Voldemort's wraithly return was kind of a weird non-event. It mostly had to do with the fact that we'd assumed he was already floating around somewhere making more plans to come back. That he hadn't had the better part of a year to work on his next scheme was something of a surprise. The best Dumbledore could figure was that he was fettered somewhere out of the way, and it had only been that Nott and Macnair had a homunculus ready for him after he abandoned Quirrell that he'd been able to come back so quickly after the Philosopher's Stone incident. When I'd evicted him from the school the second time after killing the basilisk, his servants had lost track of him.
The Order was staking out Nott's estate, but they'd apparently set up somewhere less obvious. On getting back to the school I found out that Theodore Nott hadn't gone home for the break, and he admitted his father had told him to stay at school and hadn't been forthcoming with information since the winter holidays. It seemed pretty obvious that Mavra must have shown up with Black in tow after my encounter with them on New Year's, and they'd worked out a way to get their incorporeal master back. Maybe they were making another creepy baby to house him instead of the snake.
Remus had a bit of a crisis when we passed on that Black claimed that Pettigrew had been the traitor. It had to be strange to spend over a decade mourning a dead friend and reviling a living one only to find out that he'd had it backwards. Without the shard of Riddle's soul egging him on, Black might have successfully apprehended Pettigrew instead of eating him, and the previous years might have gone very differently.
Of course, if the shard hadn't affixed itself to Black, there was no telling where it would have gone.
The information made our tactical goals more confused, for the next time we encountered the haunted animagus. Previously, if he managed to die that was basically as good an outcome as exorcising him. Now we had to figure on attempting to save him if it was at all possible. Privately, I figured the guy had sounded unsalvagably crazy, so I resolved that I wasn't going to risk anyone's life on taking him in alive. But if Remus was there for the confrontation, I worried any fight could go pear-shaped when he started taking risks that were just as crazy as his friend.
After his initial annoyance at Nott, Lucius Malfoy seemed to decide that his family hadn't actually been in much danger. If I hadn't stumbled on the Death Eaters making their move in the lobby, they might have been content to sneak off with none of us aware that Voldemort had returned: they couldn't have predicted the narcissistic dark lord would make his entrance through the damned movie screen. And without Malfoy's influence, there was no way the Ministry was going to treat the wraith as anything more than another weird side effect of former Death Eaters and hostile vampires at large.
The Ministry was happy to pursue known enemies Sirius Black, Barty Crouch Jr, and Mavra the Black Court vampire, but they were much less interested in identifying wealthy widower Cantankerous Nott or admitting that Dark Lord Voldemort was still on this mortal plane.
As was common with spring break when there wasn't a monster terrorizing the school, a lot of students hadn't bothered to go home. Once Mathilda and I had been returned for a couple of days, several of our friends started to agitate for enchanting club. We'd let it slide for the year, meeting fairly infrequently, because most of the original attendees were firmly in actual ancient runes class. But the exams for that were coming up, and everyone wanted some time to pick each others' brain while doing a group project.
What I hadn't expected was the group project they'd picked. "Wasn't that in my room?" I asked, regarding the portrait of me that Filch had provided as my Christmas present.
"I grabbed it," Percy explained, "after everyone suggested it."
"My family library has some books on magical art," Luna added. "Mr. Filch really has done the hard part. Finishing the enchantments should be well within this group's capabilities."
"But I don't need a talking portrait," I argued.
"It doesn't actually start talking until you die, Harry," Hermione countered. "And you keep getting so close to that, we'd kind of like you around in portrait form to talk to if you manage it one of these days."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said, sardonically. Not that it wasn't accurate.
Penny turned one of Luna's family books to show me a ritual matrix. "I'm interested because it's remarkably similar to soul magic."
I boggled, "I definitely don't want my soul trapped in a painting! Are all the portraits souls?"
She shook her head and explained, "No, it's similar, but not trapping your soul. There's both a tether to your mind to allow your memories to imprint on the object, and the magical construct that allows it to retain these memories and personality in the first place. They're not really even sentient, but the spells that allow an inanimate object to talk are very similar to soulfire."
The twins shared a look and George asked, "What if we had something else that could kind of talk?"
"Duplicating it is something we'd be very interested in," Fred concluded.
Percy gave them both a calculating look, suggesting, "We could take a look at it and find out."
They had an intense, silent twin conference through eye contact and body language, probably considering how much of a narc their brother and his girlfriend were, before finally showing off the not-so-secret map. I hadn't realized that it would also display text insulting people that didn't know how to activate it, and once I caught on to the nicknames of the four wizards who were doing the insulting, I laughed and laughed.
"If we can't help figure it out, I think I can get in touch with one of the original creators," I informed them, after working out that Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs would make sense as names for a werewolf, rat, dog, and stag. I might not have made the connection if I hadn't read Remus' books, as well as hearing a few of his stories about the kind of things they got up to when they were students.
That got me the twins' attention, and once they demonstrated the full Marauder's Map I agreed that it would be a really useful item to duplicate. When activated and expanded, it showed the whole school (or at least the rooms that the Marauders had known about), seemed to update the positions of the ones that moved, and, most importantly, showed the location of everyone on campus with their name.
Percy was impressed. "I am not sure even the Headmaster has anything like this. It would be extremely useful for all teachers to have, and in identifying intruders. And, I suppose, you have only used it for pranks?" I caught his eye before he could say anything he'd regret and gave him the look I usually gave him when he was about to be too officious. He sighed and said, "I shall not confiscate it. But you may need to make this available if You-Know-Who's forces attempt to gain entry to the school."
They agreed to that, and we spent a very productive session analyzing the map and planning out the spells for enchanting a portrait. Unfortunately, it looked like the map worked by keying into Hogwarts' complicated ward structure. We might be able to make copies for Hogwarts, but it wasn't clear whether any other locations would have similar capabilities to hook into. I resolved to feel Remus out about it carefully, since he was smart enough to figure out why I might ask about it, and might feel obligated to reclaim it for the defense of the school.
Honestly, if I hadn't been supporting Percy strengthening his good relationship with his brothers, I might have argued myself that the thing needed to live full time in Remus or Dumbledore's offices. Maybe I could obliquely suggest the concept to Remus and get him to come up with making a new copy of his own. For all I knew, he'd already started working on a replacement.
Enchanting projects took up the rest of the break where I wasn't getting roped into studying for NEWTs by my year-mates. I probably should have been spending more effort finding an apartment and a job, but Dumbledore was insisting I stay on the school grounds as much as possible until we found out what new scheme the Death Eaters were planning. I could have left if I wanted, being an adult, but he made good sense. With my luck, I figured they'd just grab me as soon as I was graduated in a few months anyway, but try convincing him of that.
There were rumors of a suspicious break-in at Ollivander's wand shop, but the bad guys at least hadn't made any overt moves by the quidditch rematch the weekend after the break. It was at least nice enough weather for it, for once, with only light clouds and wind and about 50 degrees. I was slightly surprised to find Alexis was first to the stands and cheering her head off for Gryffindor. "What? I'm still mad at Ollie but I want the team to win," she explained, using her wand to levitate a giant house banner above the stands.
"You still rooting for Malfoy?" I asked Mathilda.
"Nah," she admitted. "If Ginny beats him he'll have something to prove next year. Really intensify that rivalry until it boils over… in furious closet snogging."
Both of the tiny star-crossed lovers definitely seemed motivated. With Ginny on the improved broom, neither would be able to claim imbalance in sporting equipment for whichever one got the snitch first. Unfortunately, that imbalance was still in force for the rest of the team, since the Slytherins all had nearly-new brooms as good as the two seekers, while the rest of Gryffindor was on their assortment of more-affordable ones. It still seemed really unfair to me.
But as much as it had contributed to destroying Oliver and Alexis' relationship, his insane training was more than obvious. The Gryffindor team was simply outplaying Slytherin in a way that was basically unstoppable. The bigger boys on the opposing chaser line had one strategy: clutch the quaffle, bunch up, and try to brute force their way through the line. But the twins were simply vicious and, more importantly, precise with their bludgers. On more than one occasion the guy with the bigger ball had it taken straight out of his arms by a small metal one. Defending it would have smashed a collarbone or worse.
Meanwhile, the girls on the Gryffindor line were constantly in both lateral and forward motion, easily dodging just about everything the other team sent at them. I wasn't totally sure, after three years of Oliver trying to explain it, why passing was such a thing, but they did it a lot and it looked neat. Maybe it was just because if you did it fast enough the other team had a hard time keeping track of who had it with the distances and speeds involved in the sport.
As the score inflated to 190 to 50 what Oliver claimed should have been a regular occurence finally happened: Ginny and Draco spotted the snitch at exactly the moment that the 150 points for catching it could only barely decide the game, and only then if Draco could catch it before Gryffindor scored another goal. The entire stadium lost it, screaming in excitement as red and gold streaked through the sky against platinum and green.
I was even caught up in the moment a bit myself, but not so much that I didn't glance around to make sure that there weren't any dementors or animagi lurking. No threats spotted, I turned just in time to watch Ginny clench her fist what looked to be less than an arm length ahead of Draco's own swiping arm.
It wouldn't have mattered. The final score was 350 to 50, since Katie had put through a final goal moments before. But my house lost their minds at the thrill of such a narrow win turned into a blowout. I saw Draco marshal his sportsmanship and shake Ginny's hand before heading off the field, and then we were all getting swept along to the house party to end all house parties.
My memories of the party were a little scattered, since Oliver had broken out his stash of firewhiskey after revealing that the scout from the team he wanted to join had signed him on the spot. Percy didn't even object, as long as only people who were at least 17 got hold of it. The younger kids were already knocking themselves out on smuggled butterbeer anyway.
The fact that wizarding "soft" drinks for children are mildly alcoholic says all you need to know about the culture.
My buzz started to wear off late into the evening, when it was just the really heavy partiers still up (and several kids conked out on the couches instead of in their rooms, including Mathilda sprawled out across me on the couch). What caught my attention was Alexis giving Oliver a small kiss on his cheek on her way out of the room and telling him, "Congratulations, Ollie. I'll be rooting for you in the pros."
He sighed wistfully at her as she walked up to her room, as if contemplating his lost opportunity, then said, "G'night, Harry. G'night Professor," and headed his own way out.
I looked over to see that, as was often her practice, McGonagall had showed up to make sure the party wound down without any injuries or alcohol poisoning. I hadn't really talked to her outside of class since the conversation after New Year's. She regarded me with an unreadable expression, flashes of pain, sadness, and happiness all flickering across her face.
Hell, if Alexis and Oliver could make up, and Death Eaters could kill me the first time I slipped up, it was dumb to hold a grudge. "Quidditch cup in your office two years in a row," I offered.
"Maybe three," she allowed, "if I can't convince Albus quidditch won't be a distraction from another competition he's hoping to host next year. But don't tell anyone."
"Yeah. I think we'll get it anyway, if Angelina keeps the team even half as trained. Plus, next year, four Weasleys on the team." As far as we knew, nobody in the house was even half as ready as Ron was to take over for Oliver as keeper.
"It should certainly at least keep them all out of trouble," she gave a small smile. "Do you need any help getting Ms. Grimblehawk to bed?"
"I think she'll get moving when I wake her. Hopefully before my leg goes completely to sleep," I joked, though I was getting some pins and needles from where one of her elbows was cutting off my circulation. "But thanks." I decided to extend an olive branch. "Do you… um… do you want to come by the new apartment sometime this summer? We haven't actually found one yet, but we will soon. Hopefully. Percy, Penny, Me and… well, Mathilda will probably be there," I challenged her sensibilities.
Her smile got bigger. You'd almost be able to tell she was smiling even if you didn't know her really well. "I'd like that a lot, Hoss."
"Good, good," I nodded, then joked, "Especially since you're a transfiguration genius and none of the rest of us want to try fixing anything that's wrong or painting."
That even got a slight chuckle. "At the very least, I'm sure I can show your roommates the spells. Goodnight."
My grandmother took her leave as I felt some tension leaving my body for that relationship improving. Next, I just had to deal with other tension in my body: the one that was sleeping peacefully despite her whole weight crushing her arm into my thigh.
It turned out, unfortunately, that true love's kiss only woke my girlfriend from magical slumber.