Dedicated to LonelySpirt – my 600th reviewer!
In Every Darkness
Chapter Twenty Two: Propositions
31.8.1996
"I have a proposition for you, Harry," Dumbledore told him, smiling slightly.
"A proposition? What sort of proposition?" Harry asked, looking curiously at the headmaster of Hogwarts, wondering what was going through the man's mind now.
"After last year, it has become apparent that you need some more rights than those of an ordinary student. Being made a Prefect would get you those rights, but it would also give you a lot of responsibilities.
"So, I have been thinking over the summer for a way to give you those rights. I have decided to make you a sort of Honorary Prefect, and give you all of the rights of a Prefect, but not many of the responsibilities. You will, of course, still be expected to stop trouble makers if you see them, but you will be free to move around, and no teacher or other Prefect could give you a detention without my consent.
"You'll be able to use the Prefect bathrooms and access out of bounds areas. You understand that it is a great trust that I am giving you, but I believe that it might be useful for you this year," Dumbledore finished.
"Wow," was all Harry could say.
"After all," Dumbledore added, "you should have been made the male Prefect for Gryffindor last year …"
"I don't know what to say to that," Harry said, still feeling quite amazed.
"How about 'yes'?" Dumbledore asked, smiling slightly.
Harry shrugged and grinned. "Alright then: Yes."
Dumbledore laughed and reached into a pocket, taking out a badge that read: Harry Potter, Honorary Gryffindor Prefect.
"Snape is not going to like this," Harry remarked, grinning slightly.
"No, he wasn't particularly pleased when I announced my decision to do this," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled merrily.
Harry had to laugh at that.
Dumbledore rose. "I'll leave you to your own devices, Harry. I believe there is an entrance to the Library through a secret door somewhere along that wall," he added, gesturing, before he left the room.
Harry immediately stood up and walked over to examine the wall, not even noticing the door closing as Dumbledore left.
It didn't take him long to find a slight difference in the grain of wood in one part of the wall, and just a slight push of his hand made the wall inch inwards a little, then it was pulled up towards the roof to reveal a passage way lit by suddenly flaming torches.
Walking slowly into the passage, Harry looked around himself. He saw what must have been skeletons of rats. The chamber seemed to smell mostly of decay, which wasn't particularly pleasant.
Harry muttered a spell to get rid of the smell, and a moment later could breath without hindrance from the awful stink.
Walking faster, not liking the fact that skeletons littered his path, Harry nearly stumbled head on into the exit for the Library.
He pushed lightly against the wall, and it immediately moved outwards and upwards.
When he was granted a clear view of the Black family Library, Harry knew exactly why Hermione was fascinated by it – it was huge … Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling, huge shelves raised themselves in a maze of book-lined walkways.
Harry stepped out of the passageway, hardly noticing as the doorway closed once more. He wandered through the shelves of books, noticing that there seemed to be vague subject groups.
When he reached the 'Potions' section, he immediately noticed the book 'Moste Potente Potions' – he remembered that book well enough, and knew that it was in the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library.
He didn't take the book down, but instead wandered on, looking at all of the spell books, a collection even bigger than the Hogwarts one.
It wasn't long before he found himself in the Defence Against the Dark Arts section, browsing through books that he'd never seen before.
There were a lot of really interesting books there, and Harry ended up picking several of them up before he went off to try and find the way back to his new room.
Harry fell onto his bed after setting the books down on a bedside table. He wanted to talk to Sirius again … Maybe his godfather would still be there …
A few moments later Harry had drifted into a light sleep. "Sirius?" he called softly, looking around him, searching for his godfather in this dream world.
He knew Sirius was there – it was one of those dreams. But where his godfather was … that was another question altogether.
He let his form change as he could do in the dream world only, a red and gold lion prowled around the clearing, sniffing here and there, searching for a trace of scent.
It wasn't long before he found Sirius's trail, and then he was gone, bounding gracefully across the clearing and into the forest, running flat out with a speed no creature in the 'real' world could match.
Finally he caught site of his godfathers dog form, a little ways ahead, Sirius was standing in another clearing, waiting patiently for Harry to arrive.
Harry skidded to a halt and changed back to human form almost without a pause between them. Sirius also resumed his human form and grinned at Harry.
"You're back already! Did they let you go back to sleep fairly soon after you woke?" Sirius asked him.
"Yeah," Harry replied. "I found a way into the library from your room, and got some books. Oh! And I found your will! Dumbledore says that the Order of the Phoenix will know that it is valid, but that it can't be known to the Ministry because they think that you're still a Death Eater," Harry added.
"Good! Remus said that he's set aside most of the things that I left for other people, which is good. Oh, and he said to tell you to tell Snape something, but I can't quite remember what it was at the moment…" Sirius mused.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Tell it to Tatsu if you see him first," he told his godfather, grinning. "Now, wanna have a duel?"
When Harry awoke again, night had just fallen. He supposed that the Order of the Phoenix would be starting to get worried about his absense again.
Getting up, he changed clothes into loose jeans and a black shirt, then wandered downstairs, not bothering to do anything about his hair, which was, as usual, sticking up all over the place.
He wandered down to the kitchen and looked inside. Most of the Order of the Phoenix members were there, and all of them looked sad. None of them seemed to be eating anything, though there was a lot of breakfast on the table.
He walked in, and everyone looked up, smiled breifly and looked down again. No one spoke. The silence was quite disturbing, and it certainly wasn't a good atmosphere to eat in, so Harry didn't touch the food either.
Not long after Harry arrived, Ron and Hermione stood up. "We should do some homework," Hermione murmured, softly, because sound seemed very wrong at the moment.
Harry joined them, wanting something to do to keep him from dwelling too much on the events of the morning. Remus's death had struck him hard, and he hadn't really thought about the Dursley's much at all… But they were dead too … Should he mourn them? Did he feel sad about them being gone?
He shook his head – he didn't want to think about the Dursley's right now, because if he did, he would start feeling guilty again, about their deaths, and Remus's.
Hermione and Ron fell back to walk on either side of Harry, comforting presences that he did not need to give excuses to.
As they walked together through the library, sometimes pausing to pick up books, Harry found himself thinking of the past, all the times that he and his friends had done things against the rules, and laughed about their escapes afterwards.
Would they ever be able to do that again? Now that Voldemort had come back, would one of their number dissapear? Would it be him? What would Ron and Hermione do if he was gone? Would they miss him, or forget about him?
Harry shook his head, trying to clear it of distressing thoughts.
"Harry?" Hermione asked softly, wondering what he was thinking.
"So many people are going to die," he whispered, voice bleak.
Hermione slipped an arm around his waist and Ron threw his arm over Harry's shoulder, both of them hugging him tightly. "It'll be alright. Eventually, you'll kill Voldemort and everything can return to normal again."
"What's normal?" Harry asked wearily. "I don't think I've ever had anything happen to me that wasn't something to do with Voldemort… Could I live without him being around trying to kill me?"
"Of course you could Harry Potter! And don't you ever even think differently!" Hermione told him.
Harry just smiled slightly. "Well, I guess some day I'll find out," he remarked.
"Some day soon, I hope," Hermione agreed, and Ron nodded firmly. "What did Dumbledore want to talk to you about?"
Harry told them, and Hermione grinned. "Well done!" she said, and Ron echoed her, a little less enthusiastically.
Harry smiled. "I'm sure glad that I've got friends like you," he remarked. "But aren't you scared that Voldemort's going to try and kill you as well now? Because you're friends with me?"
"If he does try, you'll just have to stop him," Ron responded calmly.
"Seriously though," Hermione added, "it doesn't matter. We are your friends, and we aren't going to stop being your friends. Not even Voldemort can break our friendship, even if he kills us."
"Thanks guys," Harry sighed. "I needed to hear that, I think."
"We really should get some of this homework done though. It might take our minds of things. Ron could you look up …" Hermione began, and Harry nearly laughed.
***
There we go, chapter completed! Next chapter: Party Time!
~WolfMoon~