Chapter 13

You're Amazing

"HARRY! WAKE UP!" Ron said right into Harry's ear.

He immediately shot up and looked at Ron who was chuckling lightly. Harry glared at him, raming Ron in the head with his pillow. His friend moved backward and glared back, a nice red mark on his face and a scowl that was similar to Snape's. Harry sat there for a moment before groaning and slipping out of bed. He dressed quickly, smirking slightly as Ron massaged his cheek, and ran out of the room, Ron in tow.

"Hermione is going completely nuts Harry. She told me to get you up as soon as possible. She's driving me completely bonkers down there; can't wait for you to hear her," Ron said annoyed as he continued to rub his cheek.

"Oh, she's shouldn't be that bad, right?"

"Wrong," Harry whispered to himself as he massaged his temples.

"So, we get our time tables today! Oh, it's so amazing, our sixth year! One more year left after this, and guess what? Yeah well, its NEWT classes! Isn't that just great? And I hope…" Hermione had been rambling on and on for the past ten minutes. They were now at breakfast, trying to eat peacefully. Harry and Ron shared an angry look as she began to quote Hogwarts a History.

Ron was right. She had gone completely nuts.

Ron attempted to quiet her countless times by offering her three hundred galleons to a ten pound book all about the secrets of the Wizarding World. Nothing would shut her up.

"HERMIONE! SHUT UP RIGHT NOW!" Harry yelled infuriated at Hermione. The hall silenced and stared at the trio. Hermione looked flabbergasted at Harry for a moment before turning back to her food and eating quietly.

Ron gave him a thumbs up, happy that his girlfriend to close her mouth for once.

"Time tables!" Professor McGonagall's voice rang out in the hall. She walked down the section between the tables and handed out the time tables to each students.

"Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter, if I could have a word during your free period? Here are your time tables, you three," McGonagall handed them their time tables and walked down the table once again.

Harry scanned his quickly and groaned.

Monday
Transfiguration

Charms

Double Potions

LUNCH

Defense against the Dark Arts

Double Care of Magical Creatures

Free Period

Tuesday

Double Charms

Transfiguration

Double Defense against the Dark Arts

LUNCH

Occlumency with Headmaster

Free for the rest of the day

Wednesday

Care of Magical Creatures

Divination

Potions

LUNCH

Double Transfiguration

Defense against the Dark Arts

Free Period

Thursday

Occlumency

Further classes from Monday

Friday

Same schedule as Tuesday

"That's just wonderful Harry! We have almost the same classes!" Ron said to Harry with an extremely fake mock happiness about having Snape so much during the week.

"I know mate. Thank Merlin; we get to spend some MORE time with Snape! That's absolutely wonderful! I can't wait!" Harry said in the same tone as Ron. He and Ron giggled, imitating Hermione and Ginny.

"Well I for one have plenty of classes. I seem to have DADA with you guys, potions, and transfiguration! That's wonderful! Oh! We have to get to our first class," Hermione scrambled out of her seat and dragged Ron and Harry with her to their first class: Transfiguration.

"Hermione obviously didn't get the joke mate," Ron said as he got pulled along with Hermione.

Harry grunted, "Obviously not."

Seconds later, the great hall was filled with the sound of fluttering owls.

Hermione grabbed the daily prophet and ripped it open immediately.

"Oh my god." She said reading the front page.

Harry ripped it from her hands and read over the article:

Harry Potter, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black Returns!

Not to long after their sudden death, Sirius Black, now free from Azkaban and proven not guilty, Remus Lupin, friend of Sirius Black, James Potter, Lily Potter, and Peter Pettigrew and former teacher of Harry Potter, and the boy-who-lived Harry Potter, now sixth year student at Hogwarts School have returned, healthy and happy!

"I am happy to say that they have come back safely and informed me of their return. I am ecstatic over their re-appearance and wish them well," Cornelius Fudge commented yesterday morning at a conference.

Fudge is now facing some trouble as Minister. Since his time in the ministry, Cornelius has tried to do the right thing or so it seemed. He falsely imprisoned Mr. Black for 12 years before he finally escaped the dreaded Azkaban prison, he publicly humiliated Mr. Harry Potter in his fifth year at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, and he kept Mr. Lupin out of any job since he entered the adult world.

At an interview yesterday, Fudge gave a public apology for his actions.

"I am here today to not only tell you that (see above for comment)… but I am also here to give my deepest apologies to Mr. Potter for ridiculing him for almost a full year and for ruining Mr. Lupin's time in the adult Wizarding world. I must give my biggest apology however to Mr. Sirius Black whom was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. I am sorry to all but please, I just ask for forgiveness."

Many people no longer trust our Minister so what are we to do?

The one question that will of course be frequently asked is how? How did they come back from beyond the death veil? It is supposed to be impossible for any normal person, but Harry Potter is no normal person.

The three men were unable to comment.

Page two, Cornelius Fudge steps down as Minister Magic
Page three, Our new minister, Amelia Bones!

Harry gaped at the articles. Fudge isn't Minister anymore, Susan's aunt is! He actually printed the article too.

"Hey Potter!" someone's voice drawled from behind Harry. He turned around and saw the blonde hair of Draco Malfoy.

"I see you're on the front page again. Famous Harry Potter, how wonderful to see your face everywhere," Draco snapped angrily before him and his minons, Crabbe and Goyle walked off with him.

Harry looked annoyingly at them then back at the article. His smile grew wider as he saw Sirius and Remus' photo which showed the two men standing with his father happily waving at the camera.

"Wow, Harry, looks like you got what you wanted," Ginny commented as she read over the article.

Harry smiled, "looks like it."

The morning went quickly and quite uneventfully.

McGonagall basically explained the basic concepts of this year's transfiguration and how hard it was going to be. Not to comforting.

Charms was almost the same except Professor Flitwick had a lot of trouble getting the class to quiet down since not many student's even knew he was there.

Snape deducted a total of twenty points from the Gryffindor students in his potions class for no reason at all. At one point, Harry raised his hand to answer a question and Snape said to Harry that his arm was not in the right posture to answer a question and deducted five points.

The many sixth year students who were in Harry's DADA class the previous year, they were hoping for the new Professor to be simply, good. Dolores Umbridge was the school's most hated teacher by far--- far worse than Snape even though some had a hard time admitting it.

The trio ate their lunch quickly and practically sprinted to the classroom. They were met by a very disgruntled group of sixth years, most of them being in Gryffindor.

"Heya Harry! Hey Ron," Dean said waving him and Ron over.

"Hey Dean, Seamus, Neville. Why are you all out here?" Harry asked dropping his bag on the ground next to the wall.

"Dunno. He hasn't come yet," Neville answered. Harry was about to answer when his view was blocked by a gaggle of girls.

"Hi Harry," one girl asked. She immediately flitted her blond eyelashes and flipped her golden blond hair behind her shoulders.

"Hi," Harry said simply.

"Were all SO happy that you are in our defense against the dark arts class. You're so talented," another girl said trying to push through to stand next to Harry.

"Err… thanks. That's--- really nice of you," Harry replied getting uncomfortable with all the girls gazing at him dreamily.

In the back round of the crowed of girls, Ron was pretending to squeeze Seamus' muscle while Dean, Hermione, and Neville were oogling over Seamus. Harry soon figured out that they were imitating him. They saw him looking and immediately broke up acting as if nothing had happened.

"Nice to see that you ladies are impressed with Mr. Potter. Now if you will please leave him be, you may come into my classroom and get some work done," Professor Hund suddenly appeared next to the door of his class leaning against the door frame smirking at all the ruckus.

Harry blushed and walked to his friends who were trying to contain their laughter.

Professor Hund looked around his classroom expectantly. About a third of the students were from the former D.A. club that Harry had started the year before so he and some of his fellow class mates could learn defense properly and the other two thirds of the class were either in the Harry Potter Fan Club or were drooling in the back of the room with their heads stuck in a book.

"Hell of a class," he mumbled before merrily addressing the class of sixth years.

"Hey Harry, are you going to do the D.A. again?" Susan asked from behind Harry.

He turned around and shrugged.

"Hopefully this guy will be good and I won't have too," he said to her.

She nodded sadly and turned back to the front of the class.

"Hell of a class," Harry heard his teacher mumble.

"Excuse me?" he said causing his professor to jump slightly.

"Uhh… I said Hello class! Welcome to defense against the dark arts!" he said merrily.

Harry looked at him skeptically before focusing on his words.

"Now, I am Professor Hund. I have reviewed many of your previous scorings," Hund exclaimed pulling up two very long pieces of parchment: one was old and worn looking and the other pink and had an odd scent of flowers and old shoes.

"I have here your previous scores from years one to four," he said holding up the old looking parchment," and year five," with a look of pure disgust on his face, he held up the pink parchment.

"Upon further inspection of your previous scores, I see that many of you did quite well in your first four years at Hogwarts, especially in your third year where you had Professor Lupin. Interesting; but in your fifth year, it says here that almost all of your scores were 'dismally low and the students showed that they will make it no further in to the Wizarding world'," Hund looked at it quizzically for a moment before laughing heartily.

"Mr. Potter, I see that you did not do very well in this class last year. It says here that 'you are an insufferable brat who is not quite right in the mind,' well… may I just say to you all that this is all quite a bit of rubbish," Hund grabbed the parchment and threw it into the fireplace before turning around and smiling.

"Now, enough of that. Let's get some work down shall we?" and with that, the class went on.

"Wonderful class professor," Hermione said prancing out of class in front of Ron and Harry.

"Yeah professor," Harry smiled at his professor before he and Ron followed Hermione.

Before walking down the hallway, Hermione turned to Harry.

"Harry, have you heard from Sirius yet?" she asked casually making conversation. Harry immediately stopped walking and looked at Hermione, "What?"

Harry looked at one of the clocks in the building and caught his breath as he caught sight of the date. He was yet to hear from Sirius.

"No, I haven't heard from him once. What if something happened? We've never gone this long without talking," He said frantically.

"Harry, don't worry. I bet that if something important happened or Sirius got hurt, we would be told. I bet he's just really busy. I wouldn't worry," Hermione gave him a significant look, bringing down his nerves quickly.

"You know you're… uh… right. I hope you are," Harry said as the trio began to walk again.

Back in the class room Professor Hund looked sadly as the young boy walked away from his classroom.

Care of Magical Creatures was an interesting one for the trio. Hagrid brought his half brother Grawp, who happened to be part giant. The students were absolutely horrified at the sight of Grawp and Hagrid walking out of the forest. Malfoy was terrified out of his pants and decided it be best to hide behind Crabbe and Goyle who looked close to running away.

Hagrid was quite happy when both Harry decided to go say hi to Grawp. They made a little bit of small talk before Grawp grabbed Harry and hugged him tighter than he would have liked. Then… he dropped him to the ground. Hagrid apologized over and over again and gave the class an early dismissal. Although Harry denied it, being dropped from seven feet up was not very comfortable.

Ron seemed quite happy as he and Harry walked down to McGonagall's during their free period. He had told Harry that he got a chance to talk to McGonagall already but refused to tell him what they had talked about.

They walked in to the transfiguration classroom and saw the professor talking quietly with the fireplace where they saw Dumbledore but were unable to make out the other head. The headmaster saw them instantly and he and the other person left with a pop.

"Potter, Weasley," she greeted motioning for them to take a seat, "Weasley, you know what I am about to say and if I am correct you did not tell Mr. Potter here what we talked about?" she said sharply.

Ron nodded smiling once again.

"Well, Potter. You have been on the Quidditch team for oh… six years! What a feat. Well, I have decided that it would be best to have you as captain and Mr. Weasley here as co-captain. This is a big responsibility and—"

McGonagall didn't finish her sentence. Harry jumped up from his chair and cheered for himself and Ron. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his head of house chuckle slightly as he and Ron did their happy dance.

"As I was saying," she said loudly causing the two boys to stop dancing, "it is a big responsibility but I am sure that you will do quite well. Thank you and I expect that quidditch cup in my office this year again. I do love to show Severus when he comes by."

The two boys strolled out of class victoriously and went straight to the Great Hall.

"Why are you guys so happy?" Ginny asked sitting down across from Harry. She greeted Hermione and waiting for an answer as Harry nearly bounced out of his seat.

"Guess."

She turned to Ron who was equally as happy looking.

"I have no idea!" she said throwing her hands up in defeat.

"We got quidditch captains!" Harry said quickly smiling even bigger.

Ginny gasped and congratulated the two boys.

"That's absolutely wonderful! When are you holding try-outs?" she asked anticipating spending more time with Harry.

"Next Saturday. Wow, this is amazing! I've never been happier!" Harry said. He turned to Ron and they began to talk animatedly about the upcoming year.

Ginny couldn't help but watch as Harry laughed with Ron. She noticed that when he was happy his face seemed less heavy; less burdened. When he laughed his whole body laughed with him. He shoulders would shake and his head would fall back. His green eyes sparkled happily and then they rested on her.

His smile eluminated her face as well. She couldn't help it.

He was just perfect and she couldn't help but fall for him over and over again when he looked at her.

"It's going to be amazing!" she heard Harry say cheerily talking to Ron and Hermione about none other than quidditch.

"You are amazing," she whispered to herself.

Harry looked puzzled at her for a moment, "what did you say?"

She quickly snapped out her state and said a quick nothing before turning back to her meal.