Harry Potter and The Fate We Make

Chapter 24: School Daze

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter. Underlined and italics is a direct quote from Order of the Phoenix. I am slightly changing the sequence of events at the Sorting Feast, but nothing too major.

(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)

September 1, 1995

The next three weeks had been ... pure chaos. The Marauders put everything they had into dueling practice, getting their animagus forms started, and pitching in to help with the myriad of really bonkers inventions Remus, Sirius, and the twins were coming up with. Harry worked on his wandless casting every chance he got, and eventually began to have some success in casting when he was calm and not in a jam, which was a major accomplishment, even if he wasn't doing much more than floating feathers yet. He'd also been working on his occlumency ... to no effect. As a matter of fact, the better he got at occlumency, the more he saw, both through Voldemort's eyes and in his mind. It was more than slightly disturbing, and the fact he had a vision pretty much every night really didn't help. Weirdly, his scar had completely stopped hurting ... he never got so much as a twinge anymore. The why of it remained a mystery. Not even Dumbledore seemed to be able to figure it out ... not that Harry was seeing much of the man. Harry knew their relationship had become strained, but really, there was no need for Dumbledore to actively avoid him.

They got their letters later than normal ... probably because of the Ministry teacher being appointed so late. Ron and Hermione had made Prefect, much to Hermione's delight and Ron's stunned confusion. The twins ragged him mercilessly, much as they had Percy. The Marauders got one good look at the book they were required to get for DADA and gave a collective groan. Clearly, the woman was of Lockhart's stripe ... that is to say, utterly useless. Even poor, possessed Quirrel had imparted some information of value. It didn't look like Umbridge would, if the book she was using was any indication. The yearly school shopping trip also marked the first time Sirius went out in public. He'd been more than a bit nervous about it for a good while, and Harry could understand the sentiment. He'd been forced to hide for two years, and while he was cleared now, none of them were overly confident that everyone would be ok with him now. Fortunately, it went off without a hitch. Diagon Alley had been ... oddly unpopulated, and everyone had been twitchy, jumpy, and glancing over their shoulders every few seconds. No one had seemed to want to cosy up to their group in order to gawk at either Sirius or Harry. Given that the Death Eaters and the other members of Voldemort's growing army had been raiding up and down the country pretty much at will, Harry didn't blame them.

The morning of the first was more than slightly insane. Everyone was running around like headless chickens, shouting and complaining and scrambling to get ready to head to King's Cross. Harry combed his room for the fourth time, ensuring he hadn't forgotten anything, then finally closed his own trunk, and, after a moment's consideration, added a jinx to the lock that would make anyone trying to get into it without the password quite a bit more colorful than they started out.

Eventually, they all got sorted out and piled into a pair of Ministry cars that had been provided for them. The ride was noisy and boisterous. At King's Cross, they garnered more than the usual amount of attention ... but then, it was a rather large group. Six adults (the Weasleys, Remus, Sirius, a fully-healed Kingsley and Tonks) and seven kids, carting seven trunks, two owls (one of them tiny and hyper and noisy) and a cat was bound to attract attention. It wasn't until they were on the Hogwarts train side of the barrier and Harry noticed that they were still being stared at that he realized the New Marauders had fallen into a sort of formation, with him at the head, Ron and Hermione just behind and to either side of him, Ginny and Neville behind them, and the twins bracketing them ... all of them with their wand-hands free and ready for trouble.

It was a natural consequence of their training over the summer. They'd drilled, constantly, on being able to act as a group, to help overcome the gap in magical strength and knowledge that would be inevitable when they tangled with an adult witch or wizard. It hadn't been all that obvious at the manor, but the training had tied them all closely together, and here, where they'd be on their own soon enough, away from most adult help (because let's face it, it's not like Harry'd had much teacher assistance at Hogwarts when it came to trouble), they were closing ranks and keeping a careful eye out.

While the station was alive with kids and parents, Harry noticed that there was not a single green and silver scarf in the mix. It made him wonder where all the Slytherins were. They headed for their usual compartment out of habit, and everyone piled in. It was a tight fit, and Ron and Hermione sat closest to the door, since they'd be in and out, but they all made it in there.

Ron and Hermione left for the prefect's meeting, and the rest of them spent the next hour or so chatting happily. Then Ron hustled back in, red-faced and rather angry looking.

"Mate, you are never going to believe who got made a prefect."

"Malfoy." Harry guessed. There was really only the one choice, after all. "You mean, the Slytherins are on the train?"

"Yeah. They're in the front car of the train, the whole lot of them, huddling together and whispering, most of them. What was Dumbledore thinking, making that git a prefect?" Ron wanted to know.

"I expect he was thinking Slytherin had to have prefects, and since Crabbe and Goyle have one brain cell between them, it can't be them. Slytherins seem to only come in three varieties. Stupid, gits, or stupid gits." Harry said with a sigh.

Things were quiet for a good while. Hermione only poked her head in every now and again, too busy doing her prefect duties to stay for more than a minute or two. Ron, predictably, took a much more laid-back approach to the whole prefect thing.

"There is no way I'm turning into Percy." He proclaimed. "For one, I'd never survive them." He pointed at the twins, who were grinning at him in a rather disturbing fashion. "And for another, if by some chance I did survive them, the rest of you would have at me."

"Too right, mate." Harry agreed with a grin.

At about the halfway point of the train ride, Malfoy decided to show up for his semi-annual taunt-and-hex. Really, Harry thought when the pale, pointy face poked into the compartment, Crabbe and Goyle at his back, it wouldn't be a proper train ride without the git's posturing.

Malfoy sneered at everyone in the compartment before focusing on Harry. "Going to have to watch yourself this year, Potter." He taunted. "I'm going to enjoy giving you detentions."

Harry eyed Malfoy. There was something ... different ... about Draco. Something Harry couldn't quite put his finger on. An extra dollop of menace, perhaps, that was not explained by his status as a prefect. After a few moments, Harry dismissed the thought, deciding Malfoy was strutting because Voldemort was back and his father was more or less Voldemort's right hand man. "Go away, Malfoy."

Malfoy sneered a bit more, but without Hermione in the compartment to fuel his usual mudblood taunts, and with everyone else refusing to rise to his bait, he finally left, his goons in his wake. Once he was gone, Harry let out a whoosh of air and sagged in his seat. "I am very much going to look forward to hexing him into oblivion, if he keeps that up." He told the others. "And is it just me, or was something different with him?"

The others considered that. "Hmmm. You may not be wrong." Ginny said at length. "There was something ... " She trailed off and gave an apologetic shrug. "Something off about him. More than usual, I mean."

The others looked less certain, but were willing to take Harry and Ginny's word for it. It was Malfoy they were talking about after all. Given who his father was and what they'd got up to in the last four years, it was rather easy to accept that Malfoy was, once again, up to something.

The rest of the train ride and the carriage ride to the school went uneventfully, though Harry noticed the Slytherins seemed to be travelling in even tighter and larger knots than usual. He frowned at them. The upper years especially seemed to be travelling almost as a single unit, and there was something predatory and malicious in more than one pair of Slytherin eyes, moreso than in years previous. It seemed that the rebirth of Voldemort had given the House of Snakes new resolve. Or something.

He, Ron and Hermione took their usual seats at the table, the twins and Ginny sitting across from them, while Neville sat next to Hermione. Harry glanced up at the Head table. He almost didn't see the new teacher at first ... she was nearly as short as Flitwick. But once he had spotted her, he wondered how he could have missed her. Augusta's warning, mostly forgotten in the intervening weeks, flashed through his mind again. 'A more unfortunate person' rather fit Professor Umbridge. Short and squat and more than slightly ugly, and dressed in the most hideous pink cardigan Harry had ever seen.

And things just got more interesting when McGonagall brought the Sorting Hat out. The 'song' was ... distinctly disturbing, and about as clear a warning as you could get. Harry glanced over at the Slytherin table and sighed. Unfortunately, the chances of school unity were nil. Oh, the Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs would have little trouble uniting, but then that had never really been the problem, had it? It always came down to the Slytherins. It'd take something ... well, Harry had no idea, actually, what it would take to fully unite the school. Certainly something beyond the troubles they already had, that was for sure.

Dumbledore got to his feet and introduced Umbridge, then started to go on with his usual start of term notices. Mid-sentence, Umbridge let out a high-pitched little "Hem-hem.". Dumbledore turned to look, and blinked. So did Harry. Umbridge had gotten to her feet, and, evidently, intended to make a speech. That she had interrupted Dumbledore was ... rather stunning. Insofar as Harry knew, no one had ever done such a thing. Dumbledore sat down quickly and gave her his full attention, somehow managing to make it appear that had been his plan all along. The rest of the staff weren't quite as good at hiding their surprise. Sprout's eyebrows had disappeared into her hairline, and McGonagall's mouth had gone a thin and pale that Harry hadn't seen since the dragon incident first year.

"Thank you, Headmaster," Professor Umbridge simpered. "For those kind words of welcome." Her voice was high-pitched, breathy, and little-girlish. She also, Harry noticed, had the sort of expression on his face that Harry normally saw only secondhand, usually at the playground near Privet Drive, from the odd parent watching their kids and the kids of others running about. It was a sort of indulgent, condescending look. She gave another little throat-clearing cough. "Hem-hem." and continued. "Well, isn't it lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say." She smiled, revealing very pointy teeth. "And to see such happy little faces looking up at me."

Harry gave a mental snort as he glanced around. No one he could see looked happy. Most of them looked a bit stunned, others confused, and the Slytherin table, almost en masse, had gone stony-faced, as if they were doing their utmost to not react visibly. Some of the kids were already starting to not pay attention, leaning in towards their friends and whispering quietly.

Professor Umbridge cleared her throat again. "Hem-hem." But when she continued, some of the breathiness had vanished from her voice, and she sounded much more businesslike, and now her words had a dull, learned-by-heart sound to them. "The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by carefu instruction. The ancient skills unique to the wizarding community must be passed down the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished, and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching."

She turned a bit and bowed to the other teachers. None of them returned the gesture. On the contrary, most of them looked to have been hit by a confundus, with faintly confused and baffled expressions on their faces. McGonagall was eyeing Sprout significantly, but the real prize was Snape. His expression had frozen into a look of disdain and dislike normally reserved for Harry himself, and he was eyeing Umbridge warily.

Umbridge gave another little "Hem-hem." and went on with her speech. "Every Headmaster and Headmistress of Hogwarts has brough something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be. Without progress, there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress' sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permancence and change, between tradition and innovation."

Harry decided that if Umbridge 'hem-hem'd' one more time, she was going to be the victim of the first prank of the year, because that little noise was getting seriously irritating. It was, though, about the only think keeping him from falling asleep during her speech, so he spared some thanks for it, because otherwise he'd be missing what she was saying, and what she was saying was not at all comforting. He'd have to talk to Hermione about it later. She was paying as close attention to Umbridge as he was ... probably closer. Everyone else had pretty much given up, talking and giggling to their neighbors and friends. Some of the Ravenclaws had even dragged out their books. Umbridge didn't seem to notice. Harry got the feeling a riot could break out and she'd keep right on going. The teachers were the only other ones obviously paying attention, and Harry had never seen McGongall's expression so severe. Even jolly Flitwick had gone rather stony-faced. Hagrid, bless him, was actually frowning.

"Because some changes will be for the better, while others will come in the fullness of time to be recognized as errors of judgement. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward then into a new era of openness, effectiveness, and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected and pruning back wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited." She sat down.

Harry blinked, and the rest of the Hall stirred a bit. Dumbledore got to his feet, finished the notices, and started the feast. The quiet sussuruss of talk became a near-roar as everyone turned to their neighbors to talk. Harry immediately turned to Hermione. "What do you make of that speech, Hermione?"

She frowned. "I didn't much like it, to be honest. She's up to no good."

Harry snorted. "Of course she is. She's the DADA teacher. Every single one we've had has had something up their sleeve, even Remus. Though at least he was competent for the job."

Hermione sighed. "Too true." She admitted. "Though this one's going to be even more trouble than the rest. I've just got a bad feeling."

"Right there with you. Looks like the year just got a whole lot more interesting." Harry said with a sigh. "Not that we needed or wanted that. What do the rest of you say? Do we have our first target of the year?" They'd been planning to prank Malfoy, but this promised to be a far juicier target.

Fred and George nodded firmly. "She's just asking for it she is." Fred grumbled.

"Talking to us like we're five." George huffed.

That decided, they got down to the business of eating, and then Ron and Hermione hurried the first years to the dorm. Harry was sort of relishing the fact that no one was paying him all that much mind. Everyone seemed to have far better things to gossip about after the summer they'd all had, and Harry was glad of the break from being the center of everyone's attention. He'd never been comfortable with it!

He, Neville, the twins and Ginny headed up to the dorm en mass, keeping a wary eye on the Slytherins until the two groups parted ways. Finally, though, they were at the dorm, and he and Neville headed for their room. Dobby was waiting, standing beside Harry's closed trunk. Harry grinned. Dobby had been quite pleased to be returning to Hogwarts with them, both as added security and, like during the last weeks of school last year, as an ultra-secure method of communication.

"Good evening Dobby. Sorry about the trunk. Didn't want any Slytherins to 'accidentally' get into it somehow when I wasn't around and you weren't either." He removed the jinx he'd put on it earlier, and Dobby immediately emptied the trunk of his things, hustling about to set them up. Dean and Seamus came in about then, and blinked a bit at Dobby.

"Guys, this is Dobby. He's a free elf that works for me, and my friend." Harry introduced them. Dobby's eyes went absolutely huge and teared up, but he managed to not start bawling.

"It is a great pleasure to meet more of the Great Harry Potter's friends." Dobby said, bowing. Neither Dean nor Seamus seemed to quite know what to do, and so settled for a rather rushed and offhand "Hi." each, though that was more than enough to please Dobby immensely.

They spent the next hour or so catching up with each other, and then finally collapsed into bed to sleep. And, of course, in Harry's case, to dream.