Saturday evening after dinner, Harry once again made his way toward the Headmaster's office. Because Harry had not yet managed to entice Slughorn into giving him the undoctored memory, he had thought of some other topics to discuss, including telling Ginny about the diary.

Harry made his way up the twisting staircase in the Headmaster's Tower. He knocked and opened the door.

The Headmaster looked up from whatever he was studying and smiled. "Ah, good evening, Harry. Have a seat."

"Good evening, sir, I hope you're well?" Harry said as he sat down in the chair.

"Oh, as well as can be, I expect," Dumbledore said, waving his blackened hand. "Now, Professor McGonagall has informed me that she enjoyed giving a guest lecture for Hermione's Army," he paused for a moment. "I must applaud you on your choice for a new name, but I wonder. The name suggests a more political approach…?" He trailed off and looked at Harry inquisitively.

Harry nodded. "Someone did say they were afraid the name suggests that all members agree with 'a muggleborns political agenda'," he said, making air quotes with his fingers, "which did give me the idea of inviting both Kreacher and Dobby to a meeting at one point. Most members will not have met a free elf before, of a house-elf at all, but I don't think it is the right place to do that."

Dumbledore made a contemplative noise. "Alas, to my regret, the Ministry of Magic has never been quite on board with the idea of a course on political discourse. I'm sure you have realized that many magical beings are quite steadfast in their beliefs."

Harry thought back to Ron, and some of the more overt prejudices he had displayed. Even Hagrid, who Harry knew had had his own struggles with prejudice, had told Harry that all dark wizards came from Slytherin. He nodded and Dumbledore continued.

"They are steadfast because their ideas aren't often challenged, and," he said with a deep sigh, "after my many years on this earth, I must conclude that there are people out there that only think about what's good for them. They choose what is easy, while we try to do what is right."

Harry didn't say anything. He had always seen Dumbledore as a beacon of positivity but maybe his views on the magical community weren't actually that rose-coloured.

"On to the topic at hand," Dumbledore said after a small silence. "How is the progress with Horace, Harry?"

"Well, he seems to quite like me. He has invited me to his Slug Club. I accepted." Harry had indeed graciously accepted the invitation to the first Slugclub dinner of the year, even if he absolutely hated the idea. The means to an end, and all that. Slughorn had also planned it on a Thursday, which was one of the only days that Harry's evening was always free. Well, not really free, of course, because he still had mountains of homework to complete.

"The world will appreciate the sacrifices you make, Harry," Dumbledore said, his moustache twitching in amusement. Harry grinned back at him. Then he turned serious.

"I'm not sure whether you know, professor, but I won a small batch of Felix Felicis in Slughorn's first class. I've been wondering whether I should use it for this task," Harry admitted.

"Have you indeed?" Dumbledore stroked his beard. "Well, maybe as a last resort. But I suggest you keep it for later use, you never know what future event might warrant the use of such a powerful potion."

"Yeah, that's what I thought, especially considering there should be another way to get the memory. By flattery, I mean," Harry clarified.

"It has come to my attention that you are doing more than just accepting dinner invitations to get into Horace's good graces," Dumbledore then said. When Harry looked confused, he continued. "Have you not asked Horace for help in brewing a certain potion?"

Harry shouldn't be surprised, but he was nonetheless. "I know it's useless to ask, but how do you know? I took Slughorn as someone that could keep a secret if asked to."

"Oh, I whole-heartedly agree. Being Headmaster though, there's almost nothing in this castle that goes unnoticed. Whether it is the portraits, the elves, or the ghosts, I have eyes everywhere," the Headmaster said.

Harry didn't know quite what to think of that. He then thought of something.

"Sir? You used to be a transfiguration professor, correct? Are you an Animagus?" he asked, genuinely curious what the answer was.

"Ah! Well, I must confess that I am not. But by choice, not by lack of skill, if I may humbly say so."

"Do you know what animal you would be?" Harry asked, hoping it wasn't too personal to ask.

"I do not," the Headmaster said with a twinkle in his eye, "You see, I'd be terribly disappointed if I had to always be the same animal. I prefer this way, where I can change the animal I think I'd be every day. That way allows for much more freedom."

Harry shook his head and chuckled.

Dumbledore turned serious again. "I invited you here just to ask about the progress with Professor Slughorn. I don't have any news to share myself, so, unless you have something to discuss, I think we can call it a night."

"Oh, I do have something I'd like to discuss. Multiple things, actually."

"Do go on, my boy, don't think I wanted to chase you away, I just rather thought you had more enjoyable things to do this evening than speak with an old man," the Headmaster said.

Harry laughed at that, "Don't worry, sir, otherwise I would have been doing homework with Ron. I prefer this, to be honest. Especially," he said slowly, letting Dumbledore know that he wanted to say something serious, "because I would like Ron to join these meetings. He already knows everything, right? So, there is no real reason to exclude him."

Dumbledore nodded. "I see no problem with that. Actually," Dumbledore said, lifting his wand and waving it toward a door, "I stumbled across this book in my personal library last week that I think Mr Weasley would find interesting." The door had opened and through it, a book came floating toward Harry. He plucked it out of mid-air.

It was an older book, entitled: "Chess Lessons". Harry wanted to scoff. Like Ron needed lessons in Chess! Then he looked closer. The subtitle read "Lessons we can learn from Chess", which made more sense to Harry.

"The book is quite old, and muggle, but the author makes some interesting points about applying Chess strategies to real life," Dumbledore explained.

"Wow! Thank you, Professor, I'm sure Ron will enjoy reading it!" Harry said enthusiastically. "That reminds me, I read the book you gave me, The Tales of Beedle the Bard?"

Harry had indeed read the book, he had to do something while lying in bed, not being able to sleep.

"And did you like the stories?" the Headmaster asked politely.

"They were fine, sir. That one story though, The Tale of The Three Brothers?" Dumbledore nodded. "I was thinking, if the three items were real, it would precisely be the sort of objects Voldemort would have wanted to use for Horcruxes, right? You seemed to be very interested in them, going by the number of notes you wrote in the margins."

"If the Deathly Hallows were indeed real, I imagine that Lord Voldemort would be interested, to say the least. However, considering his background, I'm not sure whether he knows the story. And it is true, the Tale is one of my favourite stories from the collection."

Harry sighed, "So that's not a lead on a Horcrux, then? The Deathly Hallows aren't real?"

Dumbledore looked out the window. "I think we should concentrate for now on the memory, Harry. That way we can have a firmer grasp on the number of Horcruxes we're dealing with. If it turns out there are more than I anticipate we can come back to the Deathly Hallows."

This didn't completely add up to Harry. Had the book been only the gift that Dumbledore had said it had been? Surely there was more to it? He decided to think about it some more.

"Remember what I told you about Ginny during our last meeting?" Harry said, changing topics. "Well, the subject came up and she thoroughly chewed me out for deciding for her. She wants to at least be told enough to make a decision."

"It that is her wish, we should honour it," Dumbledore said. "Remember Harry, we should keep this information as secret as possible. I'm sure both Mr and Miss Weasley are trustworthy, but I would suggest not including any others."

Harry nodded, he understood that.

The Headmaster continued, "For the sake of my limited time, I suggest we inform both Mr and Miss Weasley of what we know at the same time. I also rather think it'd be a good idea to have someone Miss Weasley feels very safe with, like Mr Weasley. I imagine the knowledge of what the Diary actually was, will come as a shock to her."

Considering it had come as shock to Harry, he could imagine that Ginny would freak out.

"I'll let you three know when our next meeting is per the usual way, Harry," Dumbledore concluded.

Harry nodded. "There was one last thing I was wondering about, sir. As you know, Professor McGonagall gave a lecture on using transfiguration in duels and it reminded me of how you animated that statue in the Ministry of Magic. What spell was that?"

"Why do you ask, Harry?"

"I mean, it seems like a very useful spell, right?"

Dumbledore stalled by getting a sherbet lemon, offering Harry one as well. He looked thoughtful as he sucked on the sweet.

"It is indeed a very useful spell," the Headmaster began eventually, "but one, I think is out of your league for now."

"Oh?" Harry said, raising an eyebrow. He had not expected this answer.

"Please do not take this the wrong way, Harry. You are a very gifted Wizard. There are very few witches and wizards that could manage a Patronus Charm when they're only 13, let alone defend themselves against the number of Dementors that you did. No, the issue would be primarily with the Magical Theory behind a spell like this or its equivalents. Am I wrong in saying that you do not have an interest in Magical Theory?"

"Well, no, not really," Harry admitted, "I'm more of a practical learner, I guess"

The Headmaster nodded. "And there is nothing wrong with that. I know you are probably wondering whether you can defeat Voldemort without the use of spells like these?"

Harry grimaced. He had been thinking along those lines. If he had to defeat Voldemort, it would take some serious spell work.

"Remember though, Harry, that the prophecy makes mention of 'the power he knows not' specifically."

"I need to kill him with love?" Harry said sarcastically.

Dumbledore shot him an unimpressed look. "I only mean to say, there are other avenues than power and skill with a wand. I do not want to discourage you from the path you have chosen, I applaud the way you are taking your studies and training seriously. As there will probably be many more foes to defeat before you meet Voldemort for the last time, you'll need all the practise you can have. But there is more than just spells and power."

-In Her Memory-

The second week of October flew by. They had now been at Hogwarts for six weeks and Harry really began noticing some changes.

First of all, with all the training he and his dorm mates were doing, he had begun noticing some small changes in his body. Seamus didn't always join but Dean and Ron did, Ron rather more reluctantly than Dean. Harry assumed that Ron would not have bothered if Harry hadn't either.

With Ron now being included in the meetings with Dumbledore, the only two times that Harry and Ron weren't together were when Harry had his detentions on Sunday evenings and when Ron had to do Prefect duties. Harry suspected that Parvati was doing most of their duties, however. He imagined Ron didn't really see the point. The detentions for Snape would finish in three weeks. Harry wondered if he would ever start feeling annoyed with Ron's constant presence.

The first three weeks of Harry's October mainly centred around Slughorn. The second week of October, Ron and Harry had spent their Saturday morning in Slughorn's private brewing room. With help from the Potions professor, they had managed to successfully brew the Animagus potion. They had stored the potions in a special potions-storage container Slughorn had lent them. The potion needed to be stored in a dark, and slightly cold environment, and the potion-storage container was designed to be charmed to duplicate a potion's perfect storage environment. They now had to wait until the next thunderstorm, after which the potion would be ready. Until then they had to place their wands against their hearts every sunrise and sunset and say: "Amato Animo Animato Animagus". According to their books, this incantation prepared their "being", whatever that meant, for making a connection with an animal.

The third Thursday of October, was when the first dinner of the so-called 'Slug Club' took place. It was mostly a repeat of the lunch on the train, only with a shift in attendees. Neville hadn't been invited back, something he had said he didn't mind at all. There had been more people this time, maybe because the chambers Slughorn used could fit more people than the train compartment could. Most attendees Harry did not know. Ginny was there. McLaggen was also but they hadn't talked ever since their dispute over Quidditch.

Ginny, of course, knew many people that had attended, even if she didn't talk with all of them. Harry had noticed a pair of Slytherin girls, of which one seemed keen to not look at him or Ginny. Her sister had been observing everybody quietly and equally.

Slughorn had been very busy discouraging any discussion about the war. Harry thought this was quite stupid. How could the man expect that they wouldn't talk about it? Disappearances, Dark Marks in the skies, Dementors on the loose, the Daily Prophet's headlines were almost the same every day. It hadn't yet become a daily occurrence, but students enjoying breakfast were now no longer surprised if someone burst out in tears after getting their post. Hannah Abbot had been taken out of Herbology last week to be told her mother had been found dead. Ginny had informed them that someone named Eloise Midgeon had been pulled from Hogwarts by her parents.

It wasn't surprising therefore that the Ministry of Magic were keen to be seen doing something. But Harry was quite sure that arresting people like Stan Shunspike was not the way to go about it.

The news also had increased interest in Hermione's Army. After Professor McGonagall's guest lecture, there had been a small increase in membership, as people had talked about her lecture to their friends. Where they had started the year with 30 members, there was now a changing cast of about 45 people. Not everyone came every week, which Harry thought was unfortunate. There was nothing they could do about it though. Luckily, the hardcore part of the HA, mostly the old members of the DA, were there every night. They often helped teach the younger students basic skills like shields and disarming charms.

Harry was glad that more people were taking the war seriously, but he was also afraid that the meetings would grow too large. He liked being able to walk around and help people understand how duels in real life worked. Some people had begun showing up only for the classes on Healing Magic. Sadly, St. Mungo's had been unable to spare people so Madam Pomfrey was on her own. She did her best, but often she had to cancel last-minute because of a spell- or potion mishap that happened that day.

Friday afternoon saw Harry, Ron and Neville doing their homework in one of the abandoned classrooms. Over time Neville had begun joining them more often. He hadn't said it out loud but Harry supposed that he also had plans to take his studies more seriously this year. Ginny had always taken her studies seriously enough, and Luna was Luna, but Harry wasn't surprised that all survivors of his stupid mistake had taken to studying harder.

Not everything with his group of friends was going great, however. Ron was still complaining about painful muscles, even taking a break from training with Neville had not helped, and he still had trouble sleeping. What didn't help was the whole Lavender situation.

Harry had gotten a response from Fleur, who had written that Harry should not do anything, just be there for "his friend". Fleur had drawn a smiling, winking face with that. Clearly, Harry hadn't been circumspect enough for her not to realize he was talking about Ron. Either that, or she had thought Harry was talking about himself. Either way, he wrote her back, thanking her for her advice.

But Lavender was becoming more drastic in her approach toward Ron, and Ron either did not notice, or he was ignoring her. Harry supposed it was the former, as that would explain further why Ron's mood was so bad.

Ginny wasn't mad with him anymore, so that was good. It only took him apologizing and telling her that she'd be welcome to come to his next meeting with Dumbledore.

He had been carefully keeping a close eye on Luna, because he had noticed the girl had been even more distracted than usual lately. He didn't see any signs that she was getting bullied again but he wanted to be sure. He had begun using the Marauders Map to keep an eye on his friends somewhat and he had noticed Luna often roamed the castle alone, seemingly not going anywhere. Maybe she was talking to the portraits again.

Harry dotted the last sentence he wrote and read through the concluding paragraph he had just written. They were now NEWT students, of course, and he had begun noticing it. The difficulty of his course work had increased steeply, especially on the theoretical side. Usually, his Charms and Transfiguration work was about equal, but now he and Ron were studying extra transfiguration he noticed that transfiguration was getting a bit easier, relatively speaking. In Transfiguration they were currently prepping human-transfiguration, like changing hair colour for starters. Like Remus had said this neatly overlapped with their Animagus studies.

Having finished his Transfiguration homework for next week, he put his quill down and sighed deeply, sinking lower down in his chair.

Neville looked up from his Herbology work and smirked at Harry. "Tired, mate?" Ron looked up as well.

Harry yawned, "Yeah, finally done with transfiguration! How are you coming on?" They usually divided tasks among each other. They still did the research they needed, but this way they could ask each other if they didn't understand something.

Neville laughed. "You know I'm doing great when I'm doing Herbology," he said. Ron stretched in his chair, "Almost done with Charms. Should we just go on with Potions, then?" he said.

Harry sighed. He knew they should but after seven weeks of being a good boy, he was getting the urge to just mess around for a while. Luckily he was saved from this industrious version of Ron, by the door opening and Luna walking in.

Harry frowned. Luna looked distinctly wind-swept, which indicated she had been outside, but she wasn't wearing shoes or socks nor a jacket.

"Are you all right, Luna?" Neville asked, clearly having spotted the same.

"Oh, I am, thank you for asking, Neville. But this poor guy isn't, I think!" She held out her hand, and Harry was surprised to see a small snake.

Ron, Harry and Neville shared a glance. Luna didn't notice and continued.

"I think one of the Thestrals stepped on him! I found him at the Thestral Nest in any case, do you think you can help, Harry?" She looked at him with her great, big eyes.

"What makes you think I can help? You're better off with Hagrid, right?" Harry said. Ron nodded.

"Well, of course," Luna said, "Don't you think I wouldn't be here if I hadn't thought of that? But you can ask him what's wrong!" Luna clearly thought her idea was brilliant. Harry was still trying to decipher her sentence: he wasn't sure it made sense.

Luna came closer and held the snake up to him. "Ask him what's wrong, Harry, please?" she said.

"Okay," he said, clearing his throat. He felt kind of put on the spot, being asked to speak Parseltongue like this.

He looked at the snake, which wasn't moving very much at all. Harry wondered if the snake would even answer him. He looked closely and began speaking.

"Hello, how are you?" he hissed. Ron and Neville both moved, clearly feeling a bit at unease with the Parseltongue. Harry supposed it probably didn't sound very nice, but he couldn't hear what it sounded like. He just heard English.

The snake uncoiled itself very slowly and looked at Harry. "A speaker," the snake hissed softly. "Where are we, speaker?"

"We're in a Hogwarts classroom. My friend Luna brought you into the castle because she thinks you're hurt. Are you?"

The snake turned around and slowly coiled itself around Luna's wrist. "Hurt? No," it said softly, "just cold" It coiled itself on Luna's wrist for a second time.

"Uh, Harry, why is it doing that?" Neville asked, watching the snake carefully. Ron also had his wand in hand, ready to strike if the snake started squeezing.

"It isn't hurt, Luna, it's just cold," he said reassuringly.

"Oh, of course!" Luna said, with a smile. With her free hand, she dug through her bag and pulled out a violently purple beanie. She took her wand in her hand, looked at it and cocked her hand. "Can you cast with your other hand?" she mumbled to herself, before shrugging and trying to cast a warming charm on the beanie. Then she pouted and held the beanie out to Ron.

"Warming charm, please?" she asked, her eyes still on the snake. Apparently, Luna couldn't cast a warming charm with her non-wand arm. Harry made a mental note to check whether he could cast with his left hand.

Ron acquiesced. Luna looked at Harry and asked: "Could you tell him to let me go so I can put him somewhere warm?" Harry did so. As Luna lowered the snake into the warm beanie, Harry could hear the snake say, "Aah, that's nice". He laughed, making the others looking at him funny.

Luna sat down in a chair, holding the beanie with the snake in her arms and looked at it almost adoringly.

"Luna?" Neville asked after a moment, "Where are your shoes?"

"Did the Wrackspurts take them again?" Harry asked. He was afraid that he had somehow missed her being bullied again.

Luna looked up at them. "No, the Wrackspurts have been leaving me alone this year. I just felt like it was a good day to feel the grass on my feet you know?" she said dreamily, before looking back at the snake again.

"Aren't your feet cold?"

"Yes, they are. Can you warm them up, please?" and without warning, she plopped her feet into Harry's lap.

Ron and Neville both burst out laughing at the expression on Harry's face. Harry just pulled his wand and cast a warm air charm, slowly warming up Luna's feet until she pulled them back again.

They slowly got back to their homework again, Luna keeping them company. The snake made hissing noises that to Harry sounded almost like purring.

Twenty minutes later or so, Harry was distracted by the snake speaking to him.

"Speaker, what is the Fea-Human saying?"

Harry looked over at Luna, who was softly hissing at the snake in different ways. Harry could understand the Snake's mistake. Luna did have an ethereal look to her with her pale skin, blonde hair and those blue-grey eyes.

"Luna, what are you doing?" he asked, making Ron and Neville look up.

"I'm trying to speak with my new friend! But I don't think I'm getting it right," she said with a great smile.

"You do know that you can't learn Parseltongue, right?" Neville said with a raised eyebrow.

Luna looked at him with big eyes, her head cocked to the right. "Why not?"

"Isn't it just descendants from Slytherin that can speak it?" Ron asked, looking at Harry, who shrugged. He didn't feel the need to explain to Luna or Neville why he could speak it.

"But," Luna said, looking at the ceiling in thought, "is it any different than Mermish? Or Gobbledegook? Or Troll? You can learn those languages, so why wouldn't you be able to learn Parseltongue?"

The three boys looked at each other. But before they could say something, Luna continued, but mostly to herself. "I guess that humans don't just speak Troll, like how Harry Potter just speaks Parseltongue," she said. She turned to him. "You didn't study Parseltongue when you were younger, Harry?"

Harry chuckled. "No, I most certainly did not." Luna turned a quarter in her chair, so she was now facing Harry. She looked at him expectantly. "How do you say 'hello' in Parseltongue?"

Harry blinked and said: "Hello?"

There was a moment of silence before Ron and Neville burst out laughing. Harry grinned self-consciously. "English, I take it?"

Luna nodded. "I already know English she said seriously, or rather Harry thought she was serious. It was always hard to tell with her.

"Okay, let me try again." This time he looked at the snake intently before trying. "Hello," he hissed. The snake looked up and seemed puzzled. "Greetings?" it hissed back.

"Can you do it once again?" Luna asked, closing her eyes.

"Sure, hello," Harry obliged.

Luna hissed, "no, wait," she said and tried again, and again but nothing happened. "Okay, maybe it is not quite the same as Troll or Goobledegook…" she said trailing off and sounding a bit sad. Then she brightened up. "That means it's a research project!" she said happily, standing up, carrying the snake in the hat like on her arm like it was a baby.

"Thank you, Harry!" she said, walking out of the door. Probably going to the library, Harry guessed.

"Did she… did she take the snake with her?" Ron asked, sounding nonplussed.

A high-pitched scream of fright from outside confirmed to them that she had indeed. They laughed, shook their heads and went back to their homework.

- In Her Memory -

The next day was a Hogsmeade Saturday and it brought forth two events that had the Hogwarts rumour mill working overtime for the next couple of weeks.

The first was the cursing of Katie Bell. According to her friend Leanne, she had gone to the lavatory in the Three Broomsticks before returning with a package. On the way back to Hogwarts they had gotten into a scuffle over the package, as Leanne did not trust the situation. During the scuffle, the wrapping paper had slipped and Katie had touched the cursed necklace through a small hole in her glove. She was currently in St. Mungo's, and it was only luck that Hagrid had been nearby. He had picked her up and brought her to the castle, as fast as he could. Which was considerable, considering the amount of ground he could cover with a single step.

Katie's near-death experience did mean that she would be hospitalized for months, so Harry would be forced to play a chaser from the reserve team in their first match against Slytherin. Luckily, they still had three weeks to work out all the kinks in their play. The real question for Harry was to decide whether Dean, Sarah, or James would take over Katie's starting position. They all had their strengths and weakness, so Harry had planned to sit down with Ginny and Demelza to figure out who would be the best fit.

The other event that had sent the Hogwarts rumour mill into overdrive, was of a more joyous nature. To Harry and Ron's great surprise, but not to Ginny's, Luna and Lily had gone on a date together. Harry assumed that partly explained why both of them had seemed distracted at some of the HA meetings. Harry had had no idea that Luna was gay, but when he said so to Ginny, she laughed at him.

"Do you honestly think Luna cares about something 'so superficial' as what someone looks like or has between their legs?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. The blunt way she said it had made Harry snort his pumpkin juice out of his nose, especially because she was clearly quoting a conversation she had had with Luna.

The week after the Hogsmeade weekend, the first evacuation drill of the year happened. The evacuation goals were their respective common rooms. Apparently, these were the most secure places in the castle. Not only because of the password protection, and semi-hidden locations, but also because the walls surrounding had layers upon layers of protective wards, charms and other sorts of spells. To facilitate safe passage toward the common rooms, Dumbledore, with help from Flitwick, had re-established some ancient shortcuts. These shortcuts had been dormant since the last war, and the House Elves and Filch had spent days cleaning them. Those students hoping they could use the emergency shortcuts in such emergencies as being late for Transfiguration or Potions had been disappointed. The entrances only appeared when the Headmaster started the emergency protocol.

That Friday, during the HA meeting, Luna came to him and told him that she had gotten a special exemption from the Headmaster and her Head of House, Flitwick, to keep the Snake in a specially made terrarium in Ravenclaw Tower. This was because she had managed to convince Professor Babbling of Ancient Runes to grant her the opportunity to try to transcribe Parseltongue. Her research had concluded that speaking Parseltongue was an innate skill, but that it was likely possible to create a written language to represent the spoken one. Professor Babbling had said that there had been rumours for centuries that there was a Parsel Runic Alphabet, but because the use of the language was so limited and looked down upon, there was no hard proof of it.

In order to complete her project, Luna told Harry that she needed his help eventually. However, before she got that far, there were a lot of hurdles to overcome. She needed to find a way to create a Quill that would transcribe the users' speech not in words but into sounds, using something called a phonetic alphabet. Her father had a lot of Quick-Quotes Quills around the house, so her initial plan was to try to update the existing versions. She also had plans for afterwards. Having made the Rune Alphabet she would then proceed to try to create a dictionary and create something that could say the word out loud in Parseltongue. That way even non-Parseltongue speakers could communicate with snakes. She was probably going to try to use a Howler as a basis, as she said she had much experience with writing and using a Howler, which puzzled Harry. He couldn't see Luna send anyone a Howler.

Harry thought this whole idea was probably a bit overly ambitious, but he saw no reason to tell Luna so.

The rest of October passed by relatively quietly, as far as that was possible at Hogwarts. Thursday was Halloween, and for the second year in a row, nothing bad happened to Harry. He was glad that he could enjoy Halloween for a change, joking to Ron that everything else was messed up enough that Halloween didn't have to try.

The start of November saw Flitwick give his guest lecture to the HA on the first Friday of the month.

Where Professor McGonagall had talked to the HA about using Transfiguration in defensive and offensive manners, Flitwick spoke about the creative use of known spells. To show what he meant he had called upon Harry to perform a mock duel and had promptly summoned Harry's glasses off his face. With Harry's eyesight being as bad as it was, this left him almost defenceless.

But Flitwick had more tricks up his sleeve. He talked about a whole scope of duelling tactics like minimizing casting time by trying to minimize wand movement. He showed an example by Disarming Harry nonverbally but seemingly without moving his wand. He got the laughs on his hand by demonstrating the difference between his efficient casting, and a very flamboyant and exaggerated way of casting that Harry took to be a spoof of the way Lockhart had done it in their second year duelling club.

As with the McGonagall guess lesson, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Also, due to that feedback following McGonagall's lesson, Flitwick's guest lesson had the second-highest turnout, after the first session that year.

This was fun, because, after eight weeks or so, their Friday sessions had organically moved to become sort of an end-of-the-week party after they finished up with their session. People often stayed around for an hour, sometimes longer, just talking with each other, joking around. Harry often called on Dobby to supply the group with butterbeer. Dobby in turn often asked Kreacher for help, as the younger Elf felt it be good for Kreacher to have more contact with Harry. The first time Kreacher had popped into the Room, he had promptly ignored Harry, too much amusement of some of the HA members. Harry did notice that Kreacher looked a bit cleaner and healthier. Working alongside the Hogwarts Elves seemed to do him good.

When Harry woke up for the second time that Saturday, he woke up with the excited nerves that could only come with playing Quidditch. Ron and he had already woken up an hour or two earlier, to perform the chanting part of the Animagus transformation, and had fallen back asleep immediately after. It was their first match of the season, and as was tradition, it would be against Slytherin. He was interested to see their team and had heard rumours that Malfoy wasn't playing. Not even because he was still hurt from their duel, but apparently he just decided to not play this year. This would give credence to what the Slytherin had told Harry during their duel. But Harry wasn't sure whether that was true or whether it was a ruse. He got out of bed and was greeted by the sound of Ron softly saying "oh no, oh no, oh no…"

"Ron, you okay, mate?" Harry asked carefully.

Ron's pale and slightly green face made its way through his curtains. He swallowed heavily and looked at Harry earnestly. "I don't think I can do this, Harry," he said, quite pitifully, Harry thought.

"Great," Harry thought. He sat down on his bed and thought about it for a moment. Maybe Ginny could help? She probably could, but the problem was that he wasn't sure she was awake yet. He looked over Dean's bed. They had decided to play Dean this game because Harry, Ginny and Ron all assumed that the Slytherins would play rough and Dean just had more weight to throw around himself. He would also probably be less intimidated by their playstyle than Sarah or James would be.

Harry dressed in his Quidditch robes quickly and said to Ron: "I'll be back, Ron!"

He walked down the stairs, thinking about what to do. He could threaten to play Blake instead of Ron, because Ron might like to whine about playing, he wouldn't take that lying down. Another last-ditch effort would be to try to trick Ron into thinking he had given him Felix Felicis, but he wasn't sure whether Ron would be happy with using the potion this way. The most likely successful way was to let Ginny yell some sense into her brother.

He waited in the common room, deciding against channelling Oliver Wood and storming into the third and fourth-year boy's dorm rooms to wake up Jimmy and Ritchie. After a half-hour or so Ginny made her way downstairs, looking very much awake indeed. He saw the same fire in her eyes he had seen during the try-outs. He marvelled for a second about the different ways the Weasley children handled nerves. The Twins had always become even more of a chaotic force of nature, while Ron tended to want to hide. Ginny transformed her nervous energy into sheer determination.

"Good morning, Captain Potter!" she said as a way of greeting, "Where are Dean and Ron?" she then asked suspiciously. Harry assumed it was weird to see him there alone.

"Dean's still asleep I think, Ron has decided he can't play today," he said simply.

Ginny narrowed her eyes, put her hand on her hips, distinctly Mrs Weasley-like, and said "We'll see about that!" She turned around and climbed the stairs to the sixth-year boys' dorm.

Harry hoped for their sakes that Dean was awake and that Ron had decided he could deal with his nerves because he wouldn't have liked to be either of them at that moment.

-
AN:
Apologies for missing an update last week. I haven't run out of chapters, as a matter fact I'm close to finishing chapter 22. But I haven't been able to write a chapter per week for a while now, so I just wanted to give myself some time to get ahead a bit further!

Hope you're all still enjoying reading this story :)

In regards to Luna being "gay", in my head she's always been pansexual. She's in this story as well, as Ginny alluded to. Harry just doesn't know that pansexuality is a thing. (How could he, having grown up the Dursleys?)