Feather and Glass

AU. Harry isn’t the Boy-Who-Lived, just a lonely orphan who goes to Hogwarts interested in learning Potions and making friends. But his Potions professor hates him, and Harry can make few friends when he has to conceal his snake familiar and his Parseltongue—and that he seems capable of bringing small animal constructs to life. Blaise Zabini is one of the few people invited into Harry’s secrets, a relationship that grows to be more and more important to both of them as the years pass.

Feather and Glass

AU. Harry isn’t the Boy-Who-Lived, just a lonely orphan who goes to Hogwarts interested in learning Potions and making friends. But his Potions professor hates him, and Harry can make few friends when he has to conceal his snake familiar and his Parseltongue—and that he seems capable of bringing small animal constructs to life. Blaise Zabini is one of the few people invited into Harry’s secrets, a relationship that grows to be more and more important to both of them as the years pass.

Rain lashed against the dungeon windows, turning the potion fumes into a clinging mist. Harry’s hands trembled as he stirred the Wolfsbane base, careful not to let the silver-edged ladle scrape the cauldron. One mistake, and Snape would pounce.

A drop splashed into the brew. The mixture hissed, swirling into a shape—a tiny fox formed of liquid shadow, blinking up at him with molten eyes. It lasted three seconds before dissolving, but it was enough.

Snape loomed over him, voice icy. 'Detention, Potter. Again. And if I catch you practicing unauthorized animation, it will be suspension.'

That night, curled beneath his four-poster, Harry whispered to the darkness. A small serpent uncoiled from his inkwell, its body shimmering like wet parchment. 'They think I’m broken,' he murmured. 'But you’re real. Aren’t you?'

Across the castle, Blaise Zabini sat up in bed, having seen the fox in his mind’s eye—an echo, somehow, in his own dreams.