𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓

Chapter 17

Previously...

After reading the Daily Profit's revealing article naming Harry Potter a potential threat, Draco put a back-up plan into action to buy some time. Elsewhere, Harry met his new anger management counselor, Dr Bellatrix Lestrange, who might just have plans of her own to fulfill.

Mother Knows Best

Chapter Seventeen

Moment of Madness

Though his feet seemed to know exactly where he was headed, Harry was hardly watching where he was going, his thoughts a never-ending, dispassionate chant of 'I hate that bitch'.

Though an appealing prospect, breaking his punishment twice in one day on his first day of punishment when he was already in hot water with the Headmaster was about the most foolish decision he could make at this point, so going for a drive was out of the question. Running a few laps around the track sounded like a Godsend right about now, though, or even better; a couple undisturbed hours with his guitar and one of his notebooks. He knew he tended to become quiet when he was angry or miserable and the last thing he needed was his roommates to notice something was wrong and question him about it, as that would lead to the eventual truth about where he had been and why. As it was, he didn't want to lie to them. He didn't like liars and he didn't want to hate himself any more than he did at the moment by making himself one.

Hearing his stomach growling its argument that he was still a growing boy in dire need of sustenance, Harry decided to risk it.

Normal times, Harry would refuse to let such a petty encounter bother him. It was a philosophy of sorts. If you let everything get to you, there's no way you could handle the big shit life wanted to throw at you without a mental breakdown. Of course, that didn't mean he didn't have some soft spots; triggers that could set him off quick, but usually, he could deal with people like Bellatrix. Some of the shit that woman said, though, managed to get under his skin and he hated himself for letting it.

One of the main things that pissed him off about the woman, aside from her damnably ironic passive-aggression (which, really, you'd think a short temper was something of a counter-productive trait to being an anger management counselor), was her insulting insinuation that he was some insolent child acting out because of his wild and unruly upbringing.

It was the one thing Harry was starting to hate about Hogwarts. To these people who didn't know him, didn't understand him, he was an unruly youth in need of disipline and guidance. Nobody here believed he was capable of making his own desicions, not by a long shot. Now, he'd be the first one to admit some of his choices in the past couldn't exactly be considered wise ones. Sure, he always tried to do the right thing; always had good motives behind his actions, but he was only human. Everyone was in entitled to their fair share of mistakes and he had learned from them, always.

Having strength through experience in that kind of sense was something Harry was proud of, in a way. That kind of independence was vastly important to him. Nobody needed him and he didn't need anybody. A bittersweet thought, but nonetheless true. But here, to these people, he was just some stereotypical 'bad apple' teenager, systematically spoiling the whole barrel. The barrel, in this case, meaning an entire school of horribly sheltered youths in need of a serious dose of reality.

Harry knew what the big bad world outside the educational system had to offer, witnessed first hand the decay of society, slummed it with the human throwaways and quickly learned to make the best of it, because being lonely and surrounded by loners was still better than being lonely and alone.

Nobody seemed to understand how different Hogwarts was from every other time of his life. Everyone saw how quickly he'd adapted to the Academy and just assumed where he was before wasn't that much of a change from where he found himself now. But it was. It really was, and that was exactly the reason he was so comfortable here. It was the exact opposite from where he was before and he really, really liked that.