flaps his hand in an approximation of a wave, and strides off.Ron shakes his head, “Weird bloke. You reckon he really learned all those fancy spells from books? In the two months he’s been here?”Harry doesn’t know what to think. “Could he have started learning before his letter?”Ron’s eyebrows scrunch up, “Maybe,” he says doubtfully. “Some Muggleborns know about magic before getting the letter because of siblings who have magic, but the restrictions on them are much tighter than for purebloods or half-bloods.”Stumped, they trudge off to their dormitories, where they are greeted by a rush of noise and food and demands to know where they went.It’s only when they tuck in for the night that Harry realises Reg never answered his first questions. They still aren’t friends, though they wave to each other when they pass each other in the hallways, and on the rare occasions Harry and Ron take to the library, they sit with Reg. And when Reg slips out of the classrooms after handing in his homework, sometimes Harry watches. Sometimes, Reg gives him a wink as he leaves, and Harry delights in the feeling of being in on a secret.Life carries on. Harry has his first Quidditch match, and Ron gets some help from Hermione in Charms–“She’s really not that bad!” he says, only days after complaining about her unbearable know-it-all-ness–and Reg surrounds himself with law books and newspapers and thick texts.And then one day, Harry, Ron, and Hermione arrive at the Great Hall for breakfast to a great commotion.Owls flood the hall in greater numbers than usual, nearly all of them carrying newspapers in addition to whatever letters they bring. Almost every student in Slytherin has an owl in front of them, along with about half of the students at each of the other tables.“What’s going on?” Harry asks Seamus as he slides onto the bench. Seamus tilts the newspaper towards Harry. Splashed across the front page are two black-and-white moving pictures, one of a ragged man with hollow eyes and sunken cheeks, and the other of a man in a set of formal dress robes, stern and scowling.The headline declares, “SIRIUS BLACK INNOCENT! OUTRAGE SPREADS AT GROSS INJUSTICE!” in large bold letters.“Huh,” Harry says. “Who’s Sirius Black?”Ron makes a slightly muffled choking sound from next to him, while Seamus’ eyebrows fly up in surprise.“Oh, right, you wouldn’t know. He’s a pretty famous war criminal apparently. I’ve only heard of him in passing, but then, he was arrested a long time ago. When You-Know-Who died he lost it and blew up a street with a bunch of muggles. Supposedly. Guess it wasn’t him in the end.” Seamus gestures with the paper still blaring Sirius Black’s innocence.Harry turns to thump Ron on the back as he hacks up his toast. “Is it that big a deal?” Harry asks. He supposes it’s not every day a war criminal gets declared innocent, but this still seems like a much bigger deal than he’d have expected.“Well, it’s not just that he didn’t do it. It’s also that he never got a trial and served ten years in Azkaban because of that. And he’s the Head of the House of Black. One of them Noble Houses,” Seamus explains. “That’s what all the outrage is about,” he jerks his chin at the Slytherin table, “If it could happen to one Head of an Ancient and Noble House, it can happen to any of them.”He flattens the paper out on the table. “I think Crouch may be in trouble, he’s the one that rushed him through without… due process? Or something? I don’t know, this law stuff is a bit above my level.”At the mention of law stuff, Harry finds his head snapping around to look at the Ravenclaw table. Surely not, it couldn’t be. Why would he even— Reg is there, for once–not one of the students with an owl in front of him, but peering over the shoulder of the girl next to him at the newspaper in front of her. There’s a bright, wide grin on his face, one Harry has never seen on him before.As if sensing his gaze, he looks up, directly at Harry. And winks.