Inside the Gryffindor common room, the fire in the fireplace burned brightly, crackling loudly.
The room was overflowing with energy, noise, and the kind of restless excitement that could almost lift the roof.
"Don't touch that card! Fred, I saw you hide that exploding card in your sleeve!" Lee Jordan shouted.
The furry tarantula in his hand panicked and scurried into his collar, causing nearby students to scream and burst into laughter.
"That's strategy, dear Lee," Fred said shamelessly as he tossed a still-smoking card back onto the table. "If you paid attention to the game instead of that hairy pet of yours, you'd have won already."
In another corner, Seamus was attempting to turn water into rum.
There was a dull bang, and the goblet shattered into pieces of glass, spraying soot all over Dean Thomas''s face.
"Sorry! I swear that's what the book said!" Seamus shouted defensively while holding up his charred wand.
"Next time stand farther away from me, Seamus! My eyebrows only just grew back!" Dean wiped his face angrily and slammed his quill onto the table.
Several third-year girls were gathered together discussing Lockhart's newest book, giggling excitedly.
Oliver Wood leaned over a tactics board, enthusiastically explaining the famous Porskoff Ploy to a group of first-years, even though those students looked like they desperately wanted to go to bed.
The entire common room resembled a boiling pot of stew. Everyone was shouting. Everyone was releasing their excess energy.
It was chaotic, disorderly happiness, the unique rhythm of Gryffindor.
Then suddenly, a heavy sound came from the portrait hole.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The noise had a steady rhythm, accompanied by the vibration of something heavy striking the floor.
Two students who had been joking near the entrance stopped and turned around curiously.
Neville bounced into the common room.
His legs were locked tightly together. Every jump required him to use his entire body. His face was flushed red, covered in sweat and tear streaks.
"Oh look, Neville's practicing some kind of new dance?" one older student joked with a whistle.
Laughter erupted throughout the room. Someone even started clapping a rhythm.
But Neville was not laughing.
After one final jump, he lost his balance and fell face-first onto the carpet.
The laughter stopped instantly.
"Leg-Locker Curse?" Percy frowned as he pushed through the crowd. He raised his wand at Neville's legs. °Finite°
Neville's legs sprang apart. He curled up on the floor and finally burst into loud sobbing.
"It was Malfoy…" Neville sniffed between sobs, his voice trembling with humiliation. "Outside the library… he and Crabbe... they said I didn't deserve to be at Hogwarts... said I was a Squib who only embarrasses Gryffindor..."
Harry was sitting in an armchair. The book Quidditch Through the Ages slid off his lap.
He stared at Neville's miserable state, and something twisted painfully inside his chest.
It was the memory of ten years on Privet Drive.
For a moment, the warm fire and the red-and-gold banners of Gryffindor faded away. Harry felt himself dragged back to the gray schoolyard behind his old primary school, or some narrow alley.
He saw Dudley Dursley.
His cousin who looked like a pig wearing clothes. Dudley stood with his gang, cornering the skinny Harry against a wall.
Neville's sobbing slowly changed in Harry's ears, blending with the sounds he remembered.
Dudley's fists thudding against his ribs.
Piers Polkiss laughing while twisting his arms behind his back.
The roar of laughter when Harry's glasses shattered.
"Look, Big D, Potter's gonna cry again!"
"He's a freak nobody wants!"
The helplessness of being pinned to the ground. The burning humiliation in his chest. The injustice of being hurt even though he had done nothing wrong.
Neville's trembling shoulders now overlapped perfectly with the thin boy Harry once was, curled up in a corner with his arms over his head, praying the punches would stop.
Harry had believed that coming to Hogwarts meant escaping all that.
But he had been wrong.
Dudley was gone, but people like Dudley still existed.
They had simply changed into Slytherin robes, slicked their hair back, and replaced their fists with crueler magic.
Harry instinctively searched the room.
At times like this, he wanted to hear a voice explaining what the school rules said, or which professor they should go to.
That rational voice.
The one that was always correct, sometimes annoyingly so.
But Hermione was not there.
The girl who would normally jump up first, quote the rules, and then immediately present a practical solution.
Recently she had become completely obsessed with the library.
Ever since she returned late that night, she had been clutching a suspicious-looking book and scribbling constantly.
She barely noticed Harry and Ron discussing Quidditch tactics beside her.
If Hermione were here, what would she do? Find Professor McGonagall? Send Neville to the hospital wing?
Harry looked at Neville and felt helpless.
Without the anchor, the drifting ship could only crash into the rocks.
A rough, primal emotion surged through Harry's chest. He looked at Neville's tearful face, remembered the scar on his forehead, and pictured Malfoy's pale sneering face.
He did not know what the correct solution was.
He only felt anger.
And a strange sense of being swept along by the chaos.
"Malfoy again?" Ron stood up from the chessboard, his face turning red. "That Daddy's Boy thinks only Slytherins are real wizards? Last week he was laughing at my old robes in the corridor!"
"This is too much!" Dean shouted, still covered in soot from Seamus's failed spell. "Neville didn't even provoke him!"
"They're always like this! Because Snape favors them!"
A fifth-year slammed his butterbeer mug onto the table with a loud bang.
"We're Gryffindor! Not punching bags!"
Harry felt the atmosphere around him change.
The cheerful noise from earlier transformed into something sharp and aggressive.
His confusion was replaced by a more primitive emotion. The anger of seeing a friend humiliated.
Even though the alchemical Galleon in his pocket radiated a faint coolness.
Hermione was not here. No one could offer the correct answer. But protecting Neville and shutting Malfoy up—that was his answer.
Harry stood up from the armchair.
The movement was not dramatic. He did not shout or wave his wand.
Yet the moment he stood, it felt like something had sliced through the heavy air in the room.
Quidditch Through the Ages slid from his robe and struck the floor with a thud.
The sound should have been insignificant in the noisy room, but somehow everyone noticed.
Ron's angry words stopped midway.
Fred and George paused in the middle of pulling out more fireworks. Even the fifth-year who had been pounding the table turned his head.
The noise faded like a receding tide.
Only the crackling fireplace remained.
Firelight flickered across Harry's round glasses, hiding his green eyes but reflecting two fierce golden flames.
He stood there, thin and messy-haired, silent in a way that felt more powerful than shouting.
At that moment, all the anger and chaos seemed to focus on him. Or perhaps it was something else.
The lion's eyes carrying Gryffindor within them.
He stood there like someone raising an invisible banner.
"Fred. Do you still have any dungbombs?"
"Bring all of them."
Fred blinked once.
Then he burst into a brilliant grin and jumped onto the table.
"You hear that, lads? Harry wants to know if we have dungbombs! Who wants to give those snakes a proper greeting?"
"Dragon dung bombs! Fireworks! And the biting frisbees!"
"For Neville!" Harry raised his fist.
"For Neville!"
"Blow Slytherin sky-high!"
"I'm in!"
The entire common room erupted.
Harry did not think about what Hermione would say. He did not think about school rules or lost house points.
He only wanted to see Malfoy's smug face turn to fear.
"Let's go!" Lee shouted while waving a box full of crawling tarantulas. "Let them taste Gryffindor's specialty!"
"Standard procedure, boys," the fifth-year growled as he led the charge toward the portrait hole. "If they don't follow rules, we'll teach them the rule of fists!"
Chaos exploded at the entrance.
The Fat Lady barely had time to complain about being awakened before a crowd of impatient students pushed her aside.
Her usual lectures about proper manners were drowned out by the thunder of running feet.
"Careful! You're wrinkling my dress! You uncultured—oh my heavens."
Seeing the long line of red-eyed students, some in pajamas and carrying prank items, the Fat Lady shrank into the corner of her frame in shock.
Harry ran at the front.
The cold air in the corridor cooled his burning head slightly after leaving the warm tower, but he did not slow down.
Ron and Dean helped Neville along as he hopped forward while sniffing.
First-years crowded excitedly at the back of the group.
Fred and George moved through the crowd, casually tossing glowing fireworks between them.
No one cared about losing points.
No one cared about detention.
Torchlight flickered along the corridor, stretching the shadows of the angry lions across the walls.
They poured down the marble staircases.
As they descended deeper into the castle, the air grew damp and cold. The torchlight shifted from warm orange to eerie green.
This was snake territory.
Moisture dripped from the walls, carrying the scent of the underground. But the Gryffindors did not slow.
After the final corner stood a damp stone wall.
The entrance to the Slytherin common room.
In front of that wall, Draco's familiar drawn-out voice echoed clearly.
"…I wish I had a camera to capture Longbottom's frog hopping earlier. That would definitely make the front page of the Daily Prophet. I even have the headline ready: Gryffindor's Evolutionary Throwback."
Crabbe and Goyle laughed stupidly.
"Hey! Malfoy!"
Fred jumped out from the corner first, followed by a large group of grim-faced Gryffindors.
Draco's laughter stopped instantly.
He stared at the crowd pouring out of the darkness as if he were seeing a pack of rampaging trolls.
"Gryffindor?"
He stepped backward instinctively until his back hit the cold stone wall. The impact snapped him awake.
This was his territory.
The entrance to the Slytherin common room.
"You brainless idiots actually dare come here?" Draco's pale face flushed with sickly red as fear turned into angry pride.
"You think numbers matter?"
He turned and struck the wall with his wand.
"Pure-blood."
The stone wall slowly opened, revealing the dim green light of the Slytherin common room.
Draco shouted inside. "Gryffindor is attacking! Come out and show these filthy Gryffindors their place!"
"What's going on?"
"Gryffindor? Are those lions insane?"
Footsteps and angry voices poured from inside.
Not just first-years.
Marcus, the massive Quidditch captain, rushed out first with several Beaters. Behind him came more upper-year Slytherins filling the corridor entrance.
Green robes gathered quickly into a human wall in front of Malfoy.
Harry did not step back.
He stepped forward.
He raised the specially modified dungbomb in his hand. Behind him, dozens of wands glowed with dangerous light.
"So this is the backup you called?" Harry stared at Draco's pale face.
"Good. Earlier I didn't hear you clearly."
"Malfoy... In front of all your friends..."
Harry tightened his grip.
"Say that again."
__________
Upto 20 chapters ahead on patreon :-
patreon.com/ShadySmuggler