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Harry Evans Chapter 92: Blackmail
🕑 Added 2024-10-03 02:00:03 +0000 UTCDid you get the e-mail notification?
The day after his talk with Professor Quirrell, possessed as he presumably was by Lord Voldemort, Harry woke up feeling a bit queasy about what he'd done. However, it was too late now to change anything so it wasn't like he could back out now.
If before it would have been suspicious for someone like him to reject the offer, then suddenly cancelling it would be even weirder. He was essentially backed into a corner.
He sighed as he stared at the wooden roof of his four-poster bed. Yellow and black. Black and yellow. Didn't these people ever get fucking sick of the same colours all the time at some point? He liked them as much as anyone else, but quite frankly the only colours that he could really spend a significant amount of time looking at were forest green and sky blue.
That was what the human mind was created for after all.
“That’s the longest I've ever seen you sleep,” a voice suddenly said from the side of Harry's bed causing him to look to the left to where Cedric was sitting on his trunk and putting on his shoes to complete his normal weekend attire of jeans and t-shirt. Over that a long black cloak, as was customary at Hogwarts. Cedric was starting to grow into his handsomeness, which was making the way girls acted around him become absolutely insufferable.
Usually, however, at this time in the morning the boy would be wearing Quidditch robes, no?
“Don't you have practice?” Harry asked. Saturday morning was when the Hufflepuff team tried to do it so that they would have the rest of the weekend free.
Cedric brushed aside his brown hair and rolled his eyes as he stood up. “Practice is already over, Harry. It's 11:00. I showered, came back and got dressed again.”
Harry shot up from his bed. “Why didn't you wake me up?” he complained.
“Well, in the morning when I left for practice, it was too early to assume you were going to sleep forever, and afterwards I just didn't feel like it. You also deserve some rest, you know? My duelling teacher deserves the best, after all,” the boy said with a wink. “Anyway, are you coming? I think lunch will be served soon.”
Harry focused his attention inwards towards his own body. He was ravenous, actually. He didn't quite know why. He’d had a tiring week, but, not that tiring, right? Maybe it was because he was a teenage boy.
He stood up quickly, cast some hygiene charms on himself and got dressed as well. Jogging pants for him, like a real hoodlum. He was going to eat a small lunch and then go run a bit. It was important to not lose these habits. Even if one woke up late.
The two friends exited the boy's dormitory of which they had been the only inhabitants, all the others had already gone out long ago.
“I know how you don't like drawing attention to Longbottom and whatnot,” Cedric muttered as they exited the common room which was full of students playing at exploding snap and doing homework. “But I heard he got into a fight with that Malfoy boy from Slytherin at the flying lesson, so it's not like he's really trying to keep a low profile.”
Harry groaned. Did that mean that Neville would go explore the castle because he'd been challenged to a duel at midnight? Honestly, why didn't people know how to keep their heads down. He was Draco’s teacher, and even he thought the kid wasn’t worth the trouble unless you were in a position of power over him. He could be a right prat.
The two of them traversed the winding halls, the moving staircases, and the talking portraits all the way to the grand hall. They passed the time with idle chatter updating each other on what had happened since they’d last seen each other. It hadn't been a particularly long time, 18 hours at most, so not much had occurred. Other than Neville falling for the same trap as the canonical Harry Potter had.
They arrived at the great hall much earlier than most usually ate lunch. Cedric because he was hungry after what was essentially a workout, and Harry because he hadn't eaten breakfast at all today.
Despite the relatively small number of the student body present, however, the noise was just as, if not even more elevated than usual.
They joined the Hufflepuff table, next to one of Cedric's teammates who was reading a newspaper and obviously hadn’t showered. Harry shot a discreet smell-cancellation charm at his nose.
“What happened?” Harry asked as he shovelled omelette and toast onto his plate while filling his goblet with a pitcher of crystal clear water. It was chilled to perfection in the way only magic could achieve.
The older boy who had been up to this point relatively focused on the Daily Prophet he was holding open in front of his head, completely ignoring the piles of sausages taking up his plate, put the paper down with a contemplative look on his face.
“They finally got the werewolf, believe it or not,” he announced.
Cedric pumped his fist, while Harry raised a thoughtful eyebrow.
“Really?” he asked doubtfully.
“Not before he got one last victim though,” the quidditch player muttered darkly. Harry thought he was the team’s keeper. “The werewolf attacked the house of some guy named Fudge yesterday and killed his wife. I think the man was supposed to be the head of some department? Was it transportation or accidents?” the boy asked himself.
“Magical accidents and catastrophes, my dad knows him,” Cedric piped up. “Used to be in Hufflepuff.”
“Well, Hufflepuff represent,” the older boy said and tousled his black hair black hair. “He managed to kill the werewolf by using some obscure Transfiguration. All of these aurors on the job and it was a bureaucrat that got him in the end, crazy.” He snorted. “Ridiculous, even. He's running for Minister now, you know,” he added. “Said so at the end of the article.”
Harry grimaced at the fact that Fudge would once again be running for minister. Hopefully, without access to Lucius’ deep pockets he wouldn't win this time, right?
But, if he somehow managed to fake a werewolf attack or even beat a real one and then use it to spin his candidature, then he might have some real political acumen. Even if he'd been depicted as a bumbling fool in the books, he likely hadn't become a minister by being one. He’d likely simply devolved to that point afterwards. Also, this was an alternative universe.
“Well, good luck with that. We all know he’s going to be up against. I don't think he stands a chance,” Cedric joked.
“Who's that?” Harry asked. He didn't really follow politics or even read the Daily Prophet (unless it was about him) for that matter. If it was important enough it would float in his direction at some point anyway. However, the veracity would sometimes be questionable considering he was relying on his schoolmates as a non-objective source of information to interpret another non-objective source of information like the newspaper.
Cedric gave him a confused look before realisation clouded his eyes. “Oh right, you weren't awake this morning. Well, the elections were announced and all the candidates handed in their candidature. Everyone's been discussing it. Apparently, Professor Potter is applying to become Minister of Magic. I think we'll know by the end of the year, the school year he corrected himself.”
“Well, good riddance,” the older boy said, he looked around 17. “Crouch has been occupying that position for way too long. It's been a decade now! Insane. I’d prefer Potter or Fudge at this point, one of them has a good record and the other one apparently was able to fight a werewolf. That already makes him more qualified than Crouch.”
“Honestly,” Cedric muttered. “Beating the werewolf that Professor Potter was supposed to catch and which he never managed puts him at a bit of an advantage. After all Professor Potter was a war hero back in the day, Fudge is now the hero of the now.” He deduced with startling clarity.
“I don't really know if I would call Fudge a hero,” Harry muttered.
His friend shrugged. “He beat the werewolf, didn't he? It's more than most other politicians can say.”
“Well, I'm sure that whichever one of them becomes a minister they'll do their best to do whatever, or something,” Harry said with a sigh and started eating. “Being minister sounded like way too much paperwork to me.” Was his last comment
Cedric and his teammate snorted while they exchanged a knowing look.
“Mate,” Cedric started. “No offence but I don't think anyone's going to be asking you to be minister anytime soon. You have the interpersonal skills of a spiky pickle.”
He started eating as well after that comment, and they did so in companionable silence for a few minutes, Harry ignoring the spiky pickle he’d just been backstabbed with. No more than 10 minutes were needed to finish, as they were teenage boys.
“I guess that's my cue to bow out. I did say I was going to jog,” Harry announced as he stood up from the table ready to get some exercise done.
“I don't remember you saying that,” Cedric replied.
“I said it to myself in my head,” Harry rebuked. “I'm allowed to.”
A laugh came from down the table causing the two boys to look down and see a wavy black-haired girl laughing at them with a blonde boy eating next to her.
“I didn't know you could run, Evans. Isn't your backpack too heavy with books?” Harley teased.
Harry unceremoniously showed her the middle finger. “Bugger off, the books make me stronger, who else do you know who runs with weights?”
Harley laughed and returned her attention to her lunch while Neville blushed. The boy seemed a bit nervous, which was understandable considering what he had gotten himself involved in. Stupid shit, not even a week in.
He should really be more like Harry, who instead of dealing with little shits like Draco was having issues negotiating tutelage with Dark Lords.
“Just don't forget the duelling after, I need to sit out some of this lunch anyway but meet me in Penny after in the potions room. We'll be waiting for you," Cedric said.
Harry waved him off. “Yeah sure, see you later. I mean a warm-up is good anyway I guess. And honestly after eating all of that, I might just take a walk instead,” he said quietly. Telling himself that he would run after a heavy lunch was probably one of his worst ideas.
Not as potentially bad as many other things he'd done in the past years, but just a bad idea on a physical level or something.
The two of them parted ways after they exited the grand hall. Harry would simply transfigure whatever clothes he was wearing that didn't fit a walk, and Cedric was going to go back to the common room to do the transfiguration homework for the week, which Harry had already finished 15 minutes after the lesson had concluded.
-/-
After having showered from his cough, jog, cough, Harry went to meet Cedric and Penny at their Potions Room. Cedric in this case is excluded from the “their,” category because he didn't use it as often as the other two.
Now dressed in robes, mostly because this was what he had learned to duel in and it was the most comfortable, he entered the abandoned room to a scene that he hadn't expected.
Penny was hovering over a large cauldron and carefully adding ingredients with one hand while preparing separate ingredients with the other hand while holding up a book to read instructions with her third hand. Common enough.
Cedric also knew of the existence of their secret space so his sitting on a windowsill and kicking his legs against the stone of the castle was also not unusual.
What was unusual and ran contrary to Harry’s expectations was the fact that Harley Black and Neville Longbottom were present chatting away with Cedric.
“What is this?” Harry asked as he closed the large wooden door behind him. “A crossover episode?” he asked.
Three of the people present in the room looked towards him, while one remained engrossed in her work. Three guesses as to which one, and the first two didn't count.
“Hey Harry,” Cedric said while awkwardly scratching the back of his head with the squinted eyes of someone who knew they'd committed a mistake.
“Can you help me? I think I'm getting blackmailed,” he said.
“Really, who's blackmailing you?” Harry asked with a raised eyebrow as he pulled out a chair and sat down, putting the backrest in the front and swinging his arms over it.
“That would be me,” Harley spoke confidently, flipping her curly black hair over her shoulder and giving him a confrontational look.
Neville, her younger brother-figure meanwhile looked awkward and not at all at ease with the situation. He looked around with shifty eyes before leaning in towards his older friend.
“Harley come on, be nice,” he whispered, not quietly enough to remain completely unheard.
“That's interesting, I generally never saw Hufflepuffs blackmail each other so it's very fascinating to see it happen in the wild like this. Is there any particular reason, and what do you even have on Cedric?” Harry prompted. Cedric didn't look that miserable with the blackmail so he wanted to find out more about the situation before he started defending his friend.
“Well, I overheard you talking about how you're going to have a duel at lunch. Considering that duelling is forbidden at Hogwarts I can now demand a favour in return for not telling a professor,” Harley explained.
As expected from a 12-year-old, the blackmail attempt was incredibly crude and logically fallacious. Harry shared a look with his male yearmate. All he got was a shrug. It seemed like Cedric wanted Harry to handle this conversation.
“That's fascinating, please tell me more,” Harry said, trying to sound earnest but knowing that he probably was just coming over as incredibly sarcastic.
Harley huffed and crossed her arms while Neville shrunk in on himself even more if that was possible. The lightning bolt scar on his forehead jutted out in between his brown locks for a second there during the move and then hid again.
“You're the local duelling expert, so we want to take advantage of your skills,” she announced proudly.
Harry tilted his head. “But you're blackmailing Cedric,” he retorted. “What does that have to do with me?”
“Well of course we're also blackmailing you,” Harley corrected herself.
“I see why you weren't sorted into Slytherin”, Harry said. “This has been the worst blackmail attempt in the history of blackmail, perhaps ever.”
Harley bristled, and Harry didn't know if it was just his imagination that her hair seemed to float up for a second.
Harry meanwhile continued. “Firstly, blackmail presupposes that I care about the information you have. Which I don't. For duelling all I’d get is a detention, which I would then spend convincing the professor I have a detention with into giving me private tutoring which is fine by me. Secondly, you don't even have proper blackmail in the first place because we haven't duelled yet and you would have no proof of it if we had. After all, knowing of our intent to duel, you can mostly snitch and have us tell the professor you’re lying. Thirdly, you're blackmailing us to try and participate in the same illegal activity for which you are blackmailing us. The moment that you participate as well you go down with us if we ever go down.”
Neville suddenly stepped forward when it looked like Harry would continue. It seemed like he had the courage to protect his friends. Harley had grown paler at Harry's words having likely realised the stupidity of what she said.
“Look,” Neville started. “Harley just thinks I need help because Malfoy challenged me to a duel. She overheard you talking in the morning and wanted to ask you if you could maybe also give me a few tips. The Malfoys are a really dark family and we don't know what kind of spells they taught Malfoy. We're just a bit worried.”
“Well, that makes more sense,” Harry said. “Why didn't you just ask from the get-go?”
“That would be because,” Harley started but Neville interrupted her.
“It's because Harley finds it hard to ask for help. but I don't,” Neville said sharply.
“No, you're just more of a follower so you went with her idea first despite it being stupid,” Harry corrected. Neville blushed in embarrassment while Harley blushed in anger fitting the temperament of her lineage.
Harry inwardly chortled at the fact that someone was telling him about the Dark Arts taught to the children of the Malfoy family when it was actually him who was teaching Draco the good shit. Honestly, Draco wasn't likely even planning on appearing at the spot they’d set for the duel. This was all a ploy to get them into detention. For Harry, this was an opportunity.
An opportunity to get the boy who lived some training. Perhaps this would heighten the chances of him not dying miserably in the future and being helpful in the war effort if it ever came to that. Hopefully not. While Harry didn't necessarily want to instruct children, especially those he wasn't too familiar with, instructing Voldemort's prophesied enemy was most likely the most worthwhile teaching position he’d ever hold.
While these considerations flew through his head, Harry shrugged. “You know what, sure, I'll help you. When's the duel?” he asked.
Neville refused to meet Harry’s eyes. “Tonight at midnight,” he eventually said while looking at the ceiling.
“Wow, that's pretty soon,” Cedric remarked from behind Harley and Neville.
Harry pulled out his wand to cast a quick tempus. It was already almost one. He looked over the blue clock drawn in the air by magic and saw that Neville and Harley were also looking at it with grimaces.
“Seems like you have about 11 hours, 10 if you're planning on eating dinner,” Harry said. “I'll help, my year hasn't picked up properly yet, so I'm looking for stupid shit to do on the weekend and this sounds pretty stupid. You do know that even the Malfoys don't teach their 11-year-old children the Dark Arts right?” he asked. “The boy probably barely knows how to cast the levitation charm. What are you going to do, tickle each other to death?”
Really, it was the first week of school. Harry and Draco's duelling in their second year had made sense in the original novels because it had occurred after they both learned the knockback jinx and some other minor schoolyard-level stuff. Any students duelling in their first week of classes would most likely end up using their fists considering the uselessness of first-year combat magic.
“He knows the knockback jinx, as do I. Quirrell taught it in the first class,” Neville amended.
“You can never be too sure with these dark families,” Harley said with squinted eyes, perhaps speaking from experience.
“Okay, knockback jinx it is,” Harry said. “But I don't really want to reward attempted blackmail so I'll only be teaching Neville.”
Harley seemed perfectly okay with that, it seemed that her stupidity had indeed just come from a place of worry for her younger friend.
“If I may ask, why didn't you ask your parents? They're both high-ranked aurors, they could probably give you some advice as well. Also didn’t you get any training before coming to Hogwarts?”
“I tried to ask this summer vacation but Dad just told me not to worry about these things and that this was the reason he was an auror,” Harley said and snorted.
“Look where we are now,” she muttered darkly. “Facing a potential Death Eater in the first week of school.”
“Dad says that he’ll reconsider it if I get good grades this year,” Neville piped up.
-/-
AN: Anyone notice the Bojack Horseman reference? No? I thought it was funny, whatever. SO, anyway, I've contrived a situation in which Harry deals with the boy who lived, praise me. Lots of spicy things this year... and we're only on week 1
Comments
Chrono
Oh there was a time skip but from 1st line I thought you stated this was day after his talk with Qurrelmort
bor902
I do timeskips but don't really mention it, I don't think its that important on which days stuff happens
Chrono
Wasn't DADA lecture and discussion of chapter 90 and 91 on Monday? So shouldn't it be weekday for chapter 92 instead of weekend?
bor902
It happened in an unreleased episode
bor902
I'm really looking forward to when its done, ill reread it after having forgotten most of it, then ill get to enjoy it myself.
bor902
I think that he doesn't want to become an authority figure in Neville's life by telling him what to do. Becoming an authority figure immediately means that teenagers will actually not tell you what's going on. he's setting a precedent for helping, but not involving himself. James has a wife actually. They just dont have kids. Also, I think he should be around 33 yeah
carebear90
|“Just don't forget the duelling after, I need to sit out some of this lunch anyway but meet me in Penny after in the potions room. We'll be waiting for you," Cedric said.| *gasp*! I had no idea this was THAT kind of story! :D On a more serious note: I've no clue why he doesn't tell Neville to forget about the stupid 'duel at midnight'. He could still teach him if he wanted, but... why let him go at all? And Fudge 'killed the werewolf'? How does Tonks feel about that? And why do I see a more sinister plot hidden in there? Did Tom organise this somehow? Perhaps with the help of a certain Barty Crouch Jr.? Or some other Deatheater family who could replace the Malfoys as 'the Money behind the Chair'. James is too young to become Minister. Isn't he around 30 at maximum? He should look for a wife to make little Siblings for Neville instead... -.- Also: I'm eagerly waiting for news from Rita about Harry's biological father. Edit: I hope the longer-than-usual sleep doesn't indicate mental exhaustion caused by unnoticed attacks from Tom, either during the meeting or at night while Harry slept.
Green0Photon
Man I really enjoy this. We don't get enough of this story
Jose Matos
Is it when harry ask if its a crossover episode? I don't remember that in Bojack.
