Disclaimer: Anything you recognise from any of the books belongs to J. K. Rowling, not me. Pity.
Thoughts, Letters and emphasised words
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Chapter 4
"I told you it wouldn't take him long," Draco said to Blaise as they sat down at the end of the Slytherin table for lunch.
"Are you sure he noticed? He didn't show any indication that he had." Blaise replied, unconvinced as to Harry's intelligence.
"Of course he did. I doubt he would have offered his hand to us unless he noticed the masks we ourselves are wearing." Draco answered, watching the ex Gryffindor in question. "And I bet he is telling the youngest Weasley that not everything is as it seems."
"I don't mind her," Blaise replied with a small smile, "It's just the rest of her family that annoy me. Now are you going to stop staring and eat your lunch, or do you want everyone to think you have a crush on the resident Golden Boy." A light blush spread its way across Draco's cheeks, causing Blaise's eyes to widen slightly in shock. A second later, his eyebrow rose and a smirk made its way across his face as he looked at the blonde. "You do! Who'd have thought it, well aside from me that is."
"Shut up, Blaise, I can't help it." Draco snapped, blush darkening slightly. "I mean, have you seen him this year? He's grown up very nicely. And don't think I haven't noticed your little crush on a certain female redhead." Draco responded, his own smirk forming when Blaise held his hands up in surrender.
"Okay, okay, I give. I wont mention your crush if you don't mention mine." Draco's smirk widened. "But how are we going to deal with the fallout?" Blaise asked, causing Draco to give him a slightly confused look. "What are we going to say when people start asking us why we are spending so much time with the ex Gryffindor golden boy and the Weasley girl?"
"If anybody feels the need to ask and a glare doesn't work to deter them, we can just tell them the truth, or part of it at least. We simply explain that we have been paired up with Harry in potions and healing, and if that pattern holds, we may well be paired in other classes as well. As it is well known amongst our peers that we strive for academic excellence, and our marks depend upon us working with Harry, we now have an excuse for spending time with him outside of class. Of course, they don't need to know that we want to spend time with him, rather than being forced to. And if today is anything to go by, it seems that the youngest redhead will be spending a lot of time around Harry, meaning that we will be 'forced' to spend time with her as well." Draco explained, smirk returning at Blaise's impressed look.
"Fair enough, I think that will work, especially if you deliver it in that same haughty voice. But, it might be best that we compare free periods with Harry so that we can find the times best for us all to work together."
"We will, next class we have together. But let's eat now, before we have to get to afternoon classes."
HPHPHP
Meanwhile, on the other side of the hall, Harry was filling Ginny in on the happenings of the morning.
"Draco and Blaise aren't as bad as they have made themselves out to be in the past. The Voldemort loving, Gryffindor hating persona they have shown is to protect themselves from Voldemort, their families and the other Slytherins." Harry explained. Ginny raised an eyebrow in response.
"Do you really believe that?" she asked sceptically.
"Yes! We have a sort of truce because we've been paired together in a couple of classes. We finished early in healing, and were told we could leave so we had time to chat between that and potions, and when we were on our own, just talking, I could tell they were being themselves, and they were nice. Oh, and I think Blaise has a little bit of a crush on you."
"Really? How can you tell?" Ginny asked, a blush covering her cheeks. Harry smirked but refused to answer the question, instead answering the unasked one.
"Really. My instincts tell me that we have nothing to worry about with those two Slytherins, that we can trust them." Harry said, in response to the doubts he could tell that Ginny was still feeling. At this answer, she relaxed completely.
"OK, I believe you. You may not always listen to them, but your instincts are rarely wrong. If your instincts are fine with this, then so am I."
"That's reassuring to know. What is your last class today?" Harry asked, seemingly changing the subject.
"Erm… herbology." Ginny answered after a moment of thought. "Are we still meeting up after classes so you can show me your room?"
"Of course, when have I ever gone back on my word? But you may have to wait for me. I will be in the library last, and may get engrossed in my work. I've been given a lot of research to do, and want to get it done as soon as possible."
"Do you want me to meet you there instead?" Ginny asked.
"No, I'll probably be wanting a break from the library and my books by then, so I'll come down to meet you. Besides, my room is in the dungeons, so there's no point in you coming up to the library only to have to come back down again. And if I really want to, I can bring some books with me anyway." Harry said. Ginny nodded in understanding and the pair ate in comfortable silence for the next couple of minutes.
"By the way, are you really going to be continuing the DA this year, but opening it up to everyone in third year and above, like Dumbledore mentioned last night?" Ginny asked.
"Yeah, I am. He sprung it on me after the surprise re-sorting last night. But at least he mentioned it to me in advance. Tonks and I are meeting up after dinner tonight for a planning session, to try and sort out the logistics of teaching so many people and so many different levels, and we may even start planning what we will be teaching, and what we will do with those from the DA last year."
"Have you thought of splitting it into levels, with those from the DA last year, and maybe those that show a knowledge of what you taught last year in one level, and everybody else either in one or two other levels depending on their skills." Ginny suggested.
"That was one of the options I was thinking about, and probably the one most likely to be used. But I am thinking of several other plans, depending on the numbers that sign up. And it is going to be like all other clubs where there will be sign up sheets in the common rooms, so Tonks and I can plan accordingly. Anyway, I was wondering whether you had any ideas of what sort of things we could teach, maybe some spells that you know that you think are useful, or spells you have heard of and want to know, or maybe different types of magic that might help."
"Erm," Ginny muttered as she thought about it. "None off the top of my head, but I'll give it some thought and if I think of anything, I'll let you know. But I should be going now as I have potions now and it is never good to be late to the dungeons. I'll see you later." And with that, Ginny stood and began to make her way out of the hall, meeting up with Luna on the way. Taking this as his cue, Harry himself stood up and headed towards his next class.
HPHPHP
With a tired sigh, Ginny made her way back up to the castle after her last class, pleased that the first day was finally over. Walking into the entrance hall, she spotted Harry leaning casually against the wall to one side of the entrance to the dungeons, talking quietly to the two Slytherins they had been discussing at lunch. Heading in their direction, Ginny heard the tail end of their conversation.
"Well, I don't have quidditch any more, so I don't have to worry about practices cutting into my evenings, which means that our study sessions can be any day really, until I get the DA up and running properly." Harry said.
"That's not too bad then," Blaise replied. "It shouldn't be too hard for us to organise times to meet up to work on all of the work we will no doubt be assigned once classes get going. I suppose we shall see you tomorrow then," Blaise finished, before he and Draco left with a nod to Harry, heading down into the dungeons.
"Hey," Harry greeted her with a small smile when he noticed her approach, pushing away from the wall and shouldering his bag. "Shall we head down then?"
"Of course, I've been waiting all day to see what you call home these days," Ginny replied, almost jumping up and down with anticipation. Harry smiled again before leading the way down the stairs into the dungeons and through a maze of corridors until he reached the painting of a sword with a bright green snake wrapped around the hilt that guarded the entrance to his rooms.
"Carpe diem," Harry announced just loudly enough for both Ginny and the snake in the picture to hear, and the painting slid to the side, revealing a doorway. With a sweeping gesture, Harry let Ginny enter the rooms first. Following the redhead in, he was amused by her reaction. She stood there, frozen to the spot, eyes sweeping round the room and taking in every little detail. Noticing Harry had moved to sit in a chair in front of the fireplace to her left, she moved to sit with him.
"Nice place you have here," she stated, causing a smile to form on Harry's face. "I wonder what us mere mortals who fit into only one house have to do to get a room like this."
"You have to behave yourselves, and be good little students," Harry answered wryly. "These rooms are normally used if there is a Slytherin Head boy or girl, and there are similar ones near each common room. So Ginny dear, I fear this may be the closest you come to a room like this."
Ginny glared for a second before laughing. "I fear you may be right, Harry. But never mind, I shall just have to spend plenty of time down here to make up for it."
"Feel free," Harry responded. "You are one of only 3 people who know the password, so feel privileged." Taking a breath and ignoring the curious look on Ginny's face, Harry turned serious. "But that wasn't why I brought you down here, well not the only reason. I had stuff I was going to tell you." Taking another deep breath, Harry began to explain. "You remember that orb that was on the shelf in the department of mysteries?" Ginny nodded. "Well, it contained a prophecy about me and Voldemort. When we left the Ministry, Dumbledore portkeyed me straight to his office, just minutes after I had fought off Voldemort when he tried to possess me, and not even an hour after my godfather had fallen through the veil, and told me the prophecy. Apparently he finally deemed me ready to hear it, to hear the fact that I supposedly have power the dark lord knows not, and that either I kill the Dark Lord or he kills me. And apparently he has known about it since before I was born, and was certain it meant me since Halloween 1981. At least, that is what he implied when he talked about it."
Ginny sat there fuming, face pale and eyes dark. "Why didn't he tell you before last year? It's not like that was the first time you encountered V- Voldemort since starting here. And why haven't you had any training? That man, if I could I'd bloody strangle him"
"Whoa, calm down Ginny, there's no need to get all murderous on my behalf, at least not yet. I did ask Dumbledore why Voldemort wanted to kill me after I met him in first year, and he fobbed me off with some platitude about the truth being a beautiful but terrible thing, and that I wasn't ready to hear it yet. And every year since then, except for third year, I've asked the same thing and received pretty much the same answer. Until last year, when I had led everyone into that trap of Voldemorts at the Ministry, had found out that there was a prophecy, had guessed it was about me and Voldemort, and had faced the man again, even been possessed by him for a small while. I think at that point Dumbledore had to tell me, despite still thinking I wasn't ready to hear it. And he said that he hadn't told me before because he didn't want to ruin my childhood." Harry snorted at this thought, and let out a chuckle at the incredulous look on Ginny's face in response. "Exactly, what was the man thinking? Now, before this summer, I never really mentioned much about what life was like at my relatives, aside from the fact that I didn't want to go back, but I'm sure you managed to grasp the basics of what it was like." Harry continued.
Ginny nodded. "I knew you didn't like it there, and that the Dursleys didn't like having you there, and that they occasionally 'punished' you for no reason at all by refusing to feed you and locking you away from your possessions, all because they hated magic. And they made you do pretty much all of the chores for them. But I didn't think they beat you."
"You were right on all of the above. Before this summer they didn't really beat me, but they did sometimes give me the occasional slap when I hadn't completed all the chores in time. Would you call that much of a childhood?"
"No, I bloody wouldn't," Ginny hissed, growing more and more irate by the second. "I would call that hell. Can I please go and hurt the Headmaster now? I can't believe he left you there for all these years in conditions like that, even if they only got as bad as they did this year. What they were doing to you before was still abuse."
"I know that, you know that and the Headmaster knows that now," Harry replied. "But I need you to calm down, no murdering the poor, unsuspecting members of staff on my behalf. I don't hate him enough to set an irate redhead, one who is a Weasley and female to boot, on him," Harry continued with a grin.
Ginny looked surprised, if not a little confused at this pronouncement, effectively being distracted from her intense anger of the moment before. "You don't hate him?" she asked, confusion colouring her every word. "I'd have thought that with your past, and Dumbledore's involvement in it, you would have hated his guts and been more than happy to set an irate redhead on him, especially a Weasley female."
"No, I don't hate him. I don't trust him, and probably never will again, but my feelings towards him are much closer to ambivalence than hate."
"Why?" Ginny questioned, seriously wanting to understand her friends' feelings on the matter. Noticing this, Harry didn't get upset and instead contemplated the best way to make his point.
"Ok, I'll try to explain." Taking a deep breath, Harry proceeded to as a question. "Aside from me and, to some extent, Neville have you ever heard anything about a magical child being treated badly?"
Thinking deeply, wracking her thoughts for any such stories, Ginny finally shook her head no. "Never, I've never heard of anything like that."
"Exactly. One more question which will hopefully help you realise my point- how do magical parents view children? How are they treated and what is expected of them and from them, especially when they have misbehaved?"
Pausing for a moment, still unsure as to what this had to do with the subject at hand, Ginny finally answered. "Children are seen as a precious gift, and as such are treasured and protected. They are always taught about their heritage and our traditions from a very young age, a general history of magic as well as the more specific history and traditions of their family line. This instils a sense of belonging and a code of conduct within the child which generally means they will not misbehave. But if they do, the punishments are never any worse than being sent to their room for an hour to think about what they did, or temporary removal of privileges such as brooms or the like. Nothing worse than that, and they never hit or starve a child, or lock them in their rooms, or even belittle them."
"Exactly," Harry responded, before letting out a chuckle at Ginny's confused face. "Having been raised, and lived, in the magical world for his entire life Professor Dumbledore would have had no reason to suspect that there were people out there who did not regard children in the same manner as magical people do. He would not think that a 'parent' could and would turn against their 'child' in such a way as my relatives did with me. And that's why I can't hate the man." Harry frowned then continued. "However, he should have still checked up on me, even if only occasionally to ensure everything was alright, whether he thought there was a problem or not. He said himself this summer that he cares for me, but he did not even think to have one visit to see me in all those years. And that is why I will never trust the man again."
Sinking into his brooding thoughts on the past, Harry jumped and immediately tensed when Ginny hugged him. It took a while, but eventually Harry relaxed and returned the hug, pushing his thoughts away. "Thanks," he murmured, knowing that Ginny would understand that it was both for the hug and the fact that she had listened, and been there for him.
"Any time," she replied, pulling back. "Now, I don't know about you but I'm starving. How long until dinner?"
"Not long at all, in fact we can probably head up now." Standing up, Harry offered a hand to the redhead, who grasped it and was pulled to her feet. Linking their arms together the pair headed out of the door and up to the Great Hall for dinner. A conversation about quidditch developed during the journey and continued as they sat down at the small table in the centre of the hall. So engrossed in the subject matter, the pair were surprised when two others joined them at the table. Looking up, Harry was shocked but pleased to see Neville and Luna sat opposite them.
"Hi guys," he greeted them with a true smile, forgetting all about his conversation with Ginny. "How are you?"
"I'm good," Neville replied with a small smile on his face. "And you look like you are doing well too." Harry continued to smile and was about to answer when Luna gave her own input in her usual odd way.
"Your aura looks really pretty this year Harry. Much better than it has looked every other year. All the colours are swirling together so prettily, so much clearer than before. Something good happened to you this summer."
Blinking several times, Harry struggled for a moment to find a response to that before simply saying "Thanks Luna."
Here you go, after an extremely long wait here is the next chapter. Hopefully the next one wont be too far in the future.
Many thanks to all those that have reviewed.