Chapter 25: HHg
Harry sighed for only he knew how manyeth time. Besides sighing, he had no idea what else he could do.
It had been a while since his sixth year had begun and things hadn't exactly been great.
To be precise, two months of the term were now done, with school beginning on September first and here he was sitting on the one of his least favourite days, if not the day he disliked the most in the calendar.
Halloween
Where historically, everything that could go wrong had gone for Harry year after year, especially in relation to the magical world.
His Aunt and Uncle were reminded of the preence of the magical world rather forcefully, or should that be doorbelley?, every year, ironically by the muggle world. And barring a shorter temper from both, for which Harry had managed to find a way out, towards his actions on that day, it hadn't really been much of a problem for him.
His thoughts drifted to the entire gamut of what had happened in the two months.
There was first the traditional train journey itself, which was remarkable in itself as Malfoy hadn't made his annual visit to taunt Harry and his friends. This had bothered Harry greatly obviously, and so on his way from the washroom on the train, he had managed to find the compartment where Malfoy was seated and had managed to get into the compartment unsen with the help of his trusty Invisibility Cloak.
Apparently not.
He had waited and waited for Malfoy to gloat on some point or the other to Parkinson, Goyle, Crabbe and Nott. But it never came. In fact, Harry noticed that where Malfoy would have been the one to try and control the conversation, he was merely part of the audience in this one. And it seemed to be by choice.
This had worried Harry as he was sure that something must have happened, apart from his father being found out as a Death Eater and on top of that having been caught by a bunch of schoolkids at a place where none of them had any right nor need to be.
No, it was clear to Harry that something else had happened that had changed Malfoy quite fundamentally.
Harry had shivered involuntarily and that had very nearly resulted in him being caught.
Thankfully the rustle of the cloak and his movement had been explained away by the wind that had chosen exactly the same moment to act up and the explanation, given by Malfoy seemed to have convinced everyone, Malfoy included.
Apparently not.
Once the train had stopped and the rest had all gotten off, Malfoy had stayed back for a bit rummaging through his trunk seemingly searching for something that he needed quite urgently.
Again, apparently not.
Harry's curiosity had been piqued and when he had gotten close enough that he felt he would be able to get the drop on Malfoy, everything went pear shaped.
When he came to, he noticed that he had been placed in a Body Bind. And while he had not shown it, the coldness in the eyes of Malfoy had scared him a little.
This was definitely not the same Malfoy who had gone home in the summer, the one who would have brandished about the Malfoy name and the fact that his father would take care of the whole business.
This Malfoy had an air of lethality about him. He did not seem to have the confidence to back that up, but anyone with that kind of an air about him needed to be watched carefully.
And when his spoke, for the first time it sounded menacing.
"You really thought you got in undetected did you Potter? Really, the delusions that you have about the level of your abilities astounds me, Potter. And to think, that old ditthering old fool who I have the misfortune of calling Headmaster seems to hold you in such high esteem. What a pity. And you are supposed to be the one to take down the Dark Lord? What an utter joke!"
Out of the blue, Malfoy threw a solid punch on his nose, packing enough power into it that it would have been very evident to anyone who had been around that Harry's nose had been broke, possibly in multiple places.
Tears had automatically sprung from Harry's eyes and he was screaming internally in pain. But he could do nothing about it, could not hold his nose or do anything to help ease the agony. All he could do was listen to Malfoy talk.
"That? That was for the past. That was for what you did to my father. You couldn't just roll over an die could you? But no, you had to play the hero and look at what happened. You set off a chain of events even you with your imagined power will not be able to overcome Potter."
Out of the blue again, Malfoy threw another punch at pretty much the same spot. If there had been any doubts previously about whether or not his nose had been broken, they were now well and truly settled.
"That? That is for the future. Stay out of my business, Potter. You have been given fair warning. And if we ever cross paths again, and I know it will happen because you can't seem to control your hero tendencies Potter, it will be a duel far more intense than the farce we had in Second Year. Like I said, I have given you fair warning, stay out of my business. Ask the Mudblood, the Blood Traitor, the Squib and the Lunatic to do the same as well. If you cross my path the next time, you are in for it."
"Now, while I do wish we could extend this conversation since you have been such an attentive audience, I am afraid if I am late any further, the sorry excuse for the Deputy Headmaster would assign me detention even before term begins. And since my time this year is very precious, one that I would definitely not want to spend in meaningless detentions, it is time for me to go. Oh and before I forget"
He muttered the Disillusioning Charm and Harry felt the familiar trickle as if someone had broken an egg on his head. He muttered the Body Binding Spell as well and aimed it in the general direction where Harry had been. It seemed that he had put a lot more power into the spell and the intention had also been greater.
It looked like someone else had also been doing some extra studying.
Without sparing so much as a backward glance (not that he would have been able to see much in any case), Malfoy had left the compartment with his head held high.
Harry on the other hand had been in a state of panic - he had no idea if anyone would even realize that he was missing until the train had left from Hogsmeade station (when he thought about it, he realized that he had no idea where the train actually stood for most part of the year; during their Hogsmeade visits, there was no active train service as the adult wizarding population could see no point in spending significant amount of time on travel when they could simple Apparate or Portkey or Floo to the place). He knew there wouldn't be a problem with his luggage, both Neville and Ron would take care of that for him.
He knew he would hear an earful from Hermione later, but he wasn't concerned about it. He needed to be able to get to her for her to give him an earful in the first place.
He had been unable to move. And time had been ticking by.
Suddenly there was a lurch as the train began to move. Having realized what had happened, Harry had begun to panic.
And so had almost missed the opening and closing of each compartment door and his name being called at every compartment.
Finally the one he was in had been opened and Tonks had walked in. Her hair which usually was in a bubblegum pink colour, was now sporty a more sedate look. The expression on her face was also one of someone who had undergone a lot of trials recently.
And Harry couldn't fault her on that.
She had indeed gone through her own version of hell.
Realizing that Tonks had been calling out his name, but that she had heard no reply, Harry began to panic again.
Thankfully for Harry though, Tonks had been a lot more resourceful and had come prepared for the situation where Harry would be unable to reply to her calls. She had quietly been using the Homenum Revelio spell, the one as the name suggests, that had been designed to reveal the presence of any other humans. Not wanting to risk taking anyone by surprise, she had used a version that did not visibly emanate from the person who was out of sight.
Tonks had cast the spell immediately upon entering the compartment and realizing that she had a positive response she had kept up her regular appearances of searching by calling till she reached Harry.
She undid the concealment charm and took a step back.
Harry had bled quite a bit through his nose and consequently there was a lot of blood on the floor right next to the prone Harry.
Realizing that he had had a Body Bind placed on him and surprised by the sheer strength behind the spell, Tonks undid the spell while exerting a fair amount of power. She had then pointed her wand at Harry's nose and put about the same amount of power into the Episkey spell, while loudly asking Harry to forgive her for the pain he was about to experience.
Harry hadn't understood why Tonks had apologized till the pain from the resetting of the bones in his nose hit him. It was absolute agony for the Boy Who Lived, who at that moment very nearly became the Boy Who Cried.
When the pain had subsided, Harry had stood up, after uncurling himself from the fetal position and gently touching his nose, only to realize that it had a slight crook to it (not as noticeable as Dumbledore's, but a crook nonetheless), which made it easy for anyone to see that Harry's nose had been broken.
Deciding to worry about that later, Harry had turned to Tonks, thanked her and was just about to leave when he was surprised by Remus coming through the compartment door. He had not heard Moony's voice and yet there he was standing in front of him.
Remus had said nothing, had simply held eye contact with Harry for a short while before running his wand over Harry in a manner reminiscent of Madame Pomphrey. Nodding to himself that everything seemed to be fine for the moment, he had made it clear to Harry that he would need to have Madame Pomphrey do a professional check-up on him before he got to bed that night.
Harry had said nothing, in part because he was still a little surprised to find both of them there, mainly Remus, and in part because at the sight of the man, Harry inevitably thought of Sirius and the rescue missions later that summer and his temper started acting up.
Before he said anything he would later regret, Harry had nodded, albeit a bit curtly to both Remus and Tonks (which left the latter surprised while the former had seemed to expect it) and had gone about on his way.
Harry had reached the gates of Hogwarts in record time, for he had not once turned back to look and see if either of them were following him (though he was sure that they were doing that rather covertly) and cursed at the sight at the gates.
There standing nd looking for him was the person he hated most after Voldemort and the man he had held responsible for Sirius' death.
Severus Snape.
Or as Dumbledore would insist, Professor Snape.
The moment Harry had crossed the gates, the man had started his verbal abuse and taunt of Harry, trying to get a rise out of him. It had very nearly worked as well, but Harry had managed to keep his temper in check. It only made the man try even harder resulting in his taunts getting even nastier.
And as was the case, Snape had gone too far when he ended up inadvertently speaking ill of Lily Potter as well. Harry had stopped in his tracks and his entire countenance now screamed absolute rage at the man.
Snape on the other hand had also come to a stop, only realizing then what he had spoken and trying to rationalize it with himself.
There was absolute silence as the professor and student, no, a better description would be, two people who loathed each other ended up glaring daggers at each other. A minute passed, then two, then three and the two still held their stares. Harry was certain that Snape was trying to use Leglimency on him, but as he himself was rattled, he wasn't able to focus on it.
Finally, after what seemed like eternity, and with still not a further word spoken, both headed towards the castle. Neither of them paid any attention to the other except to ensure that the other's wand was not pointed at them when their back was turned.
It had been an extremely tense atmosphere as they reached the Great Hall, but Harry had preferred that over the constant taunting and for what he would face next.
The Welcome Feast had just gotten done and the students were just about getting ready to go back to their dormitories. And although she was supposed to help the First Years find their way, Harry noticed that Hermione had kept looking at the doors to the Great Hall and the moment she had spotted him, she had been watching him like a hawk, with a frown on her face.
Harry had gulped. He knew he was in for a lecture. Perhaps he could feign an illness and ask Madame Pomphrey for a Sleeping potion?
No, that would only delay the inevitable.
Harry crossed over and joined her, even as Ron seemed to have taken up Hermione's slack and was directing the First Years (with of course less than a quarter of the enthusiasm that Hermione usually showed for the task).
Greeting the two and Neville who had spotted Harry and had made his way towards him, Harry mentioned that he would talk about what happened on the train later, his eyes instinctively looking at Malfoy at the Slytherin table, where his eyes blazed with the humiliation that he had faced at the hands of both Malfoy and Snape.
So fierce was his gaze at the back of Malfoy's head that he had initially missed what Hermione had told him. Seeing no response from him and noticing his expression locked in the direction of the Slytherin table, Hermione shook him by his hand.
"Harry! Harry! Are you even listening to me? You seem to be so focused on the Slytherin table and Malfoy. What happened on the train?". Seeing the scowl on Harry's face at the mention of the train, she decided to change the topic and get back to it at another time.
"You missed out the appointments of the faculty for this year. Hagrid is back at the post of the Care of Magical Creatures teacher. Professor Slughorn will be the new Potions teacher.."
As she finished that line, she saw Harry (who was still concentrating on the Slytherin table) whip his head about and fix her with a penetrating glare. From the look on her face, she knew that he had figured out what that had meant.
Snape was the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.
She could see the anger and rage build up in Harry as he came to the only logical and possible conclusion. She could understand Harry's feelings behind the decision, and the fact that by appointing Snape as the DADA teacher, Dumbledore had effectively stabbed Harry in the back (while it wasn't strictly true, she knew that Harry would take it as such).
She watched Harry as he closed his eyes and fought a battle to rein in his temper, the very same temper that had caused him so many problems over the past so many years. Before he could blow his top though, Hermione squeezed his shoulder in a gesture of support.
And it seemed to have worked as well, as Volcano Harry seemed to cool down quite significantly.
Nodding his thanks at her, Harry turned around and spoke just one word to the three who were around him. Well, a lot more people were trying to get around him as well, but Harry ignored them. The three here, along with Luna and Ginny were pretty much the only ones to have trusted him with their lives in June and he was not going to let some of the other try to get into his inner circle. Of friends.
Quietly mentioning, "Infirmary", Harry walked out of the Great Hall and to the working place of Hogwarts' favourite and Hogwarts' only Healer, Madam Pomphrey.
Thankfully for Harry, the matron was in a decidedly good mood which she exhibited in, "Why Mr. Potter, did you miss me so much that you have come to see me on the day you returned to the castle itself?" that caused Harry to stop in shock and blush furiously and open and close his mouth repeatedly in a brilliant imitation of a goldfish.
Once she had completed her checkup and was satisfied that there was nothing serious with Mr. Potter, Harry had made his way back to the Gryffindor Common Room, where, just a he reached the painting of the Fat Lady, he realized that he did not know the password. He was sure Hermione would have given him the password, but he had been staring at Malfoy for most part and had started when he heard that Snape had been made the DA teacher.
Not knowing what to do and not seeing any of his fellow Gryffindors around, Harry paced up and down outside the entrance to the Common Room. Although the Fat Lady recognized who he was, she could not let him in without him giving the password (the magic of Hogwarts did not permit decision making on who to allow and who not to allow based on familiarity especially for the guardians of the House entrances)
The Fat Lady had kept studying him silently, unlike the previous times when she was usually very chatty, she had remained extremely quiet. After some time, Harry began to feel like a specimen under a microscope and so had decided to find McGonagall and ask her for the password instead.
Thankfully for him though, the portrait hole had opened just at the same time that he was going to change the direction of his walk.
Out of the portrait hole came Hermione, with lines of worry (which had become a constant feature on her face following those attacks) creased on to her face. She noticed Harry standing there and she immediately ran to him and engulfed him in a massive hug, which surprised Harry greatly. He had expected a lower version of this when he had set entered the Great Hall, but not when he was just returning after a simple check-up. But it was still good to be embraced in a hug like that by the girl he realized he had come to have a crush, if not something deeper, on.
In a manner that was more Mrs. Weasley like than Hermione herself, she pulled back and examined Harry with a critical eye as if trying to convince herself that he was fine and if not, where exactly he was hurt. She had picked up on the broken nose right away and was worried about what other injury Harry might try and hide from her and the others.
She simply raised an eyebrow at Harry who shrugged and said nothing but flashed her a thumbs-up. She wasn't convinced, well anyone who knew Harry well enough would know to never take him on his word when he said or gestured that everything was fine, but at the moment she let it drop.
She turned and told the Fat Lady the password (interestingly enough it was "Carpe Diem") and they walked inside where Harry immediately noticed that Ron, Neville and Ginny were all there in their seats near the fire by themselves. For most part the rest of his housemates had left them alone except for the occasional glance that was thrown in their direction. Glances that alternated between admiration and disbelief.
Harry would have gone to his friends by himself, but it seemed like Hermione was not taking any chances. She held him by the forearm and dragged him to the group, where he noticed Ginny's eyes had slightly narrowed at Hermione's actions and were focused on where Hermione was holding Harry.
Thankfully for Harry, Ginny did not say anything. She wasn't aware that her demeanour had changed and that it had been noticed either. Nevertheless, she did not say anything except to ask of Harry if he everything was alright.
Knowing this was going to come and knowing that he would have preferred to have done it later, but also knowing that it was now pointless to resist, Harry quickly told the rest of them in hushed whispers about the whole incident on the train.
The response had been exactly what he had anticipated. The boys had grim expressions on their faces while the girls looked horrified. Not one of them doubted that Malfoy would not deliver on what he had said.
The first person to react was Hermione. She had gotten up from her seat and had gone around hugging the other four, all the while asking them to stay safe. Neville had been surprised to be included in the hug (he did not Hermione that well after all), but he managed to hide the surprise on his face. Ron's surprise was evident on his face as he was usually the recipient of handshakes instead of hugs. Ginny and Harry had no such surprised expressions as they were used to Hermione's hugs.
And unsurprisingly, although not a word had been exchanged on the subject, they all knew that they were going to train to fight even harder.
All of them were worried about the coming darkness, but none more that Hermione, who was absolutely terrified for all of them. And the others understood, especially since they had all been there in one way or another at the time of the attack.
Shaking his head and pulling out of the path his thoughts were taking, Harry focused on what had happened after the night they had all returned to Hogwarts.
There had been that discussion with Professor McGonagall, who seemed strangely less formal to Harry than before, He was reminded of her letter to him and the fact that he had provided her an answer of a couple of lines, but had not actually taken her help.
Here though, she was helping him sort through the subjects that he needed for his NEWT Levels and for which he was surprised to see that Slughorn was not as picky as Snape for his Potions students.
Not having the book for the course even though he should have bought it, Harry had been forced to use one of the old books in the Potions bookshelves.
And boy had that been a disaster right from the start.
First off the book itself had been very messy, with the owner of the book deciding to scribble all over it. Harry had not been able to clearly read the original instructions and so had been forced to use the owner's version.
And that had landed him enormous success.
And had caused a big divide between him and Hermione.
He had become star pupil of Potions over the course of the two months, much to the dismay of Hermione. While Harry had initially attributed it to her jealousy of having been beaten, that idea had been made to take a hike across the world and a new one installed in its place.
She had made it categorically clear to him that she thought he did not deserve the credit of being the best Potions student because he could not explain the changes that he had made in the Potion making process. He was simply following a different set of instructions which in turn were helping him out to make perfect potions. But it was not his skill in the subject that was responsible for it.
Harry had had to admit to himself that the point that Hermione had made was true. And he also remembered that whenever he was good at something, Hermione was the first to acknowledge it, like in Defence Against the Dark Arts.
Still, he could not give up the book. It had far too much information in it that it would probably be extremely invaluable for anyone whoever needed to make potions, at least of the Sixth year. Idly, Harry had wondered if the same owner would have made such versions for the Potions textbooks from First to Fifth Year. Having a copy of it would prove to be extremely useful after the disastrous classes he had had with Snape.
In the end, Harry and Hermione worked out a compromise. He would buy a new book, but would keep a copy of the one he had found as well and would not use it in every class, but from time to time if he needed to.
While Hermione hadn't been very happy with the last part, she had known that this would be the best she would get and had agreed.
While Harry was still waiting for the new book to be delivered, he flipped through the remaining pages of the copy he had in hand.
He noticed that for every potion, the owner of that book had made his or her own corrections. It was amazing to see the sheer number of places where the corrections had been made, which, when Harry had shown to Hermione, had led Hermione to wonder why the improved version of the spell wasn't being thought. She had requested of Harry a copy of the book for herself as well as she had wanted to thoroughly understand what the changes meant and why the affected the potion in the way they did.
Harry had tried to find the name of the previous owner of the book, but had had no success. He thought he had seen something on the front page, but the letters had seemed to be thoroughly random - SSP, PSS, SPS - as if one were working out combinations in which the three letters could exist. But what he did notice was that in all of the different combinations, the letter P seemed to always stand out taller than the two S, with one of the S being shorter than the other. Harry had no idea why this was so, attributing it to the doodling of a sixteen year old kid like himself wanting to highlight the most important part of his name with the tallest letter.
Harry had noticed that in a couple of locations, something had been written and then had been struck off by the owner. Assuming that they were failed changes that the owner (SPS as he decided to call him or her) had made, Harry had peered through the strikes to see what was written underneath. A little effort into the whole process and Harry realized that the ones that SPS had struck off were not amendments to the potions, but were instead spells by themselves, spells that Harry had not heard of or heard about so far, which confused Harry.
Why would one write down spells in a book that had nothing to do with spellwork?
And was the crossing off done because the spells didn't work? Or was it because SPS did not want any of the others to find out.
He had decided that he would show it to Hermione, perhaps on Halloween itself, when their classes would end early and they would have to go down for the Feast on that day. Perhaps he could skip the meal and sit back with Hermione, preferably only her, but if that wasn't possible then with Ron, Neville, Ginny (and Luna, if they met at the Room of Requirement instead) and discuss the changes by SPS. Actually, the more that Harry thought about it, the more he felt that it should only be him and Hermione discussing about it. The others weren't exactly aware of this whole book saga and consequently to bring it out into the open would raise more questions than it answered.
He had asked Hermione earlier that morning before setting off for classes if she would be free after the Halloween Feast. She had arched her eyebrow, amused by the fact that Harry seemed to be quite nervous to discuss something with her and for asking her if she was free for it. She held the eyebrow in place for an extra second, before nodding and enquiring what was it that he wanted to talk about.
Harry mentioned to her very briefly that he had found something of interest in the SPS modified copy of the Potions book and asked her to look at the places where SPS had struck things out. He refused to elaborate further, telling her that he would discuss with her later and hurrying off in the direction of, surprisingly, the library.
For Hermione, not being given the full answer was asking for trouble. Walking into her Arithmancy class, she had her mind on the SPS version of the book. All through the class, her concentration kept getting diverted to the book to the point that she very nearly loudly cursed in the middle of the lesson at being unable to focus.
Finally, once the class was done, she skipped lunch and went to the library, where unsurprisingly Harry was not there and began to go through the book. She realized within moments what Harry had spoken about and taking out a spare piece of parchment and a pen (this wasn't an official assignment and she did have years of experience with a quill, so it was best to get resused to the normal way of doing things). The pen she managed to pull out from her bag brought tears to her eyes as she was reminded of who had given her the pen and where.
How happy she had been when she had gotten the pen, which incidentally was her first pen.
How she had spent hours writing with it and bettering her penmanship.
How she seemed to run through refills so quickly and had to badger her parents to get them for her.
It took her a while to calm down, but she realized that her mood would be down for the rest of the day as she simply wouldn't be able to get past the memories associated with the pen.
Sighing, she tried to concentrate on the spells she had discovered and began to note it down in the parchment. The combination of parchment and pen did make for an odd duo, but it seemed to be the best the two worlds offered (parchments in general tended to be better at being resistant to water, while the ink of ballpoint pens was also usually water resistant). Hermione wrote down the spells as well as whatever details she could figure out from the book.
It took her a while, but Hermione was nothing if not thorough. Every little reference to a spell that SPS had written had been transferred on to her parchment, along with notes that she had made from her analyses based on the incantation and wand movements (which had also been struck off). None of the spells seemed to be familiar to Hermione. Most of it though did seem to be defensive in nature which made her wonder if they would be good additions to add to her repertoire.
When she had finished, she realized that she had spent most of her free time working on the same and that if she did not get a move on, she would be late for her next class, Ancient Runes. As classes would be let off early today for Halloween, Hermione would not be joining Harry and Ron in any of the common modules and would see them only at the meal.
She got up and rushed towards the Ancient Runes class, where she realized that she was amongst the last to arrive. She cursed herself and found her usual seat, beside Padma Patil and Susan Bones, the three girls sharing a mutual love for the subject and respect for each other. The class strength was limited, Ancient Runes was after all a difficult course taught by the strict Professor Spakr (he did give Professor McGonagall a run for the money), and was further reduced as this was now a NEWT level class.
Professor Spakr began as he always did, in a no-nonsense manner and ensuring that everyone in class paid attention to him. He showed no favouritism and was absolutely impartial. Once he was done with reviewing what they had learned from Third to Fifth Year, he outlined what was going to be the syllabus for the next two years. The attention of every student in the room, including Hermione who had been thinking about the spells from SPS during the review, was on Professor Spakr now.
The Feast was drawing to a close and to those who knew Harry and Hermione could see that both seemed to be a little agitated about something and they seemed to want to get away from the crowd itself.
In Harry's case that was not unusual. Any sensible member of the wizarding world would realize that things usually went wrong for Harry on that day and it was very natural to want to wait for the day to end as quickly as possible.
In Hermione's case though, that was not usual. She usually was the picture of calm, unless there was a test or exam coming up, in which case she was the very picture of a person in panic. But no one had ever remembered her being so agitated on Halloween Feast.
In reality, Hermione was not just agitated. Two emotions, one of which was agitation and impatience, were warring within her as she tried to calm herself down.
She looked across the table where Harry was sitting and noticed that he too looked very nervous, and attributed it to the most plausible cause.
Catching his eye, she nodded at him and he nodded back. They both got up from their seats to go first to the Gryffindor Common Room and get their notes before heading to the Room of Requirement. They had each, indepedent of the other, had decided that the Room of Requirement would be the best place to have the discussion as they weren't sure if they would be interrupted or their conversation eavesdropped into otherwise.
They had told Ron, lest he feel left out, that they were doing some extra bit of studying and had asked him if he wanted to join. Ron, while slightly more mature than the previous year, was not someone who would willingly do extra work, unless that work included either eating, sleeping or Quidditch. He had declined (like both Harry and Hermione had expected him to) and had asked them to give him the summary of it later (which they had not expected, but were nevertheless happy to agree to do).
They had taken a few steps in the direction of the Gryffindor Tower, when it happened.
Again.
On Halloween.
The door to the Great Hall had swung open rather fiercely. Owing to the lighting for the Halloween celebrations, it was impossible for anyone to say, from the comfort of their table, if there was anyone standing at the doorway.
But that guess proved to be quite unnecessary as they could hear the sound of footsteps, making it abundantly clear that someone was indeed there.
The entire Great Hall was silent and seemed to be collectively holding its breath. The end result of this was that every step that the person took, echoed all around and tended to sound both loud and sinister.
Up at the Heads table, Dumbledore had a frown on his face. Unlike two years back when Alastor had not yet turned up, everyone was accounted for. Hence it could not be any of the staff or the students or even the caretaker who was making his or her way through.
Drawing his wand out and standing up, Dumbledore began to make his way towards the entrance doors. As it was, whoever it was knew that their position had been compromised by the noise that was echoing off their footwear and the castle walls and so if they had wanted to attack, they would probably have been a lot more tactful. Having said that, Dumbledore was pretty clear that he did not want to take any chances, not with the situation as bad as it already was. If it was somebody like Bellatrix or worse still, Voldemort himself, it was best if they were dealt with before they got too close to the students for him to be of any use.
Making sure that his voice could be heard over the din that the shoes were now making, Dumbledore spoke into the night "Who are you? Reveal yourself! What business have you at Hogwarts?"
As he had expected there was no reply to his question and so he kept moving towards the door. While the person had no doubt walked a comfortable distance into the Great Hall, the lighting still did not permit long range vision, something that Dumbledore was currently cursing.
As he approached the traveller, he noticed that the person was wearing a travelling cloak and had hooded themselves so that he or she could not be identified. Dumbledore was beginning to get more and more agitated.
Compounding to his agitation was the fact that Harry and Hermione were also walking towards the visitor with their wands out. While the rest of the students had remained seated, these two, who he had seen leave the Hall almost as quickly as they could once the last item at the Feast had been served, seemed to have decided to turn back and investigate the matter as well. They had not yet made their presence known, both of them having used charms to silence their feet, and so Dumbledore was sure that the visitor was unaware of their presence.
That was until the two decided to step into the same lighted zone as Dumbledore but had taken guard positions to Dumbledore's point.
The Headmaster wasn't sure how effective this tactic would be and to be frank he was quite amazed that these two children were treating it like a hostile situation, but he realized that he shouldn't have been. The two were the most affected in the attacks that had taken place on the day he had gone to pick Harry up from his guardians and so it was natural that they would have taken a greater interest in their self-defence.
Concentrating on what was in front of him, or rather who was in front of him, Dumbledore pointed his wand straight at the person and repeated his earlier questions: "Who are you? Reveal yourself! What business have you at Hogwarts?"
The person, and if Dumbledore had to wager he would guess that the person was male judging by his physique, seemed to take his time in responding. His hands were free of wands, but that did not mean anything to the three who were effectively guarding the rest of the school (The Deputy Headmaster and the rest of her colleagues had placed themselves in front of the House tables with each table receiving at least two Professors).
The uninvited guest still didn't speak, but slowly pulled back his cloak, while the hood still remained. The clothing underneath revealed rather fine robes, or as fine as anyone could see with the limited light (the Headmaster would have to go to his office to reset the lighting of the castle) and it confirmed Dumbledore's guess that the person was indeed male, and definitely a wizard.
The man seemed to cock his head to each side, looking for what only he knew, but he did take note of the positions of the three people around him. Turning to Hermione, he gave her a short bow, before doing pretty much the same to Dumbledore (but to whom the bow was shorter) before turning to the third member of the group.
As he turned, the light caught the insignia that had been placed on the robes and Hermione gasped, while Dumbledore looked on confused and puzzled.
Harry on the other hand, said nothing, for he had not managed to take a peek at the insignias.
A burst of light from somewhere (and if Harry had to guess, his would be Hermione firing a Lumos spell to help him out) allowed him to see what had caused Hermione to gasp.
Only for him to feel confused, while his rage built up.
What a way to taunt him!
On the left hand side of the robes, at the location where pockets would be present on muggle male shirts were two crests.
Belonging to two Houses of contrasting personalities.
And both of which were very dear to Harry.
The man slowly removed the hood that had been obscuring his face causing Harry to step back.
Green met hazel in an expression of utter confusion.
Facing Harry, was an image he had seen quite a few times, including in a mirror.
There standing and facing Harry, stood a solid form looking about as old as he would have been at the time he died.
Harry could only open and close his mouth without being able to speak a single word, let alone a coherent sentence.
With the crests of House Potter and House Black on his robes, there was only one person who could have had that effect on him.
"Hello Harry! You have grown up, my son!"
James Charlus Potter was b(l)ack!
_
A/N: And that's it for the first part! For those who have stayed and read all the way through, thank you very much! I won't know the whole lot of you, but still a huge thank you!
There is some good news and bad news: The good news is that I have started with the second part of this story. The bad news is that I don't know when I will finish up the story. The good news is that I will finish it up.
The exact details of the story, I am still thinking through, so if you have any ideas that you would like me to incorporate, PM me.
And for those who are following this story, when I put the sequel up, I will add another "chapter" pointing you to the new story.
Till then, so long, and thanks for all the follows! Cheers!