Chapter Thirteen: Chapter Thirteen: Detention, Quidditch and Karma

Brutal attack on upstanding member of community

Yesterday morning one of the most upstanding members of our community was dropped off naked in the middle of Diagon Alley with a message barbarically cut in his back and a forged dark mark (mark of the followers of you-know-who) on his forearm.

The one who was attacked was none other than the head of the Nott family himself. Lord Nott (age 71) is well known for his tireless work as a member of the Wizengamot. He is also famous for his donations to various charities.

The dark wizard who dropped him off wore a hood and a cloak and had blood red eyes. We here at the Daily Prophet consulted a dark magic expert and he suspects the eyes are a side-effect of a dark ritual.

When asked to comment on this heinous incident, Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had this to say: ''We are currently still investigating the case. Several of my Aurors have been assigned to the case and the matter should be resolved shortly. Until then I have no further comment.

Minister Fudge had this to comment: ''Whoever did this will not get away with it. This dark wizard will be caught shortly and will face the punishment it deserves.''

We of the Daily Prophet offer our sympathies to the Nott family and hope that they will quickly recover from this attack.

Harry snorted as he threw the paper down. It was Monday morning and Harry was eating his breakfast in the kitchens. For some reason the elves had been even happier than normal to see him this morning. Why, he did not know, but for his sanity he had decided not to question it.

After taking another bite of his food Harry gave a slightly disgusted glance at the front page. That article was really ridiculous. At the very least they could have included his little message. Oh well … the message wasn't meant for the general public anyway and those who it was meant for had more than enough connections so they probably received word of the incident minutes after it happening.

If they weren't too stupid then they would contact Nott himself for information. Then they would not only learn the message if they hadn't yet. They would also learn that Nott never knew what happened until it was too late. In other words they would learn that whoever the one was who had threatened them could infiltrate their houses and subdue them without them even noticing.

As he took another bite his thoughts shifted to something that had been on his mind for the past few days; His revenge against Snape. Despite all his flaws in personality Snape was unfortunately not someone who could be taken lightly.

Trying to feed him potions was definitely out. He had barely O.W.L level knowledge in the art and Snape was not only a master in the art, but he was also a spy. Something which you don't survive long if you don't understand the meaning of the word caution.

A straight out duel he could probably win. He had done it before against a different Snape, but the problem was Dumbledore. The Headmaster wouldn't take to kindly to Harry curses his little pet-redemption project. No he needed to do something were the blame couldn't be laid upon him.

As Harry was thinking he glanced around the kitchen, looking for anything that might inspire him. Then suddenly it came to him as he watched the elves and with the idea forming in his head a large grin started to spread on his face, one his old teammate Clara would have been proud off.

XxX

Lilly Potter was a nervous wreck. Albus had informed her that her son would serve detention with her for his attack on who she had thought of as her future daughter in-law.

These last few weeks hadn't been hard on her. Her son, the boy who she finally started to accept was dead had been summoned by ritual, but he didn't accept them as his parents. To him his parents were dead.

Lilly couldn't understand that. Her parents had been killed by Werewolves employed by Voldermort and she would gladly haven given up her wand-arm for the chance of seeing them again.

Harry was also so different then she expected. Her rational mind understood that two boys with such difference in upbringing could never end up exactly the same, but to see him in Hufflepuff and hear that he has cursed Ginny Weasley … it was just difficult to comprehend. Then there had been the incident with the train. Harry would never have left like that, but this one, he was for more independent.

She sighed as she rubbed her eyes. In all honestly it hadn't been only the past few weeks that had been hard on her. The years following that fateful Halloween hadn't been easy either. At first it had been wonderful being the parents of the boy-who-lived. In all honestly she knew that she shouldn't have enjoyed the fame like that, but the temptation had been too much.

But not everything had been rainbows and sunshine after that. There were attacks and kidnapping attempts by dark sympathisers. Even a couple legal attempts to remove her children from her care. As for those who opposed them? The light? They put more and more pressure on them to act as the perfect light family. In honesty she knew she shouldn't allow others to dictate how she acts, but there was no denying the hatred the war had left her for all dark things. And while she would not admit out loud or even admit it to herself there was also still that small part of her mind that enjoyed all the attention and she did not want to lose that.

There was a knock on the door and when she called to enter, her son entered, his usual look of indifference plastered on his face as he dipped his head lightly and greeted, ''Good afternoon Professor Potter.''

Lilly sighed, if she was ever going to connect to this version of her son then it would take a lot more than the time of a single detention.

XxX

Daphne Greengrass listened impassively as her little sister rattled on about how the boy-who-lived had to assist Professor Potter as part of some punishment. If the rumour mill was correct then this was because he had cursed Weasley seven for some reason.

Harry Potter arriving at Hogwarts was definitely a unexpected occurrence, not necessary a good one, but unexpected definitely. She had observed the boy when she shared classes with him and it was difficult for her to see him as the same person who she had shared classes with for the first four years of her Hogwarts career. Gryffindor Potter had been so easy to read that even Astoria in her first year could have broken down his character after observing him only for a while, but this Hufflepuf Potter could have easily passed off as one of her housemates. It was rather easy for anyone who took a moment to look that this Potter clearly was not showing what he was thinking and usually wore one of those fake smiles. While recognising that had been easy, reading his actual character was a lot harder. This made him a unknown element and those were always dangerous.

This was one of the reasons Daphne did not like that her little sister's associated with Potter. Either one of them to be honest. After all the dark lord does not play fair and if he has to kidnap someone to break someone else he will do it without hesitation. For now Astoria was protected, but you never know it with that man.

Daphne mentally sighed. If only her sister wasn't that stubborn then she could just tell her what a bad idea it was to stay friends with the youngest Potter and to be even associated with the oldest child, but if she did that then Astoria in her stubbornness would probably just do the opposite. She may have matured these last few weeks, but she still had those 'You are not my mother don't tell me what to do' moments.

So if she couldn't separate them then she had to come up with an actual excuse she could give in her defence.

An excuse for her friendship with the youngest Potter was easy enough. The girl was a descendent of an old pureblood line and she seemed distant enough from her family that their pro-light stance would affect her status much. So she could always claim that Astoria was teaching the girl the 'proper ways'.

The Potter male however … he made it very clear that he was not the same person as her former classmate, but even if he said that there were still a large number of people who hate him simple because he was Harry Potter.

Fortunately he was also due to his behaviour very much a unknown and as much as it irked her that she could not figure him out as easily as his counterpart she could use this. She could just claim that Astoria was information gathering like any half decent Slytherin should do.

In fact the idea bore merit to be more than a mere excuse. Why hadn't she thought of this before? She had noticed Blaise's subtle and sometimes not so subtle attempts at striking up a friendship with their newest year mate and she could never understand why Blaise who she knew was intelligent would do such a dangerous thing so openly. But now she realised it. Potter was without a doubt going to play a major part in the upcoming war and any and all information she could gather before then would be most valuable.

Now the question was how to approach him …

XxX

For the first time in what felt like the longest time Harry James Potter bore a shiteating grin. The reason for that was because he was finally back in the air.

Flying on a broom may contribute absolutely nothing to the war, but Harry couldn't bring himself to care.

Right now as he soared trough the sky he was free, no upcoming war to worry about, no meddlesome headmaster, no need to keep track of different personas, no overly noisy people, no nothing.

He moved the nose of his broom down and sped to the ground all the while his grin was getting wider and wider and just before he was going to make a potential fatal face plant he pulled up and shot back up in the air.

As he regained his previous altitude he hovered for a moment enjoying the sight of Hogwarts in all her glory.

He really needed this; so much had happened, so many times he had to control his emotions and never had he the chance to just unwind. That is why when everyone was eating Dinner he had grabbed his newly acquired Nimbus 9001 and just walked out of the castle and kicked off.

The new broom despite his rather strange name was amazing. Maybe it was because he hadn't flown in such a long time, but from the moment he had kicked off the ground he had felt amazing. His Firebolt had reacted to his barest touch, but this broom had seemed to be on a completely different level.

He had decided there and then that he would attend the try-outs for his house team. He may be a complete idiot for wanting to play a sport that nearly killed him several times, but he reasoned he would find himself in a life or death situation sooner than later anyway so if his life was going to be in peril anyway why not as he enjoyed himself?

Ignoring that most people would not agree with his logic or even consider it logic in any shape or form. Harry continued to hover and relax. As the wind blew past his face, Harry just closed his eyes and relaxed knowing that the moment he re-entered the castle he had to be back at the top of his game.

XxX

Tuesday passed and to Harry's disappointment Umbridge hadn't held him back again. As according to her memories she dropped her truth potion the last lesson Harry had expected to be held back again and score some more Veritaserum.

He doubted his memory charm hadn't worked otherwise he would probably already be rotting in Azkaban, but then why didn't she held him back?

The most logical answer would be that she couldn't get her hands on any more Veritaserum, but he also knew that the ministry had a decent stockpile of the potion at any time. A very strictly controlled stockpile, but a stockpile none the less.

This could mean that the woman couldn't afford others to know that she was drugging students and was probably working alone. This was both a blessing and a curse for Harry. On one hand it is much easier to deal with a single person, but on the other hand people who don't have anyone to fall back to are much more difficult to predict. If she was working for the minister and something went wrong then she probably would report to that man, but now?

XxX

It was Wednesday and after his run Harry decided he had postponed the inevitable long enough and made his way to second floor girl's bathroom. While he would have preferred it that he knew who if it was still out there had the Marauders map. The truth was that unless he had a unbelievable stroke of luck he would never 'suddenly' find it. And if he was going to ask around for it then he had to admit how he knew about the map. Something he didn't want either.

So here he was hopefully too early for anyone to track him and hidden from view by his trusty Invisibility cloak standing in front of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. On his back he had his backpack which was filled to the brim with shrunken valuables from both the Room of Requirements and Nott manor.

Luckily it seems Myrtle wasn't in her usual place so Harry could move on undisturbed. After walking over to a familiar sink with a snake engraved in one of its taps Harry hissed.

''§Open§''

The moment he hissed that word the sink started sinking into the ground and a space big enough for him to pass through opened up. Harry paused for a moment and then hissed again.

''§Stairs§''

For a moment nothing happened and then the slide glowed for a moment before it suddenly transformed. The smooth surface of the slide turned into steps of a stair in a matter of seconds.

''Well I be dammed, she was actually right.'' Harry muttered as he stared at the stair that seems to go on forever. '' §Uh escalator?§'' Harry half stated half questioned, but to his disappointment nothing happened.

Harry stared a bit apprehensively down at the stairs. He knew from experience that the way down was long and to be honest he didn't feel like walking down any more stairs so shortly after his morning run. 'Meh screw it,' Harry thought after a moment and hissed. ''§slide§''

XxX

Harry grimaced as he shot out of the pipe and just barely managed to land in a crouch. He immediately pulled out his wand and started to remove the slime that was covering him. He also gave himself a firm mental reminder that on his way back he should transform the slide in stairs and clean them. He did not want to go through that every time he came here.

Now he was clean again he was ready to move on. The tunnel he was in was exactly as he remembered; dark, very dark, so with his wand still in his right hand he started to channel his magic in his left and concentrated his mind on a specific action for a second and then silver coloured flames sprang out of his hand and illuminated the corridor.

He may not like Lupin much anymore after what he did to Tonks and for not taking care of him after his parents death, but there was no denying the man knew some pretty nifty spells. A flame that did not harm the caster and once cast was self-sustaining thus left one free to use magic definitely was useful in situations like this.

Once he could see properly Harry had to bite back the grimace at seeing the sheer amount of bones and other assortment of things of what was left from the Snake's meals.

''Toby!'' He called, but after several seconds of nothing happening Harry concluded that this place was somehow shielded even against elven Apparition. It was no real surprise to Harry. This was after all the chamber of secrets. It would be a really crappy hidden chamber if a mere elf could bypass the need to speak Parceltonge and just Apparite here. He sighed, household charms were not exactly his strong point, but he should be able to do this.

With a wave of his wand and a non-verbal incantation Harry fired a spell that removed all the bones from the floor within his line of sight. The floor still looked filthy, but at least he didn't have to listen to the ominous sound of walking over breaking bones anymore. Besides he could always bring Toby in person down next time instead of trying to summon him, that should probably work.

After several minutes of walking and several repeats of his earlier spell, Harry stumbled upon something that had given his younger self nearly a heart attack.

There lying on the ground was the twenty feet long shredded skin of the so called Slytherin's monster. Intend on taking it with him, Harry fired a shrinking charm on the skin and to his shock and slight awe the spell didn't affect the skin at all.

He knew that Basalisks had a magic resisting skin that was even better than that off a dragon, but to think that shredded skin still contained the same magic resisting properties … . Harry grinned his Dragonhide clothes had been good and he had been saddened that he had left them behind in his own universe, but perhaps he could replace them with something even better.

He decided to leave it there for now and to move on. After walking and cleaning for several more minutes Harry arrived at a familiar solid wall on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.

Harry cocked his head slightly to the side as he looked at the snakes. 'I wonder if I could sell those stones.' Harry mussed before hissing. ''§Open§''

The door opened and Harry strode forward. As he entered the room he couldn't help, but gaze at the spot he had nearly died.

Even now nearly half a decade later, Harry could barely believe his twelve year old self … his weak pathetic twelve year old self had survived an encounter with one of the deadliest magical creatures out there.

Merlin! His past self had really been an idiot. You would think that a near death experience in his first year coupled with learning that your parents murderer is still alive and probably wants you death would have been enough for him to take his studies more seriously right?

No he hadn't. In fact to make matter worse after his second year. A year were he nearly died several times again he yet again didn't intensify his studies. In fact when he got to choose electives he choose some of the easiest if not the most useless that he could have chosen.

At least in his third year he went out of his way to approach someone to learn the Patronus charm. Admittedly that was more because he didn't want to lose another Quidditch match, but at least he learned something useful.

Then fourth year came around and Maeve! What a disaster that was. He couldn't even use the excuse that danger found him there. In his previous three years he had more or less dived in danger headfirst with little to no preparing, but now, now he had known exactly when the danger would be. Not only that, but he knew that someone was out there who had put his name in the tournament with most likely less that pleasant reasons in mind. Did he train? Yes. Did he spend every free second he had trying to increase his chances at survival? Not even close. And thus he survived yet another year more or less on luck.

But that year something had changed. He had seen someone else die in front of him. It was kind of ironic; after all the time he himself had nearly died it was seeing someone else die that finally fuelled his drive to improve.

Harry briefly wondered how things would have been different if he had put full effort in his schooling from the beginning. Could he have been strong enough by the time of the Tri-wizard tournament to save Cedric? To stop Wormtail from conducting the ritual? To stop the war before it even began?

Harry shook his head and decided not to dwell on that particular line of thoughts. He had long since decided not to ever mess with time again and he knew that dwelling on the past wasn't particularly healthy. Besides without the threat of Voldemort some of Harry's more fonder memories probably wouldn't have happened either.

Coming back to reality, Harry fuelled his magical flames with some more magic causing them to grow and allowing Harry to see the room a bit better. Not that it was really necessary; the room could easily be described with a couple of words; Dark, gloomy, lots of snake statues and one of a partially ugly bastard.

As he approached the aforementioned statue Harry activated his magical eye to see through the face of statue. What he saw put his mind at ease. The snake was still there. It was lying curled up and apparently sleeping.

As he came closer to the statue Harry could sense the magic on it. The mouth felt like a locking charm, slightly altered, but it felt close enough to the original to easily identify. The magic on the rest of the head was harder to identify however. The closest thing he knew that felt like that was the magic of the sleeping spell. Only this felt like the effect was amped up several times. Some kind of forced hibernation perhaps?

He decided to just leave the snake there for now. He had no idea how hungry the snake was and unless there was an emergency he rather be one hundred per cent sure he could control the potential hungry snake.

Besides the snake was his hidden ace if trouble arrived at Hogwarts. Currently there was nothing here yet that required such drastic actions. Although it was very tempting for him to send it on the likes of Snape and Umbridge.

Alas Umbridge was too much of a high profile to be killed and Snape still had his uses as a spy. Of course those protections wouldn't last forever and he could only not kill them and to quote Dumbledore there are things worse than death.

It had taken him several days to prepare and make sure nothing could be tracked back to him, but Snape would receive his first sample of that tomorrow and Harry was definitely looking forward to it. With a grin on his face Harry started to unload and resize all the shrunken things from his backpack.

XxX

It was Thursday and Harry was sitting next to Rose enjoying his evening meal. They were discussing the Quiditch try-outs that the captain had held this morning before the lessons of the day had started.

Harry had on more than one occasion thought that Wood had been borderline insane, but the current captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team was just as bad if not worse. Seriously who would hold those try-outs that early and then in a cheerful voice say that it was to see if they were dedicated.

Don't get him wrong. Harry could somewhat understand the need for dedicated players, but did she even think before blurting that out in front of a bunch of grumbling half-awake hopefuls? Couldn't she if she had to say anything on the subject just say something along the lines that the pitch was booked any other time that week? It was a flimsy excuse at best and probably not very believable when the higher brain functions are engaged properly. But considering how half-asleep everyone still looked they probably would have believed her if she had told them the sky was pink.

Overall the try-out had went pretty well in Harry's opinion. This had been the first time he had seen Rose fly and he had to admit he was impressed. Wood, his former captain was according to many the best Keeper Hogwarts had produced in years and while Rose wasn't quite up to that level she wasn't far off either.

His own flying went well to. Despite not being a seeker for years, it came back as easily as flying in his first year had been. In fact due to his far more sharper reflexes flying went even better than in the year his team become champion.

The results wouldn't be posted until next week, but Harry had high hopes that he would make the team and was almost certain Rose would regain her starter position.

During a lull in the conversation, Harry's eyes drifted through the hall and for a moment and then rested on a particular raven haired girl. Daphne Greengrass; the older sister of the counterpart of one of his former teammates. He hadn't had much interaction with her in either universe. That was until she suddenly confronted him this afternoon after Transfiguration.

XxX

''Potter, a word.''

Harry turned around and looked at who had addressed him. Long hair as dark as his own and icy blue cold eyes that could frighten crying baby's into silences. Yes, Harry easily identified who stood before him, the by her peers dubbed Ice Queen of Slytherin; Daphne Greengrass. A girl who wore such a perfect façade that even without doing anything her reputation caused her to be feared even within her own house.

''Ms Greengrass,'' He said as he gave her a nod in greeting. ''Is there something I can help you with?''

''Yes,'' She replied her tone as cold as her eyes. ''I heard from my sister that you with two others are working on a Runes project.''

''That is correct, Astoria mentioned she was going to show our work to you for evaluation.''

Daphne arched an eyebrow and said, ''You mean your work.''

Harry shrugged, ''Minor detail.'' He said before adding. ''Was there something wrong with it?''

''It was adequate, but lacking.'' Daphne said. ''However just because you can create adequate work, I will not allow my sister to slack off. She has informed me that you will start writing your rapport as a group after your Runes lesson. I will be there. I assume that won't be a problem?''

Merlin! This girl must have taken acting lessons or something. He had stared down snakeface himself and even he was feeling a drop of sweat drip down his face as the girl stared him down. Luckily he didn't allow himself to show anymore weakness as he mustered the most natural smile he could manage and said. ''Of course we could always use the expertise of a N.E.W.T. level student.''

The girl nodded in satisfaction and stepped past Harry. Just when Harry was about to release the breath he hadn't realised he was holding Daphne turned her head so she was looking him straight in the eyes and if possible her eyes seemed to be even colder as she said the following words. ''You claim you are different than my former year mate so I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but if I ever even hear a whisper of you treating my sister badly because off her house; I crush you. Am I clear?''

'Yep old snakeface has nothing on her' Harry thought as he suppressed the slight shudder.

XxX

Harry's thoughts were brought back to the present as his ears picked up the sound of the doors of the Great Hall slamming open and he had to fight hard to supress the grin that wanted to form on his face as he thought, 'Showtime!'

Two Bludgers sped through the open doors at a speed that far surpassed their normal speed and both were heading straight toward the head table, more specifically toward the resident potions master.

Luckily for the man he had pretty sharp reflexes and the moment he saw the approaching danger he had jumped up , pulled his wand and fired a blasting curse at one of the balls. The Bludger exploded, but unfortunately for Snape the second ball due to his speed was already too close for another spell. Fortunately for the man another with superior reflexes was sitting close by and just moments before the ball would impact Snape's stomach the ball exploded due to a spell cast by Dumbledore.

To say Snape looked pissed was a slight understatement. In all the years Harry had seen the man this was one of the few times he had seen him lose control like this. Unfortunately for the man the show wasn't over yet and moments later the entire hall's attention was drawn when suddenly the Disillusionment charm that was hiding a large banner hung behind the teachers table stopped working.

The teachers didn't miss the sudden shift of attention of their students and they turned around to look at what the students were looking at.

It took only moments for the entire hall to read the message that was written with a large front on the banner.

What comes around goes around, Snape. I recommend you curb you behaviour and try to emulate a normal human being, but that is probably asking too much from such a pathetic excuse of a human being …. Oh and I recommend you turn around.

Snape swirled around and looked confused for moment then that confusion turned to horror moments later when suddenly just a slight distance away from him the Disillusionment charm on a third Bludger faded away.

'Thank you, Toby, that was awesome.' Harry thought as he hear the satisfying crack of bones breaking and the muffled scream of pain.

Author notes:

That Lilly point of view part was really a pain to write. She and James are not the most likeable persons for a reason, but I also didn't want to make her a complete bitch. So somehow I had to justify her actions. Or at least justify them in her own head. She still will not be the most likeable person for the foreseeable future, but then again flawed characters have the potential to grow. While perfect little Marry Sues don't.

For those who wanted to see the actual detention I am sorry. I have tried to write the scene multiple time, but most of those attempts were borderline cringe worthy in how bad they were. So instead I let Astoria recount the story to Daphne. Which had the additional benefit of giving you a small look in Daphne's head.

So this chapter also had the first Harry/Daphne meeting. Probably not what most people expected, but I liked it. For the Daphne fans don't worry she and Harry will get closer, but currently her first and foremost priority is the wellbeing of her sister.

Edit: the next update might take a bit longer. It seems my computer has finally died on me. Luckily all my notes and story process were in my dropbox file so at least I didn't lose that, but at the moment I won't have regular access to a computer. Chapter 14 is roughly half-way done so I might be able to finish it before next week, but I can't promise anything.

Next chapter: Chapter fourteen: September the 19th

Chapter Thirteen: Detention, Quidditch and Karma