When All is Lost One is Found

Chapter 12: Flying Cars and Petrification

When All is Lost One is Found

Author: Rinoaebastel

Chapter 12: Flying Cars and Petrification

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and gain no profit from this fanfiction other than writing practice. Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling.

AN: This story may contain scenes taken from the Harry Potter movies and books, but it's not exact dialogue, just rewording of dialogue or omission. It is not marked.

September 1992

He threw the newspaper against the wall. Merlin, he hated his work. He wouldn't be lying if he admitted there were times he'd rather be in Azkaban than in his position. Every time he thought he forgot the past, released the anger into something constructive, he was brought back to it.

The younger Potter was just as much of a foolish fame seeking git as his father had been, and the pattern of praising Gryffindors for being foolish had not stopped.

Potter and his sidekicks went unpunished for his trip to retrieve the Philosopher's stone before Quirrell. Not only that, but he was being hailed as a hero. A hero for breaking rules that would get any other student from any other house suspended or expelled. This was going to make the young Potter even more arrogant than his father had been.

Potter hadn't even gotten a berating. Instead he got a special invite to have dinner in Dumbledore's office. He'd crashed a flying car into the womping willow and such irresponsible, not to mention illegal, act was being rewarded! He could relent that Potter was more important than his father, but it was a terrible idea to forego punishment just because he was the boy who survived the Dark Lord. He needed to learn that everything had consequences. It was as if Dumbledore was babying him.

Contrary to what many thought, he got along fairly decently with the other professors, even Minerva. He bantered with them about quidditch, though he did so in a neutral, unsmiling manner that made any outsider think he was above talking about it. He had intellectual exchanges during a drink at the three broomsticks, but had to put up an act that he was obligated to attend. Still, as a Slytherin he could feel the Gryffindor favoritism practically radiating off of many of them. This was especially obvious when it came to Dumbledore.

Didn't he realize that this favoritism was putting the whole wizarding world at risk? He knew what it was like to be forgotten, to be the odd one out, the ignored, and that could prompt people to strive for attention and power, even at the risk of their own safety and the safety of the world as they knew it.

He stormed down the corridors, trying to calm himself while the others were winding down from the welcome feast after effects of stuffing themselves. It was going to be another long year if Potter decided the rules didn't apply to him and if Dumbledore went along with it.

But he knew that was exactly what would happen.

-/-/-

Halloween 1992

The fake bats flew around everyone's heads as the occupants of the Great Hall ate the special Halloween desserts and meals. Things he just had no interest in. He looked down at his pie and forced himself not to frown any further. It was like an offer to a vampire with a thirst for blood.

He stabbed the pie, the contents seeping up through the holes in the crust like blood from a body. He pushed the image out of his brain. Strawberry. It was just strawberry.