Chapter Nine: Three Words
--"Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon, Ronald, doesn't mean we all have!" Hermione, Prisoner of Azkaban
Nothing exciting happened in Charms with the Hufflepuffs; they covered the Wingardium Leviosa charm and Harry, Hermione, and Mandy were the only three that managed it, though Blaise came fairly close (his feather hovered for a moment before exploding in a shower of soot). Now they were on their way to Potions, and Harry could feel his stomach clenching in anticipation and fear. What would Snape be like, this time around? Could he convince him sooner that he wasn't his father, or would he pay the price for living with Sirius?
His musings were cut short as they reached the dungeons and slipped into Snape's classroom, Harry sitting with Hermione and Blaise with Mandy. A few moments later, the door was slammed open by the Potions professor as he stormed down the aisles, his cloak billowing behind him. Harry couldn't help but admire his style. It took a lot of work to pull of a sweeping cloak like that; it had taken Harry years to perfect the ominous bat-like swooping that seemed to come so naturally to the Potions Master. Snape went to the front of the room and directed a sneer to the class.
He began to take roll, and the similarities to the last time around nearly made Harry roll his eyes; he restrained himself in time, however.
"Ah, Mr. Black," he said slowly. "Our new… celebrity." He sneered and finished the roll call before speaking again. "You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic." This time around, Harry caught the flicker of loneliness that passed through Snape's black eyes.
"I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with it's shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that can creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death—if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
There was, once again, a moment of silence, and Harry could see Hermione glance over at him with a slightly raised eyebrow. Yes, Hermione, that's verbal abuse, Harry thought to himself. But in all fairness, he has an image to maintain if he wants to live. And then came the moment Harry had been waiting for.
"Potter!" Snape snapped. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
"A powerful sleeping potion known as the Draught of the Living Death, sir," Harry said calmly, though he mentally smirked at the brief look of surprise on Snape's face before it returned to a stormy mask.
"And where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
"The stomach of a goat, sir," Harry replied. He took some pleasure in watching Snape's face tighten and his lips press together to form a white line.
"I see. And what, Black, is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
"They're the same plant, sir."
It was a standoff as the two stared at each other. Finally, Snape buckled. "And what are the rest of you doing? Copy that down!" Harry smiled to himself as the lesson continued. Yes, this was going to be a good day.
Indeed it was. He decided that classes were much better being in Ravenclaw, if only because the Ravenclaws didn't have a rivalry with the Hufflepuffs like the Gryffindors and Slytherins did with each other. A thought occurred to him—how had the Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry started? With the Founders themselves, or something later?
He shrugged: a topic to think about another day. For now, however, he was preoccupied with lunch, and talking to Hermione, Blaise, and Mandy. Why hadn't he befriended Blaise and Mandy last time? They seemed to be very interesting to be around, as far as he could tell in one day. So what side had they chosen then, and what side would they chose now?
Looking around, he noticed Draco sitting alone at the Gryffindor table. A stab of pity hit him. After Ron's betrayal, Draco had been one of his best friends (excepting, of course, Hermione, who had had been with near constantly), and he would hate it if that could not happen here. He turned to talk to Hermione.
"Hey, Mi," he muttered. "Take a look at Draco Malfoy. Should we ask him to sit with us?" She craned her head and watched Draco for a moment.
"Yeah," she said quietly, with a nod. "I think that's be a good idea. We should invite Gred and Forge too."
"And Neville and Susan?" Harry questioned. "You remember, he came to visit with his Grandmother once. He looks pretty lonely too. And we can tease Susan about Amelia and Remus." At her nod and smile, they stood up and walked to the Gryffindor table. "Hey Gred, Forge," Harry said calmly. "You guys want to sit with us?"
The twins nodded. "Sure Harry."
"We'd love to."
"You're sitting with—"
"Blaise Zabini and Mandy Brocklehurst—"
"Right?"
"Yes," Hermione said. "We're going to invite a few other people too. Like Malfoy, unless you have a problem with that."
The twins glanced over at Malfoy and in unison shook their heads. "Not unless—"
"He insults our family.
"The kid looks lonely."
"We'll see you at the table, alright?"
Without waiting for a response, the twins headed to the Ravenclaw table, where they introduced themselves to Blaise and Mandy. The whispers in the Hall started. Neville was the next stop. Harry and Hermione moved down the Gryffindor table and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey Nev," Harry said cheerfully. "Your Grandmother brought you over to meet me, remember? This is Hermione; she was there then too. She lives across the street from me."
"Er… hello," Neville said rather awkwardly. He shook their outstretched hands. "Why…"
"We wondered if you'd like to sit with us," Hermione supplied. "Over at the Ravenclaw table, with Blaise, Mandy, Gr-George and Fred?"
A tentative smile lit his face. "R-really?" At Hermione's nod, the smile widened. "That would be great. Should I just…"
Harry nodded. "Just go over and sit down. We'll be right back; there's another person we want to invite." Neville nodded slightly, still looking confused and shocked, and headed over to where the twins were waving maniacally.
"Two more stops," Harry murmured to himself. This one, he knew, would be the hardest. At this point, in the other timeline at least, Malfoy had still hated his guts. With a heavy sigh, Harry walked to the end of the Gryffindr table, Hermione at his heels. The whispers in the Hall had become normal voices by now, and everyone was pondering why the hell Harry Potter was doing this, from what he could gather. He smiled grimly.
Everything turned silent when he stopped in front of Draco Malfoy. The boy slowly raised his head to look at him, mustering a glare with no real feeling behind it. "What do you want?" he spat.
"Sit with us?" Harry asked simply. The blond gaped at him for a moment, before remembering who he was and sneering.
"With a half-blood and a muggleborn? I don't think so."
Hermione frowned slightly, but Harry put his hand on her arm. "Is that you talking, or your father? We invited you over because we thought you looked lonely. If you're not, that's fine." He leaned in closer, so that no one else could hear his words. "But just remember that a single choice can change your life forever. Do you want to sit here all alone every day for seven years?"
Withotu waiting for a response, Harry led Hermione oover to the Hufflepuff table, where they gathered Susan and invited her to eat with them. She agreed with a bright smile; the three of them had bonded when Remus and her aunt, Amelia, had started going out.
They walked back towards the Ravenclaw table and sat with the others, who looked at them questioningly. As Hermione leaned forward to explain what had happened, Harry drifted off in thought. He hadn't thought that Draco would take him up on his offer so quickly… he was still under the influence of his father now. He would have been surprised, in fact, if the boy had.
Still, it would have been nice to be friends with his best male friend again, to give him some semblance of what had once been normality. Then again, there was no normality where he was concerned. The first time around, Hermione had declared that laws of space and time decided he wasn't worth bothering with and ignored him. It made for very interesting days, however.
Lunch was a pleasant affair. Fred and George spoke about their previous pranks, and the group could barely speak for laughing. Neville was smiling wider than Harry had ever seen him smile before, and Hermione, Mandy, and Susan were giggling about something while Blaise drank ungodly amounts of coffee.
The next few days went much in the same way; the group began to have a well-defined place at the end of the Ravenclaw table, and were bonding much more fully. And then came the flying lesson.
It started out like any other day. Harry and Hermione were both at ease after years of flying, Harry with his knowledge from the first time around and Hermione with all the tricks he'd taught her. Blaise had been flying for the past year, when his mother had finally allowed it, and was fairly confident in his skills, but Mandy had never flown before.
"What if I fall off my broom?" she asked anxiously. "Or what if I can't get on it at all! Or I run into a wall? Oh, what am I going to do!" She buried her head in her arms. Hermione patted her back.
"It'll be alright, Mandy. You'll see. Flying is… it's amazing. There's no other way to describe it. You'll love it, and you'll be fine at it. I didn't think I'd really like it either, but it's incredible."
Mandy sighed. "If you say so. Hermione. I guess I'll just have to wait and see."
Susan smiled at her. "I agree with Hermione, Mandy; you'll love it."
The lesson was to be held at two in the afternoon. The group of them trudged outside to join several other first year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. At two on the dot, Madam Hooch showed up and blew her whistle. "Right!" she snapped. "Everyone stand next to a broom." Once this order had been completed she continued.
"You lot better all listen to me; I've had a bad enough time with the Gryffindors and Slytherins. What Weasley was thinking, I'll never… So no funny business! Now, stick your hand out over the broom, and say 'up'!" The group, rather intimidated, followed her instructions. "Mount up." She spent a moment correcting people's stances before continuing. "When I say three, you will get off the ground by kicking off. To go up, lean back. Down, forwards. Right is right, left is left. One, two, three!"
The group kicked off as one. Harry and Hermione immediately went into a series of loops and dives, loving the feeling of freedom in flight. Blaise and Susan zipped around, and Mandy cautiously maneuvered, relaxing after a moment to enjoy herself.
Everything happened at once. Justin let out a yelp as he dropped his glasses; he hadn't seemed at all comfortable fromm the beginning, and Harry dreaded what would happen if he couldn't see. He went into a controlled dive to get them, ignoring Hooch's sharp whistle.
At the same moment, Hermione accidently bumped into Hannah Aboot, who was having a hard enough time as it was. "Sorry!" she exclaimed, grabbing Hannah's arm to help her regain her balance. Hannah glared at her.
"Why you little…" The blonde looked aroound and spooted an apple tree a bit of a ways away. She flew over as quickly as she could, while Hermione turned slightly, not suspecting that there was an apple being thrown at her head until she saw the flash of red in the corner of her eye. She flicked her wrist up to catch it, and did so easily, dropping it to the ground and turning to Hannah. She opened her mouth to say something, but was stopped as she felt her broom being dragged to the ground.
Hooch was standing there, tapping her foot, her wand held up to use the Summoning Charm. "You two!" she snapped. "We are going to see Flitwick right now!" Hermione looked over to see Harry next to her, who'd just handed a grateful Justin his glasses. The exchanged a grimace before following the extremmely irritated flying teacher.
'This can't be good,' they unknnowingly thought at the same time.
-----
Nymphadora Tonks sighed and ran a hand through short spiky hair that today was a bright shade of blue. "I made it," she muirmured in astonishment before letting out a whoop of joy. "I MADE it! I've got to tell Sirius!" With a pop, she'd Apparated away to her cousin's house.
She'd bonded with Sirius when she was fifteen, and her mother had been forced to leave her with him over the summer while she and her father went to India. She had met Remus Lupin, apparently one of Sirius' old friends, and his new wife, Josie, to whom he'd apparently been engaged before Azkaban. She'd also met his godson, the famous Harry Potter (who was by then known as Harry Black-Potter and was Sirius and Josie's child in all but blood) and his best friend, Hermione Granger. The two seemed inseperable, much like she and Charlie had been.
After that summer, she had immediately decided that Sirius was her coolest relative ever, and he told her that his house was always open to her. After her father died when she was sixteen, two years ago, and she and her mother's spats had gotten all the more constant, she often spent her vacations at the house. She had also bonded with Harry and Hermione; they loved to joke and call her "Aunt Nymphie". Surprisingly enough, she didn't mind; they were just too cute. She had been at the Platform to see them off and wish them a good year, and promised them that they'd spend the summer together.
"Sirus! Josie! Remus!" she shrieked, popping into the kitchen. "I made it!" There was the sound of pounding footsteps, and Sirius and Josie both rushed in a moment later. Sirius pulled her into a tight hug, laughing, exclaiming about how she was stalking him at work now too, and his pregnant wife hugged her as well once Sirius had let go.
"Congratulations!" Josie exclaimed. "Remus would say so too, but he's on a date. With none other than Amelia Bones."
Tonks laughed. "Head of the Auror Department! That's grand. Tell him I say congratulations to him!"
"Why don't we go out for dinner?" Sirius suggested. "Just the three of us, in honor of Tonks?" The others agreed, and soon they were in the car, driving over to some fancy restaurant the name of which Tonks couldn't pronounce.
"Oh, did you hear?" Sirius said after a moment. "Harry and Hermione both got Ravenclaw!"
"Really?" Tonks said. "I'll have to write them and congratulate them. I was almost in Ravenclaw myself, you know."
"They'd love that," Josie said with a smile.
-----
Remus Lupin and Amelia Bones had met five years ago, at a rally a few days after the Werewolf Restrictions were passed. It was held at Diagon Alley, in front of the Ministry Representative building. She'd been holding a sign that read "Not so fun to be around three days of the month either", and her curly blonde hair ahd been held in a ponytail with a few loose strands here and there. She wore jeans and a black short-sleeved shirt, and he'd thought she was amazing.
She'd been yelling, along with the rest of the crowd, at the building, and when someone had shuffled their bags around a rather handsome man been shoved into her. She'd turned, her angry expression fading slightly, and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.
"Sorry," he said apologetically. "The crowd moved." She noticed vaguey that he has rather shaggy sandy brown hair and beautiful brown eyes.
She smiled. "That's alright," she said. And then, on the spur of the moment, she added "I'm Amelia Bones, Head of the Auror Department."
He smiled lightly, though he looked surprised that she was there. "I'm Remus Lupin. Would it be presumptous to ask why you're here?"
She shook her head and laughed. "No, it wouldn't. I tried to get Fudge to listen to me directly about these stupid laws, but he wouldn't, so I'm doing all I can on my own. You?"
"I'm… I'm a werewolf," he said with a shrug. "Actually, I think I went to Hogwarts with you. I believe I was a Seventh Year when you were Fifth… I was in Gryffindor. You were in Ravenclaw, correct?"
She nodded. "Right. I think I remember you too, now that you mention it. How have you been?"
He sighed. "Alright, for the most part. Shuffling from job to job isn't the best. You?"
Amelia shrugged. "I've been alright. I've been taking care of my niece, Susan. Her mother was my sister, and she and her husband were killed on vacation by Death Eaters about a year before he fell."
He nodded. "I've been living with Sirius Black, his fiancee Josie DeLaney, and his godson Harry. They're actually planning on getting married and adopting Harry. His best friend Hermione lives across the street—actually, she practically lives at the house too. She has her own room there."
She smiled. "That's good. I'm glad their can be some good in their lives. I remember Josie. She helped me with my homework a few times." There was a comfortable silence between the two for a few moments while the rally continued. "Hey," she finally said as an idea struck her. "I have to attend a stupid Ministry ball, and I can't think of a better way to piss them off than by going with a werewolf. And we can catch up some more on old times. What do you say?"
"Sure," Remus said, smiling. "When should I pick you up?
-----
They were in the middle of dinner when her favorite cousin asked THE question. "So," Sirius asked, taking a sip of his drink. "How are things with Charlie?"
Tonks froze up, and there was a moment's silence. "Well," she said, stirring her tea, unable to look at her companions. "He- I mean, we've decided, that… since he's going to be in Romania with the dragons, and I really wanted to stay here… I mean, we thought it would be better if we just… stayed friends."
"I'm so sorry," Josie said, patting her on the arm. "That's horrid of him." Sirius nodded.
Tonks sighed. "Maybe it really is beter this way. Maybe it would have never worked out at all. I just… well, I've had a crush on him forever, and I really thought I was falling in love. Guess I was wrong. I guess… Maybe we were never meant to be." She suddenly felt more uncomfortable than she ever had before. "Thanks for dinner, you guys. I really should get going. See you later, alright?"
Without an answer, she got up, putting her part of the bill down on the table before she left. She missed Charlie horribly, even if he'd only left for Romania a month ago. She had been so sure he was the one, the perfect guy for her. He was sweet, and funny, and she thought of Molly and Arthur like a second set of parents. His brothers and sister were great too, especially Fred and George, who rather reminded her of herself.
She'd had a crush on him since second year, but she hadn't thought that he'd ever think of her as more than a friend. And then, his ears horribly bright red, he'd askked her to Hogsmeade. She's immediately agreed, and a relationship had begun to bloom in the beginning of their Seventh Year.
Well, that had been nipped in the bud, she thought bitterly. She knew she was in love with him, but now she realised that he'd never love her back. To hell with it. It had been some time since the break-up, but she couldn't stop thinking about him. Now, with a wave of depression, she knew she never would.
"Throw myself into school," she mumbled. "Maybe I can distract myself. That'd be nice." Who was she trying to kid? She was in love with Charlie Weasley, and she always would be, no matter how much she wanted to stop.
-----
"Professor Snape?" Flitwick asked squeakily. "May I borrow Davies, please?" Harry and Hermione turned to each other in confusion. Snape scowled.
"Feel free to remove his ignorance from my class. Out, Davies." A tall, brown-haired young man stepped out of Snape's room and the door shut behind him.
"What is it, Professor?" he asked, sounding confused.
"I've found you Seeker and a Chaser!" Flitwick squealed. "I know you've been looking since Denise MacDougal and Mallory Zabini left. This is Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, by the way. Apparently they've been flying for five years. Young Mr. Finch-Fletchley dropped his glasses while he was flying, and Mr. Potter executed a spectacular dive to catch them. At the same time, Miss Hannah Abbot threw an apple at Miss Granger, and she caught it easily."
Davies was barely paying attention to what Flitwick was saying. "Perfect build," he murmured, looking at Harry. "I was thinking about Chang, but if we can bend the rules, Potter'd have an extra year, and Chang's not very fast anyways…" He looked over at Hermione. "Similar build to Mallory, actually, and Mallory was incredible…" His eyes snapped to Flitwick. "Do you think Dumbledore will allow it?"
"I'm sure we can convince him! Besides, we have to win the Cup this year! We haven't won in twenty years!"
Davies winced, and turned back to the two fist years. "D'you two have brooms?" he questioned.
Hermione nodded. "Nimbus 2000's," she said with a smile. They'd been a present from Sirius for getting their Hogwarts letters.
"Really?" Davies asked, his eyes wide. "Professor, we NEED this kids! Get your parents to send the brooms as soon as Flitwick gives the okay, alright? Practices start next week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at seven 'till nine, Saturday and Sunday, four 'till ten. And let's keep it on the down low, alright? That way we have a secret weapon."
The bell rang for the end of class. "I've got to go tell the rest of the team… see you guys around, alright?" He walked off, still shaking his head in shock.
Harry and Hermione looked to each other with wide eyes. "Quidditch…" Hermione said in awe.
Harry chuckled. "We've gotta write Sirius."
AN: I am SOOOO sorry this was so long in coming! I feel horrid. We moved, and I rather lost my place, as it were…. Heh. Hehe. Please don't kill me? I can't write more if you kill me! Honest!
--Aerin