Lily's Journal 6

2/28/15 - 1/18/16: Chapter 6

Year 2, part 1

Harry, Padma, and Su had just found a compartment to themselves near the middle of the Hogwarts Express, when they were joined by Daphne, Tracey, and Blaise who all greeted each other excitedly. After settling into the two benches of the compartment, with Harry and Blaise each squeezed in the middle seats between their two female housemates, the group quickly began filling everyone in on what their summer vacations were like. Tracy showed off her tan, and talked about how much she enjoyed relaxing at her Brighton Beach house.

Daphne talked about how much she enjoyed France, and also her happiness at getting a break from her little sister Astoria who wouldn't be starting at Hogwarts until next year. While she loved her sister very much, she liked to complain about Stori, as she called her, aggravating and annoying her older sister every chance she could. With Padma the only other of their friends that even had a sibling, it was somewhat weird for the others to truly understand the sibling bond, but all could see from Parvati and Padma that sisters didn't always get along or seem alike. Padma added her own stories of India, her own annoying sister, and the best part of her holiday spending time with Su and Harry at Su's and her house for the last few weeks.

Blaise regaled them with tales of his annual trip to Italy, with balls and parties his mother dragged him to that were incredibly formal, but interesting at least for some of the famous and exciting people he met. Su talked about learning her family martial arts and magic from her father, and Harry added that he too had taken up martial arts as well as learned from Mr. Li and had a productive summer break. He mentioned all the practicing magic in his trunk, including his progress with his left hand casting and introduction to ancient runes.

Harry also thanked Daphne profusely for getting Neebo to look after him as he spent the first six weeks practically ignored and would have been unfed if not for the wonderful house-elf. Although he did say it was much better than usual, his friends all understood that they were right about Harry's home life and glad they thought to enlist Neebo's help as they all wondered about what could be done to help Harry out more permanently. Nobody should have to put up with that kind of behavior, and especially not the Heir to the Noble and Ancient House of Potter and the famous boy-who-lived.

Harry also gifted Daphne with an expandable feather light dragon hide messenger bag in appreciation of her loaning of Neebo for the summer, which she absolutely adored and thanked Harry gratefully. The others all asked about where he got the bag as it was something they all would like for school, and he told them of how he found it in an old travel shop tucked in a side alley next to Owlops Owl Emporium, but had purchased the only two they had for himself and Daphne. He agreed though to send Hedwig to the shop to see if he could order more for everyone, if they truly wanted one as they worked better than the standard bags they all purchased from the Trunk shop for transporting their books and supplies between classes.

It was pretty far into the trip, when the group was interrupted by the trolley lady coming by to sell her sweets and snacks, of which they all picked out their favorites and settled back down talking about the upcoming school year. They were all somewhat worried about DADA, as they had all read some of the silly adventure books of Gilderoy Lockhart they were required to get, and couldn't really find any actual defense spells or instruction included in them. Tracy mentioned being in the bookstore during the author's book signing, and learned he was actually going to be their DADA teacher and had also witnessed an actual fight between Lucius Malfoy and Arthur Weasley started by their "lovely" children.

They all had a bit of a laugh, as they all knew how much Draco Malfoy and Ronald Weasley detested each other and couldn't hope to ever get along, despite them both being rather similar in their blatant and unfounded prejudices even if they were for different things. Draco's pureblood superiority and wealthy elitism versus Ronald's anti-Slytherin and anti-dark anything mixed with his incredible jealousy over everything he didn't have. Every member of the group had several run ins with both of the obnoxious boys, and all felt they would be better off if they could avoid them entirely.

Harry though asked about Lucius Malfoy, and then told everyone about Neebo's intercepting of the Malfoy house elf Dobby and the plot he warned Harry about being set up by the Malfoy Lord. The three Slytherin's promised to try and keep an eye and ear out for Draco, incase he seemed to be involved in the plot and they all promised to be more careful this year as they all remembered the end of last year and mostly Harry's role in things. Harry had to make several promises to the four girls present that he wouldn't be going off looking for trouble like an idiotic Gryffindor without real help and backup this time.

Almost like they were summoned, there compartment was shortly afterwards invaded by the Gryffindor duo of Hermione and Neville who were both partly responsible for much of the end of year adventure Harry had the previous year with the Philosopher's Stone and Professor Quirrell and Voldemort. They said their hellos, and suffering through the glares of Padma and Su, Neville thanked Harry for the Herbology book on his birthday and asked if they were going to continue with the weekend training and practice as it had really proved beneficial to the still rather shy Gryffindor boy. Hermione too wanted to tag along sometimes, and also needed to apologize to Harry and the others for the role she played in getting Harry involved with the Philosopher's Stone adventure which Harry easily accepted, though Su and Padma especially were less forgiving initially.

Harry agreed that they would continue their weekend training practices, and that they were both welcome to come and participate as it would be much like it was last year. The Gryffindor pair left shortly after, as Terry and Anthony arrived to catch up with their friends and talk about everyone's summers and complain about the Lockhart DADA books. They too were happy to learn that they were continuing their training practices on the weekends and library study sessions during the week.

It wasn't much later that the train was arriving in Hogsmead Station, and the group of second year students made their way to the carriages being pulled by what Harry learned last year from Tonks were Thestrals. Not exactly happy that he could see the skeletal horse like creatures due to witnessing Professor Quirrell's death several months earlier, but he at least had made some peace with the death of his possessed former teacher. His continued Occlumency meditation had really come in handy to review the events of last June, and let him deal with the issues that arose from that encounter, and understand better about the necessity of his actions.

HIs thoughts on the end of the previous year, reminded him that he still had Nicholas Flamel's Philosopher's Stone in his Gringotts money pouch, not knowing what to do with the extremely priceless magical artifact. He had tried to write to the elderly alchemist over the summer, but it was one of the letters that Dobby had intercepted, and in the confusion and busy schedule of his summer he never got around to re-sending it. He would have to remember to try it again once he got settled back in at school, since he didn't think it was right to keep the priceless magical artifact for himself even if he did want to run an experiment or two on it.

Soon Harry and his friends were back in the Great Hall, sitting at their appropriate House tables waiting for the new first years to be sorted so the opening feast could finally begin. They saw all the teachers gathered at the Head Table except for Professor McGonagall, and most of the second year Ravenclaws groaned at seeing the smiling blonde peacock looking new DADA Professor Gilderoy Lockhart sitting in the seat that was occupied by Professor Quirrell the year previous. The only good thing about it, was seeing the absolute glare of loathing that Professor Snape was directing at the blonde in his forget-me-not blue robes and crooked matching hat.

Harry and his friends didn't hold out any hope that the upcoming year was going to be any better in DADA than the one previous, as the new teacher inspired less confidence than Quirrell who was seemingly scared of his own shadow, though Harry knew that to be an act. He expected to spend most of this year learning defense on his own, and was somewhat upset that Tonks was no longer around to get her to teach him new spells and work on his dueling though he did have a pretty big group of friends to practice with instead. He reminded himself to continue writing Tonks as she had recently started her first year of Auror training, and could probably use the break and encouragement every once in awhile from the what he heard was a very grueling schedule.

Luckily, the sorting began and went quickly and the hungry students were able to eat their fill and catch up with their friends and meet their new housemates. The first year Ravens were a pretty plain group that didn't stand out much, except for the seemingly wide eyed Luna Lovegood with her radish earrings and butterbeer cork necklace that stood out more than almost anyone in their house. Harry was close enough to the group of first years to hear the interesting new girl talk somewhat spacey about magical creatures he never heard about and wasn't quite sure even existed, though sounded rather entertaining.

When the feast was done, the Ravenclaws made their way to their common room and settled around continuing their greetings of their housemates and friends as some of the students slowly started making their way to bed. Harry said goodnight to his friends after a little bit, and found his room the same as the previous year and began putting his things away on his bookshelves and wardrobe before leaving his trunk next to his desk. He only kept out his school books and few reference books he knew he would be using often, leaving the rest of his growing book collection in his trunk library before going to bed.

The next morning, Harry was up early and waiting in the common room reading a book on basic wards that he was getting close to figuring out a way to make work and getting pretty excited about it. By the time Padma and Su came down from their rooms, the common room was pretty full as they waited for their Head of House to come and have the usual start of term announcement. It wasn't long before Professor Flitwick was greeting his students, handing out class schedules, and then sitting down to talk with the first years as the older students collected their books and made their way to the Great Hall for breakfast and their first classes of the day.

As September 2nd was on a Wednesday this year, and their class schedules were exactly the same as the previous year, all the second year students had the morning off to compensate for the late Tuesday night Astronomy class. So, after their breakfast they all headed towards their usual training classroom to practice their spells and make sure they didn't forget anything and to ensure that they kept their skills sharp after the long break of no or little magic for some of them.

It didn't take long to realize that aside from Harry, nobody else was quite able to practice and advance so much over the course of the summer as they had other things going on. Su had kept up her practicing and skills with all the work she did with her father, but most of it was more specialized family magic. Her and Padma were both better off than the others though, and attributed it to practicing with Harry in his trunk during the last few weeks of the summer.

Everybody else quickly got winded from having not expended too much magic over the summer, and knew they would have to rebuild their reserves if they wanted to get back to where they were at the end of the year. Harry on the other hand had greatly increased his reserves and skills, and had reached the point where his off hand casting was almost equally as fast and accurate as his dominant hand was. Nobody wanted to practice duel him after seeing him warm-up, and he ended up taking on Daphne and Blaise combined and still beat the pair rather easily.

He really enjoyed the difference in the uneven odds duel though, and asked if the others also wanted to test him as it was a great training exercise to try and keep track of two opponents at the same time and really pushed him much more than the single duels they usually had. After defeating every pair that came forward to duel, the others all quickly realized that Harry was truly performing on a level far above them all and each promised to get better to give him a real challenge. Harry's training in dual casting and martial arts made him a very gifted magical dueler, that had plenty of speed to both cast and avoid spells as well as the power and stamina to shield and attack simultaneously and keep up with any of his peers.

When their practice was done, they all split up for lunch at their house tables, and then it was off to the Ravenclaw's first lesson of the new school year, a double Herbology class shared with the Slytherins. Primarily, the class consisted of being introduced to some of the plants and things in Greenhouse #2 that they would be working more in as the year progressed but then it was back to Greenhouse #1 to review and finish the last few thing in there they had not yet got to. The class passed quickly with only minimal fuss, mostly Draco complaining about it being servant's work, which most of the other students had learned to tune out by now.

With only a small review questionnaire to fill out for homework, the Ravens all had it knocked out before dinner, and allowed them to gather in the library after their evening meal to prepare for their other classes or study their own interests. For Padma and Su, this meant getting started on Occlumency, and for Harry Legilimancy while Daphne, Tracy, and Blaise reviewed for Charms and Potions. Neville and Hermione were busy with Charms review and homework as well, though theirs because they had an afternoon Charms class where they had to review all the charms learned last year for homework.

Thursday morning began with History of Magic and Charms before lunch, were Professor Binns immediately droned on about another Goblin Rebellion and Professor Flitwick had them review the previous years charms until they could successfully perform them all. After lunch was a double Potions class, that had Professor Snape instantly begin the new year's potion making, after a half an hour of question and answer session that probably would have reduced unprepared first years to tears. The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs though knew what to expect and came prepared for the most part, all except Zacharias Smith anyway who suffered brutally and would be spending three nights in detention to make up for his unpreparedness and blunders.

All in all a pretty typical day in potions, and Harry thought Professor Snape may have been even harder on him than he had in the past though could not find any fault in his answers or work as one of the top students in his year. Harry still held out hope that he and the dour potion master could at some point find a common ground and get along enough to talk about his mother, but if the year's first class was any indication, that day was still a long way off. Either way, he only felt a small Legilimancy probe at the beginning of class that retreated immediately upon finding his now rather strong barriers in place, and only had to suffer an extra suspicious narrow eyed glare from his professor for a moment afterwards.

Friday morning was double Transfiguration followed by double DADA in the afternoon, and while looking forward to the first, Harry and most of the Ravenclaws were dreading the second. McGonagall's class was mostly a review of the previous year, and ensuring everyone had the basic foundations down before moving on to larger and more complex transfigurations which Harry and his friends were very glad about. Lunch after class proved torturous as they all dreaded what was to come, having heard from the Slytherin second years who had the man's DADA class the day before, that he was truly an incompetent egotistical idiot.

When they arrived in the DADA classroom, most of the students were shocked to see the many dozens of paintings all of Gilderoy Lockhart himself scattered over every wall and available surface in the room. Egotistical didn't even begin to describe their newest professor, and Harry was finding it very difficult not to try and destroy all the paintings that kept waving, smiling, and seemingly primping at everyone like a peacock showing off. Some of the girls present seemed to sigh and look around at all the pictures with gleams in their eyes, and Harry was very thankful that group did not contain Padma or Su, but had to laugh as he noticed Hermione among them.

"Welcome students to Defense Against the Dark Arts," started the ridiculously dressed professor, "I am your instructor ...Gilderoy Lockhart ...honorary member of the Dark Forces Defense League ...seven time Best Selling Author ...defeater of the Bandon Banshee ...and five time winner of Witch Weekly's "Most Charming Smile" award."

"But let's not talk about me ...I surely didn't get rid of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf by smiling at it," he continued with a large and idiotic looking smile on his face, that had several of the obviously enamored girls to practically swoon in their seats and most of the rest of them to groan or scowl in irritation.

"It will be my job to prepare you all to face some of the many dangers out there in the real world, like I have many times ...for full details, see my published works," he continued with condescending chuckle and dramatic flip of his hair and smile that looked truly ridiculous and more at home on a Paris fashion runway, than a DADA classroom. "Let's start with a small quiz to see how many of you came prepared to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts from me ...Gilderoy Lockhart!"

The quiz he passed out to all the students, was beyond useless as it was filled with countless questions just about Lockhart himself, like his favorite color and hair care products, dreams and achievements, and nothing about actual defense or spells at all. Harry got increasingly pissed off as he read through the quiz, having expected the class to be lacking but never did he imagine it would be this useless. He knew several of the answers from his one quick read through of the man's stupid books, but he wasn't inclined to validate this man with answering any of these ridiculous questions.

Instead he just left the quiz blank, and used the time to start listing out all the inconsistencies he had found between the dates found in those books where he was apparently doing two things simultaneously. Or rather, those times he was obviously lying about his accomplishments rather than the times Harry just suspected he lied about things. He saw Padma and Su both slowly filling out the quiz, although neither looked too happy with it while Hermione was practically racing through it with an excited gleam in her lovestruck eyes.

After collecting all the quizes, Professor Lockhart began thumbing through them making tisking noises of disapproval at how few people answered the questions correctly until he came to Hermione's where he smiled largely and commented on how well she knew all his likes and got all the answers correct. He also paused when he saw Harry's paper, and actually pulled it out of the stack to page through both sides to find not a single answer given, which had him shoot a disappointed look towards the young wizard that went ignored.

"No matter," muttered the blonde haired professor as he set the quiz papers aside on his desk, where several of the students now noticed a covered cage that the older wizard was now standing in front of and waiting until he had the whole class' attention, something that Harry could tell fed the man's large ego even more. "Now, it is my job to prepare you for facing some of the darkest of magics and creatures ...as I have had to do on many occasions."

Harry could hardly believe the ego of the man, as he never seemed to shut up about himself and was constantly bragging about his exploits that Harry seriously doubted happened the way the man described. Despite the many glaring inconsistencies and errors in the man's fictional accounts of his travels and exploits, he also used what Harry described as fairy tale magic, in that it wasn't real and would never work the way the man explained. If the homorphus charm really cured lycanthropy, there would be practically no werewolves anywhere in the world as few would willingly choose to live a persecuted lifestyle like that.

Harry could hardly pay attention to the man's self aggrandizing, as his over the top bragging rubbed him all the wrong way, as someone who had spent the last year trying to hide and downplay his own celebrity. That this man accepted and self-promoted himself to such a degree really bothered the dark haired young wizard, and knew he would not like this class for the second year in a row. He had just zoned back in on the professor as he moved to remove the cloth covered cage, having a very bad feeling about anything this man tried to teach them.

"You will have to face against some of the most dangerous things in this very classroom," started the pompous professor, "but have no fear ...nothing can hurt you as long as I am present to protect you all."

WIth that ridiculous statement that did in no way reassure anyone intelligent enough to know better, or should have at least, several of the students leaned back in their chairs in apprehension. A few of the enamored girls just looked upon their professor with adoring eyes that made several of the boys and those not enamored with the fake teacher groan.

"Now, try not to scream as you might provoke them," continued Lockhart, before whipping off the sheet covering the cage to reveal about a dozen small blue cornish pixies that had some of the class giggling and others groaning, expecting something bad to happen.

Something bad certainly did happen, as the idiot professor let all the pixies out immediately and instantly caused a complete ruckus that had the pixies quickly wreaking havoc on their classroom. The professor, after making a ridiculous and useless attempt to corral one of the pixies and in the process lost his wand to the creatures and quickly hid under the desk before crawling out of the classroom leaving the students to themselves amidst the chaos. Harry was busy watching the little pixies make a mess of things, and didn't get involved until a pair tried to grab his messenger bag that had him quickly fighting back.

His wand was out in a flash, with a pair of stunning spells that instantly knocked out the two pixies nearest him. The rest of his friends had at this point also gotten their wands out and began taking aim at the small blue pixies, thanking all their practice with dueling spells and accuracy to each take out at least one of the creatures. It was only moments later that they had all the pixies knocked out, and Harry and Padma started levitating the creatures back into the cage on the teacher's desk.

With the pixies locked back up, and their scarred teacher still hiding in his apartment in fear the class mostly all began packing up their things and leaving the classroom in a bit of a mess that they couldn't care less about leaving for the useless teacher. There were only a very few students left now that held any kind of respect for the incompetent teacher, his actions in class turned several of those who were trying to give the pompous man the benefit of the doubt to realize his uselessness. Hermione was only one of their friends to still try and defend the professor, but hardly anyone listened to her knowing her usual views on authority figures, and teachers specifically and knew they wouldn't be able to change her mind on this.

At least grateful that it was now Friday afternoon, and that there were no more classes for them and their weekends had officially begun, most were able to put behind the miserable DADA class and professor and look forward to the weekend. Harry, Su, Padma, Terry, and Anthony all made their way to their dorms to grab any of their books they needed to get started on their homework, hoping to get as much of it out of the way as they could before dinner. They all met back in the library and got an hour head start due to the shortened DADA class, before they were joined by Daphne, Tracy, and Blaise.

WIth all the extra time before dinner, the Ravenclaws at least were able to finish all their assigned homework and spent the evening reading and exploring other interests in the library while the rest of their group finished their work and then joined them in studying ahead. The weekend was spent practicing their magic in the afternoons, and for Harry and Su working on their martial arts together in the mornings. Both Blaise and Neville were very interested in their martial arts practice and asked if they could join in which the other two agreed to if they wanted but without real instructions it may be slow going for them.

Harry told them to both start with basic physical conditioning in order to get their bodies ready for the physically demanding discipline, and that they would continue to practice on Saturday and Sunday and Wednesday mornings after breakfast since they all had Wednesday mornings free as well. None of the others were interested though in either learning martial arts or basic physical conditioning, even if there were significant benefits to their physical and magical stamina because of it.

Daphne, Tracy, and Hermione were all happy with their current levels of physical fitness, and Terry and Anthony weren't interested in cutting into their Gobstones club which met in the mornings on the weekend. Only Padma agreed that she would maybe join them once in awhile understanding the benefits of fitness and an increased stamina in relation to her magic, but just wasn't too interested in working out or learning martial arts. Instead she was planning to use that time to increase her magical stamina through magical exercises and extra practice related to spell casting.

That first weekend went pretty well, with everyone slowly getting back into the swing of things and reconnecting after the long summer break. The Ravens and Hermione were all just happy to be back at school learning new things, while the Slytherins were glad to be in their second year as there was much less jockeying for positions within their houses' power structure now that they were all more known quantities. Neville was glad to be away from his domineering grandmother and back with friends who encouraged and pushed him instead of simply belittling him.

Harry was a little upset though, as he missed Tonks, or really just an older student who gave him private lessons and really pushed him to get better as now he was the strongest of his friends. Being the strongest meant he spent more time trying to get everyone else to catch up, and less time trying new things to get even better and stronger which he missed greatly. He decided to start looking into finding a new older student slash mentor to continue his own progress and started making a list and keeping an eye out for his target.

His first thought was to go seek out Penny, who was the sixth year Ravenclaw prefect, but she was pretty busy with her own duties and much more of a theory based student. Arthur was the male sixth year prefect, though Harry didn't really know him well and thought he too was more like Penny as someone who spent more time on Magic Theory than practice. He also considered going to his Head of House Professor Flitwick, but was kind of holding off on that until he was much stronger and exhausted all of the student help and student spells he could learn and needed to take that next step beyond student levels.

After watching a lot of the older Ravenclaws, Harry figured that most of them probably fell into the strong theory and academic side of magic, and few if any were truly strong spellcasters. This became even more true after watching some duels in the Ravenclaw practice room between some of the older students, and realized that they weren't even that much better than he was at his current level and figured he would have to look outside of his own house. Roger Davies was the only student in his house that seemed to take practicing magic as seriously as studying magic, but he flat out refused Harry deeming his time too precious, and not really wanting to practice dueling but mastering known charms primarily.

Of the Hufflepuffs, only Cedric Diggory seemed a viable option, but he too was primarily just into improving his transfiguration skills, which while helpful wasn't exactly what Harry wanted though did promise to come to him if he ever needed help as he was a pretty nice bloke. Oliver Wood was considered from the Gryffindors, but he was way too Quidditch obsessed to dedicate any time to truly practicing magic, and Percy Weasley was too much of a stick in the mud to even consider. The Weasley twins were only average spell casters, who were really only interested in Charms and Potions and what they could do to help with their pranks and they were the best of their age group in the House of Lions.

That only left the Slytherin upper years, which would be very tricky, as despite not being involved in the whole Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry, he was still the Boy-Who-Lived and not a big fan of everyone in the House of Snakes. His friendships with Daphne, Tracy, and Blaise as well as being cordial to the other second years in the house definitely improved his standing but he still wasn't too sure about approaching some of them. After trying to talk to the returning seventh year Marcus Flint, Harry got the impression that the older boy would actually practice with him but couldn't shake the feeling that the other boy wouldn't be really trying to hurt him the whole time and figured he would work up to that until he felt he could hold his own.

After asking Blaise, he learned that his best bet was probably going to be fourth years, Adrian Pucey and Miles Bletchley who were both adequate duelers that did ike to practice often but weren't too big into the Pureblood Supremacist movement. They only really survived in the power structure of the house because of being on the Quidditch team, and the prestige that went with it. Neither boy was particularly mean spirited, and were both more loner types that just fell in together and realized they was safety in numbers when you weren't incredibly popular or rich in the snake den.

They both kept their heads down, did their work, and didn't make noise, and had pretty much been left alone among their housemates and would probably be willing to help Harry out, though they might want some compensation. Both families were actually rather poor as far as purebloods went, and it was one of the reasons they weren't part of the main group and ignored by their classmates. Harry decided to give it a try and approached the pair one night after dinner that first full week of school, and was pretty happy that they didn't immediately dismiss him out of hand.

Harry would be meeting them Monday and Wednesday after dinner for two hours each night to learn spells and practice dueling, provided he paid them each two galleons every month. Harry agreed under the condition that they work hard, and would only be paid at the end of the month unless they agreed to make a vow. They were impressed with the second year's boldness and cunning and agreed to the payment terms leaving both parties very pleased with the situation and Harry eager for the first meeting.

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That second weekend of the school year passed very much the same as the first for Harry, with martial arts in the morning and spell practice with his friends in the afternoon. His workload still hadn't really grown too much as most of his classes were either doing review or the teachers hadn't at least loaded down the students with homework leaving him plenty of free time for his own pursuits. Those pursuits had him in the library late Sunday night until he returned to the common room only minutes before curfew to see Su and Padma in their favorite corner reading.

As he was about to join them, he heard a pair of third year girls he vaguely knew just by name as Cho and Marietta harassing and saying some rather rude and hurtful things to the unusual first year Luna. While he had heard Luna talk a few times about what he came to believe were completely made up creatures, he also knew that the girl was completely harmless and rather timid around others. So he knew that whatever was happening was in no way the slightly spacey girl's fault and thought it rather mean spirited of older girls to pick on one of the younger ones from their own house.

Having seen the older girls around often enough, he knew that they both thought of themselves as the top of their class, and remembered that there were a few instances at the beginning of the previous year were the two older girls had hassled Padma and Su a bit. Not remembering when or how his two friends got it to stop, he hoped that it had something to do with their association with him as both Cho and Marietta had at times tried to talk or greet him rather friendly though he was not a fan of rather fake people who only wanted to know him as the Boy-Who-Lived. Also not a big fan of bullies from his time at the Dursleys, Harry had very little patience for it now and knew he had to put a stop to it immediately.

"Hey Luna," he greeted happily as he walked right up to the rather small and wispy blonde girl, practically ignoring the two older girls in the process. "Are you ready to join me and my other friends to work on that magical creatures project?"

Luna looked shocked and wide eyed at Harry, in a combination of astonishment that he would talk to her and confusion at what he really wanted. She had seen the rather famous Boy-Who-Lived around the first few weeks of school, and had only witnessed a driven and pretty friendly person not likely to be trying to prank or trick her and wondered what he was doing now. Realizing that the older two girls were staring at Harry in shock too, she hoped that she could use this excuse to get away from the petty and mean girls who had been teasing and tormenting her quite a bit already into the school year.

"Um ...yeah, I'm ready," she answered somewhat shyly, but also rather hopefully that she may have found someone in this school who wasn't going to just ridicule and make fun of her.

"Great, come on," he answered easily, and before she knew it had reached for and grabbed her hand gently pulling her away from the two older girls without even acknowledging them.

Harry brought Luna over to where Padma and Su were sitting and watching the unfolding scene with somewhat wide eyes at Harry's blatant ignoring of the older girls who thought they ran the house of the Ravens. Having both been on the receiving end of Cho and Marietta's harassment early in their first year, they were glad to see the two bullies get handled so well by their friend, and realized that he had just saved another girl from their harassment. Knowing how grateful they were to be under Harry's protection so to speak, they were happy to include another even if the girl in question seemed a little odd at first they knew that she was intelligent or she wouldn't be in their house.

"Luna Lovegood, this is Padma Patil and Su Li," spoke Harry introducing the first year blonde to his two best friends with an easy smile. "Why don't you study with us from now on, we could use a new perspective and a new friend?"

"Did the Nargles tell you I was looking for new friends?" asked Luna with complete seriousness but a somewhat flighty tone, "because the Blubbering Humdingers think your group is the best in the whole school!"

"No, Nargles didn't have anything to do with it," answered Harry seriously, "and I think the Blubbering Humdingers are exactly right," he finished with a genuine smile that had Luna happily return one of her own before sitting in the empty chair next to Su and greeting both girls politely.

From that point on, Luna was a constant presence in their little group both following along to the nightly library sessions and weekend practices and easily fitting in with the rest of them. It took a few times and a couple of small speeches from Harry to convince Terry and Anthony to accept the somewhat odd but very smart girl without any further complaints. The three Slytherins were quicker to understand Harry's reasoning for bringing in the younger girl, both to protect her and cultivate a relationship with the intelligent and fairly connected young Raven.

While most in the Wizarding World discounted much of what the Quibbler Magazine contained there was a very strong following and readership, and a great deal of truth hidden among the nonsensical articles as well as some of the most interesting and challenging runic puzzles of their time. When they learned that Luna herself was one of the major contributors to the runic puzzles along with her father, it went a long way to convincing them all that the younger girl had much to contribute and bring to their little group and happily accepted her. It also convinced Harry that he needed a subscription to the magazine which his new friend was glad to get started.

As the month of September came to an end, Harry and all his friends had definitely gotten back into the swing of things at Hogwarts or integrated well into the group and steadily catching up in Luna's case. Neville and Blaise had both begun physical conditioning and very basic martial arts training where they quickly learned that they were a long way off just from being fit enough to really learn anything of value though they both kept at it. Hermione had finally come around after reading the hundred or so inconsistencies in the Lockhart books that Harry and the others compiled, that proved the man a fraud and she had to reevaluate her unquestioning beliefs in authority figures and teachers especially.

During October, Harry continued with all his studying and practicing growing stronger and more confident in his abilities every day. His martial arts with Su, Blaise, and Neville was showing real progress for him and Su who were much further ahead than the other two. Thier continued magic practice was also going well, with Harry still outstripping his peers and learning even more from the pair of Slytherin fourth years he hired to help him, Miles and Adrian.

Both older boys were fairly good duelists, who also excelled in Charms and some Transfiguration that worked well in fights like conjured birds and small animals used to distract opponents and shield from spell fire. While neither was as athletic or active as Harry during duels they both had a lot to teach him and their twice a week practices were filled with new spells and techniques and lots of dueling. Harry was pleased to be pushed and struggled against each boy when they dueled and only won rarely, but was improving every time they fought and both older boys could see it and were motivated to get better themselves to continue giving the younger wizard a good fight.

Another thing Harry dealt with over this time was a few experiments and diagnosis spells with the Philosopher's Stone he rescued at the end of his first year and still had with him. He was able to get the goblins to send him a few bars of lead real cheap, and had used them to try and experiment with the gold making properties of the legendary stone. He also tried soaking the stone in water and a few other simpler ideas trying to get the elixir of life that the stone was most famous for but nothing seemed to work without at least some kind of magical trigger.

If he fed the stone raw magic, something he only tried by accident after casting several detection and diagnosis spells, he was able to trigger the transmutation of lead to gold and able to transform the water into a swirling golden elixir that he was planning on experimenting more with before simply ingesting it himself. After turning all four bars into solid gold, Harry stored them away, and made plans to get his hands on more lead so he could create a small emergency stash of gold just in case. He also created a dozen goblets full of the swirling golden elixir he hoped was the famous elixir of life the stone was most known for so he could experiment with them some more, and keep several doses in stasis in case he was right.

By the time Halloween came around, Harry was comfortable in his new routine and really starting to see all the benefits of all his extra work paying off. He had put on a little more muscle, his stamina both physically and magically had been steadily increasing, and he was performing magic at or near the top in every class. He still occasionally read from his mum's journal at night before bed, liking to feel more connected to her, and also continuing to learn more ideas for spells and alternate learning opportunities he would explore later.

Some of those priorities changed however after his horrible Halloween luck struck again.

Meet and help Luna, Luna brings up problem with Ginny changing & diary.

Miles Bletchley & Adrian Pucey (Slytherin 4th years - 2 years older than Harry)

-Monday & Wednesday night 7-9pm

Order messenger bags from Travel shop for friends Christmas gifts (except Daphne)

Correspondence with Flamel about Stone (experiments)

Start new school year (same schedule as first year, cycles through all 7 years)

*Ravenclaw Second Years Schedule:

Monday 9-10:30 Herbology (R&S), 10:30-12 History of Magic (R&H), 1-4 Charms (double R&S)

Tuesday 9-10:30 DADA (R&G), 10:30-12 Potions (R&H), 1-2:30 Transfiguration (R&S), 9-12 Astronomy (All 2nd Years)

Wednesday 9-12 FREE (martial arts practice), 1-4 Herbology (double R&S)

Thursday 9-10:30 History of Magic (R&H), 10:30-12 Charms (R&S), 1-4 Potions (double R&H)

Friday 9-12 Transfiguration (double R&S), 1-4 DADA (double R&G)

Saturday & Sunday martial arts morning, spell practice afternoon