Chapter Two – Return to Hogwarts

Black, black, black, that was all he could see, nothingness, emptiness and then there was a high, cold cruel laugh echoing in Harry's head and Harry awoke.

He tried to open his eyes and see what was making the continuous tap, tap, tap but then he realised that he wasn't going to see much else unless he turned around and so rolled over only to fall off the bed.

'Bloody hell. What a great start to the day.' Harry muttered. He turned his head towards the noise and saw Hedwig perched patiently on the windowsill with a letter and a newspaper in her beak. He stumbled over to the window with his eyes still altering to the light and opened the window. Hedwig dropped the letter and newspaper in his hands, gave him a affectionate peck on the cheek and flew over to the table by the fireplace to help herself to some toast.

'Oh, I see. Yes you can have it.' Harry laughed and then turned his attention to the letter, the newspaper was boring as usual – information about Voldemort, what to look out for etc. People's stories about having seen he-who-must-not-be-named outside their bedroom window and all that monotonous palaver.

The letter. 'Dear Harry,' it said. 'Sorry for not contacting you earlier but what with the ministry on my tail constantly now about the return of Lord Voldemort, the worry of where Lord Voldemort is and other things that seem to appear when you least expect them to. I would like to say congratulations on becoming the third prefect for Griffindor, each house has had an extra prefect added to the duties to allow them to relieve the teachers due to certain circumstances, which I believe you are fully aware of. So when you arrive at train today, would you please go to the prefect's compartments at the top end of the train with the others. Please would you humour me in coming to my office after the feast this evening, there are a number of things which I need to discuss with you, to do mainly with your future.

Thank you and with kind regards

Professor A. Dumbledore.

'Oh for fucks sake. What does he think I am? A child? I'm not a piece of glass that's about to break, he could be slightly more blunt about it. Like Harry we need to discuss you defeating Voldemort or facing almost certain and excruciating death. Jesus Christ!' Harry shouted while screwing up the letter into a tight ball and he then threw it on the fire.

'Knock, knock,' went the door.

'What?!' Harry asked intolerantly.

'Harry?' came a timid voice, 'it's me, we're about to leave, if...if you're ready.' Hermione stammered through the very slightly open door.

'Yes, all right Mione, I'm coming.'

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Harry and Hermione arrived at Kings Cross Station with about fifteen minutes to spare. They passed through the barriers between platforms nine and ten to appear only in a completely different world.

'Home,' thought Harry. 'Yeah right.'

Harry turned around to speak to Hermione but found she had gone and could be seen in the distance, further down the platform talking to Lavender and Pavati.

'Well sod that then,' Harry said to himself as he stalked off to the end of the train where the prefect's compartments were. One was already full with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw prefects bending out of the available windows to talk to friends and family, so Harry took the empty one opposite. He sat down and looked out of the window, watching the muggles rush by not knowing he was here, observing them. Harry began to close his eyes for a sleep when the door opened with a bang and a red faced, hot and obviously embarrassed Ron walked in.

'Harry?!' Ron said, his voice containing a mixture of surprise and wonder. 'This is one of the prefect's compartments...' he trailed off. Harry just stared blankly at Ron, 'oh I get it, you're Griffindor's new prefect,' Ron continued as it all dawned on him. 'Well, um, congratulations mate.' Ron smiled but Harry just continued to look him in the eye.

'How was your summer?' Ron enquired.

'Fine, uneventful. Yours?' Harry replied.

'Oh, it was great. Dad and Mum have been saving up, so we all went to visit Charlie in Romania, except Bill and Percy of course...' again for the second time in two days, Harry zoned out. He had gotten very good at this, it was a perfected art of his that he had learnt to use when Uncle Vernon was shouting abuse at him. He knew he shouldn't really zone out when his best friends were talking to him but all they could think about was them, them, them and nothing was their fault but he was taking everything out on them, without them even knowing it. 'Anyway Dad ended up losing fifteen sickles to a vampire and so we were forced to come home.' Ron stopped and looked expectantly at Harry.

'Sounds great!' Harry said almost too enthusiastically.

By now the train had started to move and they were off for another year. There was a knock on the compartment door and a smiling Hermione stepped into the compartment and took a place next to Ron, she smiled at them both when a less welcome person came into view followed by a continuation of more uninvited people, a leader and his cronies.

'Malfoy,' Harry said coolly and turned his back to the wall, stretched his legs across the seats; so that there was only one seat left on the row and closed his eyes.

'Well, well Potter, Dumbledore obviously felt sorry for his Golden Boy and felt it necessary to reunite the Golden Trio by making you a prefect too, dear, dear me what is this sodding world coming to?' Malfoy smirked.

'Well,' Harry began to reply without opening his eyes and allowing a small smile to creep across his lips, 'at least I don't look like an idiot surrounded by a pack of dogs barking Malfoy, Malfoy oh wonderful Malfoy, and the next thing you know they'll be cleaning your shoes with the amount of saliva they're producing. Throw them a bone Malfoy and keep them happy for gods' sake before we drown in their drool.'

And with that, Harry got up and walked to the door where Malfoy was. 'Move shorty,' he ordered and then turned to Ron and Hermione and said, 'I'm going to patrol the corridors for a while.' He pushed past Malfoy, who hadn't heeded to his order and stalked off down the corridor.

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Harry of course didn't go to patrol the corridor; instead he went to the very end compartment and told some second years to 'bugger off' as this compartment was 'needed' for prefect stuff. Once they had buggered off he lay on the seats and tried to fall asleep but that was interrupted almost straight away. But the person didn't say anything; he or she just sat down on the opposite seats and they stayed in the complete silence until... 'That wasn't very courteous of you of you now was it?' Harry didn't even bother to open his eyes or reply, he knew that voice and so he turned around to face the wall trying to put as much distance as possible between him and Malfoy. 'No one turns their back on a Malfoy, not even the famous Harry Potter,' snarled Malfoy while turning Harry over.

'So what do you want?'

'To taunt, tease and generally annoy you.'

Harry didn't reply, there was really no point to it.

'But I'm not going to,' Malfoy continued in a weaker voice.

At this Harry opened one eye and looked directly at Malfoy in almost mock surprise. 'Gone soft Malfoy?'

'What would you know?'

'Surprisingly quite a bit.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning, I know Malfoy.'

Malfoy started to reply when they were interrupted by Ron, who flashed Malfoy a glare of pure hatred and turned to talk to Harry.

'Hey mate, I've bought you your robes to change into as we're nearly there,' Ron gave Harry a half smile as if waiting for Harry's approval. Harry saw this and smiled back, which allowed Ron to relax. 'I'll leave you to get changed then,' and Ron left.

Harry suddenly felt very alone, he noticed Malfoy had left and now what with Ron gone. 'What is the matter with me? Jesus, I have a serious problem and so does Malfoy. Why did he come and join me in this compartment? The problem is painted all over his face; it might as well say 'I have a problem'. I know about it but at the same time I don't,' thought a very confused Harry. He lifted his head and looked from his robes to out of the window where he first saw the jet black sky, dotted with millions of silvery stars, with a crescent moon hanging perfectly in the centre over the mountains, casting long intricate shadows which fell on an illuminated Hogwarts which came into view perched by the lake as usual. All the windows alight with a welcoming glow, 'Home,' Harry muttered with more feeling than he had done earlier on.

Harry started to change and discovered the tattoos he had, had done a few days previously, he studied them. They were in his eyes very descriptive of how he was feeling at the moment and so were considered very acceptable. Although he didn't know how Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore or Mrs Weasley would react if they saw them. 'Well its too late now, I like them and that's all that matters.'

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Harry walked into the Great Hall in a daze, it was all happening – it just happened while he was unable to prevent it – the events, events of the past, present and future. Sometimes it took a while to happen, sometimes it happened so quickly, Harry couldn't keep track. Like now, it felt as if he had been sat down at the Griffindor table for five seconds, the continuous clapping had become accustomed to his ears and he didn't even know he was joining in. Clap, clap, clap mingled with the occasional shout of either 'Griffindor', 'Ravenclaw', 'Slytherin', or 'Hufflepuff', and before he knew it, Dumbledore rose from his seat.

'Welcome back to another year at Hogwarts and I hope you will find this year as productive and informative as the previous years, enabling you to fill at the moment your extremely empty minds.' Dumbledore smiled. 'Well, enough said for now, let the feast begin.' Dumbledore raised his hands and platters upon platters of food lined each of the four tables.

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Harry looked at the food, the rich, juicy, scrumptious, mouth watering food that lay before him, ready for him to reach out and consume but he couldn't. He was now so used to having things taken from him that it didn't seem right to take up the food that just sat there.

'Arry,' Ron muttered through a mouthful of roast potato, carrots and gravy. 'Pass...peas,' Ron swallowed 'please.' Ron didn't even take a glance at Harry's empty plate; it was Hermione who first ventured to say something to Harry.

'Uh, Harry? Why aren't you eating?' She asked.

'Hmmm?' Harry said, coming out of his day dream. 'Sorry Hermione...?' But she didn't have to repeat her sentence for Harry to know what she said; he just looked down at his plate. 'Oh, um, not hungry.'

'But you haven't eaten a thing...' Hermione looked at Harry half with worry and half with exasperation. Harry picked up one of the mint humbugs and placed it in his mouth and gave Ron and Hermione a weak smile. Harry saw that neither was impressed and Harry sighed very deeply.

'Please mate, eat a little.' Ron pleaded, so Harry layered some food on his plate and began to take very small bites of each food. Each bite tasted nicer, the more he took the juicier the food was but the more he ate, the more he felt sick. He knew to take it a little bit at a time.

'What am I doing? I've been deprived of food for six weeks, how do I expect my body to react?' Harry wondered.

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Soon the feast was over; Harry's plate left basically untouched, the only major difference was that the food on his plate now resembled a person's face, if that is possible with food. Ron and Hermione looked at Harry but didn't say anything; they knew it would make no difference.

Dumbledore rose once again. 'Now that you are all full and hopefully content, I have a few things to say. As you all know, or should know the Forbidden Forest is well, forbidden and that there is to be no magic in the corridors, so please collaborate with Mr Filch, our caretaker.' At this there was an uproar of laughter from the older students. Dumbledore gave a quick, small smile. 'Yes, well anyway, on a more important note I must ask you as my pupils to cooperate with the teachers as much as possible and to not give them too much grief. As finally the Minister and Ministry of Magic have acknowledged the return of Lord Voldermort,' there were gasps and shudders at the mention of Lord Voldermort made by both teachers and pupils, which Dumbledore chose to ignore and continued. 'We are kept very busy with the welfare of you and so would be very grateful for your cooperation. That is all for now, so off to bed.'

There was a scramble as people began to stand up to leave the hall, along with the shouts from prefects directing the first years from their various houses. Harry ignored his prefect duties and walked with the crowd out of the Great Hall. He shouted to Ron over the babble of students, 'I'll see you later!' Ron looked at him questioningly and Harry mouthed 'Dumbledore,' Ron gave a nod as Harry turned right and headed up the stairs to Dumbledore's office.

Well thats the next chapter. I'm back from holiday now and fully relaxed. Thanks to my reviewers from the previous two.I'm really bad at this kinda thing as you can probably see/read!!! I could really use some ideas, for the next few chapters, i have ideas for later on but not for the near future, so some help would be gratefully received, please please.

Lelimo