Undercurrents

Undercurrents

By Slumber

It hadn't been a pleasant summer.

Terry waited for his prefect badge until he got onto Hogwarts Express, and he was somewhat still so sure that there must have been some sort of mistake and screw-up with the owl delivery system (although statistically speaking, and he did check the statistics, owls almost never fail to deliver packages), even as his parents had given up before him, had patted him impersonally on the back and told him to do well in school (it's the only thing he can do well in anymore, and if a Gryffindor comes out top in class again they'd begin wondering where they went wrong in raising him).

And when Anthony Goldstein (wide grin, overly enthusiastic bounce in step, why isn't he a Hufflepuff?) greeted him, shiny new badge pinned to his robes, Terry was certain there'd been some sort of misspelling in the way they'd addressed the letter (Terry Boot wasn't so far from Anthony Goldstein, was it?) and it would all be settled as soon as Professor Flitwick saw Anthony (who would make him prefect anyway?) and it was all a mistake, more or less.

"I see you've seen Anthony's badge," Lisa greeted him casually, hand propping up the latest Eliza Enchantress novel, hair in the dependable ponytail that Lisa always wore (sometimes Terry wondered if she ever took it off) and thick glasses in place.

"I see you haven't seen Padma's," Terry shot back, dragging his trunk and whisking it up to the compartment before he sat himself across her. He took out their Potions textbook for the year and randomly flipped through it, wondering whether there was anything in it that he could use. "Where's Michael, anyway?"

"Off gallivanting with that Gryffindor," Lisa answered, turning the page, and Terry smirked at the dripping, acidic jealousy in her voice. "And I've seen Padma's badge--you know they make it too big these days, I suppose it needs to match the size of their heads--but I didn't have to see it to know I wasn't prefect. I sort of got the hint when they didn't owl me, you know," she said, looking up at him with her owlish eyes.

God, sometimes Ravenclaws were such utter snobs.

*

Michael wheedled Terry into joining some stupid thing that Harry Potter set up ("Come on, please? What are best mates for, huh?") because Ginny talked him into going, and in the dim, dodgy Hog's Head (his parents would disown him if they knew), Terry wondered what he had gotten into. Defense lessons, apparently, but he liked Umbridge's class (memorise, remember, know on theoretical levels, who cares about actual practicals, he wasn't going to fight), although Michael had a point. Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s were important too.

"Because Voldemort is back," Hermione Granger said, sure and certain because of course she knew everything, including things like this. Terry, meanwhile, hardly knew anything.

He rarely twitched, but for the first time since he walked into the bar with Michael and Ginny and Anthony (what was he still doing alive and bouncy, anyway?), he was relieved Lisa hadn't joined them that day at all. She'd simply shrugged Michael off (the mention of Ginny had turned her off completely), returned to her book (by Harriet Brinestone this time; she never ran out of those), and, when Michael turned his attention to Terry, delicately hid a snicker behind her hand.

Some discussion went on (he'd heard it all before), and Terry watched disinterestedly as the Chaser from Hufflepuff challenged what Granger said. He hadn't known there was a version of Hufflepuffs that came with spines. It might be a limited special edition, the type that get killed off as casualties of the 'war', if he decided to believe what Dumbledore and Potter said, like Cedric Diggory (Puffs with spines, and still their deaths are tangential to the point) had been last year.

They passed around some parchment for signing names, and Anthony's quill hesitated for a few short seconds before he wrote his name down. Perhaps there was a way to this, Terry wondered (How important was the prefect position to Anthony anyway?), and he looked thoughtfully at Hermione Granger when he felt the faintest shimmer of a charm tingle through his phoenix quill (eight galleons, almost as expensive as a wand) when he scratched his name down with much more conviction than he felt, and he knew there wasn't (what was Granger up to?), but at least Anthony was worse at duelling than he was. Terry despised agreements of any sort--someone was always bound to break them.

Gryffindors come up with the stupidest ideas sometimes.

*

Lisa never joined the Defense Association (Dumbledore's Army was a stupid name, sometimes Terry wondered about Michael's choices in women, and their choices in names, but he's hardly one to talk), and Terry liked to think that perhaps she'd seen it coming, Michael pairing up with Weasley Number Seven, Terry with Ernie MacMillan (if only to avoid being paired off with Anthony, but he isn't sure which is better, in the end), and the defense lessons are complete bollocks.

"They've not even taught us anything real," he told Lisa in the library, though she hadn't asked. Except about the Room of Requirement, which is simply fascinating, he amended quietly to himself.

"How well are you doing, again?" Lisa asked pointedly, never looking up from her Transfigurations text and the essay she was writing down.

She must have heard Anthony telling Su Li (he didn't have to sound so enthusiastic when he was telling her too, what a prat) all about how Terry'd been knocked into a shelf when Ernie got overly enthusiastic with a hex they'd just learned and aimed it at Terry when he was clearly not paying attention and taking a break. Terry glared at her (she didn't notice, index finger running through the lines of page 254 instead); that was the second time that year she'd asked him that, and it was not impressing him.

Justin Finch-Fletchley had asked him about the DA incident too, during their Potions class, right before he tipped their cauldron over (and thank Merlin Terry'd stepped back in time), but MacMillan had been eager to fill in the details anyway (it wasn't as if he'd slain a dragon, honestly) and Terry suddenly felt very sorry for Zacharias Smith, who lived with those every day.

"Is it true?" Finch-Fletchley turned to ask him after he'd cleaned up the mess and been given detention, as if MacMillan had not just been telling him all about it. Terry ignored him and finished the potion by himself.

Hufflepuffs.

*

The Quibbler article came out a few weeks after Christmas, and Terry had a copy so he could have an informed opinion in case the topic ever came out (Rita's writing was, as always, tasteless and bordering on the sensational; it's going to attract all the wrong sorts of supporters if that's what they were going for), and besides, Luna'd been giving out copies in the common room as soon as they came out.

He'd read it, scanned it, and threw it away when he was done, and when the decree came up (He was fairly certain Umbridge was a Gryffindor too, and if everyone was, the war was going to the dogs), he wasn't surprised to hear even Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott talking about it in the library. Then again, they had special mentions, and Terry cleared his throat (he was sitting right in front of them, they ought to be more careful) before they shot him a look and moved to somewhere else just as the Gyrffindors came in.

Is not even the library sacred anymore?

"You'd think people would find other places to desecrate," someone muttered in front of him, and Terry looked up to find Blaise Zabini talking to himself in between Fub-Hem and Hem-Jul (fingers running through the spines of old, untouched books on Gremlins, presumably).

"Your housemates are no different," Terry pointed out serenely, and when Blaise looked at him, startled (as much startled as Blaise can get, at least), Terry discovered why Lisa loved pretending to read when talking to other people.

"They're a disgrace," Blaise replied smoothly, and Terry had to smirk.

"Most of Hogwarts are."

"I've noticed." He sat himself across the table, heaving a particularly dusty book on the hard surface and charming it clean. "Mother wishes to thank your mother for the Christmas present."

"Think nothing of it, Mother says," Terry replied, thoughtfully noting down important points for his History essay. "And she wants to know if you've received the thank-you note as well?"

"We have."

Terry hummed absently, counting seconds in his head. (Five, four, three, two...)

"You've been busy."

"You were bored?"

"It's a horrid year."

"Can't be blamed for any of it," Terry muttered (smugly, because he felt Blaise squirm in his seat), carefully enumerating bullet points for his outline.

"Lisa tells me you do anyway."

"Lisa is an evil little girl who reads far too many romance novels, listens to far too many people's conversations, and gives far too much advice than is good for her."

"Doesn't make her any less right."

"You've been talking to her."

"Sometimes, maybe."

"Ahh." (No wonder she never joined the DA, the cunning little pseudo-Ravenclaw witch.) Terry sighed, rolling up his parchment and shutting his book gently (also mentally noting to himself to remind Lisa that she oughtn't meddle), before he stood up from his seat. "You, my boy, need better company to spend your time with."

"He's being difficult," Blaise snapped matter-of-factly, pushing his chair back (Madam Pince shushed them from where she sat,) as he stood up and glared at Terry.

"He's teasing," Terry corrected, sliding the book back in its place (he didn't have to look to know the expression Blaise wore), looking up at Blaise, "And he knows a room that could be useful."

Blaise smirked.

And sometimes, when they weren't breaking up with you anymore and wanted to apologise through indirect, pseudo-subtle ways that were actually quite adorable (when you weren't too entirely pissed at them anymore, that is) Slytherins could be okay too, actually.