Chapter 11

A Mission And School

The rest of the month went by quickly and easily. After the promise between Hermione, Ron and Ginny was made they tried to give Harry as much normality in his life as possible. Dumbledore had started twice-a-week sessions with Harry for occlumency which Harry was having a lot of trouble with seeing as he was still angry with the elderly man who made their plan a bit harder but they kept trying. Ginny and Hermione would make him help them with their homework, Ron would play any known Wizarding game with him and once they had played all those almost twenty times each Ron resorted to muggle "monopoly" and "scrabble" which he lost badly at every time. They took a trip to Diagon Alley where Harry had to have a disguise where he looked somewhat like a mix of Hermione and Sirius. Harry hid his mother's wand in his trunk but every once in a while he would take it out of its box and stare at it--- reminiscing and trying to think of the many times his mother used it on his father to hex him or something. It was a comforting thought to Harry.

O.W.Ls came for the original trio. Hermione practically had a heart attack when it came while Ron and Harry looked skeptically at their letter. It turns out they all did quite well. Hermione of course, got all O's except in Astronomy (an Exceeds Expectations) which was excused for most of the students who were watching the attack on McGonagall. Ron got O's in Defense against the Dark Arts ("Thank you Harry Potter," he yelled) and surprisingly enough Potions. He got a Poor is divination ("No surprise there"), a exceeds expectations in transfiguration and an acceptable in charms. Harry ended up getting a big surprise when he got practically the same results as Hermione except for a double O in DADA and an acceptable in astronomy. The soon to be sixth years would be in most of the same classes together; even potions.

Order meetings were becoming more frequent in the month of august. Most of the day, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny would have to stay up in their room and sit for hours at a time as they had their meetings. During that time they would devise ways to entertain themselves which included pranking the adults. The only one they ever actually tried was putting a white/ green looking slime over the stairs and it ended getting dumped over Snape who looked especially angry after that moment. Sirius was laughing his head off while Remus was pointing and yelling, "SLIMY GIT!" Snape never left the order meeting room after that.

Only about a week before term started, Sirius pulled Harry aside.

"Harry, I need to talk to you," he said looking very unhappy.

"What's the matter Sirius?" Harry asked quickly looking confused.

"I finally have a mission but it will last a very long time. I will try to communicate with you as frequent as I can but it'll be really hard. I'm sorry to have to do this Harry but I need to do this mission. You'll have Remus and I heard that the new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher isn't so bad," Sirius said with a faint smile on his lips.

Harry frowned. He didn't want Sirius to have to leave, especially for mission but he seemed to really want to do it. Harry nodded sadly and Sirius pulled him into a hug.

Sirius left the next morning and the final days of the month wore on.

The morning of September 1st came unexpectedly for the kids returning to Hogwarts. Harry and Ron woke up surprisingly first out of the whole house at five to four. They groggily got out of bed thinking it was much later and ended fighting to get in the shower. Harry ended up winning by pushing Ron down and slamming the door closed before he could fight back.

Once the two boys showered, dressed, and packed the girls and Mrs. Weasley woke up and were running through the house looking for anything that was forgotten. Hermione's hair was dreadfully frizzy since she decided to just leave it and dry naturally; bad idea. Ginny was still wearing a pair of pajama pants but above her waist was completely dressed and made up.

Harry and Ron ended up being the only people ready in the whole entire house. They sat down on the couch and kept themselves occupied by just watching the hustle and bustle in the household. Charlie was frantically flipping pancakes onto plates for everyone. Fred and George apparated in and ended up on top of Bill who was trying to help Ginny find her jeans which seemed to just disappear. Mrs. Weasley was trying to fix Hermione's hair which was getting slowly more tamed and Mr. Weasley was helping Remus with fixing up the rest house which was now ransacked from everyone running around.

Tonks seemed to be the only calm one in the house. She was sitting in the armchair quietly reading the Quibbler. She glanced over to the boys and winked before turning back to the new issue of the Quibbler which had a large picture of a… a… well Harry and Ron weren't quite sure what it was but it was some gangly creature with a large unicorn horn and long white hair that flooded down to the floor.

It was another twenty minutes before the house was fully recovered and everyone packed into the small ministry car that was lent to them.

Tonks and Molly Weasley were appointed the job of driving the kids to Kings Crossing. Mad-Eye, Remus, Arthur, Charlie, and Bill apparated to the station ahead of time as the guard.

The car ride was quick and everyone arrived at the Platform successfully. They walked through the wall. Harry decided it be best to keep his head down while walking in hopes of being ignored by his classmates. They quickly set off onto the train with everyone saying goodbye. Mrs. Weasley refused to let go for a moment before Mr. Weasley pried her hands off "her" children (his real children plus Hermione and Harry), and the group set off for another year at Hogwarts.

Ginny and Harry were sitting in a compartment chatting when Hermione and Ron ran down the hallway to them. They had set off for the prefects meeting in the Head's compartment.

"Harry…hide…news…out…," Ron said exasperated.

"What? What happened?" Harry asked standing up and shutting the compartment door.

"Harry someone let out that you're back. You need to run or… hide… OH! Use your invisibility cloak," Hermione said quickly as she grabbed Harry's trunk and ripped out his father's former cloak.

He quickly put it on just in time as the door slammed open and what seemed like half the students in Hogwarts.

"Harry's alive isn't he?"

"Where is he?"

"How the hell is he alive?"

"It's all a lie I bet."

"SHUT UP AND GET OUT OF OUR COMPARTMENT! HARRY POTTER IS NOT IN HERE!" Ginny screamed at the top of her lungs, her face beet red.

Everyone looked flustered and closed the compartment door leaving everyone looking happily at Ginny.

Harry ripped his cloak off and hugged Ginny tightly.

"Thanks for the Gin," he said letting her go.

"Oh my god," was all Ginny could think.

She smiled happily and sat down next to the window, Harry across from her.

The remainder of the ride was quiet. Ron and Hermione were asleep and Ginny was watching as Harry slept lightly with his head leant against the window.

She was watching him and didn't seem to notice that Ron and Hermione had woken up and were not watching her.

Hermione looked at Ron who smiled sadly feeling bad for his younger and only sister.

She had liked Harry for a while now and although she denied it, she had cared for him all these years, since he saved her in his second year at Hogwarts, her first.

The train came to an abrupt stop and everyone exited. Since most of the D.A. was aware of Harry's return, they kept Harry in tow making sure he was in the shadows and his face was unseen.

They made their way to the carriages. Before everyone stepped in, Ginny gasped.

"Oh my god. That's… that's what you see every time you come on these Harry?" she asked quietly.

Harry nodded sadly before stepping into the carriage quickly. Ginny got in behind him, the pained memories of Harry falling slowly behind the veil following close behind her.