So... this story is still progressing pretty constantly, though I'm feeling like the writing is going a bit downhill... anyway, my chapter buffer being completed, here's chapter three.
My continuing thanks to my reviewers, to moniteur for continuing praise and advice, to Dragen Ranger for the praise and the name that's very nearly an anagram, to Wulffmann for the praise and the speculation.
As a note, if you're reading this because it's a Harry/Tonks story, that might be a bad idea. The focus of this story is not romance, and I make no promises nor guarantees about how this story is going to end with regards to that relationship. It may develop, it may not. Hey, they might even get together and then break up. No guarantees at all. And I'm not just saying that to be coy. I don't do coy.
I'll try to do at least two chapters a week. No guarantees there either.
The portrait of the Fat Lady stood empty, but it swung open anyway upon Harry's approach, without even requesting a password. There was, of course, no need for passwords while school was out of session. The common room beyond, which was usually clean even during the school year, was spotless.
He did not bother to take the staircase up to his dormitory, not being tired and having no bags to unpack. In fact, come to think of it, he really had no idea why he had come up to the common room in the first place, except that he had been so anxious to escape the judging eyes of his godfather's friends. His own guilt Harry had been able to manage, but he knew the longer he stayed with them the more he would have to feel the inescapable truth that he was in part responsible for the death of his godfather.
There were three armchairs arranged around the fireplace; Harry collapsed into the leftmost one and, on cue, the wood in the fireplace began to burn. "Magic," Harry muttered, nearly smiling.
"Yeah," he heard behind him, and turned his head to see Tonks standing just inside the portrait hole. "My dad always talks like that when he sees magic."
"Tonks," he said as greeting, and then turned back to the fire.
"I get that you don't want to talk to me. To tell the truth, it's a bit hard for me to talk to you, too. I just forgot to tell you that because today's your birthday there's going to be a bit of a party for you tonight, down in the Great Hall. If, I mean, if you want. I can still give the Weasleys a call and tell tell them you'd-"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Don't guilt me, Tonks."
"Look," he heard her say, "All I am saying is that a lot of people will be disappointed if you don't come to this party and at least pretend–"
"I said don't guilt me!" Harry had no idea how he had come to be standing, but he had not turned. The fire flared up suddenly, and Harry closed his eyes. There had been a spike of something, then, when he had allowed himself to scream. Something in his head. He already knew that his intense anger could provoke magic in other situations; he simply had not realized he had been that angry.
He turned to face Tonks and did not apologize. She showed neither anger nor surprise – rather, her expression was appraising. "It's your birthday, Harry."
"I'll be there. Now go away."
The windows of Gryffindor Tower were in a castle's style, and so were thin and high, the better for shooting arrows from. But they were windows nonetheless, and through them Harry could see the light growing dimmer and redder. His anger had faded with the light and was now buried, unmarked, next to his guilt. It was the only way to deal with it.
His bags had not yet arrived. Moody had been spectacularly uncaring about them – another thing he buried – and Harry was left unable to do anything about his only earthly possessions but wait for them to arrive. Perhaps it was boredom more than anything else that compelled Harry to leave the common room to see if his party had started yet.
It was rather a long walk, actually, down six flights of stairs located in obscure portions of a very, very large castle, and Hogwarts had never seemed quite so large as when it was deserted. He could hear the whispers of the portraits that lined so many of the halls behind him, though none of them bothered to talk to him. He was not in much of a mood to talk to them, anyway.
The doors of the Great Hall were open, and the transparent ceiling would have revealed the constellations above, now that the sun had set, had the clouds not been in the way.
Of the five tables, three were missing. Perhaps the House tables had been packed away for the summer, and the fourth, the Gryffindor table, had only been put out for the occasion. The house-elves had been overenthusiastic in their preparations. There was a feast put out along the table, and a floating chandelier burned brightly above it.
Standing in the great open space left by the absence of the tables of three houses were so many of Harry's friends. Of the Weasley family, all of the children except for outcast Percy were there, and the mighty matron as well. Arthur, apparently, had not come. McGonagall had come as well, and so had Professors Sinistra and Sprout, though Harry barely knew either of them. In the moments before they saw him, Harry speculated that they had heard there was a party and come for that, and not for him.
Lupin and Tonks were both still present, and were mingling with Kingsley and several other members of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix, only a few of whom Harry recognized. Standing in one corner, waving idly at something visible only to her, was Luna Lovegood.
"Oy!" He heard, from a voice that could have belonged either to Fred or George Weasley.
And then, from the other twin, "Harry's here!"
The Hall exploded with a sudden clamor of voices, and Harry had to exercise his will not to let it push him as far away as he could run. Within a few seconds the need for willpower was gone, for he had been enveloped by a hug from Molly Weasley.
"Mom," he heard Charlie Weasley say – for he could not see anything with Mrs. Weasley engulfing him – "Let him breathe."
"Right," said Mrs. Weasley, and the veil over the world was lifted. Harry saw that most of those present had gathered around him, though Luna was watching him from the same place in the corner, and Sprout and Sinistra stood together, watching the commotion.
Ron pushed past his mother and shoved Harry in the chest, smiling brightly. "Harry!"
"Ron," he said, trying to get a grip on his situation. "So you're okay?"
"Yeah," he said, though his smile faded a little. "Hermione says scars are manly, so I guess I'm fine."
Ginny shoved in next to Ron as Harry realized that in the Weasley family everyone had to do a lot of shoving to get attention. "Hermione's been saying a lot of things are manly about Ron recently."
Harry looked at Ron. "You guys-"
"No," Ron said, his smile having disappeared entirely. "We're not. Ginny's been bloody–"
"Ron!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed.
"Sorry, Mom. Anyway, Ginny's been pestering me all summer about Hermione."
Ginny said, at precisely the same pitch her mother had used, "She was saying how much she loved his Quidditch game! Come on!"
"Where is Hermione?" asked Harry.
Sudden silence.
Luna said, her voice distant, from her corner, "Her parents don't want her to come back."
Harry looked over at Ron, who said nothing. His face was grim. He looked at Ginny, and then at Mrs. Weasley, who nodded at him sympathetically. "Hermione would come anyway," Harry said with certainty. "Maybe she had to miss the party, but she'll be at school."
Ron nodded, and Ginny said "That's what I said."
McGonagall smiled. "Quite right, Potter. Now, the house-elves have been cooking very enthusiastically for some time, so you have quite a bit of food to eat, and I believe that afterwards your friends have brought presents for you to open."
"Indeed," said someone behind Harry – someone whose voice Harry recognized but which he would not, in several million years, have expected to hear at his birthday party. "If I may," it said, as if it resented the very idea of having to stoop to such politeness, "I would like to speak to Mr. Potter in private first, however."
Harry turned, noting the looks of sympathetic dread on the faces of the Weasley children, and beheld the pallid face of Severus Snape.
"Of course, Severus," McGonagall said, "But please don't be too long."
"I have no intention of it," said Snape. "Potter."
Harry obediently followed Snape back out of the Great Hall. Several meters away, Snape turned suddenly, leaned down very close to Harry's face, and frowned. "I am here only because this party is being covered up as a meeting of the Order. That is the only reason. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Harry, who had been rather hoping that not taking Potions would mean freedom from dealing with Snape.
"Good. First, Dumbledore has seen fit to cancel your Occlumency lessons. I think neither of us will be particularly disappointed by that, although you do leave yourself woefully exposed without mental shields. Nevertheless, 'ours not to question why' is often the appropriate motto when it comes to Dumbledore."
Harry had had precisely that feeling.
"There is another matter, Potter. It has to do with your performance in the class that I officially teach."
"Yes?" Harry was beginning to get the feeling Snape had carefully rehearsed this beforehand.
"You will, of course, not be taking N.E.W.T. level Potions next term. Your grades were not good enough for that. However, they were far better than I expected, and I have spent some time considering this. I may have underestimated you, Potter."
Harry's eyes went as wide as saucers. There was a pregnant pause.
Suddenly Snape went off-script. "Potter, you look so much like your father, and I never once considered you might have inherited more than your mother's eyes. I did her a disservice in doing so."
Snape's black robes swirled around him as he retreated back to the Great Hall. Ron came out as soon as Snape was well clear. "What's going on?"
Harry said "I think Hell's frozen over."
"What, did he apologize to you or something?"
"I think..." Harry paused, rubbing his temple, to think. "He apologized to my mother."
Before Ron had a chance to answer, the great doors of the Entrance Hall swung open. Just beyond the door stood a barely-recognizable Arthur Weasley, a bright red gash running across his chest, his left arm hanging lifeless. He rushed straight toward Ron, and just as he stumbled Ron caught his arms. "Percy..." he whispered. "Percy's... Ministry. Atta-"
And then Mr. Weasley collapsed.
