McGonagall was beginning to twitch.
“Fifty points from Slytherin!”
“As you like, Professor.”
As the woman walked away, Hari calmly dodged a ball of rolled up parchment.
Automatically, he picked up the needle from his desk and flicked it behind him.
The scream as it punched into Malfoy’s eye surprised him—his Uncles weren’t such whiny pussies.
The Professor rushed over to examine the screaming boy.
Daphne leaned over.
“What the heck, Potter?”
“He flung something on his desk at me, so I did the same to him?” Hari replied.
“But his eye?”
“It’s soft.”
“Wait, wait.
How did you do that?
Your eyes are closed!”
“And?”
“Gah!” She turned and went back to glaring at her matchstick for all of fifteen seconds.
Then her head snapped around.
“Wait.
How did you finish the transfiguration?
You haven’t had your wand out.”
“Is that necessary?” Hari sounded genuinely perplexed.
“Yes!”
The matchstick on her desk turned into a golden needle and back to matchstick, this time made of hickory.
“I think you might be wrong.” She began to twitch.
“Mister Potter,” came the Professor’s voice from behind them.
“Yes, Professor?”
“Mister Malfoy has been sent to the Hospital Wing.”
“I’m not sure why you feel you need to tell me, Professor, but okay.”
“He claimed it was your fault.”
“Odd.
What happened to him?”
“He said that—open your eyes when you’re talking to me.” He did so.
“What the bloody fucking hell?”
“I’m sorry, Professor?”
“Your eyes, boy!”
“What about them?” New chapters come out on g.com first.
“You’re blind!”
“I am?” Hari blinked rapidly.
“If you say so, Professor.
That’s a worryingly pale shade you’ve turned, though.
Perhaps you should have a seat?”
McGonagall sputtered for several moments and then stormed off.
“She never did get to figure out what happened with Malfoy,” muttered Daphne.
“Didn’t she?
Huh.”
Hari’s classmates tried to follow him when he left for lunch, but since he proceeded to walk along the banister of a staircase and jump to another one a floor below, they lost track of him.
They didn’t find him during lunch, although Malfoy turned up, ranting about Potter.
There was a divide between the majority of the house, who were angry with Potter for one reason or another (losing points, killing the Dark Lord, etc) and those who mostly didn’t really care.
That was made up mostly of Daphne Greengrass, who was finding that Hari was just too weird to be properly angry at.
The next time they saw him was in History of Magic.
He was already in the classroom with the Ravenclaws when they got there, but cheerfully waved to them and left when the ghost began to talk without taking roll.
He did turn up at dinner.
In front of him (and only him) was a plate of rice with some steamed fish and unsauced vegetables.
“What are you eating, Potter?” sneered Malfoy, his eye covered in a bandage.
“Food?”
Daphne shook her head.
She was already beginning to get a feeling for how this was going to go.
It was depressing how predictable her house was.
At least this time when Malfoy threw a roll at Hari, all that flew back at him was a leg of chicken that .
.
.
hit his other eye.
She sighed.
“Potter!” roared Professor Snape.
“Yes, Professor?”
“I’ll see you expelled for two attacks on Mister Malfoy!” The greasy man was bearing down on the table, wand drawn.
“Two attacks, Professor?”
“You threw a needle into his eye earlier today!”
“No I didn’t, Professor.”
“He said you did!”
“And I say I didn’t.” Hari looked confused again.
“So that means the vote is even and it needs to go to a third party?
Perhaps Professor McGonagall can help?”
“If you say so, Professor.
But in that case, I must report that Malfoy attempted to disembowel me six times during the class.”
“NO HE DIDN’T!”
“I say he did.
That’s proof, right?”
“No!”
“Well then, I hardly think that him saying I did something qualifies, does it.”
There was silence in the Great Hall as this went on.
Dumbledore appeared to be mildly amused.
Certainly, his eyes were twinkling away.
“You did and that’s final!”
“No, Professor.”
Snape was turning a dark purple.
“I say you did it!”
“And I say Malfoy just tried to stab me with a broadsword.”
“HE DIDN’T!
We’re all right here, Potter!
He didn’t do it!”
“So now you want other witnesses?” Hari scratched his cheek.
“But I thought all we needed was an absurd accusation?
Besides, you said two attacks.”
“We all saw you throw a piece of chicken into Mister Malfoy’s eye!”
“Wasn’t that part of the food fight?”
“What?” Snape’s voice was a strangled gasp.
“He threw a roll, so I thought we were having a food fight and I threw something back.”
There was a cheer from the Gryffindor table.
“Alright!” cheered Gred.
“Malfoy’s started a food fight!” Suddenly, the air was thick with mashed potatoes banished towards other tables.
Tureens of gravy emptied themselves as Lee Jordan helped his friends.
Within seconds, the other tables had responded, half at the twins for the attack and half at Malfoy for starting it.
Professor Dumbledore animated a roast chicken, which picked up a knife and saucer and proceeded to defend him, wearing a helmet made of a hollowed out roll.
He then went back to eating as the pseudo-knight warded off flying food with its little china shield.
Snape was almost instantly covered from head to foot in mash and gravy and he was being barraged by animated drumsticks that kept trying to beat out the school song on his head.
The four tables were all buried under food from other tables.
Malfoy himself was currently buried under a roast pig, sixteen loaves of bread, four sticks of butter, and a selection of sherbet the providence of which was uncertain, as dessert had yet to appear.