A Bunch of Worthless Writing

On Sunday, Harry woke up early in the morning and briefly wondered why this had to happen to him on one of the two days he could sleep in. Then he noticed the reason: an annoyed-looking owl fluttered around in front of the window next to his bed and scratched the glass with its claws. Harry tormented himself out of the sheets, opened the window and took the letter from it, which had his name on it in Savage's barely legible handwriting. With a throbbing heart, he closed the window again, pulled the bed curtains forward, and muttered "Lumos."

Harry opened the letter in the flickering light of his wand and began to read:

Hello Potter, Hello Weasley,

Good and confusing news: we found Jugson's body in a cellar in Lancaster an hour ago. So much for the good part. The confusing part: we have no idea where his accomplices are and who killed him. Since no one has contacted us, we currently assume that Selwyn and Nott did it themselves because they were at odds. The question is whether the two are now travelling alone, or whether they have support, such as the two dead Death Eaters we found in the nursery. The two have since been identified: Alan and Arnold Hutchings, two brothers from York, both werewolves, which also explains why their wands did not appear on our register.

I will report again when we know something new, even though I am still being kept away from the case.

Enjoy school,

S.

Harry thoughtfully folded the letter together and turned off the light. Savage might be right, he thought, as he stared into the darkness. Selwyn, Nott and anyone else who was with them may have actually been at odds. But why? ''Everything they want is running away', Yaxley had said of Jugson, Avery and Nott. Was it about that? Had Jugson wanted to run away and had Selwyn punished him for it? Or had someone completely different caught Jugson, an unknown man who was chasing Death Eaters on his own? Either way, Harry thought, at least he didn't have to worry about Jugson anymore.

He waited a while until it slowly became brighter outside, and then woke up Ron, directly choking off his weak protests by waving the letter. Ron stopped complaining and followed him down to the empty common room, where Harry gave him the letter.

''Ah', he muttered, confused, when he finished. ''That raises more questions than it answers.''

Harry nodded silently and dropped himself into his favorite armchair.

"What is it?" asked Ron.

"If they really killed him themselves... then the whole thing has a new dimension." Harry looked thoughtfully at his hands. "That means Selwyn handles it the same way as Voldemort did."

Ron shrugged. 'That doesn't surprise me, Harry, to be honest.'

Ginny and Hermione also had nothing helpful to contribute to this topic on the way to breakfast, apart from the fact that Hermione read them the accompanying article in the Daily Prophet at breakfast. Around them, many other students also discussed Jugson's death, Harry noticed. He took a look over to the Slytherin table, where Nott chatted animatedly with Zabini and Pansy Parkinson. Malfoy next to them read the Prophet with a furrowed forehead.

"Do you think Nott is in contact with his father?" Ron asked quietly.

"I would bet on that," Harry muttered, who had exchanged owls with a wanted criminal for years himself.

"Could be useful to read his post," Ron said thoughtfully.

"Ever heard of privacy, Ron?" Hermine hissed annoyed. "Moreover, Nott will certainly not tell his son what they are doing and where they are."

Harry wasn't the only one to break his head over the free killers, as Neville grimly assured him as they ran into each other at noon in the library.

"It should have been all over," he whispered, pretending to read about plants in a waltz called Truly Zaubrian. 'But they're still out there doing bad things, even without You-know-Who, doing terrible things.'

- "I guess there will always be bad people, Neville," Harry muttered after a short pause, because Madam Pince had looked over suspiciously.

"I know that," Neville sighed, putting the book back on the shelf. "But Death Eaters... Do you know what the first thing I did after the battle was?"

Harry shook his head silently.

"I was with my parents at St. Mungo's and told them it was over, but it's not over," he said softly. "It's like last time, you know? You-know-who was gone, everyone thought it was over, and then... they got to my parents."

The topic haunted Harry's mind all day, both in their free period, which he spent with Ron to finish their essay on Transfiguration while exchanging theories about what the Death Eaters were planning, as well as during their hour with Dawlish on Tuesday, when they continued to practice non-verbal spells and Dawlish managed to disarm him.

"You weren't really here today, Potter," the professor remarked, holding him back briefly after the lesson.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Um, Professor, have you read...?"

"Of course, Potter," Dawlish said, closing his bag. "And if you ask me, I agree with what was in the Prophet" - he closed his bag with a click - "They argued among themselves and Jugson was the weakest."

He gave Harry a sharp look. "You worked with Williamson and Savage?"

Harry nodded silently.

"He was a good Auror," Dawlish said, walking over to the door. "Even though he has sometimes stretched the rules a little bit. Well, you should go now, you certainly don't want to miss your next lesson, don't you?"

Professor McGonagall gave them their essays on the head bubble spell back on Thursday.

"The level of this homework was really pathetic," she growled, underlining her anger by walking around and slamming their essays on the table herself. Hermione slipped restlessly on her chair, but as expected, there was nothing wrong with her homework – unlike with Harry's.

"A bunch of worthless writing, Potter," McGonagall snapped as she clapped his essay on the table. "Hand this in revised by Monday!"

- "Yes, Professor," Harry sighed, unsurprised, that with all the Selwyns and Notts spinning around in his head, no reasonable homework had come out. Hermione took a curious look at his worthless writing and he hurriedly stuffed it into his pocket. Professor McGonagall, who seemed to care little about Harry already having a lot of work ahead of him, gave them all another essay on polymorphism at the end of the hour, which further increased Harry's worries so that he went to lunch visibly annoyed.

"Harry!"

He turned around tiredly and saw Demelza Robins and Ginny marching towards him.

"When do you want to start these trials now?", Demelza asked eagerly.

He sighed. His weekend was already crammed with homework without Quidditch adding to it, but he couldn't push it forward forever.

"Saturday at ten," he moaned.

"Great," Demelza said enthusiastically. "In the holidays, I've-"

What exactly Demelza had done during the holidays, Harry should never know, because Peeves chose precisely this moment to fall purposefully from the ceiling of the corridor, where he had been waiting for unsuspecting victims, and ripped open her bag. Ink barrels shattered, books and parchment fell out and Peeves flew away laughing.

"Langlock!" shouted Harry, pointing his wand at Peeves, and the laughter of the poltergeist ended abruptly as his tongue stuck to his palate.

"Thank you, Harry," Demelza sighed, and set out with Ginny to collect her belongings. Harry wanted to offer his help, but Ron silently formed the word 'lunch' and he followed him with a smile into the Great Hall.

The rest of the week was a tangled mish-mash of long evenings, with the two essays for McGonagall and lessons where nothing worth mentioning happened - for Hogwarts standards, at least.

On Saturday morning, Harry was in a dazzling mood because he could finally fly again and at least half the day would be homework- and carefree. Ron shoveled food inside mouth at breakfast like a barn harvester.

"Keepers must be broad," he said between two bites. "That makes it easier to cover the rings - uups, sorry!"

He had accidentally knocked over his pumpkin juice, which Hermione elegantly let float back into the glass.

"Ron, your table manners are an absolute disaster," she growled, sounding like Professor McGonagall as she opened the Daily Prophet, "Please behave yours-"

She spit her tea on everyone around, making Lavender and Parvati scream and Ron laugh. Hermione, on the other hand, paid no attention to them and stared at the front page as if banished.

"Hermione?" Ginny asked, leaning over to her. "Oh. Shit."

"It's about me, isn't it?", Harry sighed.

The morning had started so nicely. Hermione nodded with a storm-clouded face and handed him the tea-soaked newspaper.

"Oh, crap, wait - Scourgify", she said, waving her wand, cleaning the newspaper, table and classmates.

Oh crap, hits it quite well, Harry thought, as he stared at Rita Skeeter's and his face.

SKEETER WRITES POTTER-BIOGRAPHY: THE CHOSEN ONE (?)

Rita Skeeter, the long-standing special correspondent for the Daily Prophet, is currently working on a biography of the "Boy who lives," as she announced in an interview with this newspaper yesterday.

"It's true," Skeeter says. "It's high time that someone took a closer look at Harry Potter's life."

Skeeter wants to take a closer look at Potter's relationship with Albus Dumbledore and his childhood before attending the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"While Potter has always been in the public eye throughout his school days, this time is still in the shadows. I want to bring some light into the dark."

This was followed by a two-page interview and a short excerpt from Rita's Snape book, which caused a violent stranglehold on Harry. She wants to talk to the Dursleys, Harry thought horrified. He put the newspaper away and stared at Hermione.

"Can't I just sue her?"

Hermione shook her head angrily. "Believe me, if that were the case, someone would have done it."

- "This stupid, slimy witch," Ginny hissed angrily. "When I get my hands on the crappy..."

"Just don't notice this garbage, Harry," Hermione said, though she herself looked like she was spitting fire. "That's just..."

" A bunch of worthless writing!" said Ron with a grin, eliciting Harry with a faint laugh.

"Okay, we should go," he said.

Why can't she just leave me alone, Harry thought grimly as he slipped into his quidditch cape in the locker room. Couldn't he just have a year's rest? No, that was apparently too much to ask for the famous Harry Potter. The famous Harry Potter couldn't just go to school, sensationalist reporters had to get on his nerves nonstop.

Accordingly, Harry wasn't necessarily in high spirits as he climbed on his broom and began the trials, to which the rain, which began at just the same moment, added.

His three chasers, however, seemed completely unimpressed: Ginny, Demelza and Dean eclipsed the competition, although some did not see it as Harry did. It took him a good quarter of an hour to chase the dissatisfied off the field and after that he was wet and decidedly stinky. Otherwise they can hardly look me in the eye in awe, he thought grimly, but now?

"Why does it always have to be so exhausting?" he muttered to Ginny, who looked at the beaters with him.

"I guess everyone wants to take the chance to play Quiddich with the Chosen One," she said with a grin.

"So that they can give Rita an interview about it?" he asked grimly, while Jimmy Peakes slammed a bludger into the back of a second-year.

"Just forget the stupid cow, Harry," Ginny sighed. "Just curse her the next time you see her - ouch."

The sixth-year, who was the only one other than Coote and Peakes still in the air, got both bludgers in the stomach area at the same time and could just hold on to his broom.

"All right, that's enough!", Harry yelled, before anyone else could seriously injure themselves. "Coote, Peakes, you're in. Ogden, maybe next year, okay?"

"They banded together against me," Chris Ogden yelled after he was able to breathe again painlessly. "That wasn't fair, Potter!"

"It's called teamwork, Ogden," Richie Coote said, angrily smiling at the sixth-year, who was one head taller than him. Ogden took a step towards Coote, but Harry, who had now really had enough, pulled out his wand.

"Ogden," he growled. "Leave it."

Chris Ogden stumbled backwards so hastily that he almost stumbled across his own feet.

"So then," Harry shouted hoarsely. "Now the keepers!"

Ron didn't embarrass Harry either and easily eclipsed the competition, so that the stinky and completely soaked Harry found himself with exactly the six players he had expected from the start.

"Well done, folks," he croaked laboriously. "First training on Tuesday at six."

- "No surprises, then?", Hermione asked as they walked back to the castle.

"No," Harry said angrily. "A huge waste of time if you ask me."

"There's absolutely nothing coming up from the younger ones," Ginny said anxiously. "Next year we will have real problems when you three finish school."

"You can worry about that on your own," Ron said with a grin.

For the first time, Harry wasn't worried about Quidditch, but about what Rita Skeeter would dig up.

"What if she learns all about Voldemort?" he asked Hermione quietly as they stood by the window in the common room in the evening.

She nodded grimly. "Yes, I've already thought of that, Harry. But no one knows about that, so how could she?"

- "I mentioned the Horkruxes," Harry muttered softly. "Before our duel, in the Great Hall, don't you remember?"

Hermione looked out of the window thoughtfully. "You just mentioned the word," she said after a while. "Not what it means. And Dumbledore had all the books about it disappear-"

She bit her lower lip. "You think..."

- "Tell me that I am wrong," he said grimly, because Hermione had obviously come to the same conclusion as him: Yes, Dumbledore had removed all the books about Horkruxes from the library - all the books in Hogwarts. But out there were surely dozens of books talking about horcruxes.

"In Knockturn Alley, such books are certainly everywhere," he said.

"She's not going to write about it," Hermione said. 'Even Rita wouldn't do that. And if so, no one would publish it."

"Let's hope," Harry sighed.

It was the full moon, it was late and suddenly one of those terrible moments came to him again, when he had to think of Remus, whose whole life had been determined by it, Remus, who had died in this castle, along with all the others.

"Harry?", Hermione asked, worried.

"It's the full moon," he whispered. Hermione put her head on his shoulder when she realized.

"What a life he could have had, Hermione", he said. "Finally no more hiding, a family..."

Instead, Remus was dead, as dead as Tonks, and Teddy had no parents.

They broke apart when someone behind them made a loud howl. Lavender Brown sat by the fireplace, which showed the scars on her throat clearly, and she howled like a wolf, which made everyone in attendance laugh after a brief moment of terror.

"We have to continue without them, Harry," Hermione sighed. "As hard as it is."