Chapter 29: Holidays
Harry remained in the infirmary until Monday and was fed more nutrient potions than he could count. His friends were allowed to visit a couple of times, but were shooed out after half an hour each time by Madame Pomfrey citing that Harry needed rest. Harry was happy when on Saturday, the members of the Slytherin quidditch team who were left in school came to see him. Harry realised then that although he hadn't made strong friendships in Slytherin, there were still people in there that cared about him.
Snape came to see how he was a couple of times. He'd told him quietly that Dudley had poisoned him, deliberately, and that although the boy had known that the mushrooms were not life threatening given the right antidote, he'd known that the antidote was hard to find and planned for Harry to be in much pain. Snape had also told him that Dudley had been paddled by Dumbledore, sent home for the holidays without any of his wizarding possessions and that him remaining at Hogwarts would be reviewed. Snape didn't tell Harry about the mind Healer though, as he felt that that was a private matter.
Professor McGonagall came up to the infirmary just as Harry was getting ready to leave. She informed him that given that lack of lower school staying during the holidays, Harry would be allowed in the Gryffindor common room, as his friends and a couple of Hufflepuffs were the only second years staying during the holidays. He would have to sleep in his own dorm, and wasn't allowed in the Gryffindor dorms, just the common room. She told him that the password for the Fat Lady was 'Chocolate bunnies' and it would be changed when the students returned to Hogwarts at the end of the break.
When Harry got to Gryffindor tower and let himself in the common room he was mobbed by his friends. He was also greeted warmly by the upper school Gryffindors that were staying over the holidays.
"Harry!" squealed Hermione, as she launched herself at him and enveloped him in the biggest hug.
"We've been so worried about you!" said Ron, "Madame Pomfrey would hardly let us see you and said you needed rest. Are you fully recovered?"
"Yeah," said Harry, "I think they were very worried, especially on Thursday night. I don't think any of them slept. There was a Healer from St. Mungos too."
"They should name a bed in there after you, the amount of time you spend up there!" said Neville with a grin.
"Not a whole bed," said George, "Perhaps just a bed pan!" he added with a smirk.
Everyone laughed, it was so nice to just be with each other and to not be worried about something. Harry was so happy he was Dudley-free for a couple of weeks.
"Please tell me there's just the smallest piece of cake left." said Harry, pleadingly hopeful.
"Even better!" said Fred, "We asked the house-elves to put a stasis charm on the whole thing until you got out of the infirmary. We really didn't do any celebrating on Thursday as by dinnertime we knew something was up with you."
"So what's for lunch today?" asked Harry hopefully.
"Cake!" said the twins together.
After lunch, when they went back up to Gryffindor tower, the elves had brought the twins the cake. It would feed everyone left in Gryffindor twice over, even if you ate more than is good for you. When they'd eaten as much as they could without throwing up there was still a third of the cake left.
"Um. Would either of you mind if I took a slice to Marcus, Adrian and Terence? They're staying for the holidays and they came to see me in the infirmary and I want to say a kind of thank you for caring about me."
"Of course! They're good fun, we should have thought about inviting them back for cake, they're great to practise quidditch with." said George as he cut three large pieces of cake and put them on plates.
"Come on, we'll come with you to Slytherin. It's rare we get to go to another common room, but bringing cake seems like a good excuse." said Fred.
"No funny business in there!" said Harry, knowing what the twins were like.
"What, none at all?" asked Fred, crestfallen.
"None at all." confirmed Harry. Fred emptied his pockets of a bag of sweets that he was intending on 'accidentally' leaving in there.
"And they do what?" asked Harry with a raised eyebrow.
"They might turn your tongue bright blue for twenty four hours." said George innocently.
"Please be sensible, just for once." said Harry, "I want to be allowed in here again, and if you do that, chances are, I'll be banned."
"Okay, okay." said Fred and took a plate from George and the three of them went to Slytherin.
They got a couple of funny looks when they entered, but on offering cake to Marcus, Adrian and Ternece, they were welcomed more warmly and they wished the twins a happy belated birthday and they chatted for a while. They organised that in order to let off a bit of steam they'd play a bit of quidditch at around 3pm every day. Harry looked forward to that. He enjoyed it when they'd played together, but they'd only managed it about twice a week. Now it was the holidays and they could play during the day, they could fit it in around the senior students revision and that would work well.
Harry thought the best part of the holidays would be playing quidditch with his friends. He was wrong about that. Next day they were all playing a game of quidditch in the afternoon. The sixth and seventh years had had a tutorial that morning for DADA doing practical spell work and had practised disarming and shields. Marcus and Oliver had worked together in the tutorial. Oliver had warmed up a bit to the Slytherins practising with them when he realised that his team benefited from it a lot. Even if Katie had to hit him over the head with the idea more than once. So he'd got to know Marcus a bit and had offered to partner him in that morning's tutorial.
Oliver flew over to Marcus during their game and whispered something to him. Marcus grinned and nodded and flew away from him a bit. Oliver pointed his wand and cast a stinging hex at him and Marcus threw up a shield. The twins saw this and grinned, and then the carnage started. It was hexes and shields everywhere. Harry and Ron didn't know shields, but they were both good enough on a broom to duck and weave to avoid the spells thrown at them. The quaffle was forgotten as they played. They'd split into teams so that Oliver, Harry and the twins were on one team, and Adrian, Terence, Ron and Angelina on the other. Scoring was soon forgotten in the mayhem and fun, and they were all laughing so hard at the increasing silliness of some of the hexes that none of them noticed Professor Flitwick heading their way to see what the commotion was all about.
Fred fired a Bat-Bogey hex at Terence who ducked, and the hex continued towards the professor who put up a shield to defect the hex easily. Fred wasn't expecting the Expelliarmus that was fired back at him though and he lost his wand. He turned to yell at whoever had done that - they'd tacitly agreed that Expelliarmus would just be annoying as it would cause people to land to retrieve their wand.
"Who bloody did that? What the hell did you do tha... oops." said Fred, as he realised that he was mid way through a rant at a professor. He stopped dead in mid air. Everyone else soon realised there was something up and looked down to see Flitwick.
Flitwick pointed at the ground in front of him and everyone landed, looking rather sheepish.
"And you're doing what exactly?" asked Flitwick.
"Erm, revision?" tried Oliver.
"Try again." replied Flitwick.
"Inter-house unity?" suggested Marcus. He might be senior Slytherin prefect, but he still knew what fun was and wasn't beyond trying to talk his way out of trouble with a bit of humour. Flitwick just raised an eyebrow at him.
"I've got it!" said Fred. "We were playing silly beggars!"
"Yes, you were." said Flitwick.
"But it was only in the spirit of learning." said George. "And fun, obviously. Oh, and celebration. We're celebrating Harry being alive, and you can't complain at that." he said, hoping that if they gave enough light hearted reasons, they might not be in detention for the whole holidays.
"Then it's time to do some learning inside. Go do something useful before dinner. Some real learning perhaps. I will be speaking to your heads of house. You are well aware that hexing each other is not allowed at Hogwarts." he turned and went back inside, fully expecting his instruction to be carried out.
The group went inside dispirited, Harry went with the Gryffindors while the other three went back to Slytherin. They were surprised and worried that no-one came looking for them before dinner. At dinner the Gryffindors and Harry looked over at Slytherin (Harry had been allowed to eat with Gryffindor for the holidays), and Marcus glanced over at them and shook his head slightly. Clearly Snape hadn't searched them out either.
After dinner Dumbledore rose from his chair and the hall went silent.
"It would seem today that a number of students found an alternative method of DADA revision today. Practical revision is only allowed with a member of staff present. Any other kind of practical revision will stop immediately. On an unrelated note, I would like to announce that we will be starting up the dueling club for the remainder of the holidays for an hour every other evening. Professors Flitwick and Snape will be in charge. All students are welcome."
Harry breathed a sigh of relief and didn't miss his friends or Marcus do the same. Harry looked over towards the head table and found Flitwick looking over at them. Fred stood up and toasted the professor with a grin. Snape leaned over the Flitwick and said something they couldn't hear which caused Flitwick and Snape to grin at them. Harry had a funny feeling that if anything needed a practical demonstration in the first dueling session, they'd be called upon to be on the receiving end.
The dueling sessions were really good fun, and well as instructional. They were designed as revision, not just for fun. They weren't the disorganised chaos that Lockhart's had been earlier in the year. They'd lasted only two sessions before they'd been stopped. Fred had a theory that it was because Dumbledore had stopped them due to Lockhart's incompetence, and no-one could find fault with that idea.
Although shielding charms weren't taught until fourth year in the syllabus, everyone got to have a go, although the professors had spent most of their time perfecting senior students' shields rather than working with the lower school. Harry's shield was weak and could be easily broken with a well placed hex, but it wasn't bad for his first few attempts.
The best part about the dueling sessions was that for the last one at the end of the holidays Flitwick had organised a tournament for anyone who wished to enter. About thirty students entered. Everyone faced a random person and the winner went through to the next round. The twins had both won their first round match and had been knocked out in the second. Harry, Ron and Neville all lost their first round matches. Hermione hadn't entered. She'd said there wasn't much point without a decent shield. It hadn't stopped the boys though.
Oliver got through to the quarter finals and was knocked out by Adrian, much to his disappointment. Adrian was knocked out in the next round. The final was between Marcus and Roger Hilliard, a seventh year Ravenclaw. Marcus was good all round, but Roger had a much faster and stronger shield which meant Marcus had to do more ducking and moving. He eventually got tired and a stinging hex got through to his wand arm. His wand went flying and that ended the tournament to great applause from the watching Ravenclaws.
On the last day of the holidays, Harry got to the Gryffindor common room early. The Hogwarts Express would arrive mid-afternoon and he wanted to spend as much time with his friends in the comfort of the common room as he could. He found Fred and George whispering quietly to each other when he got there. They stopped as soon as Harry came near.
"Do I want to know?" asked Harry apprehensively. They usually included him in their plans, even if he had no interest in helping them carry them out. It was a bit off-putting that he wasn't to be included here.
"You really don't want to know." said George, making no attempt to explain what they were up to.
"You didn't see us either. Don't mention it to the others. I promise it's not aimed at any of you."
"Dudley?" asked Harry quick to work out what didn't include him, and the fact that they'd asked him not to mention in to the others. Plausible deniability was a good thing.
"Like he said," said Fred. "You don't want to know."
Ron and Neville came down from the dorms at that point and they all had a normal day. Harry soon forgot about the twins and whatever they were up to.
"All clear!" whispered Fred.
"If we get caught we're toast." muttered George, following Fred out of the DADA classroom carrying a large, locked cupboard between them.
"I'm keeping an eye on the map. No-one's about, we've just got to get over to the Astronomy tower cellars. Stop panicking."
"Then walk a bit bloody quicker, this is heavy." said George. "And I'm not bloody panicking."
"You've got to admit, this is going to be the best pay back yet though." said Fred, suddenly coming to a stop and motioning with a free hand for George to be silent.
They stood in the corridor holding their breath while Fred studied the map. After a minute Fred breathed out again. It was after curfew on Sunday evening. The rest of school had returned in time for dinner and the twins had sneaked out after curfew to carry out a little payback. Today was preparation. Tomorrow was the show. They'd tried to work out if they could make this particular payback public, but decided that it would be much more effective to be private. It was a shame they'd miss it too, but you can't have everything.
"Keep going," he said, "that was Filch. At least he's not got that damn cat with him else we'd probably be caught."
"Think of something jolly why don't you!" said George.
They nearly got to the Astronomy tower when the cupboard started to rattle and shake.
"Quick!" said George, "There's no way I'm opening it out here."
They gave up stealthy and ran the rest of the way. Fred opened the tower's cellar door and they went inside, dropping the cupboard on the floor, from which came a noise like someone landing heavily on the floor.
"Oops. It's going to be very unhappy when we let it out." said Fred.
"Not at us though." said George with a grin.
They put the cupboard upright in a corner of the room and put a couple of items on top of it to make it look like it'd been there a while if anyone came in. The noises from inside it had stopped now that it was still.
"Tomorrow when we open the cupboard we're going to have to unlock it and run, I have no intention of getting caught by that thing." said George fervently.
"Me neither." said Fred with a shudder, "Let's go write a note to get lardboy down here. How's your Sinistra handwriting coming along?" asked Fred.
"After the poor essays we've had back between us, I've got a fair amount of her handwriting to copy from." said George with a grin.
The twins hot-footed it back to Gryffindor, checking the map all the way. The Fat Lady grumbled as she let them back in, she was too tired to threaten to tell McGonagall about them through and let them in.
Albus, Minerva, Severus and a Healer from St. Mungo's, Healer Jones, we're sitting in Albus' office.
"Mr. Dursley arrived back today." said Dumbledore. "His trunk and things were returned to him, I had the house-elves put them in storage for the holidays - I wouldn't entirely trust some of the other members of his dorm not to have done anything drastic with it while he was away."
"I'm sure they'd have been inventive about though." said Severus with a smirk.
"I'm sure they would." agreed Dumbledore. "Now, Healer Jones, when would you like to have an initial conversation with Mr. Dursley? We could pull him out of classes or arrange a time when he's free, whichever you think best. You can decide on where you want to speak to him too. We can arrange it so that Gryffindor common room is free at a certain time if you think familiar surroundings for him would be best, or we can arrange an office for you to use if you think that would be better."
"I would like to meet with him as soon as is convenient." said the Healer, "Any available office that he's not got an association with might work best. I'm not sure how he's going to be and I don't want him to have negative association with Gryffindor over this. I've read his school report and I don't think borrowing your office would be a good idea either. Somewhere neutral."
"There's a spare office near Ravenclaw's common room, I'll get the elves to make it comfortable." said Dumbledore.
"Will you be making him aware that you are reporting what he says to us?" asked Minerva.
"No, not in the first instance. I don't want him to be guarded with me. But this does also mean that none of you can use what I tell you against him. We're trying to rehabilitate him, not hold anything against him." replied the Healer. "His parents are aware of this arrangement. At least his mother is. I spoke to her through the floo and Vernon Dursley was not in the room at the time. I'm a bit suspicious about that. I would quite like to go and talk to the both of them too at some point."
"Vernon Dursley doesn't like having much to do with the wizarding world from what any of us have seen." said Minerva. "I'd recommend you start with Petunia."
"In that case I'll speak to Dudley on Tuesday evening. I've got another patient to see tomorrow, and hopefully I can get Petunia to talk to me some time during the week. Does she work? Or can I speak to her in the house while her husband is at work?"
"You should be able to speak to her during the day." replied Dumbledore.
"Excellent." said the Healer. "I will report to you all again on Tuesday evening after I've spoken with the boy."
