Chapter 10

It had taken Harry all day to shake off the marauders so that he could read his letter, and then, when the time did finally come, he was too scared to open it. Sat on his bed, he willed his hands to open it. What if it brought bad news? Or wasn't from Hermione at all?

'Come on!' He told himself, 'just man up and open it!'

Closing his eyes, he tore open the envelope and let the letter fall onto his lap. Widening his gaze so that he was peeking slightly he quickly glanced at the name at the bottom, and sighed in relief. Hermione. Taking a deep breath his eyes rose to the top of the letter where he began to read it properly.

Dear mini prongs,

I must say, your letter confused me. The things you know make it seem like you are him, but it's impossible. Everyone said you had died, how can that be wrong?

Don't worry about letters being intercepted; no one is bothering with that anymore. So, before I believe you, I think I'll need some proof of who you are, because honestly, this is very hard to believe.

Hope I'll receive a letter soon

Hermione

P.S. If it is true, then you should know that everyone is still ok

Trust Hermione to be so rational, Harry thought to himself with a smile, it was so like her, and reminded him how much he missed her. And thank god everyone was ok still. He pulled out his quill and some parchment and began to scribble a letter back, writing as fast as he could incase the others came back.

Dear Hermione,

I'm trusting that this is you and you were right about the fact that no one would intercept the letters, because I'm about to tell you everything. Believe me, this is going to be slightly hard to believe.

Voldemort never killed me. Another spell hit me at the same time the killing spell did, and somehow I ended up at Hogwarts in 1977. With my parents, Sirius and Peter. God knows how I haven't killed the rat yet. Honestly, it was hard to get my head around it, but I'm trying to keep everything a secret and as much as I want to, I know I can't change the future.

I'm having no luck researching the spell here, so maybe you could help? It was a golden light, and I'm afraid that's all I know about it.

Tell everyone I miss them, yeah? And that I'm sorry for leaving them all. I hope you're ok, just don't do anything stupid (not that I think you will, but maybe just remind Ron?)

Love, Harry

P.S. Snape's here as well. Yes, it is weird.

Looking over the letter, Harry deemed it acceptable, and had no idea whether she'd believe him. So, now he just needed some proof of who he was. Something that no one except him, Hermione and Ron knew about… he'd think about it later.

"Harry, come on! We're going to be late for our detention with McGonagall!" Remus' head suddenly peered around the corner of the room, startling Harry. Quickly folding it into his pocket, he jogged along behind Remus, slightly apprehensive about what McGonagall would make them do.

"So, I want you to clean this entire room, from top to bottom, showing you the effects of damaging school property." McGonagall smirked to herself before sweeping out the room, closing the door sharply behind her.

The occupants surveyed the room. It was the result of a first year's potions class aka a disaster.

"What the hell were they trying to make?" Sirius asked disgustedly as he peered nervously at a piece of green slime on the ceiling that threatened to fall on him. Everyone turned to Remus for the answer, but he simply shrugged.

"I honestly have no idea," he said, " surely all they would be doing now is brewing a cure for boils, which the worst thing that can happen is that it produces a small cloud of green smoke but this…"

Remus didn't need to finish his sentence, for they all knew what he meant. The room was filled with multicoloured bits of slime, the occasional puff of smoke kept appearing from random places, and the ceiling was covered in dust that whenever someone moved, a cloud of it would just fall.

"I bet McGonagall added a load, just to spite us!" James moaned as he began scraping at the walls using some sort of metal plate that they'd each been given, trying desperately not to touch any of it.

"Nah, I've seen those first years. Running around everywhere, squealing in their high pitched voices, I reckon they could create this." Sirius worked himself into a state and started furiously scrubbing at a table.

"The first years really piss you off don't they? But you were like that at one point, we all were."

"True, true. Peter's still like that."

"Hey! Just because I'm over here doesn't mean I can't hear you!" Peter was in the corner, supposedly cleaning a table but Harry thought that he was just trying to get out of any cleaning.

Harry thought back to his first year. Was he like that? Probably not, there were too many things going on for him to be running around… although he did do a lot of running, and he was terrible at potions. Not like Neville though, who managed to get boils when brewing the cure for boils.

"Look lets just get on." Remus spoke up, "It shouldn't take too long, and then we can get out of here."

Splat. A glob of green slime whacked Remus in the side of his face. He slowly turned to view the others, giving them all his 'suspicious eye' as the others called it. They all feared the eye, as they knew something deadly was coming.

"Who. Did. That?"

There was a silence in the room, before all members excluding Remus, exploded into a fit of laughter. James and Sirius pointed to Harry, who was stood there smirking at the glaring face of Remus, just watching as the slime slowly dripped down to the floor.

"You are so dead." Without warning, Remus grabbed whatever was covering the table nearest him and threw it with all his might at Harry. However Harry ducked at just the right moment, and so, Sirius got a face full of black dust.

Another stilled silence occurred for a split second, before everyone starting throwing anything they could get their hands on at the closest person. The air was filled with all the colours of the rainbow, as well as the shrieks of laughter and satisfaction as they hit a friend.

"Take that-ow!"

"Hahahaha- hey! Ok, who threw that one?"

"My face! It's ruined!"

"I'll make it better for you then Sirius. Here, have some of this slime to cover it even more!"

"Bastard!"

"BOYS! WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON HERE?" McGonagall had appeared what seemed like nowhere, her eyes popping out in disbelief and anger.

"Here we go…" Whispered Sirius.

"All in all it wasn't that bad, I'd say. Just the usual 'never have I been so disappointed' and 'you should know better now that you're seventh years' and stuff like that." Sirius was trotting up the stairs with a gleam in his eye. The others were less enthusiastic.

"Sirius, we got another load of house points taken away from us, and another weeks detention. Plus, in case you hadn't noticed, we are covered in, well, I honestly don't know what it is! How can you be so upbeat about it all?"

"Because it was a fun detention!" The others groaned, but Harry didn't join in.

"I'm actually with Sirius on this one. The detentions I've had in the past have been a lot worse than that."

"Wait, what? I thought you had been home schooled?"

The realisation of what Harry had just said hit him. 'Crap, crap, think of something!' he thought to himself. The marauders were all looking at him, so he just had to say something, anything.

"Oh erm, didn't I say before? I spent a year at a muggle secondary school, to 'get the experience' apparently. I'd learn magic in the night, so I didn't fall behind but it proved too much work so I dropped out." Phew.

"Really? What was it like there?" Sirius and James were both fascinated by muggles, not really knowing much about them at all, and so, Harry had to improvise slightly about what it was like there, basing it on whatever Dudley would say about it in the summer holidays. From that, Harry had thought that secondary school sounded like hell, especially if there were people like Dudley roaming around it.

"Well, they obviously don't have lessons like charms and defence against the dark arts so-"

"They don't? Why not?"

"Sirius you idiot, because they're muggles!"

"Oh right. Sorry Harry, carry on?"

"Anyway, instead they have lessons like biology, which I guess could be similar to herbology, chemistry which is a bit like potions, maths, history, geography, psychology, things like that."

"Wait, psychology? What's that?"

Harry wasn't entirely sure; he'd just heard Dudley telling his friends about how he'd beaten up a kid after his psychology class. "I never took the class but I think it's something to do with the brain, and how people react. I'm not entirely sure."

Harry was so in depth telling his avid listeners about a muggle secondary school and the sort of lessons they had, that he failed to notice Remus' famous suspicious eye being aimed in his direction, before he walked off to the dormitory.

A/N: I'm so sorry I haven't updated in ages! I know this is a really short chapter as well, the next one will be better I promise. If people are still reading, then please tell me what you think of the story :)