FOUR: A Hollow Return to Hogwarts
Friday, September 1st 1995
Harry didn't quite know how to handle the first day of September as it began. He would be heading to Platform Nine and Three Quarters at King's Cross Station to catch the Hogwarts Express as usual, but this time he was to be escorted by a couple of aurors and he certainly felt naked at the thought of going out into the wizarding public without a wand. Both the lack of wand and the aurors contributed to his feelings of unease, but were also unarguable points in his life right now.
The return to the Express also brought with it an encounter with his friends Ron and Hermione. Or, at least he had believed that they were his friends. Ron's behaviour during the Tri Wizard Tournament during the previous school year had strained their friendship to near breaking point, leaving Hermione to stand next to Harry alone as the school turned its collective back on him — again. Ron had apologised and Harry had believed all was well with the three of them.
Yet, this summer break, before the encounter with the Dementors, had seen his two best friends communicating with him in infrequent and sparse letters that were short of detail. It felt as if they were keeping things from him, although the only thing he could think of that the pair of them could be hiding would have been them finally deciding to become a couple. If that was the case, Harry presuming that Ron had finally scrapped together enough Gryffindor courage to ask Hermione out, he was glad that they had both found someone. It would put to rest all the bad blood that had been the Yule Ball of last year, yet at the same time it left him feeling curiously hollow as if he'd lost something he didn't even know he'd had.
Whatever the cause, his friends backing off from him this summer was just another reminder of how lonely he was, having not seen a friendly face since Hermione had kissed him on the cheek on Platform 9 3/4 two months ago. Sighing and looking at his hands Harry began to fear just how a reunion with the pair, now possibly a couple, would go. He didn't know if he could stand the look of disappoint on Hermione's face over what the Ministry had decided as his fate.
Umbridge had visited him at least twice a week since the hearing, still seemingly trying to press him into signing her pre-prepared statement that for Harry was simply one lie after another strung together. The older woman had also taken great delight in informing Harry that the findings of his hearing ("Trial," Harry had muttered under his breath) had been announced to the public. Hence Harry knew for certain that Hermione was going to be disappointed with him. He didn't know how Ron or any of the others would take it, but he didn't hold high hopes of things being normal any more.
The journey to the station had been dull and sullen, Harry arriving with two auror shadows. One of the pair had gone as far as to having a drawn wand pointed at Harry the entire time as if they believed that he would suddenly do something violent or dangerous. They had arrived at the Express long before any of the other students and Harry was directed onboard by one of the aurors. The plush compartments that had for the previous four years seemed to inviting, signally as it did an escape from the torment that was the Durleys, now felt dark and foreboding to Harry as he crossed the threshold of the one that the aurors had chosen for him and set about stowing his trunk and Hedwig's cage for the trip to Hogwarts.
One of the two aurors who had accompanied Harry to Platform 9 3/4 unceremoniously plopped herself down in the seat opposite, the hand holding her wand lying ready in her lap. She was younger than many of the other aurors that Harry had encountered during his arrest and subsequent incarceration at the Ministry, her jet black hair held up in a tight bun and her hazel eyes watching his every move. He had tried to engage her several times in conversation in the journey from the Ministry, but she didn't appear to be in a conversational mood as apart from the occasional instruction she did not speak to Harry.
The second auror, whom Harry had heard the woman refer to as Dawlish, had been one of those who had been happy to stun Harry on Magnolia Crescent during his run from the Dementors. He was apparently elsewhere on the train on some other task. Harry hadn't taken a liking to him after the stunning and had not attempted to talk to him.
Once he was settled the female auror flicked her wand and muttered a few words. Harry heard the door lock, followed by a squelching sound as some other spell took effect on the door, and then watched as the blinds to the compartment rolled closed, effectively isolating the pair from the rest of the train. In other words, Harry's fretting over meeting and talking to his friends on the train was a moot point. He had now been denied the opportunity.
Since he'd been cut off from his friends since his arrest, and prior to that the communication via owl had been uninformative at best, Harry felt as if he hadn't really been in touch with them since the end of the previous school year some three months ago. He wondered, not for the first time, what they had been up to and if they could stand to remain friends with him after the death of Cedric. And now, that he'd been arrested he would be even more 'untouchable', a virtual pariah in the school. After all, with his fame due to his scar, there was now way that no one knew that he'd been arrested and charged.
Harry let loose a small groan and buried his face in his hands. Malfoy was going to have a field day with this, and even if he did still have friends there was no way he was going to be allowed to forget this. There was a good chance that Hogwarts was going to be hell this year. Another thought struck Harry. If Malfoy knew that he'd be wandless before and after classes each day, and any misadventures could lead to his expulsion, then the ferret boy-wonder would do his level best to make sure Harry suffered and was expelled.
He was going to have to be far more careful than he'd first thought and needed to find a way of getting from class to class without making a target of himself for Malfoy. Harry would have used his father's invisibility cloak if the Ministry hadn't gone through his things and confiscated it. Harry leaned back in his seat and tried to set his face into a mask of indifference, unwilling to let the auror in the opposite seat see him cry.
If the ride to Hogwarts had been tense, then leaving the train did nothing for Harry's blood pressure. After the solitude of his enforced confinement at the Ministry, the crushing throng of the disembarking student population of Hogwarts was overwhelming. Harry was especially unprepared for the biting glances and sneers from those who had managed to pick him out from the crowd, which was pretty much everybody since he was the only one with an auror escort and a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt.
Harry felt apprehensive. Despite his own internal blaming of himself for the death of Cedric Diggory back in June, Harry was sure that at the end of year feast that most people hadn't held him responsible for the senior Hufflepuff's death. Now, given the stares and growing muffled comments, Harry wasn't so sure that they didn't blame him. Those few who looked as if they might approach him to engage in conversation were scared off by the dark looks the aurors were projecting towards everyone. Harry was beginning to wonder if the Ministry had ordered some sort of isolation policy for himself, having excluded him from any contact with friendly faces since the attack by the Dementors.
As he approached the carriages Harry gave a start when he found that the transportation to the castle was no longer horse-less as they had been in previous years. He glanced about and noticed that most of the students didn't act as if they could see the strange horses harnessed to the carriages. Harry had obviously come to a halt at the revelation of the horse-like creatures because he felt the male auror shove him roughly forward towards one of the waiting carriages. Harry had to wonder as he climbed in if he was going mad, seeing the seemingly dead looking horses.
Harry found himself sharing the carriage with his two auror minders and a couple of second year Hufflepuffs who were staring at the Gryffindor fifth year with fear in their eyes as if they expected him to suddenly reach out and kill them too despite the presence of the aurors. He was beginning to think that his involvement in Cedric's death had been subject to Chinese Whispers, the rumours that has circulated at the end of the previous school year now transformed into something beyond the truth. Harry figured people probably now believed that he had killed Cedric himself in order to win the Tri Wizard Cup.
So it was with not a single word spoken that the occupants of the carriage were transported to Hogwarts Castle. His arrival at the main gate was just as silent as the ride and those students also milling through the main gate and into the Great Hall stopped talking and merely watched his as he was shadowed by his two auror guards, who shepherded him into the hall and to the lower end of the Gryffindor table. Those Gryffindors already seated all favoured Harry with dark glares that threatened pain and Harry was almost sure that they would have carried through on the implied threat had the aurors not taken seats on either side of Harry.
He kept his head bowed as the rest of the school came in and sat down at their respective tables. He did raise his head when he heard Hermione and Ron's voices, the pair moving to talk to him. However one of the aurors stood and brandished their wand, effectively telling the two to move along and find somewhere to sit. Hermione gave Harry a small, sad smile and Ron shrugged his shoulders before they moved on and found seats next to each other further up the table. At least his two best friends didn't seem disgusted with him yet, willing to make an attempt to speak with him.
Dumbledore stood as usual at the front of the hall and watched on with a rather false looking smile as the new First Years were led into the hall by Professor McGonagall. The Headmaster's gaze would sweep across the hall every now and then, and Harry quickly found that the older man was deliberately refusing to meet Harry's eyes. That told Harry everything he needed to know. Dumbledore was obviously very deeply disappointed in him and that cut Harry to the core. He wondered if all the teachers would follow their Headmaster's lead, which gave Harry pause to wonder if Snape really could act any worse than he already did.
By the time Harry had finished pondering these thoughts the sorting was over, McGonagall moving the stool and Sorting Hat out of the way so the opening announcements could be made. The Headmaster began in his usual manner till he was interrupted by one of the teachers coughing. The high tone caught Harry's ear and at first he couldn't place where he'd heard it before, but a cold chill settled over him as he watched Umbridge waddle up to the podium having successfully interrupted Dumbledore's opening speech.
Harry's spirits sank even lower as the Headmaster introduced the vile woman as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. If he though it was going to be a struggle to get through classes with his new 'Ministry approved' wand (one that he hand to hand in at the end of each day's lessons), he knew that from the way Umbridge had acted towards him at the Ministry that with her in charge of his best class he was going to end up failing miserably.
Umbridge had begun talking, mentioning many things that initially went over Harry's head and he could see many a puzzled look on the student's faces. But it was the smug 'I know what's coming' look on Malfoy's ferret-like face that told Harry just what Umbridge's pretty little words meant. Umbridge was obviously a woman who liked things exactly a certain way. Harry was a nail standing out and Harry just knew that this ugly, toad-like woman was going to do her best to hammer him into place.
Harry idly rubbed at the back of his hand where it still itched after being tricked into using that quill that drew blood. Umbridge had tried to get Harry to deny Voldemort's return and Harry had to wonder why.The Daily Prophet hadn't mentioned the Dark Lord's return either. Were the two connected? Dumbledore had told the school at the end of the last school year about Voldemort's return, yet looking around him Harry couldn't see any sign that people were afraid of the war that was beginning around them.
The new DADA teacher's speech was over and she'd made her way back to her spot at the head table. Harry scanned it for familiar and friendly faces, noting with some concern that Hagrid was absent. Where was the friendly half-giant? That thought only lasted long enough for Harry to realise that he'd lost another person he might have turned to for help.
The feast itself passed in a blur, Harry eating mechanically under the watch of his auror guards and when it was over he looked for Hermione and Ron only to find them nowhere to be seen. Dispirited that the pair hadn't stayed to talk as they seemed ot have wanted to do before the meal, Harry and his new shadows began walking in the direction of Gryffindor tower.