Harry Potter: Don't touch

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***

That Justin was avoiding him, Harry didn't realise immediately. First Finch-Fletchley sat down with Susan Bones for spells, then he didn't appear in the living room while Potter was there, and finally at dinner he sat at the opposite edge of the table. This was already what gave Harry the idea that something was wrong with Justin. Quickly remembering this, no doubt extremely long day, he understood the reason for this behaviour.

- By the way, Harry has a lot of experience in ridding society of people like you. Has he told you about it? - Malfoy asked.

Justin looked at Harry disbelievingly

So now Harry was sitting in a chair in the Hufflepuff sitting room, one eye perusing the Cursive Book of Conspiracies and Spells looking for any spells he hadn't noticed, and the other watching the entrance to the sitting room. He waited for Justin to appear, he couldn't be sleeping in the other bedroom either. Finally Harry's efforts were rewarded: the door to the sitting room opened and Finch-Fletchley walked quickly towards the bedrooms.

- Justin! Justin, wait," Harry shouted after him, he put his textbook aside and ran after him.

Finch-Fletchley turned around, stopped and waited for Potter to run up to him.

- Hello, Harry," he smiled faintly.

- Why are you avoiding me? - Potter asked without further preamble.

- Я? I'm not avoiding you.

- Then why didn't you sit with me at dinner and at spells? - Harry gave out his only argument.

Despite the rather pale argument, Justin decided to come clean.

- Well... I... Okay, you're right. Tell me this, Malfoy was telling the truth about you killing a muggle, wasn't he?

- Yes, he was telling the truth, but it was an accident, and you should have asked me about it before you started dodging!

- What do you mean accidentally? How can you accidentally kill someone? You're only eleven, like me," Justin said, completely ignoring all of Harry's claims.

- That muggle attacked me, I had a magical outburst, and that's how it happened. It had nothing to do with the animosity between muggles and pureblood wizards, in case you have some kind of obsession with the subject.

- So you're okay with muggle-borns?

- Justin, I told you back in the shop that I had nothing against muggleborns, I even heard the term for the first time then.

- Oh, yeah, that's right, I forgot about that," Justin lowered his gaze to the floor. - Look, I'm sorry, I was seriously stupid. Didn't think properly about the situation.

Harry wanted to make a lot of claims against him: that Justin hadn't even asked him about the incident; had started avoiding him altogether; thought he was capable of hating someone for no reason.

But as soon as Potter saw Justin's guilty look and heard that "I'm sorry," he immediately forgot all his complaints and grievances.

- It's okay, forget it," Harry smiled.

Since the time was already late, they went straight to the bedroom.

Their roommates, Macmillan and Smith, were already having what must have been their seventh nap, and he and Justin had just gotten into their beds. Harry had a sudden urge to ask something important.

- Look, Justin, we're mates, aren't we?

Finch-Fletchley took a tenth of a second to give his answer:

- Of course! What kind of question is that? Is it because I've been avoiding you that you're asking?

- No, I'm just checking.

There was silence for a while.

- Harry, can you wake me up early tomorrow morning? - Justin asked. - I'm going to go to the owlery after breakfast, to see how my owl is doing.

- All right, I'll wake you up. I didn't know you had an owl. Do you mind if I come with you to see mine too?

- Great, then it's a deal. No, I don't mind, let's go together. You can go to bed and I'll read a book for two hours.

- Is it a good idea to read a book at night when you have to get up early tomorrow?

When Harry lived with the Dursleys, he sometimes managed to steal a book, and to keep his relatives from noticing, he only read it at night. The next day he had a lot of trouble getting up, which was not lost on Petunia, who woke him up.

- 'Yeah don't worry, I'll definitely be able to wake up normally,' Justin replied without hesitation.

Harry wasn't so sure about that, but tossed it off nonetheless:

- Alright then.

He covered himself with the blanket and closed his eyes, trying not to think about anything. Sleep came quickly.

* * *

Harry woke up in a good mood. He had slept well and even managed to get up before his alarm clock. Potter dressed quickly, rinsed his glasses with cold water, brushed his teeth, and went to wake Justin.

When Harry pulled back the curtain of the bed next to him, he was stunned for a second to see the strange scene: the tangled pillowcase was against the partition, the pillow was on the headboard, Justin's feet were on it, and he was sleeping a metre below, his head completely covered by the blanket hanging off the bed, which led to the obvious question, "How does he breathe?".

Finch-Fletchley was of some aristocratic family, but his sleeping habits were far from ideal.

Quickly coping with his surprise, Harry set about waking him up.

- Wake up, breakfast will start soon, you asked me to wake you up early," Harry shook his friend by the shoulder.

- Don't. I'll tie my own tie," Justin mumbled incoherently through the blanket.

Potter threw his friend's legs off the headboard and pulled the blanket away from his head - no reaction. Desperate, Harry simply threw the unfit aristocrat off the bed and finally got some sort of reasonable response.

- Harry, get the fuck off me, let me sleep, wake me up in two hours.

- You asked me to wake you up early, so if you don't get up now I'm going to pour bucket water on you like you did me yesterday.

Harry was bluffing, pouring water on someone was something he'd never dreamed of. But the threat made a serious impression on Justin, and he immediately opened his eyes, lifting himself up, his eyes searching for the dreaded water storage device.

Five minutes later he was already dressed and coming out of the bathroom.

- I'll never ask you to wake me up again! Never again in my life!

Potter and the swearing Finch-Fletchley were not the first to arrive for breakfast, despite the fact that they were out much earlier than they should have been.

Harry had only one scrambled egg, and Justin had a couple of buttered loaves of bread. Once they had eaten, they headed for the owlery.It was a round stone room with holes in the walls that let in fresh air, so it was drafty and cold. Owl droppings and pecked skeletons of mice and hamsters were lying on the straw-lined floor. Owls of every conceivable breed sat in tiers on perches all the way to the ceiling.

Amongst the huge cluster of owls, Harry spotted Elemental sleeping on the third tier, but he decided not to go near her to avoid waking her. Justin walked straight over to his black and white owl with huge ears. He mumbled some welcoming words, opened his bag and took out a packet of waffles, then spent a long time choosing something and finally took one waffle and placed it on the straw.

Justin sat down on the straw floor and watched his owl as he picked up the treat. This went on for quite a while, so Harry had to hurry his friend up:

- Let's hurry up, we have Ravenclaw herbalogy in ten minutes, we need to hurry up or we might not make it.

Justin stood up quickly and hurried towards the exit.....

Herbalogy surprisingly went without incident. They sat in the hot classroom for the entire class and took notes on the properties of certain plants under the guidance of their dean, Pomona Stebl. Even though Harry's hand was tired from writing halfway through the lesson, he enjoyed Herbalology because it was his first class that had gone without incident.

- What's next? - Harry asked Justin as he walked out of the classroom.

- Double astronomy with Gryffindor. That's it, by the way, there won't be any more lessons today. But we have to hurry, because the classroom is in the Astronomy Tower, and it's a long walk up there, so you might miss your lesson.

- Then let's go right now.

- Come on.

And they went to the next class. On the third floor, they encountered a small obstacle. At the door leading to the right staircase stood a small man in bright multicoloured clothes, wearing a hat with bells and an orange bow tie. As he got closer, Harry realised that it wasn't a person, but a ghost.

- Little freshers! We're going to have some fun now," the ghost clucked.

- It's Peeves, the ghost of Hogwarts, who loves jokes and pranks. Try not to make him angry," Justin said quietly, not moving.

Harry followed Justin's example and tried not to move.

- Come on, come on in! I know you have astronomy now, so run to class or you'll be late," Peeves said with a sly smile.

Finch-Fletchley tugged at Potter's sleeve quietly, but he realised without it that this was a mess.

- We should probably go, Mr Peeves, we're going the other way," Harry said, taking a couple of steps back.

- No, no, no. You can't! It's that way, I know," Peeves quickly flew over to them. - 'Go quickly while I'm giving you a chance, or I'll get angry and impose punitive measures on the negligent freshers.

Peeves shook the bucket Harry had just noticed in his hands. He glanced at it and immediately averted his gaze, nausea coming over him and panic a few seconds later. The bucket was full of crawling and wriggling worms, maggots, caterpillars and beetles.

Suddenly a voice came from behind him:

- What are you doing here?

Potter and Finch-Fletchley turned round at the same time. Standing behind them was a brown-eyed blonde girl with a long braid, about the age of a first or second year. Harry remembered seeing her in the Hufflepuff lounge.

- Hi, Hannah. Yeah, just standing around chatting," Justin said nervously.

The girl gave them a strange look and walked towards the door. Three pairs of eyes watched her every move. At the very door, she turned around.

- Are you coming or not? We're actually in class.

- We? Oh! We are, of course we're coming," Harry replied.

Peeves and Justin nodded in agreement, still watching the blonde's every move.

Hannah looked suspiciously at the nodding ghost, but nonetheless turned her back to them and opened the door.

Immediately after, insects started falling on her from above.

* * *

After much wandering around the staircases of Hogwarts, Harry and Justin arrived at astronomy three minutes before class started, but still one of the first to arrive. In the next three minutes, the rest of the students came up as well.

The bell rang. A tall brown-eyed woman with dark brown hair sat down at the teacher's desk and began her speech:

- Greetings everyone, my name is Aurora Sinistra, I will be teaching you astronomy, the science of the universe studying the location, motion, origin and development of celestial bodies and systems. In my lessons you will observe the movement of the planets and sketch the stars. You will sit two at a table, one from each department. Before we get to the actual science, we will write down a lot of definitions, I'm afraid that the practical part of astronomy will not start soon. In the meantime, choose a partner from another faculty and be seated.

Harry looked around at the Gryffindors, who were quickly choosing a mate among the Hufflepuff students. Justin sat down with Hermione Granger, who was already familiar to Potter. Harry remained standing in a pole, hesitant to approach anyone. Everyone, meanwhile, was quickly being distributed, and he didn't notice how alone he was.

Professor Sinistra approached him.

- There was no match for you? That's strange, I thought Gryffindor and Hufflepuff freshmen were evenly matched this year. That's alright, you don't mind sitting alone, do you? - She asked.

No, Harry didn't mind, he was very much in favour of it.

He was just about to rejoice in that fact when the door of the classroom opened and a blue-eyed boy with fiery red hair, familiar to Harry, appeared on the doorstep.

- I'm sorry I'm late, it was just a long walk to the Astronomy Tower, and the stairs were in my way on purpose," he said.

- Are you Mr...

- I'm Ron, Ron Weasley.

- Minus five points to Gryffindor, Mr Weasley, tardiness is unacceptable, now sit next to Mr Potter.

Ron frowned at first, but when he heard the legendary surname, he immediately glanced at Harry's forehead and stared at the lightning-shaped scar for about two seconds. Then he realised he looked stupid and hurried to his seat.

The next fifteen minutes passed incredibly boring, not even in a normal, non-wizarding school were lessons this boring. What did Harry care how many planets flew around the sun? Why write down the definition of Saturn, Jupiter and other planets? Well, there is the planet Venus, which is uninhabitable. That's enough. Now, why would he need to know the exact temperature of that planet in degrees Kelvin? The types of weather patterns at different times of day on Saturn? Why would he?

His neighbour Ron Weasley must have felt the same way, because after two pages of describing the weather on this very Venus, he put down his quill and leaned back in his chair. Harry's opinion of him immediately went from neutral-negative to neutral-positive.

- This class is kind of boring, isn't it? - Harry decided to start a conversation.

Even though he was more comfortable alone, he was still incredibly bored, and this was an opportunity to talk.

- Don't tell me. My brother Charlie said that astronomy was the most boring and useless subject at Hogwarts, and he said that he'd stopped writing down his lectures since second year, but he'd still passed it with an "Excellent".

He didn't write anything down and got an "A"? And then why write this tedious stuff at all?

- I totally agree with your brother, there's never been such useless crap in any class. I'm not going to write anything down either.

Ron Weasley brightened at those words.

- Fine, then I won't write anything down, and neither will you.

A few seconds passed in silence, broken only by the squeak of quills and Professor Sinistra's voice.

- What shall we do? - Ron asked.

Harry hadn't thought much about that.

- I don't know, do you have anything in mind?

- Well, George taught me a fun two-person game called Battleship the other day. Do you want to try it? - Weasley suggested it.

- Of course I do, what do you have to do? - Harry had never played a game with his friends before.

- Well listen...

* * *

Harry liked Battleship. He didn't even like it, he just loved it. So an hour and a half of useless boring astronomy turned into an exciting marathon of Battleship.

Potter had lost the first game, he had arranged his ships so that the distance between them was exactly one square, and Ron had realised the trick almost immediately and was sinking his opponent's ships one by one. This defeat only fuelled the boy's interest.

In the next game Harry chose a different formation order, he named his ships "The Unsinkable" and fought against some of Ron's "Peddle Cannons". This game was already hot, it was played at even speeds. At first the Unsinkable had the upper hand, and Harry was beginning to ask why Ron had chosen such a weak name for his ships, but then the worst happened: the Peddle Cannons took out three of the Unsinkable's one-deckers with three accurate shots in a row. After the third hit Harry shrieked a little louder than necessary, and Professor Sinistra looked at him strangely, but Harry pretended to write down the satellites of Jupiter, and it seemed to have passed this time.

The last Unsinkable, which had only one deck, fought like a lion, or rather a badger, since Harry was from Hufflepuff and not Gryffindor. The little ship was left alone against five Cannons, but he didn't give up. He sank one, one, two, three... Here came the fourth ship to the seabed under the onslaught of the brave ship. In a one-on-one situation, Ron became very nervous as he pondered each move, guessing the location of the cunning ship. The game ended in a victory for the Peddle Cannons because of the Weasley's four-decked ship's better positioning, Ron had fewer shots and was able to sink Harry's ship, which had already been mentally dubbed the "Bringer of Victory".

By the third game, the excitement had completely taken over Harry. He spent about five minutes thinking about strategy, not noticing that there wasn't much time left until the end of the dual astronomy. Harry had learnt his lesson from the previous defeat and in this game he had bet on small ships. The four, three and two-deckers all went to the edge of the field to reduce the number of blocked shots. And the single-deckers, as the main weapon, were in the very centre. He proudly named his flotilla "The Slytherins", they fought against Ron's England Quidditch Team.

This round ended in Harry's favour. It was a rout. Not a single 'tricky' one-decked ship was sunk. "The England Quidditch team shot unsuccessfully into the middle of the map looking for the enemy, and when they realised that most of the ships were located around the edges, it was too late.

- C-seven," Harry said in anticipation.

Ron looked sullenly at the map of his ships, put an X and said:

- 'Killed it.

- Yay! - Shouted Harry, forgetting for a second that he was in class.

Professor Sinistra, though she was on the opposite edge of the classroom, had obviously heard the shout and headed straight for their table.

- Mr Weasley, Mr Potter, what are you doing? - she asked menacingly.

- 'Well we're just... Talking...' Harry replied uncertainly.

- Minus five points to Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Talking in class is forbidden.

When the bell rang, they agreed with Ron to repeat the fights in the next lesson. As Harry was leaving the classroom, Justin caught up with him.

- What did you think of the lesson? I never realised that the temperature of the core of the sun is fifteen million seven hundred thousand degrees Kelvin. What about the professor's story about the diamond rain on Venus?

- Yes, I liked it very much," Harry answered without even listening to what he was saying.

With a smile he headed down the stairs. It seemed he had a favourite class.