AN: My beta told me I posted chapter 32 twice - sorry about that! I never would have noticed! This is the real chapter 33.

I don't own Harry Potter.

...

After a brief check to make sure that Professor Weasley was alright, the class emptied out in to the corridor for an impromptu free period. The Gryffindors as well as the DA members crowded around Harry immediately, throwing so many questions at him that he couldn't hope to answer all of them. The green-clad students departed after throwing sneers at Harry, heads held high to cover up wounded pride.

They didn't like to be bested.

"Oh, my gosh, Harry, that was amazing!" Lavender squealed.

"If you are taking some sort of secret lessons, I want in," Michael Corner said. He crossed his arms over his chest, daring Harry to refuse him. Ravenclaw, right, Harry thought.

"Can you do more stuff like that?" Parvati asked, batting her eyelashes in what she must have thought was a flirtatious manner. Her Ravenclaw twin, Padma, jabbed her elbow into Parvati's side, opening a spot for a Hufflepuff girl to take a picture of Harry. Harry winced at the flash. Yes, he'd wanted to show the Slytherins up, but that didn't mean he wanted to be mobbed!

The girls were getting closer, and the boys were slowly being pushed to the edges of the crowd. Harry spotted Hermione and Ron both trying to get to him through the press, but it was proving impossible.

"Could you teach me? Privately?" a female Ravenclaw asked, getting a little closer to him than was necessary.

The girls were getting more audacious. Harry couldn't have responded to their questions and advances even if he could speak. There were simply too many. He began to panic.

Neville and Ron had teamed up to try to bulldoze their way through the girls, but they still weren't having much success, despite their heights. Harry met their eyes desperately, and mouthed, "Help me!"

"Hey!" Hermione shouted, followed by a bang issued from her wand. Harry's new fan girl club all started, and turned.

"He already has a girlfriend! Back off!" Hermione said firmly. The pressing girls pouted, and with a few glances back at Harry –ranging from doe-eyed to downright calculating – they dissipated.

Harry let out a sigh of relief.

"Girls…scary," Neville said, staring after where most of them had disappeared. Harry nodded vigorously in agreement.

Hermione snorted, glaring down the corridor where the girls had gone.

"I wouldn't have minded swapping with you," Ron said, a little wistfully. Hermione rolled her eyes.

"How did you do that, Harry? I thought you'd only started successful wandless magic this morning!" Hermione asked.

"My magic is so much easier to control now. I feel like I can do anything!" Harry replied.

"Harry, I bet even Dumbledore would've been impressed to see that. Blimey, Harry! If you can do spells as powerful as the Patronus without a wand…" Neville trailed off, shaking his head in awe.

Harry grinned. He was pretty powerful, wasn't he? No other student had even mastered the simplest charm wandlessly, and here he was creating corporeal Patronuses with just his hand!

Hermione whacked him in the back of the head with her DADA textbook.

"I know what you're thinking. Stop it. You're not all-powerful, there's a lot more you can learn…"

"Don't spoil it for him, Hermione!" Ron said. "He's just shown that he's the most powerful person in the school!"

Harry, rubbing his head, grinned again. Maybe having all this power wouldn't be too bad…

...

By lunchtime the story had already spread through the whole school. Harry wouldn't have thought that something as amazing as creating a corporeal Patronus silently and wandlessly could be exaggerated, but he underestimated the ingenuity of gossip. He was certain that he heard Lavender Brown telling a sixth year how he had created a Patronus as big as Professor Weasley during the first ten minutes of lunch. Ten minutes later, Lavender was telling the same story to a fifth year, but this time Harry had created a herd of stags.

"Honestly. Can't she find something else to talk about?" Ginny asked in disgust, watching the seventh year gossip.

"Telling stories in such exaggeration proves that she doesn't have the mental capacity to speak of anything more intelligent," Hermione said snootily. Harry pretended to wince.

"Ouch, Hermione. You'll kill someone with comments like that."

"Yeah. I never knew you could be so insulting. Glad you're on my side," Ginny agreed. Hermione lifted her nose in the air.

"If she's going to act like an idiot she should expect comments on her intelligence…or lack thereof. Besides, she shouldn't tell such obviously preposterous stories."

"There's no harm in them. I mean, Harry did do something unheard of," Ron said, surfacing from his plate of food.

"It degrades his accomplishment," Hermione huffed.

"You're not part of the new Harry fan club, are you? Because if you are, I think I'll just run now." Ron joked.

"Of course not!" Hermione protested. People's heads turned, and Hermione quieted her voice. "What I said is true! Exaggeration makes the real thing cheap!" Ron shrugged, and Harry chuckled at their antics.

"Glad you're sticking up for me, Hermione! After all, what I did was pretty cool…" His friend whacked him, for the second time that day, on the back of the head with a textbook. Herbology this time, Harry noticed. He winced, and rubbed the lump that was growing on his skull.

"Just because I said what I did doesn't mean you can get a big ego! Come on, let's get to Herbology." With that, Hermione stood and began to stride for the doors to the Great Hall, not waiting to see if they followed.

"What got into her?" Ron asked, confused at Hermione's odd behavior.

Harry shrugged, and Ginny narrowed her eyes in thought.

...

By the end of the day, Harry had grown very accustomed to fending off girls…especially Ravenclaws. His knowledge and power evidenced by his wandless Patronus had apparently impressed the house of bookworms, and suddenly girls were acting as if he were up for grabs. Hadn't they noticed that he already had a girlfriend? Maybe they'd been so immersed in their books the last few years that they hadn't kept up with the latest conversation topics in Hogwarts, and now that they'd actually noticed him, they found him…interesting.

"Wish I were you, Harry," Seamus said that night in the dorm. Harry raised an eyebrow.

He had to resort to body language and writing when trying communicate with Seamus as Dean, as neither had learned sign language. Usually, Ron or Neville was around to translate, but tonight Neville was in the common room working on an extensive Herbology essay, and Ron was in the shower.

"Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about," Seamus said incredulously. Harry shrugged, and turned away, hiding his grin. Of course he knew what Seamus was referring to, but that didn't mean he couldn't have some fun.

"The girls!" Dean interrupted. "They're throwing themselves at you!" Harry turned back around and stared levelly at Dean, asking him to explain further.

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed. Every time I've seen you today some girl is trying to get you to take her on a date while a pack of others are staring at you," Dean said.

"You've ruined the chances for the rest of us." Seamus said gloomily. Harry shrugged again, digging through his school bag to find his notebook and pen.

"Yeah. No girl is interested in anyone else but you, all of a sudden." Dean said.

"I already have a girlfriend, one I quite like. Eventually, the others will get that, and everything will be back to normal," Harry scribbled. He tossed the message onto Seamus's bed and reclined on his own, letting his muscles relax after his girl-filled day.

There was silence while Seamus and Dean read his note.

"So you mean you're not going to take advantage of this? You could have nearly any girl in the school!" Seamus said. Harry raised his eyebrow and gestured to the note.

"Ok, yeah, you have a girlfriend. But come on! You could have anyone!" Seamus was gesturing wildly, trying to emphasize the magnitude of Harry's opportunity. Harry narrowed his eyes, and grabbed his notebook once more.

"Why would I want to date a girl that can't understand me?" He tossed the notebook to Seamus, lay back on his bed, and pulled his curtains shut, ending the conversation.

He'd find his notebook in the morning.

...

Potions was on the agenda the next day.

Slughorn had heard of Harry's accomplishment in Defense Against the Dark Arts and lavished so much praise – most of it undeserved - upon Harry that it was beginning to get very embarrassing, no matter how well known Slughorn's favoritism was.

Slughorn was so busy praising Harry that he didn't notice what Harry noticed– the faint sizzle as a new ingredient was introduced to his potion.

Harry looked down from Professor Slughorn to see a tentacula leaf disappear into his nigh-perfect potion.

The potion fumes suddenly became thicker and more noxious.

"Oh my, what's happened?" Slughorn asked, just noticing the change. The potion began sizzling.

Harry began coughing and shoved Ron, standing next to him, away from the table. Then he himself turned to escape from the spreading fumes.

The rest of the class had now noticed the problem, and Hermione was standing up with her wand out, trying to remember some sort of spell to stop the fumes' spread.

"Everyone get out of the classroom, quickly!" Slughorn said, waving his hand to enforce his order.

Harry stumbled after Ron, his coughs getting worse. The other students were coughing now, too, as the fumes had nearly filled the classroom.

They made it out into the corridor, Slughorn coming last. The professor shut the door behind them, and the students leaned against the walls, catching their breaths as the coughs subsided.

Hermione patted Harry's back as he tried to force himself to stop coughing, but his throat felt like it was on fire, and much too dry for his liking. He couldn't stop.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Slughorn asked, noticing that his favorite student didn't seem to be recovering. Harry shook his head in between coughs, and then noticed flecks of red on his hand. Blood.

"He's coughing up blood, Professor!" Hermione said. "Is it from your throat, Harry?" Harry nodded.

"Take him to the hospital wing quickly, Ms. Granger, Weatherby. The rest of you, class is dismissed. I've got to clean up the classroom before the third years arrive." Slughorn ordered. The students began the trek out of the dungeon, while Hermione guided Harry in the same direction with an arm around him. Ron trotted beside them, watching Harry with concern.

Harry still hadn't managed to cease coughing by the time they had made it to the hospital wing, and his throat was burning viciously. Hermione still had her arm around him, acting as if he would tip over if she let go.

He might have.

Madame Pomfrey immediately pointed Harry over to a cot and pulled out her wand, quickly casting diagnostic spells.

"He was coughing up blood, Madame Pomfrey. It was from a potions accident. The fumes were spreading through the whole classroom, and Harry got the most of it, I think. Everyone else was coughing too, but we all stopped after we left the classroom," Hermione explained.

"From what I can see the fumes initially had the same effect on him as everyone else, but the heavy coughing irritated his throat enough to make his old wounds bleed. That is why he was coughing up blood," Madame Pomfrey said, summoning a potion to her hand. "Drink this, dear."

Harry waited for a small break in his coughs and then downed the potion as quickly as possible. He felt it coat his throat, and in a few seconds, he managed to get his cough under control. He sucked in several wheezy breaths, his chest aching from the strain.

"Is your throat in pain, Mr. Potter?" Madame Pomfrey asked, nodding to herself at Harry's recovery.

Harry nodded, gently rubbing the front of his neck.

Madame Pomfrey handed him another potion.

"This will work to close up those wounds you've opened up. Just like last time, be careful. Your throat will be sore for a few days."

Harry nodded and quaffed the draught, shuddering at its intensely bitter taste. He licked his lips, trying to get rid of the taste.

"Just take this last potion, Mr. Potter. It will give you a bit of energy." Again, Madame Pomfrey handed Harry a potion. This time, it didn't taste quite as bad, and it made the ache in Harry's chest diminish. He sighed in relief.

"Is there anything else, Mr. Potter?" Madame Pomfrey asked, and Harry shook his head.

"Thank you, Madame Pomfrey," Hermione said, and Harry nodded agreement.

"You can thank me by not coming back for at least another two months, Mr. Potter!" the medi-witch scolded. Harry slid off the cot and nodded, before following his friends from the infirmary.

"We were getting worried there," Ron said. "I've never seen anyone cough so much."

"It's not my fault! Someone levitated a tentacula leaf into my potion!"

"So that's where the fumes came from?" Hermione asked. Harry nodded, scowling.

"I heard something sizzle and I looked down just in time to see the leaf going beneath the surface of my potion. Slughorn didn't notice until the fumes changed."

"We're lucky those fumes weren't poisonous," Hermione said. "The whole class would have been affected."

"Who do you think did it?" Ron asked.

"A Slytherin, obviously." Harry replied.

"I doubt they realized exactly what kind of effect the leaf would have on your potion. They probably didn't anticipate everyone ending up coughing," Hermione reasoned.

"I guess not."

They walked in silence for the next minute or so.

"Harry…I don't know if you've thought about it recently, but now that you are doing well in magic again, we should start thinking of where the Horcruxes could be," Hermione said hesitantly. Harry nodded. "We should make a list of possible items that Voldemort used as well as where they could be hidden. Then when we have a chance we have some sort of idea of what we have to do." Hermione continued.

"Yes, I know. Dumbledore thought that Riddle was trying to make a Horcrux out of one of each of the founder's items. We know that he made a Horcrux out of Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup."

"We'll have to talk more about it later. I've got Ancient Runes now, and you two have to head for…what do you two have now?" Hermione asked.

"Double free period." Ron grinned, anticipating the time spent doing anything except for schoolwork.

"Brilliant! You can go research other artifacts that we have from the founders!" With that statement of doom, Hermione bounced away to her Ancient Runes classroom, leaving Harry and Ron to stare helplessly at each other.

A.N.

The next chapter shouldn't take so long – I've already finished it and it just needs betaing. It will probably be up within the next week or so.

The poll on my profile is finished. For those of you who don't know, the results are in favor of Harmony. Although I will travel in that direction with this story, be warned – it won't happen immediately. That's just not realistic.