Magic and Millionaires.
An owl with an unusually brown head of feathers stalked around Grimmauld Place, sitting patiently at the window. Harry Potter was sleeping soundly in his home from home, with Ron snoring monstrously beside him. Ginny was in her room retiring quietly, and Hermione was nowhere to be seen.
It had been a summer since the unexpected loss of Dumbledore, but no one had chance yet to grieve. Minerva McGonagal, was sat, a stack of parchment at her side, tottering dangerously on her desk at The Order.
It was the eve of Harry's Birthday, the time of his coming of age. It was a time for change, new leadership, a new start. Against many wishes, McGonagal had decided to reopen Hogwarts, and was currently undergoing beaurocratic flack from Ministry officials and concerned teachers alike. There was a soft bang at the window. McGonagal looked up to see Hermione banging on the window.
"Is everything alright Miss Granger?" McGonagal said, her hair sticking up at odd angles where she'd nodded off at her desk, as she scanned quickly for polyjuice potion.
"I just needed some air". Hermione was smoothing down her hair frantically, "G'night professor" she called after herself as she ran up the stairs – being extra careful to avoid the creaky step seventh from the top. She crept quietly into her room, and didn't even bother to change her clothes for bed.
"Where have you been?" a quiet Ginny asked, sitting up in bed.
"I went for some air" she said hurriedly, rolling over out of the harsh moonlight and Ginny's glare.
"You haven't been smoking have you?" Ginny questioned. Hermione responded with a roaring laugh that stifled into a quiet giggle, then into a yawn.
"Good night Gin" she whispered and they were asleep. They were awoken by Ron; haphazardly bounding into the room, as Hermione recognised daylight on her eyelids.
"Harry's only a bloody Millionaire!" he shouted with positive glee, followed by an incredibly awkward looking Harry in his pyjamas.
"What?" Cried Hermione incredulously, outraged. "Oh and happy eighteenth Harry" she added sheepishly.
"Never thought I'd say this, but Ron's right!" He offered back.
"Oi!" said Ron, shooting him a hurtful look, though slightly feigned. Harry shot back a brief apologetic glance and continued.
"I inherited my Mum and Dad's estate this morning, and Sirius'!" he said in mild bewilderment to Hermione and Ginny who didn't know quite whether to look impressed or horrified. "I got a letter off Gringotts this morning!"
"I hope you're going to invest it" Hermione said with a slightly pompous nod.
"Don't listen to her she's mental!" Ron cried.
"How are you going to spend it…." Ginny offered.
"I'm not!" This time, their faces co-ordinated accordingly to a contorted look of shock. "Don't look at me like that!" he waved. "I just don't need to right away, I might buy a flat next year or something. But right now I probably don't fancy anything more than a new broom" he said quietly.
"Brooms!" Ron beamed, "Come on Harry, I've got catalogues and catalogues of 'em" and he led him out of the room.
Harry had decidedly mixed feelings about going back to Hogwarts. Though it was safe, he could never be sure. It was really a formality attending for his final year, as he'd much rather be out saving people, or doing something more active. But it was assured that there was nothing more he could do, and finally he caved, and allowed himself to be enrolled in Hogwarts for another year (Much to Hermione's not-so-secret delight).
The next few days were spent preparing, learning new Order passwords, writing letters home, keeping secrets and dreading lessons, all very typical, before they all knew it, it was time to be back on the Hogwarts Express.
"Saved you a seat" smiled Hermione as Ginny entered the carriage and Hermione moved her belongings.
"You didn't save a seat for me" Ron said, grumpy.
"Shut up Ron" Ginny and Hermione said in Unison. Harry stifled a snigger and managed wonderfully thanks to a murderous look from Ron.
"Looks like we could have a carriage to ourselves if we wanted to" he said gesturing over the passage to an identical carriage left open.
"Anything from the trolley!" came a resounding cry from the other end of the train, and Harry jumped up, obeying a rather nasty grumble emitting from his stomach, leaving the others to talk. He almost ran up the train when he bumped (quite literally) into Cho.
"Hello Harry" she chirped. "Nice to see you" she blushed madly.
"Hello Cho" he smiled, "Had a nice summer?" he said bashfully.
"Aye, other than the return of the Dark Lord himself, it was pretty good" she said somewhat sarcastically, but smiling anyway.
"How come you're here?" he said abruptly, "Not in a mean, way, I just meant with you, y'know, being old. I don't mean being old, I mean being older than me." He said quickly. She laughed.
"Relax Harry! Hogwarts is still the safest place to be, and my parents weren't too happy with my results. Which has happened to a lot of my year because of, well, what happened, y'know? So I'm going to stay this year to catch up, and learn a few things about fighting the dark arts" she smiled and left as her friend called her in the other direction. With a different kind of rumbling in his stomach he made his excuses and returned to the carriage.
"Did you not get any food?" questioned Ron to the flushing Harry. Harry stuttered and scratched his head, luckily Hermione interrupted.
"Guess what!" she beamed.
"This better not be about books", She threw Ron a violent look and continued.
"I've been learning wandless magic!" she cried, ecstatically.
"That's great" Ginny smiled.
"That's really hard!" Harry agreed.
"Watch this" she said as she wandlessly levitated Ron's glass of water.
"Oi!" he shouted. She lowered it and then squinted hard at him and he fell asleep.
"What have you done!" Harry shouted.
"Relax, he's asleep" she smiled and wiggled her nose. "Look at this" and she summoned her bag, smacking Ginny in the face. "God I'm Sorry!" she exclaimed, at a bloodied up Ginny. "C'mon" she sighed and led a whimpering Ginny out into the train. Harry didn't see either of them until the common room after the feast.
"I would like to say a few words" McGonagal murmured, disrupting the disquiet of the chattering hall. "I would like to thank you all for coming back, and a special thanks to all the staff." She gestured to the table, "Though we do have yet another defence against the dark arts teacher" she paused. "but since it is a full moon this evening he won't be at the table until tomorrow" she winked at Harry who was grinning. "Thank you very much everybody, Thank you for welcoming me as headmistress." And everybody duly applauded as she shed a tear and signalled for the feast to begin.
A contented Ron and Harry led the way to a much quieter common room than last year. Hermione and Ginny were giggling next to the fire.
"Where were you two?" Ron questioned.
"Hospital wing" they said, nearly in hysterics.
"I broke Gin's nose" Hermione said, smirking, and glancing at Ginny.
"What's so funny about that!" Ron exclaimed. They just smirked back. "Girls!" he shouted, and went to bed. Dutifully followed by Harry.
Harry went to slept immediately, just before he woke, he was suddenly placed in a very vivid dream. A Woman dressed all in yellow was drowning. Harry was reaching out trying to save her, but she dipped under. Harry desperately grabbed towards her, but it was too late and she had gone. Harry woke with his scar aching mildly, and Ron staring at him.
"It's time for Charms" Ron shook his head, "are you alright, you're not having them, dreams again are you?" his face wrinkled in concern, "are you?"
"I had a dream, but not one of those dreams" not really sure if he was telling the truth.
Charms was simple, Flitwick wasn't one to worry and had set them all a simple task to make a rock lighter. Ron had made his rock too light and he and Flitwick spent the rest of the lesson trying to catch it from up near the rafters. Hermione did hers wandlessly, to everyone's amazement, and Harry managed with two rocks at once. All in all they were very pleased.
It was potions next, they found a beaming Ginny at the door on the way out of Charms, announcing that because of such small numbers their years were being grouped.
Potions flew by, and though it was hard work Slughorn taught them all how to make Good luck potion, being careful to confiscate it all at the end for future use, and they all felt a certain sense of pride.
Last lesson of the day was Transfiguration, for future use to develop into an Animagus, McGonagal asked them all to Transfigure a body part into another living thing. Ron turned his eyebrows into caterpillars, and was very impressed until they crawled away. Harry turned his hair into a black squid sat atop his head, and Hermione competently turned her hands into talons (Although she did have trouble picking her wand back up again). Ginny grew whiskers from her nose, and Neville turned all his fingers and toes into worms, which in turn also crawled away, forcing him into the hospital wing to re-grow his digits. Ron contested that he should be allowed to re-grow his eyebrows, but Madam Pomfrey only responded with; "We don't have potions for something as trivial as that, come back when you're missing an arm" and Ron sulked off.