worth so much more - l.s

Chp. 4

Harry walked down the steps of the Quidditch viewing tower, after an hour and a half of sitting in the cold, viewing the Slytherin teams practice. It was not at all how Harry had expected. He thought their practices were rigid, and stressful. He thought that since they were such amazing players they would have to had trained very, very hard to get where they were.

But it turned out, Louis was as laid back in quidditch as he was in class, or when he walked down the hallways. He did practice of course, so did all the players, but they seemed to be having fun above all else.

Harry admired them for that. He knew he was sort of uptight and organized with everything when it came to school stuff. He would always complete his homework at least a week in advance, and would spend his free time studying to make sure he understood anything and everything.

He didn't know why being ahead of time in school work was so important to him... because back when he lived in Cheshire, he didn't really care about school. Not as much anyway, he would always hand in his homeworks on time but he would usually do them the night before.

When he arrived at Hogwarts, everything about that changed. Harry felt the need to be advanced in most of his classes, and felt the need to be recognized as smart. Sometimes he thought he felt that way because a lot of people hated everything else about him so much, that he needed at least one good quality.

And though some people thought being so smart made him a freak, Harry was relatively proud of his good grades and reputation for mastering so many fairly complicated spells, and at such a young age.

Despite being proud of himself, Harry couldn't help but wish that from time to time he could be a bit more normal. He wished he could walk down the hallways with friends by his side. He wished he could spend his breaks snacking on candy that he and his friends had bought from Honeydukes, the famous candy store in Hogsmead. He even wished he could fail a quiz once or twice.

And although he was very shy and quiet, just once, he wished that he could attract attention for laughing loudly at something someone sitting with him had said.

In fact, that was what had happened the first time he saw Louis. Of course it was the other way round, Louis had been the one laughing with his friends, not Harry. His loud and contagious laugh had echoed through the Grand Hall one morning during breakfast. When Harry turned around to see where the laugh had come from he saw Louis at the long Slytherin table, with his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle the laugh in, (it wasn't working).

Harry hated loud noise, a lot, but Louis' laugh was something he didn't mind hearing, no matter how loud it was. He had been immediately entranced with the way the boy was leaning back on his chair laughing loudly and smiling so wide.

He was brought out of his thoughts as a couple Slytherin players flew by on their brooms very quickly and very close to Harry. Harry, obviously startled at the sudden action stumbled backwards and accidentally dropped his notes.

He heard a couple malicious laughs from the boys who had now landed on the ground. He frowned to himself while looking at his notebook that was sprawled on the ground with a couple loose pages scattered around it. He bent down to pick up the book while trying to ignore the heavy weight that was beginning the settle in his stomach. 

Although this was nothing new he could never shake the feeling of sadness that washed over him when this happened. Just because he was a little different.

He gathered the items in his arms and stood back up, only to be met with 2 pairs of hateful eyes.

He took a small step back, trying to put distance between him and the boys, without being too obvious.

One of the boys that had jet black hair laughed at Harry's pathetic attempt.

"What's wrong fag?" he asked whilst laughing, along with the blonde boy that was standing next to him. "Can't you talk?"

Harry frowned and looked towards the ground, squirming slightly under their hateful gazes. He knew talking back was probably a good way to go, seeing as it could possibly shut them up, but he couldn't bring any words out of his mouth. Like always.

"We heard you talking earlier you useless piece of shit." the blonde hair spat at him, venom laced in his voice.

"TALK! You filthy mudblood!" the black haired one said as he raised his voice.

Harry's eyes widened as he looked up and gasped. The black haired boy glared at him with a smug look on his face.

mudblood.

The foul word echoed in his brain. Over the years he had been called multiple names, but this had been the lowest of the low. Mudblood was just about the cruelest insult anyone could ever call someone with non magic parents. It wasn't used often as it was supposed to be forbidden, but of course some purebloods thought they had the right to spit the cold, venomous word straight into anyone's heart.

mudblood.

Harry hated to admit it, but the word stung his heart, a lot. He usually never let any insult get to him, and he was successful most of the time, but that one word was like every swear word you could call anyone in the muggle word, put together, and then timed by a 100.

He tried to ignore the lump in his throat, but soon his eyes that had once been wide open, started to water.

He felt a heavy weight on his heart as he turned and scurried away from the laughing pair. He bit his lip as he attempted to stifle the sobs that were threatening to leave his mouth.