Harry The Barrier In His Mind Chapter 2, a harry potter fanfic

Disclaimers:- You know them and they apply. HP belongs to J.K.Rowling. Bye and enjoy the story.

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Well! Harry thought as he lay down for sleep, at least he was back at Hogwarts. It had been a bloody hectic day for Harry. First he had gone head first through a solid brick wall and then missed the train. He had then tried to convince a thickheaded Ron not take his fathers car, which had been unfortunately ignored. The only thing he could say about his flying trip to Hogwarts was that he understood why people complained about long flights. The novelty of it had soon worn down and he had dearly wished to be back on the Hogwarts Express, meeting with all his classmates and having iced pumpkin juice from the trolley and from Rons face, he too wished the same. Of course their luck had to turn on them and they had crashed into the whomping willow. Harry shuddered for a moment as he thought about it. It had been scary to feel the whomping willow smashing into the car. He supposed they had been somewhat lucky that the branches hadn't directly hit them or they would have been spending the night in the infirmary. On the whole, Harry decided it was a good experience but not one he would be going through any time soon. Suddenly he remembered the evening article shown by Sanpe and groaned into his pillow wishing that he had tried harder to convince Ron about not taking the car. He just knew there would be repercussions especially by the Malfoys. Nonetheless he was excited to start classes from tomorrow and start practicing all the spells he had memorized over the holidays. Better yet, his quick thinking had got them away with only a detention and no points from Gryffindor.

As he had predicted, there were more than enough repercussions from the flying car incident as he had taken to calling it. Nonetheless he was glad that nothing too severe had come out of it. His anonymously written 1etter to the Daily Prophet on the Malfoys selling dangerous items at Knockturn alley had immediately taken precedence over the flying car incident and suddenly the paper was being flooded with a number of anonymous letters praising Arthur Weasleys efforts in confronting dark wizards. Draco's face had soon taken on an ugly look on seeing those letters in the Daily Prophet. At least now Ron seemed more inclined to think before leaping in with his pants down though Harry didn't think that such an attitude would last for long.

Harry was of course proved right soon thereafter. A week later, Ron was sitting at Hagrids hut and puking his guts out. He supposed Ron had a good reason for attacking Malfoy but did he have to do it with a broken wand and humiliate himself doing so. One week of classes had shown that Ron's wand had become somewhat useless even with all the magical tape holding it together and he had still tried using to hex Malfoy. Now everyone would know about it and he just knew that Ron would be a laughing stock of Hogwarts for at least the whole day.

Nonetheless he enjoyed himself better than ever. His increased aptitude in all the subjects and especially in charms and transfiguration had not gone unnoticed by the teachers. He found himself joining Hermione more often than not in her daily forays into the library and competing with her for better marks. Snape had been quiet stunned by the effort he was putting into his work and had given him a hard gaze which had turned confused for moment before he had stormed away and at that moment Harry knew that Snape had been using the Mind Arts against him and for the first time he had utterly failed.

The other teachers however had been more enthusiastic with the change in Harry. Professor Flitwick had taken to watching Harry every time he had introduced a new spell to the class and he would beam with pride when he mastered them with ease before any one else in the class could even get them right. He had also taken time to talk to Harry in almost all of the charms classes while every one else practiced. Harry particularly enjoyed these discussions with Prof. Flitwick since he more often than not learned the use of the spell in different conditions and also the variations of the same spell. He at once decided that if possible he would take extra classes with him. In fact, his aptitude in the subject amazed him more than any thing else and his desire to improve increased when he heard Prof. Flitwick reminiscing to McGonagall about his mothers unparalleled abilities in charms.

But one dark spot in all the classes was the fated Defense Against Dark Arts class that was now being taken by the pompous ponce Gilderoy Lockhart. Lockhart had been quiet miffed by the ink incident at Diagon Alley but nonetheless still tried to buddy up to Harry. Of course, all sorts of little accidents seemed to happen to him during such times, like when Harry spat a mouthful of pumpkin juice all over him in "shock" at the opportunity of being photographed with his hero. Harry being the good boy he was had tried to help but unfortunately his cleaning spell had been misfired in his excitement and the entire Hogwarts got to see a Bald, sticky and juice soaked Lockhart running out of the great hall. However after the first class with Lockhart, Harry knew that he would be doing all the defense work himself. Even a first year with a brain could easily defeat a bunch of pixies as he and Hermione proved.

But that was alright with Harry, between Bills notes, his forays in the library with Hermione and the Grimorie, he found himself learning more than in any class. Hermione of course still persisted with Lockhart's books, acing every one of his extremely silly tests about his favorite hair color and such. However Harry kept his head down and complied with them because of a niggling feeling in his mind that Lockhart would be very useful later on though how, he had no idea.

It was during his first detention of the year which had been assigned to Lockhart, that Harry had an in linking that this year would be just as exciting as the last. McGonagall had informed him and Ron in the morning that they had their detentions with Lockhart and Filch respectively. Although Ron had complained bitterly, Harry thought that he had the worst deal and he was quiet right. He spent a couple hours listening to Lockhart drone on about his popularity while making Harry address the letters for him and he couldn't even do any mischief since the man was quiet meticulous and through in checking up his correspondence. The one thing he did learn was how to maintain correspondence with different kinds of people all the while sounding polite and warm while conveying his thoughts effectively. He had to give credit to Lockhart for his writing abilities if not much else. It had been quiet a while since the detention had started and Harry was starting to doze off that he heard an eerily menacing voice for the first time in his life.

"Hungry, so hungry. Rip, tear, KILLLLLL"

It jerked Harry awake and that caused Lockhart to shut up. On seeing a startled Harry looking around the office, Lockhart exclaimed about the time and then sent him back to the tower. Back at the lions den as they Gryffindor called their tower, Harry related what he had heard to Hermione since Ron hadn't come yet. Hermione hadn't dismissed his claims out of hand but decided to keep an ear out for anything odd happening. Nevertheless it was more than two months before anything out of the ordinary happened.

Harry had got himself stuck to attending the death day party of nearly headless nick for Halloween as a favor to the ghost. Nick had been quiet excited at the prospect of having living guests at his party and Harry didn't have the heart to say no to him. So the Halloween so the Gryffindor trio amidst a party of ghosts and a whole table full of moldy food whishing they could go back to the wonderful feast going on in the great hall above. Finally Ron had enough and they decided to leave the dungeons when Harry heard the voice again.

"Hungry, so hungry. Blood, smell blood. Rip, tear, KILLLLLL"

Hermione nudged Harry in the back. " What is it Harry? Come on, let's go to the feast."

But Harry stopped her with a finger to his lips and quickly explained to Ron and Hermione about the voice and that it was trying to kill someone. One look at Harry and all three were running after him to where he thought was the source of the voice. Soon they were in the second floor corridor walking slowly since all the torches seemed to have been blown out. That seemed to scare Hermione a bit but they still walked forward to where they could see something glinting on the walls. And there on the walls in all its gory details were the words written in something that looked suspiciously like blood were the foot long words,

"The chamber is open. Enemies of the heir Beware."

And underneath was hung by the tail, looking like a stuffed toy was Filch's dratted cat, Mrs. Norris. All three of them were stuck in place looking at the site in front of them when suddenly they heard lots of footsteps. Before the three of them could even think of making themselves scarce, the students were behind them and suddenly someone screamed and a pandemonium started in the halls with some students pushing front to see what was going on and other pushing back to get away from there. Soon the professors were there and every one made way for them but Filch took one look at his cat and the next moment he was ready to jump at Harry accusing him of doing it to his cat. Harry had been quite ready to tell the man to shut up when Malfoy's whining voice rang out in the still corridor, "Enemies of the heir beware. You will be getting what is coming to you, you mudbloods."

However Dumbledore's arrival put an end to all the babble and within a few minutes Harry and his friends was sitting in Lockhart's elaborately decorated office watching Dumbledore whisper long, complicated incantations at the cat with all the professors crowded around him, heads almost touching each others. For some reason, the sight gave Harry a morbid sense of amusement, all those dark robed witches and wizards, crowded around an old man, staring intently at a grotesquely displayed stuffed cat while Lockhart capered around the office detailing the different curses that might have been used on the cat, with worse than the last and of course, Filch's sobs grew louder on hearing each one of them. He supposed it must have been harder on Filch who he had found out was squib.

Nevertheless, as tense as Harry might have been, he still took a note of all the curses that Lockhart was mentioning. His research had told Harry that though Lockhart might be a fake, there was still an element of truth in his books and most of the curses he described were actually real and that had bee the only reason he hadn't made too much trouble in Lockhart's class. But right now a tiny feeling of dread wove through Harry's mind. Though he knew he was innocent of any charges that maybe laid on him by Filch, the students of Hogwarts were a different matter. He had after all learnt the hard way of the rumor mill that Hogwarts was and how swiftly they turned to every new tid- bit of gossip that ran through the halls. However all such thoughts ground to a halt when Dumbledore announced that the cat was "merely petrified". He couldn't recall what exactly happened after that except that Dumbledore had told every one that no student could have done and that he needed to thank McGonagall though for what he didn't know. His mind had been occupied by what Dumbledore had said and he knew that his research would be into methods of petrification.

The upcoming quiditich match however took precedence over the research in Harry's mind and soon he left the research to Hermione to concentrate on the match. It was especially important for Harry since all the Slytherins had new brooms and Malfoy took every opportunity to rub it into Harry's face. If Gryffindor won the match then Malfoy wouldn't be showing his face anytime soon and they would be the laughing stock of the entire school, an idea that appealed intensely to Harry. If Gryffindor lost, then Gryffindor was out of the race for the quiditch cup since he had no doubt that Ravenclaw and Huffelpuff would be flattened by the snakes. Worse of all was that much of the responsibility for winning would be on his shoulders. The Slytherin brooms simply overmatched the Gryffindor ones and the only broom that could compete with theirs was his own Nimbus 2000. So finally it came down to a match of skills with Malfoy the Slytherin seeker who if won would surely make life miserable for Harry and his friends.

Now as Harry lay in the hospital wing, he had a feeling euphoria at their winning of the match against Slytherin at almost impossible odds. The Nimbus 2001 brooms they had been using were bad enough but Harry had to contend with Molfoy as well as a rouge buldger, which had seemed intent on breaking him to pieces. It had taken all of Harry's considerable skill on the broom to keep him aloft and flying and it had still cost him his arm broken into pieces to get the blasted snitch. And then there had been Lockhart and his blazing incompetence resulting in all the bones in his arm disappearing. It had been quiet a shock to Harry's system to see his had flopping around completely boneless. Of course the team had been more intent on congratulating him on his win rather than his injuries. He had to sometimes wonder at the almost casual disregard his wizarding friends had to such sever and dilapidating injuries. He decided at once that healing would also be one of the subjects he would be studying at all costs since he had quite a knack for getting injured. Nonetheless the match had been very satisfying to Harry. Seeing Malfoy's face as he was being reamed out by Flint and his teammates had brought a smile on Harries face. He supposed he would be remembering it for a long long time.

Later Harry dozed of in a pained sleep feeling jabs of pins and needles in his right arm as he visibly felt the arm re-growing from the socket onwards. He suddenly felt someone sponging his forehead, something Madame Pomphery wouldn't have been doing. He at once sat up and there was a thump and a muffled squeak. A bit of scrabbling about and Harry had his glasses firmly on looking right at a bandaged and extremely nervous looking Dobby.

He sat back hearing the raggedy little elf telling him of how he would be better off living grievously injured than in the school and how he had hoped to keep Harry out of the school. For once Harry was more than furious with the elf than he had ever been. The creature took so many pains with all its elaborate setups and traps to get him out of Hogwarts instead of giving him a clue of what was going on. However, on seeing the state of the little creature, Harry's anger was replaced with pity and compassion for the creature, which saw something in Harry that he himself couldn't see. However the elf left quite hurriedly for some reason just as Harry was beginning to have a conversation with him and the next moment the Hospital wing opened up with the Dumbledore and McGonagall carrying what appeared to be a statue between them.

What followed was the most bizarre conversation Harry had heard until now. All three of them apparently knew what had happened and that the same had happened a long time ago and was happening now. Harry however was shocked on noticing that the 'statue' that the two professors had been bringing in was actually a petrified Colin Creevy who from what the professors were saying had been trying to sneak in and visit him. Also the attacker had somehow melted all the film in Colin's camera, which the petrified boy was holding to his face.

The next day Harry was released from the infirmary by an absent minded Madam Pomphery who was staring at a curtained off section of the infirmary. The moment he stepped out he knew that Hogwarts would be rife with rumors of what had actually happened and for some unfathomable reason he was in the center of most of them. Of course Lockhart had tried in his own inept way to break the tensions by arranging a dueling club which had got a very hearty attendance but unfortunately for Harry, he found himself in the center of things once again with a whole new set of rumors attached to him along with the title of 'Partselmouth', and Harry had grown quite sick of the hypocritical and back stabbing student body of Hogwarts. The only comfort he had was in the company of the twins and his friends, though Ron seemed to at times be wary of him. However the entire thing came to a head when Harry had been storming out of the library after hearing one of the Huffelpuffs idiotic comments.

A group of Huffelpuffs had been talking in cozy little corner of the library Harry had decided to eavesdrop on them and later wished he hadn't done so. They had at once rubbished the sacrifice of his mother which had saved and keept him alive and had in their own convoluted way termed that he as a baby had somehow used some sort of terrible and dark magic that no one else had known and used it to protect himself and somehow become a dark lord. Their little impassioned speeches had been quirt laughable but the idea behind had not been and it gave Harry quite a turn and he wondered what the rest of the somewhat brainless idiots who filled the ancient halls of Hogwarts thought. He almost absent-mindedly wondered why he was thinking in such a decidedly Snapeish manner before he found himself on the ground before coat covered Hagrid who was swinging a couple of dead roosters in one massive hand.

A/N:- Sorry for the wait. A couple of questions, since Harry's eyes were fixed he doesn't need glasses, but he has been using them for so long that he would uncomfortable with out them and so the goblins enchanted a pair of plain glasses with somewhat stylish frames and gave it to him. As for as the enchantments on them, they are supposed to mix with his onw and grow with his magic.

And once again, any one willing to proof read the story, pleas contact me. Bye.