The book was put away for the time being and the comfortable seating vanished, the house and head tables being summoned back to the hall. Everyone moved back to their respective tables for dinner, with the group around the trio joining them at the Gryffindor table like they had during breakfast and lunch, while the other visitors sat at the Head table.
Hermione and Ron instantly turned to Harry and got his attention before Hermione was signing rapidly to him, making sure that Ron was able to see the signs as well.
Are you ok? Was your scar that painful? Does it still hurt?
Hermione, I'm fine. I just forgot how painful it was when I was in his presence, since I've only had flashes from strong emotions since June, Harry assured her.
Are you sure mate?
I am. I'll be fine. My scar will flare again in the last chapter, and I will need your help to cover up the fact that I may black out, since I did in first year.
Of course, they both agreed, almost instantly.
Do you think we should give them the option about the calming draught for the next to chapter? Like, give them the calming draught and warn them that we think they should save it for the last chapter, but that they can take it if they feel like they'll need it next chapter? Ron asked.
That's probably a good idea, Hermione agreed.
Especially with how your mum, and probably your dad and siblings, will react when we get to the chess set, Harry added. They stopped their private conversation as food appeared, since they would need their hands to eat rather than talk.
Harry groaned at the two potions that appeared next to his plate. He knew that he would have more that night before he went to bed, as well as different ones for when he woke up and with breakfast, but that didn't mean he was looking forward to it. Especially if they tasted as bad as all the other potions that he had had to take during his various stays in the hospital wing. Hermione and Ron glanced over at him when they heard his groan and Ron had to stifle his laugh at Harry's misfortune. He only had two potions he had to take with dinner – a nutrients potion and a vitamin potion, according to the labels on the bottles – but Ron knew he would have more for other times of the day.
Up at the Head table, Severus was watching Potter and recognised the nutrients and vitamin potions that had appeared near the boy's plate. He had been hoping that the things described in the book about his home life had been the worst of it, but if Potter had to take those potions, then it had to have been worse to leave such impacts on his body. He made a mental note to ask Poppy which potions he needed so that he could start brewing them before her own stocks grew too low; there was only so many of each potion that could be kept in storage.
"Just take them now and get it over with. You know they're for you own good," Hermione said as Harry filled his plate, ignoring the potions.
"But the taste," Harry whined.
"Take them and then eat to get rid of the taste," Ron suggested. Harry sighed but grabbed the bottle with the shimmery, vivid blue potion, which was labelled as the nutrient's potion, uncorking it, and gulping it down quickly. Harry made a face at the taste, it tasted like bananas, which he hated. He put the bottle down again and took a sip of his pumpkin juice, to get rid of the taste, before picking up the other bottle, which was the vitamin potion and was an emerald green with an almost mirror-like sheen to it. He drank that potion quickly as well, liking the taste of it better than the nutrients potion; it tasted like orange and lemon. He put the bottle back on the table and was surprised to see both bottles vanish, but just assumed that a house elf had collected them.
"How were they?" Ron asked as he ate. Harry shrugged, beginning to cut up one of the potatoes on his plate.
"The first one tasted like banana and the other tasted like orange and lemon."
"So pretty good compared to most potions," Hermione said.
"I guess. It makes sense since most people would have to want to take them. I just don't like that the one I have to have the most tastes like bananas; I really hate the taste of banana," Harry said with a shudder, taking a bite of his potato.
"That's rough mate. And it does make sense to have a taste that most people like, especially if you have to convince kids to take them often," Ron agreed.
"Why do you have to take potions?" Tonks asked, remembering that he hadn't been taking them during the summer.
"Poppy put me on them," Harry replied with a shrug.
"You'd tell us if you were hurt or sick, wouldn't you Harry?" Remus asked. Harry shrugged again and kept eating, not knowing how to reply to that.
"What potions are they?" Fred asked. He and George had both recognised the colours and the tastes of the potions and could place them as common healing potions, but not what they actually were.
"If you don't mind us asking," George added. Harry shrugged.
"Just ones that Poppy says I have to take. The blue one with every meal and the green one with breakfast and dinner," Harry said, glancing down at the list she had given him to check when he had to take them.
"Then there's a few more that Poppy says I have to take at other times during the day," Harry added.
"You call Madame Pomphrey, Poppy?" Remus asked. He had been a regular visitor to the hospital wing when he was at school, and he had been out of school for over 15 years, and he still didn't call Madame Pomphrey by her first name.
"Yeah. We have a good relationship. I even have my own bed in the hospital wing, and she's talked about adding a name plate to it to officially claim it as my bed while I'm at school," Harry said.
"How often do you end up in there to have your own bed?" Mrs Weasley asked, having just sat down at the table again; she had pulled Dumbledore and McGonagall, and would have pulled Hagrid in too if her was there, into the small chamber off the hall and they had vaguely heard her yelling at them about responsibility around children and endangering first years.
"Enough times that I know how many tiles are on the roof, floor, and each wall from counting them so many times, and enough times that I know exactly what spells she uses to monitor her patients and the rest of the wing."
"How do you know which spells she uses?" Bill asked.
"You have to know what spells are monitoring you before you're able to get around them," Harry replied simply before turning back to his plate.
"He gets annoyed by her constant need to keep him overnight, or just longer than he believes he needs to be in there, so he sneaks out whenever he can manage," Ron supplied after he and Hermione had calmed down from laughing at Harry's statement and the shocked expressions it had caused amongst the rest of their group.
"Is that healthy?" Tonks asked.
"I make sure I feel fine before escaping. And most of the time she's already said that I'm fine but that she wants to keep me for extra observations, or I just needed something small healed, so I know it's fine to sneak out. She only keeps me for extra observations most of the time because of how much I end up in there anyway," Harry said, rolling his eyes, even as he admitted to himself that it was a valid question, since the book so far had shown that he didn't always think about his health.
"How is Norberta Charlie?" Hermione asked, trying to direct the conversation away from what they were going to get up to next and from Harry's health, since she knew how secretive he was about that.
"She's doing great. A Ridgeback from another reserve was moved to our reserve, since that Ridgeback had been causing troubles with the other Ridgebacks at the other reserve, and to keep Norberta company, and they ended up mating at the start of last year. She was actually one of the options for the Tournament since she had her eggs at the right time. But the Horntail was chosen over her."
"I can honestly not say if I would have preferred Norberta over the Horntail. On one hand, a dragon I've never seen before with long tail spikes, on the other, a dragon I vaguely know with venomous fangs," Harry said with a small shudder. At least he would have known some things about Ridgebacks without needing to research, since they had researched them when Hagrid had first gotten the egg.
"The Horntail was finally selected because of two factors. The venomous teeth that Ridgebacks have, and the fact that Ridgebacks are some of the most territorial dragons, especially when it comes to their eggs," Charlie said. "It would have been bordering on suicidal to put someone seventeen against a nesting mother Ridgeback, let alone someone who was only fourteen."
"And it wasn't bordering on suicidal as it was?" Ron asked sarcastically.
"Especially since we weren't told about the dragons until a handful of minutes before the task started," Harry added. He knew that they all had known, but it was the fact that they weren't meant to know that counted in this situation.
"We had handlers on sight if anything started to go badly, and a crew of handlers could subdue any of the dragons that had been brought over; a territorial Ridgeback protecting her nest would not have been able to be subdued by a crew of handlers, it would take at least two crews to manage that," Charlie explained.
"Talking about dragons, let's talk about the improbable and impossible things that you've done," Ginny decided.
"What do you mean?" Ron asked, tilting his head innocently in a way that he had seen Harry use successfully many times.
"Riding on a centaur?" Fred suggested.
"Seeing a dragon hatch?" George added.
"Wrestling a troll?" Ginny suggested.
"What are you getting at?" Hermione asked, letting Harry listen but not contribute to the conversation, as she could tell that he was still uncomfortable because of the conversation with multiple people about his health and time in the hospital wing and guessing that he would just want to focus on eating.
"Well, what's next? Time travelling? Breaking into another house's common room? Fighting Acromantula?" The trio all shifted at that, because, yes, they had actually done all of that. Neville caught their movement and their sheepish looks which none of them were able to hide quick enough; he had to be quick to notice their facial expressions, since all three of them were good at playing innocent or hiding their true feelings about topics they didn't want to talk about.
"You didn't actually do any of those, did you?" he asked.
"Ask us no questions and we'll tell you no lies?" Ron offered.
"You know what? Sure. I'm not going to question it. For my sanity," Neville decided.
"Fair enough," Hermione agreed.
"Probably smart," Ron said.
"Can I see the list? I can't remember all of your predictions, only that many of them actually happen," Harry said.
"By many…" the twins said together, trailing off as George passed the list over.
"Like we said earlier, more than you'd expect," Harry said, looking over the list.
"Well, Neville will be pleased. That happens in the next chapter," Harry said, pointing Neville's suggestion out to Ron and Hermione.
"Yeah, it was brilliant when you did that," Ron agreed.
"Really?" Neville asked, surprised that they had actually managed to scare or control Peeves in some way while in first year. Then again, with what they'd already done in first year, he really shouldn't be that surprised about what they could do at their age.
"Yeah, it was pretty brilliant," Hermione agreed. "Oh, and Lavender will be happy when we get to that part." She pointed out Lavender's suggestion, causing Ron and Harry to grin.
"Can't believe you actually did that, Mione," Harry said.
"Did not think you had it in you," Ron agreed.
"You actually managed to get Rita Skeeter to stop printing lies?" Tonks asked.
"You must have noticed that none of the articles in the Prophet are hers. Well, she didn't just decide to stop writing lies when she woke up one day," Hermione said with a small smile and a shrug.
"That makes seven that I know you've done then, including those two and the ones we've read about. How many more have you done?" Ginny asked.
"You'll see. But I have to say, Terry has to think we're crazy if he thinks we'll ask the Blood Baron why he's covered in blood and actually get an answer," Harry said. "And breaking into Gringotts? Flying on a dragon? Really guys? No matter what those two might say," he nodded towards Hermione and Ron, "I'm not stupid enough to break into Gringotts or try to ride a dragon."
"What about the others? Do you think you'd do them or not?" Bill asked. Harry, Ron, and Hermione scanned the list, trying to work out what to say without giving away any that they'd already done. They couldn't even comment on the founder's objects as a whole, which would be much easier than isolating each item, since that would bring attention to the one item they didn't mention, since Harry had actually found the sword, and they didn't want to discount anything that they thought they could possibly do due to the war that they knew was coming.
"Both about the corporeal Patronuses are pretty probably. Um, I doubt we'd meet a giant, since we're not going to go looking for any. Unless you count Hagrid," Harry offered.
"I don't see why we'd bother breaking into the Ministry," Ron added.
"We've never actually met the Grey Lady, so I doubt we'd find out who she is," Hermione said truthfully. While they had met with, and gotten to know quite well in some cases, a lot of the ghosts in the area that many of them spent a lot of time, the Grey Lady had never been there while they had been, and they'd never personally encountered her.
"Fair enough," Charlie agreed. The conversation amongst the group continued on lighter topics until the food disappeared, causing everyone to turn their attention back to the Head table and Dumbledore.
"There are only two chapters left of the book and we will finish them before we all head up to bed tonight so that we can start the next book tomorrow. So, if we can all stand so the comfortable seating can be returned," Dumbledore requested. Everyone stood and made their way back to the seats they had been sitting in before the meal and getting comfortable again.