6. Strange Stranger

The week around Halloween was always a difficult time for Neville. Mostly because it was when Voldemort murdered his parents. But it was also the day which sealed his fate. He knew that he was being ungrateful, but he could not help but wonder what would happen if his parents were still alive. He would not be living with his gran, for sure. He would not have the pressure of the whole world upon his shoulders, either. He would probably be a normal boy whose biggest worry would be the finding himself a girlfriend and his biggest pressure would be the NEWTs study load that everyone else was already complaining about.

Dumbledore told him that the prophecy could have meant either him or Harry. Neville knew that he was being unbelievably selfish when he wished that Voldemort had picked Harry instead of him. Harry certainly looked like he could, one day, defeat Voldemort, with all the training he did. He quickly pushed that thought away from his head. Harry was his best friend, and he would not wish his life on anyone other than Voldemort himself. Not to mention that James and Lily Potter were two of the nicest people Neville has ever met, and without them checking up on him every once in a while, Neville would've had an even worse childhood. It was bad enough that Mrs. Potter was tortured to insanity. Neville didn't know if he could bear seeing his parents being unresponsive for years. But then again, it would've given him a chance to see them once again.

Shaking his head to get rid of these ominous thoughts, he made his way towards the Heads' dorm. When the portrait saw him, she disappeared for a moment before it swung open. He stepped inside to see Daphne Greengrass curled on the couch with a few books in front of her.

"Longbottom." She greeted with a heavy voice. Neville was suddenly very nervous. He had heard a lot about the Head Girl from Harry and almost all of it were unflattering. Of course, Neville was not an idiot, and knew that Harry was equally to blame for their rivalry, if not more, but the impression of his descriptions of Daphne Greengrass had left a mark.

"Umm… hi. Is Harry here?" he asked nervously, trying hard not to stutter.

"I… I don't think so." She replied. Her face was flushed and she looked to be shivering a little.

"Are you… okay?" Neville asked tentatively. According to Harry, the girl was prone to violence, so he kept his distance just to be safe.

"Yes. I'm alright." She managed in a weak voice. It was clear that she was anything but alright, but Neville was not about to say that to her face.

Probably.

He nodded and turned to leave, but against his better judgement, he turned towards her again.

"Uh, I know it is not my place to say, but you might want to visit Madam Pomfrey."

Daphne tried to glare at the boy, but she was increasingly finding it difficult to keep her eyes open.

"Thanks, but I'm fine." She replied shortly.

Neville nodded and turned to leave again, but once more against his better judgement, he turned back on the Slytherin.

"I'm sorry, but you should probably-"

"Go away, Longbottom." She ordered and chuckled as she saw the Boy-Who-Lived retreating quickly. It seemed that being badmouthed by Potter also had some good sides. Another round of shivers, however, left her wondering if the Chosen One had a point.

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The first quidditch match of the season was almost upon them and Harry was training the team pretty hard. He made two teams, with a keeper, two chasers and one beater in each side and run some scrimmages between themselves. After every half an hour, he shuffled the teams and restarted the drill. The extra chaser would usually chase the quaffle when it was out of play and two first year chasers, Clarke and Smalling, were rotated as the extra chaser and they seemed to be pretty excited to actually play some quidditch, so everyone was happy. Once he had both of them play and call on Ginny as a seeker and played fetch the snitch, but he knew Ginny should get more familiarized with other chasers than with the snitch, so he let her go after a while. As for himself, he had to supervise the training on the allotted training, so he went for seeker practise early in the morning, usually right after his morning exercise and tea, just like he learned from Krum.

In his fourth year, he found himself close to Viktor Krum, and he did what any good seeker would do: hound him for tips. At first Krum avoided him like he would avoid a pestering fan, but with some words in the right ears, Harry and Angelina managed to run an unofficial Hogwarts vs Durmstrang match right before the Easter holidays. The Hogwarts team had Bletchley from Slytherin as the keeper, Fred and George Weasley from Gryffindor as beaters, Angelina from Gryffindor, Preece from Hufflepuff and Davies from Ravenclaw as the chasers. Needless to say, Harry became the seeker after beating Cho, Malfoy and Cedric in the try outs. There were some grumblings amongst the rejects (specially from the Slytherin side) about a Gryffindor bias, but Angelina, who was leading the try outs, pointed out that they could simply play better to avoid such bias and Cedric Diggory, who had the respect of most of the school as the champion agreed that the team was fair and the grumblings went away after that.

Harry didn't know whether to be happy or disappointed when he saw that Krum was not playing in the Durmstrang team. Their captain, a boy with a very red face whose name Harry had trouble pronouncing, said that Krum didn't want to take the risk of any injuries ahead of the next season, given that he was already missing a whole season because of the tournament.

Hogwarts won in a tough battle that went on for close to three hours. The Durmstrang chasers were very physical, but their beaters didn't come close to the Weasley twins and the keepers were evenly matched. It was evident very clearly that Harry was by far the superior seeker, managing to make the opponent seeker crash twice with two wonderful feints, including a textbook Wronski Feint. He once spotted Krum at the stands, looking like he wanted to jump on a broom right there, but the snitch proved to be quite elusive. After the score was 450-480 in favour of Durmstrang, Harry finally saw the snitch and wasted no time getting it and securing the win for team. The two teams and their friends were invited to the Gryffindor common room, where a party to end all parties was hosted by the generous lions. They even invited Beauxbaton students, who couldn't play because they didn't bring enough quidditch players to form a team.

Albus Dumbledore was beside himself with joy at this immense show of inter school bonding and voluntarily expanded the Gryffindor common room to almost thrice its normal size. He wanted to award Gryffindor a hundred points for their hospitality, but Minerva reminded him that this might undo some inter house relations that were built here and Albus asked the house elves to provide snacks for the party instead, merrily twinkling his eyes.

Krum had found Harry trying to feed a Canary Cream to a Beauxbaton student. He cleared his throat to get his attention. When Harry looked at him, mildly surprised, he spoke with a thick accent. "You fly vell. Meet me in front of our ship tomorrow at 9 a.m."

They met next morning, and Krum took him for a fly. If Harry thought he was a natural flyer, he was nothing compared to Krum. The older boy took him under his wing, teaching him how to train as a seeker and giving him numerous pointers and tips to improve his flying. They continued meeting regularly, once or twice each week, and Harry could immediately see the results. He always took pride in his flying abilities, but after a month of training with Krum, he felt like he had been doing it wrong all his life and now he was just learning to fly smoothly. The only thing Krum couldn't see any room to improve was Harry's recovery from a steep dive. "It is as good as you can get vithout killing yourself." He commented.

So even after the year ended and his correspondence with Krum dropped to once or twice a year, he continued his training just like Krum showed him, and as a result no Hogwarts seeker ever came close to catching him or the snitch against him. In one particular match against Slytherin, he made Malfoy crash three times and sent him to the hospital wing without having the smallest contact with him. They had to bring on a substitute seeker to finish the match.

Shaking himself back to reality, Harry blew his whistle and the scrimmage stopped. Ginny looked a bit disappointed as she was just about to score another past Ron, but she didn't voice that and fell in line with everyone, facing Harry. Like a ritual, Harry looked at each individual's eyes before speaking.

"Alright team, the big day is tomorrow and I want you all to get a good night's sleep. We will be playing with the regular first team, and I hope I won't need to call any reserves in the pitch, but be prepared for everything. We know Slytherin plays dirty and we have practised for that kind of play specifically. We are as prepared as we can be, and if you can play like the way we practised for the last few days, those Slytherin boys will not even see what hit them." He looked around to see determined faces looking back at him and that got his insides all warm and tingly.

"Go rest now. We have a battle to fight tomorrow."

The team left in high spirits and Harry hoped they would all get a good night's sleep.

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When Harry returned to his dorm, he was surprised to see Daphne not in the common room. He also did not remember seeing much of her during the week. He was awfully bust with quidditch practice for a while, and they hardly greeted each other when they met. Harry briefly wondered if she was okay. Her door was locked and he thought about knocking to see if she was there, but decided against it at the last minute.

Entering his room, he found Hedwig, his snowy owl, perched on his bed with a letter tied to her legs. He pulled out a few owl treats from a drawer beside his bed and offered it to her as he opened the letter. It was from his mother.

Dear Harry,

I don't know if you heard about it yet, but the Tonks family was attacked today. Nymphadora wasn't home and Andromeda managed to take care of most Death Eaters, but Ted was hit by a nasty cutter from behind. The Order arrived before the Aurors, but the Death Eaters already escaped by that time. Andromeda is okay, but Ted is still unconscious. Healers said he might have some difficulty with his left shoulder, but he will be okay. I am going over to St. Mungos right now. Talk to Nymphadora tomorrow if you can. She has been pretty upset.

Stay safe and take care of yourself.

Love,

Mum.

P.S. We are still on for next weekend, right?

Harry sighed. He would call Tonks tomorrow after the match. She had a phone that Lily charmed to have connection with their mirrors. She couldn't see their faces, but they could talk, and that was pretty cool too.

He thought about these attacks and realized he could do nothing about them. For now, at least. He had put off his regular training for quidditch, but he would have to restart it from the day after tomorrow. He had to be prepared for the war.

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Daphne was still absent when Harry returned from his morning exercise and even when he was getting out of the portrait to join the team for breakfast. He thought about knocking again, but once again he stopped himself, thinking that she might like to sleep in for Quidditch match days. He didn't really know her that well, and waking her up might cause her to hex him, which he didn't want just before a match.

The match was quite short. Ron, as usual, fell under nerves as Slytherin supporters chanted the infamous 'Weasley is Our King' that Malfoy wrote in their fifth year. Harry had to give it to the boy. He really knew how to exploit the weakness of others. Fortunately, Harry wounded up Malfoy by flying in a tight circle around the blond boy and suddenly diving and pulling up sharply. Malfoy looked scared as he clung on to his broom for dear life and Harry smirked and proceeded to catch the snitch right after that. As the team converged on him to congratulate him, he was already planning to give Denis Creevey some motivation to step up his game, because he sure as hell wasn't playing Ron Weasley in the next match. The guy was already brooding in a corner away from the team. Ginny followed his line of sight.

"You want me to tell him he is not playing the next match?" she asked him quietly. Harry shook his head.

"No, I gotta do it. Besides, he might not take it well from his baby sister."

"Hey, watch who you're calling a baby!" she shoved him, a mock glare in her face.

"Just you, ickle Gin-Gin." Harry answered as he flew away out of her reach just as she took a swipe at him. He scanned the retreating Slytherins to see if he could find the Head Girl among them, but he couldn't spot her. Parvati was, once again, waving at him from the stands, and he waved back distractedly, wondering where blonde Slytherin was.

Pushing the thoughts of Greengrass away from his head, he took a walk towards the lake and pulled out his mirror. "Nymphadora Tonks." He called. It was a while before she answered.

"Wotcher Harry." She sounded tired. If Harry had to guess, he would say her hair was a dull brown right now, matching her mood.

"Hey Dora, how are you?" he asked tentatively. Normally he would joke around her name, but he felt this was not the moment.

"I'm holding up. Dad woke up a couple hours back. They said he would have some difficulties to throw or swing with his left arm, and that he would have to be in bed for the next few days, but he's gonna be fine otherwise."

"That's good to hear." Harry breathed in relief. "Now what is this I hear about you moping around? That is my job Dora, not yours." He tried to lighten the mood a bit. It failed.

"I should've been there, Harry. I can't say how it felt like when I came home to find him like that… bleeding all over mum. They wanted me because I am a known member of the Order and I wasn't there to protect my family when… when it mattered the most." Her voice broke as she got it out of her chest.

"Hey, don't say that. You couldn't know they would come for your parents." Harry tried to calm her, but she was still sniffing. "Dora, listen to me. Your parents are adults who can take care of themselves. In fact, they did take care of the Death Eaters by themselves before any help arrived. They wouldn't want you to guard them all the time in case they are attacked. Would you blame them if you were attacked at work and they were not there to protect you?"

"…no"

"Then don't blame yourself for something you had no control over. Death Eaters attacked them, not you. You understand me?" he said forcefully. It ached his heart to see the bubbly metamorphmagus this miserable.

"I guess. Thanks, Harry. Thanks for calling. I really needed to talk to someone."

"Hey that's what I am for. Now go and smile for your parents. Trust me your dad will recover much faster if you're not being a miserable sod." Tonks gave a watery laugh.

"Shut up, you brat! I'll go and talk with my parents. Bye."

"Talk to you later, Nymphie." He hung up before she could yell at him.

He knew Tonks will have a rough few days regardless. Harry knew very well that he would be much worse off if the roles were reversed. He still worried about his dad and Sirius. They were gone for a month now. They sent notes to his mother in the first two weeks, saying that they were okay and that she could not reply back. On the third week, they said they were going deep and there would be no communications for a few weeks. Hopefully they would come back with the rat and possibly more Death Eaters.

Reaching the Gryffindor common room, he saw that the party was in full swing. He chatted with a few people, thanking everyone who congratulated him. He noticed that Ron was sulking in a corner with a bottle of butterbeer. Carefully avoiding Parvati's searching eyes, he sought out Neville, who was stealing glances at Ginny from a distance.

"See something you like, mate?" Harry asked quietly, waggling his eyebrows. Neville blushed.

"Maybe. Congratulations on the win." He offered. Harry waved it away like it was nothing.

"Want me to set you up? I heard she is not seeing someone at the moment." He suggested. Neville looked alarmed.

"Heavens no! I don't want Ron after my case if I date his sister. Besides, dating might not be a good option for me." He gave him a significant look, hinting about his responsibilities. Harry frowned.

"Ron won't do shit unless he wants Ginny to hex him to next year. Don't worry about that. And I think dating is an excellent option for you. You are a guy, Nev, not a weapon. You deserve to live your life. Hell, you deserve it more than any of us for what you've been through and what you're going to go through in the future. If anyone deserves to enjoy life to its fullest, it's you."

Neville felt very uncomfortable at Harry's words. He so wanted for them to be true, but he was still afraid that he won't make it against Voldemort. He nodded to Harry to show that he appreciated the sentiment, and Harry understood that he had to change the subject because Nev was super uncomfortable with these things.

"So what's old Dumbledore teaching you?" Harry asked while setting up a privacy ward, wondering if the old headmaster was teaching Neville ancient magic that would help him against Voldemort. Neville shrugged.

"Nothing exciting. He's showing me memories of Voldemort as a child. It's supposed to help with defeating him somehow, we haven't discussed that part yet." Neville wouldn't divulge this information to just anyone, but Harry had been his best friend since they were young, and they trusted each other with their secrets. Harry looked dubious.

"If you say so. By the way, did you hear from your gran? Mum said she and dad had a chat with her. Dunno how that went." Neville shrugged again.

"No idea, mate. I didn't get a chance to owl her recently, with Dumbledore's lessons and what not. Say, what are you doing in this Hogsmeade weekend?"

"So far getting Greengrass to meet up with mum. I'll see how that goes." He replied. Harry had told him about Daphne's research and Lily Potter helping her out. He thought it was awfully nice of her to help out someone who was not even Harry's friend. But then again, given their violently famous history, he wondered why Harry decided to help her anyway. That also reminded him of his last encounter with the Head Girl.

"Oh, that's okay. I was just asking because I have absolutely nothing to do. Hermione is going on a date with a Ravenclaw and Dean and Seamus both plan to go to Hog's Head to have firewhiskey. Not really a fan of that stuff." He grimaced to emphasize his point and Harry laughed. Neville was never the firewhiskey type of guy. "By the way, I went to your dorm the other night. You were right, mate. Greengrass is kinda scary."

"Really? She did not tell me anything. I haven't really seen her around for a while." Harry confessed.

"You might want to check on her. Last I saw, she didn't look well."

"Huh. Maybe I should check on her. But about Ginny-"

"Look mate, I don't want you to do anything stupid. It's not a good idea anyway." Neville tried to worm away from the conversation, giving the red headed girl one more glance, but Harry just grinned at him.

"Alright, I have an idea. I'll let you know what happens later." With that, Harry went away, ignoring Neville's call of "What idea? Come back here Harry!"

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Daphne was still nowhere to be seen when he returned to his dorm later that evening. Despite everything, he found himself worrying for the girl, which came as a huge surprise. His usual feeling about her were planning on hexing her or throwing a good insult, so this sudden change took him by surprise.

Going up to her door, he knocked three times. There was no reply at first, but he could hear a faint groaning coming from inside. He knocked again and it sounded like someone groaning again. He checked the door handle for any hexes and found a mild electrocution hex on it. Wrapping a conjured towel around his hand, he took a deep breath and opened the door. He was irritated to find that he still felt some shock despite the towel. Magical hexes.

Daphne was in the bed with a bunch of clothes lying on top of her. Her face was quite red and she was shivering, curled up in a ball. She didn't even respond when she saw Harry entering her room. Harry went ahead and touched her forehead and let out a hiss. She was burning hot. Neville was right, after all.

"Shit blondie, you have a bad fever. Lay still, I'm taking you to the infirmary."

"No... please. Your... tea... will be... fine." She managed to whisper out and Harry winced at how weak the usually proud girl sounded.

"That's a no. That tea is strictly forbidden to drink when you are ill. You'll have to go to the hospital wing, Greengrass." He said sympathetically. He could understand the need to stay out of the hospital wing if it could be avoided.

"Please... no." She pleaded with watering eyes, though he suspected the tears were for the fever, not due to her emotions about visiting the hospital wing. Harry sighed. Now he knew how mum felt when dad or Sirius came back from a mission, hurt, but refused to see a healer.

"Alright. Let me put some blankets on you first." He looked around to see a thin blanket on the floor. He guessed that she thrashed around in her sleep and the blanket fell off and couldn't muster the energy to reclaim it from the floor. He threw away the clothes lying on top of her and covered her with the blanket. She was still shivering.

She needed another blanket but he couldn't see one, and there was no way he was going through her stuff to find another one.

"Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back." He called as he went to his own room and picked out the only blanket he had. It was pretty cold, but he could put up a warming charm on himself. He draped it over her and was satisfied to see the shivering slowly going away.

He knew she had to be fed plenty of fluids and washing her head would probably help with the temperature as well. He was pretty sure she hadn't eaten anything in a while, so soup was probably the best option. Making sure she did not need him immediately, he put a stopper on the door to prevent more shocks, he made his way to the kitchens.

He requested one of the elves (Mimsy was her name) for some chicken soup and some other fluids. She was happy to oblige as fifteen minutes later, Harry was struggling to balance the large pot of chicken soup, flasks filled with fruit juices and a bag of snacks.

He returned to find Greengrass crawling towards her desk, his blanket dragging behind her. He put the food on her desk and without thinking, lifted her up and put her on the bed, causing her to let out a strangled cry of surprise.

"None of that, blondie." He said firmly. She was shivering again. "Tell me what do you need?"

"Wand... second drawer." She spoke in a weak voice, eyes red and watering. He needed to cool her down soon, he thought as he went to open her drawer and promptly cried out as it shocked him.

"Sorry." She mumbled. Giving her a look of disdain, he picked up an article of clothing lying around and grabbed the handle again, once again receiving a shock, but it was heavily dampened. He picked up her wand from the drawer and handed it to her, the cloth still wrapped around his hands. When she noticed it, she became more flushed than she was, but had a small grin on her face. Harry looked down at the cloth and realized it was a bra.

He quickly threw away the offending piece of garment like he was shocked again and her grin grew slightly wider. Harry narrowed his eyes at her.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself too much for someone who is dying from fever. What did you need your wand for?"

She didn't say anything and pointed her wand at him, muttering something under her breath. Harry didn't think she would be foolish enough to hex him in this state, so he just watched as a gentle, transparent blue light came out of the wand towards him.

"What was that?" he asked curiously.

"You can... now open... my door... and drawers."

"Alright. Now I am going to sit you up." He warned as he gently lifted her by the shoulders and propped her against the headrest. He poured a bowl of soup and conjured a spoon and handed it to her. As soon as her hands came out of the blanket, she started shivering again and Harry cursed himself mentally. He wondered if fate was playing a cruel joke on them as he wrapped her up with the blanket again and pushed a spoon of soup to her mouth, which remained close.

"Look Greengrass, you have three options. Either we share this mutually horrible experience of feeding you soup, or I take you to the hospital wing and let Pomfrey take over, or, and this is my personal favourite option right now, I pour this bowl of soup right down your head and let you rot in here. So which one will it be?" he asked irritably, and after a few moments of trying to glare at him (she really couldn't pull off the look while being wrapped in blanket like a burrito, with watery, red eyes and a flushed face) she finally opened her mouth and let him feed her. The soup was wonderful as she gained the ability to keep her eyes open for an extended period of time without feeling like she would faint the next moment.

It took a while to finish the bowl, mainly because she didn't want to finish the whole bowl but he insisted, stating that he still wasn't beyond pouring the rest of the soup down her clothes. She had to admit though, she felt a lot better once she had the soup.

"Alright you are fed, now let's see about that temperature of yours." Without a warning, he picked her up again, and placed her on the bed in such a way that her head would hang out of the bed, had he not been lifting it up with one hand. Taking out his wand, he conjured a large bowl below her head and gently poured water down her hair. The cool water initially felt very cold to her, but slowly brought down her temperature and soon she was not shivering anymore. She was still weak and hot, but she wasn't burning as much as she was before. Vanishing the bowl and its contents, he conjured a towel and gently rubbed her hair to make it dry.

"Why don't you use a drying charm?" she asked softly, secretly enjoying the feeling. Harry shrugged helplessly. "Don't know one." He waited to see if she put on a charm herself, but she only closed her eyes in response, so he continued rinsing her head until it was reasonably dry. He wasn't surprised when he noticed that she had fallen asleep. He gently laid her head on the pillow and draped the blanket on her carefully, putting her wand, the soup pot that had a warming charm on it, and a water bottle within her arm's reach. With that settled, he left for his room, all the while thinking about how surreal this all felt. 'I actually spoon fed chicken soup to Daphne Greengrass. Did I take any drugs today?'

A/N: A lot of fluff, I know. The dark stuffs coming later. Meanwhile, please review. I look forward to reading your reviews all week. Also, I haven't been getting a lot of new hits on this story recently, so to the readers and writers out there, what is the best time to update to get more hits?