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"Susan smiled as she recognised the messy scrawl on the outside of the note she received at dinner from one of the lists she'd helped make a few days before. She'd been worried about him most of the afternoon feeling his fear and frustration and his growing desperation as the afternoon went on and exhaustion just before dinner, and wondered what he'd been doing to tire himself out like that. She pocketed the note to read later in private.
"Who's it from?" Hannah asked curiously.
"Just a friend," Susan said dismissively.
Hannah being the good friend she was let it drop, assuming that Susan would tell her later in private.
"A secret boyfriend?" Megan Jones insinuated, smirking.
"No" Susan denied.
"Why don't you want to read it in front of us then?" Justin asked teasingly.
"Who was it from, is it something we need to be concerned about?" Ernie asked possessively.
"No," Susan said shortly. "My private correspondence with whomever I choose to correspond with is not and will never be your concern any more than it is anyone else within earshot's concern either." She hated the fact that because his family had made a betrothal offer he assumed the propriety attitude of a future husband. If she had her way that offer would never be accepted. Surely the fact that her parents hadn't contacted the McMillans or returned their copy of the signed contract meant that they hadn't signed it. She prayed that they hadn't anyway, she didn't think she could bear a lifetime of his overbearing bossiness and possessiveness.
Hannah supportively changed the subject complaining loudly about their Defence against the Dark Arts essay and how horrible it was that they had to put so much effort into it when they wouldn't be marked fairly. Everyone jumped on board repeating familiar gripes and complaints and Susan hid her smile as she remembered how Harry had just sat down and written the two feet without stopping to think. She was surprised when she read it to find it not only covered the topic perfectly without any waffling or tangents but was also a perfectly structured essay and she didn't notice any spelling or grammatical mistakes. She was even more shocked when she commented on it that not only did Harry expect to barely scrape a pass, Neville agreed with him that Hermione was the only Gryffindor in their year who got decent marks on DADA essays that year.
On the way back from dinner Susan slipped into the first floor bathrooms and shut herself into a cubicle to read her note.
Susan,
I've spent the afternoon trying to regain control of my magic.
You should try yours in private to learn to hide the extra strength
You also need to avoid casting on another person until you gain
control or you might harm a friend.
Meet me in the ROR after dinner if you'd like my help.
Or don't meet me if you don't want to, but seriously you need to
practice your offensive spells before DADA.
I'd hate for you to hurt someone you care about.
H.
Susan cursed, she'd been so busy dealing with the weird feelings she was getting from Harry and trying to pretend that everything was normal and allay suspicion from her missing night that she hadn't even thought about having to hide how much stronger her magic would be and now she'd have to find a way to sneak off and practice. To see what had happened to her magic. She knew she couldn't disappear straight away without being noticed but from what she'd felt from Harry this afternoon, hiding the increase in her magic could be a real problem if she didn't practice in private and get control of it. If she pretended to have an early night and sealed her curtains so they thought she was sleeping she might be able to get to the room of requirement to practice before curfew, the problem was how to get out of the common room without anyone noticing. Hannah would cover for her again if she asked but she'd also want to know what was going on. She tried to ignore how disappointed she felt not being able to meet with Harry.
She was surprised to see Harry there waiting for her after curfew. "If you panicked me like this just to get me to sneak out and meet you so help me…" she began ranting, to hide the fact she was delighted that he'd asked her to meet him and hoped that he wanted to see her as much as she wanted to see him.
Harry sealed the door and asked the room for training dummies, he cast the strongest Stupefy, Expelliarmus and Reducto at them one at a time speaking the spells so she'd know that they were basic ordinary spells not something dark and destructive.
"If they were classmates, I don't think any of them would survive long enough to get to Madam Pomfrey. I spent the whole afternoon learning to cast with only a fraction of my available power and they're still stronger than they used to be," he explained tiredly. "I don't know how much of a magic boost you got but you've got DADA tomorrow morning and I wanted you to be prepared before Snape asks you to duel against one of your friends."
Susan looked at the training dummies, shaken. "You've got this under control?" she asked in awe at both the destructive strength of his spells and the idea he had learned to pull his magic back to control it so quickly.
"Yeah when I'm calm and I'm concentrating hard enough. I wouldn't like to bet on whether I can control it properly while the likes of Snape, Malfoy or Parkinson is taunting me," Harry replied worriedly.
"You need to work on your temper," Susan said horrified at how badly that might go.
"Yeah I know, but short of a calming potion that isn't something I can fix between now and tomorrow, and I can't see Pomfrey being willing to hand over a couple of calming potions a week without an explanation," Harry retorted dryly.
"What are you going to do?" Susan asked.
"Neville's going to keep an eye on me and remind me to calm down and concentrate," Harry said, shrugging. It would help but he didn't know whether it would be enough.
Susan laughed nervously and cast spells at the remaining training dummies. The results weren't quite as dramatic as Harry's display but they were significantly stronger than she'd been capable of the week before. "My stupefied man would survive, but probably not the reductoed person and I'm not sure about the disarmed person, it would depend on what was behind them," she said worriedly.
"That's not good in a class or schoolyard fight but Susan, promise me that if you end up in a fight with a Death Eater, you won't hold back at all. That you will hammer them with the strongest and nastiest spells you can cast without exhausting yourself too quickly and not worry about whether they survive or not. The only thing that matters is that you and your friends and the people you're trying to protect survive. You shouldn't even try to stun them unless you're absolutely sure there is only one on his own. They will be using much worse spells, trying to kill you, and if there's more than one of them they'll just revive each other, we defeated almost all of the Death Eaters in the battle in the ministry at least once but we were using schoolkid spells and they were trying to kill us. We should have learned our lesson when it happened the first time and started trying to take them out of the fight for good. We were lucky to get away with it the way we did, and my godfather was still killed while taunting the enemy instead of taking the fight seriously enough," Harry said seriously. Susan promised and Harry began going through the ways he and Neville had worked out to reduce the power of her spells. It was well after midnight before she felt she had it down far enough for people not to notice and speculate that she'd had her magic unblocked. Or maybe she was just too exhausted to give her spells full power but either way she decided she was done for the night.
It was tiring work and they were both hungry again from the amount of energy expended so Harry called Dobby and asked him to provide them with a snack.
"Should we warn Professor Snape, not to call us up to duel for another week or so until we get better at control?" Susan asked.
"It might work for you?" Harry said doubtfully. "Snape hates me, he would use the information to humiliate me in some way or declare that I need a month or two of detention with him to learn to control it. Not to mention that we broke quite a few school rules to unblock our magic which I'm sure he'd love to punish me for."
"He can't, McGonagall already knows and her decision on how to punish you would override his," Susan stated.
"McGonagall has never interfered with a detention or point loss that I or any other Gryffindor have been given by any professor, no matter how unfair it was. She didn't even protest when Hagrid took us into the forbidden forest for detention, late at night to look for the monster killing unicorns," Harry retorted. "In fact, I could see Snape giving you and me detention for the act required to remove the block on my magic and at the same time giving Neville detention for not getting around to removing the block on his magic yet. He certainly would if it was the other way around. Besides is he really they type of person you want to trust with this knowledge?"
Susan swallowed hard and blushed scarlet at the idea of receiving such a humiliating detention, and the snarky remarks that Professor Snape could make in front of the whole class. "It's bad enough that he already knows about the blocks because he came in with McGonagall and the Headmaster and saw me there," she said worriedly.
Harry grimaced, "There's nothing we can do about that, so he'll know. He will be watching all of us to see the effects and if he were a responsible teacher then I'd be happy that he was keeping an eye out to keep our friends safe, but since it's Snape… It would be better for you if he doesn't realise we've had our blocks removed at the same time."
"We better get back to the dorms, I hope we aren't caught out this late," she said instead of answering directly but Harry could see she agreed with him.
Harry finished his last bite of muffin, "That's the first food that's tasted normal all day," he commented frowning.
"You too. Everything has tasted disgusting," Susan agreed.
Harry looked at her. "We're tasting each other's food as well as our own. This tasted fine because we are eating the same thing, but this morning my tea tasted terrible, and my porridge tasted like fish," he realised.
"I drink coffee, which also tasted terrible, and had kippers for breakfast," Susan agreed. "Then my lunch tasted really weird so I'm guessing you had the beef casserole while I had the chicken. What are we going to do?" Susan asked.
"Regular meals should be easy enough, I'm usually up earlier than you so I'll have breakfast first. Lunch and Dinner will be a bit more tricky unless we can sit somewhere we can see what the other person chooses and eat the same, but when I'm with Ron he insists on being one of the first people to arrive at all meals if he possibly can, so it would help if you're a bit late," Harry replied.
"What foods do you really hate?" Susan asked. "Send me a list and I'll send you mine the ten foods we really want the other person to avoid eating, and the ten things we like best and will always choose, though I'll warn you I'm not giving my morning coffee up for anyone, let me know what your favourite foods are too so I can try not to ruin them for you."
"Okay," Harry said getting ready to leave. He pulled out his map and checked the route back to the Hufflepuff dorms, he cursed to see Filch and Snape were both about patrolling. Casting silencing charms on both their feet and clothing he pulled out his invisibility cloak and stepped up close to Susan. "I'll walk you back so you don't get caught," he offered, covering them both with the cloak. Susan blushed at the feeling of heat coming off his body as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder to keep her close enough for the cloak to cover them both. "We need to stay close, the cloak is not designed for two people, it was better in first year when we were smaller."
She wrapped her arm around his waist, "Is this okay?"
"Yeah!" Harry agreed glad that the cloak hid his blushes though he knew she could feel his embarrassment and excitement just as clearly as he could feel hers.
"You're way too good at this Harry," Susan commented after they'd avoided a prefect patrol. "Rules are not meant to be broken as casually as you do."
"I've never managed to save the school without breaking rules," Harry retorted. "It's not like I break rules just to play pranks like my Dad and his friends did."
"Somehow that's not comforting, that my safety for the last five years has depended on your willingness to break rules," Susan said.
"Oh, it's a lot worse than that! Far too often the safety of this school had depended on my ability to convince Hermione to break the rules to help me, and she once said that being expelled is worse than dying," Harry said laughingly, not realising how serious Susan was, the safety of the school should never come down to the actions of a few students and the fact that it had nearly every year they were there truly terrified her.
They made their way silently to the entrance for the Hufflepuff common room.
"Should I be worried that you knew where the entrance was?" Susan asked.
"Not unless the Hufflepuffs suddenly become an imminent danger to the school, but the Slytherins should be very worried that I know where their entrance is particularly since the snake in their door portrait will always tell me the password if I ask it to in parseltongue," Harry said laughing.
"Have you been in there?" Susan asked.
"Yes once, but not to attack anyone, pull pranks or any other nefarious purpose, Ron and I were convinced that Malfoy was the one behind the students getting petrified in second year so Hermione, Ron and I brewed polyjuice to try to impersonate a Slytherin get in and try to find out what Malfoy knew about the chamber of secrets. Well, mostly Hermione brewed the potion and we helped out under her supervision. We kidnapped Crabbe and Goyle and locked them in a broom closet so we could take their place, not that it did any good, Malfoy didn't know anything even though his father was behind it all. I've never been in the Hufflepuff common room though," Harry replied.
"Wow! I knew she was smart but… that's beyond… in second year…" Susan began in horror.
"Yeah, looking back we took a massive risk, second years shouldn't have been able to make Polyjuice and the likelihood of poisoning ourselves was huge, even though the potion worked out Hermione spent over a week in the hospital wing, she accidentally picked up a cat hair off her target's robe instead of a human hair and ended up partially transforming herself, but her potions are always almost perfect though Snape never says so. Don't tell anyone about the cat thing though, she gets really embarrassed if we bring it up. She'd be upset that I told you."
"I heard that you've become a potions prodigy?" Susan said admiringly. "Was it just that Snape was so unfair in his grading or have you actually improved that much?"
"I think part of the improvement is that I'm now being graded more fairly than Snape ever did and it's possible Slughorn is grading me too generously because he wants me to owe him a favour, but the real change is that I've got a second-hand book from someone who must have been really good at potions, it's got all sorts of extra tricks in it to improve each potion and I was desperate enough that first class with Slughorn to give them a try, it's making a real difference," Harry replied. "Hermione's really angry about it and calls it cheating but I did offer to share with her and Ron. I'll show you too if you like."
Susan looked at Harry realising he didn't understand why Hermione was so upset with him. "Harry, potions is one of the classes where magical strength doesn't matter, if Hermione's no longer top of the class in Transfiguration, Charms and DADA because she's starting to struggle to put enough power into her spells to do well with the spells we're learning now, then having you suddenly beating her in potions too for no reason of her own, would upset her. She's going to be really upset if she finds out you didn't choose her to help you unblock your magic because hers wasn't strong enough to do it without harming her," Susan said gently.
"She never will find out that that's the reason I had to choose someone else. I wouldn't have chosen her anyway, I couldn't've done that to Ron, he really likes her, and that's the reason I'll be giving her if she pushes me into telling her a reason," Harry promised. "Besides Hermione's like my big sister, always looking out for me, telling me off for breaking rules or antagonising Snape, and nagging me to study. I recognise that she's become a pretty girl but personally I just don't see her that way."
He was surprised by the wave of relief that spread over him through the bond. "Why were you worried about Hermione?" he asked.
"You're closer to her than any other girl in the school. Even Cho admitted she couldn't compete with Hermione, she said she didn't think anyone else would ever stand a chance with you, it's stopped a lot of girls from pursuing you as a boyfriend," Susan admitted.
"Hermione's my best friend, she's the one person on earth that has never turned against me. I'd like to try to be friends with you, and maybe more than friends when it's safe for us to date, but I will not give up my friendship with Hermione for anyone, even if I'm not really happy with her at the moment and her belief she has the right to know everything that's going on in my personal life is seriously annoying and going to cause problems between us if she keeps it up," Harry said seriously.
"I understand Harry, I wouldn't give up Hannah for anyone either. I better go in. Thanks for your help tonight," Susan said impulsively kissing his cheek.
"You're welcome," Harry replied kissing hers in return. He was tempted to kiss her properly but they'd agreed not to do things like that.
Susan appreciated his restraint, she felt that he wanted to kiss her properly and if he had she knew she couldn't have resisted kissing back and it was important that they weren't caught starting a relationship straight after the testing was done.
-o0o-
Susan ruefully remembered her warning for Harry to watch his temper when she was pared to duel Ernie McMillan the next morning. He'd been nagging her about what gifts she'd inherited in the recent testing, insinuating that he had a right to know.
"If and only if, my parents actually signed a betrothal agreement for us that I can't get out of without killing you, then you'd have the right to find out on our wedding day. Until I can access their vault to find out if they signed an agreement I refuse to believe your family is the only one that offered my family a contract for me, and there's no reason to believe that Mum and Dad signed any of them," Susan had declared angrily just before DADA. Snape must have noticed her anger with McMillan, it was just like him to pair the students who were fighting against each other. Susan tried to control her feelings but between her anger and her determination to prove to the snot that she was not some weakling he could dominate, or a potentially submissive wife, she wanted to wipe the floor with him and was struggling to control the strength of her spells. She won the duel by blowing him back into the wall with a silent Expelliarmus and sending him to the hospital wing.
Luckily, Ernie wasn't badly injured so Madam Pomfrey managed to patch him up in time for breakfast the next day. Snape just assumed she spoke the spell because of the strength of it and took twenty points and nobody else had been paying enough attention to argue with him about it.
-o0o-
"Scared Potter" Malfoy snarked after Snape had paired them to practice the new shield he was teaching them.
"Only of what the Professor would do to me if I accidentally killed you, and how many detentions it would take to scrub all your blood from the walls," Harry replied honestly. He looked Snape directly in the eyes holding the memory of what his full power curses had done to the training dummies in the forefront of his mind, silently begging the ex-death-eater to use Legilimency. Malfoy had been insulting muggleborns all morning and had said some really vicious things about Hermione and Harry's mother. Harry was already furious with him and holding back was going to be difficult.
Harry felt a tickle in his mind and Snape paled. "Indeed. I do not think we will take that risk today. Mr Malfoy you will be paired with Mr Nott and Potter with Finnegan. I expect you to adhere to the rules on the board, anyone breaking them will be immediately declared to have lost. And Potter, detention after classes this afternoon."
"Yes Sir" Harry said sighing.
Already irritated by Malfoy's comments and the unfair detention, it wasn't all that much easier to hold onto his temper in the face of Seamus' teasing. The Irish teen could be quite malicious when he wanted to be and he was the only boy in their dorm not entirely happy about the new wards preventing girls from ascending to the boys' dormitories. He admitted he was grateful Hermione wouldn't be able to storm in without knocking any more but his current girlfriend disliked broom closets so he had been entertaining her in the dorm during the day when the other boys were all out. Seamus knew that the new wards were more Hermione's fault than Harry's but he was still inclined to take it out on the smaller boy.
Firmly reminding himself that Seamus was a friend who he did not want to hurt, in spite of his sharp tongue he managed to control his magic, but the effort was visible and his classmates from the DA wondered why he was trying so hard to cast spells that had always been easy before.
"What was wrong with you in DADA today?" Ron asked.
"Seamus was pissing me off, he's pissed about the new wards on the dormitory and instead of blaming Hermione he decided to take it out on me," Harry replied. He felt slightly guilty reminding Hermione of the behaviour that earned her the only detention in her life, but it was the easiest way to derail the interrogation he would no doubt receive otherwise.
"Those wards should have been in place to begin with," Hermione huffed.
"Yeah, then you couldn't have spent the last five years barging into our dorm like a scarlet woman without knocking whenever you get a bee in your bonnet," Ron agreed.
"What? How dare you…" Hermione began to screech.
"Hermione, he has a point. You and Ginny would try to castrate us if we walked into your room at the Burrow while you might be changing clothes, and Ron's Mum would probably help you. But you do it to us in the dorm quite frequently and you've never even once apologised for it. I know you didn't do it to be a pervert but you make all of us deeply uncomfortable, Seamus, Dean, and Neville often complain to us about it and we all tend to change clothes on our beds with the curtains shut which is a lot more difficult just to avoid the possibility of you walking in on us. And yes, I do just mean you specifically, Hermione, not anyone else, no other girl has entered our dorm in the last six years without a specific invitation and either knocking, or waiting until the person who invited her make's sure they don't catch anyone unawares. Following me into the shower was beyond the pale," Harry said.
"I did not follow you into the shower!" Hermione declared affronted.
"You followed me after I told you I was going to take a shower, went into the bathroom and locked the door. You unlocked the door, which I know took far more effort than a simple low powered alohomora and entered the bathroom where I was undressing. By the way you should stop shrieking about it. Purebloods find such behaviour highly unacceptable, the difference in morals is one of the reasons purebloods look down on muggleborns."
"Aaagh" Hermione yelled, "You don't know anything. I'm looked down on because I don't come from the right family. My parents are respectable and well off but that doesn't matter because the pureblood supremacists don't see them as being human."
"Your right about Malfoy and his Death Eater wannabee friends but most of the purebloods aren't that bad. The problem is that when you and other muggleborn girls refuse to follow the acceptable code of behaviour for a respectable witch they don't understand that it's just because the muggle world has different values and your actions are a result of a simple lack of knowledge about wizarding world customs and believe that your behaviour proves that your morals and upbringing are inferior to theirs," Harry tried to explain again.
"You are as bad as them. You're not a pureblood either Harry. How can you take their side!" Hermione demanded.
"Hermione, I know it is frustrating that they look down on you for not following the rules that they've never bothered to explain to you. But you're a smart girl, you can see the differences between your behaviour and there's. For all her flirtatious ways, Lavender would never enter our dormitory alone or without an invitation and even then she'd knock and she'd never let herself be caught in a broom closet with a boy without all her clothing in place. You're a prefect, tell me how many of the girls that you've caught half dressed in broom closets are purebloods, except for the ones with their betrothed or there unwillingly.
Harry paused but Hermione refused to answer.
"And what does that tell you about pureblood's idea of acceptable behaviour?" Harry asked. "You know the rules and expectations of appropriate behaviour are different here in the wizarding world. Have you ever tried to learn the differences? As a prefect have you ever tried to tell the first year muggleborns about the differences between muggle attitudes towards sex and the wizard's views of what's acceptable before they make mistakes and get themselves judged for something they don't understand?"
Hermione frowned but did not answer.
"If you're not warning the first year muggleborns, then you are part of continuing the problem," Harry said.
"How can you say that!" Hermione huffed.
"Easily Hermione, if you know that part of the reasons muggleborns get looked down upon is the fact that their beliefs and behaviours are different from the purebloods, why wouldn't you warn the younger girls about what the purebloods think and believe a witch should behave like? You're a prefect, isn't looking out for the younger students like that the most important part of your duties?" Harry asked. "Wouldn't you have wanted somebody to warn you before you alienated half our class and perpetuated their prejudices?"
"You want me to tell them to lie about their beliefs?" Hermione asked shocked.
"No Hermione I want you to explain to them the cultural beliefs of the wizarding world so they can choose to respect them if they want to. You wouldn't go to Saudi Arabia and walk around in a mid-thigh length sleeveless sundress and sandals or shorts and a tank top would you. You'd educate yourself on what's acceptable in their country and respect their beliefs and dress and act appropriately for their culture even though their beliefs aren't yours and yet you came into this world and just ignored the whole concept of respecting that their culture would also be different than Muggle Britain. It would be better if muggleborns were taught more about the wizarding world's culture and beliefs, instead of allowing us to think that it's the same as the muggle culture but with magic."
"Where are you getting all these ideas?" Hermione asked angrily.
"I met some new friends and I listened to their opinions on things and the reasons they have for their beliefs and actions," Harry replied. "I never knew about the differences in sexual customs and beliefs because you, Ron and I never discussed it and neither did the guys in the dorm. Neville said he didn't realise I didn't know this stuff already, maybe because he knows I wasn't muggleborn and people often forget that I am muggle raised, maybe because he didn't know that muggles don't have the same attitudes to sex as purebloods anymore, and I never had girlfriend say anything because I didn't date because of Voldemort. Maybe you didn't know either but you know a lot more people than I do and I have to think you tried to read about wizarding culture. You research everything else."
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed and those who followed or favourited this story for your support.
