Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his world belong to J. K. Rowling

Chapter 25:

Perenelle Flamel, now known as Professor Prewitt, opened the letter delivered by the beautiful owl that was companion to her friend, Harry Potter, and now close friends with her own Horned Owl, Vincent. She wondered if he realised how short the owl's journeys had become.

Dear Mrs. Flamel,

Our first Quidditch match will be today ( Saturday.) I can't wait. And all of the old school brooms have been replaced with new Cleansweeps, which makes the learners a lot safer, but also, each House has been provided with seven new Nimbus 2000s, the same as mine, and those are allowed to be used for the competitions, but no newer or faster models. It means that the competitions will be more fair than they always used to be. The Weasley boys are thrilled. They play Beaters. They were good, but their brooms were pretty old. The other team members as well. The new Nimbuses were a donation from Mr. Malfoy, Draco's father. Draco said that it was because he believed in fair play, but it might also have helped Draco get a spot on the Slytherin team. But he's a good flier, so maybe not. Just that first and second years hardly ever get a place on the team.

The new headmaster says that he wants ideas for more sports to be played, and that includes more Quidditch matches, more flying, maybe races, and also other sports. He says that in Muggle schools, all the kids are expected to play sport, not like here, when the only organised sport is Quidditch, and that's only a few matches in a year.

I don't know how he's doing it all, as there are all sorts of other changes as well. There's an old bathroom, for instance, that always used to be flooded with water, mostly because of the tantrums of the ghost that lived there. I don't know whether she's still there, but the girls say that the whole bathroom has been made new and they never hear Moaning Myrtle now, so perhaps she's moved on - to wherever ghosts go when they're tired of being ghosts.

Other changes: there are now three common rooms that are open to anyone, and that means it's easier to make friends in other houses. And at meal times, there are just tables and chairs, and you don't have to sit at your House table all the time. McGonagall says that as there is no Sorting Hat, it is time that house rivalries are put aside.

But there is still the House Cup and there is still the Quidditch Cup, and they are House based. And the teachers still give points for Houses if you do something right, or take them away if you get caught doing something wrong. I think that should be abandoned, though. My whole House hated me last year when I got caught doing a favour for a friend and lost a massive number of points. (Can't tell you what, but it was illegal, except that the poor chap is too dim to quite realise.) Anyhow, it was a horrible time. If only I'd had a home then, I might have just cleared out.'

So he'd been made miserable enough by the punishment to think about leaving. That fellow students would punish the one who lost them points was probably the reason for the points system. But it really wasn't quite fair, and could lead to tragedy if a child was made sufficiently miserable. She'd mention it to the headmaster. Pucey might seem a prissy old maid sometimes, but he was a very effective headmaster all the same. And she suspected he might know something about being an outcast. Particularly clever people often were. She'd suffered herself when she'd been a Hogwarts student, but of course, that was long over. Even here, now, she was not popular with the other teachers, though they were polite and surface-friendly.

Thank goodness for Nick. She could relax with her husband; she never seemed to be able to relax with anyone else. She wondered what Harry thought of his new Potions teacher, but he hadn't even mentioned her in the last couple of letters, though he had said was when she first arrived that she was far, far better than Snape had ever been, and the new text they'd been given was a great help. 'Neville likes Potions now,' he'd said.

She knew him as a student now, and had her suspicions that he had a strong tendency to hide his intelligence. The other teachers rated him as 'average to good,' and that was the standard of work he mostly put in. Only the History teacher asserted that he was very bright indeed, though he hadn't given any evidence to back that claim - 'just a feeling he had,' he'd said.

She went back to the long letter. 'There's one change I don't really like. I always used to love the way that the owls came at breakfast with letters, but now there are slots in our common rooms, and Vreya - she's one of the house-elves - says that they sort them for us. It's a lot more boring than the owls, though.'

Perenelle smiled. She guessed it was, but breakfasts did not get spilled and there were no owl droppings where people were eating. It was a change she approved of, but, of course, she was not a twelve-year-old boy.

'I've had a letter from Sirius Black. I think I told you, but I doubt you would have remembered. He's my godfather, and he said he hoped to get to know me a bit better. So I said that maybe I'd be able to meet him somewhere in the Christmas holidays. They say that Azkaban is terrible. I don't know how wizards can be so cruel, even when a man has done awful things, that punishment is just too awful. Gilderoy Lockhart went to prison, but he was lucky. It was not Azkaban. I asked Professor Trimble, and he told me.'

There had been a discussion in the staff room that day, whether twelve was too young to be told about the awfulness of Azkaban and the Dementors. It was something seldom discussed as people preferred not to think about it - that criminals were sacrificed in order to keep the Dementors away from the rest of the wizard population. They were never interested in Muggles. Trimble had finally said that he would always answer truthfully, as best he could, when a student asked, but that there was no reason to volunteer extra information. The teachers were in agreement about that. There were few who learned much about Azkaban until they were fully adult.

Harry's letter devoted several inches to talk of his Quidditch team's strengths and weaknesses, and said that the Slytherin team was notorious for its dirty tactics, but he guessed they'd soon see.

She glanced at the rest of the letter, and then put it aside. It was time to go and watch her unknowing protégé at the sport he loved.

xxx

Harry was feeling light-hearted. Hagrid wasn't trying to kill him, Hermione might be distant, but she was perfectly polite - he still didn't know why she didn't want to be close friends any more - the headmaster was gone and so was Snape. Even Malfoy. He might only have been a minor irritant compared to other problems, but it was a lot nicer now that he was friendly. He'd even begun to look for his company, though only when Ron was not around. Ron Weasley still loathed Draco Malfoy. Most of all, he was about to throw himself into a game he loved.

The players walked out onto the pitch, brooms over their shoulders. Harry smiled when he heard the roar from the crowd. Maybe one day, it would be his career - playing Quidditch in front of people who would admire him for his skill, and would have long forgotten a stupid scar and stupid Voldy.

Their captains shook hands, each giving the other threatening looks, neither giving an inch, and then they mounted their brooms and soared into the air. Harry's nervousness vanished, as it always did at this moment. What could be better than flying? And he made a very fast three laps high above the pitch, full of his own joy of life.

Hermione, watching from the stands, shook her head. She'd been becoming too fond of him, and it was as her parents said, it was better for young girls to look for friendship among the other girls, not the boys. And she had. Susan and Hannah were nice, and then there were Clare and Rose, though they were sitting with the other Ravenclaws at the moment. Luna, as well, who had such an unusual intelligence. If she was inclined to believe in fortune-telling, she'd be thinking that Luna could be a Seer. But she didn't, and she shook her head firmly, though no-one was watching, not even Luna.

Harry was travelling so fast, and with only a frail stick to support him. It truly had been miraculous how he'd taken to flying in that very first lesson. He seemed to like the danger in it. It was far too soon to be thinking of a life partner, but if she had been, it would be foolish to look at Harry Potter. There had been no magical influence when the headmaster had explained how much her best friend was at risk. He'd said there were too many enemies, and he was unlikely even to reach adulthood, though she should not tell him that in case it made him afraid. He should be allowed to enjoy his childhood, he'd said. The nonsense in the paper? She simply did not believe it. Albus Dumbledore would not have done anything of that. It probably meant that Voldemort had begun to amass support and influence, and that influence extended to the Ministry and even to the newspapers.

She watched as the players threw themselves into the match, doing their best to score goals while Harry and Draco circled above, occasionally dodging bludgers while looking for the snitch. Hermione thought it a dangerous game with rules that could hardly be more silly - that the Seeker earned such an enormous score when he caught the snitch that the efforts of the other players became irrelevant. It was a very rare game in which the Seeker didn't win it for his team.

The rain started, and she put up her umbrella and thought how pleased Harry must be that he no longer wore glasses to get covered with raindrops. Even if his new guardians wanted him only to make use of him, at least they had done that much.

Slytherin was two goals up when Harry spotted the Snitch quite close to Draco. Rather than attract Draco's attention, he suddenly sped off in the other direction, luring Draco to follow him, then in a sudden move, ducked headfirst under his opponent's broom and had the snitch before Draco realised it was anywhere close. He held it high, and the match was over, 180 to 40. He had won the match for his team.

There were great celebrations in Gryffindor Tower that evening, but Hermione and Luna, with their Ravenclaw friends, had a smaller but better catered function in one of the general Common Rooms. It was nearly lights out when Hermione and Luna returned through the portrait hole to find the celebrations still in full swing. Luna laughed, but Hermione shook her head. There was supposed to be a House Mistress, but they almost never saw McGonagall in that role.

Harry noticed Hermione and smiled at her. Reluctantly, she smiled back. He was so much better looking without his glasses, and he was no longer as thin. Maybe one day she should think again. Maybe there were more important things than a safe partner, not that she needed to think about that for years yet, she told herself firmly. She was only thirteen and he was even younger.

In the staff sitting room, Professor McGonagall said to Perenelle Flamel, "Such a good game, Alinta."

"It was, wasn't it?"

"Exhausting, though. I think I'm getting a little old for such shenanigans."

"Your Gryffindors still celebrating?"

"Probably, but it's Sunday tomorrow, so it really doesn't matter if they're late up in the morning."

"I guess not."

xxx

Voldemort finally knew who he was, and the pain of the abrupt wenching from the body he'd occupied was no longer as intense. He decided that the husband of Bellatrix, Rodolphus Lestrange, was the most suitable for his next possessing. The man might not be entirely willing, but he was too afraid of him to resist, and his body was a little stronger than most of the inmates.

But Rodolphus started to fade after just three weeks. This time, Voldemort left him before he died. For him, it was painless. For what was left of the consciousness of Rodolphus, it was an increased feeling of emptiness. He would not recover.

Voldemort didn't delay. He chose Rabastan, brother of Rodolphus. This time, he had to overcome a more determined resistance to take control. Rabastan knew that the possession would mean his death, but he did not have the choice.

Voldemort was in a body again, but he was not making progress in his aim of regaining a body of his own and then rebuilding his army and ultimately, his empire. He needed freedom, and he needed allies. He made a determined effort to force the human guard to open his cell door, but the guard shook off the suggestion, regarded the filthy, skinny prisoner, and reported that yet another prisoner would soon die.

It was becoming a concern for those in charge of the prison. There had been one escape and then seven deaths in quick succession, not all of them because of Voldemort. But if there were too few prisoners left for the Dementors to feed from, they would make trouble. Orders were given to choose from the inmates of Bransen Prison, those who had committed the worst crimes, and in the meantime, the Azkaban rations were doubled, and the prisoners provided with new, warm clothing. Warming charms were used to reduce the chilling effects of the Dementors' presence. It was hoped that more deaths could be prevented, or at least, delayed.

The Dementors were still oblivious to the presence of Voldemort, and the inexplicable actions of Shacklebolt were a mystery - no-one could quite believe that he had been seduced by the smelly and half mad Bellatrix.

Shacklebolt didn't know, either. He didn't like to admit that he had succumbed to some sort of a compulsion from outside, and instead, tried to convince himself he had only been motivated by compassion. A prison as harsh as Azkaban should not exist. If only they could destroy the whole race of Dementors. People might say that they were needed to keep the more powerful wizards confined, but that was not true. No matter how powerful a wizard, he still needed a wand if he wanted to do more than light a candle. A Muggle prison could as easily hold a wizard as well as it could hold a Muggle man, just as long as the prisoner had no weapon.

Six new prisoners were chosen and transferred to Azkaban, those who had committed the worse crimes, but also, those who did not have influential family who would try and protect them. They really needed a few more, but no-one liked sending anyone to the torture of the Dementors, and the decision was postponed.

Gilderoy Lockhart was not among those selected, as even though he'd been found to have more serious crimes than originally thought, there were still loyal fans.

And Albus Dumbledore was not among them. Since his escape, he'd been with Hestia Jones, though he'd been surprised and annoyed when she'd suggested he contribute towards his keep if he planned to stay long term.

xxx

Halloween came, and after a brief stop in at a 'Death Day Party' hosted by Nearly Headless Nick, it was uneventful for Harry, Ron, and the rest of the Gryffindors. The feast was excellent, and the students retired to bed feeling thoroughly full.

Far beneath the school, a Basilisk continued its long slumber. There was no longer an entry into the Chamber through a girls' bathroom, and there was no longer a diary that might have entranced a silly girl into doing what the young Voldemort wanted.

xxx

The day after Halloween, Madam Pince tapped Hermione on the shoulder and handed her a book. "It says, 'To Hermione, regards Harry.' I don't know how it came to be in my shelves."

Hermione looked at it, puzzled. Harry had spoken of a book on Mind Magic that he'd sent her, and now here it was. She said her thanks, and started reading.

She was very thoughtful after. Perlkins had cleared her of having had her mind altered by magical means, but he had said that whatever she chose to believe of her own volition was totally up to her. She had chosen to believe Dumbledore, even though it was now known that he was accused of several crimes including attempted kidnap. The newspaper article had not said who, but she knew perfectly well that Dumbledore had very much wanted Harry away from the Greaves.

Harry no longer tried to talk to her, but she sometimes noticed him looking at her. She guessed she had hurt him when she had torn herself away from him in that abrupt way. It was just that she had to protect herself. She didn't want her heart broken when he was killed, and she didn't think that he would want a mere Muggle-born as a friend, not now that he was steeped in the pure-blood culture of the Greaves and those like them. She'd seen him in deep conversation with Draco Malfoy once, and Malfoy made no secret of his contempt for what he deemed his inferiors, though she had to admit he hadn't been nearly as bad so far this year.

That evening, after dinner, she went looking for Harry, finally finding him in common room C, which was mostly patronised by the younger students. She caught him saying, exasperated, "No, Colin. I will not sign any damn photograph. And if you don't clear out, I might just wring your neck!"

The boy stepped back and said cheerfully, "Maybe later then." Harry banged his forehead with his hand, and Colin laughed as he left.

Hermione remarked as the boy walked off, "He's obviously not frightened of you."

Harry grinned sheepishly, "I don't exactly want him frightened, but I do wish he'd drop this silly hero worship."

"Colin Creevey, isn't it? A 1st Year Gryff?"

"That's right," and he noticed the book in Hermione's hand and looked at her questioningly.

"It was in the library. I have no idea how it got there."

"But Perlkins said you'd not been affected, didn't he?"

Hermione said reluctantly, "He did say that there were signs of an obliviation."

"I was told that several of the teachers here showed traces of that."

"I don't know what I could be missing."

"I am terribly sorry I said anything about you. I never thought they'd put you through the mill like that."

Hermione reddened, "I hated it. But I understand they thought it necessary. And Perlkins did say that about an obliviation," and she shivered. "I hate the thought of that."

"It was probably only after the Philosopher's Stone affair, so you wouldn't believe me. Nothing more serious."

"I hope so."

When she was silent, looking a bit red-faced, Harry said, "I know how to get to the kitchens. We could get a snack and a hot drink if you would like."

Hermione glanced around. There were too many listening ears. She said quietly, "A private place? I want to talk to you a bit."

"You want to know what happened at the end of 1st year?"

"That, too."

After half an hour's solid talk, both Hermione and Harry were happier, but neither were 100% pleased. Harry was not at all sure that Hermione believed him about the Philosopher's Stone incident, even though she acknowledged that there were odd blanks in her memory of that time as well as some inconsistencies in what she remembered. And Hermione was not happy that Harry refused to understand that her parents felt that she should not be too close to boys. But she'd thanked him for the book, and promised to think about it, and not just study it until she was word perfect. And then she'd pulled him close in a hug and walked off, leaving him as confused as he'd been before their talk. He finally shook his head and returned to the dorm.

Harry wrote to Perenelle that evening. 'I have a dear friend, but she doesn't want to be friends any more. We were so close all through 1st year, and I think she might be still a sort of friend, only she said her parents told her not to be too close to boys and that girls should be friends with girls at her age and not boys. And she says we're only twelve and thirteen, but I don't know what that has to do with it. I like her a lot. I don't know what's the matter with being friends. Girls are people, too, and why can't boys be friends with girls? You're a girl (well, grown up girl) so I thought I'd ask you.'

But afterwards, he looked at it, shook his head and vanished the letter. He was probably just being very silly, maybe he was still too much just a kid and she'd laugh at him. And besides, it was private. It was just that he missed her. He was friends with Ron and Neville and Charlie, and friendly with lots of others, as well. But Hermione was not like the others. She was older than he was, close to a year older, and she was far more clever. Maybe she just wanted to be with more clever people and was too polite to say so. Maybe he was like an annoying younger brother, maybe a bit like Colin Creevey, and she preferred more mature company. He'd heard somewhere that girls grew up more quickly than boys. Maybe that was it.

And much later, in bed and half asleep, he quietly wondered if maybe when he was eighteen, say, and was much taller and had lots of muscles like that footballer Dean had spoken of, she might want to be close again. He resolved to spend more time exercising and trying to build muscles. It might not be magic that had him surviving attacks on his life; it could be that he could run faster than an attacker, and dodge quicker. That was important too.

xxx