For so long, Harry had gone to great efforts to define himself as a young, independent adult. He did not live at home with relatives, he lived in a house which he paid rent for through manual labor by people who just so happened to be blood related to him. Everything he owned from his clothing (minus the clothes Perennelle 'insisted' on buying for him) to his furniture was bought and paid for through money he had acquired doing various odd jobs he took around the neighborhood. In school he worked twice as hard as anyone else, not just in academics, but in athletics as well. Day in and day out he pushed himself, striving for greatness, to show the Dursley's that their misguided concepts of him were wrong, to show everyone that he was not just some child who couldn't look after himself, to make his parents proud of him.
Most importantly, he did it for himself. To prove to himself that he was different, unique, better.
It should be no wonder then, that Harry did not define himself as a child. As far as he was concerned, he did everything that an adult did and then some, therefore, he was an adult in all but age.
"I guess I'm just not like most people my age," Harry replied mildly.
"Zat you are not," Perennelle looked amused. "Zen again, I do not know many people, adult or ozzerwise who would 'ave risked zeir lives and killed two 'umans to save a vampire."
Harry winced as he remembered what he had done to rescue the girl. He wasn't particularly bothered that he had killed. He had already killed Quirrel and that was much more violent and brutal than what happened to those two men. Plus they had deserved it for trying to desecrate the dead as they had. Still, it had been a messy affair and not one he had fully thought through when committing it.
"Wait." Harry eyed the woman with furrowed brows as he realized there was something wrong with her statement. "How did you know I killed two humans? I don't remember telling you or Master Flamel that."
"It was in zis mornings newspaper," Perennelle showed Harry the front page, which had a headline of 'Dangerous Animal Possibly on the Loose!' in big, bold print, along with a picture showing the two men who had been killed. "It says 'ere zat a strange beast with claws killed two men last night. Zese men were known mercenaries and rumors speculate zat zey were smuggling an illegal and dangerous animal when it got loose and killed zem." Her eyes gleamed triumphantly. "You are an animagus, are you not?"
Harry rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to show how impressed he was that she had come to such a conclusion. Most people would not have figured it out with so little information.
Then again, she was over six hundred years old. It shouldn't be that much of a surprise that she caught onto things quicker than most people.
"Guilty as charged."
"What iz your animal form, if you don't mind me asking?"
"A Jaguar with black fur and white fur in the shape of a lightning bolt right here," Harry pointed to his forehead, where his scar could be seen clearly visible beneath the fringe of his bangs.
"Fascinating." Perennelle looked impressed. "I myself do not possess ze ability to turn into an animagus. Neither does Nicolas."
Harry would admit that he preened a bit under the praise. There was just something about the woman that made him feel good about himself when she praised him. He suspected it had something to do with the male's need to impress females. It was supposedly something all men were genetically inclined to do no matter the age.
"Anyways, I zink I shall leave now zat you are 'ere to watch over 'er."
Perennelle stood up and began making her way out of the room. She reached the door before Harry decided to ask the question that had been on his mind since the day they first met.
"Madam Perennelle?"
Said woman turned around to face Harry, a single, delicate eyebrow raised in curiosity.
"I was just wonder. You're... you've been around for a while," Harry quickly corrected. If there was one thing he learned from Misses Crawft, it was that you never, under any circumstances, ever, mention a woman's age. Considering Perennelle was over six hundred years old, that small rule became more important by a factor of ten. "Yet I couldn't help but notice that you still have a French accent."
"And you are wondering why I still 'ave it?" She asked, amused. When he nodded, she smiled at him, showing her pearly white teeth. "I 'ave not gotten rid of my accent because Nichlas finds it sexy, of course."
Harry blanched.
He wished he hadn't asked.
.
.
.
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