Chapter 6: Giant Problems
Harry and Hagrid went to the Hogsmeade Train Station, and from there Hagrid went to the Three Broomsticks. It was just one hour left until the Hogwarts Express had to arrive - and Harry decided that he wanted to wait for it in the station. He looked at the rail in the distance, and saw nothing except woods and the sky. There was no sign fo the Hogwarts Express, a thing which was obvious.
But he got used to waiting by then. two months with the dursleys, and one week at Hogwarts with no friends around him made the one hour pass very fast.
Ten minutes to six, Hagrid was back at the station. Harry could hear it -- something was moving very fast in the distance, and he knew that it was the train which he couldn't wait to arrive. All of his friends were inside... he would get very soon to meet them...
"Hagrid..." Harry asked, "Was that Death Eater, by any chance, staying in your hut the entire week?"
"Course not. D'yeh think that he could've bin hidin' there all the week? With me in that hut?"
"Er, right," said Harry. He was thinking that it may have been possible that Avery hid in Hagrid's hut, because no one could have known... He only wanted to attack Harry, no one else...
Harry was listening to the noise that could be heard in the distance. And after a few minutes, he saw it. The scarlet steam engine was closing the station...
It was approaching their position, and when it was in the station, the train stopped. The doors suddenly opened, some of them with loud bangs, and then a crowd of students got out of the long train. Harry looked around for Ron, Hermione, and, secretly, for Cho.
The first one who he saw was Hermione, who had already spotted him and was waving her hands hoping that Harry would notice her. And, finally, he did. "Harry!"
"Heya, Harry!" said another voice, which was Fred's. Soon, the entire crowd was near him, walking slow to the castle.
Ron and Hermione looked at each other, greeted and then came to the group which was formed of Harry, Fred, George, Seamus, Dean and Neville Longbottom, who was a forgetful and round-faced boy in Gryffindor with very small capabilities at magic.
They slowly walked to the castle and most of them were talking about their holidays. Everyone seemd to have a good holiday, except Harry who had to stay at the Dursleys in a very limited kind of living.
"My grandmother explained me a few things to know when doing spells," said Neville, "and I think it was a very good idea - I could do the Wingardium Leviosa spell in the first try..."
"I have won several galleons by selling a few drawings of mine," Dean Thomas continued. "You know, I am quite good at drawing... It was a great holiday. Once I asked for permission to cast some spells in a place where Muggles never came, and they allowed me. You should have seen those spells I've done! We didn't learn them at school..."
Harry felt happier than before, though not as he wanted to be in the first school day. He started talking about the Quidditch match, and about the excellent Vasile Feint the Romanians did.
"You should do it, too," said Ron to Harry.
"No we won't be able to do it, now that they have all seen the match..."
"Then try the Wronski Feint!"
"A better idea."
Hermione was asked why she didn't come to the Quidditch game. Ron seemed to not like that she didn't come, Harry wondered why.
"Oh, I wanted to go but, you know, exactly at that time I had to go to my Muggle Uncle. I couldn't not go..."
"Harry," asked Ron, "Who d'you reckon that will be the Keeper this year?"
"Dunno," Harry asnwered, but then thinking a little, continued, "But I wonder who will be the captain... I just hope that it won't be me."
But, against Harry's will, he had no other alternative. Who would he want to be captain? Fred? George? They weren't able of doing a lot of things a captain would -- it just wasn't their type. And the three chaser girls didn't look like team captains either. So he had no other alternative than to accept to be the captain... but was he any better than Fred or George?
Harry looked at the lake and saw the horseless carriages float with the first years towards the huge, mighty Hogwarts castle, which Harry considered his true home. That was the place where enjoyed life as much as possible, of course except of the times Malfoy was annoying him.
They all went to the Great Hall. It was a relief of being there in a normal way -- twice in his life he hadn't seen the sorticg ceremony. Once was in his second year, when Dobby the house-elf blocked the secret passage on platform nine and three quarters so Harry couldn't go to Hogwarts. He and Ron decided to fly to the castle with Mr. Weasley's bewitched car, and when they were at Hogwarts they crashed into the Whomping Willow. They had missed the sorting because of that. And the second time was in his third year. He was affected by a dementor and needed to go to the Hospital Wing to eat some chocolate which made him feel better again. That was the second time when he missed the sorting.
Everyone stood at their long house tables, looking at the first-years that already lined up to be sorted. All of them looked at the great hall quite astounded, and Harry remembered that the first time he went to Hogwarts, he was just like them. Professor Mcgonagall had a parchment with the names of the first years on it.
They slowly walked to the three-legged stool where the hat was placed.
"When I call your names," Professor McGonagall started, "you will try the hat and you will be sorted into your houses."
Everyone was quiet, except one person: Ron.
"Come on, be faster!" he said, "My stomach is growling --"
"Ron, just be patient," Hermione told him with a bossy voice, "The sorting is important..."
"Yea, yea..." said Ron in a dully voice.
Then the attention was attracted by Professor Mcgonagall who started the sorting.
"Fawcett, Bryan!"
A small first year walked slowly to the sorting hat. His nerousness could be read on his face very easy. Professor McGonagall took the sorting hat and put it carefully on the student's head, before it shouted loudly so everyone could hear,
"GRYFFINDOR!"
"Baddock, Fred!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
The sorting continued. The silence was disturbed again by Ron, who was continuously asking for food. Even though everyone was ignoring him, he didn't stop and disturbed them until Nearly-Headless Nick told him that Dumbledore couldn't be pleased if a student stopped others from listening to the sorting.
Harry wanted it to end, too; he had to tell Ron and Hermione about those unusual things that happened in the holiday. Everything starting with the Memory Charms, Avery, Errol's death which had to be the result of a Memory Charm, and then his stunningly performance at the Cruciatus Curse. It looked as painful as Voldemort's one.
It looked like the sorting ceremony was longer than usual only to make Ron and Harry as anxious as possible for it to end. There were more new students than Harry saw the previous years, and when it was over, Ron spit out a loud "AT LAST!"
But his enjoyment didn't last for long. Dumbledore wanted to give a speech before the Start of Term Feast started.
"Welcome," he said, while standing on his feet, "to another year at Hogwarts!"
"These are some very dark times," he said in a more serious voice than his usual, "because, as you already should know, Lord Voldemort had risen again, and even at these moments he is walking free throughout the world."
Almost every student in the hall flinched when Dumbledore said Voldemort's name. Everyone called him you-know-who or he-who-must-not-be-named, thing that annoyed Harry a lot. He wanted to teach Ron and Hermione to say his proper name, too, but the chance of accomplishing it was very low.
"But fear not," Dumbledore continued, "because at Hogwarts you are completely safe. The castle and its grounds have many protections, helping us against the Dark Lord very much. Everyone had been working hard to keep the safety high in this castle and its surroundings. "The first years, and a few older students too, need to remember that the Dark Forest out of the school is completely forbidden, and anyone who breaks this rule has to be punished."
His speech seemed over, and before he sat on the chair, the only two words he said were, "Dig in."
The Feast was uneventful compared to the last few days. Harry's relief was that the Death Eater was caught and no one was trying to erase Harry's memory -- at least that was what he had hoped.
On their way to the Gryffindor tower, Hermione called Harry and Ron; she wanted to tell them something.
"I have been made a prefect," she said looking at Harry and Ron who didn't look surprised at all.
"Wasn't it obvious?" asked Ron. "Top grades... who else could be a prefect except for you?"
"Right," she said a little annoyed.
As they walked to the gryffindor Tower, Harry was only thinking of how to start telling Ron and Hermione everything -- and telling it was a long story. But, fortunately, he didn't have to start because Ron had done it before.
"Harry," he asked just before they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, "Why did you have to come to Hogwarts before the term started?"
"Oh, it is a looong story..." Harry answered looking at the Fat Lady who was eyeing them.
"Password?" she asked.
"Avery," said Hermione before the portrait swung open allowing the students to enter the warm common room. When Harry heard the new password, he almost jumped.
"What's wrong?" Ron asked him before he could say anything.
"Everything has a connection with this name," Harry continued, wondering how would he say it once he started with the end. "A Death Eater was keeping casting memory charms on me, wanting to make me forget everything. I even got an Underage Wizardry Warning... Dumbledore came to take me to Hogwarts. Here I had the same problems -- I was suddenly forgetting things, and Dumbledore placed a spell on the Gryffindor Tower to protect it. I don't know what he did, though. I wasn't supposed to leave the tower without the invisibility cloak." Harry felt his mood turning worse as he said those words - 'invisibility cloak'. He explained the accident where he had lost his invisility cloak, and he couldn't stop some tears falling from his wet eyes.
"You have lost your invisibility cloak?" asked Ron, horror-struck. Hermione didn't seem to look better either.
Harry's answer was a nod, and then he continued, "I have met this Death Eater today in Hagrid's hut... Found out who he was. I have only seen him once -- at the Little Hangleton Churchyard, you know, that graveyard where I was transported when I touched the cup last year -- his name was Avery. he had an invisibility cloak, too, and I have his, but my dad's was lost... Avery died while we tried a Veritaserum on him -- looks like someone killed him before telling us important nformation."
"You MET him?" asked Hermione, who wasn't looking her usual self.
"Yes... Made him unconscious by a good stupefy spell... That triwizard tournament did a good to me... Oh, and one more thing about this..."
"What?"
"I -- I don't know why, but I... I casted a Cruciatus Curse on Avery." Both Ron and Hermione looked at Harry a very surprised look.
"How?" Hermione asked. "We are only in out fifth year..."
"It's not as a big surprise after all those strange things that happened lately. Maybe it didn't happen and was just a memory charm... though I don't think so. Dumbledore and Hagrid are worried about all these things, including this Crcuiatus I've done... Dumbledore was looking at me in a very strange way. I could tell that he was worried about it... and he has to have a good reason to believe something..."
They looked at each other for a few minutes, lots for words. Everything looked worse than before when Harry saw Ron's and Hermione's panicked expressions. Even though the Death Eater was killed, Harry knew that it couldn't actually be the end, he knew that the Death Eaters would't give up like that. And his Crucio was as haunting as it was unexpected. It could have been done by someone else, not by him, but through his body... if that was possible.
"Listen," Hermione broke the silence, "We need to go and get some sleep..."
"A good idea," Ron continued, "Indeed."
And then they did what Hermione suggested. She went to the girls' dormitory, and Harry with Ron walked up the stairs until they reached their own bedroom. Neville, Dean and Seamus were already there.
"So, the new year had started," Seamus told them.
"Yes," Harry took the turn to speak, "And I wonder if I'll get out of this alive."
"Oh don't be that pessimistic," said Ron who was looking at Harry with a Hermione-like dont-joke-about-things-like-that face.
"Good night," said Harry lazily and sitting on his four-poster. He pulled the curtains and heard some good nights from the other roommates. This had to be a very eventful year, with Voldemort back to power and his Death Eaters back...
The next day, the fifth year Gryffindors woke up a bit later than they should have. Harry knew that he fell asleep very late the previous day, with all of the things that happened and trying to guess what would happen next, and that was what he blamed for getting up that late.
They set off to the Great Hall. It looked much emptier than they were used for it to be: last year there were twenty-five more students in the school because of the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students who came for the TriWizard Tournament. The first person who talked to them was Hermione.
"Why are you so late? Come on, McGonagall is going to give us the schedules!"
They sat at the table and ate a little food in the time they had until McGonagall came to the table. "School schedules!" she said, and Hermione was eager to see their classes. Harry and Ron took one, too.
"Today it is saturday," Ron told his friends, "So we won't start school until Monday..."
"The first class we have is... double Potions!" said Ron angrily. "Oh couldn't they allow us to have a nice first day?"
"Shut up, Ron," said Harry, seeing that Snape was eyeing them suspiciously. "Snape is watching us."
They stod quiet for a little time and then Ron continued, "Wonder what he's up to this year..."
"Let's continue eating," said Harry, "I see that the breakfast isn't over."
Hermione looked at him with an annoyed face, but then she came back to normal and did what the other two did. Harry wasn't very hungry, and instead of eating he was looking at the staff table. There as a new person in the seats, and Harry saw that the new teacher was an old lady. At first he thought he was having hallucinations. He knew the old lady, even though he hadn't seen her for a quite long time. She was Mrs. Figg, who he used to go to when the Dursleys were leaving the house and didn't want to take Harry with them. But what was she doing at Hogwarts?
He didn't wonder for too long because he was distracted by something else. He saw Cho, who was quite happy, talking to her friends. He looked back to his food when one of her friends caught eye contact with him. After that, he had just seen them laugh a little.
They spent their first two free days the best they could, while Fred and George were telling the fellow Gryffindors about some things they invented -- it looked like the damage their mother had done didn't stop their plans for a joke shop.
Monday, they woke up, not that cheery as they were the prevoius days, because they couldn't just spend their entire day on doing something fun. The only one who seemed to be waiting for the start of the term was Hermione.
"Oh," Ron told Harry, "I forgot that the first class we have is double Potions!"
"Yea... anyway let's go until Snape will take us fifty points for being late."
The trip to the dungeons was uneventful. Hermione was keeping telling them to go faster because they could be late, but all Ron and Harry did was to ignore her.
The slytherins were already there, and as Harry entered, Malfoy shouted, "Obliviate" but with no wand. He looked like he didn't want to cast a memory charm, he just wanted to scare Harry, he had surely found out about what happened in the summer. Of course, his father was a Death Eater, so Malfoy had a good source to find out about Voldemort's actions.
"I see your hair had re-grown, Malfoy, hasn't it?" Harry told him trying to not remember what happened the last time they met -- in the Diagon Alley. The gryffindors started laughing, and the slytherins tunrned back. And Harry had seen why -- Professor Snape had just entered the dungeon.
"Now what can make all the gryffindors laugh like this?" Snape asked in his usual cold voice. "Five points from each of you, and that means, fifty points are taken from Gryffindor."
Harry could barely control himself. He was ready to stand up and shout to Snape about being unfair, but Ron and Hermione already noticed that and held him.
"We're doing Warmth Potions today. I hope you won't have problems with this one, because if one thing goes wrong, its effect may be... destructive. Does anybody know what can happen if the potion is done wrong?"
Hermione's hand raised in midair, but Snape seemed to ignore it. "No one?"
Then it was too much for Harry. "Professor, don't you see that Hermione --"
"Thirty more points from Gryffndor, Potter! Know to not disturb me because next time it will be fifty."
Harry managed to control himself, before losing another fifty points -- they had already lost eighty, and making it one hundred and thirty in only one class was too much. He wondered if a house had ever had minus eighty points. He couldn't remember seeing a house having a negative number of points, but everything had a first didn't it?
Later in the class, Harry was upset to see that Snape gave the slytherins thirty points for making the potion correctly. Harry was ready to jump again, because Hermione had done the potion, too, but he didn't give her any point. Maybe Snape was too angry when Neville's potion blew up, covering a part of the floor with a yellow acid that burned a few holes into the floor.
The next class they had was Care of Magical Creatures, which, they hoped, was a lot better than the terrible Double Potions with Snape. That was true if Hagrid didn't bring another evil and dangerous creature for them to study.
Hagrid was waiting for them in front of his hut. The slytherins came at the same time the Gryffindors did, and Malfoy was talking to Crabbe and Goyle about their parents. Harry knew they were all Death Eaters, but Malfoy didn't speak about that. He had met them two months before, at the graveyard...
"The firs' creatures we'll study are owls," Hagrid announced at the beginning of the class.
All of the students looked at Hagrid as if he was kidding. Harry was wondering what Hagrid could tell them about owls, and sided with the other stdents.
"What, d'yeh think i'm jokin? No I'm not, 'coz there're lots o' things you don't know about em."
"And that will be?" asked Malfoy looking bossy.
"We'll teach 'em how to bite you, Malfoy." Malfoy turned back, while some Gryffindors started laughing -- there was no Professor Snape around this time.
Then Hagrid started his lesson about owls, which turned out to be very interresting. He told them more about the Phoenix owls, creatures that resulted by taking an owl egg and hatch it under a phoenix. Dumbledore's phoenix owl was assisting the class, and Hagrid showed the students more things about it. The owl had both the owl's and phoenix's qualities, being very good at post and as a pet, too. Its tears could even heal, though not as good as the Phoenix ones could.
After the class, they had launch, but before they went to the Great Hall they wanted to speak to Hagrid.
"Harry told us that lots of unusual things happened in the summer here," Hermione told him when they entered the hut.
"'bout Avery? Yes there were... an' those aren' the on'y unusual ones that happened here."
"WHAT?" Harry asked trying to hide his worries that Voldemort will actually win after all.
"Yeah, giant problems. Yeh know that las' year they said I will have ter do a very importan' job? Well we had to contact the giants befor' Yeh-know-who did."
"And what was unusual?"
"We couldn't. They said He had already took 'em. Even my mother was there..." Hagrid started to feel sad. "She almos' killed me, she did. Me and Madame Maxime were tryin ter do a good job, but all we did was to make them be even worse..."
"That's a giant problem," said Ron. "A Huge one."
"An' I fear that we'll soon see em... That Fudge, it was because of him... I saw him, an' he told me that the giants were evil an' that I had no right to take em... Minister of Magic or not, I hate him... Oh, one more thing about Fudge. He did not want to remove the dementors from Azkaban... and You-Know-Who did it... he took them as well..."
Harry clapped his hands to his mouth. They all stood silenced, until Harry hardly managed to speak.
"We have got to eat, Hagrid. Bye," said Harry before getting out of the hut and hurrying to the Great Hall.
Harry's fears were even worse than before. Besides thinking that a Death Eater may turn up and try to attack him, there were the giants and the demoentors -- who were making Harry feel bad only when thinking about them. Harry remembered what Dumbledore said last year -- that the giants and the dementors will join Voldemort as he asked them...
As for the Cruciatus, he would just wait and see if it was a good or bad thing.
Harry and Hagrid went to the Hogsmeade Train Station, and from there Hagrid went to the Three Broomsticks. It was just one hour left until the Hogwarts Express had to arrive - and Harry decided that he wanted to wait for it in the station. He looked at the rail in the distance, and saw nothing except woods and the sky. There was no sign fo the Hogwarts Express, a thing which was obvious.
But he got used to waiting by then. two months with the dursleys, and one week at Hogwarts with no friends around him made the one hour pass very fast.
Ten minutes to six, Hagrid was back at the station. Harry could hear it -- something was moving very fast in the distance, and he knew that it was the train which he couldn't wait to arrive. All of his friends were inside... he would get very soon to meet them...
"Hagrid..." Harry asked, "Was that Death Eater, by any chance, staying in your hut the entire week?"
"Course not. D'yeh think that he could've bin hidin' there all the week? With me in that hut?"
"Er, right," said Harry. He was thinking that it may have been possible that Avery hid in Hagrid's hut, because no one could have known... He only wanted to attack Harry, no one else...
Harry was listening to the noise that could be heard in the distance. And after a few minutes, he saw it. The scarlet steam engine was closing the station...
It was approaching their position, and when it was in the station, the train stopped. The doors suddenly opened, some of them with loud bangs, and then a crowd of students got out of the long train. Harry looked around for Ron, Hermione, and, secretly, for Cho.
The first one who he saw was Hermione, who had already spotted him and was waving her hands hoping that Harry would notice her. And, finally, he did. "Harry!"
"Heya, Harry!" said another voice, which was Fred's. Soon, the entire crowd was near him, walking slow to the castle.
Ron and Hermione looked at each other, greeted and then came to the group which was formed of Harry, Fred, George, Seamus, Dean and Neville Longbottom, who was a forgetful and round-faced boy in Gryffindor with very small capabilities at magic.
They slowly walked to the castle and most of them were talking about their holidays. Everyone seemd to have a good holiday, except Harry who had to stay at the Dursleys in a very limited kind of living.
"My grandmother explained me a few things to know when doing spells," said Neville, "and I think it was a very good idea - I could do the Wingardium Leviosa spell in the first try..."
"I have won several galleons by selling a few drawings of mine," Dean Thomas continued. "You know, I am quite good at drawing... It was a great holiday. Once I asked for permission to cast some spells in a place where Muggles never came, and they allowed me. You should have seen those spells I've done! We didn't learn them at school..."
Harry felt happier than before, though not as he wanted to be in the first school day. He started talking about the Quidditch match, and about the excellent Vasile Feint the Romanians did.
"You should do it, too," said Ron to Harry.
"No we won't be able to do it, now that they have all seen the match..."
"Then try the Wronski Feint!"
"A better idea."
Hermione was asked why she didn't come to the Quidditch game. Ron seemed to not like that she didn't come, Harry wondered why.
"Oh, I wanted to go but, you know, exactly at that time I had to go to my Muggle Uncle. I couldn't not go..."
"Harry," asked Ron, "Who d'you reckon that will be the Keeper this year?"
"Dunno," Harry asnwered, but then thinking a little, continued, "But I wonder who will be the captain... I just hope that it won't be me."
But, against Harry's will, he had no other alternative. Who would he want to be captain? Fred? George? They weren't able of doing a lot of things a captain would -- it just wasn't their type. And the three chaser girls didn't look like team captains either. So he had no other alternative than to accept to be the captain... but was he any better than Fred or George?
Harry looked at the lake and saw the horseless carriages float with the first years towards the huge, mighty Hogwarts castle, which Harry considered his true home. That was the place where enjoyed life as much as possible, of course except of the times Malfoy was annoying him.
They all went to the Great Hall. It was a relief of being there in a normal way -- twice in his life he hadn't seen the sorticg ceremony. Once was in his second year, when Dobby the house-elf blocked the secret passage on platform nine and three quarters so Harry couldn't go to Hogwarts. He and Ron decided to fly to the castle with Mr. Weasley's bewitched car, and when they were at Hogwarts they crashed into the Whomping Willow. They had missed the sorting because of that. And the second time was in his third year. He was affected by a dementor and needed to go to the Hospital Wing to eat some chocolate which made him feel better again. That was the second time when he missed the sorting.
Everyone stood at their long house tables, looking at the first-years that already lined up to be sorted. All of them looked at the great hall quite astounded, and Harry remembered that the first time he went to Hogwarts, he was just like them. Professor Mcgonagall had a parchment with the names of the first years on it.
They slowly walked to the three-legged stool where the hat was placed.
"When I call your names," Professor McGonagall started, "you will try the hat and you will be sorted into your houses."
Everyone was quiet, except one person: Ron.
"Come on, be faster!" he said, "My stomach is growling --"
"Ron, just be patient," Hermione told him with a bossy voice, "The sorting is important..."
"Yea, yea..." said Ron in a dully voice.
Then the attention was attracted by Professor Mcgonagall who started the sorting.
"Fawcett, Bryan!"
A small first year walked slowly to the sorting hat. His nerousness could be read on his face very easy. Professor McGonagall took the sorting hat and put it carefully on the student's head, before it shouted loudly so everyone could hear,
"GRYFFINDOR!"
"Baddock, Fred!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
The sorting continued. The silence was disturbed again by Ron, who was continuously asking for food. Even though everyone was ignoring him, he didn't stop and disturbed them until Nearly-Headless Nick told him that Dumbledore couldn't be pleased if a student stopped others from listening to the sorting.
Harry wanted it to end, too; he had to tell Ron and Hermione about those unusual things that happened in the holiday. Everything starting with the Memory Charms, Avery, Errol's death which had to be the result of a Memory Charm, and then his stunningly performance at the Cruciatus Curse. It looked as painful as Voldemort's one.
It looked like the sorting ceremony was longer than usual only to make Ron and Harry as anxious as possible for it to end. There were more new students than Harry saw the previous years, and when it was over, Ron spit out a loud "AT LAST!"
But his enjoyment didn't last for long. Dumbledore wanted to give a speech before the Start of Term Feast started.
"Welcome," he said, while standing on his feet, "to another year at Hogwarts!"
"These are some very dark times," he said in a more serious voice than his usual, "because, as you already should know, Lord Voldemort had risen again, and even at these moments he is walking free throughout the world."
Almost every student in the hall flinched when Dumbledore said Voldemort's name. Everyone called him you-know-who or he-who-must-not-be-named, thing that annoyed Harry a lot. He wanted to teach Ron and Hermione to say his proper name, too, but the chance of accomplishing it was very low.
"But fear not," Dumbledore continued, "because at Hogwarts you are completely safe. The castle and its grounds have many protections, helping us against the Dark Lord very much. Everyone had been working hard to keep the safety high in this castle and its surroundings. "The first years, and a few older students too, need to remember that the Dark Forest out of the school is completely forbidden, and anyone who breaks this rule has to be punished."
His speech seemed over, and before he sat on the chair, the only two words he said were, "Dig in."
The Feast was uneventful compared to the last few days. Harry's relief was that the Death Eater was caught and no one was trying to erase Harry's memory -- at least that was what he had hoped.
On their way to the Gryffindor tower, Hermione called Harry and Ron; she wanted to tell them something.
"I have been made a prefect," she said looking at Harry and Ron who didn't look surprised at all.
"Wasn't it obvious?" asked Ron. "Top grades... who else could be a prefect except for you?"
"Right," she said a little annoyed.
As they walked to the gryffindor Tower, Harry was only thinking of how to start telling Ron and Hermione everything -- and telling it was a long story. But, fortunately, he didn't have to start because Ron had done it before.
"Harry," he asked just before they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, "Why did you have to come to Hogwarts before the term started?"
"Oh, it is a looong story..." Harry answered looking at the Fat Lady who was eyeing them.
"Password?" she asked.
"Avery," said Hermione before the portrait swung open allowing the students to enter the warm common room. When Harry heard the new password, he almost jumped.
"What's wrong?" Ron asked him before he could say anything.
"Everything has a connection with this name," Harry continued, wondering how would he say it once he started with the end. "A Death Eater was keeping casting memory charms on me, wanting to make me forget everything. I even got an Underage Wizardry Warning... Dumbledore came to take me to Hogwarts. Here I had the same problems -- I was suddenly forgetting things, and Dumbledore placed a spell on the Gryffindor Tower to protect it. I don't know what he did, though. I wasn't supposed to leave the tower without the invisibility cloak." Harry felt his mood turning worse as he said those words - 'invisibility cloak'. He explained the accident where he had lost his invisility cloak, and he couldn't stop some tears falling from his wet eyes.
"You have lost your invisibility cloak?" asked Ron, horror-struck. Hermione didn't seem to look better either.
Harry's answer was a nod, and then he continued, "I have met this Death Eater today in Hagrid's hut... Found out who he was. I have only seen him once -- at the Little Hangleton Churchyard, you know, that graveyard where I was transported when I touched the cup last year -- his name was Avery. he had an invisibility cloak, too, and I have his, but my dad's was lost... Avery died while we tried a Veritaserum on him -- looks like someone killed him before telling us important nformation."
"You MET him?" asked Hermione, who wasn't looking her usual self.
"Yes... Made him unconscious by a good stupefy spell... That triwizard tournament did a good to me... Oh, and one more thing about this..."
"What?"
"I -- I don't know why, but I... I casted a Cruciatus Curse on Avery." Both Ron and Hermione looked at Harry a very surprised look.
"How?" Hermione asked. "We are only in out fifth year..."
"It's not as a big surprise after all those strange things that happened lately. Maybe it didn't happen and was just a memory charm... though I don't think so. Dumbledore and Hagrid are worried about all these things, including this Crcuiatus I've done... Dumbledore was looking at me in a very strange way. I could tell that he was worried about it... and he has to have a good reason to believe something..."
They looked at each other for a few minutes, lots for words. Everything looked worse than before when Harry saw Ron's and Hermione's panicked expressions. Even though the Death Eater was killed, Harry knew that it couldn't actually be the end, he knew that the Death Eaters would't give up like that. And his Crucio was as haunting as it was unexpected. It could have been done by someone else, not by him, but through his body... if that was possible.
"Listen," Hermione broke the silence, "We need to go and get some sleep..."
"A good idea," Ron continued, "Indeed."
And then they did what Hermione suggested. She went to the girls' dormitory, and Harry with Ron walked up the stairs until they reached their own bedroom. Neville, Dean and Seamus were already there.
"So, the new year had started," Seamus told them.
"Yes," Harry took the turn to speak, "And I wonder if I'll get out of this alive."
"Oh don't be that pessimistic," said Ron who was looking at Harry with a Hermione-like dont-joke-about-things-like-that face.
"Good night," said Harry lazily and sitting on his four-poster. He pulled the curtains and heard some good nights from the other roommates. This had to be a very eventful year, with Voldemort back to power and his Death Eaters back...
The next day, the fifth year Gryffindors woke up a bit later than they should have. Harry knew that he fell asleep very late the previous day, with all of the things that happened and trying to guess what would happen next, and that was what he blamed for getting up that late.
They set off to the Great Hall. It looked much emptier than they were used for it to be: last year there were twenty-five more students in the school because of the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students who came for the TriWizard Tournament. The first person who talked to them was Hermione.
"Why are you so late? Come on, McGonagall is going to give us the schedules!"
They sat at the table and ate a little food in the time they had until McGonagall came to the table. "School schedules!" she said, and Hermione was eager to see their classes. Harry and Ron took one, too.
"Today it is saturday," Ron told his friends, "So we won't start school until Monday..."
"The first class we have is... double Potions!" said Ron angrily. "Oh couldn't they allow us to have a nice first day?"
"Shut up, Ron," said Harry, seeing that Snape was eyeing them suspiciously. "Snape is watching us."
They stod quiet for a little time and then Ron continued, "Wonder what he's up to this year..."
"Let's continue eating," said Harry, "I see that the breakfast isn't over."
Hermione looked at him with an annoyed face, but then she came back to normal and did what the other two did. Harry wasn't very hungry, and instead of eating he was looking at the staff table. There as a new person in the seats, and Harry saw that the new teacher was an old lady. At first he thought he was having hallucinations. He knew the old lady, even though he hadn't seen her for a quite long time. She was Mrs. Figg, who he used to go to when the Dursleys were leaving the house and didn't want to take Harry with them. But what was she doing at Hogwarts?
He didn't wonder for too long because he was distracted by something else. He saw Cho, who was quite happy, talking to her friends. He looked back to his food when one of her friends caught eye contact with him. After that, he had just seen them laugh a little.
They spent their first two free days the best they could, while Fred and George were telling the fellow Gryffindors about some things they invented -- it looked like the damage their mother had done didn't stop their plans for a joke shop.
Monday, they woke up, not that cheery as they were the prevoius days, because they couldn't just spend their entire day on doing something fun. The only one who seemed to be waiting for the start of the term was Hermione.
"Oh," Ron told Harry, "I forgot that the first class we have is double Potions!"
"Yea... anyway let's go until Snape will take us fifty points for being late."
The trip to the dungeons was uneventful. Hermione was keeping telling them to go faster because they could be late, but all Ron and Harry did was to ignore her.
The slytherins were already there, and as Harry entered, Malfoy shouted, "Obliviate" but with no wand. He looked like he didn't want to cast a memory charm, he just wanted to scare Harry, he had surely found out about what happened in the summer. Of course, his father was a Death Eater, so Malfoy had a good source to find out about Voldemort's actions.
"I see your hair had re-grown, Malfoy, hasn't it?" Harry told him trying to not remember what happened the last time they met -- in the Diagon Alley. The gryffindors started laughing, and the slytherins tunrned back. And Harry had seen why -- Professor Snape had just entered the dungeon.
"Now what can make all the gryffindors laugh like this?" Snape asked in his usual cold voice. "Five points from each of you, and that means, fifty points are taken from Gryffindor."
Harry could barely control himself. He was ready to stand up and shout to Snape about being unfair, but Ron and Hermione already noticed that and held him.
"We're doing Warmth Potions today. I hope you won't have problems with this one, because if one thing goes wrong, its effect may be... destructive. Does anybody know what can happen if the potion is done wrong?"
Hermione's hand raised in midair, but Snape seemed to ignore it. "No one?"
Then it was too much for Harry. "Professor, don't you see that Hermione --"
"Thirty more points from Gryffndor, Potter! Know to not disturb me because next time it will be fifty."
Harry managed to control himself, before losing another fifty points -- they had already lost eighty, and making it one hundred and thirty in only one class was too much. He wondered if a house had ever had minus eighty points. He couldn't remember seeing a house having a negative number of points, but everything had a first didn't it?
Later in the class, Harry was upset to see that Snape gave the slytherins thirty points for making the potion correctly. Harry was ready to jump again, because Hermione had done the potion, too, but he didn't give her any point. Maybe Snape was too angry when Neville's potion blew up, covering a part of the floor with a yellow acid that burned a few holes into the floor.
The next class they had was Care of Magical Creatures, which, they hoped, was a lot better than the terrible Double Potions with Snape. That was true if Hagrid didn't bring another evil and dangerous creature for them to study.
Hagrid was waiting for them in front of his hut. The slytherins came at the same time the Gryffindors did, and Malfoy was talking to Crabbe and Goyle about their parents. Harry knew they were all Death Eaters, but Malfoy didn't speak about that. He had met them two months before, at the graveyard...
"The firs' creatures we'll study are owls," Hagrid announced at the beginning of the class.
All of the students looked at Hagrid as if he was kidding. Harry was wondering what Hagrid could tell them about owls, and sided with the other stdents.
"What, d'yeh think i'm jokin? No I'm not, 'coz there're lots o' things you don't know about em."
"And that will be?" asked Malfoy looking bossy.
"We'll teach 'em how to bite you, Malfoy." Malfoy turned back, while some Gryffindors started laughing -- there was no Professor Snape around this time.
Then Hagrid started his lesson about owls, which turned out to be very interresting. He told them more about the Phoenix owls, creatures that resulted by taking an owl egg and hatch it under a phoenix. Dumbledore's phoenix owl was assisting the class, and Hagrid showed the students more things about it. The owl had both the owl's and phoenix's qualities, being very good at post and as a pet, too. Its tears could even heal, though not as good as the Phoenix ones could.
After the class, they had launch, but before they went to the Great Hall they wanted to speak to Hagrid.
"Harry told us that lots of unusual things happened in the summer here," Hermione told him when they entered the hut.
"'bout Avery? Yes there were... an' those aren' the on'y unusual ones that happened here."
"WHAT?" Harry asked trying to hide his worries that Voldemort will actually win after all.
"Yeah, giant problems. Yeh know that las' year they said I will have ter do a very importan' job? Well we had to contact the giants befor' Yeh-know-who did."
"And what was unusual?"
"We couldn't. They said He had already took 'em. Even my mother was there..." Hagrid started to feel sad. "She almos' killed me, she did. Me and Madame Maxime were tryin ter do a good job, but all we did was to make them be even worse..."
"That's a giant problem," said Ron. "A Huge one."
"An' I fear that we'll soon see em... That Fudge, it was because of him... I saw him, an' he told me that the giants were evil an' that I had no right to take em... Minister of Magic or not, I hate him... Oh, one more thing about Fudge. He did not want to remove the dementors from Azkaban... and You-Know-Who did it... he took them as well..."
Harry clapped his hands to his mouth. They all stood silenced, until Harry hardly managed to speak.
"We have got to eat, Hagrid. Bye," said Harry before getting out of the hut and hurrying to the Great Hall.
Harry's fears were even worse than before. Besides thinking that a Death Eater may turn up and try to attack him, there were the giants and the demoentors -- who were making Harry feel bad only when thinking about them. Harry remembered what Dumbledore said last year -- that the giants and the dementors will join Voldemort as he asked them...
As for the Cruciatus, he would just wait and see if it was a good or bad thing.