Disclaimer: Check out the first chapter. That should give you a clue.

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Chapter 38: Tell Me Again: Which Ones are the Stupid Ones?

"There, now. That was well done," Hagrid said as Harry and Draco helped a smiling Trudi down from the horse. "'E's a different horse to the feral beast yez found in the Forest." He gave Simon a hearty slap on the rump and got a dirty look in return that suggested the feral beast could make a come-back at any moment.

Simon decided to keep with the placid old nag act as Draco and Harry used him to give pony rides to the other two Slytherins – and again for Trudi. And then Hagrid's class of second-year Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors showed up and Harry and Draco had to give pony rides to them, too… and then to the third-year Slytherins and Ravenclaws who had Herbology but had successfully planted out their Screaming Mimis and needed some peace and quiet out of the greenhouse…

Draco, Harry and Simon all needed some peace and quiet after that. But Draco had a Charms class to attend. Like Luna, he didn't want to miss it. Especially now that he could smirk at everyone who'd thought his blindness was permanent. Harry had Charms, too, but he still didn't feel like going to a class where everyone would pass him notes asking what he'd done to end up in the Infirmary this time…

"Right, I think that's enough," Harry said as Draco picked up his things preparatory to going up to the Castle to get cleaned up for class. Harry had just spotted Hooch's flying class (first year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, by the looks of them) coming around from the Quidditch pitch and Hooch had a determined look. It was a good bet that her class wanted pony rides, too. Harry frowned. "I think I'd better take Simon somewhere else before he bites someone."

Simon had been looking progressively more sullen in the last quarter hour. It was a drawn-out version of his 'I'm about to bite someone and that someone could be you' look Harry was unhappily familiar with.

"He was looking at some of those last Ravenclaws a little suspiciously," Harry commented.

"Well, that was because one of them had Mimijuice on her hands and she tried to wipe it in his mane."

Harry's jaw firmed. "Oh, really? Point me at her."

"She's gone. To the Infirmary." Draco winked. "It's a amazing how badly horse hair reacts to Mimijuice. I can't see those boils coming off any time soon."

Harry calmed down. "Seems like a bit of a coincidence." Especially given the subtle malice in Draco's thin smile.

"It does, doesn't it? Funny old universe. Well, can't stay chattering over metaphysical matters. Must go. Let me know if those shoes give any trouble. Or do anything strange."

"'Strange'?"

"Yeah."

Harry darted a look at the shoes. They gleamed. Iron shouldn't gleam like that. "They're silver."

"Um. Maybe a little bit."

"How much is a little bit?"

"One hundred percent…"

"Where did you find enough silver to make a set of horse shoes?"

"And the nails, don't forget the nails… and it was just lying around the place. It's only metal, all right? Look, just keep an eye out for loose nails or something. If Simon starts limping that's a definite sign we should check them more carefully. Just in case a nail went too high. But they should be fine. Toodles." Draco slung his satchel over his shoulder and sauntered off, whistling through his teeth. "Coming, Trudi?"

Trudi stopped scolding the first year Ravenclaw who'd asked if horses were edible, and stalked after her Housemate, levelling a final glare back at the Ravenclaw, who muttered something about Slytherins who –

"What was that?" Harry barked.

The Ravenclaw jumped. "Er. Nothing." He scurried off before Harry Potter, who should have been badmouthing the Slytherins like a decent Gryffindor but was obviously unhinged by all the time he'd spent in the Infirmary, started foaming at the mouth. "Mental…" Harry heard him say to his friends as he joined them. Unfortunately not out of earshot of Hagrid, either – Hagrid docked Ravenclaw five points for bad manners.

Harry darted a glance at Simon to see if Harry's tone had upset the horse, but apparently putting snotty Ravenclaws in their place was understandable. Harry put the reins over the horse's head and gathered them up in his left hand, getting a good handful of mane as he did so. There was the usual undignified but mercifully brief hopping scramble as he got one foot in the stirrup and clambered into the saddle. Luna didn't use a log to stand on, so Harry would mount from the ground, too.

The transformation of the horse was astonishing. From bored nag about to get stroppy, Simon lifted his head and pricked his ears, swishing his tail as he pranced sideways. Harry, incredibly aware of how little experience he had with horse riding, very carefully did not jerk on the reins to stop Simon from running. That, Luna had warned him with great care and at great length complete with diagrams, would be suicide. Some of her diagrams had been graphic and messily splattered with red. But a gentle pull on the reins combined with Harry leaning back just slightly, sitting down firmly in the saddle and thinking strongly about how he did not want to leave just yet seemed to convince Simon that he could wait another three seconds. "Hey, Hagrid! I'm going to take Simon for a run. Is that okay?"

"Aye. Go up onto the hills behind the castle. That's where young Luna's bin takin' him. Follow the sheep and cattle tracks. They won't take you anywhere dangerous. Or out o' sight o' the castle, fer that matter."

Harry was grateful for his handful of mane as Simon leaped sideways. "Argh! Stop that, horse! Better go, Hagrid!"

Harry loosened the reins and leaned forward a little. And Simon took this as the sign that this meant he was finally going to go for a run. Harry kept the reins just tight enough that the horse stayed at a canter while they passed Madam Hooch and her class of disappointed first years.

Draco was right. It was a little like riding a camel. A ship of the desert, a ship of the sea or – in this case – a ship of the meadow. The big, rolling strides didn't actually mean that Simon was moving forward that fast. In actual fact he and Harry were moving on the diagonal. Harry wouldn't let Simon go too fast until he was sure they wouldn't run over any students, and Simon seemed to think that until then, the best tack was to canter sideways rather than straight ahead. This crab theory used up the maximum amount of energy for the allowable velocity. Harry had seen him do this with Luna, who insisted that the horse not get into the habit of bolting as soon as a rider got on his back. Harry thought this was a marvellous thing for a horse to know – especially right now.

"Steady there, old chap. We can't have Luna thinking I'm letting you develop bad manners." And if she sees you running around without a rider because I've fallen into some gorse, that's not going to help my image any.

But then they were past the Quidditch pitch, cantering around the castle and up the hill past the gate of Simon's paddock (where Simon slowed, not sure if they were stopping or not until Harry gave him a nudge with his heels and the horse charged forward again with a snort of approval), and up onto the rolling hills and moor which stretched away for miles.

This shouldn't be too hard. All he had to do was stay on. Harry relaxed his grip on the reins and leaned forward.

It was almost like the first time he'd ridden the Firebolt. The acceleration shoved his breath back between his teeth. And, as the ground began to shoot past beneath him, Harry suddenly realised he was sitting on top of nearly half a ton of muscle and bone that everyone except Luna and Draco said was quite possibly insane and might charge over a cliff. His centre of balance suddenly rocketed up to sit in his chest and Harry lurched out of the saddle.

"Merlin!" Harry pulled on the reins a little harder than polite, but Simon, tail twitching in annoyance at the cowardice of his rider, slowed before Harry could panic. Snorting, the horse bounced to a stop.

Harry, who'd somehow managed to end up sitting in front of the saddle thanks to the jolting halt, carefully worked his way back off Simon's neck before Simon could put his head down to eat the grass. "Ohhhkayy… Yes, I'm a spineless git. And I shouldn't have pulled on the reins so hard. But I kind of forgot that you're the kind of horse that's designed to run really fast." And he had forgotten. Which was stupid. He had the biggest baddest wizard in generations (and the followers of that wizard) out for his blood. He couldn't afford to forget basic facts. He took a double handful of mane, carefully threading the reins through it and his fingers so that he could (with a bit of luck) control the horse and not fall off.

"Right. Let's try that again. While remembering the basic facts. Like fact number one: you're meant to run. But that's balanced by how you're probably not crazy enough to run over a cliff. I hope."

Simon pawed the ground.

"Okay, let's go."

This time Harry was careful to remember the basics: heels down, toes up, keep the horse between you and the ground…

Simon shifted straight into a canter, which was fine as far as Harry was concerned: trotting on a horse wasn't all that comfortable. Then he felt those powerful hindquarters bunch up like Buckbeak's did when the hippogriff was about to fly; Simon's neck stretched as Harry let the reins lengthen, and the horse flew forward like an arrow.

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Harry was still smiling as he walked into the castle. After Simon had worked off enough energy they'd settled into a canter which lasted all the way out to the barrier (and probably would have kept going for another mile if he'd been able). He walked Simon all the way back to the paddock to make sure the horse wasn't still sweating when he put the cover on. Someone (probably Hagrid) had left a nice big pile of hay in the paddock, which Simon was pleased to tuck into while Harry brushed him and checked that the shoes were still in place. The shoes were fine. Although it seemed a bit ostentatious to have something so grand as silver made into shoes for a horse. Simon didn't seem to mind, though. Maybe it was just Draco, trying to prove that nothing was too good for a Malfoy or a Malfoy's horse.

Harry made a mental note to tell Draco that the silver had held up all right when he saw him next – oh, and that Simon wasn't Draco's horse. He left Simon to the pile of hay (Simon didn't seem to notice when Harry left) and strolled back to get cleaned up for lunch.

He lost his smile as soon as he straightened up from the half-crouch needed to get through the door into the Gryffindor common room.

There weren't many people there. Mostly seventh years. But everyone turned to stare at him. No 'Welcome back, Harry, glad to see you's. Flat, level stares as if he'd done something weird. Again.

Oh yeah. That time travel thing.

From the way everyone was staring at him Harry thought maybe he should have stayed more than the few nights in the Infirmary Poppy Pomfrey had insisted upon.

"Look, I didn't go to the time of the Founders," he said loudly.

There were mutters. Then someone said, "We heard you went back to the seventies."

Someone else said, "Why didn't you just stop You-Know-Who while you were there?"

Harry took a moment to calm himself down so that he could speak rather than strangling everyone in the room. "I don't know… maybe because that might have been tampering with time and it would have screwed up the universe?"

He stomped up the stairs to his room.

He should have stayed in the Infirmary.

Huh. If he kept getting stupid questions from his stupider classmates, maybe he'd just ask Dumbledore to put an extra room onto the little barn and move out to live on Squirrel Hill.

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He could have settled into his sulk for the rest of the day. Madam Pomfrey would have allowed him to go back to the Infirmary if he'd claimed a headache or weakness. And it was the first time Harry had been tempted to pull a sickie. But the Infirmary didn't hold many good memories at the moment, so he forced himself to join the rest of the school for lunch.

Ron was scowling. Harry gave him a level stare. "What?"

"Huh?" Ron seemed genuinely surprised.

"I guess the rest of the school has convinced you I'm the next worst thing to Voldemort."

Ron gave Harry an ancient look. "Well, I didn't think that until you came in here with the attitude. You're correct about the rest of the school – somehow they found out you went back to a time where you could have stopped Lord Thingie maybe, but somehow they didn't quite make the connection between going there and you having an opportunity to knock the bugger off. Or that whole issue of not meddling with the past. I'm not mad with you, if that's what you're asking – or I wasn't until you came and sat down like a candidate for dried chocolate frog pills."

"Oh. Right. Sorry. I'm a prat."

"Yes. We already knew that."

"Thanks. Now, why were you looking like someone had just eaten all the sausages without leaving you any?"

Ron snorted and waved his fork at his plate where half a chop was sitting in mashed potato. "Funny you should say that. Pork chops just aren't the same. Blame Dean. Make a nice change for everyone to blame something on someone who's not you. Um…" He grimaced at his plate.

"Ron… I know what people are saying. It's okay."

"No it isn't."

"It is," Harry argued, "providing it's not you or Hermione who're saying it, too."

"Honestly, how thick do you think I am? I mean, Hermione, she's bonkers, but…"

"What?"

"Um, 'Mione… didn't see you there…"

"Obviously." Hermione squeezed in between the boys. "Budge over. Ron, did you eat all the sausages, again?"

"No, Dean's the greedy guts."

Dean, who was well within earshot, waved and ate the last chunk of sausage on his plate. "Mm. Sausages. Last one, too, Ron. Yum."

Ron groaned.

"Aren't you vegetarian?" Harry asked Hermione.

"Huh. I was, but we ran out of protein. It's no good being moral if you're dying of malnutrition. For some reason it doesn't inspire others to support your ethical stance."

"What happened to Lentil Surprise?"

"No lentils. Surprise," Hermione said morosely. She jabbed her fork into a pork chop and sighed as she lifted it onto her plate. "No sausages, either. I expect these are the last of the pork chops." She wrinkled her nose as she chewed. "Tastes like it."

"What? I thought it was just Dean making a pig of himself! No offence, mate."

"I'm not taking offence, Harry. I got to eat the last of the sausages. That's better than being on the moral high ground," Dean replied affably.

"Harry… it's all right…" Ron said. "Do you… do you want a paper bag to breathe into or something?"

"I'm not hyperventilating," Harry growled, although he'd taken several deep breaths. Being short of food was too close to being back with the Dursleys. Hogwarts wasn't meant to be short of food – Hogwarts was meant to be the one place in his world where he could eat as much as he liked. Hogwarts denying him food was a Hogwarts haunted by Dursleys.

"Could have fooled me."

"What's wrong with the house elves?"

Hermione pursed her mouth before she could take another reluctant bite of her chop. "Oh, that's right… blame it on the house elves."

Harry sighed. "I'm not. I just…" he lowered his voice "…I just didn't know we were getting so short on food."

"I doubt most people have realised that," Hermione replied darkly. "I think the teachers are trying to stop everyone from panicking. But Professor Sprout has been teaching the younger students to – get this – to grow vegetables."

"What kinds of vegetables?"

"Cabbages, carrots, beans, peas…"

"Magical carrots, magical cabbages, magical beans…?" Harry said, interrupting.

"Only to grow faster. Not to find a way of breaking through the Blockade."

"What about climbing over the barrier, like in 'Jack and the Beanstalk'?"

"That was a fairy-tale," Hermione said, rolling her eyes at Ron who looked blank. "Muggle story for children, Ron. Fairies don't tell stories."

"What, like Hogwarts is a fairy tale?"

"No, Harry. And I wondered about the magical beans, too. I asked Professor Sprout."

"And?"

"And she very nearly patted me on the head and told me what a dear girl I was, having an imagination like that. She said I should write children's stories. Huh."

"So how do we get more food?"

"Well, apart from growing it ourselves and what Hagrid is finding in the Forest… don't ask and don't eat any stew they serve up… there's not much to do."

"Someone said we could eat the horse," Ron said through a mouthful of mashed potato.

There was a ringing in Harry's ears. "Who said that?" His voice came out calmly. But Hermione took one look at his face and said quickly,

"We didn't really see who it was. One of the younger ones, I think. No-one who'd say it as anything other than a joke."

"Uh-huh." Blood pounded behind his eyes. Harry grimly forked a couple of pork chops onto his plate and dropped a spoonful of mashed potato so hard onto his plate that some splattered onto Hermione's sleeve.

She had the sense to wipe it off without making an issue out of it.

"Hey, Potter… didn't you even bring back a souvenir?" someone from the Ravenclaw table cat-called.

Harry ignored her.

"Do you ever wonder if people are worth it?" he asked his plate.

"Ahem." Hermione cleared her throat in a very pointed manner.

"Sorry, 'Mione – I meant all the stupid people."

"How would you separate them out?" Ron asked. "And would I be in that group?"

"Dunno. Uh – that is, you wouldn't be in the stupid group, and I don't know how to separate them. That's the trouble."

"Besides, we can't go grouping people into those we want to save and those who we want to go to hell. That's what Voldemort does," Hermione pointed out.

"So maybe he's not completely thick," Harry said. And scowled. And drummed his fingers on the table until he realised he was drumming them in a dollop of mashed potatoes. He wiped his hand on his jeans.

"Yuck, Harry."

Ron was shaking his head, too.

Harry bristled. "Look, I'm not turning into Voldemort. So just drop it, okay?"

Hermione shrugged. But she was obviously upset.

"It is worth it," Ron said quietly. "Because otherwise there'll be more kids who are left without their parents. There will be other people murdered. Good people. Like your parents."

"Like my mum."

"Um. Yeah." Ron jumped as if Hermione had kicked him under the table.

"It's worth it just so that you can have a normal life," Hermione said.

"I'm not going to have one of those. I'm surprised there wasn't a ruddy prophecy about it… 'When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars… then the Boy Who Lived will try to settle down, but that's not in the stars.'"

Ron rolled threw his knife and fork down. "Right. That's it. Harry, snap out of it. There might be a lot of people in the world who're dafter than brooms, but there are those of us who are, er, less daft than brooms, and we'll keep an eye out for you. And when things are finished we'll still be your friends and we'll help you out as best as we can… in between fighting off Rita Skeeter's slander about our good selves because Hermione's going to be famous for being… whatever she wants to be, and I'll be famous for… um… being her husband, I guess."

"Oh Ron! I thought you were never going to propose! Although I wasn't expecting pork chops and mashed potato so much as of moonlight and bended knee… Oh, sorry… I was just joking…"

Ron had gone scarlet. He began to choke.

Harry and Hermione slapped him on the back for a bit.

"Stop it," Ron wheezed. "You two will be the death of me…"

"Sorry," Hermione and Harry chorused.

"Shut up. And pass me the pumpkin juice."

Already cheered, Harry's mood was only improved further when Dumbledore announced that Mr Filch was hot on the trail of the kleptomaniac troublemaker who had stolen several of the larger pieces of silver from the kitchens, the silver frame from a signed photo of Mumfred the Magnificent, the embossed badges from the winning Morris dancer team of '58 (as well as the team's entire set of bells), one of the two matching silver candlesticks donated by Salmonius Parkinson, and the cup for services to the school which had been awarded to James Potter.

"I don't suppose those bells and the badge from the Morris dancers were made of silver by any chance?" Harry asked, trying hard to keep a straight face. Draco had been very busy.

Ron's brow furrowed. "We have a Morris team?"

"They meet every Thursday," Hermione said. "It's been a Hogwarts tradition since 1405, when Mike Mangle and his Motley Morrises defeated Sylvester's Psychopathic Sicilian Stranglers in a thirty-eight hour full-on Morris-a-thon. It's been nearly six years since we started at Hogwarts. Honestly! Haven't either of you read Hogwarts, a History yet?! Harry? Are you laughing at me? Harry!"

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