Chapter 6
It had been nearly two weeks since Harry had been released from the magical binds that had been placed on him. Life for him at Hogwarts was already beginning to slowly take a turn for the better again.
Harry's grades, which had suffered a nearly crippling blow, were starting to climb back up, even if rather slowly. It would be likely near the end of the year before they were even close to where they should have been.
More importantly, Harry was meeting up with his friends again. They had been informed by Hermione that their suspicions about Harry's mind being messed with were correct. Though they had to stay under the radar for now, they had already had a few small secret meetings, organized by Hermione.
After finding out Harry was bound magically to compete in the Triwizard Tournament, much to Luna's and Night's great dislike, they had set about finding out as much as they could, and worked on making a new plan to make it through the year, since Luna's old plan to grab and go was now destroyed. As such they came up with a new plan that would cover them till the end of the year, and later lead to everyone's return to Equestria.
The plan itself was simple enough: have Harry slowly return to his old life meeting up with his friends, first in secret then more in the open. If the person who had attacked him was still around and saw this as a problem, they would most likely reveal themselves and try to reapply the magical binds. If this did happen, then Night, Twilight, and Luna who were guarding Harry using invisibility spells could help him fight off the attacker. If they did not make a move, then they could instead keep their main efforts focused on passing the tournament, then getting back home safely.
There were a few small problems with this plan that the other ponies did not like. One of which was Applejack and Rainbow Dash having nothing to do most of the day while the others were away, leaving them bored. And as winter was rapidly showing signs of coming soon, they would be forced to hide somewhere in the school for warmth, which would increase the risk of the group of ponies being found out. Night and Luna knew some places they could stay in the castle, they would just have to find food for them.
The second problem, though this was something they were now working on, was Twilight's skills in combat magic being rather weak at best. Her reasons for this were mostly twofold. One, most ponies did not learn battle magic to begin with, unless they were either expecting an attack, or planning on causing trouble. Or if they were planning on becoming part of the Royal Guard that guarded the Princesses. As Twilight did not fall into any of these groups, her lack of skills in this subject was not really surprising.
Harry thoughts drifted away from this, as he sat down and filled his plate with food. But as he began to eat it, he noticed that Draco Malfoy was making his way over to him again. That meant that Draco's red-headed competitor for Harry's friendship probably wouldn't be long behind. Harry sighed and thought back over his time under the magical binds' influence; this looked like it would be the fifth or sixth time they bugged him, one followed always by the other.
Harry shook his head. His time under the effects of the magical bind had left those days still rather blurred and hard to fully recall. Night reasoned this was because, with the bind on his mind already in place, his mind could not fully form the memories. To be honest, even Night and Luna did not fully understand what was done. At the very least the binds had messed with his memories of his friends, and his own magical skills. But the amount of binds suggested something far worse, though they were still unsure what they all did.
"Well Potter, it seems you're making mistakes again," Draco said, stopping right in front of Harry.
Strangely enough, he noticed Ron sit down further down the table, seemingly without interest in the wondered slightly if Ron had learned his lesson after being blasted last time. Looking at Draco, Harry could only shake his head, asking, "What mistakes are you talking about?"
"You're once again trying to hang out with all that filth," Draco said.
"Filth? The only filth I see is right in front of me," Harry said, looking rather pointedly at Draco.
Draco gained a rather indignant look, his voice rising a little in anger, "I am not filth, I, am a pure-blood wizard, the Elite of the Wizarding World."
"To me your are nothing more than filth, now leave me alone, before I decide to make this a repeat of last time you tried to convince me you were the best friend for me," Harry said, holding up his hand, as it gained a slight reddish glow.
Hermione, who entered the Great Hall at this time, was greeted by the sight of Draco staring down Harry, whose hand was glowing a dull red. She watched Draco slowly turn and walk back to the Slytherin table. Hermione walked over to Harry and sat down, deciding not to bug him as he poked at his food with an annoyed expressing o his face.
"He is so very annoying," Harry finally said, after he ate some food and began calming down.
"Draco," Hermione stated.
"Yeah. He seems to think that, since I am joining up with you as friends again, he can save me from making a bad choice," Harry said, showing his frustration as he stabbed an orange with his fork rather than picking it up and adding it to his plate.
"Well he does not know why you left your friends," Hermione said, before eating some more.
"Yes. Though that reason has put a lot of strain on some of my friendships," Harry said, his eyes showing a slight bit of hurt.
"Who," Hermione asked, looking at Harry closely.
"Mostly the new friends I had been making last year. But Melody Myrtle, who Night requested I find since her own skills cannot locate ghosts, has been impossible to find. The reason for the request was because Luna and Night were her closest friends. Though I knew her and was a friend with her as well." Harry explained.
"Melody," Hermione said, speaking mostly to herself.
When Hermione thought about it she had not seen much of the female student ghost, even when Night was still living in the school. But this was, as Harry pointed out, because Melody would only hang out with the two ponies. But now, when Hermione carefully looked over this year she realized she had not seen the ghost anywhere. Not even in the bathroom that she was normally seen living in, which was odd as Melody was known to frequent the halls often to see what was going on around the school.
"I have not seen her at all this year either, now that I think about it." Hermione said thoughtfully.
"I hope she is okay," Harry said, before getting up.
"Where are you going? Class does not start for another hour today," Hermione asked.
"I have a few ponies to talk to, about a missing ghost," Harry said, before leaving the Great Hall.
Hermione nodded at this and went back to eating her breakfast as she thought more on this matter. She was guessing Harry had most likely thought that Melody like him was attacked. This made her wonder for a few minutes on what could be done to a ghost, before her own line of thinking was badly derailed. Could this mean she had been affected as well? For that matter, how would she have been affected? Was it simple compulsion charms or even something as bad as the magical binds that had been placed on Harry? Hermione at once got up and took off running after Harry.
Hermione found him just outside the main door, picking up speed. As she neared him she saw Night appear a few feet away. But she yelled out to catch their attention, so they would not fly, or teleport away to another location, at least not before Hermione had a chance to talk with Harry first. Thankfully Night and Harry both heard her and waited till she was by them.
"Well Hermione, what is wrong?" Night asked, noticing the slightly worried look Hermione had gained.
"Well, I had a thought about why none of the teachers were willing to take our suspicions seriously," Hermione said.
"Okay, you got my attention," Night said.
"Well, it came to me when I thought about what if the person who attacked Harry also went through other measures to make sure he never got his memories back. As such he would have likely put spells and charms on other people as well. To those that were not a risk of actually breaking the seals, they might have done some simple charm, or if they were being really careful they might have done magical seals for other people as well," Hermione explained.
"You do have a good point; it would explain why my stuffed animal body was removed, while Luna's was left behind, because I had a chance of breaking the binds on Harry. Even if those chances were rather slim at best," Night said thoughtfully.
"That, and they might have also put small binds on us as well. Though I am not fully sure on this," Hermione said.
"You think a magical bind might have been placed on you," Night stated thoughtfully.
"Possibly, it's hard to tell for sure without someone checking. But we have a bigger problem first," Hermione said, before gesturing to Harry.
Harry blinked for a second confused, before remembering the reason why he had come out here in the first place. He quickly explained the lack of anyone of them meeting up with Melody at all, over the last few days. Night listened carefully to this information. Then after Harry finished she remained quiet, a thoughtful expression on her face. Night, like Harry, knew that searching for a ghost was going to be beyond anything they had ever done before, and Night was pretty sure that any summoning spell they knew had a good chance of failing. Though that did not mean they would not try them anyway.
After about four minutes of thought, Night spoke, "Go about your day as you normally would. In the meantime, Luna and I will set about trying to figure out anyone that might have been affected, by a spell. Then from there we will start working on bringing those final things back around to normal. If we can."
"What about Melody?" Harry asked.
"We… we cannot do anything for her at this time. At least, not till we force your attacker, or whoever put these spells on you, out into the open and force him to reveal all he has done," Night said.
"Who do you think it is?" Hermione asked.
"Could be anyone, honestly. This could be caused by Dumbledore himself, and be some mad plan he came up with. Or it could be caused by the new teacher. It could even be a foreign plot, or an attack from Voldemort trying to get you killed during this Tournament," Night explained.
"That does leave a lot of possibilities open," Hermione said.
"Yes, now be off to class, I will have Rainbow bring Twilight down from the mountain so they can keep a watch on you today," Night said as she spread her wings.
"Okay, but if you can bring Applejack down as well, she has been stuck up there for a while now, and she would like to stretch her legs," Harry said.
"Will do," Night said, before bidding them both goodbye. She soon was on her way back up towards the mountain.
It was almost a week later, when they finally were able to check out all of Harry's friends to see if any had magical blocks placed on them. To everyone's great relief, no one had any blocks on them, but there were several spells and charms on the clothes they were wearing. These spells and charms were easy enough to remove, though Luna and Night tried to leave the spells that were used to keep the clothes in good shape. At this time, many of Harry's friends were informed about why Luna had disappeared. This was twofold, one reason was because they were seeing Luna and Night in their real bodies, the second being they were also meeting the other ponies.
Much to Harry's and Hermione's dislike, Night and Luna both requested a few things be kept quiet. Mostly plans they actually had going to catch whoever was after them. They also asked that till the last few moments of this year, they also refrain from telling anyone about the planned return trip. Hermione personally thought this was too much, but she was not about to disagree seeing as how far this person was willing to go to control Harry.
Unfortunately, hanging over all their heads was another slightly bigger problem. As in not three weeks time from then, was the first challenge of the Triwizard Tournament. There was only one big problem with this, none of them knew what the next task held for Harry yet, nor had he had a chance to practice. All in all it was going to be an interesting next few weeks.