**Author’s Note: This work of fan-fiction is inspired by characters and events in the Harry Potter universe created by J.K. Rowling. The events in this story take place in the middle of the sixth book in the series. Please do not duplicate without permission of the author.**
The castle spires rose above the glistening surface of the lake like something out of the fairy tales of old and, truth be told, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had inspired many of these tales itself, but that is a story for another day. Winter days can be deceiving and on this day in early December a closer inspection would reveal cracks in the storybook façade. Slightly inland from the lake stood the outer walls of the grounds, the tops of which were strangely clear of vegetation; the surrounding trees held their branches splayed against as though against an invisible wall, blocked from entry by magic and charm. Slightly further down the gates to this happy abode of childhood presented a much more tangibly impervious barrier to the world beyond. However merry it looked, Hogwarts was battened down for hard times.
High atop the largest of the towers the students of Gryffindor House gazed out at the snowy night with the moderate relief that the first term of the year had finally come to a close. It was a lonely virgule for most. Those small faces peering into the night represented but a fraction of the usual numbers for this early in a winter break. Fearing the worst, most parents had snatched their children home early.
Harry Potter was among those forlorn faces, sitting alone in the middle boy’s dormitory and brooding uneasily of his fate. Small for his age, but possessed of a generous shock of black hair he always felt made him at least a little taller, Harry could not help but feel vaguely cursed. He was an orphan. He had lost his surrogate father, the much lamented Sirius Black less than a year before. He’d watched friends and allies fall in a war few had even accepted as reality until this year. He was hunted. He was haunted.
Harry turned from the window and dropped heavily onto his four-poster bed. He had the dormitory to himself for the moment. Most of the other sixth years had gone home for the holidays and Ron was off with his new girlfriend, Lavender Brown. Harry took off his glasses and was about to lie back when a light tap came at his window. Surprised and more than a little suspicious, Harry leapt up and returned to the widow. Hedwig, Harry’s snowy owl, sat on the windswept sill.
Harry threw open the widow. Hedwig fluttered in and dropped a brown parcel on his bed, then perched on his shoulder. Harry gave her a distracted scratch under the beak and bent to examine the package. “Harry James Potter” was emblazoned on the front with red ink in a strangely looping print, followed by “personal and confidential.” Who would have sent him an early and confidential Christmas present? Who outside of Hogwarts would have sent him a Christmas present at all? He’d last received a toothpick from his Aunt and Uncle as a gift (though Uncle Vernon’s old socks still held an oddly special place in his heart.
Intrigued, Harry tore back the brown wrapping. Inside was a plain cardboard box with a note taped to the top. Harry pulled it free and opened it. A single word was written on the pink paper in the same looping script: “folliculus” he read to the quiet dormitory. Suddenly the package jerked out of his hands and dropped writhing to the bed. Harry toppled back off the bed and hit the floor as the contents of the box sliced through the roof of the thin paperboard prison. A blur of gold shot past his head and for an instant Harry thought he’d freed a quidich Golden Snitch. Then the shape pelted down from above and snicked past his head, missing his ear by less than an inch. The chattering object passed so closely Harry could hear a low buzzing sound and reached up to make sure his ear was still attached. When his fingers came back with a lock of his black hair he realized the object hadn’t missed him at all—it had sliced a chunk out of his hair!
As he stared down at the three inch piece in his hand the buzzing thing made another pass, this one skipping right along the top of his head. A shower of disheveled black clumps fell down over his eyes and stuck between his glasses and his face. Stunned, but no longer completely stupefied, Harry rolled to his left as the thing took another run at him. He covered his face with his arms to keep it from gauging at his eyes as he went, but the buzzing thing did not seem interested in blinding him. Instead it swooped across the back of his head and this time he actually felt cold steel as the thing passed rapidly up his exposed neck once, twice, three times. Keeping an arm over his face, Harry shoved himself toward the relative safety under his bed and felt the thing hacking at the right side of his head. He was almost under the bed when the dormitory door banged open.
“You won’t believe this one,” Ron Weasely’s voice hissed exasperatedly into the room, “that prat actually….bloody hell!” Ron flattened himself against the door, slamming it behind him with a loud snap as Harry’s tormentor whirled though the air a few inches from his nose, turning for another pass at Harry.
“Ron, get down!” Harry shouted, finally pushing himself under the bed. “It’ll go after your hair,” he finished in a strangled voice…except it was not going after Ron’s hair. In fact, the buzzing object that had just dropped low to follow Harry’s retreat did not seem to have noticed Ron at all. Harry now covered his head with both arms, but the thing once again streaked across the back of his head, this time caressing the nape of his neck. The hair there had already been ravaged, but this time Harry felt the cool draft of the thing’s rapid passing as it swooped past. He did much like what that must mean.
Ron meanwhile had pulled himself free from the wall and was reaching for his wand. As the zooming not-snitch turned for another pass under the bed, Ron raised his wand and shouted “stupefy!” The thing froze in the air for a moment, then dropped to the floor.
“Harry, oy, HARRY!” Ron’s shaggy red head appeared to Harry’s left. “You alright?”
Harry honestly didn’t know. He was shaking now from head to tow from adrenalin and shock. Slowly, Harry lowered his arms and looked at his hands. His palms were covered in snippings of hair, but were mercifully free of blood. The thing had not cut him.
“I…I think so,” Harry managed rather lamely and slowly wriggled out from under the bed. From Ron’s gasp, he figured the damage to his hair was pretty bad. He stood up and felt a cascade of hair drop from his head and arms across his shoulders. The dormitory floor was littered with hacked off clumps of his hair. Harry slowly raised his hands and felt head. He let out a gasp of his own. Little islands of his long dark hair stood up here and there defiantly, but his hands found little else. He put a hand to bare nape of his neck and ruffled the scraggly mess forward, sending a good deal more hair over his forehead and into his eyes. His head felt like sandpaper.
“Bloody hell,” Ron said again, “you’re almost BALD, mate!”
Harry took off his glasses and shook his head vigourously. He slowly crossed the room to the oval mirror in the far corner. He was afraid to lift his eyes to his reflection. Ron meanwhile was slowly approaching the thing he had stupifed. Lying on the carpet was an enormous pair of golden shears, frozen halfway open.
“They come in this box here?” he asked as Harry slowly looked into the glass. His heart sank. Ninety percent of his hair had been rudely hacked from his head in varying lengths. Some were short and spikey, others still long and shaggy. A good many others had been clipped almost to the skin. The stripe down the center, the thing’s second pass, was somehow the worst. The shears had literally touched his scalp there and left a strip of black stubble from the crown to the front, leaving a two inch hole in his bangs. He reached around and felt the back, where the shears had had the freest access, but the back of his head was almost completely bare. He could not find his voice to answer his friend.
“Wow,” Ron said coming over to Harry’s side. “What do you think they’d have done if we hadn’t stopped them?”
“Doesn’t really matter, does it? They did plenty.”
“You think Madam Pomfry could help?”
Harry shrugged. “Don’t see how, less she’s trained as a barber.”
“Barber?” Ron asked dubiously.
“Muggle hair-expert,” Harry supplied and sighed. “I don’t think I could face her anyway.” In truth, he did not think he could face anyone, not even Ron.
“We gotta do something, you can’t leave it like that,” Ron offered, reaching a tentative hand to touch the remains of Harry’s hair. He frowned. “Hermione?”
“What about her?”
“Maybe she can help, she knows loads of stuff. And besides, girls know how to fix stuff like this, it’s…standard,” he finished, looking hopefully into the mirror beside Harry. Harry was sickened to see how much smaller his head looked in comparison.
“Thought you two weren’t talking,” said Harry, but he was beginning to grasp a thin hope. Hermione did know a lot of useful spells, had she not once made his glasses impervious to water before a quiddich match?
“She’ll forget that for this, she has to!” Ron said, his ears coloring slightly. “This is an emergency.”
“Maybe we won’t have to,” Harry said, fingering the bare patch in his fringe. “My Aunt Petunia once cut all my hair off and it grew back on it’s own.”
“Maybe,” Ron said doubtfully. “But with muggle scissors, not magic. Does it feel like it’s growing back?” Harry had to admit it certainly did not seem to be.
“Okay, but he go look for her…I can’t.” Harry was starting to feel ill. What if it didn’t grow back fast? He’d been spared facing school bare headed once, he was not keen on his odds a second time. That just wasn’t his kind of luck.
Ron left the room, stowing his wand in his robes as he went. Harry crossed back to his bed and feel heavily down on it. He had hair in his collar, down his shirt, even in his mouth. Everywhere but where he wanted it, it seemed. He undid the clasp on his snippit-covered robe and tossed it to the floor, followed by his Gryffindor necktie and shirt. He felt even skinnier than usual; smaller and more vulnerable than ever. He scooted down on his bed and opened his trunk for a fresh shirt as loud voices sounded on the stairs.
“HONESTLY, Ronald, just tell me what’s going on!” came a rather stuffy girl’s voice as the door opened and Ron thrust Hermione into the room by the arm.
“Just com’on!” he said, but it was drowned by a little shriek from Hermione.
“HARRY! What’s happened, are you alright? What happened to you, what happened to your hair, did you do that, did it fall out, what’s happened?!” The words tumbled out on top of each other as she dashed across the room and yanked him back to his feet, shirt dangling from his hand. She noticed his missing shirt and blushed deep crimson, but didn’t let him go. She was turning his head from side to side looking for wounds.
“Guess that means they didn’t come from you,” Harry said with a weak smile, allowing his head to be pawed at. Ron was right, it was a good idea to get Hermione.
“What didn’t come from me?” she said indignantly, stroking the shorn stripe down his head. Harry shivered as Ron closed the door and walked back to the wretched shears.
“These,” he said holding them up. “Somebody mailed them to Harry. Probably Malfoy,” he finished, wrinkling his nose.
“I dunno,” Harry replied as Hermione finally released him and took the scissors from Ron. “The note was on pink paper and it looks pretty girly.”
Ron snorted.
“Then it’s definitely from Malfoy!”
“That’s crazy,” Hermione said, running her finger down one sharp blade. “He could have been killed! We have to take these to Professor Dumbledor, it could have been,” she paused and swallowed. “I could have been Voldemort.”
Harry shook his head.
“If they’d wanted me dead, I’d be dead, “ he said pointing at the box. “They burst out right in my face, but only cut my hair.” It came out sounding much more casual than it felt. He did not in truth feel ‘only’ applied in this matter. Not by a long shot.
“Well, something has to be done to fix this,” she said turning again to Harry’s butchered head and running her fingers up the back. Harry shivered again. She had to stop that, at least.
“Know any hair growing charms?” Ron asked, fingering one of the longer locks of hair from the floor. “He’s in a right state. Don’t girls know that kind of stuff?”
Hermione rounded on him.
“Why don’t you ask her?” she said defiantly, tossing her head in the general direction of the common room. “I’m sure she’s much more woman, she’ll know all about that kind of thing.”
“Come off it,” Ron said angrily, but his cheeks now matched his ears. “This isn’t about that!” Harry stood to between them, very conscious of his bare chest and head. He made to pull the t-shirt over his head, but Hermione put her hand on his arm.
“Don’t do that Harry you’ll just get hair all over it. We’ve got to clean you up first.” With a final glare at Ron, Hermione produced her wand and waved it toward the center of the room. A rather crude wooden chair appeared. Harry had seen this spell before, but every time Dumbledor had cast it the chairs he produced had been much more inviting. Like anything else, anger clearly had an effect on spellwork. “Sit!” she said roughly and nudged his shoulder with her wand.
“Honestly, you read a clearly magical word aloud before you even knew what it meant?”
“Err, maybe this isn’t necessary, Hermione,” Harry said nervously as he sank onto the chair. “Last time I got a bad haircut from my Aunt it just grew back on its own in a few hours.” Hermione looked dubious, but her expression softened.
“Spontaneous magic is really powerful stuff, Harry,” she said quietly. “It takes a lot of focus and…erm…” Her eyes cut away from his, taking in his pale face, the shadows under his eyes. He could almost here the arithmacy section of her brain as it counted his visible ribs. “I really wouldn’t count on it this time, Harry. It’s not your fault or anything,” she added quickly, raising a hand as he opened his mouth to protest. “Just look at Tonks. Point of view really affects a wizard’s powers.”
“I’m perfectly fine!” Harry protested loudly, but some of the method of Voldemort’s madness suddenly hit him. Some of the reason to whittle down the people in Harry’s life, the people who kept him going.
“Well, anyway, if it grows back that’s great,” she said evasively, moving to stand behind him. “It won’t matter one way or another then if we finish it off, will it? But if it doesn’t…well…you can’t go around like this.” She delicately lifted his mangled fringe with the tip of her wand. “I’m sorry Harry, the rest of this has to go.”
“We could just let those crazy scissor lose again, they seemed to be doing a fair job of it,” Ron added helpfully, but both Harry and Hermione ignored him.
“What have you got in mind?” Harry asked.
“I’m not sure,” Hermione said, turning his head to the side and looking at his profile. “Some of these patches are almost shaved. Even if we could find some muggle scissors, I don’t think we could ever get it even.”
“Mum uses a snipping charm on us,” Ron put in again. “Does the trick alright.”
“Yes, that’ll do for a start,” Hermione said vaguely, surveying Harry’s head. She lifted her wand and pointed it at Harry’s forehead. “Tonsurius!” she said softly. Harry flinched, expecting some kind of repeat of the whirring scissors, but instead of a wild buzzing (or flying object, for that matter) Harry felt a rather please warmth across his head in a perfectly straight line. After a second he felt the hair the hair separate. You could not call it cut, exactly, more a melting feeling and suddenly the hair that kept sentinel on either side of his peripheral vision slid neatly over past his eyes, over his cheeks, and onto his chest. Harry had broken into a cold sweat at some point without noticing it and the hair stuck there as a cruel reminder. He reached up and felt his bare forehead, trailing a finger over his lightning scar. His bangs, something even Aunt Pentenia would dare not remove, were gone for he first time in his life. He moved his hand up and felt a straight line of bristles at his forehead.
“Oh,” Harry said, rather out of breath. “Wow.”
“I’m sorry Harry, but it’ll be over soon.” Hermione moved around to his left and did the charm again. Harry felt hair falling around him in clumps and squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to watch this. He felt the warm lines crisscrossing over the top of his head, peeling off his hair in strips. Every now and then Hermione would pause and brush her hand over his head to knock some of the longer pieces to the floor. Her hands were warm and when they moved down to brush off his shoulders he could feel them trembling. “That’s all I can do with this charm, Harry, it’s not meant for this type of close cutting. The Wizarding world doesn’t have very many crewcuts.”
“What about Drumstrangs?” Ron asked, speaking for the first time since the cutting had resumed. “How did Victor keep up his hair?”
“Muggle hair clippers, enchanted to run without electricity,” Hermione said. She was too put out to comment on Victor Krum further. “I wish we had some. I’m really sorry Harry, but it doesn’t look much better.”
Harry got up and crossed to the common room mirror. Having looked once he found it easier this time, but winced at his reflection. His tousled mane of black hair was all gone now. What remained was a patchy mess of bristles and stubble. He reached up to touch it and found his hand shaking. He lowered it back to his side. He looked so odd! He could feel the draft in the room on his neck. His ears seemed much more prominent than he would have believed and his eyes seemed to swim behind his round glasses.
Harry turned around and found Ron at his shoulder.
“It’s not so bad,” Ron said sympathetically. “At least it’ll be out of your eyes for the Christmas meet.” Harry’s heart sank. He’d forgotten all about that. With so few students left at Hogwarts, Dumbledor had agreed to a special, albeit closely supervised, match between the remaining Quiddich players. Ravenclaw/Slytherian vs. Hufflepuff/ Gryffindor. Not an official match, just something to lighten the mood of the ca
stle. It also meant that everyone left at school would be looking at his head in just a few short days.
Harry looked past him.
“Where’s Hermione gone?”
“Dunno, she’s not real keen on me right now, you know?” Ron looked exasperated. “All this and she’s still thinking about Lavender!” Before he could go further the door opened and Hermione entered the room and shut the door softly behind her.
“Here,” she said in a rather small voice. “This will finish it.” She held out a small goblet.
“What do you mean, ‘finish it?’” Harry asked, his stomach sinking. He had a pretty good idea what was in the goblet. “This isn’t…”
“A baldness draft, yes it is!” Hermione burst into tears and threw her arms around him. “I’m sorry, Harry! I can’t think of any other way to even it up without getting a teacher!”
Ron stared at her, his mouth working silently for a moment.
“Are you mental?” he croaked at last. “You want to make Harry bald?!” She turned her head toward him and snarled.
“It’s just a temporary draught and the antidote is here!” She held up a small vile, her hands still clasped behind Harry’s back. “He’s almost bald anyway thanks to those shears, at least this way it will grow back okay!” She paused a moment, but did not bother to dry her streaming eyes. “It’s a simple enough potion, even your Half Blood Prince couldn’t find fault with it!” she concluded vehemently.
Before either of them could say anything else, Harry pulled away from Hermione and upended the cup. The potion was still hot from the cauldron and scolded the back of his throat. Almost instantly, Harry felt a tingling sensation burst out across his head. He turned toward the mirror, but could see no appreciable difference. He slowly raised his hand and brushed it back across his head. The hair went with it. His heart in his throat, Harry bent his head toward the floor and reached up with both hands and vigorously rubbed them over his head. A shower of tiny bristles rained down around him. Before he could make another pass to feel the smoothness of his scalp, Hermione grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and jammed the vile into his mouth.
“Swallow it, quick now, you still want eyebrows, don’t you?” Harry gagged the concoction down and then slowly raised his head. He could feel every breath of air across his scalp. He turned to the mirror and let out a small groan. He couldn’t help it. A different boy was looking back at him. The boy in the mirror had the same startling green eyes, the same round glasses, and even his lightning bolt scar, but it was not his face looking back at him. He looked smaller than ever, but somehow older. It was a jarring sight, but he had to admit it looked better than the mangy mess he’d had a few minutes ago.
Hermione came up behind him and reached out her hand, then stilled it in the air. Before he knew what was happening she rushed forward and planted a kiss on the top of his head.
“That was really brave, Harry,” she said in a choked voice. “You look so different.”
“Yeah, wicked mate,” Ron said faintly. “Nobody will believe this.”
“Well,” Harry said, speaking for the first time. He was relieved that his voice sounded mostly normal. “I need to get cleaned up.” He could feel every dead hair sticking to his body and wanted it done with.
“You’re Quidich Captain, use the prefect’s bathroom!” Ron said, happy to have something useful to say at last. “None of the other prefects stayed for the holidays, you’ll have it to yourself.”
“Right,” Harry said, grabbing some clean clothes from his trunk. He paused for a moment, then reached in and took out his wool Gryffindor cap. He sighed and pulled it onto his bare head. He wasn’t ready for anyone else to see him yet, even if the odds of running into anyone in the corridors this late were slim.
Seeing himself reflected back in mirrors was startling, but the hot water on his skin was an incredible feeling. He dunked his head back under repeatedly, marveling at the sleek feel of the water and only stopped when he heard a familiar snicker from the drain. Moaning Murtle was watching him. It was time to go.
They had cleaned up the dormitory by the time Harry got back. Hermione had gathered his hair into a large pile on the floor, but had not yet disapperated it. Harry didn’t want to look at it. Ron and Hermione were sitting side by side on his bed and when she looked up at him, Harry could see she had been crying again.
“Look, it’s okay, none of this was your fault,” Harry said as he closed the door. He was starting to feel at least a little better about it, if only a little. “Really, you saved me tonight with this stuff—“
“It’s not that, we both agree you look really good bald,” Ron said slowly and then put his arm around Hermione’s shoulders. “It’s those blasted magic scissors, look!” He gently turned Hermione’s head and Harry saw with a start that a sizable chunk of her bushy hair was missing.
I thought about that spell and I must have said it non-verbally!” Hermione choked out after a moment. “They flew right at me. If Ron hadn’t stunned them again, I’d be as bald as you!” The shears, Harry saw, had been tightly spello-taped and closed in Ron’s copy of Hagrid’s old ‘Monster Book of Monsters.’
“It’s not that noticeable,” Harry said, forgetting about his own shiny head for the moment. “If you pull it back or something…”
“Not now, I can’t take anymore haircutting right now,” she said getting to her feet. “I’m going to bed.” She got uneasily to her feet and walked quickly past Harry, not looking at his bare head. “I’ll see you in the morning.” She was gone before they could answer.
“Wild,” Run said, looking at the closed door. “Those things are a menace. Who the bloody hell could have sent them?”
“Dunno,” Harry said, rubbing his head for the thousandth time. “But maybe we can tell by the person who laughs hardest at breakfast.
Ron grunted.
“I guess. I’m going to bed too. Night Harry.” He crossed to his four-poster looking slightly put out and Harry had the distinct impression he’d walked in on a moment between the two of them. He was too exhausted to care. He climbed into his own bed and pulled the hangings shut. The pillow case was smooth against his scalp and moving his head a little from side to side, Harry Potter fell asleep.
The next morning Harry sat upright with a start. It was light in the room and something had woken him up. He reached up to brush his bangs away from his eyes, but met only his bare forehead. Right. Bald. Only he wasn’t completely bald anymore. Rubbing his hands over his head, Harry marveled at the stubble that could spring up in one night. He crossed to the mirror, an act fast becoming ritual, and looked at his pale head. He was still very much bare up there, but his dark hair was clearly outlined in a shadowy stubble that he found surprisingly endearing. He missed his hair very much, but he really didn’t look that bad without hair. Many of the Drunstrangs had worn their hair this short and in a few days Harry would have a cut only slightly shorter than Victor Krum’s—and people seemed to think he was attractive, at least.
Just as he was lacing up his trainers the door burst open and Hermione bounced in.
“Harry!” she beamed, holding out a bunch of her bushy brown hair at him. “I don’t believe I didn’t think of this last night, look!” He did and didn’t understand at first, then remember the appreciable hole that had existed in her mane last night. Somehow she’d filled it in.
“A sticking charm, I don’t know where my head was, look you can hardly tell!”
“Err, that’s great,” Harry said, wondering briefly if said charm would have done him any good. Given the state of his hair, he had to answer probably not. “Where’s Ron?”
“With her I suppose, but never mind that!” She produced her wand and pointed at the mound of hair still on the floor from last night. “Stickego!” she cried, directing the wand up to his head. She leaped forward and started arranging locks of his hair into place, moving her wand as she went. After nearly ten minutes of this, Harry was getting restless, but she pulled back finally and nudged him toward the mirror.
“Well, what do you think?” Harry surveyed his head. His hair didn’t look quiet right, it was much shorter and very flat, but his head was once again covered at least. “I’ve been practicing on things all morning,” she went on, “so long as you don’t move it too much it should work while your hair grows out some!”
Harry was surprised his relief wasn’t greater. He did feel the weight of having to walk past everyone to breakfast lift off his heart, but at the same time he felt a strange let down. It was confusing, he’d felt so exposed, so daring, so very naked without his hair, it had actually been rather exciting on some deep level. But he’d get over that, he supposed.
“Thanks,” he said, patting his head. The hair didn’t move. “Let’s go down to breakfast, okay? I haven’t had anything to eat since lunch yesterday.
Harry’s odd hairstyle attracted some sidelong glances in the nearly deserted Great Hall, but breakfast passed uneventfully. Ron and Lavender Brown had taken up their morning kissing ritual at the far end of the table, but both Harry and Hermione managed to ignore them without too much trouble.
The rest of the day passed in an equally drab manner. Harry took every opportunity to check his reflection, though, worried that some of the hair would come unstuck. He started spending more time alone in his room doing homework rather than feel that people were staring at what was starting to look like a pretty obvious deception to him. To make matters worse his head was starting to itch as the hair grew in underneath his hair-hat.
One night Ron interrupted his quite reverie on his way to bed, having spent most of the day with Lavender. “Night mate, see you bright and early at the game tomorrow.” Harry looked up at him.
“The game’s tomorrow?” he spluttered. He should have been practicing.
“Yeah, but I don’t know if Malfoy’s going to be there, haven’t seen him much at all lately.” That was true and Harry had temporarily forgotten Malfoy’s ill fated project. Whatever he was doing, it couldn’t be good.
The next morning bloomed bright and cold and Harry found himself dressing slowly into his quidich robes before the sun. His head was itching worse than ever, but he had to focus on the task at hand. Malfoy had not yet put in an appearance, but the match promised to be rough anyway. There were enough Ravenclaws and Slytherians to make Harry very nervous.
The remaining Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs took the field amid a scatter of applause. Harry could see Professor Dumbledor in his usual spot high in the stands, as well as Horace Slughorn, who was seated lower and on the opposite side of the field. Harry got the distinct impression that they were seated apart to keep a wider view of the surrounding area. It somehow made him feel even more nervous.
At Madam Hootch’s whistle he kicked off from the ground and went soaring into the crisp, cold air. It was freezing to fly a broom in this weather, but also invigorating. As the teams clashed below him, Harry gazed around for the snitch. At the first flash of gold, however, Harry flinched and nearly capsized his broom. The shears had flown like that, the wretched shears. He hadn’t counted on anything like this. He had to catch the snitch quickly; if it dived past his head again he was likely to topple of his broom! The snitch dove for the field and Harry went after it, feeling the cold air whip back through his hair. It felt odd at first, like a cool water over a tight cap, then he felt the soft ruffle and put it out of his mind. The snitch was skimming over the field and Harry with it. He looped the Slytherian stands and heard whoops of laughter, but that was nothing new. The wind was getting colder on his head as he went…and the reason for he laughter occurred to him. He was leaving a trail. He looked back at the unstuck as his hand closed over the snitch. He circled once, unsure exactly what to do, then clomped down on the hard earth. He reached up and felt his stubbly head, bared to the school at his moment of glory. His team mates rallied around him, crimson and yellow alike, and lifted him up. They were laughing too and rubbing his shorn head.
“Way to go Harry!” somebody called.
“Very aerodynamic, mate,” somebody else put in.
“You looked like Krum up there! LOOK like Krum up there!”
Harry was pleased with himself, but highly embarrassed. He should have seen that one coming, but nobody other than the Slytherians seemed to think it the height of hilarity and Harry was glad. He caught a scandalized look from Cho Chen, she of the shining raven black hair, but then he saw Hermione beaming at him and put her out of his mind. It was almost better that Cho didn’t like his hair, given the way their time together had ended. It made him feel like he finally had the upper hand again.
Hermione reached him at the same time as Ron and they laid their animosity aside long enough to reach up and scruffle his head together. He could get used to this, he thought happily. It was a good day.
That night a celebratory feast was held in honor of the match in the Great Hall. Harry had now heard comments from most of the people he knew, including a “very efficient style, Potter” and sly nod from Professor McGonagall.
Draco Malfoy, however, always to be counted on, took up a chant of “Hairless Potter,” before suffering a peculiar reaction to his pumpkin use that forced him to leave the table. Nobody could be punished, as the list of possible offenders included most everyone at the dinner—staff included.
Harry was feeling so good by the time he sat down that he had completely forgotten about the shears that had brought about this little exhibition of his head. As he sat down at the table, however, he felt a hand slowly caress up the back of his head all the way to the front and turned quickly to see a very flushed Ginny Weasley. In the years before she might have turned and bolted at such a moment, but she was much bolder now. In fact, her eyes were more defiant than shy at the moment. She tossed her mane of red hair back from her face and smiled mischievously.
“Merry Christmas, Harry,” she said quietly, beginning to move past him down the table. “Even if this wasn’t exactly how it was supposed to go…a little something from Fred and George’s books, I’ve been way too embarrassed to tell you…just supposed to be a trim, you look so shaggy all the time. Besides, Lee Jordan and I are nearly through…maybe I wanted to see what you look like under there.”
Harry could think of nothing to say in return, but felt more right than he had in ages as Ginny drifted off to join a few of her fellow fifth years. He smiled happily as Ron and Hermione joined him, content that for the moment all was right with the world. Secure in this knowledge, Harry felt the first tickle of black hair creeping onto his forehead.
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