Not too long after the Peeves episode, Harry foundhimself in a dorm room with four other first year boys. None of which he reallywanted to associate with, but that's life.
"All right, since I am the most important onehere," Neville began, "I think I'll take the bed by the window."
"Feel free," Harry replied as the others wentto claim their beds. "After all, it's only freezing by that window duringwinter. I'll just take this one by the fireplace."
"Not so fast, Potter. I've changed my mind. I'lltake that bed now. Or else."
"Or else what, pipsqueak? You going to go medievalon me or something?"
"If I have to, yes."
"What's medieval mean?" Ron said to Neville.
"Can you growl at least when you're threateningme?" Harry replied with a smirk. "It makes you sound like a puppy dogtrying to go up against a full grown Rotweiler."
"Huh?" Neville replied, trying to get histhoughts around the comment.
"Never mind, acronym-boy, I'll trade beds. It's notthat big of a deal. Enjoy sweltering in the heat until it gets cold."
Neville stared at his bed and then at the fireplace.Then, "Rob…"
"It's Ron."
"Whatever. Trade beds with me. I need to know Iwon't swelter. It's important for my image to not swelter."
"Well, I'm not so sure I want to sweltereither…"
"Hey, Weasley," Harry commented casually whilepulling out some clothes and putting them away, "I heard that sweltering isa good way to get rid of freckles. Just thought I'd pass it along."
"Okay, Neville, I'll trade," agreed a suddenlyamiable Ron Weasley.
Within a half hour, the boys were done putting theirclothes and other belongings away and had dressed for bed.
"So, um, you're Harry, right?" Dean asked,moving towards Harry, hand outstretched to shake.
Harry looked at the hand and recalled a few other wordsthat Dean (and Seamus for that matter) had used to describe him last year.Harry mentally shook those thought away. This wasn't the same person. He shookthe proffered hand. "Harry Potter."
"Dean Thomas. I'm muggle-born."
"Seamus Finnegan, pureblood." Hands shook allaround.
"Harry Potter. And blood affiliations are stupid.Kind of like Longbottom."
"What was that?"
"Nothing, Longbottom. Just insulting your name somemore."
"You're what?! How dare you! Do you realize who Iam?"
Man, that was such a great line he always spouted. Harryknew he could come up with a lot more to fill that answer than just thestandard 'No, why don't you tell me,' approach.
"I thought I answered that question last month.You're the Loser Who Lived, right?"
"That's rig… hey!"
"What's up, loser? You can't have forgotten yourname already, right? Really, Longbottom, a month isn't that long in the greaterscheme of things - you need to give your loser-ness some patience. Perhapsyou'll outgrow it one of these days."
Harry ignored the spouting indignation from Longbottomand instead pulled out his Magical University course guide to get a better ideaof what subjects he was missing out on. And what books he could finagle out ofhis parents. Sheesh, look atme, he thought.I'm turning into another Hermione.
"You can't talk to me that way," he finallysaid. "I survived the Killing Curse. No one else has ever done that."
"Uh-huh," Harry sat with his back to theheadboard, flipping through the catalog.
"Why if it wasn't for me, the wizarding world couldhave been destroyed by You-Know-Who by now!"
"Uh-huh. You mean Voldemort, right?"
Neville, Seamus and Ron visibly winced. Dean didn't butthat was understandable as he hadn't been raised around magic all his life."You said his name!" Longbottom hissed.
"Sure. Why not? It's only a stupid made up name. Imean after all, who names their kids Dark Lord Voldemort? I'd hate to see hisparents if they had named him that. Why? You think the big bad, supposedly deadboogey-man is going to come get you?"
The other boys looked at one another nervously. "No,that's just silly and…"
"Voldemort!"
"Aaaahhhh!" the three purebloods nervouslyshrieked. Harry could instantly tell who hadn't hit puberty yet.
"Longbottom, what is your problem? Why are youafraid of him? You obviously defeated him, yet you can't say that stupid name?Come on, show the world you have some iron already! You're not afraid of him,are you?"
"What?" he shrieked. Then, calmer, continued,"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not afraid of anything.Especially not V-V-V-You-know-who. After all, a great man once told me that tofear a name is to fear… uh, fear itself. Or something like that."
"Voldemort!"
"Aaaaahhhh!" Neville and Ron jumped.
Harry just grinned and sat back in his bed, reading whilethe rest of the boys bonded over what they came to name: hating that pest,Harry.
....
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