//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13:  Frienemies 
// Story: A Hogwarts Harmony 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

The following day was pleasantly Ron-free- to the point where Harry wasn’t able to find him at breakfast.
“Oh, him,” one of the Twins intoned, when Harry asked him where Ron had disappeared to.
“He got hurt so bad,” the other continued.
“They transferred him to St. Mungo’s last night,” the first finished dismissively.
“St. Mungo’s?” Hermione blinked.  “That- That doesn’t mean that he’s the first student to ever leave the castle before attending even a single class, does it?”
They nodded together.  “It does,” they agreed.
“Damn,” she muttered.  “Do you think Hogwarts is going to give him an award for that?”
They blinked.  “Ah-  No.  But we most certainly will!”
Harry and Hermione laughed with them.





Up at the staff table, Dumbledore winced as he looked down towards the Gryffindor table.  Even he had to admit he’d made a mistake the day before; he hadn’t considered the potential harm that might’ve been done to Ron…  and as a result, had foiled his own plan.  The boy had been sent to Saint Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, and was expected to stay there for a month while they healed the damage to his neck.  As a direct result, the boy wouldn’t be able to befriend Harry, no matter what he tried, during that time.
And of course, he’d already executed too many steps of his plan to just back down.  He was having setback after setback, with no end in sight!
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately as it had pointed out his own carelessness to him, Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall had come ‘Albus Hunting’ the day before.  They had clobbered him- both physically and with numerous quite painful spells- for allowing Ron to get so badly hurt right in front of him and not even trying to prevent it.
They didn’t know it was deliberate.  That he had caused Ron to fall like that.
He had hexed himself in the mirror a few times during the night as punishment for that.
There were plenty of less-harmful ways he could have collected a blood sample from the boy!
Especially as he’d already had the broken nose, which McGonagall and the nurse seemed to have mistakenly believed had been his fault rather than Harry’s.  It would have been simplicity itself to just harvest some of the blood already pouring down the boy’s face.
He felt more than saw Minerva pointing her wand at him under the table, and allowed it.  He deserved the-
Yowch!
The insanely painful stinging hex.  She must’ve overpowered it.
He heaved a soft sigh.  Yes, he deserved it.  He had unnecessarily endangered a student in order to gain a sample of Ron’s blood, which he’d then used in a highly illegal ‘blood guidance ward’ that would guide him into becoming Harry’s best friend.  The boy was insanely susceptible to blood magic like that, as most dim-wits often were, so it would vastly improve his chances- and guide him to take friend-making actions he would never have taken on his own.
Unfortunately, his sudden removal from the Castle, and as such the range of its anchor, during the strongest period of its activity…  would likely cause it to overpower itself upon his return, driving him to some possibly quite dramatic efforts that would no doubt drive Harry away from him for good.
But blood guidance rituals couldn’t be broken.  Once executed, they slowly faded away on their own- and they were always tied to a certain anchor, only effective within a certain range of that anchor, until it broke down entirely at around five years.
The anchor was a particular dungeon floor deep below Hogwarts Castle.  It would reach as far as Hogsmeade…  but not nearly as far as St. Mungo’s.
And the first two weeks were the crucial period that could cause an ‘overcharging’ if he was out of range through it.
Why on earth had he cast that ritual yesterday, after finding out about Ron’s injuries, without first seeing if he’d need to be hospitalized?  The blood would have kept for a week, and he could always have gathered more if he had to!
If he didn’t play his cards just right, he’d have to discard Ron as a control point…  and he rather doubted he’d be able to.  He’d still try, but it would be as a secondary effort.
For his primary effort…  Perhaps that Granger girl Harry had helped to the Hospital Wing.  No, no, she was far too smart- and his passive scanning ward had already informed him she was the next best thing to immune to blood magic.
So maybe someone else?  But there wasn’t anyone as good as Ron!
Though perhaps…  he just needed to find someone that was already prone to what he needed.
And as luck would have it, he found one:
Arienne Fox.
The girl was quite timid and skittish for a Gryffindor, a quality he could use to get her close to Harry; all he’d have to do would be to trigger Harry’s protective instinct.  All Potters had that, whether they believed in it or not.
On top of that, while she wasn’t as susceptible to blood magic as Ron…  she was more average.  He couldn’t control her, but he could guide her.  That said, he’d have to renew the guidance ward each year, as it’d lose enough effectiveness for her to throw it off entirely after only eighteen months or so.
But, if his sensing wards were telling the truth, her core personality was enough in line with what he wanted that he could work with that.
It would be a pain, but it was one he’d basically signed up for.  He’d spent the entire night adjusting his Castle-wide mail manipulation and geas magics to keep anyone from telling anyone about Hailey’s titles; those getting out would be far more troublesome.  Then, the ‘signing up’:  He’d found out about Ron angering Princess Hailey and used that as an excuse to get him alone for blood collection.
He’d forced himself to sleep the night after that, to ensure he wouldn’t make such an egregious error again.  Especially since he’d decided on a second piece of blood magic for his new target, Miss Fox- a blood ward.  Like all blood magic, blood wards were classified as dark magic- though they were protective magic, and therefore the target’s susceptibility to it was moot.  With a sample of her blood and the Elder Wand, he could cause Magic itself to basically guarantee her safety.  To ward off dangers, guide her away from risks.  To make other students overlook her when they didn’t have her best interests at heart.
That would allow her to survive the challenges he was going to set before Harry.  On top of that, blood wards had a much longer range- covering almost the whole country- and lasted a lot longer.  This one would last for a good ten years, through her entire Hogwarts career and a bit beyond it; he’d have to use the Blood Guidance ward to keep her from noticing its protective effect, to keep her feeling vulnerable.
To keep her behaving in a way that would get Harry to want to protect her.
Fortunately, even if something did happen, a Blood Ward would even protect her from the side effects of being too far from a Blood Guidance Ward during the first two weeks!  …  If the ward was placed first, hence the reason he couldn’t just add one to Ron to keep it from overpowering.
Fortunately, she was a girl, and gaining a blood sample from a girl was as simple as waiting for their time of the month and harvesting it out of the Castle sewer system.  It was a pain, and required some extra details in the ritual to keep from having some really weird side effects, but it was reliable.
However, it would force him to wait as much as a month.  Everything would last a month, he was sure.
Of much greater concern was that Arienne was actually pre-pubescent, and so didn’t have a ‘time of the month’ yet.  Which meant…
Wait, the Invisibility Cloak he’d taken from the Potter family vaults after James’ death.  While he still had it, he could use it to follow her into a bathroom, alone.  Stun her, inflict a flesh wound with a small dagger, harvest the blood he needed, heal it with magic, and rennervate her.
It was flawless.





It was most certainly not flawless.
Arienne seemed to have super-cognitive senses or something, because as she approached a bathroom with Dumbledore on her tail…  she stopped quite suddenly, turning back to face him.  He was so close!  But, for as much as they were alone, he never knew when there might be another student- or Professor- just around the corner, so he had to wait until she was in the bathroom and he could confirm nobody else was there before he performed his collection.
The girl’s eyes searched back and forth, and focused in on him.  This was Death’s invisibility cloak- she couldn’t see him, could she?  Then, why was she taking such a deep breath?  And what was she doing with her hands, where he couldn’t see it?
A moment later, she moved- and she moved so fast Dumbledore had no time to react.  She stepped forwards, her body twisting violently as her fist shot forwards and she let her breath out in a single, violent yell.
She couldn’t see him.  And she was only a pre-pubescent eleven-year-old.
Yet, her punch connected dead-center on his throat, and her lack of strength was rendered moot.
He choked.
Her fist twisted, grabbing briefly- then took the Invisibility Cloak with it as she pulled it back, leaving him exposed, visible.
He was still raising his hands to his throat, Elder Wand in one and silver dagger in the other, when her next blow landed:  Her shoe, straight into his groin.
He nearly fainted from the pain, and did collapse, still struggling to breathe as his eyes teared up.
He remained conscious just long enough for her to snatch up his dagger, the Elder Wand, and the Invisibility Cloak before she fled, the cloak streaming behind her like a silver banner.





“So what happened?”
Dumbledore gasped as he sat up suddenly, then looked around.  He was in the Hospital Wing, sitting in one of the beds, with Madam Pomfrey standing over him.  “S’cuse me?” he asked.
“Crushed esophagus and testicles,” Pomfrey clarified.  “Looked like muggle dueling.  You’re lucky Peeves found you, or you would have choked to death while unconscious from the blow to your groin.”
“No idea,” he lied.
He had only been trying to protect Arienne- both with his ward and with Harry, so why had she attacked him?
Meanwhile, getting the Elder Wand and Invisibility Cloak back from her was going to be…  difficult.  In the extreme.
He couldn’t enter the girls’ dormitories, no matter how hard he tried, and he didn’t have any trustworthy female… ‘agents’.





Harry’s morning was rather uneventful, overall.  His classes went normally- or at least, as normally as they could; the first week of school, which had started with the Hogwarts Express on Wednesday, seemed to be reserved for ‘meet-and-greets’ with the Professors and instructors.  He seemed to be doing rather well in that regard; while people did recognize him, and sometimes wanted to shake his hand…  none of them seemed keen on bothering him too much, and as a whole, he got along decently with his classmates.
There was a lot of talk among those classmates about Hailey- and he’d been summarily excluded from those discussions.  Not that he minded; he didn’t like lying, so he was probably better off that way anyways.
Eventually, lunch wandered around, and he made it to the Great Hall before Hermione did- before most of the school, it seemed.  He didn’t pay any particular attention to his hangers-on as he sat down, beyond keeping an eye out for Ron or any that might go after him as Ron had.
There was one exception, though.  One of those hangers-on from that Herbology class picked a seat far closer to him than any of the rest- specifically, the one right next to his, to his left.
He shot a quick glance in their direction as they sat down- correction, as she sat down.  The girl had long, dark brown hair and, just like Hailey and Hermione but not himself, she wasn’t wearing a nameplate at all.  She also seemed to be tense about something- and he could practically smell her fear.  What was she afraid of, though?  He took a surreptitious glance around, but didn’t see anything.  Was she shy?  Was she, perhaps, afraid of him?
At that moment, she glanced briefly in his direction, caught his gaze, and quickly looked the other way.
Perhaps she was just shy…?  But if so, it made no sense for her to sit next to him, perhaps the most famous student in the school.  It also made no sense for her to be so afraid if she was just shy- especially with how she kept glancing around the room; it looked like she thought someone was after her.  He could already hear the whispers starting, about ‘that crazy girl’ with the guts to sit next to him.
He ignored them as he filled his plate.  It seemed like the girl was trying to do the same, but she was putting too much attention on her surroundings and too little on the food; she spilled food onto the tablecloth a couple of times, and once only barely didn’t spill it down her front instead.
Unless he missed his guess, she was going to be bullied pretty badly for her seating choice and nervousness.  He honestly hoped he missed his guess.
But, she seemed to be quite sensitive to the murmurs- was she afraid one of them was going to attack her?  It seemed strange, but he’d seen stranger in the stories he’d read in his English classes.  He had the urge to try to do something about it- even though he didn’t know how to help her.  But…  it wasn’t like it could hurt, could it?  Though, it wasn’t like he had any experience with making it worse either, so who was he to know?  He might just make it worse by accident!
Oh well.  No use worrying himself into inaction; here was a girl in distress, and whether he was right or not, he thought he could do something about it, so he was going to at least try.
If he messed up, it was only one girl- and in a school this large, there were bound to be more.
“Uh, miss?” he asked.
She twitched, but otherwise didn’t react, in the middle of one of her scans of the room.  She seemed to be putting a lot of attention to the Teacher’s Table for some reason.
So he gently touched her elbow as he spoke to her again.  “Miss?”
She jumped, whirling to face him.  “H-Huh?” she gasped, her left hand closing into a fist and drawing back for a second.
It was his turn to wince.  She was a lot more… high-strung than he’d thought, and he could see the fear in her eyes, even as she released her fist upon seeing his face- evidently, she was afraid of an attack, but not from him.  And similarly evidently, she was both willing and able to defend herself.
“Could you pass the orange juice?” he asked.
His simple request for the only drink on the table that he couldn’t reach but that she could seemed to confuse her for a second before she snapped out of it and examined the table.  “O-oh, sorry, yes,” she muttered tensely, before retrieving the jug of orange juice and handing it to him.
“Thank you,” he informed her, accepting it, pouring himself a glass, and gesturing towards her empty glass with it.  “Would you like some too?”
“Eh-?” the girl began- and Harry began to wonder if that had been a mistake.  She seemed even more alarmed now, like things were not going the way she’d expected.  “S-Sure,” she stuttered, then looked around again.
“How much?” he offered, as he began filling her glass.
She didn’t react, so he eventually stopped at a full glass.
“Me too!”
Harry looked up at the girl that had just spoken, leaning over the table to put her glass in range of the pitcher.  She was wearing her nameplate, though thanks to her position, it was at an oblique angle that made it difficult to read.
“No,” he asserted, and set the pitcher down.  “You can get your own.”
The girl scowled and retreated.  As she did so, Harry read her nameplate- she was Lavender Brown.
The girl next to him let out a soft breath that sounded almost like a sigh of relief.
He smiled weakly at her, then turned to his own plate and started eating.  Perhaps he had put too much pressure on her?
After a minute or so, she seemed to work up the courage to start eating her food as well…  without messing up.
“Mornin’, Harry.”
Harry looked up at Hermione as she sat down.  “Good morning to you too,” he greeted.
“Who’s the new friend?” Hermione asked curiously.
Harry chuckled.  “No idea,” he informed her- and noticed when the strange girl choked, briefly, on her eggs.  Had she expected to be recognized or something?
Hermione chuckled.  “Brave, though,” she observed.  “She’s not fleeing from the presence of the Boy who Lived like all the other cowards are.”
“You’re also brave, then,” Harry informed her, deciding not to mention the girl’s apparent paranoia.
Hermione paused.  “Well yeah, but you started it.”
“I did,” he acknowledged, carefully not mentioning that it had actually been Hermione that had started it with Hailey.
“Harry Potter?”
He turned at the new voice, to look over his shoulder.  Draco Malfoy was back.  “Ahh, and a Slytherin is braver than most Gryffindors,” he greeted, completely ignoring the scandalized whispers, but smiling slightly at the paranoid girl’s half-hearted giggle.  Draco would be coming to befriend Harry…  for appearances that he’d complained about on the train, as Silver.  Those same appearances would require him to insult Hermione, calling her a ‘mud blood’, even though they were actually on friendly terms after the train ride- and, Harry was pretty sure, pen pals as well, even after the train.  He even picked out the apologetic flash in his eyes as Draco scanned Harry’s companions- a flash that Harry would not have known to look for.
He did have to admit, though, he was a bit predisposed to be friendly with Malfoy, simply because Hailey was on good terms with him- not even counting the day before, when Malfoy had shown up to insult the boy that had caused Hermione to get hurt.  He figured that, because of that, he could probably get away with appearing more friendly than he otherwise should.
Malfoy seemed determined to ruin that.  Was that for appearances too?
“Yes,” he agreed.  “Nothing is more Slytherin than being sorted into the wrong house, after all.  And you know, Potter, that some wizarding families are much better than the others, right?” He paused for a second, and continued at Harry’s raised eyebrow.  “You wouldn’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort.  I can help you there.”  He held out a hand.
The paranoid girl heaved a sigh, her paranoia seeming to completely evaporate as she shot a glare at Malfoy.  Hermione seemed to be deliberately ignoring him.
Harry let out a soft sigh.  “And what are you talking about?” he asked, purposely darkening his tone.  Was Malfoy deliberately building an enmity with him, or was this all stuff he’d be required to say as a pure-blooded noble?  In any case, it sounded like Malfoy was about to pipe up some ‘holier than thou’ nonsense, which would probably include insults against both of the girls that had sat on either side of him.  Unless the paranoid girl happened to be from one of his ‘better’ families, but judging by his expression, and her reaction, she wasn’t.  As a result, unless he wanted to bully her and scandalize Hermione, he’d be forced to refuse it, or assert that Malfoy was wrong.
Silver had warned Hailey that Draco would be forced to assert a number of different ‘facts’ like that, whether he believed them or not, just for appearances.  Harry wouldn’t know, but…
“I’m talking about blood purity, Potter,” Draco informed him.  “Pure-bloods like you and me are much better than these mud-bloods.”
Harry sighed, ignoring the angry snort from the paranoid girl.  “Well, you’ve gotten something wrong,” he informed Draco.  He really didn’t want to do this- but again, unless he wanted to bully the paranoid girl, and lose what was quite possibly a new friend in her, he had no choice.  “For one thing, it seems to me like only the so-called ‘mud bloods’ know how to be nice for a change- I mean, have you seen that Weasley?”
Draco snorted as well.  “The blood traitor,” he labeled.
Harry ignored it, and injected a little hint into his next sentence, in an attempt to alert Draco that he was making a front as well.  “And for the other, I’m not one of your high-and-mighty silver-haired purebloods.  Which makes you, a dirty Pureblood Supremacist, prejudiced against me, a mere half-blood, doesn’t it?”  He really didn’t want to say it like that, as it would definitely force Draco to be his enemy, but he didn’t see any other way out of the situation.  Draco wasn’t Harry’s friend, after all, and Hermione was.
Harry didn’t miss how Draco’s eyes widened at the mention of silver hair, his veiled hint that he knew about Silver.  Draco seemed to be flustered for a second, but quickly collected himself.  “I’d be careful, Potter,” he growled, but the corner of his eye twisted in a half-wink- acknowledgement of the hint.  Interestingly, the paranoid girl seemed to notice it too, and a lot of her anger evaporated on the spot.  “Unless you’re a bit politer, you’ll go the same way as your parents.  They-!”
He was interrupted by a loud snort of laughter from Hermione.  “The same way as his parents?” she asked, turning at last to face Malfoy.  “You mean getting killed by Lord Voldemort?”
Her declaration sent a wave of gasps all across the room, but she evidently cared about as much as Harry did.
Malfoy simply stared at her.
Hermione rolled her eyes.  “As if,” she told him.  “Even if another Dark Lord appears, won’t he just strike that one down too?  I mean, he defeated Voldemort as a baby!  How do you think he fended him off, then?  By screaming at him?  No!  He fended him off because he’s a thousand times better than families like yours, Malfoy- a name which means bad faith, by the way.  He crushed the Dark Lord at a time when your father was supporting his reign of terror.”
“You would say the Dark Lord’s name-!?” Malfoy gasped.
“It’s a name,” Hermione retorted.  “He’s already long gone.  Why should I be afraid of him?”
“He was the most powerful-!”
“His name is French,” Hermione snapped, over the top of Malfoy’s answer.  “Means ‘flees from death’.  What kind of powerful Dark Lord takes a name that says they flee?  I’ll tell you what:  A Dork Lord.”
Laughter echoed around the Great Hall, alongside a few angry hisses.
“So scram,” Hermione told him sharply.  “Unless you want to start a Wizard’s Duel.”
“What’s going on?”
Malfoy jumped at Professor McGonagall’s voice coming from right behind him.  “Ah-!” he began.  “Just-!  Just making friends…” he muttered.
“And failing dismally,” Hermione observed.
McGonagall’s nostrils flared.  “Fighting is against the rules,” she informed them all sharply.  “If you’re done making enemies, you’d better return to your House table.”
Malfoy nodded silently, glanced at his companions, and retreated with them.
McGonagall turned to Hermione.  “Five points from Gryffindor, miss Granger,” she barked.  “I don’t care what you think of the most recent Dark Dork Lord, you are not to threaten, demand, or invite a duel of any kind while you are at Hogwarts.”
“Yes, Professor,” she bowed.
The Professor nodded, and left.
Harry turned to the paranoid girl.  “Before I forget, I’m Harry Potter,” he greeted.  “What’s your name?”
She let out a soft sigh.  “A-Arienne,” she informed him softly.  “Arienne Fox.”  Then she glanced around again, as if looking for danger- but most of her fear seemed to have evaporated as well.





Dumbledore let out a soft sigh as he watched the Gryffindor Table from the Head Table.  Perhaps getting punched in the throat and kicked in the nuts had a silver lining:  Not only did he receive a (probably just) punishment for trying to sneak into the girls’ bathroom to subdue a girl while she was alone, but Arienne had gone straight to Harry and seemed to have made headway on befriending him as well.  It was like he’d already cast the spell!  Except, he hadn’t.  The only blood sample he’d gotten from that attempt was one of his own.  Perhaps he could hope she had her first ‘time of the month’ sometime soon, then capture that blood?  He had no idea how long it would take, but it would probably be safer than sneaking up on her again.
He’d have to forgo the Blood Ward, though, since he no longer had the Elder Wand, and he couldn’t take it back without her realizing what was going on…  and without the Elder Wand to act as an amplifier, he’d need enough blood to put the poor girl in the Hospital Wing- one of the reasons Blood Wards were considered Dark despite their powerful protection.
He couldn’t use Blood Guidance on Harry directly because he had no idea how it would interact with the Horcrux in his forehead.