Disclaimer: See Chapter I

Okay, just to let you all know I consider this the worst one I've written so far as I had a different version already written but then fate intervened, and the whole lot got deleted. It wasn't amusing to say the least. That, coupled with the disappointing feedback I got when I took a stab at the grandfather of all fan fiction (X-files), hasn't been too encouraging.

Oh well, shit happens, and just to clear up any bad air (it was pointed out in a review) I don't have anything against slash fics, just I don't read them, and I hate it when the slash part is kind of surprised upon you. I mean, one minute you think you'll be reading of a bloody and gory fire-fight and the next thing you know you have Harry getting his colon examined by Colin Creevey and his 'magic probe'. Surely it isn't too hard to ask that you list what sort of sexual connotations are present in your work? You use about a calorie and add about a couple of bytes to your work when you write in the warning, so it isn't that much.

Finally…Thank you to all who have read and responded to the work. I've a lot more confidence in my writing ability then I had when I, on a whim after reading some of the HG fan fics out there, put fingers to keys. A long-term project will be writing a historical novel of my alma mater, a decent project considering the history of it. Anyhow, thanks to all, even those who had some not so nice things to say.

Warning: If you don't like humor so crude it came from the Stone Age, leave now.

Chapter XXXVI: Interludes and Drinking

The next several months were easily the worst of Harry's life. His caning may have hurt, and the potions he was on for a month to detoxify the various drugs he had been on gave him the running shits, but that wasn't as bad as to the fact he was isolated from just about any outside news. Umbridge had blocked off Floo access to all fireplaces except her own, and anybody who wanted to use them had to do so while being monitored. Owl mail was being screened and censored, and Filch had much help from the Inquisitorial Squad, who had the same powers granted to them as teachers as to the deduction of House points. Worse, their roving patrols were equipped with magical sensors to detect those who used Invisibility cloaks or chameleon charms, and coupled with the fact they always seemed to have a team watching over the entrance and hallways to the Gryffindor tower, Harry found his edge in terms of the Invisibility Cloak and Marauder's map negated.

Needless to say, this ensured that any attempts on his or Ginny's parts to meet in secret were pretty much killed before they even started. After the warnings he had received from the new Headmistress of the school, he was unable to do much to fix the situation, much to his, and no doubt Ginny's, frustration and disgust.

Umbridge had sat him down in a meeting the morning after he had been caned. She had been oozing false kindness, telling him that she hadn't had much choice in the matter. Her true colors had become rather evident when she had started to ask pointed and direct questions on just how much he knew of Dumbledore's current location. Sitting in his chair before the Headmistress, Harry had responded that he hadn't a clue, and then proceeded 'accidentally' spilled his tea cup and the tea next to it all over her desk, which promptly got her upset and him thrown out of the classroom. Harry had been rather suspicious of the tea by how Umbridge was constantly watching him as he put the cup to his lips, and telling him he should partake more of it. Considering her position within the Ministry, as well as her penchant for breaking the rules in order to protect her master Fudge, Harry had no doubts the bitch had slipped him some Veritaserum or something equally pleasant. Harry had left with her dire warning that if he were caught doing anything remotely illegal, the consequences would be dire.

As a result, there was almost no reprieve, no rest for Harry. Daily, during the school week, he did his school work with the same ardor as he had before. This ardor was given a long-term goal when, a week after he got back during the registration for the OWLs in May he was counseled about what career he wanted to engage in after Hogwarts. He had before given thought to becoming an Auror, or maybe playing Quidditch professionally, or maybe even taking up Colonel Ferguson's offer of going into the Army. Now, with the disappearance of his uncle, with no information whatsoever coming to him, Harry's thoughts had hardened: he was going to become an Auror regardless of what it cost him. He hadn't said so outright, though it had been ringing through his head as he had sat down before McGonagall and Umbridge, listening to the latter inform him that he would never become an Auror, not with the criminal record he possessed. This had sparked an argument with McGonagall, the stern Scot informing Harry that she would see him wearing the Auror's badge if it was the last thing she ever did. Needless to say, Umbridge hadn't been happy.

Life had pretty much become one of monotony as Hogwarts degenerated into a totalitarian state. Lee Jordan had been fired from the Head Boy position and given two months detention with Filch for saying the way Fred and George were being treated was an injustice. The twins and Jordan had almost been thrown out of Hogwarts and into Azkaban after Umbridge pointed out what decrees and laws the twins and Alex had broken researching and building a flying carpet. Despite their poor marks in the OWLs, the twins had been pretty good at magical sciences and engineering as their fully functional, ten-man magic carpet had proven. They were saved from prison by McGonagall, who told Umbridge that for a series of pranks they had pulled earlier in the school year they had been placed under the personal charge of Alex. Harry hadn't reacted when he had heard the implications his uncle was a dangerous criminal, as McGonagall claimed the twins had been tricked by Evans into breaking those laws. Umbridge must have bought it, for all she did was give them detention with Filch along with Lee…And had their carpet, and all of the materials they had used were burned in a bonfire on the Quidditch pitch before the assembled student body. Harry had seen the look on the twins' face, and knew that all hell would break loose given time.

The quality of their instruction had declined significantly after Harry's return. Divination had gone from one end of strange to another, as Fudge had ordered Trewlawney fired, and Dumbledore replaced her (even though she still maintained her quarters at Hogwarts) with Firenze the Centaur, who was on the run from his species for supporting Dumbledore. Professor Binns was recalled after Alex had gone missing to take over the History class, and things went back to the way they were before Alex's tenure: boredom, a lot of it. Umbridge fired Professor Ramius, claiming that the Ministry no longer recognized the status of the school in Eastern Europe. Katrina, though, managed to stay on a permanent basis as she was the daughter of Hogwarts faculty. Umbridge took over the DADA department. She must not have had a very opinion of their education, as from the moment she took over her focus was over reading about assorted creatures that were, at their worst, minor magical headaches. Harry watched as Umbridge pretty much ran the school to the ground: the Inquisitorial Squad, headed by Draco Malfoy, who now wore the badge of the Head of Hogwarts security, abused their power of taking away house points to the extent Slytherin lead by a factor of three hundred points. Quidditch was prohibited, Umbridge claiming that it detracted student's attention away from their schoolwork to the extant that he confiscated every broom in the school. Except for those on the IS and Malfoy, who claimed that those on the Inquisitorial Squad (i.e. Slytherins) needed the brooms as part of their duties.

The Dueling and Defense with Muggle Weapons Club was shut down while the blood still flowed from Harry's back. Under the pain of expulsion, no one could practice the charms and curses one would need to learn how to defend ones self. Harry found out the only good things that came out of that was that Doc had hidden the arms and explosives throughout the school, and that his friend the house-elf Dobby showed him the Room of Requirement. There, Harry was able to keep his own skills, as well that of a select few from the other houses who believed in what happened to him, and had been really involved in the old double D club. Harry was only able to do this for a couple of times a month, as it required a lot of timing and coordination from the twins, who had slowly began a campaign of pranks against Slytherin, and any that supported them. Fred and George were more then happy to provide a distraction for Harry and his group (Ginny had jokingly coined a name for their group, calling them Dumbeldore's Army, with Harry as their commander based on how him and Nev had spent their summer in Wales) to meet. Usually it involved some disaster (such as Stink bomb detonation right as most of the Slytherins were leaving for their classes) that occupied the attention of the IS and any other teacher whilst those interested beat a hasty retreat to the room.

Harry wound up having to call the meetings every other week, on a different day each time, and only then for two hours at a time. It wasn't much, but one thing he had learned was that the more he tried to increase the length of the training, or call more sessions as he knew, the way the twins did, just what sort of thin ice they were skating on. If the twins were busted, it was game over with the terrible two and more then likely Lee Jordan to boot being expelled. Should Malfoy or his goon squad stumble upon the Room of Requirement, then Harry knew they would have just the evidence they would need to throw him out of Hogwarts to the Luxury Suite at Azkaban.

Probably the only good thing in Harry's life during this time was that his relationship with Ginny, for that matter with his friends, only got stronger. It wasn't that they spent any time alone together, the way they had before. No, they had to maintain the façade of being friends on an almost constant basis. Yet Harry let her know, whenever an opportunity presented itself, that he loved her. Sitting next to her at mealtime, he would gently taker her hand in hers, and squeeze. Whenever nobody was looking, he would glance at her and her at him. It wasn't much, and Harry was tempted for a long time to let everybody know they were a couple, and had been for a while. After all, he wasn't totally sure what he had said under the knife (he was fairly certain he hadn't, but one could never be sure when one was having your fingernails removed with a pair of pincers and under the influence of LSD to boot). Whenever he got the chance to look into her eyes, he knew that was what she wanted as well, as the game they had been playing may have been hard on him; Harry wasn't blind to know that it played double for her. After all, she was beautiful, and funny, and smart, and whole host of adjectives that Harry knew. He knew that she was probably sick and tired of constantly having to tell people that her boyfriend was always busy, or a host of other half-truths to keep the other people at bay.

Yet, he kept their relationship a secret. As he had thought, he wasn't totally sure if he had revealed their relationship, and he had nothing to go on that Voldemort knew. Judging by the fact Malfoy and his goons didn't seem to know, than there was nothing to indicate the Dark Lord did either. So Harry and Ginny had to settle for the occasional caress and touch, a game of footsy under the table at meals, and one time, when it had been six months since they had gone out, Harry had whispered to her as she leaned next to him during a study session of 'love you'. Harry felt Ginny didn't deserve this, but he had rapidly come to the conclusion that without her he would probably do something stupid…It was selfish, he knew but he couldn't help it…Not that Ginny indicated she wanted to break it off due to the hardship, though again Harry often thought that if she did he wouldn't blame her, but until then he would settle for what he had now, and hope that he could one day make up for it…

The months passed, and Harry watched as Umbridge tarnished the school he considered more of a home then the place he stayed in Surrey every summer. In March, during the height of the Umbridge domination, with detentions reaching an all-time high, Slytherin having, for the first time in Hogwarts History, a five hundred point lead in the race for the House Cup, and student body morale in the toilet, Umbridge hastily brought back the Quidditch cup. Rather, she decreed that while the season had been cut extremely short, the two teams with the most wins would compete in a championship game during a day listed as a holiday, the whole school being required to attend. Well, the whole school except for Harry and Filch, who had him, scrubbing the wooden floor of his office with a brick and some sand. Harry didn't mind though, for he found out afterwards that the Gryffindor team, with Ron as captain and Ginny filling his old spot of Seeker had played a hard game, and won…

Luna and Hermione came up with idea of striking back at Fudge and Umbridge in a most spectacular fashion. Malfoy and his squad had slowly become rather sloppy in their dealings with Harry, often losing him if he spent a great deal of time just walking about in Hogsmeade. Harry had tried this tactic out several times, and like clockwork the people Malfoy had tailing him often wound up tiring of chasing him through alley ways, in and out of Madam Rosemerta's pub and the Hog's multiple times, and back and forth from the school. Harry discovered the best time to do it was on a Saturday, when Malfoy had only his two goons Crabbe and Goyle following. While he was tempted to lose them and go for a tryst with Gin, he didn't, as the first lesson of poker he had learned was not to play against a stacked deck, which was what the current situation looked like.

Instead, one Saturday, he lost the two morons in Hogsmeade, and then made a beeline to the Hog's Head. He had traded his school robes in the basement of the candy store for a set of voluminous ragged robes. Since it was late in the evening, and rainy to boot, no one had paid him much mind as he made his way to a meeting with Luna, Hermione, and Rita Skeeter, his 'favorite' witch reporter. She had been about as happy to see him as he was with her, but she had been eager for a story, and Harry had long viewed Fudge, Umbridge, and others as much of an enemy as Voldemort and his crew. Harry had told all, no longer caring if people thought him a goddamn lunatic (which he had the sneaky suspicion was about most of the school based on the looks they gave him), told all. The Triwizard Tournament, young Crouch and how Fudge covered up the evidence by silencing him with a Dementor, the real story of the attack on the Broomsticks, and of the whole messy affair in February that left Harry in captivity for about four days, until a long-shot rescue operation mounted by his uncle brought him back…Albeit at the cost of Alex Evans, MM, being missing since.

Harry had felt a bit of relief getting the story off his chest, though he did have some misgivings, wondering if by revealing a glimpse into the secret war waged at the peripheries of wizard society he was hurting the effort of others who fought in the shadows. Yet, judging by how far Fudge and his cronies had their heads up their respective anal orifices, he couldn't possibly do any worse. As for himself, he was about fed up with Umbridge, and really didn't care anymore what happened to him. If he was thrown out, then so be it…After all, once that happened he would be what his uncle considered himself to be when he rescued Harry: a man with nothing left to lose.

It proved to be a moot point though. Skeeter's article, appearing in The Quibbler, Luna's father's newspaper, became, thanks to Harry's article and some rather unsuccessful attempts by the Fudge administration to silence it, the most read newspaper in all of Great Britain and Ireland. Luna gleefully told Harry that every time Fudge called him a crazed fool it sold another ten thousand copies. Despite the censorship of the mail going into the school, enough copies made their way around that they were the most talked about news items in the school. Umbridge didn't throw Harry out of the school for his remarks; instead having him write in blood several thousand times that he was a liar using a black quill. Harry thought the old bat must have received orders from Fudge not to have him thrown out, as doing that would merely feed more fuel to the fire he had created, though he did find his latest punishment a bit humorous in a dark sort of way. After all, did Umbridge really believe that a little cut (albeit one in the words 'I am a liar') would faze a man who had been cut, bleed and burned by a real torturers, not some rank amateur bully?

She also put a ban on reading the article from the moment it had appeared in the papers, but all that did was prevent Malfoy and his people from doing anything to him. After all, Hermione pointed out, how could they know what Harry said when they themselves weren't allowed to read the article? Harry appreciated that, and likewise appreciated things a bit more when people no longer looked at him as though he were Jack the bloody Ripper. A final bonus came when he found out that Malfoy had been caught by Cho Chang fucking around with some other women, and they had had a hell of a row in the Library. It had ended up with both having detention from the Librarian, and neither seeing each other.

In April, things got worse. The twins, one fine evening in the middle of the school week, were caught after they had set off a really spectacular series of fireworks. Apparently, neither the Headmistress nor Filch had found it too amusing when a series of 'fire-breathing dragons' had rampaged throughout the hallways, causing mass chaos. To ice it off the twins had cast something that turned the main hallway in front of the staircase into a giant, water-logged bog. Filch, Umbridge, and assorted Inquisitorial Squad personnel chased them through the school, cornering them in the Great Hall, where before a growing crowd of students, Umbridge had told the twins that they would receive the same punishment as Potter for their crimes against the school. Fred and George hadn't thought too much of it, instead pulling a trick out of Harry's book by summoning their brooms from the lock-up in Umbridge's office, and flying off into the night.

That was, of course, after they had told Peeves to give Umbridge hell…And after they had cached an unknown, but most assuredly large number of joke materials throughout the school. Neither of the twins may have received the marks, but when it came to practical usage in Potions or engineering, they had no equals. Hogwarts was a scene of constant chaos and disorder, as the combination of student chaos (everybody, it seemed, wanted to pick up the twin's legacy of mischief-making) and Peeve's hell-raising ensured everybody was on edge. The pace only slackened prank-wise as OWLs loomed closer, and even Peeves scaled back on the chaos he produced, settling down to usually bothering Umbridge.

It would have been humorous to Harry, were it not for the fact that instead of having the time to sit back and smell the flowers that were blooming as winter gave way to spring, he found himself having to constantly cracking the books, easily putting in sixteen hours days of study and class-work. Snape, of course, kept up his usual regimen of belittlement, and seeing to it that Harry received some of the lowest grades in Potions in the history of Hogwarts. The others merely crammed as much as they could into the tired minds of Harry and his peers, McGonagall emphasizing on a daily basis how important they were….

"So the son-of-a-bitch walks in just as she grabs my wang, and it snowballed from there." Doc shook his head, and tossed back his glass, filled with about a quarter ways with a clear, liquid. Harry, bottle of ale in hand, was snickering and pretty soon laughing. It was a Friday night; everybody in the bloody school had taken off for a major, pre-OWL and pre-NEWT party in the Three Broomsticks. Everyone that is, except for Doc, Harry, and Snape, who had put his 'favorite' student to a late-night detention of cleaning the potions equipment by hand. Doc, really looking forward to carousing Hogsmeade with Harry and company, and stood up and used a few choice words about Snape's conduct. Snape had rewarded his usage of his right to free speech by promptly having him share the punishment.

That had been in the morning. Now, at almost nine at night, having missed dinner, and tired from having to scrub out a series of cauldrons and beakers, Doc and Harry had decided to get smashed big-time. Doc had broken out a vile drink called Soju, a Korean form of vodka distilled from rice husks to a clear liquid…Mixed with a generous helping of formaldehyde. Harry had used the book of liquor Alex had given him and pulled out a ten bottle case of ale. That had been about an hour ago, and Harry was dusting the last of the ale off.

Sitting around, ties and shirts loosened, shoes off, they had spent the better part of the evening so far drinking and telling their stories, 'shooting the shit' as Doc put it. Doc had brought out his charmed CD player, and they were listening to some 80s as he related about the time he had been about to get some hand action when a teacher had walked in on them during a school party. Doc was more upset that he had been caught and missed out on some action then his punishment of being sent as an exchange student to Hogwarts.

"Let me guess, you thought you were going to pull some serious action when you came here, right?" Harry asked his rather inebriated American comrade. Doc gave a goofy grin, and nodded his head enthusiastically.

"You've watched too much porno, my friend." Harry replied dryly as he drained his ale and threw bottle back into the cardboard case with the others.

Doc laughed, and then his face got a bit more serious…

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"You mind if I ask a bit of a personal question?"

"What's that?"

"You mind if I try to get into Chang's pants?"

Harry had just taken a shot of soju, and it burned real bad as he choked it down. It took him a minute, a minute in which Doc looked at him, a sly smile on his face.

"Uh…"

"C'mon, Harry, I thought you ditched the bitch?"

"I did, just why the fuck would you want to touch the slag after she's been fucking Malfoy up, down and sideways for the better part of the year?" Not that he cared, Harry reminded himself. His only interest was sort of angle Doc was playing.

Doc was leering now, "Well, I've always held the more experienced the woman, the more you'll learn. All I want is a piece, and Cho seems to be pretty handy."

"Not that I care if you shag and bag the slag, but why not make a pass at Lovegood? Settle down with a nice girl? Hell look at her name, man!" Harry wasn't sure why he said that, but Doc shrugged it off. "Nah, I taint ready for a serious relationship, and I respects Luna too much to make a pass of that sort." Harry could hear his friend was pretty drunk, and judging by the way he was feeling, so was he.

Doc looked down his glass, and then up. His eyes were gleaming, and Harry hung his head and shook it slowly. The bastard was going to do something, their recent discussion put on hold…

"Thunder-run." Doc raised his glass of rot-gut and slugged it back. Harry was privately surprised that neither was gone from alcohol poisoning or cirrhosis or something else equally pleasant. At the same time, he also wondered if raising hell in the town of Hogsmeade. Looking at his nearly full bottle of ale, Harry wondered about sipping it, and stay put, letting Dumb-ass there go about pushing his luck to the limit.

Then he laughed, and guzzled his ale in one long chug.

"Oi! Oi!" Harry and Doc were running like madmen, chanting in tune to AC/DC's TNT that was blaring from Doc's CD player. Doc stumbled over the hem of his black robe, and fell on his ass. Harry stopped, and called him a wanker. Doc responded by giving him the finger, bellowing the appropriate words, and then took off again, this time running to the tune of some Rolling Stones. Harry thought of his godfather, and wondered if his uncle liked Paint It Black as much as he did. Pulling out the ugly green glass bottle with its Chinese character, Harry took another slug of soju as him and his rather drunk friend continued their approach to Hogsmeade. He had vague idea that everybody would be at the Three-Broomsticks. It might not be a good idea to go there considering his current situation, but Harry and Doc were riding a drunk real proper.

Besides, Doc had pulled out his wizards diplomatic passport, which he said would prevent him from getting into any trouble so long as he didn't kill anybody. Harry were trusting that if something serious occurred, Doc would wave it around and get them out of the shit, though he was a bit leery. Wondering why he hadn't used it before, especially in conjunction with the twins, Harry had asked him. Doc had replied by throwing a brotherly arm over Harry's shoulder, and telling him that he thought it was pretty fucking bad that he was being screwed over by Snape and the powers that be. Detibedeux's headmaster had told him to use the diplomatic credentials only in an emergency, but he figured now was as good a time as any.

Harry was touched, and they made their way down the main drag. With the way they were walking, and the fact they were blaring various rock and pop out from Doc's CD player ensured they got more then a few weird glances. Both found the expressions they were receiving as quite amusing, and were soon laughing like a pair of hyenas with rabies. Reaching the Three Broomsticks, Harry could hear the sounds of a piano, laughter, care-free happiness. Pleased, he turned the handle and pushed. Sure enough, the place was over-flowing with students in their robes, cases of Butterbeer being consumed, with a square, boxy piano being played in the corner. Doc and Harry strode in, and took a look around. Everyone seemed to be happy. Harry's world started to spin, and he knew it probably hadn't been a good idea to mix beer and soju. Spotting an empty chair, he looked sat and squinted. It seemed to help, making things stop, putting them into perspective.

There was Neville, sitting in a booth nursing a bottle of butterbeer with Katrina on his lap. Luna and Doc were chatting away in front of the booth, as Doc had tossed his CD player on the table, Pop Goes the World by Men Without Hats over taking the piano. Ron and Hermione and Ginny were across from the happy couple, and Harry waved to them when he saw them glance at him. He supposed they must have been shocked, as to the best of his knowledge this was probably the first time they had seen him pissed…

Harry watched as Ron said something to Ginny. Ginny got up and was walking towards him across the crowded, no doubt because she and his other friends saw how fucked up he had become. Harry sometimes wondered himself if mentally he had gotten worse after he had come back. One doesn't take lives, gets brutalized, and possibly watched the death of just about his only blood relative and come out with either a sound body or a sound mind. Leaning back, Harry let his guard down a bit, giving a beaming smile to his lady love. Ginny smirked and shook her head. Harry tilted his chair so that it stood on the back legs, content that maybe, just maybe, nothing too exciting would happen…

Or maybe he was just drunk as Malfoy sneeringly came up to Ginny, saying something that he couldn't hear over the music. Ginny turned to him, and Harry could see her eyes were blazing in a fury. That made him angry, which was why he got up so fast the chair he had been using clattered to the ground. Stepping forward, Harry was debating whether or not to hit Malfoy in the face or the small of his back (which would ensure he pissed blood for a week if he timed it right) when Doc stepped forward. Malfoy wasn't amused and appeared to be about ready to say something when Doc showed him his diplomatic passport. Malfoy scowled now, and looked as though he were going to say something, again, when he was interrupted again. This time, Doc suddenly turned as green as the piping on Malfoy's robes, and hurled what looked solid stream of vomit right into Malfoy's clothes.

Ginny took a step back, and everyone seemed to watch as Doc retched all over Malfoy, who stood there shocked at what had happened. Harry laughed, sides hurting, bellowing laugh that he hadn't laughed since Alex had gone missing as he realized that all was right in the world, and maybe there was justice out there after all.