Disclaimer: I am not JKR and therefore do not own anything you recognise here.

Uploaded: 10 September 2016.

Professor Lupin wasn't there when they got to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom for their first lesson with their new teacher. However the classroom was unlocked and this was usually meant as an order to go in and set up, so that's what they did. Lupin clearly wasn't aware of this unspoken agreement however as when he turned up he asked everyone to pack up and follow him.

"We will be having a practical lesson today, so you will only need yourselves and your wands."

Excited glances were shared at that as Dumbledore had taught using practical lessons and they had been amazing… although the one practical lesson they had with Lockhart had ended badly.

They followed Lupin to the staff room and while they did bump into Peeves they also got there in record time, Harry was going to have to remember the shortcut they had used – it was definitely a new one to her.

Lupin waved the class inside but stopped Harry as she went to walk in.

"Harriet," He started after everyone else had gone in.

"Harry," She corrected him. "Nobody calls me Harriet." Except the Headmaster – despite the fact she continuously asked him not to.

Lupin smiled and inclined his head. "Harry, I just wanted to say before we went in that we will be studying a creature that can turn into someone's worst fear today. I would like you to sit out."

"What? Why?" Harry asked.

"It might not be best for Lord Voldemort not to appear in the staff room." Lupin replied calmly.

"Oh, yeah maybe that might be bad." Harry conceded. It was odd for Harry to hear somebody besides Dumbledore call him Voldemort and not You-Know-Who, Harry's opinion on the man went up a few notches.

"Well then, shall we?" However before he could go in, somebody else walked out.

Snape looked between Harry and Lupin, gave one of his signature sneers and swooped away.

Lupin sighed "Some people just can't let go. Come on I am late for my own lesson."

Lupin's lesson was a good one, he got almost everyone involved and it was fun. From Ron's legless spider to Neville's troll in a tutu and fairy wings, everyone who got to face the boggart managed to make their fear amusing although Lilith could have come up with something better for her rattlesnake – Harry would have gone for it being a baby's rattle.

All in all the only bad thing that could be said about the lesson was that it wasn't one of Dumbledore's, but then considering the lesson had easily been the best of the lessons Harry shared with her fellow year mates, the fact that it wasn't as good as Dumbledore's probably said more about Dumbledore's ability to teach than Lupin's.

Harry's next few lessons with Dumbledore were a bit of a letdown however as he continued with him giving her simple activities to increase her control of her magic. After he had told her to start levitating things both morning and night her magic had calmed down and hadn't lashed out at anyone since the whole Malfoy incident but she had now progressed to levitating multiple things at once and having them dance around each other in increasing complex patterns, all the while Dumbledore sat doing paperwork. While Harry was eager to learn new things she knew that Dumbledore would teach at his own pace and if Harry was honest with herself, two weeks into the training she could already feel the difference in the power she was putting into spells and how easy it was becoming to master new spells.

At the old coot's insistence Harry had also gone back to running in the morning before her shower; she did a couple of laps around the seventh floor three days a week. Harry didn't really mind adding this to her week however as she wanted to get in good shape for Quidditch – Oliver Wood was once again pushing them as hard as he could. He had taken the cancelation of the quidditch cup the year before particularly hard and he still glared at Cormac McLaggen anytime the two were near each other, Cormac had got the seeker's position in Harry's first year and he was arse by all accounts.

Oliver was also not overly fond of the rule that forbade first years from having a personal broom as it had basically meant that he had been forced to use Cormac over Harry.

But this was now Oliver's last year to win the Hogwarts cup as captain and he made it very clear to the entire team that he needed to win. They were all sat listening to him in the Gryffindor locker room as he explained a new game plan the he and Lilith Moon had come up with. She was there as well, just as much a part of the team as the fourteen players that surrounded her; she had quickly become an unofficial team coach as her level of quidditch knowledge was seemingly unmatched in Gryffindor. Lilith had also come up with the idea of friendly matches between the other houses as three matches a year wasn't really enough. Harry was all for a friendly game between Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw but a game against Slytherin would be anything but friendly.

It was a tired but hopeful team that left the pitch after training, Oliver didn't keep them out quite as late as normal but might have been down to the promise of getting practice against other teams as well as the Gryffindor reserves… or it could have been down to Lilith glaring at him toward the end of the night.

Harry had usually walked back to the common room alone from practice as Lilith was usually deep in conversation with Oliver, the trio of Chaser girls was too much of a clique for Harry's liking, it was usually unwise to walk alone with the Weasley twins and she didn't really know any of the reserve team well enough. That changed however with the tryouts held at the start of the year.

The fact that a second year had made it onto the team for the fourth year running was starting to become a bit of a joke in Gryffindor tower, even if said second year only made it onto the reserve team. The fact that the twin's little sister had made it onto the team using a school broom made Ginny Weasley a bit more badass in Harry's opinion though. Once Ginny had been accepted she had written home to get her dad to send one of her older brother's brooms, apparently the Weasleys were pretty good at quidditch when they put their hand to it.

Unfortunately it came with a little side effect that Harry could have done without – Harry and Ginny becoming teammates apparently also made them best of friends. It wasn't that Harry disliked the girl – Ginny just had an annoying habit of agreeing with Harry on everything even if she had believed the exact opposite before Harry said anything. Harry was fairly sure that she could convince Ginny that Dumbledore was actually a goblin and his magical power came from the souls of students that he had harvested.

On her more annoying days Harry had been tempted to try it.

"Professor Lupin is so cool, he showed us a Bundimun today." Ginny said. Harry was starting to miss the days where she could turn Ginny into a blubbering pile of blushes and silent hero worship. "Of course I have already seen some in the shed at home but mum hardly let me keep it around to study it."

I thought it was some Bundimun," Harry said, "That each blob is made up of lots of Bundimun. Maybe I am thinking of something else…"

"Erm… no, Lupin probably just made a mistake."

Harry was fairly sure that Lupin knew more about magical creatures than her but didn't comment on it further.

"Still I didn't think that we would be learning scouring charms in DADA, Claire moaned about all the way through the lesson."

Claire was another rather touchy subject within Gryffindor, she had been the person originally possessed by Tom Riddle's diary and had opened the Chamber of Secrets on several occasions. Harry had originally put a lot of anger towards the girl – if only in her mind – but after finding out that Susan had been the other person possessed she couldn't rationalise staying angry at Claire while completely forgiving Ches of all wrongdoing.

That did not mean that the rest of Gryffindor were as forgiving. They would eventually forget but it would take another scandal for that to happen.

Out of the corner of Harry's eye she saw a large black shape flash past.

"Lumos," Her wand had been in her hand before she had even thought about it but the thin beam of light only found grass.

"Harry?"

"I thought I saw…" Another movement caught her eye but this time it was swooping down towards her, "Hedwig?" It had taken a Gryffindor first year suggesting a name he had read in a history of magic text before her owl had been satisfied with her name. A joke currently doing the rounds of Gryffindor tower was that 'That dam owl is as stubborn as her owner' although most tried not to mention it while Harry was within earshot and nobody said it without taking a quick look at the sky after what Hedwig had done to Seamus Finnegan.

But if she was completely honest, Harry had to admit they were right.

Hedwig landed on Harry's shoulder as if she did it everyday but she didn't responded to Harry calling her name at all, she just stood there glaring off towards… the place Harry had seen that shape…

Harry lifted her wand a bit higher.

"Is something there?" Ginny asked only now pulling her wand out.

"I don't know, let's just get inside, yeah?" Harry doubled her pace towards the castle and didn't slow down until she was inside, Ginny panting slightly beside her.

"You're a bit out of shape Ginny."

Ginny actually looked ready to argue until she noticed that Harry wasn't having any problems breathing. She settled for a grumbled "Well we can't all be Wondergirl can we?"

Harry tried not to react to that but by the look on Ginny's face she didn't quite succeed. 'Wondergirl' was a mix between Supergirl and Wonderwoman that Hannah had come up with and rather annoyingly it had stuck. True it had been Harry that had suggested that they come up with superhero names for each other but now even people that weren't even at the sleepover – like Ginny – had picked up the name.

And Harry had thought she couldn't dislike a name more than 'Harriet'.

And Harry hadn't actually thought that people would start using them, although she had called Megan 'The Sheepanator' more than once before deciding that making offensive comments about the Welsh possibly wasn't the best idea where anyone could hear – even if it was between friends.

"What the hell were we just running from?" Ginny asked once she had got her breathing under control.

"I don't know. I don't even know if there was anything." Harry smiled mockingly, "And if you think that was running then maybe you should start exercising with me in the morning."

Ginny took one look at the smile on Harry's face and shook her head "I'm fine without thanks."

Harry shrugged and turned towards the stairs, no longer concerned with the shape that was probably one of Hagrid's monsters. She needed a nice long shower.

-One Letter Different-

Halloween drew near and with it came the first Hogsmeade trip of the year – The first Hogsmeade trip that Harry would be allowed to go on.

Everybody in Harry's year and above was practically buzzing with ideas and plans on what they were to do first and how many sweets they could buy in Honeydukes. Fred and George had actually made a full list of things they were going to buy from Zonko's joke shop.

"I don't know where they get all the money for that." Ginny said as the twins argued loudly over the benefits of buying self tying shoelaces, "I mean, none of that stuff is cheap and I know they don't get enough spending money for all of it."

One of the reasons that Ron did not like his sister hanging around with his friends was that Ginny was not embarrassed by admitting that they didn't have excessive amounts of money. It was rather fortunate that he wasn't sat with them at breakfast.

"Do you want us to bring anything back for you Ginny?" Hannah asked politely.

"No, it's more the going that I want…"

"Well you can come with us next year." Harry said brightly.

"Great, I'll tell Collin." Ginny threw Harry an evil smile.

"Oh, don't." Harry felt her face fall, "I am starting to think he has a thing for me."

"Oh, he defiantly has a thing for you." Hermione said from behind a book before Ginny could get another comment out.

Harry put her head in her hands – not just because of Colin but because she didn't want anyone making the connection to somebody showing her round Hogsmeade for the first time. She held no illusions that nobody had picked up that she had a thing for Cedric Diggory but she'd rather not have it mentioned at the breakfast table where anybody could hear.

She had now accepted her attraction to Cedric, at least to herself, but she would deny it every time somebody called her out on it – not that anyone seemed to believe her. When everybody else had finished laughing at her she pulled her head up and gave the book a glare, which got another round of giggles from the table.

Ches started saying something to Hermione but Harry's brain wouldn't focus on it, instead there was a sort of itching feeling all the way down the right side of her head. It was possibly the strangest feeling she has ever felt, not because of the feeling itself but because even though she had never felt it before she knew exactly what it was.

"Do you need something, Headmaster?" The rest of the girls seemed confused at her words until Harry turned to the right and looked at him and almost as if some sort of spell had been broken they all looked at him as if they were only just noticing him.

"Yes, could you follow me please?" He turned and walked off towards the antechamber at the back of the hall; Harry threw one last piece of bacon in her mouth and followed him.

"What was that thing where I knew where you were but nobody else did?" Harry asked as soon as she saw there was nobody else in the small room.

"Another test," Dumbledore said with a smile.

"I don't like your test all that much but at least I did better in this one than the last."

Dumbledore's smile widened, "Who said you passed?"

Harry conceded the point with a shrug but she still suspected that she had just aced that one. The words Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment and Tweak circled her head again but they still made no more sense.

The look on Dumbledore's face told her that he knew exactly what she was thinking.

"Get on with it, why have I been dragged publically into a quiet corner just before the Hogsmeade trip?"

Dumbledore pulled out a piece of parchment with a short list on it. "I want you to go to the apothecary and buy these items."

"A fetch quest?" Harry said disappointed, "Never mind…" she said after noticing his confused look. "Why do we want all this?"

"We don't," Dumbledore said, "There are few things that can be made from these, all of them are very complex and several are illegal."

"Then we just want people thinking I am making complex and illegal potions?" Harry hoped her confusion wasn't quite so apparent.

"Rituals - but yes, essentially."

"Ah, erm… why?"

"Because we want people thinking that I am teaching you a wide variety of complex magic already which will build people's opinion of you outside the school – you don't actually have to be able to do any of it until you leave school because I will be keeping to the rule of 'no magic outside of school' and I want people to know that I will be teaching you everything I know even if it is illegal which I can because…."

"…because as my Master you can teach me anything you know regardless of what the law says, as long as you already know it." Harry cut in with possibly the most bizarre law that Harry had ever heard of.

Dumbledore nodded "Exactly, now go and have fun."

Harry kept the list in her hand until she got back to the others – who had now been joined by Cedric and his friend David – she then made sure everybody could see her as she put it into her bag. "Well then, are we going or what?"

Smiles broke out over the faces of the girls and Harry was sure Cedric's flickered with relief for a second before it settled on his usual smile – and no, it wasn't just wishful thinking.

-One letter Different-

Hogsmeade was amazing, there was just so much to see Harry just wished she had more time. They started in Honeydukes – a shop that had so many different types of sweets Harry didn't think that she could eat them all during her stay at Hogwarts. Harry eventually bought a bag of multicoloured ghosts, although for some reason the woman behind the counter asked if she only wanted the yellow ones and seemed a little confused when Harry said no.

The shrieking shack was spooky, but haunted houses lost a little bit of their terror when you live in a castle full of ghosts. The dog that was hanging around it was cool though and liked Harry enough to let her scratch behind its ears.

Some of the other girls liked the look of a tea shop but it was a little too pink for Harry's tastes and with a brief explanation of the joys of butterbeer from Cedric they went the local pub instead. David explained that the alcohol level in it was so low that even excessive quantities of the stuff couldn't get a witch or wizard even slightly tipsy – of course being David he used long complex words and phrases with triple negatives but Harry was fairly sure she got most of it; poor Hannah on the other hand looked completely lost.

By the time he had finished Hermione had taken down a full piece of parchment worth of notes.

The bookshop was lacking compared to Flourish and Blotts but it was better than nothing, the joke shop was nothing short of chaos but Harry bought several things anyway and the bakery sold quite possibly the most amazing steak slice that Harry had ever eaten.

Throughout her visit Harry had noticed them watching; the shop owners, the locals in the pub, ordinary townsfolk and parents of students dropping in to say hi. They were all trying to be subtle but everyone was watching every move she made and by the time she had got to the apothecary she was sure some of them were following her.

By the time she had everything on her list the lady behind the counter wouldn't look at Harry in the eyes and the was a lady a few foot away writing things down while doing a bad job of pretending to study the amount of beetle eyes her friend was weighing up.

When they got back to the castle she got a hug of Cedric – well all the girls did, but he hugged her first and Harry was going to count that as a win. The feast was as good as ever and Harry felt great, she hadn't moped about it being Halloween once. She had decided that her parents could have Christmas eve and she had decided that she wasn't going to let what happened that night hang over her like a shadow.

She had decided that if she let go of the past then it couldn't hurt her.

"…Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black." Peeves said, floating upside down in front of the ripped canvas of the Gryffindor portrait hole.

There was a lot of stuff that I wrote but it just didn't make it into this chapter… oh well.

Danni xxx