The Potter Twins And The Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone

Chapter Eight: The Potions Master

A/N Just letting you all know—I changed something in Chapter Two: The Letters From No One.  Nothing overly important, but I did mention the cupboard under the stairs and tried to make it less cringy.  I also wanted to make Harry's Slytherin traits more apparent for reasons. Dunno how well it worked and it isn't too important, I just thought I should mention it.
December 28, 2020

"There, look."

"Where?"

"Next to the kid with the red hair."

"Wearing the glasses?"

"Did you see his face?"

"Did you see his scar?"

"Have you seen the other one since the sorting?"

Whispers followed him from the moment he left the dormitory the next day. People stood up on tiptoe to get a good look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Harry wished they wouldn't, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.

Harry was no stranger to whispers. Privet Drive was filled with them. Gossip was its lifeblood. Rumors coated the very air he breathed. The only place they rarely reached was the dusty cupboard under the stairs.

Another person in his position may have felt suffocated by them.  Harry was not that person, however, and neither, he knew, was his twin. That had long since learned how to live with it.

In that, they were fortunate.

In other ways they were much less so.

Eyes followed them everywhere. Wherever Harry went, people were there, watching, looking for something, expecting something. Not only did people watch him when he was there, but they also went out of their way to see him.

That hadn't really happened before. The inhabitants of Privet Drive watched him and his brother with wariness and suspicion they rarely even tried to conceal, but there was a kind of out of sight, out of mind mentality to it. They watched them closely when they saw them — "when they saw them" being the key words. If he remained in the background, no one would even notice him.

Fame was different from infamy. Harry wasn't hated now, and the stares weren't hostile in the least, but it was unfamiliar territory. He'd thought he'd like it, not being hated, but right now he mostly felt unsteady and unprepared.

He hoped it would be worth it in the end, because otherwise he'd gotten himself split away from his twin for no good reason.

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending.

It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk.

The ghosts didn't help much, either. Harry couldn't help being surprised when one of them glided suddenly through a door he was trying to open. Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point new Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up on you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!"

His fans, however, served as good distractions. He would feel bad abandoning a defenseless classmate to Peeves, but many times it was a big group anyway, and so he didn't feel too bad slipping off while everyone else was distracted by Peeves's antics. It was only ever a short reprive, though, as every time he slipped away from one group, he'd invariably cross paths with more kids who would "subtly" stare at him and follow him around.