This time there were no exciting stories from abroad to be heard on the train ride to Hogwarts, so Harry used it to freely talk to his friends from other houses before they were mostly separated by the Hogwarts system once again. He even went to hang out in the Hufflepuff compartment for a moment, or rather, in its door, since the compartment itself was completely crowded. But he didn't know the Puffs very well, so after asking them about their break, he nodded to them and went next door.
He was rather torn, because Pansy was sitting there – the same Pansy who still hadn't apologized to him for indirectly insulting his mother.
"Hey, Harry," Daphne said when she saw him there. "Come sit with us, Pansy can go take a walk for a moment."
"I'll do no such thing," Pansy replied, seeming to want to add something, but Draco interrupted her.
"Yes you will," he said. "Unless you have something particular to say to Harry?"
Pansy gave him a hateful look, and pushed out of the compartment.
"What have you done to her?" Harry wondered.
"Us? Nothing. I just happen to know that her grandparents heard about what she said in some way-" Daphne snorted at this, and Theo rolled his eyes, giving Harry a very good idea what this some way was. Draco continued: "-and told her very empathetically that she was to apologize. Well, I'm not sure Pansy has ever apologized to anyone in her life, so...you can imagine how she took it. She's currently still sulking, but I think she'll get over it."
"Doubtful," Daphne observed. Harry had to agree, given that it was now over half a year.
"I'm not too sure about it either," Milicent agreed. "From what she told me, Pansy really doesn't feel like she did anything particularly wrong, so it makes her angry she's being forced to apologize."
"She doesn't feel like she did anything wrong?" Harry stared. "I mean, she...well, she implied my mother was somehow less that had she been a pureblood, how can she expect I'll just keep being friends with her unless she apologizes?"
Draco shifted in his seat, but didn't say anything. It was Theo who spoke. "I know you probably don't realize this," he said, "but...much worse things are often said aloud, in...some families. Only, of course, not in the presence of the person you're offending, particularly not when the person in question is a head of an Ancient house and a celebrity. I don't think Pansy quite realizes the difference."
"She realizes it," Milicent informed them. "She just hates it."
"How Gryffindor of her," Draco noted.
"Perhaps Hufflepuff is more likely?" Daphne asked, and the Slytherins laughed.
"I don't like the difference either," Harry said, a little sharply. "She shouldn't speak like that to anyone."
"Sure," Daphne agreed. "But she does, and she did so to you. Are you going to not demand an apology just because had you been someone else, her family wouldn't have pressured her into it?"
Harry didn't know. He wasn't sure what was the right thing to do, and determined to ask Neville about his opinion at the nearest opportunity. Asking Ron, he knew, would be useless. He'd just get a rant against Slytherins.
He mused about this on the carriage ride back to the castle, and during dinner as well, until Dumbledore's announcement distracted him.
„Did they decide that having a new teacher every year was getting too stable, and so they switched to a new one every term?" Fred asked when he heard that Mr. Titus Davies would now be teaching them Defence.
"You know they're just substitutes," Harry replied. "Mrs. Leartes was just finding it too time-consuming, from what my cousin told me."
"Mrs. Leartes?" Fred asked with exaggerated surprise over the title.
Harry blushed a little. "Um, Professor Yaxley. Horatio's grandmother."
"So, wait, Horatio's grandma quit, and now we get Roger's granddad instead?" George interjected. What is this, some kind of family business? Did they arrange it between themselves?"
Harry frowned. "Roger and Horatio, you mean? I don't think so. I mean, it was my cousins who got Mrs. Leartes to teach, and she convinced Mr. Titus, because she was getting tired."
Fred stared at him. "Does your cousin usually arrange Hogwarts teacher appointments?"
"Nah, only when Dumbledore is incapable to," Harry retorted, then clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Ah, what do I hear?" George needled.
"Above-standard information about the Headmaster?" Fred went on. "Perhaps even spying, yes?"
"You got it wrong," Harry muttered. "We weren't spying, we were just told this."
"So it's favouritism, is it?" George continued to tease, with a wicked grin on his face.
That amused Harry. "Ha! Not likely. As far as I know, Dumbledore is really angry with my cousin right now, and so probably with me, too, by extension." In fact, he supposed that if there was a teacher that really didn't like him, apart from Snape of course, it was probably Dumbledore.
"But why, in that case, would he accept the person your cousin picked to teach Defence?" Fred asked shrewdly.
Harry mentally groaned. "Uh...it's complicated," he said. "My cousin...kinda had a hand in Quirell quitting, so..."
"Oh la la!" Fred said with sheer malicious joy. "As far as we know, Quirrell quit in such a manner that he ended up in prison waiting for trial. Was that your cousin's job as well?"
Harry groaned aloud this time and hid his face in his hands. He wished he hadn't said anything.
"No no no," George insisted, "you aren't getting out of this so easily. I heard Dad saying Quirrell is supposed to go on trial next week, and we want juicy details!"
"I'm sure Harry doesn't know anything," Percy said, appearing from Merlin knew where, probably with a radar for any trouble his brothers were brewing. "The papers are very tight lipped about the case, so it is clearly shrouded in secrecy."
Yeah, it would be, Harry thought. "What are they writing?" He asked curiously. "And why does it go to trial this late? He was arrested back at the beginning of December..."
Percy gave him a superior look. "This is actually very quick for how trials normally proceed," he said. "They must have given it some priority. But the only thing to be found in the papers is that he was planning an attack on Hogwarts and was caught red-handed."
"You could say that, yes," Harry muttered before he could stop himself.
That, of course, was irresistible to the twins who immediately started to pester him. Percy was clearly too curious himself to stop them. Harry exchanged a desperate look with Neville and Ron, but his friends clearly had no idea how to help him, so in the end, Harry said resignedly: "Quirrell was the one who let the troll inside the school, and also the one who tried to jinx my broom during the first Quidditch match."
There was an explosion of outrage at this, especially at the second bit of information. Harry just hoped he hadn't ruined anything by what he said. The Weasleys all already knew about these two occurrences, so he figured giving them some answers should just help to calm their curiosity. Still, he wished he could have consulted it with Alduin beforehand.
He also wondered a little about there being no mention of Riddle when the papers talked about Quirrell. Did the Wizengamot know, he wondered? And if not, how do they intend to try him if they don't take into account the most crucial fact?
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Alduin was completely exhausted.
The Easter holidays had taken all of his energy. Pretending for two weeks that everything was fine when every time he looked at his ward, he could hear the words of the prophecy in his head...it took its toll. He did his best to encourage Harry's interaction with Wynn and his friends as much as he could, but it was less than he would have managed normally.
Taking care of Wynn was exhausting as well. He loved his son more than anything or anyone, and saw him as a blessing from the gods, but that didn't mean he wasn't looking forward to the day Wynn would be at least a little more self-sufficient.
His exhaustion had nothing on Alexandra's, of course, but she at least could use her confinement as an excuse and hide in her room for most of the Easter break. It was him who was expected to go around visiting people, talking about his son, and continuing his Wizengamot influence battles as well.
The Insitute produced very detailed and thoughtful changes to the first objections to their proposed law, too, to his rather intense astonishment. Alduin was naturally expected to lobby for these updates again, in his copious free time.
The idea that war would come now terrified him.
It was never a pleasant prospect, of course, but now, in this state, he didn't think he could keep up at all, and so he prayed to be granted at least a little reprieve, a little more time.
The things that needed to be done hung like a Damoclus' sword above him, and likely the most important part was getting the relevant transcendentals together to brainstorm about the possibilities of Harry's scar.
Muhammad was a clear choice for that, and Mrs. Gerard Ollivander could probably be trusted as well. He had less faith in Valerius Prince – anyone who disinherited their daughter for marrying a Muggle could not be trusted not to give information to Riddle. Sarabeth Boot was likely safe enough, too, but that might very well be all – Alduin much preferred keeping the Ministry people out of it, and while he trusted Croaker, generally speaking, he didn't want to put him in the tough spot of having to decide whether his job did or did not require him to report this.
So he dragged himself into his study to make the relevant Floo calls. His eye landed on a calender when he was there, and he groaned. It was Beltine in a couple of days, but with the way he felt now, he'd feel accomplished if he managed to light a fire in the garden. Hosting a party was fortunately out of the question with Alexandra in confinement, but still, he would have wanted to make a bit of a private celebration...He'd just have to make up for it at Midsummer – hopefully, he'd be more on top of things by then.
If he wasn't, he might just as well consider giving up.
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"Why is the last Quidditch match so late?" Harry asked one Saturday morning at breakfast, before heading to practice.
"No clue," Ron replied. "Fred and George said it's really weird, too, normally it's played around this time of the year."
"Who does the scheduling, anyway? Madam Hooch?"
Ron shrugged. "I reckon Dumbledore does, or at least approves it."
"In that case, it's probably some weird Dumbledorish reason," Harry muttered.
Ron only nodded. His opinion of the Headmaster went down considerably ever since those events with Quirrell. "Are you afraid you'll forget how to play with the long break?" He asked then.
"Ha! Hardly, with the way Wood's driving us."
"Ah, so that's it!" Ron pointed a mock-accusing finger at him. "You wish it was sooner, so that you could get a break from the rigorous training."
"You nailed it. Also, I think it'd be better to have it over and done with to be able to concentrate on the exams properly, not having both basically at the same time."
"Your cousin's rubbing off on you," Ron muttered disgustedly.
"I'm actually thinking more about Wood," Harry replied. "He has OWLs this year, and he's already completely stressed about prepping us for the last match when his exams basically start the week after. I'm really sorry for him."
Ron winced in sympathy. "Yeah, I can't even imagine. I mean, look at how completely stressed Percy is, and he doesn't really have much else to do."
It was true – Percy was snapping at people and neglecting his prefect duties lately, his head buried in books all the time.
"OWLs must be dreadful," Harry said. He was stressed enough by his ordinary exams.
"I remember Charlie saying that they feel dreadful, but then you go through NEWTs and realize that it was actually a piece of cake."
"That hasn't exactly cheered me up, Ron."
Harry could witness the pre-exam frenzy himself when he came to the library in the afternoon to do some revision and found it full of people. Hermione Granger was standing by the door, looking immensely frustrated. "What is it?" Harry asked.
"Every table is full," she replied, "and I need to study!"
"Can't you study in your common room?" He asked.
"Yes, that's what I normally do, but they have a big OWL review together today, and they've taken over the common room. I mean, I could go to our dormitory, of course, but it's really hard to work without a table!"
Harry considered the problem. "I'll show you the Come and Go Room," he said then. "Come with me."
Hermione followed him, asking curiously: "What is it? What does it do? Is that another room for studying?"
"You'll see," Harry replied mysteriously. "How are you, Hermione?" He asked then, to distract her, and listened to her talking about exams the rest of the way.
Once they arrived to the corridor they needed, Harry passed the wall several times, and when the door finally appeared, he pushed it open – to find it full of older Ravenclaws, Horatio and Roger among them.
"Oh," he said. "I'm sorry, I was just looking for a place to study..."
Hermione peeked inside from behind him, and smiled. "Oh, hello, Horatio!" She said.
"Oh, bugger," Roger muttered.
"Shut up, Roger," Horatio said, rolling his eyes, and nodded his greeting towards Hermione. "Was it you who wanted to study?" He asked.
"Yes," she said with a smile. "The library is full."
"Come in, then. Where's Su, and the other girls?"
"They decided to hang around the OWL revision to see what it was like, but I feel like I really need to go over my Transfiguration notes today."
"I'm pretty sure you actually don't," Horatio replied with a smile, "but never mind that, sit with us and do." He turned to Harry. "You actually planning to study, or were you just accompanying Hermione?"
Harry grinned. "Mostly that, yeah. I planned to do revision, but I can actually go to our common room, and I think I'll do just that."
"I can't imagine Gryffindor common room being an exactly pleasant study environment," Roger observed.
Harry had to concede that was true. "It's better this close to the exams," he said then, apologetically, and shut the door on Horatio's grinning face.
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AN: A gift chapter for this festive season, an out of schedule update! Merry Christmas/Hanukkah Sameach/a very belated Mawlid Mubarak/happy holiday of any other sort you might be celebrating, and a happy new year 2017. Let it be a better one!