"I'm fine!" Harry insisted.
Luna gave him a searching look. "You're not. Why won't you tell us what's wrong?" she asked.
"Look, if he doesn't want to tell us, then leave him alone." Neville said. Harry gave him a small relieved smile. He didn't want rumours spreading about his twin. He had enough rumours about him already.
There was a strained silence in the compartment on the Hogwarts Express.
"So …" Harry began, in an attempt to change the subject. "OWLs this year."
"Don't remind me." Neville groaned. "I'm doomed!"
Just at that moment, Ron and Hermione entered the carriage. "Hi!" Ron said, sitting next to Harry. Hermione squeezed in beside Luna.
"So who d'you reckon will be the next DA professor?" Neville asked.
"Dunno." Ron shrugged. And the topic moved on to Quidditch.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville and Luna entered the Great Hall, soaked.
(I'm not going to bother to describe the whole Harry-Sees-Thestrals thing, because you've all read it before.)
"Malfoy's back." Harry groaned. "Why can't he just leave? Everyone would be better off without him."
"What's up with you today?" Neville asked. "You're not normally this grouchy, even about Malfoy."
"Yeah, well, with the kind of summer I've had …" Harry muttered darkly. "I'm not in the best mood."
Neville gave Harry a searching look, but didn't press the subject.
The Sorting passed uneventfully, and so did the Feast. Harry stubbornly refused to watch Dumbledore as he made his speech, and stuck his fingers in his ears, ignoring Neville's curious looks.
"That was …different." Hermione said, when the speech had finished. "Wonder what people will make of all that Dark Lord stuff."
Harry bit back his curiosity to find out what Dumbledore had said in the speech. "Who's that woman?" he asked, as a toad-like woman stood up. "Looks like she's going to make a speech."
"Weren't you listening?" Hermione asked. "That's Professor Umbridge, the new Dark Arts professor."
(OK, I'm going to skip this bit as well. That's the problem with writing a fic in the time of Order of the Phoenix. You have to miss out half the good bits because they're copyrighted. Damn.)
Everybody stood to leave. Harry was following the crowd out the doors, when a seventh-year walked up to him.
"Harry?" he began.
"What?" Harry snapped. He was fed up with people coming up to him and asking him what had happened in the Tournament.
"Note for you." The seventh-year said. He handed Harry a slip of parchment and walked off to join his mates.
Harry,
We need to talk. Come to my office tomorrow morning.
Professor Dumbledore
PS. The password is Fizzing Whizzbees
Ron and Hermione had been reading over his shoulder.
"What are you going to do?" Ron asked.
"Oh, I know exactly what I'm going to do." Harry grinned. The tone of his voice made Hermione and Ron step back a little.
Soon, they reached the common room. Harry was happy to be back. The common room was as warm and as cosy as ever. Harry walked over to the flickering fire in the fireplace. But he was not going there to be warm.
He dropped the parchment in the fire and watched it slowly blacken and crumble.
"That's what I think of Dumbledore's suggestion." Harry said, to the nervous Hermione and Ron.
