"Come on, it's this way" James lead Harry down into the bowels of the Ministry, to the Auror section of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It was Boxing day, and most of the Ministry was still shut down and empty, but not the Aurors – crime happened even on holidays. "Here, take a seat, and tell Lionel what happened." Lionel was an officious looking man in his late twenties, with a precision hair cut and complete lack of creativity.
Harry nodded and started telling over about the Dementor attack. He stopped at the part where he and Dudley left the park – he saw no need to go over how he cast some reparo spells to clean up their clothes, and they made their way back to Petunia's, only for the Potters to make their excuses and leave early because James had a 'work Emergency'. (The excuse was for the benefit of Jack the Dull).
"Hmm. That must be the 'Under Age Use of Magic' citation from that area that we received. Nobody was around to look into it, as yet." Lionel took down a few notes, "And there will also be a citation for use of magic in font of a mugg.."
THUNK
Lionel stopped writing as a pair of hands slammed into the table on either side of his parchment. He looked up to see James leaning in across the table, his eyes boring down into his own from just two inches away. In his own way, Lionel was pretty smart. He immediately realized that he was in a predator / prey situation. He gave a mouse-like squeak as he quickly leaned back. "The regulations.."
"State that use of magic in self defense supersedes the directive against under age magic. And the Muggle in question is listed as family, and therefore approved for knowledge of the magical world." James growled.
"Yes, yes of course," Lionel nodded, crossing out the last few comments that he had written down. "I will see that this is all taken care of."
"Great!" James stood up and smiled, "I'm glad we managed to resolve that before any harm was done." The smile slipped off his face as he gave Lionel one last, hard look, to make sure he understood how much 'harm' would land on his ass if he didn't file the paperwork correctly.
As they walked out of the office, The elder Potter turned to the younger. "Let's go down to the Department of Mysteries – I managed to get an appointment with Croaker to talk about how you decapitated a Dementor," James was now positively radiating paternal pride as he led Harry deeper into the maze that was the Ministry.
\*/
"Neville! Hey everybody, Neville's back!" Ginny crowed when she spotted the 'Other Potter' at the train station as all of the students were gathering to head back to school after Christmas break.
"What brings you back? Did the Americans kick you out?" Ginny asked as Dean and several other Gryffindors drifted over.
"No. Salem was ok. Not great, but I was adjusting. No, the reason I came back was so that I can correspond with Harry." He pulled out a small hand mirror. "Dad gave me a two way mirror so I can talk to Harry. But it doesn't reach across the Atlantic." Neville shrugged, "and besides, I'd rather be here with you goons anyways." He grabbed Dean and tried to give him a noogie, but the other boy squirmed out of the way and it momentarily turned into a wrestling match before both stopped and adjusted their clothing as if nothing had happened – they were in public. They were almost adults after all, and had to maintain decorum.
British adults, at that.
Neville quickly looked around to see if he could spot a particular (aloof) Slytherin, but she was nowhere to be seen. And honestly, he wasn't certain how to approach her if he did find her. Almost all of their interactions had been through letters, where she came across as warm and friendly and nothing at all like her in-person demeanor of teenage mafia don.
'Oh well. I'll figure it out.' He turned towards the train, "Come on, let's go find a compartment.
As they were walking up to the train, they were intercepted by Hermione Granger. "Did you hear? Ron's father was attacked at the Ministry. He's fine, now, but it would be great if you could keep an eye on Ron, to make sure he's doing ok." She knew that Ron would never admit it, but he was scared about the visions and worried about his dad.
Dean frowned in confusion, "why? Was Ron also attacked?"
Before Hermione could reply, Neville asked, "Is Ron still an ass, or is he over being the Boy Who Lived, now that his life is on the line?"
"He's still an ass," Dean replied at the same time as Hermione interrupted, "What do you mean, his life is on the line?"
"It's pretty clear that Voldemort wants to finish what he started. Guys like that can't stand failure, especially one that's as visible as Ron." Neville shrugged. This was pretty basic. 'I guess not everybody grows up talking about criminal psychology around the dinner table,' Neville sighed, "I'd be less worried about Ron's mental health, and more about his very literal health. I'll keep an eye on him, but I can't promise anything – I have classes and Harry and other stuff that I am responsible for."
Hermione swallowed and nodded. The Potters were just so much more… something. Mature? No, not mature, at least not last year. But both boys had a certain gravitas that others their age were missing. And as much as she didn't want to admit it, so was Ron. She remembered working with Harry last year – it had been so nice. With Ron, she always had to be the one taking care of him. Harry had just gotten stuff done – she hadn't had to worry about him.
Except she should have. Guilt roiled her stomach before she forced it down. 'He's not dead!'
"Oy, Granger, I was asking if you wanted to join us?" Hermione realized that she was standing outside the compartment that the others had entered.
"Yeah. Sure. So what is Harry doing?"
\*/
After the break, Harry's days were busy. Just because he wasn't at Hogwarts didn't mean he wasn't doing school work. He actually had more work than he had ever had before as his parents tried to get him caught up in time to take his OWLS.
Lily took a leave of absence from her position at the muggle school where she worked as the principle to spend more time with Harry. She taught most of his core subject, covering Charms, Herbology, Astronomy and History of Magic (which was just reading the text book, same as it was under Binns), as well as Potions (which was mostly review, as he was, much to Lily's surprise, already at 6th year level).
James worked with him on his Transfiguration, and Sirius would drop by once a week to help with the Defense against Dark arts.
Having his parents as his teachers was weird, but Harry really wanted to rejoin his cohort next year – seeing them all before Christmas had solidified their presence (and now, their absence) in his mind. They were no longer vague ghosts in his memory but real people, and many of them were real friends. Even Ron, who had been embarrassed at his own display of friendship, had been eager to talk to him. It was clear to Harry that Ron felt guilty for what happened at the graveyard (not that there was anything a fourth year, caught by surprise, could have done in that situation).
So he threw himself into his studies, especially the subjects with his father and Sirius. "Ok, let's see your animate to inanimate transfiguration," James placed a turtle on the table in front of Harry. The two were in James' study, with a desk set aside for Harry to work at. "Lets start with something a little bigger, say a pillow." Transfiguring medium sized animals into objects that were bigger was pretty tough – that was definitely going to be on the OWLs. (Going from object to animal was even harder. A question like that would sometimes also show up, but only as a challenge problem.)
Harry intoned the incantation – the easy part of any transfiguration - and then focused on the turtle, guiding it with his wand until it was a passable pillow.
"That's pretty good." It was better than pretty good – it had been smooth, without any hiccoughs and it had taken less than 10 seconds. "Here, try turning this into a pigeon," he pulled a small rock out of the rubbish bin and placed it on the desk. Thirty seconds later, the rock was cooing and looking around. It was now a bird (admittedly, it appeared to be a remarkably stupid one, as it had trouble flying, but it was a pigeon, so that was acceptable).
"Ok, I'm impressed. I don't think I've seen anybody your age manage that transfiguration so fast. How are are you picking it up so quickly?"
Harry shrugged, self conscious at the praise. "If I squint, I can still sort of see the glow of magic around the object as I am transfiguring it. Whenever the transfiguration starts to slip away from me, I can see the color change in that spot, so I focus on there to balance it out."
"Huh. That's a handy ability you have. With that, we just tossed half the transfiguration curriculum out the window. Do you want to try for animagus transformation? I didn't start working on mine until the end for fifth year, but with your skill, you can skip ahead."
"Um, I'd rather learn something that I can use in Defense" Harry asked self consciously.
James nodded. He typically wouldn't teach combat transfiguration to underage kids, but after what had (almost) happened to his son, he was willing to bend the rules. "Ok, let's start with partial transfiguration. That's the art of changing just one property of an object. Say, turning a wall into rubber. Alternately, you can change all the properties of part of an object, such as giving a rock pig feet so it can run around.
\*/
"Wake up, sleepy head."
"Wha?" Was Harry's cogent reply as he propped himself up on one elbow in his bed. It was the following morning, and he had stayed up late working on the homework. It was hard focusing on it, after so long of not having any. Or maybe it was just a residual effect of his nearly dying.
"We're going for a run."
Harry dropped back down to the bed and pulled his covers over his head.
James sat down on the edge of the bed. "Most Pureblood wizards think that if they just practice dueling they will win in a magical combat. But my team takes them out like the trash that they are, because we cross-train. Stamina and physical strength will make the difference in any protracted engagement."
He stood up and yanked the covers off of his son, ignoring his indignant squawk, "Plus the exercise will help you concentrate on your studies the rest of the day. You have five minutes to get dressed."
\*/
"Why is Delores here? We requested a meeting with the headmaster." Lily asked Dumbledore. The two Potters adults and the two professors were meeting in the Headmaster's office.
"Hrm, Hrm," Umbridge cleared her throat pompously, "The Ministry has deemed that the curriculum at Hogwarts is not meeting standards, and as such I have been appointed High Inquisitor, to oversee improvements."
James looked skeptically at the woman. He knew her from the Ministry, and she did not improve anything. In his opinion, it was a little surprising that she always wore pink, given that her only skill was at generating red tape.
"Very well. I asked to speak to you in order to schedule a couple of evaluations by Hogwarts professors for Harry. As you know, we are home-schooling him this year as he recovers from the attack at Little Hangleton.
"Alleged attack," Umbridge interrupted.
Lily paused gave her a cold look. Her son had almost died and this woman was playing political games. Umbridge smiled and simpered, "We can't be making unsubstantiated allegations."
James took a deep breath and kept his mouth shut. 'Let Lily handle this. She's better at keeping her temper.'
"And we want to make sure that Harry is on track to take his OWLs and re-integrate into the Hogwarts community for sixth year." Lily finished. Not that she was happy to have Harry return to the place where he almost died, but his memories were still shaky, and being in a place where he created many of them might help heal him.
"That will not be a problem," Dumbledore began when Umbridge interrupted.
"Having a strange student coming and going on the school property will be very disruptive to the students' education. We must minimize it." She wanted to forbid it outright, but James Potter was not just a parent but was also a senior Auror, with political connections.
"That's fine. We don't need to do this more than once a month, maybe starting at the end of January?"
"No," Umbridge countered before Dumbledore could open his mouth "That would be far too disruptive." She waited patiently for the next request for her to reject. Once the Potters were reduced to begging she would grant them a visit. Maybe. She was starting to get a warm feeling down in her belly. She liked it when people begged.
James scowled, "How about Harry comes on February the 14th – the students' education will already be disrupted by Valentines day."
Umbridge frowned, ready to deny this as well, but she was slow to think of a reason, so Albus took charge, "Yes, that will be fine. I will instruct the professors to expect him."
\*/
"Ok, are you ready to show me what you've learned?" It was Sunday, and Sirius was at the Potter's to test Harry on his practical Defense – while the Fifth year curriculum included a section on dangerous animals and dark wards, the main emphasis was on defensive casting.
Harry nodded and took a fighting stance. They were in the basement of the Potter's house, which James had transformed into a spell fighting gym.
"Go."
As soon as the word let Sirius's mouth, Harry began casting. Sirius easily deflected his first few spells, but then Harry remembered what he had been taught and started targeting his opponent's environment, casting a blasting hex at the floor to try to get him off of his feet, and aquamanti spell to fill it with water. At the same time he dodged the jinxes that Sirius was casting at him in return. Harry used his agility to good stead, dodging the spells instead of countering them so that he could concentrate more on offensive casting. He transfigured the magically summoned water into grasping vines.
Sirius made slashing motion with his wand and skipped backwards, "You almost had me there, pup!" The sliced vines collapsed, only to turn into a taffy like substance that coated the Auror's left leg as it fell on him, gluing it to the floor.
"Yield," Sirius called a pause to the bout. "What the hell is this stuff?" He peered at the gunk coating his leg.
"I don't have a clue," Harry replied, "But I accidentally turned a potted plant into it when I was doing transfiguration. And I can do it fairly reliably."
Flashback
Harry slouched as he circled his Fanged Geranium, examining it. He was sweating, and not all of that could be attributed to the heat in the greenhouse. The textbook claimed that this plant was supposed to be symmetric about its axes, but his was lopsided, with two leaves on one side and the mouth bloom listing to the other. Harry sighed in frustration. His mother would be disappointed – she loved plants, and the fact that he had absolutely no talent for Herbology bothered her. He glanced quickly to the door of the greenhouse. His mother would be here any moment. 'I'll transfigure it a little.' Harry pulled out his wand and jabbed and concentrated. It was his first time trying to transfigure a magical creature/plant, but how hard could it be?
As his spell took effect, Harry realized that the Fanged Geranium had its own glow, so he couldn't see the transfiguration spell. As he cast, he could tell that something was going wrong, but not where. He applied more pressure, trying to brute force the correct change.
The Fanged Geranium exploded into goo just as his mother walked in.
"Harry..." Lily wiped a strand of sticky green goo off of her face.
now
"Well, as signature moves go, its kind of gross!" Sirius struggled to vanish the gunk. It was incredibly sticky and hard to vanish. "Your defense is very good. You're often responding before I finish casting." Sirius commented as he finished getting the sticky gunk off.
"I told you how magical people have a glow to them? Well, the glow changes color when you're casting a spell. It sort of telegraphs when your spell is about to go off." Harry wasn't certain if the glow could tell him what the person was casting, but maybe with enough practice… Harry smirked. "Are you ready for round two?" he asked cockily.
"Yup. But this time, I won't go so easy on you."
Harry's smile faltered.
\*/
"Hey, how's it going?" Harry sprawled on his bed, the two-way mirror propped up against a couple of text books. The mirror showed Neville, who was in a similar position, except on a Hogwarts issue bed, with the curtains drawn for privacy.
"Not so bad, not so good. On the one hand, it's great to be back at Hogwarts – everybody's acting all friendly, like I never left, but on the other hand, Umbridge!" Neville gave a mock shudder of disgust. "Daphne told me that she had gutted DADA, but I hadn't really understood what she meant. But she really has – we're not learning anything at all in class – it's worse than Binns. Instead, we all get together with George for tutoring. He's not bad, but he's not a professor."
"So you think you're going to be ready for your OWL?"
"Yeah, we should manage to pull out an acceptable, though I doubt anybody other than me is gong to be able to continue on to NEWT level DADA. As long as Umbridge doesn't shut down the tutoring, that is - she's been making noises abut banning all clubs." Neville gave a sigh of frustration, "We're using a room that one of the House Elves told us about – the Come and Go Room – that you can only find if you know it's there, so that hopefully we can stay off of her radar."
"You trust all the kids in the group to keep their mouths when they're in public?" Neville had told him about the Inquisitorial Squad, and how it was full of all the worst sort of Slytherins.
Neville shrugged, "There only like a dozen of us, so it's not that big a group."
"Ok. Just don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Harry, you do plenty of dumb stuff."
"But only because you talk me into it!"
Neville leaned in closer to the mirror conspiratorially, "Remember when you wanted to dump a bucket of slugs onto the Carrow sisters?"
"That was originally your idea! And that's what I'm talking about! " Harry retorted, before changing topic. "Anyway, what's up with you and Daphne?"
"Nothing," Neville replied too-calmly, "We're just friends. She was writing to me when I was at the Salem Academy, and we still talk now, though she's worried about being bullied by the other Slytherins if they find out, so we've ended up still mostly communicating through letters."
Harry managed to hold back the smirk that was threatening to break through. 'Yeah, right. Just friends, and she's risking her school-cred with the Slytherins for this.' Harry glanced at his watch "Oh, shoot, I got to go. Dudders invited me to go hang out with him. We'll catch up later."
Actually, Dudley had invited him to sneak into his school's dance, but he wasn't telling anybody about that. He pushed on his sneakers and ran to call the Knight Bus.
\*/
"Are you certain that this is fine?" Harry asked as he walked with Dudley towards his high school. Harry was dressed in a pair of khakis and a polo – not exactly what he would call fancy – and they were going to the school dance that Dudley had mentioned. The only experience that Harry had with school dances was the Yule ball, where he had dressed in the magical world's equivalent of a tuxedo, so he felt decidedly under-dressed. And also guilty about sneaking out. 'If mom finds out I went to a muggle dance, she's going to throw a fit'
"You're fine. Everybody comes however they want." True to his claim, Dudley was dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a t-shirt that had the sleeves removed to show off the muscles in his arms. As soon as they walked in, Dudley called out to a couple of his friends, and within a few minutes they were surrounded by another pair of guys and 3-4 girls. Harry was surprised to see how they were dressed – or not dressed, in the girl's case. 'That can't be comfortable without warming charms.' Though now he understood why his mother was against muggle dances.
As advertised, the girls seemed most interested in talking to Dudley, completely ignoring his slightly withdrawn cousin.
The dance was taking place in the school gym, but the lower-most section of the bleachers was extended, to give the teens someplace to sit and chat when they weren't dancing. Dudley led his group over to those – apparently he had no interest in the actual dancing.
"Hey, this is my cousin, Harry. He's usually up at some fancy boarding school in Scotland but he got hurt, so they shipped him back for a bit," Dudley had to almost shout to be heard over the music. He put his leg up on one of the bleachers and leaned forward, so that he occupied even more space than his already large body took up, as if to say 'look at me'.
"Oh, how did you get injured?" Asked one of the girls.
"Do you also play sports?" Added another.
"I was in a car accident, and I hit my head," Harry decided to ignore the second question, as he had no way to explain quidditch. But he had prepared a story in advance to explain his being here – Dudley wasn't the sort that could have come up with the 'getting injured and had to stay home' bit on his own.
"Head injuries are nothing to sneeze at," Dudley added, "especially when you got a thin neck like Harry. I've been hit in the head a bunch of times, and it doesn't bother me!" He rolled his neck for emphasis.
Harry countered by rolling his eyes. 'He's like Ron in front of a bunch of firsties.' Though here Harry could actually see the appeal of showing off – several of the girls were attractive, in their own way.
Harry let Dudley take the spotlight and just listened in to the conversation while he looked around the dance floor. Much to his surprise, he noticed that several of the teens had the 'umbra' that he typically saw on wizards and witches. They didn't have much of it, but it was more visible because of the dim lighting in the gym. 'I wonder if they are squibs or something.'
"Hi, I'm Becky. Would you like to dance? " Harry started in surprise, realizing that his face had been turned towards a girl with a particularly strong glow while he had stopped to ponder, and she had taken that as a sign of interest.
"Sure. But mind you, I'm not very good." Fortunately, it was a fast song and it looked like there weren't any formal steps to it – most of the guys he saw were just stepping from foot to foot and bouncing their arms in front of them (the girls were doing more intricate moves, but he didn't need to worry about that).
"So, where do you go to school?"
"Ah, it's a small boarding school up in Scotland.
The girl got a strange look on her face.
"What? You look like a I said something weird."
"No, it's not that. It's just that you're the second person that I know who goes to school in Scotland. And you both describe it the same way."
"Who's the other person?
"My cousin. Hermione Granger."
"Oh!" Harry's stopped in surprise. "Yeah. She goes to my school. She's really smart. She's dating Ron Weasley."
"Wait, what!" Now Becky froze, "The bookworm? She has a boyfriend?"
"Yeah. I think so." Harry realized that his memories were a little fuzzy, but he seemed to recall them dating.
"Thanks!" Becky beamed, "My mother idolizes Hermione, and she keeps holding her up as a role model for me - if Hermione does something, I should be doing it too. She keeps pushing me to bury my nose in books all the time so that I can get grades like hers. And absolutely no dating, as that would be too much of a distraction. I actually had to sneak out to go to this dance, because she doesn't want me even hanging out with guys."
"Um… Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. I don't want to make things awkward between you and your mom."
"Oh, don't worry, it won't be awkward." The way Becky said it made it clear that while it might not be awkward for her, it would indeed be very, very awkward for her mother. The song ended, and the next one on was a slow tune. Becky took the opportunity to grab Harry's hand, "Come on, I'll introduce you to me friends." She had a predatory smile as she led Harry towards a cluster of girls.
\*/
"Bombarda," James cast at the floor, followed up by an incarcerous at Harry as he tried to get his opponent off of his feet, but the younger Potter's Seeker reflexes kicked in as he leaped aside before the bombarda even hit the floor. His Protego flickered into being just for the split second required to block the incarcerous before Harry dropped it and transfigure the splinters from the broken floor into wasps.
"Aquamenti," James called forth a blast of water to quickly sweep away the wasps.
Except nothing came out of his wand, as Harry traced the same pattern in the air that he did.
As the wasps landed on James, he called out. "Yield." He looked around the destroyed basement and started casting reparo spells. "Let's call it a day." It hadn't been a long training session – they had just been going for a half hour – but James wanted to end it on a good note, and Harry was clearly flagging. "So that's one out of four. Not too shabby."
Harry nodded dejectedly as he joined him in cleaning up the room. He felt he should have done better – He trained hard, and he payed attention to all of his lessons, and drilled those as well.
"Incidentally, how did you manage to stop my spell?"
"Mom was showing me counter spells."
"No, I mean how were you able to identify that I was casting Aquamenti? I thought that your mage sight wasn't able to differentiate between spells." And a counter-spell had to be done just right – they were mostly used to clean up spell effects after the fact, not to interrupt a spell mid-casting.
"It generally can't, but I was just practicing Aquamaneti yesterday. And when I saw you aiming at the wasps rather than me, I guessed you were going for it."
"That's pretty impressive. Both the casting and how you kept a level head during the spar."
Harry gave his father a wan smile, 'ok, so maybe it didn't go so badly.'
\*/
#12 Grimmauld place was atypically raucous on that thursday evening. Normally, the stately old building stood empty, as Sirius hated his family home, calling it a run down old dump. Sirius had as little to do with it as possible - the only reason that it was still in decent repair was because James pressured him into investing in at least basic maintenance.
The only time that abandonment changed was the bi-weekly meetings of the Order of the Phoenix. Sirius leaned over to James so that he could be heard over the hum of conversation "You know, maybe I should get an elf for this place, if we're going to be using it all the time" - He had retired (given cloths to) his old elf. Though without Kreature to 'brighten' the place, Sirius was starting to think that the run down old dump wasn't so bad.
"You should also get rid of the portrait of your mother from the foyer," James had to arrive early and spell it to sleep each time before the meeting.
"Probably. But the only way to get that blasted painting off is to destroy it, and I'm not quite ready to do that."
"All it does is yell at you," Lupin replied as he took the seat opposite them.
"Hey, it's like the gangs all together. We haven't seen you in ages. Do you think we should invite Peter as well?" James greeted his old friend. He rarely saw Lupin nowadays.
Sirius got a nostalgic smile, "That's what makes the painting just like the real thing."
He decided that now wasn't the time to discuss his very mixed feeling about his family (His preferred time would be shortly after 'never'). He also didn't address the issue of Peter. Peter was a rat, and was even less reliable than Mundungus, but he wasn't going to convince James of that.
Dumbledore stood up and cleared his throat. "Ok, let's settle down. I call this meeting to Order. We have a lot to discuss."
"Yeah, like how could twelve convicted Death Eaters escape from the high security floor of Azkaban?" Diggory demanded, scowling at James as the representative of magical law enforcement.
"I've been telling the Minister that the Dementors are not to be trusted for years. Using them is like trusting a thief to guard a thief." James replied.
"The problem is that we're even bothering to capture them. We should be using lethal force against those bastards!" This was (unsurprisingly) from Alastor Moody.
"We can't change policy, Alastor." Dumbledore gently chided his old friend as Lily also replied, "I'm not certain what we can do about that, other than keep an eye out – this is a matter for the Aurors. What I do want to talk abut is how Delores Umbridge is undermining the Headmaster. The Ministry is playing political games with Hogwarts, to weaken Dumbledore, and they don't care that they are ruining our children's education in the process!" Lily was visibly upset. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if she is a Death Eater sympathizer!"
"Not every pig headed person is working as part of some larger conspiracy," Arthur replied, "Sometimes, there can be multiple unconnected dumb things going on at the same time."
This started a lively debate. Albus moderated it so that it would not become to acrimonious. "This too shall pass. This is not the first time that the Ministry has tried to interfere with our school. I know it is difficult when it is your children that are being short changed, but I believe that that we will have this resolved by next year." This was the one time that the curse on the DADA position was a benefit…
"We'll just have to train Harry harder," Sirius winked at James, who nodded. Nevertheless he felt obligated to support his wife by bringing up all of Umbridge's questionable decisions from the past several years.
Bill Weasley and Nymphadora Tonks sat on the slightly musty love seat in one corner and watched the entertainment. "Popcorn?"
"I don't mind if I do."
\*/
"You want to go grab a drink?" It was Sunday, and Harry had just finished his training session with Sirius. This time It was a practical session on dealing with werewolves.
"I'm underage," Harry reminded his godfather. Again.
"I know that," Sirius replied defensively, "I meant getting a soda."
"Sure you did. Are werewolves really lanky like that? The creatures you transfigured didn't look anything like a normal wolf."
"Yeah, I know. But that's what they look like. I have seen Remus often enough." As they went upstairs to grab their coats, Sirius started retelling some of the Marauder's misadventures in school, and then he went on to talk about some of his more recent ones, including dating a woman with a krup that she treated like it was her own child ("But she was really flexible, so it was worth it"). As they approached the floo, Sirius glanced around quickly and added, "Um, for the record, don't try to emulate me – If you do, Lily will kill me. I have a lot of fun, but I will readily admit that I never really grew up – I'm still the same rebellious guy I was when I was a teenager."
"Well, at least you have time to hang out with me. Dad is so busy with work this year, I only see him once a week."
"He's trying to look out for everybody. For his family, for magical society." Sirius shrugged – he was never comfortable talking about stuff like this, "But it was his idea to have me come train you like this. Because he knew he couldn't be here as often as he would like."
"Because you're less busy?" Harry was a little puzzled – they were both Aurors.
"Yeah. I'm single, and I have a healthy inheritance. So that means if I want to take time off I can, and the DMLE just nods and agrees to it. After all, what are they going to do, cut my salary? They sure as shit can't fire me – they need every Auror that they can get right now."
Harry nodded. It sounded kind of nice, not having any responsibilities. Not that he would ever want to be as laid back as Sirius, but it still sounded like fun.
\*/
"I'm telling you, Daphne is a junior Death Eater - she knew about the attack on my dad before it happened!" Ron insisted. He had pulled Hermione aside as they were exiting the Great Hall after lunch, and was now haranguing her on the way to Charms.
"Ron, I think you're imagining things. She has never expressed any blood Supremacist sentiments, and she has always been polite to me in class." They were in both Arithromancy and Ancient Runes together, and while they never really talked (Daphne never talked to anybody, as far as she could tell), she had always been polite. "Also, I think you're reading too much into her comments."
"So why was she siting with us at the Gryffindor table if not to spy?" Why couldn't Hermione understand the danger. She always believed the best of people, but he DID have enemies out there, who were willing to spy on him, or even worse! He even had Voldemort (potentially) peeking into his head, and now because of that he had to take Occlumancy classes with Snape, the absolute worst teacher – no, the worst human being – on the whole planet, and Hermione just went about her day like nothing had changed. Everything had changed!
"Because she needed help with Arithromancy, and lunch was the only time our schedules meshed." Hermione had spent half of lunch going over her notes with the Slytherin girl.
Who had listened politely, and asked intelligent questions.
Unlike Ron.
"Yeah. And yet she kept chatting to Neville. She's the Ice Queen – she never talks to anybody unless there's an ulterior purpose to it. I bet she's trying to ensnare him in some sort of plot, using her womanly wiles!" He had read about that in a boy-adventure book once.
Hermione sighed. "Ron, she was just being friendly." Though it was a little surprising seeing the two of them talking so casually – she had thought that Neville had a thing against Slytherins. But maybe it was only Draco. It was sometimes hard to remember that Draco wasn't all of Slytherin. "She's not like Draco."
"We'll see!" Ron huffed and stormed off. He was the Boy Who Lived, people should be taking him seriously, but even Dumbledore was still treating him like a child!
Hermione sighed again. She found herself doing it a lot. Ron could be a little dense. Case in point, he still hadn't noticed that she was interested in him. A small (feminist) voice in the back of her head quietly whispered that she could ask HIM. But then, what if it didn't work out? It would be better to wait for Ron to notice her.
'Ron wouldn't recognize a 'womanly wile' if he was dropped into sultan's harem.'
\*/
Neville leaned over his parchment concentrating, to all appearance hard at work on his potions essay. Except that was actually pushed off to the side, forgotten, as he composed his 'weekly' letter to Daphne – he usually wrote her one every day. Some he sent by owl, but that took too long, so others he secreted in the suit of armor that stood in the unused third floor hallway. There was usually a letter from Daphne waiting for him there when he did.
But now he was stumped. Daphne viewed much of the world transactionally. She had a (very) few friends, but with most people, she expected something back for anything that she did for them, and she couldn't understand why Neville altruistically volunteered to help people out. He had tried to claim that doing things for free earned more in goodwill than charging for it would, but she wasn't buying it. And it really wasn't the reason why he did it.
He helped because it was the right thing to do. 'But how do I explain that to her? Maybe I can claim that I care about everybody that I help..'
He started writing.
\*/
Harry lay back on his bed, a quidditch magazine draped across his chest as he stared at the ceiling. He was taking a break from homework - reading his textbook and underlining stuff so he wouldn't forget it.
That was how his life before Little Hangleton felt like – like something he had learned for school. He remembered the underlined bits, but a lot of the rest was just gone.
Though when he was actually talking to people, it all came back, sort of. 'Mom is right. I need to get back to Hogwarts'
Harry got up with a groan and went back to desk and his homework. If he wanted to enter the 6th year, he needed to prove to everybody that he was as good as ever. And that meant aceing the OWLs.
Even Herbology.
\*/
Luna was on her hands and knees at the side of her bed, completely oblivious to the dirt she was rubbing into her dress as she peered at the little beetle that had been crawling along the base of the wall. It was very curious - she was almost certain that it was a species that was not native to England. She waved her wand to cast an immobilization jinx on the area around it as she glanced around for something to capture the beetle with. She didn't want to harm the little guy, but beetles had always fascinated her and she desperately needed to know if this was indeed an Anoplophora Glabripennis.
"Um, Luna?" A tentative voice called out from behind her. Luna ignored the other girl as she focused on maintaining the spell with one hand while she reached for the beetle with a re-purposed drinking glass with the other.
"Uhm, I would like to return your shoes, and to say that I am sorry." There was a loud clop as a pair of sandles dropped to the ground next to Luna, drawing her attention.
'I haven't seen those since the fall.' The moment Luna's concentration wavered, the beetle exploded into a middle-aged woman with frizzy hair, who took off at a panicky run for the dorm exit. She ran right through the the tremulous 6th year who had been waiting for Luna to acknowledge her apology, sending her sprawling.
"Well, that was exciting." Luna stood up and brushed off her knees before slipping on the sandles. With a bare nod to the other girl who was gathering herself up off of the floor, she headed downstairs. It was nice to have Neville back. Her things were all migrating back so much sooner than most years. She paused half way down the stairs, one foot still raised, 'Does that mean that Neville affects the micro-climate in Hogwarts?' After several moments of consideration, she dismissed the idea as silly, 'But I should get him something as a thank you. Maybe some chocolate.'
"Um, Luna?" The other girl called out again, "I think we should report the intrude to our head of house..."
Luna looked up in surprise, "Oh! I do think that would be a good idea!" She changed direction for Flitwick's office – she could put off getting Neville chocolate until later. Actually, it would make sense to wait until Hogsmeade weekend, when she had access to Honeydukes.
\*/
January slowly passed, with the fifth year students struggling to keep afloat in a tide of unrelenting homework. Even Binns was assigning two essays a week.
When Valentine's day arrived, Ginny was in a quandary. Not because of classes – she was a fourth year – but about Collin. While they didn't really have a lot in common, he was so cheerful and puppy-like that he was growing on her, despite his slight hero-worship.
Especially after last semester, when she had been so depressed, it was nice to just hang out and have fun.
But the issue at hand right now was that he had invited her to Hogsmeade again this coming weekend. Did that mean that they were officially dating? The problem was, he had invited her yesterday, so if they were dating, she wouldn't have a chance to get him a Valentines day present, and if they were dating she really should, and… 'I'm sounding like an empty-headed hair-spay girl.' Ginny got up off the couch and stomped out of the Common room. She hated that sort of girl. 'I'll go get some flying in, and that will fix things.' Flying fixed most everything.
As she rushed around a corner she almost bounced off of Harry, managing to dance around him at the last moment. "Harry! You're back!"
"No, I'm just here to take some tests." He pulled a face and pointed to Snape, who was escorting him to the dungeon.
"Mr. Potter has not been in contact with me about his potions education, so I need to determine if his studies have been conforming to the curriculum," Snape scowled to emphasize the point and strode off – they had too much material to cover to dawdle.
Harry gave a weak wave and raced after the Potions Master. He really had been lax about potions – neither of his parents were terribly fond of the subject, and he had shown sufficient proficiency that they didn't bother assigning much homework for it.
"Let's see what you recall from your fourth year." Snape pointed to the blackboard, "We don't have time to actually brew more than a single potion, so we will commence with your recounting to me the order of operations for making the following three."
What followed was a brutal oral exam as Snape kept demanding more details, pulling more and more specifics out of Harry for how he would process each ingredient, down to the tiniest minutia.
"Good. At the very least you appear not to have lost any ground. You will now use the remaining half hour to concoct a Deflating Drought. The ingredients are on your side board," Snape would have preferred to have Harry get his own ingredients, like a real potioneer would, but in the end he had decided it would be more useful to model this test on the Potion OWL, where the ingredients were provided to the student.
\*/
It was almost an hour later that Dumbledore arrived in the Potions classroom to find Snape still instructing Harry, now on the fine details of brewing the Befuddlement Drought. "Ah, Severous. I am glad to see that you are catching up with your favorite student, but Filius is waiting for his chance to evaluate our Mr. Potter." Albus smiled in a grandfatherly way as he held out his hand as if to welcome Harry to follow him.
Harry blanched at his designation as 'Snape's favorite student.' As he followed Dumbledore out of the classroom, he heard Snape mutter, "Is it wrong to once, just once, teach somebody who isn't too stupid to learn?" It was especially bad trying to teach teenagers Occlumancy. Especially teenagers that were as self absorbed as Ronald Weasley.
After the Charms evaluation, Harry went down to have lunch with his peers – by then he was more than ready for a break. But no sooner had he sat down at the Gryffindor table than Hermione Granger sat down next to him. "Hi, Harry. I heard from Neville that you were here to make sure that your education was on track." She pulled a stack of parchment 4 inches thick and dropped it on the table in front of him. "So to that end I went around to all the best students in your classes and asked them to duplicate their note – of course, mine are in here as well. Hopefully with this as a study aid, you won't fall behind."
Harry smiled bemusedly at the bushy haired girl, "Hermione, you do realize that I'm not trying to learn all this on my own? My parents are teaching me."
"Oh," Hermione deflated. There was a silence as she searched for what to say next. "Are you doing ok, Harry? I mean, I don't want to say anything against your family, but it can be hard to learn from your parents. I know if my parents were trying to teach me, I would go just spare." She tentatively pushed the stack of parchments towards Harry, as if hoping to sell him on the idea of studying on his own from her collected notes. (Because they weren't just notes – they were an expression of her concern for his well being).
"It's ok. Flitwick says I'm on track for my OWLs. How are things here? Neville's told me some, but He's not really friends with Ron." Not that Harry was either, but he was genuinely worried about the doofus – It was pretty obvious that Voldemort wasn't going to give up on trying to kill him, and living under that sort of thing would be very stressful.
"Oh, he's ok. He's upset with Umbridge, but we all are. He also has extra classes with Professor Snape, where he's supposed to learn how to keep Voldemort from sending him any more dreams or, worse yet, reading his mind." Hermione wet her lips, trying to think of a tactful way to change the topic to how Harry was doing.
Harry didn't comment about how there wasn't anything IN Ron's mind to read, "Snape's a pain in the neck, but he's actually a good teacher. You know how he tricked me into taking extra Potions, under the pretext that I needed remedial classes? Well, My mom tested me as part of the homeschooling thing, and it turns out I'm at the 6th year level already!"
"Wait, why did Snape trick you into taking extra potions?"
"Because nobody in their right mind would ever want to do Potions, especially not with that guy!" Ron slid into a seat on the other side of Hermione, grabbing a serving tray of pasta and pouring half of it onto his plate. "Man, I love the pasta here. I don't know what the elves do, but they always make everything taste better."
He shoved a large forkful into his mouth, oblivious to how Hermione tensed up at the mention of the Hogwarts elves.
"He's not wrong," Neville added, sitting down on Harry's other side, "Snape is a horror. How long are you going to be here?"
"I have the Astronomy exam this evening, so Mom arranged for me to spend the night. I'll get to sleep in my old dorm bed."
"Oh, trust me, you weren't missing anything. There's no silencing charm strong enough to stop Seamus' snoring."
Seamus just snorted in amusement without without dignifying Neville with a reply.
After lunch, Harry went to McGonagall for transfiguration and Binns for History of Magic. He skipped being evaluated in DADA for obvious reasons, and he wasn't planning to take the Care of Magical Animals, so he only stopped off at Hagrid's to say hi. Nevertheless, it was an intense afternoon, and he was ready for a break when dinnertime rolled around.
During the course of dinner, several more well wishers swung by the Gryffindor table.
"Hello Harry," Luna stopped behind Harry on her way to her own table. Before continuing on, she turned to Neville and smiled. "And I will buy you chocolates next Hogsmeade Weekend."
Once she was out of earshot, Harry turned to his step-brother, "So how long have you two been official?" He pointed back and forth between Neville and Luna. Man, he had thought that his brother had a thing for the scary Slytherin girl. This was sooo much better.
"Official? Official what?"
"Dating."
"Shh!" Neville hissed, looking around to see if anybody overheard. If Daphne heard, she'd be hurt (even though she would understand that there was nothing going on). And angry. "We're not dating. we're just friends!"
"Sure you are." But Harry let it slide. While he did feel a bit jealous that his brother had gotten a (second?) girlfriend when he himself wasn't even certain how one went about the process of asking out a girl in the first place, he wasn't going to spoil it for him. Though he might tell Sirius. Let the master tease Neville.
\*/
The following morning Harry joined the Gryffindors for one last meal before heading home. There was a weird disjuncture – while eating with everybody in the Great Hall like this felt very normal, and whenever somebody spoke to him he automatically replied back in the appropriate fashion, he had no active memory of most of the people. It was only when they interacted with him that the knowledge of who they were surfaced from some recess of his mind. It made him realize how alone he was, back at the Potter's. 'I can't wait to come back for real.'
Harry watched at the students scrambled to get their mail as the owls swooped in. 'I guess that's how they feel about the rest of the world – disconnected except for the once daily mail deluge.' Though many no doubt preferred it that way.
His musings were interrupted by a squawk from Hermione. "What are you about?" Ron turned to see what she was reading. Hermione whisked the letter out of sight.
"It's nothing!" 'Where did my mother get the idea that I'm dating Ron?!' Well, the letter had actually explained it – from her cousin. 'But how does Becky even know who Ron is?'
Hermione tried to remember the last time she had talked to her cousin – it had been early in the summer – and if she had said anything that could be misconstrued.
"Harry, we need to go do something about Draco," Ginny plopped into the seat opposite the Potter boys.
Harry held up his hands in protest, "Gin, I'm here for just another hour – if you want to prank the ponce, get my brother to help you." He jerked his thumb at the afore mentioned brother. Neville was always up for something like this.
"He doesn't want to do it. Ever since he came back from America he's been timid!"
Neville almost choked on his eggs, "I'm not timid. It's just that I've realized that pranking Draco is immature and accomplishes nothing productive. And besides, It's my OWL year – I don't have time."
His refutation sounded very rehearsed, as if this was not the first time he had used it. Or as if somebody else had scripted it for him.
Ginny rolled her eyes. Neville had turned into a wimp.
Harry sighed and ran his hand through his hair, trying to defuse the situation. "What were you planning to do, anyways?"
"We get Draco into a compromising position and we take a photo with Collins camera. I know that he hangs out in the third floor gallery and bullies any younger kids that are dumb enough to use it as a shortcut."
"Why am I not surprised that Draco has gotten to be an even bigger prick than he was?" After a moment, Harry added, "It looks like you have put a fair bit of thought into this. But there really is nowhere to hide in that gallery – it's just an outdoor corridor. How will Collin sneak up close enough to take a photo?"
Ginny considered, "I'll just borrow the camera & climb up on the outside."
"Ooh, Collin's letting you borrow his camera now," Neville made an amazed face.
"Oh, shut up." Ginny threw a napkin at Neville as she blushed furiously, "It's just a camera."
"Oh, it's not just a camera," Dean interrupted, "It's the essential essence of what makes Collin 'Collin'. And he's ok with you holding it in your hands?"
"Shut up!" Ginny beaned him with a piece of toast. "Fine, I'll take care of it myself!" And stormed off as Dean used a charm to clean marmalade out of his hair.
"So, Ginny and Collin?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, a couple of weeks now. See what you miss by being at home?"
"Yeah. I'll make sure to be back for 6th year."
\*/
After breakfast, Hermione had a free, so she walked Harry back to the headmaster's office to floo home. "And don't forget to mail in your career choices form – McGonagall says that those are due at the end of March." She lectured as they walked. After a moment, she added, "I know everybody's been on top of you while you were here, but if you ever need to talk once you get back home, you know you can write to us?"
Harry nodded, "Yeah. It was actually kind of nice. Everything felt so familiar. Though..." he paused, "though also different."
"Well, it has been almost a year since you were here full time." Hermione smiled reassuringly. "Like what's changed?"
"Like, no offense, but I remember you as being a lot more annoying. But you're a really nice person."
Hermione blushed slightly, "Maybe you're just seeing things afresh, instead of relying on how they first appeared back in first year." Merlin, she had been a disaster as a firsty.
"I don't think it's just that. Somethings just feel different. Anyway, I'll see you later. I'll probably be here for another evaluation in late March or early April." He stepped into the Headmaster's office before popping his head back out, as he remembered something. "Oh, and Becky sends her regards."
\*/
"Um, I'm not certain what else to tell you guys," George shrugged nervously. The study group all had copies of his textbook from two years ago, back when Remus Lupin was teaching the class, and they had gone over most of the material in it already, but they still had a month until the OWLs and George was at loss what to do next.
"I can show you guys some of the drills that they were using at Salem," Neville volunteered. He wasn't certain he remembered them exactly, but they had seemed pretty good when he was learning them.
"I think the first one goes like this.." It took him several tries to reconstruct the drills, but they were fun, and it filled the rest of the hour that the they had allocated to the tutoring. As the students were all filing out, George snags him, "Hey, thanks for helping out. The pressure is killing me - I'm no good at coming up with stuff all the time – but it's Ron's OWL year and I want to make sure he passes."
"Don't let him self himself short," Angelina joined them, snagging George's arm, "It's not just Ron he's worried about." She gave George a tug, "Come on, let's get to dinner."
\*/
"This isn't working! Why don't you just give me a potion or something to keep him out of my mind!" Ron yelled. He had spent the past hour working with Snape on Occlumancy, under cover of taking 'remedial potions'. And he had accomplished. Absolutely. Nothing. Just like every other time. Snape was a horrible teacher and a horrid person. At this rate Voldemort could take over his mind and he wouldn't even know it!
"You need to calm down, Mr. Weasley. That has been your problem all along," Snape began, but Ron interrupted him. "Calm down? That's easy to say, but can you control your emotions on command? It's not humanly possible!"
Snape rubbed his head. "That is what I am trying to teach you". He could feel a migraine coming on. The Boy-Who-Never-Listened was still going on as Snape got up and walked over to the potion cabinet.
"I need a mind blanking potion or something. I know you can make something like that - Dumbledore keeps saying you're the greatest potion master ever and..." Ron froze as Snape pulled out a small flash of bright blue liquid, "Is that it?"
"No. This is for me. We are done for today." Snape poured himself a healthy slug into a shot glass he kept besides the flask for that very reason and downed it, 'I should be sainted for working with these pewling little wretches.' Admittedly, most were not as belligerently stupid as Weaslyy.
To say that Snape was not a 'people person' was an understatement. But he made an effort (a MIGHTY effort) so as not to disappoint Lily. Not the real one – he hadn't spoken to her in years – but the memory of her that lived in his head.
It was all that kept him from poisoning the lot of them.
\*/
Harry did not make it back to Hogwarts for an evaluation in March. Or April or any other time – Umbridge had gotten the Minister to ban all non-students from the campus, to prevent 'disruptions to the education'.
"So what are you going to do about your OWLs?" Neville was again communicating with Harry via the mirror, but this time with a privacy ward around his bed – if Umbridge got wind that he had an unapproved communications device, he didn't know what she would do, but given that she had made Ron write lines with a blood quill for expressing an opinion she disagreed with, it wouldn't be good.
"It's not a problem - Mom looked into it, and there is a second testing sight in London, for students who are not at Hogwarts. How about you? Do you think you're ready?"
"Yeah, I think so. Even in DADA. I don't think I told you, but Umbridge is now headmistress – she's force Dumbledore out yesterday." Neville was satisfied to see the shocked expression on Harry's face. "Don't tell mom & dad – I don't want mom pulling me out of school a week before OWLS." Lily tended to get overprotective. Who knew WHAT she would do if she heard that the Toad was now running Hogwarts.
Harry had suspected that something was going on – mom was downstairs right now, flooing other parents, organizing a campaign to pull their kids out of Hogwarts and send them to the US if Dumbledore as not restored - but he hadn't had a chance to ask her about yet. (You did not talk to Lily when she was on a tear). "Do you know what happened?"
"The Toad finally found out about our study group, and went on a rampage about us violating school rules. She was threatening to suspend us for running an unsanctioned school activity, and for using school property without permission and yada yada. Dumbledore came to our defense, saying that he had approved the club and the use of school classrooms for it. And then the Toad really blew up. She started screaming about how he was undermining the authority of the Ministry, corrupting the morals of the youth by allowing a centaur – she called him a half-breed – into the castle and that his lax attitude was destroying the discipline that moral children require. Mind you, this was in front of the entire study group. It ended with her invoking the Ministry to take control of Hogwarts."
"It won't last – Dad has been talking about how Umbridge was already on thin ice – even though many of the more conservative families don't like Dumbledore, her heavy handedness, and disrespect for Hogwarts traditions pissed them off." And mom was on a tear. You did not want to be on the other side of one. It was safer to not even talk about it.
Neville breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good. Hopefully, it will all be straightened out by next year. But I need to go cram some more for the History of Magic."
"Next task, the OWLs!" Harry replied with force cheer.