Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: I'll admit this chapter is a bit short, but it was originally going to go on the last one. I decided it made more sense to end it where I did though, but at least you didn't have to wait long at all for this one :)
"How did it go? Are you filing charges against them?" Madam Pomfrey asked her friend when Harry left the infirmary.
"I can't. He said they treat him well, and there isn't anything to be concerned about," Madam Bones frowned as she rolled up the parchment she'd been taking notes on.
The medi-witch stared at her in confusion. "No…what actually happened? That can't be right."
Amelia Bones opened Poppy's desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of whiskey she knew lived there. "You mind?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Only if you don't pour me one too," Poppy took a couple glass tumblers from a cabinet in the corner and passed them over.
"Mr. Potter asked about the process we take in our investigations, and then when I told him, he said nothing was wrong," she explained. "I don't know what part of the process scared him, but it's standard to have an abuse victim checked out by a ministry approved healer and then an investigator sent to the home."
Poppy closed her eyes and let out a sad breath. She knew exactly what part of that Harry would object to. She'd assumed that her fabricated medical file for him would be enough, but it made sense that the ministry would have an official healer to collect evidence. "What do we do then, Amelia? I can't let him go back there. They are without a doubt abusive."
The head of the DMLE sat back in the armchair she'd claimed in her friend's office and sipped her drink. "Now, Poppy…you were the one in Slytherin while I was a humble Hufflepuff…what would one do for a student who should not go back to their relatives, relatives who by all accounts would love to not see him for the entire summer…?" Amelia raised an eyebrow as she sipped her drink again.
"You were never a humble Hufflepuff," Poppy snorted, but now she had a mischievous smile on her face as she reached her tumbler out to clink it against the other woman's.
"Now about this werewolf professor…why am I just now hearing about this?" Madam Bones glared at her friend.
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with a werewolf professor," Poppy rolled her eyes. "The problem is the man himself, not his affliction. If he would follow the rules…"
"Right, right," Amelia snorted and cut her off before she could get on a rant. "Now, about the dementors…why didn't I know they were such a problem?"
"I don't know…it's not like I didn't complain loudly and consistently since September," Poppy drawled sarcastically. "That is on the ministry…I expect to see them gone before next year. Personally, I'd prefer you take them with you today."
"I don't have that much control over them currently," she thought pensively for minute. "I will get them taken away though. You have my word. As for the professor, I know you have a bleeding heart and will argue for his continued place here…"
"Merlin, no!" Poppy coughed on her whiskey in surprise. "I want him fired! I have no problem with a werewolf teaching here, but only if they follow safety protocols to the absolute letter. He has proven that he cannot. I will not have my children put in harm's way!"
"I'll drink to that then," Amelia smiled and clinked their glasses together once more.
Cedric Diggory sat in the middle of the quidditch pitch enjoying the sun shining on his face and the warmth of the day while he waited on his friend for their seeker's game. He smiled as Harry became visible just outside of the stands, walking slowly with his broom over his shoulder and a medium sized box in his other hand. Cedric wondered what the box was for, but just leaned back on his forearms and waited for Harry to finally get there.
"Hey, Ced…good day?" Harry asked nervously.
Now, that was different. Cedric peered up at the teen now standing over him and blocking the sun. Why was Harry nervous? "Yeah, looking forward to our match. I desperately needed a break from studying for OWLs. What about you? How's your revising going?"
"Er…ok. I'm not big on doing too much revising," Harry shrugged like he really couldn't be bothered to spend extra energy going through his textbooks. "Erm…I have something for you, and something I wanted to ask you," he said, passing the box to Cedric.
The Hufflepuff sat up when Harry joined him on the ground and opened the lid of the box in interest. He paused and stared at the contents questioningly. "Harry…"
"Oh, er, well…I know you like strawberries at breakfast, and you always choose something chocolate for dessert, so I thought these would be nice…" Harry nervously explained.
Cedric's eyes widened at the largest, most delicious looking chocolate covered strawberries he'd ever seen. Now, Cedric may have only been a fifth year, but he knew quite a bit about crushes and giving gifts before asking someone out that you were interested in. He'd dated a couple girls already, though the relationships hadn't lasted long and had ended amicably with them deciding to remain friends. He had yet to be on the receiving end of this attention before, but this gift definitely looked like he was about to get asked out.
"Harry…" he began again, not exactly sure where he was going with this. "I need you to be really clear with me now, ok? What are you asking me?"
Cedric looked up at him. He didn't think he was interested in his younger friend, but he had to admit that Harry was quite cute. He hadn't really considered it before, but now that the thought crossed his mind, he wasn't absolutely certain he'd be against it. But was that was Harry was asking…?
"Oh, sorry," Harry cleared his throat and seemed to be trying to look very formal. "Cedric Diggory, would you do the honor of officially being my friend?"
"Er?" Cedric frowned. What? "I thought we were already friends?"
"Well, it wasn't official now, was it?" Harry smiled as relief started replacing the anxiety, and he looked at Cedric like he should obviously know what he was talking about.
"I guess it wasn't…" he laughed and took a strawberry out of the box to eat, pushing down the small spark of disappointment at the question. "Then, yes, I will officially be your friend."
"Great! Now, I'm going to make you wish you'd never heard of quidditch before!" Harry jumped on his broom and flew off laughing into the sky while Cedric polished off the strawberry and flew after him.
"So, pup, how'd it go?" Sirius asked with a smirk on his face while he poured Harry some tea that Dobby had just delivered, only being slightly sore and stiff now when he moved.
"Great! He said yes!" Harry grinned back and snagged a biscuit off the tray.
"And he knew what you were talking about? He didn't make any other assumptions about what you might be asking him?" Sirius raised an eyebrow with an amused look in his eyes. He'd at least talked Harry out of the flowers, but he just wouldn't be dissuaded from the strawberries he'd had Dobby help him make in the kitchen for the Hufflepuff seeker.
"No, what would he think I would be asking him?" The teen had an adorable look of confusion on his face.
"Nothing…nothing at all," Sirius shook his head and laughed. He was definitely leaving this conversation for Poppy. She was a medical professional, so it was only fitting. "How's revising going?"
Harry groaned and sank down on Gryffindor's comfortable couch. "Don't you start in on me too!"
"Mr. Potter!" Remus Lupin called out for his student to stay after class ended on the last day of term.
Harry had just finished up the obstacle course Lupin had set up for their final exam and had blasted the Ron-boggart right out of the course with a violent burst of accidental magic. He grimaced and assumed he was definitely about to be in trouble. It wasn't his fault that his magic tried to protect him from emotional trauma though!
"Professor?" He sighed while the rest of the class filed out except for Ron and Hermione who stayed just within hearing range to be supportive. That and they were now on the Lupin is a terrible adult bandwagon when Harry told them what happened the night of the full moon, leaving out the fact that Snuffles was Sirius Black, but actually filling them in on knowing Salazar Slytherin's snake. He'd thought he had already told them that, but apparently not. Surprisingly, neither wanted to meet the giant, deadly snake.
"I just wanted to apologize," Lupin said awkwardly. "I haven't been allowed to talk to our…mutual friend yet, but I hope you realize that I didn't know."
"Yes, sir. I'm very aware of that," Harry nodded stiffly, wishing that he was getting in trouble for the boggart instead of having to have this conversation.
"Well…you may have heard, but I'm not returning next term…"
More like he'd been fired, Harry snorted to himself internally. He found it quite hilarious that he was directly responsible for the loss of the last three DADA professors. It seemed that if there was actually a curse on the DADA job, then it'd decided to use him as its choice of person to work through. Frankly, based on the three professors so far, he wasn't against it.
"I had heard something about that, yes," Harry replied drying in the understatement of the century.
"I'd hoped that maybe…well, maybe I could write you sometime? Maybe tell you a little about your parents?" The professor looked at him with an apology shining in his eyes.
Harry saw it, and he saw that the man really did feel badly, but he was already on Harry's list. He was done with the man. "I'm sorry, Professor," Harry commented with no emotion in his voice. "I'll be much too busy taking care of Snuffles and with my schoolwork to reply to any letters. Maybe if we'd talked about my parents while you were a teacher here, but you see…I'm much too busy now," he replied as the man's face fell and he looked like he'd been slapped.
"Harry…"
"Mr. Lupin…I hope you have a good life," Harry nodded at him, actually meaning the sentiment, and turned on his heel to join his friends.
"I never want to see myself as a boggart again," Ron grumbled when Harry joined them and they walked towards the castle. He slung an arm around his friend's shoulder. "You should have set it on fire."
"Accidental magic is called that because it's accidental," Hermione rolled her eyes at him. She still looked put out that she hadn't made it past her McGonagall boggart that told her she'd failed though.
"Eh, I tend to be able to aim for ice more easily," Harry shrugged as that did seem to be the direction his magic went when he got a spell wrong. He figured it had something to do with his magic being more dead than most. "So…what classes are you dropping for next term, Mione?"
She growled in frustration. "Fine! I'm dropping Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures…between you, Madam Pomfrey, and my parents I'm surprised I'm not only enrolled in all the fluff classes with the two of you!"
"Oi! I resent that!" Ron scoffed.
"Yeah, Divination is actually pretty awesome! I hope Trelawney predicts a really gruesome death for me in our exam this afternoon!" Harry grinned at both of them. "I mean, I survived attack by werewolf, so she's going to have to top that one."
Hermione looked completely scandalized as Ron laughed from where he was still draped over Harry's shoulders. "Merlin! You're mental!" He gasped out between laughs. "I love it!"
Harry stared at the woman in front of him whose eyes turned opaque and who was gasping in rattling breaths. She opened her mouth and Harry already had his quill poised over his parchment to write down what he could only suppose must be about to be a prophesy.
"The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been hiding these twelve years. The servant is disguised no longer and has sought out the one he owes his allegiance. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever he was. The war is coming…the war…will…begin…"
"Huh," Harry looked down at his parchment and frowned.
Trelawney cleared her throat and shook her head, looking at Harry in confusion. "Sorry, my child, I must have dozed off a bit there…"
"Er, no ma'am, you just made a prophesy. It was quite impressive too," Harry looked at her with awe in his eyes. "Too bad that it was about Voldemort rising again though…at least it sounds like he's not planning to possess someone this time around."
She scoffed at the teen in front of her. "Of course, I would never make a prophesy that ridiculous, Mr. Potter!" She informed him imperiously. "It must have just been a dream. You have misunderstood, my child."
He frowned and looked between his parchment and the woman. "Hope so," he shrugged. "Anyway…back to my crystal ball…I'm pretty sure I see a raven and a clown. I think that means that death follows me, but it's going to be fun…or maybe terrifying. I guess it depends on what you think of clowns."
"Ready for my report?!" Harry was sitting in Professor Slytherin's chambers as the man himself paced and both Helga Hufflepuff and Godric Gryffindor chatted flirtatiously with each other in the corner.
Harry had spread out all the papers from his notes the entire semester on the professors he was supposed to be evaluating, and they took up the entire kitchen table. "Whenever you are, Harry," Slytherin waved a hand for Harry to begin as the other two founders quieted down to listen.
"Well, Binns we already got rid of, and it's not on me to find a replacement," he shoved all his notes on History of Magic to one side. "Flitwick is perfectly competent, so I stopped taking notes after the second week of class, so is Sinistra and Sprout. McGonagall is a good teacher, but I think she's overworked," Harry picked up that stack of parchment and flipped through it. "She's teaching, head of house, and deputy headmistress…"
"We'd never have given one person all those jobs," Helga sighed and shook her head.
"Yes…I don't know what to do about that, and Dumbledore is already on your bad list," Harry looked to Slytherin who sneered. "Besides the whole werewolf-cover-up thing, I don't have anything against the man though."
"I don't like him," Godric added in, in case it made any difference.
"Anyway…Hagrid is doing pretty good. Poppy and I have been having to help him with his lesson plans though since most creatures are afraid of me and react poorly in class. I might have to drop next term," he sighed, not really wanting to drop the class.
"What about Divination and Potions? Those were the ones I wanted the most information on," Slytherin prodded impatiently.
"Hold your hippogriffs," Harry rolled his eyes and pulled forward those two stacks of parchment. "Trelawney is awesome! And, she just prophesied Voldemort's return during my exam! I mean…he's already tried to come back a couple times now, so it's highly likely. She even said I was likely to die from a ritual gone wrong…that's probably what killed me, right?!"
"Possibly," Professor Hufflepuff nodded her head. "We think we might know what happened to you, but our guess seems highly unlikely. We need more evidence. If your Dark Lord did a ritual for what's called a horcrux, it could explain what's attached to your soul, but we have no idea how in Circe's name it could be done accidentally."
"Ok," Harry nodded, impressed they had found something. "You want me to look it up?"
"No!" All three founders exclaimed at once with horror on their faces.
"Merlin! Fine, I won't look into it," the teen looked at them like they'd all gone mental. "If it's that bad, I don't want to know anyway. Just let me know when you all know for sure, ok?"
"That we can do," Hufflepuff assured him quickly.
"Right then, I vote we keep her," Harry summarized firmly. "I vote the same for Snape. He's a terrible teacher, but he saved my life."
"You're such a Hufflepuff!" Slytherin rolled his eyes.
"Why thank you," Helga smiled at both of them.
"Hey, Quirrell tried to kill me, Lockhart wiped people's memories, and Lupin also tried to kill me. If there's a professor that wants to save my life, I'm all for keeping them…even if they are acerbic gits," he explained with a shrug. "I might be hard to kill…or rather end my existence, but I have friends who aren't. I'd like to keep the non-murderous professors around as long as possible. Besides…I think I'm wearing him down."
"I doubt that," Slytherin smirked. "What does your mother say?"
"Er, she still wants him gone, but surprisingly, Dad's come around to wanting him to stay," he said with a grin. That had been an interesting argument. "Besides, there isn't much I can do to get him fired anyway…though I do have a pretty good track record at this point since I've gotten rid of…four? Right four professors now."
"I vote we keep who we have and move to focusing on the wards," Gryffindor spoke up. "They are having to hire two new professors next term anyway, and you said the wards were basically in shambles."
"A bit of an overstatement there," Hufflepuff smirked at Slytherin.
"Maybe not shambles, but they definitely need an upgrade," he clarified with a roll of his eyes. "Fine, we'll keep the professors we have, but keep an eye on them. Make sure to take all the warding books from the shelves over there when you leave," he motioned to the bookcase behind him.
"Right," Harry piled up his parchment again and stacked it neatly on an end table before starting to pull every book the founders pointed at off the shelves to pack up for his summer vacation…or long study session and slave labor to his relatives.
Harry sighed sadly as he looked out the window of the train at the platform of Kings Cross Station. "Come on mate, perk up," Ron shoved his shoulder with a grin. "Dad said we might be able to take you to the Quidditch World Cup. Wouldn't that be awesome?!"
"Hmm, yeah, that'd be great," Harry smiled sadly at him.
Sirius had left the day before by a portkey for the Japanese rehabilitation facility and Harry was not looking forward to another summer with the Dursleys, especially since he'd blown up Aunt Marge the summer before. Dobby and Poppy had just hustled Sirius off and made sure Harry had everything packed up before they sent him off with a quick wave. He'd really miss them too.
"Right, here's my phone number," Hermione passed Harry a slip of parchment with a number on it. "You call if you need anything. My family isn't that far from you if you're in Surrey."
"Er, I don't have a fellyphone, but owl anytime, mate. Fred and George still know how to steal Dad's car," Ron assured him next. "Even though I know you'll be too busy to respond to any owls," he smirked, reminding Harry of what he'd said to Lupin.
Harry rolled his eyes and gave his friend a playful shove as they collected their trunks and Hedwig in her cage to leave the train. The platform was just as busy as Harry remembered from the past two years, and it was a pain and a half to shove through all the families to cross the barrier to where his relatives would be waiting on the muggle side. "See you guys later!" He waved behind him to Cedric and the twins who were chatting by a pile of luggage before he pushed his trunk back into the muggle world.
Harry took a deep breath and looked around at all the hurrying muggles for his Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia, but he didn't see either of them. He frowned. Maybe they decided not to pick him up that year?
"You ready? Got everything then?" A familiar voice asked him from his right.
Harry spun around and smiled at the woman wearing muggle jeans, a green t-shirt, slightly muddy trainers, and who had her graying hair up in a messy bun on top of her head. "Poppy! What're you doing here?!"
"Why, kidnapping you, of course!" She laughed and took Hedwig's cage from him.
"What? You can do that?" He asked, trotting along behind his kidnapper happily as she led him out of the station.
Poppy just shrugged. "Sure, why not? Your relatives were woefully easy to convince. Plus, I'm fairly certain the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement would cover up my crime in this instance."
"This is awesome!" Harry exclaimed. "How're we getting to your house?"
Poppy winced dramatically. "Hagrid has this motorbike thing…I'm not the best at driving it, I'll be completely honest with you…"
"Best! Summer! Ever!" Harry exclaimed in even more excitement as they made their way from the station and out into London.
Up Next: Harry and the Prewett twins take on the Quidditch World Cup...