"I apologize, Harry." The words sounded genuine. "It was not my intention to upset or disrespect you. I can see now that I am the only party still attempting to treat you as a child. Voldemort and the Ministry through the tournament will not give you that respect. It is unhelpful. and I will stop treating you as such."
"May I go, professor?" Harry had put his foot in his mouth enough, thank you. He was not sure the last time he'd had a proper rest or meal, and he was hungover and grouchy.
"Yes. We can continue our discussion another time. I will be more… forthcoming. But Harry, I would hope that you and your family treat me with the same courtesy. As we are allies, we should treat each other as such, agreed?"
"Yes sir. I'm sure they would love to speak with you on this topic."
"And indeed we shall, but another day, my boy. If I may recommend, water and a heavy meal will do wonders for your hangover and mood, rather than caffeine and sugar."
Harry nodded once and fled from his seat.
Running down the corridors, he sequestered himself in an empty hall behind a suit of armor and gagged. Overwhelmed, he gasped and shook with adrenaline. Fine, he was fine. Everything had turned out fine.
He'd successfully outmaneuvered Dumbledore. Sure, the man would no doubt have questions that would need to be answered, but he probably, probably, didn't think Harry was a necromancer. (He probably thought mama was one, but uh…) They could work on a cover story. He had agreed to be their ally, at least while they tackled Voldemort, and Harry had weaseled some information out of the man that he would have refused to give up otherwise.
His gasps turned to a mad bout of laughter.
Harry wanted to get drunk again. That it was only two in the afternoon was irrelevant. If he wasn't drunk, he was being forced to deal with his variety of problems. Problems that he needed to settle in a boring, non-murderous way. He vowed to never take up smoking, he had enough vices.
Maybe he should go take another dip in the lake. The urge to curse someone was tickling under his skin. He deserved a medal, for not caving yet this year. He handled all his issues with grace - or at least with a reasonable amount of violence. But he had not raised his wand to Dumbledore and had talked out all his feelings instead. Maybe he'd gone a bit barmy on poor Neville and then his Headmaster, who had only deserved about half of his unfocused ranting, but it was an improvement, he was sure.
He hoped his mama would focus on the good news and not the bit where he'd revealed a load of his secrets to two different people. He could no longer hide from their overdue conversation either, not with the chance that the Headmaster might corner her for information at any moment.
He was still profoundly embarrassed that he had essentially stormed off to cry and throw a temper tantrum yesterday. He would be blaming it on puberty if anyone asked.
He paced down the corridor to the trophy room. Abandoned as usual, he flung the shadows from the dusty corners into a shadowed dog.
"Go find mama, and see if she's alone," Harry demanded and sent it away. There were not a lot of curses that were fun to perform on inanimate objects but Harry did his damndest to destroy the trophy room. The roar of dark magic in his ears drowned out his annoying feelings of shame and fear. A violent flick sent fiendfye billowing out to light the curtains. He held the flame only a second or two, his concentration fully on not setting the entire castle ablaze with uncontrollable destruction. He pulled the fire back in just as the curtains crumbled to dust.
Harry panted and gasped with exertion. Like he'd jogged a mile, he felt tired and sated. Mind clear of thoughts. Okay, he was still a bit embarrassed, but he was much calmer. The shadow barked.
Harry dragged the rest of the shadows over him and sent himself away to mama's office.
Behind a pillar, clutching at his heart, eyes wide with terror, stood Draco Malfoy. He looked around, searched for wherever Potter had fled to, if he was still hidden in the shadows. His eyes flicked to the ruined curtains and an involuntary shudder ran over him. He ran to the owlery.
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