Wail of a Banshee, Tear of a Dryad

Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me, at least nothing you recognise. It belongs to the amazing, the formidable, the unbelievable… J. K. ROWLING

Author's note: I love Harry Potter, I read the fifth book in one day (my eyes still hurt), so this takes place in Harry's sixth year. English is not my first language, so please be patient!

Chapter One

New developments

This summer was among the worst Harry Potter, now 16 years old, had ever lived through. It wasn't because of the Dursleys mistreating him anymore, it was because of what had happened during his fifth year at Hogwarts. He had been forced to see the Dark Lord again, at the Ministry of Magic where he had tried to steal a prophecy about himself and Harry. He had failed, however, and the prophecy, or at least its copy, had been destroyed. Some Death Eaters had been arrested, too, and the Ministry had finally been forced to admit that Voldemort had returned. But Harry wasn't comforted by any of this, for Sirius Black, his godfather, the closest he had ever come to a real father, had been killed while rescuing Harry and his friends from the Death Eaters' clutches.

It was the morning of August 2nd and Aunt Petunia woke Harry up with a knock on his door.

"Harry", she called, "breakfast's ready."

His living conditions at Privet Drive 4 had changed drastically. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had been warned by some very important wizards not to mistreat Harry and Dudley finally believed that Harry had indeed saved him from some horrible creatures called dementors last year. He now regarded him with some kind of awe and had stopped bullying him completely. However, Harry had stopped thinking about all of this. He had received ten OWLs and wasn't comforted by that, either. His friend Ron had received nine and Hermione, of course, twelve, the highest mark possible.

Slowly, Harry climbed out of his bed, put on his glasses and got dressed. He did it mechanically, without bothering that his shirt looked very crumpled. He ran his hands through his messy black hair, combing wouldn't help anyway, and made his way downstairs. He was greeted with a nod by the Dursley family but didn't respond in any way. He hardly ate, either, just nibbled a bit of ham and tried the eggs, but nothing of it woke his appetite.

Uncle Vernon and Dudley soon left to get 'little Dudders' a new punching ball.

Harry remained in the kitchen and dried the dishes Aunt Petunia was washing. The Dursleys didn't force him to do that kind of housework anymore, but since he had nothing else sensible to do, he could as well help.

Without him able to stop it, the sight of the clean, dripping wet plates and glasses reminded him of the sight of Sirius' kitchen in his old family's house. It had been very dirty, especially during the time he had lived alone there, only accompanied by the lousy house elf Kreacher. Sirius hadn't bothered with cleaning up and so the dirty dishes had piled there.

"Harry?"

Aunt Petunia's voice interrupted his musings. It was strange enough that she spoke to him at all, but this time, her voice wasn't even angry, but quite soft.

His aunt regarded him with a slight smile on her thin mouth, another strange sight. It vanished very soon, but she still looked at him softly.

"You miss him, don't you? Your godfather?"

Harry was speechless. She had never even mentioned him before. Was this all due to some adult wizards' warnings, or was she suddenly on her way to liking him?

He nodded in response to her question. "Yeah, he was… he was very nice and…" he stopped talking, reminding himself that Aunt Petunia wasn't interested anyway, but she urged him, "Go on!"

Harry cleared his throat. "Well, he was a bit like… you know, father and friend. Like, not really strict but always there to help. T'was a bit like having dad back…"

Now he waited for the big explosion. It didn't come.

"I met him once", Petunia told him, "at your parents wedding. I didn't want to go, of course, but our parents made me. He was quite a handsome guy…"

She gave him another quick smile and left the kitchen. Harry stood there and felt as if he had just been Stunned.

Summer holidays went by quickly. Remus Lupin, Tonks and Mad-Eye Moody dropped by sometimes, visits that were greatly disliked by Uncle Vernon.

And then there was the first of September.

Aunt Petunia took him to King's Cross and did another thing she'd never done before: she wished him a 'good time this year' and said 'see you in the summer'.

Harry pushed his trolley on which he had put his heavy trunk and Hedwig's cage. The owl was out delivering a letter to Remus Lupin.

He was used to getting to Platform 9 ¾ by now. Again, he leaned against the wall between platforms nine and ten, glided though it and landed on the magical platform where the scarlet Hogwarts Express was already waiting.

"Hello, Harry, over here!"

Harry looked around and found his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger already waiting for him. Ron had grown again and Hermione's hair was tied in a ponytail today which made her look very different. Not bad, just… different.

Harry made his way through a group of loudly chattering first-years towards the two. They eyed him, concern obvious in their eyes.

"How are you, mate?" Ron asked in an undertone.

Harry just shrugged. He had been asked that too often already.

"All right, I s'pose."

"Of course you're not all right", Hermione contradicted, "but you will be." She smiled at him and suddenly she let out a small cry and hugged him so vigorously he had the feeling as though his head was about to come off.

"Urgh, Mione, okay, that's enough…"

Quite thankfully that she was standing on her own two feet again, he looked around and spotted a young witch, by the looks of her barely older than twenty, sitting on her trunk, fast asleep. She wore a long skirt that seemed to be made out of some kind of patchwork tissue, although most of the colours were dark, a black blouse with wide sleeves and a brown coat.

Her dark brown hair was braided into a long plait. All in all, her appearance wouldn't have looked out of place in the 19th century…

"Who d'you reckon that is?" he asked the other two.

"Probably the new Defence against the Dark Arts teacher", Hermione replied shrugging.

Ron creased his forehead. "Looks a little young, doesn't she? Hope she's up to it."

Harry continued watching her. She looked nearly as ill as Lupin had on his first day at school. Suddenly, the train emitted a shrill whistle and her head jerked up. She grabbed her luggage and boarded the train and the others did quick to follow her.

On board the train, Harry was once again painfully reminded that Ron and Hermione were prefects and he wasn't, because they had to sit with the others at the prefect compartment and Harry was left alone. He didn't want to sit with Ginny, however, who was busy holding hands with her boyfriend Dean Thomas, or with Neville Longbottom, who was immersed in a book called 'History Of Herbology In The Wizarding World'.

So he sat down in an empty compartment and decided to spend the train ride feeling sorry for himself. Cho Chang passed him once, looked at him shortly, blushed and turned her head away again. Harry, though, couldn't care less. His infatuation with her had ended rapidly at the end of his fifth year. They had been seeing each other for a short time, but it hadn't been nearly as great as he had imagined.

The train began to move out of the station and soon, London was far behind them and the landscape changed into rural environment with grazing cows and wheat field.

Suddenly, Harry's compartment door slid opened. Outside stood the young witch from the station.

"May I come in?" she asked politely, though in a bit of a hushed voice. "Sure", Harry replied and motioned to one of the seats opposite him. She thanked him with a small curtsy –another think that would have fitted in the 19th century- and sat down.

"You're Harry Potter, aren't you?" she asked and as he nodded, she continued, "I'm Helen O'Connor, your soon-to-be Defence against the Dark Arts teacher. I'm replacing Professor Umbride."

Harry just nodded again, what else was there to say?

Professor O'Connor waited a moment, then she asked, "Has you godfather Sirius never mentioned me? Not that that's too bad", she added rather hastily, "I mean, he sure had other things in mind…" she stopped talking and looked out of the window. Her eyes were glittering with suppressed tears, Harry noticed. In his opinion, girls were crying too much.

The new professor cleared her throat before standing up again. "Well, that's all I wanted to know…" She looked as if she was about to say something more, but then she thought better of it and left the compartment again. Harry, utterly confused, was left behind with even more unanswered questions about Sirius and his father and the Marauders in general… and there was only one left he could ask. But writing to Lupin would have to wait a while.

***

The train ride had been, after Professor O'Connor's strange visit, quite uneventful.

Harry had met Ron, Hermione and the rest of his Gryffindor classmates at the Hogsmeade station. The carriages pulled by the ugly winged thestrals had taken them up to the school and there, inside the Entrance Hall, Harry met one of his worst nightmares again.

Draco Malfoy, who had tried to attack him at the end of his last school year as a revenge for bringing his father into Azkaban prison, was now waiting for him, together with his cronies Crabbe and Goyle.

"Look there, boys", he drawled, "it's Potty, Weasel and the Mudblood!"

"You're jokes are getting old, ferret", Hermione answered coolly. Malfoy paid her no heed.

"D'you know already, Potter? My dad's free", he shouted gleefully. Harry froze to the spot, Hermione and Ron exchanged worried glances. Malfoy wasn't finished yet, however.

"Yeah, my father's free…", he repeated, "and your godfather's dead!"

Hermione let out shriek of anger, as both she and Ron had thrown themselves onto Harry to stop him from attacking Malfoy.

The Slytherin had drawn his wand and, with a nasty grin, pulled back his arm to throw a curse at the trio.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed his wrist from behind, turned it around and pushed his arm upwards until Draco dropped his wand and let out a yelp of pain.

"Don't do that ever again!" the stranger's voice warned him, a female voice. Then the saviour of the three Gryffindors stepped forward from behind him and they could see that it had been Professor O'Connor.

"I wonder what it was with her and Sirius…" Harry muttered. "She didn't do this for us, she was just furious about his remark, too."
"Harry", Hermione said, "I think I know what's up with her. Did you see she has small white flowers growing in her hair? She's partly Dryad, that's why she looks this young. As for Sirius… I think she was his lover!"

TBC