When Alfonse arrived at his quarters, they were exactly as he left them that morning, and he was profoundly grateful that Dumbledore hadn't meddled with his things. He amended this to being grateful that his possessions were untouched, when he saw the boxes in his kitchen.
He removed his, by now, entirely reverted robes and hung them by the door, as he always did. Then he made his way into the kitchen to sort through the ridiculous amount of purchases Dumbledore had made on his behalf.
The first thing Alfonse noticed was that many of the boxes were from Gladrags, and that almost made him abandon the task. Clothes of that quality- and that quantity, he added mentally after a quick count of the boxes, were unnecessary when he was only going to be wearing them when not in uniform for a couple months at the longest.
He sighed, and reminded himself that Dumbledore has shopaholic tendencies, no impulse control, and deep pockets; a disastrous combination in any situation, let alone one warranting an entirely new wardrobe. Next to the Gladrags boxes was a school trunk, and Alfonse opened it. Thankfully it was empty, so he began unpacking the clothing from both Gladrags and from the Madam Malkin's boxes that were revealed as he progressed in his packing.
There was also miscellaneous school supplies and books that he packed away as well. At this point, he just wanted the odious task over and done with.
Eventually, he shoved the last handkerchief into the trunk, closing the lid more firmly than he really needed to, and banished the trunk to his storage closet.
The house elves could find it there when they needed to transport it to Gryffindor Tower.
That done, he made a beeline straight for his liquor cabinet, only to discover all his alcohol gone. 'So much for untouched possessions' thought Alfonse as he grabbed the note pinned to the back of the cabinet. It was the usual nonsense from Dumbledore. Something about this body being too young to handle alcohol. Alfonse crumbled up the note and threw it into the fire in disgust.
He went back to his kitchen and made himself a mug of very strong tea.
Tea in hand, he went back to his living room and settled himself into his favorite armchair in front of the fireplace. He rarely had a chance to just relax like this, and although he would have enjoyed himself more with some of his favorite scotch, he had to admit that the tea was nice and soothing.
Alfonse directed his thoughts away from the more volatile subjects. This would be the last time for a long time that he'd be able to just relax in his favorite armchair, and he didn't want to waste it on anger that he could still brood on tomorrow.
This in mind, he put his feet on the ottoman, and lost himself in more pleasant memories. A certain fiery tempered and headed witch featured predominantly in these memories. After quite some time, Alfonse finished his tea, and headed to his own bed.
He determinedly refused to speculate when the next time he'd see it would be.
.
When Severus woke the next morning, something felt wrong. He laid in bed for a few minutes trying to locate the source of the wrongness, when it suddenly hit him. His body wasn't aching.
His body wasn't aching because it wasn't his body. This body was 16 years old and had never been damaged as his usual one had. If he hadn't known about the latent poisonous qualities making the side-effects dangerous to take advantage of for more than six months, he would have had a hard time believing it had disappeared into obscurity the way it did.
He forced himself to remember that he was Alfonse in every way that mattered now.
For several more minutes Alfonse lay in his bed, delaying the moment he'd have to get dressed and head to the Great Hall for breakfast and his first encounter with the Golden Boy.
He grimaced and finally got out of bed. He showered quickly, and as he was about to head to his closet to get dressed, he remembered that, in his ire, he'd forgotten to set out a uniform for today. He grumbled and summoned one from his trunk.
Alfonse quickly pulled the uniform on. He avoided looking in the mirror until he remembered Dumbledore's comment about this very same behavior the day before. He paused in his routine and made a point to examine his unfamiliar appearance.
While it did feel good to spite Dumbledore without him knowing it, Alfonse realized that it was probably best for him to be more than passably familiar with his appearance. There was also the factor of his soon-to-be roommates to consider. Teenage boys didn't tend to handle odd behavior in others very well, and they could very well take it upon themselves to mock him for avoiding mirrors.
It was best to avoid that all too familiar possibility.
As he collected himself to leave his quarters with his usual purposeful haste, he realized he wouldn't be coming back. It would be months before he'd be able to relax in the quiet solitude of his personal quarters.
For the next few months, he'd be living with five teenaged boys, a group not known for their consideration or orderly living habits, and Alfonse suddenly felt that he had let his private, peaceful quarters go unappreciated. It was terribly sentimental, but with this in mind, he stood there in the foyer of his quarters and bid them farewell.
As soon as he was outside his quarters, Alfonse cast a disillusionment charm over himself. With the Gryffindor robes he now sported, it wouldn't do for one of his Slytherin's to spot him leaving the dungeons.
Some of them were smart enough to draw the right connections between the disappearance of their head of house and the appearance of a new student. Hopefully, without the suspicion that would be aroused by seeing him leave the dungeons, none of them would even get on the trail. Alfonse had no desire to deal with the complications that would arise if one of them figured it out.
Though of course, as Alfonse Hopkirk, it would hardly be his responsibility to deal with it. Ah well, Dumbledore would not be pleased if he were so blatantly careless and the enjoyment, he would derive from causing Dumbledore unnecessary work would be lessened significantly by the lecture he would likely receive as a result.
When Alfonse reached the ground floor bathrooms, he detoured into one of them. It was thankfully empty, so he cancelled the charm. As he was walking out of the bathroom, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and it was just as startling as it had been that morning. He paused and examined himself again hoping the novelty of the experience would wear off faster if he continued to do so.
On his way to the Great Hall from the bathroom, he came across the DADA instructor in deep conversation with someone Alfonse hadn't seen before. Professor Kirke was a rather unremarkable Auror, though Severus had to admit that she was tolerably proficient in instructing and had been sent to teach DADA by Amelia Bones on Dumbledore's request.
He took a moment to hope that the unfamiliar woman had been sent been sent by Bones since the other options Dumbledore would likely come up with to replace him were hardly appealing.
Thankfully, Kirke's present familiarity with the stranger led Severus to believe that she had been sent by Bones to teach Potions in his place. He could only hope that she was as competent as Kirke, or his return to teaching would be a nightmare.
Finally, Alfonse arrived at the massive doors to the Great Hall and walked in. He nearly instinctively turned to the left which would take him to both his usual seat at the head table, though he rarely approached from this side anymore, and to the Slytherin table.
He stopped himself in time, however and turned right towards the Gryffindor table. To his disgust, Potter was already seated there with the female Weasley.
He reluctantly made a beeline for their part of the table. The sooner he befriended the brat and informed Dumbledore of his foolishness and childishness, the sooner he could have his life back, after all. He drew level with the empty section of bench across from where Potter and Weasley were seated, noticing that Weasley was reprimanding Potter, and took a deep breath.
"Can I sit here? My name is Alfonse, by the way." He said, proud of himself for being so civil.
Potter looked the way he always did in Potions class; that is to say, he looked stupid and bewildered. After an embarrassingly long pause, in Alfonse's opinion, Potter finally responded with a tactless sure and a gesture at the empty seat.
After another moment of awkward silence in which Alfonse internally bemoaned the circumstances that led to him to this supremely unfortunate situation, Weasley said: "I guess we should introduce ourselves, I'm Ginny Weasley, and you probably already guessed that that's Harry Potter."
Alfonse nodded, having already filled his plate and his mouth with Hogwarts's trademark delicious food. He swallowed his food and was trying to decide how to reply when Potter opened his mouth.
"So where are you from?" Potter asked.
"I'm from the South." Alfonse responded, "Of America," he added, trying to disguise the bitterness in his voice, angry that he was reinforcing Potter's belief that, as the chosen one, he had the right know whatever he wanted about everyone he encountered.
He continued eating and no one seemed inclined to do any talking. Despite a small voice in his head urging him to be friendlier to get this over with, he allowed the quiet to continue.
After a few more minutes of awkward silence, Potter finished eating, the female Weasley noticed and looked oddly upset about it. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Potter stood up abruptly, cutting off whatever she was going to say.
"It was nice meeting you Alfonse, I'll see you around. See you later Ginny." Potter said in a rush, turning to leave as soon as he finished speaking.
Alfonse turned to Weasley to see if this was normal behavior, and instead of the anger, annoyance, or star-struck awe he expected to see in her eyes, he saw a resigned sadness. This seemed a little bizarre to Alfonse, but honestly? He didn't care.
If it turned out to have something to do with befriending Potter, maybe he'd investigate it, but for now he didn't have to pretend to care.
.
As Harry rushed away from the Great Hall, Ginny watched him from her seat at Gryffindor table. He'd hardly eaten anything, and she suspected that it was Alfonse's fault.
He may not have been overtly rude or mean to Harry, but Harry was awfully fragile lately- though she'd never say that directly to him, and especially in the aftermath of the past year and being called a liar and insane by most of the wizarding world, having someone be so standoffish to his face would most likely at least put him off his food.
Especially since he always had trouble eating after the summer.
She pushed this train of thought away, any time she had tried to pursue it in the past had simply led to trouble of some kind. Either in the form of driving her into a deep well of waiting, always lurking, depression, or white-hot anger, the kind of anger that drove a person to get herself to Little Whinging and commit murder.
Neither of these were productive, and turning that energy, that emotion, evoked by those thoughts was equally unproductive. Harry clammed up faster than Gringott's when asked about his childhood or summers and there was no other source of information.
And, as Ginny knew all too well, the sources of authority here at Hogwarts were nigh useless- Diary, Basilisk, Pettigrew, Tournament, Umbridge- ran through her head, as if she needed a reminder.
She shook these thoughts away and turned to Alfonse "Did you have to be such a dick? What did Harry ever do to you?"
Confrontation was always easier than introspection.
Alfonse snorted, and gestured vaguely with his fork as he said, "I have no idea what you're talking about, I was perfectly polite."
Ginny's ears turned a shade of pink that clashed spectacularly with her hair and said, "If you call that polite, I'd hate to see what you consider rude."
She looked back at the now closed doors of the Great Hall and continued to Alfonse as she stood up from her seat, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a friend to check on."
She heard Alfonse snort rudely from behind her as she strode out of the Great Hall. If Alfonse didn't shape up soon, he was not going to like the consequences.
Harry deserved better and Ginny was going to do her best to make that 'better' a reality.
.
Harry fled the Great Hall, doing his best to not actually appear to be fleeing. He felt horrible for being so rude to Ginny, but he could tell she was about to try to get him to eat more, and he just had to get out of there before she could.
He wished his friends wouldn't try to force him to eat; he never could eat much at the beginning of the school year- yet another legacy of the Dursley's mistreatment of him, and no amount of nagging was going to miraculously stretch his stomach.
He knew that there were probably potions or spells that could help alleviate the situation either by stretching his stomach or by simply calming, but frankly Harry had no trust in the people he'd have to seek help from.
He knew that as soon as he went to Madam Pomphrey, it wouldn't be long after that before the whole school, and consequently the whole wizarding world, knew about his shame. It could easily end up being the thing that caused everybody to hate him again; he couldn't take that so soon after they stopped.
And he knew very well that Dumbledore knew of his home life. "I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years," Dumbledore had said to him at the end of last year.
A small part of him that was ever hopeful persisted in wondering if Dumbledore truly knew the extent of what went on in that house. But then the more jaded and realistic part of him pointed out that his letter had been addressed to the cupboard under the stairs, that Mrs. Figg had been sent to watch him and must have seen something, that Dumbledore had had to threaten Petunia into keeping him; and he's forced to admit that Dumbledore certainly knew enough.
Really thinking of the whole situation is futile since no matter what he was still forced back to the Dursley's and there was no hope that anything would change. And at this point It's not like there would be any use; he only had one last summer to get through before he was free.
Then there was the new issue of Alfonse. That was another person who could discover his secret. It had been hard enough avoiding four other people when he changed and showered over the past several years, but five? That would be nearly impossible.
He'd have to figure it out though, because there was no way that a stranger would be willing to keep such a big secret. Harry suspected that, besides Ron and possibly Neville, the rest of his dorm mates would sell out to the Daily Prophet if they knew that his relatives abu- no, he couldn't even think the word.
Then again, his nightmares were now ending his night's sleep far earlier than anyone else would ever wake up, so if he got up quickly and finished dressing and showering before anyone else got up, it'd be fine.
Really, he only had to be cautious for the period of time while he was showering and changing since his clothes easily hid all the marks Vernon left on his body.
Heaven forbid the neighbors see something out of the ordinary and do something drastic like call the police.
Pulling himself out of his reverie, Harry realized he had made it all the way back to Gryffindor Tower. He gave the password to the Fat Lady and went to grab his books.
As he collected the books that he needed, he was reminded yet again of how much he had to do, how much he had to catch up on. Voldemort had decades of experience on him, not to mention his raw magical power. Harry knew it was pointless to think that studying his schoolwork would improve his chances against him, but it was all he could do for now.
He felt decent about how much he'd gotten done over the summer. He'd been able to send requests for books with the letters he had carefully sent every three days. And thanks to Mr. Weasley and Moody speaking to Vernon at the train station, he had even been able to keep all his schoolbooks with him in his room.
It'd been hard trying to learn everything on his own. He'd achieved mastery of all his old material, finally, but trying to teach himself new defense techniques had been difficult without any guidance. For some reason, Dumbledore wasn't helping him train, or having anyone else do it for him. Although, as Harry sometimes thought before he could stop himself, perhaps Dumbledore wasn't training him because he'd realized how utterly useless Harry was.
Harry shook his head to rid himself of these thoughts. Even if they were true, there was nothing he could do about them, and he had other things to do with his time. At this, he picked up his book bag and headed out of the dorm for the library.
.
Ginny had realized as soon as she left the Great Hall that she had no idea where Harry had gone. She aimlessly wandered the halls for a bit considering her options, she could keep wandering until she found him, she could give up on searching and wait for him somewhere she was reasonably certain he would turn up eventually, or she could put off speaking with him until she just happened to run into him.
That last choice was not one she was really going to consider.
Her aimless path eventually led her past the hall that the library was down. In the past, she wouldn't have even bothered checking in there, but Harry had changed over the summer. In fact, he had changed so much so, that she was nearly certain she would find him there.
As she walked towards the library, Ginny mused over the conversation between her mum and Professor Lupin that she had overheard this past summer.
Her mum had been worried about Harry; he kept asking for more books, and not just any books- specifically textbooks. Her mum didn't think it was healthy that Harry had changed so much, to go from rarely studying at all to seemingly studying constantly, but Professor Lupin had told her not to worry about it, that it was probably his way of coping with the loss of Sirius.
And maybe Remus was right, but a part of Ginny worried that her mum was right too, that this method of coping wasn't exactly healthy, or was maybe symptomatic of a larger issue.
As Ginny passed a cluster of bookshelves, she finally spotted Harry in a tucked away alcove. Even with the conversation she had overheard last summer, it was still a little bizarre to see Harry studying peacefully, by himself, in the library.
Seeing him alone like this, she couldn't help but think that Ron and Hermione's continual abandonment of him had something to do with the dramatic change.
Ginny greeted Harry as she sat down across from him. He jumped a little and halfheartedly returned her greeting.
"How are you doing Harry? You looked a little upset when you left."
"I'm fine. I just had some studying to do," Harry said, with absolutely no inflection.
Ginny smiled wryly, "I hope you don't expect me to believe that. I hope one day you'll see you don't need to lie to me like that. I won't pressure you to talk to me- much," she chuckled a little uncomfortably, "but, I really do think that talking to someone would help."
Harry stared off into the distance for a little while. Ginny began to think that he'd never respond, and was trying to decide what she should say next, maybe she ought to suggest journaling? It was a coping method that she instinctively shied away from, but maybe it would help him since it didn't involve trusting a person with his struggles. But then, he started speaking.
"It's just, I'm so behind," Harry started, with a sharp gesture of frustration.
"Voldemort is just so much better than me at everything. I know I'm going to have to fight him again, and I want to be prepared, but it's impossible. He has decades and decades of experience that I can't possibly hope to match. But I can't just give up, I don't want to die, so I have to do something." Harry sighed and turned back to his books, "So, I'm going to study my hardest, and hope I've done enough by our next confrontation."
Ginny had the feeling that there was more to his mood than just worry over being hunted by Riddle. Harry had, after all, been hunted by Riddle for most of his life and throughout all of his time in the Wizarding World.
She stared at him absently trying to decide how she wanted to respond to this, if she wanted to offer to help him study or call him on sharing what was really bothering him.
After a few minutes of being subjected to Ginny's stare, Harry gave up on trying to study for the moment and looked up. "Was there something else you wanted?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, there was," Ginny said, suddenly remembering something that she'd been meaning to ask Harry, "I wanted to ask you why you haven't started up the D.A. again yet."
Harry looked bewildered, and Ginny hoped this was because he had plans that he had assumed she already knew for some reason.
"I haven't started it up because I hadn't planned on ever starting it up." Harry said, immediately crushing Ginny's hopes. He continued, "We have a competent defense professor, and I wouldn't want to overstep and offend her. Not to mention that I really never should have been running the D.A. in the first place; it was dangerous, and someone could have gotten seriously hu- "
Ginny just had to cut him off before he could get any further, "Nobody's gotten hurt because of you! Riddle and his cronies are the ones that have been hurting people!"
Harry smiled grimly, as if he'd been expecting this counter. "Would Hermione, or Ron, or you, or Neville, or," here Harry paused as if to brace himself, "or Cedric have gotten hurt if I hadn't been there? I can answer that one for you, no. They would've been and you would've been safely at Hogwarts if weren't for me."
While a part of her had expected him to come up with something ridiculous like that, actually being confronted with it was still a bit shocking. She didn't even know where to begin explaining how very wrong Harry was.
"I- you- it wasn't your fault!" Ginny exclaimed, smiling contritely at Madam Pince when she glared venomously at her.
At a more moderate tone, Ginny continued, "You were set up! You didn't know about the cup being a portkey, and you didn't know about the Ministry! You did the best you could with what you had, and it's because of your D.A. lessons that we didn't get hurt worse!" Ginny finished as passionately as she could without drawing the wrath of Madam Pince.
"You know we only started the D.A. because Umbridge was utterly useless at best, and now that we have a proper professor it's not needed anymore," Harry responded. "And if we did start up the D.A. like we did last year, Kirke might be insulted or offended. It might seem like we're lumping her in with Umbridge, and that her lessons aren't good enough," Harry said.
He continued, "But you're right, extra lessons could save lives. We can ask Professor Kirke to run them, and, so we don't burden her unnecessarily, ask some other professors to help."
"Why 'burden' the professors at all? If you're so concerned about bothering them, why don't you just teach us yourself? Kirke would probably be proud that we're studying her specialty on our own initiative" Ginny replied, getting just a little frustrated at Harry's self-contradictory reasoning and inability to see that she was right.
Harry's eyes slid away from Ginny's and fixed on a point in the distance, looking haunted. "Those D.A. meetings were a mistake. They were handled improperly and were downright dangerous. Any one of you could have been seriously injured. It was stupid and arrogant of me to think that I could lead those lessons."
Ginny stared at him, unable to believe that he couldn't see how valuable those lessons had been. That he couldn't see clearly about, well, anything related to the whole situation. As she continued to stare at Harry, a realization began to dawn on her.
Harry didn't want to continue to lead the D.A. because if he did, it would mean that he was the best person for the job; that he's smart and talented. More than that though, it'd mean that he'd have people willing to support and follow him on his misadventures, and that kind of support must be foreign to him; Ginny didn't know much about what went on at the Dursley's, but she did know that they're far from loving and supportive.
Further complicating the already messy and convoluted situation was that Harry did have some valid concerns. Their group was completely unsupervised which is perhaps not the ideal situation for teenagers to be learning how to defend themselves.
Still though, there were ways around this, and his staunch refusal to brainstorm them himself made it clear to Ginny that the concerns he listed weren't the only causing his refusal.
They continued to sit there in silence, each mulling over their own thoughts, when Neville walked by. Perfect! Ginny thought, Neville can help me convince Harry that this is the right thing to do, and lunged forward out of her seat to grab Neville's arm.
Neville jumped as her hand closed around his arm and made the highest pitched sound that Ginny had ever heard from a post-pubescent man. She quickly released his arm and leaned back into her seat.
"Shh! You don't want Madam Pince to kick us out," Ginny whispered forcefully, "and sit down, you need to help me convince Harry to start the D.A. again." Ginny saw Neville look longingly at his books and was about to monologue about all the things she'd already said to Harry, when Neville set his book bag under the table, sat down, and turned to Harry.
"I think you guys need to catch me up, because I had assumed that the D.A. was just going to continue. What do you mean by 'convince Harry to start the D.A. again'?" Neville asked, cocking his head to the side.
"Harry here," Ginny gestured broadly at Harry, "seems to believe that asking him to lead the D.A. again is dangerous and stupid and would offend Kirke, but asking Professor Kirke to lead the D.A. would burden her unnecessarily, but extra D.A.D.A training would be useful and valuable." Ginny turned to look Harry dead in the eye, "Did I sum up your arguments well?"
Harry gestured helplessly, "I did say we could ask other professors to lead sessions, so Professor Kirke isn't overburdened."
Neville still looked confused, his head tilted to the side and a slight crinkle in his eyebrows. He said, "Wait so the problem is that Harry teaching alone would be dangerous, but asking Professor Kirke to do it all would be unfair to her, right? So why don't we have Harry teach the lessons and ask a professor to oversee them? Then the professor's only time commitment is sitting in on the lessons, and there's a fully trained wizard on hand in case something goes wrong. Oh, and if other professors are on board, there's very little chance Kirke will be upset."
Ginny felt her jaw drop involuntarily, and immediately closed her mouth. She slapped herself lightly on the forehead, "That's perfect! I wish I'd thought of it and saved myself the effort of arguing with this," she waved vaguely at Harry, "particularly stubborn brick wall. So, Harry, do you agree to start the D.A. under those conditions?"
Harry looked uncertain, but said, "I guess so."
"Great! We can go talk to McGonagall after dinner and run it past her. She knows us, so I think she'd be willing to supervise and if not, she'd know who to ask, since you seem so against bugging Kirke."
Ginny wanted to give Harry no chance to back out of the meeting.
Neville stood, grabbing his book bag, and said "I'm glad that's all settled, now if you don't mind, I have studying to do."
Ginny watched him walk off toward the charms section of the library, and sighed. She really ought to study for that nasty Potions exam that she had coming up soon. "I guess we'll see you at McGonagall's office if we don't see you at dinner, I have to go to the dorm and grab my notes to study," Ginny said as she stood up and waved goodbye to Harry.
That went surprisingly well, Ginny thought as she walked towards her dorm, but Harry really doesn't seem okay. He's so much darker than he's been before. Sirius's death really seems to have messed him up, but I don't know what to do to help him. The whole situation is way out of my depth. Between the events of the end of her third and fourth years and what little she knew of his relationship with his relatives…
At this point, Ginny was halfway to Gryffindor Tower, but had to stop and put her hand on the wall. Even thinking about all the problems and ordeals Harry has was overwhelming her, how in Merlin's saggy pants was Harry handling actually facing that trauma? It was unbelievable and was proof of the incredible strength of character that Harry had.
But, she thought reluctantly, how long could that strength possibly last? Everybody has a breaking point, and what if Harry was nearing his?
Unfortunately, Harry was the type of person who would hide his pain until long after he collapsed from the weight of it.
Ginny straightened up, and as she resumed her walk to Gryffindor Tower, she decided that the best thing she could do for Harry was just to be there for him and hope that he would let her catch him if he fell.
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AN: I'm considering switching to updating saturdays instead of sunday's so if you feel passionately about the topic, feel free to weigh in. more importantly, let me know what you thought of the chapter with REVIEWS PLEASE :D