Chapter Nineteen
Owl Politics
They took Harry home, even if there was nearly half the class period remaining. Both Vince and Tonks accompanied him; Tonks citing that she was law enforcement and had a duty to make sure he got home safe, and Vince said he needed to inform his guardian… Yeah. That. Harry really didn't want to… Harry didn't want to talk with Aurora about that. He figured Vince could do it, and maybe Tonks would help him and they'd let him just curl up with Tolkien and forget that that morning even happened. He kept hearing the spider's scream repeated over and over in his head.
He didn't want to go back to Neville's, even if that was what they had expected would happen. Aurora was there, talking with Madam Pomfrey. They'd asked what was wrong, but all Harry could manage was a shrug of the shoulders as he plodded into his room, found The Two Towers in his trunk, and started reading the long, drawn out portions about Frodo and Sam. The story and the characters were fabulous, Harry knew, but sometimes, all the words he had to wade through to get to that awesomeness really sucked. As he read, he could hear the four adults talking. At some point, Madam Pomfrey came in, checked his temperature, and made sure he was physically doing okay, before returning to the group. When she left, Harry couldn't focus on the reading anymore.
He laid it on his bedside table and curled up against his pillows. Hedwig and Paradise's new owl, Taygete, sat primly on their respective perches. 'Hi, Hedwig,' Harry thought, wondering if they'd ever progress to the point of communicating in actual words. So far, they hadn't. All he received from Hedwig was an affectionate greeting and an expression of minor annoyance at her new owl companion. Harry got the distinction impression that Hedwig did not like Taygete. But then she somehow conveyed a sense of usefulness that Harry didn't understand. What use could Hedwig have for another owl? The response came quickly enough, in a series of thoughts and images and vagueness: politics. Harry blinked. Owls had politics?!
Hedwig watched her young human. He was exhausted, troubled, and fearful. She hoped he did not retreat into his old, moody self. She didn't like that self so much. Still, she was grateful to have her human back and not that… that emptiness. And the thoughts she'd sent him were mostly right. She didn't particularly like her new nest-sister. Taygete was not too bright (by Hedwig's standards at least), but she was big, loyal, fierce, and would be a sought after mate. There were only two eagle owls in the owlery at the moment, both males. They'd likely fight over Taygete. That would just cause more problems. There had been a third eagle owl, but she left. Which was odd, Hedwig mused to herself. If she could push Tay towards Abraxas, who was the stronger of the two eagle owls, she would gain an ally in Abraxas. Tay, as her nest-sister who knew that Hedwig was phoenix touched and who knew that Hedwig had been familiarly bonded, would likely never betray that trust. And if she could manipulate Tay to get Abraxas on her side, there would be no challenger that could defeat her. Hedwig cooed, softly, imaging the owlery with Tay and Abraxas to do the fighting, herself to do the thinking, and Jasper, Maximilian and CiCi in the background. That was perfect contentment.
Jasper, Maximilian and CiCi were good companions. Friends, even. They had rallied behind Hedwig even before Fawkes had chosen her. They kept Hermes in his place, and some of the other more troublesome screeches – why were the troublesome owls always screeches? Hedwig listened to Tay hoot at her, and decided to be at least friendly to the larger owl. They held a short, hooted conversation before Harry grew tired of the noise and mentally threatened to throw his shoe at either of the two owls. It made Hedwig chuckle. Tay didn't understand. Tay, Hedwig considered, was a good name. Maybe she could convince herself to like Taygete. Tay. Whatever.
She got a twisted thought from Harry: stop plotting! It seemed oddly appropriate.
o.o.o.o.o.o
He was reluctant to go back to the class on Friday, but a contemplative Aurora supported returning, and so Harry went. He still participated, but none of the healers seemed to expect him to perform at the same level as the other six students. The other students all noticed something was wrong with Harry. Katie was the only one brave enough to ask what. Harry had avoided that question. The Saturday class progressed in much the same manner, but Harry participated a lot more, having talked with nearly all his favorite professors who were unaware of Thursday's circumstances and gotten different points of view on how he acted and how Healer Mena acted. Flitwick and Lupin both vocally blamed Mena for asking Harry to cast an Unforgiveable. Both of them promised that even if he was connected to Voldemort, he wouldn't change. He'd still be Harry.
There weren't really any students left at Hogwarts outside of the first generation staff kids. Not counting the staff kids, two Gryffindors, three Hufflepuffs, and two Ravenclaws stayed. Vicky Frobisher seemed especially glad for Paradise to return on Saturday. When Harry asked, Vicky stuttered some false reasoning for why she stayed before changing the subject. All of the Towlers remained. Harry shared Saturday supper with Kenneth, his twin Kaitlin, and their older sister Katherine (a sixth year Ravenclaw). Harry kept mixing Kaitlin and Katherine up. He didn't know and didn't bother to meet the three other students who had stayed at Hogwarts. What with Harry, Paradise, Vicky, Kenneth, Kaitlin, Katherine, Ciara, Tyler, Rebecca, Orion, Leann, Steven, and the three other students… well… it still seemed exceptionally empty of a castle that weekend.
On Sunday, Harry managed to wheedle permission to bring Ciara, Tyler and Becks into the Gryffindor common room. That implied officially confirming the existence of staff kids to people outside the Concordia, but Steven and the professors ruled that it was okay. Orion, Leann, Kaitlin and one of the remaining Hufflepuffs (a first year) were invited (Harry had decided to invite everyone under fifth year), but only the Hufflepuffs came. Samuel Branstone was tentative, at first, but by the time the day was over, he and Tyler were quickly on their way to becoming fast friends. It was a fun group. Kaitlin and Samuel taught everyone some good 'get to know you' games. Late Sunday afternoon, they said farewell to the staff kids and traipsed down to the Great Hall for dinner with the returning students. The Hogwarts Express had run that day; they hadn't needed to be on it.
Early on in the dinner, Harry noticed a distinctive somberness in the attitudes of people. People he remembered being friends were avoiding each other. People who hated each other seemed to be grappling with mixed emotions. It was all wrong. They'd just lived two strange, completely different months and trying to cope over one week just wasn't good enough. Harry looked up and down the table before finally finding Katie. His friend looked exhausted. Like, exhausted. Was she just starting to pick up on the emotions running through the Great Hall? Was she having further trouble coping with that piled on top of her senses? Queenie, Alicia and Angelina flanked their friends, keeping a fairly wide margin between themselves and anyone else. Still, the Hall buzzed with people and thoughts and emotions. Katie would have a rough time of it until she mastered controlling things…
Harry stared around the Hall again. Everyone sat at their respective tables. It wasn't normal! Sure, there was an over-exaggerated amount of house loyalty, but there was always at least some house mixing. Harry looked at his friends. "We've got to mingle."
"What?" That was Hermione. And Neville. They despised most any form of mingling.
"We've just lived two different realities," Harry explained, in a hushed whisper. "I bet some people are still questioning what they believe and what they want to believe. This is the perfect time to promote interhouse unity!"
"Harry—"
"Let's do it," Able interrupted Hermione's question. "Let's…"
To alleviate Hermione's and Neville's uncertainties, Harry shrugged. "Look, Hermione. It'll be easy. Look at the Ravenclaw table and how Su is sitting with Michael, Terry and Mandy? You and Neville go sit with them. Able—"
"I'll find someone at Hufflepuff."
"Right," Harry said, quietly. "Sarah can come with me."
It was an unfortunate group of second years that was sitting close enough to Harry for him to rope them into his plans. But still, Ritchie, Harry and Andy didn't seem to mind being ordered to go find friends. The word was passed up and down the Gryffindor table. Mingle. Intermix. Be the good guys. Confident that his meme had penetrated much of the Gryffindor population, Harry got up from the table and headed for the Slytherin table. Sarah followed him, somewhat noticeably reluctant. He sat down across from Julius Vaisey, Selene Grant, Theodore Nott (who he remembered again), and near people he sort of recognized but didn't really know.
Selene ignored him. Julius and Theo muttered a terse greeting. Harry really, really wanted to run away. But he wouldn't do that. He couldn't do that. Set the example. Give of oneself… "I'm actually kind of glad we've got regular classes tomorrow," Harry said, picking up a roll from a platter and munching on it, trying to behave unconcerned. "I've missed DADA."
Julius smirked at Harry, but he seemed to be the only one aware of the St. Mungo's class. "It's been really good this year," Theo said, completely missing Julius's smirk. "Professor Lupin is an accomplished teacher." Theo munched thoughtfully on a bread roll. "Did he truly teach you to cast a post-NEWT level emotion-based charm?"
"Yes," Sarah said, still rather timidly. "The Patronus Charm. It's genius."
Harry disliked the expressions of astonishment, curiosity and awe. He wished they just ignore him. He did, however, take such comments in stride. The conversation lagged, giving Harry enough time to see that the Gryffindor table and been vacated, almost entirely. It was actually interesting, Harry realized. Most of the Gyffindors were approaching friends in other houses, sitting down, and starting conversations. Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws started mingling, mixing together or even approaching the Slytherins. The whole school couldn't fit on three large tables, so the mixed groups spilled over and spread out. Even Slytherins ended up at all three of the other tables. It was pretty awesome, Harry decided, to see how united the school could become when you eliminated the rivalry. Eliminating the rivalry… No! Harry snapped at himself. He had too much to handle as it was. He wouldn't even think about even thinking about trying to eliminate the House Cup and changing how Quidditch was played… Yeah. That deserved utterly no thought. Harry turned back to the people around him and dove back into the conversation.
No one noticed a slight increase in the twinkling of Albus Dumbledore's eyes. He twinkled when he was mad. This was most assuredly not supposed to happen! The charm was supposed to stick! How deluded had he been, to even consider the possibility that this would work?! Less than a day. The ignorant masses of St. Mungo's had expelled his charm in less than a day! And to cap it all off, the heart of Hogwarts refused to respond to him! It was if the castle's light had just packed up and decided to leave, right then. And Fawkes was being all temperamental again. He'd had a burning day in the past year! It should have been for another twenty years before he was this temperamental again. And… and… he was pretty sure many of his professors had starting conspiring against each him. The McGonagalls had been downright standoffish last time he spoke to Cormack and Minerva at the same time. And… and… Harry Potter, of all people, had started a mass migration among the houses. And the rest of his staff looked please about that! That was wrong! Only Snape looked even mildly concerned about his house's apparent mingling freedom.
At least, Dumbledore took comfort in the thought; they hadn't linked him to the "crime" of trying to protect the future by changing a few bits and pieces of peoples' reality. Memories were a fickle thing. Dumbledore had studied them extensively. He'd read a book once, talking about the seven sins of memory: absent-mindedness, transience, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Or some such nonsense. The author had no knowledge of memory charms or occlumency, or any of the Mind Arts, so his theories were bound to be very false, but there was merit to his philosophy. Dumbledore had tried to capture the three distortion effects – misattribution, suggestibility, and bias – in his mass memory charm, but it obviously hadn't work. He now how to figure out how to make this whole memory charm business play into his favor, but… He should order the students to return to their respective house tables. Except, if he did that, Minerva would kill him. And she wouldn't do it quickly. When had she become such a large proponent of interhouse cooperation? This was all wrong!
o.o.o.o.o.o
Tuesday morning, Harry purposefully woke himself earlier than he'd have liked. Yesterday had been exhausting. Ron had screamed at him during breakfast. Emma and Percy had a shouting match in the common room just before dinner. Every single new friend he had made during his third year had sought him out to verify that they could still be friends, no matter what the fabricated memories said. But now… Harry plodded out of the common room and wound his way through the empty hallways to one of the Transfiguration classrooms. Mena and Vince had decided it would be best if he trained one on one with Tonks, and not simply join into Tonks and Ruth's training. The auror had been slightly reluctant until Harry offered pay generously. Then she stammered and refused to take no more pay than what the Turpins were giving her (which wasn't a lot).
The young auror was buried in a textbook when he arrived at the classroom. She lay on top of three pushed together desks, her book prompted up in front of her nose as her eyes frantically scanned the text. "Aurors take tests?" Harry asked, because he'd only ever seen seventh and fifth years look as horrified as she did.
"Just the trainees," Tonks grumbled. "And just the ones who can't do a specific thing. Anyone who can cast a patronus gets out of this test; they take it, still, just to show the trainers were they are. But I bloody well can't cast a patronus so this test counts for me!"
Harry shrugged. "How much work have you put into the patronus charm?"
She looked down at him and slowly closed the textbook. "Not a lot, actually. It's hard to find time, between the actual academy and working to pay for the academy. What, does the Boy-Who-Lived have some fantastic tip to casting such a difficult charm?"
"Don't call me that," Harry snapped. "And I wouldn't know, I've never had problems casting it."
One of Tonks' bangs flipped momentarily red. She stamped down that color and changed it back to the matching forest green of the rest of her hair. "It's just a stupid charm!" She complained, frustrated. The trainee grabbed her wand and screeched expecto patronum. Nothing happened. Harry, who wasn't really sure how this training session was supposed to go, told her to calm down and focus more. That didn't help. In the hour that Tonks requested to meet with him, they didn't really work on metamorphing. Instead, Harry just stared down the much older girl and somehow managed to teach her how to cast a corporal patronus. Hers was a chameleon. She'd had a good basis for the theory of the charm, but struggled to calm down enough to actually focus on a memory. Near six-thirty, Tonks startled at the time and just started blinking very, very fast. She'd just managed to cast the patronus and it dawned on her that she was supposed to be teaching Harry, not the other way around.
He successfully used some metamorphing ability to hide embarrassment at her stammered apologizes. But, of course, she noticed that and grinned. She left the room, and Harry lost the ability to morph. Tonks popped back in, confirmed that progress, and said she had to leave. With thanks and a whirl, the odd auror trainee disappeared. Harry headed back for the common room. It was fairly full; all four of his closest friends were already up. Which wasn't abnormally, seeing as lunch started at seven-thirty. They were at a table. Neville and Able were finishing up what looked like homework and Hermione reading ahead in one of her classes. Sarah was sketching. Harry plopped down in an empty chair next to them and pulled out his current non-Tolkien (Aurora had made him promise not to read too much Tolkien in a day) novel: a very battered copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Patricia hadn't recommended it, but it was in the library and looked interesting enough… It was rather dull, in all honesty.
Patricia was already awake as well, sitting in her usual corner buried under a book. As usual. Ginny Weasley sat in the chair next to her, nose buried in a book. Not so usual. Well, no matter. If Patricia wanted to take Ginny under her wing, Harry wasn't about to complain about it. It would probably be good for both of them. Sarah handed Harry a couple pieces of artwork for him to look at. A few were of Neville's greenhouse, but most of them seemed to focus on the Great Hall while the Mind Healers were repairing people's memories. The only one with color had the red, orange and yellow scribbles that she'd started while in the Hall. The pictures were scary, but rather accurate representations of very real events. Even more drawings Sarah handed him were from the skit they were putting together. Able and Hermione had agreed to help with the stage magic, and with Harry narrating and Neville and Sarah doing the scene work, all five of them were involved in their scene for the talent show. Angelina had decided to push forward with the talent show around Halloween, so there really was only two weeks until the show.
At breakfast, the remaining third year Hufflepuff girls had joined them at the Gryffindor table with the news that Sally-Anne would be returning to Hogwarts the following day. Able left to talk with Eddie Carmichael about the Thursday "Carmichael Team" meeting, with promises to Harry that he'd relay the necessary information. Neville got drawn in as a mediator between Andy, Geo, and Ritchie and Harry Bellwood, Ogden, and Jack. Su Li joined Hermione for breakfast, and Tracey and Millicent from Slytherin joined them all. The twins stopped by briefly to heckle Harry about having so many girlfriends, but Sarah, Hermione, Megan and Millicent had endlessly poked them until they went away. That left Harry, Susan, Hannah, Tracey and Su in hysterics. That was also the breakfast that Harry learned that Su spoke Chinese. He started begging her to hold conversations with him.
Defense Against the Dark Arts was spectacular that day. Lupin had pushed all the chairs and desks away, conjured a lush carpet and instructed everyone to sit down in a circle. They had a mediated discussion about learning how to handle vulnerabilities (a raw subject) and what the students wanted to learn over the course of the year. Most of the students now had a heightened awareness of the need for Defense, and when Hermione mentioned shield charms, both Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs seemed excited about learning shielding methods. So for the rest of the class, that's what they did. Harry and Neville walked with Wayne and Megan to their Runes class, like every Tuesday in the real world. Runes was fun; Professor Babbling facilitated competition in which everyone paired off and fought to be the quickest to get a word from a certain clue. He called it a version Jeopardy! Harry didn't know what it was. He and Tracey won.
Double Transfiguration followed, and Harry had some problems with the spell they were working on. Hermione mastered it the first attempt and spent the rest of the period helping Neville and Lavender, who were struggling. Harry and Pavarti managed it before the end of the first class period, and Seamus and Dean were close. Ron just failed. Harry really didn't pay much attention to how the Slytherins were doing, except to notice that Tracey, Millicent and Theodore all seemed to be about at his pace. They took notes during the second period. During lunch, Harry ate and did homework from Defense at the same time. That meal, he ate with Katie, Alicia, Angelina, Queenie, Leann Hooch and Selene Grant. Alicia and Angelina had become Katie's constant bodyguards, as through the beginning of her training, she'd be much more susceptible to overload than before. Harry was one of six people that Angelina said would be allowed to eat with them. Katie rolled her eyes at that.
Inter-house unity and mingling was at its peak, and didn't seem to be dropping anytime soon. Had everyone not previously known, it would hard to tell which table belonged to which house, due to the nearly equal numbers from the four houses inhabiting both tables. Only Draco Malfoy, Marcus Flint, and eight other Slytherin purists remained staunchly above the mingling. But now they couldn't control the moderate and "radical" Slytherins from mixing. Selene, Tracey, Julius, Millicent, Harriett, Theodore, Blaisie, Daphne, and Gracelyn, were among those who moved about, but they were only the ones that Harry recognized. There were many, many more, of all ages.
In Charms with the Ravenclaws, Flitwick complimented Su, Harry, Hermione, Anthony, Lisa, Dean, Morag, Terry and Stephan. He let any Ravenclaw who finished, Harry, Hermione, and Dean go on to the next charm in the textbook while he worked specifically with Ron, Seamus, Pavarti, Neville and Lavender. Neville wasn't bad at charms, he just didn't cast very well. And Dean wasn't as great as Su or Harry or Hermione, but charms was probably his best subject. After Charms, the Gryffindors met with the Hufflepuffs for their Astronomy lecture. They were talking about horoscopes at present (so Pavarti and Lavender were the most attentive students in the class) and western and eastern zodiacs. It was interesting enough. After class, Hermione and Neville stayed with Harry in Aurora's classroom and did homework for a while before Harry headed for Quidditch practice.
It felt good to fly. Wood, after finally realizing that there was absolutely nothing he could teach his teammates had started them practicing cross-position drills. It was hard! Katie, Angelina and Alicia worked really well together. Oliver meshed pretty well with the girls. Fred and George could pretty much read each others' minds. Harry understood the twins' stream of thought, and so he could predict where they'd smack the bludger next. He was also pretty good at staying out of the chasers way. Oliver wanted to erase that now. Now he wanted Harry involved with both beaters and chasers. He wanted the girls to be able to throw to Fred and George and the beaters use their bats to control the Quaffle. So, for the whole practice, Oliver had Harry passing the ball around with the girls, while he threw Quaffles at Fred and George and demanded that the twins control the oddly shaped ball as well. Fred and George struggled. Quaffles and beaters' bats weren't designed to be used in tandem, but Oliver seemed confident that they'd master it.
After practice, the team hung out in the locker rooms and Fred and George taught Harry how to play pocker. They'd already taught Oliver and the girls knew. Oliver, unfortunately, somewhat stunk at the game, so he lost handily. Harry picked up on the game rapidly enough, and it came down to battles between him and Katie almost constantly. The flabbergasting twins complained that Harry had been previously corrupted. Katie just smirked. She knew. Harry even knew more than she did. Katie's empathy let her get at least a baseline reading of others, and as Harry could somewhat subconsciously use that, he piggy-backed on her powers to stay in a tight second. After forty-five minutes, an exasperated Oliver headed back for the common room. The rest of the team played for a lot longer.
o.o.o.o.o.o
Once the school settled back into its routine, life flew by. Core classes, three electives, homework, Quidditch, the play, metamorphmagus training with Tonks, spending time with a multitude of friends, talking with Aurora, checking in with Professor McGonagall, language tutoring from Professor Babbling, emotion-magic tutoring from Flitwick, and somehow finding time to sleep made school start to fly by. Harry Bellwood and Harry Bailey approached him with an idea for the Gryffindor talent show and he readily agreed. Word of the talent show had leaked to the whole school and many students were demanding that it take place in the Great Hall or the auditorium so they got to see the acts as well. Hufflepuff even began planning their own talent show, but Ravenclaw stuck with just their Intelligence Bowls.
Speaking of that, Thursday found Harry and Able meeting with Eddie and Nora Carmichael in a back corner of the library. They were joined by Slytherin fourth year Persephone Grant. Seriously. Harry mentally slapped himself again and again. Seriously. He would have to ask what was up with all the twins! Selene and Persephone. Nora and Eddie. Kenneth and Kaitlin. Fred and George. Pavarti and Padma. Artemis and Pallas. There were just far too many twins. And so Harry asked. Nora said that it was because twins were a blessing, that twins were magical. Persephone pointed out that there were two sets of triplets: Io, Iris and Icarus Crane (7th years, Hufflepuffs and a Ravenclaw) and Harry (yet another one), Abigail and Natasha Meyers (1st year Ravenclaws). He was also missing Temperance and Chastity Regan as twins. When he'd learned Chastity's name to please Kenneth, he'd assumed they were like the Robbins sisters… And Vanity and Clarity Engleston, and Ian and Grace Finch-Fletchley (all four of them were Hufflepuff 1st years). That brought the total count to nine sets of twins and two sets of triplets. Harry did the really quick math in his head. Approximately twelve percent of the school was a part of some a twin-dom or a triplet-dom. It was weird!
Harry's ranting about the twin population of Hogwarts somehow gave Nora the idea for their team name: What's HAP'ENing? The rest of the team didn't really get it, but they went along with it anyway.
Harry had learned that if a scary girl wanted something... scary girl got it.