Changing Directions
Hello everyone! This is my very first attempt even at a fanfic, and hopefully if response to it is good it will be quite long. It's slash, so if you don't like it please don't read it. But if you don't like Slash what are you doing reading this in the first place? Ahem. It is currently PG-13 rated, but after some chapters this will be going up to R for some mildish sex, which will be murder to write since I haven't got a clue. This chapter was hard enough! Summary: In sixth year, Harry starts to realise that he can't live in the exact way everyone wants him to. Without going over all Slytherin Green and dark, he simply realises that he has to be him and do what he wants, and go for what, or who, he wants. This will be a Harry/Neville fic, with Seamus/Blaise underlying it and Ron/Hermione, but in a very rocky way.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry, any of the other characters or items mentioned, or any of the world. JK Rowling owns them, lucky thing. But the PortaPlace is mine. As are the three NEWT courses mentioned (Well I have to take what I can!)
Please enjoy
Harry woke with a start, cold sweat dripping off him. After a few seconds of disorientation, he looked around his room, on the off chance several death eaters were waiting to spring out from behind his copy of "Quidditch Weekly". Satisfied that no such thing was going to happen, he settled back down for the night.
His nights had been very disturbed as of late. Even with practicing his occlumency diligently as Hermione insisted he was still having the odd peek into Voldemort's head. And every time he woke up he wanted to do the same thing, write to Sirius. Sirius would know what to do. But Sirius wasn't here anymore. It took Harry some getting used to not to automatically reach for his quill and write to him. Sometimes he even expected Sirius to still be stalking him as Padfoot like he did in third year.
Just as Harry was drifting off to sleep, Hedwig soared into his room carrying several letters and a dead rat in her beak. Dropping the letters directly over his head, Hedwig returned to her perch and promptly began enjoying her meal.
Harry sat up and looked at each letter in turn. Why would anyone be writing to me now after so much no contact, he thought. For three weeks since his return to the Dursley's he had had no contact with the wizarding world apart from him sending "I'm fine" letters to Grimmauld place, and he hadn't reordered his subscription to the Daily Prophet after all the fuss of last year. Deciding to start with the biggest letter, he noticed the Hogwarts crest on it immediately and began hastily opening the envelope, wanting to get it over with. Scattering all of the pages over his bed, he picked up the first one and began reading.
" Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Headmaster: Albums Percival Wulfrick Brian Dumbledore, Order of Merlin First Class, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederacy of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot
Dear Mr Potter
Please find enclosed your OWL results, and a recommendation for your courses. The final decision however will rest with you, and so also enclosed is a leaflet detailing OWL requirements for each subject you can take at NEWT level. For each subject you will also find your book and equipment lists.
This year sixth and seventh year students are being offered the opportunity of work experience for approximately two weeks after the Christmas break. This will be sorted out nearer the time but it would be wise to start considering your placement options now. Contained is a concise overview of what sort of options you have. You may of course arrange your own placement, but this must be discussed with your head of house.
If you should wish to discuss your OWL results and NEWT courses before deciding, a floo connection will be available from Diagon Alley's floo provision from now until a fortnight today if you wish to make use of it.
Yours sincerely
Minerva M. McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress"
Harry looked around his bed for the OWL results and, when he found them, held them in his hands for about three minutes, debating whether or not he should open them. After a while he decided Hermione would probably hurt him badly for not opening them immediately so he shook off his fears and began reading.
"Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry
Ordinary Wizarding Level Examining Body
Department for Education and Skills, Magical Division, Ministry of Magic
Your OWL results are as follows:
Transfiguration - E
Potions - O
Charms - O
Astronomy - A
History of Magic - A
Divination - D
Defence Against the Dark Arts - O
Herbology - E
Care of Magical Creatures - E"
Harry was, well in a word, stunned. An O in potions was something he hadn't expected at all, and he had a feeling that he'd only just scraped through it anyway. Divination wasn't a big loss to him; he had a feeling all along that he'd fail his Divination OWL. But still, 3 O's 3 E's and 2 A's wasn't bad going at all.
He decided to look through his course choices next, and noticed a few new courses at NEWT level that he hadn't encountered before. "Healing - an introduction and basic theory, can lead to a place at a St. Mungo's School of Healing" - "Magical Warding and Advanced Defence - Taking Defence Against the Dark Arts even further (can be taken in place of a DADA NEWT or can be taken concurrently)" - "Dangerous Creatures - Want to chase Dragons? Go around the world chasing Chimaeras? Tame Erumpents? Learn all about these amazing creatures and how to deal with them with the Dangerous Creatures NEWT".
Harry decided to read more about the Magical Warding course later on, and moved through the rest of his course choices. He knew that to be an Auror he needed five, including Potions unfortunately. So Potions, Transfiguration and Charms were definitely needed, and Defence Against the Dark Arts which made four. Sighing, Harry put all his Hogwarts forms away for the moment. He would have much preferred to have spoken to Professor McGonagall about his courses, but Diagon Alley wasn't exactly an easy trip for him to make while he was practically under house arrest. Taking a moment to think about how ironic it was that he should be worrying about his NEWT courses when Voldemort is out there planning his destruction this very minute, he moves to the other letters Hedwig brought and opened the first one.
"Hey Harry! How are you? Hope the muggles are treating you alright this time round.
Percy still hasn't come home. Mum's going mental about it, saying how with You-Know-Who on the loose we can't be losing our family to each other, same old shit. Charlie's back for the summer mind; brought this Romanian fella with him though. I mean fair enough if he wants to be a big old poofta" -
Harry winced at that. His best friend Ron was a lovely guy, but just slightly homophobic. Which, considering Harry's own homosexuality, was a problem. While the rest of the wizarding world was largely accepting of gay people, Ron was just a law unto himself when it came to such things. And it was this that kept Harry from being honest with everyone else himself - as well as the fact he didn't want even more of his private life splattered across Witch Weekly.
- "that's fair enough, but does he really have to throw it in our faces? I said something like that to Bill, but he just had a go at me about how I was being narrow-minded and hypocritical. Whatever that means.
Anyway, I heard about you being able to do magic at home! It must be wicked to be able to do magic without having to worry about it all. Wish I could do that.
Oh and yeah. Got my OWLs. 3 E's 4 A's 2 D's. No prize for guessing which ones the D's were. Hermione's probably going mental over her ones though. Now it'll be newt newt ruddy newt.
See ya soon Ron"
Even though he felt really bad about it afterwards, Harry couldn't suppress that small feeling of pride that he'd done better than Ron, but realising that he'd have to somehow break that news to Ron the feeling quickly died, and he put the letter to the side with his Hogwarts stuff. He could reply later. And he'd have to deal with Ron's jealousy about performing magic at the same time. It was only allowed within the confines of his house, so he could keep up his Occlumency and practice defending himself in case Voldemort did decide to make a house call. He opened up the next letter on the pile.
"Dear Harry,
I hope you're doing well. I am sorry for the lack of contact this summer; however it has been necessary to limit the possibility of our communications being traced.
We have been doing as much as we can on our end to give you some more freedom and have come up with a few solutions, if they are acceptable to you.
A contact of ours in the Floo Regulation department at the Ministry has set up a Floo connection to your room which will only go to Grimmauld Place. Because it is separate from the rest of the system it is untraceable and unusable. This connection will only be available to you between 10am and 2pm outgoing, but you can return at any time through the day – again from Grimmauld Place.
I am sorry it had to be here that the connection was. I know that it must be hard coming back after what happened to Sirius. All I hope is that you can accept this as the best we can do at this moment.
Also, I will be arriving at your aunt and uncle's house to escort you to Hogwarts in two days time. I assume you want to ask your new DADA teacher about the Magical Warding course.
If, however, I am mistaken and you wish to remain at your aunt and uncle's house until you board the Hogwarts Express, then please let me know before Friday and we will remove the Floo and I will not pick you up.
Best wishes,
Remus Lupin"
Harry couldn't help but smile, even at the mention of Sirius. Truth be told, he wasn't feeling too bad about returning to Grimmauld Place. A lot of his anger and frustration had already been taken out on Dumbledore, and the rest had been grieved out. He would love nothing more than to use his floo connection, although how he would go about that was still troubling him.
As if in immediate answer to his unspoken question, the next letter began to glow slightly. Apprehensively, hoping it wasn't some form of Howler, he picked it up and saw a Ministry seal on the back and opened it quickly.
"Dear Mr Potter
Your Floo connection is now active. The particulars of this are detailed in the enclosed information sheet. To use your floo connection, simply unshrink the contained PortaPlace, and place this in the designated floo area. The PortaPlace will not work outside of this area, any attempts to make it work constitutes an offence under the Restriction of Floo Travel Act 1740, as amended 1989.
Light a fire in the PortaPlace, and use as any normal floo. Also contained within the PortaPlace unit is your message notifier, and a bag of Floo Powder which can be replenished at any Floo Regulation centre across the country.
Your Message Notifier is a new feature, and allows fire-talk messages to be left at your Floo fireplace, and for you to view these messages afterwards. The Message Notifier will vibrate when a message is left for you.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
With regards,
James Waterbucket
Department for Floo Regulation and Transport"
Finding the PortaPlace, he quickly unshrank it, and in front of him was a sort of silver tray, about 3 feet by 5 feet, and with the bag of Floo powder and Notifier inside. Marvelling at his new found freedom, he placed the PortaPlace at the other side of his room, against the wall. Deciding to play with his new toy first chance he got tomorrow, he moved over to the final letter.
"Dear Harry
I really hope you're OK. I've recovered completely now, the wonders of Magical Medicine. I've been thinking about Healing as a career option. Have you seen that Healing NEWT course? It looks incredible! I've been doing some background reading on it already and I think that I'm going to take it. –"
Leave it to Hermione to always to her background reading on something. Which probably meant going to the nearest wizarding library and renting a few bookcases.
- "Have you had your OWL results yet? I had 10 O's. I was so surprised. I was convinced I had failed Ancient Runes and gotten myself an A or something equally as dreadful. I heard from Ron, I don't think he did that well. But don't tell him I said that of course.
Can you keep something else to yourself as well? It's just I think that he likes me. Well, likes me likes me, and I don't really know what to do about it. You're his best friend so do you know if he likes me? And you're my best friend so can you give me advise? Thing is there aren't really many books on this sort of thing, well not good books at any rate.
I'll be seeing you soon I hope; I'll be visiting Grimmauld Place to help with keeping the house all clean and tidy. Oh please come and visit us there. I know it will be hard but we'll miss you terribly if you don't. I also think Neville may be coming to visit as well, at least Remus hinted something along those lines. Maybe you should talk to him; I mean it must be hard for both of you. I read somewhere that people with similar experiences often connect the most.
Love, Hermione"
Truth be told Harry didn't want to talk to Neville. Not because Neville wasn't a nice guy, but because through all of fifth year and his enforced attraction to Cho, he'd been falling head over heals for him as he developed into the young man he is now. A lot of his baby fat disappeared, and he grew in height and became a very good-looking wizard. Also, he became more open with people, Hermione and Harry especially and was making much less mistakes with his magic now than he used to. People always though of Neville as little more than a squib, but he had enough power to get into Hogwarts, just his confidence preventing him using it. And Harry saw a side of Neville no one else seemed to pay any attention to...
Rather than get lost in thought about Neville, he went to his desk, picked up his quill and parchment and began writing letters to everyone, waiting for tomorrow's Floo flight with a mix of anticipation and dread.
Well that's it. It might seem a little slow, but it's setting the background. The next chapter will be a little better I hope, when he gets to Grimmauld Place. Anyway, please review. And constructive criticism is always welcomed! Thanks