FIC: Exceeding (or not quite fulfilling) Expectations

Title: Exceeding (Or Not Quite Fulfilling) Expectations
Author: gypso_child
Rating/Warnings: Pretty friendly so far. Mentions of child abuse, and that's about it. Oh, um. Cursing.
Disclaimer: I barely have enough money to buy a digital camera. Trust me, I don't own any of these poor sods.
Summary: They teach you that it's not polite to assume.
AN: Started thanks to the Alternate Sorting Challenge! This is a continuation of the first part, at, roughly, 2,269 words this time. Part C is almost half way done. :] Enjoy.

[1. A)]

1. B)

yellow and black

Ron is very, very lost.

This is nothing like the Burrow, where he knows intrinsically where everything is. He has not grown up in this hugely monstrous place, of damp stone and echoing halls and intimidating beauty. He cannot find his way in the dark, like in the home he’s spent his entire life at.

He cannot even find his way in the daylight.

“BOY! What are you doing here? Eh?”

Ron jumps, trembles, scowls ferociously, and flinches at the gruesome sight of the caretaker, Filch. Hagrid, whose size suits the castle, would be much preferred. “I’m-”

The grotesque, panting man, already far too close for comfort, leans closer still, and begins ranting. “I KNOW WHAT YOU WERE DOING. You were trying to get in weren’t you? You silly, stupid little boy! You’re not allowed in, is he, pet?” The man pauses for a moment, to allow his equally hideous cat to yowl sinisterly. “No, no he isn’t. The stupid little boy.”

Ron is trapped against the door he had only moments before been trying to enter, exasperated at its unwillingness to take him where he wanted. I should be braver, he thinks, brave like his brother Bill, or Charlie who works with dragons. I should be braver, I should stand up to him; I haven’t done anything wrong!

He is scared as the caretaker starts talking about dungeons and medieval torture and screaming. He takes a breath to yell over the man’s raging, and then realizes bitterly that he is just a Hufflepuff, and isn’t bravery for the Gryffindors? Courage is for his brothers, he thinks, thoughts bright and jagged, turbulent and resentful – for his brothers, but not for him.

He should be braver, he knows; he should stand up for himself. But he does not.

Instead he is angry and thankful when his strange, stuttering, turban-wearing Professor stumbles upon them, and allows him to escape. He runs from the mutinous, cranky caretaker, and leaves him and Mrs. Norris behind, but finds, instead, his confused, black thoughts following him.

He is still lost.

red and gold

Draco believes that he will quite enjoy Wednesday nights. On Wednesday nights, he has astronomy with the other Gryffindors, out of whom none have yet deemed to speak politely to him.

(Though he does think, perhaps, that the Brown girl was making cow eyes at him, when she thought that no one would notice.)

Astronomy is a dreaming kind of class, he finds during his first lesson. Stars are spread in a spiral above them, where the children lay upon their backs and look through shiny telescopes, listen to their professor’s hushed voice and chart the heavens down on paper. The air is cold, up on top of the tower, but not chillingly so, and Draco enjoys the bite, and the secretive whisper of the wind.

Once, when he was little – because he is not little now, not anymore, he has been through too much, done too much, to be considered a little kid now. His father took his childhood from him, and Draco does not regret the loss of such ignorance, of such blindness; he would rather see truth than lies – Draco had a Secret Place.

The Manor is a huge, sprawling thing, insolent and indifferent in turns, and Draco remembers a pale little boy who would tumble through the rich, dark halls in silent exploration. His Secret Place had been at the bottom of the West Tower, where there was a hidden room, squat and bare, between the second and third floors, windowless and with a little ledge jutting out almost imperceptibly, away from the rest of the straight, ivy covered walls.

It was chilly, and it was beautiful, and it became Draco’s until his father found him one night with the night sky spread above him and the wind making his cheeks pink, and it was no longer a Secret Place, and that’s a time that Draco doesn’t usually like to think about anymore.

The Astronomy lesson is similar, and being away from his father makes him bold. At one point, in the middle of the lesson, he stops, and stares up into a night gone dark and sleepy and gleaming, and the sound of the class – quills on paper, soft murmuring, the quiet squeak of a shifting telescope – fades away, caught on the night currents until he is only aware of the world’s natural, nocturnal noise.

Now, he is at peace, the only person in his world of soft, quiet things, connected in ways that he never thought he ever could be, and feeling both smaller and bigger than he ever has before. He feels as though he could scoop the stars, like glimmering, shattered glass, from the heavens, and devour them, so that he might shine and burn as brilliantly as they do.

When Draco comes back down to earth, he is uncomfortably aware that he is not alone, that this is not a Secret Place; of the children sprawled around him, who hate him, and think he is a snake, despite the lion roaring on his robe, and the red and gold that burn away his icy Malfoy exterior, until he looks like a rumpled, warm thing.

Draco’s jaw tightens, and he changes the line of his telescope just slightly to the northeast, and he wonders if he’ll be forced to completely reconfigure himself into a new person before these people accept him.

bronze and blue

Professor Snape is brilliant.

If Hermione can teach herself to ignore his sharp, vicious tongue, and his disdainful eyes, and instead focus solely on his lessons, on his insight and knowledge and skill, then she can, indeed, see that he is brilliant.

Her classes, she feels, have been going on swimmingly. Her professors have all been quite superb – so long as she ignores the ineptitude embodied that is her Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and the stale air that goes by the title Professor Binns – and the course work is as fascinating as she thought it would be, reading over the texts at home. It is so much better than muggle primary school, where learning, despite itself, always seemed a little mundane, and her classmates always pulled on her hair.

Perhaps they will try that here, as well, she thinks hesitantly. And they might: she has already seen the normal childhood prejudices, sharp, impatient things in their cruelty. Already, she has heard the mutterings and snide comments about the Ravenclaws’ habits, their brains and their scholastic eagerness.

Perhaps they will still try and pull Hermione’s hair; but, she feels, there must be some safety – or at least (though perhaps this is the safe guard in and of itself) obscurity – in numbers. Hermione is no longer the lone bookworm amongst a majority of “normal” adolescents. Here, in a place of fantastical reality, they are split apart and grouped together, like-minded people amongst like-minded people.

And though Hermione cannot say that she has made any friends, by now she knows what each and every person in her year’s name is and the books they most like and what class they seem to take a shine to. She can also inform anyone who asks of the exact location to the library including three separate ways to get there.

Professor Snape asks a question, and her hand shoots up with just about every other Ravenclaw there; the Hufflepuffs look at them, a little bewildered, and she thinks she hears a red headed boy snort.

She notices the Professor glance at him and say, without once looking at his roll sheet, “Yes, Mr. Weasley. Rather like a flock of foolish, pea-brained birds all flying up to squabble over the first little worm they see, aren’t they?” The boy, this Weasley, pales and then blushes, and mumbles an “Of course, sir,” before staring determinedly down at his desk with a conflicted, bemused look.

Professor Snape sneers at him, and then sneers at the assortment of waving hands in the air. Hermione forces her arm to stillness, having already noticed, in her clinical way, along with two other classmates, that some Professors do not appreciate over exuberance, and that moderation is better than excess at times.

She gets the feeling that brilliant, horrid Professor Snape is one of them.

The Professor sighs long sufferingly, and slowly stalks back to the front of his class. From there, his view is unimpeded. His gaze trails mockingly through the rows of raised hands, until finally, slowly, several children blush, tugging their hands down and biting their lips, cowed by the Slytherin Head’s dark eyes.

Hermione’s hand stays defiantly raised. Professor Snape’s gaze locks onto the remaining people, and nods slightly. Hermione isn’t certain what’s happened, but she thinks it might be a good thing. Maybe.

She finds, surprisingly, that this man is harder to read than their stone-faced Transfiguration teacher. He is a snake, she thinks, perhaps that is why: it is more difficult to hold steady in your hands a snake, than a lion. They shift too quickly to grasp properly.

He calls on a boy, Boot, and Hermione’s hand falls to her desk forlornly. But she decides that she doesn’t mind too terribly. Professor Snape may not have called on her, but she is certain that he will not forget her.

Professor Snape is brilliant in his own way, she is certain; and she will wait, listen, and learn.

silver and green

Harry doesn’t like dogs, and has always very much doubted that he ever would. That was, of course, before he met Fang. Fang is huge, and slobbers, and his mouth is open into a dopey grin of good doggy cheer, as opposed to doggy snarls of macabre intent.

As Fang licks his cheek, he can already feel himself developing a soft (and slobbery) spot for the monstrous animal in his heart. He sends a hearty Screw you Aunt Marge, and your little dogs too, across imaginary thought waves, and scratches behind one big, floppy ear.

“How’ve yeh been, Harry? Yer classes? How they been treatin’ yeh?” Hagrid settles cozily onto the couch across from him, and smiles tenderly at the sight of his dog and favorite boy being so friendly together. “Like all yer professors, do you?”

Harry is quiet, looking across the way at the wild man through his own tangled hair. “They’re all right,” he says, carefully, letting Fang curl up over his feet with nary a sound, despite that the beast is so heavy it feels almost like he’s breaking Harry’s bones to little bits. He thinks that if that happens, he can probably just ride on Fang like a horse anyway – Harry is small enough, and Fang as big as a small pony.

“Jus’ a ‘right?” He booms. Harry cannot help but draw further in upon himself, his eyes hardening in the face of such a tone, almost violent in its loudness. He ignores his heart breaking a little more inside. He is foolish, so foolish to think that this cheery, happy man would want to be his friend still, no matter what camaraderie they might have shared before.

The world is not a fair place, and Harry has long had this beaten into him.

Foolish freak, Harry thinks, and waits to be thrown out. He hopes he can still play with Fang some. He gives the dog another loving pat.

“Well, that’s no good!” Hagrid continues. “Yeh should be havin’ the time o’ yer life, Harry! Just ‘a ‘right’,” he says, sounding disgusted, “Why, I should go talk with them professors, make sure they’re teachin’ right, make sure yeh’re havin’ a grand ol’ time; just a ‘right, bah!”

And then he notices Harry’s wide-eyed stare, and asks, all earnest concern and open friendliness. “You a ‘right there, Harry? What’s wrong?” He places a large hand on top of Harry’s knee, and it’s all Harry can do not to stare at it like a simpleton. “Yeh can tell yer ol’ pal Hagrid.”

Harry surprises himself by answering. “I didn’t think you’d want to have anything to do with me.”

“Eh? Now, why would yeh think a thing like that, Harry?”

The honesty is startling. Harry is not used to it, after finding his whole life had been a lie. Before Harry can help himself, he is answering – honestly, yet again – in return. “Because I’m a Slytherin. I know you don’t like Slytherins.”

“Oh, nonsense boy, yeh might be a Slytherin, but yeh’re Harry Potter firs’ and foremost, the little tyke I held in me arms after yeh was born. I wouldn’t care if yeh were a squib, I’d still love yeh.” Hagrid looks sternly at him, “So shake that nasty thought outta yer head.”

Harry, still wide-eyed and wonderingly, nods, and Hagrid gets up, makes some tea. While he is gone, Harry notices a piece of paper that is lying, now unhidden, on the table. The title catches his attention, and he slips it into his pocket, hoping that Hagrid won’t mind too terribly.

Hagrid brings the tea back in huge, tin mugs for the both of them. He smiles blindingly at Harry, and Fang licks Harry’s hand soothingly. “Now then, Harry, yeh goin’ ter tell me all about yer firs’ week o’ school, yeh hear me? So go on, now, I’m listenin’.”

And Harry speaks, and Hagrid listens, and, for the first time he can remember, Harry doesn’t have to feel tense, or be watchful, or wary with his words and opinions, and it is a strange, unique thing, he discovers; comfortable, but uncomfortable at the same time.