I know it's been a long wait but here it is. Enjoy!


After Hagrid's inspection, the rest of November and December went by quickly for the fifth years, who were starting to become overwhelmed with the amount of homework and O.W.L. preparation the professors were forcing on them. Already three students had gone to the hospital wing after having stress-induced panic attacks and that was with exams over five months away. Everyone was looking forward to Christmas and the break it would provide until…

"What do you mean we need to write a three-foot essay over the holidays?" Ron Weasley burst out as Professor McGonagall used her wand to write the assignment on the board behind her. "It's Christmas! We've never had homework over the holidays!"

"Your O.W.L.s are only a few months away and there are quite a number of you that need all the practice you can get, in both theory and wandwork. I'm not the only professor that feels this way. Professor Snape and Professor Flitwick are in agreement with me that some of you are severely behind with your proficiency in casting spells that should be second nature by now."

The entire class was gaping at Professor McGonagall, who was giving them a stern frown.

"If you're having difficulty keeping up, then you'll be severely disappointed when it comes to your sixth and seventh years. There are no breaks between O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. This level of work will become the standard for your sixth year and more will be added during your seventh to prepare you for your N.E.W.T.s. There is a reason why most professors only choose to take students that receives Exceeds Expectations on their O.W.L.s and why Acceptable can be considered unacceptable."

"Well, there goes our Christmas vacation," Tracey said glumly as she and Harry walked out of the Transfiguration classroom. "I hope Mum and Dad weren't planning on going anywhere or doing something with us."

"Want to bet that it's going to be all of our classes?" Harry asked, shoving his Transfiguration book further into his bag.

"It's going to be awful," Tracey sighed. "I doubt Professor Sprout will and possibly Professor Binns and the electives, but I'm sure all the others will."

"The electives are giving even more homework," Harry informed his foster sister. "Divination has been the worst so far but I'm sure Defense Against the Dark Arts will trump everything else."

"Knowing Umbridge, she'll probably wait to see how much every other professor is giving and double or triple it. She'll probably even give the first years work to do on the holidays," Tracey grumbled.

The pair ambled down to the Great Hall for lunch, grumbling the entire way about professors and homework over the holidays. Many of their classmates were already seated, looking distinctly more morose than the decorations in the Great Hall called for.

"The sign up for who's staying behind is going around," Pansy informed Tracey and Harry as they sat down. She passed over a few bowls as they started to fill their plates. "There're a lot of students staying behind."

Tracey quirked an eyebrow in slight surprise but didn't say anything. The parchment quickly made its way to her and Harry. Tracey passed it over to her foster brother without a blink, never considering staying at Hogwarts over the holidays. Harry held on to the list, scanning over the names of those who were staying. There was an even mixture between the houses but a few of the names on the list surprised Harry.

Astoria and Daphne Greengrass. Theodore Nott. Pansy Parkinson.

Harry glanced over Pansy, who gave a one-shoulder shrug.

"My father has to travel for work over the holidays," she said in answer to his unasked question. "My mother is going with him. I didn't want to stay in the manor all by myself and there's decent enough company here."

Harry's eyebrows narrowed slightly but he didn't say anything, merely passing on the list to a group of fourth years sitting nearby.

"You're missing a great opportunity to throw a wicked party," Tracey said lightly. Pansy smirked.

"It was tempting," she agreed. "But the house-elves would have informed my parents of my plans. They're under orders to tell my parents everything that I do. It's quite annoying sometimes."

"Just sometimes?" Tracey asked in faint disgust. "I would hate being spied on all the time."

Pansy grimaced. "I would too. Thankfully it's not all the time, just when my parents aren't in the manor. By having the house-elves keep an eye on me, my parents think that they care."

"Well, you're going to have an eventful holiday here," Tracey said. "Daphne and Theo are staying? I'm starting to think that she's no longer just pretending to be his boyfriend, especially after everything we've been hearing in the dorms."

Pansy glanced over at Harry and Tracey gave him a guilty look but Harry merely shrugged.

"I'm over the shock," he said. "Good for them if that's the case."

"Theo hasn't said anything about her in the boys' dorms?" Pansy pushed.

"He's quieter than Blaise and I combined," Harry said. "Though really, the only loud mouths in our year are Crabbe and Goyle. And Malfoy, when the topic is Quidditch."

Pansy and Tracey both rolled their eyes. "Typical," Pansy muttered. "Pass the peas, would you?"


The final days leading up to the winter holidays were some of the busiest of the term, with all of the fifth years trying to finish their assigned work before break actually started, final meetings for all of the student-led organizations (both approved and illicit), and with students frantically packing during the final few hours.

Packing was a strange sensation for Harry. He was used to packing at the end of the year but aside from last year, he had never packed for the winter holidays. It was difficult not to pack everything he had and just what he would need. It was impossible to count how many things he had packed, then removed, and then repacked because he didn't want to leave it behind for it to potentially get ruined.

"For Merlin's sake, Potter, just make up your mind!" Blaise snapped as Harry dumped his trunk's contents on his bed yet again. "Packing isn't something that's difficult to do, unless you happen to be Crabbe or Goyle."

Harry glared at his dormmate, who was lounging on his bed, his trunk and a few other things stacked neatly at the foot of his bed.

"If you don't like my methods, do it for me then," he replied hotly. "Don't say anything if you're going to sit there and do nothing. You're just wasting words."

"I never waste words," Blaise said with a yawn. After stretching his arms out, he got to his feet and all but shoved Harry out of the way. He stared down at the contents on the bed for a few seconds before he waved his wand and began to direct items where to go.

"We haven't learned that spell yet," Harry stated.

"We don't normally learn household charms. I was forced to learn this one because of the multiple moves my mother and I have made. You'd be surprised how many men are uncomfortable with the thought of living in a dead man's house with the deceased's widow. Anyways, the practical charms aren't in the curriculum," Blaise replied. "The Ministry thinks that there's no point in students learning these particular charms because they'll pick it up from parents or house-elves will handle it for the wealthier families. However, they do consider it essential that we learn how to make fruit tap dance."

"That doesn't make sense," Harry muttered.

Blaise turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "That's because the Ministry doesn't understand practical anymore," he said. "You're done. Now lock your trunk and wardrobe so we can actually enjoy the rest of our time until break starts."

Harry rolled his eyes but did as Blaise suggested and the pair headed for the common room, where there were a number of fifth, sixth, and seventh year students struggling to finish their homework before the train left.

"You're joking," Daphne said as she spotted Blaise and Harry pulling out a deck of Exploding Snap cards. She pushed away her Transfiguration homework in slight frustration. "Don't you two have homework to be doing?"

"I finished mine," Harry stated.

"I haven't even started most of mine," Blaise replied as he began to deal out the cards. "I'm waiting until I get home to avoid spending time with my mother and her newest husband."

"Why don't you just stay at Hogwarts if you're not going to even spend time with your family?" Daphne asked with a biting tone to her question.

"Because Christmas is about being with family," Blaise replied, treating the question as if it was a stupid one. Daphne glared at him and Blaise chuckled. "It doesn't matter if I actually spend time with them or not. My mother is satisfied as long as I'm in the same house."

Daphne stared at Blaise for a few seconds before she gave a frustrated sigh and pulled her Transfiguration homework back towards her. Harry caught Tracey giving Blaise a sympathetic look before she realized that Harry was looking at her. Cheeks turning a faint pink, Tracey busied herself with a Defense Against the Dark Arts essay.

Harry and Blaise played Exploding Snap in relative silence, with the explosions being the few exceptions. A few games in, Harry and Blaise focused less on the game itself and seeing if they could subtly push the cards to explode more on the other person.

Daphne let out a shrill shriek as a handful of cards toppled over onto her homework and exploded, leaving scorch marks and a burning corner on her Transfiguration essay.

Tracey's hand jolted at the sudden high-pitched noise right next to her and she scowled as her quill tore through the parchment.

"Daphne!" she scolded in frustration.

"Blame them!" Daphne declared, waving a hand to Harry and Blaise who were in a silent debate about who had caused the cards to go in the girls' direction.

"It was an accident," Blaise said, taking his gaze away from Harry. "Are you really going to blame us for an accident?"

Daphne rolled her eyes but said nothing, choosing to put out her burning parchment instead. She couldn't prove that either of the boys had done it on purpose but she wasn't going to let the incident slide.

Catching the glint in Daphne's eye, Tracey picked up her parchment, quill, and ink, and sat back in her seat. A throw pillow was quickly conjured into a desk table and she started writing her essay over. At least it was only a draft and not the final copy like Daphne's had been.

For the next couple of games, both Blaise and Harry alike suffered sudden setbacks that involved with the cards falling or nearly falling onto their laps. Naturally they suspected Daphne, but since her wand wasn't visible and she wasn't doing anything obvious, they couldn't blame her.

After all, why should they blame someone for an accident, no matter how suspicious it was?

When breakfast came around (served late to accommodate the train schedule and to give students a few extra hours to do homework and get things arranged), Tracey had a final paragraph to write on her final essay and Daphne only had two essays and a bit of review left to do. Harry waited behind for his sister to finish while Blaise and Daphne decided to go on ahead.

"Finally," Tracey declared, finishing her essay with a ferocious flourish. "I didn't think it was possible but I managed to get that mountain of paper done before holiday."

"We're probably one of the few," Harry commented as Tracey stretched and tried to get the tingling out of her feet and legs. "It really wasn't a lot of work for each class—except for DADA and Potions—but I think it was the fact that we had homework to do over break and that it all came during the same day that overwhelmed most people."

"Tell that to the Gryffindors," Tracey muttered. "Everyone except Granger was still in denial about the fact that they actually had coursework and hadn't started it yet."

Harry rolled his eyes, unsurprised.

Breakfast passed quickly and then it was time to board the Hogwarts Express for the students returning home. As Prefect, Harry was supposed to patrol the train corridors every half hour in case something was to happen.

Not that something would happen. Unlike at Hogwarts, there were very few areas that students could go where they weren't supposed to be and there were eyes everywhere. For the most part, Harry only had to deal with the tattling and that he had learned to block out after the first hour.

"I'm returning my Prefect's badge at the end of the year," Harry muttered after he completed his last set of rounds. His foster sister and Blaise chuckled.

"That would be a first," Blaise said. "I don't think Professor Snape would know how to react. A Slytherin Prefect has never turned in their badge."

"No Prefect ever has," Tracey added. "There's only been a handful who had that privilege revoked and that was either because they were being expelled or their grades went down and professors decided they needed to focus on studying more."

"A Prefect was expelled?" Harry and Blaise both raised eyebrows.

"They were caught taking books out of the Restricted Section," Tracey said. "Without permission."

"So, doesn't everyone do that at least once?" Blaise scoffed.

"The books discussed summoning…creatures. Spirits. Demons." Tracey rolled her eyes as Blaise broke out in laughter. "I know. It's amusing now but it was a couple of centuries ago, when people believed that such things existed."

"Why would they even keep a book like that in a school?" Harry asked. "Isn't that just asking for trouble?"

Tracey shrugged. "You'd be surprised what books end up in the Restricted Section."

"The Ministry probably donated it," Blaise said as he recovered from his laughing fit. "After all, the Hogwarts library is considered a private collection. The Ministry is required to have a public list of all the books and texts they have in their departments, even the Department of Mysteries, but private collections don't have such requirements, so the Ministry donates books and artifacts from time to time. One of my former stepfathers worked in the Department of Magical History, which oversees the public registry of texts. He would occasionally bring books home that were deemed too dangerous for the public to have access to."

Harry and Tracey both grimaced at that bit of knowledge.

"So he brought them home to—how old were you at the time?" Tracey demanded of Blaise.

"Six, I think. He disappeared a few days before my seventh birthday, I remember."

"So he brought them home where a six-year-old could find them?" Tracey asked.

Blaise shrugged and leaned his head back so it was resting on the compartment cushions. "I guess he was hoping I would be curious enough to look inside of them and burn my eyes out or curse me inadvertently."

"He sounds like a lovely person," Harry drawled and Blaise chuckled.

"Sure he was. That's why that was the shortest marriage of my mother's so far."

Three sets of lips twitched upwards into smiles that all three Slytherins were desperately trying to repress.

"Well, have fun over break," Tracey said as the Hogwarts Express started pulling into the station. She stood and got to her feet, making sure that her trunk was within easy reach for when they disembarked in less than a minute. "Let me know who doesn't survive the holidays."

"It's Christmas," Blaise protested as Harry opened the compartment door. "We save that stuff for the summer holidays."

Tracey rolled her eyes and shifted her feet to keep her balance as the train jerked to a stop.

"See you in the new year," she told the dark-skinned boy before pushing her way out into the corridor which was suddenly filled with students desperate to get home now that platform nine and three-quarters was just a few feet away.

"See you next year," Harry muttered and Blaise waved them off as he pulled his own trunk down from the shelf above the seats.

Zach and Catherine were waiting near the back of the platform. Harry frowned when there wasn't a third person with them. Sirius had written and said that he would be spending the first part of the holiday with Harry and his foster family.

Hopefully that hadn't fallen through.

"Where's Chloe?" Tracey asked as they approached the parents.

"Your grandparents commandeered her for the afternoon," Catherine stated. "They took her to St. Mungo's to treat her ear infection."

Tracey grimaced.

"Where's Sirius?" Harry asked.

"He had a meeting to go to. He'll be back late tonight," Zach stated. "He wanted to be here but he said the meeting was unavoidable and that he had to attend."

Harry's frown deepened. Another meeting. He shouldn't be surprised but somehow he had assumed that those meetings were held during the summertime only.

If Sirius had only given a name of the meeting or the people he was meeting with, Harry wouldn't have bothered. But the lack of details, the lack of names…it was starting to make him think that Sirius was up to something.

No, that couldn't be it. Sirius couldn't be part of a secret organization that was forming an underground resistance. That was something that teenagers and preteens did, not adults.

Right?


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