Chapter 29 - Dots

Sunday evening, Harry was to be released. His skin had all regrown. Madam Pomfrey let him down from the hover charm. Harry winced in pain.

"What did you expect?" snapped Madam Pomfrey. "Your skin and nerves are newer than a newborn baby's. Just one more thing we have to do now."

She began pulling on some large thick rubber gloves and Harry recoiled. "Oh, relax, you big baby. These are just so I can apply skin toughener without toughening my own hands." Then she took a jar of salve and started to apply it to the bottoms of Harry's feet, and his elbows and knees, as well as a very light coat where clothes would rub. "This will keep these areas from being too raw and tender when you get back to daily life. It toughens up the areas that would get painful from regular use. I'd better put a second coat on your feet since you've been running this year."

"Do you have some I can take internally?" asked Harry.

"Why? Are you going to eat with goblins?"

"I don't want it for my stomach. I want it for my heart," said Harry.

Madam Pomfrey stopped and looked him in the eye. "The Headmaster told me about your visions and what causes them. Listen carefully, Potter: there are potions to numb your feelings – alcohol's one of the easiest. Small amounts are no big deal, but understand you should never try using any sort of potion to run from your problems or hide from your emotions. You might stop dealing with them for a while, but they'll come roaring back. And you won't have dealt with your problems, which usually get worse in the meantime. Face your emotions and your problems, and you'll have a much better chance of a happy conclusion. Understand?"

Harry nodded.

"And since we're talking," she continued, "I know Edgecombe told you I was a bit put out by all the work you send me on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And so I am, but you keep sending them to me. I'd much rather deal with minor hurts now than major hurts later. We're getting a better quality of injury already from your group. Keep it up."

With that, she let Harry put on the clothes Ron had brought him and return to his dorm. It was already dark outside, but not too late. The Gryffindor students were mostly in the common room, some playing games, some reading or doing homework. Ron and Hermione were quibbling over something. It was good to be back. Mrs. Weasley was right – after three days off, Harry was anxious to get back to his routines. After a minute or two, he was noticed and greeted. Those that hadn't visited him in the Hospital Wing congratulated him on the great show on Halloween.

"Maybe you should thank Malfoy," said Harry, "it would have been dull without him."

Parvati Patil giggled "I think Professor McGonagall is taking care of all the 'thanking' he needs from Gryffindor for a long time. 500 points against Slytherin, fertilizing and pruning all the deadliest plants on Saturday, and somehow Hagrid calmed down enough to see that all the thestrals needed colonic irrigation this afternoon."

Neville laughed. "I went to watch part of that, Harry. I knew he couldn't see the thestrals, so he had to locate where to stick the hose by feel. The thestrals got really cantankerous over that."

"I'll bet."

"And then when he had them filled up and pulled out the hose, he didn't know which way to run to avoid the spray."

The whole common room burst into howls of laughter at that. Then Parvati added, "And McGonagall is still locating additional detentions for him."

Harry grinned. "Oh, that's breaking my heart."

"Harry," called Jack Sloper, "Glad you're back – are you going to be ready for the Hufflepuff game this weekend?"

"I'm ready now," said Harry, "I am so in need of doing something."

"Maybe there's a thestral Malfoy missed."

"No, thanks, I'll pass."

It felt great to be back to routines the next day. Harry had only missed one day, but with the weekend involved as well, it felt like he had been away much longer. He got back a Potions essay which was thoroughly marked-up by Snape, but all Snape could find to criticize was the handwriting. At Herbology, Professor Sprout held up a mirror for him to see the wisps of purple hair near his ears: "Better cut back on the murtlap for a while," she warned.

Getting back to Apparation Class was the best. Harry had been apparating full body for almost a month, so Madam Hooch decided to give him the test needed to move on to apparating with objects. Harry had to apparate to ten small magical objects from around the Quidditch stadium in less than five minutes without splinching. Harry was so excited to be able to move on that he was done in fifteen seconds.

"You beat the old school record by 11 seconds," Madam Hooch observed, "Your father set that and Charlie Weasley tied it, even though he later messed up his licensing test in his excitement. Flying and apparating skills just seem to go hand-in-hand."

After that Harry spent the rest of the class session practicing apparating different places with a chair. He once needed to get Madam Hooch to help him extricate the chair from the wall. The rest of the class was doing tolerably well, for the most part. Many, including Hermione, Ron, the Patil sisters, and Lavender Brown, were apparating their whole arms dependably and were starting to work on feet.

At Occlumency that evening, nothing was said about Halloween or the lethifold. Harry and Snape went straight to practice. Harry was managing to protect his negative emotions most of the time, and was rarely using spells to ward Snape off. More often than Harry liked, he found himself catching glimpses of Snape's mind without even using the Protego spell. Try as he might, he found it harder and harder to hate Snape as he came to understand bits and pieces of his life and perspective. Still there were clearly mountains of information in Snape's mind that remained hidden. The session left both Harry and Snape rubbing their heads. Harry rubbed his scar, which always hurt after long sessions of his mind being invaded. Likewise, Snape was always left rubbing his temples

At the DA, enthusiasm was high generally, but particularly for the Patronus. Some people said they just never wanted to face anything as hideous as a lethifold or a dementor without a proper weapon. Others said they figured if it meant that much to Harry to face that monster to show them how it's done, that they had better learn it.

As the weeks went on, the DA's progress was apparent. By Christmas break, they still were on level 1 fighting spells, but the reliability, aim and control were clearly there. Those in the higher years were better fighters already than the average adult wizard, but only the members of the original DA and a few others looked to be ready to meet a trained fighter. Although Neville still lagged in Patronus and Apparation skills, as a fighter he was becoming frightening – only Hermione, Ron and Harry could stand up to him for long, and he was utterly implacable on offense or defense.

By Christmas, several others had been able to produce corporeal Patronuses, including the Weasley twins, Anthony Goldstein, Katie Bell and Susan Bones, and had tested them against the lethifold. A few had trouble producing their patronus against the lethifold at first, but Harry or Professor Weasley would intervene to put the lethifold back in its box. Then Harry would talk them through their fears and soon they were able to conjure the Patronus even under pressure. Harry felt like he could conjure a Patronus just by thinking of the progress he had seen.

In early December while Ron and Harry were discussing tactics after a quidditch practice (Gryffindor having won its match with Hufflepuff 390 – 80, Hufflepuff being in a rebuilding year and fog preventing Harry from getting the snitch sooner), Hermione came up to them with a piece of parchment each. Each one had 22 small box outlines and each box had a number of dots in it.

"Here, maybe you two can figure something out," said Hermione.

"Wow, you're trusting us to think. What are these anyway?" asked Harry.

"I got tired of trying to figure out the holes in the gum wrappers while looking at the letters and garish swirling patterns on the wrappers, so I made an outline of each wrapper and the pattern of dots within it."

"Wow, Hermione," said Ron, "what spell did you use for that?"

"None, Ron," said Hermione, "honestly; you full-bloods think everything has to be done by magic. I used a quill to trace the wrappers and make a mark through each hole."

"Has it helped?" said Ron, peeved at being scolded.

"It's easier to look at, but nothing so far. That's why I've made copies for you."

"That was quite a lot of work," said Ron.

"Oh, Ron! Why would it be? I just charmed a quill to copy the first one. Why wouldn't I use magic to do something like that! Don't you ever think?"

Harry suppressed his grin and said, "Maybe we can ask around to people and see if they can figure out the code. But we should probably not say what it's from. Can we say it's from Arithmancy? - we won't run into anyone else taking that."

Hermione sniffed with indignation, "There are more than you think. We need something else."

Ron perked up. "I know, let's say it's a special project for my father, and we'll let him know to go along with it."

"Won't he ask questions?" asked Hermione.

"Probably not," said Ron, "but so what if he does – we're just trying to see whether a bunch of tatty gum wrappers have a hidden code. Wow, it's actually coming in handy to have him around."

"Honestly, Ron" said Hermione. "You can't think of anything else nice about having your father teaching Defense? I suppose you'd like to get Umbridge or Lockhart back?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind Lupin back," replied Ron, "but, okay, Dad's a sight better than the rest."

"Speaking of your family," said Harry, "what are you going to be doing for Christmas break? I hate to be blunt, but I had kind of hoped for an invite."

"Oh, sure!" said Ron. "Absolutely, you're invited to spend it with us – RIGHT HERE! Mum decided it was so much fun to spend Halloween weekend here that she wants to spend Christmas, too."

"Oh, well, that's not so bad, is it?" said Hermione. "This place is rather charming in the winter and you can practice magic and quidditch and have the run of the place."

"Yeah, well, I couldn't bear to mention this before, but when she visits they play 'games,' if you know what I mean," said Ron.

"You don't mean Exploding Snap, do you," said Harry with a smile.

"I went down to see Dad in his office after dinner that Friday after Halloween, and when I opened the door, he was in his teaching robes holding his pointer stick and Mum was sitting in the detention desk writing lines. And she had her hair up in pigtails like when she was a student here! And if I had any doubt where that was leading, they both blushed when I came in."

Hermione suppressed her giggling, "So Molly Weasley is sometimes a naughty girl – tut, tut, tut. Well, that will teach you to knock before entering."

Then Harry added, "Just be glad you weren't any later – you might have gone blind."

"That's not funny, you two! I could be emotionally scarred for life from something like that! I had to go to the Prefects loo and bathe for an hour to feel clean again," objected Ron.

"Better be careful there, too," said Harry mischievously. "You can never tell when they might decide to share some time there – getting in a lather."

"Ooh, and watch out at the Quidditch Pitch. I heard your Mum mention how they used to meet out there, too, though she didn't share any details."

"Shut up, both of you. I won't have another place to go besides the dorm, the library, and the owlery," fumed Ron.

Harry grinned. "Well, as a matter of fact,…"

"SHUT IT, RIGHT NOW, POTTER!"

"Oh, Ron," said Hermione. "They are a married couple, who have long been madly in love with each other and still are. Did you think you and Ginny were found under pumpkins?"

"Well, he might have been," said Harry.

"Thanks a lot for the sympathy," said Ron with exasperation.

"Ron," said Harry, "Is it that bad that your parents love each other?"

"Maybe not – but that doesn't mean I need to be reminded of it involving anything more than kisses hello and goodbye."

"Ron," said Hermione quite intently, "is it your intention to be doing anything more than greeting kisses when YOU'RE your father's age?"

"Well, yeah, of course, I mean, absolutely," he said quite sheepishly, "But, you know, that's different."

Harry laughed at Ron's predicament. "Maybe you better quit, mate, while you're no further behind than you are already."

"I don't know how it's gone on so far already! It's certainly not what I wanted to talk about!"

"Well, I think it's lovely," said Hermione. "In fact I'll be returning here Boxing Day, as my parents are going on a romantic holiday cruise together. Personally, I think it's wonderful – they almost never can get away from their dental practice."

"A cruise - where?" asked Harry.

"The coast of Norway."

Ron was shocked. "The coast of Norway? In the middle of the winter? In the North Sea? Conditions will be terrible – they won't be able to get topside at all!"

"That's the idea," said Hermione with a wink, turning to go back up to the girls' dorm.

"Well, now I know where she gets it from," said Ron, "The whole family's nutters!"

Harry laughed, but he didn't think they sounded irrational at all.