Ginerva gave Harry an appraising look of her own now. In a superior tone of voice, hoping to cow him into not attempting such actions against herself, she addressed him. "I hope you don't have such plans my brother and myself, Harry. As much as we count her as a friend, we aren't like Hermione here. You may be able to do things like that to her, though I doubt it, because you do outrank her. But you don't outrank us. We're purebloods, remember. Different rules and laws apply to us. We have rank and privilege you don't share."
"We've been your friends. Sharing what we have with you. Spending time with you no matter your mood. When no one in this school wanted anything to do with you, we were at your side. We've helped you with the things you wanted to do when you were ready to do them. Remember?"
She drew herself up straighter as if trying to intimidate him with her non-existent social standing. "And you do owe us, Harry. Our family took you in. We gave you a place to stay. We fed you and provided a bed for you when you didn't want to be at your relatives house. Invited you to go places with us in public. Letting society see we thought kindly of you and offered you the protection of our name and station. Mum took the time to buy you clothes and your books and supplies for school. Ron shared his room with you and helped you learn how to fly a broom so you'd be better on the quiditch field. He taught you the rules of the game and how to do the moves Seekers are supposed to do so you could have a chance of catching the snitch during our school games. We gave you food off our table and made sure you were entertained at our house. Our family taught you about this world. We took care of you, Harry. You owe us for that."
Harry sneered at her his disgust with her practically dripping from his expression. "No, actually I don't, Ginerva, but let me tell you what you owe me. Try your life, little girl. If your brother hadn't tried to kill me by shoving me in the back into a dark passage, you'd be dead right now. Worse than dead really. Because you spent your entire first year keeping secrets while you played with fire."
"But he did. Straight into the Chamber of Secrets, a place I had no familiarity with and no desire to be. Because I knew whatever was down there was deadly dangerous and had already killed someone in this school."
"Instead, you're standing here demanding access to money you were never entitled to. You're nothing more than a greedy, little girl with delusions of grandeur and pie in the sky dreams of how you will marry me and somehow become the toast of High Society. A position I've noticed you do nothing to prepare yourself to hold."
"You don't work to improve yourself at all. Nor do you study politics or the peculiarities of the different charities my wife would be expected to be involved in. You don't try to learn the manners a high society lady of my station would need to know and display though there are several girls in this school that have those mannerisms on clear display every day. Hell, you don't even attempt to bring me information I can then use to help me build alliances for my future station and everyone knows that is what high society wives do when they socialize. In short, you do nothing to make yourself worthy of this position you seem to want."
"You seem to think that being a pureblood makes you more important than I am while covering anything and everything you do against me. It doesn't. In either situation. You're not more important than I'm because I'm the next Lord Potter. You're merely the daughter of an untitled pureblood of limited means with six older brothers. Yes, it would be quite the social coup if I were to marry you but you are in no way entitled to be my wife just because you're a pureblood as you claim. Or because Twinkly Wrinkly favors your family."
Twinkly Wrinkly? Severus thought in surprise. Where the hell does he come up with these names?
"Nor does the status of your blood give you the right to defame my character and reputation while claiming a position of importance to me I have never given you leave to claim. A position I have in fact told you repeatedly I will never choose you for. Because if and when I do marry it will not be to some useless bit of fluff with nothing but daydreams between her ears. I will marry a girl intelligent enough to see and recognize the wolf pretending to be a lamb at her door that endangers our home and family. That girl is not you and I've known that from your first year here."
Every girl in the room scribbled on the top of their parchment 'STUDY HARD' making the boys sitting next to them snicker quietly as those girls made it clear that if Potter was still free, they wouldn't mind getting his attention. If nothing else would draw them, his future rank was enough of a draw to ensure they at least tried to gain his attention.
He sneered at her. "You're every bit as spoilt as our beloved Potions Master accuses me of being. Sometimes, I think he needs to open his eyes and take a good hard look at the student roster if he thinks I'm spoilt. Clearly, he's somewhat confused as to what that word actually means. Maybe I should buy him a dictionary for Christmas?" Snickers and grins filled the Slytherin and Ravenclaw study tables as all of them knew the man was in the stacks behind Potter though clearly Potter was unaware of his presence there. They could clearly see him rolling his eyes as Potter considered buying him a dictionary for the holidays. He sent a mock glare at the boy's back to the amusement of his students. He was thoroughly enjoying this showdown and didn't mind letting his students know it.
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